Losing my religion

As if I didn't have enough to do this summer now I have to add "get excommunicated" to my list.

***

When I lived in Colorado Springs I worked at the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy.  It was a great job.  I had a lot of fun there and I really liked the people I worked with.  With one exception.  I called that exception Father Butthead.  Father Buttead was a catholic priest and a thoroughly unpleasant man.  He was arrogant, rude to everyone around him and always smelled like stale liquor and cigarettes.  One day he got mad at me and another girl I worked with for not doing something or other and he called us "lazy fat-asses".  That was pretty much the beginning of the end for me.

 ***

I was baptized into the catholic church when I was a baby.  It's what people in my family did back then.  Most of my family isn't even particularity religious; it was just done out of tradition.  Out of my 21 cousins I think only one of them was not baptized.

My family was not religious at all and we never went to church.  Aside from what little information I picked up here and there at funerals and weddings and the like, I never was never really taught about the religion I was baptized into.  That was fine with me, I never had any interest in any of it anyway.

Then I started working at the chapel and I started to become interested in religion and the catholic religion specifically.  One of my jobs was to stand near the doors during Sunday services and keep tourists from coming in and wandering around.  My favorite services to attend were the catholic services.  This started because I had a major crush on one of the cadets who served as an usher during the services but eventually I became genuinely interested in the services themselves.

I liked the ceremony, the rituals, the music.  I found the whole thing fascinating.  I mean, how did everyone just know when to say "And also with thee" at just the right time?  And when to stand and when to kneel and when to sit?  Amazing!  I enjoyed it so much that I even started to attend the services even on the occasional Sundays that I wasn't working.

If you had asked me what religion I was at that point I probably would have said I was catholic.  I liked feeling like I was part of the  mystery and majesty of it all.  For an 18 year old still trying to figure out her life and herself it seemed like a pretty good thing to be a part of.

Then Father Butthead came to work at the chapel.  He took over the Sunday services.  Every time I would see him speak Catholicism lost some of it's luster for me.  This was a man who was supposed to be leading people towards righteousness?  He spoke about kindness and compassion yet he could barely summon up common courtesy for his fellow man.  I know a lot of the parishioners really liked Father Butthead but he really changed my thinking about religion (Catholicism in particular) and not in a good way.

Now I don't want you to think that this was a case of one bad apple ruining the bunch.  This man did not shape my views on religion.  He just helped bring into focus for me some of the things that I doubtlessly would have figured out on my own anyway.  As I got older I started to really examine what I believed and why I believed it.  Or rather, what I didn't believe.  I also started to become more skeptical and look at things from a standpoint of logic rather than faith.

By the time I was 24 there had been some major changes in my life.  I was living in Minnesota, I was married, I had a baby.  If you had asked me then what religion I was would have said I wasn't any religion.  (Full disclosure - Jesse and I were married in a catholic church but it was only because I really liked the building and I sort of liked the idea of a big, traditional church wedding.  I am a hypocrite, I know.)  I didn't identify myself as catholic and I thought that since I never went to church I was no longer a member of that particular club.

Then, like every one else int he world, I started to hear about the child abuse that happened within the catholic church.  Hell, it didn't just happen, the church allowed it to happen.  Encouraged it even by doing nothing more to prevent it other than to shuffle the abusive priests around to new parishes every few years.  I became curious as to how a culture of violence (yes, violence) against children could become so entwined with the catholic religion.  The more I learned the more appalled I became with Catholicism.  I'm not going to post links to everything I've ever read here because you're smart people and you know how to google (and if you choose to google I hope you read information from all sides of the argument so that you can come an informed conclusion) but there is a wealth of information out there.  

The church is anti-woman - their stance on abortion and reproductive care in general is horrendous.  They're anti-family - they strongly oppose marriage equality.  They're anti-child - do I even need to explain this one?

All of this is bad but a few days ago I read an article that really pushed me over the edge. (Found here.)  I'll summarize for those of you that don't like to click links.  A nine year old girl in Brazil was found to be pregnant with twins.  Her step-father confessed to raping her.  The girls mother took her to get an abortion.  The church excommunicated the girl's mother and the doctors who performed the abortion  but not the rapist step-father.  Their reasoning? "Rape is a serious crime but a graver act than (rape) is abortion to eliminate an innocent life.” And how did the church expect a nine year old girl to carry and deliver twins?  By c-section of course.

Try to wrap your brain around that.  Try to fathom the lack of compassion and basic human decency that would allow the church to take that stance.  It's mind boggling.

I posted this article on facebook and in the ensuing discussion a friend pointed out something interesting.  She said that if you were baptized in a catholic church then the church will consider you a member pretty much forever.  So if, for example, an article were to come out saying "There are X-number of Catholics in Minnesota" guess who would be included in that number.  Yep, yours truly.    Even though I disagree with pretty much everything the church stands for, even though I never go to church or pay dues or whatever it is that church people do.

So I started looking into how to get taken off that list.  Turns out they don't make it easy.  You can't just call up and ask to be removed.  You actually have to be excommunicated.  And even that's kind of a hassle. You can't walk in and demand an excommunication.  You have to something off of their "Very, Very Naughty" list.  One of those things is to physically assault the pope.  I think he's a terrible man in charge of a terrible organization but I really don't see that happening.  I wonder if they'll let me out if I tell them that every time I drive by Planned Parenthood I make rude hand gestures to the protesters standing outside?

I'll figure something out.  Even if it's only on paper, I can't be a part of organization that fought to maintain a statute of limitations on sex crimes against children.  Maybe they'll let me out if Father Butthead calls and tells them what a fat-ass I am.

I realize that this is a sensitive subject.  My intention is not to offend anyone who is catholic even though the catholic church offends me.  I know some wonderful people who are catholic.  I do not think the problem lies with the individuals within the church, I think the institution as a whole is flawed.

Two years ago today Joseph was one of a kind and I added another chapter in his adoption story.

Four years ago today I had a weed problem.

A notice to the general public

It's really not cool to give a nine year old boy a hard time about the birthday cake he chose. Even if you think it's strange that he chose a Power Puff Girls cake. Even if you are "joking".

You can think what you want about it but in the end it's probably just best if you keep your opinion to yourself. Especially if voicing your opinion means that you're going to be making fun of a little boy* for choosing a cake with female cartoon characters on it.

*You'll notice that I don't pull the "way to make fun of an autistic kid!" card even though I totally could.

Two years ago today people asked me dumb questions about parenting an adopted child and Elle was cute even when she cried.

Peter, Paul and Mary are on my list now

Despite having made what may be the best Christmas album ever Peter, Paul and Mary have got me really irked. What could these kind and gentle folk singers have done to make me so angry? Four words: Puff the Magic Dragon.

I hardly even have the words to write about how this song makes me feel. And no, it's not because the song is about pot because they say it's not and despite the fact that I'm so irritated, Peter, Paul and Mary were a fixture in the soundtrack of my childhood and I'm not ready to abandon all hope and faith in them just yet.

I'm mad because the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" is just so freaking sad. I remember really liking it as a kid. I would happily sing along with it whenever it was played* and because I was so young I never even questioned what the song was all about. Then one day I listened to what the song saying, really listened.

It's a horrible song!

In the whole world poor Puff has one friend, a boy named Jackie Paper. Jackie loves Puff and Puff loves Jackie. Puff even plays whatever games Jackie wants to. That's a pretty big sacrifice considering that Jackie likes to play with string and sealing wax.**

Does Jackie Paper appreciate Puff's friendship? No, he does not. He goes and grows up and stops visiting Puff altogether. Puff, now friendless, stop playing along along the cherry lane. He stops roaring. HIS SCALES FALL OFF!

The day I realized how sad this song really is I cried. I can remember it clearly. It was a hot summer day and I was in the backseat of my parent's car stuck to the vinyl seat. I sobbed. I cried for poor Puff and his lonely life and his falling out scales. I made my parents fast forward the tape. Even after the song was skipped I kept right on crying. Peter, Paul and Mary broke my heart with that song.

Now I'm 31 years old and I still can't listen to Puff the Magic Dragon. I'm sure I'll never be able to listen to it. Every so often though the song creeps back into my subconscious. I'll find myself mindlessly humming it and every single time it depresses me. And it makes me angry. That damned Jackie Paper, just who does he think he is? He turns his back on the one person(?) who was willing to indulge his love of sting and wax and then that person(?) dies**** of sadness.

It burns me. It just burns me.

*Eight times a day for the first 14 years of my life.

**As a kid I thought this was ceiling wax. I didn't know what exactly it was but I figured it was something people used in the olden days.***

***I thought this song was really old. Like it was written back during a time when people used to wax their ceilings.

****I assume anyway. I don't think dragons can live through massive scale lose.

PS. Since I really do love Peter, Paul and Mary allow me to share the following video with you. Folk at it's finest and I can't get through it without getting weepy. In a good way.

Hooray for abuse!

Yesterday left me very crabby.

A bunch of people in the jury selection pool seemed thrilled that they had a captive audience to spew their random stories to. Every time the attorneys would ask a question of the group several people would use that chance to tell long, rambling stories that had very little to do with the original question. One guy in particular was the worst. He just kept talking and talking and talking and when he told a story he would use long, drawn out pauses. Sometimes he would pause so long that I wondered if maybe he had passed out from the boredom of his own stories but then he would pick right up again. It took all my willpower not to turn around and shriek "GET A BLOG!" The selection could have taken 30 minutes but it went on for nearly 2 hours thanks to all the stories.

Several people ended up getting excused right away because they seemed unable to grasp simple concepts. The case being tried was a man charged with domestic assault. A bunch of people in the pool said right off they couldn't' be unbiased in the case because "hitting women is wrong". Well no shit hitting women is wrong. That's why it's a crime. But that's not really the point here is it? One woman (who looked like she was in her sixties and came to court wearing a t-shirt and cut off jean shorts) said "Oh, I read so much about abuse in the papers these days and I just really don't agree with it."

I wonder what she thought the rest of us in the jury pool who didn't speak up thought about abuse. "Hooray for abuse! I love it!"

After a bunch of people were excused because they weren't able to be unbiased (and because they were morons unable to grasp the whole point of what we were there for) there were only about 10 people left to select a jury of six from. Much to my surprise I was excused. I was a little confused as to why they let me go but kept the woman who was openly nasty to the defense attorney and the woman who's sister was killed by her husband. Maybe if I had told more stories about myself. I probably only said about a dozen words or so during the whole thing. It's probably for the best though. I said that I could be fair and unbiased but I don't know how true that is. See, I'm not exactly down with abuse either so if there had been even a tiny shred of evidence against the guy I would have had him hung. Or convicted. Or whatever.

Since I got out of jury duty early I was able to make it to Joseph's final soccer game of the season. Just my luck I ended up sitting next to Mrs Asshat who spent a good portion of the game telling the guy next to her that she thinks the reason so many kids are autistic these days is that their parents are too soft on them. I can't even go too far into that because it just makes me so angry. I will say though that against hitting women as I am the only thing that saved that woman from leaving the field with a fat lip was that Jesse was sitting next to me telling me to calm down. Although he almost earned himself a fat lip when he said "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion." True, but sometimes your opinion makes you an ignorant asshole and you need to have the stupid knocked out of you*.

When evening rolled around my parents picked the kids up to take them out for ice cream and to feed geese. I went out to dinner with a friend but first I made Jesse some soup. Because I'm a good wife like that. I took the time to make my husband some dinner even though I wasn't going to be home when he ate. And do you know what he said when I got home and asked him how the soup was? "Eh, it was pretty bland."

