I love the Oscars. Sure, it’s retro, over-produced and self-reverential, but this year’s broadcast was, for me anyway, a lot of fun. And Billy Crystal always makes me laugh (“Harry Potter made $7.7 billion but paid only 14% in income tax.”), even if the humor is straight from the golden age of Vaudeville. And the commercials…
When it comes to contraception, ignorance is not bliss and magical thinking rarely leads to happily ever after. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, seven out of 10 pregnancies among single women in their 20s are unplanned. For women not planning to become a statistic, there is now, happily, BEDSIDER.ORG, a…
We are indebted to Kristen Dore of the New Organizing Institute for bringing this nifty tool to our attention. Like her, we love type (see previous adastra post, “The Lead in the Lede”) but don’t have the training to identify what we’re looking at. Now, we can–at least when it comes to websites. Apparently, Chrome and…
What makes a Super Bowl spot super? Is it production values? Story-telling? Relevance to the zeitgeist? Or simply the ineffable “I’ll know it when I see it.” Last night’s extravaganza had a little of everything, but mostly the spots were ordinary. Expensively ordinary and unimaginative. There was the cheerfully repellent (Go Daddy, please go away!),…
“Ain’t I A Woman” indeed. Alfre Woodard’s stirring read of Sojourner Truth’s famous speech is a timely reminder that the powerless will prevail when united in a just and passionate cause. Komen’s cynical attack on women launched thousands of signatures on countless petitions and raised over $3 million in support of Planned Parenthood, the Religious…