New Website, Link To Cookbooks, Link to Newspaper Article

So Burnt Popcorn Has Returned

I wish I understood it. Last January Burnt Popcorn “disappeared.” One day I could get into the WordPress sight and blog and the next day it was just gone. Gone. I could find it in a Google search but as for actually finding its home page and logging in…nope. Could not do it.

 

So I researched out another blog/website creator and decided to toss aside the old and work with the new. Not without a little kicking and screaming of course. I mean, after all, two years of hard work and writing was just “GONE.”

 

As the old saying goes, all things happen for a reason and I am pretty sure that the universe really wanted me to focus or refocus on food writing and the food end of it rather then the Pope or feminist rants. I will admit, for a short bit there I DID lose my way. Some lambs do that. But now, I have completed the second cookbook, have the new website promoting my books up and running and now I am fully focused on that end of my career (oh and I changed jobs too…) so a lot of things are better in my world.

I am still having Burnt Popcorn days but the Chardonnay flows a little less, my work space has now moved to my dining room table and I am trying new wines out for my fall dinner coming up in October. What a huge difference 7 months can make. I am still not dating (at this point not sure this much makes a difference to me). I have a third cookbook rattling around in my head and my first official book signing and tasting is coming up this Sunday.  I am still snarky about life. Still proud to be a feminist but have a lot less time to over analyze the news world and a lot more patience for the extenuating circumstances in life.

 

Needless to say, I am happy to have found my blog again and be ready for an all new me. 🙂 After all…everyone deserves a second chance (or glass of wine).

Back From My Hiatus…Glad To See 2014

Well, I took some time off from writing.

Not on purpose but, as this blog points out, sometimes life is like that.

After having what was probably one of the most amazing Thanksgivings in recorded history, I began barreling towards that date on the calendar known as Christmas. I was fairly excited because my daughter was going to be home and I assumed (and we all know what that means) that because Thanksgiving had gone well that Christmas would see the same.

Mother Nature had other plans for me.

Somewhere around the tenth I woke up feeling like the whole fleet of busses had run me down. Fever, body ache, difficulty breathing. After five days of battling the fever, trying to work and pretend I felt awesome, and managing Christmas plans, I finally caved and ended up in the ER. A bacterial upper respiratory infection had taken ahold of me and was showing no signs of letting go. Had to be off work, on antibiotics…you know the routine.

At the same time the kitten was going to the vet to get fixed.

Followed up by a hectic work schedule and a slow recovery.

Then my daughter came home from college.

Four days later it was Christmas.

Needless to say we played it low key. No fancy cocktail party as I had planned, no fancy meal as I had thought and done in previous years. Board games and Frito pie Christmas Eve and home alone after the kids left Christmas Day.

Then I broke my foot. Not even sure how that happened but I achieved it and my foot swelled up the size of a football. I think the vacuum fell on it it the middle of the night. I think. Not really sure. So that canceled out any crazy plans I thought I might have for New Years Eve (not that I had plans…I am a 43 year old single cat lady. We don’t have plans on New Years Eve).

And here we are…2014.

Glad To Have The Fresh Start

Like most I know, I was pleased with leaving 2013 behind. It was just not a good year for me. But 2014 has great promise. My daughter read my tarot cards before she left on Winter vacation and overall the year looks to be in my favor (positive attitude included). She indicated a few rough patches (January being one of them and she was right so far) but after June it looks like the tide turns for me and goodness will prevail.

Boy, do I need that to ring true.

And like so many others, I too, made a lengthy list of resolutions to attend to this year. Changes that need to happen in order to be a better happier person. Changes that need to take place in order for me to arrive at the zen place I want to be.

If I sound a little more positive and hippy-like and less smarmy and sarcastic…Its early in the day. The octane has not kicked in, I have not turned on CNN, I have not done my checkbook, gone to the grocery store and dealt with other humans. Give me time.

But, on my list are things like accomplishing my second cookbook. Blogging more regularly. Doing more cooking and less “junk” meal eating (not from the losing weight point of view. I do not need to lose weight. I need to stop buying frozen pizzas on Saturday nights because I am to tired from work to actually cook. What chef does this?). I am hoping to plan and track my meals better as well. This will help in getting the second book completed of course because it is chaining me to the accountability factor involved in what I cook here at home.

