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- 5SR - July 19, 2023
Today’s curator is the founder of #5SmartReads, Hitha Palepu. She’s a consummate multihyphenate - CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, author of WE’RE SPEAKING: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris and How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip. Hitha is an unabashed fan of Taco Bell, Philadelphia sports teams & F1, romance novels, and is a mediocre crafter. She lives in NYC with her husband and two sons.
Barbie, Inc (Forbes)
While I didn’t play with Barbies too much as a child (I was more of a My Little Pony-Rainbow Brite girl), the upcoming Barbie movie and the resurgence of Barbie nostalgia has given me an appreciation of the OG multi-hyphenate:
The marketing engine behind the Barbie movie has been fascinating to watch as well, and I really enjoy this article’s deep dive into Barbie’s history and the multi-billion dollar juggernaut she’s spearheaded.
That Barbie was originated by someone who wrote the narrative of what it means to be a businesswoman is something special:
“[Ruth] Handler got the idea for Barbie when watching her daughter, Barbara, and her friends play with paper dolls, whose outfits and tabs were constantly tearing. Of particular fascination for Handler was that the girls weren’t pretending to be children or mothers with their creations, rather they pretended to be librarians and teachers. “It hit her that little girls just wanted to be big girls,” Gerber says. But adult dolls made for children to play with didn’t exist.”
I get it if you’re Barbie-d out. But if you’re not, this is a fascinating history about the toy that does it all and has defined generations.
Over-the-counter birth control pill is a small victory (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
In promising news (that’s also overdue), we finally have an oral contraceptive that’s available over the counter.
Kathryn Kolbert has been sounding the alarm about the dismantling of comprehensive reproductive rights for years now (and has been on the front lines for decades, as the lawyer who defended Planned Parenthood at the Supreme Court in PP vs. Casey). In this very Philly op-ed, she puts this news in important context for where we’re at now, and how far we have to go for health equality in my home commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Kolbert’s words underscore the need to invest in health access for the most vulnerable among us. This need is a big reason why I joined the board of New Morning, a South Carolina-based nonprofit that delivers free contraception (after a personalized health screening) to every South Carolinian in need. Please give them a follow on Instagram to learn more and support their work!
Outside of the books I’ve written, I’ve never felt more seen by a book than I have Goblin Mode: How to Get Cozy, Embrace Imperfection, and Thrive in the Muck by McKayla Coyle.
Goblin mode describes my entire vibe and mood during surgery recovery, and frankly it’s how I live most days.
“Goblincore is an aesthetic for those of us who are a bit too disorganized for minimalism, a bit too grungy for hygge, and probably a bit too sticky for anything else.”
Side note for my fellow parents of young kids - why is everything sticky and smudged?
This book was the permission slip to embrace my little mounds that piled up, the hours logged on the couch with my heating pad and giant tumbler watching old episodes of Housewives, the steady diet of pizza-tacos-soups kindly sent by my loved ones, and the very greasy hair that I was too tired to wash in those first weeks.
And even though I’m feeling better each day, I still plan to hold onto my goblin ways - finding the joy in repurposing boxes into magical vehicles with my kids, appreciating how delicious and versatile potatoes are, and letting myself slob out in mismatched t-shirts and shorts while jumping from my craft to a book and back again.
For some, it’s a hot girl summer. For me, it’s goblin mode for life.
It’s not just you. It’s been a rainier year, with floods on the rise globally.
A driving factor? Climate change.
“As the Earth gets warmer, the atmosphere is able to hold more water, leading to heavier precipitation when it rains, and a greater likelihood of flooding as a result. A 1 degree Centigrade increase in the atmosphere’s temperature corresponds to a 7 percent increase in water vapor that it’s able to hold, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. And estimates suggest global temperatures could breach a 1.5 degree Celsius increase threshold sometime in the 2030s, meaning much more rain to come.”
This article is not an easy read (particularly when change needs to come from the industries, companies, and countries contributing the most to carbon emissions), but it’s an important one.
Stay dry and safe, my friends.
To end things on an amusing note, I give you the Taco Tuesday trademark.
And yes, there was a trademark. And no, Taco Bell (or its parent corporation, Yum Brands), was not the owner. But they were the leading voice to cancel the trademark registration
Taco John’s has been the owner of the trademark since 1989, and announced that they would be abandoning the registration (and making a large donation to CORE instead of using those funds for a legal battle), and challenged Taco Bell and the other brands to do the same.
Any restaurant in any state except for New Jersey (where a business called Gregory’s owns the trademark to Taco Tuesday) can now use the term without fear of legal repercussions.
Except for New Jersey. And I don’t know why, but this amuses me greatly.
And it’s making me hungry for tacos.
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