It's a bittersweet fall day. The sun is shining and the leaves are glowing golden on this downright balmy November afternoon. There are birds chattering away in the trees outside.
Oh, so many birds.
The phone rang shortly after noon today, signaling the end of a beautiful relationship.
The Escort has ... gone to a farm upstate. There's lots of other cars there, too, and even some tractors and motorbikes.
As the tow-truck driver slowly winched the car onto the bed of his truck, well ... I didn't shed a tear. But I kind of loved that car.
P.S. YOU GUYS! It's been a freaking year? Surely something is happening out there in the world of ... the world!
So, in direct violation of HIPAA laws, Oklahoma has introduced legislationthat would require abortion providers to make public the following information.
1. Date of abortion 2. County in which abortion performed 3. Age of mother 4. Marital status of mother (married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married) 5. Race of mother 6. Years of education of mother (specify highest year completed) 7. State or foreign country of residence of mother 8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother Live Births Miscarriages Induced Abortions.
Now, make any argument for or against abortion that you'd like but releasing that information is a violation of civil liberties and basic human decency. I understand the point of it. Releasing it makes abortion a less attractive option; this is simply a deterrent to prevent abortions.
Now, I think that it should be the aim of all sides of the abortion issue to reduce the number of abortions performed down to 0. The difference is that the radicals of the anti-abortion crowd thinks the best way to do it is by punishing those that get abortion. Not a productive strategy.
So what's the better option? There's always adoption. But Oklahoma doesn't seem to want to promote that option. If they did, they might fight to reduce the cost of adoption, which can range from $5,000 to $50,000. Or perhaps provide better funding to adoptive and foster homes.
We can all agree that the abortion issue is a tough one. But there's no one strategy that is going to make either side happy. Will Oklahoma reduce the number of abortions by following through with this plan? I could see a handful of women opting to go to another state, or possibly choosing adoption to avoid this public shaming, but I sincerely doubt it will have a serious impact on the number of abortions performed in the state. This is not the answer.
Thus ends your sermon for the week. Please rise for the Hymn.
Honestly, my initial reaction was "why chemical castration? Lets string them up by their sexual organs (internal or otherwise)." I mean we should take all steps necessary to protect people from being trespassed upon in the most private way possible -- especially those that cannot protect themselves. And that's what the bill is aimed at. And laws like this are concurrent with the American government's view on sexual material containing children: one of the reasons for the zero-tolerance approach to fighting child pornography (other than the obvious need to protect children from becoming victims of such heinous things) is because child-pornography (more than any other type of pornography) encourages sexual crimes. What better way to discourage crime than to simply remove the urge to commit the crime?
Sometimes, I'll get poo-poo'd on when I bring up the purpose of our corrections department. However, the original intent in the United States was to rehabilitate criminals. Now, I'll absolutely concede that we have moved away from that, and we now use it as a tool to defer, and more commonly to punish. But if we take the stated view of prison as the reason for sentencing people (that we are to rehabilitate rather than exploit), this type of legislation would fly in the face of our stated goals.
But that's not why I would oppose such legislation here in America. It may just be my jaded view, but I know that we would castrate the wrong people. In America, children can be charged with statutory rape if there is a greater than 2 year difference between those engaging in sex. While I don't think a 17 year old should be sleeping with a 15 year old, I don't think the term rape should apply. I'd say the same thing about an 18 year old sleeping with a 16 or 17 year old.
This news hits the same week that we've been confronted with Mackenzie Phillips' allegations of incest -- the most egregious form of sexual assault and a violation of trust. As sick as sexual assault in all of its forms is to me, incest is one of two crimes that just makes me hate humanity (the other being child-rape). And being forced to confront these evil things does not make my opposition to the Polish legislation any easier...Hell, one of the most egregious crimes from Poland's recent past was committed by the sick and deranged Josef Fritzl. But no matter how rape and incest make us feel, it is important to note the damage that castration (even of the chemical kind) can do. Although we have learned that we can reverse some of the effects of chemical castration, there is no guarantee that a reversal of the procedure can be achieved -- and more importantly, in some rare cases, it is possible to be more physically aroused after being castrated. Does that really fix the problem?
Not much needs to be said about this video. Watching people dance just generally makes me incredibly happy. We need more dancing, choreographed or not. Although the idea of "spontaneous" public dancing needs to be done more.
The above phrase is something that has become somewhat of a mantra for me. I think there's certain things that some people need to take the time to learn again. I'm currently learning that this is something I need to do as a father as well as someone looking for a job (cross your fingers for me, would you please?).
I figure this would be a good thing for me to do as a blogger as well. We just haven't been getting the updates as frequently as I'd like. So I'm hoping to blog it out once a week.
So in keeping with the Church theme, I'm going to try and focus on updating on Sundays. It would mean only one update a week, but honestly, that's more than we've been known to update. So now that the blog is over a year old, and we have a small gathering, I'd like to turn things around a little.
As for Science, Ian, and the other contributors, they can update as they wish, but I really hope to build the blog's readership.
I'd also like to take the time to re-post the very first posting we had here. I guess it's the closest thing we have to a mission statement, and it's something that I'm kind of proud of as it really sums up what we're all about. We're not a church that promotes one way of worship, but all ways of worship.
The First Church of Reason:
Welcome to our Church. We are a collection of Agnostics, Atheists, and Theists of all kinds. Our mission is simple: we want to create a new way of worship that exercises reason and praises beauty. We celebrate music, art, literature, film, culture, society, faith, history, honor, friendship, love, family and many other things of this and other worlds. This blog will be used as a place where we can openly and publicly celebrate these ideals, and show when they are being trespassed upon. Thanks for looking, and Welcome to the Church of What's Happening Now.
