By now almost everyone has heard about the horrible shooting massacre that occurred at the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012. This story is so horrible on so many levels. I was surprised to learn that the theater where this tragedy took place was only about 15 miles away from where the Columbine shooting took place a number of years ago. I can't imagine the horror that replaced the excitement of being among the first to see the much anticipated installment of the Batman movie series. However, one statement struck me in the head like a hammer.
Showing posts with label Social Commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Commentary. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
My Stomach Sank Just A Little.
“My stomach sank just a little”. These were the words spoken by a pastor Wednesday evening after President Barack Obama infamously became the first sitting American President to support same-sex marriage. I have to admit that these words also come very close to describing the tightening feeling knotted in my own gut the moment I heard the President’s interview. I’ll tell you why.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
"Uglier" Politics...A Sadder Day...A Lower Low Has Been Reached!
This time it's Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal. Mere words cannot describe how disturbing this is! If he was joking, it is not funny. If he was serious....urghh. This is the house speaker yall. What kind of example is he setting for the people of his state? I hope he has been put under 24-hour surveillance and is given a thorough pat down from now on when he comes anywhere near President Obama. And to wish the innocent Obama children (who are NOT his political rivals) fatherless? He sounds like a terribly loose cannon to be a political official. In the words of one poster, this is frightening nuttery.
In the words of another poster, he should be recalled immediately for
Conduct Unbecoming to a Human Being
Read the full story here. Photo credit: reponeal.com
Friday, December 23, 2011
Going Boldly Where No "Decent" Man Has Gone Before!
I am beyond appalled by an article I read this morning. You can read the sordid details of the article here . Even though there was no profanity used, the level of insult is exceedingly high and disturbing.
What disturbs me about the situation is that Congress member (I can’t even bring myself to call him a CongressMAN right now) Jim Sensenbrenner is setting a dangerous and insulting precedent in the already volatile world of politics.
What disturbs me about the situation is that Congress member (I can’t even bring myself to call him a CongressMAN right now) Jim Sensenbrenner is setting a dangerous and insulting precedent in the already volatile world of politics.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Kim Kardashian...Heartbreak Or Scam?
By now we’ve all heard about the demise of the marriage of Chris Humphries and Kim Kardashian. But what is a little surprising to me is that some media outlets are implying that the whole thing might have been a scam. Many are saying that Kim orchestrated the whole thing in order to have a huge wedding celebration as a ploy to continue garnering hefty ratings for her family’s reality show. She has been accused of using her wedding to attract sponsors to pay for every flower, napkin and decoration in return for their names being featured on the wedding show. They say she got married for any reason you can think of, with the exception of true love. Well I believe there’s a possibility that Kim may be getting a bad rap.
Just think about it. If Kim were as coldly calculating as she is being portrayed, none of this would have played out to be the public relations disaster it has become. A shrewd businesswoman, such as Kim has proven herself to be, would have considered all angles of the situation and played it in her favor.
If Kim had considered her marriage a “project” there are many ways she could have handled it. She could have had a $10 million engagement party extravaganza. She could have stretched the engagement over two or three seasons of her show. She could have exploited family relationships on both sides. She could have engineered adventurous plots featuring the besotted couple gallivanting across the globe and encountering all kinds of sticky situations. Then, when the novelty of that wore off, cap it off with a wedding that would have put Cinderella and her prince to shame.
Instead she has almost become a laughingstock, trying to dodge the same answer-hungry paparazzi she’d brilliantly courted for years. I submit to you that I think Kim was in love. She’d been exposed to whirlwind courtships that turned out beautifully. Her own mother Chris Jenner married Bruce Jenner after an admittedly short period of time and their marriage has lasted over twenty years so far. Against strong opposition from many, including Kim, her sister Khloe and Lamar Odom met and were married in a matter of weeks. And even I must admit, they seem to be one of the most loving couples you can find on television right about now.
That being her experience, and we are all shaped to an extent by our environment, Kim had no reason to doubt that true love can happen hard and fast. Now it takes work to sustain a marriage, but no social scientists have come up with concrete proof that it takes “X” amount of time for the feeling of love to be deemed real.
