"The nipple mania is just a runway styling conceit."

"Our only issue (and it's really not that big an issue) is when a trend like this gets so saturated so quickly."

Saturated? Here, use these.

"Obama wants to take our penises."

One of many out of context quotes — 2 of which are from me — in this montage of sexy highlights from the last 5 years of Bloggingheads:



ADDED: Here's the context of my reference to "masturbating boys":

Fake outrage over Alan Simpson's twist on the phrase "sucking on the government tit."

It's a standard expression. Simpson came up with a brilliantly memorable variation to describe social security: "a milk cow with 310 million tits." Then he let himself get pushed back by people who spewed faux outrage to keep anyone from using the powerful phrase ever again.

And by the way, shouldn't the word Simpson used be spelled "teat"? The "tit" pronunciation of "teat" is seared in my memory, because once, years ago, I read the phrase "colder than a witch's teat" and pronounced it "teet." Apparently, at least in some sectors — possibly including Wyoming — you sound like a fool if you say "teet." It's "tit." "Tit" for "teat."

Discuss!

IN THE COMMENTS: Charlie Martin said:

You're correct about the pronunciation. /tit/ is the common pronunciation for most country folks and is listed as the preferred pronunciation in some dictionaries, and is the technical term in dairy farming for the place where the milk comes outta.

/teet/ is the preferred pronunciation for the sort of little old ladies that say the table has "limbs" and city folks who think what the milk comes outta is a cardboard box.

Anne B. said:

I'm pretty sure Mencken used it first, or at least used it earlier. "A milch cow with 125,000,000 teats" was his description of the second FDR administration.

Still fits, of course.

She's right!

Why did Simpson retreat? He could have made his critics look dumb and elitist by pointing out a literary reference they didn't get and a country-style pronunciation they weren't in touch with.

CORRECTIONS: I made 2 little corrections: adding a "d" to "pronounce" is paragraph 2 and deleting the stray word "embarrassed" after "look" in the last paragraph. I don't always note superficial tidying up like that, but I'm doing it this time because I just have the feeling that Althouse-haters are quoting the "embarrassed" mistake and saying I should be "embarrassed." I'm not trying to hide that I'm capable of typing and editing mishaps, only trying to make things as readable as possible.

ADDED: Simpson's comment was made by email, so he chose the spelling "tit."

Sarah Palin had breast implants, she's divorcing Todd, she bought a place in the Hamptons, and Trig is not her own child.

Things that are equally untrue, per Sarah Palin.

"Nooo, I have not had implants," said Palin. "I think a report like that is about as real and truthful that Todd and I are divorcing or that I bought a place in the Hamptons or that Trig is not my own child.

"And we still put up with that garbage, too."

Speculation was rampant after photos of the former Alaskan governor at the Belmont Stakes showed her looking a little more buxom than usual.

"'Boobgate' is all over the Internet, because there are a lot of bored, idle bloggers and reporters with nothing else to talk about," Palin said in the interview.

Come on, Sarah, don't put down bloggers generally. And don't put down talking about breasts generally. I reject the idea that breasts belong at the bottom of the list of things to talk about. Breasts are important. They mean something. Let's not minimize their significance in our culture. They are the subject of many journals, books, and movies. I have taken my knocks for talking about the meaning of breasts in politics (though, of course, the knockers were my political opponents, motivated to squelch what was a criticism of Bill Clinton, whose attraction to Lewinskis was well-known ). So I will talk about breasts, and it's not at all for lack of better raw material. Breasts are big! Let's talk about them!

Now, speaking of breasts and bloggers, what amuses me — aside from the endless obsession with Sarah Palin, specifically, and with the physical aspects of female politicians, generally — is the low level of knowledge of breasts on the part of the Boobgate bloggers. They didn't seem to realize that different bras and different kinds of shirts and jackets affect the way breasts look. A woman can draw attention to her breasts or downplay them. In professional settings and for political appearances, women tend to wear jackets. Even when jackets are fitted through the midsection, they flatten and disguise the curve of the chest. That's the point: to blunt the point.

By contrast, the contour of the breasts is accentuated by a knit top — especially if it's thin, clingy, and light-colored, like the one Sarah Palin wore to the Belmont Stakes. And when a woman wears such a shirt, it's particularly easy to perceive the existence of nipples. Everyone knows they are in there, but reasonably modest women — like Sarah Palin — try to avoid the nipple protrusion of the sort you can see in this photo of that woman who's suing her ex-employer for objecting to the way she dressed for work. The way to do that — and I laugh at people who write about breasts but don't know this! — is to wear a bra with a reasonably thick layer of foam padding.

I feel sorry for the bloggers who know so little about breasts that when they saw that Palin photograph, their first explanation was surgery. Before you think scalpel, think Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is most likely. Palin was wearing a t-shirt and a t-shirt bra. Now, go, get a life, and some real experience of your own in this fleshly world, you blogger losers.

ADDED: Thanks to Crack Emcee (in the comments) for pointing out my typo:  "a reasonably think layer of foam padding." Corrected.

"Then Lee's beautiful voice attempts not to be incredibly dorky singing the incredibly dorky song about Chris O'Donnell's plastic nipples."

"This song, have you heard it?... It is one of the most mystifying songs in the history of words."

Yeah, the original "Kiss From a Rose" is from "Batman Forever." I'd forgotten that. Last night, on "American Idol," the theme was songs from movies, and with one exception — "Mrs. Robinson" — I had no feeling for what the movie supposedly was. I'd completely lost track of "Kiss From a Rose" being Batman-related. Anyway, Lee Dewyze did that song last night and it seemed pretty bad to me.

Bob Wright's fascination with Farrah Fawcett's nipple.

[Link, replacing embedded video.]

"Until now celebrities didn't expose their nipples so they were no 'nipple role models.'"

But now that we have nipple role models, everyone suddenly wants nipple surgery.

"Some are as big as cupcakes, others are the size of a penny. They... come in a range of colors as varied as drugstore lipsticks."

From a review of "Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds," that's a description of nipples, photographed in the years 1953 through 2007. Evolution is slow, but when you can choose your models, nipples adapt quickly to whimsical tastes. Other parts are easily reconfigured:

Pubic hair diminishes as the nineties draw to a close. Neat triangles turn to Band Aid-sized strips, which become little Hitler mustaches or nothing at all. The modern crotch is a bit prim, a bit less forthright. You'd think that depilation would lend a youthful look to the genitals but it has the opposite effect instead, making the girls look older and slightly jaded. (Intimate grooming signals forethought.) The youthful quality of the early centerfolds disappears.

The review is written by a woman — couldn't you tell? — Molly Young.

Tattoos, tattoos, tattoos.

Yesterday, I started a discussion about tattoos. Chip Ahoy said, for himself, he'd always wanted "a snake crawling out of my arse crack," that is a tattoo of same, not an actual snake. For me?

Something tattooed on a spot on the body that moves like an elbow or a knee so that a frog appears to croak or a woman's breasts bulge, or eyes widen.

A tattoo that appears to be a rip in the skin revealing underneath to be steam-punk mechanism of gears and levers rather than muscles...

Like a sly reference to the "In His Image" episode of "The Twilight Zone"? (Video.)

...or perhaps a sack of worms.

A tattoo to look like an alien being born by tearing its way out.

A realistic eyeball on the back of your neck. [When I was a youngster I asked my mum how she knew what I was up to and she answered, "Because I have eyes in the back of my head." Being a literalist, I took her on her word, and for years tried to examine her head more closely to confirm it. She was always such the bullshitter.]

Conversely, a realistic eyeball on your forehead that blinks when you furrow your brow.

Weighing scales that rise and fall depending on your arm movement would be too trite. Reject those.

Something in Latin that makes a person asking appear foolish for having asked isn't worth the joke. Reject that too.

Also reject some long passage or inspiring message that must be closely examined in order to be read. They're pretentious and the reader is ultimately let down for having troubled.

A dung beetle placed on your gluteus maximus appearing to be rolling a piece of dung away from your anus.

A radiation hazard symbol tattooed on your penis. Oh wait.

An archer fish depicted spitting placed near your urethra.

A Boxer dog tattooed on each breast so that when they sag they magically become Shar-peis.

For myself, I've always been partial to Egyptian designs, at least that's what I doodled all through college, and that's the art I sell, so the only tattoo acceptable for myself is a design of my own in the Egyptian style. It would be large, colorful, and dramatic. Probably a winged solar disc with something within the disc, possibly a uraeus.

There's an idea for you, a uraeus on your forehead.

Back to the snake!

Or a snake wrapped around your arm.

Or a gold bracelet with lapis lazuli. But then that begs the question, why not a real bracelet? I always thought if you were inclined to tattoo barbed wire around your arm, then real barbed wire would be much more dramatic.

A crown of thorns across your forehead.

Bugs crawling from out between your breasts.

An "R" and a "L" tattooed on the back of each hand appropriately. Or the word "Down" tattooed on top of each foot and possibly "Up" tattooed on your forehead.

"I'm with Stupid --->" tattooed immediately beneath your clavicle.

A diver hands clasped together aiming downward tattooed on you one side of your belly appearing to be preparing to dive into your pants.

An alligator snapping out of your crotch.

An elf, a fairy, a gnome, a leprechaun, or otherwise, some tiny being tattooed making it's way out of your pubic hair.

Ropes tattooed around your arms and legs so when you crossed your arms or legs it would appear as if you were suggesting bondage.

Robot parts tattooed on working segments of your body.

Open eyes tattooed on your eyelids.

A mustache tattooed with glow-in-dark ink, just for fun.

Jagged backhoe bucket teeth tattooed around your mouth.

Mucus tattooed draining from your nose.

Ants tattooed crawling in a line across your shoulder or torso carrying off some treasure like a leaf segment or other bug parts.

Bees laden with pollen tattooed to appear crawling out of your ears as if they [were] flowers.

A raptor on one knee and a bunny, chipmunk, fox, lamb or some other prey animal on the other knee, so that when your legs are crossed one appears to engulf the other.

Wow! Chip was a blog thread unto himself. Such overwhelming thread domination could have silenced everyone else. But we still had Christy:

A stylized slightly tilted fibonacci spiral that starts directly above the center of your left eyebrow, arches up and drops to end in a tight swirl beside your left eye. In blue, a strong blue. With wings coming off the outside edge of the curve that reach up and out to your hairline. A little black can be used to give definition to the wings.

Then, Dody Jane said:

I am going to answer seriously... I was in a writing seminar once called "Writing Family Stories". There was a man in the class of East Indian heritage - he was first generation American. 

He told a lovely story about being taken to India as a child. It was a pilgrimage of sorts. His mother had the back of his neck tatooed with a round black dot. She was not going on the trip. He was going with his father. She told him she had the tattoo placed at the nape of his neck so that God would be able to easily identify him when he looked down from heaven and protect him from harm while on his journey. The way he told the story was so incredibly moving. 

I think this is an ideal tattoo. I told my daughter it is the only tattoo I would sanction. Otherwise, I told her I am leaving everything to charity. She remains untattooed...

See, I hear that story, and I imagine God thinking: There's that kid with the dot again, whose mother thinks he's so special, like I'll be all screw the other kids, this one has a dot.

Freeman Hunt said:

I told my husband about this thread, and he had a recent tattoo anecdote I have to share:

Last week my husband was down in our basement with his friends for their weekly movie get together. One of the men took off a fleece pullover and inadvertently pulled up the t-shirt underneath, revealing what appeared to be a large flower on one pectoral muscle with his nipple forming the center.

"Wait a minute--what was that?! Is that a flower around your nipple? Lift up your shirt again."

"No. That's the only time you'll ever see it."

"Why do you have a giant flower around your nipple?"

"It's not a flower. I'm going to get it fixed. It was going to be something else, but it hurt too much, so they couldn't finish it."

"Well, right now it looks like a flower."

"I know."

Ha.

Ha, indeed.

Law and breasts...

You'd think I would have blogged this story, but no, I passed it up, yet here's Glenn Reynolds, blogging and displaying a whole Gloria-Allred-with-the-pliers photograph:



I have just 2 things to say:

1. Airport security people don't force you to do anything — e.g., rip out your pus-stuck nipple tacks with pliers — they give you a choice. You can go forward onto your flight by accepting the search or turn around and leave.

2. When I see Gloria Allred, the direction I feel like turning is to "South Park." What's that episode where they mock Gloria Allred? Well, their website is so fabulous that you can not only easily search using your key word, but you can watch the whole episode. It's "Cripple Fight."

"You've made me feel very uncomfortable, because I now feel that you're all broken birds."

Said Simon Cowell to Carly Smithson after she explained why the lyrics of the Beatles' "Blackbird" — "take these broken wings and learn to fly" — seemed to her to apply to her efforts to make it in the music industry. Well, we all have our interpretations. Hers may be dumb, but would that Charles Manson had viewed it as such blandly reassuring fare. But the reason I'm posting about this segment of tonight's "American Idol" is that when Simon was saying that he was pinching and twisting his own nipples and making a crazy orgasm face. Here's the best TiVo frame of Simon's moment with his body:



Look, you can see that Paula Abdul is all what the hell are you doing!



Sorry for the graininess... and horrifying grossness.

Some questions about the right image for a law professor.

I'm making an ongoing project out of collecting questions about what people think is the right image for a law professor. It's not that I'm aspiring to fit this image or trying to convince anyone else to, but mostly that I'm interested in how people think a law professor — and maybe, more generally, a teacher — ought to dress and act and so forth. This project got started yesterday when I asked a colleague whether a law professor can wear sandals in class. No, she said instantly and emphatically. Not even really nice sandals — expensive, beautiful sandals with low heels? No. Even if you have a excellent pedicure? No.

Why? Is there something about seeing my toes that makes it hard to get your mind around minimum scrutiny? Is there something about the absence of hosiery that makes you worry that I've skimped on preparation? I understand the value of professional appearance and demeanor. The issue here is not whether you should do all you can to tap that value. I'm interested in the specific elements of professional appearance and demeanor in the law school classroom. You're teaching people to be lawyers, but you aren't in a courtroom or law office. Should you nevertheless model the look and tone appropriate to the setting your students will enter? Or is a classroom a much more casual place, where you can — and should — not only adopt a different look, you can speak and act in a different way.

You understand my project. Let me begin my list of questionable things for a law professor:

1. Sandals. Consider the variations. Would you say yes to dressy sandals on a woman but no to Birkenstocks on a man and flip-flops on anyone? Does your rule vary depending on whether there's a fresh pedicure? Does hairiness or gnarliness change the rule?

2. Other footwear. Can a lawprof wear sneakers? Fluffy slippers? (I once saw a pro se plaintiff in federal court try a case wearing fluffy slippers!) Mary janes? Mary janes with oddly colored socks (fuschia, chartreuse, etc.)? Are bare feet ever allowed — perhaps in a small class in the summer session? Don't we all know of at least one lawprof who taught barefoot? Actually, I often walk around the hallways around my office in bare feet or purple socks, but I think I've always kept shoes on in class.

3. Exposed limbs. If we're not wearing jackets, should we at least have long sleeves? Are women but not men allowed to reveal their arms? As for legs, surely it is unacceptable to wear shorts. On the other hand — hand? — skirts for women are obviously dressier than pants. There can't be some emerging rule — I'm looking at Hillary Clinton — that a woman must wear pants to look professional, but there might be some ideas about whether the legs exposed by a skirt can be bare and how short a skirt can be. And what about a really long skirt? I've often found it comfortable and amusing to wear a below-calf length skirt.

4. Bralessness. I've always assumed the rule here is that you can go braless in class if no one can tell. There are many other breast-related questions, but perhaps you would think it unprofessional of me to ask them. These questions would have to do with the tightness and low cut of upper body clothing and the visibility of nipples and so forth. (Seriously, if you want students to know that you're really excited about the rule against perpetuities or some such thing, you want them to get the message from your face, your tone of voice, and your flailing hands.)

5. Slang. I've always assumed it's not just acceptable but highly desirable to speak in a casual, conversational way in class, but where is the line? Let's say you are examining a foolish Supreme Court decision in a conlaw class. Which if any of these phrases should be avoided: a. What the heck did Rehnquist mean by that? b. What the hell is that that supposed to mean? c. Did the Court screw up? d. What the fuck?

6. Getting into strange positions. I think a good professor ought to move around a bit. It's especially good to get away from the lectern and write on the blackboard — to relieve tedium if nothing else. But should the lawprof remain on the podium — in the teacher's space — or is it okay or even good to walk out into the classroom and maybe lean against the wall over there? Is it wrong — or perhaps good — to sit on the table or ledge in the front of the classroom? Some lawprofs will sit in a strange way. I remember my Conflict of Laws professor sitting sideways on a narrow ledge with his hands coyly clasped around his one upraised knee. I remember this 30 years later! Yet I myself have often sat on the desk in a cross-legged position (with both feet up).

7. Stalling. Do the first few seconds of class not count, so that you can toss off a few lines about something that was just on TV or in the news? Examples: a. How could Archuleta think he could do a Stevie Wonder imitation on Beatles night? b. Exactly why is prostitution illegal? But we can't talk about prostitution. We're here to talk about the independent and adequate state ground doctrine. I tend to think motive matters. If you're off-topic and casual to begin because you're trying to create a good mood and get everyone to settle in and start paying attention, it's good. But if you're stealing time from students to impose your political views, it's bad. But that part isn't about one's professional image, is it?

8. Digressing. Once class has started, when is digressing acceptable? I'd say the shorter the digression, the less justification it needs. There are funny, pointless things you can say that take two seconds, and there are anecdotes that consume whole minutes. And content matters. There are those tales of the days when you were a lawyer, which may seem professional but are really the most outrageous waste of time. And then there are the wordplay and little cultural references that leaven speech. I like a lot of that, but I realize it may be distracting or annoying. And then there are some students who are so earnest and diligent that they take everything seriously and could mistake your little joke as part of the doctrine. If you have a dry, deadpan, or subtle sense of humor, your students may simply perceive you as bizarre and unreliable.

I'll stop now, but you get the point. To be continued. I haven't mentioned blogging yet, but obviously, there are some big questions there.

"You would have to be a puritan out of the 16th Century with a magnifying glass in order to spot Eve’s nipples."

So says the ACLU lawyer for the artist Ed (Gonzo) Stross:

Stross is fighting a 30-day jail sentence for violating a city sign ordinance for exposing Eve’s breast and painting the word "Love" in his variation of Michelangelo’s "Creation of Man" on the outside wall of his art studio....

In 1997, Stross got permission from the city to paint the 1,100-square-foot mural on an outside wall of Gonzo Fine Arts Studio at Gratiot and Utica roads, but with conditions: no letters, no genitalia and regular maintenance of the artwork. The city contends that Eve’s bare breast was prohibited under the agreement.

So what do you think is the stronger argument: the First Amendment protects his free expression or he hasn't violated the condition? And what is the relevance of Michelangelo? Or the size of Eve's nipple?

Assuming the condition uses the word "genitalia," I think the strongest argument is that he hasn't violated the condition because breasts are not genitalia. Genitalia are the reproductive organs, and breasts don't contribute to reproduction. You could have your breasts completely removed surgically and still reproduce.

ADDED: He's obviously violated the "no letters" provision with the word "Love," so the only useful argument is that he has a free expression right to paint the giant mural in disregard of the conditions. Don't be distracted by Eve's nipples. I think he's got to lose this one, but what are 30 days in jail for an artist when you get publicity like this?

The Giant Inflatable Rat.

So there was this Giant Inflatable Rat....



... at the corner of Clinton and Remsen Montague Streets. So I grab a quick (and distorted) picture with my iPhone.

I arrive at my office and Google "giant inflatable rat" for all the Giant Inflatable Rat information I need (like what's that rash on his belly?). I see there's a Flickr group: "The Rat Patrol." I join the group, I upload the picture, etc. etc.

I hope you appreciate my efforts keeping you abreast of what going on here in Brooklyn. Seems to be some labor dispute.

You've seen it around: a giant creature with menacing buckteeth, long claws, and red, beady eyes. It's a regular at union protests and strikes, wherever there's labor tension. If the Rat could speak, it would get right to the point: "So I moved your #@!% cheese. You wanna do something about it?"...

Twelve years ago, Mike O'Connor, owner of Big Sky Balloons & Searchlights in Plainfield, Illinois, created the first rat at the request of a union member in nearby Chicago. Said the union man of O'Connor's first sketch: "It's not mean enough." O'Connor added bigger fangs and a pink belly with "festering nipples." "I love it," the man said. So did other unions. Today, Big Sky sells between 100 and 200 rats a year--even though it is a nonunion shop itself....

