Wednesday, April 13, 2005

These Days, Even the Cookie Monster Has an Eating Disorder, Redux

If you're not familiar with Cookie Monster, he's a muppet with an unhealthy obsession with cookies. He completely lacks self control when it comes to his favorite food and often gets himself into trouble because he'll do just about anything for a cookie.

For the past three decades the Cookie Monster has been the monstrous embodiment of gluttony. He has, in other words, always taught children about healthy eating habits.


And now we're dumbing down our television programming even further. Assuming kids won't "get it."

Gosh, it's great to be a stupid Amurikan.

The Real Reason They Don't Like Women Competing Against Men: Cause the Women can Win

...at 10 years old, Makeba Elliott, an honor student at Blackhawk Elementary in Park Forest, has won two consecutive boys' state wrestling championships. Last month, the Park Forest fifth grader -- whose quickest takedown was in 18 seconds -- ended a 54-5 season by taking top honors in the boys' 2005 Midget State Championship. She also won the boys' midget championship in 2004.

But my favorite part is:

Makeba has also been a trailblazer for female athletes at her school. When Blackhawk Elementary was forming a basketball team last year, school officials told Makeba she couldn't join because basketball was for boys and cheerleading was for girls, her father said. Makeba responded by writing a letter to the principal that persuaded him to allow girls on the team, and Makeba now plays point guard.

I Really Must Get Myself Some Religion

Just think of all the work I wouldn't have to do!

A Proper Brutal Woman's Bag

You know, I don't carry a purse, but I sure could see myself toting one of these to my next shindig.

BlogHer Conference

via boingboing

BlogHer: Woman-centered blogger con, Sta Clara, Jul 30

The BlogHer conference is a woman-centric conference on blogging to be held on July 30 in Santa Clara, CA:

BlogHer Conference '05 will provide an open, inclusive forum to:

1. Discuss the role of women within the larger blog community
2. Examine the developing (and debatable) code of blogging ethics
3. Discover how blogging is shrinking the world and amplifying the voices of women worldwide

All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

“At Last, You Could Become America's Next Best Selling Author and Reality Show TV Celebrity!”

You know, when we were at Clarion, the idea of a "Clarion Reality TV" series came up - for about three seconds.

SF writers - in fact, writers in general - are not the world's most beautiful people. We're just not. You'd have to fall in love with us the way you fall in love with the characters on Carnivale. We're not plastic people. Our sex is very messy; especially the sort that goes on at Clarions.

And, you know, writers write. We spend most of our time actually hunched in front of keyboards, screaming, "Fucktard!" or laughing maniacally every few hours.

That's about it. Nick's rant about the glam writer's lifestyle, here.

What's that I've Been Saying, Again?

The study found that having obese parents, suffering from depression, and engaging in radical dieting like forced vomiting, were all risk factors for future obesity in adulthood.

"Engaging in these radical behaviors isn't going to stop you from being obese," said psychologist Eric Stice, Ph.D., the lead author of the study. "In fact they're likely to do the opposite."


I'm curious, however, why they chose to focus only on girls.

I guess because being a fat woman is just so much grosser and more dangerous. Of course, women are more likely to engage in vomiting and anorexic behavior, leading to greater percentage of obesity? Or not? Without a comparison among teenage boys, this is sort of floating around in nowhere land.

Malicious Public Blasphemy, Coming Soon

A Greek court will rule on whether to allow sales of a cartoon book from Austria depicting Jesus Christ as a drinking buddy of Jimi Hendrix and a marijuana-smoking, naked surfer.

They charged `em with: "Malicious public blasphemy."

Dude, I so want to charged with malicious public blasphemy. Imagine what it would do to my hit count...

Good Morning, Chiklits

Another day, another dollar, again with the too much creamer in my goddamn coffee. It's like drinking milk.