Asta Charles's Open Salon Blog

If global warming is a myth, I'm still not buying a Hummer

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:11:35 -0500

My dad and I don't see eye to eye politically. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's not looking at eyes, he's looking at balls or something nether organ and pretending that it's the ocular organ. Regardless, I love him just the same. I also don't mind some good political banter now and then. While I see it as somewhat a game, I think he's trying to place me in his own personal interview-esque "gotcha" moment.

This happens about once per week.

Today's was, "so, did you hear about the big global warming scandal?"

His position on global warming is that it doesn't exist and it's made up by liberals. I can smell his victory speech heating up to 350 degrees in his brain-oven.

"No, I didn't. Tell me about that."

He knows by now that if the sentence starts with, or involves, "well I was watching Fox..." then I'm going to tell him to stop so that I may go do my own research, then return to the conversation when some non-Fox information has been dug up (by me).

"Well it was all over the news, the WSJ, NBC, everywhere."

No mention of FoxNews yet. Nor would there be.

"Apparently some hacker, or maybe it was an inside job, got all these emails from East Anglia University in England and the University of Pennsylvania regarding the UN's global warming research. They reveal that a lot of the data is doctored to show that global warming is more real than it really is."

So I took to the mighty Google to find these emails and any information about this. This is quite interesting and I certainly want to know if it is true.

I found this very telling article from the WSJ. Click here.

He listened as I mumbled through the article with half syllables, to indicate that I was reading.

"Sad, isn't it?" He said. "So many scientists careers will be destroyed by this."

That, I cannot argue with him about. In a time in which we so badly need scientific minds, we didn't need them to be doctoring information. We didn't need them to be enhancing graphs in places that didn't fit the hypothesis. We didn't need them to prove a case for the UN or Senate or whomever, when there wasn't one.

But what if this is still wrong and global warming is still real?

Frankly, my dear Wall Street Journal, I don't give a damn. Global warming, as a household phrase and phenomenon, has served as the means to a much better end: the yearning to become more energy efficient.

Regardless of whether or not global warming exists, because we can increase fuel and energy efficiency, we should. We have the technology dammit! We have the means! We have the knowledge! Our lives can be so much better! I'd love to go out for a dewy morning walk in the winter in Los Angeles without wondering if I should lick my lips or not because they've got a bit of mist on them, but what, might that mist contain? Hmm, that, well that's a bit frightening when I look out my office window to see a haze covering the little valley my apartment sits in. Hey, apartment, I hope there isn't a hole in the roof from all this shit withering it away. My renter's insurance doesn't cover that.

Something is afoot. Whether or not we should call it global warming, I don't know. Post-industrial revolution, what we've done to this planet is far from coddling or nurturing. We have completely pillaged it and there is so much more to come.

We can create electric cars. We can use solar power. We can use wind power. We can recycle water (and Los Angeles does). We can use less space. We can live in urban areas and not commute from the suburbs. Sadly, global warming may have been the fright trigger to get the general populous to start to take these technologies into their daily lives. Without global warming, myth or reality, we would not have even tried many of these things. Sometimes it takes belief in a God to turn a nasty selfish human into a decent one. Maybe global warming was needed to turn an energy gluttonous race into an energy conscious one.

Cruel, Dysmorphic, Feminist Intentions

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:11:36 -0500

My view of myself is quite askew, my fiance knows this well and puts up with it triumphantly. I'd like to say this is merit of a true man, to allow me to comment on my generally mild body dysmorphic disorder and not tell me to shut up, but reply with a lengthy and amusing satire. Today's trip through the imaginary fat-mirror involved trip to the gym, which I found to be particularly unfulfilling (i.e. I still feel fat). I met the return home with the acceptance of my present feeling.

"Eh, this just is how it is, I'm never gonna look how I want. I'm always gonna be a little chunky."

Jab was not about to let this one go, regardless of how lackluster I had tried to make it sound, "what are you talking about? You're skinny. How many people have told you you're skinny lately? And I know it is more than one."

I have become relatively infamous in my own mind for completely denying these instances, of compliment on my body or general appearance. I wipe them from my memory because believing them would erase my dear old crutch, reliable friend "self loathing". Lately, however, I've gotten a bit better.

"Ummm...you? And um..."

Ok so maybe I hadn't gotten good enough. Then I remembered two more.

"Yosuke and Midori said I looked like I lost weight."

"...AND?"

Damn. There were more. My brain failed to recall this, using its shitty and routinely busted Dewey decimal system.

"I dunno." I folded. Here are my cards, I can't remember stuff that should make me feel good.

"Look, you do not see yourself how the rest of the world sees you. You just gotta accept that. You can't worry about it either. Look, I have two legs. I can't stand here and say, 'well I might as well have one leg because what if someday I do.'"

His pragmatic analogy was well taken. Then I forgot about my whining for a while. Then came the American Music Awards. We watch this bullshit because we feel a responsibility to our intellect to know what's going on in the world. As people who are somewhat decent at interpreting pop culture happenings into real meaning (yes, sometimes it exists), we try to absorb this information (I use the term loosely).

I commented on how J. Lo was now wearing tights because the sands of time had begun to reveal that she was not impervious to the demon cellulite. I felt that it was my "gotcha" moment for the rich and famous looking perfect.

"Why do you care? I bet no one else would notice that."

For the record, I do think other people would notice, but I don't think they would feel as strangely vindicated as I did. So I felt the need to explain.

" It's just showing that even though she's rich and famous and perfect, she isn't subject to the rules of nature. She can get cellulite just like the rest of us."

He wasn't satisfied by this. This was the catalyst for one of our epic hour long discussions involing a topic inserted into an extremely existensial vein of social psychology .

I had also just read this article, coincidentally, at theDailyMail.co.uk about a group of women who had participated in an experiment tracking their negative thoughts about themselves. The average woman has 36 negative thoughts about their face, body, or general self each day.

I'm not shocked by this at all, because I'd bet that I have more than 36. But I don't think that it makes it okay.

Dispensing this information, we were off and running on a discussion that would leave me doubting everything I had thought about feminism.

So why does all this shit matter? Why do I care that J. Lo has cellulite? While the thought doesn't take up hours of my day, it's a very brief moment of, "HA! I don't lose to nature as much as I thought I did! You did too! Sucka!"

I would like to say, "well it's because we think men are most interested in flawless bodies, so we attempt to subscribe to it." But I can't blame it all on men, that's complete denial and ignorance. It's a catch 22. This idea to subscribe to an image exists because 1) we let it and 2) we let it and 3) we let it. Yes, media perpetuates the problem, but we have the option to not listen.

This isn't helping women at all. This is hurting us and we all do it. Feminism had success as a civil rights movement, but as far as changing womens' perceptions of each other, it's done nothing. It's done nothing to leave us focusing on successes beyond the physical. Most young girls in the US want to be models, actresses, and heiresses.

Shit in one hand and hope in the other ladies, see which one gets full first.

This is a huge problem. While women are "allowed" and capabale of having great jobs practically anywhere they want, young women don't want them. Young women want the easy way out - more often than not, that has to do with relying on one's looks.

Do I get pissed off at seeing a woman that's better looking than me succeeding? Yes, sometimes, because I assume she succeeded by way of something I cannot compete with: looks. I have no reason to assume this. If I didn't, and no other woman did, we'd be competing on basic intellectual merit. That would be fair. That would be competing in the workplace and in life like men do (for the most part). We wouldn't be getting distracted by whose tits look better in their shirt and who has the best legs. We might actually be getting good at other things...like science, technology, and other pursuits that matter greatly to the human race.

My point of view is that we can see this change in how women associate and view each other in my lifetime. I might be 90 years-old, but it's possible. My fiance pointed out that this is not a civil rights movement, this is the alteration of the point of view and practices of millions of people: it'll take an era, if it happens at all. And even then, how do we decide it is happening at all?

Will women stop wearing bikinis? Will women stop wearing make up? Will high heels go out of fashion? Will women stop caring about giant African-maiming engagement rings? Will women's virginity be less taboo? Will the loss be celebrated and not shied from?

My fiance, as much a feminist as I, does not believe that we will see these changes in our lifetimes. I cannot say that I do, but I hope I do. I fancy myself such a realist that hope and faith are such absure ideas they may as well be the same ubiquitous, unobtainable, inconsequential pariah that we all chase. In this case, hope is all I have. My fiance asked that I explain my view, I couldn't. All I could muster was, "I just hope we do." I really, truly, vehemently hope that we as women can get a handle on this obstacle we've given ourselves. We're at a fulcrum, one side is my obsession with my thighs touching and not reading about quantum computing and the other is breaking the glass ceiling. We can't tip it while hating each other for looking hot. So what's it gonna be?

Conservative Talk Radio is Raping my Freakin' Ears

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:11:49 -0500

I understand some things. Like gravity. I know that pi is 3.14. I know that h2o is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. I know that Barack Obama is a president as a result of American backlash to the GOP. I also know that the GOP is using the term "rape" to describe Obama's domestic policies. As in:

"Obama is raping your state."
-- Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is such a damned eyesore and source of illogical eccentric verbal diarrhea that this should be discounted. However it was repeated by Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh on their radio programs, just to name two.

That's fine if you want to use such hyperbole. I'm not one to talk. After all, I buoyantly declared health reform to be the space program of my generation - I had high hopes, but I was also saying this to place a crown atop its head (and I titled this post "Conservative Radio is Raping my Ears").

This "rape" that the GOP speaks of is taxation, by the way.

The "rape" of the wealthy. Right, because they got that way by hard, honest, work at the Ford plant and stocking shelves at WalMart, like real Americans. The wealthy got that way by doin' some rapin' of their own.

I'm not above hyperbole, but c'mon guys, be fucking responsible. Like right now, I feel responsible to write an entire essay on why I just typed "the wealthy got that way by doin' some rapin' of their own." That's an entirely differently blog on the merits and demerits of capitalism, but for the calming of my own psyche I will provide this explanation: wealth is defined by having capital assets in excess of that of the common man, the only way to get that is by taking it from a large number of "the common man".

Glenn, Michael, Rush, let's pretend your radio show is a car. It's a lovely car and there are people all around it, observing it, they're your audience. Talking out your ass about taxation being equivocal to rape is about as responsible as driving your car shithoused through the parking lot of the superdome during Hurricane Katrina. You've got emotionally distraught people in a country in the depths of the recession: do you want to just plow them over? Have you no sense of responsibility to be honest with them?

Though let's remember, this is the same party that generally harbors values believing that if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, she need not be entitled to an abortion. Apparently the public is not allowed to abort these fucked up thoughts from their brains either. Glenn, Rush, Michael, you just keep right on humpin'.

Oh my! Monogamy!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:11:31 -0500

I'm newly engaged. Which, because I'm an easily amused and obsessed pessimist, means that I am not obsessed with my wedding - but rather issues that can and do affect married people. If you're married, or have been, you're probably already way ahead of me and you are probably already bored with this drivel pouring from the keyboard of a 25 year-old monogamy novice, but still...here it is.

So what are these issues?
- Potential divorce
- Life insurance of spouse
- Joint bank accounts (we have a joint bank account...mine)
- Children (we've decided I'm preserving my genitals, if I could cryogenically freeze them I would, instead, I'm just going to adopt)
And...
- The general maintenance of monogamy

Some of these things I may never have to deal with. Others, or all, I may. The one that is completely unavoidable and all people and couples deal with in varying ways is the general maintenance of monogamy.

Recently, several friends of mine have reached a point in their life that is full of foul marital downgrades. Either their own or of other close friends. Loss of libido, other intimacy issues, parenting disagreements, and life stage realizations and changes. Some will choose to get therapy, deal with them, appreciate their spouse and trudge down the road of "for better or worse". Others, will choose to hang up the towel and move on and create another life.

Overwhelmingly these issues have been sex related. I listen. I hear stories about no horrible defamation of the relationship, no horrible wrong was done, no great upset created by either party. The female just decides she doesn't like sex any more, but she is still in love.

This has got to make the other in the party feel a bit disenfranchised, a bit fooled. However, the female typically feels somewhat vindicated by society. Other females empathize and agree. Comedians(ennes) commiserate. Sitcoms mock, middle-aged radio DJs make euphemistic references to the same situation - it doesn't even need to be spelled out. It's just common - after a while, women don't like sex.

So I must ask: do women stop enjoying sex because they really don't enjoy sex with their partner any longer? Or do they stop because it sounds like it's okay to stop?

We mock fat people because it's the last acceptable prejudice.

Maybe this is the same situation.

Just like being fat is a symptom of our superpower advantage of having as much shitty food around as we possibly want, maybe losing desire to fuck your husband is a result of having so many condolences around us all the time. Both are overwhelmingly understandable and therefore universally understood.

But...but...but...I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

I've been in a relationship in which I no longer wanted to fuck the one I was with. He became repulsive to me. He did not make me feel beautiful. He made me feel like I was nothing but a ball and chain on his Oedipus leg. So, I broke up with him. I didn't marry him, obviously, and I shouldn't have. I also had a boyfriend whose secret non-verbal method of breaking up with me was just to stop having sex with me and let me figure it out. Figure it out I did. It was like I dumped myself. Now that's a mindfuck.

