Gross.

So I'm reading the headlines to do research for the site I write for, and I see that Christina Aguilera is trending. This makes me wonder what on earth the singer could have done to be the number one trending topic on google news. My mine right away went to wondering if she had died, or gotten hurt, or arrested. None of these things is actually what happened. What happened was, she liked food.

The only part of the AMAs that I managed to catch last night was the part where Christina performed. I thought she looked amazing. I thought that she picked clothes that actually looked good on her body. Everything fit. She wasn't all sausaged in to her clothing. Sure it was revealing  and sure it was tight, but she didn't look gross. In fact I thought she looked amazing.

Maybe it's because I have a daughter now, that I'm starting to get more annoyed about all these body issues, but it's really annoying that this is news. It's annoying that weight is ever news. In fact unless the person has to be removed from their house by ambulance, then their weight should never make the news. EVER.

Know what else should never make the news? Anything involving a celebrity's kids, or divorce, except maybe to mention that had a kid, and got a divorce. That's it. The story should go like this: "so and so just ended their marriage of so many years." Then we should immediately move on to news that is actually news. Like, sex trafficking  or dogs that save other dogs, or Tim Horton's changing their cup sizes. You know, news that actually affects real people, living in the real world.

(My spell check is telling me that sausaged is not a real word. I think it's broken.).

Ugly Wake up Call

So when I wake up, especially on a day that I don't have my little Bean, I usually lay there, in my very nice comfy bed, and check on Facebook and Twitter. I like my news. Especially now that I am not longer listening to the good old CBC much any more. What greeted me on my twitter feed was this article from the Huffington Post: Cassidy Goodson, 14-Year-Old, Murders Her Newborn Baby.

I am pretty used to those types of story lines in this day and age. The news of the spectacular, and the spectacularly unimportant seem to hit the news feeds more and more every day. This story though makes me annoyed for several reasons. Makes me sad too, but I would hope that would be just obvious.

First of all, why is there a picture of the 14 year old on the front page? I get when teens do horrible things we feel the need to treat them like adults so that they learn their lesson, and hopefully show the other kids that there are consequences as well. To me though, this is just a tragic. I would make a comment about posting pictures of train wrecks, complete with bodies, but our "news" already does that as well.

Second, and perhaps the most important, I think this story shows why everyone should have actual sex education. Now I'm sure there is some wonder as to how a 14 year old strangling her baby, has anything to do with sex education, but I will show you.

Sex education has been proven to help kids be more responsible in their attitude towards sex. It does not make them more likely to have sex, just as teaching abstinence does not make kids less likely to have sex. Teenagers are gonna have sex, I think it's time we all accepted that. Parents who do this sex education at home, open up a dialogue and create and environment where the kids are more likely to talk to their parents when they have a problem. It doesn't fix every single problem, but I think if the parents were more likely to get their head of out their asses, and remember that sex is a natural part of human biology, and life then maybe their kids wouldn't be so stupid about things. Just maybe, it's really hard to tell these days.

I also think that the people in this story that claimed that they did know this kid was pregnant needs to get charged. If you're so awesome that you're just going to let a scared teen with an oblivious mother, have a kid, which you know will end very badly, then you need to be talked to as far as I am concerned. Charged at the very least.

We used to grow up in a world where everyone helped everyone else, including when it came to their kids. I'm not saying it's perfect, but maybe we need to look at the harm that we are doing by deciding that nothing is our responsibility any more. Who wants to make a bet that everyone is going to say this teen made her choice, now she needs to pay for it? Granted, fair point. Who will sit there and say "you raised this kid to be so afraid of disappointing/talking to you/making you angry, that you caused the death of a baby.

Just saying.

I figured it out!

I really have been trying to figure out where my brain has gone these last two weeks, and I'm pretty sure that Batman took them. I'd like to say that I didn't get all wrapped up in the whole "psychologically disturbed man shoots up theater" thing, but I did. When I say I did though, I mean that the moment that people started talking about it, and talking about changing their weekend plans, my brother and I went to the movie and started making inappropriate jokes.

I can not imagine what the people, and the friends and families went through in that entire mess. I just can't. It's heartwarming to see how many people were willing to risk their lives for people. The whole thing was tragic.

Okay, now I'm going to say things that are probably less popular. First of all for everyone in the media that is using this as a reason to make guns harder to get, stop it. For everyone using this as a reason to say "look crazy people kill people not guns" stop it. To everyone that is thinking that this man needs to die to pay for his crimes, you could be right, but lets see if he's actually able to make his choices rationally first. He might have been, I don't know him. He might not have been, judging by the way he seems to be in the news. Once again, I do not know him, and therefore am not going to judge him. These are the things that I do know

1. He is not the Joker. The joker has green hair, so already he has failed. It's possible he is colour blind though. I haven't looked into it. 
2. He is very smart. He was working on a neuroscience degree. I don't know what one exactly, but I do know that neuroscience, is a more difficult one.
3. He was very sick. Okay, this is the part that people are getting hung up on. It's clear to me, that when someone goes out and plans the way they do, and is paranoid enough to do the things he did, and shows enough of the signs of mental illness, that they are likely mentally ill. I didn't need him to come out and state that. In fact I'm guessing he's so mentally ill that he needed his lawyer to actually be the one that actually had to stand up and say stuff, because if he was then he likely would have said something very discriminating, though likely would have cemented an insanity plea. 
4. Over reacting to this situation is, in it's self, insane. If I wanna wear a costume to a movie, then I'm gonna dress up like fucking Iron Man and I'm going to go to a movie!
5. Batman, did not inspire this man. Batman doesn't like guns. Or killing. The killing thing makes him better than Superman. Superman doesn't have a no killing rule. 
6. The Joker did not inspire this man. The joker wouldn't have picked a crowded room and an automatic weapon. Way too easy. Also a Batman movie woulda been a little too on the nose. He would have picked like, Magic Mike. And he woulda been naked. Joker likes a challenge. 

Those things aside, I don't know much. Someone more qualified than me will make the choice of what happens to this disturbed man. At least I hope so.

Right To Decide...

So, I browsed through my twitter feed today (@mellyboredom if anyone is interested), and I found this interesting little article on the Huffington Post: Right To Assisted Suicide. The article is actually taken from CBC and goes on to say that Gloria Taylor, who has ALS has won the right to have help ending her life should she chose to do so. This is a wonderful ruling.

I know that there are many many people who disagree with suicide and disagree especially with assisted suicide, and I am okay with that. To them I say: then you don't do it. It's pretty simple. I realize that for whatever reason automatically linking assisted suicide to murder is the way to go, but murder is when someone doesn't have the choice. And I also realize that when people have a medical POA do they get the right to then decide when that person has "suffered enough"? Those are all good questions, and I will not deny that there are some grey areas that we still need to look at (or not since grey areas are what make life, life), but for right now, I think allowing someone the right to end their own life, and the right to have someone help her do that if she chooses to do that is good.

In cases like ALS and end stage illnesses, people who are suffering pain that we don't even let our animals go through, should be allowed to ask for help, or state ahead of time that if they wish to die or not. (Dr's also, should have the right to say no, but I really don't think that this is something that will come up too much to be honest.) As a society we hold life as the most precious thing, and it might be, I don't have all those answers, but when you are in unbearable pain 25/24 hours of the day, why should anyone have to live through that if they do not wish to? Is that really living? What pain is appropriate when it comes to helping someone end their life? Again, I don't have the answers.

I like that we're talking about it. I like that the courts agree that it needs to be looked at again. I like that we're are having serious thoughts to what "quality of life" really means.