..`bout birth'n no babies

An interesting thing happened in the news today. Actually, this "thing" happens every hour of every day in this country, but today it was reported.

(CNN) -- An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.
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The report highlights the three areas it says have the most influence on child well-being: female education, presence of a trained attendant at birth and use of family planning services.

Now that sounds like common sense, or it should, to most of us. Women who receive better pre-natal care are at less risk of delivering premature and/or low birth weight infants. So it is with a heavy heart that I present the other piece of news from today:

Senate Defeats Effort to Limit Medical Malpractice Awards: WASHINGTON — The Senate blocked legislation Monday that would have limited jury awards in medical malpractice cases, shunting aside one of President Bush's most sought-after domestic policy objectives.
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The bills would have limited damages for pain and suffering to $250,000 in most instances, with an upper limit of $750,000 for cases involving multiple medical facilities. One bill would have applied to healthcare providers generally, while the other sought to shield obstetrician-gynecologists. Foes say such caps are unfair because they would fall disproportionately on people who suffer the most severe injuries.

Why is it so morbidly ironic that these two bits of news should appear within 24 hours of each other? Because appropriate prenatal and family planning care are extremely limited in this country due in part to the exorbitant costs of medical malpractice. Many ob/gyn's no longer practice obstetrics because the medical malpractice costs are prohibitive. There are areas in this country where you cannot find a practicing obstetrician to deliver your baby. Sadly, most of these areas are the same areas where mothers are predominately poor and under-educated.

Scarlett Says: We know so much about birth'n babies, so why aren't we leading the free world in pre-natal care?

A Cup of Sand

In 1995 a wonderful romantic comedy appeared on the big screen titled “The American President”. Written by Aaron Sorkin, who would later become better known as the mastermind behind the hit “West Wing”, the movie was full of poignant relationship drama and American political observations. My favorite character was not the spunky lobbyist who falls in love with the handsome President, or even the attractive and charmingly human President himself. My favorite character was the President’s harried speech writer, played by Michael J. Fox. A section of dialogue from that movie has been echoing in my head these past few weeks. (Thank you imdb.com for the quote text.)

President Andrew Shepherd: Look, if the people want to listen to-
Lewis Rothschild: They don't have a choice! Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking! People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.
President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

With regards to the Dubai port deal, both these fictional politicians had it right. The so called “vast majority” of Americans who oppose this deal are listening to the only people who are talking- and simultaneously drinking the sand because they do not know the difference. Ask the next person you pass in the hallway or on the street what exactly DPW will be in “control” of if this deal proceeds. The most illuminating answer you are likely to receive is “The ports.”
Unless you work on the waterfront, in government security, or have bothered to do some research- and by that I mean reading scholarly articles, visiting the ports and reading the security documents ( classified or otherwise)- about this deal, it’s doubtful you have any clue what you are or are not opposed to.

Much has been made about how security of our nation’s import and export lifelines cannot be entrusted to a government that once recognized the Taliban and even now shows sympathy, if not out-right support, for the causes of radical Islam. If the government of the UAW or the controlling partners of DPW were petitioning to take over the US Coast Guard or manage the audit trail for the Department of Homeland Security, I might be worried.

The simple fact is, our leaders in Congress and the Americans answering the pollsters phone calls have been drinking the sand so cleverly provided to them by rabble rousing politicians seeking an issue to exploit during an election year.

There are legitimate security concerns at American ports. Too much of our funding for security operations goes to paying analysts salaries in Washington and too little to the inspectors charged with opening crates and tracking shipping manifests. The turnover of operations of port terminals will not affect this gross negligence in any way. In order to be privy to the details of port security an individual needs a security clearance. People with security clearances have to be US citizens. Those US citizens, having obtained that clearance, must report any and all dealings with foreign nationals, even day-to-day business contacts.

Will controlling terminal operations make it easier for the forces of radical Islam to slip a shipping container full of WMD past customs officials? Probably not. The ability right now is staggeringly present. But, then why bother with the risk of detection of a shipping container when you can walk enough anthrax across the US-Mexico border to wipe out the entire US Congress?

Scarlett says: Stop playing into the demagoguery that assumes you are uneducated and as easily led as toddler with a lollipop. Stop drinking the sand, people.

Stop Drop and Remove Foot

CBS White House reporter Bill Plante laments: "But if it were up to Dick Cheney, he wouldn't tell us if our shirts were on fire, for heaven's sake."

