After I mingled with strangers, friends, and Two Movie Guys (Lucas says I owe him $500… I remember it the other way around), we headed on over to the Kerr Auditorium for the screening of 8: The Mormon Proposition.

The film was aptly titled. Before the film, I had not realized just how much the Latter Day Saints church had been directly involved in the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which simply added these few words to the California constitution: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” According to the film, only 2% of the population of California is Mormon, yet 71% of the monetary contributions toward the passage of Proposition 8 can be traced back to members of the LDS church and to the church’s finances directly. During the final week of the campaign to pass the Proposition, $5M in contributions came in via out-of-state sources, and specifically from Salt Lake City alone (Mormon headquarters). In order to pass a ballot issue in California, it was said, you need three things: money, volunteers, and a message. The LDS church had all three in abundance. With very minor assistance from a coalition of other (mostly religious) groups, they were successful in getting the Proposition passed.

As the film continually emphasized, the campaign for marriage equality has always been about people rather than politics and money. Laws have implications on real people who are trying to live their lives in the best way they can. The most heartbreaking part of the film were the details of numerous suicides by gay Mormons. One young gay man, feeling he had no one to turn to and was even hated by his family, even killed himself with a bullet to the head at a Mormon temple. Apparently Utah has one of the highest suicide rates in this country, and it has an even higher rate than most other countries in the world. The filmmakers used this statistic to imply that the high suicide rate is because of the alienation experienced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual Mormons due to actions by their families and the church. I would need to see more solid research rather than anecdotal evidence before I could accept that particular hypothesis, but it is definitely the case that many young gay people have killed themselves and are continuing to do so because of the hate expressed to them by the Mormon church.

One of the Mormon apostles/prophets quoted in the film stated that, “the face of sin bears the mask of tolerance” and the preservation of the traditional (i.e. 1 man, wive/wives, children) family is “a core principle upon which the Gospel of Jesus Christ is based.” Being a Christian myself, the last time I checked, the core principles upon which the Gospel of Jesus Christ is based are forgiveness and redemption. The Gospel is about Christ’s sacrificial atonement for the sins of the world because of the deep love of God… Last time I checked there was nothing in the core principles of the Gospel about the preservation of the “traditional” family, whatever that means (a “traditional” family excludes childless married straight couples as well, as a friend has very eloquently pointed out). But what do I know, anyway?

After the Proposition 8 documentary, we headed over to the Iguana Lounge for some more drinkin’ and talkin’. As is always the case with Iguana, the food and drinks were fantastic! I’m about to head over to Iguana again right now for the Friday night Oklahoma Film & Music party. After that, it’s on to see Simmons on Vinyl and later the Midnight Shorts. Cheers!

I am on page 154 of your book thus far, and here are a few comments. I will lay them out in the form of an email I typed to a fellow blogger, Sarah of Two-Headed Blog, who blogged her way through Atlas in 2008, just as I am doing now. Here is a link to the first entry Sarah wrote while reading the book. It’s called Blogging the Atlas.

After reading to almost the point in Atlas Shrugged that Sarah was at when she wrote the entry above, I decided to read her detailed thoughts on the book thus far. Afterward, I sent her the following email, which sums up my thoughts as concisely as possible (I could write so much more):

Sarah,

I just read your first blog entry on Atlas Shrugged where you were about as far in the book as I am now (I don’t want to read your thoughts ahead of my own while wading through the book), I have to say that I find hardly anything I disagree with you on. I think your analysis was very well written and I greatly appreciated the brutal honesty that came with reevaluating your own views in light of Rand’s ideas.

I, too, think that Rand brings some very good points to light in the book so far. The biggest impact to me so far has actually been that the book has been really inspiring. I mean in the sense that it makes me actually want to ascribe to her Nietzsche-esque “uberman/superman/hero” ideal and go out and PRODUCE SOMETHING. I find something inspiring in her exultation of the highly achieving individual. It makes me want to try to BE more of that myself.

My main critique comes from the fact that the people and situations in her invented world DO NOT exist in reality. She writes straw man arguments and characters and then tears them down with the utmost of ease. She writes wooden caricatures, not characters. No one exists like that in real life — either on the extreme idol-worship “producer” side, or on the bumbling bureaucratic “everything is for the public good” moocher/looter type. Her black and white categorical morality gets really old really fast. In her world there is no room for gray areas, utilitarianism (of even the most modest kind), democracy, compromise, or even complexities. She sees everything as very simple.

