I’d like to introduce you to my #1 sports crush: the Canadian bobsled pilot, Kaillie Humphries.
In her own words:
♥♥♥
Why do I crush? Keep reading…
I’d like to introduce you to my #1 sports crush: the Canadian bobsled pilot, Kaillie Humphries.
In her own words:
♥♥♥
Why do I crush? Keep reading…
It’s a beautiful, sunny winter day and the temp has climbed to -14 C which feels downright balmy compared to the minus thirties of the past few days. We took a slow, longish walk down by the river and didn’t stray from the path today. I’m pretty sure I know about where the beavers are, but there’s so much snow that getting there would be difficult and dangerous. I’m not sure you could even see very much because of the deep snow cover. Instead, we sang a few of Jack’s favourite songs, did a bit of dancing and pounced and frolicked our way around the park.
That poor Gillette ad got a lot of comments of all kinds. This morning I read another commentary, mostly due to the title – Why The Gillette Ad Isn’t Just About Boys and Men – It’s About My Three Daughters, Too:
When it comes to female characters, our daughters (three of them: ages 7, 5 and 2) have much more choice than when I was growing up in the ’80s. They are fans of Merida from Brave and Moana from, well, Moana, both girls who push back on what their societies expect of them. They just discovered the newly re-launched Carmen Sandiego with its kick-ass female lead, and Doc McStuffins is always a solid choice.
But when it comes to male characters, most of them consist of lightly camouflaged stereotypes of the “strong man” trope. Both Moana and Merida’s fathers are large, physically strong and are chiefs of their tribe. They only reluctantly give up their conservative views about their daughters by the end of the movies. Merida’s brothers (triplets) are always portrayed as fighting or eating, a classic example of the “boys will be boys” trope called out in the Gillette spot.
And good luck with anything from the past. Our daughters recently watched the Christmas classic Home Alone, where Kevin McCallister takes his queues from the male characters he sees on TV in gangster and western movies. “It’s my house and I have to defend it,” he concludes, setting the stage for the violence to come.
I know this is something that our very own Giliell has been saying from time to time, and I can only agree, so it was nice to see it in writing: choices for girls have broadened into the traditionally ‘masculine’, but boys have not seen that same expansion into the traditionally ‘feminine’ space.
But that article pointed me towards another mencare (I did, I really did!) product company out there, with a much better ad: Harry’s.
Harry’s, another razor company, has an ad I really like but hasn’t seen nearly as much fanfare as the Gillette ad. In fact, I believe it works better in actually changing our views of men.
… Says Joseph Wilson at the CBC.
Is he right? Well, the ad features Ludacris (of Fast and Furious fame, there he is in the back!):
A very masculine set of movies, I’ll tell you, and I’ve seen them all. But Ludacris, one among the manly men, does things a little differently in the short video. I think I like it:
Whether you prefer Harry’s method or Gillette’s, both are much-needed in the dialogue about masculinity. One for calling out the bad behaviour, the other for just plain showing the better example. More, please.
(No song today. I had some ideas, but I think this time I will leave it at that.)
This is for the youngsters in the crowd who haven’t encountered this technology yet.
As usual, don’t be an asshole.
…this TERF. It was a usual argument about how horrible it is for trans activists and allies to be fed up with Graham Linehan because of frozen peaches, when the following exchange occurred:
Terf: Grand, so, but sure we’ll be pushing them into the sea this year so we won’t have to worry about them much longer but read a load of liberalism because that’s what’s coming next hopefully… (emphasis mine)
Other person in the conversation: i have literally no idea what you’re talking about.
Me: I’m not sure, but it sounds like a threat to me.
Terf: Always with the drama. Into the sea, it’s a metaphor.
Me: Get lost, it’s an imperative.
Apparently, the fact that “get lost” is an imperative was, no pun intended, lost on her. Anyway, I was done, but she obviously wasn’t.
