So, my newest post is up at Pith. Blake Wylie helped me a shit-ton. I meant to ask him, too, on an unrelated note, if he felt my other brother had made an appropriate choice for a fishing gun, but I couldn’t remember what kind of gun the other brother was using as his fishing gun. So, that remains a mystery.
But the post turned out pretty good.
Via Twitter:
The TNGOP is really running around calling a black man “Uncle”?
In public?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Sweet Jesus, you couldn’t make shit like that up.
So, yeah, the whole “three sisters” planting concept is not going so hot, basically because the corn finked out. In the future, if I do it again, I’ll plant the corn first and get it above ground before I plant the beans and squash, because right now my beans are ready to wrap and the corn’s not high enough for it to wrap around, what little corn there is. I had to suppliment with bamboo poles.
In the future, I don’t think I’ll separate it into three different plots. Instead, I think I’ll make a big oval full of a bunch of corn and then do beans around it and then my squash. And I’ll stagger the planting of them.
Anyway, it turns out that we cannot wait to get the dog’s ear fixed, so I’ll have to call and schedule that. And I need to call and schedule her getting her stitches out. Ugh. I just feel so bad because I know she’s in pain and uncomfortable and you can’t explain to her what’s going on or why.
This is the other reason that I don’t understand how people can fight dogs. I am upset about causing my dog discomfort that I know is for her own good. She had to get the ear fixed and I know from experience that she’s going to be much better off after she gets her leg fixed. It’s for her own good and it makes me feel so bad.
How can you hurt a dog for no reason and not be devistated by it?
I just don’t get it?
The “Eyes on Your Own Paper” party would be like the Libertarians but with less “I am a Rock, I am an Island” sing-alongs. Ha, can Libertarians even have sing-alongs?
Probably not. Okay, let’s say “I am a rock; I am an island” sing-alones.
Anyway, I tease because I love.
The one thing I’ve been mulling over after my trip to Memphis and my discussions with various folks is that there is a loose consensus on the ground about what Democrats should be focusing on (see LWC for more). I have talked to folks from all over the state and they want more jobs, better education, accurate health information, lower infant mortality, safer neighborhoods, etc. And they want Democrats to run as Democrats, to know what we are and what we stand for and to run strong on that. And for politicians who consider themselves Democrats but don’t subscribe to some of our core beliefs to be able to articulate why and for that “why” to be something other than “Because if I was for blah, blah, blah, I couldn’t get elected.”
I don’t know how many more Come-to-Jesus meetings we can try to have in this state when it comes to the Democrats.
But let me try one more time.
If you read a lot of across-the-board bloggers (which I do) and you talk to a lot of women in this state (which I do), you know that there are a core group of concerns that most women in this state have–how is food getting on my family’s table? Is my family safe where we live? Are my kids and/or the kids in my community getting the best education they can? Are people getting a chance for the best life they can or are they getting screwed over by forces much larger than them?
If the Democrats aren’t better on on issues that liberal women care about than Republicans, what argument do I have to insist that liberal women keep voting Democrat? If both sides think the State owns us, then why stay loyal to Democrats?
I mention this because I don’t want you to miss the other implication of they cyberbullying bill–this is a bill that should have been researched and proposed by Democrats. Which party is all about trying to take intent into account? Which party is supposed to be concerned with sticking up for children? Which party in the rest of the country is clued into the internet?
It’s not the Republicans.
But here’s what’s going to happen. Republicans have elected powerful women to the State Legislature. And they have signalled to the hard-core Right their willingness to fight against the basic rights of women, so it’s very difficult to attach to them that pesky feminist label. And now you see them starting to write and pass legislation that appeals to women. That, frankly, seems targetted to appeal to women.
If neither party is going to stand up for the fundimental rights of women to control their own bodies, why shouldn’t women voters drift to the party that puts forth legislation that addresses our concerns?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like it.
But it doesn’t take a genius to see what’s going on and to wonder whether the State Democrats are going to clue in. If the Republicans woo the votes of most of Tennessee’s women, there will be a wilderness so wild I don’t see how the Democrats come back from it.
1. Michael Silence points out that while the state legislature is busy supporting homeschoolers in Germany who they feel might have some vague kind of trouble that they haven’t bothered to learn too much about, more state employees are looking at losing their jobs.
2. The Ghost of Midwesterners Past made such a good point about the cyber-bullying bill that I almost didn’t believe him. Could Republicans really have put forward this thing? But yes, apparently it was Black and Harwell who crafted and sponsored it. Dang.
Oh, right, so what was Pete’s point?
Free speech advocates will rightly cry foul over the broad language. Much of web discourse would seem to fit this description. But think of it as a Republican version of a hate crime bill. Malicious intent is fairly difficult to prove.
I’m not sure I have to even think of it as such. It pretty clearly is a Republican version of a hate crime bill. All the stuff they grouch about when it comes to hate crime bills on the Left–that it’s impossible to discern “intent” because you can’t know what’s in a person’s heart, that it’s so vague and nebulous that even perfectly legal actions could be construed as being in violation of the law, that a person has a first-amendment right to be a hateful jerk, etc.–is a problem with this law, but they trotted it right out and passed it.
One wonders why this type of hate crime bill is okay but others not.
Tiny Cat Pants 