Friday morning, at about 10 o’clock, the world came to a screeching halt. Every major television station interrupted scheduled programming for a “Breaking News Report”. When it happened, my first guesses were that there had been some new development in the story of the early morning shooting that had occurred at Northern Illinois University, or maybe another Al Qaeda operative had been discovered. But instead, the big emergency turned out to be Tiger Woods giving his apologies for sleeping around while married.
What bothers me about this sort of thing is that by interrupting the regular programming on multiple channels in order to let Tiger Woods give his speech, the television networks were basically just giving attention to someone who clearly doesn’t deserve it. Normally, press conferences that are shown live on T.V. are given by political leaders and executives of major corporations that employ millions of people. These things are shown on T.V. as they occur because they affect a large percentage of the population. Granted, Tiger Woods’ sex life seems to affect a large percentage of the population as well, considering how many mistresses he had, but you get my point here.
Tiger Woods isn’t the only one lately who’s been getting attention he doesn’t deserve. Rahm Emanuel managed to get himself a lot of extra publicity by being unprofessional and irresponsible when he referred to Democratic lawmakers as being “******* retarded”. And Sarah Palin, who all but demanded that Barack Obama fire Rahm Emanuel for having made this comment, also received additional publicity. While I think it’s best that voters know exactly how immature Rahm Emanuel is, I also think that a big part of the reason why Sarah Palin brought this issue to the attention of the public is because it made her look better than most of her other publicity stunts have, which could make people more likely to vote for her if she decides to run for President in the future.
Additionally, when John Mayer made comments that were not only racist but also condescendingly sexual about how he wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with a Black woman, he was clearly just trying to get attention from the media. If the media had really thought that his comments were inappropriate, then his comments never should have been publicized. All that happened was that John Mayer got exactly what he wanted: attention. Of course this story quickly became old news, but it seems like now, there’s a constant discussion about whether or not it is racist to say that you would only date people of certain ethnicities. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’ve been told many times by White people that their “type” is people with blond hair and blue eyes, and I’ve never thought of it as being racist. Whether we realize it or not, by discussing issues related to the comments celebrities make in order to receive more publicity than they already get, we’re only encouraging them to continue to behave irresponsibly.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Things That Make Me Feel Old...
I wasn’t around back in the early 1960’s, yet looking back, I have to say that even during my lifetime, society has come a long way when it comes to accepting people of different ethnic backgrounds.
I grew up in a mostly White and Hispanic neighbourhood, and it sort of shocks me now to think of the way things were when I was in first grade. The school I went to for Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade had only about two Black students attending it, and although I often talked to both of those kids, a lot of the other White students didn’t. In fact, I even remember a few White kids saying some really condescending things to me about the fact that I was friends with the Black students.
Additionally, the White kids I went to school with weren’t much more accepting of the Hispanic students than they were of the African-American students. Again, I felt like I talked to the Hispanic kids more than my White friends did. And although the cafeteria wasn’t necessarily supposed to be segregated, there were always two tables at which first grade White students sat, two tables at which second grade White students sat, and a table in-between where the Hispanic kids of both grades sat. I remember one time when I decided to sit with the Hispanic students for lunch, and afterward, one of my White friends kept acting like there was something wrong with me.
The fact that seven-year-old children had such prejudiced attitudes toward certain groups only about fourteen years ago obviously means that their parents had racist values that the kids were picking up at home. I remember one especially prejudiced first grader refused to colour a page of a colouring book that showed people wearing sombreros and when I asked her why, she said it was because that page of the book was “for Spanish kids only”. I just can’t understand why the hell anyone would have, at any point in history, had conversations about their hateful beliefs about people of other ethnicities in front of their first grade child. Actually, what probably perplexes me the most about these memories now is that I can’t even tell whether these things occurred because this was back before we had a Black President, or whether I just happened to live in an unusually closed-minded neighbourhood.
I grew up in a mostly White and Hispanic neighbourhood, and it sort of shocks me now to think of the way things were when I was in first grade. The school I went to for Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade had only about two Black students attending it, and although I often talked to both of those kids, a lot of the other White students didn’t. In fact, I even remember a few White kids saying some really condescending things to me about the fact that I was friends with the Black students.
Additionally, the White kids I went to school with weren’t much more accepting of the Hispanic students than they were of the African-American students. Again, I felt like I talked to the Hispanic kids more than my White friends did. And although the cafeteria wasn’t necessarily supposed to be segregated, there were always two tables at which first grade White students sat, two tables at which second grade White students sat, and a table in-between where the Hispanic kids of both grades sat. I remember one time when I decided to sit with the Hispanic students for lunch, and afterward, one of my White friends kept acting like there was something wrong with me.
