You know what has really been getting a lot of traction these days? The anti-obesity movement or as I like to call it, Fat-shaming Jerks Go Judge-y.
There are many, many problems with the so-called obesity wars and really, it's not anyone's damn business if a person is overweight or obese (yes, even in the Canada where it can be a "strain on the healthcare system", cough cough *bullshit*) outside of that person's very close loved ones. But, the issue that has really been getting my goat lately has been the judge Reinhold's who are suggesting that poor people are fat because they are:
a) stupid
b) irresponsible
c) lazy
d) too in love with teh cheezburgerz
e) all of the above
In reality, accessibility to healthy food is the number one factor in a 'poverty diet'. It is easy to eat healthy if one has access to healthy food (I really hope that statement sounds as ridiculously obvious to everyone as it does to me).
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Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Crafty Ladies Crafting
Who doesn't love getting their hands a little dirty every now and then? Well, me, for one (in my defense, I can't take photos when my hands are covered in gunk). Paste is sticky and goopy, so for this crafty endeavor, Alex took over the messy work while I happily snipped paper (I really love cutting things up with scissors). What were we making? Well, you'll just have to wait and see!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Until Next Year, Then
Ah, another Halloween, another weekend of terrible fucking costumes. No, terrible is a understatement; how are costumes that appropriate and stereotype other cultures described? Culturally insensitive? Misguided? Clueless?
Um, how about racist. Taking a race, culture, society, especially ones that has been assimilated, colonized, oppressed and wiped out (kinda leaves white folks as the only ones standing, huh?) and reducing it to a few 'funny' characteristics then getting wasted is wrong any way you slice it.
Um, how about racist. Taking a race, culture, society, especially ones that has been assimilated, colonized, oppressed and wiped out (kinda leaves white folks as the only ones standing, huh?) and reducing it to a few 'funny' characteristics then getting wasted is wrong any way you slice it.
Hilarious or Terrifying?
Today in Hilarious or Terrifying we have this video that poses so many questions and offers so many months of night mares.
I'm going to have to go with terrifying for this one.
I'm going to have to go with terrifying for this one.
ONCE AGAIN, TO ZELDA: Wednesday Walkabout
Hey everyone! Did you miss me? Well, I've been busy working on some really exciting stuff over at my other blog. More details to follow shortly, but in the meantime, check out my weekly links over at ONCE AGAIN, TO ZELDA: Wednesday Walkabout: "Every Wednesday I'll be sharing my roundup of interesting things that I find on the Interwebs, here are my picks this week:This is awesome, ..."
Wednesday Walkabout
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| by Rebekah |
Every Wednesday I'll be sharing my roundup of interesting things that I find on the Interwebs, here are my picks this week:
- This is awesome, just fucking awesome. Tim Wise speaks about the Pathology of White Privilege.
- The 100 best signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity. I think my favourite one is "Jesus says relax."
- Sarah Jaffe writes for bitch about two of my favourite recording artists, Robyn, Janelle Monae, and fembot/android/cyborg feminism. She had me at "hello."
- I'm having fun exploring hitRECord: an open collaborative production company started by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
- Also exploring the fascinating potential the internet has for collaboration, but with a more ephemeral and spontaneous approach, is Ryan Trecartin's brilliant riverofthe.net
- If you're a typenerd like me, you'll love this. If you're not, you might be after reading William Berkson's fascinating series examining the strengths and weaknesses of Caslon.
- I've been reading William B. Irvine's essays on 21st century Stoicism, and I'm beginning to think that I'm a Stoic (and I didn't know it.)
- One of my favourite bloggers begins another round of guest posts at bitch this week, this time about one of our favourite topics of conversation around here, The Bechdel Test!
That's it for now, enjoy!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Contest Fun
A pre-loved copy of Crossing to Safety by the crown prince of Alex's heart, Wallace Stegner.
All you need to do to win this super duper novel is subscribe to this blog and send us an email (onceagaintozelda@gmail.com) answering this one very difficult trivia question: For which novel did Wallace Stegner win the Pulitzer Prize?
