The glorious gaze of Cate Blanchett reasserts Faith in Being A Mum.
Today, the 14th of May, is Mother’s Day in Australia and the 54th birthday of mother-of-four, and dual Oscar winning Australian born actress Cate Blanchett.
Here are some of her thoughts on being a mum:
“Children are spirited, passionate, political, demanding. They are also heartbreaking. They constantly extend parents and so parents are constantly confronted with their failures, don’t you think? I’d rather presently live life this way than not.”
“My husband and I worry about our generation trying to be friends with their children rather than parents of their children. If you’re going to try and make your children like you, you’re in dangerous waters I think.”
“I always tell my boys that my situation ― having the ability to work or not to work as I choose ― is not the case for all women ……….. I hope that one of the good things about the more modern way ……….. is that we are all able to see that there is a lot more that unites us than divides us.”
God Bless Family
Geoff Fox, 14th May, 2023, Down Under (I was a registered midwife for three decades.)
(The above picture by of Cate Blanchett with words added by Geoff Fox is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence.)
“I like joy; I want to be joyous; I want to have fun on the set; I want to wear beautiful clothes and look pretty. I want to smile, and I want to make people laugh. And that’s all I want. I like it. I like being happy. I want to make others happy.”
– Doris Day, who died on May 13, 2019, 4 years ago today, died famous both for her wholesome public image in the sixties and her later work for animals through her Doris Day Animal Foundation.
In the movie “Love Me Or Leave Me” which was nominated for 6 academy awards (winning Best Story for Daniel Fuchs), Day was a dime a dance nightclub singer who had two love interests in a smalltime gangster played by Jimmy Cagney (nominated for Best Actor) and her singing coach played by Cameron Mitchell. She marries and divorces the Cagney character because of his jealous violent rage, but the singing coach becomes her second husband later. By the end of the movie the gangster accepts that reality.
Fellow actress of the time, Elaine Stritch, said of Day’s performance “She was up, she was honest, she was forthright — I could tell she was scared, but she got over it. She was brilliant in the movie she did with James Cagney ………”
When jimmy Cagney was give n a life achievement award Day spoke these words, “you breathe life into your own performance. and make the rest of us really look good that’s because you are there and tonight you make the whole world feel good just because you’re here. I wish it were possible to tell you what knowing you means to me Jimmy.“
Day was lifelong friends with Clint Eastwood and Rock Hudson, who nicknamed her “Eunice” because it made him laugh ……… Day said of him: “If there is a Heaven, I’m sure Rock Hudson is there because he was such a kind person.”
God Bless American Freedom which enabled Doris Day to rise from normal middle class beginnings in Cincinnati, Ohio to have a great Hollywood and television career, and then help and be loyal to those she loved.
On May 10, 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first female candidate for US President.
She was implacably opposed to government control of the individual, saying,”I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.”
She was a libertarian when it came to sexual morality: “I am a free lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please.”
Those of us who, as libertarians, believe passionately in freedom, usually believe in freedom as the equal human right of all people.
In sexual issues, it is relatively easy to say that consenting adults should be able to do what they like in private.
But when it comes to teenagers, it is much harder to draw clear lines.
When do they become fully adult with adult rights to autonomous sexual choices?
IMHO not at puberty, even though that is when, as I understand it, the physical capacity for sexual functioning begins.
At 16?
At 18?
At 21? Or even older? In 2013 bbc.com reported:
” ‘The idea that suddenly at 18 you’re an adult just doesn’t quite ring true,’ says child psychologist Laverne Antrobus, who works at London’s Tavistock Clinic. ‘My experience of young people is that they still need quite a considerable amount of support and help beyond that age.’ Child psychologists are being given a new directive which is that the age range they work with is increasing from 0-18 to 0-25.”
A 44 year old man in Florida, whom I will only identify by one initial “M”, since I believe he faces a horrible time in getting the presumption of innocence, has been arrested in Florida, as I understand it for shooting into a room in which he believed there was a 44 year old man who had been naked in bed with M’s teenage daughter.
If this girl was 13 years old, then I am inclined to be very sympathetic to M’s rage. Much less so, if she was 19. Yet in both cases the word pedophilia might be used.
Knowing what to do with teenage sexuality, in a world where online porn is free, is not easy.
When the 1981 production of Lolita ran on Broadway it had 31 previews but closed after 12 performances. Donald Sutherland starred with 24 year old Flanche Baker. (both pictured above)
When director Stanley Kubrik made his film Lolita (in 1962), the actress, sue Lyon, who played the title role was 14 years old.
