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Friday, December 24, 2010

Smexxxy Friday

Ho! Ho! Ho! May your holiday season be merry and bright! Happy holidays! And have a great day! 



Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Don't Ask Don't Tell


...Need I say more? Huge victory for us! But...I do have my doubts. (Click for a ridiculous slightly off-topic video by College Humor


Taken from the Huffington Post:

Bravo to the Senate for joining the House in repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell." It is a victory to relish, especially because the law epitomized the Clinton style of unabashed, two-faced opportunism and because John McCain and his gaggle of bigots lost. But two cheers only, not three.
The problem is not just that the administration and the Senate leadership took so long getting there or that the Commander-in-Chief didn't stop DADT implementation before Congress acted. No doubt, in this matter, as in so many others, Obama didn't want to antagonize the military brass, his nominal underlings. Still, Obama apologists are busy making the case that the administration did the best it could, and that this legislation is somehow on a par with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. This from the same apologists who hailed Obama's health care (actually, insurance) reform as the most important piece of social legislation since Medicare - notwithstanding the fact that, for whatever good it does (or will eventually do), it does almost nothing to cut costs and absolutely nothing to undo the stranglehold the insurance industry, Big Pharma, and the for-profit health care industry have over our nation's physical and financial well-being. In fact, it enhances the profiteers' power and wealth.
In time, journalists and historians will deflate this latest batch of exaggerations. In the meanwhile, we can be thankful that institutional discrimination was defeated and that Obama did no gratuitous harm getting there. The contrast with the (failed) DREAM Act is striking. There, the administration's strategy was to increase repression, deportations especially, in the hope of winning "bipartisan" support. Predictably, they were wrong; devastatingly so for the victims of their efforts. Obama's pandering to nativists and racists was also politically stupid, as Latino voters, the most malignly neglected of all the core constituency groups Obama takes for granted, will surely make clear.
Part of the reason why even an administration that is incapable of bold leadership succeeded in shepherding DADT repeal through Congress is that public opinion, even in the military, was strongly in favor. One would not have thought it possible just a few decades ago, but Hispanics are evidently now more despised than homosexuals. Perhaps, in the long run, there is moral progress, but lately it looks like what progress there has been in the past two or three decades has only been redistributed, not advanced.
In any case, my reason for withholding a third cheer has nothing to do with the shortcomings of Obama or the Democratic leadership. It has to do with line taken by the repeal's supporters.
In taking aim at discrimination within the military, they said not a word against the military itself or the uses to which it is put. Instead, they implied support. To put the point only somewhat facetiously, equality works both ways. Instead of demanding that homosexuals be treated like heterosexuals, how salutary it would have been if someone had demanded that everybody not gay be treated as gays are, putting the military out of business. Needless to say, no one did.
Of course, we need a military; all countries do, for defense. But that's not remotely what our military is about. Its job is to make the world safe for American corporations by keeping the empire in line - sometimes, as with the wars now ongoing, to the point of putting the people of the United States at greater, not lesser, risk. Yet repeal supporters took the line that ending DADT would enhance, not impede, military efficacy; and they were so unambivalent in pressing this case that even Joe Lieberman could champion their cause.
The stance repeal advocates assumed is of a piece with the "support the troops" sloganeering that has increasingly deformed our political culture - making "wars of choice," as if we nowadays fight any other kind, ever easier to fall into. Support the troops, by all means; but not in the way those who use that awful slogan intend.
When Richard Nixon ended the draft, it was mainly to keep the country from falling apart and thereby to keep America's imperialist project on course. He knew what he was doing; if we still had a draft, Bush would have had a much harder time starting his endless wars, and he and Obama would have had a much harder time keeping them going. But those days are gone forever if only because the "Defense" Department understands, better than anybody, that no matter how great its need for cannon fodder, the last thing the military needs is conscripts.
Nixon's plan would not have worked for long if we still had early-70s levels of well-paying, union jobs. Who, after all, would 'volunteer' to kill or be killed, maim or be maimed if there was a reasonable alternative? Perhaps a few "patriots" in the thrall of the illusion that fighting imperialism's wars is good for their country (as distinct from the elites who run it); and no one else. But we all know what happened. Successive administrations, heeding the wishes of the corporate malefactors who rule in Washington, pursued policies encouraging deindustrialization and deunionization, giving rise to disabling levels of inequality and to the immiseration of many working-class and "minority" communities. Thus it became possible for the military to fill its personnel requirements through economic conscription alone. If only for allowing their conditions of life to deteriorate so palpably, we owe our economic conscripts a great deal - not for their "service" (through no fault of their own, they do their country a disservice) but for having put them, or allowed them to be put, in the position we did.
Once upon a time, there were Democrats, not many but some, who would have understood this. But that was before Democrats bought into the urban legend that returnees from Vietnam were routinely spat upon, and before the idea had taken hold that the party's success depends on putting that association to rest. In fact, it was the government which (metaphorically) spat on its troops and especially on its veterans - and the worst offenders of all were the chicken hawks of the Bush administration. But no matter, Democrats have joined the chorus. Whether out of genuine conviction or mere self-interest, they have become second to none in "supporting the troops" - or, in other (less Orwellian) words, for putting them in harm's way.
Was there an inkling of awareness of how debilitating this state of affairs is in the agitation to repeal DADT? If so, it was well concealed. So, yes, if someone must do the empire's dirty work, it is better that the institution missioned with that task not discriminate. But, to paraphrase Marx, Groucho not Karl, who wants to live in an institution! Especially that one.
In general, when Obama takes a step forward, he takes two steps back; the health care reform is an example. To its credit, the DADT repeal movement did the opposite. By ending discrimination in the military, it took two steps forward and, by lending yet more credence to that disabling "support the troops" trope, only one step back. This is why it warrants cheers, but not the full three. 

Friday, December 17, 2010

My dog is not smexxxy...

...yeah, I know it's Friday and I'm supposed to do a smexxxy friday but instead I wanted to gush over how my dog has been featured on The Daily Corgi for their dog of the month! Yippee! 


Check her out! 

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Where do you like to read?

A recent post by Dead End Follies got me thinking about where people do their reading. So where do YOU like to read? Here's my top 5 list:



  1. The couch (most of my reading is done here)
  2. The library
  3. Local coffee shops
  4. Outside in a park or the beach
  5. The toilet (I do a fair amount of comic book reading *ahem Yaoi* on the toilet!) 

Monday, December 13, 2010

Rejected!

How do you deal with rejections as a writer? 




I was rejected recently by a publisher I really really really wanted to get into. Of course, I was being overly ambitious (sending my manuscript to the very TOP of my submission list) but I already knew ahead of time that my chances of being accepted were slim, at best. There are some writers who take rejections way too personally and others who are hardly fazed by the experience. So I want to know how YOU handle rejections? 


Honestly...I'm mostly apathetic toward my rejections. More so if it's done by the standard rejection form letter. If they can't be bothered to tell me WHY I was rejected, I can't be bothered to submit there again. Also, rejections are 100% subjective. Being rejected does not mean that you SUCK as a writer. It simply means the editors aren't looking for that particular whatever. You can be rejected 8 million or 8 billion times but it only takes ONE acceptance to get your manuscript published! Shop around on Duotrope long enough and eventually you'll find a home for your story. 


Anyways, now that I've been rejected at my top pick, and I can submit to my second best choice...and on it goes! In the meantime, I should write something else during the holiday break! 


Cheers from the Vegetarian Cannibal!  

Friday, December 10, 2010

Smexxxy Friday

Trendy or Trashy? You decide. Apparently, this is the latest and greatest fad in Japan right now. I wouldn't be caught dead in these hoochie-mama jeans! I'm black. My ass would hang all out of that thing, ahaha!  


Linky link: http://japan-chic.com/japan-bikini-pants-sannas-brazil-fashion.html



Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I love Craigslist

You can read the whole thing HERE but here's a short preview of what was posted on Craigslist: 

Dear University Alumni Office, 
I'm sorry to hear that the university's $750 million endowment has fallen in value to $500 million because of the recession and because your bank died. I'm also sorry to hear that you're dealing with declining enrollment due to the fact that middle-class families are no longer willing or able to bet their homes on a $45,000-a-year higher education for their children. I really am. 
So, what I want to know is, why are you wasting money on glossy fundraising brochures full of meaningless synonyms for the word "Excellence"? And, why are you sending them to ME? Yes, I know that I got a master's degree at your fine institution, but that master's degree hasn't done jack shit for me since I got it! I have been unemployed for the past TWO YEARS and I am now a professional resume-submitter, sending out dozens of resumes a month to employers, and the degree I received in your hallowed halls is at the TOP OF IT and it doesn't do a fucking thing. 
You know, maybe if you wanted a little bit of money from me (and these days you'd get about $3) maybe you should send me a fancy color brochure admitting your role in the bubble economics that got us all in to this mess. 
For example, since 1987, higher education expenses have gone up 450 percent, while personal income in this country has gone up 87 percent, making tuition IMPOSSIBLE to afford without special financing. But, during this time, you were thriving because people could come up with the cash in two ways: 
1. Get a home equity loan and use the inflated value of their house to pay for their kid to get drunk and/or raped at your school and then lose the house when the market crashed. 
2. Get a federal loan. 

Monday, December 6, 2010

Building a cage!

It's not finished yet...we're still waiting on the coroplast, but Operation Guinea Pig is a go! I'm having so much fun picking out accessories and toys for my little piggies! It took my boyfriend and I 4hrs to get all the supplies you see here. I don't know how the holiday shoppers do it! It was a madhouse out there! 
This is the C&C cage we built. I obviously picked out the blankets and fabric. (My boyfriend is putting his masculinity aside by allowing Hello Kitty into our apartment, hee!) We still need to reinforce the bottom with coroplast (corrugated plastic) and wrap the ramp with fleece but I'm quite proud of it so far. It's a 2x4 cage with a 1x2 loft (kitchen area).
The materials were a BITCH to find. We went to four different stores to find these grids (finally found them at Bed Bath and Beyond, fyi). We used over 100 zip ties and two packets of those storage cube grids. We'll have to go to a sign shop to get the coroplast, but all in all...it was a fun way to spend a Saturday. 
Because we'll be traveling for the holidays, it would be irresponsible to pick up the guinea pigs now (as much as I would love to!) When the cage is finished and when we're back in town, we'll begin the actual adoption process! We plan to adopt two little girl piggies from a local rescue. I'll keep you guys updated on our progress! 

Friday, December 3, 2010

Smexxxy Friday



...I've found bizarre visual cues to help you out this weekend. I happen to enjoy #6 best, personally. But what's with the monkey in #5...? Have a good weekend. 

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Thinking about new pets...

I would love to have a guinea pig or two! They're so cute! And my boyfriend and I don't have the space for another dog or a cat. A guinea pig would be perfect! I've never had a guinea pig before, though, so do they make good pets? 

I've been looking at C and C cages with the pretty fleece blankets (as depicted in the video). So darling! Maybe Santa will put a piggy under my x-mas tree this year! 



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