Smile

I have resting bitch-face.  My lips naturally turn down at the sides when my face is at it’s resting position.  Which is often perceived as me frowning, I guess.  I don’t know of anyone whose lips naturally turn up into a smiling composition when they’re not intentionally smiling, but whatever.

I’m sitting here, minding my own business, doing my job.  Which is to say I’m staring at a computer screen, entering data, editing that data, and as a result I’m concentrating.  My face is at a resting position.

On more than one occasion, more than one male that I work with, has walked through as I’m sitting here at my desk, doing my work, staring at my computer screen, entering data, editing that data, and as a result concentrating, and said to me, “Smile!  You should smile more!”

I have never, in all the time I’ve worked here heard them tell any of the men who sit within earshot, also staring at their computers, also working, also concentrating, and also with resting bitch-face, to smile.  Never. Not once.

I have also not seen or heard any of the men at this workplace attempt to force other men to smile. I’ve not heard them referred to as, “sweetheart, “sugar,” “darlin’,” or “good lookin’.”

I’ve not heard any of the men tell the other men that they look good in those jeans.  Or stand over their desks playing a game of keep away with papers to try to illicit a response.

I no longer wear jeans to work because of this.

I refuse to play the game of keep away with the papers.

I’m then told, “You need to smile more.  You’re so pretty.  You’d be prettier if you smiled.”

WTF?

Why?  Why do I need to sit here staring at my computer screen with a smile plastered on my face?  So I’ll look prettier?  For whom?  Excuse me, that wasn’t part of the job description when they hired me.  I wasn’t told I’d need to smile so I’d look prettier for the men-folk.  I was hired to do a job and I do it damned well.  They don’t pay me to smile and look pretty.

Who does not know that this is inappropriate?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m extremely uncomfortable with attention.  Maybe I’m taking this all the wrong way due to that fact.  I have always appreciated compliments on the work I do and my intellect far more than commentary on my appearance inside and outside of the office.

Somehow I muster a smile.

“Oh, see, at least I got you to smile!”

On the outside, asshole.  Only with my lips.  My eyes are telling a different story.  Did you not feel those daggers?

Rant over.

 

Trump Campaign Defector Speaks Out

This article sums up exactly what many of us have been saying about Donald Trump for a long time. This former Trump campaign strategist speaks out at great risk. Volunteers of the Trump campaign were compelled to sign a contract stating that they would not say anything negative about the candidate now or in the future. Or ever.

What I’ve seen the longer I’ve helped prop him up along with the millions who are helping Trump is that we got the slogan wrong. A more accurate internal slogan would read, “Let Trump Help Trump.”

I don’t dismiss any single Trump constituent, which is why I believe it’s important to let you know that the candidate does.*

I, too, think our country has gone off track in its values. I, too, think that we need a dramatic change of course. But I am, in my heart, a policy wonk and a believer in coming to the table with necessary knowledge for leading the free world.

The man does not know policy, nor does he have the humility to admit what he does not know — the most frightening position of all.

*Emphasis mine

The 2016 Primaries Solved

I’m not a Twit but a friend who is forwarded this to me.  If you’re having trouble figuring out who to vote for refer to this handy dandy flow chart!

 

Declaring their “CANADA-cy”

I’m changing my vote!

 

 

Comedic Relief

There is a reason some dogs turn on their owners.  This would be one of them:

This is just wrong on so many levels.

The Good Ol’ Days

Donald Trump’s surrogates and campaign supporters claim that his words have not incited violence and that it is, instead, the other side – Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s supporters(the far left) – who have perpetuated violence.

His talking heads on the news networks are likening his words inciting violence to women wearing short skirts asking for rape.  Which, according to them, isn’t true at all.  Women don’t ask for rape by wearing revealing clothing.  Except that’s what these same talking heads have been saying is exactly the case.  Every Evangelical I know implores women to dress modestly because it causes men to have thoughts.  And women are responsible for what happens to them when men have thoughts.

I would argue that what Trump has done in his rallies is much different than that, though.  If a woman wears a short skirt and walks past a man and yells, “Come on, rape me, I dare you,” then, yes, she is, quite literally asking to be raped. No woman in her right mind would actually do that. And, I would argue, if the man raped her he would still be responsible for his actions, but she couldn’t be absolved of her participation in the act either.

That Trump would actively call for his supporters to punch dissidents in the face, that he’s offered to pay their legal fees, is exactly endorsing violence.  Apparently, though, while he believes that his own words don’t cause anyone to participate in violence, he does believe that a protester’s words do.  His supporters are only reacting to the protesters.  He is “having his people look into”  the seventy-eight year-old coldcocker’s legal situation and quite possible offering to pay his legal fees because the protester provoked the old man by taunting the crowd and flipping the bird at the crowd as he was being escorted out of Trump’s rally.

Let me get this straight:  Donald Trump’s provocative words do not cause reactions.  Protester’s provocative actions do.

I in no way condone the protesters disrupting or causing violence during these rallies.  But I also know from personal experience that bullies cannot be reasoned with.  You can’t ask a bully nicely not to take your lunch money.  Minorities know this, too.

If black students in the sixties hadn’t had the courage to sit at lunch counters instead of their designated seating areas in the back of restaurants they’d still be sitting there today.

If  Rosa Parks had quietly moved to the back of the bus and given up her seat for a white bus rider, blacks would likely still be relegated to the back of the bus.

