Why Don’t They Buy A Clue?
There has been some level of adverse reaction to the fashion choices of the President’s eldest daughter. While I am as reticent as anyone else who spends their life in jeans and t-shirts to make style pronouncements, I would like to point out a bit of an error in symbolism.
That is the original form of the symbol involved. Somewhere in a box with other detritus of my life I have a pin of the earliest form that arrived here from the UK in the early 1960s and a later version that I was given in Britain by a very earnest young woman who was attempting to convince me of the righteousness of her cause while I was looking for an entrance to the Underground. The cause was nuclear disarmament, and the symbol has been associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain since it, the symbol, was created in 1958.
Those are the semaphore flag codes that the designer used as the basis for his graphic, and they are literally an N and a D in the code, as in Nuclear Disarmament.
Given that the young lady’s father had recently completed an agreement in Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, it is hardly inappropriate. There has been a great deal of ranting and raving about nuclear weapons in North Korea, and the possibility of nuclear weapons in Iran, so it is somewhat curious that the rightwing lint have their shorts in a wad over two t-shirts with the symbol for nuclear disarmament on them. I was under the impression that they felt the proliferation of nuclear weapons, at least for non-NRA members, was inappropriate.
In closing let me just send the ranters a short message:
9 comments
I’m just aghast at the whole idea of people attacking the clothing choices of an 11 year old in the first place. WTF, they didn’t have any infants to steal lollipops from? Keepin’ it classy, GOP! (For a definition of classy that includes wife-beater t-shirts, cars on blocks in the front yard, and guest appearances on COPS, that is).
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Though I’m no longer competent to send semaphore, damned if I can’t still read it one slow letter at a time. Well said, Bryan!
.-= ´s last blog ..Friday Tour Blogging =-.
As a former babysitter I know from personal experience that attempting to reason with a ‘tween’ is a waste of your time and will normally result in hard feelings all around. They are touchier than two-year-olds as the hormones begin their “magic” and a wise parent is the one who can guide them without their catching on to what is happening. It is a good time to haul out the baby album and remember what a wonderful child they once were.
If the girls her age in Italy were wearing those tops, she would want to wear them too. It looked like retro ’60s, which may be the “new thing”. Why would anyone care who didn’t own Hannah Montana posters?
Is this supposed to attract attention away from the Ensign or Sanford soap operas?
Steve, even if you accept it as a peace symbol, is there something wrong with not wanting wars? I didn’t want wars or nukes and have a fairly low regard for anyone who thinks either is a good idea. Wars and nuclear weapons are symbols of political failure, not success. While winning World War II was great, having to fight it was not.
Haha Bryan. An excellent response!
.-= ´s last blog ..A bit of Bulgarian folk music =-.
I have been informed that the DFH symbol is now cool again. The wingnuts are frothing because it means that the Obamas are now openly empathetic and shit and want peace like that John Lennon guy with the circle glasses who sat on a bed and sang songs with all those other long-haired freaks who went to San Francisco and almost brought our great nation to its knees over Vietnam which we lost because nobody wanted to go over there and fight for whatever it was the government said we needed to fight for and that means the Obamas are going to stop wars and hold hands and make our economy collapse.
Or something….
.-= ´s last blog ..After all that blathering face time with the nation =-.
Thanks, Jams.
I rather expected that, Ellroon, having seen kids around here who like they had been rummaging in the back of their grandparents’ closets.
i did finally look these up [yes, i even got a badge in this in girl scouts].
when i first saw your message here i was sure it couldn’t be what it should be, since you had 5 signals and not 4, but i didn’t recognize the ‘hey!’
.-= ´s last blog ..fizzickz lab =-.
Semaphore is a little short on punctuation, and even if you use the Morse equivalents there is no exclamation point, so the “attention” signal was my solution.