There Is No GOP War On Women. It's Much Worse

You declare war on people you despise. To despise, you have to feel. The GOP has declared a Jihad to restore what they might call traditional values: right-wingers have never come to grips with Roe v. Wade (which, by the way, was meant to protect doctors from criminal prosecution, not especially to identify a woman's right to choose).

Apparently some in the Republican Party also haven't quite come to terms with the notion of contraception, either.

But the common thread isn't a hatred of women. The hate is directed elsewhere. Women don't matter. And that's much worse.

What's the proof? When the Obama Administration stepped in it by in-artfully engaging the Catholic Church over contraception coverage in the health care plans for the employees of their secular enterprises, the GOP had a winning hand. You can't just treat a protected class like anyone else -- heck, religious institutions don't even pay property taxes.

Whenever you have more than one fundamental principal, they can collide. What's necessary, then, is the wisdom to give each principal as much deference as possible, knowing that one will get more. It's inescapable, and why we endeavor to have wise people as judges and especially Justices.

What is unwise -- and telling -- is when you frame the argument as being about only Principle "A", and absolutely not Principle "B." This collision in Catholic contraception debate was stark: religious freedom, enshrined in the US Constitution, and women's rights, not so much -- but definitely protected by the Affordable Heath Care Act.

What happened? The GOP scoffed at the notion it was a woman's rights issue, insisting it was only a First Amendment issue. In other words, this has nothing to do with women. Shut up. And instead of framing the argument about the Fitst Amendment, it pulled the veil off a generations'-old determination to not only eviscerate destroy Roe v Wade but Griswold v Connecticut, the 7-2 Supreme Court decision that found a right of privacy in the Constitution by overturning a law prohibiting the use of contraceptives — in 1965.

Exhibit B: RNC Chair Rance Priebus compounds the error by saying the "War on Women" (frankly, hyperbolic) is trumped up. True, but not for the reason he believes. The RNC doesn't consider contraception and abortion as women's health issues, but as cultural abominations.

They aren't waging war on women -- they don't see women as relevant to this discussion. How this might actuallybe the one unifying issue to women in every spot on the political spectrum -- the history of contraception is a far greater empowering tale of liberation than abortion -- is lost on the tone deaf.

I've always wondered how Gays can be Republicans. I'm given to understand that Gay legislative staff is sizable. And the Log Cabin Republicans are a pretty conservative bunch.

But Gays in the GOP are at least denied Mano-a-Mano, you'll pardon the expression. Woman seem invisible. This isn't about you, darlin' -- stop being a tool of the media.

Women are used to us lying to them, guys. And it's about exactly this: feigning love when we're really indifferent, for an ulterior motive.

The only thing worse than dismissing women as collateral damage in a war on culture is then imperiously dismissing talk that woman actually are the targets as a Democratic smear, made viral by their media handmaidens.

Nobody believes this. But it does come right out of the guy playbook:

"Who are you going to believe, babe? Me or your lying ears."

+John C Abell

Rush, The Entertainer

It's worse that Rush Limbaugh's feckless defenders in the political elite kiss him off not as a serious, fearsome political force, but rather a mere entertainer, not worth undue attention, to say nothing of condemnation.

As dumb as Rush's political analysis might be, and as unpolitic his technique of expressing himself, his pool is politics, mostly invective against non-conservatives of his particular stripe (whatever that may be).

Entertainers are supposed to, well, entertain. They are supposed to be, well, entertaining. This is, as they say, by definition.

Rush isn't funny, except to the dittoheads he calls his fans, and these fans don't seem to realize how uncharacteristically accurate and demeaning that description from their spiritual leader is.

Go to any comedy club, in any city, on any night and there will be at least one person about whom your table will look at each other and wonder, worlessly at first, in unison: How is this person not famous? And it won't be because of the watered-down drinks you've been served.

Funny is hard to do. It's incredibly easy to recognize.

Rush needs the hook not because he pollutes the airwaves, spreads lies and needless invective, and does this for money (I can think of two words to describe that, but then I'd have to apologize).

Rush needs to go because he gives entertainers a bad name.

Props to the first accountable Republican who is ready for his Judge Welch moment and says without equivocation that Rush has to be ignored because he is bad at what he does -- entertainment.

To Rush, the loss of some sponsors is like "losing a couple of French Fries in the container when it's delivered to you in the drive thru. You don't even notice it." Or, as the very entertaining Conan O'Brien quipped of the portly broadcaster, it's devastating.

But if the Rush parade moves on because he's a bad entertainer, hose CPAC bookings will dry up not because he's leading the charge to lose the hearts and minds of the new silent majority Conservatives need to win, but because he just isn't funny. Dated. Like Rich Little, unaware that he's become the joke.

Stations which carry Limbaugh's spectacularly-successful radio show will have to decide for themselves just what Rush's entertainment value prop continues to be. I'm not a fan of coordinated sponsor boycotts and loud, self-righteous protests from people who aren't fans of someone saying that that someone hey, hey, has to go. Business is business. This is not a free speech issue, but silencing people because you don't like what they say is un-American, whatever the technique.

We know this instinctively, which is why we knew Rush had gone too far one too many times by attempting to silence, through intimidation, a non-accountable private citizen in Sandra Fluke by singling her out for the particularly viscous kind of bullying which accelerates when the bully sits alone in a windowless room and need to fill the airwaves with something for hours and hours, every day.

His feckless friends won't admit it as they dismiss him as an entertainer, but through influence or kinship or fear or a desire to be noticed a campaign by someone as connected as Rush grants broad permission by others to ramp up the bullying. The world then becomes even more upside down: Rush, the victim, becomes an object of sympathy by like-minded people who now believe they have carte blanche to defend themselves, by whatever means necessary.

I thought Imus had blown it in the unfunny decorum department, but also didn't care for the way his transgression had become a phony cause celebré. On the other hand, I won't watch The Apprentice anymore, and turn off the TV whenever Donald Trump is interviewed, and will never stay in one of his hotels because he's ... well, you know.

When Rush's indifferent or frightened pol buddies turn away, that will be the beginning of the end.

They have a chance to do that, right now, while saving face, by taking advantage of maybe the best window of opportunity ever. Rush, who has always been wise to attack up, foolishly picked on a weakling this time. As it was with Imus, there's enough relatable history of a basic character failing to connect the dots without appearing to be intellectually dishonest about being disgusted only now.

This would hardly be (you will pardon the expression), a rush to judgement.

Friends of Rush don't need to condemn him, Crucible-like, for what he really is. All they have to do is get up and leave the club as they would when one of those guys who isn't the undiscovered comedy genius won't let go of the mic.

Pick up the tab, somebody. It's time to go.

— Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone. Location: 5th Ave., United States

A Christmas Story

I always get presents for the cats at Christmas. I'm conflicted, but not a complete jerk, and frankly it's fun to help Santa out. They get some kind of shiny, chasy toy or some battery-powered thing which moves about by itself and holds their attention for five seconds.

This year have a ferret (long story). This is our Christmas with Lucy (the ferret) and so, of course, she had to be made to feel part of the family. I found some squeezy toys at Target in the $1 bin (I'm sentimental, but, as you may recall, conflicted) — the sort of thing that she instinctively drags around with super-ferret strength and hoards and hides in various places around the house.

Nothing she can grab with her teeth is safe: socks, toothbrushes (the abandoned kind, not those in current rotation), even shoes. Any open dresser drawer is a sanctuary. If only she'd put in the sock drawer ... but instead I find some beanie baby in there, and socks in a corner of an unused closet.

This year I set up my wrapping station in the large, open room where we sometimes let Lucy roam for a while every day.

Last night in my wrapping frenzy I could not find her toys. This sort of thing happens every year. Or often I think I got something, and didn't. But somehow because it was the one thing I had got for Lucy, it seemed a particular shame.

So imagine my surprise and delight this morning. A Christmas Miracle! Well, not really. Lucy had done what children have done since the beginning of time: she had found the stash of unwrapped gifts, located what was hers, and took them out to play.

I found two of the three (uh, I think) toys in my sock drawer (of course). The third is still out there some where.

Lucy was naughty. But it was nice.

+John C Abell

Lifetime: Now, The Tough Part

I'm not much for Signs from Heaven except, of course, when there are so abundantly OBVIOUS even Mr. Spock would put aside logic and raise his hands and say "D'uh!"

It's Dec. 10, one year to the day from when the picture below (left, if you have any doubts) was snapped. It remains my official bio pic at Wired and though I would love to swap it out for obvious reasons I'm not really working very hard to get that done. It's a good reminder of where I was, and what a difference a year can make.

This is also, as fate would have it, the first day that I weighed in as a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers, which I joined on Feb. 19 — 80.6 pounds ago. Completing the trilogy (every good sign is comprised of a trilogy, silly) is the fact that my number was 155: my goal weight, to the ounce.

It's a good sign.

My six-week maintenance was a bit of a parabola but I began and ended it within (below, actually) the requisite two-pound leeway which will grant me lifetime membership perks, including free meetings and free access to online tools and the WW app.

To maintain membership in good standing I have to weigh in once each calendar month -- 12 times a year, instead of the 52 when you are losing — and I will never pay Weight Watchers one penny ever again. If I'm more than 157 pounds at an official weigh-in (which is the first one you show up for in a calendar month) then I pay a weekly fee to maintain my membership.

It should be easier to keep at this level, and in short order it will be. But there is something about applying the breaks — and being able to give oneself more breaks, since I will have to eat more than I have been for months to stop losing — that can be as tough to learn and internalize as developing the habit to drop pounds. It could actually be tougher: This is why there are always many more people who have lost all the weight they wanted to than those who have maintained that loss.

Some people find it difficult even to lose a few pounds but among that group whom the TV weight loss ads describe as having lost atypical (but correct) amounts of weight the head-to-the-ground pursuit of losing weight is easier to sustain than a lifetime of keeping the weight off. When we ease up even a little, in all aspects of our lives, the floodgates can suddenly fly open, there being fewer hard-and-fast rules we can blindly follow and the taste of freedoms being so sweet.

So I know I am still battling the percentages, and as good as I should feel about reaching this milestone it's really just a new level, filled with new and potentially tougher challenges. "Lifetime" is like the transition to adulthood: It requires the exercise of responsibility children often can't handle (many adults, too). Forbid an obedient child from having any candy and she won't. Tell her to have some candy, but not too much and, well ... you get the idea.

That's why now comes the tough part. Or why, at least, I am telling myself that it is the tough part. Because I need to replace the rigid approach that served me well with something that will remind me that even though I have more freedom I still have work to do. Lots of it. For the rest of my life.

Of course, there will be pie.

+John C Abell

Week 35: GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

Ok. No more farting around. Well, actually, there is quite a lot of farting. I think it's the fruit. That's another story.

After eight months, almost to the day, I've hit my goal weight and now begin Weight Watchers maintenance. After 37 weeks of trying to lose weight (and the last nine, where I didn't net/net at all), I had a serendipitously successful seven days: Nine pounds lost, three under my target.

Under maintenance, which last six weeks, I get to eat more, to stop losing. At the end of six weeks, if I am within two pounds above or below 155, I get to be a life member: I never have to pay a cent again to go to meetings as long as I stay in the four-pound range, weighing in officially once a month now instead of once a week.



I cannot say that I have fully grasped this yet. So far, this is a typical Saturday, which means that in a few hours there will be gin and more than the usual amount of eating — that's the way it is in the hours after the weekly weigh, the safest time to eat into your weekly and activity allowances.

In a way, reaching goal is somewhat anti-climactic. Each week or five pounds' loss brought new feelings and lessons, rendering a goal-line something important to shoot for, but not actually an end unto itself. And now new skills must be learned, because while losing weight is harder than putting it on, it's easier than trying to walk the balance beam that is neither gaining nor losing ... forever.

Fortunately my eight months has exposed me to big losses, big gains, and periods of inertia — a microcosm of the rest of my life. I know what it feels like to put on even a little weight, what it takes to recover from that, how to lose by eating (even more!) instead of starving.

+John C Abell

Week 33: The 2% Solution

It's possible to lose all the weight you want just by eating less, of course. The math is simple: Burn more calories than you consume. Exercise is a force multiplier, and if you do it right it won't lead to a bigger appetite (offsetting the benefit of burning more calories in the course of any given 24 hours) and will self-reinforce staying consistent.

Good news: The "bigger appetite" part almost takes care of itself: turns out that exercise is something of an appetite suppressant. Also, when you are actually doing it, it isn't possible to eat much of anything, so it is an opportunity suppressant as well. The best thing to eat to take the edge off, right after a workout, is protein, which goes directly to the muscles instead of the hips. The best kind of protein is up to you; before I was a vegan I had a ton of turkey bacon and eggs right after a run or bike ride. Now I have prepared tofu or a protein bar.

It's even more important to stay with it. For me, that is staying home to go to the gym (Rule #1) and committing to a particular time of day for one's main workout, which for me is before the workday begins.

Staying consistent also means not trying to do too much, or settling for too little (Rule #3). But how?

I call it the 2% solution. It's easy when you are hovering at that pain/discomfort point to simply stop, back off completely. But you don't have to, and dialing back just a little works wonders. I first learned of this technique during a boot camp class I used to take when we lived in Virginia and I actually was a member of a gym. The instructor would have us do something ridiculously strenuous for an insane amount of time, and then in between we'd jog or do jumping jacks — and she called this our rest/recovery period in what was essentially interval training.

So, rest/recovery isn't doing nothing. It's doing less. But how much less?

Why, 2% less, of course. I made up that number — make up any number you like. Ease back instead of stopping during an intense moment in your workout. Drop your cadence by 10 or 5 or 20 and listen carefully to your body as it recovers while you are still working out. You will feel the energy coming back, and the discomfort receding, when you make only minor adjustments.

I take the stairs at work and when I started had to rest, completely stop, at some point along the way. No more. Now I climb with some intensity and take four slow steps in between landings — that is my rest, my 2% solution, and it allows me to power through 15 flights.

Scaling back, in real time, helps prevent giving up.


+John C Abell