The Ladies' Home Journal in 1963.

 

Encountered searching for something else just now. I'm putting this up because I like how it looks simultaneously so old and...



.... so current. 

Donald Trump says he's suing Bill Maher for $5 million after Trump accepted his offer, making a valid contract.

The "offer," made last month, was to "pay $5 million to Trump’s charity of choice if he provided a birth certificate proving that he’s not 'spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan.'"

Maher was comically commenting on Trump's offer to pay $5 million to Obama's charity of choice if Obama releases his college records.

This lawsuit news is, of course, Trump, once again, hogging — orangutanning — the media spotlight. Fine. I don't care. But to actually file a lawsuit is: 1. An offense against free speech, and 2. An irresponsible appropriation of the public wealth that will be consumed processing the lawsuit.

“I don’t think he was joking. He said it with venom. That was venom. That wasn’t a joke. In fact, he was nervous when he said it. It was a pathetic delivery,” Trump said on Fox News.

Speaking of pathetic... go away, Donald. And take your hair with you when you leave. 

"A Japanese pop star has shaved her head and offered a filmed apology..."

"... after breaking her management firm's rules by spending a night with her boyfriend."

"I don't believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don't want to quit AKB48," [said Minami Minegishi ].... "If it is possible, I wish from the bottom of my heart to stay in the band. Everything I did is entirely my fault. I am so sorry."...

Minegishi was one of the original members of AKB48 when it was launched by producer Yasushi Akimoto in 2005. The band is made up of some 90 girls - whose ages range from mid teens to early 20s - who, in teams, appear daily in their own theatre and regularly on television, in adverts, and in magazines.

They portray an image of cuteness known as "kawaii", and have become a huge phenomenon both in Japan and increasingly in other Asian countries, correspondents say.

I'm no expert on Japanese culture, but it seems to me that if there were 90 of these AKB48-ers and you were destined to exit soon enough by getting slightly older that going out like this is a more effective way to achieve pop stardom than being in the darned group.

An expansive, shapely hairdo.

Source: flickr.com via Barneys on Pinterest

That's Richard Avedon photograph, at the Barneys New York Pinterest site, which pictures some things you can buy at Barneys and some thing that (presumably) expand your mind into a shape within which you might decide to buy some things at Barneys.

"Clinton will take a long, much-deserved vacation, then assume a low-key schedule of advocacy work and lucrative speaking engagements."

"She'll exercise, sleep more and eat better.... Her hair will finally find the sweet spot between the Stepford-esque helmet head of the campaign trail and the current granny-cum-Eileen-Fisher-model look...."

And then in late 2014, a more vibrant, less jowly Clinton will return to the spotlight and announce her candidacy for president....

When it comes to historic elections, 2008 was just what most Democrats wanted. First the exciting young black guy, then the somewhat less exciting but eminently reliable old white lady. It was as if liberal voters promised to eat their vegetables if they could just have dessert first.

The argument for letting your hair grow long and white as you age and not getting any facial surgery or Botox.

From 83-year-old "supermodel" Daphne Selfe. (Great name, by the way.)

Selfe, who went gray in her 40s, gave up coloring her hair and decided to let it grow.

“My hair is long now because it’s cheaper. I don’t have to do anything but put it in a topknot or a French pleat,” she said. “It avoids that old lady permed look, lengthens the neck and lifts the face.”

What is Drudge trying to say about Sonia Sotomayor?

This is at the top of the right-hand column at Drudge this morning:



Now, as we saw last night, what Justice Sotomayor did was deny an emergency injunction. That would have required a finding that "the legal rights at issue are indisputably clear," which clearly, they are not. And her opinion never mentions "morning-after" pills, only contraception, generally. (The challenged HRSA’s guidelines refer to "all Food and Drug Administration . . . approved contraceptive methods.")

With that rather strange photograph and the reference to "morning-after," I've got to infer that Drudge intended sexual humor aimed at the Justice. I think the photograph was chosen for the "bedroom hair" and the groggy eyes. Or do you focus on the hand? Does it seem to be tossing pills at us?

Great Hairdos of 2012.

Because it was a year of great hairdos, no?

"I looked like my gay brother."

Says Anne Hathaway about her "Les Mis" hairstyle.

Sexually assaulted in full view of millions, the 18-year-old boy really has no option but to treat it as a joke.

Look at the photograph of the hulking Jenny McCarthy grabbing Justin Bieber by the throat and suctioning the back of his neck:

"Wow. I feel violated right now," he said, laughing.

"I did grab his butt," McCarthy said backstage. "I couldn't help it. He was just so delicious. So little. I wanted to tear his head off and eat it."

Imagine the sexes reversed. If you can. McCarthy is more than twice Bieber's age. She's 40. But, oh, she's trying so hard to project sexuality:

As you may know and not care about, Jenny is about to pose in Playboy again. She first posed for the men’s mag at 21, which helped launch her career as a sexy doofus. Recounting her first experience posing nude, Jenny told Oprah that... the Playboy people were surprised when she first took off her undies because she supposedly had the hairiest nether region they’d ever seen. In an appearance on The Today Show, Jenny said she’s using her pubes to maintain her modesty or something...

Too much information? Actually, no. That's great information. That's funny. But stop molesting teenagers. That's not funny, even if circumstances require Bieber to pretend that it is.

Sarah Palin is "scary thin"...

... and she's writing a fitness book. 

Celebrities have got to keep moving, looking for an open niche.

Her tips, by the way, are newly frosted, and her nails appeared to be a shade of silver-blue.

"Tips... newly frosted" apparently refers to the highlights in her hair. Highlights are done in strands, right down to the roots and not on the "tips." If there's a space between the scalp and where the light color begins, that means the highlights are not new. The hair has grown. (I know, because I get lowlights.)

As for the silver-blue fingernails, it seems that Michelle Obama got there first, and Ann Romney got there third. But for some reason, light blue is the fingernail color of choice for political ladies this fall. Do they want to avoid the aggressiveness of classic (but blood-like) red? Or do they like the cyanotic look of impending death?

ADDED: Apparently, "frosted tips" is a hoary trend for men:

Boy band members of ’90s and the early aughts were the biggest proponents of “frosted tips,” but no athlete, actor or bank teller has been immune to this god-awful style and its powers of douchebaggery over the years. Do frosted tips transform someone into a terrible human being, or do terrible human beings opt for frosted tips? Let’s find out.

29 frostedly tipped male celebritneys at the link.

"Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair."

"Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body — it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being (which is genderless, actually) and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will."

"I Miley'd the s**t out of this Saturday."

That's how you say you cut your hair really short when you are the creator of the hot HBO series "Girls."

Clinton holds up a finger and says "You will feel it" — in this Drudge juxtaposition.

Here's the whole page frozen in time right now, but let me close in on these 4 photos:



"You will feel it" is — of course — a line from Clinton's convention speech, but illustrated with the finger pointed up, it takes us back to the Lewinsky days, when we heard about finger-shaped things inserted into vaginas and a finger was famously wagged at us for imagining that he had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

Right underneath Bill Clinton — double meaning right there — is Hillary Clinton, and she's getting "snubbed." The snub is by the Chinese VP, but we imagine other snubs. Additional lines under Hillary's picture have her "dubbed" a "sneaky troublemaker."

And, speaking of troublemakers, we're reminded that Hillary is "half a world away" "[a]s Bill speaks." In case that's not a sharp enough nudge to get you to think about things Bill might do while his wife is away, your eyes are drawn quickly to the swelling bosom of Scarlett Johansson, who is one of "Barack's Angels," who will be on the convention stage tonight. (Scarlett's golden hair rolls and flows all down her breasts, while Hillary's hair, in that other pic, is dull, lank, and flat.) And what else are these beautiful young women up to in Charlotte where Hillary is half a world away? In Drudge tease, the trio of beauties "makes push."

And that push? You will feel it.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paul Zrimsek said:

And here I thought the true caption for the Scarlett Johanssen photo was the line above it, not the line below.

He's referring to: "Advisers lower expectations for convention bounce..."

The Amish hair- and beard-cutting trial: Is it a hate crime...

... if they felt compassion and wanted to bring strayed Amish "back into the fold"?

Romney and Ryan are "two look-alike white guys with aggressively groomed hair."

