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LOOK AT ME! True Confessions, Naughty Pictures, and Letting it All Hang Out

Posted by Jennifer P on Saturday, August 18, 2007 10:14:08 PM

I recently read a book called Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic. by David Nadelberg. It's a collection of embarrassing childhood diary entries, love letters, pictures drawn, and dirty stories written by twelve year-olds and adolescents with only a notional idea about sex. Anybody that reads these and remembers anything about stories they penned as a kid will be instantly pricked with a sense of humiliation as a long-forgotten, unwelcome memory comes flooding back to remind them of how ridiculous they actually were sometimes.

I recall a time when I was three or four years-old and I went through a phase where I kept drawing "anatomically correct" bunny rabbits. I can't imagine what my preschool teacher must have thought. I don't know what made me fixate on this subject for my pictures, but likely it was something rather mundane. At that time, my mom had bought me a book about the human body written for younger children. It was illustrated in bright colors and had a few pages dedicated to human reproduction. Of course the book was written for a younger child--not enough detail to tell you how IT really happens, but enough to let you know that you weren't brought by the stork. IT still had that aura of mystery. Looking back, it all seems so Freudian. How weirdly ironic that as a four-year old I connected the most basic human act with an animal known primarily for its prolific reproduction and in bygone years, a pregnancy test.

When I was in high school, I discovered that my mom had saved these masterpieces, I was horrified. I begged her to throw them out. I was certain I would have died of embarrassment if anybody had ever seen them.  These were just pictures I drew as a four year-old--not pictures of me, but never in a million years would I have posted them where people could see them. That's the way diaries and secrets used to be and there used to be a term for pictures of people in compromising positions: blackmail photos.

So why do people these days feel compelled to post their deepest secrets and humiliating pictures on the web for the world to see? It's coming back to bite them in the butt. A young woman who graduated from teacher's college was denied her teaching certificate by the state when they discovered compromising pictures on her blog. She's not the only one. Employers commonly look for potential employees' blogs and websites and they're not hiring people who post pictures of themselves in their most risque moments.  Of course in retrospect, the bunny pictures are pretty tame and I can laugh about it now, but I still wouldn't make it a point to post them publicly if I happened to be in the market for a job. 


It's not just cyberspace either. We live in a voyeuristic society. Look at the glut of reality shows. In spite of their different formats they all have one common denominator--LOOK AT ME!

In spite of the fact that we have more information at our fingertips and more ways to connect with the world around us than ever before, we're more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history. I walked into Panera Bread one day and witnessed three or four people sitting at a table together. They were all working on their own laptops completely disengaged from each other. Together, but still alone.

Not only has cable TV, video games, and the internet contributed to a society of sedentary couch potatoes, they've made the world a lonely place. We now have a generation of people who have no idea how to connect and desperately want to. People want to be known and the only way they think they can make that happen is through message boards, forums, blogs, and the  ubiquitous You Tube. Obviously, I have nothing against these things personally--after all, I have three blogs, but they're hardly a suitable substitute for real relationships. Now we have a world of people screaming LOOK AT ME!

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Aging (Dis)Gracefully

Posted by Jennifer P on Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:46:38 PM
There's a man I know, whom I'll call "Herb" in order to protect the guilty. The first thing I noticed about Herb when I met him was his hair. In addition to being silver all over, he seemed to have an excessive amount and it was combed rather, um ... weird. At first I thought it was a toupee, when somebody enlightened me. It's not a toupee, they said. It's a combover. Oh dear. Herb had fallen victim to a brutal combover, the likes of which I have never seen. I walked in one day with my camera in tow to take some happy snaps of an event we were at, when he saw the camera and exclaimed, "You're taking pictures? Oh no, I have to fix my hair!" He raced out to the car and a few minutes later, I heard the unmistakable hiss of a hairspray can. I should also point out that Herb is 52 years old.

Now, aside from this particular quirk, Herb's a pretty nice guy. It's just that when age, wisdom, and maturity came knocking at his door to escort him into his middle-age years, Herb dug in his heels and had to be dragged by the wrists kicking and screaming.

It's fairly well-established that Western society idolizes youth and views aging as a regrettable aspect of life's journey. Everybody wants to be young and vital forever. The elderly are seen as a burden and the first appearance of a grey hair or disappearance thereof has people reaching for the hair dye and Rogaine.

