This April Sucks

What a shitty week!  Yesterday I neglected to bathe all day and I wallowed in my own filth because we had a snow day because we got two feet of snow (NO SHIT),

My clothesline.  No April-freshness around here this year.

and I was too busy monitoring the MANHUNT! (thanks, ABC) for the Boston bomber.  I'm really really glad they got that guy who did the bombings and that he's still alive.  The whole time I was sucked in to watching a bunch of cops standing around (hours and hours and hours) and listening to media personalities ad lib (hours and hours and hours) I was thinking two things: 1) They shut down an entire metropolitan area for a stupid teenager??? and 2) I REALLY need a shower.

Although I was totally sucked in to the media frenzy surrounding the MANHUNT! I worry that giving awful things like that so much attention encourages more crazies to come out and show how crazy they really are.  Not only "big crazy," like hurting masses of strangers, but also "little crazy."  Take, for instance, Chuck Woolery from the show Love Connection back in the '80s.

Chuck Woolery (on the right)

Yesterday he tweeted:

Okay, crazy.  Thanks, that really helps.  When he's not strangling cats for cameras, he's coming up with inflammatory conspiracy theories.

And this on Facebook from someone related to me:

Huh?  I haven't drunk Kool-Aid in years and years.  Thanks for the memories!  Now, what the hell are you talking about?

So not only was I filthy, wasting an entire day, and learning that beloved '80s icons and relatives are racist jingoists, but now I was really craving Kool-Aid and couldn't go out because of the blizzard!  Arg!

But in my intense research of the Boston Bombings I also learned that the guy from the wheelchair picture on the day of the bombing:

is named Jeff Bauman Jr.  He lost both his legs below the knees in the bombing but when he came-to after his first surgery in the hospital he was able to communicate to his brother that he saw the bomber and could identify him.  His statement helped the FBI figure out who did it.  Incredible.  And the guy in the cowboy hat helped save Jeff's life by wrapping his legs in tourniquets and then pinching off an artery (pictured) on the way to the hospital.  Jeff is in for a lot of medical treatment, rehabilitation, and prosthetics.  One of his friends started a gofundme.com site for him where you can contribute and help pay his medical expenses and write him a note.

So visit the site.  Contribute a few bucks.  Write him a note.

And if you have the time and inclination, tell the Chuck Woolerys and racist relatives of the world to go fuck themselves.

Wha???

I wouldn't call myself a radical feminist by any means, and I'm sometimes disappointed with the stereotypical woman's-world life I've led (so far), but the other night I found myself flipping through the channels on TV and I came across this on America's Top Model:

The contest for the week was to see who could look the most convincingly TAXIDERMIED on film.  The girl in the picture above got an extra point from the judges because her collar bones showed through the hole.  I am not even kidding. 

My mouth was hanging open and I was speechless.  This is the nineties, people!  (it's not? oh.)  We have come too far to pretend we were hunted and our heads are hanging in a den as a trophy!  That is not even a sentence anyone should ever have to write!  The show should be renamed "America's dumbest, most shameless, anti-female, shithead," starring queen of the shitheads, Tyra Banks!

Crazy moron

Bad news that at first I thought was good news. Common sense goes out the window when talking about public school.

I went to a staff meeting at school the other day and the principal told us that there will be 70 less 6th graders in next year's class than there is this year.  My optimistic brain immediately said, "Yes!  That means that there won't be 40 kids in a class next year!  Only 35!"  Then I heard the collective groan from the rest of the staff.  "What are you moaning about?"  I thought to myself, "This is good news!..... Isn't it?" 

No.  It isn't.  Especially for me because I'm at the rock bottom of the seniority list.  Classes will not be smaller, they will be the same size, and there will be less teachers.  So that means I will mostly likely be out of a job next year which stinks, but on the plus side: more time for blogging! I can get back into the groove of writing all about water stains that look like vaginas, my farrier-needing hoofs, and why pandas are such a monumental mistake. 

Lazy asshole

Merry Merry

Wow, what a week.  These really are the darkest days of the year aren't they?  Did you know there was a school shooting in Connecticut?  There was.  It was awful and now thanks to a 24 hour news cycle everyone can relive it every moment of every day.  In the little bit of TV news I have watched since last Friday I heard one political type on Fox news say that if the principal of that school had a similar semi-automatic, loaded and ready in her office, maybe this could have been avoided.  If this wasn't so grim and depressing and horrible that would make me laugh and laugh.  An elementary school principal with a loaded military rifle in her office.  That would be like Santa having a sleigh full of mustard gas "just in case." Oh. My. God.  I also heard a guy interviewed on NPR who has a mentally ill son and he said that it's easier in this country to get a semi-automatic weapon and  hundreds of rounds of ammo than it is to get mental health care.  Again, Oh. My. God.

Winter solstice is on Friday and after that the sun will shine longer and the days will get brighter and better. 

Unless the Mayans were right.  Then we're all fucked. 

Merry Christmas!

Todd Akin, Feminist

I couldn't avoid hearing about this because it was all over my Facebook feed.  This is what Congressman Todd Akin said about pregnancy resulting from rape:

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

And then a shitstorm of anger rained down on his head from both men and women.  I don't know much about Todd Akin, and why would I?  He is a representative in congress from Missouri. But what I can tell is that the people have him all wrong.  He is probably the most pro-woman representative in congress, and maybe the world.  I AM a woman and am almost through with my child-bearing years and I didn't even know that I could "shut the whole thing down" if I wanted.  I am embarrassed to say that I've wasted a lot of money, time and worry on stupid, stupid birth control.  So I looked into Todd Akin and he is a super feminist, a true believer in the abilities of women.  If only women believed in women like Todd Akin believes in women.

Other things Todd Akin thinks ordinary women could do if they had any confidence in their own abilities and really tried for once:

- make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes instead of just 77.

- bring home 60% more bacon

- fry up 100% of all bacon brought home

- wear higher heels

- math

- slide an entire banana down her throat while making bedroom eyes

- fly

- give birth to a litter of adorable puppies

- 80% more dishes

- lose ten pounds

- produce enough breast milk to feed the world

- poop inexpensive and non-polluting fossil fuels

- a pull-up

- parallel park

- win the heart of The Bachelor


What Todd Akin apparently doesn't think women can do:

- vote

I didn't get any permission to write this

I saw this picture on a link a friend put up on Facebook.  The link was for a story in The Mudflats called Help! Help! There's an Elephant in my Uterus!  and I laughed and laughed because that's ri-DIC-ulous!  An elephant?  In my UTERUS!?  HA!  It would never fit!  And how would it ever come out!?  Yikes!  Talk about a hibernation plug! (gross, lol!)  So I clicked on the link to read more of the outrageous hilarity.

It was a story about how the state of Alaska is the latest state to consider a mandatory ultrasound law for women who seek abortions.  What's this "mandatory ultrasound," I thought to myself, (still laughing about the elephant in my uterus),  I could hardly get approval from my health insurer for an ultrasound that I wanted to have when I was pregnant and had no intention of getting an abortion.  About this time I was realizing this was not a hilarious humor article about stuffing enormous animals into small spaces.  Oh.

Alaska (along with Idaho, Pennsylvania, Texas (of course),and Virginia) is trying to pass a law so a woman who seeks an abortion must have a medically unnecessary ultrasound whether she wants it or not.  I actually heard about this a few weeks ago on a blog called The Middle Voice.  The title of her post was called Virginia's New Honor Rape Law, and she brilliantly compared the way some countries in the Middle East punish women by raping them (which nobody in this country would disagree is appalling) with this new law.  She said the only ultrasound that would be able to pick up an early first-trimester pregnancy is a transvaginal ultrasound.  Here's a picture:

So a woman who wants to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy must first be subjected to being penetrated against her wishes for no medical reason, whatsoever.  Hey! That sounds an awful lot like rape! What the FUCK?

The Mudflats article also reported on how the aptly named Alaska State Representative, Alan Dick, said at a House Health and Human Services committee meeting that he doesn't believe when a woman is pregnant that it's really her pregnancy.  He thinks that if a woman wants to get an abortion she should have a permission slip from the impregnator.  A fucking permission slip.  He said,

 “If I thought that the man’s signature was required… required, in order for a woman to have an abortion, I’d have a little more peace about it…”   

He'd feel better if a man gave his permission for a woman to decide whether or not she wants to spend the next eight months carrying a baby she never intended to have.  Because lord knows, men know WAY more about what is good for women than women do.

