Cultured Views

Paul Newman get well soon…and here’s a Kiss for Life!

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Our favourite blue-eyed Hollywood guy, Paul Newman, is recuperating after life saving surgery for cancer. There is not a person in the entertainment industry who doesn’t wish the guy a speedy recovery and let’s hope he is up and about and dazzling us all as soon as possible.

Paul ‘Butch Cassidy’ Newman is a unique man in the movie world. Not only is he still a sex symbol well into his 80’s (darn what a cutie) but a working actor and director as well. He has a social conscience and had so waaayyy before it was fashionable for Hollywood stars to follow suit. He was the trailblazer. He gives widely to charity, he races cars and he adores his wife. This year he will be married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years…a golden couple if ever there was one. This is a guy who described his devotion to his wife, his non-interest in cheap one-night stands with fans, in modern day terms…”Why go out for hamburger when you can have steak at home?”  What a guy.

This is why I am giving Paul Newman my Kiss for Life Award.  He deserves it, I just wish I could give it to him in person.

Here it is Paul, a Kiss for Life…you’ve earned it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Staying healthy amid the confusion…just forget it.

It is so wonderful living in the 21st century; we have all manner of scientists and doctors in all walks of the medical world working daily to dispel myths and give us lashings of advice designed to enlighten and inform us. On a weekly basis we are told what not to eat and what not to drink, how much or how less we can treat ourselves to of all the things we love.

Frankly aren’t we all just a bit fed up now? can we not just eat what we like, when we like and accept the consequences of our own actions?

Just consider the information that has been reported over the past fortnight:

* Drinking two cups of coffee a day will increase chances of miscarriage in pregnant women but drinking two cups of coffee a day will protect women from developing ovarian cancer…so what do we do, protect our unborn baby or our ovaries…?

* Two or more servings of red meat a day will increase chances of heart disease and diabetes…really? But are we women not better off consuming some red flesh as a source of iron? And will a piece of steak at night clash so horribly with that burger I had at midday?…I don’t think so.

* Consuming more that two glasses (units ) of wine a day makes you a binge-drinker, obese and a lush/consuming two glasses of red wine a day protects your arteries and can make you think better…hmmm, the second option appeals to me actually.

* Bad news sisters…two pieces of chocolate a day can cause us to develop osteoporosis but chocolate also is low in fat and increases levels of endorphins in our bodies making us oh so much nicer to be around at PMS time.

* Women these days eat too much or they eat too little/we are too thin then we are too fat

Let’s just take a breather and decide on something; if we all just moved around a bit more…no a lot more… we would find that it is not the foods we are eating so much that affect us, but rather the condition of our minds and bodies to begin with that need work. So, how to make all it much simpler? Chill out more often; move around alot more often and, well, enjoy life in general.

Bon appetit and Cheers!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Will the delegates choose their Democrat on merit?

The run-up to the voting for who will be the Democrat’s choice of candidate in the United States Presidential elections is shaping up to be the most eagerly anticipated result in US political history. We have three likely candidates; two men and one woman and each represent an aspect of America’s social conscience. You have in third place in the popularity stakes John Edwards, well, someone has to run third and take the bronze medal. But it is the two leading candidates that really matter; Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

If either are chosen as candidate it will present the possibility of a first in US political history - the first female or the first black american President of the United States. Polls are showing just how much support Obama has from the voting public and especially in states such as South Carolina where black Americans count for half the population in each. Four out of five of them support Obama. But it is his supporters amongst white Americans that is making this all so interesting, and all so excitingly possible.

How much support does Hillary have?

Well, you hate to say really. She is being trounced by Obama, clearly and decisively. I suspect she has left her Presidential ambitions too late. People nowadays do not consider a female running the White House to be such a revolutionary thing; women are everywhere in politics now and the awe with which Hillary’s chances may have been considered some ten years ago simply do not exist. I suppose that speaks volumes about how women are viewed in world politics today. A female President doesn’t have the wow factor anymore. But a black American man as President?…now that has some class to it!

Fortunately this whole thing is not shaping up as a male vs female issue, the feminist lobbies seem to have taken a vacation on this and thank god for that. Could this election though reveal the American desire for change and reform, in more ways than one, and perhaps a maturing of certain attitudes?

It will be interesting as to who the delegates vote for in South Carolina on February 5…and whether they will vote for the candiate on their merits or simply adhere to public opinion for who is the safest ‘one’. Should they allow the fact that they could be creating history affect their decision… or simply just play it safe?

I am feeling that it will be a bit of both.

Popularity: 3% [?]