But all good things. Anyway, goodnight, Moon– I’ll miss you!

And I was dreading Harry Reid’s reaction.

A Republican leader who woke up with a hugely popular president, a dominant majority in the House, and a 60-40 edge in the Senate would be crowing about their good fortune like this: “Americans have spoken, and overwhelmingly they want absurd military spending, overt patriarchal control, imperialism, and white power. Everyone else can SUCK IT.” And then they would do what the Bushies did when they had their window of American support — jam the system with the most extreme ideologues they could.

Harry Reid does it this way:

“We have 60 votes on paper,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said Wednesday in an interview. “But we cannot bulldoze anybody; it doesn’t work that way. My caucus doesn’t allow it. And we have a very diverse group of senators philosophically. I am not this morning suddenly flexing my muscles.”
[...]
That Democratic dynamic means the party will have to continue to try to appeal to at least a handful of Republicans on major issues to compensate for potential defectors. “One or two could peel off on any issue,” said Mr. Reid, who has seen the ranks of his party swell by 15 in the past two elections.

I read that as: “Americans are left-leaning on nearly every national and international issue in every poll. And they’ve backed that up with their vote, pushing the most liberal available option into office at nearly every turn. This blows. Because now Americans will learn how little we actually want to change anything in this country. I mean, sure, we won’t rob you of any more rights than you’ve already lost, and we’ll only continue the conflicts that have already been started, but we can’t really stop killing people overseas and start helping folks at home. That’s, well, who’ll pay for my $300 steak dinners? And Aspen ski trips? And delicious escorts? Corporate America’s taken great care of me, and unfortunately, you’re finally gonna see that we love them and merely pander to you. So I better pretend like we’re still the underdogs and pray you believe me.”

Think of what the Republicans did with a small majority in Congress. They repealed habeas effing corpus. We’re not even going to get a decent healthcare plan.

I realize some Dems will defect on any given thing, but they can only defect in ways that open the door to a filibuster, not actually block the passage of legislation. And even laypeople will get tired of Democrats who defect on filibustering. Of course, Reid knows this. He’s just using the threat of defections as cover for doing nothing.

Sadly, when the Republicans say “are you better off now than you were when the Democrats took over?” most people aren’t going to say yes. Then Republicans will gradually return to power and go right back to making things much, much worse.

…yes, it’s true. I actually feel the faintest of desires to have sex.

(Warning: TMI)

To be honest, it’s not much of an urge. For one, it is an entirely physical urge; there are no associated fantasies in general spinning, nor specific persons wandering naked, through my head. For another, it’s not very overwhelming–I have a competing urge to go pour myself a nice, tall, frosty mug of Coke, and that one’s actually got a lot more immediacy to it. And sensual adjectives associated with it, too, from the looks of it.

But—it is there. And this is the first time it has so much as made a peep since the day before my soon-to-be-ex walked out the door, never to return.

Now, as I said, it’s incredibly controllable. As a matter of fact, it is so feeble I could crush it with but one pointed and depressing thought about my impending divorce. So I am unconcerned for the nonce about this warm little feeling somewhere below my bellybutton. However, it is a warning to be heeded–that eventually, and probably sooner than later–I am going to have to figure out what to do about having me some sex with somebody in the future. And chances are high that the sooner rather than later is going to come way, WAY sooner than I’m going to have any kind of comparable urge to actually invest something in some sort of relationship.

For me, this is a problem. Why? Because I am not good at casual sex. I did try to have some once or twice, several years ago–it wasn’t a traumatic experience by any means! The man was attractive himself, found me attractive, was interested in pleasing me as I was him, and a friend of mine to boot. However, it was rather unsatisfying sexually–not because he wasn’t good fun in the sack, he was! But, because we were buddies, I spent the whole time(s) feeling like we were, well, just sort of mutually giving each other a hand at a long masturbation session. And it did change the flavor of our friendship to the point where said friendship never really recovered.

