Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a little bit dreamy. I’d let him address my cabinet any day.

3. Ireland

Fig rolls: They’re just lovely.

4. Sweden

Hot swedish blondes make everyone smile.  As does this photo.

 5. Netherlands

The 1958 Delta project. Completed in 2002, goal of the project was to reduce the risk of flooding in the Zeeland to once per 10,000 years. Delighted with themselves, they are.

Unhappiness TOP FIVE

1. Italy

Ah, now, it’s just far too beautiful. No one likes to feel that all they have to offer is unparalelled Roman architecture and breathtaking Tuscan landscape

2. Portugal

For being ever so slightly not as good as she used to be, and for using brackets in her song titles (see image), she has brought shame on the good people of portugal. The bad people of portugal are suprisingly happy.

3. Greece

The Persian wars. Always people to hold a grudge, the Greeks.

4. Germany

The Black Forest gateau or  Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte scandal.  A misprint in a 2004 cookbook written by Germany’s most popular celebrity chef Harald Wohlfahrt had half the german housewife population accidently substitute mood suppressants for maraschino cherries. Would have never happened with a warm dessert.

5. France

The male French population is mostly at fault here. The Eiffel Tower is too large and throbbing a reminder of the men they’ll never be.

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“Many women’s first experiences with fashion and beauty were playing with Barbie. Today this fantasy continues with Barbie Loves MAC, a color collection that allows women to rediscover their inner girl,”-Richard Dickson, senior vice president of Marketing, Media and Entertainment, Worldwide, Mattel.

I would like to hereby and for the first time use my position as a blogger to defend this collection against criticism like this;

…MAC has turned to Barbie as the new face of beauty. …Barbie is a plastic mock-up of an unattainable female form. The models in the new Barbie Loves MAC ad campaign are styled to look like dolls; their facial expressions are vacant and frankly, a little frightening… Barbie Loves MAC rests on a more retro notion of women as empty silicone shells. I want to think that this line will fail because young women will be smarter than that, because we will resist the urge to be a plastic head, because we have lost the desire to idealize impossible breasts and feet that only fit in stiletto heels, but I don’t think that’s true. Instead, I think the people at MAC are on to something. I’m just disappointed that this is what’s being pitched to young women right now, particularly since I know that MAC…can do better.

 -Susan Wagner, a blogger at BlogHER.org: http://blogher.org/node/16124

First, I must defend the woman herself.

Barbie as an icon has become synonymous with the mental image of a pony-tailed valley girl carrying her intestines around in her blood-stained Louis Vuitton (although this image has been altered further of late, with the realisation that impossibly small feet would also have real-life Barbie crawling around on all fours). While I fully understand the reservations people may have about fostering such an unrealistic view of the female form from a young age, I maintain that toys are the one place where unachievable chest measurements should be condoned.  

Children are not idiots. They know that a doll is a doll just like a toy airplane is a toy airplane. And when a little boy finds himself to be an adult with neither the aptitude nor the desire to be a professional pilot, it hardly comes as a shock. Women aren’t expected to be dolls. Whether or not we can connect the OC to bulimia nervosa, a Barbie with a day wardrobe consisting of six ball gowns and scuba suit isn’t a role model for the modern girl.

If scaled into real life proportions, Barbie would be 5 feet, 9 inches,  measuring 36-18-33. According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the requisite 17 to 22 percent of body fat required to menstruate. So what? A Cabbage patch doll would weigh 960lbs and have a head 54 inches in circumference.

I resent the idea that people like myself who grew up playing with Barbies become shallow or image-obsessed women with heads as hollow as the ones we prised curiously off the doll’s body so many times in the course of play…

And now, without further ado;

Five reasons why Barbie is fabulous:

1-She’s been dressed by the likes of Zac Posen, Versace, Byron Lars, Bob Mackie, Diane von Furstenberg, Badgley Mischka, Carolina Herrera and Armani.

2-She was inspired by/developed as a blatant rip off of (depending on where you‘re getting your information from… ) a saucy 1950s German cartoon character called Bild Lilli, who was, by all accounts, even more fabulous than Babs herself. Lilli was post-war, sassy and ambitious. Cartoons showed Lilli clubbing ’til dawn, obsessing over fashion and using men for money (“I could do without balding old men but my budget couldn’t!”).

The sultry European bombshell was later developed into a suspiciously Barbie-esque doll marketed mostly to men in bars and tobacco shops.

3-She’s been living in sin-Barbie and Ken never actually made it to the alter. Granted, they’d already been going out for 4 years before Ken finally got bendable legs, but a 43 year-old relationship with an incredibly hot blonde ex-gymnast has to have called for sexual corruption of some sort.

4-She’s done it all; she was a presidential candidate in the 1991 elections and she’s been an astronaut three separate times

5-She threw Ken out on his ear.

Can’t say I was surprised when Barbie announced the break-up of this iconic relationship in 2004. Although, I don’t believe the gay rumours for a minute. Apparently caused by the “toll of the fourth movie” they starred in together, the split, coupled with Ken’s obsession with facial hair and penchant for a good highlight job caused many an eyebrow to be raised (along with the hopes of many a Max Steel action figure).

I’m just gonna up and say it; Ken was never good enough for her, he couldn’t give her what she needed (like hundreds of “Blushing Bride” models weren‘t hinting at something ) and he’s well, kind of, her brother. (Barbie and Ken are named after Barbara and Keneth Handler, daughter and son of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot. )

More on the speculated terms of the break-up can be found here; Ken’s statement suggests he wanted to “stay friends”.

and…

Metro or just plain Hetro; this CNN television report sparks rumour of Ken’s fashionable attempt to win Barbie back;

And now to defend the Barbie Loves MAC collection; it’s brash and vibrant,  inspiring and most importantly, extreme. The collection as the artists apply it will never transfer in its current state to the street. And young impressionable girls usually don’t like to spend €20 on lipstick, especially one that will poison their minds and rape them of their soul.

One website describes the Father Daughter Purity Ball as “a memorable ceremony for fathers to sign commitments to be responsible men of integrity in all areas of purity.

Pastor Randy Wilson, host of the event and cofounder of the ball, strides to the front of the room, takes the microphone and asks the men, “Are you ready to war for your daughters’ purity?”

(source: Would you pledge your virginity to your father? Glamour May 2007, US edition)

This is not an entirely new custom. Dozens of these lavish events are held every year, mainly in the South and Midwest, sponsored by churches, nonprofit groups and crisis pregnancy centers. Thousands of girls, ranging from ages 4 to 25, have already taken purity vows at these events over the past nine years.

The first purity ball was thrown in 1998 by Wilson, now 48, and his wife, Lisa, 47. Lisa’s own father left her family when she was two, and despite a kind stepfather, she says, she grew up not feeling valued or understood. “Looking back, it’s a miracle I remained pure,” she says. “I believe if girls feel beautiful and cherished by their fathers, they don’t go looking for love from random guys.”

Today, South Dakota’s Abstinence Clearinghouse, a major association of the purity movement, sends out about 700 “Purity Ball Planner” booklets a year.

The movement’s latest mission is to make abstinence cool (it’s been called “chastity chic”). Attendees at Christian rock concerts sign pledges, and websites like geocities.com/thevirginclub, and even chastity support blogs (abstinence.net) are being used to further the concept. Roam the Internet further and you’ll find dozens of websites specialising in purity rings and accessories. This 14k “Unblossomed Rose” Purity Ring comes with a chastity pledge card and retails for $179.

The Purity Promise – This ring’s a special symbol of the promise that I’ve made, With your help, O Lord, I know, its glow will never fade. With your help, Lord, I’ll stand firm, though some may criticize. For whose opinion matters, if I look good in Your eyes? Who can give me anything to take the place of You? Who on earth can justify a love that isn’t true? So, I make my statement with this chastity ring, on my hand and in my heart. I know, one day, I’ll hear You say I chose the better part. The world calls this old fashioned; still, I’ll wait it’s just a while. For Honor, Truth, and Faithfulness are never out of style.

Waitt.org (wanting an individual to trust) also sells a special “Miss Grace” ring, for people who have already been sexually active but want to return to chastity, fitted with 5 stones to symbolise “grace and forgiveness.”

Randy Wilson’s 19-year-old, Khrystian, is typical: She works at her church, spends most weekends at home with her family and has never danced with a male other than her father or brother.

Emily Smith, an 18-year-old I meet, says that even kissing is out for her. “I made a promise to myself when I was younger,” she says, “to save my first kiss for my wedding day.”

Christy doesn’t want to date. She associates sex outside of marriage as a girl “getting used, betrayed, having guys deceive you, all that kind of thing.”

“This evening is more about spending time with her than her purity at this point,” says one seven-year-old’s dad, a trifle sheepishly. The event is seemingly innocent—not once do I hear “sex” or “virgin” cross anyone’s lips. Still, every one of the girls here, even the four-year-old, will sign that purity covenant.

(source: Glamour)

I can’t condone girls signing contracts whose terms they don’t fully understand. A four-year-old does not know what chastity is. Nor does she know what her nose is for.

My sympathy and concern on this issue lies with the many girls that have failed in their pledge and have to face the guilt of letting their family and community down and, worst of all, the feeling that they have done something very wrong.

These ceremonial balls forge a strong connection between the pledge and the parent-child relationship. The pledge becomes now a personal promise to the father, making it even more hurtful to both parties if and when the promise is broken. According to findings of the American National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, more than half of teens who take virginity pledges go on to have sex within three years. And 88 percent of the pledgers surveyed end up having sex before marriage

Disturbingly, the study also found that STD rates were significantly higher in communities with a high proportion of pledgers. “Pledgers are less likely than nonpledgers to use condoms, so if they do have sex it is less safe,” says Peter Bearman, Ph.D., a Columbia University sociologist who helped design the study. For these teens, he believes, it’s a mind game: If you have condoms, you were planning to have sex. If you don’t, sex wasn’t premeditated, which makes it more OK.”

The study also found that even pledgers who remained virgins were highly likely to have oral and anal sex. This factor, along with the probability that condoms again weren’t used, seems to be neglected within the chastity movement.

Encouraging girls to think carefully about their virginity is, in my opinion, a great thing. As is father-daughter bonding. Telling them it’s wrong to have sex until a given time is an entirely different matter. Putting girls’ virginity on a pedestal seems just plain wrong.

It worries me both that these fathers’ feel the need to control their daughter’s sexuality and that their daughter will never have control over it themselves. The role is clear: Dad is the only man in a girl’s life until her husband arrives.

Girls should be allowed and encouraged to feel responsible for their own bodies and what to do with them. Nobody should be punished for having sex with someone they want to have sex with (emotional connection optional) provided they do it safely. A woman’s humanity should not be equated with her sexuality.

Of course, I can still see the positives of the chastity doctrine. I’ve had American drama groups promote chastity at my secondary school and youth club when I was growing up. But passionate and enthusiastic as they were, even at 14 years old I came away feeling like they’d been trying to manipulate the truth. And they had. One exercise had them bring 7 students on stage and perform a pass-the-parcel type game to illustrate their possibility of getting pregnant. Each participant came away with between 3 and 6 children.

They presented sex in a different way, for sure, and made some thought-provoking points about relationships and fidelity that probably wouldn’t have otherwise crossed my mind. They did make it seem that saving yourself for one person was an amazing thing and I still believe it can be. But sometimes for one relationship to work you need the experience of another. And a relationship of sexual restraint and frustration cannot prepare you for a life-long marriage.

The theory can also be belittling of the emotional element of relationships. I personally would rather my husband to have slept with 50 women than to have been in love with someone else.

Even then, I maintain that everyone has history. And it’s just that…History.