News you can use?
Lauren DiCioccio uses a simple needle and thread on cotton muslin to mummify and honor an endangered artifact– the printed newspaper. In each piece, as The New York Times’ text fades, its correlating cover portraits puncture the surface with pockets of strung together color, reminding us of a certain tactile human unraveling as we adaptively wave goodbye to the Industrial Age.
Beautiful.
When I voted this past week, I had a weird, emotional realization. I was so moved by the fact I was able to vote that I actually started tearing up in line. I couldn’t help but think of all the women before me who fought so hard for the right that I
The rarity with which Paul discusses any form of same-sex behavior and the ambiguity in references attributed to him make it extremely unsound to conclude any sure position in the New Testament on homosexuality, especially in the context of loving, responsible relationships. Since any arguments must be made from silence, it is much more reliable to turn to great principles of the Gospel taught by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do not judge others, lest you be judged. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love … against such there is no law. One thing is abundantly clear, as Paul stated in Galatians 5:14: “…the whole Law is fulfilled in one statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself”.
“The strongest New Testament argument against homosexual activity is intrinsically immoral has been derived traditionally from Romans 1:26, where this activity is indicated as para physin. The normal English translation for this has been ‘against nature.’ Two interpretations can be justified concerning what Paul meant by the phrase. It could refer to the individual pagan, who goes beyond his own sexual appetites in order to indulge in new sexual pleasure. The second possibility is that physis refers to the ‘nature’ of the chosen people who were forbidden by Levitical law to have homosexual relations.”
John J. McNeill, Adjunct Professor of Psychology,
Union Theological Seminary, New York City.
”Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealized and expected for women to be considered “attractive.” Images in advertisements, television, and music usually portray the “ideal woman” as tall, white, and thin, with a “tubular” body, and blonde hair (Dittmar & Howard, 2004; Lin & Kulik, 2002; Polivy & Herman, 2004; Sands & Wardle, 2003; Schooler, Ward, Merriwether, & Caruthers, 2004; Tiggemann & Slater, 2003). The media is littered with images of females who fulfill these unrealistic standards, making it seem as if it is normal for women to live up to this ideal. Dittmar and Howard (2004) made this statement regarding the prevalence of unrealistic media images:
Ultra-thin models are so prominent that exposure to them becomes unavoidable and ‘chronic’, constantly reinforcing a discrepancy for most women and girls between their actual size and the ideal body (p. 478).
Only a very small percentage of women in Western countries meet the criteria the media uses to define “beautiful” (Dittmar & Howard, 2004; Thompson & Stice, 2001); yet so many women are repeatedly exposed to media images that send the message that a woman is not acceptable and attractive if she do not match society’s “ultra-thin” standard of beauty (Dittmar & Howard, 2004, p. 478).
In recent years, women’s body sizes have grown larger (Spitzer, Henderson, & Zivian, 1999), while societal standards of body shape have become much thinner. This discrepancy has made it increasingly difficult for most women to achieve the current sociocultural “ideal.” Such a standard of perfection is unrealistic and even dangerous. Many of the models shown on television, advertisements, and in other forms of popular media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa (Dittmar & Howard, 2004).
Research has repeatedly shown that constant exposure to thin models fosters body image concerns and disordered eating in many females. Almost all forms of the media contain unrealistic images, and the negative effects of such idealistic portrayals have been demonstrated in numerous studies. Schooler et al. (2004) found that women who reported greater exposure to television programming during adolescence were more likely to experience high levels of body image disturbance than females that did not report such levels of exposure. In addition, certain types of programming seem to elicit higher levels of body dissatisfaction in females. A study done by Tiggemann and Slater (2003) found that women who viewed music videos that contained thin models experienced increased levels of negative mood and body image disturbance. Music videos seem to send a particularly direct message that women should live up to the sociocultural ideal; women portrayed are almost always direct representations of what our culture considers beautiful. In addition, music television is an increasingly influential form of media, especially for adolescent and college females.
Mainstream magazines and advertisements are another potent source of idealized images of women. This is disturbing because many women, especially adolescents, have been found to read such material on a regular basis. Findings of one study indicate that 83% of teenage girls reported reading fashion magazines for about 4.3 hours each week (Thompson & Heinberg, 1999). Female’s motivations for reading such material varies, but self-report inventories have shown that most women who read fashion magazines do so to get information about beauty, fitness, grooming, and style (Tiggemann, 2003).
Magazines and advertisements are marketed to help women “better themselves” by providing information and products that are supposed to make them look and feel better.Women read these magazines with the hope that if they follow the advice given, they will be more acceptable and attractive. Marketing strategies lure women into purchasing these forms of media, and most have the potential to be a powerful influence on women’s sense of self and satisfaction with their appearance. Tiggemann (2003) found that frequent magazine reading was consistently correlated with higher levels of body dissatisfaction and disturbed eating. The study also found that women who read fashion magazines displayed higher levels of thin-ideal internalization, which is a powerful risk factor for development of weight anxiety and disordered eating patterns. In addition to weight dissatisfaction and eating pathology, studies have shown that women who view slides of women pictured in many mainstream magazines and advertisements show increased levels of depression, stress, guilt, shame, and insecurity (Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994).”
by Kasey L. Serdar
‘We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their colour’ -Maya Angelou
Merida, the boundary-breaking heroine of Pixar’s Brave, officially gains the title of Disney’s eleventh Princess today — one which, ironically, she would not give a crap about. But she appears to have stopped into a Sephora, a Weight Watchers, and a BCBG on the way to her coronation.And they took away her bow and arrows. Not cool.
http://jezebel.com/ugh-disney-gave-braves-merida-a-pretty-pretty-princes-500751813
Inspired by Worthington Libraries: Blind Date with a Book!
We started with ~40 books. Two hours later, all but four had found homes with library patrons (sorry, Flush, Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Persepolis, and The Things They Carried, they don’t know what they’re missing).
Now, to send forth a new fleet of exciting books into student arms. Whew!
