Thank God for Sesame Street!

You know them, you love them, they have a way of making you smile no matter what, that's right, its the characters on Sesame Street! This week marked the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street and I just wanted to say, that not only does it warm my heart to think about how much I loved Sesame Street as a kid, but it warms my heart to know that the tradition of Sesame Street lives on. Additionally, those of you who are as Google obsessed as me may have noted that Google was also giving love to Sesame Street all week with Sesame Street inspired Google Themes such as the one you see above on this post and also here! Pretty sweet eh?

Anyway, thank you God for Sesame Street surviving 40 years and heres to 40 more!

Get your vote on!

Alright people, my brain is still not working, but that is no excuse for those of us in Washington State to not be taking part in the highly contested and highly important vote that is occurring today. There are many important contests going on, like the competitive races between Dow Constantine and Susan Hutchison for county executive; Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan for Seattle mayor; and the votes on Referendum 71 and Initiative 1033. I won't try to sway people on the Seattle mayoral race or the county executive one (although according to The Stranger Susan Hutchison "is a fan of George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, Dino Rossi, and Dave Reichert", need I say more?) but I will say without a doubt that people need to vote NO on Initiative 1033 and YES on Referendum 71. If you are feeling even a bit conflicted about ref 71, then please watch the highly educational video by Stephen Colbert below and he will set you straight. I promise!

Get out there and vote people!!! According to the Seattle Times only 20% of the ballots have come back so far, that means that 80% of them are still out there!!! Do your part and make sure that Washington State continues to be a place that Stephen Colbert can hate! :)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Don't Ask Don't Tell
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Religion

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

Damnit ACORN, why you gotta give liberal social service organizations a bad name?!?

As I am sure most of you know at this point, two very inspired young conservatives on a shoe-string budget set out with nothing but a fake pimp coat and some very revealing skirts to take down the non-profit organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). ACORN is an organization that helps with voter registration, housing, immigration, taxes, health care, wage reform, and many other things for underserved and needy populations. It has been the notorious target of many conservative organizations and has been thought of generally by conservatives to be kinda shady in the past, particularly when it came to voter registration drives.

Thus, it is unsurprising that two enterprising young wannabe conservative reporters would chose to target this organization in some sort of sting operation. What is surprising is what they were able to show. In office after office (Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino, Calif., and San Diego) the two young wannabes posed as a politician pimp and prostitute looking to create a brothel using underaged girls trafficked in illegally from El Salvador. They then caught on tape ACORN staff more then willing to help them set up their "business" and work out ways around any legal issues they might have. Some of the videos and the things that the staff say in them are just downright amazing.

Naturally there will be an investigation, but ACORN has already fired most of the people in the videos and is taking steps towards better training for the people who do work for them. They have also lost a lot of the government funding that they have received. All of which does seems to point to at least some sort of culpability to what is being shown in these here videos and most importantly ACORN has definitely lost a whole heck of a lot of face with these videos coming out whether they are true or not. And in a time where the county I live in is considering cutting all of the funds of legit and wonderful human service organizations, it makes me terribly sad to see such a widely know liberal human service organization giving the rest of us liberals and our organizations a bad name. Seriously people, WTF?

Place to see all of the videos and the back story as they tell it

ACORN Website

Washington Post Article on how the two wannabes got together

thank god for pooches

... especially mine. she's too perfect for words.

science in the WRONG hands part II

thanks to hotstuff and feministing, i have been alerted to a horrible website:

horrible website: sense and sexuality

in the spirit of the linda richman from "coffee talk" (aka mike meyers, watch it!), that website promotes neither sense nor sexuality, discuss.

in the words of feminsting:"I think I can safely say this is the biggest piece of crap website on sex I've ever seen. And that's saying a lot. Between the straight up lies and scare tactics, the sexism, and the hearts making up the DNA strand on the homepage (cause women are just made for love, not sex) - I don't even know where to start."

i hesitate to start, b/c there is so much wrong with this website, but i figured i should start with what i know the most about: hpv. this website uses hpv as it's #1 scare tactic other than a broken heart.

the fact is a large majority of sexually active people will have a genital hpv infection in their lifetime. it's the most common std and for most people there are no symptoms. the best way to prevent hpv is the hpv vaccine, though if you have had 2 or more partners chances are you have already had at least one type of genital hpv. condoms do provide some protection, but not 100%. the best way for sexually active women to protect themselves against genital cancers associated with hpv is to go their gynecologist regularly (and you are all doing that ladies, right?!)

this website, and other puritanical forces twist these facts to their advantage. this website claims "all science, no spin," a clear indication that there is spin. they write as if any risk is not worth taking. we all know that sex is risky, and that includes to emotional health. but risks are an important of life, no?

ok, back to my professional hat, the authors have definitely done their homework. they have read the scientific articles, as indicated by use of terms such as "transformation zone" and referring to an article that found hpv under fingernails. they use the latter to say that mutual masturbation isn't ok, either. that was NOT stated by the investigation's author and is not known yet. and when science doesn't go their way they make statements like this one: "And of course no vaccine prevents a broken heart."

let me put it this way folks, hpv is common. to prevent it and its consequences get the vaccine (if you are young) and go to the doctor. however, the risk of getting it should not be used to prevent a healthy sex life.

Research results in the wrong hands always leads to a good time...

Did you know that "One in 20 women has NEVER had sex sober because they lack body confidence"??? That's right, according to the article in the Daily Mail (a reputable source I know) a new study has found that women enjoy both drinking and sex, and God forbid they also enjoy putting those two things together. But the real news here is that apparently, when a woman decides to have a drink on a date and then having some sexy time on that same date, they are actually doing it because they lack body confidence. Not because it is fun, not because it is enjoyable, not even because it is some sort of social norm, or even a social lubricant, but really it is because all of us ladies out here are very self conscious about our bodies and need to toss back a few before we can let those men get a good look at us. While the study in question may have found, as suggested by this oh so well written article, that a few drinks helps the ladies loosen there inhibitions and become more adventurous, how exactly does that directly translate into lacking body confidence I would love to know!

Also, it says that on average the women in the study had eight partners but was drunk with at least five of them. What the heck kind of random thing is that to say. For example, lets take a 35 years old woman who has had eight long term partners and also likes to drink sometimes. More then likely she probably got drunk with her partners at least once or twice and I would guess could possibly even have had drunken sex with her partners once or twice. So, even though she probably didn't have drunken sex with her partners every time she had sex with them, she probably did have drunken sex with them at least once. Making their sentence true, but what the heck does that even really mean??? Is that supposed to be a bad thing and some indication that she lacks body confidence?

Seriously people, can't a lady have her drink and enjoy her sex too? WTF?

Silly Article

the uninsured deserve better, illustrated

first of all, check out this map by npr of the uninsured by district. some of the districts have more than 30% for <65 year olds!!!
map

you can also stratify by poltical party. this maps goes with a story npr titles
who's representing the uninsured. seriously, who the heck is?!

and then i would like to add this genius of a sign from this website

and another funny:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Thank God for Smoking Bans!

As was alluded to in previous posts I have been doing quite a bit of traveling in the past two months or so, one trip of which was to a beautiful wedding in Jackson, MS (Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan!!!). This wedding was charming in all the ways that only a traditional southern wedding could be and both myself and my manfriend had a wonderful time. The one thing that did catch me quite off guard though was walking into the location of the after party, which was held at a local sports bar, and finding it to be full of smoke. Thankfully the bride and groom had reserved a room for us which was not completely open to the main part of the bar, but nonetheless there was no escaping the smoke. Being someone who has lived on the west coast now for seven years, with only trips to places on the east coast that have also adopted smoking bans, I had totally forgotten that there might still be places in which one can smoke indoors. After getting over the initial shock, the after party was a total blast, but I do want to give a big old thank God for smoking bans and for the lack of need to have all pieces of clothing washed or dry cleaned constantly because of the all encompassing, pervasive smell of smoke!