Such sex discrimination.....

[cooperlola]

Yes Sweets, sorry.  I did in fact amend my post when I had read yours once again after my first attempt.  Appologies.[:)]

[cooperlola]

[quote user="sweet 17"]

I cannot think of anything more sinister than designer babies, all perfect, blue-eyed or whatever and of a sex of the parents' choosing.

[/quote]Neither can I.

Do those who think there is a god not think that he designs them anyway though?  I'm genuinely interested - I mean, isn't praying supposed to get you somewhere, or are you only allowed to pray for things that your god would approve of - and if the latter, what's the point anyway?  Why doesn't he just give everybody one of each and have done?

[woolybanana]

God designed Man in his own image, and presumably Woman too. The first designer people!

[Chancer]

Well anyone can make a mistake! [6]

[woolybanana]

That is the first sensible comment on this thread

[Alan Zoff]

That's very honest of you, Wooly, given that you have contributed more posts than most to the thread....

[Gluestick]

I watched this thread with mounting amusement: as it progressed.

Chancer said:

[quote]I cannot believe the venom that comes forth on this forum regarding one or the other or especially the both of them, what is behind it?

Why all the disparaging remarks about his height, the play on words with runt and her being a bike?

I really dont get it, its the sort of thing you hear from jealous immature people, I dont think many on this forum fit into that category, do they?[/quote]

Then Sweets, summing up, as so often economically and well said:

[quote]For goodness' sake, Chance......we know you are an admirer of Sarkozy or of Madame Sarkozy for all we know, but it's all just a bit of micky-taking!

They are the "beautiful people" and us plebs have to show some disrespect .......that's just the way it is.  They are fair game, IMHO![/quote]

Then Catalpa wrote:

[quote]I'm mildly surprised too - though some participants do have a long history of committing disparaging remarks about women to print.

And of course, Ms Bruni quite likely never made the remarks  - I don't trust everything I read... even in the Telegraph.

Still, as a launching pad for venting of spleen it obviously served a purpose...[/quote]

And thus the thread degenerated into a rant for feminism...............and completely missed the point.

Later on, Cooperlola wrote:

[quote]Why is it that people feel they can get away with upsetting people and bandying offensive language and sexist slurs  about[/quote]

Which is rather interesting: considering what she wrote on another thread.

[quote]

If I had my way, no man who isn't going bald would be allowed to put his hair near a pair of scissors (nor his face near a razor either!) Big Smile [:D]  And what is it with that awful shaven-headed look?  No white guy should do it, IMHO.Ick! [+o(][/quote]

Now, as you took issue with me before when I described the intellectually confused woman, Judy Finnegan as "Fat" (When she clearly is: remember?), I now take issue with you for discriminating against bald men: and or those who shave their heads.

More critically, your comment could be deemed by the sensitive PC mob as clearly racist!

Since bald white guys could feel discriminated against!

You cannot have it both ways, sadly.

Cooperlola: you are being hugely disingenuous!

I note you didn't respond to my earlier comments on satire and political cartoons: which, naturally use physical differences and particularly, physiognomy, as a focus for ridicule.

No doubt, none of you outraged faction have ever read Private Eye, watched Spitting Image, or Rory Bremner's programmes and indeed, anything else which pokes fun at politicians and those in the public eye and the like who deserve such for their total narcissistic self-absorbed vanity and self-importance.

And most, poke fun at physical abnormalities: such as Sarah Fergusson's freckles, e.g.

Taking the P is a normal activity amongst grown ups: that's OK if one can take it as well as give it.

Those who set themselves up as being above the normal and expected social mores of stable society and behavioural norms and then themselves behave as alley cats and courtesans (Politely), deserve all the opprobrium dished out.

I noted some time back,BTW, that Sarkozy is so obsessed (he is: not me or others) by his lack of stature, he sacked all the security bodyguard and demanded shorter men!

[Alan Zoff]

I have a lot of sympathy with Gluestick's take on this.

I have friends with varying features that fall short of the "perfect man" - including 2 very short, one seriously overweight and one with exceptionally "bad" taste in just about everything. And then there's me who, to name but one of several defects, is very deaf. We openly take the p out of each other and I am quite sure that none of us is the worse for it. On the contrary - I suspect it is worse for people who try to hide things and shy away from reality. I, for example, could pretend not to be deaf but in fact it makes things a whole lot easier for me if others know my problem and adjust the way they speak to me accordingly. OK, I have to take the odd jibe, but so what?

Are my short friends going to believe they are 6-footers if no one comments on their lack of height?

People are different. We can't all be Brad Pitt or Cheryl Cole. Live with it.

As for offending Mr and Mrs President, I somehow doubt that they are members of this forum. And there are any number of high profile celebrities who are doing a much better job of deriding them in media that they might see. We would hardly have a comedian left in business if some of the sanctimonious standards mentioned here were applied.

[britgirl]

Sorry , but can't help being frivolous Ugly women are beautiful too

As one who has always been 'less' than the ideal model girl [:-))]

[britgirl]

Sorry, double posting...

[just john]

That's the problem with PC, it's just not the real world, a degree of (humourous) offence goes with the territory; Get over it, its not new and very often the only time people can make any kind of comment about the behaviour of politicians and their beau's. see some vicious 18th cent stuff on  cartoonstock. hogarth

[pachapapa]

[quote user="britgirl"]

Sorry, double posting...

[/quote]

Never Mind![I]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-1O76vDl34

[mint]

Oh, Pacha, you are such a diplomat![:)]

[Catalpa]

There are rants - and highly defensive, testy rants at that - coming from only one person on this thread.

[cooperlola]

Successful personal relationships between two people rely to some extent on physical attraction, at least initially.  Short hair (as opposed to baldness, which is thrust upon people and not a matterof choice) says something about a person - they chose to look like skinheads, with all the unpleasant connotations which go with that.  I find that bizarre and and a bit disturbing, and - initially at least, it's a turn-off.  I like long hair.  I'm attracted to men with long hair and turned off by shaven (white) heads - sorry.    I've never had a physical relationship with a (self-inflictedly) hairless white guy and one of the things which initially attracted me to my o/h was his lovely thick hair and his wooly face!

On the other hand here we are judging public figures whose politics should be the issue, by their physical characteristics and their partner's sexual history. A long way from my selecting the guys I sleep with based, to some extent at least, on they way they choose to wear their hair.  As far as being overweight is concerned, I doubt anybody would chose to be fat - yes, they choose to eat but my o/h eats more than I do (we have the same diet so I know this) but weighs far less - being fat is not a choice, unlike a hairdo, which clearly is.  Of course nobody can be blamed for being bald and I wouldn't call anybody "baldie" or assume because they have lost their hair that they won't have good political instincts.

If only more politicians were like these two gentlemen, and the public were more apt to judge politicians by their policies than their private lives, we might have better leaders:

Maynard v Norman (start at 4.5 minutes - sadly I cannot find this without the intro' - not that it isn't funny and perspicatious also, just not apposite.)

I don't usually find political satire based on personal insults very funny, no. Of course, sometimes people make funny jokes on that basis - it is inevitable that occasionally it will be funny but generally, no I don't laugh. Ian Hislop, for example, who uses insult on a regular basis and thinks it funny - leaves me cold.  (My opinion is not helped by the fact that he lives near my old home in the UK and is just as rude in reality, I will admit.) The memory of his treatment of Paula Yates still makes me shake with rage even years later, even though she wasn't a woman I found very interesting.  Clarkson isn't funny either - the fact that he had to rely on Gordon Brown's disability to make a joke about him says it all.

Of course Sarkozy will be obsessed with his stature. I have no doubt that a load of horrible kids he grew up with insulted him and hurt him by poking fun at the fact that he was short.  Just like the kids who called me "specky four eyes" because I was unfortunate enough to get the measles when I was 2.  Similarly I have a friend who is 6'6" who walks with a permanent stoop as if he wants to hide all the time because he was bullied at school for being so tall.  Just about understandable in a group of brats. But in grown ups?  Not so much.

[woolybanana]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

  I've never had a physical relationship with a (self-inflictedly) hairless white guy and one of the things which initially attracted me to my o/h was his lovely thick hair and his wooly face!

[/quote]

YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TELL!!![kiss][kiss][kiss]

[cooperlola]

[quote user="woolybanana"][quote user="cooperlola"]

  I've never had a physical relationship with a (self-inflictedly) hairless white guy and one of the things which initially attracted me to my o/h was his lovely thick hair and his wooly face!

[/quote]

YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TELL!!![kiss][kiss][kiss]

[/quote]Ooops.[:$][kiss]

[Gluestick]

Older guys who try and retain a semblance of youth, by adopting sartorial and appearance eccentricities of the young look stupid, IMHO.

Sadly as we age, our hair cannot look as lustrous as it does in the ads.

Guys like Stringfellow look as ridiculous as those old trendy bald on top fellows with an earring and ponytails.

If you want to be taken seriously in this spavined old world, look serious: not like a cross between a refugee from Carnaby Street and a lost profit and nutty professor.

