Loyal Opposition?

The necessity of health care is one of the big topics lately.

One of the arguments the Republicans are making is that they do not want government involved in your health care decisions.

I am having trouble believing my ears. It was the Republicans that spearheaded the effort to insert the government into the health-care decisions of the Terri Schiavo family. They convened a special session of Congress. Only Republicans voted on the bill after hours, and President Bush left vacation early to sign it on Palm Sunday. At the time they said it was too important a matter to leave it up to the states.

Are they hypocrites? Do they think we have no memory? Or are they simply against anything that President Obama wants?

Years To Think It Over

In California recently, a young woman was rescued after 18 years of captivity. She was abducted off the street when she was 11, kept in a shed in the suspect's back yard, and had children by him. This is disturbing in and of itself.

But it also sounds distressingly similar to the case in Austria recently, where the girl was kept captive in the basement for years, bearing children of her captor. The thought that there could be two such depraved individuals in recent memory is alarming.

But what truly upsets me- what I'm having trouble getting my head around- is that in both cases the captor had a wife.

How could they not have known? How could they not have done something?

Is the dating scene really so bad? Is this really the best they could have done? What could ever possess a woman to stand by her man to such a degree?

Because there is no way that they couldn't have known. This isn't a case of seeing him go into your daughter's room at night, and convincing yourself that it is for an innocent reason. What happened to the maternal instinct? Hell, what happened to human decency? They had to have known that it was happening. Is the trick that it wasn't their own children, that they think they are protecting their own by directing the man to someone else? (That can't be it; the girl in Austria was the man's daughter) Do they, god forbid, approve of the situation?

How is there any way that this makes sense?

The Boy Who Cried Racist

There are a few facts that everybody seems to agree on.

The black Harvard professor forgot his keys and when he returned from a trip had to break into his own house. A concerned neighbor called the police. The officer that arrived ascertained that he lived there.

And then things get interesting. The officer claims that the professor got abusive and was arrested for being disorderly. The professor claims that he was arrested because they didn't believe a black person could live there. President Obama stated that the cops acted stupidly.

it doesn't sound as though race was a factor. I'm sure that after such a long trip, anybody would be tense. But even so, you don't harass cops. I recently had state police point their guns at me after a misunderstanding. I didn't take offense; I knew they were doing their job.

What I find curious is the people that think every bad thing that happens to them is because of racism. If the cops had taken too long to respond- or hadn't responded at all- the same charge would have been levied. Instead, the cops quickly and thoroughly arrived and did their job, only to hear the same complaints.

I'm pleased that the officer has refused to apologize. And I caution people that if they cry racism at every slight, we won't believe you when it actually happens.

Circle of Life

How appropriate that it began with an orange.

I was recently contacted by an old friend through the power of the internet (itself run by little 1s and 0s). I met him in high school when a mutual female friend tried to get my authoritative opinion. He was eating an orange as though it were an apple- taking a big bite right through the rind and all. Instead of criticizing, I shrugged. We became instant good friends.

Our circle of friends constricted a bit into a triangle with the aforementioned girl. And then it constricted again when I gave her a ring. He found his own girl and we regretfully went separate ways.

I wish I could say the ways we went were separate but equal. They were, if you consider that we both made big circles. I moved away and back home several times. I went from married to single and around again. I went from what I studied in college to a hated job that paid the bills and now am back in film.

He only needed the one ring for a woman. His Navy tours took him under the North Pole, in a big loop around the Pacific, and back again. He went through the Mediterranean, and came back. He moved from the east coast to the west coast, and now is back again.

After two decades of us traveling, moving, and changing our lives, we met up a couple of towns over from where we first met.

And, of course, he was a little more orange-shaped, which was gratifying.

Is It A Real Connection?

Something strange happened over the weekend, and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

Disney had a crash with its monorails and someone was killed. Although tragic and unusual, that isn't what is perplexing me.

I've been keeping in touch with a friend of mine from high school via a networking website. No personal pictures, limited direct messages, mostly generic comments on their status. Just enough to let them know somebody was thinking of them.

I first heard of the crash by people leaving condolence messages for her. She wasn't hurt or involved, but undoubtedly knew the operator. I wasn't the only one confused. Somebody else questioned what was going on, and I followed a link to a news story that was provided by way of explanation.

Had I heard about the crash by standard news channels, I would have been interested and concerned. Yet knowing that somebody I knew was near the crash made it more vivid and dramatic. But I keep thinking that I don't really know her. Know OF her, yes. I used to be familiar with her. Had she been the one that died, I doubt my life would change a bit. I don't even know that she actually works there; I have to take her claim at face value.

So is this a real emotional connection? It seems so, since it made the reaction stronger. But I can't get over the feeling that it is more illusion than connection.

Valuable Memorabilia

Much of the news lately has been about the death of Michael Jackson. I'm not going to either slander him or praise him.

Much has been made that he was 50 (Really? Who would have thought?), and that there were many strange incidents in his life. Most people are ending on what they they think is an ironic tone, that it is too bad that the death happened now, when he was about to embark on a large tour that would have been his return to somewhat normality. They point out that he was still popular, in that the tour consisted of fifty sold-out concerts.

His death, before they even started, is sure to make those tickets valuable pieces of memorabilia. Except for one final irony: there are fifty sold-out concerts of them! What should have been a rare, valuable thing is now only mildly interesting.

The Poison Flesh

This week a coffee shop was burned down in Maine. The police have confirmed that it was artificially started, and report that passers-by seem pleased that the shop was destroyed.

What did the shop do that was so heinous? It was topless.

It offered both men and women delivering your coffee without a shirt. Keep in mind that shlepping hot coffee around without a shirt is bold, and you have to be dextrous to avoid a nasty burn. I'm sure that these women were hard-working, and happy to have a job in this economy. Yet the place was burned.

Why is female flesh such an affront to some people? Interestingly, it is often other women that get riled up. Is it mere jealousy? Is it fear that their men are so uncontrollable that a shirt that hangs a little too low will bring out their inner troglodyte?

What happens to young girls that are told that they should be hidden away, concealed, unfit for view, an unacceptable topic in polite conversation? I can see two options. She may struggle ever harder to reach that impossible goal, driving herself into anorexia or other disorders. Or she may act provocatively in an effort to gain approval from strangers that she wasn't getting at home.

Is it a straight line between these two actions? No, probably not.

But I see nothing but good (including lower rates of abortions and teen pregnancy) if we admit that people have bodies.