Another of my favorite couples, Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey, fell in love almost immediately and are now reveling in the joy of their beautiful twins. By all accounts, their love is growing stronger each day. I think Kim fell in love, but unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. So, dear readers, what are your thoughts on this issue? Can true love happen in an instant? Or are whirlwind courtships products of lust and doomed to fail? What say you?
Just think about it. If Kim were as coldly calculating as she is being portrayed, none of this would have played out to be the public relations disaster it has become. A shrewd businesswoman, such as Kim has proven herself to be, would have considered all angles of the situation and played it in her favor.
If Kim had considered her marriage a “project” there are many ways she could have handled it. She could have had a $10 million engagement party extravaganza. She could have stretched the engagement over two or three seasons of her show. She could have exploited family relationships on both sides. She could have engineered adventurous plots featuring the besotted couple gallivanting across the globe and encountering all kinds of sticky situations. Then, when the novelty of that wore off, cap it off with a wedding that would have put Cinderella and her prince to shame.
Instead she has almost become a laughingstock, trying to dodge the same answer-hungry paparazzi she’d brilliantly courted for years. I submit to you that I think Kim was in love. She’d been exposed to whirlwind courtships that turned out beautifully. Her own mother Chris Jenner married Bruce Jenner after an admittedly short period of time and their marriage has lasted over twenty years so far. Against strong opposition from many, including Kim, her sister Khloe and Lamar Odom met and were married in a matter of weeks. And even I must admit, they seem to be one of the most loving couples you can find on television right about now.
That being her experience, and we are all shaped to an extent by our environment, Kim had no reason to doubt that true love can happen hard and fast. Now it takes work to sustain a marriage, but no social scientists have come up with concrete proof that it takes “X” amount of time for the feeling of love to be deemed real.
Another of my favorite couples, Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey, fell in love almost immediately and are now reveling in the joy of their beautiful twins. By all accounts, their love is growing stronger each day. I think Kim fell in love, but unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. So, dear readers, what are your thoughts on this issue? Can true love happen in an instant? Or are whirlwind courtships products of lust and doomed to fail? What say you?
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
What Gives You The Right?
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. These scary facts according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV):
1. 85% of domestic violence victims are women.
2. One in every four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.
3. Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults.
There are many articles written on why does the woman stay? Why doesn’t she do this or that? Some even take the slant that a woman deserves what she gets if she stays. These might be valid questions. But, unintentional though it might be, some of these articles come perilously close to victim bashing.
For purposes of this article, I’d like to focus on the men who abuse women. What gives these men the right to assault (physically, sexually, emotionally, or verbally) another human being whom they proclaim to love? And sadly, most domestic violence on women is adminstered by someone with whom they are intimately involved.
To start, let’s look at children in the earliest toddler stages. Observe a classroom of preschoolers or a group of children playing in the park. You will note that some of the boys play with the girls as equals. Some, however, show an early tendancy toward becoming potential bullies. I’m not talking about the boy who lightly tugs the ponytail of a girl he might have a crush on. I’m talking about the boys who push a girl down, and laugh as she starts to cry, mistakenly believing this makes him an object of admiration on the playground.
What gives these boys and later men the sense of entitlement that they can harm another? I submit that it is anger. I’m sure there are many reasons men lash out. They didn’t have a father in the home. The father they did have was abusive or emotionally absent. They saw their father or significant other in their mother’s life treat them badly. They are too young and too small to do anything about it, so the anger (accompanied by hurt, humiliation, and fear) festers until it spills over into acting out.
Now the boy is a grown man who swears he will never treat a woman the way he grew up seeing women treated. But life happens. Kids, bills, financial problems and relationship problems. What does he do? He reacts in the only way he knows. He wants to behave differently, but he has internalized, almost against his will, what he saw growing up. Looking at it objectively, this is understandable. I don’t believe that children are born abusers any more than they are born prejudiced or hateful. Most behavior is learned.
Is this an explanation? Yes. An excuse? To this I answer a resounding no!!! At some point, an abuser realizes he has a problem. He realizes that his expressions of anger are extreme. They know deep down that what they are doing is not acceptable. Otherwise why are these acts so often committed in the privacy of the home? Why the tendancy to isolate the woman from friends and family to whom she might confide?
Men need to stand up and take responsibility for their actions. Look in the mirror, admit that something is wrong that saying “I’m sorry” will not fix, and get yourself some help. Not only that, other men need to hold their brethren accountable. Don’t laugh when you hear a friend say he’s got to keep his woman in line, or in check. Let him know that she is a grown woman with the same God-given right as he to make her own choices in life. Tell him that if they can’t make it work, then they need to part ways.
Hear this loud and clear men, you do not, now or ever, have the right to put your hands on a woman the wrong way. No she did not make you do it. You are responsible for your own actions, and you are ultimately responsible for making a change. Stop it now. Our families, the very fabric of our society, hangs in the balance. Come forward now and make the decision that the generational curse of domestic violence with stop with you. And one man at a time, we will see a change for the better.
1. 85% of domestic violence victims are women.
2. One in every four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.
3. Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults.
There are many articles written on why does the woman stay? Why doesn’t she do this or that? Some even take the slant that a woman deserves what she gets if she stays. These might be valid questions. But, unintentional though it might be, some of these articles come perilously close to victim bashing.
For purposes of this article, I’d like to focus on the men who abuse women. What gives these men the right to assault (physically, sexually, emotionally, or verbally) another human being whom they proclaim to love? And sadly, most domestic violence on women is adminstered by someone with whom they are intimately involved.
To start, let’s look at children in the earliest toddler stages. Observe a classroom of preschoolers or a group of children playing in the park. You will note that some of the boys play with the girls as equals. Some, however, show an early tendancy toward becoming potential bullies. I’m not talking about the boy who lightly tugs the ponytail of a girl he might have a crush on. I’m talking about the boys who push a girl down, and laugh as she starts to cry, mistakenly believing this makes him an object of admiration on the playground.
What gives these boys and later men the sense of entitlement that they can harm another? I submit that it is anger. I’m sure there are many reasons men lash out. They didn’t have a father in the home. The father they did have was abusive or emotionally absent. They saw their father or significant other in their mother’s life treat them badly. They are too young and too small to do anything about it, so the anger (accompanied by hurt, humiliation, and fear) festers until it spills over into acting out.
Now the boy is a grown man who swears he will never treat a woman the way he grew up seeing women treated. But life happens. Kids, bills, financial problems and relationship problems. What does he do? He reacts in the only way he knows. He wants to behave differently, but he has internalized, almost against his will, what he saw growing up. Looking at it objectively, this is understandable. I don’t believe that children are born abusers any more than they are born prejudiced or hateful. Most behavior is learned.
Is this an explanation? Yes. An excuse? To this I answer a resounding no!!! At some point, an abuser realizes he has a problem. He realizes that his expressions of anger are extreme. They know deep down that what they are doing is not acceptable. Otherwise why are these acts so often committed in the privacy of the home? Why the tendancy to isolate the woman from friends and family to whom she might confide?
Men need to stand up and take responsibility for their actions. Look in the mirror, admit that something is wrong that saying “I’m sorry” will not fix, and get yourself some help. Not only that, other men need to hold their brethren accountable. Don’t laugh when you hear a friend say he’s got to keep his woman in line, or in check. Let him know that she is a grown woman with the same God-given right as he to make her own choices in life. Tell him that if they can’t make it work, then they need to part ways.
Hear this loud and clear men, you do not, now or ever, have the right to put your hands on a woman the wrong way. No she did not make you do it. You are responsible for your own actions, and you are ultimately responsible for making a change. Stop it now. Our families, the very fabric of our society, hangs in the balance. Come forward now and make the decision that the generational curse of domestic violence with stop with you. And one man at a time, we will see a change for the better.
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