Thursday, August 31, 2006

Just loving sarcasm

Things Republicans Believe: A truthful and sarcastic list

1. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is a solid defense policy

2. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

3. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

4. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s and John Kerry did in the 1970s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

5. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

6. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

7. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

8. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

9. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

10. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

11. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

12. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

13. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Again with the gay marriage

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong


01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Victory!! And I Helped!

Well, the FDA just approved over-the-counter access to the "morning-after" pill! And I helped by writing and emailing my senators and congressmen/women! I feel so proud to have been part of that: women are now able to prevent pregnancy if something happens; like the condom breaks, or she is raped! How wonderful. Thank goodness for birth control.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Honey, Salsa, and Pears

Well, it's been a rather busy week. The title refers to the fact that Nick and I have fallen in love with shopping for certain grocery items at the Farmer's Market. There's one that is right across the street. There, we found this fantastic, extremely fresh honey - the kind that tastes illegal, and you want to just lick the entire jar clean. It was that fantastic! Wonderful, wonderful honey! We also found great, really fresh salsa: perfectly spicy...and tried out a new type of apple and bought really great pears. In short, we are in love with this place! In other news, not much has been happening besides work and writers block - somebody please help me get over this! I can't seem to concentrate on writing my thesis!!! Work is going good: I'm getting comfortable at both places; still haven't decided about leaving one or not. Depends on schedules and such. Nick has started his first week of Library School. I am suddenly dying to be in classes, taking notes and planning for exams...I miss that. Maybe I'm just so good at being a student I don't know what else to be. My dad says that once I get my teaching certification he thinks I'll really enjoy teaching. And with the Certificate in Native American Studies, I can teach at a reservation school or a tribal college (maybe) if I want to - not much money, but I'd feel really good about myself I think. Anyway, that's that. Just for the record, I really miss my friends: Sara, Kay especially, cause there aren't really a bunch of opportunities to make new girlfriends here. Maybe at work? Or when I start classes?

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Birthdays and Such

Well, it's coming time for my dad's birthday; my niece's birthday, and in a few weeks..my birthday. I find it rather sad that celebrating birthdays goes out of style once you hit a certain age - unless you are hitting a certain age: 21,30, 40, 50, 90..What happens to those in between ages-I'd much rather celebrate a birthday at 36 than 40 - it's 4 years younger! But then, I happen to be a big fan of celebrating birthdays, spoiling people with cake, presents, or if not the traditional childhood things like cake and ice cream, streamers, presents, at least an adult dinner party, or a romantic party for two to celebrate. So few are the times when a person is spoiled just for being. I can only think of one occasion - a birthday! How nice it is just to wake up and know that one that day, people will be thinking of you - your parents (remember when he was born? )thoughts like these inspire a call, a card, a smile - well, hopefully! your siblings (man, I wish she hadn't been born! Well, maybe not ALL siblings!)your girlfriend (I am so lucky he was born!) All you have to do is just be - just have those connections-just being you is enough to celebrate. I hope.

Friday, August 18, 2006

A Return to Gay Marriage

Well, despite the enormous popularity of debating birth control, abortion, or IVF, I have decided to branch out a bit and revisit the debate over gay marriage. The whole idea that two people (no matter what their sexuality) should be able to marry is one that I am extremely comfortable with. Marriage - a commitment, before the law and your family and friends, and god (if you are of that inclination) - is that something that a freedome-loving people really want to deny to someone merely because of their sexuality? How is that really a threat to heterosexual marriage? I still haven't received an answer that I can agree with or even take seriously.

To kick off this discussion then, besides my own opinion, I have decided to print an article from the Nation from Katha Pollitt, published December 15, 2003. This will also be the kick-off to my printing her articles. Most I find thought-provoking; some I didn't agree with, some I did, and many I found absolutely hilarious. So, sit back, read, and enjoy. And if you don't enjoy this one, well, maybe future ones will strike you as funny. Or you may find them offensive. But keep an open mind - something I struggle to do sometimes, and am always a firm supporter of, and well, enjoy!

"Adam and Steve-Together at Last"
Katha Pollitt

Will Someone please explain to me how permitting gays and lesbians to marry threatens the institution of marriage? Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has declared gay marriage a constitutional right, opponents really have to get their arguments in line. The most popular theory, advanced by David Blankenhorn, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and other social conservatives is that under the tulle and orange blossoms, marriage is all about procreation. There's some truth to this as a practical matter-couples often live together, tying the know only when baby's on the way. But whether or not marriage is the best framework for child-rearing, having children isn't a marital requirement. As many have pointed out, the law permits marriage to the infertile, the elderly, the impotent, and those with no wish to procreate; it allows married couples to use birth control, to get sterilized, to be celibate. There's something creepily authoritarian and insulting about reducing marriage to procreation, as if intimacy mattered less than biological fitness. It's not a view that anyone outside of a right-wing think tank, a Catholic Marriage Tribunal, or an ultra-Orthodox rabbi's court is likely to find persuasive.
So scratch procreation. How about: Marriage is the way women domesticate men. This theory, a favorite of right-wing writer George Gilder, has some statistical support-married men are much less likely than singles to kill people, crash the car, take drugs, commit suicide - though it overlooks such husbandly failings as domestic violence, child abuse, infidelity, and abandonment. If a man rapes his wife instead of his date, it probably won't show up on a police blotter, but has civilization moved forward? Of course, this view of marriage as a barbarian-adoption program doesn't explain why women should undertake it-as is obvious from the state of the world, they haven't been too successful at it anyway. (Maybe men should civilize men-bring on the Fab Five from Queer Eye!) Nor does it explain why marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples. The gay men and lesbians who want to marry doesn't impinge on the male improvement project one way or the other. Surely not even Gilder believes that a heterosexual pothead with plans for murder and suicide would be reformed by marrying a lesbian?
What about the argument of history? According to this, marriage has been around forever and has stood the test of time. Actually, though, marriage as we understand it - voluntary, monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only- is a pretty recent phenomenon. FOr much of human history, polygyny was the rule - read your Old Testament - and in much of African and the Muslim world, it still is. Arranged marriages, forced marriages, child marriages, marriages predicated on the subjugation of women - gay marriage is like a fairy tale romance compared with most chapters of the history of wedlock.
The trouble with these and other arguments against gay marriage is that they overlook how loose, flexible, individualized, and easily dissolved the bonds of marriage already are. Virtually any man and woman can marry, no matter how ill assorted or little acquainted. An eighty year old man can marry an eighteen year old; a john can marry a prostitute; two terminally ill patients can marry each other from their hospital beds. You can get married by proxy, like medieval royalty, and not see each other in the flesh for years. Whatever may have been the case in the past, what undergirds marriage in most people's minds today is not some sociobiological theory about reproduction or male socialization. Nor is it the enormous bundle of priviliges society awards to married people. It's love, commitment, stability. Speaking just for myself, I don't like marriage. I prefer the old-fashioned ideal of monogamous free love, not that it worked out particularly well in my case. As a social mechanism, moreover, marriage seems to me a deeply unfair way of distributing social goods like health insurance and retirement checks, things everyone needs. Why should someone's marital status determine how much you pay the doctor, or whether you eat cat food in old age, or whether a child gets a government check if a parent dies? Still, as long as marriage is here, how can it be right to deny it to those who want it? In fact, you would think that, given how many heterosexuals are happy to live in sin, social conservatives would welcome maritally minded gays with open arms. Gays already have the baby - they can adopt in many states, and lesbians can give birth in all of them - so why deprive them of the marital bathwater?
At bottom, the objections to gay marriage are based on religious prejudice. The marriage of man and woman is "sacred," and opening it to same-sexers violates it sacral nature. That is why so many people can live with civil unions but draw the line at marriage - spiritual union. In fact, polls show a striking correlation of religiosity, especially evangelical Protestantism, with oppostition to gay marriage and with belief in homosexuality as a choice, the famous "gay lifestyle." For these poeple gay marriage is wrong because it lets gays and lesbians avoid turning themselves into the straights that God wants them to be. As a matter of law, however, marriage is not about Adam and Eve versus Adam and Steve. It's not about what God blesses, it's about what the government permits. People may think "marriage" is a word wholly owned by religion, but actually it's wholly owned by the state. No matter how big your church wedding, you still have to get a marriage license from City Hall. And just as divorced people can marry even if the Catholic Church considers it bigamy, and Muslim and Mormon men can only marry one woman, even if their holy books tell them they can wed all the girls in Apartment 3G, two men or two women should be able to marry, even if religions oppose it and it makes some heterosexuals, raised in those religions, uncomfortable.
Gay marriage - it's not about sex, it's about separation of church and state.

Hopefully you all read this far. Let the discussion begin - if it will.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

I'm Baaaack!

Hello! I had such a blast in Colorado and seeing my family too. Some highlights:having lunch with Kay (barely! I was running out of time); liquid cocaine shot on Thursday night; seeing the entire city of Canon City from Skyline Drive on Friday night; white water rafting on Saturday - swimming down (sort of), falling off, getting psyched up for a Class IV that we weren't expecting; seeing Royal Gorge from a train that same day; petting a cute little beagle puppy on Sunday; playing with my niece and nephews and spending time with dad. Finally getting home and seeing Nick!!! I had a great time and it was a total blast. The people were funny, strange, cool, and just plain fun.

I got back and got my schedule - not sure how long I will continue at the Gap - not enough hours; so stay observant, I may not have that discount anymore. I am planning on really working on my thesis hard, so I can at least have a really rough draft - or most of my chapters done, by my birthday. I wonder who will remember when that is? :-) And in future posts, I will be posting articles from Katha Pollitt. So, that's an update on my life so far. I have to work tonight!

Monday, August 07, 2006

Trip

Well, I am off tomorrow for a week of fun...at least I hope it will be fun. I plan on seeing my dad and stepmom, my brother and sister-in-law and the kids and then off to Colorado with my younger sister to go white-water rafting and have a blast. Long drives, but totally worth it. I also got to see Alyssa, Kaylin and Judy this weekend. That was fun too! I am excited. My jobs seem to be going well...no huge paychecks or anything, but eventually, I will have steady income and some great clothes! That's really about it.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Jobs and stuff

I start training for my new job today- at the Children's Place. Should be interesting. Two hours of training and then 16 hours of work this weekend. Yikes! I just hope I am up for it. Talked to Jackie last night, and she gave me our itinerary for the trip to Colorado. We get to go white water rafting, and then gambling in Cripple Creek. I hope I win big! Ha! Sad news from Kansas though - my sister-in-law had a miscarriage; don't know much more than that, but I heard that she is doing okay. Nick saw John Kerry last Friday- here for a cancer symposium. Well, technically he saw just the back of his head, but it's still exciting. I know I would have been excited. I have been rereading the Harry Potter series, hoping to absorb as much as possible until next summer and the 7th year finally comes out. Oh, and I finished reading an interesting book of essays...read it if you are able to: it's called Jesus is Not a Republican. Really good book; some funny and thought-provoking essays. Well, that's really all. I'll post more later.