same as rattlesnake
The flop-eared rabbits in the television commercial take me back sixty-some years to 1958 or 1959 aboard my beloved destroyer USS Corry. A twenty-two or twenty-three-year-old Navy ensign or lieutenant j.g. at the time, I skipped the wardroom meal and went below to the crew's mess for dinner for a change, went through the serving line, and sat down at a table with my tray. Seeing me there eating, the CPO in charge came over and sat down with me.
"Good fried chicken, Chief," I told him.
"Sir," he said, "that's rabbit."
"Rabbit?"
"Yes sir, the Navy serves a lot of rabbit. We fry it up same as fried chicken."
Well, WTH, it was fine. Same as rattlesnake: tastes like chicken.
Linda has the tv on channel 13 right now, and, glancing up, I see they're talking about Uvalde. Still and again. Got to get up and leave the room, can't watch any more of it, it's crushing mentally, physically, emotionally debilitating, bringing me down into a sadness that concerns me. My brother is coming this afternoon, we haven't seen each other in months, I was anticipating a joyful day, an escape from What Is. But the tide has rolled back in and overwhelmed me. I'd gladly give my life and the lives of half of Americans if I could turn Time back and make Uvalde not-have-happened. And now we're in the Newsroom ER Waiting Room waiting for the inevitable next round of atrocities against other Americans. The tiptoeing, pussyfooting around, being balanced, watching one's step, beating around the bush, evading, equivocating, ducking the issue, weasel wording, treading lightly lest one offend, is sickening, disgusting, enraging. It's the New America, stupid, the monstrous atrocity of the gun culture evil that has intimidated and bought out society. Guns were once an ordinary part of life here. But under the guise of in-your-face 2nd Amendment rights, the New America experiences the slaughter of American children as more bearable than taking the lead in keeping guns out of legal ownership of the Insane. If you can't see it, you're part of it. If you see it but can't or won't say it, you've sold out to it and are enslaved by it.
The price of your soul.
Same as rattlesnake. Tastes like chicken.
Other on Channel 13, a huge broad shouldered swimmer once swimming with the guys, now Lia Thomas swimming against other lady sharks. Is that right, or not? Whose rights? Time will decide. Rights isn't everything, or even the main thing. Good is the Only thing. There's a scene and line in Elia Kazan's 1956 film "Baby Doll" where the protagonist says, "You can't see what's good for what's right." It's one of my memory verses.
Still more on Channel 13. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard: this is news? this is newsworthy? this is news in America? There is a tragicomedy film, I have the CD, can't find it, don't remember the title, with a side plot in which an elderly woman is obsessed with a beloved soap opera. She watches and waits for years, and finally one of the star couples unites in marriage and there's a wedding on the soap opera. Of course she attends the wedding: dressed in her finest, she sits at the television set weeping. I don't know Amber Heard, but Johnny Depp is creepy.
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Originally, where I was going this morning was my own equivocating. Everyone I know and like or love, every good person I know is conscientiously on one side or the other of the Roe v Wade issue. Churches are aligned, not necessarily as individuals but as a body, the Episcopal Church is aligned with Pro-Choice, many other churches with the Right to Life side. A thinking human, my mind is my own, no institution decides for me on this or doctrine or dogma or social or theological or political or any other damn thing. In this case, I'm coming up on eighty-seven, abortion is not a factor in my life as it is in the lives of so many others on both sides. But it looks pretty clear that the U S Supreme Court is set to strike down Roe v Wade, so I'm trying to think ahead: on this, there's no point in my being for or against this change, how will this USSC decision affect us? IDK, there are many possibilities. An "Opinion" essay in today's NYT stirs my wondering:
A Debate Over What Roe Did -- and
What Losing It Would Mean
The social conservative legal scholar Erika Bachiochi argues that abortion rights have stalled women’s progress toward equality
Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’
For decades, the conservative position on abortion has been simple: Appoint justices who will overturn Roe V. Wade. That aspiration is now likely to become reality. The question of abortion rights will re-enter the realm of electoral politics in a way it hasn’t for 50 years. And that means Republicans will need to develop a new politics of abortion — a politics that may appeal not only to their anti-abortion base but to some of the many Americans who believe Roe should stand.
One place those Republicans may look for inspiration is to the work of the legal scholar Erika Bachiochi. She is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, director of the Wollstonecraft Project at the Abigail Adams Institute and the author of “The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision,” where she argues for a “dignitarian feminism.” Bachiochi embraces women’s gains in professional and civic life but holds that techno-pharmacological birth control, the sexual revolution and the legalization of abortion have created a sexual and family culture that has ultimately been devastating to women’s well-being.
In hopes of improving that status quo, Bachiochi puts forward a policy agenda that could very well become the post-Roe playbook for some Republicans: tighter abortion restrictions combined with a robust slate of family policies — some of which would be even bolder than the Biden administration’s proposals to date. Hers is not an argument I agree with, but it’s one that I imagine will become increasingly salient in a post-Roe America.
We discuss Bachiochi’s views on why the “gender revolution” has stalled; her belief that market logic has come to dominate our understandings of family, parenting, sex and feminism; her critique of modern “hookup” culture; and her pro-family economic agenda. And we debate whether it’s realistic to encourage the use of natural fertility regulation over hormonal contraception, how abortion relates to single motherhood and poverty, whether stricter abortion laws might benefit or hurt poor women, what role the law should play in teaching moral behavior, whether progressives have become too “Lockean” in their understanding of bodily autonomy, whether the sexual revolution gave people too much choice and more.
You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. .
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