Things That Pissed Me Off This Week

Let me just start with a strong suggestion that if you've not seen the season premiere of South Park, I urge you to stream it any way you can. Right now, Season 27 Episode 1 is available to view on Comedy Central.  I don't have to say anything about it...just watch it and make your own decision. For the record, I am not not a South Park fan, but I will make an exception for this.

If you've never heard of the British think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, you might want to check them out. Especially Andrew Fox who writes on the Middle East. His paper with Salo Aizenberg, Hamas's Human Shield Strategy in Gaza is a superb analysis on the use of civilian populations and tunnels as a defensive strategy. Fox has spent significant time in Gaza and has seen the reality up close. 

He is worth listening to. Recently, Fox delivered a lecture on the rules of war which is, quite frankly, a must hear. The speech was delivered at the Nordic Israel Congress in Oslo last May and although the intro in Norwegian, the speech is in English. It is, to say the least, enlightening. Mr. Fox is a former office in the British Army and is neither Israeli nor Jewish. Go grab a cuppa something and listening to him talk about war. He talks about responsibility, something no one wants to talk about in regards to Hamas....and that pisses me off BIG TIME. 

How the world has managed to accept Hamas as the victims in this war is beyond me. I keep coming back to the expression that the only good Jew is a dead Jew. We, the Jewish People, are blamed, excoriated, persecuted, and massacred until the only way to survive is to fight back....and then we are blamed for fighting back. 

And the hostages are still hostages.

You gotta hand it to Hamas; they have the best PR machine ever assembled. They have deceived the entire world. But then again, they're fighting Jews so the only way they can win is with controlling the PR narrative. At that, they are champs. 

Meanwhile, back in the states, between the weather and the mass shootings, it's been a really shitty week. And it's only Monday night. Three today alone, including a guy who walked into a midtown Manhattan skyscraper with a rifle and started shooting.

So far in July, there have been 65 mass shootings. 

Here are the stats: 

Total shootings: 296 – 

Shootings per day: 1.42 – 

Killed: 334 – 

Wounded: 1228 

Go. Look for yourself. Oh, and most are Shooter Unknown. 

These are devastating statistics. But wanna know what really pisses me off? 

No one is talking about gun violence. It's as though it has been shoved to the side.

And all those pro-life people? They're basically full of merde because if they were really pro-LIFE and not simply pro-birth, this would be a totally hot button issue for them. Yet, they remain silent. Maybe because their mouths are continually full of shit.

And the big story about Feckless President Felon is that he was caught cheating on his own golf course. Just watch the caddie on the right.

[Note: Since I posted this video, there has been speculation that it is fake. It very well may be, but on the other hand there are a lot of reasonable news sources that used it. If it proves to be fake, I will report accordingly.]

Of course, just as he cheats at golf, he cheats We, the Taxpayers by charging us for his use of his club for presidential meetings. As per The Washington Post:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Monday morning with the president near the fairway to hash out a trade deal and discuss the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. On Sunday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the contours of a trade deal at the private club.

The meetings provide the latest example of how Trump uses his presidential power not only to govern, but also to help his family businesses. The engagements provide publicity for the courses and funnel taxpayer funds to the Trump Organization, as the U.S. government pays to lodge staff and security details at the properties.

Can you say emoluments clause, boys and girls? It's worth a moment to read the Brennan Center for Justice's explanation of the emoluments clause. Even if President Cheater is skirting the letter of the law, this is what We, the Jewish People would call Marit Ayin: 

the concept in Jewish law which prohibits certain actions which might appear to be in violation of Jewish law, even if they are actually permissible, in order to prevent onlookers from drawing false conclusions.

Appearances do matter. Even if a significant portion of this country refuses to recognize that. On the other hand, it could be that he believes the law no longer applies to him personally since SCOTUS saw fit to expand his powers.  And that pisses me off. 

I would continue my screed, but the thunder-bumpers are now overhead and the lights have flickered. I wanna get this out the door now.

