Really, didn't we have enough of this during the 80s?

The BBC reported today that President Idiot is moving forward again with Star Wars, the space missile defense system that is too stupid for words. Expensive, non-functional, asinine, and yet, the Idiot At The White House insists that we need it. Um? Dude, he crazy.

The Beeb is radically opposed to Star Wars, and rightly so. At billions of dollars cost with no end in sight, Star Wars has yet to accomplish a single of its objectives. Several tests have been conducted over the years with media invitees, and it never frigging works.

What a clusterfuck. Do we need this? No. A thousand gallons of no. Remind me again, who elected this fool? Oh, right....no one. During the 2000 presidential election season, the Supreme Court made a mockery of the electoral college system and installed W, who was NOT elected by popular vote. Yep, that still pisses me off, seven years later.

And just look what he's done with his appointment; he dragged the country into wars on two continents, pushed women's rights back 30 years or so, eroded your civil rights and turned the economy to complete shit. Heck of a job there, Mr. President.

Since he's the decider and all...

I was listening to the BBC today and heard President Idiot say something unfortunate. Well, really something unfortunate comes out of his mouth every time he speaks, so that's not unusual, is it? But this in particular riled me up.

Apparently, President Doofus would like the Palestinians and the Israelis to get started on peace negotiations again. Fantastic. Progress, finally, after he completely abandoned the whole process shortly after taking office and destroying the progress that Clinton had managed to make. So, yes, I'm thrilled that he's finally interested in doing something.

However.

Here's an excerpt from his speechifying, copied and pasted directly from WhiteHouse.gov.

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.

And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.

In the interest of truth and fairness, I will admit that I don't really completely disagree with him here. Or, not exactly. Here's the thing. The Palestinians elected Hamas in free and fair elections. Let me say that again. No one is contesting the elections that made Hamas the majority leaders in Palestine. It is a tad, just a tad, silly for President Idiot to suggest that the Palestinians need to elect new leaders when the ones they have were freely elected. Like Hamas, don't like Hamas, that really isn't the point. The fact is that these ARE the leaders chosen by the people.

If you truly are interested in the whole world having democratic governments, then you can't suggest to them that hey, y'know those folks that you elected? Well, see, yes, there's a problem. We don't like them.

Get a grip. You do the best job that you can with the resources that you have available to you. In this instance, it means negotiating with the PLO, Hamas, Israel, and any and everyone else that will get the peace process working again. Do you have to like it? No. Does it need done anyway? Yep. Get to it!

Extraordinary Rendition

I have wanted to write about this for a long while, but stayed out of the debate until now. This is the process by which the American government has been taking accused terrorists to a third country, not the accused's homeland and not the United States, to interrogate them. This practice is so incredibly counter to every ideal this country was founded on. Let's just toss the Geneva Conventions completely aside, shall we? The Idiot Administration is not only complacent in this program, but an advocate of it. NPR had two stories on Morning Edition that talked about this unbelievable situation, the first about the ACLU suing a Boeing subsidiary.

As more and more of the process is exposed to the light of day, it becomes more and more horrifying. Not only did the government do this, but they had help from civilian companies, even support. Jeppesen Dataplan is accused by the American Civil Liberties Union of actively assisting the CIA by doing what Jeppesen does every day, which is provide logistical support to help maximize fuel economy and fastest flight plan routes for civilian and government contracts. In short, the lawsuit is about a company profiting from torture, which thankfully IS still illegal, even though the Idiot Administration seems to think that torture itself is all right.

There is a village in Texas missing its idiot! Personally, I can not wait until he goes back to Crawford, settles on his ranch, and disappears from public life. That statement alone is probably enough to get me an FBI file, sigh. Being anti-Bush is not the same as being anti-American. I get so tired of explaining that.

The second thing Morning Edition broadcast about this reprehensible program was about the European viewpoint. Sylvia Poggioli had a report about a conference that took place in Italy, on counter-terrorism. Did you know that Italy has indicted 26 Americans accused of kidnapping in connection to the extraordinary rendition program? Which is awesome, even if they never do get to prosecute the case. The Europeans are particularly critical of extraordinary rendition, (as well they should be. So should we all.) and of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Their view is that ER is no different than government sanctioned kidnapping and torture.

