Fran's Ramblings

Headache? Or honest concern?

I've been fighting what I'm hoping is just a sinus headache -- a lovely pressure squishing my eyes into the front of my head, my glasses are too tight and my forehead throbs.  It comes and goes, and while it hasn't brought on the sparklies of migraine, I'm well aware that it's possible. 

Hence my absence last night.

But part of it too is, I suspect, a certain amount of stress at things that are going on across the country.  I'm not going to talk about Wisconsin, although I will say I hope the recall of certain Republican senators moves apace, and I strongly hope there's something that can be done about their governor in less than a year.  Because he's dangerous.

No, my mind is spinning about Michigan.  Have you heard?

Michigan has an Emergency Financial Bill that passed on Wednesday, although I don't know when or if it'll actually go into effect.

But what this Bill does is not only does it, at the governor's whim, remove all collective bargaining rights for, well, anyone in Michigan, if a town is in financial trouble (and many are), then the governor can order the city government disbanded and can appoint someone to take over the town.  That "someone" is not required to be a person.  A company can do it.

 

My mom grew up in the Depression, and I heard about company towns.  There's a reason unions were formed.  In a company town, you have no legal recourse to anything.  You can be fired for no reason, you don't get a regulated work week, and you won't be paid a living wage.

It's the beginning of feudalism again.

And the thing is, even if a town -- and it would have to be a small one -- could refuse to be a company town and walled itself off and refused to be taken over, if a small town decided to live as a community (GASP, like COMMUNISIM!!), all of us are too interdependent on the national infrastructure.

Who's going to provide power?  Water?  Food?  Most townships can't provide for themselves, and certainly larger towns and cities can't.  Not anymore.  We have to rely on others, and that makes us vulnerable in this situation.

Tea Partiers talk about a revolution, and they may be prophets of a doom I hope we're not forced to live through, but it's not the revolution they anticipate.  It's more along the lines of the French Revolution.  I don't want it to come to that, but it terrifies me that it might.

Or maybe it's just my headache talking.

Absolutes

I have a friend who is politically the absolute opposite of everything I am.  I'm not entirely sure why we're still friends, but we are, and I like keeping the lines of communication open.

But I find it increasingly difficult to talk to him.  He sees everything as black and white, absolutes in all ways.  All unions are bad, all teachers are lazy, all health care reform is wrong, it's an extreme right wing list and it goes on and on and on. 

When anyone else points out that these things are not absolute, he simply hunkers down and digs in.  I can't decide if it's sad or terrifying.  A little of both, actually.

How do you talk to people who are completely convinced that they are right and that everyone who opposes or contradicts them is not only wrong but potentially the enemy? 

I'm discovering a deeply polarized set of beliefs, not just religious or political, but everyday beliefs.  So many people are convinced that their way is the only way, and anyone who doesn't toe whatever line they have established is not just different but downright evil. 

I was walking through Pike Place Market on Saturday, and there were two guys standing by a cardboard table with fliers that called on people to challenge President Obama and they implied that violent resistance with firearms was an acceptable solution.  Now I'll grant you, this is Seattle and so they were being ignored, pretty much like the panhandlers, but to see that level of potential disturbance so recently after the Gifford shooting was unsettling.

I've heard people get into shouting matches about whether or not Starbucks is better than Seattle's Best Coffee.  And they're owned by the same company.

Of course this is Seattle, and coffee matters.  But still. 

There are still people who believe that gays A) recruit, B) are all promiscuous, and C) all have drug addictions of one flavor or another.

There are people who are absolutely convinced that anyone who's in a biker group is in a gang that is lawless, violent and destructive.

There are people who are absolutely convinced, all evidence to the contrary, that all the Founding Fathers were dedicated Christian and intended for the US to be a Christian nation. 

There are people who are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that President Obama is Kenyan.  And Muslim. 

For that matter, there are people who believe that children should be allowed to behave however they choose, never instilling social manners.   And maybe that's what's ultimately at the heart of this whole mess.

How do you converse with people when facts aren't enough?  When actual, physical documentation won't change people's minds from misapprehensions?  When you're talking to adults who are employing the time-honored five year old child's response of, "LALALALALALA, I can't hear you!"? 

It's exhausting, depressing and downright scary. 

Top 10

I have a confession to make, one of those guilty pleasures.

I love lists.  Not making them.  I'm the complete polar opposite of a list maker.  I can't generally even find paper and a pen at the same time when I want to make notes about something.   (Oh, by the way, baby, we need dryer sheet too; I forgot to put that on the grocery list.  Sorry!)  I'm hopeless that way.

No, I love other people's lists.

I love Top 10 lists.  Best Of lists.  If I find an edition of "Eat This, Not That" online, I'm there.  Mind you, I'm not interested in buying the book, but I love the lists anyway.

And yeah, I know they're subjective and opinions and are frequently sponsored and are therefore simply ads for something.  I know.

I don't care.  I love them anyway.

And the thing is, I suck at making Top 10 lists.  I have to do it every year for the shop, and I cheat. First I break my lists into categories.  I usually have Best Debut, Best Of The Usual Suspects, Best Paperback, Best Local, and sometimes I go even further than that. I don't even try to keep it to ten, don't even pretend that I'm going to. 

But then, I read a lot.  And this next year I may add a "Not a Mystery but I Loved It Anyway" category. 

Everyone else manages to keep their lists to the single-list-with-around-10-names/titles, but I am constitutionally incapable.

Maybe that's why I love other people's lists so much.  They did it, pared things down, made the necessary cuts.  They're inspirational simply by being. 

But they're also nice little nuggets, snacks for the brain, if you will.  They're easily managed, they're snippits of information that don't take much to process, and they engage my brain to an extend.  Do I agree with this list?  Did they leave off something I would have included?  Have the put something on I've never heard of before? 

I don't know.  I just like them.

For example, I was just watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I got to thinking, what are my five favorite Harrison Ford movies?  Not in any particular order, but. . .which five? 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (because I'm watching it)

Star Wars

Blade Runner

Witness

Presumed Innocent

Sabrina

American Graffiti

And that doesn't even count what some would say is his best work -- Force 10 From Navaronne and Heroes and The Fugitive.  And yeah, I loved his version of Sabrina.  I love the Bogart one as well, make no mistake, but I thought he was great as Linus Larrabee. 

But look, for a list of FIVE and I have seven right off the bat.  I'm hopeless.

So there you have it, I love lists.  They make me smile.  And as far as guilty pleasures go, I think I could do worse!

Because we CAN!

Okay, our secret's out. I guess we can't hide it any more. 

We're here to wreck your marriages.

See?  There.  I said it.  Lillian and I are bound and determined to destroy all the marriages of happy heterosexual people.  Well, okay, I guess it's not just us, at least if I understand everything I'm reading, but hey, we're here and we're standing up.

I bet we can even take responsibility for all the marriages that ended before we got together.  Um, but no, because us just being a gay couple isn't the problem, it's the fact that we got legally married.  So. . .I guess we're really only responsible for all the divorces and whatnot from September of 2009 on.  Perhaps all the other divorces are the faults of those who got married before us.

Okay, so then we're all responsible for all the divorces of everybody in the United States since May 17th, 2004. 

Everything before that?  Y'all are on your own.  No idea what happened then, but it wasn't us. Sorry!

And, while I'm owning up to things, I guess it's time to point out that obviously EVERYBODY'S gay.  Well duh, right? 

I mean, once we're allowed to get married, once DOMA is finally repealed then everyone's going to come bursting out of the closet and marry the nearest person of the same sex that they can grab.  Right? Of course right!

Have you figured out who YOUR same sex spouse is going to be? 

And once DOMA's repealed and all you formerly straight folks are happily married to your same sex spouse, then the human race is doomed because  no one will ever have babies again.  And let's face it, we all know that the only reason all y'all soon-to-be-ex heterosexuals got married in the first place was to have babies.  It's the only way it can happen!  You have to be in a heterosexual marriage before pregnancy can occur.  Duh!  Obviously!

But we're here to end all that.  In the not-too-distant future, all the women will be fixing the plumbing and the cars, and the guys will be inside redecorating.  That's always been the master plan and it's almost here!

