Along the same lines as my last post...

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Cosmo Radio on Sirius (I know, I shouldn't subject myself to that sort of crap, but there was nothing else decent on). They were doing a bit where they were inviting men to call in and talk about what they find attractive in a woman. There was the usual string of "I like great breasts" and "I like a nice firm butt" and even a few "I like a girl with a great set of eyes".

Then this guy called in and was talking about the size of girl that he's into. He starts off okay, saying that he likes a girl who is trim and firm and obviously works out, which I can't say anything negative about, because everybody has their own preferences and that's okay. But then he goes on to say that "it's okay if a girl has a little bit of extra weight, you know, some curves. A girl could weigh even as much as 120 or even 130, and that'd still be okay."

I was flabbergasted. 120 or 130 lbs is 'extra weight'? Seriously? I'm average height, and at 120lbs I look practically skeletal. Anything under 120lbs is considered underweight for my height and frame. How have we gotten to a point where someone being in their healthy range is considered 'extra weight'?

Photoshopping, that's how. It's both amazing and scary how processed the images in our media are. I wish I still had the address to this site I saw a couple of months ago that was before and after retouching pics of celebrities taken for magazine spreads. The amount of 'extra' flesh that was edited out of these photos for the sake of 'beauty' was astounding.

Edited to add: Nevermind. I found the site I was thinking about, but the 'artist' has since taken the befores out of his portfolio. I have to wonder if it was because the celebs were less than impressed with the public being able to see the unretouched versions, if maybe he got a whack of feedback from people telling him how 'wrong' his work is, or some other reason. Much to ponder...

Edited again: But I found an article that has links to several other retouching sites with good examples of what I'm talking about.

These videos hit a cord as a mother of a young girl, but also as a female and simply as a human being. We have very far to go to turn this around.

Ignore this post

I'm only blogging this because I don't have speakers on my computer, and I want to remember to go to this site another time when I'm on a computer that does have some. Lazy, I know. More and more, I'm using this blog as my own personal bookmark page.

Very Funny Ads

But go ahead and click it. You'll probably have some fun there too.

Randomly appearing items of clothing

Whilst searching for a hat to wear to the store (shut up - I didn't want to spend 20 minutes doing my hair for 20 minutes of grocery shopping), I found a sweater in our front hall closet. It is black. Size small. Gap. It is definitely not mine, although I covet it. If it is yours, or you know who it belongs to, send a $50 ransom at your nearest convenience and I might think about giving it back. Neither The Husband or I have any idea how or when it took up residence. I'm hoping it came from another dimension. Wouldn't that be fun!

Ways to avoid housework...

There will be eight or so people here for dinner tomorrow night (I was hoping we'd pick up more strays - the more the merrier! - but so far it's just close family) and while my house is not a total disaster, it certainly isn't meeting the cleanliness standard I generally aim for (which some may describe as neurotic, but let's not go there). I'm having trouble finding motivation to clean, and in pondering my lack of motivation, I decided to procrastinate further by posting a list of things I have done thus far today to procrastinate (in no particular order).

1. Visit Sybermoms. Several times. Nope... still no new posts. Try again 5 minutes later? No. Maybe if I keep hitting the New Posts button every 90 seconds I'll find a good time suck thread? Nope. Damn.
2. Visit all of my favorite blogs (see list to the right and down). Read the last several months archives on a couple of them. Refresh repeatedly to see if Heather has posted yet today. Nope, not yet.
3. Check e-mail. Repeatedly.
4. Play with child
5. Bathe child (this didn't really help the procrastination though - as I cleaned the bathroom while she was playing in the tub).
6. Make breakfast for child (made more mess doing this).
7. Make lunch for child (and this).
8. Pack for child to spend a week at her dad's (yay! some laundry "put away").

Now, I have done a couple of loads of laundry and a load in the dishwasher, so I'm not really that bad off. The Husband has been helping me out with keeping the house in shape lately, which is always needed and greatly appreciated - between work, school, a doozy of a migraine on Thursday, and a general desire to spend just five minutes doing *nothing*, I've really needed the extra help. What I really need to do right now though is write a shopping list of stuff to pick up for tomorrow. And The Husband had to work today, so I'm SOL on getting his assistance on that one. Time to stop procrastinating by posting about procrastinating. *Sigh*

So I've decided to give up meat... again...

Alright, so I'm probably not going to go cold-turkey (pun somewhat intended) - it's going to take some time to revise my cooking habits, meal planning process, etc. Especially since I have two other people to think about, neither of whom I'm comfortable enforcing my own ethical decisions on 100%, so there will have to be some compromises made. For myself, I'm going to work on cutting out meat - substituting w/ meat alternatives. For the rest of the family, I'm going to start buying meat products from local farmers that use more humane methods of raising and slaughtering their animals.

This hasn't been an easy decision. Prompted by a paper I had to write for my applied ethics class, I had to look closely at my own views on eating meat. When I started out writing the paper, I was of the mind that eating meat could be an ethical action, dependent on the treatment of the animal. Through lots of reading, pondering, and lengthy discussion/debate with Andrea and Birch, I came to realize that my lines of argument on the issue were flawed. I'm not saying that I am 100% confident that I've come to the absolute correct conclusion, but I do think I'm a lot closer than I was a week ago.

Here's the final draft of the paper I submitted (and yes, it's very short - we're only allowed 260 words to state our argument, support it, object to it, and refute the objection):

Eating non-human animals is ethically wrong because it causes unnecessary suffering in a sentient being. When we eat meat to satisfy a preference, or because we choose not to use other alternatives, we are causing unnecessary suffering. We do not need to eat meat to have a healthy diet, and when we choose to, we are assigning more value to our taste preferences over the preference the animal has to continue to live and to not be inflicted with harm. How can we possibly argue that our dietary preferences are worth more than an animal’s right to life and freedom from unnecessary suffering?

One could try to argue that an animal can be raised in such a way that reduces it’s suffering, and perhaps even allows it to live a “good life”, and in that case killing the animal (in a humane way) for human consumption would not be wrong. However, while this may be a convenient feel-good argument, it does not change the fact that the animal is killed long before its life would have naturally ended, and that cannot be said to satisfy the interests of the animal. Also, we need to ask ourselves what right we have to determine when an animal has lived a long enough life, whether it be good quality or not.

Mmm Mmm Good

There is no better nacho than a Doritos Sweet Chili Heat. That is all.

First Day of Grade 1

First Day of Grade 1
Originally uploaded by allyson_hamilton.

Well, this is going up a couple of weeks too late, but I just got around to actually plugging the camera in. Doesn't she look so grown up?

We're going through clothes like mad these days. This morning, she tried to put on a pair of jeans that were HUGE when she got them for Christmas last year, and they don't fit anymore.

I'm either going to have to get really good at finding steals on eBay or take out a line of credit to keep her in clothes for the next few years!

Wow. Just. Wow

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

FYI

So, I was reading one of my favorite blogs tonight (for the first time in months... damn my short attention span!), and I found something will probably leave me shaking my head for days.

It was a post full of hate mail the author has received from her readers. Many of them resorting to the same lines: "blah, blah, blah" "your blog is crap" "get off the internet" "you're boring".

Now, I have to wonder what kind of wierdo goes to the trouble of e-mailing a blogger to tell them that they don't enjoy the blog. Why bother? Why not just move on? It's not like there aren't another billion blogs out there!

So here's the FYI point: If my blog ever bores you, don't waste your time and mine telling me so. Just stop coming. If you think I've got nothing notable to say - don't read it. It's really that simple.

Now, if anything on my blog excites you or incites you, I wanna hear about it. But don't come crying to me if what I have to say just doesn't interest you.

Added: It came to me as I was falling asleep last night that there was one more thing I wanted to say. It's free. So STFU. ;)

I Like Like

defective yeti: I Like Like

Like, me too!

It's all about the vagina...

vagina-info.gov

Loved this.

In the defense of feminism?

I didn't intend to start out this blog by discussing anything deep, but a thread on Sybermoms incited what has been a several hour trek through the blogosphere, and I felt the desire to bring my own spin to it.

This thread linked to this article on Salon that summarizes a debate currently raging regarding this
photo of a popular feminist blogger posing with a group of other popular left-wing bloggers and former President Bill Clinton.

Some are criticizing Jessica for even attending the luncheon - they question why someone who describes herself as a feminist would choose to meet with a "sexual harrasser". Many of these people feel that the Lewinsky scandal trumps all of President Clinton's extensive work in promoting women's equality. Of course, whether you hold this view has much to do with whether you feel that what happened with Bill and Monica was between two consenting adults and thus is none of our business, or if you feel that he abused his position of dominance and thus was engaged in harassing behaviour.

Worse than that criticism though, are the folks that are chiming in regarding Jessica's physical attributes. I won't go into detail regarding the comments, as you'll read them yourself if you follow the links, but I was disgusted to read some of the cattiness coming from other women - most of them purporting to be feminists themselves. Particularly Ann Althouse, the one that started it all. Her comments are downright abusive and she should be ashamed of herself.

I must say that this morning's reading has inspired me to dig deeper into the finding out what the feminist movement is all about, both in terms of the political movement and philosophical theories of feminism. If anyone has any particular sources they'd recommend for reading, let me know in the comments.

I have more to say, but I'm tired and my brain is slightly jumbled from too much coffee and not enough food, so I'll continue later.

Added: Wow, I just read a comment on another blog that says what I've been trying to say in a much clearer way, so I'm just going to link you straight to it: comment by geoduck2