Middle Aged Woman Talking:

A New Year’s Wish

2015-01-02T14:28:00.006-05:00

Sometimes I don't know why I bother to keep writing and posting and I don't mean the question to sound bitter because it's not coming from a bitter place. What exactly is the point of disseminating information that I consider to be remarkably important—a telescopic view into today's world— of what I know, and clearly 19,688 other people know, to be true, when the interconnection and the structural power of the Corporatocracy running this country and most of the world is so overwhelming

It’s no secret that the Corporatocracy controls everything; the news, the government, the judicial system, and they have these huge P.R. firms that are brilliant at framing the narrative. The discussion (I use the term loosely) is either-or; you’re either for or against, and there is no solution. There never is in an either-or conversion; it’s one side beating the other over the head with their opinion. The big picture, what’s really going on, is lost, but that’s the point. Why look at the big picture when the small picture can make us so much money. Money is not evil, but what it’s been made into, what it’s come to stand for, is.

To me the big picture is about what’s best for humanity. Destroying the planet is clearly not best for humanity. The subjugation of human beings and their civil rights based on their sex, color, and sexuality is clearly not best for humanity. Working a forty-hour week and not earning enough to cover basic expenses is not best for humanity; lack of education, good medical care, nuclear bombs, the list goes on. And as I’m writing this it’s coming clear to me why I keep posting day in, day out, even when it’s feeling pretty bleak: the bottom line is I believe in humanity, I believe in what can we be, even though I am fully aware of the worst we can be. If you study history, and I do, it’s hard to miss that the only thing that has ever stopped the rapacious greed of men and the power over syndrome that is patriarchy is organized humanity.

So my beloved Middle Aged Woman Talking family, thank you for sticking with me over the years, thank you for reading me, thank you for your intelligent, funny, snarky, intelligent comments. Thank you for your great humanity and the courage I know it takes to live from that authenticity. In 2015 may we join hands and heart and continue to work to turn the tide. Even if we can’t, we are planting the seeds, leaving a map, for future generations because if you read history it’s patently obvious humanity rises again and again.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

Art by Reuben Hernandez

Satire Alert—Writer Arrested For Attempting to Deposit Exposure

2014-12-10T09:17:00.003-05:00

photo by Miss Aneilia
http://www.missaniela.com/

A bit of a ruckus ensued today at the PNC in Montclair, New Jersey, when an older woman who bills herself as a writer attempted to deposit “exposure,” in the bank.

The teller, Adelaide Fortson, immediately called 911.

“People like her are dangerous,” Adelaide said. “Can you imagine? Trying to deposit exposure? And there are more and more of them everyday.”

The older woman went peacefully. She is the first to be jailed in Montclair for attempting to deposit exposure. There is no truth to the rumor that Fema camps are filling daily with artists who have all attempted to deposit exposure.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

The Republican Party: NOT The Party For Women

2014-11-07T12:37:00.001-05:00

Clearly Republican strategy is to become the party of women—in name and appearance only. This is why I find the election of the following three women absolutely terrifying:

Mia Love (R-Ut) – The first black woman republican senator.
Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) – The first woman to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate.
Elise Stefanik (R-NY) – Youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

Three firsts here; three firsts that will be spun to Republican advantage—“We’re The Real Party for Women!” during the 2016 election. That each of the aforementioned women are shills for ALEC will be missed entirely by the politically naïve, some would say stupid, who buy the advertised image painstakingly created through the use of focus groups, social psychologists, polls, and brilliant campaign managers. “But they look so nice,” someone said to me the other day. “I’d have coffee with her.” And that is exactly the kind of the thinking the Republican Party is counting on.

Hey! Democratic Party Leadership, are you listening????

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

p.s. I’ve already written about Mia Love and posted it to this page and to the blog.
http://middleagedwomantalking.blogspot.com/2014/11/dont-buy-spin.html

I will be writing about Joni Ernst and Elise Stefnik in the coming weeks and post the pieces here.

photo by William C. Shrout

Don't Buy The Spin

2014-11-05T22:04:00.002-05:00

“She’s going to be a superstar in the sense that conservatives will be saying, ‘This is what the Republican Party should look like.’” Dave Hansen, Love’s campaign manager.

"Huey Newton is turning over in his grave." Katherine Manaan

Being middle aged I am skeptical of appearances and have very little patience for puff pieces that ignore the politics of a politician who is the subject of the article. How a journalist is allowed to write about a politician without detailing their voting record is beyond me. So I decided to do a little digging into Ms. Love’s voting record. I went to the ever reliable Vote Smart, where I found the following, “Mia Love has refused to provide voters with positions on key issues covered by the 2014 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests.” The political courage test “measures each candidate's willingness to provide citizens with their positions on key issues.”

Love’s 2014 endorsements include: House Conservatives Fund (Republican Study Committee) the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Rifle Association, Right Now Women PAC, Susan B. Anthony List, Women Under Forty Political Action Committee. The National Federation of Independent Business is a member of ALEC. The Republican Study Committee works with ALEC, the Right Now Woman PAC is ALEC's handmaiden, and the Susan B. Anthony List is vehemently anti-choice

Mia Love supports the XL Pipeline, is pro-fracking, wants to build more nuclear power plants, opposes cap and trade, and like all ALEC sycophants wants to loosen federal regulations on oil and gas exploration. She has also stated she wants to privatize Social Security, put it in the stock market, raise the retirement age, eliminate the Department of Education, and end federal subsidies for student loans.

Ms. Love may be the first black Republican woman elected to Congress but she is a typical ALEC republican.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools, Katherine Manaan

http://love4utah.com/issues/energy-independence/
https://www.facebook.com/miablove/posts/419613508079931
http://www.noloveformia.com/#seniors
http://www.sltrib.com/news/1735582-155/love-campaign-education-security-social-democratic
https://votesmart.org/candidate/135957/mia-love#.VFrfzfTF9RF
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-mia-love-20141105-story.html

Controlling The Narrative

2014-10-27T17:00:00.002-04:00

The power elite of the Democratic Party is terrified of the Progressive Movement within it’s own party. They are terrified of losing the party to the people. Lose the party to the people and the dysfunctional balance between Republicans and Democrats is rendered null and void. The balance itself is based on a rapacious capitalism that is the soil of every piece of in-humane legislation that has come out of Washington since Reagan. Progressives like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Sherrod Brown recognize this connection and they are speaking out. (I am sure there are other important progressives, these just happen to be the three whose policies I know inside and out.)

The only thing that can defeat capitalism as it is practiced today is organized humanity. Rolling Jubilee/Strike Debt, Indigenous People Organizing Against the Pipeline, and cooperative businesses are classic examples. Why you don’t hear about the very real power of organized humanity is because the power elite, both Republican and Democrat, control the narrative—they control the two sides of the story; the either, the or. For instance, jobs are pitted against saving the planet and the dysfunctional balance is, drum roll, we’ll save this property here, but we’ll open up that one for drilling. This is spun as compromise, everybody got a little something, and it is right and good. You can’t after all have everything you want and if you think you can, you’re just being a big baby.

As long as we the people continue to fall for this sleigh of hand, to accept the either/or version of the narrative as set forth by both the Democratic and Republican power elite, we are colluding with our own oppression. There can be no compromise when the one, rock hard rule of the game is profit first. And not just any kind of profit, we are talking massive profits, billions, trillions of dollars. At the same time I think it is incredibly important to vote blue because when it comes to the issues, other than economic, Democrats really ARE far superior to Republicans. The rights of humanity, men, women, children, and quality of life, actually figure into their platform and policies. (Look it up, it’s there.) It is up to the people however to make sure elected officials stand for them. This is the responsibility that comes with living in a democracy; you have to be a part of the process. The more people that are a part of the process the less power the corporation has. This is why studying history is so damned important because unless we learn from what went before we are caught in a closed loop that repeats over and over.

The fact the each of us, individually and collectively, are part of the governing process that impacts our lives is the very real concept progressives bring to the table. Progressives are saying we agree with the people, we agree with the 99%, but we need the 99% to back us in order to accomplish anything. History has proven repeatedly that when the people come together, they win; they make the change. The best way to distract the people from this truth is with an either-or narrative, a false discussion, wherein the parameters are determined by profit rather than the realities of what we, as people and a country, are facing.

P.S. Any sane person knows we can restore and save the planet and create millions jobs to do just that.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools, Katherine Manaan MAWT

2014-10-03T09:24:00.002-04:00

About Those Beheadings......

2014-09-18T07:52:00.001-04:00

The pundits tell me ISIL’s use of video to show beheadings and putting it up on youtube is a brilliant, albeit sick, use of social media. As per the pundits, ISIL is forcing the U.S. and allies to respond. Moral indignation as ever translates into military force. The U.S. and allies respond with military force and presto ISIL gets more members. It’s the David and Goliath story only in this case the smaller David is a psychotic megalomaniac fighting a larger but equally psychotic megalomaniac. As ever this is about oil. ISIL is in the process of establishing a caliphate - an Islamic state based on Sharia - and if they succeed the number of oil fields they will control is massive.

The point is ISIL is a direct result of Bush’s pre-emptive war. If world government is in fact run by money, profit, and the corporation (and I hold true it is) then the question is who profits. The question is when did profit start to override the moral outrage of people having their heads cut off. (Yes I am fully aware that Saudi Arabia cuts of peoples heads for certain criminal infractions but that’s not what I’m talking about right now.) The U.S. government stopped James Foley’s mother from raising ransom money to free her son. We have it all under control, they said, we’re working on it, they said. The Foley family found out about the death of their son from a reporter, not the United States government.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. A show of military force against ISIL is the same old, same old, and once again the point is missed. The roots of terrorism are firmly planted in the soil of poverty and the oppression that is poverty’s child. This is not rocket science. To defeat terrorism the economic system that allowed it to develop, and continues to sustain it, must be changed. Given the fact the 1% controls Government, Congress, and the Supreme Court it’s highly unlikely these men and women have any intention of changing a system that’s made them so rich and continues to make them even richer. Right now, In boardrooms across the country, CEO’s are rubbing their hands together and chortling, as they figure out how much money they can make off the latest atrocity. We just need to get the people scared enough, they say. Scare people enough and we can make the case for the continual erosion of civil rights just like 9/11.

ISIL is a threat to America and the power brokers in the Middle East, that America supports, not because they are beheading Americans and her allies, but because they control and stand to control even more of the oil fields. Ergo profit loss is driving government’s response, not moral right. If we were dependent on renewables, rather than oil, we would not be having this conversation. If economics served the people rather than putting them on their knees, we would not be having this conversation. It has never been more important for we the people to vote. To organize, to make as much noise as possible, and to take a stand for humanity.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/what-is-islamic-state-iraq-and-syria/

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f435f04-8c05-11e2-b001-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3DaoDMfzL

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/09/james-foleys-mother-says-family-was-threatened-out-of-paying-ransom/380125

This Week In Men’s Reproductive Health… (Satire Alert)

2014-07-15T09:59:00.002-04:00

As the battle continues to rage between Anti-Jerk and Pro-Jerk factions, three Male Masturbation clinics closed today, victims of the latest legislation that is slowly but surely eroding the legal right for men to masturbate.

Anti-Jerks hold true that life begins at erection and masturbation is nothing short of murder. Pro-Jerks don’t think it’s any of the government’s (or anybody else’s) business what they do with their penis. Male masturbation is still not against the law but, because of the remarkably well- organized Anti-Jerks for Jesus, and the fundraising prowess of Tim Tebow, state legislatures are slowly but surely eroding the right.

As per the latest ruling, men have to undergo a ball cup and cough by two different doctors to determine if they’re healthy enough for ejaculation. The wait for results can take up to two weeks. Florida has new legislation on the books that requires not just the ball cup and cough but an anal probe. As Florida goes so goes Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas.

Earlier this year the Supreme Court did away with buffer zones around masturbation clinics. The Supreme Court’s latest ruling has absolved men in the 1% from all anti-masturbation legislation.

“Where is the outrage?” Bill Beilfan, President of Pro-Jerk America, asks in his latest change.org video. Beilfan will be debating David Karolu, President of Anti-Jerks For Jesus this Sunday on Fox News.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

Art by AnthonyRB1

"A brilliantly scarcastic example of the political power of words from one of the best Progressive writers of your time, Katherine Manaan..."

http://thedisbrimstonedailypitchfork.wordpress.com/

Re: The Hobby Lobby Ruling

2014-07-02T21:15:00.000-04:00

The fight for women’s reproductive freedom is not a war against religion; it is a war against religion imposing its will on the tribe of women. An extremely loud and rich group of men and women are using their god and the holy texts from which he sprang as sacred and moral reason for their actions. It is patriarchal religion that drove the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling yesterday— not justice

One of the basic tenants of any patriarchy is the submission of women; the one thing women can do that men can’t is give birth; ergo—men have decided to control reproduction. That women collude with this is appalling. I often wonder: do you know you’re colluding with your own oppression? Women who have come out for the Hobby Lobby ruling: do you know you are forcing your oppression on upcoming generations of women? I think you're so caught up in the very righteousness of your position you don't much care.

Someone is going to write in and say you should have mentioned men, pro-forced pregnancy men supporting the Hobby Lobby ruling, but this piece isn’t about men. This piece is about the tribe of women and how polarized we are over abortion and birth control. At the same time I’m sick and tired of hearing women don’t get along. Compared to what? Men? Have you missed history all together? Who started the wars? Who made atom bombs? Have you never watched Boardwalk Empire? Are you paying any attention to Congress at all?

I think women get along about as well as men do, which isn’t all that great. I think some women get along beautifully, and some men get along beautifully, and some men and women get along beautifully, and I think the sane aren't willing to shoot people who disagree with them. I think men and women fight differently though. I’ll probably catch hell for that comment but I don’t really care. What care about is the kind of world I am leaving my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren and no question I am angry right now.

I am angry that women as a tribe have virtually no structural power, meaning there aren’t enough of us in Congress to impact the culture through the use of legislation. When I say us I mean lefty progressives, not the Marcia Blackburn’s of the world. Every Republican woman and a few democrats are anti-choice, and pro-fossil fuels. To vote for a woman, just because she’s a woman, without checking her voting record is irresponsible and will just get us more of the same

What I’ve learned from administering this page is that the Lefty Sisterhood is powerful. We’re not here to get along and to make nice. We’re here because we care deeply about the tribe and aren’t afraid to raise our voices and fight for it.

The Hobby Lobby ruling is on the wrong side of history as are the women who support it.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

art by Denise Prince

2014-06-01T21:22:00.001-04:00

On The Santa Barbara Shooting

2014-05-26T10:17:00.004-04:00

What would make a young man think it’s ok to shoot women because they rejected him? Why would he think that would make him feel better? Please don’t write me and say he was clearly crazy and access to guns is too easy in this country. Though both are valid points, I’m looking for reason here, behind every action is a reason, and what I’ve come up with is this: his reasoning was one and the same with the reasoning behind drunken football players raping a female classmate and posting it to You Tube. His reasoning was one and the same with honor killings, throwing acid in a woman’s face, and the rape camps of Africa. “I am entitled to this.”

Violence against women is about entitlement, male entitlement, to do with a woman or girl whatever he chooses to do. The other side of this entitlement is purity balls. Male entitlement is rooted in the soil of organized, patriarchal religion and misogyny is the toxic fruit.

In my experience as a healer, violence is a result of an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and the rage that accompanies it. To kill then, to rape, to shoot up a school or a movie theatre, is about establishing a sense of power over something – I’m bigger, I’m stronger, I can kill you.

The U.S. is a culture of violence because money and profit take precedence, have power over the needs of humanity. These are the waters in which we swim, each and every one of us. That the U.S. will remain a culture of violence no matter how much we discuss mental health and limit access to guns is a given, until humanity and the needs of humanity are more important than the greed of the corporation. Until our elected officials, our very means of impacting the world around us, are made to represent the people once again.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

Art by Isabelle Amante

FCC Votes To Destroy Free And Open Internet

2014-05-16T23:25:00.002-04:00

Corporatocracy - An economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.

