Ramblings on politics, film, music, literature, current events, pop culture, lists, dirty words, trapezoids, birds, cartoons and any other damned thing that strikes my synapses. A 39ish-year-old freelance journalist and writer living with his wife and baby daughter in the hardscrabble environs of Oklahoma, Chase McInerney now spends much of his time frozen in stark, cold sweat-inducing, gut-percolating fear. For it will be soon .
.. yes, very, very soon.
I Feel Your Pain, but Not Mine
S. Sen. Sam Browback that would require abortion-seeking women to be offered anesthesia for the fetus because "at this stage of development, an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain.
"
Bottom line: Who the hell knows what a four- or five-month-old fetus can or can't feel? Granted, certain hot-button social issues are destined for perpetual debate -- abortion, the death penalty, Yankees v. Red Sox -- since, after all, they are largely matters of one's personal belief system.
But it is particularly galling and disingenuous when the zealots on both sides of the abortion fight try masking their ideological obsession in peripheral pursuits, such as the bogus Browback bill and its conceit that is based on an unknowable.
Hell, I can understand an ardent pro-life legislator pushing for a Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade better than I can understand making shit up and slapping it on to proposed legislation.
I can understand an ardent pro-choicer pushing for a Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade better than I can understand the desperate insistence that the Constitution includes an explicit right to privacy (there should be, perhaps, but many liberal-minded legal scholars concede that one does not exist).
But let's stop letting the real debate get clouded by arguments about whether unicorns can fly.
Battles
Not that the blogging universe is exactly crying out for yet another weigh-in on the Cindy Sheehan media circus, but here's mine. Please forgive the lateness of my unsolicited opinion, but I've been lost in my own world these past few weeks, what with pre-baby stuff and whatnot ...
Let me just say this: Despite my own considerable disgust with our Prevaricator in Chief, I don't share the scorn of my pal and so many others who say he should meet with Sheehan, the anti-war protester whose 24-year-old son is among the more than 1,800 U.S.
troops killed in Iraq.
While I believe the Iraq War was and is a deadly and tragically unnecessary mistake, I don't see what real-world purpose would be served by Bush sidling down the driveway for a chat with Sheehan. It's a lose-lose proposition for him, and it will neither further the public debate over Iraq policy nor placate a grieving mother.
You can sympathize with Cindy Sheehan's pain and passion, but that doesn't justify whatever she wants.
Whether or not she has some crackpot ideas, as the right-wing goon squad purports, is immaterial.
First, no one's mind would be changed by such a meeting.
And if the hypothetical discussion between the mother and the mofo were to be private, as it surely would be (assuming, for an instant, it will ever happen), it's assured that Sheehan would characterize Bush's demeanor as cold and uncaring. He would be at the mercies of whatever she said unless cameras were rolling on the actual confrontation, and that scenario would expose the Prez to all sorts of media stunts that he doesn't need to risk.
As arrogant and detestable as Christopher Hitchens is, I'll concede of the Sheehan demand is on the money:
"Any citizen has the right to petition the president for redress of grievance, or for that matter to insult him to his face.
But the potential number of such people is very large, and you don't have the right to cut in line by having so much free time that you can set up camp near his drive. Then there is the question of civilian control over the military, which is an authority that one could indeed say should be absolute. The military and its relatives have no extra claim on the chief executive's ear.
Indeed, it might be said that they have less claim than the rest of us, since they have voluntarily sworn an oath to obey and carry out orders."
Finally, a strange precedent would be set, one in which the president of the United States, a guy ostensibly saddled with the busiest schedule and greatest burdens in the free world, must personally hear out the complaints of every fallen soldier's kin.
OK, granted, it's not as if he seems to be that busy, what with clearing brush on his ranch (Crawford, Texas, apparently has an endless supply of photo-op brush), but y'know, there's always the possibility that vacation will end and then Dumbya will have to get back to work, and pronto.
There are a lot of serious questions to ponder with Iraq -- such as an exit strategy, for one -- but the Cindy Sheehan spectacle isn't worth the ink.
Still, he seems all a-twitter about me and Mrs. Chase having a baby.
This is the actual congratulations email I received from Buck:
"Buck Nekkid"
07/29/2005 01:58 PM
To: "Chase"
Subject: RE: Hey, baby lover
Well, congrats!
Do you have an opinion on this?
You know what They say - girls are easier to raise. And They are never wrong.
Zak has one, and it doesn't seem to cause too much trouble. Although Zak
does seem to spend a lot of evenings at dance recitals.
Still .
.. eventually there'll be slumber parties.
And by then I'm sure
you'll have your whole house wired with web cams for your good buddy, Buck.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chase
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 2:51 PM
To: Buck Nekkid
Subject: Hey, baby lover
I'm gonna have a girl. We just found out today.
. hence, another installment of your favorite and ours, Sex Tape Derby. We'll make it easy on you with this hypothetical: You must watch someone have sex on video, or DVD, if you prefer your masturbatory material with a clearer image and director commentary.
Who would you choose to watch, if you were forced to choose? Post your selections in the comments section and we'll call it a day.
For an exhaustive explanation of STD (get it?
), click .
1. Disco Diddle: or ?
2. or ?
3.
or ?
4. or ?
5. The Golden Age of Throwdown: or ?
6.
Method Monkey Slappin': or young ?
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