Category Archives: 99%
Can You Spot the Difference? AKA: A clump of dead cells is a clump of dead cells, why is it profane?
Warning: this article may contain foul language and possibly disturbing imagery.
A professor at the University of Buffalo was arrested earlier this month when she let loose a serious string of expletives toward a, reportedly, fairly graphic pro-life display. This attracted the attention of the police who she then continued to swear at, having not said her fill already about how “vulgar” and “profane” the pro-life display was. The police eventually escorted her away in cuffs.
Laura Curry, a professor of film at the University of Buffalo, found a display so offensive that she railed against it and was warned by uniformed police to desist. “Where does it say I can’t use the F@#$ word in public,” Curry demanded. “I can swear because that’s part of my vocabulary. That’s part of my First Amendment rights.” “That is swearing,” Curry says, pointing towards the signs. “That image is f@#$ing profane.”
- Mediaite
Video contains strong language
But here’s a question, what was it about this display that she found so vulgar and profane?
Oh I know what I and other pro-life people find vulgar and profane about an image of an aborted child, but why would a pro-choice person see it that way? I could understand if she had said the image was “disturbing” to her or if it made her “uncomfortable”, but vulgar? Profane?
How much education can you afford?
I don’t usually discuss education, though I feel strongly about the subject, but as a college student who isn’t exactly rolling in cash, this topic had to be written about.
ThinkProgress (a “news” site that always leaves me wondering exactly how many “glaucoma” patients they have on staff*) has apparently taken issue with something that Romney said recently (surprise, surprise…not). Specifically they had a problem with this part of his speech on the 27th in Virginia.
I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.
Oh I get what they think they are upset about, but honestly they are just looking for a reason to dislike Romney. If they were paying any attention to his record they would know they were being ridiculous, but really…if a website posts an article named “Four Reasons Why The Court’s Decision To Uphold Obamacare Is Good News For The Economy” they aren’t really trying to be taken seriously anymore.
But I digress.
People are trying to make this statement look like Romney doesn’t care about the poor and don’t want them to get an education, but that’s just ridiculous!
This is the comparison they are making. God, I hope I’m never this stupid.
See the key word here is “afford” and that word doesn’t mean what you think it means.**
The definition of afford:
1. To be able to do, manage, or bear without serious consequence or adverse effect.2. To be able to meet the expense of; have or be able to spare the price of.
When you bring this term into a conversation of “can I afford this 60″ flat screen TV” it actually means “Do I have this money in my bank account right now?” Or “Will I be able to pay this off with the job I have?”
When you are talking about something such as a smart investment opportunity or education, the question becomes “can I spare the money right now for the pay off later?”
When I went back to school I weighed the cost very carefully. I was very aware of the amount I would have to take out in federal and private loans and I considered whether I could afford the cost and then decided that I couldn’t afford to not return to school.
Then, of course, you run into people *cough99%’scough* who complain that they spent SO much money that they couldn’t afford on their education and now they can’t find jobs and they can’t pay back all those loans they took out while getting degrees in Underwater Basket-weaving and Canadian Studies and Music Therapy. (Those last two are actual degrees…I sincerely hope that the first one is not.) Or perhaps one of these other, equally pointless and wasteful, degrees.
Can these people afford to get these degrees? (Well clearly they couldn’t, or they wouldn’t have been camping out in New York City, protesting other people’s better college choices). The only people who could afford that sort of degree would be someone like Paris Hilton, with outrageous amounts of family money (and even Paris isn’t that stupid, she, to my knowledge, never went to college. Instead she just started her own companies and became successful…without college, imagine that.) Instead maybe they should have gone to get a degree in something that could help them get a good career. Instead of dicking around in Women’s Studies majors, maybe they should have gone to nursing school. Instead of majoring in Religion (sorry Dylan***) maybe they should have gone to Business school or at the very least gotten a teaching degree.
Yes, I’m aware that the cost of college is outrageous, but you can only blame the government for that. You can’t blame them for your stupid choice of major, but youcanblame the government for subsidizing every stupid degree that colleges make available.
Wait, you say, I had to get a college degree to get a good job.
Bullshit. I’ve had good paying, full time jobs, that never once cared about whether I had a degree or not. You either haven’t looked in the right place, or you are looking for a job you will “enjoy”. I will admit, those full time jobs were boring as hell and I hate them, but I was also independent and made plenty of money to do whatever I wanted after paying my rent and saving a little.
But, you say, I want a job I will enjoy. I want a career, so I have to get a degree because those jobs won’t hire me without a degree.
Once again, blame the government and the subsidization of colleges. 50 years ago, people got college degrees for jobs that needed serious training. Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, (some) Scientists. General jobs didn’t all come with a “those without college degree need not apply” disclaimer. The government subsidized and then degrees, the likes of which wouldneverget you a job, began popping up all over the place just to reel in the students.
So even if your broke can you ‘afford’ college? Well that depends on whether you have a plan and whether you know what degree to get to carry out that plan and whether you are willing to do the work to become successful. If you have those three things anyone can afford to go to college, that’s what Romney meant.
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*No offense to those people I know who have LEGITIMATE pain management issues that are helped by a little mary-jane, but I think it’s clear this stuff (or whatever they are taking) is not helping the writer’s at ThinkProgress to ‘progress’ anywhere but the snack food aisle.
**Sort of like how the word “fair” and “equal” have somehow gained new, interesting, twisted definitions for liberals.
***That is what my brother majored in…
Time for another glitter-bombing post.
Back to my roots, complaining about the liberal gay left.
Also Occupy Wall Street/any city they can get to, because they seem to be doing a bit of the glitter slinging these days as well.
I’ve talked about glitter bombing before, but I thought it was time for another go at it, since people still seem to consider it a good way to deal with their issues….instead of, y’know, actually having civilized discussions.
Because throwing things was so helpful in solving disputes in kindergarten. *eye roll*
So last time I talked, it was mostly about how childish the concept of throwing glitter at your opponents makes you look.
But I’ve changed my mind (don’t faint, it happens). It still makes you look irreparably stupid, but there is nothing childish about it.
Nothing is childish about assault.
Yes, you heard me right. Glitter bombing is assault.
Here is the definition of assault.
noun
verb
- In criminal and tort law, an act, usually consisting of a threat or attempt to inflict bodily injury upon another person, coupled with the apparent present ability to succeed in carrying out the threat or the attempt if not prevented, that causes the person to have a reasonable fear or apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact. No intent to cause battery or the fear or apprehension is required so long as the victim is placed in reasonable apprehension or fear. No actual physical injury is needed to establish an assault, but if there is any physical contact, the act constitutes both an assault and a battery.
- In criminal law, in some states, the term includes battery and attempted battery.
- Any attack .
- The act of inflicting bodily injury upon another. See also mayhem.
The parts in bold are what I want you to look at.
Sure you didn’t mean to glitter in that senator/aid/candidate/judge’s eye. You didn’t mean to lacerate their cornea or cause major injury or disability.
But you still did…or you risk doing so with every handful of glitter that you throw.
[A] Washington, D.C., optometrist warns that it is possible to injure someone with glitter.
“If it gets into the eyes, the best scenario is it can irritate, it can scratch. Worst scenario is it can actually create a cut,” Stephen Glasser told The Hill. He also noted that breathing glitter into your nose and sinuses could cause an infection.
- NPR
So it’s not childish. It’s criminal.
As 20 year old intern, Peter Smith, found out last Tuesday.
Tuesday’s glitter bombing, however, is different. The student who tossed the glitter was charged with “throwing a missile” and “unlawful acts on campus grounds.” If convicted, 20-year-old Peter Smith could face up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Smith, who was working as an unpaid intern for the Colorado Senate Democrats, was promptly fired and also faced possible expulsion from University of Colorado Denver. Although UCD chose to take no disciplinary action, Smith still faces the other charges.
The IDS paper is calling the charges “a little disproportionate.”
Claiming that being fired was appropriate, but expulsion and jail time/a fine was a punishment unfit to the crime.
One has to wonder…would they be so tolerant if this was another situation.
Here’s one for you.
My school gets a lot of these “street preachers” who show up with megaphones and stupid t-shirts and big signs quoting Biblical verses (all out of context) that talk about hellfire and damnation. I’m not impressed by this…I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. I cut my teeth on fire and brimstone preaching.
However, what if this group took things a step farther. What if, instead of just shouting abuse at us, they started throwing pamphlets at us and spraying super-soakers filled holy water on the students.
Pamphlets can give people paper cuts and certainly carry the danger of cutting someone in a dangerous place…like…I don’t know…the eye.
A super-soaker on campus could, similarly, have bad results.
So, we could legitimately claim this as assault. It fits the legal definition I quoted in enough ways to make that feasible.
So would these same writers feel it was “disproportionate” to charge the speakers, with their loud protests about how being gay and masturbating will send you to hell, with assault?
Well?
I don’t know, but I have a feeling that they would be fine with it.
And just for reference. Here is the golden rule again. (I’ve quoted it before)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
If you would appreciate a handful of glitter in your face, a slashed cornea, and a painkiller/eye-patch fashion combo, then, by all means, keep throwing glitter at people.
If you would appreciate Bible’s being thrown at you because you are gay, and the street preachers thought that physical violence would change that, then, by all means, keep assaulting others to get them to change their opinions.
If, however, you realize how much you would not appreciate either one of those things.
Then please, give it a rest, put down the craft box, screw the lid back on the glitter container, and go write a blog or something.
A follow up to a post I wrote on January 17th. (A note on how checking the facts can lead to interesting results.)
I have recently taken a lot of heat for a post that I wrote about a 99% protestor. A good portion of that heat came from the person pictured in this post and the friends that he brought over from his blog and his own facebook page.
Under normal circumstances I would have had no problem dealing with each argument and commenter individually, however I woke up to nearly 20 comments the morning after he posted the link to my blog and as I read through them I came across one that shook me.
I’ve been insulted and made fun of because of my beliefs, both in comments and emails related to this blog, and occasionally in real life as well. I have never before received a death threat from a commenter though and that, even though the threat was mostly implied, made me take a step back and assess how I was going to deal with the situation. I contacted my friends, spoke to them, some of whom have experienced death threats and threats of physical violence before as well because of their political ideals. I left my own place of residence and went to stay with my parents, because the idea of being in a house with people who both have loaded guns and know how to use them, was much more appealing than being by myself at the time.
The threat itself, is visible on the comments of the original blog. The IP address it was sent from was 74.226.73.216 and it was sent to the blog after the blogger in question posted links to my article (and my photo) on his blog and facebook.
Granted we can’t be held responsible for the actions of all of our followers, I do not know all of my followers and readers personally, but I promise you if any one of my readers ever threatened the life of someone I was in an argument with, and I was made aware of it, I would condemn then in harshest possible terms and do whatever I could to see them prosecuted for making such threat. What the 99% blogger in question will do is up to them…but if you choose silence please refrain from ever taking the moral high ground.
I spent several days assessing my situation and going over both the original blog entry and the comments that I received. My conclusion was this, I stand by the contents of my article.
Though perhaps calling him a liar was too far, but from the facts given he did seem to be lying based on reality. Perhaps I will change my comment to “he is clearly a very poor communicator”. Either that, or he intentionally used half-truths and cherry picked his facts to change what the situation sounds like…which, according to my family’s house rules, is lying.
The commenters on that post are right, I do not know the life story of the man in question. I do not know him, I do not know where he lives, what he currently does for a living, nor do I honestly care. The content of what he wrote was what I was analyzing and he did not give all the facts, in fact he worded (intentionally or unintentionally) his words in a way that did not give all facts about his situation. And then he criticizes me for not including certain facts in my analyses, when those facts themselves were not included in the information he gave.
That is not my fault.
My analyses, based on the information given, was perfectly sound. Even the incomparable Sherlock Holmes could not deduce something correctly without all the information. “Data, data, data, I cannot make bricks without clay.”
Some of the commenters complained that I glossed over the facts of my own neurological condition, some saying that my glossing over the details meant that I had been cured and knew nothing of living with long term health concerns. I would first like to point out that I have, on several occasions, spoken about my health concerns on this blog and that there was no need to go over them again as MY health issues were not what the blog was about.
I will say here that I have not been cured. There is, in fact, no known cause or cure for my disorder. I suffer from Pseudo-tumor Cerebri, which basically means that (unless it stops on its own) I will be one at least two medications, every day, for the rest of my life. The increased intracranial pressure could have damaged my eyesight permanently or damaged my brain, if it had not been discoverd. If I do not take the medication I suffer from debilitating migraines, which before I was diagnosed, kept me from working more and more as the situation grew worse. The pain was so bad that I was forced to lay in the dark, with no noise, no interaction, for hours at a time. I would go to work and leave halfway through the day after throwing up multiple times because the pain was so intense.
I am not telling you this to gain your sympathy, merely to answer your questions, I don’t want your sympathy, nor do I need it. I have friends who care about me and they are my friends because they are people of character. As to the defenders of the 99%, please don’t feel sorry for me or my medical condition.
Others questioned if my neurological disorder had damaged my brain, affecting my ability to think and hurt my intelligence. I assure you that my friends, family, neurologist, and MRIs can tell you that this is not the case. That is the only response you will get to that accusation.
Other commenters addressed my compassion, or lack thereof. Compassion has nothing to do with facts, compassion does not alter facts. Compassion is not an advantage in analyzing the facts.
Others commented on my grammar and spelling. Yes, I will admit that I do not always edit my posts as well as I should. I also do not always have my posts proofread before posting them. My brain, unfortunately, usually runs faster than my hands can type and on occasion that means that I will skip words, use homophones, or get letters out of order or missing entirely. It is a flaw that I am continuously trying to break myself of, but it does not always happen. However my spelling and grammar have absolutely no bearing on my actual facts or arguments.
Those of you who know this man personally have every right to defend him on a personal level, but you must understand that he did not give all the facts in the first place and those facts that he did give, did not connect with reality. While my post may have lacked for style and compassion, his lacked facts, who committed the greater offense?
The post has been taken off its private settings and all the comments, even the one that gave me pause about the situation, have been approved. I will not be replying to the comments, as this reply is a blanket one covering the issues that I felt needed to be addressed.
Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for both supporting me and going over the situation with me, to analyze the issues. I would also like to thank one of my very best friends for writing a post that addresses some issues of the 99% movement that I have not addressed and far more eloquently than I could.
A note on how checking the facts can lead to interesting results.
Here is a follow up I wrote to this article after a lot of controversy arose because of it.
This is one of the numerous “I am the 99%” photographs that is floating around the internet. I got this one from facebook, when a friend of a friend posted it.
I haven’t spent a lot of time pulling these posters apart, because it just seems like a waste of time. These people aren’t interested in listening to logic or truth, but this one was so blatantly ridiculous that I had to deal with it. Also because it is about my state and about issues that are close to me, as I also had difficulty getting on AHCCCS last year when I had to have several tests done to diagnose a neurological disorder that I have.
So we’ll start small and end up proving that, whatever else the man in the above picture is, he is a liar.
He says that he made minimum wage, which up until recently was $7.35 an hour in this state. He also says that he worked part time, so 30 hours or less. (If your definition of part time is different from that, please let me know. That is the definition at my current job.)
If he worked 30 hours a week, ever week, he would make $882 dollars a month, before taxes. I’m going from what he has said, though I find it quite unbelievable that he was actually paid minimum wage. Most pizza delivery jobs pay less than minimum wage because of tips.
Which are not including in the income information that AHCCCS asks for. I should know. I spent enough time staring at those forms.
The maximum amount that an adult single person can make and still qualify for AHCCCS is $908, before taxes. The man in the picture does not mention having any family, so that is the amount I will use in this analysis.
So at this point we have found that if he was working full time at minimum wage, as he says, that he would in fact be in the right income level to be accepted by AHCCCS.
Now we move into the realm of why, even if he was making more than $908 a month, he would still be lying through his teeth, or he just wasn’t trying very hard to get AHCCCS coverage.
I made slightly over $1000 a month at the job I had when I was trying to get AHCCCS coverage. As a single female, that was over the limit and I was told that I would be denied AHCCCS unless I included the bills for the procedures that I had already had (at that point I think it was several trips to a Neurologist, 2 MRIs, and a Lumbar puncture) and they would be pro-rated against the amount I made each month.
I did exactly that (or my dad did, I wast still recovering from the lumbar puncture). At one point I had to stand in line for 2 hours at the local AHCCCS office to talk about my policy, but guess what? I got a bright shiny AHCCCS card. The coverage only lasted about 6 months, but it significantly helped me with my bills and prescriptions for medication.
As for his assumption about Churches and Private Institutions not paying for medical bills. I wouldn’t know, I never tried to get one to pay my bills. However, despite some of my issues with religious organizations I have been a part of in the past, I will say one thing. There was not a single time that a call went out for assistance on medical (or other monetary issues) where the members of the church did not give willingly to help those in their congregation. Even those that had only a little more than those in question, gave willingly.
As for private institutions, a 20 second google search found several lists(1, 2, 3) of private, federal, and state organizations for cancer patients. (I stuck with cancer as that is the same disease that that the man in the picture had). I do not know how affective these organizations are, nor how difficult it is to get assistance from these programs, but they are there. So his statement that churches and private organizations will not pay your medical bills (or help at the very least) is completely false.
There, I feel better.
Check the facts more often. It reveals interesting things.
