It's Definitely NYC or Bust for Me

I had the misfortune to read this today.

Since I used to live there many years ago & still have family living there (including my soon to be 1 year old niece), I definitely have some opinions on the matter. For those who aren't familiar with North Carolina, I think some background is necessary.

First off, there are liberals in North Carolina. You could credibly say NC is not really "the South" & not just because of this. It's also because Southern hospitality and some of the conventions associated with Southernism aren't part of NC. Some of them definitely weren't part of my upbringing or experience living or going to school there. If Southern hospitality existed, I wouldn't have gotten the hell I did growing up.

Second, there are people with functioning brains in North Carolina. Save for that Virginia Foxx airhead, you don't see a consistent mob of old white men trying to slam down on women's rights like you do in Texas or Arizona. There are people in North Carolina who aren't racist or ignorant cretins.

Third, not everyone in North Carolina is a God bothering fundamentalist Christian. There are plenty of people who aren't Southern Baptists or even follow the Baptist faith.

I actually know someone who is in public office in my hometown. I don't know his reaction to this but I would hope that he would not be in favor of telling me & every other grown woman what to do with her uterus or making family planning decisions for us. No right minded person is in favor of such things. I really wish the people who were would be tried for treason & removed from public office for violating the basic duties of such. It also makes me think my cats could be better politicians than such asswipes. Even they wouldn't have the gall to create legislation that would have the effect of outlawing abortion & you know cats feel superior to humans. Remember, most cats don't like little babies invading their spaces & taking attention away from them. That whole "cute" competition & all.

If this legislation passes, then trying to send me back to NC or suggesting I go live there again would be in effect imposing a death sentence on me. Remember, I had a tubal so if I got pregnant that pregnancy wouldn't be viable. I guarantee those shitheads would make certain that there was no exception for life of the mother considering they're trying to force rape victims to carry a rapist's child & also give the rapist parental rights once that baby is born in many of these states.

I hope my brother in law gets that vasectomy soon, especially if this garbage passes. I'm sure he'll still get editorialization and whining from providers even with having 3 kids already. Considering that experience with my sister's friend, I don't put it past any doctor down there to ask "What if you want another baby?" even if you've got 6 at home. Nice questions from people who will never take any financial responsibility for those choices.

Recently, I realized that this December will mark 10 years since I escaped from the South. Yes, it WAS an "escape." I got to leave since I got accepted to law school in Connecticut; if I hadn't, I'd have been stuck there at least a few more months & have far less certainty in getting to stay once I moved away since I wouldn't have a law degree to back me up.

I also felt like I was in prison everyday I lived in the South. Atlanta was a little better since it was a major city and I didn't have to hang out with people I knew in middle school (who almost all went to my high school) but there was still that whole Southern thing I didn't like (mostly the racism). In Atlanta, at least, it wasn't the norm to be a single mother living with your parents or married & living in a trailer park with no college education in your early 20s. Not the life I wanted or aspired to; some of us are different & have different ambitions in life. North Carolina was not a place where I felt my ambitions and goals were the norm, at least not in circles I had access to.

Who doesn't feel this recent push on outlawing abortion is an attempt to shove Christian mores down our collective throats? I see it for what it is. Oh, and you are NOT "pro-life" when you think it's a-okay for people with no money, maturity or basic brain functioning to breed. You are a fascist asshole. You are a closet rapist since you think babies are a punishment for having sex. You are a sexist who thinks all women are good for is breeding & raising children, even if some woman hates her kids and resents the entire enterprise. In short, you're a dumbass. Just admit it & stop wasting time coloring this as any more than what it is.

When will these fossils die & burn in Hell, I wonder? That's where those types are certainly going considering they run around judging others & desperately need to get lives. Not to mention some of these legislators have plenty of skeletons in their closets, as plenty of Internet commenters will point out.