They used a phrase in the report that particularly amused me, "ghost prisons." And while I know what they mean is the off-the-books secret detention facilities that the CIA apparently has all over the world, it made me giggle because I wonder if they have EMF readers.

The end of that report had a quote that I'd like to highlight, where one of the interviewees said that whoever the next president of the United States is, damage control and restoring US credibility with Europe and the Muslim world will be one of the first priorities. We can only hope.

Stuff I have no business writing about.

Seriously. So not qualified. That never stops me from having an opinion, though.

Child abuse is something I'll never understand. A few days ago, DH was testing a computer that he'd fixed for a friend of ours by randomly surfing his bookmarked sites. Our online interests have no convergence whatsoever, hence the 4 operable computers in the room where we spend the most time. He reads MSN, I'm not a Micro*suck devotee.

MSN had an article about a 4 year old boy whose mother was serving in Iraq, the child was beaten to death by the woman's boyfriend. How the hell do you beat a 4 year old to death? You are at least three times the kid's size. (The link takes you to Military Times, since I can't find the article on MSN. That's what I get for not bookmarking it at the time.)

Last year, I wrote a few posts about a Massachusetts girl, Haleigh Poutre, also beaten by someone charged with caring for her, except in her case, she was beaten almost to death, and when her case hit the news, it was a right-to-die case because she was on life support and the decision to remove her from life support was a court battle.

Not only does this stuff mystify me, but it sickens me as well. I held a newborn the other day, perfect and tiny and helpless. I looked at her in wonder, her tiny fingers and toes each an individual miracle.

With that wonder firmly in mind, I don't understand how on earth someone can hurt a child. I understand temper and rage, believe me, I do. I have a fearsome temper. It is part of the reason that I'm not a parent.

Ohio's foster care system occasionally comes under fire for horrible atrocities suffered by the kids who live within its intricate mess. When I worked in the big bad city, that county's foster care system ended up being taken over by the state because of their ineptitude. There were a bunch of horrific cases, such as a kid "escaping" from his foster home in the middle of winter in boxers and t-shirt and no shoes; his siblings, in that same home he'd escaped from, were so malnourished that it was reported that they might never grow to proper size. How do you starve a child?

I just can't get my brain wrapped around the idea. That isn't a bad thing, you understand, but I'd like to know how things like this 4 year old dying could be prevented. I'm not naive enough to think that all child abuse could be prevented, however, what could prevent the beating deaths of children?

But then the problem is a case of Quis Custodiet, who watches the watchers? If we mandate parenting classes for all potential parents, (i.e. nearly the entire population of this country) who runs them? Please let me be crystal clear, I don't think that the government has any business at all telling you if you can or can not have a child. Mostly. Nor do I think it would be a good idea to put Uncle Sam in charge of parenting classes; the government has screwed up HUD, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare, Social Security, just about every social program ever started by Uncle Sam is a wreck. So by no means should they get into the business of telling people how to be better parents.

If they were to be voluntary classes, those who truly need them would never be touched by them. Have them be mandatory in schools? Please! Twisty wrote a fantastic post the other day about the broken-ness that is America's schools, from the feminist point of view, that is most excellent reading and speaks to part of the reason I don't think high school parenting classes would work. Mandate parenting classes for university students? So many people 1. don't go to college and 2. have already had babies by the time they do go. I don't know what the answer is. I just know that the death of this little boy is senseless, brutal, tragic, and heartbreaking, and I wish I knew a way to prevent it from happening to another family.

I deserve that "hemorrhaging heart liberal" label, I'd like to save everyone and everything.

Listening to: "Save Yourself" Dave Matthews Band

Unexpected but pleasant surprise.

I spend quite a bit of time cruising my local chain bookstores. We have a Barnes & Noble and a Borders, not far away is a Joseph Beth Bookseller. They're nice and all, but kind of homogeneous.

Used to be there was a great independent bookseller located not far from where I live now, in a rambling old house. Books could be found shelved on every available surface, including on shelves over the toilet in the bathroom. Sci-Fi/Fantasy was in the basement, cookbooks near the back door, horror lined both staircases. It closed not long after Barnes & Noble came to town. I miss it; they introduced me to some of my favorite authors, it was there that I first found Anne McCaffrey. They even introduced me to lots of other things I'd never have picked up, published by alternative presses, things written by folks that I'd have never been exposed to otherwise.

