Category Archives: Downtown
I have an article up on MANzine about the dearth of black coaches in college football and how the kvetching media shoulders some of the blame for it.
The notion of Instant Replay is somewhat controversial in football. On one hand, you have the importance of accurate calls. If the video cameras catch something the refs missed, then shouldn’t that be corrected? On the other hand, you have pure pragmatism. There are all sorts of things that the refs always miss. There are plays that are simply too close to call. A three-and-a-half hour game could easily be stretched to five or more hours with too liberal an instant replay rule. Coaches could use replay challenges as defacto time-outs, which is precisely what happened when the NFL first tried instant replay (they’ve changed the rules since). So the leagues came up with their rules. Nobody is really satisfied with them because, well, what it would require for them to be satisfied with them changes from week to week and play to play depending on whether the rules favor their favored team or the opposing ones.
Several years ago, there was an NFL playoff game between the Tennessee Titans and Buffalo where what appeared to be a forward lateral was thrown in a play that determined the game in favor of Tennessee. The refs did not call a forward lateral and though it appeared to be one in the replay, it was not deemed conclusive to reverse the call. And so the Tennessee Titans went to the Superbowl. Bills fans remained bitter and many suggested that they should reverse the result or if they win the Superbowl there ought to be an asterisk or somesuch. Titans fans argue that it wasn’t a forward lateral to begin with or, if it was, it doesn’t matter because that’s just how the ball bounces sometimes. Both stances have their merits. Teams should not win because the refs make a mistake. But there is also a point where you have to move on and accept that life is not fair.
However, one would imagine that had the circumstances been reversed, Bills fans would have been talking about moving on and Titans fans about the importance of the rulebook. There’s really no question about this. That doesn’t stop each team’s partisans from getting on their soapbox and saying that it isn’t about this particular game it’s about fairness or being an adult and accepting the unfairness of life.
Of course, sports are a multibillion dollar exercise in frivolity. It doesn’t reach the same importance as, for instance, public policy. Or the makers of public policy.
The Massachusetts State Legislature recently enacted a law allowing the governor to appoint a temporary senator until the next special election. The All Important Factor in this was that Massachusetts should not be denied representation between now and the election simply because a senator died. Several years ago, the same legislature passed a law denying the governor the right to make appointments and creating special elections with the All Important Factor being that appointments are anti-Democratic. Of course, that there was a Republican governor in office the same year that there was a good chance of a vacancy being created back then and that there is a Democratic governor and an important vote coming up in the senate now is hardly a coincidence. But in each case, they dressed it up as a matter of principal. Democracy, on one side, and pragmatism on the other. Both are valid arguments.
Republicans, of course, point out the inconsistency and charge that the change of heart is {gasp} politically motivated, but they themselves have rather suddenly embraced Democracy when it’s prudent. In 2002 in Texas, when they won the state legislature, suddenly it was undemocratic to have a majority-Republican state represented by more Democrats than Republicans. Throwing all of their supposed allegiance to tradition in process out the door, they created new districts that, quite astonishingly, lead to more Republicans in congress. But… they did have a point about a Republican state being represented by Democrats in congress. And the Democrats had a point about the bald partisanship involved as well as the dangers in changing congressional districts at the drop of a hat. But neither position was particularly in-keeping with their philosophy so much as it was politically expedient.
There are times when abstract philosophy and political expediency meet. For instance, even setting aside partisan factors, it is extremely likely that Democrats would support as many recounts as possible to get the “most accurate” result. Likewise, Republicans are, in general, more likely to say that if somebody didn’t fill out their ballot correctly they forfeited their own vote. So when the 2000 election hit, everybody lined up in their “proper” formation. When it was inconvenient, of course, the Democrats had no problems tossing unfavorable ballots and Republicans had no problem accepting a Supreme Court verdict they would have abhorred if it had gone the other way. And these reversals were genuinely considered fair and proper. Sure, in some cases it was cynicism, but there were two valid sides to this argument and each side found it pretty easy to clutch to the side that was most convenient for them and believe it.
The list really goes on and on. Parties out of power suddenly gain all kinds of new respect for the Filibuster while parties in power suddenly feel reverence towards pragmatic democracy. Consensus and democracy are both important concepts. Protests that are scary and immature when your side is in power are suddenly importantly protected free expression when your side is out of power and vice-versa. Protests are both immature and importantly protected free expression. The entire notion of freedom itself is constantly under review. When talking about smoking in bars, some people will wax philosophic about the importance of freedom. Then, in a discussion about insurance companies, the exact same person will demand that the government step in and sort everything out to make things fair for the “little guy”.
It’s a lawyer’s job to defend his client in court. He is expected to do this (within certain parameters) whether he believes in it or not. An uninterested party, the judge or a jury, are supposed to take both sides into consideration and come to a conclusion on whose interpretation of justice, facts, and the law is correct.
I used to be a political blogger and I used to discuss politics quite frequently with anybody that would listen. I still follow politics closely, but rarely discuss it anymore. The main reason for this is that almost everybody that is anxious to talk about politics is a lawyer at heart. They are discussing things with you to Make Their Case and that’s pretty much it. The balancing of valid points of view is rarely given much heft. The notion that there are competing ideals that provide a solid basis even for views that you are ultimately unsold on is extremely hard to establish. Instead, the right and wrong of a situation come down, more than anything, to allegiance to political party and political philosophy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with partisanship. It’s a rather necessary function of democracy. Just as lawyers are a necessary function of our court system. What exasperates me, though, is that the legal maneuvering seems almost never to end. And the uninterested observers are actually apolitical “moderates” and “independents” who are among the least educated and least thoughtful voters out there. And even in cases where they are neither of these things, they typically “hate politics” and are always in search for some “middle ground” that doesn’t even exist were it not for two sides pulling the rope feverishly. So you’re left to talk politics with the lawyers, and that’s as much a cross-examination as it is any sort of actual discussion. Where the stakes are more important than a Titans-Bills football game, but the discussion ultimately isn’t.
-{If your response to this is to say “It’s really the people that disagree with me that do this. The people on my side rarely do.” or a quest to prove that even though both sides do it the other side is much worse, please don’t bother.}-
I’ve driven from Soundview to Union City the last couple days, first to watch a movie and second to retrieve my lost cell phone (yay!). There is some very, very weird smell eminating from Soundview. When I was driving back last night, I was afraid I’d gotten some excrement on my shoe or something, but then when I got to downtown the smell seemed to go away. When I passed through the same part of the city, near the Soundome sports facility, the same smell was there. I stopped at a gas station out there and just breathing was a very unpleasant experience. As longtime readers know, this is despite my generally-atrocious sense of smell. Unfortunately, that poor sense of smell prevented me from identifying exactly what manner of foul odor it was. Smelled a little like manure, maybe.
Awake.
On our way to the bus stop.
Arrive at the bus stop and find the parking garage nearly empty. We wish that we had thought of the bus yesterday. The thought had actually crossed my mind after my successful adventure on the bus on the way home from the airport on Tuesday, but I figured that the chances that I could convince Clancy to haul our heavy luggage from one place of transport to another were pretty slim. On my way back from Shaston, I didn’t have the heavy luggage. She would have said that taking the bus would be completely unnecessary and really I couldn’t have disagreed with that. Neither of us saw the parking thing coming. If I had thought about parking I would almost certainly would have thought that maybe the main garage would be full, but it wouldn’t even occur to me that all of the private lots would as well. The bus was completely unnecessary.
We discover that the parking lot I parked in was only for commuters and the private lot next door was by-day only. I know that there is parking around here somewhere, but at this point I figure that the safest place to park is actually the Amtrak lot down the road. There are signs that it’s for Amtrak people only, but my experience on the Shaston trip was that they really didn’t seem to keep track of it. So I set Clancy up at the stop, drove down the road, and walked back. The bus was arriving as I was driving away. We’d catch the next one.
The next bus arrives on schedule. We lug our stuff aboard.
This time we’re three hours early, but that works out because we have a connecting flight in Los Puertos, California, that’s through a different airline. This gives us the opportunity to wait in the Transcontinental Airlines line after getting our bags set up at our primary airline, Northern Airways. Unfortunately, Trancontinental won’t give us our seat numbers. Both the Trancontinental and Northern Airways reps say that there should be someone from Transcontinental waiting at our gate to take care of us. That seemed unlikely, though. At first this is a mild irritation, but as the morning would wear on it would become fear-inducing as the reality of the situation set in: They overbooked.
Airborne.
We arrive in Los Puertos and there is nobody waiting at our gate for us. When we got to the Transcontinental Airlines ticket counter, Clancy is curtly told that they were taking passengers on the late-running 9am flight and not our 12:05 one. They’d be concerning themselves with that at 10:00 or so, they tell us.
Nobody is at the kiosk. We know that there are absolutely no more flights out of Los Puertos today and that if we miss this one, we’re either going to have to connect somewhere else (with more risks) or we’re spending Christmas night in California. Clancy decides that she’s just going to stand at the counter until someone shows up and she takes her book with her.
