Mini-post? Why a mini-post? Because I should NOT be doing this at work when I am supposed to be finishing my chapter draft. If dh busts me, I’ll never hear the end of it…
BUT! I have to share this gem from the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) website:
Congressmen Tackle Product Placement
By Ira Teinowitz
TV Week
9/27/07
Warning that increasing use of product placement and product integration are “blurring” the line between TV ads and TV content, two congressional committee chairmen are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to
Read the complete Post.
Okay, so for the last month I’ve been obsessing in my own secret way over Halloween.
I love Halloween - it has always been my favorite holiday, because it asks nothing from you other than your creativity. What a delight. Over the years I’ve had some really great costumes too — I once went as a can of Tomato Soup, and made dh dress as Warhol, one year I was a picnic (you had to see it), once I was Molly Shannon’s Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL (smellin’ my armpits all night, with great Read the complete Post.
This weekend, Alison asked some advice (on the Caveats Page, above), she wrote:
“Need advice: I’m not completely opposed to my kids doning online social networking and gameplaying, but the most popular sites are all about shopping (Webkinz, Club Penguin). I’d love to know if there are any cool, fun sites that aren’t so blatantly trying to turn my kids into little shoppers
Read the complete Post.
I don’t know about you, but when I was in middle school we called it two-faced. Can Mattel really claim to its customers here in the US that they were unaware that lead paint was being used because the production was outsourced (which also conveniently keeps them “unaware” that their toys are being assembled by 11 year olds. Mmmmm, nothing like an order of toxic fumes with a side of berating for breakfast, dee-licious!) in one breath and then in the next apologize to China for making Chinese manufacturers look bad when the “real” problem was their “design flaw”? Read the complete Post.
I just watched the premiere of CBS’s much-maligned reality show Kid Nation (Where 40 kids are left for 40 days in a “ghost town” with minimal adult interference to organize their own society). For backstory on the hullabaloo, see yesterday’s Washington Post story or today’s brutal Baltimore Sun column. I turned it on, expecting to be outraged (awful conditions, unchecked anti-social behavior, exploitation Read the complete Post.
I recently read a funny post by subarctic mama about her husband convincing her daughter to get regular (unlicensed) sneakers instead of Cinderella sneakers and I had to laugh! I fear my own inability to manage such a situation so much that I have gone to rather great lengths to avoid it.
As I mentioned before, I avoid taking Thing 1 shopping to keep her sheltered somewhat from consumer culture and to circumvent what they aptly call in the business, “the nag factor,” but Read the complete Post.
When I was a budding feminist, characters like Cinderella and the Little Mermaid, (the 9 Disney damsels - “G9″ he he - didn’t become “The Princesses” until a marketing overhaul in 2001), and Barbie made my blood boil. Their big boobs, mini waists, and glamourization of victimhood infuriated me — role models of the most irksome kind. Today, as a parent, they still get to me. Add to this world of warped femininity the marketing juggernaut that is Bratz, and kaboom, and there is a lot to make my skin crawl.
But (did she just write “BUT”?), I have to confess that my sensitivities have changed. When I see princess paraphernalia, I cringe, but if I’m completely honest, Read the complete Post.
Well, I watched WordGirl with Thing 1, dh, and a good friend this morning. The 30-somethings in the room enjoyed the embedded adult humor (e.g., when resident bad guy, “the butcher” –who rather hilariously hurls meat products at victims– is debilitated in a vegetarian restaurant after being pelted with tofu.) Thing 1 laughed a lot and was excited for the screening. This is the only tv show she’s seen other than Sesame Street (well, Read the complete Post.
Hey, hey, hey. Tomorrow PBS is launching WordGirl, which is almost my dream come true.
WordGirl is a hip, clever cartoon about an alien (in human form) supergirl from the planet “Lexicon” who fights enemies with her vocabulary and monkey sidekick (targeted toward kids from 4-9, but some Read the complete Post.
Three months ago when dh mentioned for a second or third time that he thought we should enroll Thing 1 in gymnastics to help build her confidence (she’s the poster child for risk-aversion), I lost it. Read the complete Post.