Banished Words of 2008

This doesn’t have to do with anything currently in the news such as Governor J’s appointment of IL Attorney General Burris to fill Obama’s vacant Senate seat despite being warned not to do so. Or how Israel is getting pummeled again. Or that they had to close the food/weapons road (sue me, I can’t remember what it’s called) into Afghanistan because it’s been pirated so much and is now considered extremely unsafe.

I can’t say that I’m surprised with some of the 15 words that made the list:

“going green” - in reference to corporations declaring themselves environmentalists; I guess if you can buy clean air so technically you are not polluting it, you are "going" quite the opposite.

“maverick” – if you paid any sort of attention to the RNC’s poorly run campaign, you’ll know why this made the list.

“monkey” – because supposedly people think it makes anything sound cooler if they put this word in front of it. Really?

Here are my suggestions:

“like” – it’s not supposed to be used after every other word when speaking out loud. It is not meant to signify a pause. It needs to leave a person’s vocabulary unless they intend it as a real metaphor.

“totally” – this makes you sound like an airhead, especially when coupled with “dude”.

“awesome” – same goes for this one especially since the word means “to be left in awe”; more often than not this word is used incorrectly

“wifebeater” – it’s a tank top and the name makes light of a very serious situation that effects thousands of women and their children every year.

“gay” – as an adjective to describe anything other than people or the fact a individual is very happy (it’s original meaning).

There are others but they get into their overuse more than the fact they need to be banned. Got any others?

Keep reading....

I don't want to be a mom anymore

I don’t want to be a mom anymore

At least that’s how I’m feeling today. It’s a contradictory position to take I’m sure, but I’ll bet there are others out there like me, having a bad mom day that is.

Nothing spectacular has happened; I’m just tired of being chained to a 9 year old. One I will be chained to for the next 9 years and then a lifetime after that, just not as explicit.

I am aware that I chose this life: a single mother who went back to school at the age of 26 to get an undergraduate degree, Peanut then 3, and now again to get my master’s, Peanut now 9. Who knew Peanut’s dad was going to be a total waste of a life partner, so much so that I honestly thought since I was doing it by myself anyway, I may as well really have a go at it alone because at least then I wouldn’t have to argue over parenting styles?

As the cliché goes, hindsight is 20/20.

If anyone would have told me how hard it would be, I wouldn’t have listened. I’m strong-willed, stubborn, fastidious in nature, unwilling to give up easy, tenacious and so many other adjectives that probably won’t help a certain special someone like me any more than he already does.

I also know I’m caring, thoughtful, playful, a total goofball, definitely a smart ass and above all else I take care of those who are most important to me to the best of my ability.

But damn raising kids can bring out the worst in people can’t it? They are our mirrors, throwing back in our faces the faults we didn’t realize were there to begin with. Self-awareness is a huge part of being a parent, I think, which is probably what makes it so difficult at the same time.

Peanut told me a week or so ago he didn’t like how I more often than not talked to him in a mean tone. Or better yet, am always telling him what to do, i.e. pick his clothes up off the floor, put his shoes away, why are his pj’s on my bed and recently, he’ll have to fold his own clothes and put them away (they are still in the basket just so you know), just to name a few.

And I agree. Who likes to be harped on all the time? Nagged, eh, not so much.

If I had someone around to help 24/7 like most duel parent households, I probably wouldn’t be as demanding or even commanding. But because I am the only one trying to keep this boy in line and make him into something, self-responsibility being a major component of this partnership, I get tired and of course getting stuck in a rut is a strong possibilty. Even Super Nanny says it’s bad.

Here comes the but again; I need to play with him, too. I want him to be able to talk to me about anything and everything on his mind. I want to be that kind of mom for him. I want him to trust that I will always put his needs before anyone else’s, despite how selfish I really honestly truly feel at time. (This is very hard at times, just so you know.)

Over the summer Peanut was with his dad for 2 weeks, me 2 weeks, then his dad, etc., for a total of 5 weeks. It was the first time I truly got a taste of being a single adult woman and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was really hard getting back into the routine of waking Peanut up at 7, spending 15 minutes trying to get him out of bed and into clothes, then another 10 or 15 minutes getting him to brush his teeth and hair and, Hey, why are you playing when we need to leave NOW?!, and of course dropping him off at daycare then hurrying to work. And it all starts again at 5 beginning with picking him up from daycare, shuttling us home, cooking him dinner then walking the dogs after he eats, making sure he gets a bath/shower when I get back and again getting him to brush his teeth and get into bed. And to stay in bed. Wait, why are you out of bed again? *sigh*

It’s no wonder we get stuck in myriad ruts over and over again.

