fun

Arts & Entertainment

Chris Rock’s new documentary “Good Hair”

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I heard about this a while ago and I’m anxious to see this documentary treatment of this issue:

“I tell my daughters I love them 70 times a day,” [Rock] says. “I hug them and I kiss them — I’m that kind of dad. To hear my daughter did not like something about herself when I’m telling her she’s beautiful every single minute of the day really had me thinking about hair again. “She was only five at the time,” he continues, “and she was already having concerns about her hair — she’s already having hair envy. I felt I needed to understand more deeply how these issues are related: African-American women and their hair. And then I remembered the idea for a documentary.”

…”In our world, the issues of beauty and conformity run very deep — and men don’t always understand how truly deep those issues go for women,” says executive producer Nelson George. “It reaches all women: Asian, Hispanic, black, and white.” And for black women, the issue can be incredibly polarizing, affecting other areas of their lives — there’s a segment in the film where men discuss not ever having touched their wives’ hair.

via Chris Rock takes on black hair – Pam Spaulding guest blogging for Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

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H1N1 in August, What should I do?

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DailyKos blogger DemfromCT lists the best thing you can do w/the coming Swine Flu threat: simply prepare to be able to care for yourself at home:

So for years (literally) we have taken the approach that taking care of your self at home (with phone health care privoder advice) is the best approach. Why? Because in a more severe scenario you can’t get seen and in a milder scenario, you don’t need to be seen.

This would be a perfect opportunity for PSAs on the topic. But what we do have is manuals and info we and others have put together.

via Flu Wiki Forum:: Updated Home Care Guidance for H1N1 Flu Virus .

[h/t DailyKos]

21 to drink is a mistake…

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Now he tells us:

“Legal Age 21 has not worked.” Of course, any 20-year-old could, and probably would, tell you that. But the quote in question was written by Dr. Morris Chafet, a psychiatrist who served on the presidential committee that pushed to have the legal drinking age raised to 21. That push paid off on July 17, 1984, when President Ronald Reagan signed the new drinking age into law.

Since that time, however, Chafet has apparently had a change of heart. The Los Angeles Times reports that in an editorial that has yet to be published, Chafet describes his effort to raise the drinking age as the “single most regrettable decision” of his career. “To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982,” Chafet notes. “But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the United States.”

via Hit & Run > “Legal Age 21 has not worked.” Yes, we know. – Reason Magazine.

First Oprah, Now Arianna embrace “Doctor” Jenny McCarthy

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Supporting quackery as a disservice to their public. Namely Jenny McCarthy, the comedian turned down home public health expert…by being allowed to make claims of scientific achievement without showing any scientific proof. Instead the emotional “my son is my proof” line is enough for her to be held above any medical or biology expert.

Jenny McCarthy - Medical ExpertFitzgerald, an acupuncturist with a master’s degree in traditional Chinese medicine and a doctorate in homeopathic medicine, is the author of “The Detox Solution: The Missing Link to Radiant Health, Abundant Energy, Ideal Weight, and Peace of Mind.” Her posts had praised actress Jenny McCarthy for healing her son’s autism with “biomedical intervention,” a menu of “detoxification, and removal of interfering factors, such as yeast, food allergies, viruses, bacteria, and heavy metals,” restrictive diets, expensive nutritional supplements and chelation therapy — all unproven.

via The Huffington Post is crazy about your health | Salon . Continue reading

Ed McMahon (1923 – 2009)

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For most of the time McMahon announced for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and I was alive, I was too young to stay up late enough to watch it. During those years, Star Search was appointment TV in my household.

All the articles in memoriam for Ed McMahon list him as “sidekick”. A sidekick is a yes man in corporate America. A contraband mule for a pop music artist. A Presidential running mate who’ll say anything to get on the ticket, but hasn’t done much to deserve being on the ticket (ehem John Edwards). A sidekick is an actress’s personal assistant who can be counted on to spill the beans to a checkout aisle tabloid the minute the “former” appears in front of their job title.

McMahon was a wingman. I think its more than a subtle distinction. Continue reading