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nilchanceAaaand this right here is why Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are on my shit list. (No, gneil isn't on it for being Palmer's fiance; he's on it for telling FWD to go see her show before deciding, even though half of the people I know who're objecting are doing so b/c of her response and not the E/E project itself.
Breeding Trouble: "Across the United States, according to Humane Society officials, puppy mills - the term that animal welfare groups and others use to describe large and unsavory commercial dog breeding operations - are on the rise. The influence of the internet is a major factor, as is the development of pet store chains. Sites like Craigslist and nextdaypets.com, as well as web marketing by individual breeders, means that puppies increasingly are being shipped all over the country - and that unwary buyers usually have no idea of the conditions in which their new pets were bred and raised."
York, my late mother's helper dog, came from a breeder. Kyan, our dog, was a rescue. Most of the dogs T and I transport on weekends are rescued from situations like the one described above, or from backyard breeders with no regard for the animals' welfare. Always, always, ALWAYS use petfinder.com. Please.
Food isn't poison: "Fucking around with restricting your food intake, despite being treated by many people as a casual pastime, is not a totally benign endeavour. It’s treating food like medicine, and medicine generally comes with side-effects."
Home burials offer an intimate alternative: If we have the land by the time I die, I think this is what I want. Part of Mom's death was the disconnect of the funeral home, despite the kindness of the staff, and my feeling no control of or participation in the proceedings. See also:
The American Way of Grief.
Breast cancer is a disease, not a marketing opportunity: As poor T could verify, I tend to bitch loudly when I see pink ribboned spatulas. It's gendered, misleading and generally squicky.
Bienvenidos a la Boca del Inferno!: An interesting analysis of Latin characters in Buffy's Sunnydale, CA.
Now listen here: "Ignore the tide of articles filled with conflicting device which all revolves around the idea that you aren’t quite thin enough and that you should just try a little harder to be “beautiful.” Make it clear to other people that you are not going to tolerate shaming and diet talk at gatherings you attend." This is aimed at holiday dieting advice, but I find it helpful in general.
Choice on BSG:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hederahelix, this made me think of you bigtime.
Sex education, or What Boys Will Want from You: "Nobody told me I had a clitoris. Nobody told me I was capable of having orgasms. For five years I was given “sex education”. It mostly consisted of periods and condoms. It didn’t talk about consent. It didn’t talk about the actual mechanics of sex, about arousal and lubrication and oscillation. It didn’t tell me a single thing about relationships and it didn’t tell me I had a clitoris." THIS. My parents hooked me up with Our Bodies, Ourselves, but I never heard in any official capacity about female sexuality. Everything I learned about that, I learned on the INTERNET. Yeah, because that could never go horribly wrong.
Breeding Trouble: "Across the United States, according to Humane Society officials, puppy mills - the term that animal welfare groups and others use to describe large and unsavory commercial dog breeding operations - are on the rise. The influence of the internet is a major factor, as is the development of pet store chains. Sites like Craigslist and nextdaypets.com, as well as web marketing by individual breeders, means that puppies increasingly are being shipped all over the country - and that unwary buyers usually have no idea of the conditions in which their new pets were bred and raised."
York, my late mother's helper dog, came from a breeder. Kyan, our dog, was a rescue. Most of the dogs T and I transport on weekends are rescued from situations like the one described above, or from backyard breeders with no regard for the animals' welfare. Always, always, ALWAYS use petfinder.com. Please.
Food isn't poison: "Fucking around with restricting your food intake, despite being treated by many people as a casual pastime, is not a totally benign endeavour. It’s treating food like medicine, and medicine generally comes with side-effects."
Home burials offer an intimate alternative: If we have the land by the time I die, I think this is what I want. Part of Mom's death was the disconnect of the funeral home, despite the kindness of the staff, and my feeling no control of or participation in the proceedings. See also:
The American Way of Grief.
Breast cancer is a disease, not a marketing opportunity: As poor T could verify, I tend to bitch loudly when I see pink ribboned spatulas. It's gendered, misleading and generally squicky.
Bienvenidos a la Boca del Inferno!: An interesting analysis of Latin characters in Buffy's Sunnydale, CA.
Now listen here: "Ignore the tide of articles filled with conflicting device which all revolves around the idea that you aren’t quite thin enough and that you should just try a little harder to be “beautiful.” Make it clear to other people that you are not going to tolerate shaming and diet talk at gatherings you attend." This is aimed at holiday dieting advice, but I find it helpful in general.
Choice on BSG:
hederahelix, this made me think of you bigtime.Sex education, or What Boys Will Want from You: "Nobody told me I had a clitoris. Nobody told me I was capable of having orgasms. For five years I was given “sex education”. It mostly consisted of periods and condoms. It didn’t talk about consent. It didn’t talk about the actual mechanics of sex, about arousal and lubrication and oscillation. It didn’t tell me a single thing about relationships and it didn’t tell me I had a clitoris." THIS. My parents hooked me up with Our Bodies, Ourselves, but I never heard in any official capacity about female sexuality. Everything I learned about that, I learned on the INTERNET. Yeah, because that could never go horribly wrong.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 05:18 pm (UTC)Or local rescue organizations--that's where I've gotten my last two cats, and the one before that (many years ago) came from the Humane Society.
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Date: 2010-02-25 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 06:04 pm (UTC)Your icon--SO CUTE!
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Date: 2010-02-24 08:17 pm (UTC)I'd rather listen to Lady Gaga, at least she interviews well, has awesome videos and...actually what am I talking about, I love Lady Gaga...
Man, I have no taste.
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Date: 2010-02-25 01:01 am (UTC)Yes, you are so right!
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Date: 2010-02-25 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 09:03 pm (UTC)The two biggest constraints against that idea was money and time, but there was also the awareness that people--and HER family in particular, especially Rhonda--wouldn't understand and would likely pitch a fit about it that I didn't want to and wasn't capable of dealing with. The fact that Rhonda wanted to keep all of my mother's things solely within the family (and by that, I mean HERS) infuriates me even now.
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Date: 2010-02-25 06:05 pm (UTC)I mean, Dad's just sitting in a house full of Mom's STUFF, most of which is going to Goodwill or whatever. Who's going to use it? He just has to live in the ruins until he manages to dig out, and that sucks so hard.
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Date: 2010-02-24 10:16 pm (UTC)Sure, he has his problems, but they're very manageable (mostly, he gets confused sometimes when he's not sure what's going on and just sits. If you put a leash on him, he cooperates.) On the plus side, he was housebroken from the day he came home, he walks politely on the leash and quickly learned off-leash manners, he doesn't chew up and destroy things, he's fantastic at riding in the car and going on trips, and while he enjoys playing, he doesn't need attention Every Second Of The Day - he's perfectly happy to lie down next to me while I work on homework on my laptop or watch TV with my mom. (He actually watches the TV, it's hilarious.)
The thing about him, though, was that in the shelter he really didn't look like much. I just put him on the list of dogs to visit because I always visit with the larger dogs because they often are the ones that have trouble finding homes, and Pirate is black with rotti-markings, and looked just run down and depressed and awful, so he wasn't going anywhere. (They actually thought he was 10, between his bad teeth and how stressed he looked.) As soon as he got into the visiting room and away from the kennels and could be one-on-one, he perked right up and after about two weeks at home with us, he looked like a different dog. (We actually took him back for a visit after about six weeks, and they were astounded.)
He's really friendly, particularly with kids, so whenever we're out and about and people come up to him I try to tell them a bit about him and push the idea of adopting and looking at the older dogs. :)
(We do have a purebred also, but she's from a proper local breeder whose husband worked with my mom - only one female that she'd breed, lots of research into finding an appropriate male, time spent making sure both parents had something to their credit besides being able to make babies, etc. The purchase contract also had a return clause in it stating the breeder would ALWAYS take the dogs back, for any reason, etc. My mom really had her heart set on a cocker spaniel, so.) (Foxy is also hunting-line cocker, rather than the typical show-line cocker, which means she's a scarily smart little cookie. You can actually see in her the traits which spaniels were originally bred to develop.)
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Date: 2010-02-25 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 12:59 am (UTC)Listen sweetheart, leave the controversial art to the experts. Andres Serrano, anyone? You just look like some 15 year old trying to act out and rebel against her parents.
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Date: 2010-02-25 06:08 pm (UTC)Sex Education
Date: 2010-02-25 01:36 am (UTC)Re: Sex Education
Date: 2010-02-25 09:09 am (UTC)Re: Sex Education
Date: 2010-02-25 06:11 pm (UTC)Re: Sex Education
Date: 2010-02-25 06:09 pm (UTC)This is why I kind of loved the old surgeon general who suggested that teenagers be taught about masturbation. There's no harm in it, you learn what you like and what makes you uncomfortable, etc. But OMG CONTROVERSY.
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Date: 2010-02-25 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 06:11 pm (UTC)