Tragic Setback in the War on Thongs

David Weigel | April 25, 2007

Florida's state senate was set to debate a ban on schoolgirls showing their undies yesterday. Alas!

Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, agreed to withdraw his last-minute "Pull up your britches" amendment this morning in a Senate education committee.

But not until both he and former school teacher Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, offered a lesson to a group of students in the audience.

Siplin said he was worried about the professional prospects of "ladies with g-strings showing and guys walking down the halls trying to pull up their pants with one hand and carrying their bookbags in another hand." Bullard said she was particularly horrified that the fashion extended beyond school to, she has recently noticed, church.

Any suggestion that Siplin was trying to distract attention from his mounting legal problems would be in bad taste. Also, why is it that the local powerbrokers cracking down on teenage hotness are all Democrats?

Comments

Guy Montag|4.25.07 @ 10:04AM|#

David,

Didn't schools get all over guys of your generation for "sagging"? I remember my son talking about that in middle/high school.

Sounds like kinda the same thing.

|4.25.07 @ 10:11AM|#

If the government is to operate the schools, it makes sense that legislatures will be discussing dress codes. The answer to the problem is not to make fun of legislators who want some form of dress code, but to get the government out of the education business. Let's see how many private schools permit their students to dress like bums or hookers.

|4.25.07 @ 10:15AM|#

I don't have time to dig it up now, but there's a video of Siplin running from TV cameras where he actually climbed a chain link fence in a suit. Florida can safely claim the most hilarious politician-athletes...
JMR

|4.25.07 @ 10:18AM|#

School uniforms are a great idea for public and private schools. Democrats push these kind of "ban g-string" bills while Republicans are usually in the school uniform camp. Either way, both parties have addressed this issue in FL.

|4.25.07 @ 10:23AM|#

sarcasmo | April 25, 2007, 10:15am | #

I don't have time to dig it up now, but there's a video of Siplin running from TV cameras where he actually climbed a chain link fence in a suit. Florida can safely claim the most hilarious politician-athletes...
JMR

Here you go, sarcasmo.

|4.25.07 @ 10:41AM|#

Why Democrats? Because though you may think the ban is silly or dumb, it is quite arguably pro family values, and Democrats traditionally is the pro family value party, regardless of what Rush Limbaugh may have gotten you to believe.

|4.25.07 @ 10:46AM|#

Pro family values? You mean low-rise jeans, whale tails, and sagging pants are destroying families??

Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City "Sailor wanna hump-hump" bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.

|4.25.07 @ 10:51AM|#

So now the 11th graders will start going commando to get around the rule....

|4.25.07 @ 10:52AM|#

If the government is to operate the schools, it makes sense that legislatures will be discussing dress codes. The answer to the problem is not to make fun of legislators who want some form of dress code, but to get the government out of the education business. Let's see how many private schools permit their students to dress like bums or hookers.

It is true that without public schools, we won't have to worry about lower-class kids dressing like lower-class kids, since they won't be able to attend school in the first place.

thoreau|4.25.07 @ 11:08AM|#

I heard that Segolene Royal went off on a similar crusade a few years back.

I'm certainly not in favor of tacky dressing, but why does it become an obsession of high officials rather than something that school principals either deal with or wisely ignore?

|4.25.07 @ 11:12AM|#

Also, why is it that the local powerbrokers cracking down on teenage hotness are all Democrats?

Why? Because despite the hackneyed stereotypes of prim Republican church ladies putting fig leaves on naked statues, most of the nannies, scolds, and moral crusaders in America today are on the left side of the political spectrum.

|4.25.07 @ 11:17AM|#

If Cho had had one hand holdin up his trousers, and one on his bookbag,(or genitals, depending on his particular cultural affectation,) he wouldn't have been able to shoot all those debaucherous christian charlatans.

I propose all pants be rode low to deter violent crime.

and the whale tails? It would seem they would promote the conception of family values.

|4.25.07 @ 11:22AM|#

I listened to a nationally recognized christian preacher do a sermon yesterday. It dealt with christians being ashamed of sex despite the fact that it is a wonderful gift from God to be energetically undertaken in many forms very frequently.

|4.25.07 @ 11:29AM|#

You people are all so cynical. Can't you see that we finally have a politician willing to take the bold steps necessary to really address the serious problems facing the state of education today?

|4.25.07 @ 11:33AM|#

I listened to a nationally recognized christian preacher do a sermon yesterday. It dealt with christians being ashamed of sex despite the fact that it is a wonderful gift from God to be energetically undertaken in many forms very frequently.

I will look forward to the breaking news on this preacher and his denial of all charges...

|4.25.07 @ 11:43AM|#

I'm a strong supporter of the War on Thongs.

I see a woman in a thong, and right away my reaction is "That thing's gotta go."

|4.25.07 @ 11:48AM|#

joe,

Posts like that are why we keep you around. :-D

tomWright|4.25.07 @ 11:59AM|#

I for one, welcome our new underwear overlords.
And their commandos.

|4.25.07 @ 12:17PM|#

Of course they debate about stuff like this.

Where else can you talk about teenage girls' underwear for hours on end and not be branded a pervert?

|4.25.07 @ 12:18PM|#

Wars on Teenage Hotness are extremely popular because they require lots of legislative research.

|4.25.07 @ 1:00PM|#

I could go along with a war on some thongs, like the size 18+ ones.

ktc2|4.25.07 @ 1:36PM|#

The D's have realized that they can win votes by being just as moralizing as the R's. Likewise the R's have realized they can win votes by being just as spendthrift as the D's.

So we have the both the worst parts traditionally associated with each party now on full force in both.

|4.25.07 @ 1:49PM|#

guy in the back row,
stop lookin at me like that guy, it creeps me out.

|4.25.07 @ 1:58PM|#

When students dress sexy, school admins get worked up and get it on it the faculty lounge.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tf9ETVVMjOc

|4.25.07 @ 2:01PM|#

Dressing like hookers? Low class girls? Keep in mind that even today's most conservative women's swimwear is essentially nothing but specially marketed underwear. Almost every woman at the beach or pool shows MUCH more skin than one with low rise jeans and a thong showing. Holy shit, did anyone notice that womens tennis players are constantly flashing their panties! The apocolypse is nigh!

|4.25.07 @ 2:26PM|#

Good point, Stillwaterb.

LarryA|4.25.07 @ 2:33PM|#

I'm a strong supporter of the War on Thongs.

Uh. "Supporter." Huh, huh.

Back when I was in high school they didn't want us dressing like "hoodlums." I.e. flattop haircuts.

|4.25.07 @ 2:43PM|#

It is the role of the teenager to dress in ways that annoy adults, and it is the role of the adult to attempt to stop him.

|4.25.07 @ 3:00PM|#

Will the Florida legislature seek to ban performance of J.S. Bach's "Air on a G string"?

|4.25.07 @ 3:49PM|#

"It is the role of the teenager to dress in ways that annoy adults, and it is the role of the adult to attempt to stop him."

HIM! Are ya'll talking about GUYS wearing thongs?

EEEeeeeeewwwwwwww.

CB

|4.25.07 @ 3:54PM|#

"Will the Florida legislature seek to ban performance of J.S. Bach's 'Air on a G string'?"

A g-string can be very sexy. Yet, the second she passes some air over it, and that smell hits you, it's pretty gross, unless you're into space docking, then you probably like it, you perv.

|4.25.07 @ 5:09PM|#

The problem is not with the G-strings, but with the low-waist pants. With G-String you get a whale tail, without a G-string, you get a coin slot.

|4.25.07 @ 5:11PM|#

That might worthy of a poll (pun intended).

Are you a whale tail or a coin slot guy?

Fedge|4.25.07 @ 6:18PM|#

Dude, people don't were baggy pants anymore that was so, 5 years ago! And as for thongs, I prefer my girl in booty-shorts, mmm... booty.

Ray G|4.26.07 @ 1:02AM|#

Well, I guess if it's a govt school, they can pass dress codes. Not sending my kids to a public school so I won't worry too much.

For the whole baggy thing, what a stupid fad. Other generations, including my own, have all done silly, faddish, things with our clothes. But to see a guy walking around with his pants like that; that is just . . . . well, I've outgrown actually acting on these urges, but just walking up and slapping one of these "baggy" guys seems like it would be very gratifying.

Spoon me with a gag|4.26.07 @ 7:13AM|#

GUYS wearing thongs?

The thong in itself qua der Dong an sich.

|4.26.07 @ 9:47AM|#

First time I saw someone with sagging pants, I thought "He's got some nice sneakers for a homeless guy. No way I'm giving him any change."