Michelle Moquin's "A day in the life of…"

Good Morning.

From Raw Story:

Jan Brewer calls for fewer female candidates: ‘This woman thing has gotten way out of control’

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) argued on Sunday that too much emphasis has been placed on electing female candidates.

During a discussion on CNN about presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s possible running mates, host Jake Tapper asked Brewer if she would be interested in the job.

“Who made up that list? They didn’t put me on there,” Brewer complained. “Of course, I would be — I would be willing to serve in any capacity that I could be of help with Donald on.”

“Do you think he needs to pick a woman?” Tapper wondered. “Given how bad his numbers are with women.”

“I don’t necessarily think you need to pick a woman,” Brewer insisted. “You know, this woman thing has gotten way out of control I believe.

“And I think it’s been driven by the left,” she remarked. “Because they think that it’s going to bring them over the end. But I think people, when they sit down to vote, they vote for the very best candidate. They want somebody that’s going to represent them.”

*****

Readers: “This woman thing has gotten way out of control…” “….They vote for the very best candidate – they want somebody who is going to represent them.” Hell, all I want to say is this man thing has gotten way out of control. Right? It’s time for a woman to show what she can do.

Actually, no, I have more to say. In my opinion she’s basically saying a man is going to represent a woman better than a woman. Hell no. In all the years of men running this country I cannot agree. I can only run with Brewer’s statement if the woman representing women is Brewer herself  (And a few others that I shall not name – you know the women I’m referring to) because no doubt, she clearly thinks women have their place (In the kitchen, and barefoot and pregnant to name a few), and it isn’t beside a man and certainly not in front of him calling the shots on women’s concerns, issues, and God forbid, their bodies. We’ll leave that up to men to make those decisions.

No thank you, Brewer. Been there done that. It’s a woman’s turn to take a stab at turning this country around. Brewer, if you think this woman thing has gotten way out of control, you haven’t seen nothing yet.  C’mon girls let’s get out of control, and show her and all the other women out there who feel like Brewer, and take our rightful place. The time is now.

Blog me. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

I realize that Trump is getting more air time than any other presidential candidate but sometimes one just can’t help posting a write about him. This time the “one” is me and it is one of those times.

From Reuters:

Trump, aiming to offset money disadvantage, escalates Clinton attacks

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK – Donald Trump this week took his use of sordid accusations against Democrat Hillary Clinton to levels unprecedented in modern U.S. presidential campaigns, in the latest example of the Republican’s unorthodox playbook.

The presumptive Republican nominee is working to gain stronger footing and offset a big advantage Clinton is likely to have ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election – a huge campaign war chest that she and her allies intend to use to launch a barrage of attacks against him.

Trump is using the same strategy he used repeatedly during the Republican nomination fight against rivals like Ted Cruz – making incendiary statements that U.S. television networks can’t resist covering, giving him hours of free media and putting his opponents on the defensive.

The strategy may already be working.

Trump has raised more than a few eyebrows with his latest round of attacks against Clinton. He has turned history into headlines that play like a virtual reel in the 24-hour news world of cable TV and the internet.

Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowsi, said the strategy makes sense.

“Clearly, she’s going to have massive amounts of money,” Lewandowski told Reuters. “The difference is Mr. Trump has funded his campaign. What we’ve been able to do in this campaign cycle is to generate earned media based on Mr. Trump’s ability to be a straight talker, and genuine and authentic, and I think that’s what drives the news cycle.”

Trump’s latest salvos include a rape accusation against former President Bill Clinton dating to the 1970s and the suicide of an aide to the former president in 1993 – events that the campaign links to Hillary Clinton.

An online video released by Trump has various women accusing the former president of rape or unwanted sexual advances. Trump accused Hillary Clinton of helping to silence the women. The Clintons and their supporters have dismissed the charges as baseless and politically motivated.

Then, in an interview with The Washington Post, Trump suggested that the Clintons may have been involved in the 1993 death of Vince Foster, a former aide to Bill Clinton and a friend of Hillary Clinton, even though more than five investigations, including one conducted by Republican special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, concluded Foster committed suicide in a Virginia park.

