My Mimi

I’m sitting in the hospice by my grandmother’s side. Thinking about what her life was, rather than is, has been a place of comfort. She was a woman who got everything she wanted, and did whatever she pleased. By no means was she a feminist, but she was progressive in her own ways.

In the ‘70s she hosted a plethora of parties, as was common for the ‘70s housewife- but she invited her gay hairdresser and his partner. All that mattered to her was that Doug could cut her hair correctly and would let her tell him when he was doing it wrong.

Again, she was never a political person and to my knowledge never fought for rights of any type. She didn’t burn her bra’s- but she was tolerant of any alternative lifestyles. What she wasn’t tolerant of was mismatched outfits and mixing silver with gold. That was unacceptable.

She was the only grandmother I’ve heard of who didn’t push her granddaughter (me) to get married and have kids. At 85 she knew the value of education and being successful on my own. It’s funny what life teaches you once you’ve outlived three husbands.

It also interesting to think how far women have come in her lifetime- 85 years. Women have been clamoring to work while balancing a family as the media began to represent them as actual people, rather than house objects. While the media still has some strides to take, Mimi doesn’t. She was a loving person who never cared about race, religion, sexual affiliation or gender issue. Those weren’t the important parts of a person and she realized that. It’s time for the media to catch up to my grandmother.

Propagating Sports

It would seem that the DFW area is a mecca of sports. We have soccer (even if no one cares about it), hockey, baseball and football. The Cowboys are dubbed “America’s Team,” while the Rangers represent “America’s past-time.” Oh, and let’s not forget America’s other past-time: Nascar. We have that a few times a year as well clogging up 114 with “redneck traffic.”

All of these events can remind us, almost constantly, of a duty to America. Sporting events are likened to battles fought between two enemies. Lucky for me, I can root for America when I cheer on Tony Romo. I wonder what rational Eagle fans have?
This is all beside the point really- I’m interested in how the government uses an entire sporting event to propagate itself and its armies. Before important games, giant American flags are rolled out over entire fields. The national anthem is sung before all games. And if you’re really lucky, you can see Marines (Or Army or Navy) get sworn in before the game. Then jets fly over and really solidify the notion of war, nation and pride. Then you get peanuts and settle in for a long game of baseball.

By making baseball and the swearing in of Marines a joined event, we are being reminded that both are good. If you like baseball, then you also need to like the armed forces. The two are propagated to exist in harmony. Again, the national anthem is played, religiously, before sporting events- to again instill that pride.
One day a baseball, basketball or football game will happen and the anthem won’t be played and an American flag won’t be in sight. But that sense of pride will still manage to bubble up, because we’ve been indoctrinated to feel certain ways at certain events.

So perhaps DFW isn’t lucky. We have just that many more opportunities to be victims of propaganda.

Practically Perfect

In tonight’s discussion on Disney a point was brought up: What else do we show children? What movies don’t have ulterior motives and themes?

Once again, Mary Poppins is practically perfect. She’s a middle-age woman with no real attachment to a man. Her friendship with Burt is obvious, but in no way is it a romantic relationship that strengthens her. She's strong on her own. One might argue that she betters him, but I would say that his affinity for her is not based on what she can bring him, rather is revealing a fondness for her on his part. This is actually more interesting as she acknowledges his feelings, but doesn’t see the need to reciprocate. Rather she enjoys them. Without being promiscuous. Look at that! Men and women being friends without sleeping together- it really can happen.

Furthermore she helps fix a broken family. In no way is the mother a “wicked witch” figure. She’s just occupied by the suffragette movement and is busy in the classic, 1920s social manner. Thus a nanny is needed. The father is also not evil and isn’t portrayed as such. Rather he’s overly focused and defined by his stereotypical banking job. He’s not a dad- he’s a providing father who is emotionally absent. By the end, the family learns to be a family. Together.

And the kids? They are standard kids. Mary Poppins teaches them to understand the downtrodden and introduces them to interesting characters that provide positive character reinforcement. Some like to laugh. Some feed the birds. Some are cartoons that break the bounds of physics. She also instills good work ethic and rewards cleaning (work) with rewards. She even teaches them how to spell and use big words. Or rather one large word- and for a 7 year old, that’s work.

The worst thing that children nowadays could glean from Mary Poppins is an over reliance on umbrellas. So parents- when sitting your kid in front of “Mary Poppins” make sure they understand proper umbrella etiquette.

Ethical Rape?

I’m musing, and I often like to muse about the conflicts that arise between sets of ethics. So, prompted by a recent class discussion, I’m musing if rape could ever be considered ethical.

It needs to be immediately noted that morals, ethics and legal systems are not the same thing. Rape is illegal. Rape is immoral. And in my opinion rape is always (get that always?) wrong.

So let me set up a scenario that might be familiar to frequent viewers of “Law & Order: SVU.” A woman police officer goes undercover in a female prison to expose a corrupt prison guard and drug ring. She is heavily briefed on how dangerous the mission is, and yet everyone realizes that this route is basically the only way to “catch the bad guy.” Long story short, she is sexually assaulted/raped by the evil prison guard. He is caught and put in prison on a litany of charges. Let it be noted that she was NOT looking to be sexually assaulted to catch the bad man. It just kinda happened that way.

Utilitarianism tells us simply that it is “the greatest good for the greatest majority.” Going off of this simplification of Jeremy Bentham’s brain child* it becomes clear that getting the bad guy is best for society, or the majority. He won’t have the chance to rape any more women and his other illicit activities will stop. In this case, the female police officer’s rape was the reason he was caught. So, in this line of reason, we could say her rape benefited the majority. Thus, the rape is ethical.

Again, it’s important to note that what is ethical isn’t always what is right. And vice versa. Ain’t ethics a bitch?

So let’s stray to the other side of the ethical fence to the deontological point of view. Because this is my blog, and my favorite ethical philosopher (yes, I have one, don’t you?) is Immanuel Kant, we’ll use his strict guidelines as our ethical road map.

Kant suggests that we create axioms to live by- or something that never contradicts humanity and is so rational that humanity must accept it.* This is basically his first Categorical Imperative. His second stems from the first and says that humans can never be a means to an end.

Well right there we’re stopped and it’s obvious the rape situation isn’t ethical. A person was used to obtain an end (the arrest of a very bad guy). But let’s look at it a bit further- sexual assault on a male or female, insults the rational of humanity. Again, I can’t see a way to allow for rape in accordance to this first Categorical Imperative.

So do a little tap dance and rejoice for the deontological approach that says rape is bad. At least I will.

*Bentham is credited for Utilitarianism, while John Stewart Mill is known for it. Mill took the concept and ran a bit. For this blog I’m going off of Bentham’s approach, which is a more stringent view of utilitarianism.
*Please refer to my earlier blog post about Kant and his approach to creating axioms.