The Supreme Court's anti-abortion ruling

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"Mommy killers! Mommy killers!"

I'm not surprised that protesters are not yelling that at the Supreme Court after today's ruling gutting Roe v. Wade.

Anti-abortion people have been crying "Baby killers!" for years. But this new ruling has the effect of forcing women who cannot afford to go to another state to end a pregnancy to do desperate things. In the early years of my ministry, when abortions were illegal, the death rate from efforts to get abortions were high, especially among minority women. Why the pro-life folks felt that was okay is a mystery to me, even when white women also died.

In the old days, it was Roman Catholic belief that abortion was bad because if you had to choose who should live, baby or mommy, baby was chosen because its pure soul trumped the bad things the woman may have done and must have done during her life.

That is not usually heard in any arguments nowadays. The focus is on the simpler issue: these are babies, even if they have not been born yet. The well-being of the mother is not even considered, AT ALL, by the politics of anti-abortion.

Jewish faith requires abortion if the mother's life could be otherwise harmed. In fact, the Bible. acknowledges life exists when the fetus first breathes.

We United Methodists passed a resolution that urged medical care in any circumstance where abortion was needed though we did not identify when that might be.

Maybe this will become a matter of religious freedom. And the issue of the right to privacy may no longer be the linchpin.

My friends who are against abortion may choose not to have them. What would happen if I somehow got legislatures and Congress to prohibit gambling because it is against my firmly help religious belief? Gambling along with alcohol are destructive of families that leave them impoverished.

You've probably stopped reading by now. Maybe I need to shout something so offensive that I get your attention back but which describes what will happen. No, I will only ask this:

What about the mothers?

Michael Cohen's View Of Things

 I just finished reading DISLOYAL, Donald Trump's personal lawyer's book on his work for Trump.  He describes working for Trump as an addiction that blocks rationality.  The Trump world was exciting, challenging, and very heady stuff.  Just a few days before the FBI arrested Cohen, he had sat at the dinner table with now President Trump and one of the richest men in the world, a meeting he had brokered for them both.  And he described the way Trump then distanced himself from Cohen and actually worked through Attorney General William Barr to have him put back in prison after he had been released to home custody during the pandemic as many other prisoners had been released.  All his years of loyalty to Trump were being repaid with retaliation to prevent the writing of this book.

Cohen does a couple other things that surprised me.  First, without diminishing their culpability, he humanized Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Malania.  There was little he could do besides describe the actual behaviors of Trump himself to humanize him.

The other thing that surprised me was how much he downplayed the Russian connection in his book.  While he spoke at length about the probability of the existence of the "pee-pee tape" and showed no regard for the Steele Dossier, he said practically nothing about the Russian help everyone else who has written about the 2016 election included in great detail.  He may have been saving what he really knew for sharing with Congress after his book was published.  Or he may have really had little to do beyond what he admitted, that he had worked on the Moscow Trump Tower deal all during the campaign at the time when Trump was denying any business with the Russians.

His main thrust as to what got Trump elected was that the Main Stream Media amplified everything about Trump they could find and kept reporting all the negative things the GOP was doing to make Clinton's emails seem like the crime of the century.  To Cohen, what little the Russians did was nothing compared to the media's fascination with all things Trump.  Trump was exciting and free of any moral or ethical restraints, a state of being that was admired and yearned for by half the American population.  Trump was a star, one who ruled "reality" television, including the world of wrestling.  Fox Network, Limbaugh, and other "conservative" media only enhanced what the rest of the news gathering agencies were doing, in Cohen's mind.

As a side note, let me add that Jonathan Karl's BETRAYAL, Michael Wolff's LANDSLIDE, and the Woodward/Acosta book PERIL also said amazingly little about the Russian influence.  They may have been asked by the Department of Justice to hold up on what they learned about Russia.  I can't imagine such writers not encountering a lot more about foreign interference in the Trump years.  I am awaiting a book by someone who reports on the influence Putin had on Trump to do things like sending federal troops into the BLM protests to break them up, to clear the square in front of St. John's Church for Trump's PR stunt ("dominate the streets"), and other moments when Trump tried to do things that even his most loyal staff found a way to torpedo or drag out until he forgot about it.

Cohen has laid bare what it is like to become a cult member at the same time he was aware of how badly he was acting on Trump's behalf.  His book is most engaging.

Too Many Big Lies

 Our era has too many big lies believed by too many people.  And they are getting people killed.  

The most immediate deadly big lie is that the white race is superior to any other race.  This has led to putting chemical dumps next to small ethnic communities, to providing poor public services like sewage and schools, presuming ethnics are dangerous, and feeling free to harass and even kill ethnics without due process.  

The next is that public health measures like wearing masks in public and getting vaccinated against the COVID virus are some kind of false pretense for a leftist government take-over.  What is really is crazy is that such attitudes leave the "true believers" vulnerable to infection and possible death.  They are harming themselves by their belief in this big lie.  What is worse is that the virus can evolve in their infections into something that could infect even the vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic for everyone.

And then there is the big lie that Trump was cheated out of being re-elected.  Over sixty law suits were dismissed by all kinds of judges, many appointed by Trump himself that there were irregularities in the 2020 election.  Every election official all over the country said this was the most secure election in history.  The only violations were a small handful of Trump voters who tried to vote in dead relatives' name.  The big lie that Trump was really the winner in 2020 led to the death of five people, three being Capitol Police, on January 6, with the possibility that that was a practice run for an even bigger and more deadly attack on our government.

All three lies are part of the belief system of many who are mostly in one political party, thanks to Trump.  That does not free any who are not of that political party from believing one or more of the big lies.  They all tempt every one of us.  

What is really bad is that the "true believers" think it is okay to harass, threaten, and even damage us.  They do not believe in pacifism and agreeing to disagree.  It's their way or we suffer the consequences, consequences they get to choose.  

That's not the way to govern.  It is not the American way!  

 

About Confederate Statues

 An African American woman and her daughter were driving past a very prominent statue on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans.

The girl said, "What's that statue up there?"

"Robert E. Lee."

"Mama, who is that?"

"The general who led the Confederates in the Civil War."

"Well, was he fighting for me?"

"No, he wasn't.  He was fighting to keep people slaves."

"Then why is he up there?"

(Vignette from the book by Mitch Landrieu, IN THE SHADOW OF STATUES, A WHITE SOUTHERNER CONFRONTS HISTORY)

Trump's "Little Green Men"

I offered the following as a letter to the editor of our local newspaper:

Editor,

Poor President Trump.  His friend Vladimir Putin urged him in a phone call in June to "dominate the streets" when the Black Lives Matter demonstrations got too close to the White House and the Secret Service rushed Trump into the bunker downstairs just in case.  So, Trump ordered a fully armed military unit to Washington along with miscellaneous other federal police groups.  The soldiers came with bayonets but did not bring them onto the streets.  

Putin had used Russian troops in Ukraine but they wore no identification.  They just took over Crimea and eastern Ukraine.  So Trump saw to it that the enforcers he brought to Washington also had no ID.  Trump got his photo op at St. John's Church across the street.

He now plans to send unmarked troops to eleven major cities, all run by Democrats.  He is ignoring the 130 other cities that have had BLM demonstrations every night since George Floyd died.

Portland, OR, was the first foray outside the Capitol for Trump to use what are now being called "little green men."  They faced off with peaceful demonstrators around a federal building full of graphiti.  They "dominated the street" with tear gas and grabbed people off the street and drove them away in unmarked cars.  The next night, a retired Navy seal, confronted the feds.  At 6' 7" he towered over them.  He asked them if they believed in the oath they took to defend the Constitution so they tried to knock him down with batons and when that didn't work, they broke his arm and pepper-sprayed him in the face.  

The next night, women came out and formed an arm-linked line between the protesters (their kids) and the soldiers.  Tear gas.  So the following night, Trump's little green men were met by "Dads with Leaf Blowers."   

Poor President Trump still hasn't got the video footage he wants for his political ads so he is sending more of his little green men to Chicago.  I wonder what folks there have up their sleeves.

Update:  Upon counting words, the above had to be edited down.  I did the best I could and gave the last ten or so words to be done by the newspaper.  It took a few days but they finally published my letter to the editor within the word limit on August 5.

