views and thoughts on topics, especially ones pertaining to christianity – with an emphasis on how most christians either ignore or discriminate against unmarried christians – and how christians have turned marriage and parenting into IDOLS and how there is no true support for sexual purity, virginity, or celibacy among christians – this is a blog for me to vent; I seldom permit dissenting views. I don't debate dissenters ————-
Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker’s doomsday buckets of food received a culinary review from Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal of Good Mythical Morning, the Friendly Atheist reported.
“Today, we taste the apocalypse,” the review began. “When we heard televangelist Jim Bakker was selling doomsday food stored in buckets, we knew we had to get our hands on it.”
“He went to prison for accounting fraud, but now he’s back and selling giant buckets of non-perishable apocalypse food,” they continued. “I just want to say, we do not endorse Jim or his food, but we sure do want to eat it and rank it.”
Entertainment glorifying or excusing predatory male behavior is everywhere—from songs about “blurred lines” to TV shows where rapists marry their victims.
Jan 2018
Edward Cullen. Chuck Bass. Lloyd Dobler. Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That guy from Love Actually with the sign. The lead singers of emo bands with their brooding lyrics.
Many of the romantic heroes that made me swoon in my youth followed a pattern and, like a Magic Eye picture, only with a little distance did the shape of it pop out to me. All of these characters in some way crossed, or at least blurred, the lines of consent, aggressively pursuing women with little or no regard for their desires.
But these characters’ actions, and those of countless other leading men across the pop-culture landscape, were more likely to be portrayed as charming than scary.
…Now, with TV veteran Peter Tolan, he’s got “Guess Who’s Dead?” a droll comedy set in a Palm Springs nursing home with frisky post “Golden Girl” types. There are also young people as regulars, so the whole thing isn’t liver spots. The show comes from NBC and Sony.
Last year at the Austin Film Festival, Lear and Tolan tested out a reading of a pilot script.
Robert Walden (from “Lou Grant”) and Oscar nominee June Squibb (“Nebraska”) played Murray and Patricia, a Jew and an Irish Catholic who fall in love when Murray’s wife who’s also her sister, dies.
“He asked me whether I am a virgin,” says Qiu Yingying, bursting into tears.
She has just found out her relationship with boyfriend Ying Qin is over, after he found out she had had sex in the past.
The scene from China’s biggest soap opera right now, Ode to Joy, has triggered much discussion on whether virginity is still a prized asset for women in modern China.
Ode to Joy, now in its second season, tells the stories of five beautiful women from different walks of life who live in the same floor of an apartment complex in Shanghai.
The show, a less risque version of Sex and the City, is popular among women for its focus on romance, careers, friendships and the difficulties women face in the big city.
…‘Out-of-dated topic’
Sex education in China is often poor. There are stories of male biology teachers skipping details of the female reproductive system in class and ask students to learn it by themselves.
And parents very rarely share information about sex with their children.
What almost all parents do, however, is warn their daughters not to have any dates before they graduate from university, fearing that they get hurt or become pregnant.
Chinese communities also traditionally expect chastity before marriage.
That means TV dramas are very influential in shaping audiences’ values. They are windows for young audiences, especially young women, to understand sex and sexuality and the ways views are changing.
Double standards on virginity
Zi Yin, a Shanghai-based film assistant producer, told the BBC that even debating the topic was old-fashioned in the 21st Century. She thought it was “disgusting” for the show to make an issue of it.
Dating, Marriage, Male Entitlement, and ‘My 600 LB Life’ TV Show
This is going to be one of those posts that meanders all over the place.
I’m not really sure where to start.
I’ve been watching a cable TV show called “My 600 LB Life” for over a year now. Aspects of content I see on this show remind me of some of the subjects I blog about on here.
I’m not sure exactly why I watch this show, but I find it riveting, and sometimes horrifying. It’s a reality program. Each show features a real-life person who is 600 or more pounds over-weight.
I do not watch the show to make fun of or laugh at the obese people.
I watch, I suppose, because I am interested in their life stories and what drove them to cope with life’s problems by over-eating to the point they become morbidly obese.
I also tune in to learn medical information about what happens to a body once it gets up to 600 pounds.
I learned from this show that not only does the body get a lot of fat on it (obviously), and the heart has a harder time pumping, but obese people can and do develop all sorts of secondary issues, such as painful bumps, scales, and swelling on their legs (which are referred to as, or the result of, things such as (Link): Cellulitisand (Link): Lymphedema).
The majority of the time, I feel empathy for the obese people on this show.
I am wishing them all the best and hoping they lose the weight and recover and get over whatever childhood horror and pain led them to over-eat (most cases of this show consist of someone who turned to food as comfort after they were neglected, molested, or abused in childhood).
There have been a few cases on this show, such as Steve Assanti, Chuck, and James K., where I have little to no empathy at all, because the person is whiny, ungrateful, abusive, rude, or incredibly self-absorbed.
‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ TV Show Scene Perfectly Sums Up What It’s Like To Be Single at 40+ When You Had Wanted to Be Married
I just re-watched a re-run I had forgotten about. It really resonated – maybe not so much at the time, when I was in my 20s when it first aired, but now that I’m in my 40s and still single, like the character in the skit is, I totally relate.
I will embed the scene below in this post, that someone posted on You Tube (I so hope the video is never pulled down. Sometimes, videos are removed due to copyright infringement claims.)
“Everybody Loves Raymond” is a television situation comedy show that started around 1996. I used to watch it every week and still remember the characters and one or two of the episodes.
This show takes place, starts out, in the late 1990s, before many Americans had the internet – dating sites were still a good ways away, and cell phones didn’t really catch on until around the year 2,000 or a bit later.
Even when dating sites first came out and caught on, many singles did not want to use them.
Even up to around 2005 or so, there was a stigma attached to dating sites. If you used one at that time, you didn’t really want anyone to know, because they might think you were desperate or a loser.
I started watching “Everyone Loves Raymond” again in re-runs about two weeks ago – it comes on some of the local cable channels. If you’re like I am – single over the age of 35 and had expected and wanted to marry – you might really relate to the embedded video in this post, too.
To set it up for you if you’re not familiar with the show:
The show is about a guy named Ray who is married to Debra. Ray’s parents, Frank and Marie, live across the street from Ray and Debra.
Ray’s older brother, Robert (a.k.a. “Robbie”), is a police officer who lives with his parents – the guy was married to a woman name Joanne(?), and if I remember correctly, she won the house in their divorce. Joanne dumped Robert for a guy Robert arrested.
For a long time, Robert was too broke and too depressed to live on his own, so he lived with his parents. Eventually, Robert meets Amy, and they get married. But for a good long time, Robert, who is in his early 40s, is single, can’t seem to meet the right woman, and hates being single.
Jan Crouch of TBN Died – and According to Suit, Covered Up Rape of Teen Granddaughter
I have a hard time feeling sad about Jan Crouch’s death in light of how she treated a teen family member who was raped (see excerpt under second link on page).
Jan Crouch, a co-founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network and popular televangelist, has died following a stroke, her son announced Tuesday via a posting on his and his wife’s website. She was 78.
A granddaughter of Trinity Broadcasting Network founders Jan andPaul Crouch filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that she was plied with alcohol and raped by a TBN employee when she was just 13 — and that her family covered up the incident, rather than report it to authorities, to protect TBN’s reputation
No, I Do Not Like Richonne (Rick and Michonne as Romantic Couple on television series The Walking Dead) – Sex Can Be Risky in the Apocalypse
This may be, perhaps, the only, or one of the very few, anti- Richonne blog posts on the internet.
To any Richonne Fans Who Are Reading This
If you have not seen my “About” page (and I currently have this stated at the top of the blog itself), I seldom permit dissenting views to be published on my blog.
Therefore, if you are a rabid Richonne supporter who leaves me a nasty, rude comment in response to this post, I likely will not publish it.
I don’t even bother to read the entirety of such posts – the moment I glance a few cuss words or rudeness in the first sentence of a post that is pending, awaiting me to grant permission to publish it, I hit the “trash can” button and delete it. I don’t even read the entire thing once I have ascertained it’s a vitriolic post.
So please, don’t waste your time or mine by composing one.
There is an addendum below addressing people on Twitter who were commenting to me how having Michonne, a black woman, in a romance with a white guy on this TV show, was supposedly oh- so- important. I have addressed those types of comments much farther blow (towards the end of the post, before the “Related Posts” section).
I did an internet search or two in the days after the February 21, 2016 airing of the zombie apocalypse show The Walking Dead episode in which the Rick Grimes character has sex with the Michonne character for the first time.
In the vast majority of reaction I see in blog posts or comments on entertainment sites that discuss “Richonne,” most people appear approving or enthusiastic about this TV show pairing. I cannot fathom why this is so.
I remain perplexed at the drooling, nutty, overboard enthusiasm so many TV viewers have for wanting to see TV characters date each other.
Further, if you dare disagree on these other sites about “Richonne” and admit to disliking “Richonne,” no matter how politely you state your views, many of these “Richonne” supporters become unhinged and vitriolic.
I happen to like the Michonne character and the Rick character – Rick has always been one of my favorite characters on the show. I have nothing against either actor who plays these characters.
However, I do not like or enjoy a Michonne-Rick romantic pairing.
I did not enjoy the show attempting to romantically pair Rick up with Jessie, either.
(Jessie was later killed by being eaten by zombies).
I mention this early on, as a lot of these Richonne fans wrongly assume anyone who dislikes “Richonne” must be a “Jessie – Rick shipper.”
…The whole concept of the show is mind boggling in and of itself; 28 girls are competing for one bachelor.
…It saddens us to listen to how these girls talk about themselves. They are putting all their hopes, dreams, and futures into one man. With that being said, here are the five things we wish we could say to the girls on The Bachelor and to the girls reading this who may have been rejected.
… ONE. Rejection.
You are lovable. Rejection is simply redirection. Just because Ben rejected you, it does not mean you will never find a good guy. He just isn’t the guy for you, and that’s OK.
Actually, that is better than OK! He is dating a dozen women at once, so be thankful that you don’t have to be in the emotional game anymore. You deserve better!
You will find a man who will love you! You don’t want to be second place in any man’s eyes. It is the most amazing feeling to me (Alyssa) that my husband has eyes only for me.
TWO. Virginity
Being a virgin should not make you the black sheep of the house. Becca is known as the virgin on the show, and good for her! Go Becca! Our culture often considers virgin as a bad word as if something is wrong, dirty, or even unhealthy about you if you haven’t had sex yet.
Waiting is beautiful, and it is something you should be proud of.
As someone (Alyssa) who was a virgin on my wedding night, I am sitting here 10 years later and am still so thankful that I saved myself for my husband.
At the same time, being a virgin should not be the only thing that defines who you are as a person. So much is said on social media and on the show about how Becca is the virgin of the house, but there is so much more to Becca than that!
Actor Charlie Sheen Says on TV News Show He Has HIV
I’ve read here and there on news sites, and have heard on news shows over the years, that Charlie Sheen was a promiscuous guy. I think some of these news sources says he’s even paid for prostitutes before.
Some sites are reporting that women he has sex with did not know he was HIV positive – he never told them this, but he had sex with them anyhow, and they are (understandably) very angry. (But at least one woman says, according to one site, she was not angry to find out he had HIV and she didn’t know, and one says she did know but had sex with him anyway.)
One of the only things I care to say about this is that it’s an example of how being celibate can pay off.
When you are abstaining sexually, you don’t have to be concerned about getting a sexually transmitted infection.
See, if you are celibate, you don’t ever have to be worry about making it on to an LEO list of people who have been exposed to HIV via consensual sex.
The only other observation I care to make about this story: why does a wealthy guy, that I think many women would consider attractive, have to resort to using prostitutes?
I bring this up because on a lot of dating, or “how to score sexually,” advice I see in magazine articles or in blogs (even on Christian ones – about dating only, obviously most Christian sources are not going to support casual sex forthrightly) assumes that if you cannot get dates (or sex), it’s because you are lacking in some way – you must be ugly, fat, poor, or some combination of all these factors.
But here you have a guy, Charlie Sheen, movie actor, who “has it made” by most people’s standards, and yet, he apparently cannot get a girlfriend on his own, but has to pay women to keep him company or to have sex with him?
Obviously, being thin, attractive, famous, and / or having money, as he does, does not guarantee getting dates, sex, or having healthy relationships, as so many dating columns suggest those things will.
I do believe that Sheen has been married a time or two before, so contra much of Christian wisdom, being married does not make a person more godly, mature, or sexually pure.
“RadarOnline.com has viewed a series of outlandish clips as part of our investigation into the controversy engulfing Sheen.
“They show the drugged-up former Two and a Half Men star smoking a crack cocaine pipe and performing fellatio on a male lover.In a bombshell world exclusive, Radar can reveal that at least three videos were recorded of the thrice married father-of-five. The clips last about 30 seconds and depict Sheen smiling on cameras as he brazenly indulges in the illegal drug.”
“According to the media outlet, Sheen was the actor identified only as someone of ‘substantial international fame’ in the “J Roe v John Doe” lawsuit that alleged that a megastar hatched a ‘nefarious plot’ to lure victims into sexual acts despite having herpes.”
They also claim that Sheen has been secretly bisexual for years, and Sheen does not want that information revealed to the public.
Actor Charlie Sheen confirmed rumors that he has the HIV virus in a revealing interview Tuesday on NBC’s “TODAY” show, adding a shocking new chapter to one of the most unpredictable careers in Hollywood history.
“I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV positive,” Sheen told “TODAY” host Matt Lauer. “I have to put a stop to this onslaught, this barrage of attacks and of sub-truths and very harmful and mercurial stories that are about me, that threaten the health of so many others that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Sheen said he first discovered he had contracted the virus that causes AIDS “roughly four years ago.”
…When asked if he knows how he contracted HIV, Sheen said, “Sitting here today, not entirely, no.” He did, however, rule out intravenous drug use.
In California, if you do not disclose your HIV status to a sexual partner you can open yourself up to felony prosecution, but there has to be further evidence to imply intent to infect. According to state law evidence that a person is aware of their HIV-positive status is not enough to prove intent.
Sheen also admitted to having paid off several unnamed people, some of whom were prostitutes, in order to keep his HIV status a secret.
He said the total of payoffs had reached into the millions and that several people he had trusted had betrayed him, which was in part why he was coming forward now.
A source close to Los Angeles law enforcement tells FOX411 that several women have come forward to say Charlie Sheen had sex with them without divulging his HIV status, after Sheen said in an interview Tuesday that he told every one of his sex partners he was HIV positive before they had sex.
Pat Robertson Blames, Shames Woman Who Was Laid Off from Employment
! POST UPDATED BELOW !
On today’s episode of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club show, a woman wrote in saying she was laid off from one job, then a second one.
The woman said she feels that God sent her Job 2, but she doesn’t understand why God would send her something, only to yank it away. She asked Robertson why would God remove something he seemingly gave her to start with? (If I can find the video to this, I will add it to this post later.)
True to form, as Robertson’s standard operating procedure is to Blame the Victim, depending on the topic (see links bottom of this post for such examples), he told this woman she was laid off from her job due to her own lousy job performance and to stop blaming God for this. The thing is, the woman did not mention the particulars of her lay off (so far as I can remember. I don’t think it was mentioned.)
We have no idea WHY she was laid off, and neither does Robertson.
Robertson just ASSUMED negative things about this woman’s job performance. Sometimes companies lay off workers because the company is in a bind, below regular profits, or they decide to base operations in another nation, as that is cheaper.
There are any number of reasons why someone may be laid off from a job, and none of those reasons have anything to do with the person’s job performance.
Shame, shame on Pat Robertson for beating up on this woman who wrote in about this.
She is likely worried about making her mortgage payment or rent, or buying grocereries, and she’s wondering where God is, why has God let her down… here she is probably hurting, confused, afraid, and Robertson just bashed her and told her to brush up on her job skills. What a heartless jerk he was about this.
He is also missing the mark in that the woman was not looking for practical job tips, but she seems to be hurt that God doesn’t care about her. She wants to know why God has let her down – she’s in a spiritual funk, she isn’t needing resume’ advice at this time.
Time for CBN / 700 Club to kick the 80-something Robertson off the show and have his more tactful, sensitive son Gordon take over hosting duties.
I also find it very hypocritical that a man who makes his millions begging for money off gullible TV viewers is biting some woman viewer’s head off over her supposed job performance.
The documentary ‘Mission Congo,’ which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, alleges that televangelist Pat Robertson’s charity in Zaire to help refugees that fled from post-genocide Rwanda, Operation Blessing, really served as an elaborate front for his diamond mining operation. Marlow Stern reports.
Anyway, I will edit this post to add a link to the video where Robertson shames and blames that lady who was laid off from her job, assuming I can find the video. These videos are usually either posted on You Tube or on the 700 Club’s site.
Robertson is such an insensitive jerk. I am not a fan of the “tip toe around people feelings” types, but I don’t like the Pat Robertson or Mark Driscoll extremes, either.
Edit. This might be the Bring It On segment where the woman wrote Robertson. Edit 2. Yes, this is the correct video.
NOV 20 2014 UPDATE
At some point after I uploaded the video below, the people at The 700 Club replaced the video!
That’s right. The original version had Robertson telling the woman she must be performing horribly at her job to be laid off twice.
Well, in the replaced video (which is below – they removed the original one), supposedly, the same woman wrote back to clarify her situation. She says she is 52 years old and was laid off by her employer because she reported to them that a male co-worker was harassing her on the job.
Armed with that information, to paraphrase him, Robertson says he is now sympathetic with this woman and thinks she should consider suing them because she was terminated unfairly.
At no time, though, did he reply to the woman’s original question: why did God send her this second job only for God to permit the job to be taken away? Robertson never did answer that.
The first time he attempted to reply to that inquiry, he rudely and insensitively assumed the woman was at fault for having been laid off.
I also find it telling that this Christian television program edits or removes original videos and replaces them without telling viewers – I only caught this substitution because I went back and re-watched the video.
I do not see a notice on the page that the original video was removed, edited, and/or replaced. In my opinion, it’s a bit dishonest, in a way, for a Christian show to fiddle with, edit, or remove an original video after the fact – and not inform people that this was done.
The letter from the laid off woman is the second or third letter in the video
(which has now been replaced with new video, supposedly from the same woman who wrote the original letter – the original, insensitive commentary by Robertson has been removed, because I can only assume the folks at 700 Club realized he looked rude.
I tweeted about this video a few days ago, I provided a link to this post on Twitter, several times on Twitter over 3 or 4 days, using the Pat Robertson and 700 Club hash tags. Perhaps someone from their show saw this post and decided to rework the video?):
