Libby Drew's Blog, page 4

Whoa, dude. That is not a house cat.

How much do you think they paid this guy to drape a lion over his genitals? I'm genuinely curious.
I thought this article had a lot of good advice to offer. Getting Things Done: The Art of Workflow Management.

We live in an age where more timesaving devices are available than ever before, yet many of us still feel overwhelmed by the mountain of tasks we face daily. We have too much to do and too little time to accomplish it all. It’s a challenge to remain focused amid all the distractions of our daily lives, and real productivity always seems to be just out of reach.

Many authors are forced to juggle a full-time job, families, friends, and domestic responsibilities with their dream of getting a book self-published and selling it once it’s launched.

In short, we often forfeit balance as a trade-off for reaching our goals. Yet the harder we work the more stressed we feel, and our productivity often decreases further as a result. If you’re like me, you’re wondering what to do to bring this monster of an issue under control without sacrificing sanity

The idea that time management is really all about action management appeals to me.

In other news, 65F today, 17F tomorrow. Very funny, Mother Nature. Flowers blooming in the dead of winter is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Whoa, dude. That is not a house cat.

January 29th, 2013

Okay, first, because I’m always up for sharing the LOLs, tripperfunster ’s post about duck circumcision just might be the funniest thing I’ve read all week. Or month. Maybe even all year.

Next, this post by Melinda Henneberger: Boy Scouts may reverse national ban against gays as members, leaders. I can relate. This woman has sons who have dedicated years to scouting, during which time they learned responsibility, accountability, and valuable life skills. Her boys, like mine, have spent hours, days, and weeks of their time on community service projects. They volunteer at local charities. They run food drives, blood drives, and toy drives. They shovel snow and rake
leaves for elderly neighbors. They provide companionship to disabled Veterans who have no other friends and family.

My boys’ leaders are open-minded, tolerant, dedicated individuals who give freely of their time (and often their money) to broaden tolerance and educate the scouts who belong to their troop.

So the BSA’s policy is something of a painful thorn in my paw. I can’t ignore it, but I can’t disregard what the organization and its leaders have done for my sons.

I agonize over this often. :/

But my personal demons aside, here’s the quote in the article that makes me burn with anger. Just as reaction nationally is mixed, not every parent liked the idea of a change in policy, however. “I lost my ability to advance in scouting as a young man because of a scoutmaster who was a pedophile,” one dad wrote me in an email. “I am dead set against gays in scouting.”

You ignorant bigot. Go educate yourself, if you’re able, on the relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia, which is nonexistent.

This sort of stupidity makes me want to cry. I might have to go read the duck circumcision post again.

Using my Pooh icon

Ravens’ Brendon Ayanbadejo wants to use Super Bowl platform to stump for gay rights

From Yahoo! Sports [source]

Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo hadn't even slept after Baltimore's AFC championship game win over the Patriots when he started sending emails asking how he could help promote gay rights at the Super Bowl. According to the New York Times, at 3:40 a.m. on Monday, Ayanbadejo sent emails to Brian Ellner, a marriage-equality advocate, and Michael Skolnik, political director for Russell  Simmons, a hip-hop magnate who is a supporter of gay rights and marriage equality.

“Is there anything I can do for marriage equality or anti-bullying over  the next couple of weeks to harness this Super Bowl media?” Ayanbadejo wrote, according to the Times.

t's not often a person has the exposure provided by being a player on a Super Bowl team, and now that Ayanbadejo's mission has been made very public, expect him to get a lot of opportunities to discuss his cause.

Yes, yes, yes! It's entirely possible this guy might turn me into a Ravens fan.

Belonging

I get tired of hearing people say that bullying is part of growing up. There's no excuse for cruelty, and by telling children that "kids can be mean" we enable and perpetuate that excuse. Just sayin'.

This is a touching video from a boy who decided to "speak out" about his feelings and experiences...

Margaret Hoover on Marriage Equality

Lookie! This is something you don’t see everyday. A Republican strategist on gay marriage rights:

Catching Up On Blog Posts

I've ported over the last several blog posts from LiveJournal to this page, so at least SOME of my past nine years of blogging have been immortalized here. What a job! You know what this calls for? A banana smoothie.

Russia Moves to Enact Anti-Gay Law Nationwide

MOSCOW (AP) —  ...The bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and church see as corrupting Russian youth.... 

The move has been met mostly with either indifference or open enthusiasm by average Russians. Levada polls conducted last year show that almost two thirds of Russians find homosexuality "morally unacceptable and worth condemning." About half are against gay rallies and same-sex marriage; almost a third think homosexuality is the result of "a sickness or a psychological trauma."

Russia's widespread hostility to homosexuality is shared by the political and religious elite. Those behind the bill say minors need to be protected from "homosexual propaganda" because they are unable to evaluate the information critically. "This propaganda goes through the mass media and public events that propagate
homosexuality as normal behavior," the bill reads...

Full Article HERE.

Earlier today, I saw someone reference an article from a fictional tabloid in their LJ post. While I originally thought the entry was a nice bit of dry humor, I realized after reading the comments that people believed the article to be true. If only this story were nothing but a bit of satirical fun. Sadly, it's very real.

My Day in Bullet Points

• I rewrote 50% of a novel’s outline because there was one detail—just one—that I couldn’t work in without stretching suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. This might have made me cry.
• 40 Souls to Keep made Carina Press's Best of 2012 List. :D
• Bra shopping with my daughter is ridiculous. I want support that’s pretty. She wants dancing penguins.
• My cat, a two-year-old Maine Coon, is losing all his fur from the belly down. Apparently he is anxious and must now take Prozac. Nope. Not making that up.
• I paid $3.99 for this dress on clearance. I will never look this good in it, and I don’t care cause, hello! $3.99!


That is all. :)