Sometimes a writer is so outrageous that she virtually paralyzes her reader. Case in point: Sara Paretsky’s column in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune Perspective section entitled, “Bush’s pick a reminder of what’s not right.” Paretsky, an identity blurb says, is the creator of the Warshawski novels. Fiction, we presume. Well, here is a piece of fiction for you.
Paretsky Off the Wall on Keroack
Paretsky is not happy with President George Bush’s appointed of Eric Keroack to head the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs. Keroack opposes premarital sex, contraception and abortion, and he promotes abstinence for the unmarried. Paretsky is furious! How dare Keroack call fornication a form of “germ warfare,” and say that contraception “demeans women,” when these perversions are sacred rights in Sara’s book?
Capitalizing on the similarity of Eric Keroack’s name with the old time beatnik, Jack Kerouac, who was always seeking a father in his poetry, she says Keroack (Bush’s guy) is trying to be a “daddy” to women and girls.
Paretsky drags her granddaughters, goddaughters and nieces into her tirade against sexual morality. She says under Keroack’s rules her goddaughters can’t have abortions, her nieces can’t have contraceptives, and her granddaughters can’t learn the glories of condoms. She says Laura Bush carried only one pregnancy to term, then lists disgusting possible reasons for this, while omitting mention of Laura Bush’s several miscarriages.
The disgusting column says George Bush is responsible for 30 million women losing their lives or health in the past seven years, by denying them the education and travel they needed to get reproductive health care. I have never read any of Paretsky’s other fiction, but this is enough for me. While I happen to like good fiction, this column is just too off the wall!
Pelosi’s House Not So Open
Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington D. C. recently went to Nancy Pelosi’s open house party in the Cannon Building. He was not allowed in. It appears that the Divine Pelosi has turned “The People’s House” in to “Pelosi’s Palace.”
It was dumb of Pelosi’s people not to let Pat Mahoney into the party. Pat will now tell the whole country that, based on personal evidence, the big promoter of openness and tolerance has already chosen the path of exclusion and narrow-mindedness. It was unwise to treat Rev. Mahoney like dirt. It’s like trying to fool Mother Nature, and it isn’t nice.
Stem Cell Kill Wish
Another round of victories from use of adult stem cells, this time the cells from human amniotic fluid. They can transform into new bone, heart muscle, blood vessels, fat, nerves and liver tissue. Successes so far have been universal in every cell type attempted.
Meanwhile, absolutely no success stories from use of embryonic stem cells. In fact, rather than successes we have stories of gross failures, odd growths, tumors, teeth and hair. Yet the baby killer types continue to promise sick people the world, but have absolutely no success stories to trot out. Nothing but “pie in the sky by and by” arguments prevail among those who will not let go of the idea that victories will come from using human beings as guinea pigs.
There seems to be a kill wish here, as though they must have a victory or two from the use of human embryos to prove that killing very young people is justified, thus somehow making abortion acceptable.
Yet, even if some cure or other should result from use of human embryonic stem cells, which it probably won’t, this use of human beings would still be absolutely wrong and immoral. “Thou shalt not murder” is not a suggestion. It’s a Divine command. One breaks it at his own peril. And we do mean peril.