Trump was alluding to theories over the years that have been circulated in tabloid publications, in the depths of the internet and in books by the Clintons’ foes.

The attacks have put Clinton on her back foot.

Trump “just continues to gobble news cycle after news cycle,” said Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, who ran the Super PACs that backed Senator Ted Cruz in the primary and aggressively attacked Trump. “Clinton is spending less time campaigning about the future and more time explaining the past than she would probably like.”

The barrage puts Clinton in a bind. So far, she has opted to ignore Trump’s personal attacks and her campaign has offered general pushback. But Clinton risks the negative onslaught dragging down her standing in the public and irreversibly damaging her general election hopes.

“I played a lot of hardball in my life, but I don’t envy what the Clinton campaign is up against here. Trump himself has totally changed the political dynamic,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who supports Clinton. “What they can’t afford to do is get in the gutter with the guy. He has absolutely no morals or scruples. Getting into the gutter with him is an absolute waste of time.”

Clinton’s campaign and the Super PACs supporting her will not be without funds to try to combat the attacks and launch her own. At the end of April, she had $30 million in her campaign account, compared with Trump’s $2 million.

And the PAC supporting her, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, had $46 million at the end of April – a total that is likely to grow over the summer. The PAC backing Trump is just getting off the ground.

Clinton will also depend on an army of surrogates to try to combat Trump without having to respond to him herself.

Trump has already proven he can dispatch opponents without spending much money by defining them to voters through aggressive appearances on news programs.

Republican rival Jeb Bush had a more than $100 million advantage going into the primary. But Trump painted him as “low energy” and defined him as inept, a characterization Bush’s money was never able to overcome.

The PACs backing Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz spent millions assailing Trump. Trump was able to leverage extensive coverage of his campaign by the media to combat their attacks while spending little money on advertising.

Trump has been proven an expert at raising attack lines that have already been settled, but insisting that questions remain. He spent years demanding that President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate, despite myriad evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii, including government records of the president’s birth in Honolulu.

For Trump, some of the attacks are targeted at young voters – those in their early 20s and 30s were too young to have been immersed in news about the scandals of the Clinton years.

“You have a whole series of the population who either (a) don’t know anything about it, or (b) weren’t paying attention at the time,” Lewandowski said.

A Clinton ally said Trump is simply trying to distract attention from his own liabilities – such as refusing to release his tax returns and his own history of problems with women.

“The more he raises these outrageous and outlandish charges,” said U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra, of California, a Democratic leader in the House, “the more he keeps you pedaling in a different direction.”

*****

Readers: You can click over if you want to watch a short video. I didn’t feel like posting it here. Although I did view it, I was mostly watching the women in the video cheering Trump on. Why oh why would any woman vote for a man who is a misogynist is beyond my reasoning. A girlfriend of mine the other day said of Trump becoming the president, “At least we’ll have fun.” She was dead serious. Yeah…I know. The logic escapes me.

OH…by the way…don’t ya think Trump needs to be added to the “LSOS” Club?

On a more pleasant note…I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that so many of you are with me again. I had no idea if starting up again would pan out but it looks like we’re going to have plenty of back and forth badinage during this unbelievable election year.

So…let’s get it going. Tell me what’s on your mind. Blog me. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

…Or anyone even thinking of moving to the U.S.

Here’s the housing deets from the Huff Po if you’re in the market to rent:

Here’s How Much Money You Need To Afford Rent In Every State

For people earning the minimum wage, the answer is “way more than you make.”

Housing costs are out of whack with incomes across the country, making the task of finding an affordable place to live a real struggle, even for many full-time workers.

A report titled “Out of Reach,” out this week from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, highlights the mismatch between wages and housing costs at the state, county and metro levels. The results are consistently dire: in no locality in the country can people who earn the federal minimum wage afford the typical two-bedroom apartment.

The NLIHC determined how much a person working full-time would need to make to comfortably afford fair market rent. They call that the housing wage, or the hourly wage needed so only 30 percent of a person’s income goes toward rent. Households spending more are considered “cost-burdened” — and the extra expense means they cut spending on food, health care and retirement savings.

Nationwide, the housing wage for a two-bedroom apartment is $20.30 hourly (or $42,240 annually). That means someone earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work 112 hours a week to afford the typical rent.

“If this worker slept for eight hours per night, he or she would have no remaining time during the week for anything other than working and sleeping,” the report notes.

Here’s how much a worker would need to earn to afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment in each state:

The “Out of Reach” report determined rent prices in each location using U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates of the fair market rent (including utilities) in each area for rental units. HUD uses two-bedroom units for its standard estimates because they are most common and most reliable to survey, the report states.

The housing wage required to afford a two-bedroom rental is over $30 an hour in the most expensive metro areas. Half of the top ten are in California, where a growing housing crisis has contributed to skyrocketing rents.

The San Francisco metro area’s extreme housing costs seem slightly more reasonable, considering typical renters there make far more than the national average.

But in neighboring Oakland, there’s a much wider gap. To afford the fair market rate of $2,100 for a two-bedroom apartment, a person would need to make over $84,000 per year, more than double the actual income of the average Oakland renter. And that still might not be enough — professionals like teachers and firefighters are being priced out of the city, and officials have considered ways to help fund more housing for families making around $100,000.

Renting has increased dramatically in the last decade, with nine million more new renter households today than in 2005. But supply, as well as government spending on affordable housing, hasn’t kept up, resulting in rising rents and extra strain for low-income families.

“Between 2003 and 2013, the number of low cost units renting for less than $400 increased by 10 percent, but the number of renter households in need of these units increased by 40 percent,” the report states. The authors say the new data underscores the need to both raise the minimum wage and increase federal funding for affordable housing.

Housing is a basic need the government should invest in, HUD Secretary Julián Castro wrote in an introduction to the NLIHC report.

“Our nation can’t fulfill any of our major goals — whether it’s tackling inequality, improving healthcare, keeping neighborhoods safe, or making sure every child gets a good education — unless we also focus on housing,” Castro said.

*****

Readers: Want to chime in on this?

Blog me.

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Happy Memorial Day!

This day is to honor and remember those fallen soldiers who have given their time and lives to serve and protect us in times of war and in peace. And a time for us to thank them for doing all that they have done in service and in sacrifice to ensure our safety and protection. I give a tremendous amount of gratitude.

For me personally it is also a time to remember and thank some very special ones in my life. Madaline and the Girlz who died in combat. Knowing Maddie and the Girlz they would have gone out saying, “It’s a good day to die.” And although Memorial Day is to remember those that are no longer with us, I cannot leave out Anonz who continues to serve, sacrifice, and be a hero to the world.

I found this write and decided it was a good day to post it since so many women of the world are fighting their own personal wars (Many they aren’t even aware of) when it comes to protecting themselves from the men of this world. I love to give kudos when I see other women stepping up and protecting their fellow sisters.

Here’s the write:

How 3 Badass Women Stopped An Alleged Rape Attempt

“Don’t roofie someone on our watch!”

People of the internet are celebrating a tale of three women who allegedly headed off an apparent rape attempt, according to a viral Facebook post by one of the women.

Sonia Ulrich wrote that she and two other women — Monica Kenyon and Marla Saltzer — were at the Santa Monica, California restaurant FIG Thursday night when Kenyon witnessed a man placing a suspicious-looking substance in his date’s drink while she was in the bathroom.

Posted On Facebook:

GUESS WHO STOPPED A RAPE LAST NIGHT?! THESE GALS!

Ok, so we’re still recovering from the events, but we wanted to tell the story. And if it seems like the photo is making light of a heavy situation, it’s because we know FB prioritizes pics AND we needed to get your attention. This is no joking matter.

Monica, Marla, and I were at Fig at the Fairmont for their delicious happy hour (“Fig at 5.” Treat yourself). I was going on about something and saw Monica staring behind and making a funny face. I stopped. “What’s going on?” After a few second she said “That guy just put something in her drink.”

Now, Fig is a nice restaurant. We were enjoying our charcuterie platter and some fancy cheeses. That type of place. They had a bottle of wine they were splitting. It seemed like a first or second or third date. After a few “Oh god. What do we do”s, I got up to find her in the bathroom to tell her. Warn her. Tell her to get up and leave this creep. Make him drink it. Something.

So, after feeling awkward hanging out by the sinks in the bathroom til she was done, I approached. “Hey! Um, this is kind of weird, but, uh, we saw the guy you were with put something in your drink.”

“Oh My God.” She said. Shocked, kind of numb, so I babbled “Yeah, my girlfriend said she saw him put something in your drink and we had to say something. Woman to woman…you know. We had to say something. How well do you know that guy?” I was expecting to hear “We just met,” but I got:

“He’s one of my best friends.”

Shit. Yeah. One of her best friends. They had known each other for a year and a half. They worked together.

I continued to talk for a bit and said she could ask “the one with the short blond hair” any questions since she was the one who saw it and then left her to return to the table.

When I got back, Marla was talking to the server about what happened. Seeing if he or the manager could do anything. Monica filled us in on more of what she saw.

“He pulled her glass toward him, kind of awkwardly, then he took out a little black vial. He opened it up and dropped something in. Then he tried to play it cool, like checking his phone and hiding the vial in his hand and then trying to bring it back down slyly.” He apparently saw Monica looking. Marla said she was just going to lean over to Monica and say “that guy is acting really creepy” when she saw Monica already looking. Witnessing.

It only took a minute for the manager to walk to their table, see if everything was ok, allowed the girl to order a sparkling water. All super cool. He stopped by our table and said he couldn’t do much because he didn’t see it. But he did let security know.

The poor woman had to sit through 40 more minutes, sitting across from “one of her best friends” knowing that he was trying to drug her. Marla noticed him several times chinking his glass to hers to get her to drink. She played it cool. Mostly, I believed, just stunned. The staff wanted to jump in and dump the glass, dump him, do something! I was going through fantasies of walking up and demanding he drink the tainted glass of wine. Eventually, they finished up dinner. There was a delay getting their bill “The computer is down” is what the waiter kept saying to him. Then, in walks Santa Monica PD. They say “Come with us” and he doesn’t protest. Doesn’t ask why. Doesn’t seem surprised.

The head of security came by and said that because we notified them immediately, they were able to go back and review the footage from the security camera.

They got him on tape. They had proof of him drugging this girl. They took the glass away as evidence. They kept us for statements. We asked the girl if she had a ride home. “My car is at his place. In his building. We came together.” Part of a plan. We were blown away. She was still in shock.

But it wasn’t over.

From every table In our section, from through out the restaurant, people came by to thank us for taking action.

“It happened to my sister…I’m glad I was there to take her home.”

“It happened to my roommate at a producer’s party. He’s still messed up from it.”

“It happened to me. At a backyard barbecue.”

“It happened to me. At a bar I worked at.”

“Some Heroes don’t wear capes. Thank you. It happened to me. Thank you.”

“Fuck yeah you guys! You fuckin rock!”

At least 10 stories of being personally affected buy someone like this. Something like this. Those were only the ones who knew what went down. I am sure there were tons more stories through out the restaurant and the hotel.

We kept thanking the manager for taking action. We are well aware how many people would not have taken what we said seriously. Not taken action. Said their hands were tied.

So thank you, everyone at Fig and Fairmont in Santa Monica for keeping this guy from harming someone.

And thank you in advance to everyone who sees this and shares this and reminds each other that yes, you SHOULD say something. Even if it’s awkward or weird or just uncertain if anything can be done.

Know that YOU did something. And that it helped.

Santa Monica Police Lieutenant Saul Rodriguez confirmed to The Huffington Post that they arrested 24-year-old Michael Hsu on charges of intent to commit rape and drugging with the intent to commit rape. He is being held on $1 million bail, and his arraignment is on Tuesday, Rodriguez said.

He said that three witnesses reported seeing the man put an unidentified substance in a woman’s drink.

“We appreciate those witnesses came forward,” Rodriguez said. “It could have prevented a serious crime from taking place.”

A woman who answered the phone at Fig said she was not allowed to comment on the Facebook post. But earlier on Saturday, a woman at Fig told Jezebel that everything in the post was true.

People can be weirdly hesitant about intervening in a potential assault — partially because they misunderstand rape.

“Sexual assaults and rapes are often not considered ‘real rapes’ by victims, friends, family, or the criminal justice system unless they involved force, violence, and were committed by a stranger with a weapon,” criminal justice professor Sarah Nicks told HuffPost last year. “So when a bystander is aware of a sexual assault, they may not see it as a problem or an emergency, due to the social norms of their group and setting. They may look around for cues to see if others define it as an emergency, and seeing none, do nothing.”

That’s part of the reason why many colleges are increasingly focused on bystander intervention as a means of preventing rape. But in the meantime, know that stepping in if you see something suspicious can really make a huge difference.

*****

It’s thrilling to post a news story that has a great ending to something that would’ve been horrific if these three Badass Sheros hadn’t noticed this sick fuck’s behavior and stepped in.

Love it when girls support girls. Wonderful women of the world they certainly are. Pass it on.

xox

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Happy Sunday!

Readers: How’s this for a Sunday write?

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

It’s one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it. And yet we do it all the same: We marry the wrong person.

Partly, it’s because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?”

Perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us or can relax only when we are working; perhaps we’re tricky about intimacy after sex or clam up in response to humiliation. Nobody’s perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with.

Our partners are no more self-aware. Naturally, we make a stab at trying to understand them. We visit their families. We look at their photos, we meet their college friends. All this contributes to a sense that we’ve done our homework. We haven’t. Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating.

For most of recorded history, people married for logical sorts of reasons: because her parcel of land adjoined yours, his family had a flourishing business, her father was the magistrate in town, there was a castle to keep up, or both sets of parents subscribed to the same interpretation of a holy text. And from such reasonable marriages, there flowed loneliness, infidelity, abuse, hardness of heart and screams heard through the nursery doors. The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all; it was often expedient, narrow-minded, snobbish and exploitative. That is why what has replaced it — the marriage of feeling — has largely been spared the need to account for itself.

What matters in the marriage of feeling is that two people are drawn to each other by an overwhelming instinct and know in their hearts that it is right. Indeed, the more imprudent a marriage appears (perhaps it’s been only six months since they met; one of them has no job or both are barely out of their teens), the safer it can feel. Recklessness is taken as a counterweight to all the errors of reason, that catalyst of misery, that accountant’s demand. The prestige of instinct is the traumatized reaction against too many centuries of unreasonable reason.

But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. How logical, then, that we should as grown-ups find ourselves rejecting certain candidates for marriage not because they are wrong but because they are too right — too balanced, mature, understanding and reliable — given that in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign. We marry the wrong people because we don’t associate being loved with feeling happy.

We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal frame of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate.

Finally, we marry to make a nice feeling permanent. We imagine that marriage will help us to bottle the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: Perhaps we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing glitter across the sea, chatting about aspects of our souls no one ever seemed to have grasped before, with the prospect of dinner in a risotto place a little later. We married to make such sensations permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage.

Indeed, marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. The only ingredient in common is the partner. And that might have been the wrong ingredient to bottle.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person.

We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.

WE need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.

This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded.

The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners.

Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) is the author of the novel “The Course of Love.”

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*****

Readers: I think this is a good write. What do you think? I have to admit I’m a romanticist at heart but I am realistic too – I do not expect what was stated: “…that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.” Geez, do people really think that someone perfect exists and can satisfy all? If I thought that I would never have been in any of my past relationships. Nor do I expect to be able to satisfy every need and yearning of my man – Whoa, that’s a lot of pressure.

Over the years of relationships I have come up with some reasonable needs that are nonnegotiable. Happily I’m all for a dose of pessimism – albeit its usually mixed in with a touch (or more!) of humor (Gotta have that in my relationship!) Can you tell with my writes here? :)

Care to share your two? Blog me. 

Oh…before I sign off, please remember my California peeps, the Presidential Primary Election is coming this June 7th. Don’t forget to send in your vote by mail ballot this Tuesday (If you haven’t already) or visit your local polling place to make sure your vote counts. This goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway…Hillary Clinton for President.

xox

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

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michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

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