Hell in a Handbasket

We're going to hell. All of us. I'm convinced. Well, except for the part where I don't believe in "heaven" or "hell" specifically.

Why is that? Gosh, I'm so glad you asked!

First of all, our priests (who are supposed to be the embodiment of all that's good and chaste in Catholicism - right?) are still molesting kids! What is that shit anyway? If you let Father Hands play with your ding-a-ling do you get a "get out of sin" free card or something? I mean christ! Errr...

Then there's the guy who bails on killing himself (wrist and chest wounds self-inflicted suggest he did initially mean to do it) by parking his SUV in front of a train. I guess he thought it would make a bit explosion if he doused his SUV with gasoline first too. He jumped out of his car at the last minute, but the train derailed and hit another one after hitting the SUV. 11 people dead, a whole bunch injured (200 or so), and they can't decide if they should try for the death penalty on this one? Can anyone say duh? He wanted to kill himself - took out 11 people in his "attempt" - let's finish it for him, shall we? Why couldn't he just get some pills or a rope like normal suicidal people do? I mean jeez! Oh, but they say he wanted to get his wife's (he's separated and she's got a restraining order, by the way) attention. I'll bet he did too. I'd be upping the mileage on how far away he has to stay away from my house if I were her.

And then there's the bit about the Iraq abuse allegations. I guess it wasn't just an isolated incident. Nope, there's all sorts of red-blooded Americans and the occasional British citizen as well, over there beating up already captured prisoners. Because, gosh, nothing says you're a "man" like beating a helpless prisoner up with a baseball bat. Or making naked prisoners form a human pyramid. Or dragging them around by a leash. Why am I suddenly reminded of Nazis? And, again, I find it interesting that I found that one in the BBC headlines instead of ours.

There's more. There's plenty more. There's always more.

I just don't want to read any more today.

Choosing sides on an age-old debate

I seem to be posting here weekly. I mull and chew over the news until I see something that I want to comment on. That's fine. I post on my other blog daily, even when I have nothing much to say. That blog is a journal. This blog is something else entirely.

I was going to post in regards to this post over at Alas, a Blog, where I found this page, of which Ampersand says: "Someone on a men’s rights forum suggested this link as a one-stop summary of what men’s rights activists are complaining about. So, in case you were wondering…"

I was wondering. My own husband has been discriminated against, during the days when he was doing temp jobs as an Administrative Assistant. I guess people don't want some guy as their secretary, especially if he's got longer-than-average hair. It weirds them out. He lost two temp jobs due to "dress code" issues. He dresses very sharp - vest-suits. He is often overdressed for the first week, if its business casual, until he feels out what the dress code there is. When he's at work, and always ties his hair neatly back until given an a-okay by the bosses. I, however, have never been sent away from a job due to "dress code" issues. For a while we had nearly the same qualifications, and applied for very similar positions. But I am female. Women are supposed to be good secretaries - right? Whatever. We've moved on to different things since then. I'm just saying that discrimination does go both ways. I'm all for equality.

I did have issues with the section of the article on circumcision. We anguished over that decision when we had our son. We read some stuff, and that one was more heavily my hubby's decision than mine - he had more personal experience with what it was like to be a circumcised man. We decided to have our son circumcised. Why? In the end, it was a) supposed to be easier to keep him cleaner, and therefore healthier, and b) the cleaner it was, the more likely a woman would be to give him blowjobs once he was old enough for that sort of thing.

What? Yes, I want my son to have a good sex life one day. Get over it.

But then I went back over to Alas, a Blog today and the discussion has been about abortions/pro-life/pro-choice/etc. So I thought I'd put in my own opinion on that little doozer of a topic.

Okay, so here's how it falls. In the final weeks before I had my son, I made a point of putting some things down in writing. It was mostly a list of things I did and did not want done to myself or my child during the delivery. While I made that list up, I made it clear to my husband - "If something should happen and they have to choose between saving my life or that of the baby - save the baby." We'd also decided, long before we were ever pregnant or even married, that if birth control had failed and I'd suddenly found myself pregnant we would keep the child.

For my own body only - I am pro-life. If I were raped and it yeilded a pregnancy - I would still keep that child and love him or her.

But - and this is a big, huge, monsterous BUT - in the overall scope of things, I am pro-CHOICE.

A couple should have the right to choose.

Let me say that again, folks - a COUPLE should have the right to choose. Unless the pregnancy is a result of rape. Then there was a crime involved. Then the VICTIM should be allowed to choose.

The child? The child already has made that choice. If aborted, that child's soul will move on to the next life it is meant to experience. If you're Christian, you can think of it as that child getting to skip all the pain in life and bounce straight up to heaven. Feel better now? No? Not so simple eh?

Because it's not that simple, I know. The whole debate is based very heavily in religious beliefs. When does life begin? Defining that is a huge problem. It's not like you can just stick a microphone in and ask "Hey! You alive yet?" Some people say it's at birth. Some people say it's when the brain starts growing. Some say it's the moment of conception, when the egg and the sperm combine. Some define life as a spiritual thing.

My own mother had an abortion. I always wished I'd had an older brother or sister to look out for me while growing up - imagine my surprise when she told me that she'd been pregnant. Her folks took her out of state, somewhere it was legal to get an abortion at the time. She was 18 years old. She didn't know until she was lying on the table and drugged up that she had to sign as an adult. She was told by her parents that they'd leave her there if she didn't sign the papers and get the abortion. She signed the papers. She always regretted it.

How would having that child have changed her life? Would I still have been born? Would the friend that had offered to marry her (she didn't know that until afterwards either) really have followed through with it? Would my father have owned up to getting her knocked up that first time? Who knows? Who cares? It didn't happen, wasn't meant to be. Focus on what is happening instead of what might have been.

I feel the same way about abortion as I feel about religion - don't force your opinions upon me. I was born with free will, and the ability to make my own decisions. That includes how I feel about God and whatever "relationship" I choose to have with him. That includes how I feel about when life begins and whether or not I choose to have a child. It's personal. It's my choice. In the case of a child, it's the man who got me pregnant's choice as well. He should have a say - that child is half him too.

Your tax dollars are going where??

So the BBC news knows the story. Ironically enough, I came across it in their "Americas" headlines before I saw it anywhere else. I guess the Illinois papers don't think it's a big enough story, although the Chicago Tribune has it, but I had to search. I also had to search to find the story on CNN. And we wonder why other countries view us so poorly - they're better at broadcasting the bad news than we are, I guess.

Yeah, okay... so this guy, Michael Ross, was supposed to be executed on Monday. He killed 8 people. He confessed. He's been convicted. He's been on death row for a long while now, and I guess he's tired of it. He's stopped fighting his death sentence and is ready to chuck in the towel. Score one for the taxpayers who have to pay for the prisons - right?

Wrong. Now they've gotta spring for psychoanalysis to make sure that Michael Ross is "mentally competent to decide his fate" according to the CNN article. I guess there's this thing called "death row syndrome" that these hardened criminals get after they've been there for a while.

Awwwwwwww. Gosh, like, how awful for them. Those pooooor widdle murdering bastards.

I mean c'mon already!

It's no wonder crime is so abundant in today's America - we don't have the balls to actually do anything bad to the criminals! We feed, clothe, and shelter them instead! And when they confess to something like murder, we allow them years of appeals on their sentence. And, if it's the death sentence - now we have to make sure that they are "competent" enough to die...

I am, in fact, astonished. This guy crossed that invisible line in the sand in my mindset. Just finish it already. He wants to die now? Even better - let him have it.