Hopefully, that’s what weekends are for. We try to do something fun, play with each other and spend quality time together. Now there is that special someone who enjoys goofing off, too, who also isn’t afraid of being around a kid (and as far as I can tell, not the least bit intimidated either). He’s already pointed out a few things I do that aren’t exactly productive parenting, ; ).

Tomorrow is a new day. But damnit, I want to feel what I feel now and be justified in my indignation, maybe even a little bit of resentment!

******

I'm not the only one, see?

Keep reading....

Hey you, retard!

I’ve already made mention of this word and subject before, but in light of a recent movie being released into the wild soon enough, much is being made of this one tiny supposed innocuous word.

Let us begin with the origins and meaning of the word versus its current usage and new slang-like meaning shall we?

From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

1426, "fact or action of making slower in movement or time," from L. retardationem, from retardare "to make slow, delay, keep back, hinder," from re-, intensive prefix, + tardare "to slow" (see tardy). Retarded "mentally slow" first recorded 1895. Retard (v.) first recorded 1489, from O.Fr. retarder (13c.); offensive noun meaning "stupid person" (with accent on first syllable) is from 1960s slang.

The term, or “condition”, Mental Retardation, is used as a medical diagnosis for many state Medicaid and Medicare programs and encompasses one or several of the following: significantly lower intelligence than the average for individuals of the same age, delays in developing social skills, communication skills, and the ability to care for oneself and live independently. (via)

*************

The slang use of the word “retarded” is used heavily in most conversations especially among teenagers and the ill informed and inappropriately so.

Used then and now, the word is one that labels and in fact limits ones ability to judge properly the life experiences a person with an intellectual disability has had which can negate or even overshadow their slowness. Just because someone is delayed in processing and responding back in conversation in rapid fire succession does not mean they do not get what you are saying; they get it a little slower is all.

A derogatory word now in most friendly conversation, “retard” is often used to describe a *normal* person who is slow to pick up on something or acting in a defunct manner.

Meaning they are stupid and should be dealt with in a condescending manner because they are less than. Thus making them the *other*.

Who wants to be reminded they are stupid all the time, or treated like a child, especially when it’s someone making fun of you by joking someone else?

It’s the same concept behind referring to something as “gay” or “faggoty” isn’t it?

Sure it seems I’m being the Politically Correct Police. I get that a lot and honestly, I do not give a shit. I believe in treating everyone equally regardless of their mental status and/or capacity and of course their race, class, creed, gender and so on. And I wish everyone else did, too.

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The busiest time of the year

If you believe in all this Holiday hullabaloo that is. In light of me trying to go back to posting daily, occasionally life gets in the way, such as a developer trying to put 33 condos in the space of 4 homes in an Old and Historic District, that just so happens to be next to my house. At the end of a street. A street that is stopped because it ends at a bluff overlooking Gillies Creek.

There are already 31 people living on the block where this development is proposed to go and they want to add an additional 33-66 people, complete with the traffic and trash. The density is too much for the area we Neighbors for Appropriate Development believe, and thank goodness the Commission of Architectural Review agrees.

Tuesday the official decision was deferred until the developers could come up with a way to work around the existing buildings and not create quite so much density. Yay! The property has an application to be rezoned to dual family (currently zoned multi-family) by early spring, thus negating the current need for a fight against the developer and her monstrous project.

So now I get to relax a little, help plan more of the Dog Park Kick Off party on the 29th, then settle into the New Year a bit before I cast off to do more fundraising so our dog park can open by spring!

Keep reading....

Don't let PETA fool you

Sure they were out demonstrating yesterday before and during Vick’s sentencing, but they have gone on record to call for the eradication of the pit bulls and other species like them. Ingrid Newkirk calls for all impounded pit bulls (and eventually all of them) to be killed as soon as they walk in the door.

Her other suggestion is to ban pit bull breeding, which is definitely something I can support as shelters in cities are inundated with them. The rescue I am currently fostering a male blue pit for (and after Christmas will be adding an adult female) has over 20 dogs in foster homes and approximately 30 more dogs in the shelter waiting for a foster home to open up or someone to adopt them.

