Question of the day

This morning I sent a real letter to the editor of the paper. Usually I write a virtual letter in my head, then go on with my day. This time, I just couldn't stop my angry fingers as they flew over the keyboard and hit "send" before I had time to reconsider. (It will probably not get published. If it is published, it will only serve to cement the opinion held by my local relatives that I am some kind of crazed left-winger. At least I got a few seconds of satisfaction before moving on to the funnies.)

The trigger for my outrage was the letter from a guy who was railing against a woman who had written about the fact that so much anti-abortion, and anti-morning-after-pill rhetoric comes from men (which is true) and that they really should shut up and sit down. (She said it in a much nicer way, but that was the basic point.) This guy (who was masterfully proving her point) wrote that no one had the right to destroy a soul that had already met god (and his god was written with a capital "G," so watch out!)-- further stating that if only "everyone believed in the Bible," all would be well. When I started talking out loud to the newspaper, I knew I was going over the edge. Guess what? Everybody doesn't believe in the Bible. They believe in another book... or a whole bunch of books... or nothing! Whose business is it anyway?? The arrogance of these religious concrete thinkers just makes me want to believe in the death penalty, if you know what I mean.

So here's my question of the day:
If you had the choice and had to make the choice, which would you choose?
A) to allow a woman to take the morning-after pill to prevent a pregnancy
B) the death of another 19-year-old soldier fighting another war

I mean, we can continue to use war as our major means of population control. Talk amongst yourselves.

Why Mean Henry?

The "Mean Henry" story is really pretty dull. I should probably create some incredibly evil source for the name; but that would be playing into the hands of the dark side. (Can a "side" have hands?)

When I was about 10 years old and my little brother (the Henry in question) was 5 or 6 we spent a lot of time together. My mother had a new baby, and my two older brothers were teenagers very busy removing themselves from interaction with the rest of the family when at all possible. Having lost his status of youngest (and, therefore, his beloved mother's "baby"), Henry hung around me, and a lot of the time I didn't mind as I was semi-in-charge of him (as in "babysitting") which made me feel very important and grown-up. In those oh so olden days our family of 7 (2 parents and 5 children) had supper together every single night... at the dining room table... with silverware and napkins... and real just-prepared-in-the-kitchen food. We had family conversation. If it was a good night, and my father hadn't had too many drinks and wasn't picking on my mother or one of my two older brothers, we would play word games, or 20 questions, or just add to a general conversation. It seemed that whenever I would talk about my day, it usually included something that I had done with Henry in tow; and I would begin with "Me an' Henry went..." or "Me an' Henry had...." (So my grammar was not the best at age 10.) My father, who considered himself an incredible wit, started calling my brother "Mean Henry" and would ask me what Mean Henry and I had been up to.

I have to thank my father for indelibly stamping the correct vs. incorrect use of the pronouns "I" and "me" as sentence subject or object. I sometimes cannot stop myself from correcting relatives, friends, and strangers (and t.v./radio commentators and politicians-- lots of politicians-- although they cannot hear my disapproval).

Henry was and is the least "mean" (in every sense of the word) of all the 5 siblings. My two older brothers were truly mean. They could be illustrations for the word "mean" in the dictionary-- two pictures: 1) older brother Dick whose Indian burns and wrenching of little arms would illustrate the physical side of "mean;" and 2) older brother Binky who perfected the art of mental "mean" by tying up and locking his small sister in a closet for hours and enjoyed nothing better than hiding under her bed to rise up in the dark just as she was falling asleep with a hideous "Mwah-ah-ah-aaaaaaah!" laugh. Who needed the bogeyman? I had brothers.

Irony.

No more war

It's 9/11/06, and the darkness has lessened in some areas but has intensified in too many others. I need to rant. We need to stop talking about a "war on terror."

When our government decided to re-designate the terrorist attacks as a "war" instead of a "crime," we began to lose. We are fighting crazy, fanatical, Islam fundamentalist terrorists. We are not in a war against Arabs, Muslims, or Iraqis (although it sure looks like it judging by the numbers of dead and wounded in Iraq). How can we feel "right" about killing thousands of Iraqis when we give that as our reason for toppling and arresting Saddam Hussein?

This fight must be waged by the intelligence and law enforcement communities in every single country in the world. Soldiers (or "troops" as our media prefers to depersonalize them) are supposed to defend our shores and protect our citizens at home. I shudder to think of what kind of response will be possible for the next natural disaster that strikes the U.S.-- much less another terrorist attack. We have weakened our ability to take care of ourselves in North America and have promoted hatred of America more efficiently than Starbucks markets coffee.

Our leaders decided to spread democracy instead of guarding our own... and did it by tricking us into believing that we were in imminent danger. But what gives us the right to push our agenda down the throat of another nation? Does Iran have a the right to create a United Muslim States of America?

I want to feel proud of my country again. I want to be on the side of good.