Big Government

01. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

-- Ronald Reagan (1986)

02. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

-- Will Rogers

03. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!

-- Pericles (430 B.C.)

04. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.

-- Mark Twain (1866)

05. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.

-- Anonymous

06. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

-- Ronald Reagan

07. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.

-- Winston Churchill

08. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

-- Mark Twain

09. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.

-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

10. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Barbie's inventor: "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices."

Ruth Handler was the entrepreneur and marketing genius who co-founded Mattel and created the Barbie doll, one of the world's most enduring and popular toys. She passed away in 2002.

Barbie, a teenage doll with a tiny waist, slender hips and impressive bust, became not only a best-selling toy with more than 1 billion sold in 150 countries, but a cultural icon analyzed by scholars, attacked by feminists and showcased in the Smithsonian Institution.

Although best known for her pivotal role as Barbie's inventor, Handler devoted her later years to a second, trailblazing career: manufacturing and marketing artificial breasts for women who had undergone mastectomies.

Born Ruth Mosko, she was the youngest of 10 children of Polish immigrants who settled in Denver. Her father was a blacksmith who deserted the Russian army. Her mother, who was illiterate, arrived in the United States in the steerage section of a steamship. Her mother's health was so frail that Handler was raised by an older sister.

When she was 19, she left Denver for a vacation in Hollywood and wound up staying. Her high school boyfriend, Elliot Handler, followed her west and married her in 1938. She worked as a secretary at Paramount Studios while he studied industrial design at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles (now Art Center College of Design in Pasadena).

When Elliot made some simple housewares to furnish their apartment, Ruth persuaded him to produce more for sale. They bought some workshop equipment from Sears and launched a giftware business in their garage, making items such as bowls, mirrors and clocks out of plastic. With Ruth showing the product line to local stores, sales reached $2 million within a few years.

In 1942 they teamed up with another industrial designer, Harold "Matt" Mattson, to launch a business manufacturing picture frames. Using leftover wood and plastic scrap, they later launched a sideline making dollhouse furniture. Within a few years, the company turned profitable and began to specialize in toys. It was called Mattel, a name fashioned from the "Matt" in Mattson and the "El" in Elliot.

In the late 1950s, Elliot was so preoccupied with the development of a talking doll--eventually marketed as Chatty Cathy--that he was of little help to Ruth when she came up with an idea of her own.

Noting their daughter Barbara's fascination with paper dolls of teenagers or career women, she realized there was a void in the market. She began to wonder if a three-dimensional version of the adult paper figures would have appeal. Why not sell a doll that allowed girls, as she would later say, to "dream dreams of the future"? This doll, she mused, would have to be lifelike. In other words, Handler believed, it would have to have breasts.

When she took the idea to Mattel's executives, who were men, they sneered that no mother would buy her daughter a grown-up doll with a bosom. "Our guys all said, 'Naw, no good,' " she recalled. "I tried more than once and nobody was interested, and I gave up."

Inspired by German Doll

She let the project idle until 1956 when, during a European vacation, she spied a German doll called Lilli in a display case. It had a voluptuous figure, reminiscent of the poster pinups that entertained soldiers during World War II. Handler brought the doll home to Mattel's designers and ordered them to draw up plans and find a manufacturer in Japan who could produce it.

Handler's dream made its debut at the 1959 American Toy Fair in New York City. Named for her daughter, "Barbie Teen-Age Fashion Model" had a girl-next-door ponytail, black-and-white striped bathing suit and teeny feet that fit into open-toed heels. Mattel sold more than 350,000 the first year, and orders soon backed up for the doll, which retailed for $3. "The minute that doll hit the counter, she walked right off," Handler said.

By the early 1960s, Mattel had annual sales of $100 million, due largely to Barbie. The company, then based in Hawthorne, annually turned out new versions of Barbie as well as an ever-expanding wardrobe of outfits and accessories befitting the new princess of toydom. Soon enough Barbie sprouted a coterie of friends and family. Ken, named for the Handlers' son, appeared in 1961; Midge in 1963; Skipper in 1965; and African American doll Christie, Barbie's first ethnic friend, in 1969. The first black Barbie came much later, in 1981.

Under pressure from feminists, Barbie evolved from fashion model to career woman, including doctor, astronaut, police officer, paramedic, athlete, veterinarian and teacher.