A woman shows up and Clancy tries to flag her down, but she shrugs it off saying vaguely that the flight is overbooked but that she is sure that it will all work out. At this point, I expect nothing to work out. She’s gone as fast as she arrives. Things are not looking good. If they can’t get us on this flight, I decide that I am going to put my foot down and we are going back to Cascadia.
The curt guy from before makes a reappearance. Perhaps sensing Clancy’s anxiety, he helps her out immediately. We’ve got seats. All is right with the world.
Airborne.
Land. Get our luggage. My father is waiting for us at the airport. That’s one form of transportation that we have no reason whatsoever to doubt. That’s a really nice feeling.
We’re eating Christmas dinner.
Awake.
On the road.
We’re at the airport, trying to find the parking lot. The only thing we can find is $26 a day and we can’t believe that’s right. That must be the hourly lot and we need to find the long-term parking lot. Honestly, though, I am so anxious that we decide that $26 a day is worth it just to make sure we get on that plane. The problem is that the parking lot is full from near-top to bottom. I say “near top” because the uncovered roof was closed to parking due to the snow. So now we set off to find off-airport parking. There were plenty of lots that we passed and most charged under $26 a day.
Nearly every lot we see appears to have signs about it being full. No matter, though, because we have time to take a longer shuttle from a farther-flung parking lot. We stop at a couple lots that don’t have signs about being full only to find out they’re full to.
We manage to get our car stuck in a hotel parking lot trying to turn around. This is just what we need. It takes us a good 10-15 minutes to get out.
We come to the determination that there is literally nowhere that we can park. If we had thought about it sooner, we could have gone all the way out to a Park’n’Ride, but we didn’t know where any were and by the time we got there it would be too late anyway. And so it was that on the day where Clancy consented to the earliest arrival she has ever consented to in her life, we still missed our flight. Devastated, we make our way home
We call the airline and cancel our seats. They say that they can get us out late the next day (Christmas) if we upgrade to first class, but we’re not willing to. I wish I had realized that Clancy’s reluctance was the belief that she could find us something sooner or better priced because I would have disabused her of that notion really quick. I thought we had just given up. Instead, she spent the next three hours trying to arrange something. I am simply exhausted from attempted travel and have ideas that we might just spend a quiet Christmas together. She disabused me of that notion quickly as it became apparent that if we were stuck here over Christmas, she would spend most of it wishing that we were in Delosa. So when she found an extremely expensive flight out the next day, I consented and we decided to spend Christmas day in transport.
Wake up, walk to the train station.
I get my hopes up that the train line that runs straight to the airport is working this morning. There are no messages either on the intercom or the lightboard about taking alternate routes and shuttles as I had to do yesterday. But when the next train arrived, the conductor said that everybody needed to get on and gave the dirt on the alternate routes and shuttles that I took yesterday. I had the vague feeling that the uncertainty here might come back to bite my rear.
A guy from the local Fox affiliate flags the guy next to me for an interview. It’s apparent from the get-go that he doesn’t particularly care to be on the news. He answers the reporters questions in one or two word responses and when the reporter asks “So what’s your story?” trying to get him to elaborate, he replies “I just told you.” There’s a 50/50 chance that I will be on the local news bobbing up and down to keep warm in the light wind and increasingly heavy snow. It probably would have been better for all involved if he’d interviewed me. I could have said something about having plane tickets, train tickets, and trying to get a flight out of here so that I can catch another flight out of Zaulem. I had the story that the guy next to me did not seem interested in telling.
We’ve been waiting in the wind and snow for two hours waiting for a shuttle bus to get there. Apparently my earlier premonition was correct. The train-plane line should have been running and wasn’t. So they had to scramble to find the shuttle buses to take us to the airport. Everyone waiting is getting irate and every twenty minutes or so a train comes by to drop off more people. It’s becoming apparent that there are too many people to fit on a single bus and there is no telling how much longer it will take the next bus to arrive. The Metro guy is saying that one should be coming by any minute now and that another will come by 20 minutes after. The problem, he explains, is a shortage of buses. Apparently, a dozen or so buses had gotten stuck in the snow, scattered around Shaston. Whatever other hardships I was facing, I was quite glad not to be on one of those buses. The long-awaited bus arrives, but the poor Metro guy is stuck in the position of telling us that even though it’s here and that we need to get to the airport, we’re going to have to wait another thirty minutes for reasons he’s not sure of. I’m wondering if there is about to be a riot.
