Category Archives: Don’t get me started (uh-oh, you just did)

Please, hire an editor or proofreader.

Posted on by

I cannot, can’t, will not, won’t go to a coffee chain whose napkins proclaim that their efforts will leave the world with “less napkins.” What, in the name of all that is holy, did David Foster Wallace not explain to us in his review of Bryan Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage but that structural linguistics, as descriptive yet still highly judgmental are a farce. Written and standard English need flexible but firm prescriptive rules. The descriptive tack is a ruse, allowing in errors in the name of colloquial usage, yet ignoring other, legitimate alternate usages based in judgment and priorities that hide nothing less than a political agenda.

In other words, just because some people say it incorrectly doesn’t make it correct. Or cute. Think differently.

Please, advertising companies, hire professional editors. You can’t say “less napkins” just because enough people don’t know the rule. It’s “fewer napkins.” You can count napkins. Therefore you can know just how many fewer napkins there are. Just because supermarkets get away with the egregious Ten Items or Less (sic) rather than opting for the correct Ten Items of Fewer; and just because advertising companies get away with the chalkboard-forkdragging of “Where Are You At?” rather than the simpler, more elegant, and freaking correct “Where Are You?” does not mean that you can claim frequent American usage and refuse to proofread your freaking napkins. Written language is standard as used by educated writers. And it’s fewer napkins. You can’t count sugar. So there you get to use “less sugar.” You can count cars. Fewer cars. You can’t count traffic. Less traffic. Fewer napkins, less sugar, fewer cars, less traffic. Less pollution, for that matter. And apparently, far, far fewer writers who actually know the language.

Sign of the apocalypse.

New WordPress Design

Posted on by

Are you people f–ing kidding me?! New design? I cannot handle this sort of thing. Look. You are young, you are technologically savvy, and you are patient. I am old. I have a small person sucking the life out of me every moment of every day, even the good ones. I have no patience left–I have a high intensity kid and a high intensity parenting philosophy. And no childcare. I am less of a little tiny nub of a person with every gentle-parenting conflict and attachment-parented development. I have nothing left. Please, please don’t go and change the interface or the design or the dashboard or the whatever the fcuk you geeks call the gui these days, because I just can’t handle upheaval in my life right now. I can’t even freaking approve comments because I can’t freaking find them.

Be advised. You’re on warning. If I had to energy to write a strongly worded letter, I would. If I had the education to complain intelligently, or base my claims in something other than neophobia, I would. So just you know, you, you wordpress people, that I am very unhappy, an very put out, and am very likely to do anything about it.

Insincerely,

me

FDA-approved formula—now with added melamine!

Posted on by

Boy, oh boy does the government have good public relations. Today they announced that they found melamine in U.S. infant formula, but that it’s safe. (Hey. It’s safe. The FDA says so. You believe the government, don’t you? I know they said in October that no melamine in formula is okay, but now they think traces should be fine. Don’t worry.)

“Traces of the industrial chemical melamine have been detected in samples of top-selling U.S. infant formula, but federal regulators insist the products are safe.”

Sure it’s fine to feed your baby formula with some melamine. It’s not like it’s a LOT of melamine. Just a little. Like how much lead we can have in toys (which is okay, because a midnight regulation just pushed through by Bush ensures there will extra lead in the air. Mmmmm. Tasty.)

I like how the FDA will only say that it found melamine in leading brands. Won’t tell you which brand, how much, or how many tests they performed. The AP article linked above say it’s Nestle, Abbott, and Mead Johnson. How very “some of the meat sold somewhere has been killing people because it’s full of toxic bacteria” of the FDA to leave that out. But it’s only melamine. And it’s only killed a few babies in China and only hurt tens of thousands more, and killed dozens of dogs. But some got better, much like the peasant returned from his newt-like state in Monty Python, right? So let’s not do anything rash, like breastfeed, or anything.

What would happen, do you think, if we started calling “formula” artificial breastmilk? That’s what is it. It’s artificial. Not bad, but not natural, either. So if you have to call imitation almond flavoring and imitation butter by their names, why not call the powdered stuff that babies sometimes drink in place of breastmilk “artificial breastmilk”? “Imitation breastmilk”? Maybe we would have enough parents question the wholesomeness of an artificial, imitation milk in their babies that we could actually cultivate a culture that educates and supports breastfeeding moms, so we wouldn’t have so many drop out of the game who are, metaphorically and literally, breastfeeding in the dark (and in bathrooms and in the car because some people find it offensive to make your baby the best meal possible, instead of feeding it melamine.)

