Stephen King's It— a 1000 page epic of a shape-shifting evil from beyond time— features a clown named Pennywise. The clown doesn't This dancing clown grins through all the horror and gore in It and exudes malevolent wit. While King’s villains are often frightening, Pennywise's wit approaches camp without really being funny.Zach Handlen describes It as "set largely in a single small town in Maine. [W] hile it spans decades, the main action takes place in two distinct time periods.—1958, which … [Read more...]
Twitter on wrong side of cyberbullying issue?
A hot tech company, Salesforce,* just decided not to bid for Twitter. . . perhaps because of cyberbullying. According to yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Twitter Inc. was left at the altar on Friday after Salesforce.com Inc. walked away from pursuing a marriage. This all but extinguishes hopes for a near-term sale of Twitter as it struggles to accelerate revenue growth.A reversal by Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff, who previously had signaled interest in a merger, calling Twitter an … [Read more...]
Facial symmetry is sexy, but why?
Facial symmetry has been felt to be attractive, even sexy, because our DNA correlates symmetry with good health. But Stephanie Pappas reports on a recent study that calls all this into question:Despite the widespread assumption that symmetry might be a sign of good health, studies have turned up little evidence of a link between the two. A few small studies have linked facial asymmetry with some short-term health woes, like scratchy throats, but many others have found no links at all.However, … [Read more...]
Which of Kate Middleton’s features most requested by plastic surgery patients?
What can I say? An article on plastic surgery that mentioned Kate Middleton, Scarlett Johansson, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, and other paragons of female beauty caught my eye. Maybe it did because the political news about Donald Trump this week has focused on his fat-shaming and battles concerning a former beauty queen. Celebrating the female face and body seems downright wholesome by comparison, even if cosmetic surgery feeds into the lookism of western societies.Plastic surgery and Kate … [Read more...]
Measuring facial symmetry in cleft lip kids and everyday people.
How the heck did Dr. Coe manage to visualize the tangle of my oral tissue and muscle when he sewed me—Humpty Dumpty— back together? As I wrote in my memoir, "With final form and functionality in mind, Dr. Coe set about joining the two sides of my face. The union had to be exactly right so that when the scars contracted, they would not notch the red vermillion of my lip or distort the area between my lip and nose. ...All this had to be figured out fast, as tissues begin to swell … [Read more...]
Lookism: fat & body shaming (even by a Playmate).
Lookism surfaced once again with a vengeance earlier this month. During Labor Day weekend, a Playboy playmate body-shamed a woman working out at her gym. Lookism: body shaming.One of the original stories about this appeared at TheWrap: "The woman who Playboy Playmate Dani Mathers secretly photographed and body-shamed in a gym locker room is in her 70s, and she wants Mathers prosecuted to the fullest extent possible, TMZ reports.The site said the woman — whom police were unable to identify or … [Read more...]
Friends, ex boy/girl-friends resort to cyberbullying.
Study: Friends, exes turn to cyberbullying According to the recent following article by Ben Schmitt, friends and exes turn to cyberbullying more often that strangers:'Teen cyberbullying usually involves friends and dating partners rather than strangers, according to a new study co-authored by a Penn State professor.Girls were twice as likely as boys to fall victim to online bullying, the study stated.“A common concern regarding cyberbullying is that strangers can attack someone, but here we see … [Read more...]