Posted by: junkfoodmedia on: January 28, 2010
So did you hear about the oil spill on Saturday in Port Arthur, Texas? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I caught it in a passing news blip on television; more like a headline without a story. Hey, have you heard about the balloon boy? Yeah, I thought so.
Since I don’t have cable, I searched the cable news stations websites to see the coverage (or lack thereof) of the oil spill. I decided to compare it to the topic of the balloon boy, a ridiculous occurrence that was documented by the cable news stations live, and then discussed over and over again in the media. I was quite disappointed my investigation did not prove me wrong and alter my perception of our Junk Food Media. My web search for “Port Arthur oil spill” turned up only a few articles on each of the cable station’s websites, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. However, a search for “balloon boy” turned up pages of articles on this subject.
Why isn’t Exxon in the news for this disaster? Does it take 11 million gallons of oil in our waters to make us file lawsuits and take action, like it did in 1989 after the Exxon Valdez? How about the 462,000 gallons of crude oil that saturated Port Arthur’s Sabine Neches Waterway, just off the Gulf of Mexico. Why doesn’t this make the news in detail? Is Exxon funding our cable news stations? Are they paying “journalists” off through lobbyists, as they do our politicians? When it comes to cable news stations please note that I use the word journalists very loosely.
How will this affect the local wildlife? How will it affect the local wetlands? I found an interesting site which has a recording of the most severe oil spills since the sixties through 2004; you can find it at: http://www.marinergroup.com/oil-spill-history.htm Unfortunately, based on the data on this site it appears the frequency of crude oil spills internationally is only increasing. It’s also disturbing to note that this oil spill is larger than some of the spills cited on that website.
When all else fails, we can count on our local stations for worthy reporting, that is if the disaster happens in your viewing area. Here is an article from a news station in Houston, TX, which is about 100 miles from the Port Arthur area: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/state&id=7241080
I would like to quote the last two sentences of the aforementioned article. “It was the largest spill in Texas since 1990, when a Norwegian tanker spilled 4.3 million gallons about 60 miles off Galveston. The state typically has about 800 spills a year, but nearly all involve less than one barrel, according to the Texas land office.” Eight hundred spills in 365 days? That’s over two spills per day! Eight hundred multiplied by even a half barrel adds up quickly in the course of a year. There are 31 gallons in a barrel, translated from barrels to gallons, even at half a barrel per spill; that is still 12,400 gallons of crude oil spilled into Texas waters every year. For me, that is 12,400 gallons too much. I am not under the illusion that since I live far away from Texas, the environmental havoc does not affect me. It affects us all. If there are 800 spills a year in Texas alone, how many spills are there nationally? Internationally? This is not just a local story; this has international implications.
Posted by: junkfoodmedia on: January 8, 2010
So I haven’t blogged in awhile. It’s not that there aren’t things to blog about, it’s just that I’ve been distracted by other endeavors. I have lots of rantings in my head, but nothing substantial or interesting enough to fill an entire entry. So instead, I’ve decided to let out some rants, free up my mind, and get some things off my chest. So here it goes.
‘Tis the season for the usual cavalcade of celebrity award shows. You know, the endless display of yearly awards to the actors/directors/writers/ and others essential in making movies and television work. But lets get real people, how many annual award shows do we really need to fulfill the egos of the Hollywood elite? Here is a list of shows I just thought of, I’m sure there are many I’m leaving off, but here it goes:
The People’s Choice Awards
The Academy Awards
The Grammys
The Country Music Awards
The Tonys
The Emmys
The S.A.G Awards
The American Music Awards
The Golden Globes
The MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Video Music Awards
Need I continue? Is this really necessary Hollywood? Give me a break. Are celebrities this desperate for recognition and approval? Don’t get me wrong. I am completely guilty of watching the Academy Awards every year with my mother, and I enjoy it, but when you step back and look at all of the hoopla, it’s a bit ridiculous. In my ten years in the social services, I have observed one colleague receive an award on one occasion. She was recognized for her twenty years of service to the domestic violence community. Now that is cause to celebrate. But hers only came once in twenty years. So why not have award shows for people doing important work for years at a time? What about the teachers, social service providers, doctors, police, firefighters, janitors, waitresses, bartenders, in summary the people who are essential to the infrastructure of our communities?
