The Problem I Have with Girls

Ew. This article reminds me of that scary show Toddlers and Tiaras. This LITTLE girl Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau is only 10 and she looks like she's 25. Why does she have to look like that? Her face is so caked with makeup she looks like a freaking porcelain doll, aka FAKE. I despise these hypocritical magazines. Besides the fact that you pay 4.99 to flip through what is basically a book of ads (which I realized much too slowly on a recent flight), on one hand they print articles telling girls they should have self-confidence, that they are beautiful and should be comfortable in their own skin. Then that article is immediately followed by size 00 models half-naked and sprawled over equally scantily-clad men. Hypersexified, overdone, and just plain out of touch with reality. Unless you have a heaven-blessed metabolism or spend hours upon hours working out and always watching what you eat (which is what models and celebrities do because this is what they are paid for) you're not going to fit into 00 pants.

The problem is that this image has become the aesthetic standard by which we judge our girls' attractiveness. Why else would skinny always be in? This is putting aside whatever personal preferences people have towards weight--maybe you are an exception who prefers to look a little plumper (if you are a woman) or prefers a girl on the cushier side (if you are a man). But OVERALL, the skinny girl will usually win out when it comes judgments and perceptions of beauty. Parents do not help either. I am thoroughly exasperated whenever I am in a nail salon and a mom takes her 5 year-old-daughter to get her nails done. At age 5 your little girl should be running outside breathing in fresh air and making necklaces out of dandelions, not in a cramped, fluorescent-lit, chemical fume-filled place getting her toes polished.

I've had a debate with some friends (GUYS, Asian guys) over this very topic. I think image issues are something every girl deals with, regardless of your ethnicity. They were saying it's mostly a WHITE girl thing, because it's in that strata of society that is most exposed to the pressures of idealized standards of beauty, whether it comes from the media, family, men, or social norms. I think it's just a girl thing, even if the types of issues may be different between whites and non-whites.

If I ever have kids I hope I don't have a girl, if only for this reason. The world has become too difficult and cruel a place to raise a well-adjusted, well-balanced female.

Chemically imbalanced--hair, makeup, and hormones.

O_o

How do they...never mind.

Ryan Lizza on Michele Bachmann

"There may “be occasions when Christians are mistaken on some point while nonbelievers get it right...Nevertheless, the overall systems of thought constructed by nonbelievers will be false—for if the system is not built on Biblical truth, then it will be built on some other ultimate principle. Even individual truths will be seen through the distorting lens of a false world view.”--Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth as quoted in in Ryan Lizza's "The Transformation of Michele Bachmann," The New Yorker

Now I understand why she's crazy. She believes in ideologues who want to wage the equivalent of a Christian jihadist war on non-believers. So what happens to non-Christians in a Christian-run state where all non-Bible based beliefs are not tolerated? Disturbing.

But She IS Crazy...

Maybe Newsweek did go a bit overboard, but what can you expect from the media? They're relentless.

As tempted as I am to keep pointing out everything that is wrong with the Tea Party blogging about politics, I should stop for now. It causes me too much stress and I need to minimize the number of wrinkles on my face. Every time I think about the current way of things in Washington, another one forms.

Anarchy

I read this piece in The Hindu about the Cultural Revolution. If there's moments in history to pick out that best characterize pure anarchy, this would be one of them. Anytime I read about the CR, I'm always amazed by how senseless everything was during this time. It was such a distinct period in China's history, yet there is absolutely no acknowledgement given to it in modern-day China. So eerie.

The Hindu : Arts / Magazine : “People want justice”

The best source I've come across so far addressing the Cultural Revolution is Roderick Macfarquhar's book, Mao's Last Revolution. It's super long, but extremely detailed and reads beautifully, like a story.

David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

"But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing."--David Foster Wallace, "On Life and Work," Wall Street Journal

Imagine a world where everyone lived for the sole purpose of someone else. At what point did the human population reach a tipping point where it became a struggle to see the world from a more human-centric perspective? Must have been when we settled down and decided to become farmers.

RIP Mr Wallace. If you were alive, I would ask you, Freedom, perhaps, but whose idea of freedom besides your own? Is freedom, in the sense of DFW, meaningful and worth striving for if everyone else is too shackled to realize that is what true liberation is? What does it matter if you are the sole fish who knows you are swimming in water and the other fish don't care?

I guess that was 3 questions.

Conflict

Have you ever been to an animal shelter? If you have any place in your heart for dogs (and even cats), it's a jarring experience. The smell, the pairs of eyes behind wired pens--pleading, imploring, hostile, hurt, desperate, confused--the whines, the barks. I almost wish they would be euthanized soon so they don't have to go through crests and troughs of hope when a human walks by, thinking this might be the one to save them, that they might be adopted and be able to leave this hellhole, only to be disappointed because they are deemed too big, too furry, too ugly, too old, too whatever else that makes them unattractive, to be adopted.

I hate that place. I only went there a few times with my mom in the hopes that we might be able to rescue one. Nina might not have died so much in vain if the reason was to save another canine's life.

Ugh. Now I'm disgusted with what I'm doing. I'm looking through listings of purebred miniature pinschers because my dad can't find a pet at the shelter that satisfies all his requirements. I don't understand his fixation on finding a doppelganger Nina. Does he really like min pins? Or he really liked Nina and misses her so much he's pinning his fondness for her on one who can replace her and fill the missing pet gap? There are so many poor strays at the shelter who are going to be euthanized in days' time and we're looking for purebred min pins online that cost hundreds of dollars.

Sigh.