On the 8th season of Law and Order: SVU, in an episode entitled “Responsible”, a young high school student attends a party where there was alcohol. She overdoses on the alcohol and dies because no one calls for medical help. The dead girl’s father immediately makes charges against the organizers of the party, they themselves, high school students.
The kids are the initially charged with negligent homicide but the judge lets them off only for that very night to be arrested again because they are having a drinking party.
End of the show, two of the kids end up dead in a drunk-driving accident.
I was like, “What?!”
Three million things are running in my head.
Issue number one
The party was held in the house of couple who were out of town and had no connection to the kids. Charge: Trespassing.
It’s like that silly kid’s story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Some blonde girl (aged 8-10: I think) finds a house in the woods and decides to go snooping. She eats their food, messes up their house under the guise of looking for comfortable furniture to sleep in and rubs her sweaty self all over their beddings because she could not find a comfortable bed to sleep in, in the house she was not invited into. I cannot remember how the story ended but I remember as a kid putting myself in her shoes and knowing for a fact that if someone had come to my house to report that I had come into their house, rummaged through three pots of soup like a random goat, rearranged their furniture and to then top it up, they found me in the master bedroom, snoozing and drooling on the parent’s pillowcase; my mother would have beaten me into a coma so that indeed, if it was sleep that was the motivation in my break-in-and-entry, I would have a permanent slumber.
But no, these kids, same race as Goldilocks, are released on their own recognizance. Their highly paid lawyer reels off a list of academic achievements-- which by the way, I have since come to reconsider. For one, just because you have all As does not mean that your academic load is taxing. I would have As too if I took a class on how to set the dinner table or how to properly order caviar-- and the judge nods in admiration.
Kai! If only I could reach into the TV and smack someone
Issue Number Two
All the kids were underage, from affluent WHITE families whose parents spent their time travelling exotic world locations, leaving their errant teenage kids without supervision and lots of money to spend.
My issue: please tell me the judge would have been lenient on a couple of black or other-ethnic kids. In one scene, the judge states that she does not want to ruin their careers for doing something stupid and that the punishment should fit the crime. Errrrr, what was the name of that black boy that went to jail for having sex with his white sixteen year old classmate when he was nineteen or something? Two barely-legals’ do the nasty, black boy ends up in jail until he is past twenty one. Wow… punishment fit that crime on one serious note.
Sometimes, I am amazed at the blatant double standards. At least in my country, whether the kids are rich or not, at their initial arrest, the police would have dished out equal amounts of ass whooping before anyone could summon the lawyer
Issue Number 3
It is revealed that one child has been drinking for a long time, aided in part by her mother who after catching her drinking, began instead to purchase the booze for her so she could do her drinking at home, where it was "safe". Two years later, the fifteen year old has the innards of a forty year old and a shortened lifespan because her mother wanted to be cool.
So I thought about my own mother. And had a vision of...
My Adopted Child: Mummy, why have you no ears?
Me ( many years from now): Well, my child. One day, your grandmother...
My Adopted Child: You mean, Grandma in Lagos (or wherever she is)
Me: Yup...the very one...she caught me stealing alcohol from the cabinet and she stared at me with her laser eyes and burnt my ears off.
My Adopted Child: Wha....aaat?!
Me: Yes, and I will do the same to you if you ever try it. In fact, I will carve the map of Africa across your face.
My Adopted Child: Daddy!!!!
LMAO!!!!!!!
Oh, wait, I am the only one laughing?
Sigh
I love American TV
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
The degrees of Sin
I once had a conversation with a girlfriend of mine about why I did not want to ride in her car because of the lingering and cloying smell of cigarette smoke. She listened quietly as I explained my spiritual reasons for not exposing myself to cigarettes and the lifestyle; it being that it creates a shroud around your spiritual aura that prevents Divine Spirit/ high positive spiritual energy from manifesting in your life. In short, I said, it blocks communication with your inner Spiritual guides and if I desired any form of spiritual growth, I could not smoke or hang around smoke. There was also the personal of my aversion to the smell but that was not the main issue.
To the above, she said, "You don't smoke but you have sex?"
Basically, she was saying that as a sexually active unmarried adult; an action that is considered sinful by the religious path she belongs to, how could I question her own "sin" of smoking?
Since I don't subscribe to the same path, I see sexual intercourse as something different.
This is what I know: (Note, you don't have to agree) When you sleep with someone, alongside the exchange of bodily fluids that can be potentially dangerous if one or both of you is cooking some STD, or emotions is an exchange of spiritual baggage. i.e karma. So for instance, if I were to hook up with Boy X (or Girl X if you swing that way) and the person is packing some serious past life drama on some crazy level, being with them automatically allows some of that drama into my life and I will have to carry that karma as well. And deal with it.