Says Robin Givhan — whose stock in trade is observation but who failed to observe that Ryan had an unruly tuft of hair sticking up at the back top of his head.

Romney took the stage wearing a formal white shirt, blue tie and no jacket. Conveying the ease of a man wearing a cervical halo, Romney greeted the audience and after brief remarks, and a slip-of-the-tongue that had him referring to Ryan as the next “president” of the United States, the congressman bounded forth.

I had to look up "cervical halo." (Clue: It's not something religious— nothing about Mormons! — and it's not something uterine — nothing about the war on women.)

Ryan wore a dark suit—of the extra-roomy variety—and an open-collared white shirt. A rather large flag pin decorated his jacket lapel. He was dressed in the uniform that President Barack Obama popularized during the 2008 campaign. Obama wore the tieless black suit whenever he was looking to convey authority and gravitas in an informal situation. It was his go-to look for late night talk shows, for instance. Obama accessorized this look with cool, with nonchalance. Ryan prefers the aw-shucks understatement of an earnestly furrowed brow.

Aw-shucks? What's aw-shucks about Paul Ryan? "Shucks" — according to the Urban Dictionary — is a "backwoods" interjection. Obama has "authority and gravitas" wearing exactly the same thing as Ryan, because Obama brings "cool," but Ryan brings "aw shucks." Givhan is subtly approaching the line of racial stereotypes, isn't she? No, she's not. She's already labeled Romney and Ryan "white guys" (and she'll end the column by calling them "white guys" again). 

[A]s a pure visual, the image of the two men on stage in Norfolk, Virginia lacked dazzle or texture. It was a bit like seeing double.

These white guys all look alike. Oh? Am I being unfair? Givhan already called them "look-alike white guys." They don't look much alike to me. Ryan has strikingly blue eyes, a 5-o'clock shadow, a young man's cropped haircut, and an earnestly furrowed brow that reminds me of John Roberts. Romney has hazel eyes (not so striking, since I had to look that up),  a very clean-shaven face, and an older man's long-on-top, combed-straight-back hair.

The combination of their matching white shirts and black trousers—plus one jacket and one tie—meant that any hint of personal style was lost in a mish-mash of menswear remnants. 

Givhan wants to say they are over-controlled in their hair and their clothes, but the facts don't fit the preferred template. Neither man wore a business get-up, and each man stepped down from that level in his own way — Romney by leaving off the jacket and rolling up the sleeves and Ryan by not wearing a tie and opening the collar. It was a nice, casual coordination, but political preference grips Givhan and she won't admit it.

Givhan complains that the TV cameras didn't let us see Ryan's children:

The moment could have benefited from a loose shot of a tow-headed kid making a silly face or flashing a charming grin—an image that would connect something unscripted and personal to Ryan. 

And what would Givhan have said about those kids if only she could have seen them? Would she have enthused about their charm and silliness? Or would she have seen them as over-controlled, stiff conservatives? Recall how she treated the children (and wife) of now-Chief Justice John Roberts, back in 2005:

His wife and children stood before the cameras, groomed and glossy in pastel hues -- like a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers. There was tow-headed Jack -- having freed himself from the controlling grip of his mother -- enjoying a moment in the spotlight dressed in a seersucker suit with short pants and saddle shoes. His sister, Josie, was half-hidden behind her mother's skirt. Her blond pageboy glistened. And she was wearing a yellow dress with a crisp white collar, lace-trimmed anklets and black patent-leather Mary Janes....

And through their clothes choices, the parents have created the kind of honeyed faultlessness that jams mailboxes every December when personalized Christmas cards arrive bringing greetings "to you and yours" from the Blake family or the Joneses. Everyone looks freshly scrubbed and adorable, just like they have stepped from a Currier & Ives landscape....

ADDED: It's telling that she used "tow-headed" in both columns.

"The right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that the Constitution was designed to protect."

Wrote the federal judge who struck down Utah's requirement that you need a cosmetology license to work as a hair braider.

This is a sharply libertarian result, so I find it amusing to see NPR and Matthew Yglesias celebrating the decision. Why would liberals love a decision second-guessing the legislature's judgment about the extent of government regulation in the economic realm? Click on the links and see if you too are amused.

