The motherfucking dress…

…motherfuckers.

Say it, motherfuckers.

Work in progress. I has one. In fact, I was thinking of wrapping it up today but the Go Fuck Yourself Weekly post is so fucking fantastic that I didn’t want to bury it under the weight of The Big Bewildered Bunny of Borås. Then Blitz decided to bury it with a poem about that motherfucking dress. The cunting dress. The dress that has enraged me so much that I’m now suffering from bloody Tourette Syndrome and am one step away from involuntary commitment to a psych ward.

Dress, I fucking hate you. There is only one blue dress that matters and that’s the one with Bill Clinton’s DNA on it. There’s only one white dress that matters but the fuck if I know what it is because I DON’T FUCKING CARE.

Llamas in dresses, llamas on the lam, dresses on llamas, dresses changing colors, dresses, dresses causing me distresses.

My thoughts on the dress:

1. It is fucking hideous.
2. It is made of substandard fabric.
3. It doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.
4. Not even the most desperate of drag queens would touch it.
5. You’re going to see it on Halloween (Someone who is trying too hard to be funny will wear it).

FUCK. THE. DRESS.

Love,
Kang

THE DRESS

We’ve long known our reality,
Hinges on whether we agree,
That what we see is what we see,
Our world’s created mutually,
Assured acts of joint creation,
Helped us build civilization,
Though often I’ve had the sensation,
We’d lose our sense of calibration,
That one day we’d end our progress,
Things would unravel more or less,
But I did not know, I must confess,
It’d come down to the colour of an ugly dress!

Vinnie Barbarino knows women’s bodies better than Vito Barbieri (but Vinnie ain’t no legislator!)

This week in the journals of GFY, Stupidity On Parade!

Okay, that’s not unusual, there is a lot of stupidity around, and we do like to parade it, but this one still feels like it is in a league all its own.

On February 23, in this year of Cthulhu 2015, Mr.Vito Barbieri, a republican representative in the Idaho legislature (no I can’t bring myself to spell republican with an upper-case R, sue me) raised a serious question during discussion of an abortion bill. He was questioning Dr. Julie Madsen.

The bill in question would ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing drugs via video conference, or phone call, thus limiting access to abortion for women in outlying areas. Dr.Madsen was explaining how remote cameras can work in situations such as a colonoscopy, where one would swallow a capsule with a tiny camera that can be operated remotely. This makes sense, because there is actually a connection between the mouth and the colon. It was then that good old VB asked his stunning question, which he later tried to explain away as being rhethorical. He asked Dr.Madsen if the same method could be used for pregnancies. Here is the exact exchange, because you can’t make this stuff up:

Barbieri: “You mentioned the risk of colonoscopy , can that be done by drugs?”

Dr. Julie Madsen: “It cannot be done by drugs. It can, however, be done remotely where you swallow a pill and this pill has a little camera, and it makes its way through your intestines and those images are uploaded to a doctor who’s often thousands of miles away, who then interprets that.”

Barbieri: “Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy? Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is?”

Madsen: “It cannot be done in pregnancy, simply because when you swallow a pill, it would not end up in the vagina.” (Hoots of laughter from the audience)

Barbieri: “Fascinating. That certainly makes sense, doctor.”
His attempt to explain the question away as being rhethorical is hilarious, simply because it is not based in any reality whatsoever. He might as well have asked if it were possible to recruit tiny green spacemen like they have in old Twilight Zone episodes and let them do gynecological exams.

The whole affair raises a slew of questions for me. I have to wonder if Mr.Barbieri believes you can get pregnant by swallowing semen. If that were the case one of the few tried and true birth control methods would be thrown out the window, and all those people who have t-shirts reading “I could have had a brother, but mom swallowed” would have to burn them since they would be meaningless. Although it might open up new possibilities for smuggling, and finally provide a scientific basis for the Linda Lovelace phenomenon, that is to say the plotline in the infamous Deep Throat movie. The storyline goes that her clitoris is located in her throat. In fact, perhaps that’s the sort of resource Mr.Barbieri has used to gather his unique spin on anatomical information.

