Category: Diary

  • Non-Required Reading + Must See (Internet) TV: Helluva Week

    Non-Required Reading + Must See (Internet) TV: Helluva Week

    You weren’t planning on working today, were you?

    So, it was a hell of a week, you guys.

    • Gay marriage is just plain ol’ marriage now, all across the US of A. We wrote about it here and reacted in gifs here.
    • Supreme Court justices announced a 6-3 decision to preserve the Affordable Care Act.
    • Southern state governments are moving to take down the Confederate flag; Walmart, Target, Etsy, hell even NASCAR pledged to stop sporting it.
    • Since the South Carolina Statehouse was dragging its feet taking down the flag, badass Bree Newsome scaled that damn pole and took the flag down, easy peasy. Bitches get shit done.

    “We could not sit by and watch the victims of the Charleston Massacre be laid to rest while the inspiration for their deaths continue to fly above their caskets,” the activists said in a statement.

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    New artwork, inspired by Bree Newsome. #FreeBreeStory here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/27/politics/south-carolina-confederate-flag/

    Posted by Gyno-Star on Facebook and you can buy the t-shirt here. Pass it on.

    Anyway, there are tons of posts that you could and should read about the last week. Read them to further your understanding of context. Find opposing views and seek to understand the lens through which they were written. I consider those required reading, which isn’t really what I was setting out to do in this post. I guess I’ll do a separate “Required Reading” roundup later this week, but for right now I just gotta share this post from the New Yorker that includes this quote from our President:

    “I have strengths and I have weaknesses, like every President, like every person, […] I am comfortable with complexity, and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I’m taking measure of my actions against the options and possibilities available to me, understanding that there are going to be mistakes that I make and my team makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent […] but that, if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought up with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of most Americans, that, at the end of the day, things will be better rather than worse.”

     

    OK, now on to the fun stuff.

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    Raptor Princesses. You can get them on a t-shirt, too.

    Why We Need Philosophers Engaged In Public Life. “Analyses of causal and moral responsibility crop up across philosophy — in metaphysics, ethics and legal philosophy, to name just a few. Philosophy is also a good place to look for critical arguments (as opposed to gut reactions) on issues like racism, eugenics and violence.”

    How Minecraft and Duct Tape Wallets Prepare Our Kids for Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet. Really interesting, and helps ease my guilt about too much Minecraft time.

    Here’s a new theme song for ya.


     

    Agency Says Whole Foods Overcharges. Um, duh?

    Fight Club for Kids. Because so much yes and Chuck is frankly adorable.

    What if We Treated Other Consent Situations Like Society Treats Sexual Consent? Brilliantly simple.

    Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and the Gendering of Martyrdom. “The way media dotes over its tortured male artists while undermining the personal struggles of women who suffer the same is nuanced, but a look into the archive suggests the phenomenon is well documented across race, genre, and generation.”

    Meet Abandoned Blind Dog and His Trusty Canine Guide Who ‘Acts as His Eyes’


    ABC US News | World News

     

    Hey, here’s another t-shirt you need. Maybe I need to start a new series dedicated to must have shirts.

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    Here’s another Poehler beauty: a segment of “REALLY?!” with Seth Meyers calling out a Sports Illustrated contributor who tweeted that nothing about women’s sports is worth watching. Oh, really.

    We Tried On Victoria’s Secret Bathing Suits And This Is What Happened. These body positive posts are everywhere now, and really that’s a good thing. I liked this one a lot.

    Start Your Morning Right With an Alarm Clock That Makes You Coffee. In my house, this is called “my kids” but whatever. We’re ready to test it. For science.

    Utah Valley U. Paints ‘Texting’ Lane on Busy Staircase

    Antwerp now has ‘text lanes’ for pedestrians who are glued to their mobile phones

    Are all these texters in their own lanes just bumping into each other, like human bumper cars? Where the hell is the live video feed?

    I’ve watched this like a dozen times and it never stops being funny.

    Getting drunk on your own front porch is not illegal, rules US court. “Judges in Iowa feared that convicting a woman for ‘public intoxication’ on her front steps would risk making JD barbecue sauce potentially illegal.”

    Related: map of the drunkest states during the summer.

    *whispers* I know it’s cool to hate on Buzzfeed but I really, really love the Try Guys.

    And finally: this week, when that special someone is on your last nerve, take a deep breath and calmly invite them to shoot a rainbow outta their blowhole.

     

    HIT ME UP.
    Share your links for me to read— required or no— along with any must-see videos.

