I'm grateful for the beauty of nature all around.
When I make the time to look, I'm ever rewarded by things like the delicious feel of the change of season breezes on my skin; colors in grasses, flowers- even weeds...how they each look in the movement of wind.
How amazing they are together making a canvas of art in these things I take for granted or dismiss while I'm too busy being a human doing instead of a human BE-ing.
Just for today, I'm grateful I saw and felt this bit of the beginning of autumn.
And did I mention the gazillion butterflies all over my yard and the whole neighborhood?!
Wowser!
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Quote For The Day
"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth." -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
Friday, September 29, 2006
Politics, Perverts and Predators...Oh My...
...God!
Today's news shocker...another Republican unmasked for slime bucketing the American people...this time targeting boys... from the position of chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children!!!
Good grief! This six term Representative, Mark Foley, from the chad challenged state of Florida resigned...only after being CAUGHT "sending inappropriate emails to underage male congressional interns."
ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former male pages. In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?"
In another message, Foley wrote, "You in your boxers, too? ... Well, strip down and get relaxed."
He's sorry of course (not before he got caught) blah blah blah...the usual pedophile whine after getting found out.
Oh yeah, we really feel bad for ya. Not.
And omigod, Florida gave him SIX terms in office to go after his particular prey!
"Foley's name will remain on the ballot, which has already been certified," said Susan Smith, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State. But Republicans have seven days to notify election officials of a replacement nominee who would take Foley's spot if he wins, she said.
Holy Crap! These yutzes still think he can win the next election and they can use a rotten Representative to place hold in their barrel of bad apples!
"It makes it more difficult, but we can still win," said Carl Forti, spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee. "It is a Republican district."
WTF?
AP reports that Foley was a member of the Republican leadership, serving as a deputy whip. He also was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
(I'll say!)
And here's another tactic shocker...
Foley's aides initially blamed Democratic rival Tim Mahoney and Democrats with attempting to smear the congressman before the election.
(Yeah, see how sorry he and his Republican cronies are.)
Oh, p.s.
Foley was the author of the key sexual predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which Bush signed in July.
WTF?
And...
Foley, who represents a district in southern Florida, was also a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax and trade policy.
WTF?
Don't any of you Republican, moral-club-wielding, freekazoids talk one second more about right anything.
Police your own selves and clean up your own dirty backyards before you continue to false moralize and pass laws or judgments on anyone or anything else.
You're not sorry. You're just sorry when you get caught.
What I'm writing about here, is not about bashing anyone for sexual orientation. What I am saying specifically is that abuse and exploitation of children in this country, by anyone, is growing beyond our ability to imagine and the people we elect to represent us; to enact laws to protect our children from predators, actually are the liars, self-serving predators.
We're like the frog asking the scorpion to ferry us across the flooded river to safey...dead. Scorpions do what they do. No matter how much you hope they will change and be good, they sting.
Maybe I've got a bit of that hope within regarding that group of cartoon fodder...politicians. But in the last six years greed and overt fascist-like grabs for control is up--- and honesty and civil rights down.
Do you hear the coliseum roars of old, moments before the Roman Fall? Listen closely...
What we continue to ignore and disavow, allows disintegration to continue at bedrock.
And here we are in WTF Florida again with another political poser...
Maybe it might be best if California lets Florida be the state to fall off the North American continent when the earth shakes.
It's a head shaker, folks.
Today's news shocker...another Republican unmasked for slime bucketing the American people...this time targeting boys... from the position of chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children!!!
Good grief! This six term Representative, Mark Foley, from the chad challenged state of Florida resigned...only after being CAUGHT "sending inappropriate emails to underage male congressional interns."
ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former male pages. In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?"
In another message, Foley wrote, "You in your boxers, too? ... Well, strip down and get relaxed."
He's sorry of course (not before he got caught) blah blah blah...the usual pedophile whine after getting found out.
Oh yeah, we really feel bad for ya. Not.
And omigod, Florida gave him SIX terms in office to go after his particular prey!
"Foley's name will remain on the ballot, which has already been certified," said Susan Smith, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State. But Republicans have seven days to notify election officials of a replacement nominee who would take Foley's spot if he wins, she said.
Holy Crap! These yutzes still think he can win the next election and they can use a rotten Representative to place hold in their barrel of bad apples!
"It makes it more difficult, but we can still win," said Carl Forti, spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee. "It is a Republican district."
WTF?
AP reports that Foley was a member of the Republican leadership, serving as a deputy whip. He also was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
(I'll say!)
And here's another tactic shocker...
Foley's aides initially blamed Democratic rival Tim Mahoney and Democrats with attempting to smear the congressman before the election.
(Yeah, see how sorry he and his Republican cronies are.)
Oh, p.s.
Foley was the author of the key sexual predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which Bush signed in July.
WTF?
And...
Foley, who represents a district in southern Florida, was also a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax and trade policy.
WTF?
Don't any of you Republican, moral-club-wielding, freekazoids talk one second more about right anything.
Police your own selves and clean up your own dirty backyards before you continue to false moralize and pass laws or judgments on anyone or anything else.
You're not sorry. You're just sorry when you get caught.
What I'm writing about here, is not about bashing anyone for sexual orientation. What I am saying specifically is that abuse and exploitation of children in this country, by anyone, is growing beyond our ability to imagine and the people we elect to represent us; to enact laws to protect our children from predators, actually are the liars, self-serving predators.
We're like the frog asking the scorpion to ferry us across the flooded river to safey...dead. Scorpions do what they do. No matter how much you hope they will change and be good, they sting.
Maybe I've got a bit of that hope within regarding that group of cartoon fodder...politicians. But in the last six years greed and overt fascist-like grabs for control is up--- and honesty and civil rights down.
Do you hear the coliseum roars of old, moments before the Roman Fall? Listen closely...
What we continue to ignore and disavow, allows disintegration to continue at bedrock.
And here we are in WTF Florida again with another political poser...
Maybe it might be best if California lets Florida be the state to fall off the North American continent when the earth shakes.
It's a head shaker, folks.
The Gratitude Pool
I'm grateful for the feedback of friends. How else would I know what works on my pages-out there beyond my computer and what doesn't?
Now for the computer Angels...I'm grateful for their magic when glitches get me!
Now for the computer Angels...I'm grateful for their magic when glitches get me!
Quote For The Day
"I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in
it." -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
it." -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Gratitude Pool
by florence
I’m grateful for good friends who share their knowledge in order to be of help when you need it.
I think of good friends as family of choice. I’m so grateful for my extended family who have always been there. And I’m grateful to be able to be a good friend too.
Nice circle of giving and receiving in balance.
I’m grateful for good friends who share their knowledge in order to be of help when you need it.
I think of good friends as family of choice. I’m so grateful for my extended family who have always been there. And I’m grateful to be able to be a good friend too.
Nice circle of giving and receiving in balance.
Somewhere Over...
At the end of a long, tiring day with the homeward commute stretching to a crawl; feeling like a trek across a couple of continents’ worth of parking lot, what can you focus on to keep yourself from going out of your gourd?
Sure, put on some tunes or your favorite talk or news radio. Call up a couple of friends on your cell. They’re probably pretty much in the same parade as you. Commiserate.
Call home to tell them you’re probably going to be late—again. Yada yada for a while and when your battery conks out, now what?
Well, choices come to mind.
Sit and stew over everything that went wrong at the job or drive yourself into knots with worry over what didn’t get done. Hate the damnable traffic that snarls you in it each day. Get into some really gnarly road rage. Arrive home flying your cranky flag high.
Or………
Be open to trying something new; something that might just put the time stuck in the car to time benefitting you.
Here ya go. It’s simple.
Feel all your feelings as they come to your awareness; notice each one and breathe into the feeling as you notice.
Feel, breathe in, notice, and breathe out each feeling, situation, bit of tension or worry that comes to mind. Allow each to go out from you on the breath, into Light to become more Light. (Good recycling. Nice way to not pollute the Universe. Look what good you’re doing already just driving home from work. You’ve got gold stars piling up before you even hit homeplate!)
Next, notice how much easier you feel in your own skin; how much lower your shoulders are from your ears; how much more relieved your neck is balancing that bowling ball on the top of your spine.
Take a look at your fellow commuters in their little space capsules all around you. Get crazy. Smile at them.
Who cares if they think you’re a nut case?! Think macadamian, pecan, filbert, zagnut! Watch and see who smiles back. Just notice.
Now, go really wacky and daring. Let someone in ahead of you.
Go on, get nutty. The next time you see someone signaling; wave them on like you’re the royalty of the road bestowing your largess upon them. Use your hands to signal them on in front of you and wave like you’re the most courteous traffic attendant…’no, you go; no, you go; no, you go.’
Notice how nice that feels: generous, less angry and tense, happy, lighter, fun.
Notice that there really is enough space for everyone. How many times have you been in a hurry or seen someone else in such an all-fire rush, cutting in and out and winding up, where? One or two cars ahead or even with those who got cut off.
The space on the pavement might be pretty much the same but, oh, the energy is amped up on the hostility scale.
When someone lets you get in as you’re signaling, give em the wave and smile with a ‘thank you.’
This stuff just might become contagious.
Notice.
In your own mind (which is where it all starts), think, “I’m going to leave space in between my car and those around. I’m going to leave space for change.” (see how I switched that from ‘leave space for stupidity’)
Now, you are practically an Angel on the road.
Why, with all this to keep you busy, you just might find yourself home earlier than usual. Either way, it might seem that way because you feel better than usual.
And, maybe, just maybe, with all that noticing and positive energy, you might begin to see things along the way you might have missed… like the “Long Day’s Journey Into Light” photo below.
What a gift to lift your spirit at the end of a day. You deserve that beauty and Light!
Sure, put on some tunes or your favorite talk or news radio. Call up a couple of friends on your cell. They’re probably pretty much in the same parade as you. Commiserate.
Call home to tell them you’re probably going to be late—again. Yada yada for a while and when your battery conks out, now what?
Well, choices come to mind.
Sit and stew over everything that went wrong at the job or drive yourself into knots with worry over what didn’t get done. Hate the damnable traffic that snarls you in it each day. Get into some really gnarly road rage. Arrive home flying your cranky flag high.
Or………
Be open to trying something new; something that might just put the time stuck in the car to time benefitting you.
Here ya go. It’s simple.
Feel all your feelings as they come to your awareness; notice each one and breathe into the feeling as you notice.
Feel, breathe in, notice, and breathe out each feeling, situation, bit of tension or worry that comes to mind. Allow each to go out from you on the breath, into Light to become more Light. (Good recycling. Nice way to not pollute the Universe. Look what good you’re doing already just driving home from work. You’ve got gold stars piling up before you even hit homeplate!)
Next, notice how much easier you feel in your own skin; how much lower your shoulders are from your ears; how much more relieved your neck is balancing that bowling ball on the top of your spine.
Take a look at your fellow commuters in their little space capsules all around you. Get crazy. Smile at them.
Who cares if they think you’re a nut case?! Think macadamian, pecan, filbert, zagnut! Watch and see who smiles back. Just notice.
Now, go really wacky and daring. Let someone in ahead of you.
Go on, get nutty. The next time you see someone signaling; wave them on like you’re the royalty of the road bestowing your largess upon them. Use your hands to signal them on in front of you and wave like you’re the most courteous traffic attendant…’no, you go; no, you go; no, you go.’
Notice how nice that feels: generous, less angry and tense, happy, lighter, fun.
Notice that there really is enough space for everyone. How many times have you been in a hurry or seen someone else in such an all-fire rush, cutting in and out and winding up, where? One or two cars ahead or even with those who got cut off.
The space on the pavement might be pretty much the same but, oh, the energy is amped up on the hostility scale.
When someone lets you get in as you’re signaling, give em the wave and smile with a ‘thank you.’
This stuff just might become contagious.
Notice.
In your own mind (which is where it all starts), think, “I’m going to leave space in between my car and those around. I’m going to leave space for change.” (see how I switched that from ‘leave space for stupidity’)
Now, you are practically an Angel on the road.
Why, with all this to keep you busy, you just might find yourself home earlier than usual. Either way, it might seem that way because you feel better than usual.
And, maybe, just maybe, with all that noticing and positive energy, you might begin to see things along the way you might have missed… like the “Long Day’s Journey Into Light” photo below.
What a gift to lift your spirit at the end of a day. You deserve that beauty and Light!
Quote For The Day
"A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity."
-Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)
-Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Quote For The Day
"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."
-Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923- )
-Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923- )
The Gratitude Pool (post 1)
Jump right in!
Be a pebble in the Gratitude Pool.
The positive energy will ripple out to touch someone, somewhere in the world.
Ya never know where, how or when.
It just does.
I’ll get the ball rolling (or pebble as it were);
Today I’m grateful I only had to do the welcome to this site 8 times over.
Yeah, coulda been worse. My computer could have frozen altogether (God forbid!) Being a newbie feels like pushing a boulder uphill on a rainy day-all slippy and slidy. It also feels great to learn and achieve after falling on my cyberface like the biggest klutz in the Universe.
(Thank the Inter-Spirit that there’s a “net.”)
And I only yelled at the dog once so far and snapped the head off my partner twice. (It’s not only dogs who can get growly.) Good thing Bailley is a golden retriever…long-suffering…still-loving-you-anyway-no-matter-how-big-a-putz-you- make-of-yourself kind of pooch.
OK. See, there’s another gratitude!
The day is getting better already.
Now, to pick up poop before the “mow, blow and go” show arrives!
That and tackle the bills…
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Life's A Banquet... and So Am I
by Florence-excerpted from "Prize Roses"
If it is true that I am what I eat,
Then I am a banquet of many fine treats
The sweetness of chocolate, cinnamon spice
Passion fruit, rainbows of tropical ice
Food of all nations where I love to travel
Tasty sensations whose mysteries unravel
Fromage redolent of apples, paté foi gras
Golden raisin couscous from a Turkish bazaar
Mangos, plums, peaches picked straight off world trees
Delectable fishes from Hawaiian seas
Thai food, Italian, high teas, shepherd’s pie
Remembering where I enjoyed them makes my heart sigh
A pot roast, pastrami, a wurst, a knish
A riot of garlic in each hearty dish
Sauces piccata, madeleine and béarnaise
On medallions of chicken, veal, beef so amaze
To perk up and comfort; creating sheer smiles
Do not underestimate food's winning wiles
Mousse chocolåt or a creamy bruleé
could just set the stage for a romantic day
Or evening where truffles pile up like boulders
And ripe, ruby raspberries are nibbled off shoulders
A great pizza burger with chocolate egg cream
Makes lunch with my friends a most treasured, fun scene
I'm all that I've eaten, the bitter, the sweet
Each lesson I've learned is a perfect pomme frite
The fizz and the fizzle; the courage to sample
The known and unusual in portions quit ample
With a wealth of diversity still waiting to taste
There isn't a moment or morsel to waste
For food I've consumed from a bountiful earth
Gives way to gratitude and immeasurable worth
Of lush life represented; emotions full state
One may find these riches paralleled on your plate!
If it is true that I am what I eat,
Then I am a banquet of many fine treats
The sweetness of chocolate, cinnamon spice
Passion fruit, rainbows of tropical ice
Food of all nations where I love to travel
Tasty sensations whose mysteries unravel
Fromage redolent of apples, paté foi gras
Golden raisin couscous from a Turkish bazaar
Mangos, plums, peaches picked straight off world trees
Delectable fishes from Hawaiian seas
Thai food, Italian, high teas, shepherd’s pie
Remembering where I enjoyed them makes my heart sigh
A pot roast, pastrami, a wurst, a knish
A riot of garlic in each hearty dish
Sauces piccata, madeleine and béarnaise
On medallions of chicken, veal, beef so amaze
To perk up and comfort; creating sheer smiles
Do not underestimate food's winning wiles
Mousse chocolåt or a creamy bruleé
could just set the stage for a romantic day
Or evening where truffles pile up like boulders
And ripe, ruby raspberries are nibbled off shoulders
A great pizza burger with chocolate egg cream
Makes lunch with my friends a most treasured, fun scene
I'm all that I've eaten, the bitter, the sweet
Each lesson I've learned is a perfect pomme frite
The fizz and the fizzle; the courage to sample
The known and unusual in portions quit ample
With a wealth of diversity still waiting to taste
There isn't a moment or morsel to waste
For food I've consumed from a bountiful earth
Gives way to gratitude and immeasurable worth
Of lush life represented; emotions full state
One may find these riches paralleled on your plate!
Monday, September 25, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Money Angel
The Money Angel is blessing you!
You are worthy of wealth.
Pass it on if you wish; to bless whomever you like. And see it blessing you and all with multiplying power; doing good wherever it goes.
We live in an abundant, benevolent Universe. There is enough for everyone. So here’s some of yours. Put it in the bank account of your consciousness.
In Light & Love & Abundance of All Highest Good,
Florence
You are worthy of wealth.
Pass it on if you wish; to bless whomever you like. And see it blessing you and all with multiplying power; doing good wherever it goes.
We live in an abundant, benevolent Universe. There is enough for everyone. So here’s some of yours. Put it in the bank account of your consciousness.
In Light & Love & Abundance of All Highest Good,
Florence
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Fugitive Girl Act
From Huffington Post
THE FUGITIVE GIRL ACT
By Paul Rogat Loeb
Do you remember the Fugitive Slave Act? It criminalized not only slaves who’d escaped to non-slave states, but also anyone who helped them flee. That law has troubling echoes in a new bill, passed by the Republican Senate and House, that will make it illegal to transport a girl from a state requiring parental consent to get an abortion in another one.
