I have been so disgusted with our country's politics during the last six months that for the sake of keeping my blood pressure at a healthy level, I've been abstaining from blogging.  But I just have to complain about a phenomenon that's been happening a lot lately in the South.  Since the elections in 2010, the following PREVIOUSLY Democratic candidates have switched to the Republican party:

Louisiana State House Rep. Simone B. Champagne.
Louisiana State House Rep. Walker Hines
Alabama State House Reps. Alan Boothe, Steve Hurst, Mike Millican, and Lesley Vance
Georgia State House Reps. Ellis Black, Amy Carter, Gerald Greene, Bob Hanner, Doug McKillip, and Alan Powell
Georgia State Sen. Tim Golden 
Maine State House Rep. Mike Willette 
South Dakota State Sen. Eldon Nygaard 
In case you missed it in the above list, 6 GA Reps and 1 GA Senator have switched parties since the election.  What the hell is that about? Truth be told, I can imagine a scenario where a long-time politician may change his/her views over time and no longer feel that s/he represents the views of the people s/he serves.  But to switch within FIVE weeks of an election??!!  I'm sorry but I have to call bullshit on that one.  I feel the need to research the elections these people participated in - Is this their first term in office?  Did they win a primary and beat out another candidate?  Perhaps if the voters knew that the candidate they voted for was going to flip flop party affiliations, they never would have supported the candidate in the first place.  I find this practice, at least the way in which it's currently being carried out in Georgia, to be deceptive, cowardly, and inexcusable.  

Fight the man, people, fight the man!  

theotherhilary is not a discriminatory shamer.  Recently, I shamed KFC for introducing the Double Down sandwich where fried chicken (or grilled chicken for those of you more health-conscious folks - you probably order a diet coke with your McD's too) serves as the bread.  Well, Friendly's may have out done them.  They now have something called the "Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt" on their menu (Iast item under burgermelts).  This new heart attack-on-a-plate is a hamburger with two grilled cheese sandwiches for buns.  In a million years, I could not make that up.  

I think I'm going to start making horrific food combinations up that are guaranteed to give me diabetes.  How about a monte cristo where two PB&Js are buns?   Maybe I'll try frosted french fries.  

Actually, I am feeling *slightly* hypocritical...last time we ate at the Vortex in Atlanta, I ordered the Elvis Burger which is described as being "...slathered with a King-sized helping of smooth peanut butter, bacon, and bananas..."  I only ate half and was kind of disgusted the whole time I was eating it but it was pretty freaking good...

I guess I get mad at these fast food-type restaurants ("Not fast food, good food quickly, Jerry") because of health disparities.  Whenever you look at who carries the burden of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, etc., it's always people of lower socioeconomic status who tend to have easier access to [insert name of any fast food establishment] than a grocery store.  So why can't KFC or Friendly's come out with "the World's Most Kick-Ass Spinach Salad" or "Extreme Fiber and Protein-Filled Quinoa Explosion"?  And don't tell me it's price - they're serving primarily meat and poultry for pete's sake.  That stuff is pricey...Try serving a spicy bean burger or a healthier Fish Fillet sandwich...

I mean seriously Friendly's - really?  Two grilled cheese sandwiches plus a hamburger?  Shame on you.

Yesterday the husband and I were innocently out driving.  We were attempting to get on the ramp to the highway when an idiot guy in a huge, white OJ SUV did something stupid.  The husband didn’t give him any rude hand gestures.  Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders in the universal arm gesture for ‘WTF’?  We got onto the highway behind the SUV and then proceeded to change lanes.  The SUV apparently wanted to change lanes too (though his lack of turn signal indicated otherwise) but the husband had already sped up such that there was barely the SUV length between him and the car in front of him.  The SUV started to change lanes, realized there really wasn’t enough room, swerved back into his original lane, and then thought better of his wise decision not to cut us off and did it anyway.  The husband didn’t honk his horn, he didn’t give him a rude hand gesture.  Instead we both, again, shrugged our shoulders and said “WTF”? 

EVERYONE in the South seems to own a gun.  Most, if not all, of our new Southern friends own at least one gun.  I’ve had lengthy discussions with friends about how they never go on long car trips without a gun in their glove compartment or under their seat.  This is a very strange scenario for the husband and I who are New Englanders through and through.  My dad had some sort of rifle type thing standing in the corner of our kitchen that on the rare occasion he would use it to kill woodchucks who were attacking his garden.  The bullets weren’t even kept in the house (they were in the shed which was pretty far away from our house).  I don’t think I have ever even laid a finger on that gun my entire life.
 

A few years ago, I went with the husband and some friends to a gun range in New Hampshire.  I didn’t particularly want to but the husband really did.  I did not intend on shooting anything but they got me to shoot a round of really small caliber bullets (22mm?) and I shot one (not one round, one bullet) slightly larger caliber bullet (9mm?).  While I was an excellent shot, I basically had an anxiety attack before, during, and after our outing and vowed never to shoot a gun again.  I think it’s because guns are just not a part of the culture of my life.  They are not part of the fabric of my being.  I also think the fact that I work in public health almost makes me allergic to them. 

