Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Obama Can Go Fuck Himself
I've liberated this entire Salon.com article.
Obama’s woman problem
The president shamefully uses his daughters to justify limiting the healthcare options of America's young women
BY REBECCA TRAISTER
AP/Carolyn Kaster/Salon
TOPICS:
Gender RolesBirth Control
When will Barack Obama learn how to talk thoughtfully about women, women’s health and women’s rights?
Apparently, not today.
On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius unexpectedly overruled the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation that emergency contraception be sold on drugstore shelves and made available without a prescription to women under the age of 17. The move came as a surprise blow to healthcare and women’s rights activists, the kinds of people regularly counted as supporters of the Obama administration.
Today, Obama doubled down on his disregard for the concerns of these groups, claiming that while Sebelius made her decision without his counsel, he agreed with it. Obama pooh-poohed the findings of the FDA, which had concluded that Plan B pills posed no medical hazard and supported Sebelius’ official argument, citing a lack of confidence that “a 10-year-old or 11-year-old going to a drugstore would be able to, alongside bubble gum or batteries, be able to buy a medication that potentially if not used properly can have an adverse effect.” The logic expressed today by the president, and yesterday by Sebelius, is ludicrous: Medicines like Tylenol – which have been proven to have adverse effects in high doses – are available by the truckload on drugstore shelves, at prices far cheaper than the $30 to $50 it would cost a preteen to purchase just one dose of Plan B, let alone go wild with it.
But part of what was most disturbing about Obama’s statement was his reliance on language that reveals his paternalistic approach to women and their health.
“As the father of two daughters,” Obama told reporters, “I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine.”
First of all, the president was not talking about “various rules.” He was supporting a very specific rule, one that prevents young women from easily obtaining a drug that can help them control their reproductive lives, at an age when their economic, educational, familial and professional futures are perhaps most at risk of being derailed by an unplanned pregnancy. “As the father of two daughters,” Obama might want to reconsider his position on preventing young women from being able to exercise this form of responsibility over their own bodies and lives.
But as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of “Father Knows Best” reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang.
A question of who should be allowed access to a safe form of contraception is at its root a question of how badly we want to, or believe that we can, police young women’s sexuality. When Obama is talking about his daughters, we know he’s not really basing his opinion on an anxiety that they might suffer the adverse effects of drinking a whole jug of Pepto-Bismol or swallowing 50 Advil, things that any 11-year-old who walks into a CVS with a wad of cash could theoretically do. When he says that he wants to “apply common sense” to questions of young women’s access to emergency contraception, he is telegraphing his discomfort with the idea of young women’s sexual agency, or more simply, with the idea of them having sex lives at all. This discomfort might be comprehensible from an emotional, parental point of view. But these are not familial discussions; this is a public-health policy debate, and at a time when “16 and Pregnant” airs on MTV, the fact that a daddy feels funny about his little girls becoming grown-ups has no place in a discussion of healthcare options for America’s young women. It is also nearly impossible to imagine a similar use of language or logic to justify a ban of condom sales.
Moreover, Obama’s invocation of his role as a father is an insult to the commitments and priorities of those on the other side of this issue. Are we to believe that those who support the increased availability of emergency contraception do not have daughters? That if they do, they care less about those daughters than Barack Obama does about his? And that if they do not, they cannot possibly know better than a father of daughters what is best for young women? Why should we be asked to believe that Obama’s paternity imbues him with more moral authority on the subject of women’s health and reproductive lives than the investments of doctors, researchers and advocates who – regardless of their parental status – have dedicated their lives to working on behalf of increased reproductive health options. This line of argument is no better than the Mama Grizzly argument developed by Sarah Palin during 2010′s midterm elections, in which she asserted that her band of super-conservative mothers were qualified for office because “moms just know when there’s something wrong.”
