Very Short Blog!

This is wishing that you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving.  This is a very short blog this time because we have a house full of family, and tomorrow almost all of our family will be here.  Even the ones from out of state, who really gave us a great surprise.  Although I treasure all of those in whatever country read this, and for whatever reason, I’m sure you know that family comes first.  We treasure all of ours.  Until next week, then.

A Sex Scandal? How Nice!

What a relief to have a sex scandal to concentrate on.  After this past election a good sex scandal almost seems quaint.  After all, the only person Petraeus lied to was his wife.  During the campaign, the GOP seemed intent on lying to the entire country.  It reminded me of an old not so nice comment of mine:  “When a Democrat screws someone, it is usually only one person at a time.  When a Republican does it, it is the whole damn country.”  Does this mean Petraeus is a Democrat? 

So, you can imagine my horror this morning to notice a couple of articles asking whether it will be Clinton (Hilary) and Palin for President in 1916.  Let the voting machines at least cool off from this election before jumping ahead 3 years. That is when the primary elections will be so even if the general election is in four years we will be bombarded starting much earlier. 

Actually, in our house we missed all of that TV advertising.  We live so far out in the country we have a satellite dish, and the programs we watched were pretty ad free.  Of course the pundits would run a particularly offensive ad so we would know what they were commenting on, but usually it was never more than one every hour, unless the ad was so egregious that more than one pundit discussed it. 

The big other whoop-de-do of the day is Bhengazi, with John McCain doing most of the whooping.  He has forgotten, either deliberately or otherwise, that it was Congress that turned down the budget request from the State Department for more funding for security at foreign consulates and embassies.  Whether the host nation provides security or not, the US needs to make sure that the sites are secure.  Anyway, this whooping is so obviously politically motivated to make trouble for President Obama that I wonder that McCain’s colleagues and family don’t take him aside and tell him to cool it.  He is slowly losing the respect that many of us have had for him for years.   

Other than trying not to fall off a non-existent “fiscal cliff” (non-existent because it is something the Republicans manipulated into existence), a sex scandal involving the highest intelligence officer in the nation, starting the 1916 Presidential race already, another Republican made scandal involving the incidents in Benghazi, there is not too much to write about. 

For my readers in the United States, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That Supercilious Syrupy-Sweet Smirk No More!

That condescending smirk on Romney’s face whenever he was literally forced to listen to someone he considered, well, not quite what the person ought to be was most unbearable.  The other person could be a female, black man even if he was the President of the United States, a female reporter for sure, or a female debate moderator, and on and on.  That smirk epitomized everything that was offensive in the Republican platform this election season.  It let the rest of us know that unless we belonged to that group of white people who were affluent we were, well, just not quite, well, you know.  And when Romney was to be elected, those of us who were not quite, you know, would be put back in our places and let the real Americans, the white male affluent Americans, take back their country.  After all, they are the makers as opposed to the rest of us who are the takers. 

The night after the election results were announced, I couldn’t really sleep very well.  As I lay there, I let my thoughts roam over some of the events of my life that occurred during the time the Republicans wanted to take us back to.  In the 1930’s I remember my parents arguing over whether my mother ought to be giving sandwiches to the “homeless bums” who came by.  My father thought not.  My husband remembers his parents arguing over the fact that his mother had purchased a bunch of ribbons for $.10 from a woman who had come by the house and claimed she was hungry.  His father thought not. Ten cents in those days was a lot of money.  Or my own non-understanding of why my brother and I had to eat meat and vegetables every night when my parents got to eat chili beans.   

Or later when I was about 10 years old we moved to what was then the country.  The school we attended had a rather large Hispanic population, and the Hispanic kids accepted me with no problems.  I didn’t quite measure up to the white kids expectations.  One Mexican girl in particular and I became sort of friends.  After WWII was over, I learned that her brother’s wife had died shortly after childbirth from peritonitis from a burst appendix.  The brother had taken her to the hospital, but she had been sent home with the admonition that of course she had abdominal pain.  She had just had a baby.  After her death, the brother had given up his fight against undulant fever (which one can get from raw milk) that he had gotten in the service of his country, and he gave up his fight to create a small business with a tractor he had purchased so that he could plow the orchards of the smaller orange growers.  The white farmers thought he was getting above himself, and wanted to be a “white man”.  He died in about 6 months from the fever and grief. 

