Had a discussion about Hillary with a guy on Usenut a while back. Dude maintained that it was disrespectful to refer professionally to a career woman by her first name -- it was sexist. His stance was that the evil ol' circle of powerful males use the first name thinger to keep the little gals in their places as secretaries and whatnot. It was an ... interesting ... discussion.
Following that, I started noting when a woman was referred to by her first name only, by an honorific or title and a last name, or by just her last name. The media is a mixed bag, when it comes to female politicians. Hillary and Obama. Edwards and Rudy. They're also a mixed bag when it comes to pop stars and cultural icons. It could be J-Lo and K-Fed or Britney, or maybe Lopez, Federline, and Spears.
And it's this last one that caught me yesterday. I saw a headline "Spears Pregnancy Prompts Real Life Sex Talks With Kids," and I thought "Good God, she's gonna pop out another kid? And now parents are thinking it's time to tell little Jane about where babies come from? Isn't she, like, terribly yesterday?"
I saw a similar headline today and decided to click through -- it was not the ever expanding Britney who was preggers, but presumably virginal Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16 year old star of a kiddie/teen show on Nickelodeon who's growing her own crotch fruit. This Spears is Britney's little sister.
See, now, this is why it's important to use first names. To keep out-of-it older peeps from getting confused.
As long as they're not asparagus spears. Yeech!
Ooh! Maybe instead of greenbean casserole, I'll have this:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001146asparagus.php
The bad news is we have to wait about two years for the requisite "accidental" flashing pics...