Discarded Ken Not Included

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New Mattel line lets you wear Barbie's discards

Posted at 4:34 PM on 02 Apr 2008

We are not making this up: Mattel is planning a new line of accessories made from "excess fabric and trimmings from other Barbie doll fashions and products which would otherwise be discarded." The "playful and on-trend" Barbie BCause collection -- including handbags, hats, pillows, and diaries "each featuring its own unique variations and kitschy patchwork details" -- will be sold exclusively at Toys"R"Us. Says a Mattel marketing person, "Barbie BCause is for eco-conscious girls who believe that being environmentally friendly is the right thing to do, and we are thrilled to give extra meaning and extra style to what was once just extra Barbie doll fabric." The press release is dated Apr. 1, but Mattel folks confirm that Barbie BCause is not a joke.

source: Business Wire

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Comments: (6 comments)

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Did Ken ever really have a purpose?

I mean, did Barbie ever really find out what an orgasm is? And if so, how? And with who?

It is positively chilling to think that Ken was somehow involved ...

Nevertheless, he might be useful for painting signs, with "w"s which are in fact flipped-over "m"s.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:52 AM on 03 Apr 2008

Ken's purpose?

Arm candy. A placeholder. Barbie's been waiting all these years for the right butch girlfriend to come out with.

Or perhaps I should say, tsk tsk, to make a gentle grammatical point, "with whom to come out".

And hey, Canis, forget about the Gore w already. You know, "accept the things we cannot change.... wisdom to know the difference". Yadda yadda yadda.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 4:47 AM on 03 Apr 2008

The headman peers

through those inscrutable eyeholes in his head, and asks, "Well? 'Whom' is next?!"

But yes indeed, we have already been through the high desirability of killing off the undesirable, trouble-making "whom."

Or, failing that, should we revert to a 9th-century condition, and start declining all nouns, pronouns and adjectives, with genitive and dative along with nominative and accusative forms?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 7:38 AM on 03 Apr 2008

By the way, SpaSh,

did you see this, on cod and river herring?:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/dining/02cod.html?ex=12 ...

The term "marine sustainability" is actually used.

Sam Wells might be interested too, but he seems to be on vacation.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 9:17 AM on 03 Apr 2008

I don't generally carry a torch for archaisms

but I have a sentimental fondness for "whom" when it a) is technically correct and b) falls at the end of a (written) sentence. I seldom if ever use it in speech however. Is that a double standard?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 7:00 PM on 03 Apr 2008

"I carry the torch!,"

quoth Ruth Buzzi, in an ancient "Laugh-In" segment with an Olympic-Games theme. Circa 1968, the political issue affecting the Olympic Games was not Tibet (or Taiwan, or the Uighurs, or Falun Gong) but Tlatelolco, in what is now north-central Mexico City, a place with a lovely Nahuatl name and a painful history of injustice and blood.

Dear SpaSh,
sentimental fondness is by no means an emotion to be despised; so please know that I gladly chuck you under the chin for using "whom," even when "who" might do, whether in writing or speaking.

And no, that is certainly not a double standard, if we follow different grammatical principles when we speak and when we write. That is normal, in fact. Writing prose is misinterpreted as merely a record of speech; it is not that at all; it is a very formal and distinct use of language, which borrows some attractive features from speech, sometimes, but also has attractive features of its own which speech lacks.

As for "the Gore w": If it made sense to command me to stop feeling nauseated whenever I see that ridiculous, insulting, hideously uninspired idea of an idiotic graphic designer, and if it would help at all, then I would say, by all means, keep commanding me. But, alas, I doubt your command will work, and I am just going to have to cope with yet another uglification and stupidification, in this already nauseatingly multivalent visual world.

Come dici, "Yadda yadda yadda."

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:21 PM on 03 Apr 2008

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