Hurray!

Man, there really IS a need for a sarcasm font.  There just is.

If you need talking points for those who might not get it, DOMA is still being enforced.  Sure Obama told the DoJ not to defend it, but that doesn't immediately repeal the law.  It just means that the DoJ is going to move on to defending things that really are constitutional.

And for those folks who get their panties in a twist, saying, "But the Department of Justice HAS to defend these laws" and "Obama's overreaching his authority", then I have to ask them, why Obama does but neither of the Presidents Bush had to.

George the First had the DoJ refuse to defend, of all things, a cable issue.  TV cable.  And I have to think that cable laws affect a lot more of us than our getting married has.  But that's just me.  Maybe Lillian and me getting married is more important to you than access to local cable channels.  What do I know?

And George the Lesser had his DoJ refuse to defend censoring marijuana ads.  Hmm, I'm seeing a TV theme here. . . And I suspect that there are more people who have a deep, personal relationship with Mary Jane than are affected by my marriage to Lillian.  Again, I could be wrong.

Well, and Bill Clinton had his DoJ refuse to defend the constitutionality of a Miranda case.  In fact, there's a law that says the Attorney General has to tell Congress whenever that office declines to defend a federal statute, which makes it pretty clear that the DoJ does have the right to pick and choose what it wants to defend.  As I understand it, Congress can't order the DoJ to defend something, it's more a courtesy announcement, not to be undertaken lightly, but available.

So Obama's decision to have the DoJ not defend DOMA is not something new or unreasonable.  What it is, is both a nod to the inevitablity of DOMA's repeal -- and once DADT is gone, DOMA has to go because there will be too much inequity in federal benefits offered to military spouses -- and the fact that, according to sociologist Darren Sherkat of Southerin Illinois University, approval for same-sex marriage has finally reached the tipping point where more straight folks approve than disapprove.

 

This is very big news.

 

But to hear all the much-married right wing nutjobs shout about it, you'd think my getting married to Lillian was the end of the world as we know it.

Well, I feel fine.

 

 

 

In praise of teachers

Sorry, my loves, I only got an hour's worth of sleep last night and I'm kinda running on empty, so this is short.

But you all know I was a teacher, and I've been watching what has been going on in the teaching field around the country, and I'm appalled.  Did you see that a Rhode Island school fired ALL its teachers?  They're planning on rehiring some of them, but. . .there's no telling how this is going to play out. 

It is with this in mind that I introduce you to Taylor Mali.  He's clear, concise and I wanted to stand and applaud.  Let's hear it for teachers, my friends!

 

Video Tuesday

Brain dead.  Totally in a fog.  So here's videos instead of witty repartee and, y'know, general blathering.

 

 

 

 

And with this last one, it seems slow at first, but after the first 45 seconds, it does take off.  Seriously.

 

My stance

Even if

-- there were no more orphanages because there was no longer a need

-- there was no longer a need for social workers or child protective services

-- there were no more instances of rape and incest

-- there was no domestic violence anywhere in the world

-- there was no hunger anywhere in the world

-- every child had a supportive, loving and nurturing family, of whatever gender orientation and diversity

-- education was treated with the same financial respect as the military

-- universal and complete health care was available to all

-- there was no need for any child to grow up in poverty

I would still support a woman's right to determine her own reproductive situation.

I believe women deserve to determine how their uteruses should be used. 

I believe that any and all reproductive choices ultimately are a woman's responsibility. 

I believe those decisions are between a woman, her doctor, her conscience and any higher power she may hold dear.

I believe the man may be included in the decision-making process, but that is the prerogative of the woman, and there are certain instances when the man absolutely has no say in the matter.

I believe ultimately it is her burden to live with, no matter what decision she makes, and no one can truly know what's going on in her heart.

I have known a woman who had an abortion, a woman who gave up her child for adoption, and I took the other choice, to bear and raise.

I know that with only one or two factors either way, I could have been either of my friends.

I know that all I could ever do for them was love them, hold them when they cried, and let them know that I in no way judged them.  It isn't and was never my place or right to do so.

