Quote of the day

From the Public Radio program, Marketplace, on Sylvio’s Berlusconi’s recent facebook announcement:

Scott Galloway’s a social media expert at NYU. He says Berlusconi is famously obsessed with youth.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Facebook has become the corporate equivalent of skinny jeans [emphasis mine] – anybody who uses Facebook thinks they look younger, hipper and more relevant.

Galloway says there is a time and place to be hip — and this ain’t it.

Damn.  And I thought I so young and hip. Does this mean I shouldn’t wear skinny jeans, either?

Photo of the day

From a pretty awesome compilation “30 Ways the World Used to be Cooler

7. Whiskey vending machines existed

“:

 

NC Gay marriage update

PPP has polled on gay marriage again.  There’s not a lot of movement:

The proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is passing by a 59/35 margin this month, representing a little bit of progress for those hoping to defeat it from last month when it was ahead by a 61/34 spread. That movement’s due to Democrats going from narrowly supporting the amendment (49/44) to narrowly opposing it 42/48.

This part, though, is what I find really interesting:

Particularly interesting on this month’s poll is that 60% of North Carolinians say they support some form of legal recognition for gay couples- the highest we’ve ever seen that number. 26% are for full marriage rights with another 34% preferring civil unions.  Only 38% say they’re completely opposed to any legal recognition. The problem is that 40% of those favoring some form of legal recognition are still planning to vote for the amendment- even though it would bar all legal recognition and not just gay marriage.  Getting pro-civil union voters to oppose the marriage amendment will be the key for those hoping to defeat it- there’s a lot of education to be done.

I’m going to be really curious to see just how much opponents of the amendment embrace this approach.  It would obviously seem to be the best (and probably, only) hope.  That said, from what I’ve seen, the strongest supporters of gay marriage– those who will presumably drive the anti-amendment debate– don’t really like to make the civil union argument (2nd class marriage, etc.).   I guess we’ll see this spring.  On a quasi-related note, I’ve nailed down a great speaker to come to NCSU to talk about gay marriage in March.

Freeze your Levi’s

Thanks to my recent weight loss, I’m wearing a nice pair of Levi’s 550′s relaxed fit in size 32×34.  In fact, one of the impetuses for my diet (as mentioned) was fear of going over the symbolic point of having my waist larger than my inseam.  Now I’m back down to 2 inches and 20 pounds to spare.  I will say that it is really hard to find relaxed or loose fit jeans in a size where the waist is 2 inches smaller than the inseam.  I get the feeling that most men looking to buy jeans that are “relaxed” or “loose” have significantly more girth than I do.  Thanks to a special order at JC Penney, I’ve now got two pair of 32×34.  And I shall not wear them out any time soon, because instead of washing them (which, as we all know, is hard on clothes), I can just freeze them.

That’s right.  Levi’s (the only brand of jeans I’ve worn since middle school) is really pushing less water usage both in the manufacturing and the usage of their jeans.  Nice article about it in the Times last week:

The company wants to reduce that number any way it can, and not just to project environmental responsibility. It fears that water shortages caused by climate changemay jeopardize the company’s very existence in the coming decades by making cotton too expensive or scarce.

So to protect its bottom line, Levi Strauss has helped underwrite and champion a nonprofit program that teaches farmers in India, Pakistan, Brazil and West and Central Africa the latest irrigation and rainwater-capture techniques.  It has introduced a brand featuring stone-washed denim smoothed with rocks but no water. It is sewing tags into all of its jeans urging customers to wash less and use only cold water.

To customers seeking further advice, Levi Strauss suggests washing jeans rarely, if at all — the theory being that putting them in the freezer will kill germs that cause them to smell.  [emphasis mine].

I’ve never been one for washing my jeans all that much– now I can just claim it is out of eco-friendliness, instead of laziness (and, not wanting to wear them out).  Hadn’t thought of freezing them before.   I don’t think I’ll go as long as this guy, though:

There was more awareness on online jeans forums.  Edmund X White, a Brooklyn photographer, even chronicled his efforts to avoid washing his jeans. Two months into his experiment, on his honeymoon in Jamaica, he wrote, he dived into the ocean with a pair on. Afterward, Mr. White boasted, 11 months passed without a wash.

“As long as you don’t get dirt on them, don’t do a lot of strenuous activity in them and — sorry if this is a bit vulgar — be sure to always wear underwear, you can really go a very long time between washing,” he wrote.

Mostly, though, kids have a way of getting your jeans dirty in a way that freezing does nothing about.  Something tells me a good freeze won’t get rid of the smell of baby spit-up.

How to ruin your credibility in one easy step

I have no idea whether Herman Cain’s latest accuser is telling the truth or not.  I’m inclined to think she probably is, but absent a larger pattern (which there does seem to be), I’m not sure how much stock to put in it.  That said, it seems to me that if you really want the larger world to believe your accusations, you do not hire Gloria Allred as your lawyer! Now, if your goal is simply publicity and media attention, Allred is clearly the right choice.  True or not, and if the allegations are true, Bialek certainly has my sympathy, but I do have to question her judgement in choosing Allred as it clearly can do nothing but harm her credibility.