A love story told by small objects

By Lianne George - Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Last month, Leanne Shapton—a 35-year-old Canadian artist and illustrator, and the art director of the New York Times’ op-ed page—published her charming and inventive new book, a fictional love story disguised as an auction catalogue, called Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus & Giroux). The slim volume instantly took on a life of its own, drawing effusive praise from cultural arbiters coast to coast. Dave Eggers, quirk connoisseur and founder of the journal McSweeney’s, called it “wildly romantic.” And from Amy Sedaris, author and comedian, she received one of the nicest compliments there is: “I truly am jealous.” Within weeks, the book itself landed on the auction block, with Hollywood’s elite clamouring to secure the film rights. Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman placed the winning bid.

Important Artifacts is a book about the ghosts that live in things. Specifically, it chronicles a four-year relationship between two fairly average people, albeit with above-average taste—Lenore Doolan, a 20-something New York Times food writer, and Harrold “Hal” Morris, a world-travelling photographer in his 40s—through their mementoes, snapshots, homemade gifts, and other detritus of a couple’s everyday life together. Lenore is clever, nervous and indecisive (we see her in one photo dressed for Halloween as a litmus test). Hal is romantic and restless; he jots wistful song lyrics in the margins of books. They’re played in the photographs by Toronto novelist Sheila Heti and New York graphic designer Paul Sahre, both friends of Shapton’s, who were paid in artwork.

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Newsmakers: The Usual Suspect — Mom

By Lianne George - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Arrivals

By Lianne George - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Always the writer in exile

By Lianne George - Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

M.G. Vassanji, one of Canada’s pre-eminent novelists, experienced his first moment of kinship with the late, great Mordecai Richler at a writer’s festival in Sydney, Australia, more than two decades ago. At that time, Vassanji—born in Kenya, raised in Tanzania, and settled in Canada in 1978—had just published his first novel, The Gunny Sack. A nuclear physicist by training, Vassanji was entirely new to the literary “scene,” and he knew none of its luminaries, or its etiquette. But he knew about Richler. “Fortified by Scotch, his elegant wife, Florence, by his side,” Vassanji writes, Richler was in his glory, already a star.

For Vassanji, the prospect of reading aloud in a cramped, narrow bookstore that day felt nightmarish, a sentiment that Richler seemed to easily recognize.“I recall Richler’s sympathy and encouragement during that occasion,” he writes in his new biography, Mordecai Richler, “and his telling me I should do more justice to my work in my readings, I had spent time on it, it was mine.” He was touched that Richler—Canada’s illustrious enfant terrible—addressed him as a peer, as “just another Canadian writer.”

Also at Macleans.ca: An expat in London

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Way out there

By Lianne George - Monday, February 23, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 2 Comments

Grammy night was, for millions of TV viewers, their first exposure to the explosive, frenetic, Day-Glo energy that is M.I.A. Some may have heard her mega-hit Paper Planes—nominated that night for Record of the Year—but this was their first glimpse of the woman herself: nine months pregnant, her dress a mash-up of a bug-themed bikini and a mesh body stocking, performing MC-style on T.I.’s Swagga Like Us, alongside Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Jay-Z. Moving across the stage in a waddle-strut, she displayed a bravado and irreverent sense of humour not everyone in the audience shared (as expressed by shrill fashion post-mortems), but still they had to marvel.

The father of M.I.A.’s child, her fiancé, Benjamin Brewer—a musician and the eldest son of Canadian billionaire music-mogul Edgar Bronfman Jr.—brought a stopwatch to the awards show, which happened to be her official due date, in the event her contractions should start. “Sunday night I came home from the Grammys still in the mood to party,” she later wrote on her MySpace page. “I coulda easily gone out but I went home instead. Lucky I did! Coz my early stage labor kicked in around 2 a.m.” (Her son was finally born last Wednesday.) M.I.A. lost the Record of the Year to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on Grammy night. But she walked away 100 per cent more famous, leaving some fans dazzled and other long-time adherents wondering: is she an iconoclast or a pop star?

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White House style: Glamour for the people

By Lianne George - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 1:02 AM - 5 Comments

In a recent interview, fashion doyenne Donatella Versace identified Barack Obama as the inspiration for her spring 2009 men’s collection, describing his style as that of “a relaxed man who doesn’t need to flex muscles to show he has power.” Perhaps better than anyone, the Obamas have mastered the high-low aesthetic. Michelle Obama, it is well-established, looks equally at home in a Narciso Rodriguez gown and a J. Crew dress. The President shops at Burberry, but insists he wears the same suits repeatedly, even to the point of patching them up. Indeed, despite the GQ covers, Obama is not so stylish that designer Tom Ford can’t see room for improvement. “I think he’s a great-looking guy,” Ford told British Vogue, “but I think his suits don’t fit him very well.” We know that each U.S. president is a living symbol of the type of America he intends to manifest. In style terms, Barack Obama is the presidential equivalent of the frugalista. He is, in New York Times “Sunday Style” parlance, populist fabulous.

Since day one, American presidents have wrestled with the question: how much pomp is too much? “When they created the American presidency in 1789,” says Harry Rubenstein of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, “they combined the duties and functions of both a monarchy and a chief executive into one office—and this has been a problem for presidents ever since.” On the one hand, America is a democracy, created as a violent rebuke of imperialist European monarchies. On the other hand, its people want a leader they can proudly showcase on the world stage—and, let’s face it, Americans love the glitz. And so the trick for each new president has been to broadcast “for the people,” without descending into “of the people” territory.

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Dude, where's my job?

By Lianne George - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 117 Comments

It was only 18 months ago that the Wall Street Journal ran an article outlining the lavish demands of a new generation of workers, known collectively as Gen Y or Millennials or Net Gen. At the time, the thinking was that this group—ages 30 and under—had employers over a barrel. For one thing, there were relatively few of them, and employers, facing an imminent wave of boomer retirements, would be competing for the best of this young cohort. Also, since this is the Internet generation, they were believed to possess magical and mysterious tech skills that would prove invaluable in the workplace of the future.

Emboldened by these dual advantages, Millennials set their expectations high. Not only did they want fun, fulfilling work, with flexible hours, good salaries, and ample vacation, they wanted to be celebrated, too. Literally, feted. Savvy employers had taken to embracing measures like prize packages for a job well done, “public displays of appreciation,” and, in the case of one manufacturer in Texas, retaining a “celebration assistant” in charge of helium balloons and confetti. This was smart business, according to 30-year-old Jason Ryan Dorsey, a self-appointed Gen Y expert—who consults with companies like Kraft and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts about the peculiarities and preferences of his generation. “Marking milestones is major,” he told Forbes magazine. “No birthday should go uncelebrated, and the first day on the job should be unforgettable.” Which is great, except for one thing: what happens when the most entitled generation in history slams into the worst job market in 30 years?

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Never, ever mess around with Barbie

By Lianne George - Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 12:25 PM - 1 Comment

Nobody messes with Barbie. Not a bunch of squat, midriff-baring dolls with lemur eyes and pouty lips called Bratz, and certainly not MGA Entertainment, the maker of those dolls. On Dec. 3, after a bitter, four-year legal battle between MGA and Mattel over ownership of the Bratz concept, a U.S. district judge ordered MGA to cease production on its wildly popular toy line at once, just in time for Christmas.

Things have been looking grim for MGA since July, when a California jury ruled that Carter Bryant, the creator of Bratz, was technically employed by Mattel, maker of Barbie, when he originally designed the line (Bryant claimed he had been working freelance at the time). The jury determined that Mattel is the rightful owner of the Bratz brand, which has racked up hundreds of millions in sales since it launched in 2001. Compounding the damage, in August, a separate jury awarded Mattel $100 million in damages for copyright infringement and breach of contract. With this month’s ruling, MGA is required to shut down its entire Bratz operation, although dolls will remain on store shelves for now.

