Or, I need a more interesting life. Or, some combination of the two.
Kate Harding’s essay in Salon is a must-read. So go read it. Right now.
1. Obama winning the election. Unlike a lot of people I know who are already frustrated with him for his cabinet picks and his unfortunate pick of Rick Warren to give the inaugural benediction, I’m waiting to see what he does in office before passing judgement. So my opinion of him might change in 2009, but for 2008 I have to put his victory as the top thing of the year.
2. The first 25 minutes or so of Wall-E, before they go into space. Beautiful, moving post-apocalyptic brilliance.
3. A couple of really great children’s albums. The Nield’s Rock All Day, Rock All Night is just packed with awesomeness, and is a great mix of traditional and original songs. And, Dan Zanes’ newest album, The Welcome Table, is a wonderful set of North American gospel songs for kids, plus the proceeds go to some great organizations aiding immigrant families.
4. Advent Conspiracy, for working to wake people up to the fact that what Americans spend on Christmas each year could provide every single person in the world with clean water 45 times over.
5. Wendy Bernard’s Custom Knits, which may well be the best knitting book to come out of the craft’s resurgence. It gets my vote, at least.
6. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not great art, by any means, but as much as I keep saying it’s not that great and I’m done watching, I keep watching. I’d say it’s my favorite show that premiered in 2008, as I’m pretty sure it’s the only one of them I watch.
7. Finally, you can find daily religious news and opinions from a progressive perspective in one place: Religion Dispatches.
8. More chain pizza restaurants carrying NY-style thin crust pizzas. No, they don’t even come close to approximating the taste of the pizza you can get in central NJ, but for those of us pining for that pizza in the Midwest, they’re an acceptable substitute.
9. I’m kind of cheating, because they came out in 2007, but they were on DVD in 2008, so I think they can count. For the Bible Tells Me So and Lars and the Real Girl were the most heart-breaking and then heart-warming movies I saw all year.
10. YouTube videos of pandas sneezing. Does that even need to be explained?
Yeah, I’m thrilled about Obama. Thrilled. Not so much because I think Obama, as a wise commentator noted, farts cinnamon buns, but because, as other wise commentators noted, I saw the people at Grant Park last night–all ages, races, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities–and that’s the “real America” I want to live in.
(I’m also thrilled because, as you can see, my Sarah-Palin-induced brain lock is over! Now that she has been neutralized as a national political threat, I can form complete sentences and I don’t feel like throttling complete strangers. Hallelujah!)
But, I notice that, while a lot of people are mentioning the disappointing results of the gay marriage amendment ballots in a few states, nobody is talking about the three abortion ballots, all of which were defeated. South Dakota’s proposed abortion ban (which had an exception for the life and health of the mother, as well as for rape and incest) was defeated by 55/45. Colorado’s proposed “human life amendment,” which would have defined all human life from the moment of fertilization as legal persons entitled to all protections due legal persons, was resoundly defeated, by a margin of 73/27. And, California’s Prop 4 which would have required parental notification for minors having an abortion, appears to be headed for defeat.
What does this mean? What does it mean that even South Dakota can’t pass an abortion ban, even when it has exceptions for life, health, and rape/incest? I tend to think–although perhaps I’m just optimistic–that it means that abortion’s legality may fade as a national issue. If South Dakota can’t get enough public support to ban elective abortions, it’s hard to imagine that, if Roe were overturned, many states would be able to do so. It seems likely that, should Roe be overturned and abortion’s legality left up to the states, most if not the vast majority of states would continue to allow legal, elective abortions.
(On a side note, somebody brought up a very interesting point regarding Roe the other day that I’d never heard or considered before. All of the laws against post-viability abortions we have are there because of Roe. Because of Roe, states must limit post-viability abortions, just like they must allow pre-viability abortions. If Roe were overturned, there would be nothing stopping states from getting rid of the limits on post-viability abortions. Obviously it wouldn’t matter in terms of actual practical effects, because no woman is going to have a post-viability abortion for the fun of it, but it is theoretically possible that, if Roe were overturned, abortion would actually become less rather than more restricted legally.)
I think Obama should take advantage of this. The legality of abortion is, for all intents and purposes, decided. It is legal. It will remain legal. So now the question is how to address it. How do you reduce the need for it? How do you prevent unwanted pregnancies? How do you provide support for pregnant women and for families? I think (hope?) that if Obama approaches the abortion issue in the right way, and actually makes reducing abortions through means other than restricting legal access a part of his first term plans, he could potentially neutralize abortion as a political issue. Because all a President can do, regarding abortion, is appoint SCOTUS justices who will overturn Roe or support a constitutional amendment banning it. And, SD’s ballot measure seems to indicate that, if Roe were overturned, most states wouldn’t be able to muster support for an abortion ban and it would remain legal, and the trouncing of CO’s proposed amendment seems to indicate that there is absolutely no chance of a constitutional amendment granting 14th Amendment rights to zygotes/embryos/fetuses passing.
So many people seem so upset by the passage of gay marriage bans (which I totally understand) that I’m not seeing much focus on these three failed abortion restriction measures. But, in terms of future political impact, I think they could be very important. They seem to me to indicate that the legality of abortion is really not at risk and that those of us who think abortion should be legally available need to stop with the alarmist talk because nobody is coming to take away our birth control pills (The Day They Take Away Our Birth Control Pills is, I think, the liberal equivalent of The Day They Take Away All Our Guns), and instead suck it up, be gracious, and start acknowledging the discomfort which many if not most Americans feel around abortion and working to change the discourse on it. This could be a perfect moment to move the public discussion of abortion away from legality and towards reduction, and to move abortion from being a divisive issue to a common-ground one, and I think we’d be remiss to squander the opportunity.
Yeah, just testing. Oh, and the old knitting posts have been removed from here; I figure I’ll start fresh.
