Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Another DGMS IRL!

I love how this place has managed to bring so many people together...

 

This took place tonight - from right to left:  Martha, Debbie, Liz in CT, and two of Liz's friends (and hopefully, new DGMS blogmunity members!) - Sue and Debbie.

I only have one question...  when do I get to meet some of you????  :O)

This Is Why The Bill O'Reillys Of The World Are Dangerous

TRUTH means nothing to them.  And since his viewers don't investigate any further than what he, Beck, et al spew, they believe it.

$ending A Me$$age

They claim they were only joking.

Well, we weren't laughing then, and they aren't laughing now.

The Sacramento DJs who thought it OK to open their sophomoric mouths and talk about transgender people, especially children, as "idiots" and "freaks" - and even go so far as to state it could be beaten out of them, are now getting their financial asses whipped by sponsors.

"They are freaks. They are abnormal," one of them said. "Not because they're girls trapped in boys bodies, but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them."

Spoken like a true ignorant anehole.

Bank of America, Chipoltle, Nissan, Carl's Jr, Verizon and others have all pulled their advertising dollars from KRXQ.

Thank you to everyone who filed a complaint with the FCC and emailed the station directly.  Freedom of speech ends where inciting violence begins.

A Senior Moment

It's official.

As of 1210pm this afternoon, school is out for the summer.

And that means I now have a senior, a junior, and an eighth grader.

A senior.

Egad.

How?  How did that tiny baby eff with the time-space continuum and manage to turn into a senior in high school so fast?  Not to mention teach the trick to her siblings and morph them along the same path?

Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled at their successes, their growth - both physical and emotional - but man, I find myself thrown for a serious loop today.

It's the age old parental conundrum - if you do your job well, they grow up rarin' to go.  Ready to take life on, confident in facing their unknowns.  But if you do your job well, they, well, leave.

I have long referred to Culley as my training wheels in the game of parenting.  She is in charge of the "firsts" and together we figure out how she, and I, handle the terrain.  Tomorrow, before the sun even comes up, we will be strapping on those training wheels again as she boards an airplane to take her away for six weeks at Vanderbilt.

Six weeks.

Six weeks in which I will miss her terribly.  Six weeks in which she will grow more confident, even more self assured.  Six weeks in which we will text message Weekend At Bernie's lines to one another to show we are thinking of each other.  Six weeks in which I will undoubtably watch Bebbin, her cat, wander in and out of her room searching for "her person".

I'll feel Bebbin's pain.

And while Culley is away, I will make myself understand that this is how it will feel roughly a year from now as she prepares to leave for college.  And I will try to remind myself that this is all GOOD.

Kendall, my new junior, will leave for three weeks on Sunday.  I will deposit her at UNT, and like her sister before her, she will return to me suddenly more mature, aware, confident - everything a parent wishes for their child.

Carson will suddenly be an "only child" for three weeks.  A reality that is actually only two years away when Kendall, too, flies the coop for higher learning. 

But Carson is my baby.  But she's NOT a baby.  She's now an 8th grader, goddammit - how did this happen.  How does she now look me in the eye?  So tall, so strong, so eager to eat life with the big spoon.

It's all coming.  Quicker than I ever imagined it would.  You know, when you're in the black hole of nursing, toddlers, preschool, and endless mudslide diapers, you feel like they will never grow up, never feed themselves, read to themselves, hell, wipe themselves.

And then, POOF, there they are.  Looking down at you when they stand, making their own meals when they are hungry, recommending books you just have to read.  And no one's asked me wipe their ass in a very long time.

As much as I have been focused on this milestone of senior, junior, 8th grader, it seems they have been as well.

It's subtle, but it's very much there.

They know the clock is ticking on their time together, too.  And I see them pulling closer.  They hang out in each other's rooms more.  They fight less.  Especially Culley and Kendall.  They'll never come out and admit I was right, but I think they are realizing that what I've said all along is true - they are the best friends they will ever have.  Long after graduations.  Long after high school friends fade into their own futures.  They will remain.

I never knew that my sister was my best friend until she left.  And in her leaving me behind for college, I suddenly felt the gaping hole she obviously filled in my life.  I didn't know I needed her till she was no longer there.

Today, separated by thousands of miles, I live secure in the knowledge that all it takes is one phone call.  All I would have to say is, "I need you." and her world would stop so that she could get to me as fast as she could.  No questions asked.

Yes, Rudy is a best friend, too, but my sister is something a whole world apart.  My sister, to quote from the movie Joe Black, truly knows the "worst thing" (however that is defined) about me, and still loves me.  We have history.  We have mountains we have scaled together.  We have valleys we have endured by each other's side.  Kim is my safe place.  And I know that I am hers.

I see my own daughters recognizing that ever so precious gift in one another.  As the clock continues to tick steadily towards the day life begins to separate them, I see them drawing closer, circling their wagons.

A senior.  A junior.  And an 8th grader.  Secure in the knowledge that no matter what this world holds in store, they have made it this far together, and even when life scatters them to different corners of the world, all it will ever take is one phone call...

 

 

Powerful Words To Inspire Even More Powerful Action

While I posted President Obama's speech at Cairo University over on the political side of the blog, I am writing about it on this side of the blog to encourage every DGMS visitor to invest 15 minutes of their day in reading it in its entirety.

It is brilliant, inclusive, BRAVE, strong.  It is our President acknowledging that while we are all very different, especially in terms of our religions, we are all - ALL - founded on the same core principle - PEACE.

It is sad to me how many people in this country who hate Obama for reasons they will only confess in the darkness of their hearts, or on the phone lines with their favorite radio talking heads, won't read it, or will rely on the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to interpret it for them.  I guarantee you that by 600pm tonight, some right wing radio or TV host will have counted the number of times Obama uses the word "Muslim" in the speech, and will be using it as a weapon against him - "proof" of his "hidden Muslimness".  They will be railing against his assertion that this country contains more than just Christians.  Sorry folks, but it does.  It was founded by people who were largely Deists who did not believe the Bible had any place in the governance of a people.  In fact, they went out of their way to insure separation of church and state.  They will lambaste him for admitting that we are every bit as guilty of stereotyping entire groups of people as are the people we stereotype guilty of lumping every American into one big unflattering blob.

The reality is that every word he spoke is TRUE.  Every word makes sense - or should - to every person on this planet. 

Our differences exist - they do.  Be it based on political leanings, chosen god, life experiences, or just plain geography - we are all different.  We take the world in differently, we interpret it differently, we each spit out a different result.

But in the ways that truly matter, the ways that will ultimately decide our futures, we are very much the same.  And that is where we must place our efforts, our focus, our faith in humanity's ability to move forward.

President Obama's Speech In Cairo - transcript

Or watch the speech:

For Donna in VA (One Day Late)

Hatespeak On The Airwaves

Rush Limbaugh serves it up daily, hours at a time.  Little real information, even less actual fact, all wrapped up in a shell of venom.

Bill O'Reilly is also a purveyor of hate masquerading as "news."  Continually feeding his audience a menu of mean spirited bias, twisted realities, and baiting them into horrific behaviors (Dr. George Tiller's murder as Exhibit A), O'Reilly is a master of aiming the gun but relying on someone else to have the actual balls to pull the trigger.

The trigger has now been pulled and O'Reilly seems surprised.

Sorry, Bill.  That's what hatespeak will get you.  Brainwashed, self righteous followers who think you hung the moon and that if they do as you say, they will earn your respect.

Do you respect Scott Roeder, Bill?  If one revisits all 29 times you highlighted Dr. Tiller on your program, calling him Tiller The Baby Killer, likening him to a Nazi, stating he aborted babies just for the hell of it - no real reason needed - one certainly can assume you are quietly patting yourself on the back for his murder.

Even with free speech, the speaker IS culpable for what they say, the results of their rants and rhetoric.  There is a reason you can't yell FIRE! in a crowded auditorium.  People will get hurt in the stampede.

Hate speak is the standard of much of talk radio these days.  Feeding their listeners a steady diet of bile, shock, and uneducated drivel.

Case in point:  The talking heads called Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning on Sacramento's KRXQ 98.5 FM.

Their show on May 28th centered around transgendered people - those who feel they have been born into the wrong gender.  A recent story that made the national news was their springboard into a hatefilled pool of venom.  

The story was about a child in Omaha who was born a boy, but has, for as long as he could express himself, showed every outward and inward sign that he is a she.  I read the story and was not disgusted by the parents ultimate decision to help their young child veer off the almost certain road of self loathing onto which he was heading by allowing him to change his name, grow his hair, begin wearing girl clothing, etc.

I actually teared up reading their account.  They are brave, loving, accepting.  Everything a parent SHOULD be.  The father didn't turn on his young son and revile him, debase him, call him names.

Which is what the braintrust at KRXQ 98.5 FM advocates.

Rob Williams and Arnie States equally bashed the child, all transgendered children and adults - their parenting technique?  Call them "idiots", "freaks".  And States proudly exclaimed he would beat with a shoe any child of his who was like this.  "Because you know what? Boys don't wear high heel shoes. And in my house, they definitely don't wear high heels."

He continued,

"I'm going to go, 'You know what? You're a little idiot! You little dumbass!'"

And later in the broadcast, obviously warming to their theme of abusing children, "I look forward to when [the transgender children] go out into society and society beats them down. And they wind up in therapy."

Their diatribe continued, "I have every right to call you a freak and judge you on that. It makes me sick. 'Mommy, I'm a girl trapped in a boy's body, I want to wear a dwess."

When their female cohost expressed concern about what they were saying, they beat her down too, "You're actually defending allowing people to become freaks?  A boy who wants to wear a dress is a freak. A nut."

No, assholes, he's a CHILD.

The cherry on this shitty parfait of hatespeak was this, "If the kid ever gets to be eighteen and says 'I still feel like a woman!' you say, 'Get out! Go be a freak! And understand, SON, that society will never accept you because we still have some moral judgment."

God help any child that ever springs from their f*cked up loins.

When I read the article on this I was simply speechless.  Advocating abuse of children?!?  But that's exactly what they were doing.  Feeding the empty lemming minds of those who think they're cool with thoughts that it's OK to hurt children if they're different, because different is bad.

I'll tell you what's BAD.  Allowing pieces of excrement like these to remain in front of a microphone even one more day.  Don Imus used the term "nappy headed ho" on his talk radio show and was fired.  These anal fissures are advocating violence against the youngest in our society.

Yet they still broadcast.

Of course, as the heat has been turned up on their ignorant asses they have begun to whine that they were "misunderstood", that their words were "a joke".  Even the station manager is defending them, "The show is filled with hyperbole and they use exaggerations to make a point," Jim Fox said.

No, the show is filled with assholes spewing hate and inciting violence.

As a parent, I can tell you, I love my children.  That is unconditional.  It is not based on some point system where they get more for being blond, smart, heterosexual, or comfortable with their gender identity.  I LOVE THEM.

A stand must be taken.  No one is going to reprimand O'Reilly.  As long as the $$ keep rolling into FOX, his job is safe.  But we can stand up and protect our children - ALL CHILDREN - from the animals hiding behind the mikes at KRXQ in Sacramento.

File your complaint today and get these people off the air.  Freedom of speech ends where the advocacy of violence against a child begins.  It's NOT a joke.  Not even close.

http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm?sid=&id=d1e640

I have filed mine.  It's time to walk the walk - will you file yours?

Use this info when filling out the FCC form:

1. ENTERCOM SACRAMENTO LICENSE, LLC
2.a. KRXQ
2.b. 98.5
2.c. Sacramento California
3.
4.a. Williams Broadcasting Incorporated
4.b. Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning
4.c. 05/28/2009
5.a. 05/28/2009
5.c.

You can also contact the General Manager of the station:

John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com

It's A Nice Day For A White Wedding (Reception)

The fun folks of Improv Everywhere are used to bringing smiles to the people who unknowingly stumble into their "skits", but what happens when they hit City Hall and grab a random couple - newly married - and offer them a wedding reception complete with bridesmaids, groomsmen, dancing, and gifts?

Hippo With A Heart Of Gold?

While I am very wary of humans attempting to domesticate truly wild animals like this, I must say I found myself smiling at the obvious affection shown by this big girl.

Seeing The Other Side

This is an excellent piece by Dr. Lynn Paltrow - a physician who knew Dr. George Tiller.  In it she addresses what so many in the Pro-life group fail to acknowledge - that there is a need for abortion, and that it is an intensely personal, heartwrenching, heart breaking decision for the women who seek out late term ends to a hoped for pregnancy.

And when faced with circumstances, FACTS about the compromised fetus growing inside them - these women don't need some self righteous, holier-than-thou hypocrite screaming in their faces or killing their doctors.

Yes, there are women in our society who abuse the fact that abortion is a legal procedure.  They use it as a quick form of birth control when they and their hook-up have been too careless, too lazy, too caught-up-in-the-moment to use a condom, take the pill.

George Tiller was not a monster.  He was a man of compassion, a man who stood strong, and helped women who were faced with devastating circumstances. 

And if there is any answering to be done for their choices, it is certainly not to some sanctimonious group who feel correct in insinuating themselves into someone else's private life simply because they think they have everything figured out and that God is on their side.

In Memory of Dr. George Tiller - He Supported Women's Dignity by Dr. Lynn Paltrow

This is a beautifully written firsthand account of a couple who actually had to face the worst news expectant parents can hear, and the decision they came to.  One simply cannot know how they will respond until one is actually mired in the reality - hypotheticals are meaningless.  My heart goes out to this, and every, couple who have had to walk such a heartbreaking piece of road.

http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/kansas2.html

And another account of a former patient of Dr. Tiller's...

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/02/ac360%c2%b0-qa-a-personal-perspective-on-late-term-abortion/