So what am I to do? Not what I tried a few years later in another hiatus between relationships, which was to actually develop a relationship with somebody for the sole purpose of having sex with him. Very unfair to both of us, and crushed what should have been another good friendship too and would have been if I could just have kept my hands out of his pants. But you know, for a woman, the options are a little limited–

HA! shrieks society. Any woman can get laid any time she wants, especially if she’s hawwt! And I can be, fairly, when cleaned up. (Do not visualize me as I am right now, with hair in a messy ponytail, no makeup, with my Happy Bunny pajamas on inside out and glasses jammed firmly down upon my nose, please. Think of me blinking nearsightedly up at you in a little black dress with mascara and lipstick instead!) And it’s true, in the most basic sense–no doubt if I put my mind to it and went to the right sort of locales, within the next twenty-four hours I could scrounge up somebody to have some sex with. But really, so could most men. If you’re willing to set your standards low enough, you can have sex nearly anytime you want, regardless of your gender. Of course the key phrase is willing to set your standards low enough, so let’s just forget that right now–if a vibrator, for instance, is cleaner and more physically attractive than the person in question, that person shouldn’t count as a choice.

My options for having sex that might be superior to a one-on-one session with a sex toy, since I’ve already nixed the three options of having sex with a friend, starting to date someone that should just stay a friend just so I can have sex with him, and picking up a freak, appear to be the following:

1. Going to a bar or club and choosing someone I find reasonably physically attractive and taking him home with me if he shows an interest in it.
2. Going on a website that specializes in people who specifically want to have relationship-free sex.
3. Hiring a prostitute.
4. Not having sex and just complaining about it on here instead. Think of this as the “practice” blog post. Apparently I do not like to suffer in silence.

I don’t think I could ever do #1 because of safety concerns. Besides the risk of STDs (even with condoms–think “herpes”), there is always the risk of, er, “gray rape.” “Gray rape,” in case you’ve never heard of it, is rape that nobody ever gets convicted of because the victim has not only has liked but has actually sought out sex in the past, sometimes even with the rapist prior to him deciding to become one! and the rapist’s defense attorneys can prove it, too. I have never picked up a guy at a bar for precisely that reason* and I doubt I ever will feel comfortable enough with that possibility to do so in the future. So that’s out.

#2 is itself shadowed by those selfsame reasons, though I suppose if you make it clear that meeting number one is not going to result in sex–that you require getting to know the other person a little better before gettin’ nekkid–you do reduce that possibility somewhat. Also, I have only very general ideas of what kinds of websites those might be, having not really perused them before nor having any friends whose opinions I trust that have either perused them (or at least are willing to admit they’ve ever perused them). And for some reason, Consumer Reports doesn’t have any articles floating around there on hookup sites either…er, surprise!

#3 wouldn’t be too hard to find…if I were male. There are a plethora of prostitutes out there that cater to men, both hetero and homo. However, I’m a heterosexual female, and to the best of my scanty knowledge on the subject, there aren’t too many male prostitutes that cater to women. And even if there were, and they were not prohibitively expensive to boot, I would have a hard time overcoming the feeling that I was exploiting someone else–using their body because they needed the cash. I would really have to be sure that this mythical male prostitute was in the business because he wanted to be, and how would I ever be able to know that that was really the case, even if he told me with big, shiny, fervent eyes that it was? Part of a prostitute’s job, I’ve always assumed (and anybody with more knowledge than me, correct me if I’m wrong) is to make the customer feel good on every level, not just the physical–he’s going to say whatever he perceives his client wants to hear.

Yeah, I’m probably gonna end up stuck with #4. How d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g…unless somebody else has any ideas that I’ve overlooked? Feel free to share! Now, before I REALLY start to want to have sex!

*There is of course the other big reason, which is that I personally just don’t enjoy having sex anywhere near as much just for the sake of having sex, as I do when I’m having it as an experience that I’m sharing with someone I think may become very special to me. But since this entire blog post is devoted to my suspicion that I’m going to want to have sex long before I’m going to want to have anyone become very special to me, I’m not really discussing that one here.

Anyway, I loved the new rules for hypocrisy that Margaret and Helen established today so much, I’m just going to reproduce them right here. My soul has spoken; onward with the day. Love those ladies!