But that’s just not how the *real* world works.

Despite myself, I really enjoy the book as a work of thoughtful fiction. However, I still can not comprehend why so many people find this thing to be soooooo freaking compelling that they would change their entire worldview based on one reading. The dialogue reads like it was written by a robot. One wonders if she ever had a conversation with an actual human being in her life. But perhaps the wooden caricatures and dialogue can partially be explained by her acquisition of English as a second language???

Plus the rampant misogyny bothers me… a lot. Ayn Rand… a self loathing woman? I vote yes. She REALLY had a thing for being dominated. She was obsessed with the inherent “superiority” (not just her preference) of male domination in the sex act and in relationships in general. It’s a little unnerving.

I look forward to reading your subsequent posts as I plow my way through this behemoth of a book.

Faithfully trudging along,
Kathy

A part of Sarah’s reply to me was as follows:

I’m the same way…I hate to read what other people have written about something before I’ve read it myself.I had the same reaction you describe (feeling “inspired”). It really boosted my work ethic for awhile, and made me want to feel joy in the act of working and being productive. I also agree with your straw man criticism. She is very black and white, and I remember having the thought that in a perfect world, she may be right about some of this stuff…but it’s soooo not that perfect world.

Weirdly though, I don’t recall being quite so struck by the misogyny. I may have cut her some slack, and chalked it up to her being a product of her time. Although, since you’ve mentioned it, I agree it’s appalling.

I’m anxious to hear your thoughts as you read on.

Regarding Ayn Rand and her warped sense of superiority/inferiority as it relates to the male/female sex act, I don’t think I could say it better than Robert M. Slade did in 1998:

Both family and sexuality are rather hideously portrayed. First, is it ridiculous to call a woman a misogynist? Rand seems to rail against the “keep ‘em barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen” mentality, but also manages to put women very firmly in a subordinate position. Sexual activity (tame as it is) seems to be more of an “acquiescence to rape” than any kind of romance. (One also suspects that Rand was into bondage, considering a great many of the descriptions and comments.)

Marriage vows in an objectivist church would probably run along the lines of “Do you promise to attempt to dominate and subdue this woman until such time as you grow bored?” “Maybe.” “Close enough. And do you promise to applaud this man`s production until such time as you find someone with a bigger … corporation?” “Whatever.” “By the power vested in me by having scammed you guys out of a marriage license fee, I now pronounce you man and appendage. May you be unencumbered by small persons.”

There are many quotes throughout Atlas Shrugged along those lines:

Hank Reardon (a hero protagonist) reflecting on his wife, “She seemed to be a woman who expected and deserved a pedestal; this made him want to drag her down to his bed. To drag her down, were the words in his mind; they gave him a dark pleasure, the sense of a victory worth winning … He felt – a profound pride at the thought of granting to a woman the title of his wife … almost as if he felt that he wished to honor a woman by the act of possessing her.”

Yes, posessing her. As in owning her.

And perhaps the most telling quote of all so far comes from another hero protagonist:

Francisco d’Anconia, speaking to Dagny Taggart: “I wish I could tell you what a relief it is to see a face that’s intelligent though a woman’s.”

That statement is rampant with subtext! I suppose Rand believes intelligent women are so few and far between that it is worth commenting on. I could forgive Rand for this due to the time she was writing in, but she created an entire world right out of thin air for her books. Rand’s New York City never existed.  People like the characters in her novels never existed. Thus she could have written anything she wanted regarding the roles and propensities of women in her made up world. It simply appears that Ms. Rand had such a low opinion of women in the real world that this animosity naturally bled over into her writing. In The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged both, the “strong” intelligent female protagonist desires nothing more sexually than to be violently dominated by (and even subservient to) “the right kind of man.” At one point in Atlas, Dagny tells her mocking brother that the reason she hasn’t shined Francisco d’Anconia’s shoes is simply because he hasn’t asked her to.

Ayn Rand as feminist? Um, no. Ayn Rand as misogynist? I’m leaning heavily that way.

