Oh my God! We're leaving for Michigan City at 3:00 and I have to finish the laundry and pack! And clean the cooler!
And go grocery shopping! So what am I doing? Watching Make sure your kids aren't beside you when you link over!
Unless you want them to get educated early, which is okay! And do not watch this with the volume way up while at the office.
you rest in peace.
I love you posthumously.
(For a better article on Ivins, go )
My friend Scott's friend has been a journalist and news photographer in the hot spots of the world for close to twenty years. Today he has an article in the Christian Science Monitor titled, The photo is of a man pulling a pile of children's toys from the rubble of a building.
I'm sitting in the family room of my parent's home. My whole family is taking a ferry to a rented house on Whidbey Island today, and we're having coffee before picking up the rented minivan. I mentioned the article by my friend's friend and before I could describe it, members of my family began a hawkish war strategy discussion, with explanations of how Hizballah use children as human shields, and justifications for bombing and quelling the evil, and one family member pointed to a photo in Time Magazine of al-Mahdi scouts saluting with their hands held up in stiff hiel Hitler style.
This is what they're teaching their children to do.
Meanwhile, Charlie sits in his mother's lap and drops quiet comments Da. Da.
And Iona and Isabella are playing in the car in the closed garage, honking the horn at 7:25 in the morning and cackling. We're going at school! they shout with glee.
The US is evacuating American citizens from Lebanon; today using a cruise ship. The NPR news announcer said, "A steady trickle of Americans were registered in air-conditioned tents. Oddly, the cruise company put up signs advertising the sights of Beirut.
"
Temperatures in the United Kingdom are topping 100 degrees today (Ewan is currently in Cambridge drinking champagne on lawns and dining in great halls and says, indeed, it's quite hot.) No one there has air conditioning. At the zoos they are hosing off the elephants so their skin doesn't crack and the lions have been given giant, blood-flavored ice cubes to lick.
My father-in-law, Iain, sent an article from The Independent today about the higher heat trend being more evidence of the growing dangers of global warming. For more, point your mouse here:
* Temperatures on buses in the hottest parts of Britain hit 52C yesterday while the London Underground reached 47C. EU guidelines state that cattle should not be transported at temperatures exceeding 27C.
* Speed restrictions were implemented on trains because of "hot rails" and sagging overhead wires.
* Council gritters were on stand-by to prevent roads melting.
* More than 170 people were forced to swelter on a grounded plane at Heathrow for five hours after its air conditioning broke down.
* Charities for the elderly expressed concern about the effects of the heatwave, advising those at risk to take precautions such as staying indoors or in the shade.
* The Government has issued smog warnings across Britain for the coming days.
* The House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin granted an "unprecedented" request to give 500 bottles of water to demonstrators outside Parliament suffering in the heat.
* With southern England facing the worst drought in 100 years, initial signs are that customers are being more careful with water - a total of 300 million fewer litres a day were used during June.
* Fish are threatened by reduced water levels as oxygen levels drop. Toxic algae bloom can form and fish struggle to breathe.
I was backing the car out of the garage to go get Iona at school and take her to camp and in our alley was the tiniest, wizened woman. She was going through the garbage can next to ours. I was shocked.
It's not like I haven't seen people going through our trash before; sadly, I have. But they've always been men, aged fifty or younger, not someone so elderly.
I was cutting it close on time to make it to school like I always do, and was probably going to be four to six minutes late to pick Iona up but there was no way I was going to let this woman's lunch be garbage.
In fact, I was just thinking how deluxe I make Iona's lunches, in hopes that she'll eat something. Today she had a cream cheese sandwich on wheat, cut up pineapple, cut up apple, yogurt, soy chips and milk. She didn't need half of what was in there.
I grabbed a yogurt out of her lunch bag and what was left of a box of cereal bars I always have in the car, jumped out of the car and took them over to the woman. She accepted them with dignified thanks. I felt like shouting, "Where do you live?
Where are the people who are supposed to be taking care of you? How does someone end up like this?" Instead I drove away and waited for the tears that didn't come.
How do we get so inured to these daily tragedies? I've created a thick, solid cocoon around my emotions in order to survive, but I don't like it.
I've got to do something about this bullshit.
People shouldn't be eating out of garbage cans, ever. Especially someone's grandmother, or great-grandmother. Maybe I could keep those frozen kids' sandwiches on hand, or just put food out in the alley every day.
Maybe I can find out where the nearest food bank or soup kitchen is and post it in the alley. I'm definitely going to watch for that woman. If I see her again I'm going to ask how I can help.
I don't seem to be having too many fresh, coherent thoughts. Perhaps that's because just the same old obsessions about people who have left me without explanations or goodbyes, the same old musings about whether or not I have the same old inability to have a telephone conversation if Iona is around, the same feelings of awe toward and the same proud and completely amused embarrassment when she says things like My mom has bouncy breasts! loudly to the naked woman next to us in the gym locker room, the same old detached sinking feeling looking at the face of a the same old thwarted desire to be earth mother, the same old thwarted desire to be a siren, the same old frustrated, guilty wonder at how hard Ewan works while I while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain, the same old inability to write fiction to save my life, the same old inability to really let people in, the same old desire to have a glass of wine on a Thursday night instead of giving something fresh to the twelve lovely readers of this blog.
Nothing ever happens on my block. When I grow up I think I'll move. (That is, after the party on Saturday.
)
What's new with you?
I'm a reasonable person. Maybe not rational all the time, but I know what rational is.
And here's what I have come to think: There are people (some of them in this and again I encourage you to read it), most of them men, some of them women, many of them claiming to be Christians and Catholics, some of them in very high positions of power in the United States, who want women to stop having sex separated from procreation. Their thinking is that, if women are going to be having sex, they should be having babies. Not pleasure.
Not child-free relationships and careers and lives. No, women serve three functions: 1.Keep the population in balance; 2.
Stay at home as mothers (and housekeepers and supporters of the Husband); and 3. Keep men sexually satisfied in monogamous relationships. These believers oppose organizations like Planned Parenthood because they are places that provide choice through comprehensive, accessible health care, including reproductive health care and abortion services.
I have to conclude that these people who oppose Planned Parenthood also oppose women's freedoms and basic rights. They want to control women.
At the Planned Parenthood event, Sex, Politics and Cocktails, I talked for a while with a man who is former clergy for the United Church of Christ and also the former head of the board of directors of Chicago area's Planned Parenthood.
When I asked him about being clergy and being involved with Planned Parenthood he said, It is right and spiritually healthy for people to have good sex lives. (I'm paraphrasing here, but that's the gist.) This was a rational man.
He spoke the truth, this Christian man, because he is rational and loves women and trusts women. It's a good question to ask:
I am afraid for our society, specifically our daughters, when it comes to issues of autonomy and sex and equal opportunities for both sexes. I try to be balanced in what I read and I look at both sides, and these days, when it comes to issues of reproductive rights I feel like a conspiracy theorist.
I wish I were a conspiracy theorist, but no.
Mother's Day. Today the facts are scary for mothers and daughters.
But at least they'll have Planned Parenthood. If Steve and Cecile have their way, soon emergency contraception will be available through Planned Parenthood vending machines and women and men will be able to address sexual function (as opposed to sexual dysfunction) with a counselor at Planned Parenthood. And if a woman wants to practice abstinence because that's her choice, she'll be able to get her vibrator at her local Planned Parenthood clinic.
Last night I attended a benefit for called Sex, Politics and Cocktails at the lovely L.L.'s pied à terre.
It was a fun event and I was in the presence of such interesting, high-powered people I found myself wishing I could tell people I was something professional in addition to full-time mother and blogger, but that's another post that I will tackle later. This post is about the conversation that took place between the guests of honor and the partygoers who paid to eat, drink and support
But before I get to that, my evening started like this: I had a new babysitter and couldn't quite leave her with Iona at first. I am directionally challenged, and the gods were gnashing their teeth and weeping copious amounts of rain from the heavens presumably over the state of our country in general and women's reproductive rights specifically.
I couldn't figure out where to park. So, because of all this I was late to the event. Plus, oh yeah, I'm always late to everything.
I walked into the palatial and beautifully decorated Lakeshore Drive apartment with panoramic views of stormy Lake Michigan just before Cecile and Steve introduced themselves. The apartment is a fabulous place, and I could write a novella describing the whimsical artwork and the extraordinary pink velvet armchairs and the baby blue carpet with delicate white lines radiating out like a graphic sunburst and the designer pendant light in the dining room and the giant caterer's kitchen and..
.did I already mention the view?
Right.
Back to the guests of honor. I grabbed a glass of white wine from the bartender after looking longingly at a cosmopolitan complete with raspberry and fresh mint garnish (I love mint in my drinks) and was ushered into a dreamy pink chair directly in front of the tall, elegant spiky-platinum-haired black-suited and the deceptively boyish but razor-sharp Steve Trombley.
Sitting in my chair listening to Steve introduce Cecile I was transported back to about five months ago when I was first here in L.
L.'s fab apartment. I had the good fortune to attend a lunch with Steve and it was during our lunch discussion, as Steve shared his insider stories and factual knowledge about reproductive rights issues, that my own fears about women's dwindling reproductive rights were confirmed.
Steve is the CEO of He's an on-fire advocate for women's health issues and has established himself as a political player protecting choice, both locally and nationally. (He travels, lobbies in Washington, writes countless letters to editors and has been known to show up on the Today Show who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control).
After Steve introduced her, Cecile told us about herself.
She became Planned Parenthood's national president two and a half months ago and is the daughter of the feisty Democratic former Governor of Texas, (Two asides about Cecile's mom: 1. Ann Richards, you may recall, was defeated in the 1995 gubernatorial race by George W Bush. 2.
Ann campaigned for who, among her other accomplishments, represented Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade. Weddington was the first woman elected to represent Austin, Texas in the Texas House of Representatives.
)
Besides being Ann's daughter, Cecile Richards is a longtime labor organizer. In fact, one of the campaigns she led was the inspiration for the movie Bread and Roses. She was also deputy chief of staff for Nancy Pelosi and she founded America Votes to turn out voters in 2004.
After the introductions, the first question from the pink chairs was: Great, forget the Democrats, they're on our side already. How do we enlist the Republicans for choice?
Cecile said Planned Parenthood is doing that, and cited as an example the very strong pro-choice voting record of Lincoln Chafee.
She even muttered that he his support is stronger than that of many Democrats. And guess what? He's even been .
Steve and Cecile pointed out that some of the strongest leadership for overturning the South Dakota abortion ban is coming out of the Republican party.
We discussed the midwest, and the fact that Illinois is surrounded by states threatening women's reproductive rights, Like the hole in the middle of a donut, is how Steve describes it. As we discussed this, Steve glared intensely at the people assembled in the living room at this point and said something like, I don't care what else you think about this governor.
WE HAVE TO RE-ELECT HIM because whatever else he is, Governor Blagojevich is one hundred percent pro-choice and one of our strongest supporters.
There was a lot of discussion about Planned Parenthood taking back the language and changing the brand from all abortions, all the time to comprehensive health services for women. After all, one in four women in the United States today have used Planned Parenthood at some point in their lives.
Ninety percent of all services Planned Parenthood provides go toward reducing unintended pregnancies and offering mammograms and providing mid-life health care. Cecile mentioned that she would like to take back the word life.
Then there was The Article.
The Article was written by Russell Shorto and ran in the May 7, 2006 New York Times Magazine and it's titled The Article is worth being capitalized and very much worth reading, because it explains with lots of facts that it's not just the right to choice that's being threatened, but the right TO HAVE SEX JUST TO HAVE SEX. Sex is under fire. Contraception is under fire.
Check it out.
At this moment, here’s the thing: If I don’t post this I will go to sleep another night without posting, and thus I will be in a bad mood, and since I am throwing a baby shower in the morning and then hosting a dinner party tomorrow night I cannot be in a bad mood tomorrow. So here you go, and there will be more tomorrow, or Sunday.
To my twelve readers, thank you for reading. Keep the faith and go volunteer, give money or send good vibes to the cause of your choice. Because I love Planned Parenthood and I want to share the love.
I am writing a check to today because of South Dakota's State Senate ruling to ban abortion. The bill makes it a felony for a doctor to perform abortions, allows no exceptions for rape or incest and barely makes an exception to save the life of the mother. Republican Governor Mike Rounds still has to sign the bill into law.
The bill's main sponsor is a Democratic Senator, Julie Bartling.
has a fairly succinct summary of the facts.
Bitch Ph.
D. the likely outcomes.
My friend Scott, a lawyer, says the ruling will be overturned on its face.
But I don't know. To me it feels like a further indication of change, a dramatic dynamited chunk compared to the recent incremental chipping away at women's reproductive rights.
If you haven't read Margaret Atwood's book you might want to.
Just to see if the world she paints is one you want to live in. Because with this administration's environmental policies and the way our courts are ruling on reproductive rights, it looks like Atwood's world could become a reality.
This morning, over coffee and electronic newspapers:
“What, do we update those every so often?
Is this Seven Wonders - People’s Choice?”
“Go to . It’s a global vote.
I’m sorry, the Statue of Liberty just doesn’t make it. It’s not big enough. I think Machu Picchu has to be one, because it’s so crazy.
”
“What is Machu Picchu again?” (I can say these things to Ewan, because he’s stuck with me.)
“Oh yeah, then that has to be in.
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