Wash, DC. March 7-March 12th, 2008, crash space or coffee?

I'm going to be in Washington, DC for the National Young Women's Leadership Conference and the National Council of Women's Organizations' Women's Equality Day & Congressional Action Day.

I'm driving to Atlanta on March 7th, flying out that night, then heading to Boston on March 12th.

Does anybody live in Washington or know someone who has crash space there? Or hell, anybody that wants to get coffee while I'm there? Lemme know, if you please.

Ooh, or if you want to go with me, definitely let me know, we could split a hotel room or something..

Alabama Code, Section 13A-12-200.2, 4, 12

Distribution, possession with intent to distribute, production, etc., of obscene material prohibited; penalties; distribution of fines.
(a)(1) It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value. Material not otherwise obscene may be obscene under this section if the distribution of the material, the offer to do so, or the possession with the intent to do so is a commercial exploitation of erotica solely for the sake of prurient appeal. Any person who violates this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) and may also be imprisoned in the county jail or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not more than one year. A second or subsequent violation of this subdivision is a Class C felony if the second or subsequent violation occurs after a conviction has been obtained for a previous violation. Upon a second violation, a corporation or business entity shall be fined not less than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) nor more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000).

(2) It shall be unlawful for any person, being a wholesaler, to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute, for the purpose of resale or commercial distribution at retail, any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value. Material not otherwise obscene may be obscene under this section if the distribution of the material, the offer to do so, or the possession with the intent to do so is a commercial exploitation of erotica solely for the sake of their prurient appeal. Any person who violates this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) and may also be imprisoned in the county jail or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not more than one year. A second or subsequent violation of this subdivision is a Class C felony if the second or subsequent violation occurs after a conviction has been obtained for a previous violation. Upon a second violation, a corporation or business entity shall be fined not less than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) nor more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000).

(3) It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly produce, or offer or agree to produce, any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value. Material not otherwise obscene may be obscene under this section if the distribution of the material, the offer to do so, or the possession with the intent to do so is a commercial exploitation of erotica solely for the sake of prurient appeal. Any person who violates this subsection shall be guilty of a Class C felony.

(4) If a person is held under this section in the county jail, one-half of any fines collected and due to be deposited to the State General Fund for violations of this section shall be paid by the Comptroller to the general fund of the county where the person is held for the operation of the county jail.
(Acts 1989, No. 89-402, p. 791, §4; Act 98-467, p. 893, §6.)

Prurient Appeal: Under the Miller v. California decision of the US Supreme Court, prurient interest appeal is determined by the average person applying contemporary community standards, that is, an average person must find that a given work appeals to the prurient interest of someone, not necessarily to the prurient interest of the average factfinder. The appeal to material's intended and probable recipient group is the determinative factor. Generally, the standard applied is the average adult standard. It is error to focus only on the most sensitive, least sensitive or younger members of the community. However, where the material is aimed at a deviant segment of society, it should be judged by its impact upon that group.

Definition of Prurient: marked by or arousing an immoderate or unwholesome interest or desire; especially : marked by, arousing, or appealing to sexual desire

Section 13A-12-200.4
Affirmative defenses. It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating Sections 13A-12-200.2 and 13A-12-200.3 that the act charged was done for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purpose.

Section 13A-12-200.12
Special operating license for adult-only enterprises; advertisement; revocation of license.
(a) Any business establishment that operates as an "adult bookstore," "adult movie house," "adult video store," or other form of adult-only entertainment enterprise shall obtain in addition to any licenses required by existing law a special operating license, except that a video rental store that does not engage predominantly in and whose principle business is not the sale or rental of adult material, if it is maintained in compliance with Section 13A-12-200.5(2) or is located in an area restricted to adults. Persons who apply for the license shall provide on the application detailed information concerning ownership and financing, and pay an investigation fee of five hundred dollars ($500) to the county or municipality wherein the business establishment will be located.

(b) If granted the license, the local government, in its discretion, may restrict the type of advertisement that the business establishment can display outside the establishment.

(c) The license shall be revoked if the business establishment is convicted of violating this division.

(Act 98-467, p. 893, §8.)

Is Nancy Pelosi a bitch? I want your opinions.

Is Nancy Pelosi a bitch?

I'm very interested in seeing women achieving high positions in politics.

I'm also surprised when I hear women, not defending female politicians, but attacking them for being "bitchy".

