The princess trope represented passivity, entitlement, materialism, and submissiveness, and no daughter of mine would wear a onesie that celebrated such loathsome values. —Andy Hines, The Atlantic (2013) What’s Wrong with Princesses? In January of 2000, Disney executive Andy Mooney made a brilliant if obvious business decision.  He consolidated the most popular Disney princesses into a single franchise and from it spun out through licensees some 25,000 varieties of princess merchandise.  Princess lip balm, princess alarm clocks, princess bedspreads, princess nighties.  According to Mooney, Disney merely discovered (finally!) an already existing demand and licensed all
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Both the United States and Canada offer a lot of opportunities for off-the-grid living. There are vast rural areas in both countries, where families can easily homestead and hide from society. So which country is a better place to go off the grid? Well, Canada is colder, but it has far more empty wilderness to hide in. Some of these wilderness areas, such as Northern Ontario and much of Quebec, are fairly close to large urban areas such as Toronto in case you have to work. Even though Northern Ontario has some rough winters, it
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Have you ever wondered what you might do if your income suddenly disappeared? Maybe it’s happened to you. Our economy is volatile, folks, and hard times could very well be just around the corner. When it comes to making a living, hard times do present opportunities, and you don’t have to have a lot of money to start making money right now. After twenty-eight years in the newspaper business, my livelihood was taken away from me not long ago. Newspapers were dying everywhere, and the profession I gave my life to was no longer needed. Below
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The so-called fiscal crisis in Washington is nothing but politics. Even though Congress and President Obama claim that the country is out of money, politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to be able to come up with money for pet projects. An investigation by Senate Republicans found that the Labor Department had enough funds to spare to promote unions and collective bargaining overseas. Republicans learned that the Department had given $2.2 million to the Solidarity Center (an AFL-CIO organization set up during the Cold War to help workers in Communist countries) to promote
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There are a lot of buzzwords about rounds that get passed around. For a new or casual gun owner, these can cause some confusion. As I sat down to write this, I made a list of bullet terms, and the list just seemed to go on and on.  I will keep this list more basic and give descriptions of terms that most shooters are likely to see. FMJ FMJ is an acronym for “full metal jacket.” This term was popularized by the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name. It refers to the copper or
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I’d canned vegetables, fruits and jams for years, but I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about canning meat. How could that possibly be safe, I wondered, and what would the quality of the finished product be? Then, my friend Janice, a registered dietician and canning diva, came to my house and spent an afternoon teaching me how. I was surprised and pleased with the results. The meat was perfectly preserved, tender, and flavorful. Since it was already cooked, I could use it for spur of the moment, quick meals. Canning meat is
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind,” said famed champion of individualism Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unfortunately, even the last refuge of privacy, our thoughts, is under attack. From the Electronic Communications Act of 1986 to the Patriot Act of 2001 to the recent legislation allowing domestic drones, we’ve watched our privacy inexorably shrink to the size of our paycheck after taxes. The new threat to privacy is the ubiquitous ebook reader. Over 40 million have been sold in America, and many Americans have installed ebook reader apps on their tablets
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There’s a lot of talk in gardening circles these days about the value of using heirlooms and saving their seed. Hybrids have fallen out of favor with many gardeners who favor older, often tastier, varieties. But do hybrids belong in the same category as GMOs? Do hybrids pose a safety risk, and just what are the differences between the two? Read on for everything you need to know about hybrids and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). What Are Hybrids? The process of hybridization occurs continually in nature as open-pollinated plants pollinate each other. Over years and
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One basic economic survival skill that everybody needs to master in today’s world is the ability to function in today’s economy without a bank account. Everybody needs to do this because it is entirely possible that you will find yourself without a bank account in the near future. There are several reasons why you need to seriously consider the possibility of not having a bank account. Changes in the banking industry make it harder for working people to get or keep bank accounts. The growing number of fees attached to bank accounts often makes it
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A cooking staple, button mushrooms are actually a lot easier to grow than even the most seasoned of gardeners are aware. Some may feel hesitant about growing their own mushrooms, but the reality is that when you purchase spores from a reputable company, you won’t need to have any concerns about the mushrooms that you grow. There are numerous growing kits available from so-called mushroom boutique stores, and they can allow you the opportunity to grow portabella, oyster, shitake, and button mushrooms, along with several other kinds. This is a great way to experiment with
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