Should Fetuses be Allowed to Marry?

One wonders about the fetish that the Right-wing Christian Zealots have for the unborn. Fetuses are babies they say, and should have all the rights of any person. And this person-hood goes back to very act of conception. Even the "morning after" pill, "Plan B" is considered by them to be an abortifactant. The men and women (mostly men) who represent this radical opinion in our government, like Sam Brownbeck (R., insane, Kansas), Bill Frist (R., silly, Tennesee) and Rick Santorum (R., completely crazy, Pennsylvania), take it to the very limits of sanity.

The other day I was talking to a doctor friend, an OB-GYN in fact (who doesn't perform abortions in case you wondered) about this. He's a Catholic and a believer in a woman's right to choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term, but not a fanatic about it. He's a foster parent and when an abortion is performed, he says, "It means that our society has let a woman down." I asked him if a fetus and a person are the same thing. "There are a couple of critical differences," he told me. "First of all, a fetus is "breathing" amniotic fluid, rather than atmospheric oxygen."

The doc and I were roomates in college, and we shared a couple of philosophy and literature courses that had terrific impact on our two malleable young minds. We'd learned that the concept of "inspiration" which means the intake of breath, also meant the "drawing in of the soul" to the Greeks, as well as the most common meaning today, of the sparking of creativity.

But the biggest difference, he told me, between a person and a fetus, is that one of them has been born and one hasn't. I guess the anti-choice religious fanatics don't think that birth is a big deal, that it doesn't have much meaning when it comes to the formation of a human being. I'd suggest that if they don't think birth is crucial, in deed defining human life, they might want to talk it over with a mother - anybody's mother. They might get a different viewpoint from someone who's actually carried a child then has gone through the birth event.

This brings us back to the Ben Franklin-esque, common sense answer to the question "When does life begin?" When the mother says it does.

This isn't as flip an answer as it seems. That this answer is never brought up in the debate might be one of the reasons that most of the leaders of the Anti-Choice Movement are men. Sure, you see a lot of shrieking women on the anti-abortion picket lines, screaming and cursing at the scared young women trying to enter clinics around the country. The ladies are the ones who have the most caring, sympathetic comments for these poor girls going through a horrible experience: "Whore!, Murderer!, You will burn in Hell for Eternity!" You can tell they really care. [author's note: If you think I'm making this up, send me your email address and I'll send you an address of a clinic in a south central Missouri town, right across the street from a Catholic Church, where you see these disgusting, hateful, yentas, running across the street after morning Mass, to offer these kind words of Christian support to the young patients almost every morning.]

But it's the men, the James Dobsons and the Sam Brownbecks and Bill Frists of this country, who really pull the strings in the anti-abortion movement. Them, and of course, the poisonous bunch who have the word "Reverend" in front of their names, but have only hate in their souls, who lead the marches and who quote scripture with such authority. They're the ones who really know what's best for the women of America.

Eric Rudolph, the neocon maniac who somehow slipped through the National Security safety net to bomb a family medicine clinic and the Olympics, called himself "a soldier in the army of the Lord." Making a clinic where abortions are performed one of his targets didn't just spring unbidden into his brain. It was put there by the Dobsons, the Brownbecks, the Frists, the Right-wing talk radio scumbags like Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved. They lit Mr. Rudolph's fuse, all right. The ones who are standing up for "values", for "family", for "God".

It's a good bet that God would just as soon they shut up.

Bolton, Diplomacy & the Future of the World

I remember, when I was a kid riding in the backseat of my family's car during our cross-country driving vacations, seeing billboards in America's heartland that led to my first political discussions with my father. The billboards read: "Impeach Earl Warren" and "Get the US out of the UN".

Now, in full disclosure, my old man was a Reagan Democrat when Ron Reagan was still wearing his dumb cowboy hat hosting Death Valley Days. My Grandpa was a railroad man, and my Dad worked in a factory along with several of his brothers. He didn't care for Kruschev and the commies and Martin Luther King made him pretty uncomfortable, but his experience in the CCC camps during the Depression and his time in the China-Burma theatre during WWII made him a big fan of Roosevelt. He followed the rules, worked hard, and lived for me and my sister. When he came back from the War, he spent time in the VA hospital recovering from his wounds, and the GI Bill helped him pay for school and buy our house. A first-generation American whose parents came over on the boat from Italy, he loved the USA.

I asked my dad about the billboards. He thought for a long time and then gave me a serious, simple answer. "There are some nuts in this country."

Dad's words are just as true today, but there's one big difference. Today, those nuts are running our government.

If someone would have told me, back in 1978, while I was driving a cab and going to college, that the year 2005 would come and there still would not be any sort of meaningful worldwide governmental organization, I'd have laughed in their face. Of course, by the turn of the century we'd see that the unity of our planet was more important than the arbitrary national borders that have caused so much death and disaster, and our leaders would at least be able to sit at a table to solve problems like famine, health disasters, and to slap down the occasional mad man who'd want to rule the world. An international criminal court? At least we'd have that much, surely. What responsible leader would be so insane as to not want a mechanism for nations to enforce basic human laws, to put dictators on trial, to prevent the kind of horrors that even thirty years after the War, were fresh in the minds of everyone living on Earth.

