Free Speech is Free Speech: Part 2

A friend of mine had a great idea. We should all show up outside the Westboro Baptist Church and protest them! This article on Wikipedia has their address. I wonder if they would still claim Freedom of Speech, if we stood on public property outside their church and told them they were all going to hell because God hates people like them. We could even chant and sing songs like they do.

It's Pink Ribbon Rant Time Again

Yes, I know. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Or as I like to call it: Pink Ribbons Out the Wazoo Month. As I've said before, in general, I don't have a problem with breast cancer awareness. I think it's a good thing. I have a problem with this huge celebration (or sale-a-bration) that it seems to have become. In the old days, you could send in pink yogurt lids and the company would donate 10 cents for each lid. Nowadays, every product made is available in pink, with or without the pink ribbon, and you are guilted into buying them. Many of these companies donate a pittance to the cause, and really, they could care less. All they care about is selling you products. And they've learned that this is a good way to do it.

My other peeve is the entire Awareness Month. Breast cancer does kill a lot of women and strikes a visceral cord with them, because it affects their breasts. But it's not the leading cause of death in women - that's heart disease. It's not even the leading cancer cause of death - that's lung cancer. And yes, maybe it's no longer the leading cause of cancer deaths BECAUSE of awareness. But I feel like it overshadows all the other cancers. How many women worry about getting breast cancer and get mammograms once they turn 40, but have to sneak out to their car and light up a cigarette? How many young girls start to smoke and get addicted, never thinking that one day it could kill them?

Carrying on with my peeve, Breast Cancer Awareness happens twice a year. I start seeing pink a few weeks before October, then there's the entire month of October. Then there's the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure around April. My local station starts advertising that 2 months in advance, because they have training sessions at the local track. So that's almost 5 months of Pink Ribbon Madness. Just as I get sick of seeing certain commercials on TV, I get sick of seeing Pink Ribbons everywhere.

Another cancer peeve I have issues with is the term "survivor." There's a good article about this on Slate. I'm not really sure what "survivor" means; apparently it has changed over the years. It used to mean having survived over 5 years in remission, I think. Call me crazy, but if the cancer is gone and never comes back, to me, that seems like any old bad disease. I think the true survivors are those who are still fighting it. And if calling yourself a survivor makes it easier for you to fight it off, then go for it. But as the article points out, calling yourself a survivor makes it seem like you did all the right things to survive. So anyone who dies, didn't do the right things. They didn't get the chemo, or the surgery, or a better doctor, or they just didn't fight hard enough. And that's just plain wrong. My grandmother fought cancer for years, until she finally lost that battle. But I declare her a survivor for lasting that long.

Don't think I'm trivializing cancer by calling it "any old bad disease." But if we're going to call people who survive cancer survivors, what about other diseases? Malaria is really bad, and it can recur once you've had it. So should those people be called survivors? It's pretty uncommon in America, but not in other parts of the world. What about people with recurring heart attacks, etc. Are they survivors? I know some people out there are going to say that I could never understand, because I haven't had cancer (and I pray I never do!). But I've seen two of my grandparents die of it. And I've volunteered at a hospice, where a lot of the deaths are from cancer. I don't trivialize anything that can cause that much damage. But I feel that Pink Ribbons are doing the job for me.

Women Rule!

Foreign Policy has a great little photo essay on women currently ruling countries. It's almost sad to look at it. The US still hasn't had a female president, but freaking Pakistan and Bangladesh have - and they're Muslim countries!!! I had pretty much assumed we would have a black president before a woman president, which has turned out to be true. (Because no matter how prejudiced some people are, at least it's still a MAN running things, not some crazy dame!) But now that the ice has been broken, we need a female president soon. And I do NOT mean Sarah Palin; I think she's an idiot. We need some good female candidates over the next decade so that little girls can see a woman actually win the presidency.

Free Speech is Free Speech

I am a big believer in freedom of speech, and sometimes that means defending people who don't deserve it. Case in point: those damn funeral protesters. The case is now up to the Supreme Court, and I really hope they can cut through the hurt feelings and make the right decision, which is their job. Personally, I feel it is completely reprehensible to protest a soldier's funeral. But we have the right to do so in this country.

I believe I have mentioned before in this blog, that right after I graduated college, I did some shift work. I was flipping through the cable channels at 4 am and found the KKK on the local cable access network. At first I was pretty offended, but then I realized that they were protected under freedom of speech laws. To paraphrase: I don't believe in flag-burning, but I will defend to the death your right to burn the flag.

Yes, Rich, Jews were oppressed

Wow - it's been a while since I blogged! I felt the need to comment on this though. And I hope it does not come out as trying to defend Rich Sanchez. Sanchez was fired from CNN after calling Jon Stewart a bigot, saying he was part of the liberal northeast elite, and when it was pointed out that Stewart is Jewish, that:

I'm telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? I can't see someone not getting a job these days because they're Jewish.

Like I said, I don't mean to defend Sanchez, but maybe he just doesn't know? I'm an educated woman, and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I found out Jews had been discriminated against in America (and that was because of a movie!). I grew up with discrimination being black and white. As far as I knew, there was no other kind. It wasn't until college that I learned the KKK had at one point been anti-Catholic. Looking back, it really makes me wonder - why was I never taught this in school? Was it because there were comparatively few Jews where I lived, so it was considered unimportant? Or was it because there were so many people of African descent that all other discrimination was crowded out? But from some of Sanchez's comments, I think he may simply be ignorant of the past.

Copyrights?

Someone suggested that if freequel is indeed a new word, then I should copyright it. So, for starters, consider it copyrighted on this blog. I'd like to add the words frequel and free-order (free pre-order) to that as well. Maybe even fre-order? Ooo, I know, fre-book (for free e-book). Damn, I could do this all day. But I am serious about freequel, etc.


Edit: Great, so as soon as I posted this I found frequel: apparently it is a movie that keeps repeating from the same franchise (franchise + sequel?). I guess I should stick to free-pre or something like that.

Freequel? You heard it here first!

So, I got a Kindle a for Christmas. And it fucking rocks! I've downloaded a bunch of classics (free), some of which I have actually now read. And I've really gotten into the Amazon Free 100 list. I was recently made aware of a site called AddAll, which is a meta search engine for e-books. It also lists the latest free e-books (free-books?) from Amazon. But some of those e-books are actually not out yet. Yes, Amazon has free e-books, that you can order for $0, and they are delivered to your Kindle when they are released. Yay! So I decided to coin a new term for these free, order-in-advance, e-books, and the first thing that came to mind was Freequel. Like a prequel, but instead it's free. You heard it here first.