45 Years Ago, Ike & Tina Turner Call It Quits

After spending a chunk of her life being in an abusive relationship with Ike Turner, Miss Tina Turner calls it quits and kicks him to the curb to pursue her own solo career, which has since then grown beautifully

It was Tina herself who made the decision to leave a marriage that was only going to end one way-her death. This decision came to her while on tour with her husband in Dallas in 1976. Their relationship had been, to say one word, abusive. Physically, emotionally, financially. She filed for divorce on July 27, 1976. The reason: "Irreconcilable differences". In a 1981 People interview, Turner recalls "Maybe I was brainwashed. I was afraid of him, and I cared what happened to him. And I knew that if I left, there was no one to sing."

Ike and Tina met in St. Louis in the 1950s, when Tina had showed up at one of his concerts. After hearing her amazing vocals, he had her join the band and be the singer-at age 17. He renamed the band the Ike & Tina Turner Review to highlight her and soon they were married. They married in 1962. In her 2018 memoir My Love Story, she recalls "He threw hot coffee in my face, giving me third degree burns. He used my nose as a punching bag so many times that I could taste blood running down my throat when I sang. He broke my jaw. And I couldn't remember what it was like not to have a black eye." Tina also admits to contemplating suicide, since suicide is the number one risk of intimate partner violence.

She also mentioned that Ike's "stooges" were sent to intimidate her during the divorce proceedings. She was on food stamps, living with their four sons because Ike controlled the finances. All publishing rights were in his name, leaving Tina with no money. The family had no choice but to live in her assistant's house for a short time while the divorce proceedings were occurring. Tina would recall men working for Ike coming to destroy the property to continue the intimidation, going as far as to shoot out the car windows in the driveway and even shoot into the house.

The whole relationship and aftermath left Tina with PTSD. In her memoir, she wrote "My relationship with Ike was doomed the day he figured out I was going to be his moneymaker. He needed to control me, economically and psychologically, so I could never leave him." She then proceeded to reclaim her own identity in the divorce proceedings. She gave Ike half the rights to all music they recorded as a couple, all money they made together, the studio they built and all property they owned in exchange for her name and freedom. Money issues didn't stop there. When their music relationship dissolved, numerous promoters who lost money on the cancelled shows they were supposed to perform sued for their losses. Tina was forced to pay for her share of those losses

After a while, Tina was free. She convinced Capitol Records to sign her as an artist in 1979. By the time 1984 had rolled around, the Queen of Rock had one of the biggest albums, Private Dancer, to her name and one of the biggest successes of the decade

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees

Summary
-Lily Owens is a 14 year old girl living in South Carolina in 1964, when racism was at an all time high. She is constantly haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her abusive life, she and Rosaleen Daise run away and find solace with the Boatwright sisters, who run a beekeeping business

Cast
-Dakota Fanning: Lily Owens
-Queen Latifah: August Boatwright
-Jennifer Hudson: Rosaleen Daise
-Alicia Keys: June Boatwright
-Sophie Okonedo: May Boatwright
-Paul Bettany: T. Ray Owens
-Hilarie Burton: Deborah Owens
-Tristan Wilds: Zach Taylor
-Nate Parker: Neil
-Shondrella Avery: Greta
-Renee Ford Clark: Doll
Sharon Conley: Violet
-Nicky Buggs: Cressie

Did You Know?
-Alicia Keys had to learn how to play the cello for this movie

Different Types of Video Game Ratings

The reason I'm doing a post on video game ratings is because I've noticed that there are some politicians out there who are going to try and lay the blame of violence on video games. Come on, be realistic here. Video game violence does not make people killers, maybe it does, I don't know. The way I look at it is this: You just gotta be careful when getting video games, especially if it's going to be played by younger children.

And those games you can play where you use online headsets, those are not so good. When kids get online and start playing with those things, they can start saying some pretty nasty stuff, and that could be considered bullying if it's insulting. But usually, it's just kids swearing because they think it's cool.

Video Games

Ratings go from:
1.)EC (Early Childhood) Young kids are able to play

    

2.)E (Everyone), meaning anyone can play them at any age

    












3.)E10+ (Kids 10 and older can play them legally)
4.)T (Teen) may deal with adult matters that teens may get, not recommended for young audiences. Possible swearing, sexuality, blood/gore, crude humor, suggestive stuff

    

5.)M (Mature) Must be 17+ to play. Definite sexuality, blood/gore, swearing, nudity, language, criminal violence, drug use, alcohol use etc

    





6.)A (Adults Only) Suitable for ages 18 and up. May include but is not limited to graphic violence, graphic sexual content, gambling

    

 

7.) RP (Rating Pending). Usually only seen on promotional stuff for new games

-Descriptors are the items in the rating box on the game that tells what's in it. Here are some common ones:

• Alcohol reference: Obviously this is references to alcohol or images of alcoholic beverages
• Animated Blood: discolored images of what could possibly be blood
• Blood: Obviously going to have real life colored blood, red as cherries
• i.e. Scarface: The World is Yours. You can use an arsenal of guns to rip people apart into bloody shreds
• Cartoon Violence: Usually seen in Early Childhood and Everyone rated games, this can go from characters getting injured cartoon style, such as having anvils dropped on them, blowing up, getting run over by trucks, etc
• Comic Mischief: Suggestive humor or comedic relief
• Crude Humor: "Bathroom" humor, things that might be considered slightly sexual or vulgar
• Drug Reference: References to drugs like Ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, crystal meth, etc
• Fantasy Violence: involving human or non-human creatures doing things that are easily not able to be done in real life
• Intense Violence: This is too obvious. In games, intense violence can go from using real life weapons to blow someone's head apart into little bloody bits, to using a chainsaw to remove major limbs, any kind of human decapitation or injury or death with blood accompanying it
• Language: Using bad words, including the "F" word alot
• Lyrics: In video games, sometimes they use real life music as soundtracks. This applies to songs being used that have overall bad lyrics pertaining to something offensive, crimes, drinking, messing around with women, etc
• i.e. Grand Theft Auto series
• Mature humor: Only adults would get stuff like this. This applies to but is not limited to adult humor and sexual references
• Nudity: showing frontal male nudity, female's breasts, female's frontal nude areas, etc
• Partial nudity: showing partial images of nudity
• Real gambling: Using real money to gamble at blackjack, poker, Texas Hold 'Em, slots, etc
• Sexual content: players can get sexual favors from strippers, such as lap dances, or in games with prostitutes, players can get hand jobs and blow jobs
• I.e. The Sopranos: Road to Respect. Player can get lap dances from strippers, and watch topless strippers
• Sexual Themes: referring to sexual acts
• Sexual Violence: Showing someone getting raped or other violent sexual acts
• Simulated Gambling: players can place bets and gamble without using real world money
• Strong Language: Explicit or frequent use of swearing
• i.e. The Sopranos: Road to Respect. In the game, the F word is used A LOT in addition to swearing in Italian
• Strong Lyrics: Music that uses swearing, refers to sex, violence, drug/alcohol use, crimes, etc
• Strong Sexual Content: Frequent showings of people engaged in sexual acts, nudity, etc
• Suggestive Themes: Somewhat provocative stuff
• Tobacco Themes: showing images of tobacco-related items, ads for tobacco companies such as Kool, Marlboro, Doral, etc
• Use of Alcohol: Shows people drinking
• Use of Drugs: Shows someone shooting up heroin or drugs
• Use of Tobacco: Showing someone smoking
• Violence: Showing someone fighting, or getting dismembered by a weapon into a million little bloody pieces
• Violent References: Referring to violence

Bully: Video Game

Hate to use Wikipedia, but it was the only site for this game, other than the main site, Rockstar Games

Bully

 

