deborah g

Time to move on

debg — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 20:03:12 GMT

So, since this place is owned by the Russians, and since their leader has done serious damage to civilisation and is clearly planning on expanding that, I think the time has come to bid farewell to this place.

I have a new blog page at Dreamwidth:

https://debgrabien.dreamwidth.org/

For any of my friends here, if you're over there, hit me up. So far as I can tell, the place is not owned by an inimical foreign power.

Also, having left Land of the Twits in 2017 because it was toxic cesspool by both the ultra right and ultra left fringe group, I'm extremely happy so dar over at Bluesky:

@debgrabien.bsky.social

Not sure how many of my friends from here are likely to read this, but if you do, this is what's happening. I'll leave this up for a week or so, to give people an opportunity, and then I'm deletting the account.

Time marches on.

Long time, no post

debg — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 05:33:55 GMT

So here is a link to my band's most recent live show, the first one with a live (and very restricted) audience. We had about a 30% capacity and that was just fine by me. This was before omicron showed up, but after boosters.

Yes, my hair has silvered up. That's because I got old.

https://youtu.be/hkgtM6e8tF8

A letter to the DCCC and Nancy Pelosi

debg — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 23:47:48 GMT

I just got a "unity survey" from the DCCC. They'd love contributions. Here's my response, just printed out, signed and about to be returned to them:

"19 September 2017

Representative Nancy Pelosi
DCCC
P.O. Box 96039
Washington, DC 20077-7243

Dear Ms. Pelosi:

I'm writing to you as a longtime constituent. I'm writing to you as a Democrat whose first presidential candidate, at age 18, was Shirley Chisholm.

I'm also writing in response to your "unity" survey, because I have something I want to say to you, and I am not the only one saying it.

If you look at political contributions to the DCCC appeals since you began sucking up to the Bernie Sanders contingent - they are not Democrats, and neither is he - you'll notice something that really should raise some red flags: your donations are down sharply.

A question for you. Has it honestly not occurred to you that the base of this party - people of colour, women, immigrants, GLBT - is sickened, dismayed, and/or outraged by the party's willingness to throw us under the bus to appease the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? If not, I suggest you let that occur to you, as of now.

Because, trust me, the Democratic Party base is disgusted. We have had enough. The fact that you have been deliberately obtuse, have deliberately used us as pawns, have deliberately discarded everything we do and have done for the Democratic Party because a man who labels civil rights, gay rights, and womens rights, as "identity politics", and says we don't matter as much as a handful of white Trump male voters in Iowa, has thrown vicious ignorant temper tantrums, one after another, is costing you. It's likely to cost the Democratic party a lot more.

Unity? Do we want to give you money to elect candidates like Heath Mello, or other anti-choice candidates? No.
Do we want to enrich the coffers of "Our Revolution", on whose behalf Sanders said that "Trump voters aren't racist, they aren't sexist, and they aren't deplorable"? No.

Do we want to allow this egocentric hijacker, who spent decades urinating on everything the party worked for because it didn't meet his fauxialist high standards, to take over our party and throw us under the wheels?

Come on. I've voted for you for years. You aren't that stupid.

Lose Bernie. It comes down to that. Right now, you have Tom Perez escorting Sanders all over this country in the name of "unity". It isn't unity, it's a book tour. You know, the kind Bernie's mouthpieces, the Young Turks and The Intercept, are screaming at Hillary Clinton about? Yes, one of those. This is a "celebration of a white male voting bloc" attempt, and the fact that you are DARING to ask the base for money to support it is horrifying and disillusioning.

Summation: the DCCC will not get a dime from me unless and until you show Sanders the door. If he and his handful of beer-swilling Rust Belt white voters are worth more to you than we are, why not ask them for donations? I certainly won't be giving you any.

You allowed Sanders to denigrate and insult the woman that we, THE BASE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, nominated and voted for. You've said nothing to shut him up. You've actually gone out of your way to placate him. Here's a heads up: he and his cohorts are not the people you should worry about placating.

Any money I donate will be directly to a candidate, and I will vet that through EMILYs List first. Right now, I am about done with my party. If the loyal base means less to you than Bernie Sanders and his shrill screechy Old White Man rage, ask Linda Sarsour or Susan Sarandon or Nomiki Konst or Michael Tracey for a donation. And you had best hope they open their wallets, because you won't be getting it from me.

Deborah Grabien"

(And yes, I said and meant Elizabeth Warren. She backed that "but their votes were because they were ECONOMICALLY ANXIOUS!" bullshit.)

debg — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 06:58:03 GMT

Another 6 September, another hurricane.

Still here, for now.

"Life must go on; I forget just why." - Millay

[sarcasm] Pity the poor, oppressed, forgotten, marginalised straight white American male.

debg — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 08:13:41 GMT

Yesterday, on Twitter, I got asked a simple question:

"Why the Bernie hate?"

