You've probably heard, if you are paying attention, about the murder of Trayvon Martin. Oh, the cops are calling it "self defense" and letting his murderer walk free. It's in that racist cesspit Florida, after all.

Now go read this: The Crime of Being Black: Trayvon Martin and the Everyday Reality of Racist Violence in America

Think about this the next time you get twitchy about seeing a black or latino teenager just meandering down the street. He's just a kid, with as much right to walk around in public as any adult. Wearing a hoodie, hood up or down, isn't a fucking criminal act, damnit.

Hell, if you meet a kid wandering down the street, meet his eye, smile, say hi or wave. He's your neighbor, and has a right to be there, just like you.

As in "your doctor should respect your womb integrity," (ie not be willing to remove it if you have fibroids) "or you should get a new doctor."

I'm sorry, but that is so breeder-centric, woman-as-baby-machine, psuedo-feminist claptrap that it makes me sick. Like a sane 40 some old year old woman is going to be obsessed with being able to bear children, "because that's her whole life, all she's meant for, if you take that away she has nothing" bullshit?

Nearly every woman I know hates menstruating, hates being chained to an expensive and messy set of feminine supplies, hates the prob associated with hormonal birth control, does not want to be defined as a walking "womb" and the only reason they don't want menopause is because of the other crap that goes with the hormone loss. This is even women who've had kids.

I've had a hist, I was thrilled. The ovaries remain, they were unaffected by the fibriods, there was no cancer. I am pleased as hell that my doctor didn't give me a lot of "but you could still have kiiids" crap at over 40. Sure, some folks do, but I think they're slightly nuts.

Yeah, I get the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it", which is why I wasn't seeking a hist at 20. But if it's broke? If it's causing pain, anemia and may be cancerous or pre-cancerous? Don't do a half-assed job of fixing the problem (D&C), and have to come back and do it again in 5 - 10 years.

Seriously "womb integrity??" How about quality of life, overall? How about me as a person, not me as a host for a fucking "womb". Should my doctor also have been respectful of my "appendix integrity" when it was about to burst? I don't think so! But because it involves producing children, it suddenly becomes *more* important than my health or comfort? It's now a sacred "womb". They can fuck that shit with a rusty chainsaw.

Every woman, whether she is a parent or not, is much, much more than just a potential producer of children. Her integrity as a person, her health and happiness, are far more important than her "womb integrity". It doesn't get a fucking say, it doesn't define her.

Don't fucking define women by the presence or functionality of a uterus. It's just wrong.

If you cause my phone to detonate at 06:30 my time, I will probably not answer it. At least you had better hope I can't claw the mask from my face and fumble for the phone fast enough, because you'll get an earful. Civilized people don't call a residence before 8 am local unless by prior arrangement.

When you leave me a semi-incomprehensible message? Don't expect a return call, you wouldn't like it if I called you back.

- The now very, VERY cranky person you woke up 2 hours too early after she got to bed at 3:30 am.

Fucker. I actually was sleeping, well, and he ruined it.

Go read When "minor" and "devestating" are used in the same sentence. I'll wait.

The most brutal part:

"
They called it a minor stroke...but the results were devastating.

However they found that both arteries feeding the brain stem were either partially or almost fully blocked and the decision was made to place stents into those arteries and restore flow to that part of the brain. Some of the tissue was already dead from lack of blood flow and oxygen.

The stents were the main plan of attack...

Until they found she was uninsured." (italics mine)

Yes, they could treat it in a jiffy, fix it all up, IF ONLY SHE HAD INSURANCE. But she worked for a NON-PROFIT, and was in the retirement gap, so was UNINSURED. So now, this person who has worked to help people without computers get them, may just DIE OF A TREATABLE STROKE BECAUSE SHE LACKS INSURANCE OR THE MONEY TO PAY FOR IT!!

THAT IS WHAT THE CORPORATIST GOP AND THE TEA PARTY HAS BROUGHT THIS COUNTRY TO!

Is this America? If you aren't a rich stockbroker, or in the service of one*, you don't deserve to live? Is this how far we've fallen?

This woman isn't eligible for Medicare, and now the GOP wants to make Medicare harder to get, so more people just end up waiting to die of treatable conditions.

I guess that's better than starving due to the cuts in Social Security that they want to make, so that people my age don't get back what we've paid in to all of our working lives. Oh, yeah, we were supposed to save "enough" out of our ever-shrinking wages to invest in the great Ponzi SchemeStock Market in 401(k)s. (Mine have all shrunk over the last ten years, unless I literally added boatloads of cash I couldn't afford.) I bet our corporatist overlords will be happy to import melamine contaminated dog food for us to eat so we die and are out of their hair even quicker. After all, a slave who can't work should be put out of their misery, right?

FUCK THE TEA PARTY AND THE GOP WITH A WAD OF C-NOTES FOLDED UNTIL IT'S ALL CORNERS

* Corporate wage slaves are by definition in the service of the rich stockbrokers who own, buy and sell their employer's stock.

No one in the valley except banks gets it off. After all, our competitors in India don't care. Global economy, blah, blah.

I never served. I won't pretend I did. But a very large number of my friends have. This post is for them.

I've watched our people and our own government pay no more than lip service in respect to their service for all of my life. We show our veterans less real, tangible respect in terms of remuneration and physical care now than we did after Vietnam! Yeah, when it comes time to court the veteran vote, they make the damned promises for pensions and funding and yadda yadda. They spout what they think that the white-bread 'Middle American" wants to hear - but forget how much of our service is not that privileged demographic of white, male protestants. (Yes, I know they try to make them all protestant, in violation of the 1st Amendment, but they can't change the rest.)

