Fashion Flackage

No, not flack jackets as fashion statement.  Flackage is Kevin Roderick's term for the practice of PR flack/flak.  Sometimes, all it takes for me to see something is to give a name to it.

Remember the infamous piece about first lady and partner in human rights atrocities Asma al-Assad in Vogue? (Link goes to a thorough article in the Atlantic about the back story.)  Click through to read about how the piece was 'placed' by PR operatives working for Assad.

This month, Harper's Bazaar has a splashy spread about Melania Trump, the immigrant wife of the nativist running for the US presidency.  Actually, I think that the Donald is quite a bit more than a nativist, but I need to step away from the keyboard now.

In other PR flackage news, Charlotte Rampling's PR flaks earned their pay trying to rescue their client from a disastrous interview and non-apology with a story in the NY Times about her style.  When you can't say anything nice about the person, talk about her clothes...

Let's talk about nice things. Did you see this Preen dress in the Guardian's London Fashion Week coverage?  I have nowhere to wear a silk chiffon dress, but I love it.

Four Candidates

I bought this slightly sheer deep Prussian blue and black rayon/lycra jersey to make a self-lined dress for myself. But, DD exclaimed that it was fantastic and claimed it for herself. I am an indulgent mother. (I got the ~5 yard piece at SAS Fabrics by the pound so I may be able to get dresses for both of us out of it if I use another fabric for the lining.)

DD and her team are heading to the California State Academic Decathlon Championships again.  The 2016 schedule is not up yet, but you can look at the 2015 competition schedule.  The on-line schedule does not mention the Saturday night dance for competitors.

Suppose you were making a dress for a 15-year-old to wear to the dance (and in her regular wardrobe.)  What do you think she'd like?  And would be age-appropriate?

If you go to the AcaDec site, you can learn about how AcaDec started in CA (actually, LA).  If you took the top 100 teams in the nation, a majority would be from CA--mostly SoCal.  So now, only 2 teams from each state get to go to the National Championships.  Rhode Island sent 2 of their 3 teams to nationals last year.  But, CA also sent 2 out of their hundreds of teams.

The season for most kids in CA ends on Saturday night.  They worked hard and want to let off steam with other nerds.  I want my kid to have a nice new outfit for that.

I have a heavy post coming up about the Oscars and fairness.  The situation infuriates me, but I'm still carefully thinking through what I want to say and how to support it.

In the mean time, please help me select a pattern for DD's dress.

1. McCalls 5974 (faux wrap)
2. Simplicity 1018 (might not be appropriate for such l/w knit)
3. Simplicity 1102 (cold shoulder, shorter length, raise neckline)
4. Simplicity 1653 (faux wrap)

BTW, did you catch the NPR story (might have ran on Weekend Edition or All Things Considered on Feb 6, 2016) about DD's all-girl AcaDec team? AcaDec is dominated by boys. But, this year, all 9 of her school's A-team members are girls. Actually, all 9 of the B-team are also girls. The teacher selected the 18 highest-scoring students and they all happened to be girls.

DD thought beforehand about what she should say for radio and gave a great sound-bite.

UPDATE: 1102 it is!  Cold shoulder, knee length, raised neckline.

She also said that the dance last year was gross and she is going to hang around the hotel with her friends instead.  Whew!  This relieves the deadline pressure.

America is...

Have you seen the gun photo tweeted by Jeb Bush along with "America"? WTF does that mean? I'm not even going to link to it because I find it so frighteningly awful.

Instead, I'll link to Brian Bilston's poem, America is a Gun.

My America wouldn't allow students to carry guns to class. See campuscarry.utexas.edu. And this elaboration of the policy that states:

Under the law, I cannot adopt a policy that has the general effect of excluding licensed concealed handguns from campus. I agree with the working group that a classroom exclusion would have this effect.

My America includes me helping (via email) three high school students do an independent study project about salinity changes near the Greenland ice sheet*.

Their teacher contacted me last week to ask where we should point them. This week, the students contacted me as they explored the data. Their names indicate Indian, Chinese and Turkish ethnicity. This is what I believe makes America America.

What makes your America America?

* Did you know that the sea level is rising in the mid-Atlantic states due to a change in the path of the Gulf Stream (GS), possibly related to a slow-down in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)? The warmer water of the GS bulges up. If the GS hugs closer to shore, sea level will rise there.

So now you know why you should care about the salinity and the thermohaline structure near Greenland.