DISAPPEARING ISLAND (video)

Manhattan, where we live, is an island that is NOT disappearing -- it's crowded, and crowding in around us more than ever -- the city budget is hugely over- extended and much needed services are getting cut ...

And the giant island -- our hemisphere, surrounded by water -- whew, wow -- we're not safe, the world is crowded, crowding in around us -- money worries, the costs of fixing so many things that are going wrong, plus the oil spill. Every day the number of gallons is larger. This morning I thought the reporter said "A million gallons." I asked JC "What did he say?" JC thought he'd heard the same thing.

Here we are, three weeks before the oil spill began, discussing a tiny island, not sure why its disappearance makes us feel unsafe, fearful.

BEAUTY IS AS BEAUTY DOES ?

Gee, Golly!
Is beauty, or isn't beauty a blessing? A necessity? A goal? A time-consuming, costly, full-time job? A part-time job? YES ...

Beauty is more important than, better than luck...? YES ...

Based on my life, luck happens more frequently if you're beautiful -- doors open -- in your career, your love life, there are more possibilities, more opportunities and a better chance for success in whatever you're pursuing.

You look better, you're prettier at age 16 than you are at age 30. So looking young is an advantage. Go for it! Aside from learning how to use makeup, you need to learn what to wear, and have a good assortment of youthful, flattering clothes.

I am not selling this idea. I think it's a fact of life. If you're a girl you learn most of this early -- around age 3 or 4. By age 6 you're on your way to being an expert. You've heard the story of "Snow White." You say, "Mirror mirror on the wall..." and you know that YOU are the most beautiful of all.

Deborah Rhode, Professor of Law at Stanford, author of 20 books, has written a new book: "The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law.” It's a survey of "appearance" laws and how these laws creates gender prejudice.

Professor Rhode says: “‘It hurts to be beautiful’ is how my mother always explained girdles and high heels and a host of other burdens that have grown over time, but I’ve also learned how much it hurts not to be beautiful ... The impact is much more insidious than a lot of us suppose."

Rhode explains: "The cost of beauty -- in time, money, also in physical and psychological health -- is close to $200 billion." and adds, "Many individuals experience stigma, discrimination, and have eating disorders, depression, and risky dieting and cosmetic procedures." And later, she reminds the reader that all this is compounded by a virtually unregulated beauty and diet industry and soaring rates of elective cosmetic surgery.

Rhode details how unattractive individuals are less likely to be hired and promoted, are assumed less likely to have desirable traits, such as goodness, kindness, and honesty. And she has statistics -- three-quarters of all the women in her survey consider appearance important to their self image, and one-third rank it as the most important factor.

Stating, then proving with examples that discrimination against unattractive women and short men is as widespread as bias based on race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability, Professor Rhode lays out the case for an America in which appearance discrimination is no longer allowed.

I am shaking my head yes, and moaning silently -- please, please don't promote more legislation, more laws, more governmental supervision -- not now, Professor.

There are urgent laws on the docket in Congress that we need, all of us need right away in order to survive. And let's not forget the laws that affect women, laws that been passed, are still being argued, attacked, and negated. (Mammograms, contraception, sex education, abortion are still hanging on the clothesline -- solved but constantly under siege! And don't forget it took almost 70 years for suffrage to become the law of the land.)

I've written about the pursuit of beauty. Beauty has been a major theme for me in my five novels. And my 3-year-old self is still a voice, a pull, a confusion, a misdirecting force for Em the blogger.. I handle it and a hundred little things that tell me I'm growing old by avoiding the mirror and quoting Aristotle, reminding myself women down through the ages feel what I feel.

He said, 2400 years ago : "Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of Introduction."

And then, I head for my computer, chanting -- beauty is as beauty does ... beauty is as beauty does.

HELEN THOMAS

I remember the day Bill Clinton hugged her, after the press conference. She always sat in the front row. I thought, gee, she's kind of witch-like, decrepit looking. Bill's a nice guy, hugging her like that ...

What happened to Helen Thomas? She has knowledge, experience, and know-how as a commentator and reporter. Was what she said about the Jews -- they ought to go back to where they came from and leave the Palestinians alone -- a horrific mistake?

