Are you looking for new and exciting ways to screw your kid up? Maggie Goes on a Diet can help!

Check out this book, available directly from the devil himself on Amazon.com.  It's called Maggie Goes on a Diet.  Amazon gives this description: "This book is about a 14 year old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image."

Huh. Right now the average age that an American girl goes on her first diet is eight years old.  Seriously.  That is all kinds of fucked up.  At eight you should not be worried about the size of your tummy or the thickness of your thighs.  Yet, this is normal in our culture.  A survey of girls in first through third grade showed that 42% wanted to be thinner (Rader Programs).   Insane.

By the time a girl reaches high school, there is a 60% chance she is on a diet at any given time.   No matter what she weighs or how fit she is, she is likely to believe that she needs to lose weight and to express disatissfaction with her body.  Girls learn quickly that their bodies don't measure up.

The thing is that dieting is not healthy.  Kids who go on restrictive diets are at increased risk for developing eating disorders.  You don't want your kid to end up anorexic, bulimic or a compulsive over-eater?  Do not let them go on a low calorie diet!  Lots of research has been done to show that when a person goes on a diet, they become more obsessed with food.  The mere act of dieting can trigger a lifetime of disordered eating.  Don't believe me?  Check out this article about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, one of the most famous and earliest studies showing that dieting makes you crazy in the head (They Starved So That Others Be Better Fed).

Your kid has a case of the chubbies?  Turn off the damn television.  Give that kid a piece of fruit or a vegetable, and get them outdoors.  Drag your fat ass out there, too.  For God's sake don't tell the kid that they are fat, and do not put the child on a diet.  If the kid has an active and healthy life they'll be fine.  Let them have a slice of chocolate cake once in a while.  If you tell them they are too fat for it, they are just going to want it more.  As soon as you make certain foods taboo you have opened up a Pandora's box that is going to haunt that child for life. 

Oh, I took the time to read through the reviews for the book.  Most of the comments were from rational, sane people.  Some were a bit misguided, though.   For instance, Robin said: "Wow this is a very great book! My daughter who is 14 and fighting childhood obesity just had a birthday and this book arrived at her birthday party just a couple days after her birthday. So I let her open it up and she loved it."  Can you fucking imagine opening up a present for your fourteenth birthday and getting a book about going on a diet?    Ho-ly shit that kid is going to need therapy.

Afghani man murders wife for giving birth to a daughter

Mother and Daughter by Élisabeth-Louise Vigee-Le Brun (1789)

The United Nations estimates that there are around 60 million fewer women alive on planet Earth than there should be.  The culprits are femicide, the murder of a woman or girl specifically because of gender, and the selective abortion of female fetuses.  The problem exists in many parts of the world, even in the US.

  A study done by Unicef in India in 2002 tracked the rates of abortion after an amniocentesis.  Of those fetuses aborted 99.99% were female.  You read that right.  9,999 out of 10,000 were female.  It is arguable that those may have been the lucky ones given the utter hell that can befall women for the simple crime of having a vagina in India.  It's another post for another day, but what is happening in India is disgusting, disgraceful and wrong.

India is not the only country with this problem.  Among others, Guatemala, China, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are also apparently hell-bent on eradicating anyone without a Y chromosome.  This  week, an Afghan man named Sher Mohammad strangled his wife, Estorai, to death after she had the sheer audacity to give birth to a second daughter instead of a son.  He had threatened to kill her if she had another daughter, and made good on that threat.  Apparently his mother helped him kill his wife.  Awesome.  So, girls are good enough to help you murder people...

You can read the full story here on The Blaze:  Woman murdered after having daughter

However you look is wrong: A rant

As a thought exercise, I like to tell my students to imagine that every adult women in the country wakes up tomorrow morning conforming perfectly to the beauty ideals.  We all wake up looking 25, with flawless, pale skin.  We all weigh 110 pounds, are 5'9", have huge breasts and long, shiny, straight hair.  We have lush, RuPaul-esque eyelashes and our teeth are perfectly white and straight.   What would happen next?

Chaos and recession.  That's what.  Who would buy make-up, diet pills, hair dye, tooth whitener, silicone breast implants and lipo?  Who would buy the flat-iron, hair extensions, hair products, diet shakes, diet books, and gym memberships?  What about the control top hose and the spanx and push-up bras? 

You can guess what would happen.  Suddenly, the "new sexy" would be short, and tan with curvy hips, small breasts, freckles and curly black hair.  We would all be rushing out to buy tanner, and get perms and fake freckles.  We'd buy garments to help minimize our ample busts and funny undies to make our hips shapelier.

No matter how you look, it's wrong.  The ideal female beauty doesn't look the way it does because it is the most beautiful version of female humanity possible.   It's just what is fashionable now, and it is an image that is profitable precisely because it is unattainable.   Women are required to purchase products in order to come closer to the beauty ideal.  Let's face it, even if we did all wake up looking like models tomorrow, in ten years we'd be "old" and therefore no longer meet the beauty ideal.  You can't win.  However, you are supposed to spend a lot of money trying.

Our ideas about what is beautiful have changed considerably over time.  Take a look at this:

So, the point is to make it look like you have the great pyramids on your chest?

I'd like to refer you to my colleagues Ben and Jerry, if you are still wanting to gain more. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s the focus was on the waist, and it was en vogue to let the girls ride low.  Real low.  I mean damn. Look like she got Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail up in there.

Who would you rape?

In December, the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Vermont was suspended because they had distributed a survey to members asking who they would like to rape.  The school and national office of the fraternity quickly condoned the survey and the chapter of the fraternity.  It is not clear who wrote the questionnaire or who completed it.  There are a couple of important points here.  One is that it was brothers within the fraternity who reported the offensive question to the University.    Most men understand that rape is not a joke, and they are invested in preventing it.  

However, there are undercurrents in our culture that suggest that rape is not serious, that women really want it, and that women can "ask for it" based on how they dress or behave.   If you google the word "Rape" and click the images button, these are some of the things you'll see on the FIRST PAGE of results:

It's not a big deal.

Yes, you should expect to be raped.  It's all your fault, you fence-sitting slut.

I get your point about the over-elaborate set up here, but still.  Nope.

Although most people are smart enough to realize that this kind of crap is crap, there are some people who are vulnerable to these messages.   We need to take shit like the "who would you rape" survey and these hilarious internet memes seriously.  It's not funny. 

DOTW: Captain Cream Puff

Congratulations to Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia.  He is undoubtedly guilty of looking like a total douchebag.

Heeeey, ladies!  You like the chest hair, no?

It is true that his woeful neglect of the top three four buttons on his shirt alone would qualify him for the honor of DOTW.  But he gets the title for his now famous, incredibly weenie-like performance after he caused the crash of his ship, killing at least twelve people.  The crash occurred because he veered miles off course in order to sail past an island and impress some of his buddies.  He engaged in all sorts of jackassery and general incompetence in the minutes after the accident.  But to me, his crowning glory was abandoning ship before all of the passengers were off. That's just a big no-no.  Now he is claiming that he didn't mean to abandon ship, but that he tripped and fell into a lifeboat.  Uhhh...


I think this guy would be better off to just go with: "It wasn't me."

Bikini babes and cheesy snacks

UGH!  Seriously.  These are the articles on Fox News right now.  Rhianna on bikini tour? What the f^@k is a bikini tour?  She likes to wear swimsuits?  Who gives a crap?  The bitch is swimming, do you want her to wear snowpants?  Underpants for soldiers?  Vanilla fucking ice?  STRAWS OF CHEESE!?  Now you are just screwing with us.  What kind of friggin' article about cheese straws warrants a spot on the main page of an alleged news website?  Oh, and to answer my question, yes.  I am stressed.  My gut does feel it.   I don't want to turn into a conspiracy nut, but it almost makes me wonder if they are just trying to distract the readership from important things that are happening in the world.

I can't help but think about bread and circuses. In Rome, when the shit was hitting the fan, the government distracted and appeased the people by providing free entertainment and food (Wikipedia article here.  Yeah, I know.  Wikipedia.  Just don't cite it in a term paper.).  I hate to get all political, but there is a lot of metaphorical shit flying toward the metaphorical fan right now, and the "news" sources give us this.   Seriously.  If I want this crap I will watch Entertainment Tonight or buy a copy of the National Enquirer.

Best Headline Ever.

Thanks to the Smoking Gun for what is possibly the best headline ever penned.  Flaming Tampon Attack should be the name of a band.