Caption Contest:
And They'll Have Fund, Fund, Fund 'Til Dubya Takes Their T-shirts Away
"I Had an Abortion" T-shirts are just
so 2004. From ChoiceClothing.com, a retail outlet of Planned Parenthood of the Columbia-Williamette (Ore.), come duds that strike to the heart of the organization's message: Give us money—
taxpayer money.
While the Hyde Amendment restricts Medicaid spending for abortions to cases of rape or incest, Planned Parenthood still receives
over a quarter-billion in taxpayer funds annually. There's no question that such a massive infusion of government money enables
Margaret Sanger's organization to spend money on abortion that it would otherwise be unable to allocate. PP also gets around the Hyde restrictions by
using government funds to recruit new customers.
And so, a caption contest. Act quickly as, knowing how the pro-death folks are onto this blog, I'm liable to get the proverbial phone call before the sun even rises.
Sorry I can't offer a prize this time around—job-hunting and all that—but the winner will receive glory and, if he or she's a blogger, a place in my soon-to-come blogroll (yes!). The deadline is midnight tomorrow (Monday). I reserve the right to delete entries that use profanity or that I judge to be outside the bounds of good taste (though those bounds are almost meaningless given the tasteless subject material).
Please put your caption in the comments below, give it time to show up (it will when I republish this blog), ignore Blogger's instruction to start a blog (if you're registering for the first time), and may the best wit win!
1:44 AM
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Saturday, January 29, 2005
All they need is Bert Parks.
(From Fr. Bryce Sibley, who calls it "the funniest thing I have EVER seen.")
UPDATE: Commenter Andy made me laugh out loud:
Whew. Check out the other "projects" on this firm's site (click on "churches" on the top banner). They're... um... interesting.
As a Presbyterian unschooled in Romish ways, I was particularly curious to see the basement chapel that they "brought into conformance with Vatican II." So I clicked on the link, and behold:
THEY TURNED IT INTO A GIANT FLOUNDER.
Or maybe it's a fluke. I can never remember which one has the eyes on its right side. Either way, it's a hulking great bottom-feeder. Have a look.
The sign of Jonah it ain't.
4:41 PM
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Michael Bates has a persuasive summary of the facts in the Terri Schiavo case, compiling the evidence that Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state and showing how her husband rejected a generous offer to drop his bid to have her killed.
4:44 AM
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Roamin' Holiday
Talking with a male friend recently about the possibility of throwing a party in New York City,the man—who is, like me, single and over 35—had one caveat: "We can't have it near Valentine's Day."
I knew exactly what he meant.
Valentine's Day in New York City has become like Halloween. It's inescapable, stretching over three nights, and if you're not taking part in it, you're really out of it. Bars swarm with canoodling couples, while singles hide at home alone, feeling pathetic as they drown their sorrows in Ben & Jerry's pints and "Seinfeld" DVDs.
Take away the "Seinfeld," and that's my memory of nearly every Valentine's Day: a solo pity party, aided by some artery-clogging delight (like the gourmet chocolates my father thoughtfully mails me each year without fail).
But there was one Valentine's Day I'll always remember. It was nearly five years ago, when I had a date with a sweet, endearing, handsome man who treated me to a candlelight dinner and gave me a festive card.
It was in the middle of July.
Michael and I had met in the late spring, and after we started dating, I made some comment about how I wished I'd known him at Valentine's Day. He felt the same way—so we decided to ignore the calendar and celebrate the romantic holiday on Bastille Day. It sounds kind of corny now, but at the time, the idea felt exciting and even subversive.
We didn't last together until the next V-Day—or even until National Spumoni Day. But we're still friends, and every so often Michael and I share a smile about our act of romantic rebellion.
There's a curious aside in 1 Corinthians 15:8, where Paul, describing how he was the last apostle to see Jesus, refers to himself as "one born out of due time." Many interpretations exist of that passage, but what strikes me about it is the sense that "it is not for [us] to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power."
Valentine's Day, for all the hoopla, remains an artificial construct. Love is real, and it emerges in God's own time, regardless of what the calendar says.
I used to have the familiar nightmare where I'd be back in high school, on the first day of class, and I'd lost my schedule. I'd desperately go from one wrong classroom to another, never finding out where I was supposed to be.
Those dreams tapered off a few years ago when I began to realize, as the nightmare started, that the whole thing was silly—I'd already graduated high school. No longer did I have to run around trying to force myself into a timeframe that was meaningless and unnecessary.
V-Day loneliness is just as pointless as that nightmarish feeling of being forever behind. I don't need Valentine's Day to be lonely; I can be lonely 365 days of the year (and 366 in leap years). But if I don't want to be lonely all the time, it doesn't make sense to indulge in self-pity simply because one day is designated for romance.
If you're born out of "due time," how do you get back in with God's own times and seasons, and not those of the world? Lewis Carroll had the answer, in his puzzle "The Two Clocks."
Carroll observed that if you have two clocks, one that loses a minute a day and one that doesn't go at all, the one that loses a minute a day will be right only once every two years. So if your timing is off and you keep going anyway, you'll almost never be in sync.
A stopped clock, however, is right twice a day.
On Valentine's Day, I am not going to wear myself down chasing after some fantasy that I can't reach. I'm going to stay where I am, and know that sooner or later, love will catch up.
4:26 AM
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Friday, January 28, 2005
Rattle Rouser
With all due respect for the American Life League's Stop Planned Parenthood, I think Jim Sedlak's exaggerating the reaction to Gloria Feldt's leaving the presidency of Margaret Sanger's organization. It really doesn't take that much to make babies happy. They're happy just to be alive.
Then again, I guess that's the point.
10:50 PM
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U2 Can Be Saved
There's a lively discussion on Touchstone magazine's Mere Comments blog over S.M. Hutchens's entry on the movement towards making worship more "attractive." Here's my favorite quote so far, from a reader trying to demonstrate how he can enjoy contemporary music outside church and yet not want it in church:
The arc of these discussions leads inevitably to the question of "style," or, more accurately, taste. My wife and I, both 30, have developed musical tastes quite common to our generation, summed up by this creed: U2 is best played at floor-shaking, neighbor-rattling, cat-hides-under-the-couch volume. True, our most shameful family secret is my wife’s predilection for Neil Diamond, but aside from these few idiosyncrasies our "tastes" are quite modern, thank you very much.
Personally I'd take Neil Diamond over U2 as a badge of hipness any day (especially since he wrote some of the Monkees's best tunes, "I'm a Believer" and "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)," but the point is made.
6:56 PM
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He's 'OK'—I'm Not So Hot
A commenter who calls himself "Tulsa Human" (funny how none of these trolling libs give their real name or link to their blog) is grossly offended by my mother's satirical "Dear Terri" letter. When I asked him in the comments section to explain his ire, he wrote:
The "satire" presented on your site imputes grotesquely evil intent to Terri Schaivo's [sic] husband.
But one key fact about the case is this:
The courts have ruled consistently that Terri Schiavo is in a Persistent Vegetative State, and has been for over 14 years.
These were not frivolous decisions. That fact alone should give one pause before savagely demonizing Michael Schiavo.
Given the more-than-reasonable doubt in this case (and I don't use the term legalistically), the most charitable thing to say about this "joke" is that it is in extremely poor taste.
Would someone who has followed this case closely please explain to Mr. Human, in the comments section below, what is a persistent vegetative state, whether Terri Schiavo is in one, and whether a person who is in one deserves to be murdered so that her husband can collect a huge insurance sum that had been earmaked for her upkeep?
Again, please be polite if at all possible (though I found it difficult myself, as you'll see in the entry's comments). Your comments will go up tonight when I republish my site. Much thanks!
UPDATE: Turns out Tulsa Human does have a blog—he (or she) just hasn't made his Blogger profile available, which is why it doesn't show when you click on his name in the comments section.
4:36 PM
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Equal Opportunity Destroyer
From The Curt Jester comes word of a likely front-runner in the race to replace Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt, who has resigned under mysterious circumstances.
4:32 PM
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Cool Hand Uke
No, I'm not talking about Tiny Tim, but the smile-inducing winning entry in Slant Point's caption contest.
1:13 PM
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If you read this page last night, I've since added another post "back in time" (to keep "Bin Gripin'" uptop)—scroll down for Part 2 of my Oklahoma recollections. On a related note, Michael Bates writes about what it was like to know that I was blogging in the next room—but, amazingly, misses the opportunity to say that I was doing so in my pajamas.
