A unity of what?
You know, there are some many attacks on women's rights going on that it's not the most offensive of them that get you going. Somhow, it's the more subtle ones. Even the Viagra-for-rapists while...
View ArticleBut aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
The VA continues to ignore women veterans even while they face the same pressures male veterans do, with the added conditions of sexism, the usual VA incompetence, and indifference to Veterans'...
View ArticleCots, clerks, and cooks
Talk of heroes and heroes alone keeps people from really appreciating the soldiers who serve---and who sacrifice.
View ArticleThe war on normality
Living in fear is what they want. The question is, who are they, exactly?
View ArticleThe trauma of....good publicity?
Do you know someone who suffers from humor-impairment? Here's the medical emergency we really need to work on.
View ArticleThank you for your service
What does service mean these days, and how do you show genuine respect in these polarized political times?
View ArticleRiding the nightmare
The VA ignores and downplays not just the severity of the symptoms of PTSD, but the events that cause them as well.
View ArticleNo such thing as safety
If, as a soldier, you seek help within the military system, you might find that the people you need to trust the most---your doctors and counselors----do not have any particular duty or inclination...
View ArticleWhat if it someone else's life?
PTSD has many insidious symptoms. One of them is coping with the horror of other peoples' fates and how it makes you feel. Another is admitting that you might have thought...."Today it was them....
View ArticleWhat veterans go through is what no American should have to
The VA promises it's making huge strides in processing claims for care and benefits, as well as doing away with hostile-to-patient practices such as underdiagnosing PTSD. But they haven't said anything...
View ArticleArmy general makes plans to court martial pregnant soldiers
Court martial pregnant soldiers, says one general, but a more interesting question would be how better would this minor be solved?
View ArticleYou have to die of something
We're all going to die one day. Most of us don't know when, most of us don't know how, and most of us probably hope for a comfy death in our sleep after a long, full life. Yet Republicans would have...
View ArticleA small yet significant difference
Some time during the Bush Administration, or since the so-called Repubican Revolution, we lost the ability to argue morality and common sense. Facts? No such thing. Morality? There was a mixed message...
View ArticleSandalstraps!
Let's say, just for for giggles, that you are engaged in a war. Do you want to win it, which entails treating the civilians of the nation you have invaded with respect and consideration? Or do you...
View ArticleFour be the things
“Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.” -Dorothy Parker
View Article"They were just lookin' for trouble"
One extremely striking theme surfaced for me during the broadcast of Freedom Riders on PBS. It was the constant refrain of whites who attacked, beat, and intimidated Freedom Riders. They slashed...
View ArticleThe miniskirt made him do it
So occasionally one gets into arguments in which "She asked for it" is the primary position of the opposition, usually said in reference to things like tube tops and miniskirts. Because apparently...
View ArticleNorth Minneapolis struck by tornado
North Minneapolis is a mostly-black segment of Minneapolis sometimes referred to as Murderopolis, because the killings seem to rise when the economy's bad. It's a neighborhood of charming twenties...
View ArticleAt least the insurgents are honest
The insurgents in Iraq never pretended they cared, that the bombs and the ambushes and the battles were just byproducts of their having so many soldiers to care about. Of course, in a way, they did...
View ArticleQuantity versus quality, reconsidering lifestyles
There's a movement in this country called The Tiny House movement, started by Jay Shafer, who started out by building really tiny houses. The basic theory is that people have too much stuff, and that...
View ArticleTwo cops acquitted of rape
People want to talk. Even terrorists---or insurgents. It's hard to keep the truth inside. It's like vomit. It's very hard to suppress. It wants to come out. Even the most callous of killers can't...
View ArticleJust call it barbecue day already
I hate Memorial Day. Very simple: outside of a few parades, maybe some standard TV spots, that's it. It's all about sales and trips and beer and maybe a few cliches to make people less guilty, if...
View ArticleAbortion is not enough
It's great that so many progressive guys vote for abortion. But it's not enough. In some ways some men of all political persuasions buy into a sweeping collection of sexist tropes about women,...
View ArticleSome choice
If you are a woman and a feminist who dares to express an opinion, especially that women are neither liars en masse nor greedy whores, and even more so that rape is the act of and responsibility of...
View ArticleWhat does a Republican world look like?
Over the past ten years, the Republicans have lurched then jerked sharply ever more to the right, as if there were an unannounced competition that only they knew about----as to who could be more...
View ArticleOn the eleventh hour ....
of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent. Bit by bit, the changes came. Trenches were filled in---and graves scooped out. A traitor's cemetary, oriented with almost primitive...
View ArticleHomeless veterans file suit in L.A.
In 1888, a 387-acre tract of land was donated to Los Angeles for the express purpose of being a veteran's home. Yet thousands of veterans sleep on LA's streets to this day, while many of the buildings...
View Article"Why don't you educate us?"
You get this a lot when you're a feminist, even on a progressive site, where the progressive and privilege-examinations stops as soon as a feminist points out that some dudes are saying some very...
View ArticleSometimes being crazy is the most sane thing you can do
My therapist is some comfy, suburban, white, aerobicized, educated and yet clueless, doubtfully well meaning creature who doesn't listen to me and keeps ignoring what I say. And it's not like I'm shy...
View ArticleOkay, that's it, that's all: the VA is actively trying to kill me
I've been on the same anti-anxiety med for four years. It doesn't work, doesn't help, maybe blunts the nightmares. My doctor increased the doseage of this drug that doesn't work, and that doesn't...
View ArticleWhen Michelle Bachmann talks about sacrifices....
Michelle Bachmann's come under a lot of criticism for her seemingly endless stream of gaffes and lies-----confusing John Wayne Gacy with John Wayne; confusing her husband for somebody who won't wind...
View ArticleWhen murderers do your propaganda
For years a two part list eulogizing the good old days has been making the rounds and nauseating anybody with more than a working brain stem, but it took Molly Ivins to really take apart the layers...
View Article"If I'm going to be in the Army...."
"...then I'm going to BE in the Army." The Internet can do amazing things, no matter what the conservatives say. For one thing, it's a crucial way to fight that sense of isolation that can overcome...
View ArticlePlease help this veteran
I had to remove the links. I now have grave doubts. I'm going to be brief. In my previous post, I talked about some friends of mine who have fallen on hard times and trying to keep body and...
View ArticleWhy doesn't the VA change its mission?
If they would just say that their mission is to screw up veterans' care, inflict more damage than the insurgents did, and offer competent help only by accident, then nobody would be disappointed,...
View ArticleWhat do I want from the VA?
Thanks for asking! You are now one up on the VA. But there's more. I'm sure some of this will resonate with other veterans as well.
View ArticleA social experiment
Years ago, I was working as a security guard at a site where I was the only woman. Pause for mansplainers to go, "Ruh roh! But she said she was in the Army! I caught her!" Put money on it now,...
View ArticleThe month of morning glories
September in Minnesota is the month the morning glories really start to come into their own, at least in the relatively temperate regions around the Twin Cities. Here, the soil anywhere near the...
View ArticleYou're being lied to, in big ways--and small
National Geographic has been running ads for George Bush's 'first' interview about 9/11, during which Bush whips out all the SAT words his staff looked up for him and still comes across as having...
View ArticleYou are not the problem
It's no secret that everybody is going through some terrible stuff these days. Foreclosure, job loss, illness, pet illness---and don't kid yourself. When you're going through horrible, constant,...
View ArticleThe VA strikes again
The backstory: female combat veteran, OIF, tries to get help for nightmares and increasingly horrible panic attacks, startle reflex, panic and fight or flight response. Agoraphobia develops after...
View ArticleFor valor above and beyond
You train and you train, you train some more, and the stock of the M-16 gets to be like a part of your body. Even today, years after I last fired a rifle, I remember the feel of it, the...
View ArticlePredators and/or conservatives
Newt Gingrich's treatment of his wives mirrors the Republican Party's treatment of women, poor people, people of color, and immigrant people in general. The GOP treats such non-people in a way that...
View ArticleAnd so one war ended
They struck the colors, they packed the gear, they boarded the planes. Behind them they leave the blood of four thousand, four hundred and eighty seven soldiers, countless hundreds of thousands of...
View ArticleIt'd be better if the insurgents ran the VA
The very first therapy group the VA put me featured me as the only woman, surrounded by: a cop who had beaten more than one wife, which makes me wonder how he treated women he worked with or...
View ArticleThe Republicans still call a reach around a 'reach across'
Mitch McConnell is still an asshole. I know there are lots of you waiting with bated breath for the Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus kind of thing, but you're better off waiting for something that has a...
View ArticleTHIS ISN'T HARD
I keep seeing people say that Tweeden was a Hooter's Girl, or posed for Playboy, as a way of discrediting her story. This is the same tactic they use with Melania: "She posed nude, hur dur." If you...
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