Vegan…Survivalist…Wabbits!

Vegans are making me crazy. I appreciate that they have a strong standing on what they are and are not willing to tolerate when it comes to animal cruelty. And the fact that they make this statement with their very lifestyle is amazingly brilliant. I support that fully. What I can’t get behind is their being so disgusted with people around them who don’t feel the same way. Just because I wear leather and fur and eat meat doesn’t make me a puppy killer.

I don’t mind people wearing fur, but I’m sorry, if I take the time and energy to go hunting for rabbit and manage to bag a couple, I’m eating roasted bunny for the next week, using the bones for jewelry, and using the organs I can’t ingest for compost. That’s all there is to it. Then there’s the new hat I’d get out of the deal! Or gloves. Warm, soft, furry gloves…

See? I don’t have a problem with this. I do have a problem, however, with penning animals in tiny, unsanitary areas where they never see sunlight and are bred for the sole purpose of Prada, but if they’re out in the wild, munching away and they happen to get in the way of an arrow, I’m making good use of them, and honoring their sacrifice but returning a bit of the little critter to the land to make grass for future rabbit targets… I mean furry friends. Really, that’s what I meant.

Ann Coulter IS a hate crime, and sugar is good for you

Well, it couldn’t last. Ann Coulter’s jaw has healed, and has subsequently been set free to hate once more. After going down a flight of stairs the quick and painful way, she has gotten back up on her leggy, reactionary self and now has the power of speech once more. Hear that? It’s hate. And it’s name is Ann. Joy. I mean seriously, anyone who is herself called a living breathing hate crime and answers, “Thank you” is a hardcore cunt. She calls out some supposedly questionable ballot-counting practices in Minnesota, and how Democrats have been ‘thieving their way to victory over the years,’ yet manages to completely dismiss how George W. Bush actually lost to Al Gore by over 500,000 in 2000. Huh.

Ann manages to be petty, whiny, uninformed, and remarkably vocal all at the same time. Granted, she’s pandering to the Right, which makes her blond ambition a great asset. All through the election she tried to label the now President-elect a Terrorist by highlighting his middle name all over the place. Granted she hasn’t done so since the election. I know I wouldn’t now that threatening him in any way will get you prison time. Not that I consider calling out someone's name a threat, but anyone else feel like baiting a stupid blond into an ankle bracelet and a numbered cell?

Kudos to whoever greased those stairs, though. Next time, make the flight longer. If you manage a major head or throat injury, it might silence her for good. Can we get a committee on this, please?

(For the record, it was never officially confirmed that she fell down a flight of stairs, or that she was truly injured at all. Nice thought though, isn’t it? I’m running with it for now. Correct me if you know different!)

And can I just say Rick Warren was a seriously off choice for the inaugural invocation. I nominate Matthew Ellenwood! No one does an invocation like he does!! Seriously, I agree that Obama wants to show that he is an all-encompassing figure interested in hearing and supporting the views of others even when he does not agree with them. I recognize that, I agree with it, but he could have picked someone who wasn't QUITE so incredibly homophobic. Just a thought.

In other, more personal news, I’ve finally broken down. I can’t stand it anymore. I’m changing my diet. ARRRGGG!!! I hate doing this. I am a creature of habit, as so many are, and changing something as fundamental as my eating habits is a trip for me. I mean, I’m not going Vegan or anything; I’m pretty sure I get homicidal quick. I’m just doing what most personal trainers tell you to do anyway: cutting way down on sweets, increasing fruits and veggies, cutting out most fats, and increasing protein.

But speaking of protein, George and I had a discussion about this earlier today, and he brings up a valid point; there are so many foods you wouldn’t necessarily think of that provide protein. Veggies, grains, dairy, all these are know as good protein sources as well as carbohydrate and vitamin sources. And I don’t care what anyone says, sugar is necessary for the body to survive. It’s VITAL. It’s BODY FUEL. EAT IT. Moderation is always best, but cutting it out completely will KILL YOU. Just so we’re clear.

Anyway, protein is good, sugar is good, fat isn’t horrendous as long as it’s moderate, and I vote that pecan pralines are made a food group so they can be eaten with impunity. Can we get a committee on this, please?

