Saturday Night Memester

I probably shouldn't do these before my coffee, but it's gonna be a while before my stomach settles enough to accept coffee, so.

Saturday 8.

1. so, how was thanksgiving for you this year? relaxing? fraught with tension? give us the scoop. (frederick - tell us how your week went since you're in the UK!)
It was all right.

2. did you give any of your money to Black Friday yesterday, either in-person or online? (again, frederick, sorry ... tell us if you're shopping this weekend)
No.

3. with christmas and hanukkah being a few weeks away, do you have any holiday shopping done this year yet?
No. I'm not shopping this year, except maybe cards.

4. are you taking any trips this holiday season? where to, or why not?
No. Where would I go?

5. i'm going to iceland in a few weeks where the weather is actually very temperate (30s). every time i tell someone i'm going there, i hear "iceland is green, and greenland is ice." seriously, it's getting aggravating and i feel like i'm just going to punch someone if i hear it again. what is someone (or people in general) doing/saying lately that is wearing on your last nerve?
Merry Christmas.

6. today is the florida-florida state NCAA football game. The Husband is a florida alum, and i began my undergrad career at florida state (my undergrad and graduate alma maters have "questionable" - read: embarrassing - football teams). is there a rivalry that you are particularly interested in, whether it be NFL, NBA, NHL, british footie, equestrian showjumping, tanya harding vs. nancy kerrigan ... you get me.
No.

7. my eldest child just poured 2 cups of water INTO my coffee maker, effectively giving me coloured water to drink. how important is morning coffee to you, if at all?
I don't drink coffee in the morning because it keeps me up during the day when I'm trying to sleep. Evening coffee is pretty important, though.

Get a gallon jug, put a packet of Kool-Aid and the usual amount of sugar in it, and fill it up to the top with water. Have the child taste it. This should illustrate the importance of proportions of water to beverage mix. :)

If only I could teach this to some of the ADULTS I know who make coffee~sigh~

8. did you take a "turkey nap" on thursday? (frederick ... tell us the last time you had a turkey)
No. I can't sleep when I'm really full.

***

Saturday 6.

1. Take the quiz: What was your Thanksgiving horoscope?
I'm a Cancer. It says:

You're the sign most likely to both dread and look forward to Thanksgiving.

Your signature dish: Mashed potatoes

Your signature dessert: Pecan pie

This holiday: Don't let crazy family members get you down. Maintain your tough outer shell!

Uh. Okay. Thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind for next Thanksgiving.

2. Did you have either of those two dishes on your Thanksgiving table? Of the two, which would have been your choice?
I had mashed potatoes. They were all right, but I didn't cook them long enough to get the skins done. :( But I'd rather have those than a pecan pie, especially with how shit-awful my cooking has been lately. As bad as I fucked up the pumpkin pie [I could barely gag it down; everybody else thought it was great and sucked it down, the freaks], I wouldn't want to ruin a pecan pie like that. Pecans are EXPENSIVE.

3. Which single food do you blame most for your weight gain?
I don't know if I gained any weight or not. I usually wait until all the food passes through my system before I judge that.

Each pound of body fat represents 3500 unburned Calories. Folks, if you genuinely gained more than 1/2 lb. over Thanksgiving, and you don't poop it out over the next week, you might want to consider cutting back on the butter and whipped cream next year. [Or you need to get to the store NOW and get some Ex-Lax.] I know I ate too much, but hopefully my digestive system took care of it. If not...well, it served me right.

4. Take the quiz: How thankful are you?
It says I'm 60% thankful.

You are certainly a thankful person, and you tend to remember what's going well in your life.
You truly are a lucky person - be sure to appreciate how good you have it!

I like how somebody who's never met me knows how lucky I am and how good I have it based on a few questions that have nothing to do with either of those things and everything to do with how much I've adjusted my attitude to my situation.

If you can read and you have access to a computer, you're already luckier than, like, 3/4 of the world anyway, aren't you? So the only people over whom you really couldn't lord the "you should appreciate how good you have it" thing are people who are never going to see this quiz. I just thought that was mildly ironic.

5. Which are you more thankful for: your family, your friends, your career or your possessions?
Depends on the day. Some days I'm just thankful I live alone.