If Amzie Moore and Fannie Lou Hamer hadn’t actively pushed her counterparts for voter registration minorities wouldn’t have a voice at the ballot box.

If not for planned marches on Washington and Selma, Alabama many blacks would still not be eligible to register to vote, among many other things.  Do we need a reminder of what those things looked like?

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Donald Trump keeps saying he longs for the good old days.  Is this what he means?  You, know, the good ol’ days when protesters were carried out on stretchers?

 

In Defense of the Indefensible

I’ve made it no secret that I do not support Donald Trump.  I don’t think he’s the savior that his supporters obviously do.  Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I just don’t see it.

What I do see is an opportunist.  Here’s the thing:  I don’t think he “created this toxic environment” in America.  No, it was already here.  The disdain with which people who are fortunate enough to have jobs view those who receive government assistance is at an all time high.  The superiority that many whites feel toward people who are browner than they are is at an all time high.

Many of these whites want the world and the rest of America to believe that this disdain is only toward those who are here illegally and those who are “too lazy to work”.  But what I see on a daily basis belies something different.  Sure, they might look down their noses at those who don’t work and who “pile their shopping carts with steaks and crab legs” while they, themselves, are forced to buy chicken and mince more than their darker counterparts who work for a living, but make no mistake, they still look down their noses at them even if to a lesser degree.

Donald Trump didn’t create this atmosphere, though he exemplifies it.  All he did was give his supporters the shot in the arm they needed to bring their baser nature out of hiding and into the light.  In this way maybe he’s done us a favor.  Instead of people making racist jokes in their inner circle they now feel free to let the whole world know just how racist they are.

You see I thought that because I live in the south and we lost the civil war we were just wallowing in the pit of sour grapes.  But now I’ve seen that this attitude pervades our entire society.

Let me make this very clear: I do not now, nor have I ever, condoned suppression of speech.  That includes those I disagree with.  I don’t agree with Donald Trump’s platform, but I also do not agree with suppression of free speech.  As I watched the madness that unfolded in Chicago last night I was appalled and dismayed.

I will now and always uphold the people’s first amendment right to freedom of peaceful assembly.  Peaceful assembly.  I will never condone mob rule.  I will never support disruption of peaceful assembly of a group I disagree with. People are responsible for their own actions and words.  While Donald Trump has contributed to the scene, he hasn’t forced anyone to do anything.  Both sides are at fault.  Violent protests are not the answer.  Make your voice heard and your protest known at the ballot box.  Get out and vote!

I guess I’m just wonder out loud here;  did Donald Trump create this atmosphere or did this atmosphere create Donald Trump?  He’s saying out loud what his supporters feel in their hearts.  He doesn’t make them feel those things and if they didn’t feel those things he would have faded into obscurity long ago.

His supporters believe that in supporting him they are “sticking it to the man”, they are shaking up the establishment, they are breaking up the Washington Cartel as Ted Cruz likes to call it.

What they seem to have forgotten is that he is partially responsible for the creation of the Washington establishment.  How many pockets has he lined to get something he wanted?  Do we not think that he is still lining pockets?  Do we not think that if he’s elected he’s not going to continue to line pockets?  Why are people so convinced that he gives one hoot in hell about the middle class? They aren’t the ones frequenting his luxury hotels and golf courses, they aren’t the ones buying his expensive clothing line made by the good people of China.

I propose that if we elect him president there won’t be much that changes.  There truly is nothing new under the sun.  The rich will continue to get richer and the poor will continue to get poorer.  It takes money to make money.  If I had a million dollar loan(though that isn’t the entire story) and inherited a real estate conglomerate I could take a lot more risks and have successful business ventures, too. I’m not begrudging that he was born into a wealthy family, just pointing out that it doesn’t hurt that he was.

Donald Trump is telling it like it is on some fronts.  On the ones where he’s not his supporters are either willing to put theirs heads in the sand or they’re really naïve enough to believe that he’s telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  They believe they’re getting someone who isn’t a Washington insider.  It shocks me that people can believe that when he so deeply entrenched in Washington.

His supporters who love him because of his bombastic rhetoric and strong arm tactics should truly be careful what they wish for.

Fast Food Politics

 

Actual, in person, conversation with a lily white, fair-haired, woman and her husband:

Her:  “Trump’s my man.  I like him!  He hates all the people I hate!”

Me:

 

I seriously did not know what to say to this.  So I said the only thing I that came to mind after my face went back to it’s normal countenance.

“What a reason to elect a President of our country!  That’s just one of the reasons I’ll never vote for him.”

Her husband piped up and agreed that he doesn’t like Trump and said he didn’t vote for him in the primary.  He recounted how he’d gone to the voting booth undecided but was trying to choose between Ben Carson and Ted Cruz.

I asked if he’d considered John Kasich as I thought that if you’re going to vote for a Republican it made sense to vote for someone who could work across the aisle.  I don’t think any of the other candidates cares about that. He doesn’t know anything about Kasich.  Research much?

Him:  “I don’t like Trump but I’ll vote for whoever the Republican nominee is.  With a Republican controlled Congress and a Republican President we won’t have to work across the aisle.”

Me:

 

“You do know the government is supposed to represent and work for all the people, not just some of the people, right? This isn’t Burger King, you can’t have it your way.”

Him:  “It’s already been that way.  Democrats have been getting their way all this time.”

Me: