book reviews, celebrities

A review of Paris: The Memoir, by Paris Hilton…

Fifteen years ago, if you had told me that one day I’d read Paris Hilton’s life story and actually admire her for writing it, I would have said you were crazy. I distinctly remember Paris Hilton circa 2007 or so. She was in her mid 20s and seemed to be on a one way track to nowhere. She seemed to have a lot in common with Anna Nicole Smith, who sadly passed away that year. Both were bottle blonde models who had substance abuse issues… Both were portrayed as vapid, spoiled, and kind of low class. South Park famously did an episode about Paris Hilton, referring to her as a “stupid spoiled whore”.

2007 was also the year Paris went to jail for 23 days for driving under the influence and violating her probation. OMovies on YouTube made a rather entertaining parody of her song, “Stars are Blind”. They also made one about Lindsay Lohan, but I can’t find that one right now.

I must admit, I still enjoy this video, even though it’s kind of an unfair and inaccurate roasting of Paris Hilton.

I decided to read Paris Hilton’s 2023 book, Paris: The Memoir after I saw her YouTube documentary and read several articles about her ordeals at Provo Canyon School, a “troubled teen” facility in Provo, Utah. I determined, especially after watching her documentary, that there’s a lot more to Paris Hilton that meets the eye, and she’s gotten a really bum rap. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, reading Hilton’s book only confirms that notion to me.

The media unfairly portrayed Paris Hilton as an empty-headed, spoiled moron with low morals. But the reality is, she was suffering from untreated Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Like a lot of us who came of age before ADHD was commonly treated, Paris Hilton was forced to try to fend for herself as she struggled through childhood and adolescence. She did poorly in school, and had some pretty obvious impulse control problems. But she wasn’t a bad kid, and she certainly didn’t deserve to be sent off to high priced boarding schools where she was blatantly abused and learned absolutely NOTHING of value. On the contrary, she left those experiences with significant trauma. Fortunately, she’s got a head for business, so now she’s selling her story to the masses, but she’s also trying to make a real difference through lobbying efforts against these abusive facilities that charge obscene amounts of money to imprison, brainwash, and abuse children on behalf of their parents.

A good portion of Paris: The Memoir is about Paris’s experiences in several facilities of differing severities. However, she also writes a fair bit about her family, and repeatedly reiterates that she has forgiven her parents. She writes that she knows they were trying to help her, even though they had her hauled off in the middle of the night by abusive goons who handcuffed her and shuttled her off to unspeakably awful “schools”. I can’t help but wonder if that would have happened if Paris Hilton had been appropriately treated for ADHD instead of simply being regarded as a discipline case. She might have still gotten into trouble, but I doubt her parents would have felt the need to send her away.

These days, Paris Hilton makes her living as a D.J. and business person. She fully admits that she’s a very privileged person, who has a whole lot of benefits that most people don’t have. There are a few instances in her book when her frankness about her privilege took me aback. On one or two occasions, she even makes statements that seem obviously and blatantly arrogant to me. But then, the charm returns, and I realize that even the arrogant statements aren’t even particularly wrong. It’s just that in our culture, people tend to frown on folks who pat themselves on the back too much. When Paris brags, she’s just being truthful. The fact is, she is beautiful, wealthy, and quite charmed in her life.

While I’ve read better written books than Paris Hilton’s, I also give her credit for being able to write her story in a fairly clear and coherent way, in spite of her vapid image… and in spite of the fact that she spent two years in a teen gulag, and never went to college. It’s more than a lot of people can accomplish. I see from reviews that some readers were left unmoved by her story. Some continue to refer to her as spoiled and narcissistic. Whether or not she’s like that in person, I don’t know. She says she’s a “nice” person, and there are many times within the book at which I can believe that about her. She’s also a survivor.

I couldn’t help but cheer for Paris when she related the story about how she went to the ladies room and slammed her female goon in the face by kicking the stall door at her like a “kangaroo”. I don’t usually cheer for violence, but I truly hate the troubled teen boarding schools. So many of them are just cash cows for religions and make their money by drugging, abusing, and traumatizing young people, then sending them out into the world to recover. It’s absolutely appalling and despicable. Even people in prison get treated better than that, most of the time. I can’t stand to see people being brutalized, especially when they’re teenagers, as Paris was when she went through her ordeal. So yes, I do cheer when young people manage to get one over on oppressive, bullying, abusive people who are simply using them for money or labor. Fuck that.

I don’t think this is the best memoir I’ve ever read. Gven a choice, I’d probably read Jennette McCurdy’s book, I’m Glad My Mom Died over Paris Hilton’s memoir. But I do think that if this type of book interests you, and you have the time and means to get it, it’s worth the read. That is, only if you can get beyond the stereotypical image of Paris Hilton that the media projected on her, back when she was younger. One criticism I would offer is that Paris mentions her time on The Simple Life, which was a Fox reality show that she did with Nicole Richie. I never watched the show, so when she kept mentioning people from the show, I was a little bit lost. I sort of deduced some things, but it would have been clearer for me if she’d have explained a bit more. But that’s a minor quibble.

Paris Hilton seems to have cleaned up her act, and has done a lot to repair her reputation. I, for one, applaud her for her efforts. No, she’s not perfect, and I understand that many people have no sympathy for her. Personally, I’ve found myself softening toward Paris Hilton in the past couple of years. Even if she seems a bit vain and shallow to some people, she certainly doesn’t seem as “bad” as she did in 2007 or so. And even in 2007, I doubt she was as bad as the media portrayed her to be. Yes, she has the benefits of wealth, beauty, and coming from a powerful family, but those attributes aren’t everything. In fact, they can even be hindrances in life. But most people probably don’t want to spend more than a few minutes pondering that potential reality, do they? Unfortunately, a lot of folks prefer to think the worst of others and simply tear them down relentlessly. Then, when someone does the same thing to them, they’re the first to whine about it.

I think on a scale of one to five, with five being the highest rating, I’d give Paris Hilton’s memoir a four. Your mileage may vary.

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complaints, holidays, rants, social media

Calling it “St. Patty’s Day” is one way to get an Irishman’s Irish up…

Top o’ the mornin’ to ye… Here’s a little mood music…

Kiss my ass.

Actually, as I write this, morning has about eleven minutes left. Then it will be noon. Bill has to leave for Bayern/Bavaria again this afternoon. I will spend the next three nights alone. Then he’ll come home, and life will continue until Friday, which is St. Patrick’s Day.

We probably won’t be doing anything special on the big day for “wearin’ green”. Even though Bill and I have some Irish roots and an Irish last name, I’m really more of a Scot. I think Bill is, too. For the longest time, we both thought he had a lot more Irish ancestry than he does. I was sure he was more Irish than I am. But, according to 23&Me and Ancestry.com, I am more Irish… and one can probably tell that by my temperament.

Bwahahahaha… I’m kidding, of course.

This morning, The Irish Times ran a story that got a bunch of Facebook comments from Irish people. The lovely Brianna Parkins, who is evidently not an Irish native (she’s from Australia), wrote yet another compelling column with a controversial title. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might remember that last month I posted about Parkins’ column. She wrote a piece titled “Now it’s okay for men to pee sitting down, here are a few other changes they could make“. Irish people went “fookin'” nuts.

I ended up having an argument with one guy, who was apparently irritated by my comment that some German women train their men to sit when they pee. That’s the truth, by the way. One guy wanted to argue with me about it. It turned into a blog entry.

But, as it was on that occasion, and as it is on this occasion, Parkins’ column wasn’t actually about what the headline implied. The earlier post I wrote wasn’t really about men sitting down to take a piss. The column was actually about violence against women. But Irish men were “taking the piss” and arguing about whether or not they should be compelled to pee sitting down. It was quite the mess.

