National Barbie-in-a-Blender Day: Celebrate Free Speech!

Today I feel like I have a giant rush of thoughts, ideas, musings, and rants all pushing to stream out of one tiny little opening - the window of time. And I know I'm not going to have time to post pretty pictures, and create links, and just generally make this post one that is relatively interesting.

Or I could just force the window to open wider anyway...

Today's Wacky Holiday is National Barbie-in-a-Blender Day. Turns out the genesis of this holiday happened when a photography artist, Tom Forsythe of Utah, took pictures of Barbie, well, in a blender and other kitchen appliances and created "Food Chain Barbie", a "pictorial antidote to the powerful cultural forces persuading us to buy the impossible beauty myth".

"Triple Barbie Smoothie", by Tom Forsythe, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Mattel didn't like it and proceeded to sue him citing 'copyright infringement' among other things. Long story short, he won the case, and today's 'holiday' was created to bring awareness to the fact that despite many losses in the Free Speech arena nowadays, this event proves it is possible to win, and we need to celebrate that fact. (Photo below courtesy of "Debbie C.B." on Flickr.)

Read more about the event here.