Jon Stewart rips CNN’s misreporting of Boston Marathon bombing case - Part One...

In the latest inspirational effort from Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, a group of women described themselves to a forensic artist, who sketched a portrait based on their descriptions alone. Then the artist asked other people to describe those same women, and did a second sketch. The contrast between the two portraits was pretty staggering, and illustrated a sad truth about how skewed our self-image can be.(More at the frisky.com)

Yesterday a tough day for most. The bombing in Boston, Tax Day, Monday...So I found a little something to make you smile. What do you do when you're waiting for a bus and there's a song in your head? Why, you dance like nobody's watching. Only in this woman's case, someone was watching and recording.

“Oblivion” – Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman - On a future Earth, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind. The fate of humanity now rests solely in the hands of a man who believed our world was soon to be lost forever.

7 year old guitarist Zoe Thomson plays
"Sweet Child O Mine" by Guns n Roses

(photo from Audrie Pott's Foundation Facebook Page)

The Sadness of Their Reality

(from policymic.com) In September, while she was unconscious at a classmate’s house party, 15-year-old Audrie Pott from San Francisco, Calif., was raped and sexually abused. Her attackers then used their cell phones to spread pictures of the assault across the school. Feeling hopeless and ashamed, the young girl took her life eight days later. On Thursday, about seven months after the incident, the boys who allegedly did this to her have been arrested. Since they are minors, the names of the three boys who attacked Pott have not been released. 

The day after the attack and eight days before she took her own life, Audrie posted on her Facebook page “The whole school knows … My life is ruined." Audrie’s parents didn’t even learn about their daughter’s assault until after she hanged herself.

But, the saddest part about what happened to Audrie Pott is that this kind of assault and subsequent suicide is becoming eerily common. Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old Canadian girl was also raped while unconscious at a party and suffered bullying after it was spread across the school over the Internet earlier this month. She too took her own life. There was also the case in Steubenville, Ohio, where two high school football players videotaped themselves assaulting a nearly passed out 16-year-old girl. This trend that has appeared in high schools of taking advantage of passed out girls is sick and terrifying and something needs to be done to save these teens. More at Policy Mic dot com.

My Thoughts

The answer, in my opinion, is complicated. Changing accepted social behavior is difficult at best. And, don't act like "accepted Social behavior" is an insult to you. If you haven't had a serious, heart-felt talk with your middle school aged kids about peer pressure, alcohol, drugs, and sex, then you are actively condoning "accepted social behavior." They are going to learn it from their peers, tv, movies, music, the internet...Unless you take the time to talk and listen to your 12 year old, they will accept the "truth" where they find it from someone who will listen to them.

Understand, it is not your world they live in. That world has passed. You must try to understand their world, the pressure they deal with and how it is applied in their world. This is nothing new. Remember your youth.

In their world, the pressure is applied at an ever earlier age. They know things that you maybe can't image. So, you must take time to be involved in their world. Learn what you can. Offer what you know. Not as a "Dark Overlord" but as a parent who is in it with them, setting boundries, offering guidence, and listening.

This applies to both your daughters and your sons. Both must develope an understanding and reverence for the dignity of life. Not just their own, but the lives of those around them. They must learn to value their bodies, their individuality and their souls, all of which can be broken in a moment of poor judgement.

They must understand the importance of speaking out against what they know is wrong, even if if means suffering the disapproval of someone they love. Even you.

Because, it is their world. They have to live in it. They have to shape it. Ultimately, only they can control it. You, in the end, can only listen, talk, and hope that you will be ready at any moment to offer support, to help them to do the right thing for themselves. In the end, every decision every day of their lives, will be made by them based on the truth they know. Will you be part of that truth?

Don't miss the special Friday Barn Jam at Awendaw Green this Friday night, April 19, starting at 6:30. Awendaw Green welcomes one of South Carolina's finest musical exports, Don Dixon. Aside from being an amazing singer-songwriter in his own right, he's produced albums for R.E.M., The Smithereens, Marshall Crenshaw, etc....and artists like Joe Cocker and John Hiatt have recorded his songs. Don't miss Don and his wife Marti Jones, also an acclaimed singer-songwriter, performing together. Also performing is Mark Bryan's new duo " Sittin in a Tree" and, opening the show, is Mary Williams.

Doors at 6PM show at 6:30PM. Tickets are $10 at door, all ages, BYOB Awendaw Green is located at 4853 Hwy 17N in Awendaw. For more info, click here for Awendaw Green online or call Eddie White at 843-452-1642.

Kelly Clarkson instagrammed a photo of her getting a temporary tattoo on her wrist showing an "equal" sign -- a logo that's been adopted by groups pressing for equal rights for gays, lesbians and transgender people.

(photo from insatram.com/kellyclarkson)

Kelly made no verbal statement other than adding the hashtag "equality," but fans and foes got the message and lit up Kelly's feed with replies, pro and con. The responses included:

• "Amazing, we need more people like Kelly in the world."
  
  
• "Throughout the years, you've been an amazing role model. You stick to your beliefs."
  
  
• "Really? To support the gays? I willnot support you anymore! It's a sad day."
  
  
• "I think it is funny that majority of the people on here for equality are gay. I'm sorry, but being gay is wrong... There will be a judgment day, and you will have to answer to being gay.
  
  
• "I don't know about everyone else, but my God loves everyone. You go Kelly! Don't let the haters get to you."