abbylyne's Xanga

Possibly My New Favorite You Tube Video

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:23:19 GMT

Women Who Rock: Diane Savino

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:34:24 GMT

New York state Senator Diane Savino is freaking awesome. I wish I had a more elegant way to express this but sometimes all you can do is cheer. She spoke out in favor of gay marriage on the floor of the NY Senate and even threw in some fantastic commentary on the fantasy wedding socialization we push on women everywhere. The full video is below, but first some key quotes from her speech:

"I'm over the age of 40 -- and that's all you're going to get from me -- but I have never been able to maintain a relationship of the length or the quality that [Senator] Tom Duane and [his partner Louis Webre] has," she said. "These are relationships that I envy, and in fact we all should envy. All they ask for is to be treated fairly and equally."

"We in government don't determine the quality or the validity of people's relationships," she continued. "If we did, we would not issue three-quarters of the marriage licenses that we do."

On television's The Bachelor: "[a show]...in which "30 desperate women will compete to marry a 40-year-old man who has never been able to maintain a decent relationship in his life."

"...young women are socialized from the time they're 5-years-old" to fantasize about their wedding day when "they don't spend five minutes thinking what it means to be a wife."

"We have nothing to fear from people who are committed to each other and want to share their lives and protect one another," she said. "We have nothing to fear from love and commitment."

Cut Scene at Pemberley

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:49:19 GMT

Dear Congress: Don't Be a Dick

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:49:44 GMT

Been Doin' It to the Bible for Years

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:32:05 GMT

marriedtothesea.com

Le Sigh: RNC Covered Employee Elective Abortions

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:01:43 GMT

You know how sometimes extreme hypocrisy can morph into an excellent teaching moment? A moment to examine the foundational principles upon which humans wish to build their communal structures?

Well, the RNC epically failed this round. Way to go, Michael Steele.

So the Republican party began kowtowing to right wing extremists back in the late 70s, all in the name of "appealing to their base," something that rather backfired on center-right fiscal Republicans from the 80s and 90s who thought "hey, free votes for saying we love Jesus, too!" and ended up with President Dubya. Part of this includes publicly condemning and/or shaming anyone who believes a woman should make medical decisions with her doctor and not the state (and possibly with her priest or rabbi, should she feel so inclined).

Except, like the Ann Coulter's of this world, women who say "women have no place in politics except me because I"m special," the Republican National Committee offered a health care plan to its employees that covered a basic medical procedure. Indeed, it's one of the most commonly and frequently used procedures in the United States.

Yep. The RNC health care plan covers elective abortions. Except not any more. Because somebody had the brilliant idea to scream "Irony!" in the convention hall. And rather than use this as a moment to admit that women choose to terminate pregnancies for a myriad of reasons and that perhaps we should trust them to do so, the RNC chose the cowardly easy way out and simply cancelled the program.

God Bless America, ya'll.

Sufferin' 'til Suffrage

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:10:08 GMT

I dare you not to smile at this School House Rock classic:

Cornell West Lays Down Some Truth

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:00:11 GMT

This man is my new guru. Because he cuts through the bullshit and gets right down to the basic building block of human society--empathy and compassion. And he does it in that particular Southern preacher sort of way that reminds me of my religious childhood. I might have a lot of problems with Evangelical culture but I also spent years reading my Bible (what else are you going to do when you're a reading kid who attends church six to seven hours a week?) and this guy nails the message of the whole thing in a relatively short segment. He also gives the best example of how to respect Obama and take him to task for policy at the same time:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Cornel West

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Michael Moore

Health Care is a Feminist Issue

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:15:07 GMT

Have you ever heard of gender rating? I hadn't. Well, not until I found myself without health insurance and searching for information on a topic that had never been all that important before; ah, such a luxury when one is either covered under a parental plan, covered under a student plan, or laboring away in an underpaid and overworked entry level job that happens to provide benefits. When I moved into freelance course writing and research it was, in some ways, very freeing. But that doesn't pay for flu shots, dentistry, Ortho Evra, and all of those other things that you never noticed were covered--until they weren't.

While shopping for health insurance isn't exactly super fun time, the silver lining in this cloud is that health care is somewhat of an en vogue topic these days. Okay, that's an understatement, I know. But what I'm reading isn't very pretty. So...back to gender rating--or, "my vagina is a pre-existing condition." The National Women's Law Center has a new report on women and health care. NWLC reports that not only do 95% of plans include gender rating--charging more for the plan simply because the applicant is female--but 25 year old women are charged as much as 84% more than men their age. Plans that don't even include maternity coverage! In fact, only 13% of individual plans for 30 year old women include maternity coverage. Furthermore, injuries resulting from domestic violence and/or rape can be considered pre-existing conditions.

So there it is. The fabulous catch-22 of being young, female, and uncovered. If you don't want to be pregnant and/or don't feel like you have the resources to carry a child to term, chances are you'll have to drive hundreds of miles just to find a doctor who will help you. If you do want to have a healthy pregnancy and carry a baby, chances are you'll have to pay twice as much (if not more) just to have access to an OBGYN and a hospital and if you can't afford that...well, it's really overwhelming and makes you wonder if you have the resources to carry a child to term.

So, to reiterate: My vagina is not a pre-existing condition.

via Broadsheet

LOL QotD: Keep Your Sexual Obsessions Straight

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:31:06 GMT

This is my LOL Quote of the Day because I really did laugh rather loudly by myself in my house when I read it. A commenter going by the handle "ice9" left a response to crazy lady Debbie Schlussel (a notoriously strange woman with no actual academic/journalistic credibility but somehow manages to make a living out of hating Muslims/Arabs/Terrorists because they're all the same in her weird mind) who is outraged--outraged!--that Disney had the audacity to change Tinkerbell's costume into something other than the cheap Playboy bunny knock-off she's worn since the sixties. The shorter Debbie Schlussel: Tink is totes a lesbian because she's wearing actual clothing. Debbie has a history of crying "teh gayz...they will killz us all!" and this comment by ice9 pretty much nails the crazy conservative pathos that truly believs equal rights will be the death of all that is good and white and American and comfortable:

You guys can’t even keep your sexual obsessions straight. Just a hint–seeing teh gay everywhere is warping to your credibility. If any.

These liberals…let me get this straight. They are a tiny population of people, of course, because if they were numerous then, well, the whole “voting for things” exception would apply, and we all know this is a center-right nation led by a hyperliberal so-liberal-it’s-fascist executive and legislative branch. Rather than passing laws, they take other routes to power, which leads them to operate in dread secrecy, because when you look for them, well, they seem to be invisible, somehow camouflaging themselves as red-blooded capitalists who are just trying to feed their families by selling stuff that sells instead of stuff people choose to not buy because it’s too political, just as tobacconists and Honda and Wal Mart and United Health Group do. They try to sneak gayness into our consciousness by manipulating trademarked Disney figures, which are unchangeable national treasures and are covered by the “stuff we like must never change” laws passed under President Reagan. Their nefarious scheme is to make American figures as Tinkerbell, who emigrated from England in 1947, look incrementally more gay so slowly that even gay people don’t notice–some people who are unaware of the plot still refuse even to see the gayness just dripping from her curly-toed wood-sprite shoes and her gayzor, which few Americans know is the same hat that gay Alfred Nobel was wearing when he gave Barack Obama the Pulitzer Prize for gay peace. Then little kids will continue to defy their right-thinkin’ parents and not hate (in a loving way) or taunt (in a free-speeching way) or commit crimes against (but not just because they’re gay) gay people despite the confusion when the gay people turn out to be dumpy middle-aged men and women who were there the whole time, for some reason not wearing curly-toed shoes and green leafy tights. But it’s clearly in the national interest to hate both the wood-sprite gays and the camouflaged-to-look-just-like-the-those-two-women-who-live-together-up-the-street-but-probably-aren’t-gay-because-they-seem-normal-except-for-the-’two-women-who-live-together’-part. Plus it gets votes if peckerwood lunkheads are scared of gays. Or it used to get votes most places, and will again! I say! and still does in the deep South, where the Party of Lincoln has traditionally drawn its support in a way that isn’t racial at all.

There. Got it.

I really wish I'd written that myself. I'll just have to settle for a hearty "right on."