Octuplet Obsession

To keep this blog on the cutting edge of cultural developments, today I would like to address a serious issue that has come to the forefront in the last month. In case you have been under a rock, a woman, Nadya Suleman, – mother of 6 – had octuplets. I wanted to spend this entry going off on her, but I will let someone else do that. The following is an editorial is by Jim Wooten and from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday, February 08, 2009. I have edited it for content and space but you can read the entire article here.

****************
Octuplets and all children deserve better

The octuplets born to an unmarried woman in California are consequences of self-centeredness gone awry. The woman, Nadya Suleman, had six children, all conceived with the help of a sperm-donor friend. The eight born last month grew from six implanted embryos, life created with friend-donated sperm. She told NBC’s “Today” show that she wanted a large family because she felt alone as an only child. “All I wanted was children,” she said. “I wanted to be a mom. That’s all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children.” The outrage is that a narcissistic adult, for her own pleasure, intentionally brought 14 children into the world, children who will never know their father. It was a conscious, medically assisted choice to have multiple births —- a decision suggesting an impaired mental state that should have raised questions about her fitness as the primary adult female in the children’s lives.

The octuplets should be a wake-up call to the nation. It is child cruelty to inflict the suffering on human life that Suleman visits upon these 14 children. As Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears has noted, children born to unmarried women and to those in cohabiting relationships “must often overcome increased risks of poverty, education failure, child abuse, delinquency, emotional distress and mental illness.” The focus of all law and public policies really should be reoriented to children. They desperately need protection from self-centered adults who casually create life for reasons that are frivolous and self-indulgent. The octuplets’ birth dramatically highlights the plight of children carelessly and frivolously conceived. It should be the spectacle that prompts ministers, educators, entertainers, politicians, aunts, uncles and other family members need to recognize the harm unmarried adults are causing to children.

Life begins at conception. Anything adults do prior to that moment that doesn’t harm a third person is their business. At the moment of life, however, the wants and even the needs of the adults are incidental to those of the child. These 14 children need a protector.
*******************

Here are some additional statistics for you to consider from an article on yahoo.com:

Suleman has been supporting her six other children with $490 a month in food stamps and receives Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters that could total $2,379 a month.
She has estimated her in vitro fertilization procedures have cost $100,000.
Suleman has said she saved for the treatments by working double shifts and also used money from a disability award exceeding $165,000 that she received after an on-the-job back injury.
The Suleman octuplets' medical costs have not been disclosed, but in 2006, the average cost for a premature baby's hospital stay in California was $164,273, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Eight times that equals $1.3 million.
For a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

If you want to get into the “medicine” of the story, you can go here.

Her personal website. Not much there, but you can donate if you feel led.

So here’s how I feel. I think she is selfish and unnecessarily burdening herself and the rest of us to fulfill some need of hers. If she wants to have children and love them, then fine – I don’t begrudge her that. But when she already has 6 children and spending $100,000 on fertilization techniques whose end result could be nothing other that the birth of multiple children is irresponsible and selfish. There are plenty of options for her to have children and not be such a burden – being a foster mother is one good option. Another would have been to spend the $100,000 on adopting children because God knows there are plenty of children both here in America and abroad that desperately need a good home. Does she deserve the death threats she has received? Of course not. But something has to be done for the future to keep this sort of thing from happening. I implore lawmakers to seriously consider barring these doctors from practicing this brand of “medicine” that is so manipulative and has such wide reaching consequences.

I wish her the best, but expect the worst. I know my tax dollars will help give these kids what they need to survive. I just wish they had been spent elsewhere.

Well, I'm looking like a total failure in the Oscars run-up--haven't chipped away at all at that list of films I still need to see. Is it fair to blame my wife? I'd like to, if that's an option. Oh, but I did see The Duchess, which I believe is up for an award for its costumes. Super.

No good excuses, really, except for the wife option, just haven't made it out. But I have been watching a lot of Deadwood (sorry to continue the TV theme). In fact, it's my fourth time watching it, if that counts as a testament to the following statement's veracity. If you have ever enjoyed a Western, you MUST watch Deadwood, because it is the BEST TELEVISION SHOW ever produced, and so long as you don't hate the "wild west" setting, you'll think so too, because:

1) Complex characters--every character showing depth and dimension over the course of the three seasons.
2) Fascinating language--you have the collision of Victorian civility with the vulgarity of the West.
3) Writing--tied in with both of the above, I am frequently struck by how perfectly each scene has been set, and love how it almost takes on a Shakespearian quality with characters delivering monologues, thinking aloud.

