Personal choices and politics

It seems like more and more, politicians personal choices are under scrutiny. And it’s not just major person decisions, like what religion to practice or who they’re married to. But tiny, little things, like whether they own a dog or what kind of toothpaste they use.

Do our politicians really need to be just like us? Have we gotten to a point in America that we absolutely can’t like someone if they don’t prefer the same type of cake as us? Do we want our leaders to share this lack of tolerance? What happens when they visit a leader of another country? Are they just supposed to walk out if the other guy prefers tea to coffee?

I think people miss out on great relationships because they look into too many small details, and miss the broad picture of someone’s person.

I think we could miss out on a great leader if we spend too much time focusing on little details rather than looking at their political views and policies as leader.

And what makes us focus on such unimportant things? Is it the 24-hour news cycle? the dumbing down of America? the other guys putting stuff out there? Maybe it’s a combination of all three, but it needs to stop.

Let’s look at our leaders as leaders… how well do they do? What is their track record in previous capacities?

Who cares if they don’t use the same toothpaste? They probably have different teeth than you!

Fracking and politics

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has become a heated political issue since Josh Fox’s “Gasland” first showed people lighting their tap water on fire, which they say is caused by fracking letting natural gas into the water ways. Other experts have said that, in the right conditions, this was happening naturally. Of course, fracking could make it worse.

Now we have a new fracking documentary coming out, and it makes me wonder if the story will be different, or if it will just tell the other side.

There are two or three sides to every story, and I think that, while the technique may be the same, the results are very different in North Dakota than they are in the East Coast.

Rumors run rampant every other week that the EPA will put a moratorium on all fracking, which couldn’t be farther from the truth, at least not for North Dakota. Fracking can’t effect our drinking water they way it can out East. Most of us get our water from Lake Sakakawea, and fracking takes place far below the water table, so those that do use water wells are generally safe.

Hollywood has been getting behind the anti-fracking movement, so we’ll see what happens there.

Until then, watch Mark Ruffalo and Stephen Colbert duke it out.

Right now, I’m a bit scared

As Rick Santorum wins primary after primary and politicians debate about 50-year-old medical technology, I’m worried about the fate of women in this country.

I kind of feel like women have been fighting for rights for 150 years, and the second we take a breather, here come all these crazy men (and some women, quite frankly) who want to take all these rights our ancestors fought for away.

I thought we were finally to a point where women really had the right to choose. She could choose to pursue a career or a family or both. We’ve come to a place where women can work for awhile, take a break to raise a family, and come back to work when she’s ready. She could choose to only raise a family if her husband’s salary allows or to not have a family at all. To never get married or delay getting married. After 150 years, women are finally pretty darn close to being equal to men (except in pay, surprise, surprise).

And along comes Rick Santorum and his “traditional roles for women,” what ever that means. Because, quite frankly, women have always been a vital part of the workforce. Whether it was supporting men and educating boys in “pink-collar” jobs in the “golden age” of the late 1940s-60s or sewing in shirt factories in the early 1900s to helping out with farm work in the homestead days.

Women, traditionally, have always been working, it was just in a supporting role for many, many years. There are very few true housewives throughout history. (Not to be confused with stay-at-home mom, taking care of a kid is a tiring yet rewarding full-time job, from what I hear.) Women have not just sat around letting men take care of them, traditionally.

And, until the birth control pill was invented, it was very hard for married women to get a job because potential employers were worried that she would soon get pregnant and have to leave. Who wants to train someone just to have them leave in less than a year? But once the pill came on the market in 1960, a married women was much more likely to get a job, especially a pink-collared one, because potential employers knew that she could delay pregnancy until she was ready to leave, which could be years.

And now an Arizona state bill aims to allow employers to fire women (and only women) for using birth control. Arizona is an at-will employment state, so that means you can be fired for the flimsiest of reasons. The bill states that if an employer finds that a woman has a prescription for birth control, whether paid for by company insurance or not, she can be fired if the employer opposes birth control for whatever reason.

This bill does not allow employers to look at the medical records of men and their families to see if their wives are using his insurance to obtain birth control.

The author of the bill, a women surprisingly enough, said that it’s about religious freedom and First Amendment rights.

This is where I’m scared sick. I’m pretty sure the Bill of Rights is all about individual religious freedoms, and not corporate religious freedoms. The individual has the right to practice her religion and should not be forced to take any pills and should be allowed to keep her job in the event she does have a child.

But, as I’ve said before, FMLA sucks and needs to be reformed. So basically, you can be fired for having a baby, and now people in Arizona want to fire you if you don’t have a baby, too.

Women are basically [expletive deleted].

Oh wait, she’s not supposed to do that, that’s what this is all about!

The map is literally COVERED with Santorum

North Dakota has chosen, and they chose Rick Santorum. While a few population centers, including Dickinson, chose Ron Paul, the majority of the state chose ultra-conservative Catholic Rick Santorum to be the next GOP nominee for the presidency of these here United States.

