This stuff is getting close to unmanageable. Also: Comments are not necessarily related to the links. I felt like going off on a tangent.
TLLT. A lovely photoblog showcasing images with surprising connections.
A Sense of Anxiety a Shirt Won't Cover. I bookmarked this article before I saw it posted on other blogs. (But in this case should I still credit "via" the blogs which posted this first? I'm not--unless someone starts sending angry e-mails. And even then, still no. I don't hand out cheap links to just anyone.) Back on topic: There are cases where plastic surgery is probably the best option, but I can't help feel that surgical modification for most people is merely another method for conformity. Why the heck anyone wants to look like they came out of a factory is beyond my understanding.
Night Streetwalking is OK by Me. I don't really think the issue is that of women getting enough confidence to travel alone. The issue is other people's perception of women traveling alone. If you saw a woman walking alone at night, would you think it's right just to assume that she's asking for it? (On the other hand: it's sort of foolhardy to walk around alone in dangerous neighborhoods whether you are a man or a woman--people intent on harm don't care about gender.)
Too Many Words? I think of it in terms of food. There are the words in regular usage, the major staples of the diet so to speak, the kinds used to convey basic thoughts and ideas in a clear and succinct way. Then there are the big words--these are the spices. A few of them scattered within usual discourse in a thoughtful way makes a typical passage something to be savored. Use too many of them and you might metaphorically end up in the emergency room with a jar of lemon pepper up your nose.
"I'm not a feminist, but..." F-that!! The word "feminist" is a loaded term. Why? Because a bunch of wrong-headed assumptions have become attached to it throughout the past decades. But I'm willing to say I'm a feminist--an angry feminist sometimes--but I'm not the kind of "feminist" that bash people simply because they have the wrong equipment.
Older siblings are smarter. Once a stranger guessed that I was the firstborn simply because I "looked like it." What?! Okay, so she was right, but that doesn't make me comfortable with the stereotype. I hate being boxed in before I say a word. But I can't deny that I grew up with certain pressures and expectations that my younger sibling didn't have. Sometimes I think I've been groomed as the pseudo-elder son.
Aside: Often, I wonder why I even bother to write commentary to links. Most of the time, it's pointless. No one cares about my commentary. If anyone stumbles onto this site, they just want the links. Linkees just want to know what sort of stupid blog is popping up on their referral stats.
I'm a regular reader but not a frequent commenter, but I really like your commentary to your links. I think short-commentary-and-link blogs are underrated in general.
Interesting set of links. I hardly know what to say about the plastic surgery and the bikini wax ones. The comments at the latter site were interesting too. I wonder if it is an age thing?
Do you mean age thing as in younger people wanting plastic surgery vs. older people who are okay with how they are? Or do you mean that everyone wants to look young and beautiful so they resort to modifying their bodies?
Actually - I was thinking of the bikini waxing. Plastic surgery obsession seems to have infested a large segment of the upper and upper middle class, and with aging comes the desire for face lifts etc. But the hair thing - in the '70s and '80s when I was in my teens and twenties natural was "in." The comments (and my own observations) indicate that the opposite is true among youth today, and many of the posters were quite defensive about it, as if it shaving is not just one more fad but an actual superior "preference" that is arrived at rationally.
Shaving and age--I'm not so sure. In the early 90s, I noticed that a lot of kids my age (i.e. 11-13) seemed to find body hair disgusting and even began shaving at that point in childhood. Perhaps it was a fad but became entrenched.
