Preserving modesty in the pool (Muslim women in Seattle)

Seattle Times ^ | July 19, 2005 | Lornet Turnbull

[Mrs. Don-o]

It's Saturday evening, the end of a hot day, and a group of women and children have gathered at North Seattle's Meadowbrook Pool for their monthly swim.

Most of the pool staff has left, except for two female lifeguards, who on this day will be on duty for the next two hours.

The women and children — all Muslims — have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center.

Because Islam requires Muslim women to fully cover themselves in public, swimming in pools or the ocean is largely off-limits for many.

But across the Puget Sound area, that's starting to change as public and private pools at times are sending home their male staff members, covering up their windows and allowing women of faith to swim alone and in private...

Access to these pools is not free; the groups, like all others that use these facilities, pay a rental fee....

[takenoprisoner]

I agree...It's really nice that some cities provide special treatment for muslim women in order to appease the mothers and sisters of evil incarnate.

[marty60]

My thoughts exactly. these poor women are treated like breeder cattle, and this is nice. PALEEEZE.

[Nowhere Man]

Look at the moronic phrase "DON'T TRUST ANYONE OVER THIRTY."

The idiots who fell for that, never even thought about the fact that the jerks who were promoting it/thought it up, were quickly approaching 40; yet they trusted and followed them! Heck, Abbie Hoffman et al weren't even BABY BOOMERS.

Adults can and should have fun, that's not the point at all. The point is, when you're an adult, it's long past time to stop acting stupidly immature!

I know, Abbie Hoffman is old enough to be my father, he was born in 1936, in my case, Mom in 1938 and Dad in 1937. Even in the 1960's, a lot of them were pushing 30 if not beyond it. I think there were some boomers who thought they would never get old or are afraid to, maybe that's part of it, I dunno. The Boomer's are really a unique generation. Still, not all of them were hippies and/or irresponsible, many of them are good people too so we need to watch the wide brush here. I'm an early model "X'er" myself, born in 1966.

Oooooooooo, what a lovely kitty!

You have eight cats? Holy cow!

She love to play with my phone line when I'm online so I have to watch her. B-) When she howls, you hear hear all over the house and she likes to run down in the cellar and I have to hunt her down. Yeap, pretty active for an 18 year old. B-)

I didn't plan on having 8 (9 when we have Muffin) cats, sort of turned out that way. If we still had Muffin, she would have turned 18 along with Pansy since she must have been born around the time Pansy was since she wasa kitten when my Aunt found her in 1987. A few days before my aunt passed away fom cancer in 1995, she asked us to take care of Muffin. She was a Burmese cat. In 2002, she had kidney problems and we kept her going for 2.5 years so I guess I couldn't ask for more.




Muffin b. 8-21-1987 d. 7-09-2004

We sort of settled on August 21 for Muffin.

[nopardons]

No, as I said, a "fusser" was someone on the dating game...part flirtation, part courtship dance.This book was sort of "THE RULES" of its day.

I'm guessing that an "ice-wagon", was a cold, stout girl. Wallflower was very much in use on the early years of the 20th century, so this has to mean something else.

Gooseberry can be found in several books...Spear's "SLANG AND EUPHEMISM" has hit defined as : " a fool or an oaf", as well as some definitions of a sexual nature; which in this circumstance, it most assuredly isn't.

Dickens used a LOT of Cockney slang, which I know, so I've never had any problems reading his works. :-)

I long for a time machine. Wouldn't that be fun to have? :-)

[nopardons]

Oh that's EASY and I don't even have to look it up! :-)

"Being on the skids", means being low down, skint, on hard times. So SKID ROW was a place for bums, people on the skids, to hang out. :-)

[nopardons]

Oh, I don't blame ALL BOOMERS, just the ones who fell for that garbage and as you said, not all of them did.

My lovely kitty died from cancer, at 16, almost 17.

My daughter's beautiful, lovely cat is on her 9th life, poor thing and is around 17.

Oh my........your Muffin was just gorgeous!

[CWOJackson]

WRONG!

Skid row is a term that came from the fair city of...Seattle. In it's early days, before the socialist politics and gay bath houses, Seattle used to have a problem with it's step, muddy streets. In some cases the mud would be so bad that horse and the occasional child would be lost.

In order to get items up from the wharfs they would pull them up on sleds called skids. Now skid row is home to various drug addicts (Pioneer Square looks like an LP convention), gay bath houses and other such outstanding Seattle institutions.

[nopardons]

And just when was that? Year I mean.

The reason I ask, is because THE BOWERY, in N.Y.C., was also sometimes called Skid Row and that was in the mid 1800s.

