LeAnn Rimes Needed to Put Herself First

Cheaters: LeAnne Rimes and Eddie Cibrian

Seriously? I didn't know the marriage vow stated "When you need to put yourself first have an affair." This fits into my belief that only certain people should marry. In her interview with "Shape" Magazine she said, "I’ve always been one of those people who takes care of everyone else-and their needs-first. This past year, for the first time ever, I put me first. I’m sure some people are thinking that I was totally selfish, but the truth is, there are times in your life when you have to be selfish in order to find out what truly makes you happy". Seriously, gays haven't been allow to marry and neither should people who say silliness like this.

But what's the truth? Marriage is not about you being happy. Let me say it again, marriage is NOT about you being happy. And by the way her excuse is a common one people give for screwing their spouse over. Marriage is about the happiness of the union. You make compromises, solve problems and treat each other with love and respect. Otherwise, don't do it.

I do understand the idea of "me time" and self discover and believe me, I'm a big proponent of it and also of finding out what make you "happy", but at the same time, this is the exact opposite of what marriage is about. Under Ms. Rimes ideaology I can marry and when things aren't going so well, I just start looking for the next chick who will make me happy. "Sorry honey, I know I made a vow to you and God, but that only applied when you were making me happy. Even though I said for better and for worse, I didn't mean that." Honestly You can use this bullcrap argument anytime you flake out, but we pretty much know the terms of the marriage contract when we enter it, right.

In her interview with "Shape" magazine she goes on to say,  "Cultivating strength from rough situations is the most important thing. After going through this, I know I can face anything." Did he cheat on her? I mean it sounds like she's the victim. Cultivating strength from the fact you got caught committing adultery? I mean the rough situation was being busted for cheating. But that's what supposed to happen when you cheat.

Now, I don't know Dean Sheremet's side or what he did. Maybe he cheated too, maybe he didn't, but I do know this isn't all on Rimes. Takes two to tango and Eddie Cibrian was married to  Brandi Glanville for seven years and had two kids with her. His line of PR pablum included the prefabricated, "I hope for the sake of our children we can all move forward and heal privately. I wish their mother nothing but the best." I love how it's all about the kids. Was it for the sake of the kids when you were stickin' it to LeAnne. How did the kids feel about that one. And if you want the best for their mother, how about not cheating on her. But what's done is done. I'm just calling BS for what it is.


The respect for marriage is virtually non-existent. Your average person gets married because they're "in love". Which means the other person makes them feel good so they marry them. Again this is pretty much the same reason crackheads use crack. But what happens when the other person stops making you feel good? The other reason is because some people feel they have to do it. You don't. If you know you don't want to marry don't. Save the other person some heartache and time.

Real marriages are built on love not being "in love". Being in love is based on emotions and has nothing to do with real love. And in a marriage "me time" or being selfish equates to taking up a hobby, not cheating on your spouse.  If you don't know what really makes you happy, you shouldn't even be in a relationship, less on getting married, you're a child.

The "one flesh" mentality no long exists. I know it's a Biblical term so some have simply said, "Oh he's talking Bible stuff let me stop reading now." For those still with me, the mentality of being "one flesh" is the only way a marriage can survive. The idea that, "if I hurt my spouse, I hurt myself" is something that many people need to investigate and understand. This is what marriage really is.

Now I know some people will disagree, but we base everything on our own happiness now. Anything that goes against that is throw away. The only problem with this is that you'll never be happy and you'll constantly seek only what makes you happy. You'll have no way of dealing with things when times go bad. And when Ms. Rimes says the relationship "had problems" before she met Eddie Cibrian, the fact is ALL marriages have problems. And if she marries this guy that marriage will ultimately have problems too.

Now I'm not married so people will question who am I to say these things, but I can easily counter with saying this post is not only about marriage, but how we treat people in general today. I have a message for Ms Rimes and others: People are not old Mc Donald's wrappers that you simply throw away when you're done with them. I know you and Eddie are famous and all and have great looks and all that money and it's probably what you famous types are used to, but it's not how it should be.

I do plan one day to be married. My question is are these the kind of chicks I have to look forward to? How does one avoid marrying what is basically your typical person in today's society. And the twenty-somethings are really going to have it bad. It explains why someone would prefer a friends with benefits relationship to a marriage. No one is willing to work the problems through anymore, it's simply, "Oh, I'm not happy anymore, I found another penis (or vagina), goodbye."

And for the record when you fall in love with someone, you can easily fall out of love just as well, because when you fell in love it wasn't real in the first place. It only becomes real when you can look past immediate emotions and can show love and kindness to a person even when you're angry at them or not so "in love" with them at the moment. The thing is this attitude needs to be cultivated before marriage.

-Nate

Facebook: The New Threat to Marriages...?

Rev. Cedric Miller (AP Photo/Asbury Park Press)

This is the second post I've done in a few weeks regarding social networking. This time it's marriage. Rev. Cedric Miller states about twenty couples from his church have experienced marital problems because of Facebook. He wants to ban Facebook in his church for married couples.

If you know anything about me, you know that I have a deep belief in marriage. In though I'm not married yet I believe marriage is good. The unity of man and woman is right and obviously plays a major role in the circle of life. What I do not believe is that a person should ban a social networking site UNLESS there has been a specific problem in that marriage due to the site.

Let's be real, FACEBOOK IS NOT THE PROBLEM. PEOPLE ARE. Hear me out on this. I use Facebook frequently, everyday actually. With the current movie I'm shooting I use Facebook constantly to contact my actors and find new ones as well as chatting with friends. Facebook is an awesome utility, but not a living breathing person. It makes no moral choices. If you know that your spouse is either a skank or simply not good at controlling their desires then FB may be a problem, but for many normal people, it's not.

Before you jump down my throat consider this. If you decide to cheat on your spouse or vice verse because you met someone on Facebook then you probably would've done it with someone you met in a coffee shop or bar or wherever. Let's be real, it's who you are as a person....a cheater. That's it. Don't run and blame Facebook. IN FACT if you cheat with someone on the street or cheat with someone you work with you can blame it on impulse. If you've been chatting someone up on Facebook everyone knows you planned it. You can say you didn't but you, me your husband/wife and everyone else knows it.

It's like when you go out and tell yourself you're not going to drink too much or whatever your vice is, but you know you're going to drink too much. If you have to tell yourself not to do something it usually means you're going to do it. If you didn't want to do it, you simply wouldn't or you'd avoid it. People know when they're going to screw someone.

If I'm in a relationship, you know how I avoid cheating? I simply don't do it. Keep in mind I deal with gorgeous women all the time (the fun part of directing indy action/horror films) so it's not like women aren't around. So what's the problem? 

Simple. People always want what they don't have. If we have a good husband or wife and we see something else that looks better we suddenly want to throw it all away. Websites like survivinginfidelity.com frequently cite how people have met their affair partners online either at Facebook, on line dating sites or adultery sites that cater to married people with little moral fiber. But no matter what these people all had on thing in common...it was their decision. No one forced them into an affair like some kind of bad Cinemax erotic thriller.

We are a people raised on disposables so some of us don't understand stuff like our spouses (humans) aren't disposable razors or throwaway cameras. When we make those vows many of us haven't thought of their meaning and many don't care. The wedding is a means to an end...to get what you want right now and then throw it away when done.

Many people want to get married, but have no idea what marriage is. They want to get married but not be a wife or husband. When marriage gets hard then the "me" affect kicks in, which is, "How does this affect ME." Being one in the flesh is a religious concept therefore no longer politically correct. So "ME" is the marriage. Many marriages are based on the person falling in love with someone (a selfish emotion) versus loving someone (unselfish giving). 

So yes if you find your husband or wife is secretive about their Facebook or feel they can't give you the password because of their "privacy" being invaded of course they're up to no good. You need to find out what their hiding. (Before you jump on my back consider the fact spouses share bank account numbers, social security numbers, etc, but Facebook passwords are over the line? Sure, dude, whatever). But in a marriage where people know why they're there and know who they are and can simply decide to do what's right (not "What's right for them," but what's right for the marriage) Facebook isn't a problem. And if it is they can usually make a good decision about what to do about it.

To break it down, and listen to me good: If Facebook causes a problem in your marriage, your problem is bigger than Facebook. The cold hard truth. Peace.

What happened to the vote?

Republican John Boehner by Jack Gruber, USA Today

As I sit here reeling from the elections results I must come out and say the following... Why did this happen? One reason comes to my mind strong and clear- fear and anger?

Let's talk about fear first. When Obama became president it  instilled fear in the racist element in this country and thus the Tea Party was born. If they were so interested in cleaning up the Republican Party why did they not do it during Bushes time? No, they began their grass roots theme during the Obama election.

With the help of FoxNews - which is not a true news programing in the sense of journalistic thoughts - who fueled the forces into a frenzy fraught with lies and untruths. In addition to FoxNews, Sarah Palin come to the scene and spewed her falsehoods and lies that the fearful now angry people believed.

In the first two years of Obama presidency, he did not concentrate on the immediate problems, economy and jobs. Instead, he took on healthcare where it took one year to complete.

He caved in to the Republicans in healthcare concerning the public option, the Afghan war still continues, Guantanamo still exists, plus numerous other items that brought the Progressives frustration. While talk shows on both sides crucified Obama daily.

As fear turned to anger with the Republicans, and the anger grew with the Democrats, it set the stage for a volatile event,  the election. With fear you do not need the truth. The perpetrators just say anything and it is believed by the fearful. Death squads for granny were chanted from coast to coast, and believed!

 So the Right did not have to do too much to instill anger, after fear it comes easily. The Right did not have to give a platform for what they would do if elected. Just the same-o -same-o.
With anger in the Democrats their commitment to Obama had reduced itself down to apathy.  Many refused to vote. They were going to teach the Democratic leaders a lesson.
Their anger was ignored which was the problem in the first place. The Progressives felt betrayed, ignored, and dejected.

So, we had two groups of angry constituents, Democrats and Republicans. They Republicans won because of anger and their uncanny ability to band together and vote as one. Democrats lost because of anger and not sticking together. What have we learned from this situation?
If you want to win stick with your group no matter what.

I believe all politics are "personal" not "local," that idea was for the 50's when community mattered. Politics have become personal today because of the circumstances we find ourselves. Who today knows someone who has lost a job? Who has had their hours cut back? Or worst, who themselves have lost a job? People worry about taxes, Social Security, the economy in general and how it relates to their lives.

What can we Democrats do?

Not doubt about it, this is WAR. Yes, Mr. Obama the Republicans are the enemy, but not in the revolutionary sense. We are at war with their ideology. The Republicans are all in lock-step with each other and rest assured that is the manner to which they will vote.

Our party needs a voice, a bigger voice in the media, you know an equivalent to  Foxnews. Without it we are dead. Oprah, where are you? Build a news studio for the progressive movement. Please!

Then we must build an army of core, hard core progressives. They should target youth, the retirees, women, military, everyone. We should again use the Internet to go viral on any topics we choose especially public relations, because the White House has by far the worst PR in history.

Let us have another progressive march but not only Washington D. C. We need to have simultaneous marches in all the major cities. We need to show the Republicans when they say ... "the American people", they only mean Republicans. We have to show them our support of the president.

Lastly, Mr. Obama is a nice man, an intellectual, and truly caring human being. As my mother tells me, I am an intellectual, a nerd, and I have no common sense. (Even mothers can be wrong.) If I could grow a couple of balls you can. When Mr.  Banner shoves it up your ass are you not going to say anything until you feel it in your throat, Mr. Obama? I feel it in my throat. I have it up to here.
I am glad for one thing Nancy Pelosi was the only one with the fortitude to see all the bills through. Thank you Nancy.

And Glen Beck, eat me!     

Social Network Gaming: The New Social Evil...?

Alexandra Tobias

According to CBS News Florida woman, Alexandra Tobias, has pleaded guilty to murdering her three month old baby. She told police she shook the baby, smoked a cigarette to relax herself and then shook the baby again and as a result the baby may have hit his head. Now I can easily start off with: "The baby didn't hit his head, you hit his head against something." Even if it was an accident, the baby's head didn't magically strike something. But this all happened because she was interrupted while playing a game of "Farmville".

I'll go on record saying I don't think she meant to kill the baby, she's 22, probably a new mom, maybe had some mental or post -partum issues, I don't know, but when does a video game take precedence over your child? But my main question of the day is, "Who's going to be the first to blame Farmville or SNGs (Social Network Gaming)".

Okay, I'm not a game head. I've beaten my share of console games: 007 GoldenEye, Max Payne, Halo and the Diablo computer game on the Mac, but that's about it. (Still working on 007 Nightfire). But I've never gotten into it heavily, never did online gaming and certainly not Facebook games. I was huge into role play gaming in my youth and College days. Not the computer crap, but real RPGs where you use your imagination and not a joystick. In fact I won an MVP prize during a Mayfair Games promotion for their horror game "Chill" (Chill...? OMG, I just dated myself) and created two of my own which have gone unpublished. (But will probably be published in the next few years).

The first Face Book game I ever heard of was "Mafia Wars". Nothing against the game save for people I didn't know annoying me asking me to join their virtual mafias, as if I didn't have a real life. But I understand a lot of people love online gaming and Social Network Gaming. And nothing particularly wrong with that...until it's taken too far.

I know that sounds odd, but when I was a kid religious groups blamed role playing games, mainly, "Dungeons and Dragons" (now published by Wizards of the Coast) for a rash of teen suicides and murders. The spin was, "Role Playing games make you kill people." Reality was some religious people and groups didn't like RPGs so they blamed the murders on the games versus the person that did the crime. Some of you reading will say, "Nathyn, that's an unfair assessment." Um, no it's not. Religious groups didn't like RPGs so they ignored the fact that in those cases, people involved usually had consumed drugs or large amounts of alcohol or were already suffering from a mental issue. These groups simply jumped on the idea that these games would make you kill yourself or others.

I played RPGs for a good ten years or more an no one died. Figure that one out. We all lived through countless imaginary battles with super powered criminals, sorcerers, evil Shadowrunners with hi-tech weapons, vampires, werewolves and even a demon or two. But my friends, most of them young black men of worth, didn't use drugs, didn't typically consume large quantities of alcohol and most of us, even if not religious, still had a healthy respect for God. Hm. Interesting.

In our modern day society we just can't accept that people are flawed, unscrupulous and sometimes just bad. It's reminds me of the Bill Cosby joke about cocaine, where he asks a guy what's so great about it and the person responds, "It's brings out your personality." Cosby's retort: "But what if you're an asshole." Sometimes people simply fall into that category. But in a society where we aren't allowed to say what's good and evil without fear of offending someone, we often end up blaming inanimate objects for crimes and offenses. How many people have you heard angry at Myspace or Facebook because someone used it to cheat on them. Myspace or Facebook weren't the problem, your cheating, skank of girl or boyfriend was. 

I don't know. I just saw the article and wondered. I'm sure Ms. Tobias is probably more upset about the child's death than anyone. Not to mention she could spend a large part of her young adult life (considered the best part of life by many) in prison over this. Let's hope this is a fluke and not a trend of gamer parents too busy with virtual life to take care of real life.

Juan Williams and Why Fox News is Like Parker Lewis...

Photo Courtesy of the Associated Press

If you don't know by now (and if you don't know you must have been in space for the past few days) ex-NPR news analyst Juan Williams lost his job at NPR, only to gain a better job with FOX News to the tune of 2 million dollars. God I wish I could have this kind of luck in the job market. But honestly what's really going on? On Thursday, February 04, 2010 John Stewart gave one of the best breakdowns of Fox News ever, saying he believed, "Fox News is the most passionate and sells the clearest narrative of any news organization, if that's how — are you still referring to it in that manner?"

But how accurate is this? Very. The only problem is most other news organizations are all too ready to buy into the narrative. FOX News holds itself up as the David, a (small?) "fair and balanced" news agency against giant liberal Goliaths. But isn't this really more like wrestling? I mean you have sports and you have sports entertainment. FOX News is "News Entertainment."

The belief, if you're liberal, it that FOX News is an evil news organization that twist the news and feeds on hate and fear. If you're conservative, you believe that FOX News is one of the last bastions of sanity in the news/information arena. But really it's all a narrative that is too profitable to not take part in. View it like a rap beef. FOX is "Fiddy", NPR is "The Game". They come up with a reason to beef and after money is made on both sides they become friends again. (Or in the case of FOX and NPR causal enemies).

The firing and hiring of Juan Williams makes supporters rally for both sides. That equates to waking the dormant viewers (FOX) and listeners (NPR). But if you wanted to take down FOX News or anyone for that matter, you report the bad things they've done minus spin? These things should speak for themselves right?  Well it's not profitable.

Remember the Bill O'Reilly and the Sylvia's Resturaunt incident? It would be very easy to simply report the story accurately. O'Reilly's whole point was that African Americans were just like everyone else. His podcast even stated the only things many white people know about blacks mainly comes from television. But the spin was that somehow O'Reilly made a racist statement. But "Bill O'Reilly Discovers Great African American Dining Establishment" probably wouldn't move papers or get viewers. (Maybe a few, but not as much as a good negative spin story).

Of course people who watch FOX News see that the other news outlets intentionally spun the statements out of context. So it appears that FOX, again, is the underdog in a never ending battle. The other organizations seem to have a vested interest in being the Jokers to FOX's Batman.

It's no different than Whoppie Goldberg and Joy  Behar walking off the stage during the 11/14/2010 O'Reilly visit. And of course the older, wiser Walters, explaining how that should never happen. It's all Schitck. It's all for ratings. You think Behar or Goldberg didn't know that there would be a news blitz about it the next day. Who walks off their own show? Maybe Jay Leno, but who else? I wouldn't be surprised if it were all planned. You know if O'Reilly is on "The View" or even John Stewart goes on the "The Factor" it's all ratings. You know there will be fireworks and you come away disappointed if it doesn't happen. Not much difference than Kayne West at an MTV award show.

FOX News is like Parker Lewis because it can't lose. FOX cements itself as the underdog and other networks jump in on the "narrative". Everyone understands the game and plays their part. Only the viewer believes it's all a battle of good versus evil when it's really two sides of the same profit making coin.

Fact is Vivian Schiller is full of it. Her excuses don't explain away others on NPR who do the same type of things Williams did only...not on FOX News. But it makes her look real good to her/NPR's backers and makes Williams and FOX News look real good to theirs. Again, in this story, FOX appears to be the champion of free speech, standing up for the little guy and mom's apple pie. And everyone  makes money so no one's really too upset at the end of the day. Am I wrong? I mean everyone in question is doing well financially because of this whole thing right. And if Vivian Schiller gets the axe, won't she too pop up at some news outlet? Probably MSNBC.