how to tell I am grumpy..

I’m tired and cranky at the airport waiting for a flight that is 2 hours late and counting. I hadn’t realised how grumpy I was until I started browsing the internet.
I was looking through one of those "getting to know you" quiz things that go around 16 year olds and bored bloggers.
First of all I am NOT going to do the whole quiz, since I was turned off the idea by the fact one of the questions was –“what are your thoughts on gay marriage”, like that should be in a list of trivial shit like how you take your coffee.

One of the questions made me crack up though... and it wasn’t actually that the question was funny -I’m in such a tired cranky state my immediate response was pretty dark.

Q: (scenario) your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?

A: Race to the hospital. Run into her room and kink off their life support; so she can’t tell the police I cut the brakes!

Bahahahahahahaha!
Yup, definitely time my flight arrived and I get to eat something and get to a safe bed!

Catch 22

I’m not very happy in my job right now, and a lot of that stems from the fact that I have transitioned from being a low level expert to a low level idiot.
This new role uses so little of the skills I am trained in that I am raw potential and fuck all else.
My instinct at the moment is to cut and run. I’m sick of not being great at what I do.
I’m sick of explaining why I’m always a beat behind what is happening because I don’t know enough about the industry to anticipate.
I’m sick of people who are lazier, less motivated and significantly less moral than I being better than me simply because they have rested on their laurels in a role for the last ten years and know it backwards.

I came to the realisation yesterday that my work ethic has screwed me over again.
I want to leave.
I won’t until I can hand over a ship-shape vessel.
So I need to stay long enough to get a firm grip on the role and tie up any loose ends.
Which means by the time I let myself resign, I should be past this phase of idiocy.
Which means I’m stuck.

Crap.

ScubanurseNZ WIN A WIFE!!!

It's actually going to happen. And oh boy are there going to be some people with their panties in a twist over this one.

Are you sick of pushy, feminist, Kiwi gals with no respect for men?
Think you want to meet a nice girl who you know hasn’t been touched by another man? Are you sick of the fiancée claiming headache stasis to avoid you?
What if we could help you find a girlfriend who hasn’t opened her legs for every man on the street?

ScubanurseNZ is giving away a wife!

But we're not going to give this opportunity to just anybody ... to weed out the no-hopers and time-wasters, there is a process. If you're interested in holy matrimony with a potentially hot foreign chick, write into our comments section on this post, and in less 30 words tell us why you should be the winner. If we pick you, you'll be heading to Burkina Faso in Africa with 12 nights' accommodation with $2000 spending money to meet the lucky lady!


No, you are not participating in the circumcision.
Yes, in many areas the young women WANT the procedure done to help them catch a good man.
If you are a good man, this could be your lucky day!
If that lady takes a shine to you, your whole world could change.

This trip of a lifetime includes
(a) To choose one lady from those registered to have their circumcision in the month of March, to talk with and view the procedure.
(b) Visa application for a temporary visit to Burkina Faso.
(c) Return flights from Akl, Wgtn or Chch to Ouagadougou via Dubai & Accra flying Lufthansa Airlines departing March 23 and arriving home April 7.
(d) $2,000 NZD spending money.
(e) 12 nights’ accommodation in Zaporozhe (excluding breakfast).
(f) Extra’s include a food and beverage welcome pack on arrival, first day breakfast, a bunch of Roses for the lady on their first meeting, interpreters for the first meeting, 3 hour safari with the lady, taxi’s to and from the safari, photographer on the safari.



