The Informavore

Yale University certainly needs very little help in getting students to apply. The prestigious Ivy League school is one of the nation’s most difficult schools to get into, after all.

That doesn’t mean their admissions office doesn’t know how to have fun. Hitting the internet over the past few days has been a 17-minute musical titled “That’s Why I Chose Yale.” The student-produced film has almost 118,000 at the time of posting.

Current students applying to college have grown up accustomed to individuals breaking into song and dance for no reason whatsoever. Think about it: High School Musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and the TV series Glee all rely heavily on bits of the old song and dance.

What’s particularly fun for forensicators is that the star of Yale’s YouTube sensation is Kobi Libii, a 2003 NFL National Finalist in Original Oratory. Check out Yale’s official YouTube channel to see the viral hit, or hop on over to NFLtv to see his final round speech titled “Spin Cycle.”

p.s. Don’t miss the cameo from NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams at the 6:50 mark.

President Obama is a alien lizard from outer space.

It’s not the claim of opponents of the President’s healthcare reform efforts. Instead, it seems to be the allegorical underpinning of ABC’s reimagining of the early 1980s television miniseries V.

Anyone who has sat through an honors high school English class where they read George Orwell’s Animal Farm can attest to the power of achieving political commentary through the use of allegory. As it turns out, a pig is not always just a pig nor is a horse always just a horse. In the case of V, a story about an alien invasion is not just a sci-fi yarn about visitors from another planet.

An article from Slate this week poses the question “Is V a political allegory?”:

More than a few journalists and bloggers have remarked that it’s possible to read V as an allegory hostile to President Obama and sympathetic with the birthers and other nutcases who believe him to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The charismatic Visitors load up their “bandwagon” by “spreading hope.” In using their sophisticated iguana technology to provide free medical services, they promise “universal health care.” Indeed, if the show is to have the symbolic import that we expect from a science-fiction story, this is the only possible way to read V as a coherent text.

The original miniseries, which aired in 1983-84, did not seem to hide its message. The Visitors from the series were painted as Nazis, building upon a generation still very familiar with the ramifications of WWII and the Nazi occupation of Europe. Still entrenched in the Cold War, it had a resonate message for American audiences.

(more…)

The black and white television in the spare bedroom of my grandmother’s house had a twice-daily appointment during my childhood: Sesame Street. Shortly after consumption of a bowl of cereal in the mornings and somewhere just beyond nap-time and reruns of the A-Team in the afternoons came my daily childhood instruction.

Over the years, our furry friends from that fictional New York borough have built quite the pedigree (122 Emmy wins and broadcasts in 140 countries worldwide). In addition to being woven into the very fabric of American culture, the folks at the Workshop have another milestone to celebrate next week: 40 years of television history. Since it’s inception four decades ago, Sesame Street has made a lasting impression on countless children who are now well into adulthood. When the show began, the landscape of both television and culture were very different.

The New York Daily News sums it up nicely:

The groundbreaking show, produced by the Children’s Television Workshop and a staple of public broadcasting, was years ahead of its time in promoting values that are now taken for granted in many places – accepting and appreciating diversity, not making assumptions based on gender, and being sensitive to cultural and economic differences, are all ideas the show emphasized before it was fashionable to do so.

The show has changed over the years in many ways. What was once a program intended to supplement learning for inner city children has become a cultural mainstay.

(more…)

Talk about a bad of case of being 2 steps behind on things! Today, while browsing a favorite blog of mine, The Curvature, I came across the charity event, Blogathon. Mmm. Bloggity blogalicious blogging! The rules, according to the site, are as follows:

Now, remember when you were in school and you would bowl for charity? And for every pin you knocked down you got, say, ten cents? Or run for a dollar a mile? During the Blogathon, people update their websites every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight. For this, they collect sponsorships. Pledges can be a flat donation, or a certain amount for every hour the blogger manages to stay awake.

How nifty is that? If I had known, I definitey would have at least tried to sponsor a site. There are 161 participating blogs, go check ‘em out!

BoingBoing posted a link to the online game Pick the Perp. You’re posed a question, such as “Who was charged with Robbery?” then you pick from a series of 5 photographs who you think the perp is.

According to the site:

Booking mug shots and related information is gathered from arrest records from open sheriff’s web sites in the United States of America. Those appearing here have not been convicted of the arrest charge and are presumed innocent. Do not rely on this site to determine any person’s actual criminal record.

What’s interesting (that BoingBoing and Pick the Perp don’t point out) is how quickly this game goes from amusing to slightly stomach turning. Whenever you find yourself staring at five complete strangers and wondering, “Who looks like a heroin user? Which one of you look like you’d be involved in a domestic dispute?” only to guess wrong (or sadly, right) you can’t help but wonder if it’s an educated guess or a profile in socio-economic/racial/gender profiling. I secretly started to wonder if this was an elaborate ruse being conducted by psychology or communication scholars to test how people associated crimes with certain demographic factors in photographs…that would prove very interesting when discussing profiling and jury bias, perhaps?

In defense of educated guesses though, look for orange jumpsuits on serious offenses and wonky eyes for those who were charged with being under the influences.

As a lover of all things internet, I just wanted to direct more attention to Boing Boing’s post about the Ada Lovelace Day pledge that’s going on for March 24th this year. Put yo’ bloggin’ pants on and git to goin’!

From the pledge via BoingBoing

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Over 300 people have already signed a pledge to publish a blog post, video blog or podcast episode about a woman they admire on 24th March 2009. We need 700 more people for the pledge to be successful.

Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. But in the tech world women’s contributions often go unacknowledged and role models are hard to find. Ada Lovelace Day is a chance for us to sing the praises of the women who make tech tick: entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants… The list of tech-related careers is almost endless and we want to see examples from all of them!

Of the many things my mother admittedly regrets about my formative years – one of them was our lack luster dietary habits. She openly acknowledges the fact that she wasn’t a pro in the kitchen and I have spent years despising even the sight of Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff. Just typing the words conjures the smell of the boxed meal and brings my gag reflex up to attention. We drank Diet Coke all day (to the dismay of our dentists) and threw saltines with spray cheese in our bags for lunch. I reminisce over a long summer week spent with a grandfather who indulged us in meals of macaroni and chocolate ice cream. Mmmm. Now – some twenty odd years later – I’m unlearning those bad habits.

That’s not to say that I long for the other end of the pendulum swing. Not for one minute would I have wanted to live under the scrutinous eye of a microbiotic mother.

This is why I really enjoyed Laura Bennett’s commentary on “Food Nazi Moms” on AlterNet. Apparently – in conversation with a fellow parent – the other mother went on a tirade about her ex-husband’s gross negligence in packing their children’s lunches. Specifically:

He had packed a non-organic lunch for her sons. Seriously. She went on to describe the brown bags loaded with Cheetos, Go-gurt, and a sandwich that was made with white bread.

[...]She went on and on about the dangers of food additives and how they had exacerbated one of her boys’ ADHD. She talked about how each morning when her boys are in her care she takes the time to poach Amish-raised, free-range chicken and then stuffs it into a whole-grain pita with hydroponic tomatoes and micro-greens and that her ex was obviously not fit to spend time with the kids because he was willing to put their health in such grave danger.

(more…)

I loved this poster Neatorama featured from iBored. I rarely like to engage in the who should/will win such and such Oscar conversations because either A: I haven’t watched most of the movies that get nominated or B: 4 out of 5 times I just get annoyed at the outcome any way.

But day-yamn – Ledger was great.

If you’re a smoker, drinker, over-eater or frequent drug user – you know all too well how the arguments go. Usually – they start with an innocuous yet well-meaning observation: “You’ve had how many packs/drinks/servings? Don’t you know how bad that is for you?” which is frequently associated with the claim, “I’m just concerned about your health.” You, on the other hand, feel as though they’re just butting in and treating you like a child. You’re capable of making your own decisions without their intervention thankyouverymuch.

If you’re a non-smoker, non-drinker, non-user of an appropriate weight – you also know all too well how the arguments go. You watch someone you know and care about begin to slip out of control. They seem to get sloppy too much too often. Their waistline continues to widen despite proclamations of being on a diet, weaning off nicotine or not having had a drink in a while. They’re blowing more literal smoke than a politician’s figurative. It’s frustrating because it’s so obviously harmful.

