Middle Aged Woman Talking:

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 Daddy 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 menza bitch, Lee. Mommy, I’ve never met anyone who was menza 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 he 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 there was a whole lot more in the attic I planned to take. That particular trip I planned on stealing the small, thick gold-framed mirror, the one you bought at the Paris flea market back 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 to 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 menza 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

Thanksgiving 2012

2012-11-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

Many of the company's employees are "excited to work on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. We’ve heard from many stores that they had more team members volunteer to work than they had available shifts." Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman

As I read about the chains forcing people to work, or not in some cases, I got to remembering when my son was in the 3rd grade (23 years ago) and I started working full-time for a chain of gyms as a floor trainer. The pay was $6.25 an hour, low for even then, but I had a plan; I would work as a floor trainer, build up a clientele, turn pro, and make some real money. The way I saw it I could partially cover my rent with my child support and I would just figure out a way to pay everything else because as a single mom, that's what I did. I'd already figured I could walk the 36 blocks to and from the gym (a total of 62 blocks) which would save me $5 a day bus fare which worked out to $25 a week, which worked out to $100 a month and I would use that for childcare to pay a friend's tween, who went to I.S. 44 directly across the street from where I lived and right around the corner from P.S. 87 where my son went to school. Right off the bat I was losing a fifth of my bi-weekly pay-check but as I told myself, it's not forever, this is a good plan, I will make this work.

I didn't like the gym manager much and she didn't much like me, however I was very popular with the members and within five months I was one of the highest grossing trainers in the chain. Three months before Thanksgiving I went to management and explained that what with the holidays coming I was going to need time off (unpaid, there was no such thing as paid time off) and how was I to go about that. I had worked the holidays before in other low-end jobs but I was a single mom now and it was different. The manager was none to pleased; 'you have to get someone to cover for you,' she said. 'Fine,' I said, 'how do I do that? Do I ask around here?' 'No, no,' she said, 'I have to fax the other gyms and see if anyone wants to take your hours.' 'And you're going to do that today?' I said. She eyed me; I eyed her right back. 'If no one takes your hours you can't have the time off,' she said.

The gym manager, let's call her Jill, and the assistant manager, let's call him Billy, and I had a power battle going from the get-go. It started with the way I was paid. If I private-trained on the floor while I was on duty the $40 training fee was to be split 50-50; ergo the gym would get $20 and I would get $26.25. Billy subtracted the $6.25 from the $20, saying I had been paid my hourly rate of $6.25 in the $20 that I received for private training. 'So I am getting $13.75 and the gym is getting $20? That is not a 50-50 split,' I said calmly. 'No you don't get it,' he said, oh god was he patronizing, 'we paid you over here, that's why we're taking it away over here.' 'No you don't get it,' I said, 'maybe this works on the stupid but it's doesn't work on me.' I made such a stink they did in fact call corporate and I was right. An apology was not forthcoming and I had to wait till the next paycheck, that would be two weeks, to see the monies lost.

My hours for unpaid leave would come through for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and at the last moment the person who said he'd fill them backed out. When Jill told me I gave her a shark stare and walked away. I was about to turn pro and I knew she wouldn't fire me but I remember wondering what people who weren't educated, who didn't know they had certain rights, did. By this time my son, all of 8, had fired the babysitter, 'she was mean,' he much preferred to walk around the block by himself and I had to make a choice that no momma should have to make, namely to let my 8 year old son walk around the block and home, by himself, in New York City. He would call me when he got home and Trini on the desk would come get me. This pissed Billy off to no end. 'You need to be here, Trini,' he said like it was fucking IBM. I knew nothing about any of this till later. I was sitting at the trainer's desk checking the appointment book, when Billy came up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. I froze. 'We can't come find you when your son calls,' he said, 'you understand.' What I understood was Billy was an asshole with a little structural power, what I understood was it's a rock and a hard place when you're poor, when you really need the job that's barely meeting your expenses, which if you've been poor you know is better than not meeting your expenses at all. 'Ok Billy,' I said. Later I would talk to Trini, Brad always called between 3 and 3:10, I would be by the phone on the floor where she could see me. If I was there she would put the call through, if I wasn't she would take a message and I would call him right back. I wasn't willing to take on Billy, I'd worked my ass off and in 2 months I would be a pro-trainer, finally as much money going out would be coming in, and my hours would be my own. I remember thinking, 'ah the difference between feminist theory and reality.' It was such a power-over thing, the image of me sitting down, Billy behind with his hands on my shoulders, obsequiously kind, managing me.

Because of my own experience I see the side of the worker who resents being made to work on the holidays, I also see the side of the worker who chooses to work for extra money (not much) but better then nothing. I agree that the chains should be closed for the holidays; at the same time it profoundly irritates me that the liberal elite are calling for the closure of the chains when many of the people who are working are doing so because they desperately need the money. And as I contain these opposites I realize what is being missed here is the elephant in the middle of the room, namely capitalism, the be-all-end-all drive for profit, and the fact that we live and collude with an economic system, a power over system, where the many live to serve the one, that has reduced all life to dollars and cents.

What I am extremely grateful for this Thanksgiving is that getting out from under an oppressive economy that clearly does not work for 99% of the people has begun in earnest. Occupy Wall Street is buying up people's debt, cooperative businesses are being born, and alternative energy is sustainable and holds a motherlode of jobs. People are working on building a humane world outside the parameters of what we're taught the world "is," and "has to be." I am no Pollyanna but what I've seen happen in the past year in the culture is pretty damn amazing, yes 3/4's of everything still pretty much sucks but there is undeniable progress. What gets me all teary is what can actually happen when people come together for the common good. Yes, I am grateful for friends, family, and health, but I am just as grateful that people from all walks of life, all colors and all creeds, are coming together for the common good and that it is not limited to a few days out of the year.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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

A Woman Of The Playground – The Fiscal Cliff

2012-11-12T20:15:00.000-05:00

Last night as I was trying to wrap my mind around the fiscal cliff, I found myself thinking about playgrounds, specifically New York City playgrounds, where I spent a good 7 years watching my son play, learn, and grow. I was remembering the day I watched a child and one of his best friends draw a chalk line around the jungle gym because they'd decided the jungle gym was theirs and no one else could play on it but them. When the mother of one of the boys saw what was going on she shot over to where the children were turning away yet another teary-eyed jungle gym enthusiast, and said, "you can't do that, the Park belongs to all of us. We share the playground."

