on saturday, I came across these two stories:

1. The use of the word vajayjay to describe vagina or vulva. Ever since it was uttered on Grey’s Anatomy back in 2006, it has been getting more and more popular. This is mostly because Oprah thinks it sounds like a “nice word.” Yeah.
2. Elizabeth Wurtzel goes to law school and we care enough to write a whole article about it because….?!?!?! I think its cool and all that shes starting a new chapter of her career but I’m failing to see how this warrants a NYTimes article. Her book More Now Again did really move me when I read it after attempting to read Bitch. And I certainly did like it more than Prozac Nation. Whether she likes it or not, she is one of the leading founders of the confessional chick lit movement in literature/memoir. With that, it would be intriguing to see if she does decided to write about the law school experince as a returning student at age forty. Now that would have been a worthy article.

1. Whenever I sign onto amazon, there is a recommendation for the OJ Simpson book, If I did it. Ummm why? I clicked on “why this was recommended for you” button and it said because I had bought two books about polygamy…yeah…failing to see the connections beyond on an assumption of polygamy equaling abused wives.
2. Sweetest Day: OK this hallmark holiday is all about chocolate. Why am I concerned with this? It seems as though only people in my home state in the Midwest seem to celebrate it. I never got the point of it as it seems like a watered down version of Valentine’s Day. As wikipedia states, “Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October^[1]. It is described by Retail Confectioners International, as “much more important for candymakers in some regions than in others (Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities)” It never seemed to catch on in NYC.
3. Andy Cooper over there at CNN is sick of the planet being in peril because he’s bored of it. Poor Andy.

This is funny!

Young women held up signs along a New York parkway advertising the car wash and telling the drivers where to go. But hidden behind a big blue tarp, it was shirtless male firefighters who were washing the cars.

Excuse the absence but work has become all consuming and I’m taking two evening classes. Yes, I’m crazy.

But I found some news stories today that are even crazier.

(1) Doll Web Sites Drive Girls to Stay Home and Play
The article claims these virtual sites are a step below myspace and facebook, but some of the web site heads don’t like this comparison.

Millions of children and adolescents are spending hours on these sites, which offer virtual versions of traditional play activities and cute animated worlds that encourage self-expression and safe communication. They are, in effect, like Facebook or MySpace with training wheels, aimed at an audience that may be getting its first exposure to the Web.

Lane Merrifield, chief executive of Club Penguin….Mr. Merrifield also bristles at any comparison to MySpace, which he said is a wide-open environment and one that poses all kinds of possible threats to young people.

You should go look just for the creepy picture of the girl staring at the computer.

(2) Meanwhile, over at USAToday, Karen Thomas wonders what is happening to Hollywood’s young “talent” like Hilton, Lohan and Spears in this article. I personally liked the comparison to Shannon Doherty and other 90210 cast members not making nearly as much trouble as the hot twentysomething stars today. At least my generations starlets aren’t f*ckups.

And on this subject the LATimes ran an article comparing the Hilton hotel in Paris to Ms. Hilton’s new accomodations.

Rooms at the Hilton Paris have minibars, hairdryers in their bathrooms, electronic door locks with keycards and remote control TVs with cable. About half have balconies. Pets are allowed.

The Paris Hilton cell has two bunks, a table, a sink, a toilet and a small window. Its occupant can leave for about an hour a day to watch TV in a day room, talk on the telephone, exercise outside or shower. No pets.

You get the point. Our major daily papers can both ponder why we’re so obsessed with these young stars and their bad, bad behavior AND can report on it too adding to the obsession.

I love how the media works.

(3) And…. As they gathered Tuesday for a national strategy session, antiabortion activists faced an unexpected revolt in their own ranks.

woah!

PS I should really discuss the primary debates but that deserves its own close analysis/ post.

This Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story about a woman’s eBook store goes from these empowering prose…

Opening just last week, www.eBooksAboutWomen.com carries everything from “weighty academic tomes on the history of suffrage and the issues of women’s equality” to an extensive collection of books featuring today’s most popular women sleuths.

“From women authors to women’s studies, this store celebrates women,” says Gigi Reynard, CEO of eBooksAbout, based in Palm Springs, Calif. “There are biographies, information about women’s health and eBooks by women authors.”

To this which made me think…what…the….EFF!!!!

“For many women, it’s kind of a guilty pleasure,” she says with a chuckle. “If you’re like me, every once in a while I want to have a romance [novel] because I can’t stand my life.

Maybe she needs therapy or self-confidence lessons instead of a Harlequin.

This is an awesome guide by Christine Stansell (who wrote one of my favorite books, City of Women) to books about the history of abortion in the US, a subject I’ve written and presented on.

This past Sunday’s Modern Love (NYTimes) was particularly touching.

Suddenly Spock has a soft spot for the social acceptance of obese women.

And unfortunately fewer women are getting mammograms.

Is It the Woman Thing, or Is It Katie Couric? Oh no her ratings are down!

Awesome line:

So it may be time to step back from all this girl-power cheermongering and recognize a simple fact: Women don’t just need to be free to aspire; they also need to be free to just be. Yes, women can be every bit as good as men in track or mathematics, but we don’t have to excel in either to deserve respect as human beings. Wait, haven’t a bunch of feminists been telling us that all along? Duh!

From The Supergirl Syndrome by Lakshi Chaudhry

And I just found out about The Scholar & Feminist Online from Feministing.

I can’t wait to start reading.

(1) This story from USA Today about pay gaps between men and women makes me a bit depressed. Makes me wonder about places I’ve worked and where my female friends have worked.
(2) Pole dancing a new brand of feminism….??!?!

I find it interesting how whenever anything slightly subversive, like pole-dancing, is proven to actually help women gain confidence it is suddenly branded as “feminist.” Does feminist = subversive?

(3) No link between Abortion, Miscarriage and Breast Cancer

(4) Sheryl and Karl discuss the earth…woah!

I’m sure some of you saw Google’s practical joke…Freaking hilarious!

This news story about an intern stealing Civil War documents from the National Archives is crazy.  I would have sympathy for him if he was stealing them because he really, really loved history but no he wanted money.  Kind of a crafty plot until well people started noticing documents from our beloved civil war missing.  (This also explains why I stay away from ebay.)

The reason I’ve been so absent is that I’ve been preparing a paper for PCA/ ACA 2007 national conference. I’m very nervous.  I’m preparing a talk about how abortion is portrayed on daytime television.

I was hoping to post some of my work but I’m way too tired for that at this point. Maybe tomorrow!

HILARIOUS story in the NYTimes about dating and apartments:

All these things have proved detriments to love, but none so effectively as his sheets. Mr. Podell likes the ones from the ’60s and ’70s that tell a story: sheets with intergalactic battles or pink hippopotami or the Beatles. Since these are no longer available in adult-bed sizes, Mr. Podell’s sheets are now 30 to 40 years old. The fading is such that a person who saw one in a Salvation Army bin, having lost everything she owned in a fire, would remind herself that there was no reason to be desperate. The fading, however, was apparently not the reason that the sheets became a deal breaker.

“I was dating this very nice woman, I thought,” says Mr. Podell. “I was ready and she was ready to do the big deed. I take her to my apartment, go into the bedroom, and fling back the sheets, and she said, ‘My husband had these sheets and he was a mean-hearted son of a bitch and you must be like him and I’m leaving.’ ”