So dioxin is fine. And some mad cow is okay. And lead and arsenic and pesticides in our water are okay. And all those drugs that will be pulled from shelves in a few months for killing too many people are fine for now because they’ve only killed a few people.

Damn. I’d really like to have the clout of the FDA. Because they’ve been endangering lives for decades with their blatant disregard for science. Yay for distrusting science. Yay for greenwashing the harmful effects of chemicals and plastics and bleach and lead-based paint. Yay for maimed and dead children all over the world because we don’t believe in real food anymore. But we do believe in corporate profits. It’s the American way.

Read the pr industry expose Toxic Sludge is Good for You.  And then you’ll realize why I quit working in advertising.

Facebook-Starbucks quandry

Posted on by

Some of my facebook friends are part of a group getting all in a dither about going to Starbucks on December 1, 2008 and ordering one of the company’s RED coffee drinks so that 5 cents goes to AIDS research, relief, and humanitarian aid.

Fine, good, and lovely. But am I the only one who thinks it’s a better idea to vow off expensive coffee for, say, a week, and send the proceeds, whole cloth, to AIDS research, relief, and humanitarian aid? Say, if I went out of my way to get overpriced coffee on December 1, 2008, and spent $4 on a chocolately espresso thing, they’d give 5 cents. Nice. If I sent that $4 to one of the charities at charitywatch.org, maybe most of that $4 would help. Five cents is a lot. Four dollars is eighty times more.

I think I’ll stay out of Starbucks on Monday. Not because I have taken to heart Ilene’s rejection of their business model (though I’ve always respected her view, and my frustration of their early assertion that the company was named after the firstmate in Moby Dick, whose alleged love of coffee is not supported by the text).

I’m not making a political statement here. I’m making a mathematical decision. And I’m sending at least $4 to AIDS relief on Monday, when I will be making coffee at home.

Voice-activated Hell

Posted on by

Today, even though I felt like death warmed over, TMobile called, and the whore they (don’t) pay to harass me wanted to rumble.

Okay, so I understand why companies are shelving all their workers and turning to computers. Sure, it saves a few bucks. Sure, it helps the American economy by putting money into the pockets of robots, who seem to be taking the high price of oil especially hard. But seriously, communications companies, stop with the voice-activated customer service.

Here’s how computer customer service and I usually get along: the computer asks me what I want to do. I say, “customer service.” My son, who has now noticed I’m on the phone and sets his taser to stun, parrots, “customer service.” I shake off the distraction (is that what we call a small person who needs you and depends on you for everything he’s not able to do himself? a distraction? a Napoleonic dictator? my best little helper in the world? love of my life? Pain in my ass? as alittlepregnant says, “unstoppable arch-nemesis, perhaps.”) Anyway, I try to hold off the deluge of those Kodak moments in which he is possessed by the “hey, mom’s on the phone, which only happens once a week, and all bets are off!” mood of the minute, and wait for the computer to recognize my request.

DCSR (disembodied customer service rep): I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Let’s try again.

Okay, lady, or disembodied lady who spent a fortune in voiceover lessons to get this one gig and get no residuals from every fucking time the computer doesn’t understand me.

“Cus-to-mer ser-vice,” I enunciate.

DCSR: Okay. you want to establish new service, right?

“No,” I say, patience running thin. My son has glimpsed his opportunity to head to the bathroom to relieve the toilet paper roll of its pricey tree pulp. My cats have decided his absence from the room is their window to the one moment of my attention a day. My head is swimming, trying to decide who gets the focus.

DCSR: Please say yes or no.
Me: [small boy is trying to decide which button on the butane lighter will heat the pinking shears to a temperature sufficient to burn cat hair but cool enough to leave their skin unsinged] What was the question?

DCSR: Okay. Let’s start again.

“No, let’s not,” I think. Is it my imagination, or have they hired Sarah Palin for this job? The voice is just folksy enough, just approachable enough to make me forget for a moment that she is a tool of the Dark Side. Then she says something so classically bitchy that I am recalled from the trance in which I want smaller government, even though both Wasilla’s and Alaska’s grew under her reign as prom queen, and lower taxes, dropped just low enough that we force race victims to pay for their own rape kit.

“Customer serrrvice,” I trill, thinking that getting all happy and Southern will get me better service. I can play Palin with the best of them. Except Tina Fey. That woman is freaking genius. Maybe, maybe minus the letting her kid watch Psycho bit, but still.

“Okay,” the Sarah Palin robot computer disembodied nemesis trills back. “You said, ‘customer service,’ right?”

“Yes.” I’m shaking my head, no, at the toddler who is trying to put nail polish on the cats’ toes. Cats are resisting. Silly mortals. Toddler is undeterred. That’s it, boy. Way to pursue your artistic dreams. I believe in you!   Except, please don’t do that. Find something I can support would you, instead of going all “find the netherworld in which unconditional finds a few conditions.”

DCSR: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please say yes or no.
Me: I did say ‘yes or no.’ I said ‘yes.’ Please listen to me, since it’s just me and an almost-three year old and enough people aren’t listening to me today that I just might lose it.

DCSR: Let’s try again.
Me: [whining] No! Let’s not try again!

DCSR: [insistent, implying that I’m a failure for not even knowing how to talk] Please say, account balance, check minutes, send money to relatives in Peru, new credit card, deplete my savings account, or wait endlessly on hold.

Me: None of those. Customer service. Honey, please put that down. That’s a no-touch. Please put it down and we can play with this, instead.

DCSR: You said, ‘deplete my savings account, right?’

Me: [resenting this new turn Sarah Palin’s career has taken, even if it pays a bit better than 365 on per diem at home while your husband attends to government business for you, and almost wishing she was pardoning and butchering turkeys as VP instead of as disembodied customer service bitch] [as clearly as I can manage] No.

SP as DCSR: Please say yes or no.

Me: No. No no no no no no.

At this point, the kid is screaming at the top of his lungs because I’m saying ‘no’, the cats are hiding because they sense that formaldehyde is not on their list of “well, at least this is better than the shelter” activities, my savings account is gone, and the computer cops a ‘tude with me.

SP as DCSR: I’m sorry we’re having trouble. Let’s try again another time.

Click.

Okay, you fucknecks. I don’t have time to explain to your computer what I need. I don’t have time to Minnesota/Alaska/Georgia my accent to make myself intelligible. I want the good ol days where the motherfucking computer made me “press one” for self-immolation and “press two” for Kvorkian assisted conflagration.

Today’s was even worse. I’m sick, I’m on crutches, and Spouse is waiting on me hand and foot because every other time in our almost ten year relationship that I’ve been sick he’s been out of town. So he owes me some major tea and honey, some major shared childcare, and some major motherfugging midday naps.

And this TMobile bitch wants to rumble. (Don’t get me wrong. TMobile has been okay, I guess, even though I had no service at my old house and even though they lock me out of the website everytime I try to log on to pay my freaking bill. They did give me the cell phone MP3 player that might be the solution to outsidevoice‘s kindergardener with an iPod problem. But still. They’re fucking with the wrong nasally bitch today.)

T: Please say your account number now.
Me: 5-1-0-achoo
T: I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that. Please try again now.
Me: [thinking, of course you didn’t. I didn’t finish.  a person would know that, you robot a–hole; then trying again] 5-1-0 [mommy mommy I need poop!]
T: We seem to be having some trouble.
Me: You said it, Lady. [“Daddy!” (yes, I’ve developed the nasty habit of calling Spouse “Daddy.” Vowed I never would. And every mom does something she vowed she never would, so as long as heroin and twenty-seven hours of tv-babysitter are still off the list, I’m good. “We’ve got a pooper in here!” To which he pleasantly replies, “Do I have a few minutes?” Where do I start?]
T: You said, pay the bills of all my friends and family, right?
Me: No.
T: Please say yes or no.
Me: No. [Achoo]
T: Dice Espanol?
Me: [in Spanish] No.
T: [composed, if robotic] Your bill is wicked overdue. Would you please pay, you deadbeat fucker, or we’ll cut off your only contact with the world.
Me: Look, I just moved, I didn’t know the bill was due, and I can never log onto the web site because my kid sucks my memory dry both of password and of, well, memory.
T: You said, add text messaging, right?
Me. No. [cough cough cough]
T: I’m trying to be patient with you, but it seems you pal around with terrorists.
Me: Oh, please. I met him once. He taught math, I went to office hours. That’s not pal-ing.
T: You said please enflame me, right?
Me: No.
T: You’re taken care of in that department?
Me: Yes, thank you very much.
T: You said please disconnect your service, right?
Me: No.
T: Please say yes or no.
Me: What was the question? [sniffle]
T: Thank you. Consider your service terminated. Now, can we schedule your personal visit with Sarah Palin?

Oh, sweet Mary, mother of my cousins, just shoot me now. I just want to press one for self-immolation.

Your love is like a fungus

Posted on by

Is it a sign from the relationship gods that I have a fungus growing under my wedding ring? Well, correction: my engagement ring. I never wear my wedding ring. The engagement ring is too sweet by itself. But now it’s a little less sweet since it’s giving me an itchy, red, peeling rash. I took it off a few weeks ago to let the thing heal. It took more than a week. I left it off for another week. I thought maybe it was contact dermatitis and that washing the band would take care of it. Nope. Two days on and it’s red, peeling, and itchy again.

So, aside from dunking the ring in jockitch cream, what do I do? Is the platinum making the point that Spouse is a louse? Is it conspiring to suggest that now, after the move back home, I should ditch the ring as either symbol or reality? Is my finger trying to get out of this marriage? Don’t you think someone in a bar, where I spend all my copious free time, would notice the red and scaly patch where a ring used to be? Forget tan lines: athlete’s foot is the mark of a really well worn band.

Am I allergic to my Spouse? Or just symbols of his (metaphorically) perpetually cloying love? Is a foul fungus growing in my marriage? Do I need some lessons in hygeine? Will Tiffany’s delouse a jewelry collection, when I come in for its antifungal treament? Is that included in the purchase price?

How lame to go to a doctor to ask for assistance in clearing up a ring around my finger. Um, lady, red and flaky is the new platinum. Go with it.

1.) Gross!  2.) What the?  3.) How the? 4.) Why the? 5.) Go the f— away! 6.) Gross!

It’s not one of those days

Posted on by

You know how some days you see a cold, dirty, sad homeless guy and you want to run to the ATM and withdraw what little you have left to hand over with a kiss?

You know how some days you look at the guy in the hospital cafeteria who is getting his toast out of the toaster and you think, “I hope you electrocute yourself.” And then wish, for his sake, that he weren’t in a hospital, because it’d be too easy to make it after the electrocution?

You know how you pour all your energy into an event, trying in every way to do your best and make everything come out just right, and after the event it turns out it didn’t really matter, and that some of the stuff you did was genius, and some of the stuff you did was a waste of time, and in the balance nobody really cares but you, anyway?

You know how some days you’re all uptight and anal about parenting exactly the best possible way, making your own life a living hell to give your kids a slight edge on being happier and healthier later in life?

You know how some days you just don’t care how you parent, handing over treat after treat, offering new toys from the rainy day closet, and smacking ’em on the arm (though you said you’d never, ever, ever) when they repeatedly get down from the table to grind pinto beans into the only rug in the house?

You know how some days you want to find all your old friends, the ones with whom you haven’t spoken in years, just to tell them that you’re a better person now, and certainly more interesting, and that maybe they should be your friend again because you have a lot to offer? Really?

You know how some days you want to delete most of your friends out of your phone and PDA and contact file and old, paper Rolodex because the bastards don’t ever seem to call or write anymore, and if they’re always going to wait for you to make the effort, then they can f*ck off?

You know how some days you just need a nap?

You know how some days you want to do yoga, then go running, then start a business, then volunteer, then write a novel, then go to the gym?

Yeah, well it’s not one of those days.

Rantlets, little rants of the day (iv)

Posted on by

Hey, people who believe things: stop using your kids to campaign for you. It’s disgusting to have children who can’t form their own opinions holding signs for anything, let alone for hatred, discrimination, and bigotry.

Oh, and companies who make kids’ toys? So help me, if one more toy hollers out after being abandoned for 30 seconds, I’m gonna boycott your whole freaking company. Peanut actually has a toy that clears its throat and bellows, “Excuse me!” to get him to come back and play with it. Newsflash: you piss me off, I won’t buy your toys. Newsflash ii: toys that don’t know when it’s time to move on piss me off. Newsflash iii: when my kid’s falling asleep in the car, a toy that wakes him up to demand that he play some more really pisses me off. Newsflash iv: You know who you are, LeapFrog bastards. Unless you change your ways and announce your contrition publically, I’ll make sure you’re on the entertainment non grata list this Chrismakkah.

By the way, country: way to go on that election thing. I’m not totally pleased, vis a vis California ballot initiatives. But overall, you done good, nation. It’s nice to share this country with you.

East coast, left coast, and “wonderful little pockets” in between

Posted on by

According to Sarah Palin,

We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.

You know what? I’m tired of this your-America versus our-America bullshit. Every single citizen is part of the real America–part of the dichotomy between rich and poor, left and right, liberal and conservative, creative and analytical, educated and ignorant, entertained and bored, thoughtful and thoughtless.

Intentionally, superficially divisive politics fit into the latter category.

The real America is also the economic centers of the country. The farms, the factories, the skyscrapers, the theaters, the film backlots, the offices, the aerospace compounds, the retail centers, the universities, the tourist attractions. Cities are just as American as small towns. Small towns are just as American as cities. People are not more American because of their job, their background, their lack of education, or their residence in a swing state.

As Sarah Vowell said on The Daily Show the other day, if New York was American enough for the terrorists, it’s American enough for the rest of us.

I hope that after this election the nonsense about them versus us stops. Because every time politicians stoke that fire (every two years, just often enough to make it a permaflame) instead of focusing on the legitimate disagreements between their ideas, we all lose. Can’t we just have a civil discussion about how really bright minds come up with completely opposite ideas?

Stop pandering and realize that we all contribute. Some a lot more than others. But we’re all still citizens and every single vote should count.

Ten books other people love but I don’t

Posted on by

Oh, the web is wonderful. After reading the following:

http://capacioushandbag.blogspot.com/2008/09/meme-that-i-just-made-up.html
http://outsidevoice.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/unlovedbooks/

Ten Books People Love but I don’t

I had to give it a go. Because the above posts made some EXCELLENT points re: the painful shittiness of Wuthering Heights, The Old Man and the Sea, and Heart of Darkness, I can simply agree wholeheartedly and move on to:

1. Billy Budd. The only thing more painful than social implications of his speech impediment is reading about it. Tragic? Aye. Dramatic? Aye. Now stick me in the eye so I don’t have to read it ever again. (My secret for those who loathe Moby Dick is: skip any chapter that begins with a whale or a boat. The dialogue and existential angst stuff is pretty darned good. Except that it’s Melville and I don’t much care. I’m just saying, if you have to read it, skip the whale and ship bits. Makes it a pretty quick read.)

2. Oliver Twist. B-uh-lech. Maybe it had soap-opera appeal as a subscription serial, but come on. Try Tale of Two Cities, instead. Still laborious in a “yup, clearly he was paid by the word” kind of way, but the final two pages make it all worth it. And I like a payoff. Which is why all the E.M. Forester-y British nineteenth century books that leave ends dangling, dripping with possibility and fraught with “if only” make me want to hurl them at the nearest open flame.

3. War and Peace. Ugh. Oh, God, please, don’t. Crime and Punishment, yes. Anna Karenina if you really, really want to. But barring those masterpieces, why, really, wend your way through Russian lit? They have long winters, lots of vodka, and enough space to be alone. I would not begrudge them their need for torturously long reads. But we don’t need the literary distractions. I’m not arguing for short books. I wanted to write my Master’s thesis on Infinite Jest, for heaven’s sake. But Anna and War are like reading all the “who begat whom” sections of the Bible. Were those guys paid by the word, too?

4. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Um, no. Stop with your Catholic angst and your paternal angst and your filial angst. Too much boy desperate to be a man but held back by his country, religion, and extensive knowledge of classic literature for me. (Seriously? A whole novel about Icarus and Daedalus? The painting is genius. The story is okay. The Irish reinterpretation is laborious and self-congratulatory.) Stephen is the Irish Holden Caufield, only not as easy to read. (Ulysses is worth it, though, for those dissing Joyce. But read the The Odyssey first. Or get a guide. Or read the critical edition. Ulysses is brilliant as a call and response to The Odyssey like O, Brother Where Art Thou is brilliant as a call and response to both. All three are abstruse on their own.)

5. The Sun Also Rises. Aaaaack! Ernest Hemingway, you offend my literary sensibilities. Again. Do you actually read, or do you just write? Jesus, le mot juste was never so dry or so overwraught with self importance. Bombastic in his superiority, Hemingway makes me gag, especially when he’s so obsessed with male genitalia. Try his Nick Adams stories, instead. The only way to fix Hemingway is to make his male characters prepubescent.

6. Gone with the Wind. Makes me want to strangle Scarlet and Rhett—for the entirety of the text. Please. Shut up already. You’re boring. Makes me want to let them secede. Or force them to read all the books on this list, over and over.

7. Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness. I know I said above that it was covered in the other anti-best-of lists, but I can’t not say it again and again. Poorly written, colonial racist eroticization of The Other, thinly veiled homoeroticism, and just plain uninteresting. More machismo-penis fiction, a la Hemingway. Assign it only as punishment for plagiarizers who will “do anything” to not fail your class.

8. On the Road. Holy Self-Absorbed Baby Boomers at Their Worst, Batman. Jeezus, why are we letting that generation run the world? They’re boring!

9. Confederacy of Dunces. ptooey! Did you not want to throttle Ignatious J. Reilly the whole way through? I’ve never met a more unsympathetic character in a novel. Why do people like this book? I felt like I was on the spinning wheel of fortune while a blindfolded knife thrower was on break waiting to maybe think about maybe making things interesting for me and the audience. After he made us all watch cubist films about paint drying.
Infuriating. Pulitzer? What? Try, instead, if you want funny yet tormented, self aware and philosophically important—Infinite Jest. And read the footnotes. Ten thousand times more worth your while than any of CoD.

11. The Great Gatsby. Okay, I said it. I know I’m the only one, and I’m willing to be alone on this one. Gatsby is full of horrible people doing horrible things, and not even in an important, changing the world kind of way. Give me biographies of dictators or famine or tracts about world poverty, but don’t make me pretend to be impressed, or even interested, in rich Americans who shat all over society. Yucky, icky self absorption, conspicuous consumption, devaluation of women’s bodies, and painfully obvious but unexamined divides between the many classes in American society. Plus, the narrator is way too Holden Caulfield for me, and you know how I feel about him. Entirely disagreeable and distasteful chap, that one.

12. Tuesdays with Morrie. SCHLOCK! Oh, my, schlockedy schlock schlock. Get your carpe diem elsewhere. This is schlock.

13. Angela’s Ashes. I’ve now been disowned for saying this, but what is the appeal? The writing is fair to middling, and it’s neither depressing enough nor uplifting enough. As memoirs go, it’s filed twice under “yeah, right” and “who the hell cares?” Maudlin expressions of intense poverty are fine by me. I love me some well written memoirs of intense powerlessness. Somehow, dotting the “i”s with little smiley faces makes the whole thing seem disingenuous, no? You want a book about finding hope in absolutely desolate conditions? Try What is the What? by Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng.

(Now that I’ve read the list here, I feel less original about On the Road and Catcher in the Rye, but I also feel vindicated…)

Yes, that was more than ten. Ask anyone who has ever met me if I can follow rules or self-edit.

Our next assignment, overeducated blogosphere, is a list of books we love that nobody else is reading.

activist judges

Posted on by

So if a court, especially the Supreme Court, makes a ruling you disagree with, it’s activism? It’s legislating from the bench? Just because you disagree? Ever consider that those judges are professional legal scholars and you aren’t, and it’s their job to decide if what we do is legal? If a majority of Americans come together and vote for a law that goes against the Constitution, against everything the country was founded upon (say, for instance, Jim Crow separate but equal, or modern, homophobic separate but equal), then it’s the Court’s fault when they strike down that law? By judging a law unconstitutional, the judiciary does not create laws. They are not legislating. They are judging. It’s their job. And if you don’t like what they decide, you can’t just raise the specter of out of control judges by saying they are legislating. It’s simply not true. Declaring a law unconstitutional says that the people are simply not allowed to make the law they made. It’s judges’ job to decide if what we do is legal.

But if you say that’s activist judges at work, whatever. I mean, I’ve disagreed with the Court’s findings before, and will again. But I don’t consider their decisions activism. I consider their logic flawed and their opinions wrongheaded. But I know they vote exactly the way we could have predicted them to, since their logic is usually the same throughout their career, and their wrongheadedness consistent. That’s why Presidents choose the justices they do.

It seems more than a little ignorant to say that voters can pass laws in favor of slavery, or bigotry, or inequality and expect that Justices will uphold those laws.

btw, Prop 8 has nothing to do with religious freedom. Prop 8 amends the California State Constitution to take away a right that all Californians have. It uses the will of the many to exclude a few. And that’s unAmerican. Not religious or free. That’s ignorant hatred of people who are different than you are. There is no separate set of rules for the majority or for the minority. We all get the same treatment. That’s the point.

Here’s a little secret. If you open your mind to new ideas, it’s not as though your brains will fall out of your head, or that your old opinions will go away. Consider the new ideas. And if you don’t like them, discard them. But for heaven’s sake, just try the ideas out for a little while. You might be surprised at what you find.

Real costs of doing business

Posted on by

You know what? It’s time for us to start paying what it costs to produce and ship the stuff we buy.

I’m sick of egg ranchers saying they can’t have cages big enough for the birds to turn around because eggs would be too expensive. Well, then, maybe we, as a nation, should buy fewer eggs. (Propostition 2 in California mandates that animals be able, int heir cages, tostand up, turn around or stretch. Egg producers are fighting the measure, saying they’ll all leave the state to continue cruel farming in other states. Won’t that make eggs more expensive because of shipping costs? Nope. I forgot that in this country gas is so cheap we can throw it away and not benefit financially from buying local.)

I’m tired of farmers saying they can’t pay workers a fair wage because strawberries and lettuce would be too expensive if they paid human beings what its worth to do backbreaking labor. Well, my friends, I would pick strawberries for a living if it paid well enough (I do pick enough each week to feed my berry-centric family), and I am willing to pay more for my strawberries because I want workers paid a living wage. I’m willing to pay a lot more because I can’t eat cheap strawberries without seeing the faces of families who can’t eat after a long day in the field because they’re not paid well enough.

I’m exasperated with fast food restaurants who say they can’t possibly raise minimum wage by a dollar because it would add two cents to the cost of a burger. Two cents. Yup, that would make people stop eating a quarter-pound of cow flesh-plus-feces, all right. Two cents.

I’m irritated that big agribusiness insists it has to modify and spray and innoculate and irradiate and otherwise alter food to make it cheaper. What about making it healthful? What about making it good or natural? What about paying a little more and eating a little less (and a little mroe wisely)?

No, I don’t want Americans to have to struggle to buy their food. But as it is, we’re not paying the real cost of food. We all need to be growing tomatoes on our patios and spinach instead of grass in our yards. Because underpaying businesses for their products means they underpay workers and abuse animals and the planet in the process.

Find out more about Prop 2 here: For yes and for no.

And perspective on the precious resources animals offer here.

And the real cost of strawberries here.

Cop-out post

Posted on by

I’ll tell you tomorrow (or the next day, or some time that I have child care) about the talk I heard tonight with Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng and Michael Krasny. Interesting on three different levels, none of which I will extrapolate for you tonight. Sorry.  It’s late, I’m tired, and I eat too much when I blog.

I should tell you why we all need to read What is the What, and how I got a very welcome dose of selfless humanity tonight. But for now, here’s this link to someone else’s blog. How’s that for lazy and uninspired? I thought you were inspired tonight, Writing at Naptime. Can’t you do better than this, when writing and reaching people and connecting on a human level seems so important right now? Yes, well, there is that. Seriously? Not quoting from and discussing someone else’s work, but just plain old linking? Um……yep. Gotta love the Internet for the sheer ease of it all. Or so said the several students every stinking semester who plagairized papers for my class despite the dire warnings.

This woman (at a little pregnant) writes so well it makes me want to stop blogging and get back to parenting poorly and barely writing one of my novels.

New Sheriff in town

Posted on by

Okay, buddy. For the next few minutes, I’m going to channel the parent you’re bringing out in me. All my attachment, gentle, loving parenting is getting me nowhere fast, so here’s the mom I’d just LOVE to be this week, since you hit a major warp-speed, two-and-a-half jerk-fest. Here goes:

No more compromises. No more respecting your wishes or trying to find a way for you to control things. I’m sick and tired of this bullshit.  From here on, you will brush your teeth the first time I ask you. This is not a new concept, we’ve been doing it twice a day since you were four months old. Brush ’em! Now. Life is not full of sunshine, butterflies, and blueberries. We have some chores, too. Do it. You will put on your freaking clothes and get out the door without negotiations and meltdowns and threats and nonsense. They’re just clothes, dude, and everybody else wears them without much fuss. Choose you own, I don’t care. They don’t have to match or be seasonally appropriate. Just fucking put something on and let’s go. This simply can’t take an hour anymore. We’re two under-groomed people in temperate climes, my friend, and it should take more like 15 minutes to get you out the door.

You will wash your hands at whatever water source is closest after you pee or when you declare it’s time to eat. We will no longer try every sink in the house and then decide the cats’ water dish is the best place to clean our hands. It’s handwashing. It doesn’t have to be satisfying or fun or interesting. I’m not singing any more handwashing songs, I’m not thinking up clever questions about soap. Wash your goddamned hands and leave me alone.

Yes, we are going to share. Stop telling me we’re not going to share. I don’t care about age-appropriate, I don’t care about socialization. Give that kid your fucking shovel and shut up about it. You have two more right there. Yes, you will share your toys. Yes, you will share your food. Yes, you will share your house. No, you don’t have to share your mommy, though at this point you’re lucky to still have a mommy, so shut up about that, too.

You WILL get in the stroller, and you WILL enjoy it. I know you’re a sling baby. I know you didn’t get in a stroller more than a dozen times your first year. But I need to go for a run before my brain explodes, so get in the damned thing. You may have a snack, because you always get one, and, today, like every other freaking day, we will run to a playground so there’s something in it for you. Stop freaking telling me what to do and what not to do. I AM the boss of you and you WILL listen. I bend over backwards for you three hundred times a day. It’s your turn. Get in the goddamned stroller. Now.

I’m tired of wanting to yell at you after I repeat something gently and kindly eight times. So screw the first seven. I will say something, and if you don’t listen I’ll scream at you until you do. Got it? And I’m now going to be one of those parents who yells at you to stop crying. Because, seriously, this whole “not in control of my emotions,” “easily overwhelmed,” “new at the whole give and take of social obligations,” “trying to find my place and sense of personhood in the big world” thing is getting really old. You’re two, for heaven’s sake. Can’t you grow up?

Finally, there is no more “one more.” I’ll tell you how many stories, how many minutes, how many turns, and after that you’re done. Not one more. Not one more then one more, or as it’s been lately, one more, now one more, now one more, finally one more. Fuck this nonsense. What is wrong with you? I said ten minutes, I said five minutes, three minutes, two minutes, one minute. I got down on your level, I used nice words, and I made sure you heard me. All m-o-t-h-e-r-f-u-c-k-i-n-g done. Got it?

This is some bullshit, little boy. And at your graduation, wedding, and investiture into the Supreme Court, THIS is the speech I’m giving. Not some cute story about how loving you can be, or how wonderfully you often listen, or what lovely stories you invent when we’re just hanging out talking with each other. I’m telling everyone, including your prom date, your first love, your boss, your bass player, your dissertation professors, and your kids what a complete a-hole you were this week.

Better yet, I’m telling Nana. That’ll get you.

Caffeine-free SUCKS

Posted on by

It’s day three without caffeine and everything is a disgusting shade of THROBBING and angry.

Do not, DO NOT get within one zip code of my wrath today.

Maybe by Monday I’ll be my usual, moody self. This weekend bodes nothing but irritable with showers of completely pissed off. Chance of clearing early next week, or whenever Peanut sleeps through the night, whichever comes first.