Barbie turns 50 next year and Mattel Inc. executives have begun a sweeping makeover of the doll’s marketing, says the Wall Street Journal. The goal is to make Barbie fashionable again with older girls, who are dropping her for other, edgier playthings like video games.We all know what this means. By next Christmas, girls will be clamoring for "Bi-Curious Barbie."
The AP reports on a series of cell phone "soap operas" that deliver a safe-sex message. Nurse and educator Rachel Jones developed the education campaign, using professional actors and scripts based on focus groups. Women in the study will watch the 20-minute episodes on their cell phones.
We use our cellphone for sex education, too. Except that we usually shoot videos, not watch them.
The Bleacher Report picks up a story from South Africa about poor kids wearing condoms on their feet to keep their soccer socks up.
If they are wearing condoms on their feet, it begs the question, where do they wear their socks?
In more condom news, the New York Post reports that a German entrepreneur has applied for a federal trademark to use the Freedom Tower to market a line of condoms. The request now before the US Patent and Trademark Office has 9/11 families angry and the tower's owner, the Port Authority, scrambling to block it. The Munich-based marketer, Torsten Blueher, has applied separately to use the tower's name on dozens of other products.
At the Grind, we believe in freedom. We therefore believe this moron should have the right to sell whatever he wants. The rest of us have the right, and the duty, not to buy his morbid, disrespectful crap.
