A proud parent shows you a picture of the offspring holding an Honor Roll Certificate, a diploma, or a degree. If your response is about the physical attractiveness of the kid, you are the person I'm going to be ranting about.
I see it a lot on social media and it makes my blood boil. There are times when a comment on one's looks is quite appropriate, but the proper response to this sort of thing is "Good job" or "Way to go." Even "Looking good" might work, as it can be interpreted as "You have a bright future". But if I win the Nobel Peace Prize and you can only focus on what I look like, you need to just go away. I was, in my youth, a passably attractive woman, but that got me nothing positive. What I've accomplished in my life, I have done through my brains and my heart.
I did not get a diploma or an AAS by posing in a bikini. People who need help with school work, or just research in general, don't contact me because they want to look at me. My nephew did not move me into his house to help raise his son because I'm so pretty. I do not get rescued from the roadside when my car breaks down because I'm sexy.
Then there's the fat-shaming and the skinny-shaming. Unless a person's weight is a health issue, it does not matter. I'm fat, but if making fun of skinny girls makes me feel better about myself, that's a problem. Fat or Skinny, you can be beautiful. If it matters.
Either way, if you had to be stranded on a deserted island with a hateful, stupid person or a kind, bright one... would their looks matter? "I don't have much, but I've got cute kids" tells me nothing that impresses me. I have helped raise many kids, and I will boast to you about what good people they are or how smart they are. If they are good-looking, that might come up. Eventually.
If all you or your kids can accomplish is being ornamental, I pity you and them. But try to make me or mine be nothing but an ornament, we're gonna tangle. And I have a very wide definition of "me or mine". It might well include some of you and yours.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Hobby Lobby
Yes, I am going there. This entire thing has me irate, but not for the reasons you might think. For those of you who just awakened from a coma or returned from a desert island, the Supreme Court has given employers (represented by Hobby Lobby) the right to deny female employees birth control - due to religious reasons.
My take on the actual decision is this: No employer should be able to dictate your insurance if you are paying it yourself through payroll deduction. A corporation is not capable of worship, except by definition at the altar of God Money. If you are employed by an actual human being and he is paying for your health care, then and only then should this apply.
It is the outcry that's angered me. For many years I paid for my work-related insurance through payroll deduction and still the boss could decide what I could have. Among things denied me were psychiatric medicines and pre-existing conditions. Hmm... that takes out my Prozac and any diabetic care... yet I'm paying for the insurance. It was an economic decision, totally socially acceptable, to deny me coverage for something I needed in order to function and maybe even stay alive. What's different? I can tell you in a word - SEX Not the slippery slope of religion being forced onto the worker. Not the great ideal of Universal Health Care. Not even party politics. SEX
It was fine to deny a Depressive her meds, to take away a diabetic's insulin or a cancer patient's chemo (because they already had the illness when hired). But now they are taking away the ability to get laid with impunity. I know not every woman uses birth control for that purpose - they tried to put me on The Pill before I got the hysterectomy - but the simple fact is, most women use birth control for just that.
The boss has no right to tell me I can't get laid, or that I should pay for my own protection. But for many years before this, the boss has had every right to tell me to buy my own medicine that keeps me alive and functioning. The boss can tell me the demon in my head or the flaw in my pancreas is not covered, but God Forbid he tell me to keep me legs together.
Then we have the other definition of sex. Since birth control is largely a women's issue, this must be an attack on the women. We are being targeted because we are female. It's a total throwback to the caveman days. Men are evil creatures. We should deny them sex - but that'd render moot the entire fit I'm having.
Why was it no biggie for God Money to deny people good health but it isn't okay for Jesus to deny you a fun Saturday night? Where was your anger when care for issues not treated by a chaste lifestyle were being denied workers? You were probably the same people who said to me "Don't like it? Don't work there."
So - same to you. If you don't like it, don't work there.
My take on the actual decision is this: No employer should be able to dictate your insurance if you are paying it yourself through payroll deduction. A corporation is not capable of worship, except by definition at the altar of God Money. If you are employed by an actual human being and he is paying for your health care, then and only then should this apply.
It is the outcry that's angered me. For many years I paid for my work-related insurance through payroll deduction and still the boss could decide what I could have. Among things denied me were psychiatric medicines and pre-existing conditions. Hmm... that takes out my Prozac and any diabetic care... yet I'm paying for the insurance. It was an economic decision, totally socially acceptable, to deny me coverage for something I needed in order to function and maybe even stay alive. What's different? I can tell you in a word - SEX Not the slippery slope of religion being forced onto the worker. Not the great ideal of Universal Health Care. Not even party politics. SEX
It was fine to deny a Depressive her meds, to take away a diabetic's insulin or a cancer patient's chemo (because they already had the illness when hired). But now they are taking away the ability to get laid with impunity. I know not every woman uses birth control for that purpose - they tried to put me on The Pill before I got the hysterectomy - but the simple fact is, most women use birth control for just that.
The boss has no right to tell me I can't get laid, or that I should pay for my own protection. But for many years before this, the boss has had every right to tell me to buy my own medicine that keeps me alive and functioning. The boss can tell me the demon in my head or the flaw in my pancreas is not covered, but God Forbid he tell me to keep me legs together.
Then we have the other definition of sex. Since birth control is largely a women's issue, this must be an attack on the women. We are being targeted because we are female. It's a total throwback to the caveman days. Men are evil creatures. We should deny them sex - but that'd render moot the entire fit I'm having.
Why was it no biggie for God Money to deny people good health but it isn't okay for Jesus to deny you a fun Saturday night? Where was your anger when care for issues not treated by a chaste lifestyle were being denied workers? You were probably the same people who said to me "Don't like it? Don't work there."
So - same to you. If you don't like it, don't work there.
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