Kerfuffle is my new fave word

There was a recent extended family kerfuffle involving a new driver who in fact does not text and drive but was threatened with dismemberment and a home lobotomy if she considered doing so. You know how families get. Now, I think that texting while driving is a form of insanity. You also should not read a magazine, play a video game or perform surgery. This is just obvious stuff, right?

Here's where I get confused. There's also a public, legal push to make all cell use while driving prohibited, even fully hands off, because it's too "distracting". Really? Because then, right off the bat, the display panel in my Prius should be arrested immediately. But beyond that, shouldn't we have only single passenger vehicles? And CD players and radios should be removed straight away. If you have children in your car, they should be padlocked into car seats in the back with a soundproof privacy window between their compartment and yours. You know, like in those cars in spy thrillers. Anyone in the passenger seat should be required to wear a ball gag - wiffle balls make the best homemade, cheap ones, as the person can still breathe even if their nose gets stuffed up from the crying. Store them in your glove compartment - come on, you know you don't have that thing filled
with gloves. Also, humming or whistling should get you a moving violation.

Isn't it possible that we could all agree that driving big dangerous missiles at high speeds requires attention, and at the same time not become complete psychos? Of  course no one should text while driving. But you can't talk to someone on a voice activated hands free device? If that's too distracting, stay out of your car. Please.

And I think you should also be required to wear a helmet. A soundproofed one. And possibly bubble wrap, which can really work with the whole ball gag look. Please send me the photos. But don't take them on your phone while in the car. Possibly if you untie your passenger they could take the photo for you. Then wrap them right back up and be on your way.

This time it's personal

I have a sort of objection to the "born this way" perspective on equal rights. I think everyone should have equal rights to choices between consenting adults legally. Churches can sanction what they wish. But people should all equally have the right to choose their legal family. As a matter of fact, I think the number should not be limited to just two, and it shouldn't matter what the combination of genders are.  That should only be the concern of the people involved. The justification shouldn't be that you have no other option. It shouldn't need to be.

Here's my personal, very personal, perspective:  I have a same sex partner whom I adore. I have had opposite sex partners as well. I've had a lot of interesting experiences. I'm not with the person I'm with because I was choosing from a pool of 50% of the population, but out of everyone. So the idea that we should have gay rights only because there are people on that end of the scale who genuinely are only attracted to one gender and THAT'S why same sex partnerships should be acknowledged,  because they can't help it, like it's some kind of disability, pisses me off. It pisses me off because it leaves me out, it pisses me off because it leaves free choice out, it pisses me off because it assumes that the genitals I interact with are anyone else's business.  Having legal family status matters - maybe in ways that it shouldn't. Maybe we should just legally be individuals, and we'll pretend families don't exist. 

There are ways to get around most of it, but it's cost prohibitive if you aren't dealing drugs to a lawyer. And some stuff you still can't get past, and I really, really wish we can just get over it. I don't understand why my choice of family concerns anyone outside of my family.

There, thanks. It isn't like I have the fantasy that saying these things changes anything, but it's still lovely to put it out there.

CDC hires Captain Obvious. Then clones him.

The CDC published a report yesterday with the astonishingly obvious news that antibiotic resistance is a big problem, and that we've overused and misused antibiotics to the point where we've created a plethora of resistant organisms. Nowhere in this report is any mention of what creates natural resistance. There is, however, a suggestion that we should all get more vaccinations (which the CDC insists on inaccurately calling "immunizations"), in spite of the fact thst all effective vaccinations address viral threats, not bacterial ones, which is the target market for our over prescribed antibiotics. At the end of the report we are informed that there is no declared financial conflict of interest. Because it's not like the CDC and big pharma have a revolving door policy or anything. Oh, wait. Right. There isn't any payoff in suggesting that people eat real food, in reasonable amounts, replenish their gut flora with fermented foods, get their hands dirty now and then, use their bodies. There isn't any money in that. As bad as polio was, the majority of people who contracted the virus only thought they had the flu or didn't even know they'd contracted it at all. As bad as the Black Plague was, and as disastrous as public hygiene was, most people did NOT contract it. Now, most people who manifest the polio virus have post vaccination polio. Most people who develop pertussis have been fully vaccinated. Maybe we could start looking for some reasons that don't necessarily pad the bank accounts of pharmaceutical companies. Hmm, but there's no one to fund those studies. And after all, we have an excessive number of serfs to get rid of. Now make sure you get your flu vaccine. Here's the link to this incredibly boring report with some awesome photos: http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/pdf/ar-threats-2013-508.pdf