How can you have a discussion about something without mentioning it? Without calling it by its name? Without calling a spade a spade or a vagina a vagina?
Because that’s what happened in the Michigan State Senate. No, no, no, it didn’t happen during the reign of Queen Victoria.
Alive and well, apparently
No it happened Wednesday, June 13. 2012. Michigan State Rep. Lisa Brown said the word “vagina.” It’s true. Imagine that! During a debate on abortion, she uttered the “V” word right there on the floor of the legislature and was banned from speaking, from offering amendments, from doing her job.
Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, R-Midland, determined Brown’s comments violated the decorum of the House, said Ari Adler, spokesman for the Republican majority.
And other Republicans agreed:
“What she said was offensive,” said Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville. “It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.”
Again, according to the Detroit news article,
“If I can’t say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas?” Brown said at a press conference. “What language should I use?”
Why is it that Republicans are so willing to legislate on sex including who does it and its various outcomes, but they can’t say the word? How can you have a debate if you can’t mention the subject? Oh, I guess that’s the point.
Isn’t it time for these powerful GOP members to grow up? Say it with me boys, it’s not hard “V-A-G-I-N-A.”
And isn’t it time that we voters start paying attention to the views of people we vote for and not just listen to all the bullshit?
Sigh. The guilt. The knot in my stomach. The heartache of knowing that I am an inadequate mother.
No, I didn’t forget my child on the roof of the car. I did not sell him into child pornography or child slavery. I did not force him to converse with me only in Pig-Latin so that his classmates would laugh at him when he started school.
Nope. I failed in a much more important way.
Birthday parties.
Maybe it is just that I became a parent too soon. Maybe there is still time to discover a spacial anomaly that will allow us to remedy the situation. So that we could once again hold our heads high with the other parents who hosted birthday parties for their equally indulged children. Sigh.
We had fun. Or so I thought.
When Jacob was young, we had a swimming pool. And so we had lovely gatherings for dozens of friends with everybody in the pool. I was young enough then to even appear in front of my friends in a bathing suit.
As he aged, we progressed to other types of parties. We had one at an indoor playground with tunnels and ball pits and slides and pizza. We did bowling and laser tag. All with pizza.
It’s true that unlike a classmate of Jacob’s in 1st grade we did not hold his 7th birthday party in one of the fanciest hotels in Geneva, Switzerland, as did one of his classmates. It was quite a doo, actually, with waitresses in little French maid outfits carrying silver trays full of, yeah, pizza. (I’ve always wondered where they’ll hold her wedding.) But Jacob is a boy, and didn’t care a hoot about fancy-schmancy.
Once we had Jacob’s birthday party at a skateboard rink; helmets and pads were required. We indulgent parents want to keep everybody safe, and bubble wrap tends to be somewhat suffocating. We served Pizza, natch.
We only had one real disaster. And that was when the day before Jacob’s 13th birthday party, which had been postponed, John was called out of the country for an emergency meeting. Jacob has never recovered. “Dad missed my 13th Birthday Party,” he sniffed, just this evening.
I thought that was the worst possible child’s birthday fiasco imaginable in an age where parties aren’t done at home, and really all parents need to do is write a check. It’s hard to go too wrong unless the check bounces.
I thought that until today, anyway.
That’s when I learned that there is a whole new type of kids birthday party that will, well, blow away the competition! And we missed it. Sigh. We were simply born too soon.
And, of course, as in so very many things, Texas is leading the way. You see, a Texas gun range will be hosting birthday parties for children as young as 8 years old!
“I don’t know whether anyone has ever tried this before,” said David Prince, who is building the indoor gun range.
Personally, I myself, cannot imagine why no one has ever thought of arming children with lethal weapons, filling them with soda and candy and pizza and letting them go at it. What could be more fun?
Mr. Prince did mention that lots of staff will be around to “help parents supervise.” Boy, that’s a relief.
Because supervising kids parties isn’t really as easy as it sounds. That bowling party Jacob had when he was 8? There were heavy balls falling too close to kids feet, there were shoe rentals (and the fact 8 year olds never know their size) the drinks and snacks to be ordered and kept off the special floor. It’s complicated.
“We’re not just going to have kids running around waving loaded guns and shooting at piñatas,” said Prince, an accountant and gun enthusiast.
Yup, staff assistance will be available. This is handy, natch, when lethal weapons are involved; I’d say it’s worth at least an extra $5, easy. Perhaps an extra $20 if no one dies.
But you know, I imagine that the release form will be a bit intimidating for the parents who actually like their kids:
Yes, I agree to hold Bubba’s Bullet and Billetharmless, in the event that someone blows my 8-year-old child’s head off.
Nevertheless, I think that it’s good to know that entrepreneurs are developing better ways for parents to get a bang for their birthday bucks.
I just hope the staff is good at distinguishing between pizza stains and blood.
I hope by now you have all come down from your virtual sugar high after celebrating my Blirthday yesterday, because serious work is at hand.
In a comment on that post, Frank of A Frank Angle asked me to divulge my secret for having reached 24k hits during my first year of blogging. Naturally, I ignored him. I planned to take my secret to the grave. Or to the crematorium. Or into space with Scotty from Star Trek. There are some things you just don’t want made public.