Does the Rat work? "Usually, employers go bonkers when they see it across from their property," says Randy Mayhew, organizing director of Laborers International Union of North America, which employs about 20 rats. "It's an effective piece of street theater," says Peter Jones, executive director of the Labor Heritage Foundation.

Festering nipples, eh? That's what it takes to make management cringe. Festering nipples.

"Strings of silicone started coming out of her eyes and ears."

From the NYT report on FDA hearings about silicone breast implants:

Carolyn Wolfe, 74, of Manassas, Va., told the panel that after her silicone implants had ruptured, strings of silicone started coming out of her eyes and ears. Her nipples seeped silicone, she said, and she developed rheumatoid arthritis and a goiter.

Horrid, it's true, but can't people make their own decisions about the risks:

Michele Colombo, 35, of Lake Worth, Fla., said her silicone implants had helped her "to feel whole." Ms. Colombo said opponents of implants were "making a moral judgment, not a medical one."

UPDATE: And the panel rejects the broader use of silicone implants. Although I find it a little hard to see why cancer patients are treated differently from others who want implants -- none have a medical need, only a cosmetic one -- I found this persuasive:

In its own presentation, Inamed assumed that implants were like stereo equipment and were no more likely to break in their 10th year of use than in their first. With this assumption, it concluded that 14 percent of implants would have ruptured after 10 years.

The drug agency suggested that implants might be like cars or tires, which wear out with age. Under this theory, the agency found that as many as 95 percent of patients who got silicone breast implants for reconstructive surgery would experience a rupture by the end of 10 years. Still, it admitted that it had little idea whether this assumption was accurate.

"In fact, we really don't know," said Dr. Pablo Bonangelino of the agency.

ANOTHER UPDATE: One day later, the FDA [panel] approves a different company's silicone implants. That seems a bit strange, but Mentor had better evidence than Inamed. It's all about rupture rates, by the way, not any serious diseases of the sort you may remember reading about years ago.

"UW’s in-state dominance continues."

I just wanted to do a post about UW basketball so I could say that this picture, from the Badger Herald, seems to need the caption: let me get a really close look at that nipple.

Mammary government.

After the Janet Jackson nipple hoopla, it's nice to see the Brits having their own little media nipple problem. The Guardian reports:

For free-loving Eurocrats, an image of a breastfeeding baby seemed the perfect way to promote the joy of voting in the European elections.

But a glimpse of an exposed nipple in the soft-focus advertisement has proved too much for flustered British censors to bear: the image has been cut from the production before it could outrage cinemagoers across the UK.

The new EU states made no objection to the uncut version, a montage of images depicting people making choices, including an opening shot of a baby deciding which nipple to feed from.

Prudish British censors felt differently. While the British Board of Film Classification gave the short film a "U" certificate, the Cinema Advertising Association ordered that the nipple must go.

In an edited version approved for British audiences, the baby's hand at first obscures the nipple, while a second brief shot of the child's mouth closing around the nipple has been completely axed.

I just have two things to say about this (other than that's a jarring use of the word "axed.")

1. The Janet Jackson nipple exposure was in much better taste because it connected the viewer's sexual interest to actual adult sexuality, whereas the EU ad exploits the viewer's interest in sex by showing a breast in a context that isn't sexual at all.

2. Portraying the voter as a suckling infant and government as the mother's breast really says something about the European conception of government!

Clean your desk ... and reminisce about glue.

If you're thinking of cleaning your desk, maybe this guy will give you some inspiration. How did I find that website? I was drinking a Diet Pepsi, and just as I finished it called to mind an old flavor/smell? What was that mysterious call from the recesses of memory? It was ... it was ... mucilage! Remember those Lepage's Mucilage bottles, the ones with the red nipple-like tops? The were once everywhere, but now you never see them. Replaced by--what?--glue sticks? Computer graphics? I wanted a picture of the thing and found this desk-cleaning site, which had a picture here of a mucilage bottle, but a late-model, plastic version, not the classic one I was looking for. Ah, but here, here's what I wanted to find (thanks to a person who is way more interested in mucilage than I am):