After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur's mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with. He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The Nutri-Matic was designed and manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation whose complaints department now covers all the major landmasses of the first three planets in the Sirius Tau Star system.
Arthur drank the liquid and found it reviving. He glanced up at the screens again and watched a few more hundred miles of barren grayness slide past. It suddenly occurred to him to ask a question that had been bothering him.
"Is it safe?" he said.
"Magrathea's been dead for five million years," said Zaphod; "of course it's safe. Even the ghosts will have settled down and raised families by now."
Such an interesting passage, full of memory and ghosts. The ghost of tea for Arthur. The ghostly barren grayness of the "dead" Magrathea, and the ghosts and their families who live on its surface. Imagine visiting the Colosseum in Rome and meeting the shades of some gladiators or senators or emperors. It's all about the past crashing into the present.
As I've said before, I don't believe dwelling on the past is really a healthy practice for most people. Nostalgia is always tinged with sadness and regret over things we've lost or didn't do. It doesn't make living in the present easy, and it makes the future seem empty and sad. Nostalgia hearkens back to a quieter simpler time that, in reality, didn't exist.
I have refrained from talking about the abortion ban laws that have been passed recently, led by the state of Alabama. I try to stay away from truly divisive subjects in this blog. My goal, when I sit down to type a post, is to try to be funny, entertaining, and maybe a little profound (a mark I more than frequently miss). However, this topic has been weighing on my mind a lot.
Like everyone else, I fall victim to nostalgia. When I reflect on my childhood, I think of it as a kind of golden time--no worries, simple pleasures (nothing was better than The Bionic Woman on TV), and lots of dreams about the future. Of course, that's the way nostalgia works. It makes you yearn for the "good ole days," whatever those were.
The "good ole days" when women stayed at home and raised children and cooked and cleaned and made dinner for their husbands didn't really exist. Back in those good ole days, women were being abused, raped, and treated as property. And they couldn't do anything about it. I can't get nostalgic about that.
Connected to that, abortion was kind of a taboo topic when I was a kid. When Bea Arthur tackled the subject on the sitcom Maude, my parents banned the show from the house. (Years later, both my mom and dad loved The Golden Girls AND Bea Arthur. Go figure.) Coming from a Catholic family, I was raised to believe in the sanctity of life. All life.
I still hold to that belief. I believe that when immigrants come knocking on the door because of war or famine or natural disaster or man-made disaster, we should open that door and invite them in. That's what my church tells me to do. That's what my conscience tells me to do. I believe that all human beings (man, woman, child, gay, straight, transgender, African, Asian, Native American, Mexican, Caucasian, mentally ill, imprisoned) deserve love, compassion, and mercy. That's what my church tells me to do. That's what my conscience tells me to do. All lives are sacred.
It is easy to advocate for the unborn because they don't cost us anything. We don't have to pay for their medical care. Don't have to feed them or clothe them or house them. We don't have to educate them. All we have to do is let them be born. Pretty simple.
After that, however, the American system fails. Once unborn children become a born children, they become burdens on society. Suddenly, all those people who were advocating for their right to exist start complaining about social programs like Medicaid and food stamps. They want to take money away from public schools. And they saddle young people with crushing educational debt. In short, the job of caring for the unborn stops when the unborn start breathing on their own.
I am a man. I will never have to make the choice of whether to carry a child or terminate a pregnancy, for whatever reason. Frankly, I can't imagine having to face a decision like that. It's incredibly personal, Incredibly difficult. And it's none of my business.
I will say that I am pro-life. To me, that means that I believe in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, welcoming the immigrants, lifting up the poor, comforting the mentally ill, and holding everyone as worthy to be loved, no matter what. Jesus taught me that last bit in Sunday school a long time ago. He didn't teach me to judge or condemn people. It was all about love and compassion and understanding.
What has been happening in Alabama and other states has nothing to do with Christian love or compassion or understanding. Make no mistake about that. Jesus Christ had very little respect for the politicians of his day. In fact, He called those men "vipers," I believe. And it was those politicians who eventually killed him.
There is no easy way to end this post. I'm not going to change anyone's mind with my words. I am just adding my male voice to the discussion, in support of all the women in my life whom I cherish and respect. These women make difficult decisions every day of their lives.
Saint Marty loves and honors them for those difficult decisions.
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