-PlayStation 2 game
-Action, adventure, open-world exploration game

Gameplay
-Action adventure, open-world exploration game
-Set in a school environment
-You play as James "Jimmy" Hopkins, who is shown as a difficult student with violent background
-The game follows Jimmy as he is sent to a boarding school called Bullworth Academy, somewhere in New England

-The player can explore the campus and the surrounding environments, talk to the students, who are in different cliques, complete favors, missions and side missions
-Some can earn Jimmy money, which can be used to buy clothes, new bikes, etc
-Classes in school are done in the form on mini-games. Such as English class requires the player to spell out words, Shop class requires the player to rotate bike wheels, use a blow torch, gym class involves either wrestling or dodgeball, Chemistry involves Jimmy mixing chemicals to form firecrackers, stink bombs and if all the Chemistry classes are finished, Jimmy can produce more of these items on the chemistry set in his room

-You also have weapons, of a sort. You get a slingshot, stink bombs, and later on, a bottle rocket launcher, spud cannon, bags of marbles, fire crackers, itching powder.
-Each of the five chapters involves Jimmy fighting the leader of the various cliques of the school
-If his health bar gets low, he'll be sent to the nearest medical center
-He can also get busted by the prefects walking around for doing something, such as fighting, hitting girls, hitting the prefects, or hitting adults carries a very severe punishment

-And if he is out and about in the town, if he does the same thing, he will get busted by the police
-He also has an arsenal of different vehicles he can use to get around, such as a skateboard, a motor scooter, go-kart, lawnmower (for money) and bicycles. As you get closer to finishing the shop class, you get more and more advanced, and thus, faster BMX bikes

-You can also buy new clothes, new haircuts and even tattoos!

Cliques

The Bullies
-Every school has at least one or two running around. In the game, the Bullies will be wearing white t-shirts and blue jeans. They will sometimes come after Jimmy and beat him up or give him a noogie

The Preps
-They have their own dormitory at the school, Harrington House. In the game, the Preps are easily identified by their light and dark blue sweaters, tan slacks and nice hair. They also talk very elegant and are obviously made of money.

The Greasers
-These guys hang down by the auto shop. They also can fix anything broken in the school. They are easily identified by their love of leather jackets, which make them look like they're from the 1950s

The Nerds
-Usually found at the library, these reclusive hermits are recognized by their green vests and glasses. They are the brains of the school

The Jocks
-Well, as if this wasn't a surprise. Like every school in America, the Jocks rule the school, and in this game, no different. In this game, The Jocks rule the school. They are football players and a rule of thumb, when going down to the football field, watch out for Damon, a towering black football player who will bulldoze you down to the ground. Anywho, the Jocks rule the school and the school centers on sports instead of academics. The Jocks are easily identified by their blue and cream colored letterman jackets


^Damon is this guy

The Townies
-The kind townspeople of Bullworth. They are the police, men, women, you name it. They will start asking you to do favors for them in exchange for money. They pay for you to do favors for them. and also, you can deliver newspapers and mow lawns for money.

Did You Know?
-Throughout the game there are 5 chapters
Ch. 1: Making New Friends and Enemies
-He arrives at school and immediately runs afoul of the bullies.
Ch. 2: Rich Kid Blues
-With him now being more popular, he must deal with the spoiled, bratty Preppy students
Ch. 3: Love Makes the World Go Around
-Christmas is nearing, and he gets mixed up with the love affairs of Johnny Vincent, the leader of the Greasers and his very promiscuous girlfriend Lola
Ch. 4: A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body and Other Lies
-After gaining control of the Preps and Greasers, he decides to take on the toughest clique of all: the Jocks, who rule the school, but in order to do it, he needs to gain the respect of the Nerds and have them help him
Ch. 5: The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hopkins, Aged 15
-Jimmy is now enjoying his newfound respect as King of Bullworth Academy. He is then expelled. He has to clear his name and get re-enrolled in the school and confront Gary.
Ch. 6: Endless Summer
-This is where you can complete anything you may have missed the first time around, missed races, missed classes, etc
-The school's neo-Gothic appearance would have the player suddenly reminded of public schools and colleges in the UK
-There was some controversy when it came out, due to the sexuality and bisexual content and ability to pinch girls bottoms and also kiss them. In the game, Jimmy can kiss both boys and girls

Characters
-The main focus is on the new student, Jimmy Hopkins. He can interact with the various students and staff members of the school, as well as townspeople who give him errands to run and earn money from it
-There are other characters in the game too. He is greeted by Gary Smith, a scheming sociopathic student, Pete Kowalski, a shy student who has not made any friends.
-Throughout the game, Jimmy has the chance to make friends with all the cliques in the school: the Jocks, the Nerds, the Preps, the Greasers, The Bullies and the Townies. Each "clique" has a single female member.

Jimmy Hopkins
-A 15 year old troublemaker is the main character in the game. He has been expelled from virtually every school he attended. His mother is on marriage #6 and is on a year long honeymoon cruise.

Gary Smith
-The main enemy of the game. Other characters in the game describe him as a sociopath. He even says that he suffers from ADHD. He thinks he is smarter than everyone else, and also better.

Pete Kowalski
-Usually called "Petey", he is the shyest student at the school and has yet to make any friends. He is the closest thing to a friend that Jimmy has.

Dr. Crabblesnitch
-He is the pompous, ignorant principal at the school. He considers the bullying at Bullworth Academy as "school spirit" and refuses to believe any lies about his staff, such as the art teacher hitting on male students. He even expelled Zoe Taylor for complaining about the gym teacher, Mr. Burton, hitting on her.

Russell Northrop
-He is the leader of the Bullies. He is not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but he certainly is the toughest student at Bullworth. Even the prefects fear his monstrous strength. Early in the game, Gary makes Jimmy fight him. After he beats him, Russell and Jimmy become allies, even helping out in certain missions

Zoe Taylor
-She is a townie girl who once went to the school. But she was expelled after she complained to the principal that the gym teacher, Mr. Burton, was hitting on her and making inappropriate advances towards her. After defeating Gary, she is re-enrolled at thte school

Cliques

Social Stigma

Remember high school? The many "cliques" Like jocks, popular kids, rich kids, bullies, etc? Well, this post was inspired by a recent post I did on the movie Revenge of the Nerds, one of my favorite movies might I add.
This word is basically also to do with the term social stigma, meaning that is it the severe disapproval of, or discontent with a person on the grounds of features that make them different from someone else.
There are 3 forms of it, recognized by Erving Goffman. The fact of mental illness, a physical form of deformity or association with a certain race, belief, religion, etc.

Social stigma can come up from attribute or perception of, right or wrong, mental illness, physical incapabilities, diseases such as leprosy, illegitimacy, sexual orientation, gender, skin tone, nationality, ethnicity, religion, or criminality.

Comes in 3 forms:

1. External deformations, such as scars, physical symptoms of anorexia nervosa, or physical disability such as obesity. (I.e. muscular dystrophy, clubfoot, cleft lip or palate.)
2. Personal traits, such as mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, criminal background. (I.e. homosexuality, imprisonment, suicidal attempts, mental disorders)
3. Tribal stigmas, such as ethnic group, nationality, religion. (I.e being African American or of Arab descent living in the US after 9/11)

-This can also be noted as labeling. There are 3 factors to this: The first being the need to create groups, such as heterosexual and homosexual, black and white, sane and mentally ill, young and old.

-The 2nd factor is this can be linked to stereotypes. 3rd, linking negative attributes to groups makes us go into thinking about "us" and "them."
-4th factor is discrimination. Many disadvantages here, and people in groups can basically be labeled, by factors such as income, education, housing status, medical treatment, health, mental health

High School
In high school, cliques are everywhere! Every high school probably has the same ones:
-The Jocks, who think they rule the school, even though most of them are dumber than a post and couldn't pass a class to save their lives.

-The Cheerleaders. Girlfriends of the football players, some of whom might be the sluttiest girls you ever meet, that's not to say all cheerleaders are like that, in my school, only a small handful of the cheerleaders were like this, the rest were nice. Unlike some people, I do not consider cheerleading a sport. All it is id jumping on top of each other, no dancing or anything like that involved.

-The "Band Geeks". This refers to the nice group of people who play instruments and know all about music. Most of them tend to stick with other music band people. I actually made friends with these people easier than anyone.

-The nerds, or smart people. I was in this one, lmao. I was a smarty pants and had to help people in classes, especially Spanish. I translated for everyone so they could ace the class. Nerds in my high school did not dress like that, but they dressed in just regular clothes. They were called nerds because they were smart and did not talk.

-Tomboys. We had a few running around. Girls who dressed and acted like the boys, played rough and tumbled with the boys. Or just girls who went casual with their clothes, aka ME!

-'Gangsta' wannabes. Almost every guy here! They all wanted to be "black" like the hip hop stars they idolized when in real life they were whiter than Texas and didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of being black. Hell, half of the black people I know don't say things  like "Yo, what up, dog? How's my homie?"

-Preps. Millions of them, they were everywhere! Like a really bad infestation of them! These are the people who wear name brands all over themselves, showing off they can afford brand names like Abercrombie and Fitch, Aeropostale, American Eagle, etc.

Some of the preppy girls dressed like this

-What I call the "Rock Band" people. Ones who wore skin tight jeans, hair all messy and long or Mohawks, rock band shirts and Vans or Converses. They are the ones who want to be rock stars and they are not shy about showing it through their clothes. They also may have a tattoo or two and have brightly colored hair!

They would look like this, even the girls, sans the ripped clothing or leather clothing
BTW, this is Motley Crue in case anyone is curious

-And also, a sub one my school had. The "Retro" people who wore bell bottoms, retro rock band shirts or retro shirts in general, gym shoes, stuff with peace signs on it, stuff with retro rock bands on it and who would know about all things before the 1990s, such as music, movies, TV, etc. I'm part of this one too, lmao!!!

My Opinions

LGBT
Okay, for those who don't know, this means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual. Transgender. Now living in a household where church is important, I have to disagree with what the church says on the issue of sexuality. So what if it's man and man, or woman and woman? Isn't everyone entitled to the right of happiness? Isn't everyone given the chance to live life their own way? Well, I believe in the phrase "Love is love. It shouldn't matter who it's with". And I frankly have no problem with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. In fact, there's a friend of my dad's who's gay and him and my dad are the greatest of friends. His name is Chuck Norman and he's a nurse. He worked at the nursing home where my grandmother lived before she died. Nowadays, he's working as a private nurse for someone in Indian Hill in Ohio. I say way to go him! He says he don't care he's gay, he's happy and I totally respect him for that. Because a long time ago, the word gay referred to happy, how it ever got associated with homosexuality is beyond me. And as for the teens who think it's cool to say things like "he's gay" or "she's gay" or my personal favorite "that's gay", y'all need to stop it. Sorry to seem so cross on this subject, but I'm just so sick and tired of the discrimination the church hurls towards people of other sexualities. And the church makes it seem like all those who are gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual are going to hell for not being man and woman. As I said before, Love is love. It shouldn't matter who it's with. And quite frankly, if I had a friend who was gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, I'd be happy. People who are gay or whatever seem to be more trustworthy, more kind and understanding and considerate than some people. And if I had a friend who was gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, well, I think that would be pretty cool. And plus, there are people who are famous, like musicians, actors/actresses, etc who are gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual. But they are not famous for that, they are famous for being a musician, actor/actress, etc, like Jane Lynch from Glee, she's a lesbian but so what, love is love. David Bowie is an English musician from the 1970s and he is bisexual but so what? People still love his music, straight, gay or not, B.D. Wong is a Chinese actor on Law and Order:SVU, he's gay and people still respect him as an actor. I like him as an actor, I don't care if he's gay or not. So basically people who are LGBT may have someone to look up to. And quite frankly, I don't think people who are LGBT need to come out about it, it's their own private business, it is not required for everyone to know their sexuality.

