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Barbie for President?

August 29, 2008

I found this link to an article about Mattel’s “Barbie for President” doll because someone posted it, as an insult, in a comment on a HuffPo article about Sarah Palin.

According to the article, “Barbie’s campaign shows girls that they can aspire to the highest levels of leadership, including the presidency.”

Right. I think one big problem with the devolution of much of feminism into “girl power” rhetoric (and the idea that “anything women do is awesome”) is that women rarely get told they have to make tough choices, or pick one thing and stick with it exclusively in order to compete, or carefully manage their careers and reputations because the opinions of other people totally do matter.

Barbie has been a veterinarian, cowgirl, Olympic gymnast, McDonald’s employee, astronaut, babysitter, fashion model, firefighter, dentist, aerobics instructor, and more. While her former fast food work might endear her to the Barbara Ehrenreich set, and her Olympic run would endear her to some patriotic voters, most voters would not accept a former aerobics instructor/cowgirl/ballerina as a serious candidate.

Maybe Barbie should make it clear to young girls that you can do anything you want, but not everything you want. Some choices necessarily preclude others (and that’s not even getting into how much education it takes to be a dentist when what you really want is to be the frontwoman of Barbie and the Rockers).

Shouldn’t Barbie for President also be a little older? Why not teach girls that it’s cool to look up to a future self you might have when you’re 55? Or does life end when your boobs are no longer nippleless hard, perky mounds?

Words Mean Things (Bipartisan Edition)

August 29, 2008

Noted by TPM – the GOP doesnt know were to put there’s apostrophes’:

 

From Punditkitchen.com: 

 

People magazine Photoshopped out Michael Phelps’ penis

August 27, 2008

In the August 15th post Man Candy, I expressed the hotness of this photo of French gymnast Benoit Caranobe, and then was exhorted by my own mother to acknowledge the hotness of Michael Phelps (who has a bit of what Fergie’s got — it’s all great below the neck, at least), which prompted me to go looking for photos, which prompted me to notice Michael Phelps’ penis in this one, which prompted me to note that I’m about to be the top Google hit for the phrase “Michael Phelps’ penis,” despite my real ambivalence about the subject.

I have since noticed that People magazine has used this photo in a two-page spread about how Phelps has the perfect Olympic champion swimmer’s body, right down to his giant feet and double jointed ankles that “turn those dogs into flippers.” Oh, and they Photoshopped out the penis.

You read it here first, folks. Possibly after Googling “Michael Phelps’ penis.” You pervert.

Update: Here’s some speculation about Phelps’ penis size related to his shoe size. Also, apparently there is an entire website dedicated to VPL — Visible Penis Line.

iTunes “Party Shuffle”

August 27, 2008

The “Party Shuffle” feature in iTunes randomly selects a songs from your library in big batches, to help you DJ a kickin’ party.  Like this one! 

Wow, what an awesome party, iTunes!  Everybody loves standing around at a party not talking so they can understand the jokes coming out of the speakers, especially when the host of the party is playing her own standup — so polite of her!  Also, everybody loves switching between two different comedians every 1-3 minutes with no warning or context.  Like when Steve Martin is telling a joke about grammar and then it turns into Richard Pryor telling a joke about freebasing.  What a riot!  Jen’s parties are awesome.

Wow, maybe just to top off my standup comedy DJing, I’ll serve only crudites and hard lemonade coolers, turn the AC down to 55 degrees, start angry discussions about politics, and try to get everyone to wear a pointy party hat for no good reason.  You’re invited!

Words mean things (even when the cause is good)

August 27, 2008

I think the name “Stand Up To Cancer” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the problem.  

On the one hand, I want to say that cancer itself is amoral.  Fight cancer.  With science.  ”Standing up” to cancer implies a moral argument is being made.  On the other hand, I want to say, “How about standing up to corporations polluting our environment?  The idea of standing up to cancer itself kind of lets the polluters off the hook.

Also: once you’ve decided to “stand up to cancer,” well hell, why not “stand up” to death itself?  That bastard.

Us Weekly Doesn’t Know How Math Works

August 25, 2008

It was in vitro! Keep reading for egregious innumeracy.

According to this article, the odds of a woman under 35 conceiving from in vitro are “encouraging.” Those are high odds. How high? We don’t know. Let’s say the odds are as high as 90%.

How can I say this politely? IF THE ODDS OF SOMETHING HAPPENING ONCE ARE 90% AND YOU TRY THREE TIMES, YOU DO NOT NOW HAVE A “GREATER THAN 100 PERCENT CHANCE OF SUCCEEDING.” The person who said this has been to MEDICAL SCHOOL. Possibly an internet medical school, based in Bangalore. Because this is not how math works.

If you flip a fair coin, you have a 1/2 or 50% chance of getting heads. If you flip it twice, your chances of getting heads at least once are not now 100% (50+50). You know this because, of course, it would be perfectly possible to have gotten tails twice in a row, and also because if you followed that “logic” even further, you’d have to agree that if you flipped the coin three times, you’d have a 150% chance of getting heads at least once, and that’s impossible. There is no such thing as a 150% chance, although it sounds like something your football coach might say to motivate you.

If you flip the coin three times, your chances of getting ALL heads are 1/8, or 12.5% (multiply 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2). Your chances of getting heads AT LEAST once — the situation most similar to the in vitro one, in that of course you can’t get pregnant several times from successive rounds — are 100% minus the chance of getting all tails, which is also 12.5%. So if you flip a coin three times, your chances of getting heads at least once are 87.5%. Which, of course, is under 100%, as God intended.

<

Back to Angelina’s uterus. If the chance of a woman under 35 getting pregnant from in vitro are 90%, then her chances of getting pregnant from three successive rounds of in vitro could be best calculated with a probability tree, to take into account the fact that, if you get pregnant the first or second time, you’re not going to keep trying. I’ll use probabilities (0-1) rather than percents (0-100) to make the final multiplication more clear.

Now here, in red, you can see the three different ways that it’s possible to get pregnant in this scenario — just multiply down each path, and add the results together:

Us Weekly spends plenty of time soliciting quotes from unnamed sources who tell us what Lindsay Lohan is really thinking when she posts to Samantha Ronson’s MySpace profile under a pseudonym. Would it be that hard to math-check their magazine?

Seriously.

Jen

p.s. Come to the Chelsea Mind Games Math Bee this Wednesday at 7:30.

Wordnerdery

August 25, 2008

Thanks to my Spelling Bee co-host bobby for pointing me towards the animated adventures of WordGirl (pictured) on PBSKids. And thanks to Vocabulary Tournament co-host Jonathan for this super-nerdy cartoon.

And finally, I was delighted to receive this from Wordsmith.org’s A Word a Day list (who knew “ambidextrous” had an antonym?!):

ambisinister

PRONUNCIATION:(am-bi-SIN-uh-stuhr)

MEANING:adjective: Clumsy with both hands. (Literally, with two left hands.)

ETYMOLOGY:From Latin ambi- (both) + sinister (on the left side).

USAGE:“Professor Fischer says that the reserve physicians ‘were surgically ambisinister, medically at the zero point, and lacking in discipline, military skill and temperance.’”

“I Kissed a Girl” Tragic, Pathos-Laden Cover

August 23, 2008

This is my friend Galen, from college.  This video is even funnier to me knowing that he’s actually a generally happy, earnest person (and straight), and all of this is pure acting. 

I Have Fallen into the Clutches of the Evil Cotton/Spandex Empire

August 22, 2008

I have been resisting American Apparel for years as well as complaining about their advertising, and then I had to go and wear this to Chelsea Mind Games:

I think it looks kind of good. I feel dirty leaving the house in a weird stretchy t-shirt dress. I normally expect my clothing to have many more working parts.

These fellows in the photo are Chumma, Rich, and Devin (tied-for-second, first place, and tied-for-second, respectively), winners of the Geography Bee, and the woman at right is, of course, my co-host Meg Van Huygen. At the bee, Meg mentioned her Dutch heritage and I followed up with her first-ever ethnic slur: “Yeah, she’s Dutch, she’s got the shoes and everything. Go to her apartment, Meg has the biggest windmill in Brooklyn.”

An Ever-Shifting Self-Perception is Either Disturbing or Freeing

August 22, 2008

In the comments for yesterday’s post (in which I appear as versions of myself bedecked in pearls, cat’s-eye glasses, and crunchy nineties hair), Kenny suggested this site.

Here, the results:

“Normal.” I wake up like this every day.

“Child.” I was really mad when JonBenet beat me in that pageant.

“Afro-Caribbean.” Afro-Caribbeans, whose faces generally do not look as though they are melting off, beg to disagree.

“Modigliani.”

“Botticelli.”

“Anime.” If you were attracted to the “child” picture, you can now make your pedophilia acceptable by saying you just like Japanese culture a lot.

Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon

August 21, 2008

Thanks to Tracy H. for the link — the website www.yearbookyourself.com is obviously sponsored by a giant mall chain, but still provided me with a full twenty minutes of enjoyment, despite its odd entreaties to attempt to replicate my 1952 look with a trip to The Limited, and to reproduce the coolness of a 1986 Walkman with a trip to Radio Shack.

You upload a photo of yourself, and see yearbook photos of yourself from different eras. Sometimes your face comes out sort of too high or too low or scaled a little wrong, and, despite the little buttons, you can’t really fix it, and you look not only retro but a bit Down-Syndromy. Here are some of the ones I thought worked the best:

1952!

1960!

1966!

1968!

1990! So crunchy! In the hairspray sense.

1994! Still crunchy!

1996! The year I actually graduated from high school. I should have tried this look! I think it’s pretty sweet.

List: Products Whole Foods shoppers can be convinced they need to purchase 100% organic versions of

August 20, 2008

Products Whole Foods shoppers can be convinced they need to purchase 100% organic versions of

baby food
pasta sauce
Brazil nuts
coffee filters
hair dye
floor cleaner
peat moss
bugspray (ineffectual variety)
synthesize-your-own chemical fertilizer kit

Wednesday’s items: grammar, politics, email etiquette

August 20, 2008

Courtesy Rich Zwelling, here is why you can’t just add “-ly” to nouns, willy-nilly, and think you’re saying something.

---

My BFF, traveling in Europe, reported back, “Obama is recruiting voters at the expat bars in Berlin.  There are 20,000 Americans living in Berlin, and most of them are probably Democrats.  At White Trash Bar (the big hipster American place), they have a bunch of old school expats registering people to vote.  It’s kind of amazing and wonderful.  I spoke to a black guy from Boston who’s lived in Berlin since before the wall fell.”

---

I love when people “Recall” their emails.  Like, I could send you an email that says, “I have always thought you sucked, while still desiring to sexually harass you.  Also, here is a racial slur.”  And then I just hit “recall” and you get a message that says “Dziura, Jennifer would like to recall the message ’sex + insults’” and then we’re supposed to pretend the whole thing never happened?  Your email program cannot revise time.

Oh, is that what’s wrong with your mom?

August 18, 2008

This pro-life site claims that promiscuity can lead to demonic possession.

Pretty sure the article is serious.

What happens to sluts.

Man Candy

August 15, 2008

I’ve never really been into athletes, but this is the hottest Olympics photo ever.  Of course he’s French.

Update: It has been pointed out to me that my patriotic duty demands that I also acknowledge that this is very hot. And, um, in this picture you can clearly see Michael Phelps’ penis. It’s actually a little weird and disturbing. And, oh, great, now I’m going to be getting hits for the search phrase “Michael Phelps’ penis.” Perverts.

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