Tag Archives: random thoughts

TSA… You Suck

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Seriously. It’s been almost a decade and a half since 9/11, and you still suck.

Increasingly, the security measures you seem to want to enact are just tedious and unnecessary. Plus, they aren’t really finding any terrorists. Like not one. I’d be willing to endure, yes ENDURE, the stupid routine of removing my shoes and my computer and taking off my jacket only to be x-rayed to show all of my naked glory for the perving pleasure of people who couldn’t get any other job. But noooo, I must also endure the tossing of my cuticle scissors because they might be weapons.

Cuticle scissors, y’all.

Fucking cuticle scissors. From a matched set. Well, it’s not so matched now. Now, my set is missing the scissors I use to take off very tiny pieces of skin.

Does it stop there? Noooo, it does not.

This last time, they wanted me to throw away my wine corkscrew. Because it had a half inch wrapper remover. My corkscrew I was gifted in Tuscany. A trip that I want to remember and have very few momentoes of. But I wasn’t going to be deterred. So I requested to be able to mail the corkscrew to myself.

Is there a streamlined process for mailing shit to myself, you ask, you know, since it’s been almost a decade and a half since 9/11 and the most stupid security measures EVAR being in place of almost as long? Fuck No.

I have to leave the security area, of which I had already passed because they were digging in my bag to find my totally dangerous CORKSCREW. I have to go back out and mail that shit from a shipper who is going to charge me $10 to mail my shit to me. And then I have to go back through security and go to my gate. Is the shipper location prominently displayed? Fuck no. Is anything about this easy? Fuck no.

It’s a fucking mess at TSA. It’s a fucking mess at the private shipper. It’s a fucking mess at airports.

Traveling used to be fun. The plane ride was almost as anticipated as the final destination. It’s not that way anymore. It’s become tedious and something many people DO NOT look forward to. At. All.

Pro-tip TSA: The United States Post Office is also a governmental agency. Find a way for people to be able to drop ship their stuff to themselves from inside the goddamn security area. It can’t be that fucking hard, bitches. But in order to make traveling just little less of an ass pain than its become, you’d have to swirl some shit around in your head and come up with common sense solutions. It’s a skill that TSA has apparently never even thought of. TALK TO THE USPS and make mailing things you consider dangerous to ourselves. Because apparently, postal workers aren’t punk ass bitches and aren’t scared of corkscrews and cuticle scissors even if you are. Make mailing the things that frighten you, TSA, easier. It’s not that hard.

Cuticle scissors and a corkscrew.

Fuck you, TSA, you punk ass bitches.

Call in the USPS. Use your frickin’ common sense and try to make some shit EASIER because all you seem to be able to do is make things more difficult and hard.

 

Calling Out ALL The Jurists

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… who have failed our legal system.

I don’t usually call out my fellow attorneys. But I can’t keep silent any longer. You must act.

We’ve allowed the bones of racism to run unchecked in the judicial system long enough. It must end. You must act. Inaction is legitimizing a system of discrimination that is steep in the law and allows the bones of racism to remain untouched by time and chaining perceptions. And it’s creating havoc in our country. Either be a part of the solution or you are a part of the problem.

I firmly believe that individual prejudices have diminished over time in most of us. Oh sure, there are wingnuts a-plenty, but the vast swath of American humanity has shed these prejudices as we’ve welcomed people of color into our families, acknowledged LGBTQ peeps in our families, and been accepting of individual differences. What hasn’t changed is the structure of racism we’ve had in our society so long most of us have even forgotten they are there. But they are and we are seeing the effects all around us.

Federal Sentencing Guidelines illustrates the remaining bones of racism quite clearly. Crack cocaine is punished at a bout 3 to 1 times longer than powder cocaine. Same chemical compound when viewed under a microscope, but the penalties for each is vastly different. Looking that the sentences, one might conclude that it is fair and doesn’t discriminate. Except when you start to really look at who uses crack cocaine and who uses powder cocaine. Yes, it is almost brightline delineation by race. By and large, one finds crack cocaine in brown and black neighborhoods. But and large, powered cocaine is found in white and yellow neighborhoods. So, wonder no more why there are so many black and brown people in jail. We punish them 3 times longer than we do for the EXACT SAME SUBSTANCE.

And this is just one example of the bones we’ve allowed to remain and grow in our judicial system. And it leads to institutional discrimination. The disparate impact was planned, at worst, and ignored, at best. We’ve been using these guidelines and having them have this disparate impact on people of color for YEARS. And done nothing. We’ve allowed this to fester and flourish. And we are wrong for having done nothing. And this is just ONE example.

There are so many more examples of the bones of racism that remain and which hold up and add structure to the cloak of our humanity, or lack thereof–if we do nothing. By failing to act, we’ve become complicit is supporting the bones of that discrimination. As our social perceptions have changed, we did nothing to get rid of all the ways smart societies use to hold back discrete groups of persons. And in American, it shouldn’t have been acceptable before. It isn’t acceptable now. And if we do nothing, then we also become complicit in the tinderbox our country will become as push comes to shove.

Being Asian Doesn’t Make Me ….

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More like white women. It does statistically mean I will fall more within their range than any other women of color. Asians are punished less, in schools and by police. It’s part of the cultural stereotype.

But it hides a far more insidious comparison, one that most people don’t even realize. And it revolves around Asian sexuality. Isn’t it funny how Asian men are seen as emasculated or feminine or some other way softer? Even though we have ninja movies, karate movies, we know about Genghis Khan, mobs like the Triad and the like, we don’t see Asian men as testosterone-laden threats. And it shows up in arrest numbers and incarceration numbers. Cops just don’t generally pull over clean cut Asian dudes. Not like the black guys that drive.

At the same time, Asian women are highly sexualized. And not in a good way. We are desired because we look like prepubescent boys for far longer than any other ethnicity. Men go to Asia not just to fuck and marry little girls, they’re are those that just want a woman who looks like little girl. The mount of human trafficking of Asian women is out of this world. It seems the entire world of men are obsessed with women who look like little girls. And my Asian sisters bear the brunt of this desire.

Don’t get me wrong, other ethnicities are sexualized as well. Think of the media’s portrayal of the lush, overblown Latina. Or the strong, loud black woman who will break you with her punanai. But there is an insidious sickness when male eyes turn toward Asian women, you know those of us who look like we’re twelve even when we’re thirty. Subservience isn’t just expected, it’s demanded. And having a child-like or a real  girl child as your sexual partner means you can treat them as children all the while fucking them to death. In many parts of the world, Asian girls are discarded as unwanted only to be swooped up by the predators who know just who to  tap. I’ve heard there are entire travel industries set up for Western men to go a pick up a young Asian girl, whether in fact or in looks.

And when we finally get a voice to stalk about some stuff, are we heard on our own? No, we get lumped in with the white girls. Now, I’m not dissing my light skinned sisters, but seriously? Do you even know what it’s like to not know math in a group of math overachievers? And I say that tongue in cheek. But you have no idea how many stereotypes I have to wade through each day just to get to my preferred endeavor with words.

I get why so many of my feminist brothers and sisters tend to lump us in with the white girls. In many ways, we escape the stigma of having darker colored skin. As we’ve seen recently, being black in America can be a dangerous thing. Asian women  and men generally escape this portion of the discrimination our country seems to want to mete out. But I gotta tell you, as Asian women, we only get the benefit of being lumped together with the white girls… until we don’t.

We’re largely ignored in the larger feminist dialogue. So we’ve become the invisible women wanting to know when it’ll be our time to shine, to have our fears voiced and our concerns addressed.

Kids vs. Adults

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Rehabilitation vs. Retribution

We’ve failed our kids. We’ve lied to them, too. And we’ve done it with hate in our hearts.

If there is one area where modern day lack of empathy meets the weakest amongst us, children as a group would be high on the list  and smack dab in the area that houses those who must rely on the goodwill of others. The protection of those stronger and more powerful than them. Kids. Little ones. And the not so little ones. The in-betweeners.

We’ve broken our social contract with the young people in our world. We promised to hold them to a lesser standard of behavior in return for limiting their freedoms in certain areas. We did this rationalizing that these kids weren’t mature enough to engage in activities usually reserved for adults. And in return, we promised, explicitly and implicitly, we would treat them as less culpable when they did mess up. Instead, we’ve limited their freedoms and then turned around and held them to adult standards of care. And it’s unconscionable. That means it’s fucking wrong. Not just a little wrong, but FUCKING wrong.

And they can’t even vote to change our rules.

At this point, I’m willing to lift all age-based restrictions across the board. Because we have already lifted age-based criminal and civl penalties.  As in, we don’t care if you’re a kid, we’re going to treat you like you’re an adult with adult minds and adult judgment and adult thought processes. We won’t make allowances for your immature brain, your actual age or any other factor that might determine you aren’t or shouldn’t be held as responsible as a 30 yr old adult.

So our kids get screwed. They can’t engage fully in our democracy and yet they bear the full brunt of the consequences of doing so, just like a regular adult would. Even though that adult had a say in the laws enacted in her community, even though that person participated fully in their democracy.

It’s time to end age based restrictions. Because we’ve become a blood-thritsty society unwilling to honor our social contract with our young ones, and unable to see the hypocrisy every time we ask juveniles to be tried to treated as adults.

Hypocrites, the lot of us.

And con’t get me started on all the ways we ensure our kids who do mess up are never full members of our society. We prevent them from getting into school with these draconian adult based sentences and punishments that follow them FOREVER. Yet, once your’e an adult and have your degrees and your career, you can smoke crack and hire prostitutes and bankrupt corporations and cause banking failures… you get to keep all that and can return once more to do it all over again.

We are eating our young ones. And the cannibalizing  needs to stop. Either put up or shut up. Either our kids are too young and too stupid to fully appreciate what they are doing- can’t drink, can’t smoke, what do you do…, or they aren’t and we need to lift age-based restrictions of all kinds. Because quite frankly, if we’re going to hold them to adult standards when they fuck up, we should be willing to let them enjoy all the good parts of those exact same adult standards.

Stop the hypocrisy.

Sabbaticals, Holidays and Days Away

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We’ve lost something. Our modern selves. We lost time for ourselves. For being. For breathing. Recharging. Rejuvenating and just plain refreshing ourselves.

The Europeans have something in their yearly holiday. A month long. It’s a length of time almost unheard of and certainly not contemplate-able to most Americans. It’s also the absolute minimum amount of time I think one needs to reset one’s mind and reintegrate back to our real selves. I want to say true self, but each of our selves are true. Only one is real at it’s core. And that’s the one who emerges when completely stress free and, paradoxically, the one who emerges when under tremendous street.

Don’t get me wrong, our short, frantic time away helps our brains, but not enough. Once a year, for mental health reasons and purposes, we need to unplug from the everyday and take the time feed our need for periodic periods of rest. It’s why we can’t survive without sleep in a much shorter time than we can live without food. Our brains must recharge. And we will die if we don’t get at least some form of rest everyday. In a much larger scale, this need is correlative on a yearly basis. And no we won’t die if we don’t get a month long vakay every year. But doesn’t a portion of us wither? Atrophy? Emaciate?

And most of us know this. We look with longing at those of our compatriots across the pond. While we shake our head not understanding how one can just get away for a whole month, we secretly wish it were us taking the leisure train straight to a hot beach. And now for the truly revolutionary… every decade or so, we should take half a year… at least.

I know, right?

Holy shit.  A half a year? Away from our everyday life? From the mundane? The routine?

Never. Impossible. Financially not feasible.

So not true. IF you plan a decade out, it can happen. If this became something we all did, it could be planned for in advance. Using that time to further our personal or professional goals would be fabulous. Finding something new to spark your passion and your mind would be even better. Stretching and reaching to become the person you were always meant to be. Paint, learn an instrument, travel, learn a new language, go back an get a degree or finish a degree, volunteer at home or abroad. The possibilities are endless.

All of this means you are a better person in your everyday life. Insights gleaned during these periods of discovery and rejuvenation can be incorporated into one’s life with really positive impact. Everybody you touch will be richer for it. Most especially yourself.

Things Readers SHOULD Ask Authors

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Look if you’re a reader, ask me anything. I don’t care. I want your questions. I want your insights. I want your responses. And I’ll respond back. If I don’t, it’s because I didn’t see it. Bring it to my attention. I love interaction. LOVE. It. Authors who don’t like to interact with readers are like dinosaurs. They’re gonna get extinct. Usually, by human action.

So, totally tongue-in-cheek. Because apparently, there are bitch writers out there. I’m a bitch. But not a bitch writer. Totally different, yo. So, totally tongue-in-cheek, here are 5 questions you SHOULD ask your (un)favorite author. 😉

1. Do you write naked? ‘Cause you laid some shit out in the book that maybe would’ve been better off covered. Author, cover they self so you can cover yourself in your work.

2. Did you steal that one great story idea, because all your other story ideas kinda suck?

3. You’ve never has sex have you? Because have you TRIED what you’ve written about? Only a total noob to fucking would write a sex scene like that.

4. You paid someone to publish your book, didn’t you?

5. Did your mom buy all those books that Amazon lists as sold?

Now, I know I’m going to get some shit for this. But seriously? Being polite costs nothing. Being a dick? Everything. Don’t be a dick!

Life Isn’t Sacred

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And it shouldn’t be. And most of you don’t believe it really is. You might give lip service to the notion, but deep in your heart of hearts you don’t really believe in the sacredness of human life. Not really.

If human life were sacred, and that belief held by the majority, there would be no war, no abortions, no death penalty, no free choice when it comes to life lengthening medical procedures, no ability to choose to die with dignity. None of that and so much more would not exist, much less be debated. But life isn’t held as sacred by most.

And as you can see, the logical conclusion of making such a belief a real life practice is ludicrous, and kinda sad. We would all be forced to chose life even when death is preferable, and not at all against our own personal system of beliefs. And in a democratic society allowing one groups morals and beliefs about life govern every member of that society leads to gross injustice and a caricature of what morals and ethics truly should be.

Think about this, if your group can impose their ideas and beliefs on everyone else, what’s going to stop another group, which may be anathema to you and your group, from doing the exact same thing. It could happen. It has happened. So stop fucking up the country. We need rules and laws that include as many people beliefs and ideals.

Look, I get you might have strongly held beliefs about the sanctity of life. I get that. So do I. And I don’t think that your idea of what my life should look like should be any more relevant than my idea of what your life should like. That is all. And by forcing these issues legally with huge press, you are irrevocably damaging our individual abilities to remain semi-autonomous in our democracy. Think about this, if you and your religious kooky, zany friends can impose your Christian virtues on the rest of us, what’s to stop the followers of Shiva from doing the same? Or the Satanic folks? Or <insert your most hated religion/ideology here>?

You and your friends are truly fucking up America for the rest of us. Leave us alone and in peace. If you don’t agree with gay marriage, don’t get gay married. If you don’t agree with abortion, don’t get an abortion. If you don’t agree with gender equality, then live YOUR life in inequity. Et. Cetera and et. cetera Get it? Don’t stop other people from doing some shit. Just stop YOURSELF. Otherwise, I get to tell you how to live. And I’m betting you won’t like it.

The first thing I’d do is get rid of home-schooling. Jaysus, just the thought of a discrete segment our population growing up unsocialized, unable to think critically and evaluate competent theories, and just plain uneducated (don’t scream- truly conscientious parent are rare) is fucking scary. I’d get rid of YOUR ability to chose this option. Period. It hurts our country to have stupid citizens. But see how we don’t do that? Even if we think it’s fucking stupid? There are so many things I’d impose on YOUR life. So. Many.

So today, as we think about Roe v. Wade, remember children city hall has to include satanic displays as well as the Nativity now because you freaks decided to push this issue and make it a legal mandate. So thanks a fucking lot. Stop doing that. Don’t do not one other thing in the name of your religion and beliefs. You are fucking shit up for the rest of us. And we are tired of it. Tired, I tell you. You don’t understand the long-term implications of what you are doing. Obviously. Otherwise, you would’ve seen the satanic displays coming.

So stop fucking shit up, Jesus freaks. Cause you might not like the next freaks to come after you. After you paved the way for the rest of the goddamn freaks to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. I know logical thinking hurts. Let the rest of us rational, reasonable people do the thinking for you, especially if you’ve been home-schooled–please, please, please–let the rest of us do the thinking.

Racism, Prejudice and Privilege

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… in America.

Current events make people uncomfortable. Most want “this” to go away. From the segment of the population being oppressed, this view is not understandable. You can only want oppression and racism to go away if you aren’t confronted with it on a daily basis. Enter… privilege. Out of sight, out of mind never had so clear an example.

There is the belief that if we don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

But that’s a lie. As in a falsehood. We don’t see racism in America anymore because its gone underground. <— That statement is inflammatory to most. And these are good people. Decent people. Who are fucking horrified that allegations that racism in America still exists. Because in their world it doesn’t. But they’re confusing racism with prejudice. I will say this. America has really worked on not being prejudicial. But not being prejudicial doesn’t stamp out racism. It just means that most Americans aren’t assholes who think a persons color predestines them to a life of <insert your derogatory act here>.  What it doesn’t mean is that racism is gone.

The racism of today is the structures leftover from those before of of their hate. Like Pompeii, we are dealing with the buildings built by haters. Our mistake was thinking we could use these empty buildings for better, more moral purpose. Or just a useful purpose. What we forgot was these building were built to keep certain segments of a population down. They are inherently oppressive. Regardless of a different, newer purpose, the functions of many of these ghost buildings still oppress.

In other words, we’ve replaced legal slavery with felonies. We use the law to oppress. In the first instance, it was with the full support of the law. Now, we create second class citizens with crimes. Lots and lots of crimes. And we’ve replaced lynchings with shootings. We’re using the law to do the same thing to the same group of people. We create laws KNOWING they will have disparate effects on discrete groups. And we like that. And it’s racist.

That’s the difference between racism and prejudice. Prejudice is usually one-on-one/group of people. Racism is using the “buildings” of society, i.e., governmental offices, to oppress certain singular peoples. We’ve come a long way with prejudice. And almost nowhere with racism.

You can tell yourself racism doesn’t exist because your aren’t prejudice, but that doesn’t make it true. It just means you aren’t an asshole in your day to day dealings with people of color. But that speaks not at all on the subject of why black people are still being incarcerated at crazy rates, or killed even when unarmed by police officers. Or why black people are given incredible disparate sentences, or even why little black children are expelled from kindergarten at rates that far exceed their demographic representation or that of any other group of persons.

Racism is there. You just have to look for it. Gone are the days of “well, I’m an asshole racist bastard” so I know racism exists, to “hey, just because I’m not a racist asshole bastard doesn’t mean there’s not some shit going on that just can’t be explained away in any other way than this shit’s racist.”

Admitting that there is racism doesn’t mean you are admitting that you’re racist. Or prejudiced. It just means you are privileged enough to look for it or not look. Racism is like that tree in the woods. Just because you’re not hearing the damage it does as it falls and tramples through the woods doesn’t mean its not doing damage. Racism is real, it’s alive and it’s hurting fellow Americans.

I know most people want racism to be done and over. Slavery is a blight on our collective history. Of course, we want that shit done and gone.

So do the people who are STILL experiencing racism everyday. They really want that shit done and gone.

Age, Aging and Being a Woman

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I’m getting older. It’s been happening for a while now. Aging occurs whether I pay attention to it or to something else. It is relentless and not at all stoppable. And for most of it, I didn’t care.

But somewhere along the line, I crossed the magical line between looking good, and looking good for my age. It’s an invisible line, but it exist in every woman’s world. Not to say that men don’t sure in this world, but for some reason, they aren’t subjected to the scrutiny that comes as they get older. It might seem unfair. It’s not. Because they are judged on other things just as harshly as women are judged on looks. Part of me thinks this has to do with the biological reasons we pick mates. What we need to find in a potential life partner and co-parent is apparently different for boys and girls. I dunno what the underlying reasons are for real; I can only speculate. But it makes sense to me. So I’m going with it until I learn differently. So school me up if you’ve got the info I need.

It’s hard getting older as a woman in America. Aging gracefully seems to be an oxymoron in our society. In our world, age and grace don’t belong together when they are paired together in reference to women. So imagine trying to live that shit. Getting older isn’t a dirty word. But in so many ways, small and large, I and many other women are made to feel that way. I’m not unattractive, mostly passably pretty. But the quality of how I look seems to have been overtaken by how old I look. We are told we look too young, or too old. We dress too young, or too old. Our hair is too young, or in a style that is too old. The list goes on and on.

When the FUCK do women get to be just right?

Goldilocks and her three bears have passed us by completely. Women are told over and over again that they are not quite right. Ever. At any age.

I am right. As in okay. As in perfectly fine, great even. Right at the age I’m at. And I don’t dress too young, or too old. I dress how the fuck I feel. On any given Sunday and every day there after. I wear my hair how I feel. And by that, I mean I have STOPPED coloring the gray out. I am just right. Exactly the age I am and exactly the way I am.

I have to confess that I was torn about not coloring the gray out of my hair. The examples of women who let their hair gray naturally are small, few and not glorified. When did we stop thinking that salt and pepper hair was hot as hell? On women as well as men? The confidence it exudes for a person in our society to allow age to show is way sexy. Way.

Besides, it’s all a trap. Didn’t you get it from reading the stuff above? When we are young, we are told to wear makeup and dress up to look older. When we are old, we are told to do anything to look young–but not unnaturally so. When we fall into the trap of doing either of these things, then we are told that we are acting “too old,” “dressing too young,” “trying too hard,” and the list of how we don’t measure up in what we are or trying to portray goes on and on.

We as women can never get it right.

And we are hamsters running on the wheel trying to get to that just right state.

Only the game is rigged. And that’s never gonna happen. Ever. Because just when we get that perfect mix, it tips and we are “too” something else. And I’m done with that. Me and all my goddamn gray hairs.

#NaNoWriMo2014

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I hate hashtags, formerly known as the pound sign, in the title of a post. I get that it’s all about the marketing, but I still don’t like it. It bothers my eyes, the aesthetics bother me on some deeper level. So I was hesitant to put it into my title. I mean, hypocritical much? I decided to do it, anyway. Because NaNoWriMo deserves its own hashtag. And more importantly, I think it merits having it in the title of this post. It’s a judgment call. My judgment, that is. Which is all that matters on this blog. Umm, cause it’s mine.

By: David

This is the first year I’ve officially signed up for NaNo. Past years, I just wrote along with everyone else keeping score alone. I decided to do something different this year. Because I needed it. And signing up all official like, and posting this on my blog all announcement like, screams commitment. And will make me finish what I’ve started. Because I’ve been trying for a while now. And it hasn’t been working out so well. Or at all. There’s something about telling your commitment in a public forum that seems to make one finish those undesirable tasks.

NaNo is a worthwhile endeavor, all on its own. But as a tool to help one press further, faster, or just past a hurdle, is invaluable. A godsend, if you want to get technical. Brought to me on the wings of dozens of dead writers who are now angels of inspiration to all those of us left to toil with words on the earth. THAT’S how technical I mean, bitches. God and angels and shit.

If you’re at all on the fence about NaNo, go sign up. Be a joiner and then add me as your friend because I have none at the moment. Help me out, y’all. In the process, you might find that you’ve helped yourself out even more. By making you finish that damn book. If I yell loud enough about November being National Write your Damn Book Month, would that help as well? I dunno, but it sure does make the jiggles feel better after I scream a little. Ha. If you’re like me and STARTING something isn’t the problem, but finishing is… do NaNo. If not, just tune in periodically as I do NaNo. You can have a front seat to me pulling out my hair. And hopefully, but the end of the month, you’ll also see a finished product.