So that was IT? Thats what the countless blogs , articles, rants, videos (and lets not forget the Tweets )were about-a woman talking about her wonderful son, only to be tackled by that same son halfway through her accolades?

Much ado about nothing! (Which is probably my favorite Shakespeare play of all time. I love the Denzel Washington and Emma Thompson movie version. )



She didn't even talk about that 'choice' she was faced with. What the hell?

If there's one thing that this whole episode revealed, it is that most in the pro-choice movement has ZERO tolerance for a choice that should have ended in abortion (because obviously, doctors are always the supreme and infallible know-it-alls when it comes to pregnancy). I say 'most' because there are some pro-choice people who pointed out the silliness of all the screaming,  like this article by Sally Jenkins which calls out the pro-choice groups  . (She is awesome for calling NOW the 'National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.' bwahaha. )Yet for the most part, it was alot of screaming over an ad by people dislike the idea that not exercising a woman's right to choose can result in a baby.

Another thing that strikes me as silly is how NARAL, Now, and other groups point out how Focus on the Family is anti-gay. Those are abortion groups. Homosexuals will never need to worry about that choice. I'm against hatred of anyone in general, and I don't believe in condemning someone for living a lifestyle that is different from my own. Which goes to show again that most pro-choice people are intolerant of people who don't agree with their idea of....tolerance.


But you know what? It would have been the exact same story if the tables were flipped, and if it was the pro-abortion crowd paying for a Superbowl ad that pushes their beliefs, and the pro-life side doing all the screaming. Only there would have been more boycotts, and louder screaming.

Its just pathetic how people are in general of being completely intolerant of hearing or seeing ideas that aren't their own.

Now I'm going to sit back and hope the Saints start suddenly score 2 touchdowns in this quarter, and really hope that there are no more lame beer commercials that are suppose to be funny, but really just show how beer makes people act stupid. And pathetic.

Nothing will top the 'hands off my mamma and Doritos' ad. Nothing.

Here is  the new mega-Planned Parenthood of Texas, and the massive, overwhelming protest that happened on January 18, 2010. Regardless of what your beliefs on this issue may be, you gotta hand it to the pro-life crowd: they  know how to get a group of people together. A very, very large group of people together....


This parking lot was a little over the size of a football field. 



  "That great crime of abortion."

"To each group we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."

"I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization"

Disagree with these statements? Guess who said all of these? No, not Doug Johnson. Not President Bush. Not Sarah Palin.

Margaret Sanger.

Still disagree? Depends on what you believe on this issue.

"Planned Parenthood, the world's leading providing in reproductive and abortion services."-the very organization Sanger established for the purpose of offering women fertility control and reproductive education.

And Sanger founded it to be the Birth Control League.....if not for her promotion of eugenics, I believe she was a person who wanted only to help women in the only way she knew how, and she did it for nothing. The same cannot be said about the organization she established, with its 86 million in total revenue at the end of 2008. No health care of any sort should ever be a profit making industry, least of all an organization that claims to help women.


This new clinic is 80,000 square feet. Protesters surrounded it on all four sides. They were forbidden from stepping on the grass, and only allowed on the sidewalk, and the policemen patrolling the event threatened (harshly and rudely) that they would be arrested upon disobeying. Honestly, I don't blame the policemen too much, because I understand they wanted to prevent ugly confrontations. The ones I really blame are the idiot extremist who blow up clinics and snipe abortionists. They cast a bad light on the movement that (some) people insist on believing applies to all pro-life people, and even when its so obvious that NONE of these people present would even think of such violence, they persisted in treating all like potential criminals.




Here's a sight that was amusing: about 25 pro-aborts protesting the pro-life protest. A bit redundant....but what made it a riot was the 25 to 1500+ ratio. Hm....I wonder why there aren't more of them. I can respect a person who stand up for what they believe in, but I cannot respect people who will mock others who do the same. The pro-aborts were a jeering, yelling crowd. If what they yelled had been something intellectual, something that made me stop and think 'Hey, thats a damn good argument', I would have respected them for taking a stance for what they believe in. But this crowd was a bunch of sneering imbeciles; the best they could come up with were silly things, like asking one Knight of Columbus 'Hey, where's your sword? You gonna use it to chop some people up?', and 'Anti-choice are racists, hate-filled mongers!'. Or even better, a sign saying 'I had my fetus egg sandwich for breakfast today.' As long as they cooked it in a manner worthy of Hannibal Lector....





A favorite insult of the pro-abort side is that all anti-choice people are male, old, and Caucasian. Most media will encourage that image by only showing pictures or video of young Caucasian men and gray-haired, bearded old men. I'm feeling contrary right now, so I'm posting pictures of females that were in attendance, who are but a handful of the thousands that were there.



And now....for the annual March for Life in Austin, Texas. January 23, 2010.



(All of these pictures were taken by MOI. I ran and sweated and edited all of these. So nobody take. Merci!)

....you may disagree, or be hateful, or you may find it appalling, and criticize what you see. Or you might admire these people for it. No matter what your opinion, you should look at yourself and find it in you that there is something in this world that will make you take a stance on convictions, and bravely make it known to the world. We can talk all we want of how we support this and that; You might write long blogs arguing a point of opinion, or criticizing those you don't agree with, and moan and lament how horrid things are to anyone who will listen......or we can take action. Which do you want to be?

1)On sick days off, when I am restricted to only the use of my hands and mind because of physical weakness, do not spend said 'days off' doing absolutely nothing productive. I can still read, and I can research things on the internet, and I can check my email. Perhaps said physical weakness (and the morning brain-frying fever, which was cause for sick day to be called in) impacted my mental capacities more than I wanted to realize. Hell, I even forgot about watching 'The Mentalist' till about 9:30-ish (it started at 9), and forgot to eat most of the day, which was why I was so weak in the first place-because I didn't eat all day yesterday, cause dammit, I was not going to react to the potential stomach virus I feared I had, and I absolutely was not going to regurgitate a single drop of anything out of my stomach. So my genius plan to trick the virus was to not have anything at all to regurgitate....bwahahaha...but this had the unfortunate results of sever physical weakness....and obviously, mental retardation. Augh.

2)Oh yes. Check email when at home, and not just at work. Really. I could have done some work at home, and didn't....bother bother...

3) When the boss gives instructions, follow them down to the last syllable and comma. That is all.

4)In regards to a work project: YES, I WILL be told to edit my writing. A billion times over. I must get used to this for when I get signed onto contract, and have a slew of editors and agents telling me what to write and how it should be written. They are the ones with the experience and the pens with which to sign the checks. Get used to this fact: that edits and re-writes will be demanded many, many, many times, no matter how good of a writer people say I am. I suppose I should be grateful for the experience, though....

5) For another writing project: just because I know so incredibly much on the topic I will be writing about, and its something I don't really need to do, and because the limit is a mere 500 words-those reasons should not mean I wait til 4 am in the morning to finish said essay the morning its due to be turned in. Even though its just for the sake of winning exclusive passes, banquet tickets, etc. for a conference I am already attending....I so want to win. But obviously not enough to get it done in a more timely fashion.


6) When sitting in front of the laptop screen, ask self what really needs to be accomplished for the day-and make a post-list, to stick on the screen so that what needs to get done is prominently displayed, and not forgotten.


7) Speaking of lists: I will make a list of blog topics to blog about, with deadlines, and stick to that list. Time to 'resurrect' this thing, bebe!

8)...among other lists of other things to accomplish. We're practicing Brian Tracy methodlogy whatsit at work, and making lists and accomplishing goals is a big part of it. I already have several lists, but need something more concrete in terms of writing projects (shorts for literary journal submissions, scenes for plays, rough drafts of chapters....the usual)-again, with deadlines. Yes, a 2010 resolution, work enforced.

8).....but do so after the important things have been completed, and after I have gotten a normal week's worth of sleep. Alternating from half an hour one night to 12 dead-as-a-bill-in-Calenders-Committee unconsciousness the next, and then one whole hour worth of sleep the night after that, and so on.....that is not at all good for mental alertness. Or memory. OH SNAP. So thats why.

Now back to writing and researching. Seems like this will be one of those nights of half an hour's worth of sleep. But hell, its Friday-lets go crazy and get none at all!

A final note: pack many, many packets of Earl Gray into purse. And dammit, don't forget.

