So many false flags... meanwhile Canada is on fire, water is becoming scarcer in the American Southwest, and the world’s superpower is playing footsie with facism... but please, let’s go on about the tiny number of trans athletes playing school sports.
“A larger majority of Americans now (69%) than in 2021 (62%) say transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.”
What gets me is that anyone cares. In the scheme of things, this should be a complete non-issue.
This whole 3rd trimester abortion conversation and who “approves” of it has to stop. There are basically no on-demand 3rd trimester abortions (the so-called partial birth abortions). This is a disgusting canard that pro-lifers drummed up to make it seem like irresponsible women were choosing to abort viable babies up to the moment of birth. The reality is these late term procedures are usually tragic medical crises which result in loss of a wanted pregnancy.
Sadly Charlie and Mona, for the thoughtful and intelligent things they have to say, continue to act as though on demand, 3rd trimester abortion is a thing that actually happens, by uninformed the example of ONE doctor who seemed to approve of this.
The right’s long practice of lies, misinformation and distorted view of pregnancy and childbirth birth have now created a situation in many states that makes a crisis in any stage of pregnancy more dangerous than ever.
Charlie and Mona are two of the most thoughtful voices in American punditry and have been true patriots for putting everything on the line for their country, but they’re way off on this one.
I'm as close to a yellow dog Democrat as you can get, but unless a guy is willing to lop off his genitalia, he shouldn't be allowed to compete against women in sports. And since I'm getting things off my chest, it is wrong to use the pronouns "they" and "their" when referring to oneself. Unless you have a mouse in your pocket or you're the Queen Victoria their use is unacceptable. These words are plurals as was taught to me in the 3rd grade (maybe the 2nd). If this is problematic, then I suggest those bothered by my myopia learn to speak and write Mandarin or Cantonese as neither has male or female individual pronouns (which can be quite confusing when you are reading English subtitles done by a person with less than a perfect skill at translating).
I personally couldn't care less about who people want to sleep with at all. I'm totally uninterested in what people do with their bodies. I don't care who is sitting in the bathròm stall next to me.
But, I am against trans woman playing in woman's sports. Woman athletes have had to trudge such a long road to be taken seriously as athletes that it bothers me that trans women think they can be successful in women's sports when they are usually bigger and stronger. I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of any trans men clamoring to compete in professional men's sports.
The SBC was founded in defense of slavery and yet has spent the last almost-two centuries completely convinced they are completely right about everything. They never have and never will learn, and that is the foundation of their ongoing terribleness. (I'm a former SB missionary kid). But honestly, their worst trait--the overweening self-righteousness, the refusal to even consider they might be wrong--is shared by many on all sides of the culture wars. It's all virtue signaling all the time, and to say it's tiresome is an understatement. To wit, I was recently informed at work that we would no longer be calling lunchtime talks "Brown Bags" because that term was racist and classist. I am a PhD American historian, and this was news to me (I naively thought a brown bag was just...well, a brown paper bag that many people still use to carry their lunches), but in a spirit of humility and learning, I asked a friend who is a grad student at Berkeley about the Brown Bag Ban. I thought surely he would have the very latest on the appropriate lexicon of the over-educated and overwrought set. He had never heard of such a thing. Leaving me to conclude that some perhaps earnest but more likely preening person in my organization decided to score some virtue points. Fine, I don't really care what we call lunchtime talks, but my fear is that such militancy just degrades and distracts from the truly righteous causes of social justice, including the treatment of women in the SBC (which is appalling far beyond any ban on female clergy). Enough!
Nice to know that the eponymous “trans issue” is on which team a trans athlete can play, and not something trivial like trans homelessness or suicides.
The podcast with Rep. Kitzinger was excellent! What you both need to consider is that weak people like authoritarians. Someone else makes all decisions for you--who you should like, who you should hate...Russia has dealt with this throughout its history. Initially the serfs looked up to Church authorities who looked upward finally to the tsar. The Bolsheviks looked to Lenin, the Soviets to Stalin, and now we have Putin. It may sound good to join the group at the outset, but living with the consequences stinks. Few authoritarians consider “the people” in their decision making. Life gets better for the ruler and those around him, but not for the people. Let the Trump Republicans move to an authoritarian country.
On abortion: I keep asking why is it only women and doctors who are being held accountable? What about the men? They get off scot free? They had access to prophylactics. Did they not use them? Birth control for women has never been 100% effective. I have witnessed doctors simultaneously prescribing the pill and an antibiotic which is known to undermine the effectiveness of any birth control protection from that very same pill. Perhaps the doctors at the front end--gynecologists--should be penalized for their failures.
I understand and truly appreciate Rep. Kitzinger’s views on the right to life. At least he understands that women need more support for an upcoming unplanned child than just being helped through the pregnancy. I think you will find there are few people who are pro-abortion, they are really just pro-choice.