Not to mention NC has enough problems with the recent cut to unemployment benefits to not be dealing with this crap. Wake up, morons! The 1950s have long since passed. We live in the age of online porn, gay marriage and sexting. Join us or go to the Middle East where they live in the Dark Ages. I'm sure they'll welcome your attitude there along with your fundamentalist Christianity.

I think I'll have to have a celebration to commemorate 10 years out of the South. Or maybe we should rename some states & regions to the American Middle East.

The GOP is Harboring Rapists & Why Roseanne Bar Would be the Best President EVER

So, as a woman with a fully functioning reproductive system (who thankfully got a tubal before all this crap started) who was in an attempted rape situation, knows actual rape victims, spent time on family law cases where social services was involved & who knows other women who haven't been fixed but can still reproduce, the words of Todd Akin disgusted me on a personal level. The further defense of his words by a number of Republican leaders, including the Vice Presidential nominee & the GOP party platform's revised language piss me off on a fundamental level that you're not going to get unless you are a rational thinking person.

I find it sad that society has so many stupid, clueless or maybe just outright sadistic people in it; honestly, it's enough to trigger someone to go on a random shooting spree in some conservative hellhole section of the country. I wouldn't blame such a shooter one bit. Right now, I warn every single person who votes Romney/Ryan in this next election (especially women) not to come crying to me if THEY or ANY female relative they care about ends up raped & pregnant then is forced to carry that rapist's baby or get his permission (as one Alaska Republican proposes) to get an abortion. You will have elected those shitheads & allowed it to happen.

You'd also better not cry to me if there's no viable entertainment industry, 1st Amendment or any rights in general to do anything fun because the leaders YOU elected & endorsed took away all your rights and turned the United States of America (Land of the Free, Home of the Brave?) into a fiefdom governed by the Christian Taliban & big business.

Having grown up in a Baptist practicing home in the South, I'd like to ask who these old, white motherfuckers think they are to take away MY fucking free will?

GOD gave EVERYONE free will, did He not? So, GOP what are you telling us with your little scheme to control women? Do you think you are above God & get to subvert His will? Clearly, you do. But I've got news for you shits. Try taking control over my body away & you'd damn well better be re-writing laws so we go full on to being back to property. No being arrested for crimes, no civil offenses, no pursuing us on debt collections.

In fact, you'd better be cancelling the student loan obligations of every single female in this country since women are too stupid to be able to commit themselves to contracts. Women will now be allowed to get away with murder, literally. It all comes down to their fathers & husbands if we go the Republican way. We'd better also take away rights from minorities to & all people of color will not get to be on television or make any living at a high level job. You'll also have to cancel their student loan debt obligations since minorities are also too stupid to enter into contracts.

So, shithead men who want to espouse all this controlling women crap? You'd better hope the women in your lives actually like you b/c if they hate your guts & you'll be held liable for any wrongdoing they commit, the smart ones will kill, lie, cheat, anything to get your ass locked up in jail where you can be some big man named Bubba's prison bitch. She could also bankrupt your sorry ass so you won't have any money to get guns, hire hitmen, anything fancy like that. Oh, and you'd better never fall asleep in her presence since she'll just kill you & never be responsible. Remember, women are too stupid to be held accountable for ANYTHING!!!

I also find it incredible that Jesse Lee Peterson, a black man, had the gall to try & shut down women's rights, as you can read here if you have a Facebook account. If you want to contact this bigot and remind him that he should be the last person saying women are too stupid to be business owners & exist in his world, just go here.

That goes for any minority who suffered discrimination on any level in this country. You sure aren't going to get sympathy for your cause or anyone to help you when you go around bashing other groups. In marriage & all, who do you think is really in charge? As the old saying goes, it's women.

I certainly hope these women withhold sex from these bigots; if they're already doing that, they need to expose them to a sex explosion (if not from their privates, maybe they can outsource it to some poor unemployed law grad; you know, someone who can have an intellectual conversation who they might see again & who'd be much harder to belittle than the average hooker). Personally, I'm in favor of going even farther & castrating them since we sure don't need more sexist bigots ruining life in this country.