The Fugitive Slave Act forced individuals who did not believe in slavery to collaborate in maintaining it. In states that had banned slavery, it compelled law enforcement officials to return escaped slaves to their masters, and coerced ordinary citizens into supporting this process. It isolated slaves from outside assistance, by threatening to imprison anyone who would help them escape.
Isolation is also the goal of the benignly named Child Custody Protection Act, which will become law if the House and Senate work out their differences. It targets girls who already feel they cannot talk to their parents without risking disaster. It leaves them on their own, because those who might have tried to help them will face jail if they do. Whether a sister, an aunt, a grandmother, counselor, or friend, anyone could be imprisoned for intervening to help. Meanwhile, the same Senators who backed it voted down an amendment that would have increased support for programs offering contraception and sex education–including abstinence education. Minors are also excluded from the FDA’s recent ruling allowing non-prescription sales of the “Plan B” morning-after pill, so the goal seems to be less to prevent teen pregnancies than to punish them.
The House version goes further still, allowing parents to sue doctors who perform these out-of-state abortions. Both bills let the states with the harshest anti-abortion laws (and the least social support for women with children) control the actions of citizens in states with fewer restraints. They trample core federalist traditions, letting states with the most draconian laws impose their will on others. They even raise the prospect of similar federal or state laws prohibiting adult women from traveling to overcome state abortion bans-like a bill now pending in the Ohio House that bans abortion without exception, while making it illegal to transport or help women of any age to receive abortions in other states. This would seem to violate numerous judicial decisions affirming the right to travel and prohibiting one state from unilaterally extending its laws to another. But with Bush’s recent court appointments, all sorts of longstanding precedents risk being subordinated to a hard-right ideology.
There are people I respect who believe in required parental notification: Even minor medical procedures require parental consent; parents should be involved in the most consequential decisions of their children’s lives; who wouldn’t want to talk with their daughter about a choice this fundamental to her future? Those who see abortion as murder view the new prohibitions as a way to reduce their toll and protect young women from a morally destructive act. They see themselves as the new abolitionists. But to me these arguments abstract the actual lives of the young girls who are pregnant. We need to do everything we can to encourage our children to talk with us about all kinds of difficult choices. But we’re not talking about idealized families where trust and harmony prevails. We’re talking about situations where trust has broken down to the point where a girl fears to tell her parents that she’s pregnant. The reason could be physical violence, incest, or pervasive verbal abuse. It could be a tone of unremitting judgment that makes a girl fear condemnation no matter what choice she makes. It could simply be the certainty that her parents will force her to have a child for which she is unready.
Even where families are close, life can be complicated. I once met a woman who’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion at age 15. Like many teenagers who consider themselves invulnerable, she just hadn’t thought it would happen. Her father had recently died and her mother was still distraught from the loss. Given her mother’s situation, the girl felt she couldn’t tell her about the choice she was making, and didn’t until two years later when a condom failed and she had another abortion. The second time felt harder, but she told her mother this time, who supported her decision. She later felt ready to have her two daughters–”the girls God intended me to have.”
Even though parents would often prefer that they wait, nearly two thirds of American teenagers will have had intercourse by their senior year of high school, and many when they’re considerably younger. Because some will be clueless, others careless, and others just unlucky, more than a few will get pregnant, particularly where birth control and sex education are less accessible. Of the third of all U.S women who have abortions by age 45, 27 percent are Catholic (Catholics are 22 percent of the population) and 13 percent evangelical Protestants (who are 39 percent of the population). The communities most resistant to abortion are themselves not exempt from the choice. Although highly traditionalist parents often end up supporting their own daughters’ abortions when no other good choices exist, young women from these communities aren’t foolish to fear anger and ostracism.
The Fugitive Slave Act sought to isolate slaves through legal threats against their would-be emancipators, including those who’d help them once they’d reached so called “free states.” Escaped slaves were not even allowed to argue their story in court. The Child Custody Protection Act would erect similar walls around the lives of the young women it targets, silencing their voices and overriding their choices. In the name of honoring the primal community of the family, the act would isolate young women from all other possible supportive communities who might advise or help them to not have a child before they were ready. More than anything the law is about control. Not the reasonable control by which we as parents stop our children from touching a hot stove or running into the street, but a more insidious control by which we would force them to bear children when they’re unwilling. A new generation of young women will have to live in the cage of this imposed choice for the rest of their lives. Their children will bear the burden of resentment. This new law now extends that cage throughout the country, and, by making criminals of those who would help, will require the rest of us to participate in maintaining it.
Figures on youth sexual activity from:
http://www.kff.org/youthhivstds/upload/U-S-Teen-Sexual-Activity-Fact
Sheet.pdf#search=%22percentage%20of%20sexually%20active%20teenagers%22
Demographics of women having abortions from
http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/
about_abortion/women_who_have_abortions.pdf
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award for the best book on social change, and Soul of a Citizen
See www.paulloeb.org
THE FUGITIVE GIRL ACT
By Paul Rogat Loeb
Do you remember the Fugitive Slave Act? It criminalized not only slaves who’d escaped to non-slave states, but also anyone who helped them flee. That law has troubling echoes in a new bill, passed by the Republican Senate and House, that will make it illegal to transport a girl from a state requiring parental consent to get an abortion in another one.
The Fugitive Slave Act forced individuals who did not believe in slavery to collaborate in maintaining it. In states that had banned slavery, it compelled law enforcement officials to return escaped slaves to their masters, and coerced ordinary citizens into supporting this process. It isolated slaves from outside assistance, by threatening to imprison anyone who would help them escape.
Isolation is also the goal of the benignly named Child Custody Protection Act, which will become law if the House and Senate work out their differences. It targets girls who already feel they cannot talk to their parents without risking disaster. It leaves them on their own, because those who might have tried to help them will face jail if they do. Whether a sister, an aunt, a grandmother, counselor, or friend, anyone could be imprisoned for intervening to help. Meanwhile, the same Senators who backed it voted down an amendment that would have increased support for programs offering contraception and sex education–including abstinence education. Minors are also excluded from the FDA’s recent ruling allowing non-prescription sales of the “Plan B” morning-after pill, so the goal seems to be less to prevent teen pregnancies than to punish them.
The House version goes further still, allowing parents to sue doctors who perform these out-of-state abortions. Both bills let the states with the harshest anti-abortion laws (and the least social support for women with children) control the actions of citizens in states with fewer restraints. They trample core federalist traditions, letting states with the most draconian laws impose their will on others. They even raise the prospect of similar federal or state laws prohibiting adult women from traveling to overcome state abortion bans-like a bill now pending in the Ohio House that bans abortion without exception, while making it illegal to transport or help women of any age to receive abortions in other states. This would seem to violate numerous judicial decisions affirming the right to travel and prohibiting one state from unilaterally extending its laws to another. But with Bush’s recent court appointments, all sorts of longstanding precedents risk being subordinated to a hard-right ideology.
There are people I respect who believe in required parental notification: Even minor medical procedures require parental consent; parents should be involved in the most consequential decisions of their children’s lives; who wouldn’t want to talk with their daughter about a choice this fundamental to her future? Those who see abortion as murder view the new prohibitions as a way to reduce their toll and protect young women from a morally destructive act. They see themselves as the new abolitionists. But to me these arguments abstract the actual lives of the young girls who are pregnant. We need to do everything we can to encourage our children to talk with us about all kinds of difficult choices. But we’re not talking about idealized families where trust and harmony prevails. We’re talking about situations where trust has broken down to the point where a girl fears to tell her parents that she’s pregnant. The reason could be physical violence, incest, or pervasive verbal abuse. It could be a tone of unremitting judgment that makes a girl fear condemnation no matter what choice she makes. It could simply be the certainty that her parents will force her to have a child for which she is unready.
Even where families are close, life can be complicated. I once met a woman who’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion at age 15. Like many teenagers who consider themselves invulnerable, she just hadn’t thought it would happen. Her father had recently died and her mother was still distraught from the loss. Given her mother’s situation, the girl felt she couldn’t tell her about the choice she was making, and didn’t until two years later when a condom failed and she had another abortion. The second time felt harder, but she told her mother this time, who supported her decision. She later felt ready to have her two daughters–”the girls God intended me to have.”
Even though parents would often prefer that they wait, nearly two thirds of American teenagers will have had intercourse by their senior year of high school, and many when they’re considerably younger. Because some will be clueless, others careless, and others just unlucky, more than a few will get pregnant, particularly where birth control and sex education are less accessible. Of the third of all U.S women who have abortions by age 45, 27 percent are Catholic (Catholics are 22 percent of the population) and 13 percent evangelical Protestants (who are 39 percent of the population). The communities most resistant to abortion are themselves not exempt from the choice. Although highly traditionalist parents often end up supporting their own daughters’ abortions when no other good choices exist, young women from these communities aren’t foolish to fear anger and ostracism.
The Fugitive Slave Act sought to isolate slaves through legal threats against their would-be emancipators, including those who’d help them once they’d reached so called “free states.” Escaped slaves were not even allowed to argue their story in court. The Child Custody Protection Act would erect similar walls around the lives of the young women it targets, silencing their voices and overriding their choices. In the name of honoring the primal community of the family, the act would isolate young women from all other possible supportive communities who might advise or help them to not have a child before they were ready. More than anything the law is about control. Not the reasonable control by which we as parents stop our children from touching a hot stove or running into the street, but a more insidious control by which we would force them to bear children when they’re unwilling. A new generation of young women will have to live in the cage of this imposed choice for the rest of their lives. Their children will bear the burden of resentment. This new law now extends that cage throughout the country, and, by making criminals of those who would help, will require the rest of us to participate in maintaining it.
Figures on youth sexual activity from:
http://www.kff.org/youthhivstds/upload/U-S-Teen-Sexual-Activity-Fact
Sheet.pdf#search=%22percentage%20of%20sexually%20active%20teenagers%22
Demographics of women having abortions from
http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/
about_abortion/women_who_have_abortions.pdf
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award for the best book on social change, and Soul of a Citizen
See www.paulloeb.org
Still Fugitive After All These Years
by Florence
After reading Paul Rogat Loeb’s thought provoking article, “Fugitive Girl Act,”-posted above (www.paulloeb.org), my thought on abortion rights is still what it’s been for a long time: impatiently pissed.
Can’t the men in political office just keep their hands off women’s bodies for one blasted moment and do their freekin jobs already? The description of which, in my opinion; off the cuff-would be to listen to and serve we-the-people, enact laws the majority wants-like oh, for starters-better education (oops… that might make for more intelligent voters-hmm), put our tax dollars to work for senior citizens (you remember those folks that fed you when you were a little human third base), aid the disabled (wheelchair accessible still needs a lot more accomplishing) and those in need (like victims and families of 9/11 and Katrina), create better medical systems for our citizens to maintain and get healthy, weed out the criminals in their own midst, and, ooh-ooh… freekin listen when our own intelligence tells the idiot at the helm and his crew of pirates that terrorists are planning to bomb the shit out of us!
OK. I know. I used the word, ‘freekin,’ twice in the same paragraph but hey, I’m at wits end with this beat-the-crap-out-of-women and keep-em-barefoot- and-pregnant shit. It’s so waaaaay old, it’s got dune dust on it from the original sands of time.
And it’s dragged up every time Dubya or some other right-wing-my-way-or- the-highway Christian thinks their penis is the biggest on the planet. You know the guys who aren’t too different from the Muslim-kill-everyone-who- doesn’t-believe-what-I believe zealots who would shoot you as soon as pray.
Yeah, the wackadoos who give religion a bum rap.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all men. My guy is an awake, aware human who thinks with his heart balanced with his brains; not his ego outstripping his johnson. And it’s not all Christians nor all Muslims-it’s not even the religions. It’s the testosterone gala of this planet. Little schmekelas; legends in their own minds, grasping for control because they feel so out of that commodity themselves.
