Surprise, Surprise

Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, died yesterday in Haiti due to an earthquake. Thousands more will die because of lack of water, medical attention, and other basic services. The world, including the US, is answering the call for help. As we should, because it's the right thing to do. But what do conservative "Christian" pundits go and do? That's right, they spew off ignorant vitriol that I'm sure would make their Jesus cringe in embarrassment.

Pat Robertson: (my paraphrase of the video below if you just can't stand to hear the ignorant asshat speak) The Haitians were punished because back under their colonial rule of the French, they made a pact with the devil in order to get the French out. But, because of this pact, they have forever been cursed.



Me: Riiiiiighhhttt! Obviously the Haitians haven't had trouble after colonization cause of, well, the effects of colonization. It was *totally* the Devil. Oh wait, that was redundant.

Rush Limbaugh: (again, my paraphrase if you are physically unable to stand this dude's voice) 1) Obama is only pretending to care about Haiti because he wants to look good to black people. Both the light and dark variety, might I add. 2) Why do you have to see where to donate through whitehouse.gov? It's a conspiracy! We already give Haitians money through income tax (har har har). Oh yeah, and no one is allowed to complain that we don't do enough for Haiti 'cause some church missions here and there go over and try to help.





Me: dkjldfjkladsfjkadjkhfhjkgfjkdkajlfjkdkjfhjkgahjkajkf!!! ::head smacks keyboard::

1) Seriously?! Turning this into a race issues makes a point how? If Bush were president (God that made me feel sick just to write), even he would try to give something 'cause this is too serious to ignore as one human to another human. His giving wouldn't be about race, would it? He'd just be showing his Christian values.

2) You're right, Rush, some people in this country on days that aren't disasters do care about others and spend their time and resources and money to try to help. Sure, the cynic in me says that they also are doing so in order to convert people and get into heaven, but I'll quiet that voice for a second and say that I admire the people who, for whatever reason, take time out of their lives to care. If I believed in a higher power, I think the appropriate line would be, God Bless Them.

HOWEVER, just because a couple of hundred people try to make a difference does not negate that most of us don't! And that rampant social injustice and poverty exists all over this world and we need to do something about it not only when hundreds of thousands of people are affected by an earthquake. We need to do something now, not then. But, when hundreds of thousands of people are affected by a disaster, don't negate the giving that happens. Sure we should be better, but now is not the time to make that point. Now is the time to help our fellow human brothers and sisters.

Okay, rant over. I know I tend to wash people like Rush and Pat with the same paintbrush of ignorant and hateful, but I sometimes still can't believe the things that come out of their mouths and into their listener's ears.

Let's just hope it doesn't make it into their hearts or we're all doomed.

UPDATE: Also, putting my money where my mouth is, I would like to urge everybody to donate to aid efforts for the victims of the Haiti earthquake by either texting "Haiti" to 90999, which will give $10 to the Red Cross by charging your cell bill, or giving to this amazing health care organization, founded by Paul Farmer, Partners in Health. Since geography means I can't donate time, at the very least, let's donate some money.

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Judging a Book By Its Cover

I honestly don't think that I need to say anything about this video. I really think that the individuals in it speak for their ignorance just fine without me chirping in. Rebutting their claims that "fascism, socialism, and communism are all the same thing" is pointless...besides, I've already tried it before. Just watch and be appalled--as the boy said, "I really hope that this represents the lowest common denominator in our country or we're in trouble."

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Bowties=Innocent and Friendly

So, I'm all about putting things into context and understanding that a lot of people who perpetrate violence are often part of a longer cycle of violence that came before them... and I try to understand that much of the world is grey and not black and white and that if we want to help lessen the amount of violence towards women in our society, we can't just go around shouting at people.  BUT... I'm sorry, I'm going to shout this time and make strong, declarative statements:  Chris Brown, the fact that "no one taught [you] how to control [your] emotions and anger" doesn't excuse beating the absolute shit out of your girlfriend and then making the media rounds to apologize to your fan base.  And neither does wearing a friggin' bow tie and saying you don't "remember" it and it's "not who [you] are as a person."  'Cause you know what, I'm pretty sure your victim remembers it (and the other times you hit her but apparently you forgot all them about too), regardless of what you say and how many times it includes the word "sorry." 

Seriously, after all the victim-hate that went on (it's her fault, she deserved it, I'm sure she hit him first, blah blah blah blah), and the leaking of the victim's crime photos, and the lack of any jail-time, I am really pissed off.  If I had any of his records, I would get rid of them immediately.  But, I'm not so into crappy studio pop/hip hop, a.k.a., misogyny in musical form, so thankfully that's one thing I can cross of my massive to-do list.  Whew.  You know, it would be really nice if someone with this sort of public presence could admit that they are responsible for what happened and not pull the "what? I'm young, oops/it's not like me, most of the time/I'll never do it again since I finally got caught" crap.  The amount of change that he could affect by acknowledging what domestic violence is, how easily men in our society perpetrate it, and how damaging it is to the victim would mean a hell of a lot more to me than a nice-looking, albeit repentant, young man in a sharp tie giving a moving interview.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/31/chris.brown.interview/index.html

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Um, what!?

I honestly don't have the time or patience to give this post any satirical or analytical context.  Hell, I can't even garner enough to give it a bit of snark...  One day, when I finally update my thesis on white racialists in popular culture, maybe I'll give it a go... but right now, I'll just say, WTF?!  Crazy Lady!!!!  SOOOOOOOOOOO TOTALLY WRONG! 

Sigh.

Here's Debbie Schlussel's internet trollumnist take on the tragedy yesterday at the US Holocaust Museum:

It is because of Muslims—who are the biggest contributor to the worldwide rise in anti-Semitism to Holocaust-eve levels—that neo-Nazis feel comfortable—far more comfortable!—manifesting their views about Jews. Until 9/11 and our resulting new tolerance for Islam, the neo-Nazi types were marginalized and howling at the wind. We know who has been targeting Jewish museums and centers affiliated with Jews in recent years. And it hasn't been, in general, 89-year-old White guys.

Mr. Von Brunn has been on this planet for 89 years, and he didn't feel comfortable shooting up a Holocaust museum until now—this new era of "tolerance," in which we must tolerate the most extremist Muslim behaviors and sentiments. It's, in general, not 89-year-old White guys telling people at churches worldwide and in religious schools that the Jews are the devil incarnate, a filthy tribe, the sons of pigs and monkeys, subhuman, etc.

No, it's guys with names like Mohammed and Ahmed on our own American streets who make Mr. Von Brunn far more at ease in 2009 than he was even in 1999 to attack places associated with the Jews. They created the comfort zone for James W. Brunn to engage in today's shooting.

Moreover, not only do White supremacists and neo-Nazis work with Muslims in many, many documented cases and investigations. But they are basically one and the same. The only difference is that one guy is named James and the other guy is named Ahmed. And the former only has a few thousand discredited, marginalized compatriots.

Whereas the latter has over a billion followers and a U.S. President kissing their collective ass.

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Again, Irony or Obliviousness ?

So, my post earlier today in which a far-right idiot said something that illustrated either irony or obliviousness, I couldn't tell.  Either way, it was a dumbass thing to say.

Here's so more dumbassery, courtesy of people (via Jezebel's mockery) who are sad that they no longer have a clear enemy to hate since HE WAS MURDERED!!!!!

Says Scott  Roeder, who assassinated Dr. Tiller a couple of weeks ago, all for helping women who had nowhere else to go:

Roeder said it was freezing in his cell. "I started having a bad cough. I thought I was going to have pneumonia," he said.

He said he called AP because he wanted to emphasize the conditions in the jail so that in the future suspects would not have to endure the same conditions.

Roeder also said he wanted the public to know he has been denied phone privileges for the past two days, and needed his sleep apnea machine.

Um, hi.  You killed someone, yes? Like, on purpose, right? Okay, good, just wanted to make sure we were straight.

Also, anti-abortion leaders seem upset that the clinics might not close because they're right, but because someone (already out of the womb, natch) was killed:

Dr. Tiller's clinic was the one - the big one - Mr. Newman had always hoped to close. Still, he said, if it closed now it would be no victory for Operation Rescue. "Good God, do not close this abortion clinic for this reason," he said.

Sure, he ended it with,  "Every kook in the world will get some notion." ... Which, I admit, is a laudable thing to say.  But still, the intention is, they'll get a notion and then kill all the doctors and then whatever will I fight against?!

Blah.

For how the "other side" has reacted to this tragedy, check this moving site out: http://iamdrtiller.com/

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Moving on...

