Even I need my mommy blog fix ...

Girly Man

Post partum depression, me? Ha!

Boy, was I wrong. What eventually happened was something I did not think possible. It felt like a train hit me head on and my body was left to rot on the side of the tracks.

All the while, I was supposed to take care of my baby. While rotting.

So, you could see that I might get a little irked when Tom "I'm - A - Scientologist - That - Jumps - Up - And - Down - On - Oprah's - Couch
- And - Looks - Like - An - Idiot" Cruise tells us that he knows how to cure PPD.

With vitamins!

Hey, everyone! Did you know that you can cure AIDS by drinking milk? 24 ounces of milk a day is all we need to cure that horrible disease! Orange juice cures Ebola!

Altho I normally stick to bloggers that are more current events/political, as a mom I do enjoy reading about others who have babies and children and such. And if I have messed up this template in any way, someone come slap me please! :)

Technorati Tag: depression

Food, Booze, and Gaming

Great new blog about food, booze, and the love only a grandmother can give.

These women write mostly on gaming, although I think they caught the politics bug for a minute.

Go get your drink on.

By the way, there are some great recipes on the first blog I mentioned if you like southern style down home food that will make ya fat and sleepy.

My First Drive-by Post

I don't like this stuff either.

Give this lesbian a hand, will ya?

I'm trying to figure out how this works.

Who am I, you ask?

I'm Genia's new helper. We could use a few more helpers, so jump on in. You don't want to read just my posts do you? Conservative voices welcome. We mean that sincerely. We won't be writing on politics all the time anyway. *snicker*

Oh, I won't be using Techno tags, so Genia can bite me.

New Mexico: Land of Enchantment

Land of Disenchantment:

New Mexico is known as the Land of Enchantment. For most people it is, at least as far as landscape and physical beauty.

For others, it's anything but. With great poverty, a high number of uninsured and educational shortcomings, it can be a place people find impossible to escape from.

For the past few weeks, and the past few days in particular, we've been spending a great deal of time with a friend who is going through absolute hell. I won't go into specifics for now because this particular case could embarrass a large organization. Since my information is secondhand, libel issues could arise (I'm siding with Dan Gilmor that bloggers will need to watch out for this). It has prompted me to think about my own life a bit, and how I've been relatively sheltered.

Technorati Tag: politics

Closing the Blogs by Women Blog

The BbW blog will be dissolved once the current ads expire; however, the directory and blogsbywomen.org will continue to operate. I will also continue to market the directory and the main site. Unless I get a sincere volunteer who wants to take over, the BbW blog will dissolve on June 25, 2005.

Thank you,
Genia V. Stevens
SistersTalk
Liberty Bell
TheNewJane
Blogs by Women

BbW New Additions and Search Engine Optimization

I wanted to take some time to introduce a few new additions to the BbW Directory:

Teatro de la Vida
Penile Code Avenger
Porn-Opine
Cult of Gracie
The Independent Thinker
A Kinky Woman's Guide to the Universe
glumphoboo
Political Science
Vegan Momma
Gimikera is In
Because We Have Thumbs
Preemptive Karma
Magalie's World Tour 2005
A Life in Wales
Witch Abroad
Radical Goddess Thealogy
Dear Jane Band Blog
The Heiress Diaries
Wordlust Paperfetish
Watch for Cairns
taking a deeeeeeeeeep breath

I apologize to anyone I missed, but I randomly selected new users using no particular guidelines.

A sidenote:

I forgot to mention I am well schooled in SEO (search engine optimization) having much experience working with eBay sellers as a consultant who offered them advice about getting top placements in major search engines. I also owned a popular auction resources and message board that had 20+ first page placements in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Overture until I sold the company in January.

If you do a search for keyword phrase auction forum on Google, you'll see the first site is TheAuctionBoard.com. That site is listed 1st of 10 million results. I owned that site and I did all the optimization.

Check for auction resources, and TheAuctionBoard is #6 on page 1 -- of 8 million results.

Check for keyword phrase online auction news and the site is #8 of 8 million results.

Now, check for keyword phrase auction discussion and see which site is first.

