Persistence of Perception

For all the Who's in Whoville

2009-12-09T13:11:00.002-05:00

I have always suspected that Dr. Seuss was a genius, but I did not realize just how much of a genius he was, until this year. This could turn out to be a lousy Holiday Season for many people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their security, their self-esteem, but that's why are so fortunate to have Dr. Seuss' legacy to turn to at these hard times.

We have been invaded by Grinches this year. Every where around the world there have been greedy banks, and irresponsible moguls, and con-artists coming out of the woodwork to steal the Who's hard earned pennies. It would be all too simple to get bitter, but Dr. Seuss is there again, to remind us of what we really should do instead.

It's not about being happy to get robbed. It's about putting community to work, and helping each and every little Who to manage through these hard times.

We have news this year that hints of Grinches growing stronger, not weaker. There is even reason to believe they will never find that little beat inside their heart. The wars seem to be an extended situation with no easy solution. The large corporations seem to continue to gobble tax dollars to compensate for their mismanagement and seem to have no intention of giving a return to the people. The banks continue to take monies from the people as well, through the rescue programs all the little Who's financed directly, and yet the individuals being cast out of their homes are overwhelmingly large. Everyday Who's are losing their jobs and there is no effective gubernamental safety net present in most places to compensate for the loss. People are going hungry.

If we Who's who can do not do something, don't take this into hand ourselves, this is going to be a very hard Holiday Season on everyone, and, I'm sorry to say, it smacks of getting worse next year.

So what can we do? Here are five ways to enjoy the Holidays & make it better next year:

1) Find local community charities, homeless shelters and foodbanks. Give all you can. If all you can give is time and support, give that. If all you can give is to spread the word, do that.

2) Take active civic stance. It is time to be actively involved in the running of our governments. Special interests increasingly take control of policy, not just because they are greedy, but because of the many Who's are asleep at the wheel. Government cannot function in the benefit of the people if the people leave it on auto-pilot.

3) Take courage. This too shall pass. It always does, it always has. Remember the gifts that are valuable cannot be re-possessed. I read a great quote by Albert Einstein this week, and wish to share it with you: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

4) Take a firm hold of your joy. By allowing joy to fill us from the simple things, instead of by material possessions alone, we find the strength to rise above this mess and fight for a better tomorrow.

5) Be gentle with each other. It's a hard world out there, and each of us has a chance every day to make it gentler. All the Who's found the compassion in their hearts to help each other through the hard-times, and that is where the Who's found their true power. Compassion is an essential element of Humanity.

One last note on a couple of Grinches and how to get their goat.

Two individuals who I will call Grinch One and Grinch Two are conspiring to close off communications and limit the information we can receive without paying even further. Their past performance leads me to believe they will continue to filter and distort the information in order to promote other monopolies. Let's let them go. Let's remember that we need a free press and that all the Who's everywhere already pay (either through taxes or direct donations) for excellent news services. Let the monopolies go monopolize each other, and follow the trail they leave to lesser-known Who's like NPR, PBS, BBC..and many others. Why pay twice for something, when the thing you paid for first through Taxes and Donations already does the best possible job of giving you objective information? Use the Internet's power, and the strength of the Google Search Engine to find all those wonderful Independent Individual bloggers who are working to re-define Media for all of us. If you'd like to meet some of them, join Twitter, contrary to what some of those supporting the Grinches are saying, there are many highly qualified and talented journalists, and writers who contribute a wealth of information every day.

Whatever you do, make Merry. As Voltaire said (I know he was being ironic but it still fits): "This is the best of all possible worlds." All we have to do, is will it to be so, take the necessary actions, and it goes from irony to reality.

GenX Icons: Yes! Give us more of this!!!

2009-11-24T19:55:00.002-05:00

Do yourself a favor and click on the link below. Really, whatever you are doing, it is worth stopping to see this.

All entertainment should hope to be this good. What can I say? DIVINE!

Animal expresses himself so elegantly.

My personal favorite.

I miss regular episodes of the Muppets on TV. I miss this kind of programming being readily available. Maybe we did have fewer channels growing up, but darn, stuff was good.

It thrills me that after being diluted with so much nonsense, and despite competing with banalities galore, the internet has facilitated the ready dissemination of wonderful moments like this. YouTube, thanks for making that technology available. Muppet Studios, you rock! Always.

Oprah - She's Only Just Begun to Live

2009-11-20T11:44:00.001-05:00

We were all surprised by the announcement yesterday that Oprah Winfrey plans to end her successful television talk show in 2011, but perhaps we shouldn't have been.

Watch Video on YouTube:

Associated Press Details on Oprah Show Ending 2011

Certainly, if it were true that she will be active only on minding her empire, with her television network OWN, and just enjoying the fruits of her hard labor of the past 25 years, then who could blame her? Whatever you think of Oprah, whether your a faithful fan, or an merely an observer, it's difficult not to have an undying admiration for a woman who has made herself who she is and done so much to help others realize their own dreams.

Oprah may have some detractors, anyone who has accomplished a great deal by putting themselves in a public forum eventually accumulates some of those, but the sum of the fans and admirers is certainly vastly higher than cynics and critics.

This woman has accomplished more with her past 25 years than many people do in 25 lifetimes. She has managed to keep her message fresh, her focus on everyday people sincere, and her aim to help spread a positive and responsible mindset consistent.

That said, I am not convinced she really intends to retire for good. Oprah has been such an achiever, and she is so young that it seems just as likely that she has other plans and is getting ready to shake things up a bit and accomplish some new goals.

Whatever those will actually be, it will be worth watching, and I for one am looking forward to finding out where this great lady is headed next. Last night, while Twittering around I saw a mention that her aims might be political, and that the interview with Sarah Palin was part of the positioning to be face to face with a woman who may be her future contender in the race for the White House.

I found this concept interesting and a bit exciting. It could be a possibility certainly. Oprah has made her activism clear, and she has proven, through her involvement in the Obama campaign, that she has the clout to make just about anything happen.

So, will the term of office of the first African American President be followed by the election of the first Female African American President? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to watching 2011 and 2012 to see what comes next.

One thing is certain, whatever Oprah does next, it will be fun to watch, and it will surprise us all.

Brought to you by the Letters 'P' and 'S' and by the number 40

2009-11-04T18:50:00.003-05:00

Won't You Tell Me How to Get..How to Get to Sesame Street?

For forty years, around the world, there has been a safe place for children that has endured and grown. Sesame Street has done so much good it has taught not only letters and words but also maths and confidence, values and a sense of humor, and most importantly, an all-conquering positive spirit.

The dream-child of Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett so wonderfully brought to life through Jim Henson's puppets, is the epitome of all that can be wonderful about television when careful planning and a dedication to making television educational meet creativity, love and a wild, unfettered imagination.

The catchy song "Sunny Day" by Joe Raposo certainly set the mood for a positive experience, no matter what was going on in Sesame Street that day. Watching, enraptured, from age six to (well, I still watch it whenever I can), I remember feeling swept away in a sea of wonderful. Whenever you turned on the set, and switched to Sesame Street, you knew that something magical was coming. You knew that you'd learn, you'd laugh, you'd have something to feel happy about, something to feel proud about, and a new song to sing at the end of each magical episode.

So many wonderful days, so many wonderful lessons; maybe it's not the only thing on television that has made life better these past 40 years, but it has been one of the best. Maybe not every street we live on is this warm and nurturing, but it should be.

Now, as my friend Sesame Street turns forty, I want to celebrate it, honor it, and wish it another very happy 40 to come, if we can raise another two generations of children with these values in mind, then there's hope for us yet.

...won't you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

40...40 wonderful years..Ah..ah..ah..ah!

Scary Stuff for Halloween: Twilight on Feminism, and my Howling at New Moon: the End of the World is Nigh!

2009-10-20T04:38:00.001-04:00

OK. I am very opinionated and occasionally judgmental. I recognize these as flaws and I am working on them. When I saw the Twilight series last year at my local bookstore on display I took one look at the summary and said, "Great another bunch of Vampire Cr*p." Then proceded to buy something completely different.

I don't particularly have a problem with Vampire stories, there are many different ways in which they can be interesting themes: immortality, power, the struggle between good and evil. But I suspected, on superficial prejudice of the book summary alone, that this series was focused on a theme that makes me utterly uncomfortable: damsel in distress saved by stronger wiser knight in shining armor. Personally, I got over that theme when I was two.

But ever since last year, when the movie came out, I have been wondering if I was just being closed minded. The movie did so well, the following is huge. I thought, maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is something I am missing, and I should follow it. Well, it's true, I was missing something, and it is deep, dark and scary. But it isn't the Vampires.

I want to start by giving credit to Stephanie Meyer for getting published in the first place, which means she put in a lot of work, created some compelling characters and then signed a movie deal sure to sell big. That took a lot of effort on her part and it is worthy of commendation.

But...(you knew that was coming right?) it has resulted in a dangerous weapon for the destruction of the feminine identity. The problem that Stephanie Meyers faces is similar to the problem that Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues ran into when they perfected the Nuclear Bomb. What happens when the culmination of your thoughts and imagination, can be manipulated to destroy humanity or at least a part of it? What happens when you realize that you knew that all along, and that you were working on a flawed application of an interesting premise?

Do those seem like extreme parallels? After all it is only a book series, right? It's only a movie series, right? Well, that depends on whether you are a human living on the planet who values a mutual respect and equality between the genders or whether you espouse more "traditional" views on the roles of men and women. Decide carefully, this is a double edged sword.

For my part, I have obviously long decided, though deciding has not made it any easier to live with. I believe that if women are victims and men are heroes, the world is weak and unstable. I hold to Plato for support. He came to this conclusion in antiquity and exposed it in his work the Republic. To summarize, the best service to society comes from persons of both genders who are strong and integral, respectful of each other, and eager to work together. This does not necessarily mean an absolute equality between men and women, we are so different that trying to make us identical is as pointless as making blue equal red. They are different colors, self-standing and unique, and not intended to be one or the other. They are both nice shades in their own right and attractive for different reasons. When they mix evenly we get the lovely color purple...the color of royalty and power. In other words, when men can be men, and women can be women, and we can both be together, we are a lovely bunch of humans. I'm not saying this is easy, but it is necessary for a great society.

