Yesterday's travel section of the New York Times has a nice piece on the Burgh here.
You can view their slideshow here.
So how many of the places mentioned have you visited?
I can check off Brillobox, the Warhol, Matress Factory, Dee's and Zenith, and oh yeah, I have to blog on shit like this because if I have to listen to Obama "clarify" his position on another issue I care about, I'll lose it and have to stop blogging all together.
very nice.
ReplyDeleteThis particular clarification is especially impressive.
ReplyDeleteGet thee to that mythical "center," Sen. Obama, with haste, and never you mind the Constitution.
I wound up Dee's last Saturday less becuase it was a "comfortable dive" and more for the fact that it's still cheap - even by 'Burgh standards. The Stoli & cranberries were less than $4.00!
ReplyDeleteAs to whether one should be drinking vodka in the first place is another story.
- Shawn
I'm not sure why "clarify" was in quotes. It is a clarification. Notwithstanding the two posts at that blog, it seems reasonable that all mental stress is mental health issues, but not all mental health issues are simply stress. So it's consistent to say, "stress alone shouldn't count; because then, everyone can reasonably claim some stress and it's like the regulation is meaningless." Yes, some stress can cause other health problems, but then shouldn't the bar be set somewhere around those other health problems?
ReplyDeleteI believe in abortion rights too, but if we've legislated some restrictions at certain trimesters, we have to allow them to hold meaning at their face-value.
Bram,
ReplyDeleteRead his full statement to the Christian magazine -- he said it had to be a "PHYSICAL" reason. Mental health has been settled law since the day Roe v. Wade was decided. There was a companion case Doe v. Bolton. Doe v. Bolton CLARIFIED that "health" must be broadly defined to include both physical and mental health concerns: "Medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all the factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health."
Obama either completely pandered to the magazine by dialing back settled law to remove mental health or Mr. Constitutional Law Professor didn't know settled law and seriously misspoke. Either way, he was called on it and had to retract more than "clarify."
Furthermore, when he did say he didn't mean what he said he meant, he used every freakin' Republican buzzword: "partial birth abortion" (a meaningless non medical term); "a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family" (does a pastor have to write a permission slip? can she not get one if the husband says no?); "It is not just a matter of feeling blue." Oh fuck, yes! let's prop up the idea that women are going in for third trimester abortions on a whim. If only they, say, had a pint of Haagen Daz instead when they were feeling "blue" (or "periodically when....feeling down") they wouldn't kill babies (or launch an attack on him).
The reality is that late term abortions are 1% of all abortions and third term abortions are about .05%. They are extremely hard to obtain, very expensive and very few places in the US will do them. They are not being done on a whim or as a means of birth control.
The reality is that women have third term abortions when something HORRIFIC has occurred. These are women who have already bought the car seat and decorated the room. Women who want a baby but something has gone fatally wrong with the pregnancy like the baby has a brain growing outside its head or the baby is already dead. Carrying it to term will hurt the mother's physical health (the baby's head is HUGE or it will impact on future fertility). And, no, this isn't something that can always be discovered earlier in the pregnancy.
But, for example, if the baby is already dead, it doesn't necessarily have a PHYSICAL impact on the women's health. But why the HELL should a women have to carry a dead baby in her for two months to make some people happy??? That used to happen in the past and it's happening in some states now because doctors are scared to death of running afoul of stupid terms like "partial birth."
And, no, a dead baby would not be a PHYSICAL reason for terminating a pregnancy because the health exceptions refer to the woman and not the fetus. So in that case, it is a mental health reason as in mentally not being able to deal with people coming up and patting your belly and asking you if it's a boy or girl for two months when you want to answer them with "it's dead."
And, now you've made me write part of the post that I decided that I wasn't going to fuck up my 4th of July weekend by getting into because I am soooo damn tired of everyone playing politics over women's bodies. UGH!