Reproductive Justice

I told the Archcrone that I would blog about reproductive freedom issues today but I got busy doing other things.  I do, however, want to point you to her post and to Rachel’s post.  Reading them together gives you a pretty scary picture of where we are as a state.  For instance, in Rachel’s post, [...]

You Know, As Opposed to those Lazy Americans.

This morning in USA Today, Clinton says:

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states [...]

No Matter How Many Times You Say Women Can’t Be in Combat, War Doesn’t Seem to Care

The military serves a couple of important functions in our culture, aside from the ones it’s officially charged with.  One is giving poor folks a way of seeing the country and the world and encountering a lot of different people and cultures and the other is revealing stupid bullshit between groups in our own society [...]

Blogging Against Disablism Day

I am, by far, no disability rights activist.  But today I was thinking of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Ponds.”  I’m not sure it’s exactly fitting for today.  After all, we are not all lilies.  But I read this poem and what I take away from it is that we all have value and we all [...]

Were There a Lot of Soldiers Living with Open Sewage in the 50s?

So, apparently the folks in the 82nd Airborne returned to Fort Bragg after being in Afghanistan for 15 months and were given moldy, sewagey, paint-peeling crap to live in.  As if that’s not bad enough, read this and then come back here and tell me that, while Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers seems to have a [...]

Is a Threat Free Speech? I Don’t Believe So.

I was thinking that Williamson County might be wise to ask Bradley Armoster to come back and administer some more spankings, considering that they’ve got a teenager called “Cooter”–a self-avowed white supremacist–running around a local high school with his truck full of Confederate Battle Flags and a noose.
I know we’re supposed to tolerate the Confederate [...]

Sheep People and Goat People

So, the other day a large apparently hand-typed poster was found in a local barn and presented to me for my amusement.  I didn’t keep the poster, because I know too many people who need copies of it before I can take the original in good conscience, but the poster is awesome.
And it’s awesome in [...]

What Kind of Person Steals from a Baby, Representative Lynn?

Today, I was standing around flirting with a wee baby when I heard about something so stupid and evil I thought “This must be a mistake. Surely, the man who is telling me about this has suffered a bump on the head right before I got here or is high on gasoline fumes from [...]

Because It’s More Reasonable to Believe an Indiana Republican was at a “Socialist” Dinner?

Here’s the thing.  There’s not anything folks in Indiana pull that folks in Illinois are not also pulling and yet, we sit there to the west feeling smug because we do a better job of keeping it hidden.  Or, if in the case of Matt Hale and his band of idiots, we somehow managed to [...]

Eighteen a Day

Here’s the thing, America, we cannot go on like this.  We can’t stretch our military beyond the breaking point and then turn our backs on these broken men and women.  These folks have done what we asked them to do and we had a duty as a nation, knowing that they would do what we [...]

The “Wife as Personal Prostitute” Model

Every once in a while a discussion will wind its way through the local blogosphere that is so ridiculous to me, I hardly know how to begin to comment on it.  Right now, folks are again debating a series of legislation designed to make sure that women don’t run around stealing men’s money by lying [...]

Just a Little Bit More on Eno Road

I’ve been thinking a lot about appropriation in the wake of the mess still rippling out in the feminist blogosphere (which I don’t care to rehash, though you can find some good links in this comment, if you’d like to get started rehashing it for yourself).
But appropriation.  In my understanding, appropriation is when someone from [...]

No More Sad Times, No More Bad Times

John Lamb’s got a brilliant post today and you should go check it out.  I’m even willing to forgive him for taking Mack’s side over mine (so, John, should you be hit once or twice by water balloons at work today… It’s not me… Really… Um… For no reason, I wonder if there’s a bathroom [...]

Eno Road

I want to talk to you a little about what’s going on on Eno Road over in Dickson, because, even though it’s been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, the Tennessean, etc., I hadn’t bothered to pay attention other than to laugh when the folks who live out in Dickson joke about [...]

Thank God We’re Safe From These Dangerous Criminals

Via Yahoo:
Authorities also arrested at least 45 illegal immigrants during the early morning raids in western New York, Bradford, Pa.; Mentor, Ohio; Wheeling and New Martinsville, W.Va.; and Georgia. Authorities said the workers were forced to staff the Mexican restaurants for long hours with little pay to work off smuggling fees and rent.
Yep, that’s right.  [...]

When Will Hobbs Finally Just Come Out and Say It?

Yesterday, Mack used this delicious phrase–”uppity elitist”–when describing Obama and I wish I’d thought of it, because it seems to me to capture exactly how the Right is trying to portray him.
In the past couple of days, we’ve had two Republican big-wigs at the state level reminding us that Obama is getting a little too [...]

How Long is Long Enough?

So, John Lamb over at Hispanic Nashville Notbebook sent me an email with this question:
A question for you - would you support the following amendment to the U.S. Constitution? The current text says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the State in which [...]

No, No, No

America, I tried to watch the American Experience on PBS tonight, because it was about Walt Whitman and I love me some Walt Whitman.
But it sucked.  I don’t know.  Maybe I just kept flipping over to the sucky parts, but here’s Whitman, who is this eccentric genius, but also kind of a smelly, annoying self-promoter, [...]

This is Exactly Why I’m Against This Guest Worker Nonsense

Archcrone reports that some workers who are here under the H-2A visa–which is, let me remind you, for non-immigrants who just want to come here to work and then go home, which is, let me remind you, supposed to be the big fix-it for our “illegal immigrant” problem (some giant guest worker program), but instead [...]

Easing Suffering

I like to tease Mack about befriending me only for this blog. He is, I think y’all know, something of a rabble-rouser who’s been involved with TIRRC and TAP and this and that. He’s the kind of guy that gets invited to Bob Tuke’s house and gets called by the sheriff and the [...]

Autism and Related “Disorders”

So, today Yahoo has a story of a study that “links” premature births to autism.  I wonder a lot about calling autism a “disorder” and yet, it’s one of those things that I wonder if I’m too academic about.  Here’s where I start.  I wonder–are there more people with autism and related conditions now than [...]

Return of the Olds

It’s almost as if I, with my limited car knowledge and Fortune 500-company-running, were in charge of GM.
Who let this happen?!

Not By the Hair on My Chinny Chin Chin

Via the Unapologetic Mexican, we learn that, according to the geniuses at Fox News, facial hair is indicative of racial or ethnic identity.
I, myself, have a chin hair I have to pluck out when I notice it, every month or so.
I assumed this was just a part of being born a mammal–warm blood, nipples, hair–but [...]

Is Erica Jong on Drugs?!

Sincerely, America.  I had to get up out of my sick bed and come here to ask you “Is Bill Maher writing Erica Jong’s columns for her while she is in a coma or something?”
If this had been in The Onion verbatim I would have laughed until I cried.
First, let’s just overlook the ridiculousness of [...]

An Open Letter to My Fellow Democrats

Dear Fellow Democrats,
As I’ve been sick, I’ve been perusing the internet and I’ve noticed both pro-Obama folks and pro-Clinton folks threatening that, if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination, then they just won’t vote or they’ll vote for McCain (see this letter here as an example).
I realize that tensions are running high and that we [...]