Au revoir from Mr. J!
Dear Good People of Feministe, First of all, I know some of you have been confused by my nickname, Mr. J. Despite the male connotation of Mr., I am not a gentleman. I am, in fact, a lady. A very nice lady. My name is Mahlena-Rae Johnson. I bolded the initials there so you could [...]
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Having a think, saving the world.
For the past two weeks, I have been learning Mandarin through my Pimsleur Language Program CDs. So far I can confidently say useful phrases like “Hello,” and “I am American, are you?” and “I would like to order two beers.” Not one beer. Two beers. And not for anyone else, just for me. Because the [...]
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Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
I was reading How to Win Friends and Influence People today, and I came across a passage about smiling babies. I love smiling babies. They make me happy. So I couldn’t help but wonder, in a world with where the people in the White House are shredding the US Constitution and our civil liberties are [...]
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Higher Education
I spent much of my 4th of July weekend reading Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA by Peter Robinson. It’s a novelization of Mr. Robinson’s first year at Stanford Business School in 1988. Chapter Twenty of the book is titled “Race and Gender”. The chapter is seven pages of a 286-page book about [...]
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Crappy Birthday
Americans’ unhappy birthday: ‘Too much wrong right now’, by Pauline Arrillaga, AP via Yahoo! News. . . . talk turns to the state of the Union, and the [Gilbert, Ariz., chapter of the Optimist Club] become decidedly bleak. They use words such as “terrified,” “disgusted” and “scary” to describe what one calls “this mess” we [...]
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Oh, I’ve noticed.
America’s Shrinking Food Wraps, by Kate Pickert at Time.com, via Yahoo! News. I read this last week, but Frangela reminded me about this morning on the radio as they were filling in for Stephanie Miller. . . . is it possible that the amount of food Americans are buying is, in fact… shrinking? Well, yes. [...]
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Doing the analysis so I don’t have to
Pixar’s Gender Problem, by Caitlin GD Hopkins at Vast Public Indifference, via ill Doctrine. . . . Whenever a new Pixar movie comes out, I wrestle with the same frustration: Pixar’s gender problem. While Disney’s long history of antipathy toward mothers and the problematic popularity of the Disney Princess line are well-traveled territory for feminist [...]
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I’m not a coffee drinker
but I feel your pain: Starbucks to close 600 US stores, rein in growth, by Jessica Mintz, AP. I remember a day when Starbucks could do no wrong. When Lewis Black could rant about building a Starbucks across from another Starbucks. Then came the $1 coffee, and I knew there was trouble a-brewing. Ha! When [...]
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When I grow up
I want to be a gay icon. Not a lesbian icon like Jackie Warner. She scares me. A gay icon like Kathy Griffin. On last week’s episode of My Life on the D-List, Kathy traveled to Australia with Team Griffin; her mother Maggie stayed at home and cleaned up the condoms Kathy had tossed around [...]
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How about this? Don’t change your name.
I previously posted this last week on my blog and on BlogHer. I had initially intended it to be my first Feministe post, but I then I found the CNN.com article, and I had to express myself immediately. If you haven’t read it already, then it’s new to you. :) “Name change tricky for working [...]
...read moreHello, Feministe!
My name is Mahlena-Rae Johnson. I’ll be guest-blogging here for the next two weeks, and I’m very excited. Thank you, Jill! Some of you may be familiar with the site I run at SteveThePenguin.com, where I blog about pop culture and politics. This year I self-published my first novel, Steve the Penguin. It’s about a [...]
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