Predatory Commercialism and Feminism

Okay, let me start with a short disclaimer. I do not lack a sense of humor. I'm also not a "Militant, Radical, Lesbian, Feminist", anymore. Once upon a time, yes, now, not quite so much. Don't get me wrong I firmly believe in equal rights, but not at the expense of bashing men. Men are people too! I have some good friends who are men.

Okay, that said, I feel the media, and commercial marketing types, are getting a touch predatory about equal rights.

Predatory Commercialism is to my mind the use a specific concepts to find a lever into someone else's wallet when they might not otherwise be willing to spend money. Or to shroud something in market friendly phrases without really doing the concepts any justice. Home Despot for excample has recently launched a course, or courses called:

DIH! (Do it herself) Doh!

To "teach" women how to "do it yourself." So when did "Do it yourself" become not enough?

Then Pepsi has several new radio spots that just make me laugh my butt off everytime I hear them. The first one talks directly TO men, and ends with "Now you can look your cahonnes in the eye!" All about Pepsi Max, and diet Pepsi a man doesn't have to be embarassed to drink.

Excuse me, but when did drinking diet soda embarrase guys? I know plenty who drink it and don't have any problem with it. In fact, until I heard the commercial I never really thought anybody gave it much thought. I certainly didn't. But now we've got "PEPSI MAX" a Man's diet in the solid black can.

Not to let it go at that, I heard another Pepsi commercial talking about how women like to change our minds, constantly. So there are now multiple varieties of Pepsi with different flavorings added. Like Lime, Vanilla and Wild Cherry flavored Diet Pepsi so women can drink them and because we crave variety? It all smacks of the old comment about it being our prerogative to change our minds. But the commercial, like the one about Diet Pepsi Max being just for GUYS, made the whole thing feel cheap and sleazy to me. Especially since I know in this mass market, one size fits all push that retailers have, no-one's going to really carry the new stuff, leaving us all to stick with what we know. And of course, add flavor as we see fit. Like when I want a Cherry, Vanilla 7-Up! Oh, wait, that's neither cola, nor Pepsi. Which is honestly too sweet for me anyway. When I did still drink soda, and cola specifically, it was always Coke for me because it wasn't too sweet. I drank the diet, caffene free version, and that was hard enough to get, let alone diet, caffene free, wild cherry... Which you can bet they are NOT making.

Now, if you followed that all, there's a country song sung by Brad Paisely that I kid you not includes the line "It's hip now to be feminized!" He goes on to sing, "What can I say, at the end of the day, honey I'm still a guy!"

And a cute one you are Brad. But the whole song is about him not buying into the rampant feminization of men. Color me stupid, but I like my men to look like men, and women to look like women. This way I don't accidentally say something stupid and without meaning to, hurt someone's feelings.

Wow, yeah, me babbling I'm thinking...

Sorry.

Cost Benefit Analysis of being green.

Most grocery stores these days sell reusable shopping bags for a very low cost. One brings them back and reuses them and gets a couple cents discount on their purchase. So what does that mean? Mean's I just carry them back, and my groceries get put in there instead of those flimsy plastic bags that get thrown away and fill up landfills. So they are a buck. At three cents back per bag, per trip, go grocery shopping 34 times and the bag was free. Plus you've avoided 34 plastic bags in landfills. There's also the cost of making those bags, printing them, shipping them and then putting them out at registers. It's a win for everyone involved.

There are more things that one can do, like energy efficient light bulbs, keeping your car tuned up, the tires properly inflated and so much more. You save money, and save the world a couple of cetns as a time.

Your Narcissism Score is 0!

So I took another of those online tests, especially given the reading I've been doing of late, this one was about how much of a Narcissist I am.

Apparently I'm not. At all. Not even a little bit.

"According to Psychologists, the average narcissism score is 15.3 -- or 17.8 for celebrities.For more information, check out the article on Wikipedia."

This type, or general level of Narcissism is a measure of the healthy kind, not that found in Narcissistic Personality Disorder which is covered in a different article.

Why you may wonder did I bother to take the test, or look into the difference? I found another survivors web site and she talk about her abuser as having been suffering from NPD. We never got Earl seriously involved in the mental health world, in fact he fought tooth an nail to avoid it, so I don't have any formal diagnosis for him. However, in looking at what Laura has had to say, and reflecting on Earl's attitudes, behavior and history, I'd say there is an extremely high probability, almost a certainty, that he suffered from NPD.

So now I need to read more on NPDs, if for no other reason than to learn how not to make the same mistakes again. Given everything else I'm dealing with, I don't see having to worry about it for a long time, but I think in terms of healing it might help. I've been pretty certain both his parents, more so his Mom than his Dad, but still, they were both Sociopaths. Which as I'm coming to learn, is basically just another name for someone with NPD.

Sorry this was somewhat darker than my usual fare, it's just part of my life I guess.

Which Starship Captain are you?

Well it was amusing, but not really that surprising that I came up as Janeway. After all, she is my favorite of the Trek captains, and not even because she's a girl.

Your result for the Which Starship Captain Are You? test...

Don't you "Aunt Kathy" me!

18% Benjamin_Sisko, 50% Kathryn_Janeway, 4% Jean-Luc_Picard, 19% Johnathan_Archer, 14% William_Adama and 16% James_T_Kirk!

Kathryn Janeway was a fantastic captain. Despite the incompetent writers and producers that plagued much of Voyager's run with "the moral of the story is.." and other Disneylike family-friendly garbage, Janeway excelled in making command decisions and did extremely well with balancing herself on the thin line between aggression and tolerance. She was unique in that she was the only captain that provided a sort of mothership (bad pun) as well as a paternal role as well to her crew. Harry Kim practically called her mom on various occassions, though he was no match for Seven of Nine when it came to begging for attention.