Personally, I believe that shaved headed guys look like thugs: I understand why some do it: as their hair recedes, then they don't want to look like Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing.  Understood.

It is, like so much today, sadly, a media inspired fashion thing: Bruce Willis today: the majority of the intellectually challenged tomorrow.

For me, the crux of this matter was simple: Ms Bruni does not represent the once proud tradition of French diplomacy, which is recognised all over the World. Anymore than does Sarkozy: which is probably why many of the French call him President Bling Bling.

Not me, you note: the French. And not from respect, you understand.

How unfeeling!

How insulting!

Argue with them: not me.................

Unfortunately, she, Bruni, could never enjoy my respect (not that she is worried), since I personally believe in monogamy and not breaking up marriages as a sort of self-confessed serial philanderer: which she is.

Now if Sarkozy, himself, had have been bed-hopping and cavorting in emulation of the silly fool Berlesconi, then I would have similarly, been the first to award him a derogatory sobriquet such as (Just to show despite stated conviction on this thread to the contrary, there are many derogatory terms for men who cannot keep their fly zipped):

Casanova, Lothario, Prince Charming, Romeo, allurer,

charmer, enticer, heartbreaker, ladies' man, lady-killer,

libertine, lover, lurer, philanderer , playboy, rake, roué, skirt

chaser, smooth operator, stud, tempter, wolf*, woman chaser, adulterer, chaser,

cruiser, dallier, debaucher, operator, swinger, ........................

To name but a few (of the polite ones).

Surely, politicians at Sarkozy's level, need gravitas, respect and credibility?

None of which he has.

Which was the point.

[mint]

Blimey, you been at the old thesaurus again?

[woolybanana]

You are all missing the point, I fear. The attacks on Sarkozy and his wife are designed by an anti-element to denigrate the man and his policies and are paralleled by those on Werth. Put down the man and you discredit his beliefs. A feature of modern politics I fear.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Hoddy"]The trouble is Wooly we're a bit short of words of contempt for men of the same kind. What is the male equivalent of 'bike'. Does it carry the same degree of condemnation ? Hoddy[/quote]

Not really the answer you are looking for but a lot of modern girls who sleep around but dont want a relationship (or at least that is what they make out) use the pejorative "shag buddy" to describe the guy who gets (un)lucky with them.

Those that purposely get pregnant and bear children but want nothing to do with the father (apart from money of course [;-)]) call them "sperm donors".  I can usually spot these and give them a wide berth, they always are very insistent "I dont ever want children" or "I can never have children" etc and refuse contraception.

As a male I would say that these pejorative terms whilst insults to masculinity or ego dont carry the sense of condemnation, more like "you sucker".

I think Mr Sarkozy's ex wife used a good term by calling him "un sauteur".

I doubt that there can ever be a male equivalent of bike as to me calling a woman a bike is a euphemism of  "she lets everyone ride her", by that definition most guys would happily allow themselves to be bikes but only the lucky get the chance.

[Chancer]

[quote user="woolybanana"]You are all missing the point, I fear. The attacks on Sarkozy and his wife are designed by an anti-element to denigrate the man and his policies and are paralleled by those on Werth. Put down the man and you discredit his beliefs. A feature of modern politics I fear.[/quote]

Is this an example? - Perhaps she will be grateful for anything the runt can give her, even a leettl cochon! [:P][;-)]

 

[Gluestick]

[quote user="woolybanana"]You are all missing the point, I fear. The attacks on Sarkozy and his wife are designed by an anti-element to denigrate the man and his policies and are paralleled by those on Werth. Put down the man and you discredit his beliefs. A feature of modern politics I fear.[/quote]

Woolly: I fear all politicians are attacked, these days: by the partisan media, depending upon whom they support: and by those, such as myself, which consider all politicians, with tiny exceptions, are self-serving professional calumnists, seeking simply to bamboozle gullible voters, with empty rhetoric and hollow "promises" they have little or no intention of actually keeping once elected.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Chancer"]............most guys would happily allow themselves to be bikes but only the lucky get the chance.[/quote]

Speak for yourself, Mate!

I've known a few guys like that.

One young business chum in the 70s, was reputed to be particularly well hung: and after his business failed and he went into personal bankruptcy, declared his sole ambition, for a year or two was to, well, err, horizontally jog himself to death.

We all fell, about, when one young lady of his acquaintance fell pregnant and had twins![:D]

He and his close friends then, were sort of proud of their achievements in managing to contract what they euphemistically described as "A Dose": rather like young tearaways today, being proud of their personal achievement in being awarded an ASBO.

I prefer a more ordered life.