As if Wal-Mart needed more reasons for people to hate them...

I just ran across this article. These panties were found in a junior girls department at Wal-Mart in Cary, North Carolina.

Apparently, Wal-Mart intends to teach young girls to commodify their bodies as early as possible.  As common (yet no less distasteful) as the item would be ordinarily in an adult section and with the slow creeping of sexuality into children's lives , I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

Let's just be serious for a moment. Advertisers and average people eternally looking for that one idea that will finally make them rich will do anything to make money. They will convince you of anything. It's not that they want you to believe anything in particular. They're not concerned with your life philosophy. They just want to make sure that you purchase whatever it is that they're pushing that day.

The problem is that they've gotten so good at it that they will alter you. Neither you nor they want to admit it, but they are better served if they can subtly alter you mind. How else would anyone consider buying their little girl panties that imply that girls do not need currency as long as they have something between their legs that men want? Would your grandmother have bought those for your mother? Would your great-grandmother have bought those for your grandmother?

We've slowly moved to this point in our society over the last century. We've changed as a society in a lot of ways. Many of these changes have been driven by the people. They have been gradual changes in culture that were in the works for several hundred years- political revolutions, civil rights revolutions, feminist revolutions. Beyond our gradual cultural change, there have been changes pushed forth for nothing more than greater profit margins for those who are concerned with such things. Once medicine was about health, now it's a race for profit. Once music was about beauty or storytelling, now it's about how much money someone can make. Once panties were about keeping little girl's butts warm, and now...

Well, it's easy to say, "Everyone's just out to make a buck!" and "Greed is destroying our society!" People do that all the time, but when does anyone give you a small everyday example?

Here.

Here is an example of a company taking something from you and your children to make a profit.

It, like most things in life, is generational.

I look at the world we live in, and sometimes I think our problem is generational mentalities. Now, you may have been born in the decades immediately following World War II, and if you were, I'm probably about to offend you.
Baby boomers are the most destructive generation in human history.
For the most part, these weren't conscious negative decisions, and in all honesty, it was the generation of the baby boomers' grandparents who set them up for this awe inspiring achievement. I don't look at the intent of the majority of baby boomers with much contempt, but at some point, I do think they could've made a choice. There are, after all, a huge number of people of that generation who are quite aware of the problems they've created. That number is still such an insignificant proportion of the total that it makes little difference.
How can a generation be so significant? How could anyone we know make such a negative impact in the grand scheme of all of human history? Questions like that attest to the problem. Questions like that are asked by the baby boomers themselves. It's a way of shifting blame- of placating one's conscience. People who say that we are insignificant in the run of mankind also, in the same breath, will tell you that modern times are the most enlightened and accomplished. They'll say that we have advanced more in the last one hundred years than humankind has in the last two thousand, but then they tell you that we're too insignificant to affect anything such as the environment. So, which is it?
I started down this path of thought when I tried to imagine what my grandchildren might be doing when they're my age. What will be their issues? It occurred to me that they will still be trying to fix the problems of the baby boomers, but to my grandchildren, the baby boomers will be an abstract historical group of people. There won't be the face of mom, dad, grandpa, or grandma, to associate with the generation. It will only be a group of people that created a huge number of problems that they are still trying to solve. It was at this point that the baby boomers became something different in my mind. How do I explain that my parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, and friends took a bad situation and made it worse?
I look at our world, and I'm forced to see it as a generational struggle. I see one generation taking advantage of the world, and another, taught to be apathetic, watching everything get worse and worse- year by year. What happens when the former steps down? What happens when retirement, ill health, and death leaves the reins of our people in the limp hands of my generation? Will it be business as usual or will we have the courage to step up and live our lives for us?

Obama vs. Clinton vs. McCain

You've got some awkward decisions ahead of you.
Today former governor Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He took one for the team. While dropping out of the race, he made a plug for party unification against the Democrats. It seemed like a quick move to circumvent you actually thinking for yourself. He says he's out of the race because you must be united against the Democrats.
Should you unite against the Democrats?
That's a question he prevents you from asking yourself. He ignores what your concerns are and makes you think you're concerned with that which he wants you to be. It's sneaky.
Another part of his dropping out is that, in the general election, Romney vs. Obama would be a nightmare for the Republicans. The truth of the matter is that there aren't enough "morally conservative" voters to carry any candidate. The majority of voters in the United States are moderates. They are not 'liberal" nor are they "conservative."
What Republican strategists want is Clinton vs. McCain, and for this they're counting on two things.
First, despite John McCain's talk of late, he's not much of a conservative. They're depending on McCain's ability to appeal to moderate voters. Now, Hillary Clinton's ability to appeal to moderate voters is just as strong as McCain's, but that's where factor two comes in.
Hillary Clinton has been a polarizing figure in the past, and they think that in a campaign to demonize Clinton, McCain is a practical alternative. Now, people like to demonize Hillary Clinton because she plays the man's role in politics too well, but there's currently no room for a woman in politics that doesn't play a masculine role. This often gets her called "bitch," but it's no fault of hers.
For Republican strategists, the ideal match-up for the general election is Clinton vs. McCain. What happens if it's Obama vs. McCain? Well then the Republicans actually have to fight a fair fight.
When you are voting in the fall, do you want to be voting for the candidate you believe in, or do you want to be voting against the candidate you oppose?
The next ten months will be trying. You will have to endure ad after ad after ad. You'll hear hateful language, insecurities, and deceit.
The most important thing to remember this year is that for all our dissimilarities, we are more alike than unalike.
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." -Martin Luther King, Jr.