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)