Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2

[JeanneP]

This is the place to talk about the works of fiction you are reading, whether they are new or old, and share your own opinions and reviews with interested readers. Every week the new bestseller lists come out brimming with enticing looking books and rave reviews. How to choose?

Discussion Leader:  Judy Laird

Rosemarykaye.

Over the weekend I watched about 8 hours of the Series "Lark rise to Candleford" Season three.  Loved it.  My fathers family  all from Birch Vale. Derbyshire .  I have been doing Ancestry research for past 6 year and have photo's of the Area they lived and worked in from 1800.  Great Grandparents married 1856.  The homes and building in Birch Vale and the Town of Candleford looked just about the same.  Found myself picturing my family all growing up like those people. Dressed the same. Living the same.  Such fun.  That whole area of Derbyshire is so beautiful. ( I know that Candleford was suppose to be close to Oxford.).

Makes one wish they had lived back then. (Maybe for a short time). Would have liked to have met my GGrands. They had nine children but seemed to have had such a happy life together.
I now have to see if there is a Series four and five.

[CallieOK]

Rosemary,  I don't want to stereotype all young people.  I've been around my three grandchildren and many of their friends for the past 19 years and have always seen respect and courtesy.  There may be a good bit of teasing and sarcasm among their special friends - but not with others.

However, two of the Grands had definite problems with individual classmates when they were 10 - 12 years old.  My grandson, in particular, was caught in a situation in which teachers could not single out the sly perpetrator, even when they knew exactly who it was.  Under school rules, everyone involved had to be disciplined.  This was not fair and it took a very long time for my grandson to regain his self-confidence.

Onward and Upward...

I think I saw the book "The Novel Bookstore" mentioned here and want to say how much I'm enjoying it.  Interesting premise!

[BarbStAubrey]

Polite - crass - either way I think is putting a polite ring to the Limbaugh profanity - I am and I think many women are fed up being referred to in such a dehumanizing and vulgar way much less, what the words and his use of them infer - disgusting is mild here -

We used to have to put up with this stuff - women were blamed for mens use and abuse of them and where today there are still some who know in their heads it is wrong I think there are way too many who still do not know in their hearts that women deserve the respect you would give your own mother or daughter - can't say wife since too many still think they married a punching bag. Enough is enough!

[Steph]

L imbaugh has gotten away with so many horrible things over the years. I have friends who adore him , but I ask them to please not go on and on about how wonderful he is to me. He definitely hates women.. He did not really apologize, at least not what I would think of as an apology. The scary thing to me is the number of people who think anything he says is perfect.
I dont watch much tv, and when I do is old reruns..
I think our country has gotten way out of hand with rudeness, foul language and general behaviour that is unpleasant.. I see it every day, not directed to me, but all around me. I shudder to think of when some of the current young people get old.. The tattoos alone make me blanch.. At least the piercings will heal if you stop putting stuff in them..
Limbaugh is up to 6 advertisers withdrawing..

[rosemarykaye]

The trouble is - at least here - that all these advertisers withdraw, but the wrongdoer gets so much publicity from it all that the advertisers are soon sneaking back - they want to be seen to be taking the moral high ground, but in the end it is money that speaks, as ever.

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand got into a huge amount of trouble for something they did live on the radio, but in a matter of months they were both fully 'rehabilitated' and getting just as huge salaries as they had been to start with.  Of course they were not really sorry, just sorry that they got caught.

Similarly, Murdoch had to close the News of the World when all the truth about its phone hacking practices came out, but it is now becoming clear that he has continued to nurture the people who had been in charge and who authorised all of it (notably Rebekah Wade/Brooks), and he has now launched 'the Sunday Sun' which is just the NoW in another guise.  In the meantime lots of celebrities have jumped on the publicity bandwagon, claiming that their phones were hacked, when IMO the people who really suffered were people like the parents of the murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler - the NoW hacked her phone after she had been killed, leaving her parents to believe she was still alive.  Of course no-one's phone should be hacked, but it is getting to the point at which people like Hugh Grant and Charlotte Church - both inveterate publicity seekers - seem to be claiming that they have suffered as much as Mr & Mrs Dowler.

Oh tatoos!  Steph, aren't they horrible?  I can't believe the number of young women who have them in all sorts of places.  Thank goodness neither of my daughters appears to be interested - Anna insisted on getting a second ear piercing when she reached her 16th birthday (and she paid for it) but that's as far as it's gone.  I stipulated no nose, lip or any other piercings, and she agreed.  When I was a child, the only people who had tatoos were sailors or a few of my mother's friends' less reputable husbands.  My mother even thought ear piercing was extremely common.

The behaviour is of course the worst aspect.  The general lack of self-control and manners.  Horrible.

[Babi]

 We must have similar brain wiring, then, MARYPAGE. I love Costain, too.  Same with
Limbaugh. My kids laughed, but listened, to a phrase I liked to use...'rude, crude, and
socially unacceptable'.  I suppose Limbaugh's attitude must appeal to some people, but
I am amazed that he would think enough people would listen to him that he could run
for president.  But then, he does have a very large ego. With any luck at all, Limbaugh's big mouth will eventually put him out of the running.

  Too true, ROSEMARY. It used to really gall me when I would resent some remark and
be told, 'You have no sense of humor.'  Agh!!   

   

[BarbStAubrey]

This is the last I will say because it is getting boring as we chunch on and on - If Limbaugh had used the most offensive words that were common even as late as 1960 to describe a black person or a stereotypical behavior we associated with a black person that derided him or her we would be so outraged today that he would be taken off the air as Don Imus was a few years ago - and that is not the outrage or shock I am seeing over using the language and behavior pattern that has historically been associated with women when we are denigrated. And to top it off women represent 52% of this nation's population where as Blacks represent 14% - looks like too many women still "put up" with it...

[mabel1015j]

Just Saturday at the dinner table we were having a discussion in which i said to my 37 yr old son that i had, and still have, always been impressed w/ the fact that the guys that he hung out w/ as a teenager , and still does, never used any offensive language in front if me or his father. They are always very respectful, even tho i know they watch HBO and listen to hip-hop, they somehow knew/know what is appropriate when and they were willing to say "hey man! Watch your mouth" to others who may not have been taught the same rules.

My son, who is a high school teacher, then told us a story about his taking a sophomore to the office after she had been warned three times by two different teachers about her language. Her excuse was, "it's just a habit."

In my college teaching, i really only once had to admonish a summer school student from another university because he, in classroom discussion, dropped the s and f word w/in about five minutes. Obviously some adults, and apparently other college professors, were letting him get away w/ that language. Maybe we have ourselves to blame.

[jane]

I guess when parents use that kind of language with their kids and I, like all of you, I'm sure, have been amazed to hear what comes out of a parent's mouth  to their children and anyone else around.  If that's what kids hear from toddler on, that's what kids will say.    I'd guess all of us were more likely raised with many fewer material things, but THE LOOK from Mom or Grandmother or Dad would stop us dead in our tracks.  Nothing needed to be said.  You just KNEW what THE LOOK meant.

jane

[JeanneP]

Seems like once things get started about what is right or wrong for people to say on TV that now it is really taking off.
The latest here this week is to cancel the contract of one of our Well known Coaches.
He happened to call one of the players who is Chinese a "Chink".  Now it is being said that that term went out centuries ago.  Not where I came from.  It was heard to be used in England  when I was growing up.  Specially during the war.  Both Japanese and Chinese I heard called "Chink's"  Certain type people will use Slang regardless.  The teens of Today use the F word like a every day term.  I have even heard 4 year old use it.  Does not pertain to just the (Lower class) as a term some people still use.

[ursamajor]

Yes.  Sad, isn't it?

[Tomereader1]

Yep, amen to all of the above.  Did you read where that potty-mouth Ricky Gervaise called Susan Boyle a "mong".  I understand that used to be a british derogatory term for a person w/Downs Syndrome.   He said "it doesn't mean that anymore".

[MaryPage]

I have heard there are now whole websites devoted to tearing down that lovely young woman law student at Georgetown University who testified as to the OTHER ways "birth control" pills are used for women's health issues and why it is necessary for insurance to make these medicines available.  She spoke in particular of an aquaintance who has ovarian cancer, and these pills have been helpful with that disease.

But you see, men don't have ovaries.  They don't get pregnant.  So THEY are the experts who should be telling the "weaker sex" what they should and should not do.

I understand these vicious websites are headlining terrible lies about this young woman.  One claims that SHE claimed she needs $3,000.00 a year worth of birth control pills.  The actual truth is she has NEVER, EVER mentioned using these pills herself.  She has never once, either in her testimony or in her interviews, spoken of her personal experience with using or needing birth control pills.

Where is the outrage?  I hear some outrage, but why does not my sex FIGHT THIS BATTLE FOR ONCE AND FOR ALL?  To WIN.  It is not really about religion at all.  It is about controling women.

[Steph]

It never ceases.. Women get the rap for the stupidest things.. Remember Anita at the Clarence Thomas Hearings.. She told the simple truth and got horrible things said about her.. I wonder if all men are secretly afraid of women and keep them down with such behavior.. Not all men,, but a large percentage. I have been told , especially by conservatives that I have no sense of humor in political  stories. I dont like the type of smut they like to use.. Now I am seeing where liberals do terrible things in the name of politics, but I know few liberals who use the type of invective that Limbaugh tosses around.

[MaryPage]

I am just so sorry these medications ever got called "birth control" pills, because as this young woman pointed out to our congress, they are used for so very many different things.  They are hormones.  Hormones dictate so much of our health life.

I now have breast cancer, and the medication I am to be put on is anti-hormonal.  To me, these men are the Boogey-Men hovering in the closet ready to pop out and deny my right to medications to save and/or improve and extend my life.

Messing with my LIFE!  That is a threat to me.  Why do not all women see this?  They do get a fast sea change of the mind when they themselves or one of their daughters encounters a huge problem.  But so many of my own sex absolutely refuse to believe we are in thrall to the whims of MEN!

[rosemarykaye]

MaryPage, I have often been appalled by the reasons that some young women give for not wanting to breast feed their children - they usually say they don't want to ruin their figures for their husbands.  My own mother even said that to me, although I for once did my own thing and fed all three of them.  I hasten to add that I know that there are many perfectly valid reasons why some women can't breastfeed, it's just this particular one that I find so irritating.

Rosemary

[Babi]

  Oh, yes, JANE. I had a pretty good one myself.  I was also able to call upon a certain
tone of voice that brooked no argument whatsoever. Great in emergencies or escalating
quarrels.
  I don't hear the f- word much; perhaps it's used more around peers. But 'bitch' seems
to be totally acceptable now and is not considered an insult. In fact, some seem to
preen themselves a bit on being called a bitch. 

 I'm sorry to hear about the cancer, MARYPAGE.  You make some very strong points there.
Would you consider addressing them to your congressional representatives?  Especially the
points about 'birth control' being an inappropriate term for a medication that has so many
purposes, and about the attitude of the nay-sayers threatening your life and well-being.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh dear  I would think twice about suggesting Contraceptive pills are not medication because that is just what those who want it not covered want to hear so that it stays a social and religious issue that has no place in a health bill. This is a health issue so whatever we do or do not call it, pill or vitamin, let's please allow women access to affordable full health without going back to how it was before the pill suggesting women had no right to sex unless they paid the price.

[jeriron]

This is something I heard on tv this weekend regarding why so many Republicans won't stand up against Limbaugh.

It's not that Rush Limbaugh is a Republican
It's that Republicans ARE becoming more and more Rush Limbaugh.

MaryPage

So how are you enjoying going back on the Political boards.  I refuse to go up against any of them.

[MaryPage]

There are a number of battles going on here, and all of them are due to a certain male mind set.  Let me hasten to say my beloved husband agreed with me totally on these things and was as appalled as I.

There is the battle of men feeling threatened if they do not hold sway over women and their lives.  The most recent ghastly example was the young mother in Phoenix, Arizona.

Another has been going on for centuries:  science vis a vis religion.  If the men who run religions have decreed thus and so to be Truth, and men of science come along and by long observation and testing find that Truth to be false, it is the men of science who get hung, burned at the stake, and scandalized in public.  The history of mankind is full of this.  Galileo, for instance.  It took 400 years for the church to reverse itself and say yes, the Earth DOES revolve around the sun and not the other way round!