Over the years, the toy inspired Barbie clubs, conventions, magazines and Web sites. Barbie was immortalized by Andy Warhol, preserved in time capsules and inspired conceptual artists who spiked the doll's hair or posed it in pickle jars to make statements.

M.G. Lord, author of "Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Living Doll," called Barbie the most potent icon of American culture of the late 20th century.

"She's an archetypal female figure, she's something upon which little girls project their idealized selves," she said. "For most baby boomers, she has the same iconic resonance as any female saints, although without the same religious significance."

The National Organization for Women and other feminists targeted Barbie in the 1970s, arguing that the doll promoted unattainable expectations for young girls. If Barbie was 5 foot 6 instead of 11 1/2 inches tall, her measurements, would be 39-21-33. An academic expert once calculated that a woman's likelihood of being shaped like Barbie was less than 1 in 100,000.

(Ken was shaped somewhat more realistically: The chances of a boy developing his measurements were said to be 1 in 50.)

Handler said she did not take offense at the feminist broadsides and often noted that successful women had played with Barbie and told her the doll helped them enact their aspirations. Even artists' tortured interpretations of Barbie didn't bother her. "More power to them," said Handler, who kept a gold-plated Barbie in her Century City high-rise.

"My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be," Handler wrote in her 1994 autobiography. "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices."

by Elaine Woo, L.A. Times

For Barbie 50 is fabulous.

Turning 50 is a milestone in any woman's life. Looks improve for some; others keep their girlish figures. Still others pull together a wardrobe that expresses their personality. But it's rare to have all three - unless you're made of plastic and your name is Barbie.

Born Barbara Millicent Roberts on March 9, 1959, in Willows, Wisconsin, Barbie, the 11 ½-inch, or 29-centimeter, tall doll, is the top-selling toy in the world, according to the market research company NPD Group. She has traveled the world and worked more than 100 different jobs over the past half century. But Barbie's real profession is clothes horse. The doll's manufacturer, Mattel, has estimated that more than one billion fashion items have been created for Barbie and her friends in the collection since 1959.

With that kind of wardrobe available it comes as no surprise that Barbie was the earliest connection for some top-name fashion designers to dress making and design.

From her first appearance in a graphic black and white swimsuit, Barbie has always had fashion sense. And over the years her tastes have grown to appreciate more designer fare. From Benetton and Burberry to Versace and Vera Wang, Barbie has been dressed by more than 70 designers, including Giorgio Armani, Christian Lacroix and Monique Lhuillier.

For her 50th birthday Mattel decided to highlight Barbie's connection to fashion and push the brand even further into the world of luxury and high-end design with a series of events and partnerships.

During New York Fashion Week in February, Mattel is staging a full-scale Barbie fashion show with 50 designers creating life-size outfits inspired by the doll. Although the names of the designers have yet to be announced, Christian Louboutin has confirmed that he will be designing pumps in Barbie's favorite shade of pink to be worn with each of his outfits.

Wang has concocted a Barbie wedding gown with a sale price exceeding $15,000. The dress comes with a Barbie doll wearing a miniature version of the same gown. Jeremy Scott has used Barbie as the inspiration for his capsule collection for the spring, and Bloomingdale's will dress up the windows of its New York flagship store during fashion week with Barbie dolls.

This year will also see the launch of a line of beauty products under the Barbie label with names like "Plastic Smooth" for skin care and "All Doll'd Up" for cosmetics. Meanwhile, Assouline, the publishing house known for its fashion tomes, has just published a $500 coffee-table book entitled "Barbie" with images of the doll dressed by designers like Miuccia Prada, Karl Lagerfield and Alexander McQueen.

The Barbie party extends beyond the United States. In Paris 50 accessory designers have used Barbie as their muse to create everything from shoes to handbags. The results are to be shown at the Prêt à Porter Paris salon this month. In Canada the bath and body line Cake Beauty has come up with a Barbie fragrance. And in Shanghai, Mattel will open this month the House of Barbie, an eight-story shop that will include a spa, Barbie museum, restaurants, clothing and dolls.

"Barbie is influencing the world because she is part of culture and life and fashion," said the designer Alber Elbaz. For Barbie 50 is fabulous.

By Jessica Michault, International Herald Tribune