An ex wife of a gay American

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Saturday October 11, 2008 · 1:22 PM PDT

2008/10/11 · 13:22

I walked into a crowded room and there he was, a tall, handsome man with a sparkle in his eye and a kindness etched on his face. He had me when he smiled and that was so for 19 years of marriage and continues to this day, the knowledge that one of the most magnificent people I have ever met is someone who loves me to this day, as I do him, is heartwarming every single one of my days.

caliberal

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Saturday January 26, 2008 · 8:28 PM PST

2008/01/26 · 20:28

A few of my thoughts on the South Carolina primary, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

It will come as no surprise for most here that I was and am outraged by the cowardice the Democratic leadership has shown since the Alito hearings. I drew a line in the sand then, I said I wouldn't vote for another Democrat, especially one who lived and ruled from the ivory towers, especially candidates that live and breathe the machine of the Democratic Party.

It will also not surprise people, when push comes to shove, that if I vote the only candidate I could even begin to imagine voting for is John Edwards. I still hope I will get to vote for him in the general election, I will vote for him on Super Tuesday.

caliberal

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Thursday December 06, 2007 · 10:26 AM PST

2007/12/06 · 10:26

I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without
dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over the essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and color to one’s loves and friendships. Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison

caliberal

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Sunday May 13, 2007 · 5:24 PM PDT

2007/05/13 · 17:24

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. There are so many faces whose stories aren't being told by words alone to give them the chance of a better life. For all those who live within the confines of poverty or racism or sexism or the bigotry of not being understood, these are the faces of your stories.

caliberal

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Tuesday March 21, 2006 · 1:02 PM PST

2006/03/21 · 13:02

Here are some cold, hard facts about poverty in this country. Did Katrina really change things, are we at a time in our history when we will change the way Americans look at the poor, will we do something about this fucking disgrace?

If we don't do something now when we have seen images that speak of a third world country, when we have seen bodies of the poor floating in feces filled waters, when we have seen houses marked with a big X which signifies a dead person inside, when we have heard of how so many poor people died horrendous deaths as the water rose up until they had no air left, no place to go, no life left in their bodies, if that isn't enough to make us pay attention and do something about the poor in this country then we will be a nation without a soul. We will lose our pride, our honor, our dignity and our integrity. We will be walking shells of people with nothing left but pure and simple greed in our hearts. We will have lost our humanity.

caliberal

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Tuesday February 28, 2006 · 1:02 PM PST

2006/02/28 · 13:02

There is out there ridiculous and dangerous information on abortion that threatens who women are in this country. It is said that women who have abortions sometimes suffer depression for the rest of their lives. It is said that they carry with them, for life, what they have done to an innocent zygote or fetus.

It is also said that women make the decision to have abortions frivilously, that we believe in 'abortion on demand.' There is a dangerous notion that we decide late in our pregnancies that we just simply don't want this 'kid' so we go shopping, we have lunch, and then we stop in at our local, friendly clinic and tell them to scrape and vaccum away, we've got a party to go to.

Depressed and traumatized on the one hand or party girls on the other. Is it really that simple? What happens to those who don't have a choice?

What we don't hear about is what forced motherhood does to too many women. What we don't hear is how long it takes, how much courage it takes, how heartbreaking it is to find our way back from the terror and horror. Read More

The Scars That Keep On Giving and Taking, The Abortion Wars

caliberal

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Thursday February 23, 2006 · 12:05 PM PST

2006/02/23 · 12:05

I'm tired because I couldn't sleep last night. I kept waking up and staring at my scars which were barely visible in the light of the lamp on the nightstand next to my bed. I kept the light on because I couldn't bear to be in the dark again.

As I watched the Olympics last night I couldn't concentrate. My eyes invariably went back, time and again, to the scars.

I remember so clearly what the doctor said to me when I woke up in the hospital. He told me the scars would never go away, that when I looked at them they would remind me how close I had come to the end of my life.

He was wrong, when I look at the scars it never crosses my mind how close I had come to death. When I look at the scars I'm reminded of the end of my childhood dreams. I'm reminded of how many things ended in those days and months. I'm reminded of the terror I felt, the horror of not being in charge, the outrage felt by others shaping my future.
Read More

In Kate Michelman's Words, Little More Than Perfunctory Debate

caliberal

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Tuesday January 31, 2006 · 1:57 PM PST

2006/01/31 · 13:57

I've been sitting with my feelings, I've been stewing about Alito sitting on the Supreme Court, I've been trying mightily to come to a less than fiery condemnation of the Senate and how women were so viciously and immorally let down by every single senator, Republicans and Democrats.

We've been concentrating on the cloture vote, so many on the blogs worked hard to convince 41 senators it was the right thing to do, to dig down deep within themselves, to tap into their consciences and vote no on cloture. There has been a lot of disagreement on who let us down and who didn't. There have been clarion calls for unity, there have been pleas to not surrender, to not give up, to fight the good fight. What there hasn't been is a willingness to admit and give respect to those of us who feel we are not anti-American or traitors to this party or cowards or idiots if we believe it is just as worthy, just as noble, just as courageous to fight for our lives, the lives we have known and gotten attached to.

A Tip of the Hat to What Once Was

caliberal

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Sunday January 15, 2006 · 5:26 PM PST

2006/01/15 · 17:26

It's been a long week for most of us. The Alito confirmation hearings were exhausting and telling. It says a lot that the spat between Specter and Kennedy, that the crying jag of Martha Alito, were what made the headlines, it speaks not just to our media but also to the job the Democratic senators did or rather did not do.

When we hear on the Sunday talk shows that half of the senators didn't know what `unitary executive power' was it's like a slap in the face. When executive powers became as hot a button issues as abortion has been since Alito was nominated, I felt a rush of hope. If the Democratic and Republican senators didn't have what it takes to protect a woman's right to choose surely they would care about the place Congress has in governing this great nation of ours.

For those that think many of us are having a knee jerk reaction to the Alito hearings, for those of you who think we'll get over ourselves, for those of you who think we haven't thought this through, I'd like to offer evidence that that is simply not true. Read More

Hippies, Sex, Rock & Roll, Vietnam And The 60s, Ah Yes I Remember It Well

caliberal

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Monday August 29, 2005 · 11:06 AM PDT

2005/08/29 · 11:06

Crossposted at MyLeftWing and BoomanTribune

I've spent considerable time the past few days wondering about the fight we face and how it is different from battles and wars of the past. It still has that uncompromising agony to it, it still has death and destruction, it still has mighty dissent, it still has a resolve by many to quiet the voice of the weapons being used on the battlefield and on the soil of our homeland.

There is in every turn, in every heart, in every soul, in every spirit, in every person we choose to gather with during these troubling times a sense that we will not give up for to do so is to give up on humankind, to give up on our life as we know it, but mostly it is to give up on our country, the America we have always known, the greatest nation in the history of the world, the beacon of hope and promise for those around the globe as they have said that is freedom, that is liberty, that is justice, that is democracy. We have in years past smiled proudly as we say, "yes that is so."

Or is it?

Below the fold, the rest of the story Read More

Because the Rightwing Can't Get Enough of Women

caliberal

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Friday August 26, 2005 · 3:55 PM PDT

2005/08/26 · 15:55

The FDA made an announcement today that emergency contraception will not be made available without a prescription. In it's relentless obsession with all things to do with women's reproductive health they said it isn't safe for girl's under 17 to buy the EC because they're afraid they won't understand the directions.

Well lordy, lordy who doesn't support that, afterall the directions are so complicated. Take one of the two little white pills after you've had unprotected sex (within 5 days) and take the second little white pill within 12 hours of taking the first little white pill. Now really, they're saying someone who can't understand and follow these instructions should give birth because they're, what, so grown up and ready to have a baby?

The rest of the story, after the fold
Read More

The Death Penalty, Who Wins? Do you know someone who could be executed?

caliberal

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Sunday August 21, 2005 · 5:23 PM PDT

2005/08/21 · 17:23

I watched `Dead Man Walking' last night. Whenever I see a movie or read an article about someone being executed my mind goes back to a time when something happened, something that no one ever imagines could possibly be true for them, I go back to the year 1972. I lived in a small university town in Northern California. My friends were college students mostly, my friend Marcie and I were the only ones with small children, we were the only ones that worked instead of attending college full time. At night we shrugged off our daytime guise, we weren't students or mothers or employed, we were all just friends who spent every evening together. We were friends packed around a barbeque grilling our dinner, laughing, talking, drinking beer. There were fifteen of us, young men and young women, obsessed with the war, feminism, the politics of the nation, speaking out against our government and holding the opinion that anyone older than 30 could not be trusted. What we did trust was each other.

The rest of the story is below the flip

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An ex wife of a gay American

Primaries, Obama & The First Woman President

An Unquiet Mind

A Mother's Day of Hope and Bittersweet Dreams

Poverty in America, The Invisible Women, Men and Children

Abortion Wars, I Am Haunted By The Scars, They Remain The Same, The Terror Continues

The Scars That Keep On Giving and Taking, The Abortion Wars

In Kate Michelman's Words, Little More Than Perfunctory Debate

A Tip of the Hat to What Once Was

Hippies, Sex, Rock & Roll, Vietnam And The 60s, Ah Yes I Remember It Well

Because the Rightwing Can't Get Enough of Women

The Death Penalty, Who Wins? Do you know someone who could be executed?