Fascinating historical stuff, you posted. :-)

[CWOJackson]

While the phrase "Skid Row" was made popular during the Depression to describe run-down parts of town, the Word Detective dates the phrase to 19th-century logging towns in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle). The loggers built "skid roads," which were made of old railroad ties or heavy wooden planks, to facilitate moving felled trees down to the mill.

Word Origins, which dates the term to around 1880, goes on to describe how these "skid roads" eventually became associated with the areas where the loggers (Seattle) hung out, replete with bars, brothels, and bums. By the 1930s, "skid road" became a bad part of town called "skid row."

The phrase "greasing the skids" comes from the same origin -- loggers greased the skids with oil to help move the trees faster. This lively article from the San Diego Union-Tribune sheds some light on other popular phrases like "toe the line," "caught red-handed," and "pushing the envelope."

Finally, an article by R. Eugene Parnell claims that the original Skid Row was in downtown Seattle. Parnell notes that the cheap rents and large loft spaces of many of the mid-century skid rows of U.S. cities made them the perfect home to vibrant art communities today.

Would you like to go for double or nothing? What U.S. city was responsible for the term "Saturday Night Special"?

[nopardons]

Hmmmmmmmm...interesting stuff, but a bit peculiar, since the term was being used in N.Y.C. earlier/about the same time.

Guns aren't a specialty of mine, so though I know what a "SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL" is, I won't wager a guess. I know what a "BLUNDERBUSS" was too, but don't know where it got its named from either. Do you?

How about "ZIP GUN" ?

[aquila48]

I have no problem with this... modesty an underappreciated virtue these days..

But this is not about modesty... it's about kowtowing to a group of people.

Imagine if this was the boyscouts asking for special privilege, or a christian group?

They're sending home the male workers in a public pool!!!

Where's the ACLU! This is an outrage.

And by the way, I do welcome more modesty, also - but that's not what this is about.

[OKIEDOC]

It may very well be nice.

Since Muslim women are worth no more than chattel it is probably damn nice.

Well actually they are somewhere between the goats, sheep and the buggering of young house boys on the chart of Muslim men.

[CWOJackson]

Saturday Night Special was a term coined regarding Toledo, OH. Back in the day (60's) many Toledo businesses also sold cheap hand guns (including one florist shop).

Toledo is on the Michigan border, just a short drive from Detroit. Folks in Detroit would drive down to Toledo on Saturday evening, pick up a cheap gun (and a dozen roses) then go back to Detroit and take care of busines.

The Skid Row references come from many sources, almost all point back to Seattle. From what I've seen the term only became more universally used during the depression, where it was applied to run down areas in many cities.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Just a my two cents relative to the extra expense this 'modesty preserving swim session' no doubt causes the pool owner/operator to incur. The free flowing fabrics worn into the pool carry everything from non-color safe dyes, to soap/fabric softeners, to loose fibers...which play havoc upon the pool chemistry/filtration system. Detergents (Tide for example) contain TSP (a tri-sodium phosphate...phosphates 'block' chlorine effectiveness, leading to cloudy, milky looking water. Detergent residue can also lead to foaming that can turn the DE in an earth filter system into a paste, causing the filter to be cleaned more frequently.

'Modesty' aside, I would question if they (the pool management) would permit swimmers in their pools wearing cut offs or tee shirts (which are generally forbidden for the same reasons I listed above). There is a real reason why the overwhelming majority of swimwear is made of nylon, polyester, or other variations of water-chlorine-filtration friendly synthetics.

[OKIEDOC]

This woman would scream to high heaven if Christian women were forced to wear this garb to the pool in so called modern times.

[OKIEDOC]

Yep it sure do make for some horny people.

However, I wonder how it perverts fanatically savagely religious grown men to lust after Goats, Sheep and Young Boys and 72 virgins.

[nopardons]

Interesting about the SNS, but you don't know about the genesis of BLUNDERBUSS and ZIP GUN either?

Okay, I still have about a dozen more books to look through ( I've been through 8, already O) and I still can't find SKID ROW. LOL

[podkane]

But this is not about modesty... it's about kowtowing to a group of people.

Imagine if this was the boyscouts asking for special privilege, or a christian group?

The only example i can personally think of was the "girls only" time on a public skating rink.. the boys were getting a little too aggressive, so for an hour the girls had it.. didn't seem particularly discriminating to guys, since when they got back on, most girls left...

These things are best solved locally, and if the locals have no objection, it doesn't appear to trample on any body else's rights, then this seems a reasonable accommodation. Presumably these women aren't coerced into Muslim customs here..

[aquila48]

It's the double standard that bothers me.

In private facilities I have no objections. But in public ones I do. The boy scouts are being run out of every public arena!!!