Caloric Content of Muffins Outweighs Gruesome Texas Showdown in State Senate

At 11:30 p.m. last night, eastern time, I sat hunched over my desk, a glass of wine at the ready, preparing manuscripts to send to magazine editors. I nearly jumped out of my chair when the shrill sounds of a woman with a "parlimentary inquiry" blasted over my computer speakers.

I'd totally forgotten about the Texas filibuster! Not because I wasn't interested, but because news outlets apparently couldn't care less about the veritable circus going on within the chambers. No one was saying anything.

Wait, let me rephrase. No one who gets paid to pay attention to newsworthy events around the country was saying anything. Twitter was aflame, and I did my part to engage the 500 friends I have on my Facebook account, many of whom had no idea what I was talking about.

How could they not? This was a level of Tomfoolery not seen since I'd say 2000 when the presidential election was stolen...by a Texas politician (uncanny coincidence, eh?)

Senators shouting over each other, ineffective calls for order, the crowd literally going wild, arrests, miscounts, wrangling of official records to change vote times, slimy political moves, feminism in Texas ("At what point must a female senator raise her hand to be recognized over her male colleagues?" Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D)TX, who skipped her father's funeral to be there, by the way. This had me clapping in my house at past midnight. Looking like a lunatic, but I didn't care.)

What about this isn't news?

As for me, it was pure luck I had the livestream of the Texas senate going in a tab I'd long forgotten about. Curious about it earlier in the day, I'd clicked over, to no audio, lost interest and left without shutting it off.

Where were you? Where were you CNN? This is...kind of your thing. And you're so "Twittery" and "Youtubey" lately, one would think you would have jumped at the chance to air that livestreaming Youtube video. It's just like a satellite share. It's easier in fact. No coordinates to type in, no networks from which to get permission. Plug in and air the news. You didn't even have to do anything. You had three straight hours of amazing programming just sitting there gift-wrapped for you. Where. Were. You.

Sure, you're there now. 10 a.m. the next morning. But two hours ago, your story on the matter consisted of quotes from random people on Twitter and a brief overview of Wendy Davis' website. Really? You couldn't, I don't know, pick up a phone? Basically, I could have written the story you wrote at 8 a.m. this morning five hours before that. Word for word. Not because I used to be a journalist, but because that's the amount of research you did. Any Twitter or Facebook user even remotely interested in the event could have fashioned your story.

I've never been so disappointed in my life.

Here's a quick rundown of Journalism 101 for you, in case you've forgotten.

Determine newsworthiness:

- Is it timely? (Yes.)
- Is it breaking? (Yes.)
- Is there drama? (Yes.)
- Does it impact individuals? (Yes.)
- Does it have overreaching consequences for the country's population? (Yes.)
- Is it salient? (FFS, YES.)

Women's rights has been a hot-button issue for years now. It's not as if this blindsided you. And sure, state proceedings could possibly be boring and silly, but you had the video at your disposal. You could see that things escalated to newsworthy in .02 seconds. Hell, it was newsworthy as soon as Davis put on her pink sneakers.

Here's what you were doing at 8 a.m. this morning:

- Quoting President Obama's Twitter status from more than 10 hours before that. (Old, vague and irrelevant.)
- Quoting Ricky Gervais' Twitter. (I...what?)
- Quoting some random guy's Twitter who at least said something funny (Not newsworthy.)
- Getting background information on Sen. Wendy Davis from her website. (Lazy. You couldn't confirm she went to Harvard and got pregnant at 19? Really?)
- Outlining the bare bones of the story that anyone could pick up from watching the livestream (Not helpful.)

Here's what you should have been doing:

- Getting to the scene. Seriously. You weren't even present? This wasn't a quick story. You had thirteen hours to get your shit together.

- Interviewing people outside. Can't get in? That's okay. They're taping. Talk to the people outside. Get the human side of the story.

- Calling your sources frantically to get statements from the senators as the proceedings were taking place. Look, I saw Lincoln. They used to do this shit via carrier pigeon, and note-carriers on foot. Surely it's easier now.

- Blowing up the phones of Wendy Davis, the Lt. Governor and Senate President, Kirk Watson, Letitcia Van de Putte, etc. Running them down in person directly after session. Getting the story. You know. Things.

- Stalking the police department. Your people could have been there when they brought the arrests in. On the other side of this, you didn't even have to leave the chamber. Interview police officers at the scene. When they can't talk, call the chief or the PIO. This is easy stuff, people. I did this at 18 years old for a local cable station. No reason why you can't.

- Digging up the rules of the Texas Senate so you could do a feature piece on how many rules were broken in a slimy and horrid way. (Actually, I bet no one does this. If anyone wants to commission me, I'll totally do it for you.)

- Digging up the history of this bill so you could do a feature on how it came to be, who the main players are, and how it all managed to culminate in this wild governmental kerfuffle.

I could go on and on and on, but I'm getting too disgusted.

Journalism, they say, is dead. But Twitter didn't kill it. Bloggers didn't kill it. The Internet didn't kill it. You killed it. By paying your employees literally nothing, by promoting people who don't know what news is but do know how to say "yes, sir," and "you're great, sir."

But, hey, everyone loves a muffin debate, am I right? So get on with your bad self, CNN. You eat that 350-calorie muffin and call it a day. Because it appears you've had yours.

And if you want a true rundown of the actual events, and a number to reach Wendy Davis head over to Accidentally Mommy who wrote a heart-wrenching piece on the implications of this historic filibuster attempt.

 

The War on Women Is Not about Abortion - My Story

Look, I wrote three entries here about the War on Women, and they all sucked. None of them will change anyone's mind. So, here. Have this. It's all I've really got that you haven't seen elsewhere and not cared about.

Here is my story.

In 2008, the economy crashed. I was pregnant with twins. We had just bought a house with 10 percent down-payment. It would cost us more than $235,000 all told.

Two weeks before I had my children, my husband lost his job. We went from a family of two making more than $120,000, to a family of four making $40,000.

We weren't married at the time, so I wasn't on his insurance, which would have been the ridiculously expensive and not-helpful-at-all COBRA anyway. My pregnancy was a pre-existing condition when I had gotten my new job months before, so it wasn't going to cover it. You bet your life I applied for Medicaid, and I will thank God every day that they took me. They saved me.

I had premature twins, and a ten-day hospital stay. A cesarean section. All told, that bill was tens and tens of thousands of dollars. Paid.

Thank you, America. I'm so serious right now. Thank you.

Meanwhile, my husband got in line for unemployment (it was so bad there was a line. A long line. For real.) He couldn't find work. He applied to hundreds of jobs every week in the beginning, then dozens of jobs, then a few jobs.

Not because he was giving up or lazing about.

Because there were no jobs left.

He would check the job boards. No new postings. No. New. Postings.

Medicaid covered the home visits I had to have twice a week for my three-pound children. It covered the girls' health needs for the first two years of their lives, ie: the twenty two months it took my husband to find employment.

I had the option of taking six weeks maternity leave at full pay or three months maternity leave on half pay. My babies weighed three freaking pounds. We had to feed them via tubes attached to our pinkies. I took the three months. And, can I just say, my employer was amazing. That's an amazing maternity leave here in the States. Few are so lucky as I was.

It was still awful. Half of my paycheck each week, combined with the small amount my husband brought in through unemployment, coupled with the massive mortgage that just months ago we could have easily afforded plunged us into poverty and despair with a quickness unmatched by the Flash.

This was supposed to be a joyous time, right? A beautiful time where new life entered our worlds. For me it is marred by stress, disappointment, shame and tears. And I'd look at those gorgeous babies day in and day out and think, what have I done? What have I done? I can't provide for you. I am a failure. We are failures. You deserve so much more.

We went on WIC. Why? Because we couldn't fucking afford food. And it was so amazing to have to stand in the check out line and sign those coupons as everyone else watched me, judging me. There's another one, they thought. There's another freeloader. Probably a single mom, just pulling the strings, using my tax dollars. Mooch.

Well, I wasn't a single mom, but what if I had been? Everyone deserves to eat. Everyone deserves a chance. These welfare queens, you show me one. Because I've never seen one. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I am saying that being a single mom, or being poor, doesn't make you one.

I took a job closer to home. For the Catholic Church. I needed something. Anything. I looked to God. I did not find him there. What I saw there was greed and power struggles. Emotional abuse and meanness. I'm not accusing the Catholic Church of being alone in these things. This is the world. Unfortunately, even religion cannot escape humanity.

I had to pay out of pocket for birth control because Catholics don't believe in birth control. I never faulted them that. I chose to work there, I chose to pay for my own coverage. Because I was sure as hell not bringing any more babies into my world of poverty and desperation. But it did add up. My health services cost me $100 a month that I didn't have. Awesome.

And you could say, well, why didn't you just stop having sex then? Legitimate question. And in my opinion, the legitimate answer is that I didn't want to. But, if you want to get more in depth, how cruel is it to tell two married people that they cannot have intimacy because the economy collapsed? Pretty cruel. And with everything against us, my husband and I were strong and depended on each other throughout. And we deserved the whole package. Just like rich people.

By the way, if I had gotten pregnant on the Church's dime? No maternity leave program. I could apply for unpaid time off through the federally funded FMLA program.

When my husband finally found work, we moved to where the job was. With two kids who needed daycare and a market that would pay me $9 an hour for my ten years of experience, the clear choice was for me to stay at home with them, saving on childcare expenses.

Thank goodness I already had a credit card, since women who choose to stay home with their children usually can't get one these days.

I had no car, no means for making money, nothing left but my family.

And you know what? Little by little, we claimed it back. We paid tens of thousands of dollars into a mortgage at a home where we were no longer living before the banks allowed us to sell it back to them for a fraction of what we paid for it. We were able to do this before we stopped paying our monthly dues, and they foreclosed on us. Obama's policies allowed us that reprieve.

I found ways of making money at home. We were able to keep barely above water during the hard times because Obama's policies extended unemployment benefits time and again when we, personally, were in need.

Many look down on the extensions. Let me tell you something, it wasn't about allowing people to lose motivation for work. Have you ever received unemployment? Trust me, it's not a lifestyle choice people want to make. Extending those benefits was a real-world recognition of the hardships normal citizens were facing when the economy crumbled beneath them through no fault of their own. I will never understand someone who scoffs at those extensions. Those extensions saved us.

You may say, well, thanks for that little narrative, but you've barely touched on the War on Women.

Well, maybe not. I definitely interwove all the democratic policies that helped us. Know why? Because I am a person.

Women. Are. People.

But we struggle more. That $9 an hour I could make? Because I'm a woman. The cost of birth control? Because I'm a woman. In fact, being a woman increases the cost of health care as much as being a smoker does. Great. Because women have total control over their sex.

We need to protect the rights that others have worked hard to achieve for us. This is a real thing. If any one of the programs I used was not in place, I'd have failed. If I had been considered a second-class citizen, I'd have failed. If basic female health care had been denied to me, I'd have failed and my babies would have died.

Women are people.



 

Minus One Pregnancies and Abortion

"My body, my choice."

Simple, isn't it? Pro-choice opinion with all of its reasoning and nuances wrapped up in a simple, catchy slogan. It makes it easy. I'm pro-choice. I believe that a woman's body is her domain and no one else has the right to tell her what she can and can't do with it.

But is it, perhaps, too easy? The problem with catch-phrases is that they remove the thought necessary to really form an educated opinion, so that when faced with the specifics of certain situations, people can then say, oh, yeah, but that, that's different. And they're never forced to re-examine their view. They separate situations, and still feel like they can say that they fully believe in one, without looking at the larger implications.

This article in the New York Times is what forced me to really think about this topic. Because if I were truly all about choice, then the concept of terminating one twin fetus and keeping the other one because parents only wanted one child would not squick me out.

But it does a little. I don't know if it's because I have twins, or what, and don't get me wrong, I'd never say to a woman having this done that she was wrong. I don't believe she is, intellectually speaking. But I can't help the distant rumble in my gut at the idea. Or, at least I couldn't without sitting down and really thinking about it, really thinking about my stance on abortion.

It's not the half-abortion, even, that bothers me so much. I think it's more the specific things this woman says, and the specific reasoning given in the article for why people would do this. But does that matter if it's a woman's body, a woman's choice? No. Her reasons don't matter, and the opinions are hers to have.

"She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment — and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion."

My original reaction? Wait, so you tried to get pregnant for six years, using technology you knew would likely result in multiples and now you are going to terminate one of them? Why?

That reaction sucks. It doesn't matter. She wanted one kid and she can legally give herself one kid. It is not my place to say that because she'd been trying for a long period of time and using fertility treatments that she should have to have twins.

"“Things would have been different if we were 15 years younger or if we hadn’t had children already or if we were more financially secure,” she said later."

Okay, so at 45, she feels like she can't handle twins. And she feels like having other children means she doesn't need two more. And she feels that she doesn't have enough money for two, even though she had enough money for expensive fertility treatments. (Maybe they used up her disposable income.)

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with any of those things, but I'm not her. Her body, her choice. Which leads to the sad fact that she felt she had to try to rationalize it to the public at all. Decisions like this are not easily made clear to outsiders. She shouldn't have to justify her actions, and in doing so, she succeeds in giving off the opposite impression of what she is going for, at least to me. Because then she says this:

"“If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me — and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.""

