Blog against Homophobia day

It's finally nice here so i am running off to the park to drink sangria out of nalgene bottles and eat homemade pasta salad and hummus with cukes.

So I don't have time to write a whole post on Blog against Homophobia day.

Instead see here for videos that will make you cry and here about the right to live love and fuck how you wish.

Gary rights obviously are about more than just the right to marry. It's still okay in many many many places to kill someone for being gay. Even here (google gay panic defense)

That's all for now luvkins. Enjoy your Saturday.

It's a blubby kinda night

It's the map, not the math!

A gallon of milk or a gallon of gas

This is what the Obamabots don't get.

Most people are rational creatures- even uneducated single moms

Over at Feminste the classism is alive and in full force.

It's the same load of crap I've heard forever.

I had the Kid a week before my 20th birthday. When I found out I was pregnant, I could have had an abortion. Actually most of my "friends" tried to push me into having an abortion.

But........

My mother had been diagnosed with a terminal illness 3 years earlier (she's still alive - I think she runs on anger and spite). I was working crappy minimum wage jobs. I didn't have the money for college.

I wanted my mom to see her first grandchild. (I was still under the impression that at some point I could do enough to make her love me) I also knew that I could get more financial aid for college with a baby and that it wasn't going to get any cheaper to have a child. At that point, waiting till I had established a career seemed ridiculous. I was printing t-shirts. There is no career path there. Having a baby at my age meant that 1) I still had a parent around to help me and 2) having a baby got me MORE access to an education, not less

So I ad the Kid. I started college when he was 6 months old and actually got more in financial aid and student loans than I had working. I made my schedule such that the Kid stayed home with his dad or my mom while I went to school at night so we didn't have to pay for childcare. And until Kid's dad rediscovered his love the crystal meth and tormenting me, I did well. When Kid's dad left, even though I only had a year of college under my belt, I went from making $5.50 an hour to $9.00 and by the time the Kid was 4 I was making 35k per year. (then Bush became president and the world went to shit).

There are a limited number of good jobs in the world. Period. Not everyone can be a white collar professional. But that doesn't mean that people in low paying jobs are failures. They do vital work. We could not live in a world where no one performs the shit jobs. And working a full time job should pay a living wage. Period. And having children while young or poor or uneducated is not a crime. It is, in fact, how the majority of people in the world have children.

So reading the comments at Feminste made me heartsick. Women, ostensibly feminists, who think that punishing someone with poverty for having children is acceptable don't strike me as much different than people who think women should be punished with children for having sex.

As for the minimum wage part of the argument- why should it be okay for ANY job to pay less than what is required to live on for full time work? I'll say here what I said there- a business that cannot afford to pay it's employees a living wage is a failing business. If a business could not afford to pay it's rent, we would not write into law a that businesses can pay less than the required rent. We would let the business fail so it's place could be taken by a business that can compete fairly.

Businesses that don't pay a living wage put more of a strain on society, not less. Sure, they provide jobs, but not jobs that pay enough for their employees to pay income taxes. And they increase the strain on social service agencies who then have to make up the difference with childcare subsidies and food stamps and health care.So they cost society more than they benefit it. Propping them up by keeping the minimum wage low and not holding them accountable for the strain they cause creates an unfair playing field for those businesses that can and do provide living wages (look at the difference between Wal-mart and Costco).

But we don't look at it that way. We look at raising the minimum wage as a charitable thing instead of as the right thing to do for the sake of the economy as a whole and business competition. The working poor doesn't need more charity, we need to be paid enough to live on as is fitting of working a full time job. There is no shame in being a minimum wage worker. There is shame though in being a business that would fail without being able to exploit your workers.

Friday Night Ear Candy

I've decided I like doing the single band music posts. So here is Jolie Holland- a girl who sounds like she's been drinking texas moonshine since the cradle. I love her.

Mad Tom of Bedlam (Kid loves this song and it's gruesome lyrics. So Do I)



Old Fashioned Morphine (This song made me run out and wiki Isabelle Eberhardt)



And last but not least- Crush in the Ghetto

Cynics really are just big mushy romantics at heart

So I've been watching videos of responses to the CA marriage equality ruling. I know, I'm a slutty girl who likes to put down marriage whenever possible (I have said that health insurance and citizenship are the only real reasons to get married).

