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When the Past Bites
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May 11, 2012 3:05 pm
118 Views
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As a child growing up, I was bullied. That lasted through high school. It was never a physical bullying, rather, a verbal and psychological torment. I suspect my sons, especially my oldest, were also the targets of these in-bred bottom feeders.
I heard Mitt's apology today for an act "I cannot recall."
Nonsense
He recalls every detail. Why? Because he gave himself permission to carry out this act, ACTED, and got away with it when 1) no one called him on it and 2) he became the hero of many "remember when..." stories.
So his apology falls on deaf ears here. While he may truly regret the incident now and try to dismiss it as simply an indiscretion of his younger days, I assure you that the target of his cruelty went to his grave remembering every moment.
How do I know this? Because I remember those same incidents and see clearly those taunting faces. Not every day, as that obsession would drive me crazy...but often enough to NEVER, EVER repeat what was said or by whom.
So pat yourself on the back, Mitt. Dismiss the incident as over exuberant adolescent jesting. Hang your head in contrite apology now.
But carry this thought with you. The person you tormented died hating every moment you lived...EVERY moment.
You don't get off with a "Gee...I'm sorry."
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What the Right doesn't get
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Apr 19, 2012 9:26 am
301 Views
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I was married for 36 years. One mistake I made was discussing my past love life with my ex. Now and then, often without warning, she would bring up the name of a former girlfriend…a woman she’d never met and wasn’t ever likely to meet…and growl. It never ceased to astonish me that she 1) remembered their names and 2) couldn’t let it go…even after 30+ years.
I have a lovely friend whose daughter is very early 30ish. By her own admission, this young lady has never been politically active, or even aware for that matter. She’s never voted and isn’t (or wasn’t) registered to vote. She’s a nurse and when she first heard the rumors of “trans-vaginal” ultrasound, it piqued her interest on several levels. When she found out the details (and no…not from me…from independent sources) she became unglued….incredibly angry…and is suddenly VERY politically interested and following who says what very carefully. A recent email discussing these attacks was shared by more than 30 women….most of whom were as politically naïve as my friend’s daughter. No longer.
Try as they may to wrap their misogynistic programs in the guise of “religious freedom”, what they have succeeded in doing is waking up a sleeping giant. A recent poll (I’ll have to find it…I heard it on NPR and NBC recently) shows that fully 61% of women in this country will vote for the President. Such number have shades of a Goldwater type sweep
Of course, since all of this has come down now, fully 7 months ahead of the election, many on the right want to dismiss the reaction as a tempest in a tea pot. Their assertions that there is a great deal of time for all of this to blow over.
What the stodgy white middle class males on the Right do not get is simple. 1) While it is true that seven months lay ahead and a great deal will pass….it will also allow suddenly curious women to investigate what is happening to them locally. 2) Such attempts at legislating women and their access to health care…and the access of their children to health care…has pissed a great many women off. 3) and finally, like my ex…women do NOT forget. They may not be as loud or vocal as many protesters are, but when that voting booth curtain closes, they will make their protests known on paper.
And those on the Right should not be overly surprised in November if the GOP defeat spills over from the presidential campaign to local races as well. While the Tea Party may have had the best intentions, their moment in the sun is over as soon as they started embracing white men who feel a sudden need to control women.
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14
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What war on women?
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Apr 17, 2012 9:00 am
281 Views
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It would be hard to imagine a more unlikely historical moment than this one for birth control to become a matter of outraged political controversy. For starters, there is the statistic that ninety-nine per cent of all American women who have had sex have used contraception at some point in their lives. For Catholic women, the percentage is almost the same—ninety-eight per cent, according to an analysis released last spring by the Guttmacher Institute. Then, there’s the fact that we live in a society that has become remarkably dependent on the unfettered ambition of women. As the Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy writes in a new book, “The Richer Sex,” forty per cent of working wives now earn more than their husbands, and, by 2030, that number will probably rise to fifty per cent. Women already make up more than half of college and university students. By 2019, if current trends continue, they will make up fifty-nine per cent of total undergraduate enrollment, and sixty-one per cent of those enrolled in graduate programs. This is an economic and educational order predicated on the freedom of women, married and unmarried, to protect their own health and to decide when they’re going to have children.
As long as the debate stirred up by the Blunt Amendment—which would have allowed employers to refuse coverage for health services they felt compromised their religious beliefs—stayed focussed on freedom of religion, it was possible to forget that putting birth control back in political play meant ignoring reality. You could, after all, make a coherent argument about Catholic employers and the calls of conscience, without insisting on the moral turpitude of people who use birth control or talk about it in public. You could also argue that the Catholic hierarchy was basically asking the federal government to do what its own teachings apparently could not: to remind Catholic women of the evils of contraceptives in such a way that they would actually stop using them. But at least we were still in the realm of a legitimate policy debate.
Then Rush Limbaugh opened his mouth and showed us more than we wanted to know about the dank interior of his mind. Though repellent, it wasn’t exactly surprising. A few months ago, after Sharon Bialek charged that Herman Cain had sexually harassed her, Limbaugh pronounced her name “Buy-a-lick,” and called her thirteen-year-old son a Nazi “brownshirt,” for having encouraged her to come forth. That’s not really so different from calling Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law School student who testified before Congress about insurance coverage of contraception, “a slut” and “a prostitute.”
What was more revealing was the mild response from leading Republicans. “He’s taken care of that issue” was all Michele Bachmann said, after Limbaugh made his truculent apology. Mitt Romney landed on: “I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.” And Rick Santorum? He was already on record condemning birth control altogether. As he told an interviewer for the evangelical Christian Web site Caffeinated Thoughts, in October, “Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s O.K. Contraception’s O.K.’ It’s not O.K. because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
It’s tempting to say that the timing of these events—and the eighty new restrictions on abortion rights that were enacted by state legislatures in 2011, up from twenty-three in 2010—is not unlikely at all, and that it is precisely because women are on the ascendant in the public sphere that conservatives seem so eager to undermine them in the private one. But that seems more systematic than is probable. The real attraction of the birth-control issue was that it could be used to bash Obamacare. It’s not proving to be a very effective weapon, however. When birth control is uncoupled from the religious-freedom argument—and when conservatives start talking in ugly ad-hominem language, like Limbaugh’s, or clueless anachronistic language, like Santorum’s—women, in particular, do not respond well. Just after Limbaugh lashed out at Fluke, a Georgetown professor attended a reunion at a Catholic school in Queens. An elderly nun asked her, “Do you know that girl?” She added, “That awful man should be fired for what he said. How’s she holding up?”
Women, of course, make up the majority of the electorate, and, in the general election, it won’t necessarily help if Republicans try to insulate themselves by, say, picking a female Vice-Presidential candidate—maybe another governor, like Susana Martinez, of New Mexico. As the conservative political analyst Michelle Bernard noted, on NPR, “2008 saw the advent of the red-state feminist,” the type of woman who supported Sarah Palin, and most polls show that “even those right-of-center women . . . are absolutely appalled” by the attacks on reproductive rights.
Social conservatives could pay more attention to another, more challenging social issue: the decline in marriage. More than half of all births to American women under the age of thirty now take place outside of marriage, and children who grow up without married parents are less likely to go to college and to find employment, and are more likely to live in poverty, to become pregnant as teen-agers, and to go to prison than children with married parents. It might be tough for Newt Gingrich to make marital commitment a centerpiece of his platform, but Santorum could. In the same interview in which he condemned contraception, he talked about how he would use the moral authority of the Presidency to support marriage. But, on the campaign trail and on his official Web site, his social-issue rhetoric is almost all about abortion, contraception, reinstating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and passing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Indeed, social conservatives seem to see a bigger threat to marriage from committed gay couples who want in on it than from straight ones who opt out of it. Maybe Santorum doesn’t say much about the decline because the people who are currently marrying more, divorcing less, and having fewer children out of wedlock—the people who are more apt to have what the researcher W. Bradford Wilcox calls “the marriage mind-set”—are not his people. They are Americans with college degrees (the snobs). Many of them live in households where the wife is the economic powerhouse, and professionally accomplished. Talking about them might mean giving blue-state liberals a little credit. And, besides, there are many reasons for the decline in marriage, including some that are usually the province of Democrats (the loss of blue-collar jobs) and some that are irreversible social trends (women have higher expectations of marriage). It would be hard, even for the current Republican field, to pin them all on the President.
MARGARET TALBOT, The New Yorker, MARCH 19, 2012
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Scopes Redux
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Apr 9, 2012 12:31 pm
307 Views
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Several years ago I had a friend suggest I teach ‘intelligent design’ in my class. I explained that I was delighted to do so but that someone would have to be recruited to teach the rest of my class load. When questioned, I explained that the site I generally used to study intelligent design listed over 500 different versions of the Creation Myth.
“Oh, but those are wrong,” I was informed. “We don’t want those WRONG versions taught, just THIS correct version.
As a teacher, one of the skills I focused on was analytical thinking – problem solving. I didn’t care what the question was…or what the student’s opinion was, as long as they reached that decision based on good, solid research. They had to be able to back up their positions.
In Tennessee today, we see the most recent attack on evolution. Those who developed this version of the Scopes Trail managed to avoid a direct court battle, which will surely come, by explaining that all they required was that the teacher point out that there were any number of problems with things like evolution and global warming. The law does not stipulate that creationism – intelligent design - be taught, as that would be a direct challenge, but simply point out the holes to the theories of evolution and global warming.
While those who propose the law adamantly profess that this is not an attempt by religion into the realm of science, it is curious that only evolution and global warming are identified by name.
So be it. Evolution is, indeed, a theory. Like its name, an evolving theory, becoming clearer and clearer by the day. Global warming is not arguable. Global warming is a reality…the causes of global warming are unclear.
Let’s be clear here. In my opinion evolution and creationism are not mutually exclusive except to those who believe that the earth is less than 8,000 years old. Evolution is a scientific theory. Creationism – intelligent design, by any name listed by any society, is little more than a myth man creates to justify his existence on earth. From start to finish, creationism is merely a tale, many more irrational than the other. Even Christians cannot agree on which version of their creation myth they believe.
I confess, were I a science teacher, I would, indeed, present evolution as a theory. There are many holes to be filled in such before it becomes a natural law…like gravity. I’d challenge my students to come up with arguments that support evolution…and arguments that seriously challenge evolution. Keep in mind my one caveat: Your positions must be supported by fact.
Global warming is not up for argument. What IS the debatable is how mankind has added to…or even whether mankind has accelerated the problem. The discussion would revolve around the contribution of man to the problem.
Sadly, in Tennessee and many other states south of Mason/Dixon, laws like that passed in Tennessee are rife…as is their ignorance.
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11
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Of COURSE it's not a war...part 2
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Mar 20, 2012 12:05 pm
452 Views
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“The idea of the federal government funding Planned Parenthood I’m going to say no, we’re going to stop that.” Mitt Romney
TN: A bill pending would publish information about those seeking abortion. This includes the name of the doctor, the demographics of the woman involved, her age, race, education and number of children.
Consider the information that this law would make public:
(A) Identification of the physician who performed the abortion and the physician’s office, clinic, hospital or other facility where the abortion was performed
( The county and state in which the woman resides;
(C) The woman’s age, race and marital status;
(D) The number of prior pregnancies and prior abortions of the woman;
(F) The gestational age in number of weeks of the unborn child at the time of the abortion;
(G) The type of procedure performed or prescribed and the date of the abortion; and
(H) Pre-existing medical conditions of the woman that would complicate pregnancy, if any, and, if known, any medical complication that resulted from the abortion itself.
AZ: A bill requiring that all women prove they are using birth control for medical reasons, not for contraception. It would allow health insurance companies that ability to deny compensation to those women using birth control for contraception. Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment. The second provision of the Arizona legislation: employers will now have the right to question their employees about what they plan to do with their birth-control prescriptions.
PA: A bill now requires women to get an ultra-sound before getting an abortion and listen to the fetal heart beat. The bill requires that the ultra-sound monitor be placed directly in the ‘line of vision’ of the patient and she be forced 1) to get an ultrasound, regardless of her doctor’s recommendation and, 2) to watch.
TX: Texas has been enforcing a similar law enacted last year that makes vaginal ultrasound a condition for many abortions. The law also requires the women hear their doctors describe the fetus’ development during the ultrasound, and then wait 24 hours before undergoing the abortion.
GE: The Georgia legislature is currently debating a bill that would ban abortions after twenty weeks. The written legislation, however, applies not only to viable fetuses but also to but also ones that are already dead. This means that women would have to carry around their dead babies until their bodies chose to expel them naturally, putting their health at an incredibly high risk – both physically and mentally.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Doctors who perform abortions would be required to first do an ultrasound, display the images, and describe them to the pregnant woman -- including the dimensions of the fetus and any "external members and internal organs if present and viewable,'' according to a bill pending in the General Assembly.
OK: The Oklahoma Legislature has voted to override two vetoes to pass two strict measures restricting abortion. One requires a doctor to set up an ultrasound in the woman’s room, show her the fetus, and describe its organs and limbs (there is no exemption for or incest). The other says doctors are not liable for malpractice if they elect to not tell a pregnant woman that the fetus she’s carrying has birth defects—the intent is to prevent parents from suing a doctor who hid the information to prevent an abortion.
KS: the Kansas provision, part of a sweeping, 69-page anti-abortion bill, would allow physicians to lie to women who might otherwise terminate their pregnancies.
In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care.
A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of , stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser."
Republicans in Congress have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.
Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.
Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.
ID: Despite the national outrage and backlash over mandatory ultrasound bills in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and challenges to existing laws enacted in Louisiana and Oklahoma, Idaho Senator Chuck Winder proposed a bill which would force every woman to undergo a mandatory ultrasound prior to having an abortion. Although he’s the author of the bill, Winder admits that he has no idea what type of ultrasound is mandated by his bill nor does he or any other Republican in the state senate know how women would pay for the forced procedure.
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22
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Of COURSE it's not a war!
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Mar 15, 2012 6:45 am
472 Views
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1 in 5 women in this country have, at one time or another, used the services of Planned Parenthood, regardless of their political affiliation. GOP Candidate Romney vows to end all funding for Planned Parenthood after he repeals the Health Care Law.
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Pro-choice legislators in Indiana attempted to amend a ban on abortions after 22 weeks for or incest victims--knowing that victims, especially very young ones, are often in denial for months about what happened to them--Rep. Eric Turner ® stood up and insisted that many women would wait until they were six months pregnant, capriciously change their minds about having a baby, and falsely claim to be in order to get an abortion that’s exponentially more expensive than one obtained early in the pregnancy. The majority of Indiana representatives agreed with this view of women as fickle-minded liars, passing the bill 72-23.
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Anti-choice congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) who introduced a new facet to yet another awful bill, H.R. 358. This new provision would allow emergency room and other hospital and health personnel to refuse emergency care rather than perform abortion procedures they disagree with. As Dante Atkins writes, “This modification is simple: it would allow hospitals to make a 'decision of conscience' to let women die.”
Jill Filipovic points out the irony that when hospitals refuse life-saving abortions to women, the fetus often dies along with her. So, she writes, “the entire purpose of this bill is to allow ideologues to refuse necessary, life-saving care to patients, if those patients happen to be pregnant.”
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Do Not Weep
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Mar 12, 2012 6:10 pm
407 Views
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War is Kind
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind,
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
On Saturday, March 10th, A 38-year-old U.S. staff sergeant systematically murdered 16 Afghan civilians, nine of them children, and then set their bodies on fire.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them.
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom--
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children (including babies), and elderly people. Some of the bodies were later found to be mutilated.
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
October 23, 1983 The Beirut Barracks Bombing occurred during the Lebanese Civil War, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, reports of , sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind!
Stephen Crane, 1899
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Life's simpler lessons
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Mar 12, 2012 2:56 pm
355 Views
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Today is Laundry Day here in The Castle (as in, every man’s home is his…). Just finished putting in the last load and had to smile…remembering my laundry lessons. I suspect I’ve written about this before, but as grey as I’m getting…I can’t remember.
My parents divorced when I was 14. Laundry chores fell into my lap. A very young, very naïve kid who learned these lessons…and as you can see…the hard way.
1) SORT THE LAUNDRY! Father’s have little sense of humor, almost no fashion sense and do NOT appreciate the fact that more than half of their boxer shorts are now pink.
2) Yes, it is possible to put TOO many clothes in the washing machine. It IS possible to stuff the machine SO full that those clothes in the middle don’t even get wet!
3) When the box says ONE cup…two is NOT better!
4) Too much suds…those light weight, bubble mass of nothing, WILL stop a washing machine.
5) NO….substituting dish washing soap for laundry detergent is NOT acceptable.
6) The dryer DOES have a lint filter and it is wrong to let the smoke detector be your reminder to empty that.
7) An ungrounded, or improperly grounded 220v will shoot your ass across the room, and I don’t care how big it is!
Those were my early lessons. I was determined that when my sons were of age, they would get those lessons properly taught before they struck out on their own. Laundry and cooking….both do very well.
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