Improvisations on Reality

There has been a lot of brouhaha on the Web about Amazon.com lately, and the entire Amazon vs. B&N thing. I’ll likely elaborate more on this later on, but now’s a good time for a quick sound-off.

Best post on the subject so far is from J.A. Konrath, who is a self-published powerhouse, and whose posts I find particularly insightful.

Amazon isn’t eliminating the competition. Just the opposite, it’s encouraging it. The only problem is, the competition is a little bit more stalwart about changing with the times. Amazon had rolled out one innovation after another, and so far, they had a smashing success with it. Go ahead, call it a monopoly, but let me ask you this: how quickly did the Kindle go from a Netbook-sized monochrome e-ink screen to the Fire version? Within three years. So effectively, just as soon as it came out, Amazon was already on the case of how to improve it.

Look: self-publishing and e-publishing is the new future of books. One way or another, that is the case. Take it or leave it. You can have the paper copies, they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, but this is the new revolution in the readership medium. The Big 6 publishing companies are either slow to acknowledge this fact, or are playing ostrich by sticking their heads into a mountain of manuscripts in their slush piles, and their business practices and accounting alike are stuck in the same phase that they in were thirty years ago. Since advertising for books had gone online and social media-oriented, the publishing house sees no incentive to advertise the books, because they figure that hey, the author is already on the Internet and socializing, so they can do the work. There is a growing lack of follow-through with advertising and marketing on the trad-pub end, which both the author and publisher rely on for sales.

Also, let me just say that if a publisher can afford to get an office on 6th avenue and 49th Street (Simon & Schuster, I’m looking at you here) across from Radio City Music Hall, then believe me, they can afford to give their authors an advance that is above the $15K threshold. Why are the advances so pitiful for authors? Is it because the publisher already knows that the book they’re issuing an advance for is probably never going to sell past their expectations unless it might get a movie adaptation? Or is it because the publisher thinks that the author’s cut is less important?

Also, why is it so damn long to release a book in traditional publication? Up to a year, year and a half? Two years? Come the hell on. Formatting to template, sending the files to the printers, getting the cover art on – all of those are one-time jobs. Altogether, from start to finish, it took me maybe three hours to get the entire book formatting to the way I wanted it to appear, upload it to CreateSpace, and let them print it. Three hours. I know that the bulk of the publication process is editing, but I cannot think of any reason that it would take this long, unless the publisher’s idea of what the book should be greatly differs from the author’s vision, which is a whole other post altogether. My editor is a pro, and despite other obligations, she and I bang out a full-scale book edit in six months at the longest.

So. Lackluster advances. Delays on publication. Lack of marketing. And some won’t even offer an e-book version until there have been some sales of the paperbacks. What, exactly, in this day and age, is the benefit of traditional publication?

The thing is, Amazon had offered a very real, very viable alternative with Kindle and publishing through KDP. B&N followed suit with Nook and PubIt. Borders followed through with Kobo. Smashwords offered a one-stop self-pub shop for all other e-book versions. Moreover, though, Amazon has CreateSpace, which is a print-on-demand service. Then there’s Lulu, also a POD. Then there’s iUniverse, which is an expensive but worth-its-money vanity press. Why do I say it’s worth the money? Because it spends a lot of time on developing the author as a brand and as a businessperson, as opposed to just taking the money, printing the books, grabbing the distribution rights, and having done. In other words? Amazon embraced self-publishers with open arms, and gave them a much-needed medium for book distribution.

Borders didn’t do the same. Their e-reader popularity was lackluster compared to that of the Kindle and Nook. Borders went bankrupt.

B&N introduced PubIt!, which opens up the door to a self-publishing medium, but would not carry paperbacks from self-pubs. Then it dug in the heels and said that if there is an Amazon impression on the cover, it wouldn’t be stocked in stores, which is a nice way of saying that CreateSpace-printed POD books aren’t welcome.

That decision was a massive screw-up on B&N’s part. Why? Because they have just alienated a source of revenue.

Self-published authors want one thing above all: distribution. Small bookstores are that much more likely to stock self-pubs, especially local self-pubs, but B&N had driven a lot of those small bookstores out of business. In other words, they shrunk the distrib options for self-pubs, from whom they could’ve otherwise gotten a very healthy cut of revenue. Self-pub authors are only continuing to grow in numbers, and more trad-pub authors are finding it more profitable to either self-publish or change to a small, independent press, which does not follow the same model of operations as a Big 6. Why in the world would B&N not work with the very people who are, effectively, responsible for the revenue of both the publisher and the distributor? From a purely business standpoint, what they’re doing makes no sense. Amazon, however, is only opening their doors to the self-pubs and saying, “Thank you very much.”