But like most cynics- my cranky exterior just covers up my super tender mushy insides. So I've been tearing up, near sobbing, over the sweetness of the videos below.

First- from the courthouse steps



Then Ellen talking about marrying Portia. And I bet Ellen has the best wedding dance in history, she's got some moves.



This crusty cynic wishes all the happy couples a life full of all the legal rights they deserve.

Here's where I ask the fearless readers to do something icky for the Kid

As i mentioned, the Kid is studying the constitution and in a few weeks they are having debates on various topic. The Kid was going to do pro-gay marriage, but that got shot down by the principal (I think they didn't ant to make anyone take the anti-side).

Since the Kid, lovable moppet that he is, is perpetually late to his first class, he missed the sign up period and got stuck with.........

wait for it...........

wait for it.........


Arguing the pro side of governmental wire tapping.

Now he is my kid and we are nothing if not kick ass debaters. Even though we both shudder at the idea of wiretapping, we want him to win his debate.

So I need you darling readers to put on your best scary republican face and make like wiretapping is a good thing. We need 6 pro-wiretapping sources by Monday. We need good arguments. And I need your help cause I'm having a hard time bending my mind around it (don't forget- I'm already one of those people who gets chosen for "random" bag searches nearly every time I fly so I find it hard to be cheery at more forms of government invasion into privacy).

Help my kid kick ass and I will write a post on any topic of your choosing. Wanna hear about porn? Religion? My trashy sex life? Shameless confessions about anything. Help me and you get to read about whatever you want.

Sore Loser Whiners

I keep hearing the same line of shit from the Obots "Stop being a sore loser".

This is not a sports game, and that you are treating it like one goes straight to the heart of the problem with this entire campaign. You don't say "stop being a sore loser" to someone in the middle of a war. And that is what we are in the middle of- a political war.

We are not going to lose a silly bet or bragging rights by losing this primary season. We will lose the heart and soul of the democratic party and all of the values that have made this party great since FDR will be thrown out the window. We are fighting to have our voices and our lives count. We are fighting because our party has been the big tent forever, but in this election cycle more and more of us (women, the poor and working classes, minorities) are being shoved out into an open field in a thunderstorm. Just like in my little roof metaphor, only now it is people who are supposed to by our allies doing the shoving and trampling.

Our votes cannot and should not be disenfranchised, marginalized, our disrespected. Our votes are earned, for us women we worked a fuck of a lot harder to get them than any of the Blogger Boyz ever did. We even worked harder than African American men did, though we worked to get them their votes too (and got thrown under the bus for 70 years for our troubles). So when someone tries to threaten and bully us into voting against our own self-interests,we know exactly what we are giving up.

Votes are earned. And Obama has not earned our votes. He has casually and callously dismissed them. And to be honest, I can't see a moment when when there is enough water under the bridge for me to forgive that. You can't shove us into the down pouring rain and then threaten us with broken umbrellas if we don't agree with you. We're all ready wet. A little more water won't hurt us.

Dear Blogger Boyz

It's too late for flowers and candy.

Perhaps if your candidate hadn't spent the last 6 months being a misogynist douchebag things could be different.

Perhaps if he hadn't thrown everyone under the bus except for you, things would be different.

Perhaps if you all hadn't jumped on the Why won't the stupid bitch quit already campaign, things would be different.

Perhaps if you all hadn't spent the last three weeks declaring that the white underclass couldn't possibly have valid opinons and that they are all just racists, things would be different.

Perhaps.

But it's too late.

In fact, I think another post-sexual white woman said it best with this.

Women- Know Your Limits!

Compliments

One of my favorite questions to ask people is "What is the best compliment you've ever received?" It tells me more about the person than anything else.

So I've gotten a good share of compliments in my life. I'm a pretty girl, I don't think there is a body part that hasn't been complimented. While I love getting these kinds of compliments, they don't generally make it into my favorites list.

Until the other night when the Hot Bulgarian (now to be known as THBWTPSC- the hot Bulgarian with the porn star cock) said I have black cherry eyes. I love black cherries. I think that's awesome.

In lots of countries, people with my coloring, black hair and near black eyes, have a special name. Here, we don't even think of them as black eyes- they are brown.

Before THBWTPSC, my favorite compliment was that I am dynamic. I like that. I like the idea of being quick and powerful and a force for change.

So fearless readers- what's your favorite compliment?

Yay California!

As I've told you all, the Kid is studying the constitution in school and last week he had a debate about gay marriage in his classroom.

The Kid, being a child who has always been around gay people and who has a mom who falls pretty near the middle of the Kinsey scale, came out to me as straight when he was 8. Conversation went like this-



"So mom, I think I've got it figured out"

"What do you have figured out"

"There are men who love other men and they are gay"

"Yes"

"And there are men who love women and they are straight"

"Yes, and there are also women who love women and they are gay too"

"Okay, I think when I grow up I am going to be straight"

"Okay kiddo, but those aren't the only choices, there are people who love both men and women too"

And at that point I think gave his little 8 year old brain more info than it could handle. But I am told that it is pretty normal for kids who are around lots of gay and bi people to come out to their parents as straight (if that's what they are).

So we have been more than tolerant (tolerant implies being kind to people who you think are different- we think people are just people and should get to love who they want)in our home. And he of course took this into the debate with him.

But the interesting part was talking to him about the constitutionality of DOMA afterwards.

My favorite poly sci professor ever, Mac Murray, is an old school civil rights attorney. He's the one who enlightened me about how the gay marriage debate is finally going to end in this country. And I got to pass this little nugget onto the Kid.

In article IV is the full faith and credit act.This means that all states must give credit to the public and judicial acts of other states. This includes honoring the marriages of people married but moved to other states. Once we have states that have full legal marriage for gays and one of those couples moves to state that doesn't have full legal marriage, they can challenge on constitutional grounds. And if the Supreme court (where it eventually will end up) stays true to the constitution then gay marriage will HAVE to be allowed.

But it must be marriage. Domestic partnerships don't fall into the full faith and credit act. And as we all know, domestic partnerships are a half assed attempt at placating people without giving them real rights. It's the gay version of separate but (not) equal.

So yay California. Your supreme court's ruling that domestic partnership does not equal marriage puts us one step closer to that day when the Supreme Court says "a marriage in one state between gay people must be honored in all states".

And the Kid will be happy yo hear this when he gets home tonight.

Worst. Housewife. Ever!

I am a negative 10 on the housewife scale. But I could have told you that without the test.

Dear NARAL, a break up letter

I received this morning's email regarding your endorsement of Obama for president. All I can say is "et tu, NARAL?" Did ya drink the koolaid?

Since when has "some control over their own bodies" meant bodily autonomy. I already have "some" control over my own body. I choose what to eat and when to sleep and thankfully who I get to fuck. But NARAL, I counted on your political action to work towards getting me full bodily autonomy.

And now you've gone and endorsed a candidate who not only wouldn't know reproductive rights from a hole in the ground (No, seriously- he had to be reminded by an aid that voting to confirm Roberts wouldn't be good news for any of his female supporters because he just doesn't think about things that don't involve his penis) but he also thinks misogyny, race baiting and classism are viable campaign tactics. being that you are a POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE I would takes this to mean you think his political actions are just and good.

And for an organization whose stated goal's include electing pro choice candidates, I am surprised that you endorsed Obama who has in no manner, way, shape or form shown himself to be pro choice. He has shown himself to be dodgey with his "present" votes in the Illinois senate on the issue and changeable with his comments on parental notification. But so far there is nothing about him that says definitively- "I believe women should have the full rights to their own bodies that men have". Quite the opposite actually.

I applied to be one of you summer canvassers. Please tear up and or burn my resume. I will instead give my time and my money to PATH or Planned Parenthood or hell I'll just stand on the streets and hand out free condoms, but I will not support an organization for choice that supports candidates who want to restrict my right to choose.

Sincerely,

RQ

The One Where I Swing In and Lighten the Mood

I just had to.

He is, after all, dancing in Korean.

PS, RQ, how do I get it to not put that silly "Open Sesame" thing in my posts?

Sorry Kids

But I'm off to help a hot Bulgarian escape from the dungeons of Microsoft.

I know it's West Virginia Night ! w00t!w00t! eleventyone!1!111111!!!!!1 But since I will be too busy getting my groove on to fight trolls, comment moderation is on.

Instead I hope you will all enjoy these lovely Decemberists videos and come to understand why someday i will have Collin Meloy's hyperliterate lovechild. He's what Dickens would have been if Dickens was a rockstar.

