Alas, a Blog

Amber Marlowe, a Pennsylvania woman, reviewed the risks and decided she’d rather not have a C-section. A friend of hers had died from a C-section gone bad, leaving Marlowe understandably nervous about the procedure. (Doctors also claimed that she and her husband had religious objections to surgery, but the Marlowes have said that isn’t true).

So the doctors presented options to the patient. The patient chose an option the doctor didn’t like. That’s the end of it, right?

Wrong. The hospital, Wilkes-Barre General, went to a judge and got a secret order, subjecting Marlowe to a C-section by force, regardless of her wishes.

Fortunately, the Marlowes were able to reach another hospital to give birth and – despite the doomsday predictions of the first hospital’s doctors – gave vaginal birth to a healthy baby.

I thought this quote, from a pro-life activist, was particularly good at illustrating the pro-life position.

(Okay, I took that quote a bit out of context – but not much.)

If this were a man refusing to have surgery – even surgery his doctors felt was essential – there’d be no question of forcing him to undergo the surgery. Even if the surgery were for a kidney transplant for his son – without which, the man’s son would die – no one would even suggest surgery against his will.

Yet somehow, get a woman pregnant and too many people believe she’s lost all rights. This sort of case is why pro-lifers have a reputation for thinking of women as holding tanks for babies..

It just had to be said.

Okay, consider this an “open thread.”.

Allow me to indulge in a bit of post-modernism here for a second.

Looking at the “Recently updated comments” section on the right side of the page I see that as of this moment two of the top five posts have titles that begin with “a few quick [nouns] on…” (Specifically, those posts are A few quick links from Amp and A few quick thoughts on Iowa.) On top of this I just wrote a post titled A few quick thoughts on the primaries.

Apparently two of the three bloggers around here are quite accomplished at generating a few quick nouns..

As the Democratic primaries are sweeping the nation (that makes it sound like a plague, a trend, or an uprising of housewives) I’ve decided to finally break my non-public vow of primary celibacy. This won’t be a long post, but hopefully the comment thread will be interesting.

I know that a lot of you, most of you, like me, still have the primaries ahead of them. I’m also pretty sure that there’s at least one or two of you out there who, like me, haven’t been following the tracking polls, columns, stump speeches, and petty pissing fights that have bogged down some of the blogs. So maybe you haven’t gotten a chance to read some articulate, intelligent appraisals of the candidates.

Since I know that Alas has a readership consisting entirely of people capable of making articulate, intelligent statements, I’d like to invite anyone who is willing to post a bit about their thoughts on the candidates. Which candidate are you supporting and why? Which candidate are you actively not supporting and why? Are you going to vote in the primary or are you going to sit this one out? Are you going to be voting in the general election? (Just to be clear, though, if you want to comment that you won’t be voting for Mr. Clark because he sounds like George W. Bush, that’s okay, too.)

I’ll be posting my own thoughts in the comments section once I’ve had some sleep.

(Oh! I just remembered… Thanks, John Isbell, for the lovely letter about Mr. Kerry you wrote me a few months ago. I forgot to write you a thank you note, so consider this a thank you and an effort to make sure everyone knows what a sweetheart you are.).

When I was younger I was addicted to the History Channel. My dad and I used to stay up (insomniacs us) into the wee hours of the morning talking about history and watching the History Channel. This was around about the time that they were showing a lot of World War II shows, so I got a decent education about World War II and related matters. It was no substitute for a good history book or history class, but it was nice and serves me well in Trivial Pursuit to this day. (At least, the old Trivial Pursuit where the history questions were about history and not about arts and entertainment, but I digress.)

Sadly, I must report that the History Channel is not what it used to be. I was pretty sure that things were going downhill when the history shows with prunish professors began to be replaced with shows about the histories of certain football teams, but when they got Jenny McCarthy to be spokeschest for a show called “Boy Toys” I knew the belovéd channel of my youth had perished.

Just now I was flipping through the channels and came across an ad for a series on the History Channel called The Barbarians. I’m not sure what the other episodes were about, but they were advertising a set of episodes about barbaric leaders from history. The examples of barbarians they mention in the ad were as follows: Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Osama bin Ladin, and Saddam Hussein.

I’ll go ahead and post my warblogger disclaimer: Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are bad people. But, really, how is it that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin are equivalent to Hitler, Stalin, and Attila the Hun? I’ll grant that maybe Osama bin Ladin should be on a list of barbarian invaders (even though that distinction smacks of something it shouldn’t) because of al-Qaeda’s targetting of Europe and the United States, but Saddam Hussein?.

1. Boy, am I glad I didn’t try to call this one.
2. I’m thrilled with the outcome. Partly, I’m happy because the bloggers at Wampum and Tribal Law have persuaded me that Dean has fundimentally wrongheaded views on race, and is probably substantively worse than Kerry or Edwards on that score.

   And partly, I’m happy because the pundits and handicappers have been shown to be wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

3. I’m sick of speculations about which candidate is “electable.” My feeling is that if a candidate can’t manage to win the Democratic primary, probably he’s not electable. Time will tell who wins the primary, but in the meanwhile let’s not waste time speculating.
4. Think of all the endless hours (and column inches) of news coverage that have been devoted to handicapping and “who can win” and meaningless polls and the like. In hindsight, very little of that coverage was worth the time it took to read, to view, or to create.

   What if all that time – or, heck, 75% of it – had instead been spent ferretting out and reporting on real policy or character differences between the candidates? Call me nutty, but I think the result would have been much more useful news coverage and a better-informed electorate.

5. I still maintain that if you’re a progressive, your best bet is to vote for Kucinich. Along with Sharpton, he’s the most progressive voice in the race; and unlike Sharpton, he’s a serious and credible politician. True, he can’t win this election, but think of the future. The stronger Kucinich’s showing this year, the better-positioned he’ll be for another run in 2004 or 2008.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts. Yours?.

Dear reader, I have failed you… I was determined this year to watch the state of the union address and write a post about it. After a minute, though, I left the room where my dad was watching it. I’ve passed through the room a couple times only to find myself getting mad at Mr. Bush for saying that women in Afghanistan are free and treated fairly, among other things.

I tried, but I just couldn’t stand to listen to him. If any posts are written by me on the state of the union address, it’ll be after I read a transcript..

I’m leaving for the airport (going from Florida to Oregon via Colorado) in just a few minutes, so I don’t have time for extended commentary – but here are a few links I’ve enjoyed today.

• It’s MLK Jr. day, of course. I thought this post at Feministe was particularly good. And TalkLeft provides a terrific collection of MLK links.
• The New York Times Magazine provides an excellent portrait of “Caroline,” whose life is a story of working hard and remaining poor, “A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class.” And those spunky IWF ladies respond to the article, proving that some conservatives are just as mean-spirited (and fact-challenged) as you imagine they are, in “Caroline’s Whine.”
• Be sure to check out Ms.Musings this week, for her list of ten stories she meant to get around to but didn’t (or didn’t sufficiently) in 2003. Also, check out item number 11, which highlights many new blogs of note. I’m also flattered as heck (and maybe a bit bewildered) to report that Ms.Musings “can’t imagine a world with Alas, a Blog.” (Seriously, thanks, Christine – your blog is great, too!).
• “Sex continues to baffle me, fascinate me, and cause me to be controversial…” A good discussion of sex (and critique of how some feminists have theorized sex) from Jasperboi.

That’s it – I have to go pack up and get to the airport. Posting from me may be slow for the next while. Ta!.