Maleficent's Tearoom

Some Ministers Are Assholes

2011-12-06T03:35:00.005+02:00

Stephanie Zvan at Almost Diamonds has written a sad post about her grandfather's funeral describing the minister's use of his pulpit with captive audience to proselytize, and how it made her (and probably several others at the service) so uncomfortable and angry that she really just wanted to leave.

I have been fortunate in that most of the funerals I have attended did not include this type of thing. The one exception in my experience still brings steam from my ears and tears to my eyes, 27 years later.

When my best friend was killed in an car accident, two other friends and I drove 300 miles to her hometown to attend her funeral and extend our sympathy to her family. The small-town minister who officiated the service, and who did not even know her, proceeded to gas on and on about what a shame it was that my best friend had wasted her life and would be burning in hell for all eternity because she had left her family to live in the big city, in sin with her boyfriend. Her family said nothing. Perhaps they agreed - she had been estranged from them for a few years, but had visited on rare occasions, and, in fact, was killed while driving home from her most recent visit. They were always happy to take the money she sent from her "big-city" job. They had to have provided this asshole with that information. Adding insult to injury is the fact that her name was spelled incorrectly on her headstone. By her mother. But that's a whole other issue.

Had I been bolder then, and in my dreams now, I would have stood up and let that man have it, even though I didn't believe in heaven or hell. What right did he have to talk that way about my friend, who he had never even met. Shouldn't he have been comforting the grief-stricken? Instead, the most I could bring myself to do was to get up and leave. My other friends gave me the bad news that he continued in this vein to the end, and exhorted the remaining attendees to get right with GAWD so they would not suffer eternal damnation like my best friend. When we met with her family later, I was still upset, but managed to mumble something about her having been one of the best, kindest, most generous people I had ever known. I miss her still.

Some ministers are just assholes. I would say "thoughtless" assholes, but I truly believe he knew exactly what he was saying and had a specific purpose for saying it. How in the world could that have been any comfort to the family? How DARE he? I would love to think this was one of a handful of rare occurrences, but I suspect it may be all too common in certain sects. I still get upset when I think about it. My hands are shaking right now as I write. Asshole. Asshole.

In memory of Angela Denise Rainey, 5/29/67 - 4/21/88.

Why Did Dorothy Run Away?

2011-11-05T04:11:00.002+02:00

At the end of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy learns that there's no place like home and that if she wants to find happiness she'll look no further than "her own front yard." Admirable sentiments, I suppose, back in the 1930's. Not so impressive now, in my opinion. But why did Dorothy run away to begin with? And what will be the consequence for her having returned home?

In my faded memories of the movie, I had thought that Dorothy ran away because she wanted to get away from the restrictions and boredom of small farm life in Kansas. She tried to get Professor Marvel to take her with him to see all the "great heads of Europe." She sang of wanting to go "over the rainbow."

However, the real reason she ran away was to save Toto! Elvira Gulch was taking him to the sheriff to be destroyed because he bit her on the leg, but he escaped and Dorothy decided to run away before Mrs. Gulch returned for him.

When she "returns" home from her head-injury-induced fantasy visit to Oz, she is happy to be home and says she won't leave again. But what about poor Toto? The Wicked Witch of the West/Mrs. Gulch are destroyed in Dorothy's unconscious journey, but certainly not in real life. Poor Toto!

I say she should have kept running.

More Obama Doesn't Get It

2011-10-29T19:56:00.007+02:00

Let's now talk about the second part of the petition I wrote about earlier.

In God We Trust on our money should also be removed. It would be easy enough to phase it out with new printings/stampings. Our national motto was E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One. This motto specifies that though there are many different individuals here, we are all Americans, which is a noble, inclusive, admirable sentiment. In God We Trust cancels that out completely. Only god-believing individuals are Americans. Not so admirable, not at all inclusive, and certainly not noble.

And to address the issue of our "proud heritage*," E Pluribus Unum was established in 1782, by ACTUAL FOUNDING FATHERS! There's some heritage for ya'.

I have been at a loss for years in trying to understand how seemingly intelligent people cannot see how the pledge (even outside of its jingoistic, flag-worshiping ridiculousness) and the NEW (not based on our heritage, but on our darker period of communist-hunting and fear-mongering) motto are unrepresentative of Americans as a whole.

A motto is defined in three ways:
A brief statement used to express a principle, goal, or ideal.
A sentence, phrase, or word of appropriate character inscribed on or attached to an object.
A maxim adopted as a guide to one's conduct.

When an American does not worship one of the three gods named "God," (specifically the god of Abraham - of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) neither the pledge, nor the motto includes that American. Therefore is does NOT express an AMERICAN principle, goal, or ideal. It does not express the character of all Americans. It cannot be a governmental guide to conduct without establishing the religion of the god of Abraham in violation of the 1st amendment.

Obama's spokesperson is apparently one of the "it doesn't hurt you, so just shut up" god-believers, unable to see through his privilege that being told we are not Americans is hurtful and insulting to non-believers and believers in other gods than Abraham's.

Take it off. It's easy enough. Heritage has no bearing here, as the heritages of both the pledge and motto include no references to Abraham's god, nor any other god(s).

*Using the word heritage in this context, besides being inaccurate, is like calling something a "cultural" thing in order to defend it. Like genital mutilation, for example, or suttee, or allowing only rich, white men to vote. Cultural, sure, but no less barbaric. Part of some group's heritage, sure, but does that make them good things that need to be continued? Should we put this photo on our money to honor our heritage of slavery? Should unrepresentative cultural traditions be memorialized and honored publicly, every day, and in every monetary transaction performed, or should they be relegated to history books as things that we used to do, but then we became civilized. "It's our heritage" people might want to think about that.

(1st Picture from Wikipedia - Suttee)
(2nd photo from Old Picture of the Day)

Obama Doesn't Get It

2011-10-29T19:09:00.003+02:00

Not too long ago, I signed a petition to ask for the 1954-added phrase "under God" to be removed from the pledge.

At the link, you can read the official White House response. They just don't get it. Yes, a person should be free to pray or sermonize or proselytize in the public square. People do it all the time. Yes, a student should be free to pray or sermonize or proselytize at school. Students do it all the time. Harassment or disruption of class is, and should be, prohibited, of course.

However, there are two problems with the pledge itself.

1) Mindless chanting of a "patriotic" statement of flag-worship that students are taught to recite without learning what it means is ridiculous. But, they can't teach the students what it means without violating the 1st amendment. Leaving the "under God" part in establishes religion, specifically the monotheism practiced by the majority in the US. There's no getting around that. Students who are Buddhist, students who are Hindu, students who are pagan, and students who worship no gods at all would have to be taught that their religion, or lack thereof, is wrong and that the monotheism promoted in the pledge is right.

2) Until schools stop requiring the mindless chanting of the pledge, children who either don't want to mindlessly chant ANY pledge or who don't want to mindlessly chant something that specifically goes against their religious beliefs or lack thereof are singled out for ridicule and harassment unless they ignore their discomfort, compromise their integrity, and just chant along. Great lesson for the kiddies. Shut up about it or be singled out. Kids LOVE that!

The White House response inserts this from Obama himself:

Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters.

Well, yes. True that. But in the context of a public school classroom with students of many different backgrounds and worldviews, forced statements of flag-worship and monotheism-belief to a captive audience certainly seems to breach the wall of separation.

The White House spokesman writes, in regard to how "under God" in the pledge reflects our religious heritage:

We're proud of that heritage, and the strength it brings to our great country.

Fine, he can recite the pledge anywhere he wants when he doesn't have a captive audience of impressionable children with disparate backgrounds and belief systems.

As far as heritage goes, the pledge did not include any gods until fear of Communism made some influential Christians insist on adding it. So that argument is invalid and inaccurate. If people are so concerned with "heritage," we would be mindlessly chanting the original pledge from 1892:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And we would be doing with our arms outstretched in the "Bellamy salute," which is identical to the Nazi salute. Great. Let's go back to that.

Better yet, let's just do away with the pledge in schools and leave it up to individuals and private groups to chant it if they want.
(PHOTO FROM WIKIPEDIA - Pledge of Allegiance)

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules VI

2011-08-20T19:06:00.004+03:00

7-year-old Lydia Schottz was tortured and beaten for at least 7 hours until she died. Her 11-year-old sister was severely wounded during the same period.

Who perpetrated this horrific crime? Her parents. Why? The parents are fundamentalist Christians who had read a book by a couple named Pearl, To Train Up a Child. The Pearls assert that if it wasn't good to beat our children with, among other options, 1/4 inch plumbing pipe, their god wouldn't have told us to do so in the Bible.

Fortunately for the Schottz's surviving children, their parents have been sentenced to long prison terms. Sadly for the children, they are now in foster care. Hopefully, they will have the opportunity to grow into decent adults, regardless of the terrible moral standards their parents have taught them.

The Pearls, meanwhile, have been "looking into it," to make sure they receive no blame for little Lydia's death at the hands of her parents.

The Pearls instruct parents to remain calm while beating their children with the plumbing pipe, reinforcing the reasons for their punishment in calm voices. Imagine little Lydia, taking the 7-hour torture session administered by her parents with calm voices and demeanors. Imagine being beaten to death for SEVEN HOURS while being very calmly told that it is for your own good, that you have been naughty, and that you will be happier if you submit and accept the punishment.

What god who thinks this is a good thing is worthy of worship? Wake up, Christians! Your god is an evil, murderous, asshole!

When people ask me in the future how I stop myself from raping, pillaging, and murdering without the guidance of the Bible and submission to their barbaric god, I am going to reply that raping, pillaging, and murdering are their god's methods, not mine, and that they need to re-read their Bible. And then throw it away and practice compassion, kindness, and concern instead.

Sad fact: Based on their magic book, the Schottzes likely believe that all they have to do to get to heaven after they tortured and murdered their own child is to ask their invisible and impotent sky-fairy to forgive them. Justice would at least require that they ask their dead daughter's forgiveness somehow. And try to make it up to their surviving abused children somehow. It's so hard to tell the difference between the four gods of Christianity - father/son/holy spirit and satan. Their MO's are so similar.

Dieters

2011-08-08T20:55:00.005+03:00

Every time I read an article that talks about dieters, such as this one by the fantastic Dr. Steve Novella, this is what I see. TOUCH MY MONKEY! But don't eat him!
(photo from wikipedia)

Chiropractors Still Claiming Cures

2011-07-30T17:50:00.003+03:00

This just in - Not even 9:00 am yet here in NM, but I just received a phone call from a chiropractic marketing group. The area code is 917, so the call originated in/near NYC.

Her: Would you have time for a chiropractic check up at a local office?

Me: I have a terrific physician, so, no, I don't think I would make time for that.

Her: Have you ever gone to a chiropractor?

Me: Yes, when I was pregnant, I saw a chiropractor for lower back pain, but I can't say it helped much, and she tried to convince me not to vaccinate my kids, so I quit going.

Her: Well, chiropractic has lots of other benefits. Like it can help with sinus and allergy issues.

Me: Mmmm hmmm. I think not. And I don't think you are supposed to say things like that. Shouldn't you first tell me that your claim has not been evaluated by the FDA and chiropractic is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease? [The Quack Miranda Warning]

Her: *crickets* *hang up*

Richard Wiseman Reads My Mind!

2011-07-29T01:26:00.003+03:00

I recently purchased Richard Wiseman's book Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there. Dr. Wiseman was fantastic and funny and educationally entertaining at the TAM9 in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to read his latest.

I started reading yesterday evening, and got only 3% into the book (darned Kindle! Give me page numbers!) before discovering that Dr. Wiseman has obviously read my mind with his paranormal skills. Even more magically, he was able to PREDICT what I would have in my mind this very morning, while writing the book, a year or more ago!

Almost immediately before I started reading, I had done a search to see if wet weather really affects my knee pain like I *think* it does. Each answer I saw gave various reasons why it really does make my pain worse: pressure within the knee joint, etc.

Then I began reading. Dr. Wiseman, very early in the book, cites a study on whether or not weather affects arthritis pain!

"WHAT?" I said, "Get out of my head, Richard Wiseman!"

"I can't," he replied [in my dreams], "It's my JOB!"

At any rate, the study showed that people fool themselves into thinking the weather affects their joint pain because we are good at noticing data that verify our prior beliefs, i.e. noticing our joint pain more when it's rainy because we expect the pain to be more noticible, while discounting or ignoring it when the data don't fit our preconception, i.e. all the days the pain was worse, but there was no rain.

Thank you Dr. Wiseman! If anyone reads this, I highly recommend his blog and his book. He gives a great presentation/talk as well, if anyone has the opportunity to see him in person!

A Prostitute Is A Prostitute Is A Prostitute

2011-07-22T18:20:00.003+03:00

Recently, a court judge was arrested for rape here. Nigel and I were watching the news and saw the first story in regard to this arrest on July 19. I said to Nigel at the time that it was interesting in a bad way that KOB's anchorman, Tom Joles, in describing the alleged victim of the rape, used "prostitute" four times in two minutes. How many times did he say "alleged victim," "woman," or any other word to describe her? ZERO.

I wrote an e-mail to the news station complaining about this. Haven't heard back.

Today, I searched their website for stories and found several. I watched the videos and read the reports and found that there is some slight improvement in later reports. The reports use the word "woman" four times, and in a video, the judge assigned to the case actually used "victim." So, five in total. However, the alleged victim was called "the prostitute" (one time, they used "escort") twelve times in the same videos/reports!

Let's say that a woman in any other profession besides sex work reported a rape. Would the stories use "the McDonald's employee," "the tax attorney," "the super-model," or similar descriptions to describe the alleged victim? I think not. If those terms were used, they would probably not have been used exclusively.

This feeds into the widely held perception that sex workers cannot be raped, because their choice (or not) of profession implies permanent consent to sex acts. It muddies the waters for the prosecution, whose job will be made more difficult by the use of this inflammatory language to describe the alleged victim.

Some choice quotes from the videos:

"She is fine. There's no other injuries..."(speaking of the alleged victim)

How many injuries other than the rape itself do there need to be for her NOT to be "fine?"

"She's accused of taping one of those incidents."

According to the stories, she had already been forced once to perform oral sex on the defendant, after having said no. Would it be prudent for her to tape future encounters in order to have evidence of rape if it happened again? Would it be prudent for a member of an already suspect profession to make sure her allegations would be believed if it happened again? Probably yes.

"We believe our client is a victim in this case."

Wait, what? I suppose it is an attorney's job to say things like that. And I'm sure it will be much easier to portray the defendant as a victim since the news has ensured that the alleged victim is seen as nothing more than a "prostitute" and therefore is not allowed to say no.

I hope KOB News got a nice check from the defendant's attorneys for services rendered.

My Decision Has Been Made, and It Is Final

2011-05-06T21:38:00.005+03:00

I did not watch the royal nuptials a week ago today. However, I did watch several of the "Royal Wedding in 2 minutes" videos. Since then, I have been struck with love for this hat! Nigel hates it. My mother hates it. The Princess hates it. I am going on record forever to say that I LOVE THIS HAT! I LOVE IT! THIS HAT IS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST WONDERFUL HAT EVAR! Thank you, Princess Beatrice of York, for wearing this fantastic hat! I love you! That is all. Have a great weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, especially my own! Thanks for shoving me out all those years ago! And to my kids, a gift idea. For Mother's Day, no breakfast in bed, please. Just THIS HAT!

Helpful Hint for the Superstitious

2011-05-05T05:36:00.002+03:00

If you want to do it right, like Texas Gov. Rick Perry did when he scheduled a "Pray for Rain" day on April 29th, be sure to check the Texas weekend weather report. It makes taking credit for things you had nothing to do with much easier, and helps keep the Kool-Aid nice and fresh for those who love to drink it!

Useful Bible Quotation

2011-04-23T23:40:00.003+03:00

The Princess takes ballet in a studio located in a Nazarene Church. This morning, I noticed the following posted on the door to the baby nursery:

"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." 1 Corinthians 15:51

It's good to have a sense of humor about the Bible. Makes it easier to ignore all the errors and contradictions! Nazarenes win!

Disclosure: I was once accused of being a Nazarene due to my distaste for wearing makeup to work. Fortunately there is no conflict of interest due to my stronger distaste for religions.

Bill Maher Damages the Old Irony Meter

2011-04-19T03:44:00.004+03:00

The following quotation is from the May issue of Reader's Digest. I know, I know, but my FIL gave Nigel and I a subscription for xmas and it's good for at least 45 minutes of reading.

The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.

- Bill Maher -

Now, I have paid to see Bill Maher's stand up comedy. And I was mightily entertained. However, since that time, my respect for Mr. Maher has dropped. It turns out that this hugely funny man, who made a living for a time making fun of creationists, fundamentalists, and capital "C" Conservatives for being anti-science, is quite anti-science himself. At least when it comes to medical science, that is.

Maher has frequently been heard in interviews speaking out against vaccines (except "inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever", against the germ theory of disease, and for various woo-woo (s)CAM treatments. Even Bill Frist (Bill Frist, people!!!) pwned Maher on his own "Real Time" show in regard to vaccine facts.

He has backpedaled quite a bit since he first started loudly announcing his distrust of science-based medicine, but his words against vaccination, medical professionals, and effective drugs, along with his words of support for naturopathy, Barbara Loe Fisher (an anti-vaccine propagandist), Dr. Jay Gordon (Jenny McCarthy's pediatrician and another anti-vaccine propagandist), tell us what he really thinks.

He has some pretty ridiculous ideas: HIV/AIDS denial, immune system "boosting" with, presumably, herbs, supplements, diet restrictions (as a naturopath would advise), vaccine efficacy denial, among others. And he's pretty certain of them, regardless of his back-pedaling, which sounds insincere and is full of "I don't really think this, BUT (I sort of do.)"

While he inserts humor into his denial of being a denialist, it rings false. Sorry, Bill. I still think you're pretty funny, though. Lots of this is really old news, but the quotation in Reader's Digest got me all wired up about it.

Will Wiedner Go To Prison For Praying?

2011-03-19T01:53:00.002+02:00

Just a short post to keep this in my sights for when I need a good laugh at a stupid berk.

The Oregonian reports that the state of Oregon has done away with exemptions for families who have caused harm and death to children by relying on faith-healing alone, without medical intervention. I find this to be a good thing.

The funny that I want to keep in mind, though, is the complete and utter ignorance and obvious fear-mongering put forth by Oregon's representative Jim Wiedner, of Yamhill, who asked, "am I going to go to prison because I took the time to pray with my child [prior to my wife's taking him to the pediatrician for his tonsillitis]?"

Jim, you stupid git. While I generally discourage my children from calling people names and I try to avoid doing so myself, this is such an egregiously blatant ploy to strike fear into the godly sheeple that "Mabel! The damned gubmint is gonna make it illegal for us to pray for little Bubba when he's sick! Get the guns and we'll let gawd sort 'em out!", that I just can't resist the impulse.

No, Jim, you won't go to prison for praying with your son about his tonsillitis before he goes to the doctor for, hopefully, tests and perhaps an appropriate antibiotic. You should go to prison for pandering, though.

Fundamentalists Are All Alike: A Question For Christian Fundamentalists

2011-03-09T20:01:00.002+02:00

I have an honest question for those here in the US whose belief systems are often called “fundamentalist,” meaning that their religion requires unquestioning belief in the truth and accuracy of the Christian Bible, the Torah and Talmud and Rabbinic law, or the Quran and Hadith exactly as they are written. These individuals often are behind efforts to infringe on the rights and liberties of others, and sometimes will outright admit that their goal is to establish theocracy, based on whichever book/tradition they follow. My question is specifically addressed to Christian fundamentalists, since they are the most numerous and vocal here.

Here in the US, Christian fundamentalists’ fear of Islam and Muslims causes them to speak out against Islam regularly, and to put forth silly legislation forbidding the use of Islamic religious law in local courts. That this is already forbidden by our Constitution seems to have slipped their minds, unless there is a plan for something a bit more sinister. For example, why set up a law forbidding Islamic religious law, specifically, in local courts, unless it is in order to allow some other religious law in local courts, presumably Biblical law, seeing that it is Bible believing fundamentalists who promote the legislation.

If the goal is to establish Bible-based theocracy in the US, one would first have to make sure Sharia law is made illegal before suspending the First Amendment’s establishment clause in order to legalize Christian law. Can’t have the wrong kind of theocracy! In time, before the establishment of Christian theocracy in the US, I assume it would also be necessary to forbid the use of Halacha, Judaic law's path to god.

At any rate, the question for Christian fundamentalists is: based on your promotion of discriminatory laws and infringements of rights for various groups of individuals (women, non-Christians, LGBTs specifically), what exactly will be the difference between your theocracy and one based on Islamic fundamentalism or Jewish fundamentalism and why aren’t you working together in the short term? Each group would deny women rights to vote, to work outside the home, to access family planning information and contraception. Each group would criminalize non-hetero expressions of sexuality and gender. Each group would require adherence to its religion and its laws, which are not very different at all.

The legislation and statements I’ve noticed recently being promoted by fundamentalist Christians shows that these individuals would love nothing better than to have homosexuals stoned to death, to force women into bags to hide their faces and bodies and to control access to their vaginas and uteruses, to force their religion on those of other religions or of no religion at all. In other words, these individuals would force everyone to SUBMIT to them, to their god, their religion, their code of morality. Islam means to SUBMIT to god. Religious Judaism requires one to follow "the path" to god. So, somebody show me the difference. Somebody explain why Islam’s god is different from Christianity’s god and why either of them are different from the Jewish god. Somebody tell me why fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, and fundamentalist Jews are not working together, because I don’t get it. With such similar goals, the Jesus thing just doesn’t explain the animosity between the groups, at least in the short term. Time enough for internecine battles after you’ve taken control.

I challenge Christian fundamentalists to really take a look at fundamentalist Islam and Judaism. Besides the Jesus thing, what exactly is the difference? I don’t see much.

Measles in New Mexico!

2011-02-28T19:28:00.004+02:00

This past Sunday, I read here that a case of measles has been diagnosed right here in New Mexico. Apparently, an unvaccinated woman flew here from Europe, passing through a couple of US airports and ended up in the hospital in Santa Fe.

First, the comedy. In reading some of the comments (I only read a couple of pages and there were several hundred pages when I looked), I notice that several commenters seem unaware that New Mexico is, in fact, one of the 50 states of the United States of America. A couple of them were angry that some dirty illegal Mexican immigrant is responsible for bringing the measles into the US. Good grief! This brings to mind the story my FIL tells of traveling from Albuquerque to visit family in Wisconsin. He was driving his personal vehicle with New Mexico plates and was stopped by the Wisconsin Highway Patrol for some infraction. The officer accused him of having a forged driver's license and insisted on seeing his passport and visa until he finally believed my FIL that he really, truly is American after speaking to someone else at his base. I won't even get into the bigotry of the "dirty illegal Mexican immigrant" issue right now.

Second, I was surprised to see how many commenters on the two pages I read were horrified that anyone in the US was unvaccinated. Where have those people been hiding? I'm looking at that like it's a good thing, though, since if they are horrified about not being vaccinated, they obviously haven't been influenced by the anti-vaccination movement. I haven't returned to the article or its comments since Monday, but I'm hoping that the anti-vax misinformation mongers haven't derailed the comments into a dangerous pit of lies. I'm not going to return to the article or its comments, because I suspect that it probably has.

Third, the reason this unvaccinated woman is a danger to everyone is that many misinformed people here in the US have chosen not to vaccinate their children. These children are in danger of blindness, sterility, or even death, if they contract measles. In addition, some children and adults cannot be vaccinated due to various health issues, such as immune system disorders. Plus, since vaccinations are not effective 100% of the time, some individuals who are vaccinated still do not have full immunity. These individuals are in danger as well, and they depend on the rest of us to be vaccinated in order to avoid life-threatening diseases such as measles.

Since vaccination numbers among children especially are not as high as they should be, mostly due to misinformation and outright lies from the anti-vax movement, this single traveler could have infected dozens of individuals prior to being diagnosed. Those dozens can be infecting further dozens right now. Let's hope not.

Bottom line: Vaccinate your children and yourself! That is all.

Mrs. Obama Is Going To Force Our Kids To Eat Healthy!

2011-02-24T20:49:00.004+02:00

This is the Sausage Cheesecake you really want to send in your kid's lunchbox. But you can't, friends, because Michelle Obama won't let you! True? Or part of the blame-any-Obama-for-anything-even-if-it's-made-up disease that's sweeping the nation?

My friend and neighbor asked me Monday before last, “So, when is Michelle Obama’s term up so that I will be allowed to send whatever I want in my kids’ lunches and take cookies to their classrooms?”

I replied, “WTF are you talking about?”

She responded with a rant about how the new School Lunch Law changes require that she only send healthy non-obesity-causing foods to school in her daughter’s lunchbox when she chooses not to eat the cafeteria food, and that this is a ridiculous personal liberty infringement designed by the Obamas to take away parents’ rights in regard to what their kids can eat.

Well, I thought, if that is true, then she is correct. It would be horrible if the gubmint was telling families what foods to send from home for their children to eat at school. At the same time, I thought, that’s crazy, and I seriously doubt that the law says any such thing.

I informed my friend that I found that hard to believe and that maybe we should actually look up the new law and read it to see if she is right. I’m relatively sure she did not do so, since we’ve not had any follow-up discussion. Also, she is highly conservative and no fan of President Obama or any Democrat. Maybe she is just using this misinformation to give her an “I hate Obama” fix. But I actually DID read the damned thing here. I also read the 1966 Child Nutrition Act here, and the 2004 Richard B Russell National School Lunch Act here. I had to read these as well, at least the sections regarding nutrition at school and school wellness program policies, because the new publication does not include the whole of the two acts that it amends.

First, I would like to note that the majority of each act consists of extremely boring discussion of funding, finding qualified recipients for free lunches/breakfasts, reporting by schools, and reimbursement of schools by the gubmint. (yawn) I did it for YOU, people! I admit I skimmed those sections and only attacked the nutrition and wellness program information.

2004 language:

SEC. 9. 9–1 42 U.S.C. 1758 (a) 9–2 (1)(A) 9–3 Lunches served by schools participating in the school lunch program under this Act shall meet minimum nutritional requirements prescribed by the Secretary on the basis of tested nutritional research…

This language is not changed in the 2010 amendment. The 2004 version continues:

(a) IN GENERAL - Not later than the first day of the school year beginning after June 30, 2006,each local education agency participating in a program authorized by the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C.1751 et seq.) or the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1771 et seq.) shall establish a local school wellness policy for schools under the local educational agency that, at a minimum—
1) Includes goals for nutrition education, physical activity and other school- based activities that are designed to promote student wellness in a manner that the local educational agency determines is appropriate;
2) Includes nutrition guidelines selected by the local educational agency for all foods available on each school campus under the local educational agency during the school day with the objectives of promoting student health and reducing childhood obesity;

Check it out! Obesity is already in there! Promoting student health is already in there! Goals for nutrition education and physical activity are already in there! A prescription for minimum nutritional requirements from the Secretary is already in there!

The change in the 2010 version is here (bolded):

SEC. 204. LOCAL SCHOOL WELLNESS POLICY IMPLEMENTATION.
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act is amended by inserting after section 9 (42 U.S.C. 1758) the following:
‘‘SEC. 9A. LOCAL SCHOOL WELLNESS POLICY.
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Each local educational agency participating in a program authorized by this Act or the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1771 et seq.) shall establish a local school wellness policy for all schools under the jurisdiction of the local educational agency.
‘‘(b) GUIDELINES.—The Secretary shall promulgate regulations that provide the framework and guidelines for local educational agencies to establish local school wellness policies, including, at a minimum,—
‘‘(1) goals for nutrition promotion and education, physical
activity, and other school-based activities that promote student
wellness;
‘‘(2) for all foods available on each school campus under the jurisdiction of the local educational agency during the school day, nutrition guidelines that—
‘‘(A) are consistent with sections 9 and 17 of this Act, and sections 4 and 10 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1773, 1779); and
‘‘(B) promote student health and reduce childhood obesity;

So, I guess I can see where fear-mongers and anti-Obama individuals could interpret that to mean that OMG THE SECTIONS LISTED ARE FULL OF NUTRITION PROPAGANDA MADE UP BY MRS. OBAMA! ALL FOOD ON CAMPUS HAS TO FIT MRS. OBAMA’S IDEA OF HEALTHY FOOD, INCLUDING MY KID’S LUNCHBOX! However, without actually reading the sections listed above, we just can’t know that for sure, can we? Also, why Mrs. Obama? I guess this is her pet project, like Hillary Clinton’s was Health Care Reform, way back when, but the amendments have to come from the FDA and SSA and Secretary of Education and Secretary of Agriculture not to mention our CONGRESS, full of our elected officials. Not from the president’s wife, regardless of how smart she is or how important she thinks this is. She is acting as a spokesperson for improving our students’ nutritional health; she is not authorized to make law.

At any rate, I read the sections listed. I looked for any indication that Mrs. Obama was involved, but more importantly, I looked for anything to indicate that the new law applied to anything other than cafeteria food. Here’s a breakdown:

Section 9 of the School Lunch Act (SLA) is about a million pages long. Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but believe me, it took a long while to slog through it. Section 8 is about one page, but we can’t be required to read THAT! Anyway, Section 9 says a bunch of stuff, but it covers these things: establishes nutritional requirements, including prohibiting using the act to avoid providing substitutes for those with special dietary needs, both medical or otherwise; establishes that the gubmint will train personnel when necessary; requires that milk be offered; requires that high school students not be forced to accept every food item offered, though they still have to pay full price if they choose to pass on the S.O.S. and only eat the canned pears that day; establishes eligibility requirements and methods to identify free or reduced price lunch recipients (OMG – 500 pages or so! Really! This is the majority of Section 9!); forbids segregation or public identification of free lunch recipients (I think this is nice!); requires certain nutritional guidelines, provided by the gubmint, to be met in foods SERVED FOR LUNCH OR BREAKFAST, but also forbids requiring schools to have meal nutrition analyzed (whut?); requires twice a year food safety inspections; encourages, but does not require purchases of local food items, and will help defray storage/facility costs for those who do.

That’s all. And it was enough dry reading for me! But in the public interest, I pressed on!

Section 17 is similar to Section 9, but addresses child-care (and adult-care, but that’s beyond the scope of my friend’s complaint). Our school offers before and after-school care for a fee, so this would apply here. This section addresses all the things listed in Section 9, just addressed towards child-care facilities and the specific issues of those facilities rather than schools; provides for commodity donations from the USDA to these facilities.

Section 4 of the Child Nutrition Act (CNA) establishes a school breakfast program under the same terms and regulations of the SLA.

Section 10 covers regulations: establishing nutritional standards as specified in the SLA; establishing that these standards apply to any food SOLD at school (note that this excludes items brought from home, including that cake you want to take into the classroom for your child’s birthday, as well as specifically excluding school sponsored fundraisers).

Now, to go back up to the changes, and the FEAR, the 2004 amendments stated that local school authorities would be required to establish a wellness policy that applies to all food available at school during the school day. The 2010 amendments requires that “all foods available on each school campus… during the school day...
are consistent with sections 9 and 17 of this Act, and sections 4 and 10 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1773, 1779); and (B) promote student health and reduce childhood obesity."

That’s the change. In 2004, a school’s wellness policy had to apply to all food available on campus, and in 2010, all foods available on campus have to comply with those four sections of the two laws. But, as I’ve stated above, sections 9 and 17 of the SLA as well as sections 4 and 10 of the CNA say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about food brought from home, and in fact, specifically address ONLY foods available for sale (or for free if the student qualifies) on campus, at the cafeteria or snack bar. As I wrote above, even fundraisers are exempt. So, technically, there’s nothing new here. Nutrition guidelines have changed, that is true. But those nutrition guidelines are ONLY APPLICABLE TO FOOD SOLD ON CAMPUS DURING THE SCHOOL DAY. Any other forced compliance would be against sections 9 and 17 of the SLA and sections 4 and 10 of the CNA.

THE BOTTOM LINE
So my friend can send those chocolate chip cookies to little Susie’s classroom (if the specific school or teacher doesn’t have a classroom policy against it, and my friend can certainly fight that if she chooses – it’s not coming from the federal government) where each child can have one except for little Bobby, who will sneak up and eat seven or eight when nobody’s looking. She can send those tubs of lard, bags of sugar, and caffeinated soft drinks in little Susie’s lunchbox if she chooses! So happiness all around, I hope!

Oh, yeah, Mrs. Obama's name is nowhere in there.

It took me a week to have time to really read all this stuff. Hope anyone who reads this finds it useful. Please forgive any formatting or grammar or spelling errors. I have read this over so many times I can’t even see them anymore.

I will add that I have no idea where my friend came up with her insane idea, but I suspect it’s being discussed at her fundamentalist church, at her school (Liberty University on-line), on her conservative news source networks, and among her conservative friends. In other words, I’m sure she’s not alone. If you read this, do your part by educating your friends and acquaintances in regard to this issue! The gubmint isn’t forcing you to feed your child healthy foods! But if your child buys or receives lunch at school, it will be healthy. Too bad, huh?

Speck - June 3, 1998 to May 6, 2010

2010-05-06T22:55:00.003+03:00

Thank you, Speck, for almost 12 years of being the best, the brightest, the cutest, and the sweetest dog ever born. Thank you for being there through thick and thin. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for keeping the kitchen floor free of debris. Thank you for always being happy to see me, even when I was grumpy. Thank you for forcing me to take walks and enjoy the outside world. You cannot be replaced and I will miss you forever.

Stouffer's Thinks You're Stupid!

2010-03-30T18:39:00.004+03:00

Well, I can't find a video of the recent Stouffer's Lasagna ad, in which a family which has made changes in its lifestyle is forced to have Stouffer's frozen lasagna for supper instead of eating out all the time (apparently). In this ad, the voice-over claims with great enthusiasm that Stouffer's Lasagna is made of, get this, "REAL INGREDIENTS!"

Is this their selling point? Wait, what? My kids made a mud-pie recently, and it, too, was made of REAL INGREDIENTS! Did that make it edible? I think not. I cooked up a copper sulfate crystal in my high school chemistry class many years ago and it was also made of REAL INGREDIENTS! I still didn't eat it, and would not recommend that anyone do so.*

Can someone at Stouffer's please define UNREAL ingredients for me? I really would like to know what that means. My mind conjures up visions of me trying to serve up to my family the tea and crumpets The Princess served at her most recent tea party. These treats actually were made of unreal ingredients and because of that, they DIDN'T ACTUALLY EXIST, except in our imaginations. Surely Stouffer's is not insinuating that parents are serving imaginary foods to their families? Or maybe they just think we're stupid.

Perhaps some ad exec working for Stouffer's is a closet solipsist - unless the ingredients are right there in front of him or her, they don't exist! But that won't work, either, since the ad exec cannot possibly be present each time a parent serves Stouffer's frozen lasagna, so all lasagnas, excluding the one on the exec's plate, would be made of UNREAL INGREDIENTS, and would not exist.

It appears Stouffer's thinks we're stupid.

I seem to be writing lots of posts about crap I see in ads lately. Sorry. Apparently my sensitivity level to ridiculous and stupid garbage is set pretty low right now.

* - in that same chemistry class, we followed a set of directions for an experiment that led to delicious, delicious peanut brittle (such and such grams of sucrose, such and such grams of "protein pellets", such and such level of heat for such and such amount of time, etc.), which we DID eat, and were graded on its consistency and flavor. Also, summer school for chemistry, until the board of directors put the kibosh on it, included an experiment that led to BEER (yes, it was a LONG time ago). Cooking IS chemistry! And everything is made of REAL INGREDIENTS!

HFCS Skepticism - New Data!

2010-03-27T20:00:00.003+03:00

I've been a skeptic of the idea that high-fructose corn syrup was any worse than regular sugar (sucrose) in regard to weight gain and metabolism. The recent ads from the Corn Refiners Assn were okay by me. Here's one example:
HFCS Ad #1

New data, however, has come out from Princeton University. In this article, researchers find that HFCS does indeed affect metabolism in such a way as to increase weight gain and blood-borne triglycerides more than the exact same caloric amounts of sucrose.

Interesting! And a great example of why a skeptic must always be ready to change his/her mind in the face of evidence. I bow to the Princeton scientists who performed this research, and will change my view appropriately. At least until additional evidence of HFCS's safety or evidence of bad data or methods in Princeton's study are presented.

Domino's Thinks You're Stupid

2010-02-11T03:02:00.004+02:00

Domino's Pizza's latest commercial shows us just how stupid advertising grunts think we all are.

Puffery, the spokesactorpizzaman says, is exaggeration of opinion, not fact. Papa John's claim of pizza flavor superiority, he says, is just puffery. Domino's pizza flavor superiority, on the other hand, he says, is based on FACT.

His data for this FACT? A graph showing the results of a taste test showing that people prefer Domino's Pizza, overwhelmingly, he says, over Papa John's and Pizza Hut's!

What is the best cheese? Cheddar? Provolone? A nice ripe Brie? You say Cheddar is the best cheese? Okay, what data did you use to determine that? What? It's your OPINION? What? Your sister thinks Brie is best? Your dad likes a stinky Camembert? So, then, what's the best cheese? Come on! Come on! Just the facts, ma'am!

No puffery over at Domino's, though! Really? Since when is taste-testing anything other than recording the OPINIONS of various individuals in a group of individuals who tried the product?

In regard to the test: Restaurant News reports that an independent company tested Domino's new recipe pizza with 1800 people in 8 nationwide markets. The numbers do show that at least 58% and as much as 67.5% of people asked said that they preferred Domino's pizza over Papa John's or Pizza Hut's in each case.* Pretty good, but hardly overwhelming. Variation among restaurants could raise those numbers through the roof or drop them to zero from one day to the next. Nonetheless, all of these pretty numbers are still based on OPINION, not fact. A bit of puffery on Domino's part, perhaps?

A very unscientific taste test reports that the overall opinion (and it's still just an opinion, people, not a FACT) of tasters was, "Meh, cheap pizza is cheap pizza."

Domino's thinks you're too stupid to see through their puffery.

*58% of those asked said they preferred Domino's sausage pizza over Pizza Hut's. Domino's pepperoni took the highest prize, with 67.5% of tasters preferring it to Pizza Hut's. For other numbers, see the article.

Holiday Re-gifting Hint

2010-01-13T19:16:00.003+02:00

I am all about re-gifting! If I receive something nice, but have no use for it, I will pass it along to someone who will love it more than I do. However, this past holiday season, re-gifting went wrong!

My mom always writes something in the front of books she gives as gifts. This year, her habit was my father-in-law's downfall!

In 2008, my mom and step-dad gave my FIL a hardcover book in which he had expressed interest. This past Christmas, my MIL's partner received a book from my FIL and his wife. Interestingly, the book had an inscription which read "Merry Christmas 2008 to [FIL's name] from [mom and step-dad's name] - ENJOY." Most of us have had a good laugh about it, but my mom is a bit miffed.

The lesson here is to be careful about re-gifting. If you are re-gifting secretly, be sure to remove inscriptions or messages from the previous gifter.

Avatar (spoilers!)

2010-01-08T00:14:00.006+02:00

So far, we have seen this one twice, once in 3-D, but never on an IMAX screen (some provincial states have NO IMAX theatres), although me mum recommends the IMAX experience highly. She lives in another bass-ackward state, but her city has five theatres with IMAX screens! Not fair!

The story is sort of an American Indian vs Colonists allegory with some Mother Gaia and Noble Savage stuff mixed in. I told Nigel it reminded me of a futuristic sf/fantasyish Dances With Wolves with a happy ending, except that the main protagonist isn't abandoned with the Native Americans by accident, but is deliberately placed within the native culture in order to infiltrate and provide information to those who want to exploit the planet's mineral resources. The science is questionable, but because it is more fantasy than sf, that doesn't ruin anything.

While the story seemed a bit shallow, it still kept me enthralled and I still loved this movie. The effects are fantastic and beautiful. The characters are easy to love or hate. The almost three hours went by very quickly. Nigel and I have been hissing at each other (oooo, I want some fangs!) when we're annoyed and saying, "I see you," when we're feeling lovey ever since our first viewing of the movie. It was moving and fun and I would see it again (and again).

Pet Advice for 2010

2010-01-07T20:02:00.004+02:00

I have pets. I adore my pets. In the past, I have been a poor pet parent, but now I like to think that I am an excellent pet parent. Having recently read the annual complaints from vets about people getting pets for their children for xmas, most of which end up surrendered or abandoned or even abused, neglected, or killed, I want to list a few pointers for potential pet owners.

1) If you are getting a pet for your children, don't. Just don't. Feel free to get yourself a pet, but don't count on your kids, no matter how old they are, to take proper care of a pet.

2) If you are not home during the day and can't come home a couple of times during work hours, adopt an older, already house-trained dog, or make sure you have at least a few days home to crate-train your new puppy. Your new puppy WILL poop and pee in the house. Your new puppy WILL destroy shoes, clothes, and furniture. Cats and kittens sometimes do NOT automatically know how to use a litter-box. Keep these things in mind. This is NOT a flaw in your pet, but is perfectly normal. Be prepared!

3) SPAY or NEUTER! Intact dogs and cats not only become pregnant at inconvenient times and fight over females in heat, but they also have high chances to develop cancers later in life. Your male pet doesn't care if he has no testicles. This does not make him less of a MAN. If your manhood is tied to your male pet's testicles, you probably shouldn't have a pet, but should invest in some therapy for yourself. Your female pet does NOT need to go through her first heat before being spayed. Check with your vet about when you can have your pet neutered. You do NOT have to wait until they are six months old in most cases.

4) VACCINATE! Rabies, fortunately, is pretty much under control here in the US, mostly due to laws requiring vaccination. But don't stop there. I have seen puppies with Parvo. It is a sad and ugly sight. These puppies die from dehydration and organ failure after bleeding from every orifice, sometimes for days. Parvo is very highly contagious and if you have a pet with Parvo, you will have to decontaminate your entire home and yard if you want to try again after your pet dies. When you get your annual exam and rabies vax, be sure to get the DHPPC vax, which covers distemper, hepatitis, parvovirus, parainfluenza, and corona virus. If you plan to board your pet or it is exposed to strays or other pets with unknown health histories, think about also getting the Bordatella (aka Kennel Cough)and Giardia vax. Sometimes this is included in the DHPPC - ask your vet. For cats, vax to consider include those against Feline Leukemia, Feline Distemper, Calicivirus, and Rhinotracheitis. If your cat goes outside (DON'T! See below!) vax against Giardia is a must unless you enjoy diarrhea-filled litter-boxes and watching your cat suffer. You and your family will also enjoy diarrhea and suffering when your cat shares this disease with you.

5) If you do not have a few hundred bucks to set aside annually for health issues involving your pets, DON'T GET A PET. My kids are cheaper than my pets at the doctor's office. This is serious! You will need at least $50 per year per pet, just for vaccines and annual exams. For dogs who need heartworm/flea medications, you will need at least $150 per year. As your pet ages, health care becomes even more frequent and expensive. If something terrible happens, and your pet develops a serious health condition or a life-threatening injury occurs, you will need a minimum of $100.00, just to have your pet euthanized. This does not include disposal or cremation.

6) Keep your pet clean and well-groomed. If you don't have time or the inclination to groom your medium or long-haired pet or to pay a groomer to do it, don't get a hairy pet! Short-haired pets are much easier and cheaper to bathe and groom. My 20 lb. long-haired dog costs us $65 every other month for grooming and I have to brush her every other day to prevent matting. Keeping your pet's teeth clean is very important as well. Imagine not brushing your teeth EVER. Nasty teeth lead to pain, and eventually, organ damage and death. Your vet can clean your pet's teeth professionally, like your dental hygienist does for you. This is very expensive, since your pet will have to be anesthetized for the procedure.

7) Shelter, feed and water your pet appropriately. Fresh water must be available all day, every day. If your pet stays outside, you MUST provide proper shelter, from wind and cold in winter and from heat and rain in summer. Just because your pet has fur does NOT mean it can keep itself warm in winter. In summer, pets get heatstroke just like people do. When feeding dogs, I recommend twice or thrice a day feedings based on your dog's size/weight. There are charts on all bags of dog food that tell you how much to feed daily. Do NOT feed your pets leftover human food. This is just asking for weight problems and expensive health issues. I feed Science Diet, but I am confident that even the cheapest dry food will be fine for your pet as long as you don't over or under feed. Be wary of paying extra for "anti-oxidants" or "probiotics" as these have not even been clinically proven to benefit humans in any measurable way, much less pets, and they tend to make foods very expensive.

8) Don't let your cats outside! Your cat does NOT NEED to be outside. Your cat is a domesticated animal, not a lion living in the Serengeti. It will be perfectly content in the house. Like with feeding human food, letting your cat roam outside is asking for expensive health issues, including fatal diseases such as feline leukemia or FIV (the cat equivalent of HIV), not to mention parasites it can pass along to you and your household.

9) Be sure you will have time to spend with your pet. Daily walks, playing with toys, just petting and talking - all of these are requirements for a happy pet. If you don't want to spend time with your pet, why get one?

10) Train your dog! This is especially important when there are other pets or children in the home. Untrained and/or unsocialized pets cause many injuries every year. There are many, many resources for training and socializing your dog, including on the internet. Proper training and socialization can be the difference between life and death if something happens to you and your dog has to find a new home. Rover doesn't need to know how to roll over and play dead, but he does need to know how to walk on a leash, how to let someone grab his food bowl while he's eating, how to come back to you when you call, how to drop your dirty underwear when you want it back, how to play with other dogs, cats, and children, and how to stay off your family members and guests.

11) When it is time, let your pet go with dignity. Don't let your cat or dog suffer needlessly when we have ways to make their passings easy and painless. This is something we cannot do for our human loved ones. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it hurts. But be there for your friend at the end. Imagine the difference between dying in pain, alone, and dying by falling asleep in the arms of the person you love the most, with his or her voice in your ears as you go, telling you how good you have been. Which would you choose?

Many more things will probably come to mind after this post. But that's all for now.

Do You Pay To Advertise For Others?

2009-08-14T21:19:00.002+03:00

When I was a teenager, I wanted, wanted, wanted a pair of Guess Jeans (dating myself much?). I did end up getting a pair, but not until my extremely fashion conscious mom outgrew her old pair. Other than that, having grown up when I did and where I did, I never paid too much attention to trends, labels, and other crap. While my teammates were buying the most expensive and trendy sports shoes for volleyball, I always went to Kenney Shoes (sadly, Kenney Shoes is long gone) for their cheap NBAs, because they were comfortable and stuck to the court when I needed them to. I wore holey jeans, but only after they had developed holes on their own. I didn't want shirts with a little polo dude or an alligator on them.

I was always more into comfort than trendiness, and I still am. I'd be a great person to put on that show where family members turn in mom for wearing frumpy stuff all the time. But the women who get wardrobe makeovers always look fashionable but uncomfortable at the end. Sometimes, even the men end up looking uncomfortable, but not as often since men's clothing, except for neckties, is not deliberately designed to be UNcomfortable like lots of women's fashions.

Now that I have kids, it seems important to me to instill skepticism into them in regard to pop culture and the advertisement industry, and to make sure they know that they don't have to wear things that look fashionable, but are itchy, pokey, or cut off the circulation to their legs. I refuse to buy them clothes with visible corporate logos. I am careful to call products what they are instead of using trademarked product labels, e.g. tissues instead of Kleenex, swabs instead of Q-tips, etc.

I believe that if I wear a t-shirt with Coca-Cola's logo, the Coca-Cola company should pay ME, not the other way around. Anyone wearing a Coke shirt should be able to get free Cokes that day. I've explained that to my kids, and they seem to understand. I hope so, anyway. So far, they have shown no interest in trendy fashions, and in fact, they often have trouble just picking out tops and bottoms that don't mix stripes and plaids or orange and green, so I'm hoping for the best. They're only 8 though, so the tough years are still ahead.

Do you wear corporate logo clothing? If so, you might think about the fact that you actually PAID money to provide FREE advertising for that corporation. Even if you really, really, really like their product, perhaps you should start sending them an invoice every month requesting reimbursement based on how long you wore the clothing and how many people saw it. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me!

A Confusing Comment From Everyone's Friend, Anonymous

2009-06-27T07:33:00.006+03:00

Been away for a while, and came in to find a comment from Anonymous on my last post about the frightening immaturity of those who would destroy society unless they could control it. The comment is interesting in that I really don't understand what Anonymous is trying to get across. So, here's my response:

Thanks for your comment, Anonymous.

Anonymous: You are so very lost in the false left right paradigm that unfortunately you will never be free from it.

Maleficent: What exactly is this false left-right paradigm in which I am so very lost?

Anonymous: People like you are so very pathetic and sad, I didnt even know what "teabagging" was until it was mentioned on CNN by an anchor as a joke about protesters, pornographic jokes like that just prove that the progressive left really is what those right wingers say they are
You are a sick, disgusting, failure as a woman and my generation of women who will be mothers and wives will be better off if you learn to have some self respect and class.

Maleficent: What is your point? I'm not quite understanding your point about my being pathetic, sad, sick, disgusting, and a failure of a woman, lacking self-respect and class, for writing a post about the very real lunatic fringe of immature and irresponsible individuals who would prefer to kill us and destroy our playground if they can't tell us how and what to play on it. That's a threat to all of us!

I also imagine that many didn’t know the sexual connotation of “teabagging” until it was pointed out on several news shows after being picked up from the internet. You may not be aware that Tea Party attendees embraced the nick-name of "tea-baggers" when the movement first began to organize local protests against President Obama's so-far non-existent tax increases on the middle class. A friend of mine, who still attends local Tea Parties, also still embraces the nick-name (though I consider myself a fiscal conservative, my friend and I agree to disagree in regard to this particular aspect of fiscal politics and I obviously do not support the Tea Party movement). If you are offended by its now-known sexual connotation, please feel free to refrain from using it. I am not the boss of you, nor am I talking about you in this post. Unless you would prefer to see me dead if I don't bow to your (or anyone else's) personal and extra-legal ideas about how society should be run. If that's the case, then I AM talking about you. After all, that anti-American threat is what the actual post, not the one you’ve made up in your head, is all about. Somehow I don't think that's the case, though the name-calling and assumptions about me seem somewhat immature, and I could be wrong.

Anonymous: While you scramble to put me in a category check off the minority, under thirty, urban, college educated, non-religious boxes.

Maleficent: You could be a kindly grandma from Tigard, Oregon, for all I know or care. The only thing I'm scrambling to do is figure out your point.

Anonymous: What kind of parent and wife are you that you would blog this way knowing that if the cyberbullying act gets signed, rick perry can sign an affidavit and have you arrested on federal charges to serve not more than 2 years in a federal lockup

Text of the bill
‘(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
HR 1966

Maleficent: I deny your accusation of cyberbullying. I have not “coerced, intimidated, harassed, or caused substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior”. Perhaps you are trying to instigate such behavior with your accusations and your unsupported description of me?

My blog consists of legitimate critiques of various issues that are important to me and to my family, so I am being the best possible wife and parent by highlighting these issues in order to improve life for myself, my husband and my children! In this particular case, my post highlights the immaturity and danger of those who would destroy what they cannot control. I love being an American, and I love living in the USA, and I resent those who would destroy it! I am acting in my family's best interests by pointing out these threats to our great country!

Recent case in point #1 - Scott Roeder
Recent case in point #2 - James von Brunn

If you can clarify your accusations and statements about my personal characteristics with specific examples, I will be delighted to address them.

Anonymous: So go ahead, say something bad about me, say something you feel will cause me emotional distress. Already by your blog post persons who you call "tea-baggers" could have you visiting a cell.

Maleficent: One more time: I do not know you. I don’t know anything about you except what you’ve written above. I certainly don’t know enough about you to insult you, nor do I wish to cause you emotional distress. Are you a fan of Rick Perry? Have you have attended a Tea Party or two? Did you read my post’s title, see the word “tea-bagger" or the name Rick Perry in there, then get all upset and posted without thinking or reading further? After all, had you actually read the post, you would have known that I was quoting another blogger’s post, excellent and with which I strongly agree, mentioning Rick Perry as the first to call for armed rebellion against the USA (Case in point #3 – what kind of person calls for armed rebellion simply because not everyone agrees with him or her? This is a threat to my country and to my family! And yours!) But, regardless of the mention of Rick Perry in the quoted section, MY post was more from the Orson Scott Card side (Case in point #4, another individual who would KILL because some people don't agree with his bigotry, a giant threat to America and therefore, to me and my family! And yours!) What is it? Are you a huge Orson Scott Card fan and responded offensively to my post on his behalf? Maybe you just don’t like the word “tea-bagger”? What? What? I truly don’t get your point! Help me out! First, though, I humbly suggest that you actually read posts prior to responding so that you can address concerns about the actual post and not the one you made up in your head that got you all angry.

Looking forward to hearing from you with some actual discussion points or at least a specific description or what it is about my post that put the bee in your bonnet!

Update: almost two months later - What, nothing? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Tea-baggers, Galts, and Other Pachyderms

2009-05-07T03:56:00.004+03:00

Worthy of mention, from Daylight Atheism:

[NOM Board Member, Orson Scott] Card isn't the most prominent member of the religious right to call for armed rebellion because the government won't cater to his wishes. He's not even the first. (Rick Perry may have that honor, along with a substantial portion of the Texas Republican Party.) But it is frightening that, as society moves away from accepting their views, these calls for revolution become more and more common among them.

What this shows, I think, is that the religious right is unwilling to participate in the social contract: the understanding that we all have a voice in directing the course of the state, but the price of that freedom is not always having one's own way. The religious right has no interest in that bargain. If they don't get to win, they don't want to participate. And as soon as events are not going their way, they immediately begin calling for armed revolt and insurrection, determined to achieve their goals by violence if they can't achieve them by democracy. The most insane aspect of this is that no one is taking away any of their rights - their clamoring for rebellion is purely because they can no longer control the lives of others.

This is what is silly, but frightening, about the extremely vocal right-wing Republican fringe. If you won't let them win, they'll take their ball and go home, just like kindergartners. Or maybe they won't invite you to their birthday party. But when they take their ball and go home, they would love it if they could cause everyone who wouldn't let them win to disintegrate in a painful way into dust and blow away. Or the people who aren't invited to their birthday party should die, disappear, and never be uncooperative with the toddler's desires ever again! It's toddler behavior, but these are supposed to be grown-ups. A toddler wishes another person dead or vanished because toddlers haven't developed a moral sense or empathy or a sense of responsibility. Toddlers are interested in doing what THEY want, when THEY want, and others must participate, assist, agree, or DIE. That's why we don't allow toddlers, for the most part, to choose how they will live their lives, much less allowing them to decide for others. They require supervision and education into how to hold up their ends of the social contract.

These latter day (there ya' go, a reference for you, Orson Scott Card, whose Ender novels have given me much now-tarnished-and-slightly-nauseous delight! Darn you, man! Grow UP!) revolutionaries seem to have been poorly supervised and educated. If these grown ups can't tell everyone how to live, they threaten to destroy society as we know it. What they would put in its place, in light of their vicious playground justice mentality, is not anything I like to contemplate.

Back In The USSA - Non-Kosher Edition

2009-04-22T18:32:00.002+03:00

Upon our return, and having finally retrieved our pets and settled into our hotel, we first went to Fred Meyer, where we purchased several pounds of bacon, ham, and cheddar cheese.

We wallowed in bacon, ham, and cheese before making bacon-suits and ham-hats for ourselves, while munching on cheese covered pork chops.

Since then, we have made a point of eating meat, preferably pork, and dairy together at least once per day, with leavened bread products, since we arrived back just as Pessach began. Bacon cheddar burgers on fat buns! Ahhhh! It is good.

Back In The USSA - Pet Adventures Edition

2009-04-21T18:17:00.003+03:00

The clan has returned from Israel to the USA.

The trip itself was, let's say, interesting. Delta lost our pets twice. It was due to a combination of uninformed employee error and Nigel's inability to believe anything I say unless I am backed up by at least 50 experts.

At Ben Gurion airport, we were told to pick the pets up from baggage claim and run them through customs when we arrived in Atlanta. However, Nigel, hoping they were wrong, asked a flight attendant about it and she informed him that, no, we didn't have to do that, and that the pets would just be put on our next flight.

Of course, I protested. But without 50 experts to back me up, Nigel insisted that the flight attendant was the person he would believe.

So, we got onto our next flight, and he asked if the pets made it on board. They said no, but that they would find them and get them on. This delayed take-off by 45 minutes. In the end, Delta informed Nigel that he was supposed to pick them up and run them through customs and returning them to baggage. Which I knew. At any rate, by the time we arrived in Portland, Nigel was angry with me because I was right and angry with Delta because they had effectively washed their hands of the issue.

We worked with a Delta supervisor for three hours upon arrival and discovered that Delta in Atlanta did not know where our pets were. While waiting for Nigel to come to pick us up at baggage claim with the rental vehicle, I called my mom. She informed me that Dennis from a kennel in Atlanta had called her and told her that he had our pets there and asking that she tell us to call him. I called Dennis and explained the situation. He said that we were not the only people to have had this happen, which was reassuring.

It took three days of negotiations and faxes and phone calls to get the pets to Portland, and when we got to Delta's cargo office, they couldn't find them. Turned out that Atlanta had left the baggage tags on their carriers and they were sent up with the baggage. Once that was discovered, they were brought to cargo, where we had to get paperwork and take it to Customs and Immigration, down the road, for an officer to sign. We brought the signed papers, paid 85.00, and took the pets to our hotel. They were quite happy to see us. Our poor dog had peed all over her carrier and the pad, which I ended up having to throw away after trying to wash the smell out twice.

I have to say that Officer Weddington of the Atlanta Customs/Homeland Security office was extremely helpful and sympathetic. I wrote an e-mail commending her. The Delta supervisor at Portland was also kind and helpful. The people at cargo were efficient and forced the baggage people to drop everything to find our pets.

Nigel plans to write nasty-grams to everyone at Delta even though this was the fault of only two people, one of whom doesn't work for Delta. That would be HIM. Sigh.

Lesson: In order to avoid Nigel's distrust of information provided by me, get everything in writing. Verify information with people other than flight attendants. Don't fuck around with customs.

Lovely Quotes From Men Series Opener

2009-03-16T20:34:00.004+02:00

Simon Jones is a git.

Dude doesn't want to get married. Dude claims Frances railroaded him into marriage. Dude doesn't want children. Dude claims Frances railroaded him into fatherhood. Dude's true feelings about women in general come out:

And it’s not only Frances who’s become a boring frump — it’s depressingly common to see clever, attractive women become parenting bores. You can spot them at parties, in baggy clothes and making no effort to be interesting to men. Surely the ultimate mummy could still be a sex cat, if no longer a sex kitten?

Never forget, fellow women, that you are required by the patriarchy to continually be interesting to men at all times and in all places. Whether that interests you or not. Twisty has it right(though the subject of the linked post is much more disgusting than Simon's sad saga):

The sex class is responsible for maintaining its perpetual availability for the use of males.

She points out that women who do not feel obligated to conform to the requirements of patriarchical femininity will be punished. By being castigated and maligned by some git in the Times Online, for example.

Simon, however, for all of his whine-worthy suffering, did not learn from his experience with boring, frumpy Frances. He soon left Frances for Maria and repeated the whole ridiculous performance again. Git. I'm going to mail him a box of tissues.

Obama Starts Off On The Right Path

2009-01-24T10:45:00.002+02:00

First, apologies to the two people who sometimes read this blog. I've been traveling and am now preparing to leave Israel to return to the US.

Now, today I read that President Obama has reversed the ban on US support to international family planning organizations that offer abortion or even information about abortion. This ban has been on (Reagan/Bush I), off (Clinton), and on (Bush II) again. Now it's off again, and I can only hope that it is off permanently.

Justifications for the ban are generally that no American tax payer should be forced to pay for what they believe are morally reprehensible programs. This is a silly argument on its face in that we all pay for things we would rather not - with our tax money. I would certainly prefer not paying Blackwater to terrorize various parts of the world on behalf of the US. I would certainly prefer not to have paid a penny towards the war in Iraq, which I was against from the very start. I would prefer not to pay for religious-based rehab programs. There are several morally reprehensible things my tax money supports.

Justifications for lifting the ban include the fact that funded programs offer many, many valuable services to women and families, including HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention programs, birth control provision and counselling, and general health and preventive care programs. It seems unfair that poor women and families cannot have access to these things while wealthy women and families can pay to go to private clinics, even traveling out of the area to do so.

This is one of the many reasons I have a problem with abortion restrictions here in the US as well. The wealthy seventeen-year-old who chooses abortion can afford to go just about anywhere to get one. The poor seventeen-year-old has no choice. She can't afford to travel to another county, state, or even country. Even if she can scrape up enough cash to go to some other county, she has to be "counseled," shown ultrasound pictures of her fetus, and otherwise delayed and delayed and delayed until she risks being fired from her job, missing important classes at school, or otherwise forced to take chances that the wealthy seventeen-year-old is not. This is a class and gender issue, not a moral one. If one set of morals apply to one woman and another set to another woman, that is just the type of moral relativism that the so-called Right to Lifers abhor. It is also annoying that, as the immortal George Carlin pointed out, right-wing fanatics' concern for life stops at birth - after that, they're on their own and social conservatives who made damned sure that they were born, wanted or not, able to be cared for or not, do not want to lift a finger to help them survive and thrive after they're born. Again with the moral relativism!

An interesting video is up on Youtube. A man visited an abortion protest and asked this question: If abortion is made illegal, what legal penalty should be placed on women who get an abortion. Most of the respondents were stumped by this question. One woman had the intestinal fortitude to admit that if abortion is killing a human, than murder laws and penalties should probably apply. She still hemmed and hawed with talk of "looking at the circumstances," but at least she is aware of the problems inherent in making abortion illegal.

Hmph. Rant over. Thanks President Obama. Let's try to work together to provide education and birth control to all the world so that abortion will be minimized.

Christmas Rant

2008-12-06T14:49:00.001+02:00

I don’t give a crap about Christmas. There. Call me Scrooge, I don’t care.

I also don’t give a crap about my birthday, my wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, or, really, any day that has been set aside as something special, but seems to actually be set aside in order to encourage profligate and unnecessary spending.

Every day I am alive is as special as the day on which I was born. Every day I am married to my wonderful Nigel is as special as the day on which we married. Every day on which I have enough to eat is as special as Thanksgiving. Every day on which I act as a good citizen and enjoy the fruits of democracy is as special as Independence Day.

But I digress. Back to Christmas. Both my family and Nigel’s family are populated by several poor planners and spendthrifts. Without going into boring detail and a 40 page rant, let’s just say that my brother and his family, Nigel’s brother and his girlfriend, and Nigel’s mom and her boyfriend have planned their finances very poorly and can’t control their impulses to spend money they do not have to buy luxury items. We have given Nigel’s mom large amounts of money twice within the past year, simply to allow her to eat and pay her bills. My brother and Nigel’s brother generally leech off of my mom and Nigel’s dad respectively.

At any rate, the tale continues as we plan for our trip back to the US for Christmas. Nigel got an e-mail from his brother recently saying that he and his girlfriend have no money but that their mom has helped him get presents for us and for the kids. This pisses me off on several levels:
1) His mom doesn’t have any money. How does Nigel’s brother have the nerve to leech off her? Why give gifts at all?
2) Again, his mom doesn’t have any money. Why give gifts at all?
3) When we give his mom money to allow her to pay bills and eat food, why would she think it is okay to use that money to buy crap for our kids!? We can buy crap for our own kids without her as the middle man. Why would she think it is okay to buy crap for our kids for Nigel’s BROTHER to give them?
4) Why can’t we just have a nice dinner and stay up all night talking and laughing and listening to music? Why do there have to be gifts at all when nobody has the money to pay for them?

We have asked them NOT to give presents they can’t afford. Why do they insist on it? Especially when they can’t even buy themselves the requirements for life without subsidization? I understand the desire to give things to your grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. I do not begrudge them wanting credit for getting things for the kids. They want the kids to love them the most and apparently think that unless they buy crap for them, the kids won’t love them. Whatever – we’re trying to raise the kids not to think that way. We’re trying to raise them to be responsible and productive members of society, neither dependent on others nor with others dependent on them. We’re trying to raise them knowing that PEOPLE are more important than THINGS, and that love is better displayed through everyday kindnesses than through the occasional giving of things.

There is an additional angle here, too, in that MY mom spent her whole life planning for retirement. She invested the maximum allowable into her retirement fund, made sure she did not spend money she didn’t have, and hired a financial planner to help her maximize her money and prepare for the earliest possible retirement date. Because of her good planning, she actually has disposable income, not as much as in the recent past, due to the current economic crisis, but she does well for herself – through her own hard work and thoughtful planning. This is a bone of contention between her and MIL. MIL feels competitive. While she can’t buy the kids one expensive toy or other gift, as my mom has done in the past, she tries to outdo my mom in quantity, with bags and bags of crappy crap from the Dollar Store.
In addition, Nigel’s dad recently remarried a woman with seemingly bottomless reserves of cash. So there’s competition there as well.

Nigel and I have also been actively planning for the time when we either don’t want to work anymore or cannot work anymore. We have invested and planned for ourselves and for our kids’ futures. We have pinched pennies and minimized spending on non-necessities for the past 15 years and have built up a nice nest egg.

Am I wrong to be offended? Am I a bitch for thinking that the $100.00 my MIL spent on bags of Dollar Store crap that will be broken within 24 hours of Christmas would have been better spent on my MIL’s household heating bill, or that Nigel’s brother would be better off using any money MIL gives him to pay off one of his credit card bills instead of buying crap for my kids? Am I stingy for thinking that if she has the nerve to ask for financial help from Nigel and I this Christmas, I will put my foot down and tell her to piss off until she can swear on a stack of WalMart circulars that she will not buy a single thing for us or our kids during the year? I fear that Nigel and I will not benefit from our hard work and penny pinching because of the profligacy of our families. Will we have to continue working until we die so that our families can buy Christmas presents for people? Fuck that.

I need to think of some sort of solution for the dilemma. My first thoughts are that I need to get Nigel’s support and tell everyone, my family AND his, that next year, for the kids’ birthday and for Christmas, if they MUST give presents, they will contribute to a central pool of money and that money will be used by the kids to buy something they want or need. Nobody will know how much any other person put into the pool, thus removing the competition angle. Also, any additional gifts given will be returned and the money will be given back to the giver or applied to the giver’s utility bill or mortgage/rent. This should also apply to any gifts given to me or to Nigel. We do not need socks or sweaters or potpourri, and if we do, we can get it ourselves.

Can’t we make Christmas, which I hate anyway, into a simple day, one to spend with our family eating and talking and laughing and having fun? Now, THAT, I wouldn’t hate.

College Student's Suicide Blamed on Dawkins

2008-11-26T15:13:00.003+02:00

A young college student has committed suicide. His father blames Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion for causing the young man to lose faith in God and in a fit of hopelessness, kill himself.

Keith Kilgore told WND he feels, by allowing his son to move into the atmosphere of a secular school, like "I put a toddler in the front of my car."

Exactly so. By teaching his child that there is nothing but but hopelessness and nihilism without a god, and that intelligent design is a viable alternative to the theory of evolution and then sending him out into the real world, to a real college, with a real biology class, he DID put his child in the front of a car. I have found nothing in The God Delusion that says life is meaningless and hopeless without a god; on the contrary, Dawkins is consistent in that he loves to write about how fascinating and beautiful life in the real world is and he encourages readers to seek that fascination in their own lives.

Any good biology class will challenge fundamentalist beliefs. This poor young man was taught from childhood all the terrible arguments anti-science religious people parrot long after they have been refuted. It would have been difficult for any child growing up knowing only the " then why are there still monkeys" and "where are the transitional forms" types of argument to stay faithful in the face of actual scientific knowledge that would contradict what he has been taught all his life. How difficult and depressing it must have been for this obviously intelligent young man to finally understand that his family and friends and community had been lying to him his entire life.

"I'm all for academic freedom," Keith Kilgore said. "What I do have a problem with is if there's going to be academic freedom, there has to be academic balance. They were undermining every moral and spiritual value for my [son]," he said. "They ought to be held accountable."

Because, obviously, and as many others have written, colleges and universities should be teaching future MD's how to balance the four humours through bleeding and purging in addition to actual science-based medicine, such as germ theory. And astronomy students should be learning astrology and geocentrism as well. And chemists should learn alchemy. And geologists should learn flat-earth theory. For academic BALANCE, you know.

Damn those scientists and their big brains! Don't they know it is their job to make sure their students' moral and spiritual needs are being met in their classrooms? If I choose to raise my child to believe things that directly contradict reality, and to take pride in his ability to debate his false beliefs against the blasphemers using stale and long-discredited arguments, they should respect that and cater to his ignorance by teaching the falsehoods WITH the reality! That's what I'm paying them for! They ought to be held accountable!!!

IMO, Mr. Kilgore, his family, his church, and his community should be held accountable for lying to this young man and encouraging his false beliefs and hopes, directly resulting in his loss of faith and suicide. Apparently and very sadly, based on the young Kilgore's lack of communication with his father and other family members in regard to his loss of faith, the poor young man felt unable to even discuss his despair with his family, and instead, only communicated his feelings to a few friends who apparently didn't feel it would be appropriate to inform anyone who might be able to help him. While that is not quite as morally reprehensible as watching a young man commit suicide on the internet and doing nothing other than express shock or laugh and encourage him to do it, I still have to wonder how these "friends" will handle the guilt of knowing how depressed and hopeless Kilgore felt while doing nothing to help.

I say that it was this young man's parents, his friends, and his church that betrayed his trust and set him up for this tragedy. Dawkins's books are chock full of hope. Religion is chock full of false hope.

My Supernatural Pet-Power

2008-11-11T13:47:00.003+02:00

I scoff at people who tell me, “It was MEANT to BE!” However, that said, one afternoon, I picked up the kids from school and as we were driving down the not-yet-paved road away from school, a black dog ran right in front of the van. I honestly thought I had hit the poor thing. I screeched to a halt, got out, and ran around the front of the van to look - nothing. I went around the passenger side - nothing. I went to the back - nothing. I could hear the kids shrieking, but thought it was because my fear had rubbed off on them. I finally shook my head and went to get back into the van. Guess who was in the driver’s seat?

There was absolutely no way we could have another pet. We already had four cats, two geckos, an aquarium, and another dog at home, and were preparing to move overseas for two years!

But we all fell in love with Zippy after we had gotten him back up to speed healthwise - he had been living out on the mesa, eating rabbits, and had worms and every other parasitical disgusting disorder possible. He was a loveable dork, with separation anxiety, nervous tail-biting, and a penchant for throwing up in the car.

Soon, though, the day came when I was going to have to find Zippy a new home. We had already prevailed on our families to keep two of the cats for us until we returned home, had found a new home for the geckos and the entire aquarium. One cat had died, and we were taking one cat and our other dog with us. Nobody wanted to keep Zippy. I called a friend who worked for one of those no-kill, all-volunteer, adoptathon places. She said there was little hope, since they had so many dogs who needed good homes, but to bring Zippy to their next adoptathon and fill out paperwork.

The morning of the adoptathon, I had a horrible cold, and almost decided not to go. But I got up and dragged my sorry butt and Zippy’s nervous and excited butt down to the place. I started filling out the paperwork, while Zippy stuck like glue to my leg.

Before I even finished, a man and his two kids came up with their dog and asked about Zippy. He and their dog sniffed each other and began to play. He twisted the kids up in his leash and licked them everywhere he could reach. The man said, “Well, that was easy. We want HIM.” I explained all about his nervousness and barfage, but they insisted Zippy was the one. So, within an hour, we had finished the paperwork, driven one of the volunteers to the family’s house to make sure it was appropriate for Zippy, gotten the volunteer’s approval, and sent Zippy off to his new home. It was so fast I didn’t even have time to get verklempt until I was driving home afterwards.

The family has sent me updates and photos and have reported that Zippy gets along famously with their other dog and cat (cats he did NOT tolerate at our house!), and had stopped biting his tail and never threw up in their car! He is much happier there than he was with us. The three kids fight over who gets to have Zippy sleep with them. The timing was perfect.

So, part of me says it was meant to happen exactly the way it did or it wouldn’t have happened so smoothly. The other part of me says, “Oh, come ON, ya’ freak!”

We also have a ginger cat, Tang, who is with us now, who I had known as a kitten when he was put up for adoption at the vet clinic where I worked. He was the last kitten left and I had almost talked DH into bringing him home, but we had a very old cat and didn’t want to torment her in her old age. After hours, I would let him out and he would follow me around while I cleaned up before leaving, chasing the dust mop, climbing up onto my shoulders, etc.

One day, he was gone. A friend of one of my co-workers had taken him home.

Six months later, this friend came in with him. He was horrible, she was allergic, they couldn’t keep him out in the garage anymore because he was peeing all over everything, etc. They had never vaccinated him, had no litter box (no wonder he was peeing all over the garage!), never neutered him. Basically, the poor guy was alone in a garage 24 hours a day. So I brought him home - after getting his vax done and having him neutered. He’s been perfect and is the best cat I have ever had in my life. When we decided to come overseas, and were looking for babysitters for our other cats, every single family member we asked said, “Oooh! I’ll take Tang!”

Again, it seems like it could have been meant to be! He reappeared just a week after our older cat had died. He seemed to remember me, though I’m sure he really didn’t. Had they just taken him to the pound, he probably wouldn’t have been a good candidate for adoption, since he was no longer a tiny, cute kitten and he had health issues that I was able to have corrected quickly and more affordably, since I worked at the clinic. He fit in immediately with our other cat and our dog. The timing was perfect.

Similar story applies to our other dog, but not as dramatic. A woman came in to the clinic with an adorable black and white dog under her arm. Her first words were, "I want a rabies vaccination and nothing else! How much will it cost?" While she waited for the doctor, the rest of the story came out. She had gotten the dog from AHA for her three(!)-year-old. The three-year-old, of course had no idea what to do with a dog, and was too afraid to go into the backyard anymore. The dog had been alone in the backyard getting haphazardly fed and watered (based on her condition when I first saw her), but never played with or trained in any way for the past six months. She smelled awful.

I suggested an exam and at least one more vaccination, for parvovirus, since I had seen puppies die of parvo and didn't want to see it ever again. She said, "No, just a rabies."

She went into a room to get the vaccine, and soon, the doctor came out from the back room with the dog under her arm. "Does anyone want this dog? The owner is going to take her to the pound as soon as we are done here. She only got the vaccine because she got a ticket for not vaccinating and she needs the vax certificate so she doesn't have to pay the ticket."

I immediately spoke up, "I want her." The doctor put her down and I squatted down and the dog ran over to me right away and tucked her head under my knee, peeing all over the place in excitement and nervousness. I typed up a document for the woman to sign stating that she was giving the dog to me in exchange for my paying for her vaccinations. The woman signed the paper and left with her vaccination certificate.

Before I left work that day, Speck had a complete exam, all the appropriate vaccines, a nice, long bath and grooming, and more love and attention than she'd probably had in her 8 months of life. She has been the best dog in the entire world ever since! The timing was perfect.

So, it appears that I have a supernatural power to arrange the best possible outcome for stray cats and dogs. Or perhaps I exude some ectoplasmic stuff that attracts the needy cases that only I can take care of appropriately. Or some other supernatural power arranged things and they were just meant to be.

Naah, I just got lucky. But it’s fun to play pretend!

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules V

2008-11-07T12:37:00.003+02:00

11/11/08 Update: This young woman, the rape and murder victim, is named Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow. I want to always include names when I can find them. These victims should have names so that they are more difficult to forget. Let's not forget Aisha.

Pharyngula has this BBC article today. It is enough to render me speechless, but I'm fighting it.

A 13 year old rape victim was convicted by an Islamic court of adultery in Somalia. Following her family's report of her rape by three men, she was detained. She was placed into a hole up to her neck and stoned by a group of 50 or more men in a football stadium before an audience of at least 1000 people. They dug her up to make sure she was dead. She was not. They returned her to the hole and finished the job.

In further Somalian news, from the same article, two men who helped kill a thief after torturing his mother received 39 lashes, and the man who actually completed the murder paid 100 camels to the dead thief's family and was released.

Penalty for being raped: DEATH BY STONING.
Penalty for torture and aiding murder: 39 LASHES.
Penalty for murder: FINE OF 100 CAMELS.

Among the approximately 1000 fans at the football stadium watching the stoning of the crying, pleading rape victim, exactly NONE stepped forward to try to stop it.

Fucking barbarians.

Skeptic Alert!

2008-11-02T12:08:00.004+02:00

While "Stop Sylvia Browne" website author, Robert Lancaster, was recuperating from a stroke, his domain name expired and was snapped up by a believer in/advertiser for psychics. In order to support Mr. Lancaster's herculean efforts to expose and document the activities of the heinous, money-grubbing, immoral, and unethical Sylvia Browne, please link to the new website: http://stopsylvia.com, tagging it ,Sylvia Browne. Hopefully if many bloggers do so, it will prevent potential victims of the wealthy scam artist, Sylvia Browne, from being sucked into allowing her or any other so-called psychic to profit from their grief by pretending to communicate with their dead loved ones.

Vote Early and Often!

2008-10-25T14:45:00.002+02:00

Yeah, I'm kidding about that "often" part! But I have been reading things that say that lines are already starting to get long at early polling locations all over the country where early voting is allowed. If the lines are getting long now, imagine what they will be like on Election Day next Tuesday!

Don't miss your opportunity to vote by waiting until the last minute and getting there too late! Four years ago, I stood in line for 2 1/2 hours to vote in a PRIMARY! It took me so long, that by the time I was finished and got back home, Nigel didn't have time to go vote at all! Our candidate lost by ONE VOTE! Well, I kid, but really, folks, don't take the chance that you may lose your opportunity to vote! Go NOW! DO IT!

Who's An American?

2008-10-21T11:22:00.004+02:00

Some people say Senator Obama is a Muslim. Others that he is a "Muslin." The truth is that he is a Christian. But there's a larger truth:

IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Photo from: http://whatever.scalzi.com/

In Honor of My Ting-Tang Kitty

2008-10-18T22:17:00.003+02:00

My photo skillz are not mad. Caption should say: Yes, yes, this will MAKE excellent barfs.

For the Barf-Master, Tang of the World, Big Fat Orange Kitty. Mummy loves you!

Photo credit (of course):icanhascheezburger.com

Watch Out For a New Anti-Choice Meme!

2008-10-17T17:52:00.003+02:00

I have a good friend here whom I really, really like. We have similar senses of humor and when we're together, we're almost constantly laughing. We have scads in common - three kids, ex-pats in Israel, Intel employed spouses, and much more.

What we do not ever discuss is religion and politics. I am a registered Independent who supports Obama/Biden this election. I am a strongly pro-choice, feminist, mostly-liberal, atheist. My friend is a die-hard party-line Republican who is stoked about McCain and especially Palin. She is most definitely not a feminist, is conservative and belongs to a fundamentalist evangelical church-franchise.

She knows my views. We have chosen never to go there because we just like each other too damned much and have too much fun together to take the chance.

Her parents are here for a few months to help her out while she recovers from tendon surgery which has put her in a cast for a long period of time and has forced her into immobility for at least two months. Her parents are funny, too, and we've had lots of laughs. They are VERY Catholic and are also anti-choice strict Republicans.

However, yesterday (she was not there), her dad was talking politics. I don't know how much my friend has told him about my views (probably not much, for fear he might tell her to stay far away from me.) So he told me yesterday, "I try to like Obama. I wonder all the time if I don't like him just because I somehow don't like black people. But I do like black people. I don't think I'm racist."

I responded, "If you don't like Obama's policies, then it's probably not because you're racist, but because you don't like his policies. If you do like his policies, but you want to vote for McCain even though you don't like McCain's policies, then you might just be racist."

He then went on (and on and on) about Obama being "pro-death." What the fuck does that even mean? Nigel told me later that I should have said, "Oh, Obama's for the death penalty? I haven't heard any discussion about that!" But I know that isn't what he was talking about. He was talking about being pro-choice and anti-abstinence-only education. I knew he held those views, but I'd never heard pro-choice being called pro-death before. I wonder now if that's the new meme the Catholic church is pushing and has sent out to its priests as a sermon-point.

I really, really, really don't want to lose a great friendship, especially because of her parents, rather than something SHE has chosen to take offense at. So I hemmed and hawed and just told him that you have to decide what your deal-breaker is and base your vote on which candidate doesn't have a policy that's a deal-breaker for you. He said, "Obama has a lot of my deal-breakers." So I said, "Well, there you go," and then changed the subject.

Has anyone else heard "pro-death" being bandied about? Have I just been missing it or is it a new part of the anti-choice discourse? It sure is ugly.

Jerusalem to Be Capital of Despotic World Government!

2008-10-16T13:00:00.002+02:00

I have been reading Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman's excellent book, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, published in 2000. It is an excellent and fascinating read, not only for the hard work and research the authors did in order to provide the facts, but also for the section about freedom of speech and why it is not necessarily an abridgment of that freedom for an institution to refuse to provide an outlet for lies and distortions.

One example given is that of Holocaust deniers purchasing ad space in college newspapers whose editors then cried, "Freedom of speech! Freedom of speech!" when the shit hit the fan. The authors wrote:

We must never pass a law that says Holocaust deniers may not publish their own literature. But we are not obligated to facilitate that expression.

Too many people do not see this distinction. I think Shermer and Grobman are right on about this.

Segue...

One quote from the book that stood out to me, in that I burst out laughing when I read it, is from white supremacist and historical revisionist (a.k.a. Holocaust Denier) Jack Wikoff from his 1990 Remarks newsletter:

Revolutionary communism and International Zionism are twin forces working toward the same goal: a despotic world government with the capital in Jerusalem.

Oh, ha ha ha ha!! He may be entirely serious! But he's obviously not been to Jerusalem. It is impossible to find a parking place just to go to the grocery store or the post office, much less for the entire world's population of supposed revolutionary communists and Zionists to come here to set up a despotic world government capital! Plus, in local politics, it is impossible to even get the people from different neighborhoods in Jerusalem to agree on anything. Good luck with that World Government, I say. Batshit crazy that Wikoff is!

Now They're Poaching People!

2008-10-15T09:38:00.005+02:00

An article in yesterday's IOL News says that ignorant fools who somehow believe that the blood and body parts of albinos can attract gold and despicable fools who claim the power to make magic charms from such material have opened up a new and lucrative market in Burundi and Tanzania: A market for dead albino parts. I'm not talking about albino tigers like these, or even albino apes like Snowflake. I am talking about albino HUMANS.

Rhinos, apes, monkeys, elephants, leopards, and many other animals have been threatened with extinction through poaching, and often for ridiculous reasons. Are we now to add humans with no melanin in their skins to the list?

A province official has opened his home to albinos who can get there, in order to protect them from roving gangs seeking to kill them for profit.

The report illustrates the path from discrimination to destruction that sometimes happens to minorities. Albinos have been ostracized,actively discriminated against, and mistreated in Africa. But now it has escalated to murder.

I have to wonder where this idea came from. Surely nobody just happened to kill an albino and then happened to notice that his/her blood or body part made gold come up from the ground. Some fishermen think using albino meat to bait their hooks will catch fish with bellies full of gold. Did this actually happen once? Where the hell did the idea originate?

I guess it could be similar to those who used to (and perhaps still do, in some places) blame Jews for things such as plague or financial collapse, leading others to first ostracize and eventually murder Jews. To the ignorant native "sorcerer/doctors", encouraging people to kill albinos and bring the blood and parts to be transformed into gold-attractor charms, it solidifies their power within communities, is lucrative for them, and rids the area of individuals they claim deserve death. Three birds with one stone.

Terrible and stupid! Hopefully the official who is protecting some of these people can find a way to stop this barbarism.

People are so bizarre. In some parts of Africa, people, even children and babies, are being killed because they have been accused of witchcraft. In other parts, people claiming to be sorcerers encourage killing albino people to make magic charms. What if the two groups met? Would they kill each other off?

A Busy Day for The Princess

2008-10-13T11:11:00.002+02:00

Here is The Princess's to-do list for Sunday:

1. Clos, brafist, theeth and hair
2. daddy to bus.
3. play, Lunsh
4. compeupuptr
5. james, bath, bed

What a busy day!

Yom Kippur Riots in Acre

2008-10-12T08:48:00.002+02:00

I was not at all surprised to read about the attempted stoning and subsequent riots in Acre on Yom Kippur. And it is still going on!

Even Acre’s Arab leaders are now caving in and saying that the driver should not have done whatever it was he did (allegations vary). Maybe not, and my family didn’t drive that day, not out of respect, but out of self-preservation, since we have accidentally driven near religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem and have been threatened with stones before we frantically backed away, but it is still ridiculous to expect non-Jews to follow specifically Jewish traditions.

A mayoral candidate is quoted in the article above as saying that this was a planned Islamic pogrom. What a terrible use of weighted words to raise anger and hostility. He also said that it wasn’t fair because Jews respected Ramadan for a whole month. What does that even mean? To disrespect Ramadan, what would they do? Hold some Muslims down and force them to eat during the day? Try to take away all their Qurans so they can’t read them?

In another stupid use of words, an Arab Israeli MK has called the riots a pogrom against Arabs.

There is no law saying no driving on Yom Kippur. It is considered bad form, but is not illegal, and I saw several dozen drivers on Road 1 during the day. It would be easy to make such a law if the people here wanted to. There is no separation of church and state here.

Or perhaps the Jews who want everyone to follow their traditions should move to the barricaded Haredim neighborhoods in Jerusalem where it is considered praise-worthy to throw stones at cars on Shabbat. But I’ll bet that would cramp their style.

So, we have Day Five of the riots today. Will Acre's Jews have a little something extra to atone for next year on Yom Kippur? If they take their book as a guide, they may not think they've done anything requiring atonement, since their god often commands them to wipe out non-Jews living in their promised land.

Naomi Wolf Puts a Bag on Her Head and Calls It Freedom

2008-10-11T21:24:00.004+02:00

Joseph Orosco at Engage: Conversations in Philosophy, has a recent post regarding women choosing to wear bags over their heads and claiming it as a feminist act. In many ways, his post reflects what I've felt about this claim but have been unable to come up with nice words to describe my feelings. I tend to be more likely to laugh uproariously at such transparent ridiculousity. At any rate, go there, read his post. It also has a wonderful comparison between wearing the chador and learning pole dancing as feminist acts. READ IT, I say!

Joe links to a Naomi Wolf commentary which is much in need of discussion. Wolf (who, as the author of the classic The Beauty Myth, should know better! Come on, Naomi!) writes:

...many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze.

This, according to Wolf, is GOOD.

Compare this to the message of The Beauty Myth: many Western women do not feel at all subjugated by the beauty requirements of cosmetic surgery and health-threatening diets. On the contrary, they feel liberated from what they experienced as the judgemental, insulting, basely de-sexualizing Western gaze. This, according to Wolf, is BAD.

A warning about Morocco from a poster at Lonely Planet says:

Word of warning for any females travelling alone or as a female-only group: the men of Marrakesh tend to voice their appreciation of the fairer sex. And when I say voice, I mean pester really; snake-like hissing, whispering Bonsoir in your ear, or general ogling (despite being covered up) - you have be [sic] warned...

(emphasis mine)Perhaps Morocco is alone in being a place where women get pestered even when covered up. I somehow doubt it.

Still, is unwanted attention “Western?” And if it happens even if a woman is covered, as in Morocco, are women “liberated” from it by covering? I think RELIEF is a better word to use in such situations than LIBERATE, and that perhaps covering oneself with a bag provides some small relief from constant harassment. Sometimes.

Having just finished reading The Beauty Myth, I would say that Wolf is slipping. In a chapter about cosmetic surgery (under the heading “Violence”), she writes that western women are forced have surgery in order to comply with the social requirement to remain beautiful (according to today’s pornalicious super-model standards). In "Hunger", she writes of how we are forced to diet ourselves sick for the same reason.

Perhaps it gives western women some relief when they surgically alter their faces and bodies, wear those fashionably sultry eye-shadows and the fashionable body-baring clothes, and shave their legs, since it prevents men from looking at them with that "look at the old hairy-legged lesbian hag in the baggy sweats" sneer-with-raised-eyebrow.

In her book, this is BAD. Women should be able to age naturally, to know themselves to be beautiful and be recognized as beautiful as individuals, rather than try to force ourselves into the beauty-myth template.

It is likely that the bagged women Ms Wolf has spoken to also feel relief that they are not harassed in the streets (sometimes) when they bag themselves. One woman Wolf spoke to said, “When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.” Is this respect? It sounds more like approval to me. Respect and approval are very different things.

In her commentary, this is GOOD. Women should be able to choose to hide themselves as a statement about the “Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality [which] are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband.” Because men deciding women must wear bags except with their husbands isn’t repressive or anything, I guess. And attitudes towards women in Islam are not rooted in the belief that women are chattel or anything, I guess.[/sarcasm]

Is this any different from a surgically de-aged, dieted into frailness, dressed to fit the most recent arbitrary fashion requirements Western woman feeling as though she is respected, when most likely, she is only approved (USDA choice!) because she has squeezed herself into that template? Why is one considered a symbol of freedom and the other a symbol of patriarchy?

The last paragraph of Wolf’s commentary clears up the question of her agenda. She writes:

…when you choose your own miniskirt and halter top – in a Western culture in which women are not so free to age, to be respected as mothers, workers or spiritual beings, and to disregard Madison Avenue – it’s worth thinking in a more nuanced way about what female freedom really means.

Apparently her goal is to say that Muslim women who choose to bag themselves, and this is the MAJORITY of women in Egypt and Morocco, somehow have freedom that is greater than or equal to the freedom of Western women, who choose to wear miniskirts and halter tops or to disguise aging, all the while being disrespected as mothers, workers, and spiritual beings. I don’t see it. I don’t get it.

Is she saying Muslim women who wear bags are free to age, to be respected as mothers, workers or spiritual beings, and to disregard Madison Avenue? This after she has written, “At home, in the context of marital intimacy, Victoria’s Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotions abounded.” And then added a paean to the sensual dance brides are taught “as part of what makes her a wonderful wife.”

If the women Wolf spoke to feel disrespected, saying, “When I wear Western clothes, men stare at me, objectify me, or I am always measuring myself against the standards of models in magazines, which are hard to live up to – and even harder as you get older, not to mention how tiring it can be to be on display all the time.” What exactly are their choices? Put up with it or put a bag over your head? And I guess their husbands NEVER objectify them or make them feel too old, too fat, or not hot enough. I'd like to see that data.

If I feel disrespected for being a mother, for growing older without altering the evidence of my aging, for not wearing the latest haute couture from YSL or pornified fashion from JC Penney, for not trying to fit into some artificial mold, I talk about it. I find different people to hang around with. I work to change opinions. I exhibit my respectability. I teach my children about commercialism, ageism, sexism, and patriarchy. I don’t put a bag over my head and call it freedom.

There is more to discuss in Wolf’s commentary, specifically her belief that sexuality in the more modest culture of Islam is much healthier than here in the West. But that’s a different post. I’ll leave it with this for now: Again, we have an example of religious and political patriarchy protecting (or trying to protect) its child-like men from their baser instincts by keeping women under wraps. And it doesn’t even work.

No Patriarchy in Southern Sudan - YET

2008-10-08T08:45:00.004+02:00

I'm really tired of typing "When Patriarchy Makes the Rules." Can we just do away with the patriarchy now, please?

From MSNBC comes this tale from Juba, a town in southern Sudan. It seems several dozen women were arrested for "disturbing the peace" by wearing tight pants. Deputy Dawg, I mean Deputy Police Commissioner Raiman Lege said the trousers were just too darned tight!

The women were not charged, and were released the following day without charges (good!) after having been thrown into the back of a truck and spending the night in a Sudanese jail (bad!).

So, whose peace was disturbed? Let's see. The article mentions that south Sudan is a more liberal area than "the largely Muslim north" of Sudan. Juba is indeed in the south. The dateline of the article is quite confusing, since Juba is nowhere near Khartoum, which sits smack dab in the middle of the north, while the story location is "Juba, Khartoum." Northern Sudan is under a combination of British-style common law side-by-side with Islamic law (Sharia). Southern Sudan is nominally different, and is supposedly not required to comply with Sharia Law.

The majority of the population in southern Sudan practice animist or other indigenous religions, with small groups of both Christians and Muslims. Many citizens were angry with the arrest of the women, so one would logically want to know upon what authority the arrests were made. Is Deputy Dawg Christian or Muslim? Is there a "conquer from within" agenda among patriarchy supporters in southern Sudan? Have Sharia/patriarchy supporters infiltrated law enforcement in southern Sudan? Do some of the local religions require modest dress for women? I don't know.

If some law enforcement officials support Sharia, then the answer to "whose peace was disturbed" is: that of the child-like and impulsive Muslim men, who are, as usual, unable to control themselves at the sight of a woman's hips or legs and must be protected like babies from such a sight. If not, then perhaps the arresting officers or whoever gave the order to arrest the women has a problem with self-control and would blame women instead of their own personal failings. Either way it is fortunate that the court released the women without charges, though reprehensible that they had to spend the night in jail at all.

Still - Southern Sudan citizens, while I applaud your attempts to separate yourselves from the northern Sharia-infested legal system, your patriarchy is showing!

Photo credit: The Juba Post online

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules IV: Equal Opportunity

2008-10-07T09:57:00.005+02:00

My last two posts addressed various patriarchal idiocies within specific Muslim and Jewish sects. Here, I would like to highlight a variety, well, just two for now, since this started to get pretty long, of patriarchal idiocies within various Christian sects.

On Sarah Palin:

Some group of christo-fascist freaks' blog, which also includes a section entitled "God's Hitlist [sic]":

You can’t call a woman who wants to be President a “lady”. That just ain’t gonna happen. I don’t mean to be a broken record but Sarah Palin’s gotta stay home with that poor little retard child of hers. Ain’t much else you can say about it. - Billy Bob Neck

From the same blog, having nothing to do with Sarah Palin, but I saw it and snorted tea out of my nose:

I noticed [on Conservapaedia] this astute and sobering observation concerning Hussein Obama’s birth certificate:
It’s interesting that they finally give the, so-called authentic, birth certificate number in this supposedly unfaked photo. It is 151 1961 - 010641. The reason I bring this up, and I think the REAL reason this was masked, is because numerological analysis shows something very disturbing. If you add up the three sets of digits thus:

151 + 1961 + 010641 = 12753

and then add the individual digits of the result thus:

1 + 2 + 7 + 5 + 3 = 18

the final result, 18, is the product of three sixes (3 x 6 = 18). Three sixes, or 666, sort of speaks for itself. I just thought this was interesting.

It’s not just interesting… it blows the whole Obama conspiracy wide open. Do the Demoncrats think that we wouldn’t notice that their candidate was the anti-Christ foretold in the book of Revelation? All it took was the god-given intellect of one Conservapedia reader to bust Obama’s devil-code wide open.

Yours in Christ,

Jimmy Goddard

Oh dear! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

NOTE: I do not recommend you go to this blog. It is mostly just bizarre, and in addition to the numerology crap above, also has a post about Senator Obama being a secret Voodoo practitioner. However, it is also an anti-choice blog and has some nasty photos.

********

From the LA Times:

"The Palin selection is the single most dangerous event in the conscience of the Christian community in the last 10 years at least," said Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum, a Texas-based ministry. "The unabashed, unquestioning support of Sarah Palin and all she represents marks a fundamental departure from our historic position of family priorities -- of moms being at home with young children, of moms being helpers to their husbands, the priority of being keepers of the home."

and

Some of the debate centers on whether the Bible allows women to serve as civil leaders. Vision Forum leaders argue that it does not. They cite passages in Genesis, Isaiah, Ephesians and elsewhere that they say establishes male headship over women and are critical of female leadership.

I'll leave it there for now since this is long. Readers be aware that I do not support McCain/Palin. I have many, many, many reasons for this (no room here to list - maybe later), though, and Gov. Palin's womanhood is most definitely NOT one of them. She can work where ever she wants as far as I'm concerned, and she has plenty of money to hire nannies and housekeepers. It would be nice, though, if she would at least publicly recognize her privilege, instead of the bogus folksy aw-shucks crap.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules III

2008-10-06T19:33:00.006+02:00

Who'd a thunk there would be two of these brought to my attention in one day?

My previous post was in regard to a Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia who has decided that women wearing black bags over their heads and bodies with only a slit for their eyes is insufficient and that women should cover all but one eye.

Now I've seen this article which includes descriptions of a man breaking into a woman's apartment and violently beating her while hurling death threats for being divorced(this is old news, and one article claims there were at least six other men involved in the beating,) a young woman from Bet Shemesh attacked with pepper spray by a group of men for walking around with some boys in Jerusalem, and rocks, curses, and spit being thrown at another young woman, also from Bet Shemesh, for wearing a red shirt.

As an extra, a Jerusalem store was vandalized by groups of men several times, and finally was torched, but not completely destroyed by a man or group of men, for selling MP4 players.

The divorced woman was under suspicion from the local modesty patrol for possibly having contact with men. Her attackers stole her cell phone, possibly to try to find out who she had called.

The girl attacked with pepper spray horrified the modesty patrol by walking with a group of young men.

The girl in the red shirt was attacked because red shirts draw attention.

The MP4 players might have been purchased and used to access the internet (forbidden!) and download porn.

The store that was vandalized and burned now has signs announcing that it no longer sells MP4 players and is under rabbinical supervision.

In addition to these tales of stupidity, chattelization of women, and haredi men's inability to control themselves, this article adds that stores selling clothing considered immodest have also been vandalized by these modesty patrols whose members throw bleach or otherwise destroy the merchandise.

The photo above, if you can't read it, says the following, transcribed without histrionic capitalization, bolding, and font size:

To women and girls who pass through our neighborhood
We beg you with all our hearts
Please do not pass
Through our neighborhoods in
Immodest clothes
Modest clothes include Closed blouse with long sleeves
Long skirt, no trousers, no tight fitting clothes
Please do not disturb the sanctity of our neighborhood
And our way of life as Jews committed to G-D and his Torah

What it doesn't say is:
Our men are unable to control their impulses
They are like children
Or 19th century sexually repressed Victorian men
Who could go batshit crazy with lust
Upon viewing a woman's ankle
Or wrist
Or arm or shoulder
Or leg or even the shape of a leg
If you tempt our men in such a fashion
We will hurt you
And it will be YOUR fault.

Stupid gits.

Photo credit: Kansas City e-Star, Sebastian Scheiner

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules II

2008-10-06T13:48:00.003+02:00

What can one do but laugh to keep from crying:

One Saudi Muslim cleric has called for women to COVER ALL BUT ONE EYE! It seems that allowing two eyes to be seen is just too seductive, or rather, it tempts women to put makeup on those eyes, making them too seductive.

Ya know, if you are a man and you see two female eyes through a slit in a black bag over a woman's head and you just can't control your lust, it is not the problem of the woman.

Ya know, women wearing black bags over their heads and bodies, as required in Saudi Arabia, has not, not, not stopped rape from being a common occurrence in that country.

I could go on and on and on about just Saudi Arabia alone, and its backassward WOMEN = PROPERTY crap. And now dude says showing two eyes is too seductive. What the fuck ever, dumbass. Learn to control yourself.

It seems that Islam, at least in this particular sect, makes children of men, unable to control their childish and barbaric impulses. And of course, it's the women's fault! Even when they're wearing black bags.

Ridiculous and sad.

MSM Has A Story!

2008-09-20T12:06:00.003+03:00

I've been lax in keeping up with my regular news reads lately. So, I'm a bit behind the times, but had to share this!

While perusing a site I read regularly, Feministing.com, I ran across this, in the September 14th Weekly Feminist Reader post.

In a previous episode of When Patriarchy Makes the Rules, I had expressed dismay at the apathy of the US mainstream media in regard to "honor" killings and wondered when they would cover such things.

Now they have! And the story now seems to match the original "now with even more disgusting behavior" tale. MSNBC reports that, yes, FIVE women were murdered. A government vehicle WAS used in the murders.

Of note: in the article, notice the "elderly woman" in the photo near the end. I have to wonder just how old this "elderly woman" is. Is she really old or has the oppressive patriarchy she has lived in all of her life aged her prematurely? Just curious.

Also of note: see the photo of "frail shepherd," Ali Baksh. His eyes twinkle and he grins happily as he says, "I am proud of our Balouch traditions and it was the right punishment for those girls who defied the will of their fathers." Nice.

Fuck these fucking barbarians. And for those who say I am not culturally sensitive and ask who I am to judge them, FUCK YOU, TOO. I am me, and I judge them based on my own moral compass, which says "killing people not in self-defense = extremely bad."

Priorities, Priorities

2008-09-18T12:05:00.002+03:00

A Catholic priest has been jailed and suspended from his job for selling cocaine out of his church.

He is now in jail with a $50,000 bail. He's not FIRED or DEFROCKED, just suspended.

Still, that's more than the penalty for child molestation when Catholic priests are involved. That particular penalty is usually being inconvenienced by having to move and find new victims.

Because we all know it's better to be a child raper (traumatized victim) than to SELL DRUGS (victimless)!

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules I - UPDATE

2008-09-05T19:45:00.003+03:00

Pakistani police have disinterred two bodies of murdered women, whose plight is detailed here.

The two murdered women are:
Izzat Khatoon and Mai Siyani.

Four men have been arrested, two of whom pointed police to the shallow graves.

Investigators have conflicting reports in regard to the number of women killed. The Asian Human Rights Commission originally stated that five women were killed, but it is now suspected that either the two whose bodies have been found were the only victims, or that one more woman was murdered, or that the two were murdered while a third escaped.

Investigations confirm that the women were kidnapped using a government vehicle, which adds to the suspicion that Pakistani People's Party Minister Sadiq Umrani's brother, Abdul Sattar Umrani was involved. Abdul Sattar Umrani is suspected by some to have been involved in another murder in January, 2006, under similar circumstances in that the three murdered were a couple on their way to be married in civil court and their taxi-driver.

I can only say that at least this is being investigated, though I have little faith that justice will prevail. I am also disgusted as usual, but never surprised that things of this nature are not followed in the international, and especially the US, press. I would love to be proven wrong.

Who's Making the Decisions Now?

2008-09-05T18:21:00.005+03:00

August 1, 2007: Obama says we need to go into Pakistan with or without local permission to find bin Laden and shut down al Qaeda.

September 4, 2008: US confirms incursion into Pakistan without local permission to shut down al Qaeda and Taliban forces. Troops entered an area suspected to be a bin Laden hideout.

I don't know if this was already in the works last August, when Senator Obama made his statement. Perhaps that was why the administration didn't slam him too hard. Instead, it was his fellow Democrats, Sen. Chris Dodd and Gov. Bill Richardson, who were running against him in the primaries at the time, among others, who chastised him.

If not, could it be a case of "that's not a bad idea, let's do it and take credit?"

The current administration has been very vocal in its support of Pakistani President Musharraf, and surely knew this would piss him off. But since his resignation last week and in light of today's election to replace him, in which the favorite is a Pakistani People's Party member and the widower of murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, it may be that Bush's people decided the worst we would get would be a frown and slap on the hand.

It is disturbing to note that, while the PPP's stated goals include the "establishment of an egalitarian democracy and the application of socialistic ideas to realize economic and social justice," (source), this party is also home to Minister Sadiq Umrani, whose brother is currently NOT under investigation for possibly having a leading role in the murders of at least two, and possibly five, Balochi women.

