Archive for the Soap Box category
March 31st, 2006
Well, I had my second Botox treatment last week. I meant to blog about it then, but with all the problems with my web host, it got lost in the shuffle.
I handled it somewhat better. No passing out this time. However, knowing about the 22 shots and what was coming was worse, I think. I felt very ill the whole time, very light-headed. It wasn’t nearly as interesting an experience. I did keep trying to focus on my happy thought, which happened to be Pugly since I was going to go see him immediately
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Tags: botox, topomax, migraine, health insurance
March 24th, 2006
Everyone seems to have an opinion about abortion and child support and who has control over what and when and where and what our children should or shouldn’t be taught about what goes on down “there”. Some folks think we shouldn’t teach sex education at all because that’ll give kids ideas and other folks think if we don’t teach sex education, that’s what leads to curiousity down “there” and silly misinformation like “you can’t get pregnant the first time” or “if you love me.”
Of course, the President’s big program is abstinence, which is the religious-right’s big program. The thing is that they don’t want to teach any kind of back up if abstinence doesn’t work out.
Strangely, I feel like I’m one of the few people with the right to actually ask this question these days. I wonder how many of these people who are going around preaching abstinence and not wanting to teach other forms of birth control at all practiced what they preached when they were that age. I just find it a bit hard to believe that so many of these people practiced what they preach.
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Tags: abstinence, sex
March 7th, 2006
There’s a lot of hoopla about the abortion fight lately. There’s a lot of name-calling and word-twisting going around. It’s almost dangerous to join into a conversation and express your opinion because the truth is very few people are 100% extremely for or against abortion and the people in the middle are in a mosh pit of sorts.
The Blogsphere, especially the feminist-leaning ’sphere, is filled with a whirlwind of terms and phrases — War Against Women, Women-Haters, Women-Opressers, Pro-choicers, Pro-lifers, Anti-abortionist, Anti-lifers. Personally, I’m not fond of the “pro-life” and “anti-life” versions as they really don’t reflect the groups labeled as such. I think “pro-choice” and “anti-abortion” are probably the best fits I’ve heard or read so far.
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Tags: pro-choice, anti-abortion, abortion, War on Women, Women's Rights
March 7th, 2006
No, seriously. I’ve been mulling it over since last Thursday when the Patriot Act got renewed.
Mostly I’ve been quietly seething as that’s just another nail in the coffin of our dying civil liberties and freedoms and my first impulse was to write a post about how every single one of those Senators who voted to renew the Patriot Act should be voted out of office when their seat came up — which is saying a lot since I actually like Snowe, Collins, Baucus, Vitter, and up until very recently McCain. However, I decided to sit on it and think on it.
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Tags: John Kerry, Democrats, Patriot Act, Senate, loss of Freedoms
March 5th, 2006
One of the things that has amazed me in the last four or five years is the right-wing true believers’ inability or refusal to see “the facts” or “the truth” or to question anything. This administration seems to be beyond reproach in their eyes and even the so-called “liberal-biased” media doesn’t seem all that interested in pursuing the suspicious actions or behavior of this administration. For the most part, it all seems to be swept under the rug. The killers of Natalee Holloway have been pursued with more diligence.
And I just keep wondering how much worse it’s going to get before someone does something. Anything would be a start. Name calling and pointing fingers isn’t enough. Threatening isn’t enough if you don’t do something.
Thunder is impressive, but it is the lightning that does the work.
– Mark Twain
Last week, I jokingly told someone that it’s almost as if George Bush has some sort of protection spell. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: George W. Bush, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mayor Wilkins
March 3rd, 2006
I know that rightwingers seem to think that liberals take pleasure when bad things happen in Iraq in Afghanistan. That’s such a stupid theory. After all, we’re the ones that didn’t want anyone to die in the first place.
Anyway, I’m sure they think we’re pleased as pink with the lastest news from John Pace, former director of Human Rights for the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. He’s been saying that human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein and the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is up; morgue workers are being threatened by both government military and insurgents not to investigate deaths.
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Tags: Iraq, Saddam Hussein, U.N., human rights abuses
February 27th, 2006
An acquaintance of mine mentioned yesterday that she is offended by H&R Block’s current tax-season ad campaign.
You’ve seen it. There’s an H&R Block representative giving deduction advice to a client and finally the client asks if she does that for everyone and the rep says, “Only for people who work for a living.”
My acquaintance is on disability. She’s not the only person I know who is. Perhaps she’s one of the few I know who doesn’t take advantage of it, but that’s beside the point. The fact is that she was offended by the commercial.
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Tags: H&R Block, Discrimination
February 14th, 2006
One of the most frustrating things I’ve heard and read a lot recently is the complaint that Katrina Evacuees are mooching off the system when they should just get on with their lives and get jobs.
People like to point out that there are a lot of jobs in New Orleans right now. Why just about every business has a sign out that they are hiring. Anyone who claims they can’t find work must be moochers.
Meanwhile, people who are working in the city are getting kicked out of their hotels because FEMA won’t pay anymore. FEMA is handing
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, politics, FEMA
November 7th, 2005
I’m fairly certain that in most places in the United States tomorrow there will be a voting booth open. Oh, sure, there’s nothing big to vote on like the Presidency, but there’s still important decisions to make.
Heck, here in Maine, we’re voting on the right to discriminate against perceived homosexuals. Oh, I’ll be voting “no” against repealing the law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination, but the important thing is that people get out and make an educated vote for whatever their cause. Just because you think whatever’s on the ballot doesn’t affect you, just
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Tags: vote, politics, Gay Rights, Discrimination, Freedoms
November 3rd, 2005
I haven’t been writing about world events or politics the last week or so. I’m sure you noticed the absence of ranting and raving particularly about the Bush administration around here.
Of course, there are a couple reasons for that.
I’m sure you’ve noticed my current focus on NaNoWriMo. That’s going to take quite a bit of time and energy this month. If you think it’s easy, sign up and write a 50K novel too. 
But on a more serious note, I’ve been watching the news and the headlines and skimming my usual blog haunts (though a little
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Tags: politics, Scooter Libby, Conspiracy Theories
October 26th, 2005
I’ve been thinking about Donklephant’s post by Callimachus this morning called “______ Lied”. The post itself has a liberal-biased tilt, but the original column, It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story seems to be straight reporting to me and I think it’s something that many of us die-hard anti-Iraq-War-Bill-Clinton-loving liberal try very, very hard to ignore or forget.
The truth is that the fear of Suddam Huissen’s potential to wage nuclear destruction on his neighbors and the world didn’t start in January 2001 or even after September 11, 2001.
Here are a few past headlines from The New York Times:
October 26th, 2005
As we take a moment to mourn the Americans who gave their lives in Iraq, I’d like to think about the Iraqis who’ve lost their lives.
I’ve talked before about the Iraqi death tolls; for the most part, until recently no one seemed to be keeping count. I’ve seen a wide range of statistics on the subject of how many Iraqis have died since the start of the war or since the end of the war even.
Finally American Main Stream Media is talking about it; an article on Yahoo!News yesterday claims most experts estimate the number of
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Tags: American soldiers, Iraq
October 24th, 2005
Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified.
Eighty-two percent of Iraqis are “strongly opposed” to the presence of coalition troops.
Less than one percent of the Iraqi population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security and 67 percent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation. In fact, 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened.
These are the results of a secret poll in August commissioned by Britian’s Ministry of Defense and conducted by an Iraqi university research team, who did not know the results would be used by coalition purposes.
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Tags: Iraq, poll, politics
October 24th, 2005
A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon All the King’s Horses, a blog written by a stop-loss soldier in Iraq. Coincidently, my discovery also coincided with blog publicity from Operation Truth, which named him Vet of the Week, October 13, 2005.
His story in his own words is worth sharing:
I joined the army soon after I finished college; the decision was an amalgamation of desire to serve, to belong, and to repay college debt. I wanted the challenge to see if I really could be all I could be. Our country was a vastly different place then; one
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Tags: American soldiers, Conspiracy Theories, blogs
October 22nd, 2005
Here in Maine, we’re getting ready to vote on whether or not to keep a newly passed law that will protect the rights of fellow Mainers based on their sexuality or preceived sexuality.
First of all, I think Question 1 is worded strangely — possibly to confuse voters as to what exactly they are voting for.
Do you want to reject the new law that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation?
The important thing to note is that a “yes” vote would repeal the law and a “no” vote will keep
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Tags: politics, Maine, vote, Gay Rights, Christian bigotry
October 21st, 2005
The last few days, there’s been quite a buzz about how Target now is backing its pharmacists who refuse to fill valid prescriptions for emergency contraception. Personally, I’m alarmed, because like AMERICAblog’s John in DC, I’m concerned about where the line will be drawn if this continues.
I particular like the opinion piece of Dr. Erik Steele, chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, that appeared in the Bangor News:
The reluctance of a pharmacist morally opposed to abortion to do anything that might result in an abortion is certainly understandable. However, a pharmacist
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Tags: Women's Rights, Pharmacies, birth control, Plan B
October 17th, 2005
With all the added security since 9/11, I imagine it’s pretty hard now to hijack an American airplane. However, apparently it’s not that difficult to steal one.
There have been a few news articles in the last few years about stolen airplanes which have worried me. Each time it happens, I can’t believe a bigger deal isn’t made of it because, well, it is a big deal.
Did you know that back in early 2004, someone stole a single-engine airplane in Texas, flew through powerlines, depriving 11,000 people of power, and then crashed and disappeared? [“Stolen Airplane Used To
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Tags: stolen airplane
September 26th, 2005
I’ve seen a few posts/articles the last two days about U.S. soldiers posting gory pictures of dead and mangled Iraqis/Afghanis to an amateur porn website. Note that the censored pictures on AMERICAblog show proud, smiling soldiers…this is deeply disturbing and eerily remenicent of the Abu Ghraib with an added horror of these being more than just pictures of torture and guards gone wild.
If these pictures are the real deal, it opens up a whole new can of worms, so to speak.
It’s easy to understand that war and it’s daily stresses can be waring on a person’s mind,
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Tags: Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, American soldiers
September 25th, 2005
Over at In Search of Utopia there’s a post, like many I’ve seen today (and many times in the last four or so years), about how the press is finally waking up to President Bush’s administrations failures, etc. I wrote the below in the comment section but decided that it was something I felt so passionate about, it needed to be here as well.
You know, every time something happens that I would think would “damn” Bush and his administration, I get all hopeful, but no one in power seems to be doing anything about it.
I mean, all of
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Tags: George W. Bush, hopeless, Democrats, liberals
September 25th, 2005
Posted
in
Politics & Causes,
In the News,
Soap Box,
The World,
Featured,
9-11 & Terrorism,
Iraq & Afghanistan,
Hurricane Katrina,
Conspiracy Theories,
Natural Disasters,
Hurricane Rita,
The Middle East by
n. mallory
It suddenly hit me today that Bush was conviently overseeing Hurricane Rita operations (when he diddled about on vaction prior to and during and even after Hurricane Katrina) while protestors where marching past the White House yesterday. The conspiracy theorist in me that thinks that Bush’s advisors who prefer to keep him in rose-colored glasses would rather him see a natural disaster up close than be present for massive numbers of Americans who think he’s doing a terrible job.
Or maybe I’m just being sarcastic…
Maybe.
Tags: George W. Bush, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, protestors, Conspiracy Theories
3 comments See also in
Politics & Causes, In the News, Soap Box, The World, Featured, 9-11 & Terrorism, Iraq & Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, Conspiracy Theories, Natural Disasters, Hurricane Rita, The Middle East
