Joplin Globe Madness- On Our Anniversary, We Just Watched Thor and Ate Sushi

Me and the fella are living in sin (sweet, sweet tasty sin), and have no intention of changing that any time soon. Still, it’s nice to know what not put in a wedding anniversary ad.

For example, you may not want to fill it with a ridiculously long sexist ramble about your ancestors and how much you don’t know about genetics. Like in this ad that ran in today’s (11/25/12) Joplin Globe.

This is an actual anniversary notice that appeared in today’s paper. C/O the Joplin Globe.

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Strobel, for being an example. And for finding each other, so no poor innocent schmuck got into a relationship with either one of you and your evo-psych bullshit.

Fun Fact: this isn’t the first time the Strobels have ran this anniversary ad- I saw it several years ago (and also this year, which is why the link below goes to the 18th). The only reason I didn’t blog about it then was because the ad was TOO GODDAMN BIG for my scanner. It’s over tabloid size- 11.75″ x 16.5″, by my lady brains- and it fills up over two thirds of a page! Thanks, Joplin Globe E-Edition, for doing the hard work for me!

EDIT: I just remembered my pal Jeremiah Tucker also blogged about this ad during one of its previous runs. Go look!

I Should Probably Get Back to Blogging Shouldn’t I

Man, how many months has it been? There’s so much I’ve missed– dead celebrities, offensive legislation, fried chicken debates. You lose track of things once you start getting laid regularly.

Also! The atheist/skeptic/whatever movement blew up. Everybody got so sick of bullying dudebro skeptics, who were so clever when they found out the truth about God but didn’t think to apply that skepticism to gender roles or social issues, that we had a wee schism. C/O Jen McCreight of Blag Hag, we have leveled up to become Atheists Plus!

“Keep unintentionally or intentionally excluding women, minorities, and progressives while cluelessly wondering why you’re losing members, money, and clout. The rest of us will be moving on.

If you’re ready for this new wave of atheism, now is the time to speak up. Say that you’re ready. Vocally support organizations and individuals that are already doing it right. Vocally criticize the inappropriate and hateful behavior so the victims of such actions know you’re on their side. Demand that your organizations and clubs evolve, or start your own if they refuse.

The Boy’s Club may have historically ruled the movement, but they don’t own it. We can.”

I’m up for it. I am now an atheist plus. Or a plus atheist. Wev.

And to celebrate, I made a new t-shirt.

Sexist Skeptics Eff Off Shirt by JohnnyKaje
Browse Zazzle for another teezazzle.com

Hopefully I can get my shit together and get a booth set up at Skepticon. But if I don’t, you can still get your shirts now! Wear it the next time you’re inexplicably booked for TAM! and can’t find someone else to go in your stead.

Joplin Globe Madness: THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING FOR BIRTH CONTROL

I appreciate Kay Bradley’s reality check in Sunday’s paper. I especially appreciate the sheer effort she put in journeying from her reality into ours.

In our clamoring for our sweet, sweet child support money and abortion parties, we often forget just how lucky we are here, in the world’s #37th best country for health care. I forgot how easy it was to get birth control. I forgot about the healthcare programs which provide birth control for low income families, which is odd considering how I”m constantly reading about attempts to get these programs defunded or rendered toothless with medieval regulations.

This may be hard to believe, but not all women have the same access to contraception as Kay Bradley. I know, people for some reason live differently than Kay Bradley and expect to be taken seriously.

Ok I am trying to write a coherent response to an incoherent letter but all I end up doing is banging on a keyboard and snapping at my loved ones. This letter can be popped with one simple fact.
THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING FOR BIRTH CONTROL

It requires the insurance company, the one you pay into, to cover it. Not your religious employer. Not the hard-working taxpayer who loves complaining about birth control just as much as they love complaining about people who aren’t like them having too many kids.

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING FOR BIRTH CONTROL

And further, I’d like to point out that if this violates your employer’s religious liberties, so does everything you do with the wages you earn that s/he doesn’t approve of. Because your insurance is compensation for the work you do.