I am getting increasingly anxious as to whether or not I will get on the bus and whether or not the next bus will be on time for my 7:30 departure. I want to tell everyone when my departure time is so that I can be sure to get on ahead of the people that have later flights. That’s when I find out that there are people with flights at 6:30, 6:45, and 7am waiting as well. At this point I’m not sure if I can even get on the bus with a good conscience. A young woman tries to organize everybody so that those with the earliest flights get on first. I’m game even if it may be to my disadvantage, but it quickly breaks down the second the doors open. Feeling awfully bad about it, I make my way on the bus as I mentally apologize to anyone that might miss their plane on my account.
A guy on the bus has unlimited data service on his cell phone and becomes very popular. He keeps checking on everyone’s flight. One woman talks about how worried she is about making her flight. Then she says something like “I know I’m being paranoid because the flight isn’t until 10:45, but I’m just worried.” 10:45?! I want to scream at her and throttle her. Her flight wasn’t for over four hours and she butted her way on to the dang bus ahead of people that now may miss their flights. If my flight had even been as late as 8:30 I would have waited. I wanted to call her nasty names, but instead I quietly seethed.
We arrive. I check the board and see that my flight is still listed as “On Time”. I’ve got my ticket printed out from the night before so I go straight to the security line. I’m feeling pretty good about my chances of making the flight. Several people from earlier flights ask if they can cut in front of us. We ask to see their ticket and when they show it to us we let them. The line is moving very quickly. I had forgotten what that feels like. A line actually moving. Because of the rush and staffing shortage, there is no pretense that anyone is going to be pulled aside and not a single bag is investigated thoroughly. This is good because I seem to always get caught up in these things.
Boarding.
Airborne.
Land.
Got my luggage and after a wait at the bus stop, it arrives and I board.
I arrive at the Sounddome, which is the bus stop that happens to be right across the street to the Amtrak station where my car is parked. I wait in the Amtrak line and get my two train tickets canceled. The Amtrak guy was really great about it. Then a woman in the parking lot loaned me her shovel so that I could get my car out of the snow and the parking lot. Things are suddenly going really well and working out. I am not sure what to make of this.
The main roads in Soundview have been shoveled and all that and since I live on a main road that works out great. The back alleyway to our parking area is completely iced over, though, so I park off the street in the front. There is some snow and ice in that area, but I figure I’ll be okay. I figure wrong. I can tell immediately that my car is stuck. I have another flight to Colosse tomorrow, so my first two hours spent after the initial euphoria getting home is spent desperately trying to free up my car so that we can drive it to the airport.
The car is not coming out. I’ve managed to move a lot of ice and snow around, but it appears to be doing almost as much harm as good. More than ice-free, it’s important that everything is even. It’s hard to keep that amount of ice even and no matter what I do I keep getting stuck. My car gets further and further out on the street to the point that it’s impeding traffic, but I can’t get it out. Fortunately, a woman with three very large sons stops and sends her team of kids out to help. They get it out with little difficulty. I take my car and find a side street that’s covered with ice but not much snow and park my car there, hoping that I can get it out in a few hours when I find a way to completely clear my street parking spot.
I go around from neighbor to neighbor asking if anyone has a snow shovel that I can use. I had previously been using an ice scraper because it was all I had, but I realized that I needed a bona fide shovel. Nobody answers or if they do they don’t have a shovel. Then I notice as I knock on my neighbors’ door for the second time that she has a shovel just sitting there on her porch. She is probably the neighbor that I am closest to and I don’t think she would mind if I borrowed it, but I’m not sure. I decide to knock on the door again after work hours. In a stroke of luck, I run into her in the back yard. She has apparently been around all day but is not in the habit of answering her door. I get a snow shovel, which is great because now I can dig out my parking space. Yay. I get to dig out a parking space.
The parking space is cleared. Clancy is home. Now laundry, packing, and a bunch of other stuff so that we can make it out to the airport tomorrow morning. She asks what time we should arrive at the airport and tells me that she is willing to arrive as early as I want. I tell her that I really want to go to the airport tonight and spend the night there. At this point, despite a light uptick in my luck, I don’t want to take any chances. She laughs at the prospect. As early tomorrow as I want. We decide to get up at 6am for our 12:30 flight. Getting Clancy up at 6 is quite the concession.
