"Speaking crudely, football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial.'"

Wrote Virginia Woolf — "it is the masculine values that prevail."

An old quote, echoed here by fashion writer Robin Givhan:

I always compare fashion to sports, and when you think about some of the issues that have come up in sports, particularly in baseball, with steroid use and all of that, you wonder, “Why is Congress having hearings and calling Barry Bonds? What does that have to do with anything?” And you realize it’s because we as a culture, or at least some people in our culture, take sports really seriously, and they believe that it represents something about who we are, about our belief in fair play, and they recognize that that has an impact on younger people. I don’t think that fashion will really change until that same sort of recognition happens. 

I agree with the proposition that sports and fashion are exactly equally important and that it's helpful to keep that in mind even as you personally feel more drawn to one than the other. I hate to think that the essence of being taken seriously is that Congress holds hearings, but I don't think Givhan is saying she wants congressional hearings into the problems of the fashion industry. The baseball hearings are evidence that sports are taken seriously, too seriously maybe.

Keep the equation of sports and fashion in mind and use it to test whether we're taking something more seriously or less seriously than we should. This is similar to the way we analyze reactions to Obama by asking what if Bush had done the same thing.

ADDED: Sports are as related to maleness as fashion is related to femaleness, and the 2 things are equally important. You can get by with 0% of your interest in sports as you do your sports/fashion allocation, but you can't get by with 0% of your interest in fashion, since you must wear clothes. Set your percents however you want other than that.

The total amount of time that is your 100% varies from person to person. I'll bet my 100% fashion/sports time is less than yours!

"What we are watching when we watch élite sports, then, is a contest among wildly disparate groups of people..."

"... who approach the starting line with an uneven set of genetic endowments and natural advantages," writes Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, which is so elite it puts an accent on the "e" in "elite." But don't let that stop you from reading this! It shifts from talking about the legs of Kenyan runners — who are genetically adapted to a particular environment and have thus lucked into an advantage — and the drug users in baseball and bicycling. That's some sleight of hand.

#13 is not like the other photos that won the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest 2013.

The photographer's explanation of his photograph:

I was in Barcelona for a week shooting the local BMX scene. Barcelona is definitely one of the most interesting BMX Meccas in the world, with many street spots where you can ride all day. After a hard day of searching for different spots, I shot this picture where an old man was angry with one of the local riders (Nil Soler), thinking that what he was doing was a bad thing for the city. He doesn't understand it's only BMX! After this mishap, which is usual in Barcelona lately, we continued our search for new images, new spots and new sensations.

From the comments:

The man in #13 is of course right. All this stunting should be limited to locations not in nature and not on other people's property including public space and infrastructure.

And despite the prettiness of some photos all this Red Bull crazy acting stuff is dangerous and people die in attempts to please Red Bull in commisioned shoots. So don't give away your photos for a tray of Red Bull or for nothing but a name quote. Nobody reads these but yourself.

Yeah, look at photo #3 and think of Mario Richard. Or — what the hell? — continue your search for new images, new spots, and new sensations.

"Obviously not designed by a heterosexual man. It looks damaged and hideously asymmetrical."

Says Clyde, in the comments to the post about that very bizarre (and asymmetrical dress Cate Blanchett wore to the Paris premiere of "Blue Jasmine").

I say:

Heteros are bugs for symmetry and on guard for hideousness and damage? What evidence is there of that?

I see hetero men around all the time who don't seem to mind hideousness and damage.

Clyde says:

Ann, while standards of beauty vary from culture to culture, one thing that is a constant is facial symmetry. Asymmetrical features are often subconsciously viewed as evidence of bad genes. While we are talking about clothing, most of it is very symmetrical as well. I can't think of any men's clothing that isn't. The exceptions are in high-fashion women's clothing, and it's usually something like a strap on one shoulder, or a curved or diagonal cut on a dress or skirt, done to highlight one part or another of the wearer's body. In the case of Kate's dress, it didn't highlight anything; rather than accentuating her beauty, it drew attention away from it. You might as well have called it the Harrison Bergeron collection. It was the sartorial equivalent of Miley Cyrus's VMA performance. It got everyone talking, but not in a good way.

As for the "not designed by a heterosexual man" bit, a female friend and I have discussed some of the more outrageous fashion runway pictures we've seen in online galleries, and we generally agreed that anyone who would create some of the outfits that not only looked ugly but uncomfortable as well could not like women, at all. A straight man would create something to try to make a woman look good, something that would make a man say, "That dress looks great! She's hot! I want her!" A gay man might try to sabotage her so that the man would say, "That dress looks hideous! She's a hot mess! I pity her! Maybe I should try guys instead."

