New controversial topic!!!! Poll included

Okay, so maybe it's not that new. It's more of a variation on yesteryear's controversial dead-horse-beaten-into-a-Phoenix-and-ready-to-rise-again topic. I just watched the women's 400 m freestyle A final at the 2011 Indianapolis Grand Prix where Chloe Sutton closes at the end to beat Katie Hoff. Great race, which, by the way, shows that for American female distance swimmers, at least, staying down on the turns and throwing in a SDK or two doesn't necessarily win the race. (But that is not the controversy I am trying to stoke here.) First, watch the first 30 seconds or so of the video (you can even watch the race itself if you want, but mainly I just want you to see the swimming suits these elite women swimmers are wearing.) YouTube - Women's 400m Freestyle A Final - 2011 Indianapolis Grand Prix Second, a quick vignette. Last week, I went to swim the 1650 at Carnegie Mellon University, which annually holds a 1650 meet with the timing pads out, etc. It's supposed to count for USMS, but for whatever reason, our local chapter of the USMS organization never seems to actually get things together enough for any of our "recognized" or "sanctioned" or "what have you" meets to ever "count." But again, allowing Western Pa/AMAM to secede from our Zone and join Colonies Zones, where we belong, is NOT the contoversy I am trying to stoke here, albeit one truly worthy of being stoked. Anyhow, at that CMU meet, a friend, Carl Goldman, shaved down in an attempt to beat his previous year's B70 time, which he actually did do. (I, on the other hand, was about 29 seconds slower--going from last year's mediocre 19:34 to this year's more mediocre 20:03.) Flash forward one week to yesterday, when our local Y, the Sewickley Sea Dragons, held our yearly Amish Mudhole Series meet ( visit our web site for the entirely unrecognized by USMS Y league that dominates these here parts http://www.amymsa.org ). In the lockerroom, I happened to see Carl's chest. A riot of ingrown chestal hair blisters made his thorax look like something out of a small pox epidemic. He claimed the suppurating wounds didn't hurt. But it hurt me to look at them. I know FINA has settled the suit issue for all time, but think of the human suffering, albeit male human suffering primarily (but a little female human suffering, too, because women have to look at and listen to their angry rash-chested male loved ones post any major swimming competition) that could be avoided by one simple change in the rules! This IS the controversy I am trying to stoke here: Let guys who don't want to shave their chests wear the same suits that are legal for women. I am going to post a poll here, but I shall make a prediction before the first votes come filtering in: 1) women who are not intimately associated with wooly chested male swimmers will likely vote no 2) men who do not have a lot of body hair will likely vote no 3) men who already shave their chests regularly, for god only knows what reason of vanity or Gillette razor marketing propaganda, will likely vote no 4) the Kinks and other Ape Men will vote yes.YouTube - The Kinks - Apeman 1970 Put me down in the latter camp.
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  • Well, as long as we are on the subject of those who "got theirs" and thus "don't care" or "actively want have nots to stay that way!," let me introduce a thread-diverting mini rant on another subject. If you have a moment, go to this Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Calculator and see what your health insurance would cost you in 2014, if you had to pay all of it yourself (i.e., without a company subsidizing you). Then see how much the health reform act might potentially help us wretches currently suffering so mightily in the inhumanly cruel individual health insurance market. healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx For what it's worth, for my own family of four, and based on our income, our premiums and out of pocket maximum will be slashed by a good 75 percent. But I suspect those who currently "got theirs" will continue to either opt for the "don't care" or "no help for anybody who don't got theirs yet" options, respectively. Women's suits have thus become a proxy for Human Charity of Spirit, or, more likely, conspicuous lack of same. Discuss! By saying that I "got mine," you seem to be assuming that I have what is currently considered a women's tech suit. I don't. I'm also not against men wearing the same suits as women. I just don't see why it should matter to me one way or the other. There are plenty of ethical issues that I care about even though they don't affect me. This just doesn't strike me as one of them. If men want to wear the same suits as women, it's fine by me. But it's not something I'm going to go out of my way to advocate for.
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  • Well, as long as we are on the subject of those who "got theirs" and thus "don't care" or "actively want have nots to stay that way!," let me introduce a thread-diverting mini rant on another subject. If you have a moment, go to this Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Calculator and see what your health insurance would cost you in 2014, if you had to pay all of it yourself (i.e., without a company subsidizing you). Then see how much the health reform act might potentially help us wretches currently suffering so mightily in the inhumanly cruel individual health insurance market. healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx For what it's worth, for my own family of four, and based on our income, our premiums and out of pocket maximum will be slashed by a good 75 percent. But I suspect those who currently "got theirs" will continue to either opt for the "don't care" or "no help for anybody who don't got theirs yet" options, respectively. Women's suits have thus become a proxy for Human Charity of Spirit, or, more likely, conspicuous lack of same. Discuss! By saying that I "got mine," you seem to be assuming that I have what is currently considered a women's tech suit. I don't. I'm also not against men wearing the same suits as women. I just don't see why it should matter to me one way or the other. There are plenty of ethical issues that I care about even though they don't affect me. This just doesn't strike me as one of them. If men want to wear the same suits as women, it's fine by me. But it's not something I'm going to go out of my way to advocate for.
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