After a week of crappy news on the girly front- I thought I would break it down for you boys so you can see the twisted circles of logic us girls have to go through when it comes to autonomy over our own bodies.

My body is not my own if…

1) I am pregnant. Suddenly I am worth less than the clump of cells in my uterus.

2) If I say no after sex has started. It’s not rape, even if sex goes from being enjoyable to violent, painful and dangerous I’ve already said yes and can’t take it back. Even if the guy decides that old fashioned sex isn’t good enough and he wants to give it to me up the ass with no lube- I already said yes at the beginning and can’t change my mind once the circumstances change.

3) According to some, if I am in a violent relationship I must be addicted to violence and therefore have consented to being beaten. My body is then the property of my abuser.

However, I am totally responsible for my own body if….

1) I am pregnant and not cautious enough in my behavior towards that clump of cells in my uterus.

2) I wear something provocative or go out of my house alone at night or try to be nice in turning a guy down and then I get raped. See, I was asking for it.

3) I am in a violent relationship and my abuser dies while I am defending myself. I will probably serve a longer prison sentence than he would have if he had succeeded in killing me.

But I am kept from taking adequate responsibility for my body by…

1) Increasingly limited access to birth control and emergency contraception. I strongly suggest that all you boys check out this story and then go read the rest of BB’s blog.

2) Stupid media images of a man and a woman fighting where the woman is saying no until the man forcefully kisses and or gropes her and she suddenly decides that yes- she does want to fuck him after all. This doesn’t actually happen in real life (trust me- if she says yes after that it’s only because it’s easier to submit than to keep fighting). It is a pervasive enough image to negate the idea of no meaning no.

3) Lack of domestic violence laws that actually offer some protection for women and children from their abusers. Even when abusers are arrested they are usually out in 24 hours and a restraining order is just a piece of paper, not some incredible teflon shield that will deflect blows.

And one more fun fact for you all out there-
One of the greatest risks to a pregnant woman’s life is not the pregnancy, but death at the hands of her partner.

Being a woman is definitely not for sissies, it’s no wonder you boys are so scared of us. Look at all the crap we put up with already. Imagine if we were treated like *GASP* human beings instead of walking breeding machines, fuckholes and punching bags. Just having the time it takes during a single day to avoid being any of those things would give us enough time to invent a perpetual motion machine and create cold fusion.

Oh- and in case you thought us girls saying that we don’t like to be treated like pieces of meat was just an expression, you must read this. We are actual pieces of meat. It is nice that this guy just comes out and says it instead of using quasi-understanding fake liberal psychobabble though.

So let’s recap:
Women are not responsible enough to have control over their own reproductive choices and if they enter into a sexual or romantic encounter they forfeit the right to say no or keep from being beaten. But women are totally responsible for things that happen to their own body on a cellular level and for the reaction of SOMEONE ELSE to their own body. They are also not supposed to fight back if someone is trying to kill them, except they are supposed to fight back or we are considered to be addicted to violence. And no only sometimes means no but wearing someone down till they say yes is acceptable behavior from boys. My head hurts from the contortions I have to go through just figuring out where my body ends and societies right to my body begins.

****Bonus points if you’ve read the story the title comes from******

You probably noted that last week Reporters without Borders published their annual free press rankings. You guessed it the US is 53rd, down nine places from last year. The ranking is down considerably from the 17th position at which the US first appeared in 2002.

Much of the blame has been laid at the feet of GW, but I don’t think we should give him all the credit; the consolidated media has done a fine job dumbing down the media and becoming a lapdog to the regime.

It should be noted that the insurgency in Iraq has been credited for adapting to and making use of the media as a great propaganda tool. it is so comforting to know that those who supposedly hate us for our freedom, makes better use of the media than we do.

The atrociousness of some of the political ads out this election cycle are shocking in their bad taste and jackass style sense of humor, but this blatantly racist ad from Tennessee makes my skin crawl.

See, Harold Ford Jr. is a black man running for the Senate in the south. If he wins he would be the first black senator from the South since reconstruction. So if your an old southern cracker like Ford’s adversary, Bob Corker, you get the red-necks in Tennessee to forget that their healthcare has been gutted and jobs are seriously scarce and scare them into thinking the big black senator is going to take their pretty white girls.

Here’s some advice for any of the good old boys who really are scared of losing their pretty white girls to someone like Ford- you guys are not losing your girls because of his giant black cock but because he still has all his teeth and bathes regularly. Hygiene will alot further in driving off the big black menace* than voting yet another racist white idiot into office.

* I have no fear of an actual big black menace because I think it’s as much a figment of a cracker imagination as the idea that the South actually won the civil war is.

since I’ve been on a feminist rant. I don’t know if I can do a whole rant as I am still nicotine free and rants are usually fueled by chain smoking and coffee, so here is a mini-rant with links to make ya puke.

I was cruising google image search for some inspiration. I need to paint and I want to do a big agit-prop piece. I also need to replace a collage that used to live in my kitchen because it now resides in the office window of my anthropology professor. I was thinking of going with a feminist workers theme for the collage and I got some really cool stuff. Then I came across this…..
It’s from one of those freakish father’s rights groups, though this one is Canadian instead of good old red-necked American chauvinism. But it just shows how universal the idea of “scary man-hating feminists” is.

Just to give you an example of the kind of crap these people spew- here is a WOMAN (dear gawd, these let her recover from the concussion she must have received as a result of the obvious dick slapping done to her by the patriarchy) writing about a battered woman who came to her for help.

You are not a battered woman,’ I said with a sigh. I define a battered woman as a woman who is a genuine victim of her partner’s violence. ‘You are a violence-prone woman, a victim of your own need for violence.’

That’s right, Blame the Victim. She hasn’t been battered because she asked for it by being a violence prone woman with a need for violence. WTF!

My brain needs to be scrubbed clean now. I feel dirty just for reading this site.

why this boy makes me silly

1) We have a thing for the same campy British TV shows like Red Dwarf and The League of Gentlemen
2) He doesn’t listen to country music because he doesn’t want to support something that is racist. “Have you ever seen the audience at a country music concert, it’s a sea of white”.
3) When I said I was all Wallace and Grommity about cheese, he got it.
4)He has a filthy, filthy mind. Possibly more filthy than mine. I didn’t know that was possible.
5) When he gets excited his London accent gets really thick and it’s adorable.

And proof of how silly I am for this boy- I am still not smoking. But the cravings today are killing me so I am playing hermit. I’m even making the kiddo go to the grocery store for dinner because I don’t want to be tempted to blow 6 bucks on a pack.

When I was south of the border this song was played every hour, on the hour, by every damn radio station from Cancun to Villahermosa to Belize (it was even played on the $2 bus ride we took to cross the border- both there and back).

Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body

It’s Fursday! Bring on da funny!

I’m starting with the kind of hoopties I grew up with- big scary trucks. All the cool boys drove trucks with engines so loud you could hear them a mile away. (Oh shit- I am giving away the fact that I grew up in a tiny town- now you will all know that my urban cool was learned as soon as I got to the big city at the ripe old age of 18). I spent many hours with my high school boyfriend and all his friends sitting in the garage while they worked on big scary trucks or putting back together old muscle cars to race. I learned how to grease the hub of a 4 by 4 and what a manifold was. There is a bonus to all this knowledge- I am smarter than the average girl (and a fuck of a lot of boys) when it comes to dealing with mechanics. On at least 2 occasions I have told mechanics exactly what the problem was (alternator on one, starter on the other) and the mechanic then wasted several hours trying to prove me wrong only to have to apologize in the end.

Air America recently filed for bankruptcy protection, supplying fodder for right-wing liars for a few days. Of course, Faux News failed to report that it hemorraghed funds for the first five years of existence, only living off Murdoch’s sick plan for media penitration (the same one used in the other markets that he got rich from). Lefties, listeners or not, should be far from discouraged.
I listen to Air America most of the time. Don’t feel sorry for me, my computer easily process es multi-streams–I typically listen to LoungeRadio as my other stream. For those in Seattle, stick with the online stream, except between 6 and 9 am; Stephanie Miller is pretty funny.
Speaking of funny, I think Al Franken is one of the funniest men on the planet. He takes self-depricating humor to a new level. The way he gets guest to repeat topics in simpler terms by playing dumb works everytime. At the same time, Al has guests who honestly lift the curtains to reveal what’s behind the scenes. Tom Oliphant, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now are regular guests. His show last week linked here included Bob Woodward, of course, but also Frank Rich, who wrote “The Great Story Ever Sold”, about how the Bush adminstration stole America. Listening to Al for a week, you can tell how much work goes into his shows. He does his best to provide fair and honest reporting while giving no doubt that he is on the side of humanity. Beyond his show, he and other Air America personalities are guests of the enemies, attempting to stem the lies they use to shaft America.
Yesterday on the Randi Rhodes show, Henry Bechtel called in as a listener. He is a right-wing pastor who just came out with another book that details the thievery perpetuated by the mega-Churches and their axis of evil allies in the Republican party. He called in because he knew that he could be heard on her show. I had never heard of Mr. Bechtel, nor would I have in likelihood have if I just kept my political listening to NPR. Unlike their counterparts, Air America is open to all views, a welcome departure from preaching to the choir.
Air America is here to stay. Progressive radio, not just Air America, is about to take a spot next to the right-wing garbage that now epitomizes talk radio. Progressivism does not mean anti-capitalist. Making money and having a consscience is more difficult, but not impossible.

Three days in and no one is dead or even slightly mutilated. I haven’t even yelled at the monkey boy (which is why I quit trying to quit the last time I tried to quit- I was bordering on Joan Crawford levels of scary).

I have this sudden massive swell of energy. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to clean my carpets. I was going to use the carpet cleaner, but instead I got a bucket of hot soapy water and a giant scrub brush and started cleaning the carpet by hand. If I hadn’t just quit smoking I would think that I am bi-polar and in the midst of a manic phase. Seriously, who scrubs their entire living room carpet by hand? I got about half-way done this morning and am going to finish tonight. Then I am scrubbing the walls.

And just like DeeK said, my sense of smell has gotten much better. It was pretty good before. I could tell if a car has transmission or antifreeze problems by smell. I have a baker’s nose and can sense the fine line when cookies are just done without being burnt on the bottom. I can usually figure out the scents that make up someone’s perfume.

But having my sense of smell increase is not actually a good thing. I tried to eat an almost Cobb salad at lunch today (almost Cobb because there was no avocado). The smell of the blue cheese and green onions was overpowering. I love cheese, even blue cheese, but I fear that the intensity of the smells may put me off it forever. And then there is the bus, oh my god. I have been riding the bus for the last 3 years since I gave up my car and got a plush job a seven minute walk from my house. I got on the bus the other day and I thought I would be done in by the smells. It was an unholy combination of cheap cologne, dirty feet, vomit, urine and bad breath. It was like climbing into the body of a homeless giant. Needless to say, I’ve been walking a lot more.

There is one more weird thing. I am not having the smoking dreams yet, or waking up in the middle of the night dying for a cigarette. Instead I am craving weird food. Last night I woke up a 3am with an unquenchable desire for these chocolate covered cherries I get at Christmas every year from our friends in Atlanta.

I am sure you are all thrilled to bits to be reading the diary of a girl trying to quit smoking (insert knowing look of snark here). But just like any junkie it is still a minute by minute struggle not to think about smoking. I have been smoking everyday since I was 14, more than half my life. I read that the relapse rate for smokers is 95%, same as heroin junkies. Since this is at least my 10th time trying to quit, I am hopeful that I actually get to be in the 5% this time. Hell, I am in the 20% of Americans who have a passport, the 10% who read a book weekly, the 9% who are either Agnostic or Atheist. Since I like being in the minority, I think I belong in the 5%.