liberal agnostic redneck

Redneck Feminism

2011-08-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Last night was a dream come true for a redneck feminist documentary freak like me. The evening started out with a movie about Gloria Steinem on HBO. All those clips of women marching and protesting during the early seventies brought back memories of my own budding feminism during my pre-school years. I was four or five when I first recall parroting back some of the slogans I heard on TV. My mom had gone into Houchens to pick up a few groceries and left me in the car with my dad and brother. I don’t remember what the conversation was about but when I piped up and said women could do anything men could do they just laughed and laughed. I think I may have even gotten patted on the head. Attitudes about a woman’s role in rural Kentucky circa 1971 were closer to 1961 attitudes in the more liberal areas of the country. That’s what made the next documentary so refreshing to see.

I don’t think the women in Harlan County USA considered themselves feminists but the actions they took during the miner’s strike that started in June of 1972 showed that they could more than hold their own with any man. When Lois Scott whips that gun out of her bra, you know she’s more than capable of using it. Yes, they were standing by their men, but it was a fight for their family’s very survival. That’s what’s so sad about the women’s movement from that era. Somehow they got the reputation of being a bunch of man-hating, anti-family lesbians and that scared away a lot of strong women who otherwise might have been sympathetic to the cause. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened during the seventies if more redneck women had been involved with the movement.

The final film of the night, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, is heavy on the redneck but the feminism angle is a little more problematic. It focuses on the female members of the White clan, a violent, drug-using family who gained national renown for the mountain dancing prowess of patriarch D. Ray and his son Jesco. In some ways these women are the flip side of Harlan County USA. Instead of fighting the coal companies, they’ve taken the crazy check and dropped out of law-abiding society all together. When Kirk tells the story about the night she stabbed her boyfriend for sleeping with her cousin, it makes you realize that, contrary to all the rhetoric spouted early on about how women’s equality would make the world more peaceful, violence isn’t gender-specific. I'm not sure what this all says about the state of feminism today but I guess it does prove my point from 40 years ago. Women really can do anything men can, good or bad.

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

2011-01-10T19:55:00.001-08:00

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

I was shocked that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik actually voiced what I and a lot of other Arizonans have been thinking for a long time during his press conference after the massacre in Tucson on Saturday. Watching health care town hall meetings degenerate into violence, citizens bringing guns to presidential events and hearing about the death threats and vandalized offices of our elected officials it seemed like only a matter of time before someone came along and took all the violent rhetoric spewing from the extreme right literally.

Sadly, their reaction to this general statement asking everyone to tone down the hate speech wasn’t shocking at all. The sheriff didn’t identify any person or group by name but evidently they know who they are because the attacks against Dupnik and others who even dared to contemplate that violent rhetoric might have contributed to a mentally disturbed young man thinking it was okay to commit murder started almost immediately. Rather than even stop for one second and consider the consequences their words might have had, they went straight to blaming the left for even bringing up the subject.

Mark Meckler, one of the tea party leaders said, "To see the left exploit this for political advantage -- some people have no conscience. It's genuinely revolting...I think it sinks to the level of evil." Uh, excuse me, but the only way the left could “exploit” this for political advantage was if they weren't the ones participating in the vitriol. The right has Sharron Angle suggesting 2nd Amendment remedies, Glenn Beck joking about poisoning Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin setting her gun sights on fellow politicians. The left has what... Keith Olbermann electing the world's worst person? There's just no comparison. And ironically, Olbermann's the only one who apologized for anything he may have said to incite violence.

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck had a little e-mail love fest that he felt the need to publicize on his radio show. Beck starts out by saying “Sarah, peace is always the answer” and then goes on to urge her to look into protection because an attack on Sarah Palin could bring the republic down. Sarah replies, "I hate violence, I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence. Thanks for all you do to send the message of truth and love and God as the answer." Please! Give me a break. This sounds more Lennon and Ono than Beck and Palin to me.

But in my view, Rush Limbaugh deserves the world's worst designation. He threw everything but the kitchen sink at his detractors in an attempt to deflect attention away from the hate he wallows in every day and what bothers me the most is that he actually had the gall to blame Jared Lee Loughner's parents for this atrocity. I can only imagine what kind of hell this poor couple's already been through trying to deal with their son's illness and to have some mean-spirited radio host who has no idea that it's virtually impossible to have someone involuntarily detained until AFTER they've committed a violent act attack them is beyond despicable.

I never expected all the right wing hatemongers to suddenly join together in a big group hug and start singing kumbaya by the campfire but I was hoping that at least one person might consider changing his or her ways. I just never imagined that one person would be Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. According to the Huffington Post website Ailes said, "I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don't have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that." I can't believe I'm actually typing this but I agree Mr. Ailes, I agree.

You're A Mean One, Mr. Mitch

2010-12-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

You're a mean one, Mister Mitch
You really are a heel,
You're holding Congress hostage for a sleazy tax break deal, Mister Mitch,
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!

You're a monster, Mister Mitch,
Your heart's an empty hole,
You'll let unemployed go hungry just to save the rich man's dole, Mister Mitch,
I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

You're a vile one, Mister Mitch,
You have termites in your smile,
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mister Mitch,
Given a choice between the two of you I'd take the ... seasick crocodile!

You nauseate me, Mister Mitch,
With a nauseous super "naus",
You'll sacrifice the workers to enrich their crooked boss, Mister Mitch,
You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich, with arsenic sauce!

You're a foul one, Mister Mitch,
You're a nasty wasty skunk,
You'll bail out your Wall Street cronies but let the common man stay sunk, Mister Mitch,
The three words that describe you are as follows, and I quote, "Stink, Stank, Stunk!"

You're a rotter, Mister Mitch,
You're the king of sinful sots,
You'll take health care from the needy but give business lots and lots, Mister Mitch,
Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots!

We're #180!

2010-11-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

The Bourbon Chase is a 200 mile twelve man team relay race that begins in Clermont, Kentucky and ends in downtown Lexington. I started my first leg around lunchtime on October 22nd and limped the last few yards to the finish line with my team, Southern Discomfort, around dusk on October 23rd... And I haven't run since. Hell, I've barely been able to walk. It's just been in the last couple of days that I stopped looking like a candidate for hip replacement surgery. I'm still up in the air about whether this race was a once in a lifetime thing or not but I do know that it was an experience I'll never forget or regret.

I had no idea what was in store for me when we pulled into the packed Jim Beam parking lot that morning to start the race. It was still a little chilly when we walked up to the area around the starting line where we grabbed up freebies and got our Bourbon Trail passports stamped at the first of six distilleries we would pass along our way. My sister, Susan, started us off. Since this was her longest leg, Susan was sure that she would be coming in late so we all took our time walking from the van to the exchange point. As it turned out, my nephew, Damon, barely made it for the handoff and that made me nervous. Waiting to take the slap-on wristband from him at the next stop, I was feeling like that man who ran by me and puked beside a tree. The only other person in their forties on my team had just breezed through her first seven miles. How bad was that going to make me look if I didn't run my lousy 3.9 in the eleven minute mile pace I promised?

During my first run I wore some kind of gadget on my wrist that my sister let me use to see what kind of pace I was running. After glancing down a few times and seeing it yo-yo back and forth between eight and sixteen minutes, I decided it was a little too late for me to become a real athlete. I just tried to run in the same weird way I did before work back in Tucson. It worked pretty well until I got to Heaven Hill, not the distillery, the actual hill. The running screeched to a halt and after trudging to the top Damon tried to make me feel better by saying a lot of people walked it. Only I knew that if that pit bull straining at his chain in somebody's yard on the outskirts of Bardstown hadn't gotten me moving a little faster, I never would have come in when I was expected. After passing off to our captain, Ben, I had a short sneezing fit from whatever allergens were in the air and then we were back on the road headed to the next rendezvous.

Ben handed off to Andy, the last minute powerhouse in our van. With only a week's notice, he took over for an injured teammate and ended up being one of the fastest people we had. I wish a training diet of cigarettes, alcohol, and Krispy Kreme donuts worked for me, but I'm not in my twenties anymore. Dustin, a former center for the Murray State football team, finished off for van #1 and then van #2 took over. That gave us time to have the first real meal of the day at O'Charley's in Danville. Then it was on to a little rest in Perryville... Or so I thought. Dustin, Susan and I were all stretched out in the three back seats when the first musket or cannon or whatever the hell it was went off. And every time I would almost fall asleep another runner would come in and it would go off again. Dustin gave some pretty graphic descriptions of where he was going to stick those muskets but ultimately we gave up on sleep and braved the cold to watch our last runner from van #2, Rocco, hand off to Susan.

Susan said the night run was her hardest but it turned out to be my fastest. I regretted wearing my jacket at the end but I think it contributed to me making good time. When I originally decided to keep it on my thinking was that I could just take it off and tie it around my waist when I got hot but I didn't figure in the fact that I would have a reflective vest over the top that would eat up way too much time trying to remove. Between the unzipped jacket sliding down my arms and the headlamp resting on my nose, I was so damned uncomfortable that I was willing to do anything to make it back to the van, even run. I almost added a few extra miles to my 4.5 mile leg when I came to the first fork in the road and had no idea where to go. Luckily, I could see the lights of some runners up ahead so I guessed correctly that they had a better sense of direction than me. I got so excited when I saw the 1 mile left marker that I didn't notice the grass had turned to asphalt and came dangerously close to doing a face plant, but I managed to recover and with the strange rustlings in the woods spurring me on, I made it to the exchange point. That's when all the energy left my body and didn't return for at least a week.

I couldn't think of anything but our other teammates who were sleeping in the two motel rooms we had reserved for the race. We finally made it there sometime early Saturday morning and even though I changed and got in bed in record time, I still only slept about 2 1/2 hours at the most. At least we had it better than the guys since it was only me, Susan and our co-pilot, Janet. She's the sister of Mr. Bryan, our driver and my junior high band teacher. He said to call him Ron but I have a hard time even typing his name that way, much less saying it out loud. I have to give them props though because if you gave me a choice between running the hardest leg in the Bourbon Chase and trying to parallel park some big-ass van on the side of the road, I'd choose running every time. It was freezing when we got to Four Roses Distillery for Susan's last leg of the race and I didn't even have the energy to hobble down and see her start. They had various stands set up, including an old fashioned photo booth, but all I was interested in was some nice hot coffee. Well, I was really interested in a country ham biscuit too but the thought of it coming up in the middle of my next run kept me from acting on that particular desire. I probably should have passed on the coffee as well because while I was waiting for Damon to start his last run I had to use one of the port-o-potties in the middle of the Anderson County High School parking lot...And it wasn't number one.

I really had nothing left to give when I started my last and only medium rated 3.9 mile leg. I did manage to at least run up the first hill but that was only because I had to do it when I was leaving the crowd at the Wild Turkey parking lot. As soon as I turned the corner the walking began. Thankfully, the section I'd been dreading most came up fairly early. I'm not a real shot in the ass about heights and crossing a little two-lane bridge over the Kentucky River that runs parallel to what was once the highest railroad bridge in America was not my idea of a good time. But actually, it didn't turn out too bad. They had police posted at each side and they only let one car at a time come through so I never had to stop and pin myself up against the guardrail. I even slowed down to admire the view when I was safely on the other side. And the views were great but the slog was brutal. I didn't even attempt to run up the numerous hills and on the flat parts I only half-assed tried to do some creepy old lady powerwalk I'd seen somebody do at a race in Tucson. That left going down for picking up speed. I'm just glad no one had a camera to capture me pinwheeling down those hills like some crazed five year old. This was my only really rural run and I'd forgotten what often happens on two lane country roads. Animals and cars collide. My last count was 3 dead possums, a snake, a crow, some unidentifiable fluffy object and the distinct smell of dead skunk, although I never saw the carcass. Even though I limped across the railroad tracks to make my final hand-off a few minutes over time, overall I think I made my 11 minute mile.

