Which is why, in some ways, it’s sort of fortunate this has become a quasi-political forum. Now look, I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of globalization, the implications of Putin’s reelection or how Rush Limbaugh’s gut defies the laws of physics by not swallowing all light, space and time.
For the longest time, I thought a “minority whip” was something I wasn’t allowed to look at on the internet. But I read, I watch the news — on different channels, though if I keep the TV on Fox for more than 60 seconds, my brain starts to gnaw its way through my skull — and I do my best to make sense of what’s going on.
And oftentimes, it baffles me. This week, eight female Democratic senators walked out of the proceedings after a GOP-led Senate passed two bills: one providing for “religious exemptions” to employers with regards to providing birth control as part of health plans, and another that outright prevents health plans from paying for abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
The author of one bill, Republican State Senator Josh McKoon, is doing his damndest to frame this, predictably, as a matter of states’ rights and religious freedom, stating in turn that “As long as Georgia is regulating health insurance, we want to provide flexibility for religious employers, particularly when we’re asking the federal government to do the same,” and that he “would say that the war that’s being waged is on religious minority in this country that has strong beliefs that are protected by the First Amendment.”
Other states are also attempting to hijack women’s uteruses: Virginia recently signed into law a measure mandating “jelly on the belly” ultrasounds for women seeking abortions — despite the fact that such a procedure is unnecessary (at abortive states, the embryo is barely an inch long, and so the pathos card is out), and damned expensive. Texas Governor Rick “F***knob” Perry is essentially defunding Planned Parenthood in the state — despite the fact that abortions make up, at most, about three percent of procedures performed at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Truth be told, I’m beyond confused. I’m pissed off, and not just because the national health care plan the Obama administration is stridently trying to push through made my sister’s medication for a potentially life-threatening blood disorder more affordable, or that the free/cheap birth control the plan would benefit many important women in my life, including friends, relatives, teachers and others by ensuring more manageable periods, lowering the risk for certain cancers and, yes, preventing unwanted pregnancies.
No, I’m also pissed off because the assertions of staunch social conservatives on this issue flies in the face not only of common sense — easier access to birth control would lessen the need for abortions in the first place, and women are going to get abortions, one way or another — but of our nation’s very laws. Religious organizations and/or employers want to deny women birth control based on their religion? Okay, that’s fine. Just sign away your tax-exempt status, and we’ll be square.
How did we get this ass-backwards? How did our national dialogue revert back to issues that were supposed to have been settled half a century ago? Women’s basic reproductive and biological rights are under attack; African American voters are being disenfranchised by new voter ID laws in 30 states; Ted Nugent can threaten to put a gun in the mouths of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and no one on Fox News says a word.
Meanwhile, Obama can speak up for racial equality in 1991 and be vilified for it. And states’ rights? Please. There are better, more constructive ways to exercise our state’s autonomy than attempting to tell women that we know their bodies better than they do.
So, in other ways, this column’s political evolution is a horrible, horrible thing. Because this stuff keeps happening. And I keep having to write about it, or else I’ll harbor so much rage that my veins will turn into snakes. That’s why I’m making a personal plea to you, reader: sign petitions, vote on referendums, protest, write letters, engage in thoughtful conversation with both your friends and enemies.
Do this, because it has to start with you, at this level. This country and its citizens are better than our current state, and it’s time we started acting like it. God, I am so tired.
*Some facts found at nytimes.com, Slog, Raw Story and Politico.
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Make it Better
I’ve never quite known how to describe this column to those who ask. When I was just making wise-ass remarks about knitting/cheese/Norwegian grindcore podcasts, I would tell inquiring minds exactly that. Never mind that they had no idea what I meant (at best) or that they thought I might be having a stroke right before their eyes (at even more best). I knew what I meant, and I retained some sense of contentment from that, even if the accomplishment is right on par with an eight-year-old finally being able to explain to his grandparents why the Birds are so Angry.
Since the format change, however, it’s been a little harder to define. You can’t just tell someone — least of all a job recruiter — that you get paid actual money to pretty much let your brain titter about like a horde of caffeinated spiders, then send it off to an editor who probably gives me far too much leeway. This thing has morphed into an ephemeral beast, a cross between a platypus and the Higgs Boson: you know it exists, you can present hard (or at least compellingly theoretical) evidence, but everyone’s still going to call bull***t.
Which is why, in some ways, it’s sort of fortunate this has become a quasi-political forum. Now look, I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of globalization, the implications of Putin’s reelection or how Rush Limbaugh’s gut defies the laws of physics by not swallowing all light, space and time.
For the longest time, I thought a “minority whip” was something I wasn’t allowed to look at on the internet. But I read, I watch the news — on different channels, though if I keep the TV on Fox for more than 60 seconds, my brain starts to gnaw its way through my skull — and I do my best to make sense of what’s going on.
And oftentimes, it baffles me. This week, eight female Democratic senators walked out of the proceedings after a GOP-led Senate passed two bills: one providing for “religious exemptions” to employers with regards to providing birth control as part of health plans, and another that outright prevents health plans from paying for abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
The author of one bill, Republican State Senator Josh McKoon, is doing his damndest to frame this, predictably, as a matter of states’ rights and religious freedom, stating in turn that “As long as Georgia is regulating health insurance, we want to provide flexibility for religious employers, particularly when we’re asking the federal government to do the same,” and that he “would say that the war that’s being waged is on religious minority in this country that has strong beliefs that are protected by the First Amendment.”
