Debbie says: It’s “International Blog Against Racism Week” again. IBARW was founded by two people of color and four white allies four years ago, after one of the (many) big internet controversies about race and racism. Oyceter has been running it for the last three years. (Thanks!) I don’t write a lot on Body Impolitic [...]

Laurie says: Merce Cunningham one of the transformative choreographers of modern dance died this week at 90. The NY Times has a superb obituary that discusses his life and work. Over a career of nearly seven decades, Mr. Cunningham went on posing “But” and “What if?” questions, making people rethink the essence of dance and [...]

Laurie says: Unfortunately, I’m not going to Worldcon in August.  You’re probably already aware of this from the box to the left, but I thought that now that it’s getting close, I should post about it as well. The expenses and complications of bringing the jewelry into Canada turned out to be just too difficult.  [...]

Laurie and Debbie say: We have blogged about the Williams sisters before. But when we read this quote from Serena in an article by sports writer Bruce Jenkins (San Francisco Chronicle), it was time to write about her again. Usually “I’ve never been happier with myself” is a diet ad cliche.  Not this time. The most [...]

Debbie says: Call me naive, but to me “nude” means, among other things, showing skin that’s not usually shown. So when I saw a pointer to this article about an Air New Zealand inflight safety film featuring nude flight attendants, I had an image in my head: I bet you have the same one. But [...]

Laurie says: Not a topic I expected to be writing about.  I was reading a Time magazine at the doctors, and saw an article titled Afterbirth: It’s What’s For Dinner by Joel Stein. I found his  generally mocking and sexist attitude as distasteful as he clearly finds the placenta.  His profound distaste is clearly supposed [...]

Marlene says: Someone sent me the link to this video recently. To be clear, I live in Oakland. So does Debbie. One of the things I like about Oakland is that it isn’t (generally) populated by the kind of ignorant assholes that made this video. Lake Merritt doesn’t smell like anything but a lake, unless [...]

Lynne Murray, Laurie, and Debbie say: Kelly Bliss, famous for her size-positive exercise programs sent out an email with a link to Gil Hedley’s “Fuzz Speech” YouTube video. Bliss says: Gil Hedley, Ph.D., gives a lesson on the importance of movement and stretching to maintain the sliding properties of tissues in the body, as well [...]

Laurie says: I’ve had my attention drawn recently to two important and very different body issues that involve the power and influence of the FDA. Their malign influence can certainly be blamed in part on the Bush administration. Mostly it seems like business as usual – commerce over health, the devaluation of women’s bodies and [...]

Debbie says: I read it in Time Magazine, so it must be true. In the business pages, no less. Procter & Gamble, apparently desperate for a new way to market Tampax, has wandered off into fantasyland. They invented a 16-year-old boy named Zack Johnson. Fictional Zack has a blog and a Twitter account … and [...]