THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Mama, Don’t Take My Incandescent Bulbs Away: First the environazis came for the light bulbs. Now, they’re going to come for the candles. Ruhullah Massoudi, a chemistry professor at South Carolina State University who analyzed airborne emissions of burning paraffin wax candles, says they can potentially cause health hazards when burned in unventilated areas, reports The Washington Times:
He also suggested that some people who suffer from an indoor allergies or respiratory irritations might in fact be reacting to air pollutants from burning candles. Candles made from beeswax or soy, though more pricey ... "apparently are healthier," Mr. Massoudi adds. He presented his findings during the society's annual meeting in Washington.
The eco-minded now have a new source of guilt. The green police have a new target, and hypochondriacs might balk at romantic suppers.
† Look Before You Leap: Part II (second item): Oklahoma County District Judge Vicki L. Robertson struck down a 2008 law requiring doctors to perform ultrasounds before performing abortions, on the grounds that the law violated the state constitution, reports The Washington Post:
Thirteen states regulate the provision of ultrasounds by abortion providers, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health think tank. The provisions have been pushed by abortion opponents as a means of deterring women from having the procedures. …
State Sen. Todd Lamb (R), the bill's principal sponsor, said he will probably ask the attorney general to appeal the ruling. …
An Oklahoma law (separate from the one ruled on by Robertson) mandates that women get information on how to access fetal heartbeat services.
In South Dakota, a federal judge is expected in coming months to issue summary judgment or proceed to trial in a battle over the state's 2005 "disclosure" law mandating that doctors tell women that abortion will sever their relationship with "a whole, separate, unique living human being" and increase their risk of suicide. Providers have had to comply with the law since July 2008, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit overturned a 2006 preliminary injunction from the federal district court.
A similar law took effect in North Dakota on Aug. 1.
There is at least one pregnant, unmarried woman who wanted this type of information – and had to do her own research, because the state in which she lives does not have such laws on the books. People magazine reports:
Kourtney Kardashian's unplanned pregnancy forced the shocked reality TV star to make one of the most difficult decisions in her life: Would she have the baby or terminate the pregnancy?
"I definitely thought about it long and hard, about if I wanted to keep the baby or not, and I wasn't thinking about adoption," Kardashian, 30. …
"I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don't think it's talked through enough. I can't even tell you how many people just say, 'Oh, get an abortion.' Like it's not a big deal." …
Kardashian discussed abortion with her physician, and then headed to the Internet to do further research.
"I looked online, and I was sitting on bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion," she recalls. …
After scouring the Internet, Kardashian says she started to realize that an abortion wasn't an option for her. "I was just sitting there crying, thinking, 'I can't do that,'" she says. "And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life."
You can undo a pregnancy chemically or surgically, but you can never undo an abortion. Shouldn’t we err on the side of “too much information” than too little – or none at all? This is, after all, a life-and-death decision.
† Ahmadinejad Is A Feminist. Who Knew? (second item): Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to appoint at least three women ministers to his new cabinet, reports Agence France-Presse: “In the previous administration, Mr Ahmadinejad had two women in his cabinet but not in a ministerial capacity - Fatemeh Vaez Javadi, a vice-president heading the Environmental Organisation, and Zohreh Tabibzadeh Nouri, vice-president for women and family affairs.”
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, for one, is not impressed:
[M]eaningful change to Iran’s theocratic government will not be coming from Ahmadinejad or the cutthroat mullahs he answers to. His first female Cabinet choices - Fatemeh Ajorloo for the social welfare ministry and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi for the health ministry - are as hardcore as the men already in power in Tehran. According to Massoumeh Torfeh, an Iran specialist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, both nominees are supporters of “draconian changes to family laws,’’ diminishing the rights of women in cases of divorce and child custody. Ajorloo, moreover, “was influential in setting up the Basij Sisters militia, which has been involved in brutal attacks and arrests of women’s rights activists.’’
If this is the regime’s strategy for “currying favor with women,’’ what would a strategy for alienating them look like? …
The misogyny of radical Islam is not a peripheral distortion, but a key element of the society Islamists aim to create.
But all of this may be moot. For some reason, Ahmadinejad “ignored a constitutional deadline for submission of the names of his 21 new cabinet picks, reports The Washington Post: “The president's noncompliance with the deadline pits him against parliament at the outset of what is expected to be a tense confrontation over his cabinet team. … During his last term, they impeached several of his ministers.”
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