If there was a direct line from mouth to vagina, I wonder where he thinks the food would go when women eat? No doubt he has an explanation for that as well, and is probably ready to propose legislation for larger feminine protection products in order to help women with the food overflow, since he is so concerned for them and has his finger on the pulse. He’s not sure exactly where the pulse is, but his finger is there.

Of course if there is a direct line from mouth to vagina, there must be a direct line the other way as well, and that conjures up pictures to disturbing to even consider.

But not to worry, there is no act of anatomical terrorism that legislation can’t deal with, though even as I write that I hesitate slightly, should “anatomical terrorism” actually become a concept. One never knows anymore. Hunter S. Thompson used to say when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. He also said, in a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. If so, Mr. Barbieri you are a special kind of sinner, a sinner in a league all your own. I take special joy in telling you to GFY, because I realize you might actually try.

(Incidentally, when looking Mr.Vito Barbieri up online, I found there is another Mr.Vito Barbieri who is apparently a doctor in Italy. Given the potential affect on his career should anyone attribute Mr.VB’s inane anatomical quote to Dr.VB, I think he should consider a major lawsuit for potential slander and damage. I’ll have my attornies draft a letter to his attornies, with proper references, because no doubt they’ll just think it is a joke at first.)

ENERGY LEECHES

We should listen to others,

Openly, with a good heart.

We should indeed even listen to what they don’t say.

Prepared to hear both praise, and criticism.

But we cannot listen without filters.

We should not be judgemental in a condemning way,

However we must listen critically, understanding of where things are coming from,

Assessing viewpoints, hidden agendas, and not giving undue weight to the input of others.

When we do so, when we are overly concerned with those negative voices,

We end up giving away our power to them. They become like energy leeches, sapping us of our inner strength.

Be aware, and don’t give away your power.

Pay parity…

…or unfair disparity?

Poor, poor men. Honestly, I have no idea how they manage to live through conversation upon conversation about pay parity. It has to be tedious and frustrating, listening to us shrill women moan about the measly cents on the dollar we earn. It is so very gracious of the men to listen and provide broad shoulders for support. From my perspective, nothing soothes me more than a man telling me to relax about this grievous injustice. Wait. That’s not true. Ideally, I would be most pacified by a broad shouldered man telling me to relax about the 77 cents on the dollar I earn while pushing my head towards his dick so I may fellate him. Yes. That’s the good stuff, indeed.

Oh? You mean you’re tired of this dialogue? You think it’s been done to death, do you? Are you intimating that I’m beating a dead horse? Really? I agree that I have written about this very subject before. I agree that it is most unfortunate that I’m writing about it again, four years later, with zero movement towards eliminating this inequity. It must be tough having to go through life dealing with this verbal pollution when you’re trying to enjoy mindless entertainment such as The Oscars and you’re confronted with the harsh reality of what those of us with internal plumbing deal with on a daily basis. Genuinely tough. I should have more compassion but as it stands, I can only offer up 77% of the full 100%. After all, that’s the disparity in my paycheck. You pay me a 1:1, I’ll consider giving you a 1:1 but only after the same amount of time has passed. You need to appreciate my struggle.

From my vantage point, the most frustrating thing about pay disparity is my output – my final product. After many years of toiling away in procurement, I transitioned to consulting (I’m sooooo talented, I get paid to tell people how to do their jobs). Now, instead of logging hours in an office and interfacing with suppliers and clinical staff, I hide in my house, interacting with Excel, three cats, one dog and a fish. My product is an Excel monument to Rube Goldberg detailing the numerous ways hospitals can reduce spend via cost savings and utilization measures. If you removed any traces of my name from my work and either printed it or forwarded it via email – the end user would have no idea if it had been slapped together by a man or a woman, let alone a human being. It could have very well been calculated by those million monkeys (they are everywhere these days) and their pesky typewriters (although, those monkeys would have to be pretty fucking smart and the typewriters certainly wouldn’t cut it in the modern era). Nonetheless, there is no way of knowing which gender did the work.

So, if there is no way of knowing which gender did the work – how and why would there be a difference in how the employee is compensated? Yet, the probability for disparity is there. Oh hell, it’s not a probability. It’s definite.

Now, I’m not saying this is the case with my organization. I’m certainly not saying this to be a sycophant, either. After you spend x-many years in the workforce and acquire a skillset along with some wisdom, you do have certain luxuries extended to you. If you’re not in a particular hurry to land a job, you do have the good fortune of being selective about what sort of organization you choose to work for. I’m considerably persnickety in this regard. Look for an organization that values diversity and you’re less likely to be on the 77:100 end of the scale. That said, it’s not necessarily a guarantee that you’ll be 100:100, though.

As I said earlier, women haven’t made much progress with pay parity. For some fucked up reason, no one seems to have a sense of urgency about this issue. Bills are being rejected. Women go to the polls each election cycle and continue to vote against their own interests again and again and again. Younger women are so far removed from the struggle for equality that they think Affirmative Action is largely unnecessary. Telling them that I’m older than Title IX barely resonates because they have no fucking idea what Title IX even is. As you find yourself continuing the fight, you end up spending half the time educating the next generation about the need for the battle in the first place. Herding cats yields a better outcome.

During The Oscars, Patricia Arquette decided to use her acceptance speech for a different cause. She felt it was important to remind us that things are still very much wrong; that women are still very much getting the short end of the stick. And, instead of being on the receiving end of “Can I get an Amen, Sista!” people are doing what people do best: they are taking her to the toolshed. How dare she ruin a mental night off from reality? How dare she challenge people with the truth? How dare she put fancy ideas in our lady brains? It’s bad enough that we left the kitchen and stopped making sammiches and babies. Now, we women are being reminded that we’re not paid equally and :gasps: heaven forbid we actually do something about that! The gall!

The issue isn’t a woman using her acceptance speech at an awards ceremony to push a political issue. The issue certainly isn’t about a “Hollywood Liberal” telling Middle-America how to live. The issue is what it has always been – disparate pay for equivalent output. No individual with outdoor plumbing would tolerate that shit. Why should we? And to those who think this is an acceptable practice because we choose different career paths, take time off to breed or are less skilled at negotiating, I should like to ask you, in the most courteous manner possible, to go fuck yourself as uncomfortably as you possibly can. Alternatively, go fuck yourself but only allow yourself to climax at a 77:100.

Go Fuck Yourself Weekly: Tampons and other non-essential, luxury items.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. For realz. Did you know that we pay extra for shit? Such as getting our hair done, and clothing, and hygiene products in pink packaging with the words, “For Women” written on them. Why do clothing companies, hair stylists, and manufacturers of bullshit “For Women” products charge women more? Well, because they can. So they do. They know that we will pay more money for a woman’s product even though it’s the same exact thing as the men’s formula, just with a “feminine” scent added to it. What can I say? We’re idiots. We totally buy into the gendered marketing phenomenon because, ooh…this deodorant is strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. I feel so special.

I would characterize cucumber-avocado shower gel as a somewhat luxurious, non-essential item. After all, you could always use regular soap and save money. However, there are some products that women definitely need in a very essential, and very non-luxurious kind of way. I’m of course referring to menstruation peripherals (thanks, Russ), otherwise known as feminine hygiene products. These are some of the most essential products required by anyone with a functioning uterus. Getting one’s period is not a unique, nor a luxurious experience. Therefore, why on earth are tampons and similar products classified as “non-essential, luxury items” by HM Revenue and Customs in the UK? This classification means they are subject to VAT, a luxury tax that’s not added to completely non-luxurious, and absolutely essential items like edible sugar flowers. After all, everyone buys edible sugar flowers every time they go grocery shopping, right? They are as essential as crocodile meat and alcoholic jellies (I mean…Jello Shots! Hello!!), both of which are also not subject to VAT.

But for some reason, tampons are. Granted, it’s a reduced VAT. It used to be 17.5% but it was dropped to 5% in 2000. I just don’t understand the reasoning behind the idea that tampons are luxurious and non-essential. They are required by every single female with a functioning reproductive system. Once again, we’re being charged extra just because we’re women.

By the way, you know what else is subject to the 5% VAT? Children’s car seats. Apparently the HMRC also considers these to be non-essential and luxurious. I thought parents were required by law to use them, but what do I know?

:stammers:

Suspend the prose. Suspend the creative process. All I can do is get on my soap box (well…box of soap containing bottles of CeraVe) and just look at the world with disbelief. And shock. And disgust because I’m usually disgusted by humanity.

Hyper Cacher happened. I started thinking humanity doesn’t deserve religion because we don’t play well with it.

Shortly thereafter, the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz happened. My feelings about that aren’t any different than any Jew (practicing or non) or any human being with a soul and a shred of decency.

In response to these things, I found myself rooting through my massive piles of jewelry (because all Jews have tons of gold at their disposal – not just sewn in the hems of their clothes) and plucked out a necklace with the Magen David charm and put it on. Not because I’m a religious Jew but to send a message that I am a Jew, that this Jew is not going anywhere and that this Jew made another Jew who will likely breed at some point. My father, also not observant, had started wearing his Magen David a while ago. Maybe it’s our way of telling the bigots to fuck off? Neither my father nor I are random people. We’re deliberate people and, chances are, if we’re doing something – our actions have meaning; we’re sending a message.

For reasons which have no place in this post, I crawled into bed very early last night, pulled the blankets over my head and avoided reality. I also spent a good amount of time unplugged yesterday. It was a Mommy-Milkface Day. I did not see the news until I woke up. And, before we go any further, because I’m so awesome and American news is anything but, most of my sources for news are foreign.

From Haaretz:

Danish police shoot and kill suspect in fatal attacks on synagogue, cafe

One dead in Copenhagen synagogue shooting, hours after man killed at free speech event; Danish PM condemns ‘cynical act of terror,’ says: ‘When the Jewish community is attacked, all of Denmark is attack.’

(…moar…)

The shooting at the synagogue in Copenhagen (one of my most favorite places on Earth) wasn’t the only one. The precursor was a shooting at a free speech event.

From The Guardian:

Jens Madsen said the killer may have been “inspired by militant Islamist propaganda issued by IS [Islamic State] and other terror organisations”, but it was not yet known whether he had travelled to Iraq or Syria before the attacks.

(…moar…)

Honestly, I have no words for this. None. I cannot even describe my emotions.

The shit…it needs to stop and it needs to stop now.

Exasperation, irritation…

…frustration.

Lacking a punching bag and the requisite energy to jab the punching bag, I need to find an appropriate substitute. I’m going to assign blame to my hair. Yesterday, I went for the periodical untangling of the rat’s nest and shearing of the fleece. As hairdressers are wont to do, mine straightened the curls. I don’t care for this, as a rule, but she actually makes it look like something other than newsreader hair so I keep my gob shut and let her attack me with the flat iron. Now I have a headache because trying to keep the mess out of my eyes is a Herculean effort. The hair – it knows not what to do. It just wants to hang…straight…in my face. Now, don’t get me wrong, I usually keep the hair wild and longish so I can hide behind it but I do this of my own volition. I AM IN CONTROL – not the fucking hair. This is me. Right now.

Contributing to my positively shitty mood is my struggle with a stupid essay I have been trying to write for five or six (sive) weeks now. Oh yes, I crow about how wonderful it is to limit myself to essays. I say “Why yes, real writers of books and things, if I get bored or if a concept refuses to come together, I can just bin the shit and move on to the next because I am awesome, lazy and lacking in discipline.” The sad, pathetic truth is that I might find myself reworking something to the point of madness. Barking madness. Madness that results in stuffing cookies in my face and retreating to my bed to snuggle two stuffed bunnies and whichever cat decides to grace me with his or her presence (lately, it’s been Annabel – the kitty that is so muscular and solid, it feels like a cinder block is crushing your legs). It is as ridiculous as it sounds, especially given the pajamas that I’m wearing when I engage in this behavior.

My undoing, my descent into rambling lunacy came at the hands of an upgrade. Miss Thang actually got off her ass and renewed the domain and upgraded the website early this year. The upgrade has given me power and nothing is more intoxicating to Kang than power (ok…maybe a foreign accent emanating from a handsome man or a quality Belgian beer). Knowing that my involvement with style sheets and CSS results in bad things, I refrained from going anywhere near that mess. No one wants to help unfuck whatever fuckups I make while coding. People would sooner try to figure out my parents’ A/V rig than sort out what I call coding and that’s saying quite a lot because the A/V rig cum home entertainment system is a hot fucking mess of a nightmare.

But I’m genuinely irritated because I ~~might~~ have OCD tendencies.

Depending on the device and/or platform I use to access the site, the justification is off. I make adjustments for tablets and it skews the view for computers. I make adjustments for computers and tablets and mobile devices suffer. The alignment looks a lot like my son’s handwriting did in the beginning of the school year (or my husband’s current penmanship). I look at the analytics and the device mix is 50/50 so no matter my decision, I’m going make sweet, sweet fuckery love to one segment of the wittew audience we have. And, yes, I might just be like the average male who is driving a car and finds himself lost; I’m not going to ask for directions or guidance. I’m going to drive in circles until the tears flow freely and the tank is empty. Which is where I am now – on a park bench, stroking myself (not in that way, you disgusting pervert) and telling myself I’m pretty and I have value to someone, somewhere (likely only my parents or my kid).

Right now, the Emotional Traffic Light Engagement essay (see – even the concept sounds clunky) is back in the draft bin for the millionth time, paragraphs are askew in some posts and my sack of fucks to give is very small and lacking depth (Dock just loves that line).

Round Robin Exercise

A refresher for those who have been following since the days of Kang World and an explanation for those who are t3h n00bz.

For a short while, we used to pick a theme and everyone would write something within that. Usually it was some version of longform because I cannot poem. Seriously, I cannot even write a haiku – I’m that fucking useless in this regard. But we did this and it was challenging and fun. Please don’t ask me to unearth the archives because I cannot be arsed to code, migrate or resurrect the dead. My skillz are mad but they are limited.

Anyhow, while we’re introducing some new things: Go Fuck Yourself Weekly (double entendre intended), we’re going to bring back some old things. The Round Robin is one but it may not be permanent.

Brian Kurcaba of West Virginia made a horrendous comment about rape, unplanned pregnancy and abortion this week. Automatically, we decided he was going to be nominated for GFYW. As I started to work through some ideas, I realized I wanted to tell a story. Kitten has a story, too. Actually, a lot of people have a story to tell. These stories are about sexual abuse (any form). The mere thought of condensing these stories just doesn’t sit well with me. It didn’t sit well with her or another RMer, either. After some discussion about how best to approach this topic, keep it isolated from the rest of the site due to the content, be sensitive to others and work with the limitations of WordPress, we decided it would be best if we put the Round Robin in a page (you can see it at the tippy-top, next to About) and have our posts as subs, just as our bios are. For whatever reason, I decided to spew first. Just in one of those wormholes today.

This is not funny content. It’s not supposed to be funny content. The content is deeply personal, graphic and potentially upsetting. You’re not going to be able to unsee this, folks. We ask that you take the time to read the Round Robin detail and respect the rules of engagement. We ask that you read the detail in advance of reading the pages as they are published. We’re not going to push them en masse. From my perspective, not only does one have to be willing to write the story – they have to be willing to hit publish and deal with everything that comes with hitting publish.

So that is what is brewing today.

In a few hours or a few days, the snark will be back. The snark never leaves. It does like a nap now and then, though. And the poets, they’re still here, as well. Well, they’re actually outside building their first snowman or shoveling snow or complaining about snow or thinking about getting the fuck away from snow. Whatever. Normality is just around the corner, y’all.

Random Misanthrope’s…

….Go Fuck Yourself Weekly!!!

Since my return from my self-imposed exile, I have refrained from scribbling about politics because, at this point, it’s pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s effortless skewering requiring little thought – these idiots write the material themselves. All we need to do is read any old newspaper (note: NOT BLOG. A blog is not a legitimate news source, you right winged asshats. Neither is a newsletter from your local “I have a throbbing hard-on for the 2^nd Amendment” gun club.) and it’s all there in its glory. Be it from Palin, LePage (a personal favorite of mine), Chris “Governor Sammiches” Christie or Rand Paul – it is an infinite font of stupid. Thus, I have been reluctant to dispense of the stink-eye because *everyone* is doing that and Kang is not a joiner. Kang is a trendsetter. Remember that. ಠ_ಠ

Until today.