Clearly the Senate does not play by the rules of the playground, the words “fair” and “share” being so alien to them. The crux of this fiscal cliff battle is the Bush tax cuts, cuts that allow multi-international corporations and the super rich to pay virtually no tax. Needless to say the tax cuts, which cost the country trillions of dollars in revenue, have been excellent for the profit margins of the non-job creating 1%, which are at an all time high. Add to that the trillion dollars spent on war and of course there's a deficit for days.

What the Republicans are threatening to do if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire is go after social security, Medicare, education, and other safety net programs. They're saying that if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire we will fly off the fiscal cliff and go into a recession. This is bullshit and Obama needs to stand strong here. There are myriad other things that can be done to bring down the deficit without going after the safety net that so many depend upon including, but not limited to, cutting the 10 to 52 billion dollar subsidies the oil companies receive annually, closing the 14 to 20 million dollar tax write-offs for companies who are outsourcing jobs overseas so they don’t have to pay the worker a living wage, and of course there's that extra trillion in revenue raising taxes on the rich could bring in. Stop the war, add that trillion to the aforementioned and hey no more deficit.

As a woman of the playground, not an economist, I have been told I don’t understand; that I am taking a complicated subject and making it simplistic, but the truth is economics has been made purposely complicated, your brain is supposed to bobble as you try to decipher finance-speak, so that corporate profit can continue to trump the needs of human beings and the planet. Being on our knees to an economy that genuinely cannot function without our money and participation, that clearly does not work for the majority of us, makes about as much sense as allowing a child in the playground to hold the jungle gym hostage.

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

No Fracking...No XL Pipeline

2012-11-10T21:03:00.004-05:00

You don't like ugly, fine, I don't like ugly either, but I am not afraid to face it and I am not afraid to confront it and as long as there is a breath in my body I will continue to face and confront that which I believe to be detrimental to humanity and my beloved planet. I am not going to put a positive spin on that which is not positive. There is nothing positive about the tar sands and there is nothing positive about fracking.

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

A Few Thoughts Before The Election...

2012-11-04T14:42:00.001-05:00

A Few Thoughts Before The Election…

I started the middle aged woman talking fb page and blog because a young literary type told me that no one was remotely interested in what a woman in her 50’s had to say. A little background, I am a novelist, I started writing in my 40’s and never stopped. I was in the process of shopping a book and though the response to the writing was omigod terrific I could not find representation. According to the young literary type this was because no one was publishing new fiction, least of all magical realism. Equally important was the fact that I was in my mid-fifties and no one is interested in what a woman over 50 has to say.

“But I’m interested in what a woman over 50 has to say,” I told him, “and women over 60, 70, 80, and 90 and not from the place of perky-positive, I-happily-embrace-my- changes either. Furthermore several thousand people a day are turning 60 and a little over half of them are women, you think you might be missing a market??

“You should be a successful writer now,” he said, “not starting out. I don’t mean to be harsh.”

“You’re an idiot,” I said, “I don’t mean to be harsh.”

The fact that I didn’t make a disparaging comment about his anatomy means that I am becoming diplomatic in my middle ages.

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 you; 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. I’ve been in recovery for over 20 years and one of the first thing I learned is that there is no such thing as terminal uniqueness, if I felt a certain way there was a good bet others felt the exact same way. My first experience with this on facebook was Komen.

I have been an activist and feminist since the 70’s and have never seen anything like the tribe of women’s response to the defunding of Planned Parenthood by Susan G. Komen. Though Handel, Brinker, et. al., tried and continue to try to blame the response on Planned Parenthood, the reality is the loud and angry “no!” that rang across this country was completely organic, one friend told another friend who told another friend. Overnight 10,000 plus women liked the still phenomenal Defund Susan G. Komen page; within the week Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the hardest working women in the Senate, had joined with other democrats to form ‘One Million Strong For Women’ to take advantage of the waking giant that was the women’s vote. Unite For Women formed and began planning a march; We Are Women formed and yet another march was planned; lefty women’s pages sprouted up right and left, we all liked and shared each other’s pages, and the much needed dissemination of information, once the ostensible province of the mainstream media, had begun. As a feminist for over forty years, it was the most exciting thing I’ve witnessed since the marches back in the 60’s and 70’s. The big difference for me, and the rest of the kitchen table caucus, (my inner circle) is that there are so many men on the side of feminism now.

That women brought down Komen made the power of the tribe visible and took Washington aback. There is no question that the power women wield as voters threatens the misogynist old boys (and girls) network that is Washington, D.C., who haven’t been able to get away with half the crap they’re used to getting away with because of that damn facebook and all those lefty pages. The War Against Women is no distraction; it is a reality. A woman’s right to control her body is being systematically chipped away at that state level, birth control is next, and it’s all thanks to AUL (American’s United For Life.) That equal pay for equal work is still being discussed boggles the mind yet every Republican Senator, including the women, blocked the equal pay for equal work bill in June of 2012. This is due to the profound and toxic influence of ALEC. In case you’ve been living under a rock the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) promotes a wide range of profit geared “model legislation” of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation in the exact same way that AUL promotes a wide range of “model anti-choice legislation” of the church, by the church and for the church. Over half of elected Republicans are members of ALEC and though one expose after another has been written about ALEC, and corporation after corporation has left its membership, make no mistake the power of ALEC continues to be as powerful and invisible as gravity.

Not surprisingly where there’s ALEC there is lot’s of anti-choice, subservient womanhood, and no same sex marriage; there is fracking, the XL pipeline, and a complete evisceration of environmental law; there is creationism and Christian Dominionism; there is limited collective bargaining and ultimately no unions; there is no health care, no social security, no Medicare, no safety nets; there are unregulated banks, corporations, Wall Street, and privatization. Contrary to the spin there is no job creation here, absolutely none. This is the conservative agenda, an agenda that would turn my beloved country into a kind of feudal system run for profit by patriarchy and his God. This is exactly what Romney represents and stands for and this is why I am not voting for him.

Unlike many of my friends I don’t love Obama, I have real problems with NDAA, drones, HR 347, the war, Monstanto, the list goes on, but unlike Romney, Obama is sane when it comes to social issues; he has also done some fine work on the economy, healthcare is a step in the right direction, and I honestly believe he will respond to the expressed needs of a loud electorate. This is why no matter who wins (I pray pray pray it’s Obama) we can’t just walk our vaginas home after the election. I’ve heard from a lot of you, “are you going to quit MAWT after the election?” Absolutely not, the way I see it is we’re just beginning the work of reshaping the country. Given that terminal uniqueness thing if I’m thinking this way, then quite a few others are also. As for the little twit who told me that people weren’t interested in anything women over 50 had to say, well MAWT has almost 7,000 likes and reaches a little over half a million people a week; clearly women over 50 are damn interested in what each other has to say and a political force to be reckoned with. Thank-you MAWT family for all your comments, your stories, and your support; it has been an honor to be a part of this community. Now let’s VOTE BLUE!

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

Hurricane Sandy

2012-11-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

It's still really bad in Staten Island, the Rock-a-ways, and the rest of the outer boroughs. The city clearly decided to triage the recovery and as ever the monied neighborhoods won. One of the biggest issues facing the clean-up and recovery is a lack of people power. This is due to the fact that Bloomberg, ostensibly to balance the budget, austerity and all that, has cut and continues to cut all first responder and city services (police, firefighters, garbage, EMS, social workers etc.)

As I watched Bloomberg take a hatchet to the most basic quality of life services enjoyed and paid for by the citizens of New York City, I thought of the Titanic. The Titanic if you remember didn't have enough life-boats for all the people on the boat. New York City, like the rest of the country, austerity and all that, doesn't have enough first responders or social services for a genuine emergency, climate or otherwise, and it is the poor and the middle class who suffer. This is not meant in criticism of the people who are out there busting their humps to make it better, it is a criticism of the powers that be who think tax breaks for the 1% and luxury real estate are more important than social services and first responders. It is a criticism of elected officials who believe profit is more important than the needs of human beings.

That there are no trucks of food and generators on the way to Staten Island and the rest of the literally starving outer boroughs is a travesty.

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

Hurricane Sandy

2012-11-02T13:05:00.001-04:00

People everywhere are suffering right now but at this moment I am tied into those suffering from the storm because it happened in my back yard. The people here have lost everything, rebuilding is going to take a ridiculous amount of time and it's going to be expensive. Daily I am witnessing a tragedy of epic proportions and what this tragedy has in common with the other great tragedies playing round the world is it needs huge sums of money to fix the results.

No question the storm has pointed out that you can't do it all on your own, that we are in fact all in this together. I want my tax dollars to go to organizations such as fema, to federal programs of the people, by the people, and for the people. The reality is the tax cuts enjoyed by the 1% and global corporations, added to the cost of the never ending war, have bled the people and government coffers dry. The storm victims need money now but $750 billion is not going to miraculously appear because the majority of victims are just everyday people, not banks.

The fact that Disney is donating $2 million to Sandy relief is an insult; Disney makes close to $395 billion a year. Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi are headlining a concert to raise money for Sandy victims; they are asking people to pledge $10 to the American Red Cross and people will because that's what American's do. The problem is the powers that be at the American Red Cross are using monies they raise to finance their debt. They also refuse to open their books to the government or anyone else for that matter. I'm tired of corruption in the name of the all mighty dollar; I'm tired and enraged over the victimization of the middle class; I'm tired and infuriated by the silence around climate change. This is why I am voting for Obama, this is why I am voting straight blue, not because I think they're going to save us, only the people organized can do that, but because I think the democrats and Obama will respond positively (i.e. not shoot us) to a loud and clamoring humanity-first electorate. Certainly Obama's humanity shone through in the way he handled Hurricane Sandy, so did Christie's. Overnight Chris Christie, a true company man, became a man of the people when he consciously chose not to play politics with human tragedy.

There's so much suffering in the world you just can't think about it all the time but think about it we must. Living in a democracy is a responsibility; it is our responsibility as citizens to know and stay on top of the issues, to know what bills are coming up and the why's and wherefore's behind them. I've always thought the reason why cuts to education are usually the first cuts to be made is because there is nothing more threatening to capitalism than an educated electorate. Fox could not exist in the face of an educated electorate. There really are scores of things you can do to immediately help the victims of Sandy, google how to help, do some research and make your choices. The most powerful thing you can do to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy in the long term is vote straight blue, vote Obama.

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

Big Oil And God

2012-10-21T07:58:00.001-04:00

“And on the eight day man created money and man so loved his bloodless creation he built and ordered an entire world around it.” Jane Lee’s Book of Door

The Republican answer to the lagging economy is nuclear power, fracking, the Keystone XL pipeline, and off-shore drilling, what I call the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Clearly when your God gives you dominion over the planet it’s ok to destroy it and remake it in the way you deem most profitable no matter what the cost to humanity or the eco-system on which the quality of life and the health of human beings depends. Just to be clear this is the same God behind the Republican War against Women’s Rights and Reproductive Freedom, the same God that was written into being by Patriarchy for Patriarchy in the Genesis story, and the same God who is invariably invoked to stop humane, social change.

