Yeah, it's the Daily Show. So? I still think it's funny...

The complete idiot's guide to net neutrality.

"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam..."

Everybody's already covered the Pope's citation and the subsequent Muslim outrage. I'm too late to the party to deal with that. But, fear not, Gentle Reader... I'm going to hit upon it in a more roundabout way.

Today, I want to talk about Marriage. And while there are endless words to be said about the subject as it exists in my own country, today I want to discuss Marriage as it exists somewhere else.

Nikah Misyar, the Traveller's Marriage, is an option practiced under Sharia law in Muslim countries. In this arrangement, a man and woman are legally 'married' but the man has no responsiblities to this wife. He may visit her, in her parents' home, at any time he wishes. But he owes her no financial responsibility, no home of her own. He may contract such a marriage irrespective of other, traditional marriages he has made. The first, second, third, and fourth wives do not have to approve of the Misyar bride; they do not even have to be informed that the misyar marriage has occurred.

My search of the web has turned up numerous people looking to contract such 'marriages' all over the globe. It has also turned up something more interesting: the opinions of Muslims the world over. It seems that 'no respectable woman would consent to such a marriage.' Most often, Misyar marriages are a last, desperate hope for widows, spinsters, and girls living in abject poverty. Often they are hoping the misyar marriage will somehow become a real one.

But wait! It gets better!

Nikah Mut'ah is a temporary marriage! In this arrangement, a couple agrees to marry, but with a fixed termination point. The husband has no obligations to provide for the wife, or live with her. A maximum of four temporary wives can be taken, in addition to the maximum four true wives under Islamic law.

The apparent purpose of both these forms of "marriage" is to allow men to copulate with women, without responsibility (beyond the financial support of offspring, that is) and without the sin of Zina, fornication.

This is good, since Zina tends to result in little girls and women of all ages being stoned to death or hanged. Isn't it lovely that Allah's One True Pedophile was so thoughtful as to provide us with this alternative?

I could now go on at length about the apparent hypocrisy in a culture that abhors the decadence of the west, while crafting nifty 'marriage' definitions that put a new face on the old sin of prostitution. But I won't.

Because I honestly have to ask, how do Misyar and Mutah differ all that much from the customs of our own country? Every day, women enter into relationships in the hope that they will end in marriage. Young girls give their bodies in hopes of getting love, in exchange for sex. Like their sisters in the Muslim world, they hope, often vainly, that if they are just good enough in bed, and kind enough out of it; if they work well enough, forgive easily enough... if they just try HARD enough, the boyfriend will metamorph into the ultimate status symbol: The husband. Because even after the "sexual revolution," after decades of women having the vote- after women's lib, ERA, RoeVWade, the pill, "Having it all"... after all of this, women still want husbands. Feminism hasn't managed to eradicate that biological drive for safe pairbonding.

But at no time in history has there been less incentive for a man to marry. He no longer needs to do so in order to find sex. He doesn't even need it for the production of legitimate heirs; as illegitimacy has become passe'. He can have his bachelor abode, and his bachelor life, and send out his laundry and take out his meals. When the urge for sexual gratification overwhelms him, he can boot up his computer and enjoy a wide variety of pornography. Or he can head out into the world and, without much difficulty, find a willing woman to warm his bed for a night. nevitably, he knows some man who can (and will) tell him horror stories about divorce court, alimony, and court ordered child support. Understandably, he may not look at the women he dates as potential mates; he looks at them as potential adversaries or a resource to be exploited.


And most of those women are hoping, just like their Muslim counterparts, to find "true love." They're mortgaging "right now" for a shot at "til death do us part." "Pleasure Marriages" and "Sleeping Together" are morally equivalent, and equally disrespectful of the institution itself. They deprive men, women, and children, of the most basic and vital aspects of the human pairbond, substituting mere physical union for a deeper, more spiritual one.

Bizarro World- Ornithophobe tries on liberal groupthink for a moment.

So let me get this straight- we're only in support of stem-cell research when it kills embryonic babies, right? I know, I know- but it gets so confusing. I mean, the only stem cell trials that have actually KILLED anybody so far involved embryonic stem cells. And the only successful uses of stem cell research so far have involved ADULT stem cells. But it's very important to preserve the right to harvest baby bits. It's a matter of "choice", y'know. Our bodies, ourselves, and all that. Oh, wait- there is no ban on using embryonic stem cells in research? There's only been a ban on using taxpayer funds to do it? You can still hire someone to cut up baby bits for your research if you want to pay for it?

The "Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act" (the bill to sponsor alternative stem cell research-that doesn't actually KILL anybody, born or unborn) was sponsored by Santorum and Spector, an unlikely combination under any circumstances. The efforts to defeat it were led by republican Mike Castle, who shames his party by helping to sponsor a bill that would spend my money and yours on embryonic stem cell research. You know, research that kills babies. And teenagers. And apparently will injure/kill lots of other people. (See "Medical risks of embryonic stem cells (including ES cells in TC) " about halfway down this page. )

Wow. Unless I had read about this stuff online, I would never have known any of that.

A little dignity, please?

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=424003

I understand the purpose of the exercise. The teachers in question were hoping to help straight students better understand and accept their homosexual counterparts. It's a noble gesture, and a kind thought. I have issues with whether or not one can "educate" or "enlighten" by subjecting students to what can only be classified as sexual harrassment. But other, better blogs have dealt with that aspect of the story. I prefer to deal with this one:

Asking people very personal, intimate questions, is RUDE.

We used to know this. You would no more ask someone how they know they liked guy bits, than you would ask a lady how much she weighs. At one time, there were limits on what was socially acceptable. The discussion of deeply personal, private affairs, was limited to ones mate, and the closest, most intimate friendships in ones life. A new bride might discuss her wedding night with her best friend, her husband, and in rare instances, maybe her mother. The only quizzes on the subject might be filled out furtively in the pages of a Cosmo magazine.

But she'd be unlikely to discuss the matter in a public, classroom forum, with her teachers and her classmates. Even today, such raw, personal frankness is unlikely to be warranted amongst certain levels of society. I did not grow up particularly well-off, nor did I grow up in a ghetto. But no one I grew up with would have ever had a friendly chat about their sexual predilections in a high school classroom. It was not done.