If Minister Umrani is serious about his party's platform, he needs to at the very least, support this investigation and work to bring his constituency under the rule of law. Any representative who supports egalitarian democracy and social justice will most emphatically NOT turn a blind eye to murders of women who simply wanted to exercise their legal right to marry where they chose.

But I digress.

I find it interesting that, as Ed Brayton writes, Bush decided to do just what Senator Obama suggested after the very idea was criticized roundly as bad form.

Women: Don't Be Fooled!

2008-08-31T13:19:00.004+03:00

John McCain's pick of Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin for VP candidate may seem like a good thing for women, especially to those who are upset and angry at Senator Clinton's loss in the Democratic primaries.

DON'T BE FOOLED!

Governor Palin is anti-choice.
She has been endorsed by paleo-christian James Dobson of Focus on the Family.
She has been a supporter of crazed right wing Pat Buchanan.
She is anti-homosexual.
She is pro-drill-the-ANWR.
She is a liar in regard to her statement about not supporting the "Bridge to Nowhere."
She is under investigation for possibly using her authority to force the firing of her former brother-in-law.
She is a creationist who belongs to a dominionist church*.

The fact that she is a woman does not make her a viable option for women! We need to be sure to vote for those who are pro-reproductive rights, pro-health care, pro-pay equity, and generally pro-family (not just white, christian, hetero, married families, but families of ALL STRIPES)!

For more information on Sarah Palin's lies and her staunchly conservative, anti-woman, anti-homosexual, and downright anti-American and anti-family views, see Tapped (type Palin into the search function).

*Previously, this said that "she MAY belong to a dominionist church". However, I have since found the link above and have changed this statement to reflect that. My original footnote is below:

Governor Palin's church is Church on the ROCK, and she has been identified as a Pentecostal-style charismatic Christian, whatever that means. I can't tell by the website if they are truly followers of Dominion Theology, and I am not willing to join their church to find out. If I am incorrect in this statement, I will freely remove it from this post. I will be following Governor Palin very closely as her history becomes better known. That said, I stand by my statement that she IS A CREATIONIST. She has publicly stated that creationism should be taught in public schools.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules I

2008-08-31T11:31:00.005+03:00

This appeal from the Asian Human Rights Commission describes a recent atrocity in Pakistan. In the province of Balochistan, five women were buried alive, allegedly by a relative of a provincial minister who is a prominent leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party and his accomplices.

The five women are:
Fatima, 45
Jannat Bibi, 38
Fauzia, 18
A young woman between 16 and 18
Another young woman between 16 and 18.
I will provide names as they become available.

When the possibility of a probe was broached in Pakistan's parliament

Senator Israrulla Zehri told a fellow Senator, Bibi Yasmin Shah, to keep quiet when she took up the issue. “This is part of our Baloch traditions. We will not let anyone interfere with this,” said Zehri on the floor of the house.

Another Senator, Jamal Khan Leghari, protested, saying

I am also a Baloch but would not link the Baloch traditions to such kind of act against humanity. No Baloch can dare to even think of taking such action."

(source for both quotes above)

Abdul Sattar Umrani is a brother of Minister Sadiq Umrani is the alleged murderer, along with six or more unknown accomplices, and apparently used a Balochistan government vehicle to transport the victims to a remote area, where they first shot the three teens and began to bury them, wounded but alive. When the other two women, one an aunt of one victim and the other the mother of another, protested, they, too, were thrown into the pit and buried alive.

The supposed reason for Abdul Sattar Umrani to have abducted and murdered these women is that the three teens had expressed a desire to marry men they had chosen rather than be married to men of their fathers' choosing, as required by Baloch tribal tradition.

These types of barbaric tragedies must be stopped! This is patriarchy in its ugliest and most abominable form! When women can't or won't be controlled by men, kill them. Unacceptable in any society! Unworthy of any tradition!

The site linked above, belonging to the Asian Human Rights Commission, has a button for sending an appeal letter to President Musharraf, Prime Minister Gillani, and others. Please go there and use it!

UPDATE: HERE

New Title For Bringing Barbaric Asshattery to Public Attention: When Patriarchy Makes the Rules

2008-08-31T11:06:00.005+03:00

First of all, I am changing the name of When Religion Makes the Rules to the above name. This will be a series of blog posts regarding various incidences of asshattery, barbarism, or other disgusting behaviors perpetrated on individuals anywhere in the world by other individuals who use various patriarchal "traditions" as excuses for such behavior.

The first of such blog posts was this one written in regard to Rand Abdel-Qader's murder.

The second addressed the murder by god-mandated neglect of Madeline Neumann.

The third was a follow-up to the Rand Abdel-Qader tragedy in which I wrote about the murder of Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, who had been in hiding since Rand's murder.

My next post will be the FIRST of the series, though these previous posts are obvious precursors.

Ignorance vs Willful Ignorance

2008-08-19T08:08:00.005+03:00

Greta Christina has a post today called CSI: Deuteronomy, that reminded me of a discussion I had with Nigel one night in which I claimed that religious people today are actually MORE stupid than religious people of ancient times. Nigel disagreed and it ended up being one of the few times I've gone to sleep angry and frustrated with him.

Consider the following from GC's post:

...I have to remember the time and place this was written, and not judge people with a Bronze Age view of the world from my own modern perspective. They didn't have the information or understanding about how the world works that we have today, but that didn't necessarily make them stupid or crazy. Grossly mistaken, yes, but not stupid or crazy.

This was exactly what I was trying to say in my discussion with Nigel, but didn't phrase well enough to make my point.

People today have information and the ability to find information that just wasn't around 2000 plus years ago, or even just 100 years ago. I can understand and sympathize with those who invented gods to explain the mysteries of their world. They weren't idiots. They weren't delusional. They were simply ignorant. This is not an insult, simply a statement that they did not have the tools needed to reach an informed conclusion.

Today, however, the religious seem to have embraced willful ignorance. The information is there. It is easily accessible. Yet many, if not most, of them deliberately choose to remain ignorant and continue using goddidit as an acceptable explanation for the way our world works, even though many of these ways are no longer mysteries, but have been adequately explained using scientific methods. There are still many mysteries, but the only thing that can be said of them by science is that we cannot YET explain them.

Willful ignorance in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of natural explanations for the working of the world is worse than simple ignorance due to a lack of information. Therefore, I stand firm in my claim that today's religious folk who very deliberately choose to remain ignorant are MORE idiotic than those of centuries and millenia past, who had no such choice.

Movie Review: Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

2008-07-31T11:25:00.003+03:00

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

The kids and I watched this movie, again, the other day. We have all three Spy Kids movies and have enjoyed them.

It is always gratifying to see strong female lead characters in kids' movies, and Carmen Cortez (Alexa Vega) fits the bill. Carmen is smart, funny, aggressive, self-confident, bad-to-the-bone and all the things I want my daughter to know SHE can be.

In these movies, Carmen works with her younger brother, Juni (Daryl Sabara), to save the world from various villians. She and her brother, while they bicker and often don't get along, just like siblings IRL, consistently end up complementing each other's skills and saving the day together. In Spy Kids 3-D, the story focuses mainly on Juni, but Carmen gets to exhibit her special brand of kick-ass in the last third.

The Cortez family is a family of spies, and one of the pivotal messages of the films is the strength of intergenerational family ties and friend networks.

Spy Kids focuses on both the conflict between Carmen and Juni as siblings and that between the two and their parents, very nicely played by Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas. There is also an estranged uncle, Machete (Danny Trejo), who must be enlisted in the quest to save the day, and a bogus uncle (Cheech Marin), whom they must foil early on in order to search for their parents. Other actors who appear in the three films include Tony Shalhoub, Bill Paxton, Teri Hatcher, Alan Cumming, and one of my very, very favorite actors, Steve Buscemi.

In Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, there is conflict between kids and parents, as well as conflict and competition between other spies within the network, but now we meet the grandparents (Ricardo Montalban - yay, Mr. Roarke -, and Holland Taylor, whom I remember mostly from her fantastic role as Ursula's mother in George of the Jungle), who have conflict with the parents, but everyone, including the other spy kids and outside supporters in the network of friends, has to work together to meet the final goal.

In Spy Kids 3-D, Juni enlists the help of his grandfather to save Carmen and the world from a diabolical video game designer, The Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone!). Again, family and friends must cooperate in order to defeat The Toymaker. There is a cute Moonstruck reference at the very end, when all of the characters whose work made it possible for the good guys to prevail put their hands together, saying, "To family!" Whether or not it was director Robert Rodriguez's intention is not clear, but like in Moonstruck, the last voice is that of Uncle Machete, who says the line in Spanish, similar to Moonstruck's Johnny Camareri saying the final line in Italian.

Our family has enjoyed all three of these films. The special features include some fun sections by director Rodriguez instructing kids on how to make their own home movies, complete with special effects and sound effects. He mostly uses his son to illustrate this, and it looks fun and entertaining. Unfortunately, my kids are not yet allowed to mess with our video camera, mostly due to the fact that our NEW camera replaced our OLD camera, which worked perfectly until one of the kids decided to use it.

Another special feature is a "making of" section, which, for Spy Kids 3-D especially, is fascinating in that most of the sets are simply green screens and the final product is computer generated. Our kids were amazed to see what this entailed and Rodriguez includes enough well-explained detail to make it clear to them how it was done. They were astounded to learn that Ricardo Montalban is wheelchair-bound IRL, not just as the grandpa character, and to see how Rodriguez used CG to allow the character full mobility and super-powers as well.

Now, to my caveat: Since I've become more aware of sexist crap, I notice little things more often that are, perhaps not deliberate, but still quite annoying. For example, in Spy Kids 3-D, there is a female character, Demetra, within the game (the kids are INSIDE the game, a la Tron) who teams up with Juni and some male characters to reach a certain level to find Carmen, who is trapped in the game. At the time they decide to team up, each character says what his particular strength is, a la Aragorn's "You have my sword," Legolas's "and MY bow," and Gimli's "and MY axe!"

Here are the statements of the Spy Kids 3-D characters:
Male 1: I will use my strength!
Male 2: I will use my intelligence!
Male 3: I will use my coolness! (or something to that effect)
Female: I will use my (pause) intuition?
WTF?

But this is not just an arbitrary thing. Later in the game, Juni is challenged by The Toymaker to defeat one of the comrades or be taken out permanently, ruining any chance he might have to find Carmen and foil The Toymaker. When it looks like Game Over for Juni, Demetra sacrifices herself so that Juni can continue. The male characters just look at him and shrug. WTF?

Later on, Demetra reappears and it is discovered that she is simply a construct, a tool of The Toymaker, sent to lead Juni astray. But with an electronic tear and an exhibition of remorse and love for Juni (oh, those darned feminine emotions!), she is able to overcome her programming and, AGAIN, sacrifice herself to further Juni's goal. WTF?

So, Demetra is The Self-sacrificing one. Natch. But she is also The Siren, The Jezebel, The Traitor Eve. Natch. But she redeems herself by ANOTHER self-sacrifice, (oh, she's a whore-with-a-heart-of-gold!) and is never seen again, leaving Juni to complete his mission and eventually return to his family and his true love-interest. Fucking natch!

Thank goodness for Carmen.

Sadly, though, for Carmen fans, there are three music videos in the special features starring Alexa Vega, the actor who plays Carmen. These videos were filmed in front of a live audience of mostly preteen kids and their parents at the film premier in Austin, TX. Ms Vega, a young woman with a nice voice, gyrates and shimmies and pole-dances-without-a-pole through three songs. Augh!

There are also a couple of instances of nerdism in this movie. Upon being caught using cheats in the game, Juni and Demetra are saved by Juni's grandpa, who exposes the "Designers", who are going to throw Juni and Demetra out of the game, by exposing their IRL selves. Oh, no! They are really Computer Nerds! Below contempt! They scramble away, chittering like little mice. Later, we see the male game-player characters IRL. Turns out they are regular guys, albeit with exaggerated myopia, pocket protectors, and slicked down hair. They confess that they are:
"Not really strong."
"Not really that smart."
"Not really cool."
And they disappear forever, not even getting to join the "To the Family!" cheer at the end, though they were pivotal in getting Juni where he needed to go.

So, as long as I can keep my kids out of the Alexa Vega music videos, and can keep the focus on the Carmen character instead of the Demetra character, and can instill in my kids a strong respect for nerds, we will continue to watch these movies and enjoy the fun, the effects, and the family.

McCain: Thanks For The Support

2008-07-31T11:01:00.004+03:00

Here's a snip from an interview by Wolf Blitzer of Senator John McCain, our Republican Presidential candidate and former P.O.W., who prides himself on his knowledge, understanding, and die-hard support of and for our troops:

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about some national security issues. You're president of the United States, you've vowed that you will capture Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Now we know that President Bush since 9/11 has been doing the best he can. What would you do differently?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I'm not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I'm going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But, look, I know the area, I have been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden -- or put it this way, bring him to justice.

BLITZER: All right. If you capture...

MCCAIN: We will do it, I know how to do it.

WTF? Wouldn't it make sense that, if he is so very confident that he knows how to capture/bring to justice Osama bin Laden, and if he is so very supportive of our troops in Afghanistan and cares that they spend as little time as necessary in harm's way and come home alive, he might want to share this unassailable knowledge with our military commanders? Instead, he seems to be using the (debatable) fact that he has this knowledge as a campaign prop. Either he's lying or he doesn't really want to help our troops to come home alive. Yet. Until he's elected and sworn in. Until a minimum of 6 more months has passed with our troops in Afghanistan, currently numbering approximately 34,000, but projected to be increased to at least 40,000 by 2009, fighting and dying. What an asshat.

What Is It With Ballot Proposition Language?

2008-07-30T08:52:00.003+03:00

Every time I vote and there are Propositions or Amendments or other extras besides voting for actual people, I notice that these are so wordy and convoluted and confusing that I have to read them several times before I can figure out exactly what they mean and what a Yes or No vote will actually accomplish.

As a college-educated person, I get very frustrated with this and often think of how difficult it must be for the majority of US voters to figure out just what the hell they're voting on.

Most often, I get the handy voter guide from the local newspaper and go through it with a fine-toothed comb well-before the election, write comments on it, and take it with me into the voting booth. This saves me lots of time. I recommend this method.

But wouldn't it be nice if they said things like this:
Library Funding Mill-Levy: This measure will add 1/10 of 1 cent to each dollar collected by the state as sales tax to be specifically used to purchase books for libraries in the state.
Or:
Senior Center Purchase Authorization: This measure will not add any new taxes, but will continue to use an existing tax of 2/10 of 1 cent collected by the county as sales tax to purchase the following for senior centers throughout the county if the senior centers do not already have them: One handicapped accessible van; New furniture for lounge areas; One DVD player per senior center and a copy of Cocoon for each.

Often, I have thought that the unnecessary complication and obfuscation in real life is deliberate. Today, I got proof of that.

In California, as many know, there will be a proposition on the ballot in November regarding same-sex marriages. The current wording on the ballot is as follows:

Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry

Then one would vote YES if one wants to eliminate the right or NO if one wants the right to remain.

This is nicely clear and says exactly what it should. Wow! I love it!

But guess what? Supporters of the elimination of the right of same-sex couplies to marry are suing the State of California over the wording!

One spokesperson claims that the language is inflammatory and could prejudice voters against the proposition! Because it shouldn't be called what it ACTUALLY IS, my goodness, the IDEA!

Here are some ideas for what it should be called instead:

1) Eliminates Fear Of Catching Teh Gey. Because if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, it turns all of us married couples into gays and lesbians! And our children, too!

2) Saves Heterosexual Marriage From Destruction. Because if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, all heterosexual marriages instantly become meaningless! Because I can testify that as soon as those dirty gays started getting married in Massachusetts a while back, I immediately stopped having feelings for my husband and just didn't give a shit about our marriage anymore!

3) Codifies God's Statement That Gays (Not Lesbians, But That's Beside The Point) Are Abominations And Should Stay In The Closet Where They Belong. Because if we let them marry each other, what will be next? Wearing two kinds of fabric? Men looking at or speaking to their wives when they are menstruating? Eating shellfish? Not killing our children when they are disrepectful? What kind of end will that bring us to? Why, The End Of The World, of course!

4) Reserves Marriage Benefits For Couples Who Can Reproduce With Each Other. Because you know people only marry in order to have children! Like my father-in-law, who is getting married in two weeks to another 60-something-year-old woman! I'm sure they'll be popping out babies as soon as they can! And my mom and step-father, who already have 4 kids between them - I'm sure they are trying long and hard to have more! Or even me! I am still (barely) of childbearing age! Why am I not popping them out? Maybe my infertility means that I shouldn't even BE married!

Maybe they should add an addendum to the proposition: Any same-sex couple attempting to marry shall be sent to the nearest Pray-Away-The-Gay center for deprogramming.

At any rate, it's a sad statement about the way politics and public relations get in the way of informed voting. And it pisses me off.

Women's Choices?

2008-07-29T12:03:00.004+03:00

For several years, I've read articles and book reviews about women choosing to leave paid work and stay home with the kids. What always entered my mind while reading was the question of whether or not this was actually a choice. Some feminists rejoiced at the new freedom women had to choose between equally valuable work outside the home and work in the home. Some feminists scowled at the idea that unpaid work at home was anything like equal to paid work. Some even castigated women who stayed home as anti-feminist.

Some of the truth comes out now:

Judith Warner writesthis article for the NYT, in which she elaborates on a new Congressional report that shows that the choice was actually NOT a choice for many, if not most women.

I had more than one reason for deciding to stay home after my kids were born.

One of the reasons was the fact that I would have to have made more money than I realistically could in order for my wages to even cover gas, car maintenance, and daycare for three kids. The chances of my earning that much were slim to none. In addition, I had to add the cost of bringing home little to no money (see above), meaning that I would be working just for the satisfaction of working, to the fact that my kids would be spending more time with day care workers and/or school teachers than they would spend with me or Nigel. Plus, while they were home with me, after work, presumably, I would be spending the majority of my time keeping up with laundry, cleaning, cooking, and all the other things that have to be done. Nigel is good with these things, too, so I wouldn't be doing it alone, but the fact remains that neither of us would be spending much time at all with our offspring. And we do like spending time with our offspring. Most of the time.

A second reason I decided to stay home is that I have only one time in my entire life had a job I enjoyed. I really don't care if I never work outside the home again. Too misanthropic, I think.

Still, my first reason is the key. I sometimes think of staying home as my choice, but is it really? No. Really, even from my privileged point of view, it is doing the only thing that makes sense, considering that either way, I bring home $0.00. If I'm going to bring home ZERO, I'd rather be caring for my own kids, thank you very much.

I count myself one of the extremely lucky ones and I try to recognize my privileged status. My privilege is that Nigel's salary enables me to stay home instead of forcing us to move closer to our families so that we could prevail on the Grandma's for cheap child care so that I could work for pay in order for us to afford to live.

I think of the majority of women, those less privileged than I am, and my brain hurts thinking about how in the world they do what they do, when their "choices" are even more false and constrained than mine. Often the "choice" provides sub-standard day care, no health insurance at all, public transportation, multiple jobs, sub-standard housing, poor nutrition, and kids who never get to see mom or dad at all.

These are some of the issues politicians need to look at when they talk to women and try to get our votes. Men AND women need good and affordable day care. Men AND women need good and affordable health care. Men AND women need paid time off for family. Men AND women need safe and affordable housing. Men AND women need nutritious foods. Men AND women need safe, affordable, and dependable public transportation. Why is the focus never on these basics?

Rage or Tears? Tears win.

2008-07-15T09:09:00.004+03:00

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."
-Irving Townsend

A Dog's Prayer*

Treat me kindly, my beloved master, for no heart in all the world is more grateful for kindness than the loving heart of me.

Do not break my spirit with a stick, for though I should lick your hand between the blows, your patience and understanding will more quickly teach me the things you would have me do.

Speak to me often, for your voice is the world's sweetest music, as you must know by the fierce wagging of my tail when your footstep falls upon my waiting ear.

When it is cold and wet, please take me inside... for I am now a domesticated animal, no longer used to bitter elements... and I ask no greater glory than the privilege of sitting at your feet beside the hearth... though had you no home, I would rather follow you through ice and snow than rest upon the softest pillow in the warmest home in all the land... for you are my god... and I am your devoted worshiper.

Keep my pan filled with fresh water, for although I should not reproach you were it dry, I cannot tell you when I suffer thirst. Feed me clean food, that I may stay well, to romp and play and do your bidding, to walk by your side, and stand ready, willing and able to protect you with my life, should your life be in danger.

And, beloved master, should the Great Master see fit to deprive me of my health or sight, do not turn me away from you. Rather hold me gently in your arms as skilled hands grant me the merciful boon of eternal rest...and I will leave you knowing with the last breath I drew, my fate was ever safest in your hands.

--Beth Norman Harris

I should post angry posts about crackers, or PZ's opinion of said cracker, with which I completely agree, or perhaps about Bill Donohue's opinion of PZ's opinion, or maybe aboutdeath threats against PZ because of his opinion of the cracker.

Instead, I sit all verklempt, having read about the death of Orac's beloved Echo.

I sit, with a tear-drenched t-shirt sleeve, feeling very sorry for Orac and his family, remembering all the pets I've had the privilege of knowing, even down to those silly hamsters. Maybe boring "odes to my pet" posts will follow.

I miss my:
Luvvie
Sasha
Mama-monkey
Rooster
Punkie-pie
Banjo
Blackie

* disclaimer: I in no way endorse or encourage prayer or a belief in a "Great Master," however, the rest of this is spot-on.

The Starving Child's First Album

2008-07-13T16:36:00.003+03:00

My eldest son is quite creative and loves to write and illustrate stories. He also loves music. Recently, he made a list of songs to write for his first album, titled Have A Great Time. The titles are as follows:

1) Great Time
2) I Love That Smell (my personal favorite, written while I was cooking his favorite supper)
3) Ahhh...
4) Mmm....

Now, for a song title, you just can't beat I Love That Smell. It is unfortunate that he has gotten no further than titles, except for these exerpts from Great Time and I Love That Smell:

1) I'm having a great time now, right now...
2) I love that smell, ohhh....yep.

I've been encouraging him to finish the songs, and will post lyrics here if I ever get them.

Fox on Michelle Obama - Fair and Balanced?

2008-07-12T14:38:00.002+03:00

Please watch the video above and consider signing the on-line petition at foxattacks.

One thing that stood out to me was the statement by some WOMAN who said that Senator Obama's statement that people "lay off my wife," meant that he expects OTHER MEN to PROTECT HIS WIFE. Huh?? I guess because a real 'Merican would call out people like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity for a duel - pistols at 100 paces or something. After all, Zell Miller did it to Chris Matthews.

I personally would enjoy seeing a film loop of Senator Obama smacking Michelle Malkin in the face with a leather gauntlet. I would watch that over and over and over and...

Lesson For the Kiddies

2008-07-09T10:19:00.003+03:00

We all know the rules about strange animals, right? Do not approach a strange animal. Do not pet a strange dog or cat, even if the owner is present. Yeah, we all know.

So, this is the tale of a cat rescue gone wrong: When Pets Attack.

A cat had been living on and around our balcony for the past week. This cat, of indeterminate sex and age, had a collar, not just a flea collar, but a very nice, studded, green leather job. The cat had occasionally come over to torment our cat and dog through the screen when our windows were open.

Two nights ago, a man walking two dogs behind our house asked if we had seen a cat with a collar. We told him that we had indeed seen such a cat and pointed out exactly where we had seen it. I asked if it was a nice cat and if I should try to bring it in if I saw it again. He said, "Yes, please." Naturally, we did not see the cat again that day.

Yesterday, all day long, the cat lounged about on our balcony and on the wall of our next door neighbors. So, when I saw the man, four stories below, walking a different dog (maybe that's what he does), I hollered out to him, "Hey, here's your cat!" He continued walking after giving me a wave. Later, I saw him on a balcony next door and hollered again. This time, the cat was actually on our balcony and was sitting in the gutter.

I reached down to the cat to let it smell my hand, and began to gingerly pet it on the head after it rubbed against my hand. It seemed to like it. It let me scratch it round its ears and the top of its head, but got tense if I tried to touch any other area, so I confined my attentions to its head.

Once the cat was calm and the man appeared about to come our way, I stupidly picked up the cat. It tolerated it for a minute, but then, suddenly, lashed out with a forepaw and slashed a long cut down the left side of my nose. I was actually lucky not to have lost my left eye. It began to bleed pretty badly and I put the cat down as gently as I could and calmly walked back into the house. Our man had disappeared.

Cursing myself, I tried to rush to the bathroom without seeming to panic, since the kids were all downstairs at the time. The Princess, though, saw the blood and came running over. This brought her brothers, and I had to clean my face up and apply pressure while trying to explain that everything was okay and that Mommy was fine.

I got the bleeding stopped and went upstairs to wash and disinfect my nose better, telling the kids not to follow me. Have been cleaning the wound and slathering it with Neosporin every couple of hours ever since, and it looks horrible, but probably won't be infected. It will, though, leave a nice scar down my nose - a souvenir of Israel, I suppose.

This morning, after I returned from dropping the kids at camp, Dude and his (?) girlfriend/wife/whatever knocked on the door. They apologized for my nose and I showed them where the cat was hiding out. The woman called the cat and spoke baby talk to it, and it came out of hiding. I went back inside to keep from frightening it, and saw it follow her out of our patio area and downstairs. Thank goodness, no more cat.

So, all the stories we know about strange animals are true. Do NOT approach a strange animal. Now, unfortunately, my kids know why - first hand.

Mourning the IBTP Forum

2008-07-06T10:06:00.002+03:00

For the past year, I have enjoyed lurking at the I Blame The Patriarchy forum. Reading the varied threads has been extremely educational and not just a little entertaining as well.

This morning, I read a announcement that the forum was shutting down. I am sad. Rest in Peace, IBTP forum, you will be missed!

Happy Independence Day - Party Rant

2008-07-06T09:06:00.005+03:00

Long Time No Post!

Nigel and the kids and I returned from our trip to southern Germany a week prior to Independence Day and had to immediately start preparation for our U.S. Independence Day/Death of Jesse Helms fiesta here in Israel. We were having a party for several families from Nigel's place of employment and several families from the kids' school.

