Genealogy, Technology And A Whole Lot More

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Advertising

I posted my blog post on Please Don't Smoke on the MMN and got blasted for "invading" Barry's privacy. What they didn't understand was the message wasn't just for Barry, it was for anyone, fan or not, who read the blog post.

What's the big deal? Apparently warning someone of lung cancer is invading your privacy. In fact, one of the fans even posted a lengthy note of how WE wouldn't want someone telling us how to live our lives. Yeah. Right.

Then these same people tune in to see Barry on a television show in Britain talking about his store and the water and B-strings they sell there. But it's okay, because he's not telling us we have to buy them or wear them, right? And when he advertises his shop that's at the Hilton (The M Store), they aren't really pushing drinking alcohol just simply because an entire wall is lined with displays of Barry's wine, while another wall is lined with wine goblets and champagne flutes. Because that would be getting too personal.

So what's a person to do? If you go for a walk in the park, chances are there's someone lurking somewhere trying to tell you how to live your life.

If you go for a drive, there's the billboards, not to mention the ads on the radios.

Go to a movie? The hero of the movie is shown smoking in the movie!

Watch tv? If you don't smoke or drink, don't watch Sex In The City, CSI, NCIS or just about any other show where the characters are portrayed smoking or drinking.

What? You mean they're advertising smoking and drinking on television?

Let me put it this way. At the end of the Smirnoff Vodka commercials, you are not told what can happen if you drink too much, they simply give the nice little legal disclaimer of "Please Drink Responsibly".

Here's an article for those who still don't believe me:

The Top Five Celebrity Smokers

Cheating

Yesterday I caught two girls at the school cheating on a test I was administering. The sad part of this was, the test they were cheating on isn't a test that is used to determine what grades they get in school, but is rather a tool for teachers to see what they are learning and what they need help with. So why would they cheat on a test that doesn't grade them? So they can get into the right "group" together. It all boils down to "cliques".

I thought about this last night and wondered at how people cheat, or try to cheat, in life?

Is being in the right "clique" that important to you?

Who do you think is really losing when you cheat?

I'm asking myself the same questions, so when I say "you", I'm also meaning myself on this.

Here's another question: Are some of the trials in our lives simply a measuring tool by God to see how well we are progressing in life? Are we becoming the kind of person He knows we can be?

Please Don't Smoke

I saw this picture linked on one of the message boards for Barry Manilow:

For those who don't know, my father died from lung cancer, after having survived cancer of the tongue. Yes, that's right, tongue. Just 4 months after Decker died, my father was diagnosed with cancer of the tongue. The modern miracles of medicine saved him from what would have been a very grizzly death. They surgically removed a large part of his tongue and used chest muscle to recreate a tongue. His speech was slurred for the remainder of his life.

A few years later, after the surgery and subsequent radiation treatments made him cancer free, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was in an area that was inoperable, which is basically a death sentence. They did their best to prolong his life with chemo, which did give him an extra year to live.

My father was already a frail man, having been thin pretty much all of his life. We tried everything to fatten him up, even the neighbors brought brownies over to make him gain weight, but the only area that eventually gained weight was his gut.

His frail body fought as long as it could, but eventually the cancer ate a hole in his lung and his lung collapsed. The low oxygen count that the other lung had left (after years of smoking) was not enough to sustain him and my father passed away on December 13, 2006.

From Roberts Review: A view of a lung with cancer after years of smoking.

Guess Which Country...

Is actually experiencing financial growth? Would you believe Rwanda?

Watch this program from NOW on PBS to see how treating malnutrition and disease in Rwanda with old fashioned care is spurring growth and productivity in an impoverished nation.

Could this same treatment towards the poor work in the U.S.?