Miley Cyrus Vs. Vanity Fair Vs. Pop Culture

Annie Leibovitz recently had a photoshoot with Miley Cyrus.  During that photoshoot Leibovitz took what critics now are calling a controversial shot that subsequently has embarrassed Miley Cyrus.  If you'd look at the picture you might be embarrassed too, especially if you're 15 years old.  The picture has Cyrus exposing her back and looking over her shoulder.  Oh yeah, she appears topless. 

Now little Miley doesn't want the shot going through the press and neither does her family.  Vanity Fair is now trying to back up Leibovitz's 'artwork' and say that the shot is legitimate.  Sorry Vanity Fair, but whether or not Miley Cyrus liked the picture at the time you should have been mature enough in making the decision to just delete the picture, no matter if you thought it was artwork or not.  The reason being - Miley Cyrus is a 15 year old tv actress that is a big role model for pre-teens.  Girls and boys grow up with her being an influence directly on them.  This certain picture is demeaning to Cyrus and is the leading factor to destroying her career and making her into a naughty girl that she's not.

Let me tell you something Vanity Fair and to the rest of pop culture, leave Miley Cyrus out of this.  You've already corrupted and destroyed the futures of role models such as the Olson twins, Lindsay Lohan, and most recently Jamie Spears.  How about you let Cyrus out of ths and actually let her be a good role model instead of destroying her future?  How about you quit pressuring her into making stupid decisions that you, yourself wouldn't do?  How about you have a little integrity for once and quit taking away something from a generation that will help them to become better than our corrupt selves?  Miley Cyrus isn't in this to do what you want, she's in it to do what she wants, and that's to be a good role model.  And if you don't believe me how about you ask her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, who has been supportive of her the entire time.

Let me give you, Leibovitz, a personal shout out for being immature about this whole thing and claiming that what she did was 'art'.  In fact, I feel sorry for you that you would convince a 15 year old girl that what she was doing was good even though she probably has no inkling as to what good photography is.  I'm not saying that she's dumb and has no idea.  I'm saying that she's young and has no idea.  Whenever I was 15 I could honestly care less what I looked like in a picture.  If someone told me I looked good then I thought that I looked good.  Shame on you Leibovitz.  You should be fired from your job because you failed to be professional about your job.

Let me give another shout out to the editor of Vanity Fair for being just as unprofessional.  An editor's job is to make sure that the material being produced has nothing explicit and has no mistakes.  If you ask me this is explicit and is a huge mistake.  But you even went beyond the 'job' and decided to put this as the center-fold of the magazine and followed through by backing up Leibovitz.  You are just as guilty if not more than the culprit who took the photo in the beginning. 

America, you should be easily upset by this transgression as well as angry.  You're 10- and 11- year old daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, neices and nephews are watching this and being exposed to this.  If you'd sit down and watch Hannah Montanna (Miley Cyrus's show on Disney) you would probably be as content as I am with letting them watch the show.  It provides great stories of growing up as well as a cast that doesn't have corrupt values.  My sister watches this show and when I walk into the room when she's watching I know that I don't have to worry about changing the channel on her.  I know I can trust the show that it will deliver a good message to her. 

But pop culture is trying to continuously take this away.  Look at what they did to Lohan.  How many times has she been in rehab?  Instead of trying to prevent a problem and making her look like a role model pop culture sucked her in and made her into another person.  Instead of telling her to put down the beer when she first picked it up they took a picture of it and made sure that our parents and kids knew about it.  Pop culture ruined Britney Spears when she first came out as well.  In fact in her first video that was run on MTV they tried to picture her as a cute school girl wearing a mini-skirt and pig tails.  She was 17 in that video and they were already trying to portray her as sexually seductive.  I'm sure she didn't know, she was only 17 years old.  Maybe if pop culture would have tried to help her instead of ruining her every chance they got then maybe she wouldn't be trying to hide from the media these days.

