Dec 22

12 Days of the Internet Christmas

On the 12th Day of Christmas, The Internet gave to me:

    • 12 Geeks A Geeking

      My Peeps (if I were smarter and, you know, a fictional character.)

       (Source)

    • 11 Twits a Tweeting

    • 10 YouTube Videos

  • 9 Cats with Bad Grammar

    They do well with no fingers, actually. Maybe I am just too judgey.

  • 8 Facebook Game requests

  • 7 Sweet Baby Dachshunds

    Those eyes!

  • 6 Sexy Ladies

    Betty White is a BAMF

    (Source)

  • 5 Mountain Dews

(Source)

 

  • 4 O’Flahertys Offending

(Okay there are only two, but they are awesome and they count double, and they are only sometimes offensive. I won’t lie, the alliteration was too good to pass up on. Here is their evil empire.)

(See the eyebrow’s blog here.)

  • 1 The Bloggess making me feel pretty.

    I am keeping this forever

 

I wish you all a sexy, interwebz awesome, safe Christmas. Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

 

Share

Dec 20

Odd Trips Inward

Love and relationships have been on my mind a lot lately. I think it is mostly because of the time of year and that so many women I know are pregnant. I have been kicking things around in my head for awhile now, so, of course, I am going to over share about them here.

The most surprising realization I have had was: all you need to get love and acceptance is be willing to love and accept. Simple. Not everyone will love you, and not everyone will accept you, but people will care about you and want to be in your life.

Every living human being wants love and acceptance. It gets all mucked up in how we handle that desire, but once you realize you are worthy of love and acceptance and you decide you will love people in your life, flaws and all, then you will find it.

Some people will never accept you or love you, but you can’t help that. I used to try so hard to change myself to be more acceptable to people in my life, but I always came up short, and I was never going to be good enough. Somewhere, I don’t know where, I found people who I didn’t need to pretend with.

This is who I am. I am deeply flawed, weird, crazy, fat, socially awkward, and I will almost always, without fail, say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I am also funny, loyal, smart, honest, loving, and I find joy in making people I care about happy. If you love me and accept me, I will love you and accept you, almost without exception. (Okay, I do have an issue with people who are intentionally mean, hurtful, rude, or abusive. Aside from that, though, almost without exception.)

I am worthy of love and friendship.

I am also still deeply damaged and I am trying to figure it out how to fix me.

I don’t understand how I can see how worthy I am of friendship, but I still really don’t feel worthy of romantic love. Part of me cannot believe that someday someone fantastic will love me like I see in so many couples around me.

I believe in deep, lasting love. I have seen so much of it in my life. I believe some people are meant to be together for the rest of their lives, if they are willing to put the work into it.  I believe men can fall so madly in love with a woman that they form a pair bond so tight that are no longer whole without that other person. I just have a hard time believing that someone will fall for me like that.

Random interruption from a baby corgi

There is a reason I get into the relationships I do and why I let men I have romantic interest treat me the way I do. It is my self worth issues. I know this. I could blame it on a million things, from modern media, human nature, or being told at thirteen that I am not the type of person someone will want to sleep with because of my looks, but the truth is the reason isn’t important.

I need to look honestly at the broken parts. I need to poke at them and try to heal them. I need to admit things that people who care about me know. I have serious self-worth issues that I need to work on before I can be happy with someone else.  It would be fantastic if some man could swoop in and fix me, but I am done waiting for someone else. I have to figure out how to fix me, no one else can.

I have to finish my book for my own self worth. I need to realize all of those flaws I see are not greater than the good things about me. I have to  ask for what I want and to hold out for what I need.  I need to  learn that I could lose weight, publish books, become famous, learn social graces, but it will never be enough if I can’t accept that anyone would be lucky to have my love. I need to think I am good enough if I ever want a man to treat me like I am good enough. Otherwise, I will always need to be skinner, funnier, more successful, just different than what I am.

I need to make those crazy lady post it notes:

I am deeply flawed and broken, but I am beautiful.

I deserve to be loved like I love.

Anything else is a bunch of bullshit.

Share

Dec 17

-.-

So you cats dodged a bullet when The Bloggess continued to be awesome and donated dollars in the name of true love and the children and managed to make me feel pretty at the same time (I need a flipping life). She did this even those I kinda sorta called her a whore, but, in my defense, I did explain it was ME I was calling a whore. Whatever. So, as agreed, there will be no ranting about Star Wars: The Old Republic ever or discussion of my lady bits until next Thursday. I try to hold up my end of deals. You guys should really go tell her thank you.

I will make a separate gaming blog someday when I have something to say other than, “Holy fucking shit this game is awesome.” I will link it here and then we will never discuss it again. (Renee, this is mostly for you, because I love your preggo ass.)

So, SOPA is still being debated and discussed. I found a cool article on The Washington Post about it. Here is another link that makes protesting super simple. Throw a fit online. Get mad and get loud. New media can make a difference. Do it. I am going to keep writing about it until it is either defeated or I am made to stop. I love my country too much to see one of its most basic and cherished principles sold off to big companies. (Well, more than it has already been, but I am not getting into that.) /steps of soapbox

Hold up

/steps back on soapbox

It’s not that I don’t feel sympathy to artist who get their intellectual property stolen, I honestly do, but we have to question what we are willing to give up to protect our art. Sanctioning a censorship tool is the antithesis of a good idea for artists. I am not one of those purist who believe making money from your art is selling out or soiling the passionate intents of your work. Bollucks. If you can make money with your art, then you have found something that many of us dream about.I do believe, though, that a thriving and uncensored artistic community is essential for freedom, so handing over bits of that freedom in the pursuit of money is dangerous for our entire nation.

I put thought into how I would feel if someone took something of mine and claimed it as their own. Well, first, there are laws currently in place for that. They aren’t as convenient and being able to ask the government to shut down an entire site because they *might* steal your shit, but copyright laws do exist.  Well, okay, I would think this after my initial shock that anyone would want anything from my site.

I am a small fish, though. Small fish should sing the praises of the internet with every breath. The internet allows a vehicle to reach people like us, not only to find customers and fans, but to find people who do and love the things we do so we can learn from each other. I have the albums of four artists because I heard their music online. Three of those artists I would have never heard on an Oklahoma City radio station.

Ugh, too much rant and my brain overloaded. Okay, time to sum up:

  • SOPA Bad. Go fight and be an asshole until it goes away.
  • The internet good because it allows us access to each other
  • If you use stuff from someone else’s site and it isn’t naturally attributed to the original owner, don’t be a douche. Give credit and link. Shit slips through, I know, but try your best.

/steps off soap box for real this time

 

Share

Dec 15

I’m A Sucker

Let’s get two things out of the way first:

1) I have the hormone demons really bad. I am prone to very strong emotions but for only about two minutes at a time. This is an exciting time to be around me.

2) SOPA could get voted on this week. It is a bill that would give congress the right to take down websites at the request at the request of corporations. They are selling it as protecting American jobs and American ideas through fighting piracy. I would rather have my creative property pirated than lose my freedom of speech. I am not down with the Orwellian idea of the world. Google it, get mad, and bitch. Channel your dirty hippie rage for the good of your country.

Okay, now to the real purpose of today’s blog:

Untitled from Justin Valmassoi on Vimeo.

This is the dude from the Animals Talking in All Caps site. If you are my Facebook friend, you know I do a little bit of e-stalkng on this guy and his eyebrows, and I even made a t-shirt. He is my blogging soulmate, much like the Bloggess (even though she has a lot of people who believe she is their blogging soulmate, her blogging soul gets around), and he is in love, and he needs your dollars.

I am a sucker for true love. I believe in it with all my heart. Like I said last post, I try to pretend I am a bit of a grump, but we all know I am a pansy ass. I saw this video the other day, and my heart melted for him and those glorious eyebrows.

Here is the rub:

I have no dollars to give the man. I am a broke ass writer that gave her dollars to other charities. I know that since I have no dollars I should be worried about getting me dollars and not random internet dude dollars, no matter how stupendous his eyebrows are. I’m happy and want for nothing, but he is madly in love. He needs dollars much more than I do. So I will make you cats a deal.

If you just go look at his site (both the talking animals and his author site) and decide whether or not this man deserves your dollars, I will do two things for you:

1) I promise not to bring up my hormones for one week.

2) I am about to start playing a new mmo and I know I will be tempted to blog about it. I promise, if you guys do this thing for me, I will start a tumbler gaming blog and link it here but never mention the game in more than just passing. In effect, I am promising never to bore you guys to death with my nerding out about Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I know some of you guys are thinking to yourself: Well, Selina, if you start rambling about that gorramn game I will just stop reading your blog. That is fine and dandy for you, you selfish prats, but there are people who are forced to read this blog by the mere misfortune of being my friend. They HAVE to read this blog because I am needy and if they don’t tell me how awesome I am, I am insufferably emo. Many of these people are teachers and/or parents, so there is a distinct possibility that they take the horrors of having to read my gaming rants out on the children. So, really, you are thinking about donating your dollars for both true love and the children.

To sum up: go read Animals Talking in all Caps and see how awesome this guy is. If you give him dollars (because you believe in true love and you care about children), I will both not bring up my crazy woman problems for a time span of one week AND I will make a separate gaming blog, thus protecting you from my rants. I would call this money well spent.

As I was writing this, some thoughts struck me. First, it is a strange thought that there are probably atleast three people who read this site that I don’t know and have never said anything to me. I am glad you are lurking out there sharing my world. It is just a strange thought. This lead me to realize that I do the same thing, to the point that I devote most of a blog to some guy’s quest to marry his girlfriend and I designed a t-shirt about his eyebrows, but I have never once commented on his site. I should go do that.

I also realized that I might have implied that Jenny Lawson’s blogging soul is a whore. I did not mean this in anyway. I just meant that many people out there feel connected to her and love her. If anything, it is our souls that are a bit whorish and desperate for connection that we read The Bloggess hoping that she notices us and thinks we are pretty. (It could be just me.) Please, Jenny, on the very slim chance you read this, understand it is me not you.

Share

Dec 13

Holy Crap Christmas

I love Christmas. This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, because, in spite of my misanthropic candy coating, we all know I am a big goofy soft soul inside that loves any chance to celebrate the people I love and remember what is good about the world. Pictures of puppies make me go all googly eyed for the love. Anyway, yesterday we had a mini Christmas miracle. I was at the super Wal-mart before 8:30am with no coffee and I was so inspired by the Christmas spirit, I managed not to swear at anyone or throw any fits of any kind.

Growing up we always had big beautiful fake trees. Yes, trees plural, because my mom had one she helped my sister and I decorate and one of she decorated for herself with our important family ornaments. I remember laying under the tree and watching the lights. My paternal grandmother would come down with my brother for Christmas, and it was the only time of year I ever got to spend time with him. He would take my sister and I out into the back yard and push us in our tire swing that hung from a gigantic tree and point at satellites and tell us that it was Santa. Christmas was magical.

We got older and things lost their shine. My grandmother passed, my brother joined the military and then disappeared from my life, I learned that those really were just satellites, and slowly being a grown up crept in and the magic seeped out.

There hasn’t been a Christmas tree in my house since the mid-1990’s and my sister and I were teenagers. I think we put one up once for my sister when she got home from boot camp. After Ellana left, though, we really never put one up. At first we would decorate a chair, as a joke, and string it with lights and call it our Christmas chair. Even that stopped and we would just pile the presents somewhere.

Saturday, I went Christmas shopping for my mom with my dad. He said, “I guess we aren’t putting up a tree this year again, huh?” I was struck by how sad his voice was. I told him that I didn’t know and asked him if he wanted one.  He thought for a second and responded that he would like a small one. I talked with my mom about the conversation and we made a few decisions. Yesterday morning, we decided to bring back our Christmas, but in our own way. I want to share it with you guys.

 

Share

Dec 10

You Know, I’m Okay With Being Uncool

Many years ago, Tina was a barista (under paid coffee slave at an overpriced coffee shop) for a time. Back in those days I still lived under some delusion that I might do something awesome that required me to be social and know cool cat things like wine and coffee. I thought that I would some day be out with important people and get to the Starbucks and have to order a drink and either have to string some words together and try to cover my ignorance or just say “I want you to take some coffee and put a lot of crap in it so I can get a sugar buzz along with my coffee high.”

I admitted my coffee anxiety to Tina and she taught me how to order a coffee drink. The conversation literally went like this:

Tina: Okay, when you get to the barista say these words to her, you ready for it?

Selina: I am ready, teach me your coffee ways Jedi Coffee master. (Okay I didn’t say anything this cool. I probably said “Yeah,” but this is my motherflipping blog so I can change the past to make me seem cooler than I am if I want to damnit.)

Tina: Venti

Selina: Venti

Tina: Triple Shot

Selina: (sigh) Triple Shot. I know that has nothing to do with booze.

Tina: Caramel Macchiato (I repeat) Breve (I repeat) Upside down (I repeat) That should get you a coffee you like.

Selina: I have no idea what those words mean.

Tina: (Explains it in her super smart Tina way)

Selina: *blank look* Kay, Kay magic got it.

I can proudly say that it only took me like seven months to learn what all those words mean. Now I can order a coffee in a Starbucks like a goddamn boss, but only if it is that one drink.

I never did learn much about wine, except that I have extremely cheap white trash taste in wine. It works out because there is no way I am going to ever be around important or impressive people, so I can drink my Wild Vines wine with glee.

This kind of kills my will to live.

I feel like I should be able to get the herp from just looking at this picture.

The only thing that makes me okay with this picture is the internet is making fun of it. If this is hot, I am okay with being me. I think they skipped the implants and just put in those bouncy balls you can get from those huge wire bins at Wal-Mart. I bet if you smack them really hard, they still make that oddly satisfying ‘boing’ sound and bounce off her rib cage back into her face.

I am a terrible, awful person. I know this.

I bet they both have fantastic personalities. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go get some antibiotics for my eye syphilis.

Share

Dec 08

Plod

something that makes me giggle

Itsa Spork! A Spock and a fork combined! HaHaHaHa

Okay, I do actually realize I am not that funny, but it still made me giggle.

So, I am feeling a distinct lack of creative since Monday, thus why there was no blog Tuesday. I thought I would hang out give it a couple of days and see if the creative came back. It didn’t. I know that there is only one way to deal with lack of creativity; plod your way through it. I have set to plodding. I should plod in my book or free write in a document that no one will read and try to write something awesome here, but I’m not. You lucky SOBs get to see some of my plodding.

Okay, really, you guys have seen a lot of my plodding, so it is nothing new. I have decided to make a commitment to post amusing picture whenever I plod at you. I was considering not blogging unless I had something interesting to say. I think it would make the site better if every post was some of my best work. The downside is that I would probably almost never post. I also think the discipline of trying to produce something here 3 days a week is the only reason I got through my first draft. Lets face, the thematic experiment made me a master of throwing down 500 words of bullshit at a time.

Anyone who can write a month’s worth of blogs about wal-mart and Thanksgiving can throw down some serious bullshit.

So yeah… I got nothing.

 

Share

Dec 03

Majestic!

First a picture:

That's right bitches

I am still a little doped up on cold medicine. I would like to pretend that the medicine is the reason for my lack of coherency but the truth is my brain is the reason for my lack of coherency.

I have noticed that a lot of my stories start out with the same few openers like ‘I was at the super wal-mart’ or ‘When I was at Tina’s house.’ (Right now I really want to make a ‘one time, at band camp’ joke.) I think my strangest stories start out with ‘I was really hyper’ or ‘I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep.’ I have another one of those stories for you. Also, why don’t real grown-ups get hyper? I don’t want to be a real grown up if I am no longer allowed to get hyper. Anyway, I digress.

Yesterday, I had an hour long phone conversation with Tina. I asked her how she liked her new Kindle Fire and she got all excited and talked for like 20 minutes about how awesome it is. It got me thinking about how odd people are about technology.

We have our pet technologies. Tina is fairly indifferent to her computer. If it isn’t photoshop, whatever video game she is into at that moment, or online shopping, she could care less. She can take pictures and do magic and make them look incredible or she can find the strangest, most obscure things to buy, but she shrugs off everything else.

Me: When was the last time you defragged your computer?

Tina:  Blue?

The woman loves her smart phone and her Kindle. She knows all this little, bitty, nitty details and can explain to you everything they are capable of doing. I am expecting her to call me any day now and tell me she wrote a program that synced her smart phone, her kindle, the atomic clock in Colorado, and CERN’s Hadron Collider and it makes toast all while she is reading everything cool on the internet. On that day, I will still be making phone calls on my rotary cell phone and reading paper books because I am just not that cool.

The fourth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga is pissing me off. George R.R. Martin, I wish I could quit you. Nothing seems to be happening and I am 390 pages in. People are kind of wandering around. I just can’t quit reading it though on the off chance something really cool happens and I miss it.

Speaking of Brokeback Mountain, when that movie came out I was living in a small town in western Oklahoma and working in a different small town. I went to go see it with two of my friends in the theater and I loved it. I was working at a movie rental/music store/ tanning salon in Clinton, Oklahoma. My boss ordered 20 copies of Brokeback Mountain for rental when it was released to DVD because he thought it was going to be that popular. He obviously had no idea what the movie was about. It was a fantastic movie, but not the kind of movie people in small town western Oklahoma are going to rent. I really wish I could have been there when my manager told my boss what the movie was about. Good Times.

Share

Nov 29

I Shit You Not

So, yesterday I went to the Super Wal-mart. I was in a skirt and some really uncomfortable dress flat shoes that I was trying to break in (because women are crazy masochists). I was about half way across the parking lot when I realized my underwear was too big and was falling down. I tried to stop their downward progression by pinching them through my skirt. I was trying to camouflage my attempts at panty control by clutching my purse with the same hand. I doubted that I was very successful, especially since I was walking extremely awkwardly because of my torture shoes.

When I entered the store I decided just to pop into the bathroom and throw away the ill-fitting panties in the little trash can in the stalls. I was not about to walk through the store with droopy underwear and uncomfortable shoes.  I start to make a bee-line for the bathroom but I got behind this woman who would take two steps and the stop to look at her receipt and grumble for a few seconds. It took everything I had not to scream, “look here woman, my unnerbritches are trying to escape and I need to get to the bathroom so I can take them off, oh, and my shoes are ripping at my flesh. Could you kindly pull over to the side?”

I made it into the bathroom without losing undergarments or yelling at grouchy old ladies and swooped into the first stall. I drop my underwear and then notice that there is no trash can in the stall. I know there is a big trashcan by the door but there is a woman changing a baby right beside it. I considered putting my cellphone or something in my hands with my wadded up panties to try and cover them, but I decided that I would just accidentally throw those away and I would have to dig in the trash. I know the limits of my smooth abilities. I also considered waiting for her to get done but I know that with my luck more people would come in. I decided just to rush by the woman toss the panties in the trashcan and walk out.

I know she thought “Gross, she didn’t wash her hands.” I thought that was more acceptable than “The fuck?!? Did she just throw away her panties?” I also knew I had hand sanitizer in my purse.

And that wasn’t even the weird part of my Wal-mart trip.

I limped through the store and got everything I needed and went to check out. Three registers were open. Two had lines stretching past the lane, but one only had two people. I looked to make sure the light was on and that there wasn’t a “lane closed” sign and after I was sure the cashier wasn’t trying to close I start to put my stuff on the belt. At first glance I thought the guy in front of me had on a body brace and I didn’t think much of it until after I got half of my groceries on to the belt and realized it wasn’t a brace.

The dude was wearing homemade body armor.

No shit. Homemade motherfucking body armor.

It looked like he had taken heavy metal plates and cut them into a rough approximation of his chest and back and riveted it to something. He had decorated it by making designs on the back with electrical tape. I don’t really know how it was constructed. The man was obviously mentally ill and homeless and I didn’t want to stare or take pictures because it felt mean. I feel mean writing about it. I have a real hippie soft spot for rights for people with mental health issues and I don’t think he would deserve to be treated poorly just because he had something wrong with his brain chemistry. On the other hand, he was wearing motherfucking homemade body armor.

I really wanted to know how it was made but I couldn’t just say, “Hey, bro, that is some sweet body armor, how did you make it?”

Movie Poster

He looked like a combination of this and Halo

I think my favorite part was either the matching headband (a one inch by three inch rectangle of metal attached to some sort of fabric) or that the body armor was tucked into his sweat pants. He looked like a strange extra from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

The really amazing part was how the cashier handled him. Most people would have shied away from too much interaction from someone like this man. The cashier smiled at him and engaged him in conversation. I heard her ask him how he was doing, he mumbled a response, and she told him that he did look tired. When he left, she told him to have a good day and told him she hoped he got some rest. She is an incredible person and I am a total asshole.

Seriously, though, homemade body armor.

Share

Nov 27

Oh, That Silly First Amendment Thing.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. -Preamble to the Bill of Rights

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Believe what you want about Occupy Wall Street, whether you think they are a bunch of whiny ass kids who need to get a job or people who are finally fed up with the corruption in our political system and rampant unmitigated greed. Read Huffington Post or Fox News and be left or be right because that is your right.

Think this is okay or not, that is your right:

I like to think of myself as a liberal moderate. Truth is I am a bit of a hippie. I came by it honestly, from my ex-military father. I was raised with my dad telling me “girl, I don’t agree with your purple hair (or million other kooky things I did), but I fought and bleed for your right to do it.” A group of friends and I put on a peace protest a million years ago before we invaded Iraqi in the tiny town of Weatherford, Oklahoma. When my dad found out what we were doing, he told me he was proud of me. He told me I was exercising the freedoms he and his father fought so hard to protect for me.

