Maybe not.

I know we expect too much of our ‘heroes’, but really…win a bronze medal and simulate sex in public?  No.

Scotty Logo’s street behavior after his Bronze Medal winning half-pipe run was an embarrassment to him, the stuffed shirts at the IOC, and the the American public, to say nothing of the girl, who’s gonna’ have a hard time explaining that picture to the grandchildren in 20 years.

Joe Francis made millions with GGW videos, but BGW – I don’t think we’re ready.  Ok, so it’s a double standard.  But the trampelettes on Joe’s videos aren’t Olympic Medalists.  They’re drunken college coeds with too much money, too much time, and not enough inhibitions.

I don’t mean to be all moral and pontificatious, but we all know what was implied. 

Half-pipe and most snowboarding events are little more than skate ratting on snow.  I love the sport, I’m not impressed with the mentallity and the attitude.

It’s bad enough that Shaun White and his coach can’t say two sentences without the “F” word and can’t remember that every word they say is being recoreded, and it’s bad enough that Shaun White and Scotty acted like fools during the National Anthem while on the medal platform – (just a reminder to anyone else winning a medal for the US:   hand over heart, learn the words, I know it’s hard to sing and musically bad, but it’s OUR national anthem, SING IT!), but really, Scotty and the girl…is that necessary?

And  Scotty, millions of kids are watching you, and you do have a responsibility to behave decently in public.  You may want to Text Tiger for details.

So behave.

Oh, yes, good job on the ABS, BTW!

…no, this isn’t about Tiger Woods.

Today would be the 278 birthday of George Washington.  So, for starters, he’d dead in case you weren’t sure.

We see him everytime we pull out a dollar bill, but do we think of him and what he accomplished?

Probably not.

And back “in the day”, we got the day off from school.  Now, it’s just “Presidents’ Day”.

There are many stories about Old GW; some true, some questionable.

The “cannot tell a lie” thing is probably, well, a lie.

I doubt that Little George made it all the way through childhood without telling a lie, I’m sure I didn’t.  And I doubt that he was always completely truthful in social situations.  I mean really, are any of us gonna’ say “Yes.” to the ‘does this dress make my hips look big?’  question. And at that time, they all looked big.  The dresses were ginormous to make the waists look smaller.  Ah, Fashion!!

And I seriouldy doubt that “skipping a stone across the Potomac” bit is on the money as well.  Physics, physiology, and aero-dynamics make me doubt that one.

But, there are a few things for sure.

He had good manners.  He even had a book that he kept which told him things like: don’t drum your fingers on the table at dinner and stuff like that.

He was probably sterile.  There are no known descendants of GW.  His children were his wife’s children from her marriage to Old Man Custis.  Custis was loaded, and left Martha a truck load of cash, slaves, farms, and land.  She was the most sought after widow in the Colonies, and the wealthiest.  And George was the one who won her.   

They were married at “The White House Plantation” near Fredricksburg, VA.  It’s not there anymore, the maurading Yankee army during the War of Northern Invasion burned it to the ground, even though her Great Grand daughter, Mary Custis Lee (Mrs. Robert E. Lee) pinned a note to the door begging the army to spare the house for it’s history.  Apparently, they couldn’t read.

But, back to George.  He was an amazing young man.  His father died when he was a child, and his half-brother, Lawrence helped to teach and rear him.  Lawrence also left George his “farm” Mount Vernon as well.  Washington was a surveyor at the age of 17.  He surveyed much of Virginia’s western lands, all of Lord Fairfax’s lands, and was appointed as the official surveyor of Culpepper County when it was created.  So, he was a businessman.

He was a “gentleman farmer” as well.  His Plantation, Mount Vernon was a successful working business that provided nearly everything needed to survive.  Of course, it was worked and partially managed by slaves, with Martha running the show while George was out surveying land, fighting wars, and claiming more land for Great Britain.

He fought brilliantly in the “French and Indian Wars”, and was a Lt. Col at the age of 22.  In 1758, at the age of 26, he was a Brigidier General.  Not bad for a partially educated half orphaned boy from the Tidewater.   After the F and I War was over, he took a break from military service for 16 years and ran Mount Vernon and got into Politics.

He married Martha in 1759, helped to rear her two children from her first marriage, but they had no children of their own.  Like I said, he was probably sterile.  He had smallpox, and that may have done it.  Who knows?

When the colonies decided to break free from Mother England, George went all out.  He was appointed the Commander of the Army, won battles, lost battle, survived Valley Forge, and led the troops to victory at Yorktown, with the aid of the French, when they could still fight and all.

He thought his work was over, but not so.

He was unanimously elected as the first President of the newly created United States of America and went to running the country.

He and Martha moved to New York City, which is where the seat of government was before the City of Washington was built.  He never lived in the city of his name, and never lived in the White House.

His presidency set the standard for all to follow.  Two terms, then retire.  Govern with the Constitution, stand for what it means when tested, as in the case of the Whiskey Rebellion, and listen to the people who put him in power. 