Representative Dick, a man whose terrible judgement allows him to walk around in public with an Amish chin beard, wants anyone with a uterus to have a permission slip if she decides she doesn't want to carry a pregnancy to term, and then face motherhood or the adoption process; because to him every sperm is sacred.  To be fair, after Dick made that appalling statement, he heard from a LOT of women and he apologized for his "artless" comment and said that maybe a not a permission slip, but the woman should definitely be required to inform the impregnator.  I can't say it any better than this: (from The Mudflats)

There was no clarification about what would happen if the impregnator was a woman’s rapist, or father, or abuser, or how paternity would be determined beforehand. No word about how it would be enforced, or what would legally happen to a woman or a doctor if it wasn’t. No word on how a signature would be validated, or what notarization or witnesses might be necessary to prove the signature was real. Nothing about what happens if a man and a woman disagree, or if a man refuses to acknowledge the notification, or if he can’t be contacted. 

Ladies, we have to wake up and take a role in preventing our country and our bodies from being taken over by neoconservative nutjobs who want to simultaneously prevent the poor and middle class from receiving affordable health care (because, let's be honest, if you have enough money, these particular laws can be sidestepped), but also forcing us to go through with pregnancy whether we want to or not.

We have to stop entertaining ourselves with hilarious ideas of cramming gigantic animals into small spaces ("Help! Help!  There's a narwhal in my small intestine! OMG! LOL!), hibernation plugs (gross! LOL!) and chin beards, and start paying attention to what the people who write the laws are trying to do to us.

Blacked Out

As you might know from previous things I have written on this blog, I strongly suspect that through some kind of black magic, Mitch is actually about 100 years old because most of his cultural references are from the 40s and 50s.  The other night during dinner I was dishing up some peas for Kira and our conversation went like this:

Me:  good?
Kira:  good.
Me:  more?
Kira:  more.
(give her another scoop)
Me: good?
Kira: good.
Me: more?
Kira: more.
(another scoop)
Me: good?
Kira: good.
Me: enough?
Kira: enough.

And then Mitch said, "You two just acted out a scene from Chilly Willy the penguin."  I never watched Chilly Willy because I suspect it was broadcast about seventy years ago and I'm only 41.  So this morning I thought about it and wanted to see when it was made so I could give him a hard time about it, and I loaded up good old Google and saw this:

What?  What's going on? Then I went to Wikipedia and saw this:

Holy crap.  How am I going to find out about Chilly Willy???  I need evidence to back up my continued harassment of my husband!  Come ON, internet!  Help a girl out!  Then I thought, "Oh well." and heard on the radio that winter has finally descended upon us and we are going to have very cold weather this week so I thought, "I should order some firewood!" so I went to Craig's List and saw this:

Now things were starting to get serious.  Because of this internet problem, I could potentially become very cold and much stupider.  I had to learn what was going on.

I listened to a story about it on NPR and learned what it is all about.  The movie and music industries want a law passed to prevent piracy of their intellectual property.  Because gall-dangit, if you watch the movie Chipwrecked illegally on Youtube from a guy who filmed it in the theater and then posted it in ten minute chunks on Youtube for no apparent reason other than the love of Alvin and his brothers, then you should probably be in jail, along with the guy who covertly pirated the movie, and the people on Youtube who let it be posted.  If you want to learn about Chilly Willy the penguin and maybe watch a video of it so you can more thoroughly make fun of your husband; well, you better make sure that that's a legally bought and paid-for copy you are watching OR ELSE!  If the piracy law was in effect I would probably be considered a pirate because I cut and pasted the above images!  If I can't lift images off the internet how am I supposed to write about dickies, or animal hybrids, or Jewish frogs?

Nevermind that I've had to re-buy Sweet's Ballroom Blitz every time it comes out on a new medium and renders my copies obsolete.  Nevermind that we are on our third copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone DVD because it gets watched so much and wears out.  I, along with everyone else, pay for the movies and music we like over and over.  So now because of the internet the playing field is leveling out and the movie and music industries have lobbyists to do their whining for them.   Don't let the congress limit our access to information over the internet.  It's none of their business.  Write to your congressman and let them know you don't want internet censorship.

And btw, does anyone out there have any info on Chilly Willy for me?

Does this make you mad too? Why does it make me so mad?

I got in the car after work and I caught the last five minutes of Talk Of The Nation on the radio and was instantly enraged.  Usually I only half listen to the radio but something about this caught my attention.  A man was talking about how nobody understands his plight and how much he's sacrificed in his career and personal life, and how his male friends can never understand what he's gone through and how his kids are better because of it blah blah blah blah, and I thought, surely this man must have done some amazing, heroic act so I kept listening to hear if it was something like donating his bone marrow to 1000 strangers, or saved a family from a burning building, but no.  What, you ask, could the heroic thing he did that he and Neal Conan both were patting him on the back on a national public radio show?  What amazing sacrifice has he made?

He stayed home and raised his kids.  Yeah, that's right.  There was a show all about how wonderful and  unique and noble this guy is because he took on the unbelievably difficult job of care of his own offspring.  I was driving, and frothing at the mouth and was digging out my phone to call in to the show and then the show ended and now my only outlet is to write about it on this blog.  When a woman stays home and takes care of her own kids BIG DEAL.  If anything there are hints that she's selfish because she isn't contributing to the financial well-being of her family because really, shouldn't the woman of the new millennium really be expected to bring home at least half the money AND take care of her kids and family and house?  Not only did this man on the radio not express any guilty feelings for not possibly doing enough for the family, but he got on the radio and bragged that he provided the primary care for his own children!

In this same vein, a friend on Facebook posted an article that some idiot woman wrote in to an advice column to ask about how come her friends with kids always say they are so busy.  What are they doing all day?  How hard is it to take care of a couple of kids?  AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!  Here it is:

I love the reply, btw. But why is it that when a woman does a job, any job except maybe race-car driver, the general consensus (from both males and females) is "Eh, so what.  Couldn't she possibly do a little more?" But when a man does it he brags about it and pats himself on the back and gets paid more money than his female counterparts.  Yeah, women still only make about 80 percent of what men make for doing the same job.  Maybe it's because men know how to toot their own horns better than women. I don't know, but it really bothers me. The thing is, I stayed at home with my kids when they were small and I totally agree with the braggart on the radio that it IS a hard job, but I would NEVER go on a radio show and brag that I decided to do a job that millions and millions of other people do every day, and act like I invented the idea of providing primary care of my own children. And the fact that he got a national platform to brag about doing something that women have traditionally done for thousands of years, what the hell? 

You know, I don't know why this makes me soooo mad.  I only heard about five minutes of the show so maybe the guy really did do something phenomenal.  Just a minute, I'm going to look it up....

Okay, I looked up yesterday's show and the guy is named Pat Byrnes and he stays at home with his daughters and he writes a cartoon about being "Captain Dad."  The cartoon is kind of cute but again, how many moms stay home with kids and then write hilarious blogs about it?  Tons.  None of them get on Talk of the Nation.  Here is something Byrnes said that exemplifies why he pissed me off so much:

There are more than 150,000 stay-at-home dads these days, according to the 2010 Census, but Byrnes says there's more to it than that. "There are a lot of dads that kind of share the responsibility," he says. "I mean, I know at least two firemen [who] work their, you know, 24-hour shifts. They got a couple of days. You know, they trade off with the mom. So that's becoming more and more common where dads are, you know, manning up and taking care of the kids."

Manning up and taking care of the kids?  Seriously?  Men who work but also look after their own kids on their days off should somehow be praised for it?  Oh my god.  

Crazy

I have so much to do today and I'm just sitting here reading blogs and drinking coffee (but to be fair, that was on my list.) The kids and I are going to Iowa to visit rels and go to the state fair next week.  I wonder if we will see the republican candidates for president?  I'd love to get my picture taken with Michele Bachmann.  We could both make this face:

You know, people (my dad) says that this was a cheap shot on the part of Newsweek because everyone takes a bad picture now and then.

exhibit A

But I don't think that it was a cheap shot on the part of Newsweek.  If you're going to be a crazy person, it is not unfair to show a picture where you look like a crazy person.  If Michele Bachmann looked like Janet Reno everyone would be saying openly what a psycho she is, but no, she is very attractive so hey, maybe she's got something important to say!  Like this (thanks Buzzfeed):

"Not all cultures are equal."


"There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes who believe in intelligent design."


"What a bizarre time we're in, when a judge will say to little children that you can't say the pledge of allegiance but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and that you should try it."


"Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and nation in the last, at least, thirty years.  I'm not understating that."


Okay, Crazy.  Whatever you say!  At least you look pretty!

Shoot

Ever since the shooting on Saturday in Tucson, the back-and-forth between gun lovers and gun control advocates has gotten heated back up.  This is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard of.  If you think about it logically in a risk vs. benefits type of way, guns, especially handguns, are the stupidest idea in the world.  It's a tiny cannon that you can carry in your pocket, and if you don't accidentally shoot your own balls off, you can go into a crowd and kill twenty or thirty people in a few seconds.

One of the arguments for guns is that the right to bear arms is protected by the constitution.  So is owning slaves.  The constitution is fantabulous and all, but it was written when the most technological weapons around were muzzle loaders.  Do you know how much time and effort it takes to fire a muzzle loader?  And the accuracy is horrible.  If you wandered into a crowd of people with a muzzle loader you'd be able to kill one person at most (and it would be a lucky shot, probably not the person you were aiming for) before everyone would run for their lives while you reload.  Technology has rolled right along in the last 200 years, and now you can stand at the edge of a crowd, or in the door of a classroom, and pretty accurately kill several people before anyone has a chance to react.  I don't think that's what the founding fathers had in mind.  

Muzzle loaders were an important tool when our country was young.  You could shoot at the British, or bears, or runaway slaves.  All important to the man of the 1790s.  What's the use of a handgun today?  The only thing it is for is killing people.  Bears aren't much of a problem to the modern man, and runaway slaves are a thing of the past. Why does anyone want a tool specifically made to kill other people?  And why do we want to let the crazies who do want it have it?  I think the reasonable people are just afraid of being shot if they get too loud about it.

Another argument gun defenders use is that "guns don't kill people, people kill people."  They say that this kid who went on a rampage, and the other young men who have gone on rampages in the past several years are mentally ill and would kill people anyway regardless if they had guns or not, but they all had guns.  Maybe it's true, but it would be a lot harder to stab 20 people than it would be to just point and pull a trigger.  It doesn't take a lot of thought or imagination to load a gun and shoot.  I think the first time that crazy person grabbed another person and sunk a knife into their flesh, it would maybe seem a bit more real and a lot grosser and horrifying and less glorified than they built it up in their mind.  (Also, as a teacher I think it would be good for the crazy kids to think of more creative ways to kill their classmates than to simply bring guns into school.  Come on crazy kids, do a little thinking!)  If you're going to go so far as to kill another person, you should at least have to get a little dirty doing it.    

I've heard that people keep handguns for "protection."  Protection from what exactly?  Who is after you?  Do you think maybe you might be just a tad paranoid?  Is it worth keeping a deadly weapon around your family because of the one in a million chance someone will threaten you to the point where a gun would be your only solution?  If someone did come into your house and threatened you, is your gun handy?  Can you get to it in time?  Is it loaded?  And if it is loaded, what the hell is wrong with you keeping a loaded gun in your house!? And if it is handy and loaded, what would keep this obviously desperate person from simply snatching it out of your hands when you hesitate at the thought of killing another person, and shooting you in the brain?  

Political Rant

How many more days until the election?  I can't wait until it's over because I'm sick of the stupid commercials on TV and I'm REALLY sick of hearing about the issues that seem to be particular to this election, like teacher quality, and who is middle income and will they be taxed more under Obama if he gets his way (which, btw, he never in a million years will), and the devastating effects of "Obamacare" and how awful it is to put a limit on how much insurance agencies can totally screw you over.  Yeah, that's what I'm sick of.  I don't usually spout my political opinions on this blog because, you know, opinions are like assholes:  nobody wants to see yours and sometimes they leak scary things.

Let's take these issues one at a time.  First of all, the people who make more than $250,000 dollars a year whining that they ARE middle income and it's NOT FAIR that they might get the Bush tax cuts rolled back and have to pay a little more.  Wah...WAHHHHH!  (sorry)  Middle income would seem to mean the people who make the average income in the country.  So we can safely assume that the lower third of income earners are low income, the middle third is middle income and the upper third is upper income.  Simple enough, right?  But Marketplace Money on NPR devoted an entire show to the question, "Are people who make $250,000 wealthy?"  They spent an hour on this question and never gave a definitive answer.  People who make that much money a year are in the top two percent of earners in the U.S.  They are upper income.  There's no debating it.  They are probably really smart and clever and industrious, but they didn't get to be that successful by themselves.  They benefited from living in a society where everyone contributes and you don't get to stop contributing just because you make that much money.  Taxes in this country are regressive and the Obama administration is trying to make it more fair. 

 This is what happens in a bad economy when a middle-income person gets paid in cash for a job well done.  He immediately tells his coworker, "Get the camera and my big hat while I fan out these hundreds."

A few weeks ago I heard a story on This American Life.  The show's theme was crybabies and one of the stories was about people who work on Wallstreet whining about how they are making record profits and bonuses after the bailout and how they don't owe anything to the government (i.e. the rest of us) because they are smart and they don't think just because they are smart they should be taxed or regulated more.  Seriously, it was infuriating. 

The next thing, and probably the thing that bothers me the most is the constant discussions about teacher quality and how our educational system is "broken" and what can we do to get these deadwood teachers out because if they have tenure you can never get rid of them!  The general consensus seems to be that the teacher's union is protecting bad teachers like the Catholic Church protects child molesters.  It is all so much bullshit.  First of all, education costs a lot of money.  Parents insist that their children learn things that they will use in the world, like technology skills.  If you want your kids to be able to use a computer and software, then you have to pay to put computers in the schools.  Enough computers, and up-to-date computers, and software and that shit costs a lot.  Stop crying about it!  You are also going to have to pay enough teachers so that your precious little angel isn't in a class with 33 other kids.  You think teaching a class of 34 third graders is easy?  On your kid's next birthday party, invite them all over to your house and try to get them to all listen to the directions for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and see how easy it is.  

Second of all, in states that have a strong teacher's union, students are doing much better on standardized tests.  The states with no teachers's union are the lowest education states in the country.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Teachers need a voice and some protection against administrators that are more motivated by politics than educating students, and parents who will do crazy things to a teacher who won't let Little-Johnny-Shithead do whatever the hell he wants.

Thirdly, once a teacher gets tenure it doesn't mean that the teacher can sit back and make students wash his car and rub his feet all day and he'll never get fired.  All tenure means is that in order to fire that teacher, the administration has to follow a set of procedures that includes documentation and observation.  If your administrator is too lazy to do that with a teacher you think is bad, you need to get rid of the administrator first.  And good luck with that!  Before a teacher gets tenure he/she can be fired for no reason at all.  All tenure means is that there has to be a reason and evidence to back up the reason to fire the teacher. 

My final rant is about the health care issue.  Do you really want to live in a country that turns people who are sick away from hospitals because they don't have enough money to pay for care?  Really?  Do you really want to live in a country where having a baby in a hospital can bankrupt a family?  Doesn't it make you a little queasy to go to the grocery store and see homemade posters for fundraisers for people with cancer that can't afford the treatment they need that always seems to be considered "experimental" by their incredibly profitable health insurance company?  Wouldn't it be nice if you had cancer to just go to the hospital and get treatment and not have to worry about making your whole family homeless because of it?  Every other modern industrialized country in the world gives their citizens health care.  We should too. 

Okay, that's it.  I'm sorry if anything I said made you mad.  If it did, yell at me in the comments.  I welcome it.  I love a good debate.  (and I love brownies)

Mitch just told me:

"Ventriloquism is the lowest form of puppeteering."

Ha ha, Edgar Bergen, you wasted your life!

I'm officially done caring about politics

Did you hear the big news? No, not the Nutella news, that's old news. The new news is that supreme court rolled back campaign finance laws so now corporations can give unlimited funds to political candidates! Finally! I was so upset that Walmart and AIG weren't getting a fair shake in American politics.

Now I can't wait for Blue Cross or Aetna to buy up congressional seats so I will be forced to pay through the nose for substandard health insurance under a mangled health care bill. That will be SWEET.

I think I might be done voting. Doesn't seem to make any difference. I'll start getting involved again when the good old guillotines get dusted off.

The French had the right idea.

The big news

Today Mitch and I went out to lunch and out of the clear blue sky he said to me:

"There's a new spread on the scene. It's called Nutella."


Just thought you should know.

Tis the season

Do you know why the Salvation Army is called the Salvation Army? I bet you think it's because they collect people's old stuff (or salvage it) and then sell it in their stores and give the money to poor people.

That's what I thought, and if you think that too, you're wrong.

I recently learned the real story. What they are really salvaging is souls. It was started by a guy named William Booth in the 1860s. He preached to the poor and tried to feed and clothe them because it's easier to win over souls for the lord if you take care of them first. Then he and his top men, or command, as they are now called, decided to call themselves an army.

So it is a pseudo-military institution with ranks and they are harvesting souls one bell ring at a time. And much like the real military, they discriminate against homosexuals, (because as everyone knows, there are no gay people in heaven anyway so why bother, am I right?) In 2001 they sought a legal exemption from the anti-discrimination laws when it comes to hiring gay people. Because they are a church. Jesus would be so proud of his army, don't you think?

Creepy.

Current Events

I was so preoccupied yesterday by seeing the man in the blue mini-van *abusing the usual suspect* that I forgot what I had on my mind that I thought was so funny previous to witnessing the mini-van guy *detoxifying the puppy*.

I was listening to NPR and I heard a story about people in Washington who were protesting the health care bill that passed in the house over the weekend. The reporter was in the crowd talking to people and she interviewed a lady who was protesting the bill because she thinks that the government will be paying for everyone and their brother to get an abortion if the health care bill passes. The reporter said, "Explain what you're wearing," which I thought was weird, but then the lady proudly said,

"Well, I'm dressed as Nancy Pelosi burning in hell."

I started laughing. How does one dress like that? The lady went on to explain in great detail.

"My clothes are singed at the edges to represent the hell fire, and I'm wrapped in chains, and these here are dead babies hanging all over me."

Okay...

Singed clothes; easy, but probably smelly. Chains; pretty easy to get your hands on, just take the chains from your kid's swing set and wrap them around, but they might get a little uncomfortable standing in a crowd for a long time. I bet they fall off and drag and people step on them. Huge pain in the ass. What really interests me is the decorative dead babies. Where can you buy decorative dead babies? Is it a string of baby Jesus Christmas lights that she gored up a little? Are the babies home-made? What are they made of? Cloth? Wood? Plastic?

And how did she dress so we would know she was specifically Nancy Pelosi burning in hell draped in dead babies, and not just some regular Jane Doe burning in hell draped in dead babies? Did she have a sign that said, "I'm Nancy Pelosi and I'm burning in hell and I'm draped in chains and dead babies"? because if she did, she could have skipped the costume and just worn the sign. That's what I would have done.

I looked online for a little while and tried to find a picture of this creative lady, but couldn't find one. All I found was this picture of a sign with Nancy Pelosi and she's thinking "Nazis..."

and then there's a word underneath her that I think might say "astroturd" but probably says "astroturf." Either way, the sign makes no sense, unless it really does say astroturd. Then it's funny.

Couch Anchor

What a waste of a day. I had big plans; get up early, exercise, do some life-improving, be a kick-ass mother. It did not happen that way. The alarm went off and I shut it off and went back to sleep. I got up and did NOT exercise. I just couldn't make myself do it. Then I watched a show on YouTube about how the palm islands in the UAE were made. Super interesting, but what a waste of energy and resources. I'd love to go there and see it some day, but also, in my lifetime I bet I will see news footage of some storm that totally wipes them out.

After my YouTube watching, I took a shower. Not because I'm particularly dirty, but because my house is about 50 degrees and my feet were dead and needed some hot water to encourage circulation. (Yeah, I know exercise does the same thing! Keep it to yourself!) Then, in order to at least say that I did something productive, I threw a roast in the oven. It smells heavenly.

Then, being that I'm now interested in Arabia, I started to watch the Lawrence of Arabia video (Which, if said in a nasal Minnesota accent is called Loorince of Araybia. [come on, more nasal than that!]) that I've had for years but have never really watched. It was good until the kids came in and said, "What are you watching, Star Wars?" I said, "Why would you think it was Star Wars?" and Sam said, "Because it's really sandy and everyone is wearing girl-robes." Oh. Of course. So I only watched the first half.

