Well, the Democratic primary is over except for the shouting and whining. "Blue Dog" Bill White won the governor's race as expected -- it wasn't even close. I still don't think I'll be able to support him in November though. After watching other blue dog Democrats help the Republicans obstruct nearly every thing that Obama has tried to do in the last year, I can't see myself supporting or voting for a blue dog for anything -- whether it be governor or dog-catcher.
Probably the most pathetic political figure in the primary this year was Farouk Shami. The super-rich hair-care magnate from Houston promised to spend $10 million of his own money to get the nomination, and he may well have done that. He had ads in newspapers, on TV and on the internet.
Everywhere you looked there was an ad for Shami, but it did him no good at all. He got only about 13% of the vote. Hell, Felix Alvarado with 5% and Alma Aguado with 3% did nearly as well, and they had almost no money at all (and didn't run a single state-wide ad). Looks like Shami wasted millions of dollars and got nothing in return.
My candidate for Agriculture Commissioner, Kinky Friedman, lost his race to East Texas farmer Hank Gilbert. It looks like Gilbert will wind up with about 52% of the vote. I don't mind that, since this was a race where I liked both candidates. Although I voted for Kinky yesterday, I won't have any problem supporting and voting for Hank Gilbert next November.
The candidate I supported for Lt. Governor, Ronnie Earle, also lost. His main opponent, Linda Chavez-Thompson won with 53% percent of the vote. Again, I'll have no problem supporting Ms. Chavez-Thompson in November. She's a good progressive and would make a great Lt. Governor.
There were also two very good candidates for Land Commissioner -- Hector Uribe and Bill Burton (pictured). Without a doubt, this was the closest race of the night. The two changed the lead most of the evening, and it was well after midnight before the AP called the win for Mr. Uribe with 51% of the vote. I feel like I owe Mr. Burton an apology for supporting him, since my support seems like the "kiss of death" this year.
Meanwhile, the Republican primary showed just how mean the Republican voters are. About 69% of them would like to force a woman to have to view a sonogram of her fetus before allowing her to get an abortion. Could a person get any meaner or more unfeeling than that? Also, about 95% of them think they should be allowed to force their fundamentalist view of religion on all other Texans. They obviously don't even know what the term "freedom of religion" means.
"About 69% of them would like to force a woman to have to view a sonogram of her fetus before allowing her to get an abortion. Could a person get any meaner or more unfeeling than that?"
ReplyDeleteIt's called informed consent.
No, it's called abuse.
ReplyDeleteIf the fetus is merely a mass of undifferentiated cells and not a human being, how could this be abuse? Unless...
ReplyDeleteRoe v. Wade gives women the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. What it doesn't give them is the right to choose the consequences of that decision.
Is it abuse to provide women with a view of what it is they're aborting before they make that choice, rather than to find out later, when it's too late?
If so (and I can see how it might be too traumatic for some), then shouldn't it at least be mandatory that women be given the choice of viewing a sonogram before making their decision?
It is abuse of the woman, not the "mass of undifferentiated cells". And the ballot question would force a woman to endure this -- not give her a choice.
ReplyDeleteI guess I didn't make myself clear. Let me rephrase: How does showing a woman a sonogram of a mass of differentiated cells qualify as abuse?
ReplyDeleteWould you agree with the referendum if it were mandatory that women were offered the choice of viewing a sonogram before making their decision?
white and good hair..now THAT'S scary.
ReplyDeletemen should have no say on the reproductive organs of females.
YDG-
ReplyDeleteI agree. No human should be able to tell another human what they must do with their own body.
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Women already have that right (to view a sonogram). But the question on the Republican ballot was whether to FORCE them to do something they don't want to do.
"I agree. No human should be able to tell another human what they must do with their own body."
ReplyDeleteWhat distinguishes your body from my body?
"Women already have that right (to view a sonogram)."
ReplyDeleteTrue enough - just as a person who is arrested has the right to remain silent. But just as unscrupulous police officers used to deny that right to citizens from whom they wanted to get a confession, there are unscrupulous abortion providers who would rather sell another abortion than inform their patients of what that procedure entails.
Abortion is big business, and has been for years. But don't take my word for it (after all, as Andrea so aptly put it, I don't a a uterus). Read what Carol Everett, director of four abortion clinics (and owner of two) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from 1977 to 1983, has to say about the selling of the procedure to unsuspecting women as the only alternative.
I guess it all comes down to this: Should women have access to more information or less when exercising their right to choose?
Let's hold their eyelids open like in clockwork orange while we're at it.
ReplyDeleteChris-
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you again. CO is one of my favorite movies.
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You can change the subject and ask esoteric questions, but it doesn't change the fact that the ballot question regarded FORCING a woman to view a sonogram -- not asking her if she wanted to.
And can you really not tell your body from mine? That's hard to believe!
Ted:
ReplyDeleteBy posing the proposition a little less dogmatically, I'm trying to build a consensus that offering every woman facing a crisis pregnancy the option of viewing a sonogram (something that isn't the case now) can only make that choice more informed.
If after being offered that that option, the woman either declines to view it or views it and decides to go through with the abortion anyway, then so be it. But what I'm trying to avoid is the "if onlys": "If only I had known before I had the abortion."
Before I had my prostatectomy, I was duly warned that the result could be incontinence, erectile dysfunction or bowel problems. I weighed all that that I decided to go through the the procedure anyway.
If I have to suffer through the litany of side affects of Plavix, Levitra or Lipitor every time they advertise on TV, why should women be kept ignorant about what it is they're aborting? Knowledge is power.
And as far as viewing sonograms as being "abuse," I googled "sonogram" under Images and viewed images from 5, 8 and 12 weeks of gestation. Do the same, and then please explain to me what's so abusive about those images? How can they be likened to the scenes of Hitler and the Third Reich that Alex was forced to watch in A Clockwork Orange?
And as far as my question about how can we distinguish between my body on yours, I was alluding to Deoxyribonucleic acid (better known by the acronym DNA). This is what makes me me and you you.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say, "No human should be able to tell another human what they must do with their own body." That goes for men as well as women. If I choose to have my cancerous prostrate removed (which I have), or pierce my ears, or get a tatoo, or have plastic surgery (all of which I wouldn't do, but I don't deny anyone else the right to do so), that's nobody's business but my own.
But the prostate I had removed contained the same DNA as my ear, my arm and my belly; in other words, it was my body. I don't have the right to have Ted's prostate removed, or pierce his ear, or tatoo his arm or tuck his tummy. Different genetic code, different body.
In its infinite wisdom, the Supreme Court decided that a woman, as long as she's the host of "something" with an entirely different genetic code than her, has the right to remove that something and throw it away in the same manner as I had my prostate removed. As long as the law allows that, shouldn't we do everything we can to make sure the woman is convinced within herself of what that "something" is?
If I sound uncaring, please believe me, I'm not. I can't imagine how agonizing the choice must be between aborting or carrying a pregnancy to term. I wouldn't want to be faced with that kind of decision. All I'm saying is, the more knowledge a person has going into a difficult choice, the less of a chance that there will be remorse afterwards.
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ReplyDeleteI think you are being a bit patronizing toward women if you believe they haven't already agonized over this choice before ever entering the doors of an abortion clinic.
And you're still trying to change the subject. This post was about forcing women to do something - not offering them a choice or information.