You know when you do a food-preservation marathon and then realize you don’t have any food leftover to, you know, eat? Yeah, I just had some almonds and tortilla chips for dinner with a side of pickled okra. NB: I am not disparaging pickled okra, although I will say that fried is better. Fight me about it. And to go with the overwhelming amount of mixed vegetables smooshed into my freezer right now? An incredibly voluminous mixed bag of stories. The way is treacherous this week, folks. You might pull out a nice little bag of frozen pesto cubes (useful and satisfying), blanched zucchini (boring but practical), or you might find a pile of old Dixie cups filled with ice* tumbling onto your head from the back of the freezer (crude reminders of pain and trauma). And by treacherous, I mean I will be adding very clear trigger warnings when necessary! Shall we?
not my freezer, but a close approximation of the ice cup situation
*you use them to massage your shins when you have shin splints and yes it is the actual worst thing.
First up, a big bag of blanched zucchini! Let’s make muffins with it! Y’all know it’s time for some studies. I’ve talked before about the Contraceptive Choice Project here in Saint Louis – I’m a participant, and I couldn’t be happier to have contributed in even the smallest way. This week, they released a set of data concerning the correlation between free contraception and incidences of abortion. Yes, the results are what you, readers, would expect – free contraception correlates with a decline in abortion rates – but it’s nice to have really smart, well-researched data to back it up. The other major number that came out concerned the birth rate in the US and its correlation with the recession. As anyone living in reality knows, this recession ain’t over. Premature analysis is actually pretty useless, so maybe this report gets downgraded to greenish, overcooked yellow squash. Stick that in a lasagna as filler sometime.
A fun thing that happened was that neither candidate mentioned reproductive anything in the presidential debate, so we’re just not going to discuss it here. K? K. Actual politics clown Todd Akin said some more silly things about abortion, though! Good old Todd. Does this guy ever run out of material? Hopefully he’ll become a talking head on Fox News after his imminent and resounding defeat and America can witness him unravel in real time. Oh, you want some more bigotry born of fear and paranoia? There’s a new anti-choice, anti-Obama ad campaign that’s just as racist as you thought it’d be. Money well spent, am I right?
It hurt a bit to read these next two stories, but they definitely need some attention from those able to process them. Basically, both involve mistreatment of individuals by our absolutely horrific criminal justice system, which is a vast three-ring circus of racism, exploitation, and ineptitude with no PR team. The first carries trigger warnings for rape and victim blaming, and the second for untreated miscarriage. Both are horrifying even for folks without a history of trauma and will almost certainly fill you with rage. Use that rage to burn off the last of your faith in cops and prisons. Feels good, right? No, of course not! But now you have paid attention to un-fun news. Here are two Good Person points. Just kidding, trying to be a “Good Person” is for jerks.
Jan Brewer, everybodAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH NOOOOO
Less overwhelmingly disgusting was the decision out of Oklahoma WIC the other day to cut ties with Planned Parenthood. This is still supes gross but it’s also bureaucratic and affects an entire system of folks. Suffice it to say that this is an ill-conceived political move in line with Texas’s recent successful bid to completely de-fund Planned Parenthood in that state, and that it screws over already disenfranchised people. Those WIC recipients are clearly who you want to go after to improve your image, anti-choicers! Speaking of attempts to de-fund Planned Parenthood, Arizona got told off by the US Department of Justice for trying to claim that funding comprehensive healthcare services offered by PP, they were effectively freeing up more money to use on abortions. And I would say to that: Have you read this study that ties funding contraception with a decrease in abortions, not an increase? We are gonna sound so smart, y’all.
I picked the roundup video this week because it is the best video that happened this week or perhaps in this entire month! Get out from in front of the freezer and hang out with Solange Knowles and a bunch of other fancy people in South Africa! The moral of this video is: MIX YOUR PATTERNS AND PRINTS.
Pearl is going to eat Korean tacos today. She has been thinking about Korean tacos for a week straight.
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