“The tang of gunshot, a smell so strong that I could taste its burning powder on my tongue. The glaring flash of many, many bayonets, reflecting sunlight as the gun barrels they were strapped to raised in one fluid motion, like dozens of dancers lined up on a stage sweeping their arms up into a graceful arch. The piercing crack of the gunshot, the sound of it a burning needle that stabbed to the very core of my brain. The ache of my hands, too often jolted by the kick of the rifle, or clenched around the trigger to pull it repeatedly in the same motion, over and over and over again. Pain and overwhelming sensation and ….guns.”

 

The solider finished off this poetic recitation of words, gray eyes wide as they gazed over the barren field, body taut with tension, and I immediately regretted asking him what he thought of his job. He had crossed the line of drunken inhibition, free with his words and thoughts without realizing it; otherwise he never would have said such a thing. And he didn’t sound drunk, either. Guess military training gave one the constitution to still sound lucid even when your mind wasn’t. But the words were what struck me more than anything; the soldiers of this particular branch of the army were charged with the singular mission to wipe out all enemies of our great nation, and they tended to march about with obnoxious amounts of pride. But this one, a youngish Karl, seemed to be the sensitive type. Or at least, that’s what I gathered from the half-hour’s long acquaintance we had, passing a large flask of vodka between us as we stood under a large oak tree to keep out of the sun. In spite of the sun’s glare, I shivered from the frigid air and glowered at Karl for not passing the flask back to me.

 

“Getting drunk to forget a headache seems a bit redundant, don’t you think?” I tittered, not really caring. At least this solider had the decency to share; most thought they were  real men above consorting with the likes of me, men who actually shot to kill; where as my ‘shots’ did nothing other than to capture a frozen moment in time, a grainy black-and-white image that recorded the great work of the motherland as it conquered all the world. 

 

"You are drinking as much as I." Karl pointed out, brushing some blond curls out of his eyes. His hair was a particularly dark shade, and in the sunlight it shone like polished gold. I snorted in private amusement, thinking how nearly all soldiers seemed to be recruited based on their poster-boy looks.

"Me? I don't need to have a clear head. I only need eyes in this job. You're the one who needs a clear head, so that you shoot our objectives and not your Sonderkommando by accident."

"The Sonderkommando isn't going to be here today, so we may not even have anything to do anways..." With a dexterity that belied his seeming inebriation, he wretched away the flask from my hands, and I rolled my eyes.

"Already wanting to slack off on the job, eh?"

Karl said nothing, merely gazed over the barren field to the village, sipping demurely from the flask as he held it in delicately gloved hands.

“So when you finally do line them all up, and they’re screaming their throats raw, it hurts your ears, ja?” I grabbed the flask back, and took a careless swig of it.” So what hurts your ears more: the screaming or the gunshots?” The look of patriotic pride was suddenly gone, his pale features smoothing out to become a vapid mask. A new idea piercing a mostly empty skull could be quite shocking, it seemed. “And then when you finally do shoot them all, and the screaming stops….then, your ears won’t hurt that badly. Ja?” I said the last word deliberately, slowly, before taking another sip. Now this right here was a bad idea, to get drunk with a solider, but what the hell. The Sonderkommando was ill, so we could take it as easy as we liked on the job today.

 

“The….” His voice croaked out, and I almost didn’t hear him. I raised my eyebrows, surprised he wanted to talk still. “The pain….yes, it does go away. It does.”

“But your ears still ring from the noise.”

“Yes.” His eyes became vacant, then ferociously focused. A look I’d seen countless times before, one after the other, as the soldiers lined up to pull the triggers all at once.

“Well, if you hurry it up next time, maybe you can get them all before they start screaming. Save you the trouble to getting drunk to forget the pain. Ja?”

 

+++++++++++++++

Yes, it is vague on details on purpose.

Using fiction to tell the story of true events is massively difficult. If you can guess what this is referring to, congratulate yourself on having an a deep understand of history.  If you can't guess even with the little 'hints' I leave....go read a a book in the history section of Borders or something. Its the first draft of a story that can't be longer than 1,500 words, and I have to write out all the unnecessary details before I can condense and filter it to a more pure story that gets straight to the point without dancing around with details and back story. AUGH. Why so few words?? Why can't it be 2,000 words? Such a cramp on my style....