Is there a jury in the world that would have convicted me if I had just smacked him around a little bit?

*I would never hit someone. Not my kids, not my husband, not a stranger, not a complete asshat who totally had it coming. Never. If I ever did hit someone though it would be a person who thinks that autism is not real and/or caused by bad parenting.

I'm not strong so I leak when I eat marinara sauce

If you want to see me reach Hulk-like levels of rage then force me to watch this commercial for Dixie paper plates.

Aurgh! JEN SMASH!!! Let's take it line by line shall we?

Nitwit #1 - *breathy laugh* "I will no longer be defined by the number of dishes I wash." *breathy laugh*
My response: Why were you defining yourself by that in the first place? Is there anyone, ever, in the entire history of the world who defined themselves by how many dishes they washed? No. Do you know why? Because it's stupid and no one actually thinks that that way. And as long as your kitchen isn't a total shithole (um) no one else cares how many dishes you wash either.

Nitwit #2 - "I'm trading in my apron for something a little more glamorous!" *ditzy giggle*
My response - Oh come on! Before you started using paper plates you didn't have five minutes to sit down and let your daughter paint your nails because you were just that busy wearing your apron and washing dishes? Yeah. I buy that. Because I have no brain and I'm just a stupid woman and all I know is that I like pretty things like nail polish.

Nitwit #3 - "I deserve a paper plate that's as strong as I am. It has to stand up to my grandmother's marinara without soaking through."
My response: I don't even get what you're trying to say here. Does the paper plate have to be as physically strong as you are? Because I don't think that's going to happen. There's a reason you don't see the paper plates carrying in the groceries. Or do you mean as emotionally strong as you are? And how strong does one have to be in order to stand up to marinara sauce? This is the worst part of the whole commercial because it makes no fricken sense! It would be better if she said "I deserve a paper plate that's as strong as I am. If I can handle my grandmother's marinara without leaking, my paper plate should too." It wouldn't make any sense but at least it would make me laugh.

Nitwit #4 - "My children come first, it's as simple as that."
My response: My children come first too. That's why I would like to leave them a planet not clogged up with crap that I used once and then threw away when I had a perfectly good and reusable alternative at my finger tips.

Nitwit #3 again: "And I'm proud to use Dixie Ultra paper plates if it means fewer dishes and spending time with my family."
My response: The whole commercial (and this part in particular) ignore one very important fact. Plates are about the easiest, quickest type of dish to wash. Cups, silver wear, pots and pans? All harder to wash than plates. If you're hand washing then plates usually don't need more than a swipe or two with a soapy dishrag. If you have a dishwasher plates can be tossed in any old way. There's nothing hard about plates. Therefor there is no reason to be "proud" for finding a replacement for them. There is no way, by any stretch of the imagination that using disposable plates make you a better mother. Period.

And do I even need to point out that there are only women in this commercial? Because only women do dishes I guess. Only women would be proud of finding a way to spend 8.6 seconds more with their family a day.

So. Yeah. I really, really hate that commercial. What commercials do you hate?

To the person who stole my antenna ball

To the person who stole my antenna ball,
I am so glad that you got such a kick out of my Mickey Mouse antenna ball. We always enjoyed it too. I'm sure you'll enjoy how much easier it makes it to find your car in a crowded parking lot. That was one of the things that we liked most about it. In fact, just the other day my son remarked how when he came out of school he always looked for the antenna ball to help him find the car. I'm sure the tears he shed when he discovered the ball was missing were tears of joy. Joy that now someone else could get use out of something that we ...... weren't really done using.

Stealing that antenna ball certainly was clever of you! Where else in the world would you have found one if you hadn't taken the one off of our car? It not like you could have found one in a store or a catalog or ebay or Amazon or in 8 billion other places. And think of the money you saved yourself! Why, by stealing our faded old Mickey Mouse antenna ball you saved yourself the three or four dollars it would have cost you to buy a brand new one.