     

  • Taste the Rainbow, Cause Marriage is For Everyone

    Taste the Rainbow, Cause Marriage is For Everyone

    d2c5f32631fcb6a94dfeebb209988db29ef0156386a6cc1419ab4b87056daa68I am a heterosexual, Christian, single woman. And I am here to CELEBRATE THE SHIT OUT OF THE  SCOTUS RULING.

    GAY MARRIAGE IS LEGAL, BITCHES! WHOOOOO!

    I am no one’s theologian, but let’s be clear. The SCOTUS ruling has not re-defined marriage, invalidated marriage, destroyed marriage, blah blah fucking blah.

    Two people getting married should have no impact on your own marriage, unless, of course, you are already married to one of those two people, and you’re not Mormon. If your marriage is so weak that two men or two women getting married can destroy it, you need to take another look at what is going on in your house.

    If your faith is so screwed up, you’d rather kill yourself, or completely uproot your life than see gay marriage be legal, or if your faith is God is so skewed that you spend more energy fighting against gay marriage (we can just call it marriage now!) than you do doing the things Jesus actually talked about, you are missing the point of being like Jesus.

    You know what Jesus and the architects of the New Testament talk about? Helping the poor and disenfranchised.  Engaging the marginalized. Protecting the weak. You’re supposed to be concerned about things like fighting for the rights of the widows and orphans and those who are victims of violence and poor prison conditions. 

    If you call yourself a Christian, and vote for politicians who want to de-fund SNAP, you are not following Jesus.  Where does Jesus talk about taking food FROM people in need?

    If you call yourself a Christian and you vote for politicians who want to repeal the ACA, you are not following Jesus.  Seriously, I think the Man that raised Lazarus from the dead, gave sight to the blind, healed a leper, and cured the woman with the issue of blood, and all other manner of illness is okay with healthcare for all.

    If you call yourself a Christian and vote to disenfranchise a group of people on the basis of something that Jesus did not expressly discuss, you need to do some serious re-evaluating.  You want to ignore ALL OF THE SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS and hang your hat on some shit He didn’t even talk about? GTFOH with that twisted religion- sanctioned bigotry.

    “Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people; before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children; before you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about it through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in how you choose to live and give.” Senator Cory Booker

    If you honestly believe homosexuality is the sin to end all sins, (as opposed to, you know, murder, theft, turning your back on the poor, adultery) then you need to have a little talk with Jesus. And read your Bible.

    If I get married tomorrow, do you know what will happen? I’ll get some tax breaks. I may or may not change my last name (more trouble than it’s worth, honestly) I’ll get ‘next of kin’ privileges if my husband ends up in the hospital, and all manner of other perks and goodies, like being a beneficiary on any death benefits as the surviving spouse.

    And isn’t that all a marriage is as far as the government is concerned?

    You know what changes about my marriage now that with “gay” marriage is legal?

    Nothing. None of that changes for me if two men or two women get married.

    A religion’s definition of marriage is very different from the governments- and since we’re all about the separation of church and state thing, that’s wonderful news. The IRS doesn’t ask about the religion of my household when I file jointly. My tax bracket doesn’t change if I check Christian. No one on a state and federal level gives a rat’s ass if I was married in a church, the justice of the peace, the Home Depot, or while sitting in a tree.

    A marriage is a contract that indicates to the government that you and this other person will be doing shit together from here on out.

    And that’s okay.

    Different religions put different spins and meanings on marriage, and call marriage a weighty matter in the eyes of their deity.

    And that’s okay too. It is a weighty matter. Religion or not, it is not a contract to be entered into lightly.

    But your religion does not, cannot, define marriage for the country. Think about this argument. If marriage is only marriage because your religion says it is, does your religion then invalidate all of the marriages that began under a religion different than yours? Does your religion invalidate all of the marriages of those heterosexual couples who don’t believe in any brand of theism? If that’s the case, then there can be NO marriages in the United States- every religion invalidates the one before.

    Marriage is in your heart. Not in your religious affiliation.  Sorry, religious zealots, your argument is invalid.

    If I get married tomorrow, it will be by a pastor. It will be in a church. And Jesus will not bless my union any less because a gay couple is getting married next week. My relationship with God is not defined by anything else anyone else does.

    Why should this be?

    “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.

    As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law.

    The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.  It is so ordered” – Justice Kennedy

  • Virginia is for lovers – and gays too

    You guys….
    All of those gay people?
    They can totally and legally get married now.
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    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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    That would be my reaction if I was a conservative.
    Since I am not a bigoted, soulless, hater of all things that might make other people happy and fulfilled, let’s  start over.

    You guys….
    All of those gay people?
    They can totally and legally get married now.
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    Look, I am like, 88% hetero. I probably kissed a girl in college (I don’t remember…there was a lot of Boones Farm consumed) and I appreciate a beautiful woman. Like, I can look at a woman and be all ‘If I loved women, I would totally stalk you on Facebook and lean on your elliptical at the gym and stuff.’
    I will also confess that, despite having two very gay uncles (beyond the birdcage, you guys), I did not really understand homosexuality until I was out of college. I was aloof and didn’t care about who was gay, who was straight, or who was in-between. Transgender? Transwhatever! Can I borrow that skirt?
    I thought inclusion was a matter of NOT caring. Then my best friend came out to me. I listened as we lay on the trampoline in his backyard, staring at the midnight sky, his voice quivering as he all but begged me to forgive him for being anything other than straight. I hugged him and told him I didn’t care, it didn’t mean anything to me.
    It wasn’t until many years later, long after our friendship dissolved, that I realized that it did matter that I care. That it should mean something to me. Because without it meaning something to me, a person in the majority, he would never have the full support of his community and government to marry, love, and nurture the person with which he chose to share his life. Without me as an active ally, he would never have the same legal rights that I am entitled to in my heterosexual union. Without my caring, he could not justify why his love of another should be treated as equal as much as mine.
    In the simplest terms, that fucking sucks.
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    So I present myself to all of you with my hetero hat in hand, whilst standing in the driving rain to tell you that I am sorry that I wasted so much time not caring.
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    I am sorry that you and every gay person before you did not have the freedom to be relentlessly gay.
    But… you guys…no matter when it was that I or anyone else totally got on-board the ally train, as of today, y’all can get married in all the fifty states. No Matter What!
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    Rock the fuck on with your bad selves! You killed it! You did that because you deserve it! And I can’t wait for you to show all the haters, pessimists, and bigots that we are all the same. No better, no different.
    Love is love.
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    (P.S. If you are on the East coast, please invite me to your amazing weddings.)
  • Today in History: June 26

    Today in History: June 26

    CUPCAKE (7)

    June 26, 2014: The Supreme Court rules 5-4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states! Subsequently, Target’s server for wedding registries crashes hard.

    June 26, 1284: The Pied Piper lured away the children of Hameln after the townspeople refused to pay him for ridding their town of rats. (We are just as surprised as you to find out that this was a true story.)(Okay, maybe not “true”, but “true enough” that there’s a generally-accepted date, which is almost as surprising, especially since no one can agree with what happened.)

    1870: Christmas is declared a national holiday.  Coincidentally, June 26th is also when the Christmas shopping season starts.

    1892: Pearl S. Buck is born.  She would go on to be the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for her books inspired by her life in China.

    1948: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is published.  Thousands of high school students commence essays.

    1963: President Kennedy makes his famous “Ich ben ein Berliner” speech in West Berlin.  Contrary to popular legend, the president did not declare himself a jelly doughnut.

    2013: In United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional.  (Check out this guide for the non-lawyers amongst us.)

    Our neighbors to the north are celebrating National Canoe Day today!  America is just going to sit on the sofa and binge watch Netflix, if that’s okay with you.

  • Today in History: June 25

    Today in History: June 25

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    June 25, 1678: Elena Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman to receive a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Padua.  We can only assume that shortly thereafter, some guy attempted to mansplain Aristotle to her.

    1876: Lt. Colonel Custer and his men are routed at the Battle of Little Bighorn; Americans are simultaneously horrified by the death of Custer and his men and continue to murder Native Americans and confine them to smaller and smaller reservations.

    1945: Carly Simon is born.  You’re so vain, you probably think this post is about you.

    1947: The Diary of A Young Girl, by Anne Frank, is published and puts a face to the atrocities of Hitler’s regime.  Anne may have believed that “despite everything, people are really good at heart,” but we still think Justin Bieber is a jerk.

    1996:  Independence Day premieres in L.A.; it would become the year’s highest-grossing film and Bill Pullman’s speech as President Whitmore becomes engrained in America’s consciousness.

    Today is also National Catfish Day— President Reagan may be been famous for his love of jelly beans, but he is also responsible for the 1987 creation of a day celebrating farm-raised catfish.