It's that time of year again. Auld Lang Syne. Times Gone By. (For those of you that didn't know what Auld Lang Syne means, I looked it up--yes, I didn't know either.) Ok, so Times Gone By isn't exactly as interesting as Auld Lang Syne, but it is that time of year that we look back at another year gone. I suppose it's been an interesting year. The end of the war in Iraq (let's not go into the trauma of the bombings starting back up as soon as we pulled out--another blog perhaps). I'm pretty sure that Lindsey Lohan was arrested again, and Michael Jackson's doctor was found guilty...(ok, maybe not pretty sure, I might be guessing). There's the extent of my world knowledge. (Ok, maybe not, but this is not about all those weirdos that get paid for entertaining us.) This is quite simply another year gone by and all it means, or not.
If you had told me 10 years ago that I'd be living in Kansas, I'd have told you that you had lost your mind. My ex is from Missouri, and I remember telling him 20 years ago that we didn't need to get married if he ever was thinking about moving back after the Navy. Funny how you can remember certain conversations like they were yesterday. We had gone to his parents' farm for Christmas, and in spite of spending a lot of time on my grandparents' farm growing up, at the time, anything smaller than Jacksonville, Florida was unimaginable. I wanted to stay in a major city, preferably a shoreline city where the beach was never more than a 30 minute drive. (I was such a beach bunny back in the day.) In retrospect, that was probably one of my more ridiculous conversations. I'd like nothing more than to have 3 to 5 acres, with the neighbors far enough away that I could wander around my yard stark naked if I choose to. (With bushes or trees blocking the view, perverts.) The beach would be nice, I'll admit, but frankly, I can go visit the beach and be just as happy. In fact, now it seems to be more of a novelty--possibly because I look better in clothes now than my bikini. Ok, probably not, but feeling the need to maintain a hard body becomes more important closer to a beach. I'm quite content not worrying about it. Kansas isn't Missouri either. It's not as flat as they claim, at least not the eastern half of the state. It's actually quite beautiful, and probably a geologist's dream come true when you can drive by proof of shifting ground anywhere in the state. Of course, ten years ago, I wanted nothing more than to live near my grandparents' farm (without the farm--can you see me feeding chickens?). Kansas was a million miles away and in the wrong direction.
Home, or at least my childhood home, was a couple miles off Lake Erie. I longed to go to Red Wings games and go ride roller coasters at Cedar Point. I missed just sitting on the shoreline staring across the lake at the Canadian coast. That would've been side-tracked if one person had made different decisions (and that really is a different blog), but the train chugged right along. The boys and I moved back to the area my mother's family had sprung from. It sounds like a dream come true. It probably was for a while. I had been on the Red Wings waiting list since the first year back to college. My season tickets came through literally three months after we moved. The boys and I would drive up to Detroit to see the Wings. Three playoff seasons and two regular seasons, 14th row, right off the 1st and 3rd period home goal line. Hello?!? Can you say completely awesome!! Cedar Point was as great as it ever was, and I even got into photography again. My shoreline at the lake had changed, now instead of needing a blanket to sit on, they had placed a walkway and benches there. Apparently, I'm not the only that could find peace there. But everything else had changed.
Home wasn't home anymore. The old Jeep plant had been torn down--all that was left was the immortal stacks. Not sure why they left those, but I hope they leave them. It's all that's left of a World War II monument. Where all the Jeeps for the war were built, and a testament to the strength of American women who did what no other women were ever expected to do--help win a war. Thanks to those women, we all still speak English. My grandparents' farm house had been mutilated from the outside with brick-efface. They didn't even see fit to try to keep the old Senator's home intact. Forget the fact that my grandmother had it recognized as an Historic Site. Apparently, the State of Ohio did. Reminds me of that song by the Pretenders (Chrissy Hind was from Ohio)--"I went back to Ohio, but my pretty countryside had been paved down the middle by a government with no pride. The farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls, and muzak filled the air." All my childhood dreams of a great white farm house with raspberries and blackberries in the ditch, a gi-normous lilac, pear and Lincoln apple trees, evergreens and oaks, all gone. Just a rat hole with brick-efface. The area was already feeling the crunch of the economy failing--hundreds of degreed personnel unemployed because the union chokehold where the only way to continue to meet the contracts was to let go of anyone who wasn't union and didn't have the title "manager". The us and them mentality was definately hitting the brink, and now one might say that the tables were turned. Truth is that those tables turned a long time ago. A junior engineer working 60 hours a week for $50K versus a high school diploma making $45K for 40 hours of repetitive non-skilled work. Yea, something is seriously wrong there. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for someone making enough money to pay their bills and live the American dream. It was the fact that maybe the American dream has become "what have you done for me lately" rather than the American dream as most of us envision it. It was disheartening, to say the least. Other than my beautiful Lake Erie and my Red Wings, well, it wasn't home anymore. Home had left shortly after I did, if not sooner.
Sometimes I still lament over leaving South Carolina. Ten years ago, I really couldn't imagine staying there. A crazy (and by crazy I mean violent) ex-boyfriend. "What are you?" almost everytime I went to Walmart, Target, Winn Dixie or the Piggly Wiggly (for those of you that don't know me personally, I apparently am ambiguous looking). And, of course, the curse that seems to always follow me--crazy people are magnetized to me (and South Carolina seems to have an unfair amount of crazy--all the inbreeding perhaps). I remember a conversation with the boyfriend (the one mentioned earlier, not the nutjob) that I had a couple years before I moved. He didn't want to "defend" me anymore. Like I said, funny how some conversations stick in the mind. It wasn't anything I did he told me. I knew that; everyone around me knew that (ask my sisters). But, he had done it before for his ex-wife and that hadn't worked out for him. He envisioned me leaving him for someone else. The conversation was not the best conversation. What I remember most is the cracking noise in my head as my heart broke all over the place. Still, I made some of my closest friends there in the upstate. I rekindled my love for motorcycles, and I lived in one of the most diversely beautiful areas both in people and scenery. The mountains an hour away, and the ocean a little over a 3 to 4 hour drive (depending on the destination). I loved to go hiking, visiting the fish farms (the boys so loved the trout farm up in the foothills), and riding the curvy mountain roads.
Auld Lang Syne. Times Gone By. Memories one after the other pile up for most of this time of year. Some we might lament, but to what end? The future is just as bright as the past. My Grams used to say that the past is so much clearer in the future. Maybe that's why it's so much brighter than the present. Today is only as clear as our looking glasses allow it to be. The truth is that time will continue to tick away. Ten years from today, I'm sure I will look back at today and lament the changes of some things but still relish in the brightness of the some of them too. Such is life. As I remember these things then, I'm sure once I review everything as I have here, all I'll be able to say is the only thing that seems to say it all. Auld Lang Syne.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
what about your friends?
This is the time of year when many of us are busy with religious holidays. Whether Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, the Winter Solstice, or just celebrating Santa Claus and an impending New Year, we all try to spend time with family and friends. If we consider the things that are the same for almost all these religions and their rituals, they almost all include giving and receiving gifts. We give gifts to our family and friends to celebrate those things that they bring into our lives. Friends, however, really do have a very special place for us. Family--well, they are given, and many of us can honestly say that we sometimes dread the thought of being around family. But, friends--well, they are the family that we choose. The longer and deeper our friendships, the more important they are. So it's this time of the year that I'm very blessed and I am very thankful for the friends in my life. Frankly, I just couldn't send enough Holiday Blessings to my friends, so it saddens me when I hear that some people have no friends.
There was an occassion earlier this year where an older gentleman I know told me that I have no friends. The comment could've been hurtful, but it wasn't since I simply know that it's not true. I have friends that worry about me and vice versa, friends that are like sisters and brothers, friends that I know I could count on in a pinch. And, I simply told him so. So I haven't lived in Kansas very long, but those deep friendships take time, cultivating--strong friendships start the same as any other potential friendship does--but time and cultivating are the only way a true friendship grows. I am blessed with friends that I know would be there for me in an emergency, and vice versa. I even know a couple that would take a bullet for me. It's a trust earned, not given, and I'm proud to have friends that have proven the test of trust and that I have proven that trust to. After explaining this to him, he surprised me.
"I don't have any friends like that," he said.
"What about your wife?" I asked. She was sitting across from him.
"That's different. She's family."
I probably should've stopped there, but I asked anyway. "Don't you have a friend that you've known since you were a kid or when you two first married? Anyone like that?"
"No. I've never had anyone like that."
I didn't know what to say. Seriously. I was speechless. (And if you know me, this really doesn't happen very often.) He has no friends. "What about the people that you hang out with here? Certainly you consider one of them friends."
"No. They're acquaintances."
Hmmm, I thought. I have acquaintances. I don't really enjoy them enough to sit around with them for hours. I suppose if I had no friends that would be my only option, but of course, at this point, I was passed speechless to dumbfounded. Only acquaintances. I've only had acquaintances--like for all of two months after I moved to Kansas. I made friends with a couple of people that I'm proud to say are still great friends after over 3 years. He and his wife stared at me, waiting for a response. All I could muster up was "I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say, except that I'm sorry that you haven't had at least one longtime friend in your life. I can't imagine."
I seriously can't. As I've already stated, I have such great friends--ones that are so near and dear to my heart--that I just couldn't imagine what my life would be without them. I dare say it would be very lonely. Even if I were happily married, I couldn't imagine life without any friends other than my spouse. To not have anyone that is as close as family, that has earned that trust and respect and vice versa, well, I simply don't understand. (Frankly, don't want to.) Still it got me to thinking. Why don't some people have any friends? It's not that complicated. Really. A friend expects the same of you as you should be able to expect of them. Pretty simple. (I know I can really over-simplify some things considering how complex of a person I am, but this is one of those things where the KISS principle really does apply.) I've always found that if I treat people the way I expect to be treated even in those moments that I've screwed up (I am only human afterall) that my friends have forgiven me my momentary lapses and vice versa. Why? Because we have a bond built with trust, and we simply can't and won't give that up.
Of course, I've been burned, as I suspect this gentleman has. But consider that being burned and then cutting out everyone else as potential friends means that there will be no other chances at friendship again. Ok. Perhaps, that works for some people. I find it disheartening and tragic, but it's their lives and their decision. Being lonely simply because someone let you down and proved they weren't a friend is likened to staying in the house forever because one day you walked outside and fell down.
However, it was also pointed out to me by one of my very dearest friends that people that have no friends themselves probably don't know how to be a friend. Let me re-state that considering how poignant it is. People that have no friends themselves probably don't know how to be a friend. Ironic, right? To have friends, we must be able to be friends. We can be our own worse enemies.
I've observed some people that I consider in similar circumstances since this all came about. The one thing that they have in common seems to be they have no friends. The reasoning behind that seems to vary though. In this gentleman's case, it seems that he is either too guarded or too easily put off. He's not really that friendly or pleasant initially. But he also seems to surround himself with people that he knows will disappoint him. The people that most people say they wouldn't trust, or don't, seem to be the people that he spends the most time with. My Grams used to say, 'You get what you pay for.' Well, with friendship, you pay with trust--given and received. If the people we surround ourselves with are incapable to make the trust payments, we certainly are not going to do so in kind. (At this point, we could debate the perverbial chicken-egg thing, but we won't.)
The common denominator--regardless of the numerous numerators--is simple. Trustworthy earn and keep friends. Those that aren't trustworthy don't. Those that make friends under pretenses aren't trustworthy; doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that. Isolationists don't have friends either. But again, chicken-egg. Are they isolationists because they were burned? Perhaps, but do they end up bringing it all on themselves by intentionally surrounding themselves with people that they know will disappoint them so that they won't be so attached, hurt or even devastated that someone let them down again? I don't know. I've been burned--it didn't turn me one way or the other. I still have friends, and I still make new friends. Yes, sometimes, I still get a little scalded. It happens, but the one or two here or there is not worth never having the great and wonderful friends that I have in my life.
Whether it's Christmas, Kwanzaa, some Pagen holiday, or just ringing in the New Year (whatever my friends celebrate this time of year), I want to say Thank You for being my friend. Thanks for blessing my life with the wonderful person that you are; my life is a little, if not a lot, brighter because of you. I'm reminded how wonderful each and everyone of you are and just peacock proud to say that you are my friend.
There was an occassion earlier this year where an older gentleman I know told me that I have no friends. The comment could've been hurtful, but it wasn't since I simply know that it's not true. I have friends that worry about me and vice versa, friends that are like sisters and brothers, friends that I know I could count on in a pinch. And, I simply told him so. So I haven't lived in Kansas very long, but those deep friendships take time, cultivating--strong friendships start the same as any other potential friendship does--but time and cultivating are the only way a true friendship grows. I am blessed with friends that I know would be there for me in an emergency, and vice versa. I even know a couple that would take a bullet for me. It's a trust earned, not given, and I'm proud to have friends that have proven the test of trust and that I have proven that trust to. After explaining this to him, he surprised me.
"I don't have any friends like that," he said.
"What about your wife?" I asked. She was sitting across from him.
"That's different. She's family."
I probably should've stopped there, but I asked anyway. "Don't you have a friend that you've known since you were a kid or when you two first married? Anyone like that?"
"No. I've never had anyone like that."
I didn't know what to say. Seriously. I was speechless. (And if you know me, this really doesn't happen very often.) He has no friends. "What about the people that you hang out with here? Certainly you consider one of them friends."
"No. They're acquaintances."
Hmmm, I thought. I have acquaintances. I don't really enjoy them enough to sit around with them for hours. I suppose if I had no friends that would be my only option, but of course, at this point, I was passed speechless to dumbfounded. Only acquaintances. I've only had acquaintances--like for all of two months after I moved to Kansas. I made friends with a couple of people that I'm proud to say are still great friends after over 3 years. He and his wife stared at me, waiting for a response. All I could muster up was "I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say, except that I'm sorry that you haven't had at least one longtime friend in your life. I can't imagine."
I seriously can't. As I've already stated, I have such great friends--ones that are so near and dear to my heart--that I just couldn't imagine what my life would be without them. I dare say it would be very lonely. Even if I were happily married, I couldn't imagine life without any friends other than my spouse. To not have anyone that is as close as family, that has earned that trust and respect and vice versa, well, I simply don't understand. (Frankly, don't want to.) Still it got me to thinking. Why don't some people have any friends? It's not that complicated. Really. A friend expects the same of you as you should be able to expect of them. Pretty simple. (I know I can really over-simplify some things considering how complex of a person I am, but this is one of those things where the KISS principle really does apply.) I've always found that if I treat people the way I expect to be treated even in those moments that I've screwed up (I am only human afterall) that my friends have forgiven me my momentary lapses and vice versa. Why? Because we have a bond built with trust, and we simply can't and won't give that up.
Of course, I've been burned, as I suspect this gentleman has. But consider that being burned and then cutting out everyone else as potential friends means that there will be no other chances at friendship again. Ok. Perhaps, that works for some people. I find it disheartening and tragic, but it's their lives and their decision. Being lonely simply because someone let you down and proved they weren't a friend is likened to staying in the house forever because one day you walked outside and fell down.
However, it was also pointed out to me by one of my very dearest friends that people that have no friends themselves probably don't know how to be a friend. Let me re-state that considering how poignant it is. People that have no friends themselves probably don't know how to be a friend. Ironic, right? To have friends, we must be able to be friends. We can be our own worse enemies.
I've observed some people that I consider in similar circumstances since this all came about. The one thing that they have in common seems to be they have no friends. The reasoning behind that seems to vary though. In this gentleman's case, it seems that he is either too guarded or too easily put off. He's not really that friendly or pleasant initially. But he also seems to surround himself with people that he knows will disappoint him. The people that most people say they wouldn't trust, or don't, seem to be the people that he spends the most time with. My Grams used to say, 'You get what you pay for.' Well, with friendship, you pay with trust--given and received. If the people we surround ourselves with are incapable to make the trust payments, we certainly are not going to do so in kind. (At this point, we could debate the perverbial chicken-egg thing, but we won't.)
The common denominator--regardless of the numerous numerators--is simple. Trustworthy earn and keep friends. Those that aren't trustworthy don't. Those that make friends under pretenses aren't trustworthy; doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that. Isolationists don't have friends either. But again, chicken-egg. Are they isolationists because they were burned? Perhaps, but do they end up bringing it all on themselves by intentionally surrounding themselves with people that they know will disappoint them so that they won't be so attached, hurt or even devastated that someone let them down again? I don't know. I've been burned--it didn't turn me one way or the other. I still have friends, and I still make new friends. Yes, sometimes, I still get a little scalded. It happens, but the one or two here or there is not worth never having the great and wonderful friends that I have in my life.
Whether it's Christmas, Kwanzaa, some Pagen holiday, or just ringing in the New Year (whatever my friends celebrate this time of year), I want to say Thank You for being my friend. Thanks for blessing my life with the wonderful person that you are; my life is a little, if not a lot, brighter because of you. I'm reminded how wonderful each and everyone of you are and just peacock proud to say that you are my friend.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
defending a law or defending women...
This morning I watched an excerpt on CBS Morning News about Kansas' new abortion laws. I was unaware. Three new laws were signed by the new conservative anti-choice governor that I backed in the last election. While I knew he was anti-choice, I wanted to be sure that we had a governor that would back our veterans and military in a state coat up with Army and Air Force bases and a strong representation of Navy and Marine Corps veterans. I didn't imagine that little after a year of placing that vote I would be blindsided by what my morning Kansas news didn't bother to tell me about.
We are all familiar with Roe versus Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973. Most of us have an opinion, although most of us rarely feel the need to bother with it. Truth is in most polls and studies show that most--53%--believe abortions should be acceptable in some circumstances. Now where we draw that line seems to be a line in the sand. Only 22% say it should be illegal in all circumstances and 23% say it should be legal in all circumstances. Of course, the last Gallup poll in 2009 might not be the most accurate measurement for 2 reasons: one is it forced one to define themselves as one or the other. How many of us will define ourselves as not for life? Really? Next, it really wasn't completely without skewing type questions...toward pro-life/anti-choice. Regardless of the skewing, 76% believe abortion should be legal although this allows for no line in the sand to be determined. That should be it, sort of, right? We live in a nation of majority rules, and 76% seems pretty cut and dry. Or is it?
Of the 76%, we don't agree where to define the line. We choose to believe since we are the majority there is little to discuss. Most agree that stem cell research of aborted fetus--another words intentionally aborting a pregnancy to do testing and/or to save another human being's life is morbid and/or immoral. But, we stop there. We don't want to discuss it; we would like conversations like that to take place in the privacy of ours, or others, homes. Not on public display. These are still to the mass majority of us--private matters. However, that 22% is never going to let it go. Ever.
The 22% have successfully gotten the Supreme Court to agree that states have the right to legislate what is or isn't the legal definition of abortion. Kansas is the next state to take advantage of this. A couple of years ago an abortion doctor was murdered in cold blood in Kansas--to supposedly save babies. Murdering a human being to the 22% may be a shame, but a price to pay. (I'm so confused by this logic this is where I'll leave that statement.)
Now, Kansas has enacted a law to prevent federal money from going to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood doesn't encourage abortion; it does openly discuss all options with young women and men including abortion. Education is not a bad thing. Telling teenagers to abstain from sex has been extremely effective (feel the sarcasm) for South Carolina--still number one in high school drop-out rates, still number one in single unwed mothers under the age of 21, still number one for those same girls to have multiple children before 21, still number one in domestic violence...Yes, Dorothy and Virginia, go have a baby and the state will help you pay for it. Nice. Planned Parenthood is about information and learning before the mistake happens, but if the mistake happens, trying to rectify and learn from it rather than pay a huge penalty for the mistake. So cut off funding, great idea.
One of the other 2 new laws requires a minor to have notorized signatures from both parents. Really? This is a blatant attempt to keep teenagers from getting abortions. It's hard enough for them to ask one parent (and ironically, I agree that they should ask one parent), but I've been a teenage girl. I wouldn't have wanted to tell my daddy. Not just no, Hell No. So what will these teenage girls options be? Pills over the internet from Uganda? At least Daddy won't know, and heck, she won't have to ask Mommy either. Best of all, if those pills aren't legitimate and since they are supposed to be used only under a doctor's care, well, complications that arise--no big deal, right?
Ok, so now, my reader is probably thinking of where they stand. Good, because now I really want to give you something to think about. Abortions have been around since the 1700s. Yes, really. They were illegalized, so to speak, in the late 1800s. (Sometimes it's debated if they were ever really legal. We'll not go there.) In the 1920s, the raging 1920s, none of us remember: flapper dresses that were shorter than micro-mini skirts, no real drinking age limit, no real limit on how old you had to be to marry or have sex, and teenagers were still teenagers with more access to vices (perceived or real, all for another blog). Estimates are that an average of 15,000 women died every year in the 1920s from illegal abortion complications. Men with coat hangers in back alleys tearing the insides of women, young and some even older, desperate not to be found out as a harlet. Consider the population then was 1/3rd of what it is now. Can we imagine only 30K illegal abortions a year? No, we all know that it will be way more than that. Let's not be naive. Can we imagine some 22 year old jerk off looking for a quick buck sticking a coat hanger up some 17 year old girl for $1000 for an illegal abortion? Yes, of course we can. Let's not stick our heads in the sand. Just because the silent generation is long gone, for the most part, doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge what they knew and what they didn't like to discuss--just like we don't like to discuss it--pregnancy does happen. Unwanted pregnancy does happen. And desperate people will go to desperate measures.
