Category: politics

Mine, apparently – at least, the last 17 years say so. And boy, are we in bad shape.

Oh, oh, read this. Please. Nicole nails several issues in ways I haven’t even thought of.

Two anniversaries were celebrated in the past two days, that I did not write about. But I’ve been thinking and reading, and learned a whole lot from Ari Kelman’s post on The Edge of the American West about Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday was celebrated (well, sorta) on the 21st.

I say sorta because, though it’s a federal holiday, and people do hold special events, it just doesn’t penetrate the collective psyche like 4th of July or Labor Day or whatnot. That’s hardly a surprise, I suppose.

And speaking of civil liberties, yesterday was 35 years since the Roe v. Wade ruling, which deemed laws against abortion unconstitutional. I know exactly where I stand on the issue: I’d defend every woman’s right to make the difficult choice of whether to have a child, but people also have (at least in the U.S.) the right to speak out against it. Of course, even recent history hasn’t been at all civil: women are harrassed, persecuted, people are killed by anti-choicers. Regardless of whether one thinks abortion is murder most foul, killing in retaliation perpetuates the problem of murder in a very concrete way. I wonder if this topic will generate any productive nationwide conversation in my lifetime.