The recent congressional hearing about Facebook is confusing to me. But the next time I talk to my firstborn son he will explain it using short sentences and stick figures. What I glean from brief headlines is that the users of that social media have lost their privacy. Their personal identity has been stolen, and thousands of strangers hold the strings to their information. I guess that is a bad thing. 

In a couple of weeks a French boy will be staying with us. I am somewhat nervous about whether the guest room will be to his standards, or the meals. I cannot pronounce his name, and have no idea what he looks like. I will recognize him by his beret and the baguette under his arm. The coordinator of the student exchange sent an email pointing out that in Paris the appropriate greeting is a kiss, hugs being reserved for family and intimate friends. This is the reverse of how I usually handle it, so have been practicing. I do want him to like me. Or at least his time in our chateau. 

Who am I kidding?

I watched a documentary with my girls about beauty. Let me rephrase that. It was about the societal pressure to look a certain way. Spend inordinate amounts of time and money to dress fashionably. Genuine beauty is something else altogether. The crux was that women are pressured to hand over their sense of self worth to passersby. Strangers who will glance at them for maybe five seconds, and then move on to the next eye candy. Over a lifetime, or at least that narrow window when girls are most vulnerable to approval, their identity is stolen by complete strangers. Young women whose preciousness could not be contained by a thousand bottles of French perfume. Girls whose inalienable right to joy cannot be stricken by an amphitheater of senators. 

I guess that is a bad thing too.