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Rapunzel wedding doll based on "Tangled Ever After"
Disney Princess fans, take note, a new Rapunzel Wedding Doll will be available on March 28.
Be aware, however, that this is a limited edition doll, with only 8,000 available.
The Disney Store announced the Limited Edition Rapunzel Wedding Doll today, giving a sneak peek look at the “Tangled” star on Facebook. Continue reading »
Candy in a movie? Yes. A Candy Land movie? No.
Aaaaaaand it’s official: Hollywood has run out of film ideas.
Evidence? Adam Sandler is making and starring in a “Candy Land” movie. Yes, Candy Land. As in the game you play with your preschooler.
MSNBC is reporting (via Deadline.com) that Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison will make the “film,” and Robert Smigel (of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and SNL’s TV Funhouse fame) will write it. Which should make it better. But it doesn’t. Because it’s a game for preschoolers. About lollipops and gumdrops.
(And you can insert your own joke here about the success of Adam Sandler films of late.)
At first glance it looked like a big win for Planned Parenthood supporters. The extremely unpopular decision of the Susan G Komen organization to stop funding the popular clinics drew criticism and angst directed towards the once well-respected cancer research foundation. It resulted in top management stepping down, and a huge backlash consisting of tweets, Facebook messages, blog posts and articles expressing anger about Komen’s decision.
And then they tried to take it back. They wanted a do-over. They wanted to be loved again.
On Friday morning after a terrible PR week, with many people saying that Komen has lost their support (and their future donations) the organization released a statement seemingly taking back their ill-advised decision. But has the damage already been done? Can they fix their now tarnished image? And is this just a false apology, which doesn’t actually fix the situation with Planned Parenthood funding? Continue reading »
Tag: it used to be so innocent.
Jezebel ran a story from MSNBC this morning about fifth graders in Minnesota playing “rape tag” – a game “similar to freeze tag except that a person had to be humped to be unfrozen,” says a letter from the principal of Washington Elementary School in New Ulm. While it doesn’t surprise me that fifth graders know what “humping” is, or that they’d enjoy playing a game with air-boning at its heart, it does sort of shock me that these students would feel comfortable playing such a game on school grounds with teachers present. But what I find almost unbelievable is that these students would call the game “rape tag.” Rape. Rape.
Anna North at Jezebel says, “Kids are known for pushing the offensiveness envelope, and I’m sure the ones at Washington thought they were being hilarious. Let’s hope they’ve learned that rape isn’t funny.” Maybe I’m being naive, but I can’t imagine a fifth grader, at only 10 or 11 years old, having any understanding of the term rape, let alone understanding it enough to use it in a purposeful way to be humorous or edgy. I don’t think I *really* knew what rape was til I was in high school, but I guess I can remember hearing the word float around before then. I think, in the case of these Washington Elementary kids, they were using a word they knew had something to do with sex without understanding the full implications of the term.
This story does make me wonder exactly when children become indoctrinated into our rape culture, though. Despite the fact that sexual assault is taken much more seriously than in decades past, many young men still see rape as a joke. Think of all the stories we’ve heard recently about college boys laughing at and even encouraging the rape of their female peers. Continue reading »
Madonna's faux-breastfeeding moment
Not sure if you’ve heard, but Madonna’s going to be on TV as part of some kind of football event this weekend. In anticipation of the coming spectacle, she has released a football-themed video for her new song, Give Me All Your Luvin’. Sadly, it is not a ZZ Top cover. The video starts with a cadre of cheerleaders (guest stars MIA and Nikki Minaj and some girls wearing creepy japanese anime masks). Madonna appears in a classic camel trenchcoat, blowing down a suburban front door with an old fashioned pram. Predictably, the trench is shed in short order, thus allowing for more efficient worship by the football team.
The baby is left by the wayside as as the star prances about in a mashup of her greatest fashion hits (material girl hair + like a virgin lace/baubles+ lucky star crop top+desperately seeking susan animal prints+huge crucifix). Indeed, the video is a testament to her sartorial impact. Also, a triumph of the magic combination of constant exercise and excellent post production. The woman looks flawless, and she’s publicly exposing the waistband of her pantyhose to prove it. (Take that, muffin tops.) Towards the end of the video, the occupant of the carriage makes his first on-screen appearance, being faux-suckled on M’s leopard-clad left one as she shimmies. He shows up again in the last shot, when Madonna takes him off the boob and playfully tosses him in the general direction of the baby carriage, as the announcer yells “TOUCHDOWN!” Did I mention the baby is fake?
What is Lady Madonna trying to say here? Does she want mothers to break out of their staid suburban shells? Toss aside their children to further the underwear as outerwear crusade? Get those abs in order once and for all? Is she celebrating motherhood? Mocking it? Is this video a clue to her performance on Sunday? She did promise to one-up Janet’s wardrobe malfunction…maybe she’s going to breastfeed a baby at the Superbowl?
See what you think after the jump.
Photo credit: ©Robert Clark/National Geographic
It is a truth near-universally acknowledged that dogs are a man, woman and child’s best friend.
But there’s more to dogs than Frisbee tossing and a warm companion on a chilly evening. In the current issue of National Geographic magazine, a fascinating report details how scientists have discovered a kind of secret recipe behind the tremendous variety of dog shapes and sizes, and it just might help decode the “complexity of human genetic disease.”
“The story that is emerging,” says Robert Wayne, a biologist at UCLA, in National Geographic, “is that the diversity in domestic dogs derives from a small genetic tool kit.”
Take a look at eight gorgeous portraits (featured in the February 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine) of dogs from the 2011 Westminster Dog Show and understand with your kids how scientists are learning about more than just friendship from our four-legged friends:
I think sometimes the people who MAKE the rules need to be able to understand when to apply them.
Take this situation for instance. A high school student in Oklahoma City is sitting in class. He happens to notice that his substitute teacher has FALLEN ASLEEP at the desk. Fallen asleep, people. The TEACHER. So, the student snaps a picture of it with his cell phone.
Note: Cell Phones are not allowed to be used during school hours.
But one would think that teachers napping is ALSO a ‘no-no’. And without the picture, word of the teacher falling asleep is likely to be a rumor.
When the student shares the picture, he is suspended.
Well, because, cell phones during the day are against the rules.
The school says, napping isn’t tolerated and appropriate action has taken place, but should the student have been punished?
Read more from Danielle on Strollerderby and her personal sites ExtraordinaryMommy and DanielleSmithMedia.
You can also follow her on Twitter.
More from Danielle on Strollerderby:
Will You Teach Your Kids To Give Like The Anonymous Kmart Donors?
McDonalds Outsmarts San Francisco Happy Meal Ban
Sticks and Stones: My Son Cut His Hair So Another Child Would Stop Calling Him A Girl
Photo Credit: Stuart Miles
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