Freedom of Religion? Huh?

Freedom of religion should also be freedom FROM religion. The freedom not to have a god, bible or any other religions things. The freedom to be an atheist or agnostic and run for and, more importantly, possibly win. The freedom to have a religion-free workplace. The freedom to have a religion-free sporting activity or meal. The freedom to choose to reproduce or not. The freedom to be gay, straight or anywhere else on the spectrum of human gender.

THE FREEDOM MENTIONED IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

Get real conservatives. This is NOT a Christian country.

Know where I stand?

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s320x320/395495_10150585348686275_177486166274_9484943_621368872_n.jpg

Turn the Other Cheek My Ass

A 15 year old girl, starved and abused, finally gets away and is now safe. (Where was god when this was happening? Watching.) She weighed in at 70 pounds. Her father weighs 240 pounds and her step mother weighs 370. So there was plenty of food in the house. She was sexually and physically abused by her 18 year old step brother for nearly 5 years. (god?)

Now comes justice? Her parents can get a maximum 11 years 3 months in prison if convicted on all counts and given max sentences. Her step brother can get a max of 68 years in prison. Where is the justice in that?

Her brother deserves it.  But why the light treatment for the torturers? Those fat fucks should get life on bread and water.

Image of the step mother: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/15/article-2101650-11C0B0EA000005DC-549_306x356.jpg

Lost

I lost an essay sometime in the last few days. I don’t know what happened to it or where it went. Gone. Into the cyber grinder of the hard drive. There is an empty hollow feeling that the loss is forever.
I can’t consider myself a writer. Scribo ergo sum? Maybe. Writing is a process that involves a good deal of the brain. Memory, language, image, syntax, moving from creative centers to speech to writing centers. Lots of activity. The produce, while never truly finished, is like an offspring. Your baby. Your own thoughts. Your private musings. Something very precious to both guard and share, like a baby.
So when I lose something I have written, labored with and over, there is in me a deep sense of loss. Sure, the theme can be addressed again, and a new version of whatever it was can be produced. But the original can never come back, and the new will be a mere shadow of the old.

Time to move on. Not easy.

Image: http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/lost.jpg

Let’s Talk about Birth Control

It is really all about sex, isn’t
it? Humans have a powerful sex drive that is intended, as it is in all
creatures, to produce offspring. In Darwinian terms the more you reproduce, the
more variation there is in a population and the better the chance the
population has for survival. Putting Darwin aside, though, doesn’t alter the
sex drive. We have it; we want it; we love it; we use it.
But, since the agricultural revolution began 10 or so thousand years ago, humans have been living longer and the population has been growing. Even more so since the industrial revolution. We DO NOT NEED the biological potential we once did. We need controlled growth or no growth at all to survive. It should be obvious that the religious nut cases that preach unlimited family size or abstinence have outlived their philosophy.
The clear and obvious situation is this: humans have a powerful sex drive and sex is fun. Humans also do not need more children ergo they need birth control if they engage in sex for fun. There are many (interestingly almost all MEN) people who want to limit or do away with contraception. Because it is an issue with their RELIGION.
Well folks, as I see it nobody has the right to shove their RELIGION down anybody else’s throat. If these people (read that MEN) don’t want to use rubbers or won’t let their wives use anything that might just be their business. But don’t tell me I can’t.
So who am I talking about now? Well, the entire Catholic Church (men); Mormons (men); many fundamentalist sects (men); fundamentalist Islamists (men) for starters. See a pattern ladies?
See a pattern guys? See a Republican shift against birth control and a move towardsMORE government control on your lives? We are being buried in people and people’s waste. We need more control on birth now. Not less. Not more thumpers of all stripes. We need less of them.

Image and good reading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/birth-control-hearing-on-capitol-hill-had-all-male-panel-of-witnesses/2012/02/16/gIQA6BM5HR_blog.html

A while ago I gave up giving up. Seemed to be pointless to
get upset by morons running for the presidency and giving up on the Republican
voters sucking up to them. SO I gave up ‘giving up’. But, with the new field of dream candidates, I am getting close again. The poles are like a ping pong ball bouncing around the room. Every candidate swings down, then up, then down etc.
The Republican voters run hot and cold so fast it makes my head spin. One guy has a good speech (written by a professional writer) and the polls go up.
Another has a bad hair day and the polls go down.
Really people, these guys are messing with your tiny little conservative minds. They are playing your base like a fiddle. They are puppet masters to your puppet.
Good. That will make the re-election of POTUS that much easier. Please, keep the negative ads flying to give more ammo to the Democratsl later this year. Can’t you just hear the ads? “Republicans say he is untrustworthy and a flip-flopper. If they don’t like him, why should you?” and more and more. Eating their young. Shooting themselves in the crotch. Drinking
their own Koolaid. Good. Go for it. The world could use a few less morons, and
then I wouldn’t have to “give up” so often.

Image:
: http://www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2012/01/RAMclr-011212donner.jpg.cms_.jpeg

Straight or Gay? Or One of a Million Other Possibilities?