And then I got an email here at my office that made me shout “Curses, foiled again!”That is a phrase not heard happily by medical researchers, as even those working in offices expect to hear a loud noise next.
No colleagues were injured in the copying of this Google Image
Now, I should tell you that I have known about this for years. I figured it out, in fact, before I even started my blog, that all I had to get attention was to include some special terms. And I do! That way, hundreds of thousands of government workers click on my blog every day leading to, umm, 24K hits in a year.
Wait. Does the math work here? Shouldn’t I have millions of hits by now? Billions? Centrillions? Pishaw! Word Press is probably lying to me about my stats. Just like when it tells me that today I have ZERO links to my blog using search terms.
You would have thought that at least my post on Butt Burn would have alerted the authorities and resulted in multiple fear-ridden G-3s trying to figure out the terror angle in car seat warmers.
But apparently not everyone in the government clicks on my blog. So I guess I’m going to have to expand my list. Up the ante. You can too — I believe in sharing. Well, this time, anyway. I want company when I get sent up the river because my blog “breached” “homeland security,” “threatened” a “standoff” with a “SWAT” team, causing the “lockdown” of my office and its “evacuation” because of folks who cannot distinguish between someone who is “a riot”and a real riot. You know, one with “shots fired.”
One year ago today, when I was a mere fifty-four and a half years old, I started FiftyFourAndAHalf.com. A blog with a stupid name that I decided to keep. So yup, today’s my first Blirthday!
John Lennon is, in fact singing “Blirthday.” He was a man well ahead of his time, singing in celebration of something that hadn’t happened yet. (Kind of like when he sang about peace.)
*****
When I started this blog, well, I figured it would be filled with rants about politics. That was the subject of my very first post, in fact. I was mad as hell that the GOP wanted to end Medicare for folks 55 and under. I took it rather personally, in fact, given that they were going to take it away from me.
So now that I fixed that –
Excuse me? I didn’t? I didn’t fix it? You mean they’re still talking about screwing people 55 years and younger? Damn! I guess I can’t quit now.
Anyway, I found that I was writing and posting kind of a mish-mash in here. A little politics, a little bit of silly stuff, way more embarrassing stories about me than I can believe I have actually put in print. And occasionally a serious piece. Oh, and I didn’t forget politics.
Yup. I find that FiftyFourAndAHalf.com has become a sock drawer of a blog. And I’m OK with that.
Don’t grumble. They’re all clean.
But to celebrate my Blirthday, I need to thank a number of people who have been helpful and supportive:
John,
Jacob
Cooper
Other Family Members who would kill me if I named them
Jen and Keily and Judy and Bao
And to three friends I met in writing classes who encouraged me to blog. They became my first followers in the early months when, um, I didn’t tell anyone I actually knew about the blog. (These guys are all good writers and they need to post way more often):
And thank you, my bloggin’ buddies, for reading, commenting, “LIKE”-ing and writing such great stuff that I spend all my time reading and commenting on your blogs instead of cleaning my house. Please remember me when the Health Inspector condemns it.
“But seriously, officer, I’ll clean it up as soon as I finish this comment …”
Did you know that I am a fashion maverick? It’s true. I have been for years. Or am I a fashion maven? I forget. But I’m one of the two.
Actually, I was truly a young fashion trailblazer. In 6th grade, I became the very first 10-year-old girl to wear nylons to school. Yup. I did. I was very grown up. And I wore them with a garter belt the boys found irresistible. No, I was a good girl. I didn’t try to show it to them. But it was the sixties, the mini-skirt era. And I was, at that time, really good in math. The teacher, clearly a perv, often had me write the correct answers to homework problems on the blackboard. High up on the blackboard. There certainly was a lot of noise when I had my back turned. Boys were so stupid.
I’m pretty sure I first wore nylons on one of those days when my mother went to work early and didn’t see me. But still, I did it first. The popular girls just couldn’t believe it was me – that I got there before they did.
Now you guys reading this are nodding off. Stop it. Just wait. Skim.
Throughout junior high and high school, my fashion firsts continued. I was also the first person to wear torn up blue jeans to school, and to go braless. (See guys, I told you it would improve.)
Anyway, now that I am an adult, I am a wee bit more self-conscious in my fashion trail-blazing. So I need some advice.
I’ve just gotten this new pair of jeans and, well, I just can’t decide where to wear them first. I was so excited when I first saw these pants.They’re just so me.
They’re made by a Texas textile company, American Tactical Apparel. The idea belongs to Brian Hoffner, a long-time Houston police officer who describes himself as “kind of a renaissance man,” according to this article. Interestingly, the idea to make special pants to conceal his gun, came to him (ahem) while he was visiting a prostitute with a gun strapped to his thigh. (I don’t know why, but I have few commercially successful ideas when I am visiting hookers. And even fewer when I am afraid that I might shoot myself.)
Anyway, these jeans, along with a line of khakis and other apparel, are designed for the fashion-conscious gun-toter. And it’s none too soon if you ask me. It has been such an inconvenience sticking my handgun in my bra.
What do you think? Where should I wear these jeans – and should I wear my Susan G. Komen Pink Hope 22 or go semi-automatic?
Please, help me out here.
The only problem is there is only one holder. And it is pretty small. Where can I put my M-16?
FiftyFourandAHalf 