* If you’re Michael Jackson’s father, now is not the time to be enjoying the limelight.
* You can’t be Pro-Life and Pro-War at the same time. If one of these dispositions has to be in your cadre, then pick one and live with the consequences.
* You can’t deny the right to marry to some and then cheat on your spouse. The right to happily marry belongs to all no matter how unhappy it makes you.
* You can’t tolerate the atrocities of one President for eight years and then assign the consequences to one who follows. From this day forward everything was Reagan’s fault.
* The Christian Right should be forced to spend a week in Iran. May the best radicals win.
* The Real Housewives should actually be housewives.

The question of when life starts may be fun to debate in a purely philosophical exercise, but it has nothing to do with the actual problem of women who are pregnant and don’t want to be. The real debate is who controls your body? You, your nearest patriarchal overseer, the assholes in navy blue suits who vote for our laws? If you believe that you are the only person capable of making decisions about your own body, then you believe that everyone is capable of making decisions about their own body. If you believe that there is ever a time when someone else gets to make decisions about a body not their own (which is slavery), then you better be prepared to line up for mandatory blood donations. If you’re okay with a little bit of slavery, it’s best not to assume that you’re going to be the slave owner.

The epithet “forced birther” may not win any friends with folks on the anti-legal-abortion side of the fence, but if you actually take their arguments at face value, that is exactly what they are. While usually making an exception for conditions which threaten the life of a pregnant mother (though mind you, they are the ones setting the risk level over which this threat is unacceptable), they are suggesting that our government ought to proudly step in and force women to give birth to children.

Now, forced birthers would choose to frame it differently, probably in terms of murder. This is why I, reproductive rights noob that I am, have only been tackling the ludicrous claims that zygotes have equal rights to adult human beings. Because this issue is cut and dried. There is no murder possible if there was never any sentience. But it’s been useful with me to engage folks like Neil and Theo, who believe this nutty view, if only to expose where their real priorities lay. They would sacrifice the rights of adult women on the altar of the (yes, human) zygote.

Why do they persist in valuing the “rights” of even a non-sentient one-celled organism to exist over the rights of a woman to have control over her own body, and thus the course of her own life? Perhaps it’s:

• A religious belief that the zygote (but not the sperm) has a soul.
• A desire to get off on controlling the bodies of other people.
• Both of the above.
• A fourth option which I am too close-minded and/or dense to comprehend.

Obviously different individuals may have different answers here. Forced birther zygote worshippers, I invite you to tell me your own answer. I’d really like to understand how one can even come to hold your perspective.

I went and checked my own passport. 3 stars. Woo hoo! Must be an enemy of the state. I did go to Pakistan once. Man that made it difficult to get in and out of the U.S. for a while. ALWAYS missed my connecting flights because Immigration wanted to quiz me. This annoyance finally stopped when I later updated my passport, thus removing the offending country stamp.

Does anyone else have 3 stars on their passport? Or know for a fact what the 3 stars mean? Google doesn’t seem to be cutting it for me on this issue.

I won’t rehash what’s gone on so far in the thread, but suffice it to say that my right hand has been busy, and thus All Your Uteri Are Belong To Us (”us” being me and my gametes).

In one corner: me and Antigone (who kindly reminded me as to the difference between a gamete and a zygote).

In the other corner: Neil, a biblical literalist who in the last week has not only blogged a response to Lisa’s nearly year-old post, but also noted how gay pride parades are God-mockery and helpfully pointed out that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett just might now be in hell (pretty classy, Neil!); and Theobromophile, a regular at Neil’s site. Neil’s blog seems to get decent traffic, so we may get some other new visitors too, but what the heck, I’m in the mood to add a few more kleenex to the pile.

The fight: Can the “rights” of a single-celled organism trump the “rights” of a woman? (I’d like to point out the first set of scare quotes are mine, and the second set Neil’s.)

Taking off from the last current comment on Lisa’s thread, by Theobromophile:

The scientific fact is that gametes are not human beings the way that zygotes, blastocysts, and embryos are. There is no right to life of a gamete, no more than your dandruff has a right to life.

However, conception changes all of that. From the moment of fertilisation, the egg changes; it develops a hard outer shell to keep out other sperm; DNA from the parents’ gametes mixes; and cell division begins. (Scientists can examine two-celled blastocysts and determine where the head will be.) The result is a complete human being at the earliest stage of life.

There is a tremendous amount of intellectual dishonesty required to pretend that foetuses (or embryos) are not living human beings. While I fully understand why most anti-lifers do not acknowledge this point – as to do so would be to admit that some humans in our society have a right to life, but the smallest, most vulnerable, and unwanted ones do not – it is, nevertheless, antagonistic towards basic biology.

Theo, considering you would apparently gladly risk the life of a real woman with a lifetime of experiences just as deep as your own for the sake of a non-sentient single celled organism that happens to have a hard outer shell, you really oughtta reconsider who you want to call “anti-life” here.

Wanna argue with me about about late term abortions, sure, we’ll still disagree, but at least I’ll feel like we might be able to have something approaching a rational conversation. Arguing in favor of a single cell is pure kookiness. Now you can claim “INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY!111!!” all you want, but you’re not actually demonstrating exactly how I am supposedly being so. Let me instead show you your own.

You and Neil and others like you make the argument that because the scientific establishment classifies a certain parisitic single-celled organism as “human”, this somehow also proves, scientifically, your faith-based ethical belief that this non-sentient microscopic life form is morally equal to (or perhaps higher than) the life of the host human off of whom it is currently leeching. What we have here is a (yes) human single cell which has precisely as much awareness as a monkey zygote or a cat zygote or a mouse zygote or a gamete or an amoeba or a rice krispy. Your position seems to be that since a human zygote has a chance of growing into a self-aware homo sapiens at some much later date, it has already got some magic quality which makes its worth equal (or better) than the life of an adult woman who has it. But… why? Unfortunately, you guys are missing any kind of middle steps in your intended chain of logic.

This is intellectual dishonesty. Though I’ll give y’all the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re being just as intellectual dishonest with yourself as you are with me. I really can’t understand why anyone would hold your point of view, except with the theory that you are only getting so hot and bothered over this issue because believing this confers on you moral superiority and thus the right to control other people. Like, women.

Speaking of hot and bothered, here’s a challenge to Neil, Theobromophile, and to any other pro-zygote anti-woman’s “rights” lurkers out there. (Remember, that’s Neil’s scare quotes, not mine.)

Let me pose you a simple question. A variation on one I’ve read somewhere before, wish I could remember where. Anyway, please answer directly, as it may clarify a lot for all of us.

First, imagine that you are a heroic firefighter. (Who knows, maybe you really are one.) 

You’re passing by a fertility clinic when you notice it’s burning down. Being the brave and plucky embryonic-rights crusader you are, you leap into the fray to save as many frozen embryos as you can. You’re just lumbering out of a burning lab, loaded down with a refrigerator full of potentially hundreds of frozen blastocysts, when you suddenly notice a child whimpering in the corner, trapped behind a fallen timber which you are sure that you, with your rock hard pecs, can easily move.

Now, you might be able to leave and then come back for which/whoever you left behind; but the fire’s raging pretty badly. You also might not. Do you…

(1) …drop the refrigerator to save the child, and take the chance that the blaze might destroy the hundreds of frozen blastocysts before you can return?
(2) …keep on going with the refrigerator, and take the chance that the fire might kill or maim the child before you can return?

Follow-up questions:

If you chose the child, why did you do so?

If you chose the refrigerator, does your answer change if you know that the refrigerator has only ten frozen blastocysts? Only one?

And finally, if you refuse to give a straight answer either way, what does this say about the strength of your convictions?

I’ve been a big fan of Jupiter’s moon Europa for years–looks like I have another gas giant moon to add to my list!

The Salty Waters of Saturn’s Moon Hint at Life

A Cassini spacecraft image shows icy geysers spewing from the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The salt particles in the ice jets are the strongest evidence to date of a liquid ocean under the moon’s icy crust.

“Men are dogs,” said my first ex-husband to me, as we were driving out together to meet my soon-to-be-third ex-husband at the bank to close our joint account.

“No, they’re not,” I said.

“Yes they are,” he said, very firmly, staring straight ahead at the road. “You need to stop thinking everyone’s like you, you know. You always do that. You did that with me, too.”

“You wouldn’t have done something like this.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I take marriage very seriously. Clearly he doesn’t.”

Obviously true and inarguable, so I let it go. But I didn’t forget that conversation, nor could I erase something my soon-to-be-third ex-husband said to me since our parting of ways:

Him: I think your feminism may have been part of the problem.
Me: How so?
Him: When you said your divorce lawyer told you that you must have a problem with self-respect to have allowed yourself to be treated this way. That really bothered you.
Me: Don’t you want me to have self-respect?
Him: (pause) In some ways. Sometimes.

The above theme had cropped up earlier as well, in the month or two before we separated–of course, I wasn’t aware at the time what was triggering it, that his ex-wife had moved up here and they were conspiring together to get rid of me (maritally, not literally, of course!). In short, he mentioned on several occasions that what he really wanted was someone who would do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted without interference from such concepts as her own self-respect or personal desires–my efforts to please and placate were clearly underwhelming, and he just as clearly believed that such a woman was indeed out there just waiting for him. (Again, since I didn’t know about the eager availability of his ex-wife–who I should probably point out, didn’t actually consistently perform to that standard while they were married, which is why they separated repeatedly and finally divorced–I found his assurance on the subject bewildering. Not anymore, obviously.)

But the thing that troubles me is that both men do think that this sort of behavior is simply something that’s endemic to men, to the gender male of H. sapiens. Now, you’ll never find me arguing that there aren’t a large crop of asshats running around the planet at any given point in time–but I just can’t really bring myself to believe that all or even most men are secretly (or not so secretly) this particular brand of asshat. Some, sure. But so are some women–I’ve met them. And I would definitely agree that society and culture (pretty much all of ‘em, even worse in other cultures than in ours) set men up to be more likely to be this sort of entitled, domineering, sexually uncontrolled brand of asshat.

But I still can’t really believe that menarejustlikethat! I especially reject that they are like that as an inborn trait–I have no patience for that brand of evo-psych. But I also reject that they are all like that as an acquired trait, too. I reject that most of them are like that…men are people, not badly programmed sexbots. (Well, okay, except for Dennis Prager.)

But my first ex-husband and my soon-to-be-third ex-husband aren’t the only men who’ve made these statements to me. Over the years, many many other men have made similar statements to me–about the inherent selfishness, sexual obsessiveness, immaturity, etc. that is the essence of malekind. I’ve always rejected them as blanket statements or even as reliable generalities.

So am I being stupid, to assume I know better what men are than all these other men who’ve argued with me about it? Many men have treated me with respect and consideration during the course of my life–am I to believe, as all these other men always insist, that it’s because I’m desirable and it is done solely to enhance the possibility that I might someday accidentally trip and fall on top of their waiting dicks? That it’s all an act to get me where they want me (emotionally and often, legally bound to them) so then they can reveal what they’ve really wanted all this time..? Gad, it’s all such a stereotype–must I buy into it?

Sorry–I still don’t. I still think it’s more likely that I just haven’t been careful…though I’ve gotten more and more careful with each spouse, and put up with the subsequently revealed repellent post-marriage-ceremony bullshit for shorter and shorter durations each time, clearly, I simply haven’t been careful enough in my choices.

On a kind of funny side note, I now have an saved email archive full of not one, not two, but now three ex-husbands declaring (post-divorce!) what a wonderful, special woman I am, and how sweet and kind and beautiful and caring and intelligent and strong and–! I do have good, positive relationships with the first two exes, and I may well have one with this third one, too, if he chooses that. It’s very peculiar; I’ve never really witnessed the like, even in the few people I know who have marital records rivaling my own in sheer quantity. Either I’m really something spectacular, or they want to keep the hope alive that I might put out again someday when they’re desperate and alone–I just can’t decide which.

Jackson’s body moved from coroner’s office

Lest you think that there is actually some serious, exciting, unusual, even criminal! even remotely suspicious! action that is about to be breathlessly revealed:

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Michael Jackson’s body was moved from a Los Angeles, California, coroner’s office to a mortuary Friday evening, a coroner said.

Er. Yeah, I think that’s what they usually do with corpses.

Look…I understand that Michael Jackson was one of the most famous celebrities of our time…that he had a huge cultural impact on the pop music scene…that his scandals and strangenesses were even more piquant that your usual run-of-the-mill celebrity trainwrecks…

…but please. Have mercy. NOT tomorrow’s headline: “Mortician begins to pump embalming fluid through Jackson’s veins” or “Suit chosen to dress Michael’s corpse in” or–