The Self-critical Tyrant (Glamour and it's 97%)

Okay, so, my thoughts on the Glamour article: Shocking Body-Image News: 97% of Women Will Be Cruel to Their Bodies Today.

On a technical level, I didn't see any info on who these 300 women were or how they were chosen. If they're readers of Glamour then the data is extremely skewed towards women who buy fashion magazines! There's also no real information on how they analyzed the information, so I take everything here with a grain of salt. What's most interesting is the comments, and general information.

Maybe it's not news that a lot of women have negative body images, but I have to say that 1 negative thought about yourself per hour is way too many. I don't think one negative thought about myself every hour, unless we're counting the occasional "I'm such an idiot!"s when I find the scissors on the DVD shelf instead of on the side table where I thought I left them.

I'm pretty saddened by the idea cited by their psychologist that "It’s actually more acceptable to insult your body than to praise it." Okay maybe that's not news, but it doesn't lose its power to piss me off. If the Egyptian people can change their dictator, then can we please change this thinking? Has it been long enough under this imaginary beauty tyrant? Did women feel this way in 1981? (I was 8 years old, so I don't know.)

Widdershins commented last week: "As well as list the things a woman could do to stop the internal dialogue ...'rewire your brain', 'exercise', 'appreciate your body' (at least they didn't say 'love yourself') the article could've at least put in a bit about where all that external pressure comes from, and chuck in a little politicised commentary"

I get the feeling Glamour is still getting their feet wet re. this whole topic, and don't know how to talk about their own complicity in it. (They're no Sassy, after all.) So they're definitely splashing in the shallows. They mention the external pressures really vaguely in a couple paragraphs, and then basically make their thesis statement this: "If our brains are virtually wired this way [because we keep reinforcing the negative thoughts]—and outside cultural forces aren’t helping—how can we stop the self-hate? We were determined to find out."

But I think protecting yourself should be the first line of defense. Not because the victim is to blame, but because you can control yourself easier and faster than you can change society. As with any victim situation, it's about power--taking back control of your own life. An abused wife has to get out of the house and get to a shelter. A raped woman has to tell someone that it happened. It's not their fault, but unfortunately nothing's going to change without some action on their parts.

I think the Glamour article does provide some good tips (as you said Widdershins, tips that go beyond "love yourself"). But I don't want this post to go one forever so maybe I'll talk about some of them in later posts.  :-)

A Toni Childs song and a love letter

I can't write up a long post. I'm late for bed and I'm trying to be better about this. I had to write a letter to my husband. Our relationship somewhat started out through letters. We met when we were 15, when I started attending the church he grew up in, and we became friends. Since we only saw each other once a week we sometimes wrote letters to each other. So he recently challenged me to write him a letter for each day of the year this year. I made a binder--this is what 365 pieces of looseleaf looks like:

Eep!

Well I'm a writer so obviously it's enjoyable, I confess I confess. I like adding little cartoons too.

As for this blog, here's a song for the day: Toni Child's "Because You're Beautiful."

its the time to choose, what you want now
its the time to declare, who you are now
its the time to, reach for the stars now
its the time to believe in yourself now

Interesting Glamour Article about Negative Thoughts

Since the tiny picture of the bellied woman, it looks like Glamour is still trying to keep a little momentum going with the "love your real body" theme. Here's part of a recent article they ran about the way women talk to themselves:

Read these words: “You are a fat, worthless pig.” “You’re too thin. No man is ever going to want you.” “Ugly. Big. Gross.” Horrifying comments on some awful website? The rant of an abusive, controlling boyfriend? No; shockingly, these are the actual words young women are saying to themselves on any typical day. For some, such thoughts are fleeting, but for others, this dialogue plays on a constant, punishing loop, according to a new exclusive Glamour survey of more than 300 women of all sizes. Our research found that, on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts daily—nearly one for every waking hour. And a disturbing number of women confess to having 35, 50 or even 100 hateful thoughts about their own shapes each day.

The whole article is here. I haven't read it yet, cause it's actually long. It's, like, a real article! I'll be back next week with some thoughts. We can have Magazine Article Club. Less taxing than a Book Club. ;-)

Juice: The Devil's Handmaiden (Village on a Diet, X-Weighted, and Heavy)

I'm procrastinating from my coaching homework again. I did most of it yesterday, but still. You'd think an unemployed person would have all day to do her homework...

So I'll just bitch about one thing, and then get to work.

My husband and I have been watching weight loss shows lately. We don't always--these moods come and go. They're mostly about working out, and people's stories, rather than about food and dieting. But once in awhile you get a glimpse into the food side and it bugs me.

Village On a Diet isn't too bad. They've got this chef who is trying to show people how to eat more vegetables, sometimes eat a vegetarian meal, eat leaner meat, try going without sugar for one week, little experiments like that. That's fine, it's all nutrition-ee. But the first time he tried to show them a vegetarian meal he served them kebabs with hunks of tofu on them. I'm sorry but unless tofu is really PERFECTly done, it's not the first thing you serve to people who don't even eat vegetables. The town's produce section is about 4-6 feet wide.

I think it was also on that show that the doctor or someone went ape-sh*t over juice. Juice is the devil's drink. Her two big things are people should quit smoking, and stop drinking juice. Now, it is true that you get more benefit from an apple than apple juice because of the fiber. But after that her basic argument went like this:
Woman With Juice: But we always had juice when I was growing up.
Dr: And now you're...?
Woman With Juice: Overweight.
Dr: Aha!
Yes and yet I know lots of thin people who drank juice as children, and drink it as adults. Please. Like most things, it's about moderation. I'm mistrustful of blocking out entire foods, unless it's for political reasons. Even the dreaded High Fructose Corn Syrup isn't going to single handedly kill you.

Then there's X-Weighted. I haven't seen anything too nasty yet. Except the time the trainer guy Paul told a woman that fibromyalgia is a myth. I don't fault him for his opinion, it's an opinion--but his over-the-top-going-on-about-it was sooo insulting, especially when women already suffer from doctors regularly treating them like they're idiots/hysterics. I could go on. I shall not.

On the episode I just saw, the two women revealed that their hair has been falling out, cause they don't know what they should be eating. So the holistic nutritionist showed them how to make low fat angel food cake. ...I'm going to assume she showed them other things, off camera. ??

The worse, though, is the show Heavy. The people, usually very large, go to a retreat for one month where they have to work out like mad, and eat only what they're given at the cafeteria. Then they're followed at home for two months, where they have to learn how to integrate the workouts and eating into their lives. At the retreat we don't often see their food, but it's really really small. And the amount of weight they lose in 3 months is a lot, much higher than I think they should be losing, in order to maintain the weight loss for years.

The spa site says they eat 1200-1400 calories per day--these are people who normally eat 2 or 3 or 4 times that amount. Their bodies must go into starvation mode. While it's helpful that they're working out too, I'll be surprised if their weight doesn't return in a few years.

And it doesn't look to me that they're taught how to eat the kinds of food they're used to eating, but in the right proportions, with some small changes made. I don't know... it's all very suspect.

Thanks for letting me vent. My husband won't let me because it Ruins His Viewing Experience.

Exercise and the Stepping Stones of Failure! Hurrah!!

I need to write this fast, cause I still haven't started my career homework. So excuse me if there are no citations to back up my factoids...

My understanding is that your chances of quitting smoking increase every time you quit smoking. So if you quit smoking and start again, you shouldn't really see it as a failure; but rather as a stepping stone to your eventual Forever Quit-ahj.

That's also my understanding about getting pregnant. That you can actually have a number of miscarriages before a baby *takes.*

So I've decided--just decided--that exercise works the same way. You know all those times in life when you got all excited about exercising, either because you bought new equipment, or new running shoes, or it was spring, or you were suddenly into yoga, or you bought new tights or something, and you exercised regularly for like a week or a month or something and then it wore off?

I've decided not to see these fits and starts as failures, or as signs that I'll just never be able to get into the habit of regular exercise. I've decided that each failure is a stepping stone on the road to success! Why, I could be one failed exercise away from Great Health!

Who knows!! Never give up! Never surrender!

Exercise and Diet: At some point do you integrate and move on? (Sheesh shows us how! I think!)

Fernando and I are watching the show Village on a Diet--about a small Canadian town where a large number of inhabitants have agreed to go on a fitness and healthy eating "regime" for a period of time, with the help of imported experts. This week one of the storylines was about Jamie, who has been one of the most successful participants--not so much in terms of weight lost, but in terms of turning around her mindset, feeling better about herself.

But every day she was still trying on her old clothes to reassure herself about the weight she'd lost, to a point that it was becoming kind of obsessive and unhealthy. She finally had to talk to the show's therapist about it, about accepting the change, believing in it, etc.

Some weight loss blogs feel that way to me, after awhile. I understand focusing on something for a year or two, but it seems to me that there should come a point where the change is integrated into your life, becomes part of your life, and is no longer the center of your life. If it isn't, then maybe that's indicative of Something. I don't know what. I'm not a therapist.

Last month I came across an exercise blog that I really like called Sheesh:

She's been keeping it since 2006 and glancing back over the years it even looks to me like you can see this sort of healthy evolution. She's worked really hard to integrate exercise into her everyday life, and by the end of 2010 this was her conclusion:

Exercise is for every day, not special occasions. If you force yourself to exercise every day, eventually, eventually, eventually it becomes a habit to do something every day.

I think it shows that this is what she's learned. Because that year, and in 2011, her entries took on this really nice structure. She posts a fun picture, a fun/inspiring/interesting quotation, maybe some random thoughts of the day, and then a paragraph about the exercise she planned and what she did or didn't do. There isn't a lot of hand wringing or guilt, just a steady plugging away. Exercise exercise. When I read her posts I get a little of her personality, her sense of humor, the things that interest her, and I know she's exercising. It seems healthy to me. And fun.

Of course, her blog needn't meet any standard of approval set by moi, it's just there to motivate her. And I'm not trying to Sit In Judgment upon The Peoples of the Internets. I just wanted to say that I think this is a really neat little format for a blog about health.

And let me add that I do NOT exercise every day, not even year month. So I'm not, like, patting her on the head for her realization. If anything I'm taking inspiration from it. "Really? Really??  One day I might be able to exercise every day too?? Yays!"

Like, oh my god! I am sooo Weight Watcherlicious!

There's one thing I can't stand in diet commercials, and that's stupid claims. One of the recent Jennifer Hudson Weight Watchers videos includes a white woman wearing a black outfit who says something about loving her new body, and then: "I mean--look at what I'm wearing!" in an "ohmygod!" voice.

