On how to treat women like property:

Why am I the only person in the world who thinks it’s incredibly degrading when someone addresses an envelope “Mr. & Mrs. <Mr’s Name> <Last Name>”?

It’s rude.

I am not, nor have I ever been named “Mrs. Paul Peterson”.
In fact, I will never be Mrs. Paul Peterson. My name is Kelly.
Collectively, the Husband and I are “Mr. & Mrs. Peterson” or “Mr. Paul Peterson & Mrs. Kelly Peterson”, or perhaps “Paul & Kelly Peterson” if you’re feeling informal.

You could even simply write “The Petersons” if you’re not up to including two first names.

When I alter my first name to match my husbands’ in addition to my surname, I will let people know. Until then, stop using an archaic and outdated practice from the days of women as chattel and let that degradation of equality die the death it deserves.

I have a dream…

I am a pacifist by nature. I don’t have a compulsion to hurt anyone else, and when faced with a fight I am the turn the other cheek sort. Some of my best friends and family members are soldiers. This puts me in a strange place of being morally (and by nature) opposed to the idea of war. I openly dream of a world in which war is no longer seen as needed by anybody.

Being honest, I believe war is an activity undertaken by adults too self-centered and unwilling to find a middle ground that they can’t do what they tell their children: Compromise. On the whole, it boils down to the fact that no people should ever fight, and yet we do.

Now we get to the part where I say that I support the armed forces and what they do.

That’s right. I might be a pacifist, and I might hate that war happens and find the whole matter discussing. But that does not change the fact that it’s happening around us. The strong abuse the weak, the rich abuse the poor… The like happens all over the world. All the time. I’m lucky, I’m a pacifist born in a place where I am free to be what I am without question. I’m not a pacifist who has to make a stand (like Tibet’s Monks). Instead I have a wall of defense and the good fortune to be in a country little effected by war on the whole.

It makes being a pacifist easy.

I’m not stupid, though. I know, based on the events of 9-11, that the enemy will bring the fight here given a chance. I don’t like it, but I won’t stand in the way of our soldiers. I won’t stand in the way of them having Veteran’s Benefits. I’ll even support certain operations they undertake (like the work they do to help following natural disasters).

I dream of a day when every soldier can hang up their gun. Today is, sadly, not that day: but I can dream.

Apologies & Building the Internets

First off, I apologize for the distinct lack of me in the last two weeks. Between everything that’s been happening I’ve just been really, really busy. I will catch up soon on the D&D storyline, I SWEAR.

In the meantime, enjoy the following Silly ConversationTM between myself and Mel.

KEL: But then 😉 when it comes to my job you prettymuch know “Builds the internet”. I tend to not mention specificly where very oftend.
MEL: This is true. How does one build the internet?
KEL: Carefully, and with lots of caffine.

D&D Quotes

Due to the fact that I don’t have any good ideas for what to post today, and I have these sitting in my game notes from last session, I figured that I would slap these up here and let y’all enjoy them.

 

First, from the amazing mind of one Wiley “Rasp” A.:

Violence: It’s the bind that ties.

 

Then, an interchange from the full table.

Kelly: Oh! Those are sleeping bags? **points at the drawings Paul is doing on the battle map. Of graves.**
Paul: Kind of.
Wiley: The permeant kind.

Candlelight Service

I will admit that I don’t remember a ton of the sermon from last night’s Candlelight Service. mainly because I was distracted by Linnea’s adorableness the whole time. Right before the service started my Father-in-law, Norm, came over to where we were all sitting because she was fussing. Matt, Linnea’s father, said the following:

She’s just crying because she found out her Grandpa wears a dress.

Note of the uninitiated, but Lutheran Pastors still wear the fancy flowing vestments.

Douglas the Fir Tree…

My mother has in her possession a foot tall, holiday themed singing fir tree named Douglas. I hate Douglas and have since he was originally acquired. This year I even attempted to throw him down a flight of stairs. Alas, my little brother saved the fir tree and he lived to sing this year…

Maybe next year I’ll be as lucky as Garfield…

Young Adult Lit

I read a lot of young adult literature even though I’m an adult. Keep in Mind that I also read a lot of adult books and the odd volume strait out of a section far “too young” for me.

I am not ashamed of this!

I never will be, either. Good stuff lies in those sections, some that connects with my youth and some of it that just gives me hope because kids read this stuff.

Tamara Peirce, for example, is amazing. I love tortall and have no plans to leave it anytime soon. I don’t understand why she hasn’t gotten the attention that J. K. Rowlings got for Harry Potter. She has good plots and rounder characters than jk does.

Meg Cabot is another good example. I had a rough time in middle and high school. The kind of time that makes me act crazy during movies like the Breakfast Club that make believe that cliques are good for us even when we’re “all the same”. I felt like Mia a lot back then. Sometimes even in my day to day life. I think it’s healthy for me to find a character that helps me work through all of those negative emotions and find a positive spin for that part of my life.

And finally, a nostalgia author for me. Everyone should read Erickson’s Hank the Cowdog books when they’re 10 or younger, and then revisit them at 30. I want a kid to read these to. They’re incredible fun and beg to be read aloud.

In short: Don’t let a shelf classification keep you from reading anything, ever. Sometimes you don’t want 1000 pages of dancing dragons. Sometimes you only want 100 pages where the dragon dosent turn anybody into a cinder (calling on dragons, perhaps, when you need a break from Martin’s epic A Dance of Dragons). They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but don’t judge it by its page count, either!

A Brand New Day

I decided that it was time for a brand new day here at Kitsufox.com . I’ve lost interest in the LOL-posting and just… haven’t been able to make myself do it. So I think I’m doing to start making myself sit down and… You know… write real stuff for blog entries every day.

I don’t know what the topics will be, but I’ll be shooting for an entry a day. It might be works I like on dA, it might be a book review… It might be anything that takes my mind, even rehashing news stories. I might even do the occasional LOL post, though for the sake of everyone who wants to skip those, I’ll start buying them under cuts.

Thus, see y’all tomorrow, with the first of these new fangled posts.

Horses

I haven’t been a horse in years.

The person who taught me to ride them, Marge, passed away of late. Horses have been on my mind since. Even worse since I went to the auction at her place on Saturday.

I wish I had an opportunity to ride. Really ride. Not get up on a trail ride horse whose so sick of the incompetents who have no business on a motorbike (let alone something with a pulse and a brain) who flop around like dying fish and flap about like clothes drying on a line. I want to get on a horse with a clever mind and dancing hooves and have it keen to rise to what I ask of it.

I want to finish learning to do a flying change.
I wand to finish what Marge and I started.

9/11 Tribute

First off, a prelude.

I wasn’t going to comment on this, because I tend to think that America is too in-your-face about what happened, and instead of dealing with the tragedy on a personal level we’ve only managed to turn it into a side-show of epic proportions. Just think about the disgustingly un-American displays that have gone on about the proposed Mosque and Islamic Center. Granted, at least some people kept their brains on and had the sense to realize that “Islamic” and “Terrorist” are not synonymous.

Anyways, my opinions aside… I decided to do a post about it today because I love two comics that came out today by two of my favorite comic strips. So without further ado…

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