Yes, I know that Terri has shuffled off her mortal coil, with the pope trailing not far behind her, but what I want to write about is Britney. Yes, that Britney.
Britney Spears has posted on her Web site (my god, why haven’t I visited it before? It’s so pretty!) a bit of a tirade against the tabloids. Now, I know what you’re thinking, poor little celebrity girl whining about her fame. But let me put it this way, what semi-talented, kinda hot teenager offered the chance at mega fame wouldn’t leap for it? And what 23 year old, pressing up against adult consciousness and hounded by an insatiable press hell-bent on exposing her flaws, wouldn’t like kinda you know regret it?
As an unabashed Us Weekly reader, I have relished Ms. Spears’ big fuck you to the tyranny of body image, male gaze, and celebrity expectations that make up the surreal banality of her existence. I speak of the shredded jeans, the misspelled tattoos, the Cheetos, the beer gut, the bare feet in the gas station bathroom, the doomed marriage to a visible cretin. Fuck yeah, Brit! Rub your feet in slimy trucker feces! Screw convention, beauty, and charm! Hang with that wigga twit Kevin if he makes you happy.
But, like Tracey Gold, she cannot escape the media’s desperately watchful eye. And now that the beer and pot and pizza has caught up with her (Oh how we sympathize, Brit; most women are taken aback by how quickly our metabolism slows in our mid-20s!), the tabloids have birthed an ugly brood of pregnancy rumors. Is she fat or that? And Britney is right to demand why they aren’t dry-humping Julia Roberts’ baby pictures and leaving her the hell alone?
Of course, that’s not what she writes on her Web site. Her post is, alas, somewhat ill-conceived and bafflingly raw. (Note to press agent: in the future, edit this shit.) But my god, three people read my somewhat ill-conceived and baffling raw writing when I was 23. Poor Brit has the world to reckon with. Well, she needn’t reckon with me.
Britney, you can run but you can’t hide, but if you can stand it, figure out who you are and be true to it. I, for one, will support you, bad hair and all.
Sex speeds up evolution (yay!) but only if you're yeast (boo!). Yes, National Geographic--the place where so many of us first oggled boobies--teasingly promised a new reason to do it with its headline "Sex Speeds Up Evolution, Study Finds," only to disappoint with a piece about how organisms that can reproduce sexually and asexually evolve more quickly with the former.
...a team of scientists created a mutant strain of yeast that, unlike normal yeast, was unable to divide into the sexual spores that allow yeast to engage in sexual reproduction. Yeast can reproduce either sexually or asexually.
When testing this mutant strain in stress-free conditions, the scientists found that it performed as well as normal yeast. In more extreme conditions, however, the normal yeast grew faster than the asexual mutants.
What remains unanswered is how exactly do yeast, um, do it?
My mother-in-law Kathy Kolbe is quoted in this article on whether business discriminates against folks with gray hair.
Kathy Kolbe, a Phoenix-based public speaker and consultant to corporations on human instincts, is one of the comparatively few gray-haired women in business. After alternating between dyed and not, she declares herself now ``permanently gray'' after concluding it is an advantage in more ways than one. She noticed she got lots of offers of help on her business travels when gray peeked through -- from hoisting bags into overhead bins on airplanes to other assistance -- and ``pretty much nobody offered help'' when it was hidden. ``So I let the whole head go gray and, voila, doors magically opened,'' said Kolbe, 65. She senses the ``look of wisdom'' also has a positive impact on both employees and clients.
I lost five pounds today from the stomach flu. How can you benefit from this amazing weight-loss technique? First, it helps to have a spouse who gets sick first. Be sure not to wash your hands after touching him (because you're assuming it's food poisoning) and eat finger foods like tasty artichokes so you can stick infected fingers in your mouth frequently. Wait two days and don't make any plans because you are gonna hurl a lot, among other things. I still can't eat.
Seems this new diet is a trend! Connecticut is reporting record numbers of flu-dieters. This story reports that, "It's sometimes linked to eating shellfish that has been contaminated by sewage, but is more commonly contracted by swallowing food or water contaminated with stool of an infected person."
Eyewww. I ate my husband's poo? This was not in the vows.
PDN, where I'm a contributing writer, is reporting that more magazines than ever are producing boob-centric covers! Just the name "boobs" makes me want to link to it, so I guess there's something to it.
The International Association for Dental Research is saying that lip piercing can lead to receding gums and other periodontal complications. Alas, bad teeth are never cool. From Medgadget.com
A group of pharmacists have taken it upon themselves to deny women their right to choose by refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill and even birth control. (MSNBC article here.) These are not just a few angry Catholics and fundamentalist Christians wielding their meager power. The Pharmacists for Life International Web site is keeping a running tally on which states are passing a "Conscience Clause," allowing pharmacists to refuse the right to fill prescriptions that violate their beliefs.
Oh, and don't we all sympathize? After all, nobody wants to be forced to do something he or she feels is morally wrong on the job. But where will it end? Think about life-saving treatments derived from stem cells that pharmacists could also deem immoral. On the other side of the political spectrum, imagine being denied your heart medicine because it was tested on animals. Once you open the door for pharmacists to make decisions that should be between you and your doctor--and make them on a moral rather than medical basis--it's a slippery slope.