So the "Purple Tunnel of Doom" has been getting some press and we're getting some apologies and some free pictures of Obama and Biden. I'm personally trying to keep it all in perspective: that Obama is president, that what could have been a dangerous situation wasn't due to the goodwill and spirit of those of us trapped down there, and, as a coworker pointed out, that we were still a part of history... not all history is good, sometimes it means being part of a huge organizational snafu, like the Purple Tunnel of Doom, but it's something that'll be remembered for a long time... 10 years from now I can tell my nephew that, "Hey, I was one of those 4-10 thousand people trapped underground who never got in that they always talk about! Isn't that awesome?!" Sure, I'll never get the moment back, nor will any of the people who never heard anything more than the canon shots, but for my own sanity, I have to reframe this in my mind or I'll never be able to enjoy the moment and all that it means. Am I still pissed? Hell, yeah. Would I turn down a redo? Hell, no. But, in the end, there's nothing I can do about it...

As I kept telling myself the four cold hours I was trapped on Tuesday, "Find your Zen, Elizabeth, find your Zen."

Zen being found...

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Elizabeth and the Tunnel of Doom

So, the boy and I were lucky enough to get purple tickets to the inauguration, got up at the ass-crack of dawn, walked from LeDroit Park, and patiently waited in line. In the 395 tunnel. For four hours.  AND NEVER MADE IT IN. 

Sufficed to say, I'm pissed. I'm sad. I'm angry.  And an apology is not enough.  I won't ever get this experience back... and I'm one of the lucky few who lives in DC, knew where to go when I finally got the fuck out of there, and got home just in time to see the speech.  Thousands of people (way more than the four thousand bullshit number they are throwing out) were in the tunnel behind me and thousands were in front of me and all of us were turned away, many of whom were black Americans who had waited years for this day, never dreaming that it would be possible.  And we couldn't hear a damn word from where we were crammed and jammed and standing.

I want a redo.  And I want it NOW.

PS I have to say, though, that I am still a fairly happy camper... Obama is president, his speech was lovely (loved the shout-out to us non-believers!), I got to go the Mayor's Inaugural Celebration and see T.I. and Wyclef (thanks Em and Paul!!!!!!!!!!!), and Jenn and Tish came into DC for the event, so, I had lots of love and lots of hope.  It's just my hope wasn't floating quite so high after I got out of that damn tunnel...

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First post of 1949...

erm... I mean 2009.

Oh man, that makes this "A Wife if A Personal Blow-Up Doll But With Sadder Eyes" Manifesto even more INSANE... Part One and Part Two (twice the anti-woman fun!!!) for your 21st century reading please!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

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Not Rape

I know that this is a bit heady for what is essentially my "end of the year" post, but I had to put this article up that I found on Jezebel.  It's about "not rape," those experiences of sexual assault, harassment or coercion that many women experience and don't know how (or have the power) to frame.  And that society continues to support by blaming the victim or making excuses because the individuals are otherwise "good" men or by teaching woman not to offend people and speak up.

An excerpt:

Entering our teenage years in the sex saturated '90s, my friends and I knew tons about rape. We knew to always be aware while walking, to hold your keys out as a possible weapon against an attack. We knew that we shouldn't walk alone at night, and if we absolutely had to, we were to avoid shortcuts, dark paths, or alleyways. We even learned ways to combat date rape, even though none of us were old enough to have friends that drove, or to be invited to parties with alcohol. We memorized the mantras, chanting them like a yogic sutra, crafting our words into a protective charm with which to ward off potential rapists: do not walk alone at night. Put a napkin over your drink at parties. Don't get into cars with strange men. If someone tries to abduct you, scream loudly and try to attack them because a rapist tries to pick women who are easy targets.

Yes, we learned a lot about rape.

What we were not prepared for was everything else. Rape was something we could identify, an act with a strict definition and two distinct scenarios. Not rape was something else entirely.

[...]

Not rape came in other many other forms as well. No one escaped - all my friends had some kind of experience with it during their teen years.

Not rape was being pressured into losing your virginity in a swimming pool pump room to keep your older boyfriend happy.

Not rape was waking up in the middle of the night to find a trusted family friend in bed with you - and having nightmares about something that you can't remember during the daylight hours.

Not rape was having your mother's boyfriends ask you for sexual favors.