So what does all of that have to do with Twilight? Well, if I wanted to take the polar opposite thinking, and package it into a format that would sell well to the masses, and then make a fortune by selling out humanity's greater ideal for a lesser, baser concept of human, that was already proven flawed thousands of years ago, then I could change my name to Stephanie Meyer and write these books.

As I put in the DVD for Twilight, which I finally buckled into buying because I wanted to keep an open mind, I had no great expectations. But I was willing to be pleasantly surprised. As the movie progressed, I found myself furiously taking notes and shouting "Come on!" at the screen. My husband was amused. He thinks it's charming that I get so worked up about things and wind up shouting at the TV like a crazed football fan. But I asked him if he didn't see what I was seeing, and he agreed, there is definitely an agenda in the Twilight series, and it is not one that we particularly want our young men and women to espouse if our aim is for a greater, stronger, wiser society.

So here are my notes of what is really scary in Twilight. If you found other things please feel free to comment.

1) Right off the bat, this young woman has the potential to be an interesting character. She might have been a deep thinking young woman, who is able to stand on her own two feet. She is clearly written to represent those values, but she is shown as a flawed independent. She is weak, she is pale, she has no inherent vibrancy. The author will not allow her to glow on her own.

2) When Bella meets Edward he smells her and appears repelled or convulsively attracted, whatever. Instead of thinking what I believe any normal, well adjusted, sixteen year old girl would think: "Weirdo!" our Anti-Heroine is self-conscious. Does she smell? Why doesn't this strange and irritating young man like her? That is the absolute worst thing we want young women to think. One guy doesn't like you, so what? There are several hundred others at the school. Go after them, or stand on your own two feet and move on.

3) Consistently in the beginning of the story, Edward acts like a psycho. He is the type of young man that would be likely to be a dangerous and abusive boyfriend in the real world. There are hundreds of young men like this, they are called predators. In fact, in the story Edward IS a predator. But instead of writing a heroine that is sharp enough to pick up on that and steer clear, Stephanie creates an anti-heroine who is attracted to this destructive character. This is the oldest sterotype in the world: girls like the bad boys, the worse you treat women, the more they like it. Thanks, Stephanie Meyer, for reinforcing these prejudices, and VALIDATING them, by getting a bunch of young people to identify with this weak anti-heroine.

4) With incredibly nauseating irony, Bella actually encourages one of her female friends from school to ask a guy she likes to prom by saying, "Take control. You're a strong, independent woman." Please! Those words are so hollow coming from a young woman who walks head on into a tragic circumstance and who doesn't do a thing to defend herself and sharpen herself up. Knowing you can ask a guy out to prom if you want to means very little. Knowing you don't have to live life as a victim means a lot. Teach young women that!

5) Edward actually stalks Bella. He follows her around in an extremely creepy way. We know how many real young women are victims to violence because of this obsessive and unhealthy behavior on the part of young men who also think they are supposed to save them and protect them, whether or not they want to be saved and protected. This is a real issue in our society. To romanticize it is profane.

6) In the epitomy of the anti-heroine's fall into the abyss of madness, we have the sick dialogue on the hill between Bella and Edward. I have to quote it here, as it is beyond belief:

Edward: I was designed to kill.
Bella: I don't care.
Edward: I've killed people before.
Bella: Doesn't matter.
Edward: I want to kill you right now.
Bella: I trust you.

This is when I pray for the psychiatrist to arrive and confine Bella immediately before she commits suicide. Really?! This is how we want young women to respond when they are confronted with an abusive boyfriend or a predator? We want them to trust him, because they feel that they are somehow hiding a beautiful sweet core deep inside those thousands of layers of FREAK? Young women please! The minute a guy says, "I was designed to kill," the only appropriate response is, "I was designed to get the f*ck out of here!"

7) Edward has all the power: he's faster, stronger, he can fly. Bella can only ride on his back, otherwise she's weak and helpless. He is such a 'gentleman' but he puts her in danger. He encourages her to run away from home, from a father who might really be able to protect her, and to lie her parents about it. This is how you end up inprisoned by a cult, enslaved to a pimp, or just one of the many missing girls whose bodies have not yet been found. It is scary stuff indeed. Not even slightly romantic. It is Gothic, and the last time that these gothic values were so espoused, women were oppressed and enslaved in homes that were tantamount to prisons, unable to hold property, unable to vote. We were there already, many great women died to get us out of there, and we don't want to go back.

