Paparazzi

Over the years, suicide seems to have become almost commonplace. No longer is it shocking or unheard of. Regardless of age, background, or socioeconomical status, suicide seems to be one of the things that can touch any family without warning. Death is always tragic. Even when we know it’s coming, there is nothing easy about losing a loved one. I can’t imagine how those who are left handle such a loss… senseless losses, I’m assuming, must leave even more of a trace of desperation and helplessness. Who is it this time? Marie Osmond and Brian Blosil’s son, Michael. According to the Huffington Post, the 18-year old leapt from his apartment building and took his own life yesterday.

Back in 2007, Marie and Brian Blosil divorced after having three children and adopting five others (including Michael) over the course of their two-decade long marriage. Marie’s father passed away in early November and soon after, Michael was admitted to rehab at the age of 16. This is just heartbreaking. I extend my deepest condolences to his family… My mind keeps going a million miles a minute just recalling all of the suicides in recent years.

What can we do as a society? Anything? I’m not sure… I don’t know that there is anything we can do to save someone who doesn’t feel their life is valuable enough to preserve. I just wish there were something – some way to prevent this from happening. It’s so hard to know what to even think, or say… All I can do is pray that anyone in my life who feels this way knows that I am here for them without judgment… without hesitation… without a doubt.

Men are going to be men. Cheating is not anything new. Men have been cheating on their wives and significant others for centuries. As women, we have known this. We may not except these deplorable actions, but we know it.

What does bother me is that someone who has said that we can trust them by holding a public office and attempting to run as president of your great country, the United States of America, denied a child after cheating on his wife. He said the child, in no way could be his.

It was reported that  John Edwards brought his mistress, Rielle Hunter, into his home that he shared with his wife, Elizabeth, while his she was out of town. Not only did he have Rielle in their home, John had her around his kids. Rielle slept with John in the bed that he shared with his wife. Rielle also slept with John many times during his failed presidential campaign. She even gave John a nickname “Love Lips”.  Elizabeth was battling breast cancer while all this was going on. He ultimately fathered a child with Rielle. Only to later deny that the child was biologically his.

John, paternity tests have called you a liar. You had the nerve to call the woman you slept with a “stupid slut.” I wonder what that makes you? You are scum. The scum that sticks to the bottom of my shoe. I am not calling you scum for cheating on your wife as much as I am calling you scum for denying that innocent child that did not ask for you to be her daddy. In my eyes you are not her daddy, you were purely her sperm donor. You should be setting an example for those who voted you into office. Denying children has been an epidemic in this country. If you did not to father a child, you are a well educated and grown man and should know enough about protection. I hope your children do not follow in your footsteps in life.

I am not only disgusted with John for his careless actions, but Rielle was a knowing party in this love triangle. She knew she was dealing with a liar when she made the decision to sleep with a married man. She is at as much fault as good ole John Edwards.

Let’s hear what our readers think:

Should elected officials be held to higher standards than other public figures?

Thursday afternoon was the last afternoon 2009 would see. It was also the last afternoon a toddler in Rayville, Louisiana would see. I pulled up our local news yesterday to find the following article about a 3 year old boy who accidentally shot and killed his 3 year old cousin with his father’s pistol, issued to him by the Rayville Police Department.

Rayville police responded to a shooting Thursday afternoon that resulted in the death of a 3-year-old girl, the niece of a police officer apparently shot by his 3-year-old son.

Sheriff Charles McDonald said the Rayville Police Department received a call around 2:30 p.m. about a possible shooting on Waldorf Street.

McDonald said an off-duty Rayville officer was visiting another off-duty officer.

He said two children were playing in the front yard.

McDonald said when the visiting officer arrived at the residence, he turned to the inside of his vehicle to get something. While he was turned, the boy walked up and picked up the officer’s firearm, which was in the driver’s side door. McDonald said the boy pulled the trigger and accidently shot the girl, killing her instantly.

McDonald called the incident a “tragic accident.”

The names of the officers and the children involved were not immediately released.

The only thing I can imagine being more horrific than witnessing such a tragic accident is being the parent of the child that passed away. There are so many things we can think after accidents happen, but once something is done, it’s done. I’ve had heated debates about how overly protective I am of my children. I’ve heard people say, “No one is going to do such-and-such to my child because they know if they did, I would {insert action here}.” The point is, once it is done there is nothing you can do to undo it. No matter what your response is, the situation still is what it was to begin with.

