Left In Lowell

I keep hearing the phrase, “let’s listen to the other side” and “we need to stop condescending to people, and stop making fun of people who live in the South, for instance, as being backwards.”

And then I read something like this (bold italics mine):

They’re considering a new law to keep women ignorant and ashamed.

The governor of Oklahoma is considering tough new abortion bills that would allow doctors to withhold test results showing foetal defects and require women to answer intrusive questions.

The results of the questionnaires would be posted online.

Women would also be required to have a vaginal ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the embryo or foetus in a third bill passed by the legislature on Monday.

Again, I ask you, how the fucking HELL do you justify invading a woman’s privacy with her doctor like this, and then (falsely, albeit) claim that government should stay the hell away from your medical care? Goddamned hypocrites. First, you push a bill to WITHHOLD IMPORTANT MEDICAL INFORMATION from a patient. Next, you invade her private life with a required Q&A and THEN POST THE ANSWERS PUBLICLY - obviously to shame her from doing it in the first place. Then, if that weren’t enough, you also force her to listen to claptrap by prolifers who are NOT SCIENTISTS telling her her baby has fingernails and praying on her emotions exactly like cults do (oh wait, they are cults), in a time when she’s already dealing with enough, not to mention her fluctuating hormones?? And this isn’t some fringe contingent putting something crazy on the ballot, folks, THIS IS THE DULY ELECTED GOVERNOR pushing for this.

If you think I’m overreacting, there’s this. And take a look at this. And this. And remember this? And this? That’s just like from the last month or two. It’s like a disease down there, a goddamned plague, for which no one can find a cure.

Sometimes, I damn well wish the whole damn South had successfully seceded, cuz then they’d have gone down in flames economically as they tried to keep up with the rest of the world, instead of having us productive northern/midwestern/westerners propping their dumb asses up economically year after year. Why the hell did we northerners bother giving life and blood to keeping these idiot states in the union?? Seriously, I can’t see many redeeming reasons, except of course to force the end of slavery (no doubt had we let them go, they’d still be holding black slaves - just listen to the rhetoric down there regarding minorities). 150 years later, they’re still bassackwards.

Every day, someone is posting a link to some stupid ass bill that is either passed or on the brink of passing in (mostly) the Southern states (all right also Arizona and Alaska, so let’s oust them too). Sure, we’d have to move our capital north, since Maryland acts like one of them most of the time, but it’s a small price to pay. We’d have to keep Michelle Bachmann but once she has no idiot cronies from the South, she’ll just be an eccentric and entertaining loony instead of a dangerous minority-sometimes-majority legislator.

These people revere ignorance. They abhor science and education. They SUCK UP OUR TAX DOLLARS. The states from whence comes the bulk of these news items are a known drain on our income redistribution tax system. Most of them give less on the dollar than they receive in federal tax aid. And what do we get for propping up their economies? Shit like this. It’s enough to want to drive off a cliff at times.

They either better get their ignorant selves into the 21st century (hell I’ll settle for the 20th, even) and stop electing these crazy cult-driven hate mongers, or maybe we should just send their asses packing. Enough is enough. Give us our damn tax dollars back, they’re obviously a terrible investment. And of course, these are also the same morons, that are dependent on the largess of our taxes from the federal government, who want to abolish it. Not only dumb, but suicidal to boot. I say, give them what they want. Then close the borders so that they can’t illegally immigrate to the real United States. After, of course, we allow reentrance to all our northern/midwestern/western retirees who don’t want to remain there without Medicare and Social Security.

And yes, this is a rant. Read it as such, before you bother to post a comment about how mean and condescending I’m being, or how I am generalizing. Yes, yes, and yes. That’s why it’s called a rant. When my fellow women in Oklahoma are under attack like this from the loony not-so-fringe of their state, when they are being denied their rights and being shamed and humiliated as though they should be a subservient sex, I’ll damn well loose my venom on the idiots who allow this shit to happen. Goddamn, we’re in the year 2010 here. This just shouldn’t even be happening. It’s like the Dark Ages in some parts of our country for god’s sake. These people are being enabled to be batshit insane on my dime. So yeah, I’ll get angry about it.

Erin Smith has an interesting article in the Sun outlining (thanks, JC) the stark difference in numbers of applicants between Greater Lowell Tech’s superintendent search, versus Greater Lawrence’s. Let me be the first to forehead-smack on this one. In the interest of outlining the stupid, let me quote:

“I really don’t know who the candidates are from Lawrence, but I think there may have been a perception that there was an in-house candidate looking to be hired and that may have discouraged some people from applying,” Greater Lowell Tech School Committee member George O’Hare said of his board’s search. O’Hare, of Lowell, heads the subcommittee leading the superintendent search.

I dunno, you THINK??? Head. Near. Exploding.

Between this:

In December, former Greater Lowell Tech School Committee member Michael Hayden, of Lowell, who lost his re-election bid last fall to Fred Bahou, used his final meeting to ask his colleagues to scrap a nationwide search when Superintendent James Cassin retires and hire Assistant Superintendent/Principal Mary Jo Santoro for the job.

And this:

In January, School Committee member Michael Lenzi, of Lowell, told The Sun he thought Santoro was a front-runner to replace the retiring Cassin.

“(Those remarks and press coverage of the search process) may have been a factor. I’ve thought about that, but I don’t know. It’s hard to say why Greater Lawrence got more applications than Greater Lowell,” said O’Hare.

I think we can SAFELY say it was pretty CLEAR that it was futile to put in your serious, qualified, outsider application for this position, especially if there were other openings with REAL candidate searches. OMFG. And about O’Hare:

O’Hare opposed a more inclusive search committee for Greater Lowell Tech. Instead, he formed a four-member panel that did most of its work in executive session. In addition to himself, it includes Lenzi, Steve O’Neill of Tyngsboro and Dracut’s Victor Olson.

Oy. Did NO one learn ANYthing from the overwhelming vote count of Bahou compared to these guys in 2009?? Pathetic.

Please, dear god above in heaven (and yes I am an atheist so you know I am really desperate here) let there be two challengers to take on Mike “it’s hard work, governing” Lenzi and LaFerriere in 2011. Please please. Let’s get a majority of people on the GLTHS Board who aren’t ethically compromised!