Artificially Sweetened

The best he can say about 4000 U.S. soldiers dead (and untold Iraqis) is “they volunteered?”

Um, “stop-loss” much, Dick?

Time to find myself a good 1/20/09 countdown ticker.

Pictures of Pepito in his adorable monkey costume will no doubt come later.

In the meantime, for all those who were interested, here is my donation to UNICEF for this Halloween (right click to download).  For background on why UNICEF is on my poop list, go here.

It’s meant to be photocopied double-sided. Some charities that I recommend as substitutes for what you would have thrown in the UNICEF box this Halloween are:

http://www.behrhorst.org/

http://www.wingsguate.org/

http://www.concernamerica.org/

Please feel free to pass this file along to family and friends!

I’m so sorry Cali.

I wish there was more I could do.

If you want even more to get enraged about, check out my latest post at lesbian family. Let’s just say there will be no Tonka toys at our house any time soon. Grrrrr.

Boo: President Bush, I don’t support your dumbass war. If I had any choice at all, my tax dollars would not be supporting the murder - that’s right - murder - of our young men and women and of innocent Iraqis who have the nerve to do something ridiculous like go out and buy groceries at the market. So how do you justify telling me that my tax dollars can’t be spent on stem cell research that could save my life, because “Destroying human life [embryos which have not been transferred into a human uterus, let alone successfully implanted and developed into blobs with beating hearts] in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” Now remind me what the hell this war is supposedly about?

Cheer: To the NYS Assembly, which passed a bill to allow same-sex couples equal access to marriage by a bipartisan vote of 85 to 61. State laws don’t grant us access to the most important legal benefits of marriage, but they’re certainly a step in the right direction. C’mon NYS Senate!

And Another Cheer: To the much deserving Sofia, who is OUT OF PGN! Hip hip hooray!

And Another Long Overdue Cheer: For Dis, who very generously donated a Children’s Place gift card to Operation Lifeboat. I’ve only been meaning to thank her for, oh a few weeks now!

But don’t you fret: Dannielynn pouts just like Anna. Just in case you were worried.

Today, I am blogging for all the LGBTQ people who want to have families or to have the families they’ve already got legally recognized. I am blogging…

…for those of us who are estranged from our families of origin because of our sexual orientation. May this year open their hearts  and let them see that loving well and being loved well matters most of all.

…for those of us who struggle to find love. May this year bring you the family of your choice.

…for those of us who long for the presence of grubby fingers and dirty diapers in our lives. May the doors of homophobia, infertility and beauracratic indifference* finally swing open and let us in - and SOON.

…for those of us who kiss boo-boos and wipe noses but are legally ignored as parents. May wisdom and common sense prevail over intolerance and hatred.

…for those of us who grow older living in fear of the financial consequences of an unjust system that won’t allow us to enjoy the extensive federal benefits of marriage. Again, may wisdom and common sense finally prevail over intolerance and hatred.

Today I am blogging for him.

* We learned today that GB’s case was given a previo by the assessor (not sure when) and readmitted to PGN today. What a thoughtful 7-month birthday present from my friends in PGN.

Her second child was born less than two months ago.

And you idiots think that the only families worth protecting look like hers?

If you haven’t already done so, vote today. And please, vote to protect my family.

If you have a respectful disagreement, I’m willing to hear it. Cowardly anonymous comments will be deleted posthaste.

This hurts so bad.

Not that it happened. I’m thrilled that the good justices of New Jersey, or at least four of them, do not have their heads up their arses.

But how could it happen in New Jersey before it happened in New York? This is a matter of great and grevious shame to me.

All I can say, is that Eliot better keep his promises.

Many things are enraging me today:

Adoption: Crawling out of my skin with frustration. Guatemala Agency Lady (Ms. GAL) has still not given us feedback on the homestudy, which makes me think she hates it. She told me to call her today and has not returned my calls. Meanwhile, Vaseline Teeth is tugging on my sleeve wondering why Ms. Gal has not gotten back to us yet. The police clearance has to be sent away to be certified, but Vaseline Teeth won’t release it until we pay her part II of her fee, and given her tendency to move slower than a sloth on valium, I’m not doing that until she’s made all the needed corrections and given us the corrected, signed sealed and notarized homestudy. Oh, and did I mention that according to Ms. Gal, the timeline for referrals is now twice as long as we were told previously. I’d like to ask her why, but she won’t return my call…

President Bush: How does he get away with one day dismissing a congressional report showing absolutely no link between AlQuaeda and Saddam Hussein and the next day linking September 11th and terrorism to the war we’re fighting… the one in Iraq. This man is a disgrace to our country, plain and simple.

Today I am sitting in my pajamas in my parents house in NYC, where five years ago I yearned to be.

Five years ago I turned on the radio in my apartment in Flat City to hear the expressway travel times so that I could decide what route to take to work. Instead I heard the oddly detached voice of the NPR announcer say, “and eyewitness reports confirm that another plane has just hit the world trade towers…”

Not knowing what else to do, I got dressed and left for work. I was on the cell phone with my father when he saw a void and a cloud of dust where a skyscraper had stood. We spent the morning trying to locate my mom, who sometimes went to that area for work - fortunately she was nowhere nearby. I emailed friends from high school I had not talked to in years. Are you okay? Is your family okay? Miraculously, they were. All I wanted was to be there. To hug my parents. To touch my city, my wounded, aching, fiercely defiant city. To get on a plane and be there. Which, of course, I could not do.

Five years later, I hate what has become of this day. A horrible opportunity for our country to see how we were perceived around the world and work to change that image was perverted and twisted into an excuse for war. A war, I firmly believe, which has only turned more hearts and minds against us and created more terrorists. The lives of countless Iraqi civillians matter - as much as the lives of 2996 people who died five years ago. The lives of the lgbt victims Mombian writes about matter just as much as the lives of those unnamed - to us - Iraqis. And so do the lives of the window cleaners, illegal immigrants, stock brokers, firefighters, flight attendants and many others whose stories go told and untold. And a day for mourning and self-reflection has become a day for jingoism and self-congratulation.

Today is a beautiful sunny day in New York, as that day was.

ETA: Check out this poem that Sophia posted.

A little fun with photoshop.