I was 17 and looking forward to escaping high school and going to college. I was independent, an only child raised by busy single parents with their own social lives. I was intelligent, but insecure. I used sex as a way to get affection and feel wanted. I dropped by an older friend’s house one …
Continue reading "A Mom’s Abortion Story"
Last week I had the opportunity to co-present with Tara King a talk about diversity and inclusion in the Drupal community. After each time we do this presentation we’ve learned from the audience and made improvements to make the session more helpful. This was my fourth time giving this talk (although other Drupal Diversity and …
Continue reading "“But I’m Not Privileged”"
In There’s Nothing Virtuous About Finding Common Ground, Tayari Jones asks “When we revisit our shameful past, ask yourself, Where was the middle? Rather than chattel slavery, perhaps we could agree on a nice program of indentured servitude? “ Or maybe we can “compromise” on abortion and just let rich people get them? Yeah, NO. As …
Continue reading "Halfway between moral and immoral = nowhere"
1. Stoke paranoia. Deprive, dehumanize, physically weaken, and isolate people.
2. Cause/provoke crisis. (Or at minimum, ensure government is not prepared to handle inevitable crisis.)
3. Justify consolidation of power and suspension of human rights, civil society, democracy.
Speaking of facts, I was thrilled to see that CNN picked up on the story about fake women’s march pages last I blogged about last month. The reporter, Donie O’Sullivan, first heard about it from the Maine Women’s March, but when he researched the issue he found my blog post! I spoke with him on …
Continue reading "Real news about fake news"
I am not saying that every single registered Republican is a criminal (although a disproportionate number apparently are). But I can state with confidence that their elected leadership especially in the North Carolina General Assembly, the Congress of the United States, and the White House are lawless, unethical, greedy, and yes, criminals. This isn’t speculation. These are facts.
Just in the case of gerrymandering alone the courts have struck down GOP actions again and again, and yet they have not corrected the districts. Mitch McConnell and many others in Congress actively worked to cover up foreign collusion in our election. Then in the White House there’s money laundering, selling influence, profiting from the office (ie: emoluments). And I haven’t even gotten into the absolutely unconstitutional treatment of migrants, and concentration camps for children!
Continue reading "Call Republicans what they are: criminals"
The Washington Post writes today that a survey of battleground House districts shows Democrats with [a] narrow edge. Thanks to gerrymandering, the votes of people like me who are packed into safe Democratic districts won’t make much difference. But there are potentially-swing districts North Carolina. It’s a much more diverse state than the leaders of the N.C. General Assembly would have us believe, and there are still some districts where voters can chose their representatives instead of the other way around.
Look at all these places within driving distance of cities in NC where we can be supporting Democratic campaigns right now.
Continue reading "We have to do a lot more than voting, but vote we must"
My rules for survival, in this order:
1. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.
2. Practice solidarity, build community, and make art.
3. Throw rocks. Organize. Shut them down with your bodies and minds.
Continue reading "Ruby’s rules for survival"
There are more of us that are outraged than there are of the greedy haters, but we let them control the media and the government because it would be too risky or inconvenient for us to actually stop them. I’m speaking of myself here too! I have a lot to lose.
Fascists win by making us all think we’re alone, we’re sick because we have no healthcare, we’re exhausted from working 3 jobs, we’re scared because we’re gay/trans/immigrant/Jewish/female/outspoken, we can’t think straight because the news makes no sense, we’re paranoid because our neighbor might be a nazi/narc, we’re poor because the 1% is stealing everything. None of this is an accident.
Continue reading "Start throwing rocks"
The sickest thing about this whole episode (the latest being the sham Kavanaugh hearings) is that the vast majority of Americans don’t support these power-mad Republicans nor their draconian agendas, but they and the media have got us thinking that we are in the minority! They have taken our power away from us like taking …
Continue reading "There are more of us every day"