Those who've been super loyal Republicans need to wake up & realize we're not dealing with the Alex Keaton type Republican or a Ronald Regan. We're dealing with something much more sinister: totalitarian wannabes who don't want to live & let live but would rather shove their way of life down your throat. I'd say you're dealing with aspiring Hitlers or Stalins. These people have no business having any power; I wouldn't trust them with a child's lemonade stand or even a pile of garbage. I don't recall Bush (either one) telling raped women they MUST have their rapist's kid or get his permission to abort it.

I'm sure we all know about Akin's words so I won't repeat them but anyone using the term "legitimate rape" sounds like a rapist to me. Anyone defending such a thing is just a rapist who wouldn't dare admit it, if you ask me. That phrase & his remarks are rapist talk if I've ever heard it. It sounds an awful lot like an alcoholic telling you about "justified binge drinking." No such thing, retard! We don't need cutesy little qualifiers to excuse deplorable behavior & to use them is just absurd.

I can tell Todd Akin has NEVER been to a rape crisis center, spoken to any rape victims or children born from rape, spoken to anyone who grew up in the foster care system or ever visited a social service agency. Uninformed people have ZERO business making laws for everyone else. Why don't we just have cats making our laws? How about dogs?

Maybe I should start making laws about sports since I'm such a fucking expert on them. Except I'm really terrible at them, was never on a sports team & haven't spend much time with athletes. Perhaps I should also make laws governing the construction industry & manual labor since I know so much about those areas as well.

It's time for a requirement that you don't get to make laws on things without doing some damn research. You should be forced to go to rape crisis centers, visit small business owners from ALL areas of the country, whatever is needed for you to actually MAKE determinations to base a law on & assess how that law will help vs. harm anyone (and not talking just to your friends or doing PR moments; there must be honest communication involved).

If you don't agree to that, you have no business being allowed to live in modern society. You need to be locked up somewhere. Jail, a mental hospital, debtor's prison, a Hollywood exec's basement, I don't care. Just be locked up & unable to escape to cause more problems for me and anyone else with common sense.

If people in this country had any brains in their head, they'd vote 3rd party. Ron Paul, Jill Stein, Roseanne Barr, someone who isn't a total moron with their head so far up big business' collective ass that they can't see cars coming when they try crossing the street. Even ALF would be better.

We need to start branding politicians with the companies that own them. You know: "Property of:" then list the company names. The more you saw & the types you saw would determine whether you should bother voting for them. I'd also like to see fist fights in the Senate & House like they have in other government meetings in other countries. I've said it before but it would make things more interesting & some reality TV company could make money from it. It's practically Jerry Springer anyway; we may as well be honest about it.

So, why would Roseanne Barr be the best president ever:

1. She wasn't born to money. She came from lower income so she knows what that's like. Her entire TV show concept was based off that experience. That's better than the mainstream politicians you see who generally came from money or are part of some political dynasty. I feel she's more "of the people" than most folk in politics.

2. She conquered Hollywood. When she started out, she actually took command on her show. Most people in her shoes would be all docile & meek. She wasn't. People probably call me a bitch; I feel if people are calling a woman a "bitch" and saying she's "difficult," she's probably doing something right.

If she did this in Hollywood, do you honestly think she'd let some shithead career politician push her around? Or some high power lobbyist? I can't see that happening. I'd hope she'd tell the prick just where to go; we need more people willing to do that sort of thing. If she told Hollywood execs where to go early in her career, I could see her doing the same thing to some Washington insider.

3. She's unpredictable. Someone (a man supporting the Republicans, by the way) told me "she's bipolar" & she has all those personalities. Is that any worse than the hypocrites & morons inhabiting our government now? You honestly think Sarah Palin would be more effective as a leader or any of the other Tea Party scholars spouting out various inaccuracies about our Constitution, geography & plenty of other things your average middle schooler wouldn't screw up on? If we're that nervous on TV, maybe we shouldn't be on TV? Leads to another good point.

4. She's scandal proof. She's been on TV & suffered highs and lows in the press. How would you blackmail Roseanne? How would you ruin her reputation? She's always said controversial things & has never been predictable. I think you'd have to lie & even then, I'm sure people would find facts to defuse that lie. She'd have to screw herself up like violating #5.

5. She'd never allow women's rights to be mangled; they'd be sacred to her. She's not some brainwashed dope like many of these Republican & conservative Democratic women. I think she lives in real life & wouldn't be trying to foist religion onto everyone else. In fact, I don't recall her being religious & that's a wonderful thing if you ask me.

6. She would NEVER apologize or say she "misspoke." Based on things she's done, I'll bet Roseanne Barr would stand by what she said regardless of how controversial Middle America finds it. We also need more of that.

I hate this fake religiosity that always comes out in an election. If you're not a sincere believer & practitioner of a faith, shut the hell up. Or maybe we just need to kill voters in Middle America or the vote fixers. Not sure who the morons are who voted for these mental midgets we're dealing with now but they could use some heavy smacks upside the head for being too stupid to live. The cause, regardless, needs to be taken care of ASAP.

I'll take an atheist over a lying, hypocritical Christian any day of the week. A TRUE Christian would never be pulling this shit of applying their standards as law to be imposed on the entire country, many of whom don't follow their belief system (you know, violating God's gift of free will by taking it away from others). I don't know of any atheists, Wiccans, or people from the non-mainstream religions trying to impose their ways of life onto everyone else or telling Christians what to do in their homes, on their time. Yet Christians sure as hell do this.

Oh, and this is the same Republican party forcing women to breed & bring MORE unwanted kids in the world. Nice work, assholes.

These people are really too stupid to live, besides not living in real life with the rest of us. I'm glad the comics are getting great fodder but I don't want these morons being leaders in my country.

Speaking of more people who don't live in real life & how religion has done more to ruin things, consider this story. If you contacted me about something like this, I'd defend that student in a minute. I know a thing or two about asshole school administrators on a little Hitler power trip. I hope she & her family stood their ground & told the principal just where to go. I sure would have. Furthermore, if you're so damn worried about your little children hearing things or the "sanctity" of the ceremony I suggest you move to a religious commune since your children are too fragile to exist in modern society. Let's talk a little about "sanctity" as well: many high schools employ sexual predators, sexists, lying teachers, many adults who deserve contempt, not respect. Even my mother once said there were teachers at my school who didn't deserve respect.

I suppose I never lived by "respect your elders" because I saw many elders who didn't deserve it growing up. For instance, we had this white trash neighbor who let her 2 small children run wild (we're talking 2-3 year old range & seeing them in our yard quite a distance away from their house w/no adult in sight), stayed at home & later was cheating on her husband with a guy who looked different but had the same first name. My sister once told this woman to "Go suck an egg!" Then, we also had our father, male child molesters who molested 2 of our neighborhood playmates (one of them was one girl's stepfather; I learned about this much later) & plenty of adults who were just assholes to us for no reason. We had a coach in my high school who made sexually inappropriate remarks to women (including a friend of mine). Just some examples but you can see why I don't buy that whole "oh, it's so sacred" argument.

Perhaps adults in life (especially parents) should be better examples to kids if they want kids to be better. You know, maybe instead about bitching at length on adult content being played on television or blaming Marilyn Manson when their child goes on a shooting spree? None of this "do as I say, not as I do" shit; everyone sees through it & I sure did as a kid.

Finally, real life isn't Luke & Laura motherfuckers. This isn't General Hospital so stop trying to make the world that way. Get a brain, stop being spoon-fed by mainstream media, think for your damn self & ask yourself how you'd like it if your sister, mother, some female you give a shit about (if you aren't one yourself) was raped. What would you do to the rapist? Would you shake his hand & welcome him to the family? Hand him a cigar if he got the victim pregnant?

Supporting the Republican platform on this issue tells me you would do precisely this. It also makes me suspect you of having raped someone at some point in life. No woman should sleep with any of these men unless they A) want to have children against their will, B) have no self-esteem at all & hate themselves or C) are secretly robbing the men blind.

"Racist" Halloween Costumes & Who's "Too Old" to Trick or Treat

Well, I got invited to a Halloween party tomorrow night that is free. This after I went to a Studio 54 themed event on Friday night in Queens wearing a short dress and having nothing but pantyhose between my legs & the cold wind outside. Takes a level of chutzpa to do that, let me tell you!

Anyhow, after a little thinking with limited resources, my reserve of costumes & considering the cold weather tomorrow night (banning anything sexy or skimpy), I decided to go with the scariest costume of all that is also somewhat accurate & intellectual: a Christian fundamentalist. Not a mainstream Christian, mind you but one of those whackjobs that religious folk I know would shake their head at & say "God help us all!"

I have to go get materials to make a sign tomorrow & I need to see if I've got a Bible lying around but otherwise, you have my husband to thank for this one. I tried on this old dress I have recently to make sure it still fit me & he told me it looked too frumpy on me. It's a long sleeved one with a longer skirt that looks like something you'd wear at a church. As fundies are hardcore about clothing length & not showing stuff, I figured this outfit was perfect. I'd also never get to wear it under normal circumstances. Sadly, I thought of dressing as that woman who complained about Married with Children in the '80s but since I'm a redhead, that doesn't work.

You haven't heard about the best touch though: I'm also going to wear devil horns since I believe these sorts of fundamentalists are just as bad as any "sinner" they dare to condemn. It's a reaction to religious hypocrites.

If you're a religious person who objects to this outfit? First off, maybe you should be taking these fundies to task as a religious person. They are reflecting badly on you, after all. Second, I've earned the right to attack this contingency considering I lived in a religious household, went to a religious school as a child & had to deal with this crap due to my years of living in the South. By the way, my husband has earned this right as well. Third, if you're not a fake Christian, you shouldn't get offended because I'm not attacking you. If you're offended, maybe you should take a good hard look at yourself and see if maybe you're upset because I've hit too close to home & you don't like admitting that you are a hypocrite.

On that note, there are many costumes that are offensive that I would never do. For one thing, I wouldn't go around in black face or dressing as a poor person. Some foreclosure law firm in Buffalo apparently did this for last year's Halloween party.

I think this theme is completely tacky, lacks in class and is horrible PR for the law firm. If you asked me to participate in such a theme, I'd refuse since I do know people who are in dire economic straits. I also think these fuckers are just making themselves into targets for angry people who were victims of the housing crisis, especially the big name partners at this firm. Stuff like this is just stupid to do. I wouldn't feel the least bit of sympathy if these morons ended up on the business end of a shotgun held by some disillusioned individual they personally ousted from their home of however many years.

Believe me, no rational person would feel sympathy for this trash either (and yes if you would suggest insulting people who are in a victim position with respect to your business, especially as an attorney who presumably should know better & is held to higher standards of ethics then you are trash).

That being said, however, I don't think it's necessary to outlaw such themes or ban certain costumes like this group proposes to do.

For one thing, let's have a sense of humor, okay? Some people most definitely fit that stereotype & trust me, the self-aware ones aren't offended. You know, dressing as a hooker says something about me as a woman. Should I get all pissy & demand that no one ever dresses that way again?

Before you get all high & mighty on racial stereotypes & "white privilege," let me give you some perspective on "white privilege": that shit exists for RICH, white people (oftentimes, males)!!!!!! Talk to me about how much white privilege I've had when you have people assume you don't need financial aid because of YOUR race, ignoring your family's financial condition or how much need you actually have. That has happened to me.

How much white privilege have the injured Occupy protestors been recipients of? I saw white girls getting maced & white men being dragged off in handcuffs as well as roughed up by the police. Take your head out of your ass & see the world around you as it really is.

