A post in two parts: The bragging, and the bitching.

Part I: Bragging

My daughter is cool. Smart, savvy, funny, and, well, COOL.

She isn’t a person who is easily fooled, or sidetracked, or conned into believing that people who follow their hormones around like an ass follows a dangling carrot have anything important to say about “choice.” I mean, other than it’s all about THEM and what they want NOW and how any consequences aren’t THEIR FAULT and society should GET RID OF THEM at TAXPAYER EXPENSE, blah blah blah cry me a river and if you’d keep your legs closed you wouldn’t be knocked up blah blah blah etc, I don’t care. Wah wah wah, I don’t understand biology! How did this happen? Somebody pay for it! Boo hoo, asking people to think before they act is such an insult, blah blah blah, we’re back in the dark ages if we have to be accountable for our own actions, CHOICE CHOICE CHOICE CONSEQUENCES CONSEQUENCES CONSEQUENCES, wahhh boo hoo, blah blah blah, shut up. Seriously. Please do.

My daughter is SMART. Mamacita don’t raise them OTHER kind.

That’s my girl. I adore her.

Now, back to me.

Um, I’m not all that cool. But I like to hang out with people who are!

Too bad “cool” doesn’t rub off. Sigh.

Speaking of “cool,” I’m rooming with akaMonty at Blogher next month! Fausta will be there, too!
And lots of other lovely, lovely people I’ve waited my whole blogging life to meet! (Hey, 4 1/2 years is a LONG TIME!)

I love blogging and I love BlogHer and I plan to love everybody there, too!

Part II: Bitching

One other thing, while I’m ranting. . . .

American Airlines didn’t kick the screaming, raving, rolling-in-the-aisle toddler off the plane because he was autistic. The kid and his mother were removed because he was screaming, raving, and rolling in the aisles, and because the mother at first refused to put her bag in the overhead compartment (It’s got his TOYS in it!), and because both got all bothered because the flight attendant was doing her job, which means, checking to make sure all the seatbelts were fastened properly. The attendant was perfectly justified in coming back several times to re-tighten the kid’s belt because the kid kept loosening it and trying to run away, and his mother wasn’t tightening it. I know it’s hard, parenting an autistic child, but this incident isn’t about autism. It’s about airplane safety, and the rights of other people. This woman says that her family will “never fly American again!!!” (wahhh) Good. I’ve never cared for American Airlines either, but after this, I might give them another go.

I think that people often go completely off when they hear about a special needs person who isn’t allowed to do something other people are doing, without first checking out what really happened. Any person whose behavior puts other people at risk simply can’t be allowed to be there. Period.

Personally, I HATE being on a plane (or anywhere else) with an out-of-control person, and I really don’t care about his/her age, size, ethnicity, gender, or any letters of the alphabet that might be in his/her medical or permanent record file. I was once on a plane with a grown woman who freaked out and insisted that all the window shades be closed because looking at the ground made her sick.

I’m sure all those people who were enjoying the scenery loved her for that one.

The flight attendants refused to make that request and the woman actually WAILED, all the way to Denver. I feel bad that nobody felt sorry for her. (Not really; I still hate her.) (Such presumption!)

Again, I’m sorry as I can be for this family. But I do not believe they were treated unfairly in any way.

Shhhh, I think I can hear all the other passengers, past, present, and future, from every airline in the universe, applauding. . . .

Okay, parents, let me have it! You know you want to. I’m not going to budge an inch, and neither are you, so this should be good.

Apparently, many of the parenting, autism, and special needs forums are going bonkers about the airline’s shoddy treatment of this kid. I think these people need to get their facts straight. This has nothing whatsoever to do with special needs, and everything to do with safety, adherence to the regulations, and the rights of EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE PLANE.

Special needs or not: if your kid can’t behave and you can’t make him, drive your own car. Don’t inflict that on the rest of the world and then be all outraged because accommodations that would actually endanger the child and everyone else, aren’t made, just for YOUUUUUU.

What’s the next step? Removing the peanuts? Because, what’s a flight without the peanuts?

As long as I’m infuriating people anyway, I think the church was in the right, too.

You know, I’m nice, really I am. I just think everyone else should be, too. Or else.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly