injaynesworld it's "The Morning After..."

Good news:  While the majority of Kentucky voted for homophobe Rand Paul to represent them in the Senate, Lexington elected their first openly gay mayor.   Go figure…

More good news:  Money didn’t buy California where millionaire corporate shills Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorini both had their Visa cards declined.

In Connecticut,  another right-wing millionaire, World Wrestling Entertainment’s Linda McMahon got body slammed by Democrat Dick Blumenthal.  

Still more good news:   Sharon Angle will have lots of time now to figure out the difference between Latinos and Asians. 

The good news doesn’t end:   No surprise here.  In Delaware, Christine O’Donnell lost her bid for the Senate.   People are keeping a close watch on Chris Coons for any signs of a tail and gills.

And in Alaska a Republican is going to win, but it looks like it’s going to be the one Sarah Palin really, really hates.   Now that’s good news!

Okay, I know I’m picking gnat crap out of the pepper here, but truly – I’m just glad it’s over.   The voters, driven by fear, decided once again to go back to their abusive spouse.   We don’t act.  We react.  

But hey – as messed up we are, we do have the right to elect our own leaders, flawed as they are.   There are people in oppressive regimes all over the world who’d give their lives for that opportunity.  

I’m thinking about turning injaynesworld into a cooking blog.  What do you think? 

injaynesworld "An Evil Wind Cometh..."

For those of you who have been around for a while, you know that I do not do well in the wind.   Not only does it wreak havoc with my coif, but it messes with the circuits in my brain causing my otherwise sunny disposition to sour like a carton of milk left in a parked car in the middle of summer.  

Today it was windy.  

And somewhere a customer service representative for the cable company has gone home and killed his wife.   Because of me.   And the wind.  

I had done my part.   I was here between 12:00 and 2:00 when the repair man was scheduled to show up to figure out why my “high-speed” Internet service was now operating as if walking through a vat of peanut butter.   I had waited.   Patiently.  

When the customer service guy-- let’s call him Brad -- went to work this morning, he already knew his day was going to be shit and it had nothing to do with the wind.   It was because of those goddamn repair guys who didn’t show up at their scheduled appointments when they were supposed to.   And he was the one who had to hear about it.    But, hey – it was a job.   Not the one he’d planned on when he wracked up that $100,000 of student loan debt, but he’d learned to make the best of it. 

At 2:00 – sharp – when it was evident I’d been stood up, I placed the call:

Brad:   Comcast Cable, may I have your account num –

Me:  I had an appointment today to fix your crappy Internet and no one showed up!

Apparently, listening to a stream of profanities is not is their job description, or so he continued to tell me.   He seemed less than sympathetic by the fact that I had scheduled two hours out of my day to sit at home and do nothing.   What he wouldn’t give for two uninterrupted hours all to himself.    But no.  Somebody always wanted something from him.   He was in the goddamn service business 24/7 and now here was this raving bitch all up in his face because she didn’t know what to do with herself without Twitter. 

Brad:   I’ll schedule another appointment for you.  How’s tomorrow from –

Me:   Oh, great!  So I can sit around waiting for another fucking two hours?    Fine, asshole!   Just make sure he shows up this time!   

Slamming down the phone, I immediately knew I’d crossed a line.   Poor minimum wage S.O.B really didn’t deserve that.  I suck.  Will this damn wind never stop?!  I needed a glass of wine.  It had to be cocktail hour somewhere. 

Returning home that night, Brad was prepared to drown out the memory of her wretched hyena-like voice with a six-pack and catch the last couple of innings of the game.   A large, dried branch from the wind-whipped palm trees blocks his path to the stairs that lead to his one-bedroom apartment.   He roughly kicks it aside.

I began to breathe slowly, evenly.  Thank God for wine.  The smooth Cabernet instantly eases my tension.   I really have to lighten up.    In Indonesia they had a freakin’ tsunami this week.   Talk about your bad hair day.   I smile at my own wit.     

Remote in one hand, cold bottle of beer in the other, Brad sinks into the second-hand Lazy Boy smelling of cat piss he’d long learned to ignore and feels relaxed for the first time all day.   He presses “power.”   Nothing.  

“Can I get a little help in here?   I’ve been working all day, too, you know,” she calls from the kitchen.   This wasn’t the life she’d had planned either.

His shoulders tighten.  “I’m not hungry!”  A gate outside slams in the wind.   He presses the “power” button again – two, three, four times – harder, faster, harder, faster --  Oh, wait.  That’s another story.

“Fine!  I’ll just throw yours out then!,” she shoots back. 

The explosion of the beer bottle connecting with the old tube TV was the last thing Brad remembered. 

Hours later when later asked by news crews about the young couple who lived in the corner unit, neighbors said they were always very quiet and kept to themselves. 

From down the block a cable company repair truck slowly rounds the corner.  “Damn wind,” the driver grumbles.   He’d hoped to get home in time to see the game. 

Happy Halloween.   Your “Sunday Recap” will return next week.

injaynesworld "Big Girls Don't Cry..."

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I recently received an offer from Simon and Schuster to review Rebecca Traister’s new book “Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women” about the 2008 election.   Being the political junkie that I am, it was impossible to resist.  Plus, I’m nothing if not a ho for freebies...                        

I'm sure you know me well enough by now to be certain that I would not tout anything I didn't have strong convictions about, so believe me when I say I was blown away by this book.  Head on over to injaynesworld reviews and giveaways page, read the review and let me know what you think.  If it piques your interest, leave a comment over there to be entered for a chance to win a copy for yourself.  You must be a follower of my blog to enter.  

See you there!

injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY…

… for those who may have been wondering what all that “shouting” across the Internet was about on Friday.   

Founded in 2000 by computer geek Derek Arnold, it’s celebrated every October 22^nd as a testament to those annoying individuals who insist on making asses of themselves with the improper and overuse of the caps lock key, then again on June 28^th to commemorate the passing of pitchman and renowned screamer, Billy Mays.  It even has its own Twitter feed. 

I wonder what the proper gift would be.

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Ancestory.com announced this week that President Obama is related to both Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.  Talk about your awkward family gatherings.  

The geneology website determined that Obama is tenth cousins with both, but apparently no relation to Kevin Bacon.

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One step forward for equality...

An appellate court in Florida this week struck down that state’s draconian law which prohibited the adoption of foster kids by gay couples, ruling that there was no rational basis for the ban that had stood in the way of uniting loving families for 33 years. 

To the credit of Governor Crist, the Department of Children and Families and Florida's Attorney General, the decision was made to not appeal the ruling.    Are you listening, President Obama?

In contrast, this week his administration asked Judge Virginia Phillips to stay her ruling declaring DADT unconstitutional and when she said effectively “bite me” they appealed to the Ninth Court of Appeals and were granted the stay while the Court decides whether or not to overturn Judge Phillips and put the matter back into the hands of what may very well be a Republican led Congress.  

Nice move, Mr. Prez.  And you wonder why you’re losing your base.  

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You lie down with pigs, you get dirty…

This may have been the lesson learned by Juan Williams, a news analyst who until this week split his air time between NPR and Faux News, which is a little like simultaneously dating Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson. 

While appearing on the Bill O’Reilly show last Monday, Juan passed this little gem…

“When I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried.  I get nervous.” 

… which immediately got his ass fired from NPR and before you could say “Oh no he din’t,” accusations of Williams’ First Amendment rights being violated were bellowed from the rooftops primarily, but not entirely, by our friends on the right. 

In response, NPR said that Williams’ had been repeatedly warned about contentious statements made by him on Faux in the past and issued this statement:  “Juan has a First Amendment right to say anything he wants.   He does not have a First Amendment right to be paid by NPR for saying anything he wants.”

I personally don’t think his statement was that big of a deal, especially since it was made on Faux where you expect to hear stupid shit like this.   As for his firing – right, wrong, I don’t know, but I can understand where NPR might view Williams’ association with Faux as tainting his credibility as an analyst on their network.  

On the other hand, credibility of any kind has never been an issue at Faux so it was no surprise when they immediately offered Williams a $2 million dollar contract to join Beck, Palin, Hannity and the others aboard the crazy train.  

It will be interesting to see if Williams brings their standards up or loses all remaining standards of his own. 

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Finally, with the election drawing near and the defeat of Christine O’Donnell looking more and more promising every day, let’s enjoy every moment of this wacky, wonderful gal while we still can…

And now it’s your turn.  Sound off…

injaynesworld it's "WTF Wednesday..."

Our first such installment and maybe our last.  With every day bringing a bevy of new WTFs these days, the shock factor is registering lower and lower,  reducing some of them to a mere “eh…”  So it truly takes a pants-wetting, liquid spitting, eye-ball-popping reaction to something for me to deem one worthy of its very own post. 

Yesterday I opened an e-mailed NY Times News Alert to find this:

“Clarence Thomas’ Wife Asks Anita Hill To Apologize.”

WHAT THE FUCK?!!!!!

Yes.  It totally deserves to be spelled out.   For those of you too young to recall being glued to your TV sets in 1991 for the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings, here’s a short recap.  Anita Hill, who had worked for Thomas prior to his nomination to the highest court in the land, sat in front of an all-male congressional committee and with great dignity told a detailed story of  her repeated sexual harassment by Thomas, which included his conversations with her about finding pubic hairs on a can of Coke, naming his penis Long Dong Silver and the porn he watched that included scenes of women having sex with animals.  

Keep in mind that this guy was up for a place on the Supreme Court and, as such, would be hearing and rendering judgments in cases involving the of sexual harassment of women.

So imagine Ms. Hill’s shock when, after nearly 20 years, she received this message on her voice mail at her office at Brandeis University this week from Virginia Thomas:

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.  So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. Okay, have a good day.”

Seriously.  WHAT THE FUCK?!

What could possibly be the purpose of stirring up all that ugliness now?   Why would Thomas want that attention for herself or her husband who still sits on the Supreme Court because yes, the boys' club congressional committee gave him a pass and confirmed him despite the horrendous allegations that should have made such a confirmation dead as the proverbial door nail. 

I’m seldom at a loss for words, but this has me completely stymied.  It would be easy to just write Virginia Thomas off as the right-wing nut case that she is, but that can’t be all there is to it.   She has no book coming out to promote.  Was she offended to be passed over for a role on “The Housewives of D.C.?”   Is she itching for an invite to join next season’s “Dancing With The Stars?”   What could possibly motivate any woman to want to bring up such a humiliating moment in both her and her husband’s past?

Fortunately, I have very bright and articulate readers, so please chime in on this.   Enlighten me.   Because truly, all I have is… WTF?

injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

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Note:  If you’re reading this with Firefox or IE the photos may not be visible.  I apologize.  I can no longer do the hours of battling to make it happen with Firefox and am instead posting all photos using the Google Chrome browser which, by the way, is an all-around better browser anyway. 

Kicking off this week with a good news story…

My hero of the week is eight-year-old Peighton Jones from Topeka, Kansas.  Every Saturday afternoon, with her red wagon in tow, Peighton walks her neighborhood collecting food for local food banks and shelters.  It all started when she was with her mom at a grocery store and saw a woman with a little girl in front of them who could not pay for all their groceries.  Last year, Peighton collected 450 cans of food.  This year it’s 750 and her goal for next year is over a thousand.

“It makes you feel very good because you know that you’re going to help somebody out,” Peighton explains. 

Be still my heart.  A future liberal is born…


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While at the other end of the spectrum...

Hey – let’s give corporations that send American jobs overseas a tax break for doing so.   Show of hands…  What?   You don’t think that’s a good idea?   Then you might be surprised to know that as things now stand that’s exactly what’s going on. 

This week the president called for a repeal of that tax loophole and Democrats introduced a bill that does just that and also provides incentives to companies that keep jobs in the U.S.  Predictably, 100% of the Republicans once again stood with Wall Street to block this legislation.

Now why would the GOP dump on Americans like that?   Follow the money…

The Chamber of Commerce receives millions of dollars from big business interests which they then donate to the GOP for attack ads against the very same Democrats trying to save our jobs.  So when the COC says “jump," the GOP says “how high?”

Once again we find the Republicans the deserving recipients of our “Steaming Pile Of Shit” Award.

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It takes a woman...

In this case, federal appeals court Judge Virginia A. Phillips, to have the balls to do what’s right.  

After hearing a case brought by the pro-gay Log Cabin Republicans (I know.  It sounds weird to me, too.), Phillips issued a worldwide injunction this week stopping the enforcement of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy banning gays from serving their country.

President Obama, who repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail to make the repeal of DADT a priority, has been dragging his feet on the issue since he took office.  So here was his perfect opportunity to hide behind a woman’s robe and just let the ruling stand, but instead his Department of Justice has decided to appeal it and is asking the judge to issue a stay until the appeal can be heard.

Her decision will come on Monday.  Here’s hoping Judge Phillips tells them exactly where they can stick their request.

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Brett Favre is having a bad week...

First it was revealed that in 2008 the footballer sent a text photo of his penis to a gal he was trying to impress.  Because yeah – that’s what every woman yearns for from a man, a photo of his cock.   A chocolate replica maybe, but a photo?  Seriously, Brett, you’re one messed up dude.

Even God thinks you’re a douche as evidenced by the football that hit you squarely in the groin as you were minding your own business on the sidelines.  Oh, you thought that was an accident?  You think He didn’t also see that craptastic ball you threw that gave the Jets the game last Monday?

Poor, dumb bastard.  You must wonder how this all happened.   One day you’re at the top of your game, the world’s oyster, and the next you’re sitting on the ocean floor covered in BP oil.   Pride cometh before the fall, my friend. 

Maybe the Tea Party will welcome you.

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And speaking of the Tea Party…

Christine O’Donnell, the gift that keeps on giving, courtesy of the Bill Maher Show.  In this fun episode she takes on Eddie Izzard on why she never, ever tells a lie.

This week even Meghan McCain admitted that O’Donnell scared her.

And now it’s your turn.  Sound off…

injaynesworld we ask "How Many More Kids Have To Die...?"

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In January of this year, The Student Non-Discrimination Act was introduced into the House of Representatives.  In May, a companion bill was introduced in the Senate.

The bill would require that no student in public schools be “excluded from participation in, or be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance” based on the student’s sexual orientation or gender identity.  

While federal statutory and/or constitutional protections expressly address discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex and disability, they do not do so on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.  As a result, students and parents have limited legal recourse when such discrimination occurs.   Even worse, however, is when kids see gay students being openly discriminated against by school officials, it sends the message that being gay somehow makes one less a person and therefore it’s okay to harass them. 

This omission in federal law must be corrected.

Adding sexual orientation or gender identity to laws prohibiting discrimination already on the books seems like a perfectly reasonable and clearly long overdue action.   You would think, in light of statistics showing that gay teens are four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers, and especially in light of the rash of such suicides in just the past month, that this legislation would be a no-brainer. You would be wrong.

Backlash from the Christian “right” has been immediate and fierce.  So strong is their fear of homosexuality, that not even the deaths of innocent children can move or open their hearts.  There’s a simple and disturbing reason for this.   They do not consider these children to be innocent. 

Tom Prichard of the Minnesota Family Council blames the victims themselves.  “The students are dead because they adopted an unhealthy lifestyle.  People aren’t gay, lesbian or transgender by God’s design.”  He fears that if The Student Non-Discrimination Act is passed, “Schools will develop and promote acceptance of homosexual behavior.” 

Don’t you just love it when people attempt to mask their own hatred, ignorance and intolerance by purporting to speak for God?  I can only imagine what He must think.  

Clearly, what’s being forgotten here is that these are children we’re talking about.   Regardless of one’s personal beliefs about sexual identity, shouldn’t all children be provided a safe environment in which to learn?    If Prichard and others are correct and this legislation does lead to more acceptance of homosexuality in our schools, isn’t that also likely to lead to a reduction of bullying and violence against these kids?   

No child is born to hate.   Hate must be taught.  Kids take their cues from the adults around them.   If teachers tolerate taunts of “faggot” on the playground, then those taunts must be okay.  If gays aren’t allowed to attend their proms, then it must be okay to ostracize them in every other form of school life, to bully and beat them until they see only one way out and another life is lost. 

I can already hear you.   “Wait.  I don’t want a gay child beaten up or bullied, but do they have to attend the prom?”    It wasn’t that long ago that the same thing was said about blacks.   Fear of those who are different is nothing new, nor is the violence it inevitably produces.   At some point, we as a nation have to ask ourselves if we want to continue this legacy of hate or change course and become a society of tolerance that encourages all of its children to achieve their full potential.

The Student Non-Discrimination Act is a step in this direction.   It puts school administrators on notice that they must adapt a zero tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination and the hostile environment it creates or lose their federal funding.  So far the bill has 25 sponsors, 24 Democrats and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont.  Quite telling is the absence of a single Republican sponsor.  

Contact your representatives today and tell them to support  The Student Non-Discrimination Act.   Do it before one more child dies. 

Visit  www.Ooph.com for Stefanie Mullens' excellent series on bullying.