I have been guilty of using the outdated term “Booyah!” twice this week >.<
In other news, HI! Sorry about my short absence, I’ve been kinda sick. For the past 4-5 days I’ve been on this on again, off again stomach thing?! No idea where it came from, but it’s gone now.
After missing a week of practice, I was back on my skates yesterday. We had a guest coach from a team in Georgia! She was a lot of help! She went over skills that we HAVE to know to pass our skills test. Each skater is required to pass the skills test in order to be able to play on the team. Luckily, we don’t have a test for a couple of months. Gives me time to improve my knee falls. I’m fine with the right knee fall and getting better with the double, but I can’t seem to recover from the left knee fall as quick as I should. I think it has a lot to do with my right ankle (the one that’s been broken and sprained and everything else bad that could happen to an ankle) which I have to use to get up from the fall. It just isn’t strong enough yet. :(
I attended an activist training last week. It was held by Planned Parenthood-my favorite reproductive health organization. My loyalty to Planned Parenthood started in college. It was where I could go for affordable exams, birth control pills, and testing. Planned Parenthood was (is still!) a lifesaver for a broke ass college student like me. I became more involved with Planned Parenthood though my feminist organization in college- raising money for the clinics, counter-protesting the anti-choicers outside of the clinic, escorting patients in, and the most simplest which went the longest way-letting the employees know how much we appreciate their work and risking their lives just to help us. After college I volunteered more by actually representing them at different events and giving miniature sex education talks to whomever stopped at my table! I even learned stuff. Like how to put a condom on with my mouth! Thanks Planned Parenthood! Woah, totally went off subject there. The training! The training was very informative and I needed it. I haven’t been around very many progressive people since I moved here and the meeting was a “Hey! We do exist here! you just have to find us”. I learned some effective ways of canvassing, telephone banking, lobbying, and about West Virginia reproductive laws which I was clueless about before. Looking forward to more involvement soon!
Oh! I’ll be skating in a Pride Parade this weekend! Woot! Another thing I am both an advocate and activist for-Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights. There will be pictures and hopefully no falls on the concrete!
Oh you know, because yellow earbuds just aren’t fashionable enough…for sleeping!
I feel the need to give this topic the respect that it needs. Last week another act of violence was committed against a trans woman in Memphis. She was shot in the nose and throat by her attacker because she “misled him about her gender.” She’s still alive and in critical condition.
Sadly, it happens quite often here. I was shocked to learn that in the last 2 years five trans women have been shot in Memphis. 3 of those resulting in deaths. It really disgusts me! Just because of differences. I find it ridiculous that in this day and age people can’t show tolerance. Come on! No one is asking you to be ok and agree with their lifestyle, but be tolerant of it. Please? If you disagree with how they are living don’t take it out in violence against them. What does that solve?! Nothing.
I wish I knew a way to solve this-these hate crimes. Education maybe? But where do we start? At home? I do think that parents need to start instilling tolerance in their children at young ages. They need to teach their children that it’s ok to be different. And not just with race, which is the only tolerance I remember being taught about, but teaching them tolerance of people with different backgrounds, sexual orientations, religion, life choices, everything! But what happens when the parents don’t agree with tolerance of such things and don’t teach their kids!? Then who do the children learn from!? And what about the parents that instead of passing down the need for tolerance do the exact opposite and pass down more intolerance!? And what about all of the people in the world that are ALREADY intolerant of differences? How are we supposed to reach them!? ahhh! This kind of stuff frustrates me to no end…
I guess I’ll never know the answer, but I do think tolerance would help. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to hear about Dr. Tiller being murdered for his choice to perform late term abortions. Maybe then I wouldn’t be reading about the 3 murders of memphis transgendered women, Leeneshia Edwards, Tiffany Berry and Ebony Whitake.
My heart goes out not only to Kelvin Denton as he recovers in critical care RIGHT NOW, but to victims of any hate crimes, the ones we’ve lost and to all of their families.
It’s that time of year again! My birthday is just around the corner. *dances* I am turning 26. Wow…that is sort of old. Oh well, my mom says “It’s a blessing, stop complaining” and she’s right. I’m healthy, happy, and my life is pretty okay. I have nothing to complain about.
I got a birthday present the other day (14 days early…hehe)! It was a donation in my name to Planned Parenthood from Jim! Yay! oh and congrats to Jim as well. He will be a home owner soon!
“god. you get a birthday, some little bastard doesnt get born, and i get $25 more in my tax return and i got my house. what a day!”-james francis
I lol’d
Wanna get in on the birthday giving action? You don’t have to be as generous as ham francis and donate money! (If you do want to donate, I’m not stopping you, click here!) All you have to do is help protect women’s health by signing this letter to President Obama!
Thanks in advance! ^_^
This isn’t mine. It’s by a blogger named Chris Clarke. I posted it to my myspace blog(lawl) on the 35th Roe v. Wade anniversary and found it hilarious! It’s his blog post for last year’s “Blog for Choice Day”.
“So today, being the anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, is “Blog For Choice Day,” and a whole lot of feminist-oriented bloggers are writing eloquent posts about why they’re pro-choice. They’re talking political rights to bodily autonomy, respect for the full human status of women, resistance to the nascent kleptotheocracy the US seems set to become, and a whole bunch of other good reasons. They’re writing political tracts, personal stories, and thoughtful essays, and you should take a look at this roundup of posts at Feministing or the, um, mother lode at Bush v. Choice to get a sense of the range of writing.
And in fact the people who’ve written so far have covered all the usual valid reasons why a guarantee of full reproductive rights for women is the bedrock of a truly free society, so I don’t have to talk about any of that. Which is great, because it frees me to reveal the real reason I’m an avid supporter of legal, accessible, and affordable abortion services.
Fetuses are goddamn punks.
I mean, just look at ‘em. Sitting there all floaty and unconcerned, not taking any responsibility for the world around ‘em, content to just sit there and leech off of someone they don’t even know yet.
Meanwhile, we’re out here every single day using our own lungs and kidneys, and using our own skeletons and muscles to hold ourselves up against the pull of the earth’s gravity, and we do it 24/7, even when we’re asleep! Not only do fetuses not pull their own weight, they don’t even support it. They just sit there in their hot tub with their precious little bulbous heads, their immaculate little eyespots, sucking the oxygen out of women’s blood and replacing it with toxins, then kicking them if they get bored.
And for this they want full legal status as human beings?
And get this: they can’t even be arsed to argue for constitutional protection. No, they have very important naps to take and thumb-buds to suck. They hire that work out to sleazy legislators and sanctimonious zealots.
But the worst of it? They’re cowards, hiding out in Club Uterus until they’re “ready to be born.” “Ready” my ass. More than a third of them off themselves rather than face the cold hard world, most of them before they even become fetuses! “But it’s too haaard to grow a central nervous system!” “I don’t wanna differentiate my genitalia!” “I miss being a blastula!” “That placenta is itchy!” “I wanna stay stuck here in the Fallopian tube where it’s snuggly!”
Goddamn whiners.
I have an idea for you, little Mr. “but I can’t breathe on my own,” little Ms. “Don’t drink a beer, Mommy.” You want full rights as a human citizen of the world? We got this little hazing ritual you have to go through. It’s called “birth.” If you want to be taken seriously, you crawl on out through that birth canal, mister. We’ll even go so far as to give you a little help with a Caesarian section if you need it. We’re nothing if not fair. Your blubbering about how you’re not ready for it doesn’t impress anybody. Even the weakest human out here has done it, Bucko. Even the babies.
Because seriously. Right now we’ve got enough problems keeping our own civil rights, and we really don’t have time to worry about granting them to some little glorified embryo who’s not willing to commit. You get yourself born and we’ll talk. I don’t work with anyone who’s too good to use her own lungs like the rest of us.”
Posted by: Chris Clarke
As I wrote yesterday, today I ,(along with other bloggers!), am celebrating the anniversary of Roe. V Wade by blogging for choice. This year’s topic: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?
My top pro choice hope for President Obama is rumoured to be becoming a reality this week! My hope is that the global gag rule is overturned. I’ve been waiting oh so long for someone to come into the office and overturn that nasty rule that Dubya re-instated on his first day of office(jerk!).
Quick background on the gag rule(taken from Planned Parenthood)
The Reagan-era global gag rule mandated that no U.S. family planning assistance funding can be given to organizations that provide abortion services, offer counseling and referral for abortion care, or advocate legal abortion access in their own countries — even if they do so with their own funds. International reproductive health care organizations have faced a dangerous dilemma: either accept desperately needed U.S. funds but deny women life-saving services and information, or reject U.S. assistance and be forced to cut crucial prevention services. The global gag rule has meant that approximately 200 million women around the world have faced enormous barriers in seeking family planning services.
Completely inhumane, right?! This rule hurts women by denying them basic rights. Information and education. Come on! This does more harm than help. By denying women these basic things, this rule is preventing the very services that help women avoid unwanted pregnancies and abortions in the first place. And it’s not just a women’s issue. Without the financial help that these clinics depended on, the global gag rule has meant the closing of these clinics. Clinics that provided basic healthcare for women, children, AND their families! I don’t want MY United States to be the reason for that. This rule is plain ridiculous and of course hasn’t helped on how the international world views us. So President Obama, I really hope the rumors are true. That my hope will become reality this week. Please, please, please, make MY United States a country that respects basic rights, a country that lends out a helping hand, a country that cares!
sheesh, I kind of got cheesy at the end, but I truly mean it!
Sorry if you’re my facebook friend and have to see this twice! >.<
I’ve participated in blog for choice for the past 3 years and you should too! I love the idea of it. It’s an issue that i’m very passionate about and I love reading other blogger’s blogs on the issue. I will warn you. If you do participate there is a risk in getting your blog spammed by anti-choicers. One year someone even went so far as to make a blog post complete with graphic pictures of aborted fetuses saying “the following people are murderers!” and linked to bloggers that were participants in Blog For Choice Day. My blog was linked and I got a few comments/emals from anti-choicers, but more from Pro-choicers who just wanted to show their support. Anywho, if you’re interested in participating here’s more info taken from the NARAL.
Snagged from the NARAL site.
Guess what, pro-choice America? IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN! Tomorrow is Blog for Choice Day, 2009!
For the past three years, pro-choice bloggers have come together on January 22 – the anniversary of Roe v. Wade – to write about our reproductive health and our pro-choice values in order to celebrate Roe and to keep choice in the national spotlight.
And every year, it’s been amazingly successful. Last year we had over 600 participants!
So I hope you’ll join NARAL Pro-Choice America and hundreds of other bloggers again this year for the 36th anniversary of Roe to Blog for Choice.
This year, we’re asking people to blog their answer to this question: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress ?
You can sign up here ( http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/choice-action-center/bfc09-main.html)
Please consider taking a moment to promote it on your blog, telling your friends, and joining us tomorrow, so together we can ensure that on January 22, the blogosphere is flooded with pro-choice blogposts!
Thanks for all that you do,
Molly
Molly W. Jackson
Communications Manager
NARAL Pro-Choice America
So, I moved into a new place. It’s still in Oud Zuid Amsterdam about 8 minute bike ride from my old place. I absolutely love my neighborhood. Only problem is everything around here looks exactly the same. Every house is built the same with the same red bakfiets(dutch bike with a sort of boxcontainer attatched) leaning against the door. Needless to say, I’ve locked my bike at the wrong apartment a couple of times! I share the apartment with 2 girls who are also au pairs. One is from Australia and the other is from Denmark. The Danish girl is leaving next week and we will be getting a new girl shortly after. So far, I love the place, but i have a few complaints. It is so teeny! But that’s the price you pay to live in the city. Another thing is the floor…horrible hardwood floors. Don’t get me wrong I adore hardwood floors! (My dream house is covered in them!) But these are horrible. Every little step makes the loudest noise! Coming in late nights will be tough. Not to worry very much though. My roomies say they can sleep through anything and they are night owls too! I woke up really early this morning. About 7 am. not bad for being out until 3! I played warcraft until I felt it was a normal hour to be awake and then I showered and spent my morning at the albert cuyp market. I shouldn’t have gone!I ended up buying new b oots(it’s going to be spring soon what am I thinking!), black low heels, leggings, and some decorations for the apartment. I’ll take pics when I’m all done!I have a birthday coming up. In 2 weeks! Squee! It’s International Women’s Day! So hope all the ladies out there have a wonderful day!
