This Is Special…

So…this 12 year old girl just ‘helped’ deliver her baby bro – you know…as you do! There was no panicked emergency that necessitated it, just a decision that this was probably the 3rd and last child that mother Zadyn Dellapena would be having, so…why not?!

Her name is Jacee and the doc, Dr Walter Wolfe apparently asked if she wanted to deliver the baby, upon which she was fitted with scrubs and the rest is internet history.

As you will see, she was not just pootling around in the room at the time, as kids might do at a home birth, she was all up in the business end of the delivery and was the first to welcome the newborn sprog Cadyn.

Look at her face though! 🙂

Loving the matching expressions!

Quite amazing huh?!

Well, this is it… It IS amazing, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Am I pro or con? I dunno!

Not sure how to articulate exactly what I have a problem with…not even sure I have a problem.

So I have to turn once more to you guys.

SCHOOL ME! – WHAT SAY YOU?!

It’s natural you fool! It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and all 12 year olds should be doing this!

OR

Has that child got no homework she should be doing?!

Men, Men, Men!

Are You Scared Of Xmas??!!!

Here’s the thing. Deck the halls with boughs of holly and all that, but Jeez, that holly and all that decking is expensive! Not to mention the presents you’ve been strong-armed to buy via endless weeks of advertising.

Then there’s the cards for countless relatives that you have or haven’t actually spoken to in the last decade.

The food… did I mention the Xmas food yet?…The drink? Roughly a week of over indulgence has to be paid for by someone and if that someone is you…

Now’s the time to admit it…

Some of us are experiencing a great scarcity of greenbacks for any number of reasons right now, so as you watch the money trickling through your fingers as a result of Crazy Season does it bother you? Or are you one of those people who pretend it’s not happening until the credit card statement arrives in January?

What Say You??

1. The Ed, have you never heard of saving for Xmas?
2. The Ed, I’m a turn-a-blind-eye-until-January type. So sue me.
3. The Ed, the cost is making me feel queasy. Times is hard guv’nor. *Sniff!*
4. Merry Chrimble one and all! I don’t give a flying turkey. Life is for living. Joy to the world!

Blue Pill Red Pill

Hello?…Er No, Buh ‘bye!

So singer Adele’s father who abandoned her at the age of 3 did the decent thing and came back into her life – once she was rich and successful – to build bridges. In the process of the bridge building he apparently decided to sell a story about her without discussing it with her and now can’t understand why he is no longer welcome in the ‘Hello’ household…and then went back to the press to cry about it!

…And then there was the father of a member of the pop band One Direction who – after his son’s success – decided that he urgently needed to be part of his son’s life and felt that the best way of achieving this was to apparently threaten to go to the press with ‘stories’ if his son continued to refuse to acknowledge him…probably not the best ice breaker!

A similar scenario happened to yours truly. After some national and international exposure (part of another job) my mother bumped into my errant father after decades. She told me that the wasteman had accumulated tons of press cuttings which he carried around in a briefcase and she saw them when he opened it to give her something. How did I feel about that? What an ass! Creepy eh?

SO WHAT SAY YOU?

If you won the lottery tomorrow or your book did a JK Rowling or the song, blog, cooking, sewing… whatever, afforded you sudden fame and fortune and you had an errant parent or other family member or even friend who you hadn’t heard from for some time come oiling their way back into your lives, what would YOU do or say? How would you handle it? Could you see things from their perspective?

Perhaps you are an ‘errant’ parent that did not bring up your children, perhaps you can help us (poor half-orphan Annie’s! 😛 ) to understand why?

Those Old A-Wandering Eyes!

I once hung out with a guy whose eyes would always trail after anything in a skirt. Whilst I did not feel remotely threatened by it, I still found it quite annoying. Mainly because I believe he should be free to look at what ever he chooses and yet his eyes never trailed after passing cars or indeed other men out of a general interest in his surroundings. So I found it at best to be quite rude.

I once stood to the side of a man who had dark sunglasses on and was standing next to his wife in a crowded shopping street. From the front he was looking head on, from the side however I could see his eyes swiveling virtually round to his ears, furtively following every female that went by. It was as if he had just been rescued from an all male desert island he’d been on for 40 years. I found it both funny and bizarre that a grown adult would be doing this. Grow some! Either look openly or stop looking. Is she yo’ mama?!

I recall this because someone somewhere recently said that their father’s eyes never trailed after a single other woman in 50 odd years of marriage. Nice.

So is this a first world issue that needs to be urgently resolved by NATO or is this another male bashing pile of poop?
To help answer that question it should be noted that when I decided to aggressively skope out every sexy, muscle-bound young adonis that went by in the company of the above mentioned, with equal relish, shockingly enough he took deep offence. 😯

SO WHAT SAY YOU?

• Big deal?
• Get over it!…And that includes the butt hurt males too when women take to scoping out other men in their presence.
• I do this all the time and feel it is my manly right.

 

See more of Sam Cobean’s illustrations here.

The Whitney Phenomenon

I have seen The Whitney Phenomenon in so many cases. It was even my own story for about a millisecond before I snuffed that foolishness out.

Folks, allow me to plot out the scenario:

Successful woman meets unsuccessful or less successful man. She loves him regardless and he drags her down to his impotent level and destroys her because of his insecurities about being a man that is less successful than his partner…allegedly!

Let’s make this clear. I wasn’t in the bedroom with the aforementioned, but one could see an unmistakeable downward slide in the glamorous singer following her marriage. A definite dulling of that multi-platinum superstar shine as she tried to compensate for her partner by diminishing herself. It would be hard to believe that a little squashed partner ego wasn’t part of her issues as it would be almost inhuman for Houston’s phenomenal success not to impact those around her.

Oprah: “Was he jealous?

Pause…Looooong pause…Even longer pause.

Whitney: ‘He’s not gonna like this …but yes.’

 

A Star Is Born

In my case my friend/partner even admitted in an unedited outburst that this was what he was doing. He was actively sabotaging my career. ‘Everybody wants YOU right now! What about MEEEE?!!’ were the exact words raged at me one time.

It is the oft repeated story of a ‘A Star Is Born’ where we can see that just sometimes the man actually loves his lady, but he just can’t kick his underlying jealousy enough to act graciously and humbly step back into the shadows as her silent, stoic support, (you know, the role women play most of the time) and instead precipitates her downfall.

It was so strikingly obvious, even captured horribly ‘live’ as it was happening on a reality show that I named this circumstance ‘The Whitney Phenomenon.’

Has The Whitney Phenomenon happened to you, or (cough!) someone you know? You don’t have to be in showbiz to have a partner, male or female, stifle your dreams, freedom and potential from sheer jealousy.

Have you found yourself beaten into a shadow of your former energetic, brilliant self by someone who subtly undermines you at every turn? ‘Oh you’re wearing THAT today?…What’s wrong with it?….Oh, nothing.’

Like I say, I jettison this kind of nonsense behaviour pronto like it was a bomb on a row boat, but what say you?

SCHOOL ME

Is The Whitney Phenomenon real or imaginary? Justified, unjustified?

If you saw this happening to your son, daughter or friend, what could you say to them that would make them listen?

Houston was her own woman and her downfall was ultimately her own doing, but there were many people in the Houston camp and in the ‘biz’ whose jaws swung wide open on hearing that she was marrying Brown in the first place, presumably because of the reputation he had studiously built for himself. The negativity only strengthened her determination to stay with him as seems to always be the case in these relationships.

What magic words could you offer to someone…or even yourself, to get a grip and move on, or is it in fact the brutal truth that actually there are none?

D’You Get It Now?

A year on from the very high profile death of Robin Williams do folks get that depression isn’t the same as sadness yet?

Do they get that it doesn’t happen solely because you broke up with the boyfriend and feel like an evening crying over rom coms and eating ice-cream?

Do they get that it is a period of such numbness, self loathing, sheer bollock madness and hatred that if people could read your mind they would have you committed?

Do they get that for the depressed it’s almost a tangible pain that you can feel and yet you can’t grab it and put it in the bin?

Do they get that it’s not selfish… It’s depression?

Do they get that it can affect you whether you are on TV, have lots of money, lots of friends, are beautiful with a nice home or you are broke, ugly and homeless?

Do they get that telling jokes to a depressed person won’t get rid of it?

Do they get that reminding a depressive that people are starving in India is dumb and slightly pompous?

Do they get it that when they say ‘Just leave me alone for a bit,’  depressed folks tend to mean it?

Do they get it that not everybody who has depression behaves exactly the same as everyone else?

Do they get that saying ‘I don’t understand why he / she did ‘it’. They looked fine yesterday,’  is meaningless. It’s not about how you look. Most depressives are fine actors.

Do they get that just because in the 1950’s folks just ‘rolled up their sleeves and got on with it’ doesn’t mean depression did not exist and people did not suffer undiagnosed and in silence?

Do those same folks get that whilst it’s their prerogative, it’s quite ignorant to comment on something they do not understand and have never experienced? And that they might equally consider commenting sagely about what it is like to live on Jupiter?

Do doctors get that when you are being treated for depression, sometimes you are going to miss sessions because…and I’ll say this slowly, well, um…YOU…HAVE…DEPRESSION?

Do doctors get it yet that we can have physical and mental issues simultaneously and therefore BOTH may require consideration and treatment… simultaneously?

Do people get that it can be triggered by something serious, something irrelevant or seemingly absolutely nothing at all?

Do they get that the brain / mind is just another organ and that even if you can’t see it it can still malfunction just like an arm, or tonsils and need treatment? In fact why do we accept that a hidden organ like the heart can malfunction but people still get antsy and weird if the brain does?