Of course, most of us would never have felt the need to march down Main street in a purple thong, groping our significant other, either. Most of us do not need to identify ourselves by our sexual history and choice of partners. Ones worth and value is predicated upon more concrete things- family, religious affiliation, community ties, employment capacity, and the magnitude of one's own character. But across the board, a certain segment of humanity now revels in matters once too ugly to discuss in polite society. It's an entire substrata of our culture. One afternoon watching daytime talk shows is enough to illustrate this; indeed you can turn on Maury Povich and see scores of women shamelessly declaring that they've bedded so many men they can't account for the parentage of their children. You can take a seat on a park bench in any town and overhear the coarsest of language coming out of adolescent mouths. You can spend an afternoon in your county courthouse and see no end of men being charged for making unsupported babies with women they never had any intent to marry. And even nice people, decent people- who would never discuss their own sex life in public- will speak frankly about birth control, venereal disease, and the lewd sexuality of others. Their own pecadilloes need never see the light of day, but their eyes glint enthusiastically speculating about celebrity bastards and Who Might Have Died From Aids.

We as a society have lost all sense of decorum. We need to rediscover the virtue of personal dignity, to stop poking our noses into everyone else's business, and to stop airing dirty linen in public- our own dirty linen, and anyone else's. Who you sleep with and why, should be of interest to only yourself, and your lover. Everyone else's concern about it can only be prurient, and demeaning.

With apologies to Mr. Frost

I have simply GOT to make a point of posting more frequently in this thing. I have this niggling fear at the back of my mind that one day, I'll go to put something up and find that the gods of the internet have repossessed my blogspace for inactivity. I'll find one of those "your domain here" sites, or perhaps some hideous porn with small rodents or somesuch.

But I did have a point when I sat down today, I'm certain I did. Ah, yes. There it is- wandering the outer fringes of the Ornithophobe's head, like some nasty bird looking for an inconvenient place to spatter a windshield. You know, for all that I support gun rights wholeheartedly- I'm scared to death of them, wouldn't want one in my control. Perhaps that's because I suspect I'd go off half-cocked (excuse the expression) one morning and blow away some obnoxious little songbird that doesn't respect that SOME people have nocturnal schedules.

But I digress. What I wanted to talk about today, is the border problem. Depending on where you live (or what side of the political fence you sit) they are "illegal aliens" or "undocumented workers" or even "Jose', my pool guy, and Senora Sanchez my babysitter." No, actually, make that "Senora Sanchez, my nanny." Babysitters tend to be employed by people who can't afford to hire pool guys, I think. And their names tend to be things like Brittany, Staci, or Beth.

Many years ago I worked as a babysitter/nanny for a wealthy couple. Both parents were veterinarians, one of whom worked exclusively with thoroughbred racehorses. My days were spent in laundry, cooking, dishwashing, and games of "got your nosey!" with two small children. I sometimes worked twelve hour days, six days a week, without overtime pay, for less than minimum wage. I did so for cash, off the books, without paying into any federal programs.

I was a teenager. I had all the time in the world, and it was good money for someone with no skills beyond playing with babies.

Don't tell me that illegals are taking jobs American citizens won't do, because I've done more than one of them.

"Something there is, that doesn't love a wall." I think it's inside of us all, this unsettled feeling about walling things out, and walling things in. It makes us uneasy. Nobody likes the ugliness of a fence, no one likes saying "you stay on your side and I'll keep to mine." No, we're a gregarious society, contentious and involved and sometimes downright nosey. Everyone wants to know everbody else's business, and at the heart of it all, no one wants to feel alone. We like to think we're "social" and "sociable," a nation of warmhearted, welcoming people. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. "

But the wretched refuse is getting three deep in parts of this country. And make no mistake, some of it IS refuse. I speak not of honest, hardworking, decent people who come here to become citizens in the legal fashion. I speak of the gang members, the bums, the criminals, and the like: those who could never hope to get in by legal methods. And our ability to take care of our own is threatened by these people and their get. California hospitals spent 500 million providing emergency care to illegals last year. The federal government only kicked in for 70 million of that. Guess who paid the rest?

Well it certainly wasn't Mexico.

Guest Workers are a misnomer- they will be a minimally employed underclass who will move money out of our economy and into Mexico's. Citizenship conveyed by birthplace is impractical in a world where a short walk across an invisible line is the difference between AFDC benefits and the inherent corruption of the Mexican government.

I like the Hispanic culture. I read spanish better than I speak it, but I can get by anywhere I need to. I've celebrated Dia de los Muertos, and I make some damn fine sopapillas. I've slogged through everything from Cervantes to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Ask me about my Shakira records.

But you'll forgive me if I think that Good Fences make Good Neighbors.

Biblical historicity goodness...

I clearly don't read enough jargon-y scientific journals. Because somehow I missed out on new evidence supporting the validity of the Shroud of Turin.

If you can get through the more complex terminology in the faq, I highly recommend that too. Fascinating stuff.

Seen in another blog's comments section...

"I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy."

I need say nothing more, I'm in total agreement.

The Tech-Savvy Congresscritter...

This is SUCH a great idea!

Okay... So they make more money than God. I know they can afford their own Ipods. But frankly, so many of our legislators are a trifle, erm... elderly. They're set in their ways, they dislike change. And the only folks that have their ear right now are the MPAA and the RIAA.

We need to change that.

Ipods are so simple a child can work them. My nine year old mastered the intricacies of Podkayne (my own Ipod Photo) in a matter of minutes, without a booklet, an FAQ, or a tutorial. Put one of these babies into the hands of every senator, every representative, and they may finally understand what is at stake, what vital technical advances these corporate behemoths hope to quash and stifle.

I'm thinking bake sale. We can call it "Buy Congress a Clue" and we'll have little napster-head icons iced onto the cupcakes. Oooh. And those little circle-slash logo thingies around RIAA and MPAA? We'll put those on the cookies...

I could get entirely too excited about this.

