Ngrams on government-type words

Just found this neat little tool. (click on the image to go to the original site) Notice that the frequency of the word 'democracy' increases around the time of WW1 and WW2 --and those other bumps probably also represent times-of-war.

Now look at this one:

The word government appears with a high frequency - I guess that it would cover up whether or not that state was a 'democracy' or not. But the word 'military' is also occurs with a high frequency- though, admittedly I thought it would occur higher considering the apparent preoccupation with war and violence in world-leaders' minds. Again, these two words increase in freuqncy around the times of war.

For some information on the above, read Culturomics and Google Books

Those things on girls' chests, ya know?

 I admit that I'm one of the many, many people who are dazzled by the manga/anime drawing style. But obviously I'm not dazzled enough to not notice the proliferation of young-female-prepubescent characters sporting generally small, but obvious breasts and unnaturally wide hips, and often the artists appear to feel the urge to do a panty shot along the way!

Image from here

And often, older teenage/young adult counterparts also miss out from a heavy dose of realism, such as here, and here (mature warning!)

All said before, but I can't help to say again. On that note, read on below...

Excerpt from 'Jailing girls for men's crimes'

...
But one can’t just blame the Internet for the increasing numbers of girls sold for sex in the U.S.; it’s a deeper societal issue. Observers have noted the increasing sexualization of young girls in our culture, which helps nor­malize men’s demands for younger and younger sexual partners and teaches girls that to be acceptable they have to be sexual. Lloyd argues that “corporate­-sponsored pimping” plays a role in sex trafficking of girls by glamorizing prostitution. For exam­ple, Reebok awarded a multi-million-dollar five­-year contract for two shoe lines to rapper 50 Cent, whose album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” (with the hit single “P.I.M.P.”) went platinum. Rapper Snoop Dogg, who showed up at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards with two women on dog leashes and who was described on the December 2006 cover of Rolling Stone as “America’s Most Lovable Pimp,” has received endorsement deals from Orbit gum and Chrysler. The mostly white leaders these corporations thus profit from these race-stereotyped images of black men, and care little about the effects these images may have on communities.

Corporations also act the pimp by pervasively selling young girls’ sexualized bodies, such as Miley Cyrus’ pole dancing performance on the Teen Choice Awards. Then of course, there are the highly sexualized Bratz dolls marketed to girls.

The American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls recently published a report de­scribing how the “proliferation of sex­ualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising and media is harming girls’ self-­image and healthy development.” Psycholo­gists have further identified a process of self­-objectification, in which girls treat their own bodies only as objects of oth­ers’ desires (see “Out of Body Image” in Ms., Spring 2008). This process doesn’t just negatively affect the sexual and physical health of developing girls, but can affect their mental health, cog­nitive functioning and even motor skills.
...

(Reading this kind of stuff made me realise I actually wasn't hallucinating)

A New Year Resolution: To raise awareness?

When the definition of 'current affairs' changes

Are shows such as Today Tonight and A Current Affair really current affairs shows? Were they current affairs shows long ago?


I don't know about the second question (due to my memory and age), but I think it's somewhat safe to say that these shows aren't really current affairs of the 'news' sort.
I speak about Today Tonight because that's what I've seen more of. Advertising their upcoming segments, they slap their 'exclusive' label consistently (exclusive survey to see how much water is in your meat ???) How to buy cheap food, how to wear fashion-conforming clothing, the latest 'goss' on celebrities. Not current affairs. More like lifestyle show, --probably a weekday alternative to the Friday only 'Better Homes and Gardens'.
A Current Affair is not any better. The fact that they call themselves 'A Current Affair', you'd think they'll actually have current affairs, not celebrity scandals.
And no, celebrity scandals are not current affairs. It's gossip. 'True' gossip occasionally, but still gossip.
So what do I call 'current affairs'? Debates on immigration policies and inhumane treatment of people, the existence of discrimination in countries supposed free, the still existing death penalty in various countries (including the US), how we can slow and reverse global warming. Instead, current affairs appear on news-news outlets, and selected pages in Broadsheet newspapers.

I would call this 'degradation' of news media into goss media, but people will probably disagree with me and call it 'change', right?