Enjoy your antenna ball! I hope it brings you as much pleasure as it brought us! And I certainly hope no one ever steals anything from you (even something that might seem small and insignificant) because it kind of sucks ass.

Screw them all

Fuck you for making a comment about the size of my boobs as you walked past me. And fuck you again for repeating the comment louder when your friend asked what you had said. And fuck your friend for turning around and staring at my chest like he had never seen a pair of breasts before. Fuck me for knowing exactly what the two of you were doing but feeling so crummy and insecure that all I did about it was hunch my shoulders forward and feel dirty.

I'm so sick of these things. I'm sick of the neck and back pain I've had since I was 17. I'm sick of not being able to find cute clothes that fit right (or if I do, wearing it once and then stretching it out so much that I can't wear it again). I'm sick of people thinking it's ok to just openly stare at my chest when they walk past me.

The second I'm done having babies and/nursing these things are getting chopped.

My good luck ran out

I've flown several times in my life. Often enough that I feel like there's nothing really involved in air travel that can suprise me. I know that you can get stuck sitting in front of a kid who won't stop kicking your seat or a crazy old lady who won't stop talking to you or a rather large man who thinks that just because he's sitting in the middle seat he's entitled to use both armrests. I've been in all these seating situations and none of them were really that big of a deal. In fact, as soon as I got off the plane I forgot about them. I've been very lucky in that for most of my life I have never had a really bad seatmate.

All that changed when I recently flew from LA to Minneapolis. My good flight luck ran out. I was seated next to the most disgusting I have ever had the misfortune to "meet".

It all started out ok. As I sat in the waiting area I couldn't help but notice that there were about 40 or so young, obnoxious Army guys waiting for the same plane as me. I was worried that I was going to end up sitting right in the middle of all of them. Even under the best of circumstances I'm not a big fan of large groups of rowdy 18-22 year old guys. Not to mention, and I'm ashamed to even admit this, that there is still a little bit of Air Force snobbery left in me. I look down on the Army. Look, it's not right but I can't help how I feel. Air Force rules, Army drools!

Anyway, I didn't want to sit by the grunts. So you an imagine my pleasure at finding out I was seated no where near them. Yippee! I was even more pleased to find myself seated on the isle next to a man furiously scribbling out a complicated mathmatical formula on a notepad. He seemed like the perfect person to sit next to. He probably wouldn't try to talk to me as I read my book or did the crossword puzzle in the back of the in-flight magazine. My happiness lasted about as long as it took for me to get my seatbelt buckled.

Then the smell hit me. It was like sour milk combined with moldy fruit. "Please" I thought to myself "Let that be a random odor drifting from somewhere. Please do not let that be the guy next to me."

It was. If the flight hadn't been full I would have jumped up right there and asked to be moved to another seat. But the flight was full and I was stuck. I decided to read my book and suck on a hard candy and concentrate very hard on not paying any attention to the guy next to me.

Here's the thing though. When someone is sitting 2 inches away from you it's hard to ignore the. That's why I couldn't help but notice that the man next to me started to dig in his nose. He had damned near half his hand in there. Every so often he would pull out his finger, inspect it and then flick whatever he found to the floor. And it wasn't like he was being discreet either! He was openly just jamming his finger into his nose over and over and over. And after he finished with one nostril he went to work on the other. At this point I would have happily sat on a grunts lap if it meant getting away from this guy.

Then it got worse. Yes, worse. He started to dig in his ears. Oh god, I tried not to watch. He would pull out large gobs of wax and then wipe it on his notebook paper. He didn't even try to fold up the paper or throw it away or anything! He just left it sitting there like he was proud of it! Like it was part of the mathmatical equation he was working on!

Next he started digging in his teeth. Whatever he found in there ended up on the floor with his nasal trophies. (I wonder how he decided what to flick and what to wipe?) Then he started in on his eyes. All through his picking and wiping and picking and flicking routine I told myself to be calm, it would all be over soon. After all, the man only had so many holes on his face that he could clean out. It couldn't go on forever.

Then the scratching started. He would lift up hsi arm so that his pit was about .4 cenimeters from my face. Then he would start to scratch. And he would scratch and scratch and scratch. Then he would do the other side. (I should mention that as bad as I had it the woman on the other side of him had it worse. I noticed that at one point he had taken his flip flops off and had his feet under the seat in front of her. Why she didn't say something I don't know, I would have.)

There was still more scratching to be done! After all, what's a flight without a solid hour of scratching your balls? After the ball scratching he started in on the face picking again. Oh, it was so horrible. And to top it off, as we were waiting to get off the plane he nearly knocked me unconsious when he hit me in the head with his carry on as he wrestled it out of the overhead compartment. I didn't even care at that point. All I cared about was getting off that plane, finding a bathroom and scrubbing down the entire right side of my body.

It was so terrible. I figure whatever bad flight karma I wracked up out to have been wiped out with that one flight though. Now I can go back to having reasonable pleasant, booger flicking free flights.

Are there Mexicans in Cancun?

Dear obnoxious magazine guy,
No, I do not want to buy any magazines to help you win a trip to Cancun. Even though you think you're really cute and smooth, I don't want to order any magazines from you. I wouldn't want to order magazines from you even if you looked like Orlando Bloom. What made me even less likely to want to order magazines from you is when you casually dropped the fact that you don't like "Mexicans or anyone else who doesn't speak English" into your sales pitch. Um. Yeah. Why in the world would you think that's ok? And why in the world would you want to win a trip to Cancun? Do you not know where that's located? There's Mexicans in them there hills!

And do you really think it helped your case when you told me not 30 seconds later that your father was a Marine and that "you know how those military guys are, they think a good time is killing someone"? Of course you had no way of knowing that my father is a "military guy" and that I can't think of very many things he would want to do less than kill someone.

What really put you in the doghouse though, obnoxious magazine guy, was when you guessed my age and put me at "about 36". Fuck you asshole. Get the hell off my porch. And no, I will not direct you towards the houses of any of my "white neighbors who might like to buy some magazines".

Thank you,
A 30 year old, non-Mexican hating, proud daughter of a kind and gentle military guy

I don't like feeding my baby dog poop

I've been accused of being a germaphobe and a clean freak. I'll give those of you who know me a second to calm down.

OK.

All right, that's enough now.

You can stop laughing any time now.

OK, that's enough MOM!

Anyway, a germaphobe? Maybe. A clean freak? Even I had a good chuckle about that. Let me tell you what happened and you can give me your take on it. I'm curious if I really am a neurotic germaphobe or if the other people involved in this incident just needed a good dose of common sense.

I like to read this website that has little hints and tips for raising kids. It has ideas on everything from ways to keep your kids busy in the car to quick clean up tips to helpful bedtime routines. It's a pretty neat site and I've gotten a couple of good ideas off it. One tip sent in by a reader really made me gag though. She said that when she was out to eat her toddler would always throw his silverware on the floor. She got tired of asking for new silverware so she came up with a really "great" idea instead. She asked the waitress to bring her a cup of hot water and then when her son dropped his silverware on the floor she would dip it in the water to "clean" it and then give him back the silverware and let him eat with it. Got that? She picked up silverware off the floor and considered it clean enough for her child to eat with after she dipped it in hot water. She also suggested that you could do this with dropped teething rings and nuks. Could you just vomit all over?

I pointed out as nicely as I could that any water that the waitress would bring you wouldn't really be hot enough to kill any germs and that after the first time you dipped the silverware all you would really be doing would be creating a nice germy, lukewarm stew. I also pointed out that restaurant floors are filthy with who know how many people tracking who knows what in. And doubtlessly some of those people used the bathroom in the restaurant and if there's anything dirtier than the the floor under a restaurant table it's the floor of a public restroom. So I said all this very nicely and people responded and called me a germaphobe and a clean freak.

OK. Yeah. Right. So I responded to them and explained that I really wasn't a germaphobe and that in my own home I really didn't make such a big deal about germs. I made the point that in a public place you're exposed to so much more than you are at home and that all you were really doing with the cup of water was creating a little germ hot tub and that just didn't seem like the greatest idea in the world to me.

That didn't go over so well. I was told that if I continued to think like that that my kids were going to come out as neurotic as I am. Ha! I'll have the last laugh here. I already knew my kids were going to be neurotic. One just has to look back at one or two generations of my family and they'll see that we've got a natural neurotic tendency. So if they become neurotic it will be because of family tradition and not because I think it's a bad idea to let a baby use a spoon coated with E Coli and dog shit.

Was I wrong? Is the Cup O' Bacteria a good idea? Or is it just gross and kind of stupid?

Normal is the new fat

I used to be an MTV addict. If there was an episode of The Real World on I watched. It didn't matter what season it was from or how many times I had already seen it. I watched it anyway, I was powerless to resist. Then I got a little older and I found myself getting more and more annoyed with the show. By the time the Las Vegas season came I had pretty much tuned out.

But then the evil marketing geniuses at MTV came up with something that drew me back in. The Real World/Road Rules challenges. Something about the challenges just drew me in. I knew it was total trash but I didn't care. I could watch and episode and hate every single person on it but I would still be entertained.

But here's my question. Has the show always been as anti-women as it is now? Or have I just recently noticed this? I would like to think that it wasn't always like this and that it's just gotten bad over time. I would hate to think that at one time I didn't notice that the entire show was pretty much a platform for the "men" on the show to wave their dicks around and make misogynistic comments.

Even the women on the show seem to be taking part in it. They whine about how they need as many men as possible on their team and how the other girls are just dead weight. I have never once seen one of them say anything like "Hey! Girls can do stuff too! We don't have to rely on the boys to carry us through this!"

The most disturbing thing that I've noticed lately on the show though is how damned skinny all the women are. Take Paula:

Now Paula is anorexic but she doesn't really look all that different than most of the other women on her team. Many of them look like they might topple over if a butterfly landed on them particularly hard. What happens when someone on the show is slightly larger? Take Janelle:

Pretty girl right? Yeah. On nearly episode she gets called things like "a whole lotta girl". And god forbid that the woman be an even larger size. Take Anessa:

I can't stand Anessa on the show but I've gotten tired of the constant comments about her weight. On the last episode there was a swimming challenge and one of the other people on the show commented that she was "swimming like there was a cupcake on the other side". Nice. And this kind of stuff is said all the time. Certainly MTV can't control what the people on it's shows say. But they can decide how many of these hurtful and damaging comments that they're going to put in every episode of their shows.

Why all the fat jokes MTV? Is your female audience not insecure enough already? Do you have to comtinue to drill it into their heads that they should not have any curves at all unless they're the surgicaly implanted, saline kind? Screw you MTV. This is one cupcake loving girl that won't be watching you anymore.

Edited - All of the sudden I'm getting a ton of hits for this entry and I can't figure out why. Where are you all coming from?

Bitter much?

Confidential to a dodged bullet:
Suck it bitch, I never liked you either.

Kids these days

Do not look at the picture on the left if you are under the age of 21! Apparently that's what making kids drink. At least that's what several anti-alcohol groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Marin Institute would have you believe. Critics claim that the drink, called Spykes, is being marketed towards underage drinkers because it it's strong flavors (lime, mango, melon and hot chocolate) mask the taste of alcohol. They also so that it's ingredients (caffeine, ginseng and guarana, which are components of energy drinks) are aimed at making the drink more attractive to underage drinkers.

Anheuser-Busch is caving under the pressure from these groups and removing the drink from the market.

Why does this bug me so much? It's certainly not that I have any allegince to Anheuser-Busch. I have no feelings one way or the other on their company. It's not that I really like Spykes. In fact, before I read the aritcle that inspired this blog entry I had never even heard of Spykes. (Although it does sound kind of good and if I wasn't going to be getting pregnant soon I might go out and get some just for the fun of it.) It bugs me because Anheuser-Busch is caving to the pressure of stupid people. And I hate stupid people making decisions for the rest of us.

Critics of the drink are claiming a that having this drink removed from the market is a victory over underage drinking. Stupid person and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, "This move by Anheuser-Busch, ceasing sales of Spykes after attorneys general raised significant concerns, is a significant victory in the fight against underage drinking."

I would tell Mr Blumenthal that this drink being taken off the market does not mean diddly squat when it comes to underage drinking. No teenager is going to go "Hey! They took my favorite drink off the market! No more partying for me!" And no teenager is going to decided not to start drinking because this product doesn't exsist. They'll just drink something else.

Teenagers drink. It's what they do. I mean, I'm sure my kids never will (humor me ok?) but for the rest of us, we have to deal with the fact that teenagers drink. Let me tell you a couple of stories. I can remember when I was in high school, sitting in a class and being surrounded by people who were so hung over that they could hardly move. It was not at all unusual for people to pour alcohol right into their pop cans and have a drink as class was going on. When my parents were teenagers they drank with their friends. Hell, from what I've heard they probably were the ones that were throwing the parties. One time when my grandfather was a kid a friend of his brought a jug of wine to school. They hid it in the woods and at recess all the kids went and sipped from it.

What do these stories have in common? None of the people in them had Spykes or similar type drinks in them. Kids were drinking long before drinks like this came along and they'll be drinking long after they're gone. If people want to stop underage drinking they need to focus on it's root causes and not on individual products. Do teenagers drink Spykes? I don't know, probably. But if you're going to get rid of a drink just because teenagers drink it then you might want to start with beer or wine coolers or hard liquor or Boone's Farm.

As a parent I realize that underage drinking is a problem but moves like this are simply not the solution. I have no idea what the solution is. Ijust have enough common sense to know that getting one brand of drink taken off the market isn't a victory over anything.

Utter crap

I got a flyer in the mail today from a group called Defending Moral Values. They wanted to inform me about such things as how same sex marriage is selfish, how abortion causes maternal depression and how telling our children to "tolerate" the homosexual lifestyle will lead to child pornography. It all makes perfect sense to me! Or, not so much.

When I read the thing I was annoyed enough to call them up and demand that they take my name off their mailing list. No phone number. I sent them an email telling them that I find their ideas offense and that I pretty much stood for everything that they're against. My guess is that now I'm on some kind of crazy list and I'm going to be getting more crap like this in the future.

I've told Joseph about what "gay" means. I've explained that when two people love each other what really matters is that they're nice to each other and treat each other well. He seems to understand it and think it's not big deal. Amazingly he has not yet been drawn into the world of child porn.

This group also focuses on how gay marriage is threatening "true" marriage. Uh, how exactly? They don't say. Can someone please explain to me how my marriage is affected AT ALL by any two other consenting adults getting married? If two people find each, fall in love and choose to spend their lives together doesn't that just strenghten the idea of marriage in general? I have yet to see one bit of evidence that John Doe and John Smitth falling in love hurts me (or anyone) at all.

These groups that try to hide their messages of hate under the guise of trying to protect children really bother me. I won't give a flying flip if Joseph would turn out to be gay. And although I hope she never finds herself having to make the choice I can honestly say I wouldn't be angry at Elle if she came to me someday and told me she needed to have an abortion. These are things that I could deal with as a parent. But let me tell you what would make me sick. I would be disgusted to find out that one of my children had ever sent out a flyer like the one I got today. I don't want to raise people like that. Hell, I don't even want to admit that they exsist.

If you agree with me then please shoot an email over to the folks at Defending Moral Values. Let them know that hate is not a value that your family promotes. I would say more but my phone is ringing so I have to go. It's probably those darn child pornographers calling again.