This was advertised as a ‘cigarette girl dress’, because it looks like the kinds of outfits sexy young women would wear at nightclubs while selling cigarettes from a tray. I’m a nonsmoker, but that doesn’t stop me from wearing dresses that are ‘smoking hot.’
More you might like
My Latest Crush: Charlie Murphy
I develop crushes on attractive, talented, and accomplished women quite often. My latest heart throb is the Irish actress Charlie Murphy. She’s a very good actress and has been in some wonderful British and Irish T.V. series. I find Irish women to be particularly attractive, and Ms. Murphy is at the top of that refined scale. She has a face that I would love to be the last thing I see every night, and the first thing I see in the morning. And as much as possible between those two times.
Sometimes the stars align and I’m able to find a really attractive outfit from the same thrift store at the same time. Last week I found this silk/rayon skirt and wrap top (by Moda International, a VS Secret company) in the same store. I realized they go together really nicely, and remind me a lot of the way many women in Indonesia dress. It’s a modest country (predominantly Muslim), but many women dress in a very stylish and elegant traditional outfit called a Kebaya. Even though most women don’t show much of their legs or arms, the long skirts and blouses often fit tightly. Small and slender by nature, they are a beautiful sight to behold.
Untitled by seua_yai
Via Flickr:
korea seoul 2018
Please Read Before You Judge
I originally intended this to be another chapter in my lifelong quest to explore femininity across eras and cultures. Given current times, it means much, much more.
The hijab is a traditional head covering worn by many Muslim women around the world. There are probably over a billion of them. I’ve always found the hijab attractive as a form of feminine style, because the way they frame the face and the range of colors and fabrics available to complement a woman’s complexion. (Obviously the burka is not included – might as well be wearing a gas mask).
OK – fashion statement aside. We in the West seem to have been battling Islam for a few decades (let the historians argue how many…), and things seem to ebb and flow. And different Islamic protagonists fight as well. As is typical in domestic and international politics, there are tendencies to overreach and recoil after you’ve been burned. This is the case on both sides. I fear we’re heading for another era of overreach.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric and his recent advisor picks signal we’re in for a G.W. Bush reprise. We’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well. Iraq was a disaster, and continues to be.
Worst yet, we tend to marginalize wide swaths of our society to root out a few bad apples. Yes, bad apples do exist – Boston marathon bombing, the creep from New Jersey who planted pipe bombs in NYC, the crazies from Santa Monica who killed a lot of people, and the nut job in Miami who targeted a gay club. But you could pair them with Timothy McVey (homegrown domestic terrorist who killed 168 people in Oklahoma), and any of the garden variety mass shooting murderers who seem to reek havoc on society every week. What, pray tell, is the difference??
There have always been extremists and mental health victims with violent tendencies, but now they seemingly have more tools at their disposal. It will continue.
We instinctively reach for simplistic and absolving solutions. It’s this ethnic group or class of citizens. Register these bastards. Better safe than sorry. But wait, not so fast….
The day I took this picture (Dec 7, 2016) was the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. I honor and respect the brave men and women of the era who fought the Axis powers, including the magnificent contribution of the Army’s 442 division of Japanese-American soldiers who fought in Europe. But I rue the tragedy of the internment of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans in the U.S. It was one of our country’s darkest chapters ever. I fear a similar backlash against Muslim Americans. In these times, you don’t need a barbed wire camp to marginalize a populace. You can do it through government lists, registries, and social media.
For anyone still hanging on, I’m not a ‘bleeding heart liberal’ who thinks there is virtue in every soul, and the West is to blame for everything. Far from it. I’m more of a realist, who appreciates history and the old adage that 'history repeats itself.’ Very soon after 9/11 I read an article quoting a high ranking official who said something like ’ we want to de-elevate Islamic terrorism from a national security threat to a sort of background nuisance that we have to manage.’ At the time, I thought that was a pretty casual statement. Over time, it’s proven very prescient.
Need proof? Count up the number of Islamic terrorist casualties on U.S. soil since 2008. Now compare them to all mass shootings in the U.S. You do the math before you respond negatively. We’ve lost a president who understands this situation, and gained one who doesn’t
![abcbabcba:
“ “ [X] | More ” ”](https://66.media.tumblr.com/b19a6905472df177ef072cba847e3ce3/tumblr_mkaqz1JC1l1rxqvtto1_1280.jpg)








