Abortion

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer." -Robert Louis Stevenson


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

When I set out to become a self-taught wordsmith, prior to adopting my current blogging format (letters to yinz guys), I wrote as if I were a syndicated columnist addressing the world.

Early on in those early days, I wrote a "column" about abortion titled Why I'm Not Pro-Choice or Pro-Life.

[Gentlereaders, FYI. My website now includes a button labeled Blast From the Past. Clicking on it will bring up a previously written column that usually has some relation to my current column. For example, this week clicking on the button brings up the same column as the hyperlink in the previous paragraph.]

The recent Kavanaugh Kerfuffle, which will hopefully be mentioned in future history textbooks (maybe not if academia continues to cultivate its version of Newspeak) reminded me of this.

One of the oft-heard concerns of the Antikavanaughts was that if Judge K. was confirmed as the newest Supreme he would, inevitably, join with the other four more or less conservative Supremes and repeal Roe v. Wade and America would descend into chaos.

After all, as I mentioned the first time I wrote about abortion "... perhaps we should hold off on deciding this until cheap birth control is available at every convenience store and science develops a morning-after pill that’s available over the counter." -me


In my original column I wrote that if I were king, I'd decree a compromise. Abortion is legal for the first trimester. That's it, that's my royal compromise.

After all, there's no possible way to satisfy both sides, three months is enough time, and outlawed or not, someone(s) will always be available to provide abortions (or anything else...) at maximum cost, minimum safety. Thus has it ever been, thus shall it ever be.


When I recently reread the original column I was surprised to note that I had neglected to mention that according to Gallup, the majority of Americans have supported legal abortion ("when asked to evaluate it on a trimester basis") in the first trimester dating back to 1996. I went looking for the latest numbers and discovered that support for this position has never fallen below 60%.

It would seem that great minds do think alike. Well, at least the minds of me and most of my fellow Americans. I wonder, but I'll bet there's no accurate way to measure it, how many of those 6 out 10 do so reluctantly, as I do.

I wonder how many of those people think that an abortion is a RBFD that requires careful consideration. That maybe it's even the choice of last resort. That regardless, abortion should be, as Slick Willy declared in 1996, "safe, legal, and rare." "...for the first trimester anyway." -King Crank


Now, I can't predict what the Supremes will or won't do about abortion, or anything else for that matter. Were I clairvoyant I'd have been obscenely rich at a tender age and probably dead from dissipation by the age of thirty.

[On a vaguely related note: ever notice that the "words of the prophets," the perennially popular Nostradamus comes immediately to mind, are usually "proven" to be true after the fact? I'm just sayin'...]

However, suppose a majority of the Supremes decide to go nuts and overturn Roe v. Wade based on the bizarro notion that the Gummit, as it says in the Constitution, only has the power to create and enforce the sort of laws that the Constitution says they can. That otherwise, it's up to the individual states to do so (or not do so). What would happen?

Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist, recently pointed out on his video blog that obviously some states would permit abortion, others would not. He also pointed out that if someone wanted an abortion but lived in the wrong state, they could travel to a state where abortion is legal and take care of business.

[But how could an impoverished _______ (please insert the name of the relevant social/economic/racial/sexual/etceteral group victimized and oppressed by the White Hetero-Patriarchy, or WHP, here) afford to get an abortion?]

Well, Dana, as Mr. Adams points out, via crowdfunding and/or people offering temporary space in their homes and/or charities. There'll be apps for that.

To which I would add, California might be willing to subsidize an abortion travel package. They could easily pay for it with a special levy on the entertainment industry. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.
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©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   

May You Live In Interesting Times (5)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"This process has inflicted real damage to Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Ford—enough to make any intelligent citizen wonder if it would ever be worth entering public service." -Allen C. Guelzo 

[Fear not, the quote above has nothing to do with the letter below. It's my way of finding closure and avoiding PTSD.]


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

The way things are going at the moment yinz may be living in the Formerly United States of America by the time you read this. The devolution of the left and the right into tribalism continues apace. The center continues to shrink and the Fringies are running amok.

The purple press continues its descent into partisanship fueled by the profits derived from sensationalism and moral preening.

I've given up on reading one of my formerly favorite comic strips, Non Sequitur.


"A wry sense of humor is a sarcastic one." So sayeth Vocabulary.com. They also declare that "Wry humor and wry wit both describe a sense of humor that is a little twisted from the norm." Exactly.

I've been a fan of Non Sequitur for literally decades. Its creator, Wily Miller, is a talented, imaginative, creative writer, and, he draws better than nine out of ten comic strip artists.

[So, what's your problem, dude? I love that strip, Poppa! Hmmm, we are perhaps, a beet xhelous?]

Dana, Iggy, and Marie-Louise are in the house, or at least in my consciousness. My problem is that I've become acutely aware that Mr. Miller doesn't like the Donald, bankers, the Donald, big business, the Donald, corporate officers, and Trump supporters. Also, men in general, and people that don't share his eating habits, specifically.

I used the word acutely because Mr. Miller goes after the type of people mentioned in the previous paragraph a bit too often for my taste. Even that might not be a deal breaker but for the self-righteous tone with which he colors his favorite targets.

I would expect, no, hope that he would occasionally take aim at everyone mentioned above as well as anyone else that he thinks worthy of satirization. I don't even care about fat jokes, the last politically correct cheap shot -- as long as they're funny -- and I say this as a calorically challenged H. sapien.

[In my defense, mine is a tank-like structure with a pedestal for a neck. The Gummit says I should weigh 185 pounds. Anyone that knows me well knows that at 185 I would look like I was just liberated from a concentration camp.]


Non Sequitur gag, 3/8/16. A fat man in a hospital gown is standing on a scale in a doctors office. The doctor says to the patient, "The body mass index chart says you're obese, but the meat and dairy industries chart says you're a great American."

It's not the patient, or even the patient's DNA that's at fault. It's the evil meat and dairy industries fault for forcing people to buy their products.

[Oh please! What's the big deal?]

It's not, Dana, not as a stand-alone example at least. But variations of it on a regular basis are tedious. Perhaps it's just me but I much prefer that editorial cartoons run on the editorial page.

A comic strip with an obvious, frequently emphasized political agenda is as annoying as athletes who get paid millions of dollars to play a game -- and actors who get paid millions to play pretend -- who feel compelled to prove their social justice bona fides via actions requiring minimal effort and minimal risk.

Spectator sports and other forms of entertainment, not just religion, can serve as mostly harmless opiates for those of the masses who have not turned to actual opiates.

Unfortunately, some folks prefer to smoke, snort or inject Socialism and/or some other utopian analgesic.

Ironically, the later tend to condemn the former.


[I still don't see why...]

Non Sequitur gag, 9/18/18. Two angels are on duty at the entrance to Heaven (St. Peter and an assistant?). There's a plump working stiff in overalls standing in front of a large sign and holding a pen. The sign says Entrance Exam, Nazis Are: (Check One), Bad __ Good __. The man is thoughtfully stroking his chin.

St. Peter is saying "Remember when this was the easiest test in the universe?"

[Oh, I see your point.]

See you in the funny pages!


The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same
Although I recently celebrated my 39th birthday for the 27th time I'm relatively computer literate for a junior geezer. When cell phones became ubiquitous my late wife and I didn't hesitate to give up our landline and switched to a very simple, easy to use phone. Somehow, we got by with one phone and 300 minutes a month.

I now own a smartphone, but I held out far longer than I should've and I'm climbing a learning curve encumbered by fingers and a brain that aren't as limber as they once were.

This got me to thinking about the fact that once upon a time, long before even I was born, that there was a time when people had to learn how to use a new-fangled invention called the telephone.

I went a-googling and found a video, "Training film for users of the new dial telephone" -- on YouTube. How cool is that? Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.
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[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it?]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer    

The Abductee is Back, And So Am I

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." -Albert Einstein


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (But mostly, Dear Gentlereaders),

Abducted, part three, ended thusly:

"And animal mutilations... oh, and those crop circle things? And just how far away from Earth is Tralfamadore? Sorry. I guess that's more than just one more question."

