Utah Politics

I have had my fill of political commercials and political talk for at least another four years. I'm finding that I have been oversaturated by the insipid commercials for Bush and Kerry, Huntsman and Matheson, and Matheson and Swallow. Hell, Swallow irritates me almost as much as the say yes to Amendment 3 commercials!
I watched the gubernatorial debates on Channel 2 last night and I came to the conclusion that Huntsman and Matheson are equally qualified and they think almost exactly alike. In fact, the only issue they disagreed on was Amendment 3. There was the same old talk that if they were elected, class sizes would be reduced; that's an argument I recall hearing way back in second grade and I'm pretty sure it was the same old talk before I was born. The only thing they said that I thought was worthwhile is they want to get better paying jobs coming into Utah. Once again, I know this is all just a bunch of rhetoric, but for a single white woman without kids who gets paid just enough to scrape by, it sounds really good.
Now I'm going to say a few things that will probably get people I love riled up. As everyone knows, I'm all for gay marriage. I don't know why people are so freaked out about the whole idea of gay marriage, but I know that they are. They are so afraid of giving people equal rights that they are gearing up to pass an amendment for crying out loud. I daresay they'll succeed in getting Amendment 3 passed because there aren't many outside the Salt Lake area who would object to keeping things as they are.
Although I'm not planning on voting for Amendment 3, I say go ahead. Let Amendment 3 pass. If Amendment 3 passes, it will bode well for the GLBT community in the long run, as well as those het couples involved in non-traditional relationships. Let's face it, the ACLU probably has something written up and ready to take to court questioning the constitutionality of Amendment 3. They're just waiting for the votes to be tallied. The court will have no other choice but to side with the ACLU on this matter. There is already precedence in Florida where the same, or a very similar version of our amendment 3 has just been knocked down by the judges. If, for some reason the Utah Supreme Court decides Amendment 3 is perfectly legal, then the ACLU will march right up to the federal level to get Amendment 3 overturned. Not only will Amendment 3 be overturned, but I suspect that the courts will mandate equal rights for same sex couples.
On the off chance Amendment 3 doesn't pass, things will continue as they are; unfortunately, I suspect that there's less of a chance of gays getting equal civil rights if Amendment 3 doesn't pass because the issue will be swept under the rug for at least another four years.
Naturally, since I don't know a whole lot about law and political science, I could be way off in my way of thinking, but I suspect Amendment 3 could be a blessing in disguise for those who vote against it and a curse for those who approve of Amendment 3.

Moral Personality Quiz

Once again, I'm rather bored here at work. To pass the time, I found this interesting quiz on morality. Here's the link if you care to know more about me: http://www.outofservice.com/morality/results/?morality=70&political=72&social=81&o=88&c=17&e=48&a=63&n=32
If you just want to take the test, here's the link: http://www.outofservice.com/morality/ I think it actually fit me pretty well:)

Cleansing Sexuality

Last night when I was attempting to fall asleep I was thinking of a couple friends who are very happily married. I have to admit that it is a rather strange situation, especially since marriage is a hot topic this election year.
On a person's birth certificate more often than not the sex of the infant is either M or F. If this person realizes that they should have been the opposite sex, it's possible for them to go through the difficult surgery to change their gender. Once this process is started, they can change their gender on their legal papers. The thing that fascinates me about this is that if you look at the birth certificates, it would be possible to see that an M is married to an M or a F to a F or if the two are currently M and M or F and F it would be, according to the birth certificates, a heterosexual relationship.
I totally get the whole transgendered thing. It's taken me most of my life to get comfortable living in my own skin, and I'm still working on it. I figure that the people who have the courage to undergo the series of shots and surgeries to make themselves into the person they should have been in the first place have a lot of courage. What I don't get is how in the world did this little fact slip by the people who are against gay marriage? Certainly some of the same people who think that gayness can be cured think that people are born the right sex but they are in some sort of "phase" and that God will "save" them if they just cling to the Christian rhetoric. Aren't these ultra-conservatives letting gay marriage in some form slip through the cracks and in other cases encouraging homosexuality?
Yeah, I'm trying to be sarcastic here, but at the same time, I'm genuinely concerned. How far will the ultra-conservatives go to "cleanse" the nation of all of us non-traditionalists? I can't help but think about the politically correct language movement and what it has done to our society. A show like All in the Family would never make it on the networks today because the language is so colorful. And yet, the show had a lot of truth in it. It showed people for what they are: a mixture of good and bad, wise and foolish, intelligent and dumb. We all share these qualities, but we are no longer allowed to mention it in polite company.
Our language is becoming increasingly sterile, and I suspect the powers that be are trying to cleanse our sexual lives. It is a fear of mine that eventually the sexual cleansing will continue to the point that sexuality will become a sterile thing as well; somehow they will find a way of policing our sexuality. And yet, history has proven time and again that if you restrict people's basic needs, they'll eventually rebel and there will be a revolution of some kind or other. I hope that somehow the average het person will wake up and realize that the desire to control the sexuality of gays and lesbians will eventually have negative side effects on their sex lives as well; before things get more out of control.

