cough*ovaries*cough

"[A] one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of this country, much better. . . People are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off. Imagine if they had a leader."
-- Matt Damon

Matt Damon, I love you. I really do. But we had an option for a president with, well for the sake of equality let's call it spine or gumption or hutzpah or any name you can think of for gutsy fearlessness in the face of Republican fuckery. But you liberaldoodz couldn't bring yourselves to vote for the bitch (in the best sense of the word) in the pantsuit.

Now would Hills have been much different? Well we'd have a better healthcare plan, us ladies wouldn't need extra insurance in case of unwanted parasites, and that brief window when Dems had the Senate and the House would have be a magic hour of Bitches Getting Shit Done.

We'd still have multi-wars and drones and a good deal of corporate fuckery. But I'm realistic in who runs shit. The Obama fanboys are less so.

via Tennessee Guerrilla Women

Christmas Music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are y'all ready for some fucking Christmas cheer? Are your eggs nogged? Gifts wrapped? Do you need some inspiration because you have 9 dozen cookies to bake and wrap into adorable gift baskets in the next 32 hours and they have to look and taste fucking awesome because their for your boyfriend's family who you haven't met yet? And OMG you still have presents to wrap and laundry to do and packing and a real job and and and and and.

What you (I) need is some inspiration ( or a nice Valium Adderal cocktail) so here is some music to get through the holidays with.

My favorite all time Christmas song (it has nothing to do with my dysfunctional childhood at all. NOOOOOOOO. It has absolutely nothing to do with the screaming tantrums thrown by the only adult member of the family when holiday pressures inevitably got to be too much. NOOOOOOO. Stop head shrinking)is The Ramones- Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight with you)


It's just not Christmas without the Waitresses


Or the Kinks


Or Erasure


Or XTC


I used to include the Pogues' Fairytale of New York in this list. I mean common, Kristy MacColl sings on it. But there is a homophobic slur right in the middle of the song that jolts me every time I hear it. And if I won't let people make excuses for the stupid racism in Breakfast at Tiffany's then I really can't let homophobia slide even if I love the dead singer of the song super hard. So no more.

Now the worst Christmas song ever, hands down, is Do They Know It's Christmas. That colonial sack of bullshit- ugh. Boyfriend and I were in the grocery store last night and I pointed out that song was playing. His response was "Oh is that why I suddenly feel sad and angry all at once?" (That dear readers, is one of the reasons why I love him.) Anyways- enjoy this hilarious line by line take down of the song.

Your turn- hit me with your Christmas songs, best and worst.

This shit is what I mean when I say I hate Volunteerism- Butchy Feminist Mom edition

Like there's any other version of me besides Bitchy Feminist Mom.

Fair warning- links to Jezebel.

Women, mothers in particular, but women generally, are the people expected to fill the hole when the state fails. And the state fails when it comes to educating children All.The.Fucking.Time.

So if you have a child, you're all ready familiar with the barrage of (3rd shift?) work, called "volunteering", that's required (not so voluntary- is it). When kid was still in public elementary school it was the annual fundraising auction that raised enough money to keep class sizes small. Think about that. Parents, mostly mothers, performing enough unpaid work and donating enough hard earned dollars to do a thing that education experts have been saying since time began is necessary to properly educate children. There are also the "harass your friends, neighbors and coworker" campaigns of selling popcorn or cookies or candybars or wrapping paper. And then there's the "make something for the bake sale, arts and crafts fair, auction" where it's again women's labor, time and cash required to fill a hole left by the state.

FUCK THAT.

You will notice, in the link above, that no one is chastising dads for bringing store bought cookies. On the few occasions I've seen dads show up to these things, they are heaped with fawning praise and batted eyelashes for doing the same, or less, than the women have by the same women who've done the fucking work.

FUCK THAT

Now for the historical. You know why the nuclear family became the ideal instead of inter-generational families or matriarchal families or any of the other thousand versions of families that exist. Nuclear families leave the ladies free to volunteer their unpaid labor when the men are around to get paid. Period. Unpaid labor is required for a functional capitalist society (cause let's be honest- a good fucking giant portion of the labor that is paid isn't necessary to society. Making copies and mastering spreadsheets doesn't do a god damn thing for society. If it did, it would be paid at the same levels that daycare workers and CNAs make).

FUCK THAT

So when some deluded little shitface whines about mothers not making cookies from scratch to fill the state shaped hole left at her kid's elementary school- IT'S THE FUCKING PATRIARCHY using that deluded little shit face like a puppet.

And fuck her for letting it. No- I don't have to be nice about that. She gets all the little head pats she wants form the patriarchy all ready.

Just FYI- it ain't no joke that unpaid internships are becoming a giant drain on society. Once the kyriarchy has mastered getting half the population to do for free the necessary jobs to maintain society, what's to keep you white, middle class, middling boys from the same fate? Free labor is good for the bottom line, after all. This shit is all related and it all comes from the same rotting sewage dump of OPPRESSION! If any one of us and out labor is not considered worthwhile, then all of our labor can be considered worthwhile. No one is safe unless they have the money to buy their way out. If you're reading this- you don't have that kind of money and you never ever will.

Intuition, that nagging feeling that can't be exactly explained sometimes.

So there's this person, not a friend, kind of an acquaintance, that I have a vague icky feeling about. I can't exactly say why, it's just a vague icky feeling.

(Well maybe I could say.*)

Anyways, after 36 years on this planet, having read Gavin de Becker, and 10 years of therapy- I have learned to trust the nagging feeling. Even on little shit. And that's no small feet. The therapy was partially to learn how to not be hyper aware of everybody and all their motives for every fucking thing, a problem not uncommon in children with abusive parents. But the problem with that is that you start believing in sinister motives for stupid shit, when really that person who is currently vexing you probably was just run of the mill thoughtless or forgetful or whatever. So yes, the therapy helped me to judge when someone is just being human, and when someone is a shithead you should avoid.

So this nagging feeling, it's not Stranger Danger levels of nagging. It's more "Oh this is a person I really don't want to have to deal with often."

Because of the therapy, I am very specific about why I do or do not like things. I can tell you why sweet pickles are the food of the devil. It's not just that they taste bad (and they do- cloying gross sweet pickles) but that they fake you out. You're thinking "Oh pickles! Yay!" and then instead of salty-sour awesome your get mouth full of gross. Sweet pickles lie.

It has made more than one person mad at me for being so specific in my dislikes, btw. Apparently people are shocked that opinionated me has such clearly defined opinions on every fucking thing. Wevs, people. Get over it.

So when I encounter something new that I don't like, like a TV show or a book or a band or a person, I work really hard at figuring out the whys and hows of my dislike. Sometimes I can't explain it right away, but eventually it crystallizes. This happens a lot when watching TV shows, I'll have a vague sense of icky and then whammo! sexism or racism or some ism happens that makes it clear that I was feeling icky cause the people who made the show are assholes.

This is turning into a long, rambly post. Oops. But I haven't posted in a while and I don't have the time to do a "Fuck all y'all. I was right about Obama being a misogynist asshat- look at what he did with emergency contraception" post. (Oh look- there I just did it). Feel free to drop your thoughts about intuition and/or Obama's fuckery into comments.

*And yes, now that I've taken 5 minutes to think about it- I know exactly why this person annoys me. It's a certain kind of regressive femininity, which while I understand why it exists- I DO NOT LIKE. AT ALL.

I've always worked, and I've almost always been really fucking poor

Newt Gingrich, professional shitface and the architect of the Rethuglikan Revolution of 1995, wants to bring back child labor because....

"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits for working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday."

I had my first job at 12, cleaning timeshares for a friend's parents. It was part time, a few hours on the weekends, at minimum wage and under the table. It had to be. I don't think I was legal to work.

My next job, at 13, was busing tables over Winter Break at Squaw Valley Ski Resort. I got to see what sexual harassment was at that job from the 20 something fucknugget kitchen manager who liked to tell me how sexxxay I was and how I "totally didn't look 13".

My next job was over Summer Vacation at 14, again cleaning timeshares, but now fulltime. I made 5 bucks an hour was fucking stoked at the end of the summer when I had enough money to buy all my own school clothes going into high school and could buy whatever frivolous 50 dollar pair of jean I wanted.

By 17, I had graduated to entry-level office work. It was nice not cleaning up other people's food or used condoms.

Since I turned 18, I have never gone more than a few months without some kind of paid work, except when the kid was a newborn and we lived off student loans and Pell Grants for a brief period of time while I went to school. Even the last few years, I had the tiny monies I made writing this here blog when traditional work wasn't available.

I had a mother who worked from the time I was tiny until her health prevented it when I was a teenager.

And Kid, well I don't want the Kid to feel financially responsible for us, which is so easy to do when you're a super fucking poor kid with a job (cough, cough). So I haven't pushed him to get work. Now that we are semi-flush, he gets an allowance for doing the housework that I can't do because I am at work all day. He did some of the same stuff without an allowance before, but I think it's important he knows that housework is valuable. Though since we are, for now, semi-flush, if he wanted to seek outside employment I'd be okay with that.

