Skip to main content

Ta...Boo

The standards of what's acceptable in terms of public display of sexually related material or content differs greatly in America and the rest of the more democratic and advanced nations. Below is a photo of a newspaper/tabloid from England. The ironic thing is that the United States is certainly not a country made of puritans. Think about the Janet Jackson warddrobe malfunction on tv, which is just a sophisticated and sanitized way to say simply that her boobs showed on tv, and in England they have weekly photos of topless women. Something's wrong here!

It's just that somehow, through the influence of evangelical churches, talking about sex or looking at sexually explicit material is taboo in the United States (perhaps also in other countries in Asia for example, but ours is the so called most democratic). Somehow I find this to be slightly perverted since one would think that sex is perhaps one of our basest instincts, and from a more scientific viewpoint, absolutely essential for the preservation of our species.

This relates to another view that I don't agree with, and that is the need for clergy to remain celibate. I think that's tantamount to disobeying the word of God, since He did stress the importance of marriage, and after all, created an Adam AND Eve so that they could rule over the earth in happy matrimony. Allowing priests to marry also minimizes, note this does not eliminate, the chance of priests molesting children.

I think America really needs to stop lying to itself. Face up to the truths of what this nation has become and that will be for the better. Otherwise wishful thinking for the past only leads to stagnation and eventual downfall (think Roman Empire). The past, by any means has been the same---it's human nature, c'mon! When they refer to the Founding Fathers, there's almost certainly a deeper meaning...think, how many Franklins and Jeffersons we have out there!!

Pic from China Times.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Youthful Reminisces

These past four days have been a trip down memory lane. I'm going to try to organize some of the memories for blogging, though not all in this post. My parents, M and I took a road trip to Hualien, partly as a family get-away, and also to introduce our Taiwanese hometown to a group of my brother's ( Albert Wu see here and here ) students from France. Albert and his wife are jointly teaching a course in history in Paris, and over the last few weeks they have been taking their students on an abroad research-coursework-fun tour of Taiwan. If you know my father, he tends to try to get involved in some way with any of his sons' projects, and from our perspectives, it's great to get his help and/or just advice (from time to time). My brother and his wife planned a historical, social justice introduction to Taiwan (I wrote about a visit to Dadaocheng ). Important components to understand the complex identities and mindsets of Taiwanese today involves understanding the Ea

Did X say that?

I was cleaning out old draft emails when I came upon these quotes. 1. “Set your goals high; make friends with different kinds of people; enjoy simple pleasures. Stand on high ground; sit on level ground; walk on expansive ground.” 2. In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit . -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965) Both quotes resonated with me, and both quotes provide profound, provoking, prose projecting providence. But for the first quote I'm not sure who to attribute, and for the second, while I'd like to imagine he said that, I'm not really sure if Dr. Schweitzer did (because I have never met him!). In the internet age, I think it really behooves one to critically analyze everything read online. Does X make sense, did X say that? Sometimes it&

Just a few more quotes to post and share!

See the post title. ***** If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)    "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions d