What Is It About Heels?

There have been two stories in the news lately about women having to give up high heels. One is about Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Jessica Parker Is Done With High Heels… Unless They’re Really, Really Nice; and the other about Jessica Simpson, Jessica Simpson Stops Wearing Heels During Second Pregnancy, Practices Walking In Flats.

The real question is why so many women voluntarily wear the things that will ruin their feet.

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What Barefoot Stupidity Leads To

Duct-taping a child’s shoes and socks onto their feet?

Really?

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Peter Jackson: A Bit of a Disappointment

Peter Jackson was always known for being a bit of a hobbit himself. New Zealanders are pretty comfortable with bare feet pretty much anywhere, even out and about, and Peter Jackson was no exception.

But that has changed.

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The Cat That Sits Down on a Hot Stove-Lid

Via a comment from Dan (thanks!), we get a commentary from the Thomaston (Georgia) Times, entitled Life, liberty, and the pursuit of being barefoot.

Excuse me while I go cry some crocodile tears.

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Civilized

In a comment to “Smiley: Barefoot Australian Boy”, Victor asks:

Watching movies like this, I always ask myself a bitter question: how come that my generation, and myself as a child, were deprived of such a natural and great thing as going barefoot everywhere? Why did all those hangups about bare feet develop?

I have a possible theory.

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And They Call This Advice?

The Wayne Post (in New York) just published an article about Tips for happy feet during barefoot season.

One really wonders where they get their information.

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Following

Barefoot Brian has a rather interesting blog entry I thought I’d point you folks to, entitled . . . and your mind will follow.

It is a nice compilation of various thoughts on going barefoot.

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Year-End Review

For today I thought I’d just review the past year of blog entries. Somehow I’ve managed to produce 266 of them over the year.

My favorites?

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When do the Teens End?

I’m in the mood for revisiting an over 10-year old issue.

It is now 2011, and when does the decade of the Teens end? Of course it is December 31 of 2019, and the new decade of the Twenties starts with January 1, 2020. And that is clearly how all the decades work. Yet, back in 1999 we were told we had to wait for 2001, and that there was this huge decade/century/millennium mismatch, supposedly “because there is no year zero.” Thus we were told by the pedantic. Supposedly, Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001″ has that name for the same pedantic reason.

Well, the pedants were wrong. Here’s the right answer.

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More Thoughts — One Day Without Shoes

In some ways, TOMS Shoes One Day Without Shoes is delightfully subversive.

The common mythos is that walking barefooted is horribly dangerous. Store owners are sure that they have hazards everywhere (if so, why aren’t they removing them?). Yet, in 16 years of shopping barefooted, I’ve never had an injury inside any store. Oh, wait. I’m lying — I cut my finger on a coupon dispenser in a grocery store once. A nasty gash, too. And I didn’t even sue them. After all, what were my damages? The cost of a band-aid? People are also sure that walking on streets is incredibly dangerous. They have fears of glass and needles everywhere.

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A Mark Twain Quote

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

(From Pudd’nhead Wilson.)

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