Ready to make nice? Well...

I've been thinking a lot this weekend, in light of the celebration of evil versus good in the whole Halloween/All Saint's Day dichotomy, about what it means to be "good."

A good woman...
A good wife/homemaker/mother...
A good liberal.

The good woman debate got a bit of a jolt this week with the publication of some racy sexual fantasies over at Double X, a "sex article" site run by Wapo/Newsweek. (Yeah, they're desperate at Wapo, but we knew that.) One African-American woman fantasizes about being degraded, and the other is entitled "We Act Out Rape, Then We Snuggle."

As the church lady would say, "Now isn't that special?"



Of course, the definition of rape includes coerced and non-consensual, so if the two partners want this whatever it is, and both have an equal say in what happens and what doesn't -- it's not rape. I say this fully aware of the horrible gang rape crimes discussed in the news recently.

But there are blog communities that would still have debates about that. I've suffered through many comment threads where ironically, it just doesn't matter what a woman wants because the women at the blog thread "aren't comfortable" with what she is doing and find it threatening/triggering. And that brings me to a related illustration concerning the housework/parenting/spousal goodness that came up this week at another website.

Someone posted an "instant mocha" recipe at a "organize your life" community which I read on occasion. This site deals primarily with home organization but has also branched out into saving money, eating healthy and getting exercise, the whole idea is to take care of yourself and your home because you're worth it, etc.

Anyway some nice lady suggested mixing instant coffee with cocoa mix and dried milk and voila, you never have to go to Starbucks again.

And a commenter chided her for publishing such a calorie-laden high carb prescription AGAINST the organizers of the online community. No, really:

Do [the website organizers] know that [this forum] is promoting this recipe? This recipe is very high in calories (and carbs), and one cup should be considered [our rule book's] "one dessert a week'! Drinking a cup or more of this every day is very likely to add to your weight.

"Nothing says I love you like a cup of something warm and wonderful" Such self-pampering is not blessing your body. It is shortening your life to your detriment and to that of your loved ones.

Stick to water or black coffee.

P.S. Is it your brat or your princess that tells you drinking this is a way to pamper yourself?

Wow. Name calling over calories. You think we on the political side are bad? But now we have the purist liberal "Obama sucks because he didn't give us single payer" commenters at several big liberal blogs. Watch this video, which was apparently made by a conservative to show what liars we on the left are on the public option thing...HA!



You are reading the blog of a unabashed liberal woman who cut her political teeth on Kennedy 80, made videos for Kucinich 08, and wants single payer without apology.

I also watched Reagan get elected in '80. I am not going to freak out at this point because, frankly, I think I can find a way to diss Rahm Emmanuel without electing Mitt Romney. And for now, I'm going to write the history of what happened as "liberals dug in their heels and did not flinch, finally, when told they were asking for too much when they had ALREADY compromised." I hope those who think we've "failed" at this point will not freak out about the carbs in the coffee and the rape that isn't there.

And we really have to let the dust settle on this one, assess where to go next, and fight on for what is right. There's more to do, obviously.