Kimisview

Neighbors has a 7 year old and a 4 year old, both girls.  Every day, the parents fill an inflatable pool with water, and give these children a "bath".  Both girls are attired in underpants only for this.  The older girl is starting to develop slightly, as she is slightly overweight.  Thus takes place in a city back yard, which faces the backs of the houses on the next street.

As a resident of PA who still shudders at the mere mention of the name of our former senator, Rick (man on dog) Santorum, I am both shocked and awed that this man has the brass cojones to even consider a run for President in 2012.  Laughably, he has been all over the right wing and mainstream media, weighing in on all kinds of issues.  Today, I read where he told an interviewer that John McCain DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ENHANCED INTERROGATION. 

While no big JMc fan, I must, at this point, ask Rick to just SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY.  He is like the distant relative who shows up uninvited to the family function, already drunk, and proceeds to offend the entire gathering within 15 minutes with vulgar and stupid comments.  How can one even suggest that a man who bears the permanent physical scars of "enhanced interrogation" doesn't understand torture?  What makes Rick an expert?  Show me your service record and your scars, Rick.  Much like common sense and integrity, you don't have them.

Mr. Santorum's "man on dog" comment of the past made him the target of gay Americans who were as offended as his constituents.  As a result, a definition of his surname was developed, which, to the best of my recollection is: a frothy blend of lube and fecal matter which is the byproduct of anal sex.  The more this man opens his mouth, the more I find the definition appropriate.

One other fun fact about Rick Santorum:He and his wife brought their deceased infant home from the hospital and introduced the dead child to their living children as “your brother Gabriel” and slept with the body overnight before returning it to the hospital. The anecdote appeared in a piece by Michael Sokolove in a 2005 issue of New York Times Magazine about Santorum.

This is the result of anti choice legislation that all of these so called "pro lifers" would like to ignore.  This famous photo, which appeared in Ms. magazine in 1973, is a crime scene photo of a death by back alley abortion.  The victim of this botched procedure was named Gerri Santoro.  In '95, PBS aired a film about the photo, Gerri's family, and the pro choice movement, called "Leona's Sister Gerri".  I am still haunted by the image of Ms. Santoro's sister, at a rally, holding a sign which contained this photo and the caption "This is my sister". 

Our family buys the NY Post for the sports section. (We also get the Daily News)  I occasionally read the op ed page to keep abreast of the current GOP batshit crazy hot topics.  While I have felt disgust, bewilderment and shame at many of the views expressed there, today's (March 21, 2011) "opinion" by this Glenn Harlan Reynolds guy caused me to experience a new reaction....sorrow and pity (accompanied, of course, by the disgust and shame). So, if you are at all interested, Mr. Reynolds, please allow me to respond to the absurdity that you call an editorial regarding "union thuggery":

You begin your "editorial" by comparing the shooting of a US Congressperson and several others, including a child, with the breaking of windows.  You describe threats such as "we will fuck you up" and "I and the group of people that are working with me have decided that we've had enough...(Bombs, know where you live, blah, blah, blah)...and I won't tell you all of them because that's just no fun."  You say: "This threat is more credible because mobs of union protestors had already visited senators' houses, screaming and banging on the windows." 

You rail against the (liberal) media for underreporting  this dangerous situation.  "...but the big-media folks seem so anxious to peddle the same tired storyline--right-wingers  are more violent and ignorant, left-wingers are peaceful and virtuous--that they almost have to ignore anything that will spoil the narrative." 

To paraphrase the socioeconomic strata in which the GOP would have everyone except their chosen few inhabit....Fascist, please!  Since someone has determined that you are somehow qualified to teach others about the law, let me "break it down" for you (the quotes merely because I feel that you are too ignorant to grasp the concept otherwise) :

1. Shooting women and children and breaking windows.......worlds apart

2. Remember a doctor named George Tiller?  He, along with numerous other abortion providers (who are, mercifully, not dead yet) received, and continue to receive, death threats on a daily basis.  They are forced to take extraordinary measures to protect themselves.  Even so, Dr. Tiller was killed AT HIS CHURCH.  Are these violent anti choice groups "liberal union thugs", or right wing, batshit crazies?

3. Let's think about the last few "homegrown terrorists"...Tim McVeigh....right winger.  Jared Loughner...right winger.  Terry Nichols....right winger.  Scott Roeder....right winger.  Shelley Shannon (the first person to shoot Dr Tiller, in 1993)...right winger.  None of these people merely broke a window.

4. Liberal terrorists: None since the early 70s.  Except for the vandals who broke the windows, I suppose.

5. The "union thugs" of which you speak are persons whose personal economic security has been threatened.  Certainly, the people whose livelihoods are threatened have a right to be not quite as angry as a right winger who disgrees with a third person's decision to provide a legal medical procedure. 

6. Oh My God!!!!  Banging on windows and screaming!!!!!   Union thugs!   Again, not even close to bombs and bullets.  Fascist, please!

This past Friday, I pulled into my local Price Chopper parking lot.  I saw A, a therapeutic support person for a girl who was in my daughter's preschool class last year.  As I often had to wait for C to finish her lunch before leaving, she and I would chat.  Her son (and only child) was in his early 20s and had just been deployed to Iraq in the USMC.  She proudly showed me a photo of a handsome, healthy, happy young man in dress blues.

When I stopped to say hello, she introduced me to her son, whose name I cannot even remember for reasons which follow.  This twenty something boy was a walking corpse.  He was carrying a portable oxygen tank.  His skin was a shade which I cannot even begin to describe.  A. explained that his lungs were scarred from the toxic fumes from "burn pits" in Iraq.  I half remembered reading an article about this a while ago in The New York Times. This young man, who volunteered to serve his country, and who was not injured in combat, has been physically destroyed by the aftermath of a senseless war over oil in Iraq.

When will it be enough?  When will the majority of Americans realize that we need to transcend fossil fuels, and not be beholden to the third rate dictators and radical clerics who control these resources?  America is like a battered wife.  It suffers through huge price increases, senseless wars, the destruction of young lives like A.'s son; and, instead of walking away from this abuse of our country's citizens, it begs for more.  America intervenes, at the cost of huge debt and human lives, in order to secure its oil supply.  America kisses the asses of said dictators and religious groups, because America needs them, and simply can't leave the relationship.  Even now, when fears and gas prices soar, the talk is of drilling and fracking, not finding a way to eliminate the necessity of fossil fuels.