Is anyone in Washington reading this?  Gosh, I hope so.

When he retired from the Presidency, he gave some advice in his farewell speech. He warned against ‘permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world’, saying the United States must concentrate primarily on American interests. 

What a great idea!

He stressed the value of the Constitution and the rule of law, the evils of political parties, (holy crap, what a visionary!!) and the proper virtues of a republican people. He called morality “a necessary spring of popular government”. He said, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. 

Wow!

Then, he went home.  And he shut UP.  Entertained his friends, ran his farm, and died at the hands of misguided medical “professionals” who were doing the voodoo that was medicine at the time.

Henry Lighthorse Harry Lee said in his eulogy of Washington that “He was first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

He may never have fathered any children, but he was truly, “The Father of His Country”.

Gloria Vanderbilt.

The younger generation may know her only as Anderson Cooper’s mother, but Gloria Vanderbilt had quite a life of her own prior to her son’s celebrity.

She was a media star from an early age.

Born to Reggie and Gloria (yes, she named her after herself!), Little Gloria was passed from family member to family member via the courts after a nasty, nasty, nasty custody battle.

Her Aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney ended UP with her most of the time, since Mama was a tad nuts!  And frankly, Aunt Gertrude wasn’t much better.

Big Gloria was a socialite, only concerned with her own celebrity and hedonistic life.  Little Gloria was subjected to many scenes which a child should never see.  So, Aunt Gertrude ended up with her.

A member of one of the wealtihest families in America, one of her ancestors built the Biltmore House in North Carolina, she was a child of privilege and had the best of everything, except family life.  Shuttled between and educated in top notch private schools, Little Gloria took off for Hollywood at 17 where she promptly married Pasquale DeCicco.  It lasted less than four years.  It was the first of four marriages.  Her last husband was Wyatt Emory Cooper, the father of Anderson and his brother, Carter who committed suicide by jumping from their 14th floor New York City apartment.

Her career coverd the theater, movies, scents, and fashion.  She She is the Queen of Designer Jeans, and is credited with starting the designer jean onslaught of the late 1970s and 1980s.  She even did some of her own ads.

She became known for her artwork, giving one-woman shows of oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels. This artwork was adapted and licensed, starting about 1968, by Hallmark and by Bloomcraft, and Vanderbilt began designing specifically for linens, china, glassware and flatware.

During the 1970s, she ventured into the fashion business, first with Glentex, licensing her name for a line of scarves. In 1976, Indian designer Mohan Murjani’s Murjani Corporation, proposed launching a line of designer jeans carrying Vanderbilt’s name embossed in script on the back pocket, as well as her swan logo. Vanderbilt appeared in a series of television ads promoting her products, and the line flourished. After Murjani, she began her own company, “GV Ltd.”, on 7th Avenue in New York.

She also wrote a very trashy novel, Obsession: An Erotic Tale, which is not fit to read and should never have seen the first drop of ink.  It involves sado-maschoism with all the trimmings and includes kitchen herbs and vegetables.  There’s a Unicorn as well, but he remains in the background, and is never brought into the plot.  Whew! 

Today, Vanderbilt is not involved in the fashion or home furnishings business and is in no way affiliated with the clothing and accessories company that uses her name.

She’s 85 today. 

Maybe she is Happy At Last!

…at your Tatas, don’t take the girls out for a walk.

There are women out there who use their breasts as weapons.

Ok, c’mon girls,  admit it,  you know what you’re doin’!

Driving men crazy.

Flaunting them and then chastising us for doing what comes naturally!!

All men look at breasts.  Old men, young men, straight men, gay men, for Pete’s sake, BLIND men look at breasts!

And for all different reasons.

Most men, as we know are pigs.  They like boobs, tatas, hooters, etc.  They just like ‘em, and there ain’t no gettin’ away from it.  Afterall, an INTERNATIONAL restaurant chain is called “Hooters”, and no-one eats there for the food.  (My Mother thought it was Hoosiers because they were in Indiana until she and Daddy stopped for lunch!!  So sorry I missed that one.)

Some men want them, and some (Simon, please hit the gym) have them!

For some, it’s a “Mommy Issue”.  Not breast-fed long enough, or at all.  Some just “admire the beauty of a woman’s physique”, and some are just  – well, lecherous old fools.

As to the blind guys, Braille, I suppose!

Now, UP is not a Burka Fan, but help us out here.  Hide the girls.  Some researchers say men think of sex every seven seconds.  Some would say that’s a low number.  We really don’t need any more temptation.

And a few of you, like I said, you know what you’re doin’.  And it’s just plain cruel.  So stop it.

So please don’t wear a skin-tight Midge Pinciatti sweater and then get all Betty Freidan on me!

BTW,  this doesn’t help either.

So, on this Fashion  Friday, give us a break.  We can’t help it.  If you don’t want us lookin’, don’t put ‘em on display