Thank God for Cold Medicine!

Well the cold season is officially upon us, my classes have been half full, people around me are dropping like flies to either simple colds or full on flues, and I have come down with a nasty cold that is making it hard for my poor little brain to work (hence the lack of posts for this week). So on this weekend day, I would like to give a big old thank God to cold medicine for helping me be at least a little bit sane while my parents are in town, I am still trying to get some work done, and while I am fighting this awful cold. So thank you God for the creation of cold medicine and thank you in advance for making this cold a short one (right??? wink wink!!!)

Also, I promised to give an additional shout out to my friends over at Sun Cleaners for their awesome new halloween mixtape that you can download for free. Thats right people, awesome music for free!!!! You can't beat that with a bat!

thanks for all those who have offered to help out...

...ever and specifically for the next 2 weeks, during which i will be slipping into academic hibernation. even if i don't take y'all up on it, i really do appreciate the offers to make me food, take my pooch out and, generally, keep me happy. does anyone wanna clean my bathroom? ;)

special special special thanks to hotstuff, who will be holding down the blog fort, as well as holding down my stress levels being the awesome friend she is. and another happy birthday to her! love you, hotstuff.

rape is horrible... until it runs up against corporate/military interests...

"violence against women is despicable and intolerable" according to one republican senator. but, when it comes to rape committed by a military contractors overseas, eh, the company should be trusted to arbitrate without giving the victim access to a US civil trial...

uh what? read all about here
see the 30 senators that oppose an amendment that would not allow this to be a part of the contractors' employee contracts. they include mr. mccain. wahoo.

these mandatory arbitration clauses came into the public spotlight because of jamie leigh jones. she was drugged, gang raped and imprisoned by her kbr co-workers. she very very bravely tells the story her herself:



thankfully, she will be given her day in court

now see jon stewart shame the 30 senators:

This is just beyond words....

The title of the linked article below pretty much says it all, "Hospital Forces Lesbian to Die Alone; Judge Gives Stamp of Approval". On February 18, 2007 Lisa Pond suffered a major brain aneurysm right before her gay cruise was about to take off from a port in Florida. Her partner of nearly 18 years and 3 of their 4 adopted children (see picture of the family to the left) rushed her to a hospital in Jackson only to be denied access to her at all points because they were in a lesbian relationship. In fact, according to Lisa's partner, Janice Langbehn, their first interaction with a social worker at the hospital included them saying, “you are in an anti-gay city and state. And without a health care proxy you will not see Lisa nor know of her condition”. This is even though Janice had legal Durable Powers of Attorney and would be able to produce such documents. After that point Janice and their children were systematically separated from Lisa and were unable to understand what was going on or to comfort their partner and mother in her last dying hours.

What is even more f'ed up about this is that on September 29, 2009 U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan dismissed a lawsuit brought by Janice, essentially finding that the Jackson Memorial Hospital was within its rights to separate Lisa from her Janice and her children even though they were present and able to prove their legal connections to her. This judge rulled that because it was a lesbian couple it was okay to leave a dying woman alone, deny her present and immediate family to visit her, be updated on her condition, or even to provide the hospital with medically necessary information. Seriously people, WTF?

Article with Janice's Story

Thank God for a little bit of sunshine!

While it would have been a beautiful wedding even if it had been raining, a little while before the ceremony was about to begin the sun shone down upon the Golden Gardens Bathhouse creating a purely spectacular backdrop for a truly amazing wedding. Congrats J & J! We here at ruthere could not be happier for the two of you!

are you the keymaster?... to martial bliss...

putting a call out to all readersssss! i'm writing a wedding toast for my favorite beanpole couple. a few years ago my dad gave one of these toasts and he rocked the hiz-house. one of the things he did was poll his local favorite advice givers (including the barber, etc).

so, i'm polling you. do you have the advice for the keys to martial bliss (or at least a happy one)? email rutheregodwtf@gmail.com with the precious tidbits.

how is this post different than all other posts?
-i'm asking you to email me comments instead of posting them. i know this is an extra step, but think of it this way, i promise not to judge your grammar/spelling.

will i post them eventually?
-YES, let me know if you want your name attached to it

what if i wanna be anonymous?
-hmmm, if you don't have a fake email address already, you can post comment and i will take it down after reading it

why is this post different from all other posts?
-b/c i wanna suprise 'em, just in case they take a quick second to check this website before the wedding

am i really gonna base my whole toast on your advice?
-umm, well not the whole thing, but we'll see how good it is! plus, let's see if anyone out there is brave and wise enough to send me anything. ;)

isn't this a little cheesy/gimmicky/silly?
-yes, of course. but there's a time and place... and i trust that y'all have heard of or thought of some solid advice (or at least something to make us giggle).

thanks for playing!

Before you score, remember, you are an asshole!

Pepsi, in all of its corporate genius glory, has decided to promote its new AMP energy drink with an iPhone app called "AMP Up Before You Score". Now before you go worrying to yourself, "Damn, I wish that I had some sort of technological advantage to scoring with women and categorizing them in offensive and stereotypical ways to my advantage." Now you don't have to, Pepsi has done it for you!

They have decided, I am sure in some scientific manner, on a simple process on how best to score with the ladies. Step one: Identify her type. They have identified 24 different types of women that a man might be interested in. That is right ladies, we all apparently fall into one of these types. Including, much to the chagrin I am sure of the execs that had to come up with this the "Women's Studies Major" and the "Nerd" (see link for full list of types). What is even better is that they have also have the types "Married" and the "Rebound Girl", cause what they should really be promoting is people cheating on their spouses and also that women are disposable and can be used as a rebound tool. Nice Pepsi, real nice. Using the type that you have just id'd you then click on it and get to learn all sorts of awesome facts about that type of girl that will help your score with her. Aren't stereotypes fun boys and girls?

Step two: Keep a list. That's right, you get to keep a brag list of all the chicks you have bagged using your awesome new technique, including name, date, and whatever details you remember.

And then my favorite step of all. Step three: Brag. You can keep your buddies up-to-date on your latest conquests via email, facebook, or twitter using this app. Isn't that just lovely?

All told, this app feeds into all that is wrong with our culture. It is misogynistic and insulting to both women and men. And don't even get my started on how heterocentric it is. I mean seriously Pepsi, WTF?

Article on the release of AMP

god, i love running

today was a beautiful fall day and i took a long run with my pup. despite all the joint pain that running can engender, i love it and the post-run euphoria. see vid to see how hotlegs can run:

It costs to be gay!

I was struck recently by an article that my mom (shout out to my Momma y'all) sent me on the cost of being gay. Often the arguments around legalizing gay marriage are all about God, damnation, hellfire, and brimstone, but what about the actual cost benefits that people are missing out on when they aren't allowed to legally recognize their love? What do those numbers look like?

Well some wonderful reporters at the NYT took it upon themselves to answer just that question and finally put some numbers to what many of my same-sex coupled friends having been saying for a long time, it just costs more to be gay and have a family. In fact, as you can see in the linked article from the NYT it can actually cost over the course of a lifetime for a same-sex couple with two children from $41,196 more in the best case scenario to $467,562 more in the worst case scenario, just by not getting the same treatment opposite-sex married couples are afforded every day. The really sad part is that if the federal government would just pony up and legalize gay marriage already, almost all of that cost difference would be wiped away. While clearly this analysis and article had to be made with many assumptions around income, health insurance, etc, I really recommend reading it as it so beautifully lays out the many ways that same-sex couples are not afforded the same privileges as opposite-sex couples, and how that can greatly impact them financially.

And as always, I would like to reiterate our blog's collective desire to see the legalization of same-sex marriage and see people given equal right across the board. I will yet again say that I think it is a sad sad state of affairs that we live in a country where legally a 13 year old girl can get married with the consent of her parents and the court but two loving and consenting adults of the same sex cannot.

NYT Article

way to stick it to them boing boing

according to a 2005 national survey of young peoples (YRBSS), 32% of adolescent girls believed that they were overweight and 61% were attempting to lose weigh. ARG! if we assume that that 32 percent that think they are overweight are also trying to lose weight, that means about 1/2 of the girls that are trying to lose weight don't think they are overweight. they are just trying to get super skinny. ARG! even if we assume that some them are not at their healthy weight, the obesity rate for girls is about 10%. ARG!

while the fight between boing boing and ralph lauren isn't going to change much, at least someone is sticking it to a group promoting unreasonable skinniness (in the form of photoshop this time, instead of barbie.) the basic story is boing boing rightfully pointed out that this model's head is bigger than her pelvis. the lauren folks tried to threaten a lawsuit and boing boing stuck it to them by posting this empty threat and re-posting the original blog. (which has now been picked up by huff post... and much lower on the totem pole: us.)

original post
post-lawsuit threat post

Thank God for Fall!

I have always loved this time of year, when the air gets crisp, there is that particular Fall smell, and you start being able to wear sweaters and coats again. So far Fall in Seattle has been quite beautiful with leaves changing colors, clear views of the mountains, and perfectly blue skies. So thank you God for such a lovely Fall so far, and please keep these beautiful Fall days coming!

why would anyone ever want to hit izzy (aka hotlegs)?

my dog broke my heart yesterday. she has a very cute habit of leaving my shoes around the house when i'm gone. she doesn't chew them, just places them. when she ran out of shoes yesterday she picked up my glasses case, which needed to be chomped on to be carried (thank goodness my glasses weren't in there!).

so, for the first time i had to scold her. i started with one "bad dog" and she right away acted like i was going to hit her.

why would anyone ever hit this sweetheart? why would anyone ever terrorize a dog? or other animal? i know there are studies galore on this, but it still breaks my heart.

here are some statistics
here is an awesome slide show from nyt about an animal rescuer