April 19th, 2013 
rayne 
“So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.” ~@BarackObama
VIDEO: President Obama Openly Discusses the Senate’s Failure
“So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.” ~@BarackObama
Communication Breakdown: The not-so-fine line between insulting and informative.
Just like us liberals, conservatives have the right to make up their own minds about every topic we, as a society, have deemed politically relevant. And we’re assholes for trying to bully them into changing them, all the while crying about them bullying us.
Of all the things to be mad at Google over, you chose a doodle?
No company in their right mind would only cater to a third of their customer base while ignoring the other two-thirds. That’s just bad business.
VIDEO: President Obama Openly Discusses the Senate’s Failure
Stand for Democracy
Today, the U.S. Senate proved to citizens what we already knew; our democracy is a farce. Today, the people we voted into office to uphold our rights and legislative desires voted against 90% of Americans’ demand for comprehensive, common sense gun control.
If you’re for a democracy where the legislators you voted into office will stand up for your beliefs, your desires, your rights, vote in your local election in 2014, and vote these Senators out.
Click to enlarge.
Communication Breakdown: The not-so-fine line between insulting and informative.
A while back, I joined UniteBlue. It’s a website and a Twitter group founded by Zach Green to connect American liberals. While I wouldn’t call myself a Democrat, per se (personally, I’m up to my ears in frustration with all established American political parties), my views are generally just left of center, and I love debating politics with those who know how to have an ethically sound debate. So I figured why not?
As is usually my way, aside from following everyone I can (until they don’t follow back), I’ve mostly just lurked, testing the waters. “Lurking” on Twitter, for me, is following interesting conversations back to the very first tweet. This can take all day.
I rarely make it to the first tweet, because there’s almost always something that catches my eye, and I end up veering off in a different direction. Which also can take all day. This is not as counterproductive as it sounds, because I’m a freelance writer, and following other people’s conversations often gives me topics to write about. Like today.
Yesterday, while stalking my fellow UniteBlue members, I came across a marriage equality debate during which some guy said homosexuality is a behavior, therefore it is not something the government should regulate. Read more »
Of all the things to be mad at Google over, you chose a doodle?
Sunday, as you know, was Easter. Easter is, currently, the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. Despite the fact that Christian scholars don’t agree on what time of year this actually happened, we celebrate Easter in Spring.
You’re wondering why I said Easter is “currently” the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
As it turns out, Easter wasn’t always the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. In fact, most of the Easter traditions today (dying eggs, egg hunts, “Easter grass”, and even the resurrection itself) are based on decidedly Pagan traditions, and a Pagan holiday meant to celebrate Spring and the renewal of life. The Pagan celebration is known as Ostara, after the goddess, and is spelled Ēastre in Western Saxon English. Read more »
Public Smoking Bans: Because Some Smokers Are Assholes
I am a former cigarette smoker…for now. Who knows what the future holds? I’ve relapsed before. I may again. But for right now, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me nauseous, and despite the fact that I was a social smoker, I don’t even crave cigarettes when I’m around smoking smokers, so a former smoker I must be.
Being a former smoker, I have all sorts of opinions about smokers, and the rights of smokers, and the rights of nonsmokers, and just about every cigarette-smoke-related issue you can imagine. And because I was a smoker, and for a while, I was a nonsmoker who didn’t mind being smoked around, I even feel justified in some of them.
My parents were smokers. My dad quit when I was a kid, but my mom still smokes, choosing to roll her own in a market that has jacked the price of pre-rolled smokes up to $15 a pack in some cities.
(For reference, when I left Virginia in 1999, a pack of Marlboro lights cost $1.98. By the time I quit for the first time in 2002, a pack of Newport 100s — I’ve changed my brand a lot — cost $4.25. When I started up again in 2008, pretty much all name brands were up to $7.00. Today, they’re $9-13 in my area, depending on the brand and where you buy them. The last time I looked into it, only a third of that cost was the cigarettes themselves, and only a fraction more of that was the tobacco company’s profit margin. The rest is taxes.)
Something I always admired about my parents (though I didn’t always understand it) was that they were polite smokers…with everyone but us kids. What I mean by that is that even after finding out about the dangers of secondhand smoke, our parents smoked around my sister and me, but they never smoked around anyone else without first asking if it would bother the people they were near. Especially the children of people they didn’t know. Sometimes, depending on who the person was, my mother would even ask if it would bother a nonsmoking visitor if she lit up in our own home. And when she was outside, she always, always stepped away from doorways, walkways, and unknown vehicles so her smoke didn’t bother any nonsmokers that might have to pass by. Read more »
