"World Hijab Day calls on non-Muslim women to try out life under the traditional head scarf."

BBC reports:

[Jess Rhodes, 21, a student from Norwich in the UK] was concerned about the reaction, but after eight days of wearing the headscarf she has actually been surprised by how positive it has been.

"I can't explain it really but people have been really very helpful, especially in shops," she says.... I will wear it from time to time...  I'm saying to the world, my beauty is for my family and my partner. Any woman can wear this."

So let's assume you are a woman with no religious basis whatsoever for wearing a headscarf, but you wear one because of World Hijab Day, and you find yourself receiving more respect and more deference from strangers. Rhodes says she got more help in shops, but when she talks about wearing it in the future, she doesn't refer to an interest in getting better treatment from others, but in expressing something about excluding them from her beauty. Of course, there are all sorts of clothing items that can be worn to exclude others from your beauty. Why — if expression is key —adopt an item of clothing that is read as an expression of belief in a religion that isn't yours?

On individualism, collectivism, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Isaac Newton, and Dee Dee Ramone.

Conservatives are fond of the quote "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." It's attributed in that form to George Orwell, though apparently the closest he got to saying it was:

"[Rudyard Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

I want to compare that to Obama's notorious "you didn't build that quote" and Elizabeth Warren's "you didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory."

I know Obama's quote is (hilariously) defective in its failure to give any significance to the work a business owner has put into his own business, but the reason Obama's quote is important that it's not merely an obviously incorrect overstatement, but that it reveals his frame of mind in putting the efforts of the collective people over the work of the individual.

But Obama opponents, in their eagerness to exploit that quote, are forgetting about the ways in which conservatives like to call attention to the dependency of the individual upon the collective.

Another old quote I thought of is "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" (which was originally written by Sir Isaac Newton).

There is a core idea here that is shared by conservatives and liberals (and anybody else who isn't delusional).
Only a comically arrogant person, speaking about himself, has no one else to acknowledge. I heard from someone who had a job of reading a ton of never-to-be-published manuscripts that it was very common for amateurish authors to write on the dedication page: To Myself. (Or perhaps even: To Myself, I couldn't have done it without me.) I remember when The Ramones got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dee Dee Ramone said: "I'd like to congratulate myself, and thank myself, and give myself a big pat on the back."

Dee Dee was being funny. In most sincere speeches, a person getting recognition for accomplishments is likely to say something like: I couldn't have done this on my own. I owe my success to my parents, my wife, to this community, to my church, and to the grace of God.

But that would be the business owner himself speaking, being modest and gracious and reaching out to make connections to those he acknowledges. He's built his business, and now he's building something else: community and his own reputation.  He's choosing to elevate the collective over the individual out of his own free will as an individual. And he acknowledges the parts of the collective that he believes — in his free mind — have truly helped him.

Of course, it's quite another matter for the President of the United States to be speaking about the businessman, purporting to lecture him about his dependency on the work of others, especially when that lecture is directed at an audience of people who are (presumably) not so successful, whose political support the President is cultivating with intimations of wealth redistribution.

"Tonette taped American #Idol. We are watching it now. I like the 80s music!"

A tweet from Gov. Walker. I'm reading his Twitter thread, looking for some links to material explaining/justifying all that legislation he just signed. In particular, I'd like to know more about the repeal of the 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which I referred to a couple posts ago.

In the comments there, I was asked to analyze the new law, and I looked around a bit and only found criticism of the change. HuffPo is writing about it. Walker's recall challengers — Kathleen Falk and Tom Barrett — are lambasting him predictably. Eventually, I found something, but not before I got sucked into Walker's fascinatingly banal Twitter feed (which I once compared to "Jim's Journal").

Also in the recent Walker Twitter feed:

Up early for a haircut then out enjoying the beautiful sunshine! What a beautiful day the Lord hath made....

Sadly this is not a good Fri for the #Brewers....

Spent am signing bills in Milwaukee office then off for Good Friday and later for #Brewers Opening Day @ #MillerPark....

I drink several bottles of #cranberry juice each day. Glad our output is up 11% according to USDA...

This is charming... unless you hate the guy, as many do. In which case, I assume you're jeering or beating your head against the wall. He needs to explain these new laws persuasively. His opponents get so far out in front of him. He reminds me of George W. Bush, who seemed to believe that decent people would give him credit for doing the things he believed were right. Meanwhile, his antagonists controlled the narrative.

Hardline clerics in Iran criticize Ahmadinejad for promoting "Islamic and beautiful" clothes for women.

The government's fashion show did not deviate from the requirement that women cover their hair and bodies in public. The dispute is more about things like leaving coats unbuttoned and wearing boots.

Followed by television cameras, a team of judges — mostly men — circled the halls, grading the coats on their functionality, design and “Islamic-ness.”...

According to the linked WaPo article, Ahmadinejad is posing as "a champion of civil rights" to win votes for his supporters in the March parliamentary elections.

[W]ith young adults making up the majority of the population — nearly 70 percent of Iran’s more than 72 million people are younger than 35 — religious conservatives have been waging an uphill battle to prevent young urban women from dressing the way they want, even within the framework of the laws that mandate coats and scarves....

On any given day, women in the streets of Tehran can be seen wearing combinations of wide-open coats, heavy makeup and towering platinum blond hairdos held in place by large hair clips and minimally covered by brightly colored scarves. Technically, they are not violating the dress code, but they can still be arrested.

Unfortunately there are no photos of Tehran street fashion at the link, only of the government's more moderate fashion show. Maybe WaPo doesn't want to get these young people in trouble. You can Google "street fashion Tehran" or something like that to try to get to some pictures.

It's fascinating the extremes that one resorts to when stuck with some specific rules. Where the rules give some room individual expression, you go all out. So, of course, heavy makeup and hair teased high for under-scarf impact. Find a picture that shows one of these young people and show it to someone who doesn't know what restrictions that person is dealing with. See what they say, then tell them what they are looking at. Watch them go from derision to respect in an instant. As I say, it's fascinating.

My links on "heavy makeup" go to the website of a photographer who writes: "I now live in iran which has become way more exciting to me than New York [because] of all the diverse art and the energy of its youth."

Now, I feel like I'm almost unwittingly making an argument in favor of limitations! But no, I'm for freedom. In an environment of American freedom, you'll have a hard time coming up with something truly original and expressive. Heavy makeup and teased hair... it's not daring and transgressive. What is? Perhaps, ironically, modesty... or modesty with irony. I'll let you know when I find pictures on the internet of that. Googling things like "modest dress in america" only takes me into the realm of religion. Which is ironic, but not the kind of irony I'm looking for.

ADDED: From Hijab style — I love this one. And then there's this.

AND: Those 2 links ended up taking you to the same place. This is the one I meant to say I loved. And this is the other one I meant to point out.

A new student organization based on modesty, chastity, marriage and charity.

The Anscombe Society.

ADDED: The Anscombe Society is new at the University of Texas, but it's been around a while, and, in fact, I've blogged about it before — here.

"You painters do harm, and if you knew the resulting scandal you wouldn’t paint figures such as these, filling our churches with human vanity."

"Do you really think the Virgin Mary went around dressed as you depict her? I assure you she dressed like a poor girl, simply and modestly, and was so well-covered that all you could see were her eyes....”

IN THE COMMENTS: Sir Archy, our 250+ years-dead ghost, makes an appearance.