Here's my answer. I really feel the need to codify, in language, why I think that any cooperation whatsoever with the "Our Revolution", The Nation, Sanders-led wing of American politics would set this country back just as far as what the New Crazies currently infesting the White House and Congress have done.

A pair of statements:

1. "What we are doing in this campaign -- and it just blows my mind every day, because I see it clearly, we're taking on not only Wall Street and the economic establishment, we're taking on the political establishment. And so I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund, in Planned Parenthood. But you know what, Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time and some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment." (By the way, there is no Human Rights Fund. It's the Human Rights Campaign.)

2. "Planned Parenthood mostly helps low-income people. Four out of five of those who benefit are at or below 150 percent of the poverty line. Women in this country have a right to healthcare [and] a right to control their own bodies. No cuts to Planned Parenthood. We will fight back."

So. The first statement is from January 2016. The second is from January 2017.

Both statements brought to you by Bernie Sanders. I see a little dichotomy, there.

The first quote is about as clear as it gets: "I am the anti-Establishment candidate. ALL Establishment is bad. We will take down the bad Establishment. And Planned Parenthood (which, oddly enough, had just endorsed the woman who had been out there working for them, with them, supporting them, being visible for them at every turn, rather than her male opponent) is Establishment." If anyone wants to argue that's not what he said or what he was trying to say, it's going to be a one-sided argument. This is what he said, and this is what he meant.

A year later, suddenly, the tone has changed. In fact, the entire world has changed. I went back and looked up something I hadn't at the time: Planned Parenthood's full page explanation of why they endorsed Clinton over Sanders, despite both having a 100% positive record on women's reproductive care. That statement includes their side-by-side actual actions as legislators and public figures. And that side-by-side comparison makes it really clear that while he's been happy to vote yes on something, or add his name as a co-sponsor to someone else's bill on women's issues and women's rights, he has led, well, nothing. She's the one sponsoring global initiatives, introducing her own legislation, making those deals as needed, LEADING:

https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/blog/how-do-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders-compare-womens-health

Now, three months after his tweet about fighting the defunding, Sanders is asked, in interview, whether he feels the Democratic party (of which he is not a member) is open to "Less rigidly pro-choice candidates."

And he replies, "yes, I think they are."

Because I'm trying to keep the tone of this piece as even as possible, I'll refrain from telling him to go fuck himself with a #MAGA hat. I will remind him, and anyone okay with his attempt to backseat-drive the party he's sneered at for decades and which rejected his attempt to grab control by 3.7 million votes, that he has zero right - zero as in, none, nada, zip, zilch, bupkis - to speak for what the Democratic Party is "open" to.

He followed that piece of barefaced bullshit with an "Our Revolution" speech in which he said - remember, this is the current face of the "progressive" movement:

"Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) on Friday defended voters of President Trump, saying that the election was Democrats' to lose and that the party needs to better represent the working-class voters who supported Trump and other GOP lawmakers

"Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don't agree, because I've been there. Let me tell you something else some of you might not agree with, it wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election."

Sanders went on to say that a "fundamental restructuring of the Democratic party" was needed to win future elections and that problems with party's current setup is why many were quick to support Trump in the election, not because of some of the rhetoric on the campaign trail."

OK. Breathe deeply, Deb. You know very well that the thing that gets your rage on fastest is masculine arrogance. But really, this is a masterpiece of arrogance and hypocrisy from a man who has proven himself as one of the most tone-deaf human males on this side of the Atlantic.

As an alternative to me taking him apart, let's take his speech apart.

1. He actually believes, or else is cynically trying to peddle, the idea that Trump voters - who listened to Trump's entire line of bullshit, from his right to grab women by the pussy as his masculine prerogative to his Mexican wall to deporting Muslims to admiring Putin to calling black American neighborhoods drug-riddled crime-infested sewers - aren't racists, sexists, and homophobes. Really? Then what, in fact, WERE they actually supporting when they voted for Trump?

They were voting for the faux-populist loudmouth who offered them the right to hate with impunity. They voted for their mirror.

You know what that makes them, Bernie? It makes them racists, sexists, and homophobes. Oh, you left out "xenophobes". That, too. Or is that covered under their mistrust of anyone who isn't white and Christian and preferably male? Yes indeed, folks, let us reach out to these poor misunderstood salt of the earth Trump voters.

2. "They're not deplorable". My god, the man is STILL writhing because Clinton kicked his ass. On this one, his pettiness and outraged ego are so visible, you could see them from space. He can't resist the jab; he gets off on it. And again, anyone want to tell me how much he "supported" her, save your breath. He said this, not me, and he said it LAST WEEK.

3. "I don't agree, because I've been there." He's been there? He's been where?

He's been a poor, oppressed, underrepresented, marginalised, brutalised white American male, is where he's been. Poorest Bernie, and poorest misunderstood white Trump voters. There's only one small problem:

There is no such creature.