Check for keyword phrase auction news; TheAuctionBoard is #4 and the accompanying blog (theauctionboard.tblog.com) I used to operate for the site is #5. I optimized the blog also.

To this day that site still has those top placements as the new owner has made very few changes to the original backend layout even though the site's design has changed. I am working to secure top placements for BlogsbyWomen so our users can see plenty search engine traffic. It takes time, but we'll get there.

One More Thing: just because a blogger is popular and sits on the "A" list doesn't necessarily means she knows SEO. Ask her to show you the results of her SEO work before you pay her for any SEO consulting. Don't waste your money because there are a lot of SEO scams out there. ANYONE can get you top placements for a keyword phrase that returns only 200,000 results.

Technorati Tag: blogging; seo

Lost in The Disinformation Society, The Masses are Not Happy

Pamela Leavey (LightUptheDarkness)

Last Wednesday I posted a piece about Grover Norquist and the Republican control of the media aka "The Republican Noise Machine." Yesterday in his speech on the Senate floor, John Kerry referred to the right-wing's control of the media, "We have an Administration that continues to want to fund fake newscasts to mislead people all across America."

"The Administration's willingness to consistently abandon the truth has done great damage. Americans are less willing to listen -- less likely to trust or take anything that is said in Washington seriously."

The battle for the hearts and minds of America has taken a great toll. We're inundated with fake news, mis-reported news and a grave lack coverage of some news. Yesterday MSNBC reported Voters dissatisfied with Bush, Congress. That story quickly got buried by other news, lest we find out that an NBC/WSJ poll reveals 'angry electorate'.

Technorati Tag: politics

Democrats and Stupid Pills

Ded Space:

Do the Democrats take the stupid pill every day or is there a one-time-a-week version?

The title is all I needed to quote. I loved it. Please go read the blog.


Technorati Tag: politics

10 Steps to a More Democratic Media

Clea's Cave points to Yes Magazine.

Technorati Tag: media

Rob Capehart to Lead the GOP in West Virginia

Bloodless Coup

Good news for Republicans, bad news for Democrats. Capehart is serious, smart and knows how to throw effective political punches. I thought he was clearly the most threatening conservative in last year's gubenatorial primary . . .

Technorati Tag: politics

Intellectual Thievery

Milk Isn't For Everyone writes a very nice piece on men who preferred her brains to her body. It's very moving:

He was an unabashedly proud capitalist who knew that his white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes granted him access to a world of privilege the rest of us never experience. At first he found my feminism a source of amusement, fodder for loud passionate arguments and a surefire way to make me roll my eyes and bite my lower lip in that way he loved so much. But as time went by his attention changed from the eroticism of arguing to an eroticization of the argument. He became persuaded, and curious and I was his primary resource. Our conversations became lectures.


He would ask me to explain compulsory heterosexuality, and social constructionism, and at first I was thrilled to be appreciated for my intellect, my knowledge, even my ability to convey the things that mattered to me. I was thrilled to have a guy interested in me because of my mind. Until I realized that was all he was interested in. Feminist theory turned to philosophy, and our days were spent with me reciting Irigaray, Foucualt and Lacan. In a used book store in Berkeley I found a copy of Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man and inside the cover I wrote that he should rethink capitalism. All the while I was rethinking him.

Technorati Tag: women

How do we invoke change in worldviews?

An Old Soul:

While I think life is incomplete without leaders such as Moyers, I also understand many people do not want to hear dire messages such as this. So: how do we communicate to those who do not want to hear, to see, to think?

I'll allow it's human nature to bury our collective heads in the sand but I think somehow, we have to figure out that continuing to do so will endanger not only our lifestyle, our lives but the lives of our children and grandchildren, our future.

Technorati Tag: politics

Spc. Sabrina Harman and the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal

A Moveable Beast:

"... The reservist is also charged with being involved with another of the most disturbing images -- a hooded prisoner standing atop a box with wires attached to his arms. Although Harman says the prisoner, nicknamed Gilligan, was not tortured or beaten, she acknowledges he was subject to sleep deprivation, one technique used to tire prisoners so they can be successfully interrogated. "He was only interrogated for three days. He wasn't beaten or anything like that. It was just stress positions, holding boxes, standing on boxes — and he could just not be broke. Like he was pretty much laughing at us," she told "20/20's" Elizabeth Vargas in an exclusive interview airing Friday night at 10 p.m. ET." --full story here.

Let's sing along, shall we?


"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip.
That started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was was a mighty sailing man,
The the Skipper, brave and sure,
the Five passengers set sail that day,
for a three hour tour, a three hour tour. . . .
The weather started getting rough,
the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,
the Minnow would be lost; the Minnow would be lost.
The ship took ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
with Gilligan, the Skipper too,
the Millionaire, and his Wife,
the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann,
here on Gilligan's Isle."

Technorati Tag: politics; Iraq

The Liberal Attack on Wal-Mart

Barbara O'Brien

The latest liberal crusade is against the Wal-Mart stores," Sowell writes. Informed of an employee who said he was not making a living wage, Sowell asks, "How is he living, if he is not making a living wage?"


Why, taxpayers are keeping him alive, Mr. Sowell. As Media Matters explains, an unusually high percentage of Wal-Mart employees depend on government programs--food stamps, subsidized housing, Medicaid--than is true of employees of other retail businesses.

Check out Barbara's comments on Paul Krugman's editorial on Wal-Mart:

This rightie blogger criticizes the Paul Krugman column I discussed in the last post . . .

The rightie misses the point. We're not talking about "redistribution" of wealth. In fact, a chunk of my "wealth" is already collected in taxes and used to support Wal-Mart company profits, but never mind that. The whole "trickle down" myth is that if we take tax and regulatory burdens off the backs of business, and businesses become more profitable, that wealth will "trickle down" to everyone else. Well, guess again. Businesses become more profitable, but those earnings aren't trickling down. Instead, workers are told that since times are bad they're supposed to suck it up and not be whiny, while the CEOs "redistribute" more and more wealth to themselves.

Technorati Tag: politics

Americans Talk Constantly About Food

Apartment 11D:

Years ago, one of my sister's friends from Spain came to the states for a visit. After a day of eavesdropping on conversations at the Jersey shore to improve her English, she made a startling discovery. All Americans talk about is what they ate for their last meal, what they are presently eating, and what they plan on eating for their next meal.

Man, I had the best ham sandwich for lunch today. It had a ton of mustard and pickles. Man, that was good.

I could kill for a chocolate ice-cream cone right now. Wouldn't you? Where's that ice-cream truck?

We should make a nice pasta salad for dinner today. A little cheese. A little onion. It'll be great.

Go see what visitors her visitors are eating.

Technorati Tag: food

Jesus and George Bush

Veronica:

If you "Accept Jesus Christ as Your Lord and Saviour," take the magic bath, drink the holy juice, cluck like a chicken and spin three times (or something like that), then it doesn't matter what kind of asshole you are, you're in! You're going to heaven--leaving the rest of the foolish heathens behind to face eternal flames.


And, they never leave that hell part out. EVER. You wash away your sins so that you don't go to hell. Period. These are the kind of people that think that Mother Teresa is in hell right now for praying to Mary and the Saints, instead of keeping her eyes on the prize--the J. Man. But, Carla Faye Tucker, who hacked up two people with an axe, then found Jesus in prison, is in Heaven.

Technorati Tag: religion

Blogs by Women Update

We're very happy to see so many people linking to Blogs by Women (BbW). Thank you very much for your support! To view a complete list of people linking here, go back to the main page and click the Who Links Here link.

We now have 316 blogs in the directory. Remember, if you have more than one blog, add them all. But, do not list any 1 blog more than once.

We launched on March 8, 2005 and I kept my fingers crossed. In a little over 2 months, we've made much progress. The only thing left to do now is to add team members to the blog. If you want to help gather links and promote women bloggers, email me, please. Serious inquiries only.

Kudos to Jami for taking over Blogs for Hillary (BFH) -- after it kind of fell in my lap. The founder took a job in another country and wouldn't have time to maintain BFH. She asked if I would take it over, but I did a poor job of it.

And a quick plug for my latest project: Support Kraft Foods (SKF). If you want to be a SKF team member, email me, please.


