The rants go marching one by one... WHERE ARE YOUR MANNERS?!?!

I’m feeling ranty today.

Yes, that is so too a word. Ranty. It means “one who has sudden outbursts of rage directed towards anything irritating. Or rude. Or irritating and rude.” By the way, that definition is in the Dictionary of Janey.

While we’re on the subject of new words… ranty is a kissing cousin of stabbity. This little gem is defined as “inclined to stab or appearing inclined to stab, at persons or things through aggravation or other stabworthy moods.” Stabbity often festers up in the morning, before you caffeine addicts get your bean juice fix.

Note that I say you caffeine addicts because I’m one of those rare delightful creatures who doesn’t require coffee or tea or whatever in the morning to get going. I’m just naturally bright and sunny when I wake up.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Even I can’t pretend to buy that bit of crapola. I just happen to prefer my caffeine cold and am one who can wake up and function sans the magic stuff (just don't look at my hair right away...) Gimme an iced tea, lemon on the side… and don’t be stingy, baby.

Anyhow.

I’m ranty today. In an “I need a Snickers” kind of way. Mmmmm. Snickers.

But I digress. Again.

Here’s the thing: when did people become so damn selfish and self-involved when out in public? I know this is not a new phenomenon, but it’s really sticking in my craw lately. OK -- more than usual. I'm from the South. We do like our manners down here -- even partial facsimiles of manners are better than nothing. And a big part of manners involves being aware of and sensitive to others around you.

Example: There is a new car line system at Will’s school. It was needed, to be honest, because after school pick up used to be survival of the fittest, with vehicles parking any damn place that pleased the drivers (like in the middle of the street) and speed limits disregarded. It was like a real-life game of Frogger. With cars. Now there’s a much-more regimented system in place. An organized drop-off/pick up system. Administrators with BULL HORNS! And a one-way-in/one-way-out set up for cars. Allegedly. There’s a very orderly car line set up, complete with traffic cones that cordon off things into one lane rolling in front of the school. However (you know there’s always a “however” with these things…) things don’t become one lane until about 10 yards before the school, leaving a two-lane system.

Can you tell that this car line thing has been the big issue of this school year so far? Most of us polite, civilized parent/guardian-type people arrive at the school and line up in the appropriate lane, on the right hand side of the thoroughfare, waiting our turn to get our kiddos. But then there are those people who come racing through on the left hand side, pull up to where the traffic cones are and then proceded to try to CUT IN LINE and merge in. Same cars every day. Trust me. I notice these things.

Makes me stabbity. STABBITY!



I realize that I could be making a mountain out of a molehill -- in the overall scheme of things, this is a very little issue that's not really that important (no matter how irritating it may be.) But I do think it's indicative of something I see more and more -- a desensitizing of folks to things and others around them. A decline in manners and politeness.  It's your world. And your world. Oh yeah -- your world too.  The rest of us just live in it.

Now before you start flooding the comments section with "Janey you ignorant slut" cracks defending yourself and calling me down, I'm just making some general observations. We're not all self-absorbed. It's not always about us. I know that. Sometimes it just is. Happens to everyone. But when it becomes a way of life as opposed to a situational, periodic thing, well...

Perhaps I'm hyper-sensitive because I have a kiddo who is developmentally delayed. And who sometimes is a little self-absorbed. Who doesn't always sing his song du jour in his inside voice. Who can lose patience because he doesn't always understand what's going on around him. (To his great credit, as he's maturing, these issues are losing strength. He's truly growing up.) And yes, I never EVER want to be "that mom" with the completely inappropriate child in public. We get enough looks and whispers as it is. I've been told that I'm too hard on Will in such situations -- that people like to hear him sing and it's charming when he chats up the ladies. There's a balance in there someplace that I keep trying to achieve. And yes, there's a difference between Will singing Bon Jovi loudly in the check-out line at Publix and the mom who decided that the middle of the therapy waiting room was the perfect place for her to commandeer for her and her kids to do homework as they spread out over one table and two benches and carried on as if they were in their own living room. Although the look she gave me while Will and I were working on our phonics and I asked him to name something that began with B and he said in a not-so-inside voice "boobies" was probably merited.

Yeah. I know.

Back to the matter at hand.

So now that I've gotten this issue off my, well, boobies (Shut it. I couldn't resist.), I realize that for every jackass that turned left from the right hand lane right in front of me, narrowly missing me T-boning his nasty panel van, there are gentle souls like the lovely ladies working at the Savannah Cracker Barrel who calmed my nerves and brought me to tears one stressful morn with their kindness, assuring me that Will was being just a normal kid on what was starting out to be a rough tough day.

I feel like I've eaten a virtual Snickers. All of the benefits, none of the calories.

Although I still think the world could use a memo about please, thank you and pardon me. Maybe a demonstration on holding the door open for someone else periodically. A reminder to not use the speaker function on one's cell phone in a public place unless one would like my peanut gallery comments about one's conversation. (You think I'm kidding? Try me...) And DON'T CUT IN FRONT OF ME IN CAR LINE!

Should have stopped while I was ahead.

One last thing... thank you, gentle reader, for stopping by. It's been my pleasure to host and hopefully entertain you for this brief period. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

SMACK.

A Special Comment from Keith Olbermann regarding the Ferraro/HRC mess.

Worth a watch.



Edward R. Murrow would be proud.

Simply Unbelievable.

Hold on a moment while I pick my jaw up off the ground...

Just when I thought that people couldn’t surprise me anymore, something like this little anecdote comes along.

Was on the phone with my galpal, the teacher in NC, and she relayed this story to me. A grade level in her school was presenting a program about biographies, where the kids dressed up and read their individual reports about a notable person. One fellow, who happens to be caucasian, wrote his report about Barack Obama. (YAY!) Unbeknownst to his mother or my friend, his teacher decided that he needed a little extra something for his presentation.

And so she painted his face with black poster paint.

I wish I was kidding.

It was all his poor mother could do not to completely storm the stage when she saw what was going on. Needless to say, she had quite a few choice words for the teacher and when the kids took the stage again for their second performance, our fellow was clean-scrubbed and fresh-faced.

The biggest problem for me in this little tale is that when my friend was discussing this with her co-workers, they couldn’t understand what was wrong about this incident in the first place. About how completely offensive it was.

Unbelievable. In this day and time, the fact that such attitudes still exist blows my mind. I literally ran to my calendar to make sure that we hadn’t time-shifted and were all hanging out in 1908 instead of 2008.

When my galpal was telling me this story, I kept waiting for her to tell me that our fellow ended his report on one knee, belting out “Mammy.”

Thank goodness for the clear-headed thinking of the mother and my friend. I suspect they both educated a whole lot of people that day.

It’s stories like this one that make me realize that for all the progress we’ve made in this country regarding race (and gender, for that matter) issues, we still have a hell of a long way to go.

Sigh.

Pet Peeve Time

*climbs onto soapbox*

Pet Peeve time.

Maybe it’s just me, but...

I get really irritated with the increasingly common deployment of terms traditionally used (offensive as they are) to describe people with developmental disabilities as insults or put downs.

Retarded. ‘Tard. Short bus.

Pisses. Me. Off.

I know I’m hyper-sensitive because of Will’s situation and the worlds in which we predominantly travel -- the community of kids with special needs. My little guy is developmentally delayed. He’s bright (sometimes too much for his own good...) but has problems with communications. And is behind, age-wise, with his skill sets. We have no idea what his prognosis will be -- he’s made such fantastic progress and I continue to fervently believe his possibilities are endless. Regardless... these slams, such as they are, hit a little too close to home for me.

Anyhoo.

I prefer to think that people use these terms as put-downs more out of ignorance than anything. They’re really not processing the full impact of what they’re saying. And again, keep in mind that my intolerance for such things is heightened because of the way my life works.

But the cavalier way in which these things are said bothers me. Really bothers me. I feel like it’s my responsibility to stand up for those in whose name the insults are being tossed and say please stop. Now. I’ve even corrected friends of mine who said something -- without thinking -- in this vein in front of me. Can you say awkward? But I made my point.

Guess what. That kind of talk = not funny. In the slightest.

And it’s egregiously detrimental to the image, both externally and within individuals, of a segment of society that has a hard enough time just being accepted for who they are.

So -- please think before you speak. There are plenty of other words one can hurl in insult or teasing... just consult your local thesaurus. Or ask me.

Thank you.

*jumps off soapbox*

Hos Before Bros? Who Knows...

This corporation has a strict 'bros before hos' policy.
~ 30 Rock (THE best comedy on TV today)

I am a woman. Obviously.

I vote. Also pretty apparent.

So, using what I recall as basic equation logic... does it follow that a voting woman automatically has to vote for a woman?

Must I apply the adage 'hos before bros' to this situation?

I’m all about Girl Power. Giving a boost to other members of my gender whenever possible. I belong to a women-only volunteer organization -- was even president of said group. Fact: Women are notoriously tough on other women (I can say that because (a) I am one and (b) I’ve witnessed this first-hand.) And I work really hard not to be one of those kinds of chicks. Empowerment. Support. Validation. All important to me.

Being as woman-centric as I am, I’ve been asked the following question more than once: "Aren’t you voting for Hillary?"

Hmmm. Do I have to vote for a woman candidate? Am I obligated by common physical composition to support the chick on the ballot?

Therein lies the rub. And the conundrum facing female voters this election season.

I say no.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey, MSNBC, CNN, and yes, NOW (and doesn't that one hurt the most): I just got back from the big secret National Vagina Convention and we decided that women are in fact capable of independent thought and are not contractually obligated to check the box for the candidate with the box.
~ a very pithy and wise poster, screen name Francie Nolan, from Television without Pity.com

When I vote, I give serious time and thought to how and for whom I’m going to give my support. My choices are totally based on the person. Not gender. Not race. The person. Especially in such a critical election as the one before us.

I totally agree that this campaign season is groundbreaking, with two contenders sporting labels that heretofore have not been seen in viable candidates. It’s historical and I’m thrilled I have the opportunity to participate in this scene-changing election.

But I don’t vote based on labels.

Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I’m genetically obligated to vote for a candidate with a vagina.

Just because I’m a caucasian doesn’t mean I have to vote for the candidate that looks the most like me.

Just because I’m a WASP doesn’t mean I have to vote for the WASPy-ish candidate.

When it comes to shit like this, I think with my head and my heart, not my reproductive organs or the color of my skin or my religious preference or my ethnic background.

I vote for the person. And what she or he has to say. How they conduct themselves. What they believe in.

Frankly, I don’t need to vote for a woman to demonstrate that I support my gender. I put my time and my money where my mouth is on that one. I’m voting with an eye towards the future -- not for a fight that’s already been settled for the most part. In theory anyway. Believe me, I’m grateful to the thoughtful and smart women who came before me and fought to insure that I would and could be taken as seriously in any workplace as a man. I watched the news when I was a wee lass, seeing Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug with her fab hats, speaking on behalf of, well, me. Young as I was. I read the papers and newsmagazines -- Gloria Steinem was all over the place. I sang along with Helen Reddy... "I am woman/Hear me roar."

Too young to participate, but old enough to watch and appreciate.

Things are different now for my gender, in the workplace and in our American society. For the most part and if you're looking at the big picture...however, I will admit there are still issues. But that’s another rant for another day.

(Although take a look at this op-ed piece which argues that having a woman as president is unconstitutional. It’s good for a laugh.)

Anyway.

The things my peers and I are concerned about -- balancing work and family and money and self -- are issues relevant to both genders.

It’s not a woman thing. It’s not a man thing. It’s a person thing.

I would be doing myself and the country and yes, my gender, a disservice by automatically and rotely voting for Senator Clinton. The struggle to give women the right to vote would be seriously marginalized if mandates were placed, even informally and societally, on for whom we cast our vote. We’ve come too far for such insulting and demeaning histrionics.

And yes, the female vote is, once again, critical to the success of the candidates. Soccer moms, urbanistas, seniors, single chicks. All important. Wonder if Susan B. Anthony ever anticipated that our reproductive organs would become such hot commodities and bargaining chips when she helmed the suffragette movement... what would she say about all of this?

Hillary. She’s OK. But for me, Barack is better.

Plain and simple.

I wouldn’t be going too far out on a limb to say that whoever the Democratic nominee is in November will get my vote. That’s basically a given.

But right now, in the white-hot scrum of this electric Democratic primary, I’m on the side of the candidate that I think would be the best for our country.

That person just so happens to be a man.

I think I’m a better woman for supporting him.

Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings. To me it's the latter, so I sign up.
~ Margaret Atwood

Up On My Soapbox Again

“What’s that on your shirt?” the old friend of the family asked me as we made small-talk during halftime of the Florida/Auburn game in 1992 (which the Gators won, 24-9, by the way.)

“Excuse me?” I looked down to see if there was an errant smudge of ketchup from my hot dog or a dribble of soda dotting the landscape.

He pointed to a button I was wearing, smiling with a slight malicious glint. “That right there. It looks like a bird took a crap on your shoulder.”

“No, nothing wrong there, Mr. So-and-So. Everything looks nice and clean to me.”

