Media Power

In the past few weeks we have heard a lot about a NBA player named Jeremy Lin. He has made it clear his passion is to play basketball. Yes, he has had a tough road to become the player he is today. But, the power of the media has put him and his family in the lime light. He has a interview after every game he has played this season. He has been compared to some great NBA players already. The power of the media once again plays such a role in how we think and perceive a person.

Jeremy has asked the media to leave his family alone because of the risk of notoriety placed on a celebrity. He stated in an interview that his grandmother is being stalked by the media in her home country.  He doesn’t want anything to happen to his family because of him. All he wants to do is play the game. Why is it so hard for the media to listen to a person request? Why must the media make the decision for someone and make it a responsibility for a celebrity or athlete talk to them at their request? I think media power has gone way overbroad with what they do.

I do not like it when the media makes the decision for. Do not get it wrong, it is good to see a person excel at what they do. Must the media place a person on a pedestal?  Celebrities and athletes are just people like you and me. The one thing that separates us is the amount of money made for doing a job. I think this is why the media thinks they are obligated to open their life to the public. We like and want our personal space and our life kept personal. It should not be any different for a celebrity or athlete. 

We hear about celebrities and athletes almost daily. This is why they are portrayed as role models. They are not role models. They are people. We rarely here about local community role models from the media. Since the media has so much power they owe us as a population to change how people are portrayed. Jeremy Lin is a human being, not a phenom.  Jeremy Lin can be portrayed as an athlete who worked hard and held on to his dream. He has dealt with ups and downs, learned from his past to work hard to be a successful basketball player who can compete in the NBA. He has made huge strides with his game playing but still has a lot to learn. As long as we allow the media to dictate of course they will continue down this path. We need to demand and become active somehow with mainstream media to give us down to earth reporting. A lot of us are true sports fans and we recognize hard work and do not but athletes on a pedestal. We enjoy watching the athletes as well as the game.

espn.com

nytimes.com

yahoo.com

 

Am I Ugly on the Internet

 The things people use for the internet are really funny to me. I was looking at the home page on MSN and what did I see. I seen a topic on how teens and tweens are using the internet to ask if they are ugly or not, really? This is too funny. What parent would allow their child to do this? I cannot see allowing my daughter, granddaughter, niece or any female for that matter to post a video or picture asking such a silly question. This is how we have so many of the internet crimes with young women in this country.

I believe there use to be a show on TV about internet stalkers looking to meet some of these young under age kids posting profiles on different websites on the internet. I did watch the show all the time, I caught it as I was channel surfing. This was a show I did not like to watch because the sickness grown people have to look at young kids is something I cannot understand. This is another story though.  My point is if this is going on why as a parent would you allow a posting like this on the internet.  Then there is the excuses on kids do things no one would know about. This is true but again another story because it depends on how kids are raised. I will not go into that because of all the different views. I cannot believe we have turned into a society to use the internet to boost our self esteem.

As I read the article it was not condoling this action, it was questioning this act as I am. So, I jumped on board to write this blog about it. I have to say I do agree with the content of the article. I have to say I really do not know how I would react if I did find out my daughter had a video posted asking this question. I do not if I would be angry, sad or concerned. I would think I would give a big hug and let her know just how beautiful she is. We as parents probably need to tell our kids more often how beautiful they are and smart too. We live in a different age and time which a lot of our kids are paying the price.

We live in age where kids need more due to access of technology and information. I think our kids think differently now due to access of information. There is more freedom to information where kids read and hear things that makes them think about too early in their lives. We did not see or hear things in our generation in comparison to our kid’s generation. This is a generational divide. I think this is why we have self esteem issues with our kids. We have so many issues and diagnoses for kids these days that it is amazing. We basically have to cater to a lot kids instead of raising our kids. My thought lets continue to love and be a part of our kid’s lives to instill self esteem and ambition to be all they can be!!

My Niece

Sitting here talking to my niece and man she has a lot on her mind. It is up to me to be that person to allow her to sit and talk it out. She is young and has a lot on her mind. It is amazing when your hear someone express some of their personal issues. This was a great night to sit with my niece. She is grown now and has dealt with a lot of issues in her life. Some which I cannot say due to them are for family only.  As we all know some things are better left unsaid.  Some of the things coming out of her mouth I was like really, this cannot be my niece. She has grown up so much.  

I have missed a lot of her growing up years due to them living in another state. I also left to go to college. I have not spent quality time with my niece for a very long time. While I was trying to complete this blog we spent some quality time together. I can tell when my niece needs to talk or vent. Tonight was one of those nights. We have had family coming to my house a lot since they came back and we was in the kitchen talking with my auntie. She started during that conversation, but it came time for my auntie to leave. I went ahead to step up to the plate to be the uncle she needs. She needs someone to listen to her so she can get a lot of things off her chest. I do not treat her as my little niece, even though she is very small, she is grown. She has so much on her mind it is unreal. We talked for a long time and watched Tru TV channel. The shows we watched together were funny. It was good to see her laugh. She is such a strong person. She has endured a lot in her life and for her to still be so strong is a blessing within itself. I tell her all the time how proud I am of her. I just hope she really know I mean it. 

We talked about a lot of things. She told me she has a potty mouth. I know just too funny right. If you knew my niece you would not think she would ever say a bad word. She was telling me about some of her teenage confrontations in school. All I could do was smile and laugh. In my mind I just could not picture my little sweet innocent niece getting into it with anyone. She is so soft spoken and to hear her say she used bad words was just unbelievable. But she said she did so she did it, right? I only wish I could have been the fly on the wall so I could see and hear some of the things she would do and say. I truly believe she would have been hilarious. we have a saying for each other and it goes like: Who loves his niece she replies my uncle......lol.  Still at the end of the day, she is my niece and I care for here and would be there for her as well. 

P.S.

Pics of my dog Bambam

see how small he used to be.......lol

 

Money Rant

Earlier I posted a blog on NCAA conference re-alignments. I think what is going on in the NFL is part of the reason why major sports have become a business. We hear every year about how a player wants more money because they think they deserve more money. This is the same for major sports on the NCAA level. What about us the fans of the sport? No emphasis is put into any equations for us the fan. I would think college athletes feel the same. I was l looking at an article about Peyton Manning playing next year for Indianapolis Colts or not. It is centered around money based on his injury. The media plays a huge role in this as well. We as fans need to bring more attention to this travesty and do what we can to help our student athletes. We need to make sure college sports is not turned into a business and more and more profits are made off our kids.

Where I am going with this is our student athletes are programmed while in college to go to the big league to make all their money. It is amazing to me how this is deemed to be okay. Colleges and Universities make money off our athletes, than the athletes go to big league and make money off us. What a cycle we have. In my opinion none of this is okay. It is like the old saying money is the root of all evil………lol. Let think about the article mention earlier on Peyton Manning. He has a serious injury that kept him from playing all season in the NFL. His contract is in much discussion because of the #1 draft pick. He is due a large sum of money and the owner does not want to pay it because of the injury. As an owner he wants to get his money worth out of an athlete. This sounds familiar doesn’t it? Colleges and Universities want to make their money of the student athletes just like owners in major sports.   

The owner of the Colts wants to re-negotiate Peyton Manning contract to decrease his money. He puts it on communication where as they need to sit and discuss contract. He stated “But in the end, I’ve always believed the best communication is face-to-face communication. Without that, things can go wrong. I think it’s good if they’ve agreed to a date that they’re going to be sitting down and talking. The less this is done in public, the better off for everybody.” I can definitely see how important communication is for this process. What I say about this is to be honest with our student athletes. Make our student athletes aware of how much money they make and will potentially make for the school. I wonder if schools did this what the results would be. I wonder if our kids would look at matters in a different way when they get in trouble for taking money. I would really like to see some student athletes stand up for themselves.

http://msn.foxsports.com

nfl.com

ncaa.com

Family-The Woes

I live in South Kansas City, MO. It is amazing on how your family thinks you are doing so well because you are buying a house. I have a 3 bedroom townhouse where my nephew and I live.  I have not lived with my family in many years. This week my sister and her two kids moved from Oklahoma City to live with me because of some family issues.  Everyone thinks because I have my house and my truck that I have the funds and finances to help them out.  I am the youngest out of five kids. I have two older brothers and two older, sister one deceased. I was the sibling who took care of my sister funeral as well. You would think the oldest would take responsibility as the leader of the family. Somehow that leadership has been put on me. I have an idea as in why but I cannot say I am 100% correct. I have spoken with my family and I hear different things.

I have spoken with my oldest uncle. When we had our conversation he tried to explain why I was put in this role as leader. He tried to tell me because I was the only one with some sense he said. I thought that was funny, he didn’t. He was really serious about it. I told him that makes no sense. We went on to discuss this issue for about a couple of hours. I still did not understand nor wanted to take on the role. Time went by with no family issues which would call for me to take on the role. We usually have holiday gatherings at my house until I lost my high paying job due to economy. For a couple of years we did not have gatherings at my house. Thanksgiving 2011 was the first family gathering in two years. It was amazing and fun family time and of course the leadership role was brought up again. I didn’t argue the discussion this time. 

When my sister situation came, take a wild guess on whose phone was ringing like crazy. Easy guess wasn’t it! My brothers, younger half sister, father who I do not speak to, uncles and cousins were all calling me to see what I was going to do about my sister. It was automatic for everyone to place me in charge. I went on to take charge and start making the decisions to make sure we helped my sister get out of the situation she was in. It was hard but I did it. The decisions were difficult to make but someone had to do it. I paid for the bus tickets to get them here to my house. It was a long trip for them because the bus driver drove very slowly. But mainly they are here safe and sound for us to come together to love them and make sure they get all the help they need to get through this rough time in their lives and to get on their feet to have a new life beginning.