Apparently when enough people complain loudly (or maybe enough of the “right” people) then we can stop our government from torturing citizens.

EDT: you can send Manning a letter even.
Bradley Manning 89289
JRCF
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2315

So at some recent point this little blog got it’s 100,000 visitor! Whoooooopeeeee.

But this means that Echo, the crappy commenting platform that exactly no one likes, is now charging me 10 bucks a month instead of 10 bucks a year. That’s why comments look so funny with the all caps and not popping out like normal. I don’t know how to fix that. I think it might involve an even more expensive monthly option to do so. I am looking for a cheaper commenting platform that will still give me iron-clad moderating options and let me import old comments into it, but that seems to be hard to find.

But anyways, 100,000k. Hurray!

Damn do I hate this holiday. Here’s why:

1. Mothers are treated like shit throughout the world (except maybe in Norway). We are paid less than other people, even other women. We are thought to be stupider, less able to perform paid work, etc. etc. We are more likely to be killed by our partners while pregnant than to die from pregnancy complications, at least in this country. Childcare is expensive and/or low quality. Child support collection sucks. We still do more unpaid work than fathers do. And to make up for the fact that without mothers there would literally be no future (no babies= the actual end to the human race)we get one stupid hallmark holiday where we get cheesy cards and brunch. I’d rather have the cash, thank you very much.

2. Mother’s day started in the US because Julia Ward Howe was tired of watching sons die in the Civil War. Today we have, what like 4 wars going on where sons AND daughters are dying and have been for nearly a decade. But we’re going to send flowers and cheap gifts and no one will mention the wars in relation to Mother’s Day. Fuck that shit.

3. My own mother is an asshole. I have spent years, and will spend many more years trying to undo the damage she has done. Every child deserves at least one parent that loves them, but I would have settled for just one parent who wasn’t intent on causing me actual harm. I could tell you all how a huge part of the abuse that I suffered is based in sexism and how it was a generational problem. The boys are loved and supported, the girls are treated abusively to “toughen them up”. It was the early recognition of the unfairness in my family that made me a feminist. My mother is also the ultimate rape apologist and to this day, when she has lost an argument she will throw that in my face. She doesn’t realize how that just cements her assholery. There is nothing to celebrate in that relationship.

4. I have an awesome kid and we have a really good relationship. I don’t play the martyr “oh look how much I’ve given up for you” shit because I chose this life and I haven’t got a single regret as far as having the Kid goes. And to be honest, if I hadn’t experienced the overwhelming unconditional love that I have for my monkey boy, I would never have been strong enough to tell my own mother to fuck off. So he can skip the card. I know he loves me. No need to prove it.

So fuck mother’s day. I don’t need it. I will, however be throwing a brunch for my dear friends. Not because of mothers, but because I am a fabulous cook and I haven’t had a food related party yet. We’ll picnic on my living room floor (since I still don’t have furniture) and watch it rain on the Space Needle while eating frittata and drinking mimosas.

The Boxcarkid’s Blog is over. If you’ve never read it, it is the blog of a single, graduate degree educated mom and her kids who have had to move into a tiny trailer because of unemployment and foreclosure. She is one of the nouveau poor and it’s hard when you realize that the bad spots are going to longer and worse than you thought. And the good parts will be, well less good than before.

Poverty increases the likelihood of depression. Depression isn’t an overly pessimistic view of the world, but a realistic view devoid of hope. The reality for the poor is pretty bleak. I spend a lot of time just pushing back necessary things to a day where hopefully things will be better. I push back dental care (see kid’s recent abscess and the $660 that made me cry in public). I push back clothes buying. I haven’t bought underwear for myself in at least 5 years and it’s the last thing I do for the kid. Shoes, pants, shirts, underwear is the order of clothing necessity. We’re taking care of shirts (thanks Aeryl!) so underwear are next for him. But the constant pushing back of things you need is a drain. Keeping a running list in my head of what’s needed, what has to be paid, what’s desperate and what can wait a few weeks, months, years, takes up a lot of head space that could be put to better, happier uses.

This is all just a long way of saying poverty sucks. You’re in it for far longer than you expected to be. It’s hard to find joy in it. And it can be a very lonely place, waiting for a happy ending. I will miss the Boxcarkid’s. I hope they get their happy ending soon.

I’ve had more than my fair share of wine this evening (with Syyyyyylllllvvvviiiaaa and Amanda Fucking Panda, not less) so any random babblings are prolly due more to alcohol than anything.

But in the gleeful grossness of celebration, us USians may have forgotten that Canada is in the middle of an election and voting is today. Damn hard to type after 2 bottles of tempernillo and some proseco. Do I get bonus points for being able to type for that?

Anyways, if anyone is Canadian or Canadian by proxy, what’s going down with your elections? Inquiring (but inebriated) minds want to know.

She went to the fancy wine store and I’ve had a large portion of 2 bottles of tempernillo (how many brownie points do I get for spelling that right?)

I am told that these guys are the Milli Vanilli of Europe. But as they say que sera sera. I am tipsy, obvs.

Is what I keep reading. And uhm NO. The guy that got us into 2 wars was Bush.The guy that’s kept us in 2 wars and added 2 more is Obama. We did kill the guy responsible for 9/11, for the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and for the deaths of countless others. Bin Laden was a murderous bad dude. But the wreck that is our country, from the ridiculously skewed income disparity to the removal of civil liberties pat by pat in airport security lines, is all us.

Think about how Bin Laden was killed. A small team went into a country we are not technically at war with and killed him. There was certainly no need for war with Afghanistan (since he was found in Pakistan, and not even close to the border). And we know that Iraq had nothing, nada, zilch to do with 9/11 yet people still keep talking like he was the reason, not Bush’s daddy complex or oil, that we are in Iraq.

I fear that people may be putting too much hope in the death of this one man to change things for the better.

This is totally swiped from Tumblr, though I would have added “Are we safer?” to the list.

so troops can come home now? 

are gas prices going down?

is airport security gonna stop cavity searching on the regular? 

is the war over?

yea, didn’t think so.

Sorry chiquita, I couldn’t embed the weird official video version.

And we need a better name for nightly videos if this is going to continue.

There was a time when this news would have made me happy. But 10 years of war in Afghanistan where we average to kill one “bad guy” for every 30 people and drone attacks in Pakistan and I don’t fucking care. That’s 10 years that Bin Laden got to strengthen his networks and use our atrocious wars as propaganda to gather more followers.

And pardon me, but I can’t help but think of how desperately Obama needs a bump in the polls and a distraction while he works with Republifuckers to complete the robbing of the Aemrican populace for spoils to give to the wealthy reduce the deficit. And I wonder how the Pakistan government feels. Did they authorize us sending a team into their country? Will we stop bombing them now? How long will we remain in the clusterfuck that is Afghanistan? The answer to these questions I fear will not be positive.

ETA: Is it just me, or are the crowds of cheering gleeful celebrants making Bin Ladens’ death a bit nauseating. Was the dude a murderer and terrorist- hell yes. Is it still gross to party over his dead body. Hell yes.