What she muttered can maybe be ... well ... sort of explained away. Wasn't she expressing what I feel? I'm deeply concerned with what Israel is doing to families who have spent their lives living in Gaza.

I've been to Israel. Actually I met Ben Gurion and dined with him. It was the only country that I ever felt that it was OK for me to be a Jew, not religiously, but because of my father's heritage (which he totally rejected).

Performing for the Habimah (the famed company of Israeli actors) who loved me as if I were one of them, dancing in various Kibutzes (collective farms), what I felt, about being a Jew in a Jewish homeland, was a revelation. I was revered as an artist, beloved for who and what I am.

(In America, my value as an artist was measured but how much I was paid per performance; growing up in Illinois, and Pennsylvania, schoolmates attacked me, yelling "You killed Christ," and called me a dirty Jew.)

So Helen Thomas saying that Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine" and that Jews in Israeli should return to Germany, Poland, or the US. was a shock. It wasn't just an ugly comment about Israel. It was about Jews.

Thomas is 89. She's educated, and knowledgeable. What she said is reprehensible. She knew it. She immediately retired from her job and said, "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon."

She's nearing the end of her life. Her face is very unattractive. Her body is distorted by age and osteoporosis. I feel sad -- that she was an important working woman -- a beacon for many many people who don't want to retire, who want to keep working as long as possible.

I think, without work she will be intolerably alone. She will feel useless. Work kept her alive and vigorous, and gave her a reason for being.

Though what she said was unacceptable and painful to me personally, I will miss her, the old guard, sitting in or near the front row, listening, absorbing, keeping in tune with the times.

I would feel okay if she continued attending the press conferences, and with conversations with her cohorts, she'd have a chance to undo, back away from what she said. I think she'd realize that her comment expressed an limited, ugly, compartmentalized mindset, and conversations with her peers will help her open her mind and change.

Helen Thomas has an active mind and I feel it would be better for all of us, if she held on to her seat, her place in the press corps.

RUBBER- BANDS

"Hey, Teach, I know the answer!" calls a kid who is waving his hand.

"Anyone else?" The teacher looks around the classroom, uneasily. "Teach" doesn't like the collection of colorful rubber-band bracelets, or the thumbs up grin the kid is giving to the other boys and girls, who are also bedecked with rubber-bands around their wrists.

(Teachers have been told, already, in more than three states, the "Silly-Bandz," the new fashion craze for kids, cannot be worn in the classroom.)

But Teach herself, is wearing Jennifer Anniston's hair style, and pooched-out, lipsticked lips, ala Angelina Jolie. Her hair and lips style isn't hot hot, but it's very NOW. Also, her skirt -- middle of the thigh short and tight -- is definitely in vogue. Teach is also wearing pumps with the very latest six-inch high-heels.

And Teach knows that fashion is merely fashion. It isn't a craze, is it?

The kids note what Teach is wearing, and think she's cool. Their parents, and older siblings, relatives, neighbors -- all grown-ups do stuff, have stuff they do like everyone else -- iPhones, sketcher shoes, old hula hoops, new exercise gizmo getting dusty in the closet. Atari games, books, Polaroid cameras, the family car -- weren't SUV'S a craze, like Viagra?

C'mon, what's wrong with rubber-bands? 5 bucks will buy a you 24. They're harmless. Hey, high-heels -- Teach is going to get bunions. A wrist, even with 96 bands -- you're not cutting off circulation -- bandz snap back into shape -- heart shapes, gears, reptiles, dog-bones, frogs, guns, stars, dragons, dinosaurs -- you trade 'em, every day you check out who's got something new.

It's a nice hobby like a stamp collection. And gee, everyone knows the more you forbid something, the more it's desired.

Hey, maybe ... if we keep on forbidding the bandz, then kids can have a secret craze that'll last longer. It'll keep them safer than yet another craze like mephedrone plant food, or a ... a ... militia, a kids' militia, with rubber-bands turned into sling shots. That could get dangerous!

I think we need fads -- we need crazes. It's part of growing up, becoming mature.

Remember the days, early nineties, when thumbs up or down became the cool way to say yes or no? I thought it was dumb -- something I'd never do.

I say, thumbs UP on rubber-band bracelets.