If politicians were content, trustworthy and honorable themselves, they might not need to smokescreen and buddy up with the nearest crotch cretin. Then maybe- just maybe- they’d finally leave Roe vs Wade alone and get their hands off trying to legislate what they can’t give up themselves-in or outside their own marriages—-sex!
I say go make a federal case out of guys looking to diddle little boys and those ‘poor lonely hearts’ who want a girl: s/w/f/slim/trim/into sports or the arts/4 to 12 years old preferably. Leave the rape and incest victims alone to choose not to carry a baby within a baby while they’re in grade freekin school. Make it a crime with real punishment for people like, oh…say… priests, to skip across state lines to escape the abortion they leave behind every time they get ‘caught in the confessional’ and Mother Church sends them, all expenses paid, to Aunt St. Mary’s in East Jepip or Sister Katharine, Cecilia, Augusta, Dimwitta’s Retreat in North Hutzaplutz for a bit of ‘R and R.’ Go after these hopscotchers and hold their parent responsible-the Catholic church! We could replenish the national coffers with those penalties. Imagine it…a country without national deficit.
Gosh! You guys in Washington have so much good work to do!
Yes, the face of the American family may be changing. What isn’t? Yet we can still parent and decide what’s best for ourselves and our children individually.
I don’t hear many of us baaing in the streets, poor in need of shepherding because we’ve lost our way.
Look first in thine own mirror Congress and, while you’re at it, get some compassion on that journey of searching up your ass for your brains.
After reading Paul Rogat Loeb’s thought provoking article, “Fugitive Girl Act,”-posted above (www.paulloeb.org), my thought on abortion rights is still what it’s been for a long time: impatiently pissed.
Can’t the men in political office just keep their hands off women’s bodies for one blasted moment and do their freekin jobs already? The description of which, in my opinion; off the cuff-would be to listen to and serve we-the-people, enact laws the majority wants-like oh, for starters-better education (oops… that might make for more intelligent voters-hmm), put our tax dollars to work for senior citizens (you remember those folks that fed you when you were a little human third base), aid the disabled (wheelchair accessible still needs a lot more accomplishing) and those in need (like victims and families of 9/11 and Katrina), create better medical systems for our citizens to maintain and get healthy, weed out the criminals in their own midst, and, ooh-ooh… freekin listen when our own intelligence tells the idiot at the helm and his crew of pirates that terrorists are planning to bomb the shit out of us!
OK. I know. I used the word, ‘freekin,’ twice in the same paragraph but hey, I’m at wits end with this beat-the-crap-out-of-women and keep-em-barefoot- and-pregnant shit. It’s so waaaaay old, it’s got dune dust on it from the original sands of time.
And it’s dragged up every time Dubya or some other right-wing-my-way-or- the-highway Christian thinks their penis is the biggest on the planet. You know the guys who aren’t too different from the Muslim-kill-everyone-who- doesn’t-believe-what-I believe zealots who would shoot you as soon as pray.
Yeah, the wackadoos who give religion a bum rap.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all men. My guy is an awake, aware human who thinks with his heart balanced with his brains; not his ego outstripping his johnson. And it’s not all Christians nor all Muslims-it’s not even the religions. It’s the testosterone gala of this planet. Little schmekelas; legends in their own minds, grasping for control because they feel so out of that commodity themselves.
If politicians were content, trustworthy and honorable themselves, they might not need to smokescreen and buddy up with the nearest crotch cretin. Then maybe- just maybe- they’d finally leave Roe vs Wade alone and get their hands off trying to legislate what they can’t give up themselves-in or outside their own marriages—-sex!
I say go make a federal case out of guys looking to diddle little boys and those ‘poor lonely hearts’ who want a girl: s/w/f/slim/trim/into sports or the arts/4 to 12 years old preferably. Leave the rape and incest victims alone to choose not to carry a baby within a baby while they’re in grade freekin school. Make it a crime with real punishment for people like, oh…say… priests, to skip across state lines to escape the abortion they leave behind every time they get ‘caught in the confessional’ and Mother Church sends them, all expenses paid, to Aunt St. Mary’s in East Jepip or Sister Katharine, Cecilia, Augusta, Dimwitta’s Retreat in North Hutzaplutz for a bit of ‘R and R.’ Go after these hopscotchers and hold their parent responsible-the Catholic church! We could replenish the national coffers with those penalties. Imagine it…a country without national deficit.
Gosh! You guys in Washington have so much good work to do!
Yes, the face of the American family may be changing. What isn’t? Yet we can still parent and decide what’s best for ourselves and our children individually.
I don’t hear many of us baaing in the streets, poor in need of shepherding because we’ve lost our way.
Look first in thine own mirror Congress and, while you’re at it, get some compassion on that journey of searching up your ass for your brains.
Dinner For Two
by Florence
OK. It’s official.
I’m going into the Faux Pas Hall Of Fame- or straight to Hell- which ever arrives most promptly on my e ticket ride to Holy Shitsville
The first dinner I take my new daughter in law out for, I wind up spraying her; with water shooting out of my mouth-in the restaurant.
I’m choking on a rice kernel and water and my hands can’t quite fly to cover my mouth fast enough to keep me from convulsively splattering water all over her-clear across the table!
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s like being caught in every cartoon you’ve ever seen where the animated animal guffaws liquid like a fountain from its mouth to douse the character opposite it.
Really, it’s exactly like that in real life! Only I never thought it would be me doing the spitting and becoming a fountain on my own daughter in law- in public for crying out loud!
Omigod! I’m choking and dying of embarrassment all at the same time while she keeps asking, “Are you all right?” as she’s brushing herself off from the gusher she just got.
That gal has cool.
Me? I’d be in shock if any of my former 3 mothers in law had spit all over me at a restaurant- or anywhere for that matter!
And still, Hope keeps repeating, as I’m choking and laughing and gasping all at the same time; trying to look like this is no big deal; like I did not just create the biggest holy crapolie scene in animation or real life ever, “Are you all right?”
