Thursday, July 26, 2012

List Time

I have a lot of random thoughts running through my brain and am unable to get them into fully formed posts (hence the blogging absence) so I'm just doing bullet point half thoughts as is my prerogative.



1. I love football. (Obvious comment is obvious.) And hockey. And most sports that involve high speed  body to body collision. That said, I can not in my right mind fathom having a child and letting him play any contact sport until we know vastly more about the brain and how those collisions affect it. The complicated nature of loving a sport and not wanting anyone you love near it to get hurt is not lost on me. I have an 8 year old football obsessed cousin who is turning into quite the player and just...no.

2. That same 8 year old football obsessed cousin has an idiot father. I love them both but geezus. We're at a restaurant and my mom asks the 8 year old if he wants a soda or juice or anything. His father's response? "He can't have soda. Athletes don't drink soda." To which the 8 year old agrees. Oh ffs. He's EIGHT. I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment anymore, as I'm on week 3 of giving up the HFCS delight myself, after finally realizing that despite my love of Dr Pepper it was not loving me back and has absolutely no discernible health value aside from tasting good. But I think you give your eight year old messed up perceptions about health and his body and denial, let alone pressure and expectations of what his life should be, when you say shit like that. But I'm not a parent so wtf do I know.

3. Are you watching The Newsroom? Flaws and all, I really like it. I especially have a super crush on the Jim character. Like, that's the guy you hope you end up with. At least I do. It's not perfect, but very little on TV is. Sorkin does Sorkin, as I mentioned previously, and he's basically been given the opportunity to do the same show three times. Sports Night, Studio 60, and The Newsroom are all interchangeable right down to the characters. Jim is Jeremy is Rob Cordry's brother. Natalie is Allison Pill is Sarah Paulson. Mac is Dana is Amanda Peet. You can draw West Wing parallels too. But that doesn't make it not interesting. As I also said previously, I'm a sucker for Sorkin speechifying. And I can separate, as a very special episode of Growing Pains taught me, with Brad Pitt guest starring, Sorkin being an asshole from the art that he makes. Watch it. Like it. Let's discuss.

4. I also watched Girls, bingeing (not binging) on the ten episodes OnDemand and kinda liking it but finding it way too relatable in the wtf am I doing existential crisis of it all. AND I'M OLDER! which makes me freak out a little more as I sit here staring at the phone number for a place that does a thing I want to do debating how to approach it. Fun times! We should also talk about that. (I miss my college friends and watching TV and chatting. Sigh.) Also: Allison Williams and, unrelated, Kate Middleton give me unrealistic expectations of what my brunette tresses should do. I want perfect flowing hair!

5. First Amendment Refresher Course Time!: A) Unfettered speech is not what was guaranteed. B) Even where you are allowed to say incredibly stupid shit, I'm allowed to tell you how stupid it is. Two way street, y'all! Because today on the internet: Logan Morrison hates women breast-feeding; Tim Thomas unsurprisingly hates gays, loves Chick-Fil-A and people support him. The people who support him couldn't understand why other people were upset and calling him out for the things he said. Uh, really?

The Chick-fil-A thing, in case you live under a rock, is because their COO came out and said that he stands with general Christian beliefs and marriage should be between a man and a woman. Now there's of course backlash against them, deservedly, and then stupid people not understanding how that could possibly be because he's allowed to say what he wants. The First Amendment gives them the right to say such things, they argue. Yes. It does. It also gives me the right to disagree with the corporation and not spend my money there. And to just call them dipshits straight up if I feel so inclined. It gives mayors of influential cities to say they want no part of having a hate perpetuating organization in their city. (Which probably doesn't hold up as interference of a business contract for private property in a city....but that's another issue.)

What I don't get is how can we live in a world where people still honest to god believe that others shouldn't, for incredibly tiny reasons like who they want to sleep with, have the same rights as everyone else? How is that our reality? I'm not even going to apologize for growing up in SF as part of me not understanding this. This should be a universal ideal. Love one another. With no caveats there. ALL one another. Not a select few one another. Wasn't that the penultimate Christian philosophy or did I miss hate mongering day during my umpteen years in Catholic school?

To bring it back around to Sorkin, someone wants to quote Christian ideals to justify homophobia, here's a good retort:


Everyone just needs to knock it the fuck off, in the words of my stepmom.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know, Lisa, I'm kinda on board with the parent not letting the 8-year-old have soda. I think kids in general probably shouldn't be drinking soda, and an 8-year-old especially probably shouldn't be. Louis CK made a great point about this - that we give our kids caffeine and sugar and then hit them when they act out after. So I'm basically cool with not letting a kid have soda. But I'm not a parent either so I guess neither one of us knows what we're talking about.

    Oh, here it is.

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    1. Right, as mentioned, I don't disagree with the not having the soda. Knowing what I know now, much like with playing contact sports, I likely wouldn't let my own kids have soda except for as a treat on very rare occasions.

      Some family history stuff left out in my short list making: the father blames his mother/my aunt/our family in general for our lifetime battle with our weight because they let us have soda and candy and other delicious stuff when we were growing up. Not to an overly indulgent level, as treats like once a week, and so he is now OVERLY neurotic the other way with his kids. Which I suppose is his right.

      But the twin girl sister of the 8 year old boy happens to be a kid with an absurd sweet tooth who already is hiding what she eats from her dad knowing she'll be shamed. The boy doesn't have a sweet tooth but a love of meat & potatoes which is allowed and I think sends some messed up messages to the kids about food and how we react to it which to me is more problematic than the once a week soda we had as kids forever ruining our lives. I especially worry about the body image of the girl because I am one and know how fucking hard that is FOREVER.

      These are, for the record, super well behaved children so not sure the Louis CK bit applies. Though to the Louis CK's point: them playing gamed on iPads at the table is just as problematic as them drinking soda, no? In probably a more damning way?

      My BIGGER issue was with the reasoning. "He's an athlete, he can't have soda." He's 8. He's a kid. Let him be a kid. Don't put absurd expectations on him while branding him an athlete at 8. I mean, some understanding of goals and what it takes to accomplish those if he wants to be an NFL athlete...but again EIGHT. Kid's gonna end up being the next Todd Marinovich.

      As said: like us non parents always have to caveat: wtf do I know? I DO know that no matter how good of a parent you are and careful you raise them, they end up fucked up in some way regardless. (Love you, Mom & Dad!)

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