TresSugar

The Last Decade in Less Than Seven Minutes

TresSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Believe it or not, we're about to start a new decade in less than two months. That means we can all get ready for the barrage of recaps about the last 10 years, which have truly seen a lot of strange and sad events. This has been a decade dominated by terrorism, wars, Terri Schiavo, Hurricane Katrina, and gay marriage bans. But we've also witnessed the rise of YouTube, the Rick Roll, the iPod, Michael Phelps, and Barack Obama. Gearing up for the end of the year, Newsweek put together a seven-minute roundup of this decade's most memorable moments. I'm sure VH1 is taking notes for the inevitable upcoming show called something like "I Love the 2000s." What will we call this decade, anyway?

Sponges, Chastity Belts and Douches, Oh My!

TresSugar — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:00:00 -0800

From the early-Egyptian contraceptive sponge to the horrifying Lysol douche of the Great Depression - man and womankind has been trying to find ways to keep from getting preggers for quite a while. Check out some of these devices below and go to Newsweek if you're interested in learning more about the history of birth control.

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Do You Find the Cougar Concept Offensive?

TresSugar — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:00:25 -0700

Unless you live under a rock, you know that "cougar" is a term for an older woman who likes to "prey" on younger men. While it can be used in a derogatory way, some older women are reclaiming the term as a way to express their virility.

On the show The Cougar, a seemingly empowered 40-year-old Stacy has her pick of the litter of men half her age, who are all competing for her attention. And on Newsweek's online magazine this week, one writer also embraces her cougar status when explaining why cougars love American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert. She writes:

I can't stop thinking about him. And neither can any of my cougar-aged friends. We love Adam, truly, madly, deeply, in a kind of weirdly Mrs. Robinson sexual way.

Since the article is about older women's lust for a younger man, I'm not that surprised the writer uses the term cougar. But I've definitely heard the word used to label older women expressing sexuality as aggressive, desperate, predators of men. And of course, I can't think of a term to describe older men who go after younger women - I believe we just call them. . . men.

Do you find the term cougar empowering, offensive, or just plain descriptive?

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Lighten Up! President Obama Stars in The District!

CitizenSugar — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Newsweek has outdone itself in the funny department by creating a faux-Obama reality show filled with voice-overs, stares, and close-ups - just like MTV's The City. The District will chronicle President Obama's first 100 days as reality TV.

Just like Whitney Port, President Obama has a new career to promote, but first he must learn the rules of his new hometown. Unlike The City, the drama in Washington, DC is a bit less manufactured. Enjoy!

Lincoln and Darwin: More Alike Than You'd Might Think

CitizenSugar — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:00:55 -0700

Newsweek's cover story pits two men against each other that I have to confess, I'd never really considered in the same breath: Lincoln and Darwin. As next year marks the 200th birthdays (both were born on February 12, 1809) of both men whose independent ideas have have formed our modern world, Newsweek asks the tricky question, who was more important: Lincoln or Darwin? Are we more influenced by the man who preserved the concept of republican democracy or the man who brought forth the idea of evolution? The ideas they pioneered were as disparate as the men are surprisingly similar.

Here's how: Both men lost their mothers in early childhood, both suffered depression and both struggled with religious questions. The two also had poor relations with their fathers and each lost a child in early childbirth. Lincoln and Darwin both share "late bloomers" disease: Neither found real success until their middle years - Darwin published The Origin of the Species at 50 and Lincoln was elected President one year later. To see the most surprising and possibly inspiring shared trait, read more.

Perhaps the most amazing of their shared commonalities is the fact that neither man showed any real promise early in their careers. Darwin began as an amateur naturalist who collected bugs and rocks and only flirted with the idea of biological science without any driving force or cogent overall theory. It wasn't until his trip on the Beagle a trip he took almost as a lark (or, finch? Heh.) It was on the trip, kind of a rich young man’s idea of seeing the world (would Darwin have been on The Hills?) that he began to formulate his concept of evolution and natural selection. The sneaky man kept his idea a secret for two decades without working in graduate school, government funding or even so much as asking other scientific minds their opinions.

Lincoln too worked slowly and steadily towards mastering anything he found interesting. Preferring to be self-taught, Lincoln rarely remained in school for more than three months at any given time. Despite his correspondence-course way of book learnin' he mastered Trigonometry by working as a surveyor and memorized Shakespeare and Blackstone. When Lincoln found himself in the beginning throes of the civil war, he quickly found himself in command of all Northern forces until he could rely on Grant years into the conflict.

The similarities don't end there. The Newsweek piece delves into how both men forged new worlds with their words - including the famed Gettysburg address - in the first 29 words of which, Lincoln defined the reason for the civil war; a stunning literary achievement by any rhetorical measure. After that he expresses, with incredible clarity and distinction the longing for all American’s to be free and to be united, in peace. The article is well worth a read, even if you've never found yourself musing about the beak size of Galapagos Finch or considered reuniting a country split by war. Eh, baby steps. The guys didn't get on the ball 'till they were 50 anyway.

