Dem Bones

Yahoo today had these pictures of Jaclyn Smith and Linda Carter, citing how amazing they still look. Agreed. But they’re from a time when it was in fashion to have good bone structure. The It gals of the 70s and early 80s all had killer cheek bones and jaw lines that could cut glass. First, that always ages well. Second, if they do have work done, they’ve got something solid to stretch the old canvas over.

Lots of the popular girls today are either the soft and girlish look (what a friend of mine calls a bowl of oatmeal with 2 raisins for eyes) like Miley Cyrus or Emma Watson (or Lindsay Lohan to watch the process in fast forward) or they have a some bone structure and stay skinny enough for it too look prominent (Kristen Stewart or Katy Perry). Either way, once the collagen goes, they’re going to look like a balloon with all the air let out. Then the only thing you can do is plump things back up, which can be pretty dicey in results (hello, Meg Ryan Queen of the Trout Pout and the wax statue that once was Nicole Kidman).

Not that there’s much else they can do about it, other than enjoy the collagen while it lasts and then sand bag the River Styx as long as they can. Either the bone structure gods smiled on your cradle or they didn’t. It's also why some women who were really to harsh as young women to be truly pretty (like Glenn Close and Meryl Streep are aging better than their more conventional peers). Me, I was not blessed with much in the way of cheek bones and no jaw line to speak of. But I was blessed with a solid schnoz. So I’m relying on it to act like a tent pole to hold things up while what’s left of the sand trickles to the lower end of the hour glass.

You gotta fight for your right to Tea Party

It seems like a lot of the next election’s debate is rolling up to one question: do people have a legal right to do stupid stuff? It started out as a debate about government infringement on personal liberties. But then I think the Tea Partiers found that they had to back things that they don’t personally like, like freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Well, they do like freedom of religion as long as you’re free to choose their religion. Other religions? Not so much. Tea Partiers loooooovvvvveee their liberties. As long as they don’t include gay marriage or porn or drugs or abortion or civil rights.

And part of that has to be that if they actually love those liberties too, they’d find themselves agreeing with liberals – which, whoa, that would be freaky for them. Can’t have that. So, the debate is turning to freedoms that they can still get in an argument about. Like their right to smoke, eat junk food, drive gas guzzlers and use incandescent light bulbs. Yes, there’s a fight in Congress about the governments efforts to force tax-payers to phase out the use of incandescent lightbulbs. Halogens may last longer and cost less in electricity to use, but dang-it they’re weird. And possibly gay. And no hardcore conservative wants a cheap, queer light bulb in their house. And the damn liberals want to argue with them about it.

And it seems like the elements of government control they hate most are the ones that some people would say are just trying to stop them from doing stupid stuff. To themselves. And frankly, I’m having a hard time arguing with them. If they want to be fat, emphysemic, poor and sitting in the dark, that’s their choice. Frankly, some of the things that the government thought were a bad idea in the past (interracial marriage, abolition, women’s suffrage, suffering a witch to live among us), actually turned out to be pretty good things in the light of a more reasonable age. And somebody had to have the courage to speak up for them (“Hey, maybe we shouldn’t burn Goody Barlow for hexing the Wilson’s cow”) in order to change the world. So maybe the Tea Partiers are right to fight boldly for their right to eat and uplight as they choose. Maybe Twinkies and incandescent bulbs will be discovered to cure cancer. And you’ll have Michelle Bachman to thank for saving them from destruction.