My Little Pony Makeover Gives Moms Another Headache

woensdag 24 juli 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Have you seen the My Little Pony makeover yet? Technically it's not really a makeover so much as a total reboot. Bye bye colorful horses with unique looks and personalities. Hello Equestria Girls, human teenagers who all look exactly the same.

And when I say the same, I don't just mean Hasbro's new pony/girl mash-ups look like one another. I mean these stick-thin waifs resemble every other darn doll on the market.

Sigh.

Not surprisingly, Hasbro is already getting a lot of flack from moms for the reboot. Surprisingly -- at least to me -- the main complaint is that the company is "sexualizing" My Little Pony.

As Patricia-Anne Tom over at Pop Sugar said this week, the "toys look less like ponies and more like sexified teenage goth girls."

I agree that there is very little "pony" to these new My Little ponies, but I don't see the Equestria Girls as sexy per se.

I do see them as another assault on our young girls' already perilous relationship with their bodies.

The Equestria Girls all have longer than long legs paired with teeny weeny waists. They're not far off the Monster High Dolls or Barbie or any of the teeming pile of dolls on the market with bodies that won't be found in nature.

Now, I should digress and point out that dolls do not in and of themselves cause body image problems. A social experiment with my daughter and a load of Barbie dolls a few months back proved that kids see things very differently than we adults do.

That said, it's important for us to talk to our daughters about body image, and for us to talk about the problems with the bodies of their dolls, lets the toys do the talking for us.

This is why I've always liked My Little Pony. My daughter can play with them for hours, and I don't have to worry about sitting down afterward for a refresher course on how every body is different, on being healthy.

There is no body baggage with a horse.

If it's money Hasbro is after (and hey, they are a company in a capitalist society), they will get it ... we mothers who have been sucked into the girl power themes of the TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are more than happy to buy DVDs and toys galore.

Just leave us one safe harbor, would you? One part of the toy store that doesn't keep us up late at night worrying about bulimia and diets.

What do you think of the new My Little Pony?

Image via Hasbro

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Woman’s Headache Turns Out to Be Flesh-Eating Maggots in Horror Story of the Summer (VIDEO)

woensdag 17 juli 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Kiri Blakeley 11 hours ago

It's these kinds of stories that make me want to plan my next vacation ... at home. A 27-year-old woman from the U.K. went on the trip of a lifetime with her boyfriend to Peru, but on the plane trip home, she began experiencing headaches. Soon, she had shooting pains in her face and was hearing a "scratching" sound inside of her head. At first, doctors thought she had an ear infection. However, she was referred to a specialist to make certain. That's when they discovered the stuff that nightmares are made of. The woman, Rochelle Harris, didn't have just any old ear problem. She had ... maggots in her ear! And they'd set up shop deep within her ear canal. Shudder shudder shuuuuudder.

Rochelle had remembered walking through a swarm of flies while in Peru, but when one landed on her ear, she simply waved it off and thought no more about it.

Until the headaches. And the shooting pains.

And the scratching noises. Yiiiiiiikes.

Luckily, the specialist was able to locate the maggots and eventually determine that the eight of them, big old suckers, had hatched inside of her ear drum, and drilled a hole into her ear canal.

If the critters reached her brain, they could cause meningitis, or internal bleeding, or even facial paralysis. Oh my god, my head is a little scratchy right now. Dandruff? MAGGOTS?!

Docs tried flushing the creatures out with olive oil and then left Rochelle with her new pals for the evening. She said:

It was longest few hours of my life. I just wanted them out of me and now I knew what was causing the sensations and sounds, it made it all the worse.

The next day, Rochelle was sedated and the maggots removed. It was also determined that, thankfully, they had not yet reached her brain. WHEW.

This isn't the first time I've heard about this type of thing. One woman I read about had worms that had burrowed into her brain -- but doctors kept thinking her complaints of feeling itching inside her skull was a psychological problem. Finally, one doc believed her yammering that something was in her brain and discovered the worms just under her skull.

Just goes to show, if there is something off with your brain, don't let so-called experts tell you there's nothing wrong. Keep going until you find a doctor who will examine you thoroughly.

This is so skeevy I don't know if I'm ever leaving the house again.

Have you ever had anything burrow under your skin?

Image via Discovery Channel

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