I've been debating whether I should post this for a few days, but I've decided I must.
Earlier this week, I went to the Mother Jones website to find an old article I wanted to post here. But my search was interrupted when I saw an ad for Wal-Mart pop up.
An ad for Wal-Mart on the website of a magazine that calls itself:
An
independent nonprofit whose roots lie in a commitment to social justice
implemented through first rate investigative reporting.
PETA wants to advertise "Go vegan" message on border fence:
While many view the contentious border fence as a government fiasco, an animal rights group sees a rare opportunity.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plans today to announce an unusual marketing pitch to the U.S. government: Rent us space on the fence for billboards warning illegal border crossers there is more to fear than the Border Patrol.
The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will — Go Vegan."
We've run articles on many a controversial subject here at Bitch, and readers have responded with appropriate ardor to such topics as fat suits, pro-porn theory, eating disorders, the "hasbian" phenomenon, and more. Yet some of the most impassioned letters we've gotten in the past year or so hinged on a short piece in issue #35 about the disturbing equine makeover of My Little Pony. (It's not archived on the site yet, unfortunately.) Responses to Jesse Rutherford's Love/Shove — which took a close look at the evolution of the 1980s toy-box staple and concluded that Hasbro's aesthetic tinkering has yielded an undeniably sexualized parade of ponies — ranged from assertions that it was "terrifically over the top" and "creepily overstated" to veiled accusations that Rutherford's interest in the redesign was "the kind of logic only someone who is unreasonably sexually obsessed with ponies would arrive at."
I was reminded of this the other day when I read a recent New York Times piece on the new makeover of Strawberry Shortcake, another classic of '80s playtime who continues to be a touchstone for girly nostalgia. It seems, according to the American Greetings company —Shortcake's sugar daddy — that today's girls weren't feeling the icon's Raggedy Anne styling, Calico-cat companion, and unhealthy preference for gumdrops over fresh fruit. (I was never a fan of the doll, so I can't verify personally whether I ever got the latter directive from Shortcake and her pals, but I will say that my childhood friend Pilar had the whole fruity family — Apple Dumplin', Huckleberry Pie, Orange Blossom — and the sickly, chemical scent of them emanated from her bedroom as a kind of pastel fog.)
"It is because of me — I definitely think [my show] has helped the movement," she told Usmagazine.com at the Hollywood premiere of The Love Guru on Wednesday.
"Before it came out, everyone was still a little apprehensive about [same sex relationships]," she said. "Then they realized, 'Wow, everyone is really into this stuff, and it is fine.' The next thing you know, [gay marriage] is legal."
Project Runway 4: The Season of Love. And no designer was more lovable than the prancing, snapping, flat-iron–wielding Christian Siriano, who ended up winning it all—the final runway showdown, the spread in Elle, and the $10K Fan Favorite prize. Sassing and sewing with equal velocity, the diminuitive designer and self-described "big deal" introduced us to an array of hip, new-to-many-Americans phrases: Fierce! Ferosh! A hot mess up in here! A hot tranny mess up in here!