The death of Self Esteem

Has anybody else noticed and been disturbed by the way famous people (usually young girls) are having photo shoots where they are doing a "tribute" to someone who is dead?????

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

http://nymag.com/fashion/08/spring/44247/

http://alpha.newsx.com/story/lindsay-lohans-tribute-marilyn-monroe

Are they relying on the fact that someone is naked to sell the magazine?   Or is the person who consents to this relying on it being considered as "art" instead of "pornography"?  

And what exactly are you supposed to feel if someone asks you to come to a photo shoot so that they can camouflage your face and hair to look like someone else but they for sure want to use your naked body?  I have noticed that Hollywood has not been able to come up with one single original idea for about a decade, and now it's oozing over into media outlets that I cannot ignore as easily as the movies.

Do you figure that the money is good so what the hey?

Do you feel like "what's wrong with my naked body?  Is it 'cause I'm not famous enough?"

Do you stop to wonder WHY anyone would want you to look like a poor confused and exploited person who had a pretty sad life and killed herself over 50 years ago?  Do I need to point out that even poor confused and exploited persons 50 years ago had better sense than to pose naked for people who would widely distribute those photos?

Do your parents not object to any of this?????

Because I would like to tell all girls everywhere a couple of things:  

Number 1, don't let anybody take pictures of your naked body.  Nothing is wrong with your body, it is beautiful, but you  may want to wait until you are at least old enough to legally buy  a drink in a bar before you decide to do something like this.  Anyone who encourages you to display your naked body probably does not have your best interests in mind, and if you are determined to let someone take naked pictures of you the least you should do is hold out for the maximum amount you can possibly get, assuming you need the money to survive.  Anything else is just selling yourself short.  Really.  Once done, you will have to live with it for the rest of your life.  But you will not know this until it is too late and then you will never be able to un-know it.  There are many, many paths in life.  Choosing the right one takes time and should be taken slowly.   There is no reason for every second to be recorded in pictures.  You will have years to try many different paths, if that is your wish.  I promise. 

Number 2:  If you are determined to get pictures taken of your naked body, at least get the billing for it!! This Ms. Star Thang AS Beloved Dead Movie Star stuff is really beneath both of you. It's not fair to you because it implies that your own naked body is worth more with your face smeared up so that you don't even look like yourself (as if anyone will look at your FACE!  lol) and it's not fair to the dead person because you KNOW they are not getting a cut.  Girls should never do that to each other, it's a code.  We have to stick together, especially when our naked pictures are being shopped all around and our lives are ruined and there is no way to keep our grandmother's from finding out.  And if you think your grandmother finding out is your worst nightmare, just wait until you have kids.   Nobody else has your body, and the thought of taking the step of having nude pictures taken while hiding behind some kind of "tribute" is truly disturbing.  It's a cop out that even a 3 year old would know better than to try, provided the 3 year old had parents that held them accountable and didn't sell them out to the first guy with cash that came along.  How much better off would Lindsay be if she hadn't been raised to calculate how much she was "worth" in this way?  I am thinking quite a little bit, but I guess it would all depend on your definition of "worth".

I haven't watched much TV for years, but I am constantly seeing magazine's at the grocery store, you can't get away from it, and if you think your kids aren't taking some of that in you are not paying attention.  Our girls are completely lost and our boys are completely confused.  There is no map anymore and you can't even trust an adult to tell you the truth.  Worst of all, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to which way is up.  There are kids, and even adults who seem to be under the impression that "up" is whatever way you want it to be, but the world will teach you different, and without a strong sense of direction you will surely be lost.  Without a strong sense of yourself you could find yourself naked in a magazine looking for all the world like someone else, and not one person finding anything wrong with that at all.  When do you suppose that little voice inside them gives up and quits saying "hey, this isn't right, isn't somebody going to do something about this??? I'm just a kid!"  It seems that this voice gives up around puberty, if it lives to sound the alarm that long.  It is slowly eroded by the steady drip of apathy and the lack of honor in our world today.

People who do not display their naked bodies do not do so because they have all the money they could ever want.  People who do not display their naked bodies do so because they value their "self" and do not want to start out on the slippery slope of losing their honor or their self respect.  It's time for honor and respect to make a huge comeback in America.  This is the time, while there are still some left who know what that is.

It seems that parents have fallen down. I am not trying to pick on Lindsay's parents, there are plenty more.  She is just the easiest one to come up with links to.   It seems, actually, as if some parents have fallen down a rabbit hole.  It also seems like they took the pill that makes you smaller.  When I was growing up, parents seemed to have taken a pill that made them bigger.  Parents, and it did not by any means have to be your parent, any parents, were big, watching, and not afraid to correct you whether you were their kid or not.  

Consider how all of us accepting this of thing as anything but disturbing will change the world a little bit more. (Like saaands through the hour glass, these are the daaaays of our liiiives....) We are not doing anyone any favors by letting stuff like this exist in our world without honest comment.  No one ever calls them on it, and women's magazines are the very worst.  Years ago I read Playboy for the first time.  Yes, I really read it.  I was AMAZED by how good it was, compared to the crap they put out there for women.  The women's magazines were always the same: Lots of ads for makeup, jewelry and clothes, a few recipes, some version of Can This Relationship Be Saved?, and advise on how to keep your house clean so your husband would come home and your children would not end up on drugs. Oh, and a sex move that is supposed to be "new" and will keep your man so happy he will not want to leave your presence except to go to the bathroom.   Seriously.  Now even Playboy, the one magazine that never made any bones about what it was but included extraordinary interviews and always made the women who posed in it at least look pretty,  has decided to jump on the "pretend to be somebody else" bandwagon.  

http://philly.barstoolsports.com/around-barstool/the-lindsay-lohan-playboy-pictures-are-here-nsfw/

Take a look at a magazine, pick any one, it does not really matter anymore, with clear eyes and then tell me what message you get from it's contents.

 I have pretty much given TV and movies up over the past several years.  I have always read a lot, and I haven't looked back, either.  Now when I do watch I am usually shocked.  Doubly shocked, once when it happens and again when no one watching is disgusted by it, some even laugh.  They are not bad people, and I know that, but they are not thinking for themselves.  They are just staring at a box, "relaxing", and accepting unquestionably that what comes out of it is appropriate and funny when neither of these things is  true in the slightest.  But to bring this up might make people "uncomfortable" and they don't want to make any "waves".  Because............well.................because it has become fashionable to fall in with the status quo and  not question anything.  Wake up and get real!  The world is going down the tubes and everybody is watching Jersey Shore.  

I think the world is being slowly choked to death by the political correctness of these times, and I am done being silent while my children are constantly bombarded with ideas that make no sense and do not even have any entertainment value.  There are a million ways to quit buying into this kind of thing, literally.  I hope you don't buy any of these magazines because they are nothing but trash and advertising, but I repeat myself.  Take a good look at some of the article's.   Just read the outside!  I double dog dare you.  Then, if you are really feeling good about yourself, watch some t.v.  Tell me what you really think is funny about it.  I would just love to know.  Discuss this with your children, or if you don't have children, any children you know.  Us being quiet about it makes them think this is "normal".  This is not "normal", I refuse to accept this as "normal" and I am done being polite about it.

We are bombarded with so much filth that is supposed to be "funny" or "artistic".  Pah-leeeeezzze.  Use your brains.  Is that what you want your kids to think is normal?  Not me.

Respect: I Miss It!

This is a rant.  This is also my departed mother's birthday.  Perhaps that is why this hit me so hard. This is always a hard day for me.  That's all the apology I will offer up.

Today, I took a call at work.  It was a concerned daughter calling with very bad news about her father.  She was calling her ex husband, out of a VALID concern that her children would hear this bad news on the STREET, through the GRAPEVINE, and she wanted to stop this from happening, as they would be unprepared for it, and there is no GOOD way to hear that kind of news, and she wanted to come from a parent.

Now, I don't what the ex husband said before he left, but I sat the rest of the afternoon and watched gossips pass this information around, even calling people at home to alert them.  I mean honestly!!

I am not trying to take anything away from people who are genuinely concerned.

FYI:  People who are genuinely concerned call the PERSON involved, not EVERYBODY ELSE.  

I do not know whether the children heard it on the street, but it certainly is a possibility with the way people hurried to pass the news around.  Perhaps you have never had to deal with the GRAPEVINE when someone you love is sick.  If so, YOU ARE BLESSED.  Know it!  Take a moment and thank God for your blessing.

A great deal of people have genuine concern and sorrow.  Then there are the people who come to see your loved one only to rush off with the latest story of how bad they look, or how bad they are doing, what a shame it is for poor _______.  This makes the sick person's family want to go on a rampage where tongues are cut out.  Yep.  It does.

Dealing with a loved one who is facing death is heart rending enough without having to deal with all the stories that get repeated and distorted along the line.  This is the one aspect of a long illness no one ever talks about.  Indeed, a lot of people don't even think about it.  It's like a secret club.  The only people who dare to speak of it have been through it already. 

I once thought I was going to have to get into a throw down at Wal Mart with one of these people, who kept insisting they just wanted to come "one more time", "to say goodbye", when my mother had already drawn the line on visitors and I know for a fact that all he wanted was the story because in his small little mind, he could use that story as currency at the local restaurant.  I didn't have to get into a throw down with him, but let me tell you, I would have gladly grabbed a bat and busted his head with no thought for the charges that would have no doubt been filed against me.  And he would have had it coming, if you ask me.  I could have taken my chances with a jury in Linn Co. and probably gotten off.

With that said, take a moment and think before you pass on gossip.  I don't care if it's true or not.  Any kind.  Take one moment and consider the privacy of the family.  There might be people they would like to be notified first so that they don't hear it on the street.  They might want, oh, maybe 1 day, or two, to deal with bad news privately, as a family.  They might not thank you for spreading their sorrow before they have had time to wrap their minds around it.  They might even not consider it any of your business to even know it, let alone spread it around as fast as possible.  They might not thank you for throwing it in their face as soon as you see them when it's all they can do to get their god forsaken groceries bought without crying.  They may have trained themselves to only cry in their car, because it's the only privacy they have where they will not upset their children.

Your words have power.  They can cause hurt that you may never know about, but can never make up.  I once watched a movie called DOUBT that had a scene where a woman confessed to gossiping to a priest.  He told her to take a feather pillow to the top of her building, slit it and let the feathers go and then come back the next day.  When she came back the next day she said she had done as he instructed.  Know what he said then?  He told her to go gather them all back up again.  In other words, there was no way to take back what she had done, no matter how hard she might try.  It was a quite brilliant movie, I thought.

It's not like everyone isn't going to find out anyway.  It's hard enough without having to make sure you have your "game face" on before you leave the house. 

If you are really CONCERNED, have some RESPECT. 

I don't think some people even know what respect is.  They certainly do not seem to have any respect for themselves.

Much hurt is done with gossip.  It seems to be the one sin no one ever feels bad about or any need to feel contrite for.  Think about that for 1 minute.  And in case you are under the impression that you are looked up to because you told it first?  Not exactly. 

Everybody already knows exactly what you are.