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Judd Apatow’s latest discovery

By Lianne George - Monday, December 15, 2008 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

When you’re a 17-year-old Internet sensation with a potentially career-making opportunity to perform at the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival, there are certain acts you don’t want to follow. Judd Apatow, Hollywood’s reigning king of comedy, is probably one of them. Last summer, Bo Burnham, a young comic from Hamilton, Mass., found himself in this predicament—onstage, following an impromptu set by the director of Knocked Up and The 40-year-old Virgin. With Apatow watching in the wings, the lanky and baby-faced Burnham took a seat at his keyboard, and launched into a set of musical musings on his usual subjects—painfully awkward teen sex, suburban gangster rap, and Bible camp hijinks—in his signature style: part Haley Joel Osment, part Dennis Leary. Afterwards, Apatow approached him for a meeting. “We talked about this idea I had for a movie,” says Burnham. “He seemed to like it and he was like, ‘all right, let’s do it.’ ”

Burnham’s implausible journey from small-town theatre geek to Hollywood up-and-comer began in late December 2006. Then a 16-year-old junior at an all-boys Catholic school, Burnham posted a video of himself singing a self-penned ditty, called My Whole Family Thinks I’m Gay, which he performed on a synthesizer in his bedroom (Every time I go to dinner / It seems I’m getting a little bit thinner). At the time, he was pretty sure his family did figure he was gay (he isn’t). “Well, you know, I was doing theatre in eighth grade,” he says. But he also understood the song was more broadly funny, because it was satirizing the hysteria surrounding the is-he-or-isn’t-he of sexual orientation. “It was joking about things that kids would never joke about,” he says. “Kids make fun of themselves for being skinny or weird or awkward, but never gay.”

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Why food scares just aren’t kosher

By Lianne George - Monday, December 8, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 1 Comment

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, his yarmulke safely tucked under a gauzy hairnet, trundles through the halls of Manischewitz’s mammoth New Jersey production facility. A round, affable man with a long, wiry beard and a white lab coat with the word “Rabbi” boldly embroidered on his chest, Horowitz is one of North America’s foremost experts on the intricate art of kosher food production, and a key part of the continent’s leading kosher brand, most famous for its matzo, sweet wines and traditional Jewish comfort foods.

Passing through the “wet room” where the matzo balls, gefilte fish, and borscht are jarred, and into the dry section, Horowitz surveys his pride and joy—a brand new $11-million, gymnasium-sized matzo oven, the biggest in the world. “We’re still taking the price tags off,” he jokes, and rhymes off its specs the way one might with a new Porsche: if she ran non-stop, around the clock, she could produce enough matzo in a year to circle the globe—twice.

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A midwife crisis

By Lianne George - Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 38 Comments

Joanne Jacyk, a 31-year-old Toronto-based environmental engineer, was all of five weeks pregnant with her first child when she picked up the phone to call a midwife—only to find that she was too late. “They were already full for my due date,” she says. “I thought, ‘I just got my blood test!’ I basically called as fast as I could.” Anxious, Jacyk got online, found a list of every midwifery clinic in the Greater Toronto Area, and phoned them all. “When I started getting calls back saying, ‘We can’t take you,’ I got really upset,” she says. “I didn’t realize how badly I wanted a midwife until I thought the option wasn’t there.”

There’s a joke circulating among the new-mommy set in Ontario, one of seven provinces where midwifery services are now or will soon be publicly funded: if you think you might be pregnant, first you call the midwife, then you pee on the stick. Jacyk, now the mother of a healthy three-month-old boy, was one of the lucky ones. Eventually, persistence and fortuitous planetary alignment landed her a placement. But last year in Ontario, 40 per cent of pregnant women who sought out midwifery care—roughly 6,000 of them—were turned away. Demand has so outstripped supply that in some parts of the province, finding a midwife is harder than securing the kid a spot in a decent daycare. Continue…

Dumbed down

By Lianne George - Friday, November 7, 2008 at 1:00 AM - 64 Comments

For almost three decades, the Arrowsmith School, a small Toronto private school housed in a converted mansion on the edge of Forest Hill, has been treating kids with learning disabilities. When its founder, Barbara Arrowsmith Young, developed the school’s patented program in the late ’70s, it was with a first-hand knowledge of the frustration and stigma of living with cognitive deficits. Growing up, Young struggled with dyslexia. She had difficulties with problem-solving and visual and auditory memory. Finding connections between things and ideas was a challenge, and telling time was impossible—she couldn’t grasp the relationship between the big hand and the little hand. Traditional learning programs taught her tricks to compensate for her deficits, but they never improved her ability to think. “I walked around in a fog,” she says. But as a young psychology graduate, Young came across the brain maps created by the Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria, who studied soldiers who had suffered head wounds. Using these maps, she identified 19 unique learning dysfunctions and the brain regions that control them. Her theory was that a person can transform weak areas of the brain through repetitive and targeted cognitive exercises, and she was right. Today, this notion of brain plasticity—which she intuited three decades ago—is established wisdom in neuroscience.