6. Did you do any shopping at all on "Black Friday?"
No. Black Friday has become an obscenity. In any case, I have no money, and if I get any, I'm going to throw it frantically at the student loan people since my forbearances both ran out right before Xmas. If I can't make it by hand, I ain't giving it as a present this year. I am officially Ass-Out™.

***

On that cheerful holiday note...

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Thursday Threesome: Turkey Day Edition.

::Black Friday Sales::

Onesome: Black-- I saw a white Christmas tree the other day all done up in "black and white"; I was thinking an Oakland Raiders fan might like it! Do you have any color preferences for your Christmas decorations? ...or maybe a theme you've found somewhere that resonates with you?
Not really, but I'm starting to think a black tree with silver and gold decorations would really kick ass. I'm not into decorating for holidays. I might put up some lights. Or I might not. I don't know why, but there's something about Christmas lights that fills me with an overwhelming sense of despair [no, I am not joking]. Holiday decorations in general are depressing, actually. But indoor Christmas lights are the worst, especially hung up on the walls. I look at them and a giant yawning chasm of grief and sadness opens up in my heart.

Thanks for reminding me. I'll have to ask my therapist about that, because that's a really weird reaction to have to Christmas lights. [I'm still not joking.]

Twosome: Friday-- leftovers? ...or do you have plans to order a pizza in to counteract all that turkey ?
Only homemade pizza gets served at Casa de Frida. As to whether there'll be leftovers, I'm going to send most of them home with my folks. Or I'm gonna give it to homeless people, or something, anything to get it out of my house. I don't care how damn broke I am, I'm not eating turkey sandwiches for a week. I eat so much ground turkey, I really can't get excited about roast turkey. I like it okay the first time; after about the third meal of it, it just makes me gag.

Threesome: Sales-- Okay, the big question: are you going to 'attend' any of the "Black Friday" sales? ...and if you are, are you hard core serious like the 5 am "be there" crowd?
Absolutely fucking not. I did that once, and I'm never doing it again. I don't care if they're giving everything away free. Black Friday should be renamed "Give Your Car To A Greedy Self-Centered Maniac And Send Them Out To Shop Day." The people are just...it's like they're on crack. They're hellbent on getting deals, they're not looking where they're going--either on the road or in the store--and the whole thing is dangerous and stupid. No thank you.

I don't have any money anyway. I'm just gonna scan in some family photos, burn them to CD's, and give them to everybody.

And what is this I hear about plasma TV's being a hot Christmas item this year? Who are these fucking people? I tell you what, if somebody bought me a plasma TV, I'd tell them to take it right back to the store, get a refund, and donate the money to a charity. How much you wanna bet these are the same people who whine about how hard it is for middle-class folks to stay afloat?

New rule: If you can afford to give somebody a plasma TV for Christmas, you officially forfeit your right to complain about money.

The Bitch has spoken.

Toosdy

Last week's Tuesday's Tales. Fortunately, they don't get stale.

1. do you have pets? if so what, if not why not
No, I don't, at least not any that live with me. The apartment I live in doesn't allow pets, so my cat lives with my folks.

2. who was/is your favorite pet?
:,( at the idea of picking favourites among living beings.

3. What is your ideal pet?
I don't know. One that doesn't sit and stare at me, I know that. My cat does that, and it drives a person crazy. It'd also have to be something I'm not allergic to, which sadly rules out cats.

I've sometimes thought it'd be neat to have a goat.

4. tell me your best memory of your pet
Which pet? I've had tons of them--cats, gerbils, hamsters, a rat, a horse, several very short-lived fish, lizards.

5. tell me your worst memory of your pet
See 4. Also...children do some cruel things to pets. I'd just as soon not think about any of that. We're all stocked up on guilt here, thx. :)

sbt/sbc

Bills, Bond, and Birth Months

Saturday 6.

1. When a bill arrives in the mail, what do you do with it: pay it immediately, hold it with others and pay at once, or put it off until the last possible minute?
Depends on if I have the money to pay it yet or not. Sometimes it sits on the table until the next paycheck.

2. Which actor makes the best James Bond?
OMG I can't believe people still watch this sexist shit. Ew.

James Bond should be a woman next time. It should be Jane Bond. And she should have her choice of hot sex-object men to screw. And she should nobly decline to screw any of them because Jane Bond actually has enough brains to understand where AIDS and venereal disease come from and enough ethics not to use people for sex and then throw them away while risking compromising her job performance by getting sick. [Also, isn't it kinda dumb for a spy to be leaving huge DNA samples all over the place?] That way, the director can use the sexual tension as a plot device, assuming he bothers to have a plot.

Oh, I'm sorry, people like the scantily-clad babes who [even the ones who are purported scientists] are pretty much just there as fuck interests and examples of the stereotypical deceitful, slutty woman? GET A PORNO.

3. Of the foods you enjoy, which one are you least likely to try cooking yourself?
Bread.

4. Take the quiz: What does your birth month reveal about you?
"Thinks far with vision. Easily influenced by kindness. Polite and soft-spoken. Having lots of ideas. Sensitive. Active mind. Hesitating, tends to delay. Choosy and always wants the best. Temperamental. Funny and humorous. Loves to joke. Good debating skills. Talkative. Daydreamer. Friendly. Knows how to make friends. Abiding. Able to show character. Easily hurt. Prone to getting colds. Loves to dress up. Easily bored. Fussy. Seldom shows emotions. Takes time to recover when hurt. Brand conscious. Executive. Stubborn."

5. Of the results you just got, which one seems the farthest from the "real" you?
It's a tie between "loves to dress up" and "seldom shows emotions."

6. Will you see your extended family on Thanksgiving Day this year?
No. It will be just me and the folks.

Have a good Thanksgiving, everybody, if you're celebrating that. If not, have a good week.

sbt/sbc

Saturday 8, Dead People Edition

Saturday 8.

1. my friend's dad refused to let him create a formal funeral for him. some people need to grieve with a such a ceremony. do you need a formal "goodbye" to properly grieve?
I don't know. I've never had somebody die that was close enough for a grieving period to be necessary. As for what some people need...well, if they need it that bad, let them hold their own. I think people should respect the wishes of the deceased whenever possible. Not that people actually do that.

2. we're getting together with a huge BBQ and lots of alcohol, which was his request, in a few weeks to memorialise him. would you prefer this to a formal ceremony?
I'd prefer everybody go away and leave me to a peaceful afterlife, but I know that's not gonna happen. They're gonna want to have a wake and all that bullshit. I don't really express a preference because a] I'm not gonna be there, so it's not like I'm directly involved; and b] nobody fucking listens to me now, so why should they when I'm dead?

3. i plan on having a mausoleum to be buried in, full of fat little marble cherubs and a nice place for my kids to come and sit & talk to me after i go. what's your final resting place going to look like?
Either an urn of some kind or just the outdoors [if whoever ends up in charge of my ashes decides to scatter them]. I can't imagine anybody needing to come talk to me when I'm dead. I'd probably be reincarnated or traveling to other planets anyway, so it's not like I'd answer.

4. my friend is out of touch with everyone, which is understandable. however, he's not even ringing up his live-in girlfriend to keep her apprised of his plans. his mother, on the other hand, is on the phone nonstop talking to everyone. when you grieve, do you shut yourself away from friends/family, or do you need them there with you to help ease the pain?
See 1.

5. the first pet i lost was a marmalade tom named herman. herman got eaten by an alligator (no, i'm serious). i remember being 5 yrs. old and my parents telling me that herman was seen getting gobbled up by an alligator. who was the first pet you lost as a child?
I don't remember. We lived in the country when I was little, so there were a lot of pets, and a lot of tragedies involving highways and stupid motorists [and/or stupid cats].

6. when i was about 9 years old, my friend and her brothers were killed in a drunk-driving accident. it was the first funeral i'd ever gone to. do you remember your first funeral?
Vaguely. I've only been to one; it was an elderly uncle. I didn't go look at the body.

7. for centuries, people have been buried in mass graves due to disease, convenience, or war crimes, etc. do you feel mass graves are ok because we're simply a mass of cells which can be broken down, or do you feel that every single person who dies deserves a solitary resting place with a marker, etc.?
I don't know that I'd say it's ok; but in the end, it's not like it matters all that much, except in relation to the deceased's wishes and the family's desire to have a place to go. However, should a person need to be exhumed, it's a hell of a lot easier to do it from a single grave than from a mass one.

If you let nature take its course instead of having yourself pickled and hermetically sealed in a box,* whether you have your own grave becomes irrelevant after a couple hundred years anyway, just because there's nothing left--unless you arrange to be buried in a peat bog or something.