"I know this doesn’t sound very liberated, but I find women over 40 with very long hair unsettling..."

"... particularly if it is straight and hangs more than a few inches below the shoulder. (And don’t get me started on straight, blond long hair on women over a certain age!) They look rather sad and dated to me — as if they’re desperately trying to rechannel Joni Mitchell in her heyday."

"This will be my last political campaign, no matter what. I've got nothing else to run for."

President Obama, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, yesterday. The "I've got nothing else to run for" is a response to a sad "oh" that follows the "last campaign" remark.

Via Drudge, which is continuing its black-and-white theme, now with Putin top and center — crouching and exposing his muscular arms — above a smiling Romney and an eye-blacked Drew Brees. The picture of Obama is, as it was yesterday, in the right-hand column. Today, it's a photograph — a nice photograph, with a hint of a smile. Also in Obama's column, Chinese ideograms above a link "China Ascends to No. 2 on FORTUNE 500..." Maybe the ideograms say "We're #2" (or "We try harder"). The stack of links between Obama's image and the Chinese writing reads:

'This Will Be My Last Political Campaign No Matter What'...
GALLUP: APPROVE SLIPS TO 44%...
Women outnumber men on US Olympic team...
Swedish billionaire's son arrested as U.S.-born wife found dead...

I'm getting a decline-of-Western-civilization theme out of Drudge's new black-and-white trend. There's Putin on top, looking hyper-masculine. The Chinese are rising up (economically). And Obama's all used up. Nowhere to go. We talked about that back in April, after I received email from his campaign saying  "In a few days, I'll be hitting the trail for my last campaign." I said:

The man is 50 years old. His career is young. He's packing it in so early? This troubles me. Why no more stamina in the political arena?

I mean, what if he loses in November? He could run again. He could let 3 presidential terms pass and come back and only be as old as Romney is right now!

But even if he wins, what's he going to do? He can't run for President again, but there are other elective offices. Look at John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, and Andrew Johnson. All of them went on to seek other elective office and to win....

Why doesn't Obama have more gumption? It makes him seem too weak even now as he seeks reelection. Last campaign. That's annoying.

By contrast, Putin has gumption. Stamina. Staying power. And, by the way, he's sending warships to Syria.

But what's in Drudge's column 1? The only photograph of a person is Obama's brother — George Obama — the one who lives in a hut. (Rush Limbaugh's been riffing about that for years.) The other Obama is being used in some right-wing propaganda film. Easy pickings.  The man needs some money.

The top photograph in column 1 is Saturn. (Yesterday's Drudge had us worrying about the sun.) There's a "Strange Vortex Discovered on Saturn Moon...." Just above Saturn is "Wasserman Schultz: 'It Would Be Nice If We Had Candidate for President Who Was Committed To America'..." Yes, yes, let's stick with the strange vortex that is the American presidential election. For some reason, the Wasserman Schultz line is the only thing Drudge italicizes. Perhaps that's a prompt to read the quote sarcastically.

Clicking through, I see that Wasserman Schultz has radically changed her hairstyle since her appearance on Fox News Sunday (June 8). Did someone decide she needed to look more conservative/conventional/feminine?

Wasserman Schultz point, in this new clip, in this new hair, is about Mitt Romney stashing money outside of the United States:

Mitt Romney needs to come clean and release multiple years of his tax returns so we can see why he invested in a Bermuda corporation and transferred it to his wife's name the day before he became Governor of Massachusetts.

So we can see why he's invested in Swiss bank accounts and accounts in the Cayman Islands. And you know, we also need to know why does -- what is the allure of investments out of the country. When he headed up Bain Capital, he was a pioneer in outsourcing and shipped jobs overseas.

It would be nice if we had a candidate for president who was committed to America. Mitt Romney is committed to making sure that either he makes the most money as humanly possible, or his investors do. 

Imagine a man who tried to make as much money as possible! The Democratic Party is hoping Americans have been trained to think of that as a bad thing.

It's the decline of Western civilization, when we no longer flex muscles, we give up and let China take over. There's nothing else to run for.

We can always run for... cover.

Looking for a new hairstyle?

Try "The Bow":