On Parenting, Consequences, Miley Cyrus and Global Relations

I was watching a funny video that someone posted recently. It showed old scenes from the original "Star Trek" TV series, interposed with video of Miley Cyrus' 'twerking' at the VMA's. The cut scenes of the Enterprise crew's amazement, disgust and shock at what they supposedly saw on their view screen were hilarious. It was good for a laugh and I shared it on Facebook for my friends to enjoy. Afterward, however, I had time to think about it in more depth.

As a mom, when I first watched the video of Miley's performance, my first feeling was embarrassment - for the kids who'd caught the VMA's on TV, for the parents of the children in the audience, for Miley's parents and, more than anything, for Miley. I can't imagine how she must have felt the next day when she awoke to a huge controversy over her performance and the cruel comments that were made by everyone from the press to fellow performers. My "mom's heart" felt a lot of hurt for what she must have been going through. We all make dumb decisions when we're young - I know I did. Few of us have them broadcast world-wide, however. Almost no one has to go through the public castigation that Miley has, either.

I had to wonder what her parents must have been thinking. I can only imagine their being torn between wanting to be upset with her for the negative comments about their parenting that the performance engendered and their wish to gather their little girl up in their arms and try to protect her. I hope that they didn't give her too much sympathy, though. One of the hardest things - and one of the most productive - that a parent can do is stand back and let their child reap the seeds that they've sewn, even if those seeds are very bitter to the taste.

Someday, when Miley is a parent herself, I have no doubt that she'll have to struggle with how to explain what she did to her kids. Maybe she'll have grown up enough by then to be able to use it as a teaching moment - a way to help protect her children from making their own monumental mistakes. I hope so...

There are bigger implications in all of this. Well, not just Miley's performance - in the current "no holds barred" atmosphere in Hollywood and American culture as a whole. I'm speaking specifically of how America is being presented to the world at-large and how it affects our relationships with our allies - and our enemies, as well.

Any thinking person would probably agree that extremist Islam presents a danger to anyone who disagrees with it. No, I'm not talking about the mostly peaceful Muslims who inhabit America. I'm speaking of the extremist Islamists who have dedicated their lives to destroying America and other Western nations, along with anyone who does not believe in their extreme view of Islam. Unfortunately, the number of moderate young Muslims being recruited into the ranks of extremist Islam grows every day. One of the most successful types of manipulation that the Islamists use while recruiting young Muslims is to convince them that those who don't believe in Islam are morally and spiritually inferior. They convince their young recruits that they are doing the world a favor and doing Allah's work by getting rid of the evil that is inherent in those who don't follow Islam.

Unfortunately, Miley's performance (along with many others' over the past few years) may very well be co-opted by the Islamists as a teaching tool. They may show it and talk of the depravity of the United States and it's evil young people. They may talk of how we, as Americans, speak of the evils of young girls being married off to much older men and then allow a 20 year old young woman to simulate sexual acts on stage with a married man twice her age and broadcast it around the world. They will speak of how Americans teach their young women to be 'whores' and then contrast the way that Muslim women who follow Islam are covered discreetly. They will cast us as moral-less and without shame and teach their young men and women that they, as Islamists, are morally and spiritually superior. Sadly, while their teachings are twisted and used for evil purposes, they are - in a way - too close to true for comfort.

We, as a nation, need to realize how our media is presented to the world. We need to realize that the sexually explicit antics of our music and television stars and the bloody violence of our television and movies say something about us as a whole. It's time that we took the time to step back and look at ourselves from the outside. It's time to reevaluate who we want to be - here in the U.S. and to the outside world, as well. The first step is to consider the choices we make in our own tastes in music, television and movies and those we allow our children to be exposed to. The change, if we are honest with ourselves, will follow.

On Race Relations in Our Nation During the Zimmerman Trial

I was thinking about something this morning. I hate the way that Americans have become so divided - not just economically (the haves and the have-nots) and politically (left v right) but racially, as well. It started with the Blacks wanting to teach their kids to be proud of who they were, so they launched a nationwide campaign to teach "Black pride". Well, no one else wanted to be left out so pretty soon it was the Native Americans teaching their kids that they were "special" because of their heritage, along with the Hispanics, the Irish, the Russian's, the Chinese, and the list goes on and on and on - each of us trying to teach our children that they are special and unique because of their heritage.

