Neatorama

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• Barbie Career of the Year as a Window on Centrist Feminism
• Beaver Waddles Back Home While Carrying a Carrot and a Head of Cabbage
• Surfer Attacked by Two Sharks at the Same Time
• Owls Deal with Squatter Pigeons

Barbie Career of the Year as a Window on Centrist Feminism Posted: 29 Aug 2021 07:55 PM PDT For the last ten years, Mattel has released an annual Barbie Career of the Year doll (with the exception of 2017). Recently, the 2021 career was announced to be a music producer. Barbie dolls and their careers have come a long way since she was purely a fashion model in the 1950s and '60s, and Barbie as a professional long precedes the Career of the Year line. While there have been numerous astronaut Barbies, more recent iterations are tech and business related, with a spate of political Barbies, too, in the last few years. Ada Palmer takes us through the history of the professional Barbie as a marketing tool that reflects our evolving culture. So, what does the Career of the Year sequence show us about Barbie as a mark of centrist feminism? A few things. One is that women-in-tech is definitely a thing, far more in the minds of the organizers than women-in-STEM, since we haven't seen biologist Barbie or epidemiologist Barbie showcased, only several iterations of tech Barbies, including software and hardware. It also shows through things like entrepreneur Barbie and architect Barbie that sometimes they look a lot at research, especially about income and what are high-paying careers, and think it's important that Barbie encourage girls to go into high-paid professions not just exciting ones (beloved-yet-underpaid careers like teacher and nurse have been frequent Barbie careers but not showcase ones).  They also sometimes run into challenges in communication, i.e. 'entrepeneur' is a very important concept but very difficult to communicate in a doll via clothing and accessories, as is true of many careers. Palmer gives us a review of each Barbie in the series, as well as a look back at previous professions, at Ex Urb. -via Metafilter

Beaver Waddles Back Home While Carrying a Carrot and a Head of Cabbage Posted: 29 Aug 2021 03:45 PM PDT   View this post on Instagram A post shared by 阿蘇元気の森【公式】 (@asofarmland) Watch this cute video clip of Papa Beaver named Mumu-Chan slowly waddle back to his family while carrying a large carrot and an unwieldly head of cabbage (that fell out of his hands a couple of times). Just like a guy, he thinks that he can make it all in one go ... without any need for a grocery bag! From Supa Fluffy, here's Cute Papa Beaver Clumsily Carries Carrot and Cabbage Back to His Family

Surfer Attacked by Two Sharks at the Same Time Posted: 29 Aug 2021 09:23 AM PDT Sometimes, when you have two problems, they cancel each other out. This is not an endorsement of the Molotov cocktail solution by Jason from The Good Place. It is unusual for two problems to eliminate each other, but surfer Shannon Ainslie experienced just that. Ainslie writes in The Guardian about a surfing trip in South Africa. A Great White Shark bit him in the hand and dragged him under. Then a different shark tried to bite him: Under the water, another shark swiped for my head and my shoulders, but missed, because the other had got me first. That second shark ended up saving my life. Perhaps startled by the competition, the first shark lost its grip on me. I thought I was dreaming; everything seemed to slow down. I started to feel pain and the next thing I knew I was staring a shark straight in the face. I think the shark was confused because it stared back at me for a few moments as if in awe. Its mouth was wide open; I could see a huge set of teeth and a dark black eye. It bolted past me and I felt a shove from behind – it must have brushed along my back, but thankfully it had not bitten me. After it passed, I swam to the surface as fast as I could. -via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Hermanus Backpackers

Owls Deal with Squatter Pigeons Posted: 29 Aug 2021 09:23 AM PDT Charter Group Birdcams in Israel gives us a glimpse into barn owl nests as they raise their young. Sometimes there is real drama. See, barn owl parents leave the nest during the day and return at night. In the above video, from June 8, a pigeon enters a nest with seven owlets of various sizes. The pigeon decides to stay, regardless of the other residents. She even lays an egg! But then the parents come home, bringing rodents for the kids, and do not take well to the home intruder. In a second video, taken June 29, a couple of pigeons invade another owl's nest with four nestlings, but these are larger owlets who defend their home even before mama gets back. In the third video of this trilogy, recorded on July 5, the pigeons tried setting up shop in an owl's nest in which the owlets have fledged, but they still consider this box their home. They will defend it. Despite the violence, the pigeons appear to be ultimately successful in this last attempt to take over an owl's nest, as the owlets are old enough to leave the nest for good. Persistence pays off, but at some cost. -via Nag on the Lake Update: A pigeon egg successfully hatched today.

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