I have been employed in my area of education for seven months now. Just thought I'd leave an update. Peace and good will, SS
Monday, February 9, 2015
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Graduating next month =)
Hello any readers still out there in cyberspace. The end of net neutrality means that the rich will soon control your access to the thoughts and words of little people like me, so I thought I'd make a final post while I still could. And to think I once believed in trickle-down economics, silly child that I was.
So, here's the scoop on my marriage, career and family. I am still married, even though my husband occasionally endulges in abusive behavior. It happens far less frequently, and ends far more quickly, because I am so close to complete financial self-sufficiency that it is as good as done. Nothing like seriously working on your exit plan to get a man to take you seriously. ;-)
I graduate in May and I have assurance of a well-paying job with "all the hours I want" to quote my potential new supervisor. I am one of the top five graduates in my community college. I have already passed the national registry exam in my field which means I will graduate as a credentialed professional. Can I get an "Amen"?
Our whole family stopped going to church two years ago. My husband has been sleeping in church for years, or going in the back room with his laptop because he was on call. Yes, sometimes it really was work, but other times, Sudoku or Minesweeper were what was calling to him. So when my pastor called me and chewed me out, yelling and calling me insulting names over a facebook post that a) he admitted was true and rational but b) did not admit was hurting his "brand" and might have a potential negative impact on his income if read by reactionary small-minded people who can't understand basic English (his target audience =), my husband had no problem just not going anymore.
My son, great-hearted guy that he is, kept going for awhile, since he doesn't carry other people's grudges. He still loved God and loved being part of the worship band, so continuing to go was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, the pastor was not as emotionally mature as my teenage son. He transferred his hatred towards me over to my son and started treating my son like an enemy instead of a friend. Eventually my son stopped going as well. Thank you, Pastor Todd for freeing us from the confines of the cultish business empire that is today's American evangelical Christianity. Go now, you are forgiven.
My daughter is out of the Air Force and wants no part of the war machine. She saw through it quicker than I did, smart girl that she is. She lives with her boyfriend, a man who clearly dotes on her. He was also raised to go to church every Sunday and be a good American Christian. So much for parents doubling down on religion, eh? Why he won't marry her I don't know (she asked but he turned her down), but this I do know: he seems to truly love my daughter, I know she truly loves him, and they are by all accounts very happy with things the way they are. So, I am happy for them.
My son is a wandering spirit at this point, his heart captured by poetry and art. Where he will end up vocation-wise I do not know, but that is not my journey. He is free to follow his own path, and I will love and accept him wherever that path leads. I want nothing less than for him to follow his conscience and be good to all people to the best of his ability, and nothing more for him than self-sufficiency with generosity. I am confident he will live up to my expectations, such as they are.
So, thank you faithful readers. And thanks to all in the evangelical community who shunned us, condemned us and turned your backs on us. Here outside the wall, with all the other lovers of God and lovers of humanity, the "bleeding hearts and artists", life is truly worth living. My prayer for you is that you too will also eventually escape "the mask of life they had placed upon the face of death"*, i.e. current American evangelical Christianity and all it encompasses.
*Damascus Road by Rich Mullins
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Like a Cancer
My heart just aches for those patients who work so hard to get in remission, then out of nowhere the cancer comes roaring back.
Depression is just like that.
I hate being married to a chronically depressed person who blames me for his depression. It sucks BIG TIME.
Depression is just like that.
I hate being married to a chronically depressed person who blames me for his depression. It sucks BIG TIME.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Acrania: Not a Parasite
Hello, cyberspace! I haven't ranted to you all in quite awhile. Not that I am living rant free, but I am becoming a more peaceful, grounded person (thanks, yoga!) and I don't really have time for my blog what with trying to get my career off the ground and all. So, there's that.
But what I heard yesterday really, REALLY irritates the hell out of me. For many years I was a moderate pro-lifer. I was also very, very ignorant about embryonic/fetal development, all the things that go wrong every day, and what abortion really involved. Oh, I thought I was well-informed, but really I was just well-propagandized. It wasn't until I started studying anatomy/physiology/embryology/fetal development that I ever bothered to seek out information from across the aisle in a meaningful way.
I say "in a meaningful way" because, being the well-educated person that I am, I had at various times in the past started to investigate the pro-choice position. Every single time, however, I was turned back by the (at best ignorant, but probably) stupid, self-righteous, over-the-top rhetoric on the other side of the aisle. Not that there is not a TON of (at best ignorant, but probably) stupid, self-righteous, over-the-top rhetoric on the anti-abortion side- there is. But I thought that if I had to err on one side or the other, I would go pro-life until partial birth abortion wasn't a thing, or technology made early abortion widely available.
Surely, I thought, no person who is truly pro-life could be anti-birth control, morning after pill, or early abortion technology that could terminate a pregnancy long before brain development made fetal thought/feeling a possibility. Sadly, I was very wrong. :(
So, I became pro-choice, especially when the anti-abortion party wanted to both end access to contraception AND defund programs to help born children, like food stamps, Head Start and access to health care. Abandoning infants once born is way, way, WAY WORSE than ending a pregnancy before an embryo/fetus has the possibility of conscious thought or feeling. Both options are way worse than allowing a woman the ability to avoid conception entirely. Who ever could have guessed that the party that called itself pro-life would actually be the party of hunger/illness/ignorance/abandonment for every child NOT lucky enough to be born rich!?! I never would have guessed that was where the so-called "pro-life" party was heading.
Okay, enough foundation laid, on the the title of this post. Acrania/anencephaly is actually one of the more common birth defects. Most end in spontaneous abortion. Some hang on. It is a development problem wherein no skull develops. Brain tissue floats around in amniotic fluid where it is broken down by the enzymes therein and eventually completely eradicated. The only part of the brain that survives is the brain stem, located deep in the interior region of the head continuous with the neck.
The brain stem only controls the automatic nervous system: respiration motion, heart beat, maybe persistalsis, but not sure on that last one. All thought and sensation require a cerebrum and cerebellum, which do not exist in an anencephalic fetus and won't exist long in a fetus with acrania, because soon that fetus WILL BE anencephalic. No ifs, ands, or buts. That's reality people, and the occurrence in gestation is estimated at 1 out of every 1000 births. At birth (dead or alive, just those that make it to delivery) the incidence is closer to 1 out of every 4700 deliveries.
No thought has ever been possible in such a fetus. No sensation has ever been possible in such a fetus. The longest any such delivered fetus has ever lived is ten hours. Hospice care (palliative care) is the only treatment available, and that is for the grieving parents. For the non-sentient fetus, there is no comfort. On the other hand, there is no discomfort either. It is brain dead, with no hope of recovery because it is missing the huge majority of its brain.
I understand that. No brain= no thought or sensation. It's not a hard concept. A person is considered brain dead when the only part of the brain that functions is the brain stem.
But a brain dead fetus is NOT a parasite! Don't insult the intelligence of the American people with this ridiculous rhetoric, pro-choicers. It makes you look stupid and totally de-legitimizes your point.
A parasite is a separate living being (check) which feeds of a host (half a check here, I get your point) but that is a) not the offspring of its host and b) can move to a new host for a new food supply at will. A mosquito, a leech and a tick are all parasites. A baby is an different thing entirely.
A baby who is brain dead is still a human deserving of reverence and respect. It's passing, which happens in the womb as its brain is destroyed by amniotic fluid, is a tragedy. Should abortion be an option for a woman carrying a brain-dead baby? Absolutely! Should abortion be an option for a woman carrying an embryo with no cranium (and no brain yet) who will never truly live (have a functioning brain that can feel, experience consciousness, move at will)? Absolutely!
But this pro-choice tech with whom I spoke yesterday, she completely undermined my faith in her intelligence, the judgement of the people who hired her, and in the moral integrity of the pro-choice movement. Shame on her! Shame on whoever taught her this insulting vocabulary. THIS is the reason so many women of my generation could not identify ourselves as pro-choice.
When I commented to her, "The brain stem is the only part of the brain left, right? It's still there because the heart is beating", this tech indignantly turned on me and emphatically stated, "No! It has no brain! The placenta is keeping the heart beating! It's nothing but a PARASITE!"
Okay, first of all, fuck you for your self-righteous demeanor. Don't assume you know anything about me and my opinions on abortion, simply because I am trying to clarify my understanding of the situation scientifically. If I wanted to be treated that way, I'd still be in church.
But fuck you again for being involved in fetal/maternal medicine and telling me the placenta keeps the baby's heart beating. Any one of my several textbooks will easily prove you wrong, but what about experience and reality? If the placenta keeps the baby's heart beating, then no fetus would ever expire in the womb unless the placenta was a) detached from the uterus (placental abruption) or b) the placenta just stops working (which I have only heard of happening in post-term infants or in some heavy smokers close to term, called a Grade III placenta).
The brain stem controls the automatic nervous system, and a person whose only functioning part of the brain is the brain stem, is called 'brain dead'. This child is dead, only the heart is continuing to beat. While in the womb, mom's body takes care of all the necessary metabolic functions, but it does not make the heart beat. That heart will keep beating for who knows how long, maybe to term, often not, but even that will cease shortly after birth. But, yes, if the heart is beating then the brain stem is functioning in utero. That is a cold stone fact. It doesn't count for much, but it is still a fact. So don't lie to me. I'm not an idiot; I know how to read.
And fuck you the third time for using that tired old cliche, that a malformed, brain-dead fetus is a "parasite". No it's not. It's an accident of nature, a tragedy, and a dead or never living embryo/fetus. It is not a parasite, or else it would just move on to another host. I can't imagine being a mother whose child suffered such tragedy and over-hearing some medical professional call my dead child a "parasite". So fuck you twice for that, bitch.
Maybe it's because I am a hospice volunteer, but that woman's self-righteous diatribe makes me furious. Or maybe that's why I am a hospice volunteer, because I understand death is as much a part of life as being conceived in the first place. Dying people deserve honor, and their families deserve their dead loved ones be treated with dignity.
And calling someone's brain-dead child a parasite is not at all dignified (besides being a completely ridiculous analogy).
You want to know why the pro-life movement has gained so much steam, pro-choicers? Because of lies like the one above. A placenta does not keep a baby's heart beating, it supplies oxygenated blood to the baby's beating heart via the umbilical vein, but it does not make that baby's heart beat. Acrania/anencephaly is a tragedy, a debilitating and fatal tragedy, but one that happens to someone's unborn child. It's not a parasite. Don't insult our intelligence and humanity with lies and derision.
Am I still pro-choice? 100%, but is in spite of, not because of, stupid arguments like the parasite argument. So fuck you, pro-choice movement apologists. Because of your stupid, insulting rhetoric, it is harder for woman to gain access to birth control and/or abortions. If you had been honest and compassionate, and appealed to the better nature of Americans, maybe the so-called "pro-life" movement wouldn't have gained so much traction.
But what I heard yesterday really, REALLY irritates the hell out of me. For many years I was a moderate pro-lifer. I was also very, very ignorant about embryonic/fetal development, all the things that go wrong every day, and what abortion really involved. Oh, I thought I was well-informed, but really I was just well-propagandized. It wasn't until I started studying anatomy/physiology/embryology/fetal development that I ever bothered to seek out information from across the aisle in a meaningful way.
I say "in a meaningful way" because, being the well-educated person that I am, I had at various times in the past started to investigate the pro-choice position. Every single time, however, I was turned back by the (at best ignorant, but probably) stupid, self-righteous, over-the-top rhetoric on the other side of the aisle. Not that there is not a TON of (at best ignorant, but probably) stupid, self-righteous, over-the-top rhetoric on the anti-abortion side- there is. But I thought that if I had to err on one side or the other, I would go pro-life until partial birth abortion wasn't a thing, or technology made early abortion widely available.
Surely, I thought, no person who is truly pro-life could be anti-birth control, morning after pill, or early abortion technology that could terminate a pregnancy long before brain development made fetal thought/feeling a possibility. Sadly, I was very wrong. :(
So, I became pro-choice, especially when the anti-abortion party wanted to both end access to contraception AND defund programs to help born children, like food stamps, Head Start and access to health care. Abandoning infants once born is way, way, WAY WORSE than ending a pregnancy before an embryo/fetus has the possibility of conscious thought or feeling. Both options are way worse than allowing a woman the ability to avoid conception entirely. Who ever could have guessed that the party that called itself pro-life would actually be the party of hunger/illness/ignorance/abandonment for every child NOT lucky enough to be born rich!?! I never would have guessed that was where the so-called "pro-life" party was heading.
Okay, enough foundation laid, on the the title of this post. Acrania/anencephaly is actually one of the more common birth defects. Most end in spontaneous abortion. Some hang on. It is a development problem wherein no skull develops. Brain tissue floats around in amniotic fluid where it is broken down by the enzymes therein and eventually completely eradicated. The only part of the brain that survives is the brain stem, located deep in the interior region of the head continuous with the neck.
The brain stem only controls the automatic nervous system: respiration motion, heart beat, maybe persistalsis, but not sure on that last one. All thought and sensation require a cerebrum and cerebellum, which do not exist in an anencephalic fetus and won't exist long in a fetus with acrania, because soon that fetus WILL BE anencephalic. No ifs, ands, or buts. That's reality people, and the occurrence in gestation is estimated at 1 out of every 1000 births. At birth (dead or alive, just those that make it to delivery) the incidence is closer to 1 out of every 4700 deliveries.
No thought has ever been possible in such a fetus. No sensation has ever been possible in such a fetus. The longest any such delivered fetus has ever lived is ten hours. Hospice care (palliative care) is the only treatment available, and that is for the grieving parents. For the non-sentient fetus, there is no comfort. On the other hand, there is no discomfort either. It is brain dead, with no hope of recovery because it is missing the huge majority of its brain.
I understand that. No brain= no thought or sensation. It's not a hard concept. A person is considered brain dead when the only part of the brain that functions is the brain stem.
But a brain dead fetus is NOT a parasite! Don't insult the intelligence of the American people with this ridiculous rhetoric, pro-choicers. It makes you look stupid and totally de-legitimizes your point.
A parasite is a separate living being (check) which feeds of a host (half a check here, I get your point) but that is a) not the offspring of its host and b) can move to a new host for a new food supply at will. A mosquito, a leech and a tick are all parasites. A baby is an different thing entirely.
A baby who is brain dead is still a human deserving of reverence and respect. It's passing, which happens in the womb as its brain is destroyed by amniotic fluid, is a tragedy. Should abortion be an option for a woman carrying a brain-dead baby? Absolutely! Should abortion be an option for a woman carrying an embryo with no cranium (and no brain yet) who will never truly live (have a functioning brain that can feel, experience consciousness, move at will)? Absolutely!
But this pro-choice tech with whom I spoke yesterday, she completely undermined my faith in her intelligence, the judgement of the people who hired her, and in the moral integrity of the pro-choice movement. Shame on her! Shame on whoever taught her this insulting vocabulary. THIS is the reason so many women of my generation could not identify ourselves as pro-choice.
When I commented to her, "The brain stem is the only part of the brain left, right? It's still there because the heart is beating", this tech indignantly turned on me and emphatically stated, "No! It has no brain! The placenta is keeping the heart beating! It's nothing but a PARASITE!"
Okay, first of all, fuck you for your self-righteous demeanor. Don't assume you know anything about me and my opinions on abortion, simply because I am trying to clarify my understanding of the situation scientifically. If I wanted to be treated that way, I'd still be in church.
But fuck you again for being involved in fetal/maternal medicine and telling me the placenta keeps the baby's heart beating. Any one of my several textbooks will easily prove you wrong, but what about experience and reality? If the placenta keeps the baby's heart beating, then no fetus would ever expire in the womb unless the placenta was a) detached from the uterus (placental abruption) or b) the placenta just stops working (which I have only heard of happening in post-term infants or in some heavy smokers close to term, called a Grade III placenta).
The brain stem controls the automatic nervous system, and a person whose only functioning part of the brain is the brain stem, is called 'brain dead'. This child is dead, only the heart is continuing to beat. While in the womb, mom's body takes care of all the necessary metabolic functions, but it does not make the heart beat. That heart will keep beating for who knows how long, maybe to term, often not, but even that will cease shortly after birth. But, yes, if the heart is beating then the brain stem is functioning in utero. That is a cold stone fact. It doesn't count for much, but it is still a fact. So don't lie to me. I'm not an idiot; I know how to read.
And fuck you the third time for using that tired old cliche, that a malformed, brain-dead fetus is a "parasite". No it's not. It's an accident of nature, a tragedy, and a dead or never living embryo/fetus. It is not a parasite, or else it would just move on to another host. I can't imagine being a mother whose child suffered such tragedy and over-hearing some medical professional call my dead child a "parasite". So fuck you twice for that, bitch.
Maybe it's because I am a hospice volunteer, but that woman's self-righteous diatribe makes me furious. Or maybe that's why I am a hospice volunteer, because I understand death is as much a part of life as being conceived in the first place. Dying people deserve honor, and their families deserve their dead loved ones be treated with dignity.
And calling someone's brain-dead child a parasite is not at all dignified (besides being a completely ridiculous analogy).
You want to know why the pro-life movement has gained so much steam, pro-choicers? Because of lies like the one above. A placenta does not keep a baby's heart beating, it supplies oxygenated blood to the baby's beating heart via the umbilical vein, but it does not make that baby's heart beat. Acrania/anencephaly is a tragedy, a debilitating and fatal tragedy, but one that happens to someone's unborn child. It's not a parasite. Don't insult our intelligence and humanity with lies and derision.
Am I still pro-choice? 100%, but is in spite of, not because of, stupid arguments like the parasite argument. So fuck you, pro-choice movement apologists. Because of your stupid, insulting rhetoric, it is harder for woman to gain access to birth control and/or abortions. If you had been honest and compassionate, and appealed to the better nature of Americans, maybe the so-called "pro-life" movement wouldn't have gained so much traction.
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