#1. I don't really give a flying fuck that some General had an affair. The only reason this is news is because our warped news media has decided it is news. Many other Generals and politicians cheat on their partners. It happens ALL THE TIME. What people do behind closed doors is their business. Certainly if he is giving out state secrets to his lovers, that is a different story, but I could really care less about the whole drama. And it is weird that it is the man who is called out for cheating but his mistress isn't? She has a spouse too. As Joe Nocera wrote in his Op-Ed in The New York Times, "the Petraeus scandal could well end up teaching some very different
lessons. If the most admired military man in a generation can have his
e-mail hacked by F.B.I. agents, then none of us are safe from the
post-9/11 surveillance machine. And if an affair is all it takes to
force such a man from office, then we truly have lost all sense of
proportion" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/opinion/nocera-hacking-general-petraeus.html?_r=0). To fight this loss of proportion, don't spend any time watching the news about this stupid story while a war between Israel and Palestine rages--AGAIN.
#2. The fact that stores were allowed to go around Blue Laws and open on Thanksgiving night just represents the sad state of this country. We are so obsessed with consumerism that we can't even pause for a DAY to be with friends and family. I mean, you can take all that crap with you to the grave, right? Whoever dies with the most toys wins, right?
#3. Sophia Vergara, of one of my favorite television shows, Modern Family, stars in a horrible commercial for KMart where she transforms women in a library with their fall
2012 collection called
"Smart is Sexy." She takes these dowdy "librarian-looking" women and "sexes" them up. So the message to girls here is that you can spend a lot of time and money on clothes and make-up looking sexy but it doesn't mean you can't be smart, too. It saddens me when role models, like her, cave to the themes of modern media.
#4. Susan Venker's article "The War on Men" made me throw up in my mouth. This writer has run into scores of men who say they don't want to get married because "women aren't women anymore." She continues by stating that the media and all the books and even television put women front and center and put men and children in the "backseat." WHAT? Clearly Ms Venker has not done any research on the representation of women in the media. She says that men are tired of being blamed for women's happiness. Men are pissed off because they are unable to support their families because it is in their DNA. WHAT? Women FINALLY are outnumbering men in college and the workforce and it's so sad because men want to "love" women, not "compete with them." WHAT? She goes on to say that feminism has allowed men to have sex at "hello" and live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities. THIS is what feminism has given to men? Are you fucking kidding me. But her simple answer to this problem is this: "women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature--their femininity--and let men surrender to theirs." (Venker article). Mostly, I wonder what editors even think this writing is worthy of being published and factual in anyway. I'll let you read the full article yourself, but make sure it isn't right after breakfast.
#5. I want to end on a positive. Please shop local. It's a movement we can all get behind. My goal this year is to try to by presents for my friends and family that are locally made and hand made.