Do partners, relatives and friends with a depressive in their midst get that it’s not about them, it’s not against them, it’s not to spite them and they should stop adding their own attention seeking drama to the already heavy mix yet?

Do governments intend to keep sending mental illness patients to the back of the queue, shoving pills down their throats as a cure-all remedy and pretending by and large that they don’t exist?

Lastly, are people still thinking that mental illness only happens to other people when mental illness can develop at any time to anyone via genetics, a trigger experience or environment?

SCHOOL ME

One year on, what has been YOUR experience? Anything changed?

 

Why Are You Married??!!!

Andy Rooney once said:

‘For every stunning, smart, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!’

 

What say you??!!

Single ladies, is marriage an important future must-have for you?

Wives, does Any Rooney’s words strike a chord? Is the traditional marriage dying a death and do you recommend it for your daughters?

Guys…what can I say? (Snurffle!) Do you agree with Andy Rooney’s reason for the diminishing appeal of marriage or no? Do you wish it for your sons?

 

Mrs B

For our American and worldwide friends there is a woman called Katie Hopkins who is positioning her career to be the most hated woman in Britain. I would say she missed the boat on that one. It appears we have someone already…

 Mrs Victoria Beckham.

 

Check out some of her ‘fan mail’ below:

Click for a better view of the daily barrage.

 

Ms Victoria Beckham only has to be caught breathing to draw the most blistering venom from her anti-fans. Granted that a lot of these complainants are merely skulking keyboard warriors and one can imagine them twinkling around her orbit with big blushy-smiley faces if they were to happen upon her in person, not to mention the obligatory outstretched selfie arm ready for action the minute she nodded permission to take one.

But still yet the absolute bile for this woman behind said keyboard is still astonishing and reflects the continuing anti-female madness that is engrained into religions, cultures and society generally. In other words folks, men don’t get this sh*t!…At least, not at these levels.

 

As an example of the above statement, let me give you a reminder for those who don’t recall.
When her husband was said to have strayed into the arms of a shameless opportunist it was not he that was blamed by the majority, but her! She was attacked for having the nerve to want to bring up her then 3 boys and also have a career. With the blamers logic this was why he strayed. Apparently Mr Beckham was allowed to continue his career, but how dare she desire one also.

Then when pictured literally clinging to him like a limpet for the first time after the cheating scandal was printed, she was slated for…wait for it…hanging onto her husband and trying to make the marriage work despite their troubles, as this was seen as desperate rather than common sense.

 

Miserable B*itch!

She is a woman. How dare she not smile because some nobody behind a keyboard demands it of her! One of the popular arguments against Beckham is that she has every material thing in the world but she does not smile. Let those same people tap Mike Tyson on the shoulder and request a gold toothed grin from his scowling thunder. Or how about from a tatted-up, weed-eyed gangster rapper. Not so appealing?

 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that there are pedophiles who are not on the receiving end of so much continuous, illogical hatred.

Question: How many equally successful male celebrities are there, (think famous singers) who have pointedly neglected ownership of children they have made and yet…where are their abusers?

If a male celebrity is caught out doing something very wrong he is sometimes bashed or mocked for that wrong doing and then it is pretty much forgotten. Remember a certain golfer? The gross detail of his philandering was on fire for a while, but who mentions it today? Mrs Beckham’s picture only has to appear in a blog or newspaper to constantly re-ignite deeply un-hinged disapprobation of the most irrational order. I am struggling to come up with a man in a similar position i.e Successful. Hated. Loathed.

I put it to you dear audience that this is merely a recognition of not only people who are deeply dissatisfied with their own lives and are looking for someone to take it out on – which is normal…kinda. But the interesting part is how successful or visible women are always the preferred target of their failure and not men, in other words #WomanHate.

 

Woman hating is fueled predominantly by women

By far the comments listed above are mainly from women, the same women who will decry female bashing, (stoning, covering up, impregnating pre-teens, domestic violence) in any other culture. This thing is so ingrained and normal now I would wager that people don’t even know they are doing it.

Of course there are people who just niggle us, sometimes for no explicable reason and we love to hate them, (come ahn! It’s fun sometimes no?) but this is sooo much more than that.

Woman-hate today is verging on psychotic. It’s wild-eyed rabid. Mrs. Beckham is just front of queue along with the usual suspects, e.g Kim Kardashian, Madonna and a growing collection of unusual suspects e.g 60 year old historian Mary Beard.

I’m looking for explanations why.

Mothers, what on earth are you teaching your sons?
Fathers, what on earth are you teaching your daughters?

 

BUT I’M JUST AN IDIOT EDITOR – SCHOOL ME!

Is it fair to blame the parents – at least in part?

Am I missing the point? Is Mrs Beckham so irritating that she is to blame for the venom she attracts?

What do you think drives this woman-hate which includes Mrs Beckham but is SO much bigger than her?

What can be done about it?

Can you see it escalating to offline behaviour or has that ship already sailed?