This is the God who insisted that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac and the man, without missing a beat gathered up the wood to burn him, packed up his knife, motioned his son to follow, and up the hill they went. Evidently the trek to the sacrificial altar had been made before as Isaac wonders out loud what they are going to sacrifice. Rather than saying, ‘you son,’ Abraham answers, ‘the Lord will provide.’ Fast forward a few verses and we find Isaac bound to the wood that will be his funeral pyre and Abraham knife drawn leaning over him, at which point, poof, the Angel of Lord appears and tells Abraham he doesn’t have to kill his son because now God knows that he, Abraham, ‘fears him.’ Rustle, rustle in the hedges behind them and there’s a ram, whereupon Abraham says to Isaac, ‘you see I told you God would provide, we will sacrifice this ram.’ The story, or parable if you will, is no longer about a man murdering his son because of the voices in his head; it has become a story about how God will provide for the blindly obedient.

Clearly the writers of the Abraham-Isaac story were some of the world’s first spin-meisters and a prototype for future Republican legislation writing lobbyists only today “Look a ram! Isn’t God great!?” has become “Look! Jobs! Aren’t fracking, nuclear power, the keystone XL pipeline, and offshore drilling, great?” Like Isaac who was supposed to forget that just a few minutes ago his father had a knife to his throat, we’re supposed to forget that fracking destroys the earth’s water systems, that the gulf has not recovered from the BP oil spill, that the Keystone XL pipeline is not going to provide the number of jobs claimed and that the Japanese are in the process of phasing out nuclear power because of Fukushima. We’re supposed to forget that people in fracking zones are setting fire to their tap-water, that eyeless shrimp, fish oozing sores, and a whole range of mutant creatures are showing up daily in the gulf, that Eleanor Fairchild, a 78-year old Texas grandmother was arrested for trespassing on her own land when she tried to stop the Keystone XL pipeline from laying pipe on her property, and that the lives of hundred of thousands in Japan continue to be brutally affected by the disaster.

No matter what the experts say, no matter what they promise, none of the four horsemen of the apocalypse will ever be immune to human error, natural disaster, or any other serious incident that could cause a devastating accident. They are first and foremost about making as much money as possible and historically to keep profits high safety cuts are the first made. Then when the inevitable happens the cut is lied about or covered up. Without fail the profit protecting spin that follows the disaster states that more stringent protective measures guaranteeing the safety of human beings and the environment have been put in place. This is the ram in the bushes.

Nuclear power, fracking, the Keystone XL pipeline, and offshore drilling are as poisonous to the earth and her people as a God who demands a father kill his beloved son. We are not following blindly; we are our own angels.

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

Of Course It's About Religion

2012-10-19T19:58:00.000-04:00

Women’s reproductive freedom is not a war against religion; it is a war against religion imposing its will on the tribe of women. To say that the battle for women’s rights and women’s reproductive freedom isn’t about religion though would be a lie. It is about a religion; 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 and that is persecution. The witch burnings of the middle ages come to mind.
Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat

Bent Priestess - Regulating the Seed Spilling Activities of Men

2012-10-17T21:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Republican Party,

Clearly you and the rest of the anti-choice movement feel that you have a mandate from God to legislate what women can and can’t do with their bodies. Of course the God you represent was created by man for man a little over five thousand years ago when he re-wrote the Genesis story. Unknown to the vast majority of the global population, the purpose of the re-written Genesis was to destroy the religion of the Goddess. The subsequent genocide of Goddess worshipping people, necessary to impose the will and ways of the new, hornless, lightning-throwing God, is recorded in the old testament.

I don’t expect you to follow any of the above. Being evangelical Christians, the actual history of the bible and the foundation of your ethics and morality is of no importance to you, but I’m sure when I say I’ve come up with a ‘Solomon Solution,’ to the abortion problem you, bible literate men, will understand the reference. As you are fully aware the creators of the legislation regulating what I can and can’t do with my body are overwhelmingly male. Yes there are lots of anti-choice women but the anti-choice movement itself is run and funded by men. It only seems fair that if men can tell me what I can do with my body then I should be able to tell men what they can do with their bodies. I contacted the Kitchen Table Caucus who ran a few studies and am pleased to report that 98% of the women interviewed would be perfectly willing to give up their reproductive freedoms, (abortion, contraception, and family planning) if they were allowed to legislate men’s sexual activities. Sexual activities would be defined as any activity where semen is spilled, i.e. fucking, jerking off, and blow jobs.

It makes perfect sense; men’s sexual activities are the reason women need abortions. If they would just wrap the pickle we would not be having this conversation, now would we? It’s true jerking off and blow-jobs don’t make a baby but I think it’s realistic to consider both “gateway” behaviors, meaning they lead to fucking, in much the same way smoking marijuana leads to heroin addiction. Our biggest obstacle will be the political action committee (or PAC) that will no doubt form and said PAC’s lobbyists. Clearly they’re going to be against legislating when and if a man is allowed to spill seed but the ladies of the Kitchen Table Caucus and I are ready with an on-point and powerful message that will render any argument null and void….the most effective way to eradicate a problem is to remove whatever is causing the problem and what is causing the problem is semen. This is a biological fact. No semen, no baby.

There is no question that men are going to strongly resist having their sexual activity legislated and if they hook up with the men who are part of the class action suit suing for the return of their foreskins we’re in for quite the wrangle. The reality is this…men’s sexual activities would not have to be regulated if they behaved responsibly, and clearly they have not, or abortion wouldn’t be an issue. How we’re going to regulate men’s sexuality is up for debate; I’m not sure if it’s a matter of chips and an I.P. number, or if Montsanto needs to be brought into it, but I an confident that women from both sides of the aisle, working together, and utilizing town meetings, will come up with the perfect solution. No doubt some kind of re-programming will be an in order, perhaps a sonogram of live, swimming sperm and/or cross-country billboards of bible scripture. The bible is fraught with strongly worded scripture against the seed spilling activities of men with other men, animals, and women, and if I understand correctly the bible is God’s word and the law by which you abide. Clearly if there are so many rules and regulations around the seed spilling activities of men, it stands to reason that the regulation of men’s sexual activities is your God’s answer to the abortion problem. I know, sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

All the best, Katherine Manaan - MAWT

The Kitchen Table Caucus

Bent Priestess - Breast Cancer Awareness

2012-10-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

As many of you know I work with cancer patients and have been studying the disease of cancer for over 15 years. The following is the result of my research and my experience.

The cancer industry is a trillion dollar a year industry funded by drug companies and multi-national companies that are manufacturing products containing cancer causing carcinogens and other known cancer causing substances. This is why virtually no monies are spent on cancer prevention because once the connection is made between the carcinogen and the cancer ostensibly the corporations (funding cancer research) are going to have to cease and desist manufacturing a product that is making them billions. It’s a fucking holy trinity of profit; they make the carcinogen that causes the disease, they own the patents to the drug and sell the drug that is the “prescribed” treatment for the disease, and they own the patents and sell the drugs that treat the side effects of chemo. In the meantime they will fund the research for a magic bullet cure, which they will then sell for even more money. Corporations, no matter what the cost to humanity, expect a return on their investment and they’re not about to give up a trillion dollar business unless it’s going to pay them even more.

Cancer research is based on the hypothesis that if you kill the primary tumor you will cure the cancer. It is also assumed that the only way to do this is through chemo and/or radiation sometimes, sometimes not, in conjunction with surgery. Yet roughly 90% of cancer patients die from metastasis, and chemo and radiation do not stop metastasis. When a doctor tells a patient that such and such has been proven to be an effective course of treatment, the patient hears “cure,” but what is actually being said is that the treatment has been shown to retard/shrink the growth of cancer cells in the lab. There is no correlation whatsoever between the shrinking of cancer cells and cancer cure yet this continues to be the hypothesis on which all cancer research is based.

The number one medical/scientific argument against research into alternative and complimentary cancer treatments is the fact that the treatments cannot be tested within the framework of what passes for ‘good science,’ namely the double blind, placebo controlled study, wherein one side gets the drug and the other side gets the placebo (“treatment has been shown to retard/shrink the growth of cancer cells in the lab”) but the double blind placebo controlled study cannot gauge the impact of a drug on the rest of the body. That more cancer patients die from the effects of chemo and/or radiation than they do from cancer clearly illustrates the core weakness of this kind of study in relation to cancer research and treatment. Billions of dollars are spent on drugs to treat the effects of chemo and/or radiation and the drugs are made by pushers of chemo and/or radiation.

Rates of cancer survival as they are presented to the public are based on five-year increments, that is, if you live for five years after treatment than the treatment is considered a success. Overall and relative survival rates do not specify whether cancer survivors are still undergoing treatment at five years, if they still have cancer, or if they’ve achieved remission. Quality of life is also not factored into the picture so if you’re lying in bed comatose on a morphine drip, five years after diagnosis, treatment is still considered a success.

Traditional cancer treatment financially destroys people and is so enormously painful and exhausting that it is almost too much for the everyday person to fathom. The image that comes to mind when I put my hands on people undergoing chemo and/or radiation is a body nuked at the core and the fires spreading outward. The chemo and/or radiation moves through the system like the toxic poison it is killing everything it touches, healthy and unhealthy, and utterly destroying the immune system. The side effects are well documented and horrific. Patients speak of their inability to walk, an overwhelming physical weakness, exhaustion, the inability to take care of themselves or their children, intense nausea, teeth falling out, hair falling out, chemo induced leukemia, feeling like drano is running through their veins, achy bones, achy feet, a sense of being cold all the time and an awful taste in the mouth. Cancer patients get really fucking tired of hearing, “you have so much courage,” “you’re so brave,” and other phrases along those lines.

Let us not pour our hard-earned money, our valuable time, our holy passion, our open hearts, and our incandescent souls into a lie. This information is getting out there, information that’s been around for a long, long time, but underground. Well it’s not underground any more.

Breast Cancer Action is the only breast cancer organization that recognizes the causal link between environment and cancer. They also refuse donations from any corporation producing known carcinogens. Here is the link:

For more information on cancer read Questioning Chemotherapy by Ralph Moss, PhD.

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

*This post is not in anyway a criticism of patients undergoing traditional treatment. I have patients traditional treatment has worked for, but I have an equal number of patients chemo and/or radiation has not worked for. This post is advocating first and foremost for more patient choice and research into alternatives."

Bent Priestess 9/26/12 - Morning Agida

2012-09-25T10:53:00.002-04:00

Agida - "Italian-American slang for heartburn but it can also mean mental aggravation."

A few days ago the fabulous 40's fb page asked, "if you were voting tomorrow who would you vote for?" Though Obama won I am still floored by how many women were voting for Romney. All I could think was, what's wrong with you people? Are you utterly lacking in any cognitive skills whatsoever? Then I remembered the power of religion, that the anti-choice movement is driven by a religious machine as powerful as the military industrial complex. Fueled by ignorance, superstition, and the terror of the unknown, organized religion promises its followers safety, just like the military industrial complex, and that need, that desire, overrides any and all sanity with the most devastating effects to humanity.

The ethics and morality of any given culture are based upon its religion; religion is based upon its cosmology or Creation story; the cosmology of the culture is the biblical Genesis. The Genesis story is shared by all three major organized religions, ergo global misogyny because the fall from paradise is all Eve's fault. The utter destruction of the divine feminine by the biblical Genesis has given us patriarchy, war, ecocide, classism, elitism, and misogyny; it has given us mankind but not humanity. What we are living through at this point in time is the Shift from the ideal of mankind to the reality of humanity. From "me first and to hell with you," to the recognition that we are in fact interconnected and responsible for each other. This the essence of a true spirituality.

Romney's remarks have proven him to be utterly lacking in any humanity whatsoever. The party for which he stands has consistently voted to remove women's reproductive freedoms and stands firm for the rights of money and profit over the people, no matter how the people suffer. The party for which Romney stands even voted against veterans, men and women who have quite literally put their lives on the line for America. Clearly the illusion of safety to which Romney supporters cling has been ripped apart with honest facts but the power of the illusion lives on and the devastating truth is as many women as men hold fast to it. This is exactly what Christian Dominionists and the 1 % are counting on.

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

Bent Priestess - Per Medical Coverage Of Viagra (Satire Alert)

2012-09-21T20:13:00.000-04:00

To: The Republican Party

Dear Sirs and Madames,

In answer to the document we have recently received….if erectile dysfunction is to be defined (and it is) as a medical condition deserving of coverage what is actually being said is that a man’s inability to achieve tumescence is as harmful to his health and quality of life as say asthma or high blood pressure. Thus Viagra is to ED what an inhaler is to an asthmatic, and blood thinners and beta blockers are to the heart patient. Theoretically treatment allows the patient to enjoy the same quality of life they knew before the disease (medical condition) or so the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, the AMA, and the ads tell us. By taking the prescribed drug, the asthmatic can breathe freely, the heart patient can stave off a heart attack and/or open-heart surgery, and the ED patient can have sexual congress. By defining ED as a medical condition you are stating unequivocally that a man’s ability to engorge and engage in sexual congress is as important as his need to breathe and his ability to avoid a heart attack. Most of the sane and insane men we love beyond all reason agree and have spelled out for us in no uncertain terms that it is the completion of the sex act that is key to a man’s health and quality of life. Interestingly enough the medical community concurs with this man-on-the-street opinion.

To take Viagra and not experience release is a guaranteed and thoroughly unpleasant visit to the hospital. We have this on good authority from the men we know who take Viagra and the doctors who prescribe it. It stands to reason then that the partner of the man taking Viagra, the recipient of his tumescence, is as intrinsic to the treatment of ED as Viagra for it is her/his warm, wet opening that is the stimulation that moves the act of sexual congress to completion. Now, implicit in the idea of birth control as a lifestyle is that SEX is the chosen lifestyle and according to the men and women who define ED as a medical condition that’s bad (you slut) and you’re on your own. But based on your own argument, that the ability to engorge and have sexual congress (release) is vital to a man’s health and well-being, then whoever (female, male, or trans-gendered) is having sex with a man on Viagra is actually performing a valuable medical service; a life-saving, life-prolonging, life-enhancing service, comparable to the Heimlich Maneuver. Birth control (sex) in this situation is hardly a life-style choice any more then a soldier’s need for military issued sunglasses in the desert is an issue of vanity.

The question that begs to be asked is should the service provided by the partner of the man taking viagra be covered by medical insurance as it is as intrinsic to successful treatment of ED as the “exhale” is to breathing. One of the men on Viagra with whom we spoke said he would have no problem paying premiums for his wife’s services. He was a little worried about the deductible though and the number of visits the insurance companies would allow. Yet another man we know on Viagra, an unmarried Republican lobbyist, told us he already spent close to $5000 a month on escorts and massages and wondered what the difference would be between his current expenditures and the monthly premium and the co-pay. Still another man we know, gay and a political activist in a long-term committed relationship, (both he and his partner are taking Viagra) said what’s needed here is an “Association and/or Union” for people who are having sex with men on Viagra, that way the partner can get a better price on the insurance. The lobbyist agreed. The question of course is what is the time frame that determines whether or not ED is a pre-existing condition.

Now back to your original statement given for not insuring birth control namely, “Birth control is a lifestyle choice.” The statement is meant to sound intelligent but it is little more than nonsensical verbosity, therefore it cannot be addressed much less argued without losing hours of valuable time to phophorescent inanity. We are returning this document to you and respectfully request the following: a total of the monies earned by pharmaceutical companies on birth control pills in the last four years, the amount of money the pharmaceutical companies stand to lose if birth control pills, like viagra, are fully covered by insurance, and a paper stating in simple language the process by which insured drugs make money for insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Clearly before we proceed with the conversation, re: full coverage for birth control, we need a bi-partisan review to determine whether the purpose of sex is for pleasure or procreation. We would also need to know how many of the significant others of congress and the senate are in fact indulging in birth control as they are the micro of the macro. How soon do you think you could get a special task force up and running?

Thank you for you time and consideration.

Katherine Manaan
Chairperson – Kitchen Table Caucus.

No Family Planning For You!

2012-09-21T08:47:00.000-04:00

The Source For Women is a Crisis Pregnancy Center in Houston Texas, which has transformed itself into a women’s health center that does not cover pregnancy or pregnant women. This is somewhat problematic given the fact that Texas Governor Rick Perry plans to make the Source the centerpiece of his new Women’s Health Plan. The all-important point of Perry’s plan has nothing to do with women’s health and everything to do with phasing out the federally funded Medicaid Women’s Health Program so that he can starve Planned Parenthood into non-existence and impose the will and anti-choice ways of Christian Dominionism on Texas women.

At the opening of The Source, Perry is quoted as saying....this latest medical center will enable you to spread your message, and do your vital work on a significantly larger scale in the years to come.

From The Source Website: Come experience what God is doing at The Source! See and hear how He’s using the Blessing Room, our uniquely stylized Counseling Suites, the Life Enrichment & Education Classroom, The Woelfel Window to the Womb 4D Ultrasound Suite and more. Catch the vision today!

