Princesses?

Penn rants about how America's obsession with princesses is so un-American... in front of his daughter Moxie.

I wonder how Moxie's going to process that rant. She probably won't be very popular at the preschool if she goes around telling all the other little girls that her dad says princesses are stupid.

But it does creep me out a little. When I was growing up, all the girl-toy commercials were related to either babies, Barbies, or some saccharine ponies-and-rainbows mythos. And I figured that babies fueled their nurturing skills, Barbies helped them figure out the dizzying array of clothing women have to deal with, and the ponies-and-rainbows stuff was kind of like the girls' version of He-Man, a socially acceptable wallet-draining fantasy toy that, if not outgrown, leads to fandom. Princesses were around, but they weren't center-stage. But these days, even though I'm not a parent and don't watch much children's TV, I do see enough commercials, and sit in enough waiting rooms with TV's, and I'm seeing the trend.

I don't hear much about the ponies-and-rainbows mythos anymore. I wonder if Pokemon has taken its place.

(no subject)

According to my Wii's "Everybody Votes" channel, Utah is the only state where there are more people who can do cartwheels than who cannot.

Colorado has an equal number of people who can and cannot.

The rest have more people who can't do a cartwheel, but the margin is much thinner in Idaho, and one other state I don't know the name of.