Pit bulls are perhaps the most abused dogs on the planet. These days, they are kept for protection by almost every drug dealer and pimp in every major city and beyond. You can drive into any depressed area and see them being used as cheap burglar alarms, wearing heavy logging chains around their necks (they easily break regular collars and harnesses), attached to a stake or metal drum or rundown doghouse without a floor and with holes in the roof. Bored juveniles sic them on cats, neighbors' small dogs and even children.

The problem isn't the pit bulls themselves, but the people who get hold of them. Again, we're blaming the victim here and not the persons perpetrating the crime. Yet state laws still make it hard to prove any wrongdoing on the dogs behalf and the punishment is no where near intense enough to deter repeat offenders.

My housemate has told me on several occasions that I need to give up, keep Memphis inside and away from all people and other animals until he gets adopted. She said this when I announced I was going to take Memphis w/me to the local coffee shop, have a smoothie and a snack, and sit w/him by the front door where people will be going by him, and possibly other dogs, too, during our visit.

I later took him to PetSmart where he did beautifully. And we’re graduating from a basic manners and obedience class tonight.

My answer to her was: you can't judge a book by its cover. Just because he is a pit doesn't mean he's vicious. I used the analogy of a person dressed in religious clothing, such as a burqa, and how the common person judges that woman by what she is wearing, not who she really is.

My housemate informed me that was not an apt comparison though I think it is. I extend my dogs to almost human status. I am the alpha and I run my house that way, too.

Needless to say, Memphis was chained up somewhere and had entirely too many negative experiences so the only way to work that out of a dog, or rehabilitate him, is to give him lots of positive experiences to draw from.

Sequestering, which is essentially isolating, can only make matters worse and that's dangerous for a pit as they get no 2nd or 3rd chances.
Keep reading....

Working with a bunch of Women

Unless you're all working for the same side and can keep it down to approximately 5 individuals in office, it can really have its downfalls.

Take today for example:

I jokingly said my co-worker could help me find a chart. She said, "Ah, no," and hung up.

Later, when walking up the hall, I heard her rehashing the conversation to her co-hens, except at the end she said I had told her to find it herself.

She then turned and saw me standing at the doorway and I left just as she saw me, which was my intention.

Not long after I got a nasty email telling me not to sneak on up people and the conversations they are having and that if I wanted to know something I should have just asked.

I replied to her email stating that I had actually been coming up the hall when I heard the conversation so decided to wait around and see what she said. Then I added that if she didn't want anyone to "sneak" up on her conversations, she shouldn't have them where others can hear, especially the person of whom she is speaking about (negatively or otherwise).

The pettiness around here can get very, well, petty.

Keep reading....

When the hell is November 2008 gonna get here?

So we can stop having a president veto a much needed children's health care plan but plans to enthusiastically sign a bill for another $190 billion for a war we need to get our asses out of, thus bringing the total price tag for 2 very crappy "Wars on Terrorism" to $650 billion.

Which our children will have to pay back, by the way.

Keep reading....

Duh

A new study produced by the Sentencing Project in Washington, DC came out with the following results:

Blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate, according to a study released Wednesday by a criminal justice policy group.

Now see why the title of this post is a very simple, "Duh"?

What I would like to know is why Native Americans, or 1st Nation peoples, aren't on this study. Oh that's right, because people think they exist only on reservations and spend their free time drinking. Whew, these stereotypes are just flyin' off the shelf today.
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What do you say when you've been MIA for almost an entire month?

Except that life has been happening a bit too eagerly the past few weeks.

Let's see, Penelope came down with what ended up being a salivary gland infection to which she proceeded to scare the heck out of me since, let's see, a 7month old puppy went from running, jumping and frolicking happily to sleeping 75% of the day and had a swollen neck that looked like she swallowed a tennis ball. She had a fever of 104 degrees and true to what the Dr. said, it took 4 days for it to start showing signs healing but for which I was most impatient and, here's a good technical term, freaked the hell out.

But not before she had scratched the area under her neck causing a weakness so to speak. Thus the blood/puss trying to drain headed for said area and began to leak slowly. Monday evening I came home to find the area filled with fluid and skin that looked like it would die if it sat that way any longer. What did I do? Took my darning needle and poked a hole in the area and out gushed more blood and puss than I ever want to smell again.

I swear only a mother could do something like that.