So here's my ultimate point to pop culture, to Vanity Fair, to Annie Leibovitz - lay off already and get a life.  Maybe your lives absolutely suck right now, but quit trying to put successful stars down.  You're all adults now.  You should've hit that thing called maturity once you started your occupation.  So instead of hurting a good cause why don't you help it.  I don't want to see another good role model hit the gutter because you told her drugs, alcohol, and sex were ok.  I don't want to hide another face from my sister that she once looked up to and make excuses as to why I won't let her watch that face anymore.  I like Cyrus.  She has a supportive family, a good career, and an even better future.  Lay off of her.

Where Has Parenting Gone?

Have you seen the videos lately?  It seems that everytime I turn around I'm viewing a new video of teenagers beating up on innocent teenagers.  It started out with the 16 year old girl in Florida who got hammered by another girl who was using brass knuckles.  This was while a carful of other teenagers watched and filmed.  Then there was the 13 year old girl in New York who got pummeled by an older teenager on the playground after school.  It didn't stop there, however.  Just recently one teenage girl got stricken blind and broke several bones because she got gang beat in a house by several other girls.  Now I read a story of middle school girls who got in a tustle that was to represet what happened in Florida a year or so ago.  My question to all of you - where has parenting gone?

In the first episode, the girl who got beat up in Florida went and told her dad.  Her dad, being upset, called this other girl's father and told him what happened.  Well, he denied that his girl would do anything like that.  It wasn't until he caught his daughter with a pair of brass knuckles that he then believed.  He didn't even question her to begin with.  He just assumed that his little sweatheart was a perfect angel that wouldn't do anything wrong.  Does this make sense to anyone else?  I mean, that shows me that you don't care what your daughter does if you're not even going to question something that she does.

Now that first video circulated in the news.  So I'm sure that most parents have heard about it right?  The next step is to make sure that it doesn't happen with your child right?  Wrong.  A week later this girl got beat up in New York.  Where was the preventive practice there?  Grant it, the parent may not need to control and dictate what the child does.  However, in a situation like this I think a little bell should go off that tells you that you need to at least pay attention to what your child does.  It's called parenting.  There should be no excuses either.  You decided to have the child.  That means you also decided that you were going to take care of the child.

Now these other two videos come out and there's still no excuse.  You need to know where your children are and what they're doing.  When I would go out when I still lived with my parents I usually told them where I was going.  They set a curfew on me at first but then lifted it as they put more trust in me.  They did that because I wasn't getting into any trouble.  That's just the simple things too.  That doesn't go into the whole spectrum of how you're supposed to take care of them and love them.  I bet honestly that some of you 'parents' are forfeiting your love and care for them because you, yourself are selfish.  You now haven't given them love or care and you now ignore them.  And you think that you can be parents?

If you honestly are that oblivious to what good parenting is, then you're in luck.  I have a good example for you - the victim's father in the Florida case.  He not only knew where his daughter was that night (unaware that this carful of other teenagers would come to her position and attack her), he also called the shots when it happened.  He called the police.  He called this other girls father.  He even got this in national news.  When stations wanted to interview her, he was there beside her at every interview if he could be.  Do you know what that is?  That's called love and care.  If you are unable to see what this is, then you made the wrong decision to become a parent.

And as I say in most blogs, you can just tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm a single, 19 year old male that doesn't have any kids.  Or, you look at yourself and see how unsuccessful you really are at parenting.  You tell me when the last time you told your son or daughter that you love them and meant it.  You tell me the last time you bought them something they needed.  You tell me where they are at right now.  Not only that, but tell me where they were last weekend.  Chances are your son or daughter could be at the local party sucking down beer pongs and having unprotected sex with someone they just met.  It happens.  I've seen it.  And that, my friend, you can listen to, because I am a teenager.

You know, when I was in high school I was pretty quiet.  When there was down time in class I would sit and listen to what the other students were saying.  Some of their stories were horrendous.  These weren't just rumors floating around either.  These are words that I've heard projected out of the mouths of the people who did these acts.  There was one girl who would talk about sex story after sex story.  All of these were with different guys too.  Where's the parenting?  How do you know that she won't become a porn star when she gets older.  I'd be ashamed if I had a daughter that was a porn star.  Could you imagine what you tell your friends and family when they ask about her?  There were several guys and girls that would talk about smoking marijuana and forgetting what they did when they smoked it.  You could just look at a few of these and tell that they were smoking a lot.  How do you know that they won't become a drug dealer when they get older?  Once again, think about what you would tell your friends and family.  I've also heard other things like beer drinking, stealing, and doing very antisocial things.  Once again, what would you tell your family and friends?

In closing, think about how you're raising your kids or how you're going to raise them.  They directly reflect how good of a parent you are.  And just for the record you chose the job.  You chose to have children and to raise them.  You didn't have to.  There's no book of laws that demands that you have children.  However, this job is a 24/7 job and goes beyond concrete actions.  Raise your children properly before they hurt someone elses lives permantly.  Because your children and yourself will have to live with that forever.

How Great is God?

I as driving home from a friends house just now and I just had this compulsion to listen to Life in Your Way.  I switched it to the song 'Making Waves' and just got the biggest chills down my spine.  Basically, this song is about how secure the songwriter is about himself and his decision to become a Christian.  The last two lines read as this:

'I'm standing firm.
It feels so good.'

It really woke a sleeping giant in me, which is what the CD is called - Waking Giants.  This meaning that there is giants in all of us that mean good but most of them are sleeping because we've all forgotten what's important.  We've all forgotten God.

These lyrics, though, they felt so good to listen to.  When I devoted my life to God several years ago it was the best feeling in the world.  I felt tall.  I felt like nothing could knock me over.  The reason being - God gives me the strength that I need to go day to day.  I, in turn, know that I must fulfill the duties that God has set aside for me.

'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose' - Romans 8:28

This verse means so much to me right now.  You see, the past few weeks I've almost forgotten about God.  I was putting other things before Him.  I put my leave, my bonus, and my friends and family before Him.  I felt the burn.  I'll be honest with you, the past few days I have felt like total crap emotionally.  Tonight is different though.  God has a plan for me and in my hour of need He picked me up and carried me in His wings.  He covered for me.  He's made me realize that I don't need worldy lusts to live my life.  I make it on the strength that He provides me. 

Sometimes I think to myself that I need a girlfriend but I know that I can't have one right now.  It's nearly impossible to have a good, healthy relationship with a girl when you're tied to the Army like I am.  If I would have not been a Christian when I became a soldier, I would probably be hurting really bad right now.  In fact I know that I would.  To be frank, I don't know if I would even be in the Army.  I would be so lost without Him.  God has made this situation feasible for me, however.  He has made me comfortable with who I am.  He has shown me that I don't need the drugs, the sex, the money to survive.  He has shown me life.

'You could have fled
and who could have blamed You?
but you chose to stay
and bear the weight
that I had placed upon You

Father I can't understand
how You could ever love me
when I'm so undeserving
and unworthy of anything.'

-And So We'll be With the Lord Forever, Here I Come Falling

Those are lyrics to an interlude by Here I Come Falling.  They tie in to this next verse:

'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life' - John 3:16

That is one of the most common verses in the Bible, but it means so much.  God sent His one and only Son, who is perfect, to take punishment for sinners like you and I.  He took our burdens so that someday we will have everlasting life.  We will rejoice in the Heavens someday with Him.  It's such a big sacrifice to you and me.  I know that I am undeserving of this, just like the lyrics state.  I just told you earlier in this blog that I forgot about God for a few weeks.  Yet, I pray to Him once and He forgives me.  It seems unfair.  It's as if He should wait a few weeks before forgiving me.  But he doesn't, because He is that great.  He is so great that we can't even fathom at it. 

I don't write this blog to convert you to Christianity.  Instead, I write this blog to inform you of how much God has truly done for me.  I'm 19 years old.  I've stayed away from drugs, alcohol, and sex all of my life.  I'm in the Army with a job that I love.  I'm making quite a bit of money to include a large bonus that I originally wasn't even supposed to get.  I'm getting benifits that a lot of people in my hometown area don't even get.  I have loving parents and a loving Pap.  I don't deserve what I have, but God has made all of this possible.  My trust in Him only gets stronger every day.  I know where I'm going when I die.  I don't question it, ever. 

'I will sing to the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
May my meditation be pleasing to Him,
As I rejoice in the Lord' - Psalm 104:33-34