Abortion
OK, this one really burns me up. The church is so anti-abortion it's pathetic. They say things like "oh you're going to hell for aborting a baby!" The reason I think they're against it is because that way they can have more little Catholics filling the collection plate on Sundays. Personally my belief on the topic is it's between the woman and God, the church should not have their say on everything. There are some things that need to stay private that the church does not need to put their 2 cents in on. Yeah, I'm a Catholic church going person, but I personally believe that the church does not need to put their say in on everything, so what if a woman gets an abortion? Having sex with someone special is okay, but teen sex is just gross. What happened to teens just waiting? Usually it's the teen girls who pressure the teen guys into it. That's what I've heard. And the church can't possibly imagine what is going through a woman's mind when she is undergoing that procedure to remove the unwanted baby. Unless there's someone in the church, whether it be a member of the staff or what, unless they have either given birth or undergone something like this, they have no say in that matter as far as I'm concerned.

Body Issues

I've noticed that over the years, eating disorders are starting to be a big issue. I think the reason for that is the media. They spread this idea that if you don't have perfect boobs, a perfect butt, a perfect body, aren't tall, tan and gorgeous, aren't big and muscular and good looking, that you're nothing. That's not the kind of image that magazines like People, OK, Entertainment, Cosmo, Vogue need to be saying. I mean, yeah, people like reading those magazines to see what's going on in the exciting world of entertainment [sarcasm there, by the way], but they need to realize there are eating disorders out there!

I admit that when I was younger, I was always worried about how people would see me, I'm still worried about how people would see me. When I was younger, I was bullied alot, because of my glasses and my body type. I was always told it was called 'big boned', but my classmates had other terms for it, usually called things like fat a--, bubble butt, thunder thighs, fatso, blimpie, etc. I was also called names because I wear glasses, things like 4 eyes, coke bottles, which is stupid because that's not offensive, it's just a nickname for glasses with really thick lenses, but you certainly don't want to call anyone who wear glasses that, it's mean! But the thing about me now is I lost weight, 26 pounds, woo-hoo! yay me!!!!!!! But I'm also 'big boned', not fat, I'm no skinny mini, but I'm no fatso either. I'm kind of monkey in the middle I guess.

Because when girls and guys get to be teens, they start worrying about how they look so they can attract members of the opposite sex. And if all they worry about is how they look, asking questions like "Am I fat?", they'll never have time for anyone or anything else. It absolutely burns me up to see how some of these magazines glorify skinniness as if it's the new "in thing". It's not glamorous to be rail thin, come on, eww! To be rail thin is disgusting because you can see your bones sticking out through your skin.

And sometimes bullying can lead to eating disorders, mean classmates bullying someone because of their weight can be enough to drive someone into an eating disorder. Quite frankly, I think there needs to be something done about the issue of bullying, and I mean something like, maybe I don't know, something like actually putting a stop to it?

I proudly admit that I've been a bully victim, ever since grade school, people have made it their mission to make my life a living, miserable hell! And it got worse in middle and high school. People would break into my locker and steal things from me, and they would write offensive things on my locker, they would steal from me while I was out of the room and when I came back, they'd deny it, like I was some kind of ignorant dumb-ass or something, and they would insult everything about me. Like in my Art class in 11th grade, my final assignment for that class was to draw a picture of someone that we liked so the teacher could hang them up and remember us all when we moved onto 12th grade and graduated. And so I drew a pic of The Beatles, because in 11th grade I started sort of liking these guys, and when I got up to show my picture, people said "Gay!" Yeah, that's how you say stupid now, can u believe that? People use the term 'gay' to describe stupidity. As far as I'm concerned, it makes them sound all the stupider when they do that!