Inevitably – both arguments boil down to key factors: genetics, environment, willpower or addiction.

And most of the time – the arguments never really come to a satisfactory conclusion. One side may submit (with an exasperated, heavy sigh) to change for the better, yet only for the short term. The other, may reluctantly retreat from the subject matter until a later date.

Psychology Today published a list of the seven hardest addictions to quit. While love topped the list (because swooning is a natural high) and cigarettes, alcohol, heroin and cocaine also made the list – the second most difficult addiction to break was food.

(more…)

When I was young – I used to have a terrible problem with knots in my hair. I’m talkin’ big, ratty tangles that result from a combination of having thick wavy hair and from running/rolling/jumping around like a child that could have passed for having been raised by ferrets. Every night, my mother would sit down to my screeching and caterwauling as she desperately tried to comb out the bird’s nest that was my hair. As I complained and begged for mercy – her refrain was always the same: “This is the price of beauty, dear”.

Ugh. It still didn’t help.

The price of beauty has always been, well…pricey. Since the Egyptians’ use of lead to whip up new compounds to lather on their faces, humans have had vanity in our veins no matter how “skin deep” its purported to be. While the folks over at Web MD assure us that the government is diligently monitoring the cosmetics industry, the writers at Bitch beg to differ.

Currently, the government is *barely* keeping an eye on the self-regulating industry in a move tantamount to leaving fraternity members to chaperon a high school prom. Sure, there are some that will act responsibly but the arrangement still makes you squirm a bit. Additionally, it appears that the few regulatory measures it *does* have only opens the door for more misleading marketing. Between federal loopholes regarding chemical testing, minimal safety requirements and dodgy standards for what qualifies as “organic” and “natural” (that same Bitch article points out that a product can advertise itself as ‘organic’ if it contains 1% certified organic ingredients).

More scary info from Bitch :

Makeup menaces are nothing new: Some Elizabethan enchantresses died for their love of white lead–laced face powder, and Victorian vamps used deadly nightshade to lend their eyes an alluring glow. But today, when a $50-billion cosmetics industry has replaced apothecaries and home brewers, we expect the FDA to protect the public from dangerous beauty aids. Yet while its name might lead us to think otherwise, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act gives the FDA far more regulatory power over food additives and drugs than over cosmetics; the agency isn’t authorized to approve cosmetic products or ingredients before they hit the shelves. Manufacturers are under no legal obligation to register with the FDA, file data on ingredient safety, or report injuries caused by their products. The European Union has banned 1,132 known or suspected carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins from use in cosmetics, but only 10 such chemicals are banned in the United States, leaving us with mercury in mascara, petrochemicals in perfumes, and parabens in antiperspirants. And just as none of the offending lipsticks’ labels indicated the presence of lead, the FDA allows potentially hazardous chemicals like phthalates—industrial solvents linked to birth defects in boys’ reproductive systems and premature puberty in girls—to slip into ingredient lists under the umbrella term “fragrance.”

[...]

It gets worse. Only 11 percent of the 10,000-plus ingredients used in personal care products have been assessed by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, the safety panel established and funded by the Personal Care Products Council that—conflict of interest be damned—is the primary source of information for the FDA’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors. The industry touts the CIR as a scrupulous safeguard that renders outside oversight unnecessary, but in the more than three decades since it was founded, the panel has deemed a scant nine ingredients unsafe. And manufacturers aren’t even under any obligation to follow the CIR’s recommendations—one of the nasty nine, the likely carcinogen hydroxyanisole, is still found in Porcelana skin cream, for instance.

For what it’s worth, the author does recommend the Cosmetics Database for anyone wanting to make sure their body glitter won’t spontaneously com bust when mixed with hair spray.

Read up on it. This isn’t one of those “Argh – quit using make-up and go au naturale” deals. Yes – everyone should feel confident and comfortable in their own skin – but I don’t believe putting on a little lip gloss makes you patriarchy’s hand puppet. This is just one of those, “Hm. I didn’t know they put anti-freeze in deodorant. How ’bout that?” sort of deals. Ultimately – I figure it’s better for folks to know that concerns have been raised – and allow the consumers the right to dismiss or investigate the claims to make their own choice.

Better to be informed about the products than deformed later because of them – right? Right.