Two things in the Dayton Daily News (DDN) yesterday made me say, "huh." First, did you realize more women are going into porno and stripping because of the economy? It seems there is a surplus of openings in these professions and women who were "white collar" employees a few short weeks ago, now find the adult entertainment industry the only alternative to unemployment.
Huh.
Second, Dayton's Planned Parenthood would not give any specific numbers to DDN, (they were unavailable), but abortions are up an estimated 4 to 1 over last year. Seems the economy is causing women who planned and "wanted" their babies, (read: not your average oops-I-did-it-again-abortionist) to kill them. The story used a couple with 3 kids. The woman, pregnant with the planned 4th, decided after sitting down to look at the month's bills that they just couldn't do it.
Huh.
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My husband took the boys to Mississippi over Spring Break. I didn't go because my new quarter starts Monday and this one is a doozie. My 13 year old was ecstatic to be away from his computer and game systems, friends, and "civilization" for an entire 5 days.
Not.
So I am alone, and have this great to-do list. Do you know how much can be accomplished without school, meals, cleaning, laundry and other stints of interruption? Start something and not stopping for anything until its done?
Except I just received email from my instructors with assigned reading for the first class, and well, it looks like my well thought out and categorized list is demoted to simply a wish-I-had-time-to-do-these-list.
Are you a fatalist? I wonder if, as I age, as my kids grow and get more independent if I am morphing into one. For instance, today, knowing my men were driving 11 hours straight through to get to Mississippi, I worried about something happening to them.
I mean, what if there was a wreck? What if they were taken from me? Isn't this exactly why the President and Vice President don't travel together? To lose my kids and husband in one event?
What if I was doing something meaningless like scrubbing the toilet, or shopping, making a sandwich and all the sudden I was a childless widow? I just didn't know it yet. Would I forever think, I was scrubbing the toilet when my life changed forever? Would I ever scrub a toilet again?
See. Fatalistic. What the hell is wrong with me?
And yet all day, until I heard from my husband, there it was.
Huh.
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Went to see Jay today. He is looking forward to freedom, getting a little bit harder, less emotional. Maybe its life in prison, or the cognitive behavioral therapy he gets. There is a clarity in his eyes, a realization, a recognition of reality, sans bullshit. It's like watching the little boy inside him die in increments. That sounds much sadder than it is. He can't be a child and an adult at the same time. He's tried. It doesn't work. But, damn.
Going isn't so bad. The inspections, the lengthy process and lectures, the drive, the children, my god the children break your heart, its all so earthy, so barren, so unpleasant. Even worse though? Leaving my brother, the chocolate pudding eating, candy bar begging, and one time fellow Dukes of Hazzard fan, there. Hearing those giant steel doors slamming shut behind me as go to my vehicle after the fastest four hours in the history of time, to freedom, knowing he hears them as he heads back to his cage. It's so déjà vu.
What can you do with the walking wounded? Does the method change when the wounds are self-inflicted from ignorance? Why does walking with them seem so, so, little, so small, so a band-aid on a mortal wound?
It's painful to go there, to watch him locked up like an animal, to see his pain.
And yet, when we sit in that stuffy room full of felons, its easy to see everyone else as a criminal, a low-life who got exactly what they deserved. But they're someone's son, someone's daddy, someone's brother, and if I forget it, the tears, the long fierce hugs, and the children help remind me.
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I watched a documentary on HBO, part of it at least, the other day. It was about a hog farm here in Ohio. When a female pig gets sick, they put it in a stall with others until they get enough of them to take outside and hang. They wrap a chain around the neck, then pick it up with a front loader until the pig chokes to death. The hog kicks and screams for 2-5 minutes before it dies.
They smash the heads of piglets in with a hammer, or just knock it against a rail or something.
Is that cruelty? According to the show, pigs are the 4th most intelligent animal on the planet? Humans, primes, dolphins, pigs? I've never heard that before. I haven't researched it either so take it with a grain of salt.
When I watched that I thought, you know Little Whip wanted to start a foundation for animals which educated farmers who wished to participate on how to raise and slaughter animals for food in more humane ways. It might cost consumers a few extra dollars but I think its worth it. I mean, if we can spare the dime between working at strip clubs and getting abortions.