Terms and Conditions
1.ScubanurseNZ’s WIN A WIFE promotion gives the entrant the chance to win a trip to Burkina Faso to meet women who are interested in marriage to New Zealand men.
2. The promotion period begins on Monday 7 February and closes on Monday 28 February at 9am, 2011.
3. The prize will be judged and winner confirmed on Monday 28 February by phone. The Judges will be nominated by ScubanurseNZ.
4. Entry is via ScubanurseNZ website and entrants must submit a photo of themselves and follow the application process. All photos will be cropped to be upper torso and head only.
5. Photos and application forms will be moderated by ScubanurseNZ and will only be uploaded for entry to the competition if deemed suitable by the ScubanurseNZ appointed judge. No pornographic photos will be accepted.
6.The 5 finalists will be subjected to character assessment from friends and family and psychometric testing and suitability for marriage testing by a psychologist appointed by ScubanurseNZ. Viewers will vote online at the website for who they would like to win the competition.
7. The prize does not include visa application or travel for the Burkina Faso woman to come to New Zealand, this is the responsibility of the winner.
8. The winner will be chosen based on their total combined final score. The final score is composed from the total number of online votes.
9. The winner must be able to take the trip on the dates and times specified, if not it is forfeit.
10. Participants must be over the age of 18, have a current passport, and must not have any legal reasons preventing them from leaving New Zealand or entering Africa. Participants who are already married will be disqualified.
11. Any extra’s not specified in the prize details above are the responsibility of the winner.
12. This is a hoax and there is nothing to win. Please do not apply.
13. The winner takes the prize entirely at his/her own risk and indemnifies ScubanurseNZ in respect of any claim for any accident, injury, loss of life or failure to find love that may occur in connection with the prize. The Winner is responsible for all insurance, tax or other costs that may be associated with the prize. We suggest travel insurance.
16. To the fullest extent permitted by law ScubanurseNZ will not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever (including but not limited to direct or consequential loss) or for personal injury as a result of winning the prize.

The first question on the board below...
Why would you trivialise the horrific, disturbing and downright evil procedure of FGM by comparing it with a radio promotion which essentially wins somebody a date in the Ukraine?
If anything it serves to highlight that there are far more serious things in the world (happening to 6,000 girls a day no less) than a few shock jocks.


I couldn’t have gotten a better question if I had requested it.
You are right to ask.
Because this IS offensive.
And it ISNT funny.
And it does exploit young women in the most horrific way.

So what is the difference between this and the Radio competition?

The ONLY difference is that we start this competition two steps before the time that the radio station does.
The radio station is offering the chance to win a date with a woman who is interested in marrying a Kiwi man. So am I.
There is no overt coercion in either competition.

In both competitions the woman chooses the marriage.

My competition terms and conditions are the EXACT same as the radio station ones.

So what’s your big issue?

Oh – FGM?
Well yes, that is a really objectionable activity.
It leaves women hurt and scarred, and vulnerable.
Many women still want this to be done because due to culteral norms that would horrify us, without it they are unable to get a ‘good’ husband.
But I agree, the practice is barbaric and cruel, and yet another way of controlling women to meet men’s needs.

Let’s just take a little look at the Ukrainian women involved with the “foreign bride” sites.

This is a woman who is opening herself up to marriage to a foreign stranger which will mean leaving the country, language, food and people she is familiar with.
Why would she do this?
How bad would your life have to be for you to do this?
Because this woman IS you.
She isn’t stupid, she isn’t an infant, she isn’t anything different to us.
Something must have happened for her to be this desperate to get out and away from the Ukraine...

Perhaps finances are rough and the risk of having sex with a stranger husband seems less risky than actual prostitution.

Perhaps their family owes the gangs/money lenders money and she can pay that debt off by participating in this venture.

Between 1991 and 1998, 500,000 Ukrainian women had been trafficked to the West, those who manage to escape traffickers or are frightened of following may take this as the “better” option.

By 1995, due to the collapse of the Ukrainian economy the shadow (illegal business) economy accounted for 50 percent of the GDP The result has been a criminalization of the economy in general and expansion of organized criminal networks. Jobs are scarce for anyone, let alone women.

According to the International Organization for Migration (an American organisation), all mail-order-bride agencies with women from the republics of the former Soviet Union are under the control of organized crime networks. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/203275.pdf

Starting to get a picture?

So at some point in most of these women’s lives they have been hurt, or are at risk of being hurt in the future.
The only difference between my competition and the radio’s is that they don’t show the woman being hurt; they just wait until they are vulnerable enough to be preyed upon.

To support this please go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-the-Rocks-Win-a-Wife-campaign/125406027531398

Dear Kanye - THINK!

Every day I am pummelled by images of Woman, and what she ought to be.
She is smooth and slim and perfect, available and willing and witty.
She is the provider for the family and maternal in keeping home.
She is perfection in itself.
At 28 I have come to terms with the fact that the media hold a strong position in telling people what they should find attractive and sexy and I am happy to choose to ignore.
The majority of people are unaware of how successful the media is at glamorising certain images. Portia D’Rossi is a prime example of someone whose abnormal weight loss was normalised by the miniscule size of the women she worked around and the reactions of the media to her “amazing transformation.”
People try new products because of the beautiful people marketing them, and if a company wants a product used, they just put it in the latest ‘it girl/ guy’s’ hand.

Popular musicians and rap stars hold equal amounts of power when it comes to sending messages as far as trends, and what is the ‘in thing’ right now, whether it be a behaviour or the latest image.
Today I saw parts of Kanye West’s new music video.
It has had me in equal parts revolted and frightened.

For those who haven’t been able to see it I direct you to this site. Kt-Rae has done a great job of describing the video, linking to it and discussing her concerns.

I don’t feel I need to elaborate too much further on the video itself. Partly because I feel sick to my stomach and I really, really, really don’t want to think about it too much more.

Instead, I am writing an open letter to those involved in the making of the music video.
Feel free to use it and send it in yourself.

Dear Kanye West, Jay-Z, Nicki, MinaJ, Rick Ross, and all those involved in the making of the “monster” music video.

What were you thinking?

You hold more power to reach out to the world in your little fingers, than I will ever have in my entire life. Every song you sing, every video you make, will tell people what to expect from life, and how to live theirs.
What you glamorise, is then normalised. Swearing is made awesome, fashion trends are loved, and new lyrics are learnt and sung around the world.
When I see people who are as powerful as all this choosing to glamorise and sexualise dead and unconscious women I am extremely concerned.
Are you so separated from the world that you have lost touch with what is normal? With what is ok?
Are you so separated from the world that you think that a woman’s body is yours to touch, whether she is still in it or not?
Are you so naive to think that this video will not impact on the hundreds of thousands of young men, who desperately need role models?

THINK.
Just think.

What the young woman who was raped while she was unconscious will think when she sees your lips on an unconscious woman’s hand while you leer at her body.

What someone’s sister who was date raped will think when she sees the woman splayed on the table while you calmly survey your domain?

What a mother will think when she see’s your video and wonders about her daughter who hung herself without an explanation.

What a father will be forced to remember about his little girl who was raped and killed.

By all means, raise awareness for the millions of women around the world who are raped, abused, living in fear, and killed before they even live for themselves.

But don’t sexualise them.
Don’t dress them up whilst you hang them up.
Don’t make a fetishism of their deaths.
Don’t get off on their pain.

And for God’s sake.
Pull this video before more people are hurt.
Men. Women, and those who need your leadership.

I for one will be boycotting your music until you do.

Kind regards,

Get your Tits out for the Girls; the educational version.

In light of NZ Girl's freaking revolting campaign, I have decided to do one with the same name, but an educational version that people might actually learn something from.

Because, just as breasts differ, so do the cases of breast cancer.

Some catch it early...



and can receive a lumpectomy, keeping the breast.



For some there is no discernable lump, but they notice discolouration


For larger breasts lumps are less noticeable and so they are at higher risk for late detection




In the case of a later stage breast cancer a mastectomy is sometimes needed.




Or a double mastectomy.