There are so many comments that COULD be made about this off the cuff whine, but I'm not sure there's enough bandwidth. I would like to point out, however, that a reporter's job is to find and report the story, not have it spoon fed to him like a toddler gobbling mashed peas. Come to think of it, some of what we've been reading in newspapers and seeing on network news closely resembles those same mashed peas once the toddler has "processed" them.

Scarlett Says: Psst, Bill, you've already crashed and burned.

Movement from Feminism

My mother is a strong woman. She raised two children while traveling the world at the behest of my father’s military career. She has several undergraduate degrees, a master’s degree and a rock solid commitment to excelling in her field of employment. She’s a Christian and a Southern woman- in every sense of those two words. Her sense of family is boundless. I would never characterize my mother as a feminist.

But it was this same woman who told me, shortly after the birth of my first child, that there was no reason I had to give up my career to have a family.

I was struck dumb by that assertion.

There are many careers that are conducive to having a family. There are even those rare paragons of super-womanhood who manage to make the most stressful and time consuming job mesh with the dictates of motherhood. I’m not a superwoman and 14 hour days with a 2 hour commute as bookends were not my idea of how I wanted to spend my children’s infancy.

Life is about choices. Our options aren’t always what we’d like and our decisions aren’t always perfect, but we do have choices to make. I chose to leave behind a high profile, high paying, career to work on my own schedule, at my own pace, and spend more time with my children. I definitely won’t rise to the pinnacle of my one-timer career path, but I’ll be happy with myself and my family because I’ve made the choice that is best for us.

Feminism taught our mothers to seek self-worth and self-fulfillment through competition with men. I don’t need to compete with a man, or in a “man’s world” to value my position and goals in life. My personal choice was to seek fulfillment through realization and compromise. I don’t need to be judged by “what I do” outside of the home. I know my talents, I know my strength and I know that I was gifted in my career path and left of my own volition.

I see my self worth reflected back in cherubic smiles and belly laughs. There was a reason to give up my career for my family- and I’m happy I made the right choice for the right reasons.

Scarlett Says: Thank you Karen Hughes for your example.

Dear Cindy Sheehan

In ancient and medieval times a woman who had lost a husband or sons in war was quietly sheltered by her surviving family. If her grief turned to psychosis she was sent, in the Christian world, to a nunnery to live out her days in the peace and seclusion of the convent. It was understood that her "madness" was through no fault of her own and that she was a creature to be pitied and succored in her grief. However, it was also understood that her extreme protestations of grief could not be allowed to become a sickness that leached through the countryside sapping morale worse than any plague.

Cindy: get thee to a nunnery.

To touch the face of God

20 years ago today a teacher rushed into my classroom and had a hurried conversation with my teacher. The TV, which I don't recall being on before, was turned on and we all sat huddled in shock as the remnants of the invincible American space program sifted down through the cold Florida morning. Thos images still haunt me. They make up some of the first of a sadly growing list of pictures that, when I see them, I recoil in shock and feel the grief and horror as fresh as the day I first saw them.

President Reagan said it best and I won't even try to imitate his prose:

"And I want to say something to the school children of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God"

On Bin Laden and "truce"

Supposedly Bin Laden has released a tape in which he mentions the possibility of truce with the Great Satan. This from the man who purported to love death. Apparently having his deputies blown up at the dinner table was a bit more death than he had bargained on. (If, indeed, this is Bin Laden on the tape, which of course is very much in doubt.)

Well, you vomitous mass, here is how we respond to an offer of truce (with all due credit to Mel Gibson in Braveheart):

Lower your arms and march straight back to hell, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for a thousand years of theft, rape, and murder. Do this and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today.

On wiretapping

Don't want your phone tapped? Don't call folks in tribal Pakistan and talk about who they are having over for dinner. Simple.

And, yes, I believe that we're tapping those phone calls for a good reason and I have to believe its the right thing to do. Why? Because I have to believe that. If you don't believe that protecting the citizens of the United States is the most important job of the US Government, then what is there left to hold on to? What is the point of government? Is our right to avoidance of illeagal search and seizure a suicide pact? No- but I have to believe that the folks doing the tapping are Americans who have my best interests in heart. That's what I pay them for, afterall.

"The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." President George W. Bush 9/11/01

And that's all I'm gonna say 'bout that.