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Posts Tagged ‘SCOTUS’

Dragging Out Summer

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Here in the South, summer slinks away slowly. Kids start school mid-August, giving us the impression that something is about to change, but we still have 90+ degree days in September. Sure it might be near 70 in the morning, and less humid, just to throw us off our game. Believe me – the sun is still scorching hot and the pollens are still burning my eyes.

The Bride and I bid summer adieu by attending my very first Drag Brunch over Labor Day weekend. This was a first for me and I loved it! I got kissed by 3 Drag Queens! One time because I picked up all the money that inadvertently flew across the floor as she twirled away from our table; one time because it was my very own hair stylist who I love and adore; and I’m not sure why the third kiss landed on my cheek!

Did you know there’s a bit of controversy over at RuPaul’s DragCon? Last year he insisted that men transitioning to women would not be allowed to compete, which created quite an uproar. They would of course have an unfair advantage – not shaving their face, not wearing fake breasts! But RuPaul has reversed course and allowed Transgender Drag Queens like Gia Gunn to join the fun saying, “In the 10 years we’ve been casting Drag Race, the only thing we’ve ever screened for is charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. And that will never change.”

If you too love a Drag Queen, like The Britney Banks, or have a friend or family member in the LGBTQ community, you may want to pray for the Notorious RBG to stay healthy, and pay attention to the cases on the SCOTUS Fall calendar!

The Supremes will be returning to DC to hear some major case law. One of the biggest issues going up before SCOTUS will be if Americans can fire their employees for being Gay; for their sexual preference OR sexual identity. The Equality Bill has been stalled in the House like this damn hurricane. If you didn’t know, Taylor Swift schooled the nation about LGBTQ rights last month with her latest album “Lover.” She knew this could Dixie Chicks her career, but she had to let her fans know where she stood.

Kellyanne Conway tried to put Swift in her place, saying: “I would love to survey the [award show] audience if they know what the Equality Act even is and isn’t,” she said in a Fox News interview that included an attempt to sing a few lines from Swift’s You Need to Calm Down. “But she’s welcome to her opinion. I can tell you, there’s a lot of poison pills in it.”  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48916181

First of all, putting people down, like Swift’s fans, as ignorant is par for the course of GOP strategists. Here are 3 “Poison Pills” for all those conservatives hanging their hopes on religious (insert any mythical philosophy here) freedom in order to deny our fellow citizens their human rights: https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-supreme-court-discrimination-cases-that-could-change-lgbtq-rights

  1. Carter Brown was harassed and fired from his job in TEXAS for being Trans:

“I earned three promotions in two years, enabling me to purchase my very first home. These visual markers of success were proof that the American Dream had not eluded me, but that it was clutched firmly in my hand.” – Carter Brown #EqualityAct#HR5

“I arrived to work and discovered that a coworker had outed me as a trans man. Everything around me shattered…I was the subject of cruel office gossip & forced to endure invasive & offensive questioning from colleagues on the subject of my identity. – Carter Brown #EqualityAct via Twitter

2. Donald Zarda was fired from his job teaching skydiving in NEW YORK for being Gay. He tried to console a woman he was tandem jumping with, he tried to ease her fear by revealing he was Gay, to make light of their being in such close proximity… she reported him to his employers.

3. Aimee Stephens came out as Transgender to the owner of the funeral home where she was the director. She had been coming to work as a man and living the rest of her life as a woman. She considered suicide, but wrote a letter to her boss stating her desire to dress like a woman at work instead of leading a double life. She was fired in MICHIGAN.

Watching the Ellen Show gives us a false sense of hope and security. People are being fired in America for their sexual orientation. I don’t think it’s the Trumpeteers who need to calm down. It’s the vast majority of us who believe that Women’s Rights and LGBTQ Rights are Human Rights who need to get riled UP! We need to #FlipTheSenate in 2020.

If RuPaul could figure it out so quickly, maybe Mitch can be a Bitch? So Long summer!

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#BelieveWomen

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on September 28, 2018| 4 Comments »

Today is my birthday, and this particular one I find hard to believe.

It creeps up on you, it stalks you in the shadows; first you notice some wrinkles on your arms of all places, then a furrow in your brow. After West Nile, you need glasses to see. You stop dying your hair that fake red color, because who are you trying to impress? Your hip continues to ache and your knees complain. Your husband retires.

Small pieces begin to add up to a whole lotta years – 70 to be exact. But instead of feeling discouraged this morning, I’m hopeful about the future. Last night, after coming un-glued being semi-glued to the TV, Bob and I attended a small Nashville-style fundraiser at Third Man Records for the Democratic candidate for the Senate: https://www.bredesen.com/meet-phil/  It was a feminist antidote to our times.

I came of age when women died from septic, illegal abortions. The luckier ones had their fertility compromised, or they were secretly ushered off into “Unwed Mothers’ Homes” where their babies went to the highest bidder, or Catholic Charities. Everyone knew a girl in high school who disappeared. This is the kind of “Great America” we might be forced to endure again, if Brett Kavanaugh is voted on today, out of committee, and ever closer to a life-time seat on the SCOTUS.

Did you believe Dr Christine Blasey Ford?

The indelible hippocampus where memories are stored in our brains is a reservoir of trauma and pain. I remember being hit by Nellie when I called her “Mommy,” because she’d promised the Flapper that I would never call her that name.

I remember playing alone across the street in Victory Gardens, up a small hill, when a car drove very slowly by with a man exposing himself to me. I didn’t even have the words to tell Nell what happened.

Like seeing Mark Judge arranging shopping carts at the Safeway, I distinctly remember waking up and leaving that house, with a boy I didn’t know trying to undress me, and the look on my friend’s face, a boy I had gone to Catholic school with, in the living room. A look of surprise and shame followed by denial because I was furious, yelling and throwing things at him.

I didn’t report it because his buddy didn’t “rape” me and I felt guilty for being there. I don’t know where that house is, I don’t know how I got home.

Do you believe me?

We were up close and personal last night while Emmylou Harris’ haunting voice sent waves of healing grace down my spine. She sings of heartbreak and loss like no other, the years only smoothing her tone. She has her very own animal rescue farm here in Nashville. She was born one year ahead of me, her mane of silver white hair hanging over her acoustic guitar. I’d always loved her, she and Joni were our sheros. Like Anita Hill. Like Christine Blasey Ford. Like Kamala Harris.

And another reason to feel hopeful – Pennsylvania voted yesterday to deny spousal abusers the ability to buy guns! “CeaseFirePA is pleased that the PA House of Representatives today passed HB 2060 by a vote of by 131-62.  This bill takes important steps to disarm domestic abusers and make Pennsylvania families safer. CeaseFirePA has been proud to stand with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and working with constituents across the Commonwealth to pass this critical legislation.” http://www.ceasefirepa.org/updates/

Thanks to Moms Demand and all the women who will no longer stay silent, who will change our culture in this first year of the #MeToo movement. Who can use more than a smile to turn the world on? I #BelieveWomen

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A Type Study

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I always worry a little when people describe their child as being “shy.” I’m a big believer in NOT labeling your kid, because once you tell them they are bad at math, that child will become math-challenged. Still, the nature/nurture conundrum does exist, and there’s a new mega-data study that ties up all our personality types into four simple categories! Turns out, being “reserved” is a thing.

“In a report published Monday in the journal ‘Nature Human Behavior,’ researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois identify four personality types: reserved, role models, average and self-centered.”  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/09/17/scientists-identify-four-personality-types/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f466d00f6e5f

Now I may want to ask my brother, Dr Jim, what he thinks of this, since he’s been administering the Myers-Briggs personality test for decades. But that test was developed in the 1940s using Jungian archetypes; this time a group of researchers simply plugged in an algorithm to a questionnaire for 1.5 million people in the US and Great Britain.

People who scored very high in extroversion but were below average in agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness were “self-centered.” Amaral put it in a “nontechnical way”: Some people are “jerks.” Teenage males were more likely than average to be self-centered, but this proportion decreased with age.

“These 18-year-olds are going to grow up,” Revelle said. “Except some people don’t grow up, and they become senior political statesmen.”

So a large number of narcissistic “jerks” choose a career in politics? I’m astonished!