So I don't know who the fuck Gingrich is talking about when he says poor kids have no habits of working and nobody around them that works. I'm thinking that he must live on another planet, one with a social safety net. Cause that ain't how the real world looks. And if I am not mistaken, (and I'm not) Gingrich was part of the whole Welfare reform bullshit. So even kids whose moms are on Welfare see their moms go off everyday to sit in a fucking government office and be lectured to by asswipes in exchange for cash and foodstamps that total less than half the poverty line.

But that's just the fucking facts. Let's look at what re-instituting child labor might mean for a country with an official unemployment rate of almost 10 percent (actual closer to 20). You would flood the market with even more people, willing to work for even lower wages. Those 18 to 30 year-olds with the highest rate of unemployment across the generations- fuck you. Businesses can now hire a 16 year old for lower wages and no benefits because that kid's parents are still legally required to provide them.

Yeah, that will make things better.

And we won't even talk about how much better our society will be when the illiteracy rate shoots back up because it's now ok to hire 5 year-olds to pick crops. They don't have to stoop so far to pick the tomatoes, you see they are short. And they aren't so good at organizing unions. They don't know who to tell when their boss is telling them their 13 year-old tits are hot.

But then, that whole "can't complain, can't sue, can't organize" thing would be feature and not a bug to a douchenoodle like Gingrich.

RQ Cooks: The Best Stuffing You've Ever Stuffed In Your Face

For a long time, I thought I was incapable of making stuffing that was yummy. I figured that since my drunk turkey was the bomb, if was ok if I was stuffing deficient. But the truth was, I was trying to make stuffing for vegans using shit stuffing mix from Trader Joe's (FYI NOTHING GOOD EVER COMES FROM TRADER JOE'S. DON'T BUY SHIT THERE).

Once I gave up on satisfying the vegans and using crap stuffing mix, the stuffing got drastically better. The rules of stuffing are this: keep it simple, don't cook it in the bird, and use tasty animal products.

What you need:
(This is to make a huge amount of stuffing. You can easily halve it to go with a chicken dinner or wevs)

2 packages of cornbread stuffing (Pepperidge Farm is good. This year I used some box of something else that was on sale. It was good too. )
celery
onions
parsley
sausage (I use 2 rolls of Jimmy Dean Sage sausage. But I have also made sausage from scratch using ground pork and that was so fucking good)
sage
poultry seasoning
thyme
salt pepper
chicken stock (Better Than Bullion is the awesomest. I can do stock from scratch but this way easier)
Butter (read the stuffing package to see how much you need)

In a large saucepan, brown the sausage over low heat so you can render out as much fat as possible.

When sausage is cooked, remove from pan with slotted spoon and set aside.

Add a wee bit of oil back into the pan to supplement the sausage grease that's all ready in there

Turn heat up.

Add diced onions and celery. I use a whole thing of celery, including the leaves and saving the end bit to make stock later. Also I use 3 large yellow onions. Cook till onions are translucent. Add spices. Lots of spices. Then add the sausage back in.

Meanwhile, in a great big fucking bowl, pour in stuffing mix. Add chopped parsley (I use 2 bunches of curly parsley, but flat leaf is fine too). Melt butter in microwave. Measure out stock according to package directions.

Put onion & sausage mix in bowl with stuffing. Mix. Then add your stock and melted butter. Mix again. Taste. Add spices if needed. You really can't go wrong with poultry seasoning the hell out of it. Really. And don't forget the pepper. That little bit of bite is important.

Loosely pack the whole mix into a giant lasagna pan. Bake, uncovered, in a 350 oven for 45 minutes.

And that is stuffing so good people will whisper "It's better than my....." It's also super fucking easy, so yay.

I promised someone a funny Thanksgiving post

So after the kitchen was destroyed and everyone was lounging with full bellies and much booze, the cheesy movie marathon started. First we watched the Thanksgiving classic, Cannibal the Musical. Nothing like cannibalism as portrayed by the South park dudes to cap off a night ritual animal slaughter plus pie.

Then we watched this bit of awesome and awful. They broke the budget on lame (that's la- may, not lame) fabric in this film. This film was steam punk and tricked out mopeds before hipsters were born.



The end of the movie even includes a timely hippies in the park, police with riot gear sequence to remind us all that protesting and anti-protesting are timeless. Plus the whole movie made in 1980 about the wild future of 1994 being watched in 2011 gave me the chance to whip out my Werner Herzog impression "Are we looking at the past looking the future that is really our past?"

Now excuse me while I go nurse my hangover with turkey and pie.

Thanksgiving Day Massacre

Well that explains Tuesday's rage-a-thon. Motherfucking communist invasion fuckers. On a day where I cannot possible spend my time curled up in a moaning ball of pain clutching a hot water bottle and keeping multiple layers of towels between me and all upholstered furniture. No, I have to go cook a fucking turkey.

And the birth control pills that are supposed to regulate this shit- not working. Pre-pills I did not get all PMS ragey. I maybe cried over a sappy commercial. So far the only BC benefit I get is actual birth control. I also get pimples, ragies, seriously lowered libido, and periods that are no shorter (7 days) or lighter, or more scheduled, than pre- pills. Plus I still get the cramping, nausea, and fevers that my fucking period brings.

This is going to suck.

I am, obviously

in a foul fucking mood.

Enjoy some fucking Elliot Smith. This is expert level pissed-offed-ness.

It's a Question of Trust

The other day on ye old book of the face, I had a conversation with an old Elizabitchez commenter from the way back about the Occupy Movement's little racism/sexism problem (also ableism is a huge issue, but that wasn't a specific part of the convo). Since I haven't gotten said commenter's permission to post hir part of the back and forth, I'm just gonna quote myself.

"Well hell, if I had to face racism and sexism along with the possibility of getting arrested, I'd just stay home and read a book. Wait, that might be mostly what I've done".

Cut to today and I find this link via Shakesville.

OH FUCK YOU OCCUPY CHICAGO! FUCK YOU!

Some of us have been putting up with a rigged system since birth. Some of us have been fighting that rigged system since we first learned to say "But it's not fair!" while stomping our tiny feet. Some of us have been writing, screaming, arguing, losing friends over and making family dinners uncomfortable since FOR FRICKEN EVER talking about politicians who just don't give a flying fuck and two Americas and and and. And a some of us knew Chicagoan now President Obama was a shitface long before you cast your stupid ballots for hope and change in 2008.

SO FUCK OFF. WE'VE BEEN DOING THE WORK TO CHANGE SHIT SINCE LONG BEFORE YOU GOT YOUR FIRST UNEMPLOYMENT CHECK.

And now you want us to join you. Us, the always poor, the female, the brown and the black, the disabled, to join you.

We've heard that schtick before and we don't buy it anymore. You want our labor for your revolution, but you ain't gonna get it till you've shown you're trust worthy. Are you the same douchenoodles who, during the 2008 primaries, made rape threats when we said "Hey 99 problems but a bitch ain't one is a sexist dogwhistle" (not even a dogwhistle- pretty blatant sexism actually) or pointed out that y'all only seem to give a shit about reproductive rights when your beating us over the head with the idea that "Republicans are worse"? Why yes, you are. Fuck you. We're not coming to you damn revolution until we can trust you. And so far, we can't.

You wanna do something revolutionary? How about you throw out a little bone to us ladies (no not that kind of bone. Zip your pants up. This is what I mean by bullshit.) and perhaps make Obama's little come together meeting with the Catholic Fucknuggets, I mean Bishops, over the right to deny women birth control a tiny part of your protesting. Or you know, don't. I don't expect you all to pull your head out of your ass, to be honest. I've seen this shit too many times and I am really fucking tired of being right about it. I just don't trust you, Occupy, to give a flying fuck about anyone who isn't (formerly) middle-class, white, and male.

Inappropriate Conversations with Children- for when you can't be ass to write a real post

Me:Did you take your medicine?

Kid:Yes

Me: All the doses at all the times

Kid: (making growling teenage face) Yes mother

Me: Cause if you don't take it all you could get an infection and then DIE

Kid: Yes mother

Me: And then I would have to kill myself so I can follow you into the afterlife and nag at you "See what happens when you don't take drugs!!!!" (FYI, the afterlife has extra punctuation to spare. So I used a could extra exclamation points).

Kid: changing the subject, put on sweet voice "Would you like me to get you some soda?"

Me: Yes please (makes shift eyes around the room. Where is his bottle of antibiotics? hmmmmmmmmmm)

What's a person gotta do to get arrested in this joint?

Apparently, break the entire world economy = get a fat bailout from the Fed.

But be a poor single mom with a drug conviction and lie to get food stamps for your 2 little kids (cause bad druggies don't get food stamps, fyi) and you get 3 years in jail. Oh and lose you kids.

