It’s been a strange day. The low coolant light in Amber’s VW Jetta was flashing red Sunday, and one can’t just buy coolant for a VW at the local Citgo; G12 A8D antifreeze for Audis and Volkswagens can only be purchased through dealer service departments or over the Internets. So, we had to drop by Jim Ellis VW at the ass crack of dawn to pick some up, and then I drove her to work.
For all my bitching about MARTA, taking its trains to work totally rocks my socks compared to the snarled nightmare that was driving on I285 and I85 this morning. Well, I never got to I85 because the line of cars entering the on-ramp was moving at a rate of about one car length per hour-and-a-half. How do so many people put up with that sort of driving commute every day?
Instead, I looped around on Piedmont to get to Peachtree, where we stopped at Starbucks for some burnt coffee and a chai latté. That’s where we encountered the aborted kids, whom Amber already described in a comment on Duane’s blog:
I saw some of those pre-teen anti-choice “activists” at Starbucks (how cliche American is that?) this morning, wearing cutesy baby blue and pink shirts with little graphics of paper dolls, where some were cut out and it said, “Aborted.” The GDBF suggested I announce to them that I’ve had 4 abortions in the past 3 years and if I have one more I’ll get a free coffee maker.
I’m hardly qualified to have much of an opinion on abortion, given my lack of a uterus and whatnot. That said, those giggling cunts made me wish I could get knocked up just so I could have an abortion, film it, rip it to my computer, add titles to it in iMovie, apply a theme to it in iDVD, and send them all burnt copies. If only I could decide what theme to apply. I think I’d rip off that “All About Lucas” theme from Apple’s site and rename it “All About Stumpy.”
I’d like to end on that note, but it doesn’t cover all the weirdness. My check engine light came on this afternoon, and it turned out my truck was also low on coolant. I drove to five different places searching for DexCool before going out of my way to Autozone. The warning light in her car went away after adding coolant, but didn’t go away in mine. Doh.
Also, what I said as we left Starbucks was that after old white “Christian” men protesting abortion, the next worse thing was rich white “Christian” teenagers protesting abortion.
And I would like to commend the GDBF for his excellent post on the matter. Now I don’t have to do one!
When I was driving home from work, I saw you standing at the crosswalk by the Peachtree ST/Buford HWY/85N connector. I was going to try to roll down my window & wave, but traffic was moving, and I think that maneuver might have caused me to plow into you & the other pedestrians.
Anyway, sorry to hear about the car trouble.
I’m so glad I wasn’t there… I probably would have said something nasty. Good thing we all weren’t there together, or those girls might have been aborted.
When did you lose your uterus?
What does having a uterus have to do with whether or not one can have an opinion on abortion?
Besides, you gave an opinion yourself, of a sort. Your temptation to taunt the protesters isn’t exactly a neutral disposition on the matter.
So should we just leave all the debating about abortion to women? Since there are women on both/all sides of the issue, what would this really accomplish?
Genuinely befuddled.
Actually, yes. Unless the woman is my significant other or daughter, it’s not my place to have an opinion on what a woman should or should not do with her uterus.
My temptation to taunt the protectors had much more to do with their lack of tact in how they presented themselves than with what their actual opinions were. We’ve been down that road before, eh?
I agree with Xon. Women have all sorts of opinions on the workplace despite most of them staying at home cooking, cleaning and childbearing.
Just kidding!!!
I don’t want to jack your blog. But I just don’t see the rationale behind thinking that because abortion involves uteruses, that only people with uteruses (or those very close to the person with a uterus in question) can have an opinion on it. Arguments don’t have reproductive systems; people do. If the argument for or against abortion is strong, then it shouldn’t matter who is giving it.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t see how your claim doesn’t commit you to committing the ad hominem (or ad virum, I suppose, hardy har har) fallacy anytime you respond to a man with an opinion on abortion. “Oh, you can’t say that, becuase you’re a man…” regardless of what argument the man actually gives.
“Oh, you can’t say that, becuase you’re a man…†regardless of what argument the man actually gives.
See, that’s where you’re wrong. There’s no limit on who can say what, anyone can say anything as far as I’m concerned. It’s just that when it’s a man proclaiming that other women’s utereus’s are his business because he can speak for the parties invovled then we’re going to mock, ridicule and stand against him for deeming himself more knowledgable about a woman’s situation than the actual involved parties.
Also, Xon, your suggestion that simply because there are women on both sides of the issue fails to account for class, socio-economic and cultural issues that impart some women with a similar desire to control other women’s uteruses.
Oh, and Amber, the reason why it’s so easy for white, rich, educated, teenagers to be anti-chioce is regardless of the laws involved, they’re going to get abortions if they need them (or if their daddies think they need them). It’s the poor, less-educated, women of color who are going to suffer the most from anti-choice laws, which is why, in general, “activists” protesting in support of the status quo who fully represent the status quo deserve all the scorn, bile and burnt starbucks coffee as can be hurled at them. Or pies. Pies are good.
Just a few quick responses to this, epon.
1. Obviously you believe that people “can” say whatever they want, but you do not believe that they are rationally or morally entitled to say whatever they want. If they “speak for” the fetus over and against the woman who is actually pregnant, then you think them deserving of ridicule, mockery, etc. They crossed some kind of a line of appropriateness, and this is all I meant by “can’t.”
2. Perhaps your and Rusty’s positions are different on this matter. Rusty clearly stated, for his part, that men can’t speak to the abortion issue unless they are playing a role in the decision of their “significant other or daughter.” He didn’t specify that they could hold some opinions and not others. He just said that men essentially don’t have the place to speak to this issue.
3. Perhaps we’d better leave a continued discussion of this “speaking for the fetus” talk to my blog, where I am still eagerly awaiting your answer to my comments from a few days ago.
It’s a shame you lost your uterus Rusty. We had a lot of good times with that thing. I remember that one evening we got baked, went over the to vacant parking lot on the corner of James Agee and Laurel, and tossed it around. That was a good evening.
Goddamn foreign cars.
What part of “freedom of speech” do you not understand? You can say whatever you want and I won’t stop you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t whatever I would like in rebuttal. Stop being deliberately obtuse here. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever stupidity they want, jesus’s imminent return, the twelth imam, armeggedon, the flying spagetti monster, whatever; and, they can speak about it to their heart’s content. Please stop projecting your own desire to limit people’s actions and speech upon me, as I have never proposed either.
Some men at some times might have places to speak about this, but for the vast majority of men (and women, for that matter) they have absolutely no place speaking for situations they know nothing about.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. I’ll get on over there when I get a moment.
I actually agree with Xon… my mom doesn’t have a uterus and I think she deserves to have an opinion on abortion.
In other news, I think there is a clear conspiracy occuring with 2000 VW Jettas, as mine is also losing coolant. This is fishy. I think the government might be tiring of our disenchantment with them.
Niki, my dear… don’t be a smart ass with the uterus thing.
You know I love you.
But I don’t love you.
Okay, I’ll stop hijacking Rusty’s blog for our hijinks now.
It’s late. I need sleep. Clearly.