Tuesday afternoon she awoke to no fever and almost back to her bouncy self, something I never thought I'd be happy to see.

Dooley however is another story. Mid-February I noticed her ears were badly infected and after 4 antibiotics and Prednisone for 2 of those rounds it wasn't getting any better. Then I noticed her stomach area was covered in sores, her eyes drained, her feet were itchy and had nasty sores on them and she was getting more lethargic by the day.

After several tests and no answers from 3 different vets, we finally got an answer and thank heavens the vet is here in the neighborhood because that certainly makes the chronic illness part more bearable.

So it is guessed she has auto immune disease and a severe skin infection. We see a holistic vet Thursday at 5pm and a dermatologist next Thursday at 8:40am. yay. Thankfully the woman who helped with the adoption of Dooley knows a lot of people who know a lot about this type of thing (which together we found is quite common in labs along with hip dysphasia, something else we think she has) and she also found a financial sponsor for Dooley so Lady Eleanor is headed to that very nice lady in a few short days. Without her kindness to send lots of money (I've already spent $1500 in credit and she's sent $750 thus far with another $1,000 promised) to a dog she has never met and a family she's never seen but for the pictures I've sent, Dooley would have had to been put over the Rainbow Bridge before her time.

Through the dog troubles my straight A of a student son has been suspended 3 or 4 times, not including the 2 times he's received in-school suspension. Finally we're gathering (or rather, the school peeps including his teacher) he's doing it on purpose to get kicked out of school. Even after an entire year Peanut remains steadfast in his dislike for this school.

The 6th time he was suspended for 10 days and I'm grateful for my friend L as she came up and stayed with us for those days, watching Peanut and making sure he stuck to the punishment and completed work while at home.

2 Friday's ago we visited a local free Episcopal private school for testing. We're supposed to hear back from them within the next 2 weeks so please keep all your fingers and toes crossed, wishing against all hope he'll get in since it will challenge him more and provide a safer environment for him so he won't feel the need to defend himself quite so aggressively.

Our new mantra is the countdown to the last day of school, with 14 days now remaining. He already hasn't watched TV or played any sort of video game for at least 3 weeks and I told him I had no qualms about pushing it into summer vacation if he couldn't get a grip on himself.

Isn't all that exciting? Between Penelope and Peanut I almost went nuts, quite literally, as they both happened at the same time. Dooley's condition has been chronic and steadily getting worse so that has been on my mind a lot, but not naggingly so.

So you see, the times I did have a moment to relax, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of a computer. I've been knitting a lot though as that has helped with the coping process and its better to take it out on yarn than beat someone senseless.

Oh, did I mention my ex-husband was on my ass, too? He said all Peanut's problems are my fault since I put him in the ghetto-ass school he's in and haven't tried getting him in another one in the area.

Yeah, he's that stupid and the argument quickly degenerated into something even more stupid and unworthy of my time. He is being rather nice and adding Peanut to his health insurance plan since it will only cost him an $64 extra a month whereas it would have cost me $200 extra for a total of $307 monthly. And they expect me to buy groceries with what money again? That's what I get for getting used to Medicaid covering Peanut and food stamps giving us lots of money for food, both of which disappear as of May 31st.

Did I mention my gas was turned off because I was behind on the bill? Yeppers. They needed an appointment to turn it back on, too, though the guy didn't laugh much when I asked him how come they didn't need an appointment to turn it off.

It's been a fun month in the ironic sense I guess.

To prove I've been paying attention through all this, I'm slowly swinging over to Hillary's side more and more because, let's face it, having a woman president would be fucking awesome.

And I have a ton of Peanutisms I must really remember to add to this thing so I'll have them in my possession when he's older and at the point in his life where it could very much embarrass him, :).

Keep reading....

Our Prejudices, Ourselves

Harvey Fierstein wrote a scathing op-ed today with the same title for the NYTs and he calls each and every one of us out on our tolerance/acceptance for some hate speech but not others. Why is it okay for someone to use "f*****" as a put down yet "nappy-headed" is considered racist? The former is used on elementary school playgrounds while the latter is used within the African American/Black community to belittle each other. Aren't both derogatory terms that should not be repeated? How about the word "retarded" and how it denigrates those with a real developmental disability? Listen to a group of high school girls and you'll hear the word used 10 times in as many minutes. Again, refusing to use words such as these and not allowing those around to employ sting while in your presence is one way to help eradicate such language from society.

Here's the very last paragraph:

The real point is that you cannot harbor malice toward others and then cry foul when someone displays intolerance against you. Prejudice tolerated is intolerance encouraged. Rise up in righteousness when you witness the words and deeds of hate, but only if you are willing to rise up against them all, including your own. Otherwise suffer the slings and arrows of disrespect silently.

Something I still don't understand (and I'm not sure I want to), is why someone who is oppressed would want to inflict said oppression on someone else, an example being African Americans/Blacks being intolerant of homosexuals. You would think, through their ordeal of slavery, a Civil War and Jim Crow laws, they would be empathetic of an individuals rights to personal freedom because they had to fight so hard for their own. With the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown coming up, the Native Americans are another example.

But that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

And you know what they say: if you and your friends use the word(s) to describes yourselves, then you are unintentionally giving others the right to use them against you, too.

Keep reading....

Pieces of Conversastion Part II

This one took place at work not that many minutes...or rather the comments came by in wisps of a larger one I wanted no part of.

I work in a home health agency where discrimination based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation and/or religion is a big no-no. Well, let me tell you what happens when they're all getting their shit together at the office:

Carpet muncher was just thrown around, another co-worker (who I have quickly learned to talk to about work stuff only) commented on the fact the patient had been hit by a car when trying to get to the local gay bar, stating the person should have run her over as she has no tolerance for that sort of thing, has said if her son was in any way effeminate or gay, she would disown him and so on.

The co-worker who commiserates with me said something to the above lady, saying she was nasty and I have said she isn't supposed to show open disdain for a population of people when she is to treat everyone equally while on company time, but she (hates gay people lady) apologized for nothing. She also throws the word retarded around like its going out of style so either we're going to have to have a one-on-one chat or my boss and I will, which could end up being worse for HGPL in the long run.

But really, would any of them appreciate being discriminated against for their skin color or how about if heterosexuality was outlawed and homosexuality was the norm? Flip the script and see how fast people backtrack, such as with a woman's right to privacy eh?

This open disdain for a population of people who are oppressed enough, then having a member from an equally oppressed culture inflict the same process of discrimination on someone else does not sit well with me.

Keep reading....

Pieces of Conversation Part I

Here's a bit of typical objectification for you to peruse and gawk. First, let me set the scene for you.

It's 9pm and we're just sitting down to dinner. I had put together a small table-top grill, started it and put together turkeyburgers for myself, along with french fries and a sprite of course. He arrived just as dinner was ready and since I had enough, I offered him some, too.

We finish dinner and commence to watching House. At 11, after both he and I dozed a few times, he stretched and this is where it got nasty.

G: You fed me dinner, so what's for dessert?

Me: Sleep.

G: But I'm horny.

Me: So?

Then there is silence as I'm sure he contemplated what I just said, effectively turning him down and taking control over my body at the same time.

It was about 10min later he excused himself, leaving with nary a goodbye kiss, which was okay considering I was fuming at his lack of respect. The funny thing is, when he got home, he text messaged me with, "I made it home safely, thanks for the concern!" Is that not passive aggressive snarkiness or what? I replied with, "Are you more upset with the fact I wasn't willing to play the part of human blow up doll?"

And of course I was right because the next day he called my argument petty, told me I needed to grow up, that I was always thinking someone was going to fuck me over or that I'm always trying to prove a point and then added if I truly knew how he felt about me, I'd have known he didn't mean any disrespect by that comment. Never mind the fact I explained to him the objectification process 2 times already and how I corrected him when he used the term "sexing" in the same sentence when discussing our relationship just a few weeks prior.

So, he is effectively out of my life and I'm on to doing the solo thing again, which seems to be working out much better for me anyway.

As a co-worker said yesterday, "Yes, I'm always petty when it comes to the objectification of my body."

Keep reading....

Libby found guilty!

Yes! This may very well mean one tier of the Bush Administration has cracked, causing a weakness that will make it easier to hold them accountable for all the bullshit they have brought upon us the last 7 years.

This is very good news indeed.

Now if someone could just tackle Wal-Mart once and for all....

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Life is too short, too short

Today, after spending 40min of my time in traffic because of a 7 car accident on I-64 which, ta-da, made me 30min late for work, I was told I'd better start being here on time no matter what or I will not have a job.

When I tried to explain how I just spent the last 40min in traffic and that is something completely out of my control, I was told it didn't matter, I should have left earlier.