Over the past decade, the Arrowsmith program has been proven so effective that schools throughout Canada and the U.S. have adopted it. In 2003, a report commissioned by the Toronto Catholic District School Board found that students’ rate of learning on specific tasks like math and reading comprehension increased by 1½ to three times.

These days, though, Young has noticed a new development: increasingly, she’s seeing a great many young people having difficulties with executive function, which involves thinking, problem-solving and task completion. “It looks like an attention deficit disorder,” she says. “The person has a job or a task and they start doing it but they can’t stay oriented to it. They get distracted and they can’t get reoriented. When I started using the programs, I really didn’t see a lot of this. I would say now, 50 per cent of students walking through the door have difficulty in that area.” The second thing she’s noticing is more frequent trouble with non-verbal thinking skills. These kids struggle to read facial expressions and body language—which can make dating and friendships, and indeed, most social situations, tricky. Continue…

It's Brady Bunch meets Flowers in the Attic

By Lianne George - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 2:56 PM - 0 Comments

Except for the braces—and, in hindsight, some pretty limp hair—Marcia Brady, the eldest, prettiest and most popular of the Brady sisters, was the kind of girl who made the teen years suck for everyone else in the early ’70s.

More than three decades later, no one will be too surprised to learn that the pressure to live up to the Marcia model was most crushing for the girl who played her on TV, Maureen McCormick. Now 52, McCormick writes about the Brady in her book Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice. Behind the scenes, McCormick was saddled with the typical child-star rites of passage: family dysfunction, bulimia, and depression. And later, most of the child-star legacy afflictions: cocaine addiction, Playboy Mansion debauchery, abortions and sex for money.

When you consider that the Brady Bunch set was some sort of hothouse of creepy sexual tension, it’s no wonder McCormick was messed up. When she was 16, she fooled around with her on-screen brother, Barry Williams (Greg Brady), while shooting episodes in Hawaii. Williams, meanwhile, is said to have been lusting after their TV mom, Florence Henderson. McCormick also admitted to having feelings for Bob Reed, who played her father, and reports being heartbroken and confused when she eventually found out he was gay. Rumours that she made out with her sister, played by Eve Plum, are exaggerated, she says. Continue…

Does your hair have what it takes to lead?

By Lianne George - Friday, September 19, 2008 at 2:34 PM - 2 Comments

Americans may be growing weary of Sarah Palin, but her hairstyle continues to amaze and inspire. According to a Wall Street Journal article, WigSalon.com says demand for wigs “that reflect the new looks made popular by Sarah Palin” has surged. Women can’t seem to get enough of her chestnut shade and swept-back do. The Journal writes: 

In the past week, the company has sold about 25 Palin-esque wigs, ranging in price from $100 to the “Bargain Sarah Palin” wig for $46…Early next week, [WigSalon.com's] Mr. Aronesty plans to send a newsletter to his 25,000 subscribers highlighting Palin wig options and styling tips.

If at first the wig-frenzy claim seems a little dubious—25 is really not very many—wait until you see the merchandise. I found the Bargain Sarah Palin wig on the site, and I can’t say it looks a whole lot like her hair. It’s a little Susan Lucci—although that could just be the peignoir talking. But it’s a whole lot better than the very sad looking Bargain Hillary Clinton wig on Wilshirewigs.com ($19.50). Zelda Fitzgerald meets Olive Oyl. 

Sarah Palin: Good Mother? Bad Mother?

By Lianne George - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM - 46 Comments

Is Sarah Palin a good mother? When you put it as a direct question, her supporters are quick to cry, Sexiste! We don’t put Joe Biden’s performance as a father under the microscope, they say, so why should Palin be subject to scrutiny just because she’s a woman? But the reason the motherhood questions keep resurfacing is not that Palin’s a woman. It’s that she’s a strident family-values politician, and observers can’t help but wonder whether she’s exploiting her own family’s deeply private matters to lend her campaign even more family-values credibility. Why else did Levi Johnston, the 18-year-old hockey-loving father of her pregnant 17-year-old daughter’s baby, suddenly find himself front-and-center at the Republican National Convention?

Weighing in on the Levi Johnston matter this week, even Bonnie Fuller, the inventor of the modern celebrity tabloid, was shocked by Palin’s poor taste. In an online face-off against political commentator Dick Morris for Page Six magazine (yes, that Page Six), Fuller scolds the Alaska governor for thrusting her daughter, Bristol, and baby daddy Johnston into the spotlight. Fuller writes:

“Becoming a teen parent is traumatic enough without having millions debate your effect on the McCain-Palin ‘family values’ platform. Normally, Levi and Bristol would be able to privately decide how best to deal with their circumstances. By thrusting them onto the national stage, Sarah Palin robbed them of that option.” 

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Girl Power in the USA

By Lianne George - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM - 11 Comments

Wow, it appears to be true in the United States that, as my fellow Skirts blogger Anne Kingston said, one set of ovaries is as good as another. Who would’ve thought?

When John McCain announced Sarah “Community Shmorganizer” Palin as his running mate over a week ago, it seemed like a transparent and patronizing attempt to wrangle some disgruntled Hillary supporters and co-opt the sexism debate. I thought he was sunk—particularly as more unflattering information about the relatively unknown Alaska governor began to emerge (extreme positions on women’s issues and the environment, accusations of abuses of power, a lack of experience, and so forth). Surely, Clinton’s candidacy was about more than bringing high-heels and lipstick to the White House? 

Alas, the latest polls are finding that John McCain’s support among white women has surged thanks to his would-be VP. According to one report, the Washington Post/ABC News poll, Obama  held an 8 percentage point lead among white women voters in the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention. But after the Republican convention, McCain was suddenly leading by 12 percentage points among the same demographic. 

Could it be that there are legions of angry feminists out there who care nothing about policy? Or angry anti-feminists? Is this election going to be about revenge voting?

But does Hillary heart Bill?

By Lianne George - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 5:02 PM - 0 Comments

Speaking of what she didn’t say, did you notice that, in Hillary Clinton’s opening remarks, she pronounced herself a proud mother, a proud Democrat, a proud Senator from New York, a proud American and a proud supporter of Barack Obama. But no love for Bill, who stood there applauding, sucking his lip and looking generally verklempt. It kind of had the ring of Hilary Swank’s first Oscar acceptance speech, when she thanked everyone but her then-husband Chad Lowe, who was sitting right in front of her, sobbing into his prime rib.

Yes, she sort of made up for it later in the speech (although there she praised his political record, not his personal one). But still, the early omission—which was, undoubtedly, by design—still registered as a glaring one for two reasons. First, it was a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that her people knew she couldn’t have said “proud wife” and not expected a swell of snorts and rib-nudging from the audience and the media. And second, it stood out in light of Michelle Obama’s glowing tribute to her husband the night before. Continue…

When ex-punk princesses travel

By Lianne George - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 12:49 PM - 0 Comments

Remember when Avril Lavigne wore men’s ties and baggy sk8ter pants and skull-and-crossbones hoodies and a permanent scowl? She really was a breath of fresh air.

Nothing complicated about that.

But now, all that’s left of her former image is the scowl. That’s because a 17-year-old “punk princess” sells records, but a 23-year-old one is just sort of unpleasant.

And so: booty-popping lessons. Continue…

The most cringe-inducing ad that side of the Atlantic

By Lianne George - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 3:11 PM - 0 Comments

About a month ago, I took in a movie in Paris and before the previews, there was an advertisement (in French, of course) for Orangina that nearly busted my brain. Truly, is was the sort of experience where you’re looking around, wondering if anyone else just saw that. I don’t know how else to explain the ad—for an orange soda popular among kids, no less— but as a sort of salsa-burlesque number performed by twistedly anthropomorphized zoo animals. It has flamingos pole-dancing. A bear in a loin cloth. And a creepy Flashdance homage.

As Broadsheet points out today, this ad has become a source of some controversy in Britain, where an English version now appears. Yes, I know the company is probably thrilled.

But surely PETA will be pissed.

Click here to watch it. Keep a bucket handy.

Michelle Obama in 2012?