“This is a message for {pause} William Truman {pause} from Amtrak Rail. Our records indicate that you have a ticket on the train leaving {pause} Shaston, Shasta {pause} at {pause} Six {pause} fifteen {pause} PM {pause} and arriving at {pause} Soundview, Cascadia {pause} at {pause} Eight {pause} forty-five {pause} PM. {pause} This route has been {pause} cancelled. {pause} Please call our customer service to schedule a new appointment.” -An automated call from Amtrak
I finally get ahold of Amtrak. They don’t have any trains leaving until Wednesday afternoon. The problem is that I need to get back to Soundview by Tuesday night so that Clancy and I can leave by plane on Wednesday morning.
I’m looking at renting a car. The cheapest I can find for a one-way rental is around $200, all included. I don’t think that I have a whole lot of choice.
Clint’s girlfriend finds me a plane ticket for 7pm, which I snap up immediately. I had considered getting a flight out but had decided that if the trains weren’t running then the planes probably weren’t taking off. But it looked like I was wrong because Northern Airways was still taking flights.
Northern Airways has cancelled all flights leaving Shaston. I call NA, but it’s busy.
Attempts to reach Northern Airways fail.
I decide that maybe I need to go back and look into renting a car. The problem is that the authorities are requiring tire chains and I’m not positive if the rental agencies have them. So I call to ask. The national agency says that I need to contact the local location. The local agency’s phone lines are jammed so they refer me back to the national agency. I do some looking into it and not only do rental car agencies not keep tire chains on them but they prohibit you from putting your own on their cars.
Attempts to reach Northern Airways fail.
I reach Northern Airways and am placed on hold.
Clint and his girlfriend are about to go out and eat. I tell them that I can’t go because I need to wait to get a hold of the NA representative. Right before they leave, I get the rep. Much to my surprise, they have me on a flight at 7:30 the next morning. I’m initially excited to have an early flight that would get me back to Soundview in time to hang out with my wife, though I do some time backtracking and realize that I would need to aim to get at the airport at 5:30 in the morning. I have no idea how I’m going to do that.
I start trying to contact cab companies. First one is busy. Second one is busy. Third one has a message saying that they can’t answer right now. Fourth one is busy. Fifth one sends me to an answering machine message. Sixth one sends me to an answering machine message. Seventh one answers. I ask if I can set up an appointment for 4am the next morning. They tell me that they’re not taking appointments and I’ll have to try to just call a couple hours before I need it.
I call the Seventh Cab Company and am told that they’re fully booked for the next couple hours and are not taking reservations beyond that.
-{Next Installment to be posted on Sunday}-
I arrived at the Amtrak Station to visit my friend Clint down in Shaston. It was the first time I’d ever ridden an Amtrak train, so it was quite the experience. I had actually been under the impression that these trains ran mostly empty, but in this case it was almost full. So much so that I had to plop down an extra $13 because the only available tickets were Business Class.
I was somewhat impressed by the Business Class accomodations. I will definitely pay the extra $13 (or 33%) next time. The free voucher sort of helps with that, but the big thing is that you get your own power jack, plenty of leg room (which is important for someone with my dimensions), and the feeling of smug superiority that is much more expensive on airplanes. I sat in the regular accommodations for about ten minutes before I realized that I was in the wrong place. They weren’t bad, though they weren’t quite as nice as I had figured they would be. The seats were a lot better than plane seats, but not much better (if better at all) than bus seats.
Because I got Business Class tickets, I got a free voucher for $3 at the diner. I had visions of eating something while watching the landscape fly by. Wouldn’t you know it, after I buy the food and before I sit down, the train stops. Apparently the switch on the tracks are frozen and somebody has to get out to do something about it. After I finish my sandwich, the train is back on its way.
Screw it, I want my food-and-ride. I buy a bagel just so that I can eat something while I ride.
Train stops again. Someone has to get out again to clear off some switch or something.
Train stops a third time. They apologize for the inconvenience, but the snow and ice are creating problems for them. Even though we’re not far out of Shaston, I’m beginning to wonder if we’re actually going to make it.
I make it. Clint comes and picks me up. I’m safely in Shaston.
Now that we’ve landed in Cascadia, I’m trying to tackle various tasks associated with moving. We’ve got power, water, Internet, and the other essentials. On to officially becoming a Cascadian and getting a drivers license. We were elated to discover that no written or driving test is needed if you’re relocating with a current drivers license from another state within the US (or, oddly, Germany). Also, unlike Estacado, they don’t require that you do things in a specific order (Insurance, inspection, car title, license in that order in Estacado).
