Edward J. Pluchar - The Blogsplitter

I mentioned Feminists for Life in a previous post, and for more information you can visit feministsforlife.com

We received some literature a few weeks ago, and I’ve been reading as time becomes available.  I do the bulk of my casual reading during meals, but reading about abortion isn’t a great seasoning for scrambled eggs (see post about Steak Seasoning!), so you can find one of the magazines in our bathroom, and the other in our pile of papers to be sorted.  I was sorting papers and so spent some time reading the one magazine today.

The main takeaway, for me, is how firmly established the pro-life position is (or at least seems to be) in feminist history (”herstory,” if you want to amend the language).  A few sample quotes are:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Classified abortion as a form of “infanticide” and said, “There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this.  But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?”

Susan B. Anthony - “Guilty?  Yes.  No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed.  It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who…drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”

Victoria Woodhull (First female presidential candidate) - “The rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the fetus.”  And…”Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”

The Susan B. Anthony quote I find especially poignant, because it refers to my gender.  However, I’ve never, as far as I’m aware, been an active abuser or oppressor of any woman, so for most of my life I would not have accepted that guilt being laid at my feet.  That’s other people, other men.

I did experience the guilt as a member of the male gender, though, but not in the proper way.  Previously, I have restrained myself from pushing the pro-life message, from challenging anyone pro-choice, because I would never be in a position to consider an abortion (for myself), and therefore how could I seek rights over someone else’s body?  Moreover, men are often accomplices to, or principal causes of, the crime, and in a general way my identity as a man trapped me in this collective guilt.  I had no one to appeal to.

Now I do, as referenced above, and furthermore the “guilt” can be more properly assigned - I am guilty in as far as I am complacent with the circumstances that lead women to have an abortion.  But at least I’m not guilty for believing that the fetus is properly defined (in Latin, I learned) as a “young one,” and that such a one deserves to live.

Horace Walpole

Today’s Gospel.

I love this reading.  It would make my top ten list of historical events I would like to have witnessed.

The theme of divine restraint, even divine shrewdness, is thoroughly captivating.  I’m fascinated by the inversion of values, the question of which it is really more impressive for Jesus to do:  To forgive sins or to heal a paralytic?

And He does both.

I spoke about a class clown in a previous post.

As can happen over the course of a week, my original class clown drew back on her humor a bit, and began allowing a bit of emotional vulnerability.  Others took her place as class clowns, but there’s a story this woman, Veronica, told which moved me.

She’s a widow of some time, though I did not think it was important to ask her how long she’s been a widow.  She loves dancing, and even though her husband can no longer accompany her, she’ll still go out dancing, sometimes alone, to salsa clubs and other such places.  The crowds she meets at these clubs are usually much younger, but it appears that they are very glad to share Veronica’s company and appreciate her love of dancing.

Sometimes, Veronica said, she can’t sleep at night.  Downstairs she has a table set up, with a chair that her husband frequently sat in, and she leaves it empty, for him.  She says it’s as if he’s still sitting there.  On those sleepless nights, she’ll go downstairs and dance for her husband, dance and dance until her body is finally tired and she can go to sleep.

Now, it certainly says something when a television  show like, “Dogg after Dark” exists.

(I’m now laughing out loud.  I just googled “dogg after dark” and discovered that I witnessed the world premiere of Snoop Dogg’s talk show).

Wow…alright then.  The show takes place in a ritzy sort of bar, with people all around seeming to enjoy themselves and to take casual notice of the “show” going on in their midst.  I didn’t watch beyond the first guest, Paris Hilton, because there was news about GM’s new plan to restructure on Fox.  Before I changed channels, I discovered that Snoop refers to Paris as “Sweet P.”  I also found interesting the way they each used the word “love” in their conversation.

The GM bit was certainly interesting.  I think it’d be wild to make my living commenting on such events.  The guy I was watching, whom I did not recognize, projected a tone which was sometimes authentically scathing, while at other times his tongue was deep in his cheek.  For now, I’ll have to settle for TWRD.

Another show, NCIS, a drama starring Mark Harmon (I’m so glad he’s alive after being fatally shot during his stint in “The West Wing”) came on.  I enjoy Harmon’s personality, which varies only a tick or two between the two shows I’ve now seen him in.  His hair looked bad, though, like a pappy.  The show was steadily engaging, mostly in the personalities.  There was one actress in particular -  maybe the forensic scientist? - who was thoroughly fun to watch, and the editors seemed to accentuate her eccentricities with rock music.

Ah - then, I found RuPaul’s reality show.  For this episode, the contestants were attempting to impersonate Oprah, which in a very strange way seems to be a lob right over the plate.  Maybe there’s something just slightly masculine about Oprah, which acts as a buffer for the drag queen’s squarish jawline and/or just a little too throaty voice?  Seeing a show like that raised the dilemma of tolerance for me, a little - Where is the line where tolerance, rightly, ends?  Everyone knows that we won’t all agree on where to lay that line, but what do we say about the intolerance that a person faces when he/she (no pun intended) finally does lay the line down and becomes intolerant of something?  As I was casually thinking about this, I noticed three or four drag queens beginning to bully a lone drag queen, causing him/her to become distressed about his/her plan to impersonate Oprah.