Spoiled Brats at the International Table

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4657528.stm

There is something fundamentally wrong with any person or group of persons, benefitting from anothers largesse, being unable or unwilling to express a modicum of gratefulness. The problem begins with arrogance and an attitude of unjust entitlement.

You see it every day, it's become a common theme. People who just expect the world (or their more productive neighbours) to do for them. From the arrogance and ingratitude of people on the dole, collecting welfare, or begging on streetcorners, to class warfare rhetoric in our politics. The same rude cause that is at work when a teenager kills for another kid's shoes. "He had it, I wanted it, I'm entitled to it. It should be MINE." And this attitude is never pretty, and is largely responsible for the worst violent excesses in human history: the Terror in revolutionary France, the Holocaust in WW2 Europe, the elimination of the native populations in our own US history. It's always about wanting something you didn't earn, and feeling entitled to take it from somebody who did.

So imagine then that some of those people who have what you want, decide to give you some of it. Not all of it, but a portion. And they hand it to you free of charge. "Here, it's a gift."

Would you be grateful? Touched? How would you feel about your benefactor?

If you're one of those productive people I was talking about earlier, you would be thankful. Perhaps you might be made to think kindly of your patron, and wish to do good for them. At the very least you might wish to curry favor with someone so generous, in order to keep the handouts coming.

But unfortunately, if you're one of those NOT productive people, people who are accustomed to taking what doesn't belong to them, and living off the work of others... in that case? You're not going to be grateful. You're going to be surly.

"I deserve it anyway. I deserve all of it, and you should have none."

You will resent and hate your benefactor, because nothing breeds contempt so much as a sense of your own unworthiness. And prolonged acceptance of charity does nothing but encourage that sense. It reminds you you cannot achieve on your own. You're not good enough, bright enough, strong enough. In desperation to retain your dignity, you begin looking for excuses why you cannot be productive. It cannot be YOU, so it must be THEM. And then, it becomes necessary to hate those who have and do what you cannot. It's a survival mechanism, the need to break the world down into "Mine" and "Other," into Us and Them. The haves, vs. the Have-nots.

The way to fix this problem is to stop throwing money at the spoiled brats who won't do for themselves. To stop treating them like children and force them to act like adults.

And in the realm of international politics, we have done part of that. The Palestinians have chosen a government. The will of the people has spoken, and they've voted themselves a shiteload of disaster. Like recalcitrant children, they've opted for the entitlement mentality. A people gets the government it deserves, and this bloodthirsty lot have got exactly what they wanted.

Let them choke on it for awhile. It may force them to grow up.

But the worst thing in the world we can do is try to monkey with their decisions. "Be good, or we'll take away the money." This disrespects the will of a fledgeling populace attempting, ever so painfully, to govern itself. And this is OUR highhanded arrogance, the arrogance of the western world- that we think we can solve the world's problems for them. We're often like the well meaning older brother who keeps picking up after our siblings and fighting their battles for them. In the end, all it does is raise a weak younger sibling who resents us for everything we never let him do for himself.

Sometimes people- and societies- simply need to make their own mistakes.

The first step is to Stop. Giving. Them. Money. How hard is this? Take every backward western-world hating culture and STOP FUNDING THEM! They don't appreciate it. It doesn't give us their good will. Look at the wording in that article. "BLACKMAIL," Haniya calls it. There is no appreciation for charity, only malice to the giver.

We cannot make their decisions for them. But neither should we support them in their foolishness. There is no kindness in that.

Diamonds are Forever

Man made diamonds! Whee!

I love stories like this one. Anything that knocks the DeBeers monopoly on its collective arse makes me smile. I've followed the
stories of Gemesis and Apollo for about three years now, and personally? I can't wait to buy my first cultured diamond-conflict-safe, blood-free, and flawless.

Synthetic diamonds... that sounds so awful. I prefer the "cultured diamond" term. After all, they ARE diamonds- chemically and physiologically. Only nobody died or was mutilated to get them to market, and their price will be market dictated, rather than the result of some monopolistic cartel.

The ornithophobe, she likes the sparkly; oh yes she does. I've got a nice collection of shiny diamonds and emeralds (as emeralds are my favourite stone) and I wear them daily. But years ago, I realised I was not so interested in where my stone came from- not nearly so much as I was in what it looked like. The result was my one carat man made emerald solitaire. I love this thing. I looked everywhere for a "natural" emerald ring with this level of colour and clarity. It did not exist for less than ten thousand dollars. Yet for about six hundred, I could have perfect dark green shimmer, surrounded by tiny diamonds, in fourteen karat gold - If I was willing to accept a manufactured emerald. Well- duh! Sign me up, baby! I embrace the wonders of the technological age!

For me, jewelry is not investment, it is ornament. I know my diamonds aren't worth much to a pawnbroker. I buy shinies because I LIKE shinies. I like colour, and glitter, and shimmer. And for years I've sated my guilt about the evils of the diamond trade and indulged my passion for the past at the same time, by buying used, buying vintage. And along the way? I discovered something. I don't LIKE modern diamonds. I don't like brilliant cuts, don't care for the spartan settings. I hate white gold, and platinum. I like the softer glow of old diamonds. But most of all, I love the ornate filigree and dainty delicacy of victorian, the interesting shapes and designs of deco. I positively LOVE antique jewelry. I love that when someone notices the rings on my fingers, and they inevitably go, "Wherever did you find that?"... that I can smugly say "It's vintage. It's antique." I love that I never run into anyone else wearing the same jewelry I have on.

You can walk into any jeweler in the country and find exactly the same styles of jewelry in each one. Open a bridal magazine and examine the ring ads: they're all basically the same thing. And if your friends show you their engagement ring, the first thing they'll talk about is the size of the stone. Bigger seems to be seen as better. But I'm not sure it always is. Beyond Cut, Colour, and Clarity, is something infitely less easy to calculate... character. I like a stone with history, I like a stone with a story.

