Herban Sprawl

I’m involved in two organizations. Of one I am a longtime member and can even claim past-president as proof of longevity. (Not that I was very good, mind you -) In the second organization I am a relative newcomer, however thanks to the president who brought me in (”You need to join; give me a check.”), I got active right away.

I’m not a joiner. I even got thrown out of the college sorority I reluctantly pledged because of my reticence to “collect rose petals” and generally engage in what I viewed as infantile activities. So to belong to two organizations that mean something to me is pretty huge - for me. To find myself with conflicting events and having to choose which one to participate in is just not the kind of thing that blows up my skirt!

I had agreed to be on KP duty for the Herb Society’s annual tea party. I’ve been the Kitchen Bitch for two years now, having gotten our clean-up down to a fine art. It goes quickly and smoothly because of the way I organized it. I’m happy with that accomplishment, but unhappy because I have opera tickets from our very expensive season subscription for that afternoon.

As one of four Roanoke Valley Branch of AAUW delegates to our national convention in St. Louis, I will be voting on changes to the national structure and by-laws that will affect all of us. Our members need to know about this stuff and they need to direct how we will vote. The date selected to have the first open forum is also the date of the Herb Society’s other big fund-raiser, Scarborough Fair. I hadn’t done the calendar at the time this was decided, agreed to be at the forum, and unfortunately, they are happening simultaneously.

This can’t be happening to me, I thought…. But it is. I have had to step away from a job in Herb Society because of time conflicts, but now this? Oh, dear.

This is the sort of thing that tests people’s loyalties and their level of commitment. I’ve seen it over and over, but it’s the first time it’s ever happened to me because I have steadfastly been a one organization person - well except for those few years of insanity when I was very active in the education association - Even then, though, I put Herb Society first because it was my mental health anchor.

A few years ago, The Uncles were lobbying me to move back to the hometown. I told them there were three things I absolutely needed in order to live there, because they were the three anchors in my life. One would be an herb group, the other AAUW, and finally, a Unitarian Universalist church. The first two, interestingly enough were easy. The third, they pointed out, could be achieved by driving to Peoria or Joliet. I didn’t like that idea. “But,” Clarence Darrow pointed out, “there has been a local group that has met informally for a long time.” (Clarence Darrow is the nickname The Uncles have for their coffee clatch friend who is a lawyer.) I cringed. I’ve been in the start-up church business. It is time-consuming, especially when the group is committed to doing things according to our denomination’s accepted best practices, which we were (in spite of whatever rot has been conveyed to our district executive who has never bothered to get to know us!).

Nevertheless, it is here that we remain and I now find myself with a series of time collisions that are making me very, very uncomfortable. I have to choose between two organizations that mean a lot to me and between two organizations that need my strange talents. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Being involved in things where one feels needed and appreciated? Isn’t that what feeds us as humans? When it’s time to give back, it’s time to give back. Period.

I have no answers, and as I stare at the calendar pages, I am cursing myself for not staying on top of it. I think I’m going to go to the Wally, sit in Bang & Lilly’s rolling chair, and meditate while I get my toes done. Maybe a flash of brilliance will come to me while the current location of my brains is being soaked!

Ya gotta love the people who think it is their civic responsibility to forward all those recycled scare emails that purport to tell you the truth about some alleged upcoming Congressional vote, or some bogus “truth” regarding who gets welfare, etc. Generally speaking I get those from one person, and if I didn’t love her to death, I’d have to lie in wait at the nail salon and hurt her badly when she goes in to have her acrylics refilled (or whatever it is that they do for her).

Now I say this because I want my readers to understand I adore this person - she kept me propped up through some hellatious times and I’m a better person because she gave me a necessary poke when I needed it. If she needed my help, I would be there in a heartbeat.

