Over the weekend singer Teena Marie was found dead in her home by her daughter. The "Ivory Queen of Soul" was 54 years old. Well, that's sad. I wonder how she died? They aren't saying yet. If we're lucky, something really interesting happened to her but she probably just died from a drug overdose or a heart attack. I'm kind of tired of those causes of death among celebrities. Why can't more people die in some freak accident? Like Steve Irwin for example. He died because a sting ray got him in the chest. Not only was it a total coincidence that the sting ray had great aim but Steve died doing something he loved. So now he has a cool story to tell in heaven and he doesn't have to pout because he spent all of that time and energy chasing after things he probably shouldn't have been only to die in his armchair for some boring reason. Lucky bastard.
Have any of you ever noticed that there is a death bandwagon? Let's take Teena Marie for example. Sure, she made history. In 1976 she was the first white act signed by Motown. She had a successful and inspirational career and was often regarded as a pioneer for many of the R & B divas. Although would you want to be regarded as the person who paved the way for the likes of Mariah Carey to parade around acting like spoiled brats? She was the lover of her mentor, Rick James (I know what you're thinking. It's not the right time so don't!). All in all, she was a talented singer and songwriter. However, when is the last time anyone really thought about Teena Marie? She probably hadn't heard from any of her fans and most of her friends and/or family for years. Now she's dead and all of these #1 fans come out of the woodwork and talk about how in love they were with Teena Marie and how she changed their lives with this one song they heard back when they were 16 and having sex in the backseat of their parents car.
It's so frustrating and sad to me that people wait until someone is dead to talk about how great they were and what a difference they made in their lives. We see this most often with celebrities but it isn't just limited to them. Even my beloved Grandfather, who was prone to tangents at the local City Hall and who sat in his yard hollering at passersby because they were driving too fast down our residential road, had a bit of a death bandwagon. People that generally thought he poked his nose where it didn't belong and wouldn't give him the time of day when he was trying to address some issue that was important to him showed up at his funeral and talked about what a good guy he was. Funny how they were all so quick to dismiss him when he was alive but talked about what great things he did (or tried to do) once he was dead.
My favorite is when people who generally bad mouth someone during the course of their life show up at someones funeral and talk about how close they were and how much they liked and/or respected the person. I suppose it's much cooler to be a friend at the funeral then the person the dead guy couldn't stand to be around.
The bottom line? If you love someone, if they made a difference in your life somehow, tell them now before you're the person that's singing the praises at the funeral of someone you haven't talked to for years. And if you didn't like someone? Don't go to their funeral. Everyone will just talk about you behind your back. On second thought... Just go ahead and go. Let them talk about you. Then they'll come to your funeral, too.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
This is SPARTA!
Let's start out with a bit of a song, shall we?
"He's making a list, checking it twice..
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice...
Santa Claus is coming to town!"
If this were true, nearly all of the nation would be screwed out of every present they ever wanted. What is it about Christmas that makes people lose their heads? The closer it gets to Christmas the more you can expect people to act like absolute idiots that have no common sense at all! You want a new pair of shoes? TOO BAD! You can't have them because you took out an eight year old with your shopping cart! HA!
I'm late doing my Christmas shopping. Like always. I've come to expect the normal hustle and bustle amongst shopping centers this time of year. It's a fact of life that I've learned to deal with since I'm always late. Naturally, a normal person would expect that since they waited until the last minute to buy gifts for the umpteen-gillion people on their gift lists that the crowds and lines were going to be horrendous and that many of the items they wanted were going to be simply gone. However, since Christmas is literally right around the corner, people act as if they have gone completely nuts and normal is no longer an option.
For example, I was nearly run over more times than I could count today. You name it and I was probably hit with it. Strollers? Yep! Shopping carts? Absolutely! People? Of course. Automobiles? You betcha! Those electric scooters that mostly fat people take advantage of so that the people that really need them can't use them? Check! I anticipated the hustle and still managed to go in feeling festive and quite cheerful. I came out thinking that if it weren't for the fact that my son would really miss his beloved Halo Lego set that I would happily stick it right up someones butt with a beaming smile on my face.
Seriously people... get a grip. It's CHRISTMAS!!! We all have places to be, things to do, food to cook and gifts to buy. I can assure you that your gifts are no more important than anyone elses... especially mine. Oh, and that parking spot what was about half a mile from the door anyway?? You can have it... I'd rather spend my money for gifts for my loved ones than on repairing my bumper because the thought of walking an extra two parking spots difference made me want to cut myself.
Practice a little patience, folks. It's Christmastime. And to those of you that still insist on shoving me around so that you can get the last Olivia house instead of me.... I hope Santa brings you coal!
"He's making a list, checking it twice..
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice...
Santa Claus is coming to town!"
If this were true, nearly all of the nation would be screwed out of every present they ever wanted. What is it about Christmas that makes people lose their heads? The closer it gets to Christmas the more you can expect people to act like absolute idiots that have no common sense at all! You want a new pair of shoes? TOO BAD! You can't have them because you took out an eight year old with your shopping cart! HA!
I'm late doing my Christmas shopping. Like always. I've come to expect the normal hustle and bustle amongst shopping centers this time of year. It's a fact of life that I've learned to deal with since I'm always late. Naturally, a normal person would expect that since they waited until the last minute to buy gifts for the umpteen-gillion people on their gift lists that the crowds and lines were going to be horrendous and that many of the items they wanted were going to be simply gone. However, since Christmas is literally right around the corner, people act as if they have gone completely nuts and normal is no longer an option.
For example, I was nearly run over more times than I could count today. You name it and I was probably hit with it. Strollers? Yep! Shopping carts? Absolutely! People? Of course. Automobiles? You betcha! Those electric scooters that mostly fat people take advantage of so that the people that really need them can't use them? Check! I anticipated the hustle and still managed to go in feeling festive and quite cheerful. I came out thinking that if it weren't for the fact that my son would really miss his beloved Halo Lego set that I would happily stick it right up someones butt with a beaming smile on my face.
Seriously people... get a grip. It's CHRISTMAS!!! We all have places to be, things to do, food to cook and gifts to buy. I can assure you that your gifts are no more important than anyone elses... especially mine. Oh, and that parking spot what was about half a mile from the door anyway?? You can have it... I'd rather spend my money for gifts for my loved ones than on repairing my bumper because the thought of walking an extra two parking spots difference made me want to cut myself.
Practice a little patience, folks. It's Christmastime. And to those of you that still insist on shoving me around so that you can get the last Olivia house instead of me.... I hope Santa brings you coal!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Hack and Slash...
Circumcision. The act of altering male or female genitalia from it's natural state. I'd be willing to bet it's something you never really put much thought in to, isn't it?
In the US, 56% of newborn boys leave the hospital circumcised. An eight year old study, conducted over four years, found that 79% of American men were circumcised. Approximately 90%+ of American men born in the 70's and 80's were circumcised.
It's difficult to get accurate numbers for intact vs. altered boys because most studies only take in to consideration newborns circumcised before they leave the hospital. It's reported that if more data was considered, the number would likely be somewhere near 70% of newborns are circumcised. It's becoming more common in the US for more circumcisions to take place at the Pediatricians office at the child's one week check up so the number can be easily misleading. It's also hard to get an accurate grasp of the numbers because the data varies so much depending on what part of the country you are looking at.
These numbers disturb the hell out of me. Is it because so many boys are circumcised each year? Nope. It because I know if circumcision was introduced today that people would freak out? Nope.
It's because I know that the majority of parents let their newborn baby boys be circumcised without so much as giving it a second though. Because it's just what you do. Right?
Personally, I think there is no quicker way to show your ignorance level then letting a person, qualified or not, hack away at your new squishy baby without doing any research beforehand. Sure, each parent is allowed to make whatever decision they think is best for their child but to not research it first and just assume that it's okay to have a piece of your child's body cut away because everyone else is doing it is absolute insanity.
I was a wild nineteen year old single mother that didn't know the first thing about babies and even I knew I didn't want someone cutting a piece of my son's penis off without me checking it out first. If I had the sense and time to do so, couldn't anyone else? I immediately became interested in being an activist in educating people on circumcision.
Here are the facts folks...
As I said before, if someone were to introduce circumcision today we would freak out! We would call them barbaric and lock them away. Have you ever seen a video of a baby being circumcised? If you have a little boy or are expecting one, you should. You're going to need to know what to expect right? I can guarantee you that if more people knew what in the hell was going on in that room, they would have no parts of it. Circumcision is a way to be lazy. Give your child a proper bath regularly and teach them good hygiene and you'll have no problems. It's not rocket science, kids. Not to mention, the part of the penis they remove has the most nerve endings in it. Your kid deserves to have the best sex he can have later, right?
They restrain the child because they fight so much. Only recently did they start using any analgesic pain reliever at all and not every doctor does because the fools think infants don't have the same pain response we do. They give them a pacifier dipped in sugar to distract them instead! OH GOODY! Listen to a baby being circumcised without any Lidocaine and you'll call bullshit, too. Then they force the foreskin back (something you aren't supposed to do until the child is much older), tearing it away from the penis. They use a tool that reminds me of a Leatherman. It's clamped and once it finally stops bleeding, they cut it off. All of that and the child has no emotional scarring from it at all! Can you believe it??? Yeah, me either. Makes you want to line up and wait your turn to be hacked at, doesn't it? I like my theory of you can take it away but you can't put it back. If my son wants to be circumcised when he's old enough to make that decision, he can have at it. In the mean time, I'll continue to do what I think is best for him. Besides... he'll hate me for enough things when he gets older. I'm cool with him not hating me for having a piece of his penis cut off. By the way, he's seven. He told me thanks for not doing that the other day. :)
At the end of the day, regardless of how it might sound, I'm 100% for parents doing what they think is best for them and their children. If they do their research and decide to go ahead with it then fine. Education is a priceless tool and if more people would just pay attention to what is going on around them, we'd all be better off. Even when it comes to the cutting of genitals.
In the US, 56% of newborn boys leave the hospital circumcised. An eight year old study, conducted over four years, found that 79% of American men were circumcised. Approximately 90%+ of American men born in the 70's and 80's were circumcised.
It's difficult to get accurate numbers for intact vs. altered boys because most studies only take in to consideration newborns circumcised before they leave the hospital. It's reported that if more data was considered, the number would likely be somewhere near 70% of newborns are circumcised. It's becoming more common in the US for more circumcisions to take place at the Pediatricians office at the child's one week check up so the number can be easily misleading. It's also hard to get an accurate grasp of the numbers because the data varies so much depending on what part of the country you are looking at.
These numbers disturb the hell out of me. Is it because so many boys are circumcised each year? Nope. It because I know if circumcision was introduced today that people would freak out? Nope.
It's because I know that the majority of parents let their newborn baby boys be circumcised without so much as giving it a second though. Because it's just what you do. Right?
Personally, I think there is no quicker way to show your ignorance level then letting a person, qualified or not, hack away at your new squishy baby without doing any research beforehand. Sure, each parent is allowed to make whatever decision they think is best for their child but to not research it first and just assume that it's okay to have a piece of your child's body cut away because everyone else is doing it is absolute insanity.
I was a wild nineteen year old single mother that didn't know the first thing about babies and even I knew I didn't want someone cutting a piece of my son's penis off without me checking it out first. If I had the sense and time to do so, couldn't anyone else? I immediately became interested in being an activist in educating people on circumcision.
Here are the facts folks...
As I said before, if someone were to introduce circumcision today we would freak out! We would call them barbaric and lock them away. Have you ever seen a video of a baby being circumcised? If you have a little boy or are expecting one, you should. You're going to need to know what to expect right? I can guarantee you that if more people knew what in the hell was going on in that room, they would have no parts of it. Circumcision is a way to be lazy. Give your child a proper bath regularly and teach them good hygiene and you'll have no problems. It's not rocket science, kids. Not to mention, the part of the penis they remove has the most nerve endings in it. Your kid deserves to have the best sex he can have later, right?
They restrain the child because they fight so much. Only recently did they start using any analgesic pain reliever at all and not every doctor does because the fools think infants don't have the same pain response we do. They give them a pacifier dipped in sugar to distract them instead! OH GOODY! Listen to a baby being circumcised without any Lidocaine and you'll call bullshit, too. Then they force the foreskin back (something you aren't supposed to do until the child is much older), tearing it away from the penis. They use a tool that reminds me of a Leatherman. It's clamped and once it finally stops bleeding, they cut it off. All of that and the child has no emotional scarring from it at all! Can you believe it??? Yeah, me either. Makes you want to line up and wait your turn to be hacked at, doesn't it? I like my theory of you can take it away but you can't put it back. If my son wants to be circumcised when he's old enough to make that decision, he can have at it. In the mean time, I'll continue to do what I think is best for him. Besides... he'll hate me for enough things when he gets older. I'm cool with him not hating me for having a piece of his penis cut off. By the way, he's seven. He told me thanks for not doing that the other day. :)
At the end of the day, regardless of how it might sound, I'm 100% for parents doing what they think is best for them and their children. If they do their research and decide to go ahead with it then fine. Education is a priceless tool and if more people would just pay attention to what is going on around them, we'd all be better off. Even when it comes to the cutting of genitals.
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