I can't find the video online. But basically she's wearing black dress slacks, and a loose black top with  a ruffle around the boat neckline. In other words, exactly the kind of outfit you can wear when you're large.

Lady, you're gonna have to pick it up a notch if you're gonna convince me.

Today's lesson brought to you by the whiny rocker at American Idol

[This was supposed to be posted Thursday. But I left it in draft mode instead of publishing mode. Ugh. It's been a stressful week, I hardly wrote on my other blogs at all. Bleh bleh bleh. Well, I've altered the date on this one so it will appear Tuesday instead. Good grief Charlie Brown.]

I was watching American Idol Wednesday night--it's the week where the singers have to get into groups and perform. This is where the contest gets good!

One group was a bunch of rockers doing, if I recall, "Somebody to Love." Something Queen. Nearby they discovered a young group of 16 year olds doing the same song, chaperoned--and therefore coached--by their mothers.

One of the guys in the rocker group kept bitching about the stagedoor mothers, how it was unfair that they had this extra coaching etc. They kept going over the watch the young group and complain about them.

Sure enough the rockers' harmonies were all off, and only a couple made it through; while the young group were one of the highlights.

But later we saw another group of older contestants, performing a cappella, who also had beautiful harmonies and knocked it out of the park. And I don't think their mommies helped them. And there were other groups who also gave great mommy-free performances.

Some people just get too focused on blaming exterior influences (or a lack thereof) for their problems. Yes, environment does play a role in our successes and failures, but it's generally not the factor we can control. That guy could have spent more time focused on his own group, focused on his group's harmonies, figuring out an arrangement that required less harmonies, playing to their strengths and away from their weaknesses, or whatever. Instead he made up his mind that they were at a disadvantage, and so that's what they projected.

There's a nice little American Idol Moral for ya. ;-)

A beautiful song about parenting (Steve Bell - Absalom Absalom)

Now that I've come out of the closet as someone with God-belief-like-leanings, I can post what I actually wanted to post.

Steve Bell is an independent label Canadian artist, and one of the very few artists I love who consistently sings God-content songs. I'm avoiding calling him a "Christian artist" because of all the mediocrity that conjures up. He takes the artist part seriously. The style isn't completely my genre, but there's a good core group of songs that I TOTally love.

Here's one of them from the album he released just this month. He usually sings his own songs, but this album includes songs from other Manitoba artists, and this is one of them. I wanted to share it because it's so touching. It's ostensibly King David mourning the death of his son Absalom (the guy who died cause he caught his 'fro in a tree), but you can tell the song is really about parenting, as Bell describes on his web site:

Any parent who has watched a child grow to adulthood knows the agony of wishing we could have given more, loved better. We are so grateful for the good we were able to muster; while at the same time we grieve the wounds we have passed on. Finally, we must return children to God and trust that grace will have the last word. 

Here's my favorite verse:

You were watching
When I took a good man’s wife
And gave the order for his murder
Just to cover up my crime
All the vanity, cruel arrogance and greed
Absalom, you learned it all from me

Churchiness: a little bit about moi

I don't talk about my spiritual side much. I live in Quebec which is a very secular place--centuries of Catholicism will do that to ya. And while my beliefs are Christian to the extent that I like the teachings of Christ, they don't fall under the general umbrella of anti-gay, anti-abortion, heaven&hell, only-Christ-saves etc. so I'm uncomfortable using the label. All of which amounts to --> I don't talk about it with 95% of the people who know me.

But someone recently brought up the topic of the church where my husband and I met, so it's been on my mind all day. So here's a short intro to Religion Moi--as a jumping off point for any future comments. I'll try to be brief.

Childhood
I was raised agnosticky. There was a touch of Sunday school, until no one wanted to get up Sunday morning to bring us. Didn't miss it.

I went once to Sunday school at my grandmother's church. We were told the story of the Good Samaritan and I LOVED it.

My dad continued to be searching-but-unchurched. He bought me an artistically illustrated story Bible which I read, cause I loved books.

And he bought me an album with Christian songs, and some of them were very entertaining.

 

He also bought me these little books about ethics, and read them to me and we did the little discussion exercises. I liked that. My mother gave me my political conscience, and a lot of my social knowledge (being a good friend and such); and my dad gave me my moral foundation.

Teenhood

One of the old booklets.

Eventually he found this totally weird church that he liked, and my step-mother, and then brother, and then I all started attending, and that lasted for me about 10 years. I was 15. It's hard to describe this church, but it was fundamentalist. Before we joined it had been even weirder, much more hard core--eschewing modern medicine type weird. We kept all the Old Testament laws--no pork, no shellfish, no work on the sabbath from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, and we only kept the Jewish holidays, no Christmas, no Easter, no Valentine's Day.

Anyway, I could go ON and ON so I won't. There's more here if you're interested. It's hard to describe how and why a person slips into believing such things, which I guess is why it's called brainwashing!

But I met my husband there, and got mostly only positive experiences out of it, which I'll talk about sometime.

Adulthood
In my early 20s the church radically changed and left behind all its fringe beliefs, which led to the majority of members (and their money) leaving. Basically the church had been following a backwards model:  do good things (like keeping the sabbath, not eating lobster) --> God will be happy with you. And they instead realized the whole point of the New Testament is:  God loves you no matter what --> so that should inspire you to be a good person and do good things (like loving other people, being kind, etc.)

I'd say a large % of churches still have this wrong.

Anyway, people liked it better when all they had to do was keep the sabbath, so they left the church. Myself, I loved it. I felt free to immediately and openly revert back to all the beliefs I'd held before joining the church, and that I'd never, in my heart, abandoned (about gay people, abortion, premarital sex, all the usual topics.) I eventually stopped attending, but it wasn't for any melodramatic reason--I just felt I'd learned all I had to learn and it was time to move on.

I've always been open to belonging to another churchish community, like a small group or something, because the community of people was unbelievable. The warmth we still feel when we run into each other is genuine and really special. But nothing's ever come my way, and I haven't gone looking.

To summarize: I believe in God, I also believe in evolution and science, I don't take the Bible literally, I don't believe there's one true religion, I don't believe you have to believe in God, and I don't believe in Heaven or Hell. Why do I believe in God? Pretty much because I choose to. And that's about that.  :-)

Fat positivity in tumblr land!

Dug into my ideas folder to find something positive to focus on. Remembered this tumblr site I found recently:

 

I gather there's also one called "fuck yeah chubby girls" but they let anyone post so it isn't always a safe space. "fat positive" is more careful about what they allow. They also pointed towards a boy page: fuck yeah chubby guys

Coolios non?

Mick Jagger: O.G. Swag!

One of the big stories from Grammy '11 night was Mick Jagger's performance. Even Kanye tweeted about it: "Mick Jagger is crazy fresh!!! #OGSWAG"  (You can try this video, but the Grammys are pursuing these links like mozefoze.)  I can understand caring about your health/weight/etc. if your goal is to be able to groove like Jagger when you're 68.

As opposed to looking like this guy who was in the audience. Who stands around in this pose when Mick Jagger is performing? Even if it's not your style of music, your soul has to be a little bit dead.

30 Easy Steps from Suck to Expert

A commenter on author Jennifer Crusie's blog linked to this and I loved it (along with at least 23 other people.) It's a how-to on how to become an expert at something.

I traced it back to its origin. Some entrepreneur-type Ben Casnocha put up a drawing of an owl with these instructions:

Stage 1: You suck.
Stage 2: You're an expert.

(You can read the actual point of the post here.)

One of his readers, Onjibonrenat, added a few more steps: (there's some naughty language in here, but also some important truths about listening to yourself)

1. Start
2. Keep going.
3. You think you're starting to get the hang of it.
4. You see someone else's work and feel undeniable misery.
5. Keep going.
6. Keep going.
7. You feel like maybe, possibly, you kinda got it now.
8. You don't.
9. Keep going.
10. You ask for someone else's opinion--their response is standoffish, though polite.
11. Depression.
12. Keep going.
13. Keep going.
14. You ask someone else's opinion--their response is favorable.
15. They have no idea what they're talking about.
16. Keep going.
17. You feel semi-kinda favorable and maybe even a little proud of what you can do now.
18. Self-loathing chastisement.
19. Depression
20. Keep going.
21. You ask someone else's opinion--they respond quite favorably.
22. They're still wrong.
23. Depression.
24. Keep going though you can't possibly imagine why.
25. Become restless.
26. Receive some measure of praise from a trustworthy opinion.
27. They're still fucking wrong (Right?)
28. Keep going just because there's nothing else to do.
29. Mastery arrives, you mistake it for a gust of wind.
30. Keep. Fucking. Going.

Brilliant.

Incidentally, my older brother was given one of those drawing books like the above owl when he was in about grade 4 or 5, only it was all monsters--with more step by step instructions. He systematically worked his way through the ENTIRE BOOK and drew every single monster. I was vair vair impressed.

Grammy Fashionistas

No matter how hard you try, how do you top an egg?

 

[Pics from the People Magazine site]

to care is human

One of the Betties posted something that resonated with me today:

People often comment that I seem to march to the beat of my own drummer without caring what others think. The former may be true, but the latter? Not so much. I care a lot more than I wish I did. Isn’t that part of becoming a published writer? If we didn’t care about other people seeing and responding to our work, wouldn’t we just hide out in caves and scribble to ourselves in the dark?

I've had this experience too. A friend of mine didn't like a story I wrote, and was surprised when I was poopified by her critique. If I remember right, she later told me that she was under the impression that I didn't care what people thought of me, so she didn't think she needed to be as delicate-ee-word-ing-ee with her critique as maybe she would have been with someone else.

In re. Tawna Fenske's comment above, I assume most writers care what people think of their writin (except Kafka because he didn't want to be published.) But even outside of writing, sure I care what people think of me. 

When I was first working at my last job I had many new friends, one of whom was Gilby, who at the time was a big fan of Ayn Rand. Another was Rrraquel (that's what our favorite waiter called her) who worked with me in the Fiction department. She had a smokey voice and read all the astrology books. One day Gilby was going on about how he didn't care what anyone thought of him, or how no one should care what other people thought of them--some sort of Ayn Randism. And Rrraquel said: "The only people who don't care what anyone thinks of them are crazy."

We were standing in Fiction, and she went off one way, he went off another way, and I was left standing by the computer. I thought about this guy who used to get on my bus, stand in the back, hold on to the bars, and leap violently around in time to the loud music in his earbuds. And I realized, she's right.

Unless you're willing to do whatEVER you want WHEREever you want at ANY time you want, then you care what people think of you.

I had another friend, a few years later (same job--we were a bunch of wind bags) who would criticize other people for caring so much about what they wore, clothes should be utilitarian, etc bla bla bla. Finally one day I came to him and said: "All your laundry is dirty. Except in the back of the closet you find a bright orange polkadotted shirt, and pink striped trousers. Would you wear them out in public?"

He just looked at me sheepishly.

"Then don't tell me you don't care about what you wear. You care as much as anyone else."

It's called living in society and there's nothing wrong with caring what other people think of us. It's just that there are times and places in history where we become too conservative, too groupthinky, too passive, too insecure, we give up too much power to others, we try to fit in too much, we try to please everyone, we let EVERY little comment and opinion wound us and THEN we need to dial it back. But there's nothing inherently wrong with it. Like fat, carbohydrates, salt and sugar--it's all about a balanced diet of ego. 

To use the Thoreauvian analogy--if you can't hear your own drum above the din of everyone else's, then there's a problem. On the other hand, if you're drum machine's so bloody loud that there's no room for anyone to critique you, then you've turned into George Lucas and you've got another problem. (Though admittedly a better financed one.)

Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. (The conclusion of Walden)

EGYPT! YAYS!

Cats, of course, have a great love of Egypt. Haley has come out of her hidey-hole to celebrate the news! MOWZ MOWZ!!

So Truly Real dolls

Have you seen these So Truly Real dolls? My friend showed me the ad from her Star magazine tonight. The doll breathes. I don't want to make fun of someone who would buy one, cause it just makes me sad. On a side note... in that last picture, is the hand superimposed over the baby? It looks like nobody in the studio wanted to actually touch the doll, so they had to photoshop the hand.

(I'm taking a sick day today! - cough cough - Later!)

This was supposed to auto post early today, but I was so sick and tired I didn't even set the time right! I iz fuul. lol

Can we send Super Gran to help the Egyptians?

Not hard to find something positive to talk about today--not with Super Gran running around making the streets of Northhampton safer for jewelery store workers. My friend Mae sent me the video yesterday, and I just love seeing her running up the street! Oh my days! Not wise, but man... how brave, and what a heart. "Hang about! Look out! For Super Graaaaaan!"



And I couldn't believe it when I turned on CNN yesterday and found out Egypt had seen it's biggest protest day yet--tens of thousands of people! The VP insists they sit down to negotiations, but they're afraid they'll get brushed off with superficial reforms, so they say they won't deal in real negotiations until they get the one thing they've been asking for since day one: That Mubarak step down as President. Now thousands of workers have gone on strike.

Suleiman is saying either they come to negotiate and stop protesting, or there'll be a coup--because Mubarak won't step down. How ridiculous is this getting? Step the EFF down! What sort of insane pride is holding that man to that post? For heaven's sake, he ran in elections a few years ago; the fact that he won't step down when tens of thousands of people protest for him to do so just shows what a sham those elections were. STEP DOWN!! Or we'll send Super Gran to make you!

In for an Oprah, out for a Phil

Here is my Defense of Oprah and Attack of Dr Phil. Hopefully not too clichéd--I usually think carefully before I'm *In!* or *Out!* for something.

I'm not a die-hard Oprah fan, but I've always had a lot of respect for her. As I mentioned yesterday afternoon, I watched one of her horrible rape episodes. But here's the thing: She handles them sensitively, and even after all these years she had a couple interesting things to say.

1. "Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different." I haven't decided if I agree yet, but I appreciate being given something to think about.

2. She showed a clip from an interview with a man who'd molested his sister (I think it was), and he said: I killed the person she could have become. And Oprah said to the two women on her show, I want you to not be "killed" by this.

I think this does get to the heart of what makes me angry about child abuse (besides the actual pain of the abuse). It takes a child full of possibility and shoves them off the path of their possibilities. I don't think it destroys that path--Joseph Campbell says those "golden seeds" within us never die. But the trek back is very painful, and that road will never be quite the same.

So good on you, Oprah. Still offering value after all these years.


Then there's Doc Phil. Phillio started as a once a week guest on the Oprah show, and my husband and I loved him so much we taped it every week, and watched it together with our finger on the pause button. He gave really good, solid, practical life and marriage advice, and it prompted a lot of great relationship discussions for us. My husband made a rule that Dr Philisms were "allowed" in marital fights.

Then he did this really great special. It was a sort of marriage clinic, where a whole bunch of couples spent time with him for a weekend. Some of the exercises he did were so powerful, and his manner was so gentle and warm--it was Dr Phil at his best. Amazing. This is why I defended him when his show came out and the Dr Phil backlash almost immediately began. You had to see him in the Olden Days.

So we were happy when his show started, and we watched it all the time. Again, we taped it, we talked about it, we learned from it. Cause here's what he did: (a) Most of his topics weren't sensational, they were topics that a large percentage of viewers could relate to; (b) they weren't topics that (in my opinion) it was "dangerous" to "treat" in a TV format. He was giving marriage communication techniques, better ways to talk to children, exercises to get past grief, etc. They were lessons that you could take away and apply in your own life. The advice was practical, I used it all the time, and it's become so integrated into the way I think I don't even know what I learned from him anymore.

Then I think two things happened. 1. He came under a lot of criticism for treating people within an hour long format--he mentions it almost every episode. And he seems to have done two things. One, he has longer series, like Dr Phil House. I can't watch these. They look like tabloid TV to me, trash, not like the series he did on the Oprah show. They're sensationalistic. The other thing he does is that for his one hour topics, he gives NO ADVICE. Nothing. None. If you're lucky enough to be a guest, you will get some sort of after-show care out of it. But watching the show is only a voyeuristic exercise, you will learn nothing.

2. He got full of himself. I think this happens to 99.9% of all people who experience fame, I'm sure if would happen to me. The key is how fast it takes you to get over it. Metallica's ex-bass player Jason Newsted, this lovely humble guy, went through it in about one week? At most a year? He had one experience where a club wouldn't let him in, and he said "Do you know who I am?" And he HEARD himself, and thought "OMG I'm a DICK!" And that was it. He got over it.

I've seen no signs of Dr Phil getting over himself. It definitely started when he came out with a line of supplements, which were very sketchy. That's when he totally lost me. He started this weight loss program, oookaaaay, fine, but accompanied it with all this money-grabbing bullshit. Oh buddy. I couldn't make excuses for him anymore, I was out.

Before then, I'd bought and got value out of some of his books. Relationship Rescue is very good, it's practical; and I highly recommend Self Matters, it's great. But then came his wife's books, his son's books, and the books to accompany the books, and the pocket calorie counters, and the journals, and and and. Blech. I know that making yourself into one massive brand is the way to make money, but how much is enough? Where do you draw the line? When are you adding value, and when are you fleecing the public?

I hope Dr Phil comes back one day--I guess we'll see what he's like on the Oprah network.

Step-parents and foster parents: they're not ALL evil

I'm watching one of these horrifying rape stories on the Oprah show. I don't normally tune in for these--you can only watch so many in a lifetime. But apparently every time someone goes public with a molestation/rape story, lots of other victims come forward, so it's definitely worth talking about. Shiver.

The two young women were just talking about one of the reasons why they were scared to have their neighbor call the police--they were scared of foster homes, cause of what they'd seen on TV. I'm sure that wasn't the overriding reason, but it does make you think. What percentage of foster homes are a bad experience?

My husband went through a couple foster homes. One of them was a bad experience--he was treated like a second class citizen. He didn't stay there long. He finally landed at a sort of group home, where he volunteered to stay, and remained until he was eighteen. Mr and Mrs H were a wonderful couple--they didn't have a lot of money, had kids of their own, but they took in several teenage boys over the years.

As my dad always says about my step-mother, it takes really special, unique people to raise other people's children. My husband has nothing but love and respect for Mr and Mrs H, and has nothing but positive stories to tell about them. They were warm and kind, and I owe them a lot for being a model to my husband of what a loving marriage looks like.

And the same can be said about my Evil Stepmommy. Maybe we need more happy TV stories about foster parents and step-parents.

Doesn't she look eeeeevil?

Mr and Mrs H at our wedding with my husband Fernando

A self-hating Canadian... just for a week eh

I'm not feeling overly pro-Canadian this week.

APATHY ON EGYPT On February 2, when the protests were underway in Egypt, one of the stories on the CBC news site was about Parliament convening for an emergency session to debate the crisis. This seemed like a responsible move to me. Not because the world was waiting with baited breath for our government's statement, but because we should care that our government makes a statement. But the highest rated comments to the article were:

How bout an emergency debate on Canada's problems, like the governing Conservative Party?

What they should be holding an emergency debate on is our own democracy here in Canada. As far as Egypt is concerned, it is none of our business Ottawa. Let's clean up our own backyard Canada!

What's Harper going to do anyway - fly over and sing a song?

90% of Egyptians don't even know where Canada is let alone care.

I felt like it reflected the apathy the general public seemed to be feeling towards such an extraordinary event. 

KILLING DOWN SOUTH Then this lovely story came out--an 19 year old was vacationing in the Dominican with his parents, and was killed by two other Canadians in their 20s. He was at a nightclub, and apparently someone from a group of guys (5 of them, from my city--Montreal) spat on the woman the teen was with, and a fight started. The Dominican is a frequent vacation destination for Montrealers; my old boss went a few times, and told me about how hard working the resort employees are, and the hours long walk one of them took to come to work. And here are some drunken yahoos coming down from my city and beating up other Canadians. One of the men is Algerian, the other is Canadian with a Middle Eastern sounding name, while Morrison is white, so ya--this story is only going to get uglier.

DISSING GRAPHIC NOVELS We have this thing on CBC Radio called "Canada Reads." Each year they pick 5 Canadian books, represented by 5 Canadian stars (actors, musicians, etc.) and each argues why this is The Book that all Canadians should read this year. Each episode they vote of one of each other's books, until there's one book left. I've only ever read two of the reads. Book of Negroes was a good choice. I didn't lurv it, but it was well researched, an important topic (a slave's life from Africa, through the US, and into Canada), well written but at a level that someone with a high school education could read. Last year's choice I had already read and didn't like, but it was very Litewawy. 

 

This year one of the choices was a graphic novel, one I've bought but haven't read, so I was excited. I wanted to follow the debates for the first time, and hear them discuss it. I happened to wake up early today, just in time! It was quickly apparent that the graphic novel, Essex County, was going to get the boot. It was such an ignorant debate, so fuddy-duddy, it infuriated me. Debbie Travis was the worst of all, calling it cheating. She kept talking about the low number of words, called it a shortcut--like reading this kind of a novel is cheating or something. Ugh, I'll have to post my whole opinion on graphic novels some other time. I have a lot to say.

MEAN TO GRAMMAS AND LITTLE GIRLS! Finally, on the radio tonight they had a story about a little girl whose grandmother usually takes her to school. But she's in a wheelchair, and has to push a two year old in a stroller, and with the recent weather is having trouble getting about, so she couldn't take the girl lately. She doesn't have anyone else to give her a lift. But the school won't send a school bus because she lives in walking distance. She's six ...So she hasn't been attending school. Since early January. She's being homeschooled, but obviously she's not with her friends etc. The school board adamantly refuses, it seems because then they'd have to agree to everyone's request. Even though this girl's grandmother is physically challenged! That doesn't mean anything?

I'm not even just mad at the school board. I don't understand why there isn't a neighbor helping. She used to have other parents helping, but for some reason they don't anymore. After the CBC story I'm sure someone will. But I don't get it. No one??

This week I'm having a special! Mabel is out for Canadians! I'm not even gonna grace this post with a cute picture. I'm cold and I'm going to bed early. Good. Night.

Aguilera - the anthem - and the Perfection Police

I didn't watch the Super Bowl but I gather, from these headlines, that Christina Aguilera got one line from the national anthem:

Washington Post: Christina botches national anthem (and in a later article they called it a "debacle")
Moveline: 111 million people watched Christina Aguilera murder the national anthem
CBS: Christina Aguilera's national anthem apology
ABC: Aguilera raises question: Do we need a new national anthem?
NYT: Aguilera flubs national anthem
BBC: Aguilera fluffs national anthem
LA Times: Aguilera kills the antional anthem -- and not in a good way

But the first headline I saw was my CBC (Canadian public) news update: "Aguilera shrugs off Super Bowl anthem flub." (I assume they mean the anthem AT the Super Bowl. Anyway.)

I liked this shrugging off thing. She repeated an earlier line from the song, which is something singers sometimes do even with their own songs, let alone a national anthem that is apparently notorious for being hard to get right. (Why don't they let them bring out the lyrics?)

I'm becoming more and more against this whole perfectionist thing. She's apologized, and I hope she really is shrugging it off. Let he who has never made a mistake in his own workplace cast the first piece of popcorn at her head.*

Most readers of People magazine don't agree with me.

But at least juniorlhulk does:





____
* Except my dad. You were a pilot, and no one wants to know about the mistakes YOU made at work.

Does the "not tested on animals" logo turn you off?

I was looking at an old blog I don't do anymore (someone left a comment on a recipe) and decided to bring over one feature: the side column showing products that don't test on animals. Those long lists put out by Peta are intimidating--these are a few that I've found in run-of-the-mill Quebec grocery stores / pharmacies.

I don't know why companies that don't test, don't make a bigger to-do about it. I think some marketing genius told them that if they have a big, obvious Not Tested on Animals logo on their products, or a nice clear banner on their web site, customers will associate them with blowing up whaling ships and be turned off.

I don't think it's true... do you? I think most women block from their minds the idea of the little bunnies with the pussy eyes having makeup tested on them, because they don't which are the good companies (that Peta booklet = 26 pages of small print) I think there are a LOT of people who would choose non-animal-tested products if it was really easy to tell which they were. To start with--if the logo was on the front of the bottle, not the back. I think it would give a brand a competitive advantage. And if I'm right, and it did give an advantage, then more companies would follow.

 

 

I know that brand loyalty to a product that works Exactly the Right Way would win out in some cases (many people have that One Product they consider irreplaceable) but in situations of All Other Things Being Equal, I think people would often choose the not tested on animal version of their shampoos, dish soap, laundry soap, deodorant, hand lotion, room scent etc.

And while animals rights activism has a very bad rap with the general public, animals don't. We are seriously underestimating the public if we think they'd be turned off to know that Revlon doesn't test on animals. But look at this...

Under the Revlon Cares tab on their site, it's not something they mention. A lot of times it's not even on a site's FAQ. Really... we need a coming-out-of-the-closet moment on this.

Am I crazy?

Getting to know yourself - through furniture

My mother posted this on her facebook.

pics from Jordi Milà site

It's a bookshelf called the Wisdom Tree by designer Jordi Milà. He describes it this way:

The WisdomTree is for people who see books as a source of knowledge and emotions and not simply as decorative objects. Its fluid and organic shape is inspired by growth of a plant. [daily what]

Ahh now that presents some interesting book shelf organizing possibilities, à la High Fidelity. You could organize your books in the order in which you took interest in them--fiction books, or non-fiction.

Judy Blume at the base, branching out on one side to Shakespeare, the other side to Judith Krantz, and so forth...

Or the order in which your ideas or life philosophies developed. Maybe some Bible story books at the bottom, and then the witchcraft books from your teen years, followed by the philosophy books from university, etc.

Great possibilities for self-expression here.


(I think this movie revealed the collective unconscious of music lovers around the planet. Sadly you can't quite organize your itunes albums, but you can label them! And you can still create playlists!)

Bad news all over - but at least there's lots of women telling it

Well, here's something positive to focus on. These days I've had the news on when in the kitchen, and the TV tuned into the CBC news channel or CNN when in the livingroom, and various internet news channels when surfing... all in an attempt to keep up with the Egyptian situation.

Carol Orff - pic from cbc.ca

CBC Radio1 (which is Canada's public broadcast station, in English) has a very good current affairs show called As It Happens. They get good interviews, with key people, and they're usually conducted by the female host Carol Orff--and she's tough on them.

Nancy Wilson - pic from cbc.ca

I haven't watched the CBC news network in a long time, and when I tuned in yesterday I saw there was a female anchorwoman holding down the fort there too: Nancy Wilson (not to be confused with the guitarist.)

And when I flipped over to the internet to find out more about ABC's big interview with Mubarak, I came upon a video presented by Diane Sawyer, and the interview was done by Christiane Amanpour.

We haven't come as long a way--baby--as we'd have like to have come; but if you're a ten year old girl interested in the news, you've got plenty of role models. That's nice.

Egypt is not a choice between Mubarak or a Shadowy Islamic Evil

Having trouble with the whole going to bed thing tonight--I've got Al-Jazeera Live open in another window, Tahrir Square is filling up, and I just want to see how things go! My brain's all wired.

Since I'm not sure I have the patience to write something well argued, I'm gonna go for simple.

There's a common idea floating around that if Mubarak steps down, if there are elections in Egypt, some radical Islamic party will come into power, and Egypt will break its peace treaty with Israel, will no longer cooperate with western powers, and will bring in some sort of official Islamic law, and then turn in a non-democratic direction.

There's no reason for us to believe this. There's no reason to see this as an either-or situation: stability and pace with an authoritarian, or chaos and war with an Islamist authoritarian. (Not sure what we mean by stability in that case... Saudi Arabia is pretty stable. Iraq was quite stable under its authoritarian, until the US invaded it.)

More people have turned out on the streets to demand Mubarak's departure than turned out in the last corrupt elections. That IS democracy. The people HAVE spoken. This is a clearer mandate than you can hope for from the elections of most established democracies. By not listening them, by not supporting what they've asked for, we are being anti-democratic. You don't need to ask yourself whose side you should be on.

If you live in Israel, yes, you're going to be sympathetic but worried about the future. I certainly hope any future ruling party doesn't support violence against Israel. But I do not believe Egyptians should have to live in a police state--there are over a million police--just to maintain peace with Israel. It's too high of a price, especially for a hypothetical situation.

If you're a western leader you've got to walk a cagey tightrope. But the rest of us (Tony Blair included) aren't politicians. We don't have to talk out of both sides of our mouths. Mubarak=guy in black hat. He's got 40-70 billion dollars while 20% of the population live under the poverty line. He'll be fine.

Oh and... don't listen to Glen Beck and his lol caliphate idea. (Actually yes, please please do listen to him. It's soooooo funny. CLICK HERE! CLICK CLICK CLICK!!!!)

                            

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Something lighter: Joanna Lumley and the Nile

Between butchered sled dogs, and thugs-for-hire in Egypt beating up protesters and journalists, I decided I needed to find something beautiful for my afternoon posting.

I remembered Joanna Lumley's Nile show--I caught the first episode this past week. She's respectful towards people, but also quite funny. "It's Ramadan so out of respect I'm fasting. ...Well I never eat breakfast anyway. And in the theatre we don't really eat until after the show in the evening so [in a hushed voice] it's not really all that unusual for me."

100 Sled Dogs: Animals are not products and Mabel is mad

I'm sure most Canadians, and most animal lovers elsewhere, have heard by now about the 100 sled dogs who were "culled" last April under inhumane conditions. In brief, a sled dog company stocked up on dogs in anticipation of more customers during the winter Olympics, and then had to get rid of the excess afterwards.

This is one of the very reasons I finally went vegetarian in 1996. I'd thought of it for awhile, but I was taking an ethics course that winter and one group gave a presentation on the treatment of factory farmed animals. They showed a video of cows being taken to auction. Not the most horrific video you could see, but awful enough. It showed how animals who were too weak or injured after being transported, and who weren't purchased at auction, would have a chain attached to their leg, and then get dragged out and be discarded.

I was already working for a book store at that time, so I understood the "business" of this. In any business you expect a certain % of your stock to get damaged--it's called "shrink" and you budget for it. In a book store, it might come down to a ripped cover, a coffee spilled on a book, water damage over the books in an area of shipping, etc. Books. Inanimate objects.

I also used to go to church at the time, and I thought: It can't be right to treat living creatures as commodities. There is absolutely no way this is right. Shrink is acceptable in books, not in creatures with nerve endings and consciousness.


I'm not absolutely against businesses that involve animals. But they have to hold themselves to a much, much higher standard than an average business. Many people are just bothered by the way the sled dogs were improperly killed, and that's how I heard the story reported on the radio. But the tragedy that allowed those animals to be killed cruelly is they were seen as disposable products in the first place. Gives me the chills.

Here's a related story, about a man who enjoys dog-sledding, but argues that good sledding businesses should treat their dogs like pets, not products.

[Pictures by: jede hoog, stockdot]