I Don't Have Any Problem With Ultrasound

"I don't have any problem with ultrasound."

Of course you wouldn't, Scott Walker.

After all, your office lends you authority on a whole variety of topics.  Being the Governor of Wisconsin, you have responsibility for the well-being of 2,864,586 women and girls.  Surely, you have learned everything one can about what is medically necessary--or just plain good--for them.  So, of course, you support a bill that would require women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasound.  

With all due respect, I would like to know how you came upon such knowledge.  Did you read medical journals?  Or did you do some--how can I say this?--field research?

If you did, you realize that for some women, mostly those in their first trimester of pregnancy--which, of course, is when women usually seek abortions--a transvaginal probe is necessary in order to perform the ultrasound.

Being a man, I suppose you could be forgiven for not knowing that--or what it's like to have anything harder than human flesh thrust into you.  Sometimes even flesh hurts, so you can only imagine what metal or hard plastic are like.

That's the thing, Mr. Governor:  You can only imagine.  Again, I do not want to excoriate you for that:  After all, it has to do with the way you're put together.    But since you can imagine, I'm asking you to do so.  If you can't imagine how it feels, imagine such an object stuck into your wife, your daughter, your mother.  

You don't want to imagine that?  I understand.  All the more reason to re-think your position on the bill.  Now, I know that you're a conservative, so I can understand (but not agree with) your desire to close one of your state's last remaining abortion clinics.  But, please, don't confuse conservativism--a perfectly respectable philosophy--with misogyny.  

And please, whatever you do, learn as much as you can about medical issues before passing laws on them.  Even if your mother, wife or daughter have never had--and never will have--an abortion, think about the transvaginal probe.  Better yet, try to imagine how it would feel.

Breaking Them

Today I saw a bumper sticker that said, "I love my country, not my government."

When I've traveled overseas, people have told me they liked me and thought Americans were good people, but they didn't like what our government and military were doing.

Making a distinction between the people and whoever governs them is very important.  It helped me to make sense of something I noticed in the wake of what's happening in Wisconsin.

The striking public-sector employees are getting scorn from some quarters.  They're blamed for "breaking" the budgets of their states and for all sorts of woes that betide the states.  

I'll concede that there are public-sector employees who are slackers or are simply unqualified for their jobs.  Are you going to tell me you won't find such employees in other places?  

But those employees are, I believe, unfairly blamed for things that the union bosses have done, such as feathering their nests at the public's expense and of creating cushy jobs as favors to someone or another in the heirarchy.

I also think that's the reason why Tea Baggers see nothing wrong with demanding that public employees give up their bargaining rights, as the governor of Wisconsin wants them to do.  Meantime, the TBs squawk over a small tax increase for billionaires.  

On Current Events

I've been holding off on saying anything about the developments in Egypt, Bahrain and Wisconsin. There are more issues involved than the media is reporting, and while I do have my sympathies, I cannot unreservedly praise or criticize one side or another.  But I will certainly have more to say soon.