The weather-dweebs promise the violent weather siege will end tomorrow. I can only hope.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

When the weather-dweebs are using words like golf-ball hail

and straight line winds,

it's okay to bring your fancy-shmancy pots 

into the house as a protective measure.

I did. 

By the Numb-ers

I was half listening to the news last night and there was a whole lotta coverage about the Texas AR-15 who executed a whole bunch of people in a house and managed to get away. Children survived this massacre because mothers threw themselves over their children. 

The cops were almost surprised the kids were alive. You see, when a bullet from an AR-15 goes through you, it's probably not one bullet, more like 30 based on how fast the gun fires. And they leave a big, gaping exit wound. If you really wanna know, watch this: AMERICAN ICON THE BLAST EFFECT This is how bullets from an AR-15 blow the body apart. 

From GUN VIOLENCE ARCHIVE

That's why it was so hard to identify the kids at Sandy Hook. There wasn't much left to recognize. 

In April alone, there were 54 mass shootings. That's more than one-a-day. 57 people were killed, 247 were injured. Most of the mass shootings since 2012 involve AR-15 rifles. 

Still not convinced? On March 29th, Senator Dick Durban (D-IL) addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject. He was beyond eloquent . [Click the link above to listen to his speech. It's devastating.] 

"The events this week in Nashville, Tennessee, are still fresh in our minds.  The thought that a shooter went on the campus of a Christian school, a school for children, little children, this person who went on that campus blasted her way into the building and then took the lives of three, nine-year-old children and three adults… It is heartbreaking to think that we are reliving this scene over and over again where our children who are sent by their loving parents off to school, lunches in hand, never came home. Never. Came. Home.”  

I believe it's pretty safe to say the response is sponsored by the GOP and their handlers, the NRA. Wanna read what they have to say about "Assault Weapons" / "Large" Magazines," folks. Read it for yourselves.  Try not to vomit into your coffee cup. 

No other western country allows this kind of stuff to happen. 

And speaking of other countries, the march of death does not end with guns....it extends to women across this country...and I'm not even talking about actual abortions here. I'm talking about access to reproductive health care in general. 

Maternal Mortality ratios

This is about maternal mortality. That's when a new mother dies shortly after giving birth. It's really a function of lack of prenatal and postnatal health care. One would think in a country that claims to have the best health care in the world, we wouldn't be falling somewhere between Palestine and China. Actually, there are 84 countries on the list, and the US ranks 65th. Not exactly a good position, eh? 

But it's not a surprise either. In February, the NY Times posted an article about rural communities lacking labor and delivery facilities.  

From 2015 to 2019, there were at least 89 obstetric unit closures in rural hospitals across the country. By 2020, about half of rural community hospitals did not provide obstetrics care, according to the American Hospital Association.

The number of hospitals providing that service since 2020 has dwindled even further. And in states where abortion is completely banned, creating a moral dilemma for obstetricians, midwives, and doulas, professionals are departing in droves, leaving women to travel excessive distances to get any sort of care. Emergency care is almost non-existent. According to a variety of sources, rural women who live in an obstetrical desert are 3-times more likely to die during and in the year following pregnancy. 

Idaho, like other states that have criminalized abortion, finds itself with fewer medical students willing to come to a state where they can be prosecuted for providing certain levels of care for women. Boise State Public Radio examined the issue  making it very clear that the impact of criminalization has a massive rolling impact on medical accessibility. Dr. Ted Epperly, director of Full Circle Health in Idaho said:

“Today, it's around abortion care,” he said. “Tomorrow, it may be around gender-affirming care. The day after tomorrow, what could it potentially be about as well?”

Black, Indigenous, and Latina women who live outside of urban centers are at even greater risk. Often un- or underinsured, they go without any prenatal care at all. If they are living in rural areas, not only is there no guarantee a hospital within driving distance will even offer labor and delivery services, putting both mother and child into the high risk category.  Without access to reproductive health care, birth control is not necessarily available, and by extension, an increase in pregnancies will occur. 