O!Valencia


Sixteen Military Wives


Los Angeles I'm Yours!

Hey West Virginia!

Don't forget to vote!

So little known story about RQ when she was a tiny girl of about 2 involving the great state of West Virginia.

I had hippy parents who would buy antiques in the south and on the east coast for cheap and haul them back to California to be refinished and sold at a ginormous mark-up. During one of thee trips we lived in an old hotel in West Virginia that was on the Pony Express route. It was owned by my parents friends (who lived next door) and my dad was rehabbing it. There are lots of funny stories about my dad trying to live off the land and make possum stew (he got as far as skinning the thing before he gave up and drove us an hour and a half into town for MacDonalds) and about being chased out of the house by both bears and snakes. I learned to swim in the creek (crick) behind the house cause we didn't have indoor plumbing and that's how we took baths.

Now our friends were farmers, hippy farmers and I think you can guess what they grew. When they got arrested by the local sheriff for growing pot, the locals got in a bit of an uprage. How dare the law try to interfere with a man who was just using his own property to grow something for his own personal use.

So when I think of West Virginia, I think of those old locals and their deep understanding of property rights and freedom and how they could expand those rights to a dirty hippy when the law couldn't.

Obama may have written you off as hicks whose vote isn't worth anything, but I know that you don't write people off just cause they aren't the same as you. I saw it myself as a tiny tiny child.

Hey troll

I found you a home of your own (actually AG did it, but I don't think she'll mind if I play real estate agent to the Under the Bridge dwellers.)

Enjoy! I think it suits you perfectly.

Books- How they make us look smart

From Hoyden About Town comes this post about the 106 most often unread books

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

I didn't underline (just because I read it for school doesn't mean I wouldn't have read it otherwise) My list after the jump


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose

Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace I'm reading it now
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations

American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead Who with half a brain could finish this book? Aside from the incredibly stupid idea of objectivism, Ayn Rand is just a phenomonally BAD writer. It reads like fanboy rape fiction
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir Another really dumb book- I think anyone from a background of poverty could write this book, yet somehow we think Irish poverty is more noble and interesting that our own.
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being I HATE KUNDERA and am sad I read this.
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion Favorite. Austen. Ever!
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

"I don't believe that's true"

You all have heard me talk about the knee patting boys who try to explain the complicated and difficult world of politics to me, a fricken poly sci major for the love of gawd!

It happened again the other day when a couple of (male) students and I were talking about the VP spot and the line of succession for the presidency. When I said that Speaker of the House comes after the VP one of them said "I don't believe that's true" and "How would you know so much about it?"

Fucker.

So this article strikes a real chord with me.

Older men, younger men, men who are my students, men who are my "friends", seem to think that they know more about my chosen major than they do. And we're not talking complicated theory here. We're not talking changing philosophies. We're talking basic governmental rules.

And then someone(a dear friend who will read this at some point) when I explained why I am not a liberal but a progressive, did the internet version of the head pat and stated that it's because I'm young and can't remember that liberal wasn't always a bad word. No, it's because I'm educated as to the proper definition and I am not a free trade monkey- hence progressive and not liberal.

I know what I am talking about. I promise the vagina does not make me stupid, naive, or uninformed on the topics that I speak about. I am also perfectly capable of researching and establishing my own well informed opinions. (Same thing happens with music, I shit you not, and I am only a former insufferable music snob. I don't have time to keep up with it lately)

So for future reference- woman does not automatically equal less informed than you.

More Music- Calexico

After seeing Cake last night all I want to do is listen to other Spaghetti Western bands with horns.

So here's a few videos from the Spaghetti Western masters- Calexico

First- Crystal Frontier



And their most awesome cover of Love's Alone Again Or...



And the Ballad of Cable Hogue

Whose words are more inspiring?

The words of inspired diplomacy and human rights activism, or the words of misogyny and hate from The Precious and his cronies. You decide.

Via Tennessee Guerilla Women

We are more than just the sum of our vaginas

I heard form a friend who heard from a friend who heard from an Obamabot campaign employee that Obama is in negotiations with Hillary to give her the VP spot.

Apparently someone in the Democratic leadership figured out that you can't win an election if a quarter of your party refuses to support the nominee.

What they fail to realize is that we are not so blinded by our need for a vagina in the White House that we will see past Obama's serious failings just because he's decided to give our candidate the do nothing job of VP.

Hillary being Obama's number 2 mitigates as much of Obama's lack of experience, sexism, and messianic cultishness as Gore's being number 2 mitigated Bill's affairs or Cheeney's being number 2 mitigates Bush's entitled stupidity- in other words, not at all.

So should the Democratic party do something so obviously condescending - I am still voting for either McKinney or writing Hillary in.

On the other hand- if Mr Postage Stamp resume wanted to take the VP spot, spend a couple of years seeing how running a government is different than running a campaign for head cult leader president, I would have no problems. He is younger and less experienced. I would hate to see our highest office turned into the corporate cliche of the woman who has worked for decades becoming the number two to the bosses favorite nephew.

CAKE!

I didn't get your standard Mother's day brunch and card this year (thank gawd!). Instead I got free tickets to see Cake at the Paramount and then lots of boozy good times over pitchers of beer and greasy pub food. That is the best Mother's day present this Mother's day hating mom has ever recieved.

And I forgot just how many Cake songs fucking rock. So here's a few to remind you all.

I Want To Love You Madly (for a very special Farm Boy-should you be reading about yourself again)



And of course- How do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle ( I'm friends with the musicians or with the ushers- that's how I do it)Remember kids- excess ain't rebellion.



(BTW the above video makes me totally think of the college age Obamabots)

And finally, for Ms. Jay and her fab ghetto bootay. For taking me to the show here is a video just for her.



(I'm not actually kidding about the usher part- at one point I dragged Ms. Jay past the easiest entrance to our seats because "I may have taken that poor usher's virginity and then not called him back after he asked me if I played Halo")

Shameless Appropriation Time

From Sapphocrat at Lavender Liberal comes this amazing graph of Obamabots' "persuasion" tactics.

It reminds me of the wheel of violence and Anglachel's post.

Trolling and Male Privilge

Why are trolls almost always boys? Why, like rapists, can they not take no for an answer? Why don't they leave when you ask, demand, ban, block, and delete them?

Rotten Feminist knows why. And she is dead on right (resident troll take note- she describes you perfectly with these words)

He relies on assumptions and stalker-like tactics. He is indignant that we refuse to “hear his voice” either by ignoring him or out-right deleting his comments. And he operates with the attitude that he is right, and all other ideas are WRONG.

And now I have someone new to add to my google reader.

On Good Germans- Revisited

When you've got as many old blog posts as I do, you run the risk of repeating yourself, often. And I do that.

A long time ago I wrote a post to Jovial and Wonder about good Germans. Both are progressive Christians, you know the kind that actually follow Christ's teachings instead of using the bible as an excuse for greed and hate. The point of the post was that my disgust over the corruption of Christianity was not the fight they needed to have. The fight they needed to have was with those people who also called themselves Christians and then distorted the message so that ALL Christians get painted with the crazy paint.

And now I find myself in the position of the Good Germans.

My party has been taken over by a charismatic cult of personality.

And over and over again I am threatened, harassed, bullied, and extorted to put my support behind The One. For the sake of party unity, for the sake of the November elections, for the sake of the Supreme Court, for the sake of the war. I am being bullied into supporting someone who gives me more pause than even 100 years McCain. McCain is awful for sure, but he is not running as a transformative religious cult figure.

And I cannot be a Good German. I believe in my gut that Obama is more wrong for the democratic party and for our country as a whole than any candidate I can remember. He is the Reagan of the Democrats, and we all remember how truly awful the Reagan years were for anyone who wasn't white and male and American. Reagan is not a name anyone with real progressive philosophies would invoke in a positive light.

I understand those Dems who will hold their nose and vote for Obama for fear of the the supreme court or destruction of the party. But please understand, I cannot and will not be a good German on this. More than just the integrity of the party is at stake.

I cannot vote for someone who will use poor people, working people, brown people who aren't AAs, and women as scapegoats.

I cannot vote for a Demoratic party that has turned itself into the party of elite "liberal" thinkers.

I cannot vote for a Democratic party that is not inclusive of everyone.

And I will fight my own party tooth and nail to rescue it from the cultish turn it is taking. And if I cannot save my party then I will work my ass to find and create a viable alternative for all of us who have been shut out (again) from democracy.

If we don't fight it now, in the beginning when it is easiest, then the fight will get much more difficult later.