Category: Life

In a recent article for Salon Magazine, Mary Elizabeth Williams writes,

Of all the diabolically clever moves the anti-choice lobby has ever pulled, surely one of the greatest has been its consistent co-opting of the word “life.” Life! Who wants to argue with that? Who wants be on the side of … not-life? That’s why the language of those who support abortion has for so long been carefully couched in other terms. While opponents of abortion eagerly describe themselves as “pro-life,” the rest of us have had to scramble around with not nearly as big-ticket words like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” The “life” conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.

Continue reading “So, What?”

Allow me a very self-indulgent post today. Yes, I know, they’re all self-indulgent. That’s why you write a blog in the first place, Silly!

When I was young…Oh, a few of you are still here…anyway, when I was young, I had a football coach who took the following view of injuries:

If it’s more than a foot away from your heart, you’re okay. Get back in there!

He was a big, gruff, ex-professional football player whose career spanned the years when face-masks were still a novelty, and long before the current obsessive concern with player safety (there’s a post for another day). Of course, he was exaggerating a bit, nevertheless, he was unsympathetic to players who faced injuries less than heroically.

Continue reading “Leave No One Behind! Kill the Wounded!”

Bear with me for a minute as I do a little inside-sports riff here. Stick with it though, because this post is not about football.

My beloved Spartans finished a disappointing season last week with a come from behind win over the TCU Hornfrogs in the, ahem, Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. After the game, in which starting quarterback and team co-captain, Andrew Maxwell was benched, I got a less than complimentary text about him from a perennial MSU-basher who shall remain nameless.

I didn’t respond to it at the time because the truth was that Andy didn’t have a good game. In fact, he had precious few good moments all season. He’s a junior so he’ll be back next season, but by no means is he guaranteed to be the starting quarterback again. After the game, he was asked how he felt about the benching:

Continue reading “Andrew Maxwell, Hero”