Barack Obama has long had a tin ear for language that has anything to do with women and even more specifically with women’s rights. While on the campaign trail for president in 2008, he waved off a female reporter who asked a question about the future of the auto industry, referring to her diminutively as “sweetie.” The same year, attempting to play both sides on the issue of reproductive freedom, he gave an interview with a religious magazine in which he asserted his support for states’ restrictions on late-term abortions as long as there was an exception for the health of the mother, but added that he didn’t “think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother.” Attempting to recover from that line and reassert his pro-choice bona fides, Obama later clarified that of course he believed in a medical exemption for “serious clinical mental health diseases,” just not when seeking a late-term abortion is “a matter of feeling blue,” perpetuating a wildly irresponsible vision of the rare and difficult late-term abortion as a moody impulse-buy.
Today also isn’t the first time he’s used references to members of his family to make a larger offensive point about women. Back in 2009, when charges that his officially female-friendly administration included some boys’ club tendencies hit the front of the New York Times, Obama dismissed the claims as “bunk.” Reporter Mark Leibovich noted at the time that the president “often points out that he is surrounded by strong females at home,” an argument that not only mimics an old saw about how being henpecked by women is equivalent to respecting them, but reflects a dynamic as old as patriarchal power itself and sidesteps the question of how strong females are treated at work. In 2010, while appearing on “The View,” Obama made a creaky Take-My-Wife-Please joke about how he wanted to appear on “a show that Michelle actually watched” as opposed to the news shows she usually flips past. The joke being that his missus, the one he met when she mentored him at a high-powered law firm, just doesn’t have a head for news delivered by anyone other than Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
It should no longer come as a surprise that the president of the United States is, on perhaps an unconscious level, an old-school patriarch. What’s startling is the degree to which Obama seems not to have learned from any of his past gaffes, how no one seems to have told him – or told him in a way that he’s absorbed – that the best way to address a question of women’s health and rights is probably not by making it about his role as a father.
This might be an especially valuable chat to have with the president as he moves into 2012 and toward an election in which he is going to be relying on the support of people he has just managed to anger, offend and speak down to — women. The least he could do is learn to address them with respect.
Obama’s woman problem
The president shamefully uses his daughters to justify limiting the healthcare options of America's young women
BY REBECCA TRAISTER
AP/Carolyn Kaster/Salon
TOPICS:
Gender RolesBirth Control
When will Barack Obama learn how to talk thoughtfully about women, women’s health and women’s rights?
Apparently, not today.
On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius unexpectedly overruled the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation that emergency contraception be sold on drugstore shelves and made available without a prescription to women under the age of 17. The move came as a surprise blow to healthcare and women’s rights activists, the kinds of people regularly counted as supporters of the Obama administration.
Today, Obama doubled down on his disregard for the concerns of these groups, claiming that while Sebelius made her decision without his counsel, he agreed with it. Obama pooh-poohed the findings of the FDA, which had concluded that Plan B pills posed no medical hazard and supported Sebelius’ official argument, citing a lack of confidence that “a 10-year-old or 11-year-old going to a drugstore would be able to, alongside bubble gum or batteries, be able to buy a medication that potentially if not used properly can have an adverse effect.” The logic expressed today by the president, and yesterday by Sebelius, is ludicrous: Medicines like Tylenol – which have been proven to have adverse effects in high doses – are available by the truckload on drugstore shelves, at prices far cheaper than the $30 to $50 it would cost a preteen to purchase just one dose of Plan B, let alone go wild with it.
But part of what was most disturbing about Obama’s statement was his reliance on language that reveals his paternalistic approach to women and their health.
“As the father of two daughters,” Obama told reporters, “I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine.”
First of all, the president was not talking about “various rules.” He was supporting a very specific rule, one that prevents young women from easily obtaining a drug that can help them control their reproductive lives, at an age when their economic, educational, familial and professional futures are perhaps most at risk of being derailed by an unplanned pregnancy. “As the father of two daughters,” Obama might want to reconsider his position on preventing young women from being able to exercise this form of responsibility over their own bodies and lives.
But as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of “Father Knows Best” reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang.
A question of who should be allowed access to a safe form of contraception is at its root a question of how badly we want to, or believe that we can, police young women’s sexuality. When Obama is talking about his daughters, we know he’s not really basing his opinion on an anxiety that they might suffer the adverse effects of drinking a whole jug of Pepto-Bismol or swallowing 50 Advil, things that any 11-year-old who walks into a CVS with a wad of cash could theoretically do. When he says that he wants to “apply common sense” to questions of young women’s access to emergency contraception, he is telegraphing his discomfort with the idea of young women’s sexual agency, or more simply, with the idea of them having sex lives at all. This discomfort might be comprehensible from an emotional, parental point of view. But these are not familial discussions; this is a public-health policy debate, and at a time when “16 and Pregnant” airs on MTV, the fact that a daddy feels funny about his little girls becoming grown-ups has no place in a discussion of healthcare options for America’s young women. It is also nearly impossible to imagine a similar use of language or logic to justify a ban of condom sales.
Moreover, Obama’s invocation of his role as a father is an insult to the commitments and priorities of those on the other side of this issue. Are we to believe that those who support the increased availability of emergency contraception do not have daughters? That if they do, they care less about those daughters than Barack Obama does about his? And that if they do not, they cannot possibly know better than a father of daughters what is best for young women? Why should we be asked to believe that Obama’s paternity imbues him with more moral authority on the subject of women’s health and reproductive lives than the investments of doctors, researchers and advocates who – regardless of their parental status – have dedicated their lives to working on behalf of increased reproductive health options. This line of argument is no better than the Mama Grizzly argument developed by Sarah Palin during 2010′s midterm elections, in which she asserted that her band of super-conservative mothers were qualified for office because “moms just know when there’s something wrong.”
Barack Obama has long had a tin ear for language that has anything to do with women and even more specifically with women’s rights. While on the campaign trail for president in 2008, he waved off a female reporter who asked a question about the future of the auto industry, referring to her diminutively as “sweetie.” The same year, attempting to play both sides on the issue of reproductive freedom, he gave an interview with a religious magazine in which he asserted his support for states’ restrictions on late-term abortions as long as there was an exception for the health of the mother, but added that he didn’t “think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother.” Attempting to recover from that line and reassert his pro-choice bona fides, Obama later clarified that of course he believed in a medical exemption for “serious clinical mental health diseases,” just not when seeking a late-term abortion is “a matter of feeling blue,” perpetuating a wildly irresponsible vision of the rare and difficult late-term abortion as a moody impulse-buy.
Today also isn’t the first time he’s used references to members of his family to make a larger offensive point about women. Back in 2009, when charges that his officially female-friendly administration included some boys’ club tendencies hit the front of the New York Times, Obama dismissed the claims as “bunk.” Reporter Mark Leibovich noted at the time that the president “often points out that he is surrounded by strong females at home,” an argument that not only mimics an old saw about how being henpecked by women is equivalent to respecting them, but reflects a dynamic as old as patriarchal power itself and sidesteps the question of how strong females are treated at work. In 2010, while appearing on “The View,” Obama made a creaky Take-My-Wife-Please joke about how he wanted to appear on “a show that Michelle actually watched” as opposed to the news shows she usually flips past. The joke being that his missus, the one he met when she mentored him at a high-powered law firm, just doesn’t have a head for news delivered by anyone other than Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
It should no longer come as a surprise that the president of the United States is, on perhaps an unconscious level, an old-school patriarch. What’s startling is the degree to which Obama seems not to have learned from any of his past gaffes, how no one seems to have told him – or told him in a way that he’s absorbed – that the best way to address a question of women’s health and rights is probably not by making it about his role as a father.
This might be an especially valuable chat to have with the president as he moves into 2012 and toward an election in which he is going to be relying on the support of people he has just managed to anger, offend and speak down to — women. The least he could do is learn to address them with respect.
Lonely shot
These cheap camera apps for iPhone are pretty cool.
Yep. It's Saturday afternoon and I'm drinkin n shootin.
Alone and lonely is no way to welcome the holiday break. Oh sure, I can visit people or they can visit me. But at the end of the day I go to bed alone and wake up alone.
Lonely.
All the artificial cheer I managed to scrape together earlier this week has disappeared.
Poof.
Yep. It's Saturday afternoon and I'm drinkin n shootin.
Alone and lonely is no way to welcome the holiday break. Oh sure, I can visit people or they can visit me. But at the end of the day I go to bed alone and wake up alone.
Lonely.
All the artificial cheer I managed to scrape together earlier this week has disappeared.
Poof.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Holidays
Ahhhhhhhhh. Off contract for one whole month.
But being the dedicated employee that I am, I'll be going in on Monday to tidy up some dread paperwork.
A trip to New Orleans and Clarksdale, MS awaits, followed by a jaunt to good ol Clute to spend Xmas with the damn fam.
Then my handsome man comes for an extended visit to baby me while I heal from gall bladder extraction.
We're planning to stage a West Wing marathon. Never watched it. Can't wait.
And here's the fur baby, a curled bundle of warmth and perpetual cuteness:
But being the dedicated employee that I am, I'll be going in on Monday to tidy up some dread paperwork.
A trip to New Orleans and Clarksdale, MS awaits, followed by a jaunt to good ol Clute to spend Xmas with the damn fam.
Then my handsome man comes for an extended visit to baby me while I heal from gall bladder extraction.
We're planning to stage a West Wing marathon. Never watched it. Can't wait.
And here's the fur baby, a curled bundle of warmth and perpetual cuteness:
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Hepatic Adenomas
Yeah I had to look it up, too.
It's what I have on my liver. Good news is its not cancer, theyre benign tumors, but if they don't recede or get larger, I might have to get them surgically removed.
Fucking birth control pills. Just another thing women do to their bodies to make things easier for the sexy sex. Goddammit.
Well, here's hoping they recede!
Oh, and the MRI reconfirmed gall stones. "A large burden of stones" in fact. I'm now taking bets on how many jelly beans are in the jar! Winner will receive a stuffed squirrel from my private collection.
It's what I have on my liver. Good news is its not cancer, theyre benign tumors, but if they don't recede or get larger, I might have to get them surgically removed.
Fucking birth control pills. Just another thing women do to their bodies to make things easier for the sexy sex. Goddammit.
Well, here's hoping they recede!
Oh, and the MRI reconfirmed gall stones. "A large burden of stones" in fact. I'm now taking bets on how many jelly beans are in the jar! Winner will receive a stuffed squirrel from my private collection.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Soylent Heat is People!
UK Crematorium May Sell Heat From Body Furnaces To National Grid
Bringing new meaning to the term "body heat," a UK crematorium is hoping to make some extra cash by selling energy produced during the cremation...
Bringing new meaning to the term "body heat," a UK crematorium is hoping to make some extra cash by selling energy produced during the cremation...
Pissing Contest
Oh boys. They will be boys. Why am I not surprised that the Japanese already have this? Toylets.
Pee-To-Play Video Game At Toilets In Bar
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/urine-powered-video-game-_n_1117240.html?ref=weird-news
Reading in the john is about to get some competition as a favorite bathroom activity now that there's a new way to play video games....
Sent from my iPhone
Pee-To-Play Video Game At Toilets In Bar
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/urine-powered-video-game-_n_1117240.html?ref=weird-news
Reading in the john is about to get some competition as a favorite bathroom activity now that there's a new way to play video games....
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, November 28, 2011
Stick It In
Going in for an MRI tomorrow. Apparently I'm following in my mom's, sister's, and niece's footsteps of setting up a stone manufacturing facility in my gall bladder. But something else showed up on the gloop-laden ultrasound.
Four spots on my liver.
Dr says its "probably nothing" but that slight reassurance does nothing to slow down my internal anxiety response which automatically imagines the worst.
Just as I'm trying to move on in life, just as I'm starting to figure out what I want, just as I gingerly test out this whole "being alone" thing - there's a sucky medical road bump that has thrown me emotionally and mentally off course.
It doesn't help that I'm constantly hungry and eating like a pregnant horse and so have gained weight back that I worked months to lose.
And speaking of pregnant, anyone care to guess how many piss and/or blood tests I'll have to take between now and the gall bladder extraction date? I had three bun in the oven tests before the tonsillectomy a few years back. NO BREAD.
Maybe it'll make a difference that the only ejaculator I'm currently fucking was snipped long ago...?
We'll see. Yay. Needles. Stick it in.
Four spots on my liver.
Dr says its "probably nothing" but that slight reassurance does nothing to slow down my internal anxiety response which automatically imagines the worst.
Just as I'm trying to move on in life, just as I'm starting to figure out what I want, just as I gingerly test out this whole "being alone" thing - there's a sucky medical road bump that has thrown me emotionally and mentally off course.
It doesn't help that I'm constantly hungry and eating like a pregnant horse and so have gained weight back that I worked months to lose.
And speaking of pregnant, anyone care to guess how many piss and/or blood tests I'll have to take between now and the gall bladder extraction date? I had three bun in the oven tests before the tonsillectomy a few years back. NO BREAD.
Maybe it'll make a difference that the only ejaculator I'm currently fucking was snipped long ago...?
We'll see. Yay. Needles. Stick it in.
Don't Touch Me
I'll admit it. Sometimes I will touch a patron lightly on the arm. This physical gesture is meant to reassure them that they can take control over their search, but if they need more help I'm ... right over here. Just holler.
But when a patron touches me? HELL NO.
Middle-aged woman stroked my arm tonight after asking me how old I was. Apparently I don't look old enough to have been "doing this for 16 years" - "this" being showing patrons how to perform basic searches for quality resources.
I'm not here to indulge your personal interests, stories, or proclivities. Keep your goddamned hands to yourself.
But when a patron touches me? HELL NO.
Middle-aged woman stroked my arm tonight after asking me how old I was. Apparently I don't look old enough to have been "doing this for 16 years" - "this" being showing patrons how to perform basic searches for quality resources.
I'm not here to indulge your personal interests, stories, or proclivities. Keep your goddamned hands to yourself.
BITCH IS BACK
It's been a tumultuous year fraught with difficulty and excitement and cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.
I have not blogged for one year.
Well, check this shit out:
Found in front of an apt bldg in NYC, the squirrel represents industriousness. And perpetual cuteness. I have been living up to those two characteristics quite well in the last year:
Moved out of my house. Traveled over half of California and up to Oregon. Worked like a dog. Relabeled myself as a girlfriend. Started therapy. Got my ears pierced. Wore a lot of dresses. Led the establishment of an AAUP chapter at my school. Trained. Taught. Assessed. Reported. Bought a bike. Bought a tennis racket. Cried a lot. Met Jim Hightower, Dan Rather, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Mike Peters, Junior Brown, and Lorne Michaels. Saw Carolyn Wonderland, Martina McBride, Dolly Parton, and Hugh fucking Jackman on Broadway. Became even closer with my friends. Started keeping both tequila and gin on the premises and holy crap I know how to make the BEST margarita.
It's been challenging but good adjusting to living alone. But I'm lonely. We'll see what the future holds.
I have not blogged for one year.
Well, check this shit out:
Found in front of an apt bldg in NYC, the squirrel represents industriousness. And perpetual cuteness. I have been living up to those two characteristics quite well in the last year:
Moved out of my house. Traveled over half of California and up to Oregon. Worked like a dog. Relabeled myself as a girlfriend. Started therapy. Got my ears pierced. Wore a lot of dresses. Led the establishment of an AAUP chapter at my school. Trained. Taught. Assessed. Reported. Bought a bike. Bought a tennis racket. Cried a lot. Met Jim Hightower, Dan Rather, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Mike Peters, Junior Brown, and Lorne Michaels. Saw Carolyn Wonderland, Martina McBride, Dolly Parton, and Hugh fucking Jackman on Broadway. Became even closer with my friends. Started keeping both tequila and gin on the premises and holy crap I know how to make the BEST margarita.
It's been challenging but good adjusting to living alone. But I'm lonely. We'll see what the future holds.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wanted: Navel Gazers
Yeah, well, I've been busy. Things are fucked up beyond belief at work, home, and well...everywhere. Not much time for navel gazing lately. Actually, that's not entirely true. I have been steadily peering into the place where I was snipped and tied. I just haven't been writing about it. Can't promise to change, but maybe I will.
Oh I wish the world would do
What I wanted it to
And I wish the wind would blow me
Blow me back to you
Oh I wish the world would do
What I wanted it to
And I wish the wind would blow me
Blow me back to you
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