A New Direction: The Philosophy of All of Us

When I first started this blog, I was in a very different place emotionally, physically, and about any other -ly you can think of.

Me in 2014

 Me in 2010

I'm going through some pretty hard-core health drama at the moment, and I have found myself unable to write.  My plan is to move this blog in a new direction, to either write about topics you (my readers) recommend or what I see on the news.  Or maybe the naked guy in a Santa jacket my husband and daughter saw at the ice cream shop yesterday.

If there are topics you'd like me to tackle, please either comment below or read through some of the posts I'm linking and ask for clarification or to look at something from a different angle.  You can contact me at kloud1026 at yahoo(dot)com.  I have got to get rid of this stupid writer's block (I intend to leave a mark on the world in some way), so please, I encourage suggestions for writing topics.

Going back to the beginning of this blog (gulp), here are some things I think might be interesting reads for newcomers ...

*  My sister and I had the most epic Facebook conversation ever.  It gets into horse urine and lettuce and really odd places. I just peed a little when I reread it ;-p

* In 1998, I was raped at a small party at a friend's house.  I can say those words aloud now, but back when I wrote this, I could only write them.

*  Stephen King on writing before he wrote On Writing; in fact, he compares it to masturbation.  Okay, he's a little weird, but best author ever, really!

*  I'm quite amused by my random ramblings about pink tissues.  Who knew?

*  This is where I honor the man my ex-husband used to be.  I forgot some of the finer things about him, and I'm sorry to report that they haven't returned.

* I got caught up on why children's television is so milquetoast these days.  It's a bit soap-boxy, but I enjoyed rereading it.

*  If you know me well at all, you know I am fascinated by Charles Manson.  That is explained a bit here.

* If you are from New Hampshire, you are probably familiar with the name Michael Addison.  I am still bothered by the potential racism in a criminal case here in the Granite State.

*  Way back in 2009, I got rather indignant at the whole "Lipstick on a Pig" debacle during the Obama vs. McCain election.

*  I used Socrates to talk about the Easter Bunny in this post.  That sort of makes it a must-read.

I guess that's a pretty wide variety of posts for you to read, if you're interested. Again, starting tomorrow, I am blogging daily.  I am hoping desperately to find something to write about since I've been blocked for so long.  Please share your ideas in comments or via e-mail and let me know if you read any of those Golden Oldies listed above.

I'm sort of laughing and crying both right now ... and wishing I had a pink tissue.

Be well,
<3 katie="" p="">

Confession of the Week

Of all the toe-curling, embarrassing to admit events of the week, it is very easy to boil it down to one.

I like the Nickelodeon television show "iCarly".

There. I admitted it. I like freaking "iCarly". It makes me laugh. I'm kind of excited about upcoming episodes. And I might have sort of said to Belle today, "Come on, let's see if 'iCarly' is on".

I can't believe I just admitted this ;)

The Philosophy of a Six-Year-Old

Belle is in this "Phineas and Ferb" phase. Disney Channel is showing numerous episodes today and, since I feel like crap, I'm sitting with Belle watching this very odd show. Belle started telling me about the different characters, and it made me laugh so hard that I had her start over and just typed down what she said. It's wild the way a child's brain works. Now, these are character-by-character depictions word for word from Belle's mouth ...

Phineas: You know Isabella that I showed you? Well, she's trying to encourage Phineas that, you know, she loves him. Every episode she's working on it, and every episode she doesn't get it. It's kind of like Toy Story 3. Ferb's his brother.

Ferb: Yeah, he's just like Phineas. He doesn't talk a lot. He follows Phineas. At the end of every episode he goes, like, "Blah blah blah."

Candace: She's just always trying to bust them. They're always building, like, a roller coaster or something that isn't safe. She calls their mom, but it's always cleaned up by then. And sometimes their dad stays home and they ask their dad if they can build, like, something and he says, "Yeah" but doesn't really understand.

Doofenshmirtz: Well, they have a pet named Perry and he's the platypus right there. He's a secret agent. All the agents pretty much just fool around with Perry. They tell Perry how to stop Doosensmirtz.

The Bully: Well, he usually beats up Baljeet.

Baljeet: I know it's a weird name, but pfft. Well, he's really busy just with Buford him up.

Isabella: Well, she's just always like, "Phineas! Phineas!" And in one episode she said, "Are you sure there's no one cuter?"

Norm: Norm is a robot. He helps Doosensmirtz and then he always tries to put Perry in a cage. Yeah.

Pretty funny, but I think she watches too much TV.

Cult Mentality and the Care Bears

Belle has recently discovered The Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation. Since I loved this movie when it first came out in 1986 (I babysat a lot ... yeah, that's my excuse ;)), I was pretty excited. However, I made a rather disturbing discovery while watching the film with Belle--there is a serious cult reference that really kind of bugs me.

Okay, I suppose a brief overview of the plotline (hey, it's got a plotline :)) is in order here. And I promise, there is a point to this post.

Basically, these two Adam and Eve-esque creatures, True Heart Bear and Noble Heart Horse, are given charge of the newborn Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins (a varied collection of animals). They float on an ark--ahem, a boat--into the clouds, where they raise the babies. Eventually, they break into two groups (for reasons I'm not exactly sure of)--the Care Bears live with True Heart in the cloud kingdom of Care-A-Lot while the Care Bear Cousins along with Noble Heart inhabit the Forest of Feelings.

Their nemesis is the wicked Dark Heart who exists as either a dark tornado shape with red eyes or a red-haired boy (and he is able to change into any animal he wants--as long as it's red).

Dark Heart for some reason lays siege on a summer camp, where several of the kids are suffering some bullying for always losing at camp activities. Two of the kids--blonde twins John and Dawn--are whisked off to the home of the Care Bears where they help take care of the baby cubs and gain a sense of responsibility, pride, and the realization that everyone is good at something.

Their friend Christy, however, is not so lucky. She encounters Dark Heart in the forest and strikes a dangerous deal with him, agreeing to do a favor for him if he gives her the magic power to be "Camp Champ". Anyway, Christy ends up helping Dark Heart trap the Care Bears while True Heart and Noble Heart are off on a wild goose chase for Dark Heart's shadow (it sounds weird, I know, but it makes sense if you see it). Christy becomes tormented by what she's done, but she is never really evil; she shows her true goodness by diving into the water to save Dark Heart after he falls out of a canoe they're in, hits his head, and nearly drowns. However, she is unwilling to give up the new status given her through Dark Heart's evil magic.

Before long, there are only a few Care Bears and Cousins left. They conspire with Dawn and John to get caught intentionally because they know that their magic is strongest when they're with the other Care Bears; the twins, meanwhile, are left to bring Christy to her senses.

Before the children can reach Dark Heart's lair, though, the evil whatever-he-is transforms each member of the Care Bear family into a piece of glass in a crystal chandalier. The kids argue with Dark Heart, and things come to a climax when Noble Heart and True Heart show up. Christy stands in front of the little furry guys, protecting them from Dark Heart's magic attack. Even when Dark Heart takes away the strength and skill he had given her, she holds firm. She is injured in the process but manages to free the others through shooting a marble (the one skill she'd always possessed on her own) at the chandalier, sending it crashing down and breaking the spell. Dark Heart goes nuts and sends magic bolts everywhere, and Christy is critically injured, much to the distress of everyone ... including Dark Heart.

And this is where the cult mentality comes in. As Dark Heart cradles Christy in his arms, True Heart instructs the others to get into a circle and focus on how much they care. They oblige, chanting, "We care! We care! We care!" in a frightening unison as True Heart struts around like a televangelist spouting off, "Say it! Shout it! We care!" I mean, I was half expecting her to shout, "Can I get an hallelujah? Could you give me an amen?" It was really horribly creepy, and it got me thinking about the religious undertones (and there are many) in this movie. Here's a YouTube clip of this ... what do you think?

Chanting animals in a circle, moving simultaneously with joined hands as a "leader" raises them to higher glory ... is it just me, or is that a little weird? Am I putting too much thought into a movie made for children? Or, perhaps most importantly, is it really a movie made for children?

The Smurfs are Messing with my Mind

Today was a long day. Like, a very long day. Between it being the first day back after spring vacation and a gorgeous day resplendent with blue skies and sunshine, it goes without saying that convincing a bunch of fifteen-year-olds to revise a piece they wrote in September was not going to go over well.

Long story short, Belle has been watching a lot of television this afternoon.

I was delighted when I learned a couple of months ago that one of my childhood favorites, "The Smurfs", is available on OnDemand cable, and I'm even more delighted that Belle is a huge fan of a show that gave me such great pleasure as a kid. Well, until today. Today, I'm just very weirded out by the episode that Belle was entranced with.

If for some reason you're not familiar with "The Smurfs", they are these little blue creatures that live in mushroom homes (yeah, the symbolism is not even remotely subtle). Anyway, their existence is constantly "threatened" by the evil but incompetent wizard Gargamel and his scruffy orange cat Azrael. Fortunately, each smurf has a special talent (and they're very creatively named to go with their noteworthy personality trait--Hefty, Handy, Brainy, Vanity, Dreamy, Jokey, Clumsy, and so on). The leader of the smurfs is the white-bearded (and red-pant-wearing--the other smurfs all wear white pants) Papa Smurf. There is one female smurf, Smurfette (because clearly her only talent lies in being an "ette").

Now, I've heard (and passed on) countless jokes about that one female smurf living with a village full of males. This was particularly funny when I was an adolescent, of course, and caught up in that sophomoric humor. Anyway, someone must have realized the issue because they added a female "smurfling", notable for pigtails and a tomboy personality, in later seasons.