8. OT question - i have a work semi-formal ceremony to go to tonight. are you the type that likes to go to company-sponsored lavish events where everyone dresses up to hit the open bar with free gourmet food, OR would you prefer something that's quiet and more reserved, like a "thank-you" lunch?
I don't mind quieter functions, as long as there's something there I can eat. If I have to dress up like I'm gonna address the UN, just to have a meal--fuck that. For the price of the formal wear, I could stay home, pig out on snacks and DVD rentals, and have a much better time than those poor sods in their monkey suits and cocktail dresses having to be polite to their boss while he breathes gin breath all over them and tries to paw them at the buffet. And you know, you'd think after all the decades of company picnics and parties, that someone would realise that alcohol and co-workers do not go together. No thanks.

So there.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...
__________
*See, this is where I seriously lose respect for Christians who think that their bodies have to be preserved for the Second Coming. You've been dead and rotting for how many centuries; how great is this really gonna be for you? Also, is God such a cheapskate that he can't give you new bodies?

12 And the Lord said, "What happened to thy bodies that I gave thee?"
13 And the people said, "They rotted, and are become earth a thousand years since."
14 And the Lord said, "Damn, dost thou not take care of anything I give thee? See if I ever give thee anything nice again."

A day late, a fistful of dollars short...

My mom got a sample of some "Seattle's Best" brand coffee, so she gave it to me. [My dad is a strict Folgerite.] Frankly, if this is the best Seattle can do, I'm a little concerned.

Anyway.

sat-8 :: it's a hodgepodge this week!

1. speaking of "hodgepodge," what's a word that always sounds strange or "off" to you, even though it's an accepted and functional member of the english language?
They all sound weird if you say them enough. Try it.

2. help!!! do you ask for help if you need it, or do you simply go down in flames refusing to ask for it due to your pride (or some other psychological construct)?
Usually I ask for help; occasionally I don't because of pride, and sometimes I don't because whatever help is available is something I can't afford.

3. bills! what is the last bill you had to pay?
I don't remember, but I have a big steaming pile of them on the kitchen table right now.

4. holiday music! there are some radio stations that play holiday music nonstop from 1 december until practically new year's day. do you love holiday music, or would you rather jab a screwdriver in your ear?
I would rather jab a screwdriver in my ear. Or, alternatively, I'd like to jab one in the ears of the store owners and radio station managers that force their poor underpaid employees to listen to "Jingle Bell Rock" until they're ready to kill anybody in a red suit.

5. i have a friend that seriously, i CANNOT COMMUNICATE REQUESTS/COMMANDS WITH. he seems to have this issue with others as well. whether it be email or phone convos, if i ask him to do something for me, he doesn't understand. if he asks me a question or to do something for him, i have no idea what the hell he's talking about. do you know (or knew) someone who has a communication wall around them?
Hoo boy, do I ever. I can't talk about it here, though.

6. we were talking about logical fallacies the other day (red herring, straw man, ad hominem, etc.), and the discussion led to superstitions. what superstition are you a victim of in your life, or just follow?
I leave honey and sparkly things out for the faeries; does that count?

7. do you have any leftover hallowe'en candy in your abode right now?
I didn't buy any Halloween candy, so no.

8. a mini scavenger hunt ... go to IMDB's day search, enter your birthday in the left-hand column, and tell us what famous film/television people share your special day.
Dude, there's like 150 people on that list. And out of all those, there are only five that I recognise: Clarence Thomas, June Carter Cash, Selma Blair, Alfred Kinsey, and the Duke of Windsor. I think Selma Blair is an actress. The others have all appeared on TV, I'm sure, but they're not really TV/movie personalities. I have no idea who the hell the other 100+ people are.

***

Saturday 6.

1. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being very pleased/enthusiastic and one being very unhappy/depressed, how would you rate your feelings on Democrats taking control of Congress?
I'm fine with it. So I guess that's like a 7 [I'm assuming a 5 would be indifference]. Now, whether they're actually going to DO something with Congress or just stand around and pick their asses--as well as whether the things they do are actually useful--time will tell.

2. The Democrats have been, naturally, very critical of the Bush administration and the course the country has taken. How effectively do you believe that they can turn things around by the 2008 election?
Pfft. I'll believe it when I see it.