So the scientists who care for us and our children, our doctors, are screamed and hollared down when they offer us medical treatments to save our lives.  And this is still going on in this 21st century.  This almost 83 year old is aghast.

[mabel1015j]

Since this is Women's History Month i will mention that we have a contraceptive/hormone pill thanks largely to two women and one man.

Of course, Margaret Sanger was the most outspoken advocate for women to be able to control the number of children she had. She was a public service nurse in NYC and frequently assisted doctors who were called to homes of women who were wornout from having so many pregnencies or who had tried to abort. Even though she had been trained as a nurse, she did not know how to prevent pregnancy. She learned how and she and her sister opened a clinic to teach women about their reproductive system and about contraceptive devices. Both she and her sister were jailed for sending "obscene" material through the mails or handing out drawings of women's reproductive system at lectures and in the clinic. They also both went on hunger strikes, gaining a lot of publicity about the issue of contraceptives. She also started the much maligned Planned Parenthood.

Kathryn McCormick, the 1st woman to graduate from MIT w/ a science degree, biologist,
suffragist and philanthropist gave Gregory Pincus almost all of the 2 million dollars he needed
for research and testing of the pill. He had trouble getting money from traditional funding
scources like universities because of their  fear of the influence of the Catholic Church.

I think all women should be celebrating M Sanger's birthday, and men also.

Jean 

[BarbStAubrey]

Don't hold your breath waiting till the Roman Catholic Church changes its teachings on Sex and Marriage. It will take another Council, maybe called Vatican III and some new blood in the Curia as well as, another way of theorizing philosophy and theology.

Back during Vatican II Sex, Marriage and Population Control was a commission that readied its report after meeting several years with clergy, cardinals, lay people - When Vatican II got underway there were 16 commissions that because of time and money - they figured it had to be completed in less than 5 years - 8 of the commissions were cancelled.

Pope John XXIII opened Vatican II and died soon after. Pope Paul VI was more of an administrator and decided that the 8 had to go and he decided after some heavy politicking by the then Secretary of State to make sure 3 particular commissions never reached the floor - the one addressing Celibacy and the Priests role as Minister of the Faith - Contraception that was included in the commission on Sex, Marriage and Population Control and the final estocada [thrust of the sword] the commission to re-organize the Curia.

Frozen molasses moves faster then the Curia which is like in our Government a combo of - the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the Pentagon and some aspects of our Senate. Remember it is only since the early 1900s that any of these positions including being a Cardinal required you had to be an ordained priest - often upon receiving the appointment you were ordained since Cardinals are suppose to control a Bishopric. All to say politicking is Uno in the church.

A good book to at lest read the reviews on the Amazon page The Politics of Sex and Religion: A Case History in the Development of Doctrine, 1962-1984 http://tinyurl.com/7scavqw

The next aspect of all this is looking and looking to find the crux of their stand on women's reproductive rights - rather than seeing this as a conflict between science and morality or ethics - it is all about theory in Philosophy.

This was a study a few of us embarked on a few years back that included reading at least 25 books and discussing the issues as we studied them with many in the Church as well as those who renounced their vows. I forgot some of it but in a nutshell it all comes down to an active, moving sperm and a still, waiting egg - those dynamics are tied to so many other basic philosophical theories on movement trumping stillness that they cannot get around those basics therefore, they have concluded the sperm trumps.

Here is a link that includes thoughts from Whitehead, the Anglican Theologian who is best known for the concept that 'God is becoming,' as the Universe expands so does God - this page is an example of the kind of thinking that goes into this stuff. http://tinyurl.com/7yxvjcc

[MaryPage]

I do not look for any changes in any of the world religions, for the simple fact that MEN RULE there.

What I want is to see the women rise up on their high heels and get out there en masse and kick butt.  If the WOMEN, from 18 to 70 will scream long, loud, and without cease until the male facade crumbles, that would do it.  Actually, the last time I descended upon Washington and joined the fray I was 75 years old!  But now I am nearly 83 and have just about every ailment in the book.  I cannot go.  It is that simple.  I cannot go.

But WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?  Where, oh where, is the outrage?  My great grandmother was a Suffragette.  My father's sister was the first head of Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. and headed up the group that preceded PP, with the blessings of Margaret Sanger, one of whose letters to my aunt is proudly displayed on a wall of that outfit today.  I worked for years and years against the glass ceiling and for lots of rights women of today are blissfully unaware we once did not have.  And yes, I had to suffer all the attempts at seduction from the supposedly community pillars who believed any woman in the workplace was a whore and simply avid for their advances.  In fact, they truly believed there were only 3 kinds of women:  whores, madonnas and their own daughters.

It breaks my heart that I do not hear the roar of the women sweeping across this nation.

[maryz]

I'm with you, MaryPage!

[serenesheila]

Well said, Mary Page.  I watched a program on CSpan2, about Margaret Sanger over the weekend.  I just love the book's author.  I ordered her book, and look forward to reading it.

I had 4, living grandmother's during my childhood.  Two were great grandmothers!  I asked one of them, "How did you prevent getting pregnant"? She told me she douched with rose petal water.  It apparently worked some of the time, as she only had 3 children.  The maternal, great grandmother, had 13 children.

Sheila

[BarbStAubrey]

My thinking is that the women who know are deep in raising kids with a shaky economy and possible less income so that they have all they can do to hold their heads above water but they are making a difference in what products they are buying and they did bring about an uproar using twitter and facebook over Korman versus Planned Parenthood - the younger women have not figure it out - they can take care of themselves and that is what they do -

What really is the shocker is to see how many women vote for those who represents everything that keeps women in their place - as far as we have come but not far enough - I do not know if I am more angry and the idea of women voting for this stuff or at the men who keep it going. You would think they would be pleased to have their men free from worry and home rather than having to go elsewhere for about 10 days every month.

[Steph]

I think that the younger generation of women simply do not have the time or energy to fight the good fight, but they had better start thinking about it.. Our country seems to be in some sort of crisis that involves a good many people wanting to go back to the 50's.. They just have some sort of nostalgia and think that life was better of then.. It is sad and mistaken, but that is the feeling I get from the tea party group..
And no.. I dont want to hear that some liberals are worse then Limbaugh. They consider that horrid black man who will say anything for publicity as a liberal and he is not. He is simply a publicity hound.

[MaryPage]

I don't know who you are talking about, Steph.

But you are right, going back in history would make folk do without an awful lot of stuff.  We would not be talking together in these forums.  If we had 1950, no computers.  No cell phones.  Very few had TV yet, and that was black and white.  Women were disrespected.

Those who want to return to the days of our Founding Fathers would find a rough period not unlike the "wild west."  People took baths once a year.  There were no bathrooms, only outhouses.  Life expectancy was age 38;  that was old.  And yes, you can cite folk who lived to a ripe old age, but that does not change the fact that 38 was the median.  Children died like fleas.  Women stayed in their homes because it was not really safe for them to go out and about.  There were no automobiles:  only horses.  Very few people had any education at all.  We read about those who led the country, but the vast unwashed majority knew nothing of the world or government.

[Babi]

It's a pity to think that a woman's rights as a person can be canceled out by the
philosophical theories of some group of scholars, BARB. HOw did any philosophy
get to be supreme ruler? Their 'basics' appear to me badly flawed, ...as they probably
do to you as well.

[marjifay]

I agree, BarbStAubrey, don't hold your breath waiting till the Roman Catholic Church changes its teachings on Sex and Marriage.

I'm sorry, but I find the Catholic Church's theology (as well as other religions) so very funny, except that it can work tragedy on people who take it seriously.  

A case in point, was the Commission of some thirty Catholic theologians from around the world who were called to the Vatican in 2004 to begin a study on the urgent quetion of what happens to babies who die before being baptized -- do they go into hell (as Augustine said), or a sort of limbo, or directly to heaven.  They finally issued a 44-page statement in October, 2006.  The answer: they go to heaven.  Whew!  That's a load off my mind.  BTW, the statement said that  the decision covers those "babies" who become human immediately after conception.  Whew, again!

Marj

[JeanneP]

I am not understanding what the problem with the Birth control Pill and Insurance is about. Maybe not read all what was said in the papers and on TV.
We have the large U of Ill here along with a good size Junior 2 year college   both have big Clinics.  Birth control can be gotten both place for Free.  Even Condoms for the men are free.  I am sure you have to fill in a form.  Along with that we have 2 Free Health Clinics.  If earning under 18 thousand Single 32 Married with a child again the can be had for free.  No churches. or anyone else involved.  Even have 2 abortion clinics that women can go and talk to.  Available if want abortion.

So why are Catholic Universities so involved.  If  a student is Catholic then her own conscience  should tell her what to do.  I have known many Catholic women over the years on the Pill.
Can not understand now how women can become pregnant if they don't want to.

Back in the 60s we didn't have as much info. we used common sense. Did not want more we made sure didn't.  This was even that way back in parents.  My mother went from the 1920s and only had one child every 4 years. (3).  She had to know something. Grandmother only 3 spread apart.
They men should keep out of this what should be a personal thing between women.  If they are against the pill. Marching in front of Abort Clinics then they should do what they can do in order to slow down Population

[JeanneP]

Has anyone yet read the new book out by " Tatian De Rosnay"  The House I loved?  I really enjoyed her Sarah's Key.  Looking forward to finding the new one.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh Jeanne this could so easily become a discussion on aspects of religion and politics but it is what we are thinking about today and assuming our library here on Senior learn as a coffee shop where we can chat a minute about the issues of the day and even find a book or two that would enlighten us I will simply say some Catholic colleges do have clinics with free or at least you can order and pay for birth control products where as, others do not and the issue seems to be around the Catholic institutions that hire folks and where the insurance covers for instance Viagra not contraceptive pills.

When all this hit the press some Catholic Institutions that were covering birth control are now peddling backward because their Institution is run by an order that is under a local Bishop rather than an order that is separate from the local Bishop therefore, some have to follow the straight line viewpoint taken up by their local Bishop.

That is what many do not realize that some orders were granted permission from a Pope to build an order with their own rules of conduct even to their own Liturgy and Traditions - almost like Ford or GM incorporates in a certain state and is subject to the laws but no one from the state tells Ford or GM how to run their company or what to produce as long as it is within the law and they treat their employees as the law requires. The same with some orders example most of the Benedictines and the Carmalites - where as some orders their Abbot or Mother Superior is even chosen by the Bishop.

And so, to know and have friends who are Catholics is not seeing one blanket viewpoint - plus in western nations most women - I think they shared recently as many as 98% of Catholic women in the US - use the pill regardless what the church says. Young women realize the expense is no longer cheap and the pill is part of their life for 40 years - it is a health issue and if Viagra is considered a health issue for men than why is Contraception still being tossed about like a football.

[BarbStAubrey]

marjifay I saw that and I always end up quickly flipping the page - after all these years it is still a hot button for me - all this about when life begins and I do not see them stationing a priest outside clinics - not even in hospitals to Baptize these so called infants.

I had 3 miscarriages when I was young and wide eyed - I had two children very quickly - 9 months and 6 weeks to the day between their births and then a series of mis-carrages - the first after I was 3 and half months pregnant - sure I was upset and alone - no family around - husband taking care of our two little ones and all I could think of, like a mama bear was if this child that I never saw, was Baptized.

The priest said no, he couldn't - then he tried [he was nice] [I was all of 23] to describe the bloody mess so that he said there really wasn't anything to Baptize - then the "Lifers" started with the graphic posters in the 80s insisting on these perfectly formed fetuses so that I was very confused, hurt, and became angry - till I learned that these posters are a bunch of lies but still the idea of the church suggesting they are true and they want the fetus to be considered a child but, not good enough to be Baptized - come on...

[MaryPage]

My experience was the same.  My first child was born with the cord around its neck.  Dead at birth.  Had been dead in the womb for a couple of weeks, and they knew that, but they made me wait and go into labor naturally.  The way they thought in 1949.  Anyway, my mother-in-law wanted the baby baptized and buried, but the church said absolutely not.  A priest told her not to be upset:  the baby would go into "Limbo" forever and ever.  A nun told her there was a special nursery for babies in Limbo and the Blessed Mother covered them with her blue cloak.  There was no "personhood" back then, but then again girlfriends, this was BEFORE THE PILL!  Think about it!  By the way, the baby was a perfectly formed little boy, over 7 months along.

I swear to the above.  That is precisely the way it was.

