[Vision2020] Sure, I'm intolerant. And so?

[Joan Opyr]

Toe-Knee is quite correct in asserting that I am intolerant.  He's just 
not clear exactly how.  Let me help him out -- I am intolerant in the 
sense that I don't suffer fools gladly.  Even worse, as the staunch 
conservative Florence King once wrote, I am glad to see fools suffer.  
Toe-Knee-Time is a fool.

(At this point my Southern Baptist grandmother, were she here, would 
point out that "he who calls his brother a fool is in danger of 
hellfire," but she's a Biblical literalist.  I am not.  I don't believe 
in hell, and I don't believe that Toe-Knee has anything of interest to 
add to this list -- not if his posts thus far or the letters he has 
written to the Lewiston Tribune accurately reflect the best he can do.  
Toe-Knee might be forty-four in dog years, but in intellect, he's a 
tiresome teenager.)

As for the accusation that I am insecure, well, as one of my career 
criminal relatives used to say, "Where's the evidence?"  I'm a happily 
married lesbian who chooses to live in one of the most anti-gay states 
in the nation.  Why?  Because I love Idaho.  Because I believe I have 
the fundamental right to live wherever I like and to love whomever I 
wish.  Because I fear no one.  Might does not make right and I am 
confident that when push comes to shove, it's always best to stand your 
ground and fight.  Here's a little something I learned from my Marine 
Corps father-in-law: what do you do when you're the last soldier 
standing, your back is to the sea, you only have one bullet, and a 
thousand of the enemy are bearing down upon you?  You shoot the highest 
ranking officer, fix bayonets, and charge.  This is the motto I live 
by.

I am a lucky, lucky woman, Toe-Knee-Time.  I am blessed in my family, 
my in-laws, my friends, my children, and my life partner.  What they 
give me cannot be measured, but it keeps me happy and it keeps me sane. 
  I've just begun cello lessons, which might make me nervous if I were 
thinking of applying to Julliard, but as I'm only doing it for fun and 
to spend more time with a dear friend, I'm simply enjoying myself.

You'd be better off (and more accurate) Toe-Knee-Time if you were to 
accuse me of being bellicose or perhaps pompous, smart-assed, and 
over-confident.  The insecure want everyone to love them.  I don't give 
a rat's ass.  Love me or leave me, sang Doris Day, and I've been 
humming along with her for years.

Yours securely,
Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com

PS: Why don't we move on to something more interesting, like the fact 
that tonight the Moscow P & Z turned down the WalMart rezone.  Hip, 
hip, hooray!