I really want to write about this article, Film loses its feminine touch (via the LATimes), but I don’t have the time.
Because I have to leave for the airport in an hour. I just spilled soda on my shirt AND I need a toothbrush.
Awesome.
PS I saw September Dawn and yes that deserves its own post too!
For what reason does the ACLU and the Justice Department come together?
A Mormon missionary!
A Mormon student who left university for two years to fulfill his Mormon missionary duty is suing his school for taking away his scholarship. For Mormon males, becoming a missionary is akin to a Jewish person’s Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah, a Catholic’s communion etc.
One article via the Charleston Gazette points out that the defense is using the argument that Mormon men are NOT required to take a mission when they are nineteen.
However, in its Aug. 9 motion to dismiss the case, the HEPC claims that Haws’ constitutional rights were not violated. Also, it contends the Mormon Church does not require its male members to serve a mission when they are 19 years old.
If a male chooses not to take a mission, hes basically stating he is not a proud Mormon which brings up a heap of trouble in the Church. There is also the question of financial freedom–the more money a family has the further a missionary goes. If a male cannot go far then his family arranges for him to serve his mission nearby but he still serves a mission.
I think this student should receive his full tuition, as under the constitution a person should be able to practice their religious freedoms. But it also points to the larger issue of Mormons functioning within larger society. Should they change their rules to abide by universities outside of the Mormondom? Or should everyone follow them? These are large questions that can’t be answered quickly.
A word about female missionaries, for the longest time it was only understood that men were to go on missions but women were allowed to serve finally. They typically begin their missions at age 21 by the time they could easily finish school in time. If these rules can be adjusted for women could the same be down for men?
There’s something about the age of 19 I don’t understand. I’ll have to get to the bottom of this through reading!
Via LATimes
Mattel sues to keep Barbie off porn site
Toy maker Mattel Inc. went to court Tuesday to declare that the name of its clean-cut Barbie dolls doesn’t belong on a model’s pornographic website.
There isn’t much to the article at all. But just the whole idea is ironic.
September Dawn, a film about the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre, is coming out this week and certain agents in Utah and other institutions close to the church have already began an attack on the film. When I say church, I mean the LDS church. According to numerous sources, Brigham Young ordered a militia to kill emigrants passing through the Utah Territory. It is also claimed that the Mormons framed local Indian tribes for this attack. Of course, several church officials deny this and have argued that such arguments are wrong and historically inaccurate.
From the Spectrum, a news source from southern Utah, published an article about the film, Massacre Remembered.
The cruel and severe persecution of LDS settlements in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, and the certainty of an attack by the U.S. Army, is largely minimized in the film. Such pressures, however, proved to be the catalyst of one of the largest migrations in U.S. history and would provide a solid motive for the hardened and defensive dispositions of those early 19th century members of the LDS church….
Why Hollywood chose to embellish the sad tale with dark innuendo is obvious: profit. Exploiting the Mountain Meadow Massacre for any type of gain is reprehensible and does a disservice to the lives lost that day.
Clearly, this denunciation of the film is rooted in more than anti-materialism. The author comes across as having a lot at stake in both the religious persecution that Mormons struggled with AND the weight of atrocities that occurred during the massacre.
This article from Clarksville, TN offers a less defensive tone about the massacre.
The film has sparked rebuttal from Latter Day Saints, and controversy as the horrors of another time and place spill into today’s headlines, rekindling debate and triggering strong statements from Mormon leaders decrying the murderous attribution and citing the honor and atonements offered to the dead over the ensuing one and a half centuries. In 1999, The LDS dedicated a memorial on the massacre site.
By acknowledging some culpability in the form of a memorial, the Mormon Church is attempting to move on or at least put up the perception of moving on. But Americans haven’t even had the chance to digest the Mountain Meadows Massacre, as Mormons and Mormon history has not really found its place in the popular culture imagination until recently. So the rest of non-Mormon Americans have to digest everything Mormon good and bad. While the Mormon Church will claim the massacre is not them (represtative or responsibility), as soon as hollywood puts it out there…there ain’t no going back.
I’m ready to see it. But I have to see Super Bad first. Long story.
Male students debut at Randolph College
One of my graduate student classmates went to Randolp Macon for undergraduate and really enjoyed it. She transferred there after attending a larger state school. Whenever we discussed our undergraduate experiences, she always had positive things to say. I remember emailing with her when I read about the college’s decision to become coeducational. Many alums were angry, believing the school was betraying them and current students along with the overall integrity of the institution, while others knew it had to happn because of financial reasons.
Well, its a different school now. This past week it opened its doors to female and male students. In recent historical memory, we have heard a lot about schools like Harvard and Yale opening up their doors to female students in the 1960s and 1970s but one rarely hears about the reverse.
Certain schools that were once all female like Vassar did start accepting men but are still referred to as being mostly female, for low female to male ration and the like. Rumors abound that only gay men or straight guys looking to date a lot of women attend these schools. While that may be true, it must take a lot of guts to be one of the first, female or male, to attend a school that used to be single sex the year before.
Hopefully, the new students, all of them, at Randolph Macon will learn a lot, have fun and adjust accordingly. But its hard to say the school won’t be changed dramatically.
I know this for a fact, as my own alma mater went throught the same transformation back in the 1970s.
Funny thing is you don’t hear the rumor that girls attend Yale to get laid.
Scenic overlook of city, in New Jersey
Last weekend, my husband and I fled the city for a day. We had joined zipcar last month when we had to go to an engagement party in Connecticut. At first, I was hesitant to be seen behind the wheel of a vehicle with zipcar stickers all over it. But when the desire starts up to get the hell out of Manhattan, then you don’t care what you’re seen in. Seriously.
We headed out north and crossed the GW bridge headed toward a beautiful state park in Rockland county. We lounged near a lake for awhile then headed for Rye Beach in Westchester county across the state. The water there looked very dirty and I didn’t wander that far in. However, it was nice to lay on a beach and read a magazine. Everywhere we went, we kept running into people that were obviously from the city having a good time. No matter how far you travel from NYC in the tri state area, you’re never that far away. Even New Yorkers like me and my husband, who are intent on getting a fresh of breath air from the city, stop to take a picture of it from the scenic overlook (pictured above).
When we returned to the city that night, I decided to watch a bunch of bad tv about serial killers and such (48 hours). When the news came on, the weatherman kept talking about how “nice” the weather was that day. While I was annoyed at his lack of creative vocabulary, I couldn’t agree more.
It was a NICE day!
This seagull at Rye also thinks its nice out!
So I am going to start keeping track of the books I read in a much more orderly fashionable way.
I keep lists of all the books on my good ole macintosh. I’ll start keeping monthly lists, but to speed it up, I’ve divided the books I read into a few categories.
(1) Fiction
(2) Mormon specific
(3) Women’s History specific
(4) Nonfiction misc.
(5) Historical case studies/ historiography
Of course, there will be some overlap in categories.
Rating guide will be four stars and suggestions for who would like it.
In this post I’ll list the books about women’s history:
Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (**)
Decoding Abortion Rhetoric (***, for scholars and people interested in media and consumerism)
A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America (****)
Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (***)
When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 (***, for history buffs who are into medical history)
A Woman’s Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences (****, a staple for women’s history and economics)
More posts to come!
Its everywhere from promos for Larry King on CNN about Star Jones having gastric bypass surgery. I know that doesn’t necessarily count as plastic surgery, but the point is that society is obsessed with improving appearances no matter what.
I watched a few episodes of Dr. 90210 the other night. The show follows three different plastic surgeons. It details cases with patients from a playboy tv star who wants new breasts to a girl who can’t breathe through her nose. But it also centers on the plastic surgeons personal issues like trying to break into the reality tv star business and troubles at home.
While the show does try to normalize plastic surgery, it is difficult for the viewer not to assume that its just a “LA thing” not affecting the smaller cities and towns. In Q: Who Is the Real Face of Plastic Surgery, it discusses how people are financing their plastic surgery the way they plan for a mortgage or vehicle.
“I just wanted to proportion myself out and look like I did before I had children, simple as that,” said Ms. Cornier, 33, who is married and works for a government agency. She took a loan for $10,800. “I did not want to wait two or three years to save up for surgery.”
Its funny you would think that shows like Dr. 90210 depicting real surgery, with blood, guts and all, would deter people from seeking out medically unnecessary surgeries. I know it has deterred me from seeking it out though I’e never wanted it myself.
What worries me the most is that more and more people are looking to plastic surgery instead of trying to lose weight, diet wisely and make other lifestyle choices. But that seems to be the larger struggle a lot of us are dealing with, choosing easy fixes that don’t work as well as the choices that lead us to longer endeavors which lead us to better results.