Ms., 40 Years On

With Ms. magazine about to celebrate its 40th anniversary in December (its first issue was a supplement to New York magazine), this seems a good time to tip Lingua Franca’s collective hat to the magazine’s and its allies’ remarkable success in deliberately insinuating a new word—Ms.—into the language. To appreciate the difficulty of that, consider the hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to come up with a gender-neutral third-person pronoun that Dennis Baron has tracked at his invaluable Web site.

One of the few other successes I can think of along this line is homophobic, which the OED reports as first being used in a general context in 1975. The word deftly psychologizes hostility toward homosexuals as springing from fear of them. Well played. However, Ms. is a bit more impressive in that, unlike homophobic, it was offered as a substitute for two already well-established words, Miss and Mrs.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2011/10/20/ms-40-years-on/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en 

A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute

LOS ALTOS, Calif. — The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. 

But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.

Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don’t mix.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?_r=1 

Some Supermarkets Shunning Ben & Jerry's 'Schweddy Balls'

“No one can resist my Schweddy Balls!”  Sorry, Ben & Jerry's, but apparently some people can.

A rather suggestive Saturday Night Live sketch from 1998 features baker Pete Schweddy, played by Alec Baldwin, proclaiming the undeniable appeal of his Schweddy Balls creation on NPR.

Ben & Jerry's has come out with their own limited-edition ice cream flavor, calling it an “ode” to the classic sketch that “you won't be able to resist.”  The flavor is described as Fair Trade vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum, “loaded with fudge covered rum and milk chocolate malt balls.”

That sounds pretty delicious, right?  However, the ice cream's name is a little too provocative for certain grocery store chains and the American Family Association affiliate group One Million Moms.  The Mississippi group has been vocal about their disdain for the flavor, calling for a boycott  because of its “vulgar” title.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/10/23/some-supermarkets-shunning-ben-jerrys-schweddy-balls/#ixzz1bgK5mgAk

Watch Your Mouth: The Protest Food of Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is entering its fourth week of protesting corporate greed from New York City’s Zuccotti Park. Last week, the movement’s ranks swelled above 10,000. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. From the start, Occupy Wall Street’s Food Committee has taken on the logistical challenge of feeding its ever-growing participants by calling for donations, encouraging newcomers to bring food to share, and extolling the virtues of the quick and portable peanut butter sandwich. But the movement has yet to find its signature dish.
The history of countercultural movements can be told through their stomachs.

http://www.good.is/post/watch-your-mouth-the-protest-food-of-occupy-wall-street/ 

Will Walmart Shoppers Buy Ethically-Branded Products?

When Project 7 started up in 2008, it launched an ethical branding strategy familiar to Whole Foods shoppers everywhere: Simply chewing a piece of Project 7 gum, popping a Project 7 breath mint, or downing a bottle of Project 7 water would help fund nonprofits that "Feed the Hungry," "Save the Earth," and "Heal the Sick." Soon after it released its charity-minded line, Project 7 landed in that king of crunchy retail outlets. This fall, Project 7 made its way to more unexpected shelves: Walmart's.

http://www.good.is/post/will-walmart-shoppers-buy-ethically-branded-products/

Jay-Z and Warren Buffett Team Up to Teach Kids Financial Literacy

One is worth $39 billion, while the other has a comparatively meager $450 million but significantly more street cred with young people. So Warren Buffett and Jay-Z are teaming up to teach kids about financial literacy. Buffett's animated series Secret Millionaires Club is set to move from the web to television this month, and an animated Jay-Z is the guest star for the first episode on October 23.

http://www.good.is/post/jay-z-and-warren-buffet-team-up-to-teach-kids-financial-literacy/ 

Americans Don't Care About Climate Change—And That's OK

“Whatever happened to global warming?” wonders Elisabeth Rosenthal in this week’s New York Times Sunday Review. Apparently Americans don't regard climate change as a pressing issue anymore. In 2006, 79 percent of us believed that the planet is warming. Today it’s just 59 percent. Meanwhile, An Inconvenient Truth has been largely forgotten, and Rick Perry insists the science "is still not settled."

 http://www.good.is/post/americans-don-t-care-about-global-warming-and-that-s-ok/?utm_content=headline&utm_medium=hp_carousel&utm_source=slide_1