Please don’t send me any store-bought greeting cards!

I know that pre-written store-bought greeting cards are not the cause of America’s current downfall, but they are a symptom of America’s cultural, moral and educational decline. Really. I know that many of you are thinking that I’m way off base here, but let me give you a few examples based on today’s trip to my local grocery store (the name of the St. Louis grocery chain is “Schnucks”).

First of all, I just don’t get why we need to segregate “boy” cards from “girl” cards. Take a look at these cards for boys and you won’t be surprised at the themes. There are lots of superhero cards and other action/adventure characters and themes.

boys greeting cards

Now compare the “boys” cards to the “girls” cards, where you’ll find princesses and other characters much more concerned about their looks than with their accomplishments.

girls greeting cards

As if girls don’t enjoy superhero stories (my daughters certainly do) or anything other than trying to look pretty. This greeting card sexual segregation reminds me of this recent post on America’s rampant sexualization of young girls.

There are also cards for men and cards for women, of course, and they too are segregated. Why do we use greeting cards to instill a message into our girls and women that they should be interested in their own looks and body image to the exclusion of their accomplishments? This destructive message should be stopped immediately, especially when so many girls are getting messed up by this message, which causes them to

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What Ever Became of Interoperability?

I was reading this ZDNet blog about the Browser becoming the new Desktop, and one question came to mind. What happened to the promise of inter-operable parts of your computer environment? About 15 years back, when computers were going to create the paperless office, all of the operating system and…

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Write your biography in six words.

Putting one's life description into only six words is the subject of a new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning. This review published in The New Yorker gives you the flavor: It started as a reader contest: Your life story in six words. The magazine was flooded with entries. Five…

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Introducing…

Missouri's first State Poet Laureate.  Walter Bargen. I can't tell you how pleased I am by this.  Walter is a first-rate poet and, just if not more importantly, a decent human being. He will be formally introduced on February 13th at the state capitol.  After that, he will serve a…

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