Octopodial Chrome

During the recently-passed Halloween holiday I received a flier advertising costumes for children, men and women. I found it really quite remarkable what it revealed:

• The vast majority of boys’ costumes obscure their faces
• All but one girls’ costume doesn’t obscure the face
• There is apparently a market for dressing one’s sons up as serial killers, murders, demons and criminals
• There is apparently a market for dressing one’s four-year-old daughter as a harem-dweller with an exposed midriff, and one’s eight-year-old daughter as a French maid
• There is apparently a market for mid-thigh skirts for two-year-old girlsThere are infants’, toddler boys’, toddler girls’, boys’, girls’, teens’, mens’ and womens’ costumes; teen means teen girl; apparently boys directly become men, but girls become teens, and then women
• Out of 64 womens’ costumes, all but 5 are sexy something costumes, where something could be a police officer, or a vampire, or a pirate, or a cavewoman, or a stewardess, or a referee (who buys this?) or a lady bug (huh?!?); that is, the costumes consist of stockings and a tunic which covers just enough to not violate any local ordinances; teen costumes are much the same, but slightly smaller
• Mens’ costumes are fairly lame: a few monsters and so forth

Boys shouldn’t be dressed as monsters and evildoers; they should be dressed as those who slay monsters and evildoers; little girls shouldn’t be dressed as sex objects. That this is even an issue is an indicator of how diseased our society has become. Boys and men shouldn’t be valued for how terrible they are; girls and women shouldn’t be valued for how sexy they are–it’s sick. I can understand boys wanting to be fearsome, but let them be fearsome in a good way: Beowulf and Grendel were both feared, but one fought for good and one for evil. I can understand young men & women wanting to be sexy (it’s in their hormones), but children don’t even think of that sort of thing: it’s parents and culture which introduce the idea to them. It’s simply wrong to sexualise prepubescents—once again, that I even have to point this out indicates how low our culture has gotten. It’s one thing for a 24-year-old to dress for the opposite sex; heck, it’s understandable for a 16-year-old to do so (although that should be restrained by parents); it’s another, entirely unacceptable, thing for a child to be dressed thus.

If I had children, I think I’d send them to be raised in Siberia or some other inaccessible place…

Many cities and states unconstitutionally infringe upon their citizens’ right to carry and/or own knives and swords; Knife Rights is working to reverse these laws. They’re worthy of support.

Many of us have seen the gold and silver coins minted by the US government: they are almost pure (99.whatever percent) metal and have a metal value very much greater than their face value. The American Eagle 1 ounce gold coin has a face value of $50 and a metal value of around $806; the American Eagle 1 ounce silver coin has a face value of $1 and a metal value of $14.53. So what if one’s boss paid one’s wages in gold or silver coins? I mean, one’s only making $3,101.50 (with gold coins) or $3,441.15 (with silver coins)!

It turns out that the IRS believes that despite the coins being legal tender for $1 or $50, despite being currency minted by the United States of America—despite all this, the IRS tried to argue that the coins aren’t worth what their faces clearly state. The judge in the trial disallowed the that’s what they’re worth defense based on some specious reasoning involving the old outlawed American double eagles, but the juries hung or acquitted on all charges.

Me, I wonder if I can get paid in American Eagles…

Hat-tip to Maj. D.