http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-shure/dont-hesitate-to-tell-you_b_481725.html

this is the correct final sentence:

They don’t believe that about anyone else in their world, let them at least have that in the safety of their own homes.

Last month while leading a discussion on raising teens in a body-conscious world, I came away reminded of how confused parents have become. With the media’s overemphasis on appearance at any cost, parents are challenged to help their kids question the culture’s over emphasis on external appearance while essentially ignoring the messaging for one’s internal self.

The following question posed as a statement, helped me realize just how confused today’s parents are: “We shouldn’t be telling our daughters that they are beautiful because that would only feed in to reinforcing the importance she holds about her looks.” Stunned at what I was hearing from well educated, thoughtful, feminist minded mothers, I burst forth with a rant that sounded something like the following: “Of course we need to tell our daughters that they are beautiful. Let me assure you that your daughters are exposed to negative messaging all day long, every day of every week, picking them apart and diminishing their sense of self. They don’t need to hear any more negative messaging at home. They absolutely do need to hear your voices expressing positive messages about how beautiful and adorable they are. Yes, they need to hear that their beauty is not all surface beauty, but they also need to hear that you see them as pretty, cute, hip, gorgeous – you name it. I promise you that it won’t go to their head and inflate their sense of being. There’s plenty in their world offsetting that as a possibility.”

How have we gotten to the point where mother’s, well-read in childrearing and self-esteem building, are reluctant to join their daughters when they say “Mommy, don’t I look beautiful?” When a young girl or teen asks this question, they are really asking “am I beautiful enough to be loved by you?” The answer from any mother or father needs to be yes.

Many mom’s and dad’s are, themselves, “under the influence,” swayed by the unrealistic body images promoted in the media. Because of this phenomenon they may convey disapproval to their daughters when they don’t comply with looking “thin.” Real bodies aren’t all thin. In fact most of us aren’t “thin.” That doesn’t mean that we are “fat.” But in today’s world, people are being trained to think in all-or-nothing terms – its black or white- fat or thin. Healthy girl development (just like healthy boy development) has us going through many awkward growth spurts. What our daughters need is to feel that they are beautiful to their parents and loved as they are. They don’t believe that about anyone else in their world, let them at least have that in the safety of their own homes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-shure/tigers-shout-out-for-real_b_470872.html

Staged, yes; awkward, yes; authentic, well that’s the mystery that remains to be seen. Tiger Woods has owned up to having an “above it all” mentality that lies at the heart of his sex addiction. Stunned by the acknowledgment that he is under the influence of the narcissism we see in so many stars, journalists and golf fans are left wondering how much they can trust the words shared in Friday’s speech.

Let’s remember that Woods has an addiction and by the very nature of addiction, he is still very much disconnected from a deeper level of knowing himself. When we don’t learn how to tolerate our emotional vulnerability, posturing as cool and “having it together” provides a disguise, often applauded by friends, family and certainly the public. Arrogance is a common strategy for males to cover up their insecure feelings. It effectively seals off real feelings and does such a great job over time, that even when one is ready to face their real self, that real self is buried deep within, not accessible to be faced.

By no means am I suggesting that Tiger is destined to a future limited by deception and avoidance. What I am saying is that it takes continuous work to chip away at the frozen tundra protecting against realness. Woods or any other sex addict is highly unlikely to be successful in that pursuit without the aid of psychotherapeutic supports to confront one’s denial, shine a spotlight on misconceptions and question the logic that maintains self-harming behaviors.

So when the question is asked about whether or not Tiger is being authentic in his words and demeanor, the answer doesn’t lie in a yes or a no. It lies in the question inquiring about the degree to which he may be more real than he has otherwise been. In recovery from any addictive pattern that has defended a person from knowing more of the truth about their feelings and themselves, it isn’t possible to all of a sudden become real. Real is a foreign land that others visit, one that the person in recovery can’t even imagine for a long, long time.

I give Tiger credit for going in to treatment and for walking the walk. He has a long road to travel and at this point, his fans and family members can only hope that his characteristics of perseverance and hard work will assist him in achieving growth on a new course, one he has yet to play and master.

I continue to be enraged about last week’s Supreme Court, enabling corporations to gain more power over the rights of American citizens. This article from the Washington Post makes some basic points for those of us who want to understand how this happened and what it reflects. This is not a time to sit back and be passive. One hundred years of constitutional law has been reversed - that’s alarming and it will affect all of us. Stay informed and use your voice to protest until we get an ammendment to offset this horrific ruling.

Court’s campaign finance decision a case of shoddy scholarship

By Ruth Marcus
Saturday, January 23, 2010; A13

In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.

Many of those commenting on the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission have focused on the power-grab part. I agree with them. It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts had not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.

“If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more,” a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John G. Roberts — back when — and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned that line against him.

As bad as the court’s activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship.

First, the majority flung about dark warnings of “censorship” and “banned” speech as if upholding the existing rules would leave corporations and labor unions with no voice in the political process. Untrue. Under federal election law before the Supreme Court demolished it, corporations and labor unions were free to say whatever they wanted about political candidates whenever they wanted to say it. They simply were not permitted to use unlimited general treasury funds to do so. Instead, they were required to use money raised by their political action committees from employees and members. This is hardly banning speech.

Second, in the face of logic and history, the majority acted as if there could be no constitutional distinction between a corporation and a human being. Untrue. The Supreme Court has long held that corporations are considered “persons” under the Constitution and are therefore entitled to its protections. For more than a century, Congress has barred corporations from making direct contributions to political candidates, with no suggestion that it must treat corporate persons the same as real ones; that prohibition stands, at least for now. The “conceit” of corporate personhood, as Stevens called it, does not mandate absolute equivalence. That corporations enjoy free-speech protections does not mean they enjoy every protection afforded an actual person. Is a corporation entitled to vote? To run for office?

Third, misreading its precedents and cherry-picking quotations, the majority acted as if the chief case it overturned was an outlier. In that 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a six-member majority came to the unsurprising conclusion that a state law prohibiting corporations from making unlimited independent expenditures from their general funds was constitutional. The court dismissed this ruling as “a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles.” Again, untrue.

In a 1982 case, the court — in a unanimous opinion by then-Justice William Rehnquist — noted that Congress, in writing campaign finance law, was entitled to “considerable deference” in taking into account “the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations and labor organizations” and had made “a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process.” Four years later, even as it carved out an exception for nonprofit corporations, the court reaffirmed “the need to restrict the influence of political war chests funneled through the corporate form.”

The Citizens United majority relied heavily on a 1978 case overturning a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending their own money to defeat certain referendums. But that decision specifically noted that “a corporation’s right to speak on issues of general public interest implies no comparable right in the quite different context of participation in a political campaign for election to public office.”

Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie “could have done more than discourage its distribution — they could have banned the film.” Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.

That the majority would stoop to this claim underscores the weakness of its case — and the audacity of the result it has inflicted on the political process.

marcusr@washpost.com