The things that go through my head

If you are anything like me, you are sick to death of this Gates arrest BS. Just in case you were living under a rock and didn’t hear about this story, read this. In order to calm racial tensions caused by this arrest, the President is going to host a beer summit with the Harvard professor and the arresting officer. I know, I know, I am sick of reading about this crap too. I only revived my dead blog to point out, once again, that people can indulge in a dangerous, recreational substance that causes many overdose deaths every year and nobody bats an eyelash. But could you imagine what would happen if the President decided to go with a much Safer alternative? No pot for the president, the prof and the po-po, that’s for sure!

It’s pretty hard to watch this video without going “AWWWWW!”.

My prayers were answered! I get to see a Star Trek Man in a skirt. Sexy!

PZ sent this to Jenny McCarthy:

I want Jenny McCarthy to get schooled. I want her to invite educated, intelligent scientists and doctors on her show, who each week dissect her vapid little opinions and dismantle her cherished biases. I want her to be embarrassed in every hour. And I want her to get a little wiser, episode by episode, so that by the end of a year she actually becomes an informed and interesting person.

Help people learn some actual science and medicine by making Jenny McCarthy a public example, and help McCarthy become a better human being — one who doesn’t kill children with her ignorance.

We’re number 1! We’re number 1!

Somebody is trying to make “saddlebacking” happen. Personally, I never want to think about any sort of Christianity or religious dogma while engaging in a sex act, but whatever.

I just wanted to see what would happen if I tried to blog with my Blackberry. How the internet has changed the nature of self-expression. I remember when writing, for me, consisted of scribbling in a notebook for the benefit of a teacher’s red pen or a place to write about the boys I liked. (I didn’t like boys because they’re too much trouble.). I was so smug and smarmy when I decided to set up my very first blog on my desktop computer. Then I progressed to blogging with my laptop. Now I am using a phone to post. What will be next? Posting my thoughts with a computer chip plugged into my brain? I love the thought of becoming a cyborg. Sweet.

Yes, I realize that it’s a day late and a dollar short but Merry X-mas anyway. I have to admit that I was dreading the whole painful ritualistic ordeal. As a mother of two children, a consumer in a wealthy privileged honky white society and a tool of the patriarchy, I am under enormous pressure to spend money I don’t have on crap that I don’t need. I did have a Christmas tree covered with shiny useless gaudy junk but I did adorn it with cephalopods and tiny stoned Jamaican angels. I didn’t buy my child that Nintendo DS that she had her heart set on but I did buy Rock Band 2. I am spoiled and pampered enough and I have enough free time that I got bored of Rock Band 1. I didn’t buy Rock Band 2 as a Christmas present but as an impulse buy on Boxing Day. Yay consumerism!

What business do any of us have buying this junk while we teeter on the edge of ecological collapse? I should be spending my extra spending money on replacing my storm windows and recycling my milk jugs or new fridges! It’s too bad that my meager efforts will make a minor difference in the whole grand scheme of things. That’s how I justify my lifestyle to myself.

I am trying to convince myself that going back to school and getting an education so I can further my career is a terrible idea. I mean, once I get tired of my current role in the educational institution I can always sell furniture or work at Wal-mart. I know that carrying on in my current role as an educational assistant just might drive me crazy, but how do I know that I won’t go through the same thing once I get done with school. I don’t and that’s what bugs me. Oh well. I will just play Rock Band and forget about it.

I also have to admit that I used to read Lucy Maud Montgomery from time to time. She specialized in flowery chick lit. All the stories upheld patriarchal values in some way. The main female character desperately longed for love and marriage and babies and lived happily ever after. Anne of Green Gables did get a bachelor of education and teach school for three years but she also wasn’t truly happy until she got married and became Mrs. Dr. Gilbert Blythe (typing that makes me feel nauseous) and relieved her achy, throbbing uterus syndrome with 7 children. Seven children! They didn’t believe in birth control back then and it showed. Even a doctors’ wife can’t avoid child-bearing, even when it almost kills her!

At this point you are probably wondering why I am going on at length about old Lucy Maude, that cornerstone of feminine Canadian literature that she is. You see, even though I know that she wrote some of the most atrocious fiction, the beginnings of feminism took root. I remember reading one of her books, not the Anne series, and there was an older female character who admitted that she would do anything to have the opportunity to get an education. The characters did contemplate that perhaps they should be allowed to vote or go to school. This was just like the real world, like any half-decent fiction is. I often wonder what our ancestors from a mere 100 years ago would think of our current world, with its totally uprooted social mores. What would they think of me spending hours playing video games when I could be doing something useful, like getting an education or becoming some sort of loud-mouthed activist? Don’t I just take all my opportunities for granted?

Not only that, but I have to admit that school gets to me sometimes. I see the problems with these institutions and hierarchies that we humans love to create. The educational system is full of them too. I see these problems and feel helpless to do anything about it. What is one educational assistant against hundreds of years of tradition? I can’t even shelter my own children from the problems of school. I can merely teach them how to tolerate it. Should I get a degree and become one of them? I do love learning new things and explaining all about it in great detail to anyone who will pretend to be paying attention. Don’t you know what this means? I will be an awesome teacher. I will be so great that the whole institution will reform its ways and kittens and rainbows will follow me wherever I go.

I just want school to be about learning, instead of encouraging conformity and asserting your authority because you can, even when you shouldn’t. I want school to quit being pointless busywork and drills and rote learning in isolation from the real world. I am sick of marks and grades and ranks and head pats and report cards and evaluations and the whole lot of it. I am sick of the way that I can launch into a “teacher speech” without even thinking about it, to berate some kid for making a mistake.

In conclusion, either I have to figure out a way to live with school or I have to change careers.

via Ill Doctrine, here is McCain’s latest attack ad.