Taking A Spring "Break"

Hello all and happy spring break to you! Just a note to inform you that I'm heading back east for a 10 day vacation so there won't be any updates until I return. Have fun and stay safe...I know I will!

Peace.

Here Comes the Broke Bride

According to a recent article, the national average cost of a basic wedding is $20,000. That's national folks. Here in Los Angeles the average cost is $32,400 according to the handy little site, Costofwedding.com. Yeah right! Dream on kids cuz Mama ain't gonna foot that bill. I don't care if it is supposed to be the happiest day of your life; that is a colossal waste of cash. Giving birth to all three of my children were the happiest days of my life, and all three of their hospital bills didn't total that amount...and I got babies out of the deal! Actual human beings. True story, honest.

What a racket! Brainwash our daughters from the time they're old enough to hold Dream Wedding Barbie in their little dimpled fists, that walking down an aisle sprinkled with rose petals in a glorious ball gown to marry your Prince Charming-Ken is THE only way to go. Screw that. I'm giving my daughter Practical Barbie to play with. I'm going to not-so-subtley hint that 1960's retro weddings are making a comeback; that of tying the knot at city hall with your parents and closest family members and friends present, ONLY, and everyone will come back to our house afterwards for finger sandwiches, homemade potato salad and a suitable cake from the corner bakery.

Or better yet: elope. Call me after. I won't be mad, I promise. As a matter of fact I'll be so happy that I may help you with that down payment on your little starter home. Thirty two thousand four hundred dollars for a party...utter squandering. You might as well crumple up $32,400 and set it on fire.


Hurry Up and Get Married

Trust Us...We've Got Nothing To Hide

It figures. President Bush has made his "reasonable in his mind" offer to agree to let Karl Rove and Harriet Miers meet (secretly, and no transcript) with congress (and not under oath). Oh well, that settles it! Clearly they've nothing to hide, whatsoever! Seriously, if there was no wrongdoing regarding the firing of several United States Attorneys, then why all the hush-hush? From the Associated Press:

Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, said, "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants. ... I proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse."

He added: "There's no indication ... that anybody did anything improper."

If a sitting president can be questioned, under oath, about his sexual escapades, then why can't White House officials be questioned about alleged wrong doing, under oath? And if everything is on the up and up why has Bush vowed to "aggressively fight in court any attempt to subpoena White House aides"?

This administration is channeling that of Nixon's. They feel they are above the law. This administration is hiding something and Congress better not back down from his threat of aggressive fighting to keep his aides from having to tell the truth.

Bush Warns Dems to Take Offer in Firings

You Got Served!

Jury duty. We're all entitled to a trial by jury, so somebody has got to do it. I, apparently, am on a short list of the only potential jurors in Los Angeles county. I have received four summons in as many months and I'm beginning to feel harrassed. The first one came in the form of a threatening post card informing me that I'd failed to register for jury duty when they supposedly sent my summons some time prior. I'm pretty diligent when it comes to my responsibilities and keeping myself from breaking the law, paying fines, or spending time in jail. So I called and spoke to a pleasant woman who went through the registration process with me, and my subsequent request for an excuse because I'm a full time mother to 3 small children between the hours of 8am and 5pm. She gave me simple instructions: to fill out my children's names and ages in the area she so helpfully highlighted for me. Because I'm not a total idiot, I was able to do this with no trouble whatsoever.

At the end of the following month I received an actual notice to appear summons. Once again I called, only to find out that my request for an excuse was under review and would be decided in 30 t 60 days. My dilemma was that my date to appear was before that 30 day timeframe. When I called again a week later I was told that my request for an excuse had been denied and waited for an additional 27 minutes before I could speak to an actual human being to plead my case. When I finally reached an oh-so-helpful employee she asked if I had indicated that my youngest child was under the age of 5; to which I answered, yep. She postponed my date for 60 days while she sent me yet another registration form to request my excuse, which I promptly completed and returned the same day I received it.

TWO days later I opened my mailbox to find ANOTHER request to register for jury duty! Good grief! And once again I had to go through the automated process and hold for several minutes to request my excuse. Apparently I'm holding up the entire legal system because I must be the only potential juror out there.

The kicker is, if I were to serve, it would cost me $15 dollars an hour to hire a babysitter for my children, for as much as a week (maybe more). I'm also stymied by their estimation that only children under the age of 5 are worthy enough for their parents to be excused from jury duty. Even if they're in school, they will still need a ride home and supervision afterwards, and it will still cost me $15 dollars an hour for that necessity. Even if I'm not the sole caregiver between the hours of 8am and 5pm in that case, I certainly am between the hours of 12pm and 5pm, what with all three of my children dismissed from school at noon, 2pm, and 3pm respectively.

I'm a tax paying, law abiding citizen who's just trying to live her life and it seems as if they're just trying to get me into trouble! Give me five years, please! I promise I'll happily serve my time when all 3 of my children are able to care for themselves while I'm away temporarily. There has got to be someone else on that damn list!

Vaginas Unite

Three girls in New York were suspended from their high school for using the word "vagina" during an open mic night when they read an excerpt from...wait for it... The Vagina Monologues. The principal of the school claims that the girls agreed to omit the apparently offensive word from their reading and went ahead and used it anyway. If the principal was so concerned about the content of their material don't you think he should have asked them to choose an alternate reading altogether? Even if they were to omit the word, wouldn't they still have to credit the original source: "My Short Skirt: The Vagina Monologues"? It isn't their work; it's Eve Ensler's. Wouldn't the dreaded "V" word be uttered regardless?

When did the word "vagina" become so taboo? More than half the human population comes equipped with one. You either have one or you don't. We all came out of one. We were all created with one, one way or another. It's as common a thing as an arm or a leg. The human mouth has more germs in it than your average vagina. It's a body part and it's the technical term for it. Your doctor doesn't refer to it as your "business", your "po-po", or your "Va-jay-jay" does (s)he? I hope not.

I love my vagina. I love the word and try to work it into a conversation whenever possible. It's entertaining to see how such a common word can still take people off guard.


Girls Suspension Postponed

Ann Coulter: Classless

We've all heard by now that Ann Coulter used the term "faggot" when discussing John Edwards recently, and of course she's already claiming it was all in good fun...a joke. However, it isn't the first time the couthless bitch has used the derogatory term. In 2006 she used it to describe Al Gore. Only she didn't just call him a plain ol' "faggot"; she labeled him a "total fag".

~On the July 27 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, "How do you know that [former President] Bill Clinton is gay?" -- referring to her comment the night before on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch that Clinton "show[s] some level of latent homosexuality." Coulterresponded, "I don't know if he's gay. But [former Vice President] Al Gore --total fag." She went on to defend her theory about Clinton's sexuality by stating that"everyone has always known, widely promiscuous heterosexual men have, as I say, a whiff of the bathhouse about them." Coulter claimed she was "just kidding" about Gore, but said of her theory about Clinton, "It's not only not a joke, it's not even surprising."~

What is it with Coulter and "fag" jokes (although she wasn't joking when she stated that Bill Clinton had a "whiff of the bathhouse" about him)? Is she not aware that the term is just as offensive to the gay community as the "N" word is to the African American community? She's probably aware but most likely doesn't care. It's disgusting that news organizations continue to fawn over her and provide her with a platform to spew her hate speech. I don't see them providing the same platform to the leader of the Klu Klux Klan...as they shouldn't, nor should they provide one to any espouser of hate.


http://mediamatters.org/items/200607280001