In Praise of Humble Toilet Paper

If you have traveled much outside the US of A, chances are that one of the things you missed most is one of the things you otherwise think about least. I speak, of course, of toilet paper.

Yes, common toilet tissue. The soft, multi-ply wonder with which we tenderly cleanse our nether regions once nature has taken its course. We don't think about it much unless we find ourselves looking with horror at an empty cardboard tube chuckling at us from beside the porcelain throne. Good thing other people have.

Yes, the good folks at Mental Floss offer this interesting history of one of our most underappreciated things: Why Toilet Paper Belongs to America. In this article, you will learn that over the years, people have used coconuts, shells, snow, moss, hay, leaves, grass, corncobs, and sheep's wool (hopefully, without the sheep still attached) to clean themselves. Later, advances in printing technology allowed us to use newspapers, magazines, and pages of books (ever been down on the farm and been thankful for the old Sears catalog in the outhouse?).

The article goes on to note that "...the idea of a commercial product designed solely to wipe one's bum ... started about 150 years ago, right here in the U.S.A." Yes, good old American know-how and marketing skill turned something utterly unmentionable into the must-have product we know today.

The problem with the widespread adoption of toilet paper was that it was used with something people didn't like to talk about. And also, not to put too fine a point on it, it tended to complicate the cleaning of outhouses. Thus it was that toilet paper didn't really take off until the end of the 19th century, when more and more homes began to be built with indoor plumbing and sit-down flush toilets. Modern indoor plumbing required a product that could be flushed away with minimal damage to the pipes, meaning that the old, free, standards like corncobs, moss, and sheep's wool had to be retired. Soon, ads for toilet paper boasted that the product was recommended by both doctors and plumbers, and in time we ended up with things like squeezably-soft Charmin and other tissues which attempt to outdo each other in their claims of softness.

I recall traveling in old East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and discovering that one of the greatest shortcomings of Communist government was its inability to provide its citizens with decent toilet paper ... East German TP tended to be stiff and waxy, and to contain the occasional chunk of wood. I doubt that toilet paper caused the downfall of Communism, but it certainly must have been a contributing factor.

The article goes on to note that Americans spend more on toilet tissue than any other nation in the world - we shell out more than $6 billion a year, using on average 57 squares a day and 50 pounds a year. But other countries are catching up ... Dave Praeger, the author of Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product, says that "The spread of globalization can kind of be measured by the spread of Western bathroom practices," noting that when average citizens have enough money to be able to buy a luxury like toilet paper, wealth and consumerism have arrived.

And you can always jazz up your common toilet paper roll...

What'll they think of next?

So there you are - more than you ever wanted to know about something you never really want to think about. Wipe your cares away and look forward to the weekend!

Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday is coming.

Bilbo

An Unfortunate Vacation

It’s interesting how history moves in cycles.

For eight years, George W. Bush was hailed by conservatives as the greatest president who ever lived, and reviled as the Antichrist by die-hard liberals. In November, America elected Barack Obama…who is hailed by die-hard liberals as the greatest president who ever lived and reviled as the Antichrist by die-hard conservatives.

Disclaimer: I think George W. Bush was an appallingly bad president in many ways; last November I voted for Barack Obama mostly because he wasn't a Republican, and I think the jury is still out on his performance.

But the jury is grumbling with discontent.

My old friend Debbie, who is not particularly fond of the current president, forwarded me an e-mail yesterday with the intriguing subject line, “This oughta frost your cookies!” It turned out to be a stinging rebuke of Mr Obama for conspicuous waste of money and resources by taking his family along on his recent European trip, complete with several photos and descriptions of shopping and sightseeing trips taken by his family in Paris and London after Mr Obama had already returned to Washington.

I replied to Debbie that, in my humble opinion, the e-mail wasn’t totally fair, as presidents of both parties have a long history of taking their families along on state visits. Traffic jams and inconvenience for the masses are par for the course when presidents and their families travel (and even when they stay home, as those of us who live in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac well know) – for, sadly, we live in a dangerous world in which major disruptions of daily life are necessary to protect our leaders and their loved ones from those who would rather cast a 9mm ballot than a paper one.

