OHM Fashion Plate Commentary Collection: 48 Fashion Takes All in One Place!

My San Francisco Dongucation

Every little girl remembers her first glimpse of a real live adult male peen. 

If she’s lucky, it was an innocent and accidental encounter with her dad or older brother — a slipped towel or unlocked bathroom door, perhaps. If she’s less fortunate, it was a flasher on the subway or something far worse that precipitated years of trauma and therapy.

For me, it was some random dude’s dong in San Francisco. 

Now, you wouldn’t think it would require a transcontinental flight for a 6th grader from the Bronx to peep her first real-life dick pic, but you’d be wrong because that’s exactly what it took. 

It was my first trip to the west coast, and my parents and I were visiting my Cool Young Aunt Alexis. Alexis made her own jewelry and had big, beautiful curly black hair. She looked and sounded like my mom, but seemed so alluringly different—artistic and free-spirited in stark contrast to my mother’s macabre pragmatism. She had just returned from a stint living at an ashram in India and somewhere else in the mountains near Boulder, and was now in a basement apartment in the Haight. 

“There’s San Francisco!,” my dad said as we came in over the bay for a landing. He let me sit on his lap at the window seat in the non-smoking section of the plane as he pointed out some landmarks. My parents were well-traveled, but I thought this trip was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me. 

I fell asleep at dinner the first night because of the three hour time difference—my first experience in another time zone. We did all the touristy San Francisco things on that trip: drove down Lombard Street, swam in the Pacific Ocean, went to Fisherman’s Wharf, and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. 

But what do I remember most vividly as the most fascinating thing I saw that week? Well I’m glad you asked, because the answer is a drunk hippie’s wang. Unlike the other sights, I didn’t take a Polaroid of this one, but if memory serves this spontaneous attraction presented itself to me outside our hotel one morning.

My mom and I had walked down the street to get breakfast, and there on a bench was a passed-out dude. Being from NYC, I was no stranger to passed-out dudes on benches, so I thought nothing of it until I noticed that he was wearing baggy shorts and his ENTIRE humongous, pink junk was pretty much just hanging out in the breeze.

Something deep in my monkey DNA told me this was a fight-or-flight scenario, so I yanked my mother’s purse and leaned into her side. 

“MOM!” I whisper-hissed. “I can see that man’s penis!” 

My 43 year-old mother was unfazed and had never been particulary attached to her only daughter’s innocence. A Bronx-born orphan and scrapper from youth, not to mention a medical doctor, the woman had seen her share of dicks by this time and was decidedly circumspect.

She put her arm around my shoulder protectively and seamlessly steered us in the other direction. “Uch, Feh!” she shuddered in Yiddish under her breath, “Don’t look.” Of course the ONLY thing I wanted to do was look, and I was disappointed that my traveling companion didn’t share my enthusiasm.

“Remember this moment, Elizabeth,” she said when we had given the man and his genitals a sufficiently wide berth. “Because the fact is you won’t be able to forget it even if you want to.”

As with so much else, she was absolutely right.

Four Oils You Must Use in 2019 to Live Your Best Life and Also Salve the Crushing Weight of Existence

1. Coconut: Coconut oil is one of the most versatile of all the oils you must use in 2019. It is high in "good" saturated fats called medium chain triglycerides, which boost metabolism and energy. Coconut oil is a dietary staple of many non-Western cultures. Cultures that are populated predominantly by tan, skinny hot people who carry their babies effortlessly in a sling and were born woke. Coconut oil is also a great nutrient for skin and hair, and you can find it in a regular grocery store! Sure, you will smell like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model from the 1980s, even though you won't look like one because let's be realistic. However, because smell is linked to memory and sensation, slathering your body, face, and hair in coconut oil each morning will acclimate you to the tropics which are slowly moving northward due to the steady march of climate change and the potential re-introduction of malaria to the northern hemisphere.

2. Avocado: Avocado isn't just for toast, Millennials, and Mexican tariff wars. It's also for oil. Like coconut, avocado is a "superfood." Studies show that simply staring into the bathroom mirror and saying "avocado" ten times backwards will increase your focus at work, boost your immunity, and keep you feeling full for hours. Jason Mraz owns an avocado farm in NoCal and if that isn't an endorsement for avocado oil in 2019 I don't know what is. Can't you picture Jason Mraz on break from tour, walking among the avocado trees in his porkpie hat, strumming his guitar and writing a song about nibbling your ear? You can imagine it, but it won't happen. At least not the last part. Jason Mraz is never going to nibble your ear. You can, however, nibble on a bland, mushy-ripe avocado and cook everything from soup to scrambles with avocado oil while you pretend that Jason Mraz will be your boyfriend someday, assuming Trump doesn’t trigger a nuclear holocaust next week.

3. CBD: Cannabis is everywhere lately! Weed dispensaries are blooming all over the country like an out-of-control dope grow in Bob Marley's backyard on Hope Road in Kingston. Science shows that CBD oil does everything from soothing minor aches and pains to curing epilepsy and AIDS, and if you rub enough of it into your gums and other mucous membranes, you might experience hallucinations sufficient to remove you from the reality of our crumbling democracy. You can also consider the fact that as you indulge in the regulated cannabis market, thousands of Black men are sitting in jail on ten year sentences for the very same oil you are massaging into your lower back after pilates.