At last, I think I’ll turn the TV back on to serve its most effective purpose - sleep aid.  Can’t wait to wake up and see what kind of fitness equipment is being sold while February 18th is still new…

The class I’m attending, about which I issued an anticipatory denouncement, is not that bad.

My only complaint about it is that we frequently get sidetracked.  But the stop-and-go tempo is tolerable for a number of reasons.

One - the instructors are really good.  They’re knowledgable but not snooty, engaging, and watchable (I mean this in an absolute sense - not on a spectrum, from “boring” to “wildly entertaining,” and they fall in as “watchable,” but as opposed to “unwatchable.”)  Two, my fellow classmates have been equally engaging, and part of that is for (what I think is) an interestion reason:   This is the most diverse crowd I’ve been a part of in a while, at least since similar classes in Chicago last August.  I’ve forgotten what a struggle it is to use English as a second language, what it’s like to live in a city, how fun it can be when the class clown is a 50 year old African American woman.

Another thing, not related to the class:  I had forgotten what I consider to be a solemn experience, to walk around a big city in the morning, before the traffic starts.  The towering structures, the fascinating architecture, the clear-mindedness of new concrete, the whisper of cars passing a block away, the chill, the memory and foreknowledge of crowded streets - people walking with purpose, or else standing by and watching - of business in motion, of students on the way to class, of laborers on their way to lunch.  I love my country home, but it’s something to visit the city.

And finally - who knew I’d be able to order Nancy’s deep dish pizza here in Atlanta?

Dodgeball here is not like the PTP days of old, but I’m quickly reconciling my desire for marathon struggles of strength, endurance, and psychological stamina with…you know, throwing balls at old people, or little kids.

Last night, the “kids,” a group of boys 13-14 years old, were talking trash to the adults, five men 27-30 years old, and one mother with a nice slider.  So it was kids vs. adults.

The trash talk ended up being a gross miscalculation on the part of the kids, but I think that’s basically your job, when you’re a 13-14 year old boy.  It was a particularly bad decision for Scott, aka “Nutter Butter.”

Now, most of the night was just a field day with these kids.  In one of the last games, I saw Nutter Butter with two balls in his hands, which is a mistake he had not learned from yet.  I threw at him hard, aiming to knock one of those two balls out, but my ball sailed just a little - and hit him square in the throat.  He did drop the balls.

But Scott was dubbed Nutter Butter early in the night, when one of the other adults, with a strong arm, laid him out with a shot to the nuts.  Hence the name.

(Puns intended)

You’ve certainly noticed the many weight loss ads saturating sidebars everywhere, from Facebook to www.whitehouse.gov, the most common being “Obey 1 Rule to Lose Stomach Fat.”  I’ve seen a few of those ads with typos, actually, which is a filter for me:  If you can’t go 40 characters without a typo, I’m not sure I trust the quality control on your product.

Anyway, yesterday and today I noticed something which seems odd.  The subject of the ad, invariably female, seems to wear more revealing clothing in the “Before” picture and something like a sweater in the “After” picture.  Does this make sense?

I guess the Before picture will then emphasize the person’s shape, so that the change will seem that much more drastic.  But putting a sweater on for the After picture?  That would cause me to lose confidence - there must still be something the subject (more likely the company) wants to hide.

Also - part two of this treatment is a colon cleanse?  This is something - anything to do with the colon seems to evoke extreme discomfort (I know there are two readers who could holler back!), and is not something I would willingly pay for.  In fact, the only circumstance under which I would pay for a colon cleanse is if my doctor ordered it.  Then I would know it was necessary, and that somebody with special training would order and facilitate the cleansing.

I’m certainly not going to trust the typo-ing company who poured cold water on my confidence with their wardrobe selections.

Danny, our dog, is a runner.  He was built to grab the earth and propel himself off of it with great force in proportion to his sleek body.  His ability to change directions, and to do so in order to avoid an obstacle, is uncanny and effortless.  In the open field, I could never hope to catch, or even touch, him.

So, Danny has a lot of energy, and this energy becomes pent-up when he has not been able to run.  When Marcy or I come home, Danny becomes so excited that his tail wags his whole body, and after we greet him, he still has so much energy that he’ll run and track down one of his rawhide bones.  He’ll then bolt through the hallways, up and down the stairs, tossing the toy about and hunting it down again, then taking off with it to the next room at near mach speed.

Marcy and I will have started talking about her night at the hospital, and when there’s a pause in the conversation, we’ll hear the rumble of galloping paws, the hesitation before the clumsy collision of Danny’s bone with the ground, and Danny’s pounce on the toy an instant later.  Then, more rumbling…

Today, I had some pent-up energy.  Marcy just left, and I decided to see what Danny would do if I went on a romp like he does.  So I raced through the hall, into the living room, and back around in a circle.  Then up the stairs two at a time, dashing into one room, then another, and finally back downstairs.

I think you could summarize Danny’s response to me as:  “What in the hell are you doing?  You’re freaking me out.”

Hypocrite.