This is the very echo of what the GOP has been selling for years: straight white males in America are the "real" oppressed constituency. It's bullshit, now and forever. It always has been, and it always will be. This is the worst kind of revisionism, a grotesque distortion of reality.

Fact, like it or not: the only oppression of straight white males in American history has been done by other straight white males.

People of colour have never oppressed you. Women have never oppressed you. Even if we wanted to, when has that been possible? You own everything. You control everything. Hell, the white male population of this country is so freaked out by the idea of a woman president, it invited in a foreign power to hack the election she was leading in. You aren't oppressed, except by each other. You're the ruling elite of this country, whether you have a dime or not. No matter how little you have, you always, always have more power than the woman, the person of colour, the gay, the immigrant, standing next to you or behind you. In fact, you're the Establishment.

And now, courtesy of the "country over party" argument (I prefer "people over talking points", but that's probably too radical), we're being told that we need, not to level the playing field so that all Americans get a fair share, but that we must protect the poor stereotypical oppressed unsexist unracist unhomophobic Trump voter at all costs, even if that means throwing everyone they feel threatened by overboard.

What, exactly, are we looking at here? The calls for "unity" boil down to what? We're looking at a concerted effort by the leader of the left to get us to cooperate with the leader of the right, by doing - what?

"Restructuring the Democratic Party". And the chosen way to do that, going by Sanders' speech, is take any power or freedom away from the needs of the actual base of the Democratic Party - women, POC, GLBT, immigrants - in favour of "empowering" all those poor oppressed straight white American males. To "appease" them.

Because if we don't, Trump and his friends will continue to win.

WTF? Not seeing the logic here. The Democratic party, the center, is plenty unified. It's the breakaway contingent yelling that we must woo more white guys, no matter what, that's doing the dividing.

Now try it this way: "We, the mainstream white male population, voted in high numbers (Trump won that category, what a shock) for a racist sexist xenophobic traitor because he will put those inferior people - women and blacks and queers - in their place, and exalt us again. See? Both the ultra-right AND Our Revolution are with us!"

There is no "war" on straight white American men. They are the most privileged, pampered demographic in this country, which is precisely why they're trying everything and anything, including treason, to resist any change to that status quo.

I was asked, why the Bernie hate. This is why. What he's advocating is creating an alt-left and alt-right straight white male voting bloc at everyone else's expense. I'm a card-carrying member of "everyone else."

I started out the primaries actually thinking I'd be equally happy with either one of them winning the nomination. Over the past 14 months, Bernie Sanders forfeited all my respect (and yes, I used to admire him, rather a lot). I can't speak for anyone but myself, and in fact this entire piece has been to answer a one on one question I was asked by someone else I respect and like very much. But speaking for myself, I consider his attempt to force his agenda on a party he doesn't belong to arrogant and unacceptable. I consider his whitewashing of Trump voters disgusting. I consider his sucking up to them out of one side of his mouth while telling the real base of the party he despises that he has our backs despicable and unforgivable. There are other reasons I've become disgusted with him - his willingness to take credit for ideas that aren't his is a big trust-killer, such as his "new" single payer for all bill, which is something the excellent Rep. John Conyers has introduced every year since 2003.

You know that phrase, woke? Been there for a very long time. Believe me when I say that I am not getting shoved off the side of the boat to make room for a white straight male vision of America, by Bernie Sanders or by anyone else.

#UnRigTheElection - Dem reps, state by state, and a short script

debg — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 05:55:01 GMT

I am SO DAMNED OVER this disease.

debg — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 01:49:06 GMT

I'm tired of having to explain it.

I'm tired of having to apologise for it.

I'm tired of having to say no, I am not being a diva, I really will fall down into a shaking feverish jumble of arms and legs and tears if the disease decides to take me down, if I decide to ignore it, if I decide to challenge it, if I forget about it.

I'm tired of having to remind myself that I can't stand in one place for too long because there will always, always, be that sudden jolt of fizzing burn under the skin, heel to hip, that's the myokimia and the painful quiver that ripples and fizzes under the skin.

I'm tired of having to mumble to myself for the first hour I'm awake, telling my hands not to drop things, not to spill things, not to break anything. I'm not being weird. There are, at best, jumbled signals between brain and damaged nerves and I literally have to talk the body through what would automatic without the MS. Sorry if that disturbs anyone. Actually, no I'm not sorry. Think whatever the fuck makes you feel better.

I'm tired of the sideways looks when I'm somewhere in public and the ataxia hits, and I fall or stagger. I'm tired of assholes like the twentysomething a few years ago, who, when this happened while we were queued up at the post office, loudly informed me that "there are twelve-step programs to help you." Yes, he got shredded verbally - I still have some language skills at my disposal and I use and will use them. That doesn't make it any better.

I'm tired of the sense of panic that washes over me, demolishes me, buries me. I'm tired of the sudden hits of the bleakest depression imaginable. I'm tired of suddenly feeling worthless, useless, a waste of space, and oxygen thief.

I'm tired, most of all, of the increasing sense of "good, that works, bring it on" when I contemplate being gone completely.

I am tired of this disease. And I don't get a vote, except for a very final one.

End of vent.

[music] Twenty feet from stardom...?

debg — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:56:04 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqVB20kuV10&feature=share

Last year, courtesy of my beloved Tracy Sheridan, I actually went to a movie theatre and watched a movie in what, for me, are borderline dangerous surroundings. If the MS kicks in, I need to be on the outside of the row so that I can get out in a hurry, or as fast as ataxia or myokimia will allow. Plus, you know, perfume. Dust. All kinds of little hazard zones.

But we went to see "Twenty Feet From Stardom". It went on to get itself an Oscar. And I have mixed feelings about it, and did then, and said so.

Because what the hell? Was there not a single Caucasian backup singer worthy of the filmmakers' notice?

I submit that you can be white and have made a significant contribution. Just click on the link above and crank it, if you don't believe me.

The vid above has one of the greatest of the backup singers - Kathi McDonald - getting her turn in the spotlight, at a New Years Eve show at the Oakland Colisseum, 1982. Kathi had a set of pipes that could damned well match Etta James. She sang backup with everyone, from Leon Russell to the Stones. A monster voice. In her own way, unique. The performance here will grab you by the scruff of the neck, pull you up in your seat, and bitschlap the living fuck out of you. And you will want more.

She received no mention anywhere in "Twenty Feet." Not a word. Um - what the hell?

Mind you, the singers that did - Merry Clayton, Darlene Love, Lisa K. Fisher, Tata Vega, and of course the original Brown Sugar herself, Claudia Lennear - are all mindblowing. No argument there. They're legends for a reason.

But where is some mention of Kathi? Where is Rosemary Butler, whose pure gorgeous voice gave all that amazing texture to Bonnie Raitt, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt? Where is Marcy Levy, without whom I doubt Eric Clapton from the mid-seventies on would have been half as memorable? Go find Clapton at Live Aid and watch "She's Waiting". I rest my case.

My point is that, if the makers had wanted to make a documentary that dealt purely with the way gospel influenced singers, who then influenced other popular music, the omission of any of the above would have been at least comprehensible to me. But that was never mentioned or indicated during the film. It was very telling that, while they spoke several times in the film with Sting's female backup singer, I have no clue what her name is, because it was buried somewhere in the credits. Why yes, she's Caucasian and she sings, twenty feet from Sting's stardom. Invisible or unimportant, apparently.

So yes, I have very mixed feelings about the film. And I'm soothing my soul by listening to Kathi, to Rosemary, to Marcy singing "The Core" with Clapton.

(Oh, and the piano on the vid above is gorgeous. So is the man playing it. So there.)

[Watching The Wheels] People say I'm lazy...

debg — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 01:20:44 GMT

119 pages.

Sent to WIP readers. Woof.

Happy birthday, Nicky.

debg — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 15:55:54 GMT

And that's all I've got.

[Watching The Wheels] I just had to let it roll...

debg — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:59:03 GMT

106 pages.

Hey! I can write music and books at the same time!

(Not being snarky. It's an unspeakable relief.)

Sending to wip readers.

[Watching The Wheels] Been awhile

debg — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 20:26:42 GMT

100 pages.

I need some FEEDBACK, damn it.

debg — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:16:29 GMT

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/bruce-springsteen-and-jimmy-fallon-gov-christie-traffic-jam-born-to-run-parody/n45079/

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

[Kinkaids] Giveaway!

debg — Sun, 05 Jan 2014 20:03:49 GMT

The excellent mystery site, Stop! You're Killing Me! is giving away Kinkaid Chronicles 5-8 (Book of Days, Uncle John's Band, Dead Flowers and Comfortably Numb) as their big January 2014 giveaway. Just enter and maybe win. Here you go:

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/Giveaway.html

The deadline to enter is 8 January, so if you haven't and want, go get on it.

[Comfortably Numb] YAY, excellent Library Journal review!

debg — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 19:40:14 GMT

From the 1 October Library Journal.

Comfortably Numb

BYLINE: Teresa L. Jacobsen

SECTION: REVIEWS; Mystery; Pg. 62 Vol. 138 No. 18

LENGTH: 227 words

Agreeing to perform a New Year's Eve megaconcert in an Emirates kingdom almost proves fatal for the wildly popular rock band Blacklight. Only a provision stipulating that proceeds go toward the band's favorite charities makes it palatable for them to work again with Emir Ali al-Wahid, a former college mate of bandleader Malcolm Sharpe. (Years back, al-Wahid's twin daughters had wreaked havoc with the group and its entourage.) Now ensconced in a palatial palace, the band prepares for their concert. But guitarist JP Kinkaid and his wife, Bree, feel a sick premonition when they hear strange noises one night, followed by the discovery of a corpse in the swimming pool. Troubled, the couple investigate and find a second death site. The emir strikes back, making the band feel like virtual prisoners. Now the Blacklight team must strategize carefully and claim some sort of justice for the victims.