Think about it. Why did Roe versus Wade pass in 1973? The silent generation had complete control of our government at the time. They were still voting, and the women of that generation knew unlike any other. My grandmother once told me that Roe versus Wade should never be overturned. She told me how women of wealth (women of wealth, yes, that was exactly how she said it) could get abortions, quietly, discreetly, in the safety of a hospital. While she never acknowledged that she might have been one of those women of wealth, she had been just like every other teen to 20-somethinger in the 1920s, hanging in clubs, wearing little flapper dresses, whether they were at the University or hobokans just hoping to find a husband. My grandmother said plenty of good women died because of the rights that men would take away from women. The right to privacy. The right to choose. Because men would or had taken away those rights.
Now we have holier than thou bible thumpers that want to take it away too, and more often than not, now they are women. This is a choice. Depending on our own personal religions, our own personal beliefs, and our own relationship with God or Gods or whatever we believe in. There are 76% of us that do believe that much. Are we willing to stand idly by as these people, who have their religious beliefs, their own personal ideals and idiology, drive what the rest of us assume is a private matter?
Consider that the state of Kansas is cutting back on funding to schools, funding for busing, funding for police, firemen, and other services. But they can afford to spend $785,040 to 5 December 2011 since May. Yes, they can afford to spend 3/4 of a million dollars in an economy in the sh*thole on lawyers rather than helping those in need. I'm mortified. Priorities a little f*cked up Governor Brownback? Ms. Mary Kay Culp? I don't give a sh*t about your idiotology. I don't agree with you, and I'm not happy that you're using my money to fund something that is intentionally trying to force a concept to as far as you can (since you can't overturn Roe v Wade) that 76% of don't agree with. You don't agree with abortions; good, don't have one!!! Give me back my taxes *ssholes, and I'll give it to someone interested in helping others like the Salvation Army, the Kansas Food Bank, or hell, even Planned Parenthood. I'm pretty sure that they can figure a better way to spend my money than you idiots.
We are all familiar with Roe versus Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973. Most of us have an opinion, although most of us rarely feel the need to bother with it. Truth is in most polls and studies show that most--53%--believe abortions should be acceptable in some circumstances. Now where we draw that line seems to be a line in the sand. Only 22% say it should be illegal in all circumstances and 23% say it should be legal in all circumstances. Of course, the last Gallup poll in 2009 might not be the most accurate measurement for 2 reasons: one is it forced one to define themselves as one or the other. How many of us will define ourselves as not for life? Really? Next, it really wasn't completely without skewing type questions...toward pro-life/anti-choice. Regardless of the skewing, 76% believe abortion should be legal although this allows for no line in the sand to be determined. That should be it, sort of, right? We live in a nation of majority rules, and 76% seems pretty cut and dry. Or is it?
Of the 76%, we don't agree where to define the line. We choose to believe since we are the majority there is little to discuss. Most agree that stem cell research of aborted fetus--another words intentionally aborting a pregnancy to do testing and/or to save another human being's life is morbid and/or immoral. But, we stop there. We don't want to discuss it; we would like conversations like that to take place in the privacy of ours, or others, homes. Not on public display. These are still to the mass majority of us--private matters. However, that 22% is never going to let it go. Ever.
The 22% have successfully gotten the Supreme Court to agree that states have the right to legislate what is or isn't the legal definition of abortion. Kansas is the next state to take advantage of this. A couple of years ago an abortion doctor was murdered in cold blood in Kansas--to supposedly save babies. Murdering a human being to the 22% may be a shame, but a price to pay. (I'm so confused by this logic this is where I'll leave that statement.)
Now, Kansas has enacted a law to prevent federal money from going to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood doesn't encourage abortion; it does openly discuss all options with young women and men including abortion. Education is not a bad thing. Telling teenagers to abstain from sex has been extremely effective (feel the sarcasm) for South Carolina--still number one in high school drop-out rates, still number one in single unwed mothers under the age of 21, still number one for those same girls to have multiple children before 21, still number one in domestic violence...Yes, Dorothy and Virginia, go have a baby and the state will help you pay for it. Nice. Planned Parenthood is about information and learning before the mistake happens, but if the mistake happens, trying to rectify and learn from it rather than pay a huge penalty for the mistake. So cut off funding, great idea.
One of the other 2 new laws requires a minor to have notorized signatures from both parents. Really? This is a blatant attempt to keep teenagers from getting abortions. It's hard enough for them to ask one parent (and ironically, I agree that they should ask one parent), but I've been a teenage girl. I wouldn't have wanted to tell my daddy. Not just no, Hell No. So what will these teenage girls options be? Pills over the internet from Uganda? At least Daddy won't know, and heck, she won't have to ask Mommy either. Best of all, if those pills aren't legitimate and since they are supposed to be used only under a doctor's care, well, complications that arise--no big deal, right?
Ok, so now, my reader is probably thinking of where they stand. Good, because now I really want to give you something to think about. Abortions have been around since the 1700s. Yes, really. They were illegalized, so to speak, in the late 1800s. (Sometimes it's debated if they were ever really legal. We'll not go there.) In the 1920s, the raging 1920s, none of us remember: flapper dresses that were shorter than micro-mini skirts, no real drinking age limit, no real limit on how old you had to be to marry or have sex, and teenagers were still teenagers with more access to vices (perceived or real, all for another blog). Estimates are that an average of 15,000 women died every year in the 1920s from illegal abortion complications. Men with coat hangers in back alleys tearing the insides of women, young and some even older, desperate not to be found out as a harlet. Consider the population then was 1/3rd of what it is now. Can we imagine only 30K illegal abortions a year? No, we all know that it will be way more than that. Let's not be naive. Can we imagine some 22 year old jerk off looking for a quick buck sticking a coat hanger up some 17 year old girl for $1000 for an illegal abortion? Yes, of course we can. Let's not stick our heads in the sand. Just because the silent generation is long gone, for the most part, doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge what they knew and what they didn't like to discuss--just like we don't like to discuss it--pregnancy does happen. Unwanted pregnancy does happen. And desperate people will go to desperate measures.
Think about it. Why did Roe versus Wade pass in 1973? The silent generation had complete control of our government at the time. They were still voting, and the women of that generation knew unlike any other. My grandmother once told me that Roe versus Wade should never be overturned. She told me how women of wealth (women of wealth, yes, that was exactly how she said it) could get abortions, quietly, discreetly, in the safety of a hospital. While she never acknowledged that she might have been one of those women of wealth, she had been just like every other teen to 20-somethinger in the 1920s, hanging in clubs, wearing little flapper dresses, whether they were at the University or hobokans just hoping to find a husband. My grandmother said plenty of good women died because of the rights that men would take away from women. The right to privacy. The right to choose. Because men would or had taken away those rights.
Now we have holier than thou bible thumpers that want to take it away too, and more often than not, now they are women. This is a choice. Depending on our own personal religions, our own personal beliefs, and our own relationship with God or Gods or whatever we believe in. There are 76% of us that do believe that much. Are we willing to stand idly by as these people, who have their religious beliefs, their own personal ideals and idiology, drive what the rest of us assume is a private matter?
Consider that the state of Kansas is cutting back on funding to schools, funding for busing, funding for police, firemen, and other services. But they can afford to spend $785,040 to 5 December 2011 since May. Yes, they can afford to spend 3/4 of a million dollars in an economy in the sh*thole on lawyers rather than helping those in need. I'm mortified. Priorities a little f*cked up Governor Brownback? Ms. Mary Kay Culp? I don't give a sh*t about your idiotology. I don't agree with you, and I'm not happy that you're using my money to fund something that is intentionally trying to force a concept to as far as you can (since you can't overturn Roe v Wade) that 76% of don't agree with. You don't agree with abortions; good, don't have one!!! Give me back my taxes *ssholes, and I'll give it to someone interested in helping others like the Salvation Army, the Kansas Food Bank, or hell, even Planned Parenthood. I'm pretty sure that they can figure a better way to spend my money than you idiots.
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