International Women's Day

Rachel Carson


I will conclude by day in honor of Rachel Carson, the unsung hero to women's health.  Rachel Carson wrote a book entitled "Silent Spring," portraying a world dominated by chemicals.


Her writing was noted in the Congress of the United States of American and enacted sound legislation in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  


She died of breast cancer before her time, but, her activism has insured the lives and health of the Americans that have come after her.  


Rachel Carson was the bravest woman I have ever witnessed, bar none, as she went up against incredible power based in wealth.  She is a hero.  Her contribution to the health of every American in the USA is never stated in the context it should be understood.  


In her honor, Audubon awards "The Rachel Carson Award," to women in conservation.  

Welcome to Audubon's Women in Conservation website (click titel to entry - thank you) where you will meet some of the most influential and important women in today's American conservation and environmental world. The immense talent, expertise and energy of these women is changing everything, advancing the goals and meeting the challenges of our ever more important environmental movement.

Women have long played a leading role in the environment. Among the earliest American conservationists was Harriet Hemenway, who in 1896 brought her friends together to defend birds from being slaughtered for their plumes' use in fashion. In doing so, she helped to found the Audubon Society, now over one hundred years old and one of the most effective conservation organizations in the world.

Since 2004, Audubon has recognized women in conservation with the organization's prestigious Rachel Carson Award. Rachel Carson Award winners have been among the most distinguished in their fields and again this year Audubon salutes an outstanding group of leaders.

This is an ultrasound of an eight week fetus.

When a woman wants to abort a fetus because of an unwanted pregnancy there is absolutely no reason to have an ultrasound done.  


The only diagnosis that needs to be made is the presence of a pregnancy and that can be obtained with absolute accuracy through serum specimens.


The laws the radical right legislatures are passing is harassment of women.  There is absolutely no medical standard that demands an ultrasound to validate a pregnancy.  There is no 'informed consent' law that demands every person that signs a consent has to have intimate knowledge of the body part being treated.  


In other words, does a patient with brain cancer have to understand an image of the tumor before signing informed consent.  Informed consent is entered into by physicians as a witness to the fact he or she has given them all the necessary information regarding their treatment.  The most important aspect of informed consent is the potential side effects of a person's treatment.  For a patient with a brain tumor that submits to chemotherapy there are understood outcomes and understood side effects, that is the definition LEGALLY of informed consent.

By Michael Bodine
Capital News Service

RICHMOND, Va. – The much-debated bill(click title to entry - thank you) that requires ultrasound testing before abortions has been signed into law by Gov. Bob McDonnell.

The bill, proposed by Delegate Kathy Byron, R-Lynchburg, has been among the most hotly contested social issues in this year’s General Assembly. It even sparked national criticism.

McDonnell signed House Bill 462 into law on Wednesday. Because the measure was amended multiple times, it first had to endure two votes from each house of the General Assembly this session.

After signing the legislation, McDonnell issued a statement that acknowledged both sides of the mandatory-ultrasound debate. He also stated why he saw it as a necessary measure....

The bills passed into law by extremist right wing legislators are a burden to women.  A woman's integrity is assaulted by this legislation.  These laws are without moral, ethical or medical basis.  These are religious endeavors that insult the USA Constitution while attempting to break down the separation of church and state.


The reason this continues is because the Social Conservatives have been pandered to for their votes and their monies for a very long time by Republican politicians.  They sincerely want this country in lock step with evangelical christian dogma at any cost as part of their promise to god.  The USA and its moral content has been a bargaining chip for Republicans. The social conservatives are tired of waiting and this is exactly what is transpiring.


I mean it sincerely when I state this is unethical legislation.  It removes the basis of a woman's right to direct her own conscience, her relationship with god/spirituality and be master of her future and the well being of whatever children she chooses to give birth to in or out of a relationship with another person.  THAT is unethical.  Taking away self determination and free will from women is unethical practice of the law.


The laws assault a woman's spiritual relationship with her god.  Just because the state condemns her freedom to decide and secures the life of a fetus, does not make her a moral person in the eyes of those seeking to call the USA redeemed of all its sins.  God is a the only determining factor in that relationship and that is completely intangible regardless of the preacher or the Pope.


So, the fact there is a separation of church and state is a matter of fact and not fantasy.  The USA Constitution cannot, no matter how any prosecutor tries, jail  a woman for her thoughts and if those thoughts betray her relationship with god that cannot be litigate.  If anyone believes it can be litigated they can be referred to the Salem Witch Trials as proof.


It is immoral to put one life already in process ahead of one that is not.  That's right, IMMORAL.  It is like treating women as though they are giving birth to a litter and the life of the bitch is less valuable than the puppies.  


A woman has a right to self-determination and that includes the relationship with god, the time she chooses to have children and not have children.   


The legislation enacted in the states by extremist right wing lawmakers is immoral, unethical and have no, absolutely NO medical basis to exist.  The laws are unconstitutional and violate current precedent, however, the extremist right wing is counting on corruption in the Supreme Court to rid this country of its democracy at any cost.


Did I mention the legislation is sexist?  

A strict constructionist and his regressive agenda for The Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - MAY 20: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia testifies before the House Judiciary Committee's Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee on Capitol Hill May 20, 2010 in Washington, DC. Scalia and fellow Associate Justice Stephen Breyer testified to the subcommittee about the Administrative Conference of the United States. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)


Thursday, Mar 8, 2012 
Updated 1:18 PM EST

...A group of students (click title to entry - thank you) calling itself the "Scalia Welcoming Committee" says it will protest outside the lecture beginning at 6 p.m. They claim Scalia represents "unjust and oppressive political systems" and "corporate control of elections."