So now I live smack dab in the middle of gun country.  I had a VERY interesting conversation with a friend down here who was born in Alabama and has lived in the South his whole life (and if you’re reading this, you know who you are and you know I love you).  He told me basically that people in the South own guns in case they ever have to take up arms against the Government (among other reasons).  I think he scoffed at me when I said I support the right of people to bare arms but I don’t think they should have cop killer bullets or automatic weapons, etc.  I think this mentality is an artifact from the Civil War, which is, more times than not, referred to as the ‘War of Northern Aggression’ in the South.  It’s like the people in the South are so afraid that the Government is going to try to take away something else from them, of the same magnitude as slavery, and next time they don’t want the Yankees to win.  So they believe that they should be allowed to own guns that are as good if not better than those of law enforcement.     

This really got me thinking about whether or not people in the South just own guns or do they actually end up using them.  Because I’m a data kind of girl, I thought I would share some stats.  I looked at the top 20 firearms death rates by state (with US Census regions in parentheses):

Top 20 (rates decrease as you go down the list)

District of Columbia (S)   

Alaska (W)    

Louisiana (S)

Wyoming (W)           

Arizona (W)  

Nevada (W)  

Mississippi (S)        

New Mexico (W)      

Arkansas (S)           

Alabama (S)

Tennessee (S)        

West Virginia (S)    

Montana (W)

South Carolina (S)

North Carolina (S) 

Georgia (S)  

Kentucky (S)           

Oklahoma (S)          

Missouri (MW)         

Idaho (W)

Twelve of the top 20 states with high firearms death rates are in the South and correspond in a very interesting way to the South or border states from the Civil War.  Not one of the top 20 is a Northeast state.  Then I looked at the 20 states with the lowest firearms death rates:

Botton 20 (rates decrease as you go down the list)

Kansas (MW)           

Utah (W)

Vermont (NE)          

Ohio (MW)

Washington (W)      

Delaware (S)

North Dakota (MW)

Wisconsin (MW)      

Nebraska (MW)       

South Dakota (MW)

Iowa (MW)    

Maine (NE)   

Minnesota (MW)      

New Hampshire (NE)        

Rhode Island (NE) 

New York (NE)

New Jersey (NE)    

Connecticut (NE)   

Massachusetts (NE)         

Hawaii (W)

ALL Northeast states are in the bottom 20 with all but Vermont listed in the bottom 10.  I actually expected the rogue New England state of New Hampshire to not be in the bottom 10 (Live Free or Die and all that crap) but Vermont was the surprise outlier.   

Is there a pattern here?  I’ll let you come to your own conclusion on that.  But all I know is that when I think of all the cultural differences I’ve encountered since living in the South, the one that bothers me the most is not the religious zealots or the anti-abortion billboards or the hypocrisy of having churches and strip clubs across the street from each other or even the blatant racism/anti-LGBT/hatred of anyone different.  It’s not that everyone refers to me as a Yankee and it’s not always in a teasing way.  It’s not that most people are registered Republicans event though they are poor, minorities, or women.  It’s the love of guns and the attitude that everyone should have one.  That’s what scares me.  That’s what could keep me from speaking out about the issues I care most about.   That’s what makes me hesitate for a femtosecond before telling new acquaintances that I am a Fed.  And boy do I hate that…

 

According to Merriam Webster, a sandwich is " two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between them" or "one slice of bread covered with food".  Well apparently KFC does not agree with this.  My friend Jaime brought this disgusting monstrosity to my attention.   The KFC "Double Down" is a "sandwich" where the bread is replaced by fried chicken.  WTF?  540 calories, 32 grams of fat, and 1380 mg of sodium.  That's more than 1/4 of your calories for the day, 1/2 your fat intake, and over 1/2 of your sodium intake...It's like KFC looked public health in the face and spit on it! 

I guess I have to give them props - they've got a huge pair of juevos to put out a product like this when the rest of the food industry is scrambling to voluntarily reduce sodium in food.  Maybe no one ever told KFC but the United States has a HUGE obesity epidemic and this sandwich ain't gonna help nobody!  

But on behalf of public health practitioners everywhere, I would like to say thank you to KFC for ensuring our job stability...

Dear Ricky,

We all knew.

Love, theotherhilary

p.s. I've been a fan of your music and hot gay ass for years.

Many people think love is the universal language but I disagree.  I think it's laughter.  Because even when people speak completely different languages, if something funny happens, everyone laughs.  It's really one of my favorite things to do.  As many of you know, the way to gauge if you are a truly funny person is to see if you've ever caused me to make "the noise".  I make this noise that has been described as a cat noise, frog-like, satan's laugh...a number of different things.  It used to make one friend run out of the room in fear whenever he heard it.  I've been told by my friend the speech language pathologist that I have 'base tongue vibration' or something like that.  As long as it's not cancer, I don't care what it is because I LOVE to laugh so hard that I stop breathing, my stomach aches, and sometimes I even see stars.  That, to me, is truly living.

