User:WaitingforGodot


 * My Bio
 * Workbench
 * Essays
 * the cats

note to self
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/08/05/texas-adoption-bill-shows-how-little-anti-choicers-think-of-women/ stick that somewhere.

also "academics".

Stuff bout me
My name is Tanya, or as most of the wiki knows me, "Godot". I have been an athiest since as early as anyone can remember -- at least by the time I was 6, when I asked at my mother's funeral, why everyone was talking about "Mom being in heaven and watching over me". My father, a minister, was not surprisingly troubled when I replied: she was dead, our time here is what we have, and there is no heaven or god cause that's just as silly as Santa (or some 6 year-old version of that sentiment). I've always wanted to know things, and have been a rational minded kid since long before such things were fashionable. In a High School biology class "debate" (required in the early 80's), I was the lone voice for evolution, in a room full of Christian kids who, bible in hand, assured me we did not come from apes. I had then, and still have, no idea why it's so bothersome to them, to be "mere animals". But it was, and for many, still is.

I have formally studied religion for nearly 10 years, and taught at university for another 8. Why would an atheist want to study religion? Cause humans are religious people. No "modern human" culture we know of has lacked religion, or spirituality, or some sense of something "beyond" us. Every child looking at the world in wonder, will naturally, biologically create in her little mind, a world of super people who align things for her - for the good or the bad. And, if left to her own devices, she will likely invent superstitions to get the "good" things to happen more often, and the "bad" things to happen less often. (I say likely, cause pesky ethicists have said that it would be wrong to stick a child all by it self in a glass cage and see if it dances in circles 3 times to get more cake.) So, studying those religions, and our human mind that creates them is fascinating. I also have a deep respect for people. All people. Even religious people. One thing I hold dear, is that we can expose fraud as fraud, expose lies as lies, challenge the absurd, and help people see religion as the human creation it is, without having to denigrate those people, or attack their beliefs as "stupid". I'm not, clearly a Gnu atheist.

I wanted to be on the board, cause I like what is going on at rationalwiki, and was tantalized at the ideas of where we can go. Both with the wiki, as well as other "rational" "anti psuedo science" venues. I want to play a role, small as it may be, in helping us find new projects and develop them. Especially if we can find ways to keep all or most projects "open and community centric". But I also feel a strong void at Rationalwiki, for voices of color, women's voices, and other social, ethnic, or cultural minorities. So, one woman's voice on a board sounded like a good place to start.

In my real world, I have had many lives. Professional diver working oil rigs, chocolatier, professor, student, and now paralegal. The last one has stuck for more than 10 years, and it's clearly time to move on. Anyone need a deep see diving, philosophy pontificating, chocolate making "thinker" type?

just a humph
Clearly, i suck at writing, and/or suck at arguing and/or am just not as atubborn. A bully is more than a brat. More than a Jerk. even if he does not use fists. If he intimidates, threatens, or teases someone, we think of him as the problem. But i have in effect, just been told that girls who are - to borrow this set of words -- bullied into sex, are choosing it, adn it's their own damn fault. I don't get that. I get that some people are not strong. I get that the attraction of a chance to be in the spot light might carry the cost of sex - or else. In the work place, we call this threat of not getting what the raise, or the good job, or the right office "sexual harrassment". But if a teen girl (OR BOY!) is pressured into sex they do not want, we just say "it's too bad, she should grow up", or "emotional pressure" is "not all bad". huh. I really really don't understand that distinction. other than, you know... girls want it. But i'm dropping it there, cause clearly i am either dealing with sommeone who doesn't care, or more likely, i'm not that good at getting my ideas across. but i'm putting it here. passive aggressive and all. (not really)Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  00:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Rape and triggers
We've talked alot about trigger warnings in this wiki. What they are, and if they have any value at all. But I have finally found my own trigger. Rich, old, entitled white men telling me how I should feel after being raped, and what I should do about it.

I can talk for hours about rape as an academic topic. I can easily describe the night I was raped, 20 some years ago without anything but a "eh, life happens" reaction. But I read these comments by men who have no compassion for women, not just the teen who is pregnant cause she made one dumb choice, but more alarmingly women who are raped - inside or outside of a marriage; held at knife point, or drugged, or just pushed down while "making out". These men, who will never be raped, since statistically males who are not in prison have a .1% chance of being raped - compared to a 10% or greater for women, and who can never ever get pregnant even if they were raped have the audictiy to tell me "the baby is a gift, and should be seen as such".

And my trigger goes into overdrive. I try not to post here, cause I'd just flame all over the boards. But any sense of being "rational" walks, and I'm left a bag of angry, violent emotions saying "fuck you", and little else. I can back away, and give reasons and logical arguments about how ill informed they are, but all I want to do is lash out with "how fucking stupid can you be?"

In my own case, i carry a scar on my neck, (well, i'm fat, it's seriously migrated to my shoulder... sheesh) from a scratch i got that night. I remember being numb for days, having to remind myself to breath, much less eat, go potty, sleep. I was as Cartisian as you can get. "that body", was not me. it was an abused sack of flesh that did not respond correctly. It took weeks for food to have taste, tea to have warmth, the world to have any color. I was on automatic. finding out I was pregnant (apparently proving my rape was not legitimate enough) didn't somehow wake me up. Rather, it numbed me more. something growing inside me planted by a non-human who harmed me. It was "Alien" in my real life. I wanted to ignore it, fully. Luckily, my doc got me to face it, and do something about it. I guess she "pushed" abortion. I sure as hell know it was the right choice for me, even if she was the one talking about it and setting it up for me.

But I was just supposed to see that as a miracle? a chance to bring a baby into the world and make something good out of something horrible. Are you fucking kidding me? Who the fuck would EVER suggest it. The second anyone found out I was pregant, everyone in my life made sure I knew they would help me at the clinic. get there. Hold my hand. etc. and this was in fucking Texas.

No one would have even thought to suggest that I should be a baby mama to a rapist.

What the fuck does it take to look at a woman and be so dismissive of her as a living breathing FEELING being, that you assert a baby would be a blessing for her.

Richard Dawkins and Stephen Pinker are jerks. They exist in a patriarchial society that "makes them that way" if you believe them. But they are also world class scholars. So, we have articles on them (maybe) AnAmazignAtheist is a jerk. Society might even had made him that way. But he offers nothing else making him worthy of an artcile. THAT is my reason for shreading his article. Just Saying.

Women's body as state property
I'm having a really hard time coming to terms with the idea that many of my male liberal friends share, regarding abortion. "It should be regulated after 5 months, because the baby has value then". This is not as blatant as the right just wanting to kill all abortion services world wide, but it's highly problematic to me. Maybe more so, cause these men are friends who value women and the idea that women should have control over their lives and generally should have equality. But the problem is in the sentence itself: 1) implicit is the idea that these women are *not* considering the value of the baby, and 2) that society shoudl have some way to regulate how a woman is used by another. If there is anyother reason, please tell me - for i only see those two reasons men would tell this comment to women.

1. Does a baby have value? Let's look at the presumptions here. If you are saying that it is important to legislate abortion after 5 months, then you are suggesting that women are getting abortions after 5 months for reasons you would say "no" to. In other words, you are killing your baby at 5 months along, cause you wanted to not have a child. But what must happen for that state to exist? You would have to be so ignorant of your own body that you didn't figure out you were pregnant until you were 5 months along. If this is the case, frankly, it means the person is likely too young to really understand her choices, or mentally incapacitated somehow, or biologically in a position that she really didn't know (some very obese women can be pregnant and not have any symptoms, and their belly does not noticeably change, for example). And in all three of those cases, abortion would be morally acceptable, because of circumstances. The alternative is that a woman just can't be bothered to get an abortion before 5 months along. This doesn't happen. Women do not carry around a baby and suddenly say "oh, crap, forgot to get that darned abortion".

The idea that healthy women with healthy babies are getting abortions at 5 months along, simply does not pass the "duh" test.

2. So then the problem is "health of baby" "health of mother". If we all accept that women are just not getting abortions at 5 months, on a whim, then they are getting them because they feel the health of the baby or their own health is at stake. So why would you regulate that? You would only regulate it if you felt that women were making the wrong choice. But it's their health in question. Their body. Their hands, and kidneys, and brains, and life at stake. So are we saying that women should be told when they may and may not take risks? Will the law define "acceptable" risks to their health? And if so, what risk would that be? is a 10% chance of death, big enough for a woman to say "nah, i think I'll abort". Is a 10% chance of loss of organs reasonable? What about a 1% chance of loss of life. Should I have to carry a child to term for 1 % chance? What if there is 100% chance I'll survive the birth of the child, but it will lower my odds in a medical treatment. a bit, or significantly. Is that ok? Should the state say "only if the lowering of odds is 50% or more?"

How do we define what is an acceptable "risk" for a woman who is caring child. And what is so magical about a woman's body when she is with child, that makes her incapable of making good decisions for herself? Why do we legally have a right to define how risky life must be for a pregnant women, when there is no other circumstance where we would legislate the risks you MUST take, even for your own child. Though almost every parent would donate a kidney, or liver, or maybe even a life ending heart to a child, no court or law can compel them to do so. Yet we think we can compel a woman to take a risk with her life?

This suggests, to me, that when you become pregnant, your body becomes property of the state. I can see no other justification for the laws and views regarding abortion.

Feminism
Until things are equal, feminism MUST be about women. And when we are equal, it will disappear and we will focus on gayism, fatism, tranism, or any other subgroup that needs equality.

I don't know why I do this to myself, but I read the Facebook of the TJ atheist guy. All the posters (even some women) are saying "yeah, man! you rock.  Feminism shouldn't be only about women". Yes. It should be ONLY about women. That's why it's called "feminism". (Well, it should be highly inclusive of issues for the cis community, and women of color, which i hear is NOT being done). Men HAVE equality. there are some jackass places where they are not really "equal", like in child custody, but those are few and far between compared to the very real, day to day injustices of women world wide and in so-called "first world" countries. To say otherwise, especially if you are male, is simply not to get it. It's not to understand why the comment "We [atheists] stand with them [women] so what the problem" is itself the problem.

And one of the biggest problems is here that despite what they want to claim, ATHEISTS ARE NOT REALLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST!. Sure, there are some (not enforcable) laws that say we can't hold office; sure, we have to listen to 'in god we trust' and 'god bless the usa' and other god-jingoistic crap. But compared to what gay people go through, what trans people go through, what women or people of color go through -it's just not the same. It is, in a small way, a way for men to jump on the "me too, me too, i know what it's like to be discriminated against" band wagon. But it's still White Male Privlidge to worry about such things as who says "god bless america" when some people can't marry, others are being asked to leave schools cause they are trans, others are being denied medical care to "cure" (if that's the right word, i'm dubious that it is) the "trans" "problem". I want to tell BOYS (yes, little tiny 5 year old boys) like this 'amazing atheist' to grow the fuck up, get a wife and listen to her side of things. Though "listen" is not often in these people's vocabs.

Ms. Betty White's brilliance
"Why do people say 'grow some balls', balls are weak and sensitive. if you really wanna get trough, grow a vagina.  Those things take a pounding." - betty white

Just cause I feel like making more headless chickens and horsemen
You people do get that e-mail is not private, right? No matter what links you go to about "decorum", by any legal definition, when you send an emial, it ceases to be yours and becomes the legal property of someone else. Even when you write the lovely line "please assume this is private", there is no legal obligation for them to follow it.

Hell, this entire site was virtually "built" on the fact that a scientist made an idiot's letters public. When you grow up, you realize what your mamma told you. If you have something you want kept private, either only tell it to persons you truly trust, or keep it to yourself.

Courts may not require you to publish (or share) your own letters, but if I am in a divorce, and share a letter you wrote to me, where you called me a bitch or told me about your affair, that is my legal right because the second you put it in the mail, it ceased to be your property. If you are in a corporation and the corporate headquarters sends you a mail, you may not share it, but not because the mail is private, but because you have likely signed a confidentiality agreement making any document from within the company, confidential. But trust me, if you are being sued, and you have ever written anyone a letter about anything, someone will look for those letters, and when they find them, they'll use them if they were legally given by the owner.

Kittahs!
They can sell anything, even internet, smartphones and digital tv! Even if you don't speak french, but love kittahs, it's worth watching all their cute cute mugs.

and no, i have no idea what the cat is saying at 0:50 when the kittah comes out of the little kitten's room.

Slam Poetry
Anyone ever tried slam? I wanted to go to a slam fest last summer, but never made it. my grandmother speaks - typical of Denver slam - black urban.

Grand Corps Malade on the other hand, French white guy. amazing how diffrent they are in style after just 10-20ish years of it being popular.

Turns out (Dec 29)
I am an expert on *Everything*. Yeah me! and I just can't wait to start telling my husband, and my Lakota co-workers how to speak their languages. :-)  Ah, grudges are such fun.

ps, happy birthday wife-like woman of my dad's!!! One more year and you are retired!!!

Dec 7
I wanna touch you but i want it too much - i want to kiss you but your lips are veniomous poision...

Nov 17
"Ne faites pas de boogie woogie avant de faire vos prières du soir" No, I have NO idea what's going on... but i've been singing this song all morning.

And the original - Don't boogie woggie when you say your prayers tonite

Foodies
Noel approaches. enjoy this link for the best of the best. Marmiton recette de Noel

Today's vid. I just started my class and can sorta maybe climb one "hand over hand", and bend backwards. yeah me..... But you can pretend this is me!

Tuesday Song, Paris Combo's Moi, Mon Ame et Ma Conscience. (there is an offical vid, but I can't find one of any quality -- and her style of singing is so cool)

Nov 3 vid: Smooth

"No doubt there exist thoughts so profound that most of us will not understand the language in which they are expressed. And no doubt there is also language designed to be unintelligible in order to conceal an absence of honest thought. But how are we to tell the difference?

Dawkins. Wonder what Pinker would say to that?

VIdeo sucks, but the song is just right.