Of course, this is what the militants on the right want. As I wrote about for Salon way back in 1997, they've been trying to gradually erode Roe v. Wade since it began. Fortunately, there are counter efforts being made. In some states, like my very own California, efforts are being made to require pharmacists to fill prescriptions.
Many of my friends are allergic to cats, making visits to my two-feline household rather unpleasant for them and sad for me because I love to host. But a newly developed compound shows promise of not only ending cat allergies but more severe peanut ones, too. What's fascinating is it works by actually attaching the cat protein that causes allergic reactions to the human protein that blocks allergic reactions (think of them as Lego blocks that click together), somehow preventing the usual histamine onslaught. Read more here.
The Terri Schiavo situation has reached a point of such absurdity that it's hard to be serious about it. Thus, my friends and I have come up with a few Schiavo-themed band names. Hey kids, they're up for grabs!
Persistent Vegetative State (perhaps for an ambient or trance ensemble)
Permanently Brain-Damaged Daughter (more of a speed metal band, I think)
Feeding Tube (pop, definitely pop)
Also, my good pal Steve suggests that the following expressions be introduced to the American vernacular: Remove the Feeding Tube: Means to pull the plug on a project, put an end to something that's gone on way too long Re-insert the Feeding Tube: Means something is suddenly viable again and can be restarted
Friend and fellow writer Bonnie Powell first introduced me to the wonders of Real Dolls by pointing me to Web sites instructing on how to repair these amazingly realistic sex companions. Now, fine art photographer Elena Dorfman has produced a book documenting the dolls and the men who love them. It's called "Still Lovers" and is published as part of Channel Photographics debut season.
Channel's catalog describes the book as such: "Since the beginning of human history dolls have served as symbolic selves, as icons for religious fervor, effigies that represent different sides of the psyche, as surrogates in therapy sessions, as child's play and adult fantasy. They are the vehicles of our cultural imagination, proxies we animate with our ideas and ideals. In Still Lovers, Elena Dorfman explores the complex relationships between life-sized, synthetic dolls and their owners. For many, the idea of the sex doll conjures images of the kitschy inflatable, but these expensive, highly realistic dolls, which owners customize down to the smallest detail, are far from silly, and they perform more than a sexual role for thier owners."
Apparently we chicks can’t do anything right. First, it turns out that we make lousy scientists. Now, according to the editors of a respected British literary anthology, we apparently can’t write all that well, either. In the introduction, they described the submissions from women as “ dull, 'disappointingly domestic' and 'depressed as hell.’” It reminds me a lot of something Patricia Williams complains about in her book, “The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor,” when she calls bullshit on the common refrain that no blacks were hired because no blacks were qualified.
In a rebuttal printed in the Guardian, female writer (no, it’s not an oxymoron) AL Kennedy gets things off to a good start by rightly declaring “women’s writing” to be a category so broad as to render it completely meaningless. You can read her argument and two others here.
The fact that we’re still having this argument points to the lasting power of prejudice against all things female. Reduced, it looks something like this: Men's world=smart, fascinating, woot! Women's world=boring, trivial, and dumb. When women write about “big subjects” (read: anything outside the home), they are praised like it's some big surprise they can wrap their pretty little heads around such things. When they write about domestic topics they are dismissed as trivial, never mind that half of human experience occurs in the home--not trivial at all.
Of course, when a male writer like Jonathan Franzen writes about family life in “The Corrections,” he’s hailed a genius, fearless. And when Oprah invites him on the show, he refuses because (in my opinion) he wouldn’t want anyone to confuse him for an inferior woman writer. Or maybe worse, a successful mainstream one. Horrors!
In the meantime, I have a woman writer to recommend: Carol Tavris, whose excellent book “The Mismeasure of Woman” reveals the underlying misconceptions that give rise to arguments like this one.
Otherwise, perhaps some cheeky lit critic would like to tackle the disappointingly workaholic, unrealistically violent as hell world of “men’s writing,” you know, like Tom Clancy.
Yes, I know that Terri has shuffled off her mortal coil, with the pope trailing not far behind her, but what I want to write about is Britney. Yes, that Britney.
I lost five pounds today from the stomach flu. How can you benefit from this amazing weight-loss technique? First, it helps to have a spouse who gets sick first. Be sure not to wash your hands after touching him (because you're assuming it's food poisoning) and eat finger foods like tasty artichokes so you can stick infected fingers in your mouth frequently. Wait two days and don't make any plans because you are gonna hurl a lot, among other things. I still can't eat.
The International Association for Dental Research is saying that 
A group of pharmacists have taken it upon themselves to deny women their right to choose by refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill and even birth control. (MSNBC article 
Many of my friends are allergic to cats, making visits to my two-feline household rather unpleasant for them and sad for me because I love to host. But a newly developed compound shows promise of not only ending cat allergies but more severe peanut ones, too. What's fascinating is it works by actually attaching the cat protein that causes allergic reactions to the human protein that blocks allergic reactions (think of them as Lego blocks that click together), somehow preventing the usual histamine onslaught. Read more 
Apparently we chicks can’t do anything right. First, it turns out that we make 
