America The Beautiful

America the Beautiful, a powerful documentary that explores America's obsession with beauty recently won the Special Jury Prize for Best Representation of the UN Declaration for the Rights of a Child at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

This acclaim comes just weeks after winning The Special Jury Prize for Best Director at the 43rd Annual Chicago International Film Festival.

Directed by Darryl Roberts, this outstanding documentary is sweeping the film festival circuit.

I caught the film at the Chicago International Film Festival and it is one of the most profound docs I've ever seen. Roberts, in a Michael Moore-like expose, navigates the pristine beauty world, making his way to backstage runways and plastic surgeons offices, and reveals the cruel and calculated underworld that guides America's favorite obsessions. He shadows a cast of beauty industry fixtures including a precocious teen model and plastic surgeons top rated TV shows. But he also interviews the parents of a young girl who died of bulimia, researchers with jaw dropping stories about the chemicals in cosmetics, and a bevy of super sexist guys.

Roberts said it took him some three years to complete this project and its well worth the wait. For more info and upcoming shows check www.americathebeautifuldoc.com

My Sister for President

The current political frustrations and violent attacks surrounding Pakistan's former President Benazir Bhutto had me thinking about women leaders of the world.

And while I knew very little about Ms. Bhutto until recent weeks, it amazes me that Pakistan, viewed in the Western world as a largely conservative nation, at one point had a female leader and is in negotiations to have her resume her leadership.

With Hilary Clinton currently waging a major campaign to be the nation's first president, I was curious about other women currently heading the world's nations.

For as progressive as the U.S may be on women's rights, Pakistan elected a female president first.

So I did a little research.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Chile, Finland, India, Ireland, Liberia, The Philippines and Switzerland are the only seven countries that currently have women presidents.

Meanwhile, Germany, New Zealand, Mozambique and The Netherlands Antilles are the only four nations with female prime ministers.

As for the world's reigning three queens, they can be found in Denmark, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands.

I wonder what dynamics exist in these nations that gave rise to a female leadership?

Perhaps we should look into it.

Affirmative Action is the Antichrist

I know a 21 year old African American college student who hasn't so much as looked up Affirmative Action in Wikipedia, and yet he professes that AA is the downfall of black progress.

We've had heated conversations in which I and a few of my colleagues called ourselves schooling this guy, and dousing him in African American history 101 to 500.

Yet he's firm in his beliefs: Affirmative Action is the Antichrist.

When I patiently explained to him basic American power structures and how historically they could not be cracked by people of color or women, he remarked. "Why can't you just marry into some super rich guys family, then you'll be part of the power structure, right?"

After that jolt of misguided logic, I told him not to talk to me about affirmative action ever again until he's read some books.

Now, I could dismiss the conversation as the rantings of the ignorant, except for one tiny problem.

He wants to go to law school.

And thanks to affirmative action's reigning problem child, Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas, who's now working the media circus with book in tow, I can no longer discount the twisted conservative logic of a misguided black college kid with law school dreams.

He might become a Supreme Court Justice and dedicate his life to chipping away my rights.

And he might read Mr. Thomas' book.

So I've decided to tell him about a University of Michigan study that states that college students who come in through affirmative action get consistently higher grades than legacy kids (those who came in on their parents merit). In fact, they were typically very good students who lead healthy academic lives.

It's the empirical data the world's been waiting on, to prove that Affirmative Action is not some hand out. It creates opportunity for good students.

Hopefully, this study will mean something to him.

And if it doesn't, God help us all.

Yard Sale: Designer Vaginas

Hey ladies, do you want a designer vagina?

Thanks to those socially conscious mavericks known as the plastic surgery business, not only can ladies of the world get DD breasts, pursed lips, eyelids to the forehead and soar derrieres, we can also add the all new designer vagina to our shopping list.

We can enlarge our clitoris, enlarge or minimize our labia, shorten the vagina, and if you want the virgin experience, an all new hymen is just the thing for you!

Let me say, if there is some medical case for the surgery, by all means get it. If your religion forbids sex before marriage, and you could be killed for entering the vows of matrimony as a virgin plus, then the new hymen is a life saver.

Otherwise, I seriously ask women thinking about this topic to ask the following.

What the heck is a perfect vagina?

One British study I read reported that women who agreed to the study unanimously had an image of a prepubescent look that resembled American porn mags, with most bringing in magazine cut outs of porn stars and the like who had clearly been digitally altered. The study further blasted the cosmetic industry for a lack of research and patient follow up as well as an justifiable reason for the risky procedure in the first place.

Risks include lack of arousal and a variety of complications.

In my reading on the topic, most of the ladies interviewed who agreed to the surgery aren't resolving severe health issues. Many were insecure types who thought the designer vagina would make them more appealing to men. Others thought it was the miracle cure for a drab sex life. One woman remarked it would keep her husband from cheating, saying something like, and I paraphrase, 'my husband said sex with me now is like sex with someone else, but it's still me.'

Wow.

In my totally unscientific poll, I asked a few guys what they thought about the designer vagina, since men were listed as the reason most women wanted it in the first place. They weren't pleased.

"That's the last straw," yelled one southside Chicago guy, totally offended by the idiocracy of it all. "Tell women this," he said, steam rising from his nostrils. "Any man who tells their woman to get a designer vagina or leads her to think she needs one doesn't like her . . .at all. And she needs to leave him immediately."

Thanks.

I have to thank Hermene Hartman's N'digo column for bringing this topic to the forefront.

Attack of the America Bra

There's something wrong when bras become matters of national security.

When trained security can't tell the difference between a bomb, bra hooks and under wire, you know we're in trouble.

While most citizens willingly take off their shoes, belt buckles, jackets, and submit to unfavorable pat downs by the flocks of security at our nation's airports and federal buildings, at some point, we must admit enough is enough.

Lori Plato said enough was enough after U.S. Marshalls Service employees demanded that she remove her bra after the undergarment ignited alarms at a federal building.

The building had no screen or changing room. When she asked if she could change in a rest room, she was told no, and urged to remove it in a nearby restaurant. Her husband shielded her with his coat and she removed the offending garment.

This news was announced the same day, a woman I know called me in tears, stating that airport security demanded she remove her long lined bra. The security officer said the traveler's bra was in the way of the traditional pat down and demanded that she disrobe behind an open screen in full view of employees and passengers. When the traveler called for management, she was told that the guard was "incorrect", and that she simply needed to unhook the bottom of the bra, for a less invasive procedure. But by this time, the traveler was so humiliated by the guard's cavalier attitude and sheer possibility, that this reassurance didn't matter.

There's something wrong when guards feel comfortable enough to demand that a woman drop her underwear in order to enter a secure facility. To know that some security get a kick out of disrobing random women at will is a real problem. The inconsiderate nature of the demand speaks to a false sense of empowerment some security professionals apparently enjoy.

So ladies, if a guard orders you to take off your bra, sue their pants off.