that insinuated that it's the gay influence in the fashion industry that's led to the industry's demands for- and on- slenderness and thinness in their female models.

It was a jest- arguably partially true (and I note jonathanseer's comments in that regard, which I think have some validity), but also to some extent unfair.

Because I think there's something else happening with the fashion business, too- not just confined to the runway shows and the specialized photo spreads, but extending deeper into the culture, into the tabloids, the magazines- including "women's magazines"- and the television shows. And it's by no means confined to "gay influence"- there's a lot of "hetero" energy that does it, too. Both male and female, for that matter.

It's about this:

Some people just want to work you.

Crystal Renn alludes to the phenomenon when she points out that the women in the big-league fashion industry- a business where one doesn't even get through the opening interview without possessing more than a modicum of physical attractiveness and desirability- all these beautiful girls- get their every perceived flaw picked over, until they're some of the most insecure people out there, as far as being obsessed with the shortcomings in their looks, and needing to jump over bars set steadily higher, in the pursuit of what they're conditioned to regard as "perfection."

I think that's because, all too often, they've gotten into a game where the people hiring them and paying them are skilled enthusiasts of playing a very old and sordid game: "We'll get along fine, as long as there's never enough that you can do for me (us)."

Make them jump through hoops like trained animals, denigrate themselves, caricature their looks, scar and mutilate themselves, even starve themselves until they die, or get them to vomit until their teeth are rotted out by their own stomach acids...

A power trip...generated by who knows what pathology or compulsion- Envy? Sadism? A twisted sense of knowing that they can manage to pervert esthetic standards for an entire society seemingly right in front of everyone's eyes and get away with it- and get paid big money for doing so?

It's one of the reasons that shopping in the usual run of grocery stores inevitably contains a few depressing moments- at the checkstand, where one passes the tabloids and "entertainment" magazines, with their mocking, sneering, concern-trolling, insinuating, shaming, blaming headlines. With "photos" to match- often as not, using devices like Photoshop not so much to enhance, as to highlight every flaw in a face. "X is too fat...X is too thin..." Etc. (And presumably, the accusers and finger-pointers are perfect.)

I'm not the sort of person to simply block that out, or minimize what it signifies about this society of personal prying, superficiality, and vicarious thrills. It's a symptom of a major societal illness.

"the race card continues to be played on both sides, mostly by conservatives, but with steel-faced, sunglass-wearing poker discipline. Obama isn't about to start getting sloppy now. He'll let the racists reach and reach until they overreach and ruin their own hand."

Exactly the way to play it. Because authentic racists will sooner or later do exactly that- overplay their hand. Even the steel-faced, sunglass-wearing types. By and large, they can't help themselves. Preening is part of the temperament.

And the most effective tactic in response is to remain calm and collected. The trick is to wait until their foot is firmly wedged in the mouth, sideways.

With actual racists, that's somewhat of an inevitability. It's on the order of a compulsion with them.

I can provide a few examples, right from the Salon comments pages.

One of them recently stopped commenting- under the same screen name, at least. I suspect it may have something to do with a comment that's preserved on the last page of their archive, but they were across the line of "plausible deniability" for some time before that.

http://letters.salon.com/cd4e4827b1e6ee8781f560e289c917f7/author/index45.html

I think it's partially a PUI problem. By no means an unusual correlation...

reflectors, for instance. Widespread adoption of LEDs will probably lead to some new types of lamp design.

Lightbulb design is subject to change, too, for that matter- what stops LED-source lightbulbs from being designed in the shape of a globe, for instance?

I think the LED will catch on.

A black man has to dampen allegations of racism against him- allegation raised primarily by whites, aimed at other whites.

(btw: "black people"? "white people"? What's up with that? Don't get me wrong, I see color when I look at people...just not those colors.)

Glock45, September 14, 2009:

"I chose the name Glock45 because after seeing Mr. Ken Gladney, a black conservative, get racially slandered by Obama's SEIU and ACORN thugs..."

http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/feature/2009/09/14/crowd_size/permalink/19d2e779386f4a94a2eb0643234ec355.html

[linked at signature]

The Gladney allegation relates to an incident on August 6, 2009.

Glock45's first letter on Salon is dated June 1, 2009.

http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/06/01/oreilly/permalink/e1d6afd7d570655ba667565e4011ab38.html

I'd be more inclined to give Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt (so to speak) that they were merely "asleep at the wheel" on 9/11, if they hadn't produced a Wish List reminiscent of a Latin American neofascist junta as their response, along with a seemingly preordained invasion of Iraq.

"Judge whether [to] hit SH (Saddam Hussein) @ same time/Not only UBL (Usama bin Laden)...Go massive- Sweep it all up. Things related & not." Donald Rumsfeld, quoted in the notes of Stephen Cambone on the afternoon of Sept 11, 2001

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66726692@N00/100545349/

http://www.outragedmoderates.org/2006/02/dod-staffers-notes-from-911-obtained.html

[link at my signature]