What part of this is pro-life? 

Y'know, it may not be the most popular or obvious extension of this particular highway, but does anyone remember all the accusations and assertions made by the GOP that Democrats were practicing eugenics by allowing abortion on demand? That abortion would allow/encourage people to have "designer" babies? That gender determination would cause people to abort an "undesirable" gender/trait? Folks, there are still people out there that believe that stuff is what abortion is about. Never mind the life of the mother when an ectopic pregnancy occurs, or an embryo is so malformed that it is incompatible with life. Those tenuous life forms are now protected in some states, regardless of the health of the embryo or the mother because some jackass thinks it's killing a designer baby.

PBS Newshour did an interesting piece on what's going on in Idaho: Idaho’s strict abortion laws create uncertainty for OB-GYNs in the state. They interviewed both medical professionals and law makers. From the show:

Sarah Varney:

State Representative Mark Sauter, a Republican, lives in Sandpoint. He says he hadn't thought much about the abortion ban.

 

State Rep. Mark Sauter:

It really wasn't high on my radar, other than I'm a pro-life guy, and I ran that way, but I didn't see it as it had a real — having a real big community impact.

 

Sarah Varney:

Then he started talking with local doctors, including Amelia Huntsberger.

 

What I'm wondering is, for you personally, did you think about abortion as it relates to obstetric care for pregnant women?

 

State Rep. Mark Sauter:

No, I don't think I — it's like anything. You get exposed to something and, all of a sudden, you go, wow, there's a different way to look at this. You know, what are we going to do about all this?

 

Sarah Varney:

So, is Bonner the canary in a cold line in the coal mine?

 

State Rep. Mark Sauter:

It could be.

 

Sarah Varney:

With Sandpoint's maternity ward closing, Representative Sauter supported a bill that would have allowed doctors to terminate pregnancies to protect a woman's health, not just prevent her death. But that effort was shot down by other Republicans.

What struck me is that this guy, State Rep. Mark Sauter, knew nothing about women's health care yet he felt qualified to initially vote on a life and death topic. I think that speaks volumes for the core of the problem. Idaho is not the only state where uninformed, uneducated penises are making decisions as if we are living in the 18th or even the 19th century. 

And here's the last piece on the numbers: if you look at the maternal mortality list, you will notice that just about every country but one improved their maternal mortality numbers since 2017. Wanna guess which country got worse?

You can call yourselves pro-life all you want, but these numbers don't lie. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

We lost another mensch last week: Harry Belafonte.

If you want to give yourself a moment of glee, go listen to CALYPSO.

It's totally joyful.

Then Again...

Can't say I was totally surprised by the response to last week's episode. I figured the title alone would garner hits. Which it did. But, the email response blew me away. Most were from women thanking me for writing about the differences between sex, sensuality, and intimacy. Passion and frustration were the most common themes in the emails. Someone commented on Facebook:

One of your best blog posts. You created a beautiful balance of vulnerability and humor, sighs and laughter, sarcasm and (above all) truth.

A number of emails reflected similar sentiments. Intimacy, so it would seem, turns out to be one of those things we just don't talk enough about. I didn't think it was just me, but the response got me to thinking maybe this was something much bigger.

And then, some whacko in Georgia goes on a shooting spree in massage parlors and murders 6 Asian women plus 2 others claiming that he was a sex addict. According to the New York Times:

The suspect told the police that he had a “sexual addiction” and had carried out the shootings at the massage parlors to eliminate his “temptation,” the authorities said on Wednesday. He also said that he had frequented massage parlors in the past and launched the attacks as a form of vengeance. All but one of the victims were women, the police said.

The Washington Post provided some insight into Robert Aaron Long's life before the shootings:

But over the past four years, Long’s life turned toward the tumultuous. He started college classes and left after one year. He believed he was straying from his faith, telling friends that he was fixated on sex to the extent that he thought he was addicted. His relationship with a girlfriend collapsed after she found out that he frequented massage businesses, according to his roommate. His bond with his parents frayed; on the night before the shootings, they threw him out of their house, according to police.

He frequents massage parlors to attend to his sexual needs because he does not have relationships with women? Sure; that sounds logical enough. But it also begs the question, why doesn't he have relationships with women? The same Washington Post article gives us a glimpse into the world in which he grew up:

The evangelical congregation’s minister, the Rev. Jerry Dockery, is an energetic preacher who advocated for a socially conservative brand of Christianity that, as the church bylaws put it, views “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex” as “sinful and offensive to God.”

That's pretty much the sexual thou shalt not list for all three Abrahamic religions. It's worked for several thousand years....why doesn't it work now to foster healthy relationships? Maybe it's because it centers around the idea that natural inclinations are shameful and dirty? Those yearnings are not to be acted upon, much less discussed. How does a kid with a penis reconcile nocturnal emissions and involuntary erection? What the hell do they think is gonna happen?

To be sure there are people who will say the moral fabric of society is torn where "deviant" sexual behavior thrives in the open. Can someone define or quantify deviant for me? I'm not sure what it means any more. Honestly, I believe there are people who absolutely need sex reassignment. I grew up with someone like that. It was clear to everyone she was a he. I believe some significant percentage of the population prefers partners of the same gender.  And I absolutely believe there are some people who are gender fluid. Why should I doubt anyone's natural inclination and existence? Frankly, it's none of my business whom they love. I just want everyone to be in their own happy, healthy, intimate relationship. Loving someone and being loved by someone is far too important to quibble about appearances. 

But there is a segment of the population being denied that chance at happiness because of some archaic, anachronistic, and ultimately hate-filled philosophy. That's the part that morphs and manifests itself into a psychotic break that takes it out on 8 people going about their business, doing their job, unaware that someone wanted to hurt them for just that.

In last week's episode, I talked about intimacy between partners, but intimacy does not stop there. Intimacy is the foundation upon which all relationships are built. That close communication happens between couples starting out, spouses, partners at the end of their roads, but also between siblings, cousins, friends....in fact, anyone with whom we share a common experience. Intimacy isn't only about sexual contact. Human connection is basic and fundamental. Without it, we are ultimately less human. 

I may miss the kind of intimacy I had with Ziggy (I do) but sitting on the couch with Young Sir on Friday, listening closely as he whispered to me about Cookie Monster being afraid of the bathroom upstairs so we had to help him get over that, reminded me that my just 3-year old grandson understood the power of intimacy and sharing. He spoke in very hushed tones about things he thought were important...including but not limited to loud sirens, ambulances, and why the pool is covered for winter. These were not monumental items in my life, but his sharing concerns at this age is part of how he will learn to share his concerns as he gets older...as long as we encourage him to do just that. I see it occasionally when one of my boys just calls up to check in (I confess I am always a tad suspicious about those calls) and we chat about little stuff for a few moments. That's a kind of filial intimacy and that's a good thing. 

One might hope being trapped at home with family members may have enabled some families to connect on levels different from business-as-usual. Yeah, I'm being optimistic, but I do hope for the best. 

Then again, while I am writing this, I heard about the gunman in the Boulder, Colorado supermarket. Not too much is known about what exactly happened and who did it. But it happened again. There has to be rage there. Rage so terrible it cannot be mitigated. And more people are gunned down. 

What's left to say?

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

A wise friend once told me:

"If you believe that G-d is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, by extension you must believe G-d's creations are perfect. Who are you to tell G-d that my love for another guy is abhorrent to the G-d that created us both, then let us find each other? 

It's kinda like elevators on shabbos. Why would G-d allow us to invent elevators 
and then tell us we have to walk up 18 floors to the flat?"