Don't get too excited, this has nothing to do with Twilight (sorry).
We all catch ourselves buying into so called "beauty standards" from time to time. Here's a video of how those unrealistic expectations we're comparing ourselves to are actually manufactured (I know it's pretty long, but stick around for the "before" and "after" at the end):
Never made vegan cheesecake before (could never find Tofutti Cream Cheese anywhere, until recently), so we decided to go big this time. In honor of mother's day, for a mother who has been relatively deprived of cheesecake since the dawn of her children's vegan movement, we made: Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Cappuccino Cheesecake, and sweet, tangy, glorious Original (not Plain) Cheesecake.
Wow, that was a pretty thought-provoking quiz.
Here's my results, no huge surprises really:
| 1. | Unitarian Universalism (100%) |
| 2. | Secular Humanism (98%) |
| 3. | Liberal Quakers (87%) |
| 4. | Neo-Pagan (81%) |
| 5. | Theravada Buddhism (81%) |
| 6. | Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (74%) |
| 7. | New Age (71%) |
| 8. | Nontheist (66%) |
| 9. | Mahayana Buddhism (63%) |
| 10. | Reform Judaism (61%) |
| 11. | Taoism (60%) |
| 12. | Bahá'í Faith (49%) |
| 13. | Orthodox Quaker (49%) |
| 14. | Jainism (45%) |
| 15. | New Thought (44%) |
| 16. | Scientology (42%) |
| 17. | Sikhism (40%) |
| 18. | Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (34%) |
| 19. | Orthodox Judaism (31%) |
| 20. | Hinduism (26%) |
| 21. | Islam (24%) |
| 22. | Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (24%) |
| 23. | Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (22%) |
| 24. | Seventh Day Adventist (20%) |
| 25. | Eastern Orthodox (14%) |
| 26. | Roman Catholic (14%) |
| 27. | Jehovah's Witness (11%) |
May be all I'm doing. I certainly hope some of my semi-political (no, actually, they are entirely political) rantings have made an impact on the apathetic masses, but when it comes down to it, I am fully aware that most people refuse to believe what is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or downright appalling. Especially about the practices of a government they are subject to, and the all-too-human leaders they blindly follow.
The problem is, too many people are incapable of differentiating between a country's government and its citizens. They (often unconsciously) assume that a government does and says things in accordance with the sentiments of its own people, and this is not always the case. I have to say, this is a big problem in the United States. Take, for instance, the casual phraseology of a history text book on WWII. It will say things like "we declared war against Nazi Germany", or "we dropped the bombs on Heroshima and Nagasaki", when it should make clear that these were acts of the US government. Not the people. This overly simplifies complicated conflicts, and obscures facts in order to present the "Disney version" of history as well as current foreign affairs. It creates ambiance comparable to a global "us against them" football game, our team colors being Red White and Blue.
Anyway, you've probably already guessed that this has something to do with 9/11, the unconstitutional "War on Terror", and conflicts in the Mideast. Honestly, I'm trying to get something through here, but there's just too much for me to organize into any kind of logical progression.
Remember right after the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? They (when I say "they" I mean the Bush administration) were calling it as a "vicious" and "unprovoked" attack on "America" in general. Remember the all-encompassing wave of "patriotism"? And then the police action in Iraq suddenly became so unpopular. Why? Immediately after 9/11, the American people had the sympathy of the world behind them, and now we're perceived as some of the most arrogant idiots on the planet. Why?
To a large part, it's due to they way our government handled the "unprovoked act of war". The way they reacted instantly, instead of responding accurately. Did Bush and his team clearly differentiate between the Iraqi government and a group of militant religious fanatics? Did they even attempt to separate the uninvolved civilians before they started bombing? And don't even get me started on all the recently revealed false statements regarding WMD's.
But that was our government. Not us. How did we respond? Mostly, with utter confusion and a cry for revenge. Far from graceful. But hardly surprising from of nation of people who have been lied to about the details of every military conflict since WWII, without exception. 9/11 came as such a shock, and we honestly believed that the Iraqis hated us for no good reason, because we were (and still are) entirely ignorant of all the not-so-nice things our government has been doing for the past few decades to instigate such a violent act. And this is only half our fault. We trusted our government. 9/11 was essentially an instance of "blowback", the CIA's term for the unintended conciquences of covert opperations. The instance appears to be random and without cause only because the public was unaware of the secret operations that provoked it. Exactly.
Maybe the point I'm trying to make is, well, I'm aware that not all is what it seems to be, and I wish more people were too. I wish my fellow Americans valued freedom of information, more than feel-good sound-bites about "freedom" and "democracy". I wish the United States was a nation of concerned, informed citizens - not flag-waving zealots who accuse you of being "un-patriotic" for questioning anything the president says (which, by the way, we have the right to do thanks to the constitution). I wish we could elect a president we can trust to at least tell us the truth, and who would never do anything s/he feels the need to hide from we, the People. I wish, I wish, I wish.
In the meantime, thanks for conquering your human attention-span, and finishing this post (if you haven't wandered off already, or just skipped to the end to check if I actually have a meaningful conclusion). Let's all get over ourselves, and try to take an honest look at history for a change.
peace.
You should watch these documentaries, and read this book: