Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Fuck the Bucket: Boycott The Salvation Army

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Watch the video and make your own decision. Our family will not donate, but instead will help the local HIV/AIDS resource center. There better causes that do not discriminate.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Two things


A very special post on Sarah Palin

My friend Brad posted this the other day, I asked him if I could share. He was more than happy to spread this message. Warning, strong language. Thanks Brad, I appreciate your sharing of this piece. Keep up the good work!



In case you haven't heard about it yet, Sarah Palin's 16 year old daughter Willow went on a friend's Facebook page (screenshots here) and began retaliating on the boy for making a status update about Caribou Barbie's 'reality' TV show that read "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing soo hard right now" by telling the boy who made the status update (and another boy who agreed with him) that he was a faggot, that he was fat as hell, and a low-life-loser. Big sister Bristol, of Dancing With Mommy's Puritannical Little Slut/going raw dog with Levi Johnston fame initiated the fray by insisting that the boy was only talking shit - because of course the show couldn't possibly be a giant nut-filled turd on merit and worthy of criticism and/or mockery, now could it.

Both girls are old enough to know that this kind of nonsense is stupid, but I for one am glad it happened. Not because they ripped on another kid, but because it's just another brand new example of what a total lack of parenting is happening between Sarah Palin and her children. That's pretty fucking important when you consider what a hypocritical opportunistic shetbag Sarah Palin is for just a moment. She's not had a single word to say in any sort of press release or interview on this matter, not one fucking syllable. She won't, either - because in the extreme right-wing teabagger world these people live in, you're impervious to criticism and nothing you do is ever wrong. You're only ever surrounded by people who agree with you so you're never challenged on anything and no one holds you accountable for your bullshit, and the bullshit is LEGION.

It's pretty amazing how you can operate consistently on two completely different standards and yet not a single one of your beloved fans ever gets hip to this hypocrisy, which to me can only mean that those who adore this walking bag of hair must be more stupid than she is. Nothing else makes sense, and no one with a fully functioning brain can extol the greatness of anyone this phony without an arsenal of sarcasm fueling them.

Let's not make this about Bristol and/or Willow Palin's choice of words and behavior in employing them because that's only an issue if you're comparing it to the current climate of awareness that has been drawn over the string of bullying and suicide incidents that have become such a common reality in this country - and rightly so - because it's clear that once again a lack of parenting has lead to something stupid and unnecessary. Bristol and Willow Palin are assholes to be sure, but they're no real threat to anyone. Before you try to give me shit for calling these young girls assholes, one is 20 and has a child - the other is old enough to secure employment and operate a 2,000 lb. carcass maker on wheels, so FUCK OFF. The real problem here is their mother's complete lack of public response on her offspring's behavior when a considerable response would be expected of someone who wishes to play word police for others. Case in point, Rahm Emanuel and the "R" word. If you recall back to February of this year, the then Obama Administration Chief of Staff was overheard ranting angrily about Democrats (in a strategy session over budget issues I believe) being "fucking retarded". This deeply offended Bible Spice to the point that she took to her Facebook notes page and put out this gem:

" Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking. [...]

As my friend in North Andover says, “This isn’t about politics; it’s about decency. I am not speaking as a political figure but as a parent and as an everyday American wanting my child to grow up in a country free from mindless prejudice and discrimination, free from gratuitous insults of people who are ostensibly smart enough to know better..."

It seems that her delicate sensibilities (funny how a self professed 'Mama Grizzly/Pit Bull Hockey Mom/Barracuda' even HAS those, but I digress) were offended because her youngest child, Trig, was born with Down's Syndrome and Rahm's use of the word was hitting below the belt. Before I wrap this part of this post up, let me be clear on something here. Trig Palin is cognitively disabled - Sarah Palin is fucking retarded.

She laments her family's lack of privacy and makes a stink about leaving her kids out of the spotlight, yet she's whoring the entire clan on one reality show while the oldest daughter is cha-cha-ing on another. She goes to great pains to bust Levi Johnston's balls at every opportunity for having the nerve to upstage her in exploiting the fuck out of 15 minutes of fame, taking -0- responsibility for the fact that she's the one who threw him on that stage and into that spotlight to begin with. You're not exactly the shining pinnacle of Christian virtue you want people to think you are when EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DO is out of self interest.

But it gets worse. Much, much worse.

Enter GOProud, the newest organization of self professed conservative homosexuals who wish to align themselves with mainstream right wing groups and politicians that couldn't give a shit less about them or their agenda.

I don't mean to imply here that people shouldn't be allowed to have their own views that may cut against the grain some. That's fine. While I personally don't know that I have any genuine conservative positions, I can understand where some would and I raise no objection to that. What I DO have an objection to is any group or organization stupid enough to defend someone who, like Sarah Palin, would deny them any and all of their civil rights if it were in her power to do so. Yet that's what they've done in jumping into the Palin girls' fray by dismissing any issue taken with Bristol & Willow's brand of response as simply a cheap shot at their mother in an effort "...to destroy her by an angry, misogynistic Left":

GOProud on the Willow Palin “Controversy”

Statement of Tammy Bruce – Chair of the GOProud Advisory Council

(Los Angeles, CA) – “Willow Palin is a 16 year old girl who, like all 16 year olds is going to make mistakes and say things she shouldn’t have. This, however, has nothing to do with Willow Palin or the substance of what she said on Facebook. The ‘slur’ used here is one you could hear on the streets of West Hollywood or Chelsea every day of the week. Apparently, it’s only a ‘homophobic slur’ when it comes from the daughter of a conservative female leader. Make no mistake; this is all about destroying Sarah Palin by any means necessary.

“The angry misogynistic left and their accomplices in the main stream media have been unable to take down Governor Palin – no matter how hard they have tried. Unable to take her down directly they now have decided to try to hurt her by attacking the most important thing in her life – her family.

“Any person, gay or straight, who participates in this cheap political smear should be ashamed of themselves.”

Oh, you motherfuckers...

Yes, it's the people calling Palin on her bullshit that should be ashamed of themselves. This coming from the very people who love the hand that beats them, even when that hand is attached to those who will exploit them for a vote but wouldn't take a wet shit in their mouths if they were seconds away from death by dehydration.

Yeah, I just fucking said that.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Bullies never win

Spoiler Alert! Don’t read if you haven’t watched the finale!

I didn’t set the DVR for Top Chef: Just Desserts, as I thought the show might be a little much to take. But, after hearing about some of the contestants and the epic, sugar-fueled meltdowns, I set the DVR to catch the goodness.

Boy, am I ever glad. The premise is the same as Top Chef, but in this version, they focus on, well, Just Desserts. Boring you ask? Hell no. From the get-go, many of the contestants (I refuse to use the word Cheftestant btw) came out as openly Gay. The kitchen culture on the regular Top Chef follows that of the restaurant world, it’s okay to be LBGT, just don’t flaunt it. To this date, no openly Gay person has won Top Chef. I remember my time in the kitchen in Toledo at both the Westgate Dinner Theater and at Lightening Louie’s at Portside. It was like a locker room in the kitchen, and you best not be Gay. Oh sure there were some of us who were, but we just didn’t say anything and kept it quiet in the kitchen when we picked up our food. There is a definite hierarchy in a food establishment, with the chefs/cooks at the top of the pyramid of power.

So when Team Diva formed on Just Desserts, the Gay Factor when up to 11. Morgan, the token hetero on the show never hid his disgust with the team and would openly bitch about them on the confession cams. Yes, the team members were Gay, and Zac, god love him, took every opportunity to flaunt his sexuality. Morgan steamed each time Zac said something remotely Gay and often would roll his eyes or worse yet, threatening to do bodily harm. Zac called Morgan out at the Judge’s Table one episode, and Morgan didn’t react well, calling Zac a variety of disrespectful names, including the ever so classy “annoying little fairy.” Really Morgan? That’s soooo junior high. And as annoying as Zac may have been, he never threatened you with bodily harm or called you a name or used a slur against you. And, I can’t wait for “Disco Dust” to be added to our collective lexicon this year.

In the end, it appeared that Morgan may indeed win, as Yigit and Danielle, the other two finalists had their own Waterloos leading up to the finale. After the loathsome Gretchen’s win on Project Runway over the hyper-talented Mondo, I feared that this may be a win for Morgan and would break my heart once again. But Yigit, the skinniest pastry chef I have ever seen, pulled it together and using dating as a metaphor for his courses won the contest.

So, what have we learned from this? Bullies don’t win, they never do.

Congrats to Yigit and the rest of Team Diva, Morgan, you can suck it.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Opposites Attract

Yesterday afternoon Anna’s Daisy Scouts came into my studio at the college to earn their pottery badges. It was thrilling to have that many young, eager minds ready to work and have fun in the studio. They were generally excited and oooo’d and aaahh’d over every little thing we presented them. They gleefully made their projects without whining and did a great job in cleaning up. I tell ya, it’s enough to make me want to go back to teaching K 12. Yes college students, I am talking about YOU!


One of Anna’s fellow students is the daughter of my oral surgeon. We’ve had some pretty interesting conversations (when I am not sedated in her chair) and we both have a love of the arts at our core being and do what we can to promote and share the arts in our community. She showed up yesterday in her scrubs, looking completely out of place in my dusty, dirty, and NOT sterile studio. We both got a good laugh over the fact that for her to do her job well, she needs to remain as clean as possible and work in a sterile environment. Sure she gets dirty (and often times, bloody) while she does her work, but her goal is to remain as clean as possible. For that, us patients are very glad.

Me, on the other hand, I am just the opposite. We make no guarantees of cleanliness, as a matter of fact, we openly warn people to watch where they sit, and to expect to get dirty while in the room. I once had a Dean come in for a quick meeting in the studio and she left with a white dust ring on her butt. Yeah, that was an awkward conversation to have.

But back to the dirt… if I am doing my job well, I will leave the college covered in dust and with clay in my hair and on my clothes. I stopped by the grocery on the way home one night and one of my former students looked at me as I was checking out and asked me if I had a busy day in the studio. I gave her a funny look, said “Yes” and then asked her how she knew I was in the studio. She pointed at my forehead and the giant streak of clay running across it.

Yup, it was a good day indeed.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Where were you five years ago?

Five years ago this weekend, our collectively lives changed forever.



Tomorrow marks Anna’s 5th birthday, a big milestone for sure for our oldest charge.

As some of you know, prior to starting the blog, I had thought (and still do) about writing a book about the whole adoption process. This is from one of the initial chapters that shares what was going on before this young girl moved into our home and our hearts.

It has a rather abrupt ending, as there is a rather long couple of paragraphs that follow that don’t really deal with preparing, so hold on and wait for part two next week.



We thought we knew what we were getting in to when we started the whole adoption process. As teachers, we had worked with our share of kids of all ages so nothing really seemed to be an issue to us. God were we ever wrong.

Right after we met with Anna’s Mom and knew it was a match, we decided to ramp up our efforts and start getting stuff for our newest family member. We had heeded the adoption book’s advice and kept the hoarding and nesting down to a minimum. We had felt the pain of a birth mom changing her mind, so we didn’t want to set up shop and then have to take down everything if things changed. We decided to support our local toy store, the Toy House, a place that has been in Jackson for many years. Their signature wrapping paper of multi-colored balloons has delighted generations of young Jacksonians. We knew that they had a baby department, and unlike some of the big box places in town, their staff actually know what they are doing. So we had dinner, a few drinks to steel our nerves, and headed to the store. It was a Friday night and we were a few weeks away from Anna’s birth. Our former church had decided to have a shower for us, so they recommended that we set up a baby registry at the Toy house so we didn’t end up with 20 copies of “Goodnight Moon” or worse yet, a Raffi CD. We walked around the baby area with a glazed look on our face and finally a woman came up and asked if we needed help. We told her what we were doing, and she asked us what we actually had at home for the baby. As mentioned, we kept our purchases to a minimum, so we only had a few things:

• An MSU teddy bear

• A collection of baby tattoos

• A flannel shirt from Baby Gap

We shared our pathetic list with the woman, and the look on her face said: you are sooooo fucked. We knew we were in trouble. She sighed a heavy sigh and showed us how to use the bar code zapper/registry thingie. She asked us if we had any bottles.

Nope.

Any bibs?

Nope.

Any diaper containers?

Nope.

She shook her head and started zapping things like she was at a shooting range. We reminded her that we only had the bear, tattoos and flannel shirt several times and she mentally sized us up each time. Who were these two clueless idiots? Why were they having a kid? WHO ALLOWED THIS?

More later!

Enjoy your week and send birthday wishes to Anna on Saturday.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Adam Carolla's kids respond

Adam Carolla’s two children, twins Natalia and Santino have recently gone on record as saying that they would have preferred to be raised by a Gay couple instead of their father, the formerly relevant “comedian” Carolla.

“He just sits at home all day doing nothing,” remarked Natalia as she played with her Dora doll. “Maybe we’d have better toys if Uncle Jimmy was our dad,” Santino said, kicking away a broken G.I.Joe from a pile of marked down “Man Show” DVDs piled in the children’s play area. “I’m just glad that Sarah (Silverman) isn’t our mom,” said a visibly shaken Natalia, “that bitch ain’t right.” The children are seem to be happy and well taken care of, but by the way they talk and pine out loud for a better life, it makes one wonder if comedians should even be allowed to have children in the first place.

“What if Justin Bieber was our dad,” wondered Natalia,” that would be awesome! I bet Justin wouldn’t spend all night watching reruns and yelling at Uncle Jimmy’s picture.” “Or making crank phone calls to people when he should be out looking for a job” added Santino.

Carolla’s children decided to break the silence after their father made the following comments on his podcast. Apparently podcasts are what you do when your career is over and you are trying to remain in the spotlight.

Said Carolla: Look, if something happens to me, I'd rather my kids were raised by a heterosexual couple rather than a gay couple, all things being equal. I just believe a mom and dad is better than two dads or two moms. I don't believe this, I just know this.

And Adam, for the record, we just know that you are a complete asshole.

And, don't you be an asshole. If you're going to comment on this, have the balls or ovaries to comment with an identity.  Anonymous comments will no longer be allowed.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Fatherhood Friday: Walking in my shoes part 2

As a parent, I am reminded daily that my task is a great one. I am under a microscope each day at work, as my students watch and study (when they’re not on their damn phones texting) everything I do. The same is true with Anna and Eli. Now that school is in full swing, our time with them is limited each day. From the frantic rushing around in the morning to the meltdown hour at 4, we have just a few hours with them to interact and make a positive difference. But with life and all the other responsibilities in the world, it’s easy to forget that fact. I will admit that it was easier with one child, and we’re slowly finding a groove with two, but this is something that we are working on each day. Anna and I have about 30 minutes each morning to sit and read, talk, do art, or just stare out the door together as we wait for her bus to come. I enjoy that time, as I can’t do anything else; it’s my daily moment of Anna Zen.


Eli is now quickly moving into the Terrible Twos, something that we avoided with Anna. His personality has always been strong, but now it’s coming out big time (as well as his wicked sense of humor). Each request to do something is greeted with a “NO!” or an exasperated “okaaaaaaay” as he begrudgingly does what was asked. He’s slowly picking up more and more words and communication is becoming easier as his vocabulary grows. It’s fun to observe the differences between the male and female toddler. I can’t say yet which is easier, but I do know that I will be glad when this phase is done.

But back to the whole parenting thing… I hope that someday Eli will follow in my footsteps and not in the footsteps of his biological parents. I know that I am not perfect, but I want to be the best role model for this young man each and every day. Some kids don’t get a second chance with their influences or their parents, Eli has, and I am honored to be part of that.