I know beyond doubt that my son knows he is loved and wanted because I had ALL the options and I had to face them, examine them, and then decide.

Because I had the freedom to choose.

Hibernation

It's been snowy and cold here, and I've missed two days of work, which would be a nuisance on a lot of levels, but it turns out to be okay this week.  So I've spent a lot of time just hanging around the house, not really accomplishing anything, just kind of having a mini-vacation.  I'll go back to work tomorrow (weather permitting and it will permit, darn it!), but the last two days have been restful.

There's a lot to be said for just hiding out and hibernating for a bit.  How many times have you gone away on vacation and then come back exhausted?  Needing a vacation from you vacation, y'know?

I didn't read much, basically puttered around the house and played on the computer.  Oh, I did accomplish some things.  Or rather Lillian did, and I helped.  Our washer and dryer decided to have their hoses go kerplooey at the same time, so there was water everywhere for a while.  But all is fixed now -- yay, Lillian! -- all the drenched towels are washed and dried, and we're back in business.

And we got a cord of wood, which was delivered in the snow, naturally.  But it's here and that's nice.  We've kept a fire going the last few days, and that's helped the whole relaxation atmosphere.

So yeah, I've been following the news, but I don't have lots to say because I've been on vacation.  I'm thrilled that the DoJ isn't going to be defending DOMA, and I'm glad that folks are seeing the real agenda behind the union busting. 

But for now, I'm pleased the washer and dryer are functional, that everyone's home safe, that there are leftovers in the fridge, and that we have a heated mattress pad.  Sometimes it's the small things, right?

Have a grand Friday and a warm and wonderful weekend!

Post Apocalypse

I told you about several of my favorite urban fantasy authors, but for some odd reason (go figure!), I've been thinking about some of my favorite post-apocalyptic novels.  These are the ones that I thought of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are lots more. 

Obviously, there's the Stephen King classic, The Stand.  I even liked the movie.  And this was one of the books that my mom and I could and did discuss at length, so it's special in lots of ways. 

 

 

 

 

Another classic that was made into a movie was Nevil Shute's On the Beach.  It's not my favorite of Mr. Shute's work; that would be A Town Like Alice.  But this captures the post World War II despondancy that afflicted so many.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the first post-apocalyptic novels I read was Robert Merle's Malevil, a name I liked on a lot of levels, which is why I picked up the book without knowing anything about it.  It's a period piece now, as is On the Beach, but it's still a good read, as I recall.







I was also fond of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, and in fact the ideas there were the springboard for a one act duet play I wrote, with multiple endings as it turned out.  But that's another story. 











Most people who know of John Wyndham's work will immediately think I'm going to choose his classic The Day of the Triffids, and I do like it, like it a lot.  But it's not my favorite.  Rebirth, published in England as The Chrysalids, is my fave.  It deals with the fanaticism of religion, and the witch hunts for people who are different, especially those who are different but who look just like everybody else.





I've been a fan of Laurie R. King's for a while now, mostly her Kate Martinelli series rather than her Mary Russell series, although I enjoy that as well.  But a lot of folks don't know that she published this post-apocalypic novel under a pseudonym, Leigh Richards.  I'd love to see her expand on Califia's Daughters someday.



But my favorte of all times is a book that leads up to the apocalypse.  I wasn't raised Catholic and my knowledge of its practices is all second hand.  But Morris West, best known for The Shoes of the Fisherman, does understand the Catholic Church, and he takes a different look at it in The Clowns of God.    I try to read this one once a year, and I try to read the copy my mother read, because she loved it too, and she highlighted passages that spoke to her.  It's an amazing and complex book, and I think I may have to stop reading what I'm reading now and dive into this one again, just because it's time.

So then, which ones have I missed?  Which do you like best?



Here's why I'm scared

I'm becoming more and more disturbed about trends in this country.  There are things going on that are beginning to seriously terrify me, to the point where Lillian and I have talked at length about emigrating somewhere else.  Yeah, that nervous.  My home country is frightening the shit out of me.

Here are some examples.  There are plenty of others, and if you want to know what they are, I'll follow up.

Like the Republican theory that the only abortions that can be funded are those that have occured during "forcible" rape.  That means that if your date plies you with roofies and has his way with you, that's not "forcible" -- not the way the amendment is written, you didn't actually say "no", nor did you fight back -- nor will statutory rape be covered, and the only time incest would be covered is if a minor is involved.  At what point, exactly, did rape stop being inherently forced? 

Who thinks that way?

A committee in Montana passed a bill that will now go to the State House of Representatives that would bar any municipality in Montana from protecting its LGBT citizens.  It would repeal the protections already in place in Missoula.  Montana's a beautiful State, and its motto is "live and let live", unless, apparently, you're gay.  This trend scares me.  It's not just Montana.

Consider, folks.  At some point Lillian and I want to move back to New Mexico.  But how do we get there if we want to drive?  Look at all the States that Do Not Want Us to even come visit:  Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Texas, North and South Dakota.  We can drive to Oregon and California.  Then we have to play straight to get to New Mexico.  So much for the Land of the Free. 

I'm completely livid about Congress defunding Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood provides much more than abortions; they provide family planning and birth control to people who are financially strapped, and nowadays that's more and more people.  They provide mammograms.  They provide care for STDs.  I've used Planned Parenthood frequently in the past, and I've never had an abortion.

And the stupid, stupid part of this is that by defunding Planned Parenthood, by reducing the number of people who are getting birth control, Congress is INCREASING the number of women who are going to get pregnant and who will have abortions -- back alley if necessary, because do not ever kid yourself, abortions will never, ever stop.  Never.  -- many more abortions than are happening now.

If you're truly anti-abortion then supporting Planned Parenthood is an aid to that.  But Republicans (and it is primarily Republicans and Tea Partiers, let's be honest here) have always struck me as fishermen.  Throw 'em back until they're old enough to kill.  Swear to god, it pisses me off.  Because how many of these same Right To Life folks are pro death penalty?  Lots.

Oh, but birth control is okay for some.  Well, for horses.  Congress has no problem funding that. Oh, and NASCAR ads.  Those are okay.  And despite calls for civility, a death threat to the Democratic Representative that suggested defunding NASCAR is. . .what, par for the course?  To be expected?  Because I haven't heard people denouncing the guy who threatened her.

This is fiscal responsibility?  And let's not overlook the fact that the poor women who are going to get pregnant because they don't have birth control and who don't have abortions are going to have more children while they're on welfare.  Good planning, folks.

Oh, and in Georgia, Bobby Franklin (R, duh) has set out a bill that would have all miscarriages investigated as possible murders.  Even if it doesn't go anywhere, the fact that this sort of thing is considered to be acceptable LAW scares me.  Apparently Republican/Tea Partiers want government to be small enough to climb into my bedroom or into every woman's uterus. 

And for those of you who are anti-abortion, how many people do you know who have had one?  I can think of only one person I know of who had one -- my friend, Lou -- and while I chose not to have one (that, to me, is the true meaning of being pro-choice, to choose whether or not to have one, and that choice is between the person, her conscience, her religious beliefs, and not any of my business), I absolutely respect her decision.  Abortion is legal, but it's certainly not readily available. 

Gays have been under attack all along, but when did women become targets?  Or have we always been targets, especially of white Christian men in power.  And if you think I'm being stereotypical and wrong, look at the folks who are proposing these bills.  Yeah, there are some women jumping on the Ban The Gays bills, but most of the people who are proposing legislation to oppress are white men who are spouting off Christian mandates. 

Not all Christians are saying this, nor are all white men.  But overwhelmingly, that's the demographic. 

Right now there are functionally two and a half (R, D, TP -- and I have to say I like the symbolism of a "TP party") political parties in this country, but I believe that if the unions are struck down, busted, then the Democrat party will fall because there's no way it can compete financially with the huge corporations supporting the Republicans under the Citizens United Act that SCOTUS thought was a good idea.  So we'll have centrist Republicans and Tea Partiers as the two main parties, and under those conditions, my gay liberal ass will not be welcome in this country.  In fact, if the religious right has their way, my gay liberal ass will be illegal. 

And I can see that happening.  And it scares the shit out of me.