Diana's Writing Blog

You know what? My blood pressure has always been nearly perfect. And I was really proud of that. Over the past two years, I’ve lost twenty pounds. I’ve started walking two miles five days a week. Twenty out of twenty-one meals a week are from foods I p…

You know what? My blood pressure has always been nearly perfect. And I was really proud of that. Over the past two years, I’ve lost twenty pounds. I’ve started walking two miles five days a week. Twenty out of twenty-one meals a week are from foods I prepare at home. I even cut down on the amount of caffeine I drink. And somehow my blood pressure has gone UP since last year. And you know what? I blame YOU, World.

That’s right, ever since I started following news on all that’s wrong with the world: women’s rights, animal rights, gay rights, etc., I can almost feel my blood pressure rising daily.

This is basically how I feel:

I can’t listen to politicians anymore, they raise my blood pressure.

So, in the interest of my health, I’m taking a hiatus from the real world. What does that mean?

No Reading News on the Following Topics:

• Politics. Especially anything that comes out of the mouth of Republicans. Sorry Republicans, I’m sure a lot of you are very nice, but the phrases "traditional values," "death panels," and "liberal media" appear just a bit too often in Republican speeches.
• Fat Acceptance. Being fat myself, how could news about fat acceptance possibly raise my blood pressure? Because it largely doesn’t exist. So really news about how people are failing spectacularly at fat acceptance. Fashion designers, television producers, the majority of the medical community, you all FAIL at fat acceptance. Also, PETA gets a special mention for failing so freaking hard at, well, every ad campaign they’ve ever launched. Anyway, I don’t need a daily update on the new and varied ways of failing you come up with.
• Women’s Rights. Gee, but we’re allowed to vote and wear pants and everything. And yet we still get paid less, are underrepresented in politics and top-level positions at companies, and are still largely seen as walking bodies and not actual people. It goes without saying, but this especially includes any abortion news. As with the Republicans, anti-choicers have too many lies and half-truths in their speeches.
• Gay Rights. Sorry to say it, because I am a huge supporter of gay rights, especially gay marriage. But if I have to read one more "Christian" diatribe on the subject, I’m going to throw up.

  Apparently, this one extends to letters from my pastors in response to the recent ELCA decision to let gays in commited relationships be pastors. Yeah, that’s right. The spiritual leaders of the church I’ve gone to since I was five all felt the need to write letters assuring the congregation that they were AGAINST the ELCA decision and still totally believe that homosexuality is a sin. I especially enjoyed the lamenting of how the church has been "turning away from traditional values" over the years from our FEMALE pastor. It was our "turning away" from "traditional values" that lets you do more than stand silently behind your husband. Seriously! Oh, but they all still totally "love and accept" gays. They just don’t think they should be allowed to have the same rights as "normal" people. Really? That sounded logical and true when you were writing it? What is wrong with people? Yes, the Bible is important. But what happened to the church being a living thing? Clinging to the Bible and the values of a civilization that died a few hundred years ago only makes sense if you believe God isn’t still around.

  But don’t worry about my immortal soul. I found a nice church close to where I live that not only approves of the ELCA decision, they were welcoming gays years before the ELCA approved of it.

• The Middle East. This includes basically any story about the people and politics in the Middle East. I’m sure that the majority of the people are just normal, everyday folk going about their lives. But the only stories we get in the Western media are child brides and "justified" gang rapes and honor killings and acid attacks and women in general being treated like cattle. It sucks, but there you have it.

  This also includes stories about our troops. You know what? I support the troops. I really do. I’m from a poor community. I know the military seems like the only decent job around. I don’t blame anybody for buying the whole "serve our country" honor thing. But the truth is that we are over there cleaning up a mess that our own government created a few decades ago. We supplied weapons to dictators and we purposely created unrest so that we could continue getting our oil at rock bottom prices. And the people who are caught in the crossfire of our little war on terror have as little to do with the terrorists as the average American did with our government’s actions decades before.

• Africa. Yes, the entire continent. Again, I’m sure the majority of the people are normal folk. But Western media likes to report on genocides, famines, female circumcision, and witch killings.
• Animal Rights. The crap people do to each other is enough, but the things they do to creatures who don’t have the power to fight back or speak out is just horrifying. No more daily updates, please. That includes the ASPCA newsletter. Tor every touching story about a doggy blood donor or a cat being surrogate mom to a bunch of bunnies, there’s three times as many about owners throwing their dogs off the roof or cooking them alive in the oven just for fun.

So there you have it. For the next few months, as far as I’m concerned, the world is a happy sparkly place full of kittens and rainbows. The politicians are working together to help and protect the nation’s citizens. Society doesn’t judge us solely on the way we look or invent reasons why it’s okay to hate fat people. Women all over the world are valued just as much as men and allowed to make their own medical decisions. Anybody is allowed to marry any other non-related consenting adult. Nobody is allowed to marry a non-consenting child. And the idea of inflicting pain and suffering on any person or animal just for the fun of it is just as horrifying to everyone else as it is to me.

If I hear anything to the contrary, I’m going to put my hands over my ears and go, "la, la, la." And my Google Reader news feeds will basically only report about crafting and frugality.

Sorry, World. I know it’s harsh, but that’s just how things have to be. I gotta look out for me, first. We’re not broken up. We’re just taking a break. I’ll check back in with you around December. Hopefully we’ll both be in a better place by then.