Since spending 4 years saying “told ya so” regarding our own fucked up political system is boring, I’m much more interested in what other countries are doing (hello Spain, Greece, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, etc. etc. etc.) And I’ve had a big soft spot in my heart for Latin America since middle school Spanish classes.

Enter Peru, which just had an election Sunday and ballots are being counted.

Now my hard cynical eye is wondering, if Humala is ultimately declared the winner, is he a (not terribly)stealthy progressive who said toned it down during the election to get past the 50% post? Or is he more like Aristide, someone who started out truly progressive and won election(s) on the backs of the poor, only to become a great apologist for the wealthy elites once in office?

But hey, it’s still way more interesting than the current ‘Democrats suck but look over there it’s a Republican they suck worse’ politicking keeping us from doing anything real or important regarding fixing our broken system.

Drugs, the illegal kind, have been all over the news lately, from reports that The War on Drugs (or the war on some people who use drugs) has failed to reducing the discrepancy in sentencing between types of cocaine possession.

I’m gonna assume that most of y’all reading this are feminist/womanist and progressive, so when I say I believe in absolute bodily autonomy you might assume what I’m talking about is just reproductive freedom and the freedom from rape and gendered violence. But my commitment to bodily autonomy is much more than that. I believe that every single adult has the right to unrestricted liberty over their own person, and that children have damn near as much unrestricted liberty as well*. This means if you are an adult, I don’t give a shit what you put in your own body. I don’t care what you eat. I don’t care what you drink. I don’t care who you fuck (as long as enthusiastic consent is involved) or how you fuck. I don’t care if you drink wine, smoke cigarettes, or shoot heroin. It’s none of my business.

I do care that we are all fully informed on what we are putting in our bodies, whether it’s prescription drugs and their side effects or ecoli-tainted spinach. Poisoning people, even unintentionally, for profit, is a violation of someone’s bodily autonomy. Not providing someone with the full facts about things from potential drug interactions to stds is tantamount to lying. And lying removes a person’s right to autonomy by altering their options for choice.

The most basic of freedoms is the right to control our own body, it every possible manner. It is not an accident that the bodies most likely to be punished for using drugs are brown (though rates of drug use are actually pretty even among different races). It’s both a tool of the kyriarchy and one of those Gramscian hegemony/common sense of the elites things. It keeps certain people (women, poc, woc, lgbtqq, etc) from full freedom while positing these restrictions as “protections”.

So end the war on drugs. End the illegality of drugs and the war on certain bodies. It’s the most important freedom, and unfortunately it’s not in our bill of rights.Changing how we think about bodies is one of the most critical acts of social justice and it turns the protectionist/charitable bullshit on it’s head. Let people do to themselves what they want to do. Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts.

*regarding children, yes they absolutely deserve status as full human beings and the right to control their own bodies. But as they are children and their little neurological pathways aren’t yet formed all the way, it is our job as adults to guide them towards things like eating vegetables and taking baths or needed medicine. It is also our job to punish those who would violate their autonomy via rape or abuse, specifically because children are not as equipped as adults to recognize those violations.

This is about all I can handle this morning.

Meaning that they should have more options than condoms or vasectomies, not that they get veto power on abortions or baby having. (Obvs, in a healthy relationship these things would be discussed by a couple, but every woman should get to decide what she wants done to her body).

So male birth control. What’s the hold-up? Why don’t dudes get the option of a long-term, more reliable form of birth control than just condoms. Aside from the obvious no-baby benefits, there is a hidden benefit for us ladies. Fewer MRA douchenoodles could claim that women were tricking them into fatherhood not paying child support.

On that note, an Indian scientist has developed a reversible method for killing sperm before they are ejaculated. (fair warning, link is to Jezebel)Longer term and less fallible than condoms, reversible and fewer side effects than vasectomies, I think we all need to signal boost this idea asap.

Tapped out, writer’s blocked, you name it. So if you’re floating around out there, what do you want to know/read about the world. I am open to suggestions. Or we can just have an open thread. Tell me a story. In the mean time, enjoy this song from Grizzly Bear

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……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
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re: the Obots latest campaign donation email. I am sure you all got one too. Think they were trying to send this before the abysmal May disemployment numbers came out?

Just a reminder, a shit sandwich with pickle is still a shit sandwich.

I went to get an ultrasound Tuesday to determine if I just have the world’s most atrocious periods for fun or if there is some nefarious cause. Also, as a precursor to getting an IUD! Yay! I’ve had internal ultrasounds before, and have always gotten a “huhmm that’s a unique shape” reaction from docs and techs. So I asked the lovely tech to explain. I have a kinky uterus. No, a literally kinky uterus. It tilts in one direction while the cervix tilts in the opposite direction, causing a kink where the two meet. I also, apparently, have a cyst on one of my ovaries. The cyst, and not the kink, is what is making my monthly communist invasion seem like the actual communist invasion.

So the IUD (Mirena, hormonal) will help with the cyst, hopefully. But getting it inserted will be tricky(straight stick, U shaped angle, tricky tricky). I am asking, begging, pleading, for an rx for valium to take prior because there is no way I’ll be able to “relax and drop your knees” through that shit. No fucking way. And smart me, I scheduled the procedure for 4:30 in the afternoon. So I can go right from uterine torture to the bar across the street.

Actually it’s just a link to an piece about how to write a scientific article. And awesome piece actually. Go read.

Tennessee just past a law making it illegal to share your Netflix login.

It’s not enough that entertainment companies vastly overstate the damages from downloading in court cases but now, at least in TN, I’d have to get the Kid his own Netflix account so he can watch anime.

And of course we can trust entertainment companies to not abuse the courts to nail us little people. I’m sure that there must be one actual song in the world where a digital copy is worth $2250. Like perhaps a version of I Feel Pretty sung by Little Richard. (No seriously, that shit is the bomb. Thank you Gidget!)

I read a quote from bell hooks once about when dealing with such intensely crappy shit, day in and day out, you have to find something to be joyful about. Y’all know I’m bad with the exact quotes, but that was the gist. And I’m working really hard on the joyful lately. Yeah, money sucks, money always sucks. And yeah, our government is full of lying, hateful douchebags in tacky blue suits. And yeah, corporations won’t be happy till we’re paying them to let us work. And rapey rapists keep raping. And jerks keep being jerks.

But I have these lovely friends, both in meat space and cyberspace, who just keep being there when I need them. And I am sitting on my own couch, in my own apartment, listening to Joe Strummer on my own compy while staring out the window at an evening that is both grey and rainy and sunny all at the same time. And the Kid just keeps becoming more and more of this awesome person who I am so lucky to know. And there’s a boy in the world who makes me giddy and mushy and toe-curlingly happy.

It’s so much good that I am teary-eyed happy thinking about it. (Or I am just pms-y, wevs). Sometimes the world sucks and blows at the same time and sometimes there are these little pockets of joyfulness that I can just curl up in. And that’s where I am right now.