Lost in translation

On a statement issued recently by the Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney, she described the president’s press conference on the war on Iraq as an effort to offer “the same divisiveness and distortions” and the same “rosy rhetoric and continued commitment to a failed strategy”. She also assured the American public of the Democrat’s “commitment to aggressively (fight) the war on terror and ensure America’s security”.

On another front, a group called “Progressive Democrats of America” sponsored a protest in Market Square a few days ago which called for an end of the Iraq occupation. Cyndi Sheehan brought cheers from the audience of about 200 of the faithful after she recommended that the day be devoted to the “brave and wonderful young people who have had their lives stolen by George W. Bush”.

The least of these

Laheigh Poutre is a tragic example of how the frail life of a child can be destroyed when the wayward aims of selfish adults and the oppressively complex and time-consuming bureaucracies of needlessly multi-layered institutions collide.

From her bed at the Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston, where she is being taken care of, Laheigh Poutre may have heard the nurses’ loving notes of encouragement on her twelfth birthday. That is because, unfortunately, there are not too many other responsible adults available who play a nurturing role in this little girl’s life.

Invisible wounds

When a woman goes to the doctor’s office, she defers to the wisdom of the physician to prescribe a remedy. If she is coming with the intention of having an abortion, there is a host of fundamental patient/healer paradigms which have to undergo a dramatic change. Unless the woman’s goal is to remove the baby because she has been informed her life will be in serious jeopardy should she carry it to term, both woman and physician have to yield to the conviction that what is really being removed is nothing that rises above the status of a dispensable appendage or at the most a non-sentient pseudo-person that will not even feel any significant discomfort as it is being evacuated.

Back Breaking Mountain of an Argument

I don’t feel threatened by two people of the same sex who love each other and want to get married. This is a standard response of progressively minded individuals who do not want to appear intolerant towards homosexual marriage. It is also a response designed to end the conversation on the subject.

If one person doesn’t feel personally threatened by the prospect of two individuals of the same sex tying the knot, then there isn’t much else to talk about, is there? Unless someone else feels threatened by it, in which case it is their problem, and not the other person’s, who is indifferent about the whole matter because it doesn’t really affect him or her anyway.

But there is more than meets the eye to this seemingly innocuous and preemptively defensive response to what is after all a very controversial subject.