I attempt to be an intellectually virtuous person (even though I fail miserably at times, as do we all). To me intellectual virtue means truly making an honest effort to grapple with the ideas presented by people you currently disagree with strongly. It means trying to see things through others’ eyes and honestly wrestling with the ideas that other people find so persuasive. Therefore, after years of resistance, I have decided to take these people’s urgings seriously and just read the damned* book and get it over with. [*]And when I say read the damned book, I mean the word literally, in the sense that C.S. Lewis used the word damned in Mere Christianity not as frivolous swearing but instead to refer to a philosophy or idea that is “damned … under God’s curse, and will (apart from God’s grace) lead those who believe it to eternal death.” †

Yes, I believe that Ayn Rand’s Objectivist “philosophy” and her elevation of the “virtue” of selfishness due to a rejection of her straw-man made up definition of altruism (that she basically invented and pulled out of her ass) is rotten to its core. I have made no attempts to hide the fact that I am a Christian. However, as rotten philosophies go, Objectivism is not only internally inconsistent, but it is evil from a secular humanist perspective as well. One can reject the existence of evil outright (I do not, but that is a discussion for another day), but Objectivist principles are also inconsistent with principles of compassion and human mercy, which many atheists and secular humanists embrace wholeheartedly. [And as a side note, I embrace atheists and secular humanists wholeheartedly, as many of them are some of the most well-rounded, caring, intelligent, and generally awesome people I know. And YES, atheists can be moral - just not Ayn Rand (likewise, believers in God(s) can be VERY immoral)]

The Libertarian will respond, “No the principles of compassion and human mercy are not inconsistent with Objectivist ideas and the Virtue of Selfishness because in our perfect Libertarian Utopian society there will be basically no want. There will be virtually no poor. If there are any needs to be met, the poor will be taken care of by private, non-coercive, charity… out of the goodness of those private actors’ hearts. This is simply how the truly unregulated free market works. Oh, and P.S. all taxes are coercive aggressive theft.”

Did you think that Libertarians were just about limited government, deregulation, and little to no taxes? Nope. Modern Libertarians base their entire worldview around a bedrock principle, set in stone, as though written by the hand of God (or some immutable “natural law”), of what they call the “Non-Aggression Principle” or NAP. Read up on it. There may be a test

Anyway, back to my quest to read Atlas Shrugged. I imagine it will take me quite a few weeks or months as I tend to abandon books as quickly as I start them. However, I have to admit that after the first 30 pages or so of sub-par writing I’m a little intrigued. Perhaps bad writing appeals to me. I am already familiar with the entire basic plot of the book, just not the specifics. There are a few plot points I’m already speculating on, such as who (or what multiple people) Dagny Taggart is going to end up hooking up with / getting raped by. At this super-early stage I’m voting for either Hank Rearden or the young brakeman on the train who knew of Halley’s Fifth unpublished Concerto (Is the young brakeman Richard Halley? Is he a relative or Halley? Oooh… the plot thickens). OR… will Dagny hook up with John Galt? I mean, Who Is John Galt, after all? Why ask questions there are no answers for?

Or will Dagny hook up with / marry 3 different guys like Dominique Francon does in The Fountainhead? Oh, but wait, only the man Dominique is TRULY an equal with (Howard Roark) gets the honor of raping her in the violent sense (excluding the regular marital rape that goes on throughout the book with her other two husbands)… Er, I mean, she gives herself willingly to Roark, a complete stranger at the time, willingly in a violent way when he breaks into her room at night and has rough forceful sex with her simply because “she likes it rough.” Yeah. That’s it. Not rape at all. Not marital rape. Roark’s breaking and entering does not equal rape in the least either. Rand definitely does not glorify rape in her novels. </extreme sarcasm>

Yes, I have already read The Fountainhead in full.

In the first 30-ish pages alone of Atlas Shrugged I have highlighted some of the most ridiculous dialogue ever (“Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them.”) But perhaps I’ll save it for another blog post and get back to my trashy romance novel. I’m trying to be fair. The book is moderately entertaining so far. I’ll give her that!

I’ll try to blog sporadically through the book under the category “Shrugging Atlas”. I think my next post may be just a listing of some of the more ridiculous quotes from the book I have encountered thus far.

Full disclosure: If you couldn’t tell from the entire prior post, I am incredibly biased. This is why I am reading Atlas Shrugged in the first place – to see what all the effing fuss is about. In fact, my bias against Rand’s philosophy runs so deep that it can almost be entirely summed up in this GQ article from a few months back: The Bitch is Back. The entire 6-page article (mostly about ARA’s – Ayn Rand a-holes who never outgrow the “Ayn Rand stage” that most young college kids go through… much like lip rings or purple hair) is well worth your 20 minutes to read, but if you skip to the 6th page and start with the FU’s, in a moment of brutal honesty I’ll tell you that those words just about entirely sum up my personal feelings on Ms. Rand.

Now bring on the trolls!!!

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† Full text of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity – http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt

Extreme Joy

I arrived at work this morning to an email greeting me with this wonderful news:

On behalf of [the Vice President], I want to congratulate you on your selection as one of the recipients of the 2009 Staff Development Scholarships.

The Scholarship Committee consisted of a group of your peers from [divisions within the organization].  Of the applicants, the Scholarship Committee selected you for your demonstrated talent, dedication, and merit.  Through the pursuit of continuing education, you and others like you are setting a benchmark of excellence that [the organization] is pleased to sponsor.  [The Vice President] is very proud of you!

Your scholarship is worth $1,000 and must be used  by August 31, 2010.

I applied for that scholarship way back at the beginning of July and had just about given up hope of receiving it. I had expected to hear something by now. This was fantastic news!

Needless to say, as soon as I read the email I was jumping around my office gleefully like a crazy person. Remember the ridiculous happy jumping dance Tracy Flick does in Election when she first thinks she won? Yeah, that was me this morning. I think I actually let out a little squeal and clapped my hands in glee. My office mate would have thought I was insane except that she is used to regular outbursts like that from me by now. I promptly told her the good news and then I ran and quickly told another coworker friend who wrote one of my letters of recommendation. Hugs were exchanged. I giggled.

The icing on the cake about getting this particular scholarship besides that a). I worked damn hard for it, b). I can sure use the money, and c). It’s a fantastic morale booster and a great résumé-padder, is that a good friend of mine applied for and got the same scholarship as well! We were in direct competition with one other and we both received the award! Hooray for overachievers!

Murderous Rage

Fast-forward to a mere 30 minutes later.

I got a semi-emergency call from my husband at work telling me he had just discovered that the meth-addict contractor we hired to paint the outside of our house (who had already finished the job, crappily, a few days ago) had stolen some stuff out of our garage and possibly from the inside of our house as well. I rushed home from work to find that the only possession in the entire world that I cared about, my Grandma’s wedding ring that I inherited 2 1/2 years ago when she died, was gone. No $hit. I had posted a comment on a friend’s blog less than 2 weeks ago about how this particular ring was the only possession in the entire world that I care about, and now it’s gone. I don’t know how long it has been gone. It could have already been gone when I posted the comment. They were working on the house for about 2 weeks.

A police report has been filed and I have made the rounds to every pawn shop in Norman, Noble, and Purcell looking for my ring. It is a one in a million shot I will ever get it back but I’ll still check back every week or so. It doesn’t help that the ring is so generic looking – it’s a white gold round cut four pronged solitaire diamond ring. Real distinctive. It fits perfectly on my right ring finger. Only I would be able to identify it if I saw it. It does have a slightly bent prong and the diamond is a little bit loose.

God is mocking me. God says, “Kathy, it’s just stuff. Even if it was your only remaining tie to your Grandma and you placed a great deal of value on it, it’s still just a rock.”

Yes, God, you’re right. But that’s not going to stop me from eschewing your mockery by ironically praying (to you!) to get it back and continuing to scope out the pawn shops… and also to hope that I’m not just an idiot and that it’s lodged underneath my dresser or something.

The situation with the contractor is really sketchy and we’re not even sure if it was him personally who took the ring and some of the other stuff. He definitely took a ladder and some other miscellaneous low-value stuff out of our garage, but we have no idea what else could be missing from the inside of our house just yet. We’ve tried to do an inventory on everything valuable we have, and we can’t find anything else missing just yet. The problem is that he brought at least 2 or 3 other people (read: drug-addict friends) over to do work at our house at various times who we never really met or had a chance to talk to. Any one of them could have taken the ring without his knowledge. The main contractor was clearly high out of his mind at least once or twice when he showed up to do work, and we could tell that one of his other workers was high a different time as well. They were hired to paint the outside of the house, and they only even had access to the inside because of a technicality where we had to leave a garage door unlocked for 2 days so they could paint it. They did not ever have permission to enter our home.

Hindsight is 20/20. We looked him up on the Oklahoma Dept of Corrections database this afternoon, and guess what? He has an extensive police record of drug offenses for sale and posession – meth and marijuana. He most recently got out of jail in November 2008. At least none of his criminal offenses were for violent crimes.

Lesson learned: Trust no one. This should really be common sense but sometimes you have to learn the hard way. With contractors:

1. Get multiple references, especially if there is a need for them to have access to the inside of your house while you are not there. Call the references.
2. Ask if they are insured. (Ensures further credibility).
3. If they seem a little bit high, they ARE high. This might be ok if they’re just mowing your lawn or something, but don’t let them in your house or garage! Protect your garage access code and door openers at all costs!
4. If they spout conspiracy theories they may or may not be high, but you should probably fire them anyway. You don’t want your hard-earned money going to support Ron Paul, 9/11 “truthers,” or antivaxers, do you? Not to mention that pesky meth habit…
5. Look them up in the OK Dept of Corrections Offender Database online BEFORE hiring them.
6. Yes, meth addicts do work for much cheaper than other contractors, but it’s not worth it. Believe me!

Cautious Optimism

I have nothing particularly noteworthy to comment on President Obama’s address to Congress tonight that hasn’t already been said by people far more eloquent than me, but his speech did fill me with cautious optimism. Of course, I thought that Obama gave far too much compromise to the anti-reform crowd in his plan as detailed in the speech tonight, but such is politics. I think this is the best we can hope for in this country right now.

We have a horrible broken health care system right now in this country. That is a fact. I think with this speech it appears that perhaps, after a month of complete and total standstill, perhaps progress can begin to be made again toward getting some sort of major legislation passed by the end of this year. Additionally, the unbecoming heckling outbursts of the anti-reform crowd during Obama’s speech clearly hurt their own cause… so yay for that.

So as to not end on a negative note, here is a happy little video that has been making the rounds lately online. Enjoy.

I consider myself to be a reasonable person who is capable of having logical and rational discussions without resulting to personal ad-hominem attacks. I try to adhere to this principle as much as possible in all discussions I have online and in person. Apparently, other people are not so agreeable to try to keep conversations at such a level. Therefore when I checked back to a particularly contentious discussion board after a few hours in the middle of a conversation tonight, I found that I had been de-friended without even an explanation as to why. How very mature of that person.

Again, I do admit that in the past I have crossed the line MANY times by making smart-assed, rude, and condescending remarks when I have shot off my mouth without thinking. My behavior in the past has been wrong, and many people deserve apologies for the things I have said. However, I don’t believe that this has been the case at all in the past few weeks and days. Recently, I have been intentionally trying to be much more thoughtful about the way I approach conversations with others that I may not agree with. This was the case with the person who recently de-friended me. I honestly have no idea what I did to offend this person. My entire dialogue with them was perfectly civil and I did not attack them personally in any way at all. I even complimented one of the points they made!

The good news out of all of this is that now I have one less troll to deal with posting snarky and rude comments on my page! I do realize that people (who I personally know somewhat in real life) are probably talking about me and making fun of me behind my behind my back right now… but it’s ok with me. A few months ago I probably would have been crying over it, but I have bigger fish to fry right now.

I have the gift of (over)confidence, but I lack the gift of eloquence and tact. I have the gift of boldness, but I lack the gift of thick-skin and calm-headedness. I have no problem standing up in front of an audience to speak, but no one wants to listen to what I have to say because my thoughts are a jumbled mess and I have a tendency to offend people. Then when people bite back because I offend them, I get my feelings hurt (though usually just a little bit – mostly I just get really angry and it makes me want to lash out further and cause them pain).

In summary, right now I would make a terrible politician, even though I think that could possibly be what I am gifted to do. I just have a very long way to go. I guess I’m glad 30 is the new 20 and my whole life is still ahead of me. Personal growth, here I come…

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the next 24 hours.

Now, the question of whether we should change the current health care system in the U.S. or or how to do so is a completely separate issue from the statement made in the first sentence of the quotation above. Therefore, in my humble opinion, anyone who would disagree with the basic premise of the statement above is pretty much a worthless person completely devoid of all human compassion.

The United Nations has declared health care to be a basic human right (Article 25), as has the United Methodist Church in their Social Principles (¶162.V). We can disagree civilly on how to achieve the ends to the goal of minimal standards of health care for all citizens… but who in good faith can still call themselves a decent human being and yet have the audacity to disagree with the statement that no one should die because they can’t afford health care? I mean really. REALLY? It is well documented that people (yes, even young people) do in fact still die the United States all the time because they cannot afford costly health care procedures. Paying for health care is still the #1 reason for bankruptcies in this country. I have personally been nickel and dimed by insurance companies and I personally know several individuals with their own insurance horror stories. Something’s gotta give.

So back to my original point on basic human compassion… here are a few alternative status updates I also had the misfortune of seeing on facebook and twitter yesterday:

This person thinks no one should [...] post this as your status for the rest of the day

Some people don’t deserve health care, and some people deserve to be broke.

President Obama is using the same tactics as Adolf Hitler. He is trying to pervert the youth of America with his socialistic ideals. Health care is NOT a right. Even our founding fathers knew better than to ty [sic] this. What is wrong with people in this country?

What was even worse than these updates were the comments that followed underneath them. Many of the comments were along he lines of “I hate poor people” and “LOL OMG I SO agree.”

Many of these people dare to call themselves Christians. What happened to feeding the poor and caring for the sick? If anyone in the world is going to know that I’m a Christian, I would rather they know me as someone who takes the gospel message to mean caring for the least of these – working toward social justice and meeting people’s physical needs in this world. Following Christ is not just about praying a prayer and then merely going off to judge others’ immoral lifestyles and condemn things that shouldn’t be done. What about working to change the world for the better? Feeding the poor? Caring for the sick?

Personally, I know that I haven’t spoken up enough to correct the wrongs when I see them being perpetuated. And that’s because I know that when I do speak up I can tend to be a bit of a jackass (ok, so I have been a complete and total sarcastic and condescending jackass. I shoot my mouth off with snarky comments and I have not yet mastered the delicate art of tact.) I know this is a huge personal weakness and I am working on it slowly day by day. It is wrong and I need to change.

Fortunately, my husband has been my biggest inspiration and mentor. He is able to confront people firmly but with tact, logic, and reason, and without resorting to sarcasm and intentional condescension. He would make a fantastic college professor and/or attorney (which are coincidentally the two fields he is pursuing graduate degrees in currently!) Right now I just get angry and I want to be mean for meanness’ sake. Yes, I have pure motives and the good of the world and individuals at heart, but in the heat of the moment I often just shoot off my mouth. And for that I am truly sorry.

What is boils down to is this: We can disagree intensely on how to reach certain political goals. That is to be expected. However, I would like to think that people will hold empathy and compassion first and foremost  in all political conversations from here on out. The recent discourse of the past few months, as evidenced in comments like the ones above, has certainly not been shaping up that way.

The 2-3 minute recording was basically a scare-fest about how we, as fine upstanding gun-totin’ Amerucuns, should be terrified that some sort of shady conspiracy business is going on right now whereby 3rd world Mexican dictators (or dictators of some other countries – I don’t remember which ones) are trying to control United States’ gun policy. Lest that not be enough to make you shake in yer cowboy boots, that gun-hating she-devil Hillary Clinton is also personally going to come to your house and take away your guns.

After the canned recording wrapped up with the superfun ending trashing Hillary Clinton (I’m thinking the Clinton part alone must have lasted a full minute), the live Texas twang woman got back on the phone and asked us (or rather, Jared) the following poll question:

Should 3rd World dictators and Hillary Clinton be allowed to dictate gun ownership/policy in the United States? Yes or No?

First of all, the only options for answering were yes or no. There was no in between. There was no possibility for clarification. The NRA clearly worded the question to lead to their desired answer (see Meaningless Statistics from Sociological Images, specifically #4). Now really, REALLY… who on earth could POSSIBLY answer yes to a question asking whether 3rd world dictators should be determining US policy? That’s just a stupid question.

Jared answered her as such:

So Yes and No are really the only options for answering this question? Ooooooo… kaaaayyyy… well then, no I do not believe that other countries should be determining US policy on domestic issues.

So he gave her the answer she wanted. In her nice little Texas twang she then happily began to give us the NRA spiel about how scared we should be about Hillary Clinton, 3rd world dictators, and how they are trying to infringe upon our 2nd Amendment rights blah blah blah. Then she asked for money. You see, normally a 5 year‡ NRA membership is $200 (or something – I don’t remember), but just for us, right now, they were running a special! We could sign up for a 5 year membership that day only for the bargain basement low low price of only $150! (We declined).

Jared did, however, have a question for Texas twang woman:

Your organization’s name is the National Rifle Association. The name implies that you support rifle ownership, perhaps for the purposes of hunting or sport. Can you elaborate on that?

Texas twang:

We support gun and firearm ownership and rights of any and all kinds.

Jared:

So you would fully support handgun ownership and/or semi-automatic assault weapons?

Texas twang (with more than a hint of annoyance and frustration in her voice):

We just believe in the 2nd Amendment. I mean, (psssh) the Constitution has worked really well for a few hundred years now. We just want to uphold the Constitution. So um, yeah. And stuff.

Um, yes I suppose the Constitution has worked well enough… If you love a document written over 200 years ago by a few rich white men for a great many purposes including upholding slavery, denying women, blacks, and non land-owning white men the right to vote, and basically upholding the status quo for the power elite of their time. The Constitution was not divinely inspired and it is not scripture. Also, the Constitution is great if you love extreme ambiguity. Sorry to break it to you NRA, but the 2nd Amendment is very much ambiguous and open to interpretation, as is nearly all of the Constitution. It was written that way intentionally. That’s why we have the modern court system – to do the interpreting for today’s world.

Welllp, thanks for calling, Texas twang. And lest you think I’m making this whole story up, here are two more accounts on other blogs of nearly identical calls: I Love Getting Calls Like This, The Guns of August NRA.

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‡ I originally wrote this entry quoting $150 for a 3 year NRA membership, but upon doing further research I discovered that I was mistaken and $150 is actually closer to the 5 year rate. My mistake. I corrected the error.

As a believer, as a human being, and as an American, I am horribly offended and repulsed by some of the claims made by Mrs. Kern in this proclamation. I do not agree with the ACLU on a great many things, but I do agree with the ACLU of Oklahoma wholeheartedly on the following:

The proclamation blames the economic downturn we are currently experiencing on abortion, pornography, divorce, and same sex marriage, among other things. Kern does not mention the greed of Wall Street elitists or the inability of our government to effectively regulate questionable financial practices that might be the true cause of our nation’s economic difficulties. Her proclamation is silent to meaningful solutions to address the very issues she blames for the “downturn of morality.” Kern’s proclamation, which amounts to a hate-filled diatribe, is full of inaccuracies. This proclamation alienates thousands of Oklahomans who are adherents to minority faiths or who practice no faith. It is unfortunate that she and others would promote such a divisive manifesto at a time when Oklahomans need to pull together to weather this current crisis.

Well said. I would have been at the state capitol myself protesting the signing of the proclamation, if I had not had to work yesterday afternoon.

For other eloquent refutations of Mrs. Kern’s vile proclamation for “morality,” see Rep. Al McAffrey’s blog entry and Rep. Ryan Kiesel’s speech. Mr. McAffrey and Mr. Kiesel are both Christians, too, by the way (I added this point not because I think it adds to their credibility – their points would stand as solid and well-reasoned regardless of religious belief – but only to illustrate that not all “Christians” are of the extreme right-wing Kern/Coulter/Limbaugh variety).

One other “God and Country” tidbit. The ridiculous GET MOTIVATED seminar was held in Oklahoma City a few days ago. I did not attend this event and have nothing to say about it… but I highly recommend Two-Headed Blog’s wonderful commentary regarding said event. One of their authors had the “honor” of attending. It’s a great read: Motivate This

On a personal note, the 4th of July is tomorrow and I’m off to a much needed vacation in Florida with my extended family. Fortunately these are people with whom I usually can avoid political and religious related conflict (because I agree with most of them on the most sensitive issues and can just use avoidance tactics with the others). I’ll be sipping on frosty beverages and watching the fireworks on the beach tomorrow night. This trip is much needed. I have become so upset by close-to-home political goings on in the past few weeks (and by political discussions I have had with people I know), that getting 1500 miles away from Oklahoma should do me a lot of good.

My laptop is coming on vacation with me, but it’s very unlikely that I will post anything for the next week or so. I also may not be able to moderate comments or reply to comments while I’m gone. Suburban Kitsch will likely be silent for a little while. Being a loudmouth is taking its toll on me – not that I post anything too terribly contentious on this blog (the worst of my soapbox speeches are usually displayed on other people’s blogs and comment pages).

Have a wonderful 4th.

I officially have a new favorite picture IN THE WORLD (see below). This news story about a church in Louisville would be really disturbing, except that I would like to believe that people (who would dare to call themselves Christians no less) who would do this are so few and far between as to not really matter at all… this is what I would like to believe. The article did also mention that there was a rival gun-free event held simultaneously across town by other religious groups. I should hope so!!! If I lived in L-ville and was aware of this craziness ahead of time, I would certainly be at that rival event waving a banner high.

(On a personal note, my entire extended family hails from Louisville and I am very familiar with the city… so ha!).

Jesus died to protect your 2nd Amendment rights

Here are a few fond memories I have of my time at said job:

• A coworker got called in to the BIG bosses’ office to have a stern talking to about the “alarming” frequency of her email exchanges with her HUSBAND, who also happened to work for the company at the time — big brother was SERIOUSLY watching you at this company.

• I was moved to 4 different desks/cubes on 2 different floors of the same building within 1 1/2 years. On the plus side, they did let me keep my red swingline stapler, though.

• My boss (who was actually a really cool person so I was very disappointed with her for this) sent me a STERN email about how work computers were to be used for business-approved websites only, even if it was possible for me to access other sites on the “allowed” list. Thus, another “big brother is watching you” example. (For context: most employees had no internet access at ALL, and the select few who did have access could only get to a few select sites on the “approved” list, and these were sites that they had to have in order to do their jobs. So no yahoo, no newsok.com, no anything).

• Extremely disturbing (indirect) sexual harassment directed at me, such that I was bawling my eyes out a few times. I need to find out the statute of limitations on that, b/c I think I actually have the guts now, 3 years later, to maybe say something about it.

• The sense, ALL the time, that my coworkers, bosses, and everyone around me, were ALWAYS watching me, looking over my shoulder at my computer screen, and listening to my every word on the phone and every conversation I had with those around me. I am not being paranoid. This was really happening. There was a mass paranoia in the corporate culture at this company that I really didn’t understand.

• Gossip. Constant backstabbing mean-spirited gossip… Now, I know people will say that this is an inherent feature of any workplace with a lot of women in close contact (and all that other sexist crap that I don’t buy in to), but it’s NOT. I know from personal experience that that argument is BS. That argument is sexist to its core. I work in an office now with about 10 other women, and the gossip where I work now is NOTHING like it was at this company. My office now is wonderfully positive and gossip-free by comparison. I don’t even blame the individual women I worked with at my former job, I blame the company’s culture. I blame the highest leadership. It was an institutional problem, not a problem with individuals.

• Terrible timecard system that nickel and dimed you and ripped you off. (The skeptical pessimist in me suspects that this was NOT a coincidence).

• After I left, I heard from a few ex-coworkers that they actually tried to BAN MUSIC AT PEOPLE’S DESKS for a while… this was in the form of headphones, iPods, small radios, small speakers, etc. It was an absolutist policy… No matter what. Apparently that only lasted for a few weeks and the backlash was so bad that they caved a bit.

• I was HORRIBLY underpaid, and so were almost all of my coworkers. This company rapes their employees with low paychecks, all the while posting great profits (at least during the years I worked there). When I moved to the public sector I immediately got almost a 20% raise… I now make almost TWICE as much as I made when I started at that company in 2004. This company does not value its employees.

(For balance, a few good things the company did: yearly free health screenings for all employees, random bonuses ranging between $100-500 every Christmas and sometimes occasionally throughout the year in response to economic crises, community involvement in things like charity races and the like………. but most public sector jobs do all that plus more)

This was just my personal experience with corporate America and the company I worked for. I don’t claim that this is how it is for everyone, or that ALL large businesses are evil, or that capitalism isn’t a great thing (it is!), but this is how it was where I was at. This is just my story and my observations of the company I worked for. I experienced the depths of human misery at that job (I was crying alone in the bathroom on a regular basis I was so miserable), and it was as close to an Office Space type experience as I can envision in the real world.

Everything I have detailed above is all true. You can ask my husband, my parents, my doctor, or anyone who knew me while I worked there. I was in a deep depression at the time. It saddens me so much the way some companies get away with mistreating their employees. That was just the effect it had on me. By comparison, my public sector job now is like working in utopia.

Please don’t misread me and think I’m saying that all companies do this. I see the value in capitalism and I think that privately-owned businesses are a good thing. I know there are lots of private corporations and businesses that are wonderful places to work, but this particular company did not fall into that category. I would love to hear stories about the ones that are good. It will help to give me hope in humanity and the corporate world (which, admittedly, I aspire to never return to).

Office Internet Crackdown - from The Onion