Friday, January 31, 2014

Apparently, In Canada Killing Your Children is Not That Big of a Deal - 2 Newborn Deaths 36 Months in Prison

A young animal woman kills two out of the three children she gives birth to and will spend only 36 months in prison.  She served 18 months before bail was granted and will now serve an additional 18 months.  She has given birth four times since 2008.  Two babies were never found after she put them in dumpsters.  One child was saved from the dumpster when a man, who turns out to be the child's father, heard cries and saved the child.  A fourth child was birthed during her time in prison.
"You co-operated with police. Without your admission to police about the first babies, there would be no case against you."
The judge also noted that Borowiec has shown "genuine remorse."
Genuine remorse?  This is a woman who did this three times.  Not once, not twice, but three times.  Gave birth to these innocent, helpless children into a toilet, then wrapped them in towels after hearing their cries, put them in garbage bags and disposed of them like they were trash.  How does one show remorse for that?  Do you cry a great deal?  By her own admission she never even bothered to check if these children were male or female.  She cared not one whit about these babies.
I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing that she isn't trying to say she didn't know she was pregnant.  She knowingly lied to people about her condition by saying she had cysts in her uterus.  She never told the baby's father about them.  She never sought medical attention for the prenatal care for these children.  She then says it was after giving birth that she wasn't "normal".
This reminds me of another case in Canada where the young mother was given little to no  jail time because "abortion on demand" is the law of the land there.  They have little to no restrictions on abortion.  Apparently as long as you are not in active labor, you can end the life of your child.  That judge seems to think that includes the time right after birth and the child is outside the womb.
Is it any wonder that we don't respect life?  Why get angry that there are so many murders on the streets of Chicago?  What makes them more human than these children?  When a society has gotten to the point where it no longer cares that life has been ended at the hand of another, it is a society that deserves whatever else comes.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

A Night at The Grammy's

While this is a little late to the party, I have been seeing all the talk of what went on at The Grammy Awards on Sunday night.  Satanic rituals performed onstage by a woman who was raised in a Christian conservative home, the mass wedding performed by Queen Latifa, and Jay-Z and Beyoncé performing Drunk in Love together on stage.  
 I don't really expect anything different from Katy Perry.  It has been obvious for quite some time that she has rejected the values that her parents believe in.  That is her prerogative.  What I find insulting about it is the fact that she feels the need to publicly mock it, doing so in front of the artists who were there to see if they won awards for Gospel and Christian categories.  At least one artist got up and walked out.  Ms. Perry has the right to live her life anyway she chooses to do so, but somehow I have this feeling that she really isn't a devil worshipper and that wasn't done to get her own particular point of view across.  It was done to make people who are questioning their own belief systems to feel ashamed that they may have the audacity to think that Christianity is a good thing.  A person who is firmly set in a Christian lifestyle may be insulted by the performance, but they don't question their belief.  They simply shake their heads in disbelief and dismay.  
 Queen Latifa, and ordained minister of some kind, performed a marriage ceremony for 30 or so couples.  Some of these couples were of course same-sex couples.  Now, I would say this if all the couples were heterosexual.  The Grammy Awards is no place to get married.  This wasn't about making a lifetime commitment to another, it was about proving a political point.  That gay couples love just as much as same-sex couples.  I have never said they didn't.  A wedding and/or marriage ceremony is about is two people making a commitment to each other; for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, to remain faithful and loving for the rest of your lives.  Most people do decide to celebrate that commitment in front of their families and loved ones.  Others do it more privately.  The vast majority of people don't decide to do it because they want to the world to see their political viewpoint.  That makes a mockery of the thing that gay marriage advocates say that they are trying to accomplish.  Simple equality and the right to commit themselves to a person that they love.  What is so odd about it is that some of the lyrics that were being played out that night even talked about how marriage is more than a simple piece of paper.  If you want equality than stop acting like everyone in the world must approve of your marriage.  I have news for you, not everyone approves of all kinds of marriages.  There have been marriages that have been looked down upon since the beginning of marriage and that isn't likely to end anytime soon.  You don't need to me to like what your choices are in order for them to be the right choice for you.  I am never going to approve of gay marriage and that doesn't make your feelings and your commitment any less valid in your own life.  My religious beliefs tells me that it is wrong.  The sooner the activists get that the better off we will all be.  But of course, that would hinge upon it really being about just marriage, when for many it is not.  
 Now we can move on to Jay-Z and his lovely bride Beyoncé.  She was prancing around on stage barely dressed and moving her body in a salacious manner singing a song that included the lyrics "I can't keep my fingers off it baby, I want you".  You know, I don't really need to know what goes in the bedroom of any other couple.  I really don't.  It isn't something that interests me at all.  I have read two opposing views of this performance.  One from the very left leaning Think Progress that is basically saying that conservatives should jump at the chance of having this couple be the spokesmodels for marriage, because they make it look like fun.  
This may not be the vision of marriage conservatives intended to try to promote. And it’s absolutely a more aspirational, exciting good than the idea that marriage will discipline wayward men or provide support for women who can’t manage economically on their own. But if conservatives want to sell Americans on marriage, maybe they have to talk more about the bliss half of wedded bliss, to think about the desire part of making marriage desirable. And maybe the entertainment industry that Douthat’s singled out as the enemy of marriage has something to add to the case for marital happiness. If marriage is a product that conservatives desperately want to sell, the smartest thing they could do right now is to hire Beyoncé and Jay-Z as a product spokescouple.
Now I am far from the spokesperson for every conservative nor do I pretend to be an expert on marriage.  But I can think of no conservative that thinks that sex within the realms of a marriage is bad.  After all conservatives, especially of the social variety, tend to have much larger families.  Something must be going on in order for those babies to be coming along.  The difference is that we don't like talking about it publicly nor do we think that it is appropriate viewership for our young children for a scantily dressed woman making provocative movements while using euphemisms about a surf board.  I also am unclear of the conservative message that women should get married because they can't manage on their own.  Now the data is clear, the majority of children living in poverty are products of a single family home.  When you are married before you have children the chances of those children living below the poverty line decreases and not just a little.  That doesn't mean that conservatives are saying that women should get married simply because they need a man to support them.  You have a 70% chance of lifting yourself out of poverty if you follow three very simple things, graduate high school, do not get married before the age of 21, and do not have children out-of-wedlock.  The left leaning Brookings Institute didn't like these findings, but the finding are there nonetheless.  That is a far cry from saying that you must marry in order to support yourselves as women.  There are plenty of women who can support themselves and their children financially without the help of man, but that doesn't mean that they give a strong base for that child.  Two active parents is better for children to thrive.  
 I am not going to get into passing judgement on the marriage of that supercouple.  That is something that is between them.  He knew she was performer when he married her and apparently he has no issues with the whole "sex sells" part of her job.  He is obviously fine with it so it isn't up to me to say that it is wrong in all instances.  What I don't like is that being told that is what I am supposed to aspire to.  Sorry, but no.  In my relationship there isn't a great deal of jealousy going on, Thank God.  But somehow I don't think that me shaking my ass in a barely there outfit is part of the long-term game plan for a happy and successful relationship.  It also isn't the best role model for young children either.  But that is just some prudish conservative talking.  

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Quote of the Day - Andrea Mitchell Edition

alienated our “ally” in Iran and paved the way for rocky relations even to this day.
MSNBC reporter/political pundit Andrea Mitchell on the most impactful State of the Union addresses when President Bush identified Iran as part of the axis of evil.  
I could be wrong here, but I think there a whole bunch of hostages that would disagree with this statement.  
To think that people actually listen to this, more horrifying is that she actually gets paid to say this crap.  

Monday, January 27, 2014

State of the Union Bingo

It is this time again.  The night we conservatives sit and watch the POTUS lies to tell the American people about the current state of the union and his solutions to those problems.  He then will proceed to blame the GOP for everything that he fails at.  It should be a long evening.  
I would suggest dropping out of the drinking game if you get the term Income Equality.  You likely won't survive.  
Just remember, "investment" is really just code for higher taxes.  
state of the union bingo

Open Letter to Amy Glass

Amy Glass, who I am assuming is a feminist, wrote a blog post entitled I look down on Young Women With Husbands and Kids and I'm Not Sorry.  Now, I think that she and I agree that not every person, whether it be man or woman should become a spouse, let alone a parent.  Neither of these tasks are easy and some people just don't have the capabilities of doing it well.  She seems to think that getting married and having children is the easiest thing in the world:
 Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average. And here’s the thing, why on earth are we settling for average?
If these things were so easy why do we see the skyrocketing rates of people using dating sites and fertility clinics?  Yes, it is the easiest thing in the world to go out and date and find that person who actually makes your life feel more complete.  The person you can be totally honest with, even when you know they aren't going to like what you have to say is the easiest thing in the world to find.  I mean just open up your front door and the lines of people to choose from is a massive one.  
 I would love for her to go and say that to woman who has health problems that make it impossible for her to conceive.  Go talk to the couples who spend virtually their entire life savings to have fertility treatments to make the dream of being a parent come true and see what they have to say.  Once they get done slapping her silly they may have calmed down enough to laugh in her face.  Getting pregnant would seem like an easy task, but for many it is Mission Impossible.  Go sit with a woman who is doing everything under the sun to get pregnant when her period arrives and watch the tears and the feelings of inadequacy that she haunted by. Talk to a man who finds out his swimmers don't do the job that God and biology intended them to do.  Many men that I know that are having problems conceiving don't want to get tested, even though the test for the man is much more simple, straightforward, and far less invasive.  
 Go and talk to the woman who does want to be married and have a family but is in her thirties and tell her it is an easy task that "literally anyone can do them".  Some people who remain unmarried aren't that way by choice.  That is their reality and they eventually make the best of it, or one would hope.  Many married couples that don't have children, aren't childless by choice.  That is the fate they were dealt and become the best Aunties and Uncles that they can be to their siblings and friends kids.  
  You will never have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids.
What makes her think that women without a husband and children are exceptional?  I work with a woman who was never married nor did she have children.  She works two jobs and barely supports herself.  She is on public assistance in the form of food stamps.  She is bitter woman who is angry, especially when she says out loud that most of her problems she created for herself with the choices she made in life.  The simple act of not getting married and becoming a parent isn't an automatic entry into the world of exceptionalism.  
 Is a woman who gives up  on the idea of marriage and family to become a professional woman automatically exceptional?  Say this woman is the VP of marketing for some large international firm and is really good at her job but has no family to share this with as she ages more exceptional than the stay at home mom who raised a child to become one of those teachers.  You know the one that I am talking about.  The teacher that really affects a child and helps that child see something in themselves that they wouldn't have otherwise.  We all had that teacher.  I know in my case I had several.  The most remarkable thing about that teacher is that they didn't just give that light to one child, they gave it to many.  One of my high school reunions just recently passed, I am not going to say which one, but one of my "that teacher" attended the get together.  Just judging by the people who hugged him and the amount of photos taken of him that splashed across my Facebook page the next day shows it wasn't just me that looked at him as "that teacher".  He helped hundreds, if not thousands, of young adults feel better about themselves and find their own way in the world.  Isn't the woman who put the energy into raising such a man just as exceptional?  I say yes she is.  
