Viagra to sex offenders what next?

This pissed me off. While reading the news, I came across this article at ABC news. It's about men who are convicted sex offenders getting viagra compliments of state medicaid programs. In our society women are denied birth control pills by self righteous pharmacists, and people are denied needed surgery because they have no insurance, and insurances refuse to pay for medications that will make some people’s life better, yet Medicaid will fund Viagra to sex offenders! I am beyond pissed. Check out the news article at ABCNews.com-sexoffenders Get Medicaid-paid Viagra-May 19,2005.

Kevin Freking reports the following states were giving the impotence drug to sex offenders: The states that provided registered sex offenders with subsidized impotence drugs are Florida, 218 cases; New York, 198; Texas, 191; New Jersey, 55; Virginia, 52; Missouri, 26; Kansas, 14; Ohio, 13; Michigan, seven; Maine, five; Georgia, three; Montana, three; Alabama, two; and North Dakota, one. That comes to 788 cases.

Kyle Smith, a spokesman for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, put it this way: "Do we have programs giving clubs to wife beaters or drinks for those committing DUI? Weird things happen in this world, and this is one of the weirder."

I’m sure the good ole boy network doesn’t want to deny men the right to have sex regardless of how they get that sex. Even without giving the Viagra to convicted sex offenders, when was the last time medicaid paid for, let me see, reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy? Yet they see that it is fine for the state to provide impotency drugs to men on medicaid. I might not oppose the men on medicaid and impotency drug if they, medicaid, saw fit to treat women's reproductive issues and self image issues as well as they do men's sex drives. I am, although, against viagra for sex offenders.

Priorities! This is one fucked up society.

Books and Brains/Boobs and Butts

There is a really cool bookstore in the city where I will be attending graduate school. It has rooms and rooms filled with old books, new books, cheap books, and books that are out of print. I can spend hours just looking at the books on one shelf, and there are so many books. Today, Mr. Zelda1 and I and a new friend of mine went up the hill, actually a big hill, to this used bookstore. My friend got a Riverside Chaucer for 25 dollars; did I tell you it was brand new? In the bookstore at the college it is nearly 100 dollars. Anyway, I found some cool books on Buddhism, one on Marxism, and one of my favorite authors, Zora Hurston’s book Mules and Men.

While I like to talk about this bookstore, my problem was afterwards when we decided to go eat. My husband is always teasing about going to Hooters, and since I had my new friend with, I didn’t want to seem like an insecure wife, furthermore, I had confidence going with another woman close to my age; so, when he says, “What about Hooters?” I say, “Sure.” And we go to Hooters. “It’s a family restaurant,” the husband says. Like hell! There were girls with little bodies and big boobs (by the way biology doesn’t usually work that way, little hips, little chest) running around in tight, thin t-shirts and ass-cheeks-hanging-out shorts bouncing those too big-of-boobs and well the men were all sitting there with their tongues hanging out, and I might add that the men were all in their forties and older except for a few pimply faced boys, who obvious were getting fodder for later. My point, why did I go there, it was awful, women are being exploited and while they make good tips, how much fun can it be knowing those men are watching their asses and boobs bouncing around. Men, who are too old to really have good sex with, or too ugly to have good sex, and these young girls are passing table after table smiling and then I’m thinking they can’t wait to get the hell out of that place. Those men really looked stupid. Why is it that in this day and age there are jobs where young girls and young women are put on display for their bodies in order to attract a crowd of men who don’t give a piss about the chicken wings? Are we no different today than forty or even thirty or twenty years ago? We are not, as a society, getting enlightened; we are, in fact, still running on primal urges of lust and war.

One Road To Enlightenment

A professor, who happens to be a good friend of mine, gave me a book on Buddhism. The book Buddhism A Way of Life And Thought by Nancy Wilson Ross, a good book go check it out, explains the history and concepts of this philosophy. My interest is pure not out of the need to be trendy but out of the need to know what others think. It was, after all, one of those religions that my fundamentalist’s preacher warned me about. They worship a little statue of a man and they light incense and they chant and hit the gong and do other weird things. Our denomination, because we are so right in our beliefs, has sent missionaries to countries like Japan and India trying to convert those lost souls.

