Sunday, June 17, 2007
A Long Blog for a Long Day
This week has been super busy. I meant to write a really detailed account of my magical weekend from last week, but had to make a quick trip to New Orleans for family matters.
I will give a few suggestions for those who live in Chicago. Firstly, go to Public Pools and parks. The Chicago Park District is a thing of beauty. You will be greeted by tons of little kids who want to swim with you and comment on your boy choices. LaToya thinks Megan's dude is "ugly". And the water is ice, ice cold.
Second suggestion - Go to the Puerto Rican festival in Humboldt Park. It is way tastier than St. Patrick's Day. Get the stick full of meat and a Pina Colada in a Pineapple.
And third, next time Dax Riggs comes to town - go. You know that really tense video of David Bowie and Mick Jagger dancing and singing with each other? Well, when they were done shooting they went down to the swamps of Louisiana and made love. They had a baby and his name is Dax Riggs.
The show reminded me that sometimes the best part of meeting people are the cds and books they leave behind on your nightstand.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Happy Birthday Red Beans and Lice!
Megan's Blog is a year old today. To celebrate we are going to put our pictures in the LOL Cat generator and go see Knocked Up and photog it all. Generation Y is better than your generation.
PS - This man wants to start his own blog - because he has "things to say".
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The Moviegoer
Sandra Rae, mi madre, has been recommending a lot of movies recently. And Virgin, Megastore is closing. So, this got me thinking about movies I would like to buy. A lot of them are from last year. Good show, movie world. Good show.
Thinking about this made me want to list my Top Ten movies from last year. You should watch them.
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep
The Departed
Down in the Valley
The Prestige
Pan's Labyrinth
Children of Men
Brick
Half Nelson
Little Miss Sunshine
Honorable Mention - The Descent
PS - I like posting pictures on my blog.
Thinking about this made me want to list my Top Ten movies from last year. You should watch them.
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep
The Departed
Down in the Valley
The Prestige
Pan's Labyrinth
Children of Men
Brick
Half Nelson
Little Miss Sunshine
Honorable Mention - The Descent
PS - I like posting pictures on my blog.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Aren't You Ashamed?
Being a girl is weird. While purchasing some sundries at the local CVS with my co-workers the other day, I was reminded of this fact. I needed some Feminine Products to stop the blood. The cashier asked if I wanted a bag, to which I replied, "No thanks."
She looked up at me with a shocked expression, "Aren't you ashamed?"
Um, no. More than half the population bleeds once a month. If anything, I felt a little crampy. Which is why I also bought me some mood-enhancing Pamprin.
Later that day we met up with JR of Peace Corps glory. He told us that women could only get Pads on the Dominican Island he lived on and they cost three dollars a pop! That could get really expensive on a heavy flow day. Really expensive.
Our Patriarchal World is punishing us for its Womb Envy.
Below is an essay from a dude who created one of the best female characters to ever grace this planet.
Joss Whedon on the ladies.
This is not my blog, but I don't have a blog, or a space, and I'd like to be heard for a bit.
Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron "honor killing", in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.
There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.
I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it's been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for "Captivity".
A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by "The Killing Fields" Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is "I'm sorry".
"I'm sorry."
What is wrong with women?
I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I'm no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn't buy into it. Women's inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they're sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.
I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I'm sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they're also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they've also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, "If all we do is hunt and gather, let's make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let's make childbirth kinda weak and shameful." It's a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it's entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women's behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.
It's safe to say that I've snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I've looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I've shorted out. I don't pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I'm not for a second going down the "women are saints" route – that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn't that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use 'trees' as my example, but at the rate we're getting rid of them I'm pretty sure we really do think they're evil. See how all rants become one?)
Now those of you who frequent this site are, in my wildly biased opinion, fairly evolved. You may hear nothing new here. You may be way ahead of me. But I can't contain my despair, for Dua Khalil, for humanity, for the world we're shaping. Those of you who have followed the link I set up know that it doesn't bring you to a video of a murder. It brings you to a place of sanity, of people who have never stopped asking the question of what is wrong with this world and have set about trying to change the answer. Because it's no longer enough to be a decent person. It's no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I've always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I'm beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.
All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. If you can't think of what to do, there is this handy link. Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you're all in it now.
I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we're pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.
The sky isn't evil. Try looking up.
Joss Whedon enduces my Menstrual Flow. In other girl news, I tried Diet Coke Plus today. It tasted like someone put chalk in Diet Coke.
She looked up at me with a shocked expression, "Aren't you ashamed?"
Um, no. More than half the population bleeds once a month. If anything, I felt a little crampy. Which is why I also bought me some mood-enhancing Pamprin.
Later that day we met up with JR of Peace Corps glory. He told us that women could only get Pads on the Dominican Island he lived on and they cost three dollars a pop! That could get really expensive on a heavy flow day. Really expensive.
Our Patriarchal World is punishing us for its Womb Envy.
Below is an essay from a dude who created one of the best female characters to ever grace this planet.
Joss Whedon on the ladies.
This is not my blog, but I don't have a blog, or a space, and I'd like to be heard for a bit.
Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron "honor killing", in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.
There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.
I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it's been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for "Captivity".
A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by "The Killing Fields" Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is "I'm sorry".
"I'm sorry."
What is wrong with women?
I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I'm no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn't buy into it. Women's inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they're sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.
I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I'm sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they're also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they've also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, "If all we do is hunt and gather, let's make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let's make childbirth kinda weak and shameful." It's a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it's entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women's behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.
It's safe to say that I've snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I've looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I've shorted out. I don't pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I'm not for a second going down the "women are saints" route – that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn't that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use 'trees' as my example, but at the rate we're getting rid of them I'm pretty sure we really do think they're evil. See how all rants become one?)
Now those of you who frequent this site are, in my wildly biased opinion, fairly evolved. You may hear nothing new here. You may be way ahead of me. But I can't contain my despair, for Dua Khalil, for humanity, for the world we're shaping. Those of you who have followed the link I set up know that it doesn't bring you to a video of a murder. It brings you to a place of sanity, of people who have never stopped asking the question of what is wrong with this world and have set about trying to change the answer. Because it's no longer enough to be a decent person. It's no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I've always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I'm beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.
All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. If you can't think of what to do, there is this handy link. Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you're all in it now.
I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we're pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.
The sky isn't evil. Try looking up.
Joss Whedon enduces my Menstrual Flow. In other girl news, I tried Diet Coke Plus today. It tasted like someone put chalk in Diet Coke.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I Guess He Has a Type
Remember that time a few weeks ago when my friend Ling and I grabbed a beer at the Rainbo after a disappointing trip to the Empty Bottle? We saw a cute boy walk by and we both nodded in approval. Within a few minutes of sitting down with our drinks said cute boy and friend sat in our booth. Cute boy insisted he take me out on a date later that week. Let’s call him Harry. Harry asked for my number and then called my phone (which was sitting on the table) to make sure I had his phone number. The thing is, Harry stopped being cute when he started to talk.
When he called I was busy with things and a little scared by his enthusiasm. He ended up calling me one evening till five o’clock in the morning just from this one chance encounter. Sweet.
This weekend a couple of friends and I went to the Rainbo again. A cute boy with a beard walked by and we nodded in approval. He then went up to my sister Megan and asked her if she wanted to have a “cocktail” with him. Ling’s eyes got big and she said “That’s the guy who kept calling you!”
We asked Megan what was his name.
“Harry,” she said.
Harry grew a beard.
Well, the dude has a type I guess. And it is the Milliken type. Next time our brother Mike comes into town, we are strapping a wig on him and marching over to Rainbo to see if he gets lucky, lucky with a fellow by the name of “Harry.”
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Corporate Identity
Here are my new ID’s. They get me into special places like the bathroom. I am super stoked about that. I look like I eat puppy souls for a living in my id photos.