3. What would you rather have for breakfast: a) Ham & eggs with toast b) Grits and sausage c) Pancakes and Syrup
I guess ham and eggs with toast, but only if I have a few hours to wake up first. I have never consumed grits, nor do I want to, and I will almost never eat sausage that I did not personally pick out of the store myself and read the ingredients label. Pancakes don't stick with you, and syrup is...well, syrup is pretty much pure sugar. Great way to give yourself diabetes, but I wouldn't call it breakfast unless you really don't have anything left in the house but flour and eggs or Bisquick [which has happened to me a couple times].

4. Take the quiz: Are you too negative?
It says I'm moderate. I'm guessing that's good, since excessive pessimism is bad for your health and excessive optimism leads to things like bad stock-market gambles and botched Russian invasions. [That happened twice, actually; you'd think people would learn...]

5. How likely are you to change your view of things based on your answer?
Not likely, unless there's some pressing reason why being realistic suddenly isn't good enough anymore. Also, I'd probably go to the American Psychological Association or NIMH for personality advice before I'd go to MyYearbook. Just a personal preference.

6. You are serving as a juror in a murder trial. The defense team is claiming that a woman killed her own child while insane. As a juror, would you consider it critical information to know how soon she might be "back on the street" if found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, or would this have no bearing on your verdict?
It depends on what you mean by "back on the street." Do you mean that she would be homeless? In that case, it would have a bearing on the verdict, because as bad as the prison system is, I'd rather have her there than homeless. If, on the other hand, she has family who care about her and can help her get the help she needs, then no. I'd rather see her in prison than homeless, but if I think she's really mentally ill, I'd rather see her in a hospital or a group home than in prison. The quality of mental health care in prisons is atrocious, and a lot of people come out of prison more mentally ill than when they went in. Naturally, this makes no sense, since there's a much higher population of mentally ill folks in prison than in the general population; in fact, there are 4 times as many mentally ill in American prisons as in American mental hospitals. So you'd think that prisons would be swarming with psychiatrists, since many people who commit crimes do so because of some kind of psychiatric disorder [manic episode, depression, schizophrenia, any of a whole rainbow of personality disorders]. At least, you'd think that if you actually expected to use the term "correctional system" with a straight face. I've already written about how the correctional system does a piss-poor job of actually correcting anything, so I won't go into that again.

No, if the woman is mentally ill, she needs to be wherever it's most likely that she'll get some kind of treatment. If the child she killed was an infant, it's also possible that an unusually severe case of postpartum depression is to blame. In that case, they should also be exploring whether there are any hormonal treatments they can do, or whether she should just abstain from having kids. It's not for everybody, you know.

And that answers that.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

weekend memes

Saturday 6.

1. How many trick-or-treaters did you have this year? Was that more, less, or the same as last year?
0. It was the same as last year.

2. What kind of halloween candy did you buy?
None.

3. What's the next topic you intend to blog about?
No idea.

4. Take the quiz: What is your beer personality?
I couldn't take it because all the options on all the questions were based on the assumption that you drink beer. That rendered the questions unanswerable for me, as...
a] I do not drink beer from any kind of container.
b] I do not look for anything in a beer, except to make sure that the glass I'm drinking out of doesn't contain any of it.
c] I would not go pub crawling in any city anywhere because drunks piss me off and smoke makes me sick.
d] I've had a lot of personality changes since the last time I was drunk. Also, people are terrible at assessing their own personalities even when sober; the delusions of grandeur that frequently accompany drunkenness can't possibly help.
e] For me, there are no good things about drinking beer. The taste makes me gag and even tiny amounts of alcohol make me sick.

5. Do you like the taste of beer? Have you ever tried this particular one?
I think beer tastes like barf.

As for the second part of the question, I don't even remember which brands of beer I've tried. All I know is that they all tasted awful, I drank them only to be polite, and the whole time I was desperately wishing I had a soda or an iced tea or some moose urine or ANYTHING BUT BEER.

6. Which of the following in your home is more full: your dishwasher, your washing machine, your dryer, your sink or your hamper?
My sink, since I don't have any of those other things, unless a laundry basket counts as a hamper.

Sunday 7.

Name up to seven issues important to you this election day.
Environment, uh...

