Sign the Petition to Repeal the Hyde Amendment!

I've mentioned the National Network of Abortion Funds in this space before. One of their big projects currently is working for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment- I recently received an appeal from them that I wanted to share with you:

Dear Friend,

Abortion is still legal in the U.S., but every year thousands of women are denied this right because they don't have the money to pay for abortion care.

Low-income women are often forced to use money they need for food and rent to cover the cost of an abortion. Many women cannot raise enough money and must continue the pregnancy and stay trapped in poverty. Women face this difficult situation because in 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which excludes abortion from government-funded health care programs.

We urge you to join the more than 60 groups in the Hyde – 30 Years is Enough! Campaign demanding an end to this injustice! Sign our petition calling on Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment and restore coverage of abortion for low-income women.

Women enrolled in Medicaid and similar programs receive coverage for all medically necessary health care services, including prenatal care, labor, and delivery. However, as a result of the Hyde Amendment, a woman enrolled in Medicaid is denied assistance in most circumstances if the care she needs is an abortion.

Sign the petition and make your voice heard! Our goal is to collect 20,000 signatures to deliver to Congress by January 22, 2008. With your help we can meet this goal! Please forward this email to your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign.

By signing the petition, you join a strong, national effort called the Hyde – 30 Years is Enough! Campaign. The campaign is led by the National Network of Abortion Funds, a network of groups that raise money to help women cover the cost of abortions. A complete list of organizations participating in the campaign can be found here.

Please join us and sign the petition now!

Together, we can create a society in which all women have the power and resources necessary to make healthy decisions about their bodies and families.

Thank you,

The Hyde – 30 Years is Enough! Campaign
www.hyde30years.nnaf.org

Please, take a second to sign the petition. And again, I implore you to use some of your free time or funds to help out the abortion fund in your area. True reproductive justice can't be achieved while abortion is still financially out of reach of anyone in our communities.

Condom Dance Party!

Warning- extremely catchy.



We'll get back to the regular blogging soon, I'm saving myself a bit for NaBloPoMo!

It's NaBloPoMo time again!

Is it November already? Well, almost, and that means it's time for both National Novel Writing Month AND its only slightly less ambitious cousin, National Blog Posting Month. And being the slacker that I am, I'm going to go with NaBloPoMo once again this year. Last year I managed to stick out for half a month before everything else got in the way (why do they always do this in a month with a major holiday???), but this year, with working at home, I really think I can do it.

And you, dear reader, you can too! Just click on the link above or the button on the right, or if you're really lazy, right here. There is so much to blog about in this great big blogosphere, so don't be intimidated! You can do it!

A trip to Fenway

Since no normal person's going to be able to afford a ticket to tonight's game 1, here's a short tour:



Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a nap so that I'll be able to stay up and watch the whole game...

Random Red Sox memories...

As the Red Sox face a critical game six tonight, I thought I'd put down on the page some of my memories from a long time of being a Sox fan:

-First game attended at Fenway: if memory serves correctly, it was 1983, and I went with my dad to see the Sox play the A's on a Saturday afternoon. It was Yaz's last season. We sat behind home plate on the first base side, up about halfway. I don't remember much, but I seem to remember Yaz coming in as a pinch hitter in the late innings.

-My first big trip into Boston without my folks was in high school, when two friends and I went to see the Sox on a weekday afternoon, and sat along the left field line. I can't remember who they played, but I remember yelling at Mike Greenwell all afternoon...

-It's not every day you get to witness history, even if it was made by the opposing team. The whole family went up to see the Sox play the Twins on a weeknight (My brother was always a big Kirby Puckett fan), and the Red Sox managed to hit into two triple plays, soomething that had never been done before, and hasn't since. They did manage to win the game at least. :)

-I've proably seen the Sox at Camden Yards more often than anywhere else, which has led to some fun memories, including both games of a doubleheader, teaching an Englishman some of the finer points of the game from the left field nosebleed section, and my favorite:

-Cal Ripken's last game. When Cal decided to retire at the end of the 2001 season, his last game was supposed to happen at Yankee Stadium. I had tickets to the last Orioles-Sox series, which was scheduled for the middle of September. Because of what happened on September 11th that year, many of the games that week were bumped. And the game I had tickets for was bumped to the very last day of the season. It's weird how fate works sometimes.

It was a very odd game- there were lots of speeches beforehand (including Bill Clinton, which brought about the very odd sight of secret service sharpshooters on the roof of a sports stadium), and for the first time in a long time, the seats at an Orioles-Sox game were mostly held by Orioles fans. The Sox won, which made it easier to sit through even more speeches afterwards, and all of the celebrations.

-Then of course, there's the little memories. I remember exactly where I was when the ball went through Buckner's legs, and where I was when the Sox won game four in St. Louis. And the names- Oil Can, El Guapo, Dewey, Nomah, and Papi.

You can't give up on your team when you've got this kind of history, can you? Nope.

Go Sox!

This is not funny.

Nope, not a bit.



Ah, dammit, who am I kidding? It's hilarious. And I feel dirty for saying that.

Ron Paul? Really? Are you sure about that?

Every couple of days, I get emails, letters and telegrams from you, my valued readers, asking something along the following lines:

"Stegan, we know you're a huge Dennis Kucinich fan, but what do you think about the "Ron Paul Revolution"?"

I have to admit, I'm new to the Ron Paul watch, so I decided to check out some of his positions. He's anti-war and would pull us out of Iraq (good), against the Patriot act (very good), against trade deals such as NAFTA (good), wants to take us out of the UN (huh?), abolish the Federal Reserve (um, okay), abolish the IRS (alrighty then), return decisions on abortion and contraception to the states (BAD), repeal all federal gun laws (BAD), return all decision making power over medicine and education to the states (BAD), and make the rights of homeschooling families paramount (WHAT?).

His views appear to have drawn in support from white supremacists and the forced birth crowd, as well as certain numbers of anti-war republicans and people who enjoy saying "Ron Paul" while intaking their favorite illegal or semi-legal substance. To each their own, I say. I mean, as a Dennis Kucinich supporter, who am I to judge who you vote for?

But let me ask the Paulies this- your boy wants to return a large number of powers to the individual states. Have you looked at your state assembly (or legislature, or what have you) lately? Some of them only meet every two years! They think teachers unions shouldn't be allowed to strike! They think they know better than anyone what you, or your partner, or your mother should be allowed to do with your bodies! They are, in short, elected officials. The minor leagues of elected officials, no less. And while I'm honestly not a big fan of Congress, I think they've usually got smarter people telling them what to do than your standard breed local politician.

In the final analysis, it seems like Ron Paul really just wants to pass the buck down to the states (and the UN) and create a system of federal governance where the bigwigs in Washington can sit back and say "Hey, it's not my problem!"

Which, now that I think about it, might be the perfect system of government for the early 21st Century United States- we have after all become the "Hey, if it doesn't affect me, I don't care about it" culture. Hm- maybe I should reconsider this whole Ron Paul thing...

Uniform madness...

(it's an oxymoron, see- uniform implies order, while madness implies chaos? but you probably figured that out already, didn't you?)

Over the past year or so, I've become a regular reader of Uni Watch, which, as the website says, is dedicated to "The obsessive study of athletics aesthetics". I find the minutiae that Paul Lukas and his team dig up to be fascinating, and I've found myself watching sporting events, such as a White Sox game a couple of weeks ago, and trying to understand why they'd wear special unis to commemorate "Halfway to St. Patrick's Day" instead of just enjoying the game (it really was distracting!).

Anyways, my original reason for all this was to make you aware of this week's Uni Watch article on ESPN.com- I found it hilarious and fascinating. And I would imagine that it's articles like this that create jobs like "uniform spellchecker" in sports stadiums across the country.

On a similar (although not uni-related) note, last night I had the pleasure of watching the documentary "Helvetica", which was, as the title promises, a film about a font. A font that is so ubiquitous, so everyday, that you can't go five minutes without seeing it, or a version of it. And this has made it both beloved and reviled over the last 50 years. It's a fantastic documentary that takes you into the hitherto unknown world of typeface design, and I think, gives great insight into the last 50 years of graphic design in general. It's touring the world right now, and I could not recommend it more highly. The website has the dates and locations of screenings.

No, seriously.

Am I the only one who needs to keep reminding themselves that the presidential election is NEXT November? Enough with the campaigning already!

Words to the wise.

From Natalie Dee.


nataliedee.com