Daily Prompt – The Object of my Dejection

Tell us about the object of your dejection — something you made, a masterpiece unfinished, or some sort of project that failed to meet your expectations. What did you learn from the experience? How would you do things differently next time?

Easy… my other blog…

Daily Prompt – The Eighth Sin

Remember the seven cardinal sins? You’re given the serious task of adding a new one to the list — another trait or behavior you find particularly unacceptable, for whatever reason. What’s sin #8 for you? Why?

Let’s face it, Seven really doesn’t cut it anymore. My number 8 is easy: Fucktardery.

Apr 7 – Public Scandal

Is there a particular public scandal that intrigued you? 

Public scandals are why I love the media, and also why I hate the media.

Most of the time the media take a story and slap on the term ‘scandal’ generally as a means to sell more papers, or attract more viewers to a news / current affairs show.

Australia has had more than it’s fair share of ‘scandals’, however none of them have really intrigued me. I was just looking over a list of ‘scandals’ and there are quite a few that grabbed my eye.

Firstly, I think that the most prominent one in Australia most recently was the Essendon Football Club drug scandal. Basically, the club was investigated for usage of prohibited supplements, which then blew up into a massive controversy and ending in the club being fined a record AU$2 million. As much as I can’t stand football (primarily because a) the sport is ridiculous and b) because it’s pretty much a religion in this country), I was quite surprised that this had even come to light. What surprised me the most was that there were all these people saying how shocked they were at just the concept that there could even be drugs in sport.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Drugs and sport go together like cake and buttercream frosting. It’s that simple. These people are either so completely ignorant as to what is going on in their own clubs, or they’re trying to cover it up.

The next major scandal at the moment has been the Craig Thomson Union Fund scandal. Basically the crux of this scandal was that this guy, Craig, used his Union credit card and spent a truck load of union-members’ money on all kinds of stuff that he shouldn’t have, including paying for prostitutes and escorts. I think what I was the most surprised by, was finding out that hookers accept credit-card payments… I just thought they were cash-only.

I guess it puts a whole new spin on the phrase ‘swipe your card’…

There was a massive overseas scandal on the usage of horsemeat in consumer foods. This was something that actually did concern me, because I couldn’t believe that people would even consider eating horsemeat – just the thought of it grosses me out. But humans are cannibals, and will eat all kinds of animals, regardless of how big or small they are. When this scandal broke in the media, we were buying meat from Aldi, which was one of the major stores involved, so we immediately stopped buying from there as a precaution, and sourced our meat directly from a butcher.

Also in overseas news, there was the whole phone-hacking ordeal with Rupert Murdoch sitting right at the very top of it all. I think that it was great for something like this to come to light; exposing the underhanded ways and lengths the media will go to in order to get juicy details for their next big story. It’s just disgusting, and ever since then, I’ve stopped engaging in numerous News Corp holdings… well, except Australian Good Taste and Donna Hay magazine… what can I say, food is my weakness.

I think the last major one that made me groan and rolls my eyes in sheer disbelief at the sheer ignorance of the case was that involving the cases of sexual abuse within the catholic church. For as long as I can remember, there’s always been constant commentary regarding priests and abuse of children, predominantly young boys. Priests had / still have a stigma attached to them as being paedophiles, and the church knows all about it, but covers it up etc etc. So imagine my lack of shock and surprise when this ‘scandal’ was brought up in the media. Parliamentary inquiries, Royal Commissions investigating numerous claims of abuse… it was as though this issue that society, in general, had been talking about for years and years was only NOW starting to actually be taken seriously enough to warrant proper investigations.

Are you kidding me?

And people are behaving as though this information is all so sudden and brand new, and so completely inconceivable. Which, in turn, makes me even sadder about people and society. How could you be so oblivious and ignorant of this?

Look, I can appreciate that many victims have been haunted and tormented by the memories of what happened to them, and I can appreciate that they may not necessarily want to come forward and put the spotlight on themselves for a multitude of reasons, but they also need to understand that unless people like them actually say something, nothing is going to change. Those within the church will still abuse their power and position; children are still going to be abused; nobody will say anything about it, and the cycle will just continue as it has for however many years.

And the worst part of it all, is that if a child dare say anything or speak out about it, then who knows what the consequences could / would be. Maybe the child would be labelled as being a liar, and a Son of Satan – and then barraged with passages from the Bible, and made to repent for sins that are not his.