Yesterday, to counter my increasing fury at men behaving badly, the Bride sent me a podcast. I’ve just listened to the first one, but I intend to listen to the whole series; written by an Obama speech-writer and Pod Save America contributor, Jon Favreau endeavors to explain the downfall of the Democratic Party and how we can fix it. It’s totally worth a listen: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/thewilderness/

I’ve read that activists actually confronted Sen Ted Cruz, a fine example of the self-centered type, at an Italian restaurant last night in DC, creating quite the stir chanting “We believe survivors.” He and his wife said “God bless you,” and left the restaurant after being seated but before ordering. I might have waited for them to finish the pasta course myself.

I’m slowly returning to my “average” state of affairs, feeling slightly rushed and overwhelmed by choices in the grocery store. At least the laundry is done. Just hoping our dear legislators do NOT rush this Kavanaugh nomination, and focus instead on rushing a bill to protect the Mueller investigation. Let’s keep our eyes on Russia and our feet to the fire (for my new Italian readers, it’s just an idiom).

Oh how I miss my friends and the sheep bells that would accompany this lovely breakfast table, and its wasps!

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Boys Will Be Boys?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on September 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

This morning the Bride asked me if I’d heard any news yet today, or was I still blissfully unaware of American politics? Instead of sitting under the Tuscan sun, listening to sheep bells and sipping cappuccino, I was trying to get my Keurig to work while realizing we had no milk in the refrigerator. I know, poor me.

But I had powered up the NYT website on my phone last night and knew that the highly controversial SCOTUS nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, was in trouble for sexually assaulting a 15 year old when he was 17. At first I was confused; how would they delay his hearing until Monday when his accuser would speak? Wasn’t yesterday Monday? Jet lag can be a real problem when you’re on an Air France flight just a short hop from Florence to Paris, and then on to Atlanta for nine hours.

We arrived home in Nashville around 3 am this morning, Italian time. And “Scusa” for a minute, I’ve just returned from T’ai Chi!

But from what I’ve read about this predicament so far, the Republicans are in trouble. Do you remember the woman, Liz Seccuro, who received an apology letter from her rapist 20 years after the fact? It was 2006 and he was a new AA member and was making his amends to people, except this woman had him arrested, and they went to trial in Charlottesville. It was very big UVA news – the rapist went to jail. Fraternity hi-jinks, boys being boys? The victim later told a Cville reporter about that night when she was just 17 in 1984:

“This is what it feels like to die. I’m going to die here, and no one’s going to find me.”

Twenty-one years later, Seccuro tearfully says she knows the truth: “Part of you does die.”

http://www.readthehook.com/98246/cover-i-harmed-you-21-years-12-steps-later-rape-apology-backfires

I remember distinctly the first time I heard that phrase about boys. Some bully had pushed me off my bike In Victory Gardens, I was probably 7 or 8 years old. I broke my leg and spent the summer in a cast. It was the only time Nelly called another mom on the phone and told her “what for,” explaining what had happened.

“Boys will be boys,” the bully’s mother said, and the instant flash of anger I felt, at that moment, is still fresh. My budding realization that life wouldn’t always be fair for girls. The total ignorance, the indecency and hypocrisy of the GOP is mind-numbing today. #MeToo has seen more women than ever running for Congress, and if only Kavanugh withdraws, which I believe he will do before Monday, November is coming…we do NOT need another Anita Hill excoriation next week, nor will we stand for one.

Here is Saint Barbara standing on some guy’s head flanked by John the Baptist and some other dude! On a kinder and gentler note, do we purchase a Keurig or a Nespresso? Ciao!

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It’s All About the Dopamine

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, journal, Public Policy, science, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2018| 2 Comments »

Bob’s car died the other day. Luckily, he was downtown and not on a highway, but we took it as a sign, time to give up the ghost. His Acura has served him pretty well for over 300,030 miles! Our one-car family was about to become whole again, it was time to start car shopping. Imagine that, a new car with all sorts of driver-assist doo-dads.

I have to admit, I’m getting a rush. It’s like that Handmaid said in the very first episode of the Handmaid’s Tale, their ice cream was better than sex. “Real sex.”

Oh, yes last night I finally gave in and signed up for Hulu, just to watch my favorite author’s dystopian nightmare about a land that could treat women like baby-making religious robots. I just had to watch Elizabeth Moss as Offred, after hearing about Justice Kennedy.

You see, for an old school feminist like me, all the latest SCOTUS rulings chipping away at our human rights in favor of some religious zealot’s right was a bit much. Throwing me over the edge was Kennedy’s decision yesterday to retire now,  this summer. Granted he is a Conservative, but he voted like a real “compassionate conservative.” Remember them?

Bob kept telling me not to download Hulu; “It’s going to depress you,” he said. But I subscribe to that other Kennedy motto, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I wanted the thrill of something just a bit subversive, I needed the dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, it’s the middle manager in our brain that helps move electrical impulses from one neuron to another – dopamine rules that synapse, that space, that rewards our pleasure centers.

Like ice cream.

Like subscribing to The New York Times, or Hulu.

Like buying a new car.

I guess it’s called self-care. In the midst of our current all too real reality Trumpworld show, it’s important not to let despair win. It’s important to do all we can to register new voters, and encourage them to show up this November for midterms. In TN we have until July 3rd to register in order to vote in the midterms, and it’s easy. You just fill out a form and mail it in – every library in the state has them. And I’ve deposited quite a few in our local coffee shop.

So keep your chin up and don’t even bite that hook about civility. If bakers can refuse to serve an LGBTQ couple, and pharmacists can refuse to fill an Rx to terminate a nonviable pregnancy, than We The People can throw the lying press secretary out on her tone deaf ear. Terrorists are killing reporters now, something quite common in an authoritarian state.

It’s happening faster than I ever could have imagined, so support the free press and not Trump entertainment network, where Milo Yiannopoulos can say he was “only kidding” about gunning down journalists.

Get a natural shot of dopamine folks whenever and wherever you can, before abortion becomes criminalized. We’re gonna need to get tough. Here are some badass young scientists from back in their med school days. Let’s get out the VOTE!

anatomy 101

 

 

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Cake as Metaphor

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Evangelicals, Public Policy, religion, wedding, tagged , , , , , , on December 5, 2017| Leave a Comment »

This past weekend back in Nashville, Bob and I stole the Love Bug for an afternoon. Our local Nature Center, Shelby Bottoms, http://www.nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation/Nature-Centers-and-Natural-Areas/Shelby-Bottoms-Nature-Center.aspx sits on the side of the Cumberland River with tug boats pushing gigantic barges right by lovely hiking trails. And to mark the Center’s 10th Anniversary, they had a party with wood cutting artist, Julie Sola, engaging people of all ages. Julie had prepared gorgeous cuttings of local birds and taught the Bug how to roll on the ink and press out a design.

And of course, we had birthday cake!

Today, the Supreme Court will take up the merits of wedding cakes. One might think that if your business was a bakery, you should not be able to discriminate against anyone…for any reason. But this particular baker in Colorado refused to create a cake for a same-sex couple, and now he gets to plead his case before the highest court in the land. In a way around the issue, his lawyers have framed the argument differently:

In June, however, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the baker’s claim that designing a custom wedding cake involves expression. If so, forcing him to design a cake that violates his views conflicts with the freedom of speech protected by the 1st Amendment, his lawyers say. The justices will not hear his separate claim that requiring him to make a custom cake violates his right to the “free exercise” of religion also protected by the 1st Amendment.”                             http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-court-wedding-cake-20171205-story.html

Now I’m not a lawyer, but “free speech” and the “free exercise of religion” have been used as synonyms by the Religious Right for ages. Let’s put the Ten Commandments up in our court house square, let’s all hold hands and pray before the football game. It’s like they forgot why our country threw off the yoke of Great Britain in the first place – the Anglican church didn’t speak for Thomas Jefferson. In fact, he wrote his own Bible! “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” which omitted pretty much every miracle in the Bible because our Founders believed in science and reason.

You’d have to think Jefferson would have fought against Climate Change from the get go, and not worried over Personhood claims, or cakes for that matter.

When the Bride and Groom married on the adjoining Blue Ridge mountaintop to Monticello, they disdained the traditional wedding cake. My reluctant Bride wanted cupcakes, there would be no ceremonial cutting of the cake and smashing a piece into someone’s mouth. They incorporated Jewish and Christian tradition into their ceremony, including a reading of “The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real.”