Naturally there are a few other items on the list such as taking a mini vacation for the first time alone. Buying a Kitchenaid mixer (yes…THAT’S a resolution because its a goal I want to achieve). And changing my career up a little. Baby steps.

But as we all know, only time will tell if these things pan out.

History has shown that the average person manages to keep their resolutions for 18 days then bails. I am on day number 9 and am doing exceptionally well.

Positive attitude is everything, right?

Here is to a better, happier year with less stress and more smiles.

Dissolution of Family…Is this the end of the real middle class?

Its been awhile since I have posted. With the passing of Halloween I went into full Thanksgiving mode and spent most of my free time preparing for what could only be described as my second greatest dinner party of all time.

Unlike most Americans, I work in a field of work that does not offer me the bliss and happiness of having Thanksgiving day off. My company is open on Thanksgiving, serving the throngs of people that have chosen not to prepare their own holiday meals. So I take three days off prior to Thanksgiving and I prepare a huge Turkey dinner with all the trimmings and invite family and a few close friends to partake in the festivities.

I do this because as a chef, I am a firm believer in the need to stay in touch with food trends and holiday meals. I also believe that breaking bread with others is important as a whole.

I grew up with the Norman Rockwell image of people gathering, the huge turkey at the had of the table, some one is gifted with the knife and has to cut the turkey. This is followed by several hours of food coma and a lot of dishes to be washed. I revel in this image because it symbolizes family and happiness.

[No..this is not about Uncle Bob getting plastered before he even shows up or Cousin Suzy bringing the same jello mold she has for years that no one eats or the over done turkey that was placed in the oven at 4 in the morning and could be used to build a small house with considering it is that dry.]

This year was a game changer though.

Not for me personally, but I think for American society as a whole.

We MISSED Thanksgiving this year. It blew right by us without even stopping to say hello. It did not come through early or show up late for dinner. In fact, it really did not even come for dessert.

It skipped the American public completely, strangely replaced by Black Friday sales and a steep coating of Thanksgiving Day commercialism.

Yes, there were stores open last Thanksgiving. It was the start of the trend but it didn’t take on a life of its own as it did this year. This year, people had their routes planned  and were ready with credit cards and checkbooks in hand. They parked in the Walmart parking lot at 3 in the afternoon patiently awaiting the doors to open at 6pm.

SAT IN A PARKING LOT AT 3 IN THE AFTERNOON ON THANKSGIVING.

I will tell you that had my Thanksgiving meal been held on Thanksgiving itself, at 3 in the afternoon I would have been knee deep in dishes and final preparations. I would have been assembling appetizers and having a cocktail trying to figure out which dress I would be wearing. I would have been chasing the cats around trying to get them rallied into another room so I could run the vacuum. I would NOT be sitting in a parking lot.

Which makes me wonder if the heavy commercialism and shift to Thanksgiving Day shopping has not deteriorated the middle class completely. We have been forced to put commercialism and the almighty dollar before breaking bread with family.

Now, I have done the research. I have read the articles. I have made personal observations. Here is why I believe this to be true…

Normally, the restaurant I work for is extremely busy Thanksgiving Day. Its like our Superbowl Sunday so to speak. We plan and plan and we know the numbers we are up against. We prepare ourselves mentally for the large tickets and parties that we see as whole entire families ascend the restaurant at 2 in the afternoon. This did not happen. And because my day was 14 hours long, I saw the ebb and flow of business. It died by 6. At 9 I had a few stragglers, those folks that had no doubt missed their Thanksgiving dinner because they were hanging out in a parking lot at 3 in the afternoon.

Then came the horror stories in the news of people trampling others over towels and flat screen tv’s.

I even had a conversation with a check out gal at Walmart Saturday when I stopped to do a little grocery shopping before work. She told me that it was like crazyville and everyone had checked in. And Walmart employees are disgruntled (as they should be) because they had to spend their Thanksgiving Day hosting this chaos.

All of this is supported by the final sales numbers. Thursdays sales figures were bigger then Fridays sales figures. More people came out on Friday but more money was spent on Thursday. That fact does not just apply to Walmart but across the retail board.

Which makes me ask the question…Where has our sense of family values in the middle class gone when shopping and sales are more important then visiting with Aunt Barb and her live in girlfriend while eating dry turkey and green bean casserole? Is this the end of holidays as we know it, because they are no longer centered around the table but rather the check out line?

