Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Thank God I'm Not a Mother on Mother's Day Day

I like kids, I do. But after nearly three years of being a dog owner, I think to myself, Golly Gee Whiz, how would I handle a child -one I would have to feed several times a day instead of simply filling a water and food bowl and setting them on the floor of the kitchen; one whose priorities are crying, playing, eating, drinking, snacking, mess-making, talking, rolling on the floor, etc; one whose life would suddenly come before my own. I know I am selfish - I'll be the first to admit it. Plus,how doesanyonehavetime for a child? I barely have time to make it to the gym after work, walk aforementioned dog, eat dinner, shower, and sleep.

So .... to all the mothers out there, including my own: I am impressed. I am quite a bit humbled and a small bit shamefaced for my self-centered ways. Enjoy your day with kids or without.

Dedicated to Joni, a new mom going through quite a bit of hell - and to Sommer and Virginia, expectant, young, kick ass mommies to be.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Southeast Texas Assholery

Wow. Just wow. Our local paper The Beaumont Enterprise, links to a blog called The Bayou. Now, I do understand this is a blog; however, it is linked to the newspaper. Plus, its daily titles are listed in the Top Headlines section of the Enterprise's website. On Friday, the blogger (who apparently is also the editor of the newspaper), blogged about how 1 in 20 nurses in Texas have criminal histories. This, I don't have such a problem with, although the post and the links pretty much refer to female nurses only.

No, the problem I have is that the title of the post was "Naughty Nurses" with some assholish like addition on the end (I don't remember what it was now, but it was very suggestive). It also had the Blink 182 album cover with the "sexy" nurse posted as the photo to go with the post. Alone, the title is suggestive. With the picture, the post is sexist and offensive. So I posted. If anyone follows up and goes over there, I am anonymous number one as my blogger name wouldn't work when I signed in. Between yesterday and today, there have been 23 other comments. Several were extremely hateful toward my fairly-innocuous comment. Of course, what interested me the most, were the fat girl, lesbian comments. I have never had this personally directed at me, and I guess that just shows how backward my area still is, but I was really really shocked. I responded once I checked back over there today.

I cannot explain why it made me feel so badly, but it did. The comments were just such .... vitriol.

Email the editor/contributor/blogger at TheBayou@BeaumontEnterprise.com.