Members of the "Occupy" movement also plan to protest. The movement is critical of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in the Citizens United case that declared political spending by corporations and unions free speech and made it possible for super PACs to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.

Scalia voted with the 5-4 majority in the case.


Wesleyan University Maps and Directions (click here)


The hypocrisy of Scalia is profound.  He believes in strict construction according to the founders of the USA Constitution so long as the founders are NOT in opposition to his personal agenda.

Justice Scalia says Thomas Jefferson was irrational

Justice Scalia objects to the intellectual pursuits of Thomas Jefferson as if Jefferson himself were one of the Apostles.  If Thomas Jefferson wanted to toy with his Bible while attending to Christian beliefs under the First Amendment he had the right to do it.  I would like to know how many Christian preachers do the exact same thing every Sunday and get away with it.  I mean really, do we have to consider Scalia the only one with God on his side.

Impetus to war. Is Iran counting on it?

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, (click here) Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, surrounded by media while arriving for the IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna on Wednesday

VIENNA - Six world powers (click title to entry - thank you) called on Iran on Thursday to let international inspectors visit a military site where the UN nuclear watchdog says development work relevant to nuclear weapons may have taken place.

In a joint statement at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the powers also voiced "regret" about Iran's stepped-up campaign to enrich uranium - activity which can have both civilian and military purposes....

Tomorrow's headlines read, "Israel successfully bombs Iranian nuclear facilities, approximately 200 dead."  Now, anyone in their right minds would immediately applaud Israel for doing what was necessary and preventing millions of people from dying and possibly wiping out an entire race of people with a nuclear weapon's explosion.  And they would be right.  Several hundred dead at Iranian nuclear facilities would be a small price for the world to pay for salvation of millions.


However, what happens next?


Do the world's militaries respond?  China?  Russia?  France?  Great Britain?  The USA?  with nuclear strikes of their own.  I suppose that is a scenario, but, it isn't likely and Iran needs to consider that.  The most likely scenario immediately is the world will wonder if the 200 dead were necessary at all.  Israel will fall into suspicion of engaging a war that was unnecessary and again will be 'the bad guy' to millions of Muslims around the globe.  That, in turn, will result in more and more hatred of The West and more suspicion of Asia as to their priorities for nations such as Indonesia and its Muslim majority.


In a day or two after the strikes by Israel there will be retaliation by the Shi'ites of Iran in alliance with Iraq giving permission for Iranian forces to roll across the deserts to launch attacks on Israel.  Iranian war ships prepared for strikes on Israel from sea will confront USA Naval strength and we will be off to the races, still once again in the Middle East.


Israel reflects on the Six Day War as it prepares to defend the nation and accepts those scenarios as a realistic outcome.  But, then it is only six days and Israel will be safe and Iran will be thwarted for now.


The 'for now' is the real danger, because, following strikes against Iran will the Shi'ites sincerely be in danger of a genocidal world with the ability to yield such horrific violence against another country of minorities in the world.  See, Iran and Israel are very much a like.  They both are sovereign nations to minority ethnicities.  So, following a strike by Israel what then will be Iran's response?  The real response might be to do nothing.  It was a gamble all along anyway and it was brinkmanship that was to happen or not with a 50/50 outcome.  The Iranians know that.  


They have sustained the blows of it's populous against it's leadership due to sanctions.  Iran has cried, "Poor, me;" for a long time due to sanctions and its supposed innocence to all of Israel's complaining.  But, Iran has also brought its own disadvantage, because, it will not allow transparency to what it coins as the peaceful use of nuclear technology.


The facts of the matter is the global community has failed itself, regardless of the outcomes of another six day war.  The real problem is the lack of enforcement of Non-Proliferation in the manner it was intended and that is to reduce the nuclear footprint globally.  


We have seen the worst of the science.  We have witnessed all too clearly the destruction and death of weapons of nuclear technology.  The latest venture into the extremes of Earth's own forces have imperiled the lives in Japan with the overwhelming catastrophe following a tsunami.  As if the tsunami wasn't enough, the backup systems to a series of reactors failed nearly immediately and still today the Japanese are suffering again at the hand of atomic radiation.


Iran creates a great many questions for the global community to answer.  It is a sensitive ethnic populous with the need to feel secure.  The past indiscretions of a decade long 'abuse of power president' has placed a higher priority on nuclear proliferation than non-proliferation.  George Walker Bush believes, along with his party, that once a technology is unveiled and is the most powerful answer to national security, it is inevitable that is the ONLY answer to any nation.  


The USA is sadly a nation unable to broker peace so much as instill the impetus of war.  The USA no longer provides an example to the world of what is possible so much as what is not possible when it comes to a sustaining peace.  The brink Israel has brought itself is all too familiar as an outcome of the discourse of years of attempts to end a stalemate about Iran's nuclear programs.  Do we conclude a global stability of power is impossible and the only resolve to any struggle is death of citizens at the hands of leaders unable to reconcile their priorities?


If Iran and Israel teaches us a lesson at this point in their histories, it is the world is indeed an uncivilized place when the leadership entrusted with the lives of so many see no path forward, except, death of others.