Debbie, in turn, wrote (and I trust she’ll forgive me for quoting her), “You're right, other 1st ladies may have done this, doesn't make it right does it? Their husbands did not run on a ticket of "changing how things are done in Washington" AND the country was not in an economic crisis, according to our VP who said they underestimated the problems. With so many families unable to shop like they used to, this family really upgraded their shopping habits...it's so ‘in your face’.” She went on to lambaste House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s routine use of expensive Air Force aircraft to fly back and forth to California on weekends, and finished up with this: “It wouldn't irritate me so much except I have several friends who are either laid off, or their hours have been cut and can barely make ends meet. Their young children need new clothes and would love to splurge on a trip to McDonalds. The first family should be leading by example not flaunting the fact that they are capable of squandering the working poor's money.”

After I extinguished the flames coming out of my monitor, I thought more about the Obama family vacation, and about what Debbie had written.

As I told her, I still don’t completely agree with the original savaging of the First Family’s trip. Like it or not, the First Lady and the members of the president’s family play an important part in what we sometimes call “public diplomacy” – putting a human face on an America the rest of the world often sees only through the prism of policies and actions that in the recent past have shown an in-your-face disrespect for the interests, feelings, and opinions of other nations. To the extent that people around the world see Americans as a family on vacation, shopping and eating fish and chips in a London pub, rather than soldiers fighting in other lands, I think it’s a good thing.

That said, of course, the President and his family also need to set an example. Debbie is right: at a time when the economy is in the toilet, millions are out of work, and millions more have been ruined by the reckless greed of the financial management industry, this vacation was at the very least ill-timed, and sends a very unfortunate message to the American people. If the President wants to take the CEOs of the big auto companies to task for flying in expensive corporate jets while they're laying off tens of thousands of workers, he ought to be willing to forego taxpayer funding of aircraft to fly his family (and their security detail, and their armored limousines, etc, etc) on the sort of vacation that the average working American can only dream about. You can read about the vacation, and the estimates of its cost by the Congressional Research Service (the White House wouldn't comment) here.

Presidents must set an example. The example set by Mr Bush was unfortunate. Mr Obama must do better. This wasn't the way to do it.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

A Quick Riff on the Subject of Love

You all know by this time that I'm not "religious" in the traditional go-to-church-every-Sunday, Bible-study-every-day sort of way. I don't think it makes me a bad person...just one who doesn't think most traditional, organized religions offer very much I can believe in.

But there are some things religions offer that can't be improved on very much. The other day, I noted that there are 50 separate "titles," containing thousands of individual laws, in the U.S. Code. The Bible needs only ten commandments. God must be a really good editor.

And the Bible does, in fact, contain some wonderful passages. If you leave out the most bloodthirsty parts of Deuteronomy and Leviticus (which the vast majority of true Christians do), you find gems like Chapter 13 of Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians:

"1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

"2: And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

"3: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

"4: Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;

"5: it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

"6: it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

"7: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

"9: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;

"10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

"11: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

"12: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

"13: So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

As words to live by go, these aren't bad. And they're certainly not what you hear thundered in Friday "prayer" sessions by radical Muslim leaders with turbans wound tightly enough to cut off the blood flow to the brain. "Death to (insert your preferred infidel here)!" just doesn't have quite the same ring as So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Storage Alternatives

I've written before about, and we've all experienced, that feeling of pure horror we get when the project we've been doing on the computer suddenly disappears...and we realize we haven't saved anything for the last hour. Awful, isn't it? Well, as it turns out, there is a way to ensure that what you write is never lost when the power goes out, the computer crashes, or some other automated disaster happens. Here's the official memo that explains how it works...

