*Sputter* *Sputter*

Sunday, I think I actually started foaming at the mouth because of the Akin craziness. Seriously, I’m pretty sure my saliva glands started to overproduce, and I could feel the convulsions coming on. I went on the Twitter and spazzed out. I always spazz out on Twitter because it feels the most like I am talking to myself. I esploded on my site’s Facebook page. I was full of rage.  Monday, I woke with some perspective.

I’m not going to go into some huge diatribe about why what Akin said was so awful. You either get it immediately, or not. Nothing I say will change that. He said something factually incorrect and demeaned the trauma of thousands of women. I don’t feel so bad about that I got foaming at the mouth mad.

Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as what this owl is going through.

Yesterday, I saw 90% of the internet is pissed off. I think most people get why what he said was bad. Good, maybe there will be some action. Now, how does this relate to me?

Today, I logged on and started reading news and some comments on some dirty liberal posts on my Facebook page, and I noticed comments like “Obama wants to force women to take birth control, but I guess those liberal whiners don’t care about that.”

There were several like that.

I poised my fingers to type a scathing response about how patently untrue their statements were. I was going to tell them all about it. Then I remembered the sweet sweet baby internet goat.

I’ve decided to hide all news and political posts on my Facebook and not click news links.

I’m going to take deep breaths.

I got mad for a reason. It was helpful. It isn’t any longer. I saw people saying things about him “needing to get raped.” Not cool, Bro, not cool. I understand the anger and outrage, but statements like that aren’t okay. Be mad. Write scathing blogs about he is dangerous or ignorant or blowing holes in everything he said, but adding hatefulness to hatefulness won’t help anything.

In the words of Effie Trinket: Manners!

I’m going to keep my eye on him. I’m not going to forget about it. I’m just not going to let it make me convulse anymore.  I have too many other things to do like change the world and look up otter videos for the awesome women who talk to me on the site’s Facebook page.

If you really want to do something for rape and sexual violence victims the RAINN site is a good place to start.