8) This whole thing isn't even about Vampires and the Vampire myth. Let's face it, it is a weak analogy for the loss of virginity, and the quandry over whether or not to give your virginity to a particular man. Edward doesn't bite Bella at prom even though she asks him for it, because he is such a gentleman. Aww. Cute. Bella: get laid! ASAP. By anyone who isn't a creep. Get it out of your system. Get real. The wolf-boy Native American dude seems cute. Just don't get too attached because in the end, it's really not that big a deal. There'll be more men, good men. You'll meet them, you'll bed some of them, you won't bed others. Eventually, you'll find a man who is both good in bed and good out of bed. The first time is just a way to get started, and then you have to find your own way from there. I am not actually trying to promote promiscuity, and I probably would tell a sixteen year old that she doesn't have to be in any particular rush, but the mystique of sex is what Stephanie Meyers is preying on with her character of Edward. We all know that around sixteen there is plenty of curiosity, and even some actual exploration. If I had to chose to have my daughter explore or be mystified by a predator, I'd have her explore responsibly, taking appropriate precautions, and above all other things knowing it is SHE who has all the power, SHE who has all the control, and SHE who gets to pick the partner or reject him.

That is what Stephanie Meyer fails to teach young women. It is just as true for young men. Being an integral person, learning to work comfortably within the confines of society's standards for our gender roles, and our own views of the universe is hard work. Fraught with errors. You will get the balance wrong, you will go through highs and lows, you must fight to find the balance. When you forfeit your right to chose from the beginning you wind up frustrated and empty and have bad dreams at night, like Ms. Meyers.

Stephanie Meyers mentions that the book is the product of a dream. Or nightmare, whatever. The truth is, Stephanie, these dreams are normal. We all have them. Our subconscious is analyzing the various roles we can fit, the various elements of a persona that we can espouse, and it is up to our conscious mind to decide how to interpret them. But a responsible adult doesn't put these things to print as potential archetypes for impressionable minds to absorb as truth, without putting them in check. Words are weapons. If you have created the atom bomb, you may not be very happy when Okinawa ends up toast and millions of people in a generation face a scarier, darker world.

Stephanie Meyer also points out that she took the name Edward from Mr. Rochester by Bronte and Mr. Ferrars by Austen. I have to ask, Stephanie, were Cliff's Notes a big part of your literary education? Such a superficial understanding of the works of these fine literary women can have no other excuse. The Bronte sisters were victims of the societal values that Stephanie Meyers presents in her work. Their only form of escape from the confines of their over-protective homes was by writing. Their heroines were true heroines, none-the-less, fighting their own fight. And Austen, madam, Austen would be likely to dub you just another Catherine Morland. Read the full 'Northhanger Abbey,' then re-read 'Sense and Sensibility,' you seem to have missed the point entirely.

This isn't merely a feminist issue. Certainly, the roles of women have direct impact on the roles of men, and vice-versa. I doubt that the majority of well-adjusted males out there want to be coupled with utterly helpless and weak females. It might be attractive to be the hero, and there is something certainly noble in the male wiring that helps them help us when we cannot help ourselves, but that is not the everyday reality of life. It is not the rule. There are times as well when men are saved by the concern, charity and nurturing of women. There are times when men are the nurturers. There are times when women are the warriors. All of these things can be true without making any of them less valid. But one of them cannot be the predominant norm and the only permissible role, or society would fall apart.

All things said and done, when it comes to Vampires, the only one sucking the blood and soul out of our young women and our young men is Stephanie Meyers herself, the Publishers of her books, and the Producers of the films based on those works. All I can say is: Where's Buffy when you need her?

Life On Mars

2009-10-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

Something happened to Twitter today...Mars attacked! One minute it was having tech troubles and the next Mars was a Tracking Trend. Invasion from aliens, or a weird sort of synchronicity? None of the threads seemed terribly related to each other. Each person referencing Mars seemed to be making a different reference, for the most part. But the word ignited onto the trends none the less. I am new to this medium, but I think that is a phenomenon worth watching. Is it possible for certain words to become contagious, in a manner of speaking? Do we all communaly begin to think about the same things? I've always suspected that there is some of this happening in society, but I've always associated it with outside influences. Could it be evidence of a Global Consciousness, though? And if so, does that mean that Mars is sending us messages accross time and space? These are the thoughts I allow to flow through my mind on a Sunday.

Clearly, it's my brain's day off.
People of Mars, Martians, and Martian lovers alike, enjoy your day off too!

Suffer the Children

2009-10-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Someone burst my balloon today, again. The news of Balloon Boy's exploitation at the hands of his parents and a media that is happy to help if there's a buck in it for them is disheartening.

This is a classic case of misdirection. Everyone thought the little boy was on the family's weather balloon, people around the world concerened that something bad could happen to him so many feet above earth, when all the while something very bad was happening to him in the attic of his home.

There is little doubt in my mind that the child is the victim here. The victim of his underserving parents and the victim of the media structure that permits parents like these to thrive.

There has sadly always been a certain exploitation of children. Shirley Temple, the Little Rascals, the Olsen twins, so many, many more. But in the past, only a few children got these priced roles, and they made a fortune for themselves or for their parents as a result. Exploitation was a recognized evil, there were laws created to limit the amount of hours that the child could be allowed to work, the conditions under which they were expected to work, and the rate of pay they were to receive. Even then the result has been extremely damaging to most of the children who were raised in the spotlight. But that was never as prevalent as it is today.

I love the You Tube video of the laughing babies as much as the next person, and to a certain extent, those are innocuous. But as more Reality TV dinamic grows and more free floating 'volunteers' of our video-social experiments arise, I fear for the implications to the children.

One need only consider the case of Balloon Boy, whose parents were not only exposing him on television during their Wife Swap episodes, but who seem now to have gone through an insane conspiracy to attract more attention to themselves by conspiring to raise the alarm about their six-year-old's disappearance on a weather balloon. They are putting so much pressure on the child that he becomes physically ill not once but twice on national television.

Or Jon & Kate and their eight. Not only are these two exploiting their eight children, they are exploiting each other and fighting a very public divorce with the eight children strung together as a pathetic rope in their Tug of War. And why? Because they both care more for how much money they can make from their infamy than the eight children over whom they protest so much.

How much are these children being paid for their time on camera? Where is the Trust in THEIR name, managed by an independent third party, so it can not be squandered by their irresponsible 'guardians' before they graduate from high-school. Who is ensuring that they are not overly exposed, that they get a chance to rest adequately, that they receive a decent education, that their privacy is not violated before it has even been nurtured, that their innocence is not lost before they even get to appreciate having it? None of us.

Parents who expose their children on television without ensuring them these basic protections are abusing them. Production companies who encourage parents to do so are exploiting them.

We talk a lot about the many forms of child exploitation in our society that disturb us. We see horror stories of missing children, and children falling prey to pedofiles, and we cringe. But these other exploitations are not any more legitimate because they appear on legitimate media circuits.

I confess that I have never followed the ABC show 'Wife Swap' or the TLC show 'Jon & Kate Plus 8.' There may well be some nuance I am missing because of my ignorance, but I have also not ever directly seen a number of other ways in which children are exploited, but I know they exist and I can recognize them as corrupt.

I hate to say we ever need new laws and regulations, as generally laws do more harm than good, and often the state does its best work when it backs off our lives. But that premise is based on independent adults who are able to defend themselves in the hostile everyday. Children are not able to do any of this for themselves. It is the job of their parents to ensure their protection, and the job of government to protect children from bad parents.

We need to see new regulations to forbid the use of any minors on Reality TV shows. There I said it. I won't mince words. I'll say more. I believe that any children appearing in the media should be considered child actors, regardless of the form and method of their exposure, and that they should be compensated at an hourly rate equivalent to five times the rate of adult actors in prime time slots.

Why? We are robbing these children of the most valuable years of their lives. I do not romanticize childhood when I say this. I am being realistic about its intended purpose. The years when one is free and clear of responsibilities and exposure to grim realities are golden. They alow us to develop. They allow us to dream. They allow us to try and fail, fall and rise, with impunity and in privacy, so we can gain the confidence and the courage to face the real world effectively and strongly support our society. If we rob children of this invaluable 1/5 of their time on earth, then we should pay them at a rate five times greater than what they will earn as adults to compensate. So that when those children have to spend hours and money in therapy, when they have to be 'coached' into adapting like normal human beings into our society they have the resources on hand with which to do this.

And I do believe that all children who are compensated in this fashion should have a Trust in their name that is managed by an independent third party that is neither their parents the production company or any agent representing either of those two.

We can never forget that what our children suffer today, we will suffer from them tomorrow. The sins of the father may be visited on his children, but the children eventually strike back.

God's Wide Screen and My Phillips

2009-10-15T12:15:00.001-04:00

Had to run some out of town errands with my husband and the day was ripe and gold to red, the sky perfect blue, and the breeze, well, heavenly. Off we went to make the most of it. Plenty of entertainment just in watching the majesty of trees turning in the colors of autumn. Sunlight will be scarce in the coming months and there will be plenty of time for me to become a Screen Mole again soon.

Still, I made a commitment to myself to keep up with my writing daily, so here I am. If you break promises to yourself, you can't be counted on to keep promises to anyone, right?

I did catch one re-run while I was doing some research and getting ready to update my blogs that reminds me of one of the things I love best about television.

Say what you will about the Sit-Com, it is one of the bread and butter elements of the medium for obvious reasons. Who doesn't like to sit back after a hard day and laugh at someone who just went through something very similar to what we went through?

But Sit-Coms have a wide range from the sublime, to just, well, slime. 'That 70's Show' is one of those comedies that were so well made, so down to earth, so very relatable, that I can never get enough of it. I think I have a fairly healthy sense of humor, but few things make me actually laugh out-loud. This show does.

The cast was spectacular of course, every single one of them, but it was the characters that made it work. One of the things that stands out about the writing is that while it doesn't take itself too seriously in the least, it captures the issues that were relevant in the 70's and are relevant today beautifully and in a balanced manner. There are a bunch of characters but no real caricatures. Each character has depth of soul that pervades the show, no matter how superficial their 'cover' personality may be. In Erik's basement (which I think is a great analogy for the sub-conscious) all of our fears, our quirks, our failings and our greatness come to life.

