The Grammys

       I turned the Grammys on last night about 30 minutes in to it. I used to enjoy watching some of the performances and the presentations. But the Grammys have become sooo predictable and boring. Why are all these televisions show stars introducing the acts? What have they got to do with music and the Grammys? Except of course, that every body wants to be a rock star and this is the closest some of them will ever come. Some of these actors who have started bands, did a cd and toured (Keanu Reeves) need a reality check. Stick to acting.

      But even the performances are nothing but show. I like a little show but when it overcomes the talent, it is too much. The one thing that really bugged me but was not surprising was the big deal about Amy Winehouse. She was rewarded for acting like a loser. I like her voice and I think she has talent but she should not be treated like royalty because she is a drug addict and went to rehab. To tell you the truth, there are ALOT of musicians struggling out there who have one hundred times her talent and don't act like total idiots. I like the quote that came from Keith Richard. He said,  "Amy should get her act together." Keith was a long-time junkie, but it is true that back when he started doing drugs we were more ignorant about it. That is not an excuse but now we really know what they do so people who allow themselves to become addicts have more information but do it anyway.  That is really stupid especially in a competitive field such as music. If Amy Winehouse wants a little motivation she could end up looking like Keith Richards.

Opinions

This is in regard to the quote Wendy posted on the 1020 Blog the other day... I love that! I think I am going to write it down somewhere I can see it everyday. We all have opinions and beliefs and that is good. I think we all think the world basically revolves around ourselves. I mean, be honest, we all do to some degree.
When it comes to politics and religion is where it really gets heated. Something I have discovered over my years on this earth is people have a low tolerance for other people who do not agree with them. It really does not matter whether you are Democrat, Republican, educated or not or whatever, people cannot stand it when someone does not agree with them. I have been guilty of this myself but I will say I never got angry with someone because they did not agree with me. I have had people get all bent out of shape because I did not agree with every detail of their ideals. Give me a break! Who is calling who intolerant?
I think I have kind of learned over time that I can like people who may not share my exact values. And you know what? Opinions and even values do change. People grow older and priorities change. That does not mean your core values change drastically but hopefully people grow to see a bigger picture instead of just their own little world. I am a registered Republican and a Christian. I have always considered myself conservative but I hate it when someone feels you cannot have an opinion or belief that does not follow what they think you should be believing. People have actually said to me, "You don't look like a Republican!" What the heck is a Republican supposed to look like?
I still do not know who I am voting for President this time. I have always liked McCain, if he had made the nomination last time I would definitely have rather had him. But you know, from what I know of Obama, I really like him. I had to do research on him last semester and I liked what I found. He seems like he is not just a face and he appears to be a unifier. I do believe we have had enough Clintons and Bushes for a while.

Domestic Violence

I just finished reading an article online about domestic violence. It said that CDC reported that a quarter of American women suffered from domestic violence. A quarter! That is one fourth of the people you know, at least you could look at it that way.
This subject has been on my mind a lot lately especially in regard to emotional and verbal abuse. People tend to think that when it is "only" verbal or emotional, it is not domestic violence. Besides the fact that it leads to actual physical violence a lot of the time, it is very harmful on it's own.
The article I read was on Reuters and it was written by Will Dunham. He wrote that the CDC stated that 23.6 percent of women and 11.5 percent of men reported being a victim of "intimate partner violence" at some time in their lives. Rita Smith of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence was also quoted as saying, " that living in a dangerous and stressful environment has long-term health impacts, it's like living in a war zone."
The CDC report seems to fit in with other assessments that about one third to one fourth of women in the states experience domestic violence. Those are very scary figures.
I hope more attention will continue to be drawn to this subject and that more people will come to realize that just because someone did not hit you does not mean it is not abuse. Sticks and stones do break bones and words will hurt you.

