Things are Moving so Fast

The past couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. So much so that I really don’t have anything specific to write about. Part of the problem I’m having is that when I write the night before (like I am now), it might be out of date by morning. That’s what happened last Wednesday. I don’t like it when that happens.

Let’s see. First, I’ve been very happy to see what’s going on with DOGE. I have long held the opinion that “smaller government is better government” and DOGE seems to be doing just that. I’m confused as all get out over people weeping about “the poor federal workers who got canned” when those “poor” federal workers got 8 months of salary to play on. Most of them will have jobs by the end of the month, and that 8 months of salary is theirs to keep for holiday or Christmas or whatever. There’s nothing poor about them. I never got 8 months (or even 8 days) of salary when getting fired.

NH had a bill, HB 283, put forward. If you’d like to look at it yourself, you can find it (and lots of commentary from pundits) here. Basically, as I read it, it says that NH schools will (if the bill passes) no longer require world languages, arts and music, engineering and tech, computer science, and personal financial literacy in order to graduate. The number of credits remains the same. What I read, when I looked at the bill, was that NH wanted to focus on having students who could read, write, and do ‘rythmatic, first and foremost, and so those were made most important and required. I see that schools that are struggling to put out kids who can do those very basic things can now focus on just those basic things. What the bill does NOT say is that those other subjects are being removed from the school.

However, the NEA and other Dem groups are basically telling their folks that the Republicans want to take all those subjects out of schools. They have ads on Facebook and other places. I keep going onto them and asking people, have you actually read the bill? Most of them very obviously have not, and are simply taking their talking points and moving on. The pearl clutching is horrifying.

I am less irritated by those who did read the bill and have constructive commentary to make about it. It’s been suggested by a friend that less requirements means people will not bother taking courses on art and engineering and such. I find that unlikely. Every high school kid I know (and I know lots of them, because my own kids are just barely out of high school) takes subjects that are not required. They take art, or “language arts in comic books” (a surprisingly robust and very good English course, I might add), or whatever other equivalent to “underwater basket weaving” there is. Art and music aren’t leaving the schools, anymore than the football team is. There’s a ton of opposition to the bill, so I am guessing it won’t pass, but I don’t see it as the major threat that the Left obviously does.

I’m struggling with the Sarah McBride thing. I don’t have a problem with the bathroom response. There were women who felt threatened, and now McBride has her own bathroom. Whatever. I think it’s silly, but I guess I am also not aware that there are frequent sexual assaults at the Capitol, enough so that women should feel threatened by a man in the bathroom. I’ll admit, I’ve never understood the idea behind sexually segregated bathrooms. A friend of mine suggested that every bathroom in schools have an open wall, so that staff and everyone else can see into the bathroom itself, but that each stall have a door. That way, there are NO shenanigans going on by ANYONE, and it doesn’t matter what gender someone is or isn’t, because they’re in view, and they’re in an individual stall. It would stop smoking in the bathroom, assaults, Mean Girls [tm], and the ever popular swirlies. But I know I’m much more progressive than most of you reading this.

The problem I have with McBride is going with the male name. I don’t LIKE McBride. She’s obviously set out to try and destroy Trump. She’s a dem’s dem. But I really just don’t understand why Mary Miller couldn’t just say “Representative McBride” instead of the “mister” thing. I had a long talk/grumping session with Chris about it, and it’s still a touchy subject for me. Let me try to explain…

My birth name starts with M. If you’ve read my novels or cookbooks, you’ll see I am listed as “M. Allyson Szabo.” I don’t tell people what the M stands for. It’s my deadname. Not because I was a different gender, but because I am a victim of abuse at the hands of my mother. It’s the name she gave me, and I will not use it, but I also won’t remove it for reasons of my own. So it’s relegated to a single letter. Everyone calls me Allyson, even the people who know what the other name is. People who think my mother is a saint and I’m a disgusting cunt of a child still call me Allyson. Why? Because it’s become my name, and I’ve used it for a long time.

I’ve gone to church services with friends, to support them for various reasons, and because sometimes it’s just nice to go. I’m not Christian, and I don’t hide that, but neither do I scream it from the rafters that I’m a pagan. I’m just me, and when I’m in a friend’s church, I behave accordingly. Alternately, when someone Christian comes to dinner, we will sometimes say a Christian prayer at dinner. That’s not what we usually do, but it’s the right thing to do to make someone feel comfortable. It doesn’t hurt me in the least. My faith is strong enough that it doesn’t matter to me what name is said during a prayer.

McBride’s been “she” for a long time. When she came to the House, she was introduced as Sarah McBride, and she. She dresses like a woman, acts like a woman, speaks like a woman. While I absolutely agree she is NOT a woman, she is a trans woman. She may not have access to women’s spaces, and I can understand that, but to use a male address for her seemed… cruel. I’ve been challenged to put myself in Mary Miller’s shoes, to try and understand why she felt it absolutely necessary to say Mr. McBride rather than Representative McBride or Ms. McBride. I have tried. I really have. But I have failed. All I can see is something that was meant to be a “gotcha.”

I have long believed that one should treat one’s friends with respect, and one’s enemies with more respect. It’s not that I respect McBride, it’s that I want to be clear that I dislike McBride for her actions, not because of something under her skirt. There are way more important reasons to hate on McBride. Or, as I said with Trump four years ago when I didn’t like him but also didn’t demonize him, attack the positions, not the person. For that reason, I don’t tolerate people calling the President names (regardless of who it is, I might add), or going after someone’s weight.

So if you want to attack McBride because of the following, I’m totally with you:

• lying all over the place
• making claims that Trump is anti-trans, anti-gay, etc.
• claiming that folks in Delaware were “terrified” about Trump’s money freeze because it meant that Trump intended to “gut health care, education…” etc.
• her stance on USAID, which she says will “throw women in repressive regimes under the bus” (The 19)

There’s so much more. She’s very far Left. There’s much to push back against.

When I arrived over here on the Right, the big thing I was told was that labels weren’t as important over here. It didn’t matter if I was pagan, or bi, or poly, or kinky, or whatever. It mattered what kind of person I was. For that, I was grateful. It’s nice to be treated as a person, first and foremost. But the “gentleman” comment from Miller seems to me to be a labeling, or an “othering.” I don’t like that, not at all. It bothers me. And it feels like it goes against a lot of the things I’ve found positive on the Right.

A long time ago, someone told me that it costs me nothing to credit someone in the front of one of my books. If you have one of my books, you’ll see I credit lots of people for helping me. That’s the right thing to do, especially when it costs me nothing. I guess, to me, calling McBride (an adult who made an adult choice at an adult age, and who’s made a full transition and isn’t running around in a beard and all that stupid shit) by a male name just feels like schoolyard bullying. It costs nothing to ignore it. There’s not even a reason to say a gender at all. “The honorable Representative from Delaware, McBride.” It costs nothing, and it doesn’t require Miller to say a gender she very obviously doesn’t agree with.

Anyhow, that’s where I’m at today. I’m basically trying to understand it, and failing. Maybe it’ll come to me some day. Maybe not. I dunno.