After I graduated from college in San Jose, California, I immediately went to work for the welfare department.  A job for which I was singularly unprepared.  I had been there a couple of months when a young Mexican couple – a brother and sister – came in to see me.  She had several knife scars on her abdomen where her husband had stabbed her.  They had gone to the police, but the police would do nothing about it because, after all, they were Mexican.  The visit to me was the last resort.  The brother told me that if I could do nothing he would have to kill the husband.  In what I thought was a perfectly reasonable thought, I explained that since they had come to me, if he did kill the husband I would have to say it was pre-meditated murder, and he would either get the death penalty or prison for life, and his wife and children would be deprived of his presence.  So that night the un-married brother killed the husband.  On the advice of a lawyer I quit my job, and moved back to my home town.  I had already met my soon-to-be husband, so that was not a problem.  I followed the case, and the brother received a sentence of 10 years, which, under the circumstances I felt was just.  I didn’t talk about this for some 30 years, needless to say.   

Or after Bill and I were married, and our landlady, who was also a friend, came to our apartment in tears.  Her niece had foolishly walked home from high school alone one evening.  She was snatched by some young men and brutally raped.  Nothing was done because by being by herself at dusk, “she was asking for it”.  Needless to say, her life would never be the same.  At that time, there were no rape counseling centers, or anything else, because it was almost always the girl or woman’s fault.  She was asking for it by the way she walked, or talked or dressed. 

I could go on and tell more stories, but I think you get the idea why I am so thrilled that I never have to see, hear or write about the person, the politics or the policies or the philosophies behind that supercilious syrupy-sweet smirk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost Over!!!

 

 

By this time next week, the election, thanks be to God, will be over!!  It is obvious to any reader where I stand on this election.  I know from my time in office that it took me some two years before I felt the least bit comfortable in what I was doing.  Further, as I’ve stated before, I followed someone who was basically incompetent, and as a result it took my legislative assistant and me all of that first two years to respond to all of the constituent concerns that he apparently didn’t know how to do.  And our county had only about a 270,000 population.  It is beyond my comprehension what President Obama had to deal with when he became the President.  Although I have hit on some of these same themes in my previous blogs, I am going to state, once again, why the thought of a President Mitt Romney actually terrifies me. 

The first, of course, is his position on what progressive Catholics refer to as the “pelvic issues”.  Abortion, contraception, and homosexuality to name the most prominent.  It has taken this country some time to understand that women are as perfectly capable of making decisions as men, and in some cases more so when it comes to their own health care.  Men tend to idealize pregnancy, making comments that pregnancy is not a disease.  It does not fit the classic definition of a disease, but it can be just as lethal to a woman and the fetus as a disease, regardless of what Joe Walsh thinks.  If Romney is elected we will go back to the way women were treated when I was a young person, and I don’t want my beloved grand and great-granddaughters to have to live that way. 

The second reason is that it is pretty obvious that these radical right wing Republicans want to reestablish a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) aristocracy.  Since I don’t fit in to the P, or Protestant, part of this, I really question why some conservative Catholic Bishops are encouraging their “flock” to vote for Romney.  The Bishops of course have lost track of the fact that their “flock” is no longer recognizing them as legitimate “shepherds”.  The radical right has forgotten that the 99% of us vote.  Or perhaps that is why the voting machines in Ohio have ties to businesses that Romney has ties with. 

The third reason is that the safety net for American citizens will be shredded.  One never knows when one will need this safety net, including health care.  We can assume that possibly when one is older, but I know plenty of younger people who need help now and then, and we need to have that hand-up there for them.  This is not creating a dependent society.  It is creating a society where we care for each other.  In my youth in Southern California I was imbued with the notion that one took care of oneself and one’s family, but if a neighbor, through no fault of his or her own needed help, we would be there.  And if for some reason the tables were turned, our neighbors would be there for us.  This attitude that we are only in this for ourselves is so far from the way Californians in the country side lived (city folks may have had a different attitude), that I find it really hard to comprehend. 

