"She might be the first woman of color that females in male-dominated countries have seen as confident, bright, educated, articulate and persuasive," says Barbara Perry, author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier. • A mother in Brazil partially severed her boyfriend's penis after her teenage daughter accused him of raping her from age seven. The man had reconstructive surgery and the mother is still on the run. • A federal judge upheld a $100 million jury verdict for Mattel Inc. over the rights to the Bratz dolls. Mattel sued the makers of Bratz dolls in 2004, accusing designer Carter Bryant of developed the concept for Bratz while working for Mattel. • Spanish police arrested a doctor who is suspected of using a pen camera to film female employeesin a locker room while they were undressing. He would leave his lab coat in a strategically placed area with the camera in the pocket. • Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have seized a rare 2-year-old female gorilla from traffickers at an airport. She was hidden under clothes in the bottom of a bag for more than six hours and was suffering from over-heating, dehydration, and a wounded leg when she was discovered. • But 20-year-old Amy Thomas is the support Roxana Saberi, an American journalist jailed in Iran. Saberi has been on a hunger strike in prison for about a week. • In one of the most insane justifications for sexual assault that we've ever heard, a dentist convicted of a dozen counts of sexual battery for molesting his patients said he wasn't fondling the women's breasts, but massaging their chests as treatment for the jaw condition TMJ. • A 24-year-old New York police criminologist was found strangled with the cord from a cell phone charger, with a knife stuck in her neck, and her stomach burned with an iron. Her roommate slept all night in the room next door before finding her body, but is not a suspect. • In an editorial, psychologist Michael Oberschneider says he's seen increased symptoms mental distress among his clients due to the bad economy, including anxiety, stress and depression, marital and parenting conflicts focused on spending, trouble sleeping, and stress-induced stomach pain and headaches. He says, "What I hear from my clients and colleagues suggests that the financial downturn and continued uncertainty have overtaxed us emotionally." • In Lebanon, the health minister has advised people to discontinue the traditional greeting of kissing the cheek three times to first confirmed case of swine flu, but the minister in charge of the health department says is should be referred to as "Mexico flu," because pork is non-kosher. The minister is a member of one of the ultra-Orthodox political parties. Haaretz columnist Benjamin Hartman, criticized Israel's "demented Legoland" political system, saying that only in Israel could "a man who can't say the word 'vagina'" be put in charge of a ministry that supervises teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases." • Stylists and models from around the country competed last week in the International Fantasy Hair Competition in New Hampshire. The winner was model Amaris Brown and stylist Kevin Carter of Detroit for "Proud Peacock," a big spray of feathers with hair shaped into what looked like the bird's tail feathers. •

And speaking of stomachs, Breslin has the notable lack of one in Kit. I received an alarmed missive from my mother (email subject: "A Beef") about this very issue last week. "Having just looked at Little Miss Sunshine, I was appalled today to see a picture of Abigail Breslin. I was happy to see she has a new movie (Kit Kittredge - from the American Girls franchise). BUT they have made her lose weight and dye her hair. She looks now like one of those girls she was mocking in Sunshine. It is scary. She is scary. " What my momma didn't know is that Abigail was wearing a fat suit to play delightfully rotund Olive in Sunshine. Her salient point still remains: even though Kit Kittredge has a better message than the Bratz movie, it's still selling a certain commodified ideal.

But, at the end of the day, having your kid look up to a self-reliant character who teaches a bit of history is far from the worst thing in the world. Of his daughter's American Girl doll, A.O. Scott writes, "She doesn't say much, and even though her expression is always fixed in a pleasant smile, she seems to change according to the moods and interests of her playmates. She is an athlete, a musician, a clothes horse, a bookworm, a pet owner, a loner and a confidant. A typical American girl, as far as I can tell."

A Girl's Life [NYT]
'Kit Kittredge': Wholesome Life Lessons For Budding Reporter [IHT]

Related: Abigail Breslin Is Not A Method Actress

• Unless you're living in a closet on Mars, you know that the Sex and the City movie premiered today.
• Slut Machine live blogged it wearing flip flops and eating some skittles. Suck on that, Louboutin wearers.
• The only part of the Sex and the City franchise that we're not sick of is Pat Field and her fabulous, gay, Payless lifestyle.
• Tyra Banks revealed her plans for world domination in the New York Times.
• TyTy sort of looked like a Bratz doll on that Times Mag cover; Bratz are also involved in world domination schemes

• Instead of casting a black actress in the forthcoming movie Stuck, they decided to get Mena Suvari in cornrows. Sigh.
• We didn't get cornrows at summer camp. We hated it anyway.
• But remember, even in a world where teenage Starbucks-swillers rob girl scouts without remorse, there are still puppies who nurse orphaned baby bunnies, and isn't that a world worth drinking in?

It was no small feat for the Mattel lawyers to track me down, probably because I had so cleverly in the interim changed my common-law name to "Moe," but after numerous false starts they finally convinced me and seven or eight lawyers to show up in a conference room someplace downtown for a few hours of grilling about a story about which I couldn't have ethically provided any information even if I remembered it, which I of course did not. As we left, my lawyer, the in-house counsel of Dow Jones, marveled at the billable hours that had been assembled for our presence alone. It was enough to fund a reality show-worthy bar mitzvah. And they'd been at this case for years!

Today the case is supposed to go to trial and I am apparently, according to an email from the Gawker office manager, to be there, although I am not, because I don't leave my house to buy toilet paper if there is perfectly decent newspaper lying around, and the thing is going down in California. But it's fascinating to read about the internal memos describing the increasingly heated battles between these two dolls: "The House Is On Fire!" one is titled; fixing the problem will require "grenades."

"Complacency will kill us," the company concluded.

But when you live in a country in which a few sketches depicting dolls with stoned eyes and platform shoes and oversized heads vaguely conjuring anorexia is multibillion dollar "intellectual property" whose protection demands numerous eight figure retainers funding whole divisions of preposterously well-educated legal minds and even holds a few multimillion dollar holiday bonuses in the balance, it's hard to feel anything other than "complacency."

Brawl Over Doll Is Heading To Trial

Mattel is doing everything in its power to fight Barbie's increasing obsolescence. The Wall Street Journal reports that, in order to combat its "rare quarterly loss" — unlike last year, sales of Barbie flattened both inside and outside of the United States — Mattel is ramping up web-related offerings and is going to start charging a small subscription fee for its Barbie Girl website, which offers games, videos, chats and "digital extras". It's also experimenting with more interactive products — which aren't guaranteed successes. According to the Journal, "The recent Magic of the Rainbow, a fantasy doll marketed under the Barbie brand, doubled as a remote control, came with a CD-ROM game and featured wings that fluttered at the push of a button. 'Girls asked — is this a doll?' said [Chuck] Scothon [senior vice president of Mattel's girls division]. 'We put too much in.'"

[Image via Wilde Designs Etsy Shop]

Earlier: New Game Encourages Young Girls To Embrace Their Inner "Bimbo"

Parents are understandably up in arms over the game, which, after a launch last month, has, at the time of this writing, 204,714 "registered Bimbos." Bill Hibbard, a member of the parents' rights group ParentKind, tells the Guardian, "It is one thing if a child recognises it as a silly and stupid game. But the danger is that a nine-year-old fails to appreciate the irony and sees the bimbo as a cool role model. Then the game becomes a hazard and a menace. Children's innocence should be protected as far as possible. It depends on the background and mindset of the child but the danger is that after playing the game some will then aspire to have breast operations and take diet pills."

Miss Bimbo, at first glance, is free for registrants, but when players run out of virtual bimbo money, they are given the option to buy Bimbo text messages which cost £1.50 ($2.99) per message and give players extra dollars to spend on their Bimbos. A French man has already sued Miss Bimbo's Gallic sister site after his daughter ran up a text message bill of over £100 ($199).

As for the creators of Miss Bimbo, well, the game's 23-year-old creator Nicolas Jacquart tells the Times of London, "The game is structured in such a way that it simply mirrors real life in a tongue-in-cheek way. It is not a bad influence for young children. They learn to take care of their bimbos." He continues: "The missions and goals for the bimbos are morally sound and teach children about the real world. If they eat too much chocolate in the game, it is bad for their bimbos' bodies and their happiness levels compared to if they eat fruit and vegetables, which reinforces positive healthy eating messages.The breast operations are just one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to have them." Maybe we should teach Jacquart a lesson through the patented Jezebel justice system. Perhaps some time cleaning bed pans on an eating disorder ward would do the trick?

Alarm As Dolls Get Breast Implants In 'Miss Bimbo' Game [CNN]
Internet Miss Bimbo Game For Girls Attacked By Parents [Guardian]
Miss Bimbo Website Promotes Extreme Diets And Surgery To 9-Year-Olds [Times of London]

Is a "party plane" for blonde, plastic dolls necessarily a bad thing? Didn't your Barbies do much filthier things than have an afternoon cocktail? And why should Mattel think a play set with martini glasses is wrong, if sales are good? Check out the commercial and judge for yourself:

Barbie Shows Bratz Dollz How to Drink In Style! [Packaging Girlhood]
Tax Gains Offset Recalls at Mattel [NY Times]
Check Out Line: U.S. Girls Shun Barbie Again [Reuters]
2008 Barbie 2-in-1 Party Plane & Ship Commercial UK [YouTube]