Yesterday, the 5 person Obama appointed FCC voted to allow the biggest Internet service providers (think AOL, Verizon, Earthlink, MSN, etc) to give faster service to companies who pay. In spite of 3.4 million online signatures against the proposed rules, protestors occupying the FCC’s Washington offices for over a week, and a strongly worded letter from tech giants (including Google, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon) calling on the FCC commissioners to protect and free and open internet and unequivocally reject the FCC Chairman’s Tom Wheeler’s proposed rules, the 5 person Obama appointed FCC still voted to allow the biggest Internet service providers (think AOL, Verizon, Earthlink, MSN, etc) to give faster service to companies who pay.

Three democrats, Mignon Clymer, Jessica Rosenworcel, and Chairman Tom Wheeler, voted to adopt the new rules and two republicans, Ajit Pai and Michael O’Reilly, voted against. That is not a misprint – three democrats voted to adopt Wheeler’s proposal and two republicans voted not too.

If Wheeler’s proposals become law, the corporations that can afford and will pay ISP’s for fast lane service will not only control the content of the information on the net but the people’s access to it. This absolutely terrifies me, that corporations will have the legal power to control 100%, rather than 90% of the political and social discourse of the country, which is of course is the point; information of by and for the corporation, along with the billions in profit to be made off the backs of the consumer. Free internet will go the way of rotary phones and we the people will be charged for usage, time, speed, and state and federal taxes.

We the people have 120 days to respond, to comment, to make noise. Here are links to two petitions from groups I trust. Please take the time to sign and pass them on.

http://civic.moveon.org/stopthefcc//

https://act.freepress.net/sign/internet_fcc_break/

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

articles that might interest you

http://middleagedwomantalking.blogspot.com/2014/05/in-answer-to-questions-i-have-received.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/08

http://www.fcc.gov/leadership

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/05/13/fcc-plan-guts-net-neutrality-open-web-needs-protection/BCnfi9sEIYBVQcFdI7utpJ/story.html

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/206275-profits-trump-communication-in-fccs-new-rule

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/206286-hill-democrats-slam-fcc-fast-lane-vote

Art- Scream No Evil by Anna Hammer

Dearest Mom....

2014-05-11T15:37:00.002-04:00

Thinking of you today and hoping you’re well on the other side. I’m still giving everybody hell over here and have actually gotten worse in my middle ages. Live loud, loud fierce, and suffer no fools continues to be my rallying cry. Michael told my old college roommate Anne that he was delighted she and I were friends again because and I quote “we lost her (me) to the proletariat." I guess baby brother hopes my renewed friendship with Annie will magically transform me into the debutante I once was. Like that’s going to happen:) When you lay dying you looked at me and said, “ Kathy, your freedom is the most important thing to you,” and you were right. I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly where all my freedom has/is taking me. I’d be lying just as much if I said I wanted to live another way.

I have a funny for you. You remember how you willed me the silver candelabras? When I went to Virginia to pick them up, Michael and Daddy told me they’d sold them at auction. I looked at Dad and said, “It’s not enough that you killed my bird and threw my hair dryer away, now you’ve sold my candelabras at auction!” This was some twenty years ago right after you died and a year before Daddy married that Yankee Mensa bitch, Lee. Mommy, I’ve never met anyone who was Mensa who had the sense to come in out the rain. After daddy died Lee made off with your money, which was supposed to go to my son, your grandchild. She called me and she said, “Kathy, I had no idea your father was changing the will, I feel just terrible.” She must have said she felt just terrible four or five times. Finally I said, “Well, if you feel so terrible you can just give the money back.” Boy she got off the phone fast.

Five years ago, on my annual summer pilgrimage to Delaware to see Michael (the house is wonderful, a veritable shrine to all things Minter) I went into the attic looking for my exercise ball and noticed your handwriting on a piece of paper taped to a box. I couldn’t read your writing, never could, opened the box and there were my candelabras. Michael was passed out in his room, he’s drinking entirely too much, it’s not pretty, and how he continues to be the effective attorney is beyond me, but the point is I could get the candelabras out and packed without him noticing, which I did, along with a few other select pieces of silver.

My suitcase was so heavy the wheels pronated, and pulling it was close to impossible. I wished for someone to help me. To pick up the suitcase, groan, and say, “What did you do, steal the family silver?” To which I would answer, “Why yes, as a matter of fact I did.” That didn’t happen and trying to get across Port Authority from the Atlantic City bus to the Bloomfield bus was a nightmare. You were right; I should have never let my license expire. I should have come home from college and gotten it renewed. I still haven’t gotten another one because I have to start from the beginning and it’s always about money mom. I hate that a lot.

Three years ago Anne met me at Michael’s. I told her about stealing back the candelabras and I told her there was way more bounty in the attic waiting to be lifted. That particular trip I planned on stealing the small, thick, gold-framed mirror, the one you bought at the Paris flea market in 1961. Anne, understanding that Michael and reason do not mix and intimate with the peculiarities of wasp culture, didn’t ask me why I was stealing the mirror, she just wanted to know what I was going to put it in. “I have a Whole Foods bag,” I said, “and I’ll just stick it in your car.” Anne kept Michael busy talking about the dairy lobby in D.C. and I got the mirror. Next time I’m taking a small oil painting of marshlands. Michael will never miss it.

Dear T-t-tom is well and living in Toledo. He is an astounding photographer and did all the photos at Anne’s most recent wedding. I do think the third time’s the charm. Cric, Anne’s new husband, is the nicest man ever and absolutely devoted to her. By the way, you were wrong; the fact that Anne and I both slept with Tom did not turn him gay. He was already gay, he told us at the wedding. We had such a good time at that wedding, the Coomsberry is to die for, and I got to reconnect with Peggy, a friendship I wished I’d had back in the day, but am blessed to have now. Peggy slept with Tom too and Tom says if he was straight he would have married Peggy.

Dearest Rosanne, has met a wonderful man and bought herself a 49 acre farm in Maine. She and Chuck are moving in June and it is truly the weepy end of an era. Rosie and I still laugh over how you used to call her when you were looking for me. I don’t know if you know but when you were diagnosed it was Rosie I turned to. I called her from National Airport, collect. I was waiting for the Eastern shuttle, there was a bar right there. Phone to ear I said to the bartender, “Give me a double Canadian club, straight-up.” He handed me the drink, I heard the operator say, “Will you accept the charges,” and started yelling in the middle of Rosanne’s yes, “That’s a double?! Are you fucking kidding me? How much are you charging me for this?!” “Where the fuck are you Katie Lou?!” Rosanne hollered.

Rosie picked me up at the airport. She didn’t say anything; she lit a joint and handed it to me. There were no seatbelts in the car. Rosanne had her mechanic cut them out because she felt they were a violation of her civil liberties. She turned up the radio and drove us off into the night. All through Manhattan she drove, wrapped in eloquent silence that said more than words, drifting without destination. East Side, West Side, Midtown, Downtown, Wall Street, we had blood on every corner, every block had a memory we shared, and it still feels like a movie to me. I couldn’t believe you were going to die. I wasn’t going to think about it. I lit another joint. Three joints later I said, “I can go home now.”

When I let myself into the apartment, Gordon was watching Mash, the blue light from the television playing across his face. It never occurred to me to turn to my husband first. It’s awful to be in a marriage where’s there’s no comfort. What exactly is the point of marriage if there’s no comfort? If you can’t reach for each other in the dark and hold on? I don’t blame Gordon. It took the two of us to create that toxic tango. I know you told Nancy G. that I was miserably unhappy, Mom, and when she told me what you said I knew that was your round-a-bout way of letting me know that even though I had a child if I left my marriage you were ok with it. I did leave him, three years after you died, and I got sober.

It would be five years before I quit reaching for the phone to call you at 7 a.m, in the morning. “I’m calling you early before you get your armor on,” I’d say and you’d laugh. I loved making you laugh; you were my best audience. It’s funny how when people die all of a sudden they become saints and the not-so-nice is wiped away like chalk on a chalk board. That’s not me though because it’s not honest. There were days I hated you as much as I loved you, and after you died it took years of therapy to work through the dysfunction that was our family, that was you and me. I learned the ins and outs of the dysfunction, what connects to what, but just as important I learned about the functional, the truly excellent. I was lucky; I could count on your love like I counted on gravity. There was never any question that you loved me beyond all reason, that you would fight for me, kill anyone who got in my way, and that no matter what I did would always love me. Because you gave me that I could give it to your grandson and he will give it to his children and so and so on. I know for fact dysfunction threads its way down but so does love and love given a sliver of a chance will always win.

I miss you Dee-Dee. I am so happy we were close as we were your last six months on the planet and I love you forever. Give Dad my best and know I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the Yankee Mensa bitch doesn’t get buried with the two of you at Arlington. Did you know she handed a Tiffany bag to your grandson at daddy’s internment and said, “Here’s your grandfather.” She’d put a third of his ashes in a zip-lock bag inside a Tiffany bag. Brad, enormously hung over, in a wrinkled, skinny, navy blue suit, had flown in from college for the burial, looked at me as if this was yet another story from the unbelievable novel that was his life. Bradley is convinced that there has never been a story as far out there as the story that is his life. I’ve yet to tell him the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Happy Mother’s Day Mommy. Rest in Peace, Kathy. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

copyright Katherine Manaan MAWT 2013
photo by Mike Manley

In Answer to the Questions I have Received About Net Neutrality…..

2014-05-08T09:08:00.000-04:00

An ISP or Internet Service Provider is a company that provides you, me, and everybody else, access to the Internet for a fee. Think AOL, Verizon, Earthlink, MSN, etc.

What Tom Wheeler, the head of the FCC, is proposing is to allow Internet Service Providers to charge higher rates for Internet Fast Lanes. Just thinking about it boggles my mind because it’s going to negatively impact all of us on so many levels.

My Internet provider is Verizon; they’re already expensive. Once Verizon starts paying higher rates for Internet Fast Lanes that expense is going to be passed onto me, the consumer. If I want to keep the same rate of speed with which I currently access my favorite sites on the Internet, I am going to have to pay a great deal more. So are the sites; to stay accessible, they’re going to have to pay to be on the Internet Fast Lane or risk loading at the rate of dial-up.

Most of my favorite sites are small, politically progressive, and operating on a shoestring. Clearly they're not going to be able to afford Internet Fast Lanes. But that, along with the billions to be made, is the point.

Wheeler's proposal puts ISP'S in the position of controlling the information that reaches the net. The corporations that can afford and will pay for fast lane service will control the content of the information on the net. It's very sinister. The latest Supreme Court ruling allows corporations to spend as much money as they want on the candidate of their choice. Now those same corporations are going to be in a position to control/determine the content of the information the majority of this country is going to digest. I'd call it conspiracy except it's so obvious it's not.

Obama ran on net neutrality yet he still appointed former telecom industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler to head the FCC. The latest spin is Wheeler’s proposal will not create a slow and fast highway on the Internet. That is a lie.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

Here is a link to a petition to keep Net Neutrality.

https://www.aclu.org/secure/FCC_preserve_net_neutrality

Here are more links about Tom Wheeler and Net Neutrality

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272480919/when-it-comes-to-high-speed-internet-u-s-falling-way-behind

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Obama-must-show-he-supports-net-neutrality-5440103.php

http://gothamist.com/2014/04/25/who_is_tom_wheeler_and_why_is_he_ki.php

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/04/24/obama-bundler-tom-wheeler-helps-his-former-industry-from-fcc-perch/

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/tom--wheeler-federal-communications-commission.html

Photo by Charles Bodi

UPDATE: From Common Dreams

Tech Giants Blast FCC Chairman's Attack on "Free and Open Internet"

Letter from top companies comes amid growing public protest and internal dissent among Democratic commissioners…”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/08

Women Over 50.....

2014-04-30T20:12:00.003-04:00

"The reason I am interested in what women over 50 have to say is they have a humanizing context that only life experience can give. The reason I am interested in what women over 50 have to say is that they trust their own edgy experience over anything the so-called experts tell them. The reason I am interested in what women over 50 have to say is because I am a woman over 50, staring down the barrel of 60 actually, and I want to hear about something other than first love, starting out in the world, and having a baby, even though all three are integral to the woman I am today." Katherine Manaan MAWT

Cathy McMorris-Rodgers – The Velvet Glove On The Iron Fist Of The 1%

2014-01-27T13:58:00.002-05:00

Appearance Versus Reality – Cathy McMorris Rodgers To Rebut SOTU

Cathy McMorris Rodgers has been tapped to rebut Obama’s State of the Union Address tomorrow night. If you’re a regular reader of this page you know how I feel about Cathy McMorris Rodgers and her voting record. For the life of me I do not understand why when I criticize a person’s voting record, and that person is a woman, I am attacked for not standing up for the sisterhood. What I’m being told is it makes no difference what her message is, I should support her because she’s a woman. I don’t agree with this all or nothing point of view because I am a thinking, feeling woman of a certain age and refuse to collude with the women who are pushing the feminist movement towards political correctness. The feminist movement is not now, nor has it ever been, politically correct. It’s jagged, raw, and appropriately angry. Appropriate anger is born out of love. I love this planet and I love people on this planet, beyond all reason, and what my government is allowing to happen, what my government supports and encourages in the world, infuriates and enrages me.

McMorris-Rodgers is little more than a velvet glove on the right wing hand of the 1%. There is currently a biographical clip package of her making the media rounds and if I knew absolutely nothing about this woman’s voting record I would be the first to jump on her bandwagon. The point of the clip is to coax women into voting Republican because, I mean how bad can Republicans really be if that lovely Cathy McMorris Rodgers is one of them? She’s so nice; she’s like people I know on the PTA, not like one of those ranting feminists, always carrying on about this, that or the other.

Well, the reason this feminist is ranting and carrying on is because of McMorris-Rodger’s anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-corporation, voting record. In fact her voting record is 100% ALEC and one of the most conservative in Washington, D.C. Given the fact mid-term elections are coming up, it is up to all of us as citizens of a democracy to rip holes in the gossamer spin so that the harsh light of truth can shine through. Please don’t write me and tell me we no longer live in a democracy, I am fully aware we live in a Corporatocracy, but a few democratic principles are still alive and kicking and I fully intend to utilize them.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools.
Katherine Manaan MAWT

*************************************************************

Here is a link the biological clip package of Cathy McMorris Rodgers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK6c0pePQTE

*************************************************************

Here is a sample of her voting record...

McMorris-Rodgers is vehemently anti-choice and beloved by the Susan B. Anthony List and American’s United For Life. She co-sponsored the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, the Weldon-Stupak Human Cloning Prohibition Act, and the Child Custody Protection Act. She voted in favor of H.R. 1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, in June 2013 and to prohibit the use of federal funds for Planned Parenthood.

McMorris-Rodgers voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, she voted against public disclosure of bonuses and golden parachutes, and she voted no on increasing minimum wage from $7.25. She did not vote for the Senior Protection Act, but she did vote to terminate the Emergency Mortgage Relief Program and to repeal health care.

She voted to repeal EPA Emissions Regulations for cement manufacturers, she voted to require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct the sale of off-shore gas and oil leases, and she voted that the EPA must consider the costs and feasibility of Air Quality standards. She voted against whistleblower protection for off-shore oil workers and against off-shore drilling regulations. She voted to suspend the cross-state air pollution rule and to limit the EPA’s authority to regulate the disposal of coal combustion residuals.

McMorris-Rodgers voted for school vouchers and to repeal the Department of Education’s regulations. She voted against federal funding for NPR, to reduce funding for the U.S. Peace Institute, and to defund the neighborhood stabilization program.

McMorris co-sponsored banning gun registration & trigger lock law in Washington DC. Details include repealing the ban on semiautomatic weapons, D.C.’s registration requirement for the possession of fire arms, repeals the trigger lock law and eliminates criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered fire arm.

McMorris Rogers voted YES on the Ryan Budget: Medicare choice, tax & spending cuts; Voted NO on expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program; Voted NO on increasing minimum wage to $7.25; and Voted NO on four weeks of paid parental leave for federal employees.

If you have any questions about her voting record, go here

http://we-can-do-better.org/rep-cathy-mcmorris-rodgers-voting-record/

http://votesmart.org/candidate/3217/cathy-mcmorris-rodgers#.UuaVymQo4vk

WHY CHAINED CPI's ARE FLAT OUT WRONG

2013-11-13T18:06:00.001-05:00

Social Security can be fully financed and expanded by eliminating a tax break that caps social security taxes after the first $113,700 in income. What this means is if you're making a million dollars (most of congress) you don't have to pay any taxes on any earned income over $113,7000. The 1% doesn’t want to pay their fair share so the powers that be came up with Chained CPI’s.

Eliminating the cap is a no-brainer, like buying a good lock for the door to your home, and will guarantee the solvency of Social Security. Yet, the Obama administration continues to maintain a pathological attachment to chained CPI’s. I am told it is a strategic move to get some kind of concession from the Republicans but that’s so much bullshit. This is the corporate tool aspect of both parties rearing its ugly head. If you follow the money the only people who stand to benefit from chained CPI’s are the people who are currently not paying their fair share of social security tax.

For Obama and a goodly portion of the democrats to offer up Social Security cuts doesn’t make any sense. First off Social Security is not part of the deficit; that’s our money in there, yours, mine and ours, taken out (FICA) of each and every paycheck. Secondly, the reason there is a dearth of funds in the Social Security pot at this moment is because after G.W. Bush’s tax cuts for the 1%, federal taxes weren’t bringing in nearly enough to cover the cost of his wars. So he took it from social security.

Now the government has decided that rather than paying back the people’s money, which Bush took, they’re going to make senior citizens pay for the man’s crimes. This is right up there with handing $7.7 trillion dollars to the very same men who were behind the bank collapse and trusting them to change their ways.

Chained CPI's are being spun by both Democrats and Republicans as the only way to fiscal freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth; raise the cap, problem solved. The good news is that more and more progressives, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are probably the most visible, are challenging the lies, the spin, the entire structure of this country’s economic system. More and more bills (links below) are making it to the floor calling for a life on the social security, demanding that the wealthy pay their fair share.

We, the people, have to make sure the truth keeps getting out there.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan MAWT

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/297683-begich-announces-bill-to-keep-social-security-solvent-by-lifting-income-cap

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/14/1178816/-Eliminate-the-Social-Security-Payroll-Tax-Cap-so-Everyone-Pays-the-Same-Rate

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/25/304387/bernie-sanders-introduces-bill-to-lift-the-payroll-tax-cap-ensuring-full-social-security-funding-for-nearly-75-years/

“Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) 12.4% of earned income up to anannual limit must be paid into Social Security, and an additional 2.9% must bepaid into Medicare. That limit is $113,700 for 2013…”

9/11/13 - From the Middle Aged Woman Talking Facebook Page

2013-09-12T18:40:00.000-04:00

The photos you see here today, on the MAWT fb page, are posted to commemorate 9/11. I was there and these pictures, for me, capture the essence of what happened. I have already been accused of stirring the fires of hate by posting these photos. I also heard from someone else who told me I needed to wait till tomorrow to post these because she doesn't want to look at them today. I heard from another reader that 9/11 was over and I needed to get on with my life. Three sharp little attacks, which on any other day wouldn't bother me at all. I'm not here to please people, I don't much care what anybody thinks, and it's my page. You don't like it get off and/or make your own.

But given the emotion I am feeling because of 9/11.....The idea that posting these photos is stirring the fires of hate is absurd. Pictures are powerful, they say this happened, they are our record. These photos honor the humanity of the first responders, these photos capture the horror of the day, these photo capture the feelings of the victims and the first responders. If they trigger your fires of hate and you feel the need to act out and blame others, please seek professional help. What these photos stir in me, my many work colleagues, my activist friends, and my inner circle, is tremendous compassion, deep sorrow, and "WHY?" Life doesn't have to be this way. Life shouldn't be a horror show. And yes I know the political reasons, left, right and in between, and yes it's all about profit, but why? Why does it have to be this way. The cynic tells me it's human nature but I've known entirely too many human beings in my day to accept that rather tedious argument.

I am a sober woman, the great thing about being sober is you know you're not terminally unique. I know from the intelligent readers on this page that they also think life shouldn't be a horror show and like me they feel powerless a lot of the time to change it. Hell, most of the time. This doesn't mean we don't show up, this doesn't mean we don't take right action. It just means that sometimes you feel absolutely powerless in the face of horror and a democracy that is no longer. A democracy that went straight to hell on 9/11, when overnight our security became based on the erosion of our civil rights. The erosion of our civil rights born out of 9/11 has morphed into a vicious vendetta against whistle blowers. So when you write me and tell me to move on, I'd like to point out that the present is rooted in the past, and the future is rooted in the present, and that in order to change the future we need to look at what didn't work in the past. War based on purposely-faulty intelligence comes to mind; war in general hasn't worked out too well.

So yes I am posting these photos and I cry for the lives lost, the acts of heroism I witnessed, and the intense outpouring of humanity I experienced. Hate? I have no hate in me. The question is can I love enough, can we love enough, and direct the anger born out of that love into right action.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan

The War Against Women Is An Integral Part Of The ALEC Agenda

2013-07-08T10:05:00.002-04:00

I am repeatedly asked if I think ALEC is using women's reproductive freedoms and the War Against Women as a distraction and the answer is, no, I don't. The fact that women’s reproductive freedoms are being eroded is a reality, not a distraction, and part, not separate, from ALEC’s agenda, as is eroding the voting rights of minorities; destroying unions with right to work laws; destroying public education through the use of a voucher system; the privatization of prisons; austerity, which is a fancy name for starve the beast; and eviscerating environmental law. To refer to the War on Women as a distraction from more important issues is to devalue and negate the importance of equal rights, equal pay for equal work, and reproductive freedom. That the Republican party chooses to focus on women's vaginas, rather than jobs, is just that, a choice. Blaming the War on Women for the Republicans refusal to deal with the genuinely serious issues facing this country is akin to blaming the rape victim for being raped.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

Dearest Mom......

2013-05-12T13:52:00.001-04:00

Dearest Mom,

Thinking of you today and hoping you’re well on the other side. I’m still giving everybody hell over here and have actually gotten worse in my middle ages. Live loud, loud fierce, and suffer no fools continues to be my rallying cry. Michael told my old college roommate Anne that he was delighted she and I were friends again because and I quote “we lost her (me) to the proletariat." I guess baby brother hopes my renewed friendship with Annie will magically transform me into the debutante I once was. Like that’s going to happen:) When you lay dying you looked at me and said, “ Kathy, your freedom is the most important thing to you,” and you were right. I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly where all my freedom has/is taking me. I’d be lying just as much if I said I wanted to live another way.

I have a funny for you. You remember how you willed me the silver candelabras? When I went to Virginia to pick them up, Michael and Daddy told me they’d sold them at auction. I looked at Dad and said, “It’s not enough that you killed my bird and threw my hair dryer away, now you’ve sold my candelabras at auction!” This was some twenty years ago right after you died and a year before Daddy married that Yankee Mensa bitch, Lee. Mommy, I’ve never met anyone who was Mensa who had the sense to come in out the rain. After daddy died Lee made off with your money, which was supposed to go to my son, your grandchild. She called me and she said, “Kathy, I had no idea your father was changing the will, I feel just terrible.” She must have said she felt just terrible four or five times. Finally I said, “Well, if you feel so terrible you can just give the money back.” Boy she got off the phone fast.

Five years ago, on my annual summer pilgrimage to Delaware to see Michael (the house is wonderful, a veritable shrine to all things Minter) I went into the attic looking for my exercise ball and noticed your handwriting on a piece of paper taped to a box. I couldn’t read your writing, never could, opened the box and there were my candelabras. Michael was passed out in his room, he’s drinking entirely too much, it’s not pretty, and how he continues to be the effective attorney is beyond me, but the point is I could get the candelabras out and packed without him noticing, which I did, along with a few other select pieces of silver. My suitcase was so heavy the wheels pronated, and pulling it was close to impossible. I wished for someone to help me. To pick up the suitcase, groan, and say, “What did you do, steal the family silver?” To which I would answer, “Why yes, as a matter of fact I did.” That didn’t happen and trying to get across Port Authority from the Atlantic City bus to the Bloomfield bus was a nightmare. You were right; I should have never let my license expire. I should have come home from college and gotten it renewed. I still haven’t gotten another one because I have to start from the beginning and it’s always about money mom. I hate that a lot.

Three years ago Anne met me at Michael’s. I told her about stealing back the candelabras and I told her there was way more bounty in the attic waiting to be lifted. That particular trip I planned on stealing the small, thick, gold-framed mirror, the one you bought at the Paris flea market in 1961. Anne, understanding that Michael and reason do not mix and intimate with the peculiarities of wasp culture, didn’t ask me why I was stealing the mirror, she just wanted to know what I was going to put it in. “I have a Whole Foods bag,” I said, “and I’ll just stick it in your car.” Anne kept Michael busy talking about the dairy lobby in D.C. and I got the mirror. Next time I’m taking a small oil painting of marshlands. Michael will never miss it.

Dear T-t-tom is well and living in Toledo. He is an astounding photographer and did all the photos at Anne’s most recent wedding. I do think the third time’s the charm. Cric, Anne’s new husband, is the nicest man ever and absolutely devoted to her. By the way, you were wrong; the fact that Anne and I both slept with Tom did not turn him gay. He was already gay, he told us at the wedding. We had such a good time at that wedding, the Coomsberry is to die for, and I got to reconnect with Peggy, a friendship I wished I’d had back in the day, but am blessed to have now. Peggy slept with Tom too and Tom says if he was straight he would have married Peggy.

Dearest Rosanne, has met a wonderful man and bought herself a 49 acre farm in Maine. She and Chuck are moving in June and it is truly the weepy end of an era. Rosie and I still laugh over how you used to call her when you were looking for me. I don’t know if you know but when you were diagnosed it was Rosie I turned to. I called her from National Airport, collect. I was waiting for the Eastern shuttle, there was a bar right there. Phone to ear I said to the bartender, “Give me a double Canadian club, straight-up.” He handed me the drink, I heard the operator say, “Will you accept the charges,” and started yelling in the middle of Rosanne’s yes, “That’s a double?! Are you fucking kidding me? How much are you charging me for this?!” “Where the fuck are you Katie Lou?!” Rosanne hollered.

Rosie picked me up at the airport. She didn’t say anything; she lit a joint and handed it to me. There were no seatbelts in the car. Rosanne had her mechanic cut them out because she felt they were a violation of her civil liberties. She turned up the radio and drove us off into the night. All through Manhattan she drove, wrapped in eloquent silence that said more than words, drifting without destination. East Side, West Side, Midtown, Downtown, Wall Street, we had blood on every corner, every block had a memory we shared, and it still feels like a movie to me. I couldn’t believe you were going to die. I wasn’t going to think about it. I lit another joint. Three joints later I said, “I can go home now.”

When I let myself into the apartment, Gordon was watching Mash, the blue light from the television played across his face. It never occurred to me to turn to my husband first. It’s awful to be in a marriage where’s there’s no comfort. What exactly is the point of marriage if there’s no comfort? If you can’t reach for each other in the dark and hold on? I don’t blame Gordon. It took the two of us to create that toxic tango. I know you told Nancy G. that I was miserably unhappy, Mom, and when she told me what you said I knew that was your round-a-bout way of letting me know that even though I had a child if I left my marriage you were ok with it. I did leave him, three years after you died, and I got sober.

It would be five years before I quit reaching for the phone to call you at 7 a.m, in the morning. “I’m calling you early before you get your armor on,” I’d say and you’d laugh. I loved making you laugh; you were my best audience. It’s funny how when people die all of a sudden they become saints and the not-so-nice is wiped away like chalk on a chalk board. That’s not me though because it’s not honest. There were days I hated you as much as I loved you, and after you died it took years of therapy to work through the dysfunction that was our family, that was you and me. I learned the ins and outs of the dysfunction, what connects to what, but just as important I learned about the functional, the truly excellent. I was lucky; I could count on your love like I counted on gravity. There was never any question that you loved me beyond all reason, that you would fight for me, kill anyone who got in my way, and that no matter what I did would always love me. Because you gave me that I could give it to your grandson and he will give it to his children and so and so on. I know for fact dysfunction threads its way down but so does love and love given a sliver of a chance will always win.

I miss you Dee-Dee. I am so happy we were close as we were your last six months on the planet and I love you forever. Give Dad my best and know I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the Yankee Mensa bitch doesn’t get buried with the two of you at Arlington. Did you know she handed a Tiffany bag to your grandson at daddy’s internment and said, “Here’s your grandfather.” She’d put a third of his ashes in a zip-lock bag inside a Tiffany bag. Brad, enormously hung over, in a wrinkled, skinny, navy blue suit, had flown in from college for the burial, looked at me as if this was yet another story for the unbelievable novel that was his life. Bradley is convinced that there has never been a story as far out there as the story that is his life. I’ve yet to tell him the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Happy Mother’s Day Mommy. Rest in Peace, Kathy. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

photo by Mike Manley

Why I Was Banned From Face Book For 24 Hours......

2013-04-27T18:21:00.001-04:00

Dear fb,

I posted a photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, that would be the naked child covered with napalm running down the road, alongside a photo of who she is now, and her remarkable story of recovery. This Pulitzer Prize winning photo was taken down by fb because I was told it did not meet fb community standards.

You might wish to inform the fb morality police of the following......

"Phan Thị Kim Phúc, O.Ont (born 1963) is a Vietnamese-Canadian best known as the child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972. The iconic photo taken in Trang Bang by AP photographer Nick Ut shows her at about nine years of age running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack." From wikipedia

“Kim Phuc Phan Thi aka Phan Thi Kim Phuc was designated UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1994. Ever since, she has dedicated her life to promoting peace, and to this end she founded the Kim Foundation International. This foundation helps children who are victims of war by providing medical and psychological support in order that they overcome their traumatic experiences.”

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/goodwill-ambassadors/kim-phuc-phan-thi/

During the Viet Nam War this Pulitzer winning photograph, that does not meet fb community standards, was published by every major newspaper and reputable magazine in the United States. I posted the shot alongside another photo of who the woman Kim Phuc Phan Thi is today. A mother, unashamed of her napalm scars, who has transformed her experience into helping other children who are victims of war.

That rape culture pages continue to meet fb’s community standards, and a Pulitzer Prize winning photo, an after photo, and an accompanying story of hope and courage does not, is an intellectual and moral embarrassment and indicative of the intrinsic misogyny of facebook and the utter vacuousness of the people you hire.

Please be advised I am not letting this go.

Good luck with the pipeline and drilling the arctic.

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/26/1925921/mark-zuckerbergs-new-political-group-spending-big-on-ads-supporting-keystone-xl-and-oil-drilling/

Sincerely, Katherine Manaan - Middle Aged Woman Talking

c.c. Sheryl Sandberg - Please Lean In

If babies had guns they wouldn’t be aborted – Steve Stockman (R_TX)

2013-04-12T20:34:00.002-04:00

Several members of the Republican Party who wish to remain anonymous are currently in conversation with God and Monsanto re: arming fetuses. God has not gotten back to them but Monsanto has. Interestingly enough, Monsanto is already growing guns in test tubes using a process involving nano particles and magnetic fluid. As per Monsanto’s scientists, the only thing clear at this point is that women who wish to grow guns alongside a fetus are going to have to up their iron intake considerably. To load or not to load the gun remains an issue.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan MAWT
(satire alert)

A Little Clarity re: The Monsanto Protection Act – Section 733

2013-03-30T16:03:00.002-04:00

There's been an enormous amount written re: the Monsanto Protection act and there were actually very long threads about it on the MAWT fb page. I, like quite a few people, did not know that the Monsanto Protection Act was only going to be in effect for 6 months. Ultimately what came out was that if Obama hadn't signed the budget, HR 933, containing Section 733, the government would have shut down. This is all true.

But let's be real clear here about what the bill says. Again keep in mind the bill applies only for the next 6 months. Of course the Bush tax cuts were supposed to expire in 2010, but I digress.

From Collective Evolution..... "The Monsanto Protection Act allows Monsanto to override United States federal courts on the issue of planting experimental genetically engineered crops all across the U.S. The government has no power what so ever to stop Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations from planting and harvesting. After Obama signed H.R. 933, the provision was final, there can be no litigation against these corporations at all. Corrupt food corporations are now allowed to plant and sell their genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds..."

From HuffPo "Without any hearings on the matter, the Senate included language that would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to essentially ignore any court ruling that would otherwise halt the planting of new genetically-engineered crops."......

As per Business Times with whom I happen to agree......“It sets a terrible precedent,” noted the International Business Times. “Though it will only remain in effect for six months until the government finds another way to fund its operations, the message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side. Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that court challenges are a privilege, not a right.”

I am told, by both liberals and conservatives, that I am a fool and of very little brain for paying any attention to what is essentially a “non-existent act.” The Monsanto Protection Act is a throwaway, without impact, snuck into HR 933 to satisfy Republicans. In other words I am supposed to believe that Section 733 and its contents are going to disappear in six months. I don’t, anymore then I believed a pre-emptive war against Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, would stop terrorism. I also don’t believe that more regulation will make fracking safe, nuclear power is clean, the XL Pipe Line will create lots and lots of jobs, and that Jesus, whose Gnostic teachings I happen to enjoy quite a bit, died for my sins.

The Monsanto Protection Act will simply morph into another bill, another law. Why do I think this? Because in 2010, Obama appointed Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s Vice President and chief lobbyist, senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. Michael Taylor was in charge of FDA policy when GMO’s were allowed into the US food supply without one single test to determine their safety. Michael Taylor still has his job.

We fight on.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan MAWT

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr933enr/pdf/BILLS-113hr933enr.pdf

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/21/1195868/-H-R-933-Sequestering-the-Sequester-What-s-the-Point

http://government.brevardtimes.com/2013/03/monsanto-protection-act-voting-record.html

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/farmers_and_food_safety_advocates_lead_monsanto_backlash_partner/#.UVOGc7yZMZs.reddit

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/farmers_and_food_safety_advocates_lead_monsanto_backlash_partner/#.UVOGc7yZMZs.reddit

http://www.ibtimes.com/monsanto-protection-act-shines-light-gmo-controversy-america-1159717
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/what_you_need_to_know_about_the_terrifying_monsanto_protection_act_20130328/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/mpa.asp

http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/52314-obama-appoints-monsantos-vp-as-senior-advisor-to-the-commissioner-fda

In response to the recent spate of criticism I have received from women

2013-03-16T22:15:00.002-04:00

In response to the recent spate of criticism I have received from women…let me be very clear

I do not believe a woman who stays home to take care of her child is less of a feminist then a woman who chooses a corporate job. I think the whole mommy war thing (I’m a better feminist than you) is really stupid, as stupid as the pubic hair argument, and takes away from the real issue(s) namely equal pay for equal work, affordable health and child care, the utter lack of jobs, the rising rates of poverty and homelessness, the re-emergence of debtors prison’s, and the fact that over half of our elected officials represent corporate profit (greed) rather then the needs of humanity.

I support reproductive freedom for women and have no patience with women who don’t. I would have patience for anti-choice women if all their energy went into prevention, namely safe, effective, and easy access to birth control, rather then enforced pregnancy. I am not politically correct. I am not here to get along with everybody. I find bigotry in any form abhorrent and will speak out and publish posts against racism, homophobia, misoygyny, rape, bullying, the wanton destruction of the environment, NDAA, the horrid treatment of whistleblowers, war, etc. I do not believe for one minute that cuts to social security and medicare are warranted, think chained CPI’s are evil, and the grand bargain is a crock of shit.

I am a lefty feminist and my last boyfriend was a firefighter, a 9/11 first responder. I get on very well with men; I do not get on with patriarchal assholes at all and that includes women. I have intensely close female friends, my 3 closest friends I’ve known for over 30 years. I live hand to mouth but life is rich. I will never vote for a woman because she’s a woman and I will never refrain from criticizing someone’s politics because she’s a woman. I would vote for a Bernie Sanders over a Cathy McMorris Rodgers any day because I am a thinking woman and research people’s voting records, and please don’t write me and say, “well he’s from Vermont and she’s from Washington, so it’s not like they’ll ever run against each other,” because clearly you’ve missed the point.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools, Kat Manaan MAWT

Econ 101A

2013-01-31T13:08:00.001-05:00

I was never an economics person; I didn’t understand the language. Obviously economics has its own kind of language to keep the understanding of economics beyond the reach of the average person. This is important for two reasons, to allow for the creation of the economic expert, and to keep the average person from knowing what the economic experts are up to because if they knew they’d be really, really pissed off.

What I know about economics and capitalism are a result of life experience and Econ 101A, a class I had to take in college back in the 70’s to fulfill a liberal arts requirement. I always aced the multiple guess exam because like most college students in those days I did copious amounts of speed, stayed up all night, memorized everything, and then regurgitated it the next day. This fucked up the grading curve upsetting the boys majoring in business who would mutter amongst themselves and glare balefully at me in the dining hall. Not that I cared, I was too busy cramming for the next exam so I could keep my grades up and my mother wouldn’t kill me. The fact that I remember anything from Econ 101A is not so much a minor miracle as it is the product of a selective and photographic memory. Ideas held vibration for me, if it held suspended in air, it was a clue and I was always looking for clues even though I wasn’t sure of the puzzle or the mystery I was trying to solve, to understand. The point was I knew I was in the process of solving or understanding something and that process was important to me, more important than a result. This has been a life long theme and is probably why I live on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

What I remember being taught is this; Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership; the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is controlled by private individuals and corporations. Since this has never made any sense to me I decided to do what I always do when I don’t understand something; I draw it, do a lot of research, and then I attempt to translate the language of the ‘thing,’ into look-Spot-see-Jane-run simplicity. As most of the women I know, young, middle-aged and old, don’t have a clue how capitalism works and has worked over the years, they’re curious but too embarrassed to ask questions for fear of appearing dumb, I decided to share my drawing and discoveries. It works quite well as a blueprint and should answer any questions you might have; questions, given the state of things, it’s probably a good idea to be asking.

First I drew a stick figure and wrote owner, then I drew a square and wrote factory, then I drew a bunch of little stick figures inside the factory and wrote workers. Someone has to loan the owner money to buy the stuff for the workers to use to make a product; that would be a bank or investors. I drew two more squares and labeled them accordingly. Both bank and investors expect a return on their money, meaning they expect to make more money than the money they’ve invested, this is called profit. The owner of the company also expects to make a profit. The workers just expect to make a living wage

The workers get to work making let’s say, mascara; just so you know a company that makes something is called a manufacturer. To make the mascara the workers use ingredients bought and paid for by the owner of the company with the monies from the bank and/or investors. I drew another square and wrote ingredient company and drew little workers inside. The ingredient company actually competes with other ingredient companies who also want to sell their ingredients to the mascara company. More squares, more workers. It’s a level playing field, meaning everybody has the opportunity to compete for the job and to set a competitive price for the job. The owner of the mascara company chooses the company that offers him the best service, quality, and price and promises to employ his wife’s errant nephew. The losing companies go off in search of another mascara company that might need their ingredients.

The mascara workers are paid wages, also know as income, for their efforts, also known as work or a job, and their efforts begat many, many tubes of mascara. Now the product, the mascara, has to be sold to a store, which will actually sell it to the consumer; namely you and me. This is the job of the company sales force; it also has to be packaged and shipped to the store that buys it. Three more squares filled with stick workers. To determine the cost of the mascara to the retailer, that would be the store or company that is actually going to sell the mascara to the customer, namely you and me, the cost of the ingredients, the workers salaries, the cost of packaging, the cost of shipping, and factory operating costs, must be added together. Then that figure is doubled or doubled and a half, or tripled, so the owners, banks, and investors can cover the costs of manufacturing the mascara and make a profit. This figure is called the wholesale price. Then the retailers, the store where you’re going to buy the mascara, will double, or double and a half, or triple the wholesale price and come up with yet another figure, the one you’re going to pay for the mascara, which will cover their costs and make them a profit. Like the manufacturers retailers also have bank loans and investors who expect to a return on their money, to make a profit. I’m sensing a pattern here. The workers just expect to make a living wage.

The people who buy the product from the retailer are, you guessed it, the workers. In order for the capitalism to work the workers have to use their wages, also called income, to buy. There can be no profit for any manufacturer, retailer, bank, owner, or investor period unless the workers are using their income to buy. This is why credit cards came into being so workers could pay for the products they were buying with money they didn’t actually have but would have further down the road. Credit cards meant more purchases; more purchases, more profit. Credit isn’t free, it has interest, meaning you pay the credit card company real money to use their fake money. Because of interest you are actually paying more money for a product than its actual price. This is how the credit card company makes a profit. Credit card companies and banks are in cahoots with each other because banks extend credit to credit card companies and the credit card companies pay them interest for the favor. Banks are institutions where workers deposit their wages in checking accounts; the banks then use that money to lend and invest and make more profit. That banks charge workers for the privilege of using their money makes no sense at all and is one of the myriad reasons I have never liked banks.

Now, since the owners and retailer’s profit depends on the purchasing of product by the worker, it’s very important that the product render itself obsolete after a period of time so that it can be replaced by a new and better product(s). This is why it’s important not to build anything that actually lasts because you will either destroy or slow down your profits. This is called planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is behind the advertising concept that newer is better. New coke comes to mind. If you’re under fifty and don’t remember new coke you should look it up.

Looking at the blueprint it is patently obvious that capitalism is a profit driven system and that every square’s survival is dependent on the survival of the other square. One person’s income, one person’s work, really is dependent on the existence of the other, which is actually kind of cool and pragmatic proof of the spiritual axiom that we are all interconnected. The other thing that is patently is the ability to compete is the key to success. Enter the Economic Expert; he takes one look at my blueprint and says, we can make way more money if we knock out three quarters of these squares and then put the rest in one big square. But then the people won’t have any work Mr. Economic Expert, I say. How will they pay the rent? How will they eat? How will they feed and clothe their families?

From the beginning corporations were big fat greedy bullies, hence the name ‘fat cat.’ The late 1800’s and early 1900’s come to mind. I actually remember this from high school because it was one of those ideas that held vibration; that held suspended. What the corporations, also called monopolies or ‘trusts,’ decided to do was take over and control various industries. Let’s use the mascara factory as an example of how this works. For a corporation to take over and control an industry first they have to buy up all the factories of a particular product, in this case mascara. Once they own all the mascara factories they can set the price they want to pay for the ingredients because they’re the only ones buying the ingredients. So much for competition and a level playing field. The only mascara ingredient company that can survive is the one that accepts the price set by the corporation so all the rest of the ingredient companies go out of business. Since the price set for mascara ingredients will be quite low, in order to keep costs down and make more profit, eventually the ingredient company will either be forced into bankruptcy or have to sell the business. The mascara corporation then buys the ingredient business for next to nothing. Now they’re the only manufacturer of mascara and they own the only business, the source, that provides the ingredients. They literally pay themselves for what they buy from themselves and in so doing invest in themselves and make even more profit. Now since so many small businesses have gone out of business because of the corporate takeover of mascara production lots and lots of people who once worked for those small businesses are out of work; they apply for jobs with the corporation. Since the corporation is the only organization hiring people with mascara making skills, or skills that compliment mascara manufacturing, they can pay them whatever they want. To keep costs down and profits up the corporation pays its workers next to nothing. Now you understand why they called them ‘monopolies,’ because they monopolized every aspect of a business and in so doing destroyed all the competition and the playing field.

But there’s more. Working conditions for factory workers during this time were so horrible they trump the sweatshops it’s so politically correct to rail against today. The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire comes to mind where the workers, all women, couldn’t escape when fire broke out because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwell and exits to keep the workers from leaving early. The factory was on the eleventh floor; the women either burned or jumped to their death. Upton Sinclair’s book, ‘The Jungle,’ held page after page of the horrors of Chicago’s stockyards. He wrote that dead rats were routinely shoveled into sausage grinding machines, inspectors looked the other way when diseased cows were slaughtered for steak, and filth and guts were swept off the floor and sold as potted ham. The American people were as horrified by corporate factory conditions as they were by the fact that the corporations, or monopolies as they were called then, were quite literally eradicating millions of jobs and small businesses. Small businesses were the backbone of American life; nothing was more representative of the American entrepreneurial spirit than small business, that’s why all of Europe was immigrating here. As for the factory conditions, it was everything America was NOT about. “Give us your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” Muckrakers, (today's lefty's with power) like Upton Sinclair, raised the indignant hue and righteous cry and the Progressive Movement and unions were born. They were so loud, so righteous, government stepped forward and wrote new regulatory legislature that established the first health and hygiene standards for industry and regulations that broke up the monopolies. The unions guaranteed safe working conditions and a living wage for the worker. In other words the government put regulations into place to protect workers, consumers, and small business; laws that guaranteed a level playing field, meaning the ability to compete, and that we weren’t buying potted ham that was actually shit from the slaughterhouse floor mixed with a touch entrail, and unions were a tool for enforcing the regulations. Corporations have been working consistently, and with increasing sophistication, to undo the regulations ever since.

Welcome to Reagan's trickle down economics. The theory behind trickle down economics was this.... the more money the people on the top earned, the better it would be for the people on the bottom because the benefits of that money would trickle down. In other words more money for the rich meant more jobs for the poor; deregulation would mean even more jobs. The push for de-regulation was based/sold on the idea that without government regulation there would be more competition, more competition meant more profit, more profit meant more jobs. This is a great big lie. De-regulation did nothing for job growth; what it did was allow corporate monopolies, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days, to form all over again. You’ve seen the blue print, you know what happens when the corporation takes over; all those little squares get cancelled out, but this time there aren’t even any jobs for the people who’ve worked in the industry because those jobs have been out sourced overseas (thank you Nafta) so the corporation doesn’t have to pay the American worker the living wage he/she deserves.

It’s close to impossible for me to wrap my head around the idea that there are people who are so profit driven that they don’t care how horrifically it impacts human beings or the environment and that every move these people have made since the Reagan years, culminating with Citizens United, has been carefully calculated to ensure that profit dictates government policy. Big government has been spun to stand for whiners, welfare cheats, illegal immigrants, bleeding heart liberals, and tree huggers; small government has been spun to stand for the America of old, when an honest days work brought an honest day's pay. The reality is in the American of old an honest days work did not get you an honest day’s pay until the government stepped in and established regulations to curb the profit driven greed of fat cat corporations/monopolies and the unions stepped in to guarantee the American worker a living wage and safe working conditions.

For the record.....I have no problem with profit; I have a real problem with profit when it grinds the planet and human beings under its heel. There is no good reason for the people to be serving, to be on their knees, to the economy, when it so obviously doesn't work for the majority of the population. The economy is man-made, it can be unmade and re-done to serve the people. This is already happening with cooperative businesses. If I’m thinking this way so are others, we are all interconnected, and that gives me hope.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan