so don't ask if you don't want to know
Amusing and/or interesting
Stuff other people might find funny or just mildly interesting.
Busy Week!
Apr 29th
LAST Sunday I went to a birthday party for my friend Dani at a roller skating rink… and I didn’t fall or break anything.
Wednesday was a great day! My friend Tyler and his wife Katie took me to a Diamondbacks game! We got to go out on the edge of the field and in the dugout before the game. We had great seats and great ball-park food. The Phillies beat the ‘Backs, but it was still fun! He tells the whole story better so click that link. And I still have a bit of cotton candy left!
Thursday morning I met with friends for the monthly #EVTM at one of my favorite restaurants. Then I picked up Kira from school and Ginnie and Jack and we had a nice evening. Spent most of the day Friday with Ginnie and Jack too.
Friday night I went back out with Tyler and Katie to the Phoenix Improv Festival to see my friends Jose and Nina in action. That was fun!
Yesterday, after my weekly meeting with the Ignite Phoenix crew (Yay! Ignite 12 is this Friday Night!) I went downtown to the Capital building and held up my sign in support of Unite Against the War on Women. Then out to dinner with Crystal.
Whew. 
Today is starting slow. I had and issue with my cable that started last Friday and the tech came this morning and replaced the box. The problem is, the “new” box keeps rebooting itself. We’re up to 14 reboots since he left about 90 minutes ago. Wait, it just did it again.
I’m supposed to meet friends for breakfast – everyone is waiting on me – and then get my hair colored and meet with the whole family at Max and Krystal’s place for dinner. We’ll see how the day turns out.
Happy Birthday to me!
And the cable box just rebooted again.
Stop bringing up differences
Apr 25th
I watched on the Today show when People Magazine announced this year’s Most Beautiful Woman. Turns out it’s Beyonce. Followed shortly by this article on Jezebel where the author felt it necessary to point out Beyonce is the first black woman in 9 years…
First, it’s friggin’ People Magazine. PM is like a gossip rag for children. Always politically correct, seldom a bad thing to say about anyone and if they do, it’s usually in a nice way. It’s vanilla. White bread. Light reading for fun. Not the New York Times. Who cares?
Second, Beyonce IS beautiful. Not sure if she’s the most beautiful but whatever. I’m sure PM’s choices were from a very small pool of popular celebrity women. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Third is where I have a problem with Jezebel’s article. Here I am, a 50-year-old white woman that has spent her entire life trying very hard not to see people by color. I try very hard to think about people by their behavior and not their skin. I often fail but I’m trying. I’ve never thought of Beyonce as a black woman any more than I’ve thought of Jennifer Lopez as Hispanic. I mean I know they are, but it doesn’t matter, they are beautiful talented women, period.
If people of color want to be treated with the same respect as white people (which is what I often hear) then why do they insist on bringing up the differences every time? Why can’t Beyonce’s cover be celebrated for her looks (as shallow as that is) without bringing up snarky remarks about how there hasn’t been a black cover since Halle Berry – another beautiful woman regardless of her skin color? In the comments of the Jezebel article there is conversation about how light-skinned both of those women are and People Magazine needs to pick a really black woman!
Look, many if not most of us are trying. We’re fighting internally years of ingrained bigotry and trying our best to be better people and treat everyone equally. When is it good enough? How can we continue to grow as humans and treat everyone equally when we’re continually reminded of people’s differences?
Hate it, hate it, hate it!
Apr 24th
If there’s only one thing in the 1st world that is worse than bra shopping, it’s bathing suit shopping. Why can’t we just go full-on with the sun-is-bad thing and go back to suits that go from knees to shoulders? Why can’t designers come up with something between this:
and this:
You know, something attractive yet covers all those nasty areas of the body: tummy, thighs, back, and what my Grandma always called jodhpurs. Maybe a little V-neck action though? Something women can be comfortable in that doesn’t make them look like shit in one way or another. Let’s face it, only about 10% of women look good in a bikini anyway. If we all agree to this style we’d all be much happier.
Right?
*grumble grumble* Okay, FINE! I’ll keep looking.
Crap. You know humans are gonna get back to this style sooner or later with our ozone layer depleting. Why not now already?
