Women's Rights Riddle

Here’s a riddle for you.  Conservatives believe that there is just too much federal government.  They want as little as possible, and they would instead desire a transfer of many federal powers back to the states.  However, most conservatives are pro-life, and therefore they want to overturn Roe v. Wade and make it illegal for women to have abortions.  Isn’t this the ultimate invasion of personal rights—way too much government interfering on a very personal issue?  How exactly does that work?  No, no, no, there’s just too much government….but…when it comes to women, the government should be in charge of your body?  That just makes no sense.

Honestly, I have very mixed feelings on the topic of abortion.  Ending a life, even after the first spark of it in a mother’s womb, seems wrong to me.  But on the same token, I can’t see any instance where the government should have any right to decide what is best for a woman.  In other words, morally I think that many abortions are wrong, but legally they should never be.  And if you want to argue with my logic, well, there are plenty of things that are morally wrong in this country, yet people do them anyway.  I personally think it’s morally wrong to not hold the door open for someone, but stand outside any convenience store for, oh, maybe two or three minutes, and you’ll see it happen a handful of times.  It’s morally wrong to gossip.  It’s morally wrong to bully.  Yet, sadly, those things still happen.  In reality, if we had moral police, I’d guesstimate that 95% of the population would serve jail time or at least pay fines.  I’m sure I would be for one thing or five or fifty.

But for a politician to say what a woman can and cannot do with her body is wrong as well, and I don’t see any reason that it can be justified—especially from a conservative standpoint.  You can’t say that there is just too much government and then say that women should be denied the right to choose.  You can’t have elected government officials—most of which are old white men—tossing around words like “legitimate rape” and that "pregnancy from rape is a gift from God" and promising to defund Planned Parenthood.  That just makes no sense to me.  It shouldn’t make sense to a lot of people.  Especially women.

I see a lot of women out there who are pro-Romney in this election.  Can you explain to me how you can vote for a guy who would much rather have abortion be illegal and who wants to make you pay for things like birth control, mammograms, etc.?  What, do you think women's health medicines and preventive screenings being free is unfair to men?  According to 2012 statistics at cancer.org (found here: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-031941.pdf), 29% of all cancers in men are prostate cancer, while 29% of all female cancers are breast cancer, 6% are uterine cancer, and a 3% are ovarian cancer.  So that’s 29% of male-specific cancers, and 38% chance of female-specific cancers.  Looking at the estimated death rate, prostate cancer is responsible for 9% of all men diagnosed with cancer.  Breast cancer is responsible for 14% of women's deaths, ovarian cancer for 6%, and uterine cancer for 3%.  So of all the different types of cancers, 9% of men with cancer will die from male-specific cancer, while 23% of women will die from female-specific cancer.  Again, that’s 29% of male-specific cancers affecting men vs. 38% of female-specific cancers affecting women and 9% of men vs. 23% of women dying from it.  It seems to make sense to me that we NEED to have government programs in place to help women with these issues.  Wouldn’t you agree?

There are plenty of things that don’t make sense on either side of the American political spectrum, but this is one I struggle with more than many others.  Sure, Liberals may be, uh, liberal with our country’s money, but President Clinton sure wasn’t, erasing a deficit created by Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr.   Obama HAS increased the deficit, but he had to in order to keep us from falling into a Second Great Depression--one that came about as the result of a Conservative Republican's failed policies.  But Obama also created a universal, affordable healthcare law that will ensure that women get the treatments they need.  Romney wants to repeal that, defund Planned Parenthood, and who knows, maybe he’ll even take on Roe v. Wade.

If you are a woman, and you are planning to vote for Mitt Romney, I really want to know why.  If you are a father, or a husband, or a son, or a brother, and your daughter, wife, mother or sister has ever been the victim of a sexual crime, or even if she has just had some medical issues and has had to previously jump through hoops to get them resolved (including paying tons of money for preventative procedures), I want to know how you can justify voting for Mitt Romney.  Because I sure can’t.

Romney, the Bully - Part 2

I’m a day late with this, I know.  At least I’m not a dollar short, which I say because of a funny incident that happened over the weekend.  We were at a festival in Alexandria, Pennsylvania, and my son was being cranky.  We walked to the one end of the festival, and a guy there was selling yo-yo balloons.  We asked if he wanted one, he repeatedly said no, so we then walked all the way back—and what did he do but, you guessed it, started whining for the yo-yo.  My wife chided, “Adam, you’re a day late and a dollar short.”  And he replied, in his oh so whiny voice, “I’m NOOOT a day late and a dollar short!”  Very funny coming out of the mouth of a 3-year-old.

Anyway, in watching the second debate, I couldn’t help but notice how much my post from the other day regarding Mitt Romney was dead on.  The man is still just as much of a bully as he was before.  I realize Obama and Romney were debating—arguing—and that rough demeanors need to be present in that type of format, but Romney just wouldn’t let certain subjects go.  He continued to talk over the moderator, refusing to shut up at times.  I was watching this on CNN with the continuous plus/minus meter of how the voters were responding to the dialogue, and each time Romney talked over or tried to steer the debate in an already exhausted direction, the meter dipped well into the negative.  I really don’t think he realizes his tone and language can be taken as demeaning at times.

Unless you pay no attention to the Internet (how’d you end up here reading my blog??), you know all about Romney’s “binders full of women” comment.  If you look at the facts, apparently a women’s rights group ran a study and found women in leadership roles lacking, and so they put together some candidates and gave them to the Massachusetts government just when Romney became the governor.  Like they said to him, "Here, do something about this."  He didn't go out and put together "binders full of women" on his own.  And I appreciate the effort he made in making positions available to women, but did he have binders full of candidates from other minorities?  Did he have a binder full of gays and lesbians?  It just seems like such an odd thing to say.

I don’t think Romney doesn’t mean well.  I think he is an OK guy.  I think everyone is an OK guy or lady until they prove me wrong, and even then I'm always giving people second and third and fourth chances, but that's just one of my character flaws, I guess.  But as for Romney, I just don’t think he realizes how critical he sounds.  His former lieutenant governor, a woman (from a binder?) named Kerry Healey, came out in his defense today and explained his eccentric verbiage.  But that's just part of the problem right there--it seems like Romney is always explaining himself after saying something crass (like his 47% comment).  And he did the same thing all through the second debate.  In fact, I think I only noticed him on the offensive against Obama during two incidents—one regarding gas prices and Obama’s decision to cut oil leases on federal land and another at his wording after the attack on the US embassy in Libya.  Both times Romney aggravated me, with the first going after something that has LITTLE effect on the GLOBAL price of gasoline (especially when the US is producing more oil now than ever), and the second implying that Obama was trying to politicize the murder of Americans in Libya.  Obama fought back, and his line of finding Romney’s suggestion “offensive” won me over.  You could tell Obama was ready to go all gangster on Romney, and yet Romney would not let up, even after the moderator flat out said that Romney had it wrong.

Romney had some firepower on his side going into the debate, and he could have easily won it had he gone about it the way he had with the first.  But his aggressive, bullying side seemed to come out, and I think that’s why he lost.  And I think that’s why he’ll lose the election in a couple of weeks.  Nobody likes a bully.  Especially me.

October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month.  If you didn’t read my post from October 10^th, go back and check it out here.  No kid needs to be bullied.  It quite literally ruins lives.

I made myself a Stop Bullying t-shirt on Zazzle.com.  This is NOT a non-profit, and the proceeds do NOT go to bullying prevention, but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find any bullying prevention awareness sites that sold t-shirts, so I made my own.  If you want one, feel free to buy one here or make your own.  Or if you know of a great site that sells them with the proceeds going toward bullying prevention programs, please let me know!  Let’s put an end to this!

And as for Mitt Romney, I wish him all the luck in his future endeavors.  But as for being a President, I just don’t think his personality and character are what we need in our leader.

Mitt Romney, the Bully

In light of my bullying post from yesterday, this is why I don’t like Mitt Romney.  The guy could be a humanitarian, philanthropist, work in homeless shelters or orphanages, walk little old ladies across the street, whatever, but when I read this story a few months ago: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/mitt-romney-bully.html, I was instantly turned off.  I especially don’t like his response, specifically the part where he says, “You know, I don’t remember that particular incident [laughs].”

I’m sure you are fibbing about that, Mitt, just trying to CYOA for political reasons, and I’m sure you remember it quite well.  Unless, of course, you bullied so many students that they are all a blur to you.  But even if you really don’t remember this particular incident, you know who did?  John Lauber, the person you bullied.  According to his sister, it haunted him his entire life, up until he died of cancer in 2004.  Mitt, you came from a wealthy political family, and you used your influence and power to bully—no, torture—another student.  And you laugh about the incident now, saying you don’t recall it?  Come on, man.

If you, the reader, didn’t read my post from yesterday, I suggest you do.  Perhaps then you’ll understand why I would NEVER vote for Mitt Romney.  I may or may not agree with him politically, but any person who bullies another person and laughs it off like it was nothing should NOT be a leader, ESPECIALLY the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet.

A Bullying Pandemic - Stop It Now!

Twice in the past two days I’ve noticed cases of bullying in the workplace.  In one instance, a couple of people were being called out for wearing too much perfume and/or cologne.  In another, a person was being called out in the form of a joke for having an untidy work environment.  The first case was shared only between a few people, but the second was shared across the entire organization through an email.  Both were intended to be amusing.  The targets of their comments were not amused.

According to Wikipedia, "bullying may be defined as the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another person, physically or mentally.  Bullying is characterized by an individual behaving in a certain way to gain power over another person."

October is Bullying Prevention Awareness month.  Most people think that bullying is something that only happens with children.  And really, children are the ones who are most vulnerable and really should be the primary focus of bullying prevention initiatives.  But I think most people who are bullies are that way their entire lives.  And the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) website agrees, citing, “children who are bullies may continue to be bullies as adults, and are prone to becoming child and spouse abusers.”  Bullies will leave high school, move on into college or the job market, and yet they’ll never “grow up” or stop with that attitude.  Their only desire is to take criticism or focus off of their own perceived inequalities and attempt to point out the flaws of others, hoping that their social circle will agree and give them that tiny amount of satisfaction.  And that microscopic amount of power they then hold over their targets is undeniably exquisite to them, like a juicy steak or a cold beer after a hard day's work.  They thrive on it.  Some even need it like an addiction.

I, like umpteen million kids in the world, was a victim of bullying in junior high school.  I was short, kinda pudgy, and I had a very small group of close friends who could be labeled (shout-out to my post from yesterday) as “nerds.”  In one very traumatizing incident, I was sitting at a table outside a restaurant at an amusement park with a neighbor and some of his friends, all of whom were older than me, and my neighbor accidentally spilled his Pepsi all over the table.  He then (intentionally) pushed that spilled Pepsi in my direction, dumping a huge portion of it onto my shorts.  I was furious, but I had no idea that the torture was only just beginning.  A few minutes later, as we met up with more of HIS friends, he declared that I had urinated on myself.  They began calling me "Pee Pee" because of this--all except two of them (thank you Apollo and Rich), but for YEARS afterwards I was called “Pee Pee” by my neighbor and all of his other friends.  In the hallways at school.  In public.  A few prank calls even.  It was absolutely awful.

One particular kid, Brian, was the worst of the group.  This individual must have had horrible self-confidence, because he bullied anyone and everyone he could.  He called me this derogatory name for years—all the way through high school despite the fact that I had grown 5 inches taller and packed on 50 lbs of muscle between 7^th and 11^th grade.  I guess he thought I was a coward or something and wouldn't stand up for myself.  He was a complete and total jerk.

Now let’s jump ahead a few years.  Shortly after I turned 21, I began to frequent a bar called Irwin’s that a friend’s dad owned.  I had a new group of friends who I’d met while in college, and their network of friends went well into the hundreds.  On one particular raucous evening, I was there with a bunch of my closer friends have a jolly old time, and I saw this Brian sitting at a table with a couple of dopey-looking girls.  He was hitting on them extensively, they looked pathetically amused by his attempts, and I decided that I’d try to be a stand-up guy and bury the hatchet with him.  I approached him, he turned to me, and I said, “Hey, Brian, how’s it going?”  His response was, “Hey, PEE PEE!” as he laughed and looked over at the girls, hoping they'd laugh with him.  They didn't.

I’ll never forget that night.  It was like a Western saloon where the piano player stops playing and everyone freezes, knowing excrement is about to hit the fan.  Irwin’s was MY hangout, and here he was disrespecting me in the childish ways he was known for.  And it was quite comical now that I reminisce.  I immediately had four HUGE friends behind me waiting to drag him out into the parking lot to beat the pulp out of him, but I just looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Brian, don’t you EVER call me that again.”  And then I just stood there, staring at him with the Devil in my eyes.  Waiting for his response.  Waiting...

