Friday Thoughts: What Rights Are You Missing?

August 25, 2023August 25, 2023

Friday Thoughts: What Rights Are You Missing?

The other day I ran across an FB post with the hashtag “LGBTQ rights are human rights” and it got me thinking. What rights, exactly, do people who use that hashtag believe are not recognized for LGBTQ folks or what rights are LGBTQ people unable to exercise due to government or social restrictions? Seriously, what are they missing? Marriage? Got it. Speech? Got it. Access to healthcare? Got it. Religion? Got it. Housing? Got it. Jobs? Got ‘em. What are they missing?

August 4, 2023August 4, 2023

Friday Thoughts: New Adventures

We bought a house! First time for everything, and yes, we are late bloomers. For the longest time, two PhD diplomas were the stand-ins for a house. But now we bought a house! I’m super excited to get into it and start making it a home. I feel like we’re putting down roots and becoming real Texans. Until we finalized everything, I hadn’t realized how transient I felt, even though we lived in the same place for almost twenty years in Philadelphia (and I mean the same apartment, not just the same city). The house is very nice and the former owners made a number of small, but thoughtful additions and changes – there are misters in the pergola for example. Hell, there’s a pergola!

July 28, 2023July 28, 2023

Friday Thoughts: A Varied Week

Things here at Chez Ornery went fairly smoothly this week. More good news, but again, full details will come next week, I promise. In the outside world, the political class who think they’re running the world are still engaging in stupid actions while at the same time (and this gives me hope) making it very clear to anyone who can stand up, see lightning, and hear thunder, that they’re corrupt, evil, and stupid. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore them and their continuing antics. Please maintain your attention, and call them out whenever you get the opportunity. More importantly, remember to call them out publicly. You need to call them out. In public. Often.

July 25, 2023July 25, 2023

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

Women are being erased, deliberately, from the main stage of culture and society. Again. Just the other day, after facing strong backlash, Johns Hopkins University removed their online glossary of LGBTQ terms in which they defined “lesbian” as a “non-man attracted to non-men.” See what they did there? Johns Hopkins defined “lesbian”, a woman sexually attracted to other women, around men rather than around women. They erased women from the definition of lesbian. Everything which involves women is once again revolving around men. Even more telling is that a small segment of women are upset that JHU deleted its definitions. I have to assume that the world in which these individuals live has a purple sky with pink polka dots. Because it definitely isn’t the world the rest of us inhabit.

July 18, 2023July 18, 2023

Stop Sitting Down

We were out driving the other day when “Stand” by Sly and the Family Stone came on the radio (okay, on the Sirius channel we were listening to). As I bounced in my seat and sang along, the lyrics suddenly struck me. I mean, I know the lyrics, but their application to today’s cultural and political madness struck me. After we got home, I looked up the song. It was written in 1969 by Sly Stone, was the title track on the album “Stand”, and performed at Woodstock.

May 11, 2023May 11, 2023

Back in the Game

I’ve been going through a few weeks of… not really malaise, but just a sort of checked out feeling. I haven’t been writing like I want to/need to/should be in order to keep to my self-imposed publishing schedule and while I have been following news and events, and have opinions on things, I haven’t mustered up the energy or whatever to write about them here either. But over the last couple of days, I’ve done some introspection and pulled apart some things and reminded myself that this sort of disconnect is not really productive nor is it conducive to keeping my creative side, which is still newly emerging, engaged and active.

March 3, 2023March 3, 2023

Friday Thoughts: Non-binary, Gender neutral, or Neutered?

It’s been an interesting week. Interesting in the manner of frustrating and somewhat scary. In the “Frustrating” column is the death of the not-quite-five-year-old refrigerator. The fridge belongs to the landlord, so at least the expenses are his. However, dealing with the fall out is on us. In the “Somewhat scary” column is the tornado warning that sounded last night and the winds that blew so hard I could feel the back wall vibrating. Yeah, I was raised in earthquake country, not tornado country. This will take some getting used to.

January 13, 2023January 13, 2023

Friday Thoughts: Disagreement vs. Misinformation

I know I’m likely preaching to the choir here, but I wanted to take a few minutes and examine the issue of disagreement vs. misinformation. “Misinformation” is flying about a lot lately and in most cases it is mildly to egregiously misapplied. “Misinformation” is a word that conjures up images of propagandizing evil dictators. People think “Soviet propaganda” or similar when they hear that term. Characterizing statements as “misinformation” conveys to the listener that the statement is not only false, but deliberately misleading and therefore dangerous. Put your hands over your ears immediately before you become contaminated!

January 1, 2023January 1, 2023

Starting 2023

It’s Sunday morning, the first day of 2023 and I’m drinking cappuccino and thinking about the day and year ahead. For the day, we’re going to a friend’s house and participating in a chili cook-off and tasting that promises to be a lot of fun. We have friends in Texas! Yay! We’ve been in Texas for just over a year now… thirteen months to be exact and every day I’m more and more convinced we made the right move. Not that I was worried it was a bad move, but every day I just feel more comfortable.

November 9, 2022November 9, 2022

Why No Red Wave? Or A Labor of Love

What happened? We were promised an almost unstoppable red wave in yesterday’s election. What we got was one or two upset races and it was business as usual for the rest. Fetterman – Fetterman! – won in Pennsylvania for God’s sake. The corrupt, criminal-loving, now cognitively impaired candidate won over a TV famous medical doc who actually had some good ideas. In Georgia, it looks like the corrupt, racist slum lord will win over the former football player, who yes, has some gaffe issues, but far less than Biden. In other races (check out Real Clear Politics for more results) what should have been clear Republican wins became nail biters and I don’t think it was all fraud.