Happy (sniffle) Holidays

Ugh, I'm sick.

I'm like lost-my-voice, feel-like-I'm-moving-in-slow-motion sick. This is not at all good.

I have one more final exam tonight in Art History. Then I have to finish my wrapping and last minute mailing of gifts and whatnot. After that, I will pack up everything I need to survive the weekend at my parent's house. This entails not only pajamas worthy of being worn on Christmas morning (a girl cannot be photographed opening gifts in just any ole thing) but a fair amount of groceries. Oh, and my cat.

I'm bringing egg replacer for baking, various tofus, silk soy nog (YUM!) and fixen's for a vegan main dish for Christmas dinner. I will not be eating any of the roast beef that is being planned. (ahem)

Then there is the issue with my poor kitty-boo. Nicodemus, the six toed wonder, will be coming along with me for the holiday weekend since I just moved and have no one to check in on him while I'm gone. I fully expect to spend the hour or so driving to my parent's house with a yowling box o' kitteh. I hope he forgives me fore this.

Even though there are quite a number of obstacles between myself and the festivities ahead, I still can't help being excited. I love Christmas time. I love getting to be with my family and spend time with my mom. I love getting to see friends and eating too much with them at Christmas parties. I just love the whole thing.

So, I hope all you wonderful bloggers have a great holiday season. You guys write some of the coolest stuff. Even though I have not been commenting much, I have been swinging by to read a bit before studying or wrapping etc. I can't wait to see what some of you are cooking for the holiday dinner.

Have a beautiful holiday!

Is this "Devil Food" in your kitchen?

This has already popped up on Feministing and Good Magazine today, but I just could not resist. Apparently, the truth is out. The fundies have finally discovered the feminist's and vegetarian's master plan. Yep, we're trying to turn them all gay through tofu.

It's true I tell you! Read on...

According to Jim Rutz at WorldNetDaily,

"There's a slow poison out there that's severely
damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part
is, it's a "health food," one of our most popular. The dangerous food I'm
speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the
place. You can hardly escape them anymore. "

Ahhhhh! Help, I can't escape the raging soybeans taking over my society. Eeeeek! (runs down hallway, waving arms madly)

"Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the
penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not
socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise
in soy formula and other soy products...

Doctors used to hope soy would reduce hot flashes, prevent cancer and heart
disease, and save millions in the Third World from starvation. That was before
they knew much about long-term soy use. Now we know it's a classic example of a
cure that's worse than the disease. For example, if your baby gets colic from
cow's milk, do you switch him to soy milk? Don't even think about it. His
phytoestrogen level will jump to 20 times normal. If he is a she, brace yourself
for watching her reach menarche as young as seven, robbing her of years of
childhood. If he is a boy, it's far worse: He may not reach puberty till much
later than normal."

The completely fabricated pseudo science he uses in this piece of shit is truly astounding.

And hey, why would it be "far worse" for a boy to reach puberty a little late? There seems to be no mention of concerns about RBgh and other hormones in cow's milk that may be linked to early onset of a girl's period. Maybe all those girls were just secretly drinking soy milk while their parents weren't looking. It's so feminizing y'know? I bet they were trying to get bigger breasts so they could attract a really manly, red-meat-eatin' kind of guy whowould get them all barefoot and pregnant. Yeah, but then they were brain-washed by the vegetarians and became propaganda hawkers for the new Soy Gay Empire that is, at this very moment, working to undermine our president and the American way of life through hormone injections and demand for equal marriage rights. Uh-huh. I bet so.



Beware the soy!

More Fun With Advertising

I finally got the rough draft of my research paper back from my Mass Comm professor last night. Hooray! Now I can spruce it up a bit and get me an "A".

We had to choose a topic having to do with the media and write a five page paper discussing it with findings from research done in books, journals, interviews and the like. I chose to write my paper on the effects of advertising on body image. Not terribly original, but it's something I'm interested in and I thought it would be fairly easy to come up with five pages. I now have a twelve page paper that covers body image issues as well as gender roles for both men and women. (sigh) I can never do anything the easy way.

While I was researching ad images I came across some very cool pieces. Rather than share with you the worst of the worst (and there are some doosies) I wanted to show you some ads that I thought were constructive.

The first one is an ad campaign that was run in Portugal. You have to look at it for a second, but the hands that are silencing the women belong to men. They also had one of a young boy with a man's hand over his mouth and one of an elderly man with a younger mans large hand. So they were targeting child abuse, elder abuse and violence against women. Nice.

This one is from India. It's an ad campaign created by a group called The Sisterhood Collective to address the problem of dowry in arranged marriages there. Apparently, women are often beaten, abused and murdered due to issues with the dowry. Yeah, "accidental kitchen deaths" my ass.

"What began as gifts of land to a woman as her inheritance in an essentially agricultural economy today has degenerated into gifts of gold, clothes, consumer dur-ables, and large sums of cash, which has sometimes entailed the impoverishment and heavy indebtedness of poor families. The dowry is often used by the receiving family for business purposes, family members' education, or the dowry to be given for the husband's sisters. The transaction of dowry often does not end with the actual wedding ceremony, as the family is expected to continue to give gifts. It was only in the middle of the 1970s that the women's movement and other human rights groups exposed the perniciousness of the system in India, when it was realized that there were an increased number of "accidental kitchen deaths" of young married women. The first reports to the police were often registered as suicides or accidents. The available statistics of dowry death are chilling and disturbing. "

This one reads; "Violence against women. Do nothing and you might as well lend a hand."

I thought the collage approach was very effective on this one. All the hands reaching out at the viewer make the image even more confrontational and intimidating. You get a real visceral reaction from this piece.

Here is yet another line of Dove ads. I've talked about my concerns with Dove and Unilever before but I do like these ads. I especially like the "Grey or Gorgeous?" one and the "wrinkled or Wonderful?" one. I think the older women look amazing.

And finally, here is a rare underwear ad that does not feature a leggy model with fake boobs.

'nuff said. :)