Gun control - the rant version

I'm going to try to make this coherent.

For one thing, I'm glad the office today has banned discussion of politics. It makes me much happier. For one thing, the gun-happy, Obama-hating people around me are forced to shut the heck up. On the other hand, having this kind of strict cultural divide limits actual talking about problems; gun violence being one of them.

But that's exactly the problem. Polarization on both ends leads to incredibly vocal people acting as if they're in the best interest of the majority, but they manifestly are NOT. I do not want to spend all this money bolstering failing social programs but I also don't want to leave people in the cold. I'm middle of the road and feel like an endangered species. I would like people to start talking about safety programs for abandoned children. I'd like sex ed (actual sex ed, not abstinence) in schools so we stop having "unwanted" kids to begin with. I would love for people with mental illness to get to kind of help they need.

The biggest problem I have with government/society is the complete ignoring of lessons from history. We know that when people are better informed, they make better decisions. So why do we teach abstinence only sex ed when we know it doesn't work? (know, as in from studies and basic knowledge of human nature)

Why do we ban abortions and birth control when we know pregnancies can be life threatening and forcing women to have an unwanted kid adds to their stress, potential trauma to the child, and rising crime from a generation raised on apathy and "speshulness"

Why do we talk about banning guns and putting people in jail but we don't try to help the people with the mental illness that puts them in that position in the first place?

Why do we blame a President for the failings of government when the failings (and rights-undermining legislation and corporate lobbying and....) have been going on for longer than a generation?

I can't even make this funny. I can't talk about it, but I can write it here.

Epiphany, part 242

I have epiphanies ALL. THE. TIME. Seriously, probably more than I should. Or maybe they're hyperbole and some realiziations of supremely simple things I THINK I should know rather than life-changing realizations. Either way, I get the light-bulb moment all the time.

This time was about boys. Yes. Boys. I don't really think about boys anymore because I've been in self-sterilization and isolation mode. It's one of those things I did to get me out of my self-destructive loop, but my current problem is how do I stop? And do I even want to? Most of the boys I come in contact with seem to be overly-apologetic or completely unapologetic. Or maybe it's not just boys? Is there any middle ground left at all? I'd like to think so...

And here's a cat story


This little dickins (Fizzgig, hereby dubbed Greedy Gus or Gus) woke me up at midnight. My bed was shaking so of course I woke up. Then there was scratching and thumping at the head of the bed and I'm thinking "well, Anya got in the window yestereday. That's probably what's going on"

(for perspective, my bed is a canopy bed and I've hung curtains from the back rod to cover the window/act all cool-like and the kittens have discovered a Narnia-like secret world from the window. They like it)

But it wasn't Anya. It was Fizzgig. And all I saw was a cat butt and tail on top of the railing. The 6.5 foot tall railing. The only think I could think of was "Please don't fall on me. Please, please don't fall on me"

This is old but I forgot to post it - I have another one coming shortly.