My Rants

I'm trying, once again, turning the comments back on. It's not that I don't want to hear from you, dear readers! It's the damn spammers. We'll see how this goes...

Louise.

Today, March 8th, is International Women's Day. A fact I was just reminded of by a Planned Parenthood email. It's been a bad millenium so far for women around the world. One bright sign: the U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women withdrew its amendment to insert anti-abortion language into the declaration reaffirming the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and ultimately reaffirmed the Beijing agreement along with the 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. It's a start.

So I tried to turn the Comments and Trackback functions back on, in hopes the evil spammers had left. Nope. They found me within minutes.

On the bright side, this was the comment they (internet poker site) left, which I found amusing: "There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime - namely, repressive justice by online poker"

I'm getting hit with comment and trackback spammers, so I may have to turn off comments for a while again. Please bear with me.

Okay, so I admit--I watch Desperate Housewives. I find it a clever send-up of suburban mores. Example--this little exchange from a recent episode:

Bree: We're WASPs, Dr. Goldfein. Not acknowledging the elephant in the room is what we do best.

Dr. F: Is that what you want? A life of denial and repression?

B: And dinner parties. Don't forget the dinner parties.

Sorry, folks, but I've had to turn off the Comments function for a bit to ward off some online casino spammers. Bloody bastard spammers!

I'll let you know when it's back on.

Stupid NHL. Stupid players. It's now official--no hockey this year [note: PDF file].

The Rant was down for part of yesterday, and I couldn't post. I have a few 'cleanup' items you might find interesting:

Tracey sent me this amusing post on How To Start Your Very Own Blog In Fifty-One Easy Steps! While perusing that site, I came across an ad for a documentary on PBS' American Experience about Alfred Kinsey. Having seen the feature film recently, I'm interested in what they have to say.

In other, less amusing news, it seems you really can buy anything online, even your child's education. And the truth is finally coming out about the real cost of the new Medicare 'benefit'. Color me unsurprised.

So as not to end on entirely 'down' note, it seems some funds are trickling in to the Salinas Public Library system to try to keep them open. Via LISNews. How insanely sad is it that the town's mayor has to 'pass the hat' to try to keep the libraries open? In the town where John Steinbeck got his start. That final link is to an article on Alternet by Jim Hightower in defense of America's public libraries.

Some of you may have noticed, in the last few days, that you could not post Comments. We were getting slammed by some spammers (I hate online casinos!), similar to last year's trouble, so had to shut down the Comments function temporarily. It is now back up and running.

Thank you for your patience, loyal readers!

-Mistress of The Rant

The extraordinary Shirley Chisholm has died. First black woman elected to Congress and one tough, amazing broad.

"My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency," she told voters.

During her failed presidential bid, Chisholm went to the hospital to visit George Wallace, her rival candidate and ideological opposite, after he had been shot — an act that appalled her followers.

"He said, `What are your people going to say?' I said: `I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.' He cried and cried," she recalled.

A real class act.

My buddy Todd G. sent me to this very sensible article from his hometown paper on taking the holidays at a reasonable and sane pace. A very nice idea.

I'm doing less this year, though not the bare minimum, and feel rather overwhelmed. I swear if anyone comes near me with some mistletoe or a holly wreath, I'm gonna lose it. I think, perhaps, that I expended all of my emotional energy on the election, with little left over for the holidays.

Bah Humbug.

I'm off for the weekend to Fiddler's Green, mostly to hear my friend Ayanna talk on a couple of panels and also to commune with some fellow GenXers. A term I hate, but it fits the crowd.

Have a good, safe weekend everybody!

This issue has been bubbling for a while. I know Planned Parenthood and other groups have been tracking it:

Pharmacists have been refusing to dispense birth control pills due to 'moral' objections.

Now, I can understand the argument by doctors who choose not to perform actual abortions. It is a specific procedure they refuse to perform. However, pharmacists are there to provide medications prescribed by physicians and approved by insurance companies (who are a whole other kettle of fish). There is no question that they have forced this item on a customer. Somehow by filling the Rx, this translates to 'condoning' certain behaviors? I don't get this.

In the case of doctors providing abortions, the patient might (!) have other options for getting that procedure, but many pharmacy customers can ONLY use one pharmacy in their region, because their insurance companies limit them to contract locations. So what if you're in a small town, with one pharmacy (not unusual) and a druggist who refuses to fill your Rx? And in some cases (as discussed in the article) who refuse to hand it off to another druggist to fill (???!). Even if there is another druggist at the same location who will fill it, what if they're not working today? Or what if they feel harassed in the workplace to NOT fill such prescriptions? Then it becomes a labor issue.

I'm taking this to extremes, but as we seem to be heading that direction, let's look at this: what if you had a pharmacist, or some pharmacy tech, who had recently converted to Christian Science? In this religion, use of any medication is proscribed in deference to prayer. They could just refuse to dispense potentially life-saving medications alltogether. Never happen, you say? Wanna find out? I don't. Would these pharmacists also balk at filling prescriptions for Viagra or methadone, for instance, as they're used for (or as replacement for) potentially sinful behaviors?

This quote interested me: "In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide." They mention assisted suicide, which requires a combination of heavy sedatives, for instance. So...if you take Rx sleeping pills, they could refuse to dispense because you might use it for committing suicide? They would have records that, say, you took Prozac some years ago, so could be potentially suicidal. Again, this is a not-entirely-illogical extreme.

Big brother mentioned it earlier.

Cuz he still 'gets it'. From an article at CNN.com:

Smothers said he's frequently approached by people who ask him whether he wishes he were on television now because he could say anything he wanted.

"They seem to miss it," he said. "The dirty words are flowing, the sex is flowing and the violence, but there certainly is no social comment, except for the corners of the television spectrum, which is Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. Not in prime time."

The pressure not to offend politically is much worse now, he said.

"People are afraid," he said. "I'm even nervous now."

Maher and Michael Moore "are my heroes," he said. "At one time, in people's eyes, that's what I was doing."

If only he wasn't a Nader supporter. Sigh.

We've all heard about the harassment suit against Bill O'Reilly. Well, it seems that's not enough for this blowhard. Seems he has to make a conspiracy where there is none by accusing Al Franken:

O'Reilly, obsessed with his left-wing mirror image and nemesis Al Franken, also posits that Franken is somehow behind the charges. However, Franken said on his own show that he takes no joy in the allegations against his conservative rival.

Give it up, Bill. On the other hand, it might sell a few more of your new kids advice books, even if you've decided to not do a book tour<%/a>:

"Because of the intense media scrutiny Mr. O'Reilly is currently facing, he and HarperCollins have jointly decided to postpone the final media interviews planned to promote 'The O'Reilly Factor for Kids,' " the publisher said in a statement. "We hope hope to resume the book promotion with Mr. O'Reilly at a later date and we wish him well during this difficult time," it said.

I'm sure HarperCollins is fuming.

I think Aaron McGruder of Boondocks has it right.