So I began studying this book, this sinful book, hoping to find information that will help me when I read books written by authors from other countries. It is important, I think, to know about the culture of a people, their religions, their politics, and their history, in order to understand their writings. My desire to know was pure, probably the only pure desire I possess, unless you count the love for my three grandchildren.

I learned that his man, Buddha, didn’t exactly start out to teach about gods, he started out to learn and through his learning reach enlightenment. Enlightenment, this I liked; although I wasn’t to impressed with the whole ascetic thing, but then his views changed, so I read on. I am always striving to become enlightened, that is why I read and study, it is the goal, or at least I think, of humanity to strive for knowledge. Then I find him looking for ways to make his mind better, his life better, his health better, and the cherry on the philosophy, he is working at making mankind better; his teaching part, the part I really like.

I especially like the directions to enlightenment: right views, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. These lessons on how to have the right things in your life are more you should and not do this or do not do this. This is all about good thoughts, really important for me, and getting rid of negative energy. Being kind to other humans and other animals. It’s all about respect of the environment, creating good Karma. Karma, not to come back after death as someone else, although that, too, is a belief that I am researching, but it is doing good things making and saying positive things.

I am trying to adhere to these eight principles, and, in doing so; I hope to become a better person, to become enlightened. That is not a bad thing, so I wonder, why is it that fundamentalists work so hard to bad mouth a philosophy that is based on the teachings of man very similar to the man they follow? Their differences, well their differences are quite obvious.

Buddha encouraged meditation; in fact, his road to enlightenment and reaching Nirvana is through meditation. I can spare a few minutes a day to think about things, clear my mind, let it rest, which, by the way, opens the brain, not for demons as my preacher thinks, but for new ideas that can only come in and be understood when you sit quietly. Ideas like algebra or physics or literary criticism or writing a new novel.

I guess what I mean is that in this world there are many different kinds of beliefs for reaching Nirvana, heaven, different planes or whatever it is a person chooses to call perfection on earth or beyond the grave. It doesn’t hurt to learn those different beliefs, maybe take a little from each and make life good for yourself and for your neighbor. That’s all.

Money still matters

I begin graudate school at the end of August. I have been trying to figure out how I am going to afford living away from home. I will still have to maintain two households and while my husband works it will still be tough. There are loans, and I am going to go in debt to pay my tuition, buy books, and whatever is left will pay rent on something; probably a tent in the field of some weirdo. My friend who is still doing undergraduate work, has two children, and lives off her grants and loans, found out that she is getting less this year than last. As it was, she barely had enough money to survive. I figure by the time I earn my Masters and start on my PHD, I will be so poor that I will never get out of debt. I wonder why am I doing this, why does anyone do this? It certainly isn't that prestige of being a teacher at a university somewhere because professors are not held in high esteem these days. I think I am doing this to be a better person, a poorer person that is for sure, but a better person. I want to make a difference. I guess that is why I am going in debt and struggling now, so that I can struggle later to pay the debts off and impart wisdom to those students who want to do the same as me, or the ones who play sports and just need my class, or those students who are going into buisness or law or medicine. I guess I am doing this to help. That is, after all, going along with the teachings of all those great teachers like Buddah, Christ, and Mohammed. It isn't about the money, it's about the outcome. That's what I have to keep saying.

Back from the Dead.

I had surgery, that is had the hysterectomy, which was surgery and was painful and my incision did pop open on the fifth post op day but it has healed, I am better, finished school, graduated with a BA in English and soon I'm off to graduate school for a Masters in Comparitive Lit.
Hopefully this summer, I will have the time to devote to posting my stream of conscience or not thoughts. That is what I like to do, write, that is, what is on my mind, albeit the mind is old and full of legal drugs like those I would have like to have gotten my hands on when I was younger. Now the doctors throw them by the handfull my way. An advantage to having wrinkles and gray hair. I read my first book for pleasure last night. It was a young adults type book but was good and today I am reading another book for fun. I can't believe how it feels having no papers due or test to study for. Maybe, I'll clean house. At least dust. Who knows.