So, I’m sitting at a meeting tonight and we’re talking about stuff and someone is like, “It’s really a shame we don’t still have Rosalind Kurita to help us with this. She was great on children’s and family issues.”
“Yeah, but if you have her help you, you can’t ever tell any of the Democrats you did or they’ll work against you.”
“What they did to her was evil.”
And yet, when we tried to tell the Democrats that their treatment of Kurita hurt them, they all rolled their eyes.
1. The Music Issue of the Oxford American never showed up here at work, but the Race Issue is here. America, I hesitate to say anything at all, because lord knows I don’t want another Smirnoff meltdown in the comments, but, fine, I’m just going to say it. This is some 1980s shit on my desk. In a magazine about the South, in an issue called “Race: The Past, Present, and Future,” the issue is devoted primarily to the experiences of black people. As if white people have no race? As if there are no Hispanic people having any kind of Southern experience? As if one of the largest Kurdish populations outside of the Middle East isn’t here? And I know it’s kind of bullshit to dog on someone for trying, but good fucking god. “Race” does not equal “Black” and a racialized experience of the South is not equal to the experience of being black in the South. And it’s stupid anyway, because being black in the South is a great topic for the Oxford America. So, why not just call it that? What’s with the weird “we’re going to talk about black people and hear from black people and we’re going to invoke Dr. King because white people seem to think that the mere mention of his name is enough to keep black people from being mean to us, but we’re going to couch it in terms of ‘race’ not of being black?” If it’s a race issue, there need to be more races in it. If it’s the Black People issue, then call it that. (Flowers is in it, though! Woo hoo.)
2. Could “Beowulf” mean “woodpecker”? I don’t know. But I like to think about it.
3. Marrero sticks up for regular folks again.
4. I loved last night’s episode of “Criminal Minds.” I thought it was perfectly delightful how it walked you right up to the edge of every TV cliche about the supernatural and then… Nothing. The story went on like normal.
I gave her a lot of grief, but I just want to point out that Senator Marrero was the only person yesterday to stand up and tell things from the pro-choice side and from the side of reality.
I’d like to have the opportunity to say there is a different perspective. There are those of us who really do care for and respect a woman’s right to make choices about her own body. … I don’t know of anything that’s more private or more important than for a woman to be able to decide whether she would like to carry a baby under whatever circumstances. It seems to me that some of these decisions are very agonizing, very difficult for people to make. But it’s a decision that should be made between a woman and her husband or her partner and her physician or the people who care about her. It seems to me unreasonable that the legislature should make this important decision for a woman.
We have so many children in this state right now who are in state custody who are being taken care of because they were in abusive situations. If you force people to have babies who don’t want or need babies, I can’t even imagine how many abusive situations you’re going to run into. Every child should be a wanted child. That is what a lot of us in the state of Tennessee sincerely believe, that a woman should make choice to have a child, to love that child and to take care of that child, and that is her right to make that decision. I oppose the state of Tennessee and the legislature making that decision for a woman. I applaud the fact that the constitution in the state of Tennessee guarantees a woman’s right to privacy. Nothing is more private than what you do with your own body.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–I feel like anti-abortion folks think that babies are magic. That, if only they can persuade, or, if necessary, force, a woman to have a baby, she will transform into the perfect mother. She won’t drink or do drugs while she’s pregnant. If she doesn’t want to be a mother, she’ll happily give the baby up for adoption, and the baby will end up in a happy, perfect, wonderful home.
I have witnessed first-hand how this is not the case. How women who shouldn’t have children at all have babies because “Hell no, she’s not having an abortion” who still drink and do drugs and smoke throughout their pregnancies, who refuse to consider even in-family adoptions because “it’s mine,” and who put those children in dangerous situations again and again and again. I have seen the cigarette burns and the bruises from straps.
Babies are not magic.
They are not so powerful that they will be able to protect themselves from situations they should have never had to be in to begin with. If a woman knows she can’t hack it as a mother, the State should not force her to be one. That is not fair to her or her children.
Finally, I slept well last night. Since I’ve been sick, I’ve been sleeping like shit, but last night I slept like a dream. And I dreamed I was on Dirty Jobs. And it was my job to hug Mike Rowe and feel his muscles. Well, obviously, that wasn’t my job. I was supposed to be showing him how to do some dirty job or another, but that’s what I was doing.
I swear, I don’t understand why people don’t just invent dirty jobs for the sake of having him show up.
Shoot, I tell you what, I’ve got half a mind to call him the next time the tiny cat pulls all her butt hair out and have him help me grease her up. That’s a job no one wants.
Tiny Cat Pants 