What?

Well this is just deeee-lightful.

Honestly, it's exactly this sort of thing that makes me dream fondly of long calico skirts, horse-drawn buggies, and remote caves. Yes, I'm fully aware that pervs and felons are everywhere, that they don't automatically exclude remote Amish communities when picking targets. But. For crying out loud! Who does this sort of thing, buys this crud for their little children and thinks it's cute? Have you seen some of the more popular Halloween costumes out there this year? Here's hoping our post-post-modern world survives the long-term effects of such pathetic, soul-sucking sexualization of nine year-olds. Do we not yet understand that children who volitionally dress like this are parroting prostitutes for fun? That children of the very same age in Thailand, India, Pakistan, and so many other places are dressed up like this and SOLD with the express intent that they be abused within an inch of their lives???

I'll just step quietly off the soap box now and try to lower my blood pressure...

One more thought: how, seriously, does one exist as a citizen of this planet and not see this for precisely what it is--a marketing strategy intent on simultaneously emptying our wallets and ensuring that future generations are even more available for such manipulation? Are we really such losers that we just follow along, panting and happy to be included in the current pop-culture wave? Thrilled that we can be so au courant that we're doing the same stupid thing as everyone else? I'd thought that the horror of Abercrombie's thongs for the under ten set had rather clarified things for most of us several years back. Apparently not.

Meanwhile, the dumb get dumber, the rich get richer (often off the sadly gullible), but aren't we all having fun? Thank heavens we're having so much fun with our plethora of shiny gadgets. I think Dorothy Sayers had some pertinent things to say about squandering our educational capital, but who cares? We're off to stock up on stupid things made in China which conveniently insult our intelligence but we're too self-absorbed to get the joke! Wheeee!!!

See, right here I'd swear, but there just aren't words that can sum up what I need to say. Vomit. That's pretty close.

Okay, now I'm done.