As ever what’s at stake is women’s health. The Source and Crisis Pregnancy Centers

in general do not even begin to cover all the services that Medicaid’s Women’s Health Programs cover. There are no pap smears, no family planning, no mammograms, all of which are crucial to women’s health. Source CEO Cynthia Wenz told RH Reality Check that in order to be enrolled in the Texas Women’s Health Program they will eventually have to offer pap smears and some contraceptives, but the facts are anti-choicer’s are notoriously anti-birth-control. IUD’s and hormonal contraception are lumped into the same category as the morning after pill, which means that AUL is probably writing legislation this very moment, declaring abstinence a legal form of birth control.

Perry claims that by transforming Crisis Pregnancy Centers into Women’s Health Centers he will be able to serve the community that Planned Parenthood has so ably served. But calling a Pregnancy Crisis Center a Woman’s Health Center does not change the facts regarding what it is; Planned Parenthood minus family planning. It does not change that the new women’s health centers will be a teaching front for the Christian Right preying on the most vulnerable under the auspices of “helping women.” The point of course is to build the ranks, a God’s army of the anti-choicers. That Texas women’s health will suffer dramatically is a small price to pay when you’re doing God’s work.

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

1st posted at Addicting Info 9/21/12

Childcare Assistance? Prove You Were Forcibly Raped

2012-09-20T23:18:00.000-04:00

New Mexico’s Governor, Susana Martinez has found a new and novel way to save the state money and support the people who backed her run for governor. In order for a woman to receive child-care assistance in New Mexico, monies that will allow her to work and/or go to school, she first has to prove that she has done everything possible to secure child-support from the father. The one exception to this rule is if the child is a result of rape. As per the new proposed revisions to the Child Care Assistance Regulations (*.15.2 NMAC) a woman will now have to prove that she was “forcibly raped,” in order to receive child-care assistance. Putting aside for the moment the fact that all rape is forcible, the new provisions will require a police report, an immediate gynecological exam, and a statement from a doctor that the woman in question was in fact raped. Having had a friend who worked in an abused women’s shelter, I’m thinking about the stories she told me of women who were repeatedly beaten and raped by their husbands, husbands who threatened to kill their children or members of their family if they told anyone.

The concept of “forcible rape,” is a right wing, anti-choice term. The majority of the population agrees that abortion is ok in the case of rape; the anti-choicers are against abortion in all cases, ergo the introduction of “forcible rape,” because you know women lie about things like that and can’t determine for themselves whether sex is rape or consensual. New Mexico does not have any type of abortion restrictions such as “waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortion.” Keeping in mind that the extreme of extreme anti-choice group, Susan B. Anthony List, endorsed Martinez’s gubnatorial run, the stage was set for the anti-choicers to make their move; it was just a matter of when. In March, 2012, when Martinez declared April to be “New Mexico’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” “forcible rape,” made its first appearance right there in the second paragraph of Martinez’s Manifesto. “Forcible rape” would then make its next appearance in the proposed revisions to the Child Care Assistance Regulations.

Knowing how AUL, the legal wing of the anti-choice movement and Charmaine Yoest, AUL’s CEO and President, work I agree 100% with Jodi Jacobson, Editor in Chief over at Reality Check, that this all part of a broader strategy. It’s the beginning of chipping away at abortion rights in New Mexico. If rape can be split into “forcible” versus “regular” then abortion can be restricted in the cases of “regular rape.” It sounds insane but it’s that kind of legal hair splitting added to the idea of your money is being wasted on welfare whores that has allowed AUL to be as remarkably successful as they have at chipping away abortion rights at the state level.

Governor Susanna Martinez, anti-choice tool, is one of the former nominees for Talking Points Memo’s 2011 Golden Duke Awards, which recognize the year’s great accomplishments in muckiness including acts of venal corruption, outstanding self-inflicted losses of dignity, crimes against the republic, bribery, exposed hypocrisy and generally malevolent governance.

There will be a hearing on the proposed revisions to the Child Care Assistance Regulations in October, 2012. As of yet there are no petitions to sign but I’m sure there will be.

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

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Anti-Choice Movement Manufactures Coerced Abortion Crisis

2012-09-02T15:01:00.001-04:00

Clearly the anti-choice movement has unlimited funding because every time I turn around there’s yet another piece of anti-choice legislation making its way through yet another state’s legislature. The latest anti-abortion bill on the dockets is the Coercive Abuse Against Mothers Prevention Act because unbeknownst to most of us, women young and old, are being forced to have abortions. Yes, they’re being clubbed into clinics at this very moment, which is why 11 states are currently considering coercion bills. As ever, the anti-choice movement argues that their policy is to protect women and that it is their overwhelming, heart-felt wish to protect women that drives their work. It has nothing to do with religion.

Of all the coercion bills South Dakota’s is the most extreme. Though the bill itself was enacted as of July, 2012, the most controversial part of the legislation is currently being challenged in the courts. If the challenge is struck down women in South Dakota will be required to submit to an interview at one of three state sanctioned pregnancy help centers to discuss the circumstances that may subject her to coercion. The counselor will inform the pregnant woman about the counseling and educational services that are available to her. She will also inform the expectant woman of assistance that is available to help her maintain her relationship with her unborn child. Pregnancy Help Centers, yesterdays anti-choice Pregnancy Crisis Centers, offer free sonograms, are faith-based, and vehemently anti-choice; it is their overwhelmingly heart-felt desire to protect women that drives their work. It has nothing to do with religion.

Central to the defense of the South Dakota coercion bill is Brittany Wilson. In the months and years that have followed Brittany’s 2005 abortion she has testified in federal court that her boyfriend made her get an abortion she didn’t want and it’s all Planned Parenthood’s fault. She was bawling her eyes out you see, they should have known this was coercion. The facts are Brittany scheduled the abortion, listened to the recording of the state-mandated information about the risks of abortion and her legal rights, and arrived the day of the scheduled abortion and paid $447.00 for the procedure. The Planned Parenthood staffer, thoroughly aware of Brittany’s distress, asked her if she had considered adoption, to which Brittany replied that she didn’t “want to do that.” The doctor then offered through the staffer to perform the abortion on another day to which Brittany replied, “I’m alright,”and went out to lunch. Some time after the abortion Brittany had a nervous breakdown, started drinking heavily, and had to go on anti-depressants. Again, this was all Planned Parenthood’s fault for coercing her into having an abortion. Her story was successfully used in defense of a 2005 anti-choice law requiring an abortion provider to inform patients of certain state determined risks of abortion most of which are disputed by mainstream science and medical organizations. Brittany’s story has been hauled out once again in the South Dakota Case. The facts of Ms. Wilson’s story, like medical and scientific research, are superfluous and interfere with the anti-choice movement’s overwhelming and heart-felt desire to protect women. It has nothing to do with religion.

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that coerced abortion has reached crisis levels in the United States, as anti-abortion leaders claim, anymore than there was ever legitimate evidence that Planned Parenthood was engaging in sex-selective abortions. The anti-choice movement continues to successfully concentrate its considerable resources on making access to an abortion at the state level as humiliating and difficult as possible, the point being, as per Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of AUL, the legal wing of the anti-choice movement, to make Roe ”crumble under its own weight and become irrelevant. You don’t have to overturn Roe to actually make progress at the state level,” she said and, unfortunately for women across the United States, she’s right. Waiting periods, sonograms, specified wait times between counseling and the procedure, required information about fetal development, fetal pain, the gestational age of the fetus, building regulations so strict the clinic has to close, and the list of impossible regulations, goes on. If Romney wins the election there is no question a woman’s legal right to an abortion will be overturned, Title X monies will no longer go to Planned Parenthood, and hundreds of thousands of low-income women and children will lose access to affordable health care. The monies instead will go to Pregnancy Help Centers. At this point Alaska, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, and Pennsylvania have enacted laws allowing state funding for Pregnancy Help Centers and it’s all about an overwhelming and heart-felt desire to help women and has nothing to do with religion.

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

Posted on Addicting Info, 9/1/12

Video Game Teaches Children To Kill New York Jews and Atheists For Christ

2012-08-30T16:51:00.000-04:00

Who wants to play Christian gang? Ok. Let’s pretend we’re patrolling the streets of post-apocalyptic New York and killing off Jews, atheists, and other evil people who refuse to convert to our kind of Christianity. Ooh-Rah!

This is the subject of, Left Behind – Eternal Forces, a video game series based on the frighteningly successful Rapture series, co-authored by Jerry Jenkins and the bible-thumping, fundamentalist minister Tim Lahaye. These games are not new, they've been around awhile, and are carried by over 10,000 U.S. retailers, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Circuit City, GameStop, EB Games, CompUSA, Amazon.com, Costco. They first hit the shelves in 2006, just in time in time to celebrate the birth of the man known as the Prince of Peace. The latest game, Left Behind-World at War 4, was released at the end of 2011. I am bringing the games up now because one, I just discovered them, and two, because they are part of the nationwide indoctrination of the children of the right into the ways of Christian Dominionism.

The game teaches children that it is noble, right, to kill any man or woman who refuses to convert, to worship, as they do. Killing for Christ then becomes an extension of religious freedom. The Christian gang member feels deep, gut-wrenching agony when he/she bumps into someone who refuses to see reason and convert, and that you see is the purpose of prayer, prayer will give you the strength to follow through (eat my gun) on what needs to be done in the name of Christ. Children who play the game are the same children who attend schools that teach creationism rather than evolution, schools that are slowly but surely beginning to receive federal funding. These children are the next generation of Tea Partiers; these children are the future Paul Ryans, Lila Roses, and James O’Keefes.

Left Behind Games claims its products perpetuate positive values. What the games actually do is deepen the fault lines between the religious right and everybody else. When people feel insecure they reach, they grasp, for orthodoxy, they give up personal freedom for safety; they project their fears outward, onto what Carl Jung calls the "other." In this case that would be people who worship differently. The difference becomes the reason why everything is a mess, not safe, and all these ugly things are happening. If they would just convert...

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

Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer Endorses President Obama (VIDEO)

2012-08-30T13:39:00.000-04:00

As per Media-ite a very excited Jan Brewer, the Arizona Republican Governor told NBC’s Ron Mott at the Republican National Convention: I know if President Obama is elected in November, which I hope he is, he will be able to come together with all of us and come up with a solution. I believe he will secure our borders. And therefore we can resolve all of the other issues as a simple matter.

Hmmmm, Do you think she knew what she was saying when she said it? Could Satan have made her do it?

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

Posted at Addicting Info 8/30/12

Obama Suggests A Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Citizens United

2012-08-30T00:04:00.001-04:00

When Citizens United was originally passed striking down federal limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions, it effectively ended elections of the people, by the people and for the people and ceded control to corporations. As per Justice Kennedy, “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption and the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.”

Bullshit.

Today on reddit Obama suggested a constitutional amendment to Citizens United might be the answer to stop the unprincipled, unethical, and contaminating influence of super pacs and dirty money.

Hi, I’m Barack Obama, President of the United States. Ask me anything. I’ll be taking your questions for half an hour starting at about 4:30 ET.

Question: What are you going to do to end the corrupting influence of money in politics during your second term?

Answer: Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs; they fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress – to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who. We should also pass legislation prohibiting the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.

Per the Huffington Post:

Reddit moderators and administrators quickly confirmed it was actually Obama in the comment thread, and Obama himself posted on his verified campaign Twitter account that it was indeed him.

To view the entire tweet.

As the dog and pony show that is the Republican National Convention continues today’s reddit exchange reminds me of why I voted for Obama in the first place and why I am voting for him again.

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

Posted at Addicting Info 8/29/12

Happy Sunday, Overthrow Patriarchy!

2012-08-26T13:24:00.000-04:00