Remembering to remember.

Warning: Discussion of female bodily functions ahead.

When I was pregnant, a nurse told me pregnancy was a good window onto old age, that the problems women had when they were great with child tended to pop up late in life — diabetes, etc. If so, I better have a killer retirement account, because my pregnancy passed like a cool breeze on a warm day, and the Big M — you guys can figure that one out, right? — was ditto. You’ll have to ask my loved ones about screeching mood swings, but I don’t recall that era as any worse than my usual moody-bitch act. Not one hot flash. Insomnia, sure, but that’s just the way of the world once you have a few things to worry about. A few other minor things, but in general, the big Change I’d been dreading for half a decade was a snap. Not only that, but I forgot, in a disgracefully short time, what it was like to be a fertile woman, and all it entails, specifically the gross stuff.

So it was refreshing to read this little essay in New York magazine today, pointing out the obvious: The reason there isn’t a wave of outrage over the Planned Parenthood sting videos is, women already know what abortion is about. Believe us, we know, even if we haven’t had one:

Women do not need real talk about bodies; our adult days brim with the effluvia, the discomforts, the weirdness and emotional intensity and magnitude of our medical choices. Then there is pregnancy itself, wanted or not, and its attendant risks. Women pass early pregnancies into toilet bowls and sadly collect the remains of later ones in Tupperware containers to bring to their doctors. Most of us know of someone who has suffered the excruciating pain of stillbirth. One friend, bleeding 13 weeks into a deeply desired pregnancy, was told by her doctor not to worry unless she passed a clot bigger than her fist.

Women who have been pregnant past quickening have felt the nauseating turn of a baby inside them; some have had the horror of feeling that baby stop moving, or, as Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis wrote of her experience, can feel the spasms of fetal seizure. She had a late abortion. So did California representative Jackie Speier, as she told the House in 2011, responding to a colleague who’d read aloud a gory description of a second-trimester termination. “I was thinking to myself, Not one of you has endured this procedure,” she said of her decision to speak publicly about it.

Women know about blood. We know about discharge. We know about babies, and many of us also love them, their little feet and hands and eyelashes. And, yes, we know that those bitty features develop while the fetus is inside us. We also know the physical, economic, and emotional costs of raising those children outside our wombs.

It brought it all back — those days of praying for your period, cursing your period, all of it. And it’s good to remember that from time to time, because if you forget it too long, you forget to be outraged when men stand up in legislative chambers and read descriptions they have no experience of and never will. And you need to be outraged, not all the time, but sometimes, when it counts. You need to remember.

But I don’t want to bum everyone out on a Tuesday. Here’s something quite amusing, John Oliver on sex ed. It’s long, but it’s very good, in that outrage-funny kind of way. I very much recommend it.

Who was asking about the obit for Frances Kelsey the other day, the doctor who blocked Thalidomide in the U.S.? This is a pretty good one:

The sedative was Kevadon, and the application to market it in America reached the new medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in September 1960. The drug had already been sold to pregnant women in Europe for morning sickness, and the application seemed routine, ready for the rubber stamp.

But some data on the drug’s safety troubled Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a former family doctor and teacher in South Dakota who had just taken the F.D.A. job in Washington, reviewing requests to license new drugs. She asked the manufacturer, the William S. Merrell Company of Cincinnati, for more information.

Thus began a fateful test of wills. Merrell responded. Dr. Kelsey wanted more. Merrell complained to Dr. Kelsey’s bosses, calling her a petty bureaucrat. She persisted. On it went. But by late 1961, the terrible evidence was pouring in. The drug — better known by its generic name, thalidomide — was causing thousands of babies in Europe, Britain, Canada and the Middle East to be born with flipperlike arms and legs and other defects.

A petty bureaucrat. Should have left that one up to the invisible hand, right?

Long day ahead, so let’s get to it.

Posted at 12:04 am in Same ol' same ol' |
 

55 responses to “Remembering to remember.”

  1. Wim said on August 11, 2015 at 4:27 am

    John Oliver has really been killing it. Also, you have to admire anyone who can bear to show an awkward teen photo.