I...I don't like this. The logic is flawed, and she is insinuating that by creating her child through artificial means, it means less than if it were produced naturally. I'm sure many IVFers would disagree. A natural order of things? Does that mean the child that you continue to carry is unnatural in some way? Will you treat your natural children differently? I'm sorry, but this just sounds to me like she's making excuses. It almost sounds as if she's against abortion in general, doesn't it? Since "natural" pregnancies shouldn't be disturbed? She's holding herself and her decision apart from the main point. She feels she's a special case. And yes, in many ways she is. It's not often that women terminate one of a set of twins. But her guilt is being projected upon so many others who may have made a choice for different reasons. And it doesn't sit well. Because it's not half an abortion, after all. It is a full one. One she has every right to have. But in saying this, she implies that her specific conditions hold her above the other people making that choice.

It's your choice, lady. You don't have to rationalize it. Doing so only makes you look insecure and makes you accidentally insult a lot of people. You are no worse than the rest of society, and you are no better. You are just you and that is enough.

 "The idea of managing two infants at this point in her life terrified her. She and her husband already had grade-school-age children, and she took pride in being a good mother. She felt that twins would soak up everything she had to give, leaving nothing for her older children. Even the twins would be robbed, because, at best, she could give each one only half of her attention and, she feared, only half of her love."

I was terrified, too, and if she has other children, then she would know that love doesn't work that way. But again, as I thought and thought on this topic, I discovered it doesn't matter what reasons she gives. She's just trying to assuage society. And she doesn't need to. It's her body, her choice.


 "“This is bad, but it’s not anywhere as bad as neglecting your child or not giving everything you can to the children you have,” she told me."

And there it is. Now she's not rationalizing to the readers so much as to herself. There's the issue right there. There's the reason for her other statements. This is a personal battle for her. Something we ought not forget when we speak on this topic as people who are not current going through it. Abortion can sometimes be chosen without doubt, but just as often, those who do choose it face many demons of their own making (and society's) along the way. It is hard. Hard as a philosophy and hard as a practice. I say we give everyone a break. Their body, their choice.

Reduction started so that women who had many fetuses could increase their chances of having a healthy child. Now that it's a surface choice, people are balking. Where is the ethical line? If you're pro-choice, are you really pro-choice? When does it turn? When is it too much?

"As science allows us to intervene more than ever at the beginning and the end of life, it outruns our ability to reach a new moral equilibrium. We still have to work out just how far we’re willing to go to construct the lives we want."

For me, reading this article was a really good start to try to define my true feelings on this complex issue.

Of course, there's one section that I can't argue with at all.

"Studies report enormous disruption in families with multiples, and higher levels of social isolation, exhaustion and depression in mothers of twins."

Yup. But, for me, they're totally worth it.

I Don't Understand the Pro-Life Movement

Rather, I don't understand certain factions of the pro-life movement.  I mean, what is it they stand for, anyway?

For most of my life, I thought that pro-lifers believed life began at conception, and therefore it would be murder to abort a fetus at any stage.  This puts the needs of the fetus before the choice of the mother and her right to her body.  The crux of the argument is that at conception, a child is a child and no longer simply part of the mother's body.

Why, then, would some members of the pro-life movement choose to fight for a bill that proposes outlawing abortions after the first heartbeat can be medically detected?

Of course, I understand why in the short term.  They must be looking at this as one battle in the war against abortion.  If they are able to somehow move the marker on the slope up, they figure it will be easier to fight and win the next battle, which, one would assume, would be making abortion illegal.

Here's my problem with this:

If you are pro-life because you truly believe that a human being starts to exist at the moment of conception, then you are doing your ideology no favors by pulling a stunt tactic at a hearing (having a fetus testify), for a bill that does not stop abortion, but only changes its legality point.  You are, essentially, acknowledging that human life later in gestation is more important that human life early on in gestation.

I understand "baby steps" and "means to an end" and all that...but I don't understand how people in the pro-life movement could subscribe to this bill.  It's unsatifactory to them, and it's unsatisfactory to pro-choicers. It severely limits a woman's right to choose, as with new technology heartbeats are detected earlier and earlier, and some may not even know they are pregnant before their window of choice is shut, and it suggests that it's okay to terminate a fetus before a certain stage.

As a means to "trick" the government into essentially banning abortions, I suppose it's all right.  Fairly witty in its delivery.

But I thought one of the main points of the pro-life movement was the moral superiority on which it stands.  Pro-lifers are able to say, right now, in black and white terms, that they support life (unless, of course, they also support the death penalty, which is another can of worms...).  That's a statement that, stripped of its applications, sounds really good, really moral, really right.  I support life.  I like that statement.  It makes me feel like a good person.

If I were a pro-life supporter, the entire concept would be ruined for me, however, if my group began saying, "Well, we can't ban abortions entirely, yet, so let's settle for this arbitrary cut-off." It misses the point of what I've been brought up to believe is pro-life.  It sounds suspiciously close to "if you can't beat them, join them," with an uncomfortable undercurrent of wily trickery as the movement prepares to achieve its main goal.

To me, a move like this only detracts from the movement by hollowing their morality stance in the name of playing politics.

But, what would I know?  I'm pro-choice afterall.


Articles of interest:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/unborn-child-to-testify-on-ohio-abortion-bill-1093746.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/23/AR2011022303701.html


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Abortion, Eugenics and Parenting

The abortion debate rages on around us.  The ethical issues of life and death are potent enough to break families apart as members line up on either side of the great divide.  Neither side will budge.  Both sides feel they are protecting the core of human rights.

And then, every once in a while, someone comes along who says something so completely atrocious that the bickering enemies find themselves tossed into the river together, struggling to find a way back to their noble shores.

Glenn Beck found his way back masterfully, by pinning the opinion of one pundit on every so-called progressive towing the picket line or simply holding their views quietly in their homes.

That pundit is named Virginia Ironside.  Her statement?

"If I were the mother of a suffering child - I mean a deeply suffering child - I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face... If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would."

As much as I blanch at the thought of detailing for you my own views of abortion, I think I can safely say that the only battle this woman won with that statement was to horrify everyone and anyone who heard her.

To mention something so casually that would sicken so many is no boon for her cause, which was, based on the article I read, pro-choice.  The comparison of killing a living, suffering being without their consent to killing or terminating (depending on your definition) a fetus in the womb is an argument many pro-lifers make and with much success.  Most pro-choice people that have any shred of sanity would not liken an abortion to murder, especially in a public forum.  It goes against the very basis of much of the pro-choice stand.

Should we kill all those who suffer?  Would the world be better off?  Absolutely not.  What of the Stephen Hawkings of the world?  And, I know, I know, here is the slippery slope.  What if someone aborted a Stephen Hawking, and the world will never know his greatness?  And really, do accomplishments really even matter when it comes to whose life or death you mourn?

Still, while the definition of a fetus as a being with rights remains up in the air to be fought for and against, the definition of a child is a living, breathing, separate being with rights that would be alienated should he or she be murdered.  We can at least agree on that.  Living children have rights.  And living children under a certain age cannot even give consent to have sex, let alone be killed.  That makes it murder, by law and definition.  Our feelings may differ on whether or not that label should be applied to a fetus, but in the case of a born child, there is no feeling in the matter.  The law stands.

And what of the mother?  Ironside basically called mothers who struggle with disabled children, mothers who made the right choice for themselves and their families, irresponsible mothers.  Irresponsible for not killing the child they wanted, the child they love and the child that loves them.  Even if we pretend she didn't advocate killing born children, and we take this back to the abortion debate, that is not pro-choice.  That is pro-abortion.  Again, she hacks away at the very base she's claiming to fight for.  The implication in the term pro-choice is blatantly obvious.  Women have the choice as to whether or not they would like to abort their fetus or carry it to term, regardless of circumstances, regardless of medical tests - tests which are fallible.  Ironside has no right to attack any woman who chooses to birth a baby who may have disabilities.  That is a woman's choice.  Pro-choice.  Choice.

To view it in such a black and white manner as to say a woman with a disabled child should abort or must abort, and then to take it further to compare it to murder as a compassionate alternative, well, a few more steps and you're talking about eugenics.  And I'm fairly certain even most foes over the abortion debate can agree on their feelings about that (of course, there are exceptions.)

Really all I'm trying to say here is that Ironside made no friends with this statement.  She clearly does not represent the pro-choice cause.  She clearly does not represent pro-life cause.  She speaks for no one (one can only hope) but herself.

As conservatives bustle to blacken the eyes of progressives over this statement, they should count their blessings that someone so ignorant as Ironside stood up and made such a statement to begin with.  I can only say, it is not the progressive stand.  It is the opposite of the progressive stand.  It is not the conservative stand. It is the opposite of the conservative stand.

Bravo, Ms. Ironside.  You've got us talking about you.  Surely that must have been your only goal in making  that comment.



Article linked above:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317400/Virginia-Ironside-sparks-BBC-outrage-Id-suffocate-child-end-suffering.html