How do you know what news is true?

How do you know what news is true?

AARP Bulletin for July and August listed ten suggestions:

1. Who wrote it? No author, be cautious. Google the name of the one who wrote it. You may learn enough to tell how credible the writer is.

2. Does the headline grab you? Then read the article to see if the headline is actually backed up by what is in the article before sharing or liking it. Note the source and be wise about dealing with future articles from that source.

3. Most writers are affiliated with some "source," an agency, news outlet, research firm, etc. It is good to know what the source is and as much about it as you need to know regarding its credibility.

4. If the article urges immediate action, be sure the writer and source and funding mechanism are legitimate. Some urgent action calls are not legitimate and when clicking forward at the urging sometimes leads you into sales or fraud situations about which you were not warned.

5. Facebook and some other social media now provide a "blue shield" or symbol next the source or "owner" of the account to confirm it is authentic. Be cautious if that symbol is not included on the page.

6. Pictures can be photoshopped. So to be sure the picture is not disinformation, "drag and drop" the picture into Google Image to see if it finds another picture that had been been altered.

7. If the story is true, it will also be carried on other media and sources. If your source is the only one carrying it, be cautious about passing it on.

8. Legitimate sources are usually properly spelled and formatted. Fake accounts misspell or use odd wording or provide inaccurate history.

9. Check the date of the article. If an old article or picture is posted implying it is contemporary, be cautious about its news value. The date of the original article is usually on it. If not, Snopes and other fact checking sources can let you know if it is news or not.

10. Is it news or opinion? News answers the questions about when, where, what happened, how, and why. Opinions contain only enough to try to persuade you about something. Know the difference between fact and opinion. Do not pass on an opinion as a fact or as news.

I do not always make sure about things I feel strongly about. I mean to and most of the time, if I do not know the source, I use almost all of the above techniques (I don't use the picture googling yet) all the rest of the time. Now you can check my posts for authenticity as well as those you are tempted to share.

How risky is the aerosol form of the COVID virus?

How risky is the aerosol form of the COVID virus?

A little more than than the droplets. The droplets are most dangerous because they carry a lot of the virus. Sneezes, coughs, and loud vocalizing produce pretty good sized globs of mouth moistures that are really bad when we get a load of them. But if we do not get them pretty directly, they are heavier than air and drop pretty fast to the ground/floor and, so far, appear to lose their dangerousness almost right away.

The virus also ride on tiny drops of vapor, the kind of moisture you see in the winter when your breath condenses in the air. In warm weather, you never see those tiny droplets, but they still come out of us all the time when we breath. What we do not see in the winter is how the microscopic droplets hang around us for awhile and hang in the air for as much as three hours before finally dropping to the grounds/floor.

A better analogy than winter breathing-steam is cigarette smoke. You know who is a smoker when you get within a foot or two (or more for some of us non-smokers). The virus hangs around an infected person like the cigarette smell hangs around a smoker.

Staying away from others by presuming everyone else is infected is the safest strategy. The six foot social distancing is very good because the mist of virus loaded micro-drops around the asymptomatic or otherwise infected person is about three feet wide, the farther into the mist globe you may move accidentally, the more risk. Literally close your eyes, hold your breath, and move on!

That's why it is so bad to be in an enclosed room with lots of people or even In close proximity with a lot of people. Imagine being stuck in a room with all smokers, even if none is actually smoking!

Being outside with people staying three or more feet away and everyone moving so they are not staying in one place into which a puff of virus micro mist could invade and hover, the risk is really quite low. So far, the demonstrations have not caused any significant infections where being on a crowded beach has been s serious risk.

Now if you add a mask, your chances of becoming infected outside anywhere drop to near zero. Being in a store with few others near you leaves you almost complete risk free, especially if the workers are masked. If they aren't, cover your eyes as well as nose and mouth!

I leave my sunglasses on all the time when I am out of the house, even in stores. They are not as good as a full-face gas mask or a face shield but they cut the risk.

Stay safe, don't touch your face, keep social distancing, wash your hands, and when getting close to anyone, realize they have this halo of micro mist (just like you do and like all smokers do!).