3:30 AM
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Bin Gripin'
A commenter who calls himself Conservatives Hate America accuses me of having "an awful lot in common with the Taliban" because I associate Osama bin Ladin with the culture of death. But it's worse than that. Yes, according to this anonymous flamer, I merit the worst insult known to blogdom: I am (gasp!) intellectually dishonest—
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the unbelievable irony in your commentary here. While last time I checked Osama hadn't spelled out his political platform, Islamic extremists are rabidly anti-abortion (kinda like you). For that matter, Islamic extremists are deeply opposed to the use of birth control (kinda like you) and equal rights for gays and lesbians (kinda like you). Indeed, recent news reports have spelled out the Vatican's growing alliance with fundamentalist muslims to oppose the United Nations' reproductive rights platforms. If you want to lead your life according to your own interpretation of the Bible -- hey, great, whatever works for you. But if you advocate using the authority of the state to impose your own scriptural interpretation on those who do not share your views -- well, hey, you're starting to have an awful lot in common with the Taliban. At least have the courage of your convictions, and the intellectual honesty, to acknowledge how much your views overlap with those of Islamic extremists.
I wonder how one who holds a relativist worldview could know anything about what it means to have "courage of...convictions." But assuming he (or she) returns in search of a response, would anyone care to answer this person's points in the comments section below, and even shock him by resisting the urge to be snarky?
Note: Don't worry if your comment doesn't go up right away—it'll go up when I republish the blog, at some point during the day. If you need to register, ignore Blogger's request that you start a blog—your registration will go through anyway.
2:32 AM
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Right to (a Homosexual) Life
A researcher from the University of Illinois claims to have identified a DNA link for homosexuality.
The idea that a gene alone can cause someone to grow up homosexual is hogwash. But that won't prevent the homosexual lobby from using studies such as this latest one as "proof" that homosexuality is to be encouraged as a normal and healthy lifestyle.
However, there may be a silver lining to "gay gene" findings, one that nobody, least of all Planned Parenthood and NARAL—both major forces in the homosexual-rights movement—seems to notice. The belief that a gene causes homosexuality could affect the legality of abortion.
Think about it. Right now, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and their allies loudly defend a woman's "right" to murder her child at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason. They support a woman's right to use prenatal DNA tests for the purpose of deciding whether to abort—fighting vehemently against any attempt to disallow abortion for the purpose of sex selection, for example.
(For an example of Planned Parenthood's attitude towards sex-selection abortions, see the last paragraph of this page from the Web site of one of its chapters, which sniffs, "Each year, a number of bills designed to create barriers or limit access to abortion services are introduced. Areas this legislation has covered include 'informed consent,' abortion reporting, insurance coverage, student fees, pathology reports, 'fetal pain,' fetal license plates, sex selection, fetal tissue research, late term abortions, etc." Dig those scare quotes around "fetal pain"—not to mention the idea of "fetal license plates.")
Now, imagine if women who didn't want homosexual offspring started testing their unborn children for the "gay gene"—and aborting them if that DNA were present.
I guarantee you, the homosexual community would scream for legislation to prevent women from making such a "choice."
1:58 AM
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Thursday, January 27, 2005
OK By Me—Part 2
Last Saturday morning, my ever-gracious host in Tulsa, Okla., Michael Bates, chauffeured me to Oklahoma City, dropping me off at Surlywood, which Dustbury fans will recognize as the home of the venerable Charles G. Hill. (You can see a couple of photos of the home at the bottom of this page).
Charles and I began corresponding 1996, when I had my old Web site, which was full of Sixties pop writings and images so worldly as to be almost pornographic (it featured a photo of Carol Doda circa 1966, in a skimpy bikini, sitting on the counter of a bar, displaying neckties that came in a can). I think he must have found it by Googling my name after reading my Hollies liner notes or something. After a year or so of back-and-forth on our shared love of Ginny Arnell's "Dumb Head" and other obscure pop wonderments, we fell out of touch.
Four years later, the Doda photo was long gone from my site, I was a conservative Christian wingnut, and Charles somehow found me again, becoming a welcome reminder of the music that I couldn't give up despite my changed philosophy. I also realized for the first time that we were kindred spirits in other ways as well, as you can tell from his blog. While he's not a textbook conservative, he has a clear-headed grasp of right and wrong, and a sense of poetry. On a good day—which is often—his depth and perspicacity remind me of nothing so much as G.K. Chesterton's work in the Illustrated London News.
To be continued...
UPDATE: It turns out my memory of how Charles and I met and re-met is off, so Charles is the authority on that. He kindly leaves it to me to reveal what my CompuServe handle was, a vintage-pop joke that he alone understood: "Nogood4u."
10:58 PM
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NARAL Reaps Wages of Sign
With mass murderers like the Chairman (no, not Frank Sinatra—the other one) scrambling to follow Idi and Osama's example, you just knew that Moloch had to get in on the act:
The demon writes: "One of my most favorite all-time organizations is NARAL Pro-Choice America since they do such great work for me and others down here. In fact we have reserved some office space down here for them later if they don't escape the grasp of my claws. They have this wonderful campaign going showing pictures of people with a very positive looking sign and sometimes when I get a little depressed over some anti-choice victory I just load up their web page and look at their
animated slide show of people holding this sign. There is even a picture of two dogs with one of these signs so it is nice to see even Fido helping out the cause."
1:40 PM
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Get Your Clicks
Links of Note
- For those wanting the "right to die," why stop there? Ed of Media Culpa offers "some other possibly missing rights."
- If you're going to call this blog by something other than its name, I guess "The Darwin Patrol" could be appropriate. (Note: The photo on that entry is of a child receiving a successful operation in the womb—not an abortion.)
1:21 PM
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I've added a disclaimer to "Dear Terri."
1:10 PM
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Brett Taylor of Saint Kansas made a comment to "I. Amin Pro-Choice America" that must be shared: "Sorry, Dawn (and all the ladies)—this one's taken."
1:06 PM
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If you visited this page last night, there's a new addition to that evening's entries—I posted it "back in time" to keep the NARAL and "Dear Terri" items uptop.
3:38 AM
I. Amin Pro-Choice America
NARAL's "We Are Pro-Choice America" photo campaign is so popular that even dead genocidal dictators want to get into the act. Thanks be to Joel Helbling for sending in this shot of a man who killed some 255,000 victims—but doesn't have a peg on the hypocritical Hippocraticals who don white coats to extinguish life:
1:43 AM
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
OK By Me—Part 1
I visited Oklahoma for the first time last Thursday through Monday, at the very kind invitation of Tulsa residents Michael Bates and his wife, Mikki, and found much to like, from the Art Deco and Fifties-era hotel and burger-joint signs, to the gentlemanly menfolk who would hold doors open for me, to the cheap eats, to the churchy structures of all types (including the world's largest praying hands, to the rugged individualism reflected in the many specialty license plates, and more.
On Friday afternoon, Michael took me to the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, which is really more like a shrine, filled with Frederic Remington sculptures, lassoes, postcards, sheet music, vaudeville posters, and loads of odd little dioramas of episodes in the humorist's life. (That's where Your Petiteness posed alongside a painting of the "Anti-Bunk" hero.) But while the dozens of Rogers epigrams posted on the walls make for amusing reading, many of the exhibits lack biographical background—it's largely just "here's his hat," "here are his spectacles," etc. (Exceptions include a great display on Life magazine's "Will Rogers for President" campaign.)
The museum's Web site includes information on Rogers that would have made its exhibits more interesting—like Eddie Cantor's tale of how Rogers schooled him. That piece includes a Rogers quote on how he drew his material from newspapers, which still applies in the age of blogs:
I have found out two things. One is that the more up-to-date a subject is, the more credit you are given for talking on it, even if you really haven’t anything very funny. But if it is an old subject, your gags must be funny to get over.
Still to come: Record hunting with Charles G. Hill, coffee with the cream of Okie bloggers (where I just missed seeing a giant wiener), and tea with Happy Homemaker.
9:20 PM
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I Am Furious Yellow
Looks like some people can't take yellow ribbin'.
Kevin McCullough reports that the University of Oregon is steaming over bloggers' and talk-radio listeners' massive protest against its banning the yellow-ribbon "Support Our Troops" stickers from university-owned cars. The school claims such expression on a state-owned university's property is "a violation of a statewide policy."
What I'd like to know is, since when did supporting the members of the U.S. military become a violation of the policy of a U.S. state?
1:28 PM
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Bin Choosin
As NARAL Pro-Choice America continues posting photos of hapless Americans holding the organization's pre-printed "I Am Pro-Choice America" sign, it seems unfair that the organization should ignore its many foreign supporters. To that end, Saint Kansas forwards me a shot that, inexplicably, didn't make NARAL's cut:
4:37 AM
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Raising the 'Anti'
Roman Catholic seminarian Jeff Geerling just got back from the March for Life and has some photos to show for it, but what's on his mind now is the lopsided nature of the press coverage the rally received, as he writes in a thought-provoking entry, "War of the Words":
I am Pro-Life.
I am not an enemy of life. I am an ardent supporter of all human life; from the moment it starts (conception, when sperm meets egg), to the moment it naturally ends.
And yet, I am a "foe." I am an "enemy," according to most media sources. Take a look at these headlines:
* "Anti-abortionists pledge to fight on"
* "Abortion foes march in capital"
* "Abortion foes rally in Washington"
* "Abortion Foes Get Call From Bush"
Some may think that this is a non-issue, but it is not. Many members of the media are playing a game with words, trying to make pro-lifers sound like bad people, and "pro-choicers" sound good.
Read on to his conclusion—it's something that needs to be said.
4:03 AM
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Robert George, the man who puts the "pun" in "pundit," is among the creators of a new online site inviting readers to vote in the anti-Oscars. Of course, it's called The Felixes.
3:48 AM
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Salon Writer Stands Up for Terri
A call to let Terri Schiavo live has come from an online magazine not known for supporting a culture of life: Salon.
Linda Reid Chassiakos, mother of a severely disabled child, writes:
Terri's cause has been adopted by religious conservatives with passionate advocacy. I am neither religious nor conservative, but as a compassionate progressive, I believe the Schiavo case spotlights a critical juncture in the preservation of a humanistic and humanitarian culture: Allowing Terri to die via starvation belies and mocks the ethics and principles of a civilized society.
As a doctor, I have cared for patients who have chosen, in sound mind and in good conscience, not to prolong their lives via extreme measures. Their decisions were documented in written contracts, often after intensive counseling and personal consideration. Hearsay communications from potentially interested parties, however, are not an acceptable substitute. In the absence of a living will, I remain committed by my Hippocratic oath (an ethical code for the medical profession that prohibits doctors from causing any harm) and duty to my profession to do the utmost for my seriously ill patients.
Read the whole thing.
2:11 AM
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Remembering Greg Shaw
New York City musician Peter Kohman, whom I remember from 20 years ago when he was with the Tryfles, sends notice of a concert in honor of beloved late Bomp! Records founder Greg Shaw:
On January 29, Magnetic Field in Brooklyn will be hosting an evening in memory of Greg Shaw...a night of performances by the Coffin Lids and Shaw 'Nuff. The Coffin Lids were one of the last bands Greg signed to Bomp! and come in a haze of smoked amps and electroshocked, Farfisa-driven rock'n'roll. Shaw 'Nuff is a one-shot NYC supergroup featuring Peter Stuart, Kurt Reil, Mike Fornatale, Michael Lynch and Wendy Fornatale. Each of these musicians is variously a veteran of, or enlisted in, groups like The Standells, Grip Weeds, Beau Brummels, Blues Magoos, The Monks, Moby Grape, Cavestomp Redcoats, Richard & The Young Lions, The Lynchpins, and Kelly Stoltz. DJs Ira Robbins and WFMU's Evan Davies will spin prime selections from the Bomp! catalogue and music with
appropriate blood ties.
The night begins at 7:30 on January 29th. The door price will be $10, all proceeds donated to Greg's widow and son. Magnetic Field is located at 97 Atlantic Avenue, between Hicks and Henry Streets, in Brooklyn Heights. The phone # is 718-834-0069.
1:29 AM
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Letters From Iraq
The eloquent e-mails of my friend Steven Givler, a captain in the U.S. Air Force, telling of his experiences while stationed in Iraq, are now the subject of a three-part series in the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. Here's a taste:
Some clown on the BBC the other night was saying that tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians had died because of American aggression. What nonsense. I'd be glad to host the man who said that. I'd let him spend the night in one of our flimsy trailers, listening to the shriek of rockets overhead, feeling the shock of the explosions and the rattle of stones on the roof. By morning, he'd be screaming for reprisals.
Not us. We take it. Sometimes on the chin. In ones or twos, our people are injured or killed. We mourn them. We pack their personal effects and send them home to their families and we press on, giving up our safety in order to assure [the safety] of Iraqi civilians. We don't do it for recognition and we don't expect to hear about it on the news. But it sure ticks me off when I hear someone saying exactly the opposite of what I know to be true.
11:43 PM
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By popular demand, here again is the link to Tracey Hallman's poetry. Tracey is married to Saint Kansas, who writes today of how kids' TV is celebrating a #$%*&!@ different kind of wordsmith.
11:28 PM
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Quote of the Day
From Kevin McCullough's new feature "Kerry—'Reporting for Duty", on the Massachusetts senator's return to Capitol Hill, comes this gem—a comment on a news article's stating, "On Monday, Kerry introduced a bill...":
Now there's something—not often said in the past 20 years...
11:08 PM
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Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight Sex Partners? That's Two Gross*
A team of Ohio State University sociologists examining a sex survey taken by students at a Midwestern high school have created a "sex map" showing how nearly 300 teens were connected by sexual contact with one another.
Reuters reports that "288 students were linked in a one-to-one chain of sexual contact that rarely looped back. In other words, one boy had sex with one girl, who had sex with another boy, who had sex with another girl and so on."
The researchers said that the teens were "just average students" (I'm assuming they weren't talking in terms of academics) and "not extremely active sexually." (For comparison, they wrote, witness promiscuous adults such as "NBA stars with thousands and thousands of partners"—as though such scuzzy folk were somehow representative of responsible grown-ups.)
So what can be drawn from this interlocking map of hundreds of hedonistic high-schoolers? Hold onto your hat. "[S]ocial policies that could help some of them protect themselves from STDs could break a lot of these chains that can lead to the spread of disease," the lead researcher, sociologist James Moody, declares.
Ah yes, we're back in Planned Parenthoodland. It's perfectly fine for kids 14 and up to have sex with one another—just as long as Old Man VD doesn't break up the party. And as far as breaking "a lot of these chains," one abstinent student can break them—or at least impede their progress by saving himself or herself from premarital sex while making a positive psychological impression on other students.
But while Moody gives abstinence lip service, it's clearly not his priority:
"Anything that limits that and restricts the flow of body fluids between people would help." That includes education about condom use, abstinence and other policies, he said.
It's so simple. Why can't uptight red-state values-voter parents get it through their thick heads? For children to be sexually responsible, all they have to do is—repeat after me—restrict the flow of body fluids. This is what Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and their allies call "comprehensive sex education," in a nutshell. It's the George Clinton adage—free your a-- and your mind will follow.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, nearly 300 high-school students have had sex with two or more partners—and nobody seems to care about what goes on above their waist.
*Bwahahaha! Oh, sorry...laughing at my own headlines again...
1:52 AM
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A quick and very sleepy note to say thanks so much to everyone who's commented or written to me with sympathy and kindness over the personal news that I reported yesterday. It means a lot to me. Having just gotten back from my vacation, I'm more behind on e-mail than usual. But on the other hand, I now have more time than before, so I plan to write back very soon to everyone who wrote in.
Also coming soon, fond reminiscences of the Okie blogger bash and great times with Jan the Happy Homemaker, Charles G. Hill, and Michael Bates.
1:51 AM
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Monday, January 24, 2005
Let's See Some ID
Wittingshire's Amanda Witt, whose husband Jonathan is the Discovery Institute's senior fellow, is in hot primordial ooze with Darwinists (not as fun as it sounds) for pointing out a Darwin quote on the relative intelligence of the sexes that could have come from beleaguered Harvard President Lawrence Summers.
Today Witt let fly a riposte that strikes at the unquestioning faith of evolutionists who are so quick to attack any theory that springs from, well, unquestioning faith:
Proponents of intelligent design get attacked all the time for their supposed motives, when what matters is THE EVIDENCE. That never seems to get addressed in the slew of ad hominem attacks, and the hand-wringing over the implications of design theory.
Look at the evidence for intelligent design. Look at the lack of evidence for key aspects of Darwinian evolution. That's all the ID movement asks.
11:19 PM
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The Life You Save
On this day of the March for Life, NARAL Pro-Choice America's Bush v. Choice blog, in an entry titled—with the organization's typical sensitivity—"'Moral Values' my ass!", assails President Bush's lack of "moral clarity."
The NARAL blogger lauds an ACLU executive's pro-abortion op-ed that asks questions like, "What is moral about denying health coverage to a pregnant woman in need of an abortion when her doctor believes it is necessary to protect her health? What is moral about forcing a low-income woman to choose between paying for an abortion she needs to preserve her health and paying for food, shelter and other basic necessities for her family?"
Elsewhere on the blog, readers are directed to a discussion on Feministing.com about whether the Democratic Party should, while keeping its pro-choice stance, welcome pro-lifers (which, when you think about it, is like an oil refinery's welcoming asthmatics).
What the ACLU exec's op-ed and the Feministing discussion have in common is that they play into the idea that abortions are necessary primarily because a woman may need one to save her own life. In fact, abortion is never necessary to save a woman's life. It may be an unintended effect of a lifesaving procedure, such as ending an ectopic pregnancy, but a procedure intended specifically to kill the unborn child has been rendered unnecessary by advances in science. Even former Planned Parenthood president Alan Guttmacher famously wrote in 1967, "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life of the mother."*
The American Life League, a Catholic organization which is against every form of abortion, recognizes that lifesaving treatment may have an unintended "double effect": "Essentially, both mother and child should be treated as patients. A doctor should try to protect both. However, in the course of treating a woman, if her child dies, that is not considered abortion."
As for moral values and my a--, I'll stick my butt out for NARAL, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood when they protest the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that the ex-husband of a "purposefully interactive, curious and expressive" woman can have her killed. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them—least of all the ACLU—to do so...at least, not until the Devil needs a pair of ice skates.
*Abortion—Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: The Case for Legalized abortion Now. Diablo Press, 1967.
3:36 PM
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Post Mortem
I wrote the "wood"—the front-page headline—of yesterday's New York Post.
It was my last act at the Post. Knowing the Trump wedding was ahead, I shouted the headline to the paper's weekend copy chief as I headed out the door last Tuesday, my last day there.
The only things I can say about the situation right now are that it is always painful to lose one's job; I will always be proud of the work I did at the Post, where I won first place for "Brightest Headline" in the 2004 New York State Associated Press Awards; and I have faith that something better is in store for me.
1:15 AM
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Sunday, January 23, 2005
IrishLaw takes on an anti-abstinence op-ed by NARAL's Karen Cooper that the blogger aptly terms "Grandmas for sex: because let's get real."
In response to Cooper's claim that abstinence-until-marriage is unrealistic as "a model for the 21st century, when half of the students in law school and medical school are women," IrishLaw writes:
I find it interesting Cooper focuses on law and medical students as an example here of those who are wanting (apparently) both to have sex and not to have children. If these students (still a very small percentage of all women) were to become pregnant -- as does happen in spite of all that comprehensive sex education NARAL advocates and these educated women undoubtedly know about -- surely they would be in the best position of all women to be able to take care of a child? Abortion is "needed" least for these.
11:15 PM
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Take Two RU-486—and Call Me in the Mourning
The Los Angeles Times reports that Dr. Warren Hern, the late-term abortionist who's protesting that a Roman Catholic Church is publicly burying the ashes of some 1,000 babies he killed, says that he's got nothing against burial rites on principle. In fact, after he's vacuum-suctioned a baby out of a womb, he sometimes shows up at its funeral:
In some cases, he has participated in Jewish and American Indian funeral rituals after the abortion, along with the family members.
This sounds like something out of a black comedy like "The Loved One." An all-inclusive package deal: "We kill it...and mourn it."
1:33 AM
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Saturday, January 22, 2005
This is Dan Lovejoy guest blogging for Dawn at the Oklahoma Blogger Bash. Click here for pics, or here for a list of attendees. We're having fun!
UPDATE, 11:31 p.m.: It's Dawn, back at the Bates family manse in Tulsa, here patriarch Michael is currently putting up photos of the blogger bash on his Batesline. Dan Lovejoy also has a group photo up—go to this post and scroll down.
And yes, I had a wonderful time, and will write more about it—and my fabulous outing with Dustbury's Charles G. Hill—after I get back on Monday. (Charles has already written a beautiful account of the afternoon, but I'm sure I can think of something he didn't mention.) Right now I have to get some sleep for that Sunday-morning red-state thing they call "church."
My one regret is that, while I was with fellow bloggers at the Oklahoma City coffeehouse where we met, I missed getting my picture taken outside with the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.
4:47 PM
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Friday, January 21, 2005
Still on vacation, but Michael Bates graciously allowed me to dominate his computer for a Planned Parenthood post tonight. You'll next hear from me late tomorrow or early Sunday, with photos and news of the first-ever Okie blogger bash. In the meantime, thanks for all the suggestions in "Ready, Willing, and Cable"—please keep them coming!
11:30 PM
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