Smoking, Teenage Girls, and the FDA

   Let's talk about one of the FDA's newer anti-smoking ads targeted at teenage girls. This is the one I mean.
   If you don't feel like watching it, let me give you a quick rundown- a girl sits at a cafeteria table and talks about someone, referred to using male pronouns, who manipulates her life and controls how she spends her time. Obviously, she's talking about cigarettes. She's seen smoking outside at the end of the commercial.
   My problem with this ad is that it plays off of a very real problem to create an advertising shtick. Violence and abuse within teenage relationships is a serious issue that has not been addressed enough; the CDC states that, according to a nationwide survey in 2011, nearly 10% of teens experienced violence at the hand of their girlfriend/boyfriend. Furthermore, 20% of women who experience rape or physical violence from an intimate partner report first experienced partner violence as teenagers. This ad implies that smoking is just as bad as partner violence, when only 4% of tenth-graders and 9% of twelfth-graders smoke regularly.  
   This echoes a trend I've seen in several media campaigns, most notably from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Clearly attempting a "shock and awe" tactic, they have placed women in cages and even in plastic packaging. These strategies make light of the serious objectification and human trafficking issues that plague women in the US and abroad.
  There are better ways to draw attention to the harmful effects of smoking. If this is an ad campaign targeting teenagers, playing off partner violence that ten percent of the target faces only serves to alienate those people.
   Rates of teen smoking have gone down dramatically in the last few decades, so the FDA is doing something right. Why, then, should we devalue the importance of healthy relationships (key to developing emotional and mental health) to tell kids that smoking is bad? The last several decades of school health programs and initiatives have told teens that smoking is bad, while some of the most popular media aimed at girls and women tells them abuse is okay. Shouldn't we do something about that?

Fireworks

Let's talk about courtesy and common decency.
Pioneer Day is my least favorite thing about Utah. There are so many aspects that just rub me the wrong way, and I had every intention of getting the hell out of town for it. Alas, car problems put a stopper in those plans.
I live near the park where they do their large fireworks display. It is also where the parade route ends. I was prepared for lots of cars. I was not prepared for how badly-behaved the attendees would be.
The fireworks nonsense starts at about seven- people park their cars in the surrounding neighborhoods and flock into the park to ooh and ah as colorful sparks explode overhead. There people seem to have very little regard for the actual residents of said neighborhoods- honking and being loud, walking through front yards, general bad behavior.
What surprised me the most, though, was how some of these visitors chose to hang out in the residential areas, rather than continuing towards the park. As the sun went down, people stood in the street and fired off bottle rockets. One person, who parked their car on a corner of our intersection, shot a flare gun towards cars and houses.
What is the deal? Who parks in someone else's neighborhood and behaves so poorly? Why are there so many people who are impatient to go and watch a fifteen-minute fireworks display? I don't personally care for fireworks, and I really don't care for the kind that people launch high into the air.
This is something I have noticed about Salt Lake- many people here have very little interest in the feelings or personal well-being of others. You have a right to light fireworks (I guess); you do not have the right to launch them towards my house and make me feel unsafe. This is the thing about personal liberty- your rights end where mine begin, and vice versa. I do not have the right to do something that jeopardizes the health of others. You do not have the right to do something that jeopardizes the health of others. If you want to light your own backyard on fire, be my guest. Do not park in front of my house, pull out a pack of PBR, and proceed to fire rockets over my head. It will end unpleasantly for everyone involved.

Caturday

This is Marvin. Marvin is a ten-pound cat, and a little over a year old.
That is his duck. Much like everything else I own, it belonged to me until he decided he liked it. That has been the fate of that duck, a stuffed bunny, blankets, pillows, socks, et cetera.
Marvin likes to eat food that I eat. Not just fish, but cheese, bread, crackers, potato chips, peas, lettuce, whipped cream, ice cream, mashed potatoes, pasta, and cake. He will climb your body to get at a slice of pizza. He'll leap at your to steal your corn chips.
Marvin is not like other cats I have met. He's got weird food preferences, doesn't mind water, and he greets me when I get home from work. When I adopted him, I did not expect to get a little friend who is so loving and loyal. I did not expect him to get excited every time it snows. I did not expect him to act like a dog.
I sound like a freaking cat lady, but there's only one cat in my life. I'm not crazy about him because I'm crazy about cats; he's nuts about me, and I return the favor.

Drunk Fridays

A recipe:

• Pour a sizable quantity of rum into a large glass
• Add your favorite soft drink, and/or ice
• Consume with great haste

Welcome to Drunk Friday, a feature I am starting now that will likely appear only a few times (if ever, given my attention span). Fridays are days best spent celebrating the progression of one's life gradually towards death, with the added bonus that we now have two days to do what we actually like. I will strive, on Drunk Friday, to find something positive to appreciate while consuming a pleasing beverage.
This has been a particularly difficult week, ending with a particularly difficult Friday. It is improved, however, by the acquisition of cheap sunglasses.
I don't see the point of spending a great sum of money on sunglasses. They never end up quite to my liking when I spend more than twenty dollars, and I feel reluctant loyalty to them out of the sheer fact that I could have bought pizza for what they cost. This leaves me with a desire for cheap plastic glasses, the kind you see on a rack in the grocery store near the registers. Never more than fifteen dollars, these oddities shield my eyes from migraine-inducing sunlight while looking to be worth every dollar paid.
These sunglasses, purchased at Fresh Market, are fabulous. They are brown-tinted, which I prefer, and rimmed with brown plastic. However, said plastic is accentuated with a rather vibrant teal. Most importantly, the sides are set with four stunning plastic "diamonds," each of which really give the glasses personality and a sense of mystique.
Would I pay more than ten dollars for these beauties? Absolutely not. I could pay more for sunglasses that look better and irritate the living fuck out of me, or I could pay ten dollars for strange plastic glasses that amuse me. We should choose our apparel based on what makes us happy; those who claim we dress for others have never worn a onesie.
My new sunglasses made me happy with their novelty and their affordability. What made you happy today?

Changes

As my latest post was well over a year ago, I consider this a kind of starting-over point with this blog. I've got a new name and a new URL; with it, a new sense of dedication. I vow the following:

• I will update regularly.
• I will add photos of things I like.
• I will generate entertaining themes for posts.
• I will not wait to post again until 2015.

That said, here are the realities:

• I am lazy.
• I am extremely lazy.
• I swear too much to be family friendly or particularly work appropriate.
• I would literally forget my own ass at home were it not attached, so help me God.

Given these, I would not hope for much. I would like to meet your expectations; thus, those ought to be set fairly low. I can be witty, but I can also be boring and wildly uninteresting. If you're bored or wildly uninterested, best to wander off now.