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  2. Suzanne said on August 11, 2015 at 6:46 am

    Pretty easy pregnancies (birth, a little trickier) and menopause was a fairly stress free experience, so I should live to be 100. I don’t miss my monthly visitor at all.

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  3. Deborah said on August 11, 2015 at 6:47 am

    Wow, thank you for this post, Nancy.

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  4. brian stouder said on August 11, 2015 at 7:58 am

    An excellent and enlightening post, indeed.

    A good chunk of life, for me, is learning to realize what I don’t know, and can never know. Trump is the blinking neon sign with spotlights who personifies proudly invincible ignorance; his type would never concede that there’s anything he cannot know.

    Speaking of political drones, here’s an article from the NYT about flying drones, and the new problems they have created –

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-rogue-drones-are-rapidly-becoming-a-national-nuisance/2015/08/10/9c05d63c-3f61-11e5-8d45-d815146f81fa_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

    and this passage made me angry:

    Another unnerving scenario emerged last month when a Connecticut man posted an Internet video of a drone he had armed with a handgun, firing shots by remote control as it hovered in the air. Local police and the Federal Aviation Administration determined that no laws had been broken.

    “no law had been broken”???

    Baloney

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  5. beb said on August 11, 2015 at 8:13 am

    The FDA was a hero for keeping thalidomide out of the country, the an orge for the same slow and careful evaluation of AIDS drugs. The real takeaway ought to be that even 50 years ago you could not trust a drug company to be honest about the effects of the things they were selling.

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  6. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 8:24 am

    Trump’s response to Megyn Kelly and the meticulously crafted setup by Fox’s producers and writers was by design an effort to reach into the Republican hindbrain and open its collective adrenal faucet. If the questions were intended to paint Trump as a bully, they failed with the party because the Republicans have gone well beyond baring their asses to the alpha male, to giving it all up for the killer ape.

    Trump’s resulting evocations of a firehose of menstrual blood being directed at him also keep the debate framed well below the hippocampus, to the nether reaches where Republicans evaluate their candidate’s finesse at grimacing, howling and taking a power dump on the stage.

    The Republican Party is, and has been, primed as a gathering of fratricidal apes since its absorption of Strom Thurmond’s Southern murdercore constituency. The mention of blood and body parts helps keep the focus on hallowed modes of dick swinging, and the allocation of roles under government by and for sociopaths.

    http://thebaffler.com/salvos/bullys-pulpit

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  7. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 8:30 am

    The real takeaway ought to be that even 50 years ago you could not trust a drug company to be honest about the effects of the things they were selling.

    And they were still doing clinical trials to find other uses for Thalidomide just a couple of years ago. It’s cheap to produce. That’s the key. If you can find a way to leverage it into the market, you can make ridiculous profits.

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  8. ROGirl said on August 11, 2015 at 8:57 am

    I’ll never forget Gloria Steinem’s remarks to the effect that if men menstruated they would brag about how much fluid they discharged and how much pain they had. Imagine the competitions and conversations around the conference table.

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  9. Julie Robinson said on August 11, 2015 at 9:08 am

    Two wretched and medically risky pregnancies with easy births; about the rest I’ll just say the Big M was welcome relief.

    The clown car that is the Republican Presidential race may soon have a little more room, as it appears Rick Perry is in trouble. His campaign has stopped paying employees: https://tinyurl.com/p3hd58a. I’ll be glad to see him go for three reasons; he denies climate change, he wants to repeal Obamacare, and…I forget the third one. 🙂

    Following up on yesterday’s discussion of Chelsea Clinton and Caroline Kennedy being unprepared for politics, Half Pint thinks her stint as president of the Screen Actors Guild makes her ready for Congress. There’s a small matter of back taxes due, but Melissa Gilbert doesn’t think it’s an impediment. Did you Detroiters know she was living up the road? And married to Timothy Busfield? http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/2015/08/11/gilbert-congress-run/31424715/

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  10. brian stouder said on August 11, 2015 at 9:16 am

    Well, and indeed – the whole faux-macho tough-guy-warrior thing is all sizzle, and no steak.

    I forget what I was reading, but an excellent point was made, as to why men have traditionally been the warriors and fighters:

    we’re much more expendable than women are.