NEW SYSTEM BACKUP UTILITY NOW AVAILABLE

After extensive testing of various alternatives, management is introducing a simple and reliable new system backup utility designed to meet short-time emergency needs in case of a computer failure. This system consists of two parts, both of which are required for proper operation: an input device known as the Primary Emergency Network Computer Interface Link (PENCIL) and a data reception and storage device called the Principal Alternative Place for Entry of Records (PAPER). PAPER is available in one of two storage formats: Local Input Needed for Entry of Data (LINED) or Basic Limited Access to Necessary Knowledge (BLANK). The basic unit of storage capacity for PAPER is called a "sheet."

This system has been extensively field tested, including volume and stress testing, and has been fully certified by our Information Systems Division. Properly maintained, it meets all Federal and State requirements for coding and data input.

Prior to use, the PENCIL requires preparation and initial checkout. This operation requires a sharpened knife or grinding device and a supply of PAPER (for purposes of initial checkout, either PAPER storage format may be used).

Gripping the device firmly in your hand, scrape or grind the wooded end until it attains a cone-like appearance. The dark core area must be exposed to properly function. (Note: the initial preparation and checkout procedure is the same for right- and left-handed users.)

Place a single sheet of PAPER on a smooth, hard surface. Place the sharpened point of the input device against the PAPER, and pull it across the surface. If properly done, this will input a single line.

CAUTION: Excessive force may damage components of the input and/or data reception and storage device. If either the PENCIL or the PAPER are damaged, repeat the preparation instructions above until proper data input and recording are achieved.

Proper use of the device requires data simulation input by the operator. Placing the input device against the storage medium, form symbols resembling the computer lettering system you normally use. As each simulated letter is completed, lift the input device from the PAPER, move it slightly to the right, replace it against the PAPER, and form the next symbol. Although his may appear tedious and somewhat redundant, with practice you should be able to increase your speed and accuracy.

The PENCIL is equipped with a manual deletion device known as the Error Removal And Spurious Entry Reviser (ERASER), which is located on the end of the PENCIL opposite the data entry component. The error deletion function operates similarly to the “backspace" key on your computer. Place the deletion device against the erroneous data, and pull it backwards over the letters. This should remove the error, and enable you to resume data entries. If data fragments remain, repeat the procedure until all data has been removed.

CAUTION: Excessive force may damage the data reception device. Insufficient force, however, may result in less than acceptable deletion, and may require re-initialization of action as above.

This device is designed with user maintenance in mind. However, if technical support is required, you can still call your local computer desk supervisor at (800)-URA-FOOL.

Don't thank me. It's all part of helping each other survive the computer age.

Have a good day. Write something ... like a letter to ol' Bilbo.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

New Laws

On July 1st, a long list of new laws went into effect here in Virginia. I wonder why.

The major new law prohibits text messaging while driving - it carries a $20 fine for the first offense and a $50 penalty for subsequent violations, and drivers can be cited only after being stopped by police for another reason, such as running a red light.

On the one hand, texting while driving is so dangerous that one side of me is glad it's been outlawed. On the other hand, I think it's depressing that we need a law to keep people from doing something so dangerous. It's also depressing to know that the Common Virginia Dumbass (moronus oblivious) will keep on doing it anyway, until he kills himself or someone else.

We seem to have the idea that problems can be solved simply by passing laws. My personal view is that a proliferation of laws breeds resentment and what one might call "law fatigue." I've never believed you can legislate common sense - we can ban smoking in most bars and restaurants (coming here in Virginia on December 1st), and people intent on killing themselves and others by smoking will still find a way to do it; you can ban texting while driving, and fools who think they'll live forever will still do it; you can require motorcyclists to wear helmets, and morons will line up to prove they have granite heads impervious to injury when they come out second in a contest with a fixed object.

I have the same feeling about so-called "hate crime legislation." If a person is murdered because he's black or white, gay or straight, Jewish or Muslim, male or female, or whatever - the crime is murder. Murder has been illegal since Cain slew Abel (unless, of course, you are a radical Muslim, in which case you believe killing infidels is okay). The victim, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or anything else, is still dead and the killer needs to be punished. Adding another layer of legal obfuscation atop the original crime does nothing except give new ammunition for lawyers seeking to drag out the procedings and make more money.

