Warning: this post contains the word "vagina." If you cannot handle the word "vagina" without giggling, please do not read this post. Go over to Yahoo where you will be safe. I'll get to that in a minute.
Today, I learned that some body parts are more equal than other body parts. But first, I have an ugly confession to make. Everybody has a bad habit, and this one is mine: I hang around in the comments section of the Yahoo page.
I'm not sure why Yahoo, exactly, except that it seems to have stories that I like to read. Rather it has stories that I care about, and it would not surprise me if Yahoo picks stories for the home page based entirely on what you click. Sort of like Pandora Radio but with a much more sinister intent.
I'm not proud of this. I have tried to break myself of the habit and number of times, but apparently, I like a little drama in my life, and / or, I just like arguing with people. The only fortunate in outcome of the incident I'm about to relate, is that I might have just gotten myself banned from Yahoo for life. Apart from the trouble of finding another email address, I might actually come out ahead.
It was an article about abortion. Of course it was. I really don't have anything else I feel the great need to argue about, except abortion. And the mistreatment of pregnant women by the legal system, but that's another thing. Anyway, some wit had just made the brilliant observation that women must enjoy having abortions, or else they would just take birth control pills. Now there's all kinds of things wrong with that particular twist of logic, but let's stick to the points made. I answered him with, "Why yes, it is a great thrill to take a day off work, go to a surgical suite, take off all my clothes, lie down on a steel table and let somebody poked a hose up my vagina. I'm surprised everyone doesn't do it."
This, by the way, is called sarcasm. Or rather, sarchasm, that vast gulf between your witty remark, and the person who is incapable of understanding it. My post came up on to the comments section, and much to my surprise, the word vagina was spelled "#$%$.". I was unaware up until this point that the word vagina was a swear word. I thought we were all adults here.
I made another post, in which I observed that the word vagina had apparently been censored by Yahoo. I used the word penis just to see what would happen. To nobody's surprise, the word penis came out just fine. The word vagina was once again spelled #$%$...
Ponder that for a minute. Seriously, think about it. Female body parts must be censored from the delicate minds in the Yahoo comments section, because obviously the word is too coarse for the ears to hear. However, male body parts are just fine. How does it make you feel, ladies, knowing that Yahoo thinks your body parts are swear words?
Well, you know what I did next. Or if you don't know, you can probably guess. I typed the word vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina and clicked send. It came out #$%$. #$%$. #$%$. #$%$. #$%$. #$%$. #$%$. #$%$. So I did what everybody should do, when there's an issue that needs lots of attention immediately and you don't know how else to get it. I went over to Twitter and called out Yahoo for being the sexist bastards they obviously are. Several times. And then I went back to the comments section and typed in v@g1na v@g1na v@g1na v@g1na v@g1na v@g1na v@g1na v@g1na.
I don't know how Yahoo will take to being called out. Thus far there have been no replies. They might answer, or they might do nothing. Or they might ban me for life from the comments section. I did mention, did I not, that my going into Yahoo comments is a bad habit? Getting banned for life might actually be a good thing. If nothing else, I could probably get back those chunks of my life I keep losing 5 minutes at a time.
Anyway, that is my story, and I'm sticking to it. I'm sure I will have something more significant to write about next week. Like maybe world peace, or the Syrian crisis, or global warming or who knows. In the meantime, please be advised that this is the first blog post I have ever composed entirely in Google Voice, while driving, in the rain, in Dallas. Cheers y'all.
Showing posts with label general fuckery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general fuckery. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
/rant mode: ON/
Item: Would somebody please tell me why the hell Jeb Bush would "disagree" with the Pope about the existence of climate change? I can see why Jeb doesn't want anything done to fight climate change--he might make less money, which of course would be a tragedy--but why would anyone "disagree" that climate change is happening? Maybe Jeb should check in with some real scientists. Like, say, the Pope, who has a degree in chemistry and worked as a chemist before becoming a priest.
Item: Global warming aside, can anybody offer some suggestions about how in the bloody hell we're going to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ 11 billion people using just this planet?
Item: I'm 46 years old and I do hereby promise you that I will never, ever wax nostalgic (at least, not in public) about how great things were in the "good old days" or when I was a kid. People who do that seem not to realize that the "good old days" weren't good for everybody. They were good for rich white people. Nobody else had civil rights, access to good education, high-paying jobs or the ability to get ahead. Go on, ask an elderly black man about how great things were in the 1950s when he was legally prevented from using the same water fountain as you in most of the Southern states. Go on. I dare you.
Item: This high school in Idaho has officially banned its cheerleaders from wearing their uniforms without leggings or sweat pants, allegedly because the short skirts exposed their butts on stairs and while sitting. I, personally, have never before seen a cheerleader skirt that didn't also have some kind of bloomer stitched into it, but that aside, has it maybe occurred to the school that the cheerleaders' skirts ought to be a little bit longer?! You know, a couple of inches more fabric between her butt and the outside world? Seems like this one can be blamed on the school, not the students.
Item: John Boehner is resigning from Congress. So the next time you want to laugh at some guy with an orange face who just can't seem to stop embarrassing himself in public, you'll just have to find yourself a puppet or something.
Item: A flight was delayed because a pet tarantula escaped from its enclosure in the cargo bay. Look, I'm all for exotic pets, but in a world where an eighteen-month-old baby can be removed from an airplane for being on the no-fly list, I just don't think anything that has a number of legs divisible by eight should get a pass. And while it may be true that not all terrorists are spiders, it is also true that the vast majority of spiders are terrorists. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Item: Presidential candidate and general asshole Mike Huckabee apparently has it in for rainbow-colored Doritos. Evidently your choice of snack is now a political statement. So if you're a Republican, you might want to stick to Cheetos. Not only are they crunchier, they will turn your fingers orange. You know, like John Boehner's.
That's about it for today. I started a new job this week, and one of the things I'm going to have to do, a lot, is speak a little Spanish. Luckily, I already speak that language, but I'm a little rusty. I forget stupid words like "building" and "boat." But looky here what just came in the mail:
I think these will help. It's awesome to live with a librarian.
/rant mode: OFF/
Item: Global warming aside, can anybody offer some suggestions about how in the bloody hell we're going to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ 11 billion people using just this planet?
Item: I'm 46 years old and I do hereby promise you that I will never, ever wax nostalgic (at least, not in public) about how great things were in the "good old days" or when I was a kid. People who do that seem not to realize that the "good old days" weren't good for everybody. They were good for rich white people. Nobody else had civil rights, access to good education, high-paying jobs or the ability to get ahead. Go on, ask an elderly black man about how great things were in the 1950s when he was legally prevented from using the same water fountain as you in most of the Southern states. Go on. I dare you.
Item: This high school in Idaho has officially banned its cheerleaders from wearing their uniforms without leggings or sweat pants, allegedly because the short skirts exposed their butts on stairs and while sitting. I, personally, have never before seen a cheerleader skirt that didn't also have some kind of bloomer stitched into it, but that aside, has it maybe occurred to the school that the cheerleaders' skirts ought to be a little bit longer?! You know, a couple of inches more fabric between her butt and the outside world? Seems like this one can be blamed on the school, not the students.
Item: John Boehner is resigning from Congress. So the next time you want to laugh at some guy with an orange face who just can't seem to stop embarrassing himself in public, you'll just have to find yourself a puppet or something.
Item: A flight was delayed because a pet tarantula escaped from its enclosure in the cargo bay. Look, I'm all for exotic pets, but in a world where an eighteen-month-old baby can be removed from an airplane for being on the no-fly list, I just don't think anything that has a number of legs divisible by eight should get a pass. And while it may be true that not all terrorists are spiders, it is also true that the vast majority of spiders are terrorists. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Item: Presidential candidate and general asshole Mike Huckabee apparently has it in for rainbow-colored Doritos. Evidently your choice of snack is now a political statement. So if you're a Republican, you might want to stick to Cheetos. Not only are they crunchier, they will turn your fingers orange. You know, like John Boehner's.
That's about it for today. I started a new job this week, and one of the things I'm going to have to do, a lot, is speak a little Spanish. Luckily, I already speak that language, but I'm a little rusty. I forget stupid words like "building" and "boat." But looky here what just came in the mail:
I think these will help. It's awesome to live with a librarian.
/rant mode: OFF/
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Go Read This Blog Post.
Go read this blog post.
Yeah, I know all of you won't click the link. That's okay. The blogger (and for the life of me, I couldn't find out the author's name or how to contact her) is positing the sort of questions that the pollsters should be asking about this subject. Never mind this whiny "Is it okay if a woman has an abortion if she's been raped? If she's dying? If she's ten years old?" nonsense. No, these are the real questions. The hard questions. The questions nobody wants to answer.
I'm'a'gonna give you an example. This is risky, because I couldn't get ahold of the author (see above) to ask permission, but I'm thinking the "fair use" clause from the Copyright Act (17 u.s.c. § 101) will probably cover my butt. (I once had a two hour long conversation with a library director about the "fair use" clause, much to the annoyance of my boss, who hated the guy but was too polite to leave while I was still there talking to him). Anyway, this is one of the questions that the author would ask, if she were a pollster:
What about legal drugs, like OxyContin and Vicodin?
Seriously. Go read it. Click this link right here. It is not often that I come across something that so completely encapsulates my thoughts on any subject, never mind abortion, but here one is.
Yeah, I know all of you won't click the link. That's okay. The blogger (and for the life of me, I couldn't find out the author's name or how to contact her) is positing the sort of questions that the pollsters should be asking about this subject. Never mind this whiny "Is it okay if a woman has an abortion if she's been raped? If she's dying? If she's ten years old?" nonsense. No, these are the real questions. The hard questions. The questions nobody wants to answer.
I'm'a'gonna give you an example. This is risky, because I couldn't get ahold of the author (see above) to ask permission, but I'm thinking the "fair use" clause from the Copyright Act (17 u.s.c. § 101) will probably cover my butt. (I once had a two hour long conversation with a library director about the "fair use" clause, much to the annoyance of my boss, who hated the guy but was too polite to leave while I was still there talking to him). Anyway, this is one of the questions that the author would ask, if she were a pollster:
1. Do you think it is acceptable to force a woman to carry a pregnancy and give birth against her will?
- Yes, always
- Yes, under some circumstances
- No, never
2. If you answered “Yes, always,” what methods are acceptable to force the woman to continue her pregnancy?
- Imprisonment until after birth
- Mandatory subjection to monitoring of fetal well-being on a daily basis
- Monitoring of the woman’s location, such as through an ankle bracelet
- Provision of a chaperone to ascertain the woman’s whereabouts and actions
- Monitoring of all communications to ascertain the woman is not planning to end the pregnancy
- Other (please specify)
5. If certain methods are only acceptable for certain circumstances, please match the best method to each circumstance.
Not so easy to answer, are they? And here are a few I came up with all by myself:
If a woman is pregnant and continues to use illegal drugs, is it acceptable to imprison her until after birth?
What about legal drugs, like Ativan or Klonopin?
What about legal drugs, like OxyContin and Vicodin?
a. Should she be incarcerated in an actual prison, or would a hospital be more appropriate?
1. If a hospital, should she be allowed to refuse medical procedures, such as a glucose tolerance test, or should she be declared incompetent to make her own decisions?
2. Should she be allowed to get a second opinion, or should she be required to do whatever her doctor says?
b. If a prison, should the state be required to provide her with medical care, or is that her problem?
What about legal drugs, like something for depression, that might cause birth defects?
How about if she won't quit drinking? Smoking? Sky diving? Rocky Mountain climbing? Skiing?
Should a woman ever be allowed to give birth at home? Or should any woman attempting to give birth at home be arrested and taken immediately to the nearest hospital as soon as it becomes obvious that she's not going to go there of her own accord?
Under what circumstances should a pregnant woman be reported to Child Protective Services for failure to follow doctor's orders?
Hyperbole, you say? Not at all. Researchers found 413 cases of forced medical interventiosn on pregnant women, ranging from mandatory C-sections to actual imprisonment on the grounds of protecting the fetus. You know, that critter that's evidently so much more important than the born woman walking around with it that women are being stripped of their civil rights, especially in states like Tennessee and Alabama, on a regular basis. Because when a fetus is considered more important than its mother, then its mother becomes a container. Nothing else.
In closing, one final question: If an adult woman is capable of making her own medical decisions, how does the implantation of an egg in her uterus change her mental capacity?
But I suspect you already know the answer to that.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Under The Rocket's Red Glare
The other night, Joan and I went to a classical music concert. Well, technically I guess it was a romantic-modernist music concert, if you understand that the romantic period in classical music began in the 1830s and died about 1940, and everything after that is modernism. (Otherwise we'd be in post-post-post modernism by now, and that could get confusing). Anyway, the ensemble is called The Dallas Winds, and they're pretty amazing. At least, I think they are. Another thing about romantic-modernist music; sometimes it fails to sound like music and just sounds like--sound.
But they seemed like they knew what they were doing, so I'm going to just say they were pretty amazing. They get paid for this, after all. To get paid for playing an instrument--any kind of orchestral instrument--you have to be pretty amazing. There's only so many jobs, and all of them are filled, and the music schools churn out new kids every year, all young and eager and out for blood, and you have to sort of wait for someone to die to get a chance to audition for one, and if you ever wondered why clarinet players turn up dead at such an alarming rate, well, now you know.
Incidentally, and this actually does bear on what I'm going to tell you, Joan's been having a lot of trouble with her knee. The one she had the surgery on back in 2009. It's got permanent arthritis in it now, there's not a whole lot anybody can do about it apart from replacing the knee, which is just Right Out, and some days she just sort of limps around with a cane and hopes she doesn't have to stand up too fast, or without help. Naturally, the day of the concert was one of those days. I dropped her off in front of the venue and went to park the car, then walked back through a maze of twisting streets, positive I'd lost the car for all time. Turned out I'd also dropped her off in front of the wrong venue, so she'd had to walk down to the right venue, with the cane, and--yeah. This evening was not starting off well.
But we got inside, and we had pretty good seats right near the stage, and the seats were comfortable and kind of fuzzy. Upon sinking into hers, Joan said, "I hope you're going to help me up." Yeah, sometimes if the seats are too low it's hard for her to struggle back out of it again.
Which was just about the time that the wind ensemble struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner." Of course. We're in Texas; it's probably a state law that every concert starts with "The Star-Spangled Banner." And by this time, all the other seats around us were filled in, so in order to get over to where I could pull Joan up out of her seat, two or three people would have had to move. So Joan didn't stand up for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Which I didn't think was a problem at the time. I mean, it's probably not a state law that you have to stand up for "The Star-Spangled Banner" if you can't get up.
Unfortunately, there was this guy behind us. I think you know the type. Old and loud. Well, in his seventies, anyway, and he'd been expounding at a pretty high volume about a number of things before the concert started. Of course he was right behind us. And of course he took issue with Joan not standing up. And of course he had to yell, loud enough to be heard over very loud music, "What's the matter with you? Won't you stand up for your country?"
Or words to that effect. And Joan said, "I can't." And he didn't hear her, of course, what with the shouting and the music, so I stuck my head between them and said, "She can't stand up without help, sir." And he grunted something that I'm sure wasn't terribly complimentary, and by then the song was over and we all got to sit down. And so the concert started. And I miss most of the first piece because I'm wondering how I'm going to get Joan out of her chair now. If she manages to get on her feet without help, am I going to have to lean over and explain to this guy about her arthritis and the cane and so on? Is that any of his business? Or should I just let him yell, "Oh hey, you can stand up now..."
Well, as it turned out, he didn't. We snuck out early and missed the last piece (by some guy named Hindemith). But really, the whole thing was kind of disturbing. I can't imagine that anybody in a wheelchair ever gets asked why they aren't standing up for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Or anybody with crutches for that matter. But a cane--well, it's not very noticeable, I guess. And the whole thing got me thinking about people with invisible disabilities. Take, for example, people with disabled placards in their cars. Not all of them are obviously disabled. Some of them look perfectly fine, but they probably have something wrong with them that you can't see. Nerve pain, maybe, or multiple sclerosis. And they have trouble getting around. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get those placards, figuratively speaking (if memory serves, they didn't want to give Joan's mom one because she didn't have a driver's license and therefore, according to logic, never got in a car. I guess it didn't occur to anybody at the DMV that somebody else might pick her up and take her somewhere once in a while.)
Take people who are mentally ill. You may not be able to tell who they are, because they look just like everybody else, but there are some people who have a lot more trouble getting through the day than the rest of us. They probably don't have disabled placards, but some of them have mornings where they can't get up and nights when they can't get to sleep. They may have wildly fluctuating energy levels and some days they just hide in the house because they can't cope with the human race. I don't think most of y'all would yell at someone for not standing up for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Well, maybe you shouldn't give somebody a hard time and call him or her lazy if he can't make it in to work today. Maybe that's just the way it goes sometimes.
Anyway, I'm sure there are classical concerts that don't involve having to disclose your entire medical history to a complete stranger. And I'm sure we'll go back for one of those.
But they seemed like they knew what they were doing, so I'm going to just say they were pretty amazing. They get paid for this, after all. To get paid for playing an instrument--any kind of orchestral instrument--you have to be pretty amazing. There's only so many jobs, and all of them are filled, and the music schools churn out new kids every year, all young and eager and out for blood, and you have to sort of wait for someone to die to get a chance to audition for one, and if you ever wondered why clarinet players turn up dead at such an alarming rate, well, now you know.
Incidentally, and this actually does bear on what I'm going to tell you, Joan's been having a lot of trouble with her knee. The one she had the surgery on back in 2009. It's got permanent arthritis in it now, there's not a whole lot anybody can do about it apart from replacing the knee, which is just Right Out, and some days she just sort of limps around with a cane and hopes she doesn't have to stand up too fast, or without help. Naturally, the day of the concert was one of those days. I dropped her off in front of the venue and went to park the car, then walked back through a maze of twisting streets, positive I'd lost the car for all time. Turned out I'd also dropped her off in front of the wrong venue, so she'd had to walk down to the right venue, with the cane, and--yeah. This evening was not starting off well.
But we got inside, and we had pretty good seats right near the stage, and the seats were comfortable and kind of fuzzy. Upon sinking into hers, Joan said, "I hope you're going to help me up." Yeah, sometimes if the seats are too low it's hard for her to struggle back out of it again.
Which was just about the time that the wind ensemble struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner." Of course. We're in Texas; it's probably a state law that every concert starts with "The Star-Spangled Banner." And by this time, all the other seats around us were filled in, so in order to get over to where I could pull Joan up out of her seat, two or three people would have had to move. So Joan didn't stand up for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Which I didn't think was a problem at the time. I mean, it's probably not a state law that you have to stand up for "The Star-Spangled Banner" if you can't get up.
Unfortunately, there was this guy behind us. I think you know the type. Old and loud. Well, in his seventies, anyway, and he'd been expounding at a pretty high volume about a number of things before the concert started. Of course he was right behind us. And of course he took issue with Joan not standing up. And of course he had to yell, loud enough to be heard over very loud music, "What's the matter with you? Won't you stand up for your country?"
Or words to that effect. And Joan said, "I can't." And he didn't hear her, of course, what with the shouting and the music, so I stuck my head between them and said, "She can't stand up without help, sir." And he grunted something that I'm sure wasn't terribly complimentary, and by then the song was over and we all got to sit down. And so the concert started. And I miss most of the first piece because I'm wondering how I'm going to get Joan out of her chair now. If she manages to get on her feet without help, am I going to have to lean over and explain to this guy about her arthritis and the cane and so on? Is that any of his business? Or should I just let him yell, "Oh hey, you can stand up now..."
Well, as it turned out, he didn't. We snuck out early and missed the last piece (by some guy named Hindemith). But really, the whole thing was kind of disturbing. I can't imagine that anybody in a wheelchair ever gets asked why they aren't standing up for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Or anybody with crutches for that matter. But a cane--well, it's not very noticeable, I guess. And the whole thing got me thinking about people with invisible disabilities. Take, for example, people with disabled placards in their cars. Not all of them are obviously disabled. Some of them look perfectly fine, but they probably have something wrong with them that you can't see. Nerve pain, maybe, or multiple sclerosis. And they have trouble getting around. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get those placards, figuratively speaking (if memory serves, they didn't want to give Joan's mom one because she didn't have a driver's license and therefore, according to logic, never got in a car. I guess it didn't occur to anybody at the DMV that somebody else might pick her up and take her somewhere once in a while.)
Take people who are mentally ill. You may not be able to tell who they are, because they look just like everybody else, but there are some people who have a lot more trouble getting through the day than the rest of us. They probably don't have disabled placards, but some of them have mornings where they can't get up and nights when they can't get to sleep. They may have wildly fluctuating energy levels and some days they just hide in the house because they can't cope with the human race. I don't think most of y'all would yell at someone for not standing up for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Well, maybe you shouldn't give somebody a hard time and call him or her lazy if he can't make it in to work today. Maybe that's just the way it goes sometimes.
Anyway, I'm sure there are classical concerts that don't involve having to disclose your entire medical history to a complete stranger. And I'm sure we'll go back for one of those.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Mini-Post: Complaint to the Department of Transportation
For the record, I just submitted a complaint to the Department of Transportation, which is responsible for drafting regulations involving airline safety and security. Here's my submission:
I am concerned about the airlines' seeking to put more and more seats into the same (or smaller) amount of space. Average seat width, once a reasonable 19-20" in the 1980s, has dropped to 17" (16" on Southwest) while the average human hip span is now 20.6" in the United States. Meanwhile, the average pitch between rows, once between 33 and 34" in the 1990s, is now down to 30" (28" on Spirit). Not only is there now insufficient room for the average person, but airplanes are so crowded that I believe there could be serious injuries or deaths if an airplane ever had to be evacuated in a hurry. In the interests of safety and comfort, please consider regulating the minimum amount of space in a row, the pitch between rows and the minimum seat width. Please also consider a regulation that all armrests, including the armrest at the end of a row, be liftable to facilitate an emergency evacuation.
If you'd like to go forth and do likewise, you can copy my paragraph wholesale. Here's the Web site. Note, you can't do this anonymously. They do want to know who you are:
http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/air-travel-complaint-comment-form
I'll let you know if they come back with anything interesting. Like "Doug Parker* said we couldn't do that."
*CEO of American Airlines
I am concerned about the airlines' seeking to put more and more seats into the same (or smaller) amount of space. Average seat width, once a reasonable 19-20" in the 1980s, has dropped to 17" (16" on Southwest) while the average human hip span is now 20.6" in the United States. Meanwhile, the average pitch between rows, once between 33 and 34" in the 1990s, is now down to 30" (28" on Spirit). Not only is there now insufficient room for the average person, but airplanes are so crowded that I believe there could be serious injuries or deaths if an airplane ever had to be evacuated in a hurry. In the interests of safety and comfort, please consider regulating the minimum amount of space in a row, the pitch between rows and the minimum seat width. Please also consider a regulation that all armrests, including the armrest at the end of a row, be liftable to facilitate an emergency evacuation.
If you'd like to go forth and do likewise, you can copy my paragraph wholesale. Here's the Web site. Note, you can't do this anonymously. They do want to know who you are:
http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/air-travel-complaint-comment-form
I'll let you know if they come back with anything interesting. Like "Doug Parker* said we couldn't do that."
*CEO of American Airlines
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