Friday, November 21, 2008

Don't You Have an Economic Crisis or a War or Two to Worry About?

Normally I try to treat the subject of abortion either very dispassionately and logically, or very sensitively (yes, that’s my version of sensitivity). I appreciate it’s a touchy subject. But the latest regulation Lame-Duck Curious George wants to push through is going too far and is getting me rather cross.

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Normally I wouldn’t get all hot about this given who is coming in next, and what his record is on women’s reproductive rights. I have no doubt this will be reverted and probably even repealed entirely. It’s the insult that gets me. That this guy (Bush) and his backers (antiquated nits) think so little of my rights and freedoms; that they are so arrogant as to try and regulate this in a lame duck session; that they are so obvious in their overall contempt for women; that’s what earns me the red hair temperament.

I can see no other motive behind this except that Bush and his antiquated nit supporters in this want us to stop having sex. They have this weird idea, I guess, that if they throw up more and more barriers to safe birth control methods, that we’ll stop having sex.

How’d that work out for Bristol Palin?

But more importantly, how well will that work out for the woman who can’t take the Pill and wants an IUD? How well will that work out for the woman with an ectopic pregnancy if she happens to run into a hospital worker opposed to abortion of any kind?

Enough! I am sick of having these arguments about sex, birth control and abortion. The sexual revolution was like 40 years ago. We won it. We’re having sex. We have methods to prevent pregnancy. The abortion battle was 35 years ago. We won that too and keep winning it over and over again. With Obama likely to appoint as many as 3 justices to SCOTUS, we’ll win it for decades to come.

The very simple fact is: Humans like to have sex. Humans like to have sex without consequences. Humans will continue to develop methods and technologies to have sex without consequences. Cleopatra stuck rocks in her naughty bits so she could have sex without consequences.* Every time someone tries to stop humans from having sex, we find a way around it. Medicine, the 60’s, the Internet. You get the idea.

So please stop banging your heads against this biological wall. You cannot legislate adult sex. Not well, not effectively, and not without creating some seriously bad edge cases. Or maybe not so edgy? One in fifty pregnancies can end up being a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and this regulation would allow people to not treat that. When I’m rushing to the emergency room because I think my innards are about to rip apart and kill me, I’m not stopping to check whether the nearest hospital receives federal funds and whether there might be a virulent pro-lifer waiting to treat me (or not).

I can be sympathetic and agree that no one—excepting for the life and health of the mother—should be forced to perform an elective abortion. But birth control? Stay out of my fallopian tubes!

Birth control has become so accepted that no one dares speak openly against it anymore unless it’s the Catholic Church (and boy howdy do they have the moral superiority when it comes to sex). So the antiquated nits are going after it from the other end; calling birth control methods that work after conception abortion. More and more women are opting out of the Pill towards less hormonal methods, primarily the IUD (my data is anecdotal, not statistical; I’m too lazy to do the real research right now). But even if I don’t have the numbers, that any form of birth control is included in restrictions against abortion is nothing more to me than further invasion of my reproductive tract against my will.

Usually that’s called rape.

* I prefer modern methods, of course, but applaud that ancient lady for her inventiveness.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Money for Nothing and the Jets for Free

Seriously folks, begging for my money via private jet? You’re so doing it wrong. And yet, these wealthy people that supposedly generate the jobs so god forbid their taxes should not be raised want to use my money to cut jobs so they can still fly in private jets.

I realize I’m being simplistic here, but don’t these people have PR people? To say, hey, this might look bad given the mood lawmakers and the public are in? The definition of socialism as bandied about during the campaign was completely off base. But the situation the financial industries and the auto companies are putting us in practically demands socialism (government ownership of industry for those who thought the progressive income tax enshrined in our constitution was socialism; NB it’s not).

Symbolism and illustration are important to the American people. Flying in a private jet to the hearings where you beg for money is illustrative of these CEO’s grasp of reality, or hubris. So they’re either stupid or dangerously arrogant. Either way, they have no business running these companies any more. But we will have to bail them out somehow should necessitate some government ownership/oversight which is in fact socialism. And all this is predicated by the actions of the uber-Republican type. The CEOs and Wall Street financiers who embody the symbol of success in the Republican Party.

Good job GOPers! You’ve created socialism in America!

So apparently there is some agreement cooked up in the Senate (of course appropriately bipartisan) that the mere announcement that it exists (no details) boosted GM and Ford’s stock prices. But, it might not get voted on because Congress might not stay in session all this week because they’re going home early in advance of their very long Thanksgiving break. I think it likely that my former coworkers are going to have to work over the Thanksgiving holiday. And with unemployment at its highest in sixteen years, there will be families who will be eating the cheapest turkey they can find (which is gross) but Congress can’t stay in session to deal with this.