Not rape was feeling the same group of boys grope you between classes, day after day after day.

Not rape was being twelve years old, having a "boyfriend" who was twenty-four and trading sex for free rides, pocket money, Reeboks, and a place to stay when your mother was tripping.

My friends and I confided in each other, swapping stories, sharing out pain, while keeping it all hidden from the adults in our lives. After all, who could we tell? This wasn't rape - it didn't fit the definitions. This was Not rape. We should have known better. We were the ones who would take the blame. We would be punished, and no one wanted that. So, these actions went on, aided by a cloak of silence.

Not rape was all those other little things that we experienced everyday and struggled to learn how to deal with those situations. In those days, my ears were filled with secrets that were not my own, the confessions of not rapes experienced by the girls I knew then and the women I know now.

So, not to be a party pooper, but I think this was good food for thought.  May all of us be harbingers of peace and kindness next year...  and have a great 2009!

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Some people...

... are seriously deluded!!! This site, which fascinates and horrifies me, is STILL stuck on the groundless lawsuits attempting to "prove" that Obama wasn't born in Hawai'i and is therefore ineligible to be POTUS. What's crazy to me is that if this is true, and he was born in Indonesia or Kenya as some of the "lore" goes, it wouldn't matter that his mother was an American citizen, because she had him so young. Apparently, the law states something about how you have to have been a citizen for at least 10 years (which she was), but 6 or so of those years must be over the age of 16 (which, they weren't, since she was only 18 when she had Barack). I might have some of the dates/numbers a bit off, but essentially, if you are teenage mother overseas and have your child there, that child is not eligible for US citizenship. What these groups are conveniently forgetting is that McCain's birth was also questioned, since he was born at the Panama Canal... Clearly, constitutional lawyers have decided that it was not the intention of the founders that children born to military personnel serving their country overseas should be denied citizenship, so McCain passes. And I'm pretty sure that the intention of the US Constitution was not meant to deny the right of teenage mothers, if, in fact, this witch-hunt against Obama's birth somehow, magically yields true information. It's just a bunch of frightened, misinformed, and ignorant people desperately trying to fix something that they've been told is scary and wrong. The real issue here is that they believe that Barack Obama is a Islamic-Fascist and a Marxist who will destroy America. Seriously, just on that alone, I can't even begin to have a logical conversation with the people that buy into this site--those two belief systems are on polar opposite of one another and cannot exist in the same country or in the same brain!!! It's insane to think they can be equal goals... at least pick one or the other to be frightened of, people!! When you are cherry-picking anything and everything that could be wrong with Barack Obama, even if contradictory, it seems to me that the real issue is clearly one simple thing that I won't even bother to dignify.

One last bit before I get up and finish packing up my house and my life, here's another small piece of inanity--this site also claims that IF Obama is in fact an American citizen, his father is secretly Malcolm X and not Barack Hussein Obama. !!!!!! They prove this claim with the hard and fast facts that Obama LOOKS more like Malcolm X than his father and that he's a crazy Islamic-Marxist too! Wow... just, Wow! I mean, I guess we should be happy that the members on this site recognize that all black people DON'T look the same... although they don't understand genetics, so I guess partway into the 20th century is all we can ask. Though I can't believe I even need to clarify... First, Obama looks JUST like his mother's side of the family. Take a look at the ears as proof and how much Malia looks like her Kenyan grandfather. Second, Obama is biracial... Malcolm X was also biracial and a similar skin-tone to Obama... If Malcolm X were genetically Obama's father, Obama might be considerably lighter-skinned than he is, you dolts! Though, as genetic variation has shown, there is so much diversity even within families! Third, GET OVER IT! OBAMA IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT! And, under him, despite all your crazy fears, you'll actually get to keep being crazy fools. Seriously, Obama will protect you and all your far-right, fake-logical, paranoia.

Finally, my friends know that I vehemently dislike Ayn Rand and Objectivism... however, I seriously think that even she would be appalled at the misuse of her beliefs and works like Atlas Shrugged by this site. At least Ayn Rand was a legitimate thinker and questioner of systems... I just don't think she came to the sorts of conclusion I agree with... this site is just balls to the walls absurdity and paranoia.

Okay, I feel better now. Can we all just move on, paranoid and bleeding hearts alike? And, I don't know, spend our time volunteering instead of digging up dirt on the "other" side?

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