When I don my late Mamau's engagement ring, it never fails to draw attention. The filigree setting, the soft white glow in burnished gold; it is unique. In all my life, I've yet to find another one like it. And whenever I look at it, I think of my mamau. I picture her gnarled little hands, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, sewing my dresses, bandaging my wounds. I see the glint and sparkle and it connects me at once to something so much more precious than any monetary quantity.

So yeah- diamonds ARE forever. But only if you're making memories with them. If you're not, they're just another rock.

And on the subject of memorial diamonds? How cool is this? I can think of a few people who'd make lovely tributes to wear on my hand. In particular? I think my ex-husband would make a fabulous fashion accessory. He'd be so much more useful in death than he has ever been in life!

Free Piglet!

Okay. I understand tolerance. I do. I'm a tolerant person. When some dumb wench gets in front of me with twenty cans of peas in the 12 items or less aisle? I smile graciously and say nothing. When people won't let me into traffic, I wait patiently for an opening and pray for the little buggers, who are obviously going somewhere very important in an awful hurry. When persons possessed of obvious incompetence, ignorance, or bad breeding cross my path, I reward their embarassing behaviours with patience and old-fashioned condescension. (Not the modern, "Looking down my nose at you" version of the word, but the classic, graciousness-and-compassion-dispensing version thereof.) Embracing the spirit of "judge not, lest ye be judged" and "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you," I always try to give folks the benefit of the doubt. It's the manner in which I was brought up to behave.

But C'mon.... Piglet is somehow religiously offensive? Piglet??

http://relapsedcatholic.blogspot.com/2005/10/our-bulging-go-back-where-you-came.html

I love the Relapsed Catholic's suggestion to go boldly forth and post our pigs. In the spirit of solidarity, allow me to spam this space.

Our Hero:


Another Great Pig of Literature:



Modern Pop Culture Pig:



And the most important pig of all...



And in case you need help cooking your pig, you can't go wrong with one of these:



Although my Mamau would surely recommend you buy one of these instead:

Keeping the little people in their places

I shall begin this rant of mine with a caveat: I love New Orleans. Of all the cities I've visited in the US, New Orleans is the one place I've ever felt more at home in than my hometown. I love the place. If I could afford to, I'd brave the mosquitos and the humidity and relocate to the Garden District. The damage done to this city strikes at my heart like a bladed weapon. In the hours immediately before and after the storm, I was literally unable to turn away from the television. Unlike so many natural disasters I've witnessed (And I covered a fair few of them in my time working for a media monitoring agency) this one felt personal. This one felt much the same as the 97 flood that took my house. I was indignant. How dare God and Mother Nature strike out at my beloved city? Damn the lot of them for not doing something before the storm hit. What would become of the museums? The restaurants? The cemeteries? The rows of stately houses, the clusters of little shops? Would any of it survive intact?

And then it happened. And it was the stuff of nightmares.

In the days following the tragedy I've seen so many people bitching about the lack of preparedness. About the poor performance of the Mayor and the Governor. About how evil President George failed to fly in, with his cape and tights, and rescue everyone. Because George hates brown people, ya know. And babies. Babies don't vote. He only cares about rich white men who vote, after all.

I will say this: Mayor Nagin is in full CYA mode, throwing blame everywhere but where it rightly belongs- on the local government, on its mismanagement of the period immediately before and after Katrina. Governor Blanco shames me as a woman. She makes fodder for every mysogynist pig who ever said women were too wishy washy and indecisive to hold positions of power. This is at least one woman I wish to hell had stayed home and baked some cookies. They fucked up big time. Pardon my language- but it is true. This was a fubar of amazing proportions. When the local emergency management sends Red Cross buses away full of supplies, when the emergency evac plan buses are left sitting in the water while people drown in their houses- This is Fucked. Up.

But I'm through castigating the government. What else did we expect? An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications. (Thank you, Robert Heinlein.) If you want to make something incredibly expensive and extremely inefficient, you put it in the hands of government. There was something more sinister at work here. Racism. And no, not the racism of the republicans, or even the racism of Ole George (who hates teh brown people.)

No. I'm talking about the subtle, insidious racism endemic to the democratic old south: The plantation mentality.

The people who had means to do so, got the hell out of New Orleans ahead of the storm. The ones left behind, by and large, couldn't. They had no cars. They had no funds. They had noplace to go. What they did have? Was faith. Faith that someone would come. Someone would rescue them.

And so these folks, with the blind faith of children, didn't plan ahead. They didn't plan their routes of escape. They didn't lay in a supply of water and foodstuffs and diapers for their babies. And why would they? The government was going to take care of them, just like they are supposed to. In a few hours, they would come, with their rescue choppers and their boats and such, and take everyone away to safety in the shelters. And then money would be made available to fix everyone's homes, and get the world started up again. Because this is how the world works, right?

Wrong. This is only how the world works if you're a child and the government is your Mama. The grownups, we all know that God helps those who help themselves. Because government is comprised of people, and people make mistakes. People get tangled up in red tape and don't always do the sensible thing. When the fit hits the shan, sometimes they fuck up. Sometimes, they do so spectacularly. So if you're going to rely on anybody, it ought to be yourself. Nobody else has as vested an interest in your own well being, as you do.

But we've spent decades telling these folks that they CAN'T do for themselves. That they're oppressed, that they're disenfranchised, that they start life out from behind the eight ball. And only the democratic party can save them. Only their congresscritters and senators and judges and social workers can put things right, can give them a leg up. Keeping them dependant has kept the democratic party in power for decades down south.

This is the racism of which I speak. The concerned, condescending racism of compassion. "We know better than you, we'll look after you, we'll take care of you."

Maybe I shouldn't call it racism. Maybe it should instead be called classism. Because it's not really about teh brown people. It's about class. It's not skin colour; it's economic background, it's educational level and, above all else, it's about levels of personal responsibility. You spend decades telling people you'll take responsibility for them; you shouldn't be surprised when they expect you to do so. You keep them in subsidised housing, on subsidised incomes; you give them bread and circuses to distract them from their misery, and you make them DEPENDANT. Like children. You rob them of their god-given incentives to do and be better; you rob them of the ability to think and do for themselves...

You keep them in their place.