When I was in college, I once made a friend laugh so hard that he threw up on his cafeteria tray.  Now THAT was funny.  I think we were talking about Gone with the Wind and I was saying how Clark Gable was so hot that I would [do something naughty to] his bones.   And that caused the pukefall (a waterfall of vomit). 

Tonight we hung out with some friends (who shall remain anonymous).  These are friends that the husband and I really enjoy hanging out with because we do a LOT of laughing whenever we are with them.  Well tonight was no exception.  In fact, the husband told a story, that truth be told it wasn't even that funny, that made our friends laugh ridiculously hard.  The husband of the couple keeled over on our couch, turned lobster read, and almost passed out from laughing so hard.  The wife of the couple ran into the bathroom and we kept hearing periodic giggles from her.  She then came outside and announced "We have to go home..."  We thought something was wrong but it turned out she peed her pants.  After they left the husband and I laughed for several solid minutes...and then I might have peed my pants a little too as a result...

Fill in the blank - "I once made someone laugh so hard they___"

Yesterday I heard that Betty White is confirmed to be hosting Saturday Night Live in the near future.  A Facebook group (“Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!”) was formed a few months back to get the 88-year old comedian to host the show.  Currently there are almost 500,000 members of the group.   It’s now known that she will be hosting on May 8^th.  Betty is and always will be timeless.  The Golden Girls was on TV from 1985-1992.  I definitely watched it with my family when it was first on.  Then after I graduated from college, there was a year or two where I would watch two episodes everyday after work.  And even now, if it comes on I would rather watch that than most other TV shows. 

Eighty-eight and still going strong…that’s the kind of relevance and longevity I’m looking for.  Betty’s long, full life has made me think about my own life.  Growing up, my parents always encouraged me to do well in school and succeed in life.  I remember my Dad telling me once that I would have trouble with boys.  I think he meant because I was so confident and willful.  I had actually resigned myself to the fact that if I ever got married, it probably wouldn’t be until my 40s. 

Well, then I turned 24, met my now husband, and got married four years later.  My husband was fantastic because he actually liked me for who I was.   He has always been absolutely the biggest fan of my success.  He has encouraged me in every way whether I was in school or thinking about switching jobs. 

We’ve never been in any rush to have kids and I always told myself that as long as I have them before I turn 33, when my Mom had me, I’ll be okay.  Well, in a few short months I turn 34.  One of my closest friends is an OB/GYN and as soon as I got married she said “Be sure to have your kids before you turn 35!”.  I found out TODAY that if you have kids when you’re over 35, it’s called a “geriatric pregnancy”!  Honestly, whoever thought up this term should be shot.  As if women like me don’t have enough pressure now I'll have this horrible term applied to me if I don’t want to get pregnant in the next 5-6 months…

So now I’m at a life crossroads – I’m trying to establish myself in my career, support my husband in his, sell our house in MA when the market picks up, buy a new one in ATL, find time to get my PhD, become the Chief of Staff to some POTUS I can be proud to support (let’s face it, I’m not diplomatic enough to be the main gal myself), and in between all of that, find time to have a kid or two and manage to not screw them up royally.  Phew!   

I also worry about keeping my skills and expertise relevant so that I don’t end up like some of the ancient relics in the workforce today who are outdated and technophobic.  It’s enough to drive me to drink, not that I have very far to go.  But then I stop and think about Betty White. 

Betty White – married with 4 step children, avid animal activist, and over a 65-year career has won six Emmys, has been on more TV shows than most actors could only dream of, and now, at the age of 88, has the youth of America advocating for her on the most popular social networking site to host SNL where she will be the oldest person to ever host… that’s the kind of relevance and longevity I can only hope for.  A long, full, and active life - if Betty can do it, maybe theotherhilary can too.    

I am trying to be a more positive person in 2010.  But something happened today that has just got me thinking such negative thoughts.  In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court voted to eliminate restrictions on corporate spending for federal political campaigns...Caps on corporate spending on elections were implemented in 1907 and have worked just fine for over 100 years...

Our country's political system is great because it gives each individual a voice in the political process.  Corporations, advocacy groups, universities, etc. are not allowed to vote in elections.  Yet with this new ruling, their money will surely decide who wins elections instead of the people of the United States.  In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln talked about a government that was "of the people, by the people, for the people" - NOT of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.  This change in campaign spending will likely lead to our elections being determined by which candidate has the most backing from companies. I've always said that our entire political system is flawed due to conflicts of interest.  It would be almost impossible to rid our political system of these types of conflict but I think we should do whatever we can to minimize them so that politicians are being lead by what is best for their constituents and not what will make them rich.  This new ruling will make that virtually impossible. 

Many politicians, both Dems and Reps (Snowe, McCain) are against this ruling.  President Obama said "It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans..."

The justices who voted in favor of eliminating restrictions (and the Presidents who nominated them) are:  Roberts (Li'l Bush), Scalia (Reagan), Kennedy (Reagan), Alito (Li'l Bush), and Thomas (Big Bush)...I sense a pattern here.  

Seriously - Simon Cowell would be STUPID not to immediately sign the General singing "Pants on the Ground".  It would bury the cult success of William Hung (remember the awkward Asian singing "She Bangs"?).