Although I do have a hard spot in my heart for WalMart and other big-box stores in the U.S., I was sorely wishing that there was one, just one, maybe a Target, here. It is NOT fun driving all the fuck over Israel just to get all the things we needed for the party. One place has the non-kosher hamburger meat (meat with flavor). One place has hamburger buns. One place has hot dogs that the kids will actually eat. One place has imports such as pickle relish, italian dressing, etc. One place has balloons. One place has streamers. One place has sparklers for the kids. Etc., etc., etc.

At any rate, we sent out about 20 invitations by e-mail, cleaned the house top to bottom, made lists and more lists of things to do, and worked our way through all the pre-party requirements.

As invitation responses started coming in, we started getting a bit freaked out. Not a single invitation was accepted without this: "We would love to come to your party. Can we bring so-and-so and so-and-so and their 20 children and dogs?" We started to suspect that someone at Nigel's work had been leaking the party out to everyone at work and there was the impression going around that our private party was actually a work-sponsored event! Fear ensued! Our house is only so big and we have only so many chairs!

The most ridiculous and disconcerting was this tale: Our best friends over here, of course, were coming, and her parents are in town, so naturally they were also invited - they're fun and very nice. When they arrived, no parents. I asked why and he told me that his SUPERVISOR at work, who neither Nigel nor I know and who was certainly NOT invited and who technically should not even have known about the party, instructed him to bring two of his co-workers and their families to OUR party. Since they knew we were freaking out about all the extra people who were coming, they decided to ask her parents to stay home. I was pretty pissed.

1) Where does this supervisor get off telling a subordinate who he will or will not take to SOMEONE ELSE'S party?
2) Why did our friend not inform said supervisor that a) this is not my party and I am uncomfortable taking people the hosts do not know and whom they did not invite, and b) who the fuck do you think you are telling me who to take to a private party?

I spent a lot of time blocking off access to our back patio area for several reasons. Reason One - the former residents of the basement apartment have still not come to get some of their crap and it is piled up in a corner of the patio waiting for them. Reason Two - same former residents used the "water feature" in the center of the patio as a dirty diaper storage area/trash receptacle. When they moved out, they did drain the water from it, but did not clean it out, leaving a two inch crust of shit along with shit-encrusted toys and trash in it. I am not willing to touch any of this stuff and have complained to the property management company to send someone out to clean and disinfect this, but have seen no results. The stink from this is so embarrassing that I did not want people hanging out on the patio. Reason Three - same former residents used the area behind the patio wall as a garbage dump and it is full of trash and broken toys, which are scattered all over. I have asked the management company to send someone with a pickup truck to pick up all this debris, since I am unwilling to load it into my car, but, again, have seen no results.

So, while I was making sure all the food was out on tables and readily available and Nigel was cooking hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken on the grill on the balcony (which was sparkly and clean, but empty of party people for some unknown reason), several party attendees decided to take down all my ribbons blocking access (it couldn't have been easy) and start setting up chairs and stuff and sitting outside all around the shit-fountain. Lovely. At one point, someone asked what the smell was. Ha! So I got to explain about the former residents and that I had blocked access to the patio for a FUCKING REASON, PEOPLE!

In addition to that, the patio area is all tile and is very slick when wet. I had bought bubbles for all the kids and had planned to have them blow them outside on the balcony where the tiles are more textured and less slick so that nobody would fall and crack their heads open at the party and had planned no water activities. However, one of the childless party attendees brought a huge bag full of water guns and water balloons, unbeknownst to myself or to Nigel. I went out to the patio and found myself deluged by a dozen water pistols while I watched kids standing in line at our water spigot waiting to fill water balloons. This activity descended into madness as the balloons ran out and kids decided to use my mop bucket and the kids' beach buckets to just fill up and dump on each other and on several of the adults.

There were thankfully no fatalities and no bloodshed, but my mop bucket and two of the kids' beach buckets were destroyed and The Lottery Winner ended up with a medium sized goose egg on the back of his head from slipping. Someone asked my why I let the kids play with water when the patio was obviously not suited for water activities. I rolled my eyes and explained LOUDLY that I did not know WHO brought the water guns and balloons, that I had brought some bubbles for the kids to blow on the BALCONY where it was safer, and that I had blocked access to the patio BECAUSE IT SMELLED BAD AND WASN'T SAFE FOR THE KIDS. The woman who brought all the water stuff did have the good manners to look abashed.

The punch line of the party was that we had been planning this since mid-May. Nigel's tools at work had been moving slowly toward a particular event, but that event kept getting delayed and delayed. You can guess the rest. Said event started becoming imminent the day we returned from Germany. As the week drew to a close and the 4th loomed, the event was confirmed. It would be necessary for Nigel to be at work at 2pm on Friday the 4th and to stay until about 2am on Saturday the 5th. The party time? Yes, 2pm to 6pm. Fortunately, Nigel was able to convince one of his co-workers, who wanted to take Sunday off, to load Nigel's tool at 2pm and Nigel would come at 4pm to take over in exchange for said Sunday off for the co-worker.

Poor Nigel busted his ass cooking all the meat and shoving some food into his face before he had to leave (Nigel's boss and his family were at the party and stayed the entire time - irony?) at 4pm. Everyone was pretty much gone by 7pm, except for two guests who very, very kindly stayed to help me clean up. At 7:15, the phone rang and Nigel informed me that there was a contamination issue and that his process was to be stopped and that he would be on his way home in just a few minutes! So, he missed half of his own party for NO REASON AT ALL!

At any rate, we turned out having over 50 people in our house. The food was great - most guests brought something and each new something was more delicious than the last. I think everyone had a good time. I will not be doing anything like this again for a very long time.

I'm Voting Republican!

2008-06-13T09:53:00.003+03:00

Well, I'm convinced now!

Let me also add my disgust at the slimeballs at Fox News, who ran this caption during Michelle Malkin's Enraged Xenophobe Show recently:

Baby Mama, indeed. What a bunch of douches. I seriously doubt that any liberal used the term "baby mama" to describe the intelligent and lovely Mrs. Obama.

I agree with John Scalzi's take on it.

I Won! I Won!

2008-06-11T09:31:00.003+03:00

I found out this morning that my "Take the Fairy out of the Fairy-Tale" contest entry, which is posted here, won the contest!

I will soon be the proud owner of an 18 month Skepchick calendar, which you can purchase here. Just think - 18 months of Skepchick fineness!

God: "Uh, I forgot."

2008-06-08T10:22:00.002+03:00

Got this from Pharyngula and it's teh awesome. I don't know who this guy is, but he did a very nice job putting in a nutshell the many reasons I never could summon up any belief in my church's teachings, the teachings of various bible classes I attended in college, or any other creation myth I learned about.

Skepchick Contest "Take the Fairy Out of the Fairy Tale" Entry

2008-06-07T14:15:00.003+03:00

WARNING: VERY LONG POST

I entered this tale in the May Skepchick Contest. They have some fun contests. You should all enter them.

Beauty And The Beast

Once upon a time, a beautiful young woman named Arugula lived with her father, Fettucine, in a small village in the countryside. Arugula and her father were both polymath scientists and researchers who had made many exciting discoveries in several fields. Their home was filled with books, lab equipment of all types, and prototypes of various inventions they were working on.

One day, Arugula’s father decided to travel out into the countryside to find a mineral he had read about in an ancient text, and which was said to be common in ore form nearby.

Unfortunately, being so interested in the many fine examples of evolution by natural selection which were exhibited in the area, he lost track of time and night fell. Not expecting to be so late, he had neglected to include in his pack Arugula’s latest invention: a device which would display the best route to any given point. Fettucine was lost!

Fettucine saw lights ahead of him and began walking toward them. He soon arrived at a castle he recognized as that of the nominal “ruler” of their area, who had never been seen in public. Knocking on the door, Fettucine was surprised to find the door opened by a mechanical butler, who ushered him in. After a brief wait, the sitting room door opened and a figure entered the room whose visage filled Fettucine with horror and dismay!

“Who are you and why do you disturb me?” boomed the voice of the creature.

In a shrinking voice, Fettucine answered, “Uh, hi, I’m Fettucine. I forgot to bring my locator and got lost down the road a bit while I was investigating a mineral I want to do some experiments with. Thought you might have some way to let my daughter know where I am so she can come get me.”

“Locator?!” the creature roared, “Experiments?! You are a scientist!”

“Yeah,” Fettucine said, producing what he hoped was a self-deprecatory grin and a shrug, “Except I’d forget my head if it weren’t screwed on. Thus, here I am!”

“You will stay here,” said his host menacingly, “You will work in my laboratory to discover a way to remove the curse which was placed upon me when I was born. I wish to be a man like other men!”

“Curse? But I am more expert in the non-organic sciences,” said Fettucine, backing away slowly toward toward the door, “Now, my daughter, Arugula, is great with biology and organic things. If you’ll let me go, I can bring her here to take a look.”

Of course, Fettucine had no intention of bringing his lovely Arugula to be enslaved by this, uh, person.

“You will go nowhere,” said the creature, “ALFRED!”

The mechanical butler appeared from behind a door and came forward, bowing jerkily and obsequiously.

“Send two of my tin soldiers into town to bring this woman, Arugula, back to me. Be sure it is done quietly,” instructed his liege lord. Alfred bowed again and left, creaking a bit as he moved away.

Horrified, Fettucine tried to run to the door himself, but the castle’s owner was faster and grabbed Fettucine, tossing him unceremoniously into a corner.

“You will stay right there until your daughter arrives. I will have Alfred bring food and drink for you as soon as he has dispatched my soldiers to fetch her. You may sleep on the couch. I suggest you get some rest. Good night.”
The creature swept from the room.

*****

As the sun began to peek into the tall windows of the castle, a huge ruckus could be heard outside the castle. Fettucine sat up, sore from sleeping on the too-small couch, stretched, and rubbed his tired eyes. He saw Alfred in the corner and asked, “What’s going on? What time is it? Is Arugula here?”

Alfred creaked over toward him and made a movement that might have been a shrug, but was impeded by his obviously corroded and unmaintained joints.

“Oh, you poor thing!” exclaimed Fettucine, “I must fix you!”

As he spoke, the doors were flung open. The cursed man rushed in, followed by two mechanical men struggling to carry a wrapped bundle. The struggle was made more difficult by the fact that one man was missing an arm and half of a leg while the other had no head to speak of. Apparently, Arugula’s martial arts classes had been a good investment.

As the bundle was untied, a very angry, spitting woman came flying out, instantly assuming a threatening pose. As soon as she saw Fettucine, however, she ran to his side, keeping a squinted eye on the room’s other inhabitants.

“Dad! What the hell?” she said, “These freaks came in while I was sleeping and grabbed me before I could defend myself. I had left the door unlocked ‘cause I saw you had left your key on the hook, and I thought you’d be back soon.”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m such a dork. I didn’t know I’d left my key,” Fettucine said with slouched shoulders, “Anyway, this guy needs you to help him get rid of a curse. I would help, but you know I’m better with the physics and the engineering stuff. You can do everything!”

Arugula replied, still tense and prepared to respond with violence to any attempt to get near, “Curse? Please come closer so I can take a better look at you. I suspect it is something else entirely! What kind of idiot believes in curses? Who are you, anyway? We thought the tales of someone really living here were just legends. We’ve been running things ourselves for quite a while.”

She planned to subdue her captor as soon as he got within reach, grab her father, and get the heck out of there as fast as they could run.

“My name is Bob,” said the creature. “My mom and dad ruled this area during their lifetimes, but when they saw that they had cursed me with the curse that has plagued our families for generations, they shut up our palace to hide me from the world. I have been served by the automatons commissioned from their artificers many years ago by my parents before their deaths.”

“I would like to meet these artificers,” said Fettucine. “They have done fine work if your butler is any example.”

“CAN WE FOCUS ON MY PROBLEM?” shrieked Bob, coming suddenly into the light.

“AAAAAH!” Fettucine recoiled, throwing his hand up over his face. Looking through his fingers a second later, he lowered his hand to see Arugula looking intently at Bob, whose entire body was covered with wiry, light-brown hair.

“Wait a minute! It is as I suspected!” she exclaimed excitedly, “You have not been cursed, only inbred! You say this ‘curse’ has plagued your family?”

“Yes,” said Bob, “but there was hope that it had been overcome, since no hideous children had been born since my great-grandfathers’ generations.”

“Generations, you say,” mused Arugula.

“Yes,” Bob answered, “when no more like me had been born in two generations, the families of my parents decided the curse was destroyed and began again to exclusively intermarry. You know, to keep our royal blood from being tainted.”

“Yes, well, hmmmm, tainted, hmmm,” hmmmed Arugula with distaste. “Let me tell you a little story, Bob, if that’s your real name, about something called hypertrichosis and then you can decide what it means to be ‘tainted’.”

*****

A few hours later, deep in the night, the three sat close to the dying fire. Bob was sobbing in a chair, his face buried in his hands. Arugula and Fettucine watched him closely. Arugula still wanted to get away, but with the remaining unharmed tin soldiers blocking the only way out, she knew she stood little chance of escape, especially with her father in tow.

Eventually, Bob took a deep breath and sat up, wiping his face with a lacy hankie he had drawn from his sleeve.

“So, you say my family cursed themselves through interbreeding,” he sighed, “Is there anything to be done? Can these things you call ‘genes’ be changed?”

Arugula looked at her father, who was always hurting for money to fund his experiments and his inventions. She thought of the decrepit lab equipment they used at home and her plans for future research.

“Well…..” she began…

*****

Five years later…

Work was proceeding apace at Fettucine’s March to the Future Physics and Engineering Project headquarters. The castle swarmed with employees and well-maintained mechanical lab assistants, led by Alfred, who no longer clanked and squeaked. Inventions to save labor and time were distributed to the public regularly. Fettucine had never been happier.

Meanwhile, at Bob’s Biotech, Arugula supervised dozens of teams of investigators, experimenting with various methods of gene manipulation and stem cell therapy to help individuals who were adversely affected by genetic anomalies.

Bob had long since accepted his hypertrichosis, with the help of Arugula and Fettucine and lots of therapy. As he became more and more involved in the local community, helping to set up farmer’s markets and coops all over the county, as well as moderating arguments regarding the best uses for Fettucine’s inventions, he was honored for his even-handedness and became more and more loved by the local populace. His castle was given to the public and was constantly buzzing with people bringing suggestions and ideas for improving the lives of everyone in the community. Life was good!

Bob’s only failure, in his opinion, was his lack of love. Oh, Fettucine and Arugula loved him, but after Arugula had laughed hysterically a couple of years earlier when he had proposed marriage, saying she planned never to marry, he despaired of finding a life-companion. Arugula said she was too wrapped up in her research to be a decent mate and that, besides, she was perfectly satisfied with her relationship with Pokeweed, her co-researcher and a beautiful and intelligent woman in her own right.

One day, though, at a meeting of the local weavers and clothing manufacturers, Bob met Frieda. When they first saw each other, they couldn’t stop staring: she, because she found his hair beautiful and fantastic; he, because there was not a single hair to prevent his admiration of her dark and shining skin. Her family had a gene for alopecia. It was truly one of those rare cases of love at first sight. Still, they dated for several years before deciding to marry, with Fettucine as best man and Arugula giving the bride away.

Eventually, but sadly not in their lifetimes, scientists at Bob’s Biotech and Fettucine’s March to the Future developed methods to adjust for genetic “defects” such as hypertrichosis and alopecia. But because of the love between Bob and Frieda and the love of the community for them, neither extreme hairiness nor complete baldness were considered strange or ugly ever again. That is the legacy of Beauty and the Beast.

The End

How to Help Iraqi Women's Rights Activists Escape

2008-06-07T13:29:00.003+03:00

Previously, I posted about the double tragedies of Rand Abdel-Qader and her mother, Leila Hussein.

Today, I found out that Jezebel's Moe contacted the Guardian reporter who has been working on these stories and put it upon herself to allow the public to contribute to a fund to get threatened women's rights activists out of danger.

Just in from Skepchick, specific instructions to donate. From this post:

If you’d like to help, and I hope you do, you can use PayPal to send a donation in any amount to Moe, who will collect and then wire the money to the Guardian journalist, who is currently in Iraq and able to deliver the money to the women. The info you need to donate is Moe’s full name: Maureen Tkacik, and her e-mail: tips@jezebel.com.

Be sure to put a note that the funds are for this purpose.

$1700.00 has been collected as of today. Let's make it much more!

Senator Obama

2008-06-05T09:56:00.004+03:00

I had an opportunity this morning to watch/listen to Barack Obama's speech last night in St. Paul at youtube and by golly, it's just fantastic. You can skip past the first 12 minutes (just a bunch of thank you's and platitudes), but then he starts to talk about McCain, and policies, and things that need fixin', and it just gets more beautiful as he goes on. Too bad about Sen. Clinton, but Sen. Obama looks pretty damned good to me.

I also saw that he recently said that "one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office." (From Alternet)

Awesome!

So, I hadn't come out in support of any particular candidate until now, but I'm throwing my Maleficent staff in behind Senator Obama as of right now.

Helping Those Who Tried to Help Leila Hussein

2008-06-04T08:58:00.003+03:00

In THIS post, I wrote about the murder of Leila Hussein, the mother of Rand Abdel-Qader, who was beaten to death recently by her father with the help of her brothers.

There is a call going around the intertubes for a way to contribute funds to help the women's rights activists who were trying to help Leila escape Iraq because of threats against her life to escape Iraq themselves because of threats to their lives.

So far, nothing has been established, however, by monitoring THIS post at the Skepchick blog, hopefully we will soon find a way to help these people get to somewhere safe. Let's get 'em out! Let's get 'em ALL out!

When Religion Makes the Rules Update

2008-06-03T12:41:00.003+03:00

This post about the tragic murder of 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader now has a tragic update.

Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, has been shot and killed by unknown murderers as she walked with two women to get a taxi and leave Iraq.

The linked article quotes police as saying that this murder is not linked to Leila's former husband or her sons because they were out of town. Mmmm hmmm.

One of the two women accompanying Leila to her escape route says:

I could hear people talking on the corridors and the only thing that they had to say was that Leila was wrong for defending her daughter's mistakes and that her death was God's punishment.

I cry to think how close Leila was to her escape. I cry to think how hard it must have been to live, having seen her daughter beaten to death by her husband. I cry to think how many people accept that what has happened to Rand and Leila is a good thing.

But then I get angry. Since I first read Rand's story in The Guardian, there has been a storm of blog posts, a couple of references on various forums, some repeats of the original article on non-U.S. news sites, but NOTHING in the news most Americans watch or read.

Is this what American soldiers are in Iraq to defend? Are these the people Americans have chosen to fill the power vacuum left by Saddam Hussein?

Perhaps when our troops are finally brought out of Iraq, we should bring the women with us.

P.T.A. - W.T.F.?

2008-05-31T11:14:00.005+03:00

Edited to note that the complete incoherence of this post accurately reflects my confusion in regard to the purpose and/or mission of every PTA/PTO I've been exposed to.

Since the Sprouts entered school, Nigel and I have made efforts to be involved in their education. This was much easier at first than it is now, because the kids had I.E.P.'s due to developmental issues that may or may not have been caused by their prematurity.

Here in Israel, the kids attend a very, very small private school. I found out yesterday that there will be ONE child in the 6th grade class next year - that's how small this school is.

My current level of involvement has been to meet regularly with the kids' teacher, to be present at various school activities, and to volunteer at various school functions. I have never been interested in actually joining a PTA or PTO, and have a visceral distaste for being an officer. In other words, I will do anything they ask me to do and anything I feel will be beneficial to my kids, but I do not have any desire or need to be in a position of power.

When the kids were in preschool, I actually attended several PTO meetings. These meetings rarely had agendas and generally devolved into complaint sessions that, IMO, would have been better handled through regular channels of discussion with teachers and then, if necessary, discussion with the principal. Little of import was discussed and even less of import was actually decided and implemented by this particular PTO.

Twice, in these particular PTO meetings, a call for volunteers was made by the president. Both times, I and others expressed willingness to help. Both times, however, our offers were rebuffed and the president ended up doing everything she had asked us to help with all by herself. Then at future meetings, this president would take up an inordinate amount of time whining about how she never gets any rest and has to do everything herself. After the second whine-session, I quit attending the PTO meetings, but continued to volunteer in the kids' classrooms and to attend school functions.

I am a lazy person, admittedly, but my reasoning for not wanting to participate in PTAs is more of a desire to stay out of unproductive complaint sessions, to avoid ridiculous political maneuvering (I've already been hearing about the various cliques within this tiny school's parent community), and to keep my time my own (and my family's).

At this school, I have worked hard to try to get to know other parents, generally moms, and generally by talking before the gate opens and when waiting for the kids to exit after school. There are several moms I really like and with whom I would not mind spending time. HOWEVER, a couple of these moms are now pressuring me to get more involved with their PTA, even suggesting I run for office.

AUGH! I can only say this: If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve. Does this make me a bad mom? I don't think so. Does it make others think I'm a bad mom? Maybe. Do I care? Not at all.

The Birth of the Sprouts Part Four

2008-05-31T11:10:00.002+03:00

Following the travails of Part Three, on October 3rd, the same guys who flew me to Hospital D back on July 27th came and flew the kids back Hospital A. Nigel was there waiting for them, and my mom and I cleaned up our room at Ronald McDonald House (with the help of the wonderful people there) and left early the next morning. We arrived at the hospital with two ice chests full of frozen breast milk, which drove everyone crazy, since they only had the small fridges. I ended up taking one chest home with me. We also had a carload of supplies the nurses smuggled to our car – bottles, diapers, wipes, alcohol wipes, formula, all kinds of things that came in very handy and would have cost an arm and a leg. We were there so long, that they all felt like we are family. I still keep in touch with many of them.

Shortly thereafter, The Princess came home. We had actually had trouble keeping her IN Hospital D. She was doing so well that I had to work hard to convince them of the wisdom of sending them to Hospital A together. Hospital A made us to a "sleeping-in" with her, which is just putting Nigel and I and The Princess in a room to be sure we aren't going to kill her or something. Her sleeping-in was uneventful.

A few days before Halloween, The Starving Child came home, over my objections. He didn’t seem right to me. His sleeping-in was horrible, none of us slept and he cried and had reflux all night long. But they insisted he was ready to go. Two days later, the home-health nurse checked his O2 sat and it was 88. So here we went, back to the hospital. Turned out he had bacterial pneumonia. I wrote a very scathing letter to the hospital administrator naming names. He stayed on the pediatric ward there for two days and nights until I realized that he would get better care at home with three adults and two babies, instead of with 2 nurses and 20 kids. They never brought his meds on time, and I always ended up giving him the stuff I brought from home. If I hadn’t been there the entire time, I don’t know if they would have even fed him. Imagine the fun if Nigel hadn’t had time off and if my mom weren’t there to help! So I signed the DAMA (discharged against medical advice form) and took him home, where he recovered in short order and I got lots more sleep in a real bed. He also had a hemangioma (strawberry birthmark that grows) on the back of his head and we had to keep it covered with Duoderm to keep it from rubbing and getting infected. It finally shrank down to almost nothing by the time he was 2. My oldest nephew asked me once if The Starving Child had an extra brain. Naturally, I said YES. We scared the hell out of a babysitter once, when we forgot to show it to her and she paged Nigel during the movie to tell us about this head injury and how she didn’t know how it happened.

The Lottery Winner had reflux so severely that he ended up getting a g-tube and fundoplication surgery. The drs thought he was having seizures at one point, and he got a full whachamacallit (EEG?) on his head, but no signs of seizures. We have since found out that he is one of 5% of kids who are able to stop breathing until they pass out. He did this when he was in severe pain and when he was in severe fury. He would just stop breathing, turn blue, then gray, then stiffen up and pass out. He’d wake up just a few seconds later and be tired and scared as though he had had a seizure, but it wasn’t one. No fits since he turned 4, though, fortunately. He also had casts on both legs for bilateral clubfeet (inherited from my grandfather). We fed him through the tube for a year, and he’s had two surgeries to correct his feet. He didn’t get to come home until two days before Thanksgiving. Both boys came home on oxygen and all three had apnea monitors, which we took off after the 50th false alarm at 3am, except for The Lottery Winner, who really did turn blue a time or two, just to scare the shit out of grandma. We even had a pulse oxymeter at home to check their sats regularly! I sometimes think I could be a NICU nurse.

After all that fun, having three babies at home was a piece of cake. My mom stayed for a month, then Nigel’s mom stayed for 6 weeks. By then, they were 6 months old, were sleeping through the night, (except we actually had to wake them up to eat once during the night – drs orders) and were on a strict schedule designed by Nigel and I based on the schedule at the NICU. We had to write everything down – BM’s, wets, how many cc’s they drank, what we put in it, which meds and when, etc. I look back in the notebook and can’t believe we lived through it! Some of it is funny: “The Starving Child didn’t eat for shit.” Or “The Lottery Winner took 30 cc’s by tube, then pushed it all back up.” Or “The Princess ate 30 cc’s, then barfed about 15.”

I look at them now, and can hardly believe how close they were to not coming home at all, especially the boys. People say to me, “Aren’t they just little miracles?” And I say, “Yes, miracles of modern medicine from conception to 1st grade!” It often annoys me when people who hear our story talk about how I should be thankful to a god, most likely the god they worship. I prefer to praise and thank the doctors and nurses, without whom neither I nor the kids would be here today.

The Birth of the Sprouts Part Three

2008-05-31T11:05:00.003+03:00

After all the excitement of Part Two,, they got a suite ready and dragged all the neonatologists out of the NICU to attend, got Nigel suited up, and here we went. I was freezing to death (what a change) and terrified. Nigel was trying so hard to remain calm. He doesn’t like anything to do with blood or any other bodily functions, so I give him ten stars for his wonderful strength. They told us that since the babies were 28 weeks and 4 days, they probably wouldn’t breathe on their own at birth and we wouldn’t hear them cry. They told us that we couldn’t see or touch any of them because they would be rushed to radiant heater beds scattered about the room to be worked on by the neonatologists and nurses. They really prepared us for a great crisis.

The delivery was fast. I got the lovely vertical cut, which didn’t matter to me, since I already had one from the ’88 surgery. I kind of hoped they would go horizontal so I could show off my + sign, but speed was more important. They pulled The Princess out first, at 8:32pm. She cried!!!!! I started crying, too. The nurse taking her to her radiant heat bed held her up high, and I saw her!!! She was terribly ugly and extremely beautiful! Just tiny! The Starving Child came next at 8:33. He didn’t cry, but Nigel saw them taking him to his bed and says he saw him moving his tiny arms. The Lottery Winner arrived at 8:34, and he cried, too!! The Lottery Winner weighed 2 lbs. 2 oz., The Starving Child, 2 lbs. 3 oz., and The Princess, 2 lbs. 4 oz. They were each a little over a foot long.

I didn’t get to see them for two and a half days. That was the absolute worst part. My parents got to see them. Nigel got to see them. One of his FRIENDS got to see them. My f*&^ing in-laws got to see them. But not me. They kept telling me they wanted my lungs and heart to straighten out first and that it would be hard to go into the NICU with my oxygen tank. So I finally went on a 10 hour crying and screaming jag and threatened to drag myself there on the floor if they wouldn’t take me. I got to go.

They were absolutely adorable. The tiniest things I’ve ever seen. The no nipples thing got me a bit perturbed until they explained it. By the time I got there, The Princess was already using a nasal cannula and was in an isolette (the things they used to call incubators). The boys were not doing as well. The NICU nurses said that there is a common saying, “Girls rule; boys drool,” as far as preemies go. It turned out to be pretty true. Just about everything curable that they could have had, the boys had. Fortunately, all curable! My brother, an LPN, came down to visit us and was astounded by the strength of the antibiotics they were giving the boys. They both had bilateral inguinal hernias that required surgery. They both had patent ductus arteriosis that responded to medication, so didn’t require surgery. It took forever to get them from intubation to CPAP to cannula and there were lots of steps backward before they went forward. They both got just about every infection possible: Pneumonia, gram negative sepsis, meningitis. I didn’t get to hold The Lottery Winner until he was almost a month old, and The Starving Child took even longer than that.

Since I wasn’t able to see them for so long, and since they were getting sugar water with electrolytes for food through a nasogastric tube, I started pumping even before I got to see them. Pumping sucks. I pumped for six months, then had to either give it up or give up going to see The Lottery Winner after the other two came home. There just wasn’t enough time in the day. Fortunately, I had pumped enough to keep frozen for another two months after I stopped.

Part Four to follow.

The Birth of the Sprouts Part Two

2008-05-31T11:04:00.003+03:00

Following all the excitement of Part One, we arrived at the airport in about an hour and 45 minutes and went by ambulance to the Maternal/Fetal ICU area, where I was unhooked and hooked up to monitors etc. again. They had us in a room designed for delivery with one of those two-piece beds and it was seriously uncomfortable. There was a constant hammering noise in the vents, apparently due to the cooling system trying to keep up with the late July heat. The doctors at Hospital D had a field day with me. It is a teaching hospital, so we had doctors and doctors and doctors, all looking up me every five minutes. They decided to just try to stop any contractions with continued Mag Sulfate and keep an eye on The Princess to be sure she wasn't getting distressed. They said it was possible that we could just leave things as they were for several more weeks, as long as the babies didn't start showing signs of distress. That was fine with me, since I had done my research and knew that the longer they could stay inside, the better chances they had, both for good health and for normal development later.

It was burning hot in there (to me) so I kept making Nigel turn down the thermostat. He was freezing his ass off the whole time. One of the nurses, feeling sorry for him, brought down some scrubs to use as another layer of clothing. He called my mom, who was leaving her house to drive to Hospital D first thing in the morning with my dad. She agreed to bring him some of my step-dad's sweats to wear while I froze him to death. We tried to sleep, but with the uncomfortable bed, the three monitors on my belly, the gnomes in the vents hammering away, and poor Nigel exhibiting signs of frostbite, it wasn't easy.

The next morning, Sat. the 28th, they moved me into another room with a regular bed, which was much more comfortable. However, I began to feel lots of pain. The contractions were back with a vengeance and were getting worse. I had had a cerclage placed at about 20 weeks, and they decided it would have to come out in case my cervix opened up and tore the stitches. They called the anesthesiologist, who wouldn’t be able to come until late afternoon. I got the two other steroid shots that morning and later that afternoon as well. Nigel called his best friend whose sister was attending the nearby university to get her phone number and she picked him up and took him to a local store to get him toiletries and some clothes.

My mom and dad showed up around noon, and we all talked with the attending drs. about what our options were. If The Princess started to look bad, they could try to deliver her and leave the boys. It might work or might not. We thought this sounded like the best option, since if it worked, the boys would stay inside longer. Still, we were holding out to see if the contractions would stop with the epidural later that day.

The anesthesiologist showed up around 6pm and we got the epidural set up and the cerclage removed. I inadvertently insulted the anesthesiologist by asking if his accent was German, when he really came from Russia. Oops. Later that night, I started feeling terrible pain again and nobody could figure out why. They kept increasing the dose into the epidural. By the next morning, I was crying constantly and they finally had me sit up and found that the epidural had fallen OUT! The bed was soaked with anesthetic. Coincidence? Or did I piss him off that badly? Maybe he had family members in Stalingrad during WWII. I’ll never know. Another dr. had to replace the epidural.

Sunday, the 29th, as far as the kids went, was just more of the same, except they wanted to know more about a surgery I had had back in 1988 for an ectopic pregnancy. I was able to tell them the doctor’s name and the hospital where it was performed and the date, then they faxed the hospital for the records. Everything seemed to be going well. They weren’t able to stop the contractions, and I eventually dilated to 4, but they weren’t concerned, since we were going to go ahead with our plan to deliver The Princess and keep the boys in. I, however, started to develop pulmonary edema – fluid was building up around my lungs, making it very difficult for me to breathe. I started getting oxygen and breathing treatments from an R.T. every two hours. It didn’t really help. I swelled up like a balloon, and they had to put these cool thingies on my legs that puffed up and massaged my legs automatically to keep the circulation going. If I still had those things, I'd be wearing them right now.

Monday, the 30th, it hit the fan. They did an ultrasound on my heart, and found that I had a problem there, too. Apparently, when the volume of blood increases with any pregnancy, but especially with multiples, there is the possibility that the heart can’t handle the volume. Lucky me, mine wasn’t able to handle it. The freaking-out began. They got a fax back from the hospital where I'd had surgery and freaked out even more. Now, I had been told by the surgeon in ’88 that there would be absolutely no problem with any future pregnancies. But, apparently, multiples were a different matter altogether. All my doctors knew of the surgery, even before we started fertility treatments, so it never dawned on me that it would cause any problems. The attending was freaking out all over the place telling us that they would have to do a c-section right away and not risk anymore contractions, because I could rupture my uterus and bleed to death in 5 minutes. It was pretty exciting, in hindsight. I was so doped and swollen and uncomfortable, that I would probably have agreed to just about anything.

Part Three to follow.

The Birth of the Sprouts Part One

2008-05-26T12:46:00.005+03:00

We got pregnant by in-vitro fertilization in early 2001. The dr. got four fertilized eggs to put back, but told us they were “low-quality” whatever that means, and didn’t hold out much hope that they would implant. 3 out of 4 did! I went on bed-rest in mid-May, just after I received my bachelor's degree – wasn’t going to miss out on the ceremony, since I was 36 years old and had waited that long to finish college! I had contraction monitoring equipment that I had to use twice a day and send the data by phone to a company called Matria. The whole thing was going just great! No excess contractions, no diabetes, no high-blood pressure. The babies were all growing fine, had no life-threatening chromosomal defects, and no apparent other problems. My perinatologist was going to schedule a c-section around the middle of October at 36 weeks.

On Friday, July 27, 2001, Nigel had left to go to a "team-building" exercise at the Zoo. We had just had a checkup that morning with our perinatal specialist and everything was looking terrific. All the kids were measuring over 2 lbs, which was great for triplets just at 28 weeks.

I had been laying on the bed, just resting after the gigantic lunch we ate after our appointment, when I decided to get some more ice water -which I craved like I now crave chocolate and Bugles and Cheez-Its. I heaved my legs over the side of the bed and felt a small *pop* and felt wetness. I threw myself into the floor to avoid getting the bed all wet (stupid priorities!) and felt it running down my leg. I grabbed the phone and went to the bathroom.

While sitting there, I first called my dr., who told me to get to her affiliated hospital as quickly as I could so they could test the fluid and see if it was amniotic (like there was a chance it wasn't - :roll: ). I told her about Nigel and where he was and that we couldn't be there for at least an hour. She said fine. I then called my mom. Bad girl! I still haven't told Nigel that I called my mom before I called him. My mom started packing. Then I paged Nigel and he called me back right away on the cell phone of a woman in his group. I told him to come home right now and what had happened.

He arrived in about 20 minutes, probably lucky he didn't get a ticket, since it normally takes about 35 minutes to get to the zoo. I had packed a small bag, just in case, and we took off.

We got to the hospital in another 25 minutes and found our way to where my dr. was waiting. They tested the fluid and found that it was amniotic. They did ultrasounds and found that The Princess's sac had ruptured, but the boys were still enclosed. They hooked me up to three fetal monitors (external) and told me to stay calm. As if!!!

An hour or so later, my dr. came to tell us that since there were not three beds available in the NICU, we would have to be sent elsewhere in case delivery was unavoidable, but that they were going to try everything they could to prevent delivery. The monitors were showing occasional contractions, but nothing big - I had had a couple of contractions per hour for a few weeks. They wanted to make sure The Princess's sac was refilling itself as it leaked and to try to find where the rupture was - the closer to the cervix, the more likelihood of infection for her. They gave me Magnesium Sulfate, which gave me horrendous hot flashes for hours, but would hopefully stop any contracting. They also gave me a steroid shot to develop the babies' lungs more quickly in case we had to deliver. Two more steroid shots would be required, but they didn't know where I'd be by then. My dr. drew little marks with "A", "B", and "C" on my belly where the babies were located so that her records would make sense when she had to fax them to another facility.

My dr. came back about another hour later and told me that Hospital B was full and Hospital C was full, so they would be flying me to Hospital D. Nigel could go to, as long as he didn't take anything. Within minutes, we were being unhooked from this and that and being rehooked up to this and that and were whisked by ambulance to the airport for a LifeFlight to Hospital D. It was one of the most terrible things I've ever experienced. Besides being frightened out of my mind, I was nauseated and contracting. Poor Nigel was just sitting in the tail of the plane wringing his hands and trying to smile at me a lot. He had called our families before we left. The plane was hot and the Mag Sulfate didn't help that at all. They had to inject Phenergan to keep me from barfing all over their pretty plane.

Good Times!

Part Two to follow

Maleficent's Consumer Report: The Diva Cup

2008-05-26T10:32:00.002+03:00

When we were preparing to move to Israel, one of the things people told us was that paper products are expensive and not what we are used to in the States. Now, while I am a Charmin and Bounty woman (who doesn't like squeezable softness on one's hiney or the joys of the "quicker picker-upper"?), I have been conscientiously trying to limit the use of paper products in general around the house. This is made more difficult by Nigel's upbringing in Wisconsin, where paper reigns supreme and half of any town was employed by some paper mill during his childhood. He just HAS to have his paper products. Still, I figured that if I kept my own and the kids' use to a minimum, we could make a small difference. My determination may have something to do with the fact that I did use disposable diapers when the kids were babies and I'm still experiencing a bit of guilt. Our diapers (triplets times at least 6 changes per 24 hr. period) probably made a land-fill of their own.

Now, on to the products in question: Feminine hygiene products; pads and poons; plugs and mattresses. I have always hated pads. Bulky, uncomfortable, smelly, no matter how "soft" the cover, no matter how frequent the change, no matter how mom-ish the pants, pads have been my bane. They are also hard to transport without taking up needed room in the tiny purse, and all purses end up being too tiny, no matter how big they actually are. Like George Carlin's "Stuff," things just multiply until there is no more room. Poons (a euphemism stolen from my best friend from high school, along with the name "Charlie" for our periods, as in "Aw, crap, Charlie's here for the week!" or "Chuck got to my house yesterday.") are much better, but still a pain to transport without getting purse-dirt all over them when the packages open. Subject for another post: my first tampon use, complete with lesson from above-mentioned friend, in a "not for customers' use" bathroom, on Bourbon Street, during a choir trip to New Orleans my sophomore year of H.S. Good times!

At any rate, someone on a forum I frequent had mentioned a Diva Cup in response to a complaint from another forum member. In researching this interesting item, I found that there is also a Moon Cup, which is very similar. I chose the Diva Cup because of its availability in an actual store, so I didn't have to mail order.

TESTIMONIAL: I love this thing. I've been using it for four cycles now, and I can say that I do not ever want to go back to sticking paper inside me or in my underwear.

That said, this product is not for everyone. It does put you in close contact with your menstrual blood, and it takes some practice and some getting used to. It took me a cycle and a half to get the hang of insertion and removal, but I only made a mess one time, so not that big a deal. The sight of blood doesn't bother me, unless I can see tendons or bones through it, so that wasn't a problem either. I don't have any issues with having to put my fingers into my vagina to adjust things if necessary, so no problem there.

There are only two sizes of Diva Cups. The small size is recommended for women under 30 who have never given birth. The large size is for women over 30 OR women who have given birth. According to this formula, I should be a size large. However, I find that the large size is a bit too large for me, even though I am both over 30 AND have given birth. When I replace my cup, I will be getting the small size to try. Their reasoning for my use of the large size is that vaginal muscles get looser with age and with childbirth, and my hips are wider than they were prior to childbirth and maturity (physical maturity, that is!). Still, I have done my Kegel's, and I am a very small person to start with, so I don't think these rules apply to me.

I highly recommend this product. Here are a couple of helpful hints for beginners if you should choose to buy a Diva Cup:

1) When you are first learning to use the cup, run your finger around it after insertion to be sure it is all the way open. I found that when mine was new, it sometimes remained partially folded, causing leaks. I could correct this by gently pulling it down until it fully opened up and then gently pushing it back into place.

2) When you are first learning to use the cup, be sure you are gentle when removing it and that you are holding it upright. My first removal was a little too quick and that's when I made the mess.

If I remember correctly, my Diva Cup cost me $35.00. This is pretty pricey, considering my flow is not too heavy and I didn't go through poons like more heavy-flow women do. Still, I like it so much better than other products, and I will no longer be contributing used pads and poons to the landfill, so I think it is worth it.

Towel Day - May 25th

2008-05-24T10:24:00.002+03:00

Fans of Douglas Adams will already know what Towel Day is. For those who don't, go here for information. Let's not ever forget the wonderful and amazingly smart and funny Douglas Adams! Don't forget your towel!

The Catholic Church Hierarchy Also Sux

2008-05-15T09:29:00.003+03:00

A jury in Burlington, VT has awarded $8.7 million to a former altar boy who was fondled by a priest between 1976 and 1978. The whole story is here.

According to the story, these are the facts:
This priest had been hired by the diocese in Burlington, which was aware of previous molestations in Massachusetts and Indiana, as well as molestations in another Vermont town.
He was not fired until 1978, when parents complained to the Bishop, and he is now retired and was not named in the lawsuit.
The current Bishop, Salvatore Matano, says the "looming predicament [of the church] is a":

sad and tragic moment in our history.

He also whines that:

the verdict as it stands will have a very serious impact on a rural diocese; a small, rural diocese.

And:

I do not want in any way to inflict any suffering or any pain upon the faithful in this diocese because of what happened in the past.

My questions are these:

Which is the tragic moment of this story?
A) When the church which placed this known molester in contact with these young men was forced to pay damages to one of them.
OR
B) When the young man named in the suit and several other young men were molested by the known molester, while performing their duties as altar boys.

Which occurance most likely had a more serious impact on the MEMBERS of that diocese?
A) When the church which placed this known molester in contact with these young men was forced to pay damages to one of them, possibly causing financial difficulties for the CHURCH.
OR
B) When the young man named in the suit and several other young men were molested by the known molester.

Which occurance most likely inflicted suffering and pain on the faithful of the diocese?
A) When the church which placed this known molester in contact with these young men was forced to pay damages to one of them.
OR
B) When the young man named in the suit as well as several other young men were FUCKING MOLESTED AT CHURCH, BEING ALTAR BOYS, EXHIBITING THEIR FAITH ALONG WITH THEIR FAMILIES.

And this comment about this being in the past! Do they not think this man remembers this every day of his life? Do they not wonder if any of the young men have had ongoing problems stemming from the abuse they suffered as youths? WTF?

All that said, maybe one of the saddest parts of this story are two of the comments on the Burlington Free News page (linked above), which are:

O'Heel [plaintiff's name is O'Neill] is allegedly a Catholic, a very greedy one and a traitor to his faith. God will punish him and his long wagon train of money grubbing plantiffs [sic].

Children and famalies [sic] will suffer because of this case.

and

Well...not suprising [sic] however I am sure after 8.7 Million he has forgotten all about it...what was I in burlington [sic] for? I am sure he is asking. SOmeday [sic] O'Neil [and sic] and this person will have to answer for this...till then

So, the priest who molested several young men over almost a decade, with the knowledge and connivance of the church hierarchy is fine and dandy with these individuals, but the young men, especially Mr. O'Neill, will be punished by God?

So, children and families who suffered and are most likely still suffering the effects of the molestations by this man who not only broke his holy vows, but also betrayed the trust of the faithful children and families involved in the molestations are meaningless, but the poor church that may have to sell some of its stock or pony up some of its vast sums of money so that it can continue to serve children and families has been WRONGED and BETRAYED.

So, Mr. O'Neill and the other young men and their families will FORGET they were molested by a trusted representative of their church if money is thrown at them?

Ridiculous and frightening. I don't believe the Jesus story, but these people do, and I would love to ask them who Jesus would be more likely to favor - the wealthy church, shielding this priest who was betraying the trust of faithful and innocent young men, or the young men themselves?

If the church "serves" its flock in this manner, who needs that kind of service?

When Religion Makes the Rules American Style

2008-04-30T13:25:00.005+03:00

Most literate and/or conscious people have heard of Madeline Kara Neumann, the 11-year-old whose parents killed her by withholding life-saving medical care, depending, instead, on the (non-existant)power of prayer to heal her end-stage diabetes.

Now, Madeline's parents have been charged with second degree reckless homocide. And rightly, I say.

In one way, at least, this, just like the killings of women I wrote about in this post, is also an honor killing. Madeline's parents were not members of any church, but her parents had their honor all tied up with their faith that prayer would heal their daughter of this very preventable and manageable disease. On the Friday before Madeline's death, as she sank further and further into the illness, her mother said, "We stayed by her side nonstop and we prayed." On the evening prior to Madeline's death, after she had already fallen off the toilet in her diabetes-caused lethargy, her parents sent out a call for help. Not to 911. But to AmericasLastDays, an online ministry run by David Eells, where they sent an e-mail saying, "Help our daughter needs emergency prayer!!!!"

I call this an honor-killing because, like the parents who would stone their daughters to death to prevent them from going against misogynistic, uterus-controlling, patriarchical religious laws, these parents killed their daughter to prevent her from going against their stone-age, anti-science, religious laws. Madeline's father even goes so far as to say that "given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer." These parents had placed all their honor in the hands of a non-existent super-power, to whom they called for help as their daughter lay dying, instead of availing themselves of what ANYONE IN THE U.S. knows is the best help for illness and disease, MODERN FUCKING MEDICINE. Had they caved and taken Madeline to the hospital, their honor would have been besmirched and their dedication to their invisible friend would have been shown to be hollow. They couldn't have that!

Honor is tied to pride. Anyone who doubts this should (hopefully having already read it once) reread the parts of Homer's The Iliad concerning Achilles. The pride of the Neumann family, their arrogance in denying all evidence to the contrary and insisting on prayer over medicine, their choice of honor over their daughter's life, and now, their (or his, at least) insistence that they would do it AGAIN, have shown that they have no business being parents. I hope they get long jail sentences.

Another sad thing about this is that, having been raised by these people, Madeline herself may have chosen prayer over medicine as well, had she been given the choice. I'll bet she WASN'T given the choice, but in a family as prideful, arrogant, and honor-bound to follow their dangerous and deadly non-entity, I'll bet it didn't even occur to her, in her illness, that there might be another way, a way that would let her live. Poor child. I grieve for her.

UPDATE: Go to Pharyngula for more information - apparently, the great State of Wisconsin has a law on its books that allows parents to kill their children for religious reasons. I'm now hoping that this case will overthrow that law and set a new precedent. Children have no choice!!! If a parent wants to kill him or herself, then FINE. But let's give the children the benefit of the doubt and assume they would prefer to live until they can make the choice themselves.

When Religion Makes the Rules

2008-04-30T11:43:00.008+03:00

I have no words to describe how I feel about this article.The gist is that a 17 year old Iraqi girl, Rand Abdel-Qader met a 22 year old British soldier while working as a volunteer at a Basra aid station. When her father was told of the relationship (it is not clear if they were doing anything more than seeing and talking with each other in the course of their duties), he "stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed" her in front of her mother and with the help of her brothers.

Her father was released from police custody without being charged within two hours because:

Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case," said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police. "You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws. The father has very good contacts inside the Basra government and it wasn't hard for him to be released and what he did to be forgotten. (bolding is mine)

The only good to come out of this is that her mother has since divorced her father, though she is currently hiding from his family, who have threatened her.

The article notes that there were 47 (FORTY FUCKING SEVEN) "honour" killings, JUST IN THAT CITY last year.

Noted that there are many equally or even more heinous instances of violence toward women that have been publicized lately. The most talked about recently is the public stoning to death of Du'a Khalil Aswad in Bashika, a town near Mosul in Iraq. Her crime was to love a Sunni Muslim young man when her family are members of a minority Kurdish religion. A video of the stoning was made by some onlooker and posted on the internet. I will not provide a link to that. In this case, Kurdish leaders have legislated against "honour" killings, but security and police forces neither tried to stop this nor investigated it afterwards, which is the standard reaction in these cases.

I am outraged and horrified and have no idea what should be done (besides the obvious - that the Iraqi people themselves need to wake the fuck up and establish some sort of justice system that works for ALL Iraqis.) What the fuck is wrong with some of these people? How could anyone do things like this to their own children? Despicable!

**********UPDATE************
There's a huge debate going on in the comments section of PZ's post about this article at Pharyngula. I declare myself on the side of those who say that until so-called "moderate" Muslims and their religious leaders openly and loudly declare themselves against "honor" killings, and against stoning adulterers and apostates, they are part of the problem.

National Day of Reason - Donate Your Organs!

2008-04-30T10:38:00.003+03:00

Tomorrow, May 1, 2008, is the 5th annual National Day of Reason. At the website, there are listings of local events going on around the US. Sadly, I notice that there are few events. However, many secular groups are unofficially encouraging such activities as giving blood or plasma on this day. Even if you do this individually, not as a group, giving blood is always a great thing to do. I have been unable to give blood the last three times I've gone for my appointments due to the fact that my heart rate is over 100 each time! I don't know if I've developed a "freak-out" about it or what, since I never had that problem before. So, I'm pushing another option:

BECOME AN ORGAN DONOR!

If you are not already an organ donor, May 1 would be a good day to fill out that paperwork and start informing your loved ones that you would like to be one. Organ donation is something that can potentially help anyone. Ironically, since mandatory seatbelt laws were passed in the US, and motorcycle helmet laws passed in some states, there has been a dearth of donors (not as many folks flying through windshields, destroying brains, but leaving organs intact)*, which makes individual action on this issue even more urgent. For information about donation, visit OrganDonor.gov.

*source here.

Feminist Alert!

2008-04-29T21:11:00.003+03:00

As a self-identifying feminist, I have been following the recent uproar all over the web, but haven't made any comment, mostly because I don't feel like I'm really knowledgeable enough as a newbie blogger,and really as a newbie feminist in that I identified as one without knowing what it was all about, to comment on issues of such importance. The bottom line is that many women (mostly women of color) are being marginalized and told to shut up by the mainstream-type (mostly white) feminist community. As a middle-class white woman, I had identified with feminism more along the lines of "make your own damned sandwich" or "I don't have to wear makeup" or "violence against women must stop" which was fine in my small world, but WAY simplistic. The internet and all the wonderful feminist bloggers of all persuasions have opened my eyes. I am going to have to start working to educate myself, beginning with every single blog listed on this post from Ico, who, sadly, has no blog, more sadly, has no intention of blogging, yet put into words what I, in my tiny little world, needed to learn and become aware of if I want to be part of the larger community of womanists.

I'm nobody, and nobody reads this blog, but if you accidentally come across it, come learn with me, starting with the blogs listed in the post above.

Memories of Ignorant Youth, Part III

2008-04-28T10:28:00.001+03:00

VAMPIRES

Reading the Skepchick blog this morning, I ran across this post by writerdd. It reminded me of a time, way back when, I think I was in middle school (5 - 8 grades at my school), but don't remember which specific grade. I had become enamored of vampires. I think it happened after the Frank Langella movie. Yes, he used to be hot, back in the 70's.

At any rate, I was so enamored that for several months, I would leave my window open, just a crack, just enough for HIM to get in. I would also try to fall asleep on my back with my hair spread over my pillow in a (I thought) sultry way, just like Kate Nelligan's hair in the movie.

What a dork.

Still, having seen the preview clip for this new vampire show, I may just have to start leaving my window open, just a crack...

Memories of Ignorant Youth, Part II

2008-04-27T12:16:00.004+03:00

In high school, a couple of friends and I went out on weekends. Some of the things we did were extraordinarily stupid, and I dread the day my kids start doing them, as I know they will. Mostly we only endangered ourselves, and I am happy today that nobody ever got hurt.

One thing we did, though, four times (I remember, because I still beat myself up about it today), was to eat at restaurants and sneak out without paying. We did this twice at Denny's and twice at some other 24 hour restaurant that is no longer extant - maybe Girlie's Pancake House, but I'm not sure.

This crime is the worst I have ever committed and I regret it to this day. I'm sure the skinny and cancerous beehived waitresses at each of these restaurants have died by now, but I wish I could go back in time and do right by them, as I'm sure they had to pay for our stupid childish antics.

The Whiny Fussoids Have Landed - Chapter 1

2008-04-24T12:51:00.003+03:00

The Whiny Fussoids recklessly exited their spaceship, the leader sliding on the slick stairway because the official regulations of the Whiny Fussoid Union required that he only wear socks with his uniform. He landed hard on his left hip, crying out in pain.

"You did it!" exclaimed the Captain, pointing to his second-in-command. His face was red and tears ran down onto his shirt.

"I did not!" retorted Number Two, who, in fact, had pushed the captain slightly in her rush to get to the bottom of the escape hatch stairway.

This light-hearted banter continued for some minutes until suddenly a large and hideous alien appeared, looming over the three space adventurers like a salivating schpixslapper.

It glared at our heroes and said firmly, "If this bickering doesn't stop, I'm turning off the computer."

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" all three shrieked, "WEEEEE'RRRRE HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

"She pushed me!" said the Captain.

"I did not!" said Number Two.

"She's LYING!" said the Communications Officer.

"I am NOT!" Number Two exclaimed, and promptly burst into tears.

"Let's get you guys some lunch. I have sandwiches, crackers with pepperoni, star chicken. Which would you like?" the disgusting alien said.

The captain thought for a minute and said, "I want to go to the Burger Bar."

"Well, no," said the nasty, uncooperative alien, "We're going to eat here today. What would you like?"

Suddenly a chorus broke out.

"WEEEE WANT TO GO TO THE BURGER BAR!!!!" the crew members shouted.

"Ymnbahtipust'restrunt," whined the Communications Officer.

The alien, though ugly, cruel, and stupid, had dealt with this species of Fussoid before and knew that the preceding statement actually meant: You never take us to a restaurant.

"We went to a nice restaurant just the other day," retorted the alien, "and we're NOT going to one now. Now, what would you like for lunch?"

"YOU HATE ME! I'M NOT A BOY! I'M JUST A DUMMY!" screamed the Communications Officer.

Number Two rolled her eyes and said, "He always whines."

The huge and drooling alien went into the bathroom, closed the door, and banged its misshapen head against the counter five times. Then it came back out and said, "I'll make everyone peanut butter sandwiches. Does anyone want jelly?"

"I'm not hungry. It's my turn on the computer," commented the Captain, heading back to the spaceship.

The alien, seeing images of what painful injuries could be inflicted on the Fussoids with the dull butter knife in its ragged claws, said quietly, "You Will Eat Some Lunch Now. Get to the table."

The Fussoids, crying mightily and crazy with despair over the unfairness and inhumanity of the wicked, wicked alien, sat at the table. Eventually, each finished at least a majority of the sandwich provided by the nasty slave-driving alien.

"I'm through!" said the Captain.

"I'm through!" said Number Two.

"Akmfooo!" said the Communications Officer, who still had sandwich in his mouth.

"Okay, take your plates to the sink. Who's turn is it on the computer?" asked the alien.

Three voices cried out, "MINE!!!!!!!"

End of chapter one.

Mortal Kombat In The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

2008-04-24T11:54:00.003+03:00

I missed this news from Sunday. In a rematch of last xmas's "broom and stone" tournament at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic sect members went after each other again, this time, using their feet and fists! Police who intervened were more lucky; they were pummeled with palm fronds. There were no fatalities.

This violence stems from disputes over what is called the "status quo," an agreement originally established in 1767 to divvy up the Church of the Holy Sepulchre into pieces which were then passed out to various Catholic Christian sects.

From Wikipedia, which is so on top of things that this dustup is already included in their article:

The primary custodians are the Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic Churches, with the Greek Orthodox Church having the lion's share. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures within and around the building. Times and places of worship for each community are strictly regulated in common areas.

It looks as though the Protestant sects have been completely ignored! Perhaps they should start agitating as well. There are enough divisions among Protestants that everyone could get a square foot or so to keep clean and place donation boxes on.

I roll my eyes once again at religious ridiculousness.

Plagues and Pox

2008-04-22T12:08:00.003+03:00

An e-mail I sent to my mom and MIL yesterday to describe the day's excitement:

Monday, April 21, 2008

This morning, after the kids and I took Nigel to the bus stop, we came home and were planning on going for a nice hike down to the ever-shrinking lake. I set everyone up for breakfast (they didn't want to eat before we took Daddy). As they were eating, I noticed that The Starving Child's spots, which we had noticed night before last, were redder and more extensive on his face. I looked under his shirt and they were all over his back as well. Last night, he had been complaining of a headache, but he said he felt fine today. He has no more fever, hasn't since Saturday morning.

The Lottery Winner began to complain of a headache. He had spots and a fever last week, but they've all gone away. I gave him some Ibuprofen.

The Princess began to complain of a headache. She had complained last night as well, and even hurt so badly that Nigel gave her some Acetominophen at 4am because it was making her cry. I looked at her and her face is also covered in spots, as well as her back and her arms and legs. She had had a slight fever a couple of days ago, but nothing now. I gave her some Ibuprofen. She said it hurt so bad she wanted to lie down, so I told her to get her jammies back on and I'd make her a bed on the couch and she could watch Princess movies.

I explained to the boys that we would not be able to go for our hike today, but maybe tomorrow and started looking "chicken pox" up online. The boys started taking turns on the computer. The symptoms of chicken pox seem similar to the "headache, fever, spots" cycle we've seen, but the spots themselves are not nearly as large or gross looking as the photos showed. Still, it seemed likely they might just have it, since their school has been a breeding ground for it since mid-March (non-vaccinating parents - HATE 'EM). Plus, everything points out that some 30% of kids who've been vaccinated still get a very mild case if they're exposed. Our kids seem to win the odds lottery in just about everything, so I figured we'd just wait it out and see what happened.

Later, I found two ticks on Speck. Hooray. So I started looking up Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Don't worry, it's definitely not that.

Then, The Princess started saying, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!", so I ran over to see what she was sorry about. She had thrown up all over her clothes and the comforter I had laid out for her and her pillowcase. We changed her clothes, I gathered up the bedding, found that the pillow was okay, since the barf was only on a corner, replaced the pillow case, put the comforter from her bed on the couch, got her blanket and settled her back down with the barf bucket nearby.

I went upstairs and used the shower thingie to rinse all the barf off and started the wash. A large load takes about 4 hours (no, I'm not exaggerating!).

About an hour later, I fixed lunch for the boys, and as they were eating, The Lottery Winner complained of a headache again, so I gave him some Acetominophen. I asked if his stomach was okay and he said it was. The Princess didn't want to eat anything, but the boys ate well.

About an hour after that, The Princess said, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" again. I ran over and she said, "I missed the barf bucket!" I had forgotten that she is famous for not being able to barf into the bucket, no matter how close it is to her mouth. Barf was all over her comforter, her blanket, the coffee table, the floor, and this time, all over the pillow itself. I got her cleaned up, cleaned the table and the floor before Speck could get into it, then gathered up the bedding and went upstairs to get a bath sheet-sized towel, a bedsheet, and a towel to wad up for her to lie on. I got her set up again and went up to rinse the barf out of the bedding and put it by the washer to start it when the last load ended (about 2 more hours).

About an hour later, I heard gagging noises from over by the litter box. TANG was barfing. I started laughing, sort of hysterically. Now, I'd been e-mailing Nigel with updates this whole time, and he had just written me back to say that he was considering staying at work for the night. (Ha ha, what a funny guy!) At this point, I wrote him back and let him know that he would be responsible for my suicide and would have to explain it to my family if he stayed. At any rate, I cleaned up the Tang-barf and as I put the paper towels in the trash, I heard The Princess say, "Oops."

I ran over to see what she had barfed on this time. Well, she said, "I forgot I was on the couch and I wet my pants." Yes, her panties were drenched along with the towel and sheet. Again, I began to giggle uncontrollably, in a hysterical manner. Nobody was here to slap me and snap me out of it. I went upstairs and got a new pair of panties, some wet wipes, a new tank top, a new towel, and a new sheet for her. Got her changed and set up again and took the new batch of laundry upstairs.

I wrote to Nigel to say that he should probably call the men in the white coats to come get me now. He hasn't yet responded; he's probably halfway to Lebanon by now. I think he will be safer and get more rest there than he would here tonight.

I'm beginning to wonder if we're experiencing the plagues of Egypt in honor of Passover. We've had boils and insects, and our water tastes funny since they've shut off the water system to keep us from accidentally eating breadcrumbs fishermen may have left in the lake; it's not blood, but it still tastes bad. I'm waiting for it to rain frogs and fire and have asked Tim to bring home some lamb-blood and a paintbrush, just in case.

The Princess is now asleep, looking like a little angel. The boys are getting along perfectly, playing together. I think I am the only one who has a sort of wild look in my eyes. But I think we'll survive. I'll keep you posted!

***************************

Update e-mail:

In addition to that little tidbit, Nigel has shared with me some interesting news he discovered at the drug store tonight. He volunteered to go to the drug store to get some more Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen for the kids, since we're running through it like it's water lately. He asked the pharmacist or whoever it was behind the counter where to find it and she informed him very sternly that Ibuprofen is NOT KOSHER. He said, "Fine. I'll take two."

Gotta love it!

Rejoicing in Separation of Church and State

2008-04-22T10:30:00.003+03:00

As I experience Pessach here in Israel, it has given me even more appreciation for the wall of separation between church and state in the US. US citizens should imagine these things being done for or given to a specific religious group of people, but not your own group, in your neighborhood/city/state/nation:

Taxpayer funded buses which segregate men from women, women being forced to ride in the back, sometimes even hidden by curtains from outside. These buses do not run on this particular religious group's deity-mandated special day, which is different from your own deity-mandated special day, regardless of whether or not you have another way to get to work.

Taxpayer funded welfare for full-time religious scholars, though not for scholars of your religion, including financial support for their deity-mandated large families, housing, food, tuition, etc. Imagine that as these families grow, they take more and more of your tax dollars for support, leaving little to maintain other needs.

Exemption from military duty to members of this specific religious group, where all other citizens are required by law to perform this service until age 40.

Laws preferring the particular deity-demands of this particular religious group, which restrict the minutia of daily life, even down to what foods you are allowed to buy and eat during particular times of the year/week.

Taxpayer funded maintenance of streets in areas where a particular religious group blockades said streets during deity-mandated times and dates, not allowing normal traffic through these areas and causing congestion in other areas. Said blockades are guarded by taxpayer funded military and law enforcement personnel.

Now, some of the Christians or other religious groups in the US may think this doesn't sound too bad. Note, however, that I specifically wrote above that the religion getting all the perks is NOT YOUR OWN. In addition, non-compliance with the laws can lead, not only to legal sanctions such as fines and what-not, but also to actually being beaten, stoned, or otherwise attacked physically.

Granted, the religion-based laws here in Israel are pretty moderate compared to, say, Saudi Arabia, and generally just make me laugh or roll my eyes. I usually don't need to go through blockaded neighborhoods to get where I want to go, with the exception of not being able to pick up my daughter after a sleepover one Saturday morning. I stocked up on bread and pitot before Pessach began. I have my Brita filter to take away the nasty smell and taste of the local well-water since the city water system has been shut off for Pessach.* I don't ride the buses. I have no desire to enter the neighborhoods/areas where I would be required to wear long skirts, long sleeves, and headcoverings.

Still, US citizens, consider if a religion NOT YOUR OWN made the laws in the US. Consider that they might start out kind of silly and just a pain in the ass. Then they might get a bit more stringent, maybe with less merciful punishments. Then, finally, they might get just plain draconian, with penalties of death for those who do not obey. And all funded and supported by YOUR tax dollars. Not such a pretty picture, huh?

I would ask all US citizens to CELEBRATE the separation of church from state. I would remind those who would sneak theocracy into our government that their particular brand of god may not be that of the majority forever. I would encourage everyone to read and learn about nations, now and in the past, which have used religion as a legal system and ask themselves if they would like to live in those nations during those times.

* True story: The mayor of Jerusalem has shut off the public water system because fishermen on the Sea of Galilee may have used leavened bread as fish bait. This fish bait may have gotten into the water, which is drinking water for the entire country. The God of the Jewish people has forbidden them to eat leavened bread during Passover. So we all get to drink and wash in local smelly, foul-tasting (at least mine is, probably most people have better wells) well water to protect us from having fish-bait breadcrumbs pass our lips.

Another fun fact, illustrating the caprice of religious laws: For many years, rabbis have railed against smoking among the religious. Their argument in the past has been that we are obligated to take care of our bodies because they were created by their God. This year, miraculously, one rabbi has finally, coincidentally JUST LAST WEEK, correctly interpreted some religious text and determined that tobacco products have LEAVEN in them and are therefore forbidden during Pessach. This despite rabbinical certification of the local manufacturers of tobacco products, who are crazy-pissed. It reeks of the same idiocy as when the LDS church's infallible leaders suddenly receive information from their God saying that the previous infallible leaders, who had received contradictory information from God, were wrong and that black people CAN join the Mormons!

Musings About Living in Israel

2008-04-19T14:50:00.000+03:00

This evening begins the Jewish festival of Pessach. We call this Passover in the US. It commemorates the 10 plagues unleashed on Egypt by the god of the Hebrews at the request of Moses (played most famously by Charlton Heston, who might have been better served by playing Jesus as he has recently had his rifle pried from his cold, dead hands), and the subsequent release of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage.

Pessach is a time for cleaning, which, technically, should be done before Shabbat begins every Friday night, but, I have discovered, is most definitely NOT. I've wondered whether or not their god commanded them to clean up before Shabbat and definitely before Pessach because without some godly threats, they would never clean up at all. As it is, and I use my neighbor as my example, but the anecdote is confirmed to be common among Israelis by many of our Israeli friends, cleaning up seems to mean gathering up all the rotted food and trash from inside the house and putting it outside the house for local stray dogs and cats to scatter all over everyone's sidewalks and courtyards. For a group obsessed with ritual cleanliness (some, not all, of course), observant Israelis seem decidedly uncaring about basic sanitation and prevention of disease.

I suppose that as a people, the Israelis have a difficult time thinking about how irresponsible and generally disgusting their trash scattering, lack of support for recycling, and general unawareness of how sad it is to walk into an otherwise pristine park or forest area, only to see empty food cans, rotted leftover sandwiches, and plastic bottles strewn all over, appears to outsiders, even fellow Jews who've made aliya. Jews who've grown up here have always had enough possibilities of destruction hanging over their heads that living for today with no thought at all for tomorrow seems to be the norm.

One of Nigel's co-workers has opined that she is embarrassed that the Israeli people just will not think about how much could be done to make Israel a more beautiful place by actually taking care of things and keeping things clean and looking nice. When Nigel informed another of his coworkers that I am having to go out every morning with rubber gloves on to clean up the rotting vegetables and dirty diapers that have been dragged all over our steps and in our back area where we walk our dog, she said, "Welcome to Israel."

One of the most important aspects of Pessach is that leavened products, such as bread, beer, and, I found out today in the newspaper, cigars and cigarettes may not be consumed or even kept in the houses of observant Jews. There are burning ceremonies all over, in which crumbs and leftover bread products are burned in a ritualistic way. Also, to make fun for the children, before the beginning of Pessach, house lights are turned off and candles are taken around each corner and crack of the house to find any leavened bread crumbs left within. The children have feathers with which they sweep up anything that looks suspicious.

This sounds cute and fun, and probably is. However, a recent story in the local news points to another episode of deadly carelessness tied specifically to this religious festival. I can't link to it because it's not free, but several kindergarten children were burned, a couple of them quite badly, during a lesson about burning hametz. Why anyone would think it an appropriate lesson for kindergarteners, I don't know. It's not as though they would have no adults to do the burning for them, and it's not as though just a description of the burning without the, apparently literal, hands-on demonstration would have been quite suitable.

There is much controversy within Israel, especially between the observant and the secular Jews, as to whether or not it should be permitted to buy bread and other hametz (leavened) products during Pessach week. Recently, the courts ruled that the law prohibiting public display of hametz did not preclude its sale as long as it was not out in the open where observant Jews could see it. A huge uproar came from the harid and orthodox communities claiming that it would be the end of Judaism. Today, an article in the Jerusalem Post stated that orthodox rabbis, who have been trying unsuccessfully for years to convince their observant flocks to stop smoking, have declared cigars and cigarettes hametz. Interesting that it hasn't been declared so before now.

All this being said, I still love it here. It is very pretty from our balcony, I'm learning my way around quite well, and we have enough secular friends that we don't generally have to directly deal with threats from the more extreme members of Israeli society.

That's all for today! More ranting at another time. I will discuss the newspaper's article about the possibility of "hametz violence" during Pessach.

The Pope Sux

2008-04-19T11:35:00.000+03:00

Well, I've already stopped laughing.
From the BBC:

Pope Benedict XVI has criticised US bishops for their handling of child sex scandals, saying their response to the crisis had sometimes been very poor.

He laid part of the blame for the crisis, of which he feels "deeply ashamed", on a breakdown in US values.

Bold is mine.

WTF? Then he went on to say this:

What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?

It is rare that I shake with anger, but this just takes the cake. The problem of pedophile priests is caused by the availability of porn and violence? It has nothing at all to do with:
1) pedophile priests themselves;
2) a church which, instead of defrocking them,sent them to other parishes unaware of their previous misdeeds;
3) a church which, instead of turning them over to law enforcement, protected them by hiding their illegal acts;
4) a man who specifically told bishops of his church to keep the accusations inside the church and not to cooperate with law enforcement.

I agree with Ed Brayton who says:

[F]uck you, you lying piece of shit...Fuck you, Benedict. It's your barbaric values that caused thousands of children to be molested, not ours.

And for your viewing pleasure, I present this:

Brit psychics may have to prove their claims!

2008-04-19T10:37:00.000+03:00

Saw THIS in the news this morning and have been laughing ever since!

It seems the British are going to shift the burden of proof from prosecutors to psychics, "healers," and mediums, so that instead of having to prove they can't do what they claim, prosecutors can watch as these charlatans try to prove they can tell the future/speak to the dead/heal.

Long overdue, I say, and I wish the US would follow suit. Since Randi's Million Dollar Challenge will be defunct as of 2010, and nobody has even gotten past the preliminaries, perhaps these frightened and saddened woo-masters should get crackin' and apply. If they win, a million dollars will surely take care of any future loss of income.

1) "Psychics" and "mediums" like Sylvia Browne and John Edward prey on grieving loved ones who want so badly to see or speak to the deceased. This is despicable. For more information about Sylvia Browne, specifically, go to Robert Lancaster's excellent site, Stop Sylvia Brown.
2) "Healers" at best, do no harm. At worst, they cause increased illness and death by encouraging the sick to see them instead of seeing a doctor. For a very good personal tale of illness and evaluation of "alternative medicine" woo, see Greta Christina's excellent blog entry.

Go U.K.! I hope this one gets through. It is unfortunate, however, that Brits still seem to embrace other such woo as homeopathy (endorsed by both Queen and Prince), but that's a whole other post.

Finally in Israel

2008-03-13T10:39:00.001+02:00

We've been in Israel for about 3 weeks now. There's been quite an adjustment period, and I've decided to give myself another few weeks to get used to things here.

Our house is beautiful, just outside of Jerusalem right off Road 1 in Ramat Motza. It is a three level with balconies overlooking the valley between Mevasseret Zion and Motza Illit, but high enough that the highway traffic noise doesn't bother.

So far, I've managed to find several grocery stores, a bookstore, some pharmacies, the market in Jerusalem (great fruits, veggies), a deli that sells pork products from a hidden cabinet under the register, coffee shops, and lots of other amenities. The language barrier is a challenge, but most people at least have a smattering of English, so I've not had too much trouble. Haven't been keeping up with the Hebrew lessons, because our internet has been a real challenge. Until today, the transfer speed has varied between .1 (yes - .1) and 10 kbps, and tended to just go offline right in the middle of my bill paying etc. It seems up to speed today for the first time, and hasn't just dropped the connection for almost 4 hours. Nigel predicts that it will be fine until just after Shabbat starts.

The kids have been enjoying their new school, though The Starving Child has had some virus and hasn't been to school for the past three days (yesterday they were all home because of parent/teacher conferences). He seems over it now, but they have swimming on Thursdays and I didn't want him overdoing it. The homework is much more intense than in the US, with tons of writing. I don't know if it's just the US school systems or if my kids are just slow, but where they were just learning about what a complete sentence is in Oregon, they are now expected to already know all about it and to write several of them in their homework each day. It is difficult for me, because all three need constant supervision while completing their work, but I am only one person. It has tended to take 2 to 3 hours daily to get all their work completed.

Nigel's work has been interesting as well. We have to drop him at his shuttle stop by 6:50am, then we generally drive on into Jerusalem and I let the kids play at one of two parks we drive by on the way to school until it is time for drop off. Nigel tries to get on the 17:00 shuttle for home, which puts him here at a bit after 18:00. One of his co-workers, IF he makes the shuttle, brings him home, or if not, we have to go pick him up. This puts supper between 18:00 and 19:00, leaving only a half hour for baths and bed for the kids. Plus, I have to have supper made and keeping warm while we pick him up or while he is on his way. This is hard for him, since he's always been a fan of hot, fresh suppers. The kids are not used to having to wait so late for supper, either, so they are always starving and begging for snacks between the time we get home from school and suppertime.

I've noticed that since we are now in a place where food is much more expensive than in the States, the kids are eating us out of house and home. Back in Oregon, they were never hungry and didn't want to eat anything - but food was cheap there, so I guess it figures.

I have been saving some money in that the tap water here is really quite tasty and I haven't had to buy any bottled water like we had to in OR because of the nasty tasting/smelling well water we had there.

We had to wait forever for a dryer to be delivered. The one that was already here had been put together wrong and would not run. Our landlady promised us a new one every day for two weeks, and it did finally arrive. I have to say that it ROCKS. Many of the other ex-pats have complained that their dryers take forever and don't get the clothes dry, but ours certainly does. It actually takes less time for the clothes to dry than it takes them to wash in our miniature washing machine, which takes 2 hours to complete a load. Prior to receiving the new dryer, we were having to dry everything by putting it outside (we had to purchase a clothes line and pins) or, since it has rained off and on since we got here, hang them all over the house to dry. Not a pretty sight, and took forever. Now it is quick and efficient.

There are some plumbing problems. When we drain the bathtub after the kids' baths, it drains into the extra bedroom's bathroom. Plus, our landlady has told us not to put toilet paper in the toilets! This is unacceptable and we have to let her know to get a plumber out here asap the next time we see her. We are up so high, I would think that gravity alone would make sure the pipes are all clear and running downhill. If they clog that easily, they should be fixed. I do not want to live where I have to smell used toilet paper every time I use the bathroom, plus it is very difficult for the kids to remember not to flush the paper. They've been flushing it for 4 years and their brains have all they can hold with all the complete sentences they are having to write!

This is a beautiful country. We have hiked around our area and will be trying to do more touristy stuff as time goes by. Most of the people are very friendly.

More details to come....

Senator Clinton

2008-02-07T18:48:00.001+02:00

While perusing my regular morning blogs today, in an attempt to more productively procrastinate, I ran across this guest blogger at Bad Astronomy.

Coincidentally, I had, just last week, decided to force myself to stop calling Senator Clinton "Hillary" in conversation. Just as Mrs. BA writes, I decided that this was just a manifestation of disrespect and the inherent misogyny of our electoral politics, and of our world in general, i.e. women in positions of power (though there really aren't any) can be spoken of using only their first names, while men must be called by their last name, their title, or some dudely nickname, like "Dubya," or "Brownie," or "Governator."

Some commenters on BA's blog have said that Senator Clinton, herself, promotes this Hillary-ing by using her first name as her brand. This is true. Her website, her promotional materials, and her campaign are all about "Hillary in '08," etc. I suppose this is her perogative. It is HER campaign after all.

I still choose to try not to do so, and I find it a sad comment on our society that she finds it acceptable, even desirable. It simply illustrates that Senator Clinton is no less subject to the demands of patriarchy than any of us are. I hope to find out if she will support or encourage change when she is elected by demanding some fucking respect.

Memories of Ignorant Youth, Part I

2008-02-07T06:03:00.001+02:00

When I was a freshman in college, a friend of my roommate's brother told me,"You look like you could suck the chrome off a trailer-hitch."

I thought this was a compliment.

Some days, I truly fear for my daughter.

Yaz

2008-02-07T02:25:00.000+02:00

First of all, I just hate it that some pharma has stolen the name of one of my favorite 80's bands for their birth control product.

Second of all, I saw an ad recently stating that Yaz, in addition to preventing pregnancy, of which prevention I am determinedly in support, also treats mood swings, irritability, headaches, anxiety, bloating, and food cravings.

Bloating, I'll admit, is annoying, but that's the limit of it. If I can't fit into my regular size pants, I go for something more stretchy or loose, like sweatpants. Now, I wouldn't want to encourage women to wear anything uncomfortable, because I, myself, refuse to do so, but why is it okay for men to wear their pants just below their jello-like, hanging, protuberant bellies, which CAN'T be comfortable for them, since just holding all that up must leave a belt-mark 1/2" deep in their backs, but we women, who might even have an excuse besides too much beer or "good cookin'", are frowned on for doing the same?

I assume the "headaches" may have been those of the male scientists who were tired of living and/or interacting with women with mood swings, irritability, or anxiety. Because, goodness gracious, women shouldn't be moody, irritable, or anxious! Especially when they are about to fucking BLEED and possibly cramp for several days. Especially when they are required to carry the full burden of birth control to begin with. Especially when, in today's jesUSbUShland, if said birth control fails, it is becoming more and more likely that a pregnant woman's uterus will become the property of the state. Nothing anxiety-inducing or irritability-causing there, huh???

And why are food cravings a bad thing? In my not at all humble opinion, the only problem with food cravings are when said food is unavailable.