TresSugar

WTF?!

GiggleSugar — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:44:33 -0800

Is nature trying to tell us something?

The Beard (the Other Kind) in Pop Culture

TresSugar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:28:02 -0800

It's National Beard Month and that doesn't just mean facial hair. Not to us anyway! A whole other beard genre's been growing since the middle of the 20th century - the gay cover-up beard, which is slang for a person of the opposite sex used as a cover for a gay partner. At its best, the beard is mutually beneficial to both partners. At its worst? A life of lies. For a long time the term was as secretive as its roots, but I've been hearing it more and more to describe not only real-life marriages, but also TV and movie couplings.

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The Worst Case of Beer Goggles in the History of Drinking

GiggleSugar — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:00:00 -0700

This genius commercial for IBC root beer exploits the alcohol shame fears of anyone who's had one too many the night before. Watch as this guy wakes up to discover who he had a wild night with. It's enough to make us all switch to root beer!

US Lifts HIV/AIDS Travel Ban

TresSugar — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:00:00 -0700

For the last 22 years, foreign citizens living with HIV or AIDS have been forbidden to legally enter the US. As of Monday, that ban will be a thing of the past. On Friday, President Obama announced the decision to overturn the policy he called "rooted in fear rather than fact." He said:

"We talk about reducing the stigma of this disease - yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat. We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."

Before this decision, the US joined a less-than-impressive list of countries that banned HIV-positive outsiders. The list still includes: Armenia, Colombia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sudan, and Yemen. Considering there are already Americans living with HIV/AIDS, it served little purpose to "quarantine" the country. I'm happy to see that our HIV/AIDS prevention strategies will no longer include an ineffective and discriminatory ban.

New York Times Traces First Lady's Slave Roots

TresSugar — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0700

The New York Times ran a captivating historical piece today about a six-year-old slave named Melvinia. The paper traces her family's five-generation journey from slavery to modern success.

It's a fascinating American story that just so happens to be part of first lady Michelle Obama's story, too. Using old public records, fading photos, and recollections of older family members, the New York Times, along with genealogist Megan Smolenyak, have uncovered Melvinia's story, which fully connects the first lady to the history of slavery for the first time.

To see an excerpt from the piece, read more.

In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475. In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of nearly two centuries.

In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, marked the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.

Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.

To many, Michelle's family story powerfully represents African-American advancement. But her mixed background is also representative of Americans in general, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explored in his definitive documentary on genealogy called African American Lives. A historian who discovered that he had black relatives when he researched his memoir tells the New York Times: "We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations."

Tea Parties Prove Conservatives Are Growing (Grass) Roots?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:00:38 -0700

A revolution might be coming this Wednesday, April 15. Antitax protests, known as tea parties, have been brewing around the country, and they could boil over on tax day. T.E.A. stands for "taxed enough already."

On Wednesday, conservatives around the country will evoke the spirit of the American Revolution. Some of the transgressions of congress and the president to be protested include: voting for a $500 billion tax bill without even reading it; spending trillions of borrowed dollars; wanting government-controlled health care; trying to take wealth and redistribute it to others; and appointing a defender of child pornography to the number-two position in the Justice Department.

Basically there's a lot going on. Some sample slogans offered by TeaPartyDay.com? Party Like it's 1773. Obamanomics: Chains You Can Believe In. Commander and Thief. Your Mortgage Is Not My Problem. Liberty Is All the Stimulus We Need.

Economist Paul Krugman thinks the Tea Parties, which he calls AstroTurf - aka fake grass(roots) - should be mocked. To see why, read more.

He writes that the movement, organized by the usual suspects, makes inaccurate accusations:

President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

What do you make of the tea parties?

Clinton Advisor Wanted to Hit Obama For Un-American Roots

LibertySugar — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:00:41 -0700

A clash of personalities unraveled Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House, according to The Atlantic, which published internal Clinton camp emails and memos last night.

One of the most astonishing communications came in March 2007, when Hillary Clinton's then-chief strategist Mark Penn authored an email that resembled a smear chain email, more than a strategy recommendation against a friendly primary opponent. Penn wrote:

All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared toward showing his background is diverse, multicultural, and putting that in a new light. Save it for 2050. . . . It also exposes a very strong weakness for him - his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.

Penn goes on to say that Hillary should own "American." To find out what he suggested, read more.

Penn thought Clinton could show Obama's weakness by mentioning that she was born in middle American in every speech, handing out American flags with her logo, and attaching "American" to the title of every proposed policy program.

Thanks to internal fighting among Clinton staffers, The Atlantic got its hands on these inside communications, spanning from the October 2006, before Hillary was publicly running to her final pitch to superdelegates on June 3, 2008.

Perhaps this revelation that a top adviser wanted to target Obama's "lack" of American roots will help the two camps reconcile because Hillary did not pursue the attack line, but then again it could resurrect tense feelings between the two groups of the Democratic party.

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Which Celebrity Couple Did You Root For in 2008?

DearSugar — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:00:00 -0800

Celebrities are intriguing on their own, but celebrity couples are double the fun! And even though their relationships are historically volatile, it's not uncommon to have a favorite. So ladies, tell me, which couple did you root for most in 2008?

Dear Poll: Who Do You Root for?

DearSugar — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:00:00 -0800

For some reason, I like winners to win. I like to see the jock dating the head of the cheerleading squad, but I have a lot of friends who are always rooting for the underdog - they want the self-proclaimed nerd to take the most popular girl in school to the prom. I'm not sure what it says about me that I want the champs to keep winning, but what I want to know is, who do you root for? The underdog or the champion?

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Root For Your Guy's Sport Team - If They Win, So Do You (in the Bedroom)!

DearSugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:00:00 -0700

If you're in love with a sports fan, it's time to put on your baseball hat, football helmet, or basketball jersey. Do whatever it takes to root for your man's favorite team, because a recent poll discovered that 30 percent of US men think sex is better after their team wins. The same poll also found that 10 percent said they had bad sex after their team suffered a loss, and some guys don't even want to have sex at all because they're too stressed out and wired to be in the mood. One in four male sports fans said that they'd even voluntarily give up sex for a month if it guaranteed a major win at the end of the season, and 11 percent would give up sex "for however long it takes."

The point here is that women underestimate just how important sports are to a guy. The bond he has to a team probably started when he was a little, watching sports with his dad, so it's something he's been tied to for most of his life. His favorite team was his first love before he found you, so you can understand why his emotions are so closely connected to it. I know it's frustrating to see your guy spend hours upon hours each week staring at the TV, but it may help to show him a little sympathy when his team loses - he might find it very sexy when you yell at the TV too!

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