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Tag: election

And So It Begins …

Published on November 11, 2024

Misogynists Are Already Crawling Outta Their Hovels

It starts like this: Young men standing on a local freeway bridge waving signs that say, “YOUR BODY, MY CHOICE.” A dude strolling Carpinteria in a T-shirt bearing the same phrase. High-school boys texting it to female classmates.

The phrase is a derisive flip of “my body, my choice” (see what they did there?), which feminists chanted for reproductive freedom in the 1960s … and again recently as we lost that hard-won right.

Co-opting it as an endorsement of rape culture is gross, but it shouldn’t be surprising. When you elect a convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual assault, who brags about grabbing beauty contestants’ vaginas, and who calls his opponents bitches, you send a strong signal that this is all acceptable — even entertaining — behavior.

Continue readingAnd So It Begins …

Santa Barbara School Teacher’s Rant Is All Wrong

Published on February 14, 2022

Starshine Roshell Sets the Record Straight

It’s been a minute since I wrote a column — for a couple of reasons.

Like many folks, I’ve been desperately trying to ferret out some Zen in this frustrating COVIDy world. You know, to find that healthy, elusive balance between “responsibly engaged” and “on the verge of a primal scream.”

Also, frankly, I was sick of my own voice. If our nation has learned anything lately, it’s that we need to make room in our media diets for more underrepresented points of view — and fewer ranting white women.

But then two ranting white women went and #^¢%ed up my Zen.

Continue readingSanta Barbara School Teacher’s Rant Is All Wrong

Unity? Nah. Togetherness? Yes, Please.

Published on January 28, 2021

Big Thoughts from a Small Room While Awaiting My COVID Results

“Just keep looking straight ahead,” the woman said as she fed the cotton-tipped stick up my nostril, through my brain, and into my soul.

It was my first time being tested. I told her so before the prodding began.

“It’s not fun,” she had warned me — and she spoke the truth. It was uncomfortable, it brought tears to my eyes, and it went on forever.

But the same could be said of the year leading up to it.

Continue readingUnity? Nah. Togetherness? Yes, Please.

Enlisting the Break-Up Pros

Published on September 1, 2020

Could Japan’s Wakaresaseya Woo Away Our Ball-and-Chain POTUS?

Dear Wakaresaseya Agency,

We were recently perusing the news when among the usual fare of planetary plagues, unsurvivable hurricanes, and right-wing Christian three-ways, we read about your surreptitious services. We don’t mind confessing we’re entirely intrigued.

Can it be true there are businesses in Japan dedicated solely to breaking up relationships? And that people hire these covert agents to bust up their own marriages by luring their spouses into affairs??

It’s hard to believe — but then again, if someone had told us six months ago that we’d be marching to save the US Freaking Postal Service and shoveling mountains of money at Ole Grampa Biden, we’d have laughed in their unmasked face, sputtering, “Shyeah, right, I’d sooner homeschool my kids!”

Continue readingEnlisting the Break-Up Pros

Bliss by Pavement Pounding

Published on November 14, 2018

For two years, I’ve been suffering from a strange, specific feeling: I’m in a hole in the ground and steamy manure is being shoveled on top of me as I lie there holding my breath. 

I’d been counting on the midterm elections to offer sweet relief from this slow-death-by-dung sensation. But donating $10 to distant campaigns and sharing social media posts about voter rights weren’t helping me shake that feeling of being powerless over my own fate — of having to shut my eyes tight and just … acclimate to the aroma of excrement.

So when a friend asked if I would canvass door-to-door for a Democratic candidate in a tight congressional race two days before the election, I jumped at the chance to do something that might actually have an impact. I’ve never canvassed before, and in fact I loathe anyone coming to my door uninvited. But if I’ve learned anything since Election Day 2016, it’s that democracy is a full-contact sport. So I suited up in sunscreen and sneakers and got out the gosh-dang vote. 

Continue readingBliss by Pavement Pounding

Post-Election: The 7 Stages of WTF?!

Published on November 16, 2016

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. A week after the election, we were supposed to be celebrating in the streets, a jubilant, enlightened populace congratulating ourselves on having elected the most sensible, knowledgeable, and experienced candidate. Having spoken out for respect. And inclusiveness. One nation under Her, indivisible, with taco trucks and pantsuits for all.

Analysts will spend years unknotting how we got this so wrong; it may wind up in history books. What’s clear is we underestimated Americans’ dissatisfaction with the status quo — and overestimated their concern for anyone besides themselves.

So now we sit, slumped, humiliated as the rest of the world stares slack-jawed at our crude windbag of a choice. Our swaggering snake-oil salesman. Our callow narcissist. (Hi, Trump’s NSA. Are we doing this yet?)

Continue readingPost-Election: The 7 Stages of WTF?!

How Trump Can Win Back Women Voters

Published on April 7, 2016

Dear Mr. Trump,
You’re having trouble with women voters, and I just can’t stand it. A man with your confidence, your money, your charisma should be mopping the floor with the weaker sex. You’re a prime-time TV star! You’ve owned casinos, airlines, your own line of vodka. If you didn’t invent suave, then I’m sure you at least went bankrupt trying.

But your worries are over. I’m here to help you win over the broads. Like you, I’m known for speaking the plain truth: no mincing words, no pussyfooting. And I know a bottom-feeder — sorry! — I mean a brilliant leader when I see one, so I’m going to tell you how to get those surly, squawking suffragettes down on their knees begging The Donald to Make America Great Again™. Are you with me, big guy? Let’s do this!

Continue readingHow Trump Can Win Back Women Voters

Dear Prop. 8 Supporters

Published on November 20, 2008

Woo hoo! You did it! You really stuck it to those romance-punchy, justice-squawking gays. It’s been two weeks since you succeeded in “protecting” the fine institute of marriage from those who would … who would … I don’t know, but I’m sure they would muck it up somehow.

So tell me, how does it feel?

Well, that’s a silly question because it feels the same as it did before, right? Your happy hetero marriage wasn’t actually affected by the vote. Really, your life is exactly the same today as if Prop. 8 had failed. It’s only those sexual deviants — the monogamous ones, the ones whose lives look just like yours except for their pelvic hardware — whose lives have changed. Some of them may even have their marriages busted up.

But it does feel good to deny people something they really want, doesn’t it? Something you were born with but they’ve had to plead for. Ha! Good times, good times.

Continue readingDear Prop. 8 Supporters
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