(note: to all my friends and family who read my blog. I will soon be changing it to a private blog and will send you an invite through blogger when I do so)

Believe it or not I’m back. We actually returned last week from an amazing, fun, totally awesome 18 day trip. I’ve not blogged yet because I have so much to blog about that it might turn into a thousand page book (18 days of vacation is a lot to blog about). But I really don’t want to write a thousand page book, so the result was no blog post.

To long blog or short blog is the question. LOL. I will try to keep it short.

In fact tonight I really just need to vent and who better to vent to than my friends.
Be warned, if you don’t like reading extremely opinionated on the soap box comments about movies, you may want to skip this paragraph.

I continue… Ken and I with another couple went on a date to see Batman. I am not a Batman type movie girl in the first place. I went because so many people said it was awesome, regardless of my inner logic telling me that any movie like this is always full of violence and the fact that Heath Ledger himself was disturbed by the character he played. Like I said I went. I’m angry that I did. I’m angry that by the time the movie started rolling I was feeling too nauseous to get up and leave (I have no idea why I got sick but I felt pretty miserable). I should have left. Seriously people, this was an extremely dark, violent film. I’m still trying to figure out what was awesome about it? The filming was awesome; the characters played their parts well, but is that really worth watching inhumane dark, abhorrent violence? I spent pretty much the majority of the film with my eyes closed or ears plugged. I do not want images like that in my head EVER. I was so saddened at how many young kids that were there with their parents. I mean young! Maybe between the ages of 5 to 8?. I wanted to scoop them up and take them out so they wouldn’t have to see those horrid images. What in the world would make anyone think that those images were appropriate for young minds, or even adult minds? It might have well been rated R. Of course if you rate it R then fewer people can pay to see it, PG-13 increases the profit margin. I thought maybe I’m protective because my children are still young, but the couple we were with have teenagers and felt that it wasn’t even appropriate for their kids. I have always wondered why for centuries crowds of people would attend hangings or beheadings. Here we are a supposedly more civilized and advanced people yet we PAY to see wicked violence and we bring our kids to watch it too!!! Think about it, countless soldiers have returned from war torn battlefields and have consequently had to take medicine and go through therapy to deal with the horrid images they saw. Yet we purposefully watch those things as entertainment?? Thoughts of the Strength of Youth pamphlet filled my head. President Hinckley’s words from the “6 B’s” filled my mind “We live in a world that is filled with filth and sleaze, a world that reeks of evil. It is all around us. It is on the television screen. It is at the movies. It is in the popular literature. It is on the Internet. You can’t afford to watch it, my dear friends. You cannot afford to let that filthy poison touch you. Stay away from it. Avoid it. You can’t rent videos and watch them as they portray degrading things. You young men who hold the priesthood of God cannot mix this filth with the holy priesthood. Remembrances of the YW presidency in 2002 reminding the youth to not watch movies that were inappropriate regardless of the rating. So there you have it, I don’t care if people call me lame, pin headed, judgmental or extreme. I will not fill my mind nor my kid’s minds with trash. I would rather pay $10.00 for a movie that I can walk away from feeling like I spent 2 hours of my life in a positive way, not walking away feeling like I’ve got putrid slime in my thoughts. I am mostly angry because I didn’t leave and because it’s marketed towards children and young people. It’s on the cereal boxes it’s on the pizza boxes, it’s in the kids meals at some fast food places. As an adult I can ignore that pressure but kids are lured into it. I also recognize that this movie was probably pretty mild compared to most out there. Finally, I recognize how hard it will be to teach my children to make smart choices about what they put into their brains…. And will pray until I’m blue in the face while they exercise their right to choose.
Thank you for letting me vent….