The button in question:

He continued poking his Republican stick at me, despite the fact that the teams were running back onto the field.

“I didn’t think Baptists voted for Democrats. That doesn’t seem right.”

“Yes sir, we do. We vote for whoever we like. Making conscious decisions is a very Baptist thing to do.”

“But...”

Fortunately, before he could bait me any further, it was time for the third quarter to start. In our world, Gator football often supersedes anything else, including politics and religion. Or the uncomfortable intermingling of the two. Good thing too -- I was going to have to try to reconcile my innate instinct to be polite to one’s elders with my overwhelming need to speak my mind in the face of cloaked hostility.

Thank goodness we won that game. And the election. "We" being a relative term, natch.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fast forward ahead 16 years. It’s last week. I’m walking across the parking lot of the church I’ve attended since I was in the womb after going to my weekly interdenominational women’s bible study. (It’s a lovely coincidence that my church graciously hosts this wonderful activity.) I notice a couple of women looking at my car a little oddly. Flat tire? Big scratch on the side? A present left by a passing-by seagull?

Nope. They’re staring at my bumper sticker.



In a sea of cars with RUDY! and MITT! adhered to chrome and windshields, my little oval declaration of devotion to Obama sticks out. Like a sore thumb.

I’m used to being the odd woman out in my groups of real-life friends and acquaintances when it comes to the intermingling of politics and religion. Not often you meet a white female liberal Democrat Baptist in the South. I’m the only one I know. Notice I didn’t say Southern Baptist -- even though my church fell into that category when I was growing up, we’ve totally moved out and away from that realm and fall on the much more moderate side of things. A main reason why I still attend there, actually.

While I take both my religion and my politics very, very seriously, I’m not crazy about mixing the two, however -- it’s like a bizzaro version of that old commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (“You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter on my chocolate!”)

“You got your politics involved in my religion!”

“You got your religion involved in my politics!”

Neither option is nearly as tasty as that Reese’s cup. These days, anyway. But I’m very cognizant of the fact that religious activism played a huge part in the mobilization of such political movements as abolition and civil rights. And sincere religious rhetoric is an intrinsic component to many landmark American speeches -- both Dr. King and President Lincoln freely evoked their personal religious beliefs in their statements -- which we simply view now as a matter of course.

All that being said, there’s no way the two can completely be severed from one another -- it’s just not how our society works these days. But... our country was indeed founded on the separate principles of religious and political freedom...

History review time! (thanks, Wikipedia!)
The separation of church and state is a legal and political principle derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." The phrase "separation of church and state", which does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, where Jefferson spoke of the combined effect of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. It has since been quoted in several opinions handed down by the United States Supreme Court.

~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe I’m more adamant about this than most because I am a lone little idealistic soul out in the world in which I travel -- the liberal apologist thinker in a tank of more moderate conservative voices. It’s a hard place to be sometimes -- right about the time of the ‘92 elections, I was the coordinator of the singles Sunday School group at church. And in our pre-packed lesson material one quarter was a session about the evils of abortion. Ai yi yi. Fortunately, the wonderful woman who was our class teacher had a problem with it as well -- even though I still believe we had differing opinions on the subject itself, we both agreed that Sunday School was not the best forum for such a topic and inevitable discussion, and so we opted to take a sidebar and talk about something else that day. Amen.

What’s interesting to me in this ideological give-and-take is the fact that conservative values often get classified as the singular religious values. Or the only family values. To me, they are different things. Lines have gotten blurred. The conservative thinkers have bogarted the market on all things religious and family-oriented, when in fact, they’re not the only playahs in pews on Sunday morning or Saturday night or whenever. Not from where I sit, anyway (Four rows back from the platform on the right in the sanctuary. Yes, the right. I like the view lines from there. At least in church.)

~~~~~~~~~~

I saw a bumper sticker the other day on my way home from taking Will to school that gave me a laugh, a wave of hope and a feeling of solidarity. I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Hooray!

Yeah. I’m a member of the Religious Left. And proud of it. Nice to have a label -- even a loose one -- for where I hang in this crazy melange of people trying to do the business of life based on their personal moral compass. I’m in good company, too, per wikipedia: FDR. Jimmy Carter. Harry Truman. Al Gore. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Stephen Colbert (cool!)

And Barack Obama.

In my ‘net hunt to discover more about what makes the Religious Left tick, I’ve read some really interesting things; seen the word “socialism” used more than once in context (more about that later, I think); and reaffirmed within myself the values I hold dear. Both religiously and politically.

So the next time I cause a spectacle in my church parking lot with my Obama sticker or when I speak out about my opposition to mandatory prayer in schools or voice my opinions (softly but intelligently) on the creationism versus evolution brouhaha, I will do so with a little more confidence. And passion. Not only because it’s what I believe in my heart is right, but because I know I’m not alone. Both in Heaven and on earth.

The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather, everything was held in common.
~ Acts 4:32, The Bible

...From Atop the Soapbox

Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good.
‘Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hey! You registered voter chicks in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah -- I have a pop quiz for you! (This also goes for any of y’all who live in a state that has a presidential primary coming up in the future...)

What will you be doing on February 5th?

(A) Good grief -- that’s next week! I don’t know what I’m doing in the next couple of hours, much less next week.

(B) The glamourous usual -- carpool, soccer practice, piano lessons, helping with homework, cooking dinner, laundry.

(C) Why do you want to know? What’s so special about February 5th? Is there some sort of fabulous function that day that I don’t know about? Do I need to book a babysitter? Get a new outfit?

(D) I’ll be speaking out and letting people know just what I think and how I feel about important issues and ideas facing our country and our community.

I’ll be voting.

Psst... the go-to answer is (D).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Did you know...
... 22 million women on their own did not vote in the 2000 presidential election. This is the largest group of non-voters in our democratic process. Voting together, women on their own could determine who wins and loses elections.

Women don’t vote...
... because they felt before that they weren’t affected by the election process or its outcomes.

... because none of the candidates on the ballot met their “personal criteria.”

... because they’re “too busy.”

... because they didn’t think their votes would make that big of a difference.

When was the last time you cast your vote in an election? In this year’s primaries? In 2004 for the last Presidential election? In 2000? Can’t remember?

Guess what -- no worries about any of this. The great thing about voting is that as long as you’re a registered voter, there’s always another opportunity around the corner to let your voice be heard. It's kinda like getting a less-than-desirable haircut. Hair (usually) always grows back. Problem solved. Regarding this voting thing though -- the key is not to let the oft-infrequent opportunities constantly pass you by.

Here's what I've learned in my just-over-25 years as a registered voter: Voting is one of those things that may seem like a little gesture when in reality, it’s a big statement.

Vote early and vote often.
~ Al Capone

Granted, casting one’s vote can sometimes feel like an obligation, especially when adding a stop by the polls might mean shifting schedules and rearranging appointments. But -- casting a vote in any election is our right, our privilege and our chance to share OUR opinions in a venue where they will be heard and counted.

Think of it this way -- not voting lets other people make the decisions for you, and, speaking for myself, nothing pisses me off more than having someone speak for me without my consent or without an opportunity to put my two cents in. I can feel my blood pressure rising just imagining this. PS: By not voting, you forfeit the right to complain about whoever’s in office. Those elected officials aren’t really representing you, because you never spoke up and said what you thought should happen in the first place.

Muse upon that for a moment. That scenario more than kinda sucks, doesn't it.

Women, just a few generations before ours, were not able to vote; many had to literally fight to give us the opportunity to let our voices be heard. Our gender won -- and I do mean won -- the right to vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. This achievment took nearly 75 years to come to fruition, starting with the first Women’s Rights Convention held in 1848. Petitions, pickets and personal sacrifice -- many suffragettes were arrested, held illegally, and treated badly in prison -- were the hallmarks of the struggle that culminated in a quiet passage of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920.

If our fem-ancestors worked that diligently and passionately to secure something that we now consider a basic human right and often take for granted, the least we can do is to honor their dedicated efforts and take the time to share our opinions.

The very least.

The possibilities are endless for what could happen if our gender let its voices be heard. Look at Election Day as an opportunity to invest and educate. Find out what the issues are. Read about the candidates. Watch the debates. Ask questions. Spend time not just on candidate websites, but sites focusing on the objective side of politics. Think about what matters to you. To your family. To your community.

And come Primary Election Day, whether it’s next week, next month or whenever, after you have visited your polling site, put that “I VOTED” sticker firmly on your chest and headed out to tackle the rest of your day -- you can smile proudly with the knowledge that you have made a significant mark on your world.

Democracy... it’s a good thing.



Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they -live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want...

Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause, by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as self-evident falsehood, and at war with the interests of mankind.

~ Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
Woman's Rights Convention
Held at Seneca Falls, 19-20 July 1848