When George W. Bush took office, mistaking his judicial appointment to the White House for a sweeping mandate, he immediately pissed in the international swimming pool. Kyoto Accord to try to turn around the destruction of Earth's environment? Bush said "Fuck you." The International Criminal Court? Bush said "Fuck you." And now, mistaking a second highly-suspect lightning strike election for a huge mandate, he nominates John Bolton as our ambassador to the United Nations. Once again, Bush shoots the world the finger.

I remember listening to "moderate" Republicans during the 2004 election, soothing the voters with talk about how in a second term GWB would look to building his legacy, bringing the nation together, and even though he had to give lip service to the Right Wing Nuts (RWNs), that was only to get elected, and after the inauguration we'd see how Bush would "govern from the center."

Well, bullshit. Here he is, ensconced in a comfortable second term, owning the House, the Senate and the Media, and his nominations for high offices in his cabinet and the judiciary can only be called "insane". Bush is trying to put our nation into a hole so deep that my great-grandchildren will still be cursing his name. In just a few short years, he's destroyed just about every progressive movement of the second half of the twentieth century. Social Security? "Fuck you, " says the President. Women's rights? "I got your "women's rights" right here." Education? The Environment? You know his answer.

To be sure, the United Nations is not a perfect organization. There are some fundamental flaws in way it's setup, and in an age of the ONE GREAT SUPERPOWER, the "Security Council" isn't really what it was supposed to be. But it's the closest thing we have to an organization where governments can look at each other over a table, as equals, and try to hammer out solutions to the worst of the world's problems. That George W. Bush, and his gang of fascist neocons are trying to destroy even this, would make my Dad cry. The nuts haven't gone away, they've taken over.

Prayers of the People - Fill those Proscriptions

Those Krazy Kristian Konservatives are at it again. They really don't want pharmacists to have to do their job, their only job, which is to fill the prescriptions that our doctors write for us.

Their big problem are these so-called "morning-after pills", aka "Plan-B" which would allow a woman (it doesn't work for men, unfortunately) who had unprotected sex to decide whether to let the lottery which is her reproductive system decide whether she gets pregnant, or to make sure that no pregnancy comes from a recent sexual encounter.

A certain segment of the lunatic religious fringe calls these pills "abortifactants". In other words, preventing a fetus from forming out of the few hundred cells that might be floating around inside a woman a day or so after sex is abortion. Or in the parlance of these nuts: "baby killin' ".

Here's the thing: MOST sexual encounters do not cause pregnancy. The sperm might get to the egg and do its magic, but in a huge number of those cases, a woman has her period and that's the end of it. Even several months into a pregnancy, spontaneous termination is quite common - much more common than a doctor-performed abortion. So does that make God the champion abortionist of all-time? And if each one of those lumps of cells (the medical term is blastocyte") has a soul, does that mean that heaven is full of partially formed fetuses? Yuk. Can I put in a reservation for the fetus-free heaven? Not according to the thousands of these groups with names like "Family Council of Research into Freedom and Life".

Getting back to those faithful farmacists who believe that a blastocyte is the same as a fully-formed human being (by the way, a remarkable number of them also believe that the earth is only 6000 years old). How far should we go with consideration for the conscience of the pharmacist? If they believe that all Jews are going to burn in Hell (if they're Evangelicals, that's exactly what they believe) is it OK to maybe turn their business away too? Maybe a pharmacist is a converted Christian Scientist, maybe they think thier customers should be praying instead of taking their cancer meds. You see where this is going?

Here in Illinois, the governor has said that any pharmacists who turns away a woman whose doctor has prescribed Plan-B will lose their license. This particular governor is not really known for his courageous stands, but he deserves some credit for this one. I'd print his name here if I could only spell it.
[My wife, who is of the same ethnic persuasion as the gov, tells me the spelling is: "Blagojevich". She also says he's a jackass, but she also says that about me sometimes.]

George Bush's iPod

The president is a stupid dick. I'm sorry, but now we have conclusive proof.

Before I get into the contents of the actual iPod, let me say that whichever bright-boy neocon hanging around the White House had the idea that releasing the songlist in Bush's rotation would ingratiate him with the young people of this country and show him to be in touch with "what's happening now" needs to be fired immediately. Nobody that stupid should be anywhere near the President of the United States. The notion that a vision of W with those dumb white earplugs, playing air-guitar to "My Sharona" would do anything but scare the shit out of Americans shows either insanity or chronic ketamine abuse. What's next, a picture of Bush making Rush Limbaugh an honorary narcotics officer?

Now, the famous list:
First of all, where does Bush get the time to hunt down the Joni Mitchell album that's got her cover of Buddy Holly's "You're So Square"? Does he have John Negroponte checking the cutout bins at the local used record store? "Don't tell me you can't find Kinks Kronicles, John. Did you check under the "D's" for "Davies"?"

