Womb with a View
Every once in a while, I discover an image so amazing, so beautiful that it moves me to tears. Then, of course, I want to play show-and-tell. So it is with this incredible, first-time photograph of an elephant fetus floating in its mother’s womb.
I”ve just been browsing through an awe-inspiring photo and video gallery of pre-birth baby animals on the National Geographic website.* Now, I can’t wait to see their two-hour special, Animals In The Womb, on December 10th.
Mark your calendars and watch the show with me! Meantime, you can peruse intrauterine pictures and videos of a swimming dolphin, a panting puppy, and a burgeoning baby elephant here. When you’ve got your Thanksgiving dinner cooking in the oven, round up the kidlets and take a peek.
*While some of you are busy making Thanksgiving dinner, I’m kicking back because I can. I’m here to provide the entertainment, giver that I am.
Martha Stewart Wanna-be? Not me!
‘Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and all through our house
Not a creature was cooking, not even a mouse.
Our dinner, we ordered from Marie Callender’s with care
In hopes that turkey with all the trimmings soon would be there.
I admit it: my little poem sux turkey gizzards doesn’t do the holiday justice. Neither do my culinary skills — hence, the Turkey-to-Go order. Take a look at the picture of the holiday meal I ordered…doesn’t it look delicious? Holiday heresy, you say? Hey, when it’s 75 degrees outside, who wants to heat up the oven! And as for not having to shop, cook, or clean pots and pans afterward (time I can instead spend with family and friends)? Priceless.
(OK, put me to shame: Who cooks the food at your house?)
This holiday weekend, I’m giving thanks for you, my friends. I learn from you, laugh with you, and am grateful for the community we share. Here’s my not-homemade-but-truly-heartfelt Thanksgiving card for you because, well, I’m not an artist, either.
FOX Won’t Do It
On Monday, News Corporation announced that it has canceled publication of the O.J. Simpson book and television special “If I Did It,” in which OJ Simpson was to have given an account of how he might have murdered his former wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Hypothetically speaking, of course. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said, “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson.”
Following that announcement, CNN conducted a public opinion poll. The results reinforced Murdoch’s decision: 55% of people thought the project was offensive, 30% thought it was inappropriate, and only 12% thought there was nothing wrong with publishing the hypothetical confession. CNN’s editorial conclusion? “The book and accompanying TV special were pulled largely because of widespread public disgust and condemnation.”
No doubt, this debacle will be publicly dissected and debated over the next several weeks, and additional, unsavory information will likely be revealed. For example, Nicole Brown-Simpson’s sister, Denise Brown told Today Show host Matt Lauer that Murdoch’s company offered the Brown and Goldman families “millions of dollars in hush money.” And well, what do you know? O.J. himself acknowledges that any financial gain from the project that flows his direction is “blood money.”
Though News Corps has distanced itself from the project, the rights to the book could still be sold to another publishing company, and the television interview could be distributed through other channels, according to an article in the New York Times. But in the end, and whatever comes next, I believe the New York Daily News summed things up succinctly and best:
“What kind of utterly soulless corporate culture thinks up something like this in the first place? What kind of creepy mold grows in the petri dish that is Fox that someone could even imagine for a minute it was a good idea to pay O.J. Simpson several million dollars to discuss how he might have sliced his wife’s head off? How many levels of bonehead management had to sign off on a project that so grotesquely affronted the simple human decencies?
Sephora’s Got Game
Sephora, America’s favorite beauty emporium, has created a playful way to reward its fashion-savvy customers, while also teaching fashion violators a lesson or two. They just launched a limited release of their new board game, Monopoly: Sephora Edition, in which players Go to Jail for bad hair days, Advance to Go for getting a manicure, pay fines for a streaky self tan, and purchase products with Beauty Bucks.
The rules are fairly simple. First, you select a stylish game piece (lipstick tube, mascara wand, compact and hair dryer, among them). As you wend your way around the board, you’ll want to buy — never rent! — as many properties as you can. Go after the ones named for coveted beauty products: think Stila in Gloss Gardens, Make Up For Ever on Lipstick Lane, NARS on Cheek Street, Murad at Cleanser Crossing, and Bliss on Lotion Avenue. Given a few lucky rolls of the dice and sufficient Beauty Bucks, you’ll be able to snap up glossy black Sephora bags, then upgrade to Sephora storefronts on your properties (houses and hotels are so last year). Along the way, you’ll collect your favorite beauty brands, stop for Beauty Bargains (Community Chest) and take an occasional Beauty Dare (Chance). The object of the game, of course, is to Own Everything, darlings: stock your Sephora store with the most beauty products and YOU WIN!
C’mon, you know you want one. What better way to honor the spirit of the holiday season than buying a gift that reinforces our obsessions encourages interactive, educational fun? You’ll have to hurry, though, if you want to buy this for yourself someone on your holiday shopping list: the game’s only available through January 2007.
Exposing our “Insecurities”
Typically, words are a bridge to understanding – a way to connect people with real and abstract ideas. But occasionally, words serve as a means of distancing ourselves from realities we don’t want to deal with.
From today’s headlines, this egregious example. Apparently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided that “very low food security” is a “more scientifically palatable description” for the 35 million Americans who struggle to put food on their tables.
I had a gut-wrenching, visceral reaction. While I’m appalled that the administration hid these statistics until after the election, I’m also deeply ashamed that our country, one blessed by abundance, is hiding the face of hunger behind this euphemism.
To me, this is a personal affront. As one of many children born into an impoverished household, I was always hungry. No abstractions can ever describe the very real panic I felt as my siblings and I rummaged through the pantry, day after day, desperately hoping that we’d overlooked some morsel of food. Nor can I fully explain the abject despair we felt when we realized that the cupboard was, again and almost always, bare.
I’ve eaten my share of subsidized food. While other little girls gorged on M&Ms, popcorn, and pizza at pajama parties, my family and I groveled at restaurants for scraps. I tried to make myself invisible when the grocery clerk and other customers shot disparaging looks at the food stamp coupons I clutched in my small hands. (My mother handed over the responsibilities for grocery shopping to us girls when she became too mortified to do it herself.) I ate bulgur and other government surplus that would cause most people to turn away in disgust. I stood in line for free dairy products – and became the brunt of jokes about ghetto-dwellers who got by on “gub’ment cheese.” But hey, when hunger’s gnawing away at your insides, you’ll eat almost anything that sticks to your ribs.
I was the small child who went to school with dangerously high fevers and contagious diseases like the measles, facing the wrath of angry teachers who publicly scolded me for daring to be there. When you’re sick and in need of nourishment, humiliation’s a price you’re willing to pay to participate in the free lunch program.
I am no stranger to hunger. It’s a chasm in your belly that eats away at your spirit and, if you let it, it’ll also steal your soul. Fortunately, I managed to fight my way out of poverty, and my life’s now blessed with many riches, including the bounty of food in my cupboards. But when I read the article this morning, the hungry little girl who still lives inside my head wept.
I believe it’s borderline immoral to impersonalize hunger this way. Perhaps some fat cats in Washington find job security in playing these semantic games. But I worry they’re carriers of another, maybe more dangerous malady: “compassion insecurity.”