Today at work: "Nancy Pelosi might as well be a man. She's such a bitch. If I had known she was going to be such a bitch, I would've rather seen a man in the position. She's totally turned me off. Why does she have to be so confrontational? So argumentative? Why does she have to talk so much? God, I can't stand her tone of voice. I don't like George Bush but I didn't think I would dislike a woman that much. I dislike her almost as much as I dislike Hilary."

So is Nancy Pelosi a bitch? If she were a man, would she be called an asshole? What makes her a bitch? Her aggressive personality? How should she act? If acting aggressive is being a man, then she should be more passive? Is that what women want out of female politicians?

So what's the story morning glory? What do y'all think?

Declaration of Rights for Women by NAWSA, July 4, 1876

While the nation is buoyant with patriotism, and all hearts are attuned to praise, it is with sorrow we come to strike the one discordant note, on this one-hundredth anniversary of our country's birth. When subjects of kings, emperors, and czars from the old world join in our national jubilee, shall the women of the republic refuse to lay their hands with benedictions on the nation's head? Surveying America's exposition, surpassing in magnificence those of London, Paris, and Vienna, shall we not rejoice at the success of the youngest rival among the nations of the earth? May not our hearts, in unison with all, swell with pride at or great achievements as a people; our free speech, free press, free schools, free church, and the rapid progress we have made in material wealth, trade, commerce and the inventive arts? And we do rejoice in the success, thus far, of our experiment of self-government. Our faith is firm and unwavering in the broad principles of human rights proclaimed in 1776, not only as abstract truths, but as the cornet stones of a republic. Yet we cannot forget, even in this glad hour, that while all men of every race, and clime, and condition, have been invested with the full rights of citizenship under our hospitable flag, all women still suffer the degradation of disfranchisement.

The history of our country the past one hundred years has been a series of assumptions and usurpations of power over woman, in direct opposition to the principles of just government, acknowledged by the United States as its foundations, which are:


First - the natural rights of each individual.
Second - the equality of these rights.
Third - that rights not delegated are retained by the individual
Fourth - that no person can exercise the rights of others without delegated authority
Fifth - that the non-use of rights does not destroy them
And for the violation of these fundamental principles of our government, we arraign our rulers on this Fourth day of July, 1876, - and these are our articles of impeachment:

Bills of attainder have been passed by the introduction of the word "male" into all the State constitutions, denying to women the right of suffrage, and thereby making sex a crime - an exercise of power clearly forbidden in article I, sections 9, 10, of the United States constitution.

The writ of habeas corpus, the only protection against lettres de cachet and all forms of unjust imprisonment, which the constitution declares "shall not be suspended, except in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety demands it," is held inoperative in every State of the Union, in case of a married woman against her husband - the marital rights of the husband being in all cases primary, and the rights of the wife secondary.

The right of trial by jury of one's peers was so jealously guarded that States refused to ratify the original constitution until it was guaranteed by the sixth amendment. And yet the women of this nation have never been allowed a jury of their peers - being tried in all cases by men, native and foreign, educated and ignorant, virtuous and vicious. Young girls have been arraigned in our courts for the crime of infanticide; tried, convicted, hanged - victims, perchance, of judge, jurors, advocated - while no woman's voice could be heard in their defense. And not only are women denied a jury of their peers, but in some cases, jury trial altogether. During the was, a woman was tried and hanged by military law, in defiance of the fifth amendment, which specifically declares: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital crime or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases . . . . of persons in actual service in time of war." During the last presidential campaign, a woman, arrested for voting, was denied the protection of a jury, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a fine and costs of prosecution, by the absolute power of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Taxation without representation, the immediate cause of the rebellion of the colonies against Great Britain, is one of the grievous wrongs the women of this country have suffered during the century. Deploring war, with all the demoralization that follows in its train, we have been taxed to support standing armies, with their waste of life and wealth. Believing in temperance, we have been taxed to support the vice, crime, and pauperism of the liquor traffic. While we suffer its wrongs and abuses infinitely more than man, we have no power to protect our sons against this giant evil. During the temperance crusade, mothers were arrested, fined, imprisoned, for even praying and singing in the streets, while men blockaded the sidewalks with impunity, even on Sunday, with their military parades and political processions. Believing in honesty, we are taxed to support a dangerous army of civilians, buying and selling the offices of government and sacrificing the best interests of the people. And, moreover, we are taxed to support the very legislators and judges who make laws, and render decisions adverse to women. And for refusing to pay unjust taxation, the houses, lands, bonds, and stock of women have been seized and sold within the present year, thus proving Lord Coke's assertion, that "The very act of taxing a man's property without his consent is, in effect, disfranchising him of every civil right."

