I thought Barbie was bad -

- and I've really got nothing against Barbie other than recognizing that my penchant for wearing tight clothes and my hair long and blonde is directly attributable to her.

I saw this link on a homeschooling list I read. It shows a model's evolution from being a real flesh-and-blood woman to being a billboard picture. The hair and make-up was a no brainer and I knew about the miracles of air-brushing. Years ago, I saw Jenny McCarthy on the Rosie show and she was drawing in stretch marks and pimples that had been air-brushed out of a poster for her. She ended up autographing it for Rosie. It was awesome. Anyway, I didn't realize that the beauty propagandists of today actually restructure the face, lengthen the neck, make the eyes bigger.

Guess we can all look like Disney princesses. Yay.

Shifting Paradigms Through Books

this is an article I wrote for the community blog, Life Without School.

Because there are so many books about school or set in school, I wanted to share books with my daughter that showed other ways people learn and have learned over the years.  School has been the norm for a long time, but it hasn't always been that way and there are others even today who choose a different way to educate. Some of the books we've enjoyed are listed [in this post]. 

Feminine Angst?

Do you have that embarrassing "not so nice" feeling about men given recent headlines despite the fact that the men you've chosen to surround yourself with are wonderful, kind, humane, and supportive?

Nothing will make you feel more "fresh" than viewing one or all of the following movies:

Kill Bill, Vol, 2 has the most cathartic message and hones in on the male villians a bit more than Vol. 1. However, you'll need Vol. 1 in order to fully understand the story; Vol. 1 has its moments, like what happens to the orderly who pimps the coma patients at the hospital.

Dogville -- you'll have to be patient with this one, but if you're looking for catharsis, this will deliver.

Hard Candy -- "Was I born a cute vindictive little bitch or... did society make me that way? I go back and forth on that... "

Angry at Life? Angry at God?

Thats what the news says. Not buying it, try "angry at women." Its sick enough to go out and kill people, still sicker to drop your kids off at a school bus stop and go to another school and kill other people's kids -- but to release the boys and kill the girls execution style? This guy wasn't angry at life -- he could have killed the life he helped create instead of putting it on a bus. His anger at God was strangely targetted at girls -- who really don't seem to play much of a part in the major monotheistic religions.

Its disturbing enough that there have been school shootings -- worse that there have been several in the past week. But I'd love to read about the particularly misogynistic strain of killers who pick off the girls (Linda Hirshman, this means you, I know you're not busy at home taking care of your kids so you probably have the time to write up something).

Sure makes the concern that institutional schooling is feminizing our boys seem overblown when some of these schools are death-traps for our girls.