Who am I kidding? I mean, really. In the end, it doesn't really matter much on the issues, because they're not gonna do anything about them anyway, and when they do, they end up fucking up everything else in the process. The real issue is, there's not enough money to go around to do everything that needs doing. So I'm just gonna vote Green wherever possible because they're the only party that I even remotely agree with. I no longer have any hope of electing anybody that's gonna actually represent me, because I disagree so vehemently with the majority on so many things that nobody that actually represented my views would have a chance in hell of winning.

Here's my breakdown on the issues. [It's long.]

Immigration: Everybody's shitting their pants over immigrants, and I couldn't care less, because most of the people that are hysterical about immigrants can't tell an illegal immigrant from a legal immigrant from somebody whose family has been here for 4 generations and just happens to be brown. Not only that, they're ignoring all the white, American-born lazyasses that are just as much of a drain on the welfare system as immigrants supposedly are--and they're ignoring all the immigrants who ARE getting an education and ARE trying to learn English and ARE collecting a paycheck instead of a government check. Additionally, most of the immigrant-related information that gets people's BVD's in a knot is third and fourth hand information that they got from their drinking buddies, who got it from their dental hygienist, who got it from her half-deaf grandma, who got it from a conversation she overheard in the checkout line at Hy-Vee. If you gave people a quiz on what benefits and perks immigrants actually get, and under what circumstances, I bet 90% of people would flunk. I would too, but at least I don't pretend I'm an expert on it.

I also won't pretend illegal immigration isn't a problem, or that there aren't people who think the US owes them a free monthly check just because we happen to have more money. And I think we do have an obligation to spread around the wealth, but we also have to fix the problems that make our own cost of living so high. But nobody gives a shit about that. They just wanna run around waving their arms and going "OMFG TEH DAM MEXICANS OMFG@!!!!!!@@!$#!!" Fine, you histrionic fuck, if you don't want 'em here, run for office and get them kicked out. Or knock them out, put them in your truck, and drive them home. Or find out which office you're supposed to report illegal immigrants to, and report them. But don't come crying to ME about it, because I do not work for the INS, I do not hold public office, and I can't do Jack W. Shit III about it. And frankly, if I was living in some of those countries, I'd be breaking a leg trying to get here too. And so would you. It's really easy to tell people "go back to your country and deal with your own problems" when you don't live there and will never have to. Just can it.

Abortion: Holy balls, where do I start? Who can you even vote for on this that's actually gonna take a stand? The Republicans don't want women to have abortions, they don't want them to have birth control, they don't want them to have sex ed. They don't want them to have sex, period, unless they're married--and then they better STAY married, because we all know that a loveless cheating hubby who brings home STD's or a violent bastard who flings his kids across the room is better than no daddy at all, right? And the Democrats just lick the majority's boots and offer them bonbons. Why? Well, remember what happened to Paul Wellstone? Yeah. Accident, my ass.

Not only that, some of the procedures they're so hot to ban are commonly used to save women's lives or to remove dead fetuses. Carry a dead baby around in your uterus for a month or two and then get back to me on partial-birth abortion. Or, if your hormones are making you severely depressed, just deal with it. Pray, maybe. Take some antidepressants for it. Oh, wait, those cause birth defects. Well, I guess you're just not supposed to get depressed. What, your birth control failed and you can't afford a kid? Too bad, so sad. Better that you [and any other kids you may have] starve, rather than murder an innocent...uh, bundle of cells with no functioning nervous system. [Oh, it has a soul? Really? I'm sorry, I didn't get the "America is a Christian theocracy" memo. Because that's, like, the only religion that believes the soul-at-conception thing.]

It's your own fault for not being celibate and refraining from sin. Unless you were married. Then if you don't spread for your husband you're inflicting emotional distress on him [because YOU should be able to be celibate, but that's just too much to ask of him]. Then children are a blessing, right, because everybody in America makes enough money to cover the $10K a year it takes to raise a child. And everybody wants a kid and has the patience and the emotional resources to raise one without damaging it. Everybody that's worth anything, anyway. Because, you know, if you're poor, it's because you're a worthless lazy bum. It can't possibly be because you get paid so little that you can't get ahead [either by working more hours or by continuing your education while you work] without driving yourself into the ground and ending up seriously ill, which will ruin you financially for the rest of your life. Nope. That never happens. And if you're mentally ill or have health problems, you're somehow supposed to magically rise above it like those people in the Reader's Digest articles that lost a leg and got lupus and still managed to raise four kids and take them to Sunday school every week or whatever.

Again, nobody gives a crap, least of all the politicians, who if they're really interested in preserving choice, will introduce legislation that will be shouted down as enabling welfare queens and baby-killers.

Education: I REALLY don't know where to start here. All I know is, I'm happy to pay taxes for schools, because education is obviously very important and the kids sitting in social studies class now are going to be the same people who take care of me when I'm in the nursing home. So I only have two issues with that:

1] If I and everybody else are paying taxes to fund schools, why is everybody leaving school so stupid? I feel like my money's being wasted. Should we be spending more? Should we be spending it differently? I really don't see how cutting music classes and diverting it to football helps any of these kids get smarter.

2] If I'm paying taxes to fund schools and state-run child assistance programs, and to pick up the budget slack caused by family tax credits, stop trying to smack me down every time I express a child-related opinion, just because I don't have kids. I'm sick of being treated like I'm a total retard in the kid department. Pushing a baby out your hoo-ha doesn't make you Jean Piaget. True, raising kids is an excellent way to learn about kids--probably the best. But BEING a kid also teaches you about them. READING about children teaches you about them. [I can hear it now: "Books aren't a substitute for experience." So Dr. Spock was basically just pissing in the wind when he wrote all those landmark child-development books. Shut up.] I WAS a kid. I went to school for 13 years with kids. I played with kids the whole time I was growing up. I continue to read about education and child development so I can understand them and understand people in general. What's more, I pay in full the taxes that YOU get credits on, I helped pay for the schools they go to and the teachers that teach them, I am helping fund your goddamn kids, so don't you DARE tell me I can't so much as have an opinion about them. And I don't have to be a parent myself to call somebody a shitty parent, any more than I have to be a pro football player to know the Vikes suck, so you can cram that too.

Gay marriage: Why does anybody care? I mean, really. What is it to you if gays get married? So maybe you think it's a sin to be gay. Since when does your religion dictate policy? And I have yet to hear a coherent, rational explanation for how exactly gay marriage destroys the institution of marriage. And even if it did, I'm supposed to care...why, exactly? If the institution of marriage is so fragile that letting Joe and Brad go down the aisle together is gonna destroy it, how much was it really worth in the first place? No, this isn't about preserving anybody's marriage. It's about the fact that allowing gay marriage takes us one step farther away from America becoming a Christian theocracy.

The economy: I don't even have an answer to that. I don't know what would work or whose policies would be better. All I know is, rich people don't need any more goddamn breaks. If they would actually invest it in ways that would help everybody--if trickle-down economics worked--I'd feel differently. But they don't spend a lot of it helping the rest of us, do they? Oh, some do; some care quite a bit. But not many care enough to forgo their giant house and expensive car for a normal house and car, and invest or give away the excess. I'd love there to be a cap on how much you can own. But as long as rich people run the government, it's never gonna happen.

Gun control: I don't own a gun, so it's not a personal issue for me. If somebody told me I could never have a gun, I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep. I think letting the assault weapons ban lapse was a huge mistake, but as for allowing people to have handguns, I agree with the idea that responsible people should be allowed to have them for self-defense. The issue comes in deciding who's responsible enough, and that's where you get arguments over whether mentally ill people, minor drug offenders, or other groups should have handguns. I don't know enough about it to know. If it was something I felt strongly about, I'd make more of an effort to keep informed, but I don't, so.

Crime: This is something I do know more about, and something I probably rant about too much. It's also something about which I am in vehement disagreement with a lot of the legislature and other citizens. Without getting into a big thing about the rights of the accused or of convicts [thus sidestepping the common "They gave up their rights when they committed a crime, what bout the victims' rights?" issue]--the simple fact is, putting people in prison doesn't deter crime any better than putting them on probation. The recidivism rate is the same. Longer sentences and harsher prison conditions leave prisoners less psychologically equipped to lead a straight life once they get out. And if you're going to piss and moan about having to pay for their room and board, you better be expecting to let them out.