Unequal codes for men and women. Held by law a perpetual minor incapable of self-protection, even in the industries of the world, woman is denied equality of rights. The fact of sex, not the quantity or quality of work, in most cases, decides the pay and position; and because of this injustice thousands of fatherless girls are compelled to choose between a life of shame and starvation. Laws catering to man's vices have created two codes of morals in which penalties are graded according to the political status of the offender. Under such laws, women are fined and imprisoned if found alone in the streets, or in public places of resort, at certain hours. Under the pretense of regulating public morals, police officers seizing the occupants of disreputable houses, march the women in platoons to prison, while the men, partners in their guilt, go free. While making a show of virtue in forbidding the importation of Chinese women on the Pacific coast for immoral purposes, our rulers, in many States, and even under the shadow of the national capitol, are now proposing to legalize the sale of American womanhood for the same vile purposes.

Special legislation for woman has placed us in a most anomalous position. Women invested with the rights of citizens in one section - voters, jurors, office-holders - crossing an imaginary line, are subjects in the next. In some States, a married woman may hold property and transact business in her own name; in others, her earnings belong to her husband. In some Stated, a woman may testify against her husband, sue and be sued in courts; in others, she has no redress in case of damage to her person, property, or character. In case of divorce on account of adultery in the husband, the innocent wife is held to possess no right to children or property, unless by special decree of the court. But in no State of the Union has the wife the right to her own person, or to any part of the joint earnings of the co-partnership during the life of her husband. In some States women may enter law schools and practice in the courts; in others they are forbidden. In some universities girls enjoy equal educational advantages with boys, while many of the proudest institutions in the land deny them admittance, though the sons of China, Japan, and Africa re welcomed there. But the privileges already granted in the several States are by no means secure. The right of suffrage once exercised by women in certain States and territories has been denied by subsequent legislation. A bill is now pending in congress to disfranchise the women of Utah, thus interfering to deprive United States citizens of the same rights which the Supreme Court has declared the national government powerless to protect anywhere. Laws passed after years of untiring effort, guaranteeing married women certain rights of property, and mothers the custody of their children, have been repealed in States where we supposed all was safe. Thus have our most sacred rights been made the football of legislative caprice, proving that a power which grants as a privilege what by nature is a right, may withhold the same as a penalty when deeming it necessary for its own perpetuation.

Representation of woman has had no place in the nation's thought. Since the incorporation of the thirteen original States, twenty-four have been admitted to the Union, not one of which has recognized woman's right of self-government. On this birthday of our national liberties, July Fourth 1876, Colorado, like all her elder sisters, comes into the Union with the invidious word "male" in her constitution.

The judiciary above the nation has proved itself but the echo of the party in power, by upholding and enforcing laws that are opposed to the spirit and letter of the constitution. When the slave power was dominant, the Supreme Court decided that a black man was not a citizen, because he had not the right to vote; and when the constitution was so amended as to make all persons citizens, the same high tribunal decided that a woman, though a citizen, had not the right to vote. Such vacillating interpretations of constitutional law unsettle our faith in judicial authority, and undermine the liberties of the whole people.

These articles of impeachment against our rulers we now submit to the impartial judgment of the people. To all these wrongs and oppressions woman has not submitted in silence and resignation. From the beginning of the century, when Abigail Adams, the wife of one president and the mother of another, said, "We will not hold ourselves bound to obey laws in which we have no voice or representation," until now, woman's discontent has been steadily increasing, culminating nearly thirty years ago in a simultaneous movement among the women of the nation, demanding the right of suffrage. In making our just demands, a higher motive than the pride of sex inspires us; we feel that national safety and stability depend on the complete recognition of the broad principles of our government. Woman's degraded, helpless position is the weak point in our institutions to-day; a disturbing force everywhere, severing family ties, filling our asylums with the deaf, the dumb, the blind; our prisons with criminals, our cities with drunkenness and prostitution; our homes with disease and death. it was the boast of the founders of the republic, that the rights for which they contended were the rights of human nature. If these rights are ignored in the case of one-half the people, the nation is surely preparing for its downfall. Governments try themselves. The recognition of a governing and a governed class in incompatible with the first principles of freedom. Woman has not been a heedless spectator of the events of this century, not a dull listener to the grand arguments for the equal rights of humanity. From the earliest history of our country woman has shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom, and has stood firmly by his side in its defense. Together, they have made this country what it is. Woman's wealth, thought and labor have cemented the stones of every monument man has reared to liberty.

And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour hand of the great clock that marks the centuries points to 1876, we declare our faith in the principles of self-government; our full equality with man in natural rights; that woman was made first for her own happiness, with the absolute right to herself - to all the opportunities and advantages life affords for her complete development; and we deny that dogma of the centuries, incorporated in the codes of nations - that woman was made for man - her best interests, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his will. We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.

Warning: Feminist ranting ensues

Okay, feminist ranting may ensue.

It's Been Said: "You don't look like a feminist"?

It has been my experience that most men (no woman has ever questioned it) feel I do not look like a feminist. Or I don't talk like "one of those women." And I like men, right? Oh, then I'm definitely not like those lesbian feminazis.

Well guess what. Yeah, yeah, I kind'a am. And to my knowledge, the majority of feminists are hetereosexual women, though I cannot put my hands on the statistics to prove it. Either way, you'd be hard pressed to prove that I am (as a 5'3" fair complexioned, blonde, blue-eyed middle class graduate student) in anyway dissimilar from the demographics of feminists in the United States. In fact, first and second wave feminism had been criticized (by some third wave feminists) as being too white, too middle class, etc.

And then, because (though it's fairly representative of Third Wave Feminism) I wear bras, skirts, and sometimes make up, I don't refuse it when men open doors for men, and I am not afraid to speak frankly about sexuality, it is apparently hard for men to take me seriously as a feminist.

I'm not usually a ball-buster. I'm usually not, what I would even call for fun, a feminazi. I don't hate men. But I will bust your balls, I will strip you of your chauvinism and shove it down your throat, and I will educate you on your misconception if you laugh at my feminism and think the size of my breasts or the shape of my hips give you any right to disrespect me or disregard me. And I will look damn pretty doing it.

Note: The above only refers to chauvinist pigs who try to patronize and dictate scenarios without paying attention to whom they are disrespecting.

It's Been Said: "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." This is apparently misquoted from being in a speech given at the 1992 GOP convention. It is actually from a letter Pat Robertson wrote that was published in the Washington Post, opposing the Iowa Equal Rights Amendment. (See Post 23 August 1992).

Ok! I have no problem with women leaving their husbands (their monkey, not mine), practicing witcraft (ok, I'm Heathen, do you really think I would?), or becoming lesbians (I like men, but I'm cool with chicks that don't).

Destroying capitalism? I do not believe feminism as a philosophy or a movement seeks to do that. Amend capitalism, reform capitalism, etc., perhaps, but it's nothing social reformers haven't been doing for over a hundred years now.

Kill their children? I believe this is a ploy by Pat Robertson to connect abortion with murdering live human beings. I am completely opposed to murder, rape, the abuse/neglect of children, etc. Susan Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith), Andrea Yates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates), and Darlie Routier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie_Routier) are mentally ill, co-dependant, etc. and hardly feminists. Abortion, however, is not murder. I can discuss, and given about 15 minutes of research, present accurate data about the types of abortive procedures usually performed and the misconceptions usually held by anti-choice activists (I refuse to use the term pro-life, as many of them use the term "pro-abortion", both of which are misleading terms, and this will probably appear in a later blog).

It's Been Said: Some chicks have a problem with being called feminists, because of the "connotations" it has.

Connotations? Well, when it all comes down to it, I'm sick of some of the connotations the word "woman" has. Or "liberal." Or… "democracy" even these days.

Though there are several feminist sub-cultures running around these days, there does seem to be a basic philosophy of, at least: truly equal protection under the law (hello 14th amendment), social, economic, and legal equality, fighting discrimination and double standards. You don't like the connotation of equality? Of being seen as something more than a vagina with legs? Go fuck yourself, you insult your species.

Go ahead, argue with me about this. I take no responsibility for your brain bleeding.

Coming Soon: My stances on corn subsidies, illegal immigration, American corporations, and fuel efficiency.