Telling it like I see it
so don't ask if you don't want to know
Dear Arizona Legislature,
Apr 13th
Are you high?
Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Yesterday was a banner day!
By a vote 17-13, the Senate passed HB 2625. HB 2625 would allow any employer citing a religious objection to refuse to include birth control in insurance coverage for workers. Sure, women who want their birth control covered by the insurance they pay for can find another job but how possible is that in this economy?
The Senate passed 1359 21-9, which means doctors can’t be held liable if they lie or leave out information to their patients. Doctors not being honest with their patients about their health is a good thing, right? As if some people don’t already have trust issues with their doctors.
Governor Brewer signed 2036, making changes to current abortion laws, including banning abortions after 20 weeks except in a “medical emergency,” allowing doctors to prescribe medication abortion pills only through the seventh week of pregnancy which starts counting the first day of your last period. Adding on to this, clinics must post signs saying it is against the law to coerce a woman into having an abortion, physicians must provide additional information about health risks, and the state must create a website with abortion health risks, contact information for adoption agencies and photos or drawings of developing fetuses.
Seriously? That leaves a woman about a 2-minute window to make her choice. How do these things usually work? A girl misses her period (4 weeks) and maybe waits another week just in case she’s just late. Takes a OTC test and it says yes, she starts pondering – maybe talks to the boy – makes a doctor’s appointment (which may take a couple of weeks to get) and makes sure. We’re up to 6-7 weeks already, IF she’s keeping track, too late for the “abortion” pill, so she has to make the appointment for the more invasive type. That’s performed one day a week at the local clinic and she just missed it or they’re booked for a while, plus she’s broke and needs to gather funds. Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?
So where are the “information about health risks, contact information and photos” going to come from? Let me guess. The often-disputed anti-choice websites? It’s a proven fact there are more health risks from having an actual baby than those from an abortion. And exactly how many women are being coerced INTO having an abortion? More likely they’re being berated and shamed OUT of having one only to be left with this innocent child they didn’t want.
Here’s the thing. THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET AS IT IS. Women should be applauded for controlling their fertility, not condemned. Do we really, truly want every woman to have no other choice but to plop out child after child that they likely cannot afford to raise humanely? These unwanted children will likely be raised in poverty relying on government programs. How many kids are in the system now? How many kids are raised by parents just fit enough to not have them taken away?
The same people who legislate fertility are the same ones who repeatedly cut welfare programs. Does that make sense?
Is the underlying purpose of these laws to make it impossible for people to have sex at all? After all, you can’t trust your doctor to provide information about avoiding pregnancy, your insurance coverage (if you’re lucky enough to have a job with such coverage) might not cover birth control and you can’t get it discounted when all the Planned Parenthood clinics are shut down. Then when you do accidentally get pregnant you can’t stop it AND you’re stuck with a child you don’t want and a society who looks down on you and refuses to help. Sound like a great place to you?
Hey, we’re all doing our best out here to have lives and live them with some sort of comfort and dignity. And occasionally have sex. Stop making it harder.
Love (not),
Debbie Walker
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.
Our kind of happy easter
Apr 10th
For the last couple of years we’ve been getting together as a family along with some of my children’s friends. We have pot-luck at a park, have activities for the kids and just have a pleasant day in what is usually a great time to be outside in Arizona.
I got there just in time to miss the water balloon fight (oh gee darn) but got lots of wet hugs. What, water balloons are egg-shaped! I grubbed up on a variety of food and watched the kids play. Daughter arrived with baby so I got to show him off and then the egg hunt started. Little Jack even got one plastic egg of his own. Kira did great too. Unfortunately some of the candies were chocolate and melty which ended up all over many little faces.
So of course I did the Grammi thing and scooped up a fingertip of melty chocolate and offered it up to Jack. His little bird mouth opened and then the little shit did the ungrateful thing. Hey, guess what? Jack has his two bottom teeth coming in and I now have a sore spot on my finger. It was adorable how he licked his chops and wanted more – of the chocolate or my finger I cannot guess.
OK so I don’t really care for other people’s children (even those I have known since their birth) but this is the one time and place where it’s appropriate for kids to be filthy and running around having a ball.
Plus I didn’t have to stay very long.
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?
Deserve?
Apr 2nd
So many words are losing their specialness. You hear “hero” bandied about all the time. Hero is getting washed of it’s impact. Not everyone who is tagged a hero really is one, but then again everybody at some point in their life could be a hero. What is truly heroic? I think being a hero is tied to an event where you put your life on the line for someone else. A bystander jumps in the river to save a child, that’s heroic. Firemen, soldiers, cops, people who put their lives on the line every day as a matter of fact are not as heroic. Or maybe they are.
For some reason the word “deserve” keeps popping up in my radar. “You deserve” this or “you deserve” that. It just rings bells in my head whenever I hear it.
deserve
to merit, be qualified for, or have a claim to (reward, assistance, punishment, etc.) because of actions, qualities, or situation: to deserve exile; to deserve charity; a theory that deserves consideration.
“You deserve a better life.” Hell, we all deserve a better life, right? What makes one person more deserving than another? It just makes me cringe every time I hear it. On TV, man tells woman she deserves to be safe. We all deserve to be safe! Doctor tells child he deserves to be healthy. We ALL deserve to be healthy. Every time I hear the word I immediately wonder what make that character more special than the guy next door and it’s usually nothing more than being human.
My niece has had a rough life. She’s already fought cancer once and doesn’t deserve this second battle. But how did she deserve it the first time?
“You get what you deserve.” What the fuck does that mean? We usually think of that line when some nasty person has bad luck, but bad luck happens to good people too.
Damn that word annoys me.
If a person works hard they deserve a raise. If you do something special you deserve a reward. If your kids are acting out in public and you do nothing, you deserve contempt by the people around you. It’s supposed to be a cause and effect thing, not everyone deserves whatever they want.
Geesh.
Brilliant idea for an app.
Mar 30th
How often does someone say, “remind me next time I go to X that I should pick up Y.” Aunt Sarah has your best pie plate. You need a new pill cutter pretty soon. Or you want to remember that diner next time you’re downtown.
But you don’t want to make a special trip, not with gas at $4 a gallon.
Isn’t there some way to combine a text program with a gps? You could enter a reminder note and an address or business name and next time you’re near it up pops a text!
You could call it Mental Note.
Inner v outer beauty
Mar 29th
I read this today about 2 women who usually get all gussied up every day taking 2 months off. No makeup, no shaving, no hair coloring, etc. It all started with one woman talking to the girls from her Girls on the Run group.
“So many times, a little girl will say ‘If you tell me I’m beautiful just the way I am, why do you color your hair or wear makeup?’ “
Yes, why do we?
I don’t normally wear makeup. It’s too expensive and I’m not really comfortable in it. Maybe for special occasions? A little makeup to enhance is fine. I do color my hair because I’ve been going grey pretty much since I was a teenager and it’s not even a pretty grey. Think battleship. Before I started coloring my hair in my mid-thirties people often thought I was much older. Now people always think I’m younger than I am though I never lie about my age. I’m 50 and proud of it. I just look… better.
I’ve known women who get their hair and nails done on a regular basis. One old friend constantly bitched about lack of money yet never missed a hair or nail appointment. Then again she was ginormous and almost every conversation included “when I lose my weight I will…” but as far as I know she’s still the same size. I went once to get a pedicure and likely will never go again. It all seems like such a waste of money if you don’t have money to waste.
Now the ladies in the article stopped shaving anywhere and stopped using deodorant at first. The deodorant was quickly added back into their hygienic routines but still no shaving. Shaving your pits is usually necessary, though I’m sure lots of women out there don’t. As long as you don’t stink, fine. I’ve talked about shaving before. But what is so wrong with wrinkles? And clean nicely shaped nails are just about all a person needs.
So how much beautifying do we really need? I watch these anti-wrinkle commercials and other ads to cover up and make your skin look like porcelain. I don’t have wrinkles (I guess I’m lucky) but I don’t think I’d worry about them if I did. Why is the standard for women to cover up anything that is natural? It’s your skin and supposed to be that way! How much of this crap do women pay good money for and use religiously just because we’ve been fed this bullshit that we should all look like perfect plastic dolls? What’s wrong with freckles? And what is the fascination with eyebrows? Unless you’re blessed with an overabundant uni-brow there’s no reason for the ridiculousness going on with eyebrows!
How much money do women waste because we’re constantly told NORMAL is a level of beauty we can never hope to achieve?
There’s a difference between enhancing what you have and turning yourself unrecognizable every day.
I just don’t get it.