Paradoxically, more laws can lead to less-lawful behavior as scofflaws ignore them, shrewd lawyers engineer workarounds, and venal legislators legislate exceptions for their campaign contributors. We started out with 10 Commandments...the United States Code alone is divided into 50 separate "Titles," and each state, county, city, and minor municipality piles its own laws on top of those. Each of us can almost certainly be arrested for something.

Common sense isn't so common any more. We've buried it under heaps of laws.

Have a good day. Do the right thing because it's right - not because the law forces you to.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Fifth of July

Yesterday was the Fourth of July, America's premier national holiday and the traditional high point of the summer. There were parades and picnics, family reunions were held, much baseball was played, and huge fireworks displays were offered in those communities which can still afford them. Here in Pittsburgh, where we're visiting my father, the weather was warm and cloudy, with a nice breeze. It was a good, traditional, American Fourth of July.

But today is the Fifth of July.

If you're the Fifth of July, you get no respect.

Nobody goes to a movie called "Born on the Fifth of July." There are no parades and fireworks, just the complaints of a lot of grumpy people who have to clean up the mess from the previous day. Stores don't have blowout Fifth of July sales. Even all the red, white and blue bunting looks a little limp and sad, and the flags don't seem to fly as high and float as proudly on the summer breeze.

So let's make the Fifth of July feel a little better. What happened on the Fifth of July?

In 1943, the largest tank battle in history - the Battle of Kursk - began. What the Germans called "Operation Citadel" pitted some 50 German divisions against an enormous Russian force, and led to a decisive defeat for the Germans.

Showman P.T. ("there's a sucker born every minute") Barnum and American Naval hero David ("damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!") Farragut were born on July 5th, as was former French prime minister George Pompidou.

On July 5th, 1865, William Booth established the Christian Mission in London's East End. The Christian Mission in 1878 became what we know today as The Salvation Army - one of the world's major charitable organizations.

Swing Era bandleader Harry James and architect Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school of design, both died on July 5th.

On July 5th, 1946, French designer Louis Reard unveiled a daring two-piece swimsuit at a swimming pool in Paris. He named it the "bikini," after the location of the recent nuclear weapons tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

And on July 5th, 1687, Isaac Newton published his book, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia Mathematica). The book contains Newton’s laws of motion, which are part of the foundation of modern physics.

So let's show a little love to the Fifth of July. Even if you'd prefer the fifth of bourbon, ha, ha.

Agnes and I will be heading home later this morning, so please try to avoid us on the highways if you're traveling, too. The drive up here was stressful enough...I could use a break.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

A US soldier taken prisoner in Afghanistan has reportedly been sold to one of the warring clans; Sarah Palin has resigned as governor of Alaska, probably because she can see Washington from there; North Korea has test-fired seven missiles, the international relations equivalent of a two-year old's temper tantrum, but slightly more dangerous; no one is quite sure who the real president of Honduras is; and the Navy reports that a sailor standing guard duty at Camp Pendleton was murdered earlier this week.

Sit down, take deep, cleansing breaths, and let Cartoon Saturday make it all better.

It's not always easy to go through life with a degree in Linguistics, cringing when language is misused and abused (especially when you live in Washington and have to listen to the tortured screams of English coming from Capitol Hill). Here are two cartoons about language...

and,There are some good cartoons out there poking fun at those of us in the blogging community, too...


and,

Getting old is a real pain. Of course, the alternative is worse. I was moaning one day some years ago about getting old, and my loving daughter told me not to worry...that I wasn't getting old, I was just getting fat. I think I can relate to this cartoon ...

And finally, surrounded as I am with brilliant and precocious grandchildren, I thought this was an especially good cartoon ...

Cartoon Saturday comes to you today from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Agnes and I are spending the weekend with my father and my sister and her family. Wherever you are spending this Fourth of July holiday weekend, I hope it's safe and happy.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Let the Computer Do It

The terrible Metro train crash here in DC last month is slowly receding into memory. The investigation is still ongoing, the victims have been memorialized, the politicians have all made the usual promises about fixing the underlying problems, and reinforced battalions of lawyers are licking their chops in expectation of huge fees for suing on behalf of the injured and the merely inconvenienced.

The exact cause of the crash is as yet unknown, but investigators seem to be focusing on a malfunctioning sensor in the rails which prevented one train - operating in the fully automated mode - from realizing that another train was stopped on the tracks ahead.

It was the computer's fault.

Automation can be a wonderful, and even a necessary thing. Much of the speed and convenience we enjoy in everyday life can be attributed to the quiet workings of networks of computers and sensors we generally don't know are even there. John can tell you about the use of computers in the air traffic control system that allows us to fly from point A to point B safely. Computers allow us to share our ramblings in blogs. They let us pay for gas at the pump and Big Macs at the register, and they let Andrea (and all the rest of us) enjoy digital music. They help manage traffic in major cities and facilitate the vast volume of transactions that let stockbrokers and hedge fund managers make our retirement funds disappear into other people's pockets.

But what happens when the computers don't do what they're supposed to? What happens when a sensor fails, or a line of code doesn't work quite right, or some worthless moron of a hacker makes the system go haywire? The best case result is minor annoyance and irritation; the worst case is a fatal accident when computers fail the trains, planes, and cars which rely on them.

This article from The Washington Post points out the problem: Metro Crash May Exemplify Automation Paradox. The article quotes a human factors expert who says, "The problem is when individuals start to overtrust or overrely or become complacent and put too much emphasis on the automation." In other words, perhaps we allow computers to do too much. Perhaps we slavishly assume that everything works better when we take the human out of the system and just let the computers run it.

In the words of the song, "it ain't necessarily so."

In 1966, British author Dennis Feltham Jones wrote a book titled Colossus which was made into a movie called Colossus: The Forbin Project, and which later yielded the Terminator franchise. The basic plot line was that Professor Charles Forbin had developed the ultimate, integrated defense system which allowed a mighty computer (Colossus) to take over all nuclear weapons, removing the fingers of fallible humans from the triggers. Good idea. Except that the Russians had their own version of Colossus, called Guardian, and when Colossus and Guardian recognized each other and joined forces ... well ... let's just say things didn't work out quite the way good Professor Forbin intended. The original novel and film are, in my opinion, much better than the Terminator series, even if they lack the sophisticated special effects.

As cautionary tales go, Colossus is a pretty good one. While the deaths of nine people in a Metro crash ... or even the deaths of 228 people in the recent Air France crash ... don't compare to the deaths of hundreds of millions in the Terminator movies, they still point out the problems of overreliance on automated systems.

Computers and automation have given us amazing levels of safety and convenience, but they can also give us awful levels of heartbreak and misery. There's no point in being a Luddite, but a healthy level of skepticism about automation isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I'm still flying and riding the Metro, after all ... feeling a little better from knowing that John is on the job when I fly, and that the Metrorail controllers are awake and watching during my commute.

Have a good day. Your computer will help you do it.

Cartoon Saturday is coming tomorrow.

Bilbo

101 Things to Do (More or Less)

Bloggers seem to have a thing about lists. How many annoying memes have you been tagged with that ask you for five or ten or thirteen things about a particular topic, and how many posts have you read that express the writer's idea in terms of a list?

Last year, I posted Bilbo's Bucket List - my list of things I wanted to do before I kicked the proverbial bucket. This was inspired, of course, by the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman movie about two elderly men who break out of a cancer ward and set out to have a last fling by doing all the things on their own "bucket lists." I only had five things on that list at the time I wrote the post.

The other day, Amanda wrote about her own 101 Things to DoList, and noted that it only contained 64 items. She wondered about the length of the list, asking "Have I become so unambitious? Am I so complacent in life that I can't even think of things that I want to do before I die? Or have I just become boring? Older? Unimaginative? Narrow minded? Maybe I've lost some brain cells and I just can't think anymore?"

I thought she was writing about me. After all, her 101 Things list has 64 things on it. My more-or-less equivalent Bucket List only had five (six, if you count the one about visiting Vienna and St Petersburg as two items). I need to get moving, lest I be thought of as boring, older, unimaginative, narrow-minded, or lacking in brain cells (no comment necessary, Mike).

So (drum roll, please) ... here is the start on my own updated Bucket List/101 Things to Do Before I Die List. Wish me luck ...

1. Dance at the weddings of all my grandchildren.

2. Hold my first (at least!) great-grandchild and tell him (or her) stories.

3. Visit Vienna (Austria, not Virginia).

4. Visit St Petersburg (Russia, not Florida).

5. Go on a really long cruise with Agnes...around northern Europe and the Mediterranean, or through the South Pacific.

6. Dance a waltz with Edyta Sliwinska.

7. Publish an article in a national magazine.

8. Write and publish a book.

9. Learn to moonwalk.

10. Take a carpentry course and learn to build things.

11. Learn to take really good glamour photographs (no sense in having a high-end camera and knowing lots of beautiful women if I can't intersect the two).

12. Get my garden to the point where I'm actually getting more vegetables from it than the deer are.

Okay, I'm up to 12 things. That's about 52 things short of Amanda's list, so she ought to feel better.

At the moment, though, #1 on my to-do list is to get my pasty-white backside off to work so that I can earn the money to start working my way through that list. I've just got to win the lottery...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Dress Codes, Threats, and Common Sense

Al Qaeda never seems to run out of things to threaten its perceived enemies over. Today, according to this article from CNN, a branch of al Qaeda has threatened to "take revenge on France by every means and wherever we can reach them" for the heinous crime of debating whether or not the burqa should be permitted to be worn in France.

The horror!

In case you aren't familiar with the term, a burqa is the robe worn by some Muslim women which covers them from head to foot, leaving only the eyes exposed. As it is worn in Afghanistan, even the eyes are hidden, covered by a mesh window. Here is a picture of two Iranian women wearing burqas -

The debate over wearing of the burqa has many aspects. Some fundamentalist Muslims believe it is required by Koranic verses which require female "modesty," while others settle for a similar robe which exposes the face, and others for a simple head scarf which hides the hair and neck.

I personally believe the burqa is stupid and without social or religious justification, but my opinion tends not to carry much weight with those who believe women are a deadly threat to men's morals and need to be completely hidden so that they do not provide a temptation to evil thoughts and a distraction from prayer.

But should its wearing be illegal?

The short answer is no. Wearing a burqa may be silly, but if silliness were illegal, there wouldn't be enough people left outside of jail to guard all the inmates. A woman should be allowed to wear what she choses to wear.

Of course, in the case of the burqa, it isn't the woman who is making the decision in many - if not most - cases. It's the religious leaders (all men) who are making the rule, based on their varying translations of Koranic verses. There's a very good discussion of this - including a rundown on the various forms of burqas and the issue of what the Koran actually says in translation - in this Washington Post article by Pamela K. Taylor.

There are good reasons of public safety and security for banning wear of the burqa - not the least of which is that it offers an excellent way to hide weapons, explosives, or other contraband, and that one never can know exactly who is underneath. The most silly recent argument on the subject concerns Muslim women who insist on having their drivers license pictures taken while wearing burkas that reveal only the eyes, if that much. This one goes, in my humble opinion, far beyond the bounds of common sense and reflects an utter lack of willingness to balance their desire to be "modest" with my desire not to be blown up.

Yes, that was an oversimplification, but I think you get my point.

Ladies, if you wish to be modest, by all means, be modest. But I don't think a burqa is a sign of your modesty - if anything, it's telling me you think you're so sexy that you have to completely hide yourself or you'll drive the rest of us so wild with lust that we will forget everything else.

Modesty doesn't require hiding every bit of your body from the world. Wear a head scarf if you want. Fine. But please lose the burqa. I doubt that a God who made you in His (Her?) image is very pleased if you think that image must be hidden away from the world.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo