8 In The Middle

So I've been trying to avoid watching this show, because I have reservations about kids being exposed on TV. However, there was an all day marathon of Jon and Kate Plus 8 yesterday, culminating to a one-hour special where the couple announced their separation (which has been a long time coming).

I couldn't help catching a couple of episodes yesterday, because those kids are so damn cute! But the problem is, I feel guilty for watching. I mean, they are continuing with this show even with the impending separation. That kind of traumatic event is hard enough on a little kid, let alone children who are exposed to million of viewers nationwide.

What's the worst is, I'm not sure if I WON'T watch the show! Part of me is like no way, those poor kids need to be left alone right now, not be put in the spotlight. But another part of me feels sorry for the little ones, and I want to see if they turn out alright.

The fact is, reality TV is NOT the same as scripted television, where we can watch without guilt because the characters are fictional and we can go to bed at night knowing nothing really bad happened. But these babies are real, their problems are real, and do we have a right to watch their family breakdown?

What do you think? Personally, I wish they would just take the show off the air so I don't have to be tempted.

Bill O'Reilly, You Are A Joke

I just could not hold back my feelings surrounding the actions of this man. Recently, Dr. George Tiller, an abortion doctor whom O'Reilly has zealously campaigned against and often called a baby-murderer, was killed while ushering at church, in front of his family and friends. The murder was performed by a member of the Prolife party, who blames Tiller for the murder of over 60,000 babies.

First off, Tiller's murder is the most disgusting excuse for a hypocrite that I could ever imagine. You are supposed to be representing ProLIFE, and yet you feel you have the right to hold judgement over someone else's life? I thought the idea of being Prolife was to protect the lives of ALL living things. I feel you are a stain to the very movement. In your eyes sure, Tiller is considered a murderer himself, but he performed his job under LEGAL LEGISLATURE. He wasn't a back-alley abortionist. He was a law-abiding citizen, whom you brutally murdered, in church, in front of his wife. You thought YOU were worthy of passing ultimate judgement? Have fun when it's your turn.

Second, Bill O'Reilly's coverage of the murder was not much better. While I don't think he is wholly to blame for the murder (it was definitely that psycho's own undoing, he didn't need O'Reilly's help), for O'Reilly to turn the tables and claim victim in this scenario is offensive, and completely inappropriate. He doesn't hold back ripping into Tiller post-mortem, claiming that the worst part of the scandal is him getting blamed for the murder. Wake up O'Reilly, you are not the victim here. A man's life is gone, and you continue to call him a murderer, for operating under the same law and regulation that we all answer to.

I'm not saying a completely approve of abortion, or that I choose one way or the other. The fact is, the guy was not doing anything wrong by our country's standard, albeit not our social standards. Yet the monster who chose to take his life, that is clearly wrong. That should be what we focus on, not how the Right is taking a PR hit. A man is dead for no reason except an over-zealous felt he had the right to take someone else's life.

Here is an article I read some of the details from: http://www.newshounds.us/2009/06/02/bill_oreilly_plays_the_victim_in_abortion_doctor_murder.php

Insomnia Poem #1

On a dusty, rusty path I walk

Careful not to fall between the cracks

On a lonely stony road I travel

The sun beats on my back

 

I dare not look behind me

There is so much to fear

The green pastures I have left behind

The waters I hold dear

 

On a burning, yearning street I step

The ground that burns my feet

On a maddened, hardened avenue

My cold heart slows its beat

 

I run away from everything

There is so much to hate

The pleasures, love, have now been passed

No patience, no care to wait

 

On a hopeless, pointless road we walk

On a useless, fruitless ground

Because it is our choice to walk

Or to take a the turn around

 

A Note On Teen Pregnancy

So, I'm watching the MTV movie awards, and during commercials they keep plugging a new show called 16 and pregnant. I just can't help but share a couple of words on the issue.

I understand that teens make mistakes, and I don't judge them for it. The consequences are enough for them to deal with. I do, however, find it appalling that our society chooses to highlight it so much. We shouldn't be promoting shows that glorify a situation that young women should try to avoid in order to finish what should be the rest of their childhood. I'm not saying that this new show makes teen pregnancy look like another day in the mall, but I guarantee it exploits the young women who star in it. And while it appears the show will show the hardships a teen goes through during unplanned pregnancy, it can also implant in young viewers minds that if they can get through it, maybe it's not so bad.

I'm not blaming MTV. I like MTV. But in the past year or so the casualness we assume around such an important issue is ridiculous. For example, when Jamie Lynn Spears announced she was pregnant, she was blasted on the covers of countless magazines, highlighting her struggles and such. No one flat out said, "this girl is in the spotlight of thousands of little girls, and what the f***? What a stupid ass****?"  This incident particularly pissed me off. My nieces watch her shows, and the kind of role model they get to look up to can't understand the concept of safe sex? What kind of message does that send to young girls that idolized her? 

And now Bristol Palin is the spokesperson for abstinence? Seriously? That's useful. And we almost let her mother be second in line to run our country??!?!?!? WTF people! (And NO this is not a Republican attack. I happen to agree highly with some of the things Meghan McCain-daughter of Presidential candidate John McCain-has said on the issue). 

I, as I'm sure many of you have as well, watched our society slowly become less and less sensitive to sex, and all the issues surrounding it. We make jokes about it, it's all over the radio and on TV, (I really hate the song Birthday Sex). Now the youth of today don't just have peer pressure, they've got popular culture pressure as well.

I'm not putting the blame wholly on our culture or society, or MTV. Parents should be doing their part as well to make sure these influences don't go unchecked in children's minds. However how much do parents really know what their kids are watching, what's on their Myspaces, what their doing behind closed doors? Opening our eyes a little wider wouldn't hurt.

Anyway, this is just an impulsive, completely unorganized thought. I just think it's wrong for us to assume that just because we are a more open-minded, liberal, and free-spirited society than we were before, that it's ok for us to be so casual about sex education. If anything, we should take it more seriously. 

Needing some motivation.....

Writing is a lot like driving a country blacktop highway on a hot summer day. There is a wavery magical spot that shimmers on the horizon. You aim toward it. You speed to get there, and when you do, the "there" vanishes. You look up to see it again, shimmering in the distance. You write toward that. I suppose some people might call this unrequited love or dissatisfaction. I think it's something better. The act of writing, the maiming at getting it right is pure thrill, pure process, as exciting as drawing back a bow. Hitting a creative bull's-eye, a sentence that precisely expresses what you see shimmering on the horizon-- those sentences are worth the chase. But the chase itself, the things you catch out of the corner of your eye-- that's worth something too. I love it when I write well, but I love it when I write, period.

Julia Cameron-A Writer's Life

For Those Who Aspire To Write.....

"We put a lot of bunk around the notion of being a writer. We make a big deal out of putting words on paper instead of simply releasing them into the air. We have a mythology that tells us that writing is a torturous activity. Believing that, we don't even try it or, if we do, and if we find it unexpectedly easy, we stop, freeze up, and tell ourselves that whatever it is that we're doing, it can't be "real" writing. What if there were no such thing as a writer? What if everyone simply wrote? What if there were no "being a real writer" to aspire to? What if writing were simply about the act of writing?

If we didn’t have to worry about being published and being judged, how many more of us might write a novel just for the joy of making one? Why should we think of writing a novel as something we couldn’t try—the way an amateur carpenter might build a simple bookcase or even a picnic table? What if we didn’t have to be good at writing? What if we got to do it for sheer fun? What if writing were approached like whitewater rafting? Something to try just for the fact of having tried it, for the spills and chills of having gone through the rapids of the creative process." 

Julia Cameron- The Writer's Life

Mortal Combat (not the Sega game)

Every few months I'm reminded of how human we all are. It doesn't take much, an ill parent, a dead pet, sometimes even a friend who has passed. This is all sounding much more depressing than I intend it to, but my reflections are more about what we do with the time we have.

We've all heard the songs, the sayings: don't take life for granted, live every day like it's your last. More often than not we'll be temporarily inspired until we get cocky again and rest right back on our laurels. We are not all the gun-ho, skydiving bunch that can sell their cars off to travel for a year. Our self-preservation kicks in and saves us, if that's what you believe; it is our ally and our enemy.

I'm reflecting on all this at the moment because my father is laying in bed sick to the point that it shakes me to my core. I know it's probably just the flu, but being reminded that the person who has been your rock, someone that as a child you imagined invincible, that even they can fall prey to something as tiny as bacteria makes you a little weary about your own mortality. If someone so strong can be weakened so easily what's stopping you from falling just as hard?

I flashback to childhood, when I had my whole life ahead of me and the dreams I had were as real as the faith I had in Santa, or the Tooth Fairy. My brother and I would swim out in the Pacific Ocean at 7 in the morning, 10 feet from the dolphins, unaware of the 50 degree water we waded in. We'd take dares to see who can ride down the hills of Paulsen Rd the fastest, often resulting in fighting over who had the worst scars from the crash.

I remember my dad when he was angry. I feared and awed him at the same time. One word would silence our entire house, and I marveled at such power. Sometimes he'd go out back and all I'd hear for hours was hammering, him taking out his aggression on a defiant nail in a two by four. My brother and I would tiptoe around, playing as quietly as we could, our self-preservation telling us to tread carefully. Sometimes if we slipped and were noisy we'd hear the sound of his steel toe boots quickly coming towards us, and we'd rush to a grove of redwood trees in our yard as fast as we could, and once we were safe and hidden laugh and revel in the thrill of our escape. 

So how do you play? Cautious and aware that at any moment life can cut your legs right from under you? Or do you challenge the fall, jump even, because that brief moment of life, that breath of air, more vivid than any other you have taken,  brings not only oxygen to your blood but sends an unrivaled force throughout your entire being, even just for a second. Is it worth the leap?

It's so easy for us to say take the leap.  Actually taking it provides the challenge.