    If a generation of young males gets slaughtered in some ridiculous war or another, and the young women are held out of it – the population will rebound; since older fellers can (by and large) still do their (small) reproductive part.

    But if the population of younger women (child-bearing age) are slaughtered, then it’s game-over, for the particular culture.

    (made me say “hmmmm”)

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  11. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 9:19 am

    From Wikipedia: Today, thalidomide is sold by Celgene, mainly as a treatment of certain cancers (multiple myeloma) and of a complication of leprosy.

    Looks like at least two of those other uses for thalidomide have been found. Multiple myeloma is, I believe, that Tom Brokaw has, and he’s not alone.

    “The American Cancer Society’s estimates for multiple myeloma in the United States for 2015 are: About 26,850 new cases will be diagnosed (14,090 in men and 12,760 in women). About 11,240 deaths are expected to occur (6,240 in men and 5,000 in women).” Mar 9, 2015

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  12. brian stouder said on August 11, 2015 at 9:19 am

    …and I think Julie leaps into the lead for Thread Win, with the Perry pun!

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  13. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 9:26 am

    Very cute Rick Perry joke, Julie.

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  14. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 9:27 am

    Two votes for Julie’s joke!

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  15. Connie said on August 11, 2015 at 9:33 am

    Two difficult pregnancies, one live birth. I spent 77 days of my second in Methodist Hospital Indianapolis. We have since figured out that Jeff(tmmo) was doing some kind of internship there at the same time, but we failed to meet.

    You mean the hot flashes are supposed to end?

    Julie is truly today’s winner, where was the like button?

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  16. Jeff Borden said on August 11, 2015 at 9:43 am

    I’m not as eloquent as Cooz, but he speaks for me. Certainly, I reasoned, after the ridiculous race in 2012 the GOP would pull its head out of its ass. Certainly, I thought, the much ballyhooed “autopsy” of the last presidential race would reveal the huge problems within the party and lead to some thoughtful rumination on the way forward.

    Fuckin’ A was I wrong. Really, really wrong.

    I will, however, not one thing. Citizens United has been a major player in this symphony of stupidity. A single billionaire is keeping Ted Cruz in the race. The same with several other of these chumps. I continue to think the SCOTUS decision was an abomination and would put campaign finance reform near the top of my wish list, but for now, all that money is helping to rip the Republican Party to shreds.

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  17. Deborah said on August 11, 2015 at 9:44 am

    Funny, Gin and Tacos had a post today with a similar topic http://www.ginandtacos.com/2015/08/10/planning/

    Connie, I’m here to tell you that for some women hot flashes don’t end. I’m one.

    Julie, you made me giggle too.

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  18. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 9:45 am

    Thalidomide has also been tested as a salvage therapy for male AIDS patients with colitis. This is how pharma works. Build the drug, and maybe the disease will kinda sorta come to it.

    Thalidomide is only one of the floor wax/dessert topping drugs whose real function is clearing millions of dollars for investors.

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  19. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 9:54 am

    In addition to,pointing out what women know from their lived experience, Traister’s article makes this important point:

    “(Fetal tissue is crucial to research into ALS, Parkinson’s, sickle-cell anemia, and Alzheimer’s; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was among the Republicans who voted to make its donation legal in 1993.)”

    Other articles on this topic have mentioned diseases of the eye, diabetes, and HIV.
    NIH, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research, supports dozens of studies using fetal tissue. If that research is to be done, someone has to process and transport the tissue.

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  20. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 9:56 am

    Whoops! That last paragraph wasn’t supposed to be italicized.

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  21. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 10:05 am

    Fetal tissue is crucial to research into ALS, Parkinson’s, sickle-cell anemia, and Alzheimer’s; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was among the Republicans who voted to make its donation legal in 1993.

    And there you have the basis of a sweeping, very effective cost saving method for hospitals. If you don’t want fetal tissue based therapies, or evolutionary biology based therapies, just sign a release form. All Republicans who are shrieking about this now should be asked to publicly sign one, for themselves and their families. Gonna be a short list.