Breast cancer occurs in Men more rarely (2% of all breast cancer) but has the same risk of fatality.



In later stages most cancers can become ulcerative – breast cancer is no different.



And it can metastasise out of the breast to the rest of the body, via the lymph nodes.



This is why women often have Axillary Lymph node dissections at the time of a mastectomy.



Please get your breasts checked by mammogram, it’s free in NZ if you are:

Aged 45 to 69 years of age
You have no symptoms of breast cancer
You have not had a mammogram in the last 12 months
And you are not pregnant



AND check them yourself regularly.

My take on the “Birth Or Not” website.

This is probably one of the sickest ‘pro-life’ stunts I’ve seen in a while.
It’s right up there with their doctored photos and bullshit stories about imaginary women who had terrible lives and cancer after an abortion.
For info on what the site is about, go here.
I’m not linking people to the site itself, because I’m damned if I will give them more traffic.

I was trying to figure out why they have bothered?

They* already have a large amount of misleading info out there on fetal development.
They* already have “help clinics” for people seeking info on abortions that either manipulate the women to alternatives, or delay them so long an abortion is no longer possible.
They* already attack women in public and on internet forums for openly discussing abortion and their experience with it.

So why this?
What has been missing so far?

Answer: The ability to openly discuss and attack on a forum that will show an overall ‘winner’ in a clear definable final outcome.

This site offers them the opportunity to vilify abortionists and women who take the choice to abort. Anyone and everyone will comment and the way they have set this scenario up, very few people would select the abort option.

People who are informed and pro-choice would not select an option AT ALL because we are pro-choice. So the only people voting are those insensitive enough to find it funny, and want to wind the pro-lifers up, or the Pro-lifers.

The way this scenario will end up, the couple will keep the baby and thank those who supported them, anyone who voted abort will clearly be in the wrong (as they ARE, we can’t choose for someone else!). The sick comments recommending that they “kill the baby” (some planted, some actually written by people angry enough at the hoax to not think too hard about how their responses will be used against them) will be waved triumphantly in the air to prove how sick “pro-abortionists” are.

Several issues I have with the site (beyond it being a blatant hoax and one of the sickest concepts I’ve ever heard) is that they have missed the point completely.
I have yet to meet anyone who identifies as “pro-abortion”. This isn’t semantics, this is reality.

No one celebrates abortion.
No one looks forward to having one
No one looks forward to performing one.
But until women have 100% control over their reproduction abortions will be needed.
I am not going to get into this, as Julie over at the Hand Mirror expresses it more clearly and eloquently than I ever could

*The prolife activists on the internet



A message to those who have written the website or support it.

The opposite of anti abortion/prolife is not pro abortion; it is PRO CHOICE.
You have missed the point again.
We will not be voting on this. No one should be voting on this.
It is the parent’s choice what to do and no one else can make it for them because no one else has to live with that choice.

That means that this site isn’t actually hitting the supposed target audience at all, because no matter what the outcome, we don’t have a vote. There are only one (or two) votes that count when it comes to the choice of abortion.
To make someone keep a child, or carry one for 9 months, bond then give it up is just as sick as making someone abort.
Your website is bizarre, what is the role of the mother? Just an incubator while you expose her to the world’s judgment?
A black and white results Poll in a world of grey medical and life ethics is as irrational and irrelevant as the website you have written.
By writing this website you have hurt, frightened, and upset more people on the “pro-life” side of the coin than any other. I wish there was some way you could call each and every distressed person who really believes there is a couple that callous out there and apologise for using their beliefs and life experience to get good coverage.

Shame on you.

An overview of the “Birth or Not” website and surrounding hubbub.

There is a charming website on the internet that Boganette linked me up to.
I almost didn’t click on it, just the description alone made me feel sick. It is a blatant prolife propaganda machine, just another way to incite rage and allow people to rant about their points of view without seeming like they are aiming it at anyone in particular (specifically the vulnerable young people genuinely seeking information on thier terrifyingly real issues.)

I cannot be bothered playing into their game and linking to the site (and giving them more readers) but it is easily findable – just follow the trail of rage across the internet!
If you are interested the ministry of truth has posted about this site, and pretty much proven that is linked with another right wing political site, and the URL was purchased over a month before the supposed conception – talk about foresight!

The basic line is that a married couple in their early 30s who have had 2 miscarriages and are actively trying to start a family have opened up a site with weekly pregnancy updates (complete with scans WTF?)
And a public Poll on whether they should abort the child.
The original line was that it too could have genetic defects and spontaneously miscarriage and they wanted to avoid the heartbreak.
Now the pregnancy is further along they are clearing tests etc for birth defects (they specifically mention Down’s syndrome) with flying colours, and the fetus is healthy so I fail to understand why the question and poll are still up there.

The language used is so obvious it is pathetic. The words “the pill” are always in brackets and they use highly emotive language to describe the fetus while still claiming to be indifferent to the outcome of the poll.
They have given it a nickname and mention things like it sucking its thumb in utero.

Here are some of the messages on the boards, some are witty, and some are tragic and not unusual. They are breaking people’s hearts who actually believe in this scenario and people who cannot have kids are horrified at the public display of cruelty.

“I’m Pro-Choice, but I differ with most Liberals when it comes to WHEN you make that choice. If you are unable to figure out how to not get pregnant then you shouldn’t reproduce in the first place.
You showed us your mental capacity by getting pregnant when there are hundreds of ways to avoid it, then publishing this website for some insane reason.
Don’t listen to the poll. Please kill your baby.
Please spare the rest of us from your horrible gene pool.”


“My vote…Save the child, euthanize the parents.”


“I do not know if this is a hoax or not, but on the chance that it is not, I implore you to choose life. My husband and I have never been able to conceive, but have two beautiful children, thanks to the gift of adoption. I am so thankful for the courage and honesty of their birth mothers, both of whom admitted their inability and unwillingness to raise their children, but who were willing to continue their pregnancies and give their children life, and give us the opportunity to be parents. I am daily grateful for the gifts that they have given to us and to their children.”


“For anyone in genuine trouble, teen pregnancy, or carrying an unwanted embryo as a result of rape or incest PLEASE check your sources. There is a lot of info out there and some people have an agenda.”
For those of you sick enough to think you can make a life changing choice for someone else…. I hope you see the light one day.”


“It saddens me that you would even contemplate a forum such as this. The creation of a life is no simple daily task that should have input from anyone other than yourselves. After 2 miscarriages already, this should be a no-brainer that you would want to do everything possible to preserve this pregnancy. My wife and I have one wonderful son and have had 3 miscarriages since his birth. I do understand the hesitation for another try, as the miscarriages have tainted the whole experience and the hopeful joy of a parent during pregnancy – but to put this to a vote is a slap in the face to not only other parents, but God himself. This is between the two of you and God, and really no one else. I wish you great luck, and hope that you have a wonderful healthy baby.”

And lastly, my comment,

“WAKE UP READERS!!!
This is a sick “pro life” hoax.
The opposite of anti abortion/prolife is not pro abortion; it is PRO CHOICE.
You have missed the point again. We will not be voting on this. No one should be voting on this. It is the parent’s choice what to do and no one else can make it for them because no one else has to live with that choice.
Adoption is not an option in the poll because everyone would take it in this scenario (since your fictional characters are clearly too callous to be parents). And that would cause unity, not the massive arguments you want.
Nice try.
Abortion is not ideal but until women have 100% control over their reproductive life it is needed.
Who the hell are you to make a woman bear the fetus of her rapist, or a child bear a child? Or a make a woman who may die in childbirth carry on?
Morals are never black and white and cannot have a POLL because the answers are not black and white either.
Grow up.”

For a follow up opinion piece I wrote click here.