ATTENTION: sports bras are not all that comfortable...especially when you get three goat heads in one.... that is all.

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

lol. I've been out working in the yard all day, burning weeds and preparing these parachutes I bought to be shade covers for the house trailer. I mean, I've been working so hard, it hurts to put my feet on the floor when I get out of bed.

So, I came in here, started pooting around on facebook and thought, dang! I still feel pretty aggrevated, even though I'm in bed and took aspirin.

Well, you know how it is when you're working hard: you just have to ignore little pains and annoyances. So, I hadn't even NOTICED I had goat heads in my bra, until I lay down to get comfortable!

So, I've been lying in bed with my keyboard in my lap, twisted up like a pretzel, trying to take my damn bra off without getting the freaking goat heads in the bed.

You haven't lived 'til you've rolled over on a goat head in your sleep.

Ok, here it is, just as it was on facebook, but with pics.
http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/2011/02/attention-sports-bras-are-not-all-that.html
I had a roommate at a conference from Guam. She didn't know what goat heads were, so I was trying to describe them. Suddenly, I had a snap and opened my suit case. Sure enough, not only were there goat heads in the soles of my shoes, but she could see the hundreds of puncture marks in them, some going straight through the shoe to where my foot would be! She was horrified! They don't have nasty critters or plants in Guam. I said, well, I ain't givin you one to take home, and check your shoes when you check out!

 

PS THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO IRRADICATE GOAT HEADS, FOREVER!

 

puncture vine weevil

marriage

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

When men finally figured out sperm had something to do with babies, they needed to control women, to make sure those babies shared the men's genetic material. They didn't want to bequeath their baseball card collections to someone else's kid. Also, marriage is a pretty good way to unite two families into one controlling interest, even among the poor. Marriage is an ECONOMIC institution. Historically and even, in most parts of the world right now, love has nothing to do with marriage. The concept of romantic love in marriage is a relatively new invention. In the past, women, whose uterus now belonged to her husband, could not have romantic love, at all. They were totally dependent on their husbands, economically and socially; to go outside marriage for love was, and still is, a death sentence. Men, of course, were permitted extra marital relationships and were even approved as more "manly" for having them.

There's no anthropological evidence to suggest that lifetime monogamy is a natural state for humans. It would seem men in sexual relationships with women are supposed to hang out just long enough to protect a pregnant woman until she gives birth and weans the baby. It appears SERIAL monogamy is more natural to humans.

Humans group into tribes. Tribes bear living duties communally, so everybody, to some extent, raises the children within the tribe, just as they share duties for the hunt, for gathering, for protecting the tribe from predators and enemies, etc.

The invention of the nuclear family, rather than the extended or tribal family is a very new, post-Industrial Revolution concept. Before mass production, local communities/tribes/extended families created what they needed locally, with trade to other areas.

Since the 1950s, the extended family/tribe/local community has been rendered "unnecessary," and women were segregated into individual households, with scant access to community support. It also coincides with a HUGE upsurge in alcoholism, addiction to prescription medications and child abuse in the USA.

Marriage was and is an economic institution. It is becoming less and less relevant to societies with the advent of birth control, education and employment of women, the transformation of cultures into "service sector" jobs, etc.

i think the main reason Queers want to marry is economic equality. They can't have spousal benefits, have legal rights to adopt children, visit a spouse in the hospital, get marriage deductions on taxes, etc.

what I think of late term abortion

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

In my case, the decision to end a pregnancy is probably the most traumatic experience of my life. And I am a survivor of extreme childhood sexual and physical abuse that has left me with brain injuries, PTS and mutilated genitals. I've also been chronically poor and often homeless throughout my life, have been raped, beaten and robbed. So, when I say it's probably the most traumatic, it's not hyperbole; I know trauma.

I resisted the procedure. The pregnancy was killing me, but I felt like SUCH a failure: I couldn't even mother right, that I just wanted to die with my daughter. I CHOSE that pregnancy, planned for it, mentally, I mean. Being an abuse survivor, I'd been afraid, in the past, to mother; I was afraid I'd perpetuate the cycle of abuse. So, my decision to mother was a conscious, well-planned and deeply self-inspected one.

The problem with the idea of dying with my daughter was that I probably would not die, but might end up a vegetable. I had to undergo the procedure.

Because I'm low income, the only medical attention I could get was factory-style. My psychological state was never a factor. They did not honor my request to let me keep the remains for burial. It was all horrible, demeaning, traumatizing, indifferent, impersonal, cold.

If a woman needs a late term abortion, I can only imagine the personal suffering she must endure: the grief, the shame, the sense of failure, the terror. I do not believe any but a TINY minority of women (and that minority ought not mother, anyway, I'd guess) would feel that child growing in her body and not go through agony about ending that pregnancy. And I do not believe most would undergo the procedure only because a pregnancy would inconvenience them. I think that's a reactionary propaganda tactic.

I think we need to respect women, assume women can make our own medical decisions without the Big Brother State (of theocracy) telling us what to do with the contents of our wombs.

Women are not silly airheads. We don't have abortions on a whim. We get manicures, facials, plastic surgery and hair dos for that, if we want. An abortion is not a spa treatment and we don't think of it that way. For the men who think we do, go screw yourselves and stop screwing US! 

Frontline - Sex Slaves (2005)

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

Part-1Documentary Watch Online

 

Part-2 Documentary Watch Online

 

Part-3 Documentary Watch Online

 

Part-4 Documentary Watch Online 

 

Jesus is watching you masturbate

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

I went to fundy, xian camps. In JUNIOR HIGH, we were herded to chapel, boys & girls together and a "Pastor" told us God had made our arms this length to tempt us to masturbate. We were told we were to have NO sexual feelings until marriage! Junior High? Mixed gender audience? Can you imagine the shame, humiliation, guilt we each privately, because we could not talk to each other about it, of course, experienced, how much we hated and feared our own bodies, how inadequate, dirty and evil we thought we were????

WOMAN SPIRIT - DEDICATED TO ALL WOMEN OF THE WORLD

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

MichelleSheriza | April 11, 2010 | 4 likes, 0 dislikes

Created by: Michelle Sherliza, OP -
Music: WOMAN SPIRIT by Karen Drucker from her CD - Songs of the Spirit 1
Dedicated to all the marvelous women of our World!

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

Actual conservatives, FTW!

There is a HUGE difference between being "Conservative" and being reactionary. Ask yourselves: what are "Conservatives" conserving? Before the word "environmentalism" existed, I was taught natural CONSERVATION in my public school, forty years ago. Are we conserving capital, giving corporate welfare? Are we conserving human life, engaged in constant war? Are we conserving our children? Be clear on the distinction between "Conservative" and reactionary, and it's easy to pull the sheets off the ku kluxers who carry the torches. And these women made me cry.

Youth Pride Chorus: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

Youth Pride Chorus, excerpt from Flying, December 4, 2010, The Kitchen, New York City

"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
"Fly" by Nick Drake
"Ooh Child" by The Five Stairsteps
Youth Pride Chorus website

"New York City's Youth Pride Chorus galvanizes the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight youth ages 13-22 in the movement for change. YPC concerts feature these young artists in exciting, high-energy performances of both classic and current pop, rock, and folk songs, original choreography, and spoken word. Through fun and rigorous weekly rehearsals, YPC singers train in voice, dance, and song interpretation, developing both artistic excellence and leadership skills. YPC typically numbers between 30 and 40 singers.

"YPC has recently performed as guest artists at the  GLAAD Media Awards, GLSEN's Respect Awards, Broadway Backwards  at Lincoln Center, and with Cyndi Lauper on her True Colors Tour. Youth Pride Chorus is a program of The New York City Gay Men's Chorus and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. Under the artistic direction of Wes Webb and musical direction of Matthew Fetbrandt, YPC is facilitated by the Center's Youth Enrichment Services program."

"The Case Against Queer Activism"

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/The_Case_Against_Activism//
My response:

I'm so privileged not to live in a cosmopolitan, urban area where it's safe to hold hands and even kiss in some parts of town, where one's spouse or domestic partner receives my employment benefits, where I can form sub-cliques involving in which back pocket I place what color bandana! I'm actually grateful I live where Queer bashing is as normal as drinking a beer and nobody's ever heard of a boi! Because here, in the real United States, the rural back roads of real life, those who love and support me really do, without conditions or mine fields and, when we find others like us, we overlook minor and petty disagreements, because we so badly need each other's support, assistance, empathy and kindness that we can't afford the privilege of tearing each other to pieces while the Queer bashers just watch us implode! I hope I never live in a city, a subculture or a Queer community again! It sounds heart breaking! Peace to all of you. I'm so sorry this has happened.

reminded of the hate in Indiana

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

just a reply to a facebook friend who was quoting some "color purple"

y'know, all that bs about Shug makin' up with her preacher daddy? That ain't in the book. Nope. That's Spielberg for ya: a Black woman from the South, an alien from outer space? Same thing. I so didn't like the color purple. It messed up my head: WHY did Walker allow him to butcher her like that? But the talent in the film is awesome. Quincy Jones is amazing. Oprah was fierce. I loved the juke joint and Mister's house. I showed the kiss as part of my final project in a course called "Effects of Mass Communication," in an oral presentation on Vito Russo's Celluloid Closet. This was in Indiana, too close to Ku Kluxer towns. Very Rush Limbaugh and Pat Roberston. Well, they tore me apart. I'd even learned how to edit video tape to make that presentation. They tore me apart and the instructor let them. I ran from class in tears. Later, a psych proff who's a feminist invited me to give my presentation to one of her classes, so I did. They LOVED it! I went to the little Queer center on campus, feeling vindicated and victorious. They said, "Don't you come in here! We heard you made a scene in Ms. so and so's class! You're giving us a bad name...." It wasn't true, of course. But they wouldn't listen and did not want to be associated with me. I dropped out of school and overdosed on pain meds. Incomplete suicide. Ironically, the President of Indiana University Southeast was on the Board of Directors of the First Unitarian Church of Louisville, my fellowship. After that communications class had been so evil to me, it was Richard, their minister and my close friend, that I called. He rushed to meet me at Campus and, when my instructor REFUSED TO SEE HIM, Richard spoke to the Dean of the dept., who was also a cough "chaplain." Richard leaned over the guy's desk and said, "How DARE you allow this behavior in a university! What if this woman had been Black, doing a presentation on Blacks in motion pictures? WOULD YOU ALLOW THAT BEHAVIOR THEN???" basically, the dean told Richard, yeah, he would and waddya gonna do about it?

I cant' watch any of the films in that video tape I put together for that class without sobbing uncontrollably. When the class saw the kiss between celie and shug, they screamed and moaned and said eewwww and gross and perverted and.......

never went back to a college since. 

Zach Wahls Speaks About Family

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

Share |

Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student spoke about the strength of his family during a public forum on House Joint Resolution 6 in the Iowa House of Representatives. Wahls has two mothers, and came to oppose House Joint Resolution 6 which would end civil unions in Iowa.