I was reading a quote by historian Douglas Brinkley on the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson about how he supposed Thompson had a good 67 years and "didn't want to suffer the indignities of old age".

When did growing old become undignified? I suppose it's more dignified to shoot yourself while on the phone with your spouse and with your son and grandchild in the next room.

Unfortunately, I've witnessed this attitude creeping into churches. A church of which I was previously a member had a thriving combined youth/young adult group. Later it split (thankfully) into separate groups for the youth and young adults, but while I was there, I observed something Many of the adult leaders, including the youth pastor, dressed about 15 years younger than their actual age. Now, I'm a 30-something adult who's been blessed with 23-year old looks, but with the position I'm in with my career, I can't dress like I'm 23 anymore. Technically, I could get away with it, but it's harder to respect a supervisor that shows up to the squadron picnic in a rubberband miniskirt and a t-shirt emblazoned with some slogan like, "It's Better in a Bikini" or some other catch-phrase indicating the female wearer is as loose as a DD-cup bra on Kate Moss.

It's also hard to respect a 38-year old man wearing baggy-butt cargo shorts with a chain wallet and who's still shopping for his wardrobe at Hollister Co. and American Eagle Outfitters. I'm sure they thought they were being "relevant" and getting down to the teens' level. Except they're going about it all wrong. The youth in America's churches don't need youth leaders and pastors who dress like they're 17 and getting down to a teen's level doesn't mean seeing how many times you can work the word "booger" into your sermon. Kids need adults to act like adults, because ultimately a leader's (and parent's) job is to turn kids into productive, intelligent, godly, adults.

Another thing I noticed in church is not only the hyper-promotion of youth ministries, but the neglect of other demographics, particularly the elderly. What's being done for elderly widows and the infirm--people who need the support of the church the most? Churches have become so compartmentalized. There's a different ministry for many people, but it seems the only time they come together is Sunday morning.

The ironic thing about Brinkley's "indignities of old age" quote is that as people grow older, the younger they try to look and act, the more undignified they become. A wrinkled, 80-year old woman wearing a mumu and sitting in a rocking chair has more dignity than a 50-year old woman with a Sexy Grandma t-shirt or someone whose face looks like a terrified raccoon from all the plastic surgury they've had.
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Rebuilding the Empire One Pup Tent at a Time

Posted by Jennifer P on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 9:04:51 PM
In order to "preserve his legacy" (read, advance his personality cult and his autocratic agenda), Vladamir Putin and the Kremlin have a youth group of 18-23 year olds called Nashi (Ours). Bear in mind, these kids were barely out of diapers when the Berlin Wall fell. This is the first generation with no real memory of communism.

Putin's goal is to establish democracy in Russia, independent of any outside assistance. He insists on looking to Russia's own democratic traditions. This is a beautiful idea in theory, but there's just one minor fly in the ointment--Russia has had no democratic traditions for over 500 years.

Nashi just finished with a two-week summer camp at the end of July. Here are a few of the more interesting shots from Reuters.

The top picture is my favorite. It pretty much says it all, doesn't it? This kid looks like he weighs about a buck fifty. He labors under the stern countenance of Vladamir Putin, finger wagging in disapproval. Here we have the mock Siberian labor camp experience, perhaps for the complainers and other assorted squeaky wheels in this two-week wilderness venture.
"Keep it moving, Dmitri. You have 70 more bags of turnips to take to the chow hall and you STILL have to make borscht for all 800 people at the camp. You think you're so funny?  Maybe next time you'll think before you open your filthy, little bourgeoisie mouth.  This is NOT a Brave New World--it is a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRACY, dammit. And don't you forget it."



















Didn't we all do this at camp? I went to band camp for two summers in a row in Malcolm, NE. I played the flute (and to answer what you're undoubtedly thinking...NO! I didn't). In between band practice, watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the 87th time, and getting together to play another rousing rendition of Louie, Louie, we managed to work in enough free time to grab our AK-47s, dress up like U.N. peacekeepers, and kick each other's heads in. Now those were the days.

It just dawned on me that it's been twenty years since I've been at band camp. Back then, it didn't occur to me to do naughty things with my flute. It was 1987 and we were thirteen years old. We were too busy emptying cans of hairspray trying to get our bangs to a consistency that would stand up to wind, rain, or a nuclear holocaust.


















Here we have the People's Democratic Inflatable Raft Regatta. Note the ubiquitousness of the color RED.


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