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  22. Connie said on August 11, 2015 at 10:13 am

    In April I had surgery to put a skin graft on my foot. The four inch square of skin cost $2,000 and was stem cell grown. According to the surgeon placentas from caesarean births are purchased for this purpose.

    When my BIL had a skin graft in 1987 they took the skin from his butt and hip. So thank you stem cell skin.

    I’ve been back to work since early May but am still unable to put weight on that foot unless I am wearing the evil orthotic boot. And am still in a wheelchair at home when the boot is off. I have been casted for a custom built medical shoe that takes six weeks to make. Soon. I will once again be able to do things like go up and down stairs and drive my car.

    Last day I drove was January 11. I am quite sure I remember how.

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  23. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 10:17 am

    This past weekend, I got curious about the uses of fetal tissue and did a bit of poking around. There’s lots to read, including institutional guidelines re ethical procedures for procurement and use. Pretty dull stuff, but here are a couple of short pieces that I found useful.

    First, an op-ed piece by a researcher that deals with the moral ambiguities of such research, as well as providing some details about costs and specific applications.

    Second, an article about the firms that handle this material.

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  24. Julie Robinson said on August 11, 2015 at 10:23 am

    Thanks, y’all, but that was low-hanging fruit, and I’m sure Coozledad can top it with one arm tied behind his back.

    Bendectin was also found to cause birth defects and was withdrawn from the market after I took it back in 1980. I was puking my guts out night and day, losing weight rapidly, and when my doc said Bendectin or the hospital, I chose to take the drug. I’d like to think there are better options today.

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  25. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 10:33 am

    One more link on this general topic. This one is an essay by Katha Pollitt in which she argues that there are better ways to defend Planned Parenthood than public statements by its officials. In short, she argues that women must tell what they know, what they have experienced.

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  26. Sue said on August 11, 2015 at 10:51 am

    Effluvia. Huh. That’s about right.
    The big M for me coincided with the mid-late teens and early twenties of my children. Both events went on for decades, I think. One of the worst times in my life.

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  27. Deborah said on August 11, 2015 at 10:56 am

    I will say that Planned Parenthood was a blessing for Little Bird when she couldn’t get health insurance because of her pre-existing condition. Whenever she needed to see a Dr about girlie parts that’s where she went, for much less $ than it would cost for her to go to a regular Dr. Now that she has Medicaid she needs it less, but we’re all happy that it’s there for people who need it. Hope it stays available. I saw somewhere that Zuckerman (spelling?) the Facebook guy gave nearly a $billion to PP recently.

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  28. Heather said on August 11, 2015 at 11:13 am

    That NY Mag essay is brilliant. Should be required reading for every man who is anti-abortion. If they can stomach it.

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  29. Sherri said on August 11, 2015 at 11:16 am

    It feels like every part of the reproductive process had to be medicalized in one or another for me, from being giving a pill (I assume hormones) as a young teen (really, pre-teen – I started my period at 10) to stabilize my periods so I didn’t have them every 3 weeks to all the unpleasant tests for infertility to even more unpleasant infertility treatment to shingles during pregnancy and a breech baby and a failed external version to a c-section. Traister writes about the pain of a manual dilation of her cervix – I had that done seven times in the course of infertility treatment, and yes, it is a special pain.

    I was happy when the doctor told me that the huge fibroids on my uterus meant that I needed a hysterectomy, glad to be done with my period and any possibility, however remote, of pregnancy. Since my ovaries remained, the Big M happened later, and manifested itself through periodic night sweats that would leave me soaked. Happily, those seem to be gone now, too.

    Men are wimps. They wouldn’t be bragging about how much fluid they produced, they’d be taking to their beds every month with cramps. Once they got a sense of what carrying a parasite for 9 months really felt like, abortions would be free.

    (I love my daughter with all my heart, and went through hell to get her. That doesn’t mean I felt all dewy-eyed about pregnancy.)

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  30. brian stouder said on August 11, 2015 at 12:11 pm

    A quick update; in the wake of our water catastrophe*, Pam and the young folks and I landed in the Residence Inn hotel July 10, with the fond hope that our house would be habitable before school began. But school began today, and – as is our tradition – we snapped a photo of the girls all set to go off to Day One of school, in front of the Residence Inn main entrance (rather than on our front porch). With any luck, we’re on the home-stretch (so to speak), and could be back home in a week. And indeed, the rooms are all re-painted and the new laminate wood flooring is in (and looks great)….and hopefully the kitchen and bathrooms come together nicely in the next day or two.

    *the water hose that connects to your washer? I’d make sure it’s a stainless-steel flex-line, rather than a rubber hose. And, if it you’ve had the same connection for five years (or more) – replace it immediately!

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  31. LAMary said on August 11, 2015 at 12:15 pm

    Other than being sort of barfy through both pregnancies and finding it hard to get into a comfortable sleeping position in the last couple months my pregnancies were not bad. No diabeties or high blood pressure or anything. One c-section baby and one vbac. Two big babies with no heath issues other than a little jaundice. The big M did bring insomnia and night sweats and I keep a fan on my desk at work for the personal summertimes that still come alonq rarely.
    .

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  32. Charlotte said on August 11, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    There was a girl missing half an arm from Thalidomide in our condo complex in Madison in the late 1970s — beautiful girl, and a terrific diver despite the balance issues. Also, had a mean streak. We were a pack of kids whose divorced moms (and one boy whose mother was dead and had a single dad) had all moved into this new complex. And we were a pack … much to the dismay of the few retirees who had moved there.

    Amanda Marcotte has been terrific on the GOP war on lady parts for years now — she seems to mostly be writing for the Guardian these days. No babies here, and still in the middle of what seems like an endless dying of my reproductive light … will be glad when I get to the far shore.

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  33. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    How’s about a little dolchstosselgende?

    http://wonkette.com/592792/jeb-bush-so-mad-hillary-clinton-invaded-iraq

    The Bush family will never stray far from its Nazi bullshit roots.

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  34. Connie said on August 11, 2015 at 1:46 pm

    Amanda Marcotte’s internet home is at Raw Story, where she is Pandagon http://www.rawstory.com/category/pandagon/

    Tbogg is here as well, but does not appear to have brought his bassetts with him.

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  35. Deborah said on August 11, 2015 at 2:00 pm

    Aw Brian, bummer. Here’s hoping you get back into your house soon. Heartbreaking, having to take those back to school pictures in front of the Residence Inn instead of your front porch. I’m going to talk to our landlady about the washer water connections, I bet they’re old and this is NM where things like rubber hoses dry out fast. We’re all going to be gone from here for 2 weeks later in the summer, would hate to come back to a flooded situation like you did.

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  36. brian stouder said on August 11, 2015 at 2:39 pm

    Someday, we’ll look back on this ‘summer of calamities’ and laugh….or chuckle…or maybe smile vaguely…or something.

    Really and truly – Pam has earned (and continues to earn) all the stripes and all the bragging rights for the successful management of this major project, from constructing detailed xl spread sheets and photographic verification, to riding herd on the insurance folks and the contractor guy and the various suppliers.

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  37. Sherri said on August 11, 2015 at 2:56 pm

    When men talk about abortion: Scott Walker’s claim that abortion is never necessary to save the life of a woman.

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/scott-walkers-abortion-flimflam-explained-maybe

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  38. Sherri said on August 11, 2015 at 3:34 pm

    More men talking about reproduction, this time Marco Rubio’s claim about life beginning at conception: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/08/11/marco_rubio_s_anti_abortion_argument_human_dna_not_cat_dna.html

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  39. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 3:42 pm

    You don’t get to stick your hand in someone’s pussy because they ran a stop sign. The police are out of control:
    http://wonkette.com/592800/nice-texas-cops-just-wanted-to-reach-into-black-ladys-vagina-in-public-thats-all

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  40. brian stouder said on August 11, 2015 at 4:45 pm

    A palate cleanser, after the terrible story Cooz linked –

    Three dozen retired generals and admirals Tuesday released an open letter supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/retired-generals-and-admirals-back-iran-nuclear-deal/2015/08/11/bd26f6ae-4045-11e5-bfe3-ff1d8549bfd2_story.html?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1

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  41. Deborah said on August 11, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    Brian, I hope you can soon a least look back on this summer with the knowledge that you survived.

    And Connie too. You’ve had quite an ordeal to get through, and not just the summer, since January! Whoa.

    It turns out, according to Little Bird that the landlady had our hoses changed to the good kind recently, I must have been in Chicago. But what we don’t know is if the owner of the apartment upstairs changed over the hoses up there. Probably not. What a catastrophe it would be to come back to that kind of a flood situation, from above. Yikes! The renters that lived up there just moved out (thank goodness) so we talked to our landlady and she is going to scream bloody murder to the owner of that condo to make sure those are changed if they haven’t been already. She loves us, we do so much around the grounds of the building, with no return for us except that we get to enjoy the improvements while we’re here.

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  42. Julie Robinson said on August 11, 2015 at 6:33 pm

    Deborah, make sure to follow through on that–I know two different people who have had extensive damage to their condos/apartments from floods above them. One was my sister, who sure doesn’t need any extra problems. In the Florida heat her place rapidly got moldy and she ended up having to move. It was a horrible mess.

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  43. LAMary said on August 11, 2015 at 6:46 pm

    Then there’s this:

    http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/serena-williams-still-has-tennis-history-to-make.html

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  44. Deborah said on August 11, 2015 at 7:11 pm

    Oh Lordy, the management company that runs the place upstairs for that condo owner is having an open house everyday now from 2:30 until 4 and they let the prospective tenants park anywhere while they’re there. Which means right in from of our garage so that we can’t get our car in or out. I complained royally to the guy who was showing the place and I heard one of the prospects talking on her phone saying that she had no desire to live in our building because the people were really pissy about parking and she didn’t want to have to deal with that everyday. To that I say good riddance. We have assigned parking here, it’s at the end of a very narrow dead end lane, we each get 2 spots and if you have a garage you actually get 3 if you park inside which we do. We let one of our really nice neighbors use one of our exterior spots when she needs it, the other spot is in front of our garage so that only works for others to park there when we know we aren’t going anywhere. Oh man, people get sanguine when it comes to parking.

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  45. David C. said on August 11, 2015 at 7:41 pm

    It sounds like the state of sex-ed in schools is worse than it was when I was in school. Ours probably should have been called reproductive plumbing. My sister was talking about a friend of hers who home schools her children to protect them from the world. She was absolutely sure her 17 year old son never masturbated because there was nobody to teach him. I bet nobody taught the blessed virgin Bristol to fuck either, but she seems to have figured it out.

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  46. Sue said on August 11, 2015 at 7:55 pm

    Sherri, I heard Scott Walker’s going to give the keynote speech at this year’s College of Obstetrics and Gynecology conference. It’s titled “Here’s What You’re Doing Wrong”.
    Seriously, though, I disagree with the article you linked. I think Scott Walker truly believes that there are alternatives, only sometimes they don’t work out, and then it’s God’s will that the mother dies. He’s scary, and his amazing dweebishness covers a lot of nastiness.

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  47. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 11, 2015 at 8:08 pm

    My 1973 sex ed was segregated by gender, and entirely anatomically plumbingesque, with a little bit of vocab (words like “smegma” & “frenulum”).

    My son’s 2012 sex ed was the first year after the school board removed the previous “abstinence preferred” program, and went to an “evidence based” curriculum, but as far as I could tell, it was mostly about diseases and how to not get them. I tried to ask gently around the edges (15 year olds so love being asked questions in general, let alone about the sex ed module) if subjects like “respect” and “communications” came up, and his answer was something about “yeah, when you should tell your, um, partner if you have, uh, a disease or something.”

    I got an opening later that gave me a chance to ask if anything came up (in the mixed classes, as it’s done now) about pregnancy and maternal health and childbirth, and he looked at me incredulously. “Dad, it’s a class about sex, not about babies.” “Ah.” I replied.

    This is reputed to be one of the five or six finest school districts in the state. Color me underwhelmed, even with my Christian humanist hat on, let alone as a mildly conservative husband and father of a traditional bent.

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  48. Sherri said on August 11, 2015 at 8:13 pm

    I agree Sue, I think Walker truly believes there are alternatives. Just like I think Todd Akin really believes that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. Republicans hate it when they’re accused of a war on women, but when it walks like a duck…

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  49. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 11, 2015 at 8:15 pm

    The “abstinence preferred” program was not overtly and entirely “wait until marriage,” but it would have taken a thicker brick than Purdue is built of not to figure out that was their point. Lots of data about how unreliable condoms are, especially when purchased in a truck stop restroom. Nice lady teaching it when I sat in on a week’s set of classes back in ’92, but it got more militant and maladroit as the years went on, and they made it easy for me to agree it was time for them to go from the district I now live in.

    The earlier lady decided she wanted to be more explicit about her goals, and went on to do a program she carried around to church youth groups and Christian schools that culminated in the presentation of “Grady’s Rules,” which you still see on t-shirts at sporting events and fairground rodeos here in the county. Which I share for your consideration and/or mockery as time and the thread permits.

    Grady’s Rules – HOW CAN YOU TELL IF YOU’RE IN LOVE ENOUGH TO GET MARRIED?

    1. Imagine the person you think you’re in love with horribly disfigured. Burnt,
    missing a nose, or scarred. Would you still love them?

    2. Imagine the person you think you’re in love with, bald. Would you still love them?

    3. Imagine that person you think you’re in love with, having no teeth. Imagine kissing
    them, imagine the family photo. Are you still in love?

    4. Imagine the person you think you’re in love with 300 pounds overweight. Would
    you still love them?

    5. Imagine the person you think you’re in love with, looking real fine. However,
    mentally something has gone wrong. They’ve developed a mental illness. Perhaps
    they are addicted to alcohol or drugs, or they’ve become depressed and cry for days
    refusing to leave the house. Mental illness is treatable, but nothing that’s going to be
    fixed overnight. Do you love them enough to stay?

    6. Imagine the person you think you’re in love with, unable to have sex with you –
    ever! Are you still in love?

    If the answer to all six questions is yes, you’re in love. If your partner answers all six
    yes, you’ve got the greatest gift! AND, if the answer to #6 is yes, then I guess sex can
    wait, can’t it?

    You see, real love takes the fat with the skinny, the bald with the hairy, the just brushed
    my teeth breath with the I forgot this morning breath.

    Most importantly, it takes the times you can enjoy each other in every way, with the
    times one of you is sick and dying, and you have to love that person enough to change
    their diaper, because they can’t go to the bathroom any other way.

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  50. Jolene said on August 11, 2015 at 9:14 pm

    I think that Kevin Drum article that Sherri linked gives Scott Walker too much credit. I don’t think he is capable of holding on to a thought as complex as the (misbegotten) theory of what constitutes abortion described in the article. In my view, his thinking is pretty much limited to the idea that his immediate goal is to win the Iowa primary, and the best way to do that is to ensure that nobody can get to the right of him on the abortion issue.

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  51. coozledad said on August 11, 2015 at 9:42 pm

    Cleaning up one of many of George Bush’s fuckups. Anyone with sense who witnessed the militarization of the police after 9/11 knew what Bush intended by giving cops tanks. They’re to control people what ain’t Republicans.
    http://juanitajean.com/no-shoot-sherlock-7/

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  52. alex said on August 11, 2015 at 9:52 pm

    Jeff, Grady’s Rules aren’t about sex ed. That’s a career ed screening questionnaire for kids considering work in health care. If you’re grossed out, you get laned into retail (quick marts) or factory work (building pallets).

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  53. beb said on August 11, 2015 at 11:44 pm

    Kevin Drumm does have a point that some people willingly define certain medical procedures as not-abortions on twisted technical grounds. Enough so that Walker’s claim that there’s always another way is not entirely false. But I’d still classify it as a pants-on-fire level falsehood.

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  54. Dexter said on August 12, 2015 at 12:00 am

    brian: It’s great you are about to vacate the Residence Inn once and forevermore.
    Back to the south side and South Side.

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  55. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 12, 2015 at 12:04 am

    How can you work in a Qwik Mart if you’re easily grossed out? Unless you get the day shift, and it takes twenty years to get that gig.

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