I was in Barnes & Noble over the weekend, looking for presents for a birthday party. Going into ANY bookstore is dangerous for me. I love to read, and while my interests focus on the universes created by authors who write about dragons and spaceships, I'll read just about anything. Biographies, non-fiction, cookbooks...I think I've written about this before, so I'll stop walking that same path. The point is: I like to read. I will "lose" time in a bookstore, wandering the stacks, picking up random things, reading them 'for just a second' and suddenly I'll look at my watch and three hours has gone by. Ooops. The same thing happens to me in libraries.


At a display table near the children's section, a powder-blue paperback cover caught my eye. While the expression says that you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, we all do. Interesting artwork on a book's cover will always catch my eye. This one has three of those Valentine's candy hearts, with the words, "Boy Meets Boy" in the center of each heart, on that powder blue field. Nothing else. A wee bit jarring in its simplicity, surrounded by books for teens about cliques and whatever other tosh is popular that show girls dressed in the latest styles, mice with swords, elaborate and eye-catching designs.

I read about three chapters before I remembered that I had somewhere specific to be at a scheduled time, so I reluctantly put it down and found birthday presents. But the memory of those three chapters has stayed with me, and I almost need to go back and either read the rest of it or just buy it.

I'm surprised about the book's subject matter being so openly, prominently, displayed in my very conservative community. It is a high school love story, yes, but the principal characters are gay. I'm thrilled that it wasn't on a low shelf somewhere, wrapped in plain brown paper, because that's the way things would normally be handled around here.

The world inhabited by the central characters is devoid of homophobia, in fact the principal character talks about setting up a Gay-Straight Alliance in junior high school. Progressive, to say the least. Surprising, and refreshing.

It isn't like this kind of thing is difficult to find in the information age. The internet can lead you to anything you'd like, as long as you know how to search. Back when I was in high school, though, there weren't romance novels for gay kids, or any kind of resources for them. Not a single one of my contemporaries was openly gay in high school. In the several years its been since I graduated, though, several of them have come out. It goes without saying that most of them have chosen to move on, to bigger cities, where people aren't so incredibly intolerant. Ohio's "Defense of Marriage" constitutional amendment, passed recently, would have been enough for me to leave the state, were I gay. As it is, it just makes me embarrassed to be from Ohio.

As I walked out, wondering if B&N had been infected with the spirits of those independent booksellers I miss so much, I spotted someone who I know used to work in that rambling old house. He smiled and waved, recognizing me. Aha! Influence only for the good.

Size ain't nothin' but a number- - - and it is a dumb and irrelevant number, at that.

While there has been quite a bit happening politically that interests me, I've been more in the mood to mostly write personal posts this week. This post will be no exception. But hello, Congress, passing a 100 billion (yep, that's billion with a B) piece of legislation to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Um, Uncle Sam? Where is this money going to come from? Oh, that's right. My tax dollars. Sigh. With such a stellar example from the government, is it any wonder that the average Joe has thousands of dollars in personal credit card debt? Rhetorical questions all. Back to the point of this post.

Last weekend, DH and I popped in to Target after our Sunday morning out-to-breakfast ritual. He loves to cruise through a handful of stores after taking a peek at the Sunday ads (just about the only worthwhile part of our local paper). Personally, I prefer to lounge around and read, or do a few small projects around the house, or do nothing at all on Sundays, but every now and then I tag along with him.

He went off in the direction of whatever he wanted to look at from the ad, and I wandered into the clothing section. I vastly prefer Target to, say, Wal-Mart. The ranting and raving about Wally's will have to wait for another day, but let's just say that I had to study quite a lot about them in business school (my University degree is in business, FYI) and their business practices SUCK! {end rant}

I am pretty fond of Isaac Mizrahi and Target's Merona brand, and the Mossimo line. But I haven't purchased any clothing for myself since around this time last year, when K drug me out looking for something to wear to a work event she had to go to. I don't like looking at my rolls in the mirror, and am disgusted at the size I need to purchase to fit myself. Or, rather, I had been up until Sunday.

Almost nothing in my closet fits me right now. Almost everything is so large that it either needs taken in at the waist or it just billows out around me, making me look pregnant or like I'm a little girl dressing up out of mommy's closet. I can't believe that I'm bitching about this when it is an obvious good sign of progress, but, I'm still annoyed that I haven't lost all the weight that I want to lose. I realize this isn't too rational, but y'know, I'm not entirely sane. Nothing fits, it is all too big, and it irritates the crap out of me. Especially when getting dressed for work in the morning, I'm trying on an average of 3 different outfits every day, attempting to find ANYTHING that fits to wear to work.

Some perverse instinct made me keep a very few of my business suits in smaller sizes when I gained weight, so there are about 2 suits that fit. Both of them wool and heavily lined. Not exactly springtime wear, eh? Since I work in a very professional environment, I can't just wear the sweats and other comfy stuff that does fit, I actually do need clothes that fit to wear to work.

I haven't wanted to go out and buy an all-new wardrobe because I have no intentions of staying this size. And because it would be expensive. My stated goal is to lose about another 30-40 pounds, making the weight loss a grand total of about 70 pounds. That's where I ought to be according to the info on the height/weight charts, but that doesn't really matter to me. My reason for that weight is that's where I felt pretty comfortable, and with the muscle definition I should have by that time, I'll be looking darn fabu. (Ego? Me? Naaaaah.)

But I found a bunch of things in Target that I liked on the clearance racks and I picked up a few things to try on, disappearing into the dressing room for about a half hour. (DH searched the entire store for me during this time, even going out to the car to see if I was waiting there. Which kind of cracks me up.)

I had chosen things in a smaller size than I've worn in years, a 10. Just an idle, and hopeful, guess. Three brands, Merona, Issac, and Mossimo, and don't you know that the 10 in Issac's stuff fit, the Merona did not, and the Mossimo skirt did, but the pants did not. W.T.F.? Why aren't there standards ACROSS THE INDUSTRY for clothing sizes? There are for the guys....a pair of men's trousers that are 32x32 from Levi's are going to be the EXACT SAME SIZE as a pair of trousers from Brooks Brothers.

Ladies, why on EARTH do we put up with this? Think about the collected time that you've WASTED in dressing rooms over the years, agonized that the size {{whatever}} you picked up off the rack didn't fit. Or guessing, when trying on something made by a clothing line that you've never heard of, what size might fit, and having to go back and try 3 or 4 more of whatever it is on to find your size. What a pain!

I'm going to make an attempt to stop giving a damn about that number on the tag. If it fits, wear it. If it doesn't, who cares. But wouldn't it be nice to have some standardization, so that a 10 is a 10 is a 10? I'm just sayin'.

HEY! CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS! I'M TALKING TO YOU! HOW ABOUT MAKING STUFF THAT FITS REAL WOMEN, WHO HAVE HIPS AND THIGHS, WHO AREN'T THE OLSEN TWINS AND STILL WANT TO LOOK GOOD? OH, AND WHAT ABOUT MAKING THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAVE AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF WHAT SIZE IT IS ON THE TAG? WOULD IT KILL YA?

By the way, I ended up buying a black & white sheath dress, a black suit jacket, and a pair of black trousers. With tax, a grand total of about $47. As I said, some of the stuff I took back to try on didn't fit, so I grabbed a larger size of the trousers off the rack on the way home, and ended up having to go back to exchange them, because the pair two sizes larger was huge. When I exchanged the trousers, I picked up a black and white skirt too, ($14) so I ended up with 3 outfits for less than $100. Not bad. Not bad at all.

ROME isn't burning, but Santa Catalina Island is.

Well. Is it just me or is the world conspiring against me when I want to visit my sisters? Tried to go visit middlesis in March, and was stopped by a massive ice storm, delaying my trip for a week. Which of course caused a tailspin of bummed-out moping. And then, I'm trying to visit babysis on Thursday last week and a major wildfire strikes the remote island where she's living.

The fire made getting to Catalina Island Camps pretty darn difficult. Understatement. The fire made the journey to be able to hug my sister nearly not happen after a 3000 mile plane ride.

I have about 10,000 things to tell you about the trip, about where my sister lives and what we did and saw, but I'm going to write that post later. I kept pretty extensive notes, so all the details will still be there after I get some much-needed sleep. (yes, my OCD is showing, I wrote notes.) The journey home was an adventure as well.

The short, short, short version is that the fire was no where, and I mean NO WHERE near where we wanted to go, and beside the minor inconvenience of no electric power anywhere on the island, it was not a problem. No one was injured, and only one home was destroyed, which is of course the most important thing, that no one was hurt. My sis is thriving there. I can't wait to share it with you.

Oh, and this? This is my 200th post. Sweet!!

Beginning of the END

A severe blow was dealt to all women in the United States today when the Supreme Court handed down a 5-to-4 ruling, upholding the so-called partial birth abortion ban.

I TOLD YOU SO!

For many years now, this has been one of my greatest fears. That the door would be opened to the anti-choice folks, who are no doubt popping Champagne corks as I type. Any restriction on a woman's right to choose is too much restriction. Any ban on any type of abortion procedure is egregious. It is a slippery slope, which will end in the termination of YOUR right to end any unwanted pregnancy.

I'm not sure if abortion is "right" or "wrong", but what I do know is that I don't want a bunch of old, white men deciding for me if I am allowed to make decisions about my body.

Damn, Sandra Day O'Connor, couldn't you have waited to retire? Damn, Chief Justice Rehnquist, why did you have to die? Those two events were the catalysts that allowed today's decision to happen. President Idiot, who unsurprisingly, praised today's decision, appointed two conservative justices to replace the two who left, and you could hear the religious and fanatical right drooling when he did.

Supreme Court Justices are dangerous people, because they, more than any branch of the government, can have an impact on our lives for a very long time. Supreme Court Justices are appointed for LIFE. So to get a Supreme Court vacancy, someone has to die or retire, and the two vacancies that occurred in 2005 are remarkable for their rarity. Justices can, theoretically, sit for 40 years or more. They are the nine people who review laws passed by Congress, they are the arbiters of what is, and what is not, Constitutional.

In today's decision, the majority opined that the complete lack of any exception whatsoever in the ban for the sake of the mother's health does not preclude a woman's Constitutional right to an abortion. I'd like to know just how the fuck they got to that decision. Because to my understanding, even if a woman's life is at stake, this procedure cannot be performed under any circumstances.

Take note, American Woman. That's how important you are to this administration. That's how much you matter. Your life has that much meaning.

Don't you feel precious?

Are you kidding me?

I was watching CNN at the gym yesterday evening, while running on the treadmill, without sound. So what I'm about to say may be completely wrong, but here goes.

It looked like they were talking about the British sailors who got to go back home....and the news story was more about what they were WEARING than the homecoming? Seriously. Dude. WTF? Let's talk about if they were injured, how lucky they are to be home, not about what they've got on. Don't ask me why that disgusted me so much, because I don't have an answer. Next!

And then I heard this on NPR. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is burning, bombing, destroying girl's schools. Why? Well, women aren't worth educating, according to these extremists. I'm beyond distressed about it. They're killing teachers, harassing students, forcing the closure of more than 200 schools nationwide.

I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. On September 11, 2001, I worked in one of the tallest buildings in a small city in Ohio. The plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was in contact for a brief while with a traffic control center near us. The powers that be evacuated our building that day, sending us home around 11 am. I began making phone calls to friends and family across the country to ensure that they were safe. Towards the end of the day, I called over to Europe, to talk to family there as well. Since I don't talk to them every day, they never know from one day to the next if I'm traveling or not, so I wanted to reassure them that I was OK, my family was OK.

When I got my mamman on the phone, she asked me, "Lucy, do you think it will come to war?" Her voice was so sad, so forlorn, so disheartened. The Swedes have been a neutral country for so long that it is a deeply ingrained part of their psyche, the radical idea that violence ought to be the last answer.

And I responded, "Mama, 'we', the United States, can not just 'do nothing'. You know that." It made me sad, too, but I knew even on that day that our government would want to do something, no matter what it was, as an answer for so many deaths. And if you'll recall, even in the confusion that was that actual day, the talking heads on the news were already blathering on about striking Afghanistan.

I'll never forget what she said to me next. "But it won't solve anything. It won't bring back the people who died today. It won't change the people who hate."

She's so right. It hasn't changed or solved anything. Is the world a less dangerous place without Saddam Hussein leading Iraq? Sure. Has life improved for the average Afghani? I wouldn't give that a resounding yes. Are we foolish for being involved in wars on two fronts? Uh. Yeah.

Before the US began bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, I remember getting e-mails from various feminist listservs about life in Afghanistan for women, about the no education rule, the wearing of the burka, the way that they couldn't travel without the permission of a male relative. There was also fuss and complaining from other quarters, about the Taliban not allowing the practice of other religions, and the fact that opium poppies were/are a huge part of the agricultural infrastructure. Do you remember the worldwide uproar over this, when the Taliban blew up a sacred Buddhist statue in early 2001?

So did the Taliban need replacing? That I'll give a resounding YES to, but it seems to me that strides forward are not so quick in coming.

I don't understand why a body politic would want fully half of the population illiterate. Nor do I understand why on earth you would follow anyone who would suggest that women are less, simply for being female. But then, I am very fond of the bumper sticker that says, "Hate is not a family value." Which is usually a reference the deeply offensive idiots who claim that 'God hates f**s', but it works well here too.

So, what to do about the problems with the schools in Afghanistan? There are several organizations that could use your support. HASCO, Help Afghan School Children.Org, Help Afghan Women. Com, Women for Afghan Women.

Activism, in my ever so humble, is the best thing that we can do. Remember this quote...

"Never doubt that a small goup of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

~Margaret Mead

Sense? From the Iranian President?

Color me a little...shocked. Seems that the powers that be in Iran have decided to let the British sailors head home.

Well, really, who hasn't done a little criminal trespassing from time to time? (shifty eyes) Not me. This case essentially, in my ever so humble, is a very simple matter of both he said, she said and of wrong place, wrong time. The were in Iranian waters. No, they were in Iraqi waters. No, they were in international waters. They should apologize. No, be tried for treason against the Iranian state. Wait! I know, let's allow them to return to their families unharmed. I'm just personally surprised that whoever came up with that one is the winner.

Of course, you can't really say that this turned out to not be an International INCIDENT, given that they were held for 13 days, forced to 'confess' and paraded on international television. How heartbreaking for their families. I, for one, am thankful that they are being allowed to return home, physically unharmed.

More reasons to dislike the Idiot Administration

Tempest time yet again! Here's a shocker...someone from the Idiot Administration has said something tacky, insensitive, and offensive in public. This time, it is Joint Chief of Staff General Peter Pace, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. And then he apologized, not for saying the offensive things, but for expressing his personal opinion. Sigh.

He said that he thinks homosexuality is immoral. And that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the military is NOT out of step with modern times. NPR is of course where I heard about this first, and I'm astonished and amazed, perhaps naively so, when I hear public figures being discriminatory. Politically correct speech began to be de regur when I started college, waaay back in the 90s, and while I don't always agree with the doctrine, I do think it is better to say things like mentally handicapped than it is to say retarded. So hearing someone be so openly homophobic, so derogatory, so outre, it really surprises me. What shocks me, is that this is one of the most powerful people in the country; I'm left with a sense of "He CAN'T do that, can he?" He can, and he did.

And then apologizing for expressing his personal opinion. Oy. Where, oh where, do I start with that one? As I have said so many times before, freedom of speech means that you protect the speech that you don't like even more vociferously than you protect the speech that you DO like. Why? Because the next time you don't speak up for free speech, it is going to be someone saying something you agree with that is being censored.

It is this idiot's right to have the opinion that homosexuality is immoral, even when he's dead wrong. And it is MY opinion that he is dead wrong, I firmly believe that homosexuality is genetic, that you are born that way, it isn't a lifestyle choice. If it was simply that someone could 'choose' to be gay or not, why would they, when society treats them the way that it does? C'mon.

As I said a few days ago when I was talking about dear old Scooter, I think you should do whatever works for you when it comes to sex and sexuality. Gay, straight, bi, poly, trans, mono, whatever, dude. Forcing men and women who serve in the armed services to put their personal lives on hold, and not have a relationship with anyone while serving, is just not right. Don't ask, don't tell IS outmoded, and it is time for the military to come into the 90s, at least.

The fact that this is Peter Pace's opinion strikes me as part of a larger problem; obviously, President Idiot knew about his POV when he appointed Pace to his current role. And that's OK with W? Yeah, he deserves that moniker I give him more and more every day.

Politicking again

Back to business as usual, then.

The Governor of Texas has signed an executive order that requires girls entering the sixth grade to have the new HPV vaccine. I first heard it on NPR, of course. If you've been living under a rock, and haven't seen the ad campaign for the vaccine, here's a link to more info.

Here's the thing. If there were a vaccine to prevent some boy cancer, let's say testicular, would anyone be thinking about requiring little boys to get it? Sixth grade means about 11/12 years old. That seems a bit young to me, but that's not really why I'm concerned. I had a classmate tell me in fifth grade that she had already had sex, so yes, it happens that young. This particular post isn't about how I feel about kids that young having sex...that's an issue for another day. At issue here is the fact that you're required to have the vaccine to get into sixth grade. Keep your laws off of my body, anyone?!? I think that the decision to get the vaccine or not get the vaccine should be up to the person getting the needle shoved in their skin, or their parent/guardian, if they're under 18.

Also the methodology of the Texas gov is a little...well...political and smarmy. He signed this as an executive order, circumventing the legislature. There's a lot of chatter out there about how this would have been pretty controversial for the Texas legislature, and no little amount of doubt that it might not have passed. So by signing an executive order, he's just tossed out the whole chance for public debate, and I don't like that at all.

Listening to: Supernatural soundtrack...Soundgarden, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, Kansas...yay mullet rock! Maybe next time I'll write about the ridiculous obsession I've developed with Supernatural....a television show. Soooooo out of character for me. Are you watching it? You should be! Thursdays on the CW at 9pm. End fan rant (for now).

Horrified.

That pretty well describes how I felt this morning, listening to NPR's Morning Edition on my way back home from the gym and I heard this story. Seems that I have yet another reason to shout from the rooftops, standing on my soapbox.

The report is about a new trend for companies in America to hire corporate chaplains. I can't tell you how upset this makes me, both because of the apparent trend to have workplaces be more religious, and because of the way the story was reported. The reporter's tone bothered me, but the chaplain(s) that she interviewed bothered me even more. The way they talked about the work that they do, the smug surety in their voices....ugh. The longer I listened, the more I was disgusted.

When John Ashcroft was US Attorney General, there were reports about him starting each day with a "prayer meeting" in his office. I remember thinking at the time that if you were on his staff and didn't participate, you just might be left out of the leadership fast track, because you weren't in the club. Having chaplains on the factory floor in more and more US factories seems to me that it gives your co-workers a chance to scope out your religious beliefs or lack thereof, which is really bothersome to me. Smacks of a police state. I don't ever want to work somewhere that my religion or faith comes into question.

I was raised Catholic, and I was taught that all problems that we face, from depression to marital troubles, can be helped by your local parish priest. Obviously, if you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I've managed to overcome that upbringing. I do not believe that ANY cleric, be they Catholic, Protestant, Islamic, Jewish, whatever, have the training to conduct therapy in any form. Just no.

I'm also horrified by the President's hogging most of the TV channels this evening. Where on earth does he think that we're going to get the money for more troops, and an escalation, which has worked SOOOOOO well to date? What an idiot.

Reprehensible.

As usual, I'm late to the party, but I can't resist commenting about this and following the instructions of Zoe, who has a very fun and award-winning blog called My Boyfriend is a Twat. What's not to like there? Anyway, the Girl With a One-Track Mind was "outed" by Sunday Times news editor Nicholas Hellen. Read the details of why the guy is a complete bastard here. His e-mail address is nicholas.hellen@sunday-times.co.uk. Do send him a nice message and let him know what you think about him vindictively threatening Girl; his e-mail to her was of the "do what we want you to or we'll print your mother's name, your name and address and other information about you in our big newspaper" variety. Blackmail, pure and simple. Bastard.

This whole episode frightens me lots and lots and lots, as I too am an anonymous blogger. Lucy Arin isn't my real name, and I'm always purposefully vague about where exactly I live. Sure, several people in my life know that I blog and where I blog, including most of the people that I write about; my hubby knows about my blog, as do my sisters and parents. None of them read it with any regularity, but it isn't them that I worry about. Here's what worries me: my employer is unaware, as are the civic organizations that I belong to, of my abortion-rights stance, my lack of religious faith (a cardinal sin here in the red states), and my extreme dislike of the current administration in Washington. I firmly believe that I am exercising my right to freedom of speech here on my blog, plus it is a fine place to dump all the things that are running around in my head. I chose a pen name because I like the freedom that affords me, as well as the fact that my real last name is pretty distinctive, and it would be very easy for some psychopath stalker to track me down with just that small bit of information, my real name. This Nicholas Hellen fella is a right twat. Privacy isn't among the basic human rights that people talk about in the hushed tones reserved for the freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly that most democratic nations afford their citizens, but it is my considered opinion that it ought to be.