Hanne Blank has written a book on the history of “straight” and found that the heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy is fairly recent. Like mid
1800’a recent. Hmmm. No labels. So that must mean that I have been right all along.
From my earliest years teaching human sexuality I have maintained that the sexualities of people, with the possible exception of people that really want to hurt other people, are normal. Hell, the hurters may be normal too, in the sense of genetically driven, but I don’t have the data on that. The variations are numberless, with “none” and “pure something” probably the extremes. But you know something? There is a lot of ground to cover between these bookends of human desire. Way more than the usual GLBTQ -----.
Consider this: If we didn’t need a category for “straight” until the mid-1800’s, then what were we before that? What was the stick to measure against? Beats me. Probably none. Ok, the Bible and other writings categorize people by sexual orientation. Laws likewise do it, mostly but not
exclusively Bible based. But why? What is it about sexual orientation that is
so threatening to so many that they devises laws and punishments for everything
but “normal” (their normal of course)? Why should someone worry about someone
else under the sheets? Who cares? Clearly a lot of “someones” care.
The answer is a glaring one: we are taught to be as we are, mostly, and to revile, ignore or seek to heal all who are different. We individually are the stick we use to measure against. And it is not a natural stick either. It is a society-based and learned set of values or rules to be followed or ostracized. Or killed (think Matthew Shepard).
The world is changing somewhat, and that is good. The gains
made by the spectrum of people who are not considered “normal” are in some
cases real, but are they enduring? Time will tell, and personally I think not.
Hope? Yes. Work for? Yes. Expect to last? No.
In the next few weeks I am going to explore my own history of “straight” and see where it takes me. It isn’t as straight a path as I once thought.

Image: http://www.hanneblank.com/img/book_straight_176x272.jpg

It’s not about contraception – it’s about your right to choose.

Santorum: “It’s not about contraception – it’s about
government control of your lives.” This means that as far as Santorum is
concerned, you can buy your own rubbers and pills, but the public hospital you work for won’t have to pay, or let you pay for insurance to help offset some of the costs. They pay to have the premature baby kept alive in an incubator for 3 months, they will pay to have the babies medical issues treated and they will pay to have the mother treated for any number of different complications. They just won’t pay to prevent the conception in the first place. Whew. Fair enough (although I don’t think it is fair at all.) So if Santorum and his ilk don’t want the government to control your life, ask
them why you can’t get an abortion in Kansas, and why they want Roe v Wade
repealed. The answer is simple: they are sanctimonious morons that want it
their way, their own pragmatic, ignorant, imposing on everybodyelse way. They
really want the government to control what they want or don’t want you to be
able to do. They just don’t want YOU to choose what YOU want to do.
Some examples: They don’t want to pay for contraception AND they don’t want you to pay for an abortion or family planning. They want clean air and water free of charge BUT they don’t want to regulate the industries that pollute them. They want to choose when and where to pray, but they don’t want YOU to choose when and where you have to listen to prayer.
Some time ago I wrote that the whole idea of human reproduction rights was at stake, and the conservatives were chipping away the right of every person to decide FOR THEMSELVES when, where, if and how they would procreate. Just around the corner folks. Let the conservatives take all the power in Washington and the next volley will be contraception availability.
They will take down sex education in schools, take down family planning
organizations, take down OTC sales of all kinds of contraception, and take down
their pants in hotels and bathrooms and have a ball on taxpayers money. Just an
“I think”.

Image: http://twentytwowords.com/wp-content/uploads/Sanctimonious-graffiti.jpg

The American Dream: Do You Have to be Alseep to Believe It?

Finally someone articulates the feelings many Americans
have. Where has the Dream gone? George Carlin (1), notably a iconoclast of biblical proportions (he has something very interesting to say about religion BTW) tells it like so many of us feel but either don’t, can’t or won’t tell it ourselves. We know we are being screwed by millionaires in congress. We know we are being screwed by millionaire corporations who (They are “People” now, don’t
forget) look only at the bottom line. We know we are being screwed by the health industry (After all, we pay way more for the same services the rest of the world gets). We know we are being
screwed by the educational industry (Industry you ask? Look at the fast track to privatization.) And we know we are being screwed by everybody else. And we elect the same millionaires with millionaire money and whispers being poured into their ears and pockets 24/7.
Time for a CHANGE? You bet.

Marty Feldman said it best “TOO LATE” (2).

Image: http://heyyoulooklike.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/igor1.jpg
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmFnX8So27U

Regressive = Republican

In a sleazy move that failed, but only just, the Florida legislature
once again proved it is Pro 1% and Anti 99%. What was this move, you ask? Well, the Republicans proposed to put an amendment to the Florida constitution that would greatly reduce the revenue for county and city governments . The latest iteration would add another sales tax to replace the lost funds.
Sales tax = regressive.

The less you earn the greater percentage of your income you pay in sales tax. The more you make, the more you can take advantage of the vast new tax breaks. And yes, there was some relief
for homeowners. But the poorest would have to pay for them through increased
sales taxes. The richest wouldn’t. See? Regressive = Republican. No brainer.
The measure died, and a good thing too. What morons.
Image: http://cartoonzone.eyeker.com/OregonRepublicans/RepugsWantSalesTax.jpg

the digitus impudicus: Flipping a Bird!!

American University law professor Ira Robbins (made) the case that the digitus impudicus (as it was known back in ancient Rome), just isn't obscene anymore. (1)
In fact, it never was!!!

It may be inappropriate or insulting, but obscene? It goes back
2500 years and has been used by friend and foe alike. The next time you see a “bird”
being flipped, think about it: the last thing Caesar might have done is flipped
off Brutus. I love it!!!!

Image: http://hiphappy.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/billmaher-flipping-the-bird.jpg
1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/07/146534150/flipping-the-bird-just-isnt-obscene-anymore-law-professor-argues