What else is Amazon doing? Rolling out an e-book library. Its sister company, CreateSpace, killed the Pro plan and only charges for expanded distribution, while giving all the authors working with them the perks of the Pro plan. Improving the Kindle further, to where the Fire may be an alternative to Apple’s iPad. Hell, there are Kindle apps for pretty much every mobile device that you have. In other words, Amazon is taking their distribution platform and improving it, and most of all, they do not alienate the people who may bring them more revenue, that is to say, self-pubs. In fact, Amazon is the first stop for self-pubs.

Whose fault is it, really, that B&N is more concerned with staying within the same comfort zone of trad-pub-first? Definitely not Amazon’s. They’re thinking like innovators, and they’re reaping those results first.

Frankly, I’m sticking with them. Not quite sure about KDP Select, still, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

K.G.

In spite of the overwhelming amount of stress at work, and despite the fact that I’ve been working ten-hour days for the past two weeks, with barely a half a day off, I began toying around with Book 4 again.

You know when you come back to someone whom you’ve not seen for a while, and suddenly you find yourself surprised by how much that person had changed? It could be an old friend, a relative whom you’ve not seen for some years, and suddenly, they re-enter your life, and you are surprised by their level of personal growth.

I am starting to realize that, especially as you write a series, it’s much the same with the characters in your writing.

Now, I will proceed to wax literary reminiscence about one of my main characters. Get to know her. She’s a cool chick. But I’m putting it behind a Read More link, just in case. :)

Read more…

Looks like no ABNA for me this year either.

One down, and next up will be one of the Book Festivals here in NY. Last time I participated in a book festival, with Mages, I got an honorable mention in YA. I think it’s time to see how Secrets and Lineage will do!

Back to the drawing board, and onward we go!

K.G.

POSTHUMOUSLY.

You know, I respect religions. I respect in the right of people to worship whatever deity they see fit. If it floats their boat, A-OK, just give my lack of religion the same respect. Most people have no regard for atheists one way or the next, but that’s another story.

But I cannot respect forcing your religion on someone, under any circumstances. Especially when that person is DEAD.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the demarcation between religion and cult. I don’t see Jews converting someone posthumously. Do you? Does someone get converted to Roman Catholicism when they’re dead? Of course not. I don’t see the Muslim forcing their religion onto others either. And let’s not even touch the atheists; they can’t force anything on the dead, because they don’t believe in anything. The Mormons are the only “sect” of Christianity that does this.

I think that what they are doing is the absolute height of disrespect. It not only infringes personal beliefs, but it does the one thing that I, even as an atheist, cannot abide by: it disturbs the dead. I’m not particularly keen on spiritualism, but I am a firm believer that the dead should rest in peace, and in the peace of their choosing if they can have that luxury. In other words, left alone and undisturbed. Anne’s justice had come at the Nuremberg Trials, where the SS and Nazis had been tried, found guilty, and executed with the world watching. She had died of an avoidable disease in a concentration camp, just a few months shy of liberation. It’s bad enough that no one knows exactly where she’s buried, or that she’s sharing her grave with the other millions who had died in the camps, but at no point was she apologetic or sorry for being born Jewish. Why in the blue ever-loving riverdancing fuck would someone baptize her posthumously? Never mind missing the entire point of the Baptismal rites, I cannot possibly imagine that Anne, or any other Holocaust victim, would have wanted this, had they been alive. Not to mention, I’ve yet to come across a single religion apart from Mormonism that would dare to disturb the dead, even in this fashion. It’s sacrilege, and it is sacrilege even to me, as an atheist.

I chose to live my life free from religion altogether. I don’t believe that there’s an invisible man in the sky that has a “plan” or whose will it is that people do this or the other thing. I sure as hell don’t believe in the Biblical God. And if someone were to “posthumously baptize” (quotations for contempt) me, and you’re alive to know about this, give that person some serious hell. They believe in it, after all.

I disagree with Mormons on a great many things. Notice how their polygamy is always one man having multiple wives, but never a woman having multiple husbands. Warren Jeffs, one of their leaders, got convicted on child sexual assault because some of those “wives” was fourteen years old, which is below any state’s age of consent. And he, to the last, kept saying that this was “God’s will”.

Bullshit. Your penis isn’t god, Mr. Jeffs, no matter what you say.