In Memoriam: Christopher Reeve

I never liked the Superman movies. In fact, I really didn't pay any attention to Christopher Reeve until he had the accident that paralyzed him. Some of you might have heard me talking about my mom. She's somewhere between a parapalegic and quadrapalegic. My mom had been in a wheelchair for a few years before Christopher Reeve. In her case it was due to a couple car accidents. I've had the opportunity to meet a number of the people here in Salt Lake that are confined to wheelchairs. Some of them are really amazing people, overcoming or accepting their limitations while others become their disability.
People don't have any idea what Christopher Reeve has done by giving a face to the disabled. He did a lot of great things-- being a guinea pig for stem cell research, letting people interview him and see some of the everyday things that quads go through, and even resuming his career as an actor and director, proving that genius can not be confined like the body. I for one was divided about Christopher Reeve. On the one hand, he did some pretty remarkable things. On the other hand, there's a lot of skepticism. Most people in his circumstances are not well off. Most quads can't afford the round the clock care he was able to receive and they become burdens to family members. The family members who become caretakers find themselves becoming increasingly isolated because they don't fit into any particular mold. Because many of these people are middle-aged or younger, they and their families are hesitant to reach out for the help and relief that senior citizens receive, including care for when the caretaker needs a break. In fact, being a caretaker and finding relief was a lot harder than being a kinkster in Utah...but that's an entirely different story.
Christopher Reeve's accident transformed him from being a rather shallow actor into a true hero for many. That can't be disputed. I admired the guy and I was frustrated at the same time that I couldn't do more for my mom. And yet, now that he's gone I'm not sure what to think. No one was more visible and insisted on making disability an issue people couldn't ignore. He was finally getting somewhere. I'm afraid that people are going to let the issues of the disabled fall by the way-side now and research funds will dwindle once again as memories of the Super Man fade.
I find it almost ironic to hear that a pressure wound, more commonly known as a bed sore was the root cause of his death. Pressure wounds are one of the biggest problems for those confined mostly to bed or to a wheelchair. These wounds are ugly and painful...they remind me of canker sores, only they can be found all over the body, especially on the hips and thighs and back. His death just goes to show that even though he had the best care a quad could ever dream of having, that it simply isn't enough.
Disability is a major issue for me. Just because I no longer take care of my mom, it doesn't mean it became less of an issue. I am always aware that in a split second my world could change; every time I walk across the street or ride my bike I know that I could wake up and find myself confined in a hospital bed. I know that there's the possibility every time I get tied up or play that something could go seriously wrong and something far worse than death could happen to me. I am aware of my own weaknesses and I know that if I don't do the things that I want to do, if I don't LIVE, then the fear of what could happen will be far more paralyzing than any activity I could engage in.
Anyhow, I hope that wherever Christopher Reeve is now, whatever the universe has in store for him, I hope that his memory and courage to fight for his life will make people want to find new and better treatments for the disabled. I hope that his energy will continue to encourage those who find themselves fighting their bodies' weaknesses. Good luck, Mr. Reeve. My thoughts are with the family who grieves for you today.

The Mistress and the Cuff

Here's my newest work. It's in the sestina form, which I have to admit is probably the most challenging poetic form for me to work with. I may or may not revise it in the future:)

The Mistress and the Cuff

Hello, Operator. I'm in something of a bind.
I'm lying naked in my kitchen and my penis
Has turned a frightening shade of blue. Please don't laugh, ma'am.
I was in a chatroom yesterday and met a mistress
Who told me all about a lovely whip and matching cuff
And collar set that she'd let me wear, if I'd be her slave.

I pictured myself as an abject, leather-clad slave
With a stern and lovely lady who would tightly bind
Me with colored ropes, or perhaps she'd choose to handcuff
Me to her bed--Oh no! Can't think of that! My poor penis
Already hurts! How could she be such a cruel, cruel mistress?
You don't need to rub it in. I should have known better, ma'am.

"What will you do for me?" Mistress asked. "Anything, Ma'am!"
She entered my home and I became her willing slave;
I bought her furs, fine gowns, shoes-- anything my Mistress
Asked for, she received, which put my wallet in quite the bind.
The financial bind is nothing compared to my penis,
Which is sorely suffering in this awful metal cuff!

I beg you to send someone to undo this damned cuff!
I'd rather do it myself, but I really can't, ma'am;
My hands are tied behind my back, trapped like my penis,
My poor penis that's trapped because I thought I was a slave!
I only have myself to blame for getting in this bind--
Yes, I should have known from the start that bitch was no mistress!

Please don't tell anyone about this awful mistress
Business; make up some tale of how I fell on this cuff
Doing a magic trick; that's how I got in this bind!
Your constant laughter is not reassuring at all, ma'am.
I shouldn't be left to your mercy; I'm not your slave!
If you don't send help, I'll sue you if I lose my penis!

Don't hang up! I dialed with my nose! My poor penis
Is ready to fall off and that woman, that mistress,
Left with all my money, escorted by her new slave.
Now I am penniless except for this collar and cuff
Ensemble made in China. I promise I'll be good, ma'am!
Save me and get me out of this humiliating bind!

Do I hear sirens?Oh save my penis from the bind
I put it in! Rid me of this slave-wear!I'm free, ma'am.
Thank you for saving me from the mistress and the cuff!

A Couple Poems

Musing on stars made me think of one of my favorite poets. I'm sure most people who know me would assume I'm talking about my dear friend, mentor and guide, Will Shakespeare. But the person I'm talking about is a more recently deceased dead white man (I'm not prejudiced, I just seem to have this thing with falling for dead white guys more often than the living guys of any race). The fellow whose poems I'm going to put in this entry is a well-educated Brit and a man of the cloth. Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of my favorite poets...right up there with Will and George Herbert. A fair amount of the poetry I love ends up being spiritual in nature. Hopkins and Herbert are both amazing men, but there are two poems by Hopkins I'm going to put down because they remind me somehow of the amazing stars.

Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.


God’s Grandeur


THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

If this has whetted your appetite for some amazing poetry, you can read more at: http://www.bartleby.com/people/HopkinsG.html

Okay, I better finish some work up...reality is, unfortunately, interrupting my musing.

Space Musings

Some stars take, some give.
Then there is the tortured relationship in EF Eridanus, where the smaller of two stars gave so much to its larger companion that it reached a dead end, and scientists said on Tuesday they haven't seen anything like it.
Doomed to orbit its more energetic partner for millions of years, the burned-out star has lost so much mass that it can no longer sustain nuclear fusion at its core and has become a new, indeterminate stellar object, astronomers said in a statement.
"Like the classic line about the aggrieved partner in a romantic relationship, the smaller donor star gave, and gave, and gave some more until it had nothing left to give," said astronomer Steve Howell, who works with the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO telescope and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
"Now the donor star has reached a dead end -- it is far too massive to be considered a super-planet, its composition does not match known brown dwarfs, and it is far too low in mass to be a star," Howell said. "There's no true category for an object in such limbo."
The binary system EF Eridanus is made up of a recipient, a faint white dwarf star -- a sunlike star that has progressed to the final phase of its life -- and the donor object, which has about one-twentieth of our sun's mass.
It is located about 300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus (The River). A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.
Howell and Thomas Harrison of New Mexico State University made high-precision infrared measurements of EF Eridanus using the Gemini North and Keck II telescopes, both on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, in December 2002 and September 2003, respectively.
EF Eridanus is a type of binary star system known as magnetic cataclysmic variables, which may produce many more of these "dead" objects than scientists previously realized, Harrison said.
Images are available online at http:/www.gemini.edu/EFEriImages.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/05/space.star.reut/index.html

A co-worker showed me this story this morning. I am constantly awed by the grandeur and power of nature. Yesterday Mount St. Helen's warned us yet again that the time is near for another eruption by spewing some steam and ash and then there's this story. There are so many ways to look at this story and all I can really say is for me this story is spiritually amazing.

Perhaps the simplest way of saying what I want to say is by going back to my Christian roots and the story of Jesus and the resurrection. Here you have this guy who basically gives his all for mankind and eventually he dies and then he is transformed into something that is practically indescribable; he is no longer human, he becomes a god and even though we humans think we have a pretty good grasp about what it takes to be god, we really don't have a definitive answer. But the whole resurrection story is pretty remarkable.

Here we have something that is even more awesome than a transformed man; we have two colossal cosmological entities coming together to create something bigger and more noticeable than either could attain alone...and how do they do it? One gives off its energy and one receives that energy. People might wonder why a star...why any object in nature would let itself be drained of its energy, and yet this great star isn't dead. It's transformed into a gem that can't even be defined because of its unique state.

There are plenty of stories about parents sacrificing everything for their children; indeed, during the 911 tragedy we saw many people sacrificing themselves to save strangers. Those heroes, alive or otherwise, have been transformed into something far larger than they could have imagined. Perhaps these stars are a shining and more eternal symbol of how sacrifice changes the one who gives and the one who receives.

I'm not even going to attempt to write about how this all fits in to BDSM except to say when the power exchange is working well, the energy created and consumed by the people involved creates something that supercedes the power of one or two people. It is this sort of energy that gives life to the universe, transforming us from mere receivers of the universe's bounty and making us receptacles the universe can feed on so it can continue to freely give of its wealth. One awesome circle with so many mysteries that it will take mankind another several millennia to even come close to solving a single one of the mysteries completely.