And who should hold responsibility for this? [and before you answer Obama, let me remind you, he pardoned that turkey but was NOT seen at a Walmart or Target or any other retailer on Thursday].

Is it the big box retailers watching their bottom line? After all, they do not necessarily have to shop on Thanksgiving to save money because their paychecks are large enough to support non-sales purchase power.

Is it the politicians fault because America has been in an ugly recession for so long that we can barely recover before the next financial hit comes?

Is it Americans who hold the cards in this hand? Is the need to own more stuff then we really need, so great that we are willing to forgo family just to make sure our teenagers are given flat screen tv’s, Kindles, Ipads/Ipods, and the latest gaming system? Is it our fault because we cannot help but to keep up with the Joneses? [Of course this answer leads to a great discussion about family values and the youth of today being “entitled” to everything because we have raised them this way].

And what impact will this dissolvement have on Christmas? Or other future holidays? Or even the family structure?

When do we actually put weight behind that line that everyone says “Oh…I really hate how commercialized Christmas has become” ONLY to feed the beast by waiting in a parking lot at 3 in the afternoon.

If the American people made the choice to not shop and bring the family back to the table, retailers would get the message that family is more important then retail sales. What is that old saying? “if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem.”

ARE YOU PART OF THE PROBLEM OR ARE YOU PART OF THE SOLUTION?

 

Doing A Little Spiritual House Cleaning…Exorcising The Old Demons

If you close your eyes and envision your life as a house, and each room is a different part of your life, can you say that your house is clean?

I can.

365 days ago I woke up on a crisp October morning just like this one and  did not realize that my life was about to get a total and complete make over.

A spiritual house cleaning of all the old mental clutter that had clogged every last bit of my life.

It started with the exorcism of my old boyfriend (using the term exorcism is not really derogatory here considering he was more toxic to me then bleach and gasoline combined). His live in girlfriend (of 6 months) called to inform me of her existence. That was the last time I spoke with him (or her). I had been trying to lose him for almost 3 years but something about him always sucked me back in (didn’t that happen with Reagan in the Exorcist?).

That was in October.

In December I had issues with my computer which I had had since my divorce (5 years) and it was something that the ex-spouse had hooked me up with. At the same time we had a small car insurance “fiasco.” Both were long time issues that I had fretted about but had never really fixed because it just was not worth the energy. I had no choice but to buy a new computer and deal with the insurance mess. Boom…both problems fixed.

In January, I had a publisher call me and show interest in helping me write a cookbook. I had had the desire to write a cookbook for over 10 years but felt I had walked away from that part of my life. I was no longer a food columnist nor a personal chef. That was the past. But it was still haunting me because it was a dream that I had had that was never recognized. After several miscommunications I made the choice to write and publish on my own.  7 weeks and 170 pages later I released my first cookbook. Long lost dream recognized.

February was a month of great house cleaning. I had a minor tax bill that needed to be paid so handled that. It had caused a great deal of anxiety for me and was one of the main reasons I did not check the mail on a regular basis. A LOT of anxiety was attached to this. With a couple of simple phone calls, it was taken care of. I also had a storage unit (gotten when I moved in with the toxic demonic ex-boyfriend) and it housed a great deal of items from my past that I no longer had a need or use for. It was a financial burden on top of being a reminder to me of all the things I no longer had in my life. So I got rid of it.

In May, my car died. A gift from the toxic demonic ex-boyfriend, it died a sad little death on a chilly rainy afternoon. It cost me about $250 in towing only to have to junk it. It was the final item that attached me to the ex-bf…and it was a constant reminder of how foolish I was to have stayed with him.

In August, the second car died. It was my first self bought car and had been in bad shape for awhile but it was the only vehicle we had so it was how we traveled to and from work. It had to be replaced. SO much anxiety had been attached to both vehicles that it made me fearful to ever get in a car and drive anywhere. After an anxiety attack like no other and a full day off of work, we resolved the problem by purchasing another car.

By September I had swept away the ex-boyfriend and all his ties to me, I had corrected numerous large financial issues that plagued me constantly, stepped into the 21st century with a new computer, camera and printer. Gained independence from the past with a newer car, and achieved a dream that I thought had long since died. I only had one more area to fix and that was gaining personal freedom.

So I made the choice to stop working so hard and learn to take a little time for me. I made the choice to start getting out a little more and throwing caution to the wind. I took the time to breath and come from a place of yes rather then a place of not sure.
Its October again and a year after the ex-boyfriend mess.

There were a lot of areas of my life that were literally riddled with old ghosts and demons that I learned to live with rather then taking charge and removing them. I let them over run my life and hold me hostage in my own world simply because it was easier to ignore them then to face them head on.

I am finally at a happy place in my life. A place of inner peace.

As Tangina would say (from Poltergeist) “This house is clean…”

The Beat Goes On…for Congress

As I lay in bed this morning, suffering what can only be described as a CNN hangover, head full of news reel bits and political carnage left over from spending a whole night watching CNN, only one thought keeps playing in the background…Sonny and Cher’s “The Beat Goes On.”

I know, that sounds odd. But maybe not as odd as you think…

Last night the government officially shut down because they could not decide on a final budget and appropriations contract resolution.

At the same time the government shut down, Obamacare kicked in (you can check out last weeks blog on this).

Obamacare is one of the points that the Republicans are battling (throwing temper tantrums over). They want to delay it for a year to further pick it apart (which may not be a bad idea). However, despite their efforts, the House and Senate could not come to an agreement, Obamacare still took effect, and 800,000 government workers are officially still in their pajama’s drinking coffee and planning their first furloughed day off.

As Sonny and Cher said “The Beat Goes On.”

So what exactly did congress accomplish by not working together as a team? Not much beyond causing chaos.

Now I certainly will not place blame on either side here. It takes two sides to disagree. The House and The Senate. Democrats and Republicans. While we are at it might as well throw in The Tea Party. I watched amazing footage of grown men and women, most with law degrees of some form, give horrifically non-sensical arguments on the Congressional podium about why they would not agree to the current budget.

There was even a filibuster that was not really a filibuster that lasted some 21 hours and accomplished nothing.

And for the rest of the American populace, the beat goes on…

• We still have to go to work.
• We still have to pay the bills.
• I still have to pay child support (NOT that I would ever stop…point being, I have to pay it, the person who is supposed to process it is probably on furlough).
• The astronauts still have to work (as do their support team) but the rest of NASA has the day off.
• Soldiers still have to work.
• Judges still have to work.
• Teachers still have to work (although over three quarters of the Education Committee and its workers are furloughed so programs for special needs children will not be attended to).
• WE all still have to pay taxes (again, over half the IRS is on furlough).

However, if you are busy vacationing or enjoying one of those furloughed days off, do not expect to be able to go visit a National Park…they are closed, their workers are also on furlough.

So maybe on this day off, some should consider looking into Obamacare since it has now officially taken effect. After all, you really have no idea when you might be returning to work and there has been no guarantee of back pay during the furlough so you may need to consider finding a job in the civilian sector.

Just do not bother calling your local labor department for employment advice, they too, are on furlough.

What I DO find most amusing is that not only did Congress force 800,000 people to be on furlough but ALSO took away their constitutional right to free speech….

There is a certain percentage of non-essential government workers who were told they were not allowed to talk to the essential government workers while they are on furlough.  That’s right. They were told they could not have contact or communication with essential workers during the furlough.

Now, maybe from the outside this does not seem like a bad thing, except that I am sure there is a percentage of government workers that share family ties (by blood or marriage) with the other…meaning the husband works as an essential worker and the wife is non-essential. What gives the government the right to do that?

And financially, long term, how will this effect those furloughed families, the American people, and the tourist industry? What kind of example does this set for the American people?

Personally, short term (meaning over the next month) I do not see this effecting me in any way shape or form. I still have a job. I will still struggle to make ends meet because times are tough. I am not part of any government run programs, I do not collect aid of any sort. I also have health insurance through my employer so as of this moment, nothing changes in my world except maybe the tv station I plan to watch today.

But I have family and friends that will see some reverb from this and for them, the beat will not go on. It will change.

But Congress will not change. The politicians will not change. They will still hold firm to their thought process and reasoning and make negotiating difficult.

Then maybe the song should not remain the same.

Maybe, just maybe it is time for a revolution….

Obama..Like the man, hate the plan

I have been kind of sort of following this Obama care thing for awhile. My initial thought on this was “Great, finally a plan to get Americans covered medically that will put us in the same human bracket as other countries.”

But as the saying goes, sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees, only in my case I was seeing the forest and forgot about the trees completely.

So over the last couple of days I have done my political duty as a blogger and did the research. Suddenly I had the urge to go buy a chainsaw and start cutting down the trees…one at a time.

