5+ Holiday Cards

It’s that time of year again! Time to string lights, hang bells, and boughs. For those with friends who celebrate different holiday traditions, here are a few holiday cards to send to all your pals.

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From Minted

Also from Minted

From Pike Street Press

From Hen Pen Designs

From Donda Lee

From the Paper Source

Avoiding Commodifying Hurricane Sandy in 2012 Holiday Gift Guides: Some Tips

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there have been many responses to the natural disaster. Some have made too-soon (but funny) cocktails, others have donated generously, a select few are obsessively preparing for the next natural disaster, and some have moved on to holiday shopping. Then there are some who have combined a few of these responses: namely, the trend of holiday shopping for survival gear. Numerous websites and blogs have posted gift guides for disaster gear (“disaster preparedness is all the rage right now”) and while some of them are well-intended others risk capitalizing on a tragedy that many people are still experiencing. Where is the line between smart, informed, if not a little paranoid, gift guides and the commodification of a natural disaster?

Here are some helpful tips for those flirting with the idea of creating a survival gift guide to help them avoid the slippery slope of taboo:

-Avoid bombarding your guide with pet-saving gear, such as doggie life vests, portable purifying cat water fountains, etc. #RichPeopleProblems.

-Items such as water wicking pants, rain resistant jackets, and water-proof matches are not helpful when half of Manhattan has flooded. Having water bead instantly on one’s pants cannot help them when their home is destroyed.

-Do not give people compasses. Only Eagle Scouts know how to read them properly and unless you think your friends and family will find themselves in a natural disaster in the Yukon, consider an iTunes gift card as a stocking stuffer instead.

-Those flashlights that you have to crank to turn on are just not useful so stop putting them in your gift guides.

Happy Thanksgiving, Althusser Style!

A year ago, a wonderful professor at the University of Chicago taught some master’s students about Althusser’s theory of ideology in “Ideology and the State” using the Thanksgiving hand turkey. In short—to try to write an analytical piece months after graduate school—Althusser’s ideology is a social, political, and economic structure in which individuals self-identify in relation to their labor. In other words, we self-identify through the work we repeatedly do within the social, economic, and political environment we live in, which ultimately reinforces these systems. The hand turkey can be understood as a representation of Althusser’s ideology because Americans recognize the bizarre image of an outlined hand with red and orange crayon as the representation of a turkey, which in turn represents Thanksgiving. We can only recognize this image, which looks nothing like a turkey and could represent many other things beside Thanksgiving, because we are within a system that taught us to make the hand turkey as children for Thanksgiving. In making the hand turkey repeatedly every year in grade school (our labor), we self-identify (those who celebrate Thanksgiving) through our work within an economic, political, and social structure (America), thus reinforcing the system (we know that hand turkeys mean Thanksgiving).

So, happy Thanksgiving from Snaps!

Marriage Equality in Maine and Maryland!

Huzzah!