I disagree with the Mormon church for even having the practice of posthumous baptism. If they actually bothered to read the New Testament about John the Baptist, I severely doubt that there is a mention of him baptizing corpses anywhere.

I disagree with the Mormon church for having compounds, such as this temple right here. It’s things like this that promote a climate of abuse within the sect, and if you don’t think that churches hide abuse, then I suggest you read a couple of newspapers. I cannot think of any girl who wants to get married as a young teenager to a man twice her age willingly. I cannot think of any other “church” that gets raided on charges of abuse. I cannot think of any “church” that would effectively shackle its women to the broodmare role and force her, quite literally, back to the 19th Century. The Roman Catholic and English Protestant churches – the oldest and original sects of Christianity, mind – have somewhat evolved with the times and encourage women to actually seek something meaningful, that impacts people. But nope, not the Mormons.

It’s more than a little suspect that “God’s Will” in the Mormon “church” is always in alignment with what someone male and in church leadership thinks and wants, with little regard as to who else will be affected by it.

It is a cult. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a fucking duck. And in this case, if it operates like a cult, brainwashes people like a cult, and has a leader convicted of child sexual abuse, it is a damned cult.

Oh, and I find it adorable (read: enraging) that they are playing the “We don’t know how it happened!” card when it comes to Anne Frank. They’re saying that there was a “glitch in the system”. Good grief, people, can’t you even come up with a more plausible line of bullshit to justify the fact that you just pissed off every single Jew in the world? Seriously. At least give the courtesy of a good lie, and not the tired old playing-dumb routine. You’ve done this before, and you’ve done this before multiple times. We’re not stupid, and it doesn’t take much evidence to put two and two together – without the help of Sherlock Holmes.

When atheists are able to “baptize” people posthumously, that’s when I’ll budge on my stance that the Mormon “church” is a cult.

K.G.

I know it’s just after midnight, but to me, the day doesn’t end until I sleep. That in mind, by the end of day tomorrow, I will know if I’m still in the running for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards 2012.

Not really nervous, no. One way or the next, if I do end up getting anywhere in this year’s entry, it’ll take a miracle. I will apply for one of NY’s book festivals soon; I need to scrape together some money and get my copies shipped so I can enter.

There will be a couple of reviews of Book 3 coming soon, and we’ll see how that goes. But the best part is? I finally got the image that I will be using as Book 4′s front cover. I will not say a word, nor will I unveil anything. Not yet. I need to make you guys sweat a little, don’t I? :)

All is well. Tax season yielded a singularly peaceful afternoon, for once, and I have enough work for tomorrow to keep occupied. Unfortunately, this means I won’t be able to write anywhere near as much as I’d like to. I’m also working on a small translation project, but that’ll be easy pickings to iron out.

Until tomorrow…

K.G.

In taking a very small break from the gamut of politics – and unfortunately, there will be plenty more strongly-worded posts from me about it; it’s an election year and I will not think myself a good citizen if this country goes Republican in 2012 – I have to remind myself that yes, there are Things To Do.

I have been noodling at an article for Wine and Jazz, which is way overdue, and touches on the new experience of a wine festival that I had. There’s another one in the making, actually, at the Hilton Short Hills in NJ, and I’m thinking of making the trip. The only problem…time.

The anthology, which has been poking at my mind for a long time, is still slated for a Christmas release. I need to start gathering content, and maybe write the first of the Haunted Club shorts. Zanzibar Blue in Philly’s about to make a small comeback (yes, I’m aware it’s closed…bear with me here).

Book 4 of The Index is still in heavy progress, and though I’ve been seriously behind (for good reason, dammit), I’ve made some progress in finishing out Chapter 10. The rewrite isn’t much of one, really, but it’s adding certain elements that I’ve been able to spot in retrospect, and it’s doing my work a load of good.

Now, for the reason that I’ve been this delayed in everything.

Tax season.

In case you’re new to this blog, or you simply hadn’t heard me mention it, I have a day job. I kind of have to, because while my book royalties are enough to get me a decent steak dinner once in a blue moon, I am not making a living off the book sales. I’m hoping to make a living off of them one day, but for now, I work a day job. On the resume and from 9am until the cows come home, I’m an administrat0r at an accounting firm, and I do everything from billing and accounts-payable to actual tax-prep and bookkeeping. Basically, if you send your stuff to a CPA firm, chances are that the return starts and finishes in the hands of someone like me.

During tax season, I barely have the time to breathe, and I’m sure that if  I have your cell number, then you probably already got a phone call where I sound like death warmed over from exhaustion. The only way I have the chance to type up an entry is either over breakfast on a coffee break, or during lunch (and there’s no guarantee that said lunch will take place during actual lunchtime).

Yes, it’s a difficult job. I work in a small office, part of a staff of 7 people, and we have a hell of a lot of accounts to wade through and prep. Thankfully, we can file extensions in March and April, else…well, yeah.

So do pardon if there’s a lack of cohesive, informative, writing-related posts from me for a bit, because for the love of world’s finest Brie, I’m starting to forget what a good night’s sleep feels like. But the muse has been biting, and it’s been biting all the more because of the stress. By the time that tax season comes to a close, I will have a good amount of stories and plotlines to flesh out, and not just as a part of The Index.

Also, since when does WordPress auto-correct? Seriously; when I italic-underline something, I expect it to stay that way.

Yeah, the next couple of months will be a little crazy for me, more so because I have to actually start putting some serious planning behind Book 4. As a wrap-up of the first arc of the series, it finishes up the plotline with a bang, ties up the loose ends, and leaves enough to springboard right into Arc 2. I have a cover design in mind, and have to chase down my artists – yes, plural – and have to put some consideration into reworking a lot of what I previously had in mind for the second arc as well. This will be a very madcap year for me as a writer, to be sure, and once these two months, March and April, are hurdled over, then I will be OK and will work on the other things through May and June. July and August are Spirit months, and I will have my hands full on the boat. :)

Two things, though:

1. Have to renew my passport. It ain’t cheap. I mean…it REALLY ain’t cheap.

and

2. My trip to CA is likely not going to happen.

Last year, I went out to the Newport Beach Jazz Festival, which was a fabulous event, and I got to meet my beloved friends across the country. It was a great time, but I just honestly cannot afford it this year. Hell, if I really think about it? I’m still paying back last year’s travel expenses. I am looking at the costs of the trip to CA this year, and thinking that, fiscally, it is just not prudent. Unless someone is willing to Paypal me enough money to cover the expenses of the trip, or my boss pays out the first segment of my overtime (of which I already accrued more than enough), it is just not a good idea for me to overdo it in traveling. It’s $1,200 that I really can’t spare at this moment, even in credit cards. I have more than enough credit card debt now.

On the good bit about it, the money I will save by not going to CA will go right into renewing my passport. Which, honestly, I have to do one way or the other, because CapJazz in October REQUIRES it as travel documentation. So guess who really wants to ensure she goes on at least one vacation? This girl!

K.G.

Yes, such exists, and if you hadn’t seen the news lately, then I suggest you take a look. I’ll wait while you pick up your jaw.

Brilliant article: How the GOP went back to the 1950s in one day.

In short, there’s been a “panel” (and I use quotations because I cannot possibly imagine how this could be anything even resembling legitimacy) to try and roll back Pres. Obama’s stipulation on birth control coverage. In other words, yet another battle about What Women May Or May Not Do With Their Own Bodies, decided by anyone but the women themselves. We’ve seen this with the numerous GOP attempts to criminalize abortions and breach HIPPA in regards to abortion data, but this reached a whole new low.

We’re talking about birth control here. That little pill that a woman takes daily to make sure that she would not need an abortion in the first place. Think about it. If you believe that life begins at conception, wouldn’t it make sense to you that in order to make sure an abortion wouldn’t happen, you’d actually prevent conception first? Logically, yes, but we all know that Republicans aren’t the pinnacles of common sense, or any sense whatsoever for that matter.

The “panel” was comprised of all men. ALL MEN. Image link – click it and weep. A Georgetown law student – female – was invited to speak by the Democrats, and she was barred from entry because, apparently, “she wasn’t qualified to speak on the subject”.

Think about that for a second. No, think. Absorb it. Understand that they barred a woman from speaking about the subject that affects her directly, and that they believe that her being female doesn’t qualify her from speaking about a subject that affects her anatomy. And the Democratic women walked out in disgust, and I cannot blame them one bit.

If the entire idea of all this happening doesn’t horrify you, it damn well should. The Republican Party has finally shown their true colors, in all their misogynistic, disgusting, self-absorbed, discriminatory glory. And these are people who some believe are more qualified to lead this country than the President who has introduced this legislature, in a huge part to ensure that his own two daughters would not have to be imprisoned by their own anatomy.

Oh, and in case you want to see that testimony, being kicked out didn’t keep her mouth shut. You go, Sandra Fluke.

It’s not as though it’s a new phenomenon. The GOP has been against the women’s right to do as she pleases with her own body from the beginning. First guising it as “We care about women so they won’t have to be traumatized by an abortion”, they sought to introduce legislation that requires a trans-vaginal ultrasound before an abortion. First of all, an ultrasound is not going to make a woman change her mind about an abortion, and the feeling that a woman has after an abortion is, most commonly, relief. I won’t get started on the trans-vag ultrasound requirement. Then there’s the parental-consent for minors receiving an abortion. Fabulous, and what if the father of that young woman is the father of her fetus? Congratulations, you just bought that teenager, who’s a lot more traumatized by being raped than by needing to abort, a nightmare of abuse to follow, if not her demise. Then there’s the restrictions on access, where centers are getting closed down left and right for lack of funding. Want an example? Missouri has only one Planned Parenthood center that offers abortions for the entire state.

Oh, and again, it’s still under the guise of, “We care about women.”

Sure you do, sure. So why are you infringing on their autonomy again? Right now, I wish WordPress had a sarcasm font and a contempt font.

So then this gem comes out from a Santorum backer. He says, “Hey, back then gals put aspirin between their knees, and it wasn’t that expensive!” (video in the link). I’ll let you absorb that for a second. Joke or not, there are some people who believe this crap. And now here’s a hearty dose of two bits of reality, which you might know already:

1. Aspirin between the knees doesn’t work as birth control. Aspirin is not birth control. Neither is douching with soda, or using plastic/Saran wrap as a condom. Jumping up and down wouldn’t prevent conception and implantation.

2. Knees don’t have to be open for sex, unless you’re of the school of thought that intercourse should only occur through a hole in a sheet. And it won’t surprise me if the GOP is of that precise school of thought.

Oh, it gets better. They care about women, you see? This is why they ask whether or not the conservative women who came to the CPAC wore their skirts too short. Never mind that they’re stripping them of their rights to their own bodies, never mind that they’re devaluing them to the role of chattel for breeding, but they have the utter temerity to shift the focus on their wardrobe.

In the name of all holy, I only wish I were joking. This is what’s really happening in our country.

There are no words in the entirety of the English language to properly express the extent of my horror and disgust at what these…I can’t even call them people…are doing, the message that they’re sending, or the impact that they’re having on this country. There are just no words to properly express how utterly ignorant the GOP is of the climate in this country, or of what women actually want. And in their ignorance, in their hypocrisy (in case anyone forgot, Karen Santorum had an abortion, and it’s thanks to that abortion that she’s alive today), they are wrecking lives of 51% of the country’s population.

Case in point: in the midst of all of this Iowa introduces a draconian anti-abortion bill. Barring absolutely everything, even in case of rape. I don’t think you need me to explain why this is horrendous.

If you’re going to come here and say that a woman can’t blame the baby that is a product of rape, then you’re oblivious and ignorant. She can, and she will, and she often does. The baby isn’t asking to be born. The baby is sure as hell not asking to be a constant reminder of its mother’s single worst experience. But if there is a constant reminder of that single worst experience, it can, will, and does result in resentment. Also, there are plenty of women who resent their children for being alive, and those children are not necessarily products of rape. They didn’t ask to be born either.

Already, some people on the Internet got their britches in a bunch about why should someone’s taxes pay for birth control, and how dare those women not pay through the nose for gyno exams and actually want to not have babies until they’re damn well and ready to? Know what – if my tax money is paying for someone to get it up – because ED medication is considered a vital and necessary medical product, I kid you not, and is covered by most state insurances – then you damn better believe that a woman’s right to not conceive should be covered too. Yes, you read right: a man has the “right” to get it up on the taxpayer’s dime, but a woman can’t remain baby-free at her discretion.

I’m sick of the double standard that dictates women’s right to enjoy sex as they see fit, and I’m also sick of the fact that some white Christian old-timer feels that he has the right to dictate how women govern their sex lives. You don’t see women ordering a prostate exam with a colonoscopy before Viagra is prescribed, do you? No? Well, that should happen. Let’s see how fast the GOP would shut its mouth if that were to be enacted.

I will now proceed to state the obvious. It may be obvious to a lot of people, but you know, not everyone is as astute as we would like them to believe. Ready?

The Republicans don’t give a shit about women, gays, Native Americans, or anyone who is not themselves; that is to say old, white, male, and rich. 

If they did, they wouldn’t be stalwart on a piece of legislation that, until this year, was reauthorized unanimously, even under Bush. Why are they against reauthorization now? Because it’s been slightly amended to protect LGBT, immigrants, and Natives from domestic violence. Yes, they’re refusing to reauthorize a protective legislature because it has become more inclusive.

If they gave a shit about women, they would not have kicked out a woman from a conference summoned to speak on a subject that affects only women.

If they gave a shit about anyone but themselves – and if I may remind you, their healthcare is paid for by the taxpayers, they wouldn’t “vote to repeal ObamaCare once a month”. First of all, you don’t need to vote to repeal it once a month, once suffices. Second, if you actually look at some documents, and maybe a college-level history book, you will see that the idea of health insurance was introduced by Edgar Kaiser and Richard Nixon. Watergate tapes exist to prove it. before that, healthcare was universal, and no one died because they couldn’t afford the doctor.

And most certainly, if the GOP gave a shit about anyone but themselves, they would stay out of what non-straight people can do with one another. See: Rick Santorum says he’d overturn the Supreme Court. Rick Santorum needs to either repeat elementary school, watch the Schoolhouse Rock episode on the government, or take some meds for schizophrenia. Or all of the above, in a padded room at Bellevue.

That’s the other thing: since when does any government party have candidates who have absolutely no concept of how the government works? I shouldn’t have to be more intelligent than my government, and my IQ is up there. Go ahead, call me an elitist. It will give me the right to laugh at you until the end of days.

But it gets better. There’s the Fox commentary about women in the military. The equally draconian bills in Virginia.  The “rights of conscience” amendment in regards to Obama’s mandate on birth control.

All of these things have one very disgusting thing in common: the mentality that women should not be having sex on their terms. That women should not be able to enjoy sex on their terms.

That is the true core to this, and that is the core to this war on women: them having sex, and the enjoyment and aftermath thereof. They hate that they don’t have the monopoly on sex, its aftermath, and its enjoyment, and seek to claim that monopoly by any means necessary.

Because all of this, from the abortion restrictions, to the patronizing aspirin remark, to the absolutely non-sequitur and irrelevant commentary on how short the conservative women wear their skirts, all of this totals up to a government-commissioned shame campaign on women. According to those “people”, women cannot possibly have sex and enjoy it, women should not have sex and enjoy it, women should not have sex without getting pregnant (let’s not forget Rick Santorum’s idea on sex lives), and in the event that they do want to have sex, they should be shamed and shamed relentlessly. Want birth control? Can’t have it, you hussy! Got pregnant? You better have that baby, you sex-having slut, and to hell if you can’t afford a baby or you may die trying, those are just excuses. How dare you wear your skirt so short, even if it covers your knees? That is their mentality. That is what they think. That is what they want for women in this country. Barefoot, pregnant, deferring to men, and not daring to open their mouth to complain, because they should just be grateful they’re not dead, anyway.

Just FYI, about that last? The number one cause of death for pregnant women is homicide. Sometimes, I loathe having a crim-justice degree.

And about the whole “Nowhere in the Constitution is the right to birth control and abortion guaranteed”? Actually READ the damn paper, for one, and then note that the rights to autonomy and privacy have been set both by the Amendments and legal precedent.

Link here.

Summary:

- 4th Amendment prevents unlawful search and seizure of personal property. No property is more personal than one’s own body.

- 9th Amendment is obscure and often unexplored, but it basically states that no one person’s or group’s rights disparage others. Text: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Guess what this means? Your rights stop where other people’s rights begin. In other words, you’re legally prohibited from restricting other people’s rights. This was the basis for the ruling that sealed Roe v. Wade. So that bullshit “conscience” argument doesn’t stand up to legal muster. You can have all the conscience you want, and if your conscience interferes with you not getting your way, tough shit. Legal protection trumps religion any time of day, and separation of church and state, which has been flouted far too many times in recent years, upholds it.

- 14th Amendment guarantees that no individual will be deprived of their life, liberty, and property without due process of law. Again, no property more personal than one’s own body.

Add to that the ruling of Griswold v. Connecticut, which guarantees the right to contraception and is the first mandate for the government to keep its nose out of other people’s sex lives, and you have the totality of circumstances: different bits of legislature combine to create the right to privacy, which is something that people seek to ignore. This same right to privacy was reaffirmed by Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, which protects, again, the mandate for the government to stay the fuck out of people’s bedrooms and the right for gay people to do as they please with each other.

So those Republicans are, on top of everything, breaking the law with their rhetoric. If they would actually be bothered to read the Constitution that they’re claiming to protect, their entire platform would collapse in shambles. Then there’s the case law, which is a lot more difficult to prosecute the breach thereof, but it’s still the law of the land, since – and Rick Santorum forgets that – the only body of government that can overturn the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court itself. My opinion of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia notwithstanding – and in my opinion, the IRS should audit the ever-loving hell out of those three – I will be shocked to see the Supreme Court overturn precedent. It is rare enough as it is for the Court to reverse precedent. Also, consider that the three women on the Supreme Court – Sotomayor, Kagan, and Ginsburg – will not stand for women’s rights being infringed upon like this.

Oh, and just as a food for thought. Considering that childbirth is multiple times over more traumatic than an abortion, carries a higher risk of death than a safe, medical abortion, wreaks havoc on a woman’s body, and is a hell of a lot more physically violent than an abortion, forcing women to undergo that against their own will construes a violation of Amendment #8: cruel and unusual punishment.

So go ahead. Try and tell me that my right to an unoccupied uterus is somehow less important than the right of some fool to get Medicaid-sponsored Viagra, when my right to an unoccupied uterus has been long protected by a legislation over 225 years of age. Try it. See what happens.

K.G.

Happy February 14th!

Note I’m using the date, not the fact of what “holiday” it marks. I don’t acknowledge Valentine’s Day as a real holiday, because frankly, it’s just a farce perpetuated by Hallmark and anyone else who benefits from the social pressure to buy, buy, buy for your Valentine. For one day, you buy or receive a card, chocolates, go out to dinner…and none of this is something that you can’t do on any other day. What, precisely, stops people from showing their loves ones how much they’re loved on any of the other 364 days in the year?

Two words: absolutely nothing.

“But it’s special!” you may say.

Okay, tell me how. Tell me exactly how or why one day on the calendar is different than any other day for showing someone that they’re loved.

The way I see it – and again, that’s just me – but if you want to celebrate something, make sure that it actually means something to the person you’re celebrating it with. Valentine’s Day is a day on the calendar and while to some people it does mean something, to others, it’s a lot less significant than, say, the day you actually met the person. And what would mean more to you: a day on the calendar or the day you actually realized you were in love? Because that day doesn’t necessary coincide with the calendar-marked excuse to spend exorbitant amounts of money on candy, flowers, and trinkets.

Quite personally, if I were not single, I would rather celebrate the day that I met that person. Or go to the place where I felt the best with that person. A particular day that stands out in my memory is March 24th; it has a special significance to me, not romantic, but it’s the anniversary of a very personal Good Thing – and to me, that carries a lot more meaning than if someone were to come to my workplace with a dozen roses.

Not that I don’t love roses, but I would rather get them on any other day but today.

Seriously, let’s have a little perspective. If you do love someone, show them – but show them in a way that’s other than doing what’s socially prescribed on a day in mid-February. Believe you me, it’ll carry a hell of a lot more meaning to your loved one than if you just did what’s expected of you.

K.G.

Article in the NY Times: The Republicans retreated on a domestic violence prevention bill, without one of them voting in favor of it. 

Now, DV is a topic that I spent a LOT of time studying. Not just because I was a criminal justice major, but because I’ve seen what effects of domestic abuse – a much clearer technical term, because emotional abuse is so very often overlooked – can do to people.

And this is the Violence Against Women Act we’re talking about. It’s the piece of legislation that the states had each based their individual statutes against DV on. If this isn’t re-authorized, then abuse victims around the country are screwed.

So of course, this cheesed me off a good bit. Not one Republican voted in favor. I’m not surprised, don’t get me wrong. For a party that would rather have a woman carry her rapist’s baby to term and “be grateful” for it than have a clean, safe, legal abortion via a pill at 6 weeks along, this sort of a thing is completely par for the course. I’m just astounded that not one of these people has a shred of thought about what those victims go through. That or they’re so hung up on the anti-Obama recalcitration that they completely disregard that all past re-authorizations were unanimous.

So why this change? What is so different now that the Republican Party doesn’t think that victims of DV need protection?

Warning: although I know that DV isn’t limited to hetero relationships, I will use the framework of hetero relationships to explain the dynamics and jurisprudence of domestic violence in the US legal system. In part, I’m doing so because there are very prevalent common threads in all DV situations and it is easier to illustrate with that sort of framework, and in another part because a solid 85% of all intimate partner violence victims are women (Domestic Violence Resource Center).

Double warning for triggers. Putting this behind a Read More link out of consideration for my readers.

