A Thousand Questions

 I'm thinking this morning of Town Creek. It begins in Pennsylvania near the tiny town of Rainsburg and flows from north to south 36 miles to Oldtown, Maryland, where it flows into the Potomac River. The Potomac can be easily forded at Oldtown. It's not very deep there.

If you were a slave fleeing the South before the Civil War, you could follow a stream like Town Creek up into Pennsylvania. In the absence of maps, it was a way to move north, and most of it can be waded, which helps cover tracks. You would also have a clean water source.

My ancestors lived along Town Creek, just over the Mason Dixon line in Pennsylvania. In one instance, documented in The Chaneysville Incident, by David Bradley, they discovered a group of 13 runaway slaves who had committed mass suicide on their property, rather than be taken back to Virginia. Those suicide victims are buried in the Imes family graveyard along Town Creek, in plots marked just with the local shale.

If the escaping slaves committed suicide, it follows that they must have known they had been discovered and were going to be captured. This means that my family must have had to stand up to bounty hunters. Dead bodies were as valuable in the South as live ones, because of the terror they would inspire.

My great-grandmother was an Imes, a direct descendant of the patriarch who would have had to make decisions in the days of the Underground Railroad. I was three when my great-grandmother died, and although I met her I have no memories of her. Second-hand I learned that she was hard to live with. She suffered from intense anxiety and projected the worse outcome for every small thing. My uncle told me that her favorite expression was "Hit's a carshun." Translated, it means "uh oh."

It's not a leap to imagine that the Imes family had a streak of anxiety in the days of the Underground Railroad. They were less than three miles from the Mason Dixon. Helping runaways of any kind must have been a fraught exercise for them.

Today I am imagining the conversations that must have occurred in that farmhouse along Town Creek. What's right? What's wrong? What can we do? How will we be held responsible? How will this impact our family? Do we really want to involve ourselves in this?

For people who (perhaps) projected the worst outcome, this must have been excruciating.

This is not to minimize the 10,000 times worse situation of runaway slaves. I'm only speculating on how my particular family might have reacted to the situation they found themselves in, situated on a stream that flowed from north to south, ending across a wadable river from Virginia.

I want to overhear those conversations in that farmhouse. I want to ask Aaron Imes a thousand questions. I want his courage in the face of atrocity. How did you do it, family?

I'm saying this because something has changed in America, and something has changed in my neighborhood as well.

In America, we have slid back into a dark era. Many people have lost autonomy over their very own bodies.

And in my neighborhood, three blocks from my house, this:

EXHIBIT A: RIPA Center

My friends, this morning I want to step back in time. First I want to go see the Imes family and ask them a thousand questions. Then I want to go to see Anne Johnson, circa 2008 and tell her that her cocky, cheeky, snarky belittling of the Christian Right completely minimized the damage they could do -- not just in matters of women's reproductive freedom, but in a larger and more sinister plan to control lives, ALL lives, on behalf of the wealthiest elites.

I feel like Town Creek has come to my doorway in Haterfield, New Jersey. Do I have the courage to be an Imes, anxiety be damned?

Gods help me. Gods help us all.

Free Advice on Traveling without Being Tracked

 Hi ladies, and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I am Anne Johnson, a happy Pagan in the Great Blue Northeast, USA. I live in a state that has not only enshrined a woman's right to body autonomy into its laws, it also stands poised to be a "sanctuary state" for anyone looking for private medical care. 

If I can toot my own horn a bit more, I'm also a woman of a certain age. What's that age, you ask? Oh, I'm not shy about it. I was a stripling of 14 when the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade.

A lot has changed since then.

The biggest change, bar none, is the cell phone. Did you know the doggone thing tracks you everywhere you go? And you would have to find someone WAY techier than me to tell you how to disable the tracking, should you need to for personal reasons.

But I can still help you. What if you took a trip and left your phone behind? Then no one could track you at all.

Scary, right?