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING FOR BIRTH CONTROL

And with that fact, Kay’s letter pops and collapses in a flaccid, wrinkled heap of rubber and nonsense.

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING FOR BIRTH CONTROL

Although it should, goddammit.

I Believe St. Sebastian Gave Up an Arrow-Free Body

Or until your homework is done.

I have often said that pro-rape folk are not pro-life, because their behavior is contrary to how one would expect people to act in opposition to a holocaust. Also most people know the obvious difference between an embryo and a baby, even subconsciously, but anyway.

I had clearly not seen the Until Abortion Ends campaign. I have severely underestimated the sacrifice these martyrs will make to end this genocide.

“We love taco bell, but its loss will remind us of the severity of abortion. We believe that some day we will take our children to taco bell in celebration of the illegalization of child-killing in America[…] Goodbye, for now, Taco Bell. But we will meet again.”

“I decided to no eat Chips till abortion ends! Fighting!”

“Happily depriving myself of COFFEE until babies are no longer deprived of LIFE!”

“I’ve always, always loved Butterfinger candy bars. In fact, to this day, my parents still send me Butterfinger candy bars for my birthday. But until abortion doctors get their grubby hands off of our unborn children, I won’t lay another finger on a Butterfinger.”

This is an actual screencap. These are actual people.

Giving up your personal first world vices, for a week at best, to protest the reproductive rights of others. Truly this is the Greatest-er Generation. Just look at all the people you’ve inspired with your martyrdom. Somebody call Hollywood.

"This can of Pringles. Why did I keep these Pringles? Ten more people. Ten more people."

These people (a lot of whom are kids, so they have some excuse) actually think that anyone gives a damn about their New Year’s resolution-style protest. Which is not protest. A “protest” involves getting people to give a damn. Getting sprayed with firehoses is a protest. A hunger strike is a protest. Hell, a sternly-worded letter is a protest. Giving up red meat? That’s Lent.

Those people who shoot doctors, bomb clinics and terrorize people are complete scum, but give them this: at least they DO something.

This video says it all a lot better than I can.

Missouri’s Torture Camp for Young Girls

I had thought I had become completely jaded when it came to American Christianity’s ever-flowing haterade for women and children. Money-wasting, unconstitutional abortion restrictions? Saw them coming. Conscience clauses? Old hat.

But this one took me aback. Mainly because it takes place 35 miles from my house.

Welcome to New Beginnings Girls Academy.

New Beginnings describes itself as a character-building facility for “troubled teens,” and what Jeannie Marie heard in church that day was that this might be a place for her daughter to heal. While jogging earlier that year, the 17-year-old (whom I’ll call Roxy) had been pulled into a vehicle and assaulted by a group of men. Since then, she had begun acting up at home, as well as sneaking out and drinking. Two weeks after seeing the girls in church, Jeannie Marie and her husband left Roxy in McNamara’s care with the promise that she would receive counseling twice a week and stay at New Beginnings no longer than two months. “It sounded like a discipleship program,” Jeannie Marie recalls. “A safe place where a daughter can go to have time alone to find God and her direction.”

What would Jesus do with a troubled rape victim? How about cutting them off from family and breaking them! That ought to do it.

She was monitored day and night by two “buddies,” girls who’d been there awhile and knew the drill. They accompanied her to the shower and toilet, and introduced her to a life of communal isolation and rigid discipline. Girls were not allowed to converse except from 6 to 9 p.m. each Friday. They were not allowed contact with their families during their first month, or with anyone else for six months. By that time, Roxy said, most girls are “broken,” having been told that their families have abandoned them, and that the world outside is a sinful, dangerous place where girls who leave are murdered or raped.

It goes on. Force feeding, isolation chambers, oh how it goes on. And it’s all legal! Yay faith-based exemptions! After I posted this on Facebook, I’ve heard more tales of this place. And I’m frothing with white hot rage.

How long are we going to let people hurt children under the banner of faith?

EDIT: Survivors of NBGA have started a site here.

Mary Cook Makes Me Think About Sex; Distracts Me

I know I said that I would do a review of the Creation Museum of the Ozarks. Well, fuck that. There’s a stupid letter that needs my attention.

Somebody agreed with Kathryn Jean Lopez on something, and that’s terrible. I don’t know which K-Lo article is being referred to, but they are all the same slut-shaming pro-rape  nonsense (from an unmarried and childless woman, natch) so it doesn’t matter.

I graduated in 1965, and no teen girl would have ever thought of wearing the revealing clothing that is allowed in schools today.

I bet they never would have thought of listening to Justin Bieber either. What’s your point?

These young girls do get the results they seem to be seeking — the attention of the male students — and it is definitely not in a positive way.

Actually, from my limited experience with young girl’s fashion (seeing as how I once was a young girl, albeit a very anti-fashion one), the result they want is the attention (and acceptance) of FEMALE students. At least the popular ones. Minor digression.

Wait, no, that’s not a minor digression. Why is it always assumed that we always do things for the benefit of guys? Even little kids, uncorrupted by feminazi brainwashing, have lives of their own. Maybe it’s for boys, maybe it’s for their own benefit, maybe it’s to show that snotty Suzie Heinman in Mr. Wright’s class who is what.

Continue, sillybuns:

When my husband and I saw the Tide commercial for the first time, we just looked at each other in disbelief. Selling the product was overshadowed by dad saying “no” to the short skirt to make the daughter aware that this attire was unacceptable.

But mom comes to the daughter’s rescue and essentially says, “What dad thinks doesn’t matter.” The daughter walks off with a smile on her face, and dad becomes the bad guy.

I haven’t seen the commercial in question, but I agree! How messed up is it to make one parent the bad guy?…

I also see mothers who show no self-respect for themselves by the revealing clothes they wear. They are not good role models for their impressionable daughters.

…oh.

My bad. I forgot it’s OK to make one parent the bad guy if it’s a woman. Be she schoolgirl or mother, women assume all responsibilities for other people’s behavior.

We humans are what we eat and become what we allow ourselves to be surrounded by.

We conclude with an out-of-place cliche that can only be assumed to be a cunnilingus joke. Good night everybody!

Very Sneaky

I wonder if they put the “forcible rape” language in that bill as a decoy. As most people rightly pounced on that aspect of the bill, the rest of it was ignored. So they took it out, giving us the illusion of victory as they roll this crap bill through.

And it’s working. Sites such as Feministing (which I’ve really soured on anyway, but wevs) are crowing about it as a victory. Er, no it’s not. They just took out the “forcible” part. It’s still a supersized Stupak-Pitts amendment that denies health coverage to rape victims and other women.

Don’t fall for it. Keep on writing in.

JGM: Knights?

Okay, okay, I know that the Theory of Rita-tivity implies that Gary L. Stewart’s letter can be immediately discounted due to agreeing with Rita Crowell. Still.

Talk show host Chuck Bates declared that the present statistic of daily abortions is 4,000. If this is true, it’s so sad.

Talk show hosts are always reliable! Does anyone know how to say “talk show host” in Latin? In the meantime I will dub this fallacy argumentum ad Mauryeum.

Also, everyone, please understand, if Congress does not repeal the health care bill, billions of dollars taken from us will be given to Planned Parenthood to pay for even more innocent lives to end. Innocent blood sacrificed to the god of Mammon or to the evil people who seem to hate human beings for whatever reason.

I know I beat this into the ground, but do anti-choicers ever freakin’ listen to themselves? Jeez.

Last November we put 80 more knights of good in place to defend our children and grandchildren. There is more hope for them than before.

About your “knights of good”…

– They’re OK with your children and granchildren being forced into marriage.

– They’re OK with your children and grandchildren being raped- as long as it’s not by force.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to “forcible rape.” This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible.

–They’re OK with your children and grandchildren dying of back alley abortions because they can’t access safe, legal ones. Like in Pennsylvania, which has a crazy amount of restrictions.

– They’re OK with your children and grandchildren dying in wars, dying because of a lack of health care, being poisoned by industiral pollution, exploited by corporations, and so on and so on…

Your knights will not only not defend your children and grandchildren after they are born, they will wage war against them.

British Women Get Sterilized, Freak People Out

It seems like a no-brainer: if you don’t want to be fertile, you should be able to make that choice. However, this is a world where you can’t even get a haircut without being interrogated on whether your boyfriend gave you permission*.  So you get things like this story in the Telegraph, about a clinic that offers the quick-and-easy Essure procedure to women.

A private clinic claims it is the first in the country to offer a “walk in – walk out” ten minute procedure which permanently renders a woman infertile.

[...]

But its efforts to market the procedure to women who want to make such decisions in secret has sparked a row among medical experts, who say it is an “unethical and cynical” attempt to encourage dishonesty in relationships.

Hee hee. “Row.” British people speak funny.

Anyway, I had a mixed response. My first response was “OMG WHERE IS THIS PLACE DO THEY TAKE SINGLE WOMEN,” immediately followed by “Britain. Crap.” My second (or third, whichever) response was “Wow, it must suck to be in a relationship where you feel like you have to go behind your guy’s back to take control of your health. That can’t end good.”

Then you realize that yeah, it does suck to be in that sort of relationship. That’s the reality for a lot of people- they’re involved with an abusive partner who won’t rest until they get their way regarding children. When you realize that, you realize that such services are not only necessary, but long overdue.

But then, not all of the patients are in abusive relationships. Maybe they saw an opportunity to get a less meddlesome procedure and took it. Maybe they’re the abusers. Maybe they’re sluts or prostitutes or Satanists or bwap bwap bwap BESIDES THE POINT.

What does it matter the motive of the women? Why did this clinic choose to capitalize on secrecy in the first place? Why is there so much hand-wringing over women electing to be sterile?

Of course, if you’re a regular reader you know the answer already. It wasn’t that long ago that the birth control pill was only prescribed to married women who already had kids. The reason why it was that way for the pill, and it’s currently that way for permanent or semi-permanent sterilization procedures, is the same. It’s because we like to assume women are too dumb to make their own life choices. Especially choices that aren’t patriarchally correct.

I hope that Cadogan Clinic continues to offer convenient Essure procedures for any woman who wants them. Further, I hope more clinics follow their lead, in Britain and elsewhere.

*Seriously, what is up with this? I go get a haircut, the stylist always asks if my boyfriend/husband is OK with it. Not “are you sure” or even “do you have a boyfriend”, they just go ahead and assume I’m married to Captain Vidal. Is every stylist I go to a closet lesbian discreetly checking if I’m available? I am suspicious of this notion.

They Ain’t Kidding When They Say They’re For “Traditional Family Values”

166 anti-choice House members blocked an anti-child marriage bill, because apparently the children involved weren’t in utero, so who cares?

In the hours before the vote, Republicans circulated a memo to pro-life members of Congress alleging that the bill could fund abortions and use child marriage “to overturn pro-life laws.” It also reiterated concerns over the bill’s cost. When it came time for a vote, a number of the bill’s pro-life supporters in both parties abandoned ship. Even co-sponsors of the corresponding House bill (H.R. 2103), like Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.), voted against it.

Never mind that the bill  doesn’t even mention abortion or any other sort of family planning, but whatevs.

Just your daily reminder that the pro-lifers actively hate women and girls, and always, always lie.

EDIT: Some of the people who dig raping little girls include our very own  Jo Ann Emerson, Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Todd Akin, and of course Roy Blunt. You might want to send them a letter or something, to express your support for raping little girls.

Fun fact: back in college I (badly) wrote a Onion-type article detailing Roy Blunt’s plan to make a rape squad out of pardoned ex-felons to encourage a pro-life, pro-marriage culture among Missouri’s single women. I then taped it to the wall in several locations around campus. It caused a wee bit of controversy in the form of pencil graffiti debates. I miss school, but more importantly I miss a life when I was unaware of this wretched little man.