???

I started having panic attacks after years of not dealing with the attempted murder of me by a previous partner. Some of this was triggered by my position of reading casefiles of kids in very tragic situations. I'm also seeing a therapist; but meanwhile, this is my therapeutic brain toilet. Here's where it all began.







Thursday, June 11, 2009

Faces in strange places.

So a while back, apparently there's this tree with a pattern in the bark, some place, which some of the local residents think is the image of their dearly departed mayor.



Hmmm. Well, I gotta hand it to 'em - it's a face.

He had a face.

BINGO! It must be him.

Now of COURSE, some people think it's Jesus. Of COURSE they do. After all, he had a face.

I read a book recently about how people - oh wait, it was by Richard Dawkins - will often see faces in the most random of patterns. We're programmed to do that.  Personally, I think it looks like this guy.


But then again...what about this guy?


c'mon. He's got a face. he's even pointed the right way. 
Oh, snap!  I got it!

it's clearly THIS GUY.


...

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Dear Carrie,

Did they lie to you? Did they lie and tell you that you could be America's spokesperson? Poor baby. That wasn't very nice of them.

Oh, you are just so very, very pretty. But sweetie, being pretty and a Special Ed major does not qualify you to speak about anything other than Special Ed and makeup. Your parents should not have given you mixed messages, teaching you wholesome abstinence while allowing you to be commercially photographed partially nude. Now there are images all over the Interent of you in your ass-pants, looking over your shoulder as us coyly. They will never go away. It's clear to us that you have no problems selling your sexuality. But it's not your fault; this is how you've been trained, to be desireable. I've seen the pageant upbringing. It's very sad. So sad.

And then your oh, so incoherent answer, about being happy to live in a country where "everyone can choose between opposite or same marriage" ... honestly I'm mystified as to why anyone is upset, or being so hard on you...after all, I realize that you are, quite simply, quite simple.

At this point, your brain is just now fully developed, and you simply parrot the views of all the people who have brainwashed you for 22 years. If pressed, the only reason you can give for your beliefs is that, “this is what I believe,” or more pithily, ‘I can feel it in my heart; God speaks to me through His Word and I know that His World is Truth.” Yes. You will.

But darling. You can't run around selling your body to get people to look at you, and then try to get them to focus on your message of good, wholesome family values. It just doesn't work that way. You see, religion has made too much of sex, sexiness, and sexuality being bad, bad, bad. For thousands of years, they've told us that sex should not sell. No take-backs.

And now, I fear, you may no longer be the darling of the Christian world. Oh, it won't be obvious. Like poor, gay Ted, they'll pat you on the back and voice their support even as they roll their eyes, thinking, how fast can we drop this hot potato? and slowly, gently, getting as far away from you as they can.

Dear, we aren’t mocking your Christian faith. We’re mocking your ignorance. A brainwashed beauty that has yet to experience any suffering in the world, and yet you seek to be its spokesperson.

Carrie, go join the peace corps, and see suffering and truth. There is so much good to be done in the world, so much you can do, and you'll realize life is too short to give much thought to whether two men in love are threatening anything in your world. While you're at it, ask yourself, what kind of an omnicient being allows people to suffer? what kind of "plan" is that?

BTW, I do find it ironic that the pageant allows surgically enhanced women to parade around in high heels and bikinis but draws the line at their contestants being nude “or partially nude.” Which is kind of off topic, but there it is. Solidarity, sistah!

Anyway, Good luck, sweetie. It's a tough world. The best we can hope for in it is to be kind to one another, and to let people who love each other be allowed to love each other, without placing any kind of judgement on it based on the mass-delusion known as religion.

When you're all grown-up, you'll see that. As Judge Judy used to say, "Beauty fades, but dumb is forever."

Sincerely,

Herself
---

Friday, March 13, 2009

Duh.



The January 2009 issue of Pediatrics. Janet Rosembaum, Ph.D. in a study of over 1000 adolescents studied the effects of abstinence-only education.

Dr. Rosenbaum followed a group of students who were over the age of 15 in 1996 and who had made the pledge to be abstinent. She compared them with a group that did not make that pledge, in a longitudnal, matched-subject design.
Subjects were matched on a variety of factors, including religiosity (theirs and their parents), friend's attitudes, and available information.

Results:
  • 5 years after the pledge, 82% of the pledgers denied ever making the pledge.
  • There was no difference between the groups in the rate of premarital sex between pledgers and non-pledgers.
  • There was no difference between the groups in lifetime number of sexual partners, types of sexual activity, or number of STDs.
  • There was a statistically signficant difference found in use of birth control: fewer pledgers used birth control and condoms in the past year.
Among the author's conclusions: "Clinicians should provide brith control information to all adolescents, especially virginity pledgers."
This should make you feel better if all the self-righteous virgins in high school ever called you a slut.

...