what I said earlier

Cleaning turned into rearranging today, though, for the most part, the cleaning did actually happen. I'm basically waiting for Momma to get home soon and tell me she hates it how it is. The change isn't huge, mostly involving the television/video game end of the room.

It didn't help that I let a rant escape earlier today when I was supposed to be cleaning. I'm almost afraid to go back and read it, because I'm sure I came off sounding a little half cocked. I cooled on the issue a little bit, though rechecking comments at a couple of places, I could easily get hot all over again. And that's what got it started again, what got me thinking of that damn rant that I'd have probably forgotten completely otherwise.

Thanks Chris for the link, but I don't have any discs and my DVD player is at least slightly busted anyway. I'll see it, probably, though I actually never watched his last movie now that I think about it. Hell, this my prompt me to figure out the machine and buy a blank disc finally.

At one blog I read (read past tense, not read as in regularly, but linked to from a place I do read regularly,) the kind of place where feelings run away from liking Michael Moore, a number of the comments lean heavily toward bashing him, branding him a liar, cursing his name with chicken blood so that the curse takes.

Someone, the lone liberal that should let the sheep be to bump each other with their butts and bleat stupidly, asks for information as to what Moore has actually lied about. Instead we get links to Buddy Someshit's blog, because he'll by god tell you about the lies, though oddly, we only get links. There's never any sort of well reasoned discussion because the people haven't seen the films and must rely on heresay from an obviously biased third party source.

A necessary part of the conversation is the lone agreeing Canadian, telling us how lucky we are that we don't have to wait years due to bureaucratic nonsense to get our anal clutch valve tightened. The US system is so perfect compared to theirs, and believe it when he says it, the taxes they pay are so horrible. I guess that explains why so many Canadians are coming here for medical treatment. Vermont's just eat up with people able to converse both in English and French, though they pretend to only speak French and expect us to put up signs and label things in two languages. I for one don't want to have to fucking learn to say burrito in French.

And now that we've brought it up, one of the most vile of arguments, the soon to be classic, if the US system is so bad, why are all those dirty brown people trying to come and steal it? Yeah, dirty brown people, they just want free health care, so they can go back home and be all well while they take our jobs. It can't be that their option is that much worse. The right actually attack this one fading twinkle of concern for your fellow man, the fact that hospitals have to treat you if you come in sick, even if the bills come back as undeliverable.

Never once in the entire discussion does anyone suggest anything better. Someone will agree with the exorbitant new tax burden, and another person will chime in about how they ain't damn well gonna pay no lazy ignorant so and so to go to the doctor for free. They work hard for their money, and they don't care about lazy shiftless people who can't get their own care. "They can get a damn job! I've got two myself." They are certainly happy to discuss the liar filmmaker who shouldn't even call it a documentary because it's biased, and gol dang they just hate him so.

Completely absent are any new ideas. If it exists at all, the concern for the sake of humanity as deserving of better is completely invisible. The idea that people have to earn medical care permeates the entire discussion. Being able to see a doctor is treated as a privilege that only those who work hard should be able to attain, with no explanation of what "work hard" quite means either.

They never mention children. They never talk about a family that pretty much has a decent life but for their general inability to be able to see a doctor in a timely fashion outside of emergency care. One of the parents makes enough money to feed the family, to keep the bills paid, to make a niceish life for her family, but her employer doesn't offer her insurance, and if he did, she couldn't afford to accept it. She has a really great opportunity at this job, and for the most part she likes it. There may or may not be a future in this particular location, but she's learning skills both in the kitchen and as a leader and as a manager of a restaurant that will likely serve her well in the future.

But she doesn't have insurance, and she and her husband have priced it before. They can't afford to pay for the insurance that is available to them. Perhaps if the husband were to return to work, but he would then have to work his way back up in a whole new restaurant before he was possibly able to reach the point at which he would be valued enough to have earned insurance, or he would work solely to pay for insurance bought privately. He would be willing to return to work, but the reason he quit was to open the door for his wife to take the opportunity she has. If he were to return to work full time, it would rearrange their entire lives for the worse. The family would have less time together, with the husband and wife rarely seeing each other.

I don't want free health care as such. I'm willing for the insurance industry to go to hell and for health care to be funded sufficiently to take care of people as needed, whether or not that means a slightly higher tax burden. That tax burden would lower other medically related burdens to equalize the whole very near what it is. People would earn their medical care by being human and deserving of it for that single reason.