“Fine. Fine,” I manage, and thank God that the restaurant only has a few other customers in there with us.
Still… a scene is a scene and, though I may be blonde, I suspect I’m not invisible nor was the blast of water and uncontrollable choking low on the sound barrier scale.
Actually, I’m dying here….of embarrassment.
I continue my descent into Hell; make bad jokes which basically cover up nothing. I know Hope is an intelligent, neat, proper young woman and I now feel like a clod who should never be allowed out in society without a muzzle.
Just as I’m thinking, ‘she’ll never ask me to go out ever again; won’t want to be seen in public with me-ever-in this or any other lifetime,’ she repeats her mantra, “Are you all right?” adding sweetly, “I’m going to keep asking until you are…”
Got to love her.
Cough, cough, fine, fine, sputter, sputter dies down.
Smile…smile…smile…
Omigod, I might live.
I don’t know which is worse…that I could have died or that I will survive this calamity.
Looking anyone in the eye will be the shonda that rises above the whole debacle happening in the first place.
Thanks God.
Thanks Angels.
It isn’t bad enough that this year you’ve shit on me more times than I want to recall.
It isn’t bad enough that I go out into the world in mortification; looking like an out of work mime or a crime scene investigator; wearing white cotton gloves from the glue contamination the pool people visited upon our house and stuck us with this summer.
It’s enough already.
All I wanted was a simple dinner out with my daughter in law at the sushi restaurant we both love -right in town. (A place I might add, I’m probably barred from now! God, no, not the spritzing one again. Bad for business!)
Was that too much to ask for without mishap and mayhem?
Criminiddlies! Cut me a break here, Universe.
Instead, I take her out for the first time since the wedding and what’s she gonna say when her friends ask how that went?
She can answer quite truthfully, “ I don’t know if my mother in law really likes me or not, she spit on me.“
“No shit!”
“No. No shit. Spit”
As we leave the restaurant, I’m off kilter; all wobbly brained, I make dribbly small talk, like asking her where she parked her car and, again, step in it up to my eyeballs.
She must think I’m losing my mind along with my manners.
The car is exactly where we left it- right at the curb; two spots down from the front door of the restaurant!
Inside my head I think, ‘Oh crap. Why can’t I shut up?’
If all the air is going out of my mouth, there’s no oxygen getting to my brain. Isn’t this a law of physics?
Help me! I’ve fallen and I can’t shut up.
We get home; nice nice, she gives me cds of the wedding pics and I dash up the path to my front porch, waving bye bye; lots of “we should do this again…let’s not wait so long…yadiyadi…”
Smile… smile… smile… still can’t shut my mouth.
I get in the door and lean back up against it like, ‘Whew! The hunted animal has escaped the feds and made it to the mattresses of the safe house.”
Tom interrupts my brief reverie as he sings out from down the hall around in the kitchen, “Hi Hon, how was dinner with your new daughter in law?”
“I spit on her.”
“What?”
“I spit all over her.”
“Whaaat?”
“You heard me. Like a living cartoon. Sprayed water all over her like an involuntary sputtering machine…ratatatatatat!”
“You’re kidding.”
“Hell, no. You can’t can’t make this stuff up. I’m outlawed in three states.”
“Omigod.”
“Yeah. Went out to dinner for the first time with my new daughter in law and spit on her- in public. That’s what she can report to her mom, her friends and to my son….”
Omigod!
Tonight, Chris’ll call her from his road trip and ask how dinner went with Mom and she can say, “Your mother spit on me.”
Omigod.
“Don’t worry Hon. It probably wasn’t that bad”…this guy can try to make shit look like it has a prayer of becoming chocolate mousse.
I escape to the bathroom to throw myself into a shower, hoping that shame and embarrassment will wash off with soap and water.
I’m muttering, “No. It was that bad-and more. It couldn’t possibly get worse.”
And then I look in the mirror and notice there is a patch of green seaweed right in the middle of my front teeth.
Smile… smile… smile.
OK. It’s official.
I’m going into the Faux Pas Hall Of Fame- or straight to Hell- which ever arrives most promptly on my e ticket ride to Holy Shitsville
The first dinner I take my new daughter in law out for, I wind up spraying her; with water shooting out of my mouth-in the restaurant.
I’m choking on a rice kernel and water and my hands can’t quite fly to cover my mouth fast enough to keep me from convulsively splattering water all over her-clear across the table!
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s like being caught in every cartoon you’ve ever seen where the animated animal guffaws liquid like a fountain from its mouth to douse the character opposite it.
Really, it’s exactly like that in real life! Only I never thought it would be me doing the spitting and becoming a fountain on my own daughter in law- in public for crying out loud!
Omigod! I’m choking and dying of embarrassment all at the same time while she keeps asking, “Are you all right?” as she’s brushing herself off from the gusher she just got.
That gal has cool.
Me? I’d be in shock if any of my former 3 mothers in law had spit all over me at a restaurant- or anywhere for that matter!
And still, Hope keeps repeating, as I’m choking and laughing and gasping all at the same time; trying to look like this is no big deal; like I did not just create the biggest holy crapolie scene in animation or real life ever, “Are you all right?”
“Fine. Fine,” I manage, and thank God that the restaurant only has a few other customers in there with us.
Still… a scene is a scene and, though I may be blonde, I suspect I’m not invisible nor was the blast of water and uncontrollable choking low on the sound barrier scale.
Actually, I’m dying here….of embarrassment.
I continue my descent into Hell; make bad jokes which basically cover up nothing. I know Hope is an intelligent, neat, proper young woman and I now feel like a clod who should never be allowed out in society without a muzzle.
Just as I’m thinking, ‘she’ll never ask me to go out ever again; won’t want to be seen in public with me-ever-in this or any other lifetime,’ she repeats her mantra, “Are you all right?” adding sweetly, “I’m going to keep asking until you are…”
Got to love her.
Cough, cough, fine, fine, sputter, sputter dies down.
Smile…smile…smile…
Omigod, I might live.
