Now is the time to be grateful for your friends, even though they won’t come over. If you don’t have friends, now is the time to regret being such a cunt.

Now is the time to refuse to call anything “the new normal.” Nothing is normal any more. Don’t pretend it’s normal and don’t adapt to it if it isn’t.

Now is the time to stop fixating on toilet paper. Think of people in India who never had toilet paper. Think of the girls in third world countries who don’t have sanitary pads or tampons!

Now is the time to stay away from Twitter, where no one can do a single thing without incurring the wrath of a billion lunatics looking for the scapegoat du jour. That way madness lies, or you know, The New Madness.

Now is the time to avoid lists of fun things to do at home. You aren’t at summer camp. You’re under house arrest! Admit it!

Now is the time to be the person you wanted to be, instead of the person you are. Be the better person. Pretend to care about your neighbors and ask them what you can pick up for them when you go out to stand in line for water and Tylenol. Call or text everyone to ask if they need help with anything.

Now is the time to retain your sense of humor! Shit is still funny! I’m trying to prank an entity that invited me to attend a fake Women’s Summit in my city. Keep your fingers crossed that they take my bait!

Now is the time to experiment with make up. No one knows that in real life, you don’t wear blue lipstick. So now you can!

When everything is forbidden, you are free from the old rules!

That’s all I have for now, comrades. Let me know what’s on your minds.

~

*cartoon by Sam Wallman and Miroslav Sandev

I tried to write about Max tonight but it made me cry so I gave up. Instead, I made this suicide prevention poster.   When my webmaster wakes up tomorrow, maybe he’ll help me to put it on that side panel on the right.

Suicide prevention should be a wider campaign, with more visibility.  I’ve spend a lot of time reading about it here.   I wish I had known more about it, especially risk assessment. More communities should make it a   priority, like San Louis Obispo, which came up with this video to reduce the stigma of mental illness.

Watching events in Egypt, I’ve been aware of how petty most of our concerns are. But it’s so uplifting to see people exercising their power! Why didn’t that happen in the US when Bush was president?!

People DO have the power to make change. The least we bloggers and our readers can do is unite to boycott the website that is poaching on the-coveted.  You can write to them at info@thecoveted.com and tell them what you think.

Freedom of speech is a huge issue for me.   So is keeping people alive.

Let’s practice being Egyptian instead of rolling over or expecting someone else to take action! I’m ready to be of service to anyone I can help.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. ~ Salmon Rushdie

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

It feels grandiose to use the words of Martin Luther King on the subject of blogging, but I can’t think of anything more appropriate to describe my recent experience with hate mail.

Remember when I was suddenly bombarded with comments from angry lunatics? I think it went on for three days. I recall sitting at my computer late at night when I literally couldn’t keep up with the volume of nasty personal attacks. I typed as fast as I could but the unmoderated comments appeared every few seconds.   The tone became more and more psychotic. It was an epic feeding frenzy that I allowed to happen because I felt to strongly about free speech.

I’ve thought a lot about mob behavior. What is it about violence (in this case, verbal abuse) that is so contagious? Why do people observe abuse and then feel empowered to join in, rather than denounce it? I’ve read that if you’re being raped. you’re more likely to get help if only one other man is at the scene. If it’s a group of men, they are more likely to join in.

The hate mail stopped just as suddenly as it started. One determined troll keeps reminding me how awful I am, but everyone else has slunk back into the woodwork or where ever they came from. I guess it’s only fun for them to attack if they feel protected by a crowd.

It’s so discouraging to see human nature at its very worst. It’s also disappointing that only one blogger was willing to speak out about this abuse – Kate of Make Do Style was outraged and said so.   She is one in a million. No one else had the courage or empathy to take on the situation, or maybe no one else cared. But it could happen to anybody. If I saw it happen on another blog, you can bet that I’d condemn it here, as forcefully as I could.

Free expression is genuinely important to me! I’m not sure what crosses the line from free speech to hate speech but I know a gang rape when I see one. I’m going to stop moderating comments and I’m hoping we can all have fun being bitches, without degenerating into a massive clusterfuck.

xo

*UPDATE* You can now order you PAP Smear shirts and buttons here!

*UPDATE II* Note the new improved logo

People, we can thank our good friends Dr. Larue and Honeypants for this wonderful logo. Feel free to copy it and use it on all your official PAP Smear correspondence.

Now that we are up and running, let the office manager take the minutes for this meeting. Or whatever, don’t bother, I hate those things. Anyway, while Penisgate is still number one (no pun intended) on our agenda, I would like to go back and revisit Babygate.

Here is an intriguing group of photos which support the notion that Mrs. Palin is not Trigger’s real mommy. I know, I know, you feel kind of sheepish for ever buying into that ‘rumor,’ but I ask you to think again.

Remember all the times you watched Bush on TV and said “This can’t really be happening!” Or, remember how you learned in that documentary about Henry Kissinger that he ordered the bombing of Cambodia at the behest of Pepsi Cola? Stuff happens that our minds want to reject. Like the fact that Mrs. Palin believes in the End of Times, when all hell will break loose, literally?

Now that we have filled our executive and staff positions, we need to roll out our membership drive. Ideas?

We need to disseminate our facts and rumors starting now! There is no time to waste. Make sure to remind everyone you come in contact with that Mrs. Palin is a lying opportunist who can’t even sell a plane on eBay and wants to destroy the Alaskan wilderness, since she’s already had her fun killing things there.

Someone needs to get Patrick a stick, and we are waiting for Tobilynne to make her report. I can’t keep track of this shit, people, I am 55 years old and losing my memory at the speed of light. FIGHT WITH ME, as our own annemarie so eloquently urged us in a battle cry she borrowed from Grandpa!

Fight for freedom to learn about sex! Fight for the wolves and polar bears! Fight for the non-believers who don’t want to have to go to hell on Mrs. Palin’s watch! Fight for sanity! Fight that crazy bitch with all you’ve got, and never let it be said that you sat around and fiddled while an old Grandpa and a mean Church Lady took over the free world!