With Parental Notice repeal, Illinois No. 1, Texas dead last in abortion rights

Two abortion laws, one in Texas, and one yesterday in Illinois, place Texas and Illinois at opposite ends of the struggle for abortion rights.

Illinois voted 32-22 in the Senate Tuesday, and 62-51 in the House yesterday to rid Illinois of parental notice of abortion by minor teens that had been in effect since 2013. It required abortion providers to notify parents if any teen under 18 sought the procedure.

Parental notice is fine for teens with a functional parental relationship. They do it voluntarily. For those without, it is a nightmare, such as teens suffering from sexual abuse, neglect or physical abuse from an adult family member.

Even the legal option of going to court to get an exception from a judge for the above reasons is a nightmare, having to relive such abuse in public, if it can conveniently be obtained at all.

No normal parent is harmed by the repeal. Those that oppose it for personal, moral reasons suffer imaginary harm. They don’t have to endure the real harm it imposes on innocent teens with a troubled home life trapped by the degradation the law imposes on them.

With Illinois vaulting to the top of all 50 states in abortion rights, Texas remains mired in last place with its 6 week threshold allowing opportunistic Texans to become bounty hunters, tracking down abortion providers simply giving women the health care every woman deserves.

Maybe Texas should slightly alter their state song to ‘Deep in Heartless Texas.’

Vaccine mandates terrific...mask mandates not so

If everyone got vaccinated covid would go poof and thousands would not die needlessly. That said I’m no longer for mask mandates. Good at start of pandemic. Likely saved thousands of lives.

As the cases and fatalities went down I welcomed the new window notice ‘Masks required for non-vaccinated.’ Mine came off.

While mandatory masking may still offer some residual protection, mandating them may do more harm than good by driving the fanaticism of the anti-vaxxers who view them as governmental overreach. By dropping mask mandates, making them advisory to the unvaccinated, we may spur more anti-vaxxers to come over to our side….and promote herd immunity.

Cold War with China represents 2 existential threats to human survival

The 2 existential threats to human survival are nuclear war and climate destruction. By ramping up its new Cold War against China, the U.S. increases both threats.

The most ominous is nuclear war. Tho its 350 nukes pail to America’s 5,500, we can’t rule out their use by both sides if war breaks out. Last nite in his CNN Town Hall, President Biden reiterated his commitment to go to Taiwan’s defense if China attacks. He didn’t mention how this is required by America’s national security interests because there are none. Beginning with Trump and continuing with Biden, the U.S. has abandoned its ‘strategic ambiguity’ regarding Taiwan’s defense which made unclear whether we’d go to war over Taiwan. No more. Combined with America’s endless military provocations in China’s neighborhood, it’s no wonder the chances of war are rising.

But simply avoiding nuclear winter is not enough. Unless the U.S. and China stop their schoolyard bluster and start cooperating, Mother Earth faces existential destruction from climate change. That’s because together, China and the U.S. product 42% of fossil fuel consumption. Even if all other 193 countries comply with carbon emission reduction guidelines, it will not be enough to offset that of the world’s two most gluttonous fossil fuel emitters.

We must push back against the continuity in American governance that demands we compete rather than cooperate with China to win the battle of the 21st century. Unless we do, it will be a pyrrhic victory, with the winner inheriting a world demolished by nuclear winter or uninhabitable summer.

Think about that Mr. Biden the next time you beat the war drums, both economically and militarily, with China.

I wish I had Critical Race Theory in Byrne School back in the 50's

 I started my personal journey in Critical Race Theory (CRT) back in ’63 upon entering University of Chicago in Hyde Park. After 18 years in then all white Garfield Ridge, I quickly realized what educators taught me at Byrne School and Kelly High was the lily white version of the Civil War and its aftermath, Reconstruction.  

 

It was pretty simple. Lincoln freed the slaves and everything thereafter was hunky dory. Except for the Carpetbaggers (white Northerners) and Scalawags (their Southern cohorts, white and black) who tried and failed to overturn noble Southern culture in their failed venture called Reconstruction.    

 

Fifty-eight years after that journey began, I still learn new history which reinforces the current effort to push CRT down into the primary grades. A new book, ‘The Failed Promise’ Robert S. Levine’s history of the Reconstruction era provides much insight that was whitewashed out of my early history lessons.  

 

President Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson had one of the most wildly diverging trajectories in U.S. history. He nabbed the 1864 VP nod with Lincoln to balance the ticket as he the only Southern senator to oppose secession. He championed against secession and slavery thruout the state and was nearly assassinated for his efforts. As Governor General of Tennessee during the war, he became a hero to blacks for his pronouncements to end slavery and grant voting to black Union soldiers and landowners. In a famous 1864 speech he called himself the Black Moses in his advocacy of black advancement. Even Radical Republicans viewed him as being more pro-black than Lincoln.  

 

But upon succeeding to the presidency April 15, 1864, a switch was tripped in Johnson’s soul, exposing his lifelong racism. He refused to pursue punishment for secession leaders and sought rebel states Union re-entry without any protections whatsoever for freed slaves. He viewed any such attempt as inevitably leading to race war. Instead, it was Johnson’s obstructionism that allowed the white South to embark on one sided terror against blacks seeking help and their white supporters. Thousands died and 4 million were related to non-slavery peonage in the South.    

 

The Radical Republicans were only called that because they insisted on both citizenship and suffrage for the freed slaves. Terming their efforts ‘radical’ forever discredited them in the eyes of us susceptible school kids taught a largely white version of the era a century later.     

 

Sadly, it was widespread racism thruout the country that aided Johnson’s successful efforts to have black rights and suffrage suppressed. And the wise and prescient writings and speeches of eminent black leader Frederick Douglass were also a casualty of the false narrative we were spoon fed in school as kids. He was largely invisible back then.  

 

Sadly, the words Critical Race Theory may be unfortunate as they're being used to inflame opponents of teaching the full and true history of Reconstruction and our racial history. They're being used like the words ‘Defund the Police’ are to oppose sensible efforts at police reform. But one CRT supporter nailed it in a local paper, “It’s not a theory…it’s history.”  

With Parental Notice repeal, Illinois No. 1, Texas dead last in abortion rights

Two abortion laws, one in Texas, and one yesterday in Illinois, place Texas and Illinois at opposite ends of the struggle for abortion rights.

Illinois voted 32-22 in the Senate Tuesday, and 62-51 in the House yesterday to rid Illinois of parental notice of abortion by minor teens that had been in effect since 2013. It required abortion providers to notify parents if any teen under 18 sought the procedure.

Parental notice is fine for teens with a functional parental relationship. They do it voluntarily. For those without, it is a nightmare, such as teens suffering from sexual abuse, neglect or physical abuse from an adult family member.

Even the legal option of going to court to get an exception from a judge for the above reasons is a nightmare, having to relive such abuse in public, if it can conveniently be obtained at all.

No normal parent is harmed by the repeal. Those that oppose it for personal, moral reasons suffer imaginary harm. They don’t have to endure the real harm it imposes on innocent teens with a troubled home life trapped by the degradation the law imposes on them.

With Illinois vaulting to the top of all 50 states in abortion rights, Texas remains mired in last place with its 6 week threshold allowing opportunistic Texans to become bounty hunters, tracking down abortion providers simply giving women the health care every woman deserves.

Maybe Texas should slightly alter their state song to ‘Deep in Heartless Texas.’