Gender

I am taking Gender and Society this semester. It is pretty interesting to me. I do find that I have to really pay attention to what the teacher is saying constantly. He jumps around somewhat on his topic matter but I can usually follow if i am paying attention. It is like watching a foreign movie, in fact, like an indie foreign movie. If you miss something you will probably get lost. and the class is three hours long so you do not want to get lost.
All in all though, I find it interesting. Could be because of my own personal life experiences, especially the ones I am going through at the moment.
We are reading through "Manhood In The Making" by David D. Gilmore. The last two chapters we went over I thought were pretty interesting. One dealt with performance excellence and the Circum-Mediterranean male. Then we read a chapter on performance anxiety and the Mehinaku people.
It is fascinating how all over the globe our societies are different in so many ways but a lot of the same values hold even if they are in different forms. Why do men every where feel they have to "prove" themselves? And why do women not feel this way? This is in general terms, there are always exceptions. All these societies hold in low regard men who will not even try to prove themselves and provide for their families. Parasites, in other words are the same in every culture. They have different names such as "flojo", a weak and pathetic impostor. Then there is the term the Andalusians have , a "wastrel" or "gamberro". He is despised, less than a man. The lateter term means irresponsible and reprobate who lives like a parasite off women. I know there are bad women too, but these societies seem to regard men much higher than women so the man just does not get off easy.

Twister!

What a crazy night we had last night! I hope everyone is safe and has power.
I know this is not unusual weather for this part of the country, but it is rather strange for this time of year.
I was watching some Oprah with my daughter, Ariel, when Channel Five came on with the weather updates. I had to leave a little before five to make it downtown in time to do my radio program. The show must go on even if you hate having to drive in nasty weather. I wasn't too worried, but the sirens started going off just as soon as I got in to my car. Well, I went on because I had to. I called Ariel and told her to stay downstairs and go in to the bathroom if anything happened. And leave the television on!
I was driving down Poplar and I looked in my rear view mirror, it looked really nasty eastward. I then got a text from my sister, Susan. It said, "Where are you?Where is Ariel?" I thought her text sounded a little hysterical. I called her and she said a funnel cloud was spotted out in Bartlett. Susan, I am not out in Bartlett, remember? I checked the weather on my phone and sure enough, there was a warning.
Once I got in to Midtown, it was raining really hard. You know, that white rain where you can not see anything! I got to the station and waited in my car for it to let up. Once it did, I ran to the door and was pressing the buzzer hard. Sometimes, it takes a while for someone to see the light flashing for the back door. I just did not want to spend the next two or three hours drenched!
Brian let me in and then Ariel was calling me. "Mom, she said, " the news said there is a funnel cloud out here and I am scared!" " Why did you leave me?" Did I mention she is nineteen? I told her just stay downstairs and in the bathroom like I told you!
It was pretty calm by the time I left and I drove around a little. I did see some chunks of hail on the side of the road. And some twisted traffic lights and signs. I did not the extent of the damage until I got home and saw the news. It turned out these storms were pretty bad.

Beginning Week 3 With River City Writers

So begins week three of the blogging adventure. I went to hear Percival Everitt tonight at the River City Writers Event. My sister, Susan was involved in this last year and talked it up a great deal. The writer for the evening sounded like he would be interesting and I needed to go anyway so I asked Susan to go with me.
We met up in the Central parking lot and I asked her how the food was at these events. I had just got out of a three hour philosophy class and hearing a lecture and discussion on evil for that long had made me hungry. She said the food was generally pretty good.
Upon arriving at the Fogelman Executive Center we made our way downstairs. There were very few people there yet but I did see Wendy and a couple of others from the class. It filled up pretty well a little later.
Mr Everitt was a pretty interesting speaker/writer. His readings that he gave us for the evening were rather on the dark side but I did enjoy them. And I had just had three hours of evil discussion so it fit. I liked his personality and the audience obviously liked him.
It was an nice evening and I would definitely attend more of these functions. However, the food was not that great, so don't attend on a empty stomach.

Crossroads

I read the Crossroads blog from December the third last year. It is the one about LEED, the new neighborhood design trend. There are two of these projects in Memphis, University Place and Legends Park. They are mixed income housing projects containing senior housing, multi-family rental and single family owner occupied units. It seems from what I got from this blog is that this project is about the concept of green building. I think it is a great idea and I hope that can make it work. Maybe it will really catch on.
My real concern, is will they make it affordable? Not just this project, but others, even those that are not mixed income. It seems these days that if you attach the labels of "green", "organic" or "eco-friendly" to anything it just shoots the cost up out of your average buyer's reach. This applies to food, cleaning products, etc.. The makers of these products have used these terms to add extra cost to the product. Families struggle a lot of the time to make ends meet and if faced with saving money or being eco-friendly the average family is going to go for saving money. They really can't afford to be eco-friendly, especially in the present economy.
If product manufacturers of green products would work on making their product more affordable more people would buy it. The same school of thought goes for green builders.