Peony Moss: October 2005 Archives

Dale Price hates Bratz.

Pansy and Peony hate Bratz. Even Rosey-Posey hates Bratz.

In the interest of, let's say, marketing research, what precisely do we hate about them? There are so many reasons, I know. Let's list 'em all: the skanky clothes, the marketing to little girls, the whole it's-all-about-the-mall concept....

But, you know, even if the Bratz underwent total makeovers of their soulz -- ditched their vinyl-headed boyfriendz, wore modest clothing, joined their school's chapter of the Junior Engineering and Technical Society, started a chapter of Little Flowerz at their church and washed cars to pay their way to the next World Youth Day, and dropped the annoying habit of using "z" for "s" -- even if they did all that, I still wouldn't like them. The giant eyes, enormous lips, teeny bodies and big feet... they're just ugly dolls.

Would Hambet agree?

From today's Washington Post (of all places): The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have

If it's unacceptable for William Bennett to link abortion even conversationally with a whole class of people (and, of course, it is), why then do we as a society view abortion as justified and unremarkable in the case of another class of people: children with disabilities?....

Whenever I am out with [my daughter] Margaret, I'm conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don't know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent.

This is a great editorial. Please go read the whole thing and come back.

...here's one more piece of un-discussable baggage: This question is a small but nonetheless significant part of what's driving the abortion discussion in this country. I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families. The abortion debate is not just about a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby; it's also about a woman's right to choose which baby she wants to have.

Where to start?

-- the idea that Margaret might be a -- are you sitting down? -- "living embodiment" of the *gasp* pro-life movement!!????!!!!!! Seriously, are "pro-lifers" really that scary to the left? Are we the villians in the bedtime stories they tell to their children?

-- I can't get over the implication that there are people out there who are so blinkered by politics that the very existence of a particular human being is nothing more than a political statement: to them, Margaret is nothing more than a walking, talking bumper sticker.

-- The prenatal weeding out of disabled children makes the constant yelping about "diversity" even more hypocritical.

-- One of the dangerous things about making Hitler the new Satan is that it's easy to ignore how we're falling into the same trap. Aside from that unfortunate Jew-killing thing, Hitler had many qualities that would be much admired today: he was nice to animals, he was a vegetarian, he detested smoking... and he was all about making poor those poor crippled children didn't suffer. Face the facts. Before the Nazis got started on the Jews, they warmed up on their own disabled citizens. "Life unworthy of life." "Useless eaters."

But then, apparently people with Down's syndrome don't count as human beings, do they?

-- the idea that we have the right to judge other people's lives as worthy or unworthy of living...

-- and that only a life of perfect health is deemed worthy of living. You know that as soon as an "obesity gene" is identified and can be tested for.... because of course we can't have fat people in the master race it would be unfair to subject children to the risk of being teased.

I would only question the title of the article. "The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have?" Please. The pro-life nut-jobs have been trying to have this debate for years. A few years ago, I heard with my own ears Father Groeschel make this very point: that in the future, only a few families -- mostly Christians and traditional Jews -- would have mentally disabled children. The others would have been aborted.

So I got this quiz about what-historic-general-are-you from Mr Victor "Hippie" Lams. But I'm not going to post the link until I get a result that's not George McClellan that I like.

So saith Tom of Disputations:

Traditionally on this day, Catholic bloggers do something poorly that is worth doing.

I think I'll say a Rosary. I would also say "do some sewing," since that is something I do very poorly indeed, but I have the flu today, so I think I'll do needlepoint and housework.

And here's an excerpt from "Lepanto":

White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.