You started it!
Apr 19th
Right there in my reader this morning was Friendly Atheist’s post where he quotes from this video:
They’re bullies. And we know that we people stand up to the bully on the playground — the bully on the playground intimidates, that’s what he does, intimidates people into silence, into fear, into avoiding the bully. And oftentimes the bully is the paper tiger and when the righteous individual who is being bullied defends his or herself and punches the bully in the mouth, guess what, the bully more times than not has a glass jaw, falls down and then everyone on the playground says “whoa, the bully was a weakling after all.”
That’s the secularist left. The secularist left are bullies. They try to bully and intimidate and push religious intolerance and religious bigotry on everyone else.
WHAT. THE. FUCK! Religious people are the bullies in your little scenario.
If you want to compare the ongoing battle between the religious and the secularists, you might want to remember the bully then goes whining to the teacher. You’re whining. Because you can’t bully anymore, your previous victims are fighting back and not starting the fights. You whine because the downtrodden have rebelled. Look in a fucking mirror!
Secularists, atheists and even people who just believe different gods than you have been bullied for centuries. Right now in small towns and communities all over this country people are afraid to admit they don’t believe. They’re bullied in the most despicable ways. Read the stories in r/atheism where people are thrown out of their homes and disowned by their loving parents, they lose jobs, are forced to listen to the preaching and are constantly told “YOU’RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL FOREVER!” Which, actually, doesn’t mean anything to us other than your hate is so strong you would wish this upon another human being. Christian love, my ass.
We’re just punching your bully in the face to protect ourselves. We’re just plain tired of your shit. You have completely over-stepped your boundaries and we’re fighting back. You started it, just like your proverbial bully.
There is no war on religion. You can believe what you want in your churches and homes with people who choose to believe as you. Secularists just want you to keep your beliefs out of everyone else’s life. We’re fighting to stop religious-based legislation. We’re pointing out the fallacies in your “this is a Christian nation” lies. We want our free America back. Stay where you belong and out of our wombs, our bedrooms and our schools and we’d get along just fine.
In my family we have a saying, “Don’t poke the bull.” Eventually the bull gets tired of it and turns on you. Well the bull has turned and you deserve it, so quitcherwhinin.
Why does everyone hate women?
Apr 16th
My friend Mur published this letter to her daughter.
People need to stop and think.
Men need to stop comparing what they think is weak behavior to being womanly. Stop having the mindset that it’s okay to sneer at another man and call him girly names like sissy, pussy, little girl, etc. Girls throw like girls, men who can’t throw just can’t throw. Period. Men who cry are just releasing tension, not acting like a woman. It’s not funny and far more damaging when you use comparisons to females in a disparaging way. You’re just perpetuating the women are lesser humans than men bullshit. Children watch and learn from adults around them and pick up the language and sentiment. If your juvenile need to razz your male friends at any given moment is part of your limited personality then use other words.
Women need to stop treating each other like shit, too.
Why is it okay to call any woman other than your mother, sister or daughter a whore? Men have been allowed and often encouraged to fuck any female they can, but the women they do it with are sluts? What the fuck is that? Women are supposed to “keep their legs closed” outside of marriage but men can cat around whenever they want. If a woman cheats on her husband people’s first thought is she’s a whore, but a man cheats on his wife and people’s first thought is there’s something wrong with the wife and the other woman is a whore. The man holds no responsibility?
Why is there still such a double-standard?
We are all adults. We should be able to make our sexual decision equally. If a woman wants to enjoy a variety of sexual partners that’s her decision, just like a man’s prerogative is his. And what business is it of yours what other people are doing in their beds?
And all this disparaging makes it okay to pay women less for doing the same job as a man?
I have male friends who don’t think of women as lesser beings. They talk to women in business as whole people rather than not a man. It can be done.
It starts with teaching our children stupid terms like girl toys and boy toys. Or games or interests or abilities. We start this early and perpetuate it their whole lives. Why? Why are young girls discouraged from science and math? Why are young boys discouraged from cooking and babysitting? Why is it okay to harass young girls who enjoy sports by calling them tomboys? Why can’t it be girly to be really athletic? Why can’t it be manly to be nurturing?