He then said I've been late everyday since I began working here and since I'm first on phones it's unacceptable. His idea of late, btw, is getting here exactly at 8am.

So either I'm going to get fired by Friday or I'm going to quit. I'm really tempted to leave today and not come back, but at least by getting fired I can claim unemployment. I just don't know if it's really worth my sanity to stick around that long.

Keep reading....

Inflexibility at Work

I arrived 10min late to a note on my computer monitor that read, "Crystal, Please be at work by 8am. Your job starts at 8am. Thank You! ~boss' name."

And that's it. No hey, what's going on, nothing. Just be here or be fired. Which I can certainly understand but wow, I would love for them to live a week in my life and then perhaps they'll change their strict, inflexible ways.

Because it's not like I woke up this morning and decided I wanted to be late just for the hell of it.

In fact, Peanut was awake at 6:30am but when I told him at 6:50am it was time to get up and dressed, he proceeded to throw several mini-tantrums, telling me how this is why he wished I'd never taken this job, it's too early to get up, etc. That threw us off schedule by 5min but we were still okay since I built a 5-10min buffer into it anyway.

Yet, if that weren't enough, I decided to pack us in the car then get on the highway, unconsciously heading straight to work. Thank goodness I realized it fast but again, that set us back by 5min. Yay for Monday's!

It was when I got to Peanut's daycare that really threw the already tight schedule off. One of the teacher's (she's really the one who takes care of the programs finances but hangs out with the kids in the morning and afternoon) wanted to talk to me about Peanut, how he does a good job there, they are working with him, etc. I wasn't going to tell her to wait, that I had to get to work, because Peanut is more important than any job simply because he's my flesh and blood. Money certainly helps but it's not everything.

So all that combined created the problem of me being 10min late to work.

That's a lot of life to happen before 8am and hey, shit happens and, in my opinion, if you're going to employ a single-mother, you should be a little more understanding and compassionate. After all, she's most likely trying the best she can to begin with.

Keep reading....

Judge passes the buck

He decided to pass the decision off to the guardian of Anna Nicole's baby girl because he personally wanted her to be buried in the Bahama's with her son.

Britney Spears is cracking which of course might award K-Fed the kids after all.

There.

Can we go back to more important things now? Like say the elections coming up in November 2008, a shitty war in Iraq and the increasingly impatient push to go to war with Iran? Or how about the AIDS pandemic in Africa or the various highly curable diseases also found there?

Keep reading....

Friday Dog Blogging "Love My Pit" style

Thank heavens even Virginia has realized breed specific legislation wouldn't work, but that holding dog owner responsible for their wayward dogs, regardless of breed, will. (Click on the images to make them bigger.)

Too bad California, considered to be the most liberal of all 50 states, has not:

A number of negative consequences could follow. Who would have foreseen animal control coming into the homes of Denver residents and confiscating family pets solely based on breed, not behavior? Who could have predicted the exclusions written into insurance policies that render homeowners uninsured if they have the 'wrong' kind of pet. It started with Pit Bulls, then expanded to Chows, Rotweillers, German Shepherds, Dalmatians and others.

Check out this open letter to Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA. She says that PETA fully backs the banning and euthinasia of all pit bills, eventually eradicting the entire species.
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Sometimes I just really hate people.

This article, also in the WashPo, reviews an HBO documentary being aired tonight. They found out that dogs being sold for research are 1) mostly stolen pets that a family is undoubtedly missing and 2) being sold to the kennels for $15 a head but sold to labs for $250.

(I really hate that research for make-up, shampoo, toilet paper, etc., is done on any kind of animal so I try to use brands that don't participate in this inhumane acts though it isn't always easy to do.)

What this documentary, called "Dogs", seeks to shed light on is the poor conditions the dogs are subjected to while waiting to go to the various labs or research facilities that will torture them even more. (Can we say Iams?)

So pretty much it's like, "Hey, you should be treating these dogs with utmost respect because they're going to be tortured even more! We should love and care for them until they have to get tubes shoved into their precious tummies, their eyes filled with mascara's and eyeliners or strapped onto a table to see what kind of reactions they have to various chemicals."

Agh. Sometimes I just really hate people. Because in my head, that group who did the undercover work should care about what happens to the animals at all stages of their lives, not just the parts before being sold into involuntary (unknowing) servitude.

