Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

He Was A Little Bit Me, He Was A Little Bit You, Too

I will be 46 in roughly a month. 

Or maybe that should be, I'll be a rough 46 in a month?

Whatever.

I don't consider that to be old.  I don't think I look old.  I certainly don't feel old. 

But today, someone from my childhood died.  Someone important.  Someone seminal.  My first real crush.

And in this moment, I feel ancient.  If you are on either side of 46 by a couple years, chances are you feel the same.

Davy Jones has passed away of a heart attack, at the age of 66, taking with him a piece of my youth. 

Yes, that Davy Jones, of Monkees fame.  (He was an employed actor long before the Monkees creators found him, but he will be best remembered as the adorable, tambourine playing, maracas rocking frontman of the Monkees.  And he was performing right up to the end.  Last night on stage in Florida.)

My generation got The Monkees on their second go 'round - in reruns, but boy were they popular.  So popular that when they advertised their records on TV, my Mom made my sister and I buy our own sets so we would never fight over who got them.

(Kim?  Where the hell are those records anyway?)

My sister adored Peter, and friends of ours coveted Michael and Micky.  But Davy was MINE.  In all our make believe scenarios, he belonged to me.  He longed for me.  He loved me.  (And in that picture there?  He's still looking AT me.)

Ahhhh, the sweet, deluded imagination of youth.  Yes, deluded.  After all, I was only 10.  But my passion burned brighter for him than even that special spot my heart held for Donny Osmond in bell bottoms or Robby Benson in basketball shorts.

When he sang Daydream Believer, he was singing to me.  A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You?  Singing about me and him, of course.  And when he warbled I Wanna Be Free?  Of anyone but me.  They made him sing that.

He was adorable, funny, pocket sized like me.

And that spot in my heart that remains a little girl forever will miss him.

Thanks for the memories, Davy.  And thanks for being a little bit of me, my childhood, my innocent dreams.  And of course, a part of my (and my daugters') iPod.

Here's one of my favorite songs - he and Micky laughing it up on the silly, I'm Gonna Buy Me A Dog.

Continuing to Expose The Hypocrisy And Douchebaggery

Another Community Changes Its Name To Here

As the country wakes up to hear the news that another of the victims in yesterday's high school shooting has died, another community wakes to find the name of its town has been changed from Chardon, Ohio to Here, Ohio.

(UPDATE:  A third student, Demetrius Hewlin, passed away this morning, bringing the death toll to 3.)

As in "Things like this don't happen HERE."  "I never thought anything like this could happen HERE."  "Why HERE?"

All lines to be found in the interviews with students and parents of Chardon High School.

All lines to be found in the wake of any interview, in any town, after any senseless teen rampage.

Chardon is not a large city, only 5,100 people.  Over 1,000 of them attend the high school.  And it is a town like this that will feel this tragedy to the bone.  Small towns may have some drawbacks, but one of them is not a lack of community.  Small towns, for better or worse, have that one down cold.

People know one another.   They have grown up together.  They look out for one another.  Yes, sometimes they are WAY too much in one another's business, but that's part of the tradeoff.

This morning the community of Chardon is left reeling, left with more questions than answers.  Left with two dead teenagers, 3 more still hospitalized. 

And the teenager who pulled the trigger behind bars, "remorseful" according to his attorney.

I am quite certain no one cares much about his remorse at this point in time.

What people do care about, however, is trying to figure out WHY.  What - no pun intended - triggered this attack?

While the police have not officially identified the student with the gun, students have come forward.  He is 17 year old student, TJ Lane. 

Some students describe him as "quiet," "a very normal, just teenage boy," "one of the nicest kids."

Some describe him as an "outcast" and yes, the word bullied is making its way to the surface.  Not unexpected.

Bullied or not, harrassed or not, he also was not part of the inside circle (in fact, it appears he belonged to no clique).  You know the one.  It houses the "cool kids," the "jocks," the "cheerleaders," the confident and the beautiful, many kids who think their shit doesn't stink simply because they won some genetic lottery and were born to better circumstances, and it also houses the notion that everybody in it somehow has a better life.  

And as we adults know in retrospect, that is one of life's bigger crocks of shit.

The teen years, regardless of where you fit - in or outside the circle - is full of angst, emotion, hormones, confusion, jockeying for position, and trying desperately to just survive to graduation.

It is arguably the most intense period of a person's life, which easily explains why the majority of adults would not go back to those years and relive them even if we were paid to do so.

So even if TJ wasn't a victim of other kids' derision or nasty impulses, other than feeling invisible (which in itself can be just as painful), what was at play in his life that could have led to this violence against his peers?

Police are detailing a home life that is unsettled to say the least.  TJ lived with his grandparents and attended nearby Lake Academy Alternative School - a school for at risk students ("reluctant learners" struggling with problems such as "substance abuse /chemical dependency, anger issues, mental health issues, truancy, delinquency, difficulties with attention/organization, and academic deficiencies.")  He was waiting in the cafeteria for the bus ride to that school.

Lane's father (police are unsure how much contact TJ has actually had with him in recent years) has a record of violence against TJ's mother and various other women, as well as having served prison time for assaulting a police officer.  His mother also has a record of domestic violence.

Not exactly the template for security, love, and stability.

Do not take that to mean it somehow acquits TJ Lane of what he did.  Not even remotely.  Yesterday's act was a CHOICE.  One not forced on him by anyone else.  One chosen by him, for reasons only he knows, but may never explain.  A CHOICE he fully understood - understood that by aiming a loaded gun at a person and pulling the trigger, a person will likely die.  And while he may, in the light of another day, seem "remorseful" he cannot take back the consequences of his CHOICE to kill other human beings.

While TJ's outward appearances belied nothing that would indicate this attack was coming, his Facebook postings give clues to the troubled mind within him.  A recent poem he wrote and posted talks about death, killing, a small town.  It ends with, "Feel death, not just mocking you. Not just stalking you but inside of you. Wriggle and writhe. Feel smaller beneath my might. Seizure in the Pestilence that is my scythe. Die, all of you."

Sadly, Danny Parmertor, Russell King, and Demetrius Hewlin felt that "scythe" and will not be feted at graduation, but mourned at their funerals.

To me, what is so disturbing is knowing that there are hundreds, thousands of TJs out there.  They inhabit every school, at every grade level.  Feeling invisible, marginalized, penalized in life for things over which they have zero control.  Feeling feelings that are too big, overwhelming, desperate. 

And most of all angry. 

Angry at their circumstances.  Angry at the inequities of their life vs the lives they see in that "circle" where everything appears Nirvana-ish.

And that anger sits, ferments, begins to boil, until one day it runs over, cannot be contained, explodes.

Changing yet another town's name to Here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joy, Relief, Love - They Know No Borders, Boundaries, Orientations

I love this picture.   A lot.

It speaks of love, contentment, happiness, emotional release from months of fear and sacrifice, and HOME.  The kind of HOME we all hope to find in this life in another person's heart.  The HOME where we are safe, protected, loved unconditionally.  The HOME where the rest of the world dissolves away outside the embrace.

The homecoming of Marine Brandon Morgan into the arms of his love, Dalan, is beautiful.  It is made even more so by the backdrop of the American flag in the background.  For it is that flag, and the personal freedoms it represents, that allow Brandon and Dalan to embrace openly, easily, expectedly - just as we would expect any returning hetero lovers to be embraced by their partners, spouses, family members.

To those who find the picture objectionable?  I feel sorry for you.  And frankly, no one really cares about your rapidly weakening arguments based on Biblical fairy tales, or your homegrown bigotry, ignorance and fear.

These men are PEOPLE.  They are HUMAN BEINGS.  And Brandon has served YOUR country with honor, fighting for - how do you people always like to grandstand? - oh, yeah, "fighting for YOUR freedoms."

To those who recoil and continue on their pathetic march against gay marriage?  Keep marching.  Right off into oblivion.  Look around.  You are on the wrong side of history.

As for me?  I'll stay on the right side of it.  With Brandon and Dalan and every other human being who happens to find love with someone of the same sex. 

Welcome HOME, Brandon.

It's Katy's Day!

It's Natala's Day!

The Sharp Family loves you and misses you!!!!!!

Rick Santorum: Nausea Personified

Sunday morning talk shows are not exactly the stuff most people set their alarms to watch.  But sometimes by not watching these politicians, you miss some very important things they say.

Important because they offer dangerous and telling insight into the candidates who seek to become Oval Office occupants.

This morning while speaking with  'This Week' host George Stephanopoulos on the topic of separation of church and state, everyone's favorite alter boy said, "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country...to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up."

Well, Rick, I see your "throw up" and raise you projectile vomiting. 

Pay very close attention, people.  And I am especially directing this at you Tea Party "hate-triots," diehard GOPers, and constitution lovers.  I know not all of you are Catholic.  Not all of you belong to a branch on the Christianity tree. 

But this man, who currently sits as frontrunner in the nomination stakes, is.  And this man just went on national TV and said that one of the most basic tenets behind the fleeing of England and the founding of this nation, makes him want to puke.

People of faith CAN have a role in governance, Rick.  But their FAITH cannot.  And if they simply cannot, will not separate the two, then they - and I mean YOU - have no business anywhere near any office.

Yes, I am aware the very words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Amendments.  Those were written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.  They read:

"... I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

The words that DO appear in the bedrock principles from which this country grew ARE found in the First Amendment and read:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Because they knew.  They knew first hand what it was to be subject to governance infected by religion.

And they knew it had no business existing.  That people should be free to worship or NOT worship as they please.  That there should be no religious litmus test in running for office.  That no one religion should be exalted by the state above others.  That ONE religion ruling ALL people is wrong, dangerous.  That governance is of the people, by the people, for the people.

And those people come in all different colors, ethnicities, systems of faith.

What's even more stunning than his desire to puke on bedrock is that he doubled down on his garbage when speaking with David Gregory on Meet The Press.  It is Santorum's belief that separation of church and state was "not the founders' vision."

The founders were largely DEISTS, Rick.  Not alter boys like you.  Again, they KNEW some very basic things that seem to escape you.

Take the Treaty of Tripoli, Rick.  You may not have heard of it.  That would take an appreciation of actual history, not the revisionist kind your ilk seems to enjoy.

Submitted to, and unanimously ratified by, the Senate, it includes the words, As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion ...

Gasp!  Certainly that must have been scripted by some socialist, pinko, Communist, leftist, indoctrinated liberal with no understanding of what our founding fathers actually wanted, right, Rick?

Wrong.

President John Adams.  1797.  I'd say he had a bird's eye view of what the founding fathers envisioned and set out to build seeing as he WAS A FOUNDING FATHER IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.

Regarding that wonderful keep-'em-in'-line religious selling point - eternal damnation - he once wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

And in his missive, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, he wrote, The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

". . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

The natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, Rick.  Of the people, by the people, for the people.  Not of the God, by the God, for the God.  Run your churches according to some Biblical Hallmark card, according to hand-me-down stories, parables, and man made make believe.  But not our government.

Look, I don't care if Rick has a permanent bedroom at C Street.  I don't care if he secretly belongs to Opus Dei and beats his own back every night as punishment for breathing.  I don't care if he is on the Vatican's Christmas card list.  I don't care if he homeschools all his kids so they only get he and his wife's version of events.  I don't particularly care that he called President Obama a "snob" for wanting people to be able to go to college - those "indoctrination mills" ( I guess it makes me a snob and my daughters grist?).

I do care, however, that there are people in this country listening to this man and supporting him.

Then again, what is even scarier are the number of people who AREN'T listening to him, because it is that apathy, that intellectual incuriosity, that desire to choose American Idol and TMZ.com over the debates, discussions, and election news, that could allow him and his theocratic vision to ooze into the Oval Office and that thought makes me want to puke.

On him. 

Green Eggs & Slams

The Lorax.

Out of all of Dr Seuss's books, that is by far my favorite.  As a parent subject to years of "Again, again!" it was never a mental slog to close The Lorax and reopen it to page 1.

The title character, a fuzzy, wise, woodland dwelling little guy laments the dangers of not caring, not protecting that which is precious, endangered - the cautionary tale being the clear cutting of all the Truffula trees to truck into factories which pump out smog and thneeds - which, apparently, everyone needs.  (Until, of course, there are no more trees, then people do what people do, they move on to the next thing they can sacrifice to their self centered ways, and push it to the edge of oblivion.)

My favorite line in the book, the lesson the young person comes to understand, is simple "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It's not."

Like The Grinch, Hollywood is bringing The Lorax - and the message from the book - to the big screen, only in animated form.

And, well, that is just one more indicator that our children are *gasp* being "indoctrinated" by we dirty liberals.

Yes, the Big I - INDOCTRINATED - was thrown by Spew Fox News' Lou Dobbs, adding fuel to that Satanic Liberal Fire Fox started when they accused the Muppets of pushing an agenda with their movie.

Jesus - seriously?  Do these people not understand that it is drivel, crap, and nonsense like this constantly flowing from their mouths that make the thinking people of the world look at them all and go, "Wetbrained asshats"?

One of Dobbs' guests, radio host Matthew Patrick, said, "What we're doing is creating Occu-toddlers."

Occu-toddlers?  Really.  From a Dr. Seuss book about giving a damn.

Of course his advice for that highly enlightened group of thinkers who watch Fox was this, "buy huge tubs of popcorn, ram it in your face," leave the litter behind and walk out of the movie.

Leave it to Fox to offer mature solutions.

Just curious, if the Muppets and Dr. Seuss are indoctrinating kids to be charitable, kind, thoughtful, and forward thinking - which are all apparently BAD, sinister things, I guess Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and Cinderella had better watch their backs.

Certainly Charlie Brown is a thinly disguised push to educate and parent children via large unseen chickens bred in some liberal science lab.  Rudolph encourages a nanny state in which no one can bully the strange kid anymore.  And Cinderella ignores her chores to sneak off and have "pleasure" with her dirty parts.

I swear, just when you think these people have hit bottom, they order a bigger backhoe and resume digging.

All Things Being Fair, You Know

As male politicians continue their March To The Medievel, proposing and passing legislation over women's bodies, it seems only fair that a female lawmaker has proposed a bill (admittedly tongue in cheek) limiting the availability of vasectomies for men.

After all, using that form of contraception is an affront to the potential babies who could be born had the man not chosen to shut down the factory.  Surely, if men think they have some right to govern our bodies, we women should be able to institute rules over theirs, correct?

Rep. Yasmin Neal (D) of Georgia has put forth Bill 1116 in an attempt to show how intrusive is the abortion-limiting bill moving through her own legislature.  Her parody would limit vasectomies unless it can be medically proven that a man faces death or "impairment of a major bodily function" without one.

Personally, I propose the Belly Of A Whore bill.

It would make masturbation a crime.  One taintamount to murder.  And I would, taking a page from Rick Santorum's playbook, use the Bible as my backup (and since he believes in a theocracy in which the United States of America has a Pope-in-Chief, not Commander-in-Chief, and in one where we finally tell the Constitution to eff off, I would expect him to be one of my first supporters), calling on Genesis 38, and the story of Onan - the story which has been extrapolated to, "It is better to cast your seed in the belly of a whore than to spill it on the ground."

Or on the sheets.  In a towel.  A wad of Kleenex. 

After all, half the building blocks of life squirt forth from a man's loins.  So if folks like Santorum want to restrict and control a woman's access to birth control, then we must be vigilant in insuring that her free flowing eggs have as many sperm as possible to create as many babies as possible.

And it shouldn't be hard to accomplish - Rick sanctioning ideas that would all but place cameras in our bedrooms, bathrooms, backseats to monitor that we are all procreating, not pleasuring.

The GOP is a scary place.  Scarier than it has ever been.  And if you are a woman and not paying attention, shame on you. 

And if you are a man with a wad of those Kleenexes on your nightstand?   Beware.  I may have been kidding last week about probing your ass with an ultrasound wand if you want Viagra, but if you want to keep trying to legislate MY reproductive organs, you'd better wear a cup, because yours are now in the curly hairs crosshairs.

 

 

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