Tubularsock

TAKE IT ALL OFF?

Tubularsock was sitting around his Top-floor corner office in Tubularsock’s Underground Bunker overlooking Washington, D.C. from Oakland, CA (see BUNKER TOUR) pondering ….. What has made the French so stupid NOW?

No, Tubularsock isn’t going as far as “Freedom-Fries” like the brain dead Bush Administration Congress. French Fries are still tops on Tubularsock’s culinary menu. Well, EXCEPT for the ones served with the prix fixe McDonald’s menu on the Champ-Élysées ! Sometimes American Exceptionalism doesn’t translate!

Tubularsock has always loved his visits to France and found the French people delightful. Even years ago when so many felt that the French had a shitty attitude toward foreign tourists. Tubularsock, speaks no French except, “Ne touchez pas le chien, il mord !” ( Don’t touch the dog, he bites!)

And the only reason Tubularsock learned that phrase was, well Tubularsock’s Yorkie, Gizmo, would bite people if they tried to pet him …… and even with Tubularsock’s fluent-limited-French, four Frenchmen and two French women got themselves bitten by Gizmo.

The great thing was none of them blamed Gizmo or Tubularsock but apologized for not following the warning. And took full responsibility for their action. Unlike Americans who would have blamed the dog’s owner and attempted to sue.

So Tubularsock has been taken surprised by this French reaction to, of all things, the Burkini! What’s with that?

Manuel Valls, the French Prime Minister has stated that the New York Times has painted an “unacceptable” picture of France with a recent article about discrimination against Muslim women.

France previously banned the headscarf from all state schools in 2004 and former President Nicolas Sarkozy banned the niqab – or a full faced veil – from all public places in 2011.

And now, the Burkini!

The reason, “. . . the swimwear still poses a risk to public order.”

So, armed French police officers are shown in photos forcing women to remove their burkinis on beaches. And the humor of all that is not missed on Tubularsock because topless sunbathing on beaches is allowed just not clothed sunbathing! SO FRENCH!

Now all of these rules, according to Prime Minister Valls, have been created so that women don’t have to “. . . live under the yoke of a chauvinist order. The female body is neither pure nor impure; it is the female body. It does not need to be hidden to protect against some kind of temptation.”
But it’s the French government’s chauvinist order that is well, ahh, chauvinist as well!

And of course, it is all in the eye of the beholder. The 1905 French constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and freedom to exercise it. However the original text MADE NO REFERENCE TO CLOTHING.

And if Tubularsock recalls, neither does the U.S. Constitution.

Tubularsock wonders if the wearing a kippah (skullcap) is outlawed in public in France. Does anyone know? Should be, Tubularsock assumes, because of the “. . . posed risk to public order”.

Traditionally, Jewish men and boys wear the kippah at all times, a symbol of their awareness of, and submission to, a “higher” entity.

Another chauvinist position handed down from on high!

But in truth, this is all too funny to Tubularsock. Somehow having women more nude rather than less just seems to be at the heart of the matter chauvinist but maybe it’s just Tubularsock.

Tubularsock has always hated “dress codes”! Public Order be damned!