The rent is too damn high: some thoughts

One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from people renting from pretty much anywhere in the Oil Patch is their rent will jump a couple hundred dollars from one month to the next, and sometimes they are only notified of the jump a few days before rent is due.

The worst part is these jumps are occurring within the time of their lease, so they can’t just pack up and leave without having a broken lease on their credit report.

Lawmakers often say they can’t do anything about rental prices, which is partly true. What they can do is outlaw those clauses that allow landlords to hike rent inside of a lease period.

Leases are supposed to work two ways: They protect the landlord by keeping the tenant in the property for the agreed upon length (usually one year), but they also guarantee the cost of rent for the tenant, but not in the Oil Patch.

Most people can expect their rent to go up when they sign a new lease, that’s a given, but it’s a huge shock to find out you have to come up with an extra $200 in five days for the rent you had budgeted quite responsibly for.

So please, city, county, state lawmakers, if you can, write some sort of tenant protection ordinance or legislation that will at least prevent mid-lease rent hikes. This is the least you can do besides sit back and watch your constituents leave because they can’t afford to live here anymore.

Super Tuesday!

After last night’s Michigan and Arizona primaries, it’s off to about a billion states (or so it seems) for Super Tuesday next week. In a turbulent race where each week sees a new front-runner, the 10 primaries held next week should give us a little more insight into who the next Republican candidate will be.

The GOP field for this year’s nomination has been nothing if not diverse, and I think the last four candidates standing really reflect the differences. Santorum is big on religion, Gingrich has some wild, almost science fiction-type ideas, Paul is a true hands-off leader and Romney is all-around pretty boy.

Which type of leader does North Dakota want?

No matter what happens, I just wish the candidates would come up with comprehensive plans to fix the economy, instead of drawing attention to social issues that, no matter how they feel about them or what type of legislation they come up with, won’t really change. Gays are gonna be gay, women are gonna want to plan their families and there are going to be almost as many different religions in this country as there are people… almost.

What you can’t do is make people go to church, stop having sex or control who they fall in love with. What you can control is legislation that drives the economy. With a mix of consumer protections, governing guidelines, a fairer tax code and yes, even a dash of deregulation, we can even things out and get them back on track.

So please, work on that.

‘Traditional’ roles for women and ‘Party in the Patch’

Rick Santorum is said to support “traditional roles for women” and I just can’t figure out what that means. On the surface, it means that women stay home with the kids while dad goes off to work, but life isn’t always that simple.

First of all, what does “stay home with the kids” really mean? For a man like Santorum who’s wife is always pregnant (seven kids people, seven kids) this does mean a lifelong career, because by the time she hits menopause, she should have some grandbabies around to take care of. But what does this mean for women who want a smaller family? Does this mean only leave the house to buy groceries and go to church? Does this mean maybe take a night and/or weekend job for spending money, but be the children’s primary care giver? Does it mean she gets married right after high school and start being a full-time mom, or does it mean she goes to college, gets her foot in the door and then take a few years off to raise her family, taking an at-home project here and there to keep up for her eventual return to the working world?

And what happens before they have kids? Is she a kept woman or does she work until pregnancy, the baby’s born? Does Rick Santorum have this all thought out? What are his plans for his presidency? Will he outlaw working women? Repeal the Family Medical Leave Act? Do other things to make life more difficult for working mothers?

Which brings me to Party in the Patch… would Mr. Santorum sanction this as a traditional role for women? I mean, if a gal’s looking for a man, this party is supposed to be the place to be to meet a man… if you’re into roughnecks… Would he see this as a great opportunity for women to find a man to take care of them, or would he see it as I do… a chance to get raped with no one around to help?

OK Mr. Santorum, where do you fall on women’s right, really?

Why?

UPDATE: A commenter mentioned Natural Family Planning, or NFP. This is a form of birth control (it controls birth!) and the classes and materials needed to use this method successfully should also be covered by insurance. Thanks for the input!

I’m really wondering why contraception is still such a big deal 52 years since the pill first came on the market. Why can’t we all just agree that its necessary for a functioning society?

If we don’t control births, we will have an even bigger population crisis than we do already. It’s not 150 or even 100 years ago when four pregnancies might result in one adult child. Women take much better care of themselves during pregnancy and doctors are able to catch many more treatable things than they once were, so there are far fewer infant and mother fatalities. Four pregnancies will most likely result in four live births and four adult children. I’m not saying shit doesn’t happen, I’m just saying that it doesn’t happen as often as it used to.

Are we that afraid of females having sex that we need to make it as hard as possible for them to prevent pregnancy until they are financially, physically and emotionally ready to have a child.

There was a study published recently that said women were more distraught over an unplanned pregnancy than they were terminating a pregnancy.

Having that cog thrown in the works before you’re ready is a huge thing to deal with, whether you’re married or not. Babies cost money and babies are a lot of work. It doesn’t always come naturally for some people, and women my age don’t always have the child care support their mothers did, either because they moved away from family to follow their careers or because their mothers are still working.

I’m really getting sick of right wing overweight Christian conservative men calling women who don’t want to be baby machines sluts because they still want to connect physically with their partner.

Birth control is here. It’s been here for half a century and it’s time insurance start covering it whether they like it or not because some companies might claim religious freedom, but that right belongs to an individual and not a corporation. Corporations are not people, no matter what the Supreme Court says.

Whether to use contraception or not is a personal decision between a woman and the possible father of her children. It’s not her religion’s choice and it’s certainly not her employer’s choice. In fact, despite the FMLA a woman can still be fired for being pregnant.

I wonder if a catholic hospital or university has ever fired someone for being pregnant. An employee can only be guaranteed maternity leave if she works full time for a year at a company that employs 50+ people. I’m guessing there has been a woman or two at catholic institutions who worked part time that weren’t granted maternity leave.

If these men are so willing to not cover birth control, they need to treat pregnant women and new mothers better.

Let’s talk about guns

So, am I the only one that thinks its a little funny that the day after we run a story about weapons purchase being up in the area, we have a story about a guy who shoots himself in the leg?

Granted, it sucks that someone shot himself in the leg, but it just shows that guns are not toys and, without proper training, it’s very likely that you will injure yourself or others.

I grew up in a house with guns, but guns were for shooting animals and NOT people. We spent countless hours in my aunt’s basement shooting at my uncle’s mounts, but the second a game of hunt turned into a game of cops and robbers and the guns turned on each other, we definitely got a talking to.

I don’t believe that weapons can stop violence. Usually, they just make things worse. Instead of getting a fist to the jaw, you get a gunshot to the head. I also think that people who carry a weapon will over-estimate its power and put themselves in situations that they might not have had they not had the Taser or pepper spray or gun. They give a false sense of confidence.

The best defense is to not put yourself in bad situations in the first place. If it gives you the heebie-jeebies to go to Walmart after a certain time, just don’t go. Don’t go to the bar and drink by yourself, don’t let your kids run free in the mall, don’t take candy from strangers. We get those feelings for a reason, and we need to tune into ourselves a little more and stop doing stupid things.

Using a weapon on someone, even if you think you feel threatened by them, does have consequences, even if it is in self-defense. Self-defense is not a get-out-of-jail free card. If you pepper-spray someone, they can press charges, and the charges and sentences just get higher as the lethality of the weapon increases.

I’m definitely not saying our world is all marshmallows and cupcakes, and there is a need for vigilance, but I don’t think that weapons are the answer.

Really Susan G. Komen for the Cure, really?

It was announced yesterday that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure would be pulling funding used for mammograms for low-income women because those services were provided by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, an organization that has been under a lot of scrutiny as of late.

I support Planned Parenthood. If it weren’t for Planned Parenthood, I would not have seen a doctor the whole time I was in grad school and the year I spent looking for full-time-with-benefits employment after. They take everyone, whether you have insurance or not, and help obtain free services if you qualify. (Many states offer free family planning services for low-income women and families.)

People oppose Planned Parenthood because they perform abortions. Because some locations perform abortions. Because some locations terminate pregnancies. But here’s the thing about abortion, it’s a complicated issue and an interpretive term. I’m not going to get into it (I never do, do I?).

Planned Parenthood has a much lower profile that Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Most of the press I’ve seen about PP in recent years has been negative press brought on by protesters or politicians. Susan G. Komen has advertisements everywhere. But the truth is, its a HUGE pink-washing organization. While most of its budget goes to “program costs,” the majority of their program costs go to “education.” The next-highest cost is research, which should be any cancer charity’s target, followed by screening and then treatment.

The problem with “education” is that it can include ANYTHING that is remotely educational. Not saying that SGKftC does this, but under a loophole, charities can call telemarketing for donations “education” if they tack on an educational sentence or two at the end. It’s a catch-all term that can mean a lot of different things, and it makes me nervous.

And then there’s the SGKftC lawsuits over the phrase “for the cure.” I’m sorry, but shouldn’t you be focused on finding a cure rather than suing smaller charities for using your catch phrase?

I’m not a big fan of pink-washing and breast cancer charities to begin with. There’s more you can do to help fight breast cancer than buy a pink shirt. In fact, buying any goods just because a small chunk of the profit goes to anything breast cancer related is really dumb, because you could just give the whole amount to a charity. But I digress. My point is, Planned Parenthood is out there doing something. It provides preventative services everyday to women, many of whom can’t afford to go elsewhere. Susan G. Komen for the Cure does a race and doles out money to others.

Pulling funding from an organization because bullies pressured you into doing it is spineless, and SGKftC will not be seeing any green from me.