The fact that seven-year-old children had such prejudiced attitudes toward certain groups only about fourteen years ago obviously means that their parents had racist values that the kids were picking up at home. I remember one especially prejudiced first grader refused to colour a page of a colouring book that showed people wearing sombreros and when I asked her why, she said it was because that page of the book was “for Spanish kids only”. I just can’t understand why the hell anyone would have, at any point in history, had conversations about their hateful beliefs about people of other ethnicities in front of their first grade child. Actually, what probably perplexes me the most about these memories now is that I can’t even tell whether these things occurred because this was back before we had a Black President, or whether I just happened to live in an unusually closed-minded neighbourhood.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Feral Cat Colony, or Kitty Singles Bar?
It’s hard to believe that the elderly “cat lady” could ever possibly be considered a trendy stereotype, yet these days, keeping a “controlled feral cat colony” is becoming more and more popular.
When I was thirteen years old, I found a mother cat and six kittens in my backyard and decided to spend a few hours a day feeding and socializing them. Two months later, I’d gotten all seven cats placed in homes and I moved on with my life. Meanwhile, my grandmother was also feeding stray cats outside her house, although she had no intention of taming them or finding homes for them. While my method was successful and rewarding for everyone involved, my grandmother’s colony of cats continued to grow for years without a single happy ending. Now, I’m seeing that there are individuals and even entire organizations that are devoting their time to encouraging people to care for feral cat colonies similar to the one my grandmother acquired.
The idea behind these feral cat colonies is that if you find a cat on your property, catch it in a humane trap, have it spayed or neutered and vaccinated, and then feed it for the rest of its life in your backyard, it won’t reproduce. But what happens when an unneutered male cat and an unspayed female both hear about the free food being dished out at your place at the same time? Whenever you feed animals on your property, you’re going to be continuously attracting more animals. My grandmother’s feral cat colony also included an opossum. Even when you attempt to have all the cats on your property spayed, feeding cats outside your home can at times be equated to pimping the cats out to each other. You might see it as a controlled population that isn’t likely to grow, but the cats might see it as a great place to both get a meal and meet someone to spend the night with.
Another myth advocates for feral cat colonies may want you to believe is that when you feed feral cats, they won’t be likely to hunt songbirds. But if it were true that a well-fed cat will never kill a bird, PetsMart wouldn’t carry feather toys. For cats, catching birds is like a hobby. Who knows, maybe when a new female feline enters a colony, all the males compete for her attention by bragging about all the cardinals they’ve taken down over the last week.
People who encourage others to care for feral cat colonies also claim that well-fed cats never leave the place in which they are fed, which means colonies reduce the number of cats that are killed by cars. However, in my experience, cats are smart. They know a schedule when they see one, and if you feed them at a certain time each day, they’ll know that time of the day is the only time that they need to be on your property. The cats in my grandmother’s colony came and went all the time, and many times, one would disappear and never return or would be found dead after being hit by a car or attacked by another animal.
While the intentions behind the controlled feral cat colony idea are good, the results often aren’t. What people often don’t realize is that in the best of situations, a well cared-for cat can live as long as twenty years. So what happens when the teenager who thinks it would be fun to take care of a bunch of cats goes away for college? When my grandmother entered a nursing home and later died, she left behind a total of twenty-three cats (some inside and some outside of her house) that my family became responsible for.
It’s likely that there is no way of completely solving the feral cat problem. However, rather than attempting to control as many cats as possible, finding homes for just a few can make an even more positive difference.
When I was thirteen years old, I found a mother cat and six kittens in my backyard and decided to spend a few hours a day feeding and socializing them. Two months later, I’d gotten all seven cats placed in homes and I moved on with my life. Meanwhile, my grandmother was also feeding stray cats outside her house, although she had no intention of taming them or finding homes for them. While my method was successful and rewarding for everyone involved, my grandmother’s colony of cats continued to grow for years without a single happy ending. Now, I’m seeing that there are individuals and even entire organizations that are devoting their time to encouraging people to care for feral cat colonies similar to the one my grandmother acquired.
The idea behind these feral cat colonies is that if you find a cat on your property, catch it in a humane trap, have it spayed or neutered and vaccinated, and then feed it for the rest of its life in your backyard, it won’t reproduce. But what happens when an unneutered male cat and an unspayed female both hear about the free food being dished out at your place at the same time? Whenever you feed animals on your property, you’re going to be continuously attracting more animals. My grandmother’s feral cat colony also included an opossum. Even when you attempt to have all the cats on your property spayed, feeding cats outside your home can at times be equated to pimping the cats out to each other. You might see it as a controlled population that isn’t likely to grow, but the cats might see it as a great place to both get a meal and meet someone to spend the night with.
Another myth advocates for feral cat colonies may want you to believe is that when you feed feral cats, they won’t be likely to hunt songbirds. But if it were true that a well-fed cat will never kill a bird, PetsMart wouldn’t carry feather toys. For cats, catching birds is like a hobby. Who knows, maybe when a new female feline enters a colony, all the males compete for her attention by bragging about all the cardinals they’ve taken down over the last week.
People who encourage others to care for feral cat colonies also claim that well-fed cats never leave the place in which they are fed, which means colonies reduce the number of cats that are killed by cars. However, in my experience, cats are smart. They know a schedule when they see one, and if you feed them at a certain time each day, they’ll know that time of the day is the only time that they need to be on your property. The cats in my grandmother’s colony came and went all the time, and many times, one would disappear and never return or would be found dead after being hit by a car or attacked by another animal.
While the intentions behind the controlled feral cat colony idea are good, the results often aren’t. What people often don’t realize is that in the best of situations, a well cared-for cat can live as long as twenty years. So what happens when the teenager who thinks it would be fun to take care of a bunch of cats goes away for college? When my grandmother entered a nursing home and later died, she left behind a total of twenty-three cats (some inside and some outside of her house) that my family became responsible for.
It’s likely that there is no way of completely solving the feral cat problem. However, rather than attempting to control as many cats as possible, finding homes for just a few can make an even more positive difference.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Why Not Just Stop Letting Straight People Be Open About Their Sexuality in the Military?
While liberals and conservatives continuously battle it out over whether or not the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy should be repealed, I keep thinking there’s a simple solution to this problem that would bring about equality for all without any of the possible negative outcomes of eliminating the existing policy. Why don’t we just say that nobody, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be allowed to talk about their sexuality in the military? After all, people don’t enlist in order to form relationships, brag about their sex lives, or tell stories about their wife and kids back home.
In my mind, the worst thing about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is that it makes life in the military harder for homosexuals than for heterosexuals. Gay individuals in the military are surrounded by people talking about their personal lives when they aren’t allowed to do the same, and the fact that they avoid such topics makes it obvious to others that they’re gay. This wouldn’t be an issue if straight people in the military weren’t talking about their relationships.
One of the problems with getting rid of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the fact that if homosexuals are allowed to be open in the military, homophobic conservatives may start enlisting in much smaller numbers. Some think it’s ridiculous for Republicans to say this could lead to a draft, but whenever fewer people are enlisting, a draft could be reinstated. Furthermore, today, a draft would possibly include women and homosexuals, two groups that are more than likely to be sexually harassed and abused in the military. This shows that doing away with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” could ultimately prove to have a negative effect on the gay community as a whole.
Some might think my proposed solution to the problem is a bit harsh and that it goes against the freedom of speech to say no one can talk about their sexuality in the military. However, people in the military already don’t receive all the freedoms other Americans have. Honestly, if some heterosexual corporal were to complain about how he can’t talk about his girlfriend while serving his country, I’d say he should stop whining and grow a pair. The military is supposed to be tough.
In my mind, the worst thing about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is that it makes life in the military harder for homosexuals than for heterosexuals. Gay individuals in the military are surrounded by people talking about their personal lives when they aren’t allowed to do the same, and the fact that they avoid such topics makes it obvious to others that they’re gay. This wouldn’t be an issue if straight people in the military weren’t talking about their relationships.
One of the problems with getting rid of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the fact that if homosexuals are allowed to be open in the military, homophobic conservatives may start enlisting in much smaller numbers. Some think it’s ridiculous for Republicans to say this could lead to a draft, but whenever fewer people are enlisting, a draft could be reinstated. Furthermore, today, a draft would possibly include women and homosexuals, two groups that are more than likely to be sexually harassed and abused in the military. This shows that doing away with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” could ultimately prove to have a negative effect on the gay community as a whole.
Some might think my proposed solution to the problem is a bit harsh and that it goes against the freedom of speech to say no one can talk about their sexuality in the military. However, people in the military already don’t receive all the freedoms other Americans have. Honestly, if some heterosexual corporal were to complain about how he can’t talk about his girlfriend while serving his country, I’d say he should stop whining and grow a pair. The military is supposed to be tough.
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