Something IS out there

I heard a very quick blurb on NPR as part of the hourly news update yesterday about gamma radiation coming from space, which scientists first discovered during cold war times. Short gamma bursts are credited with being colliding stars, but these longer bursts seem to indicate that they are maybe from intelligent life far away in the galaxy. I couldn't find a link to the story, on NPR or on space.com, but conspiracy theorists will no doubt delight in this news.

On Heartbreak

Someone close to me is going through a terrible break-up. I'm thinking about the times when my own heart has been broken, and how I dealt. Never well, I can tell you that. Since I'm in the mood to share a story of woe, (a la Scaryduck) I thought I'd tell a story of a break-up of mine, but not a single one is funny or even particularly memorable.

There's the Swede named Johan who really broke my heart, but here's what I remember about how and why we broke up: nothing. This happened in 1991, so that has a lot to do with why I don't remember, it has been 15 years ago. I think he stopped calling and I asked why and he totally just blew me off and I was crushed. I kept a pretty extensive journal at the time, but re-reading it kinda confirms that yeah, it just fell apart. There are a bunch of references in the journal over about a 2 month period about what an asshole I thought he was, but nothing about why it ended. Re-reading the journal was fun, though.

Then the Canadian named.....yeah, I'm not giving his name, I don't harbor any vague feelings of dislike to him in the same way that I still do, for heaven only knows what reason, towards Johan. Anyway. The Canadian boy; we broke up because we were both going home to our respective countries after spending a year in Sweden as exchange students. His hometown in Ontario and mine in Ohio aren't really that far apart, but for once, practicality and reason won out over hormones. Of all of the ex-s in my past (and there aren't really all that many) The Canadian Boy is the ONLY one who I wonder what he's up to and what he became when he grew up. Not because I want him back (hellllllooooo, happily married for 6 years now) but because I'm genuinely curious as to what he decided on as a career and what he is doing with his life. Most of my other ex-s, I know what they're doing or where they are. You'd think I'd Google The Canadian Boy to find out, and I have Googled him, but I've never found him and I've taken that as a sign that I really am not meant to know.


Finally, there was a fella with a very odd name, that according to him had some deep meaning to do with faerie, and he was a deep and dark mysterious writer. This is actually funny, now that I'm thinking back on it. He had written an unpublished vampire novel, it was about 1992 or 1993 and Anne Rice's "The Vampire Lestat" and goth culture were huge, huge, huge. So dark and mysterious writer guy made a big deal of "letting" you read his novel. He let me read it, and at the time, I thought it was awesome. Now, I think it is better than some of the dreck that I've read lately and if he'd made any effort whatsoever, he probably could have published it. But I digress. Dark and Mysterious writer man really swept me off my feet. He was older, gorgeous, and soooo intellectual. We spent hours sitting in Perkins, smoking, drinking coffee, and discussing everything under the sun. We were soooooooooo cool. Then, after about 3 months, he broke it off, telling me that I was destined to be alone for my whole life, and that when I was 45 and alone and bitter, he would laugh at my sad life. Isn't that evil and mean and now more than ten years later very funny? I was a mess for about a month, lost about 10 pounds and was a recluse from my friends that whole time. I managed to win him back for a brief week or two several months later, and then I broke it off because I began to realize what a fucking idiot he was. Last I heard....he was arrested for shoplifting a pack of batteries and was working construction in southern Ohio. Who is the bitter one? Who? Imagine my surprise, then, when I googled him just now to see if I could confirm or deny the fact that he spent some time in jail and I discovered that he's a grad student in Nebraska and has won a teaching award. Wonder if he's hitting on cute young co-eds, that was so his style once upon a time. His bio on the university's website does not mention his marital status, but I can't imagine anyone on this planet putting up with his insanity for long enough to live with him, let alone marry him. His bio is full of the pseudo-intellectual doublespeak he once accused me of writing in a college term paper. It doesn't translate well to the written word here, but I find this really funny. If I wasn't sure that he'd vindictively try to out my secret identity, I'd link his bio here to share a laugh with y'all.


To me, the only way to deal with heartbreak is to take time. And to laugh when you can. I'm hoping to be able to help the person in my life who is hurting. What's your best advice for dealing with heartbreak?