Out of touch and oblivious to reality. I can often be accused of this given I’ve never not worked when I wanted to nor did I ever not have what I wanted (within reason) when I wanted it. But even I get that the people running the show are clueless. We did our job in shaking up Congress. Now they need to do their jobs and shake up the executives. Or at least stay in session.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Have a Smoke and a Smile

Some may say it’s perverse to quit you career when it appears that you’re on the cusp of hitting the next big step. The problem is, I don’t know how to make that step. I mean, I guess I do, but I don’t want to. So after stepping up the ladder, stepping sideways on the ladder, getting stepped upon, I didn’t just step off the plank, I swan dived. And I don’t care. But somehow I have to get from here to the end goal,

You know you need a manicure when typing the above paragraph took way too long due to typos. That and I’m really tired, so it’s all inanities today.

I could spend the next four years looking at Rahm Emanuel. He’s so good looking. Oh yeah, I get to!

I’m watching an entertainment tonight-type special about the election. Anyone remember Fred Thompson? Without the da dumb?! But seriously, this is on CNN, and it is totally playing like a Entertainment Tonight! episode. Wait, there went Kucinich and the UFO. This brings back memories.

There’s something quite contemplative about just sitting and relaxing in a hotel room. I took a red-eye from Seattle to Philadelphia last night. I will endeavor never to do a red-eye that isn’t a non-stop flight again. I normally do red-eyes to the East Coast ‘cause I can sleep through it (gotta love xanax) and bypass the whole time change. But when you have to layover, it disrupts the whole process. So rather than wandering around Philly today, I stayed in the room waiting for my gal friend to arrive. Nice room, and I can smoke and drink wine and write. That’s something you don’t get to do in many places anymore, all at the same time. I need to do this periodically, with knowledge aforethought, just to write and think. Not that this post is a good example of that, but like I said, knowledge aforethought.

Now they’re talking, on CNN, about stabilizing consumption. I have really dropped the ball on this one. I used to be highly consumptive (that does not mean I have TB) and obviously since I’m not working, I can’t buy as much as I used to. Which I’m very fine with, surprisingly. Own one Von Furstenburg coat and you own them all? Nah, not really, but one has turned out to be plenty.

Ooh ooh, up comes Palin’s return attack on the McCain campaign. Wait, I’m already done talking about her. I hope. There’s a reason my political blog is called Pandora’s Politics.

Krugman! On CNN now. With Tivo there is little to stumble across. So I would have missed this at home. I love Krugman.

BTW, for anyone who sends me the little people things rather than plants on Facebook’s Lil Green Patch, I turn around and sell them. So thanks for the greenbucks! What a useless but addictive app.

Ew, Arnold is talking about getting expelled from the bedroom with Maria. TMI!

So how do I get from my mini-retirement to a driveway moment on NPR? Updates to come.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Look Ma! No Politics!

Do you live to work or do you work to live? There’s nothing inherently wrong with either concept, just as long as you know what you’re doing and why. Living to work should only be for those who are in a field that they are passionate about. The geeks I know and work with (and live with) love technology and love working with it. My friend the radio talk show host loves what she does. My teacher friend is passionate about education.

It’s certainly fine to work to live as well. People who do that, and do that well, have other higher priorities and their work is merely a means to that end. But what if you’re a live to work person in a work to live job? That’s where the priorities get screwed up. You end up working working working with the only real reward being a big paycheck so you constantly look to find new and creative ways to spend it. In the end, if you are living to work but work isn’t what you want to live for, you (actually I) end up with a lot of shoes, and not a lot of fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I love pretty shoes and I don’t regret a single thing I’ve been able to buy. But once you hit a certain pay scale and accumulate a certain amount of stuff, it gets boring. So you look around and realize, I don’t particularly care about what I do but it’s such a demanding job that I don’t have time left over to pursue what I really enjoy doing. And when you’re someone like me who doesn’t have or want children (which I am given to understand is highly motivating to work to live rather than the other way around), you realize you’re throwing away valuable time for high-priced goodies that you don’t even have the time to properly use!

I realize that in the current economic clime it’s pretty perverse—even stupid on the surface–to risk a solid respectable pay check. But I can’t care. That’s the type of thinking that kept me from doing what I wanted, whatever in the world that is. Obama winning isn’t the magic bullet that makes this less risky (though I don’t know that I’d be feeling so risky under a McCain/Palin administration). But change is good, productive, and now a slogan and way of life. I don’t want to miss this ideological band wagon. You talk about a guy that lives to work!

I almost made it through a whole post without politics. Sue me, I’m going to have to wean off that slowly.