Actress Sue Lyon starring as Lolita in Kubrik’s 1962 film.
Clearly one of the most abominable crimes one human being can commit against another is non consensual sex (i.e. rape) of a pre pubescent child.
Any rape is bad, but but rape of kids incapable of sexual response is possibly the worst imaginable. Lock him up (or sometimes her) and throw away the key is a pretty understandable response.
But consensual sex with a teen in his or her late teens is not so easy to automatically condemn and punish as hard. Yet both can be described by the one word “pedophilia.”
Sometimes words fail us.
Parents have a right and responsibility to protect their children.
Completely stifling all adolescent sexuality is going to often amount to counter-productive repression. but adolescence takes along time and the last thing any society should do is make parenting even harder by expecting parents to protect their kids but condemning them if they make the wrong call under enormous stress.
I think it is extremely difficult to say when parental rights finish and adult rights of adolescent children begin.
Geoff Fox, former Registered Midwife, 10th March, 2023, Down Under
Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor was born on this day 101 years ago.
She loved men, quite a few of them: she got married 8 times to seven different guys (Richard Burton twice) and said that she only slept with men she married. (I view this as a fantastic line by a very beautiful actress. It might even be true.)
Taylor said both, “Marriage is a great institution.” and “I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed too – for being married so many times.”
Freed0m doesn’t always give us exactly what we want or believe that we need.
But Freedom is more likely to work for us than tyranny
It is John Barrymore’s 141st birthday today or tomorrow. I mark the occasion and his gifts by naming him an Indigenous Man Of The Anglosphere. He was called the “greatest living American tragedian” giving acclaimed performances as Hamlet and Richard The Third.
Barrymore with Carol Lombard in “Twentieth Century”
His sister Ethel and brother Lionel were also actors.
To begin with, on the stage, his brother Lionel was more likely to be cast as a leading man. John would get the comedy roles. An American cinephile friend of mine writes: “By the time they all went into the movies ( silents ), John became the one to have the leading man roles and was known as “THE GREAT PROFILE”.
He loved living free.
Actors to portray Barrymore include W.C. Fields, Lawrence Olivier, Errol Flynn and Jack Cassidy.
Barrymore had alcohol problems at 14 years of age and was bankrupt in later life. He said, “Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.”
It wasnt always the life of a an unattached libertine. He married Dolores Costello, pictured below.
John Barrymore described Hamlet as a “normal, healthy, lusty young fellow . . … he was a great fencer, an athlete, a man who led an active, healthy life.” In the above photo Barrymore is being a normal young man with Dolores Costello in “The Sea Beast”. Later on, she became his third wife.
This shows Word Art images of good freedom fighters in Melbourne, Victoria, with whom I have been able to do small good things here this year. 2022, against a Socialist Left tyrant, but who were not able to stay united against a common enemy of freedom.
These are good people who have divided against each other in too many ways too often to unite and win.
I hope they can use all their talent and courage to form a team after this November 26 election which can work with me and many other disillusioned loners who are victims of tyranny but far too easily swept aside when our voices ARE IGNORED. I have observed this happen again and again and experienced it myself as dynamic individuals jockey against each other for positions of power in the movement but don’t stop to listen to the rest of us enough.
They are not God and are not perfect.
These (mostly) newcomers to politics are only human.
More pepper spraying, bashing and arrest by police of passionate protestors who are deeply traumatised by profound injustice happened again today on the steps of Victoria’s state parliament.
Modern gender bigotry hurts and separates both men and women in oceans of inhumane distrust and fear. 3 decades as a midwife taught me how far from real human good this dystopian nightmare is.
Central Melbourne freedom fighter and life long nurse Pauline explains what we need to understand to heal from this disease:
“Women are sacred and possess this incredible super power to grow and carry life. Men are important too, and the current BS is making men and women forget how incredibly unique and special we all are, as men and women.”
Pauline and Freedom Fighter Protector Glen on Melbourne’s streets.
I believe the quad (the security alliance between India, Australia, Japan and America to control Chinese influence) should be a Quin and include Indonesia, the fourth biggest country in the world by population. That would make Australia and The West safer.
My Christian friend Francis X F has said to me, “I’m no international politics analyst, just a humble parish priest, but what you say makes sense to me 😊”
Sometimes those whose good work brings them closest to the poor become very wise.
Geoff Fox, November 9, (the other 9/11) 2021, Down Under ,
FREEDOM, DEMOKRASI AND CIVILISED HUMANITY 