Until I had some inspiration. Or…several sources of inspiration.

Aside from my daily devouring of various LIEberal (tut tut tut) media websites, I also troll for memes and keep a reasonable cache of them for quick and easy reference. I do this because, sadly, my humor is not far removed from that of a 12 year old boy or the average 4chan user. The more ridiculous the meme the better, too. For instance – take any children’s show, slap adult language on top of it and I’ll keel over with laughter. It has become the visual version of the “what do you call a guy with no arms and no legs?” jokes that, for whatever reason, bring forth a laughter induced asthma attack. Not only am I a cheap date, I’m easily amused by dad jokes and shit.

Between the reading of the news and the trolling of the memes, I thought “Hmmm…it’s been years since we have done any sort of writing exercises. The last time I had posted any asshole du jour spleen vents was back when Kang World was still Kang World – 2008, mebbe? What if I tried a serial? Do I have the attention span and stamina for that?” Welp – let’s find out. And let’s give it a catchy title, too. How about: “Random Misanthrope’s Go Fuck Yourself Weekly?” A nice lilt. No irritating alliteration. Includes the word “fuck.” Ok, possible. I might get bored and change things if I find it’s not succinct enough. Or, I might get bored and forget about it altogether (the more likely of the two possibilities). But let’s just amuse the strange lady and let her have her moment, shall we?

The inaugural installment of Random Misanthrope’s Go Fuck Yourself Weekly is dedicated to the junior senator from my current state (how I miss living in a Commonwealth. It sounds much more dignified.), Thom Tillis.

Thom Tillis. Think about this for a second. Thom. Thom with an h. This annoys me. This annoys me almost as much as Toms who spell their names with the letter ö. No, assholes, your names are not pronounced “Teum” so, for fuck’s sake, stop using a letter that has no place in American English. Just stop it. And to you, Senator Tillis…learn to spell. You’re making us Southerners look bad.

Once upon a time, Pa Tillis and Ma Tillis birthed a baby in Jacksonville, FL, America (see…he’s not even from here. Wait…most of us aren’t. Never mind.). Being born a white male in the United States, this lad was destined for great things and a life of marginal leisure. After frittering about at two universities (1/2 the amount of colleges attended by Sarah Palin), he managed to obtain his sheepskin at the tender age of 36. According to Wikipedia, the source of all things correct and valid, Senator Tillis’ life of public service began shortly after moving to suburban Charlotte and serving on the park board for his town (Leslie Knope or Leslie NOPE). After serving as town commissioner for two years and getting a taste of that sweet, sweet nectar that is power, Tillis set his eyes on a higher branch of government, The State House of Representatives.

Really? Who the fuck cares. The guy is our junior senator because the evil Koch brothers bought an election and threw an otherwise competent and exceedingly moderate senator out on her ass (Sorry, Kay. I tried. I really tried.).

Yesterday (see how interested I am in the body politic these days), Thom-with-an-h makes some noise news. This bastion of Conservative Values® thinks that people who work in the food service industry should be freed of the yoke of socialist oppression and have the freedom to decide whether or not to wash their own damn hands (soap optional) after throwing mud, as our Founding Fathers intended. I guess that’s reducing the stranglehold of the nanny state? But…he does feel that a sign should be posted (so, would that not be a form of…regulation????). Ultimately, Senathor Thillis feels the Frhee Marketh will remedy the situation and the businesses that don’t make their employees engage in appropriate hygiene practices will go under. That’s great, Thom. What happens in the interim when one of the poorly paid line cooks comes back from his trip to the potty with a ½ wiped ass and unclean paws and gives everyone an extra serving of E. Coli with their barbecue? Please refrain from saying the market will take care of that. It won’t. Now shut up and sit down before I make you sit in a corner or something.

So, for the man who thinks that public health is a non-issue, the man who thinks excrement the perfect flavor enhancer for any meal – all I have to say is “Congratulations for being the first in a line of an esteemed many!” or until I get bored with the concept of Random Misanthrope’s Go Fuck Yourself Weekly.

Hugs and kisses
/Kang