Just Another Day in the Life of a Tennessean with a Uterus

1.  NM, look here.  And Bridgett, if you’re around.

2.  Professor, look here and here.

3.  I’ve been thinking about Emiliano Monjaraz all day and wondering if Hobbs believes him to have been at fault as well.  Just how far does the guilt for being an “illegal” extend?  It’s really something to think about, that it was not even a decade ago that, if a man killed another man in this state, Tennesseans would, out of the goodness of their hearts, send enough money to the victim’s widow to allow her to take care of her family, even if her husband wasn’t one of those “honest” Tennesseans.  I’m not saying that things were perfect back then, but something has gone terribly wrong since then.

4.  Yes, indeed, let’s waste our time trying to change the state constitution to unguarantee a woman a right to an abortion in case Roe v. Wade is ever overturned in a state that is three hours thick.  While you’re at it, Republicans, why don’t you work on banning women of child-bearing age from driving, because, otherwise…  Oh, yeah, right.  Rich women will still be able to do whatever the hell they want and poor women will continue to suffer under your punitive busy-bodying.  But, hey, look!  This year they found some women to help them feel okay about trampling on our right to say what happens to our bodies.

5 .  Thanks to John Lamb over at the Hispanic Nashville Notebook, the Professor and I are going to see The Orphanage.  I’m excited.

6.  I’ve decided that I really should learn Spanish so that when someone says that we are “amigos de caca,” I know if I’m being complimented–like we’re friends who’ve been through some shit together–or if it’s an insult–like we’re friends and I’m full of poop.  Or both.  I guess I could ask John Lamb, who surely has nothing better to do that to act as my personal translator.

Afghan Sizes

Okay, crafty readers, I need some knowledge and insight for my next project, which will be the afghan made with the yarn Mom and I dyed.

What good is a 39 x 50 inch afghan?  That’s just over three feet by four feet, right?

The pattern I have, which I’m really digging, I just noticed makes an afghan 39×50 inches.  And I just don’t understand what a grown-ass person is supposed to do with that.  How do you nap under that on the couch?

I think what I’m going to have to do is double it and turn it on its side so that it’s 50 inches wide and 78 inches long, unless I hear from y’all that there’s some use for afghans no one can curl up under.

Hobbs in Favor of Affirmative Action

I just have one question, is the problem that folks like Nacio just didn’t have the courtesy to stay in Mexico and starve to death where we didn’t have to deal with them? 

I mean, really, Hobbs.  What is Nacio’s fault?

NAFTA?  The fact that there’s no way for him to legally enter our country?  That, if he had stayed in Mexico, he would have starved?

This is what just kills me.  The Republicans are all about personal responsibility and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and doing away with “entitlement” programs and folks just getting our acts together and being willing to suffer away at shitty jobs in order to have a better future.

But when faced with a bunch of people who are trying to make better lives for themselves and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and suffer away at shitty jobs in order to have a better future?

Well, then, by golly, there’s no problem with asking the federal government to force businesses to only employ the “right” kinds of people instead of the most well-qualified.

It would almost be funny if it weren’t so tragic. 

p.s. The real new news in all of this is that Representative Campfield seems to believe that the whole state of Tennessee is economically depressed.  Check this out:

I think the Tennessean article has the headline upside down. Instead of…

“Immigration raids hit Springfield hard
Enforcement sends shock wave to employer, hundreds of lives”

It should be….

“Illegal aliens arrests open up jobs for honest Tennesseans in depressed area.”

That might make a person wonder what the unemployment rate in Robertson County (where Springfield is located) is.

According to the state, in November, it was 4.3%.  In the whole county, only 1,440 people were out of work.  That counts as depressed in Campfield’s book?

The rate for the whole state is 4.9%.