Who Are You And Why Should We Care?

Recently, I made some public stances against various behaviors that I believe significantly encourage harmful things to happen to young women and girls.  A 20+ year friend of mine took notice of these changes and asked if they had anything to do with my infant daughter.  I responded to her question with an emphatic "without a doubt!"  And I wasn't ashamed to admit it; how my once chauvinist views have been completely reversed by the birth of my baby girl.  These changes should have happened years earlier as I wasn't raised in a sexist fashion, but I'm not excluded in having self-experience being an honest teacher every now and then.  And as I was expressing my renewed mind, all I could think about is the burning anger I would feel if I ever saw a picture of my teenage daughter in a tank-top and tights...taken in my bathroom...for all of cyberspace to ogle over.  Of course, much of that anger would be from the thoughts that my baby has been convinced that she was raised as a hoodrat.  But the other part would come from me thinking that she thinks she's so important that her virtual friends and their real friends HAVE to see her.

Cheerleaders

Confession time.  I was one of those people who thought voting was useless; and didn't vote until President Obama's first campaign.  And while I still believe that the U.S. democratic process is deliberately flawed to generally benefit the American aristocrat,  I do also think it's important to put a stake (or in this case a toothpick) in the direction of the nation when given the opportunity.  It's not for the classic "people died for the right to vote" argument either.  I mean, people died...and are still dying...for the right to sell drugs.  Doesn't mean I need to go cop a 8-ball and cook-up.  But the right to vote is critically important for this reason:  the crooked United States government, along with the lesser but equally as crooked state, county, and city governments allow for it's [of age] citizens to have a say in who they want to lead them from a political, social, and financial perspective in regards to legislation.  All legal voters should take advantage of this, and anyone who doesn't has made their opinion unquestionably insignificant to not only the powers that be, but the general public.  In the end, all that person does is scream on the sidelines.