Body Image

I found Steve Harvey, one of the Kings of Comedy, unleashing his inner sexy beast over at Oh No They Didn't; which was in turn sourced from Bossip.

Oh no they didn't indeed.

There are no words to describe this photograph, and this is not even the best of them. Check out tiny after the jump :

I'm no genetic scientist or any kind of scientist at all, so don't ask me how to define or explain any of this as genetics! But without vouching for the truth of the science or even the truth of this story and its reporters and commenters, I'm fully qualified to see this as part of a shift in understanding reality that is culturally significant, and to imagine (hope? Work to insure?) that we will digest it properly in time, like the one-big-extended-family meal it seems likely to be. . .

Can you tell if you're black or white?

Category: Genetics
September 27, 2006

Last winter a story surfaced about "black" and "white" twins.

As you can see by the picture the main difference is in skin color, though genetically full sisters (fraternal twins), one twin has the complexion typical of a northern European, while the other is darker skinned.

Contrary to the news reports the darker skinned twin does not seem to exhibit the modal complexion of sub-Saharan Africans, rather, she is several shades lighter. In fact, the photo suggests that she is about the same color as her parents, who are both genetically 1/2 European and 1/2 black. . .

[via Taller people are smarter: study - Yahoo! News]:

"As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," they wrote.

For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average.

I saw a documentary about Howard Zinn the other day and noticed how freakishly tall the man is. If he's supposed to be smarter than the rest, why isn't he, like, the president or sometin' ...

And if 5 inches above the average American (I had no idea gringos were so short ... 5'4"?!?), why is it that I am not a millionaire? And why am I missing $10.

I don't know ... I feel ... short-changed.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

---Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

The town of Roscoe sits at the confluence of the Willomec Creek and the Beaverkill River. It is tucked into a niche in the Catskills, a valley through which the Beaverkill traipses like a dancer. Unlike the Mississippi, say, or the Columbia, there is no sense that this is a river of broad, burly shoulders, pushing aside huge mounds of dirt on its way to the sea. No, this is a gentle river, home to thousands of lazy trout, and eventually, the river flows into the Delaware and eventually, Chesapeake Bay.
But back in late June, central New York state and northern Pennsylvania were drenched in ten inches of rain. And the tiny little Beaverkill became leviathan. Roscoe, Walton, Livingston Manor were under eight feet of water. People drowned. Houses were carried downstream. Roads were washed away.

The past two days, I walked along the river. It had returned to its pre-flood daintiness, and in fact, I was told that the river was now so shallow that you couldn’t take a canoe down it. You’d have to portage the canoe through the shallows.

The signs of the destruction were everywhere. Part of the motel where I stayed, a motel I’ve stayed at several times now because it sits on the banks of the river, had washed away. People told me how they’d watched the building run into the bridge, and then, smashed by the torrent, watched as it was carried miles downstream.

On the door to my room was a dark mark a foot or so above the door handle. It was the waterline. Inside the room, only the bare essentials had been restored. There wasn’t even a phone. Just a bed, and a couple of pieces of furniture that looked the worse for wear. The bathroom had been scrubbed clean, but the smell of bleach and mold was overpowering, sickening. In the corner of the bathroom grew a fungus that looked like kelp, something neolithic, as if it belonged on the sea floor.

So, I did a lot of walking. The sky was a shade of blue that would break your heart—so much deeper than forget-me-not, but not as dark as the indigo indications of an encroaching storm.

How to describe the ripple of water over stone? As I walked along the Beaverkill yesterday, the sun on the back of my neck, its warmth on my shoulders as if someone had draped his arm there, the water moved. The movement is subtle in most places; your senses tell you that it’s in fact, still, but the water moving across the stones dispels the notion of stillness. The sun glints in such a way off the angles of the water, the disruption on the surface as the water moves over stones. And the stones are testament to motion. The stones are not jagged. There is not a rough edge left on any of them. They are ovoid, softened by the caress of water.

I’ve noticed these changes in my face of late. My face is softening, like a baby’s face, the skin that used to cling so tautly to the bones beneath are letting go, sliding. Maybe I have smiled too much in my life. Perhaps I’ve focused on too many things out of my reach. The furrow in my brow now is a gorge, a chasm in the otherwise smooth plain of my forehead.

Associated Press

NEW YORK - Girl power on Broadway.

A musical version of "Legally Blonde," based on the hit movie starring Reese Witherspoon and the novel by Amanda Brown, will open on Broadway in April 2007.
. . . the show will mark the Broadway directorial debut of Jerry Mitchell, who won a 2005 Tony Award for his choreography for the revival of "La Cage aux Folles."

"I love the story," Mitchell said Tuesday of his new project. "It's so positive, especially for young girls to believe in themselves. And it's fun to root for a leading character you care about."

Mitchell, who also created the dances for "Hairspray" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," also will do the choreography for "Legally Blonde."

The show will open April 26, 2007, at a Broadway theater to be announced. Preview performances begin March 30. San Francisco will see the musical first, with a five-week engagement at the Orpheum Theatre beginning in late January.

Ministry supervisor Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter's Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom made the difference between School and Education crystal-gazing clear.

[quote=JK Rowling in Order of the Phoenix]- "This is School, Mr. Potter. Not the Real World," she said softly.

- "So we're not supposed to be prepared for what's waiting out there?"

- "There's nothing waiting out there . . .
who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves? If you are still worried, if someone is alarming you with fibs, I would like to hear about it. I am your friend. Now kindly continue your reading."[/quote]

I had to blog this while the Stupid Girls debate is on, because I consider JK Rowling's cultural smarts to reach far beyond Stupid Girls and the Tyranny of Thin. Having read every Harry Potter book at least once, I'd argue that the Culture of Schooling is a specialty of Rowling's. I'd argue that Order of the Phoenix would make a first-class focus for modern citizenship education throughout all worlds muggle and magical, in any language.

Are we just a pretend world of fashionable thought, obsessed with trying to look and feel smart for each other, neglecting and perhaps unable to actually BE smart and DO smart?

The new Carnival of the Feminists is up at I See Invisible People. Go stroll the Midway, ride the roller coaster, eat some cotton candy. You'll feel smarter by the time you're done, I swear.

This is not going to make me popular among anybody in the transgender community but, if it weren't for the fact that Lilly is ... well ... ahem ... fuggly, I honestly think she would not be looked as a threat by the wigged out parents.

I mean it, seriously. Would the parents be complaining if the teacher looked like any of the transgendered girls of the Korean pop band Lady?