advertising

Here’s a reality check the next time someone wants to tell you about clean coal: They're still cleaning up the biggest fly ash spill in U.S. history that occurred in December 2008, which occurred at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant. A dam holding back tons of slurry burst in the middle of the night, dumping more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry into Tennessee River tributaries. The sludge leveled entire communities with a four-foot-deep layer of coal ash slurry and killed off an unbelievable number of fish living in the rivers. The spill has been said to be one hundred times as large as the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.

Slate's DoubleXX recently hosted a discussion entitled 'That Not So Fresh Feeling: Marketing Embarrassing Products To Women' in which they analyzed adverts for tampons and sanitary towels, and the profiteering exploits of the feminine hygiene industry. Target Women writer and performer Sarah Haskins commented, 'Ever since we were borne of Adam's rib we have been flawed, and the only things that will fix us will be sold to us as we watch Project Runway.' I recently argued in a post that hormonal contraceptives are the new tampons - the logical progression from hiding periods away, to getting rid of them altogether. It's no wonder, then, that these contraceptives are marketed to us using the same tried and true lady-vertising tactics as their feminine hygiene predecessors.