This goes beyond anger. The Reich (read: right) has gone too far. They can't get Roe v Wade overturned in the courts (though they have made a giant step in that direction with the upholding of the "partial birth" abortion ban), and now they have resorted to the slander of Planned Parenthood using the lowest accusation possible - child molestation. I can't say that I'm surprised. Most Americans have the good sense to recognize that safe abortions are needed. A ban will only result in back alley and kitchen table procedures that took the lives of thousands of frightened young women for years. Make that poor young women. The rich can always afford to go to Mexico or Canada - countries that understand the importance of allowing their citizens access to the medical procedures they want, and will often get no matter what, even at the cost of their own lives.

Now. What has gotten me so riled up that I am here, ranting, rather than doing the busy office work I should be engaged in. I have a name for you. Lila Rose. If you don't know who she is, don't worry, I didn't before her face appeared before me last night on the O'Reilly Factor (my father is a Republican - I didn't have a choice). But soon enough she will be a household name. Not back for a journalism sophomore. Apparently this little girl (I say that because she looks like she's 13 and sounds like she's 10 - a sure sign in my mind of someone who has been molested at a young age) got it in her head that she should go into Planned Parenthoods in the LA area and try to get an abortion. Nothing wrong with that you say? She was wearing a wire, and told them that she was 15, her boyfriend 23. Now in California, that's statutory rape. What happened? The good people at Planned Parenthood told her to pick a different birthday so they would not have to report the crime. Not exactly legal, true. But in the spirit of providing women with the care that they want and need. Do you want 15 year olds that think a 23 year old boyfriend is OK having babies? More to the point, do you want 23 year olds who think having a 15 year old girlfriend is OK having babies? I hope the answer is NO. All of this interaction is being shouted from the rooftops as Planned Parenthood protecting child molesters. I'm sorry if I seem callous, but a 15 year old having sex with a 23 year old is worlds away from something that involves a girl of 10 or 11. All they wanted to do was to help this girl, and now she has found an exciting new way to chip away at the foundation of choice. To the credit of Planned Parenthood, they are suing her. Personally I hope she goes to jail for providing false medical information, and for entrapment. And if I ever meet her, I have a curse all ready.

No Title

I wouldn’t coax the plant if I were you.

Such watchful nurturing may do it harm.

Let the soil rest from so much digging

And wait until it’s dry before you water it.

The leaf’s inclined to find its own direction;

Give it a chance to seek the sunlight for itself.

Much growth is stunted by too careful prodding.

Too eager tenderness.

The things we love we have to learn to leave alone.

---Naomi Long Madgett

K.V.

With nothing to say that can be as fitting or as great as his own words, I will just remind myself of this quote, which graces the wall of my bedroom, right above where I should sit to write. It is from a speech he gave at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2003. It's worth thinking about.

"I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, ''If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.''
But actually, to practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it. Dance on your way out of here. Sing on your way out of here. Write a love poem when you get home. Draw a picture of your bed or roommate."

Now if only I could get up the willpower to do a little growing a little more often.

"You and the police are entitled to know, since I am going to spend the night near you, that I am both a Humanist and a Luddite. I may hold a Black Mass in the parking garage of the Best Western Hotel, if I can find a neo-conservative baby to sacrifice."

I threw that last one in there because it makes me laugh. And if I had been there there would have been a neo-conservative baby for him. Just to watch an 81 year old hold a Black Mass. God I regret that I never got to see the man read ... maybe next lifetime.

I wanted you
to know,
your heart beats
me late at
night, when I
am alone and should
be safe from you.

They Don't Know Me

I wonder what my husband and family would do if they knew I hung out all weekend with my sweet gay bois at a drag show and a male strip bar. . . . They all think I went to the city to visit my sister.

Well, I did. She went with us.

I had more fun this weekend than I've had in twenty years. Twenty-five.

I'm sick of being respectable all the time. I'm through.

Do they lie? The hearts?

What is there to do when you hear, feel, that click when the other half of your heart is met...but that other half had been given to another long since?

The longing toward each other is difficult to resist, though we struggle.
And we will prevail, because we must.

But I don't want to.

In spite of the life I am forced to live, I. . . . .

Breathing hard, gasping for air because of. . . .
Heart beating fast, and faster, and faster still, because of. . . .
Depressions lifting, dispersing, fading, because of. . . .
Smiling a little, or a little more, or a lot, because of. . . .
Wondering some, and more, and then more, because of. . . .
Fantasizing, starting slowly, gaining momentum, because of. . . .
Lost in a world of swirling daydreams and better night dreams,
and none of them will come true, even though. . . .
But I greatly anticipate it all starting up again, because. . . .

In Poetry We Sometimes Find Ourselves, Or A Good Description, Anyway

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

--Bertrand Russell