By Lianne George - Monday, August 25, 2008 at 11:57 PM - 0 Comments

Did we just witness the advent of the next great U.S. politician?

For those who missed it, Michelle Obama’s address at the Democratic Convention in Denver last night was pretty spectacular. 

For weeks, observers have been complaining about her inability to convey sufficient warmth or, as one CBC commentator called it this evening, to generate the requisite “warm-and-fuzzies.” (Isn’t that what White House pets and Christmas decorations are for?)  But last night, she nailed all of the key First Lady criteria: affability, sincerity, accessibility, shiny hair. Her critics will have their work cut out for them in identifying traces of anti-Americanism and elitism in this speech—the core of which outlined the key elements of her “improbable” (her words) personal journey, as well as her husband’s. Barack Obama has one hell of a teammate. Now they just have to sustain the optimism. It’s a long way down.

The full text of Michelle Obama’s DNC speech is available here on The Huffington Post

Witchy women

By Lianne George - Friday, August 22, 2008 at 6:45 PM - 0 Comments

A new study from the University of Derby claims that, for the past 20 years, more than 50,000 women a year have left the Church of England because they don’t feel it speaks to them. But here’s the strange part, the study’s author, sociologist Kristin Aune, concluded that many of the younger British women leaving the church are instead taking up…Wicca. Why Wicca? Three words, Aune says. Sarah Michelle Gellar:

“Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church.”

Huh. Clearly, Buffy was a very powerful (and sassy!) spiritual muse. But I was under the impression that Hollywood was after us to take up Scientology and yoga and Catholicism and Kabbalah and The Secret.

Make up your mind, TV and movies!

Prescription: Turn that frown upside-down

By Lianne George - Friday, August 22, 2008 at 4:19 PM - 0 Comments

Researchers are now saying that some of women’s greatest health challenges can be remedied with one thing: happiness. Simple enough, right?

A team of researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, questioned 255 women with breast cancer about their well-being and their levels of happiness, optimism, anxiety and depression before they were diagnosed. They studied them against 367 healthy control subjects. The study, published in the journal BMC Cancer, concluded that those with a positive outlook on life were better protected against the disease. Continue…

A scientist AND hot? She's got my vote

By Lianne George - Friday, August 22, 2008 at 3:09 PM - 0 Comments

Rule number one: when you’re the battle-weary leader of the Opposition, and an election could be imminent, don’t introduce your new star female candidate, an esteemed scientist, by pointing out that she’s hot. It is sure to come back to haunt you.

Today, during a media scrum, a reporter took up the matter of Stéphane Dion’s earlier comment about Dr. Kirsty Duncan, the 41-year-old University of Toronto professor who will run for the Liberals in Etobicoke North in the next election.

The following transcript of the exchange was provided by Maclean’s Aaron Wherry, long-time Skirts reader, first time contributor:

Reporter: Mr. Dion, earlier during your speech, when you were introducing Dr. Kirsty Duncan, you made a remark about her. ‘I prefer the face of science today than the face of the old Einstein, that’s my own taste.’ That could be construed as a sexist remark…

Dion: Oh, come on (laughing). I’m surprised at your question.

Reporter: … and did you mean any offense?

Dion: No, I think to the contrary. I don’t understand your question, sorry.

Reporter: Well, the question is, for someone in politics to compliment someone on their looks, some people consider that to be inappropriate.

Dion: I’m pleased that a young lady is one of the eminent scientists that help us to fight climate change and decided to be part of this fight as the candidate for the Liberal party at the next election. Do you have a problem with that?

Reporter: No, I’m just asking. It’s a reasonable question.

Dion: Well, I ask you a reasonable question as well.

Reasonable questions all around. To give Dion the benefit of the doubt, his comment was surely intended as a harmless compliment. He’s been accused of choosing his words poorly before. But as a politician, he should know better. It’s pretty widely understood that when you point out how hot a lady scientist is, implicit is the assumption that her hotness comes as a surprise because, well, she understands science. Continue…

And now a word from your ovaries

By Lianne George - Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 5:30 PM - 0 Comments

Just because Sarah Haskins is awesome, click here to see her latest Target: Women report on Current TV.  It’s on the weird and wonderful world of birth control advertising. Nothing she does will ever live up to her yogurt report in my heart. Still, this is funny as hell.