• So that's what Naomi Campbell was doing in Venezuela: interviewing Hugo Chavez for British GQ. Now they're sending her to talk to Fidel Castro. Is this a fucking joke? And if not, does she realize the whole Latin American socialist alliance thing is like, kinda last season? [Vogue UK]
  
• Selling real fur as "faux": clever move, Neiman and Saks! [Consumerist]
  
• On the heels of an ELLE redesign, Vogue is undergoing some design "tweaking" of its own. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Agyness Deyn is the face of — well, the whole entire fucking universe, including the Armani cell phone. [Sassybella]

• Marketing ploy we just can't avoid: Blackberry has asked Karl Lagerfeld, Dita von Teese, Henry Holland and others to share their favorite secret spots for the masses on their new website The B List. Karl: likes eating tacos at La Esquina in NYC. Where they put crickets in the tacos! [Vogue UK]
• Signing bottles of Armani perfume in Milan, Beyonce shared how excited she was to go to her "mum's" for Christmas. Oh god. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Whoah: Over-the-knee Uggs. [FabSugar]
• Coach: still doing meh. [Portfolio]
• Lanvin Spring 2008 ads: you know, they said the giant tent-dress trend was over, but not really getting that vibe with this one... [Sassybella]
• Valentino Spring 2008 ads: who needs plastic surgery when you've got a giant handbag to shield your face? [Sassybella]

"She is really creative and she knows how to handle fashion," Melvin says. Does any kid know who Kimora Lee Simmons is on their own? And if you expose your child to Kimora, shouldn't you prepare to deal with the repercussions? Forget about "stop dressing your six-year-old like a skank." Shouldn't you stop letting your six-year old worship a drag queen-esque woman who invented the word "fabulosity"?

Are Young Girls Dressing Too Revealingly? [ABC News]
Ealier: Dames Down Under Don't Like Underage Glamour Girls
Britney Spears & Jon-Benet Weren't Born In Inappropriate Outfits, You Know
Young Girls Today: Tramps In Training?
'Tramps-In-Training' Author Speaks, Dodges Tween Bullets

• One report says that Lindsay Lohan is in a Sundance, Utah rehab facility which previously hosted Mary-Kate Olsen and David Hasselhoff. [EntertainmentTonight]
  
• Two other reports say Lindsay Lohan is with her mother on Long Island. We hope the first report is true! [People, PageSix]
  
• There's some cuckoo baby mama drama between Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards, if you care. [PageSix]
  
• Gwyneth Paltrow uses snake venom to keep her skin looking young. We always knew there was something sinister about her! [PageSix]
  
• Director Brett Ratner got a blowjob from a tranny. As the kids say, ROTLFLMFAO! [PageSix]

• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, fighting? "I've even heard her telling friends things like Brad's always too busy highlighting his hair to keep up with her UN briefs," says a source. It seems like we hear about them breaking up every day, and yet they are still together. [Mirror]
• Justin Timberlake filmed his scenes for a new video away from scantily-clad models. Hmm, wonder if he's trying not to piss off Jessica Biel? [TheSun]
• Does Jack Nicholson have a crooked penis? [TMZ]
• Usher finally married his pregnant fiancée in Atlanta. We sure hope these two crazy kids will be happy together! [People]
• Hermione has a boyfriend! They drink champagne and eat lobster together! Go Emma Watson! [DailyMail]
• There's some sort of snafu regarding Madonna and the court-appointed adoption official from Malawi. Will the kid will be 25 by the time this crap gets worked out? [CNN]
• George Clooney: incurable bachelor or closeted gay? [DailyMail]
• Actress Thandie Newton admits she was bulimic for a year. [People]
• Bratz: Number 10 at the box office. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Nathalia Ramos, who plays Yasmin (and whom we suspect has been coached), sums it up: "Nothing scandalous. One of the things about the movie is to change the reputation of the dolls." Hear that, parents? The movie will not be skanky!

Over in the Inquirer, the stars emphasize the positivity and friendship of the movie. (The word "friend" or "friendship" appears six times in the article.) "Moms love it," says Ramos. "There's this one line where Cloe goes, 'My mom is my hero,' and all the moms in the audience just go, 'Awww.'" So. For those slow to pick up: Kids lured in by a glamorous, pseudo-sexy doll are getting the old bait-and-switch, because the movie is not like that at all. Skanky doll; clean movie. Any questions?

By the way, a few reviews are in over at Rotten Tomatoes. Some highlights:

"The storyline is almost too easy to rag on, what with its almost complete incoherence..."

"Wow, is this movie mind-numblingly vapid and shrill."

"'Bratz' is like being raped by MySpace."

Earlier: The Bratz Movie Will Be So Good For Feminism, In Case You Can't Tell From All The Shopping And Makeup
The Unsluttification Of Bratz?