it's almost embarrassing to post after this long

but i was having a great convo about this school that banned merriam-webster for having 'oral sex' defined in it. and i was discussing it with my favorite new convert to christianity light/neo-conservatism. he's a bright man and he's learning how to think for himself in these two areas and i love to follow his progress. since i did this kind of stuff many moons ago, it's nice to get into those same old topics and discover those values i aligned in myself growing up and in college still hold water.

I would wager that any kid who actually knows how to spell and look-up the word probably a) has cursory knowledge of it already and isn’t that the issue? this mythos of children being asexual b) as others have stated, doesn’t have Internet access.
An earlier commenter stated that sex is powerful and is to be respected as an emotional act, not one of the body. If we spent more time worrying about how to instill that value instead of trying to protect children from knowledge of various sex acts, we’d be better off in general. For controlling, fearful parents, the emphasis is on the forbidden in life, the dangerous — and all the fascination that comes along with those two labels in life. They are emphasizing that knowledge is to be feared instead of encountered then critiqued. And I would actually agree with it on some level if that approach worked. It simply doesn’t.
How should we establish our values?
We should establish our values by synthesizing our spiritual knowledge, our intellect and our experience. The value above is a great one that only a contrarian could take issue with. And my point here is that the emphasis is on the wrong thing here – by emphasizing protection from sexual knowledge you overdetermine the importance of the bodily act and you UNDERdetermine the spirituality/emotionality of it. Which to me, is completely the wrong message. My parents did not do this with me and I was never for a minute a whore – even though I learned about bj’s from Scarface. When I would fixate on the bodily functions involved in sexuality they would change the conversation to make it about ‘true’ meaning of sex. That did a couple of things. It framed sex as something a lot more complex than taking a shit. It made me fear the emotional implications of sex. I didn’t fear God’s wrath or pregnancy as much as feared losing my identity or sense of self. Of course, it didn’t hurt that every discussion of sin in our house was almost always accompanied by a reverent discussion of the Gift of Freewill. I wouldn’t jeopardize my freewill for any moral being. I think in that area of my upbringing (clearly not their choices in movies), my parents did it right.

as i drive around this city lately

I've got this tourism bureau-ready slogan floating in my head all the time. Like a (sadly legitimate) worry and a joke wrapped up in one.
"Kansas City -- Where a stray bullet has your name on it."
It's so true; it's awful. It's so awful; it's true.
And that's it really, not much swimming around in my sleep-short brain these days ... besides some meta reading of the latest Mad Men episode (ah what a turn on the head of the Camelot days) which I doubt anyone would be even vaguely interested in without a few Harvey Wallbangers down the hatch first.
Hugs.

listen. so i've been wasting my best stuff in comments sections lately.

And I'm bogged down with work (yes, I'm a lib AND I fucking own a business! could it be??) so I'm simply republishing a comment I had somewhere else under the guise of something new to say. But read ahead -- I'll give you the highlights.

"Anyone read the bill?
(the one that’s not even out of committee yet?)

Let’s cut to the motherfucking chase –
conservatives are motivated by fear mongering
liberals are motivated by class warfare

I’ll take staring inequality in the face and calling it what’s what over hiding under a bed neatly made with Way Back When sheets any day.

Conservatives are motivated by fear. There I said it.
I’m drunk. So fucking what?

I’d rather die under the promise of offering a hand up to those that need it than die under the false premise that we live in a meritocracy. Kind of like the people protesting a public insurance option have always had insurance when they most needed it — people who believe we all start from zero and succeed in a meritocracy are people who started with all the right checks in the majority column.

(BTW anyone besides me notice that the whole fucking IDEA of insurance is a fucking exercise in communism? [at least before insurance companies started being run by shareholders and not doctors http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/new_report_private_insurers_consolidate_and_control_prices)

I love summie. And for that reason, I love to hear her take on things. She brings something to the world of politics that I do not. However, in an objective sense, that goes both ways. We need neo-cons. We need libs. If only to help the rest of us self-identify somewhere in the middle.

P.S. Conservatives are not idiots. But they are not motivated by the same things I’m motivated by. That said, sometimes what the libs want is what’s best for the country. Sometimes what is best for the country is what cons want (see my arguement about con beliefs being fear-of-the-unknown based v. lib beliefs being fear-of-The-Man beliefs). This time, the libs have it." from http://theapostleoftheturtle.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/liberalism-is-the-new-goth/#comment-140

So before we start shouting fire in a crowded theater — or “They’re going to euthanize retards!” let’s read the bill language instead of elevating poorly worked retweets and Beck-onized propaganda.

the truth is, you people couldn’t get behind a bill to euthanize Hitler if the seed of the idea came from the Obama administration. so, by all means, be in touch with your representative and discuss the bill, but don’t regurgitate fear-based talking points.

the truth is, middle of the road americans (which god love you Summie, is not you OR I) will see this concept of a public v private option depending on who they trust most: the government or insurance companies.

personally, i’d rather put my stake in someone beholden to VOTERS rather than shareholders. then from there, we can at least honestly address this whole idea that the electoral college is a farce.



Craig Klotz You know what I really, really, REALLY want? Yup: socialized medicine.
2 hours ago · Comment · Like / Unlike
4 people like this.
Brandon Porter
Brandon Porter
at least get something going. It seems the people who are complaining about this topic have probably always had insurence.
2 hours ago
Laura Lorson
Laura Lorson
I thought you really really really wanted a zigga-zig-aaaaah.
2 hours ago
Sarah Jacobson
Sarah Jacobson
No, no, no. What I really want is medicine FOR PROFIT!!
about an hour ago · Delete

community health care co-op?

After reading a bit online about the start of the NHS in Britain I think there could be something to this idea of relatively healthy people dropping out of their group health care plans and joining a locally based health care co-op. Before I had children, my lifelong medical care probably totaled somewhere in the 3k to 4k range. During that time, the premiums paid equaled two to three times that. (I think similar math would hold even after having children -- proportion of need to amount of premiums paid since we started getting the cadillac grade insurance plan once we started having kids.)
Of course, I know nothing of the logistics of this. That doesn't make it irrelevant. For middle income and low income people, there is no reason that this shouldn't work, with a little help of some people like Wendell Potter ... former industry execs to consult, local clinicians to provide basic services or local offices to sign on to work with us. I would bet there are plenty of start up doc offices that would rather work with a local entity like this than the myriad insurance companies with all of their hoops and red tape (the start up and maintenance cost of staff and technology is exorbitant from what I saw working for a medical info tech company).
There has to be a way to make this work at least for the most common health care needs. Just because the media doesn't have the answers, and Congress isn't getting creative enough, doesn't mean WE don't have the answers.
I'm curious to hear what people know about this? What are the biggest hurdles? What is doable? I find the idea of grassroots health care reform infinitely more realistic to manage and navigate for most people. I mean really, if the ahole who decides whether you get care paid for you lives next door, isn't it more likely that these co-ops will meet the needs of the payers more?

http://www.ghc.org/about_gh/co-op_overview/index.jhtml
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/15/dean-coop-proposal/
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1906105,00.html
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/News/072009/insurance-coops.htm