fromthefrontsteps

[fromthefrontsteps]

Dear Person in my Life

Dear Person In My Life (PIML),

I could really use your help right now. I have a big thing coming up. I didn’t choose it, but it is coming up anyway. I’m not sure what to do.

If you are the person in my life I have pledged, I should talk to you about this big thing. But the only interactions I have had with you involve you judging me for my parenting weaknesses. for my finaciaal shortcoimings. Plus, you seem to have focused on your own achievements and challengess that you have completely missed the fact that I have this parictular thing coming up. That you set up. that I didn’t plan. That IS GOING TO BE SO HARD FOR ME. but you were busy. maybe you couldn’t have noticed. 

Or person in my life who judges me every minute for not following your path. Don’t worry, I didn’t follow her path either (though I can respect it more than I respect yours)

Person in my life I would LOVE to share this with: I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy tyring so hard to share my life with that person who I pledged to share my life....whatever, I’ve abandoned you, why do you want to know my worries. 

Or, I’ve been working, trying to keep up with that which is impossible. 

Or I’ve been suckling at the trauma of the world, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to apply my skills on situations that don’t want them applied. 

God I”m an imbiclie. I’ve given life to humans, I’ve pulled along humans (too soon to say raised, but definitely pulled along).

I need a soundboard, but all I have is a keyboard. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

Clean up your mess

Ok, Mom, you voted for this dumpsterfire of a candidate because he grabbed your [insanely racist and paranoid) fear of Muslims and convinced you that he would bomb the s#!t out of them and keep you safe. Now he has done something that overtly gives them the hand up, both by revealing sensitive intel to known and dangerous adversaries, and by denting the relationship(s) with the countries and agencies who provided it. So instead of addressing real issues of child poverty, domestic violence, jobs, or education, our government spins its wheels while watching the White House clean up his messes. But I totally understand how this is way better for the country, since you thought Hillary was too grumpy and unfeminine. With any luck, you’ll get dementia before you have to see all your grandsons go to war to defend your decision. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

Can we just stop it now?

A certain segment of Trumpist voters believed, and still believe, that he is good for the economy. They point to their bulging 401Ks and do a victory dance. These are the soulless hardened liver of America--the upper-middle managers who still do business at golf courses and yacht clubs, whose nightly mid-priced wine bottles lull them to sleep so that they don’t have to be alone with their consciences. They’re not going to change. They don’t care if grandma loses her meal deliveries or if their junior colleagues have to give up working because they have been priced out of daycare. They’re “spreadsheet” people, and only the bottom line matters. 

Then, there’s the rest of them. 

The ones who saw Der Trumpist as a way to that elusive SCOTUS seat so that they could claim victory over women’s bodies. 

The ones who saw him as a way to shake out all the evil Muslims who are definitely taking over the world, one covered head at a time.

The ones who think their jobs were “stolen” by immigrants. 

The ones who believe it was regulations, not supply and demand, that evaporated US mining and manufacturing. 

One at a time, these rest-of-America voters are having their lives further damaged by Trumpist one-percenter policies. They’ll get what they want for a SCOTUS (though just wait until the Colorado Cowboy has to decide, boy-scout literalist style, on an issue regarding their blue-collar jobs...hint, it won’t be pretty. 

They say they are willing to make sacrifices, but when that sacrifice turns out to be trading their roads and schools for an unnecessary border project--one that will likely send more money TO Mexico than take from it? One that is more than a little likely to involve contractors who don’t give an honest damn whether their workers are legal? 

When we actually DO get attacked by angry Muslims who have seen recruitment explode from Trumpist hateful rhetoric? 

When all those manufacturing jobs creep back, only to dry up again because no one wants their products? 

Gah. 

SO ANYWAY, The SCOTUS choice is imminent, and when it’s over a big chunk of Christianist voters won’t have any real reason to keep hanging to the con. Will they start to demand changes? We can hope. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

RIP GOP. The outright inner conflict of the 2016 platform.

GOP Platform: Importance of traditional family unit. GOP Candidate: 5 children from three different relationships. 