Now I'm trying to think of something productive I can do. Mow the lawn? Nah, too cold out. Make my bed? Why would I make my bed now, that's a stupid idea! Maybe I'll read. Meh. Maybe I'll just sit on this couch and stare.

Let's see what else is on YouTube.

What makes you happy?

Okay, I know this blog is total fluff, but sort of in the "mommy blog" genre. I heard a speaker on NPR today and it really has me thinking a lot about being a parent so I'm going to tell you what it was and what it has me thinking. It's parenting-related. Ready! Here goes!

The speaker was Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert and he was speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival earlier this summer about the brain, and how he has taken a scientific approach to studying happiness. He wrote a book called Stumbling on Happiness.

He said that according to our culture, what we need to be happy is marriage, money and children. He decided to test that to see if it was actually true. Turns out that married people are happier than single people, (and wealthier, and healthier. Men especially.) Money matters to an extent. You need to have enough but after a point, it doesn't really matter to happiness that much.

The interesting question is does having children make people happier? He said not really. They followed parents around and rated their happiness during different activities throughout their days. Women were happiest talking with friends and eating. (No kidding, that's what he said!) They were less happy doing housework and grocery shopping, and when they interacted with their children they were about as happy as they are while they are vacuuming. VACUUMING! (I don't know about you, but vacuuming is not that fun, but it does kind of make me happy after it's done. I'm very happy when I empty the canister and see the three pounds of dust bunnies I've vacuumed up.) He said that the least happy times in a marriage are when kids are really small, and the happiest times in a marriage are after the kids leave. I said, "WHAT!" and as if he heard me, he said, "I know, you can't believe it and I'll tell you why."

He said that parents convince themselves that they are completely fulfilled by raising children because it's such a huge investment. He compared it to buying Armani socks. He said if you are going to drop $250 on socks, you are going to convince yourself that they are the best dang socks in the entire world even though you're a total sucker who just paid $250 for socks. Raising children is the same way. It's a huge investment so we fool ourselves into thinking that we love it and it's the best, and we brag it up and we try to convince everyone to do it. We do this to such a degree that we even let it play games with our memories. Like for example, if you're spending the day with your five year old, it's mostly drudgery, but that three seconds when they hugged your leg and said, "I love you so much," made the whole day seem wonderful and happy. You forget about the complaining and boredom and loneliness, and all the other icky parenting stuff (He didn't say "icky") and convince yourself you were as happy all day as you were during those three seconds.

I thought about this and thought about it. My kids just came home today after being gone for a week. I missed them SO MUCH by this morning that I was watching the clock waiting for them to come home. After I saw them and hugged them and talked to them for about a half an hour, we were back to normal. I was saying things like, "Quit picking at your sister!" and "FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET!" And I can pretty much guarantee that if Dr. Gilbert asked my how happy I was when I went into the bathroom and saw a gigantic unflushed turd, I would have said that I wasn't all that happy. Probably comparable to finding out I have a cavity.

I guess parenting is sort of like being a drug addict. You'll put up with a lot of garbage because you know eventually you'll get your next big high. And then you make it last by writing it up on a blog.

So, my friends, what do you think? Does having kids make you happy? If you don't have kids, would you consider yourself happier with kids, or are you pretty darn happy without them? I'm pretty happy. I think I'd be just as happy without kids though. (I know, that's a total taboo thing for a parent to say, but I think it's true. I mean, now that they're here and I've gotten to know them, I'd be pretty sad if they were gone, but if they were never here, I'd be okay.) Do you think marriage makes you happier? I think I have to agree with that one. There's nothing as great as being with someone every day who understands you and thinks your cute and funny even though you're not all that cute anymore, nor all that funny. (I made Mitch laugh last night by making spit bubbles. Not many other people would laugh at that. Except babies.) I can't wait to READ YOUR ANSWERS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW! (hint hint!)

Yay Senator Franken!

He FINALLY won the election and I'm way happier than Kira and Sam look in this picture!

I hate Suze Orman (part II)

This actually has nothing to do with Suze Orman, but I hate her so much, I chose that for the title. But it is related; today on NPR some guy was giving financial advice and he said that he could tell us how to bring our everyday spending down to $50 a day. Who spends $50 EVERY day on coffee and movies and incidental stuff like that? Don't these people have kids? I can't remember the last time I saw paper money.