Christianity is, after all, a Jewish sect that got really really popular. But what if Judaism was the dominant religion in this US of A? Or Hinduism? Should our restaurants only serve dairy and meat on different nights? Or maybe only serve vegan meals? And btw, we only create gluten-free wedding cakes for couples who fit our limited, fundamental definition of the Bible…

If you want to go to pastry school, but you don’t want to bake a cake for a black and white couple, or an immigrant couple, or a hillbilly couple, or a mixed-faith couple (you get the drift) then just make baking your hobby. Pick something else, be a dog catcher, or an electrician. Be a park ranger! Don’t bother the Supremes with your myth.

I’ve been telling my grands that when I cook, I add this very special ingredient, TLC. And they totally get it – from carrot cake to lasagne, there is no room for hate in my hands.

The Love Bug wanted a piece of the Shelby Bottoms’ birthday cake with the red balloon, so of course I skillfully executed the perfect slice for her. Julie talked about her children’s book, the story of a dog named Milo, while the Bug recounted our story of Miss Bean catching a bird in mid-flight, right before our very eyes. I screamed and made her drop the poor thing. Then she displayed her creation. My Grand Daughter had drawn flowers and stars on the paper before adding the chickadee print. And it was pretty darn sweet!

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A Shot Mind

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2016| 6 Comments »

Ageism. It’s hard to avoid these days since many of us will live for nearly a century. Each “woman of a certain age” knows what I mean when I say there comes a time when we become invisible. Young people, after all, are walking around chasing invisible fictional characters on their ‘dumb’ phones. We, otoh, are trying to find ours!

So it came as no surprise that the Donald would malign my hero, the Notorious RBG, by saying on Twitter of course, “Her mind is shot – resign.” Not the best use of “shot” as a noun, the day after that Dallas Police memorial service. Still, 83 year old Justice Ginsburg said in an interview she thought the GOP front-runner was a “faker.”

“At first I thought it was funny,” she said of Trump’s early candidacy. “To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president … ” Her voice trailed off gloomily.
“I think he has gotten so much free publicity,” she added, drawing a contrast between what she believes is tougher media treatment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and returning to an overriding complaint: “Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns.”  http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/politics/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-donald-trump-faker/

There’s something radical about a woman who speaks her mind. But a woman in a black robe, how dare she?

Bob has seen many a nursing home patient with little to no mind left, and it’s not pretty or something to hurl at a Supreme Court Justice. In fact, he once saw a woman who had forgotten how to cook. I asked him if that could ever happen to me; then I thought, would it be such a bad thing? Never to cook again?

But let’s leave women out of the kitchen for a minute and think about the GOP platform for 2016, it’s as if they are playing a game of one step forward, five steps back. They don’t want to play “identity politics” by ensuring the rights of the LGBT community, but the fetus still has an identity. “Personhood” should be protected. Oh, and just when women won the right to equal pay and to serve in the front lines of the armed forces, the GOP thought it better if we ladies stayed out of combat. Better yet, back in the kitchen. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/republican-platform-continues-move-right-day-two-n608031

Since we are still without air conditioning, this is the fifth day, my mind is starting to melt. I left the house one day without my dumb/smart phone AND my glasses! I’ve been trying not to cook for the simple reason that 83 degrees is too hot to play with fire. Supposedly, the part will be in and the tech will fix our AC unit tomorrow…sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile the humidity has returned and today should see us nearing 90. Fingers crossed.

But back to the shot mind. I love following Glenn Greenwald on Twitter @gggreenwald. He is a reporter without an agenda. Here is what he had to say about the latest kerfuffle:

“Hard to take seriously court impartiality/Ginsburg furor after 5 GOP-appointed judges stopped vote-counting & made George W. Bush president”

Now that says it all! Yessiree, I will be voting this November with a mind to keep the Supreme Court on the right side of history. I think Bernie’s revolution has just begun, and it will start with our first woman President. And just so you know, I will be forgoing Snapchat and Pokemon Now. My mind can only tech so much.

Here we are at the Apple Genius Bar, trying to catch up. And ps, Bob actually installed 16 RAMs of memory in my MacBook Pro, so my hot messy mind has a fast laptop. Take that young’uns!!  IMG_4808

 

 

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Buffer Zone

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2014| 2 Comments »

courtesy of Steff's Instagram

courtesy of Steff’s Instagram

The Supremes never fail to surprise me. Kudos to SCOTUS for protecting our cell phone privacy rights during a police search, and unanimously no less, which means really we blue and red states should all be able to get along.  And then they go and rule against buffer zones around abortion clinics in MA.

The court said the state law violated the First Amendment because its “buffer zone” limited speech too broadly, covering 35 feet from the doorway of facilities and including public areas like sidewalks.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-massachusetts-abortion-buffer-zone-mccullen-v-coakley-108348.html#ixzz362N9mDxe

So now anyone who would like to speak to a woman, a total stranger, kindly and gently about why she’s determined to do this procedure (not their words) and push graphic floating fetus leaflets into her hands is allowed to approach her on a sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood. The caveat was that the Chief Justice advised MA to consider doing what NY has done – make it a crime to harass anyone within 15 feet of a reproductive health care facility.

In other words, tighten up the language people!

I don’t know, I like the term buffer zone. I remember the buffer from biology 101 many years ago; it’s important in regulating the PH of a cell. Without a buffer zone, changes in the environment of all living things would go haywire. Adding a buffer keeps us all on an even keel so to speak.

I always pictured it as a moat around the castle, the castle might be a liver cell and the buffer moat is protecting its function…if the moat gets to flowing over its banks the liver can’t function. If the moat dries up, bad cells will invade.

Last weekend we had some friends visiting us from MN with their little boy, Opti. First of all, I love his name. And second I love boys in 6th grade, they are figuring out the world and willing to try just about anything. We watched the USA tie Portugal in the World Cup and he explained some of the rules of the game which was great.

But his mom, Steff, had to return to the Minneapple because she’s a commissioner on the Parks and Rec Board and POTUS was visiting the overflowing banks of their rivers and streams. Steff and her family normally ride their bikes to work and school, they keep bees in their urban garden – I like to think if I were younger and living in a city, I’d be as green and ecologically driven as she is. IMHO she is a rock star! And she got to shake the President’s hand, and be up close and personal as he delivered this speech http://www.scribd.com/doc/231560097/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Town-Hall

The President talked about many things besides the floodwaters. And it made me think that maybe the problem with this intractable Congress is their buffer zone, that place where lobbyists and money flow freely into and out of the castle Capital. That space where special interests and corporations get to frame our laws so that the Constitution becomes an instrument of power for some, and not for all.  And instead of suing our President Mr. Boehner, might you consider letting down the bridge over your moat?

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#LoveisLove

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2013| 5 Comments »

I’m in love with two women. There, I said it. One is a widow, 83 years old, who studied  mathematics and worked at IBM, and the other is a single mom, 50 years old, who graduated from Harvard law School.

Largely because of Edith Windsor, the Rosa Parks in the fight for Marriage Equality, our nation is one step closer to that goal. It is already the law in France, and now California will have to re-legalize same-sex marriage.  Can Virginia be far behind? Windsor is a feisty senior citizen, who got a bill in the mail from the IRS that made her mad.

“Plaintiff Edith Windsor is an 83 year old resident of New York, who legally married her same-sex partner of over 40 years, Thea, in Canada in 2007. The State of New York recognized their marriage, but the United States government did not. Sadly, Edith’s wife, Thea, died in 2009. When Thea died, her estate was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes that would not have been assessed if Thea and Edith were not a lesbian couple.”  http://www.marriageequality.org/Federal-cases-DOMA

In United States v Windsor, SCOTUS struck down DOMA as you’ve probably heard, saying that it was unconstitutional to discriminate against one group of people because of the gender of their partner in marriage. I particularly liked this phrase: “…(DOMA’s) effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.” Then they turned around and threw out Prop 8 in California! Well done SCOTUS!

I’m thinking of a second career as a wedding planner in San Francisco. Hey, I managed to make the magic happen on a mountain in an apple orchard! Well, with a lot of help.

The second woman I’m in love with this morning is Sen Wendy Davis of TX. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/26/who-is-wendy-davis/

Because I’m on the Twittisphere, I followed along in real time on her filibuster in pink sneakers. The NYT called her a “Fashion icon” on the Hill, but she is so much more than a pretty face. What guts, what glory! I could not stand for nearly 13 hours without a potty break. The GOP in the lone star state, those anti-choice politicians so affectionately called “Gynoticians” because of their untiring need to legislate a woman’s body, were trying to sneak in a crippling blow of TRAP bills that would have closed most of the Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. Go ahead you idiot Govenor, try to reconvene and pass those bills. I’m sure there will be people spilling out all over your state house. We women love our bodies enough to fight for them.

We usually know when and how we get pregnant. We know what a rape kit does and does not do. We don’t like to undergo unnecessary and unwanted vaginal probes anywhere and at any time. And yes, we usually know who we love right from the start. Our knees get weak and our hearts start racing, and before you know it we’ve got a ring on our finger – or a brooch –  as Edith and Thea had to hide their relationship. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/26/edith-windsor-thea-spyer-doma

The government may stop disparaging and injuring women now.

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Photo by Bless Bless Productions

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Spring So Far

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on June 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

I was going to do a six-worded, pictorial memoir of Spring so far, but there’s just too much going on right now. No, it’s not a shoe sale at Scarpa, or a fox sighting. Although Bob did spot a juvenile fox strolling around the yard yesterday. I’m talking about the big news coming down from the high court this week, about genes.

The US Supreme Court, while thinking that corporations are just like you and me, has decided that our human genes should stay in the public domain. It’s like saying to a patent attorney, “Get lost!” this red hair is mine and I’m keeping it. Pretty much every scientist I know took a collective sigh of relief after this ruling. However in the Association for Molecular Pathology vs Myriad Genetics case, SCOTUS followed up with a coda –  “(synthetic) cDNA is not a “product of nature,” so it is patent eligible under §101. cDNA does not present the same obstacles to patentability as naturally occurring, isolated DNA segments.”  http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_1b7d.pdf

Bob explained it to me this way – Let’s say a musician writes a symphony. He/she, and or their company, can patent that song, the sequence of notes that makes the music happen. But the notes themselves cannot be patented; the violins, the drums, the cello and every instrument used to compose that opus cannot be patented, and must stay in the public domain.

The linchpin of this decision, one that may allow for too many loopholes is the phrase that states only when a researcher creates something that is “…not naturally occurring,” then, and only then will they receive a patent. The Court was considering the genetic sequence, in this case, of the BRCA breast cancer gene.

So on one hand the Court is saying that: gene-coded information is what really matters when it occurs “naturally,” and isolating one gene in a sequence is not inventing something new and therefore NOT patentable; but on the other hand, synthetic “cDNA is different from naturally occurring RNA, even though both hold exactly the same genetic information. ”  This is less of a distinction, and more of a contradiction.

But what can we do? Will it help to stem the tide of all those newly minted MD/PhDs out there from going abroad to continue their research? Will it make genetic testing more affordable, like the testing Angelina Jolie decided to have? I once had a genetic test done when I was pregnant with the Rocker. I was 35 and considered an old lady by medical standards, so we traveled to a research facility in CT where a very young doctor inserted a very big needle into my extremely big abdomen.  Something happened in the lab. They never told us what, and only some of the testing was completed; I didn’t know the sex, and only learned that my baby did not have spina bifida. So, they were all ready to make a repeat appointment for me in the OR – they wanted to do a second amniocentesis.

“…amniocentesis is a procedure used to obtain a small sample of the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus to diagnose chromosomal disorders and open neural tube defects (ONTDs) such as spina bifida. There is a small risk of miscarriage associated with amniocentesis which must be balanced with the risk of an abnormality and the patient’s desires.”

I had watched my baby Rocker, on an early ultrasound monitor in 1984, back away from that needle once, and I was not about to do it again. After 3 miscarriages the year before, Bob took one look at me and told the genetic counselor, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Here is my handsome boy at his sister’s wedding, with all 10 toes and 10 musical fingers.J&M 0602

A little history of US Patent Law from 1793 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_patent_law

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