Well, I'm here to tell you, it can be done! When I started traveling across state lines in 1974, nobody carried a phone with them. The phones were in little glass booths on the street corner. Or stuck to the wall in your house.

So. Let's suppose you want to travel from, oh, I dunno, Oklahoma to sunny Atlantic City, New Jersey, without your phone. Sounds terrifying. And I'm not gonna sugar coat it. This will not necessarily be like hopping in your car and turning on your Maps app.

First, you need to plan ahead. WAY ahead. You need to pretend that you may need a medical procedure at some point, and you need to put away cold hard cash. Don't wait until you need the money! Start now. Today. Put away as much as you can. You'll need cash for travel and for your medical procedures, and for a hotel room. In Atlantic City, most of the hotels are ridiculously expensive, but not all of them.

Second, you need a paper map of the old USA. Buy it right away and keep it handy. Then locate the nearest Greyhound bus terminal to where you live. I know, I know, Greyhound is the suckiest way to travel. But they go everywhere, and they take cash and give you a paper ticket if you ask.

If you plan way ahead, you can even enter some hypothetical destinations in Greyhound's web site and find out how much you will need for your excursion.

But how can you book a procedure in a strange hospital in a strange state? Again, ladies, you need to have an abundance of foresight. Locate the names and numbers of clinics you may some day need to visit. Write the names and numbers down on old-fashioned paper with an old-fashioned pen. Then, when you do need to call, you can buy a burner phone or borrow your best friend's phone to make the appointment.

Once you get a person on the phone to help you with the appointment, you can ask them: Where can I stay? Can someone pick me up at the Greyhound terminal? Is there any support system in place for a lady in my predicament? I'm hoping we will all be pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of aid that will flow in certain cases.

Thank goodness cash is still an option for so many ventures! When they do away with good old-fashioned dollars and cents, we will all be up Shit's Creek.

Most of us don't have a lot of ready money lying around, nor do we have easy ways to earn it. So my free advice to you, ladies, is save what you can. If you can put two bucks a day in an envelope, you'll have about $700 in a year. That takes a lot of discipline, but it's a sensible plan. 

I spent a lot of miserable hours on Greyhound buses. They are slow and stinky. But they go from A to B to Z. My free advice on Greyhound travel? Have that paper map, and pay attention to the stops! You don't want to miss your stop. (Well, in the case of Atlantic City, you won't miss the stop. It's as far as you can go on dry land.) You'll probably have to change buses a few times, though. Stay alert.

My last piece of free advice really shouldn't cost you a dime. You need to go to the board of elections and register to vote. Here's something you can freely look up on Google! You can find out just how to do it in your state. Then, once you are registered to vote, go out there and vote these monsters out of office. Bad things happen when you don't vote. Very bad things.

I hope you never need this advice. But take it from me, it is still possible to leave your phone on the shelf and take a trip somewhere. You just have to plan the old-fashioned way. Beforehand. Before you need to go anywhere.

This is what we did in 1974.

What Happens When It Happens?

 There was no particular controversy back in 1973 when women were guaranteed the right to bodily autonomy in the USA. Then as now, the majority of thinking people in American felt like the government shouldn't be messing in peoples' personal medical decisions.

The only blowback on Roe v. Wade came from certain sects of fundamentalist Christians. At first they made a lot of noise in their own domains. Then the Republican Party needed a platform to attract those voters, and abortion seemed tailor-made.

So, let's look for a moment at America since Roe v. Wade. At the time that decision was handed down, more than 24% of Americans were in labor unions. Now that percentage stands at less than 6. A family could live on one parent's salary. Now they can't. Housing and college were affordable. Now they aren't. There was government-provided day care. Now there isn't. Companies gave their employees health insurance that was pretty comprehensive. Now they don't.

Why is this important? Because both political parties stopped caring about the prosperity of the electorate, but the Republicans in particular.

No one has challenged the ridiculous stagnation of wages while prices rise ... because unborn babies. No one has challenged our deplorable health care in this wealthy nation ... because unborn babies. Heck, if not for one principled decision by a dying man, we wouldn't even have Obamacare anymore! Because unborn babies.