But these damn emails that get forwarded around, signed by “a Viet Nam Vet” or some other heartstring-tugging title, are getting on my nerves. The last two had to do with illegal immigrants. I am really wishing I had invited her to the AAUW program we had in November when we endeavored to debunk the myths that surround immigration. If I had, she would have just hit the delete key when those arrived in her mailbox.

The thing is, she is a person with a big heart, but like a lot of us, she’s worked two jobs for as long as I’ve known her, and there are certain things - like people who don’t deserve getting handouts getting more than their share - that push her buttons. I don’t blame her on that score.

However, it is so easy to check out one of those forwarded things, especially those dratted petitions, on Snopes.com.  Sometimes it takes a little trial and error to get to the information that will help, but usually it’s right there. And with careful - let me emphasize that word - CAREFUL - reading, and some deductive reasoning, one usually can see that those emails are barely true, and mostly biiiiiiiig stretches of the imagination.

This last one had a so-called fact that interested me because it showed up in my history class’s discussion last month. Supposedly some huge percentage of births in Los Angeles hospitals was due to illegal immigrants. The truth of the matter is that the percentage listed refers to the number of Hispanic (Latino) births. Being Hispanic (or Latino) does not automatically signal an illegal alien. However, being Hispanic (or Latino, which, by the way is the current preferred moniker for this particular ethnic group) does add to the probability of a higher birth rate given the overall adherence to Roman Catholicism’s teachings by the group.

Another of the so-called facts referred to the number of outstanding arrest warrants. Reading a little farther down on good ole Snopes, I learned that it isn’t that MORE crimes are committed by illegals, but rather that warrants remain open due to the number of people who flee once they have committed a crime. Rather than risk deportation, the illegal will simply disappear and go to work somewhere else.

Now then, there is the matter of illegals working and receiving benefits… Oh, boy, this one really gets me. In a nutshell, the vast number of illegals work using a false social security number. Their employers pay into the social security system for these people, but they will never collect that money. Why? Because they will have to produce all kinds of paperwork that proves they are legal and since they have none of that, the money just stays in the social security fund. We’re talking millions, too!

As far as illegals who work for cash under the table, I’d like to pose this question: who is to blame for this system continuing? Is it the people who risk their lives to get here to work or is it the unscrupulous people who pay cash - and usually slave wages at that - who keep the practice alive? When someone can give me a cogent answer to that question, I’m ready to listen.

What the xenophobes fail to take into consideration is that the conditions in places like Mexico or Central America are so poor, wages (if one can even get a job) so low that families live in cardboard shacks or caves or worse. Instead of staying there and seeing their families starve, men and women come north to work. If they are lucky enough to be able to thread their way through our bureaucracy, they can work legally. If not, they will move heaven and earth to get here anyway, just to work. Even the aforementioned slave wages beat what they can get in their own countries.

Are these folks really taking away jobs from Americans? Not hardly. Just ask a local concrete finishing company about their crews and their work ethic. Ask them how the American laborers usually work out for them. Best of all, watch their crews, all scrubbed and cheerful, as they shop in WalMart for things to send home to their families, along with the money that feeds them. Interact with these guys and learn a lifetime of lessons when it comes to deprivation and sacrifice all in the name of family. Americans are not likely to endure what that company’s crews will endure. (And, yes, they are all legal alien workers.)

All I’m asking is for is some respect toward people who are different. When my friends are disdainful of those immigrants, it hurts me because I’m only a second generation American. My grandfathers toiled in coal mines for a pittance. One was in the iron range when the Wobblies came to help them resolve labor practices that were outrageous (e.g. let me screw your teenage daughter and I’ll let you dig in that pit where you can get a higher amount of ore in your paycheck). He was blacklisted there and had to move to find work, along with his wife and increasing family (probably around 8 or 9 at that point). They did this because things in “the old country” were even worse.

So, yes, I do understand something about this, and all I’m asking is that instead of forwarding those emails, folks take the time to check them out. It won’t hurt, I promise you, and if you learn the truth, so much the better.