The only snag (or the only snag thus far, anyway) is “proof of residence”. Unlike in Estacado, Deseret (I believe), and Delosa, a lease agreement isn’t considered proof of residence. You have to have a picture ID with the address (such as would be found on… a drivers license) or more simply a utility bill or hookup order with your name and address on it. We contacted the city utility company and they said that they would only send something after the first billing period which will be a month or so from now.
What’s interesting is that to get a DL we need one primary document, two secondary, or two secondary or a secondary and tertiary document. They have long lists of what all this involves. One of them, interestingly enough, is a voter registration card. So I went to the state’s Secretary of State site and saw what we’d need to register to have a voice in political affairs in the area and state (and, in November, nation). Apparently all they want is the last four digits of my social security number. No proof of anything else required.
So the thought occurred to me that if I go and register to vote I might be able to prove where I live (even though there is no accountability, apparently) so that I can drive. I was on my way out to do just that when I discovered that the cable company (who is taking care of our TV, Internet, and phone) had already sent me something. So off to the license bureau I went.
I have never seen such bureaucratized chaos in my life. They have a line, they have a little “Take a number” machine. They periodically have “Now Serving” numbers appear on top of the stations, but customers come and customers go and that number doesn’t actually change. So I got in line and then was informed that I needed to take a number, after which I kept waiting and waiting for the numbers to change above the stations. Instead the numbers disappeared so I got in line. Then a mean-tempered woman said “If you’re in line with a number above 330, you are not supposed to be in line so get out and take a seat. If you’ve thrown away your number, get a new one. If you’ve left the building to smoke a cigarette or get something our of your car, you have to get a new number”… and start at the back again of the numerical/non-numerical line, presumably.
Half an hour passed and nothing happened, numbers reappeared, didn’t change, disappeared again, more people got in line, and the lady spoke with great irritation that we weren’t abiding by the system and they couldn’t help us if we didn’t follow the rules… whatever they were.
After another hour of observation, this is what I determined the rules to be: Everyone picks a number and takes a seat. They call the numbers in blocks and the people with those numbers get in line in order. The first ten or so from that block will be called by number (with the Now Serving signs) and then the sign will stop changing (once they forget to keep updating it) and then go dark after it hasn’t been changed for a particular time interval (out of boredom I timed it to seven minutes and forty-five seconds). From that point the order will be determined by where you are in line if and only if your number is in the number block, which actually isn’t posted anywhere. Once that block is finished, they’ll start again with a new block. Intermittently there will be cow-herd lectures about how we’re failing to abide by the system.
Once I figured out he system, I bid my time (another hour) by explaining this system to everyone else that was confused and irate. One lady actually offered to give me a tip.
Clancy and I took another two day trip to the Oasis on the Hill, which is a water park in Estacado. In addition to all the water rides, one of the things that we do is sit at this particular vantage point and look down at and on everybody while making snide comments about the tattoos they’re sporting and the bathing suits that they’re wearing, among other things. I’ve come to call this little perch the Judgment Point.
One of the observations that Clancy made this time around is girls wearing bikinis that are way too young to be wearing bikinis. I don’t meant early pubescent girls who, right or wrong, at least have something to demonstrate, but rather the pre-pubescent girls. The ones whose breasts are less substantial than their baby fat. I don’t mean fat girls, just girls that that haven’t grown into at least their pubescent figures (lest anyone think to bring it up, this post is not about AOC laws or teenage sex).
I can’t disagree with what she is saying, though I found a tangential thing that she brought up interesting because it was something that I hadn’t thought about.
I’ve always considered the one-piece bathing suit to be the standard and a bikini to deviate from that standard for the point of showing off. That’s one of the things that fueled my previous comments about how poorly some women perceive their bodies and think that bikinis are the optimal bathing suit even when they’re not. But bikinis it would seem offer more than just the ability to show off. Clancy pointed out that it’s much easier to use the restroom with a two-piece than a one-piece and that this could be important for younger girls that haven’t mastered control of their excretory systems yet. Logistically that’s so obviously true I can’t believe that I never considered it before.
Of course, she also pointed out that there are some types of bathing suits for younger girls that allow for the easy restroom usage without showing off the tummy. So I guess my earlier points still stand. It would seem to me that there are so many different ways that women can dress their bodies up in bathing suits. It remains such a tragedy that so many of them hover around one or two types whether it accentuates their positives or their negatives.
Then again, it’s worth pointing out that all of this is yet more demonstration of the pressure that women are under when it comes to presenting themselves. For most guys that really don’t care so much, it’s really nice only having a couple options.