One thought came to me the night Diana died, and the week after, as the eulogies rolled in...

And that was: I had dismissed her as a lightweight, because she was beautiful and exceptionally well dressed, and had described herself as “thick as a brick” intellectually, and before Charles came along looking for a brood mare, her job experience was working in a pre-school.

I, on the other hand, was at that moment writing my PhD dissertation. Hurray for me. Coming into the kitchen at about 2a.m. to make coffee, I switched on the tv and saw the news of her death. All I really thought was that it was too bad she died so young, leaving two young sons behind.

Yet the eulogies over the next week, watched in snatches while I made coffee in the middle of the night, just about moved me to tears. She could have spent the rest of her days jet-setting around being decorative, as any number of well-off ex-wives have done.

But she went to a minefield and stood in it to champion the children who’d lost legs and hands in them. She embraced African children dying of AIDS when almost no one would touch them. Went to visit Mother Teresa’s hospital. And each of the people who ran the various organizations she championed said how genuine she was, and how much it meant that her presence shone a spotlight on their efforts, and how much good that spotlight had done their cause.

That’s when I realized that Diana had used the gifts she had. I think she’d been raised to think of herself as dumb, and living with Charles and the tabloids certainly didn’t help. But as an ex-wife she surely realized she had beauty and charm and star power, and she had a big heart, and she used all of those traits to do some good in the world. She was more than I ever thought she was.

I think in many ways Harry is “her” son — her older boy belongs to his father’s world and has pretty much performed to expectations. If the younger one stumbled, though, from a very early age the tabloids made a federal case of it. He didn’t ask for notoriety, but it’s always been there. So what is he to do? He’s the “spare,” and no longer needed even for that, since his brother spawned. I just think that, like his mother, Harry has decided to use the gifts he has to do some good in the world (Invictus) , and now to support his young family as well. And if some of that is what you call celebrity, so be it.

Well you're off to a provocative start, aren't you? I believe we are at a crossroads of persuasion...

…an opportunity provided by the extreme results of Dobbs.

Most people in this country, including a chunk of Republicans, support the right to abortion and are very disturbed by the overthrow of Roe after 50 years.

Pregnancy is dangerous, and every day there are disastrous pregnancies that threaten the lives of living women who have heartbeats of their own. Every day there are couples trying hard to get pregnant by IVF and part of that process involves the destruction of fertilized eggs. Every day there are women who miscarry and need a D&C or mifepristone.

People who think of themselves as pro-life have not had to contemplate these hazards as anything but events needing medical care, nor consider them as “abortion” for 50 years. Now they do, because the SCOTUS and pig-ignorant state legislators have defined it as such.

Time to rub people’s noses in this reality. Time to make it explicitly clear what the fanatics have wrought. It’s all well and good to visualize perfect little Gerber Babies and get gooey about being pro-life. But confront women and their partners with the reality of the events I mentioned, and the picture changes radically. Then they get it — it’s medical care.

P.S. Please don’t make this an opportunity for blaming “white women” okay?

I have never forgotten that pair of idiots -- entirely old enough to know better...

So gleefully pig-ignorant. My gods, what have we become, that half the population thinks this is a joke. A damn joke.

They're not a comedy group, but they do engage in serious parody...

I started posting about them when the LA Dodgers backed out of honoring them for their charity work and then had to stand up again. Los Angeles Times printed letters both pro and con, but the columnists and editorial writers of the LAT went out of their way to educate the public over the past 3 weeks.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218016179

Here’s links to a couple of posts I did about the LA Times.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=17966335

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=17966375

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=17966382

Let me just add: the haters are in the minority.

Other means have worked better, before and since. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Ralph Nader's...

…Unsafe at Any Speed, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species all come immediately to mind. And on the dark and evil side, so does Mein Kampf.

These are all books, of course. But each in their time brought about a huge change in social and political consciousness and changes in laws.

Societies backslide. That is a given. The work needs to be done in every generation, or the work is lost. Do the work. — Laws are made by politicians. Become one yourself or vigorously support those who do the work of creating a better world. — Write and publish. If that does not appeal, use this generation’s preferred media to articulate your vision. — Come up with other ideas.

But if you continue to advocate violence and destruction while proclaiming the purity of your cause — as you have done throughout this thread — you will find few friends here.

"And who, disguised as mild mannered war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith...."

"And who, disguised as mild-manner war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith..."

Hillary is never old news to the GOP. They have been demonizing her for well over 30 years...

They decided to create a Femi-Nazi Bogeyman, and there Hillary was — a bright young feminist lawyer married to a rising Democratic politician, she kept her own name and spoke her own mind. Bingo — they had their Femi-Nazi ooga-booga that they could weave whatever vile lies they wanted to around.

Chances are they’ll still be kicking her name vigorously when she is finally resting in peace in the arms of Mother Earth.


.

Kicktoons. What a haul! What a wonderful Schadenfreude Dance from Ann Telnaes!

This gem from the days after 9-11, while the rubble was still burning...

Falwell said it, and Robertson concurred:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularise America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'