Terf: No, that would be we MUST push them into the sea. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/imperative …Terf: ps and anyone who would take a statement like ‘we are going to push them into the sea’ literally must have a very flat sense of language or need their head examined imho. Unless they were German and in the vicinity of Dunkirk in the early 1940s…
Me: You seem upset.Terf: What an odd thing to say…
Me: You come back a day later after I told you to get lost. Maybe upset is the wrong word, obsessed fits better. I repeat, get lost.Terf: That seems a little extreme – obsessed by what?
Me: You’re still talking to me after I told you to get lost, twice. Go learn to respect some boundaries.
Terf: I’ve been pursuing a fairly common line of reasoning about a form of leftist smear-journalism, providing examples when requested and other reading material – that’s all fairly normal, isn’t it?
Terf: But you accused me of making a threat, I explained that it wasn’t a threat but a metaphor – I’m allowed to defend myself, and obliged to reassure you that it wasn’t a threat, aren’t I? And then you say I’m upset and obsessed – I assure you I am not.
Me: Get. Lost.Terf: You accused me of making a threat, which is untrue and unfair and not supported by any evidence. I’d like to give you a chance to apologise…
Me: Get lost, this is the textbook definition of harassment.
Terf: Accusing someone of making a threat for no reason could be said to be harassment, and then not allowing them to defend themselves but adding further charges. But lets leave it at that, I think the point about smear tactics is well made and I wish all you all the very best.
Terf: (ps just for completeness – accusing someone of harassment who is trying to defend themselves from a false accusation you yourself have made is itself harassment) atb.
Well, it’s another cold day here. The actual temp is -17 C, but with the wind chill it’s -28 C. Jack and I don’t stay outside too long on days like this. I can dress for the cold, but Jack can’t. I do have a jaunty red coat for the boy, but the only protection he has for his feet is a vaseline-like “dog boot.” I’ve tried real dog boots on Jack and it was hilarious for about a minute, which is how long it took for Jack to remove them. Sigh. Oh well, a shorter walk on a super cold day isn’t a hardship and at least today the sun is shining about as bright as it ever gets in January. Tomorrow promises to be the same, but Saturday the forecast is for +3 C and Sunday it could go as high as +10 C and then stay that warm for a few days. It’s all very confusing and I hope this weather won’t affect the maple syrup crop this year. It would be a shame for the trees to wake-up early only to be knocked on the head with a quick and lasting freeze again.
We’re starting a new series today from Ice Swimmer. It’s a follow-up to his series last fall Harakka an Island and it’s full of colour which has been missing from my part of the world for months. I invite you all to sit back and enjoy as Ice Swimmer takes us on a tour.
This series is about the island Harakka in Helsinki. I revisited Harakka in October 2018, about three months after the first visits in July 2018. As in July. I actually went there twice. The first visit in October was on Saturday afternoon and the second was the next day, Sunday, also in the afternoon.
Jack and I went to the lake this morning and frolicked in some virgin snow.Well, Jack frolicked and I trudged, but we both had a good time nonetheless. We didn’t stay out very long, though. The temp this morning is -22 C with a wind chill of -31 c and the forecast says it’s going to stay this cold until Friday when temps are expected to climb to +6 C with rain. That’s a temperature difference of 28 C in the space of a day or two. That’s just crazy weather for around here. I hope the weather makes more sense where you are.
We had about 10 cm of snow overnight and the day began brilliant white and fresh. The sun even shone for most of the morning making the snow twinkle like a scatter of tiny diamonds. Jack and I decided to visit our little forest because the path is well used by dog people and their dogs and we were hoping it would be tramped down enough to make walking easier, and it was! We had a slow walk, side-by-side and tried to revel in the sunshine, but today this thin, weak January sunlight only makes me weary of winter.
This lonely Norway Spruce lives on top of Falufajallet Mountain in Sweden and is estimated to be about 9, 550 years old making it the worlds oldest tree. According to Atlas Obscura,
Old Tjikko is part of a clonal organism and its age was determined by carbon dating of its roots. There’s a small path that leads to the tree and park rangers give free guided tours. It’s preferred that visitors not go unaccompanied. I’d say that people shouldn’t be allowed to visit at all except I’d like to go myself.
I may need to start a new bucket list just for the trees that I’d like to visit.