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What I’m reading

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It’s a cold and rainy Sunday morning and time for another copycat blog from Sobering Thoughts. What am I reading these days? I dusted off The Trivium–The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric. (Be prepared for these blog posts to be logical, grammatical and reasonable like never before.) Then there’s Fatal Misconception–a book about “the quest to remake humanity by policing national borders and breeding better people.” Finally, more Edith Wharton, this time, A Mother’s Recompense. I love Edith and when I tire of The Trivium, it’s nice to pick up a book written by someone who already knows that stuff–for example, how to write, and come to think of it, doesn’t use the word “stuff.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I note Paul Tuns of Sobering Thoughts has a post called “Stuff” for July 25. Stuff–it’s what’s going on, it’s what I’m reading, it’s the work I’m doing, the things I’m buying, it’s what I’m worrying about… You know, stuff. Nice.)

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Brigitte would like to play, too: Among the books in my current “pretending to read” pile is Anne Hendershott’s The Politics of Abortion. I like this longish quotation from pages 16-17:

A few dissident voices on the left stubbornly continued to argue the pro-life position throughout the 1980s. Rosemary Bottcher, a columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat in the 1980s, drew a parallel between abortion and discrimination against women: “Pro abortion feminists resent the discrimination against a whole class of humans because they happen to be female, yet they themselves discriminate against a whole class of humans because they happen to be very young. They resent the fact that the value of a woman is determined by whether some man wants her, yet they declare that the value of an unborn child is determined by whether some woman wants him. They resent that women have been ‘owned’ by their husbands, yet insist that the unborn are ‘owned’ by their mothers.” Bottcher decried the inconsistencies in the liberal position: “The same people who organized a boycott of the Nestle Company for its marketing of infant formula in underdeveloped lands would have approved of the killing of those exploited infants only a few months before. The same people who talk incessantly of human rights are willing to deny the most helpless and vulnerable of all human beings the most important right of all.”

Zing!

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Véronique adds: Is it too late to play too? My night stand these days features nothing remotely related to abortion, bioethics or family life: The End of Overeating by Dr David Kessler, on how we became a culture of over-eaters; Sugar: A bittersweet history http by Elizabeth Abbott, likely to make you look at your morning cuppa in a whole new way; and I just finished Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller by Jeff Rubin, which definitely made me reconsider my Costco bought, Argentinian-grown while in-season in Ontario, bag of green beans.

One more reason why I make a bad feminist

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Because I’m not pro-abortion or pro-choice and I agree with columns like this one:

There may be prejudicial and discriminatory causes for income disparities still, but by now, if a woman of equal ability lags behind a male colleague on the earning-and accomplishment-ladder, chances are she has chosen to sideline her career or education for romantic or some other personal reason at least once.

You’d have a hard time convincing me that outright discrimination exists when it comes to paying men and women. And likewise, I think try as many old-school feminists might to either eradicate this inclination and/or ensure men have precisely the same inclination at least 50 per cent of the time, women want to be mothers, which puts a damper on raging full steam ahead in any job, to be sure. If it doesn’t, it should, and likely for both mothers and fathers.

Bottom line: Men and women are different. And what’s so wrong with that?

Nothing to see here, move along

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So a father, mother and brother are accused of murdering their three daughters and sisters, respectively, along with a “relative” who, it turns out, was the father’s first (and never, as far as I know, divorced) wife. Which gives us both polygamy and what looks like “honour killing”. And what did you hear from the feminists?

(…)

That’s what I thought.

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Update: Hey, I’m not the only one who noticed…

A public service announcement

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There’s a job I’d like:

SCIENTISTS in Britain are looking for women willing to eat chocolate every day for a year – all in the name of medical science.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia and a hospital in Norwich, eastern England are trying to find out whether chocolate can cut the risk of heart disease and need 40 women to step forward and help.

Most of the women will have to eat two bars of “super-strength chocolate specially formulated by Belgian chocolatiers” daily for one year and undergo several tests to measure how healthy their hearts are.

The others will have to eat regular chocolate as a placebo.

Heck, I can live with that! I was ready to look up phone numbers and was wondering if they’d take someone in Canada, when the newspaper had to ruin an otherwise splendid start to yet another rainy day.

One possible catch, for chocolate fans spotting an opportunity: volunteers for the research should be menopausal but aged under 75 and have type two diabetes.

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Andrea adds: Don’t let the fine print hold you back, Brigitte. I’ve been experimenting for some years now. What I’ve learned: Succumbing to the three o’clock urge for chocolate leads to a severe sugar spike, guilty feelings and extra time at the gym. The result is similar when I substitute ice cream and/or frozen yoghurt. Many areas of inquiry remain: Baked goods? Candy? I just don’t know. The science continues.

One inspiring doctor, one inspiring interview

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In yesterday’s Part Two of The Current on CBC. Find the interview with Dr. Balfour Mount here. I heard the reply to Dr. Mount in this morning’s The Current. Interestingly enough, while proponents of euthanasia present it as a dignified, compassionate way to die, the follow-up interview (not available online yet) wasn’t nearly as hopeful and optimistic as Dr. Mount’s argument for proper palliative care.

One particular point touched me: when asked why euthanasia never really leaves the public discourse, Dr. Mount — who suffers from cancer of the oesophagus — attributes it to the compassion of the Canadian people for those who suffer. We do not like to see people suffering, we want to alleviate the pain, and euthanasia appears on the surface  like a compassionate thing to do. Dr. Buckman, in his rejoinder, attributes it to the bigotry of a vocal minority of right-wing religious groups. Hope and compassion versus intolerance. Who would you rather have as your doctor?

Stop the abortion mandate broadcast

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I’m going to try and tune in to this broadcast tonight. Of all the speakers, I’m actually tuning in for Kristan Hawkins, who I’ve met twice. To say she is spunky is an understatement. I particularly enjoyed her fundraising advice for pro-life clubs on campus: Make grilled cheese sandwiches with just a hint of garlic outside the bars when they close, and charge five bucks a pop. Pro-life/pro-choice doesn’t appear to matter, she said, when you’re loaded.

“Stop the abortion mandate” is strong language, but then again, I never bought the line that Obama is a conciliatory type and his policy decisions across the board are proving it. So tune in if you are interested.

Who says only women get noticed for what they wear?

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Barack Obama in Mom Jeans? Say it ain’t so.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_x9A3JsLk4]

(If you have too much time on your hands, feel free to watch the original Mom Jeans Saturday Night Live sketch, which has become a standard criticism of any pants my sister and I don’t like. As in, no, don’t get those, they’ve got a little bit of Mom Jeans in them…)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEdWVkGgUK4]

Of birds, bees and captive audiences

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In my family, all the best discussions happen in the car. My son asked recently, as my husband and I were discussing the purchase of our house: “Why do you always talk about important stuff while we are driving to Grandma’s?” We laughed. It seems that the car is the only place where we can actually finish a sentence. Maybe even two. In a row.

Today I was driving the six kids and my oldest daughter was reading a parenting magazine article discussing pregnancy after 40. She asked me: “Mom, would you have a baby at 40?”  “Not on purpose,” I answered. A snicker came from the back seat where my smart-alec of a son was sitting. “You mean you can have a baby by accident?” he asked cynically. That guy knows about the birds and the bees, you see. Without thinking I said “Yes, of course.” “How can you have a baby by accident?” He’s laughing even harder at this point. Obviously, our promiscuous sex-without-consequence worldview hasn’t got a hold of him yet: the guy knows where babies come from. I specify: “What I mean is that you can have sexual intercourse thinking you won’t get pregnant but you get pregnant anyway.”

So we drive a few blocks in thoughtful silence before he says: “So it means that every sexual relation doesn’t end up in pregnancy.” At this point, I am getting increasingly concerned about my oldest daughter’s eyes, who are about to roll all the way back into her shoulder blades. Nevertheless, she feels up to giving her brother a little bit about the birds and the bees. With a “duh” in her voice she says: “A woman can only get pregnant for three to five days every month.” My son got very quiet for a moment and asked: “So you can have intercourse knowing you won’t get pregnant?”

Silence.

“Did it ever happen to you?”

At this point, I was fervently hoping for a large pothole to swallow the truck, or maybe a bus to hit us. That’s when I reconsidered my pledge to never fib to my children about the facts of life. Relief came from my daughter — who had resumed breathing after turning purple — and hissed: “Dude, NEVER ask a lady that!”

His wife will thank her someday.

Tarek Fatah on Iran’s atrocious misogyny

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Phew, that’s a pretty strong indictment. I don’t know enough about Iran to have a definitive opinion as to whether these tales are true, but I do trust Mr. Fatah – who, if anything, usually strikes me as overly nice and conciliatory.

For 30 years, an entire nation has been subjected to imprisonment, torture, murder and — unnoticed by the world — the institutional rape of its daughters, all in the name of Islam. No other dictatorial society, not even the Saudis, have used rape as a tool of subjugation as the Iranian ruling ayatollahs have. Perversely, it has been dressed up as an act of piety and religiosity.

This truth is beginning to come out in the open. A serving member of the Iranian vigilante Basiji militia reportedly has told Sabina Amidi, a freelance reporter for the Jerusalem Post, about his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution. The Basiji enforcer disclosed that the practice was justified by his superiors under the dubious proposition that, under sharia law, “it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin.”

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It seems the women of Iran have had it with the mullahs. It is time for all Canadians to come out and stand with their sisters, for history will judge them harshly if the freedom they seek for themselves, they deny to the daughters of Iran.

Count me in.

Calling it like it is

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A good letter to the editor about the pending euthanasia debate can be found here:

Any doctor worth their salt knows that you do not have to kill someone at the end of life. They know that there is a chasm of difference between the possible secondary effect of pain management, which rarely, but may, hasten death and the actual purposeful intent to kill a patient. We will have the debate, I am sure. It will be headlined with the fearmongering which has kept step with euthanasia’s progress across the globe. We have regressed to the point where we want to judge some lives not worthy of life and, in that judgment, sanction their execution. We will not call it that, of course, in order not to distress societal sensitivities.

The author is Jakki Jeffs, who runs Alliance for Life in Guelph. She is this wonderful, warm lady with a dramatic flare and a fantastic (British?) accent. She’s also involved in getting ads on the airwaves about life, which I think is a critical way to reach people–remind them of stuff that really matters in the middle of House or CSI.

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