I am ashamed to live in NC right now

I just saw this article in my local paper online about a 14 year old girl with a mental illness who has been held in juvenile jail since January 28 without any treatment because the state says they have no where else for her to go. So now the state of North Carolina keeps kids with mental illness in jail because someone is too lazy to find a more suitable placement for her. Apparently the state's attorney argued that the state is not responsible to find placement for this child, just to pay for it. She is a fucking ward of the county because her mom is in jail and they are claiming that they are not responsible to find help for her. This is s fucking outrage. She is in your custody, hence you are responsible for helping her. She did not break any laws, she did not do anything wrong, she is sick and you send her to jail. What the fuck? How is this legal? Her lawyer is challenging the legality of this obviously, but how the fuck does a situation like this last a month let alone over two months with no resolution? According to one of her lawyers, there have been nine separate hearings to find a place for this girl and yet no one can find a solution. This is fucked up. This is what happens when we turn the mental health system and any health system, IMHO, over to private companies who have no interest, but their own and making money. They do not care where this child is living, they do not care if she gets treatment, they do not care whether she lives or dies, all this company cares about is the all mighty dollar. A judge has ordered the state of North Carolina to find a suitable housing for her by Monday. According to this order,

"As a matter of law, as a matter of fact, and as a matter of human rights and fundamental decency, it is an abysmal failure of us as human beings and as a society, and especially for the state of North Carolina, for this 14 year old child to be illegally locked up in a juvenile detention center, and to have been locked up without treatment since January 18, 2008, because the North Carolina mental health system has been unable or unwilling to locate treatment at a PRTF (psychiatric residential treatment facility)..., to which she is entitled by Federal and State Medicaid law"

Yet again the mentally ill get fucked over by a private company. And we claim to be the best country in the world, I am calling bullshit!

Women: They can fix their cars, but they can't save the world

I first started to think about this post a few days ago when I was watching ESPN. They had an advertisement for Advance Auto Care (I am pointing them out by name, the reasons will become obvious later, hopefully) in which there is a person working on their car. You never see their head, all you see is their hands and torso. The hood of the car is open and they are doing whatever, I have no idea what they are doing and it really does not matter. So here is the kicker, this person is obviously a women, she has boobs. But she is wearing what I would call usual clothes, just jeans and a shirt,and not some shirt that shows her stomach or is totally impractical when doing manual labor, she is not supposed to be there as a sex symbol or as a way to really make working on the car sexy, hell I am not sure that you would really notice the gender. I have seen the ad several times and this last time, I was like hey, that person has boobs, it must be a she. The final tag line is something to the effect of Wrench Up. I cannot find this ad on youtube or anywhere on the Internet so I cannot show it to you, so hopefully I have done the ad justice in trying to describe it. Here was an commercial for an auto repair store that had a female in it that was not dressed provocatively, that was not used as a mere prop, hell there was not another person in the commercial let alone a male figure and there is no voice other than the announcer toward the end which names the place that they are advertising. This was great to see that women can and do work on cars and that we do not need to make a big point about it in the commercial, but that it can and is as normal as seeing a man working their car. Now maybe I am happy about something that is not that big of a deal, maybe I am trying to read too much into the non-gender stereotypical commercial, maybe I am even falling into their trap of seeing this women working on her car and I am supposed to think that is sexy. Well, I didn't really think about it in terms of sex, it felt more like an observation and it was about damn time that we see women working on their cars and doing manual labor that is supposed to be the domain of men. There is no such thing as men's work or women's work, it is all just work, things that need to be done.

Now on the other end of the spectrum, Peter Sagal, host of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR, has a commentary about the misogyny of the new movie Horton Hears a Who. I have not seen the movie, but according to him the movie changes the book significantly in not so good ways. The mayor of Whoville now has 96 daughters and 1 son and guess which one of his children has to save the world? Yep, you guessed it, the son. As Sagal asks and I would agree, why can't any of these 96 girls save the world? Why does the hero in movies have to be just that, a hero, why can we not have a heroine? As Sagal puts it, "And while we're at it, how come a girl doesn't get to blow up the Death Star! Or send ET home? Or defeat Captain Hook! Or Destroy the Ring of Power!" Yeah, why? And furthermore when there is a heroine and the only one I can think of is Lara Croft, why does she have to be so scantily clad, now I have nothing against seeing Angelina Jolie scantily clad, but really it is not necessary for the movie. She is a fucking adventurer and explorer, and she wears nothing, this makes no sense. The new Indiana Jones movie is coming out soon and yet Harrison Ford is always dressed in these films. You do not see him running around with no shirt on and in a thong, as much as I am sure there are members of the population that would enjoy that, we do not subject our male action heroes to such stupidity. As I think about this further, the only female action character that I can think of that is tough and is not totally undressed the whole time is, Tank Girl. How many people have seen this movie? (Heather, put your hand down, I know you have.) But it is such a great movie based upon a British underground feminist comic book that starts Lori Petty and Naomi Watts and yet no one has seen it. So we need more female action stars that can dress the part, that do not need to be scantily clothed just for us to watch them and we need more commercials that show that this whole dividing work along gender lines is stupid and not beneficial to either women or men.

Is it time for another debate?

Thanks to Google Reader which I found because FranIAm mentioned it, so thanks go to her as well, I have now been able to keep up on local and national news much easier. I noticed in the local paper that apparently there is the possibility that there will be another Democratic presidential debate, here in the great state I currently reside in, NC. According to this article, there is a possibility of a debate on April 27 here in NC. At one point, I would have been annoyed, another debate, shit, haven't we had enough of these already. But at this point, I have some very selfish reasons for wanting this debate to happen. First, I am still undecided about who I would vote for and so it would be good for me to see another debate to help me to make my mind up for sure about who I should vote for. Second, although this may be unlikely, I would like to say that I might actually get to be in the audience for this debate, especially as they are discussing this debate to happen in either Raleigh or Charlotte. If it happened in Raleigh, I would try as hard as I could to get a ticket to go to the debate, Charlotte on the other hand is a bit far for me to drive, but still it would help with my decision making process. So I really hope this happens.

Now onto my other point about this debate, Clinton has already agreed to this debate, while Obama is not sure this debate would work into his schedule. He has said that he had proposed a debate before April 22nd, but that Clinton declined that timing. I am tired of the little fights between the two of them. I want them to just agree to handle this like adults and point out their weaknesses, but stop the attacks on each other and start to attack McCain more. So what does this have to do with a debate? Well, maybe if they had a debate, they could point out these differences and stop firing at each other from afar.

I know that in many ways this debate does not make total sense, there are only a few states left to hold primaries and for each campaign actually making campaign stops may serve their purposes better than having a nationally televised debate in which only a few states' voters would really have a vested interest, but if this is to be the presidential candidate for our party, shouldn't we all want to see them make their stands more known and to explain their differences? Also, isn't this a good venue in which both of them can point out all of McCain's faults and he has many, so stop the stalling already and have the damn debate. Oh yeah and please let us commoners have a chance to get tickets to see the show.

Vibrating Crackhead

Created by OnePlusYou

h/t Phydeaux and Blue Gal

YouTube Fridays

This video is absolutely awesome. It was shown to me by the beautiful and wonderful Heather. This video goes out to all of the dog lovers out there, but mostly to two of my blogger friends, Tengrain and BAC who have both had to deal with the loss of dogs recently. This is why we love our dogs.

Pickle Sickles

I have learned of a new product, frozen pickle juice Popsicles. And where you might ask would I learn of such a wonderful idea, from my sister in law who apparently is having pregnancy cravings, yes she is pregnant, for these things. I like pickles and all, but not sure about pickle Popsicles. They come form the great state of Texas and are being marketed to school districts. Again, I am not sure about this. But apparently they are not terrible according to the video below where kids review them for the Washington Post.

I love Rachel, I hate Joe

I seem to be so lazy and not blogging lately, booooo. I really want to blog, but I just can't seem to get it together enough to blog. I have ideas on what I want to talk about, but I can't get it on to paper. Anywho....

As everyone know, I have the biggest crush on Rachel Maddow, I mean who doesn't, but she pwns Joe Scarborough here and so how can I not love her more than here.