What I like about fashion

It's easy to think someone looks beautiful, but it's hard to know why. It's also easy to think an american tourist looks stupid in Nikes and a fanny pack (don't laugh, brits), or a french fashionista looks snobby in her italian designs.

Fashion is something most people don't have to worry about, even if they do. It is one of the very last visible steps to enlightenment, or it is the last stage for the wannabes. Caught somewhere between individualism and conformity, between modesty and arrogance, fashion means many things to many people. It depends on where you're standing as well as in which direction you're looking.

I used to think that I had no business thinking about fashion, but I simply didn't realize that I was already. I thought some people went over the top with their obsession, but I laughed similarly at the "clueless".

Now, I realize my error. Fashion is not something to be worshipped or scoffed at. Just as a literary classic or modernist masterpiece cannot define our existence, neither can our clothing style. But, just as we use rhetoric and stylism to refine our language, and just as we carefully pick the color of our living room walls and the view from our bedoom windows, we dress ourselves in the expressions and impressions we want to give.

Fashion is like architecture. Architecture is art that is not at home in a museum. Often it is the museum, and the offices and houses we see and use daily. Fashion is adding art to something that there anyway, and going about our business, part functionality and part aesthetic.

I honestly think it was The Sartorialist who made me realize how cool some people look as they simply walk down the street. I enjoy looking at them more than I do many paintings or sculptures, and the best part is that there is no museum, no entrance fee. It is art and expression that comes to me, in a sense, or at the very least stands on a street corner or sits on a bench until I pass by.

I think that's exactly the point: people can be paintings, or sculptures, in their everyday lives. I enjoy looking at them, and the creative side of me wants to be a painting, too. I am, quite likely, an artist, and this is one of the many media with which I can play. If only I had the money.

I need this job like I need a shot in the arm

An american friend of mine showed me this article and explained how he, too, was being forced to get this season's flu vaccinations under threat of losing his job.

Isn't this oddly similar to the smoking ban issue, in the sense that one of the strongest arguments for banning smoking in restaurants and bars is to to allow employees the freedom from secondhand smoke? Yes, I realize secondhand smoke and vaccines aren't the same, but some people have legitimate concerns about vaccines, too, such as the woman in the article who is concerned about the mercury used in the one vaccine's preparation, and there are others who may be allergic to various elements.

At first look, it seems like requiring medical staff to inject potentially harmful (even if only slightly) substances into their bodies is a blatant violation of rights. On the other hand, we need to do everything possible to protect patients. Perhaps a series of alternative precautions, such as masks, gloves, and thorough cleansing, can reduce the risk of passing along an infection as much as a vaccine.

But, if the data show that there is no way to reduce the risk of flu outbreaks in hospitals as much as having all staff vaccinated, then steps need to be taken to ensure that the appropriate staff members are vaccinated. Particularly since a person can be contagious before they realize they are infected, hospitals are especially sensitive to outbreaks.

Maybe it's not financially feasible, but what about positive reinforcement instead of negative? Small bonuses or rewards might do the trick better than the threat of getting fired. And, yes, at-risk employees should not be in contact with patients who are susceptible.

Does anyone know more about this, or have a better solution?