Catharsis

So, I’ve been becoming increasingly introspective recently. I know, some of you are already bracing yourself, and those of you who aren’t probably should. I’ll wait…

There we go, everyone ready? Good, let’s continue.

I’ve been focusing a lot recently on my personal spiritual work. I got lazy, I admit it, and just didn’t do anything for about three months, and then complained inwardly about how vacant everything seemed. I walked around feeling hollow, unfulfilled, and then promptly kicked myself for it. Duh…

So, I’ve continued, forcibly in some cases, my journey, and I’ve come to a series of realizations about myself, a couple that are pretty neat, and a couple that suck.

The first came several months ago, before my laziness. It basically pulled me out of myself and forced me to look at everything I already had to work with. Much of it was raw, unrefined, but still very present, like a hunk of ore that had not been shaped into what it could be. I was using it as a blunt instrument instead of a well-made weapon. It still did the job, but crudely, and without skill. So, my first order of business was to work with what I had. Understand it, work with it, refine it into something functional. Realization: neat.

Another, and by no means in order, came in the form of a person: Michael. Some of you may remember my mental meltdown over what to do with this man a few months ago, but he also awakened in me the notion that this was entirely my own fault. Again. Let me explain…

I love to love. I nurture, I care, I worry, I want to be near it, I want to be a part of it, I want to see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, I LOVE love, but most of all I love loving. And that gets me into more trouble than I wanted to admit to myself. For years. Several of them. Anyone familiar with the parade of men (and women) in my life knows that my luck in relationships has been in waves. Everything starts out roses, and ends up in the compost heap. And it’s really my own fault. I choose my relationships based on my want to love, and historically I have attached myself to those in need of love. I want to show them how amazing and wonderful love and life can be, but this is the same problem women who stay with drunks have: I wanted to fix something. Even though I wanted to share my insane amounts of love for love with them and show them that life is this grand bazaar of love and laughter, I still wanted to fix them because I felt their lack of understanding of love was broken. Hence, my problem. Trying to fix people is bad. Basing whole relationships on it is worse. Realization: suck.

More recently, I realized something that evoked mixed feelings in me. I’ve been running on raw talent and ambition for a LONG time. Most of my life, in fact. I learn a little, work with my own deductive/organizational/energetic skills, and I’ve pushed forward, making my way on nerve, talent, and LOTS of sugar. Maybe not the best choice, but I’ve found that now to achieve my goals, both set for me and those I set myself, I can’t run on what I’ve got anymore. I have to go out and get the knowledge, hone my skills, and basically get off my ass and do something with myself if I want to get anywhere. I thought I was doing something. Apparently not. But I sure as hell I am now. Realization: jury’s out.

And then we come to my blog. My angry little soapbox, my dumping ground for stress, my moments of ‘what the fuck?’ This one hit me this morning, sparking this entry though not the need for it. I realized that this very space I was suing to hide in. I projected pieces of myself, the ones I wanted to world to see however true they may be, onto the screen in angry, opinionated, even poetic snippets, censoring out the sections I didn’t want everyone else to see. In truth, I didn’t want to see them. Thus I have come to the most profound and yet most painful realization of all: there are parts of myself I don’t like to the point that I completely ignore them, and that’s seriously unhealthy. Let’s face it, we all have parts of ourselves we don’t like, be it a nervous habit, a temper, a merchant not to stand up for ones self, poor fashion sense, something we don’t like about ourselves. But me, I just pretend they don’t exist, and that’s the worst habit of mine in existence. I rationalize them, I refuse to look at them, but I don’t’ deal with them. And I as I look back on my old entry, few of them as there are, I realize that even here, I am ignoring the pieces of myself I think others object to, or that are ‘unacceptable’ somehow. Realization: fuck that.

I’m sick of hiding in my own head. I’m sick of wanting people to know me, then keeping so many things to myself that people have nothing to go on. I feel like a failure for gaining 15 lbs in four months, I can’t stand public speaking, and I’m scared to death of being forgotten. There I said it. I don’t feel better. I don’t like it, but I said it.

I also love pandas and knee socks. Damn, that didn’t help.

I hate cathartics. I have a feeling this hate will grow before I get anything out of it. Bummer.

Divine Nation

Since when did ‘Muslim’ become an insult? When did our fear override of common sense, our sense of decency, or our sense of self? ‘Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ Unless they’re Muslim. Then they get sent to Gitmo.

I’ve been hearing some serious shit on the street of late, and from what I understand basically the people I’m hearing want to turn this country into an extended version of Sarajevo. Anyone out there even remember the Bosnian War and what was happening? That entire conflict was Bosnian Serbs vs. Muslims, and the Serbs were killing every single Muslim they came across, unless of course said Muslims were being dumped into concentration camps where prisoners were tortured, sexually mutilated, then executed. Which, remarkably, is the kind of thing people are not totally against for Muslims in this country. People in this country, of various walks of life, talking in public about how we should just bomb the entire Middle East and have done with it, and how all Muslims should just be shot. It’s called Ethnic Cleansing, and you want to bring it to our home turf? Do they have meds available for that level of bat-shit crazy?!

Forget Muslim as an insult. There was a time when being Muslim was a death sentence, and in the not too distant past. Then again, so was being Jewish, being Pagan, being gay, being a woman and walking around with being covered in a formless black swath and wearing shoes that render every step silent. Need I go on? Give me a fucking break, people.

I wonder if any of the people spewing this filth have ever even seen a copy of the Koran, let alone read it. Some of the imagery is absolutely beautiful, and believe it or not it’s not a big book of ‘do as Allah says or we blow you up.’

Fanaticism is horrendous and ugly no matter who is spewing it or who its being spewed at, and it’s not necessary. We have enough shit to worry about right now; we don’t need to be killing people in our own backyard just because they don’t happen to worship the way we’re used to.

My mother, love her so dearly, actually coined a thought process that I subscribe to whole-heartedly: what if we’re all right? The Jews, the Christians, the Muslims, the Pagans, what if it’s all true? What if this great, amazing ‘force’ (No Star Wars references please, just stay with me) that allows life to exist and created it from what was before is so great and vast and incomprehensible that we simply can’t narrow it down to one form of understanding? What if it more like a diamond, with hundreds of thousands of facets, or faces? And what if each face is a different religious or belief structure, depending on the person or people looking up in wonderment? That would mean that this great ‘thing’ has the power to be whatever we need it to be, in whatever form we need it to take, to understand what ‘it’ is, and our connection to it.

The Divine is not something any of us has a right to narrow down beyond ourselves, because truly, the only point of reference we can ever have in full is our own. So who are we to say that someone else’s belief, or view of the Divine, is invalid? No one has that right, and no one has the right nor the obligation to give up their beliefs for the sake of government, society, or culture. We are individuals for a reasons, and there are as many faces of the Divine as there are each of us, because the Divine exists within each of us. It is our life, it is our breath, and thus it is our words. Are you speaking for the Divine today?

Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?

The hypocrisy doesn’t end in death! What the hell?! Is this shit genetic or some such insanity?!!!

Ok, back-story: I was working today, as I am want to do from time to time at my desk at my office, but at the same time I was surfing CNN for the latest what the hell ever they see fit to print today. It’s amazing how much crap they manage to publish when we still have soldiers dying halfway around the world and we get stories on the news about dogsleds. But I digress…

I ended up on a commentary piece by the younger daughter of Lyndon B Johnson, talking about how she had campaigned for her father, and how he was so very for the Civil Rights Movement, and how he wanted to help people have all the opportunity that could be afforded to them regardless of their skin color or the size of their pocketbook.

That all well and good, LBJ, Junior (and I’m not kidding, her name is Luci Baines Johnson. Talk about a legend to live down), but if dear old Daddy was so hell bent on working for the rights of ‘Negroes’ as he himself put it, why did he allow for the continuation of a war that was sending so very many of them off to the front lines to die? Not only that, but wasn’t it President LBJ that pushed for further involvement in the Vietnam War after John F Kennedy was assassinated? LBJ was not a stupid man; he had to have known that because of the CURRENT situation at the time surrounding the black community and the war, young men in black communities had very little choice but to be drafted or arrested. So if he was so very in favor of the rights of these young men, why did he allow so many of them to go off against their will to die for a country and a leader who let it continue?

I appreciate that his views and the situation at the time was not this woman’s fault, or even shared by the woman so it would seem. I acknowledge and accept that. But how exactly can this woman stand there and call her father a man of the colored people and an advocate for their rights when he sure as hell didn’t seem to think stopping a war that was killing young men and women of all colors, creeds, and religions was a priority?

Oh wait, because the current administration holds the same stance. Right.

So yeah, I read this article, at my desk, at work. I'm still angry. I gotta stop reading CNN at the office; that’s all there is to it.

Oppression, uninterrupted

Attention Black/Asian/American Indian/Female Communities of America: pick up a mirror and remember what life was like for us in this country two hundred years ago, the shunning by society, the silent consent of the slave trade by the church, the fact that we were seen as nothing more than property at best and animals at worst, then try to tell me that being queer is an affront to nature.

There, I said it.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just because I’m low on sleep, it’s cold out, and I had something spicy for lunch, but could someone please explain to me how it is that a series of communities built on the back of oppression, subsequently freed of said oppression through hundreds of years of fighting, has the stones to turn around and oppress a completely different group of people based on the same criteria?

The criteria in question: how they are born.

Being queer is not a disease, it is not a abomination, and it is not a movement hell bent on destroying anything or anyone aside from the social stigma that got branded by fearful people who know nothing about what’s really going on. This is about people being allowed to live their lives as they are, not trying to fit into society’s view of what they are supposed to be. There was a time when women were seen merely as baby factories, unfit to work for the same pay, vote, even speak in public. American Indians were seen as nothing more than savages to be killed off to make way for white expansion, killed off by disease, warfare, and the willful slaughter of their food supply. Blacks were seen as nothing more than slaves, hard laborers kidnapped from their villages, born by ship stacked on top of each other like strips of animal skins, bought and sold like so much grain, then raped and beaten within an inch of their lives to keep them ‘in line.’ This is a community that was freed from one kind of slavery to be dropped ceremoniously into another: poverty. The laws may have changed, but the social stigma remained, and in the end, it took a second uprising, a second changing of the laws, and a second war to truly begin the road to equality, a war fought not with guns but with sit-ins, marches, fire hoses, tear gas, all on American Soil. I, an American Citizen born in this country, as a member of these three communities, have only one thing to say: All men are created equal as long as you look and think like land/slave owning, Christian, homophobic white men. Let Freedom fucking ring.

Yet, here we are, a melting pot of cultural diversity, spitting on one another every damn day. Yet this is a country built on one underlying concept: COMMUNITY. Families grow through neighborhoods, not just blood. Sisters and brothers are loved and cherished from states, time zones, even continents away not by the relevance of their heritage or how they live their lives, but by the common strand of humanity that links us all.

Which begs a further question: given that at some point in the history of this world, nearly every single culture that has ever existed has been persecuted, enslaved, or shunned simply for being who they are, how can any of us truly have a right to say word one about how someone else lives, let alone loves?

I'm DOOMED...

I'm hearing Christmas music, and I want throw bricks at people's heads. And we all know what happens when I throw things!

So much doom upon my head...

I hate this woman

Palin. Sarah gay-hating, Moose-fucking, maverick-coattail-riding Palin. I am so sick of this woman, if I can even bring myself to think of her as one of my own kind. I mean really, a woman trying to take away women’s rights? What the fuck is that? What next, voting, speaking in public? Fuck you, Sarah! She calls our President Elect all but a terrorist, then turns around and says she’s ‘proud of Barack Obama,’ as if to say, ‘Gosh, it’s so nice they let that black man into office.’ Cunt. And how she’d love to serve in his administration. Can we serve her as a snack tray? That’s the only job she’s fit for.

Then she has the stones to say she and other Republican Governors in their little club are ready to put aside "extreme partisanship" and act if Washington fails to provide the leadership America needs. Speaking at her first formal news conference since the Republican tanked last week, she croaked out that her fellow Republican governors "don't let obsessive, extreme partisanship ... get in the way of doing what's right." Since fucking when? She and the fuckers still listening to her are so far Reich (sorry, Right) they can't even see that moderates EXIST, let alone stand among them.

I had wished that we could just ship her back to Alaska like a bad case of crabs and never have to hear from her again. I also knew that was never going to happen. The Fundies like her WAY too much, and her ego has grown far too big for even Alaska to hold anymore. Surrounded by Yes Men, and not the kind that do fun things to the New York Times, she honestly forgot that she’s an idiot. A poorly spoken, raving loon who needs to be locked up and experience the ‘reprogramming’ her kind like to give to gays and unwed mothers in fundamentalist situation. Do they have programs for ‘not crazy’ by chance? If not, let’s develop one for this bitch. I mean seriously, given the choice, I’d take Hillary Clinton over Plain any day, and I am NOT fan of Hillary’s.

I’m just glad our country has been able to see through the bullshit that has been heaped over us in the past eight years, and brought forth a leader by our own hand, that has the fortitude to make things happen. Without Sarah Plain. Now, if we could just stuff her in a hole for the next twenty years or so, that’d be nice. Shovel, anyone?

Remember, Remember...

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys,
God save the King! Hip hip hoorah!

This will be a day for me that lives on forever for two reasons.

First, and not the least of which, is Guy Fawkes. Talk about your baddass human beings, he was ready to blow a sacred space to the stars to show the world that something was wrong. I got to share this day with people who appreciate it for the first time today, and for that this day will live on in my heart forever.

But also, I can say that I was in Grant Park, in Chicago, when the word came. And the voices shouted from the throng, “Yes we did!”

And half the world heard the orgasmic cry of, “Oh, thank god!”

I shared this moment with those self-same fellows, geeks, nerds, revolutionaries all, men who understood and appreciated not only what was happening just then, but what had happened on this day so many years ago.

And from our voices, through the night, came the chorus of sea chantes, sung in three different keys, no harmony, but as in motion as the sea itself. Wandering through the streets of a nation in the midst of a revelation, a city drunk with joy.

Palpable, seamless, unrelenting joy.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day. Fuck yeah.

The Great Debate...not so much

I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. Things turned out to be kind of whiny and accusatory for my taste. McCain all but telling Obama to apologize for those comments made about him by Lewis about connecting he and Sara Palin to segregationists of the 60’s and the bombing of that church was laughable. NO REFERENCE was made to link the current Republican candidates with that insanity. NONE. If you read the direct quote, that’s obvious, but to ask Obama to apologize for someone else’s statement was ridiculous, and McCain sounded like a little kid when he kept saying, “It’s not fair!” What are you, 5? You’re whining like a little bitch boy and you want to run this country?

And honestly, being in the field of education, I have to say there is NOTHING that eight years is going to fix. It’s a situation that’s going to take a generation at least to fix, and people need to come to grips with that. We need a solution people can agree on so it will remain in implementation for the 15-20 years its going to take to make the system function properly. McCain’s plan of competitive schools does nothing but isolate lower income families to mediocre schools, while the rich kids get fought over because their parents can afford tuition. Obama’s plan of college tuition reimbursement for every student every year with community service is a decent plan, but implementing it is going to be rough. And also, if the K-12 system isn’t supporting our children properly, putting college within reach isn’t enough when graduating above a “C” isn’t happening in the first place.

I must admit though, Obama side-stepped Sarah Palin like bubblegum on the sidewalk. When asked if he thought she was qualified, he said to let the people decide. A well-put answer if any, and if there is anyone left who takes that woman even REMOTELY seriously, let’s see a show of hands. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I also want tog o n record saying Obama’s comments about that “$42000 income tax bill” thing McCain was squawking about was amazing. He goes as says everyone’s said that entire thing was fabricated, even Fox News, which doesn’t happen where he’s concerned. AND THEY WERE ON FOX NEWS!!! Glorious.

Overall, it was a mudslinging bitch fight that in the end means nothing. It was by no means a show-stopper as far as the campaign, and where McCain needed to be seen as calm and collected, he got more agitated and more personal with his barbs as the night went on, while Obama stayed cool. Though McCain has the passion of a fighter, he didn’t have the substance of a cool head to back it up. All bark, not enough denture-adhesive for bite.

10/16/08