GOP Platform: Keeping manufacturing jobs in the US. GOP Candidate: outsources many of his own companies’ products

GOP Platform: Help small businesses GOP Candidate: Known for cheating small businesses or bullying them into accepting unpaid and underpaid invoices. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

All those guys who totally shave all their thinning hair... it just makes me think of cancer. Please stop.

Me

[fromthefrontsteps]

Ban Schmann

Last week, an “radical Islamic terrorist” walked up behind a Denver transit security officer and shot him in the head, point-blank, calling on Allah as his guide. Why is there no national outrage? He was Texan. We don’t ban Texans (yet), he was young(ish) and white. 

So, no outrage. 

He was, by all reports, unhinged. He babbled incessantly on social media, tried to rally supporters at Denver’s largest mosque, only to find himself turned away. Why? Because he was weird and dangerous. The mosque had even alerted police, who in-turn alerted the FBI, about his worrying behavior, but their wheels turned too slowly to prevent this act. 

He was mentally unstable, he shouldn’t have owned a gun.

He was on the watch-list.  He shouldn’t have owned a gun.

Yet he owned an arsenal. Because in Trump’s America, an exaggerated definition of “rights” holds more value than life itself. 

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/03/rtd-security-officer-killing-murder-charges/

[fromthefrontsteps]

I grew up on a farm, and this is what I know: 

When you want to drain a swamp, you start at the deepest, murkiest parts, the place where you lose your rubber boots just for stepping in, you give that water a different escape route and you clear the brush to keep it from acting like a mop. You don’t worry about the little soggy spots that just squish a little, they follow the big water anyway. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

So the pussy-grabber-in-chief chooses his black frenemy to lead HUD. Isn’t that sort of like asking your only black colleague to bring the fried chicken to the office party? 

[fromthefrontsteps]

Do you really want to reduce abortion rates? Show me.

If legislators truly have a goal of reducing abortion, they would look at the body of evidence and propose laws and regulations that actually support that goal:

1. Education. Education is ultimately the solution to nearly every problem, and this one is no exception. A staggering number of abortions result from women who either didn’t know they were pregnant or didn’t know how to properly use birth control methods. Women AND MEN of reproductive age need all the info they can get from reliable sources. Planned Parenthood’s ICYC program provides a confidential phone number and will even send an educator TO YOUR HOUSE to help you have “the talk” with your children.

2. Access to birth control. In Colorado, a program to provide IUDs to low-income women has HALVED the number of abortions and teen pregnancies in that population. Properly used birth control is largely effective, but may be expensive or have difficult side-effects. Still, the US has the developed world’s HIGHEST rate of unintended pregnancies. [NB: I had a good chuckle at a recent drug trial was halted after a hormonal birth-control method for men was found to have similar side effects to the ones women have been taking for decades. Gander, meet goose.]

3.  Access. The CDC shows a sharp drop in abortion rates since Roe v Wade. Since there was no official data prior to that, we can’t know how many abortions were carried out at home or in illegal facilities. However, we can see that abortion rates now are just about back to the REPORTED rates of 1972, suggesting that the real number is even lower than it was pre-1972. In other words, the law is effective.

Not surprisingly, research also shows that limited access to services, lack of education, and imposed social and emotional burdens [waiting periods, required parental consent, required counseling] do not PREVENT abortions, but are more likely to increase the gestational period of abortions, leading to the procedures which are the most controversial, not to mention risky and expensive.

[fromthefrontsteps]

If you’re worried about abortions..

It might be advisable to examine the actual record. Abortions, after an initial post-legalization surge, have decreased over the last 40+ years and are now at WELL BELOW the rate as [documented] pre-Roe v Wade. This means that women who make that choice are quite rare, and that when they do make that choice, the procedure is carried out safely. (ie. not with a bent clothes-hanger). 

Many factors have been at play in this drastic reduction, most notably an increase in the quality and availability of women’s heathcare. (Thanks, Obama!). Women now have the option of choosing whether the voluntary (or involuntary, apparently) relations they have with men can result in a pregnancy. Yay?

But here we go, hearing all kinds of ridiculous exaggerations about late-term, “partial birth" procedures. SHEEPLE, CAN YOU NOT READ? Late term abortions, which are still forbidden in some states, are NEVER elective. There’s no such thing as a doctor that would perform such a thing even if it were allowed. Late term abortions are only done when the fetus is unviable. In other words, something so horrific has happened in the womb that it would either be dangerous for the mother or pointless for the child to be born. The very reason this is explicitly protected in Roe-v-Wade (and yet still prohibited in certain states) is because you don’t want parents and doctors having to consult with judges when they find out that their baby has its brain outside its head or most of its organs missing. They just need to be able to grieve and let go and cope with their loss in whatever way they can. It’s NOT legal in any state for any other reason. 

Waving the flag of late-term abortions for political cause is mocking every family that has ever had to endure this excruciating pain. Shame on you for believing such total scare-tactic garbage and shame on anyone who propagates it. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

Bill Clinton is a philandering douche.

So shouldn’t our next commander-in-chief have kicked his sorry ass to the curb years ago? Sure...if she wanted to be labeled “victim” for the rest of her life. Remember that she lives in a world where assertiveness is equated with aggressiveness if you are wearing heels. Sure, she could have left them, but his charisma and political ties already endeared him to the community in which she aspired to work. Think about southern politics, circa 1980-1990. It was still a solid boy’s club, where whispers of bimbos would help, not hurt a swaggering young governor. He probably got winks and fist bumps in every hallway after every official dinner or golf game. 

She KNEW if she left him, she would suffer more: she would be labeled as cold and selfish. The boys network would shred her for not doing her wifely duties, and she would be kicked out of the club forever. AND they had a child. A child who didn’t deserve to hear all the vile truths about her dad if a split came to court. 

So Hil did what strong women people do. She stuck it out and worked harder. She was the object of ridicule and shame. She committed herself to working harder on the things that mattered to her--healthcare for children and women’s rights. She protected and loved her daughter fiercely. She worked even harder. 

Meanwhile, about the same time, another philandering douche was in the middle of getting tripped up in a similar thing. Only this particular philandering douche was a wealthy real estate developer with deep enough pockets to shut his wife’s questions down. This philandering douche paid the big lawyers and signed the small-print contracts, set up his wife with a big payout, and suddenly she stopped complaining. A few years later, the same story played out again. And the next wife suddenly stopped complaining. Who knows what will happen with the third wife, after all she’s practically ancient as a model, probably about time to put her to pasture, too. Will she complain? Who knows. 

So if today’s big question is “Did Hillary do unethical things to try and deflect attention from her philandering douche of a husband’s many female targets?” Probably. But that’s a HUGE step away from actually being a complicit player in EXACTLY THE SAME GAME. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

If you cheered about the Don's claim to bring jobs back (from Mexico, from China...), look in the collar of your shirt read the label. Would you have bought that shirt if it cost 4x as much? Now shut up. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

Articulating HRC.

Hillary. She has been subject to more investigations than major crime bosses. She keeps working. She has been embarrassed by a philandering husband. She keeps working. She has never been accused of skipping out on anyone--her bills are paid, her staff is loyal, and she has forged friendships and allies around the world. Years’ long partnerships. Does she hit them up for money? Does she call in favors? Who knows, but the friendships remain. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

"a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m going to start saying this every time I see a Libertarian. 

[fromthefrontsteps]

release and re-lease are total opposites.

me.

[fromthefrontsteps]

Pew! Pew! Bang! Bang! Pow

Can we please put the Donald, Steve Bannon, Paul LePage, and David Duke in a padded room, give them some cap guns and stick horses, and just let them get their aggression out? Because that’s what people did with potty-mouthed boys in 1952 and it totally worked.

[fromthefrontsteps]

the sum of the parts...

Gun violence is a multifaceted issue with no easy solution. Many parts that include:

-Military-style weapons in the hands of civilians

-Lack of safety practices /education about safety practice where children have access

-Lack of a centralized background check process

-Ease of purchase of all firearms

-Regulatory impediments to scientifically studying gun violence 

-a culture that celebrates killing. 

These things honestly have to be addressed individually.