I ask you, is Veterans Day and Memorial Day the only time you think of the people who work for the citizens of this country, in high risk, demanding, and often futile occupations while directed by political hacks who never learned to tie their own shoes properly? Or do you think of the stupidity every time you hear "When Johny Comes Marching Home" and things like that? How about every time you see a homeless person?

Our military is not there for political adventurism, corporate protection rackets, and religious crusades. It's not in the damned charter (you know, that pesky Constitution that Washington, especially the GOP, loves to ignore when it suits them.) But it keeps getting used that way. Dirty, secret wars, "police actions", etc, all fucking excuses for wars without plans or ends, and justified long past the point of ludicrousness with the "sunk costs" fallacy.

We have a "volunteer" military - well, as "volunteer" as it can be in the depth of a recession when it is probably the career of last resort (serve or starve?) for a lot of young people. I guess dismantling the safety net is one way to guarantee a steady supply of recruits. Severely restricting birth control and abortion is another.

The obvious one is the whole "Stop Loss" and perpetual redeployments of service members with head trauma and PTSD. I guess it's OK if they have a pulse when they get over to the theatre, if they commit suicide they can just chalk it up to "enemy action", right? The brass must be really pissed when they get hit but don't die - then they have to spend a little money, but only for a few years, taking care of their injuries. Then they throw them back onto the streets, used up and burned out.

23% of the homeless population are veterans (link), yet only ~ 7.5% of the US population is veterans. That's right, military service means you're 3 times as likely to end up homeless! Some thanks, and some great pension, eh? Yet the first place they trim the military budget is in VA benefits, not in corporate procurement deals - can't let those fat stock portfolios drop, eh?

The ex-military guys can just get a job, right - oh, wait, they've all been outsourced to China, who really won the cold war. But the Tea party whackos don't want you to take any of their money, they stoleearned it fair and square on the blood of those who fought for them.

The social contract that fueled the rise of this country to the political and economic powerhouse has been destroyed. The selling out of our veterans into homelessness and neglect started with Reagan *spit*, and is a symptom of a broader disease - the "I got mine, fuck everyone else who made it possible" syndrome.

You want to thank veterans? IMO, work to change our society back to one that makes sure that they are properly cared for and compensated for risking their lives for us, not just given lip service a few days a year and shafted the rest of the time.

Cartoon: Street Harassment

Now you know why I don't walk for exercise, why I prefer to drive rather than take transit, and why I have no interest in being "fashionably thin and beautiful". Fuck that shit. I'd rather die young than be a thing.

One of my more arrogant acquaintances deigned to make a post today about how people treat those they see as beneath them. It was very ironic, because she sees everyone as beneath her, except if she wants something from you, then she'll suck up.
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tl;dr bonus: Bird's Tip Calc

If you live in California, the sales tax is about 9% +/- 0.5% If you take the sales tax and double it, then round down to the nearest $0.5 for average service, up to the nearest $0.5 for good service, but only do a single multiple rounded up for mediocre service, you'll probably be about right or ahead of the curve.

Before someone gets in a randian libertarian rant about tips, realize that in California, people in tip making jobs are taxed on their estimated tips whether they actually earned them or not, plus their employers are allowed to pay them less salary because of it. Regardless of whether you approve of the practice, it has been going on since before I was born, and stiffing the nice person who brought you breakfast is not going to change it. It just hurts their feelings, their income, and their taxes - you essentially become an agent of government oppression. Tip your waiters - it lets you decide more directly what their pay will be.

I find it ironic that the people who are the biggest flakes, the ones who spend most of their time bameing everyone and everything else for their own inability to do what they say they'll do and live up to their commitment are the first to tell others to "Get off the cross" and lecture them about "change", as if the accusation of someone "playing victim" absolves them of responsibility for their own flakiness. Making adult noises doesn't make you an adult, living up to adult responsibilities does.

When people for years know that they have to plan on you flaking out at the last minute, regardless of your protestations to the contrary, it's pretty bad. When you can't make a simple deadline that is well known, is the same every year, and that you committed to in writing, you have no room to complain when people laugh when you make similar "commitments". So if you want to be taken seriously, don't make commitments that you can't, or won't, keep, and don't get pissed off when people recall your abysmal record on the subject over the last 5 years.

Just sayin'. You know who you are. If you want to take it to a war, I can play dirty. I have got a lot of time on my hands these days, and nothing I am ashamed of. You pissed off my SO, you have pissed on my friends, and you are ruining something I've put time and cash into without expecting any professional benefit from (unlike you.)

For The "Crime" Of Being Old And Gay

Read the article, then read the pdf of the legal complaint, that is even more shocking.

I want to know why the fucking defendants aren't in fucking jail...

Oh, wait, that's right... THEY WERE EMPLOYEES OF SONOMA COUNTY!!! They were just following orders doing their jobs, right?

But hey, gays in California have all the rights that straights do, really - the Catholics and the Mormons said so!

Except when it fucking counts - when we're old or helpless, when the homophobic bigots are the government officials supposed to help. Then gay is the new nigger.

Why aren't there any mainstream stories on this shit? Why is the press paying attention to that failure Palin and the shit she spews? Oh, yeah, that right - the "liberal" media is actually corporate owned right wing propaganda now.