So I just trimmed down the argument above prior to posting because I realized I was going on for far too long on certain subjects, but again, I cannot commend this show strongly enough to you.

I've watched it the last two times on my iPod, I should mention, listening to it on the commute. I probably have a post coming down the road about movies on the Ipod, too, now that I think about it.

Cheers!

NO MINE!

Most people would think this is weird so I'll 'splain it for everyone who doesn't understand pets.

Let's say you took a picture of your kid and it was a good picture. Like a really really good picture of your favorite person in the world and you thought, "Wow, I don't think I could have taken a better picture of a kid anywhere!". So you show it to your friends and you go to Meijer and have them put it on a t-shirt for you so you can wear it around and when you wear it around even strangers say, "Hey! That is a great picture of a kid!"

Let's say you enjoy that for a while, until one day you notice someone wearing a shirt and it's got that picture of your kid on it! And then someone saw THAT guys shirt and made buttons! And then you notice stickers, and online avatars, and cutsie posters where people have photoshopped a clown nose onto your kid! You'd think "What the heck?" Or maybe you'd think "I really should have copyrighted that picture and then sued all these people" or maybe you'd think both.

This is basically what happened to my horse. Yeah yeah, I know, it's just a horse but it's got to be one of the weirdest things for me to do a Google image search for the word "Clydesdale" and undoubtedly more than one link will have MY picture of MY horse! Let me give you a little sample:

Here he is, and here, and yet again, here he is in a poorly done video, and here he is enjoying some heavy metal, and proudly representing his breed, and here he is in australia, and there are more. Search "clydesdale" in Facebook Flair and he's there. At one point someone had drawn little cartoon running shoes on his feet for their jogging club website.

I know it's petty, but that horse means something to me. And yet people who couldn't care less about this horse use his picture hither and yon without a care in the world. They don't care who he is or where the picture was taken or what a good horse he was. And the little kid in me wants to shout, "NO MINE!" So just to get the word out there, here's the scoop.

His name was THV Jasper. THV standing for Thurstons High Vally, his breeder. Glen Thurston sold my Grandfather Jasper when he was a 2 year old. Jasper was born April 16th, 1980. He was 19 hands tall, taller than the average clydesdale but he was so well proportioned you can't tell from the picture.
Japser served as our main breeding stallion, show horse, and favorite pet for many years. He once dragged me by his leadrope through 2 feet of snow for several yards. He noticed the gate to the pasture had been left open and I didn't. I chose to hang on as opposed to letting go and having to chase him all over the field. He finally got tired of dragging me.
We also had a local newscrew out to do a story on our farm, I was filmed in my pigtails riding on Jasper's back.
The famous picture was taken in Madison, Wisconsin around 1988. The original picture has him facing left. My father was originally in front of his head wearing a blue coat but most pictures you see have him cropped out.
Jasper died the summer of my 8th grade year. He was buried in the stud pen on the family farm. He is one of 4 who have been buried on the farm. Many of our clydesdales are his direct descendants.

That's my horse, he always will be.

music reviews, 25 things, soccer

Sam mentioned that music hadn’t really been a topic on the blog. Agreed. So here’s my contribution.

Bob Mould, District Line. At the library I stumbled across this album from the former lead singer of Sugar. There were a couple of strong tracks (Stupid Now and The Silence Between Us) that really had that Sugar feel, so I enjoyed those. The album as a whole was weak. I now plan on looking for some of his other solo albums to get a better feel of his sound. By the way, if you have never listened to Sugar, do so ASAP.

I also checked out the Killers album Day and Age. AWFUL!!! It was as if they produced a song with a Casio keyboard a la 1985 and then copied it 10 times and created a CD. Truly horrible.

I am still moving through the Top 10 albums according to Noise. Plan to review TV on the Radio next week.



Last week, I gave into Facebook peer pressure and did “25 Things About Me.” http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=47599016644

I started it and was planned to bail after 5 or 6, but it went pretty quickly, so I did the whole thing. It was enjoyable exercise. Brandon tagged me on “25 bands”, which may be a little tougher.



I watched the movie Primer, which is a mindfuck of major proportions. I read their wikipedia page and it was amazing. Made for like $7000, it will blow your mind. They have a great diagram that sort of illustrates the crux of the movie. I definitely recommend it. I’m watching it again to get a better understanding of it.



Watched Spurs v Arsenal Sunday afternoon with James. Boy do I want those 2 hours of my life back. Eboue is a complete tool and should be cut immediately. Arsenal actually played well with 10 men and most grabbed a goal on a couple of occasions. Without Adebayor, they are in real trouble. As for Spurs, one word CLUELESS. They had no idea how to score. You can’t go up the middle against Arsenal. And then they had no one to cross the ball, so they were stuck. Chimbonda. What a joke. He is terrible and I have no idea why they resigned him.

United and Barca roll on, with Barcelona in amazing form. Cannot wait until the Champions League starts again.



Finally, I played at LISA South on Sunday night. The heater went out so it was like 40 degrees in the bubble. Wore a warm up suit for the first game; could see your breath; couldn’t feel your hands. Crazy.

Ta Ta for now.

All that glitters is not Grammy-worthy

This blog has focused pretty heavily on TV shows the last few weeks, so I thought I would change it up and talk about music. In the last couple of weeks I have seen various commercials promoting the Grammy Awards show. These commercials kept touting great acts such as the Jonas Bothers (check out my rant against them here), Lil Wayne (who I add to my “no talent ass clown" list), and Carrie Underwood (whose country genre I could do without). So, needless to say, I had not planned on tuning in to see a bunch of artists that I wish would be censored. But a strange thing happened, the Grammys were on while my wife and I caught up on “House” and “Burn Notice” on my laptop. So, I was able to pick and choose what I could take in. And I will say, there were some awesome performances and some embarrassing combinations. So here goes:

Kid Rock was entertaining as usual. I like the song “Amen” and so was happy to see its inclusion in his medley.

Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus sang a song written by the former called "Fifteen". I am not a fan of either and don’t see what all the hubbub is about. But, it was a decent song.

Then, the embarrassment of the night – the Jonas Brothers teamed up with the legend - Stevie Wonder – to do their crappy song "Burnin' Up". One day, someone will explain to me why these guys deserve to perform at the Grammys with Stevie. Until then, I will have to resign myself to continue despising them.

A highlight for me was Dave Grohl playing drums for Paul McCartney as he performed "I Saw Her Standing There". I was hoping they would do a medley and Dave would come out from behind the drums and play some guitar, but it was not to be.

Radiohead performed "15 Step" with USC Trojan Marching Band. If you didn’t see it, you have to check it out below. Classic Radiohead brilliance.



Two groups combined the old and the new to made for great performances. There was a Four Tops medley with stand ins Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo. In addition, John Mayer, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Keith Urban gave tribute to "Bo Diddley". I believe that song could have gone on for 10 minutes and I would have been in heaven. Unfortunately, the production had to make way for Lil’ Wayne & Robin Thicke’s tribute to New Orleans. While that is all well and good, how Lil’ Wayne wins Best Rap Album, Rap Song, and Solo Performance stretches my compression of the human species to the limit and demeans the value of winning a Grammy. Because too many bad sentences can begin with, “If Lil’ Wayne can win a Grammy…”

So all in all, I was entertained by many of the acts and was glad that they included not just the commercial successes in both the award winners and in the performances.

So I've been AWOL for a few weeks--apologies to anyone who cares, but I just didn't have much I felt like writing about at the time, but I do have a couple things on my mind of late.

#1 - The Virtual Console on the Wii is awesome.  This is not a new discovery for me, I figured this out pretty much instantaneously back when we bought the Wii last year.  For the uninitiated, the Virtual Console is basically a game system within the Wii.  You can download retro games from the NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and the NEO GEO directly to your Wii for $5-$10 depending on which system the game is for.  So we have all the old Mario and Zelda games, without the hassle of having to do the Nintendo Shaman rituals required to get an ancient cartridge to work, and it's just brilliant.  Now, that leads me to...

#2 - What is the best Mario game, and why?  

For my money, I've got to go with Super Mario 64--even as much as I really do enjoy all of the sidescrolling Mario Game (Mario 3 probably being the best of those), I've probably come back to play this one more often than any of the others.  

Here you have the introduction of so many of Mario's now-staple movements--the long jump, triple jump, butt bounce, wall jump, back flip, and dive--he even punches, kicks, and slide tackles.  In fact, I'm struggling to think of any other moves that have been developed since then.  It also might have the best "flying Mario" mechanic out of all of the games--it's still a thrill to swoop and dive without the terrible camera angles that are forced on you in Galaxy.

This game also introduced the ability to choose which level you want to play next, so I can choose to play in the "world" of Jolly Roger Bay or go to Thwomp's Fortress, as opposed to the preceding games which were, for the most part linear (there's some jumping around in Super Mario Land via Star Road, but still not the same sort of thing).  You've also got red coin stars and 100 coin stars, plus lots of secret levels.

