This is a link dump for things that make me want to spit. Things that piss me off & make me want to bitch—remind me why I should be angry. John just posted his experience at Church the other day, I think most of us can agree that his experience counts as something we all want to bitch about. Feel free to respond to mine or add your own in the comments.
“Sweetie” pisses me off. In fact, most diminutives or “familiar” forms, especially from strangers (although also from other sources: DH called me “baby” once during sex & that did not go over well for him…) really make me mad. I’ve posted about this in the past, but now, research shows that it’s not just me: treating people like you’re better than them affects them psychologically, which can then affect them physically. I wonder what it says about the person who’s doing the treating.
The Republicans’ sheltering of Palin makes me mad. The fact that they don’t want to let her have a forum reminds me how little they think of women. Andrew Sullivan calls on us to “Demand a Press Conference” and both Rachel Maddow & Keith Olbermann have offered to let Palin name the terms in order to get another interview (after the Couric interview, apparently, the Republicans locked her in a penis-shaped tower, word has it that they’re tending their garden of cabbages below, flying about on broomsticks at night, and climbing up her hair when they want to access her—no word yet about a white knight). The awesomeness from CNN’s anchors (which I previously posted) reminds me that sometimes, the mainstream media doesn’t suck.
Trayce Hansen, Ph.D. and her ilk infuriate me. She’s the one being quoted on Christian & conservative websites as claiming that “social endorsement of homosexuality [...] will lead more individuals into a homosexual lifestyle”. Which, if you think about it, really means that closeted gays will no longer feel shame if society didn’t think that homosexuality was an unnatural, dirty activity that leads to STDs and death. Wait, isn’t that their same argument about sex? About divorce? About abortion? Oh, that’s right, they’ve only got one! Her name might be Hansen, Coulter, or Schlafly, but whatever her name, the Conservative Woman Who Hates Women So That She Can Prove To Men That All Women Suck But Her (or maybe that She Is The Only Woman Who Will Suck) drives me crazy.
People who deny the rights of everyone because they don’t want to exercise them. This goes for the anti-abortion lobby (don’t have one!), the anti-gay marriage lobby (don’t be one!), and the anti-euthanasia lobby (don’t do it!). Don’t tell me I can’t do it just because it makes you feel icky. What if militant vegetarians took over the country & denied people the right to hunt and eat meat? Or if militant environmentalists turned every highway into a bikeway? Sure, the world might be slightly better, but it wouldn’t be right. Equally, it is not right to deny rights (heh. get it?) just because you don’t want them. Hell, I don’t want to marry a woman. But you know what? I’m glad I have the right to if I wanted. I do not understand what is going on in the minds of people who want to deny rights. So often, we hear the story of a person who was anti-this or anti-that and then suddenly finds themselves in such a position that they are glad that they and their friends were unsuccessful because now? Now they’re really glad they have the right to this or that.
There are too many links for that one, but here’s Dan Savage’s recent experience with his mother’s terminal illness and death. He lives in Seattle, too—I’m not really sure who has the greater reach, though, my father, with his religious network or Savage with his queer network (I hope it’s Savage), but at least someone there is standing up in opposition to my father’s desire to take rights from others.
*pant pant*
Again, I have to say: if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. Leave in the comments the things that get you righteously angry, and about which you are passionate. Anger is only helpful if it’s channeled.