In addition, there is the difficulty that women sometimes discover severe abnormalities later in the pregnancy. What will be the quality of life for a severely damaged baby? How will the parents manage the necessary medical care? Or the home health care? And what happens if the baby survives but the parents die? Do we condemn the parents and the child to impossible lives? I don’t know. But these are conversations we need to have, and then we may need to extend our support networks.
On another note, I am devastated by what Trump may have done to our assets in other countries. He could rank second to Kim Philby for all we know. Other countries will rightly never trust us again. It is not just Trump, it is all his supporters who seem to think it is fine to publicize secret international information. SOS.
There are two philosophical ideas that come to mind: The first is a very misguided inference that states, "If they are throwing stones at me, I must be a prophet." This idiotic narcissism speaks for itself.
The second point is a little more nuanced.
Albert Camus Is considered the father of Absurdism. A rather over simplistic definition of this term is that if one is looking for inherent meaning and inherent patterns to all of life, one is doing something very absurd. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Nothing should be more clear about that understanding than what is occurring in the American political scene right now. If you are looking for something to make sense you are doing something very absurd.
My experience in teaching and administration at a college tells me that the Diversity Office at Hopkins just let the student interns run the show on matters like the glossary, probably out of timidity. Even there, the DEI Dean would suffer from accusations of every imaginable phobia, bias and bigotry, if not assenting to the latest inventions of all-knowing youth.
With apologies to Percy Sledge, Michael Bolton, Joe Cocker, Bette Midler, Aaron Neville, and all the others who have covered this song, let's see if we can't update the cisgender- supremacist lyrics to "When a Man Loves a Woman."
[In the key of C]
"When a man loves a non-man
Can't keep his mind on nothin' else..."
(so far so good, right?)
(No giggling.)
Next stanza:
"If they are bad, he can't see it
They can do no wrong..."
And:
"When a man loves a no-man
He spend his very last dime..."
You get the idea.
(I'm not entirely sure I've used "them/they" correctly here though).
Boomers like me are just waiting for this 1966 classic to be de-gendered (sic) and recorded by a non-binary singer!
I read an anti abortion article where the author said a woman who was 8 1/2 mo pregnant got an abortion because wanted go to a party. If that's true, she would have made a horrible mother.
So many false flags... meanwhile Canada is on fire, water is becoming scarcer in the American Southwest, and the world’s superpower is playing footsie with facism... but please, let’s go on about the tiny number of trans athletes playing school sports.
“A larger majority of Americans now (69%) than in 2021 (62%) say transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.”
What gets me is that anyone cares. In the scheme of things, this should be a complete non-issue.
This whole 3rd trimester abortion conversation and who “approves” of it has to stop. There are basically no on-demand 3rd trimester abortions (the so-called partial birth abortions). This is a disgusting canard that pro-lifers drummed up to make it seem like irresponsible women were choosing to abort viable babies up to the moment of birth. The reality is these late term procedures are usually tragic medical crises which result in loss of a wanted pregnancy.
Sadly Charlie and Mona, for the thoughtful and intelligent things they have to say, continue to act as though on demand, 3rd trimester abortion is a thing that actually happens, by uninformed the example of ONE doctor who seemed to approve of this.
The right’s long practice of lies, misinformation and distorted view of pregnancy and childbirth birth have now created a situation in many states that makes a crisis in any stage of pregnancy more dangerous than ever.
Charlie and Mona are two of the most thoughtful voices in American punditry and have been true patriots for putting everything on the line for their country, but they’re way off on this one.
Is Rose Montoya a male? If so it is totally okay
to go topless. If female, not okay according to
the rules of our ridiculous society. Even breast
feeding often frowned upon. How perverse is
that?
RE: Opinion is shifting on the trans issue.
I'm as close to a yellow dog Democrat as you can get, but unless a guy is willing to lop off his genitalia, he shouldn't be allowed to compete against women in sports. And since I'm getting things off my chest, it is wrong to use the pronouns "they" and "their" when referring to oneself. Unless you have a mouse in your pocket or you're the Queen Victoria their use is unacceptable. These words are plurals as was taught to me in the 3rd grade (maybe the 2nd). If this is problematic, then I suggest those bothered by my myopia learn to speak and write Mandarin or Cantonese as neither has male or female individual pronouns (which can be quite confusing when you are reading English subtitles done by a person with less than a perfect skill at translating).
I personally couldn't care less about who people want to sleep with at all. I'm totally uninterested in what people do with their bodies. I don't care who is sitting in the bathròm stall next to me.
But, I am against trans woman playing in woman's sports. Woman athletes have had to trudge such a long road to be taken seriously as athletes that it bothers me that trans women think they can be successful in women's sports when they are usually bigger and stronger. I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of any trans men clamoring to compete in professional men's sports.
The SBC was founded in defense of slavery and yet has spent the last almost-two centuries completely convinced they are completely right about everything. They never have and never will learn, and that is the foundation of their ongoing terribleness. (I'm a former SB missionary kid). But honestly, their worst trait--the overweening self-righteousness, the refusal to even consider they might be wrong--is shared by many on all sides of the culture wars. It's all virtue signaling all the time, and to say it's tiresome is an understatement. To wit, I was recently informed at work that we would no longer be calling lunchtime talks "Brown Bags" because that term was racist and classist. I am a PhD American historian, and this was news to me (I naively thought a brown bag was just...well, a brown paper bag that many people still use to carry their lunches), but in a spirit of humility and learning, I asked a friend who is a grad student at Berkeley about the Brown Bag Ban. I thought surely he would have the very latest on the appropriate lexicon of the over-educated and overwrought set. He had never heard of such a thing. Leaving me to conclude that some perhaps earnest but more likely preening person in my organization decided to score some virtue points. Fine, I don't really care what we call lunchtime talks, but my fear is that such militancy just degrades and distracts from the truly righteous causes of social justice, including the treatment of women in the SBC (which is appalling far beyond any ban on female clergy). Enough!
Two responses:
1) Beats the shit out of me.
2)It was god.
Nice to know that the eponymous “trans issue” is on which team a trans athlete can play, and not something trivial like trans homelessness or suicides.
Not sure what Trump is talking about. He sees the most corrupt president in the history of America every morning in the mirror.
The podcast with Rep. Kitzinger was excellent! What you both need to consider is that weak people like authoritarians. Someone else makes all decisions for you--who you should like, who you should hate...Russia has dealt with this throughout its history. Initially the serfs looked up to Church authorities who looked upward finally to the tsar. The Bolsheviks looked to Lenin, the Soviets to Stalin, and now we have Putin. It may sound good to join the group at the outset, but living with the consequences stinks. Few authoritarians consider “the people” in their decision making. Life gets better for the ruler and those around him, but not for the people. Let the Trump Republicans move to an authoritarian country.
On abortion: I keep asking why is it only women and doctors who are being held accountable? What about the men? They get off scot free? They had access to prophylactics. Did they not use them? Birth control for women has never been 100% effective. I have witnessed doctors simultaneously prescribing the pill and an antibiotic which is known to undermine the effectiveness of any birth control protection from that very same pill. Perhaps the doctors at the front end--gynecologists--should be penalized for their failures.
I understand and truly appreciate Rep. Kitzinger’s views on the right to life. At least he understands that women need more support for an upcoming unplanned child than just being helped through the pregnancy. I think you will find there are few people who are pro-abortion, they are really just pro-choice.
In addition, there is the difficulty that women sometimes discover severe abnormalities later in the pregnancy. What will be the quality of life for a severely damaged baby? How will the parents manage the necessary medical care? Or the home health care? And what happens if the baby survives but the parents die? Do we condemn the parents and the child to impossible lives? I don’t know. But these are conversations we need to have, and then we may need to extend our support networks.
On another note, I am devastated by what Trump may have done to our assets in other countries. He could rank second to Kim Philby for all we know. Other countries will rightly never trust us again. It is not just Trump, it is all his supporters who seem to think it is fine to publicize secret international information. SOS.
There are two philosophical ideas that come to mind: The first is a very misguided inference that states, "If they are throwing stones at me, I must be a prophet." This idiotic narcissism speaks for itself.
The second point is a little more nuanced.
Albert Camus Is considered the father of Absurdism. A rather over simplistic definition of this term is that if one is looking for inherent meaning and inherent patterns to all of life, one is doing something very absurd. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Nothing should be more clear about that understanding than what is occurring in the American political scene right now. If you are looking for something to make sense you are doing something very absurd.
My experience in teaching and administration at a college tells me that the Diversity Office at Hopkins just let the student interns run the show on matters like the glossary, probably out of timidity. Even there, the DEI Dean would suffer from accusations of every imaginable phobia, bias and bigotry, if not assenting to the latest inventions of all-knowing youth.
With apologies to Percy Sledge, Michael Bolton, Joe Cocker, Bette Midler, Aaron Neville, and all the others who have covered this song, let's see if we can't update the cisgender- supremacist lyrics to "When a Man Loves a Woman."
[In the key of C]
"When a man loves a non-man
Can't keep his mind on nothin' else..."
(so far so good, right?)
(No giggling.)
Next stanza:
"If they are bad, he can't see it
They can do no wrong..."
And:
"When a man loves a no-man
He spend his very last dime..."
You get the idea.
(I'm not entirely sure I've used "them/they" correctly here though).
Boomers like me are just waiting for this 1966 classic to be de-gendered (sic) and recorded by a non-binary singer!
I read an anti abortion article where the author said a woman who was 8 1/2 mo pregnant got an abortion because wanted go to a party. If that's true, she would have made a horrible mother.
Thanks Sarah, you confirmed it’s a Cult jfc