And that's the problem. To the American people, I have to ask: What do you want to do, shoot everybody who commits a crime? If you give them short sentences or parole and they reoffend, you bitch that they should've been locked up longer. If you give them longer sentences, then you bitch that they're getting a free ride at the taxpayer's expense. If the prisons are nice and clean and humane, you bitch that they have too many privileges that law-abiding citizens don't have. If the prisons are brutal, the inmates come out more brutal than when they went in, are more likely to reoffend, and then you bitch that they weren't rehabilitated. If they're sentenced to life without parole, you bitch that they should be executed so you don't have to pay for them. If they're sentenced to death, you bitch about how long and expensive the appeals process is. You fuckers are never happy, are you? Is there some other option that you see besides just executing everybody that's convicted, without appeal? Because that's the only other option I see. And if you do that, very few crimes will be punished at all, because nobody will want to sentence somebody to death for getting too many speeding tickets, so the cops will just look the other way.

No. What it comes down to is, you don't care what actually works. You're more interested in getting your little punishment-gasm than you are in actually reducing crime. Longer sentences don't reduce crime. The death penalty doesn't reduce crime. Greater police presence--when it DOES reduce crime in one area--just causes it to shift to other areas. You keep voting people into office who claim they're gonna be tough on crime. But the laws they pass that are supposedly tough on crime DON'T FUCKING WORK. Never mind whether it's fair to the prisoner, or whether they're getting too many privileges or not enough, or any of that. THE SHIT DOESN'T WORK. Why do you keep electing people who get up there and say, "I'm gonna pass a law that does X" when there are decades of criminology research and case studies that prove X doesn't fucking work???

You wanna reduce crime? The first thing you need to do is get over your macho idea that being tougher on criminals is the way to reduce it, and that things like probation and restorative justice are for sissies. The next thing you need to do is what you should have been doing since the first day you, as an adult voter, started bitching about the criminal justice system: educate yourself on what actually reduces crime, and only elect those officials who are willing to do what works. You want it changed, you make it happen. You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when somebody gets punished for doing something awful? Admit it. Allow yourself to have it. It's human. But DO NOT ask your elected leaders to make justice policy based on your emotions. Your emotions are important, but they're not a substitute for reason; and no matter how much you want to see so&so go to the chair, sending him there doesn't help anybody. In fact, a capital trial + execution costs several times more than a non-capital trial + life imprisonment, so you just cost yourself and the other taxpayers a shitload of unnecessary money, all so you could say "good riddance." I hope you're happy.

You're so goddamn worried where your tax dollars go in terms of crime prevention, remember this: The recidivism rates for prison and probation are similar--probation's is actually a bit lower. Prison costs SIX TO TEN TIMES what probation costs. People do sometimes commit crimes while on probation, but they do it while in prison too--not just crimes against other prisoners and guards, but against society. There are many instances of people running drug rings or other criminal enterprises from behind bars. All you need is somebody on the outside to be your liaison and preferably a guard or two who's willing to look the other way for a small fee. And probation with electronic monitoring provides almost as much surveillance as prison, without the room and board cost, and while it's more expensive than traditional probation, it's still several times cheaper than prison.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Which reminds me...

Smoking bans: Totally in favour of them. There are days when I have some sympathy for smokers, and I really would like them to have decent, well-ventilated places to smoke where they're not going to be bothering anybody. Then I smell somebody's smoke, and after one or two whiffs of it I can feel the tissues inside my head swelling up with an oncoming migraine. I know if I hang around it long enough, I will end up with a sinus infection and possibly an ear infection as well, from the mucous membrane irritation. That really puts a damper on my sympathy, and by the time I make it home and take an Imitrex [there are migraine-prevention meds, but the side effects are too much for me, and they still don't prevent the sinus infections], I hate every last puffing one of them. Which makes me feel bad, because I have friends who smoke. They know I don't mean it personally [I hope]. But man, I gotta live too. Sorry.

Environment: Again, I'm no expert on the environment, but I just gotta ask: Of all the above issues I mentioned, do you really think any of them are gonna matter if we don't have a decent planet to live on? What good is it gonna do to argue about school funding if the kids all have cancer and developmental disorders from environmental chemicals? What good is it gonna do to argue about jobs if nobody can work because they're all sick? What good is it gonna do to debate subsidies for farmers and fishermen if none of the damn land is arable anymore and there are no more fish left? Answer that and then get back to me on how important the environment is.

Man. Ask me about politics, see what ya get, right? This got a lot longer and a lot bitchier than I expected. But I stand by it because it's how I think and feel.

So.

sbt/sbc