Greetings, !¹ Today we're going to learn all about

Painted Ladies, so listen up.

From Butterfly Conservation of the UK:

2003 is shaping up to be a bumper year for the migrant Painted Lady butterfly.

Thousands have already reached our shores from North Africa and continental Europe and have

been basking in the high temperatures reached over recent weeks.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Chicago and the surrounding area has been invaded this month

-- by butterflies.

'This is a phenomenon, an extraordinary year,'" said Doug Taron, chief biologist at the Peggy

Notebaert Museum.

Scientists can't explain why painted lady butterflies are going through a population boom. But

they say the orange and black insects roughly half the size of a monarch butterfly seem to explode

in number every few years.

The Painted Lady is probably the most widespread butterfly in the world. Like the Monarch

butterfly it resembles, the Painted Lady is known for its travelling and migratory habits. Its

wandering ways have earned it the nickname 'The Cosmopolitan'; it is also known as the 'Thistle'

butterfly after its favourite host plant. In cold climates, you can see Painted Ladies from spring

though early fall. In some warm desert climates, they live all year round.

Wildlife photographer David Element has put photos

of Painted Ladies on the Web. Here is more information about this colourful butterfly:

• Size: 2 - 2 7/8 inches (5.1 - 7.3 cm).
• Colouring: Buff-coloured body. Orange wings with black blotches, black-patterned
  
  margins, and black forewing tips with white spots.
• Where to Find It: Almost everywhere, especially in open or disturbed areas including
  
  gardens, fields, and dunes. In addition to thistle, the Painted Lady prefers nectar from the aster,
  
  cosmos, blazing star, ironweed, and joe-pye weed. It also visits red clover, buttonbush, privet, and
  
  milkweeds. (Painted Ladies in my area seem to love dandelion blossoms.)
• Range: On all continents except Australia and Antarctica². Occasionally, population explosions in northern
  
  Africa and Mexico will cause massive northward migrations. Reasons for the population explosions
  
  remain unclear. There has been speculation that climatological phenomena such as El
  
  Niño³ may be partly responsible.

For Extra Credit

1. Suggest an explanation for El Niño that
   
   doesn't involve Vogons.
2. Do male Painted Ladies have gender issues?
   
   Discuss.

The term 'painted ladies' is also applied to Victorian, especially Queen Anne, style houses
painted in multiple colours that highlight their architectural frills and furbelows. Houses built in

this style are typically tall, two and a half to three and half stories in height. Queen Anne houses

are characterized by asymmetrical design, turrets, stained glass, windows of different shapes,

wraparound porches, bay windows, and fish scale shingles and gingerbread bric-a-brac. Painted

Ladies were often built as row

houses.

The most famous American examples of this architecture are found in San Francisco, where huge

wooden homes built in the late 19th and early 20th century were painted in rainbow colours to accentuate

their ornate details. The bright colours we see today appear to be authentic: various accounts in

the late 1800s mention bright, even 'garish' colours. And speaking of architecture...

Frances Trollope, mother of the writer Anthony Trollope, came to the United States in the

1820s with the hope of mending her family's fortunes. She was a lady ahead of her time, creating

the forerunner of the modern American department store in Cincinnati, where she planned to sell

imported luxury goods. The spectacular 'Bazaar' included a coffeehouse, an ice cream parlour, a

tearoom, an art gallery, and a ballroom, in addition to the shopping floor. The Bazaar's inventive

architecture mixed Grecian pillars with Gothic windows and a Turkish dome above a rotunda, a

veritable temple of conspicuous consumption. In the end Mrs Trollope was unimpressed with the

city - too few cultural amenities, too many hogs⁴ - and she viewed its citizens

as rough and uncouth. Not surprisingly, her attitude made her unpopular and helped to doom her

business venture to failure.

'She's no lady. She paints.' My sister and I were strolling through the toy store and had

spotted something called the Victorian Barbie. My sister, who's something of an expert in this,

told me that a well-bred Victorian woman would never use makeup, which was the province of

floosies, trollops, strumpets and other free-thinking females. And here was Barbie, dressed to the

nines in burgundy velvet, her usual vapid expression on her thoroughly-painted little face. At least

the Victorian Barbie was a brunette, so she didn't look quite as vapid as her blonde sisters, who, no

matter what their time or culture, never look like anything other than bimbos.

What is it with Barbie dolls anyway? Little girls (a lot of them, anyway) glom onto the things long

before they're aware of marketing pressure from toymaker Mattel. Must be all the pink.

Not at our house, however; our Barbies led hard lives. They were 'punk' long before punk was a

lifestyle and fashion statement, starting with tattoos and strange haircuts, then moving on to

interesting body-piercings or amputations. Ken didn't fare any better, and he was into

cross-dressing to boot.⁵ And that was just my sister's and my doing. When our brothers

got into the act, Barbie came into her own as a projectile weapon and truncheon. A naked, headless

Barbie in the hands of an annoyed brother inspired shock and awe and the desire to run for one's

life.

'I will NOT buy you a new doll. I saw what you did to the last one.'
- our exasperated

mother

We were such little stinkers. And we weren't alone, apparently. Barbie has often been the target

of mischief and mayhem, some of which is perpetrated by adults. American humour writer Dave

Barry discovered that you could set your underwear on fire with Rollerblade Barbie and some

hairspray. (My siblings and I were disgusted that we missed that trick.) And Barbie is the bane

of feminists who think she turns girls into namby-pamby little airheads with unrealistic ideas about

the female figure.

In January of this year, toymaker Mattel lost a US Supreme Court appeal over a pop song that

called Barbie a 'blonde bimbo'. The 1997 song 'Barbie Girl', by the Danish group Aqua, includes

the lyrics 'I'm a blonde bimbo in a fantasy world/Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly.'

The court rejected Mattel's claim that the song duped preteen girls into thinking it was an

advertisement for the doll or part of Mattel's official line of Barbie products. Judge Alex Kozinski said that the song was protected by the right to free speech

in the US constitution because it was a parody and a social commentary. 'The parties are advised

to chill,' said the judge.

This was the second case Mattel has lost over Barbie in the last couple years. In February of

2002, a court ruled that an American artist was within his rights to use Barbie dolls in his work.

Some of Tom Forsythe's photographs depicted the doll in sexually compromising positions.

The court said that parody of Barbie was an acceptable activity.

For Extra Credit

1. Compare and contrast trollops and
   
   Trollopes.
2. Do you think that defending Barbie's honour is an apt fate for lawyers?
   
   Discuss.
3. Top marks to anyone who can sing 'Barbie Girl'.
4. Five points off if you
   
   thought a strumpet was a musical instrument.

More Than You Probably Want to

Know

• The Butterfly Conservation
  
  web site provides information about butterflies and moths in the UK.
• Interested in El Niño? Take a look at the El Niño pages at the
  
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US) web site.
• For a laugh, try these Barbie
  
  jokes.
• No, I'm not including a link to Tom Forsythe's photographs. They're on the Web, though, if
  
  you're curious.

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