Soapbox

    I try not to make sweeping assumptions about people's motives, try not to presume that I can know from someone's words what their character and intentions are. It may be fair to judge their actions, but not their hearts. Just because a person says something racially insensitive, for instance, doesn't necessarily mean that they are a racist. Maybe it's been their misfortune to have been so long with racists in their family that they don't even realize the insensitivity of what they are saying.
    It's possible. I can't read minds, so I don't actually know how they feel inside.

    But I don't know how else to interpret the new Republican (do I even need to say that anymore?) anti-abortion bill pushed through the Ohio house except to assume they just hate people. I have tried and cannot come up with any other motivation except plain old-fashioned  mean.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/20/2185821/doctors-ohio-abortion-bill-disastrous/

    As I read about it, I can just see them hitching up their belts and nodding in grim, smug satisfaction: That'll teach those sluts! Because every word of this piece of legislative garbage shouts their belief that  every woman who has an abortion, for any reason, is a baby-killing slut.
    This is not pro-life, it's "Faux-life" in the truest sense. Doctors would be forced under penalty of law to give women incorrect medical information. Women will be required to pay for and look at an ultrasound of their fetuses heartbeat (trans-vaginally, if necessary)… as if they might not realize that it's a baby in there and they think they're getting a tonsillectomy!
    But mere humiliation, lies  and  burdensome expense are the basic foundation of every piece of anti-abortion (aka 'Jobs? What jobs!' ) legislation that is being proposed today. That's not what's new. In Ohio, now they're ready to kill you.

     Under this bill, a woman past 20 weeks pregnancy who suddenly needs an abortion for emergency health reasons CANNOT GET ONE for 48 hours. It doesn't matter if an entire  team of doctors swears her life is in danger unless the procedure is done immediately. The (mostly) men of the Ohio Faux Life coalition have decided that a woman has to wait 48 hours for an abortion no matter what. Because…  they do not care. I'm sorry, but it's not possible to care about people and to vote for such a horrible bill.

   Imagine a man being in a car accident, getting rushed to the hospital where the doctors say he needs an immediate splenectomy so he doesn't bleed to death and being told by the legislature, "Relax… in 48 hours, we'll let the doc fix you right up. For now just hang in there. We want to make sure you aren't making this decision in haste."
     It doesn't matter what your doctors say about the danger to your life, because We, the esteemed members of the Ohio Republican House of Representatives, we lawyers and real estate brokers and car salesmen, who have never met you and know nothing about your medical condition or what brought you to this terrible moment in your life… WE have decided that society would somehow be best served if you wait 48 hours before we allow you to have your 'emergency' procedure. And the potential consequences to you, including death- are entirely secondary to the triumph of our political ideology.
   I guess that's no surprise, given that this is the same political ideology that on a national level also wants to shut down Planned Parenthood and deny abortion for rape victims,  yet refuses to even debate a law that would guarantee a reasonably safe work environment to protect the health of  pregnant women! (You know, the ones with those solid gold, heart-beating fetuses!) 
No can do kids: too busy putting  "Right To Life" sticker on our Town Cars to care about your actual life!

    So I don't know what you could possibly say about a person who would write such a bill or vote for it to become the law of the land, other than "they hate you." They just fundamentally do not give a shit about humanity, and are willing to stand by enjoying fine aged whiskey and a good cigar with their lobbyist pals while you go into convulsions or bleed to death on the Emergency Room floor, if it gets them an A+ rating with the Right to Life Coalition. Bonus points if it pisses off a lot of feminazis and pointy-eared liberals!
    I have tried, but I can't think of any other motivation for such indifference.

     The bill as written is unconstitutional in multiple areas and will never become law. But it is far worse than unconstitutional: it is unconscionable. It is utterly lacking in compassion and humanity.

   Welcome to America. Please check your extra "X" chromosome at the door. Because when the rubber meets the road, they really don't care if you have a job, can afford medicine for your kids, are able to vote, or whether you and your family Live. Or. Die.
    We would all do well to remember that!

      I wonder if they know what's coming?
The birds still act the same, but riding the wind as they do, with existence depending on the ability to judge thermal lift and downdraft, I just think they must know.  But what can they do? What will come will come and they have no hatches to batten down.
    The robin on the fence eyes me, unworried.

    The day is hot with just enough breeze to ruffle my hair, sun shines placidly in a sky that has drifted from blue to pewter. If I could drag my nail across the metallic sky I think it would screech in protest. Makes me wonder what it's like, looking up at the underside of a hammer's head, poised to drop.
    It's going to be a rough night. And as the hours spool off the day my anxiety grows, but the dog still sniffs at that same spot as we round the corner. Surely he can smell the storm approaching but he doesn't whine or pace just lifts his head and enjoys the cool of the suddenly freshening breeze as the leaves turn, hiding their faces.
     The smiling weatherman, gesturing happily in front of his charts assures me that the word for today is 'severe'. 200 miles away still, but coming on fast: extreme winds, large hail, tornadoes.
      "Be prepared to take cover" he says, but with scenes of Oklahoma and Joplin like dioramas of desolation in my heart, I wonder how to shelter my garden, my car, my house. My tomorrow.