Grandma's smile vanishes. She stares at her subject in silence.


And then:

Grandma sighs deeply. Her smile returns.

Blinding light -- the smell of an overloaded electrical wire -- a loud industrial, grating sound -- blackness. You awaken and find yourself lying in the middle of a hay field. You struggle to your feet and take note of a burning sensation that makes you think of Preparation H.

You notice, to your horror, that you are encircled by a ring of apparently surgically mutilated livestock. There's a medicinal smell in the air and no blood is present.

Glancing around you realize you're standing in the center of an elaborate crop circle. You start walking around, trying to discern what sort of pattern it consists of.

You hear what sounds like hoofbeats and spot someone approaching on horseback. A bewildered looking Amish man rides up and stops. "Good morning," he says.

The End.


I apologize for a lame ending of a lame story. If you haven't been following it, you won't get the lame joke. In my defense, the story wrote itself as I was approaching the end of/peaking from the side effects of radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

Based on what I discovered -- from talking to Docs, reading, my fellow travelers, and personal experience -- constant fatigue is/was the most common side effect of radiation therapy. This is/was made worse by simultaneous hormone therapy which is used as a sort of a second line of attack in an effort to kill one's Cancer Cooties.

Other common side effects include things I'd rather not discuss. Besides, I was blessed, mine were fairly mild.

[What's that got to do with...]

I know, Dana, what's that got to do with the lame short story in question? Well, living life feeling as though you're recovering from a marathon without being able to recover from a marathon left me completely unmotivated, physically (and psychologically) to write as my therapy rolled on.

I should've just taken a sabbatical. But as I said, the story just sort of wrote itself, and at first, I liked it and thought it was going somewhere. And I didn't want to let my gentlereaders dangling while I...

I, I, I... good grief this sounds like an Obama speech. Suffice it to say I've been feeling like crap, therapy is over, I'm slowly but steadily returning to normal. I won't know till 10/19 if the curs-ed Cooties have been completely crushed (it's complicated) but in the meantime, I'm back.

And, gentlereaders, I can prove it. And I can prove purple journalism is alive and well, that the media does choose sides (or is clueless).


Purple Journalism Alert
"Purple journalism is not a new form of journalism, it's just a name for journalism as it's actually practiced nowadays." -me

If you've been following the Kavanaugh kerfuffle at all, there's a better than average chance that you've been told, or read, that the American Bar Association, after recommending Mr. Kavanaugh be approved -- with a rating of best thing since sliced bread -- now thinks he should be re-reinvestigated by FBI.

This is a conclusion reached after the "world's greatest deliberative body" (LMAO) staged its version of the greatest show on Earth last Thursday.

Go a-googling and type in any version/variation of the phrase "bar association calls for FBI to re-reinvestigate Kavanaugh" that comes to mind. You will find links without end to news stories that report this to be the case.

My personal favorite is an editorial, disguised as a new story, from the Associated Press. If you're unaware, every time you read an article in your favorite local rag that mentions (AP) at the beginning it means they're passing along a story written by a news service. Much cheaper than having actual reporters on the payroll.

The upshot of the "story" is that not only does the ABA think that a re-reinvestigation is called for, but they also point out that the judge has lost the support of the official magazine of the "Jesuit religious order of the United States." Once the Jesuits turn on you, you may as well kill yourself.

There's only one problem.

The letter from the ABA is not a letter from the ABA. It's a letter from Robert Carlson, president of the ABA.

[What difference does that, make? Are you sure you're feeling better?]

Thanks for your concern, Dana. Mr. Carlson is not a member of the standing committee of the ABA charged with reviewing judicial appointments. He took it upon himself to write a letter with no support, or direction, from the ABA or the standing committee.

In fact, the chairman of the standing committee also wrote a letter: "The ABA's rating for judge Kavanaugh is not affected by Mr. Carlson's letter." How much coverage did/is this letter get/getting? Ain't you glad you get your news from trusted sources and not from social media? Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.
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[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it?]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer