Monday Morning News Roundup.

There were a number of intriguing articles this morning.

The Hammer Cleanup (LA Times) offers more information for those interested about the checkered history of the UCLA Hammer Museum, specifically as that history intertwines with LACMA (LA County Museum of Art).

Afghan Women's Quiet Revolution Hangs By a Thread (LA Times) is a harrowing look at the history of women's rights in Afghanistan as well as the movement's current status and growing disintegration under resurgent Taliban forces and the weakness and disinterestedness of the current monarch. Of particular interest to me was the discussion of women's rights in Soviet-dominated Afghanistan - a section that revealed the fact that Communists did more for women's rights in Afghanistan than the United States has ever done. Heh. Makes you think...

And lastly, Cracking Down on Mixtape CDs (NY Times) outlines the RIAA's growing disquiet with the rap scene tradition of making and selling mixed cds for promotion. Outraged executives argue that selling mixed cds undermines sales of regular cds. Of course, in my humble opinion poor cd sales have less to do with the proliferation of mixed cds and more to do with the fact that 90% of what's on offer from major record labels is soulless shite that's being sold at 10 times its cost of production. Personally, I'd rather cut off my own motherfucking nose than buy a brand-new cd, but that's just me. Read the article for yourself and form your own opinion.

That's all for now.

Toodles!

Blogging for Choice

On this, the 34th anniversary of the historic decision of Roe v. Wade, my dear friend lillith_knox made me aware of the online blogging event taking place in it's commemoration:





Pro-choice bloggers were asked why they are pro-choice, and being an opinionated, pro-choice blogger I thought I'd take a stab at it.

There's a lot of yammering that goes on surrounding the topic of abortion. Does life begin at conception or birth, for one. Does the desire to prevent a woman's right to choose stem mainly from a misogynistic impetus to oppress women by restricting their sexual control, for another.

For my part these questions have no simple answer, and I will not attempt to fob them off with one in this blog. For me, what is important in the decision to abort and the reason it must be protected is the question of what is best for the players involved. What is best for the mother and in some cases the father? What is best for the unborn child? I've seen friends who chose to keep their unexpected pregnancies, and I've seen the hell such an ill-advised decision has made their life. I've seen friends who chose keep their unexpected pregnancies, and I've seen the experience be the making of them. I've seen friends who chose to terminate their unexpected pregnancies, and I've admired them for taking such a difficult but, I believe, ultimately wise decision.

Unwanted children often live lives of squalid misery. They're beaten, ridiculed, and forgotten. They grow up to exist on the fringes, to fight and scrounge to survive. They, few of them, have truly fulfilling lives. Is that better than abortion? Is that better than waiting a cycle or two and being born into a life where your parents may still screw the pooch - it's true - but are eagerly awaiting you? I think not. I've never been unlucky enough to wind up with an unexpected pregnancy, but if I did I can tell y'all right now that I'd make an appointment at the clinic. I love my future children far too much to subject them to me at this stage in my life.

And I don't know about you pious motherfuckers out there, but MY god is actually an omnipotent and loving god - unlike some of the callous, miserly bastards out there who vie for worship these days. MY god is perfectly capable of handling the souls of those children, should they actually have the unlikely misfortune of being forced to enter their fetal bodies at conception (what kind of fucked up god does something like that, by the way?); keeping them in grace and mercy until their time comes.

For that reason, abortion rights must be protected at all costs. With the lives of so many hanging in the balance, and I don't mean simply their physical lives but also their spiritual and intellectual lives as well, we cannot afford not to do our utmost to keep abortion legal.