     With my blind human senses I would sniff the air and only think "huh… Bit of a storm this evening" But the trees must know. They wait, solid and accepting, still whispering their dreams of rock and water. I lay my hand on the bark of one trunk and wonder if this tree will still be standing tomorrow? Surely, like the birds, it tastes danger in the breeze better than any doppler weather radar, must know that their llifetime partner is about to turn their dance into an abusive relationship. But it waits quietly for what comes. It has no choice, Nowhere to hide.
    What is there for any of us to do with this curse of knowledge? the Derecho is coming: now what? There is no way to turn aside the locomotive, and we are tied to the railroad tracks by our jobs and our homes and our lives.
     And so we hunt for bugs, sniff the stone walls, do the laundry and cut the grass, keeping busy in the big red dot on a bullseye.
     I pause for a minute, standing in the yard wishing that worry had a purpose, could harden me like a protective carapace, like Iron man donning his suit, keeping me safe. I wish worry could keep us all safe, instead of only wasting this summer day.

    I bring in the lawn furniture and go to buy more batteries.

Don’t you worry about me-
I’ getting used to it.
I’m getting used to the way the house sounds
when I walk in and no one’s home,
used to sitting down to dinner all alone,
meeting the steady regard of the pepper shaker across the table.
I've gotten used to how it feels
when something happens and I want to tell you
and I remember I’ll never tell you
anything again.

    We build walls around our certainty to protect our special sense of place, to guard against things that might threaten it- things like compassion, a recognition of common bonds and larger truths. Common bonds break down walls, and ours walls are what lets everyone know that we are special.
   We celebrate our small variations of color, language, cultural standards, shelter the perception of our vital uniqueness because too often we find our validation in superiority rather than in commonality.

    Like a rare and precious orchid we give our rituals sanctuary behind the hothouse glass of exclusion lest we be damaged by the cold, harsh winds of “other”, tainted by the mongrel of “them”.

    But the things we let divide us are not rare and exotic or worthy of protection. Intolerance and xenophobia are common as crabgrass,
as smothering  as kudzu, as toxic as poison ivy. They are parasitic, strangler vines that envelope the community, robbing it of life and light, choking off the ability to work for the common good, blocking our view of the future.
    When we put ourselves behind the glass walls of tradition and segregation, we exile ourselves from the universal constants of the quest for purpose: the need for  affection, a child’s smile, the very beating heart of life.

    "Ask the girl" she said pointing to me, and I knew I liked her right away. (Well, it's been a long time since anyone called me a girl) She was about 2 1/2, with dark riotous curls, brown eyes and wearing a tiny replica of Belle's dress with a red t-shirt under it and purple sneakers.
    "We're looking for sticks for princess wands" she said before her mother could speak up. I was supposed to be taking my lunch break but I led them to the right area and while her mother debated, she showed me the goodies they already had in their basket: ribbons, pom-poms, stick-on gems and lots and lots of glitter.
    "Goodness, are you having a birthday party?" I asked.
    "No, it's for a craft day. Don't you ever have craft days?"
    "When you work here" I said solemnly "You have craft day every day" Her eyes sparkled, no doubt imagining all-night glitter sessions.

    I offered to show her mother something else I thought might be fun to use on their wands in another sections. Her mother said "Can you play follow the leader?" and gestured to me. I figured this was probably how they did things in pre-school, and on a whim I  held my arms out like an air plane, tipping one up and the other down and called "Follow the leader!". I heard her giggle.
     "Follow me!" I called again after an aisle or two, and started hopping.
     "We're kangaroos!!!" she shouted behind me, breathless.
     "We are the best kangaroos in the whole store!" I agreed and waved at a passing teenager (who seemed pretty sure that I was insane).

I showed her mother what I'd had in mind, and while she looked at them, knelt down.     
     "Did I hear your mommy call you Kathleen?" I asked, and she nodded. "I once had a tiny Kathleen just like you" I said "And she was my very own little girl to play with."
    "But what happened to her?"
I put my hand on the top of her head, and then lifted it up higher and higher until it was over my head. "She grew. She grew and gre and grew!!!"
    "I'm growing too!" she assured me.
     "I can tell. You may be taller already then when I met you. You'd better stop growing before your head hits the ceiling!" I was rewarded with a giggle.
    Sadly, her mother was now finished choosing her items and I had no excuse not to go have my lunch. I waved, said "Thanks for playing with me!" and walked away, filled with wonderful memories of my own tiny Kathleen and glad that sometimes, if I ask nicely,  she still is willing to play with me.