I think that photocopying will eventually make me barren. Just a hunch I have. My new job places me right next to Millennium Park, which will be lovely once Chicago stops being an abusive husband. He beats me every time I burn the eggs. I make him be so cold to me because I am just so careless. But, then there are days where Chicago tells me I am pretty and I like living here.
Today was “Bring your children to work day” and there were lots of giggling kids running up and down the office. Megan said she saw a father and son eating ice cream walking in the loop. That’s super cute. Too bad massive amounts of photocopying made my womb shrivel up and die today.
I also saw Bright Eyes this Tuesday. The whole band wore white and there were flowers everywhere. I cried. It was pretty. My mom says I am sensitive.
PS - I have changed the Bright Eyes video on this post like three times. God I love Youtube.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sports Hero.
Usually when I drink it’s like playing the lottery. You never know what’s going to happen. The Pyramids of Egypt could be in my cards. You just never know. When I was in Madison I discovered that you can definitely bet on my athletic prowess when I drink. I am a sports hero.
Any sport that one can play while drinking beer, I am amazing at. I am not trying to brag here, I am just stating the facts. The cold steel plated facts. Like a dart.
I destroyed in darts. I shuffled with elegance. (Thanks to Jessica's added grace, and no thanks to the art school dudes who kept changing the rules.) And bowling the other night in Lincoln Square proved that PBR licenses me with the eerie ability to make spares and strikes with such ease that other lanes were taking notice.
All of this being said I am looking for a worthy foe to shuffle with.
http://www.wellingtonstavern.com/events.html
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
You watch Battlestar Galactica? You don't? You're an idiot.
So, I am into Season 2.5 of the Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galactica. What the hell man? These writers are so good. Sooooo good.
And why is Starbuck so cool?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Hungarian Wine and Bread Dumplings
It was the summer of 2004. Ashley Simpson came out with her first single. I studied in Prague.
I watched Daisies to prepare myself and I guess it was spot on. At one point we did stop in a field and made wreaths of flowers. Those that know me also know that besides reading Kafka and Kundera I cried a lot. I missed my then boyfriend.
Crying fits aside, I got to have a lot of madcap adventures gallavanting throughout Europe. I even saw the Queen of England. And what.
I also befriended two particular people while studying. One being a 4'11" blonde version of my twin sister. Way to go Shannon. And the other was the only other person besides myself in a committed relationship who stayed that way while in Europa. The three of us had lots of drunken adventures involving such props as knives, castles, and absinthe.
For the first time since this trip, we will all be meeting up. This holy reunion will take place in Madison, Wisconsin. I think cheese and booze will play a large part in whatever happens.
PS - I just watched Scoop and it was awesome. Scarlett's character in it was hillarious.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Megan and Zach Braff
I found this on Youtube today. Don't ask me why. There are a lot of striking similarities between Megan and Dawn.
Below - Megan lectures Pugsley on his methane emissions.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
You've Gone Away Enough
So, about two weeks ago Megan, Erin, and I were at Metropolis. We were trying to slowly kill ourselves with baked goods and caffeine. Megan and Erin played a really pessimistic game of scrabble. It was during this game that I stole Erin's iPod. This song by Mirah came on her iPod shuffle. God Bless the shuffle. I had never heard this song before and man. It is perfect. So perfect for this time.
You've Gone Away Enough
if the light takes you in will you know where you've been all this time
at the edge of a cliff you could almost just slip down the side
when there's so much to do don't you wish you could make up your mind?
but it know it's elusive, it grows and it burns you inside
ooooooooo...
with my eyes mostly closed like a person who knows how to drown
i'll squint at the sun and my shoulders will pray for the ground
let's throw something over, imagine it's us falling down
and thinking of death we will watch without making a sound
ooooooooo...
but it's just the way you are you don't have to be afraid
the way you look at the stars and how you think that they were made
the motion will never stop turning the night into the day
you've gone away enough when will you decide to stay
my trouble with everything always is nothing's just right
just to figure out nothing could keep you awake half the night
not to know what you want is a terrible thing you should fight
you just sift for the face of the dark while you wait for the light
ooooooooo...
