This heaven gives me migraine

Ugh. So I am curled up, in the dark, wearing my sunglasses so that I can look at the compy screen without puking. You know what this means, RQ has a migraine. A bad one.

I've been on the migraine train for a long fucking time. After rounds of expensive meds which never worked(when I had insurance, at the mo I am insurance-free, which is a nice way of saying FUCKED) the only things I can do are 1)hide because this level of pain makes me very not nice 2) take fist fulls of advil for the placebo effect 3) ban all light (though the thing they don't tell you is that being stuck in a quiet dark room for hours/DAYS is boring as fuck) and 4) do a face plant onto a hot water bottle.

I could write odes to my hot water bottle. Best fucking 11 dollars ever spent. Seriously. I almost gave it away to a homeless guy the other night, but by the time I came back downstairs with it(and soup and coffee and warm socks and homemade bread) I think he found a shelter to sleep in. So yay? I got to keep my hot water bottle baby.

But since all these measures only make me less likely to whip out the fucking powerdrill and put a lovely stress relieving hole through my temple, I am soliciting you, oh wise ones of the internet, for your best DIY migraine cures.

In the mean time, I am going to dream of the one drug that actually worked to kill my migraines when they are this bad- vitamin V for valium. I love you valium. I miss you valium. Someday, you and me valium, you and me.

So I have this conversation like 20 times

Me: "really, there is no stopping it. We are on the verge of serious societal collapse. Who you vote for doesn't make a damn bit of difference, neither party is really going to change anything"

Various other people: Then you should buy a gun. If it's really going to get that bad, you should have a gun.

Me: Some variation of "teenage boy in the house, blah blah blah"

VOP: No really you need a gun

Me: No really what I need to do is learn to grow some tomatoes

VOP: Then you should have a gun to protect them.

Now I am not a pacifist. I believe that self defense and defense of others are acceptable forms of violence. And I'm not even anti-gun, but again, teenage boy in the house. I wouldn't hesitate for a second to beat the shit out of someone hurting my kid, and I have gotten in the middle of strangers trying to hurt other strangers. But I have never had to go beyond angry screaming in those situations (but from other situations that I'm not in the mood to discuss, I know I wouldn't have a problem fighting back if it came down to it).

It does strike as a serious and not often enough discussed problem though that the VOPs in every one of these convos have all been 1)lifetime democrats and 2)Christian. I'm pretty sure that Jesus wouldn't have been so quick to defend a tomato plant from a hungry mob. But what the fuck do I know, I'm mostly an atheist at this point.

And then tonight I am watching The Story of India (pbs documentary) and it gets to the part about Ashoka and his conversion to Buddhism after the slaughter at Kalinga. Apparently his move towards non-violence involved a pretty severe police state because "It is difficult to make men do good".

No.Fucking.Shit.

But the problem lies in the "making" men (and as they put it in Doctor Who "women, undecideds, trees and multiforms")do good. Making someone brush their teeth doesn't always mean they are going to love the minty fresh feeling. What you have to do is understand that violence is as bad for those that commit it as it is for those they are violent to. It rots our brains and souls and hearts the same way plaque rots your teeth.

But again, I'm just a little almost atheist, agreeing with Buddha and Jesus on a bunch of shit that a vast majority of their followers don't get.

The TSA as a microcosm

Let's see....

So women, people of color, people with disabilities, people who are not Christian, or who are not USian, or who don't look USian enough, or who stand out in some way that doesn't read het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) and male have been complaining about the TSA since it's inception. Shut up and deal, it's for your protection that the government 1) treats you like a criminal 2)violates the constitution 3)if you don't do anything wrong there is no reason for you to be singled out.

And for a very long time, those of us at the bottom of the kyriarchy have been told pretty much the same things about everyday life here in the US. Shut up, you feminists ruin all our fun. If you (POC) don't want to be harassed by the police then don't act suspicious. If bad shit happens it's because you deserved it.

So it isn't much of a surprise that mass public outrage only occurs when it's a white dude and his junk at the airport. Same is true for our country, outrage only occurs (or is noticed) when tea partiers pout. Oh you poor het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) dudes.

And our government (or the lackeys that shill for it on the teevee) responds with the usual shit, "let's make things worse by going the corporatist route! Privatize!" Which might actually make things better for the het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) dudes, but the rest of us will probably have it worse. We all know how well private security firms treat women and brown people (coughKBRcough). But the het white dudes will get passed through by other het white dudes without much of a problem. And then the whole country can go back to feeling secure that only people who deserve it will have a stranger reach in their underwear.

But the underlying problem still exists. Less security (if you include the freedom from groping and peeping toms as security) and less freedom (now that getting on a plane makes for enough reasonable suspicion of criminal activity that the government can search your person).

And none of this security theater has ever caught a terrorist. It's missed at least 2 that we know of. What keeps us safe is good old fashioned intelligence and police work. Catch them before they ever get to the airport. The only reason to have security theater is to test just how much the American people are willing to put up with before they notice the boot on their neck. Keep scared, keep patriotic, keep the war on terror dollars flowing. No money for schools or medicine or roads, we've got scary brown people to kill and security theater to pay for.