Most people automatically do this everyday in one way or another and it has to stop. When you hear yourself or someone say something comparing the “victim’s” action as not appropriate to their sex as defined 50 years ago, STOP IT. Train yourself and others around you to stop defining stereotypical roles. Give a little girl a tonka truck or a science kit if she’s interested. Give a little boy a doll or dance classes if that’s what he wants. Stop encouraging your daughter to wear pink if she hates it. Let your son wear it if he wants to. Stop calling women whores and sluts just because they like sex.
Stop treating women like lesser beings, after all you wouldn’t be here if a woman wasn’t willing to have sex, birth you and raise you up. What? Your mom isn’t like other women? Bet me.
Dear Ann Romney,
Apr 13th
No matter how you try and twist her words, Hilary Rosen was right – in context. Nowhere did she say being a stay-at-home mom was something to be discounted. The point she was making was that you have never had to make that choice so you’re hardly the epitome of a woman who has had to make the hard choices most women have to face today.
I’ve been both a working mom and a stay-at-home mom, depending on the economy and my husband’s ability to make ends meet for the family by himself. Sometimes I didn’t have a choice. In my life our family has been homeless multiple times and we owned a home for a few years. Life for most women is a roller coaster of financial stability. You have always had that financial stability. You never needed to make that hard choice to leave your children with others and make a buck on your own. You don’t have the life experience to represent women in general. You live in a dream world.
I’m willing to bet you’ve always had health insurance (including dental *gasp*) and have never had to decide between making the mortgage payment and getting your kid’s teeth straightened. Well, my kids never got that choice. The few times my husband had a job that even had dental my kids were lucky to get checkups and fillings, period.
My children are grown and their financial stability is worse than mine ever was. My oldest son is raising a daughter on his own, working what is considered a great job but with no benefits. His daughter gets limited health care through the state. My second son is a married veteran going to school and neither he nor his wife have jobs. With one car and poor public transportation options it’s hard for them both to work. My daughter is a single new mother with no job. Where do the young go to find jobs that pay enough to cover child care AND the rest of the bills?
Your idiot husband seems to defer all women’s issues questions to you. Great plan for a supposed future President, right? The way he tells it, you seem to think all women care about is the economy and gas prices for our SUVs to take the kiddies to soccer practice.
Well let me ‘splain something to you. We don’t give a shit about gas prices. They are what they are on any given day, a minor blip. What we want is affordable health care. What we want is freedom to make decisions about our own bodies. We want equal pay for equal work. Come out of your rich lady bubble and look around. Walk up to women in their jobs (without someone prepping them first) and ask them what they think is important. Not pretty career women, I’m talking about the cashier at the grocery store… if you, you know, actually go into grocery stores. I’m talking about women police officers, women day care providers, women teachers. Women under incredible stress to keep their families under a decent roof, eating healthy meals and at decent schools. Women without rich husbands. And not just mothers. There are many women out there without husbands and children who would just like to make a life without constant daily struggle.
How many houses do you have? There are thousands of homeless women out there that would just like a safe place to sleep. How many people on your staff? Other women would love to have someone to clean while they’re at work but do everything a stay-at-home mom does plus work. How many cars do you have? My daughter drives her baby around in a clunker with bad brakes but to her (rightly so) it’s more important to spend what little money she has on food and rent than car repairs.
Pshaw on your stay-at-home mom claim. When you’ve gotten down on your own hands and knees to clean toilets every other day, when you’ve told your child you can’t afford new school clothes again this year or you discover you’re pregnant again and can’t even afford a doctor’s visit to confirm it and you certainly don’t want to add that burden onto the family you already have, THEN you can raise your stay-at-home mom claim. You? You’re just a rich lady who never had to make the hard choices.
Look, you’re fortunate to have a rich husband. You’re fortunate that you can do all that fancy shopping and hair and nail salon stuff. But there’s a reason the rest of us call you the 1%. You’re so far up your own pedestals you have no clue how the rest of us live. So shut the fuck up. You know nothing.