The fourth reason is that Romney will roll back as many of our newly attained civil rights as he possible can.  Affirmative action will go out the window.  There will be massive voter suppression among ethnic and/or poor neighborhoods.  Racism will no longer be a shame; it will be the norm, as it was in my youth.  Fortunately for me, my own parents were so prejudiced against blacks, browns, Jews and anyone who was not like “us”, they never talked about it.  I think they thought it came with the genes!  Consequently I grew up not learning to look down on anyone. 

But the final reason is the trend toward totalitarianism I perceive in the GOP.  I’m not going to say they are going fascist, or becoming Nazis.  But they are beginning to exhibit tendencies toward excessive authoritarianism.  Saber rattling in the form of building up our military; removing any feminine influence from the public sphere by removing any legal protections for women (refusing to expand the Violence Against Women Act, and the sure overturning of that Act if our government goes all GOP); the reestablishment of a WASP aristocracy; the emphasis on business, or corporations as the ultimate good, and that government is all bad.  Go ahead.  I’m sure you can name a few yourselves. 

As some wit said, “The GOP believes in bi-partisanship when the Democrats do what the GOP orders them to.”  Hardly the ideal democracy.

 

 

 

 

 

"Please, God. Just let this election be over"

Me and Jon Stewart.  “Please, God.  Just let this election be over.” 

All of this pure crap over abortion, rape, birth control, etc. has me so disgusted I can’t believe that at my age I can still get so enraged!!  Unfortunately for those around me, when I get in this state, my really sick sense of humor tries to bring some sort of sanity to the argument.  Usually not too successfully.

Consequently, I awoke last night thinking that all of these middle-age+ white men aren’t worried at all about abortion being ‘homicide’.  What they are really concerned about is ‘spermicide’.  Since they care not a fig about the child once it is born, nor are they ever concerned about the life of the woman or what happens to her, it is logical to assume that what they are really concerned about is whether their little sperm gets its chance to life, “as God intended”.

Bringing God into it absolves their conscience about wanting government out of business, but wanting government into the lives of women without of course asking women their opinion about these plans.  My view is, without any documentation, that men assume that for a woman to have a baby is sort of like a man having an orgasm.  Very enjoyable, with some more very enjoyable feelings after, but that’s about it.    Nothing could be further from the truth.  If the man is irresponsible, the woman is in it for the long haul of 20 years or so.  Or if something happens to the man like war, sickness or an accident, the woman, through no fault of her own, is the sole parent and/or provider.  This can happen to a responsible man, of course.  Vice-President Joe Biden is the most notable example.

And if the pregnancy is the result of rape, it is even worse.  I give great credit to women who chose to carry the baby to term.  But I can certainly not fault the women who chose to make sure this pregnancy does not occur.  Usually within the time that a normal miscarriage might occur anyway.  (See last week’s blog.)

There are so many factors involved in pregnancy for a woman that men have not a clue about, for most not because they don’t care, but it is so far from their realm of experience.  The only analogy I can think of is the difference between someone who is color blind, and someone who has an acute sense of color.  Try to explain this acute sense of color to someone who can’t experience it.

Men who insist that they are being objective and only acting on facts are delusional when it comes to pregnancy and women’s concerns about abortion, birth control and rape.  There is simply no way they can know completely, even if they sincerely want to and try hard.  There is a really simple solution to this problem, however.

Just include women in the conversation!!!

 

 

 

Personhood or Wackadoodleness?

Last February I wrote a blog entitle “Wackadoodles” which described some of the more ridiculous actions of some Republicans.  To wit: Congressman Daryl Issa of California holding a Congressional hearing on women’s health issues without having any women on the panel.  After a considerable uproar, on the second day he had two women, carefully screened ahead of time to make sure they were in line with men making these decisions for women.  In that hearing, Bishop Lori compared government involvement in the requirements for employers to provide birth control (which never really existed) to government requiring a Kosher deli to serve pork.  Needless to say, there was even more of an uproar since there is no woman who likes being compared to a piece of meat, regardless of whether it is pork, lamb or beef. 

At that time Rick Santorum was sounding off about birth control, and at the same time wanting to take away state and federal funding for education.  Also I wrote about the stupid comment Mitt Romney made about tying his dog’s kennel to the roof of the car, with dog in it, to take a 12 hour long trip.  He said there was no problem, the kennel was airtight.  Had the kennel been airtight, after 12 hours the poor dog would have been dead.  As it is, no one has particularly mentioned whatever happened to the dog after that trip.

I thought we had reached the end of our wackadoodleness until this personhood thing turned up wherein a fertilized egg would be proclaimed to have full human rights, perhaps even including property rights.  This would, of course, require a constitutional amendment, but don’t let a little thing like that get in your way.  So we have Todd Aikin, current Congressman and Senate candidate from Missouri pronouncing that rape cannot result in pregnancy because a woman’s body knows that little illegal sperm is up to no good, and shuts itself down!  And we have Congressman Joe Walsh, Illinois, saying that with modern science and technology there is no way a pregnancy can harm the mother; that claiming this is just the way to get an abortion! 

There have also been proposals, which fortunately have gone nowhere, to make miscarriages criminal, just as the fundamentalists want to make abortions, probably because the medical term for a miscarriage, the lay term, is spontaneous abortion.  After a Google search of the frequency of spontaneous abortions, it is estimated that about 1 in 3 women will have, and I return to the lay term since that is what I am, a miscarriage.  Some women experience this so early in the pregnancy they may not even know they are pregnant, unless they are using a pregnancy kit to determine if they are. 

This is a subject that most women don’t talk about.  If they didn’t know they were pregnant, the reason for not talking about it is obvious.  But later in the pregnancy, particularly if the baby was desperately wanted, the event was too personal and painful to discuss with anyone but their partner and/or doctor.  If the personhood amendment would actually be passed, and any cessation of a pregnancy would be criminalized as the murder of a real person, how devastated the woman would be by the fact that not only did she lose her baby, but now she is in jail, at best!  I assume that this would apply to married women as well as unmarried women.  To avoid the stigma of being criminalized, women will not report that they have had a miscarriage.  Generally speaking this is ok, but not always.  If the ‘spontaneous abortion’ is not complete, and some tissue remains, certainly a septic condition can occur.  The sepsis may damage her uterus, thus preventing future pregnancies, or at is worst, cause the death of the woman.  Is it reasonable to assume that if a personhood amendment passes, the same fundamentalists will have eliminated Obamacare in favor of high-priced medical Insurance, as we have now?

What is it with these wackadoodles anyway?  They talk about how they are so pro-life, about the miracle of life, but when it comes to women, they seem to be pro-who cares?

Two Down -- Two to Go

Two down and two to go.  Debates, that is.  This last one with VP Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan was pretty interesting.  Since I am not a debate aficionado I hesitate to judge who was the winner based on style, manner of presentation, etc., but I do know a lie when I hear one.  I’m not talking here about incorrect statements such as Biden’s when he commented that Ryan had written two letters asking for stimulus funds.  According to The Huffington Post, Ryan had actually written four.  A goof like this has no bearing on the point Biden was trying to make, nor did it change the direction of the discussion.  An incorrect statement, yes.  A lie, no. 

What is a lie is when Ryan started throwing all sorts of numbers around over taxes and who would pay what.  I learned years ago in politics that when someone does that, almost invariably they are trying to obfuscate what is being said.  Most people concentrate on the numbers and don’t hear the words.  Since I am terrible at numbers I don’t listen to them, but concentrate on the words.  My, oh, my.  What one can hear!!  Or when Ryan tried to state that some budget plan of his had bi-partisan support because Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon supported it.  Even I knew that Wyden had withdrawn his support.  For Ryan to say that plan had bipartisan support was a lie.

I really wish lying were a major part of calculating who had won a debate and who hadn’t.  The pundits could say, “It appears that so and so has won this debate, but we haven’t heard from the fact checkers yet, and when we do we’ll reevaluate our opinion and let you know”.  The fact checkers, of course, will have to have some criteria such as that which I have outlined above in order to keep goofs and gaffes from being called downright lies.  But that shouldn’t be hard to craft.

This next debate should be a humdinger!