American Apparel: Fashionably Wrong? Written By: Nina Smith 2007-09-11 18:50:12 “On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson
Kristina Dell at Time noted the Real-World Problems of Second Life when shoppers at American Apparel were gunned down by a group called the Second Life Liberation Army last year. The act, albeit it virtual, probably had something to do with dissatisfaction about the site’s increasing commercialization, but Meghan Daum might beg to differ.
Meghan Daum writes a fantastic column at the Los Angeles Times and recently opined on the ick factor of American Apparel. She writes:
I’ve been looking at American Apparel’s advertisements for years now, and I’m still not sure what I think about them. My feelings are another story. I loathe them -- and not just because the super-hip, low-fi, can’t-be-bothered-to-look-professional-because-that’s-so-uncool aesthetic is emblematic of everything that’s irritating about a certain segment of contemporary urban youth culture. I loathe them because I believe they’re meant to evoke pornography, sometimes even child pornography. The fact that a) this cannot be proved, and b) you can’t say it without sounding like a prudish old biddy, drives me crazy.
Countrywide: Married vs. Partnered Written By: Nina Smith 2007-09-06 06:52:23 “The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable.” – Confucius
Much has been written about Countrywide (CFC) over the last couple of weeks, including the comprehensive coverage provided by Gretchen Morgenson at The New York Times in Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree.
She writes, “Few companies benefited more from the mortgage mania than Countrywide, among the most aggressive home lenders in the nation. As such, the company is Exhibit A for the lax and, until recently, highly lucrative lending that has turned a once-hot business ice cold and has touched off a housing crisis of historic proportions.”
But this post isn’t about shoddy lending practices and the subprime mortgage debacle. There's no use flogging a dead horse. Rather, this is a story about a lesbian couple just trying to keep their home. It has nothing to do with adjustable-rates or using equity like cash from the ATM machine.
Gay Cars: Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That Written By: Nina Smith 2007-09-18 20:16:17 “The car has become... an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete.” – Marshall McLuhan
Last weekend as my partner and I picked up our rental car to drive out to the Berkshires, I laughed upon seeing the Subaru (7270) sitting in the stall. Do straight people know that Subarus are considered lesbian cars?
The T in LGBT: Gender Identity Policies at U.S. Companies Written By: Nina Smith 2007-08-26 19:10:52 Over the years, a record number of U.S. companies have expanded benefits and protections for their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), “More and more companies are including LGBT people in their non-discrimination policies and offering benefits to employees’ domestic partners.”