The episode Belle was watching today caught my attention right away as I zoned out in front of the computer. The gist of it was, several of the smurfs were interested in ... uh, marrying Smurfette. The comical ways they tried to get her attention--and a promise of betrothal--was kind of entertaining, although it did tear a bit at the feminist side of my brain and heart. (And if any of my less mature friends had been with me, there would have been "blue balls" jokes ... but I've really outgrown that kind of thing. Mostly : )).

What totally threw me for a loop, though, was when I realized that Papa Smurf was in on the action. The father figure of Smurf Village was playing, "She loves me, she loves me not" with daisies over the heart, soul, and ... uh, smurfenhead of the lone eligible maiden. I just gaped. And gawked. And googled. And decided to post a blog about it : )

I'm kind of appalled that this episode was on television when I was a kid, never mind today. I mean, I get as annoyed with the hyper-politically correct world we live in as anyone, but I just COULD NOT believe this.

Thoughts?

What's Happened to Children's Television?

Since Belle has always been a television kid (but also an intense book kid and one of those that's always doing something when the TV is on ... she just likes the background noise, I guess), I've had the interesting opportunity to peruse the latest and the greatest (so to speak) in children's television offerings over the past four years.

Belle's favorites are quite varied. She's recently started to love "Sesame Street", which pretty much speaks for itself (and when she was much younger, she very much enjoyed the late, great "Fraggle Rock", which her lame parents have on video). I mean, how can you go wrong with "Sesame Street"? It's educational, it's funny, it doesn't take itself too seriously, and it has a message that's legit without being preachy. She also randomly ADORES "The Smurfs" (she has a little crush on Hefty Smurf, which is just hysterical)

One of her other new faves is this offering from Disney Channel called "Imagination Movers" about these four guys who live in a warehouse and solve "idea emergencies", usually helping out their chirpy neighbor, Nina, or her boring uncle Knit-Knots (who collects rocks, which is just about one step down from collecting calculators, but I won't go there). Actually, it's not that bad ... the music makes Belle dance, and I was so excited during this one episode where they were trying to figure out which of five unopened boxes had something metal in it, and Belle looked at me and said in a bored voice, "Why don't they use a magnet?"

But for the most part, I don't think the TV shows on today hold a candlestick to what was on when I was a kid. "The Smurfs" was one of my all-time favorites (although Belle has rediscovered it because of On Demand cable, a great invention as far as I'm concerned), as was "He-Man" (when I had my appendix out in second grade, I threw a major tantrum the morning after my surgery because there was no TV in my hospital room--this was not standard operating procedure in 1981--and my poor mother arranged for a TV pretty quickly after that), "Scooby Doo", "Looney Tunes", "The Snorks", "Thundercats", and so on.

There are two major differences, I think, in what was on then and what is on now. The first is that today's shows for children go out of their way to avoid violence at all costs and, when it is approached--with kid gloves--there is always a happy or at least hopeful resolution. It drives me crazy ... what sort of real life are we setting these kids up for?

As a child, I had nightmares about Gargamel giving up on the Smurfs and coming to get me and cut out my eyeballs for a magic potion. I was afraid that the Mystery Machine kids would find some crook wearing a me-mask and wouldn't be able to identify the true villain. And I cringed inside every time Wile E. Coyote held up his pathetic umbrella as yet another rock fell on him. Like fine literature, these stories stayed with me. I can still remember them vividly, many individual episodes from each of those shows. My brother Adam and I used to write stories (and awful songs ... we thought we had a rocking band but it was pretty ridiculous in retrospect) based on the characters from these shows (and movies like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones offerings). Yeah, they scared the shit out of us ... but they also gave us a sense of reality, scary as that sounds. Things are not tied up into a neat little package in real life. They're not. Even as I teach the concept of denouement, I want to yell out to my students, "I'm lying! I'm lying! Don't listen to me!"

The other thing that bothers me about television shows today is the ridiculous attempt to be politically correct. I don't mean that fiction--books, movies, TV shows--shouldn't try to portray reality such as it is (and Beauty and the Beast will always be my favorite Disney movie because it was the first one with a brown-haired protagonist), but there comes a point where it crosses the line into absurdity. I think I'd feel better if so many of the shows--"Dragon Tales" jumps to mind, or "Dora the Explorer"--didn't portray a different culture/language/race in a vacuum. That's just as un-PC as a show featuring all blonde-haired blue-eyed Caucasians. I mean, the Hispanic Max and Emmy (and their Hispanic neighbor Enrique, in later episodes) go to Dragon Land, where the dragon children are taught by a bilingual (in Spanish, naturally) teacher name Quetzel. That's great ... but where are the other children, the ones that aren't Hispanic?

I wish there would be a children's show where people of all different races, cultures, disabilities, whatever are all together. These shows that attempt political correctness are missing children of middle-eastern descent, obese children (although they always have that one wheelchair-bound kid), kids with Down's Syndrome or one arm or mental illness or ...

Sigh. The options are endless, but nobody will say or do anything. Why is this?