Today’s column that has Irish people’s Irish up is titled “Be patient with us clueless foreigners this ‘St. Patty’s Day’”. Of course, because the article is behind a paywall, most of the people commenting haven’t read it. They don’t understand that, of course, Ms. Parkins knows that there’s no such thing as “St. Patty’s Day”. And, amazingly enough, they don’t get that the quotation marks in the headline are a dead giveaway that The Irish Times is well aware that the correct term is St. Patrick’s Day or, if one must abbreviate, “St. Paddy’s Day.” The Irish equivalent of Patrick is, of course, Padraig.

I can understand why it makes Irish people grit their teeth and cringe when they hear some clueless Yank refer to “St. Patty’s Day” while they pinch people who aren’t wearing green. However, the misspelled name was part of the point Ms. Parkins made in her very funny and astute column. If they had respected her enough to read what she actually wrote before complaining on Facebook, maybe they would have had a good laugh.

Butters gets in trouble for pinching people who don’t wear green…

Parkins’ column was a polite request for Irish folks to be patient with us excitable non-Irish folks. We Yanks get excited about St. Patrick’s Day and our connections to Ireland, no matter how tenuous. And a lot of us are clueless about the realities of living in Ireland in 2023. We just have romantic notions of what it should be like.

Parkins writes of the tourists who show up for St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, wearing their “Kiss me, I’m Irish” t-shirts:

These are the people who swear blind to you that it’s “St Pattys Day”. The type that say they are allowed to pinch you on March 17th without repercussions because you didn’t wear green. In primary school I once walloped a particularly strong fingered and vicious child which I viewed as a proportionate use of force for the shocking act of violence foisted on me. The teacher did not and explained I should have known that I had to wear green or the ‘leprechauns’ would get me because I had an Irish family. An Irish family who never did this pinching carry-on because it’s not actually done in Ireland. My mum might have laughed at this story but not as much as the time she received a note from the school canteen advertising a special Irish lunch option to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

Was it bacon and cabbage? Coddle? Stew? Crisp sandwiches? No, they proudly announced they would be serving traditional Irish tacos, just like Peig Sayers and Fungi the Dolphin used to enjoy. The fillings you see make the tricolour – orange is carrot, white is over processed shredded cheese and green is lettuce. Which means the tacos were an insult to Mexican and Irish culture. Quite the achievement.

Bwahahahaha… too funny.

But go on the Facebook post for Parkins’ column, and you’ll read many, many indignant comments from people who couldn’t be arsed to read the article before chiming in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know… it’s behind a paywall. So buy a fucking subscription, then! Or, at least pay attention to the comments from the people who did read, so we don’t have to wade through your uninformed complaints.

That shit drives me NUTS. Seriously… if you don’t have the time or money to read before commenting, I don’t have the time to wade through your bullshit drivel. Check out these comments…

Bravo to Joan Butler, to whom I gave a red heart. Read the fucking article, PLEASE. Show us you actually CAN read!

I have noticed there are a lot of conservatives in Ireland. I’ve also noticed that a lot of conservatives aren’t readers. Coincidence? I don’t know… But The Irish Times is a great paper. They have some truly good journalists who don’t want to work for free. So, for the love of St. Paddy, please subscribe to The Irish Times and then, by all means, make your informed comments on the articles… not just the headlines! The writers will thank you, and those of us who do read, will also be grateful that we don’t have to read your comments and complaints about literal non-issues.

Danke sehr… 😉

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Bill, dogs, narcissists, royals, YouTube

Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet…

I don’t want to write a super long post today. Bill got home last night, and we have today to enjoy before he has to leave again tomorrow afternoon. He’ll be gone until Wednesday of next week, so this part of his “TDY” (temporary duty yonder) will be shorter. I’m grateful for that, because I always miss Bill when he’s gone, and because we still worry about Arran’s cancer suddenly going south.

Arran, by the way, is still doing well, except for the peach sized tumor that has formed on his left side. We’re going to Stuttgart for a few days in a couple of weeks to see our dentist. Hopefully, Arran can hang on through that time, or if he can’t hang on, he will go south at a time when Bill is here. As of right now, though, he’s still pretty vibrant. He wants to eat, take walks, snuggle with Bill, and sleep in our bed.

So… on with today’s topic. This week, the world learned that there’s a new prince and princess in our midst. That’s right– Prince Harry, and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, have announced that their daughter, Lilibet Diana, was christened. And she’s now going to be known as Princess Lilibet. Likewise, her older brother, Archie, will be known as Prince Archie.

In spite of the recent strife between Harry and his British royal family, the Palace has confirmed the change in status. In fact, as I write this post, I’m looking at the official Web site for the British Royal Family, and the change has already been made.

What was my initial reaction to this news? Well, to be honest, I kind of groaned. I understand that as the grandchildren of King Charles III, Archie and Lili are entitled to be known as “prince” and “princess”. However, for the past several years, the whole world has heard endless griping from Harry and Meghan about how damaging and racist the royals are.

Harry has written a tell all book about his upbringing, with many shocking details about what it was like to be Prince Harry. Meghan has said that she felt “suicidal” when she was in the thick of royal duties for a short time. So why would they want to visit the burden of royal titles on their two young children? Especially when in the United States, those titles don’t amount to much of anything. There is no monarchy in the United States. Of course, a lot of us Americans enjoy watching the royals…

To be very plain, I think this move was calculated as Meghan desperately tries to stay relevant somehow. I’ve mentioned many times before that she makes my N chimes ring… and while I won’t say definitively that she’s a narcissist, I do recognize the signs and symptoms. I don’t think Harry is a narcissist. I think he’s being influenced by his wife. I also suspect that their story won’t have a very happy ending. But I could be wrong. We’ll see.

In any case, I hope the royal titles don’t result in Archie and Lili being bullied by their American contemporaries. Kids just want to belong, and fit in with their friends. Royal titles make sense to certain adults, but I suspect kids won’t be so impressed. I don’t know how factual the depiction of King Charles’s time at Gordonstoun School was on The Crown, but I do remember the show depicting him as being severely bullied because he was a prince.

Treated just like the others… except Charles wasn’t like the others…
Sigh… poor kid.

Some people think it’s time to abolish the monarchy anyway. It’s certainly a controversial idea, as Brits love tradition. I just find it puzzling that after all of the complaining Harry and Meghan have done about Harry’s family, they want to include their children in what they’ve repeatedly claimed is such a toxic entity. It kind of reminds me of how Ex had nothing but horrible things to say about Bill, yet still wanted to be part of his family. Very dysfunctional.

I suspect the timing of this announcement, which was on International Women’s Day (March 8), is very deliberate. As we all know, Harry and Meghan were recently brutally roasted on South Park. Comedian Chris Rock has also had a go at them on his Netflix special. King Charles III also evicted the couple from Frogmore Cottage, where they haven’t lived in years, anyway.

The couple is not particularly well liked in the United Kingdom, and I suspect they are quickly losing their appeal in the United States. Adopting royal titles on behalf of their children seems pretty tacky and tone deaf to me, even if the titles are the children’s birthrights. Seems to me it would be better to wait until the children are grown, and allow them to choose for themselves if they would like to be saddled with the burdens of royal life.

I guess it doesn’t surprise me that Harry and Meghan are now kind of backpedaling about their condemnation of the British Royal Family. Charles is about to have his coronation in May, so that also makes this announcement also rather strategic. Naming the children as prince and princess keeps the couple in the news…

A British take on this news. Yes, this is a birthright for the children, but actually taking the titles is a choice. It seems odd to me that they would choose to take the titles when Harry was reportedly so “damaged” by his royal upbringing.

Anyway, they aren’t my kids, and aside from it being in the news, it has no bearing on my life. I won’t lose any sleep over it. I just think it kind of goes against Harry’s and Meghan’s narrative… it kind of smacks of desperation and hypocrisy. I fear the children could ultimately suffer for it… or worse, they could make other people suffer as they grow up with royal titles that set them apart in a country where the titles are mostly meaningless.

I always enjoy H.G. Tudor’s takes on this couple and their shenanigans.

Also… it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Lili eventually adopts her grandmother’s name and starts going by Diana. Her mother, after all, goes by her middle name. Meghan’s first name is actually Rachel. I can totally see it. And I bet it wouldn’t be Lili’s idea, either. But we’ll see what happens… Maybe someday, this couple will no longer be in the news. One can only hope.

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celebrities, mental health, narcissists, royals, YouTube

Somehow saying, “For God’s sake, LOOK AT ME!!!!!”

Regarding today’s featured photo… Did you know that you can buy fake pregnancy tests on Amazon.de that always come up positive? This is supposed to be a “practical joke”… Seems like they could be used for more nefarious purposes, too…

“Well, howdy there, Internet people…” to quote Beau of the Fifth Column. I hope you had a pleasant President’s Day. I was really struggling with writer’s block yesterday, so after I posted about our delightful Sunday dinner at a German castle, I reposted a couple of articles from 2018. I thought I might come back and write something new later, but Bill and I ended up hanging out with sweet Arran. Arran has lymphoma and has been on chemo since October. The chemo is no longer working quite as well as it was, and I fear we will have to say goodbye to him before much longer.

I dread saying goodbye to Arran. He’s been part of our lives since January 2013, and he’s an incredible dog. Losing him is going to hurt a lot. But, on the other hand, I look forward to not having to worry about canine cancer so much for awhile. We do still have Noyzi, but he’s still fairly young. I also want to go on vacation, and that’s harder to do when your dog is getting chemo. I guess the main thing I feel, though, is that this is part of life. Prolonging the inevitable isn’t productive in the long run.

Aside from hanging out with Bill at home, which we probably wouldn’t have been doing if not for Arran’s cancer, we had a fairly uneventful holiday weekend. I noticed a lot of scuttlebutt about pregnancy rumors. There’s talk that Meghan Markle might be pregnant with her third child. Some people never believed that she was ever pregnant with Prince Harry’s children, Archie and Lilibet, let alone with another baby now. There’s an especially icky rumor that Meghan “lacks the necessary parts” to have babies. I’m not sure I believe that. But then, it’s not really my business.

One of many sources claiming that a new Sussex could be on the way. Looks like H.G. forgot the “S” on this video.

Lots of people on H.G. Tudor’s channel are commenting about this “news”. I do remember Harry had said that he would only be fathering two children, due to his concerns about the environment. People are commenting on everything from Harry’s claim that he only wanted two children, Meghan’s “real” age, and how she might actually be older than 41 (sister Samantha has said Meghan is, in fact, 41), to claims that Meghan had a hysterectomy years ago, supposedly due to her having had multiple abortions.

I don’t know how true any of that is… Actually, even though I am not a fan of Meghan’s, I find the constant speculation about whether or not she still has all of her female parts, fertility (or lack thereof), real parentage of her children, and her “actual age” kind of disgusting. I think that kind of mean-spirited speculation only gives credence to the Harkles’ claims that people are being “evil” to them. It’s probably best to just ignore them… give them what they claim they want– PRIVACY.

“Stop looking at us!” Yeah, yeah, yeah…

But, of course, the Harkles won’t go away, and we keep seeing them in the news. I will admit to being part of the problem, since I read Harry’s book and reviewed it on this blog. I also read and reviewed Tom Bower’s book about Meghan and Harry. They are kind of fascinating, in a trainwreck sort of way. I don’t know if Meghan is pregnant. I don’t actually care that much. What I think is interesting is the commentary about why the rumor may be circulating– perhaps even at Meghan’s hands.

A pregnancy rumor might help people forget about South Park’s devastating and scathing episode about them…

H.G. Tudor’s commentary regarding the narcissistic uses of pregnancy is especially interesting to me. Because, as he rightly points out, Meghan being pregnant right now would be fortuitous timing, as King Charles III is about to be coronated. A potential new Sussex could possibly make the adults in the British Royal Family more interested in reconciliation with Harry and Meghan.

Personally, I think Meghan and Harry went too far with the British Royal Family and are desperate to maintain ties. Talk of gestating a baby, real or imagined, is one way to do that. It could also explain why Meghan hasn’t been out and about so much lately.

Well, I suppose time will tell. People on H.G. Tudor’s channel are already saying that Meghan will eventually have a “mythcarriage”. Clever turn of words that is… and I suppose it’s pretty plausible. It would garner attention and public sympathy, too. But maybe she won’t. Maybe she really is pregnant. While it’s not as common for women in their 40s to get pregnant, it does happen. Sometimes, it even happens by accident. But, as I’ve never been pregnant myself, I don’t really know.

Moving on… I would like to write about another attention seeking woman who is currently being buzzed about in the Duggar Family News Facebook group. I’m writing about Jill Rodrigues. Now… I don’t actually write very often about the Rodrigues family, even though I recently got a nasty comment from someone who claimed I was condescending and hateful to Jill and David Rodrigues’s pregnant daughter, Kaylee. For the record, I mostly try not to be hateful– especially to or about people with whom I don’t have any personal dealings. I will admit, though, that I am human. Sometimes, the snark does slip in on occasion. And folks, when it comes to Jill Rodrigues, it’s kind of easy to be snarky.

Jill Rodrigues was reportedly born on November 3, 1978. That means she’s 44 years old. She has 13 children, with her husband, David. David was born on May 29, 1972, meaning he and I are the same age. I know that one’s 40s and 50s is not the prime time to be making babies, but modern medicine is miraculous.

Jill’s eldest child, Nurie, is married to Anna Duggar’s brother, Nathan, and together, they have two very young sons. Jill’s daughter, Kaylee, is also married and currently pregnant. Jill recently announced that her son, Timothy, is now in a “courtship” with Heidi Coverett. This is a lot of exciting news for the “Rodlets”, as they are sometimes called by fundie snarkers. Perhaps Jill was feeling a bit left out, as she posted this announcement on her Instagram, and it was shared in the Duggar group (I am not on Instagram myself, so I didn’t find this on my own).

I have taken the liberty of editing out the children’s faces in these photos…

Alas, it was not to be, and hopes and dreams are cruelly dashed as Jill announces a miscarriage of her 14th child…

Ahem… If Jill Rodrigues really was pregnant and has suffered a miscarriage, then I am truly sorry for her loss. I would not wish that on any woman, regardless of what I might think about them. And, to be honest, I don’t think about Jill very often, but I do see her get posted about a lot due to some of the places I frequent on the Internet. I don’t agree with the way she behaves. A lot of her behaviors set off my cluster B chimes, just as Meghan Markle’s do. But if she was pregnant and had a miscarriage, that is legitimately sad news for her.

It’s kind of interesting that this announcement came up as Jill was sharing other big news about her children. I know that when it comes to narcissistic types, sometimes it’s hard to let other people have the spotlight. Pregnancy can be very validating to a vain type of narcissist. Being fertile signifies youth, which might also mean a person is still sexually alluring and attractive.

I don’t find Jill sexually alluring. I’m not attracted to women, and I probably wouldn’t go for her even if I was, because she wears tons of makeup, is a fundie Christian, and sells Plexus. But, I do realize that biologically speaking, heterosexual men are naturally attracted to women who can still reproduce. So, claiming to be pregnant at age 44 could be a stab at trying to stay youthful and attractive.

Again, maybe she really was pregnant. I don’t know if she was, nor do I even really care, on a personal note. I just find attention seeking, narcissistic behavior very interesting.