On the other hand, I cannot get enough of my finace. Largely because I will never forget what it's like to be treated like shit, and my fiance on the other hand, treats me like a gold encrusted diamond fused with rubies and sapphires and emeralds.

Maybe this didn't happen to most people. Maybe most people don't know what it's like to be the opposite of lucky.

It's very easy for me to sit here and say that this will never happen to me, this mysterious loss of libido. I have many reasons to believe that this is so, however, I do not know what happened in these other relationships. Maybe there was no abuse, verbal, emotional, or otherwise. I don't know. I will never know. I only wonder, what's this problem with monogamy? If you have it, you don't want it and show it in a variety of ways, and if you don't have it, you want it and humans are pretty fucking good at sabotaging getting it.

Historically, marriages succeeded (and the definition of success being solely that there was no divorce and one spouse didn't kill the other) because it was socially required. It's presently completely optional. Whether or not you want it is completely optional. It should not, and is faulted if it does, depend on what world allows you to do.

I can safely say that if my plan works, and my reason for believing that we can thwart a lot of standard marital issues that rear their bulbous heads over time, it will be because neither of us will forget what it was like to be the opposite of lucky. We feel insanely lucky. I know that part of our success has much to do with our remembrance of our failures, and others having failed us.

Divorced, Separated, Widowed? We've got a fair for that!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:11:10 -0500

I'm an extremely negative and forward thinking person. I'm also about to get married. My life is, quite frankly, the best it could possibly be at this exact moment. I guess there could be the leprechaun constantly handing me money or something, but that I'll keep for my warm snuggy sleep time dreams. My fiance will come home soon, I will kiss him, we will dandle on the couch and just be giddy and retarded in love.

That has nothing to do with me being negative, but this does. All he positivity and wonder feels like a lovely and sweet tub of ice cream that is some day going to get moldy and disintegrate - I know this is bad. I'm not fearing our relationship growing lousy, sexless, and generally gut-wrenching. I'm fearing the possibility of, "oh god, I could live the single life again some day...fuck that."

If your single life was anything like mine, you wouldn't want it back. My days involved constantly being in the prowl, drunk in real life at home, or on the internet, and consistently making terrible choices involving my genitalia and self-esteem. Hey heterosexuality, you can keep my fucking single life, I do not want it back.

But what if I have no control over that? What if there is a terrible accident and something happens to Jab? What if we're old and immobile and he dies before me? I would have no choice but to...ugh...prowl again. And of course there would be other issues as well: emotional, financial, legal.

Whilst I'm imagining this in my presently favorable state, it seems to me that I'd want nothing other than the help of someone who was experiencing, or had experienced the same thing.

Some brilliant brain in France did do something about it: The Divorce, Separation and Bereavement Fair.

Now of course my potential, future, and highly unlikely exodus to the single life wouldn't be like it existed in my twenties. For one, I'm aware that the propensity to fuck in bar bathrooms probably decreases with age. However, the other issues: financial, emotional, and legal are all examined in a number of workshops. And yes, of course, maybe you'll find someone to help you rebound. Even if they can't replace the one you lost.

Divorce, Separation, and Bereavement Fair.

Or maybe you didn't lose them, maybe you couldn't fucking wait to chuck them to the side of the road, to burn themselves up on their own devices. Well, in that case, there here is a fine crop of similarly aged singletons for you to peruse! Just please, don't take advantage of the grieving widows. They're using all their moisture for tears, not sexy juices.

Previously married (and presently single for whatever reason) individuals are a minority that are largely ignored. Let's narrow it down a little bit: over age 40, having teenaged children, and having to work. Let's move the age up a smidge: over age 55, empty nester, looking at retirement. Some people want to be alone, but everybody deserves somebody to love. Queue the jewelery commercial.

There are few viable emotional and dating services available to this demographic largely because they are viewed as being old and crotchety. I'm not counting online dating. Online dating is complete bullshit (One of my many blogs on the topic). I'm talking about real life meeting situations, being attracted to someone based upon how they look and carry themselves and your conversation, rather than some specs outlined with radio buttons and single field text boxes.

So, I worry about this because I worry that I could some day be in the same situation. I feel for my friends who are in the same situation. I feel for others that I know that are stellar matter in a filthy world. I hope that something like the Divorce, Separation and Bereavement Fair in France comes to the US because people deserve to have it. They deserve to feel togetherness.

P.S.
I also hope that gold diggers don't ruin such a fair in the US. That would be the way of the American slut, wouldn't it?