Tag Archives: blogs

November 10, 2011 · 5:53 pm

Is a coat hanger just a coat hanger?

You’d think with all the focus grouping, copy testing, and oh, I don’t know, common sense, shit like this would not make out into the public domain:

This is the real-life, no joke, you MUST be kidding banner of a maternity site (via Copyranter)

See what they did there with the “2?” It’s a coat hanger. On a baby website.

Does this mean we’re in an era where a wire coat hanger no longer carries the back-alley abortion connotation? Is a coat hanger just a coat hanger?

I don’t mean to get all dramatic (yes I do), but when Mississippi just tried to declare a fertilized egg a person, I think it is important to remember what some of the consequences to abortion bans look like. We’ve been there before. Well, not me, I wasn’t alive. But as a country, we know that people don’t stop having abortions just because we make laws against them. We know that abortions can become secret, dangerous procedures that jeopardize the health of the women who have to surreptitiously find them.

I don’t think Room for Two is pushing an agenda with their coat hanger banner. I really just think that the associations the image conjures for me are not as prevalent as I would have thought. I shouldn’t be surprised; women’s health and reproductive rights aren’t exactly our nation’s top priority these days.

Related Post: Pregnancy, word choice, and a Disney princess.

Related Post: ABC’s Make it or Break It handled a convo about abortion shockingly well.

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August 16, 2011 · 1:18 pm

Liebster

This is essentially the equivalent of a chain letter. Whatever, in sixth grade chain letters were the shit, so here goes.

Ms. Stephanie at The Conscientious Reader has nominated me for a blogging award called The Liebster. It means “beloved” or “favorite” or “my darling” or something in German (internet translations are disagreeing….anyone speak German?). The idea is to pass the love from one itty-bitty blog to the next, hopefully connecting people with similar content or style.

It’s basically Pay It Forward, in blog form, minus Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt, and Kevin Spacy. So, to pay it forward, here are some of my favorite bloggers who have yet to convince the world they should be famous (although it’s only a matter of time):

Kate runs Smart Girls Who Do Stupid Things where she posts awesome stuff like pictures of clouds, recaps of The Bachelorette, and unlive blogs of awards shows.

Emilie writes at I Came to Run, where she talks fitness, body image, eating disorders, etc. She’s the one who did the amazing post about the Special K Challenge.

Emma has a special knack for finding just the most absolutely bat-crazy shit. Seriously, it’s a gift. She compiles it all into a tumblr called Homeless College Grad.

Searah is the founder of the best little sex shop in Chicago, Early to Bed. In her years in the industry, she has discovered the weirdest sex crap ever, logged for your viewing pleasure at Searah’s Museum of Screwy Sex Toys.

So there you you have it, my Liebster nomination list. Ladies, if you’re craving some chain letter love, the Liebster rules follow:

  • Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
  • Reveal your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
  • Copy and paste the award on your blog.
  • Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

Damn… I need to start reading some dudes…. Anybody have any favorite male bloggers they think I would like?

Related Post: My internet friendship with Stephanie began thusly.

Related Post: And this is how I started following Emilie.

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Filed under Art, Books, Really Good Writing by Other People

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July 6, 2011 · 1:43 pm

From “Ooh La La” to Tears with Gaby Dunn

If you don’t read Gaby Dunn’s blog 100 Interviews, you should. The basic premise is simple and brilliant and I’m jealous I didn’t think of it myself. She made a list of 100 types people she wanted to meet, and then went about meeting them and asking them a lot of questions.

Her two most recent interviews are perhaps my favorite, if only because they demonstrate the ridiculous range of the blog. On one end of the spectrum, she interviewed pornstar James Deen (who we all know I love), and on the other she just posted her interview with Jeff Gonski, who fit the horrible category “Someone Who Lost Someone in 9/11.”

The Deen interview made me giggle and blush a lot: “We go inside and it’s just me and him. Alone. In his house. To cope with my anxiety, I rev my usual defense mechanism; when I find someone attractive, I tease them mercilessly like I’m Helga from ‘Hey Arnold.’ James 1) sees right through me and 2) seems to find it wildly amusing.“

The Gonski interview, on the other hand, I had to stop reading in public because I was starting get choked up. His fiancee literally flipped a coin with a coworker to determine who’d attend the conference at the World Trade Center. She lost: “The nightmare didn’t end there. Usually when someone loses a loved one, they don’t have to watch their death replayed on the nightly news indefinitely. ‘It’s like, why are you showing it over and over again?’ He says. ‘You do realize people are dying? It’s not abstract. It’s real people and now you have to see the moment over and over again.’”

Blech. So… two interviews, two very different reasons not to read them at work, on a train, or anywhere that you mind people seeing you squirm or cry.

Related Post: Looking back, apparently I have a bit of thing for interview pairs. There was this one, about feminism, and then this one, about women during the Arab Spring.

Related Post: The Atlantic‘s idiotic and overreaching take on the state of modern pornography.

Related Post: I have my own conversation with a stranger, and consequently miss a flight. Sigh.

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Filed under Really Good Writing by Other People, Sex

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June 13, 2011 · 3:06 am

Sunday Scraps 14

Due to a long and complicated story involving Alfred Hitchcock, a 38 caliber shotgun, turquoise jewelry and a bad case of emphysema, I missed a plane this morning and was unable to post Sunday Scraps until now. Have no fear, that fascinating story will follow later this week. In the meantime, it is still technically Sunday. Enjoy:
1. WHERE ARE THEY NOW? What if Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte had suffered through the recession with the rest of us? The $400 shoes go out the window. Susannah Breslin wrote a great “what if” piece for HuffPo.

2. SECRETARY: A slide show of “office wives” through the last century.

3. DETROIT: Super cool ride-along piece from GQ about the demolition crews responsible for the knocking down thousands of Detroit’s abandoned houses.

4. ART: The world’s 25 most pointless pieces of graffiti. Featured: plums, continental breakfasts, Rod Stewart, and low-cost airlines.

5. WEIGHT LOSS “MIRACLES”: Ugh. See what really makes people drop 14lb in a week. Hint: It’s not healthy living and a moderate amount of exercise. After a starvation strategy, one contestant gained back 32lb in 5 days as his body tried to find equilibrium.

6. BEST PRANK EVER: Large scale “landscaping” and a bunch of middle schoolers produce a penis you can see from Google Earth.

Related Post: Sunday 13 (Groupon, YA, MDowd, why Chicago is “Always” and New York is “Now”)

Related Post: Sunday 12 (Chelsea, Beyonce, contraception, modern “art”)

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