And I think an awful lot of rich, upper class people (Largely white people, but not solely) like this. They like that the little people are in their thrall. It makes them feel powerful. It makes them feel safer. It keeps the crime confined to certain "bad" neighborhoods and keeps the class strata defined. How many congresscritters' kids play with the children of their constituents, anyway? How many of them even go to the same schools? Of course, they can't. Because the rich send their kids to private schools, and the poor send their kids to the schools mandated by the rich. To learn what the rich want them to. So they can reach a limited economic potential. So they can think what their masters want them to, and do what their masters tell them to...

And thus repeat the cycle. Keeping the top dogs on top, and the little people on the bottom. Where they belong. So they can keep propping up the layers of corruption that feed upon them for their power base.

I'm wandering far afield, here. But my point is this. If every single person who'd stayed behind in New Orleans thought it was THEIR OWN job to look after themselves, and not the job of their government- we might have fewer dead people in the water right now. The dead in New Orleans, they died of inept compassion, they died of politics. And not the politics of the republican party- but the politics of liberalism, the politics of welfare and subsidy, the politics of the plantation state.

Master will take care of you. Big Brother is watching. You don't need to think for yourselves, or look after your own. That's what your government is here for.

When I think about how these people died, waiting for help, hoping for rescue, it makes my blood boil. There were 2 days before the storm hit. There was time enough to get everyone out. It was doable. And no effort was put forth to motivate them. In fact, every possible effort was put forth in NOT motivating the poorest and most desperate of the citizenry. They were trained to wait, trained to rely on big government, and not upon their own resourcefulness.

"What you do to the least of these, you do to me."

I'm thinking about a bumpersticker I saw recently. "Jesus is coming, and he is pissed." I thought it was funny at the time.

Right now? I think it's probably pretty true.

Usually, I just stick this stuff on Livejournal. But this is sort of sweet.

Pointless, useless urges

I went to New Orleans the first time, while I was pregnant with my second child. It was the dead of summer, I was huge and awkward, it was hot, humid, and miserable outside. The Ex-Husband made me walk for hours and hours at a brisk pace and was too cheap to buy water. We'd left our older child with my mother and I missed him terribly. The visit should have been completely unbearable. I should never have wanted to return.

But it wasn't, and I did. Want to return, that is. I can't explain any better than this: New Orleans felt homey. I liked where I was. I liked the people. I liked the surroundings. I liked the PLANTS, for heaven's sake. Everything just looked RIGHT. I felt completely content. I could wander the neighborhoods for hours, wondering about the places and the people. I think it was the history- I love history, and there is a palpable sense of it everywhere you look in New Orleans.

I badgered Joe for months afterward. I wanted to live there. I wanted to buy an old house in an older neighborhood and become a local. I've never felt that way about any other place I've visited. Anywhere.

I've been watching the news since before Hurricane Katrina rolled in. Watching with fear in my heart and a knot in my stomach. Then with Anger in my soul. This is a clusterfuck of impressive proportions. I knew LA govt was corrupt. I just didn't realise they were completely worthless as well. It's so damn useful to stand around pointing fingers at each other while the bodies are still floating in the water. Real practical, fellas.

I wish I had money to contribute. There is 200.00 in my bank account, and most of that is already earmarked for bills. I wish I was close enough by to do something. I'm in Kentucky; I could drive down. But what skills do I have to offer? I could do childcare, I suppose. Food preparation. But most likely I'd be another person in the way of the people who do the real work after something like this. I wish I had a guest room to house people.

I wish someone was taking donations of goods; I have seven boxes of outgrown kids' clothes and several bags of baby toys that I'd gladly offer up. I'd cheerfully pare down the house and share what I have, if I knew where to take things.

All I can offer are my prayers. They don't seem nearly enough.

In which the Ornithophobe manages to piss off well nigh everybody...

It's good to have a secret space.

Sometimes there are thoughts in my head that I know have no place in polite company; thoughts that would shock and alienate everyone around me. I can only imagine the horror, the derision, should I loudly, proudly declare them to the world. "What kind of woman are you?"

But they reside there nonetheless, turning and fomenting, growing ever more rancid with each passing day. Like good wine turns to vinegar; these private thoughts get ugly and mean when I cannot give them voice.

I hate people. I hate society. And I hate the bizarre sexual inconsistencies and strange melange of new right and wrong that permeate our society today.

I don't belong here. I don't want to be "empowered," or "liberated" or My Own Woman.

I want to be protected. I want to belong to someone, and know that they are worthy and righteous and will take care of me, even as I take care of them right back. I want to know my place, and fill it completely; to have clearly defined responsibilities and even more clearly defined taboos.

The ornithophobe- 32, divorced, mother of two, full time employee on the career track- wants a husband, damnit. The old-fashioned variety thereof. I want someone who'll be the head of my household. Someone to tell me "No" occasionally. Or hold me when I feel small. Someone to help manage the decisions, plan the dreams, mow the lawn.

Nobody ever talks about this. My mother, God bless her, never needed a man. She did it all by herself- supported me. Fixed the roof, worked on the car, moved the furniture. Bought a house. Paid the bills. Put away a nest egg. Cared for her dying parents. Through it all, she said many, many times, "I'm more of a man than any man I know." The tone of derision in her voice as she said it was cutting. It told me plainly that she'd have welcomed a man- if she could have found one. A real one. But my father wouldn't keep a job, or buy a home. My stepfather wouldn't support a family, preferring to collect expensive sportscars. Neither marriage lasted a year.

Real men are in short supply these days. For thirty years or more, we've told men they're dispensable, disposable. We can "have it all", we can do it ourselves. Grrlpower, Wymyn's lib, etc, ad nauseum. It's our body, our choice. We're not subject to biological destiny, we have the pill. Every child a wanted child, so abortion is a basic civil right. Marriage is about being "in love", so when you're not in love anymore we have no fault divorce. Don't we want to have more, be more, than some housewife baking cookies and breeding baby after baby like a mindless animal?

