Michelle Obama, Shakira, Angelina Jolie | Smart Sensuality Girls Club on the Move

/

First lady Michelle Obama does push ups with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as they participated in youth activities raising awareness for HIV prevention at Cape Town Stadium June 23, 2011. Image via AP.@Jezebel.comWe choose our muses carefully at Anne of Carversville. Working on our story about Shakira in Israel this week, we found this wonderful set of images of Michelle Obama, Shakira and Angelina Jolie. International Business News didn’t call them Smart Sensuality women, our insider term for larger-than-life women with sex appeal, major intelligence and hearts that don’t stop giving.

Did we mention that Smart Sensuality women have a sense of humor and know how to handle the Boys Club? One look at Michelle Obama above, and we rest our case.

First Lady MIchelle Obama, Shakira and Angelina Jolie have all figured prominently in our websites.

Anne created AnneofCarversville.com after reading Angelina Jolie’s July 2007 Esquire interview. See Smart Sensuality Angelina Jolie: Virtue Considered in Carversville’s Country Air.  Shakira became Anne’s muse in June of 2009 with Shakira, a Smart Sensuality Activist, Takes Me Back to Colombia, Where My Life Journey Really Began.

Anne campaigned for Hillary Clinton but loves Michelle Obama to death, like most of America and nations around the world.  We don’t use the word ‘muse’ loosely, and we have only a few. Add Madonna, who is also a cornerstone of Anne of Carversville.

Girls and Boys Clubs

We’re tracking the Boys Club most days now. It’s time to throw in the Girls Club, too.

Not to worry; we’re not going to gender war here. This is a love fest, based on our belief that Smart Sensuality women have a great balance of estrogen and testosterone and represent the ONLY possibility for getting us into the 22nd century, without blowing ourselves to bits. Let’s hit the road.

Michelle Obama

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama, her mother Marian Robinson, daughters Malia (2nd L) and Sasha (3rd L), nephew Avery Robinson (4th L), and niece Leslie Robinson dance with children and caretakers as they visit the Emthonjeni Community Center in Zandspruit Township, Johannesburg, June 21, 2011.

Read More

Daily | Bill Gates & Immunization | Gendercide | Weiner's Rabbi & Death Curses?

/

World

Saving the World’s Children

Gates and UK pledge $2.3 billion for vaccines for poor Reuters

Billionaire Bill Gates and Britain pledged $2.3 billion at an international donor conference on Monday to fund vaccination programs to protect children in poor countries against diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this sobering photo of an aging, pensive Bill Gates speaks volumes to us. Many of us are concerned that time is running out on key challenges of our time. More than once, Bill Gates has acknowledged that we just might not beat the clock.

Read More

Planned Parenthood Indiana Seeks Injunction Against Defunding Law

/

Judge Tanya Walton Pratt (left) may rule today on Planned Parenthood’s injunction request.RedTracker| Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of Federal District Court is expected to rule today on Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s request for an injunction and temporary restraining order on Indiana’s new law that cuts off about $3 million in public funds used to pay for birth control, cancer screening and tests for sexually transmitted disease.

Fort Wayne’s The Journal Gazette reports that about 30 supporters of Planned Parenthood of Indiana rallied Monday night, chanting ‘Mister, Mister, get your hands off my sister.’ Many motorists honked in support, and a few gave the the protesters ‘the finger’.

Read More

Femen, SlutWalks, Lysistrata | Body Politics Is On the Move

/

Femen, SlutWalks, Lysistrata | Body Politics Is On the Move

Meet FEMEN, a small group of ‘Topless Fighters’ who are fighting sex tourism and prostitution in Ukraine as members of Femen.

Little woman with red hair Anna Hutsol is the head ofFEMEN. The 26-year-old economist sits in front of her laptop, directing her topless fighters with the help of two mobile phones.

Will Fashion Help Challenge America's Catholic Bishops?

/

Will Fashion Help Challenge America's Catholic Bishops?

This editorial ‘Pagan Something’ on Flamboyant Magazine is a discovery via Vogue Italia’s Talents focus on photographer Marco D’Amico and stylist Italo Pantano.

The editorial begins with a quote by Theda Kenyon, author of ‘Witches Still Live’:

The blackest chapter in the history of Witchcraft lies not in the malevolence of Witches but in the deliberate, gloating cruelty of their prosecutors.

Republican War on Women | Without Facts, Lie, Distort, & Mock Women's Rights

/

Republican War on Women | Without Facts, Lie, Distort, & Mock Women's Rights

After watching this video on YouTube , of Howie Rich training Tea Party goes in guerrilla Internet tactics like giving Liberal books a 1-star rating on Amazon and Conservative ones a 5-star — even though they haven’t read either book, Senator Jon Kyl’s strategy of lying on the Senate floor about Planned Parenthood services comes right out of this Tea Party activist guide.

