Month: March 2006

Crankypantsing

A Watched Pot…

Shelly

We have an electric tea kettle thingumy in our kitchenette. It allegedly switches itself off when the water is heated, but there is a lack of consensus among those I polled as to whether or not it has ever actually done so. I don’t use the electric tea kettle thingumy, so I really don’t care about its workings. However, I do occasionally wish to use the microwave. And, this is where the electric tea kettle thingumy comes in. We are not supposed to use both the electric tea kettle thingumy and the microwave at the same time, lest we blow a circuit. If a circuit is blown, it can take fourteen forevers for a maintainence person to re-set it.

So… Every time I go to the kitchenette to heat up my lunch, the electric tea kettle thingumy is invariably whistling away, the water inside very clearly rumbling at a rolling boil. And, also invariably, there is someone standing over it, watching it shoot steam to kingdom come. Every time, I comment, “I think it’s done,” hoping they’ll shut it off so that I can heat up my food. Every time, the person replies with some variation of, “It’ll shut off when it’s done, so its not done yet.” Argh! Now, I may have sucked at math, and I may not have done very well in physics, but I do recall that once water reaches the boiling point, it will not get any hotter, no matter how long you let it cook. You can boil the freaking electric tea kettle thingumy dry, and it will never, ever get any hotter than 212F. How much doner do they want their boiling water to be?

Ladybusiness, News & Politics

Instant Review: Iron Jawed Angels

Shelly

The author of one of the blogs I regularly read–I can’t remember which one–recently mentioned watching Iron Jawed Angels. I immediately put it at the top of my Netflix queue and watched it last night.

First, Hilary Swank is amazing. I don’t know why that always surprises me, because she’s consistently good. Maybe it’s that I can’t get over that she was on Beverly Hills 90210? In any event, her portrayal of Alice Paul was most excellent.

Alice Paul
Alice Paul, 1919
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2008008828/

I’m not going to give a synopsis of the movie or the historical events it’s based on. Better ones are available on-line. A couple of things leapt out at me, though, because of things that are happening in the world right now.

First, the illegalization of abortion in South Dakota (the governor signed the bill into law yesterday, and it will go into effect on July 1). Eighty-five years after women won the right to vote, we’re still being treated like chattel. You can watch or listen[1] to a clip of SD Senator Napoli, a creepy man who spends way too much time fantasizing about virgins, rape, sodomy, and shot-gun weddings, wax poetically about the good ol’ days when women knew their places.

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

If you are a woman and you live in South Dakota and you are raped and you become pregnant, you’d better be a god fearing virgin. You must also prove that you had a particularly brutal rape, as explicitly defined by Napoli (that’s right, you don’t get to decide whether or not your particular rape was brutal). Otherwise, you’ll be forced to carry the baby to term. Worse, Sen. Napoli also wants to force you to marry your attacker.

BILL NAPOLI: When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn’t allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.

And that’s just rape victims. Those brazen hussies who have the temerity to have unsanctioned sex (you know, the kind that occurs out of wedlock), and who become pregnant, will have no option but to go out of state for an abortion or to carry the pregnancy to term. If folks like Sen. Napoli get their way, those women might also be forced to marry the men they had sex with, whether or not that’s in their long-range plans or even in their best interests.

What it boils down to is control. Women should be virginal and angelic. If they are not, they should be punished. Otherwise, why on earth would the chastity of the victim or the brutality of the rape be a consideration in whether or not a resultant pregnancy can be aborted? If women’s wants and needs were of importance, wouldn’t the law treat all pregnancies that result from coerced sex equally? Not that I believe there ought to be any moral strictures on whether or not a pregnancy can be aborted. If women were truly autonomous, and not just incubators, then we’d be trusted to make those decisions for ourselves. It’s not like you can walk up to someone on the street and demand their blood, kidney, or bone marrow. And those things would potentially save a human being that is here, now. Why should we value a bundle of cells more highly than we do adult lives?

Second, hunger strikes. This is also a control issue. Hunger strikes are a last resort for those who have no voice. The thought that even that would be taken away, in an effort to halt criticism of the way the US is dealing with prisoners (sorry, “enemy combattants”), is gut-wrenching. Even though force feeding is physically and mentally tortuous, hunger strikers at Guantanamo are routinely force fed. The only means of protest those prisoners have is being taken away from them by the US government, in an effort to control them. Onna count of we don’t want our public image damaged. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s a little late for that. The time for protecting the country’s public image was back before it started rounding up everyone and his brother for looking, or being accused of looking, suspicious.

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[1] The relevant portion is about 2/3 into the stream, but don’t watch/listen unless you’ve got a strong stomach, because the way he gets off on describing his ideal of the perfect brutal rape is just plain squicky.

Art, Paintings

Vessel (In Progress 4)

Shelly

This one is nearly finished. I added braided tissue paper “vines,” then colored them with oil pastel. Unfortunately, I tried to photograph it outdoors, where it’s approximately 900F, so the pastel melted into a mirror-like finish. I’ll have to buff it a bit with paper towel to re-matte the finish. That’ll be the final step. In the meantime, there is a bit of glare.

100_2247
oil, oil pastel, and oil pencil on newspaper adhered to 90lb Stonehenge paper, with braided dress patterns and tissue paper
11 1/4 x 15 inches

Crankypantsing, News & Politics

Better Late than Never

Shelly

It can be difficult to be liberally minded in a red state. The good news is that Hoosiers finally seem to be coming to their senses. According to the article from the Indy Star:

Only 37 percent of those surveyed last week think Bush is doing a good job as president, while 56 percent disapprove.

…

The president’s approval rating equals the 37 percent approval rating Hoosiers gave President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, back in August 1994. And the rating mirrors the national view of the president. A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll showed the president’s approval rating nationwide at 38 percent.

I do feel a small bit of pity for some of those who supported him. They got sold a pig in a poke. For those who continue to support him, it must be hard work trying make themselves believe in The Man Behind the Curtain.

Art, Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Potato-Tomato

Shelly

100_1686

Happy Monday! I woke up this ayem with a stiff shoulder and sore back. I hate it when I get a sleep injury. It’s really not a good way to start the week, I think. It could be worse, though. One of my coworkers got a speeding ticket this morning. I know the area where she got it, and it’s only a fluke that I haven’t gotten one in that spot, myself. The speed limit goes from 45mph to 35mph to 45mph, so it’s easy for your speed creep up without realizing it.

So, here’s a question. I do a lot of journaling, of both the arty and just text variety. Journaling, by definition, is a personal activity. Intensely personal, at times. Twice, though, I’ve come across folks selling pages from their journals. The thought gives me brain ache. It’s one thing to share select pages from a journal by posting them on-line, but to tear pages out of a journal and sell them? It seems to me that what is being sold, then, is not in fact a page from a journal. And, why would someone want to buy a page from someone else’s journal? Maybe if you’re some sort of Leonardo, it would be understandable, but that’s not the case with the journalers in question.

I realize this may just be an issue of semantics, but there are days when I feel like semantics is the only thing that really matters. If we cannot communicate effectively, there’s not much point in communicating at all. Hrmph.

Photography

Sunrise

Shelly

First, the sunrise:

100_1675_Panorama

Next, the morning Belt of Venus:

100_1682

Because of the configuration of the valley and western ridge, my location is not well suited to viewing the morning Belt of Venus. This is the first time I’ve seen it from my house. Of course, this meant that my camera batteries decided to die at just that very time, so I only got one very bad shot of it. By the time I’d gone inside and found a fresh set, a cloud bank (barely visible along the horizon) had crept up and obscured everything.

One of the things I enjoy about having a dog is that she forces me to get up in the mornings. I could have slept in, but I would’ve missed a lovely sunrise. Instead, I was outside playing with Harriet at the crack of dawn.

There are dozens of small signs that spring is on the way. It started in earnest a few weeks ago, with the return of the geese. I watched another flock fly overhead this morning. The birds’ songs have taken on a less urgent tone, as well. From the increase in numbers of birdsongs, it’s clear that the geese aren’t the only ones who are returning. And then there’s the sun. The days are lengthening, but the change in the sun’s location is probably the most dramatic indication that spring is here. At mid-winter, the sun rises within a dip in the eastern ridge. Now, it’s moved northward, rising over Farmer Brown’s house.

All that, I might’ve missed, if it weren’t for having a dog.

Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Happy Saturday

Shelly

Blech. I feel like I’m wading through Jello this morning. Or, what’s left of this morning, anyway. I stayed up way past my bedtime last night, so I slept in, which was perhaps not as good an idea as it first appeared to be. Have you ever gone back to sleep, then woke up later feeling even groggier, and with a headache? Yuck. I’m all for sleeping, but this hardly seems worth the effort.

Last night was fun, though. It was a friend’s birthday party (hat themed, WTF? I wore a tin-foil beanie). Parties at her place are sometimes a craps shoot for me, because her house is small and I get claustrophobic when it gets crowded. I managed to score a chair at the back of the living room, though, so I stayed put. Let the entertainment come to me, was my theory. It worked well, too. There were all sorts of people I didn’t know–again, a craps shoot–but everything was fine right up until I left. At that point, some drunken shithead tottered up the stairs to the living room, taking pictures, which I’m NOT OKAY WITH, ASSHOLE! I told her not to take my picture, to which the only acceptable response is “Don’t worry, I won’t.” Instead, she said, “Why would you care, you don’t know me.” Grrr.

It’s weird to not drink at a drinking party (I was driving). I always get self-conscious when I drink, because I’m sure that anyone who isn\’t drinking must think I’m acting like an ass. I’m relieved to find that I’m not at all irritated by my friends’ inebriated behavior (I was mightily entertained last night, in fact). Rude, drunken strangers get on my last nerve, though. I guess that’s why I always preferred to go to parties instead of bars. Far better the drunks you know than the drunks you don’t, right?

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I’m also, I fear, working on some sort of respiratory disease. I suddenly lost my voice yesterday afternoon. It came back, but faded in and out. Now, it’s fading out again. I’m sure sitting in a room full of smoke last night didn’t help. Nor did getting full-on coughed on by someone who is getting over some sort of respiratory plague. He’s probably not contagious at this point, but if I come down with the plague, I’m blaming Wayne. Just because.

And now, I have to get ready to go to another birthday celebration. This one involves Mexican food, though, instead of drunks wielding cameras, so it should be thoroughly enjoyable. Mmmm… Veggie fajitas… Chili rellenos…

Miss Brown says, “Bring home a doggie bag, pleaseandthanks!” (Actually, she was drooling for tater tots, but I’m sure she’d drool for Mexican food, too.)