1) Nathan’s Mad World – You know that experience when you are transfixed – so moved, without even knowing the extent of it, that your heart slows, your body quietens, your thoughts settle on the moment. That was my experience listening to Nathan‘s (Beyond the Guitar) arrangement of the Tears for Fears song Mad World (the Gary Jules version for the film Donnie Darko). Here you go:

2) Kobe and Multiple Losses – I wrote earlier this week about the precious nature of life and its brevity. The sudden and tragic loss of philanthropist and basketball great Kobe Bryant, daughter, and friends inspired that. We have watched all the news this week of the huge impact Kobe has had on so many people, young and old. Then to see the articles on the others lost in the accident – daughter, friends and colleagues. All gone too quickly for the many who loved them, separate from Kobe. Grieving their own and grieving Kobe, too. It’s been a week of reflection for sure.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Teenage Girls and Beloved Coaches Were Among the 9 Victims of the Helicopter Crash that Killed Kobe Bryant – Tasneem Nashrulla

God Didn’t Need Kobe and Gigi in Heaven – Holly Erickson

3) The Coronavirus Panic– As health agencies around the world keep surveillance of victims, and airlines make decisions to stop service to and from China, our knowledge and concern builds regarding the Coronavirus health crisis. How bad is it? This one article below was so helpful to me on the risks as well as the rapid response in gene typing, diagnosis and global response to this new outbreak. Definitely worth the read:

The Wuhan coronavirus seems to have a low fatality rate, and most patients make full recoveries. Experts reveal why it’s causing panic anyway. – Holly Secon

The greatest at-risk population has to be the Chinese nationals and others quarantined in-country – and the risk may be less about the virus and more about access to food and services should the quarantine continue.

Photo Credit: AFP Factcheck

4) Great Acting/Great Scripts – OK, so I’m partial to TV shows and films majoring on the law and courtroom drama. Much of my knowledge of US laws has come through a TV or film rendition of them (could be a problem) . For a brief two seasons – 20 episodes – the TV show For the People (2018 TV series) was my favorite classroom for learning about the law. – Why was it cancelled? I have no idea. There was one sub-plot with a sexual relationship as the focus, but other than that, the show was pretty much clean viewing. The show followed various legal cases, with the team of prosecutors and the team of public defenders sparring over whether the accused was guilty and whether they deserved the verdict coming. The writers dealt with many of our culture’s hot legal topics: mandatory sentences, race, juvenile detention, drugs, mental illness, law enforcement, the role of the internet/gaming/social media in the law.

Every single episode left me thinking and researching and thinking some more about the legal dilemmas posed in these stories and how they affect our neighbors…and us. Below are videos of just a few of the unforgettable monologues/dialogues from this show:

5) Troubling Ideals – This Fave title comes from an article written by research fellow Erika Bachiochi. Her piece is The Troubling Ideals at the Heart of Abortion Rights. She writes about some of the history (from 1870) of women’s fight for equal rights, equal citizenship with men, and her sovereign rights over her own body. The problem – the troubling ideal – is when that battle infringes on the rights of another. Whatever your leaning, this article is crucial reading. Here’s a bit:

Victoria Woodhull, a leading suffragist and radical, and the first woman to run for president of the United States, nominated by the Equal Rights Party in 1872. With her peers in the 19th-century women’s movement, she asserted, among a host of other rights, the right to be free of the common-law sexual prerogative that husbands then enjoyed over their wives. Understanding the asymmetrical consequences of sexual intercourse for women, Woodhull anticipated a time “when woman rises from sexual slavery to sexual freedom into the ownership and control of her sexual organs, and man is obliged to respect this freedom.”

But owning and controlling one’s body did not extend, for Woodhull and other advocates of “voluntary motherhood,” to doing what one willed with the body of another. Rather, these women sought sovereignty over their own bodies in part because they could claim no legitimate authority to engage, in Woodhull’s words, in “antenatal murder of undesired children.” An outspoken advocate of constitutional equality for women, Woodhull also championed the rights of children—rights that “begin while yet they remain the fetus.” In 1870, she wrote:

Many women who would be shocked at the very thought of killing their children after birth, deliberately destroy them previously. If there is any difference in the actual crime we should be glad to have those who practice the latter, point it out. The truth of the matter is that it is just as much a murder to destroy life in its embryonic condition, as it is to destroy it after the fully developed form is attained, for it is the self-same life that is taken.

– from the piece by Erika Bachiochi

Is there recourse for us who fight for women to have place in society equal to men as well as protecting the rights of the marginalized – those who can’t fight for themselves?

>>Unlike a biological father, a pregnant woman cannot just walk away; to approach the desired autonomy of the child-abandoning man, a pregnant woman must engage in a life-destroying act.<< Hold men to higher standards, not women to lower ones. https://t.co/AeRnKRUarp

— Secular Pro-Life (@secularprolife) January 25, 2020

Another clip from the above mentioned TV show gives a window to the experience of being on a jury. Judge Byrne reflected on the exhilarating encounter he had with 11 other jurors in this weighty and leveling experience of working together, across values, opinions, and biases.

We fight and ridicule each other on issues that seem so critical but don’t look to the root of those issues…the problems that if we tackled them with each other, the surface issues might also be addressed…but with more sustainable, more compassionate solutions.

What are some of these issues we disagree bitterly on? What is the root problem? I’m going to propose possibles, but please help me here. Comment below. Proposing the possible root problem still doesn’t fix it or the surface ones. Still, couldn’t we try to work on them together?

Choice vs. abortion – root issue: sanctity of life (of both the woman and the child – with access to contraception; access to health care/support; access to concrete and timely services in a crisis pregnancy)

61 Million Babies Have Died in Abortions, a Death Toll That’s the Population of Italy

In a future blog, I’d like to add health care, the opioid epidemic, race, and immigration…but for now, just the huge issue of choice and abortion. I know it is a deep heart issue…trying to determine what would make a difference if we did revisit this issue as a panel of peers.

I am so very thankful for friends and acquaintances who stay in my life although our political and ideological views are very different. I learn so much from them, and appreciate them so very much. That kind of love – love across differences – is the kind of love that our nation and world need. The kind of love that could put policies in place for all of us to thrive in this place.

Bonuses:

What Is Attention Management and How It Can Help You – Maura Thomas

Director of Powerful New Clarence Thomas Documentary Opens Up: ‘He Just Got Tired of Having His Story Distorted’ – Emily Jashinsky

My mother was ordinary, with no money & many sufferings. She had miscarriages, took care of us & my mentally ill brother. She stayed by my father’s side for 7 years until he died AND she never stopped loving and smiling.
Ordinary can be made
extraordinary everyday.#BeHolyToday

— Fr. Goyo (@FrGoyo) January 30, 2020