You know your priorities are fucked-up when...

...You decide that it's important to participate in civil disobedience and invite arrests over people's healthcare plans - WHICH THEY PAY INTO, THIS IS NOT FREE STUFF WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE - covering birth control, when no major Christian political group has had civil disobedience actions over things like the gutting of the social safety net (Jesus was pretty big on that whole "take care of those in need" thing, IIRC), or unofficial wars and drone strikes (what was that whole "Thou shalt not kill" thing, again?).

...You then invoke the legacy of Dr. King to justify your bullshit: "Just as MLK was arrested for the rights of his fellow men, so we will stand."  Motherfucker, NO.  You are "standing" for the wholly-imagined "right" to control the bodies and healthcare access of other people.  You are not standing for any kind of actual rights or freedom from oppression.  How dare you try to link yourselves to him, as if you had anything in common?

...and you refer to your protest as "[laying] down our lives and our freedom so that future generations will have that freedom, and the liberty to practice their faith."  Your lives are in no danger, you grandstanding shitheads.  If you want to talk about people who are laying down their lives, where are your protests and civil disobedience about the shitty way this country treats veterans, the crap pay active-duty soldiers get that leaves many of them ON FUCKING FOOD STAMPS, the jobs bill specifically to help vets find work after they leave the military that Republicans shot down?

So, ActsFive29, as you begin your publicity stunt this evening, just remember: you are a terrible pack of lying liars who lie, and I'm pretty sure Jesus would be pissed at you for pretending this is what he wanted.

(Btw, does anyone know the source for their claim that they're having to pay a "$1 monthly abortion surcharge"?  Where the fuck are they getting that idea?  I am seriously confused.  I mean I know they're talking out their collective ass as to what the mandate entails anyway - kids, it has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU PERSONALLY, this is about the insurance companies and what they are required to cover as part of any plan they offer -  but this is a new note of batshittery I haven't yet seen, so I'm wondering where it came from.)

You Don't *Haaaave* To...

Ozz and I have a running joke, when one of us wants to playfully guilt the other into something.  I'll be up and about doing stuff, and he'll ask me to get him a soda, for example.  I'll get mock-exasperated with him, like "Oh, what, it's not enough that I [whatever I was doing at the time], now I have to get you your beverages, too?!"  And he gives me puppy-dog eyes and says "Well, you don't *haaaave* to..." and I roll my eyes and laugh and get him his stupid drink.

And I feel like that's sort of what this asshole is doing, only not cute or funny or playful at all, but spiteful and partisan and leveraging the full power of Catholic Guilt™ for political ends.  You don't *haaaave* to vote Republican...but you'll probably go to hell if you don't.

Because it's apparently far more important to reject policies addressing issues Jesus never saw fit to talk about, like abortion and teh gayz, in a way the Church dislikes, than to reject policies that specifically contradict Jesus' actual message of caring for the poor and helping those in need.

Cool story, bro.

(I hope someone brings action against him for using the power of the pulpit to tell people how to vote, in direct contravention of IRS rules about church tax exemptions.  He says "I'm not telling you how to vote," several times, but there's that whole letter of the law versus spirit of the law thing, and a child could tell that his "I'm not telling you how to vote" schtick is nothing more than a CYA.)

PSA: On "Fluffy"

Do not EVER

EVER

EVER

FUCKING EVER

refer to fat people as "fluffy".

Fluffy is a thing that small poofly dogs and kittens and ducklings are.  

It is sometimes a thing that a person's hair might be, depending on the humidity.

It is NOT

a fucking descriptor

for my goddamn body.

It makes it sound like you think my fat is made of whipped cream or something equally stupid.

And maybe it's just me?

But it's the sort of descriptor that inherently casts fat as negative

by awkwardly being "cutesy" dancing around it

And also it implies

(and again this could just be me)

that my fat is just the "fluff" surrounding my actual body.

Like it's pillow stuffing filling up my skin

and if you took it out I would be skinny.  Like it's that easy.

Newsflash: my body is fucking fat.  Fat is the state of my physical being.  Fat is not this separate thing that rides around with me.  It is part of me.  There is no skinny girl inside me trying to get out.  There is just me.  And I will fucking end you if you imply otherwise.  I have no patience for that shit.

So just be aware that violating the terms of this PSA in my presence will result in immediate evisceration.

Verbal if you're out of reach.

But if you're within reach, I make no promises.

Have a nice day.

Happy Labor Day (to the upper-middle class white-collar employees who ended up benefiting from the labor movement)

This image crossed my Tumblr dash yesterday, and I reblogged it, because I appreciate the sentiment.

A vintage black-and-white image of a labor rally with a large banner reading "Workers of the world unite"; superimposed text reads "This long holiday weekend has been brought to you by the blood, sweat, and tears of the labor movement."

A bit later, I saw a notification that someone had reblogged it from me, adding their own comment:

hahaha i have to work every fucking day of it

Which reminded me of the reason I generally have stopped wishing retail and service employees with whom I interact "have a good weekend" or variants thereof at the end of our interaction.  Because I remember when I worked retail, and I got one weekend off a month (maybe; LB was big on the belief that the managers, in addition to knowing the store operations stuff, were also the top salespeople and should always be present at high-traffic times, so we had to work most weekends), and well-meaning 9-to-5ers would cheerfully wish me a nice weekend as I handed them their receipt on Friday afternoon.  And I'd smile and return the pleasantry, of course, because that's what you do, but I was always thinking, "Sure, it's a nice weekend for you.  It's just two more workdays for me."

And it occurred to me that there's a lot to be said about how, decades after the main body of the labor movement made the major gains that it did - 40-hour weeks, minimum wage, paid holidays and vacation, etc - the bulk of those rights are going to the well-off white-collar employees, while the low-wage workers who actually formed the original labor rights movement have seen those protections eroded or denied outright.

Anecdotally: about a week or two into working at my current job (I'm the admin/receptionist for a general contractor's office), my boss stopped by my desk and said "Remember to take your breaks, okay?  I see you staying at your desk most of the day, you need to get out more."  I laughed and replied, "Thanks, I will - but honestly, my last job was retail.  This whole job feels like a break to me - I'm getting to sit down for 90% of it!"

At LB, I was one of a dozen part-time employees, with incredibly inconsistent scheduling - I was guaranteed 20-35 hours because I was a manager; the regular associates could get anywhere from 2-12 hours in a week, but rarely more than 15.  And nobody had a consistent schedule of days/times/shifts, it changed every week.  I had no access to health insurance, no paid time off, no sick days or vacations.  Lunches were 30 minutes exactly, and you were responsible for remembering to take your 15-minute breaks and clearing it with the manager on duty (and good luck getting the okay for that if it was busy on the floor).  I made a couple bucks over minimum wage and considered myself lucky for that.  And yes, I was required to work all holidays, including this one.

At Stq, I work 8-5, Monday-Friday.  I will have a good health care plan, with the premium covered 100% for me and 75% for any dependents - meaning I won't have to pay a dime out of my paycheck for it.  I'll accrue 3 hours of PTO per week, which will be retroactive to my beginning to work there (I started as a temp and we're playing paperwork games with getting me transitioned to perm, so I don't have these benefits yet, but it's when, not if).  Lunch is an hour, taken whenever I feel like it so long as I let someone know I'm leaving so they'll know to pick up the phone, nobody will care if I come back a bit late (if they even notice at all), and as I mentioned, my boss will actually remind me to take breaks and get out of the office from time to time.  I'm making about $4 over minimum as a temp, and my wage as a permanent employee will be about 2x minimum wage.  And I'm getting to spend today sitting on my ass in my pajamas fucking around on the internet and writing blog posts about it.

Does that seem fair to you?

So if you want to thank the labor movement for the holiday we some of us are having today, get involved.  Take note of bills eroding worker protections - not just big brouhahas like Wisconsin, but smaller things on the local level, too - and get involved in the fight against them if you can.  Support unions.  It's a fairly unpopular opinion to take in conversations a lot of the time, but it's necessary to push back against the right-wing framing of Those Damn Unions Making Businesses Go Broke (so shut up and let us abuse the workers for better profit margins).  Google around, find a local worker's rights org, and see what they need and what issues they're working on - the AFL-CIO might have something local, and it's a good place to start.

And if anybody has more or better ideas for getting involved, by all means, that's what comments are for!