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Posts Tagged ‘freedom’

Give Me Liberty!

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2023| 1 Comment »

It’s the American way, right?

To live freely: to practice your faith without the fear of being swept into a pogrom, or for that matter NOT to practice any faith; to speak your mind in a public square and maybe on the internet too; to care for and cherish your very own bodily autonomy so that you may procreate or NOT, depending on the context. I’m referring of course to the Kate vs Ken case in Texas. Kate Cox is 31 and she was carrying her third child when she found out the baby would never live.

Enter the TX Attorney General, (R) Ken Paxton. Despite Cox’ physician warning that forcing her patient to carry an unviable fetus to term would inflict not just emotional damage but true physical harm – meaning a total hysterectomy at best, death at worst – Paxton believes that only he and his Republican zealots should decide Kate Cox’ fate. He is willing to send any doctor to jail for administering life-saving care. In fact, he threatens to prosecute anyone trying to help Cox leave the state to procure an abortion.

And since the TX Supreme Court overturned a ruling allowing the procedure, she has been forced to do just that – pack up and leave her state. Maybe it’s time we developed a new type of travel itinerary – like adventure travel, destination weddings, or river cruises. Let’s call this post-Dobbs journey the “MY STATE LOVES WOMEN TOUR”: short stays in boutique, medically supervised AirBnBs close to hospitals and/or Planned Parenthood clinics in an actually sane state that allows reproductive health care and freedom to all!

No woman in 2023 in this country should have to ask permission of a judge to receive any kind of healthcare! This bears repeating: No woman in 2023 in this country should have to ask permission of a judge to receive any kind of healthcare! In fact, no person should be put in this position!

And yet, here we are. According to Yahoo News “…a little over 92,000 people in the U.S. traveled to other states in the first half of 2023 to receive abortion care, more than double the 40,600 who did the same during a similar period in 2020.” 

OK so let’s double that number to nearly 200 thousand for a full year and then let’s add all the poor women who cannot afford to travel out of state. I cannot understand how this is happening today to half the population of our country!

While we are lighting the menorah Bob made when he was 12 in summer camp, these are the thoughts swirling around in my mind. Our country is going backward. Books are being banned in our TN schools and I actually had to think twice about putting our electric menorah in the window. Should I be advertising our religion? With blow up santas, snowmen and lights galore in our neighborhood, I bravely plugged our kitsch orange menorah in and turned her on. She’s shining behind our lawn sign that says “Hate Has No Place in our Neighborhood.”

Even though our liberty is in jeopardy in our state houses, I have to believe our country, our democracy will survive.

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Onward XYZ Soldiers

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on August 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

If this headline doesn’t scare you, well, please read the article.

One of our democracy’s founding principles is the separation of church and state. History has taught us that once a religion dominates public policy, the outcome is terror. Look at Henry VIII, or Sharia Law, or for that matter Ireland back in the day. Thomas Jefferson even wrote his own version of the Bible – seems he took out all the miracles and outrageous stuff:

“…In 1786, he wrote a Virginia law forbidding the state from compelling anyone to attend a certain church or persecuting them for their religious beliefs. The law unseated the Anglican Church as the official church of Virginia. Jefferson was so proud of his accomplishment that he told his heirs he wanted it inscribed on his tombstone, along with his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and his founding of the University of Virginia.”

https://www.history.com/news/thomas-jefferson-bible-religious-beliefs

But all the talk about freedom of religion and the arc of our democracy shifted in 1947. That was the year the SCOTUS voted to allow public school busses to ferry Catholic school students “Everson vs Board of Education.” Everson lived in NJ and figured taxpayers should not have to pay for the transportation of parochial schools. He lost and the country been losing that battle ever since with a thousand small cuts, like praying on a football field.

I always liked being the one Mom to introduce Judaism to my kids’ friends in public school. After all, I brought the M&Ms along with a dreidel for a little lesson in gambling! And what child doesn’t love the idea of one present a day for EIGHT crazy nights! And when students get a small taste of different cultures and yes religions, it only helps to expand their horizon. We Americans can teach and celebrate any religion we choose, so long as we don’t just push ONE religion. At least that’s my understanding of the First Amendment.

But the state of Oklahoma is choosing a dangerous path. To fund a “charter” school, a Christian school, with taxpayer money will set a precedent for any other religion to decide they too need to get into the education business and indoctrinate young minds with public money. At Sacred Heart School I spent every morning memorizing catechism. Every Morning. What if I’d actually been introduced to science at such an impressionable age? How about art?

While three quarters of the US population is Christian, the second largest religious group varies according to state. Believe it or not, Buddhism comes in second for most of the west, while the northeast is mostly Jewish. Surprisingly, Islam covers most of the south! Should a Mosque open a secondary charter school and accept tax dollars in Texas? How about a Yeshiva public school in Maine?

Or maybe we just approve more Christian charter schools? After all, this is the dominant religion in the world as well. Here is the rabbit hole that would lead us down:

“Catholicism dominates the Northeast and the Southwest, and Southern Baptists have a strong foothold in the South. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominates Utah and surrounding counties in Idaho, Wyoming and parts of Nevada. Lutheranism has a strong following in Minnesota and the Dakotas, while Methodists make their presence felt in parts of West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.”

https://geolabinstitute.org/en/reppublic/16/

Oh wait a minute, that already happened! “The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa were given permission to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in August 2024.” We cannot continue to eviscerate public schools in our country – holding lotteries in inner cities for charter schools is a crime. A child’s future should not depend on a roll of the dice or their zip code. Thomas Jefferson called for a well educated public to ensure democracy’s survival; “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

Here we are with my beautiful niece, in front of the house we were building in Albemarle County, VA. My aviary sits on top, a tribute to Monticello!

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Freedom’s Just Another Word

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2016| 1 Comment »

Don’t talk to me about your religious freedom. Mississippi and North Carolina, you will not get my vote, my money, or my sympathy. In fact, I can’t believe I must still fly into Charlotte in order to get anywhere from Central VA. I will purposely book flights through Atlanta in the future; at least Georgia’s governor had the decency to reject yet another “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act.”

Let’s start with the whole public restroom issue. You want to be able to pee in a private stall? Great. You don’t want your daughter in the same bathroom with a transgender woman, what?

Believe me, a person who is born male, and feels like God played a trick on them because inside, in their soul, they feel female, that person is not going to violate your daughter’s bathroom stall. Remember, even in the men’s room there are separate stalls, with locks, so we can ostensibly sit on the pot. She (or he if you prefer, though whether or not they have gone through any surgery will hopefully NOT be a prerequisite for choosing a bathroom) will have spent most of their life being harassed and humiliated – unless it’s Caitlyn Jenner.

Wait, is that what you want at the women’s bathroom doors of Charlotte Airport – morality police? Like Iran, someone to make sure we women are acting and dressing accordingly; that we were born women? How will you check our femaleness? Maybe we should make transgender women wear a big “T” on their chest?

I have a revolutionary idea. Why not do what the rest of Europe has been doing for ages – put a big “WC” on every bathroom, short for “water closet,” and let the chips fall where they may! If you grew up female in the NY/NJ metro area, you never let a “Men’s Room” sign stop you from using it, since there was always a line to the Ladies! Yes, we Northeners are infidels aren’t we.

And marriage equality, still? Extreme religious groups are trying to pass bills in every state to chip away at the HUMAN rights of the LGBT community. Like the right to have an abortion if we so choose; first we saw TRAP laws to limit access to health care clinics that provide abortions, then “personhood bills.” Well guess what, the Supreme Court answered   that sticky question about abortion years ago, and the one about marriage equality? That happened last summer.

But hey, now it’s your religious right to not hire a gay person in MS because of HB1523, or sell condoms in your gas station, or use a bathroom without worrying who’s peeping through the stall! “Churches, religious charities and private business can use the law to legally not serve people whose lifestyles they disagree with. Governments must still provide services, but individual government employees can use the law to opt out.”  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35971038

Yes it is, only it’s not OK to pass a law saying we ALL have to agree with your religious beliefs, because in fact we don’t. The Law of the Land says we don’t!! You see your freedom is just another word for bigotry.

Once upon a time, women didn’t have the vote, and Black folk couldn’t sit wherever they wanted in theaters, buses, or public parks. Let’s remember that our country was founded on religious freedom – the freedom to NOT have any one specific religion make public policy – that is worth repeating since even Thomas Jefferson got this part, he built a LIBRARY in the middle of his academical village, and not a church!

We Americans have the freedom to NOT have any one specific religion make public policy ie we like to keep our church and state separate. Some of us don’t even go to church! This is not the New South I’ve come to love. Here is a picture I took at Cville’s Lee Park after the bill to relocate General Robert E Lee’s statue and rename the park was introduced. It’s time to pick sides America. IMG_4143

 

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Freedom Rings?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on April 27, 2015| 2 Comments »

What does the number six, a pen and Salman Rushdie have in common? Easy, they are all trending on Twitter.

And the reason is one of America’s highest literary awards, PEN’s Freedom of Expression Courage Award, was given to the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, and consequently, in protest for the seemingly “gleeful” way the mag treats Muslims, six authors are boycotting the big gala. Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Peter Carey, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner, and Tayie Selasi will not be present next week at the big fete, and Salman Rushdie has just one message for them:

“This is a clear cut issue,” he wrote. “The Charlie Hebdo artists were executed in cold blood for drawing satirical cartoons, which is an entirely legitimate activity. It is quite right that PEN should honour their sacrifice and condemn their murder without these disgusting ‘buts’.”

The Hebdo killings, Rushdie wrote, is a “hate crime, just as the anti-Semitic attacks sweeping Europe and almost entirely carried out by Muslims are hate crimes. This issue has nothing to do with an oppressed and disadvantaged minority. It has everything to do with the battle against fanatical Islam, which is highly organised, well funded, and which seeks to terrify us all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, into a cowed silence.”     http://scroll.in/article/723627/salman-rushdie-slams-fellow-writers-for-boycotting-ceremony-to-honour-charlie-hebdo

It seems absurd to me that an award in the field of journalism, for speaking the truth, for freedom of expression and not being restricted by a country’s government, would create such a controversy at this prestigious American institution.

A Washington Post journalist, Jason Rezaian, has been languishing in an Iranian jail for over nine months. President Obama put his name on the national news cycle at the Correspondent’s Dinner. Gathering information as part of your job should not result in jail time, should not put you on a fatwa list, and should not get you gunned down in your office.

Yesterday I saw the Helen Mirren movie with a friend, Woman in Gold. The atrocities of Nazi Germany were portrayed in flashbacks. The Austrians never thought this could happen to them, and yet we saw sane, seemingly normal people standing by, silent, while Jewish people were humiliated in the street, had their stores closed and their artwork confiscated. In fact, Nazi soldiers were welcomed as they invaded their country. Silence and indifference.

When we start to restrict freedom of expression, we begin to silence freedom.

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Lovely Leo

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on August 1, 2013| 2 Comments »

While surfing the worldwide web this morning, I clicked on a Rolling Stone’s article about the best live bands, “50 Greatest Live Acts Right Now.” I think I found this via Facebook. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/50-greatest-live-acts-right-now-20130731

Naturally, one of the best was the Parlor Mob. http://www.disarraymagazine.com/2012/03/live-review-parlor-mob-rocks-house-of.html Alright so I’m prejudiced. Since they parted ways, I hear from my Lovely Leo birthday boy what each band member is up to; who they are playing with, flying off to Sweden with, getting married to…  Aside from scoring films, the Rocker is currently playing with 2 bands:

Sikamor Rooney http://sikamorrooney.bigcartel.com/products and

the Black Jesuses http://blackjesuses.com – http://www.surfingmagazine.com/sounds/sounds-the-black-jesus/

Because music is a part of his DNA. But he is also a writer, writing all of the lyrics to his music today. And I thought back to a time in middle school, when he wrote an exceptional essay on censorship. We were proud that at such a young age, he could feel so passionately about artistic freedom.

So with some sense of danger, I sought out the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Because it’s not OK with me when drugstores try to limit my access to a magazine. I found it surreptitiously bundled in front of the very last cashier at our local Barnes and Noble, not in its usual spot among all the other magazine racks. And somehow the cashier gave off a sinister vibe, or maybe it was me, like I was purchasing contraband. photo

And the article about the Boston Bomber was compelling and answered many questions we’ve all been asking, like how can such a normal looking kid, a kid who was in college and became a citizen last year, become a monster? I know in today’s world that magazine article was a click away, but in a small way, I was making a point. And now we hear that the magazine doubled their news stand sales this month…so you see censors, some things have unintended consequences.

You may not agree with me, but lucky for us we live in a country where writers can speak the truth not only to power, but to the world.

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WW

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

Sit down, take a load off. We’re not talking about Weight Watchers here; we’re going to talk about warrantless wiretapping. Just because you think they’re watching you…doesn’t mean they are, does it? I have to admit that conspiracy theories will always get my attention. Then I move on, attributing most of the paranoid delusional rhetoric to a bunch of crazies. But this past weekend, I was staying up late with Real Time and Bill Maher on HBO. Getting the TV fixed definitely cuts into my healthy sleep habits. Welcome back Bill to your new season you are the Left’s answer to Rush Limbaugh. Maher routinely comes up with one or two-liners like this: “I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what’s philosophically wrong with Republicans. It’s like asking what’s intellectually wrong with lobsters.” http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/real-time-with-bill-maher-blog/2013/1/18/party-foul.html

But his closing soliloquy left me sleepless in Cville. Now it’s probably not a good idea to lay your head down on your pillow after hearing that we Americans have just been giving most of our fundamental rights away without so much as a whimper. I’m talking about all of us, red and blue Americans and any other colorful configurations. He pooh poohed the idea that we are losing our 2nd Amendment rights and got right to the heart of the matter, saying,

“The Senate quietly reauthorized the National Defense Authorization Act while everyone was so concerned about the fiscal cliff, and there wasn’t even a peep out of the “freedom” crowd. In fact, people seem to be okay with government surveillance and warrantless wiretapping at this point….Does anyone care that this is the new normal?” I was lying awake and thinking about baby robotic drones overhead stealing my ideas about how to make a better lasagna.

Then I read this – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/google-transparency-report_n_2537153.html Now everybody knows that one usually needs to acquire a warrant from a judge before snooping through a private citizen’s home. But your email and internet searches are another matter; maybe your mail box is federally protected, but your inbox is fair game. “From July to December 2012, Google revealed, the company received 8,438 total requests for information about 14,791 users or accounts in the United States. Requests were up 34 percent from 2011 to 2012.” Yes folks, requests from law enforcement went up 34%!! I wonder what the stats will be for 2012 to 2013. The article goes on to say that only 22% of the time is a warrant involved; the FBI and/or police will simply write up an administrative subpoena.

It’s good to know that privacy advocates and Google (Facebook would you chime in here) are trying to reverse this trend, and hats off to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for passing an amendment to reform the very broad law ironically titled the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which was passed by Congress in 1986 based on technology at the time. In 1986 the Rocker was 2 years old and we all were wearing shoulder pads! Leahy spearheaded his plan for governing internet surveillance in November saying this is the first step in corralling the Department of Justice, “…growing and unwelcome intrusion into our private life in cyberspace.” Still I’m not too hopeful it will go anywhere in our congenial House of Representatives.

The Tea Partyiers are worried the government will take away all their guns; that helicopters will be landing in their back yards. That’s why they need assault weapons. Maybe the “freedom” they are fighting for is misleading? Maybe both parties need to worry more about how incrementally we have given up our right to privacy. Background checks to buy a lethal weapon? Sure. Emails and social media about a shoe sale in Cville – What? Technology races ahead while civil liberty law limps along trying to play catch-up.
email_and_internet_authorizations

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Cars and Congress

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on August 11, 2011| 2 Comments »

Yesterday I got my car back. It was in the shop again, for four days, because it gave up the ghost in front of a coffee shop. Again. The first time it didn’t start, my ’99 navy Volvo was parked in front of a Starbucks. That was about a month ago. This time it was a Greenberry’s holding the blue baron captive; the local watering hole is the spot for town and gown to meet. The day my car was sprung, the day the mechanic told me to stay away from coffee shops and next time he’d bring a lighter so the old girl could go out in a blaze of glory, yesterday the humidity broke and it was an absolutely glorious day. I opened the sunroof along with the windows, and I felt like a teenager again, free – cocooned in my semi-safe, might stop at any moment jalopy.

Don’t ask me how I could jump from this seriously demented tale of a car and a coffee shop to the war in Afghanistan, but I’m going to try. I was listening to an ex-Marine, journalist speak at The Miller Center. This is their mission – “The Miller Center is a nonpartisan institute that seeks to expand understanding of the presidency, policy, and political history, providing critical insights for the nation’s governance challenges.” One of the most wonderful things about this town, is that these lectures are free to the public.

Matt Pottinger was working for the Wall Street Journal when he joined the Marines in 2005. He talked about how, contrary to what we might think, people who have had military experience of their own, are less likely to recommend going to war. But that when they do, they go all out. People who have not had any military experience, are more likely to want war….and then they want to go to war incrementally. Like hey, let’s order a no-fly zone, or a blockade. The guys with combat experience will go to war to win it! And we now have more legislators in DC without military experience than at any other time in history.

So here are my early morning thoughts. Can we actually win a war on terrorism? Isn’t it like saying we can win a war on drugs, or on crime? In my mind, I’d like to believe that the elite Seal and special ops troops, those 30 brave Americans  shot down this past weekend, did not die in vain. If we truly want to make life better for the Afghan people, if we want to help nurture a free and open society, an alternative to the Taliban’s rule of law, we had better learn their language and their customs; we had better build wells and hospitals and schools.

“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

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