boondoggle chicanery fricassee frack
we’re treating our planet like it’s mere bric-a-brac
brouhaha blunderbuss balderdash trump
are the politicos shrewd or just foolish chumps?
shenanigans skiddaddle kerfuffle flummoxed
some leave with stealth; some because they’re fuxed
cacophony kiester debacle folderol
the last thing we need is to build a wall.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Warning: This one is of a political nature.
I have noticed at least one politician who brings up abortions whenever his approval ratings drop. The word “abortion” seems to bring an instant knee-jerk reaction from people – they immediately fall into lock-step behind him. All the other things that need attention – global warming, mass shootings, poverty, homelessness, and national security – are put aside. People seem willing to throw out the Constitution and the well-being of their fellow citizens for this one issue alone.
I’ve never had an abortion. I’ve never been in a situation where I might have to make that choice: Both my pregnancies were planned; The pregnancies didn’t endanger my health or life; The sons were seen to be thriving and whole in the womb. My pregnancies were full of joyful anticipation. I could see my sons moving around on the screen – could see their little hands and feet moving and their hearts beating – and they were both very real to me. I can understand the feelings anti-choice people have about abortion, and I can relate to those feelings.
But I have empathy, too, for women who might find themselves in circumstances different than mine – I can imagine the gut-wrenching despair and heartache a woman might feel if she found herself in a position where she had to make this choice. I have had friends who had to make this choice for themselves and none of them celebrated abortions – there wasn’t wild rejoicing and laughter and applause. None of them approached this choice without deep reflection and thought. For each of them it was a somber, serious, sorrowful time in their lives.
No one should view another woman’s pregnancy cavalierly – like pregnancy and childbirth are just small blips in a woman’s life. Women die from pregnancies. Women die from childbirth. And to force a woman to go through a pregnancy that might endanger her health, or cause her death, is unthinkable to me. To force any woman to go through a pregnancy without consideration for her feelings and needs is just wrong. It’s not my place – or anyone else’s – to take control of another woman’s body and choose how it’s going to be used. Her body doesn’t belong to me, or to you.
Yeah, I admit I have sometimes found myself making judgments on women who have had multiple abortions, or who choose to have an abortion rather than give up their dream for a new car or a trip to the Bahamas or whatever. But I’m not proud of that. When we, as a society, start trying to add certain restrictions about who can get an abortion and who can’t and for what reasons, we’re making the right to get an abortion a subjective thing, rather than a medical procedure. Who am I to decide what reasons are good enough to allow a woman to have an abortion, and what reasons are not? All women should have the right to have control over their own bodies. And my personal biases – and yours – shouldn’t enter into the discussion.
Should there be laws that protect a sentient life from harm? Absolutely! And there are laws that do this. No state allows for murder. No state allows for infanticide. Any claims to the contrary are wrong.
Do I post this? Or do I not?
Okay, here goes..
Dear Republican Senators:
The Government shutdown is not working for us. You are not serving the best interests of the people who elected you to represent them.
The bill that the House of Representatives recently passed is the exact same bill you passed, unanimously, only a month ago. There is no good reason not to pass it again. Please stop holding the American people hostage. Pass the bill, get the government working again, PAY THE GOVERNMENT WORKERS AND STOP TREATING THEM LIKE FREE LABOR (give them a raise while you’re at it – Lord knows they’ve earned it), and THEN talk about The Wall with the Democrats.
You all know there are better ways of protecting our borders than a wall. You all know about the technology we have available to us in the 21st century to protect our borders (and if you don’t know about this technology, perhaps now is the time to get acquainted with it) – technology that would make a wall obsolete.
If McConnell won’t do the right thing, then it is time for you to remove him as your majority leader, and get on with fixing this mess.
Sincerely,
Karen Molenaar Terrell
Karen’s rant du jour:
I’ve noticed a pattern. When someone from one team (and this could be the GOP or the Democratic party or a third party) gets accused of some kind of misconduct, other people from the same team immediately point to the bad stuff someone from the OTHER team did – “See that?! Did you see what HE did?!” My thought about this is…it’s a distraction – it’s keeping us from focusing on the things we need to deal with right now. If Kavanaugh attacked this woman – he should not, in any way, be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court or ANY court. Doesn’t matter what Clinton did or didn’t do. Doesn’t matter what Wasserman Schultz did or didn’t do. Doesn’t matter what anyone else did or didn’t do – the question is what did KAVANAUGH do? He’s the one being nominated for the Supreme Court right now. The corruption has to stop sometime with someone in some place. We can’t keep passing this stuff on and excusing it. I’ve come to realize in the last few years that BOTH of the major parties are full of corruption – and that doesn’t make any of it alright. We need to start at the top – with the President – and start cleaning the corruption, greed, dishonesty, and mean-spiritedness – out of there. The American people deserve better.
Please – if you’re 18 or over and a citizen of this country – vote in November.
P.S. A friend pointed out that there’s actually now a name for what I described here: whataboutism.
There are times when I just don’t want to invest even one more minute of my precious time on earth thinking about Trump. He’s an attention-grabber – and there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to give him what he wants. And sometimes that part of me wins out and I go have my adventures and deliberately, consciously ignore anything Trump. This is how I dealt with him (and other reality stars) before he decided to run for President. I wanted nothing to do with him. He wasn’t any part of my reality. He couldn’t affect my life in any way. But it’s different now, of course. Now he can affect my life and the lives of the people I work with, teach, care about. And so… yeah… as much as I’d like to just ignore him… sometimes I feel an urgent need to address “it.” I hope my posts don’t cause you too much distress. I totally get why you’d rather not read anything about this man. Please don’t ever feel obligated to read my Trump-stuff. I don’t blame you at all for wanting to avoid it. But please don’t blame me for following my conscience on this.
“It is difficult for the sinner to accept divine Science, because Science exposes his nothingness; but the sooner error is reduced to its native nothingness, the sooner man’s great reality will appear and his genuine being will be understood.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
“Ignorance, subtlety, or false charity does not forever conceal error; evil will in time disclose and punish itself.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
“A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove its unreality… A sinner is afraid to cast the first stone. He may say, as a subterfuge, that evil is unreal, but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offence. Blindness and self-righteousness cling fast to iniquity.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
To my friends who voted for Mr. Trump –
Okay, I’ll accept that you thought you were doing the best you could given your choices. You voted – and good for you for taking the time to do that. I wish Bernie had been on the ballot – but Wasserman Schultz denied us that choice – so I did the best I could, too, and voted for Clinton.
But Trump has been in office a year and a half now. And – after all we’ve seen since he became President – I have to admit I’m finding it impossible to understand those people who STILL support the man in the White House.
A recap (feel free to add on) –
– Trump fired FBI director James Comey, attacked our own U.S. intelligence community, and sided with Putin.
– The number and visibility of hate groups has grown under Trump. (USA Today, 2-22-18) He has made no effort to condemn these groups. He has, however, tweeted that NFL players who use their First Amendment rights to kneel during the anthem should lose their jobs. When a U.S. President is sworn into office he takes a pledge to protect our Constitution. When a President dishonors our First Amendment rights, he dishonors the Constitution he’s supposed to protect.
– Someone is going to have to pay for the tax cuts that Trump signed into law, and that were given to corporations and the wealthy. “Republican leaders in Congress have suggested they will turn to cutting welfare and programs such as Medicare and Medicaid once a tax bill is complete.” (Tax Policy Center)
– The Trump Administration separated thousands of immigrant children from their parents at the border. In the process, they lost track of 1475 immigrant children and 38 parents of young children. (And no, there was no law that said Trump had to do this. He chose to do this.)
– The Trump administration pulled the U.S. from the Paris Agreement (an agreement of the global community to combat climate change) and a former coal lobbyist (Andrew Wheeler) is now in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump killed a rule restricting the dumping of coal waste into our waterways. The administration also started a rollback of clean car standards (car emissions standards). Researchers from Harvard predict an additional 80,000 people could die in the next decade because of the Trump administration’s environmental policies. (“How Trump is Changing the Environment”; National Geographic)
– The Trump administration legalized the inhumane practice of hunting hibernating bears and their cubs, and shooting wolf pups in their dens. The Trump administration also legalized the trade of elephants parts in the United States.
– With the exception of Putin (and maybe Kim Jong un), Trump has not treated other world leaders with courtesy or respect. He has shouldered them out of the way, walked in front of them, and given handshakes that are more like arm wrestling matches.
– He started a trade war that is already hurting our farmers and those in the solar power industry.
– And whenever Trump gets caught in one of his multitudinous lies he always uses the mainstream media as his scapegoat. Instead of respecting the people who have made a career of holding politicians accountable, he labels mainstream media “fake news” and seems to expect them to portray him in a positive light. It is not the job of mainstream media to portray ANY politician in a positive light.
To sum it all up, Trump is doing what he can to destroy our planet and destroy our democracy. How ANYone can support him now is incomprehensible to me.
Dear Legislators:
We, the American people, entrusted you with our lives and livelihoods. When we voted you into office we expected you to represent US, not corporations. You have been a sad disappointment to us. You have not served us well. You are now asking the poorest citizens of this land to pay taxes to support the richest citizens of this land. It is a scene out of Robin Hood, and you are playing the part of the Sheriff of Nottingham. We are putting you on notice. Fix this mess that you have created, or expect to be fired come 2018.
Sincerely,
An Unhappy Employer