I learned U.S history from a conservative. He and I rarely agreed on social issues, but he helped inflame my love for the Constitution. I was raised loving my country, flaws and all, but Dr. Gates helped me see the pure beauty of the founding documents of this country, of the ideals so many in my family fought for.

Somewhere we have grown strange belief that protesting is disloyal to our country. People pucker their faces at peaceful assemblies and think them unAmerican. WRONG.

Protest is one of the highest forms of patriotism.

When we protest, we exercise those rights to which so many in power pay lip service. Our country was built on dissent. We were founded on the belief that a country can only be fair and healthy if its citizens could express their dissent freely.  Like it or not, people have the right to protest. If our elected officials try to inhibit protests, then they are the ones whom are unpatriotic.

We don’t have to like it, we don’t have to agree, we just need to respect their rights, no matter how distasteful.

I was attempting not to write about Occupy Wall Street. I haven’t done hours of research. I have a pronounced slant. I am proud of them for exercising their rights and duties as United States citizens, and I like their ideals, but I know there is a lot there I don’t know. I will also admit this, some days I would rather look at fluffy kitties than get outraged about the newest round of bullshit. I am pretty ashamed of that, but I think it is a common thing. I think most of us feel the same way.

Actually, it is part of political theory. Basically, political scientists have known forever that people will put up with all kinds of shenanigans from those in power as long as the population is happy.  The greed and corruption has gotten so bad that we are no longer happy, and we reacted. It is part of the political pendulum.

Anyway, I was already mad as hell about SOPA, a bill that would allow government bodies to remove web content at the request of corporations.</sarcasm font> Which I am sure won’t be abused at the detriment of free speech.</end sarcasm font> When my friend Lynsie linked this article on FaceBook. My outrage went freaking insane.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

My hippie outrage is so immense that I am having a hard time being coherent. I want to write about why I agree with the Occupy Wall Street folks. I want to rage about the unlawful tactics that the police are using against these peaceful protestors.  I also know that after that first bit of rant, if I expressed all of my feelings this post would turn into a crazy wall of text, so I am now taking a deep breath and refocusing.

The media blackout of the clearing of the Occupy Wall Street camp makes me want to post the first amendment over and over again. This was not a military action; it was not a state secret. It was a mass movement of a city government against protesters. I am not going to argue the city’s right to crack down on the protesters. I do argue against the NYPD’s concerted effort to keep the media out.

Honestly, the mainstream media hasn’t shown much interest in OWS. Most of us wouldn’t have known about it if that first video of the NYPD pepper spraying that original group of protesters. (You think the establishment would have gotten the clue that people get all pissy when they see police using pepper spray on peaceful folks.) The internet has been the real vehicle for OWS news, like singer Amanda Palmer says, we are the media.

By the time of the November 15th crackdown, there was a significant alternate new sources (and some mainstream) covering the OWS camp. When the NYPD went in and attempted to clear press first, when they went in and specifically targeted those with press credentials, they stepped too damn far. Freedom of speech and the press are crucial. Impeding that is unacceptable.

Let us play pretend. If we read this article about the media black out and the force used on the protesters, but the events took place in another country, we would be outraged. Think of our reactions to Syria and Libya. It happened here, though, and the outrage is miniscule. We are willing to fight for freedoms in other countries, but we are so hand fed the ideals of contentment and not making waves that we refuse to get upset when our own freedoms are pissed on.

If it hadn’t been for Twitter and the internet, most of what happened that night would have been a mystery. (Some one has to be writing a researched, scholarly paper on the impact of Twitter on geopolitics, they HAVE to be. Get on it scholars.) The fact is that the people of #OWS are more media savvy than the NYPD which is good for those concerned about rights and freedoms.  Now with SOPA that could get quashed.

I am losing focus again, and my liberal moderate rage has gone on too long. I am going to leave it with my main thoughts.

We have rights, but we have to fight to keep them, and if we stop fighting for them then they WILL disappear. Our constitution is a contract between us and the government. We have to hold up our end of the contract to make the government hold up their end.

Okay, I am stopping my rambling and going to the freaking store. On Sunday, after Black Friday. Yay.

 

Share