On another note, many people in the Duggar group were commenting on how the little child in the photo is holding on to Jill’s pee stick with both hands. Will the child’s hands be washed after the photo op? One would hope so. Adding to the intrigue are the messages that were supposedly written by Jill’s already born children, comforting her after her loss. This message was connected to the above photos of the very small grandchildren holding Jill’s pregnancy test and announcing that they are going to get a new aunt or uncle.

Many people in the Duggar Facebook group speculate that, in fact, Jill wrote those “messages” supposedly given to her by her children. Again, I don’t know if she did or not, but even if the kids did write them, posting it on her busy social media pages, for strangers to see, does seem to be a very needy ploy for attention. I also know, from the posters in the Duggar group, that Jill doesn’t like it when people question her sincerity. She has a habit of blocking people who are “negative”.

I’m certainly not in the position of knowing whether the pregnancy claims regarding either of these 40-ish women are true or not. I know that some women can get pregnant naturally after age 40, but it’s not necessarily easy or particularly common to do so. I think the ones who get pregnant in their 40s probably had medical help of some sort. But that’s not the kind of thing that most people want to talk about openly.

Pregnancy can be a great way to stir up attention and buzz, though, especially when the mom is “older”. It’s kind of an old trick. I saw it somewhat often when I used to hang out in a certain online “pink” site for second wives and stepmoms. Certain women would announce that they would soon be hearing the “pitter patter” of little feet, only to announce a miscarriage later. Then they would “drink up” all of the attention from other women who were kind and sympathetic to their pain. I suppose if you think about it, the need for attention on that level is kind of sad and… painful. Especially for women who are of a certain age. 😉

Recently, I have been dealing with a little mid life crisis myself. Sometimes I do think about the fact that I don’t have children… and instead, I have dogs, who get cancer and die. :'( But, on the bright side, I don’t have to send them to college or get them fitted for braces. And dogs are an ever flowing fountain of love, loyalty, and regard toward those who bring them into their families and take good care of them. I have never regretted a single dog adoption… except for one, and that was an exceptional case. That dog never actually made it into our house, either.

I guess, if I feel anything sad about aging, it’s that I feel like I haven’t amounted to much and have disappointed other people. But that’s probably a futile and pointless thought, since when it comes down to it, most people are pretty fixated on themselves. So, at this point, it probably doesn’t matter too much. At least I managed to marry well, right? 😉

Anyway, if Jill Rodrigues is recovering from a miscarriage, I wish her all the best. And if Meghan Markle is pregnant, I wish her a happy and healthy pregnancy. If these two ladies are just trying to gin up attention, sympathy, and buzz, though, then I wish for them to find good mental health help. That kind of behavior is truly pathetic, and it has far reaching consequences for innocent people.

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sports, true crime, videos, YouTube

Everything else on my mind since yesterday…

If you are a regular follower of my blog, you know that I was having Internet issues yesterday morning that prevented me from writing anything of substance. As yesterday wore on, subjects I wanted to write about piled up, even as I also made a concerted effort to get further into my latest book. I watched the latest Lifetime movie, which I reviewed this morning. I watched the latest South Park episode, which I definitely want to briefly comment about today. And I noticed that I was getting shitloads of hits on a post I wrote about British gymnast and commentator Monica Phelps back in December 2020. I searched the Internet to find out what’s going on with her, and now I want to comment about that, too. So here goes…

First– South Park!

Season 26 of South Park just started up, and while I don’t necessarily think South Park is still as funny as it used to be, I do think this week’s episode is pretty damned funny! It was pretty much a treatment of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and their insistence that they want privacy, while they constantly appear in the press. I watched a few good YouTube videos about the episode that sum it up as well or better than I can… Suffice to say, I laughed hard. I enjoyed it enough to see it twice, since I had to get Bill to watch it.

This is not the first video I watched about this episode, nor is it even the best… but it can be embedded, so here’s the link.

I love how they managed to capture the reality of this situation with humor… but I have a feeling Meghan is not going to like this episode of South Park at all. It’s quite a roasting. Frankly, I think they kind of deserve it, but that’s just my humble opinion.

