Early Morning Open Thread: White Lady Redefined
As a Person of Size (size 3X, in t-shirts), I always take an interest in Jezebel’s food posts, but I just have to share Anna North‘s latest LOL:
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I wish organic food were affordable for everyone, and that our food system relied less on insecticides and antibiotics and other substances of questionable safety. But I also wish we could have this discussion without alarmism, and without treating people who enjoy a doughnut now and then like self-destructive crackheads…
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Comments about how healthfully one’s own family eats are a staple of Internet food threads — a significant sector of the online population seems to believe that simply sharing their own righteousness will eradicate diabetes.
There will be those who declare that I am incapable of having a correct opinion on this topic, because as a walking example of America’s Obesity Crisis, I am helplessly enthralled by Our New Worst Enemy, a substance “ten times more addictive than heroin” that “wreaks havoc on the immune system”. (They would be wrong, because it’s fat-laden potato chips, not sweets, that are my greatest weakness.) But I do think that the tendency to “demonize” particular foods or food groups springs from some of the same roots as the tendency to reject any information that conflicts with one’s personal political beliefs. People want to have a Unifying Narrative to help them understand what can seem like a cold and hostile universe. Whether that means believing that Big Agro has deliberately addicted us to Demon Sugar, that Big Gubmint has deliberately addicted us to Welfare Dependency, or that Big Oil deliberately brought down the WTC towers with the connivance of its puppets in the Cheney Regency — or some combination of all these theories — is less important than Knowing the Truth. Who was it said “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you crazy”?
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On the other hand… nobody doesn’t love puppies! John O “still hasn’t decided” how much he wants to “share” of his pet-rescue story, but here is a new picture of Dweezil:
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Early Morning Open Thread: White Lady RedefinedPost + Comments (132)
You’ve Behaved Somewhat
Since we had site issues this week and the ensuing grumping was far less acrimonious than usual, a treat:
We decided to go with the retro blanket for this photoshoot.
Dog Show Open Thread
Not sure how many (if any) of you are watching this on Animal Planet, but I thought I would throw up a thread.
Love Newfoundlands.
Snow Pics
Hot off the presses, some pics of Lily outside. She hates it, and I had to tamp down an area for her to go to the bathroom.
Pet Maintenance Question
Here is a stupid question. It has been almost two months since I bathed Lily (no dead stuff to roll in with all the snow), and I wanted to know if you have to wash your dog every couple of weeks. She does not smell at all (I sniffed her all over- she looked at me funny), and I brush her every day and her coat is not oily or dirty, so I don’t see why I would have to, but I just wanted to check.
If she doesn’t smell and has nothing on her coat, can I just skip bathing her? My gut instinct is that if dogs were meant to have baths regularly, nature would have figured out a way for them to bathe on their own, and I should just her natural oils, my brushing, and her self-grooming do the trick until it is clear that I need to bathe her.
Early Morning Open Thread: Everything Old Is…
John’s busted shoulder has left Tunch’s many fans desperate for a feline, er, fix… yet my tech skills are limited to stealing others’ work.
Photo courtesy of commentor Mr. Whipple, who says: “How about some Punkatude?… He goes by Punky, Punky’s Whips, Mr. Whipples, Whippy whip, Orange whip, Booj, Stinkbutt, Mr. Crusty, Nipples and Champ. Those are the ones I can remember offhand.”
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On a very different topic… HBO is “eyeing” a biopic about anti-gay activist Anita Bryant.
“Sex and the City” creator Darren Star is on board to direct the film, which is being written by “Runaway” creator Chad Hodge. Star also is executive producing with Dennis Erdman. “She is a fascinating person on every single level,” said Hodge… “The twists and turns of her life are incredible.”
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In 1959 and ’60, she was a major pop star with three million-selling records. After marrying and settling in Florida, she reverted to Christian music and, projecting a wholesome image, began plugging such blue-chip companies as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and Holiday Inn. Her most famous celebrity endorsement gig was for the Florida Citrus Commission, for which she sang in a series of TV commercials, closing each ad with the tag line, “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”
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… In 1977, she switched to political activism, launching a crusade to repeal a new Miami-Dade County ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation…
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“As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children,” she said. Her Save the Children coalition got the new law overturned within a year, and it took 20 years for it to be reinstated.
Early Morning Open Thread: Everything Old Is…Post + Comments (50)