Friday, September 28, 2012

If you don't want to see ribs then don't hire a skinny model

Numéro photoshopped Karlie Kloss's ribs out of the photo after hearing critique about eating disorders. It's a sad twist to my usual question; "what's wrong with reality?".

Balpreet Kaur

I loved reading about Balpreet Kaur and her response to the people who made fun of her appearance. Her words makes her beauty shine through in ways that a photo can't.


A Sikh woman’s eloquent response to a tasteless Reddit post targeting her facial hair has sparked virtual applause online.
“Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair,” Kaur wrote. “Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body — it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being (which is genderless, actually) and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will.”
Kaur continued to school callous commenters on her religion, explaining that she wasn’t upset or offended — if anyone wanted a photo, “they could have just asked and I could have smiled.”
“To me, my face isn’t important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are,” she wrote. “So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello.”
Kaur explained that when she dies, “no one is going to remember what I looked like.”
“However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating chance and progress for this world in any way I can.”
(Source)

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Hen (Ze)

The debate about the word "hen" (ze) has gone on for quite some time here in Sweden. It's a gender neutral word  that can replace both "han" (he) and "hon" (she). The origin of the word could come from the Finnish where the word "hän" is gender neutral.
Finnish has only gender-neutral pronouns and completely lacks grammatical gender. The word hän is gender-neutral and means both "she" and "he". (Source)
The absurd part of the debate is when people want to call everybody "hen" (ze). Should all kids in kindergarten be called "hen" (ze) rather than "han" (he) and "hon" (she)? Should books, webpages and so on use gender neutral terms to describe all people?

In my eyes it's too extreme to force everybody to be gender neutral, and I think that those who are that extreme are few. Forcing people that have a gender identity to be neutral is just as wrong as forcing people that are gender neutral to "pick a side".

Gender neutral words are on the other hand welcome to me. There are cases where they will be useful, especially when the gender of a person is not known, needs to be secret and to describe gender queer people. It's a logical thing to do and it's strange that it hasn't been done earlier. When we encounter something that cannot be described with the words we have we invent a new word. Something that's a mix of red and blue is purple. If it's not his or hers it's zirs.

I don't see what's so upsetting about the word it self. It fills a function just as the word purple does. It's not strange in any form or way, it's a natural step to take and it's time to get words like this in our dictionary.

(The gender neutral words used in English are many and not organised and untied. I've chosen to use the word "ze" since it's the word I've seen the most often.)

Friday, September 14, 2012

GoPro Viral Marketing?

It all started with a seagull video that I could not see since my country was blocked at the site. It claimed that a seagull picked up a camera and flew around with it while it was on, then put it back on the ground. "Funny," I thought. "I want to see that." So, I googled it and found more than I had expected. A site called Life's Little Mysteries points out that the same company have had several videos of the same kind go viral. They deny being behind it all, of course. 
Multiple media outlets have reported the camera that caught the video is the property of a Nathalie Rollandin from France. Rollandin describes her experience with the seagull in the description of the video, uploaded to YouTube Sept. 2: "Funny video of how a seagull stole my GoPro, flew over the water in front of Golden Gate Bridge and how the camera incredibly managed to survive, recording everything!"
Either animals have a liking for GoPro cameras, or this is a hoax. Just over a year ago, another seagull in Cannes, France, supposedly filmed a different scenic and highly viral video, uploaded on June 23, 2011, with the exact same brand of camera before also depositing that camera in a retrievable location.
On May 23, 2011, one month before last summer's GoPro-carrying seagull video, another supposed GoPro owner posted a video in which a lioness picks up the camera with her mouth and carries it through the bush. That video now has over 400,000 views and includes information on where to buy GoPros in its description.
Another popular video, posted in August, shows what is purported by the uploader to be GoPro footage of a pod of actual, and not CGI, dolphins. (Source)
I decided to see for myself and I turned to Google again. This time I googled for "Animal picks up Canon camera," then I tried Nikon, Sony, Samsung and Olympus. No hits. However, when I tried GoPro several of them popped up. 

In this case I agree. It has to be viral marketing. This is planned and executed to deceive people into thinking that they are watching people's amazing videos when it's actually a commercial. 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Stress

I'm stressed out and the chaos have not begun yet. Next week I'll have men working on the kitchen and the garage at the same time. My husband is ill and I'm in so much pain I can't stand on my feet for more than 5-10 minutes at the time. This far, nothing is prepared for what will happen tomorrow. Not one thing have been moved.

Ain't life grand?

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Why happy *or* fat?

Last year I read that my home town had the happiest people in the nation. Great! It's an amazing town to live in and I've never regretted that I moved here.
A couple of months later they reported that my home town are at the top ten of the fattest town in the nation. The local newspaper made a whole reportage series  about ow fat and miserable the citizens are.

So... we're happy at the same time as we are fat and miserable?

Now there has been a study on the whole nation and ... "Swedes feels better but have become fatter."

Once again people are happy at the same time as they are fat. It's absolutely terrible the newspapers report. "In two years the number of obese Swedes increased by 2 percentage points to 36 percent."

Why can't people be happy and fat? What's so wrong with being happy even though you are fat too?

Friday, September 7, 2012

Nokia Cheats Viewers

Nokia's new PureView ad is amazing, too bad it's faked.
Nokia's PureView still photos also include fakes (update: Nokia confirms).


I'm not surprised that a company tries to sell something by making it look better than it really is. Companies do it all the time. To me it's only a symptom of what's wrong in the marketing business, and once again I find myself wondering what's wrong with reality. 

People say that they want honesty, yet we're basing our popular culture on fakes and lies.

Look at what we're really saying by allowing this. Think about what we are teaching our children.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Nervous

I'm going to the hospital today to remove a "lump". It hasn't bothered me at all to think of it, until now. Suddenly it worries me and I'm so nervous that I have butterflies in my tummy.

What if?

I can picture lots of things that can go wrong, and there is also that nagging thought of cancer. What if it is...

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

What if your national hero was portrayed by an actor from another race?

How would you react if your national hero was portrayed by an actor from another race?
What if George Washington or Winston Churchill was portrayed by a black actor? What if Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela was portrayed by a white actor? Would it matter to you? 

Gustaf Mannerheim is a national hero in Finland and he is now portrayed by Kenyan actor Telley Savalas Otieno in a new low budget movie shot in Kenya. The reactions to "The Marshal of Finland" have been strong and they have divided the nation into two camps. Some think that it's unacceptable that a black actor plays the role of a white person, others have taken the time to see the artistic sides of it all and thinks that it's OK.

The explanation is simple. The movie is about a man telling a group of Kenyan children about Mannerheim. What the viewer see is how those children picture the story, and in their minds the man is black since that's how they naturally picture people.

I like history and I dislike when people twist facts to make movies or books. I often find myself grumbling over things in movies that are not historically correct. I'm often fine with it when the movie is presented as fiction, such as "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter", it's clearly not a historically correct movie. "The Patriot", "Braveheart", "300" and "Pearl Harbour" are on the other hand movies that have made me shake my fist and roll my eyes. If you claim to portray history then the least you can do is to get it right.

In the case of the Mannerheim movie it doesn't matter how the actor looks, the maker clearly says that it's an outsiders perspective that's portrayed. What matters is if the teller of the story show the historical facts correctly. That, on the other hand is something I've not seen discussed.

The Marshal of Finland

Funded by the Finnish Broadcasting Company the movie brings you an outsider's perspective to the Marshal Mannerheims life. The film has been carried out mainly by
Kenyans. Directed by Gilbert Lukalian. Marshal Mannerheim acted by Telley
Savalas Otieno (Kenya). Movie producer Erkko Lyytinen says that for Finland it's nationally very important thing that this first Mannerheim film will be completed. Premiere will be in late September.

Poll made by finnish magazine (Iltalehti) tells that 90% of finnish people will not watch this movie. Director of the movie has also received lots of hatefull feedback.