Read more…

It took me a while to gather all the information, and actually get a picture of what happened. I’ve signed the petitions, yes, because Planned Parenthood had faced enough assault in the past four years alone. But when I found out a couple of things, I got irate.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, and it’s something that I refuse to repeat, so listen carefully: women are people. This implies that they have autonomy. This also implies that if they have a specific bouquet of conditions that they can fall victim to, they should have access to rectify these conditions in a manner that they can afford.

Let’s take abortion off the table here; that’s not the point of this discussion. The right of a woman to decide what, if anything, should occupy her body is another strongly-worded post for another time. But Planned Parenthood plays a lot into the equation of women’s access to care. Note, I’m using the word care. As in healthcare. As in, that thing you do if you have autonomy and the right to make decisions about your health as you see fit.

Apart from contraception and various services centered on reproductive health, Planned Parenthood’s hallmark is…cancer screenings at little to no cost. To state the obvious, most people right now, especially if they are poor, struggling to make ends meet, or otherwise stone-cold-broke, cannot afford a doctor’s fee. The one time I got caught without health insurance, I had to pay $250 for a check-up. And a blood test costs $1200. First-hand experience. But had I gone to Planned Parenthood for a routine thyroid screening, they would have done it at a fraction of the cost. In retrospect, I should’ve done exactly that.

But I’m in NYC. If, say, a person lives in a rural area, and something feels Very Not Right, and that person is very nicely told by the regular doctor and the hospital that if you can’t afford the fee, get the hell out the front door and don’t let it hit you in the behind on your way out, then Planned Parenthood becomes that person’s only recourse to get a doctor to have a look at no cost. If all you can shell out is $50, because the other $200 is for food, rent, and gas in the car, then Planned Parenthood will take your $50 and say, “The doctor will be in shortly, please put on the paper gown.”

And that goes a very, very long way. Because, again, most people whose income is below a certain threshold really cannot afford health insurance or proper care. Planned Parenthood becomes, literally, a life-saver.

Of course, most people focus on the repro-health spectrum of services, get their britches in a bunch over the fact that abortion is an offered service at some centers (key word is some), and automatically think that the entire organization is evil and must be shut down – never mind the other, life-saving, preventative services that are offered by the organization, and never mind that all the procedures that take place there, whether an abortion or a blood test, are done so by the patient’s own choice.

But I digress.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that Komen has GOP ties: CEO and ex-husband of said CEO both gave donations.

Imagine my further surprise when I read the news articles carefully and saw that they will keep funding on existing grants. And if they caved on PP funding without renewing it, then PP is screwed next year.

Way to go, Komen foundation. Way to fucking go. You have completely shot your credibility in the foot, never mind infuriated half of this country’s population. You’re effectively playing political football with women’s lives, and the women in this equation are not keen on having their – sometimes only – access to healthcare be cut off just because someone in a board meeting decided that politics are more important than access to care. Planned Parenthood has been chipped at and decimated systematically over the past twelve years; the recent four are only obvious because they’re public, and because the GOP has absolutely no qualms baring their agenda to the public. This is not acceptable, and this is not even remotely appropriate behavior for a nonprofit that, supposedly, focuses on women’s healthcare.

I wonder, did those CEOs of Komen ever go to a Revlon walk? The first people in line to walk for Revlon are usually cancer survivors. How many of them had gotten an early diagnosis from Planned Parenthood? How many of their lives did Planned Parenthood save?

I’ve never donated to Komen, but I’m a supporter of Planned Parenthood, and whenever I have a little extra to give to them, I always do. After the near-fiasco where the federal funding was on the line, I can’t emphasize how important it is for this country to support this organization. Unless, of course, the GOP actually wants an epidemic of cancer deaths because it wasn’t discovered in time. They obviously don’t mind involving a nonprofit in political football.

I have insurance right now, and a great doctor, but as it is, I’m counting myself lucky, and twice lucky that I have yet to hear a cancer diagnosis. That aside, I never forgot having to pay through the nose for a blood test and an appointment. I hope to not find myself there again, which is why I pay it forward so that someone else wouldn’t have to do that, either. The last thing a woman should know is what it’s like to know that she’s dying because she couldn’t afford to get a doctor to take a look at her.

Oh. And if you’re planning on telling me that Planned Parenthood gets enough in private donations to survive – give me a break. How many PP centers had closed down in the past twelve years? How many are so painfully understaffed that they have a waiting list for appointments for pretty much any service?  This is an organization under assault, every day, and most of it right now is because of politics and people who don’t understand the concept of women being people too.

Donate to Planned Parenthood directly. It’ll be used for good, trust me.

K.G.