27 April 2010

Oklahoma not okay!

From The Daily Beast:
The Oklahoma Legislature has voted to override two vetoes to pass two strict measures restricting abortion. One requires a doctor to set up an ultrasound in the woman’s room, show her the fetus, and describe its organs and limbs (there is no exemption for rape or incest). The other says doctors are not liable for malpractice if they elect to not tell a pregnant woman that the fetus she’s carrying has birth defects—the intent is to prevent parents from suing a doctor who hid the information to prevent an abortion. Democratic Gov. Brad Henry vetoed both measures, calling the second “unconscionable” in allowing a physician to mislead a patient. Another measure in the legislature requires a woman to fill out a questionnaire about why she’s seeking the procedure; the statistics based on answers would be posted online.

You can read more about this idiocy at the New York Times.

bitch, complain, appreciate . . .


I've been wanting to complain lately. Not for any particular reason, just because I'm getting irritated at certain things in life that continue to plague me when perhaps I should just let them go . . .

So I thought I'd first appreciate a few things.

1. I love this piece of art by Jennifer Davis. Sublime.
2. I love the spring in Des Moines. Nothing better.
3. I really truly love my family and friends.
4. I like it when strangers wave at me.
5. My sister can make me laugh harder than anyone else. (sorry, Bob.)
6. The semester is almost over! Summer awaits!
7. I love the new word for redheads: Gingers!

Now here are my complaints:

1. It really bugs me when people call California "Cali."
2. I'm sick of people texting and talking on their cell phones ALL THE TIME.
3. I'm really, truly tired of anti-feminist bullshit and unexamined male privilege.
4. If those Tea-partiers don't go away soon I might scream.


So, now that this is all out of my system, I can go on about my life and perhaps finish all the work I should have been doing as I wrote this diatribe.

23 April 2010

Too Fat for Television?

Here we go again. Apparently, ABC did not want to show this advertisement for Lane Bryant lingerie because there was "too much cleavage" showing. The ad was supposed to air during some show called Dancing With the Stars or something like that.



I'm not a big fan of lingerie ads, especially the Victoria's Secret commercials, since they perpetuate the objectification of women's bodies, and they uphold a ridiculous standard of beauty.

The Victoria's Secret images, in particular, reinscribe the idea that women need to have big boobs and be ridiculously skinny in order to be beautiful. That said, I like this Lane Bryant ad simply because the model is NOT stick-thin and has curves. But really, ABC, are you objecting to cleavage or to the fact that the model is more than a size 2?

Come clean, you scumbags.

UPDATE: Of course, Sociological images has a truly excellent and much more nuanced analysis. Check it out here.