Just this past year, no one stood up for a terrific child care credit. It expired. Because the babies it served are born.

Now things stand to change.

States will pass draconian laws that roll back certain guarantees that have been in place since 1973. These laws will fall upon people who have never given their rights much thought.

It will be up to those people to go out to vote. If they don't, they deserve to live in the Hellscape that has been created for them.

Now, mind you, the Republicans are trying to find more red meat to fling at these same voters. But no amount of trans-bashing and teacher-bashing is going to overcome the sudden realization by millions of men and women that they may be saddled with an unwanted child. Saddled with pregnancy, which is a tough nine months. Saddled with expenses, one way or another.

It's not going to matter to Karen whether or not there's a trans student on the volleyball team when -- at age 40 -- she suddenly finds herself carrying a baby she doesn't want and can't afford. Critical Race Theory won't matter to Buffy when her cheerleading uniform starts fitting tight and she falls out of the running for 'Bama Cheerleader of the Year.

This is a test for our democracy. This is a test for workers. Breaking free of the "right to life" dogma, people might actually ask themselves what our government has given them in the past 50 years, as opposed to what the government has taken away. 

In New Jersey we have a blue legislature and a blue governor. A woman's right to bodily autonomy is enshrined in the state constitution. And just last week we got legalized weed!

If nothing else, the Republicans have just boosted New Jersey's tourism industry. But my feeling is, this regressive party has just Fucked Around and Found Out. And if it hasn't, the whole mess of a country should be divvied up. Just as when you lop off a rotting limb to save a whole person. 

They Are Not Just

 The Supreme Court has become completely political. I have no faith in it at all.

I didn't have any faith even before the most recent abortion case. My public sector union watched as this court (minus two of the horrors sitting on it now) overturned a case regarding collective bargaining.

Now, Trump supporters are going to get their fondest wish: an end to safe and legal abortions for women in states with scant health care.

During the arguments, Amy Coney Barrett said that adoption is easier now than it used to be. How can someone who has birthed children not see that every pregnancy takes a toll on the body? Maybe I'm assuming she's human. I could be wrong.

But watch: This same court will hand down a dozen pro-gun decisions. After all, you've got a right to life until you're born. Then it's a crapshoot.

I do not see how the U.S. Supreme Court can rebound from its partisan tilt. The way this was achieved is nefarious, and it cannot be undone.

When I started this blog, I belittled and pooh-poohed the Christian radicals who were making so much self-righteous noise. But they have achieved their goal. By this summer, half of the women in America will be unable to control their own bodies.

My friends, the radical "prayer warriors" have been praying over this for 50 years. Will this be a lasting victory for them, or will the consequences plow them under? I hope they inherit the wind.

The News from Texas

 I know you've heard all about it. Texas has a new law that forbids abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Oh, shucks, let's dispense with the formalities. Texas has made abortion illegal, and the Supreme Court has wink wink nod nod approved of it in the middle of the night.

This is a tricky little dodge that the Texas state legislature has passed. It's not the long arm of the law that's gonna enforce the abortion ban, it's ordinary Texans. They can report anyone who is getting an abortion, or anyone who helps in any way. Maybe what we would call a "citizen's arrest." And there's a nice bounty of $10,000 for any tip that leads to prosecution.

The law is so draconian that you practically have to reach back to Stalin and Mao to find precedent. But pish tosh! It's fine with the Supreme Court!

It's fine with me too, mainly because this kind of shit reminds me what a blessing it is to live in New Jersey, the Garden State, may the Gods guard and keep it!

You know why else it's fine? I'm all for this whole citizen cop thing. After all, the Supreme Court has approved, right? So let's get some good out of this.

I am contacting my state legislature. I think they should pass a bill that makes gun ownership against the law, except for active duty military. Any citizen of New Jersey can report a gun owner, or anyone who drives the gun owner to buy a gun, or anyone who operates a firing range, or golly, anyone who sells ammunition and camouflage clothing! I'm really cool with that $10k reporting fee, too. I will be really vigilant about turning in all those criminal gun owners out there.