Get out, talk to poor people. Volunteer at a homeless shelter (without the press) and take time to get to know folks who actually work for a living. Spend an afternoon looking on the Internet for opinions that aren’t Republican. Take a walk on the dark side. Adopt an inner-city school and provide it with supplies and a visiting doctor. Fund vaccinations for the poor. Take 10 poor kids to a dentist for tooth repairs. Ask women who go to Planned Parenthood why they are actually there instead of listening to the rhetoric regarding abortion statistics. Get dirty. Spend a month without staff. Do something useful rather than pretending your patronizing prayers work miracles, because they don’t.
We both know you won’t.
Debbie Walker
Disable veteran, mother of 3, grandmother of 2
Dear Tennessee,
Apr 12th
If you want to know why other people on this planet tend to stereotype your residents as backwards, stupid or idiots, look at what we see coming out of what are supposed to be your best of show: your elected officials:
1. Updated Abstinence Bill. In a new family life instructions bill, holding hands and kissing could be considered gateways to sex. The bill prohibits teachers from demonstrating gateway sexual activity including health education models.
WHAT WE KNOW: There is no evidence to date that abstinence-only-until-marriage education delays teen sexual activity. Moreover, research shows that abstinence-only strategies may deter contraceptive use among sexually active teens, increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs.
You can’t fight hormones. You just can’t. It’s better to teach our youth how to protect themselves IF the
y get in a sexual situation than to send them out every day blind. Duh. Hugging is a gateway to sex? Really?
2. The “Monkey” Bill. To prevent school administrators from reining in teachers who expound on “alternative hypotheses” to the scientific theories of evolution and climate change.
WHAT WE KNOW: Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Creationism or “intelligent design” is not science. Because the bible says so is not testable proof. Our planet is billions of years old, plants and animals (including humans) have evolved and though climate change is inevitable in nature, man has/is having an effect on our current climate.
3. The Life Defense Act of 2012. Directs the state Health Department to post on its website a report on every abortion, to be filled out by the facility where the procedure takes place. The reports must includ
e the “identification of the physician who performed the abortion and the physician’s office, clinic, hospital or other facility where the abortion was performed,” according to the official summary of the bill. Although the bill states that patients will not be identified in the reports, it says the documents must include the woman’s county, age, race, marital status, plus her number of prior pregnancies, number of prior abortions, the gestational age of the fetus, and her preexisting medical conditions.
WHAT WE KNOW: Abortions are legal in the United States of America.
What really gives you the right to collect and publish information on a legal medical procedure? Maybe the next bill should be about erectile dysfunction procedures. You don’t need a hard-on anymore once your quota of kids is planted, do you?
Anyway, this is an example of why people across the world think of you – and by association the rest of the US – as backwards. Please stop. You’re making us look bad. Put down the bible and research some real science.
————
Now I’m not saying we here in Arizona are any better as we have our own elected idiots in office. I’m just picking on Tennessee today. Tomorrow I may point out other states with backwards thinking… like mine.
On being ignorant
Apr 10th
This post by my friend Tyler has had me thinking.
There’s a difference between being stupid and being ignorant. I’m ignorant of so many things. I’m also 50 years old and don’t want to waste too many of my remaining brain cells learning things that (at this point in time) don’t matter.
For instance, I really know next-to-nothing about Muslims, Buddhists, and/or Scientologists. As far as I know, I don’t know anyone with these beliefs so why bother. When I post links to stories about wrongdoings it’s because the people involved are obvious hypocrites and that’s what I’m against. Or if I do know someone of a religion or culture I’m ignorant of, I find it more interesting than objectionable.
Another instance, I don’t know enough about the various Asian/Oriental/whatever differences to tell them apart. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I try not to judge people on their looks but on their actions.
Sometimes there’s a person I see that I wonder are they black, Samoan, Indian or Eskimo, but again it really doesn’t matter, does it? Unless and until their cultural difference requires something of me, I don’t care. It’s about the person. I try not to be racist and I never tell racist jokes or make racist comments.
Well, except for Mexicans. I’m sorry, but I have personal reasons to dislike the majority of Mexicans I’ve come across. There are exceptions and I do try to give a single person the benefit of the doubt, but in general I have issues with them.
Anyway…
In Tyler’s comment I wonder if he thinks we should be learning about everything everyday. Are we supposed to be up on all the information out there at any one time? I know how to use Google. If I need to know something I look it up or ask someone. I have no problem admitting I’m ignorant and I believe there’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. The problem is when you’re stupid.
Ignorant means you’re lacking in knowledge of something, stupid means you just can’t comprehend it or choose not to. I have no problem admitting when I just can’t grasp something though it doesn’t happen very often. If I want to know I eventually figure it out. But sometimes I do give up – when it doesn’t matter in the long run.
Time is short. Take the time to learn something new every day but don’t sweat it if you can’t fully understand it. Decide if it really matters in your life and move on. Don’t stagnate but don’t freak out either. There’s more information in the world than one person can ever know. Pick and choose.
RSS Feeds
Apr 4th
I took computer class in High School (1979) and had training in the Air Force (Remote Site Computer Operator) and then worked in desktop publishing for a few years. But between say, 1990 and 2005 I didn’t touch a computer and that’s a long time to miss. So everything I’ve been able to do on the computer – like this blog – is pretty much self-taught. Most processes I understand enough to get by, maybe doing it the hard way but getting it done with the occasional question answered from friends.
I get the theory of RSS feeds. Subscriptions to sites that automatically update when they update. I use Google Reader because why not. Google is the biggest elephant and my daddy always told me don’t fight with something that’s bigger than you. He was talking about driving but I adhere to his advice in most aspects of my life.
What I’m confused about is the difference between posts that show up completely in my reader and those that only post the first couple of sentences and then make you go to the actual site to read the rest.
Is that set up by the author of the site or is that something I can adjust in my reader?
What is the point of only showing a few lines and then people have to click through? If I wanted to have to go to their site every time, I’d bookmark it not RSS feed it. Do they not get “credit” if I just subscribe?
I’ve tried looking up the difference but the explanations are over my head. I just don’t get it. I want the whole article every time and then I can choose to click through if I want.
Can someone explain please? Without a bunch of technical jargon. Just because I can usually follow along that doesn’t mean I understand.
I’m not a techtard, I just can’t grasp this one.
Stereotypes
Apr 4th
Today’s FUCKed up parenting story:
Girl forced to run 3 hours dies
The gist of the story is a 9-year-old was forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. In the heat, in Alabama.
There are many conclusions you can draw from the little article based on these key words:
- double-wide trailer
- dirt road
- bi-polar and alcoholic
- Alabama
Where does your mind go? What assumptions do you make based on stereotypes?
Then there are the comments. *sigh*
I’ll tell you what, it appears to me grammar ability can be correlated to religiosity. I graduated High School but never went to college and I can put together fairly decent sentences. Sure I don’t have perfect grammar but I’m well above the average Internet commenter, especially the religious ones. Just read through those comments! Or comments on any story with god people and you see they are often barely comprehensible. And I’m stereotyping based on my own observations.
So you have the guy who states the obvious statistical probability.
Trailers, booze, and let me guess, probably a lot more religion than brains.
Followed by over a hundred comments on just that line alone. He’s offensive/he’s likely right. From god saved the child, then god didn’t save the child from the pain but she’s in a better place now, to there is no god. There’s the usual MY religion wouldn’t hurt a child that way so they can’t be real christians followed by those who snarkily point out the bible says it’s fine to kill your own child for misbehavior.
Way more stereotypes based on a small article that actually doesn’t say anywhere the religious preferences of the FUCKed up parent. More assumptions.
We all make assumptions based on what information we get and often we end up being right. But there are times when people get railroaded on the Internet based on that same small amount of information. There are still questions about what happened to Trayvon Martin. All over the web both sides are posting semi-related “information” about the boy, about Zimmerman and even about the police there. Where is the truth? Speculation and out-right lies. I mean somebody has to be lying.
What if Trayvon wasn’t the stereotypical young black man in a hoodie? What if he was a good boy doing no wrong? What if the young girl above was a brat and lied all the time and this 3-hour run was an extreme punishment after several attempts at other corrections? Or was she a constantly abused innocent with a masochistic grandmother.
The point is, we don’t know the whole story. The Internet has become a shouting match for people’s opinions based on stereotypes and personal history.
Take a second next time you type up your outraged comment. Do you really know the whole story or are you just blurting out based on your own stereotypes?