4. Essential: If you don't have a Facebook friend from high school that you haven't seen in 20 years trying to multi-level market essential oils to you, then you have not been living your best life in 2019. Essential oils like peppermint, patchouli, and tea tree come in little labeled vials that look very therapeutic and smell like the waiting room of a yoga studio. Pema Chodron uses essential oils, I think. I just made that up but I'm pretty sure it's true. And although no one knows what a tea tree is, or has ever seen one, it is absolutely essential that you have its oil for proper alignment of chakras and a night of uninterrupted sleep. One might argue that the universe of essential oils is expanding to the point where some of the oils should be downgraded to non-essential or at least optional. But for now every one of these oils is essential. As essential as ending misogyny and the gender wage gap, if not more so.

My Public Comment on Proposed Department of Law Ethics Act Regulations

I have submitted a version of the following comment to the State in accordance with the notice and comment provisions of the Alaska Administrative Procedure Act.

To Whom it May Concern:

I am submitting the following public comment in response to the regulations project initiated by the Department of Law and noticed on Alaska's Online Public Notice System on October 1, 2019, by Deputy Attorney General Treg Taylor. 

According to the public notice, the comment period is open until November 4, 2019. Also according to the notice, the proposed regulation changes are as follows:

9 AAC 52.140 is proposed to be changed to expressly clarify that the attorney general, through the Department of Law, may defend against complaints alleging a violation by the governor, lieutenant governor, or attorney general upon a public interest determination. 

9 AAC 52.160 is proposed to be changed to add a new subsection addressing confidentiality.

The statutory basis for these regulations is cited as the Executive Branch Ethics Act (AS 39.52.010-960). I have reviewed the full regulations, which are available online in PDF here. However, for your convenience, the full changes are as follows:

9 AAC 52.140 is amended by adding new subsections to read: 

      (f) If a person brings a complaint alleging a violation under AS 39.52.110 - 39.52.190 or this chapter by the governor or the lieutenant governor, the Department of Law may provide legal representation to the governor or lieutenant governor to defend against the complaint if the attorney general makes a written determination, in the attorney general’s sole discretion, that the representation is in the public interest. (Emphasis added).

      (g) If a person brings a complaint alleging a violation under AS 39.52.110 - 39.52.190 or this chapter by the attorney general, the Department of Law may provide legal representation to the attorney general to defend against the complaint if the governor makes a written determination, in the governor’s sole discretion, that the representation is in the public interest.(Emphasis added).

9 AAC 52.160 is amended by adding a new subsection to read:
    (h) Notwithstanding (a) - (g) of this section, information received by the Department of Law and the attorney general related to the defense of a complaint alleged under 9 AAC 52.140(f) and (g) is confidential. 

I am concerned that the adoption of these regulations will encourage corruption, malfeasance, lack of transparency, and an erosion of public trust in the Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Law, and the Governor's Office.

In enacting the Executive Branch Ethics Act, the Legislature declared that "high moral and ethical standards among public officers in the executive branch are essential to assure the trust, respect, and confidence of the people of this state" and that the purpose of the Act is to "discourage those officers from acting upon personal or financial interests in the performance of their public responsibilities." 

Furthermore, "a fair and open government requires that executive branch public officers conduct the public’s business in a manner that preserves the integrity of the governmental process and avoids conflicts of interest." See AS 39.52.010(a).

The foregoing regulations are, at best, inconsistent with these statutory goals. 

They permit both the Governor and his appointed Attorney General to unilaterally decide "in their sole discretion" when to expend the time and resources of public attorneys (i.e. Assistant Attorneys General) to defend themselves against any and all Ethics Act complaints. The targets of the complaints need only make written statements certifying to each other that doing so is "in the public interest." Worse yet, they can then keep all the information related to these complaints hidden from public view.

The conflict of interest and lack of transparency here should be obvious. These regulations allow the target of an Ethics Act complaint to use their own public employees to shield them from such complaints at their say-so.

The effect of these changes is that when a member of the public makes an Ethics Act complaint against the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, or the Attorney General, these individuals can decide by executive fiat to expend public resources to defend what may be their own misconduct. 

This is not a proper use of Department of Law labor.

While the Attorney General is "the legal advisor for the governor and other state officers," the enumerated statutory duties for that office make clear that this role is not intended to include using Department of Law attorneys as the personal defense team of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and/or the Attorney General in these individuals’ "sole discretion" and based on their subjective determination of what constitutes "the public interest," if and when faced with an Ethics Act complaint.

The Attorney General's duties include the defense of the state and federal constitutions; representing the state in civil actions; bringing and prosecuting all cases involving violation of state law; drafting legal instruments for the state; and providing legal opinions to the governor, legislature, and other state offices. See AS 44.23.020. 

Nothing in these statutes suggests that Department of Law resources should be deployed to defend three specific high-level state appointees against their own potential violations of the Ethics Act with the stroke of a pen, under some meaningless and subjective rubber-stamp standard. 

The Legislature, not the Attorney General or the Governor, should decide when and under what circumstances these particular high-level state employees receive Department of Law services.

While in some cases it may be appropriate for the Department of Law to defend these individuals from an Ethics Act complaint, allowing the Attorney General and the Governor to unilaterally determine in their "sole discretion" when that can occur, and when doing so is in "the public interest"—is rife with conflict. 

That is because under the regulations, the same people who would make "written determinations" to gift themselves the personal legal services of state attorneys are also the targets of the complaints. The fact that the Governor and Attorney General may "cross-certify" for each other does little to resolve this obvious conflict.

The regulations also place Department of Law attorneys in the awkward position of being forced, at risk of dismissal from their jobs, to engage in representation that is potentially inconsistent with state law and/or the Alaska Bar Rules of Professional Conduct.

These regulations violate the spirit if not the letter of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. I encourage the Department of Law not to adopt them.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth M. Bakalar
Juneau, Alaska
October 1, 2019