When it comes to children, you can’t have afterthoughts. You can’t live reactively. You have to think proactively. You can’t take action on the backend. You have to be careful on the front end. You have to think about the what-ifs of life in advance. Once it’s too late, there is no going back… and when accidents turn fatal, there is no fixing it… there is no learning from it… There is only regret and emptiness, and trying to find enough comfort to move on. Taking care of children is a job that never ends. Being aware of what is around when children are present is often a draining chore. You constantly have to make sure that there is nothing small they can choke on, nothing harmful they can reach to put in their mouth…

When you become comfortable with certain things being around children, that is when you stop being so aware. I’m certainly not placing blame or pointing fingers. Accidents do happen, unfortunately. When they do, it’s time for the rest of us to hold our children tightly, thankful that this time it wasn’t us… it wasn’t our child… but learning from that parent’s pain and loss to prevent the same thing from happening to our family. My heart goes out to EVERY parent who has lost a child and my prayers are with this family as they process the grief of knowing this little girl is gone… and this little boy who will grow up to understand that it was his hand that pulled the trigger. I hope that he is not traumatized.

That being said, this is my plea to EVERY person who owns any type of firearm that ever has a chance of coming into contact with a child: keep it locked up… keep it out of reach… and certainly never leave the safety off. This was an accident… and my heart bleeds for the pain these people are going through, but like most accidents, a mistake was made that caused a tragedy which could have been prevented.

Be careful. Be aware. Think ahead.

From what little I’ve actually paid attention to in the overbearing Tiger Woods saga, I think the mistress tally is up to 12 and there’s a *breaking news* story surrounding the situation like literally every five minutes. I get that he’s a celebrity. I get that everyone is oh-so-shocked that golf’s “good boy” has numerous “transgressions” of this type and magnitude… I get it. But seriously people… does no one have their own life anymore? The media has become more vicious with time and not only are the gossip columns overrun with these distasteful, blood thirsty stories but now it’s trickled over into the evening news. Here’s a newsflash for you:

THIS IS NOT NEWS!

How many soldiers died today? How many starving children lost another parent to AIDS in yet another underdeveloped country? How many women were raped, banks were robbed, charities established, acts of humanity carried out? How many little old ladies turned 100 today? I don’t want to know anything else about “where in the world is Tiger’s willy wonka?!”

One of society’s main problems is that no one knows how to mind their own business… I think the fact that bad things are happening in other people’s lives allows the vultures of our culture to allow the distraction of faking disgust with “things like this” to take their minds off of how screwed up their own situation is. Happy people do not delight in the suffering of others. Period. Furthermore, if all your attention goes to other people’s business, who is taking care of what you’re supposed to be focused on? Who is minding YOUR business??

People… let it go. Ok, everyone in the WORLD now knows that Tiger Woods slept with a bunch of white women… everyone needs to ask themselves now that they know, how has their life been made more complete? Since the Woods family’s private issues have been made material for public consumption and their problems have been compounded by opinion columns abroad, DO YOU REALLY EVEN CARE?!

… And for clarification, I specified “white” women because this *story* has now reopened this age old debate about what everyone and their mother thinks about interracial relationships. Here’s the second newsflash:

ANYONE THAT IS IN AN INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP
OBVIOUSLY COULDN’T POSSIBLY CARE LESS ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK.

So, yes… there it is. The number two reason for my irritation about this entire issue (number one being the fact that it’s not anyone’s business but Tiger’s and Elin’s… and of course the other 12 women, but eh…): Why does a person’s *type* only come into question when RACE is involved? Seriously… why does it even matter? I don’t care who resents it, who thinks it’s wrong, or who has an opinion on *why* people date outside their race. At the end of the day, point number on still applies: it’s none of your business.

So, you tell me:

1. Does being a public figure justify your personal life being blasted all over the news like this? I mean, at what point does a person’s personal life become… well, not personal anymore? Does ANYONE really see this as being fair?
2. Do you contribute to this feeding frenzy? By this, I am asking if it excites you to read about the demise of other couples. I find it unfortunate that a family can’t work through their issues without having magazines poll the country as to whether they think the couple’s relationship is “worth” saving. That’s sick.
3. What – if anything – are your thoughts about the relevance of Tiger’s *choice* in women? I mean, adultery is adultery regardless of if the women are white, black, asian, or horses, correct?!

