On The Subject Of Plants & Animals Vs. Humans

This is regarding my transition to why I am now somewhat okay with born-out-of-wedlock children.

I realized that I was allocating so much of my energy towards environmentalism.  Save the rain forest, save the dolphins.  but then I saw a comedy [bit]]]routine by greg proops.... and I realized he was right.

Insufferable humans are wasting so much time and energy and resources towards helping plants, animals, etc.  They are doing this while simultaneously diverting much-needed attention away from human beings.  They are inadvertently deflecting attention away from real emergencies.

With their attention, they are taking with them resources, [[[strategy,, taxpayer money,,,__, what else
and __putting all this __ towards saving the planet.

For the record, I am not and have never been vegetarian.  The reason is that eating whatever the heck anybody wants is a human right, and if I want to eat meat, I will.  Nobody has any authority whatsoever to tell a person what they cannot or should not eat, especially due to some silly moral ambiguities.

I have very recently made the discovery that.,,,,, that--- hmm how to word this.

For a very long time, this is what the environmentalists have been telling us.  Environmentalists brew and breed all this distress, anxiety, and dire emotional fraught, etc. that once a particular given species is extinguished from the planet, the planet can never recover.  There is devastation that this is a grievous loss to the natural ecosystem, --- more spec the ecosystem cycle in which the species resides...,,,,  the niche that it occupied.      to fulfill its role in this great circle of life.  (I hate to reference The Lion King in a context of something that I do not regard with much reverence, but the quote fits too well.)
extinct,

As a matter of fact, it turns out that none of this is true.  It turns out that the planet will recover quite nicely.  It will not necessarily bring back that exact species with all the assumptions and duties held therein, but the planet and living ecosystems will certainly adjust to this "loss."  It is Le Chatelier's principle, reflected on a macro scale.

All of this emotional trauma for a stray cat?  (Dharma and Greg reference)

Trailblazing cute elfin Bjork said that her family up there in Iceland is very very nature-oriented and they like the outdoors in the vein of old ancient tribal customs that incorporate nature into their spirituality and understanding of the universe.  Hunh.  So there really is an origin behind all the "elfin" descriptors.  That part was surprising enough.  I was plodding along the article totally nonchalantly and innocuously, when something she said stopped me dead in my tracks.

She said that her extended family still live off the land...  And that her family hunts.

Wait a cotton pickin minute.  Hold the freakin phone.  ...Wait, so, awesome, crazy-dressing, fun-original-musiced, liberal, progressive Bjork's family freakin HUNTS??  They are perfectly okay with stealthily tracking through the forest, carrying firearms of some sort, and killing an animal before eating it?

My mind began racing, the cogs n wheels turning at lightning speed.  I had to rationalize this confounding, wholly unexpected new development somehow. I had to find a way to explain this and make sense of it.

I suppose...  I suppose that if a family that is very tribal and lives in an old-timey village, and if that family hunts, they are not doing it for fun; they are killing for sustenance.  That family is killing animals because they need to eat.  That family is killing because they need to freakin survive.

If that family lives in the customs of the ancients, then they probably do not have modern grocery stores ans supermarkets nearby.

We do not need to worry about the earth.  The earth can take care of itself.  It was here long before any of us were.  And it will continue to be here long after we are gone.  We do not need to worry about the planet.  The planet can take care of itself.

Illegitimately begotten children are a far more dire need, worthy of our attention, resources, time, and energy.  Human beings are far more deserving of devotion from people such as myself who have chosen to dedicate their life's work to a noble cause.

Charlotte Perkins Gillman and Body Confidence

I was reading up on Charlotte Perkins Gillman and literary criticisms.  What I found was interesting.  She disapproved of her contemporary time's version of feminism because they were too narrowly focused on just one sole topic -- voting.  Suffrage.

Which is important, sure, but it was not the only critical issue that women faced back in the day.  She disliked their approach, not because it was too radical, but in fact for the blazing reason that it was not radical <enough.>

I thought, hmmm, interesting.  Well, trends do ebb and flow; they do cycle around from a time-point in one generation to a counterpart time-point in the next generation. Or several generations down the line.  People and society in general do not really change that much.  From the 1910s when Charlotte Perkins Gillman lived, to the current day, not even a century later.  So it is entirely possible that this limiting attitude is in reign today, at the expense of ignoring all other important social issues.  So chances are that that sort of weird narrow approach on sociopolitical topics is still in [[[action, function]]] today.

Yep, as a matter of fact it is.  It is quite evident that the only, but the <only> matter that the mass media deem worthy of [[[notation, accolade, mention]]] is "body confidence."

There is praising the Bridget Jones movie because the actress looks sexy and isn't a stick figure.  I have to admit that she does look really good, and she does look much, much better now that she is healthy.

But that is not the disturbing part.  I read a review lauding and fawning over the body but being disappointed that Bridget Jones' life was not depicted to be as much of a pathetic mess as the books apparently are.  Gushing over the appearance of her body and praising over the fact that she is "speaking out about women's concerns."  She is supposedly a voice for women in the modern day. Keep in mind that all these fawning sycophantic fans specifically think of her as trailblazing *because* her life is in the pits, not in spite of it.  Why is the appearance of her body more important the fact that her life is in shambles?

Look around you.  Look at the glossy women’s magazines in the checkout lane at the grocery store or drug store.  They all have large annoying obnoxious typeface insisting, nay, ordering you to have body confidence or else.  This is pretty much the only issue that they concern themselves with.  The repetition is making me allergic.

I suppose it would be better if they didn't use such a phenomenally, woefully, lambastably inaccurate definition of the term.  I don't think they understand what "body confidence" is.  What is with all the batty, dippy people insisting that if people ran around naked all the time, they would have fewer body issues?  Isn’t having an abnormal desire to run around batty and naked, considered body issues?

I was reading I think Newsweek magazine. There was a fat actress being all indignant about the indignity of lamenting a person's weight gain of five pounds.  Well, I agree with that aforementioned sentiment; gaining five pounds will not cause the earth to tilt and shift off its axis (hehe).  But uh, sweetie, you are not just a mere five pounds overweight.  You could be classified as severely overweight or even morbidly obese.

There is a sociopolitical protest movement called the Million Pound March, in which a bunch of morbidly obese people protest the media making them feel bad or something like that.  As you can see in plain sight, true body confidence is not what is being practiced.

Are you eating more healthily?  Are you getting regular checkups with your doctor?  Are you exercising?  THAT is real body confidence.

Can you identify internal organs?  Like if you were to see a diagram in a medical textbook, would you be able to identify the gallbladder, the pancreas, the kidneys?  Do you have a well-versed understanding of how the body’s metabolism functions?  If you are experiencing aching or soreness in the general hip area, can you determine if it is bone or muscle that is hurting?  If your abdomen area is aching, can you identify whether it is a stomachache or menstrual uterine cramps?  Do you have a pretty good idea of what kind of over-the-counter medicines or other treatment you can administer to treat the ailment?

That oddity is still true today in the very recent interpretation of the feminist movement.  The entire mass media have zeroed in on this one topic while neglecting several other issues -- such as women’s education especially in fields that are actually useful.  There are so many major issues surrounding women today, which are only marginally related to body confidence.

What about women studying science and mathematics?  What about women taking self-defense classes?  What about enforcing current laws and penalties of violence against women?  What about enacting stricter laws to take care of violence against women?

Why have all these other very important issues suddenly been shoved to the back burner?  Why is "body confidence" hailed for some mysterious reason as the second coming of the Messiah?  They have insisted on narrowly obsessing over this one solitary topic at the detriment of everything else.

Improving And Moving On

A woman should be exalted and praised for bringing forth life into this world.  She should not be condemned for engaging in sex, the act that made her get pregnant in the first place.

And sigh.  Perhaps this viewpoint can be extended even towards a woman that has a baby outside of marriage.  Sigh.  Perhaps I have been too closed-minded for too long.  I guess I can be more accepting of the school of thought that says__

This took me a long time to arrive at this realization that a woman should not be [[[insulted, betrayed? nonono ostracized, social pariah, castigated]]] for giving birth to an illegitimate child.

** mention 7th heaven in major spring 2000 essay.
the inspiration for this [[_light of day,, nono groundbreaking inspiration, nonono mind-opening somehtewrrr__]] came from an unlikely source -- the TV show 7th heaven.

Perhaps we should not condemn the woman for being an "evil, deranged slut" that had sex outside of marriage and indeed got pregnant outside of marriage.

What is important now is that the woman raises the child right.  She has to make sure it grows into a kind, caring, and intelligent, and cautious human being.  She must make sure that it does not, oh we might as well just come right out and say it, she has to make sure the child does not get older and make the same mistake she does.

Perhaps that is more important than whether or not the child was conceived within marriage.  Raising the child is now the main focus.  That is more important than worrying about how the child came into this world.

It is even possible that this was the result of an abusive relationship.  If that is the case, honestly she would have been more than perfectly justified in terminating the pregnancy.  That would have been more than well within her right to do so.  The fact is that she chose not to, and instead chose to keep that fetus and grow it into a child.  And hopefully she will raise it into a wonderful, caring, intelligent human being.

Thereby she is being far more brave, courageous, and selfless than I honestly probably would be, were I in the same situation.

There is a girl in my English 102 class who got pregnant while unmarried at a very young age. Her child is now two or three years old.  Was it a mistake to have sex that young?  Maybe.  Was it a mistake to have unprotected sex while not being married?  Maybe.

But her child, a human being -- is not a mistake.  She is a very good person, and she sounds like she is a really good mom.

It seems like she really loves her child and so therefore, she made the right decision to grow it to full term.  And from what she says, it sounds like she is doing a pretty good job in raising it.  She disciplines it, and feeds it healthy foods, she reads it bedtime stories and tucks it in to sleep at night.  She is there for her child.  She is in school to get an education, so obviously she wants to better herself.  When she offers her opinion in class discussions, she seems quite intelligent.  She wants to be able to provide a good life for her child and her own future.  She does not come to class dressed like a hoochie mama.  She conducts herself with self-respect and decorum at all times.  I am getting the impression she does not dress like a hoochie, period.

Instead of dwelling and obsessing over _[[[being hung up on __]]] the fact that, "ohh nooo she had sex when she was a teenager and had an  illegitimate baby," the world needs to move on.  What is important now is that she raise her kid into a decent human being.