Who do you think was more important?

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eHarmony Says Love Is Not For Liars or Gays?

CitizenSugar — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:00:31 -0700

The eHarmony dating site bills itself as the ultimate uniter, but a piece in Newsweek shows that the very practices that make it so successful - 236 eHarmony users marry every day - could get them sued.

The roots of the site have long been speculated about. It was founded by 72-year-old Christian self-help author Neil Clark Warren, who published several of his books under the imprint of Dobson's Focus on the Family, and then consummated that relationship when eHarmony started out by peddling eHarmony the service on Dobson's radio show.

Adding to the buzz, and a fact successfully exploited by competitor Chemistry.com, is that eHarmony rejects about 20 percent of its applicants and doesn't fully explain why. Their official statement says that the site rejects people who are underage, already married or dishonest-as well as those whose answers raise flags about their mental health. Some don't see it that way. To see who, read more.

In June, a California judge will hear a plaintiff's motion for class certification in a case that accuses eHarmony of discrimination against gays and lesbians. It's sneaky. eHarmony does not reject gays, it's just not an option. When creating a profile, the only choices on the site are "man seeking woman" or "woman seeking man." A ha! An eHarmony lawyer explains that since the matches are based on unique scientific research on heterosexual combos, the fact it hasn't done the same kind of work on gay unions makes them less worthy matchmakers.

Should a company be able to be sued for not being available to everyone? Is eHarmony hiding behind science to discriminate? Are you interested in the religious story behind eHarmony?

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Which Countries Are Greenest?

CitizenSugar — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:30:09 -0700

China is #1! They totally beat the USA! Though admittedly the honor is a tad dubious. A study out next month shows that China has usurped the US as the new "top carbon polluter." They knocked the US off that smoggy throne with unchecked growth that stunned even the team of researchers who admit that they probably have even underestimated the levels. The findings also suggest that unless China is reigned in, their wild emissions will wipe out all advances by countries participating in the Kyoto Protocol.

Our brand new Newsweek just arrived but as I was finishing up with last week's eco-issue at the gym last night, I found this hot at-a-glance way to see how the world stacks up, ecologically speaking. It's a map and a chart! Both! My favorites. According to their index of environmental performance for 2008, Sweden is the greenest of them all. (Maybe it's all those flat-packs from Ikea?) The Scandinavian country well bested the US who limped in in 66^th place.

To see how China's emissions have exploded beyond all expectations, read more.

Do these finding surprise you? Will the US ever catch up with eco-darlings like Costa Rica and its 9^th place finish? Are you mad that China is wrecking the air for everyone, or do you think unless you come from a green country it's best not to throw stones?
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Quiz Nation! Who's the "Decider" - Or Just Talks Like One?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:00:33 -0700

As a presidency evolves (or vice versa) sometimes language has to expand and make room for some novel terms that best explain the times. "Decider" is one such term (thank you George W. Bush) and don't forget Mr. "Lust in his Heart," Jimmy Carter.

William Safire has a whole list of favorite presidential word inventions in this week's Newsweek, some of them are out of this world. See if you can match the new term with the presidency!

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Are Teens Growing Up Too Fast or Too Slowly?

TresSugar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

When I first saw this headline on Newsweek, "Why Teenagers Are Growing Up So Slowly Today," I thought, whaaa? With all the sexting and drugs, aren't teens growing up too fast?

Just because teens are doing adult things doesn't mean they are acting like adults, argue Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen, authors of Escaping the Endless Adolescence. By sheltering adolescents from work and other grownup issues in cookie-cutter high schools, we may be preventing their brains from maturing. Says Allen: "We don’t give teens enough ways to take risks that are productive." That results in bad risky behavior for cheap thrills and a generation of 25 year olds who act like teenagers. Do you think there's any truth to the argument that not treating teens like adults actually stunts their adulthood?

Would a Female Politician Get Away With This?

TresSugar — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

On Saturday, Republican State Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the US Senate, desiring to fill in the spot left open by Senator Edward Kennedy's passing. He is branding himself as a fiscal conservative and Washington outsider.

But as political blog Wonkette uncovered in 2007, Senator Brown had a nude centerfold spread in a 1982 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine when he was 22. In law school at Boston College when he bared all, Brown said he'd take his "America's Sexiest Man" prize money - a whopping $1,000 - and put it toward tuition.

Not many people are in an uproar around this, but I doubt if a female politician had posed nude when she was in her early twenties that she'd make it past the day she announced her candidacy. A Newsweek blogger thinks no one cares about Brown's past "because he's a dude." I guess the anti-gay marriage candidate should feel lucky these pics weren't in Playgirl!

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