A quick googling and minimal math skills tells me that the maximum amount of food stamps she could have gotten if she received them for an entire year is $6312 (The max allotment for a family of 3 is $526 multiplied by 12).

Here's the thing- even if she received 10 times that amount, shit one hundred times that amount, and sold whatever she didn't use, she still wouldn't be fucking over anyone. Food stamps aren't even cash. They are an imaginary currency unit created by the government to restrict the spending of the poorest of the poor to pay only for food. The fed makes money. The fed makes food stamps. But unlike when Wall Street banksters take fed money and pocket it, food stamps go right back into the economy. They pay for grocery stores (and the clerks that work in them) and farms and factories (and the laborers who pick, pack and process the food).

So you've gotta wonder, what exactly are the government's priorities when they prosecute a poor person for surviving while bailing out a rich person who needs no help putting food on the table?

TRIGGER WARNING: About that unpleasantness at Penn State

TRIGGER WARNING: (child rape, extreme entitlement, rampant stupidity)

There are lots of things you can say about the unpleasant news from Penn State.

This, in my not-so-frigging humble-opinion, is the most appropriate. (There are plenty of extremely close runners-up. Like this. And this.)

If I hear one more tearful student or alum or bigshot talking about Penn State's healing, I'm going to make Hothead Paisan look like a genteel grandmother in a Victorian parlour. The victims come first, second, third, ad infinitum, bitches.

Pardon Me If I Can't be Bothered To Give A Rats Ass

The Kid has another abscessed tooth. This is what 10 years of medicaid dental gets you. His face is swollen. He's throwing up. He's in mountains of pain. He's cranky (and let me tell you, Kid is normally the chillest person in the room, cranky doesn't happen with him unless things are extreme). I am a sympathetic puker, so in addition to the giant hot rock of guilt turning my stomach, I am nauseous to boot.

But we finally have dental. Real dental. Not the "only for extractions done by a one or two providers in a 500k population metro area" medicaid dental. Not the "sometimes kids die of toothaches because they are poor" medicaid dental. Real dental, with deductibles and co-insurance that doesn't cover as much as it should but covers more than the nothing of medicaid. If I get up really early and start calling around, I may get lucky and find a dentist in our plan that can take him. If I clean out my tiny savings account, I might be able to pay for it. I was hoping we could make it to January 1 before using the dental, so I could skip this year's deductible. Oops. And we won't talk about how I am gonna have to call into work tomorrow. I'm going to push the fact that there were people let go last week out of my mind. I am going to cross my fingers and hope that taking a day off for a sick kid isn't going to put me next on the list of expendable employees.

This is a kind of violence. Economic violence. A thing that causes actual, physical harm to an actual living being. Kids not being able to go to the dentist because they don't have the right parents. That's violent. Hell, anyone not being able to see a dentist because that shit is expensive is a kind of violence. Parents skipping meals to stretch out the food budget to maybe last to the end of the month is a kind of violence. Choosing between drugs that keep you alive or paying the heating bill in the dead of winter is a kind of violence. Slow, creeping, scarier than anything Hollywood could come up with violence.

So while you're all throwing hissy fits about property damage, I'm gonna go deal with the inevitable outcomes of economic violence done to the poorest of us. Yeah broken windows suck. But I'd rather lose every single thing I own than have my kid suffer one more second of pain. Graffiti my door, piss on my sofa, steal my last dollar. That's all just stuff. My door doesn't feel pain. My sofa doesn't feel pain. My wallet doesn't feel pain. That's property damage. And having literally lost every damn thing that I own in the not so distant past, I am familiar with what losing everything feels like. It sucks. But it didn't end us.

And I just can't be bothered to give a rat's ass about property damage. Not when a real, live human being is sitting next to me in agony because he had the misfortune to be born to a poor woman in a time when things matter more than people.

Sunday Funnies

I freely admit that spending family tv watching (well internet) time watching almost exclusively BBC stuff is probably warping the child's brain. Probably. Since we've run through the only American shows he'll watch with me (Eureka and Warehouse 13) and Doctor Who is over and we've watched Torchwood America: Now with more graphic but strangely less sexy gay sex. So we needed something.

That Mitchell and Webb Look seems to be filling the bill at the moment.

One of these things is not like the other: Vandalism vs Violence

Let's get one thing straight, shall we.

Vandalism is not equal to, the same as, or even remotely like, violence. One is damage to property, inanimate objects that have no feelings what so ever. One is damage to people.

Graffiti, which may be the oldest form of political expression being that it is at least 2000 years old, is just that, political expression. Even when it's just some kid, who is probably not old enough to vote, leaving his or her tag on a wall somewhere. I love graffiti. Graffiti is not violence.

Window smashing, while scary and loud and full of breaky glass, is not violence. It is property damage.

Property is theft, and pardon me while I quote the Marquis de Sade: "Tracing the right of property back to its source, one infallibly arrives at usurpation. However, theft is only punished because it violates the right of property; but this right is itself nothing in origin but theft."

In order to get the elites to release their stranglehold on the rest of humanity, the elites must scared. Yes, scared. That's an ugly truth, but it is truth none the less. And to scare them without committing acts of violence means that they must be afraid of something else, loss of property. And they should be afraid of that. They should be shaking in their boots, unable to sleep at night, haunted by the ghost of Jacob Marley in the wee small hours telling them to repent.

We know what violence looks like at the Occupy sites. It looks like cops pepper spraying young women behind a barricade. It looks like war vets getting skulls crushed and spleens lacerated by "non-lethal" weapons. It looks like douchebags rapists who rape women in tents. Violence causes actual harm to the bodies of actual people and is generally performed by those with power over those with less.

Vandalism is acts of destruction done to pieces of property done by those with less to property owned by those with more.

These things are not the same, and should never, ever be uttered in the same breath as if they were.

Outlook Police

My French Microsoft Outlook has this menu item:

It turns out that in French police has two meanings:

• Cops
• Font

I had been wondering why Outlook was offering to call the cops on my email. I thought I had the Microsoft Outlook Feminist Blogger Edition.

"We should raise a statue to Nafissatou Diallo"

The tale of Dominique Strauss-Kahn gets worse and worse. In mid-October the story broke that a dozen people, including hotel management, police officials, business executives and underworld figures, were placed under investigation for running a prostitution ring out of the Carlton Hotel in Lille. According to the testimony of at least one woman, France's leading sex addict was a customer, both in Paris and Washington, right up to his final stay at the Sofitel. One police official has been taken into custody and questioned about a trip to Washington in which prostituted women were trafficked to the US for DSK.

The distinctive feature of this episode--besides the wide scope and the involvement of police--is that it has come to light afterthe Socialist primary. The chilling realization has crept over his erstwhile supporters that had he not been knocked out of the race by his arrest in New York there is an excellent chance he would have won the nomination and then brought this shit storm down upon himself and the entire party. They plead ignorance and are livid with him for endangering their careers and the election. Even his staunchest allies have dropped him like a ton of bricks and are saying on the record that they never want to hear of the guy again.

Nafissatou Diallo single-handedly saved the French Socialist party. That same party would not be saved by its own officials, who willfully overlooked what it knew of its leading prospect's increasingly vile behaviour out of fear and misogyny. Le Monde report that Socialists are saying, "We should raise a statue to Nafissatou Diallo."

Totally Appropriate Conversations With Children

So I am hanging up this way rad poster the T.O.E. sent me in the bathroom, while Kid is washing out a trash can that got rank in the bathtub. The poster is a French Feminist poster of a line drawing on the monds pubis and in French it reads (I think) "The Place of Pleasure".

Me: Is it going to totally mortify you if I hang up this poster in the bathroom?

Kid: No

Me: It's a drawing of naughty bits- that's not going to embarrass you?

Kid: (makes familiar teenage groan of annoyance) You raised me. Do you really think that I would be mortified by that?

Me: True. I raised you. But you are at that age where the mere existence of parents is embarrassing and you live in the house too. You get to have a say in what goes in it.

Kid: That's a good philosophy. I like that everyone who lives in a place gets a say in it.

Me: You know, there are people who think kids should not be allowed to have opinions at all. That whole "Children should be seen and not heard" shit.

And that is how it rolls in Casa de Elizabitchez. Also T.O.E should explain the significance of the poster because it's rad.

LinkFarming! Now with more something!

Yeah, I am out of pithy titles. Wevs. Enjoy the fruits of my reading.


It's different for brown kids.

It's still different for brown kids


It's different for WOC too

Well it's different for anyone of color, really


But ain't it always a woman's fault?

But at least we can all agree, Goldman Sachs is the unwashed taint of the financial sector.

And everyone's favorite new blog crush explains how Establishment Fauxgressives are trying to frame the Occupy movement as capitalism's savior.

What else should I be reading?

Saturday Random Music

Once upon a time people hit shuffle on their MP3 players on Fridays and posted the first 10 songs to pop up.

I lost all, well most, of my digital music in the last few years. So instead I am starting a new tradition. Post the last 3 songs to play on Pandora or whatever music thing you got. On Saturday. Cause we're rebels like that.

Blame it on T.O.E. or We Need An Eye Candy Post

You know that feeling...

when you need to sneeze, but you can't. Or you're this close to orgasm but you just can't.

I've got a big swirly post making its way through my head and it's not ready yet. And I can't seem to write anything else while this takes over my brain cells.

So in the meantime, enjoy the fabulous writing of T.O.E. and/or head over to the Elizabitchez tumblr where I reblog funny pictures and critique the bad or outdated geography of the 90's Animaniacs' Nations of the World song.

We see movies

Michel Petrucciani:

• He: "Great jazz!"
• She: "Fucking sociopath."

Ides of March:

• He:  "I learned you can lose an election and make a million dollars year consulting on K street."
• She: " I learned you can rape a woman and drive her to suicide and you can just get another one and no man will ever be held to account."

Michel Petrucciani, afflicted with a rare bone disease, was one of jazz' leading pianists until his death at 36. The documentary film of his life portrays clearly how he used and tossed a series of women. Avoid.

The Ides of March is political junky George Clooney's self-indulgent TV-caliber fllm about dirty deeds in a presidential campaign. Virulently misogynistic. Avoid.

Happily, "Chicken with Plums" (Poulet au prunes), the new Marjan Satrapi movie, is coming out. And if "Where do we go now?" (Et maintenant, on va où? ) is playing anywhere near you then move heaven and earth to see it. It's moving, hilarious and has the most satisfying scene of a woman straightening men's shit out ever consigned to film.

Occupy Everywhere- I really want to love you but you make it SO DAMN HARD

Occupy Sacramento in chaos because dudely types decide NOT to announce a fucking sexual assault at the damn protest.

Look, I keep thinking I am done writing about the new, stupid, sexist shit that could possibly be going on at the Occupy protests. But no.

It's not fucking revolutionary to dismiss sexual assault, practice sexism, ignore women etc. It's the same old same old same old. (It required an extra same old, it's that fucking old).

H/t to Jack Crow. And the reason why we ladies keep y'all around is because we are your mothers and daughters and girlfriends and wives. There is no escaping a world with men in it. How can I hate all men when I am raising one? Or in love with one? But there's a whole fucking mess of them that I wouldn't cry if they fell off a cliff (cough-Julian-Assange-cough-President-Strong-Supporter-of-Women-cough-Harry-Reid-cough-etc-cough).

Sunday Night Music

Kasabian- Underdog

They invited that rapey shitface to speak?

Really? Seriously?

This is the money quote:

When will we start to understand that any movement which asks women to put up with sexism as a sacrifice for the group, as if sexism isn't part of the problem, is doomed to fail? It's no accident - or secret - that women make up the majority of the world's poor and that women are being hardest hit by the financial crisis.

It ain't radical and new if it's built on the same old same old, let's change the world, I'll give the speeches, and write the theories, and you make the coffee and iron my shirt, honey buns.

Fuck. That. Noise.

Inappropriate Conversations With Children- Meaty Goodness Edition

We got a giant, I mean the entire side of a cow, london broil for super fucking cheap that was going to go bad if it didn't get made RIGHT THIS FRICKEN SECOND. And it's Friday, and I am sofaking tired that I didn't even know it was Friday till lunch. I thought it was still Thursday. I think I've lost and entire days worth of sleep this week and now the days all blerge into one (blerge is a technical term, look it up. Or don't. Really don't)

So I convinced Kid to make the London Broil by shouting directions from my prone position on the couch. And Kid did an amazing job. Then I showed him how to slice it on the diagonal .

Kid: I like doing this!

Me: What, slicing meat? Slicing meat is awesome.

Kid: NO! COOKING MEAT!

ME: Yes, cooking meat makes you feel like king/queen of the world. Like "I am the ruler and cooker of the flesh!"

Kid: As long as it's not human flesh.

Me: OH when the end times come it will be human flesh!!! Muwhahaha

And not exactly off topic, someone needs to print up some bumper stickers that say "Save a cow, eat a banker"

Help Or Hurt

Oh Charles, you bring up the most amazing shit

ETA: MAybe this link will work? Since the one above is not.

When the Kid was too small for grand complicated explanations, I used to ask him "Kiddo, is this gonna help or is this going to hurt?" Does it help if chores go unfinished or hurt? Does it help when you leave a trail of filthy socks all over the living room for me to pick up, or does it hurt? You get the idea.

So since the whole dust up over Hot Chicks of OWS, you gotta ask "Does this guy help or hurt the Occupy movement?" And the straight up truth is that he hurts it. He hurts it my making women feel less safe and therefore less equal. He hurts it by making women leery of throwing their energy into something that is only as radically changed as "nice tits, make me a sammich". And it hurts OWS because it invites the dudebros in, more of those same shitfaces who will shout you down and mansplain and accidentally* grab your ass.

And while us ladies get it, for the most part, that this is hurtful, we need you guys to get it too. We need you calling this shit out because the hurtful ones are the same fuckers who will get in our face and ask if it's that time of the them month when we call them out. But they might listen to you. And even if they didn't listen, we'd hear, finally, that some of you all are on the side of help.

That makes a mountain of difference. So when you're sitting there, either occupying a park or occupying this grand park of the interwebs, ask yourself if what you're doing is helping or hurting. Are you helping by being silent in the face of douchebaggery? Are you helping when trying to play Devil's advocate to explain how the douchetocracy works? Are you helping make the world a better, safer, more equal world for everyone, including us 51% of the population? Or are you doing harm?

As usual, standard disclaimer that silence and or commiseration with people who are racist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, etc etc etc is also hurtful instead of helpful.

Comment Policy

It has been updated. Look to your right!

If it looks like a fuckwad and smells like salad dressing

It's probably a DOUCHE!

Proving that us panty-wadded ladies weren't wrong, the shitface behind Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street likes to make rape jokes on facebook.

And you know, I am not at all surprised. There was never a brief moment where I thought "maybe the douche-defender who thinks us complaining feminists are just jealous of those beautiful women is right. Maybe I've had it wrong this whole time and street/internet harassment is really a compliment." Because I fucking know better. Because I have lived in this world for 36 damn years as a member of the fuckhole class. Because even with grey hair and a fat ass I still get harassed on a damn nearly daily basis. (That ain't a humble brag, y'all. That's the sound of seething fury and barely contained rage.)

And shit, if this is what the revolution looks like- then I don't want no part in it. Seriously. I walked away from the Democratic party and voting to get away from the liberal dudebros. I sure as hell am not gonna throw my support, my energy, my single remaining ounce of give-a-damn into some new order that looks suspiciously like the old order, at least as far as women, POC, etc are concerned.

Fuck that shit.

I am not Troy Davis

and I never will be. I will also never be Troy Davis' mother. When it comes to the police, I am highly unlikely to be charged with a crime I didn't commit. But if I was, the chance of getting the death penalty is damn near nothing for me. Same is true of the Kid. Because we are white.

Now before I continue, you absolutely must go read Renee. Go ahead. I'll wait. *

Now I may be a lot of things that rack up points on the old kyriarchy oppression chart. I'm a woman. I am poor. I am a mother. Etc. Etc. But I am not now, nor will I ever be, the n***** of the world.

Now I meant to write this post when everyone was popping "I am Troy Davis" posts on their facebook. But I was working 11 hour days and there were other things going on. Then I meant to write this post when the Slutwalk shit happened. But I was working and there were other things going on.

But that's all bullshit. I could put off writing about it because I am white. And racism really doesn't do me any harm. Actually, I benefit from it. That's privilege, not needing to give a damn or write a post or call out an injustice because it ain't my problem. (Except that it is my problem. And your problem. And you over there lurking, it's your problem too).

I have been I am Hillary Clinton, and I have been I am Spartacus (aka Melissa McEwan) but those are both, wait for it.... white women.

And yes, both the Slutwalk women and the Troy Davis posters were well intentioned. But intention doesn't matter a damn bit in oppression. I am sure that the white folks who ripped Native children from their parents and sent them to Indian schools thought they were well intentioned too. I am sure that the asshole cop who started the whole Slutwalk thing with his comments on how ladies should dress in order to avoid being raped thought he was doing a community service. I am even pretty sure that John Lennon and Yoko Ono were well intentioned when they wrote that fucking song. They just wanted to point out how shitty the world treats women.**

But that shit ain't right. Trying to fix an injustice using oppression is like a doctor trying to fix a heart attack with bacon. You just end up compounding the problem at another person's expense.

*No seriously, go read Renee. Cause if you don't it's just one more example of a white feminist taking the credit for the hard work a black woman did before her. She gets to be the expert on race, cause duh. I am just an ally and often a lazy ally at that.

** Also it breaks the cardinal rules of language reclamation. You either have one, or you are one, or you don't get to use the fucking word.

Nope, they sure don't

Haiti doesn't need your yoga mat.

When in doubt, send cash.

Everyday Is Men Hate Women Day

So Friday I am standing outside my office, sucking down the brain-fog clearing nicotine that makes it possible for me to function in my job. I don't take lunches. I take 2 7 minute breaks* to smoke so that I can finish my work and be home before 7. And Friday was a doozey of a day. Somedays are easy. Some days suck. Friday was a sucker.

So I am huffing and puffing and enjoying the 7 lousy minutes I take of not listening to someone yammer in me ear. When across the park comes DOUCHE!

Douche "Hey Becky, I see you. I'm watching you. Yeah Becky I've got my eye on you baby"

Me "What the fuck. You don't know me. My name isn't Becky."

Douche "Yeah but I usually get a name when I call them Becky and they're all (makes an imitation that one would recognize as a shitty, racist imitation of an angry black woman- so sexist and racist to boot)'I ain't no Becky, watchoo talking bout calling me Becky"

Me (I cut him off cause..just no) "Yeah well move along, I ain't interested" (makes the move along hand gesture)

Douche "Bitch if you didn't want to talk to me you could have just said nothing and I would have been on my way.. blah blah blah"

So that's what happens when you say no to a street harasser. But what happens when you do just ignore them and try to go on about your day?

Last night, coming home from downtown, a bunch of guys standing outside the drugstore. An Asian girl tries to walk past, and since they are basically taking over the sidewalk she has to dodge and weave through them while one is all "hey baby, hey baby, you look fine, hey baby". She ignores him and his friends. So the Hey Baby dude is all "Damn did you see that Asian bitch."

We are bitches when we ignore them, bitches when we say no, and sluts if we say yes. Seems like we can't win no matter what. Makes a girl want to go all Hothead Paisan sometimes.

*Yes I could take an actual lunch and sometimes do. But I gotta stay until my work is done and I am so over 11 hours days that if it means skipping lunch I will skip lunch.

@ Occupy Seattle: Protesting is Good, Coopting is Very Not Good.

First a little history.

Seattle has a long standing (heh) community of homeless tent dwellers who have to pick up and move every 90 days (I think it's 90) to a new spot of private land donated by a church or other organization. The fact that they get the 90 days took a decade of wrangling.

You want to talk about organization, they've got it. You want to talk about long term struggle with the city over the basic right to cover your head at night, they've done it. Long before the protests that are making waves now, these actual homeless folks got familiar with the police kicking down their tents in the middle of the night. They are organized to provide cooking facilities, bathroom facilities, cleanup facilities, etc in an urban environment.

They fought for years with various mayors over their simple right to exist and find shelter in a city that didn't offer enough services for the working poor. Because of their epic battles with Seattle's last mayor, Greg Nickles (douche supreme, btw) they renamed their encampment "Nicklesville" ala the Hoovervilles of the first Great Depression.

So now that we've talked history, let's talk the Occupy Protests.

Last night was supposed to be the night of a 1000 tents at Westlake. There weren't a thousand. There were quite a few, but not a thousand. And near the podium where the GA is held is a sign "Welcome to Nicklesville".

Uhm no.

First of all- NO. You all haven't been sleeping rough though 10 fucking years of homelessness. You all haven't invited any members of Nicklesville to show you how deal with the sanitation/food storage & prep/ police resistance issues that these people much further down the food chain have mastered in all their experience.

You all didn't join Share in protesting in front of the Gates foundation a few nights ago (Share is one of the non-profits that helps advocate for Tent City residents). It's just a little mile march into Queen Anne.

You haven't dealt with fucking Mayor Nickles. Who was a giant pimple on Satan's ass. You all have dealt with Mayor McSchwinn, who really isn't giving you too much grief. A little, yes. But he ain't Nickles.

You all really want so lateral, non- elitist change, start from the bottom up by including the much more experienced folks in the process instead of just stealing their fucking name.

OWS: douche alert

Feministe reports on some douchebag creating a Hot Chicks of OWS web site. Said douchebag, Steven Greenstreet, describes himself as "documentary filmmaker, video producer, 7D owner, comic book reader, sci fi nerd, atheistic troublemaker, and social media mercenary," all of which taken together I have long since learned (through decades of exposure to hipsterdom) to read as "self-important socially-maladapted misogynistic ass."

I swear, Andrea Dworkin is rotating at 7200 rpm in her grave.

You are invited

to leave the State in the toilets in which you found them upon entering.

A Quick and Dirty Guide to What The Protests Are All About

Keep handy next time some fuckwad says "They should get a job!"

Also handy, a little know your enemy from Sociological Images

President Fuck You Says He'll Do Right By the Ladies

And veto the Let Women Die Bill

What's this? Could it be that Mr. Strong-Supporter-Of Women's-Rights is actually about to show himself to be a strong supporter of women's rights? Is President Fuck You about to spend some political capital to show us girlies that we are worth more than an nonviable fetus? I may have to take back everything mean I've said about him. I may have to volunteer for the campaign and throw my tiny dollars into the re-election fund.

Oh wait, re-election. A bill that won't pass the Dems in the Senate. No political capital required. Empty words from the douchenoodle who made it illegal for insurance coverage to cover abortion unless you by a special, separate policy. This is just more hopey words from the King of Opportunism who just realized that without women, 60% of the Democratic party stays home, doesn't vote. Doesn't work the phone banks. Doesn't blow up the fucking balloons. Doesn't poor his fucking coffee.

For some of us (who still have a uterus and will either have to get sterilized or buy extra insurance) this is not enough. Too little, too late.

First the cities, then the states, but never the country

So Harrisburg, PA is bankrupt.

And Jefferson County, Al is probably next

While Topeka, KS has decided that prosecuting domestic violence is just too darn expensive, so it's not illegal to beat your wife there anymore! Sweet.

I'm not even gonna place bets on which state will be the first to declare bankruptcy, but every damn state is cutting services to the 99% left and right.

But the country, the county will be just fine. Really. The country can't go bankrupt. The country can't actually go bankrupt, despite what all the talking heads and political yahoos try to say. Why, because modern monetary theory, that's why.

This is why charity is not the fucking answer

And not to piss on the Occupy Seattle folks, okay maybe a little, but they are mostly newly poor while long term poor folks have it much worse.

Housing is a human right. Full stop. When we leave it to charity to fix the sucking black hole that is our lack of a safety net, then we end up with people camping in front of the Gates Foundation and being ignored.

The Gates Foundation has done good work, there are 100,000 fewer AIDS cases in Africa because of that work, and according to the Gates Foundation there are 1400 affordable homes for local families because of their donations. But it ain't enough and it can never be enough. The only reason the Gates Foundation has all that money to give is because of fucked up tax policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Since We Are All About 90's Nostaligia Now

Oh holy shit how did I not know this story before now! Damn I love Kathleen Hanna!

Video is prolly NSFW



ETA I just realized that she uses a soooooooo not cool word (lame) for things that are so not cool. Apologies.

Need Some Pep in Your Day! Try Bitchery!

Bitchery helps release my tension as I read yet another call for cash from the Major Political Party and it's henchmen. Instead of balling my fists and threatening damage to electronic device (DON'T Kill The Messenger!!!!!!)I sharpen my wit and and send a pithy reply email. For example,

Dear Move On:

Kindly FUCK OFF you asstastic shitstains!

Bitchery is best practiced when faced with a white hot rage, though cold calculated rage is good too. Try it and you'll see, bitchery makes the everyday abomination that is the current state of affairs, well let's be honest. It doesn't make it tolerable, but it does make it, for one tiny second, seem like hitting the sweet spot.

You'll all have to forgive the evening blthering. It's when I take the pills that make me functional during the day. But at night I am dizzy and blurry eyed and thoughts don't turn words don't turn into posts as easily as they used to.

Inappropriate Conversations With Children

The kid hands me some frozen pizza that he has cooked for dinner.

Me "Thanks pumpkin pie!"

Me "Oh this is disgusting. The mushrooms are slimy. Have I been making you eat this shit?"

Kid "Yes"

Me "Oh you can totally fire me as your mother for that".

I have to stop reading

the We Are the 99 Percent tumblr. It's making me cry. It is breaking my heart.

And while my eyes are all misty, I also notice how often people with miserable circumstances declare how lucky they are that it's not worse. I know I've done that. And I do feel lucky. I have a job, with benefits. Sure, it's going to cost almost half my income to use those benefits, but I have them. I have a home. I haven't had a home for a long time, so this feels pretty damn lucky to me.

But I've noticed that you never ever hear the 1% talk about luck, though lucky they most certainly are. Lucky they got pushed out of the right woman, married to the right man, who was pushed out of the right woman, ad nauseum. Lucky they had family money or family connections. Lucky lucky lucky. But that word will never cross their lips. Their tongues are incapable of acknowledging what is so blatant to the rest of us. The didn't get where they are alone, they got their luck from our backs, from our labor, from our pockets. Lucky lucky lucky.

I should end this before I go off on a violent tear about eating the rich. But they should be devoured by the ravenous masses. We are the ravenous masses. Get a fork.

(Note to self- pick one image per post and roll with it. But since I missed out on that this time, Get a Lucky Fork. )

Well Duh. This is what institutionalized racism looks like

Black kids more likely to be suspended than white kids. And black kids with disabilities more likely to be suspended than white kids with disabilities.

When the Kid was still in public middle school, the administration was falling over themselves apologizing because they didn't have a special study skills class for the AP (advanced placement) kids and Kid had to be put in a study kills (i/e special ed) class with the other kids. The black and brown neighborhood kids. I didn't give a flying fuck what color the kids in his class were. I cared that none of them, Kid included, were actually getting help with study skills. They were warehoused and ignored. Kid, at the tender age of 12, could see the shittiness of the whole setup. He got that when he went to math or science or English (his AP classes) all the kids were white or Asian. But when he went to study skills, he was the only white kid in the bunch.

I've said before, and I'll say again, that when you have an educational system that sets black and brown kids up to fail, that punishes them more harshly for the same infractions committed by white kids, and that gives them less of an education, then of course education is going to be seen as less valuable to those communities. Why would you torture a kid by pushing for success in a system that is programed to fail them, to harm them? No responsible parent would do that.

They call the high school that Kid was supposed to attend "The Slave Ship", white kids in AP classes on top, brown kids in regular classes on bottom. I couldn't subject the kid to that shit. And Kid is white but poor. How much worse would it be for him if he was black and poor?

Proud to Be an American

At least today I am, after looking at these lovely protest pics from around the country.

And way to go all the little cities. Fuck Yeah Boise! I thought the only thing people in Idaho got together for was white supremacist meetings.

And way to go Witchita. The only thing I know about you is that the forced pregnancy shitheads are the worst there, but you got yourself together a twee little protest.That ain't mockery. I'm pleased as punch.

And to Mayor McGinn- fucking issue permits so people can pitch tents at Westlake. Seattle is the old pro at modern protest (cough*WTO*cough) and if people can't pitch a tent, then they will pitch a fit. Mr. I'm-Progressive-Bicycle-Mayor-Dude, you do not want to be compared to assy Bloomberg. But you will be. Give up. Let the protestors have their way. They're gonna have it anyways and the pictures of SPD cops hauling off passively resiting middle-aged black men are not doing you any favors.

The weather in Seattle is beautiful, btw, and I plan on being down at the protest with the Kid tomorrow. If you're local and want to meet up, drop me an email.

6,326 people think this is hilarious

Am I the only person on Facebook who finds this appallingly sexist?

Why doesn't it say "Or ask your mother how it's done, you ignorant lazy-ass slacker"? Would the 'likes' dry up if it did?

What's so damned funny about treating anyone (least of all your own mother) like a servant, anyhow?

Getting the job done

New office supplies at Elizabitch Worldwide Industries global headquarters and European bureaux:

..and all I got was this lousy iPhone

My ex, whose intellect impresses me less all the time, posted today, "All I can say is thank you Steve. You made the world a better place and will be missed."

Better? Really?

Well, he gave boys great toys and what's not better about that?

Glad you asked. Where do I start?

Let's go back to 1976. I grew up surrounded by electronics. My father had an electronic music recording studio in the house. I was fascinated by it.

I entered high school at 13 and signed up for an electronics class at high school. Big mistake.

Whenever I entered the room, jumping, grabbing boys yelled 'HEY GIRL HEY GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL WITH THE PINK COMB GIRL GIRL GIRL.' The teacher did nothing. I got no help from anyone. After six weeks, I dropped the class.

And that is the point where my life story and that of every male geek I have ever met, loved or worked with irrevocably part ways.

I took programming and math classes at a university when I was 15 and 16. But I never quite believed in myself and no one around me ever did either. No one saw the potential. I was a girl, at the age where the pressures to develop into a suitably fuckable cunt become crushing. I did not escape its effects. I abandoned tech.

I did come back to geekery after ten years of typing letters for a living, at the behest of my mother, amazingly enough, who had put together a satisfying consultancy writing database applications. I often assisted her performing surgery on computers, fixing up corrupted datafiles in the hex editor, and writing DOS batch file programs. It was her who urged me into IT and I am glad she did.

But over the years since I, as an adult returning student, graduated in the mid-90s, the tech world has remained a white-boys-only club. In every shop I've ever worked in there was a core clique of white males who ran everything. They got the good jobs, the promotions, the good work and everyone else in the IT department, the Chick, the Black Guy, that Guy Whose Name We Can't Pronounce, The Lower Status Non-Warcraft Playing Males, got the crumbs. People with no more intelligence or talent than I rise in IT through the compelling power of the trouser snake.

So back to Steve Jobs. Jobs built a technological and business empire on the firmest of foundations, the narratives that structure our world. He was able to harness the archetypes of white-boys-with-toys, the male wizard bending the physical and social world to his will, the lone visionary. None of Job's unique catalyzing talents would have made the least difference if he hadn't had a dick and were he not, to white peoples' way of seeing, drained of ethnicity. (I saw a friend today who knew him personally. She told me, "Did you know he was Syrian? He was adopted." No, I did not. Jobs, like Ralph Nader, was socially bleached.)

They say Steve Jobs had a 'reality distortion field.' But he did not distort mine. There is a glass ceiling in my field, one that all of my male friends and colleagues floated through, supported by The Narrative and their lower-earning, non-techie, totally unthreatening wives. On the job I was the Perl 'queen,' the PHP 'queen,' the regular-expression 'queen,' the go-to person to solve thorny problems, but I was marginalized and made 10% to 20% less than the men (and those are just the cases I know about.) The past 25 years have been presided over by the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds and Mark Zuckerberg, men who are held up as the geniuses and the leaders. I feel the effect of that every single day.

Jobs, by all accounts, was an amazing human being and definitely will be missed by friends, family and colleagues. But let's not exaggerate. He did not make the world better or even much different. He (however inadvertently) reinforced the narratives and the archetypes that hold me and millions of others back. It's still a sexist, racist, homophobic, imperialist oppressive shithole of a world...and all we got was this lousy iPhone.

More Clash

Prolly overused, but fuckit.



Lyrics:
This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And Number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights
Wang

Know these rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights
These are your rights
All three of 'em
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!
Well..............................

Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Run
You don't have a home to go to
Smush

Finally then I will read you your rights

You have the right to remain silent
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you

Listen to this
Run

Happy Sunday

This seems appropriate today. Go Occupy Somewhere.

The French don't fuck around

Fed up with school job cuts dictated from above, the village government of Tournan-en-Brie decided to strike back by voiding the lease of the local office of the National Education service (charged with implementing the job cuts) and tossing them out into the street. Now it's calling for other municipalities who are landlords to the ministry cutting their teaching staff to do the same. (Charlie Hebdo, No 1006, 28 Sept 2011.)

Link Farming Cause Mama Worked Another 11 Hour Day

This is an awesome article about Implicit Bias and the Harvard Implicit Bias Test FTR, I took the Race IAT a few years ago and scored with a slight bias towards black faces. So there's that. Also, there's is a throw away line at the end that made me chuckle. You'll find it.

Hey, you know if the Fed has to choose between having an actual conflict of interest and just looking like it does, I'd prefer it to have the appearance and not the substance of conflict. But what do I know, I am probably a low info racist.

Unions finally, after 3 fucking weeks, have decided to join Occupy Wall Street. Better late than never. Yet still ahead of the whinging Obots and their "But what do you waaaaaaaaaaaaaaant. You have to have a plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan" Fuckers.

I was gonna find a funny to put here, but I have hit the exhaustion wall with my face and must now go make myself one with my pillow. It's a high level of zen required to truly make yourself one with the pillow. You must give up all notion of self (if by self I mean person who like to eat real food and have clean laundry that actually makes it into the closet and not the floordrobe, and maybe spends some portion of the evenings with loved ones) for the greater good (of gainful employment plus Thank-a-union-overtime.) Now you know.

If it's true, it's a very good thing

Occupy Wall Street News: Over 100 cops refuse to work in NYC

Well I'll be (sceptically) damned. I have heard that the shitheads doing the most abusive stuff were the white shirted police, and that the blue shirts (everyday patrol officers) were not part of the pepper spraying and beatdowns. But this is all rumor and I am in Seattle, not on the ground in New York.

Think Bigger You Small Minded Shitheads

I keep reading all these objections to the Occupy Wall Street people that center on "what's their message? Why can't these bored kids pick something and focus on it? You're never gonna accomplish anything if you don't have a message".

What, exactly should they pick? I mean, it's kinda an old tool of the kyriarchy to narrow the focus of complaints down to the tiniest of things so that real change never really happens. "Don't focus on gay marriage when people are dying in Iraq", "We have to ignore women's equality so we can elect Democrats and then we'll all be safe in happy abortion land" blah blah blah blah.

But really change don't work that fucking way. It ain't piecemeal, decided by the polite folks over afternoon tea. It happens when the system is dragged, kicking and screaming (or more likely billy-clubbing and pepper-spraying) into something better(ish).

What we know is this: the system is fucked for all but a handful of old white men. It's fucked for non-men, non-whites, non-rich, non-straight, non-able bodied. It's fucked for Americans and Greeks and Spaniards and Moroccans and Egyptians and and and and and. It's fucked economically, environmentally, judiciously, politically.

To narrow down the message to a single, or even a dozen demands would water down any change to nothing.

You don't tear down the master's house with the master's tools. Concise lists of demands are a kyriarchial tool. Besides, we all know what the current President thinks about bargaining. He starts from the center right. Progressive requests will be ignored, unless you chain yourself to the White House fence or the Wall Street pig.

Oh fucking President Hopey Changey is in town

So of course going to the grocery store and dropping off the boyfriend's car in a free parking place is going to be about as much fun as dealing the Obot Fanboyz. Well, maybe not that bad. I generally don't get rape threats in traffic jams.

(Also please note the the President's first stop was in Medina, to pick up the not-taxed money from the wealthy douchnoodles who are bringing us into Great Depression 2.0. FUCKERS)

(And as another aside, TOE and I had a little convo the other day about how you can tell a pol by who his/her most ardent supporters are - and also of course by what they actually say. But isn't it funny how some of Obama's most horrid fan boyz voted for Bush Jr. the first time around cause Al Gore was too socialist or something. Shit, Kos was a republican, Andrew Sullivan was a republican, Ariana Huffington was a republican, etc. etc. etc. The didn't change their beliefs, they just changed their party).

Link Farming Answers Burning Questions!

Is Obama the feminist son we feminist parents hope to raise? No, and fuck you for even suggesting it.

Is Dan Savage now a medical doctor with a degree in fat science? No, and fuck him for suggesting a guy should solve his serious problem of depression and agoraphobia with weight loss surgery.

Are NYPD cops the fucking worst? Maybe. They suck pretty hard, but so do cops everywhere.

Are poor people really poor if they own 2 tvs? OH FUCK YOU, YOU WEEPING ASS BOIL. I own 2 tvs. I got them for free. Neither of them are digital, so to make them work without cable requires a converter box and the macdaddy of all antennas, each. That's in a city, near the broadcast towers. TVs are cheap. (If I lived in the boonies without internet, you're damn skippy that I'd need cable too.) Healthcare, food, housing, education are not cheap.

Was Troy Davis Murdered by the state because he was a Black man? Oh hell yes he was.

Now for something funny. 
 

 

 

Fuck the Police

Yep, that's the NYPD pepper spraying a bunch of women who are peacefully protesting as part of Occupy Wall Street.

The elites always use "law and order" as a form of violence when their supremacy is threatened. Always. It's in the fucking playbook.

It's gauche, man, gauche

Capitalism, that is. It's rude and crude and as disgusting as chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a table.

(And btw, Oscar Wilde's mum was an Irish Republican- the only good kind of Republican)

One more time for Aeryl

Maybe the gods on internet pic posting will smile on us now

Happy Birthday Aeryl

I was too tired to bake you a cake, so I got you this
beefcake instead.

Raise your hand

( trigger warnings all the fuck over)

 if you're tired of state sanctioned murder

if you're tired of state sanctioned murder

if you're tired of state sanctioned murder

if you're tired of state sanctioned murder

if you're tired of state sanctioned murder

I could keep going, but I am upset enough over Troy Davis. I cried as soon as I got home last night. I kept crying till it was time to go to bed. I am sad and angry and disgusted.

How does she get out of doing it?

Lately I've been seeing posters all over Paris for 'Comment Font Les Femmes?', a movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker which English title must be 'How the Fuck Does She Do It?' or 'What the Hell is She Smoking?' or 'Hey Rocky, Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat.' On the poster figures Parker as a perfectly-coiffed and attired, smooth-skinned, tightly-smiling seething coiled snake and a list of tasks which she must accomplish by sundown or everyone will hate her forever. I am guessing the movie is about one woman's search for the word 'NO.'

NO is The most useful word anyone will ever learn. When you learn a foreign language learn NO first and leave yes for the advanced course. Use it liberally, shake it on your food like salt, use it to punctuate sentences. If you get tired of sounding like a toddler, mix it up with "Hell no," "Hells to the no," "Are you fucking kidding me" and "Clearly you have me confused with someone who gives a shit."

"Fuck You" should always be close at hand for stubborn situations. This pithy phrase enforces boundaries better than any Iron Curtain. Wildly underutilized by the competitive-mothering crowd, it will really drive the point home. Try it at your next PTA meeting and sit back and watch the fun.

When the situation really gets out of hand, do as I do and slide into a depressive torpor for three weeks to four months. This will clear your plate in a hurry. When it's over, those who love you will be glad to have you back, and those who don't will never bother you again.

Since the movie is a product of our seriously regressive era, I am guessing it does not end by Parker embracing her inner toddler, screaming NO NO NO and flinging spaghetti at the walls.

Oh,and am I free to see it tonight? Why... NO.

If all that was ever on was shows about monkeys

I've been thinking about how best to explain to the dudely types just what it's like when all media is filtered through a lens you don't have.

Imagine that every single damn tv show was a show about monkeys. Ok, not every. But the shows that manged to show something other than monkeys all did so from a "stupid humans, look at them with their stupid, petty shallow ways" or you know, from the monkeys' point of view. It's the market, they are just making what people monkeys want.

And not just the tv shows, but the movies we all Monkeys in Space! Monkeys VS Giant Monsters! Monkeys, and the occasional bone thrown "relentlessly perky, young, single human must be humiliated and humbled in order to find perfect monkey love" aka, the romantic comedy. It's still the market. They're still making what the market wants.

But it doesn't end there. The news is all made by monkeys, but under the guise of "journalism" the news is supposed to be the truth for everyone, monkey and non-monkey. The fact that most of the writers are literal chimps with typewriters shouldn't make you question why most of the headlines are "stupid humans do something stupidly, again".This is journalism and it is TRUTH!

And then there's science, we all know that science is unbiased. I mean it's all done by monkeys for monkeys. The idea that humans might have a different take on say the importance of the banana as currency or why flea picking feels so damn good or has no place in science. It's TRUTH.

And we haven't even gotten to literature, politics, education, workplace policies.We're just talking about who gets to send out the messages that everybody hears. Sure, maybe there are a handful of token non-monkeys who get to say something, but by nature of being tokens they are usually just spouting the monkey line.

Now if you live in a world like that, wouldn't you want to turn of the tv, stop reading the paper, and choose your movies really damn carefully. Wouldn't you just want to puke because the new fall season is nothing but fucking nature shows.


(You can, as usual, substitute the humans in this little analogy for every single damn oppressed group. While how those oppressions color the world we see work differently in each group, how the oppressors control access to the message everyone receives is pretty damn universal.)

And that is why the New Republic Blows

There are days (weeks, months) when being a lady writer of the political sphere is, well, less satisfying than being a 50's housewife. Between the Nobody Gives A Fuck What You Have To Say On The Matter Little Lady and the "shut your mouth and spread your legs" comments, scrubbing floors in high heels and having a daily valium/cocktail habit seems downright peaceful. And that's the point. So when I see that the fucking editor of (supposedly liberal) The New Republic saying that us ladies are less socialized to produce and consume opinion journalism, I wonder what the fuck have I been writing for the last 5 years, recipes (ok yeah, there are some recipes). What the fuck have you all been reading for the last 5 years? What the fuck? Perhaps if these douchenoodles (in publishing, which is suffering right now due to the interwebs) stopped with their self-fulfilling prophesy bullshit (if you only have men, writing for men, about men, why the fuck do I need to read your shit?) and tried remembering that there's 51 percent of the population they are ignoring in their quest for the dudeliest of dollars, they might, I dunno, produce better media. Shit people actually want to read and watch and buy. But what do I know, I'm a lady who hasn't been socialized to produce or consume opinion journalism.

h/t Feminist Philosophers

Remember how we gave Banksters boatloads of cash

So they wouldn't tank the economy and would keep the money flowing to the economy would remain dynamic and blah blah blah.....

Of course the biggest Bankster of all, Bank(sters) of America, is going to lay off 30,000 people rather than eat the cost of making bad loans. 

Lemme see if I remember Econ 101. Entrepreneurs get profit and interest because they take risk, while us little peons only get wages because we don't take any risk (cough). I think it was the BofA employees who took the risk of  being employed by a shady fucking organized crime racket, not the organized crime racket itself.

And while we're talking risk, I fucking called it a year ago when I said the securitization of life insurance policies would mean that the Kleptocrats would push for ways for us to die faster so they get better payoffs. Look for a great big life insurance marketing push in the same vein as the "ownership society". Shit, I just got life insurance through work. This is not a coincidence. I am now officially worth way more dead than alive.

Fuck the rich. Fuck the kleptocracy. Fuck all them fuckers.

The obligatory 9-11-11 post

10 years a long time. Of course we've been engaged in perpetual war since then, so it's even longer for the men and women who are keeping America "free" by being sent to occupy other countries. I find myself often asking if things are really as different now as they seem, or if it's just that I've had the wool removed from my eyes. I am not sure of the answer to that. But regardless, the world that we find ourselves in now is, to put it bluntly, horrible. And, in very blatant ways, the terrorists won.

We now live in a world where the act of getting on an airplane is considered criminal enough that we forfeit our rights against involuntary search and seizure. Big ole trigger warning on the link, btw.

We live in a world of extraordinary rendition, though I am not sure we haven't been doing things like that for a long time.

We live in a world where a Democratic (ha!) President renews and expands all the horrors of the Patriot Act.  And the rabid Obots ignore and ignore and ignore. Assassinating American citizens in the way we've always assassinated non-Americans is now considered solid anti-terrorism policy.

We live in a world where the cruelty done to the poorest and weakest of us by that same Democratic President and the Republicans who help him, make the Republican Revolution of 1995 look like a fucking cakewalk.

The list could go on and on. But the biggest take away is we now live in a world of unending fear. Fear of violence from the state. Fear of abject poverty. Fear or religious zealots (both Christian and Muslim and and and and and). All fear, all the time.

That's how the terrorists won.

Back To (Home) School

I feel like I've spent the last few weeks in a whirlwind of capitalist ecstasy. I have been shopping, y'all. And not a package of underwear here and a t-shirt there, but full fledged (well semi-full fledged. I'm still a poor person and I still love thrift stores) back to school shopping for the Kid. I haven't been able to do that since 2007. I have had to do things in tiny pieces with crossed fingers that the Kid wasn't going to have a growth spurt and suddenly not have any pants that fit. Kid needing new shoes would create a fiery pit of fear and worry in my belly. And then there was the incident just a few months ago when I asked the kid where he was going to store his socks and underwear in his new room and he said "you mean my 3 pairs of underwear?" Oh the heartbreak and guilt and shame of not being able to properly clothe a rapidly growing child is something I hope none of you all ever has to feel. But thanks to employment, the Kid is clothed. New(ish) pants and t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts and button down shirts and jeans and hoodies! And a dozen new pairs of boxers! New school supplies, and books. Oh I might have gone a little crazy with the books. This year's science is biology and because my favorite part of biology was making the cell drawings, I got El Nino the biology coloring book. And the Outsiders. He's a good age for it and Hinton is a woman who wrote the book about teenage othering of poor kids while a teenager. Better than reading Catcher in the Rye, in my opinion. And then there are the many "how to write a paper" books, since that is definitely an area that the Kid hates but that must be done this year. And Howard Zinn's illustrated book on empire and and and. Today was the end of it. Kid got new shoes and socks. Provided he doesn't have a freakish growth spurt, he's all set till spring. I don't even. What. How. I.. Shit. The long running list of shit that MUST. BE. BOUGHT. is down to half a page of notebook paper, and except for a memory foam pad for my bed (hello fibro-fucking-myalgia! Thanks for making sleeping torture!) it's all want and not too much need. Is this how normal people live? I can't even remember. It's been so long. Now I have to do some serious saving of the money for the most extravagant of luxuries- dental work. There will be root canals and crowns y'all. And cleanings. Think about that.

Discovered at the Grocery Store

Cherrums- plum shaped and sized fruit that tastes like a plum-cherry hybrid. So fucking awesome I may eat a dozen right now (not really, that's like drinking a week's worth of prune juice in one go).

I have discovered, after years of subsisting on one meal a day plus copious amount of coke(a cola), that I actually function much better if I 1) drink coffee and tea 2) eat lots of little snacks like a cut up piece of fruit or a yogurt 3)eat an actual lunch, no eating the convenience store muffin I tossed in my bag just because it was easy and calling lunch, that I feel much better. And do my job better too (I get graded on job performance every. single. day. So I know when I am slipping).

Good lord, I hope I am not on the verge of becoming a virtuous foodie. Feel free to shame me if I do. But until then, try a Cherrum! They are way better than pluots!

It's Labor Day!

And I should write a big, meaty fucking post on that. But I am just burnt the fuck out from work. Thank the FSM that I have today off. Thank the FSM that I have a job and today off (paid, shocking, nez pas?) Thank the FSM that I have a job, today off, and make almost a living wage.

And we all best be thanking an imaginary deity for that shit, cause lord knows the weasels-in-charge of governance of the masses for the elites ain't doing diddly fucking squat for the unemployed, the semi-employed, the employed but not making enough to live on, the employed but my heath insurance ate my paycheck, etc, etc.

Alternatively, thank a Union. For it is to the mighty (not so much anymore) Unions that we owe 40 hour work weeks. Thanks to the Union, I earned 60 bucks in overtime last paycheck. 60 bucks, that's a half a week of groceries. Used to be a whole week of groceries, but wages as we all know, have not kept up with inflation the last 30 years or so.

Speaking of groceries, I am off to buy some. This working full plus time really cuts the fuck into my dinner making time. So I am stocking up on sammich makings and frozen pizzas. Truth is, Americans eat like shit because we don't have time to shop and cook and pay tribute to the mighty gods of Corporation Welfare.

We need shorter work weeks. If our productivity is so high now that we produce an extra month's worth of work every year, we should both be making more actual money and working fewer hours. But that seems way too logical to the weasels-in-charge to get.

Isn't he precious?

Oh look, President Fuck You has declared today as National Women's Equality Day. It would mean so much more if he didn't treat equal rights for us female types as a bargaining chip. Keep the meaningless holiday, I'd rather have non rapey cops, equal pay and sovereignity over my own damn body.

Not time to post, but time to bleg

Not for myself this time.

Arthur, patron saint of us disabused, disenchanted and disappeared folks is having a rough time of it. I know how gut-wrenchingly awful it is to have to bleg for a living, and I don't put out damn near the quality of righteous anger and analysis that Arthur does. I've said it before, if the world were just he'd be a national hero. But alas.

If you've got something to spare- send it his way.

It's a tiny consolation

It took, what, 3 years for the big name left-ish* types to figure out what we've all known about Obama since the primaries. He's the second coming of Hoover. A stand in the face of history, shrug, and potter around with meaningless bullshit type.

We've know this for so long. And trust, I would have been super happy to eat crow had I been wrong. Had Obama shown that he was more than just empty speeches and kleplotcratic, I would be the first person to sign up for phone banking come 2012.

I wanted, and still want, a government that functions by the people, for the people.

But I am not going to see that anytime soon. My Kid is looking at a world where he may be my dependent well into his late 20's because job options and education options for a child of poverty, even a straight, white, male, tab child of poverty, are growing smaller everyday. And the president can't be assed to seriously talk about it.

The one tiny consolation I have is the "told ya so" consolation. It's mildly petty, sure, to be standing in the middle of the street while Rome burns yelling about how we all should have invested in fire fighting programs, but I still want my little bit of credit. This path that the president has led us down seems so shockingly out of character to the johnny-come-latelys of anti-Obama-ism. But for us old hands, TOLD YOU SO. FUCKERS.

So I am more than a wee bit peeved that they are calling it "firebagging" after Fire Dog Lake. If I remember correctly, quite a few people got kicked off that site for cautiously suggesting that Obama might not be the messiah, and now they get the credit for disaffection. Fuck you. Oh, now you want to primary Obama. Tough shit. The only people that primary sitting presidents are unelectable attention grabbers. You voted him in. You gave him legitimacy. The next chance we have of changing that won't come until 2016, or more likely 2020 after a few years under President Bachman-Perry-Paul-Romney. Bad political decisions are very long lasting. You cheerleaders for Hope and Change just fucked over an entire generation. Suck it up, you unthinking douchenoodles.

We have a president who veers to the right of Warren Buffett. Let's all remember that Buffett's ONLY claim to leftisness is that he doesn't believe in inherited wealth. He doesn't actually think the government is all that good at providing services. But he also doesn't like the volatility of a stock market in the grips of rating agency madness over the national debt. Tax the rich to pay the debt, don't hand children billion dollar inheritances. That's Buffet, and that's Obama on his right.

So I am taking my little consolation. I was right. You all were wrong. If I vote at all in 2012, I'm voting for Rosanne Barr. I like her. She's funny. She's feminist. She gave Joss Whedon his first writing gig. She don't give a fuck about what you think of her. And I'd be making a more productive use of my ballot by voting for any joke candidate than by giving it to an asshat only because the other side's asshat is less eloquent in describing just how he/she plans to fuck us all over.

*left-ish. They aren't the bastions of progression they like to claim to be.