After hearing a lot of rumors about their "rocky relationship," I thought I'd refute that with an article I just read about how happy Brad and Angelina appeared at a UNICEF charity ball. 

When considering what's best for their children, I'm exremely bothered by all of the circulating rumors about their relationship problems. People become so consumed with knowing everything about these celebrities that they seem to forget celebrities are people. They have tough times, like regular people. They break up, like regular people. And like all other kids, theirs would be devistated if the two were to split. Imagine having to see that over and over in the media. I don't blame Brad and Angelina. I don't know who I'd blame. It's just unfortunate.   

Heigl adopts Korean baby

I love Katherine Heigl and I love this photo of her new family. Heigl planned to adopt because of her own POSITIVE experience with adoption. Her adopted sister, Meg, is Korean, and that inspired Heigl to adopt from Korea herself. I think we focus a lot on the negative of transnational adoption, but it's important to represent positive cases like this.   

My angry rant about being charitable

Around the holidays, all the retailers start collecting donations for various charities. The store I work at is collecting for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, so whenever we’re at the register, we’re supposed to ask every customer if they’d like to donate a dollar. First, let’s think of all of the ridiculous things we probably do with one dollar in a day. Just one dollar. One dollar won’t even buy a soda out of a vending machine anymore. Basically, one dollar is pretty much nothing. I’m a poor college student, and every time I choose to make a purchase, I can always spare one dollar. Obviously, not all people have this mindset. I was surprised and upset at every single NO I received when asking customers to donate ONE dollar. And there were several of them. In fact, I’d say about 80 percent of my customers refused. Refused to give up ONE dollar. I have triple that in change lost for eternity under the passenger seat of my car. Now I’m just ranting. But I just wanted to make it clear, from my personal experience working in a retail store where only luxury goods are sold, that most people cannot manage to sacrifice one dollar for something good while blowing tons of money on themselves. I’ll never understand it. I’m trying my best not to judge them, but it makes me terribly sad. As I was reading through some Brangelina updates on the internet, I came across an article talking about how much the couple does for charities. I think the article said the couple had donated nearly $6 million to various charities this year. Not to mention all of the time they’ve spent themselves volunteering and helping out. My intent is not to praise them, but there really isn’t a way around it, especially after my discouraging weekend. I’ve no idea how much money the couple is worth. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. It’s just the fact that they gave when so many other people absolutely would not. I think we should consider things like this before making such harsh judgments.     

New Adoption Rumors FALSE

We briefly touched on this in class and I'd like to make it clear that it's a LIE. Coming from a tabloid? Nooooo. How annoying. The couple can't even go visit the organizations they support without getting rumors stirred up. The perks of being a celebrity.

I don't consider myself for or against Brad and Angelina, and like most of my classmates, probably wouldn't even be paying attention to them if it weren't for this class. But it has opened my eyes to the insane number of people who do. People are so obsessed with the lives of these celebrities it's almost depressing to witness. To me, it seems like the couple's intentions are good and that's probably all you're going to hear from me. The visit the couple recently made was to the SOS Children's Village in Jordan (no clue where Syria came from, so if someone wants to inform me, go for it), where they simply wanted to meet the children they support. If you're looking at this and snarling in disgust, ask yourself, what exactly do I support? Anything? That's what I thought.    

Breast feeding is coming back!

Anything to do with celebrity weight loss always finds a way to make me angry. So naturally, I chose to read an article on Angelina's rockin' post-baby body for my assigned blog. Aside from rambling on about how she eats anything she wants in moderation (bull) and still squeezes into her size 26 jeans (I'm 20, no babies, and NOT a 26), the article had a positive piece conveniently placed at the end, next to Angelina's snack of choice, which is apparently popcorn. Angelina happens to be an advocate for breast feeding. Kudos. Good for the baby. Good for your body. And if the media has to emphasize that you can burn 500 calories a day breast feeding to get mothers interested in it, more power to them. I approve. So, how does this connect to adoption? It doesn't. I suppose this is just one more example of how everything this woman does gets dragged through the media. But then again, remaining in the public eye is kind of her job. Why is it such a terrible thing for every aspect of her life, from weight loss to her adoptions, to be publicized? It's all a part of her career. And it's the media's job to report about it because it's what we ask for. Celebrity gossip crap sells. It's the ugly truth.