BGF just bought his daughter a new cell phone. It has texting. She’s in hog heaven. All weekend she has left lines on her FaceBook page like ‘going outside, call or text me!” She is just dying for someone to text her.

Now let’s be clear about this. The only reason she got a new phone was because he was buying himself a new iPhone. If he was buying himself a toy, he had to buy her a toy. Plain and simple. He needed a texting playmate.
I don’t text. I think I can with my phone, but I’m not really sure. It’s not something I find necessary. As it is, our cell phone use is pretty minimal.

The only reason I have one has to do with the trips back to Illinois to tend my aging paternal unit. The Uncles and Bubbas all had the precursor to AT&T, so that’s what I got so I could have unlimited calls to those on the same plan. It made it a lot easier, since they were the ones providing me with intelligence on the day to day shenanigans. Somewhere in there, we had a crisis and I got a $300 phone bill. I went through the roof.

Then, it was time to replace my phone, so I added Big Kitty to the plan. The only reason for it was so I could find him in Lowe’s. Big Kitty has a unique talent. He can vaporize. And, like all cats, when he doesn’t want to be found, he cannot be found. I got tired of walking all over the place to find him, so I reasoned that I could ring him and arrange a meeting place. “Yo. You done in ‘lectrical? Meet me in plumbing.” We also had a new feature that I had been enjoying for a few years - rollover minutes.

So while I was giggling over this new plea for text messages, he chuckled along with me and then wondered out loud how many rollover minutes we had accrued. I looked it up. We had 10,722 minutes, but 980 had just expired. We added 997 minutes and came out with 10,739 minutes.

You could say our cell phone usage is minimal. Anyway, we did the math and it turns out we could, between our two phones, yak for seven and a half days before we depleted the stash of minutes for the two phones. Most people don’t get this.

We live in a holler on Snob Crick. We don’t get cell waves worth spit down here. Neither of us will call and drive. So that limits us to a conversation in the grocery store parking lot. Now who in heaven’s name wants to sit in the parking lot in front of The Fresh Market gabbing on the phone? Oh, stupid question…only that dizzy doofus in the behemoth that is looming up on the rear bumper of that little Focus….. You get the picture.

So while Herself is begging everyone to text her, I am cringing. She already cannot spell, and this is only going to complicate matters. If I were to commit murder upon her paternal unit’s person, the matter would go to Judge Weckstein. If I were to say, “Oy! Yer Honor, the deceased bought his daughter a damn texting phone and I’ve been trying valiantly to teach her to spell. He went and mucked it up so badly that I was driven to snuff him out by reason of sanity.” I think Weckie would get it. He knows the guy. He knows whereof I speak when it comes to banging one’s head on the desk.

Instead, I shall suffer this latest indignation with the hopes that her friends have used up all their minutes!

The Superbowl is in progress, and I am nowhere near the tube. I’ve had other things to do that kept me in the kitchen or checking the discussion board for my class. In fact, it was while I was waiting for the timer to go off that I wandered in to set the table and heard some bleach blonde start in with the Kate Smith anthem. I have no idea who she is, but they said she’d won Grammy awards. I have no idea why. Must have been slim pickins.

Anyway, I had settled down to go over the calendar when I heard the most horrendous caterwauling… Some broad with no range was shrieking what sounded vaguely like the national anthem. And I do mean vaguely. It was so bad I’m surprised I didn’t hear every dog in the neighborhood howling for mercy. It wasn’t even on key most of the time!

So here’s my beef with these events. It’s a given that the national anthem has to be performed. But let’s just all admit that it takes an opera singer to execute that puppy. It’s hard to sing and if a person doesn’t have the proper range, it comes out really, really bad. So why not just have a great marching band play it, let the crowd limp along as best as they can - we all know the words - and fuddegaboudit? Barring that, get an up and coming opera singer and let her strut her stuff. An opera singer will at least go to her vocal coach and practice!

I haven’t bothered to check any of the news spots to see who butchered the song tonight. I don’t really care who it was. Whoever it was can’t sing that particular song and had no business signing that contract. It was embarrassing, not to mention enough to make me feel sorry for the dogs…

But that’s the way it is, this first day of February, when all of Kentucky is readying their shotguns for Punxsatawny Phil if he doesn’t tell them what they need to hear tomorrow!

We went out for some Mexican and ran into our neighbors from our old house. since we hadn’t seen each other in ages, we decided to sit together and catch up. I have sadly concluded that while we are still wonderfully profane and still up for a great practical joke, we are geezers.

It started with the wince when we hugged (I’m still sporting that dandy purple badge of honor on my hind end, and a few other aches have since emerged.) and then we started swapping tales. Mary Sue had had to have surgery for some kind of bizarre infection way under her finger nail. And typical for us, we all agreed it was too bad the bandage wasn’t on her bird finger…. Dave had a really scary story about his appendix, we had our stories and on it went until I’m pretty sure we’d exhausted all our body parts.

Okay, I admit it. I am not ready for this. I am not taking this aging thing with much grace and it’s not like I have much choice in the matter, either. We get old. So what. Phooey. I just wish it didn’t come with these body part issues!

BGF had another kidney stone episode. I am now calling him Rocky. There is no choice but to inject humor into it because otherwise we’d all be boohooing our hearts out. “Purple bee-hind? Hey, just put your good bra on and go on out with your head high and swishin’ yo’ tail. Jes’ watch where you walkin’, girl.” (Advice from the House Goddess is worth its weight in gold.)

Even Barney goes down the steps with care! Sad. Just plain sad.

The thing is, our caver pals have really used their bodies - rode hard and put up wet is one way to put it. They have squeezed through some teeny tiny crevices deep beneath the earth’s surface, so it isn’t like they haven’t gotten their nickels’ worth.

Meanwhile, I have the Jets and the Sharks going on in this house…there has been some kind of rumble brewing for the last hour and a half. Charlie has been stomping around complaining of some slight (Rowr, rowr, rowr, meow, yow, yow.) and I’ve heard some thumping that sounds like a stand-off between Simon and Barney (whose head has retreated into his shoulders). Sooner or later someone is going come barreling down the steps, will narrowly miss crashing into the dining room table and scratching around for traction, will shoot around the corner and scamper off.

They’re twelve. Are they gonna pay for this in the morning? Oh, well, let them find out the hard way. We‘ve had to!

Big Kitty and I ventured out into the world of post-holiday sales today. The trip had a purpose: cheap wine from the warehouse store and more holiday storage boxes. I would have been happy with cardboard had it not been for the discovery of evidence that spelled a moisture issue in the kneewall storage area. So we needed to find plastic storage - and vino, of course.

We found some bargains (can you believe it? more lights?) and we had some fun investigating the leftovers at Target. We finally landed at B&N, after Auntie scored a pair of giant bottles of her favorite Eye-talian lavender bubble bath at Maxx. There, the goal was the latest book by Ina Garten. I saw a copy of a D.C. magazine that had a fabulous cover picture of the Obamas, and had to sit down and read the pictures. (Uncle Cookie and I are fond of reading the pictures first, then going back to the articles when we get time.)

I was very lucky and saw my former haberdasher, Jeff. I truly missed his store when he moved out of the mall. I had to make it a point to get myself there in his subsequent locations, but by then his ladies’ wear just didn’t float my boat. In the days of my infamous size 4 period, I dropped a lotta checks in there - he had a couple of fabulous saleswomen, and he had clothes that were just what I liked - simple, classic and stylish. He also had the best alterations lady this side of the Atlantic! Anyway, he is busy being a landlord of the building he built in the county, and his youngster is making a name for himself as a great auto detailer.

I told him about my rant about pants. He gets it. Even his mother predicted that Talbots was headed for trouble when they tried to change their demographic. That there are no classic pants around these here parts is a testament to the shift in our retail mindset. We no longer have local stores who understand their customers and go to market with the practiced eyes of merchants accustomed to providing superior customer service, along with clothing that everyone knows came from their store.

As we blunder our way through the dark side of an economy that still hasn’t been fully revealed to us, it is essential that certain things change. Americans won’t have the loose change for lots and lots of clothes and accessories. Furthermore, many of us are disenchanted with the high cost of clothing manufactured in Third World locations that cost peanuts to produce. We see that our own skilled textile workers are out of jobs and we see the move to offshore manufacturing for what it is: union busting.

Even now, the concessions expected of the automakers are being focused on the working stiffs, but not the high dollar executives. The bailout of Wall Street reeks of no oversight, and we’re all jittery. Banks requesting a piece of the bailout pie who don’t need the injection of cash, only want the money so they can buy up other failed banks. Where is the pride in what we make?

Pretty Woman was on last night. Remember the part where Vivien comments that Edward doesn’t make or build anything? Remember how it hits him that he’s missing something in his life by only tearing apart and never building? Is Edward Lewis a metaphor for our country?  Will this country wake up like he did? Or are we doomed to a life of pants that don’t make anyone look good? Are we destined to an existence of cheap goods because we can no longer afford to support the pillars of middle class society? Is Royal Worcester-Spode truly history?
I hope we don’t have unrealistic expectations of this young president-to-be, but I, like a lot of people, really do want to be hopeful. It’s just tough to feel positive when you can’t go out and get a decent pair of khakis or jeans. Ah, well, there is always chocolate, this new cookbook, and a treadmill for afterward!

I hope everyone out there in the blogosphere enjoyed a happy and peaceful Christmas yesterday. We certainly did. With the familial visits out of the way, we settled in and examined our toys in greater detail, had a pleasant lunch with Big Kitty’s mom, and gave the fat cats way too many treats.

This morning I tried to tidy up and put things away, but got interrupted by the need to be taught how to rip a CD so I could load my new iPod. (I’m gonna be so cool… I cannot wait to make up my Motown mix and my Ultimate Tony Rice mix.) Something kept coming back to me from a conversation with the maternal unit yesterday. It was the same topic I had had with the matriarch of BK’s company, and her co-matriarch (aka sister-in-law). Pants.

A few weeks ago the Star City’s newspaper ran a big article about how to select pants that fit and are flattering. None of it made a bit of sense. The more I read it, the more I realized, the stores are full of these gawd-awful hip-huggers that do not look good on anyone except those of a stick figure. Even in my size 4 days of yore, I would not have liked them on me. The latest Talbots catalog, a combination of winter on one side and cruise wear on the other, was chock full of the miserable pieces of crap, and I thought it was very, very revealing that the pants were all modeled by the 16 year old sticks. The lone middle-aged model (she looks like the one who used to be my favorite from about 20 years ago) is fairly slim, and her so-called paunch is barely noticeable. She isn’t in any of those hip huggers. That should tell you something!

Looking around me as I bop around town, I see younger women with fat tushies crammed into these pants. The top of the pants (you cannot call that which never sees the waist a waistband) cuts into their flab and their figures take on the look of the Michelin man. It ain’t a pretty sight. I see older women trying to make it work, but they look ridiculous with their poochy tummies encumbered by all manner of waistband hardware. It just makes them look poochier. The pants do not drape well, and they are unattractive on everyone except the size 2 sticks.

I cannot for the life of me understand why a retailer cannot see that at the end of the season, no matter how much lycra is poured into these travesties, they have racks of them left to try to unload in the post season sales.

The ladies I mentioned previously had the exact same complaints as I did, and all three are slim. All three have a tiny tummy and all three said the hip huggers all made their tummies look even bigger. One the so-called tips from that article suggested a wider and heavier “waist”band that would hold the tummy in. Oh, please. It only cuts the chub in two and creates the Michelin look. Even on a slim woman with a middle-aged poof, if looks ridiculous. If you have to run a full page set of tips that are as blatantly silly as those were, then it’s clear, no one knows what to do with the damn things and no one wants them.

My idea is to not buy them and leave the retailers high and dry. Maybe they will get some sense and return the stacks of unsold crap to the designers with a note saying, “Are you out of your mind? Americans are fat and they don’t have the money to spend on pants that are ugly and make them look worse than they already do!”

I’ve got extra poundage around my middle, that’s true, but I’ve always been able to find clothes that were well-cut and could be altered to fit my shape, which is, by all standards, hourglass. I’m pretty good at finding things that don’t make me look like a pear, but these pants make it very difficult. I gave in and bought some capris because I thought I was no longer fit for shorts. Not a good look for me, but at least I don’t have to see my spider veins and neither does anyone else. All my capris have what is euphemistically referred to as a contour waistband. I wore those in the sixties. They fit better then because they were truly a contour.

My mother-in-law and I were remarking on that yesterday. We even chuckled over our collections of belts that were contoured to fit. They lay perfectly just below the waist, instead of being straight things that cut into the flab. And that’s what’s wrong with this look. It’s supposed to be a little retro, but the designers are so poorly trained in tailoring that they don’t know how to make a true contour waistband.

I dunno. If the cruise wear is any indication, I can forget Talbots for pants for yet another season. What a rotten deal. We women need to just go on a buying strike. Unfortunately, the stupid fools would just whine that it’s the bad economy, not their crappy pants. I think I need another cup of coffee and a few cookies to cheer myself up!

Big Kitty has been the lucky recipient of a shoeboxful of Republican hate mail, decrying the terrible Democrats. They come from at least two different mailing lists because of the way his name appears. In addition, every evening we receive at least one robocall from the Republicans, and those are mighty scary.

What is annoying is that we can trace this targeting to the fact that Big Kitty is an electrician. A tradesman with a master’s in psychology, to be sure, but a guy who makes his living wearing a shirt with his name on it.

Big Kitty is also a yella dog Democrat, and as leftist as they come - a true Swede in that he believes we need universal health care and a government that takes care of its citizens. Apparently the Republican profilers don’t dig any deeper than the way a fella makes a living.

This is what annoys me about that kind of thinking. You never know who you are talking to. Just because a guy is an Italian, don’t take for granted that he’s a Catholic. Just because someone is a teacher, don’t take for granted she went to some dumbed down teacher’s college. Just because a person is a business owner, don’t take for granted that the person is a Republican. People can surprise you.

BK has a more sanguine attitude than I. He says that for every brochure they mail and robocall they pay for, that is that much less money they have to spend to brainwash a less discerning voter. What a guy!

My friend Esther, with her Biblical name, is a devoutly religious woman. She is also devoutly pro-choice. That she is raising her grandsons demonstrates she is devoutly pro-family. Nevertheless, she has been bombarded with a lot of right-wing bombast and she’d had it. She sent me a plea for help, but while I was considering how to help, I got an email from her that she’d sent to the offending parties.

Here’s the thing about Esther - she’s a good, ole girl and she calls ‘em like she sees ‘em. She is retired from the public schools and she’s seen it all. So when she gets this discouraged, it’s time to chime in. After all, she’s been there for a lot of people, and how quickly they forget. Shame on them for being so inconsiderate of her feelings. Shame on them for remembering that she has the right to not be badgered.

Here’s the other thing about Esther - she provides me with good writing fodder. This is my “reply to all” response to her latest:
Amen, Esther.

I stood in line with two ladies who told me their grandmother died of a botched abortion in 1933. She had had ten pregnancies, the last being a multiple birth. When she became pregnant again, her husband was out of work and it the the Depression. In desperation, she decided an abortion was the only chance her living children would have at being looked after. These two women were devoutly religious, yet maintained that being pro-family means that women should continue to have the privacy guaranteed by the Roe v. Wade decision that came forty years too late for their grandmother.

The Bible doesn’t say that life begins at conception. In fact, in the book of Numbers, (5:11-29) it recommends administering an abortifacient to a wife if her husband suspects her of being unfaithful. Similarly the sentences for inducing an abortion versus putting a human being to death were explicitly delineated in the ancient Code of Hammurabi. Even the law of Moses followed that precedent. (You could look it up!)

In her column, Ellen Goodman pointed out that one in three women has had an abortion at some point in her life. That means that in any room of women, there will be some who have had some form of abortion. The thing is, women do not discuss it. They take the approach that it is none of anyone’s business. And truly, the stigma attached to it is a recent phenomenon.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, I knew women who traveled first to New York, and later to California, for legal abortions. It is significant that Ronald Reagan was the governor of California at the time, and it was he who signed the legalization of abortion into law. In those days it wasn’t a badge of honor, by any means, but women were matter of fact about it. Given the numbers of women who are unable to use certain forms of birth control and given men’s reluctance to have their pleasure denied by use of a condom, it is no wonder there continue to be unplanned pregnancies. Women networked and shared where to go for the most affordable abortions. Indeed, there were ministerial counseling groups who arranged trips for women! Ministers! Imagine that! And from main line protestant denominations! Gasp! Baptists! Presbyterians….. (Apparently, they were well enough versed in the Bible to know there is no imperative prohibiting abortion.)

Abstinence? Tell that to the woman who died in 1933. Her husband knew good and well that sex with his wife could result in another pregnancy. He had no job. What was he thinking?

Abstinence? Tell that to Bristol’s pistol. Where was his condom? What was he thinking? Oh, hell, we know…. I’ve got a boner, Bristol, come on, it’s only one time… it’s all your fault….you got me hot… If we women had a penny for every time we heard that, we’d be able to bail out Lehman Brothers.

So while the self-righteous among us continue to berate, badger and belabor their friends and neighbors with their particular point of view, remember this: you might very well be talking to a woman to has had an abortion. And she might be nodding her agreement, but deep down inside she might be saying, ‘Are you nuts? My husband raped me the night I told him I was leaving his alcoholic, abusive self. You think I wanted an abortion? I had no choice. I had no home, no money and no prospects. All I had was a broken nose and the reminder of how he violated me.’

The Bible does tell us to have compassion and to be kind. Telling other people, especially women  -who earn 70 cents for every dollar men earn - that they must bear the brunt for someone else’s 5 seconds of pleasure is cruel and inhuman. Forcing poor women to have babies that they can ill afford and don’t necessarily want, foists even more abused children upon an educational system already strapped by the crack babies and fetal alcohol syndrome babies that are clogging the special needs classrooms.

Finally, I would remind my Christian brethren of the following:
In the United States of American, we have the Constitutional right to worship, or not, as we see fit. That means a Muslim has the same religious freedom of worship as a Hindu or a Christian. All religions, if people would take the time to study them, preach the same thing: be kind to your fellow wo/man. We are all in this together and we must help one another in times of need. We must have mercy and compassion in our hearts. We must love our neighbors, whether we agree with them or not.

By the same token, the Constitution has granted women the right to vote. If the Constitutional right to privacy in a decision between a woman and her doctor isn’t good enough for you, try this one:
Matthew 6, 5 - 7.
That involves Jesus’ command to keep one’s prayers private. That should help you in your understanding of what     Jesus considered to be sacred. Remember, he was a practicing Jew. He had no written Bible. He only had the law of Moses, as taught by the rabbis. And Moses didn’t prohibit abortion. Women can take that to the polls the next time men threaten to erode their rights.

With all love and support in your current struggle to be left alone with your own opinions,
Auntie