Trump Wants "The Purge" & Bottled Water Worse for Your Health than Tap Water
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Willie Nelson lays down some wisdom about love and broken hearts.
Donald Trump suggests ‘one rough hour’ of policing will end theft: Why do most of his ideas involve the actions of a dictator and ignoring the Constitution?
Childless GOP Candidate Borrows Family for Weird Photo Shoot: So much for integrity and “family values.”
Kareem’s Video Break: For the first time I posted a video riddle.
Tesla home checks on workers on sick leave defended by boss in Germany: I worry that this policy will spread to US Tesla plants since Musk has already shown a disdain for his workers.
Drinking bottled water is much worse for you than tap, scientists find: Despite the names that evoke clear mountain streams, the water inside isn’t what you think.
What I’m Watching: Movies: My Old Ass is a funny, charming, and insightful coming-of-age story. Wolfs is a crime-comedy that is exactly what you think it will be.
Rod McKuen Sings “Jean”: Today’s song is also an homage to Maggie Smith and her greatest role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play.
Willie Nelson
This quote from Willie Nelson always makes me smile. He’s right, of course. Broken hearts are what fuels most of the music industry. Almost everyone knows the soul-crushing devastation of breaking up with someone you love who no longer loves you. It’s difficult for a person to understand how two people can be so overwhelming in love as to pledge eternal fidelity, only to be screaming at each other a few years later and arguing over who gets the canary.
Part of the reason for all this heartbreak is that “falling in love” is a chemical reaction that overrides reason. Some research indicates that attraction may be based on looks at first, the real clincher is the smell. A person smells their opposite DNA, which would ensure their offspring would be stronger, healthier, and more likely to survive. Other factors for “falling in love” are psychological: a person bonds with someone who reminds them of someone else they love, a parent perhaps.
As for heartbreak, a large part of that is due to our culture’s inaccurate message about romance. Notice how many proposals, engagements, and weddings have to be major events splashed across social media. Romance becomes an appeal to the public for validation because individuals don’t know how to be sure about their love without clicks and likes.
One of my top ten quotes of all time is from Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye: “Along with romantic love, she was introduced to another–physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.” This novel is one of the most banned books by Republicans in schools, not just for its frank discussion of sex, but because of subversive ideas like this.
Heartbreak is about crushed expectations. The problem is that we’ve made romance into such a fantasy that anything short of a Hallmark movie feels like failure. We’ve created generation after generation more in love with this idealized love than with the person. The inability to distinguish this is what causes so much pain.
The pressure to be in love—and in a relationship—is so great that people would rather be in a doomed, crappy relationship than be alone. This was made even clearer when JD Vance mocked single women who are childless as not being as worthy as those who are married with children.
Why don’t we have high school classes about romantic relationships? We could separate the fantasy from the reality to forewarn our children so they can better handle the flood of hormones and peer pressure. Instead, we give them useless clichés like, “When it’s love, you’ll just know.” While that may be true, most people “just know” many times—and are wrong.
On the plus side, we’ll always have Willie Nelson blaring from the jukebox to remind us.