Being in van #1 had a distinct advantage because once Dustin finished at Woodford Reserve we were able to check into our hotels and take long hot showers before the party began in downtown Lexington. I wore that stupid plastic wristband through the whole race just so I could do the free bourbon tasting at the end and once I had some chili and a Kentucky Ale aged in whiskey barrels I was too tired to even use it. We made our final run across the finish line, hurriedly got our medals and posed for a quick picture before they shoved us out of the way to make room for the next team. I limped around for another hour or two but the party was pretty much over for me. It was kind of sad thinking that I'd probably never get a chance to see grown men running around rural Kentucky wearing superman speedos or grass skirts and coconuts ever again. The Dickel Me Elmo van had made its final run.

Pain Pain Go Away

2010-06-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

I have a newfound respect for people who live with chronic pain. For over three weeks I’ve been dealing with constant foot/leg pain and cramps and last Sunday I pretty much reached my breaking point. I got maybe two hours sleep and it felt like I was going insane. I couldn’t get into the doctor’s office until Tuesday so I resorted to bumming a few pain pills from a friend just so I could get a little rest. They didn’t totally alleviate the aching and foot twitches but at least I got a little rest, even though I still had to sleep in my tennis shoes.

Wearing shoes 24 hours a day was a little trick I learned when I was getting radiation treatments last year and had constant foot cramps without the aching leg pain. My feet still twitch but at least they don’t fold up like a sandwich and leave this agnostic writhing in the floor and praying to God to make it stop. I couldn’t even take off my shoes long enough shower and let me tell you, there’s nothing sexier than a woman wearing nothing but sneakers leaning under the shower head trying to wash her hair and get a little sponge bath in. Obviously I’m not very good at conveying how painful this really is because the nurse practitioner gave me a referral to a neurologist who couldn’t fit me in until August and a blood work order to take to Sonora Quest Labs. I felt like some kind of junkie calling back that afternoon and begging for anything that would give me some relief.

They agreed to give me a muscle relaxant but unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, they called it in to Walgreens not CVS like I asked. I wasn’t able to get a ride to the pharmacy until after business hours so I didn’t find out about the mix-up until the next day. I tried taking a few more of the pills I had at home but they didn’t make a dent in the pain so Tuesday ended being pretty much a repeat of Sunday. I got the prescription filled and my blood work done on Wednesday and even though I had to take double the prescribed dosage, I was able to get a little sleep. I got up Thursday determined to go back to work but I only made it till about 1:30. If my friends Brandy and Michele hadn’t stepped in then and raised some hell for me, I’m afraid I would be at the emergency room right now instead of typing this post.

They got me in to see the doctor the next day and went with me to make sure she understood just how debilitating the pain really was. I came out of that office with pills for nerve pain and anxiety, an appointment with the neurologist on Monday and the results of my blood test that the receptionist said they didn’t have when I called. So for all you people who keep insisting that I just need to eat more bananas, my potassium level is just fine. In fact, everything came back good. She even said my sugar and cholesterol levels were great. Unfortunately, that leaves Tamoxifen side effects or nerve damage as the cause of my agony. Yesterday I quit the Tamoxifen and took my first dose of Neurontin for my nerve pain. It didn’t last long, but this morning I was able to take my first real shower of the month and drive to the grocery before the aching and twitching returned. Even though I may have my doubts, I’m still willing to pray to God/Allah/The Earth Goddess/Buddha or whoever if it will make the neurologist be able to give me some relief before I leave on my Adventure Bus hiking vacation in a few weeks.

Who Gives a Shit About Global Warming?

2010-05-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

Fine, go ahead and think that global warming is some kind of left-wing conspiracy. At this point, it doesn’t really matter. The evidence that proves continuing to rely on oil and coal for our energy needs is unsustainable is being broadcast on cable and the internet every day. Sure, ecological catastrophes like the BP Gulf Coast oil spill have been happening in places like Nigeria for years but Americans are a NIMBY kind of people and until it affects our oysters on the half shell or Redneck Riviera getaways we could give a shit less. We may put up with poisoned environments in places like Appalachia or Brownsville, Texas but by god, not where we have our vacation home!

I’m not saying we should all give away our cars and start using only solar and wind energy tomorrow but Jesus Christ, can we at least acknowledge that something needs to be done? Monsanto is feeding our citizens food stuff that is rapidly becoming something one step up from soylent green, Massey Energy is lopping off our mountain tops and dumping them into our streams and BP Oil has managed to destroy the fishing and tourism industries in the Gulf Coast for years to come. And that’s not even mentioning the dead plants, animals and people that these toxic industries leave in their wake. How the fuck is this cost effective? And I know that nuclear energy is touted as the new green solution but I don’t buy it. Just like the BP disaster, all it takes is one perfect storm of human fuckups to turn a large part of our country into a vast wasteland.

The President’s Cancer Panel finally admitted that we’re being bombarded with cancer-causing chemicals every day and the industries that we rely on for our energy needs are a big part of the problem. When I was growing up, they taught me that America was the leader of the free world. Well all right, lead! Bite the bullet and fund the programs and research that will bring our country back to being number one in things like life expectancy, educational level attained, and environmental beauty. It reminds me of that study where the kids were offered one marshmallow right away or two if they could wait 15 or 20 minutes. Finding alternative energy sources may cost a little more in the short term, but in the long run, your children and grandchildren will have a lot bigger marshmallow to share.

Earth Day 2010

2010-04-22T18:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, I don’t remember the first Earth Day in 1970 but the crying Indian that was introduced in a Keep America Beautiful PSA on Earth Day in 1971 ranks right up there with the Sugar Pops Bear and Charlie the Tuna as an iconic image from my childhood. I grew up in the cave region of Kentucky so you could drive down any country road back then and find the landscape dotted with trash-filled sinkholes as you casually chucked your Burger Chef leftovers out of the open car window.

My ideal Saturday in 1971 was early morning cartoons, a Grape Nehi, and some pickle dog (pickled bologna) at Mrs. Jones' general store and then driving around the back roads all afternoon “dumping”. We didn't actually dump anything but we'd stop at every sinkhole trash heap along the way to look for some valuable collectible. For me, that was a one-legged Ken or a car steering wheel. For my mom and my aunt, it was a soda bottle or an Avon decanter. You don't see that kind of blatant disregard for the earth much anymore but that's not to say that there isn't room for improvement.

Forty years ago we had lakes that caught on fire and now we have mountains being cut off at the throat. I usually lean towards the pessimist’s view but I have to admit that Americans back then were able to change their mindset about the benefits of not pitching trash in their own backyard so maybe there’s still hope that we’ll be able to pull our heads out of the sand in regards to global warming and the carte blanche we’ve given large corporations to rape our mountains and streams. Or... Maybe not. Per the supreme court, corporations are just plain folks too. Narcissistic, homicidal, sociopathic folks perhaps, but people nonetheless.

Born Again Hard

2010-03-04T21:23:00.000-08:00

All right, it’s official. I’ve lost my fucking mind. I attended boot camp last Tuesday. Okay, it was beat cancer boot camp but still, considering my fear and loathing of calisthenics and group activities, it’s a miracle that I didn’t run screaming to my car the first time “Sarge” blew the whistle. Not that the thought didn’t cross my mind. I’m just glad it wasn’t for real because I’m afraid I’d be the fat guy in Full Metal Jacket who got the soap beating from his fellow Marines. By the time I figured out what the hell we were doing, they had already moved on to something else. Even the two little girls who wandered over with their dad picked it up faster than me.

I had no idea when I wrote my last blog post that boot camp would be the end result. It seems I’m all for telling other people about charitable causes but when it comes to actually doing something…Umm, not so much. That’s why when my sister and nephew suggested that we join a team running in The Bourbon Chase to raise money for schizophrenia research my first reaction was, Oh hell no! But after looking at their website I somehow convinced myself that, by god, I can do this!What was I thinking?!My idea of exercise is walking to the mailbox to pick up a magazine I can lay on the couch and read. A 200 mile overnight relay where I have to run three legs of approximately five miles each, oh yeah, that's doable.

So that's what drove me to doing situps in some park I'd never heard of. I wanted to find out just how bad the situation really was. And it wasn't pretty. I'm going to start my training walking and try to build up to a light jog. The last time I broke out into a full tilt run was when I was thirteen and some old man in the neighborhood came to the door armed when me and my friends were out ringing doorbells in the middle of the night. There's nothing like the blast from a shotgun to get the blood moving and the adrenaline pumping. I'm hoping it won't take something that drastic to get me motivated this time. Maybe the free bourbon at the end of the course will be enough.

The Silver Ribbon Coalition

2010-02-16T15:20:00.001-08:00

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
As a breast cancer survivor, the whole pink ribbon thing makes me feel kind of guilty. I know there are other diseases that are also in dire need of research funding but they don’t get the same publicity. One that has been even more devastating than breast cancer for my immediate family is paranoid schizophrenia. My brother was senior class president and voted most likely to succeed in high school. He went on to have a successful career as an attorney for the state of Kentucky and a few years ago he decided to take a very generous early retirement package. That’s when the real trouble began.

Kent is 5½ years older than me so growing up we weren’t as close but once I entered my teen years he became one of my best friends and we talked on the phone several times a week. He had always been somewhat paranoid but as his retirement date got closer, the conspiracies he was imagining became more and more bizarre. He was sure that his phone was being tapped and people were following him home from work. I tried reasoning with him but usually he was drunk when he would tell me these things so it didn’t do much good. Even after he started telling the rest of the family about his government conspiracy theories, I still wanted to blame the alcohol.

But a few months after he retired, he stopped drinking all together and things went from bad to worse. That’s when I got really scared. He decided that everyone he encountered, including our entire family, were clones that were out to get him. There was nothing we could do other than check up on him and bring him food because unless you can prove someone is a threat to themselves or others, you can’t force them into treatment. Eventually he broke into a neighbor’s house and demanded to know why they were spying on him. Naturally they called the police and after being tasered and taken to jail, we were finally able to get him into a psychiatric hospital.

That’s when the whole legal nightmare of things like getting guardianship and court-ordered medications began. He barely got started on the drugs before his insurance ran out and they released him. He immediately stopped taking his meds and it was another year of hell until the voices got so bad that he was banging his head against the wall and my parents had to call the police. He’s stayed on the medication that stopped the voices since his second hospitalization but refuses to try the drug that might help the delusions because he would have to consent to regular blood work.

In order to move on, I had to accept the fact that the brother I knew was dead and he wasn’t coming back. I did let myself feel a little hope during the last month or so because I thought he had found a doctor that he would actually talk to. It turned out to be a big misunderstanding and he is holding onto his delusional beliefs as firmly as ever. My parents have had to shoulder the brunt of the burden but I know eventually my sister and I will have to take over his care and that scares the shit out of me. Even though I know Kent's probably not coming back, I still can't get rid of that little glimmer of hope that I might be able to hear him really laugh one more time. If anyone wants to help fight schizophrenia and other brain disorders you can visit the silver ribbon foundation at www.silverribbon.org.

Litracy Test

2010-02-05T23:02:00.001-08:00

The first Tea Party Convention in Nashville opened up with a bang when former congressman Tom Tancredo said that we should have to take a civics, literacy test before we can vote because "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House." I say, bring it on. I’ve seen enough of those barely literate tea party signs that say things like yes God bless Amercia and Thank you Fox News for keeping us infromed to be willing to bet that huge numbers of white people would be stripped of their voting rights right along with the minority citizens he seems to be targeting.

I guess Mr. Tancredo longs for the good old days before the 1965 Voting Rights Act when whoever was white and in power could decide which Americans got to cast their ballot on election day. I get sick and tired of hearing these apologists for the movement saying that it isn’t about race, it’s about limited government spending. WTF?!?! You had eight goddamn years to complain about Bush taking us from a surplus to over a trillion dollar debt and I didn’t hear one peep. Obama didn’t even get a chance to step into the White House before you were ready to impeach him. As someone who grew up in the first generation in the South to attend desegregated schools, I recognize a racist when I see them and a lot of Tea Party members bear a strong resemblance to the bigots I knew as a kid.

I’m not saying that most of the people at these rallies are consciously prejudiced but they have a fear of “those people”. George Bush was one of them in a way that anyone named Barack Hussein Obama could never be. And the really bizarre thing is that the Tea Partiers are actually “my people”. They are the culture of my childhood. I had my fifteen seconds of fame in the mid-seventies when WAVE-TV 3 filmed my sister and me sitting on the side of the stage at a free Ray Stevens concert at the Kentucky State Fair. And now he’s writing songs for the Tea Party movement. That pretty much sums up my life. Even though they drive me insane, the people who actually believe the bold-faced lies that our sitting president is a racist, socialist foreigner are the same people from church who changed my diapers in the nursery and taught me in Vacation Bible School when I was little.

We’re Number One!

2010-01-28T20:26:00.000-08:00

It’s official! The Swiss research firm Covalence has released its annual ranking of the ethical performance of multinational corporations and Monsanto is now the most unethical company in the world! The same company that brought you those crazy chemical concoctions like Agent Orange, PCBs and DDT is now in control of your food supply. From cows treated with recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone who get sick but produce more milk to suing farmers for having Monsanto patented seeds that blew into their fields, Monsanto food has become the norm in America.

The thing that really freaks me out about it is that this is so Damien: Omen II. Thorn Industries was going to use food to control the world and Monsanto seems to be following in their footsteps. It’s kind of like a story I wrote for a fiction class in college where a P.E. Teacher is fired for being overweight. At the time, that was a crazy idea but now we have a U.S. Surgeon General candidate, Regina Benjamin, who is being challenged for exactly that reason. Maybe she’s fat for the same reason that most of her fellow citizens are, the factory-farmed and mass produced food stuff we’re offered in stores is full of fat and salt and sugar.

I'm not asking farmers to break the corn habit overnight but if the government would quit subsidizing particular crops we might be able to set up a farming community that doesn't depend on chemicals and fertilizer to make a profit.People have to make a decision. Either you want fresh food that costs extra and takes a little more preparation time or you'll settle for some genetically-modified, factory-farmed mound of food stuff. Somehow I think Monsanto's combo of convenience and carcinogens will win over the public every time.

The Death of Hope

2010-01-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

This is it. I give up. I will never see a president who represents me in my lifetime. I’m back to the hopelessness I felt during my high school/college years at the height of the Reagan revolution. I was a little late hopping on the Obama train because, believe it or not, I bought John Edwards’ populist bullshit about being there for the little guy. Jesus, we dodged a bullet on that one. After the expose in the National Enquirer, the 21st century’s go-to spot for investigative journalism, it looks like the Edwards campaign probably would have imploded well before they got their hour of hope. Nobody in their right mind is going to make excuses for a raging narcissist who’s fucking around on his dying wife, although they will for a sitting president whose wife is a little too capable for some people’s taste.

I was guardedly optimistic when the man from Hope, Arkansas entered the White House but he quickly devolved into just another Democrat in name only after bringing the country such fine legislation as don’t ask, don’t tell, NAFTA, the welfare reform act and the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Obama knows how to speak convincingly because every time I tell myself that I’m through listening, he always seems to reel me back in. But after the health care fiasco, I’m through. If I don’t see some concrete actions to show me that he’s looking out for something besides corporate interests, I’m giving up on both political parties in this country.

We’ve had Ross Perot and now the Tea Party activists are making their bid to be the next third party but what I want to know is when we’re going to have a viable progressive candidate who wants to fight for our citizens, not the corporations who run things now. Okay, I know Ralph Nader ran for president but I think he’s an egotistical asshole who’s only out for himself so that doesn’t really count. A big part of the backlash against Obama is because he promised change and so far it’s pretty much been business as usual with a little feel good rhetoric for the people who actually elected him. The thing that really scares me about this country is how quickly people are willing to endorse the vicious, hate-filled ideas of the radical right just so they can see some kind of change, no matter how hurtful it is to the poor and middle class.

Running With The Devil

2010-01-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

After Pat Robertson announced that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by a pact the Haitians made with the devil to win their independence from the French, I decided to do a little Google search on the reverend. I remembered a few of his totally bat shit statements but Jesus Christ! He’s one of the sleaziest, most evil dickheads hiding behind the cloak of Christianity that this country has ever produced. Here’s just a sampling of Robertson at his most offensive: blaming 9/11 on America’s tolerance of abortion and homosexuality, saying the Supreme Court was a greater threat to the U.S. than Al Qaeda, describing feminism as a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians and publicly calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Can you believe that three million people actually signed a petition supporting this dumbass for the Republican presidential nomination back in the late eighties?!? Even more disturbing are some of Robertson’s former business associates. In his diamond enterprise they included such fine upstanding people as Zaire's dictator, Mobuto Sese Seko and the good Baptist, Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor. He also agreed to an out of court settlement in a 2001 case where ten black female employees of his Christian Coalition sued him for discrimination. One of the allegations was that they had to use the back door and eat their lunches in a racially segregated area. Sounds like the Jim Crow south?

It’s not surprising since his father, who was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from 1933 to 1967, spent his career trying to keep these discriminatory laws on the books. It looks like Pat Robertson still yearns for the white, upper-class society that he knew as a child. If he was just your run of the mill crook using Christianity to fatten his bank account it wouldn’t be so scary but he actually thinks he’s the mouthpiece for God. The fact that his asinine predictions of the world’s end in 1982 or major terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2007 never came to pass doesn’t seem to put a dent in this man’s belief in his own infallibility. Hmmm, if I was betting my money on who actually made a pact with the devil who would I pick? The Haitians who fought to free themselves from the yoke of slavery or the Christian Right’s answer to Sylvia Browne?

Peace Warriors

2010-01-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

Photo credit: pschubert from morguefile.com
A friend on Facebook posted something about global warming the other day and since it piqued my interest, I did a little internet research and happened to stumble across something called The Earth Charter (http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/The-Earth-Charter.html). It’s basically a little touchy-feely document that says we as a world should strive to promote respect for all life, social and economic justice, democracy and peace. I was ready to start swaying and singing Kumbaya by the time I finished reading the charter. It was endorsed by the 2001 U.S. Conference of Mayors, various youth organizations, the Unitarians, and even some Catholic groups for God‘s sake! Who could object to that?

A lot of people as it turns out. Evidently there’s some kind of crazy-ass theory that it’s all a conspiracy by groups like the United Nations and the Bilderburg Group to form an evil one-world government. There are conservative Christians who consider it some kind of pagan mumbo-jumbo religion that will persecute them once they gain control. Relax, anyone who’s out for peace and respect is probably not going to nail you to the cross. I’d be more worried about the people right here in America who approved torture, extraordinary rendition and the Patriot Act. The thing that really makes my head explode though, is the fact that some of the same Christians who buy into these theories also rave about the teachings of Ayn Rand, an atheist in an open marriage who had a long-term affair with a much younger man.

I read Atlas Shrugged years ago and I’m sorry but damn, she was one selfish old bitch. In the book all the elite thinkers stage a strike and the world basically collapses. She neglects to mention that if all the peons staged a strike it would have the same outcome. Everybody’s needed to make a society work. I’ve read the Bible and her theory of Objectivism seems about as far away from the teachings of Jesus as you can get. It’s not survival of the fittest, it’s do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And saying fuck you, I don’t care if you’ve run into a bad stretch in your life, it’s every man for himself, is not the way I see a true Christian thinking.

Just Take A Little Off The Top

2010-01-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

My first job out of college was as an Environmental Investigator for the Natural Resources Cabinet Department of Law Surface Mining Division. It sounds like an important position but we were really only hired because the federal government had sued the state of Kentucky to force them to put forth at least a minimal effort in collecting fines owed for coal mining violations. Within the first week I realized that any ideas I had about protecting the environment were only pipe dreams.

The department’s policy was to prosecute the person who signed the permit package. This was usually some poor worker the coal company suckered into signing in exchange for a $12 an hour job as a heavy equipment operator. $12 an hour might not sound like much to a lot of people but back in 1989, in one of the poorest areas of the country, that was damn good money. It was a hell of a lot more than I was making. My job was to go out to the county courthouses and find all the assets these people had hidden away so they could pay off their $150,000 fine for polluting the water and scarring the landscape. After the first couple of months my running joke was that I didn’t even need to travel to the courthouses anymore, I already knew what I would find, a doublewide, some financed furniture and a 75 Chevy pickup.

The damage surface mining can do is bad enough but mountain top removal was just getting geared up when I left the department in 91. I remember driving by a few mountain top removal sites back then and they are hideous. It’s kind of like that woman on Oprah who was attacked by the monkey or the lady whose dog chewed her face off. It’s that disfiguring. That’s not even including the polluted water and cracked house foundations and millions of pounds of explosives going off 24 hours a day that the poor people who live there have to deal with. Every time there’s a hard rain they have to worry whether or not that will be the day they lose their home altogether because the coal companies have removed everything that used to block the water’s path.

From my experience with Kentucky state government, I think it’s a given that they’ll side with the coal companies every time but Obama has shown that he is at least open to the possibility of stopping the rape of the mountains that’s going on now. I’ve been hiking and camping in the Appalachian Mountains and it’s one of the most beautiful areas on earth. Even though I’m not religious, some of my most spiritual experiences have happened in those very mountains. It just really chaps my ass that no one would even consider suggesting that we lop off the tops of the Rocky Mountains but somehow the Appalachians are fair game. If you want to find out more about how destructive this practice really is, check out this video at http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198

Fly The Friendly Skies

2009-12-29T10:50:00.000-08:00

“Soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo, these things are not going to appease the terrorists,” he said. “They’re going to keep coming after us, and we can’t have politics as usual in Washington, and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got right now with airport security.” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)

When I saw this quote in a Politico article this morning it once again made me wonder how South Carolina can so consistently elect such a bunch of dumbasses into office. Yes, Senator DeMint, I totally agree, we can’t have politics as usual in Washington and that’s definitely what we have right now with airport security. If you hadn’t been playing politics as usual by holding up the appointment of Erroll Southers to head the Transportation Safety Administration maybe we could’ve had a better screening system in place that would’ve acted on the intelligence that we already had on the underwear bomber.

Unfortunately we’ll never know because you chose to block the current administration from getting a leader in place who could examine the effectiveness of the security measures enacted by the Republicans because Southers might let TSA employees unionize. Call me crazy but I’ll take employees who are adequately compensated and subsequently might actually give a damn about doing a decent job over people hired on the cheap that are constantly in fear of losing their position to someone willing to take 50 cents an hour less.

DeMint says he’s worried that union bosses could delay or veto security measures but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Acting quickly without thinking things through got us an asinine color-coded alert system that no one pays any attention to, a ban on adequately-sized toiletries and an obsession with making all passengers go barefoot through the security line. None of these swift actions has improved our security in any way that I can see. Janet Napolitano’s initial reaction to the crisis didn’t do anything to make me feel that the Democrats will handle future terrorist attacks any better than their predecessors but the least Senator DeMint can do is shut up, get out of the way and let the Obama administration make their own mistakes.

What are the Aughts?

2009-12-19T21:28:00.000-08:00

Most of my life can be categorized by the decade. The seventies were my childhood, the eighties, high school and college and the nineties were the married/fat years. I’m still not sure how to describe the aughts though, or if I should even be calling this decade the aughts at all. I do think it sounds better than the zeroes or the 00s and since no one’s come up with anything better I guess that’s what I’ll use. I’m leaning towards the hermit/born-again virgin years but we’ll probably be into the teens before I’ll have enough distance to really know for sure.

The first 3 ½ years of my life were actually in the sixties, I got married in 89, and my divorce wasn’t final until early 2002 but for the most part the ten year cycle holds true. I became a woman in the Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret kind of way in the summer of 79 so I guess that was the official end of childhood for me. December of 88 was the terminus for the eighties. I graduated from college a semester late because I went temporarily insane one spring and dropped out to become a farmer’s wife in Mississippi. I was devastated at the time because the day we were planning on telling my parents he went to a friend’s house to take a shower and never came back, but in retrospect I can only think, Jesus Christ, I really dodged a bullet on that one.

Unfortunately I did drink the Kool-Aid in 89 and it was 12 ½ long years before I was able to extricate myself from that mess. I consider the end of the married/fat years to be a few weeks after September 11, 2001. Brent knew I was contemplating divorce because WWBD (What Would Brent Do) had always been the motto for our marriage and that early fall evening was supposed to be his attempt to prove to me that he could think about someone other than himself. We went to a bar down the street to hear a couple of my favorite bands but we never made it past the first set. He got shit-faced drunk, acted like a complete jerk in front of his boss and I ended up dragging his 275 pound ass all the way home. He fell when we got to the front porch and I totally lost it. My body ached all over and my hair was wringing wet so I threw open the door and screamed, “Crawl!” And he did.

That’s when I knew my marriage was really over. I didn’t want to be that person any more. I guess the Aughts were when I finally went back to being myself. The whole cancer scare makes me think that 2009 is the end of this phase of my life. It’s kind of like when I was on a family vacation at the beach and got stung by a jellyfish. I still had a day or two left at the ocean but my swimming time was over. Most people want to go back to their younger days but I’m actually happier now than I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t know what the next ten years holds in store for me but I'm hoping that my life continues like a fine wine. The more I age, the better I get to be.

The Douche Bag Movement

2009-12-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

I used to be proud of voting for Obama but now the vote I’m proudest of casting is for my Representative, Raul Grijalva. He sent a letter to the president Friday as a co-chair of the Progressive Caucus asking to sit down and discuss his commitment to a public option. Progressives were the people who elected Obama in the first place and he’s been shitting on them from day one. That Grijalva, an Obama supporter, is demanding to at least be given as much consideration as Olympia Snowe gives me hope that maybe other Democrats will grow a set of balls and say hey, we’re in the majority, let’s do this thing right or don’t do it at all.

I’ve kept quiet while Obama sucked up to the banking industry, kowtowed to the generals and blew off the gays and lesbians, but health care reform is something near and dear to my heart. That Joe Lieberman is able to hijack the entire country just by threatening to throw a hissy fit is more than I can take. I thought the tea bag movement was bad but Lieberman’s douche bag movement of one is a new low in the history of politics. He’s suddenly against many of the things he supported in the past and the only reason I can see for his sudden change of heart is that he’s pissed because the Democrats from his own state don’t like him. Now Obama is ready to literally teabag Lieberman just to pass some half-assed bill that doesn’t do shit so he can say he got healthcare reform enacted in his first year.

Obama talks the talk but so far, he doesn’t walk the walk. I can understand not wanting to be too radical your first year in office but Jesus Christ, the majority of the nation supports a public option. What part of that do you not understand? The health care system in America is in need of a heart and lung transplant and Obama’s down to proposing some Botox and a little liposuction. I didn’t think it was possible but it’s looking like the Democrats may succeed in passing a health care bill that’s even more fucked up than what we have now. If they don’t start acting on the change they promised in the last election soon, I’m afraid the next change we’ll see is Palin in 2012.

I’m A Pig…Get Me Out Of Here!

2009-12-08T08:51:00.001-08:00

Photo credit: luisrock62 from morguefile.com
Two contestants from the British reality show, I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! are being charged with animal cruelty because they killed and ate a rat in order to get more energy for the challenges ahead. WTF?!?! Millions of pigs are slaughtered in Australia every year for food and the government is worried about one rat? Don’t they sell those big rat traps Down Under too? I don’t think the Australian Rat is considered an endangered species so what’s the big deal. I’ll admit it’s not big game but how is this any different from hunting rabbits or deer? Is it just because they filmed it?

60 Minutes also aired a segment on hog factory farms in Australia a few weeks back but I have yet to hear of any animal cruelty charges being filed against these businesses. If I were to be reincarnated as an animal, I’d take the rat’s life any time. He spent almost his entire existence running free, doing whatever it is that rats do, until one day he was grabbed up into the sky, had his throat slit, and was gone in a matter of minutes. Contrast that with the factory-farmed hog who spends his entire life crammed into a small enclosure with hundreds of other pigs and endures painful procedures such as having his tail cut off and his teeth ground down without anesthetic until it’s time for him to be zapped with a stun gun, hung on a hook and left to bleed to death after having his throat slit.

As a committed meat eater I’m seriously considering the options I have to stop supporting the existence of factory farms. If I still lived in Kentucky I could probably get some venison from family members who like to hunt but here in Arizona paying premium prices for humanely-raised livestock seems to be my only option. Since my income qualifies me for the lower end of middle class, meat will have to be a treat rather than an every meal staple. I’ve decided that this will be my New Year’s resolution for 2010 because I can’t fall back on the hot dog excuse anymore. I just don’t want to know isn’t going to cut it because I already know too much.

Weighing In On Airlines

2009-12-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

In fairness to the guy in this picture, I’m 5’3” and 125 pounds and even I fit pretty snugly in today’s airline seats. It’s ironic that as Americans expand, the seats contract. But everything about airline travel has contracted in the last few years. From checked baggage fees to paying $10 for a lousy sandwich and a tiny bag of chips, the saying nothing in life is free is never more true than when you enter that alternative universe known as the airport. I remember watching one of those airline reality shows where they made some man checking in go to a special room downstairs to make sure he could actually fit in one seat so he didn’t have to pay double the fare. I’m not sure how this aisle-blocking guy slipped by unnoticed.

Actually, I’m all for pegging the ticket price to how much weight you add to the flight. Not only do I weigh less than most other passengers but I pack lighter too. While my mom and sister are always shifting sweaters between bags to sneak by under the 50 pound limit, even for a week-long trip I can make it well under 20 pounds. And for carry-on luggage I usually bring my circa 1984 book bag that contains a couple of paperbacks, keys, cell phone, cigarettes and gum. It adds maybe a couple of pounds tops and easily fits underneath the seat in front of me. I also think there should be a special express ticket so people who don’t use the overhead bins can get off the plane first.

My Christmas trip home this year will be my first since quitting smoking but on previous trips the nicotine deprivation has sent me dangerously close to the edge. I don’t think those parents who were leisurely unpacking their strollers and diaper bags when we landed realized how close the small woman two rows back came to snapping their whiny little kid’s neck. I only get two week of vacation/sick/personal time a year so I’m hoping to avoid last year’s fiasco where I wasted one of my precious days off overnighting at the Chicago airport. The news the next day said they provided cots but I never saw any while I tried to doze off on a hard vinyl-covered chair. I paid extra to go through Dallas this year so if they happen to have a freak snowstorm this holiday season and you’re stuck in the airport, please be kind to your fellow travelers. Beneath the placid exterior, you never know which ones may be ready to snap.

Roll Out The Barrel

2009-11-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

I wasn’t able to watch the University of Kentucky vs. University of Tennessee football game last night but as a long time fan I knew better than to get my hopes up when I checked the score on the internet this morning. 30-24 in overtime. And the losing streak continues. November 24, 1984 still stands as the last time Kentucky beat Tennessee in football. It’s hard to believe that my first semester at UK was the last time the Wildcats came out on top in this rivalry. Nothing makes you feel old like realizing that none of the players in the latest game were even born when I set off for college.

Back then I couldn’t check the internet for news of the win because no such thing existed. I brought a pica electric typewriter with correction ribbon that my mom won as a sales prize from Avon to write my papers on. The typewriter, a hot pot, a small cassette player and my box of tapes were pretty much all I needed in my 4th floor walk-up dorm room with no air conditioning. Well, that and my cigarettes. That’s when there were still ashtrays outside of every classroom and some teachers even let you smoke during class. And the tradition of the winners of the UK-UT football game taking home the beer barrel still hadn’t been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.

I realize that now is the age of alcohol-free campuses but beer was what college was all about for me in 1984. I may’ve been a dyed in the wool GDI but I was hitting the frat houses every Thursday through Saturday night for the free beer being offered to any female who walked through the door. My dad’s also a UK alumni and one of the few stories he ever told me about his college days had to do with the game against Tennessee his freshman year in 1958. That was the first time that UK’s president didn’t let the students have a day off when Kentucky beat Tennessee so my dad joined the resulting protest march through campus. I guess it just shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Whether it was 1958 or 1984, we had to fight… for our right… to pa-a-arty.

Wal-Mart Camping

2009-11-24T13:39:00.000-08:00

I’d like to say that I avoid shopping at Wal-Mart for some high-minded reason like they killed small town main streets or their use of child labor or the shitty way they treat their employees but really, I just can’t stand crowds. That’s why it amazes me that this year Wal-Mart is going to stay open on Thanksgiving Day and allow customers to camp out next to their desired items and I’m sure there will be thousands of people across the country who will take them up on the offer.

It reminds me of a documentary I rented a few years back called “This Is Nowhere”. The movie told the story of RVers who use their Wal-Mart atlas to locate stores across the country where they can camp, ensuring that they never have to leave the concrete jungle and see anything besides the same strip malls and fast food restaurants they left behind. Isn’t the whole purpose of camping to get away from the crowds and back to nature? But I realize what they’ll be doing on Thanksgiving is more closely related to camping out for Springsteen tickets than pitching a tent in Yellowstone.

And I’m sure they’re doing this promotion for the same reason that arenas banned festival seating after 11 people died at the Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979. No one wants to see a repeat of the lethal stampede last year that killed a Wal-Mart employee and sent a pregnant woman to the hospital. Hopefully, the campout idea will dial back the violence to the shoving, punching and hair-pulling of earlier days but in a country where almost 17% of children go hungry and 45,000 people die every year because of lack of health insurance, should making sure you get the best deal on that Barbie Power Wheels Ride-On really be the most important thing this holiday season?

Just Plain Folks

2009-11-19T11:06:00.001-08:00

When Sarah Palin spoke to the Republican National Convention last year I have to admit that I kind of liked her. I didn’t agree with her right wing stance but since I grew up experiencing the prejudice that exists against people in the flyover part of the country, it was refreshing to see someone on the national stage being proud of their rural roots. Unfortunately, the beauty was only skin deep. Once she did the interview with Katie Couric and was unable to answer even the most basic questions, I knew there was nothing behind the pretty facade.

I haven’t read “Going Rogue” yet but I did get home in time to watch most of the Oprah interview and I’ve seen various excerpts from her book on the internet. From what I’ve read so far, she comes across as a petty, vindictive woman who is totally ignorant of anything outside of her own insular world and is proud of it. I wanted her to prove the stereotypes wrong and instead she’s just fed into them. From throwing a tantrum and quitting her position as governor of Alaska because people in her own party dared to criticize her to resorting to juvenile name-calling like referring to Andree McLeod, a Republican watchdog from Anchorage, as the falafel lady and dismissing Katie Couric, an award-winning journalist, as the perky one with low self esteem, she’s proven herself to be totally unfit to occupy any elected office, much less the presidency.

I was amused when I saw on newsmax.com that Sarah Palin didn’t rule out a Palin/Glenn Beck ticket in 2012. In the last few months Beck has been compared to the Lonesome Rhodes character in the movie “A Face in the Crowd” and every time Sarah Palin speaks there’s a line from a song in that film that runs through my mind, pork chop eating, Sunday go to meeting, just plain folks. That seems to be Sarah Palin’s appeal in a nutshell and there's nothing wrong with that but to be president, I expect a little more.

Gay Marriage and Religion: Love vs. Hate

2009-11-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

Photo credit: edouardo from morguefile.com
Maybe the idea is a little too close to the Jesus Freaks of the sixties, but what ever happened to God is love? Just as the Republican party has been taken over by hate-spewing extremists, organized religion seems to be spawning a lot of vicious vitriol as well. Unfortunately, religious nuts haven’t stopped with talk. Look at the slaying of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, the murder of Dr. Tiller in Kansas and the Tony Alamo child rape case. Some of the most heinous crimes of the last few months have been committed in the name of God.

The Phelps family took a break from protesting at the funerals of war heroes the other day so they could bring their own special message of God’s vengeneance to the school that President Obama’s daughters attend. Christians who are jumping at the chance to condemn all Muslims because of the actions of Nidal Malik Hasan should consider whether or not they want to be judged by the likes of Reverend Phelps and Tony Alamo. The really sad thing is that even though most people don’t agree with Reverend Phelps’ tactics, the vast majority of the world’s religions do condemn homosexuality.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington announced the other day that they won’t be able to continue the social service programs they run in the District if it doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law. Really?!? You’d rather punish the poor and homeless in Washington D.C. than let two consenting adults publicly acknowledge their love? Religions try to claim that people can't really be moral unless they have God in their lives. It seems like just the opposite to me. I'm seeing the hate but I'm not feeling the love.

Help! My Vagina’s Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!

2009-11-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

Did anybody else see the story on Huffington Post today about the woman whose vagina fell out? As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, now I have to be on the lookout in case my innie becomes an outie?! This is just one more reason why the Democrats in the Senate need to get off their asses and get some meaningful healthcare reform passed stat. By God, if even one woman goes to the doctor with her shit hanging out and is told to go home and tuck it back in because they don’t have the money for an operation then I’m giving up all hope. We really are just a nation full of greedy, selfish pricks.

And the biggest greedy, selfish prick of all is that douche bag senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman. He’s willing to participate in a GOP filibuster before he’ll allow the rest of the country to share in the same kind of government run insurance that he’s entitled to as a member of the United States Senate. I’m sure it’s purely a matter of principle though. The vast sums of money that insurance companies have contributed to his campaigns have nothing to do with it. The fact that the Democrats still try to placate this traitor is amazing. This is where I have to give the Republicans credit. If you turn on them they’ll cut you down in a heartbeat.

When I saw all those representatives cheering and talking about what an historic moment it was when healthcare reform passed in the House I wanted to believe, I really did. But realistically, I know it’s not going to mean shit. The Senate's going to twist and turn it until all that will be left is a pathetic, mealy-mouthed shadow of the already watered-down version that came out of the House. If anything passes at all. The thing that really drives me insane is the Orwellian double speak that's been a part of this debate from the start. Republicans say they're worried about the expense so they propose not cracking down on the insurance monopolies and not offering a public option to force them to lower their rates. What the fuck?!? I think I felt my vagina slip a little just thinking about it.

What’s In a Name?

2009-11-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

The yearly ritual of Christians getting their panties in a wad because the government would dare to call a Christmas tree a holiday tree instead has begun. I fail to understand what the controversy is all about. If you want to call it a Christmas tree, wish people a Merry Christmas and send out Christmas cards, nobody’s stopping you. All they’re saying is that not everyone in this country shares your beliefs and it’s un-American for the government to endorse one religion over another. The United States was founded on religious freedom for all. Even if those beliefs don’t coincide with your own. The ironic part is that it was originally a pagan symbol so if we really want to go back to the good old days, why don’t we call it a winter solstice tree?

I think the same totalitarian arrogance that’s behind Christian’s attitudes about holiday celebrations in December also shows in their attitudes towards gay marriage. I get that you think homosexual relations are a sin but the whole world isn’t just like you. By all means, don’t engage in same-sex relationships and it’s well within your rights to pass this dogma on to your children, but other adults don’t have to kowtow to your every whim. Even if gay marriage is legalized nationwide it still won’t affect you or your church in any way. Just because the government recognizes same-sex marriages it doesn’t mean anyone else has to.

I grew up Southern Baptist, a religion founded on the concept that the Bible says that blacks are inferior to whites. They did eventually denounce this creed but it was well into the 20th century before that finally happened. Most Southern Baptist churches still won’t accept that a woman can preach and they consider her to be a helper to her husband, who should rule over her just as God rules over man. The church is still free to hold these assumptions even though the government confers equal rights to women and the same thing should happen for gays. Conservative Christians need to accept the fact that they live in a democracy, not a totalitarian state. You can hold whatever beliefs you wish, it's just not fair to shove them down everyone else's throat.

Ain’t I A Woman?

2009-10-28T20:10:00.001-07:00

Angela Montez, the woman who prayed with the robber of the check cashing store she was working at, was on Oprah last Friday. One of the first things she said was that she begged him not to kill her because she had kids and grandkids. Jesus! I’m glad I wasn’t working the window next to her that day. I could just picture her using me as a human shield and screaming, “Shoot her not me! All she’s got is two lousy cats!” Now I know she didn’t mean for her remarks to be offensive but a lot of mothers seem to have that subtle prejudice against childless women, especially if they choose to be that way.

I know that since I possess the right equipment for birthing a baby I’m also supposed to have an innate “maternal” instinct, but mine’s been missing in action for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of lavishing love and attention on the various stuffed animals that I slept with every night while ignoring the big plastic baby dolls collecting dust on the closet floor. And for all those people who say you can’t really experience love or be a complete woman until you’ve experienced the birth of a child, you can kiss my ass! I care a hell of a lot more about kids than all those so-called “complete” women who end up abusing and neglecting their offspring.

Parenthood is one of the most demanding jobs in existence and just because I’m not temperamentally suited to it doesn’t make me a bad person. I'm not really suited for being a truck driver either but nobody looks down on me because of it. I'd much rather have my tax dollars go for schools and other programs for kids right here at home instead of shipping it overseas to fight not one, but two wars that we never should have started in the first place. The thing is, I really do love kids... For an hour or two. Then it's time to go back home. That's why I made the decision to be a good aunt, not a lousy mother.

It’s Not Your Father’s Bong Water

2009-10-26T13:39:00.001-07:00

Am I the only idiot who didn’t know you could smoke crystal meth in a bong? According to a recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision involving a woman whose bong tested positive for methamphetamine, bong water can now be considered a drug because sometimes people keep it to drink or inject later. Drink or inject bong water?!? When I was a kid we smoked pot from a bong and the only way anyone would drink the water was on a dare. Because of my needle phobia, the thought of shooting up anything never even crossed my mind.

My drug experimentation phase went pretty much from the tail end of Quaaludes to the beginning of Crack. I tried the former and missed out on the latter but at least I was familiar with how it was used. I knew I was officially old when I found out what a blunt was from the local paper. I could just picture myself as one of those adults saying, “You kids today, snorting your goddamn blunts.” I smoked marijuana off a can, through a toilet paper roll and even from a homemade chicken claw pipe but smoking it in a cigar was news to me.

And why are we coming up with new drugs to outlaw when we should be decriminalizing some of the ones we already have? Marijuana is arguably less harmful than our current legal recreational drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, but we’re still wasting billions of dollars every prosecuting “criminals” who use the same substance that the last three presidents admit experimenting with in their youth. From what I’ve seen, the biggest drug problem today is the pharmaceutical industry pushing their products on TV and in magazines. Kids don’t have to visit their local dealer anymore. They just open up their parent’s medicine cabinet. And if someone’s so hard up that they’re actually shooting bong water in their veins, I think that’s punishment enough.

The Gospel of Greed

2009-10-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

I may have walked away from organized religion but when New Age gurus are mentioned, I run. The fact that three apparently healthy adults have died in the aftermath of a “Spiritual Warrior” sweat lodge ceremony in Sedona this month just reinforces that reaction. The guru in this case was James Arthur Ray, a man who combined prosperity gospel, astrology, numerology and Native American teachings into a multi-million dollar business. They still haven’t released an official cause of death for his victims but I already know what it is… Greed.

If Ray had done even a cursory search of traditional sweat lodge ceremonies then he had to have been aware that they use natural materials and limit participants to 10 or 12 people tops. This son of a bitch charged almost $10,000 a pop to cram over 60 people under a plastic tarp,. What the fuck?!? You tell me what explanation there is for endangering people’s lives just to save a few bucks on material and personnel other than greed. The subtitle of his best-selling book, Harmonic Wealth, is The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want. I guess the secret is to exploit as many spiritual seekers as possible for your own gain.

I have to admit, I enjoy some New Age games like astrology or numerology but that’s all they are, games. Playing with Tarot cards isn’t that different from Crazy Eights to me. I did take my parents to one of the vortexes in Sedona not long after I moved to Arizona to see if we could feel the spiritual energy. The car door handle shocked the shit out of me and Mom said she was feeling gassy but other than that, it was pretty much a bust. After seeing what happens to people who actually give a shit about these New Age theologies, I'm glad me and my family were just farting around.

This Should Keep Us All Not Thinking

2009-10-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: gracey from morguefile.com
The title of the video making the rounds on Facebook and YouTube is This Should Keep Us All Thinking but I think This Should Keep Us All Not Thinking would be more appropriate. Most of the “facts” in this video seemed highly suspect and a two second internet search pulled up numerous articles debunking this urban legend.

http://www.examiner.com/x-7975-Nashville-Adventures-Examiner~y2009m9d2-The-USC-atheist-professor--martyrs-chalk-up-this-truth

It seems some variation of the atheist professor and the brave Christian story has been circulating almost as long as I’ve been alive.

I had a hard enough time believing that any college would have a required course devoted to proving that God doesn’t exist but the fact that this professor had convinced twenty years worth of students by dropping a piece of chalk was too much for me to take. What the hell does breaking chalk prove? With all the fucked up things going on in this world, why would God give a shit about a piece of chalk? This doesn’t sound like impeccable logic to me. But the Christian student doesn’t try to argue. He relies on blind faith and waits for God to prove his existence. And the supposedly intelligent professor agrees with the student that just because the dropped chalk doesn’t break, it must be the hand of God at work.

What this keeps me thinking is that sometimes shit breaks when you drop it and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not seeing a rational argument for either side in this parable.But that's my problem. I'm actually thinking and that doesn't seem to be something most religions encourage. I'm still open to the possibility that there might be some sort of spiritual world out there, hence the agnostic part of my blog name, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more than a piece of chalk to convince me to worship the cruel, vengeful, bitter God that I've read about in the Bible.

To Pee Or Not To Pee

2009-10-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: kconnors from morguefile.com

I’m all for saving the environment, but is that extra ounce of liquid in my bladder really going to make that much difference? Apparently All Nippon Airways thinks so. http://www.mnn.com/transportation/planes-trains-bikes/stories/pee-before-you-fly-policy-reduces-carbon-emissions They are actually going to have ‘loo attendants’ standing by the gate to ask if you have to go one more time before you get on the plane. The theory is that since passengers will weigh less, there will be less carbon emissions. My mom used to do the same thing on our family car trips to Florida, albeit for a different reason.

My dad had an ironclad rule about stopping. It had to be for food, gas or sleep, or some combo of the three. Bathroom breaks were to be taken care of during those times and no other. Well, sorry, but when I was 4 or 5, my bladder was the size of a pea, so at some point during the journey Dad would slam on the brakes, whip the car over to the side of I-65 and then throw open the passenger doors so I could squat in between and pee all over the back of my socks. And if Mom wasn’t always talking about going to the bathroom, I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it.

It was the same way the one time I went deep-sea fishing. The captain showed us all the bucket that we’d have to use if we couldn’t make it the full four hours and before he even finished his speech, I was already preparing for the time when I would have to attempt hovering over a large white pail in rough seas. And I actually got to practice this skill more than once. Okay, maybe I wouldn't have had to go quite so often if I'd spent more time holding a fishing pole and less time holding a beer but still, he'd already put the suggestion in my mind. That's why I'm hoping that other airlines don't follow their lead. If you ask me that kind of question before I get on the plane, I'll be squirming in my seat before the safety instructions even start.

October-Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2009-10-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

It’s only day five of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I’m already wishing for Halloween. I know that funding breast cancer research and prevention efforts is a good thing and I’ve personally benefited because of it, but I’m going to have my first post-surgery MRI in a few days and I wish everybody would just shut the fuck up about it.

During my last MRI they said I had some abnormal-looking cells but since they were all over both my breasts they decided it probably wasn‘t anything. They did want me to come back in six months instead of a year, though. To me that means either I’ve just got weird-looking boobs or I’m walking around with two big old cancer sacks hanging off my chest. Plus, the procedure itself combines some of the things I hate the most, needles, loud noises and enclosed spaces. So I really don’t want to be aware of breast cancer right now, but I can’t get away from it.

It seems like that insidious pink ribbon is everywhere. I can’t escape with the TV or internet because sooner or later that ribbon pops up. It may just be a little dot at the bottom of the screen, but it’s there. I thought maybe getting out of the house would help, so I went with a friend to the mall yesterday. Oh…My...God ! Pink ribbons in every store window as far as the eye could see. And when I went to the grocery later that day, it was even worse. They were giving away a hideous pink bicycle and they hit me up for a donation at the checkout line.

I thought about whipping out my titty, showing her my scar, and saying, I gave at the office. But I didn’t. I added a buck to my grocery bill and drove home. I haven't gained any profound insights from having cancer, but it has finally freed me up to be myself. I worried so much about other people's feelings that sometimes I would keep silent rather than risk offending them. Now I just think, to hell with it. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Ken Burns Needs Crack

2009-10-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: gtrfrkbob from morguefile.com

In a country where ADHD seems to run rampant, I always thought I was just the opposite. Sitting still was never my problem, moving was. Until I try to make it through a Ken Burns documentary. I wanted to like his National Parks miniseries, I really did, but after the first ten minutes or so I was flipping through a magazine, going to the bathroom, getting something to drink, surfing the internet, getting something to eat and before I knew it the credits were rolling on the first night and I’d seen a couple of really pretty pictures and that was about it. I stuck it out for two more nights and finally gave up.

I’ve been trying to make it through a Ken Burns series since The Civil War aired, but until now, I’m not sure I ever even made it through the first hour. It doesn’t seem to make sense. I’m a huge documentary fan and I love the national parks, why was that not the best show ever? Then I started thinking about the kind of documentaries I like. And my favorites are usually ones like Crumb or Harlan County USA, where you really get a glimpse inside people’s lives. Still photos and a droning narrator don’t cut it for me. If you’re going to get that close to a history book then I’d rather you just print it up and let me read it at my leisure.

Wisconsin Death Trip, a tale of rampant murder and madness in a small town in the 1890s, is more my style of historical documentary. It includes a lot of still footage and newspaper accounts but they’re of the trashy, gossipy kind that I enjoy. I know Ken Burns has a very quiet, understated style but would it kill him to add in a little melodramatic music? Maybe a few grizzly bear attacks? Something that would hold my attention for more than a few seconds at a time?! I was hoping to experience the wonders of the national parks and instead I felt like I was back in 5th grade history class.

The Unknown Liberal

2009-10-01T20:11:00.001-07:00

Photo credit: ensignmedia from morguefile.com

Adopt a Liberal is a Liberty Counsel Prayer-In-Action Program whose slogan is “Helping Restore Poor Leaders to Right Thinking”. They provide a handy list of politicians to pray for including everyone from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Olympia Snowe. Even the former governor of my adopted state of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, made the list partly because she refused to retract her report about the dangers of right-wing extremists.

They want you to adopt a liberal who is in authority for regular, intense prayer but I think that’s simply unchristian. What about all the regular Joe Six-Pack liberals like me? Don’t we deserve a little prayer too? I know I’ve only been doing this blog for a little over a month but I hope I’ve proven what a Christian-hating, commie-loving, baby-killing, fag hag liberal redneck I really am. And I’m asking for your vote for The Unknown Liberal. Nominations are now being accepted at liberty@LC.org I appreciate your support.

Journey to Nowhere

2009-09-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: o0o0xmods0o0o from morguefile.com

I’ve spent the first forty three years of my life avoiding regular exercise like a germ freak avoids gas station bathrooms but this goddamn cancer fatigue is going to force me to try it. I don’t know if it’s the Tamoxifen or a leftover effect from the radiation or what but everything I’ve read says exercise is the best thing you can do for it. I’ve never set foot in a gym and the thought of driving someplace to sweat in front of a crowd of people just doesn’t appeal to me so I crossed that option off my list first.

I did briefly consider the yoga center at the end of my street because I could walk there, but even as a child I was stiff as a board so I wasn’t sure stretching was the right thing for me either. Then I read that you do yoga barefoot and because of my foot cramps I haven’t been able to go without socks and shoes in months so that was out too. The one exercise I do engage in occasionally is walking but the temperature in Tucson is well above 100 degrees for a good part of the year and that didn’t really seem compatible with my hot flashes, so I finally decided to break down and buy a treadmill. I can use it in the privacy of my own home and watch TV while I’m doing it.

Plus, it will help me get in shape for my next Adventure Bus trip http://www.adventurebus.com/ap_home/index.asp. A lot of people assume because I’m thin and go on a hiking vacation every year that I’m actually into physical fitness. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not as bad as my ex who used to say that if you couldn’t pull a car up to it, it wasn’t worth seeing, but I don’t really want to feel the burn either. That’s the great thing about Adventure Bus, everybody goes at their own pace so you can hike as much or as little as you want. I do enjoy getting out in the wilderness but for me it’s not about how many miles I go, it’s what I get to see along the way. I keep trying to picture myself looking like the woman above but I'm afraid it’s going to be more like a Dog Whisperer episode where Cesar has to drag the bitch to the treadmill kicking and screaming the whole way.

The Dark Side of the Sixties

2009-09-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: cbcs from morguefile.com

As a budding young liberal it seemed like I’d missed out on the best era in America. Since I wasn’t born until August of 1966, about the only memories I had of the sixties were being pissed off at Kelly Lowe for blowing out the candles on my 3rd birthday cake and being terrified of the paperboy because the lady across the street told me he smoked marijuana and might go crazy one day and attack me. My parents were staunch Nixon supporters so they were no help either. When I was in college I remember being shocked to see a poster of John Lennon with 1940-1980 on the bottom. John Lennon and my dad were the same age?!? I couldn’t even imagine it. Instead of being one of those Woodstock babies, I only missed being born at the Grand Ole Opry by a couple of weeks.

Living without any rules or boundaries sounded great to me as a kid, but that’s only because I was lucky enough to have them. Mackenzie Phillips is just the latest in a long line of children from the sixties who struggled as an adult because she didn’t. Like John Phillips, Robert Downey Jr’s dad thought it was fine to treat his young son as an equal and let him take part in drug and alcohol use. And it’s only in the last few years that he’s finally managed to heal from the damage that did. Sadly, River Phoenix lost his struggle to come to terms with his past. In the interviews I’ve seen, he seems to downplay the effect that losing his virginity in the Children of God cult at age four had on him, but you can’t tell me that the pain that caused didn’t at least play a part in his overdose.

Mackenzie Phillips seems to be starting to come to terms with what happened to her but in one aspect I agree with her stepmother, Michelle Phillips. If she thinks any part of that relationship was consensual, she does belong on a psychiatrist’s couch. I understand Michelle Phillips’ disgust because who would want to admit, even to themselves, that they had a relationship with someone who could commit incest. But blaming the victim doesn’t help. I know some people think she’s only saying these things to sell her book but if that was so, why would she have told her youngest sister, Bijou, about it years ago?

It’s kind of ironic that the same week we found out all these disturbing revelations about one of the most beloved singer/songwriters of the sixties, one of the most reviled figures of the era died as well. I'm in no way excusing Susan Atkins' crimes but good God, the woman had one leg and was dying of brain cancer, how much of a threat to society could she really have been by that point? Why are we so vengeful that we can't even show a little mercy to a killer who wasn't much more than a kid herself when it happened and had been brainwashed by a maniacal cult leader? I remember watching Helter Skelter in elementary school and being terrified at the ending when they said they would be eligible for parole in 1979. Now it just seems sad that 30 years later, we still can't let it go.

The Khadafi-Palin Cabal

2009-09-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

A new study from Public Policy Polling finds that 42 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama was not born in the United States, while 22 percent still remain uncertain of his birthplace origin. On the flip side, the poll also finds that 25 percent of Democrats believe that George W. Bush intentionally allowed the September 11th attacks to occur to serve as a catalyst for a war in the Middle East.Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/birther-poll-42-percent-o_n_298456.html

When I saw these statistics on Huffingtonpost I thought, has the world gone insane?!? I used to think it was funny to listen people spout off their crazy conspiracy theories but after I lost my brother to late onset paranoid schizophrenia, I haven’t been laughing. There is not a shred of evidence supporting either one of these slanderous accusations and if you lend any credence to them whatsoever then you might as well accept my brother’s theory that I’m a government clone out to get him.

But that being said, I noticed a lot of strange coincidences when I was watching the Rachel Maddow show last night. Sarah Palin and Moamar Khadifi both made long-winded, rambling speeches that audience members walked out on in disgust. They’re also both from oil-rich regions and they bad-mouthed America. When you add in the numerology piece, it’s obvious that they’re after nothing less than the overthrow of the U.S. government.

Sure, Khadifi kept calling Obama his son but that was only a ruse to actually turn us against him and towards the radical right. And Palin still harping on the death panels? That’s because it’s really a part of the hidden Republican agenda. Only the unborn will be sacred in the Palin/Khadafi regime. And did you notice that Palin was making her first speech since her resignation in Asia? China will be turning us into slaves until December 21, 2012 when during the Apocalypse Kirk Cameron will come down and lift us up into heaven. Unfortunately, I won't be here to see it. Clones are scheduled to be exterminated in 2011.

We Don't Need No Education

2009-09-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: omegamanha from morguefile.com

After reading the following article http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/946537.html
about a Kentucky teacher who showed the film “Fitna” to his class on 9/11, I think I’m now officially old. Back in the eighties when I was in high school, a teacher got fired for letting her students watch Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, which is basically a 90 minute music video for stoners, on a non-instructional day. http://www.pinkfloyd-co.com/band/interviews/art-rev/art-wallcase.html. In 2009 a teacher is able to show a gruesome, hate-filled 15 minute piece of propaganda and get a slap on the wrist.

I watched “Fitna” on YouTube and it’s kind of like “Faces of Death” with a xenophobic message tacked on the end. It actually says that just like we defeated Nazism and Communism, we have to defeat Islam. But Islam is one of the world’s major religions and the other two are failed political parties. Making people hate an entire religion sounds a lot like holocaust talk to me. Yes, by all means, work on defeating the radical Islamic terrorists but don’t lump every Muslim in the world in with that bunch. Most Christians don’t want to be associated with the hate of people like abortion doctor murderers or Reverend Phelps and his God Hates Fags campaign, so why would they want to judge Islam by its most radical faction?

The teacher said in his defense that he wanted to generate a discussion about the dangers of extremism but since the complaining student said the film made her hate Muslims, I don’t think he mentioned the extremism of the makers of “Fitna”. Along with the hate, she also got nightmares from seeing a beheading, an execution, bombings, blood, dead bodies and worst of all, discussing female genital mutilation with her high school teacher. When I was in junior high, the rumor was that an office girl at T.K. Stone middle school in E-Town got suspended for playing "We Don't Need No Education" over the intercom system. Ah, those were the good old days.

Pottersville

2009-09-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

It won’t be long until families will be gathering together in front of the TV to watch the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The irony is that most of them won’t realize that by the anti-Obama, tea bagger logic that a lot of hard-core Christian conservatives subscribe to, George Bailey is a dirty commie bastard. What could be more socialistic than using the Bailey Building & Loan Association not to maximize profits and support the free market but to share the wealth with the whole community? Pottersville would be the real utopia for these people, not Bedford Falls.

I watched the documentary “Which Way Home” on HBO a few weeks ago and it struck me how misinformed these illegal immigrant children are about the realities of America today. Kevin, a 14 year old Honduran boy wanted nothing more than to be adopted by some caring couple in the United States. Yeah, dream on kid, you obviously haven’t watched Lou Dobbs lately. We’d rather try you as an adult and throw you in prison than invite you into our homes. That’s the compassionate side of America today, a country that locks up more of its own citizens than any other place in the world.

To me, Crystal Lee Sutton, the real life “Norma Rae”, who died last week is the most representative of George Bailey ethics. She spent her whole life fighting for the working poor against powerful corporate interests but unlike “It’s a Wonderful Life“, her story didn’t have a happy ending. After her insurance company refused to pay for possibly life-saving medications, she ended up dying of brain cancer. In America today an angel doesn’t get his wings every time a bell rings, an insurance executive gets his bonus instead.

I'm Shocked!

2009-09-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

When Republicans first started going after ACORN because of false voter registrations, I considered it pretty much a non-issue. Okay, so some employees padded their voter registration counts to make a little extra money. It’s not like Elvis Presley actually showed up to vote. The current charges are a lot more serious and I was somewhat skeptical of ACORN’s claims that the videos were deceptive and dubbed over until I viewed the clip above. Fox News said the clips were vetted editorially before they were aired but how much vetting could they be doing when they didn’t even take the time to verify that someone died?

Now I’m wondering if all the ACORN employees in these videos just thought they were being “Punk’d.” I mean, I’ll admit, I’m not the most street savvy person in the world but even I would have a hard time believing that some kid in a Huggy Bear outfit who looks like he just finished up his Mormon mission was actually coming in to ask about running an underage prostitution ring to finance a future political race. There may really be something to this story but somebody besides Fox News needs to do the investigation.

I’m all for finding out the real facts in this case just like I think someone should’ve dug up the real facts on the George W. Bush National Guard story. CBS was willing to back off the whole thing and throw Dan Rather under the bus because of one badly forged document and that‘s one thing I‘ll give Fox credit for. You can bet your ass they’ll keep beating this story like a dead horse and they damn sure won’t be giving Glenn Beck the boot.

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

2009-09-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

People were up in arms about Obama telling their kids to work hard and stay in school but I haven’t heard a peep about this case in Kentucky where a football coach took about 20 players to a revival at his church and almost half were baptized. The woman who’s suing thought her son was going to see a motivational speaker and get a free steak dinner. My guess is that if the coach had been a Muslim and almost half the players joined his mosque, things would’ve gotten ugly pretty fast.

The school superintendent (a fellow church member) tried to play it off by saying it was a voluntary activity but one of the students commented that the coach said it would bring the team together. To me, that sounds like if you’re a team player, you’ll hop on the bus and get right with God. And almost half of them did. The article doesn’t say how many of the others had already been baptized, but I’m thinking it was quite a few.

I know from my own experience growing up Southern Baptist that the pressure to walk the aisle starts early. My friend Jo was the first to get dunked in 2nd grade and everybody seemed to go like dominos after that. At 9 years of age I found myself being the only one in my Sunday School class who hadn’t accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior. It was an old-time, hellfire and brimstone preacher who was filling in that finally got me to walk to the front of that church. I wasn’t sure whether I believed in God or not but I didn’t want to burn in the pits of hell either.

And even without the scare tactics, a revival is very alluring. The whole purpose is to get as many people as you can to either dedicate or rededicate their lives to Christ. People are singing and crying and laughing and hugging and the pressure to conform and become a part of the group becomes enormous. Well, for most people it's appealing. To me it's just terrifying. I couldn't think of a worse way to try and lure an introvert into your church. But these were team players who wanted to please their coach. And he took advantage of that.

I think it's time for these arrogant assholes to realize that we live in a democracy not a theocracy. Just in my small circle of acquaintances, I know Agnostics and Atheists and Buddhists and Jews and Catholics. And I think they would be horrified if a public school teacher took their children to be baptized in a different faith. The one thing that people like this coach can't seem to understand is that freedom of religion also includes freedom from religion as well.

Tea and Stupidity

2009-09-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

I might be able to take the people playing dress-up on the White House lawn a little more seriously if they had started protesting when Bush began running up the deficit in his first term. For eight years they cheered on a president who subsidized the rich and bogged us down in not one, but two astronomically expensive wars that he never had any sort of exit strategy for or any idea of what a “victory” in these conflicts would actually mean.

From what I can tell, the protestor’s message is, sure we’re all for racking up massive debts to kill and torture people but by god, we’re not spending our hard earned money on some pansy-ass bullshit like saving people’s lives. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. The really ironic thing about these hard core Republican supporters is that they claim fiscal responsibility is their goal but the last president to run a surplus was a Democrat. I realize that the tea parties started because of the banking bailout but that was originally Bush’s idea. Obama just continued the policies of his predecessor and somehow he got labeled a fascist, socialist, Nazi-lover because of it.

I’ve been trying to avoid the elephant in the room but I’m having a hard time not coming to the conclusion that these are a bunch of racist imbeciles. From the ludicrous birther claims to the Obama’s a Muslim rants, they seem to be grasping for any nonsensical lie they can come up with to avoid having to admit that their democratically elected president is a black man. It seems appropriate that it was a congressman from South Carolina, the first state to secede from the union, who couldn’t bring himself to give our first black president even a modicum of respect during a speech he was giving about one of the biggest problems our country faces today. I’m just surprised he didn’t add the pejorative “boy” after his shockingly rude outburst.

South Carolina-Nobody Can Beat Their Cocks

2009-09-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

Kentucky may be number one in people missing teeth but when it comes to whack job politicians, South Carolina can’t be beat. I watched Obama’s speech on healthcare tonight and I have to admit, he’s won me back into the fold. He framed it as a moral issue and even though he was open to Republican suggestions he made it clear that flat out lies would not be tolerated. And when he pointed out that illegal immigrants would not be covered in the health care reform bill Joe Wilson, a congressman from South Carolina, actually screamed “You lie!” during a joint session of Congress like a petulant 14 year old boy.

Once again I just have to say, what the fuck?!? I grew up in the South and they beat it into you to have respect for authority and sorry, but whether you voted for him or not, Obama’s your president so learn to show a little respect. It might be different if Wilson had a point but it’s in black and white. There is a line in the bill that says illegal immigrants are not covered. But at least he’s not a hypocrite. Unlike Senator Vitter and Governor Sanford.

Both were holier-than-thou Christians who were more than ready to condemn other politicians for sexual indiscretions but totally changed their tunes when it was them being asked to resign. Senator Vitter was calling up a prostitution service in Washington and Governor Sanford, well we all know how pathetic he was. First he was on the Appalachian Trail and next thing you know he's in Argentina with the love of his life. And both of their wives stood by them. That's what's painful to watch. These women humiliate themselves in front of millions of people and get nothing in return.

I've got an old postcard framed on my wall containing a poem that ends with the line, and politics the damnedest-in Kentucky. That may've been true in 1909 but in 2009 the real nuts have fallen a little farther south. Nobody can beat those gamecocks!
　

Kentucky Heroin

2009-09-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

I quit smoking over 5 months ago and I gotta admit it, I am jonesing. I would smack your granny for a pack of Marlboro Lights right now. But I just keep having to tell myself that if I take that first puff then I'll be right back to my pack and a half a day, $60 a carton cigarette habit. And I know I would. Cause I first tried tobacco when I was 3 years old and I've loved it ever since.

One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my Great Uncle Henry's lap on his front porch taking puffs of his cigarette when my parents weren't watching. Then there's the one I shared with 2 or 3 other girls underneath the bleachers at the high school football game when I was 7. By 5th grade I was meeting my friend, Sheila, every day after school so we could walk down the railroad tracks and smoke.

I found out I had cancer on St Patrick's Day and I quit smoking 3 days later. I don't think anything else could've gotten me to do that. As I remember hearing Mary Tyler Moore say once, I enjoyed every cigarette I ever smoked. It's the perfect drug. If you're feeling tired, you can smoke to perk you up. If you're feeling antsy, you can use it to calm you down. And if you're a smart, shy, short kid who sucks at sports, it's an easy way to be popular. It doesn't take any particular talent to smoke a cigarette.

As I'm typing this I'm sucking the nicotine out of a piece of gum that I was supposed to stop chewing months ago. But the truth is, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to give up my methadone gum. I'm having a hard time picturing that day when I won't want to smoke. I just keep trying to remember that they radiated my lung as well as my boob and I don't want to end up being one of those people smoking a cigarette through a hole in my throat and dragging my oxygen tank behind me.

Battered Party Syndrome

2009-09-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: blondieb38 from morguefile.com

I have to admit that I'm a somewhat reluctant Democrat. In order to vote in certain elections in Kentucky you had to be a Democrat or Republican so I switched from Independent. When Barack Obama was elected I held out a somewhat naive hope that Democrats would finally return to what are supposed to be the core beliefs of their party instead of kowtowing to every hot-headed Republican who could scream their lies loud enough. But it's looking like I was sadly mistaken.

Why, when Democrats have majorities in the House and Senate and control the White House, is Obama so insistent about reaching across the aisle and compromising with the Republicans? They don't want to compromise, they want to win. Nothing would make them happier than to shove you down and rub your face in the dirt. But I think I know what the answer is, Democrats are suffering from Battered Party Syndrome.

The last president to successfully fight for liberal values was Lyndon Johnson and ever since Jimmy Carter the Republicans have mostly succeeded in making liberal a dirty word. After years of abuse, Democrats just cave in and go back to cowering in the corner every time a Republican screams some asinine comment in their face. It's looking like Obama's trying to emulate Bill Clinton and actually identify with his abusers. Clinton gave us NAFTA, deregulation of the banking industry and the welfare reform act. With friends like that who needs enemies?

The real problem is that both parties are now controlled by huge corporations who don't care about anything but profits. I'm afraid we're headed back to start of the twentieth century when coal mining companies would refuse to send mules into the most dangerous parts of the mine because they could always replace a man but mules cost money. Compassion is what Obama needs to be stressing in the healthcare debate but after I found about the bargains he's made with drug companies, I figured we were fucked.

He's already starting to crawdaddy on the public option just like he did with end of life counseling. The bill we're probably going to end up with is going to be so watered down and wishy-washy that it's not going to do a goddamned thing for people who need it most. Just like closing Guantanamo Bay, Obama's going to give lip service to it but when it comes to real action, he's nowhere to be found. What he should say next Wednesday is that your bank account shouldn't determine if you live or die and an insurance company shouldn't be able to decide that since you didn't report an infected hangnail in 1975 they aren't going to pay for your heart attack. But since cutting into the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries would also cut into the Democrat's campaign contributions, I think we all know what the outcome's going to be.

Hermit Weekend

2009-09-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com
Why is it considered freakish if you enjoy your own company?A couple of people at work asked me what I was doing for Labor Day and when I said nothing they gave me that pitying look that drives me insane. I've been looking forward to my hermit weekend all week long. The bra came off about 30 seconds after I walked in the door this afternoon and I probably won't put it back on until about 7 am Tuesday morning. I plan on sleeping late, fixing big breakfasts, doing some reading, writing, maybe watch a little TV. Sounds like heaven to me. And I need it after having company last weekend and visitors every night this week.

It's not that I don't like people, I do, but I can only spend so much time with them and then I need a break to recoup. I've taken those personality tests before and on every one I am off the charts introvert. That means being in social situations saps my strength instead of feeds it. That's why I'd rather you just shoot me in the face than drag me along for karaoke or dancing or cocktail parties. Let's face it, I was a lump baby and I'm a lump adult. You know what I'm talking about, those big Buddha babies with the fat rolls on their arms and legs. Mom said you could just sit me in front of the TV and I was happy. And not much has changed.

Go Meat!

2009-09-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid there were still a few family farms left in Kentucky. I mean the kind like my grandparents had where the only cash you got all year was from your tobacco crop and maybe selling a few beef cows. They raised and slaughtered all their meat and got their fruits and vegetables from the garden and the orchard. About the only things they had to spend money on were things like sugar and coffee and maybe a few pairs of overalls and some fabric for sewing dresses.

People still farm there today but unless you have a large scale operation, you're probably going to need a day job. I always had that kind of hippie, romanticized notion of this style of farming but I think that's mainly because I grew up in a subdivision. We always had a garden and canned our own vegetables but that's nothing compared to the work that goes into a real farm. The whole natural, friend of the land fantasy I had was brought crashing down to earth by some of my mom's stories. Evidently chemicals were their friends in the forties and fifties. My grandmother would put a tablecloth over the leftovers from the midday meal, get everybody out of the house and then set off insecticide bombs to get rid of the flies.

They definitely didn't pass the organically grown test but they were more humane to their animals than today's factory farms. Hell, my grandfather's chickens were so free range they just ran around the yard. When I was about 3 years old my mom told me to stay away from the rooster because he would spur me but she neglected to explain the difference between a rooster and a hen so I just ran from all of them. All the men sitting out on the porch during family get togethers used to get a big laugh out of watching me running around and around the house with a flock of chickens trailing behind.

Not that I'm saying they treated their livestock particularly well. I remember seeing my grandfather knock a cow out cold with a tobacco stick and my mom's story about how the little baby lamb that she bottle fed later ended up being served on a plate could send chills down your spine. And don't even get her started about the lap dog she had as a kid. My mom left to go spend a week with my uncle in Louisville and while she was gone there was something killing the neighbor's chickens so my grandfather shot it, just in case it was the problem.

There is a point to all this and as my ex used to say, it's time for me to stop drifting and land the plane. The thing is, if I were a person who actually lived true to my beliefs I would be an organic-eating vegetarian. Unfortunately, I love meat. And I mean LOVE it. I could give a shit less about bread or sweets. Meat, cheese and potatoes are the crack cocaine for me. When I first moved to Tucson I tried going to Whole Foods and getting organic produce and free range, hormone free meat but I'm also a cheap ass so that didn't last too long. Since then, I've reverted to my hot dog strategy. I don't even want to know where my food comes from.

Heil Obama

2009-09-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10582301/President-Obama’s-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009

I want you to read the above link and see if you think it has anything to do with indoctrination and Nazis. From what I can tell it provides an outline for kids to learn more about the office of President and the so called "indoctrination" is a message to work hard and get a good education. What's so subversive about that?

One of my high school classmates stated on Facebook that they're going to keep their kids out of school on that day so Obama can't "indoctrinate" them. The next comment was that it reminded them of the Nazis. What the fuck?!? Presidents have always talked to school children. Hell, Bush had to finish reading The Pet Goat before he could deal with 9/11. I was definitely not a Bush fan but I had enough respect for the office of the President not to call him a Nazi. I didn't agree with most of his policies but he wasn't a monster.

I grew up around Christian flag-wavers and I was taught to respect the President but I guess that only applies when he agrees with their point of view. When we had a mock election in 1976 I was only one of two kids who voted for Ford because everyone else's parents were Democrat. I was also one of only two children who voted for Harriet Tubman in the Weekly Reader poll of historical figures in a hypothetical race for the presidency. George Washington actually won hands down over Abraham Lincoln which was surprising since I grew up in Lincoln's birthplace. Even a hundred years after his presidency he was still a little too radical for Hodgenville.

The point is that even though it's 33 years later, I still remember voting in those elections. Obama is providing a golden opportunity for students to get excited about our government and learn more about the electoral process. Why in the hell would you want to deprive your kid of the opportunity to participate?

The Cancer Card

2009-08-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: rawnsr1 from morguefile.com

I was going to try and post to this site every day or two but since I've already screwed that up, I'm going to have to play the cancer card. Okay, I'll admit that the cancer's been gone since I had a lumpectomy back in April but the fatigue from radiation doesn't seem to be going away even though it's been two months since I finished that as well.

I feel like kind of an asshole for even complaining since I had ductal carcinoma in situ (dcis) or as I refer to it, cancer lite. That means it hadn't spread outside the milk ducts so I got to skip the chemotherapy and hair loss and hey, it wasn't like I was going to die from it or anything. The only problem is that when I say fatigue I don't think most people have any idea what I'm talking about.

My mom came to visit for my birthday last Thursday and flew back to Kentucky today and just trying to clean up the house a little and show her a good time totally kicked my ass. I mean, I turned 43 not 83 and I'm getting sick and tired of this shit. Plus, when I get really exhausted I have a fun little side effect, foot cramps. And there's nothing I enjoy less than writhing in the floor while my foot folds up like a sandwich.

Anyway, I do realize that the cancer card has a finite number of punches so I'll try to keep the pity parties to minimum. I start back to work tomorrow and since I mostly sit in front of a computer screen all day I should be able to rest up enough to think of something new to rant about. I know my reader is anxiously awaiting my next post.

Women's Equality Day

2009-08-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to believe that my grandmother was almost 18 years old before women finally got the vote nationwide on August 26th 1920. I’m sure she wasn’t that thrilled about it though. She was one of those old school Southern Baptists who believed women should be silent in church and be a helper to their man. I guess that’s one of the things that turned me away from being a Baptist. Any church that says I can’t preach just because I don’t have a set of balls can kiss my ass.

My earliest memory of the women’s lib movement was seeing it on TV in the early seventies. I was around 4 or 5 and spouted off something I’d heard on some show about how women can do anything men can do to my dad and brother. They both looked at each other for a second and then burst out laughing. I still stand by that statement but I'd like to clarify a little. I realize that there are jobs such as fireman that are always going to be predominantly male because men have more upper body strength but I've met individual women who I'd bet money on in an arm wrestling match with any man around. Those women should have the right to hold any job they damn well please.

But I have to admit, even though there are still some assholes around, for the most part women are close to equality in this country today. I just hope in another 89 years people will be able to look back and say it's hard to believe that my grandfathers were almost 18 years old before gays finally got the right to marry nationwide.

God Hates Facts

2009-08-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

The creationism museum is one of those things that makes me embarassed to be from Kentucky. Science may not have been my strongest subject in school but even I know that The Flinstones was just a cartoon. I've actually read the Bible all the way through and I don't recall seeing any mention of dinosaurs. Of course, I didn't see any mention of blacks being inferior either but that's what white southerners said for hundreds of years.

Okay, I'll grant you that there are a few verses saying that homosexuality is an abomination but so are eating shellfish and touching pigskin and I don't see all these people who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible protesting outside Red Lobster or their local football game. The sad fact is that if they didn't consider a day 24 hours then the order that things are created in Genesis can pretty much coincide with evolution.

And how can you have a literal interpretation of the Bible in the first place? It's been through numerous translations over the centuries and it was man who originally wrote it down. You know it had to have been like that Monty Python movie where the guy hears, blessed are the cheesemakers.

If I didn't hold on to the belief that there's got to be something after we die, I could probably call myself a full out atheist instead of just an agnostic. All cultures have some kind of religion but after you get past do unto others as you would have them do unto you, it seems like it's mostly bullshit people came up with. I've always said that religion is kind of like sports, once you organize it, you pretty much ruin it.

So if you want to take your kids to see the cool animatronic dinosaurs that's fine. Just make sure that they understand it's an amusement park like Santa Claus Land in Indiana. The creationism museum has absolutely nothing to do with science.

The L-Word

2009-08-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. I'm finally coming out. I grew up in rural Kentucky and I've spent my whole life apologizing for myself but after six years of living in the small blue oasis of Tucson surrounded by a sea of red I'm ready to acknowledge who I really am. I'm not middle of the road and I'm not conservative on some issues and liberal on others. No, my name is Mary Beth and I'm a liberal and damn proud of it.

I'm a pro-choice, anti-drug war, pro-environment, anti-death penalty, agnostic, bleeding-heart liberal. About the only issue I might be considered even vaguely conservative on is gun control and that's only because I think hunting is a more humane way to obtain meat than factory farming. Somehow I don't think that's going to get me a link from the NRA.

After watching all the frothing at the mouth wing nuts at the town hall meetings, I've decided to add a sane voice to the millions of people ranting and raving in the blogosphere. Hopefully, I'll pick up a few readers along the way so this will feel a little more like intercourse and a little less like masturbation. I'll be posting my thoughts for the day so feel free to comment, whether you agree or disagree. If there's anyone out there, thanks for listening. And y'all come back now, you hear.