Saturday, June 23, 2012

My New Kitty!

                                         "Hello! My name is Bindi! I can haz packing material?"

     So, she's not exactly new. She's three years old and we've had her for about a month, but she's fairly new...

     She enjoys fetch, laser pointers, and the piping on my comforter. She also likes walking in on people in the shower, and then she freaks out from the water. She's a voyeur, an adorable voyeur.


Kari

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

VAGINA!!!

Today, I had so much fun! I went to Vaginas Take Back The Capitol! Eve Ensler was awesome (Seriously, I was like a 13 year old girl around Justin Beiber)!
I had never seen the Vagina Monologues before. It was so moving. Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of pictures because I don't have a camera, and my phone died. But here's what I got:
Huge crowd!

Signs are funny!

Rebekah Warren

Lisa Brown


Barb Byrum and Lisa Brown


The video is something I found on youtube. Great pictures! Hopefully, all of these people being here will change the mind of some of the legislators...

Kari

Friday, June 15, 2012

Protests, Vaginas, and Religious Freedom.

On June 12, I went back to Lansing to protest House Bills 5711-5713, which would make it next to impossible to get an abortion in the state of Michigan. Unfortunately, I caught something that day and was confined to my couch feeling miserable until last night, so I didn't get to go to the second protest that was yesterday. However, I found out that one of my favourite legislators of ALL TIME was banned from speaking because she said the word "vagina." I had no idea that vagina was a dirty word. I swear like a sailor all the time and was never aware of this. Maybe I should just start slipping it into conversation? "Oh hi, grandma! How's your vagina, today?" On second thought, that would be weird because I'm pretty sure that my granny is post-menopause. Anyway, here's the video:




As I said before, I love Lisa Brown. I have had the pleasure of speaking with her a few times and I find that she is a fiercely intelligent woman, as well as being possibly one of the nicest legislators I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I also think that this shit is on. Someone finally and officially stood up to the jackasses who have been running our country into the ground. You rock, Lisa!

Unfortunately, the fuckers (who know who you are) passed the bills. *sigh* I guess I'll have to go back in the fall to the Senate and protest again.

Here are some pictures:
(Courtesy of the Detroit Free Press)





















Kari

Friday, June 8, 2012

The Internet, Michigan House Legislature and My Adventures in Lansing

So, I've been out of commission for a while. I did not have internet for about a month and a half, and then I was still really busy moving in. That is why there have been a lack of posts.
And now, on to more important things. Yesterday, I (along with some friends) went to the Michigan House Committee on Health Policy hearing for bills 5711, 5712, and 5713. These bills limit what abortion providers can do and basically will make abortion inaccessible in Michigan. One bill requires that doctors have a million dollars in malpractice coverage and another limits a woman's choice to have an abortion at 20 weeks without exemptions for rape, incest, life of the mother or fetal anomaly. Can you imagine finding out that your child will only live for a few minutes and then being forced to give birth?
I then found out that one of my own representatives (who I voted for), Lesia Liss, has voted in support of all anti-choice legislation after running on a pro-choice platform and being supported financially by NOW, Planned Parenthood, and a host of other feminist and reproductive rights organizations. I will not be voting for her again.  All she said when I called her out on it was "I've learned so much in the past few days..." Which I assume to mean that Right to Life showed her pictures of miscarried fetuses and said that they were from abortions.
On the bright side, we did have some fantastic legislators standing up for women's rights. Kate Segal asked fantastic questions of all of the people who were speaking at the hearing (a lot of them ended up being of the "citation needed" variety), and Jimmy Womack uttered the best line I have ever heard when referring to a clause in one of the bills that would prohibit the dispense of the abortion pill via telemedicine, which anti-choicers were calling a webcam abortion: "What exactly is a webcam abortion? I mean, webcams cannot perform abortions..."

All in all, it was a very scary day for Michigan women. We can only hope that it will not pass the Republican controlled Senate.

Kari