(No, I am not a PETA freak. They take things too far and are for a nationwide ban on pit bulls and their eventual euthanizing/eradication as a breed.)

Keep reading....

Preacher throws puppies from his truck

Check this video out. Thankfully a man had been behind him and saw the whole thing. That man confronted the pastor then picked each puppy up and took it to the local humane society.

Pastor Vincent Kohn has been arrested and charged with animal cruelty.

Keep reading....

Non-friend S. responds

And I thought about posting her lengthy response here on my blog, but lucidity struck and I figured that might not be fair to her, though it would let you know both sides of the story for sure.

I had originally posted about Non-friend S. here ("you know the old cliche'" which will be archived as soon as I post this) and let out how angry I was at her. Given her response, it quickly became apparent that she still reads my blog. It also quickly became apparent that she was reading it because she didn't (and still doesn't) think she did anything wrong to provoke these feelings in me; that I'm simply overreacting.

How nice of a woman friend to deduce rational objection as over-reacting, eh?

So she rehashed the old shit I mentioned on my blog not realizing I mentioned it all here in order to give readers' a history. I wasn't attempting to dredge it up and out any longer, just merely proving the past offenses.

What has gotten me hot this time is blatant misreading of what I originally wrote.

For example, I wrote the below paragraph somewhere in the middle of the original post:

What kind of friend tells you that blogging, writing letters (not the ones you click and send though sometimes they are easier), volunteering at a husky rescue and the YWCA, going to school full-time, raising an almost 6 year old full-time and commuting appx 3 hours every single fucking day isn't enough "activism?" Oh, did I mention the work I do running her around on errands while I'm here in Richmond or during the semesters for the organization we belong to called VOX (the VCU chapter)?

And then I wrote this sentence at the very end of that same post:

And most importantly, I'm just tired of not being appreciated for what I've already done and/or contributed to this new movement. I'm only one person and I can do but so much.

How does she respond to both those statements you ask?

As for appreciating you driving to and from Richmond and raising a 6 year old everyday, why should I or anyone else thank you for this? How exactly is this activism? If it was the world would be a much better place everytime someone became a parent. You choose to do this. You also live rent-free with your parents. You are very lucky to have supportive parents. I don't have parents but I'm not asking for anyone's appreciation or pity over this or over the fact that I'm currently unemployed yet still paying rent and bills off of the little financial aid I can get (which is less than half the amount you get).

I don't remember asking for appreciation for being a parent, but merely for my time that is dedicated to being a parent 45 min north of Richmond. Not exactly a prime location for doing "activism" when I feel the need to satisfy that urge. But more importantly, what I wanted appreciation for was the stuff I've already done, not for the fact that I, in her opinion, still haven't done enough.

What I also find amazing is that right in that paragraph she mentions her unemployment status (began in May) but yet all summer blew 100's of dollars on chairs, plants, dirt, etc. Shoulda planned better in my opinion. But I stayed out of it because it was none of my business.

I've even tried breaking down my financials for her to no avail, so I'll try it again.

$436 and some change every 2 weeks. $200 now goes to gas. That's $400 a month! And she wants me to drive to Richmond whenever she says Activism? WTFever.

Let's not forget $150 in car insurance, $80 for daycare, school clothes, credit card bill, school trips/supplies, school lunches....lest I go on? With all this spelled out for her, perhaps she will understand why driving to Richmond these days is such a big deal. I've been shelling out $42 every 4 days so that I can live rent free and have those supportive parents. I still need to buy groceries. I still need to feed Peanut and myself. That doesn't come free.

I think what really pisses me off is having to explain myself to a supposed friend. I've thought long and hard about my reaction to Non-Friend S., wondering if good friends T., C., and L. would treat me like this and if they did, would I react in the same way.

The funny thing is, I wouldn't have to worry about my reaction because no, they wouldn't tell me that what I'm doing isn't enough because they have the forsight and working knowledge of empathy to realize that each individial does what they can when they can do it.

And most importantly, I wouldn't have to explain nor justify myself to them. That's what good friends do for each other.

Update: Now my true personality and "nastiness" are coming out and she sees me for who I really am. Because, like, I haven't been consistent or anything over the past year. Wouldn't you figure out who someone truly is much quicker than 1 year? Or perhaps when you see the other side of a personality, the nasty side turned on you, would you think to question what had happened to change said person into nastiness? Not Non-Friend S.!

Keep reading....