How anyone can justify for profit medical is completely beyond me. I don't want to think these people are evil, because maybe they've just had it really good their whole lives and don't know better. Maybe they don't know what it's like to sit with a sick child hoping like hell they get better. You imagine those people that just go to the doctor because they have one, a doctor that recognizes them and greets them by name, a doctor that's gotten to know your kids over the years. You imagine yourself taking a spill playing on your adult soccer league, something you absolutely love doing, but something that makes you feel guilty sometimes because one wrong turn, and you've just cost your family a few thousand dollars. And then you think of your child playing soccer, or climbing a tree, or just being alive and a child.

so sick of

I haven't seen Michael Moore's new movie Sicko yet. I will not be seeing it in the theater as I refuse to spend that much money on a movie that doesn't need the big screen. I will see it as soon as I'm able after it is out of the theaters.

This post isn't about the movie, but having been reading around the internet today about the movie, health care is on my mind. It's been on my mind before as my family is in that group of several million uninsured Americans for whom medical care, even the most basic, is sadly out of our grasp.

We are currently paying off a couple thousand dollars debt that accumulated due to a single emergency room visit that my wife made a few months ago. She has asthma and a few allergies which are usually not a concern for her. There have been a couple of times though when the asthma flared up, and she was unable to fix the problem, and the problem was continuing to worsen. There's a certain hell that someone goes through as they try their damndest just to get a good breath. There's a whole other hell in knowing that you should have been able, with a simple doctor visit, to have gotten control over your health issue any time in your past. There's that same hell in knowing that, because our country has allowed the enrichment of a few corporations and individuals on the backs of the ill, you are going to have to suffer.

The health insurance industry is one of the most vile and evil ideas ever dredged from the mind of man. That we can actually describe something and use the words health and industry should make us all ashamed. That people can make money because others are sick is disgusting. The medical insurance industry does just that, and I can't say it enough. They exist for no other reason than to turn your and my illnesses into profit for them. We are no more or less than a plus or a minus on their ledgers. If we are well, we are a plus because they keep our money. If we become ill or are hurt, we become a minus as they have now to spend the money we've been giving them.

I'm mostly amazed the right wing bloggers that will refuse to see the movie. Perhaps they think that Michael Moore is no more than a liberal shill and troublemaker. He may have asked a quesiton in the past that made them uncomfortable. They assume words from him he never said and tell us they don't need to see his movie to know what it will say.

I'm especially amazed by the giant balls on so many right wingers. I'm working now from what seems an obvious and apt assumption, that many right wing people are also christian. Not to make this a christian versus not-so-much issue, but if your god tells you that how you treat others is how you then have treated him, then what does that say about so many people's unwillingness to help make sure that all people are afforded the same level of medical care? If you are so inclined, go HERE to see a list of verses from the Bible detailing what god thinks of the poor and what he commands his followers to do in relation to the poor. It is Bible stuff, so you're going to have to wade through some craziness.

Did you know that god even commands his followers to actually leave some of their crops in the field? to not beat the olive trees a second time when harvesting? They are to leave these things and more in the field for widows, orphans, elderly and poor. So if god tells you directly to make sure the poor are fed, I wonder what he might expect of his followers in our modern age in regards to medical care?

Finally, I'm certainly not anti christian, but I'm amazed at the religious fervor from the right in regards to certain issues. The same people that throw the Bible in the way of equality for all are suddenly silent in using the Bible to uphold the idea of medical equality for all. Outdated passages of hatred to damn gay people, sudden silence when the same book reminds them to care for others. Tricky, very tricky.

reading

Big Brother has finished reading Inkheart, a book I read to him a couple of years ago. We've not read much with him in a while, though as Momma and I have been reading the first Harry Potter to The Boy, he's been hanging out to listen in.

Big Brother always enjoyed being read to, and The Boy never didn't enjoy it, but Big Brother has always been drawn to reading. We've pulled a couple of books from him before as deemed inappropriate just yet, most recently Stephen King's Pet Cemetery. That was a well intentioned gift from a roller girl friend. Any new book that I don't personally suggest draws him, begging him to read. I'm not sure how far he got into the night he got it, but after he went to bed, Momma flipped through it and decided to read it first.

She's seen the movie, and I haven't. I've read the book, and she hasn't. So now she's reading that. She's also been working on Appetite for Life: the Biography of Julia Child, by Noel Riley Fitch, the book that really made me fall in love with Julia, and she may very well have a third book floating around some place.

I hate that she's reading Pet Cemetery before me because she'll read it eventually, as she feels like it, and there's that whole other book competing with it. Like Big Brother, I'm excited at the idea of a new book, even if it's not really new. It has been several years since I read it, and I haven't read any Stephen King since that thing I went through a few years ago during which I read him almost exclusively. But suddenly, I want to read his book again. I've settled instead on rereading Philip Pullman's Ruby in the Smoke.

I love Philip Pullman. Rereading Ruby in the Smoke reminds me why I love his books. He writes for a wide variety of reading levels, and he creates stories that are really classic tales, but you can't really even describe his approach. He makes you realize that, at some point, all stories are old stories, but in a good way.

Ruby in the Smoke has been one of the books that's stayed on Big Brother's inappropriate list for some time, though he's enjoyed a number of Philip Pullman's work. I love the book, but the one theme that really worries me as a parent shows up and with no real moral stance. A few people smoke opium in the book. For one it's a devil of addiction, while for another it's used only once to some benefit.

I am in no way anti drug. I think I may have mentioned some things in the past, some rants I've made against a certain failure of a war on drugs. At the same time, I believe that the reasons behind drug use are much more important in helping people control their usage than trying to force people to do it with jail as your main deterrent.

And then we get to the part where it's my child that I'm talking about. It's such a great story, and I know he'd love it. I'm just not sure how much the opium smoking bothers me at this point. I don't really want him to smoke opium, but I also know that I might give it a try if the timing was right, and we had an all night babysitter. Millions of dead Chinese and European sailors can't be wrong.

Maybe when I finish it, Momma can start reading it, added to her always growing and shifting pile of things she's reading. Then we'll figure out if it's appropriate. It's going to come up at some point, but I'm stuck at does-it-have-to-be-now?

huge mess

The huge mess behind me is not nearly as huge or as messy as it could be. It was only a couple of nights ago, some wild hair up her ass, Momma dumped all the Legos into the floor. We have three separate tubs of Legos and the random Mega Blocks that are basically Legos ( or would that be legos?) Before Momma's big Lego tub dumping, there was no order in how the Legos were separated into the tubs, as Lego cleanup has long ago become of the order of scoop and dump.

The Legos were already out, just not all the way out. The soccer set never go much chance to be a soccer set, but they were a good portion of the reason that the Legos were out at all. Big Brother built a Ninja Warrior course, a good portion of which was made up of the green rectangles that make up the Lego soccer field.

There are plenty of Lego people, most of whom came with the soccer set. The majority of Lego people are currently sitting in piles, completely pulled apart. Big Brother has even gone so far as to pull their little hands out of their arms.

I'm pretty sure it's the current fascination with Lego Star Wars video game that has him pulling the people apart. One of the features of the video game is the ability to build new characters using the cast of characters available in the game.

You might wonder how Ninja Warrior and Lego Star Wars fit together. Well, it comes together when an eight year old boy builds a Ninja Warrior course out of Legos and then builds people to compete using random Legos and imagination to build the characters from Lego Star Wars, such Luke Skywalker on Dagobah, Han Solo as a storm trooper, and so on.

I began writing this post last night when there was still a mess behind me. I didn't finish it and left it till today. Momma did in fact pick nearly all of the Legos up that she had dumped. Her original goal, for whatever reason, was to dig out all the parts that go into the Slave1, Bobba Fett's ship. It's a difficult thing to do, and it's possible that Big Brother never did succeed in building it when he first got it. He tried on and off for a while before growing frustrated and putting it away. By putting it away I do mean of course allowing the pieces to become mere Legos as opposed to pieces of a bounty hunter's transportation. They became merged into the tubs.

There are still three tubs, but we now have a few extra containers to house the various parts and pieces. Because the Bionicles have their own separate tub, and because we had the plastic container that one of them came in, we now have separate storage for wheels and axles. We have an old baby wipe container holding the random pieces, the one of a kind tiny pieces and we have a plastic takeout dish from the Thai place that once held soup, maybe even tom yum, that now holds the people.

Damn, now I want some tom yum soup.

expo bout

Our roller derby league was lucky in the earliest days of the league to find a place to skate, a place for both practice and bouts. There have always been some issues with the rink, and location and size have always been the top issues.

Saturday night Hard Knox Roller Girls present Triple Threat, our expo bout where we check out a possible new location. The Icearium is huge, lots of parking, serves alcohol, has parking, is still technically in our town, et cetera. Did I mention they sell beer?

The fact that our current home is in the next county is enough to throw some people off. People just don't want to go to Maryville, as it seems like a drive. It's not any closer or farther for the average person than the Icearium, but sometimes it's just the name.

All three of our intra league teams will be playing in Triple Threat. I'm not sure how we're going to manage it, though some system of staggering the teams on the floor will occur so that each team skates the same number of jams and each team faces each other team the same number of jams.

If you live anywhere within the sound of my voice, I suggest you hitch up the mules, help grandma and the kids into the wagon, and come out and show your pride. Whether you wear Kelly purple, Betty red or Lolita black and white, your favorite team needs you to come and show your love. More than that, your league wants you here, screaming and cheering for us all.

borrowed theme

Carol Borges, blogging at KnoxViews, has an interesting piece about the possible racism in damning the violence and misogyny in hip hop music when "white" music has many references to similar actions and attitudes. She listed a few songs to make her point. I hadn't really considered the issue this way before. Though not much of a hip hop fan over all, I do listen to a few groups and tend to steer away from a lot of gangsta rap as well as the more overtly sexual groups. For me it's more some quality I see in the groups I do enjoy versus the content of their songs.

Celebrating the misogyny as well as the bling culture that so much of hip hop seems to have devolved into is more damaging I feel. To some extent, the more violent music, at least at one time, could have been argued to open a window onto the reality of life for too many people, but at some point even that rings a little hollow when you wonder why so many artists can get rich at the expense of the suffering and yet the gangs still continue to hurt people and make neighborhoods unlivable. What good is the money when all the community sees is gaudy diamond encrusted watches and necklaces? Of course there I seem to hold black artists somehow responsible. If we are to suggest this, then why not also suggest that country artists are responsible for rural communities?

I grew up in Atlanta, in south Dekalb County. We attended church and school in an area that would have been considered white at the time, though south Dekalb is and was decidedly not. On some level I've always had an interest in issues of race and equality. It seems like it's always questions and never enough answers.

them toes

Before I say anything else, the following post is to be in no way misconstrued as a comparison to any real injury earned in the actual bout. Yes, you are getting another post that is in some way derby related, but I really have to reiterate the whole not comparing thing. I'm not including bruise or contusion pictures, because this post isn't about that, and I don't have any.

I do have some toe issues though that are related to the bout. This was my first time as an announcer for the league. For the most part I did team and skater intros, I introduced the refs and tried to do a reasonable play by play. I exhorted our fans to cheer louder and audibly swooned over the soul crushing hits our team dealt out.

My toe problem is related to both the shoes I was wearing and the physical stance I take when actively observing a roller derby bout. I tend to squat on one leg, a position that is not quite standing or sitting but leaves me in a position from which I can easily stand to shout encouragement or even to leap into the air with joy when our jammer makes that move past the opposition's pivot, faking a quick step before ducking to the inside and hitting the power as she skates away, hands raised high in the devil horns.

And here is where we come to the shoes. They are some absolutely sweet shoes, black and white wing tips, a good bit clunky, and they even sport a steel toe, for whatever the hell that gets me these days. Steel toes on me are nothing more than added weight. The shoes get really uncomfortable after an evening of being out, so I tend to reserve them for those random nights that we actually have an all night baby sitter and it's worth getting dressed up.

Getting to cheer on the league that much louder is certainly a worthy event, and that they match the team's black and white motif makes it that much harder not to wear them. However, combining them and the squatting stance, I've temporarily fucked my foot up. I've almost convinced myself that it's the shoes fault and not that I squat like an idiot on one foot. At the same time I'm sure it's not the shoe's fault.

Monday morning I woke none the worse for wear except that the toes on my squatting-on foot felt numbish. They'd bothered me throughout the bout, mostly in the breaks between periods when I climbed down from my perch and walked around, and I knew it was from the squat or maybe the shoes, but I assumed it was just a thing, too long in one odd position kind of thing.

That does happen to me, but it's because I squat, and it's never something I don't just walk off. I do it outside smoking sometimes too. I don't really think about doing it, and it's weird to occasionally realize you've bypassed a perfectly good chair in order to squat on your haunches.

I may just have to stand up when I do the announcing, but at the rink we currently use, the place I have to be is just this crazy perch in the air where I'm just standing like a dancer in a cage without the cage part. There are people crowded all around it to the point where I almost feel like putting up a sign that reads "servers only." Maybe it just feels weird that I have absolutely no separation beyond height from the people I'm talking too. It bears thinking about I'm sure. Maybe it's looking down and realizing I'm standing in someone's face.

The toes don't hurt. They're actually a sort of numbish, asleepish feeling. I can feel the feeling coming back into them with each day, but I also feel that I need to rethink those shoes. I really never thought I'd be concerned with the price of beauty, and in many ways I really feel I should be able to be above it. But you should see those shoes. And that leads me to think I should just wear the shoes. Who really needs to squat anyway? We're evolved past squatting. Hell, we've evolved to the point where our women can pit themselves against each other in feats of strength and speed combined. The least I can do is look good for them.

ooooh, derby stuff

Want to see some derby action? You know you do, so click HERE to go to the video. It was produced and is hosted by a local group, Mind Punch that is basically like a local Myspace. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video in this blog post.

Our team is in black with our pivots and jammers in red helmet covers. As usual, look for Momma wearing the skull face. She's an amazing jammer, which you might know if you'd come to town and watch our league tear shit up. You might also know if you ever read here, as I kind of have a habit of making sure people know that my wife rocks.

If you do in fact pay attention and find the girl with the skull you might also see here take a couple of hard hits. Pay special attention and see that she deals out some hard hits. I'm not sure how many roller derby leagues have jammers that hit as do ours, but I doubt there's too many jammers that hit as well as ours. Another of our jammers, Goblynn, is also seen knocking an opponent ass over tea kettle.

The match is our Hard Knox Roller Girls versus Tragic City Rollers from Birmingham Alabama. They beat us in our first ever bout last year and have beaten us again. They took an early lead and not only held on but increased it. The score totals between the different jams however was all over the place and, in my opinion, gives a better view of the skills evident in both teams.

I can't speak for playing with them as I'm not allowed, because of my dude parts, but our team seemed to have fun, and TCR was a blast at the after party. I don't know if any of them will read this, but I'd love to tell them thanks again. Thanks for a great game and for great after party. I'm pretty sure we and they all made it back home and in one piece, so outside of the fact that the win is ours next time, we couldn't really have asked for a better weekend.

fresh ink

I've always wanted a pinup tattoo, but it wasn't something that was necessarily at the front of the line of ideas queuing up to be sunk into my skin. I was quite certain that my next tattoo was going to be something dragon related, another of the classic tattoo themes that I've always loved.

The inspiration for the jammer inked onto my arm was the jammer I'm married to. It was in fact the top picture that screamed at me, "Wouldn't I make an awesome tattoo?" And I had to agree that it was indeed a great idea.

I won't assume you are familiar with roller derby, though why you haven't found a local team by now is beyond me. Seriously, just google your town and the words roller derby, but that really isn't the point right now. My tattoo is a jammer, or point scorer. This is signified most obviously by the star on her helmet. The hands at her hips indicate she's calling off the jam. That she obviously kicks ass could be an indication that she's a Hard Knox Rollergirl, though without hurting the other teams' feelings, you see the purple Kelly love in evidence.

Finally is the shout out. Corey at Saint Tattoo etched this onto me, and he does great work. His calling card graces the skin of several people I know or have known around this town. Of the people I know that have seen the tattoo and thought to ask who did it, they all knew immediately when I said Corey, and they all answered the same way, "He does great work." So thank you to Corey because it is awesome and I love my jammer.

I'll be honest with you, I'm at least a little bit thinking about getting a blocker pinup so the jammer doesn't get lonely but only a little.

I'll probably update this in a week or two, assuming I remember, so that you can see her without the fresh ink scabby parts, just so you know.

rate me baby

Who always has the fun? Pissed Off Housewife, because she finds great finds, like this rating doohickey.

Anyway, my blog, as if I needed to ask them, gets . . .

Mingle² - Online Dating

The rating was earned because of the following words.
kill-used seven times
ass-used five times
shit-used four times
punch-used one time

I don't know how far back they look when they peruse your blog for their rating, and I'm not saying I disagree with NC-17, but honestly, if that's all they found then they didn't look very hard. How about all the times I say fuck, jizz splash, cock gobbler and santorum? Didn't they even try? Punch apparently is a bad word, but it's not like I was talking about neck punches and throat babies.

I'm calling this a meme, so go and play along, but I don't expect too many people who show up here to even get past a possible PG. I know who you are.

nothing really

Yet another weekend plus full of me not writing. The Saturday and Sunday parts of me not writing are easily explained with two words, roller derby. We had a meet and greet cookout Saturday night to welcome the skaters from Birmingham, and Sunday was bout day and early to the rink after rushing to get the boys to the babysitter followed by much too late of a night at the after party.

Friday was out because I spent a good portion of it with some guy jabbing inky needles into my arm. My arm stayed stiff for most of the rest of the day from the odd position, and the skin is slowly growing less and less tender. Thankfully Momma found my tube of Aquaphor in the place we'd both looked at least once each.

She is now going to fetch the boys. She also needs a bath, and I need to figure out something to cook for supper. I'm really not feeling the cooking. The actual bout last night left me feeling almost deflated. I feel like kind of a dork for even thinking like this. I was not one of those girls hitting and getting hit. All I did was stand on a box and holler about things and get sweaty hugs from awesome girls. But I still feel a tiny bit drained. I'd almost rather have the bangs and bashes, but there isn't enough duct tape to convince them I'm a girl.

I'm quite likely going to ignore a large portion of dirty house today. It's been begging for attention and is now screaming for cleaning. Along with not posting, I've spent the weekend letting things pile up in Bloglines, so I have a fair amount of reading and catching up to do as well. Right now, I just need a smoke.

Bonnie and Clyde

My most recent post, concerning a certain fellow who continues to question without the benefit of listening, has drawn more comments to a single post than I've ever had. One commenter mentions my picture of Bonnie Parker, and another commenter, from Europe, is at first unaware of who Bonnie and Clyde were. Upon learning about them, she asks, "Why are these people a hero? Is it possible I can never understand completely the American sensitivity?"

I love that question, but I'm afraid I may not really be able to answer it.

As Americans, we do seem to cheer for the bad guy, often seeming to develop a sort of Robin Hood view of some of our worse societal elements.

It's true that Bonnie and Clyde were murderers and robbers. It also has to be understood that their heyday was during the American Great Depression. This was a time when the gangsters ruled the street, prohibition was in full swing, and Americans thrilled to the exploits of those daring rogues.

In a sense, we seem to have always been a people that loved the outlaw side. Our nation was founded by people who could, in a sense, be considered outlaws, bucking the system of laws that were in place from the King of England who was in fact the ruler of the colonies as they then existed. It was not until several of our founding fathers turned outlaw and bucked the system that we eventually became our own nation.

Looking at our founding as a nation, it's not a large leap to see ourselves in love with the rogues. We still do that to this day, the dark and troubled hero being more popular than the shining example, uncertain motivation and a sense of brooding being more popular than purity of desire.

One can also look to our fixation with the old west, the cowboys that we imagine stepped out of bed in the morning directly into a pair of boots and a gun belt. We don't love a John Wayne that always did right but the John Wayne that swaggered in, fists or guns blazing, whichever seems appropriate to the situation.

So why do we so often idolize the scoundrels? Is this only the US, or is it a human thing?

I think as a final thought we should examine the double standard of this view. While we may romanticize Bonnie and Clyde, we certainly would not look forward to being the bank teller the day they showed up. Many people are currently fixated by the idea of some cutesy piracy that completely ignores the truth of the men and women who we celebrate. We overlook the murder and the deprivation, the added shares from the prize for those sailors unfortunate enough to lose a limb or an eye. We ignore the fact of entire ship's worth of people being drowned rather than being allowed to become a burden to the crew who were after more prizes, more robbing, raping and looting.

So what's your idea? Why do we celebrate the rogues and scoundrels, the Bonnies and Clydes?

calls you shouldn't answer

At some point, some people should just shut up. You can be against homeschooling as much as you want, but the proof is in the children, and ours just keep on being okay, one grown up homeschooled child after another. I'm friends with a number of homeschooled families, and they all seem pretty much normal. Granted, my idea of normal is pretty wide open, but that's how I roll.

To say Greg Laden is a blank is putting it mildly. He can't let go of his antipathy for homeschoolers, be it the parents or the children, and his newest post may easily be the absolute stupidest jab at us I have ever been sadly astounded by. I honestly can't do his idiocy justice, so you'll have to go and read for yourself.

Greg Laden is the kind of person who is so secure in his infallible rightness that he feels quite happy to assume that his will should be law. He has a problem with homeschooling, and no amount of answering his questions will change his mind. He's so sure that we are wrong to homeschool that truth and proof are of no consequence to him.

Talking to him is like trying to thresh wheat with a pair of socks for a flail and the idea of wheat instead of real grains. You can beat all you want, but you're not going to get any wheat worth shit out it.

And thanks to JJ of Cocking a Snook for bothering to keep going back for more. JJ, if you're out there, leave the mad dog alone. He's just going to keep growling and slathering, and reason doesn't seem to live where he is.

dig that groove

Ready for another video? This isn't about Ska Weekend, though you're more than welcome to wait patiently for the next in that series. No, this is the newest band that The Boy keeps asking for. Out of nowhere just moments ago, not prompted in any way to pick music, he asked if we could listen to the Toy Dolls. How can you not say a loud, "Hell Yes!"

You know the drill, either click play or go to the actual YouTube and biggify the video. This would actually be a good video to view large as it's not nearly as pixelefied as so many. Turn the volume loud and rock out hard.

Oh, and anyone who can get me a pair of those sunglasses will have my undying love and gratitude.

true grits

You have less than a week to plan your trip to my town. You know you want to, because this weekend is the rematch, Birmingham Alabama's Tragic City Rollers get to make the long nervous drive up and the long sad drive back.

Sunday, June 24, Hard Knox Rollergirls face off against the very first team we ever faced. We were fresh meat last year when we drove south and suffered the defeat, but such will not be the case again. This time we're ready.

There are plenty of things different this time. Our skaters have played a few teams from outside our town as well as a season of intra league bouts. HKRG has also been practicing hard and preparing for this rematch. Another difference between then and now is that we have a new announcer, yours truly, though my nervous, quavering voice won't really make a difference in how much ass we kick. It will sound better though, and perhaps my dulcet tones will warm our girls little derby hearts and drive our team to skate that much faster and hit that much harder. I do believe that TCR will be in for a bit of a surprise. They may think they remember some of our skaters, but even if we had the exact same roster it still wouldn't be the same team.

You know you want to come see our skaters, and you know you have nothing better to do on a Sunday. You may just as well drag your ass out to the skating rink and see the action. Your option is to wait till whenever next week I get around to writing about it. You don't want to have to wait that long do you? Of course not. So make the drive. Unlike TCR, you won't have to drive all the way home crying.

almost not monday anymore

And since it's not Tuesday yet, I can at least attempt to begin the Monday Melee. I've got to get The Boy in bed soon, which means another chapter of Harry Potter, and that may interrupt me a bit, but you won't notice unless I tell you, so there.

Since it's Monday Melee time, I should remind you that we have Fracas to thank for this. Please feel free to take the fun to your own blog. If you want to know more, click the fancy thingy right down there, hopefully after reading all the cool things I have to say.


1. The Misanthtropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate.
Too often, people fail to see past their own needs/desires to the truth of the matter. It's sort of like the anti gay rights people who are willing to outright lie to people/sheep in order to make their inhuman point when in reality they are just being selfish assholes.

2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus.
abridged books

3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.
I may have mentioned this before (possibly both times previous to today that I've done the Monday Melee) but I really need to make more of an effort to write. Blogging is supposed to be practice and a hapit builder, but even the blog finds me giving too little attention too often.

4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.
The US Men's National Soccer team is kicking ass in the Gold Cup. Too bad all the games are on Fox Soccer Channel, and I don't get to see any.

5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.
I make myself laugh so hard that I often almost but not quite pee a little.

6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.
This isn't really make believe, as it all rests on me, but I do wish for it. I'll be announcing my first roller derby bout in just less than a week. I'll post later tonight about that, but I really hope I do well. I love our league, and the fact that they are willing to give me a shot is very gratifying. I only hope I can do well and help the league as we grow and continue kicking ass.

And there you have it. I didn't yet get The Boy in bed, and he and Big Brother are having a blast playing and charging through the house, possibly being Jedi, but who really knows with the two of them.

go, read, learn

Who doesn't love a Country Fair? How about when that fair is in reality a blog carnival? Think you know a little something about homeschooling? This month we celebrate the ways we celebrate diversity.

I am sadly not featured at all in the fair, but that's all my fault. I scribbled out a little something a week or so ago and sent it in. Then I paid attention for a moment and realized that what I had written was in no way going to fall under the theme of celebrating diversity. I should read all of things before assuming I know what's up.

That's actually a common them among people who are anti homeschool. Too often, people scribble some anti homeschooling rant and post it on their blog or as an article in their local paper. The nature of the internet is such that we can find these people and their rants laden with untruths and misconceptions. It doesn't take much looking around and reading all the way to the bottom to understand homeschooling better or even just to learn whether or not we've already covered your concern. And we probably have covered your concern, and we've probably covered it over and over and over and over and . . .

LMLC

I promised a couple of weeks ago to post videos and talk with heart full of love about the ska bands that I'll be seeing in a couple of months. I'm antsy as is possible looking forward to this show, Ska Weekend, when our town hosts an easy metric shit ton of bands from all over the country and even a couple from outside our borders.

Tonight's band is one I haven't heard offline. I don't yet own any of their music, but having listened at Myspace and having camped out at YouTube, I've come to really look forward to Last Martyrs of a Lost Cause, and it's not just because the singer is kind of really hot.

I've found a number of videos of them on the Tube, and none of them are spectacular quality sound wise, but they do show you the band's style, more ska-punk than ska, and they do give one a feel for the band. I'm excited to see them, as I'm excited to see all the bands that will be playing. So click the play button, turn it up and rock the fuck out already people!

Last Martyrs of a Lost Cause, Don't Take it Personal

ooookay

On my customized Google page I have a quote of the day (actually three) that come to me via The Quotations Page. One of today's was a bit of a doozy, assuming some amount of religious belief on the part of my readers, though I personally feel that it's one of those truths-that-can-hurt sort of situation. So without further ado, and with no more commentary from me, today's quote, which comes to us from Steven Weinberg. This is what Wikipedia has on him.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

eight things

You've seen it, and you've loved it. It's taking the internet by storm, laying waste to blogs left and right. If you have a blog, then you've probably been tagged, and if you haven't yet been tagged, you may be thanking your mystical, interstellar being of choice.

Ren tagged me, which I appreciate, because I like the idea that she reads my blog. She's not not local to me, and I always enjoy reading about all the fun stuff she does with her kids. Plus, when she posts pictures, at least one of the family, Ren or a kid or both, have the greatest hair color. Don't tell her she's stealing the punk thunder by making it pretty to dye your hair a crazy color instead of it being a slap in the face of "the man."

So onward, without any prior thought as to what eight things I will include, I give you, Eight Things About Me meme.

1. I'm fairly cynical and jaded, and I really don't like people in general, but I still find myself wanting to please people to some extent. Try though I may, it seems I still almost care what people think. Plus, I don't want to be an unreasonable dick.

2. I never settled on a gender to be interested in. In fact, I don't feel that I married a woman so much as the person that woman is, and should there ever be reason for me to seek out a new relationship, I'd go back to not having picked a gender.

3. Me and my inner child both have always felt like the kid who always gets picked last to play kickball, and I was never bad at kickball, so there must be some other reason, possibly having to do with perceived dorkiness.

4. I'm an atheist, but I still love a lot of the music I grew up with. I love a lot of the stories of sacrifice, the themes of ultimate good versus ultimate evil. I can do without every single bit of religion, but songs like Amazing Grace or The Old Rugged Cross still carry a tiny sentimental weight.

5. I DJed at a titty bar for about ten months several years ago. I developed a coke problem and threatened dancers with That Smell, a Lynrd Skynrd song that is never appropriate.

6. I tried selling pot for a short time until I got mugged, even more years ago than the job in number five. Two guys got me to follow them to an area that was a little shady (in the bad way) and then proceeded to beat the shit out of me. They got most of my pot and my money, but they didn't get my MARTA card, so I was able to get a bus back home, shirt torn, face and head bloody and pounded on looking.

7. I habitually think that everything I like is the best and that people should listen to me when I tell them how great a band or a writer is and that they'd be happier if they took my advice.

8. I hate and am unaccountably afraid of calling people I don't know on the phone. It makes no sense, because there's always a purpose behind any phone call I make. The worst is at the start of a new soccer season when I have a list of seven or eight families that I don't know, and I have to go down the entire list and call them all.

And that's my list. I don't know about the tagging thing because everyone I came up with to tag would be someone that's already done this or someone that doesn't do memes. So if you haven't done the eight things meme yet, consider yourself tagged, and share the love.