The problems with fashion

I generally enjoy shopping for clothes as long as I'm with friends or family and able to find what I'm looking for. This is hard as I stand 6' 5", have extra long arms (but am fairly normal in body) and wear a 36 waist X 36 inseam. My wife grumbles (justifiably) that I wear out my trousers fairly quickly and it is almost impossible to find long sleeve shirts that fit. I went online to order several new pairs of trousers only to learn that the make and cut I like appear to be going away. I was finally able to find some new pairs, but took a large risk in how they would fit. So far so good.

However, for other people clothes shopping can be more than just annoying, it can be down right discouraging, depressing, demotivating, and disastrous. This is because of the images presented by fashion advertising, popular culture, and other sources project a image of "beauty" that is partial at best and unobtainable at worst. Kasey Serdar wrote a research paper for the Westminster Myriad entitled Female Body image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard. (Note: Kasey Serdar was recognized by Westminster for completing her Ph.D in counseling psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011-12.) The now Dr. Serdar points out that:

Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealized and expected for women to be considered "attractive."... The media is littered with images of females who fulfill these unrealistic standards, making it seem as if it is normal for women to live up to this ideal. ... Such a standard of perfection is unrealistic and even dangerous. Many of the models shown on television, advertisements, and in other forms of popular media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa (Dittmar & Howard, 2004). [see article for complete citation]

In doing research for this post, I Googled "model requirements." It appears that the expected height requirement for female "fashion" models is around 5'8" to 6'. One website suggested weights (80-120 lb.) which would give a 120 lb. model a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 18.2 at the best and around 16.3 at the worst. A BMI under 18.5 is considered underweight by the World Health Organization. Wolf Kettler, a professional photographer in England, published Wolf's Model Guide online where he brings up the dangers of having a low BMI and what the modeling and fashion industry has done to encourage "healthy" standards. Even with changes to the industry models cannot realistically be considered "average" size. According to Dr. Pamela Peeke (M.D.), a writer for WebMD, the average size for women in 2010 was 5'4", 140-150 lbs. waist size 34-35 and wore a dress size 12-14. So the fashion being displayed is being done so on figures that few can expect to look like.


Let's talk about the difficulty with sizes. I mentioned how hard it is to find clothes my size. For some reason 36 X 36 is very unpopular. Even large tall shirts are rough to find. People tell me to shop at big and tall stores, but I'm just tall. I don't need a 48 X 36. I just want a 36 X 36. For women it's worse. At least most of my sizes are based on inches, an archaic but standard measurement and it's a matter of me being outside the norm. But there is more to it for women. This great clipping from the New York Times carries the great subtitle of "Seeking a steady 4 or a 10." Not only has sizing for women changed throughout the years but The NYT clipping states that different stores will use different sizes. This can be disheartening for people. I remember the week I took through two pairs of 34 X 36 trousers. I felt a little ashamed that I had grown to the point that I was tearing through my clothes. What happens when a women tries on what she believes is her size and discovers that it's tighter then it used to be? Nothing good for the self-esteem you can be sure.

I'll make a final point in regards to the crazy world of fashion and clothing. Several years ago I watched The Devil Wears Prada a fictional story that revolves around the world of fashion. In one scene the editor of Runway is viewing a designer's gowns. When our protagonist expresses wonder that the editor's opinion has so much weight on the designer's plans. She is told, "Her [the editor's] opinion is the only one that matters." While this is a fictional event, it portrays an idea that is demonstrated in fashion - the few dictate what is acceptable. In many ways fashion is a reverse democracy. There is no majority rule, there is a small group that chooses what is shown and those that follow behind. With the increased ease of communication due to the internet and ready access to technology this is changing. But what do you call it when access and information are limited to select sources or information Oh, yeah - it's called propaganda. The more acceptable term for it now a days is marketing.

So, for anybody reading this that struggles when it comes to buying clothes, or feels bad when their size increases, or just doesn't understand what fashion is doing - Remember you are not paranoid. Paranoia is thinking some one is after you. They really are. The best thing you can do to make sure they don't get you is to make sure you feel good about yourself as you are. Sizes are scales. Use them to find the best fit, the numbers aren't accurate measurements of anything except which pair will be bigger or smaller then the other. Also remember that those that are modeling the clothes are the exception when it comes to body size. Also, having a daily affirmation can also help.

One last happy thought, just for you extra worried ones out there. I've heard it said that if men were in charge of the world they wouldn't be wearing neckties. I've also heard it said that if women were in charge they wouldn't be wearing high heels. So if men are wearing neckties and women are wearing high heels - who's really in charge? [cue Twilight Zone theme song]

Explosive tendencies

Kablammers!

During my undergrad a classmate of mine said that he tried to convince his brother-in-law to start his Master's Thesis with that word. Sadly, he was unsuccessful.

I think it's interesting the kinds of things that will explode as well as the ways they will do so. It's important to note the difference between detonation and deflagration. As Destin from Smarter Every Day demonstrates, it is the difference between shotgun shells and gas cans. Both are considered explosions, but simply differ in the speed of the blast.

Most people with then think of explosives think of dynamite and TNT. The US military has also used Comp-B and still uses C-4 for it's purposes. In high school a group of my friends and I had a conversation with a member of the Army Core of Engineers (I later heard him speak on his experiences in Iraq as part of the 2nd wave of troops). As part of the conversation he described how to remove a freeway overpass using C-4. When he mentioned that he would set a 10 minute fuse, someone said, "Wow, it takes you that long to get away?" The engineer looked at him and said, "You don't want to have to run." This dispelled many of the images I had in my head from popular media of explosives experts sprinting away from their target and throwing themselves on the ground just in time. Granted, they still sell "Bomb Squad" shirts and don't forget Schlock Mercenary's Maxim 3. Needless to say, you don't want to have to run, but if you're working with explosives you should be prepared to.

Granted, chemical explosives are not the only option available. Destin pulled a first when he analyzed the Prince Rupert's Drop with a high speed camera. As he explains, when broken it explodes, but rather than releasing chemical potential energy it releases mechanical strain energy (4:42 mark). The speed of this explosion is approximately 1658 meters per second. Seeing that the speed of sound at sea level is 340.29 meters per second, it would mean that we have the equivalent of a detonation, but with glass. Make sure you wear eye protection.

Of course, glass isn't the only thing that might be seen as an unlikely explosive. As a youth, I helped several others clean at a grain mill. They explained that we could not use electrical appliances (like vacuums) because of the danger of explosion from the flour dust. One of the guys collected some and was planning on burning it in the parking lot later. I told him it wouldn't work, but that was only because my father had explained it to me. If you think about it, it makes sense. When something burns its heat radiates out around it. You don't have to touch the flame to feel the heat. If you have lots of little particles, like bits of flour dust, and they are in a cloud, evenly spaced where if you light one the ones around it will also ignite then depending on the size of the cloud you could have a pretty big fire ball. Kind of like this sawdust cannon or Mythbuster's creamer cannon that they built to test this principle. I think this would be classified as a deflagation.

But don't forget the some of the most powerful kinds of explosive. No, it's not nuclear - it's all natural. Volcanoes, meteors, even trees, can all go under the right conditions. I've even seen a dumpster spontaneously combust. I was walking by and heard a "FWOOM!" and where there was once a dumpster full of trash there was a dumpster full of fifteen foot tall flames. Nature has a way of surprising us with it's violence. One of particular violence was the Tunguska event in Russia. Scott Westerfeld, author of Leviathan,  Behemoth, and Goliath, a trilogy of steam-punk alternate history novels, has fun with the event, but how it happened in his universe - you'll have to read the books to find out.

All in all, it's amazing what can go kablammers in this world. Even people. Spontaneous combustion aside, just try telling your significant other that those pants really do make them look fat.

The Ludi Romani

All hail the mighty Juppiter Optimus Maximus!

This photo was taken in 2002 as a feature of a news article from Utah State University's Hard News Cafe about the annual Ludi Romani (Roman Games) held at USU. Juppiter a.k.a. Dr. Mark Damen and his wife Juno a.k.a. Dr. Fran Titchener host the Games every year for the last approximately 20 years. I assure you, if Juppiter does not inspire fear in you from this picture, it is only because he's waiting to surprise you later.

The Ludi Romani is a cross between Risk and role-playing where students are able to take on roles of Senators, kings, generals, noble women, etc and plot, scheme, betray, ally, and generally have fun with and against each other until one faction comes out on top at the Battle of Actium. Traditionally the factions have been based around the first and second year Latin students, but in years past you just never know who's going to team up. In addition to the students playing the roles of mortals faculty and alumni play the part of deities each with their own power and abilities. Often while the mortals are plotting against themselves the deities are plotting against everybody. All in all, it is a fun experience.

As the Ludi Romani is put on by my old department my musing for this week deals with my education and its worth. In addition, as part of my career advising class I had to do it for an assignment. I have a BA in History with a minor in Russian. My senior capstone paper was entitled The White Tigers of Tianjin: fascist elements in the  propaganda of the Anti-Communist  Committee of Russian Emigrants in Northern China from 1937 to 1941. I presented it at the regional Phi Alpha Theta conference and won two awards, Best Asian Paper and Longest Title. I'm proud of both of them. You can guess how many times people have asked me to read that paper. (Twice - which is probably twice more than you thought.)

Many people question what you can do with a degree in history. I've even heard it implied that a definition of a successful history graduate is one that has a job. Most people think that the only occupation for history majors is in education. While I work in education, I do not teach in a classroom. In general, the humanities and arts tend to be "the degrees you can't do anything with." To this I say, quoting an old employer, "No, these are the degrees you can do what ever you want with."

As a bearer of one of a "degree to nowhere" I realized fairly early on that my degree did not fit into a nice little career. Accountants get jobs as accountants. Engineers get engineering jobs (I know - I've got six of them in my close family). Business majors go into business. History......well, there's teaching? To be fair, when I first started, I wanted to go into teaching. That is why I choose history. However, as I learned that I didn't want to teach, it didn't make me want to change my major. Perhaps that was because I was planning on graduate school (I wanted to teach college). But I also think it had something to do with my boss at the time - the one I quoted above. In many ways you can do whatever you want with degrees in humanities and art. This is because it's not the facts that you learn that are important. It's the skills.

Going back to my capstone paper as an example. As I've mentioned, I've only been asked to read that paper twice - once for my class and once for the conference I attend. No one else has been interested in the facts that I learned when I did it. The ACCRENC has not had a meeting in decades  The parades are done, the fascist propaganda has not stirred anyone in ages. However the research and consolidating I did in order to write that paper has enabled me to secure employment. That paper is the result of over 100 pages of translated newspapers (I was not the only translator, but I knew them all), three published works on fascism and it's tenants, and a semesters worth of critical thinking, extrapolation, and reflection. The end result: 10 pages and 51 footnotes of concise material. That is a skill that can be used almost anywhere. It doesn't matter the topic, the skill is the same.

I think that this skill is particularly useful in this day and age as the world is changing so rapidly. You may be familiar with the Did you Know video on YouTube. While there raise many points, perhaps one of the most relevant is the one made at the 38 seconds mark:

The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been invented, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.

 How is anybody going to be able to keep up with the demand of this changing world unless they can learn and adapt? The skills learned in the humanities and arts allow students to look at the world around them and make sense of it. To see what is there and how it has changed and is changing. These skills are not to be discounted quickly as many would. These skills are not unique to a limited number of disciplines. They can be developed by anyone. I will say that many of these "degrees to nowhere" do indeed lead to critical skills that are important to the future.

helicopters are pretty cool

I've enjoyed playing the game Battlefield 2 when I can fit it in my schedule. One element of the game is that you can jump in a helicopter and take off to provide close air support or to move other players to strategic locations. The first time I ever tried to use a helicopter It took off, went belly up, and then smashed down hard core. It kind of looked like this. Same thing happened the next three times until I had a chance to pull up some web tutorials. It should tell you something that if you put "Battlefield 2, helicopter tutorial" in the YouTube search you'll get quite the list of videos.

I've always thought of helicopters as cool. As a kid I would check out aviation books from the library and read them. One of my favorite memories is watching four fully loaded AH-64 Apache attack helicopters fly over my house. Mountain Home Air National Guard was transferring them elsewhere and hour house was on the flight path. It was impressive. My interest in helicopters was peaked again after I received another game, Comanche CD, back in 1994. The controls were simple, the graphics even more so, but the missions were challenging and you could take advantage of some of the things that make helicopters different.

As a college student I had the awesome opportunity to take a history of aviation and aeronautics class from Dr. Timothy Wolters. If you check out his Vita from the time you will see that I had him right after held the Ramsey Chair of Naval Aviation History at THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, National Air & Space Museum! This guy knows his stuff, particularly when it comes to technology. The class was 1/3 history majors, 1/3 Air force ROTC, and 1/3 mechanical/aerospace engineers. And Dr. Wolters knew it all. He's currently at Iowa State University, so if you are from there take a class from him (just make sure it's not one you need calculus for - no joke). In the class we learned both the mechanics of flight and the history of it. I had to become an expert on twenty-five different aircraft for the final. How cool is that?

Although we didn't spend much time helicopters, I did learn something interesting. Because of the dynamics of how a helicopter works, there are significant limitations on their design that prevented them from replacing fixed wing aircraft as the leading flying machine. However, because of their unique abilities (tight control, hover, vertical and near vertical takeoff and landing, etc.) they do fit two very popular markets: Private, urban transportation, and military. They are used in other areas as well, but those are the two biggest functions. Since almost any high rise building with a flat roof can act as a landing pad and they are able to maneuver in tight spaces (that fit their dimensions) they are very useful for working in the city. The military takes advantage of their lift capacity, relatively stable platform, and, again, their maneuverability. When it comes to close air support for troops on the ground, I can only think of two fixed wing aircraft that are usually mentioned: the A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog", and the AC-130. (Fun fact: If you were to mount the A-10's Avenger cannon onto a car in neutral and start firing, you would go really fast). However, the Mil Mi-24 Hind D could both transport and support troops on the ground. While not a cure all, helicopters have proved themselves in the military many times.

So, what got me musing about helicopters? First, I ran across an old video from Destin who had a YouTube Channel Smarter Every Day. He did a whole series of videos on helicopter physics that was really neat. Including a video on inverted flight. (See, helicopters can fly upside down. And yes, their are some that can't). Destin includes a video on one of the limitations of helicopters, as well one on how helicopters can land safely without power.

When it comes to amazing uses for helicopters thought, I think it's hard to beat the story about the deer on the ice. The animal was unable to stand and liable to freeze to death when a helicopter pilot used his down draft the sweep it and its young to shore. You can hear an interview with the pilot on episode 98 of How to Do Everything.

I will end by sharing advice I received from a helicopter pilot on how to signal a helicopter and help it land at night. Once while backpacking with my father, uncle, and cousin we had a situation where a copper was called in to extract a kayaker who was badly dehydrated. When the med-evac arrived, it was dark and in the bad lands of Utah outside of Coyote Gulch, which rise and fall with sand, petrified dunes, and rock. We heard it before we saw it and turned on flashlights to show our position. It had a big spot light on but as it came in it missed the small plateau we were on instead almost landing on the slope which would have been bad. When it did land it came in hard and apparently it damaged the engine. As a result they kept the rotors turning quickly because they didn't know if they could get them back up. The pilot told us the reason for the difficulty in landing was that with only one light, he couldn't depth. Everything looked kind of flat like the picture of the area I have. You can see that their are lines of elevation but you can't tell how tall / low they are. So, if you have to bring in a helicopter at night: First use a light as a signal for your location by shining it in the air. Then as soon as the helicopter has your position shine the lights on the ground. This give the pilot a second frame of reference so they can see depth.

Just for fun, here is a list of slang terms for helicopters that I found at helicopterlinks.com (glossary section):
Air-crane, angel (military: a soldier waiting to be rescued by an angel), air horse, air pony, airship, astronaut (CB Radio slang for police helicopter [Citizens Band Radio]), bear-in-the-air (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), bird, blender, Budgie (From a children's book and animated TV series in the United Kingdom), chopper, copter, eagle, eggbeater, eye in the sky (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), fly in the sky (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), flying smokey (police helicopter, certain police departments wear Smokey the Bear hats), ghetto bird (police helicopter flying over ghettos or poor neighborhoods), heli, helo, hilo, hummingbird, log bird (military: logistical resupply helicopter), rotorcopter, rotorcraft, rotory-wing, machine, sky bear (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), slick (Vietnam war: troop carrying helicopter), sky-hook, sky-crane, spy in the sky (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), whirlybird, x-ray unit. (Some of these slang terms are rather uncommon.)