#3  Friday Night Lights, the tv show.  I'm a little past midway through watching the second season on DVD--highly addictive.  It's a tv series based on the film of the same name, which was based on a nonfiction book of the same name about a Texas high school (American) football team.  Even though it revolves around a football team, much of the show is off of the field, dealing with their families and the relationships with their friends.  Complex characters, very compelling narratives, and even a great soundtrack.   There's a lot to like here.

#4  The Oscars Itch is upon me.  I am scrambling to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as I can before the broadcast on the 22nd.  

Down: Frost/Nixon, Tropic Thunder, Doubt, The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Slumdog Millionaire.

To Go (among major awards):  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader, Milk, The Wrestler, The Visitor, Rachel Getting Married, Changling, and Frozen River. 

I'm starting to get nervous--I'm running out of time.  At this present moment all of these titles can be seen between Grand Rapids, Lansing, and on DVD (The Visitor out already and Frozen River on the 10th, Changling on the 17th). 

More on Oscar and these films next weekend.  Cheers!

Light at the end of the tunnel!!!!!!

Sorry Austin for not keeping with the trend yesterday, the past few weeks have been insanely busy and it doesn't look like easing up in the near future as the wife and i are due to expect the arrival of our 2nd son in the next few hours, days, or weeks its that close, but i do see "Light at the end of the tunnel"

Anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Superbowl Sunday:
What a game, in particular what a 4th quarter. I have new found respect for QB's and their calming ability to perform game winning drives where the possibility that just one misplaced pass goes astray and so do your hopes of winning the most prestigious title in American sports.

Big Ben produced the most memorable game winning drive that i have witnessed since coming to the States and taking part in the Superbowl Sunday Euphoria. In supporting Manchester United all these years and being passionate about it beyond belief i have been used to them doing things the hard way in winning titles over the past 10-15 years, but nothing like this final drive by the Steelers.

In his post match interview Holmes said he wanted the ball, he wanted to make the plays to win the Superbowl for his team. You need some "Chun duoys" (that's Chinese for "Balls" for anyone that wants to know) in a game of this magnitude to be able to say that let alone execute it, but to his credit he delivered and now the Pittsburgh Steelers are the most successful franchise in Superbowl history.

Going back to my "doing things the hard way" did you see Holmes miss a catch with no pressure at all around him on 2nd down i think it was just before he caught the game winning touchdown in 2 yards of space surrounded by 3 Cardinals players....... hence my respect for QB's, for Big Ben to put the ball on a dime so to speak with barely no room to maneuver is incredible and well worthy of an MVP, but can anyone begrudge Holmes of his nomination...... i can't. Congratulations Steelers

English Premiership:
Well things are finally taking shape in the most exciting season yet, even with defeat at Anfield on Sunday i still see Chelsea finishing 3rd in the top 4, but now see Villa taking Arsenal spot in 4th place after some impressive performances under Martin O'neil.

Liverpool went out of the FA Cup last night to Everton and losing Stevie G for 3 weeks..... no he has not been sent to jail just yet LOL, but he will be missing due to a torn hamstring. Given the fact that he has rescued Liverpool so many times and he is their driving force and also Rafa's complete stupidity in selling Keane back to Spurs i now see United regaining their title in May.

Its all squeaky bum time down at the bottom of the table, really anyone from 8th place can go down, 2 wins for any team on the bounce and they move like 9 places which in recent Premiership campaigns has been unheard of, but i am going to predict the following 3 teams that will be relegated to the Championship.
18 - Newcastle United
19 - Stoke City
20 - West Brom

TV:
Shows on the box right now are class, i have subjected myself to 2 new programs "The Beast" & "Damages"
The Beast is actually quite good, Patrick Swayze i have always liked since the days of his movies "Youngblood" & "Roadhouse", but i was actually impressed by the first few episodes... check it out.

Damages has just started season 2 so i picked it up late, but its not hard to get to grips with what happened in Season 1 as their are enough flashbacks, i have never liked Glen Close acting or looks, but she is actually pretty damn good in this drama. Her assistant is Ellen is quite hot, but the storyline is cool... check it out.

Nip Tuck - Classic for any guy to watch
24 - Best Season start yet, can they keep it up throughout the entire season
House - Class above no other
CSI Miami - Getting boring
The Unit - Awesome
Burn Notice - you have got to check this out, people call it cheesy, but i really like it

Looking forward to the return of Prison Break...... see ya next week