"[T]he Queen’s Speech promised a 'total ban online' for junk food. Food companies will be limited to factual claims about such products, such as price, ingredients and nutritional content, and will be unable to publish sponsored social media influencing about cakes, sweets, burgers and other unhealthy foods. Paid-for displays, web searches and promotional emails and text messages will also be banned. Advertisers believe that all social media posts about unhealthy products could be banned, although details have yet to be set out.... Critics say advertisements for avocados, smoked salmon, hummus, butter, cheese and some fruit could be banned if the rules are drawn too tightly."
Here's the text of the speech. She actually refers to "obesity": "Measures will be brought forward to support the health and wellbeing of the nation, including to tackle obesity and improve mental health."
Do American politicians ever tell us we're too fat? I think not, even though obesity has been a huge factor in coronavirus deaths. They're so much more comfortable telling us how close we should be to our loved ones than broaching the big bigness topic.
... and — I guess! — can't touch your stuff but wants the photographs anyway, the rest of us get to see you live like this.
It doesn't seem quite fair. Maybe you shouldn't look. I think it's funny... and real... both the way the tenant is living and the ludicrous landlord's representation that it's "Just renovated," with "new paint and carpet."
I'm finding that photograph so funny, because I like to take a bath and read a book, and I could be lured into bringing a glass of whisky into that scenario and to put it on a spindly table right by the tub. And I could see getting out of the tub, wrapping my head in a towel and putting on a satin robe and then picking up the book again, but under no circumstances can there suddenly be a big dog in that recently vacated bath... a dog with halfway shampooed hair, no less. That dog and all that glass... not just the whisky on the spindly table but all that extra glass on the ledge behind the dog. The message becomes: Whisky is a disaster waiting to happen.
Also, I want my legs to remain attached to my pelvis. The faceless model has a leg that comes out of nowhere.
Speaking of reading — is that model really reading? it seems to be a travel guide — I wanted to quote something else from that 2000 article about Philip Roth that I talked about yesterday. This is something I was thinking about during my sunrise run today (as I realized I didn't finish reading "The Human Stain" by getting to the end of reading all the words on all the pages but that I'd only gotten into the position where I can begin to read it):
“Every year, seventy readers die and only two are replaced. That’s a very easy way to visualize it,” Roth said. By “readers,” he said, he means people who read serious books seriously and consistently. The evidence “is everywhere that the literary era has come to an end,” he said. “The evidence is the culture, the evidence is the society, the evidence is the screen, the progression from the movie screen to the television screen to the computer. There’s only so much time, so much room, and there are only so many habits of mind that can determine how people use the free time they have. Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing. It is difficult to come to grips with a mature, intelligent, adult novel. It is difficult to know what to make of literature. That’s why I say stupid things are said about it, because unless people are well trained they don’t know quite what to make of it...
"I think that the whole effort of certainly the first half of the twentieth century, the whole intellectual and artistic effort, was to see behind things, and that is no longer of interest. To explore consciousness was the great mission of the first half of the century—whether we’re talking about Freud or Joyce, whether we’re talking about the Surrealists or Kafka or Marx, or Frazer or Proust or whoever. The whole effort was to expand our sense of what consciousness is and what lies behind it. It’s no longer of interest. I think that what we’re seeing is the narrowing of consciousness. I read the other day in a newspaper that I occasionally see that Freud was a kind of charlatan or something worse. This great, tragic poet, our Sophocles! The writer is just not of interest to the public as somebody who may have an inroad into consciousness. The writer is only interesting in terms of how much money did he get and what’s the scandal. That’s all they’re interested in. Why? Because the other stuff is useless, they don’t want it. There has always been a debate over what literature is and what’s it for, because it is a mysterious thing, and the mysterious side of existence, certainly for secular people, is not an urgent problem.
“I’m not a good enough student of whatever you have to be a student of to figure this out, but one gets the sense—and not just on the basis of the death of reading—that the American branch of the species is being retooled. I see the death of reading as just an aspect of this. I have to see it that way, otherwise it’s just cultural whining, and cultural whining is boring. It’s an aspect of some great shift that’s occurred—been going on for a while—in that which interests the most intelligent members of American society.”
In this period of Roth’s maturity, his book sales have been modest, ranging between thirty and forty-five thousand in hardcover.... “It doesn’t make any difference really if a hundred thousand read the book or ten thousand or five thousand, frankly. Five thousand people is a lot of people. And, as a friend of mine said about five thousand readers, ‘If they came through your living room one at a time they’d leave you in tears.’
“So when I talk of the death of reading, I’m not saying, ‘Poor me, or poor the other guy, we don’t have the readership.’ I just mean that this great human endeavor has come to an end..."
The study found that 56 percent of participants thought that the beauty industry could make people feel excluded, and that as many as seven in 10 people agreed that the word “normal” on products and in advertising had negative effects. That figure rose to eight in 10 for people between the ages of 18 and 35....
The changes were long overdue and “completely necessary” after last year’s worldwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations, said Ateh Jewel, a beauty journalist and an advisory board member of the British Beauty Council, an organization that represents the British beauty industry. “Saying the word ‘normal’ has been used to set you apart,” Ms. Jewel said. “I am normal. My dark skin is normal. My juicy West African curvy body is normal. Everything about me is normal.... Words are powerful and we’re so used to having this unconscious bias.... It just washes over us. We don’t even realize what we’re saying because we’ve been spoon-fed racism."
In this light, "normal" is not a bad word, to be avoided. It's a concept that demands more attention. If the position in the middle is called "normal," then it makes it sound as though the other positions on the continuum are defective. Even if the other positions are less healthy — such as oily or dry skin compared to "normal" skin — why be unpleasant about it by creating the inference that they are abnormal?
It's pretty normal to have dry skin or oily skin and actually unusual to think you have normal skin! I can remember shopping for some skin product and having the sales person ask me if I had dry or oily skin and when I answered "normal," she rejected the answer. It just didn't compute. Surely, I lean one way or the other. Or maybe I have "combination" skin with a "T-zone."
If I understand Ateh Jewel correctly, she would like to free up the word "normal" so it can be used across a wider array of possibilities. But what word do you use for the middle position?
By the way, in the OED, the 4th meaning for "normal" is "Heterosexual." Examples:
1914 E. M. Forster Maurice (1971) xxii. 106 Against my will I have become normal. I cannot help it.
1972 T. Keneally Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith v. 38 Of course, Jimmie knew, Farrell was not normal and had once begun to caress him.
1990 Lesbian & Gay Pride 11/4 Back west in a long standing ‘normal’ society like old Blighty, many lesbian or gay teachers go in fear of exposure.
"... of aggressive feedings and the mess of midnight cleanups. The disconnect can leave first-time parents underprepared during a transitional period often described as the fourth trimester...."
Here's the 30-second ad that aired during the Golden Globes.
Frida worked with the network on a 30-second edit that blurs or covers nipples that are visible in the original 75-second ad — a “fairly robust editing process at NBCU’s insistence,” said Chelsea Hirschhorn, the company’s chief executive, in a statement. She added that the point of the ad remained intact — “that the physical and emotional breastfeeding journey puts an unrivaled pressure on women to ‘perform,’ and no longer should women be expected to prioritize making milk over their own physical discomfort.” On YouTube, the original ad, which was posted on Feb. 24, already has more than 1.4 million views.
Here's that 75-second ad, where you will see nipples. You'll also see women in the shower trying to massage their clogged lactating breasts with the handle end of an electric toothbrush and the front end of dildo vibrator.
By the way, do you know what the NYT meant by "aggressive feedings"? I'm presuming the aggression is on the part of the baby.
And do you like that term "fourth trimester"? I can see that it's been around for a while, but this is the first time I've noticed it. The message — as I hear it — is that the mother's body and the baby's body are still a single unit. Your body is not yet all yours again. The baby is still sharing it.
"... was part of an army of women who worked as traveling Aunt Jemimas, visiting small-town fairs and rotary-club breakfasts to conduct pancake-making demonstrations at a time when the notion of ready-mix convenience cooking was new. I never knew about my grandmother’s work until long after she died... [W]hile researching a family memoir... I learned that she made good money and covered a region including Iowa, the Dakotas, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. She was often treated like a celebrity in small towns, but could not stay in local hotels. She kept an eye out for houses that had a small sign in the window that said 'TOURIST,' a code for homes that provided lodging and meals to black people.... As a family, we are offended by the caricature that Aunt Jemima represents, but deeply proud of the way my grandmother used the stage that was available to lift herself up. You see, in those days Aunt Jemima didn’t look like the lady you see on the box today. She was a slave woman, and Ione was expected to act and talk like a slave woman, using the kind of broken patois that blighted the full-page ads in magazines like Women’s Day and Life.... One of the things that irks me most about the Jemima brand is the way the mammy stereotype hijacked what should be an endearing image for black America and tried to turn it into something toxic. Most of us have someone in our family with fleshy arms and a loving smile who serves up cherished advice along with delicious food. They are our aunts and mothers and grandmothers. Our godmothers. Our queens. You tried to make us ashamed of what Aunt Jemima stood for."
From "Why did it take so long to set Aunt Jemima free?" by Michele L. Norris (WaPo). (Quaker Foods announced that it is retiring the Aunt Jemima brand because to "make progress toward racial equality.")
The syrup, sold in a matronly woman-shaped bottle, is accused of being rooted in mammy culture and was modeled after the body of Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen, the black actress who played Prissy in “Gone With The Wind.” The Jim Crow-era “mammy” character was often used to show that black women were happy working in white households....
That's news to me. I looked up Mrs. Butterworth on Wikipedia and it did not contain that information. I did learn that the voice for the character was done by Mary Kay Bergman, who looked like this:
"Her parents were Jewish," and she died by suicide at the age of 38 in 1999. She was the original lead female voice on "South Park."
Her characters included Liane Cartman, Sheila Broflovski, Shelly Marsh, Sharon Marsh, Carol McCormick and Wendy Testaburger.... Bergman credited South Park for pulling her out of a typecasting rut. 'I'm known for these sweet, cute little characters,' she said, noting her roles in various Disney films. "So I've been doing them forever. My agents were trying to submit me on shows that are edgy, and they're laughing, 'Mary Kay, are you kidding? No way!'" After Bergman's death, the two episodes "Starvin' Marvin in Space" (the final episode for which she recorded original dialogue) and "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" (the final episode in which her voice was used via archive footage) were dedicated in her memory.
No comment on the role of Starvin' Marvin and Mr. Hankey in the quest for progress toward racial equality. RIP Mary Kay Bergman. Watch this (it's phenomenal):
Mrs. Butterworth voice at 1:11.
ADDED: Norris writes that her grandmother, in the role of Aunt Jemima had to use a "kind of broken patois." And I see in the comments that David Begley is asking, "Just asking, but isn’t 'broken patois' the language of today’s rap music?" Which makes me wonder, what's wrong with a patois? To answer my own question, I naturally look up "patois" in the OED.
I see that it's "dialect spoken by the people of a particular region (esp. of France or French-speaking Switzerland), and differing substantially from the standard written language of the country" or — and this is "frequently depreciative" — "a regional dialect; a variety of language specific to a particular area, nationality, etc., which is considered to differ from the standard or orthodox version."
I was intrigued by this example from "The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles (who was born in New York City):
Then he remembered having heard that Americans did not speak English in any case, that they had a patois which only they could understand among themselves. The most unpleasant part of the situation to him was the fact that he would be in bed, while the American would be free to roam about the room, would enjoy all the advantages, physical and moral.
"It’s all part of a large, broad, and well-funded campaign against electrification being waged by the [gas] industry. APGA has the Media and Public Outreach Committee, set up by the industry with the goal of 'winning the communications war' over electrification. AGA has the Sustainable Growth Committee and the Building and Energy Codes Committee fighting against electrification.... This industry campaign... comes in response to a rapidly spreading grassroots 'all-electric movement' that has dozens of towns, cities, and counties passing new building codes or ordinances to encourage electrification or, as in Berkeley, California’s case, simply prohibiting gas hookups in new buildings. It’s getting ugly. When the city council in San Luis Obispo planned a vote on an energy code to encourage electrification in buildings, the leader of the opposition (a worker at a gas utility and a board member of C4BES) threatened to bus in protestors and spread coronavirus at the city council meeting.... [F]or the individual homeowner, as for society at large, managing harmful pollution eventually starts to seem a little silly when equally effective, affordable, and pollution-free alternatives are available. It’s time to start making new buildings all-electric and switching out all those existing gas appliances, including gas stoves, for electric alternatives."
"They’re coming to take your gas stoves" is the message, we're told, but the article shows that the message is true. The question is how unhealthful is a gas stove and how sound is the belief that a gas stove is better. People are into seeing the blue flame, so there's a psychological advantage. That psychological advantage can be destroyed by the fear of pollution. All of that belongs properly to the realm of advertising and propaganda.
Obviously reminiscent of posters for pop-culture nonsense from the 1960s (but I'm not sure quite what):
ADDED: The reviewer at New York Magazine says the first half is good and the second half is bad. This is from a description of the second half:
He has been married for 19 years, and it is exhausting. “Marriage,” Seinfeld says, “is two people trying to stay together without saying the words ‘I hate you.’” He imagines himself waking up every morning and standing in front of a Jeopardy! podium, trying and failing each day to match his wife’s level of petty animus. “‘I’ll take ‘Details of a Ten-Minute Conversation We Had at Three in the Morning Eight Years Ago,’” he envisions her saying, “and I would like to bet everything I have on that, Alex.” Women are the Übermenschen; men who try to take them on do so foolishly and with no hope of winning....
A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine questioned 180 patients over age 60 with serious illnesses; most said they would trade a year of life if that meant they could avoid dying in an I.C.U. on life support.... “Many older patients we’ve encountered with Covid-19 have opted not to undergo ventilation and an I.C.U.,” Dr. White said. “No one should impose that on a patient, though if there’s true scarcity, that may arise. But patients might choose it for themselves.”...
While you're thinking about that, here's the ad the NYT served up for me in the middle of the article:
"More than 20% of Americans think vampires are real/More than 25% think climate change is not"... therefore you might want to donate $1,000 to the World Health Organization. We're supposed to worry that a fifth to a quarter of Americans are so science-ignorant that we should give money to an organization that may or may not represent good science. How would I know? Well, one thing is: I'm wondering if it is really true that 20% of Americans think vampires are real, because if they don't, then the organization is passing on fake statistics and that's evidence against its dedication to good science!
Here's a study from last year (at YouGov) that says 13% of Americans believe in vampires — 14% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats. And here's an IPSOS survey from last year that said "Almost half of Americans believe that ghosts are real (46%), and a third believe that aliens visit earth (32%), while only a small amount believe in vampires (7%) and zombies (6%)."
For $1,000, you need to do better with the statistics. And now I'm wondering about the value of the statistics about how likely you are to die if you're over 65 and end up on a ventilator. Just as the World Health Organization wants its donations, the health care system would benefit if you decline its services and accept home-based death.
"The second campaign urged people to vote by showing footage of Hitler and suggesting that voting was the way 'to keep fools like these out of our government.'"
On a trip to Germany in 1978, he saw a jacket with epaulets and a Nehru collar. Using a shiny chintz fabric from Japan, he designed his own version of it, with a slim fit, knitted ribbing at the waist and cuffs, and a strap at the collar. He offered it in a rainbow of colors, though he was colorblind, with a discreet “Members Only” tag stitched below the breast pocket....
“Our philosophy was to associate the brand name with a company that cared about critical issues,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote. “The results proved that we were right.”
