**Disclaimer! I'm not interested in turning my blog about the funny side of living in a zoo, or the funny side of being a mom, or even the funny side of being a 40-something into a political rant. Mostly, I try to keep anything controversial (well, to you. The zookeeper finds some of the things I say about him controversial, but that's a within the marriage thing and not a within the world at large thing.) I have friends on both sides of the aisle, so to speak, and the whole reason we are friends is that we can always, always find some common ground. Which when you think about it is the only freaking way to be. So, if you don't want to read this rant, skip it. I promise the self deprecating humor and the funny will be back after we interrupt our usual programming for this important announcement.**
WTF???? Can someone please explain to me, and no need to use words that a kindergartner will understand because I have a fricking vocabulary and even if I didn't I know how to use both a dictionary and a thesaurus, just exactly when stupid became the new politically correct smart? I mean seriously folks. It's impossible to get pregnant if you are really, truly forcibly raped, because the female body has defenses against that? Oh really? Then 'splain me, Lucy, why it is that rape was used historically as a method of integrating the conquerors with the conquered in an effort to "join the people" and help settle disputes? Why, again historically, was the rapist required to marry the rapee if a child was the result of said biologically impossible phenomena? Are these the same people that think it's true that you can get pregnant from bars of soap and toilet seats?
There are so many, many things that make me shake my head in baffled bewilderment, and wonder how the hell this great country ever, ever won the space race and actually put the first man on the moon. Let's discount evolution and only teach creationism? Do these effing idiots not understand that the two are not, I repeat not mutually exclusive? Or that as we speak, science, that dirty four letter word, is getting closer and closer to proving the existence of a divine intent? While at the same time proving that all the scientific theories (let's list a few of them? Climate change. Evolution and the existence of the dinosaurs. Quantum physics. Or how about plain old relativity, gravity, and Ben Franklin "inventing" electricity) aren't so very incorrect? When did pandering to the idiot minority become a priority of the majority? When did the average dumbass Joe with a GED's (un-informed) opinion become just as valid and viable and intellectually necessary as that of the PhD with over 30 years of practical experience?
"Yes, Dr. Paleontologist with oodles of field experience, we understand that you have uncovered thousands of pre-historic bones that should undoubtedly prove that the Earth is more than 6500 years old, but Mike Asshole over here contests that, on the grounds that his misinterpretation of the Bible says in actuality the Earth has only been in existence for 6000 years. And since he is a person registered to vote, and you are a person registered to vote, your "opinions" have equal weight."
Geeeet the fuck outta here. I mean, holy shite. We, as in America, as in the greatest country ever, as in our fore fathers who set foot on this land four score and seven years ago (most as refugees and criminals and the poor and the disempowered escaping to the land of opportunity), We The People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, are now seriously arguing over the female biology, whether or not the Earth having a population of 7 billion is affecting the polar ice caps and if that's driving up the cost of pizza (pizza? Well hell yeah. We gotta have our pizza, dammit!) if Corporations are granted rights as citizens (c'mon. Have you hugged a corporation today? You should...) and whether or not we need a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to preserve the sanctity of marriage.
Sister, please. I want to lose our dependence on oil, since it threatens our national security, not to mention my ability to, oh, I dunno, heat my fucking house, drive my rockin' Jag, or write to you folks on this Internet thingy. I want to make sure that the children I biologically create, whether in my uterus or in a test tube on on the fricking Moon are going to be healthy, educated, and have the ability to live long and prosper. And I don't want to have to be a fricking millionaire to make sure they can. I want to know what the hell Monsanto is doing to our food with all this genetic engineering that is considered good, while genetic engineering in a test tube to make babies in uteruses is supposed to be bad.
I want to know why it's ok to defund NASA and Education and Art and Music and Social Security and Medicaid and Infrastructure and Unemployment and Welfare and Planned Parenthood and everything else while we keep spending on Defense and Subsidies for Agriculture (only the big boys though) and Subsidies for the Multinational Oil Industry and Tax breaks for the wealthy because after a certain amount of earning you aren't taxed and so I pay more percentage-wise on what I and the zookeeper earn than someone who makes a bigger salary and doesn't work half as hard and grant Corporations who exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of jobs here the same rights as citizens. I don't give a good goddamn what anyone does in his own bedroom, and couldn't care less if people want to marry someone of the same sex, a different sex, no sex, a horse (my brother wanted to marry a horse. He was four, but still) or an inanimate object. I'll stay out of your bedroom, you can keep your gun if it makes you feel safe even though your rights are being violated every day by the Patriot Act, and if you stay out of my uterus can we please fricking talk about something important? And intelligent? Like how we're going to make sure that this great country, which was founded by criminals and the disenfranchised and has always, always been able to come together when the chips were down and prove that necessity really is the mother of invention is going to haul itself up by it's bootstraps (any other cliches? Feel free to send them to me via email.) Because trickle down is how my coffee maker works, not the economy. Yes, you have to spend money to make money (and the cliches just keep on coming...but they are cliches for a reason, dontcha know <wink>) so let's have an educated, meet in the fucking middle compromise discussion on how we are going to get there...
Oh, but wait. That would make way too much sense. And, there are too many people on the INTERNET (ARPANET. Google it. It helped make the Moon landings possible) disseminate false, stupid, and just plain whacked information to an unmotivated to educate themselves public for that to happen. Because after all, in our Democracy, all opinions are equal...
What got me so riled up? Today Neil Armstrong, that historic figure whose foot print is still on our satellite, whose epic (in the greatest sense of that now mis- and too oft used cliche) step still touches our lives...not only with our computers, but with other things. http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/ten-nasa-inventions.htm
died. He was 82, and his landmark (no joke) walk took place the year I was born, and made all of America, hell all of the world sit up and take notice. Our Universe changed that day, got both smaller and bigger at the same time. It was more than a giant leap. It was what gave us personal computers and answering machines and robotics and Pong and Pac-Man and MSN chat and CNN and Stealth Bombers and yeah. It. Was. Huge. And this last month? NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been sending back the most amazing pictures of the Red Planet. But...wait. NASA is obsolete? Too expensive? With a population of 7 billion....never mind.
You know who else died today? Jerry Nelson. No, not Jerry (Cherry) Garcia, since that was a while ago...the voice of The Count. You know, The Count. This Guy .
Raise your hand if you ever counted with the Count. Keep it up if you think defunding education is the way to go, and getting rid of those babysitter public teachers who make too damn much money educating the next generation need to go in favor of private education that only the wealthy can afford. And then keep it up if you think that NASA needs to go because Velcro and Teflon have no use in your life. And put them both up if you don't give a shit if your next door neighbor looses his house because Wall Street fucked up (and still pleads for deregulation...after all, it's a free market) and looses his job because corporations are citizens and can ship his job overseas and then his child, your child's best friend, gets cancer and dies because there is no money for expensive private insurance that costs more than the mortgage on the house he now doesn't own and still has the ability to deny a claim (rationing, anyone?) based on the probability of success, or the ability to pay because in an unregulated truly free market $$ is God...and keep them both up if you want to buy a semi-automatic weapon, not because you lose your mind and want to shoot everyone at the opening of the next BatfrickingMan Movie, but because you are now afraid that your desperate neighbors will come for what you have to feed your family in an effort to feed theirs....
Life (can't have it if you're not, you know, alive due to lack of health care), Liberty (stay out of my bedroom/uterus/intimate life and I'll stay out of yours) and the Pursuit of Happiness...not the pursuit of the almighty Dollar at the expense of everyone else.
Do me a favor? Educate yourself on the things that matter to you personally. Do you really care if your grocer is LGBT and wants to marry the person he/she loves (I know my politically opposed Libertarian friends will agree)? I mean, are you that worried that someone marrying a person of the same sex will affect your hetero marriage? Why? Because if something that tangential will disrupt your marriage...you have bigger problems in YOUR marriage to solve. Don't believe all the hype and sound bites from either side. And vote. Vote your best interests, and not those that are spoon fed to you. Tell 'em the Zookeeper's Wife sent you.
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