Confusion, Dismay and Hypocrisy

This is what Planned Parenthood prefaces its message with to those supporters whose senators voted in favor of the Blunt Amendment.

After weeks of debate and an enormous outcry from Planned Parenthood supporters nationwide, the Senate rejected the Blunt amendment, a measure that would have allowed any employer to deny women who work for them insurance coverage for birth control and other essential health benefits if the employer had a moral or religious objection. The message is clear: birth control is basic health care, and your medical decisions should be between you and your doctor.

No, Planned Parenthood, you DON'T believe medical decisions should be between you and your doctor. You want to include all of us right down to our wallets.

It's not enough that your organization provides birth control virtually free and clear to women who present in your clinic. You're not satisfied that women have almost unlimited access to abortion at any stage of pregnancy if the doctor can argue that the health (including mental health) of the mother is in danger. You want your boss, even if she opposes it to her core, to pay for your birth control.

This is a kind of religious fanaticism, conversion at sword's point.

Preserving What?

One of the joys of my adult life is that I married a man who, in addition to great calves, has great understanding. I am always learning from him. In politics especially he is very temperate, very thoughtful, whereas I tend toward extremes.

A recent challenge came from his column in the Abereen American News.

This paragraph was particularly striking to this stick-in-the-mud conservative that I often am:

"We often look at the arts and humanities as luxuries. This is especially odd coming from so-called conservatives who sometimes deride these subjects because of their lack of economic utility. But what precisely are we conserving if not our culture and civilization? And if the arts are important to the cultivation of our souls, thus the cultivation of virtue, should not those who worry about cultural decline advocate hardest for the promotion of the best in the arts?"

But what precisely are we conserving if not our culture and civilization?

That struck me to the core. How do we raise our children to be somewhere between robotic-like fascists and lovers of those squishy, voyeuristic excuses for art that are so popular today?

Enjoying One of My Life's Little Pleasures...Again

I recently started trying Caribou Coffee blends and since then I've stopped buying Starbucks. Once again I can look forward to that hot cup of goodness, which is what coffee should be all about. It should be delicious, not merely something hot and dark to get you through a biology test cram session.

My conclusion is that Starbucks is harder to get right. And when it's not, it's bitter. I just seem to have more latitude with Caribou coffee. I can't say why that is, but I don't really care. Drinking coffee is a joy again.