Elizabeth Edwards Statement

December 7, 2010, Elizabeth Edwards passed away from terminal cancer. She was the wife of two-time presidential candidate John Edwards.

Leading up to her last days, she released a statement that touched the hearts of many. The message from Edwards, reads:

"You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined. The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human. But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful. It isn't possible to put into words the love and gratitude I feel to everyone who has and continues to support and inspire me every day. To you I simply say: you know."

The Hair Down There

We pluck, wax, shave, use lasers, and other forms of abuse in order to get that hair off our bodies.

Forms of hair removal are practiced for reasons including cultural, sexual, medical and religious; and have been practiced in almost all human cultures. Isn't that crazy?

It's a very common thing for women to shave less in the winter, for very obvious reasons. You aren't showing off your legs in the winter, it provides a little extra warmth, and as soon as you shave it will grow back due to goose bumps!

What about the Brazillian wax? That's a lot of pain to endure, but many women withstand it in order to get rid of all pubic hair for their personal preferences.

There are also different ways to style your nether regions. I don't think they had hearts down there during the 1800s.
It's all for personal preference. Many men man-scape their areas, but it is less common for them to go through what women do. Why are we the ones to shave? I guess it would be fairly disturbing for the men to worry about their pokey legs.

Whitney Thompson is the newest America's Next Top Model Winner, and has recently spoken out about the plus size model "trend".

She was recently interviewed on Huffington Post, and talked about modeling and plus sized women.

She used to be an under-weight model, but quit modeling because she was practically starving herself.
In the interview, she says:

"I'd love to introduce myself to people as a model, [but] if I do that, they look me up and down and go Really? And so I have to say I'm a plus size model. But, truthfully, size six is considered plus size and some size fours are too fat to be models. My BMI is where it's supposed to be and I workout and I eat right -- I mean most of the time. It's all about balance."

Check out this video below, and you can see how beautiful and confident she is. Hopefully she will help this trend become a reality, and young women can feel comfortable in their own skin.

Adoption Fever

Sandra Bullock recently adopted a 3 1/2 month old boy from New Orleans. Madonna adopted a one-year-old from Malawi. Meg Ryan adopted from China, Angelina from Ethiopia.

It's a great thing that celebrities are supporting adoption, but controversy has arised on those who take children of different backgrounds from their own. Why not adopt from their own country? Is it a PR ploy? Why does being a celebrity speed along the process when non-celebrities have to wait several years?

Madonna said:

"After learning that there were over one million orphans in Malawi, it was my wish to open up our home and help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and in many cases death, as well as expand our family."

Below is a brief story about Sandra Bullock and her son, Louie. I admire how she has come so far despite her horrible misfortune with her awful cheating husband. Media and the public thought her adoption was a PR ploy to get around her divorce, but her and her husband had actually been planning on adopting for years.

Obsession With Housewives

Calling all housewives! The Real Housewives of 'whatever' city are anything but desperate. There is DC, New Jersey, NYC, Atlanta...and I know several more. The Bravo reality TV series features extremely rich women who get to do whatever they want to with their endless bank accounts. Am I being too facetious?

Why are we so obsessed with watching women spend money and get plastic surgery and create drama between their "friends"? Ok, I am a little bitter. I know the answer! We like to poke fun at how deceitful and spoiled these TV stars are, because we can't afford to blow money in the same fashion. I always say, "I'd never spend money the way they do, even if I had millions." However, I'm sure I'd lose control if money problems were suddenly dissolved.

These women are materialistic, drive expensive cars, live in over-sized homes, have plastic surgery, and so on...but why wouldn't they? We enjoy watching them spoil themselves silly, yet snub our noses at them because they throw money around on a very obnoxious level. Put yourself in their shoes...how would you not lose control?

Women = Shopoholics

All women love to shop, right? According to a recent trend in holiday commercials, women are in fact crazed bargain shoppers.

Target issued a series of Black Friday ads during the month of November. They feature a hyper, middle-aged super blonde bargain shopper who is preparing for Black Friday sales the day after Thanksgiving. The woman is played by the comedian Maria Bamford who starred in ten short commercial spots created for the promotion of the 2-day sale.

Target's CMO said the commercial producers encouraged the comedian to “revel in the character of the passionate holiday shopper…It’s fun exaggerating those manic shopper tendencies.”

Sure, I like to shop for good deals. However, I know more men who get excited for these crazy sales in order to get $400 off a flat screen TV. I think these commercials are funny, but are they soley aimed at women? Do men pay attention to them? Did Target lose any male shoppers from these commercials...or possibly gain?

Bad Girls

The Bad Girls Club idolizes young women who are fiesty, catty, overly sexual, drink a lot, messy and get in fights with each other. Real life bad girls, that we can watch on TV, judge, and go back to whatever we were doing. If you look at the photo above you can see, "Bad Just Got Good". I think this means, watching bad girls be bad and live out their role is now good and entertaining to watch. This scene below is at a reunion where a controversial topic was brought up, and several of the women got in a fight. Yep.

Are these girls really bad? Are they being edgy for the sake of TV? Whatever they are, we are watching it for entertainment. The only source of depth in this show is when the girls break down and get upset because they miss their loved ones, or if they confess true feelings. Are these girls putting on a fight for the sake of drama, or do they have issues that aren't being sorted out?

On the Wikipedia page it's described as, "The show's premise follows seven women with a number of personal, behavioral, and psychological problems — deemed "bad girls" — as they live together for four months."

So these girls with strong and competitive personalities are being put together to either make their problems better, or worse. It's like putting a bone in a bag full of pit bulls.

An interview with one of the women who appeared on the program said this:

Q. What is a “bad girl”?
A. "A bad girl is someone that has no idea of who they are and where they are going….they might but they need a push…someone that doesn’t care who and what people think about how you live your life because in the end you only have one life to live so live it to the fullest…no one feeds you or gives you life or money you and only you will so do it yourself don’t depend on anyone but yourself!"

It boggles my mind what we see as entertainment right now. I don't know what else to say.