Lets break this down into simple points of understanding…

• Americans will be expected to have health insurance coverage by January 1st or pay a federal penalty (along with all of your medical bills).
• You can get that insurance through your standard means: Employer coverage, government based coverage (medicaid), schooling coverage, medicare or (coming soon to the state you live in) an Obamacare insurance exchange.
• If you choose to avoid getting health insurance, the government has the right to fine you (that is the term used) $95 per adult (a little less per child) or 1% of your income, whichever is higher. This rate will increase annually.

Sounds easy, right? Go to your employer and say “hey…when insurance coverage comes around, sign me up.” Done and over with.

Wrong.

Not all employers offer health coverage to employees that are part time. There are currently 27.4 million part time workers. MOST employers are finding that if they hire more part time workers, they can avoid the additional cost to their bottom line to insure their workers. I know of one company with a crystal  clear track record of helping communities by offering items for resale. Its a win win for them as they employ people in the community but do not offer their employees insurance at all and make it clear they will only hire part time.

In my own case, my employer offers health insurance for employees who average over 30 hours a week. However, there are stipulations to the cost. You have to reach a certain level of training in order to have the weekly payments reduced enough to afford it. Naturally I signed on last year, although it took me almost two years to reach that point that the rates dropped. I will be signing up again this fall when it comes around. I have yet to use the insurance as I am in good strong health.

Medicare and Medicaid have their own hurdles, but if you qualify, its a good alternative.

The nitty gritty of it…what will Obamacare cost non-insured individuals who choose not to pick up insurance through privatized means?

A lot more then you would expect.

I wanted to come up with a simple break down of numbers that are easy to digest and put it into perspective…

If my son, who is a healthy 22 year old non-smoking, non-drinking male, were to drop his health insurance through our employer, and decide to pick up Obamacare through one of the exchanges, he would be paying 85% more a month for less coverage, less freedom of choice in medical care, and less choices health wise because Obamacare has less doctors under its enrollment. Further more, the Obamacare policy restricts what is allowed to be done. Meaning if you need a procedure, the government has to decide if you really need it. Plainly put…the numbers do not lie. He pays $16 a week for health, dental, and eye coverage. That’s $64 a month. On Obamacare [in Illinois], he would be paying $120 a month.

Oh, and they also have restricted enrollment times just as the average employer does (let that sink in a minute…..)

There are enrollment periods just as there is for an employer.

Let me say that one more time….YOU WILL PAY INTO GOVERNMENT INSURANCE DURING SPECIFIC ENROLLMENT PERIODS JUST AS YOU DO EMPLOYERS.

Read that statement as “The government will attach a number to your head just as they do to their government workers, you will be paying federal income tax to live here and then be paying a higher amount for partial insurance coverage that is controlled by the government.”

Now normally I am all for government guidance and control. I do not mind the laws. I do not mind paying taxes. Those taxes go for things like protection of my rights as an American by the men and women of the armed services.

But this one steps over the boundaries.

Lets couple that (for a minute) with the hot mess already on the table.

We are struggling to stay out of war with Syria. We still have not brought our men and women back from Afghanistan. We still have an average rate of 7.4% unemployment in our country. The Post Office can barely keep the lights on and lose more money every day (oh…and as of this morning are considering another postal rate hike). We can not figure out a way to control guns in a manner that makes both sides happy (I wonder if Obamacare covers mental health care…). Oh and the government budget is a mere 5 days from collapsing (while my own budget collapsed some time ago, but I still have to make it work).

So why would we WANT this new Obamacare to pass? I do not know about other average American households, but I can assure you that I cannot squeeze out another dime from my checkbook to give to the government for something that restricts my choices. I cannot afford to pay 85% more for 85% less coverage. I cannot afford to become an “employee” of the Obama government.

I am happy that at this point I have a job that appreciates me enough to offer me health insurance at a rate that is within reason.

I have said it before and I will say it again. I like Obama. I voted him into office. I like how he approaches problems. However, I do not like this plan. There is not one part of the plan that makes sense to me from an economic stand point, nor from a health stand point.

Obama….Like the man, hate the plan.

Cher and Marriage..a good chuckle mixed with a reality check

A small note that made me smile and sit up a little taller.

Last night I caught the interview with Cher on E! News.

The young guy (I will admit I do not recall his name as I do not usually watch E! News), asked Cher if she planned to ever remarry after being single for 35 years.

I wish at that moment I had a bag of mini marshmallows to throw at the TV…

My mental stream of thought was this…

“Seriously…have you SEEN who she has dated? She has no NEED to marry. Have ya SEEN who she was married to? I loved Sonny but come on already…he was so controlling and she is a woman who needs room to breath. And what about Greg? Oh HE was was a great husband…

No…she serves better publicly as a single woman. She dates some of the hottest looking men on the market (the last 35 years have been good to her) and now she shines like a diamond in her own right so she does not need a man to complete her…..she is giving the rest of us women 40+ the chance to breath and accept happily, the person we are alone…Do not put that thought in her head because she will marry just to prove she can still do it!”

Sorry…had to put that out there. She needs to stay single as a lighthouse for the rest of us single women sailing through the night in need of a beacon to remind us that we STILL can stand head strong and be sexy doing it.

 

Thinking Outloud…Current Events In The News These Days

I am a news junkie.

Not one of those “gee, I need to watch the 10 o’clock news before I go to bed” but one of those “If I am home CNN is on the whole time” junkies.

However, over the course of the last two weeks I have decided that there are several things I am getting very tired of in the news.

I am over Obama. Not because he is a bad president. I voted him into office. I like the man. I am over him because over the course of the last two weeks I have seen him give something like 12 news conferences. Some aired on public tv, others just simply small news conferences. Everyday he is on the news. Sometimes he covers three or four topics in one shot. Other times its a rehash of the same topic (Syria being the main one, other times its the economy, or in the case of Monday, it was Syria, the Naval base, AND the economy).

Again, I like Obama. As a speaker, I believe he is very gifted. But seeing him day after day I have begun to pick the man apart. Literally. The last time he was on TV (ok, yesterday’s conference), I turned to my son and made mention of the grey hair he has accumulated. Do they not make hair dye for men?

And I do not believe the man has changed his suit in two weeks. It is always that steel grey blue suit.

They do change his location. Sometimes its the rose garden. Sometimes its some random room in the White House. Sometimes its a conference room on the other side of Washington DC. All seriousness aside, I believe they should place a green screen behind him and just roll random footage. A Saturday Night TV Funhouse extravaganza if you will. It might make the appearances more exciting. But this seems to be a case of “Boy cries wolf” and when we REALLY need to listen, we will not because he has over saturated the news with his appearances. Less is more in this case.

 Speaking of less being more, I am over Miley. That is a horse that is beat to death. Every interview with a celebrity on TV has the same question “What do you think of Miley?”

They asked Cher, they asked Bethany, they even asked Miley what she thought of herself. Honestly, no one cares. She has become a joke. Can we move on to better things…like who is going to be the lead character in the “50 Shades” movie? This intrigues me more then Miley twerking (which in my day was called grinding on the dance floor so its not like she made it special by doing it in front of a lot of people. Anyone who visited a dance club in the 80’s twerked).

Speaking of twerking and 50 Shades, the Vatican (which has NOT bored me to death recently), has placed the idea on the table for priests to be able to marry. THIS will get interesting, I believe.

Another topic I am bored of is gun control and mental health.

The recent Naval base shooting (which I do feel terrible about and the families are in my prayers) has brought to light (yet again) the fact that in over HALF of the recent mass shootings, the shooter happened to have mental illness…MEDICALLY PROVEN…mental illness.

As a reminder, I won an award a few months back for a piece I wrote on why gun control laws needed to change and my main concern was mental illness, not the gun laws themselves.

So WHY are we going to revisit this when it is clearly obvious that mental illness is at the helm of nearly every mass shooting spree?

You never see a woman go on a shooting spree during PMS. You never see a woman go on a shooting spree because she caught her man cheating. You never see a guy go on a rampage because he did not get the right auto part from the local Autozone. And you never see a man go bat shit crazy over his football team losing (ok..there was a shooting incident, as I do recall, but mental illness and alcohol fueled that).

It always starts with someone claiming “well, he DID see a doctor for [insert mental illness].” or “He was taking medication for [insert mental illness].”

You never see “Well, the chocolate and potato chips were not making her happy so she headed to the mall to try shoe shopping and her feet were so swollen because she was retaining water that she pulled that AK 47 right out of her bag and started shooting people.”

Quickly followed by “I do not know why Always made that Happy Period Commercial…she was obviously NOT having a Happy period.”

No. The shooter is always medically deemed as mentally ill. So why are we not hitting on this topic?

Do I think that handling mental illness issues better will stop mass shootings? No. But I think it will force humanity to face head on one of the topics that we shy away from…that mental illness (everything from anxiety and mild depression to Schizophrenia and alcoholism) needs to be openly addressed and taken seriously. That WE as a nation need to examine our own discomfort and realize that the mind is a powerful tool and when wielded in the wrong hands, can lead to bad things.

Thinking out loud here, politicians need to learn the “less is more rule”, Miley needs to put her clothes back on, and we need to stop being so concerned with gun ownership rights and more focused on whose hands those guns are falling into.

 

 

 

Class Vs. Trash…Miley, Madonna, and Marilyn

I am fairly certain that the Miley thing has been verbally beat to death by now. However, I am a couple of days behind the times, mostly because as an adult I have to deal with real life and face life head on rather then giving the proverbially middle finger to everyone around me.

This is what I think Miley was doing Sunday night during her VMA performance.

At 42, I grew up during a time when Madonna was making a name for herself and expressing her femininity in a way that seemed almost risque, at least for the time period.

She wore her sexuality on the outside for all the world to see. She sang about being a virgin, about teen pregnancy, about racial discrimination, and abuse. She was never afraid to push the limits and force people to question themselves, their views, and their choices.

She encouraged females to take hold of their femininity and own it,  not back down against men and to be proud of who they were and what their bodies looked like.

Now, twenty-some years later, I still hold those beliefs close to me. I still see her on a stage, proud of her body (she is about 12 years older then myself), taking good care of herself, a working single Mother who can still turn a mans head yet not compromise her integrity by sleeping around.

Her message was always a simple one….YOU ARE FEMALE, BE PROUD OF IT.

Sunday night Miley took that stage and basically told the whole world that females have the right to be promiscuous and that they have the right to do this because “they can.”

Promiscuity is not sexuality. Promiscuity for the sake of rebellion is just that…promiscuity as rebellion.

That performance (the whole song and its video as well) sends a clear message to males that girls are going to “give it up” because we can, because we will no longer be bound by morality, religious belief, good strong values, or fear of consequences.

Even if the verbal message is not clearly perceived (music is always open to personal interpretation), the body language is there. The foam finger as a phallic symbol, the twerking, and her outfit clearly send the vibe that she is “open for business.”

Now before I get an onslaught of hate comments, here is the thing…she is mimicking Madonna.

Madonna wore outfits similar to those Miley wore. The same short blond hair. The same blood red lipstick, she even did some of the same moves (and in the 80’s/90’s that caused a bigger stir then Miley, especially during her Blonde Ambition tour). But Madonna’s message was always the same: Respect Yourself. No one can take your dignity unless you let them.

And whether the nay sayers want to believe it, Madonna always grabbed the brass ring with topics of social importance. Teen  pregnancy, teen sex, women’s sexuality, women’s rights, racial issues, religious belief, gay and lesbian acceptance, and domestic abuse.

She never encouraged young girls to stand in a line for the bathroom to “do a line.” She never encouraged them to rebel against social morality and values by doing whatever they want because they are youth and do not need to “take nothing from no body.” Nor did she ever tell the world that its “her body and she can do what she wants, its her life she can do what she wants, its her mouth and she can say what she wants.”

In real life, that’s not how it works. In real life, if you say what you want (because its your mouth) chances are you are going to get fired. And in real life if you do what you want (because its your body) chances are you are going to earn a reputation that will follow you all your life (and it will not be as a “bitch” but more of a promiscuous slut).

Let’s call a spade a spade here, if you “do what you want and do not take nothing from no body” there is a really good chance you will also become part of a social movement that will border on anarchy and chaos. Rules will not apply.

So why would she idolize Madonna by mimicking her then clearly go against the message that Madonna conveys in her music? Have times changed that much that strong willed, smart, independent women are soon to become a thing of the past? OR have we missed the message completely?

Could the message simply be “look…this is how you look to the rest of the world…is this really how you want to be perceived?”

Anyway you look at it, Miley made a statement that will have consequences for her. She made it clear she was choosing trash over class. She will never be a positive role model nor will she ever lead women down a path to independence. She made it clear that girls should be sex objects as a way to gain freedom.

I bet Marilyn Monroe is just rolling over in her grave right now.