Other states are also attempting to hijack women’s uteruses: Virginia recently signed into law a measure mandating “jelly on the belly” ultrasounds for women seeking abortions — despite the fact that such a procedure is unnecessary (at abortive states, the embryo is barely an inch long, and so the pathos card is out), and damned expensive. Texas Governor Rick “F***knob” Perry is essentially defunding Planned Parenthood in the state — despite the fact that abortions make up, at most, about three percent of procedures performed at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Truth be told, I’m beyond confused. I’m pissed off, and not just because the national health care plan the Obama administration is stridently trying to push through made my sister’s medication for a potentially life-threatening blood disorder more affordable, or that the free/cheap birth control the plan would benefit many important women in my life, including friends, relatives, teachers and others by ensuring more manageable periods, lowering the risk for certain cancers and, yes, preventing unwanted pregnancies.
No, I’m also pissed off because the assertions of staunch social conservatives on this issue flies in the face not only of common sense — easier access to birth control would lessen the need for abortions in the first place, and women are going to get abortions, one way or another — but of our nation’s very laws. Religious organizations and/or employers want to deny women birth control based on their religion? Okay, that’s fine. Just sign away your tax-exempt status, and we’ll be square.
How did we get this ass-backwards? How did our national dialogue revert back to issues that were supposed to have been settled half a century ago? Women’s basic reproductive and biological rights are under attack; African American voters are being disenfranchised by new voter ID laws in 30 states; Ted Nugent can threaten to put a gun in the mouths of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and no one on Fox News says a word.
Meanwhile, Obama can speak up for racial equality in 1991 and be vilified for it. And states’ rights? Please. There are better, more constructive ways to exercise our state’s autonomy than attempting to tell women that we know their bodies better than they do.
So, in other ways, this column’s political evolution is a horrible, horrible thing. Because this stuff keeps happening. And I keep having to write about it, or else I’ll harbor so much rage that my veins will turn into snakes. That’s why I’m making a personal plea to you, reader: sign petitions, vote on referendums, protest, write letters, engage in thoughtful conversation with both your friends and enemies.
Do this, because it has to start with you, at this level. This country and its citizens are better than our current state, and it’s time we started acting like it. God, I am so tired.
*Some facts found at nytimes.com, Slog, Raw Story and Politico.
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Which is why, in some ways, it’s sort of fortunate this has become a quasi-political forum. Now look, I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of globalization, the implications of Putin’s reelection or how Rush Limbaugh’s gut defies the laws of physics by not swallowing all light, space and time.
For the longest time, I thought a “minority whip” was something I wasn’t allowed to look at on the internet. But I read, I watch the news — on different channels, though if I keep the TV on Fox for more than 60 seconds, my brain starts to gnaw its way through my skull — and I do my best to make sense of what’s going on.
And oftentimes, it baffles me. This week, eight female Democratic senators walked out of the proceedings after a GOP-led Senate passed two bills: one providing for “religious exemptions” to employers with regards to providing birth control as part of health plans, and another that outright prevents health plans from paying for abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
The author of one bill, Republican State Senator Josh McKoon, is doing his damndest to frame this, predictably, as a matter of states’ rights and religious freedom, stating in turn that “As long as Georgia is regulating health insurance, we want to provide flexibility for religious employers, particularly when we’re asking the federal government to do the same,” and that he “would say that the war that’s being waged is on religious minority in this country that has strong beliefs that are protected by the First Amendment.”
Other states are also attempting to hijack women’s uteruses: Virginia recently signed into law a measure mandating “jelly on the belly” ultrasounds for women seeking abortions — despite the fact that such a procedure is unnecessary (at abortive states, the embryo is barely an inch long, and so the pathos card is out), and damned expensive. Texas Governor Rick “F***knob” Perry is essentially defunding Planned Parenthood in the state — despite the fact that abortions make up, at most, about three percent of procedures performed at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Truth be told, I’m beyond confused. I’m pissed off, and not just because the national health care plan the Obama administration is stridently trying to push through made my sister’s medication for a potentially life-threatening blood disorder more affordable, or that the free/cheap birth control the plan would benefit many important women in my life, including friends, relatives, teachers and others by ensuring more manageable periods, lowering the risk for certain cancers and, yes, preventing unwanted pregnancies.
No, I’m also pissed off because the assertions of staunch social conservatives on this issue flies in the face not only of common sense — easier access to birth control would lessen the need for abortions in the first place, and women are going to get abortions, one way or another — but of our nation’s very laws. Religious organizations and/or employers want to deny women birth control based on their religion? Okay, that’s fine. Just sign away your tax-exempt status, and we’ll be square.
How did we get this ass-backwards? How did our national dialogue revert back to issues that were supposed to have been settled half a century ago? Women’s basic reproductive and biological rights are under attack; African American voters are being disenfranchised by new voter ID laws in 30 states; Ted Nugent can threaten to put a gun in the mouths of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and no one on Fox News says a word.
Meanwhile, Obama can speak up for racial equality in 1991 and be vilified for it. And states’ rights? Please. There are better, more constructive ways to exercise our state’s autonomy than attempting to tell women that we know their bodies better than they do.
So, in other ways, this column’s political evolution is a horrible, horrible thing. Because this stuff keeps happening. And I keep having to write about it, or else I’ll harbor so much rage that my veins will turn into snakes. That’s why I’m making a personal plea to you, reader: sign petitions, vote on referendums, protest, write letters, engage in thoughtful conversation with both your friends and enemies.
Do this, because it has to start with you, at this level. This country and its citizens are better than our current state, and it’s time we started acting like it. God, I am so tired.
*Some facts found at nytimes.com, Slog, Raw Story and Politico.
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Posted in Ruffin' It