Jill Rants and Raves

I'm sort of angry, so if you're feeling squeamish...

This is going to be a slight diversion, and you'll just have to take this turn off the main road with me. This whole thing with Michael Vick, Chris Benoit, Kevin Morrissey and Rae Carruth - the Carolina Panther who arranged to have his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams, gunned down when she was 7 months pregnant - has just got me thinking about things that I try to avoid. B(Rush)fire Limbaugh has got me mad - all this stuff about Roe v Wade being responsible for the erosion of respect for human life. I'm gonna get my metaphors and my history all jumbled up - and you know what? I don't care.

The erosion of respect for human life? How about the slave ships, so neatly designed by some smart engineer, who worked out how many Africans you could lay side by side, like sardines in a tightly packed can, in the hold of a boat headed for the land of plenty.

How about the incredible book-keeping by german bureaucrats as they wrote down the details of every death and the method employed as they raced to exterminate an entire race of people. The 'Final Solution' wasn't the original solution. The Nazis thought they could just work the Jews to death, and only when victory in the war was slipping away, did Adolf ask his pasty faced cohorts to come up with a speedier way.

How about the fact that homicide (but perhaps it should be called wombicide) is the leading cause of death in pregnant women, outside of medical complications. And the killer is usually the father of the child, or another man connected to the mother.

Honestly, I prefer a woman make an informed decision about whether to carry a baby full term, than to have her boyfriend or husband make it for her. Abortion via murder of the mother isn't a viable alternative. Ya think?

Meanwhile, our Texan is asking us to fight a 'vision of darkness' in Afghanistan. And Mike Huckabee, prezzie candidate, former Gov. of Arkansas and Baptist Minister is saying, 'If we can feed ourselves, fuel ourselves, and build the weapons to defend ourselves, we are a free people'. Mike, the problem is - we aren't defending ourselves with the weapons we build, we are destroying ourselves.

So talk to me about the erosion of respect for human life. A 19 year old man has admitted gunning down a newspaper editor in Oakland last week. The suspect is linked to Your Black Muslim Bakery on San Pablo Avenue. Chauncey Bailey, a journalist, husband and father, had investigated and written about the financial dealings of the Bakery, once described as a 'model' of sustainability.

Yusuf Bey lV, the man currently in charge of the Bakery is one of 6 men arrested in connection with the murder. But d'ya remember his father, Yusuf Bey Sr? In September 2002, the elder Bey turned himself in when a warrant was issued for his arrest, charging him with 27 counts in the alleged rapes of four girls under the age of 14. The oldest allegation was that beginning twenty years earlier, he serially raped, through coercion, a ten-year-old girl who came under foster care of Bey and his wife Nora Bey. The girl gave birth to a child at age 13 in 1982. Oakland's district attorney's office claimed to have conclusive DNA evidence identifying Bey as the father. Bey died before the cases came to court.

These are the things which make my busy brain go into a sort of fog, when I listen to conservatives like Rush or the dangerous Michael Savage (not his real name, obviously), whose listeners call him Doctor Savage, like a demented scientist who is seeing just how far he can push the needle into the red before the anger within his demographic erupts in a wall of pure hatred. Hatred towards anyone who can be identified as the enemy in this now infamous 'culture war'.

Roe v Wade, gays, lesbians, immigrants, liberals, health care reformers, educators, sex workers, the 'media', foreigners, environmentalists, ecologists, progressives - anyone pretty much with an open mind - it's good to know which side of the battle lines you're on.

Rude And Reckless, Just Like The Song Says

It has to be said, I wasn't feeling my best in any case. I won't go into all that. It's all the same stuff anyway. Why love doesn't make it all easy. What is love anyway. Did I just write that? What am I? 22 or something? I amaze myself sometimes. There are really really important things happening in the world, and I am agonizing over the state of my interior.

But this was the exterior. Out at my beloved dog park, and my dogs were lagging behind, you know meandering across the strip of road that we have to cross to get to where the cars are parked. They meander because someone probably threw up a burrito late the previous night and Oscar, Roo and Roxy are bloody scavengers. But it's a park, godamm, and there's no need to be driving your beaten up red pickup truck like a demon. But there was demon behind the wheel, a guy who has seen better days and who still wears his hair in a pony tail like it was 1968 and he was doing tie dye in the park, in a haze of incense and weed, with a barefoot and pregnant girl, listening to Grace Slick. Mr Speed freak is white now, white of hair, beard and skin and in a M-o-o-d. He just wants to find a short cut around the freeway, and mistakenly takes this 'no through road' to the park, and whoa, there is an old dachshund and a lesbian crossing the road. Slowly.

Quick thought - you know how when people go barefoot in public and their feet are totally filthy, and then they walk into a grocery store. YUCK, that grosses me out. There is a reason for the 'no shoes, no shirt, no service' sign in the window. Little kids, who've just come from jumping in the creek or playing with the hose in the backyard - that's different. That's innocent dirt.

I also have a hard time when people ask me to take my shoes off before going in their house. I would prefer, if they're worried about dirt that they just have a little shoe bath out there - you step into the bleach bath, out onto a towel to dry them off, but please don't ask me to take my shoes off. I have a hard time taking my clothes off for sex, so don't expect me to take my real protective stuff off. What am I talking about? I worry sometimes.

So, I wasn't in the best of states. I had been struggling with the three 'L' words (no, not Lesbian) - love, loss, loneliness - and Mr In A Rush guns his engine at me and my little dog and does a deliberate swerve, missing me and Oscar by inches. This is not a good thing to do to me. Can I just say that? This doesn't frighten me, intimidate me, or otherwise make me feel like a small 5 foot 2, 50 something woman. This makes me want to do something very reckless, preferably something that will fuck his day up. You all with me on this?

As he is doing his frustrated turn around at the end of the road, I load my guys safely into the car. This is when Clint Eastwood stands in front of the oncoming truck and calmly points a long steel barrel at the guy. (Eastwood, by the way, once gave me the right of way at an intersection in Carmel, and this is really cool - I was with my friend Cheryl from England who had begged me to drive around the streets of Carmel on the off chance of seeing her superhero, and I had said ' no way' this is stupid'. 5 minutes later Clinty baby was smiling at us from his extremely nice convertible. Cheryl was hyperventilating).

But I don't have anything resembling a weapon. So I just stand in Mr demon's path, and hope his brakes are working. Reckless. Don't push me. I will push back. He stops, but not until his hood is exerting considerable pressure against my belly. We stare. He is so ugly, I get a kick out of that. I tell him to slow down in the park. I don't do it politely. I step aside and his front driver side wheel rolls over my foot. Thank fucking god I am wearing extremely expensive Montrail boots! He flees the park, terrified (I'm sure) of the sheer power of my approach. Right.

I drive home, and forget to eat dinner. I drink half a Stella Artois and take 3 Advil gelcaps. My dogs are acting like nothing has happened. This is why I love them. Unconditional love. I have been struggling with love. I rarely choose the easy way. Not even in the park.