Unfortunately, the cynic in me can’t help but assume that this kind of abuse will never stop. Priests will always be protected by the Church, and let’s face it, the Church is a law unto themselves. It’s unfortunate, but this is just another reason as to why I cannot stand religion, ESPECIALLY Catholicism / Christianity. I think that the Catholic Church is perhaps one of the most evil and underhanded organisations in the world.

 

Jan 21: Perfection

Do you feel pressure to be perfect? How much of it is tied to what you see online?

Most certainly not.

Perfect doesn’t exist. We all have our ideal of what perfect is – what it looks like, what it feels like etc, and a lot of people strive for that – perfect life, perfect job, perfect partner etc etc, but it simply does not exist.

The media, in it’s various shapes and forms, plants a seed in your head – if you look a certain way, then your life will be happier and easier, you’ll be popular, you’ll marry a model, live in a mansion, have lots of money so you can spend your days living like one of those bitches from The Real Housewives…

… I don’t buy it.

Maybe it’s because I’m so jaded?

When was the last time you saw a model interviewed? Miranda Kerr, anyone?!? Even Sportspeople… hello, Ryan Lochte…

Both of them are incredibly beautiful, and great at what they do… so long as they don’t open their mouth – then it’s all over. But people like this are everywhere… basically anything that doesn’t rely on being skilled enough to string a sentence together. They may be beautiful, but sometimes it ends there. Take Miranda Kerr… gorgeous, Australian, ambassador for countless organisations, international supermodel, and up until last year, was Mrs Orlando Bloom… as an outsider looking in, she seems to have the perfect life, job, partner etc.

…now he’s left her, she’s been dumped by Victoria’s Secret, as well as a number of organisations as their spokesperson etc, does she still seem to epitomise what we view as perfection??

Being seen as somebody who has everything doesn’t exempt them from all the personal and professional shit life throws at every single one of us. Just because you’re famous, and beautiful, and rich etc, doesn’t mean you’re untouchable.

But that’s the problem, the media constantly portrays a life of wealth and beauty as being perfect, when really it might appear like that, but underneath all those diamonds and designer dresses, they’re just as miserable as the rest of us.

Case in point, let’s look at Taylor Armstrong from Real Rich Bitches Housewives of Beverly Hills:

Married to a very successful (read: wealthy) business man, has a young daughter, lives in a mansion, wears designer dresses, is driven around in a limo, flies on private jets, runs a charity, donates to charity, has published a book, spends her days lunching with the other ladies, attending social events, and basically just being a rich glamorous bitch.

Sounds pretty perfect, right?

Well, behind all that, she was being abused by her husband, keeping it from her friends, developed a drinking habit as a coping mechanism, lashed out at her friends for even talking about it, tried to keep her husband happy and went against everybody else’s advice to just get out and save herself and her daughter and had a number of pretty epic breakdowns. In the end her husband hung himself, she found the body, was up to her eyeballs in lawsuits and debt, discovered her husband had a completely secret life and business dealings she knew nothing about, and had to sell off her possessions including her wedding ring to start repaying her husbands debts.

Still sounding perfect to you?? Didn’t think so.

Even with Taylors case, I think it’s wrong to be airing such dirty laundry like that and bringing it to the public’s attention, because it’s between her and her husband, and who’s right is it to get in amongst whatever issue they’re having. On the other hand, she’s said that she’s grateful that it was featured on the show, simply because of that reason. It brought attention to something like domestic violence. It brought attention to the fact that here is this woman being beaten by her husband, and she’s still managing to be a parent for her child, and continue about her day as though nothing is wrong, putting on a brave face, whereas her girlfriends (and the rest of the country) are all sitting by thinking ‘gurrl, you gotta get outta that situation!!’. But nobody can force her to do something she’s not comfortable doing.

I feel sorry for all celebrities having their private life plastered all over the news, especially when it’s about their relationships and the ending of them. Celebrity divorces, custody battles etc, they’re all big sellers in the media, but part of me feels that at the end of the day, they’re still human beings like the rest of us.

If I was going through a divorce, I wouldn’t want anybody knowing the ins and outs of the situation as it would be between me and my ex – who else’s business is it? Oh that’s right, NOBODIES!!

So no, I don’t believe in perfection. You might, and good for you for doing so, but I see the world for the harsh reality that it is, and it’s certainly not perfection.