 Obviously Ms. Glass has no children.  Otherwise she would never with a straight face say that it is easy.  Child rearing is one of the hardest jobs in the world.  You worry that every little thing that you do is going to influence them (which in most cases is true) and you second guess the choices that you make when something goes wrong.  I would love to see her try to comfort a small child that is feeling ill, especially when the older sibling is in the other room pulling all the toilet paper off the roll while you are attending to the child that wants nothing else but the comfort of mommy due to a fever or cold.  
 I have strong feelings that children should have a stay at home parent if at all possible.  I have no issue with a man being that parent that stays at home, if that is what works better for that particular family.  I am a realist, I understand perfectly well that it isn't always an option.  Life doesn't always work out that way.  Nor do I dismiss that fact that many women today want to work even if they could financially stay at home.  They feel they are a better parent by going out into the world and being productive at a job and bringing home at least part of the family income.  I do happen to believe it is best for the child to have a parent who is involved in the life of the child.  But I also understand that not all stay at home parents are good ones.  It all comes down to putting the work and the effort into raising a child to become a happy and productive adult.  That is something that can be done in a variety of ways and there is no one "right" way.  Every child is an individual and has their own needs that don't necessarily line up with the needs of other families.  
 But it is more than just a little insulting to hear another woman say that children and marriage is what keeps you from being exceptional.  For some people being exceptional is nothing more than being the best possible parent and the person who always had a clean home that was ready for anyone that dropped by.  
 I also must ask is the women who clean homes for a living lacking in the exceptional department as well?  After all they aren't doing much of anything according to this logic.  I guess they are just serfs who live to make the exceptional women such as she is lives a little easier so they can spend their energy being exceptional at their much more important jobs.  Seriously, how elitist is this woman?  There is no other way to take her little post other than a person who cleans homes is loser.  
 I hear women talk about how “hard” it is to raise kids and manage a household all the time. I never hear men talk about this. It’s because women secretly like to talk about how hard managing a household is so they don’t have to explain their lack of real accomplishments. Men don’t care to “manage a household.” They aren’t conditioned to think stupid things like that are “important.”
Feminists seem to have this real disconnect when it comes to men.  That somehow they don't feel the guilt and they don't question what they are doing and how it affects their families.  Many men who travel a great deal with their jobs feel just as guilty that they aren't there for their kids.  They don't like missing virtually every soccer game.  They also seem to have this disconnect that children don't feel like something is missing from their lives because their dads are too busy working to have time for the little things that matter to them.  I guess those little goals and events that kids feel are important aren't exceptional enough for Ms. Glass.  
 My brother, who grew up with a father that didn't attend games or pretty much anything else, promised himself he would be a different kind of dad.  He has three boys that were all active in sports while they were growing up.  He rarely missed a practice, let alone a game.  My eldest nephew would sometimes get crazy over the fact that his father was "always around".  This kid also went to a private Catholic school.  He was involved with church group within the school.  One of the exercises they did in this group was to have the kids sit face to face and tell the other kid what they envied about them.  One of the kids told my nephew how jealous he was that his father was always at the games.  You see his father was an executive with some big corporation that required long hours and travel.  Yes, those kids had financial advantages that my nephew certainly didn't have, as my brother is on a much more limited budget, but what he got in return was time.  Which is really more exceptional?  I would have to say that putting the time into being the very best parent you can be as opposed to having a big house and large bank account is the far better choice.  But what do I know?  Obviously my life wouldn't rate as exceptional.  
My final quesiton would be, who is having all these exceptional young women?  Are only non-exceptional women giving birth and raising all these mighty exceptional women?  How is that even logical?  

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Mitt Romney and Jimmy Fallon Slow Jam the News - Video

Too bad he didn't show this side of himself before the election.  This is pretty funny.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Quote of the Day - Brit Hume Edition

"The biggest chain of abortion clinics in the country refers to itself as Planned Parenthood. In 2012, this organization says it carried out -- quote -- "abortion procedures" 329,445 times. Whatever that number represents, it's not parenthood." 
So much for rare.   I would love to see the number of people they referred to adoption services.  

Tweet of the Day - Pat Sajak Edition

I am sorry, but this is funny.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Best Sign at The Walk for Life

Yesterday was the annual Walk for Life.  By far, best sign.


Thursday, January 16, 2014

Seahawks Deaf Player Will Inspire You - Video

What is even more amazing is that he was not drafted.  He has done it the hard way.  He is now one game away from The Superbowl.

Amazing:


Quote of the Day - Pat Mullins Edtion

I am not a huge fan of Pat Mullins, but this is funny.
”Let me be the first to offer my congratulations to Boyd Marcus on his appointment to the Virginia ABC Board. It’s nice to know the exchange rate for 30 pieces of silver these days is about $122,000 per year plus benefits.”
A little background for those not involved in Virginia Politics.  Boyd Marcus is a republican strategist, or was.  I am sure those jobs will be hard to come by for him from this day forward.  Mr. Marcus decided to endorse now Governor Terry McAuliffe in the lead up to the election in November.  Pat Mullins is the head of the Republican Party of Virginia.   All hard liquor in the Commonwealth of Virginia is sold by the state in locations known as ABC stores.  Republicans (or some anyway) have been trying to privatize it for years and have been unsuccessful.  I would think this pay check is part of the reason why.
Funny stuff.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Congressman Jim Moran to Retire

May I just say this makes me very happy.  Congressman Jim Moron Moran is set to retire at the end of this term.  I really don't like name calling, I feel we should beyond that in our society, but there are no redeeming qualities to the man, and I mean none.  

Of course the same should be said for the idiots that kept electing this scum of a human being.  His ex-wife called the police to report that she had been assaulted.  Yes, we have elected a wife beater to congress.  Which may very well not be the only time in history that it has happened, but the problem is that everyone knew about it and pulled the lever for him anyway.   I lived in or around this district for close to twenty years.  I personally know many, not just a few, but many, democrats that can't stand the man.  They are perfectly aware of his history and voted for him anyway.  Why?  Because they would cut off a body part before they would vote for a republican.  Even in the last election a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, libertarian ran and he still ran away with it.  

Not only is he a wife beater, he is a racist, an anti-Semite, and he once thought a 8 year old (yes you read that correctly) was trying to steal his car and grabbed the poor child.  He was black, so I guess thinking him a car jacker was perfectly reasonable to this man.  (Yes that is sarcasm on my part).  

He also had to resign his post in the government of the City of Alexandria because of corruption.  Of course no charges were ever pressed and he went onto to inflict his damage to the rest of the country.  He is scum pure and simple.  

This from a Jezebel:
I am voting based on the positions and not whether they, for instance, get blow jobs in the Union Station's men's rooms. There is one exception to this rule for me, and that exception is my Congressman, Jim Moran.Jim Moran votes exactly the way I would want my Congressperson to vote — he's pro-choice, he votes the right way on women's issues, he's decent on economic issues (from my perspective — he's fairly conservative), he's anti-war. But, today, for the 4th time, I cast my ballot for Jim Moran's Republican opponent (who, for once, isn't a rabid anti-abortion freak, thanks NoVa Republicans). Why? Because of his personal life. In June 1999, Mary Moran (née Craig) called Alexandria Police claiming that her husband had hit her. Her husband was, of course, Congressman and former mayor of Alexandria (1985-1990) Jim Moran. Notably, Moran ran for mayor after 2 years as Vice Mayor — a position he was forced to resign as part of a plea deal on bribery charges which, due to his many friends and relationships in the Democratic party, had no effect on his political aspirations or friendships. Mary Moran later refused to testify and divorce papers were filed the next morning instead. Three weeks later, he filed a cross-complaint in their divorce claiming that the marriage broke up over financial problems for which she was supposedly responsible. Yes, when his former wife filed divorce papers because he smacked her around one night, he turned around and blamed the dissolution of the marriage (and, by extension, the argument that precipitated the domestic abuse) on her. It's not the first or the only time Jim Moran's laid his hands on someone in anger. In 1995, he shoved Randy Cunningham in the House cloakroom (granted, Cunningham is an asshole, but still) and in 2000, he manhandled an 8-year-old African-American boy that was looking at his car. And let's not talk about the time he got caught with a $25,000 interest-free loan from a pharmaceutical company lobbyist, or said "the Jews" were the reason we went into Iraq. He is, quite frankly, an embarrassment to the Democrat establishment, which nonetheless clutches him to their bosom because he's their guy, a member of their party and, thus, not subject to the standards to which we, as Democrats, would certainly hold a Republican challenger. Jim Moran is a wife-smacking, bribe-taking, black child-shaking anti-Semite that has earned the protection of the local Democratic party as well as many prominent, national Democratic women like Donna Brazile and Patricia Ireland in exchange for voting the "right" way. He gets to be the antithesis of a feminist and to live his personal life in opposition to every supposed ideal of the Democratic party because he'd never vote for a ban on partial-birth abortion or a Constitutional amendment on same sex marriage. Well, great. This "my guy because he's my party" bullshit that I decried yesterday when it came wrapped in the form of National Review Online editor Katherine Jean Lopez is equally abhorrent when practiced by people that I agree with politically and even admire. And if this year, with the Democrats poised to strengthen their majority in the House isn't the year that the feminists — let alone the women — of the Democratic Party are going to be willing to dump this guy (and the other guys like him) or support a primary opponent, then when will it be the year? Why does he get a pass for wife beating — because of Roe v. Wade? Fuck that. Roe isn't getting overturned by a House member, and I'm not voting for a guy that gets away with domestic violence just because he votes for laws to send other men to prison for it.
Sadly, she was in the minority and he was allowed to stay until his heart was contented and did damage to our country as a whole.  

Good Riddance Mr. Moran.  May you rot.   

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Myth of a "Living Wage"

This is the new war that the democrats are fighting to retain political power.  The others, such as the "War on Women", will be trotted out as needed, but this is the one that they are concentrating on this election season.  The mid-terms are now just 10 months away.  
The President and his ilk are talking about a raise in the minimum wage and income equality with vigor.  There is also a push for the workers at McDonald's to get a rate of $15 per hour, so they can live on it.  Wonderful.  But what does a "living wage" really mean?  I relocated a year ago to just outside of New York City from just outside of Washington, DC.  While I was growing up in Fairfield County, CT it was then the most expensive county in the country to live in.   Now that county is the one I just left,  Fairfax County, VA.  Another words I have spent almost my entire life living in very high cost of living areas.  My cost of living is much higher than someone who lives in say rural Nebraska or Wyoming.  
In Virginia, I could have gone say thirty miles south and my cost of living would have dropped, considerably in fact.  The rents in Fredericksburg, VA are substantially lower.  But I wouldn't have made nearly the same amount of money.  The same holds true in Connecticut.  I could go live in the "valley" and the housing is much cheaper.  A smaller percentage of my income would go to housing.   But the better paying jobs are closer to New York City.  I could commute that distance I suppose, but then I would then be spending my money on transportation instead of housing.  I would also have fewer hours to live a life outside of work.  
Making a national minimum wage that is a "livable wage" may sound good on the surface, but it won't work.  You can't compare the cost of living of very rural areas of the country to large cities.  They are just not the same.  Buzzfeed did a comparison between two twenty-somethings who made virtually the same salaries, but live in very different areas of the country.  The way they live is very different.  
Twenty-two-year-old Madeleine Harrington of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, makes slightly less than Brooklyn’s average median income of $32,135, racking in $31,000 a year working two part-time jobs. Harrington also pays less in rent than Brooklyn’s average: Her home costs only $2,000 a month. Still out of her price range, the two-bedroom apartment has been converted into a three-bedroom, although the additional room is “questionable.” There are no walls, and you have to walk through it to reach the bathroom.
While this might be standard for a NYC lifestyle, it is an anomaly in other parts of the country: In Waco, Texas, for example, the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment is just $683. Mia Francis, 22, of Waco, makes well over her city’s average of $26,264, pulling in $33,000 a year, and is able to live in a spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, equipped with a backyard, patio, washing machine, and a driveway for her car. The monthly rent is $900, and she splits it evenly with her fiancé.
Madeleine will have to make a really good bank to live in New York the way Mia lives in Waco.  Many people who live in New York aren't really all that interested in owning a large single family home with a backyard, when it  doesn't have a great deal to offer in terms of entertainment and cultural activities.  Many people who live in Waco  want no part of the all the noise and congestion that comes with living in a large city.  Different people have different needs and that dictates how they live.  I personally would never want to live on a farm or in the middle of nowhere.  I have friends who recently relocated to a small town in New Hampshire.  While I like going to visit them on occasion, the desolate nature of that town is not for me.  I am a 'burbs girl.  I live living close to large city, but not actually living in one.  I want access to a 24 hour store, but one single CVS works just fine for me.  
How can we possibly pass legislation on the federal level that addresses all of these issues?  The short answer is that we can't.  The country is far too diverse to say that this is a "livable wage" for the entire country.  Small rural areas of the country couldn't possibly support paying the wages it costs to live in a large city.  
If this is to be done, which I am not advocating at all, it would have to be done on a state level.  Even then it wouldn't work, because the costs from one part of the state to another can differ just as widely.  Another issue that is not being really being addressed is how do we define "livable wage"?  
Does this wage mean that you can live with four roommates in a tiny cramped apartment or does it mean that you can afford a single family home?  Does everyone have to able to afford a car?  If so, a Hyundai or BMW?  What foods does this wage need to cover?  Does everyone have to eat rice and beans or do they get surf and turf?  I personally am a big fan of Salmon.  Should I be able to afford to buy it daily, weekly, or monthly?  Does my television have to have WiFi, as many of the brand new models now have?  A laptop, desktop, or I-Pad?  After all, we had disgraced, and currently jailed, former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr, talking about how I-Pads are a right.  So that must fit into the equation of "livable" does it not?  We have had other progressive elected officials saying that homeownership is a constitutional right.  In my neck of the woods a single family home can, and normally does,  cost over a million dollars.  
All of this opens up all kinds of questions about who gets to decide what "livable" means.  Does some politician I have never met, that lives off a tax payer salary, get to decide what foods I need to be able to afford to call my way of living "livable"?   What if I prefer to eat beans & rice and pasta every night instead of filet mignon and arugula.  
This is the problem with politicians making broad statements about "inequality".  They never define what it really means nor does anyone explain how we get there.  Yes, we can have the federal government force businesses to pay a higher wage all across the country.  But that doesn't mean that people will live "better".  Those increase costs in labor will show up in costs to the consumer.  That is simple economics.  President Obama doesn't tell us how a much a bar of soap will cost in this utopia he is trying to create.  Yes, people will make more, but they also will be spending more on goods and services.  We also find that certain businesses will have fewer people doing more, as that is what they can afford to pay out in labor costs.  So we will find fewer available jobs and fewer hours.  That will not help people live better.  
Many of the goals of progressives can be described as laudable.  That doesn't mean that in the real world they will work.  While I am not making light of the people who live with limited means.  It is a difficult life to be sure.  The reality is that today in America, what we define as poverty is still rich in comparison to the poverty that we see around the world.  With few exceptions in America, we have electricity, we have indoor plumbing, we have potable water, and access to basic needs of life.  If we are truly looking to address poverty in the world, America really isn't the place to be doing so.  We should be looking at the huts that people live in South Africa and India.  Most of Africa lives in poverty that very few in this country can understand.  We can even move much closer to home to Mexico and South American countries and see what real poverty is.  We hear that people in the richest country in the world shouldn't be living in poverty.  When you go and look at the rest of the world, we aren't.  A "livable wage" is a myth and won't address the real issues of why people in this country live in "poverty".  But government never really addresses the real issues, do they?  

Monday, January 6, 2014

A Tale of Two Covers - Time Magazine on Climate Change

I'm just saying.  It seems to me that the science is far from settled.  


Friday, January 3, 2014

Any Inkling I May Become a Feminist is Now Gone

While it is true that wasn't likely to happen in any event, this certainly cured me.  A friend of mine pointed out this blog post to me, and oh my.  I honestly don't know what to say about this except there sure is a great deal of crazy out there.  
It took me a little while, but I finally figured out that PIV is Penis in Vagina.  Not allowed in the feminist world apparently.  Which I am very confused by.  I was always led to believe that a main tenet of feminism is that you get to "have sex like a man".  Apparently we were wrong for thinking that.  Intercourse, bad.  Always.  Just bad.  
First, well intercourse is NEVER sex for women. Only men experience rape as sexual and define it as such. Sex for men is the unilateral penetration of their penis into a woman (or anything else replacing and symbolising the female orifice) whether she thinks she wants it or not – which is the definition of rape: that he will to do it anyway and that he uses her and treats her as a receptacle, in all circumstances – it makes no difference to him experiencing it as sexual. That is, at the very least, men use women as useful objects and instruments for penetration, and women are dehumanised by this act. It is an act of violence.
I am surprised the word empowered doesn't appear in this paragraph.  After all that is what feminism is supposed to be, right?  Empowering women.  So ladies if you like to have a little somethin' somethin' from time to time, you are anti-woman.  Hear that.  No more penetration for you.  Apparently if you want to have a baby:
 Penetration of the penis into the vagina is completely unnecessary for conception.
Well yes that is true.  One doesn't have to have intercourse to become pregnant.  That can happen if a couple uses the "pull out" method of birth control or if a man doesn't quite make it to the "promiseland" before finishing the deed.  You can absolutely get pregnant without intercourse.  But, speaking of pregnancy:
As FCM pointed out some time ago, intercourse is inherently harmful to women and intentionally so, because it causes pregnancy in women. The purpose of men enforcing intercourse regularly (as in, more than once a month) onto women is because it’s the surest way to cause pregnancy and force childbearing against our will, and thereby gain control over our reproductive powers. There is no way to eliminate the pregnancy risk entirely off PIV and the mitigating and harm-reduction practices such as contraception and abortion are inherently harmful, too. Reproductive harms of PIV range from pregnancy to abortion, having to take invasive, or toxic contraception, giving birth, forced child bearing and rearing and all the complications that go with them which may lead up to severe physical and emotional damage, disability, destitution, illness, or death.
Oh my, when you put it like that I wouldn't want to have a baby either.  Bad, horrible, little creatures aren't they?   While I suppose that some women have complications during childbirth, most don't.  It is a relatively natural process that keeps the human race going.  Maybe that is a bad thing too.  Who knows?  
But I am impressed to hear a feminist say that abortion is inherently harmful to women.  After all you don't hear that coming from that side of the aisle too often.  Normally it is their "right".  I recently saw a photo of young boy, maybe six or seven holding a sign telling me to stay out of his mommy's vagina.  Apparently the next nominee for Mother of the Year didn't get the memo of how bad intercourse, birth control, and abortion are for women.  They must be a bad feminist, or at least very misguided.  
I am not going to go into detail here, but I would venture to say that most women find consensual sex to be pleasurable.  But alas, we have been programmed to believe that is true.  
There’s a reason men need to groom us into it, and why this grooming takes so long- because it’s so grossly violating and traumatising that we would otherwise never submit to intercourse. The only reason we may now not feelraped or have the impression we desired or initiated PIV, is because men broke down our barriers very skillfully and progressively from birth, breaking down our natural defences to pain and invasion, our confidence in our own perceptions and sensations of fear and disgust that tell us male sexual invasion is painful, harmful and traumatic.
Through an all-pervasive and powerful male propaganda, they stuff our minds from infancy with the idea that PIV is normal, desirable and erotic, before we can even conceive of it as something horrifying, and make sure we never see any alternative to their lie – or that if we do, we can no longer take in the information, are punished for thinking and saying otherwise. The fact we may not immediately feel raped doesn’t mean it’s not rape, objectively speaking
I guess we can add bad media, bad hollywood, bad culture.  All of which tells us that intercourse is a normal, healthy thing that both man and women can enjoy.  I personally think it is far better in a committed relationship between two people who love each other as opposed to scratching an itch, but that is neither here nor there in this conversation.  All.Bad.  All of it.  
Lastly, from a structural point of view, as a class oppressed by men, we are not in any position of freedom to negotiate what men do to us collectively and individually within the heterocage. Men, by whom we are possessed, colonised and held captive, are the sole agents and organisers of PIV. Men dominate us precisely so we can’t opt out of sexual abuse by them; intercourse is the very means through which men subordinate us, the very purpose of their domination, to control human reproduction.
I guess just saying no doesn't cut it.  
Seriously?  It is very hard to wrap my head around this type of thinking.  I have to assume this author is a lesbian or asexual.  Not to get into too much graphic detail here, but don't lesbians use sex toys such as a vibrator?  I was always under the impression that they did.  Which is another reason that I have never fully understood being a lesbian.  If you are going to simulate sexual intercourse between a man and woman, why not just be with a man?  But I could be wrong.  Most of my homosexual friends are men, so this has never really come up in conversation for me before.  Nor would I necessarily want it to.  But that has been the impression that I have had for many years, maybe I got it from a movie or book.  I am not quite sure where I got it and I could very easily be wrong about it.  
In any event, this is reason 2,394,294 of why I will never a feminist.  You should read the comments.  Again, oh my.  Apparently people agree with her.  
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