There are no malicious hidden agendas to this show, it is genuine and genuinely entertaining. It shows us that we don't have to be perfect. That being perfectly human is good enough. God I miss it. Bring it back. Just kidding. Adolescence doesn't last forever and the characters would grow stale on us as they became older and perhaps a bit more jaded. But more shows like this should be written. We should encourage this type of down-to-earth humor in our hours of television viewing.

Compare this show to other Sit-Coms that came before and since, and there is a market gap there. Put writer/producers Bonnie and Terry Turner and writer Mark Brazill back to the old drawing board! We need more of this on our Boob-Tube. (Fez blushes and laughs 'Boob!').

Columbus, Houdini and Tyra Banks

2009-10-14T07:44:00.003-04:00

Perception is Reality. If people perceive reality with a particular slant, barring weighty evidence to the contrary, that which is generally accepted is the truth; that which is generally accepted is Reality.

Before 1492, before Columbus, whom we celebrated this week, crossed the ocean blue the earth was flat. Ask any one walking around in 1491, whether peasant or noble, illiterate or scholar, including the greatest power of the time, the Catholic Church, and they would have told you in no uncertain terms that the earth was flat.

Of course there was dissenting opinion. There were people who felt differently. There were people who had scientific data to substantiate this was not the case, through their study of Astronomy, but those people were heretics, persecuted, isolated and ostracized for creating divisions in society. These were dangerous people.

Columbus had to tread carefully as he became the head salesman of this alternative vision. If he had not gone to Isabella directly, herself the spearhead of the Inquisition, he might have been burned as a heretic and history would have gone a different path entirely. But he went to the head of state with an interesting pitch, "The world is round and I can prove it. If I'm wrong I'm dead, but if I'm right, Spain will have a direct path to India. You'll be richer than any other monarch on Earth." And as legend has it, he had the clever device of his egg to explain it. He simplified his message with an image.

Why did Isabel, a hardened Catholic who merrily allowed her people to be tortured and roasted everyday for disagreeing with the principles of the church, accept this challenge?As the steward of the Church Isabel should have had Columbus executed immediately. But he had told her great wealth was attainable, and she opted to let her greed override her faith.

Isabel did not really believe for a minute he would succeed. In fact, she used his trip as an opportunity to rid her kingdom of other annoying trouble makers and sent Columbus to sail with the most hardened murderers, rapists and thieves she could find in her prisons. She took the opportunity to kill all her problematic birds with one shot.

Isabel must have been very pleasantly surprised indeed when Columbus returned from his newly discovered West Indies with tobacco, spices, gold and Natives. But it must also have created quite a controversy in her mind. The church had been wrong about something. Her view of the world was permanently shattered. She was not alone.

When I consider why the Inquisition took such a hardened stance in the Americas, why it lasted for such a very long time at the cost of so many lives, I think that their very existence was at the heart of it. By merely existing, by being there to disprove the core beliefs of the flat earth, they had offended the church. A massive campaign was enacted to tear down their views, their beliefs, their social realities and rebuild a new one to the convenience of the invaders.

No where was the importance of images in accomplishing a change in perception of the natives more compelling than when Cortez happened to earn his place to Moctezuma's inner circle by appearing to resemble the emissary of legend from the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl. Though much of this is legend, it illustrates a point on perception. The Aztecs rightfully perceived the Spaniards as enemies, but because of Cortez's accidental appearance, part of the legend is that the emissary of the God would be blond and fair skinned, he was allowed in by Moctezuma. The Aztecs had allowed their eyes to cloud their judgment, despite abundant evidence of danger, to the detriment of their society.

Today we widely accept that the earth is round. We have seen pictures that have served to convince us of this. But we are more vulnerable to perception than we have ever been. We are a global society linked and ruled by images. If we believe everything we see, disregarding our individual judgment, reasoning, learning, then we are globally weakened.

Our eyes are our Achilles heel. Magicians are experts at manipulating this debility in our reasoning. They make us see something that our reason would not otherwise accept, but we believe it because we have seen it. We have trouble believing that what we saw was not what happened. We readily accept a reality manipulated by the magician as truth.

Since our eyes are now under constant stimulation, viewing more images of more things and reading more texts than humanity has ever had the access to, our brains are absorbing record breaking data and accepting it as valid. What we forget is that these artifices have an agenda. An agenda that serves industry not the individual.

Reality, the world beyond the screens, is relatively agenda neutral. If we go to the woods and sit for a year, we would know and believe it was summer because we would see summer around us, likewise autumn would come and be autumn on its own, and we would recognize its arrival through the changes in nature. The seasons wouldn't time themselves by anything other than natural conditions, and each season would come in only promote and facilitate the cycles of life and nature, not the cycles of the market.

In our market-driven, media-shaped reality, winter, spring, summer, and fall, have specific time-lines that are based on the needs of marketers to push products and services. And we accept them as true even if nature says otherwise. It may still be freezing outside our window and our walk-ways still needing to be plowed in the morning, but if media tells us that Spring is coming and we need to head to the stores and start buying our spring and summer wardrobe, off we go!

That alone may be relatively harmless, but there are new methods in the media that are of deeper concern. They are at the core of the hidden agendas. It is no longer sufficient to say buy these shoes they are pretty. We are told be the person who wants these shoes or you are nobody. Ask Manolo Blanik about their sales with the hype over Sex and the City, if you doubt my word. But most of the hidden agendas that horrify me are not embedded in the creative programing or in the advertising itself but in what is cynically termed Reality Television. The concept of Reality TV seems like an inherently contradictory statement to me. Life happens on Earth not on Screen.

I don't think that even the creators and producers of Reality TV expect it to be generally accepted as 'real.' They are more the modern equivalent of freak shows in an old fashioned Circus. We rush to watch them for the very same reason that our grandparents (or great grandparents) liked to go to see the bearded woman. We can look at these extreme parodies of humanity, cringe, laugh, weep, but regardless find our lives, however drained of meaning they may have become better for not being that bad.

This dynamic of familiar voyeurism breaks down to an even lower level with the emergence of the Reality Contest show. These are fascinating and frightening social experiments. There is the implication that being a winner is important above all else, that beating your fellow man through deception, derision, duplicity, whatever means possible, is an acceptable, legitimate form of behavior. In order to win a prize that is often a questionable prize at best, and that invariably comes at a cost to dignity and integrity, people literally savage each other in a public forum.

I am constantly monitoring the images the media presents of women in society. I watch America's Next Top Model with the morbid fascination of someone watching a train wreck. In fact, because of my travels, I also watch Germany's Next Top Model, and Canada's Next Top Model occasionally. As all concepts become global concepts so goes the global perception, and the same values are being sold to the great civilized nations around the world.

Tyra Banks encourages young women to be 'fierce.' This is her one-word encapsulation of an ideal woman. “You gotta be fierce!” she says ad nauseam to some poor girl who is so emaciated that she is almost ready to pass out and so devoid of identity that she walked into the show willingly.

The Merriam Webster On-line dictionary defines 'fierce' as follows:

“fierce" \ˈfirs\ (adjective)// fierc·er; fierc·est//
Etymology: Middle English fiers, from Anglo-French fer, fers, fiers, from Latin ferus wild, savage; akin to Greek thēr wild animal
Date: 14th century
1 a : violently hostile or aggressive in temperament b : given to fighting or killing :pugnacious 2 a : marked by unrestrained zeal or vehemence b : extremely vexatious, disappointing, or intense 3: furiously active or determined 4: wild or menacing in appearance. synonyms: fierce, ferocious, barbarous, savage, cruel, mean, showing fury or malignity in looks or actions. fierce applies to humans and animals that inspire terror because of their wild and menacing aspect or fury in attack; fierce warriors. ferocious implies extreme fierceness and unrestrained violence and brutality ferocious dog. barbarous implies a ferocity or mercilessness regarded as unworthy of civilized people; barbarous treatment of prisoners. savage implies the absence of inhibitions restraining civilized people filled with rage, lust, or other violent passion, savage criminal. cruel implies indifference to suffering and even positive pleasure in inflicting it, cruel jokes of schoolboys;.

Cited from "fierce." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 14 October 2009

By this definition, Tyra Banks is probably one of the most honest women on Reality TV. That definition describes exactly what the contestants are encouraged to be and how they encouraged to behave. They are berated, humiliated and hounded until they become fierce indeed. But it is the disingenuous benevolence with which she says it that makes my blood run cold. It is always possible that poor Tyra has not really read the definition of fierce in a dictionary. Perhaps she has but she is deluded into thinking that she can re-define it. But since the actions the show encourages, the values the show reinforces, are consistent with the traditional definition cited above from Merriam-Webster above, I am prone to think that in this case actions speak as loudly as words.

Do we want a generation of 'fierce' girls? Do we want a generation of fierce boys for that matter? Does Tyra Banks want to be responsible for promoting these generations, for being the spokesperson for anarchy?

I have a different f-word for Tyra to consider and I present it here:

“free” \ˈfrē\ (adjective)//fre·er; fre·est//
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English frēo; akin to Old High German frī free, Welsh rhydd, Sanskrit priya own, dear
Date: before 12th century
1 a : having the legal and political rights of a citizen b : enjoying civil and political liberty c : enjoying political independence or freedom from outside domination d : enjoying personal freedom : not subject to the control or domination of another
2 a : not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being : choosing or capable of choosing for itself b : determined by the choice of the actor or performer c : made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously
3 a : relieved from or lacking something and especially something unpleasant or burdensome--often used in combination—often used in combination b : not bound, confined, or detained by force
4 a : having no trade restrictions b : not subject to government regulation c of foreign exchange : not subject to restriction or official control 5 a : having no obligations (as to work) or commitments b : not taken up with commitments or obligations 6 : having a scope not restricted by qualification
7 a : not obstructed, restricted, or impeded b : not being used or occupied c : not hampered or restricted in its normal operation 8 a : not fastened b : not confined to a particular position or place c : capable of moving or turning in any direction d : performed without apparatus e : done with artificial aids (as pitons) used only for protection against falling and not for support 9 a : not parsimonious b : outspoken c : availing oneself of something without stint d : frank, open e : overly familiar or forward in action or attitude f : licentious 10 : not costing or charging anything 11 a (1) : not united with, attached to, combined with, or mixed with something else: separate (2) : freestanding b : chemically uncombined acids c : not permanently attached but able to move about d : capable of being used alone as a meaningful linguistic form — compare to bound 12 a : not literal or exact b : not restricted by or conforming to conventional forms 13 : favorable —used of a wind blowing from a direction more than six points from dead ahead 14 : not allowing slavery 15 : open to all comers

