when the status quo frustrates.

RacIsm

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

I’ve blogged less about racism than I have about sexism. This isn’t because I think racism is a less important issue than sexism; I don’t. It’s because I am steeped, like strong coffee, in my white privilege. In other words, I don’t blog about racism as much because I don’t think about racism as much because I don’t have to think about it as much because I personally am not confronted by it as much. For this we can thank my blue eyes, blonde hair and reasonably fair skin.

But today, for some reason, I am finding myself reading about racism at every turn. I shouldn’t say for some reason; one obvious reason is the passage of Arizona’s SB-1070, otherwise known as the Fuck All You Mexican-Looking Motherfuckers!!11! law. It’s having unsurprising fallout already even outside Arizona’s borders, and what’s really been boggling the mind (mine, anyway) is how supportive the Libertarian contingent has been about it. (The reason I’m aware of it is that my housemate, a self-identified Libertarian, is completely horrified by the evidence piling up daily that a lot of other, so-called Libertarians favor this law. He can’t understand that dynamic at all; to him it’s a clear-cut massive governmental infringement of citizen rights along the lines of the Patriot Act as well as a blatant crossing of the line between states’ rights and the constitutional jurisdiction of the federal government, though admittedly in the opposite direction of the usual infringement. Poor baby.)

I have some Facebook friends who are generally all about individual freedoms, but they’ve pretty much all also come out in support of Arizona. One even declared boldly that the opposition to the new immigration law makes him want to go visit there even MORE (this was in response to a link I posted about the RNC deciding against having their convention there, which is some tangy irony if there ever was any). As I pointed out in response, with his own mop of blonde hair and white skin, making such a, er, radical and rebellious trip into ShowMeYourPapers!OrIArrestYourAss!Land isn’t all that impresionante.

I do understand when people hold differing views from me, and under certain and specific conditions I have no difficulty respecting said differing views and even seeing quite clearly where they are coming from and generating a reasonable amount of empathy. However, there are those conditions…the one that is being massively and regularly violated for me now is the consistency condition. I have encountered this issue before–for instance, in the everlasting abortion debate. If you tell me, for instance, that you truly believe that developing human cells in utero are morally equivalent to a born human being and this is why you violently oppose abortion, I can absolutely comprehend where you are coming from…as long as you don’t also display stances ranging from total indifference to wild-eyed enthusiasm about killing off those living outside the womb, for instance, via state-administered executions or foreign war initiatives. I am sorry, but when your concern about the rights of citizens being egregriously violated by the government suddenly becomes gung-ho eagerness to jump right in and help the government do it if said citizens happen to have brown skin or speak English as a second language, my contempt begins to uncontrollably sprout up between us.

I admit, when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, while I wasn’t such a mooncalf as to even remotely credit the whole we’re now living in a post-racial America! meme, I did hope it was at least a small and permanent swipe at the underpinnings of white racism. However, I am becoming more and more convinced that the existence of a self-identified African-American President is actually acting like fertilizer on the apparently-unkillable weed infestation that is racism in America. Because of this

and this
and this
and this
and this
and this
and this

I didn’t necessarily think Obama’s presidency would make racism go away, but I didn’t think it would make it worse. (Was that the blindness of my white privilege again..?) Not that there are more racists now–ha! but that they’re all losing whatever it was that was preventing them from being utterly and unapologetically aggressive about it previously.

Is that a good thing? Now that it’s so much out in the open, will that make it easier to kill? Maybe–but, like the Arizona’s new laws, how many people are going to get really hurt in the process? And what if there’s not even an end that’s justifying these means?

Please, folks, stop doing this. Is it really that horrible to you that we have a black President? Is it..?

18.05.2010 Racism, This Thing of Ours, Wankers, Ze Goggles! Zey Do Nothing! 3 Comments

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedom To Screw Other People Over

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

This list is great. I’ve copied and pasted my favorites, helpfully annotated.

You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

Freedoms being lost: The freedom to have me pay for your uninsured emergency room visits and your freedom to start up a business which can’t bring in enough revenue to cover a single annual expense of $750. Jesus wept!

You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

Freedoms being lost: The insurance companies’ freedom to deny coverage to anyone who isn’t young and healthy.

You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

Freedoms being lost: Your insurance company’s freedom to refuse to pay for you to be cured of most serious illnesses, such as cancer. You are also losing the freedom to have me pay for your uninsured emergency room visits during your downhill spiral. More Jesus tears!

Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

Freedoms being lost: Your freedom to drive up my insurance premiums by needing a lot more expensive medical treatment for conditions that, had you used preventive care, could have been circumvented or caught far earlier in their much less expensive phases.

If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

Freedoms being lost: Your physician’s freedom to hide from you the quality of the care he provides and how much it tends to cost. I personally am going to miss the current system of finding a physician, which if I’m lucky can be based on a friend’s recommendation but is more often a total crapshoot based on geographic proximity to my home or workplace, where I get to test-drive him on my precious, one-and-only body.

You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

Freedoms being lost: Your insurance company’s freedom to jack up your rates without any explanation or justification. Jesus Tears Mark III!

The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

Freedoms being lost: Your insurance company’s freedom to funnel as much of their profits as possible into “administrative costs” rather than into your medical care.

You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).
That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

Freedoms being lost: For 98.5% of Americans, absolutely none.

25.03.2010 Punkass!, Filtered Propaganda, Lick My Jackboots of Love, Obamarama, Politics, Shame on you for not being rich white and privileged, This Thing of Ours, What would we do without such great advice?, Ze Goggles! Zey Do Nothing! 16 Comments

So Why Did I Have Kids, Anyway?

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Photobucket
So you really want one of these?

It’s a question I try not to examine too closely, frankly. The reason for that is, well, I have them already–I’ve had them for my entire adult life, really. The time to question my decision to have them at all has long since passed, I think.

But sometimes I’ll come across an article like this one–I try not to wince at the tone they inevitably sport, a combination of defensiveness and superiority–and I’ll find myself musing a bit on my own embedded and irrevocable parental status.

(more…)

10.11.2009 Punkass!, Contraception, Family, Feminism, Reproductive Rights, This Thing of Ours 10 Comments

Watching “Religulous” Over The Holidays: Part Two

Saturday, December 27th, 2008


“Cathedral,” live, by Crosby, Stills and Nash. I first heard it as a little girl–my dad loved this song. It seems appropos.

As I said in Part One, while I enjoyed the movie, I didn’t find that it rocked my world in a significant way for the most part. However, there were two statements that Bill Maher made, both near the end of the movie, that did perk up my “thought-inducing” antennae.

ONLY MILD SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD.

(more…)

27.12.2008 Family, Godbaggery, Movies, This Thing of Ours 8 Comments

You Offend Me

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to read the rest:

Study the topic of “taking offense” and you realize people are like tuning forks, ready to vibrate with indignation. So why do humans seem equipped with a thrumming tabulator, incessantly calculating whether we are getting proper due and deference?

Rarely does one see it put so colorfully, yet so succinctly…actually, rarely does one see it put so bluntly at all. People much prefer to jump onto the offense bandwagon than jump off it and God forbid they spend even a half-second coolly analyzing the situation.

From Slate’s Emily Yoffe:

We like to think we go through life as rational beings…In 1982, some economists came up with a little game to study negotiating strategies. The results showed that rationality is subservient to more powerful drives—and demonstrated why human beings so easily conclude they are being wronged. The idea of the “ultimatum game” is simple. Player A is given 20 $1 bills and told that, in order to keep any of the money, A must share it with Player B. If B accepts A’s offer, they both pocket whatever they’ve agreed to. If B rejects the offer, they both get nothing. Economists naturally expected the players to do the rational thing: A would offer the lowest possible amount—$1; and B, knowing $1 was more than zero, would accept…

In the years the game has been played, it’s been found that almost half the A’s immediately offer to split the money—an offer B’s accept. When A offers $9 or even $8, B usually says yes. But when A’s offer drops to $7, about half the B’s walk away. The lower A’s offer, the more likely the B’s are to turn their backs on a few free dollars in favor of a more satisfying outcome: punishing the person who offended their sense of fairness.

Otherwise known as “cutting your nose off to spite your face.” Nice!

(more…)

18.10.2008 Punkass!, Conformity, I pity the fool who tries to sue me, This Thing of Ours, Uncategorized 22 Comments

The Details of Desire

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

Bowflex Boy! Oh, my God, I hadn’t thought about him in YEARS..!

(insert shriek, squeal and giggle)

It all started when I saw this post title on Hugo’s blog: ““Bowflex Boy” and Kristy McNichol: desire, celebrity, and the sexiness of earthy reality.” I didn’t immediately cotton onto the meaning of “Bowflex Boy,” and I think Hugo and I must be separated in age by at least a few years ’cause Kristy McNichol is a very vague childhood memory of mine. But further down in the post, Hugo says:

If you remember the ’80s, you remember the ad. I’ve done a Google image search, and can’t find it, but the picture is indelibly carved on my brain. A young, dark-haired man is pulling off his white t-shirt, lifting his arms over his shoulders. His body beneath is tanned and spectacularly toned.

(this is where the shriek, squeal and giggle came in)

Oh hell yes, I remember Bowflex Boy! Now, I had no idea that poster was some kind of nationwide sensation, not at the time nor at any point since–as a matter of fact, all my little friends had their walls plastered with big hair band icons–I was the only girl I knew who had, of all things, a home gym equipment advertisement on my wall.

Hugo goes on to talk about how insecure Bowflex Boy’s amazing abs made him feel when hanging over his head as he was naked in college and trying to make out with some chick and (I think) by extension how this makes him empathize with women who feel stressed by the nonstop avalanche of perfect female bodies plastered on every available wall, billboard and media device. (I say I think because I had a hard time focusing on the rest of his post–I kept getting lost in fond reveries of Bowflex Boy.) I did manage to gather, though, that another of his points was that, while perfect bodies cause us to feel lustful, we shouldn’t trouble ourselves because we can and do feel as much or more lust for the imperfect bodies of the real people we find ourselves in bed with.

The thing about Bowflex Boy, though, was that it actually wasn’t his aforementioned awesome abs, or pecs, or biceps, that made me fall in lust with his poster at age sixteen. They were very nice, but honestly, Bowflex Boy wasn’t THAT muscular. He was well-defined, but actually on the slim side, and you could tell from his proportions that he probably wasn’t a particularly tall guy either. What got me going, and has definitely been a trend ever since, was the subtlety of the sexuality presented.

(Oh, yeah, SUBTLETY! Some dude taking his shirt off is SUBTLE?)

Yeah, really. This is what I remember of the poster: The lighting is dim–not dark or fuzzy, just a low quiet illumination. His shirt is halfway over his head, hiding his eyes and most of his nose. His head is inclined down and his mouth is relaxed, neither smiling nor frowning–just calm. Motion is implied, but smooth and gentle motion, without aggression or haste, but without production, either.

(Warning: The rest of this post may contain Too Much Information. Proceed at your own risk.)

(more…)

30.07.2008 Dudes, Fetii, Sex, This Thing of Ours 4 Comments

Pay Your Bills Late, Get a Better Deal

Friday, November 17th, 2006

I see there’s a how-to project going on for the broke folks and figured I could add to the project since I’ve not only worked with the down and out but have experienced the same. And I’m drunk. Working at Big Media Co. has given me some insight into utility billing, although this is entertainment utility billing and not a gas and electric kind of billing. As I understand it, my company is beginning to follow protocol along the lines of other utility companies and are not as apt to waive past due payments and make payment arrangements. So here’s how it works.

1. You have a monthly billing rate. Find out what the approximate rate is — this will be different for each company based on expenditure, but figure it on the heavy side. If you like to order six-hour blocks of Playboy, for example, you might include that in your budget.

Let’s say you have a bill that equals $100 a month.

2. If you can’t pay in full, most companies will ask that you pay a certain percentage of the total amount due. This percentage must at least cover the past amount due on your bill. My company starts at 80%, and if this can’t be met 70%, then 60% and so on. If you can find an honest representative, find out what this percentage is.

Thus, if you are thirty days late at $100 a month, you would have to pay $180 or $170 or $160 et cetera to keep your service on.

2a. My company does not go under the most past-due amount. If you have made partial payments and your bill equals $260 dollars:

61-90 days $100
31-60 days $100
1-30 days $60

You must pay $60 to keep your service on. Again, find an honest rep that can verify how many days past due you can make your payment (in our case 60 days is the maximum). In this example, if you can go up to the three-month mark, you have to pay $60 to keep your service on and $100 by the next due date to keep your service on, and so forth.

3. If you keep getting a bill that seems higher than usual, it’s because you keep paying past it’s due date. The next bill is printing before the company receives your payment. Thus, your next bill does not reflect the payment you made. Again, it is important that you know the day that your bills are due every month, and the day that your bill prints every month.

4. Gas and electric companies are legally bound in most states to keep their services on during certain seasons thanks to extreme temperatures. If you need to get away with not paying your bills, do so during the coldest of winter and hottest of summer. This is usually when your bills are highest, so I imagine if you’re broke you can get away with it.

5. Most utility companies allow you to pay on an average rate system. They take your past utility usage and average it over the course of a year and you pay a flat rate every month. Despite this being a benefit in that you can anticipate the amount of your bill every month and budget accordingly, it’s actually kind of a rip off. Gas and electric rates change with the market — and they are averaging for the previous full year — just pay what you actually owe. Ignore their payment programs.

6. Learn the difference between a “soft” disconnection and a “hard” disconnection. A soft disconnection is when the company discontinues certain aspects of your services as a “friendly reminder” to pay your bill. If you can’t get on the internet, if your voicemail stops working, if any piece of equipment that is connected to said comany stops working, call immediately. A hard disconnection is when the company has written you off as a customer. Simply, you’ve gone without paying for too long. You will probably expect to pay a reconnection fee after this point.

7. Does your company make payment arrangements? Many companies allow you to make payment arrangements. If your utility company is not bound by the strict measures I’ve mentioned above, you may be able to pay off past debts gradually instead of all at once. My company, for example, makes you pay off past debts, along with a reconnection fee and a first month of service, before you can get service reconnected again. This is not necessarily the case with all companies. Find out for yourself.

8. Keep contact with the company representatives. They make notes on your account, can give you deals and specials, and often their stats (which dictate their schedules and pay) are dependent on what they get you to buy. Your best offer, i.e. the company line, may not actually be what the rep is telling you. Press the issue. You can tell if your rep is being honest or not, primarily because they get paid about as much as you do. These are not elite folks.

8a. Be nice to your rep. They are far more likely to be sympathetic to your situation if you aren’t calling them losers and bitches. This happens at least ten times a day. They aren’t fazed by your insults and they aren’t fazed by your threats to disconnect. They may be able to cut you a deal or tell you what exactly you need to do to keep from being disconnected.

And finally, scoring credit:

9. If your service is shitty, call in. Don’t call in only when you’re fed up enough to turn service off. If you have consistently complained about the rate of your service the rep is more likely to offer you credit for your troubles. This accounts for installations, billing, credits not received, service that you have not received, etc.

9a. However, if you call in every time your service has an interruption and have insisted on a credit, your rep is going to see you as a money grubber and refuse credit. Especially if you have a history of not paying your bills on time.

Any other questions you might have I can offer answers in the comments. Thanks for calling Big Media Co. and have a nice day.

17.11.2006 Advice, Big Business, This Thing of Ours 8 Comments

Frickity Frack

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

Just lost a big fucking post. See you next week.

29.08.2006 Punkass!, Asides, This Thing of Ours 3 Comments

Dawn agrees on the Jesus/mob connection

Monday, May 15th, 2006

Dawn:

I am convinced more than ever that I, as a Christian, need to trust God and not worry so much when media events like the “Da Vinci Code” give people a distorted image of Jesus. When He wants to get His true face into the news, He does.

MICHAEL CORLEONE
Where does it say that you can’t kill a cop?

TOM HAGEN
Come on, Mikey…

MICHAEL CORLEONE
Tom, wait a minute. I’m talking about a cop — that’s mixed up in drugs. I’m talking about a- a- a dishonest cop — a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That’s a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don’t we, Tom?
[Hagen nods in the affirmative]
And they might like a story like that.

TOM HAGEN
They might, they just might…

15.05.2006 Godbaggery, This Thing of Ours 1 Comment

Jesus: “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Sunday, May 14th, 2006

It kinda works that way, doesn’t it? Either you’re an unquestioning friend to the Don, in which case you get tons of perks, or you’re an enemy, at which point you find a horse head (your soul) in bed (aka eternal hellfire damnation). There’s definitely no middle ground; the Catholics won’t even tolerate limbo anymore.

I’ve cracked wise a few times this week about the Christians as the new mafia and McCain showing up at Falwell’s house to pledge undying loyalty to the godfather on this, the day of his students’ graduation. But the more I think about it, the less absurd the mafia/Christian comparison seems.

Whether it be a church or Cosa Nostra, you remain a member… or else.

I hear that you can only give two weeks’ notice in the mob when your doctor gives you two weeks to live. Apparently, there are a growing number of crazy churches with a similar intolerance for resignation. Try to leave and they’ll whack you excommunication-style:

After getting some coffee and making polite conversation “Bob” finally got to the point. “Thank you for seeing me, Pastor,” he began. “I have a serious theological question and I need your help.”

Well, his own pastor had somewhat of a reasonably good reputation on theological issues, so I asked, “Why me and not your own pastor?”

“He’s the problem. You see, I’ve been offered a promotion at work that will mean moving my family to another city. My pastor says that I am not allowed to take the promotion if it means leaving the church. He just warned me that if I do, I will be excommunicated for violating my covenant vows of church membership.”

Sadly, “Bob’s” situation is not as unusual as one might think.

The Catholics have always said that if you leave the church, you burn forever. Sounds like the Protestants are finally catching up.

(more…)

14.05.2006 Godbaggery, This Thing of Ours 24 Comments