One signed copy of The Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children, and Struggling with Depression by Tracy Thompson is on the way. Thanks, Rhonda, and thanks to everyone who played along. Big thanks to Tracy, too.
We had visitors over Thanksgiving weekend.
We made them drink this.
Good times.
“Everybody has the right to be beautiful.”
And how do we prove that? Why, you silly goose. With a beauty pageant! (Isn’t that the answer to everything? Well, yeah. Up next? Afghanistan! I kid you not. Look it up.)
Norwegian Morten Traavik’s latest “art project” (photos are on display at museums in Norway) is Miss Landmine Angola (in its second year). He received 500,000 Norwegian kroner (about $80,000) from the Norwegian government’s Arts Council Norway for the project. The “winner” gets a prosthetic leg from a Norwegian company.
Traavik insists that “Angolans love beauty pageants” and that his intentions are purely humanitarian.
… one shouldn’t allow oneself to be paralysed by fear of appearing imperialistic. I can’t free myself from the fact that I’m white and Western, and I’ll just have to live with the risk of being interpreted in that light. I think it’s time to rid ourselves of collective Western guilt. To the extent that I’m going to play a role, I’d most fancy being cast as the naive Norwegian with his rucksack going out to make peace in the world. I don’t mind being him.
The women participated “of their own free will.” They were paid $200 each for the photography sessions, and they “got to keep the clothes, shoes and accessories from the sessions. For most of the women, it was the first paid work they had had in a very long time.”
I don’t know. Why not use the $80,000 to buy each woman a prosthetic leg?
Here’s what others had to say.
Hey, I know. Before Traavik gets his “art” displayed anywhere, why not make him enter a beauty contest for White Western Males with Rucksacks to determine who wins a spot in the gallery? We’ll let him keep the G-string and accessories he gets to sport in publicity photos. Ooh. And I bet the Norwegian government would pay for it.
Did you participate in the teleconference? It’s time to put names in a hat and draw a winner. Let me know if I should include your name.
Here’s what you do.
Join us, won’t you?
Remember how Working Mother “teamed up with” Medela to sell more breast pumps make sure companies support breastfeeding employees? Well, Working Mother also is “in partnership with” Kraft Foods Inc. to sell diet food offer employees “nutritious food.”
Kraft (a “100 best” company and major advertiser) and Working Mother held the “first-ever Office Kitchen Takeover” at SC Johnson‘s corporate and manufacturing facilities in Racine, Wis. (SC Johnson is a “100 best” company and major advertiser.) They stocked the company’s kitchen for a day with Kraft’s South Beach Diet prepackaged foods on Sept. 18, 2007, for a captive audience of some 2,500 employees.
“SC Johnson is on our ‘100 Best Companies’ due to its family-oriented culture and its commitment to helping employees strike a good work/life balance,” says Tammy Palazzo, Vice President of Research and Women’s Initiative, Working Mother Magazine. “The South Beach Diet(R) Office Kitchen Takeover awards the company even further by providing healthier food options for busy employees — from the convenience of their own office cafeteria.”
Touted as healthy, convenient, nutritious and delicious, the South Beach Diet is a weight-loss plan, according to Kraft’s own press release, with three phases that couldn’t possibly have been implemented in one day. What’s next? Weekly weigh-ins?
If they were really interested in providing employees with healthy snacks, why not “take over” the kitchen with baskets of fruits, vegetables and nuts? But where’s the selling point in that?
Not only does Working Mother offer its 2.2 million readers as a target audience for advertisers, it now uses employees of “100 best” companies/advertisers as a captive target audience.
Someone tell me again … exactly why did Corey Hart wear his sunglasses at night?
I caught a rerun of A Different World the other night. Why? I don’t have real cable. It was late. I wasn’t asleep. Anyway. It took me a while to figure out what it was. I kept thinking … The Cosby Show? No, can’t be. But why do these people all look familiar? And … hey! Didn’t I just see Dwayne Wayne in that show on the other channel?
Click.
Well, dang. Sure enough. There he was with Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro in Showtime.
Click.
Back to DW. Wow. What an ’80s overload. That hair! Those colors! IÂ need sunglasses!
Enter Corey Hart. That song popped into my head, and I can’t get it out. I’m just trying to keep Timbuk3 at bay … or this madness will never end.
I wrote a few days ago about Canon and the yuck factor of E&P’s magazine cover. It seems some professional photographers think Canon stepped over the ethical line in other cases.
I count at least 10 things that cry out for correction. How many can you find?
Updated March 6, 2008: For a more updated list, go to You’ve Got Your Hands Full. I’ve posted a twins list and a multiples list with triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets and sextuplets there.
This is for Mamma Loves, who posted some of her recent blog finds and asked what blogs we read.
When the kid bites,
When the phone rings,
When I’m feelingexhausted, frenzied,sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.
With apologies to R&H, here are a few of my favorite blog-things.
Life Through Our Eyes ~ This is the story of Suzanne, Joe and their quadruplets. I ran across this blog when Suzanne had a flat stomach and told the world she was growing four babies in there. Not once have I seen even a hint of deer-in-headlights shock registered on their faces. They have bright smiles, and they look happy. Suzanne always looks so put together. (I write as I sit in my pajamas. At noon.) I swear she has a stylist, makeup maven and fashion crew following her around. I’m amazed. They just posted the birth story, including videos. Check it out.
Think four is a lot? How about five-plus-two?
Wilkinson Quints ~ Jayson also has a blog, Quintuplet Dad (added to daddy bloggers).
You’ve Got Your Hands Full ~ Linda Jones is a journalist with 8-year-old twins, and writes about her own experience and posts articles about families with twins, triplets or more.
More blogs about multiples
Judge Irwin was his father? Did everyone else not see that coming? Or is it just me?
Now if he just gets to the point where “the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story” … two chapters to go, Jack. I hope it’s good.