Technorati Tag: blogging

How Hillary Clinton is Doing at the Polls

In Defense of Hillary:

You'd be amazed at how Republicans will spin pro-Hillary numbers. 49% of those polled already want Hillary to run in 2008. Connies see that as a bad thing. But only 50% want McCain to run and 49% Giuliani. In the interest of truth, below are simple summaries of recent polls. Pollingreport.com gives more details on the questions asked and to whom.

Readers of The American Street support Barbara Boxer (ongoing).May 2005: Barbara Boxer 26%, Russ Feingold 18%, John Edwards 15%, Hillary Clinton 10%, Harry Reid 9%, Bill Richardson 7%, John Kerry 5%, Evan Bayh 4%, Mark Warner 4%, Joe Biden 1%The American Street.

Technorati Tag: politics

Blogging and Public Relations

BlogHer has an interesting discussion on blogging, public relations, and making money:

here are people right now who can link $$ directly to their blogging.

So how are they doing that? Sure, ads are part of it. But so is blogging consulting, sponsored blogs, off-blog writing gigs, and even simply using a blog as a marketing tool for your brand or your business (or your clients' businesses.)

UPDATED SECTION:

4 such people are on our panel:

I'm your moderator, and I have leveraged my blogs in numerous ways: from landing a regular column in a local alternative paper...that's right...print media to writing blogs professionally, both as a hired gun and for a sponsored blog, where I have editorial control, but it is exclusively sponsored by a company. Beyond that I've also leveraged blogs to land speaking engagements, interviews, press and client interest.

Toby Bloomberg is a marketing consultant who has absolutely established herself as an industry expert, in no small part due to her blog presence. She also advises her clients about blogging and helps them get into the game, although she focuses primarily on the strategy part. Toby knows first hand the reaction marketing-oriented blogs can get...and how to handle that reaction.

Carolyn Elefant is a practicing attorney who uses her blog to build her personal brand and her business. She too has landed a book deal thanks to her blog, along with the kind of speaking engagements and other invitations that not only bring revenue, but build her reputation. Carolyn also has some creative ideas about how to user her site to help other solo practitioners get into blogging.

Susannah Gardner is a blogging expert, and author of the newly released Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. Susannah's book is full of case studies and also focused on what not to do if you want to keep your credibility.

I look forward to joining the women of blogging at the BlogHer conference as I've been invited to speak on a panel about citizen journalists -- bloggers who are recruited by newspapers to write blogs for the paper. I've been writing a blog for The Wisconsin State Journal since September 2004. It's been an interesting experience.

At any rate, many bloggers are finding ways to use blogging to jump start other opportunities. BlogHer and visitors discuss that in detail.


Technorati Tag: blogging

Grover Norquist Controls the Media Message to 'Neuter' the Democrats

Pamela Leavey:

Grover Norquist thinks he has a way to "fix" the Democrats. He'd like to neuter them. Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, actually has it all figured out and he’s been working it for some time now.

E.J. Dionne reported in his column Tuesday, that "stakes in politics are about to get a lot higher." In A GOP Plan to 'Fix' the Democrats, Dionne says, "their quest is persuading Democrats, or at least a significant number in their ranks, to accept long-term minority status." While most of Dionne's column was focused Tom DeLay, the comment from Grover Norquist at the end of the column was most telling . . .

"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans," he told Richard Leiby of The Post. "Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant. But when they've been 'fixed,' then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful."

Norquist has been very busy the past few years making certain that he can indeed "fix" the Democrats. As a matter of fact, if anyone wonders just what has happened to the media, aka MSM or the Republican Noise Machine, the answer to that was in the May issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

Technorati Tag: politics

10 Worst Cities for Spring Allergies

The Pryhills

This year, spring allergies have been worst in Lexington, Ky., according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America's annual ranking.

Here is the AAFA's list of the 10 worst U.S. cities for spring allergies:

1. Lexington, Ky. (last year: 16)
2. Little Rock, Ark. (last year: 8)
3. Chattanooga, Tenn. (last year: 14)
4. Louisville, Ky. (last year: 3)
5. Johnson City, Tenn. (last year: 26)
6. Greenville, S.C. (last year: 19)
7. Richmond, Va. (last year: 63)
8. Charlotte, N.C. (last year: 4)
9. Jackson, Miss. (last year: 12)
10. St. Louis (last year: 5)

Rankings are based on annual pollen scores, allergy medicine use per patient, and the number of board-certified allergists per patient, says the AAFA.

Technorati Tag: health

Where's Your Man?

Pamela Leavey writes:

Bear with me as I rant on Mother's Day for faith-based hypocrisy paid a visit to this single mother's door the other day, when a neighbor asked me "Where's Your man?" As a single mother, I have experienced many instances of prejudice over the years. You learn to live with it. It goes with the territory.

One would hope however, that by the year 2005 we would be advancing women's rights instead of turning them backwards. But, the fundamentalists are on the move and their aim is to keep the "little woman" in her place.

Technorati Tags: parenting; feminism

Favorite News & Media Blog Week Ending May 8, 2005

My apologies for the late posting.

Last week's winner for Favorite Lesbian, Bisexual Queer blog was Creampuff Revolution. If you haven't viewed her blog, please go check it out. That one is FULL of energy!

This week, we're voting on your favorite blog in the News & Media category. Please vote for one of the following:

All Facts and Opinions
Cut to the Chase
Julia Goldberg's Blog
Lost in Thought
Ang's Weird Ideas


Please Vote Now!
Don't forget, the nominees are gathered from the blogs already listed in the Blogs by Women directory.

Technorati Tag: blogging

Moms Who Murder

The Liberty Bell

The media plays a significant role in shaping the way we view moms who murder. News stories about Andrea Yates, Dena Schlosser, and Tonya Vasilev are filled with information about their mental health, while news stories about Scott Peterson are riddled with information about his adulterous activity. A man who murders his wife and child is a hideous sinner, while a woman who murders her own children is a lost soul who needed Paxil and intense therapy.

Technorati Tag: women

Blogs by Women Commenting Opened

I've opened the Blogs by Women (BbW) blog for commenting. If you read a post and you want to leave a link to another blog (male or female blogger) who also wrote on the issue, please feel free to do so.

Rules (yes, there are rules):

SPAM will be deleted. If you leave links in a comment thread and that link is not related to the post, that comment will be deleted.

Trackback SPAM will be deleted.

Technorati Tag: blogging

Blog by Phone: AudioBlogger

MarketingChick reminded me that Blogger offers a great new service called Audio Blog. This service allows you to blog by telephone -- any phone! The call isn't free, but pre-paid phone cards are so cheap -- if you don't have an unlimited long distance calling plan like I do. Try it out. You'll love it.


Technorati Tag: blogging

Time Traveler Convention a Bust?

Begging to Differ

It turns out that the convention is so popular that only people on the guestlist will be able to attend. Either the time travelers all got themselves on the guestlist by getting here weeks before the event, or there's going to be a lot of pissed off travelers with advanced technology here on Saturday (Do time travelers carry weapons with them when they travel?).

Technorati Tag: science

Evolutionists Against Natural Selection

Cut on the bias:

There's an interesting debate going on in Kansas - some want schools to be able to discuss the fact that there is controversy about the theory of evolution. That seems a reasonable request, since there is controversy within the scientific community itself about what permutations of the theory are most correct. But the evolutionists are Horrified, Horrified that someone would question them, and the possibility that a Much Debunked Idea (we don't want to say "intelligent design", that will just bring them here in hordes, again, to debunk me) may slip in some classes as a result of this door opening. I think Alan addresses this quite well:

It's an odd 'science' that will not endure investigation, criticism and scrutiny, but that is exactly what the evolutionist wants. A science class would be a poor one indeed that did not present the theory of evolution to its students. But that same science ought to be a search for truth. Closing the door to debate is the sure way to see that never happens.

Amen, brother.

Technorati Tag: science

So How Screwed Are We?

Bring it On:

Let me go back in time a bit and sum up as quickly as I can.

First there was 9/11 - a day of terrible devastation that shook Americans awake to the realization that kind of shit doesn't just happen somewhere else (or if they can't find the remote fast enough, on their TVs). Even those of us who were none to pleased about Dubya waltzing into the White House tended to put aside our differences and rallied together. We held vigils, donated money or time, or blood. And Dubya worked the photo ops, got good and pissed off at those "evil doers" and promised the American public that those responsible would be brought to justice. Osama Bin Laden would be captured, dead or alive. And we believed him because we were good and pissed off too. Military recruiters had people lining up to join the service. Hell, even Pat Tillman joined!

God Bless America!


So we went to Afghanistan, lost some soldiers, killed a bunch of people, and the Bush Administration patted itself on the back. Well done, boys! Pass me a beer! Except for some reason, we decided not to pursue Osama Bin Laden anymore, and instead go after Saddam Hussein, because he had ties to terrorism. Oh, no wait. He has Weapons of Mass Destruction. Yeah, that's the ticket! Scare the shit out of Americans again - he could strike at any moment you know! We're going in there, because goddammit we'll find those WMD's!

Except we didn't.

Technorati Tag: politics

Linking Christianity, Masculinity, Strength, and Truth

ChurchGal:

Very often an ideological line was invisibly drawn linking Christianity-masculinity-strength-truth. And this kind of theological word association was odd to me.

Let's move away from my father, because this isn't really about him. It's more about Christian discourse. Our church culture conflates all these terms, flattening them until they're indistinct from one another. (And for the dictionary deprived, 'conflate' does not mean 'negate.')

Technorati Tag: religion

Blogging Fundamentals?

From Least-Loved Bedtime Stories:

According to this handy blog how-to, this website you are currently reading is not a blog. Consider the evidence: I do not have

a hit counter
or a site stat thing
trackbacks
open posts
any interest in participating in Technorati, whatever the hell that is*
any interest in "carnivals"
any interest in that "Ecosystem" thing

I do, however, have email and comments, and I do have a blogroll through Blogrolling and sometimes I even remember to manually ping it, and hell I use conventional blogrolling software, but four out of what, fourteen items is hardly a majority of points. As a blogger, using this criteria, I'm a failure.

Join the discussion on blogging fundamentals.


Technorati Tag: blogging

Civil Rights Leader Dies

From Common Crap

on sunday, the civil rights movement lost one of it's most highly regarded leaders.Kenneth B. Clark was best known for his research on black schoolchildren that became the cornerstone of Brown v. Brown.a man of many "firsts" , including the first black elected to the New York State Board of Regents and the first black to earn a PhD from Columbia University. he was 90 years old.

while the late Dr. Clark fought most of his professional career for the rights of others, this Evangelical "leader" is spending his picking and choosing who is deserving of such privileges, according to his beliefs.Dr. Hutcherson, feeling offended by gays and lesbians who think they have rights to anything at all,..." has accused gay rights activists of trying to hijack and sully the civil rights movement by their comparison of the right of gays and lesbians to marry to the civil rights struggle he lived through as a poor child in Alabama in the 1950's and 60's"...

Technorati Tag: politics

I'm Just Saying . . .

This is Peevish . . . I'm Just Saying

And, speaking of terrorizing people, another Pentagon-contractor scandal. This one is worse than Halluburton. These guys aren't just scamming money, they're killing people. (Well, there's a big money scam going on, too.) I read, not long ago (can't remember where) about a company leaving behind a spreadsheet at a meeting that revealed fraud, but I don't remember the contracting company's name being mentioned at the time. Looks like "Custer Battles" is a name to watch.

(While you're over there, read up on San Diego's breaking corruption scandal.)

(And while you're reading up on politics and fraud, the latest story on " Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff." You know... reading all of these breaking investigations, I'm starting to think that our system actually still works.)

And Congress isn't as eager to push accountability up the ladder for Abu Ghraib and other sites of torture as they were a year ago, either. But, as I've said before, if the USofA public isn't screaming for accountability, we can hardly blame those whose careers could suffer if they pushed for it.

I mean, it's good news that the CIA may no longer be allowed to "ghost" detainees at military facilities but everyone who thinks they won't just stick them somewhere else, please hold up your hand.

Technorati Tag: politics

Antisemitism in the UK

Kesher Talk discusses at length what she sees as antisemitism in the UK:

They don't really want to support Israeli and Palestinian academics who work for peace. Just like the leftists who don't want Iraqi democracy to succeed, just like the European and American terrorist groups of the 70s which became more extreme after the US pulled out of Vietnam, these folks romanticize the most polarized and intransigent consituencies, because their self-image as the radical vanguard is much more important to them than the betterment of ordinary people.

ENGAGE demonstrates what true support for continuing dialogue would look like, from the left. I don't agree with many of their assumptions about the history and values of the conflict, but they are not just out for self-aggrandizement and hypocritical posturing. Norm Geras basically approves but disagrees with them on a few substantial issues.

Technorati Tag: religion

The Only Rightie I Likey. Well, Almost . . .

I would really dislike this woman if she wasn't so damn funny:

Friday, in the midst of a heated lefty-dominated conversation regarding -- what else -- the "non-mythical" status of global warming and how Bush & Co. are destroying the earth, the part of me that just can't shut up happened to win the mental tug-of-war and blurted,

"I suppose now would be a bad time to mention that I emptied my ashtray out the window on the 405, while pushing my 20-year-old sports car up to 90 MPH..."

The lefties laughed.

"No, no no. Don't laugh. I'm not kidding."

This type of right-wing honesty is something far too subtle and nuanced for a liberal to understand.

We on the right DO want to destroy the earth -- who's pretending not to have an orgasm over one melting glacier? Raise your hand. It's okay, this is a private forum.

The amusing thing is, liberals constantly want to debate us on our utter disgust for the ground we inhabit.

Technorati Tag: politics

Saddam and Rumsfeld Meet Again?

Too funny!

Found at Justice Now!:

Another rumor has it that Saddam agreed to help Rumsfeld out by stopping the insurgency, but drew the line at Rumsfeld's next request.

When Rumsfeld asked Saddam to join a dog and pony show to increase support for privatization, negotiations collapsed.

"That pig just won't hunt." Saddam said, " I refuse to waste my considerable political capitol on a dead pig like privatization of social security. George should give up trying to sell that pig, even with all the lipstick he's put on it."

Technorati Tag: politics

Conference on 21st century motherhood

From Half Changed World

The owner of the MAWDAH email list (moms at work/dads at home) received an announcement about an academic conference this fall on "21st century motherhood: change."

They're looking for papers to be presented for panels on:

Economics

Work/Family Balance

Class/Race/Globalization

Biology/Fertility Technologies

Emergent/Innovative Forms of Motherhood

Abstracts due by May 15.

Technorati Tag: parenting

Food, obesity, kids, and guilt

Half Changed World food, obesity, kids, and guilt:

There's been a lot of discussion lately around the internet about the health consequences of being overweight, the new Food Pyramid, childhood obesity,and Cookie Monster's new message that "cookies are a sometimes food." I think it's an important conversation to have as a society, but it drives me slightly insane on a personal level. One of these days I'm going to stuff a little ziplock bag full of green pepper slices up the nose of a parent who smugly tells me that their child just loves vegetables because they've always set a good example.

Technorati Tag: health

Women Are Dumb in Math

Did Laura Bush imply that?


Technorati Tag: politics

Favorite Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer Blog Week Ending May 01, 2005

Last week's winner for Favorite Arts & Entertainment blog was Orangepulp. That site is just fun to look at. Go see for yourself.

This week we're voting on your favorite blog in the Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer category. Quite a few people nominated SistersTalk, but since that blog belongs to me, I can't have it in the lineup. **smack!** You people know better. It's kinda like if you work at a car dealership, you can't put your name in the drawing for the new car. Ok, so the prize isn't a car, but you know what I mean.

So, who can you vote for?

Cyber Dyke Blog
Creampuff Revolution
the dot connection in new mexico
Connielingus
Deliver us from Weasles
Please go Vote Now!

Sidenote: I know the word lesbian is spelled wrong on the poll. While creating the poll, I learned that polls containing the word "lesbian" are deemed inappropriate by freepolls.com. Why don't you ladies shoot them an email and ask them why! I plan to.

Technorati Tag: lesbian, bisexual, queer