But I am arguing with Barbara and anyone else who says this is all about Religion.  It is not.  Look again.  Take a good long look at the history since the time of shamans.  This is a WAR AGAINST WOMEN pure and simple and the men, all men involved whatever name their religion is known by, are waging that war to keep us under their thumbs and to control our bodies and lives and not allow us the freedom to do so ourselves with the assistance of the medical practices we choose to go to.

[BarbStAubrey]

Could be MaryPage - however, I see from Shamans onward it is tied to religion and since the government of most areas of  the world was the religions - China it was Confucianism - heck to be hired you had to study all 5 books and test up till Mao- in Byzantium it was the Eastern and Greek Orthodox - in Europe till the fourteenth century it was the Holy Roman Empire just another set of words for the church - that still maintained a strong presence in high office in many European nation-states till the French Revolution. Not all religions started out all male but they sure were in the majority and the theology of these religions kept it going with all their proofs -

Women can do what we will but before we get a fair shake with funds backing our interests we need a government that is not controlled by religious thinking - and as long as other issues that are represented by religions and continue as the engines behind political initiative we are saddled by these church views.

I just think if the Catholic Church, that does still seem to have influence over so many, would revisit what they had already acknowledged with a commission so that we all thought it was eminent that birth control made sense for an over populated world as well as, for the practical among married folks then we would see a seismic movement that will legitimize what women are doing without the so called blessings of men in government or in religion.

Just ask as I have why no women priests and the first answer out of their mouth in a whispered conspiratorial tone is because of our monthly and how could that happen on an alter. They are whit-lipped with fear about a woman's body but more I see they do not understand their own body either - it is like they wish the body did not exist when they are in their spiritual mode and in their political mode again, they want to do it all with the mind.

I can understand how in 1962-3-4-5 they were not going to talk about sex out-loud in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome among 2800+ men - by now have they come far enough along that a commission could enacted and heard. If for no other reason than the world's population is too large for its resources. That is my hope or else only secular governments without any religious views and then we have the individual citizen to make that happen - where do you place your bet...

[MaryPage]

My point, Barbara, is that you and I are wishing for precisely the same outcome, but looking in entirely different directions in how we see the landscape.

As I read it, you see the religions of this world as inhibiting the freedom of women to make their own decisions about their bodies.  Each religion, today, having a book and a body of all male leadership and a huge bunch of rules insisting that "God Says," even though there is no evidence whatsoever that God ever said any of this.  You seem to me to be putting the blame on, fingering as it were, the religion itself.

I say this is not the picture.  The truth is MEN are desperate to keep women from making their own decisions.  Men are desperate to keep total control over women.  Ergo, they are hiding behind the SHIELD of religion!  They are trying to pull off the deceit that it is God Who has these rules, not them, oh lord no, not the poor darling downtrodden men!  God wants women to be subservient to men and made them to be so.  And for thousands of years they have managed to convince women this is the Truth!  It is not the religions, Barbara!  They are simply the storytale.  It is the MEN themselves stomping on the independence of womankind.

[MaryPage]

Did you hear about the wonderful woman in the Virginia Legislature who has introduced a bill which mandates that any man who wants to use Viagra or its like medications must FIRST attend a lecture on what precisely the use of such a drug does to the male member in the matter of creating a prolonged erection and what the habitual use of this pill can do to their overall health?  I LOVE IT!!!!!

Watch MSNBC around the clock.  It gives you all of this stuff, which almost no other news source does.  Also, eight women legislators walked out of the Georgia legislature this morning when the men introduced 2 more anti-female bills.  

Notice no one is doing anything about jobs.  A female congresswoman pointed out that the brand new U.S. congress which was voted in in 2010 to create jobs put all their time on introducing their first two highly touted bills:  one about abortion and one about contraception!

[maryz]

Mrs. Romney says that women aren't interested in all that stuff.  They're just interested in jobs.  Obviously, she isn't listening to the same folks that we are.  And not just women, either - she should listen to my husband.

[roshanarose]

Well today is International Women's Day.  Roooaaaarrrrr Sisters!!!!

A male acquaintance was most upset when he found out that there was a particular day for women internationally.  He asked me:  "Why isn't there an International Men's Day?"  I answered:  "There is.  The rest of the days in the year".

MaryPage:  You are invincible and σ'αγαπώ.