Cat Caller Form

WARNING: The form below contains offensive language. Feel free to skip this post if you might be offended.

Two weeks ago, I shared a revealing conversation (revealing for maybe 49% of the population, I mean) I had with a young woman about the thoughts that go through her mind and those of most young women when out walking.

She sent me this form (you will need to double-click it to see bigger) to share.

I was never brought up in an environment where we cat-called. I  find it difficult to understand what makes a man feel such power over a person he has never met that he would call out a derogatory comment. But it still happens and in areas of the world where you would imagine a more enlightened and aware populace.

In hebrew, the same word is used for husband and owner. I understand how this came about in Biblical times, but fail to comprehend how it has remained in our vernacular. Still, I recently followed a link about a story regarding my beloved soccer team and reached a daily English newspaper – The Daily Star – every page had pin-ups, including one which reported on a horrific case of sexual abuse. I remember this happening when I was growing up in the UK, but today?

Last month, I introduced my youngest son to an intensive dosage of Star Trek. He asked me if I thought there were races from other planets watching us and, if so, why they had not made first contact. I responded that maybe our world is simply not evolved enough to make contact with: we still have wars, famine, poverty, etc.

It just occurred to me: perhaps the commanders of these star ships watching Earth are female (must be a 50% chance). Judging by our behavior to more than half our population, I understand why they might give our planet a wide berth.

—————————————————————————————————–

Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award for YA – At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.   For more about the author, check out his website.

 

Fast Track to Hell: Paul Ryan – Roger Ingalls

I’m from the great state of Wisconsin and proud of it. It’s the home of the Green Bay Packers; the football team that’s won almost twice as many world championships than any other team. It’s a team owned by the community while all other teams are private hobby organizations for fat-cat Wall Street insiders. There’s something sweet about a community team that’s more successful than the bankers’ dream teams.

Wisconsin is also known as the home of Harley Davidson, historic development center for electrical power tools and machining, an original leader in electron-beam microscopy, super computers and, of course, organized labor. It is even rumored that a thousand years ago the Knights Templar buried the Holy Grail somewhere in the Dairy State between the Virgin apex of Green Bay and the Kensington Stone in Minnesota. This is why Wisconsin is often referred to as God’s Country.

Wisconsin does have its embarrassments: Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein and four out of the last twelve gun related mass murders (in the last twenty years) have been committed in the state. However, the biggest embarrassment was republican Senator Joe McCarthy who was responsible for massive civil rights violations during the 1950s. Current Governor Scott Walker is a rights violator too but is considered a pantywaist by comparison to McCarthy.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has selected Paul Ryan (republican representative for WI 1^st congressional district) as his running mate for the 2012 election. Paul Ryan goes beyond embarrassment for the state; he is pure evil. He is an agent for Wall Street and is pushing an agenda that continues the transfer of middleclass wealth into the hands of the one-percenters. Here are a few of his ideas:

1)      Privatize Social Security – he wants to turn your social security money over to the same bankers and Wall Street companies that crashed the world-wide economy in 2008 and stole the common man’s wealth and gave it to the 1% fat-cats.

2)      Eliminate Medicare for those who earned it – he wants to give us a partial coupon and then make us buy healthcare plans from Wall Street backed insurance companies. For profit insurance companies don’t care about people’s health, they care about making money for their shareholders. The only competition Wall Street’s insurance companies have is Medicare. All insurance companies offer essentially the same coverage so there really isn’t a free market choice other than Medicare. Once Medicare is gone, the people will be powerless and under the thumb of for profit-only Wall Street. Under his plan, getting the medicine and treatment we need will be a bigger fight than we have now.

It’s my opinion that Paul Ryan is pure evil and is trying to fast track the American middleclass into a hellish existence for the benefit of his Wall Street backers. Why does he have to come from my state of Wisconsin? I guess in a Biblical sense, the Antichrist must originate from God’s Country.