Friday, March 09, 2007
I'm Kind of Excited.
I'm kind of excited, dudes. Bright Eyes is coming out with a new record - Cassadaga. Nevermind that Conor is a total dreamboat. He has eyes like a puppy and sounds like a goat. Sigh. Here is a sampling of his new lyrical genius.
Four Winds.
Your class, your cash, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There's people always dying trying to keep them alive
His body's decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where
A squatter's made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl
She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair
But when great Satan's gone, the whore of Babylon
She just can't sustain the pressure where it's placed
She caves
The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran's mute
If you learn them all together you get close to the truth still
They are pouring over sanskrit on the ivy league moons
While shadows lengthen the sun
Cast all the school and meditation built to soften the times
And hold us at the center while the spiral unwinds
It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines
Four winds, cry until it comes
And it's the song of man
Slouching towards Bethlehem
A heart just can't contain all of that empty space
It breaks, it breaks, it breaks
Well, I went back, I rent a Cadillac, a company jet
Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps
All the way to Casa David to commune with the dead
They said, "You'd better look alive"
And I was off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps
In the black hills, the bad lands, the calloused east
I buried my ballast, I made my peace
With four winds, levelling the pines
But when great Satan's gone, the whore of Babylon
She just can't compete with all that outer space
She caves, she caves, she caves, she caves
They have that song and one called "No One would Riot for Less" on the Bright Eyes website. I am seeing the Akron Family show at the Empty Bottle tonight. But, my sister is taking FOREVER to get ready.
So, I will just listen to these two songs over and over. Think about going to New Orleans for their show in May. Eyes like a puppy. I got Blood Brothers tickets today. Thrashing about is on the not to distant horizon.
And finally, I want elaborate comments at the bottom of my flower posts. Write a short story, a poem, or a manifesto. Things like Mein Kempf or Leaves of Grass, but in your own words.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
iPod R.I.P.
I recieved my iPod in May 2005 as a Graduation gift from my dad. It was a 30 GB iPhoto. On the back my brother had it inscribed with this "Shannon Morley - Awesomeness From on High" He originally wanted to write Immovable Object on mine and Irresistable Force on Megan's. I thought that calling me Immovable Object was just another fat joke so Awesomeness it was. I digress. My iPod died and this old picture does a good job of showing off my sad face. I took it to the Apple store and they said there was nothing they could do for my little guy. I looked into the clerk's eyes, "Nothing?" "Nothing," he replied.
Bummer.
In other news - I love dresses! I wish I had a new dress everyday. I would wake up and one would just magically appear hanging all fancifull on the outside of my closet with a bow around it. Like in Alfonso Cuaron's A Little Princess.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
What About the Lost Girls?
Click on the picture above. Now, look closely at her left leg. May God bless Tori Amos and the menstrual blood running down her leg. God bless her.
Tori instantly became a hero of mine when I first discovered her. It is comforting that heroes still exist. Not only does she continue to create provocative and hopeful music ranging in topic from masturbation, road trips, to God; she had the courage to do something about her fans’ reaction to that music. http://www.rainn.org/
Her sexually charged and Christian-imagery infused music provided a much-needed outlet for the repressive corridors in my all-girls Catholic high school. She helped to take the shame and promise of eternal damnation out of sexual expression. This was nice to have.
This picture got me thinking about some things. I have had lots of heated debates in the past few weeks about how to address the various woes in New Orleans. Of course, I think that if there is no land to stand on then what is the point of fighting the rest. We need to start aggressively fixing what the American government did to our coasts. Check my sister’s Blog Red Beans and Lice to learn more.
As for the out of control violence and rampant stupidity that plagues the city streets not just in New Orleans, but also all across America. I think we are forgetting a key demographic. We keep talking about the gun toting, sexually aggressive Lost Boys. They need fathers. They need guidance. I agree with that. But, you know what they need even more? They need their female peers to tell them to “Fuck off.” It is time to save the Lost Girls.
A curious demonstration of female power recently took place in Colombia:
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=283923&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
But, I don’t think a sex strike is the only way to go.
To quote a petition from Planned Parenthood, “One billion dollars has been wasted on abstinence-only education, which denies young people real information about how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including AIDS.”
It is time to face head-on with the realities of the world we live in. Sex is a really cheap form of entertainment and when you don’t buy condoms, its supa cheap. Also when you don’t have a family that cares about you, lots of girls think, why don’t I just make my own? Babies are easy to make and mine will love me unconditionally. And one final thing that is true of every person in love – the belief that they can change him and their love will last forever. It is easy to get duped by the smooth talking gentleman, at any age.
We have established that we aren’t going to stop people from doing the horizontal tango. It is not going to happen, never could, and we never will. So lets stop investing billions of dollars in unicorns and fairies.
If you honestly want to fix the issues of poverty and violence - make birth control, emergency contraception, and sex education more readily available to the lost girls. Lets show the lost girls they have more to offer the world than their ability to reproduce. Invest in your local Planned Parenthood. And for the love of women not getting cervical cancer, support legislation, which makes the new vaccine against HPV, Gardasil, a mandatory vaccine for young girls. I am just salty that there are parents out there who think cervical cancer is a good lesson learned against pre-marital sex.
For those of you that think sexually transmitted infections only happen to promiscuous bad people, consider this, “By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year.” According to this statistic, eighty percent of American women are sluts.
Let us lift the veil from our eyes. Let us live in this world. Let us enjoy one of the greatest gifts ever to be given from on high responsibly and without shame. Let us give girls more options than abstinence or parenthood.
Sign these petitions:
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/keroackpetition2/
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/prevention_first2
Donate to your local Planned Parenthood!
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/get-involved/donate.htm
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Party till you puke Purple, Green, and Gold
Warren Easton Marchers, originally uploaded by Juxtaposedface.
Boobs, beer, and maybe some Blow are things that come to mind when outsiders think of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. And they would not be wrong in their assessment of my fair city’s last brew-ha before the season of Lent. There is plenty of Hedonism and Decadence to be had. But, Mardi Gras is not just a time to roll out the puke and piss soaked carpet of Party for tourists. It is, like any holiday, a time for kids.
Hear me out. Mardi Gras in many ways, is like Christmas or Halloween. In classrooms all across Louisiana you get to eat King Cake every Friday afternoon from the Epiphany till Mardi Gras. Kids and teachers alike fell victim to airway blockage when our Lord and savior appeared in the form of a plastic baby Jesus. When parade week literally rolls into town, families converge upon Veterans Highway or St. Charles Avenue. They lay out tarps and blankets staking a claim on coveted Neutral Ground land. People set up grills, kegs, couches, tents, and tow along ice chests full of beer, cokes, and insanely delectable food.
Mardi Gras day meant eating cold Popeye’s chicken all day long and sneaking beer. It meant "Iko Iko" by the Dixie Cups and Professor Longhair on the radio. It meant dressing up in costumes. It meant threateningly and pleadingly shouting, “Throw me something mister!” from atop a Mardi Gras ladder that caused splinters and threatened to topple every time you reached too far for a bead. It meant wrestling with other kids for prized beads, cups, stuffed animals and mastering your Doubloon stomp. It meant putting frilly panties and garters over your pants, spraying passer-bys with silly string, and smoking fake cigarettes. It meant dancing to marching band after marching band. It meant having no place to pee. Did I mention the cold chicken?
There are many nuances to this holiday that imbue a New Orleanian with a deep understanding of how to properly party till you puke. So, when strangers and friends alike who have never partaken in these festivities incredulously ask, “Your parents let you go to Mardi Gras when you were little?” remember this one thing and that is growing up in the Puritanical Mid-West sucks.
That being said, Mardi Gras was a wholesome, good time this year. On Mardi Gras day I was drunk by noon and had a hangover at 4 in the afternoon after imbibing several Hurricane Katrina Daiquiris. Tacky? Maybe. Delicious? Undeniably.
Now to gear up for Lent!
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