— free·ness \-nəs\ noun
— for free : without charge
synonyms free, independent, sovereign, autonomous mean not subject to the rule or control of another. free stresses the complete absence of external rule and the full right to make all of one's own decisions. independent implies a standing alone; applied to a state it implies lack of connection with any other having power to interfere with its citizens, laws, or policies. sovereign stresses the absence of a superior power and implies supremacy within a thing's own domain or sphere, and armed services. sovereign. autonomous stresses independence in matters pertaining to self-government as autonomous

Cited "free." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
-Webster Online. 14 October 2009

Of course, free does not work for the program. The girls that join the competition are anything but free. They are the indentured serfs of the Producers of the show. They are housed as the producers please, dressed as the producers please, used as the producers please, and when the producers please they are cast out into the cold. They have entered a bubble where they will be examined and exploited, where money will be made off their experiences by everyone but them. The winner receives a prize that never will cover the cost to her identity, her independence, her character.

Watching America's Top Model I am reminded of Merle Travis:

'You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...'

Change 'load' to 'play' and 'tons' to 'episodes' and the original lyrics fit quite well. Tyra and her colleagues may argue that competitors enter freely and can leave freely at any time. But this is the same cynical argument used by the Mining Companies on the miners of the time, and has as much worth.

We speak of living in a free society, but the media increasingly sells us a different reality. A reality where we are not free, we are even beyond sold-out, we are entirely enslaved. We need to rise up and unite, we have nothing to loose but our chains of endless, mindless, exploitative 'Reality.'

There are serious threats occurring to our former cherished way of life. And I mean former because we have forfeited it in large part and need to get it back. There are serious actions to be taken for women and men alike to live with dignity and freedom enriched by the experience of the reality of everyday life. Those are the paths to greatness.

It should be emphasized to young women that the following people would never have passed the requirements to enter the America's Top Model show, would never have walked the catwalk as instructed by a leading transvestite, would never have allowed a misoginistic photographer to pose them like a souless mannequin, and yet these women were not only great and powerful, respected and beloved, but they shaped the very core of our society. They were different, sometimes bold, sometimes kind, sometimes they were even fierce, but they had full characters and agendas that were all their own and not merchandisable.

Here is my incomplete list of the Earth's Best Top Models

Cleopatra - Ancient Egypt
Elizabeth I - UK
Jane Austen - UK
Florence Nightingale - UK
Mary Seacole - UK & West Indies
Elizabeth Garrett - UK & France
Annie Bessant - UK
Marie Curie - Poland
Eleanor Roosevelt - US
Margaret Thatcher - UK
Julia Child - US
Betty Friedan - US
Gloria Marie Steinem - US

There are so many more, this is just a partial list, off the top of my head, of the women I have admired and respected in history; the women I have referred to for role models of different facets of life. There are not enough programs dedicated any more to highlighting the efforts of these and thousands of other great women who have come before us and paved the way for us.

There is a quote by Socrates that when women are liberated they surpass men. Perhaps that is why we are so exploited, so tied down, so held back. Because if we were free and powerful we would have taken over the world and humanized it. But this isn't being done to us, by 'others,' we do it to ourselves. Women like Tyra Banks do it, and someone did it to her. It is an endless chain of abuse and exploitation of women by women that form the links of the gold chains around our waists.

When I look at the role models of women to come, the women the media sells to us every day, the future generations of meat for the media canons, I don't want that Reality. I don't want to live in a world full of fierce Tyra Banks wanna-be's. I want to be free. I don't believe that I am alone, but I do believe that our message is getting lost in the din of the everyday images blasting from each media outlet.

We owe our soul to the company store, and at an interest rate that will be collected from our daughters and sons.

While Twittering this week, and tracking the reaction of Columbus day, I noted a general distaste for what was called the 'Imperialist Exploiters' of the Americas. Historic reality is that Columbus himself did not carry out the genocides, he was only the vehicle through which the murderers landed on our shores. But for a society that came out of that genocide to innovate the concept of Freedom and Independence, and who is still so verbal in despising the exploitations of any people, we are frighteningly eager to allow it to be done to us. We have taken a dizzying down-slide in values.

What we do today is tantamount to the victims of the Inquisition walking into a spectacle where they could convince Torquinada that they were the World's Top Heretic, in order to win a prize of top position on the pire.

It is a trick of divertion and manipulation of perception that Houdini would never have dreamt-up.

It is the same as Moctezuma saying to Cortez, "You've given me no reason to trust you and I don't like what your people stand for, but you look like the emisary of a God, come in and have a nice cup of chocolate," and it will have the same devastating results.