Monday, January 14, 2008

Hi all.Had real fun with niece Breaz in Florida...
The Soulja Boy thing is red-hot there, and she informed me she was selected for doing the very best "Soulja Boy" improv on the dance floor. Next visit, we'll go out and I'll record the evidence!Meantime, she's got a 3.6 GPA (A!!!) at school, and is enjoying learning all about her chosen field...I'll be mysterious and just say it's in the Healing Arts!

After getting to meet a lot of Breaz's pals, and watching a bit of MTV,I realized I'd forgotten how very dramatic the age of 19 can be, but I think these kids today(dear God, did I just type "these kids today"?I'm officially old.)have such different stuff to deal with.Never mind seeing several acts of terrorism(Oklahoma City, WTC, Pentagon, overseas bombings, etc.)already in their very young lifetime, they also have to deal with the wretched responses to some of these catastrophies--responses that turn catastrophic events into tragedies they did not HAVE to be. Take Huricane Katrina. Natural disaster, but the real tragedy was preventable--the levees COULD've been secured, but weren't, and we all know about the incredibly incompetent "response" to those injured, left homeless, and dying. And their companion animals. And their property.
There's war which has been created by the U.S.(see Iraq), and there is the ever-increasing emphasis on absolute, ugly consumerism, and fame-for-fame's-sake(see also the Disney's tv show, Sweet Sixteen, and anything that has the first name Paris or the last name Lohan in it!) with little note taken of true beauty, art, poetry. I fear many in this "Y" generation have had their souls STOLEN from them.
No wonder so many young people-- whether secure in a loving, whole family, or left in a home where a parent could not be fully available to them--feel so fractured, and become so violent.
There's hope, of course. Because the one thing youth always has, is HOPE. We older ones can see it in their eyes--even though they are often eyes that hurt-- they glow with hope.


Any thoughts on the Election? I don't know what to make of the Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton comments on the Civil Rights movement, but gosh, isn't there room for credit for everyone? I mean, MLK was the LEADER for Peace and Social Justice--it's not a stretch to say the 1960's would not have been the 1960's, without him.But certainly, President Lyndon Johnson deserves credit for signing into law, the Civil Rights Act!
Could we all stop bickering?

2 comments:

Collin Kelley said...

It just cracks me up that kids of all ages are dancing and singing to that Soulja Boy song. Parents and adults don't get the lyrics. The song is about masturbating and, in one instance, on a woman while she's asleep (Superman that ho!!!!). Google the lyrics, then go to the Urban Dictionary and see what the kids are listening to these days. I've seen vids on YouTube of young kids and school assemblies doing the dance and singing the song, but they obviously have no idea what the song means.

Lisa Nanette Allender said...

oh, wow, Coll--I did NOT know that....
songs can have more than merely one meaning...
but you know, here's what I think:
"I like it, it has a great beat, Dick(pun intended), and you can dance to it..."