Not responding to all of that —I'm still drinking my first cup of coffee — I double down on symmetry:

"While we are talking about clothing, most of it is very symmetrical as well. I can't think of any men's clothing that isn't."

So what's the tailor talking about when he asks if you "dress right or dress left"?

And:

Aside from the testicles issue...

The handkerchief pocket is on one side.

You wear a watch on one side.

Most sports are one-sided -- tennis, bowling, golf, baseball...

Masturbation... do you balance which hand you use?

You guys are very asymmetrical. The whole idea of orientation only to one of the 2 sexes is asymmetrical.

Now — finishing up that coffee — I'll just add that I'm not buying the old idea that gay men don't want women to look beautiful. Go to that the second link above — the one that takes you to the photo of Cate Blanchett's dress — and read some of the other posts there. Tom & Lorenzo — gay guys — clearly love to see women looking beautiful. Look at this post of theirs about Lena Dunham's photo shoot for Marie Claire magazine:

We pray to all that is holy and fabulous that Miss Lena has learned a very valuable and important lesson here....

It’s okay to shoot for fabulous, honey. You’re more than capable of landing on it.

Etc. 

"Increasingly, when diving solo in their free time, the two wore wingsuits, sometimes called squirrel suits, to extend their flights before pulling the parachute."

"The suits are webbed under the arms and between the legs to slow the fall to earth and give experienced users some ability to maneuver through the air before pulling the parachute."

It works, but not all the time. BASE jumper Mario Richard hits a cliff on the way down and dies. He was 47.

ADDED: Here's video of the kind of human behavior we're talking about:



There's the age-old dream of flying like a bird, but I don't think birds do that, deliberately flying against a cliff, touching it, feeling the thrill of the dare. Watching that video, I thought: These people are consenting to death, if death should reach out and grab them. Thrilling. That's the video they generate, for us... to live vicariously. We're not the ones who die.

Squat, plank, lunge, crunch.. and stop wasting your time.

"In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, [the 7-minute workout] fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science."

"The four most influential athletes in America really don’t play."

"At least not lately."

"Imagine you're in the oven, baking."

"Some of us know and accept our sexuality right away and some need more time to cook. I should know — I baked for 33 years."

Just catching up on the metaphors in the Jason Collins "coming out" piece in Sports Illustrated that everyone was talking about yesterday. I found this story boring, but somehow the comments on my post on the subject heated up — like you were in the oven, baking — and they're up to 788 comments. What's going on in there? In my book, a 34-year-old gay guy that has gone to a lot of trouble to stay in the closet — or the oven — in this day and age is hardly a courageous hero. Yes, he's in a major American team sport, but he's at the very end of his career, and who'd heard of him before? I see nothing but a career boost for this guy. What is the big deal? Someone left the cake in the oven for 33 years, and I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it, and you were about to retire from basketball anyway, oh noooooo! O-oh nooooooo!



That cake metaphor came at the end of a paragraph that began:

The first relative I came out to was my aunt Teri, a superior court judge in San Francisco. Her reaction surprised me. "I've known you were gay for years," she said. From that moment on I was comfortable in my own skin. In her presence I ignored my censor button for the first time. She gave me support. The relief I felt was a sweet release. 

Sweet release with your aunt? Having ignored your censor button — for the first time? really? — you might want to find your editor button. I love that the aunt was all "I've known you were gay for years." The first person he came out to found his announcement boring. I'm with Aunt Teri. It's boring. This cake was baked long ago. I recall the yellow polyester shorts/Foaming like a wave/On the ground around your knees/The birds like tender babies in your hands/And the old men playing checkers, by the trees....

"Every cloud has a silver lining, and one of the benefits of the exclusion of women from most professions..."

"... was that we had wonderful teachers, especially the women who today would probably be CEOs."

Justice Antonin Scalia, remembering his school days, in NYC, circa 1947.

He also talks about playing street hockey, camping in vacant lots, and sledding in a cemetery:

It was pretty much devise your own amusement. I’ve never been a parent to go to all the soccer games and all that, because my parents never came to my street-hockey or pickup softball games; they just said go out and play.

I grew up in the 50s and 60s in Delaware, and it was the same thing: You made your own amusement. The only difference, at least in my family, is that we weren't told to go out (or to play). If you wanted to stay in and if you wanted to work or do nothing, my parents wouldn't say you should do something else. I'm not sure why my parents refrained from pushing us out into the fresh air, and it's too late now to ask, but sifting through the evidence I have, I think that they didn't like being told what to do. I know my mother, as a young girl in the 1930s, was told not to read too much and she wanted to read. Maybe in my old age, I'm seeing my departed parents in a golden light, but what makes sense to me now is that they were staunchly libertarian.

Purchase of the day.

From the April 1, 2013 Amazon Associates Earnings Report:

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By using the Althouse portal, you can buy things you want, pay nothing extra, and make a contribution to this blog. We notice. We appreciate it. And we'll never know who's shooting at us.

The Althouse Amazon portal: straight, on time, on target, and now with 47% more flexibility.

It's not just Phil Mickelson — plenty of high-income athletes want out of California taxes.

Mickelson was just the one who was PR-deaf enough to let us know how he feels.

Why do you think Tiger Woods lives in Florida?

In November, voters in California approved a ballot measure raising the top rate on income over $1 million to 13.3% (the increase applies retroactively to last year). ... Mr. Woods grossed $56.4 million in 2012. As a Floridian, he will keep about $7.5 million that he otherwise would have owed to the state of California. His net tax savings over his 16-year career come to about $100 million. Mr. Mickelson last year earned $60.7 million. Paying the 13.3% California rate, he will owe the state $8 million.

That takes Mickelson down to $52.7 million, putting him behind Woods, when he was ahead of him on the money list. Aggravating! (I know, I'm failing to take account of the way state taxes are a deduction on your federal income taxes and everything else that affects after-tax income.)

The benefit of living in a state without an income tax can be diminished by the "jock tax" that states impose on money earned by athletes when they're playing or training in the state. (Luckily for baseball players, spring training is in no-tax Florida or low-tax Arizona.) But in sports like tennis and golf where athletes can train anywhere in the world, a preponderance happen to migrate to states without an income tax.

These celebs — with their endorsements — need good PR, as the Mickelson slip proved. State tax proponents could get proactive and actively shame the sports stars who live in Florida without an adequate cover story. 

For instance, Serena and Venus Williams grew up in Compton, Calif., but moved with their father to Florida in the early 1990s.

"Zorbing has become so popular in Russia that it is one of the symbols of next year's Winter Olympics."

"Unfortunately, zorbing led to tragedy Thursday when a ball containing two men veered off course and sailed over a rock ledge in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia...."

"Do you think it makes me a bad American to confess that I have no desire to see the movie Lincoln?"

A comic strip at The Soxaholix, which — I'm amused to see — has a link to my blog in the 4th frame. Plus, it goes on to explain why one ought to prefer watching sports.

"What do a cake, a runner, a rainbow and a kalashnikov have in common."

"10 Contested African Images of 2012."

"In the name of equality, the French government has proposed doing away with homework in elementary and junior high school."

"French President Francois Hollande argues that homework penalizes children with difficult home situations, but even the people whom the proposal is supposed to help disagree."

ADDED: Emmanuel Davidenkoff, editor-in-chief of L'Etudiant, is one of the critics:

"Poor people want homework because they know that school is very important, and the only chance — the only possibility — they have to give their children a better life is if their children succeed at school.... Mostly, wealthy people don't want homework because when the kids are at home, they make sports or dance or music. They go to the museums, to the theater. So they have this access to culture, which is very important.... In poor families, they don't have that, so the only link they have with culture and school is homework."

What?! Everyone — rich or poor — can make sports or dance or music. You don't even need as much as a ball or a jump rope to have sports. You don't even need as much as a cheap radio or a harmonica to do music and dance. The best American music, dance, and sports have come from the poorest people. Leave the kids alone, let them go out and play, and the forces of nature should do more than wealthy parents taking them to lessons. The only link they have with culture and school is homework... that's so insulting!

Let the kids out to play as long as there is daylight. Isn't that better than holding them inside until they have their homework done? And we wonder why there's so much obesity! They're incarcerated during school hours, then worked through lessons when they get home. And we wonder why there's such a problem with hyperactivity. After dark, how bad is it not to have homework? Let them choose their own books and read if you think they should have more cultural enrichment. That has so much more potential that more lessons from school (which is already appropriating too much of their youthful souls).

By the way, Hollande's equality theory coincides with my own rejection of take-home exams in law school. Students have different life situations, and one can go home to a solo environment and work late into the night. The other has a husband or wife and a couple of children making reasonable/unreasonable demands and nowhere to find quiet and concentration. So my exam is an intense 3-hour session that's the same for everyone. And when it's over, it's over.