Tell me how this is differs from the Texas law? Guns kill. Let's get them out of the hands of potential killers. And get paid to do it. Supreme Court will have to help us, because, you know, quid pro quo.

I'll bet I could think of a dozen laws for citizen vigilantes to handle. Take leaf blowers, for instance. What we need is a good stiff law that prevents people from using leaf blowers except for Saturday afternoons in October and November. Pollution! Noise! Where are my citizen crime fighters?

In all seriousness, I truly hope this abortion ban is the tipping point that turns Texas blue. How can a majority of citizens approve of ending abortions? (Legal and safe ones, anyway ... there will never be an end to abortions.) Come on, Texas! Vote the bums out. Start with the guy who flew to Cancun when the whole state was frozen solid and people were dying of hypothermia.

Texas gals, if you can make your way to New Jersey to "visit the historic Stone Pony," you can stay at my house for free. Wink wink, nod nod.

Scary

 The remnants of Hurricane Ida passed through New Jersey last night. A tornado spawned in South Jersey and stayed on the ground through fully half of the state -- about 90 miles. It came within five miles of my house.

We get hurricanes all the time, and they wreak havoc. But this was different. Some areas got 10 inches of rain. Houses were demolished, tornado-style. This was not a typical New Jersey hurricane.

Such weather events used to be quite rare, but this is the second year in a row that we have had a damaging hurricane during season. Both names began with "I."

When I was growing up, I don't think I ever saw a hurricane that began with "I."

I also didn't think I would see Roe v. Wade overturned and Jim Crow voting practices reinstated. America is moving backwards in everything but overall temperature.

Gods help us all.

My Body My Faith

Have you noticed a new level of respect for religion in this country? I have! The only problem is which religion is getting the respect.

More and more often we are going to see courts of law making decisions based on religious principles. I'm not talking about a general set of religious principles, but rather about specifically Christian principles. However, these judicial decisions will hinge on "religious rights."

This happens because of the assumption that most religions are descendants of the jealous God, and if they're not, they're philosophical paths like Buddhism. Have you ever been to an "all faith" service in the wake of some tragedy? Did you ever see them call up a Pagan to pray? Me neither.

Isn't it about time we Pagans demand our religious rights? I'm asking for friends. Friends who might need birth control or doctor-performed abortion services.

All of this protesting, using the Constitution and politics to protect women's rights, would only work if all women got on board. But lots of Christian women -- and I mean tons and tons of them -- oppose abortion on religious grounds. This is how we get draconian laws like the ones hitting the books right now in so many states.

It's time for "My Body My Faith."

Pagans see the world differently, or at least I do. I believe that the health of the planet is more important than the birth of more humans. We are an invasive species. We are literally destroying the only Earth we have, and the more of us there are, the worse it gets. Therefore, a tenet of my faith is that bodily autonomy protects the planet.

Bodily autonomy protects the planet.

That's a simple enough precept that everyone should be able to memorize it pretty quickly. Now, let's say that this statement is a central tenet of Pagan faiths. If it is codified as such, then Pagan women could request safe abortions on religious grounds. To deny a Pagan woman an abortion would be trampling on her religious rights.

Does this make sense to any of you? I want to get a conversation going in our Faith Community about abortion and its place in the health of planet Earth. we need to have some sort of "faith statement" that codifies bodily autonomy as a central tenet of Paganism. We need another statement that codifies the sanctity of the Earth and the sensible stewardship of the planet.

And then we need women who will demand abortions based upon their closely-held religious beliefs.

The only way to fight a politics that uses thinly-veiled religious tenets is to offer a challenge to those tenets using another religion. The only outfit that has done this is the Church of Satan, which is not founded on doctrine, but rather on philosophy.

You would think that after centuries of religious persecution, Pagan women would get up, stand up. Now is the time! You need an abortion? It's against your religion not to have one!

Anybody out there want to pursue this line of thinking with me?

Interview with Bored Satellites: The Moons of Jupiter

Howdy and welcome to “The Gods Are Bored!” Do you want two tickets to paradise? Well then, we have to ask, Which paradise do you want to book? There are so many.

I’m not big on casting aspersions at any religion, because you never know what your next door neighbor is doing in the case of praise and worship. One can only imagine what my neighbors think of me, with my shrine and my candles and my drumming on certain nights.

It’s awfully hard, though, to look at some of these deity sets in a totally non-judgmental way, especially in light of the abortion laws being passed in certain who-the-hell-knows-what-they’re-thinking states. Suppose you are raped, or mistreated by the man who impregnates you? Should you have to carry an evil person’s child to term?

What better way to seek a response to this question than to interview some Ancients about it? The Moons of Jupiter will be visible with binoculars this week on Monday night, so their namesakes have arrived for a chat.  Please give a warm, wonderful “Gods Are Bored” welcome to Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – the Moons of Jupiter!

Anne: First, Ancient Ones, I assure you that this is a safe space. I do not allow Zeus, Hera, or any of their fellow High Deities here unless the premises is clear of mortals. I even lock Gamma the cat in the basement!

Io: Thank you for that. Zeus seduced me, and jealous Hera turned me into a white bull.

Europa: Thank you for that. Zeus turned Himself into a white bull, took me to Crete, and seduced me.

Callisto: Thanks you for that. Zeus disguised Himself as Artemis so He could fool me into having sex with him.

Ganymede: Thank you for that. Zeus abducted me and put me to work carting around wine to Himself and His friends. Oh, and he molested me too.

Anne: For the love of living fruit flies! Gives you some insight as to how Christianity established itself. Better one Jealous God with only two paramours than a bunch of squabbling rapist Gods and raging Wife Goddesses, turning poor mortals into bulls and trees and such. And all of you had Zeus’s children, right?

Io, Europa, and Callisto: Yes we did. No choice in the matter.

Ganymede: My gender saved me from this fate.

Anne: Wait. What? Ganymede, you got the same foul treatment, but because you are male, you didn’t have to carry children to term.

Ganymede: Correct.

Anne: I’m seeing yet another major crack in the core of the anti-abortion laws. So, all you mortal ladies who were preyed upon by Zeus, what were these offspring like who you had to bear to Him, even though you were duped, seduced, and raped by this ancient criminal?

Europa: Our children were handfuls. Chips off the old block: physically stronger, more willful, narcissistic, and ambitious than your run-of-the-mill mortal child.

Io: Nor were they particularly heroic, even if they were called heroes and were given cities to rule. They continued their Daddy’s ways.

Anne: Well, did Zeus at least provide them child support? Was he a presence in their lives?

All: Nope.

Anne: You know, it's bad enough that Zeus treated you that way, but you had Hera after you too. What was that all about?

Io: That one's easy. Zeus always told her it was us doing the seducing!

Anne: Works in the trailer park, so of course it would work in Olympus. It figures Hera would never turn Zeus into a tree or a bear or something. Me personally? I would have turned Him into a storm drain at the dog park.

Europa: You know what makes matters worse? We are still satellites around Him! Talk about humiliation.

Anne: I know. Damn. Then again, Europa, you have a continent named after you. The rest of you are zodiac signs and constellations and stuff too, right? And the only thing I know named Zeus is a Great Dane with prodigious bowels.

Callisto: Anne. Please tell us it gets better!

Anne: Honestly, I had high hopes for this country for awhile, but it's sliding backwards into darkness faster than I ever thought it would. But I'm determined to live to see AOC elected president.

Callisto: Who is AOC?

Anne: Is Zeus lurking?

Io: He's in Vegas.

[Anne shows her guests a photograph of Alexandria Ocacio Cortez.]

All: Ohhhhhhh!

Ganymede: If Zeus gets a look at her, he'll turn her into some kind of creature...

Anne: Ha! I doubt it. She already deals with Fox News. Zeus will be no match. Anyone want a scone?

Smoke Screens

In my favorite movie, Matewan, by John Sayles, striking miners confront union organizer Joe Kinnehan about being a conscientious objector during World War I. The miners can't understand why Joe, an able-bodied man, would rather be in jail than fighting for his country.

Joe had an easy answer: "It was just workers murdering workers."

In these days of technology and unbridled ownership, it's oh-so-easy to pit workers against workers.

Mind you, I am absolutely appalled by these draconian abortion laws being passed by state legislatures. And I am sure the lawmakers are looking with hopeful eyes to the Supreme Court to remove a woman's right to the autonomy of her own body.

But that's not why those conservative justices are sitting there. Sure, they may overturn Roe. But abortion is a "worker vs. worker" issue.

The Supreme Court was carefully constituted by men who serve the needs of the wealthiest members of the global elite. While the spotlight is on abortion, this court has ruled against class action lawsuits and has overturned a decision that required people who were receiving the benefits of a union to pay a fair share fee for those benefits. This is the court that gave us Citizens United. Remember, the Constitution was written by wealthy aristocrats, so it's not a particularly difficult reach for "originalists" to look out for the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

The people in the highest levels of our government are doing the bidding of the moneyed elites. Abortion is a smokescreen issue that allows Congress and the courts (and, needless to say, the president) to undermine our democracy and make us all weaker, poorer, and powerless.

If I have to open my home to out-of-state women seeking health care in my state, I will do it, because it's worker helping worker. But that won't make me feel any more capable of shaping the laws of this land in a way that favors working people.

Oh, and by the way. The moneyed elite don't care about climate change, either. It won't affect them, except to undermine their profit margins if people begin to care about it.

Worker! Stop fighting other workers! Fight the owners. Forget the unborn, let's make this nation safe, equitable, and fair for everyone.

I Feel So Protected by Jeff Sessions and His Religious Liberty Task Force!

My name is Anne Johnson, and my religion is under attack. I'm glad to see that someone in the government is willing to do something about it.

Last month, attorney general Jeff Sessions announced a new Religious Liberty Task Force as part of the Department of Justice. As Mr. Sessions put it so eloquently, "a dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom."

How did he know?

As a Pagan, I have closely held religious beliefs that are under attack all the time!

Let's take a small example: holy days. I have never, ever had the right to worship on Samhain or Imbolc without incurring a financial penalty. My choices, on my recognized religious holidays, are to take a personal day or a sick day. Now let's say that my state compensates its workers for unused sick and personal days. Over my ten years of teaching, I have lost $700 on Halloween alone! Is this fair? This challenges my tradition of religious freedom!

I expect shortly to see Mr. Sessions address this. By next year, all Americans should have a day (or two) off for Halloween. This dangerous movement away from religion needs to be curbed, and I mean right now.

Now let's take a larger example of my closely held religious beliefs as a Pagan. I believe in personal agency, in the freedom each individual has over his or her body. If, say, a court of law overturned precedents that provide women the right to choose how to govern their own bodies, I would find that an attack on my free exercise of closely held religious beliefs. If nuns can be excused from providing health care that includes contraceptives, then a Pagan employer should be required to provide health care that includes contraceptives. It's a belief that we live by.

I expect shortly to see Mr. Sessions address this. We shouldn't waste any time, because there are a lot of young women out there who need the protection of the Pagan path in order to secure their personal agency!

According to our attorney general, "Religious Americans are no longer an afterthought." Well, thank all the Gods and Goddesses for that! I don't want to be an afterthought! Not when I can use my platform as a public school teacher to promote interest in my faith! Gone are the days when I will deflect questions about the magic wand I keep on my desk. Now, that wand is a "teachable moment." I might write a whole "back to school" blog post about how to make your teacher desk an altar to the Gods, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits. Afterthought, indeed!

Yes, it's time to restore religion to its proper place in our Godsless society. I'm sure Mr. Sessions will take the steps I have requested above as part of his Religious Liberty Task Force. And Jeff, you are welcome any time to drop by my classroom and see how my faith and my beliefs are lived out every day as a shining example to my students.

Blessed be! 

On Probes and Jelly

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," now with 1730 + posts and 165 followers! All followers are cordially invited to the "Gods Are Bored" picnic, June 23 at Cooper River Park in Pennsauken, NJ. Hopefully some big family will be having a reunion that day, and we can crash it for leftovers and listen to the DJ. RSVP by comment thread.

I thought we had left behind the notion that American women should be breeding machines, but apparently I was wrong. Recent legislation requiring ultrasounds, recent comments by an opiate-addled radio blabbermouth, and recent panels consisting of only men leave me wondering -- what is the future direction of human rights in this nation?

This requirement for an ultrasound prior to an abortion is not only courting fiscal disaster in the very states where it is being enacted, it's also a terrific insult to women, right out of the gate. The implication is that if you see a little heart beating inside you, no matter what your circumstances, your little motherly heart is just going to melt and go gooey, and you'll call the whole abortion off. Yes, that might happen sometimes to certain morons of the gender. But that tiny heartbeat grows into a raging ball of need that can sink you like a stone, even when the child grows to adulthood. Maybe you thought of that when you scheduled the procedure in the first place.

And what do you do with your life, with this child's life, after the jelly dries and the probe gets sanitized for its next victim? Well, it depends on the circumstances, I guess. This much I do know. Unwanted children usually grow up without at least one parent, and maybe without both. Often they are abused, neglected, bullied, or ignored. Who picks up the tab when they are sick? The very state that wanted them while they were little blips on an ultrasound screen, but sure doesn't want to see them in the emergency room with lacerations or multiple broken bones.

We have huge and debilitating social issues in America just now. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see how this whole abortion thing acts as a tool to distract attention from what is really wrong. Which is the fact that a very small group of citizens is cashing in on the backs of the rest of us.

I have an idea. Unwanted kid? Send the bills for upkeep to the one percent. All this jelly and probing will cease promptly.

Here's another "Gods Are Bored" theory. There's a push-back against abortion because we have forgotten the days of yore when unwanted babies were carried to term and then quietly murdered and buried, or left in boxes at the gates of orphanages, or just dumped in a ditch. That used to happen. It happened a lot. Throughout history. Don't trust me on this, ask a bored deity. They all remember the days when the only kind of jelly was something you pulled from a beehive.

Choice vs. Right to Life

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," operating between political correctness and blasphemy since 2005! Today we're going to chime in on a minor scandal rather than tackling the big, broad, damaging future awaiting most Americans.

The scandal is that one woman had eight babies. Eight eggs were implanted into her womb, and they all took and grew. Now this woman has 14 children under the age of seven, many with disabilities.

Okay, all of you out there who advocate the right to choose. This woman is a lunatic, but it was her choice to do this. And she should have a say, however bizarre it is, over her body.

However, now that those children are born, they too have rights as full human beings. Living in a two-bedroom house does not, in my opinion, serve their rights to dignity and health. Now they are people, and someone has to look out for them.

The "someone" is the state of California. If I ran that state's department of child welfare, I would assign a social worker to be all over that situation, all the time. Daily, weekly spot checks to see that all the disabled children were being properly cared for. To see the level of hygiene practiced inside and outside the home. I would measure and weigh, open the cupboards and see what food is inside, examine the bathroom.

No way would those adults be found competent to care for that many children.

A cousin of mine had a premature baby who weighed one pound at birth. No one thought the child would live, but she did -- and her life has been fraught with difficulties, including many, many operations. She lives in a wheelchair, nearly blind. But she has her full mental faculties, so her basic life is decent. However, her parents have exerted themselves incredibly for 20 years to help the girl and keep her alive. Now multiply that by eight. Wonder Woman couldn't do it.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" support the right to choose. Once the choice is made and the child is born, we advocate humane and thorough care for that child.

What puzzles us here at "The Gods Are Bored" is why nobody in the Right to Life movement has stepped forward to give this enthusiastic lunatic mama every penny of the financial support she needs -- and a trained staff to care for the disabled children. Isn't that what Right to Lifers are supposed to do in situations like this?

Anne Rants Till She Pants

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Please buckle your seatbelt. We're about to go 90 miles an hour down a dead-end road. It's National Rant Till You Pant day here at "TGAB."

Today I cancelled my newspaper subscription. I have subscribed to a daily newspaper all my life. (Actually it was my mom who subscribed to the Washington Post. She delighted in Woodward & Bernstein.)

Here's why I let the Philadelphia Inquirer go.

On the front page of the "Comments" section, the paper ran an editorial by Rick Santorum called "A Small Victory for Civilization." In this little essay, ex (by a big margin)-Senator Santorum does the following:

1. Praises himself for a passionate speech he made against abortion while senator, noting that a baby started crying somewhere in the chamber just as he described the poor unborns as crying out for help. (Yeah, like fundie Mom didn't pinch the poor tot.)

2. Disses the Democrats and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg for wanting women to be able to have abortions for health reasons not related to mortality of the mother.

3. Says that humans are treated less humanely than puppies.

I quote: "Can you imagine [Democrats'] response if we were talking about banning the euthanizing of puppies by stabbing them with scissors at the base of their skulls and suctioning their brains out? Which one of them would dare oppose such a thing?"

Well, ex-Senator Moron, I know you're a busy man. I also know you have strange attraction to canines. But you have no idea, NO BLOODY (right term, trust me) idea, what goes on in animal shelters. Kittens and puppies are aborted every damned day, whether they're ready to rock on or not. Usually they're viable, or the pregnancy doesn't show.

Being a right-to-lifer through and through, I personally would love to see a nation overrun with unwanted pit bull mixes, pissing their time away in small chain-link cages. Pretty soon just about every citizen would have to build a cage or two in their backyard just to house the puppies that have a right to life.

I'm not violating copyright law by quoting the Master Moron's final paragraph:

"Eleven years ago, a lone baby's cry resonated through the Senate. Today, for the first time in 35 years, the cries of thousands of unborn children were heard by the Supreme Court. Let us hope it is not the last time."

(The sound you hear in the background is buzzards vomiting.)

But that editorial would not be enough for me to cancel a 20-year subscription to a daily. Rick has the right to his opinion, loathsome and poorly-supported as it is.

I turned the page.

Here we have the Philadelphia Inquirer's newest columnist, Michael Smerconish. If you have a hankering to meet and greet this moron, he'll be Imus's replacement tomorrow. (Speaks volumes, doesn't it?)

The title of Smerconish's op-ed is "Society Fails Because Families Do: A Study Shows that Homes Without Both Parents Have a Higher Chance of Being Involved in Violence."

Michael Smerconish backs up his piece with plenty of web sites and statistics, which may be all well and good, if you know your sociology, which I don't.

Readers, what's wrong with the picture in this newspaper today?

p. 4 Rick Santorum: Let's birth all those unwanted children.

p. 5 Michael Smerconish: Single-parent families are the root of all evil.

Who edited this newspaper today? Someone with a split personality?

About this time last year, the Philadelphia newspapers were bought by a Roman Catholic Republican who promised that, as publisher, he would not influence the editorial decisions.

He has. Big time.

Now here's the Duuuuuuuhhhhhhhh.....

Limbaugh et.al. have so poisoned the Republican Right against daily newspapers that no one of that political stripe reads them anymore.

When my liberal (and lovable) husband called to cancel the Inquirer this morning, he was put on hold "due to an unusually large volume of calls." He finally got through. Job well done.

Wishing the new publisher/thought policeman of the Philadelphia Inquirer much luck attracting an all new demographic to his product (the same folks who voted overwhelmingly to oust Santorum), I remain,

ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS