Skip to main content

Illegitmate offspring (of proper discourse).

So I remember when I read about this whole war on contraceptives/religious liberty in a New Yorker article and thought "Ah, well that's a sucky red herring", and kinda expected that to be that.

Apparently it's, like, a big deal or stuff.

Although I'm sure many conservatives legitimately oppose this--that is, as a matter of personal beliefs and not simply political sleight of hand--it still feels shifty to me. As the USA Today article points out, despite all the infighting and bloodletting in the Republican Primary, this issue "was a battle cry the divided party could bellow in unison".

It seems, too, like a case of a loud minority acting like a victimized majority. USA Today quoted a Fox poll demonstrating "61%, of Americans approve of requiring employer health plans to cover birth control for women". Approve. Only 34% disapprove.

I hope, as that New Yorker article I originally read had, that it isn't an enduring distraction, that we get back to real real issues or talking about issues in a a real way. It's sadly typical, though, and a tendency only exaggerated by/for the upcoming election.

It's a legitimate issue, I'm sure, I just wish it felt like a legitimate discussion.

Comments

Other things that might interest you...

On phases and fixations.

My fixations are powerful, but they can also be maddeningly ephemeral and fleeting. And I hate that; about them and, honestly, about myself. But I’ve never really  asked why I feel that way... I'll commit immense amounts of time and energy and even money to a fixation for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, sometimes rebranding my whole personality around it, then just...move on. I'm not sure when I first noticed this pattern—if it was always there or if it emerged and intensified over time—but it's been part of me for a long while. And every time I do, I feel such guilt and shame. Who even am I if I can't be consistent, dedicated, substantive? How disingenuous is it that nothing I care about lasts? I’ve always just accepted those feelings; I’ve never poked at them in earnest. If you can’t tell from the recent flurry of activity on this blog, I have been fixated on blogging; I mentioned in a recent post about this blog that I had a compulsion to revamp the whole bl...

Oatmeal is tasty.

{slurps up berry-oatmeal-deliciousness} Indeed. I need to work on rebuilding a morning schedule. I can be zombie-like enough that I'll waste a perfectly good morning, and have often slept through many. And, really, it's such a useful time of day.

My new favorite painting.

I, generally speaking, love art. I wish I understood it better; sometimes I can articulate its effects on me and what I think; at other times, that's tough for me. This is an attempt at understanding art, if only by trying to understand my experience of it.¹ The title of this post is a bit funny, tho: "New" is misleading—I first drafted it 6 years ago in Dec 2017, updated it in Aug 2018, and revised it a bit this week (Feb 2024). I'll write more about visual art and my ability to interact with it another time, but here's what I've got for now. So I finally went. There's a show right now at the Phillips Collection on Pierre-Auguste Renoir, my longtime favorite artist, and I went. I got to see more of his work at one time than I ever have before. And I found myself a new favorite painting among them—not just a favorite out of Renoir's work, but perhaps a favorite among all art I will ever see. The exhibit itself explores the story behind one of Renoir...