You know what else bugs me? Smug celebrities on the red carpet. Lets take for example Angelina Jolie. I can’t stand it when she is asked the usual questions on the red carpet, such as “What dress are you wearing?” and she responds as if she is far too important to be mingling and answering ridiculous questions. Sure, the questions are ridiculous. I personally can’t wait for someone to say “Simplicity pattern 7865.” But let’s face it, that’s not going to happen.
Sure Angelina, you are doing some important work. Every once in awhile you rent a mansion in a foreign country and visit with the locals. Great. But it’s nothing compared to the workers who teach in dangerous neighborhoods for Thirty Thousand a year. It’s nothing compared to the people who take care of the homeless day in and day out at the shelter. It’s nothing compared to the person working to help women obtain restraining orders from their abusive partners. It’s great that she donates some time and money, but to act as if she is better than her Hollywood colleagues is offensive to someone like myself, who has done real social service work on a daily basis for very little pay. Smile Angelina, answer the questions, you get paid a lot to do that. Until you leave your million dollar movie deals to teach full time in the inner city for twenty five thousand dollars a year (assuming she has a bachelor’s degree), you will be a celebrity, no better, no worse.
Posted by: junkfoodmedia on: November 17, 2009
Last night I caught a segment on our local Christian station of a woman being forced to church by her husband and sister, who had locked her in chains. These were very heavy chains, larger than you would likely use to secure a bike, and were held together on the woman’s wrists and ankles by a key entry padlock. The family held a large sign above the woman’s head that read mental problem. I would guess the church was in Africa. The family reported the woman had bitten her sister and tried to jump out of the car en route to this church. They also claimed she had not eaten in fourteen days; however, the woman looked alert, nourished, appeared to be clean and had great color in her complexion.
When the preacher approached her, she was calm and seated, that is all we saw of the woman, calmness. The preacher laid his hands on her as if to heal her. As he held her in his arms she fell to the ground. The family rejoiced that she had been cured; yet there was no visible change in her behavior by the viewer from before seeing the preacher, other than her telling the preacher she loved him.
Now I’m not a believer in healing by touch. I guess it could happen by someone who is spiritually on the level of Jesus or Buddha, but isn’t assuming such powers equal to God considered blasphemy?[1] Isn’t blasphemy a sin under the Christian religion? When I have seen “healing” in action, I have always seen questionable factors that take away the validity of the process.
This did bring back a memory of when a colleague and I took a client to a local food pantry. The pantry was truly a hole in the wall. In contrast to the setting, the church that ran the pantry had an elaborate speaker system on which to preach as people awaited their donated food. The speaker system was enormous and must have cost thousands of dollars, a true contrast from the surroundings. Our client was a bit slow in the manner she walked and had some pain. As we waited for her food the preacher had her come up front where he placed his hands on her in a gesture of healing. We politely watched and afterwards we had assistance from a pantry worker in carrying her food to our car. Afterwards, the client expressed her discomfort and lack of belief in the healing vested upon her.
The next week we brought her again. When we entered the preacher recognized her from the week before. She again walked slowly. If anything, maybe she was having a better day. The preacher called her up and presented her to the people collected. He assertively and passionately talked about how this woman had come in the week before and could hardly walk, but once he had healed her, “She carried a fifty pound box of groceries to her car.” Clearly, this was in no way factual; to begin with staff had carried out our groceries for us. But I ask you this, in theory, if you had a severe back problem and you were just healed from severe pain, would you attempt to carry fifty pounds of groceries out to your car? Yeah, me neither.
Posted by: junkfoodmedia on: November 14, 2009
This week entertainment news spurred talk about Mike Tyson allegedly punching a paparazzo at the airport when he tried to photograph Mr. Tyson. Clearly, not a wise move on the paparazzo’s part, frankly he’s lucky he still has his ear. This could lead to a whole range of topics for discussion, i.e. why aren’t there laws against this type of behavior which could only agitate people. The various shows I heard report on the topic this week focused on how Mike Tyson was justified and that the guy got what he deserved. There are certainly arguments for both sides. But that’s not what I really want to blog about.