Stop being a martyr & making assumptions you don't know shit about. Live incognito as a white person for a few months if you want to make these grand proclamations about how easy white people have it, especially if they don't come from money. Until then, shut up! You don't hear me making proclamations about your personal experiences or how easy your life is. I certainly could but since I know a fair amount of people outside my race & don't view them as my "token" friend from XYZ group, I know a basic truism: someone else always has it worse than you do.

Second, I strongly think if you get easily offended by something as simple as a costume you're never going to make it in the real world. You also really ought to save that venom for things like tokenism & inequality for women in the workplace. Go try to solve real problems instead of trying to take away one day in the year people get to blow off steam & be something they wouldn't get to be otherwise (unless, of course, they are actors). You're as bad as the people who force out Christmas from the public realm.

Third, social stigma is a powerful thing. Let's use that instead of direct regulation or forcing retailers to stop selling particular costumes. I remember where groups dealing with illegal immigrants got all offended by illegal alien costumes & tried to get retailers to remove them from the shelves. Maybe these people should spend more time encouraging folk to have loyalties to THIS damn country or getting employers to pay them minimum wage like everyone else so we wouldn't have the pay problems we're having. How about that, huh?

On trick or treating: this story asks "how old is too old?" I say you're never too old. If you feel compelled to go beg for candy, do so. Some adults look like kids because they are short & tiny. Some actors look like high school kids (I've been told I look like a kid though I would hope I don't look younger than college aged).

Plus, you're as young as you feel. Don't let some snotty adult who was 100 when they were 10 tell you what to do! Those jerks probably never take their kids trick or treating in costume or know how to have any fun whatsoever. We call them "killjoys." I think if there were fewer of them, the world would be a much better place.

I heard about nighttime curfews on Halloween night in various places & that also bothers me on a fundamental level, considering my whole history. Read last year's Halloween rant for details on that.

Something I've Needed to Get Off My Chest

As I've said before, I don't care about politics. I'm an independent, which means I think both parties are full of crap in some measure. The Republicans deserve some credit for wanting to help businesses (at least if you're talking about small ones) & for their stances on gun rights, illegal immigration (Tom Tancredo, at least), tort reform in medical malpractice suits and not being overly PC. The Democrats, however, tend to be more in touch w/the average person if not being bought by special interest groups.

That being said, I would LOVE to see a candidate who doesn't put on the Christian saint, happy family act. If someone publicly said they were gay, cheating on their spouse, did a lot of drugs & other stuff people freak out about when they see it in the news, I'd have to vote for that candidate based on their honesty. I hate, HATE hypocrites & liars; that's also why I really don't care about politics. I could be in charge & things would STILL be corrupt b/c you can't get rid of everyone and start over. I think I'd love a candidate who publicly admitted to hating one of their kids.

I'd vote for an atheist in a second; at least ADMIT you aren't a religious person instead of going to some church while the press is watching & doing everything under the sun to violate that religion once you get into office.

Is letting people be abused by the National Guard in New Orleans after Katrina a "Christian act?" How about closing schools, laying off people who need jobs & keeping incompetents around? What about harassing teenagers & people who got abortions for reasons you don't know anything about? Letting in every illegal under the sun while allowing them to take jobs from your own citizens as well as harass them, violate laws the citizens HAVE TO obey & never deporting or punishing them for their misdeeds?

Way too many people don't live up to their faith & it ticks me off. Either be a 100% member of the faith or stop calling yourself one while violating its edicts on behavior. If you wonder why non-believers are hostile to believers, this is the reason. The good & true believers need to be schooling the fakes since those fakes are diminishing the faith/religion and painting those who DO follow the religion + the faith itself in a bad light.

I'd love to see more people speak out against hypocrisy in general but particularly where it exists in their own backyard. Honesty takes courage & an honest candidate would get my vote much quicker than someone doing things to try fitting my demographic.