Blog Posts by Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff

Red Robin's snarky ad offended vegetarians. Photo: Red RobinAre vegetarians humorless? It’s the question being asked this week after a Red Robin television ad offended herbivores by touting its 24 types of burgers and then noting, with an implied eye roll and mock whisper, “We even have a Gardenburger—just in case your teenage daughter is going through a phase.”

The commercial, part of a new campaign ad series, aired for about a week before being rotated out, as was planned from the start. But it prompted outrage among activists and on social media outlets, with a slew of horrified vegetarians taking the eatery to task for its condescending approach.

“Though I applaud any fast food chain that offers a veggie burger, and I hope that more do, the idea that not eating animals is reserved solely for teenage girls going through a phase is obviously meant to insult both vegans and girls,” Jasmin Singer, executive director of Our Hen House, a New York-based multimedia vegan activism organization, told Yahoo! Shine. “Why is Red Robin insulting the very Read More »from Red Robin Ad Mocks Vegetarians With 'Teen Phase' Joke. Guess Who's Not Laughing?

Frauenfelder's daughter in the outfit that apparently offended a TSA officer. Photo: Courtesy Mark Frauenfelder/Twitter.The Transportation Security Administration (TSA)  is investigating a report that one of its officers allegedly humiliated a 15-year-old girl wearing leggings, a tank top, and a button-down, telling her she should cover up as she went through an ID-check line in the Los Angeles Airport Sunday. 

“She said the officer was ‘glaring’ at her and mumbling. She said, ‘Excuse me?’ and he said, ‘You're only 15, cover yourself!’ in a hostile tone,” the girl's father, Mark Frauenfelder, told Yahoo! Shine, echoing what he had written in a Boing Boing blog post describing the incident. “It shook her up," he added.

Frauenfelder, who is editor in chief of Make magazine and the founder of Boing Boing, told Shine that his daughter, Sarina, was with a group of high school peers, on their way to visit colleges. He said that she began a rapid-fire series of texts to him and his wife by declaring, "I'm furious!" and adding, about the TSA officer, "He was so rude and hostile. He made me feel like a slut."

Read More »from TSA Officer Accused of Shaming Teen for Wearing Leggings. Dad's Got This.

Kate Middleton may have some groovy plans for childbirth. Photo: Getty Images EntertainmentKate Middleton may have some groovy plans for childbirth. Photo: Getty Images EntertainmentKate Middleton may be royalty, but she’s not too posh to push.

More from Shine: Kate Middleton's Stylish Maternity Looks

The Duchess of Cambridge, whose first child is due in mid-July, is said to be leaning toward birthing her baby in as natural a way as possible. And to make that process easier, according to reports, she might be planning to use a calming technique known as HypnoBirthing.

The duchess was rumored to use hypnosis to overcome her acute morning sickness so this technique would be “second nature for her,” noted Alisha Tamburri, a Los Angeles HypnoBirthing practitioner whose clients have included Jessica Alba, Bridget Fonda, Melissa Joan Hart, Alanis Morisette, and Emily Deschanel.

More from Yahoo!: Kate Middleton Beats Kate Moss to Be Most Inspirational Beauty Icon

The method, popular both in Hollywood and outside of it, has “kind of replaced what Lamaze was years ago,” Tamburri said. It was founded in 1989 by New Hampshire hypnotherapist Marie Mongan, and essentially

Read More »from Kate Middleton Sparks Interest in HypnoBirthing. What's It All About?

"I'm not proud to admit it, but once I had a kid, I realized that I had been judging other moms," Michelle Noehren, founder of the online community CT Working Moms and mother to a 2-year-old daughter told Yahoo! Shine. It was this realization--which mirrored that of the many other mamas in the group--that led to their latest project, "End the Mommy Wars," a visual plea for loving sisterhood over judge-laden competition. After last year's effort, a post-baby-body photo shoot, went viral, the women decided they needed a powerful follow-up. "We wanted to move from embracing our bodies to embracing our parenting choices," Noehren said. Behold the empowering result.--Beth Greenfield, Yahoo! Shine Staff

Read More »from Parents Launch Campaign to 'End Mommy Wars.' Amen

photo via facebook

After a storm of controversy, Facebook officially changed its policy on the posting of mastectomy photos, making it clear on Wednesday that they are now permitted. And that’s been welcome news to the women behind the once-banned photos, who have called it a victory for their effort to make the truth about breast cancer visual.

More on Shine: Public Demand for Victoria's Secret Post-Mastectomy Bra

“We want the world to know that breast cancer is not a pink ribbon—it is traumatic, it is life-changing, and it urgently needs a cure,” wrote Scorchy Barrington in a special announcement on the Change.org petition she started and which was the force behind Facebook’s updated policy. Barrington (who uses a pseudonym) is a breast cancer survivor who has felt personally empowered by stark images of mastectomy scars. She felt compelled to start the petition after learning that Facebook had removed several of them and banned SCAR Project photographer David Jay for 30 days.

Another woman whose

Read More »from Facebook Allows Mastectomy Photos: Tattooed Model In Controversial Picture Speaks Out

Daugherty and Menakaya at their Fort Worth reunion. Photo: Courtesy Chidinma Menakaya.When Patience Menakaya was seven months pregnant with her first child 29 years ago, she suddenly found herself in an unenviable position: A student at Dallas Baptist University, she was all alone in Forth Worth, Texas, after her husband became stuck in their native Nigeria during a coup d’état. After developing visa problems, she was kicked out by the friend she'd been staying with, and had nowhere to go.

Daugherty, left, reunited with Menakaya. Photo: NBC 5 NewsMore on Shine: Mother, Son Reunite Thanks to Facebook and the Kindness of Strangers

Enter Lolamay Daugherty, wife of the pastor where Menakaya attended church, who offered a generous solution. “We told her to just come and live with us,” she recalled, speaking with Yahoo! Shine this week. “We were happy to have her.”

It was a precious gift that Menakaya, now 53, said affected the entire course of her life. And last week, after three decades of ups and downs that included moving around the country, raising six children (all now college grads), splitting from her husband and eventually

Read More »from 'Fairy Godmother' Gets Surprise Thank You From Mom After 27 Years. We Melt.

Thames Town has much of what you'd expect to find in a quaint English village--cobbled streets, Tudor architecture and a Gothic church. But it's actually just a full-scale replica of such a place, in the suburbs of Shanghai, created in 2006 as a cool place for students and hipsters to hang. It was a flop, though, and soon became a ghost town--until photo-happy brides and grooms caught wind of it, that is. Now the entire town serves as an atmospheric backdrop for an endless stream of elaborate wedding-photo shoots, with a whole slew of them usually happening at once, often side-by-side. Talk about surreal.--Beth Greenfield

Read More »from China's Fake English Village Overtaken by Wedding Photography

Rainbeau Mars, vegan dictator. Photo: Getty ImagesBridezilla-mania has officially gotten out of control.

It’s no longer enough for certain brides to demand that guests spend wads of money on presents, new outfits, and plane tickets to far-flung destination weddings. Nope, they now feel A-OK dictating to guests exactly what they should be eating—for three weeks prior to their big day.

Well, at least one betrothed lady does, anyway.

Rainbeau Mars, the actor and yoga- and holistic-health guru with “an irresistible glow,” according to her website, has requested that her guests “try out a vegan, and subsequently live food diet for 21 days” before her upcoming Kauai wedding to Hollywood business manager Michael Karlin, according to the Huffington Post. That way, Mars’s publicist explained in the piece, “everyone will look and feel their best for HER big day.”

Mars, though, responding to a Cosmopolitan story about her unique request on Tuesday, posted on Facebook in her own defense. "The story was twisted and I never 'demanded' anything as

Read More »from Bridezilla Asks Guests To Go Vegan Weeks Before Her Big Day