Odds and Sods: They don't call it lunacy for nothing!

Due to the strangeness surrounding me, I knew it was a full moon, way before I saw it. Sometimes, you just know.


~*~


And the USA careens onward, listing evermore to the right, approaching the fever pitch of November elections. If Obama is re-elected, I expect a partial suspension of government by newly-elected Tea Partiers. Newt Gingrich successfully pulled this nasty stunt in 1995 and you can expect a reprise.

What?--you say, alarmed, they can't do that! Daisy laughs ruefully. THEY can do any damn thing they want to. And the way things are presently going, I am girding my loins and preparing for the worst. (I just hope my generally-congenial personality means *I* am not locked up.)

Yesterday, once again, nearly rear-ended due to the bumper stickers. The guy who did it had an MIA bumper sticker... yes, it's a veritable WAR OF THE BUMPER STICKERS. But that's why I tend to worry about the arrival of fascism... sure looks that way to me.

Several of the guys I work with counseled me to buy a gun. Uh-huh, and I'm sure the MIA guy would also have one, and that is a good way for both of us to end up dead. (Then again, I might end up dead when one of them pushes my little car into oncoming traffic.)

Despite my resolve, I might have to scrub off the bumper stickers. Doncha love how these patriots only want constitutional rights (such as FREE SPEECH) for THEMSELVES and not for the rest of us?

Trying hard not to hate. Damn, that sounds so 70s, but I am really trying not to, and fiercely meditating on impermanence.

~*~

Although African-American women get more abortions than white women, abortion is still regarded as a "white women's issue"--why?

This salient question is what started Faith Pennick on the road to making her documentary SILENT CHOICES, about the silence of black women on the subject of abortion, even (especially?) their own... and the many reasons for this:

According to a 2009 report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, nearly eight in 10 African Americans claim that religion is very important in their lives, compared with just over half of all U.S. adults. And while black churches have historically served as beacons of political activism in this country, most of them have remained mute on the issue of abortion. “Black churches are very left as far as their political views on certain issues,” Pennick notes, “but when it comes to something like abortion, there’s this weird sort of break, like a split personality.”

One of the most pervasive stereotypes attached to this issue, Pennick says, is the image of the black woman as sexually promiscuous. “If we talk about abortion,” says Pennick, “it might make people think we’re freaks who just love sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with loving sex, but we’re giving the racists ammunition to say, ‘See, look at those sluts.’ “

To illustrate how this stereotype continues to thrive in contemporary society, Pennick points to the discovery in 2008 that Bristol Palin—the 17-year-old, unwed daughter of the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate—was pregnant. “Somehow, for conservative whites, it reinforced their traditional family values because she kept the baby and got engaged,” Pennick says. “But if that had been Sasha or Malia Obama, if they had been 16 or 17 and had gotten pregnant, oh my, every conservative in this country would have been saying, ‘[The Obamas] have no family values, they’re horrible parents.’“

Yup.

Excerpt from SILENT CHOICES. (caution, may trigger, etc)

Interesting that my mother's (illegal) abortion was also "a shot"--but she wasn't hit in the stomach. As a result of the shot, my mother slept for three days during which she bled so profusely, my grandmother thought she was dying.

After that, the pregnancy was gone, but I am convinced the hormonal-overdose might have been a precursor to the breast cancer she developed later.

It was her family doctor; he told her he did it all the time, but you had to "catch it early"...

~*~

RADISHES AND RICOTTA (unabashedly stolen from REAL SIMPLE):

1 cup fresh ricotta in small bowl
Drizzle with 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Sprinkle w/1/8 to 1/4 tsp each, kosher salt and plain black pepper
Serve with two bunches of trimmed radishes.

Excellent source of magnesium, potassium, Vitamin B6, and alla that good stuff! YUM!

~*~

Botox is bad, which of course, you already know. But not only because you are injecting botulism toxin into your body (((screams for emphasis))) but because of the results. Facial expressions are not simply facial expressions.

The University of Wisconsin is on the case:

[Researcher David] Havas was studying people after a pinpoint treatment to paralyze a single pair of "corrugator" muscles, which cause brow-wrinkling frowns.

To test how blocking a frown might affect comprehension of language related to emotions, Havas asked the patients to read written statements, before and then two weeks after the Botox treatment. The statements were angry ("The pushy telemarketer won't let you return to your dinner"), sad ("You open your e-mail in-box on your birthday to find no new e-mails") or happy ("The water park is refreshing on the hot summer day.").

Havas gauged the ability to understand these sentences according to how quickly the subject pressed a button to indicate they had finished reading it. "We periodically checked that the readers were understanding the sentences, not just pressing the button," says Havas.

The results showed no change in the time needed to understand the happy sentences. But after Botox treatment, the subjects took more time to read the angry and sad sentences. Although the time difference was small, it was significant, he adds. Moreover, the changes in reading time couldn't be attributed to changes in participants' mood.

In sales work, I often gauge customer satisfaction by facial expression, and have long noticed that the Botoxed crowd is unable to let you know whether they like something or not. They may even WANT to let you know, but have rendered themselves incapable of doing so. I find it disorienting, and I tend to go emotionless in response. (Thus, I foresee a future in which all interactions between older women will be reduced to Stepford Wife/android-conversations.)

Uppity women are now controlled with pharmaceutical drugs and with the law; through advertising and through our reproductive capacities, and now, they can control our emotions, as I wrote three years ago. Women appearing unhappy or pissed off will probably be outlawed when the Tea Party takeover is complete, and the Botox injections will be mandatory.

Michele Bachmann's doctor will be rich, rich, rich! (Okay, I know, that was nasty.)

~*~

I used to read Adrienne von Speyr, when I was in my hard-core, pseudo-Opus Dei period. And I admit, I still like her! If anyone needs some female-authored (and surprisingly woman-centered) Catholic mysticism, check her out.

She once wrote: Anyone who knows the fullness of the light should not live in the twilight for the sake of thrift.

And I've always tried to live by that.

~*~

Closing with some random tunes I posted on Facebook, and some I've just been listening to in my car... starting with my favorite local band! :)

I'm a Country Man - Mac Arnold and Plate Full O Blues



~*~

All I've got to do - The Beatles



~*~

Easy To Be Hard - Three Dog Night



~*~

This is special for Mr Daisy! (kisses)

Peggy-O - New Riders of the Purple Sage



~*~

Big finish! Whenever I hear this song, I always wonder where all the Quaaludes went, LOL. In Ohio, we called em Sopors, while in the UK (and sometimes on the East Coast), the term was Mandrax. This meant: If you hitchhiked or otherwise traveled a lot, you might not know what you were being offered as you left one region for another, so it was important to be informed!

Ah, pharmaceutical nostalgia for all the former lude-heads in my readership! (goes with the whole FULL MOON motif)

Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll - Blue Oyster Cult