And second, Monica Phelps…

On a more serious note… Statcounter reported that a whole bunch of people from England and its environs were hitting my blog yesterday. I was surprised to see that, and wondered what it was all about, so I checked the news. Sure enough, there were articles in the Guardian and the BBC about Monica Rutherford Phelps’ husband, 1960s era Olympic diver, Brian Phelps, who ran a trampoline gym with her in England. In 2008, when he was 64 years old, Brian Phelps was convicted of a string of indecent assaults against three children.

Yesterday, it was reported that following the Whyte Review, in which Anne Whyte investigated abuse in British women’s gymnastics, Phelps actually had many more victims who never came forward. Phelps served six of the nine years to which he was sentenced for sexually abusing children. A 52 year old woman, using the pseudonym Emma Webb, has gone public with her story about how she was abused by Phelps. Webb started her training in 1975, when she was five years old. That was when the abuse started. It continued until she was twelve years old, when she stopped attending the Phelps’ gym, Olga.

Webb is working on a book about her experiences with the Phelps. According to the article in the Guardian, Webb doesn’t remember being molested by Monica Phelps, but she does remember the Olympian gymnast as being obsessed about her gymnasts’ bodies. She also wrote that Monica’s favorite gymnasts weren’t the same as Brian’s, and their interaction was “toxic” and “deeply disturbing”. In my blog post about Phelps, I noted the inappropriate comments Phelps made about gymnasts’ bodies in the YouTube videos of her commentary.

Admittedly, my 2020 post about Monica Phelps was kind of a silly one. I’m American, so until I wrote that post after seeing those videos by Ampli Tood on YouTube, I didn’t know who Monica and Brian Phelps are (although I actually lived in England in 1975!). I did find her comments cringeworthy in 2020, but I wasn’t thinking about how utterly horrifying they must have been to the gymnasts themselves, whose parents were probably paying a lot of money for gymnastics training at the Olga facility in Dorset, England.

Emma Webb describes being taken to a basement room known as “Happyland”, where unspeakable things happened to her. The room was decorated with murals of cartoon characters, words written in “kiddie” fonts, and Disney characters, such as Snow White and Seven Dwarves. She writes of flinging every gymnastics medal she ever won into the sea… and not being able to even look at Cadbury Dairy Milk bars, because they were used as rewards.

By 1993, Webb was 22 years old and in an eating disorder treatment program in London. It took intense therapy and great effort to finally explain what had happened to her and begin to heal from the abuse. The Whyte review was apparently a mixed bag for Webb, who was glad to, at long last, see the abuses of British gymnastics finally addressed, yet was traumatized anew by the information revealed. Even today, according to the article in the Guardian, Webb is unable to move on completely. She is constantly triggered by a broad array of things– everything from hearing about the Olympics, to being in an area near the Olga gym, to smelling sweat.

I did find Monica Phelps’s comments kind of funny in a cringey way when I was first exposed to them. Now, upon learning a bit more about what allegedly happened in the gym she ran with her husband, I’m a lot more sober in my appraisal. I wrote in my first article that the comments she made were pretty mortifying. And now I know they were just scratching the surface. I noticed that she was fixated on the bodies of the gymnasts she was critiquing for British sports. Now I know that those who trained with her were subjected to far, far worse…

Monica was pretty generous toward Viktoria Karpenko… She seemed to like her.
The kiss of death…
More commentary… it seems even more cringeworthy now that this news has come out.

The Olga facility, now known as Poole Gymnastics & Trampolining Club, is still open today. The official Web site is currently down for construction, but there is an active Facebook page. Although I remain enchanted by the beauty of gymnastics, I’m glad I never pursued the sport myself… and I’m glad I don’t have children to put into it. I say this, even though I know not all coaches are abusers. I just think it’s a very physically dangerous sport to begin with, and having sex abusers in its ranks makes it even more dangerous. My heart goes out to all of the victims.

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