VERDICT Grabien is a master of the rock-and-roll narrative. With its ruminative style, this work is not for thriller fans, but anyone who's wondered about celebrity lifestyles will admire the author's series featuring the multiple sclerosis-afflicted JP. It's not necessary to have read the entire series, but starting with the fifth title, Book of Days, which details the bad behavior of the emir's daughters, would enhance the readers' experience with this one.

* * *

"Grabien is a master of the rock-and-roll narrative" as a pullquote? Um hells yeah. Works for me.

[politics] Why Boehner and the boyz are screwed, no matter what

debg — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 01:42:35 GMT

Interesting couple of weeks for American politics, no?

Seriously. The dog and pony show put on by the White Hood and Crossburning Wing of the Republican Party has been putting on a blink-inducing, Dali-level surrealistic "buh...?" display for the ages. Ted Cruz butchering Dr. Seuss - no, not even going there.

In real terms, what I seem to be looking at is John Boehner and the non-Tea Party jihadists suddenly making what, for them, must be a horrifying discovery: the Republican Party is screwed.

This is what happens when you let a vocal minority run the show for you. Think about it. The House contingent of Tea Party dipshits are obsessively focused on defunding Obamacare. They're SO obsessively focused, they're willing to shut down the entire US Government if stamping their eensy little cloven hooves does't get them the result they want.

Oh, Boehner, you stupid man. Silly, silly grownups.

Look what you let your self-entitled spoiled bratlings do to you. Your failure to distance yourself from the crazypies has left you in the cleftest of sticks. If you disavow them as Republicans - "whoa, the Rand Pauls and Ted Cruz types are nuts, they do NOT represent the majority of our party, we're sane, honest!" - they will probably happily trot off and form a party of their own, which would lose you control of the House. If you DON'T disavow them, your chances in the next election, even with the widespread manipulation of voting fraud your corporate owners, are zero to nil.

By the way, lest anyone wonder or care, my position on Obamacare is that it stands to jump the cost of my annual healthcare to just about ten times what I'm paying through my city's nice lefty single payer service, which will probably cease to exist. I do not love Obamacare. I think it was grossly badly done, and basically wraps up a lovely shiny package for the insurance industry. The use of the term "affordable health care" in connection with this particular law makes me laugh hysterically, after which I curl up in a foetal ball and suck my thumb and cry.

All of which signifies precisely squat.

Because I also think it's the law of the land, and that it needs to be funded. The fact that it fucks me entirely really has nothing to do with anything, and it certainly has nothing to do with why the Klu Klux Paul party wants to block it.

As to the Republicans, pass the popcorn. I wonder when they're going to start biting the heads off live chickens? Because, yes, the freakshow is that nuts.

[food] On the subject of why the body gets the last word.

debg — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 17:36:05 GMT

I have a lot of vegetarian friends. I have a slightly larger than that number of vegan friends.

I am neither. And it's not a "yum, meat!" deal, either. My two attempts at not eating meat - one vegan, one macrobiotic - had what you might call less than desirable results.

The attempt at going vegan (as a teenager, so long ago that I don't remember them even calling it vegan) led to what my doctor at Marin General called one of the weirdest syndromes he'd ever seen; I broke thirty plus bones in the car accident on 6 September 1971. No one else broke anything in the way of bones, except my toddler goddaughter, who was thrown from the shattered back window as the car fell and was crushed by it as it turned over and over. Doctor Steve wanted to find out why I'd sustained all those fractures. Turned out my nice vegan diet - with huge amounts of spinach, kale, beans, and leafy green veggies, because I'm allergic to so much else, including nuts, avocado, and a lot more - had completely blocked my ability to process calcium. The result were nodes of solid calcium on my joints (and one honker of a node on one vocal cord) instead of IN the bones. I was also anemic, severely B vitamin deprived. And my body doesn't process supplements well.

The macrobiotic attempt had actually come first, back in NYC in 1969-1970. That landed me in hospital with severe anaemia. It was so extreme, they tested me for leukemia and various blood cancers. NOT fun.

So here's the bottom line for the Deb body:

Hyperactive autoimmune system =
allergies to about half of everything +
osteoporosis + serious calcium absorption deficiency =

final result: I do not get to be didactic about what I eat. My conscience may prefer to stay away from all animal proteins. My autoimmune system disagrees, and it gets the final say.

On account of I'd like to - you know - NOT DIE YET.

Short form is that, when there are maybe thirty food sources in the world - animal, vegetable and mineral - that you aren't allergic to, you don't get to do anything other than listen to what your body is telling you. You don't get to be faddy about food. And since the multiple sclerosis is likely to take me out earlier than I'm willing to go anyway, I listen to the body, not the pundits. I don't even get to listen to my own conscience on this one.

Sorry, my vegan friends. I adore you all and will happily cook for you (I have a nice colletion of vegan food in my repertoire, because I really like most of it), but I'm not willing to sicken and die for anyone's conscience, including my own.

Soma gets the deciding vote.

Thought for the day - all about pick-a-terms

debg — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 15:37:12 GMT

Heading off to Fairfax for some songmaking today, and then a quick visit with my beloved Tracy Sheridan. Renting a car from Toyota (and please the fates, don't stick me in a :::ick::: Prius, please).

Before I go, though, a random thought.

There are a whole lot of terms one could attach to a human being who kills for pleasure - other humans or animals. There are a lot of terms you could attach for someone who enjoys watching suffering.

Fuck the terms. Here's a simple bottom line for me:

No blood sport ever invented by our species is anything other than vile. And someone who takes pleasure in watching or participating in any of them is a sick twisted asshole whom I'd like gone now, please.

You enjoy watching bearbaiting? Dogfighting? Bullfighting? You're - oh hell, pick a term. Sociopath? Burgeoning psychopath? Waste of perfectly good protoplasm that might have been used to create something acceptable?

Pick a term and own it. And then go the hell away.

You enjoy "recreational hunting"? Fuck you, and that includes the entire British Pink Coat foxhunting brigade - you're making a ritual out of inflicting terror and death, and you suck. Yes, I'm sure there are people reading this who will bridle with righteous indignation: "Hunting isn't like dogfighting or those other things!"

Sorry, buckaroo. It really is, and you're still a pick-a-term. If you aren't eating it, you're killing for fun, and that makes you worthless, and a potential danger. I wouldn't trust you near a child, or with anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon.

I don't know whether you went wrong in the making, when the sperm met the egg, or whether you were taught to be a pick-a-term. I don't actually care. It's the result that worries me.

Actually, if you hunt for fun, I have no idea why you're reading me. You know by now exactly how I feel about it; it's not like I haven't made the position clear. If you enjoy the thrill of wearing fake army gear and crouching in a swamp and blowing ducks out of the sky with your AK-Viagra, we have zippo in common. Go away now.

Thought for the day. Have a good one.

[Gimme Shelter] Rape, murder, it's just a shot away...

debg — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 04:52:46 GMT

71 pages.

I need some FEEDBACK, damn it.

The annual Very Good Day

debg — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 19:11:33 GMT

Forty four years ago today, I ducked under the stage to get out of the weather and the crush of people, and met a piano player with huge brown eyes and one of the best smiles to ever grace this species. Nicholas, Rev 1.

And thirty years ago today, the not quite Elvis wannabe in blue polyester and white shoes in Reno, Nevada asked the amazing man I had the brains to marry if he took this woman, and got the response "You betcha." Nicholas, Rev 2.

Thank you, love. For thirty years of coupledom, thirty seven years of making music together, for the cats and the care and everything else. To quote Ms. Morisette, you see all of me, you see every part, you see all my light and you love my dark.

And you're still here.

[Health] Under our skin, or under their thumb?

debg — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 00:25:34 GMT

Not long ago, I came across a Facebook community, called something like "Please Support Jenny McCarthy on The View".

Um - no. Not a snowball's chance in hell. I am fiercely pro-vaccination for infants, and I really think the anti-vac people (of whom McCarthy is a loud unpleasant example) should not be given broad national platforms from which to advocate sending other peoples' babies back to the seventeenth century by way of eliminating vaccines and reintroducing delightful little things like cowpox, smallpox, whooping cough, polio, measles. Really not so much, 'kay?

I've just become aware that there is just as much arrogance, blindness, ego, dogmatic cant, and raw stupidity on the other side of that divide. No, not vaccinations, specifically. Read it and weep.

I have a friend with Lyme Disease (and, according to her bloodwork and brain scan, several other incredibly nasty infections associated with what happens if you're bitten by a tick and infected with the borrelia spirochete). When I first met her - coming up on three years ago, I think - it was at a show, and she was on crutches. I asked what was wrong with her, and she explained that she'd suddenly started waking up with these huge swollen nodes on her knees and ankles; they'd disappear, then pop up again. She couldn't figure it out, her doctors couldn't figure it out, and in the meanwhile, she was having high fevers as well.

From the "official" guidelines at the IDSA website, on the subject of Lyme and tick-borne infections, in their Congressional hearings:

"Further, no reliable evidence exists that supports the designation of Lyme disease as a chronic, actively infectious disease requiring ongoing antibiotic therapy."

Really? Huh. Want to explain to me how patients deteriorating under your eyes don't qualify as "reliable evidence"?

Everything out there discussing Lyme, and the treatment thereof, relies on the premise that you got bitten, developed the telltale ring marks immediately, shrieked and ran weeping to your doctor, who then gave you two weeks worth of one of the cillins, and then wowie, disease gone now. And if you had "post-treatment" reactions (this all assumes that you've ever been treated, remember), then they might give you a couple of weeks of IV antibiotics. Hey presto! Cured!

Except that it doesn't go down that way, quite a lot of the time. Here's a scenario:

You get bitten on the scalp by a "nymph", which is tinier than a pinhead. You wouldn't see it while it clung to your head for four days. When it finally lets go, you might not know the ring was there. So it could be weeks after you showed the first symptoms, and you might not be connecting it to a tick bite, because why would you?

So you go to your doctor and neither of you mentions Lyme, because why would you? The test is expensive, and we all know just how fond insurance companies are of paying for "unnecessary" tests.

The months go by and you start getting sicker. Night fevers, cognitive issues, can't sleep anymore, joints swelling, memory going. You go back to your doctor. Still nothing in either forebrain about ticks, or about the fact that you were hiking on a trail that actually warned about ticks, not long before the first nodes appeared on your joints.

And then, something twigs it, and you look at the symptoms, and the dots suddenly connect. You go back to your doctor - it's now, what, a year later? - and he waves it away because hey, this is California, Lyme is back east, we don't get it here.

More tests, for RA, for other things. Hundreds of dollars, but no test ordered for Lyme. You go home. You get sicker.

You go back to his office and tell him you aren't leaving until he agrees to test you for Lyme with Public Health. He grudgingly agrees.

The test comes back positive.

And then you make this discovery: chronic infection with borrealis is not considered real. No such thing.

This morning, I was sent a link that, for a couple of very bad moments, left me rethinking my position on guns. This is a science and medical blogger out of Chicago. This represents rationalism, research, good hard science as opposed to all those "pseudoscience" types out there. The tone of the blog was as smug and as arrogant as anything I have come across in a good long while. People who are pointing out that they're dying of long-time Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections are "cranks". The doctors who want to try different ways of treating what the medical industry refuses to admit exists (and yes, some of them, no argument; I don't like doctors who prey on the desperate either) are without exception "quacks". Literally, trying to link anyone who even suggests that it might be a real problem (and looking to go pandemic if treatment isn't found soon, because it's not as if you're getting rid of the ticks) with the anti-vac crazies. And the commenters on this blog? Holy fuck. One small thermonuclear device gets them all. What a bunch of heartless pigs.

The Mayo Clinic - the goddamned MAYO CLINIC - offers precisely two treatments for Lyme: one is "catch it early" and the other is "also catch it early"

My friend has been to Mayo, twice. The second time, she had her positive diagnosis in hand.

They waved it off.

You know what? I've come to a really sad conclusion: my species are, by and large, arrogant soulless morons. Also heartless and detached. It's so much easier to live in some shiny metaverse, isn't it? Where nothing real ever has to be dealt with and it's all theoretical, where only good people have lethal weapons, where the people in charge of safeguarding the public's health actually give a rat's ass about the people in question?

They don't. They care about the almighty dollar and their own pride and egos. They SUCK.

We saw this with AIDS in the eighties. How many people were infected with AIDS by way of transfusions because "screening potential donors is too expensive"? How many millions, yes MILLIONS, of people died because it was a "gay disease"?

Does someone want to tell me how this denial of Lyme in the system three years after you get bitten is ethically any different? How the smug "all those cranks" is any different from Ronald Reagan and the Religious Wrong, designating AIDS a "gay" disease?

I see stupid people. The horror is, they have the power to make all the decisions. And they're everywhere I want to be.

[Trayvon Martin] Why the verdict goes so deep, and so very far beyond race

debg — Sun, 14 Jul 2013 23:17:49 GMT

I was out until very late last night. When I got home (at around half past one in the morning), the first thing I saw when I opened my email was the Martin trial verdict.

This morning, I did what I generally do when something major has happened: I read http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_End_Of_The_Daily_Trayvon?src=soc_fcb Charles Pierce's Esquire essay about it. And as usual, he nailed it. The first paragraph:

"Some night very soon, if he so chooses, George Zimmerman can load his piece, tuck it into the back of his pants, climb into his SUV, and drive around Sanford, Florida looking for assholes and fucking punks who are walking through neighborhoods where he, George Zimmerman, defender of law and order, doesn't think they belong. He can drive around Sanford, Florida and check out anyone who is dressed in such a manner as might frighten the average citizen who has been fed a daily diet of "Scary Black Kids" by their local news and by their favorite radio personalities, and who is dressed in such a manner as might seem inappropriate to their surroundings as determined by George Zimmerman, crimebuster. He can drive around Sanford, Florida until he spots an asshole or a fucking punk and then he can get out of his SUV, his piece tucked into the back of his pants, and he can stalk the asshole or the fucking punk, the one who is in the wrong neighborhood, or who is dressed inappropriately, at least according to George Zimmerman, protector of peace. If the asshole, or the fucking punk, turns around and objects to being stalked -- or, worse, if the asshole, or the fucking punk, decides physically to confront the person stalking him -- then George Zimmerman can whip out the piece from the back of his pants and shoot the asshole, or the fucking punk, dead right there on the spot."

Scary enough, one would imagine. But thinking about it, I realised something even more grim, more to the point, about what this verdict does.

It opens the door to the slaughter of We the Different.

Yes, of course the Martin murder - and yes, it was a murder; one wonders how many members of that jury have a fondness for white hoods when they think no one's watching - was racially motivated. But these Stand Your Ground laws put in place by the paranoid Fox News watchers out there say nothing about race. You don't need to be black to be taken out by a self-proclaimed vigilante.

Here are some examples, and we can expect to see them in these states:

"Hey! That bitch over there, she's chanting something and holding up a big ass sign - dayum! That sign says Keep Abortion Safe! DIFFERENT! She don't belong in my neigbourhood - we don't tolerate no babykillers around here." BLAM!

And a jury acquits him. Look for it to happen, buckaroos. It will, and soon. Any bets on whether the first one of those takes place in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma? Maybe North Carolina?

Or, hmmmm, let's see. Let's try this one:

"Holy shit! That long-haired hippie-looking freak has a ponytail and he's got one of them teeshirts on. What's that say? No Blood For Oil?!? We don't tolerate nothing like that in this nice neighbourhood." BLAM!

And here we go. Peace protesters, women objecting to having their rights trampled, different ethnicities or cultural backgrounds - everyone "different" is now a potential legal target in these states. Hell, somewhere out there, a Zimmerman is going to decide that the homeless paraplegic Desert Storm vet in the wheelchair over there begging for spare change for a meal because the VA has assraped his existence and then cut him dead is one of them dangerous crips, and the shooting will begin.

The verdict in the Martin case is, in its own way, one of the most dangerous things to happen in American "justice" in a very long time. The depths and breadth of what that verdict sets in motion - hell, if you're still reading this and not reaching for Fox News, you don't need me to spell it out.

Legally Killable: it's not just for ethnic minorities anymore. All you need to be is different from the asshole with the gun and the attitude.

And the jury will acquit.

We are so hosed.

[Gimme Shelter] ...if I don't get some shelter...

debg — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:56:45 GMT

53 pages.

Yes, I've slowed down. The multiple sclerosis is definitely in control these days and it doesn't bargain well.

Still, writing. Better than not writing. Right

[Gimme Shelter] ...my very life today...

debg — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:32:28 GMT

40 pages.

Sent to wips a week ago. Need feedback and not getting any. Writing anyway.

Might as well, might as well, might as well....

[healthcare] As posted to Facebook

debg — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:20:31 GMT

As posted in a comment to a discussion about the upcoming health care "reform". Not going to trim or snip what I wrote, because it's complete. For those who will benefit from this new law, I rejoice for them. Not being sarcastic - whomsoever this law helps, that's a damned good thing.

Me, it's looking to screw completely. One word in this damned law - "insurance" - looks to be doing me out of my coverage and ensuring that my multiple sclerosis goes untreated after the first of January, 2014.

1. I live in San Francisco. We have a wonderful program, essentially single payer, called Healthy San Francisco:

http://www.healthysanfrancisco.org/

2. I have multiple sclerosis. No idea what the new med for this would cost out of pocket, but the retail cost of the med I used for ten years until my body started reacting badly to it, was close to $4K a month. If my Kaiser hadn't had a drug cost cap on it (see #3, below), it would have cost me $2K a month.

3. Under HSF, I have full Kaiser coverage, no deductibles (it's an HMO coverage, not a PPO). Cap on my drug costs, under this program, is $15 a month for a non-generic drug.

4. Under the new healthcare act, HSF may have to shut down. Because under this goddamned miserable "let's pass it now, it's full of holes but we can fix it later" bill that NO ONE ON EITHER SIDE BOTHERED TO READ (and yes, I did, when it was still Teddy Kennedy's draft; I even posted a live read and query on Facebook), HSF doesn't qualify as "insurance".

No, I am not projecting or being paranoid. I called HSF and they confirmed. We don't know if I - and many thousands of other people currently covered by HSF - will have coverage after 1 January 2014. Because, see, Obama and congress made damned sure that the poor starving health insurance industry wouldn't suffer by passing HCR.

So, to recap. I have single payer City coverage, but coverage isn't insurance and the law demands that I buy "insurance". My monthly coverage, which is now at a flat $20 a month, can, under Obamacare, jump to fifteen times that for me, and that much again for my husband. It would mean switching to a private Kaiser plan, and under Obamacare there is no cap on what they can charge for my meds.

And the American electorate - which by and large is too bloody stupid to read a bill, and goes for the Shiny! Ooooh! soundbite instead - can kiss every inch of my multiple sclerosis-infected girly arse. So can boody Obama and both parties in that wretched excuse for a legislative branch of our government.

Clear enough, hopefully. And I just ordered myself a wheelchair, getting ready for what looks to be the inevitable: the inability to afford my meds when this law takes full effect.

We having fun yet?