Why I love Crossing to Safety and How You Can Win a Free Copy
There is this book by this guy that is so darn good it's the kind of novel that makes you want to lick every page. That book is Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Chronicling the ups and downs of a thirty+ year long friendship between two couples, Stegner's characters are perfect specimens of humanity rendered with empathy and dignity. None of the four are perfect, neither are they all that likable throughout the entire book but isn't that the case with all people? Can you look at anyone you like or even love and honestly say that you like/love everything about them, all the time? At times each of the characters shock and surprise, disappoint and hearten; with every Stegner I read I am struck by the honesty with which he approaches his characters.
I think that my favourite parts of Crossing to Safety are the descriptions of the scenery; Stegner employs such vivid and lush details that I can it in the back of my throat. At the very beginning he describes walking on a path through woods:
"Dew has soaked everything. I could wash my hands in the ferns, and when I pick leaf off a maple branch I get a shower on my head and shoulders. Through the hardwoods along the foot of the hill, through the belt of cedars where the ground is swampy with springs, through the spruce and balsam of the steep pitch, I go alertly, feasting my eyes. I see coon tracks, an adult and two young, in the mud, and maturing grasses bent like croquet wickets with wet, and spotted orange Amanitas, at this season flattened or even concave and holding water, and miniature forests of club moss and ground pine and ground cedar. There are brown caves of shelter, mouse and hare country, under the wide skirts of spruce."
Tell me that you didn't feel the dew on your arms, or that you aren't seeing the bright, almost fluorescent green of wet pine needles in the early light of day.
Hot damn, I love this guy! After reading Crossing to Safety I promptly set out about reading his entire canon. I've read five so far and they've all been wonderful so, in hopes of creating some more Stegner fans we are giving away a (gently) used copy of Crossing to Safety to one lucky reader. To find out how, click here.
I think that my favourite parts of Crossing to Safety are the descriptions of the scenery; Stegner employs such vivid and lush details that I can it in the back of my throat. At the very beginning he describes walking on a path through woods:
"Dew has soaked everything. I could wash my hands in the ferns, and when I pick leaf off a maple branch I get a shower on my head and shoulders. Through the hardwoods along the foot of the hill, through the belt of cedars where the ground is swampy with springs, through the spruce and balsam of the steep pitch, I go alertly, feasting my eyes. I see coon tracks, an adult and two young, in the mud, and maturing grasses bent like croquet wickets with wet, and spotted orange Amanitas, at this season flattened or even concave and holding water, and miniature forests of club moss and ground pine and ground cedar. There are brown caves of shelter, mouse and hare country, under the wide skirts of spruce."
Tell me that you didn't feel the dew on your arms, or that you aren't seeing the bright, almost fluorescent green of wet pine needles in the early light of day.
Hot damn, I love this guy! After reading Crossing to Safety I promptly set out about reading his entire canon. I've read five so far and they've all been wonderful so, in hopes of creating some more Stegner fans we are giving away a (gently) used copy of Crossing to Safety to one lucky reader. To find out how, click here.
Wild Life
1. iinga 2. waaewo 3. taylor white 4. rachelthorlund 5.jen mann 6. cinq un quatre 7. lisel jane ashlock 8. naturalia 9. mark weaver 10. unknown
Monday, November 1, 2010
Vanity Fair: Actors Acting
You know how Vanity Fair has that feature where they give actors some scenario (you are seventy years old and have just smoked your first joint) and then take a picture of the face they make that encompasses the scenario? Well, these are some of our friends, Erica, James and Ethan, and us taking our own Vanity Fair Actors Acting pictures. This is seriously the best game ever. Ever.
Something about Nazi zombies seemed particularly hilarious that night...
Erica
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| You are a roller derby coach/booky who just lost $100 from roller not taking dive. And, you NEED that $100. |
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| You are six years old and have just walked in on your parents "doing it". |
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| You just ran over your neighbours' cat. |
James
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| You're an astronaut who has discovered vampire aliens. And they are gnawing on your leg as we speak! |
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| You're on a date and you walk into her room and discover a...swing. A sexy-time swing. |
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| You're a nazi, zombie scientist who has just discovered the cure for cancer...by eating tumours |
Rebekah
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| Your watch is broken and the only way to fix is to sleep with Nazi zombies, "what'cha gonna do?" |
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| You are watching your cat give birth. To a dog. |
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| beer empty, no beer ever again |
Alex
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| You are falling into a manhole. |
Your pants are on fire. And, you're in the ocean.
You're in a job interview being interviewed by Nazi zombies
Ethan
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| You are being flashed by Nazi zombies. And, this has made your head disappear! |
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| You've realized your head has disappeared! |
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| Nazi zombies have aren't reaching for your neck through the window. |
Crystal and the Ghostly Dog
When I moved to Toronto from Winnipeg nearly six years ago I brought with me a Value Village suitcase jammed with clothes, an old bulk tortilla chip box from the Mexican restaurant I worked at filled with shoes and books, a print of Botticelli's Birth of Venus and this picture of two girls dressed up all harlequin-like.
I the decision to drop out of school and move across the country was one I came to rather spontaneously on day in March, 2005; I bought my plane ticket the next day and was gone on April 6th.
Before I left, my dear, dear friend, Crystal and I took a trip to Value Village so I could buy a suitcase. Crystal and I had, have been friends since we were thirteen. It doesn't matter how many kilometers separate us or how different our lives are or even how many months are between calls, we always pick up just where we left off. She is one of the silliest, most fun people I know and, hot damn, she has the best stories ever. Whether she's inadvertently crashing a sick kid fundraiser picnic with her bandana wearing toddler (who wasn't sick but put a scarf on a toddler's head and, voila, instant sick kid -- it got ugly) or hanging on to a deer spine we found one winter at my cottage and I won't even get into the cat cremation story.
Anyway, so while we were at La Village that day we came upon these two paint-by-numbers depicting the same couple of girls, one blond and one brunette, one with a parrot and one with a creepy white ghost dog. Well, hey, Crystal had blond hair and I had dark brown. Crystal had this creepy, ancient white cat and I kind of liked birds. Obviously it was kismet, we were meant to find those paintings.
We each bought one and promised one another that we would always keep them so that every time we looked at them we would think of the other. And, in so every bedroom I've had in the past six years the Crystal picture has had a place of prominence and sure enough every time I look at it, the picture warms this old lady's withered soul.
Not to mention, it really kicked off my love for paint-by-numbers and obsession with shabby-chic, bohemian home decor.
I the decision to drop out of school and move across the country was one I came to rather spontaneously on day in March, 2005; I bought my plane ticket the next day and was gone on April 6th.
Before I left, my dear, dear friend, Crystal and I took a trip to Value Village so I could buy a suitcase. Crystal and I had, have been friends since we were thirteen. It doesn't matter how many kilometers separate us or how different our lives are or even how many months are between calls, we always pick up just where we left off. She is one of the silliest, most fun people I know and, hot damn, she has the best stories ever. Whether she's inadvertently crashing a sick kid fundraiser picnic with her bandana wearing toddler (who wasn't sick but put a scarf on a toddler's head and, voila, instant sick kid -- it got ugly) or hanging on to a deer spine we found one winter at my cottage and I won't even get into the cat cremation story.
Anyway, so while we were at La Village that day we came upon these two paint-by-numbers depicting the same couple of girls, one blond and one brunette, one with a parrot and one with a creepy white ghost dog. Well, hey, Crystal had blond hair and I had dark brown. Crystal had this creepy, ancient white cat and I kind of liked birds. Obviously it was kismet, we were meant to find those paintings.
We each bought one and promised one another that we would always keep them so that every time we looked at them we would think of the other. And, in so every bedroom I've had in the past six years the Crystal picture has had a place of prominence and sure enough every time I look at it, the picture warms this old lady's withered soul.
Not to mention, it really kicked off my love for paint-by-numbers and obsession with shabby-chic, bohemian home decor.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
stop, look, listen
My roundup of what I'm reading/watching/listening to this week:
- William Kentridge: Anything is Possible full movie available online!
- David Meslin for TEDxToronto. Awesome.
- 26 covers, samples and spoofs of "Float On" by The Floaters from WWAATD. Which one is your favourite?
- New Elvis Costello album streaming for a short time here. Listen to You Hung The Moon. Swoon.
- Roger Ebert gives us 10 great films about horror just in time for Halloween
- Best Music Writing 2010 teaser.
- Oliver Sacks examines "The Mind's Eye"
- Test how consistent your philosophical and moral beliefs really are
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