Today I after breakfast I rose from the table to go to church, and I looked at my wife and two year old daughter and said, “I love you two.” My daughter said, “What about Basil? [our dog]”
So I replied, “You’re right, I love you three.”
My daughter smiled and said, “I love you one.”
Filed under Personal Reflection
This post is dedicated to the women in my life. It is dedicated to my daughter, my wife, my mother, my sister, my cousins, and my friends. It is dedicated to thousands of women who have been made victims, and to the thousands of women who will never be victims because of the work of Erin Weed. My current Site of the Week is the home of Girls Fight Back.
I met Erin in high school. I knew her at first only as the girl that shaved her head. Which she did to raise money for cancer research and to honor her friend that was going through chemotherapy. We became friends as time went on and I came to know her as a funny, kind, creative leader of our class.
The following comes from her blog:
Erin Weed is a professional speaker, author, self-defense expert and Founder/CEO of Fight Back Productions. Her calling to the field of violence prevention and self-defense began in 2001 as a direct response to the murder of her friend and sorority sister, Shannon McNamara. After Shannon’s death, Erin abandoned her career in TV production to study with the best anti-violence activists, personal safety specialists and self-defense experts in the world. In January 2002, she began traveling the nation giving keynotes and seminars in schools and businesses. To date, she has spoken to half a million people with her uplifting and empowering message of staying safe from violence and finding peace in the process.
Filed under Blogging
At 1:39 into the clip, the dance begins. A beautiful woman is embraced by a tall, dark and handsome man. He is behind her, with his head leaning in toward her face, which is accepting of this advance. Their lips are mere inches apart. He is wearing a dark suit, but no one is looking at what he is wearing. She is the centerpiece. The straps of her dress reveal softly rounded shoulders and a plunging neckline that accentuates her feminine curves. It allows little, and yet much, to the imagination.
As the dance proceeds, the passion only intensifies. Her back is left bare by her dress as the two twirl and glide along the floor with grace and beauty. Her muscularly femine legs are glimpsed with every lunging step, and every fanciful turn. They float across the floor until the dance comes to its climactic moment when he lifts her leg, places her foot on his shoulder, then twirls into the last pose. She throws her head back in exhaustion. He clutches her around the waist, keeping her close, lowering his face to her breast.
The beauty of the dance is certain. It was a passionate dance, full of tension and emotion. Their sexuality was at the forefront of every movement, but there is a disturbing twist.
The woman in the dance – the woman with the plunging neckline and sculpted legs… The woman taken on this journey of passion, culminating in a climactic – even orgasmic – collapse of emotion… The woman in this dance is 17 years old.
The woman, or should I say girl, in this video is Shawn Johnson. She is an Olympic champion. She is a beautiful girl. She has spent much of her life training her body, gaining a superb mix of feminine grace and athleticism. She is a role model for young women across the country – someone to aspire to – someone to dream about being. She, unlike so many females in the spotlight, is no waif. She is a picture of health and fitness. She has reached the pinnacle of her career, and shows no sign of slowing down. There is no wonder that she is a front-runner on Season 8 of Dancing With the Stars.
I am disurbed however, by the way in which she is being sexualized. After one of her dances, she was even told by the judge to be “more naughty.” The host at least had the clear-mindedness to say, “she’s 17.” But there is no wonder the judge got caught up in her sexuality, he is just a part of our culture that is doing more and more to sexualize young women. One author calls it “The Lolita Effect.”
I had this discussion recently with some people. One of the men said, “hasn’t this been happening for years? Is this something new? Wasn’t Brooke Shields sexualized when she was young, and Jodi Foster in “Taxi Driver”?”
My response was, “Yes, this has been happening for years. The difference is, back then it was controversial. Now it is being sold by Disney.”
The sexualization of young girls is big business, and it is mainstream big business. Sex is being used to sell young girls and to sell to young girls. Shawn Johnson is lifted up as the ideal American girl – so lets put her in a dress with a plunging neckline and have her simulate a passionate encounter with a man ten years her elder. Miley Cyrus is idolized by millions of young girls, so let’s take off her clothes, drape her in a sheet and take pictures of her.
Some might argue, “Well, that wasn’t her doing that. That was a manipulative photographer that tricked her into posing like that.” Okay, even if I buy that (which I don’t). Then how do you explain this:
In case you can’t tell from the picture, that is Mickey Mouse and Miley Cyrus’ breast about to fall out of her dress, and there are 16 candles on that cake – 16!
Disney corporation pretends it stands for family values and presents its image as pure and ideal, but then gives us Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus and Shawn Johnson’s cleavage on DTWS. A google search of Disney and sex reveals conspiracy theories about subliminal sexual messages embedded in Disney movies.
They are not subliminal. The sexual images are right there in front of our faces – right there in front of the faces of our girls and boys. There is nothing subliminal about Disney and sex.
Why do we let them get away with it? Why do we allow Disney to prostitute our young girls? South Park has one theory. And I tend to agree with them (but not completely). Disney presents an image of purity and virginity while at the same time cramming sexual images down our throats.
Disney is a corporation, and its purpose is to make money. Does that make it evil? No. It makes it a profitable business. Disney exists to make money – nothing more. The way that it makes money is to convince people that it stands for more than that. I, as a consumer, can choose to consume their product or not. My home is not a Disney-free zone. But I assure you that when I do consume their product, I do so with my eyes wide open.
I have started reading Twilight, and I have to say, I don’t get it. I understand that as a 31 year old male, I am not exactly the book’s target demographic, but I’m not exactly the target demographic for “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe,” or “The Giver,” or “Harry Potter,” and all of those books are thuroughly readable. “Twilight,” on the other hand, is painful to read.
I am about half way through the nearly 500 page book, and I am really hoping that something happens soon, because the last 200 pages have been the following:
I love him so much, but I am afraid he’s going to eat me. But he’s so beautiful, and I can’t stand to be away, but I hope he’s so dangerous.
‘You need to stay away from me, Bella’ Edward said. ‘I’m sooooo dangerous.’
I knew he was dangerous, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his beautiful pale face. I love his beautificity soooooo much.
Seriously, there is nothing original about this story. There is a 17-going-on-35 girl that has a flighty Mom and a Dad she can’t communicate with. She is the new girl in a small town, and everyone is fascinated by her, and she is fascinated by the brooding, but devastatingly handsome loner that everyone in said small town misunderstands. This is every teen romance written since 1950, combined with every vampire story written since 1800.
Like I said, there might be something interesting coming. I am not done, but it is getting more and more difficult to read the completely unbelievable dialogue between two cookie-cutter characters.
Last night I was telling my wife about this book and I read a sample paragraph from the page I was on. She laughed, as I told her that is the entire book so far. To prove my point, I flipped to a random page and found an almost identical paragraph from the one I found. If you have this book, give that a try. Flip to any two random pages from 50-250, and see if you can tell them apart.
Some people must have liked this book. Please tell me why.
Filed under Media
This is my second blog title inspired by a number. The first was the complete shock and awe I was hit with when I saw the big part of the scale get pushed all the way over to the right during a recent doctor visit. This one however, is good news.
If any readers are frequent weight lifters, you might recognize the number 225 as a significant milestone. Let me explain: when doing the bench press, which is the most basic of all upper body lifts, and the general gauge for strength, the bar weighs forty five pounds (aActually, it weighs forty five pounds regardless of what you are doing). Free weights come in the following sizes: 2.5, 5, 10, 25, 35 and 45 pounds. When you put one big one on each end, you have 135 pounds. When you put on two of the big ones on each end, you have 225 pounds. This is a real-man’s weight. This is the weight when you are first taken seriously. “Two plates,” is the standard test for most football players testing their strength. A top draft pick going into the NFL can do 30 or so in one set.
When I began my lifting a couple of weeks ago I put 135 on the bar and was unable to do 3 sets of 10. On Monday I was able to do three sets of 10 with relative ease. On Wednesday I did a standard pyramid, adding 10 pounds and deducting 2 reps each set, and finished with 2 reps of 185. So today I decided to test my metal, and do a good ol’ max. So I decided to go with two of the big ones on each side – Two plates – my first try in over three years at a real-man’s weight: 225.
I stood there looking at the weight, remembering a time when that was not a daunting task. It was mocking me, daring me to lift it. Telling me I was too old, too fat, and much, much too weak. With Metallica playing in my headphones, I started to get that old feeling – that feeling I loved so much when I played football – that heart-racing sense of fear and excitement, knowing that the moment of truth was an instant away. I was confident. I knew I was going to win, but I got a spotter anyway because I’m not stupid. I sat down on the bench, looked up at the bar mocking me one more time and said, “Fuck you,” and lifted it not once, but twice.
For the last couple of days I have done something completely new during my workout. Instead of counting my reps off to ten, I spell a word. With each rep, instead of exhaling “one, two, three…” I breath the letters of my daugter’s name. It is a constant reminder of why I am there. It motivates me to know that I am struggling for her. I get done with a set, and picture her at a high school graduation, in a wedding dress, holding her own daughter. Tired, out of breath, unable to lift my arms, I smile and push back a tear.
Today I realized that I what I am doing is working. I haven’t gotten on a scale in awhile because I’m not really interested in my weight. I am interested in being around to see my daughter grow up, and maybe get lucky enough to know her children too.
I gotta go, she just woke up from her nap.
Filed under Fitness
The Fat Pastor 