I don’t know which is worse…that I could have died or that I will survive this calamity.
Looking anyone in the eye will be the shonda that rises above the whole debacle happening in the first place.
Thanks God.
Thanks Angels.
It isn’t bad enough that this year you’ve shit on me more times than I want to recall.
It isn’t bad enough that I go out into the world in mortification; looking like an out of work mime or a crime scene investigator; wearing white cotton gloves from the glue contamination the pool people visited upon our house and stuck us with this summer.
It’s enough already.
All I wanted was a simple dinner out with my daughter in law at the sushi restaurant we both love -right in town. (A place I might add, I’m probably barred from now! God, no, not the spritzing one again. Bad for business!)
Was that too much to ask for without mishap and mayhem?
Criminiddlies! Cut me a break here, Universe.
Instead, I take her out for the first time since the wedding and what’s she gonna say when her friends ask how that went?
She can answer quite truthfully, “ I don’t know if my mother in law really likes me or not, she spit on me.“
“No shit!”
“No. No shit. Spit”
As we leave the restaurant, I’m off kilter; all wobbly brained, I make dribbly small talk, like asking her where she parked her car and, again, step in it up to my eyeballs.
She must think I’m losing my mind along with my manners.
The car is exactly where we left it- right at the curb; two spots down from the front door of the restaurant!
Inside my head I think, ‘Oh crap. Why can’t I shut up?’
If all the air is going out of my mouth, there’s no oxygen getting to my brain. Isn’t this a law of physics?
Help me! I’ve fallen and I can’t shut up.
We get home; nice nice, she gives me cds of the wedding pics and I dash up the path to my front porch, waving bye bye; lots of “we should do this again…let’s not wait so long…yadiyadi…”
Smile… smile… smile… still can’t shut my mouth.
I get in the door and lean back up against it like, ‘Whew! The hunted animal has escaped the feds and made it to the mattresses of the safe house.”
Tom interrupts my brief reverie as he sings out from down the hall around in the kitchen, “Hi Hon, how was dinner with your new daughter in law?”
“I spit on her.”
“What?”
“I spit all over her.”
“Whaaat?”
“You heard me. Like a living cartoon. Sprayed water all over her like an involuntary sputtering machine…ratatatatatat!”
“You’re kidding.”
“Hell, no. You can’t can’t make this stuff up. I’m outlawed in three states.”
“Omigod.”
“Yeah. Went out to dinner for the first time with my new daughter in law and spit on her- in public. That’s what she can report to her mom, her friends and to my son….”
Omigod!
Tonight, Chris’ll call her from his road trip and ask how dinner went with Mom and she can say, “Your mother spit on me.”
Omigod.
“Don’t worry Hon. It probably wasn’t that bad”…this guy can try to make shit look like it has a prayer of becoming chocolate mousse.
I escape to the bathroom to throw myself into a shower, hoping that shame and embarrassment will wash off with soap and water.
I’m muttering, “No. It was that bad-and more. It couldn’t possibly get worse.”
And then I look in the mirror and notice there is a patch of green seaweed right in the middle of my front teeth.
Smile… smile… smile.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
No Guts, No Story!
by Florence
I saw the ad that said, “Anyone can learn to surf in 1 two hour lesson.” Accompanying, was a picture of a woman, aged 45, standing on a surfboard, whooshing on the crest of wave, toward the sandy Maui beach. The guarantee of “Stand in 2 hours or your money back,” made me think, “If I just turn that four and five around, I could be their new poster girl!” Wouldn’t that be great to tell my surfing sons when they ask, “What’d ya do for your 54th birthday, Mom?” My answer? “I hung ten.”
Would they laugh or feel appalled that I’d invaded their private domain? I could almost hear their wheels turning as they groan, “She is going everywhere and doing everything we do! Is nothing sacred anymore?”
I know my youngest son confided to my fianceé, “Oh, don’t bother to take Mom to a Grateful Dead concert. She won’t understand the music.” This from the same son who in his high school years, wasn’t too crazy about my singing along with ‘’his music’ when “Judy Blue Eyes Suite” played on the car radio-even though the clue was clear that I did actually know all of the words and had been alive and breathing during the 60’s.
This birthday, I just wanted to do something I’d never done before. Something, perhaps, I’d been reluctant or afraid I was too old to do. Something daring for a 54 year old woman.
With the time constraints of two days left on Maui, my choices were between learning to surf or scuba dive and enjoying the last day swimming and listening to whale songs in the waters off the beach.
I chose whale song and scuba diving to visit with Giant Sea Turtles and swim with Dolphins.
My sons can teach me to surf!
I saw the ad that said, “Anyone can learn to surf in 1 two hour lesson.” Accompanying, was a picture of a woman, aged 45, standing on a surfboard, whooshing on the crest of wave, toward the sandy Maui beach. The guarantee of “Stand in 2 hours or your money back,” made me think, “If I just turn that four and five around, I could be their new poster girl!” Wouldn’t that be great to tell my surfing sons when they ask, “What’d ya do for your 54th birthday, Mom?” My answer? “I hung ten.”
Would they laugh or feel appalled that I’d invaded their private domain? I could almost hear their wheels turning as they groan, “She is going everywhere and doing everything we do! Is nothing sacred anymore?”
I know my youngest son confided to my fianceé, “Oh, don’t bother to take Mom to a Grateful Dead concert. She won’t understand the music.” This from the same son who in his high school years, wasn’t too crazy about my singing along with ‘’his music’ when “Judy Blue Eyes Suite” played on the car radio-even though the clue was clear that I did actually know all of the words and had been alive and breathing during the 60’s.
This birthday, I just wanted to do something I’d never done before. Something, perhaps, I’d been reluctant or afraid I was too old to do. Something daring for a 54 year old woman.
With the time constraints of two days left on Maui, my choices were between learning to surf or scuba dive and enjoying the last day swimming and listening to whale songs in the waters off the beach.
I chose whale song and scuba diving to visit with Giant Sea Turtles and swim with Dolphins.
My sons can teach me to surf!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)