Pornography

Nothing works like an attention grabbing title, hey? Sorry, but this is not about the commonly understood definition of the term. My latest gig in the work force is at a video rental store and it has amused and disturbed me how much people are willing to take in images that would disgust them in real life. The public's idea of entertainment is quite often like pornography in another form. This is the ability to sit wide-eyed and admiring in front of pure, unadulterated garbage for about two hours (not to mention that we actually pay for the privilege).
Mr. Webster, your friend and mine, defines pornography as "writings, photographs, movies, etc. intended to arouse sexual excitement, especially such materials considered as having little or no artistic merit." For a moment, let's drop the word "sexual" from the definition. Yes, I know that good students of the English language are not supposed to monkey with definitions but -my blog. With the sexual connotation aside, this definition is an accurate depiction of the sort of movies people go home happy with every night. These baser preferences of the American consumer provide me with a paycheck so criticizing their habits makes me a hypocrite, but once again-my blog.
People like to watch a lot of violence, action, and dumb comedy with very little story line and nothing of any merit. As long as characters die bloody deaths while sleeping with various partners, it is a "good" movie. One of the more recent films that customers have clamored for is a gem titled The Hills Have Eyes, Part II. The plot of this film follows the adventures of a tribe of people who have been mutated by atomic tests in the Southwestern desert. They live in caves and cannibalize stranded travelers. The resounding question here is: Why? Why would some one make one film on this subject, that long a Part II? Why does the public need two installments of bloodthirsty, evil cannibals in the desert? I have thought of several witty responses to the request: "Hey, you got any of The Hills Have Eyes, Part II in?" No, but I hear that the hills have spontaneously sprouted ears and nose this week. Not the most intelligent comeback but let's see you do better after fielding this request 25 times in a single shift.
These little nuances of my job have also caused me to stop and consider how much of this sort of stuff I take in. How much gruesome violence, explicit sex, and poor taste humor have I sit through in my adult life? What effect has this had on my attitudes towards these type of events in real life? Am I becoming desensitized to images and ideas that I would normally find offensive? Does any one else notice that the sort of things we find the most entertaining in movies would horrify us in real life? I am also a little nervous that my entertainment choices may be reflective of a shorter attention span. Occasionally the human brain needs to be entertained without having to exert itself but how much of this is a series of action sequences without a plausible story line? How many action movies are the equivalent of pornography in the exploitation of violent images? We don't like watching coverage about people being shot or dying in military activities on the news or reading about it in the newspaper but we rent movies like Shooter and the Bourne Identity. War casualities make us sad and discouraged but films like 300 are exciting. Take the reality factor away and it becomes entertainment. Very strange.

Because I Needed A Laugh

My apologies to all of my conservative pals out there but I just couldn't resist and this did give me a chuckle after the afore mentioned day!

Frustration, Irresolution, Worry and Everything in Between

Today was not a good day. My best friend from college was having surgery today. I knew that there would be very little information today but I just wanted to stop by the waiting area and check with her husband and family to make sure everything had started according to plan before going into work. I went up to the hospital and found the surgery waiting area but could not locate any of her family. The desk clerk insisted over and over again that this was the only surgery waiting area in the hospital and that this was where she would be. I wandered around the floor a bit longer and finally found another employee who told me the same thing. I told her a really didn't think it was correct. Where ever my friend was in situation like that her husband and family would be and I hadn't been able to find any of them. It was getting closer to the time I needed to be at work so I left and headed home. As I was getting dressed for work I made a last ditch effort and called her husband's cell. "Kara," he said, "we are on the third floor!" I had been lost on the second floor! I had been so close to the one place I wanted to get for the whole day and couldn't manage it. I had to be at work in twenty minutes and there wasn't time for a trip back up to the hospital. I was worried at work, I am worried now and will probably be worried in my sleep --when ever that happens.
To put another layer on the day I had a situation arise with the car that I really needed Dad for and he is out of the reach of phone contact for the weekend. This is where I have to be honest and state that I often defer to Dad on problems I could solve myself (we drive each other nuts, but I am the baby girl even at this advanced age). This was a bona fide Dad emergency, however, since he is co-owner of the vehicle. So I handled it and then phoned my aunt for a little emergency situation spell check. I suppose this is where I would have to mark "pathetic" if I was doing a self-evaluation on my coping abilities.
Circumstances fly at me so fast some days it seems as though I do not have time to resolve one issue before another blind sides me. Whole weeks and months drag by without a single event and then one random day is like being trapped inside a batting cage with one of those baseball pitching machines (I was always bad at baseball). I despise the phrase "just one of those days" because it sweeps everything under the proverbial rug when what you really need is to acknowledge that the events of the day were miserable, think them through, talk to some one who can give you some wise empathy, pray for God to forgive me of any part I had in making the situations worse and take comfort in the certainty that it will never be in my power to resolve everything. Um, that is a comfort? In the strangest way sometimes it is the best comfort one gets.

Generations of Objectors

As I grow closer to thirty and my Dad grows closer to sixty I have more and more moments when I am certain that we have very little in common. Last summer I found myself in the defining state of my age group: over-educated and very under-employed. After taking a realistic look at my finances and options I decided that moving home with my family and returning to school for a teaching certificate in English Education was my most viable option. Mom passed away at Christmas 2006. While we are all devout Christians my family members and I all have a little different take on politics and social issues. The household now consists of Dad, a very conservative and fundamental baby boomer, and yours truly, his spinister daughter who seems to become more and more left-leaning with every passing moment. Needless to say, he and I have had a few "discussions" on church doctrine, post-modern society and the competency of our government. All of that, of course, falls behind the most popular topic: when and how I plan to achieve stability in my lifestyle and profession. I love my Dad.

I thought that commonalities between us were becoming even more sparse until recent global events (plain English translation: that quagmire in Iraq that our "fearless leader" just can't stop stirring with his big stick) have become more frequent topics of conversation. A couple of evenings ago I was sitting at the bar in the kitchen reading the paper while Dad was cooking dinner. In case you don't pay attention to the papers most of the dailies have a small box some where on the front page with the number of the U.S. war dead in it (maybe they like to make it as inconspicuous as possible). I was reading the numbers and telling Dad about a story that I had read last week about an army reservist who was suing the U.S. military to stop his FIFTH deployment (www.kirotv.com/news/13677999/detail.html). Dad rolled his eyes, shook his head, and said "This war is a mistake and a mess." We have had a couple of conversations about whether or not it was necessary to send a generation into this conflist and they always end with the same sad conclusion. Mom once told me that our generation would pay dearly for the misjudgments of our government. They both knew what they were talking about. My parents lived through the Vietnam Era. Dad missed the draft because of a bad eye and a student wavier but he saw the effects in a couple of men in his fraternity house that had returned from the war. Mom's older brother did not return and her family has never received his reamins. They both saw the aftermath of bad judgement in high places in the communities around them. Eight years ago I found my uncle's name on the Vietnam Memorial in DC and made an etching of it for my Mom and aunts. I felt ambiguous about the experience-you can not look at that wall and regard it as an entirely proud object. When Dad and members of his generation say "this was a mistake" I think that there is experiential wisdom in that statement. I also think we may have a little more in common than what I find in my normal evaluations.

An Innocent in Cyberspace

In response to some gentle proddings and suggestions from some friends and acquaintenances I am beginning my a foray into the world of blogging and the indulgence of promoting my thoughts, opinions, and interpretations to a unsuspecting persons who stop in for a browse. This little realm of rants and half-conscious thought flies in the face of my hatred and distrust of most instruments of modern technology but the good intentions and advice of peers is a powerful drug. With that my first post will be a brief disclaimer. All of the statements that appear in the cave are the reflections and experiences of the proprietess and are not necessarily those of her faith, relatives, associates, constituents, or any other randsom persons, organizations, theologies, ideologies, etc. etc. that she may claim a connection with. I believe that covers everything and extricates me at least in my own jumbled mind.