It is because of this that on my spiritual path that you are ENCOURAGED to be married when engaging in physical intimacy. This is because, when you decide to get married, there is the assumption that you are aware of this exchange, acknowledge the possible challenges that will come your way ( hence the "for better or worse" clause in the vows) and are deciding that as spouse, you are going to help each other burn karma and be the best spiritual being you can be so you can attain the best spiritual results for your incarnation. So, if anything happens when Papa Junior knocks boots with Mama Junior or Papa Junior II (for same-sex couples) both have decided to stick it out.
Now, as this idea is not such a new age idea; I am sure ancient texts have this line of thinking in them from all parts of the world. However, I am of the theory that ancient religious leaders realising that individuals will take this kind of thinking and start "exchanging" all over the place as the concept does not introduce any real fear; especially if you don't understand karma, reincarnation and the Laws of Cause and Effect, introduced an element that has revolutionalised the world, landed many people in trouble and given sexual interractions the identity it has to day.
HELL.
The fiery, eternal burning pit for sex-ing peoples.
Here was my dilema with this concept. One of the hell ideas, among many others says if you have sex before marriage or outside of marriage, you are going to be an eternal human barbecue. Even as a little girl, my first question was always, "What if you don't want to be married?"
I don't think marriage is for everyone and I definitely don't think motherhood is for every woman, just because she has the equipment to do so; thus out the window went another hell ideology of sex for procreation only. It's like a food processor, you can blend fruit, mix dough or even pounded yam if you are so adventurous. You can adapt any "tool" for something else.
I digress.
So, I knew that if I wanted to have mastery over my personal, physical, financial, creative, emotional and spiritual affairs, I needed to figure out what to do about my sexuality. Since, I wasn't gunning to present any future husband with a virginity on my wedding night like a well cultivated fruit for the plucking, neither was I waiting for marriage to "help me explore sex", I had to sit down and make a very calculated decision about what I could and could not do.
So, I tried to explain to my friend, that I did not see sex as a "sin" because I did not see anything as a "sin". You do something, however minute, you deal with the consequences. If you don't finish this lifetime, then you come back and start again. If you would like to squander one incarnation and return as a cockroach because you actions were so horrendous (I always imagined that this would be the punishment for certain criminals), be my guest; I have RAID if you show up in my house.
There are some things that I try to avoid because I cannot deal with the repercussions.
Like gossiping; I love it. It is juicy and scintillating but I often fall ill after a long session because I have violated another's space. For smaller gossip fests, I walk into a wall or hard object, or hit my toe. I always know when something like that happens that this a a physical repercussion to something I have done. Cos, you see, nothing at all happens in a vacuum.
This is just as an example.
To cut a long story short, my friend and I decided that she would not smoke if she has to give me a ride somewhere and I would respect her decision to be a smoker and leave her be.
C'est finit.
To the above, she said, "You don't smoke but you have sex?"
Basically, she was saying that as a sexually active unmarried adult; an action that is considered sinful by the religious path she belongs to, how could I question her own "sin" of smoking?
Since I don't subscribe to the same path, I see sexual intercourse as something different.
This is what I know: (Note, you don't have to agree) When you sleep with someone, alongside the exchange of bodily fluids that can be potentially dangerous if one or both of you is cooking some STD, or emotions is an exchange of spiritual baggage. i.e karma. So for instance, if I were to hook up with Boy X (or Girl X if you swing that way) and the person is packing some serious past life drama on some crazy level, being with them automatically allows some of that drama into my life and I will have to carry that karma as well. And deal with it.
It is because of this that on my spiritual path that you are ENCOURAGED to be married when engaging in physical intimacy. This is because, when you decide to get married, there is the assumption that you are aware of this exchange, acknowledge the possible challenges that will come your way ( hence the "for better or worse" clause in the vows) and are deciding that as spouse, you are going to help each other burn karma and be the best spiritual being you can be so you can attain the best spiritual results for your incarnation. So, if anything happens when Papa Junior knocks boots with Mama Junior or Papa Junior II (for same-sex couples) both have decided to stick it out.
Now, as this idea is not such a new age idea; I am sure ancient texts have this line of thinking in them from all parts of the world. However, I am of the theory that ancient religious leaders realising that individuals will take this kind of thinking and start "exchanging" all over the place as the concept does not introduce any real fear; especially if you don't understand karma, reincarnation and the Laws of Cause and Effect, introduced an element that has revolutionalised the world, landed many people in trouble and given sexual interractions the identity it has to day.
HELL.
The fiery, eternal burning pit for sex-ing peoples.
Here was my dilema with this concept. One of the hell ideas, among many others says if you have sex before marriage or outside of marriage, you are going to be an eternal human barbecue. Even as a little girl, my first question was always, "What if you don't want to be married?"
I don't think marriage is for everyone and I definitely don't think motherhood is for every woman, just because she has the equipment to do so; thus out the window went another hell ideology of sex for procreation only. It's like a food processor, you can blend fruit, mix dough or even pounded yam if you are so adventurous. You can adapt any "tool" for something else.
I digress.
So, I knew that if I wanted to have mastery over my personal, physical, financial, creative, emotional and spiritual affairs, I needed to figure out what to do about my sexuality. Since, I wasn't gunning to present any future husband with a virginity on my wedding night like a well cultivated fruit for the plucking, neither was I waiting for marriage to "help me explore sex", I had to sit down and make a very calculated decision about what I could and could not do.
So, I tried to explain to my friend, that I did not see sex as a "sin" because I did not see anything as a "sin". You do something, however minute, you deal with the consequences. If you don't finish this lifetime, then you come back and start again. If you would like to squander one incarnation and return as a cockroach because you actions were so horrendous (I always imagined that this would be the punishment for certain criminals), be my guest; I have RAID if you show up in my house.
There are some things that I try to avoid because I cannot deal with the repercussions.
Like gossiping; I love it. It is juicy and scintillating but I often fall ill after a long session because I have violated another's space. For smaller gossip fests, I walk into a wall or hard object, or hit my toe. I always know when something like that happens that this a a physical repercussion to something I have done. Cos, you see, nothing at all happens in a vacuum.
This is just as an example.
To cut a long story short, my friend and I decided that she would not smoke if she has to give me a ride somewhere and I would respect her decision to be a smoker and leave her be.
C'est finit.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Thinking about my mum...
My mom is wierd. But then again, as her only child, it follows true that I should be like her. Whatever the case, I love the woman; her gray hairs and all-- most of which I put there.
When I was about fifteen, my mother decided that I needed to learn to cook by force and so one day, it was my turn to make stew. For those of you (possibly none of you) who are unfamiliar with Nigerian food, stew is the basis of most of our dishes. It is a mixture of blended peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, seasoning, fried in oil and flavored with stock (or not). It should take maximum twenty minutes to prepare. My first time, the entire process took me four hours.
The end result was good but also, I developed an aversion for meat. Having spent an hour cleaning fresh, raw chicken, I could not put it in my mouth without being nauseated. The only kind of meat I could eat was treated cow hide, known as pomo. It has no nutritional value, has a distinct taste that masks anything else and is quite cheap.
So what did my mother do? She would go to the market, wade through the muck and buy me pomo just so I could have something to eat.
Then there was the time when I would not eat freshly baked bread.
What did she do? She would buy two loaves and leave mine in the fridge so that it was a bit "stale" by the time I was ready to eat it.
Since I was little, and till now, I hated the smell you get when you wash a frying pan used to fry eggs. So what I would do would be to fry like six eggs at once and that would be my egg ration for the month; just so I would not have to wash the pan all the time.
My mom's solution: she would make the eggs, season it heavily and then clean up; leaving me with no chores.
I have other things that I have subjected that woman to, out of sheer wierdness or phases. And she would oblige me.
When you are a kid, what is more important than a parent who accepts your skoin skoin.
*sigh* all this , cos I was just thinking about my mum
When I was about fifteen, my mother decided that I needed to learn to cook by force and so one day, it was my turn to make stew. For those of you (possibly none of you) who are unfamiliar with Nigerian food, stew is the basis of most of our dishes. It is a mixture of blended peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, seasoning, fried in oil and flavored with stock (or not). It should take maximum twenty minutes to prepare. My first time, the entire process took me four hours.
The end result was good but also, I developed an aversion for meat. Having spent an hour cleaning fresh, raw chicken, I could not put it in my mouth without being nauseated. The only kind of meat I could eat was treated cow hide, known as pomo. It has no nutritional value, has a distinct taste that masks anything else and is quite cheap.
So what did my mother do? She would go to the market, wade through the muck and buy me pomo just so I could have something to eat.
Then there was the time when I would not eat freshly baked bread.
What did she do? She would buy two loaves and leave mine in the fridge so that it was a bit "stale" by the time I was ready to eat it.
Since I was little, and till now, I hated the smell you get when you wash a frying pan used to fry eggs. So what I would do would be to fry like six eggs at once and that would be my egg ration for the month; just so I would not have to wash the pan all the time.
My mom's solution: she would make the eggs, season it heavily and then clean up; leaving me with no chores.
I have other things that I have subjected that woman to, out of sheer wierdness or phases. And she would oblige me.
When you are a kid, what is more important than a parent who accepts your skoin skoin.
*sigh* all this , cos I was just thinking about my mum
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