I think if I had to contribute ANY thoughts to the situation, the only thing I would ask is, “Did NONE of these athletes learn from Steve McNair’s affair??” Just sayin…

Before anyone starts to hyperventilate about the title, let me just add… “at least it seems to be for me…” I do believe I have become conditioned to think in 140-character increments. Something I can’t explain in 140 characters? Oh, that’s fine. I’ll blog it. Something I don’t feel like writing? No problemo! I’ll just vlog it. No one seems to be responding on Twitter? Hahah… no worries! Facebook and MySpace are always there to save the day I’ve developed a dependency on being plugged in. I cook in 5 minute intervals… stir, whip, spray, pour, flip … RUN TO CHECK TWEETDECK! … And, oh wait… what’s this? {I LOST A FOLLOWER?!} What did I say? Did I do something wrong? The horror!

“Hi, my name is Kathleen and I have an internet addiction. Moreso than that, I am addicted to social media.“

It’s becoming such a problem that I cannot repeat what someone says without the overwhelming urge to precede their statement with RT. When I laugh, “LOL” crosses my mind. When I get frustrated, *ugh* flashes before my eyes. SOMEONE HELP ME… My reality is being taken over by – gasp – the virtual world! I wake up in the morning and no matter how badly I have to pee, the first thing on my mind is, “Oh my, I’ve been sleeping for a whole FOUR hours… must.Check.EMAIL!” If I stop at a red light, you guessed it… I’ve got Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook on group speed text so that I can update on the fly

I can’t take a photo without uploading it to DropShots. I can’t even cook a large meal without TwitPic-ing it. Videos? Directly to YouTube! I stalk my site stats. “Hmmm… I wonder who that is from Denver?  … Wow! Someone in Baton Rouge viewed 387 pages. *What, no comments?!?!?* … Wow my visitors have increased by 33% since last month. YAY!” If I’m not going to be around, I schedule tweets with HootSuite. To avoid being late posting my Wordless Wednesday meme post, I schedule it too. LOL If my internet signal goes weak and I can’t connect, I start panicking. Like – seriously – panicking. As in, someone-hand-me-a-paper-bag panicking…

What’s my point? Social media is my drug of choice. What is it about everyone knowing my every move, and vise versa, that is so super appealing to me? Why can’t I just walk away and not wonder who is LOLing or who is OMGing or who has @mentioned me and without caring whether or not anyone has ‘liked’ my new status? What am I – a networking crackhead? Even famous quotes become distorted in this tormented little mind of mine – like “as a man thinketh, he shall SO blog.”

I need therapy.

Ahhh… I think I’ll choose the poor man’s alternative: I’ll lay down and tweet about it

Written by KAT ROBERTSON
Originally posted on MomDot.com

A couple of days ago, a 9 year old little girl came up missing… In recent years, I’ve noticed a drastic increase in missing persons  cases that are children… and way too many stories about children coming up dead. My oldest child is nine years old… she will be 10 in February. I look at her and I cannot imagine how it must feel for a parent to realize their child has gone missing… Just thinking about gives my heart a feeling of terror. There is no nightmare comparable to that reality… to face the fact that we are living in a world full of rapists and murderers… a world full of individuals who are sick and twisted and who prey on the innocent and defenseless members of our society – they take advantage of the weaknesses in the elderly and the young.

It’s a haunting thought… how can a child fall victim to such a heinous crime?

Then… the little girl’s ‘body’ is found – and it is not a middle aged, mentally challenged, psychotic man with prior child-related offenses on his record that we’re glaring down at looking for answers; no, there is a 15 year old child in the hotseat who is apparently responsible for the death of this little girl. So now, not only do we have to be wary of pathetic pedophiles; not only are demented adult sickos after our children, but now – now, we must protect our children from CHILDREN as well, and not just the bully kind that wants a buck at lunch every day.

My mind takes me back to a time I once heard of where villages were involved in raising – and protecting – children. During that time, children could play in the street, walk to town, stay outside from dawn to dusk riding bikes and being mischievous – and there was no question of whether or not they would make it home at night. Now, we barely know our neighbors and we’re programmed to get offended if we receive any type of ‘bad’ report from someone else about our children. We don’t want people in our business… Today, we’re doing good if we manage to wave to the people on our block a couple of times a week. How many of your neighbors can you call by name {without them wondering if you’ve been pilfering through their mail to get their information}?

