On Our Radar

We're back again! We're rounding up some of the most interesting things we read this week on another edition of On Our Radar.

• On Salon, Tracy Clark-Flory highlights the Menstruation Machine, an art project designed by Japanese artist Hiromi Ozaki. The machine is "fitted with a blood dispensing mechanism and lower-abdomen-stimulating electrodes" to mimic the effects of menstruation. Woah.

• Lisa Factora-Borchers responds to Greta Christina's recent Alternet piece, Five Things Society Unfarily Expects of Men on Ecdysis.

• On Transgriot, Monica Roberts compares the fate of flight attendant/folk hero Steven Slater to a flight attendant that made headlines in 2008. Brown, a black woman, "was according to her attorney thrown against a first class lavatory door and elbowed in her breast" by Victoria Osteen, co-paster of Texas-based evangelical megachurch Lakewood Church.

• I, for one, am pretty bummed about Cathy ending. Alan Gardner interviews the creator of the comic strip, Cathy Guisewite, on The Daily Cartoonist.

• Ralph Blumenthal investigates the disturbing rise in untested rape kits for the September issue of Marie Claire. The story is available online here.

• Lesley Kinzel dissects Nikki Blonsky's recent announcement of a scholarship in her name to "'the longest running' fat camp in the US" and obligatory the blow-up on the Huge Facebook page on Fatshionista.

• After years of speculation surrounding her sexual orientation, photographs of Queen Latifah embracing her personal trainer and purported partner surfaced this weekend. On Colorlines, Jamilah King writes on why we shouldn't force her to come out publicly.

• On Threadbared, Minh-Ha T. Pham interviews Thuy Linh N. Tu, the author of The Beautiful Generation: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion.

• Sociological Images' Gwen Sharp looks at the curious history of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.

• Holly Ord delves into the mixed representations of Jessica Simpson in popular culture on Women's Eye on Media.

Find something that piqued your interest this week? Leave it in the comments section!

What a week! Sara Kantner and I rounded up some of the most interesting things we read in another installment of On Our Radar! Click through for thorough round-up.