What caught my interest was the “by the way” type of mention his wife and baby’s presence received. I think it’s fair to estimate that if the child was five, rather than an infant, the media might have questioned how the child was affected, but the infant seemed to be a minor detail to the story.
Clearly we live in a violent society, anyone who watches the news even if on occasion, is certainly aware of this. I don’t have to quote a plethora of facts for something that is clearly a given to the average American. But, as a Registered Play Therapist who specializes in treating children five and under, I see it differently. In my own experiences as a Therapist I have witnessed children play out experiences that happened to them at a pre-verbal age; at an age when the brain hasn’t yet developed the formal memory we know of as adults. I have seen children act out abuses they suffered when they were a mere infant. Many clinical books on the treatment of this age range cite similar experiences. So here are some summary excerpts from a great book on the subject: Ghosts From The Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence, by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley:
The book talks a great deal about how the first 33 months of life (including gestation) are actually the most important years of our lives in regards to growth and brain development. Exposure to violence, neglect and abuse are all factors that can affect the brain. Several studies are referenced in the book referring to how such outcomes could have detrimental affects in the years following, to the individual as well as to society.
As a clinician, I have witnessed first hand rapid changes in an infant’s mood and demeanor when yelling and conflict erupt. I have also researched maternal depression and have seen how an infant’s mood quickly deflates when a mother demonstrates disengagement with her baby. I don’t know what happened in Tyson’s case, sure the baby wasn’t hurt and it was a passing incident, but let us consider that infants aren’t quite as checked out and clueless as most suspect. They are actually quite aware.
From Prostitute to Businesswoman, The Success of A Scandal
Posted by: junkfoodmedia on: December 14, 2009
Today on The View the ladies had on Elliot Spitzer’s former “escort,” Ashley Dupre. I don’t mean to do so many blogs about The View, but this group of women embodies the concept of Junk Food Media so well that I can’t just leave it alone. I decided to look into their choice of labels, which clearly bothered me. My Mac dictionary had various definitions for the word “escort”, the closest one to this situation being, “a person, typically a woman, who may be hired to accompany someone socially.” Now as a married man, we can logically assume there was no public socialization between Ms. Dupre and Mr. Spitzer, only private adultery. So lets find a word that actually defines the relationship between Ashley Dupre and Elliot Spitzer. I began with the classic search, “prostitute” it the same dictionary. The Mac dictionary states a prostitute is, “a person, typically a woman, who engages in sexual activity for payment.” Bingo, I think we have a winner. I could have told you that, but as a stickler for citations, I think it’s relevant to cite a true source.
So I ask the ladies at The View, why are we dancing around this issue? Lets call a spade a spade. You had on Ashley Dupre, a prostitute, and a well paid one at that.
During her interview Ms. Dupre stated she is now being paid to write an advice column. Interestingly enough, she cited her age at twenty-four while confidently reporting to have so much experience to justify her knowledge and contributions. She did laugh at how little she was being paid for the column. I guess selling your body reaps more wages than selling intellectual property. I think we can all agree that Ms. Dupre has done a good job at self-marketing, or at least hiring someone who does.
People make mistakes, granted. People should be able to move forward in their lives following this. But what is it about our culture that gives so many opportunities to these types of women? Monica Lewinsky has gone on to have a quite successful purse design business. I am beginning to have a better grasp on why so many women are exposing themselves publically as lovers of Tiger Woods. Sure they will get their fifteen minutes of fame, but as Ashley Dupree and Monica Lewinsky confirm, there are benefits above and beyond. Why is that? Why do we reward these types of people? What does it say about our character as a nation?
Why are we suddenly giving an uneducated twenty four year old prostitute an advice column on relationships? Her interview on The View feeds into false beliefs that blame the spouses who have been cheated on. Cheating is the responsibility of the cheater, not the spouse. If there are issues in your relationship, then you need to work proactively to resolve those, and if you don’t want to continue on in your relationship, then end it, but don’t screw around. Let’s not let a twenty four year old prostitute give cheaters a reason to say, “See, that’s why I did it, you weren’t giving me what I needed.” Take responsibility for your behavior. A married man takes vows and makes a commitment. Seeking out extramarital affairs, whether for payment, or for free, makes you the culprit, no matter what a twenty-four year old prostitute says.