Brent Staples in today’s Times deconstructs our — i.e., society’s — continued stereotyping of young black males.
The gender gap explained
Recent polling shows that the Republican Party is quickly becoming overwhelmingly white and terrifyingly male.
The latest example of what the GOP thinks of women comes in the form of a bizarre anti-abortion law adopted by the Arizona Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer.
It bans all abortions after 20 weeks except in a “medical emergency” where an abortion would prevent the mother’s death or “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
Seven states have similar restrictions.
The bill signed into law Thursday makes other changes to abortion regulations, including the requirement of an ultrasound 24 hours before the procedure. The law becomes effective 90 days after the Legislature ends its session, which is likely to occur later this month.
Supporters say the law protects women, an absurd contention that lacks any statistical evidence. This law is not about women’s health; rather, it is an attack on women’s freedom — it achieves its so-called protections by eliminating women’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies and their pregnancies.
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Grassroots: Energy costs shifted to society
My Progressive Populist column from this month can be found here. It’s on energy costs that have been shifted to society.
A tasty IPA
KBC from Kennebunkport is pretty tasty, via Trader Joe’s. Highly recommended.
On poetry: Why we need to remember and want to forget
We too often forget that we live in a time of war. The violence is elsewhere and the soldier come from places we in the middle class suburbs know little about. But war is our reality and, in this brilliant poem by Rosalind Brackenbury, we are reminded why we try so hard to forget this even as we know we must not.
I want to forget their names, the generals,
advisors, puppet rulers,
the puffed-up and the brought-low,I want not to know them,
not hear their plans, their excuses,
the President and the President’s men,
the Pope with his white smoke for voodoo,the suits, ties, teeth, insignia,
the guns, the names of trucks and weapons.I want to forget them all,
to be washed of them,
to begin again: where no one knows who anyone is,
or what he believes.
To forget, however, is impossible — though, to ignore is not. And the effort at forgetting is the reminder that we can’t, and shouldn’t, that the generals and presidents and popes count on our ignorance, on their disguises and that the “one clear word” — humanity — must never be spoken.
