Current Events: May 2005 Archives

Have you seen the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty? There is a commercial for soap that has a bunch of women in their underwear (which I am not crazy about) of all shapes, sizes and skin tones. Of the different shapes and sizes there are some pregnant bellies, is one woman with a C-section scar, one woman who likes like, ahem, a size 10 like me.

For too long we have seen women on TV that look like mannequins and not real people. I hope this sparks a new trend. Personally, I am five foot two. I am a mesomorph, I never get skinny. At this point,I could also stand to lose a few pounds (and I am working at it). I have curly hair inclined to frizziness and is a regulation dark brown. I am the opposite of what beautiful mixed people on TV look like-I have very fair skin and very black features (wide nose, full lips) as opposed to the European featured, cocoa woman. Ah, these are gazillion things I wanted to change about myself as a teen. While I know this is far from Hollywood beauty, I look like my mother and father which is honorable. And I look the way God intended me to look. For this reason I have never been big on things like dying hair, changing hair texture chemically, plastic surgery, too much make-up etc.

I am sure every female reading this blog can relate. Maybe not to the same traits, but to the same feeling. If not, I feel real dopey writing this.

I know it is unrealistic to think the modeling industry will be replaced by real people, but to bridge that gap a bit will be nice.

I can't believe Carrie won. Blech! I was rooting for (in this order) Scott, Anthony and Constantine. Then Bo.

I think it is interesting. On the AOL Welcolme page, the link headline states "Priest Snubs Gay Advocates". Denying the sacrament to people who are clearly against Church teaching is not a "snub". On the contrary, wearing rainbow sashes Mass is more of a snub in my opinion.

No, I am not complaining about the new Pope. I am tired of reading about people complaining, speculating what kind of pope he will be, the critiqueing...

One newspaper had interviews with people about what they think a current pope should do. What I thought was funny was there were lots of answers like "he should continue Pope John Paul II's legacy of social justice..." They couldn't complain enough about JPII when he was Pope. But he did the best thing as Pope he could do by stop being Pope I guess. But seriously, Catholics should simply hope that our Pope follows the Holy Spirit's guidance.

Then there are the polls:"79% of Albany Catholics feel this Pope should change the Church's stance on abortion". Why do they never ask me when they do these polls?

When will they understand that the Church is not a political structure, but a dictatorship.

They need new news.

Monday, May 2, 2005 Page: B5

Kenneth B. Clark, the psychologist and educator whose 1950 report showing the deleterious effect of school segregation influenced the U.S. Supreme Court to hold school segregation to be unconstitutional, died on Sunday at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County, said his daughter, Kate C. Harris. He was 90. Clark was a leader in the civil rights movement that developed after World War II. He was the first black to earn a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, the first to become a tenured instructor in the city college system of New York and, in 1966, the first black elected to the New York state Board of Regents. He wrote several influential books and articles and used his considerable prestige in academic and professional circles and as a participant on many government bodies and congressional committees to advance the cause of integration. He battled white supremacists and black separatists alike, because he believed that a "racist system inevitably destroys and damages human beings; it brutalizes and dehumanizes them, black and white alike."

Dr. Clark was famous for his experiment where he showed an equal amount of white dolls and black dolls to both black little girls and white little and both chose to play with white dolls. I am not sure what that proves in a country that is predominately white...

Dr. Clark was my great grandmother's (who we called "GG") sister's (Aunt Merrie) son. I don't know what number cousin that is.

Here is an interview with him:

Dr. Kenneth Clark: James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X are, in different ways, symbols and spokesmen for the Negro crying out for his full rights as an American citizen. And now. If one dares to look for the common denominator of such seemingly different forms of Negro protest, one sees in each of these men a dramatic response to America's attempt to deny to its Negro citizens the fulfillment of the American promise...