I am a failure as a modern woman. Because I do need a man. I always have. I'm thirty two years old and I still want my father. I want a safe place to hide, someone to make me feel cherished and protected. The ex-husband couldn't do this for me. He wouldn't take care of me; instead, he needed me to take care of him. To mother him as his own never did. And I did so happily, but maybe I did not do it well enough. In the end, I just could not win his respect, and without respect there can be no love. He is a boy again now; a thirty five year old boy who enjoys his videogames and his freedom. All that nasty ugly responsibility that he could not adjust to is gone. Some day he will find a girl just like his Mama; she will be a career driven, upwardly mobile feminist who will make HIM feel safe and protected. She'll tell him what to do and when to do it.

I wish him well.

I don't want to make my own future. I want to embrace a joint destiny with someone else. To strengthen their ambitions, to promote their dreams. Mine are so small, so petty. To have a dining room, with kids and grandkids gathered round the table on holidays, warm and happy and FAMILIAL. To have someone beside me as I age, as the face and figure in my mirror comes to resemble that of my grandmother. To lie in eternity alongside a mate as our mortal remains return to dust.

These are my dreams. They are as empty and unattainable as any wish.

I am not designed for being alone. Everything about me is designed for the care and comfort of someone else. God, in his infinite wisdom, gave me warmth, wit, and a generous set of breasts to nurse babies with; he gave me a deep seated need to breed and care for a growing family. I grow good babies, you know. Smart, healthy, happy children, delivered with the ease bestowed on me by generations of peasant ancestors. I'm a decent cook and I'm not a bad housekeeper, when I have enough time to devote to my home. The boyfriend assures me my carnal abilities are not lacking.

I even own my own house, outright. It's paid for.

In short, I should have enough to offer in trade, to net myself the sort of husband I want. Yet the supply of old fashioned, marriagable, family-oriented men is nearly nonexistant. Nobody wants a wife, in the traditional sense of the word. They want someone to bring in an income and change her own oil, who will stay on the pill and not bring them any little unfortunates who eat up portions of their paycheck. Someone who will let them sleep in on Sunday morning and not interrupt them while they're involved in a twelve hour online gaming marathon. They want bedroom playmates and fiscal wizards with fast track careers and a stock portfolio.

They certainly don't want damaged 32 year old women with fatherless sons and daddy issues of their own. They don't want someone who will go, "Hey, you take care of this, and I'll take care of that. You have the career, and I'll throw dinner parties for your coworkers. You mow the lawn and I'll plant flowers in the rosebed. You move the furniture and I'll rub your back afterwards."

My future is assured. I will live alone, in my little three bedroom house. I will wear curlers and a bathrobe, and feed hundreds of cats.

On calling things by their right names

My belief that life begins at conception isn't religious, it's scientific. If you try to tell me that an embryo isn't "alive" or that one possessing the requisite dna, growing inside its human mother, is not "Human", then I lose all respect for your argument. It's basic sixth grade biology.

As for whether abortion is right or wrong? It's not a religious issue for me, either. God is concerned with our immortal souls, not so much with our mortal bodies. And I'm a reincarnationist; I think those unborn souls go right on into their next incarnation.

So why am I virulently anti-abortion?

My problem is that I think we cheapen all human life by allowing the destruction of people based solely on their location, age, and convenience. I think the "slippery slope" is valid, and that Roe V. Wade is directly responsible for the number of infanticides and dumpster babies occuring in the modern age. I think legalised abortion is bad for our society, plain and simple.

If someone wants to debate me on the morality of it, argue that it's justifiable homicide in some cases- but don't tell me its a surgical procedure, a women's health issue, or some other bit of euphemism. Call things by their right names; know what you're speaking of. Dilation and curetage is forcible opening of a cervix to cut the baby to bits and scrape it out. Suction aspiration tears the baby to bits and sucks it out of the uterus with a vacuum hose. Dilation and evacuation rips a baby to pieces to pick it out with forceps. Saline injection bathes the baby in an acid bath, killing it slowly over an hour, so the mother may vaginally deliver a dead infant. (Or sometimes, a dying one.) The mass of tissue, products of conception... is a person. Just the same as you or me. A living being, snuffed out in the name of "choice."

If I could get past all this, maybe I too could be pro-choice. But I suck at lying to myself. And euphemism doesn't work for me. Some people hear "reproductive health" and think positive things like mammograms and pap smears. The Ornithophobe hears those tell tale words and sees baby bits on a metal tray. And no matter how much I want people to like me, I can't pretend like I don't.

In some ways? I think I AM liberal. Because the way the lefties get over microwaved mice in sunscreen, or bloody baby seals clubbed to death? That's how I get over dead babies. I get sick to my stomach, I get righteously angry. If you think I get uptight about dead baby seals, you should see me about dead baby humans.

What I want to know is, why would anyone NOT feel this way? What sort of mental and emotional gymnastics are necessary to be OKAY WITH THAT? How does one do it? How do you get there? Can you draw me a map? Because I just don't understand.

Amerika

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062301067_pf.html

Lets all take a moment to mourn for our country. Private property rights died today at the hands of supreme court justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy. Remember these names. It's entirely possible they'll be as infamous as King George the Third one day.

Speaking of King George, at least he was insane. What are the justices' excuses?

One of the saddest experiences of my life was watching the Louisville Airport Authority seize Highland park and its surrounding neighborhoods over a decade ago. It still smarts. Smaller middle and lower class homes were forcibly taken to "expand" Standiford Field, creating the "Louisville International Airport." (It's a fine example of creative advertising, as the only way you're leaving Standiford Field/LIA on an international flight is in a UPS box.) Except that the expansion never happened. Instead, a few tacky motels went up. The remainder of the area is derelict; the houses gone, the yards overgrown with weeds and the streets filled with dumpings of debris. (I saw a couple of couches there recently, if anyone needs a mid-seventies foldout in need of a little reupholstering.) Yet once this was an historic area of Louisville. Nearly every family has come through Highland Park at one time, or another. It was cheap real estate, and truly "ethnically diverse." In the early part of the century it housed the railroad workers, the immigrants; in the thirties it was home to families moving from farm life to factory work; in the forties it was full of young families saving for their first home. (My mamau grew up there, and went back with her young husband and a couple of babies while waiting for this very house to be built.) In the sixties and seventies it was one of the few places a single mother or a retiree on a fixed income could afford to buy a decent house. The eighties saw the influx of a new wave of immigrants; Korean, Laotian, Vietnamese; as well as refugees from the Soviet Union. Catholic Charities helped place these families in low income housing, and very often, that housing was in the heart of Highland Park.

It wasn't much to look at. Mostly shotgun houses; narrow streets and alleyways. But there was James Russell Lowell school, where both my grandparents had been students. There was the house where my Uncle was born. There was the house my great grandparents lived in. Most disturbing of all, there was the house inhabited by one of my Mamau's relatives. Losing her lifelong home in her final years almost certainly shortened her life.

It was bad enough when the government could take your home for a public work. (I'd suggest further reading on the "Land between the Lakes" and the "Land between the Rivers" for your edification. I get too angry when I talk about it, I tend to use bad language and villify John F. Kennedy. People get nasty when you speak ill of the dead. Suffice it to say, families who had owned their land since before the American Revolution, were tossed out. Their homes burned, their belongings stolen, sold to tourists, or destroyed. People died. And this happened in our lifetime, under the guise of creating 'public space' for hunting and fishing, as well as more tax revenue. Except the tax revenue never materialised, and the area still doesn't financially support itself. I guess people have better places to go fishing. )

But as horrible as the above examples are, things got worse today. Infinitely worse.

Imagine it. Your home brings in say, 800.00 a year in taxes. That same property, commercially zoned, could be worth three times that in tax revenue, to say nothing of the economic impact of additional job revenue. THERE IS NOW NOTHING TO PREVENT THEM FROM SEIZING YOUR HOME, AND GIVING IT TO A BUSINESS/DEVELOPER/CORPORATION. That's what this decision means. You no longer own your own home. You have it conditionally on the sufferance of your local government, and if they so choose, they can take it. For any reason, or no reason at all.

You know, even Mad King George limited his tax-seeking to import tariffs. He didn't come after the privately held houses, farms, and businesses of the American colonists. And the last time somebody got tax-happy and infringed upon our liberty, we had a little revolution. Maybe we need another one.

Some links for the curious:

http://www.courier-journal.com/reweb/community/placetime/southend-highlandpark.html

http://newmedia.colorado.edu/~socwomen/newsletter/myturn7.html

Something worth doing

http://www.susantorresfund.org/

If you haven't seen this already, check the link. If you can spare some money, please do. The family needs help keeping this woman on life support long enough to bring her baby to term.

And whether or not you can donate, please add this family to your prayers tonight.

Some people shouldn't breed

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/12/MNGJND7G5L1.DTL

I pity the poor boy who had to be locked in a basement to protect him from a vicious animal. I wonder what prompted him to come out, and meet his death at the jaws of that animal.

But mostly I wonder how his mother can live with herself. And I'm angry. Very, Very, Terribly angry.

My former in-laws were big dog people. They raised, trained, and showed them for fun and profit. I once saw a picture of my ex husband as a toddler, with chew marks healing on his face. I asked my mother in law about it and she was casual. "Oh, Jody was playing with the dog and he got too rough." Imagine my surprise that she blamed the child. Imagine my shock to learn she'd kept the animal even after it chewed up her baby. But she was insistent; the dog was not at fault, her son was. He didn't know any better, but he was at fault. She even laughed about it; joked that it might be why her son never warmed up to the idea of dog ownership.

I must say I can't blame him.

A dog is a pet. It can be beloved, it can be a part of your family. But it is never, ever equal to your child. And if your dog eats your baby, maybe you ought not to have that dog anymore, hmm? Just a thought.

That mother in the article I linked up there? Is no mother at all. She isn't fit to bear the name. "Mother" is not some hereditary title, it is a job description. She wasn't doing her damned job. And her son died for it.

Sanctuary

You gotta go read this :

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/

I just stumbled across this brilliant site purely by accident, following one link and then another, from page to page. And I'm entranced. It's long, it's wordy- and it's right on target. Why we're the good guys. What's wrong with people who can't recognise the good guys anymore. And everyday miracles we've grown too familiar with, to recognise as such.

My favourite section is below:

"As an exercise in perspective, let’s briefly compare our civilization to another. Let’s compare our supposedly soulless, banal, hum-drum society to the splendors of ancient Egypt.

And let’s tie both hands behind our backs while we do so. Let’s not compare the Great Pyramid to one of our skyscrapers, or airports, or hospitals, or even our shopping malls. Let’s take a moment to compare the Great Pyramid of Cheops with the most common and drab and ordinary structure on the block: The Great Pyramid vs. the 7-11.

Assume that we could transplant a corner 7-11 to the Egyptian desert, with all of the support systems that make it what it is. It is a tiny speck compared to the gleaming white marble sides of the pyramid. It looks small and poorly made. From afar.

Pharaoh comes by barge and litter to inspect the competition, laughing at the mismatch. He and his princes and a retinue of servants approach the plain, unadorned metal doors and step inside.
By the Gods! It is cool inside! As cool as the desert night, here, in the middle of the relentless day! Outside the servants sweat and minor officials fan themselves, but Pharaoh is, for the first time perhaps, comfortable in the middle of the desert sun. He turns to exclaim this wonder to his underlings, and -- By the Ghost of Osiris!! The walls! You can see right through them!

Ten seconds into the contest, and already Pharaoh has been rendered mute by miracles.

He commands endless lines of bucket-laden servants to throw water upon this transparent wall, flinching and then laughing endlessly with his children as the water stops in mid-air and slides to the ground. It is called, glass, Great King. It’s cost? No, hardly a years harvest. It is a trifle, the cost a nuisance should it need replacing.

After an hour or so of pressing hands and faces against the glass, of running inside and out, of feeling the smoothest surface they have ever experienced, Pharaoh reluctantly moves on to the magazine rack. Glancing at one, he recoils in horror, making a sign of protection against evil. There, like a tiny row of jail cells, sits face after face of imprisoned souls, bound into small rectangles. What else can they be? We have all seen Egyptian hieroglyphics: they are entrancing, but photorealistic they are not. How many monuments, how many man-years of backbreaking labor, how many deaths could be averted for a man obsessed with being remembered, if only Pharaoh had been able to be photographed? Immortalized! Captured with a precision and nuance greater than that of all of his artisans working together for a thousand years?

And there, on the rack beside the magazines: newspapers, pictures and text detailing the most significant events across the entire globe, covering an area that makes the Egyptian empire look puny and insignificant. How to explain to a king who must wait weeks or months or even years for critical information that each bundle of paper contains news no later than a day old from every remote corner of the Earth, and sells for about a tenth of what our most poorly paid laborer makes in a single hour? Now he begins to think we are mocking him. Yet there is much more to vex and amaze Cheops.

Toilet paper. Draw your own picture of what the highest-born Egyptian must do in those circumstances. Down the aisle to the back – wonders on either side. And then: Ice.

Likely Pharaoh has never seen ice, let alone touched it. At first he recoils, thinking he has been burned. You grab a handful, and gesture for him to put a cube in his mouth. Pharaoh grows enraged – you are trying to kill him! You do so first, sucking on an ice cube. Tentatively, he tries, for the first time in his life, something cold – a diamond that turns to perfectly pure water in his hand.
Think, for a moment, that you have drunk river water for your entire life. Think what a taste of cool, clear water would taste like. Just imagine that one, garden-variety wonder. Then beers and wines, refined and brewed and filtered, not the murky swill he will have known. And as Pharaoh hesitates with each can and bag and box of food he opens, you will have to reassure him, time and time again, that even though you have no idea where the food was made, or when, or by whom, you know it absolutely to be safe to eat. Corn flakes and potato chips – how many lives would a bag of Ruffles be worth to this man, he who has never seen, let alone tasted a potato? How many men would Pharaoh send to die to obtain another box of Oreo cookies for his sons? An army? An entire fleet? Cans of ravioli. Peanut butter. Eggs and milk, of course, but of a quality and size unheard of.

Grab a frozen lasagna and hand it to the Great King. Frozen, like a brick, and like a brick he gnaws on it. Delicious! Then across the room to a small black box, which opens with the same magic lantern that lights this palace of wonder day and night. A moment of conversation passes, and Ding! What was frozen is now steaming hot! Without fire, and in an instant!

The Princes have been exploring every nook and cranny, reporting back to their father: In back, water which flows endlessly, purer than any they have ever tasted, and some of it is hot! It flows from the walls, father! A stream unending! Behind the counter, scores of small, beautifully-colored cylinders which make fire! Made of – what? Not wood or metal – something smooth and hard and perfect! Soaps, of wondrous scents and soft as pillows! Father! Come and see this!

But Pharaoh hardly notices. He is staring up at a box mounted in the corner of the wall, and there, for the first time in his magnificent life, Pharaoh can see…Pharaoh!

Cheops raises his arm, and the small shwabti Cheops raises his! Pharaoh advances, makes a face! The imprisoned Pharaoh does the same! And there, in one of the four corners! The back of the slave Pharaoh’s head! And in another small square, the Crown Prince! He is not in the room, and yet Pharaoh sees him plainly! When he emerges from the storeroom Pharaoh hugs him as if he had returned from the dead.

Yes King, we can on such boxes see any event of significance around the entire world, as it happens. And we can see singers and minstrels and performers – not only those alive today, but those who may have died many years ago! Yes, as real as any other! Preserved forever in language and form!
What would that be worth to such a man?

Over there, in a corner, another magic tablet that communicates back to you, and upon following a set of instructions you give it, disperses money at your command, a seemingly bottomless pot of gold (although, it must be said, the only flash of disappointment Pharaoh has shown was for the quality of money – gold coins would have made a much better impression.)

The sun is setting, and yet the magic of the palace grows ever stronger. Light does not fade. Having read by candlelight his entire life, the idea of day during night is powerful magic indeed. The princes have fallen silent. They have discovered the Slurpee machine and mortgaged their birthrights, entire kingdoms to the clerk for another refill.

There, behind the counter: a machine that will do mathematical calculations to eight decimal places, flawlessly. Instantly. There sits a machine that can do in five seconds what it would take an entire court of astronomers and scribes five years to calculate. The eyes of the underlings, the Egyptian bureaucrats who must count and account for everything in the kingdom – by hand – begin to glaze over. What they could do in a single day with such a wonder! But Pharaoh now is transfixed by the metal of the countertop. Hard. Very hard. On impulse, he removes his short bronze sword and hacks at the steel. Impervious. Cheops’ prized sword is dented and useless. What a sword and shield such material would make – and it’s everywhere: in the doors, the cabinets…common as sand.
But Pharaoh is no longer happy. Like many of that era, he suffers from terrible toothaches. There is so much sand that even the grinding of flour produces bread that erodes the tooth enamel. Pain is a constant companion for him, and like many of his age – like many of every age, before our own – he suffers in silence. That is his life. This, the most powerful man on the planet, suffers just like the poorest. But here, in this bland, ubiquitous convenience store, there is mercy for rich and poor alike. Cold medicine. Medicines to reduce fever. Medicines for toothache, too. And medicine for pain.

In fifteen minutes, this Great Pharaoh will know a few moments free of pain. His children, whom he loves as we love our own – also free of pain.
What would the most powerful man in the world give for such a thing? How much gold? How much land? How many lives?

The pain subsides. And although perhaps not a good or a wise send off for a man with a toothache, the transcendental look of joy on Pharaoh’s face when he first encounters a Coke and a Snickers bar is a sight that his children will never forget. Even after he is long dead, they will always remember him thus, as they ride toward the river on the dark night of the new moon, the little palace glowing in the dark like a beacon visible for fifty miles and more.

Now, on the other hand, the Great Pyramid of Cheops is a massive, beautifully decorated and cunningly designed pile of stones.

We live in an age of miracles, and we just don’t see it. "

He's right. We're so blessed, and yet we don't even notice it, so commonplace are these modern wonders of the world.