George Jones
This is a no-brainer. When Dubya was in his hard-drinkin', coke-snortin', AWOLin' days, like any of us would do, he learned to love George Jones. Who better to have on the juke box when the waitress just called you a weenie, your coke dealer won't take a money market check, and your dad just doesn't understand why he absolutely has to call that lieutenant major in the Air National Guard to explain why he can't be at training the week before and after the Super Bowl.

John Fogerty - Centerfield
Picture it: young Shrub, driving through the oilfields of West Texas with a bottle of Lonestar in his crotch, listening to "Who'll Stop the Rain" and knowing that, goddammit, someday he'd be the one to stop the rain.

The Knack - My Sharona
The dopey spoiled college-boy party animal national anthem. Picture the man who would be our leader pumping his fist singing "My, my, my, my YEAH!"

Crystal Gayle
Man, girls like that just never gave the poor prez-to-be the time of day. And Laura won't give him any back-door play. It's gotta be lonely at the top. But now, he can get on the phone (well, he's gotta have somebody else dial), and like THAT he can get Crystal on the phone. Even have her play for him at the White House. Goddam! I like being the President!

Assorted Country Singers
The Kennebunkport Kowboy. It's hard to live it down when there are pictures out there that show you in a Yale beanie leading cheers on the sidelines. But give the man credit, he's trying.

Pope-apalooza, Liars, and Laura Ingraham's Taint

"The most-watched event in the history of the world (sic)"

They call Rome "The Eternal City", but all that's seemed eternal in the last few weeks are the flag-and-cross waving, shrieking, talking heads that have been proclaiming the resurgence of religion in the world over AM and low-power radio, for-hire tail-wagging conservative blogs and discussion groups in Assembly of God church basements. A poor, damaged woman who is finally allowed to die and a creaky world leader who finally let's go, and somehow it equals a brand new day for superstition, bigotry, patriarchy and exclusion.

My local public radio station has been in beg-mode the past few weeks, so I've found myself scanning the dial, only to learn that the great local radio stations of lore have been replaced by conglomerate-media neocon religious talk radio. I know first-hand that in South Central Missouri, you can ride up and down the dial all day and not hear anything but religious hate-speech and right-wing political hate-speech. Even country music is relegated to a miserable few canned programs from who-knows-where. You're more likely to hear about how "God hates fags" than Randy Travis or Hank, Jr. But who knew that the rapid-patter rock-n-roll dj's here in Chicago have been replaced by soft-voiced Catholics or not-so-soft-voiced Evangelicals, explaining doctrine and yes, begging for money? Of course, the message is still "God hates fags", but Chicago is the heart of organized labor, school-lunch, blue-state country, so the emphasis is more on limiting reproductive rights, keeping women pregnant (after marriage), and stopping abortion. There are no fewer than 6 all-talk, all-God, all-hate stations. Forget top-40, the end times are here, sweeping the quarter hour.

One particular blabber station caught my attention these last few weeks. It's WIND, 560 AM. An outfit called "Salem Communications" (more on them later) owns this conservative mouthpiece, and even though it's so far down at the bottom of the dial that I practically have to tune them in on my toaster, they've got a crushingly loud signal, and their crushingly loud talkers are looking to push the (get this) "too liberal" voices like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity off the air.

WIND's all-star lineup starts at 5am with Bill Bennett's "Morning in America". This great conservative yodeler, known mostly for his books about morals and values, and for his degenerate gambling, kicks off the day with a surreal amalgam of old-school conservative hate-speech and quotes from Aristotle and Samuel Johnson. If jaw-dropping pedantics and pretentious hypocracy are your thing, this is the show for you. His producer, a snotty little Karl Rove wannabe punk, chimes in on the quarter hour, shamelessly kissing the ass of the former Education Tsar, dropping quasi-intellectual mis-quotes and other high-minded malaprops. It would all be a hoot if one could forget that these guys would shut down the Federal Courts tomorrow if they could, and "Dr" Bennett, as he's known to the high-school dropouts that slaver over his phonelines would use the Consititution to light one of the fat cigars for which he is famous. What I wouldn't give to see this guy coming out of a Reno casino at 6am, sweaty and smelly, hat pulled low over his face so none of his Krazy Kristian buddies sees him hustling a barely-legal hooker into his comp-ed hotel room.

Next up is Laura Ingraham (I just learned how to spell her name today), the shrill, snotty pin-up girl for the Kristchun Koalishun. Now she's impossible to listen to, so I don't have much to say about her except that if you can imagine a female Hannity, using the sound-bite techniques of the Howard Stern clone, including the studio full of staffers hootin' and a-hollerin' at every witty quip, trying to show how neocons can be edgy, too, you'll won't even begin to understand how awful this show is. Last Thursday, her big moment was wondering aloud about the fleshy growth on the side of Ted Kennedy's neck. "I mean, what IS that thing?" she shrieks. Oh what fun. This is what passes for intelligent commentary on the issues of today. Here's a uber-Repub good-time girl who would love to give that hunk Tom DeLay a trip around the world, and without a condom, too, you bet.

to be continued...