Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

August 20, 2007

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Today’s Stories

~**~**~

 ValueSpeak

A Weekly Column

By Joseph Walker

 valuespeak@msn.com

WHAT’S IN A CRUSH?

Jon has a new girlfriend. Sort of.

Her name is Megan Fox. I don’t know much about her, but Google tells me she plays a featured part in the new “Transformers” movie, which Jon has seen about 13 times now – in no small part, I’m sure, because of Ms. Fox. Evidently Jon has sort of a movie crush on her. I know this because I am seeing “Megan Fox” searches showing up all over the parental control reports I get from our internet provider. Clearly, my 15-year-old son has moved on.

Out with Poppy Montgomery. In with Megan Fox.

Of course I understand this. I had my share of movie and TV crushes when I was young. My first TV crushes were . . . well . . . not human. I was big on Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, and I would have given anything – absolutely anything – to take a ride on Tonto’s beautiful paint, Scout (I have a picture of me on a little pinto pony, which is as close as I ever got to riding Scout, and the look on my face is pure, pre-adolescent rapture).

My first human TV crush was – who else? – Annette Funicello, everyone’s favorite Mouseketeer. She was the reason I never missed an episode of the Mickey Mouse Club – well, her and the possibility that it just might be Anything Can Happen Day. Then I moved on to Natalie Wood. I’ll never forget the day Mom caught me kissing her picture on the back cover of the “West Side Story” soundtrack. I can still feel my ears burning with embarrassment as she told and re-told that story to anyone who would listen.

In later years I had star crushes on Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren and Ann-Margret, respectively. Now, I’m not sure how a redhead worked her way in among all the brunettes for whom I always seemed to haven a propensity. But my first four real-life crushes – Gayle, Barbara, Jan and Miss Green, my fourth-grade teacher – all had dark hair. It wasn’t until 9^th grade and a lovely pep clubber named Heidi that I discovered that blondes really did have more fun. I should also point out that this was at about the same time that I actually started to get along with my big sister, Kathy, who is also a blonde.

A coincidence? I think not.

A few days ago I saw an online article suggesting that your star crushes tell a lot about the kind of person you are looking for in real life. For example, the article said that a woman who is attracted to Johnny Depp’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” character, Captain Jack Sparrow, is looking for “someone who is exciting, adventurous and even a little bit dangerous.” Or someone who is attracted to Will Smith’s character in “Hitch” is looking for “the boost to your own self-image that you gain from being with someone who others find highly attractive.”

I don’t know about all of that, but it got me thinking: what do my early TV and movie crushes tell me about the kind of woman I was looking for – and eventually married 30 years ago next month? Well, like Annette Funicello’s career persona, Anita is sweet, innocent and beautiful. Like Maria, the character Natalie Wood played in “West Side Story,” she is Hispanic (although Anita’s ancestry is from Spain, not Puerto Rico). She is charming, delightful and adorable, just like Audrey Hepburn. She has amazing eyes, sort of like Sophia Loren. And she is a spirited and energetic redhead, just like Ann-Margret.

OK, so maybe she was blonde when I married her. That doesn’t alter the fact that I really did marry a woman who embodies so many of the traits and characteristics I found attractive in my earliest TV and movie crushes. Which sort of makes me wonder what it is about Megan Fox that Jon finds so appealing, and how those traits might be manifest in my future daughter-in-law.

And whether or not I’ll be seeing any of his lip-prints on our computer screen.

~**~**~

 CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERT’S TAUTOLOGY IN RACE CASE

Duane Bates

A tautology is a redundant use of language that adds no information because it is, by definition, necessarily true.  An example is the phase:  bachelors are unmarried.  An unmarried man is the definition of the word bachelor, so the additional words in the phase are unnecessary and redundant. 

In last weeks ruling on Parents involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1, the Supreme Court ruled that race cannot be used to determine what school a student is assigned to attend.  In the majority opinion Chief Justice Roberts stated: “The best way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”.  Who can argue with the statement?  If we do not currently, or had not discriminated in the past, discriminated based on race, there would be no discrimination based on race.

 This is obviously true statement, but it is at odds with historical reality; we did, and to a lesser degree still do, discriminate on the basis of race in our society. By every social measure, years of education, job opportunities home ownership, earnings and wealth accumulation, African-Americans still trail American whites in spite of almost fifty years of efforts.  The resegregation of our schools has not resulted from any action or lack of action on the part of the school systems, but as the result of the difficulty of eradicating the effects of generations of systemic, entrenched religious, social, political and economic discrimination.

In my opinion, the use of tautological statements or arguments in discussions or legal decisions indicates an underlying weakness in the logic of the position using them or a conscious attempt to confuse the discussion or advance a hidden agenda.  The hidden agenda that is being advanced using this tautology is that the wish of certain segments of our society to assert that the Civil Rights Acts of the 1950s and 1960s that legally ended discrimination based on race have accomplished their goals and that we now live in a truly “color blind” society, therefore no additional legal action is required.  This is either a totally disingenuous belief or an attempt to substitute form for substance; we have passed the laws and made some progress and that is all that is required.

There has been a definite movement in the Federal Court to narrow the scope and focus of interpretation of the law to achieve more “conservative” decisions.  For example, a recent decision of the Supreme Court on a pay discrimination case brought by a woman who discovered after two decades that she had been paid less than men doing the same job.  The Court ruled that she could not be compensated for the long-term pay discrimination because she failed to file a suit within 180 days of the time the discrimination occurred.  They expected the woman to file a suit when, because pay rates in private firms are not available to other employees, she had no knowledge of the discrimination. 

Contrast this to the opposite trend in sexual molestation cases at the state level where the time for bringing charges for past-alleged sexual molestation has been extended not just to the date when the victim reached his or her majority, but for years after.  In a recent case in my area a thirty-nine year old man filed criminal charges of sexual molestation against an older man that occurred when he was nine years old.  Evidently it took him twenty years after he reached his eighteenth birthday to summon up the courage to file the charges.

Critics of the Seattle school case, rightly I think, view the decision as a de facto reversal of the Brown v. Board of Educations decision in 1954.  The resegregation of American schools has been well documented, and this decision will speed up the process in some areas of our country.  While good progress has been made in reversing some the effects of one hundred years of racial discrimination and segregation, public support has waned over the years as we realize that the full implementation of civil rights means that some members of the white majority population will lose the favorable treatment in education and jobs that a level playing field has generated.  The negative economic effects of globalization and uncontrolled immigration may also be playing a role in the American public’s view of the need for full social, educational and economic equality for all.  It’s much easier to support the values and goals of the American dream for everyone when your paycheck is secure than when you are unsure of how long you will be employed at a good paying job with benefits.

This is really the bottom line; economic insecurity for the majority breeds insecurity for all.  In the important Supreme Court case of 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote a sole dissent to the majority decision legalizing segregation, “Our Constitution is color blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens”. He warned that the decision to allow segregation would be ranked, along with the Dred Scott case, as one of the most infamous Supreme Court cases in out history and would be the basis of great societal problems. Unfortunately, Justice Harlan was correct.

Duane Bates

batesduane@yahoo.com

~**~**~

POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME, ON SECOND THOUGHT......

April Lipscomb

I'll just have the equal.

Have you ever partaken of a dessert so rich and sweet that it made you ill? Have you ever walked into a room of over-zealous cologne users and got a blast of their over-powering sweet fragrance, so sticky sweet you were nauseated?

The worst is when a person forgets that first all important step in hygiene (bathing) and goes right for the cheap perfume. You just can't hide stink.

Could you imagine covering Limburg cheese in chocolate syrup. YUCK!!!

Well my friends, that is exactly how I feel when I witness hypocrisy. You know a person is foul. You have witnessed their selfish, egocentric, cruel behavior. Then one day you see them dancing through the fields of the world throwing massive amounts of sugar and roses.  It's like the abusive husband who has beat his wife for years, he stomped around and abused with his hands and big voice for years. Then one day shows up at the house with chocolates and Roses. I lived this life long ago in my first marriage, I still carry the scar on my soul. So beaten down was I that after my divorce I stayed single for twenty years. I was only married a short time to Mr. Big Stuff, and I was very young. But once you have lived through abuse and manipulation you know it when you see it. Once I regained my power I had decided to never again share it. Well, you all know that has changed for me and I am recently married, but it took twenty years for me to trust again.

 Let's talk about control for a moment. This is also a major symptom of the abuser. They seek control, they want to manage your friends, they want you to be blinded to everyone and everything except them. One day you awake and find yourself alone, no friends, no family no support system. Why are there people like this? (I say people because woman are perfectly capable of this behavior as well. But today, I am thinking of a man.) they behave like this because they are insecure, they feel they don't possess the measure of a real man so they become magicians and quite apt with the smoke and mirrors routine.

 We work so hard to find the right mate, we don't want to end up married to the abuser. We look for the signs, we read the books, and if we are lucky we find the right one. Wiping our brow from the hard work involved in this endeavor, we let out a sigh of relief, content with our success. Feeling fortunate that we didn't end up with one of those men/woman. But it's not over yet folks, we still have to travel the by-ways of life, where we encounter other people. Friendships, co-workers, neighbors, etc... You don't have to marry one to have one in your life, they are hiding in the shadows of all you by-ways. We might even call them friend. Let me introduce you to classic abuser number #1.

ACT I:

The Thespian introduces him/herself:

Hi, I want to get to know you, I want you to be my friend. I stand up for the weak and I am a "good person."

You: You think, Wow, that's what the world needs, more good people. I like good people. So you sign up.

Act II:

The Thespian Speaks:

 I didn't get what I wanted today so I am going to stomp my feet and yell as loud as I can. I'll show them!!!!!!

You: You don't agree but you're afraid to speak up, you don't want to make waves.

Act III

The Thespian Speaks:

I saw something today that a friend wrote, said, did,  (fill in the blanks). I thought they were talking, doing, writing (fill in the blanks) about me. I am angry and If I go down, I'll take everyone with me!!!

You: Okay now the red flags are waving, bombs bursting in air and you know there is something very, very wrong here. What do you do? I'll get to that in a minute.

*see now our little friend is challenged, apparently he/she has seen their reflection in a mirror held up to them. Better duck folks, this guy is gonna blow.*

Act IV:

The Thespian Speaks:

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. I just bought these daisies and pansies and I am going to spread sunshine through out the land, home, work place, (you pick). I am a wonderful person, I am , I am, ............................ as he/she skips through their world.

You:  the nausea hits, you PUKE!

                                             ***********************

From now on and probably until the end of days, Acts II, III, and IV will repeat themselves, depending on our friends level of insecurity. There is no reasoning with this person and for your own sanity you need to follow these very important steps.

Run, Run, Run, and oh, don't look back !!! 

Pour some sugar on me? No, No Thank You, I'll just have the Equal

April Lipscomb 7-16-07 (C)

Imladybug270@aol.com

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