I personally believe that we have traded our safety for privacy at a very precious price. We’ve sacrificed the security of the village and now, we’re losing our children – in more ways than one.

A couple of weeks ago, I’m sure everyone heard about a man who slapped the 2 year old child of a complete stranger in Walmart. Aside | from | a few | harmless | tweets, I’ve maintained my silence on this issue for the most part – until today

I’ve seen people knock the crap out of their kids in WalMart… you know, the whole “PUT-THAT-DOWN!”-*smack!* kind of thing. But never… NEVER… have I ever seen anyone knock the crap out of someone ELSE’s kid in WalMart. Until now.

Ok, granted *I* didn’t personally see it, but just the mental visualization is enough in itself. I’ve pondered many a day over this situation and no matter how I look at it, I just keep coming back to the same question: HOW did this man get his hands on this woman’s kid with her standing there? The report says that the man WARNED the mother to quiet her 2 year old daughter or HE would. This would be immediately become a problem for me. Did you just THREATEN my toddler? {I would have been asking this question rhetorically as I was taking off my earrings and rolling back my sleeves.}

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this whole ordeal is that I keep being burdened by the question of WHO is going to protect our children if WE don’t? I mean, seriously – think this through from beginning to end:

You’re walking along through WalMart with your 2 year old kid in the buggy. You’ve been in there a while. The kid is bored… she’s just entered into the terrible-two world of autonomy, limitation stretching, and boundary breaking. She was ready to GO like 20 minutes ago, but you’re only got a fewwww things left to grab. So, what does she do? She starts whining… and it gradually gets increasingly louder as the minutes roll by. You’re stressed… you’re going as fast as you can. You’re doing the best you can. BREATHE. Up walks this old man and you’re thinking that – like everyone else – he’s going to say something about how cute your precious little girl is, but instead out pops this rude and shocking comment about shutting your kid up FOR you if you don’t do it yourself.

My reaction process would go a little like this:

1. BRAIN MELT DOWN
2. … must find keys
3. … must gouge eyes out
4. … MUST PROTECT OFFSPRING!

There just IS no other way to respond to this type of threat. I mean, this is your KID he’s talking about! Dude, I double … no, I TRIPLE-dog dare you to stick your hand over toward my cart. You don’t even have to touch it. Just ease it over this way. YOU WILL MOST DEFINITELY DRAW BACK A NUB! Yep, that’s right – one of those things without any digits on it… Anyway, back on topic – so let’s give the lady the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she ignored the comment thinking he was just being a mean old fart and not imagining in her wildest dreams he would actually DO anything. BUT, oh dear Lord…

The man reaches over and commences to slapping this child about the FACE. Re-peat-ed-ly…

All rationale and reason goes out the window at this point as far as I’m concerned. There is no right or wrong. There is no calm and collected. There is no understanding you’re an old fart. There is only THAT IS MY KID YOU’RE HITTING! But, this mother actually allows for enough time for her child to be struck at least 4 times.

I’m getting a headache just trying to wrap my mind around that.

FOUR … count with me … 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … FOUR times this man struck this little girl. And the mom is SCREAMING at him. Really? He has enough time to extend and retract his arm FOUR times while popping the little apple-of-your-eye in the FACE and I have to assume that there is some type of genetic issue with your arms which prevented you from DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!?

Look, people… I won’t drag this out to be a terribly long post. All of this is just my extremely lengthy and personally meaningful way of saying STOP letting people take advantage of you! I don’t know what on God’s green earth leads a person to believe it to be acceptable for them to put their hands on someone else’s child… There are some freakin crazies in the world – no doubt about it. That being said, I don’t care what type of fear or apprehension you would have on a normal day, but on a day where some stranger grabs your kid and starts trying to knock her ear wax out through her nostril, I would hope to HEAVEN that you do something to put at end to the abuse prior to lick number FOUR.

What do you think?

Did the mother handle this in a way the typical mother would respond? Am I just some psycho crazy mama, assuming that others would be willing to go to war for their children since, clearly, I would? I’d love to know your thoughts on this situation. I’ve even heard it suggested that the mother was neglectful in allowing this to happen to her child right in front of her. What do you say to that? Post a comment at the bottom of this page to join in the conversation!