Howie Rich pretty much tells Tea Party people to do what is required to destroy the enemy (that would be me). Educating Americans factually is not part of their goal. Smear the opposition — which is a classic Eugene McCarthy tactic — is embraced by the Tea Party, then leveraged by the Republican War on Women by Senator Jon Kyl on the Senate floor.

Planned Parenthood-Government Shutdown Update

/

RedTracker | The future of Planned Parenthood, an organization 90 years old, is held in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Mormon who personally opposes abortion and has previously run ads expressing his anti-abortion stance.

“On 97 percent of our work, Sen. Reid and Planned Parenthood are completely together,” Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told POLITICO.

House Republican said this afternoon that the fight is not over abortion, without using the abortion word.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, calling herself “a pro-choice Republican from California,” said the shutdown fight is “about three things: spending, more spending and too much spending.”

Fox News women agree that there would be no shutdown if more women were in Congress.

Read More

Shakira's Barefoot Foundation Commits $400,000 to School in Haiti

/

Shakira's Barefoot Foundation Commits $400,000 to School in Haiti

Shakira is one of our muses here at Anne of Carversville, a quintessential Smart Sensuality woman: smart, sexy and with heart. A constant activist for the poor and underprivileged, Shakira walks her talk in word and deed.

Shakira was in Haiti on Thursday, celebrating the upcoming renovation of a historic Catholic girls school, severely damaged in the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Shakira always gets down with the people. In Haiti, with her song ‘Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) setting the mood, Shakira grooved with students from Port-au-Prince’s Elie Dubois high school.

Lagerfeld Readies 2011 Couture Diet Coke Campaign

/

Karl Lagerfeld’s 2011 Ciet Coke CollectionAnne Talks Business| Karl Lagerfeld will again team up with Coca-Cola Light with a series of new designs that will be available in 11 countries across Europe starting in April. This graphic of Karl as the face of Diet Coke comes from last year’s collection.

Three new bottles are above, in a ‘Love It Light’ campaign and will hit stores in June 2011. via Popsop.com

The Coca-Cola Light campaign is a Modern values one, compared to Evian’s couture bottle collection, which attempts to position at least part of the project under a sustainability umbrella, making it appeal to to Cultural Creatives and perhaps the Smart Sensuality woman.

Read More

Shakira: Brainiac Smart Sensuality Activist with Curves

/

Shakira: Brainiac Smart Sensuality Activist with Curves

One of our most important AOC articles took off yesterday, moving into the top 5 after a hiatus. Originally written in 2009 when Shakira’s ‘She Wolf’ video hit the charts, Anne explains much of her philosophy about the Smart Sensuality woman: smart and sexy with heart.

Shakira | Permanently Committed to A Better World

Like their sexy gal pal, the Smarty Pants guys are concerned about the real issues of our times. Only powerful thinking and strong alliances will save the planet from the devastating effects of global poverty, women’s subjugation, lack of childhood education and environmental catastrophe.

With Howard Buffett and Carlos Slim Helu on her side, Shakira is cruising in her determined crusade to change the world.

Culture Wars | Beyonce's Face Paint | Amanda Platell On Fashion Misogyny

/

Jezebel on Beyonce | Mark Pillai | African Queen | L’Officiel Paris March 2011 AOC BBC

Anne doesn’t know what to make of Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart skewering Beyonce for wearing a painted face in her new editorial for L’Officiel Paris’ March 2011 issue celebrating African Queen.

Stylelite is downright condescending, writing ‘The magazine that convinced singer Beyonce Knowles to paint her skin a darker shade of brown for a photo shoot says she wasn’t in blackface, but in ritualistic African face covering.’

The politically correct American blogosphere doesn’t even give a grown woman like Beyonce — more successful than all of us wrapped up together — credit for having her own mind in a fashion shoot. Now that’s equally politically incorrect in our view. Hmmm.

Did a white woman write that comment? Rubbish! This entire fiasco is one more reminder that Americans are culturally provincial beyond description.

Is Gawker Dialing for Traffic?

There is the possibility that Gawker’s plunging web traffic is behind the story. Jezebel and all of Gawker’s other blogs have lost enormous traffic with their new website design — which is terrible in our opinion.

On February 18th, Tech Crunch wrote that traffic had nosedived from a high of 561,000 to 257,000, citing Quantcast data. Gizmdo’s numbers declined from 746,000 to 420,000. (Note: the format is obviously being changed today.)

Maybe Nick Denton asked writers to juice up their posts in a big way. Watever the reason, Anne believes the entire controversy is nonsense.

Fashion Misogyny | Is It Real?

What isn’t nonsense is Amanda Platell’s accusation that the fashion industry is misogynistic. In an articulate, biting essay for Daily Mail, Platell writes that fashion’s obsession with Andrek Pejic is the final nail in the coffin of an industry that has transformed the ideal female body into a rail thin, breastless, hipless cariacature of the female body. 

Simply stated, writes Amanda, many fashion designers wish women would just go away — except for buying their clothes, of course.

Anne has shared her same concerns on this topic but links Amanda Platell’s observations into the larger cultural landscape of trying to control women’s bodies in America. She includes Alexander McQueen’s forniphilia table — women as furniture — and the new revelations that he called Eva Herzigova a f*cking b*tch, screaming at her in a fashion show moment.

Indeed, fashion has a complex relationship with women’s bodies, female sexuality and empowerment, a common theme at AOC.

Amanda Platell Says Some Fashion Designers Are MisogynisticAOC BBC

Pope Asserts God Was Absolutely Behind Big Bang in Universe

/

RedTracker| The Vatican had a busy day, with the Pope moving from news of his new Discovery Channel series on exorcisms from the Vatican files to denouncing the big bang theory of life in our universe as a result of chance.

The Pope rarely talks about science and creation, but today was unyielding in his assertion that “The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe.”

Read More

Gucci Brand's Deep Commitment to Women In Need

/

Digging deeper into the Gucci website, we discover a wide range of involvement with young people around the world. The luxury brand supports China Children & Teenagers Fund. And now for the AOC jackpot.

PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights

Gucci is part of the PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights, replacing the former SolidarCité. The foundation is tied to PPR, the French multinational founded by François Pinault and now run by his son François-Henri Pinault.

PPR sold its French Printemps store in 2006 and is now focused on Gucci, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen (50%) and Stella McCartney (50%), as well as other brands and mail order companies.

The Foundation for Women’s Dignity & Rights is involved in so many global initiatives for women that we can’t list them. The projects aren’t sexy: genital mutilation, forced child marriage, honour killings, sex trafficking.

In my experience, most American brands shudder at the thoughts of articulating these concerns in the same sentence as their brand names.

Eye | Angelina Jolie | Apostle Paul | Daniel Pearl | Daisy Khan | David Brooks | Hillary Clinton | Chris Matthews

/

Living | Angelina Jolie on Family, Film & Philanthropy | Vicki Woods & Mario Testino | Vogue US December 2010

Writer Vicki Woods did a superb job of creating a multi-dimensional Angelina Jolie in the Vogue interview. Did you know that Jolie has a “seriously filty laught”. Her piece is great writing about a woman much admired a AOC.

It was Angelina Jolie’s Esquire interview that launched Anne of Carversville in June 2007. The themes of that essay, including our collective global responsibility not only for dialogue, but understanding of global issues that promote warring points of view, remain richly embedded in our editorial policy.

A humanist, Anne wept over the beheading of Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl, who was taken hostage in Karachi, Pakistan, following a story.

Jolie became friends with Daniel Pearl’s wife Mariane Van Neyenhoff, who channeled her grief into a positive dialogue with Muslims through the Daniel Pearl Foundation. The two bonded when Angelina played Mariane in “The Mighty Heart”.

Ironically, it seems that Mariane Pearl also read the Esquire 2007 interview, because Pearl contacted the actress about playing her in the movie.

Angelina Jolie and Mariane Pearl

Angelina Jolie & Mariane Pearl Talk with Charlie Rose about “The Mighty Heart”. This short clip is taken from Angelina’s longer interview with Charlie Rose on June 19, 2007.

Short Clip of Angelina Jolie and Mariane Pearl on Charlie Rose, June 2007

Read More

After 19 Years, Anita Hill Gets Bombshell Backup From Clarence Thomas Ex

/

Lillian McEwen didn’t decide to write a book about her relationship with Justice Clarence Thomas because Virginia Thomas left a phone message on Anita Hill’s voice mail, asking her to consider apologizing to Thomas for her sexual harassment allegations against him during his confirmation hearings.

Lillian McEwen, the girlfriend and confidante to Justice Thomas, has been writing her memoirs. It does seem that the Virginia Thomas phone call to Anita Hill struck a sour note, given McEwen’s own experiences with Clarence Thomas, which she has now detailed in the Washington Post.

Her words are a bombshell and basically support Anita Hill’s claims and those of several other women, whose complaints about Thomas were passed off by the Judiciary committee. Lillian McEwen was not asked to testify in the hearings, which were confined to the candidate’s professional, not personal, relationships with women.