Dear ESPN,

I clicked on your google link because I wanted to know which World Cup matches will be televised on a channel that I can watch. I did NOT want the fucking loud audio that was embedded in your fucking obnoxious, over-saturated, hard-to-read site.

Deafly,
CJ

Da Vinci Code Blue

Found here, these two links illustrate why I've no real desire to read The Da Vinci Code. I'm frequently willing to suspend disbelief; it's why they call it fiction, after all. What I'm not willing to do is read tortured, overwrought prose that substitutes wordiness for real suspense. Read that first quote paragraph, and just try to tell me it's indicative of compelling material yet-to-come.

The story? Is fiction. The folks who take it seriously? Kinda batshit. The folks who made it through the whole damn book? Have a much higher capacity for tolerating crappy writing than I do. Bless you, for without you Dan Brown would starve.

Pre-Pregnancy, Continued

I went off in the comments, so I'll just move it here. This is my reply to Al, who validly pointed out that the guidelines aren't a bad idea, just "poorly worded." As you'll find out below, I'm not willing to believe the poor wording isn't politically motivated:

It's great to want healthy women and children, but they skip out on one of the best ways to make sure those 50% of unplanned children are healthy, and that's provide access to birth control and sex ed so that women CAN plan to have children when they're living life at it's best. It's restrictive to say, "you should always be healthy because you might be pregnant" when we have so much that could be available to help people not be pregnant.

Simply telling women "you're pre-pregnant, so don't drink?" What if they want to drink? What if they want a Whole College Experience?

And why are they not advising ment to be pre-pregnant? There are many things men are advised to do in order to become successful fathers. I'm especially all about the "not beating your partner" bit, as spousal abuse during pregnancy is more likely than many alcohol related defects, and can cause more damage to both baby and mom.

It's more than just poor wording. It's the calculated omission of the woman-as-person from the equation of reproduction, so as not to piss anyone off politically. It also omits men beyond their contribution to the act, and presents a view of babymaking as pollination, wherein women are flowers that must remain as healthy as possible so that when they are pollinated they can bear fruit that's not too bruised to join the workforce (erm... I got a little Marxist there).

I'm no health nut, but I know that all of these things are healthy things to do. If it had been couched as "maximizing women's health" I'd be behind it. But when you're actively focusing on women's health as reproductive health, and not focusing on access to birth control or men's role in reproduction, you're not really concerned about women, but about controlling their bodies. Osteoporosis, heart disease, breast cancer, physical and sexual violence should be addressed with women of all ages, as they are huge health risks for women at younger ages than previously thought. But instead, we are told that obesity and diabetes, because they affect the fetus, ought to be primary concerns.

I'm not saying that there isn't a clear neet help women be healthy. I'm saying the calculated selection of women shows an interes only in their health as spawn-producing bodies, not in their health as productive, vital members of society.

Just So You Know:

If you can bleed, ladies, you're pre-pregnant.

I probably don't have to tell you how much this disgusts me, how heterosexist, classist, and generally indicative of ass-haberdashery it is. I feel like every time someone Up Top gives us another guideline that suggests women are portable baby-makers I make a blog entry that screams the same tired response into the wind. So, here it is, with monkeys:

Monkey monkey half unplanned? Monkey monkey suggests monkey provide monkey birth CONTROL monkey. Monkey monkey control own destinies, monkey monkey not slave to bodies. Monkey monkey happy kids monkey monkey happy parents monkey monkey self-actualization. Monkey monkey monkey men's responsibility? Monkey monkey alcohol monkey monkey pot monkey monkey sperm? Monkey monkey rise in domestic homicide during pregnancy? Monkey monkey single women? Monkey monkey no man to clean litter box? Monkey monkey monkey women should go from Father to Huband, so as not to have to touch cat piss? Monkey monkey WTF?

There. That was much more satisfying, and just as likely to actually do anything. Meanwhile, I plan to deal with this on a personal level: before making any appointment with healthcare professionals -- whether or not I've seen them before -- I intend to ask them if they're adhering to the new "pre-pregnant" guidelines for treating women. If they are, I'll take my business elsewhere. This is America, where money talks. What will yours say? Men, if you're pissed off, you can do this too. That's the beauty of voting with your dollars.

The Joy of Having the Puter Back

There's nothing like finding an .mp3 rec on one of the blogs you regularly read, downloading it ("The source of strontium 90" by Against All Authourity, for those playing along at home), then letting iTunes run from there until you're startled by Alan Rickman reading one of Shakespeare's sonnets and have two immediate thoughts: where'd I get that, and I think I need new underwear.

That man's voice is HAWT, yo.

This Can Only End in Tears...

Massive debt from shiny new puter? Check. PayPal account? Check. Built-in webcam? Check.

This is the stuff made-for-tv movies are made of.

I'm Back...

... With a shiny new computer and a bad attitude. I'm all a-WTF over the NSA "data-mining" shit, most minorly over the way that Bush cleverly announced "we are not 'mining' or 'trolling'" when the practice is FRICKING CALLED DATA-MINING! Have they just stopped briefing him altogether?

I have an irrational fear of the phone. It started out that I just didn't like cold-calling people, even pizza delivery places; it has become a general aversion to the medium as a whole. And I'm OK with this, UNTIL SOME DUMB FUCK WITH A BADGE AND AN ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX MAKES IT A RATIONAL FEAR!

Er... sorry to go all capslock on you there. I just feel like I'm living in 1984 (book, not year).

OK, back to the grade mines. Almost done grading for good!

Recipe for OMGWTFBBQ

It's not good, y'all. The machine is BORKED LIKE WOAH, as I like to say. Roughly translated, that means it's a crap shoot whether/how long/how well the computer will work (if I can get it to start up. There's also the "which program will refuse to load this time" lottery. Both my email program and my news aggregator have become too much for poor little iBook to deal with, so I've not been able to keep up with blogs or email as obsessively much as usual. Add Dueling my Mother for Time on Her Computer to the mix, along with a healthy dose of Waiting For the Fricken Apple Credit Card to Come in the Mail, throw in a dash of Most of My Favorite Music is in mp3 Format, a sprinkle of OMG FIMALS WEEK GRADING, stir with a Giant Spoon of Boredom and Anxiety, and you get... One Crazy Lady.

News?

There is a plane with two blown tires up in the air, circling a Texas airport. The local news picked up on it, started broadcasting, then went to national.

National news is now reporting about the fact that gas is more expensive in Britain (not new), we are underprepared for a possible bird flu outbreak (not new), and there are still questions about the handling of the mine disaster in which twelve men dies a few months back (categorically not new). Not one mention of the BROKEN PLANE THAT'S ABOUT TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY LANDING.

This? Is why I hate TV news.

ETA: Holy shit, that was a beautiful landing. The next time they want pilots to take a pay cut, this footage and the footage from the Jet Blue landing out in LA a few months ago need to be hauled out.