Well, I'm all for teaching a child about their heritage. However, it's become a way now of dividing us, of setting us apart. The fact is that if I, as a German/Norwegian/Swede/English/Irish/Scot, were lying dying in a hospital emergency room due to blood loss, they could infuse into me any blood from any other American (or non-American) and my life would be saved. The fact is folks, that RACE IS AN ILLUSION. Skin color is but a function of the amount of melanin in our skin. There is only one 'race' and that is the HUMAN RACE. That's why any one of us can marry another HUMAN, of any heritage, and raise a family together. Take a Black child and raise him in a Caucasian family and he grows up to talk like, dress like and act like his siblings. In the case of my kids, who have Caucasian, Black, and Asian siblings, they all have ways of talking and doing things that are similar to their siblings and to me. Yes, sure, they inherited certain genetic characteristics that make them each unique and different, but in many ways they are similar simply because they were raised in the same home with the same parent.

One of the greatest things about America has always been that we are a 'melting pot'. People from all over the world - make that human beings from all over the world - came together and formed a nation. An imperfect nation, one that needed to be refined, but one that became the most free society that this world has ever known.

The last 30 years or so, however, we've all tried to set ourselves apart to the point that the melting pot has become a bowl full of separate ingredients, each of them set apart from the other, separate. Because of this, the infighting among HUMAN Americans has risen to the point that race relations in this country are just as bad, if not worse, than before the Civil Rights movement. Racism is rampant, though now it's less the Caucasians being racist against the Blacks, the Asians or the Hispanics and more those races being racist against the Caucasians and against one another. With the Zimmerman trial on display, the racists are out in full force - some making negative comments about the Martin boy, some threatening violence and rioting if Zimmerman is acquitted. The mainstream media only fans the flames by only showing the parts of the trial that fit their 'agenda'. What happened to the voices of the Civil Rights era? Are we really willing to put the sacrifices of those who fought to bring all Americans onto equal footing, some of whom DIED for the cause, mean nothing at all? All just so that we can puff out our chests and says that we're 'different' from all the other Americans? I can only imagine that men the likes of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King are turning over in their graves.

If we don't stop this, if we don't start pulling together again as HUMAN Americans, I fear for this nation. The phrase, "United, we stand - divided, we fall," first uttered by Patrick Henry over 200 years ago, is just as true today as it ever was. If we don't stop pushing against one another, trying to prove that we're 'different' or 'better', this nation will continue to crumble until there is no part of it that we are able to recognize anymore. We MUST teach our children - at home and in our schools - that, yes they are unique and special individuals with unique heritages, but that they are - first and foremost - a part of the Human Race and, secondly, an American. Otherwise, they may not have an America left to live in - or, if they do, it will be an America that none of us wants to live in.

A WARNING FOR MY CANADIAN FRIENDS

I was pondering, with Canada Day just passed and our Independence Day upon us, about something I've noticed. What I've realized is that - in many things - Canada tends to run just behind America. Often times, what happens here follows in Canada within just a few years. Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing. 

When the U.S. was electing our President last year, several of my Canadian friends felt they needed to weigh in. Most of them were pro-Obama and anti-Romney and would tell me that I was wrong in my views. Most of my Canadian friendships survived the elections, fortunately, but I wonder if my pro-Obama Canadian friends still feel the same?

Now that you know he cheated in the elections by targeting, threatening and keeping Conservative groups muted or silent, do you still stand by him? Now that you know his crowning achievement "Obamacare" is a money sucking, tax gobbling, job killing disaster, do you still think he's brilliant? Now that you know he's collecting all of your telephone data and recording your every email and internet activity, do you still trust him? Now that he's unilaterally making laws and policies for our Nation by bypassing our Congress and doing whatever he pleases - regardless of what the American people want, do you still see him as a great guy?

I said at the beginning that this is meant at a warning and it is. If things hold true to the past, you may see your country heading in this same direction sometime soon. Since I don't watch CBC news much, for all I know it already is. Be careful, Canadians. Be sure that you're doing the research and listening to both sides of the story - don't get complacent. Be watchful that your media doesn't become a propaganda machine like most of ours has. Just be forewarned, my friends, and be on guard, or you may find yourselves dealing with a rapidly emerging dictatorial tyrant like the one in our White House.

Three more years.... I hope America survives.