He was laughing at first, of course, but the girls with him immediately got up and fled (they were apparently smarter than I’d credited initially), and yet it took Brian several moment to realize the predicament he was in.  I literally had to hold back one of my friends from punching him in the face—this particular friend was better-known throughout town as a person who liked punching other people in the face--and Brian knew him well enough to know that fact.  Brian panicked, and he started almost crying, repeatedly saying, “I’m sorry man.  Are we cool?  Are we cool?”  I just stared at him for a good ten or fifteen seconds, feeling the adrenaline pump through my veins as I debated back and forth with myself as to how I should handle this situation.  Finally I just shook my head and walked away.

I really am not sure what happened to him later on that night.  I know he left, but I seem to recall a couple of my friends jawing at him out in the parking lot, and I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them got right up in his face and gave him a piece of mind.

And then I ran into Brian in State College, PA several months later, and at this point I was going through my “body mod” faze and had several facial piercings and my tattoos on full display.  He was with a couple of friends and was getting on the parking garage elevator to ride up to his car, and I got on and stood only a few feet from him, towering over him, saying nothing.  The couple he was with got off on the second floor, and they must have known something was wrong with him because the girl asked if he was OK.  He just nodded and said nothing, the doors closed, and we both rode to the third floor in complete silence.  At one point I looked over at him briefly, chuckled to myself, but said nothing.  As soon as the elevator doors opened, he was gone.  If he had a tail, it would have been tucked between his legs.

I still see him from time to time.  He pops up on some of my social media friend's networks.  I saw him a couple of times at a local gym, although I don't think he noticed me there.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive him for the years of torment he put me through, and I doubt he realizes how lucky he is in that I'm not a violent person.  It's kinda funny, because a recent, newer acquaintance of mine knows him well and said that he ALWAYS would try to pick fights with people at bars, and he'd always rely on his friends to bail him out if he ever got into trouble.  I guess he still hasn't grown up.  Very pathetic, Brian J.  Very pathetic.

Most kids these days don’t have the advantages I had.  I was smart—smarter than every single one of the kids who bullied me.  I was tall.  I lifted weights regularly.  I learned three forms of martial arts.  I developed a strong social network to support me.  Most kids these days don’t have that.  In fact, most kids have to put up with it for years on their own with no way of standing up or fighting back.  Some are lucky and can overcome the challenges of bullying, like Whitney Kropp of West Branch, Michigan, who was elected to the homecoming court as a prank (and not a very good one—reminds me of that scene from The Other Guys where Mark Wahlberg’s character learned to “dance sarcastically” to make fun of the artsy kids).  Anyway, if you don’t know about Whitney's story, you can read all about it here:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/29/us/michigan-teen-prank/index.html  Fortunately for her, the bullying situation went public, and the community got involved, but not until she was bullied for years prior.  All because she was different.  But she's apparently doing better, and that's great.  Great for you, Whitney.  My heart bleeds for you.

Bullying is a pandemic.  It’s universal.  I see and hear about it occurring in Vietnam through my in-laws.  Kids all over the world put up with it on a daily basis.  It’s a huge problem that often ends with very real and disastrous results.  Documented evidence suggests that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were bullied.  The same goes for James Holmes.  I’d be willing to bet that a majority of mass murderers were bullied at some point in their lives.  And we cry foul, asking where were these homicidal kids parents.  Not that I am in any way justifying what they did, but nobody asks where the parents were of the kids who bullied them.  There's a cause to every effect.  Maybe if people had treated them with dignity and respect, the horror they created could have been averted.

We, as parents, as adults, need to intervene now.  We need to talk to our kids about bullying.  We need to recognize when we, the grown-ups, are bullying.  Like that office employee who poked fun at his/her coworkers for wearing too much cologne and perfume, we need to recognize that something so trivial as that can create tension, aggravation, stress, etc.  Our kids and grandkids learn from us, and there’s no excuse for someone of any age bullying someone else.  Absolutely none.

Stand up the next time you experience a bully, whether you’re the victim or a bystander or a member of a social circle where one of your friends is bullying someone else.  Don’t let this pandemic continue to destroy lives.

Here’s some great info regarding bullying:

http://www.nctsn.org/resources/public-awareness/bullying-prevention-awareness-month