House update: Thursday

My aunt reports:

Today for lunch Dan, John and I had sausage penne with Caesar
salad.

Today, William is going to a funeral.

Dan reports that Robin's middle room is almost done and the front room is
getting there. Dan also did minor clean up.

John went to Rona, again, and bought corner bead, ells, screws and tape.

Jen and I are picking up young Tilde from dog hospital at four.

Cheers, Helen

(no subject)

I hate Bell.

(In other news, the sky is blue.)

The fact that I just sat on hold for 20 minutes and needlessly bitched out a hapless call centre employee in Bangalore in order to discover that the satellite receiver's power was off does not in any way change this fact. Also, their website sucks.

However, I have now instructed my mother ON NO ACCOUNT to ever touch the buttons at the top of the remote, because weird things always happen and I can't be responsible.

(no subject)

in happier news, choir is back! and I was productive at work today! and tomorrow is Friday! and I had a tiny house-money-work-life-stress-related meltdown last night but then sorted out what is causing me stress and what to do about it, and friends assure me it's perfectly normal, and there are buds on the trees and shoots coming out of the ground and life is, on the whole, good.

(no subject)

oh crankygrrl? Better get on with reading the second one.

Heee.

(via doombookshelves)

South Dakota and more

Some links:

Via makinglight's comments section, also shetterly:

Cecilia Fire Thunder, Oglala Sioux Tribal President, is kind of annoyed at South Dakota's recent unpleasantness. So she's hoping to establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which is of course sovereign territory and no subject to South Dakota law (in this case and many others). Planned Parenthood clinics are, of course, good for much more than just abortions.

Ways to donate, in case you want to help with this.

Next, Salon has more on a disturbing story:

[T]he anti-birth-control movement's efforts are making a significant political impact: Supporters have pressured insurance companies to refuse coverage of contraception, lobbied for "conscience clause" laws to protect pharmacists from having to dispense birth control, and are redefining the very meaning of pregnancy to classify certain contraceptive methods as abortion. In increasing numbers, women and men opposed to contraception are marshaling health facts and figures to bolster their convictions that sex for anything but procreation is morally wrong and potentially deadly. Although its medical arguments are really just thinly veiled moral and religious arguments, using findings that are biased and unfounded, the rising anti-contraception movement, echoed by the Catholic Church, is making significant inroads. Leaders of the pro-choice movement know it, are worried about it, and realize they can't take it lightly, as they mount their own strategies to battle it.

"It is very hard to awaken people to the threat," says Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood, "because who can believe that something so accessible can be at risk? But that's what [people] said when they started attacking Roe, and now look at how close we are to losing Roe."

And Dan Savage notes:

Straight Rights Update: Earlier this month Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family planning clinics from dispensing birth control. "If you hand out contraception to single women," one Republican state rep told the Kansas City Star, "we're saying promiscuity is okay." On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine—a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year—from being made available.

The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What's it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Finally, because it's never too late to keep those hits coming and this seems like an excellent post for it: Bill Napoli.

napoli (not to be confused with the proper noun, which indicates the Italian city)
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): napolied
Pronunciation: nA’poli

1. To brutalize and rape, sodomize as bad as you can possibly make it, a young, religious virgin woman who was saving herself for marriage. 2. To hella rape somebody.

Etymology: From State Senator Bill Napoli’s (R-SD) words on an acceptable description of rape that would merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban.

[Edited to add stuff. I knew I had more than I originally put in...]