Jamie Lynn Spears: Poster Child for "Abstinence Only" Education

Remember a few years ago when famous teen pop star Britney Spears made a big deal that she was going to be a virgin until she got married?

Well, apparently she didn't, but at least she managed to delay a first pregnancy until she was married.

Her younger sister wasn't quite that "smart." I know, I know, putting the phrase "Britney Spears" and "smart" in the same essay seems a tad incongruous. But why are many teens so stupid when it comes to sex?

Currently, the stupidity is caused by a combination of strong hormones and the gutting of sex education programs at the federal level.

Granted, teens have been stupid about sex for a long time. Teen pregnancy isn't anything new. It was a little more common when I was a teenager. But, at least in the '70s, many school systems had at least something approaching sex education. And, between more factual sex education, more girls asserting their right to not have sex before they were ready, and more availability of contraception, teen pregnancy rates gradually started to decline.

However, during the reign of the Bushies, reality-based sex education been systematically removed in favor of the fantasy of abstinence-only education.

It doesn't work. The teen pregnancy rate is starting to increase again, partially due to the federal government's refusal to approach teen sexuality in anything approaching a realistic manner. The teen girls who are having sex without proper education or protection are only living out the fantasy of "waiting until marriage" that the federal government and many religious organizations like to push.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think most teens should have sex. Having a good sex life as an adult is very important. I can only imagine how many teen girl's feelings about her sexuality have been mangled by a teen boy's feelings about his. While I don't advocate waiting until marriage to have sex, I do advocate waiting until you have a potential lover with whom you can discuss sex and birth control before you engage in having sex. If you aren't adult enough to have the birth control talk, you aren't adult enough to have sex either.

Claiming that sex education leads to irresponsible sex is like claiming that driver education leads to car accidents.

Why the US Does Not Have Enough Arabic Translators

Since keeping its base happy was more important than actually collecting information on terrorists, the Bush administration discharged as many as 37 soldiers who were training to be Arabic translators. And this was just since 2002 - after 9/11!

Why were they discharged? Because they were openly gay. This was strikingly shortsighted behavior two years ago, and it may now be coming back to haunt Americans.

In certain parts of the military, openly gay soldier have not been discharged when their skills were deemed necessary to national security. But what could be more necessary to national security at this time than skilled Arabic translators?

On September 27, 2004, the FBI announced that it was behind in translating Arabic documents and tapes. Not only that, but some tapes were being automatically deleted before they could be examined. Since the FBI typically hires many former military members, they might not be so far behind if not for the institutionalized homophobia of the Bush administration.

The only way we can maintain a civil, modern, safe society is to use the talents of all. I want a president in office who understands this, and that's why I'm voting for John Kerry.

[[I've also submitted this as a Letter to the Editor at the Post-Gazette, and added it as a page to The Facts Do Matter.]]

Tenet Was Pushed -- "Surprise-Surprise"

Yet more evidence that Bush isn't playing with a full deck. It's one thing to fire someone (and Tenet deserved that a long time ago) but to fire him in a meeting with other people present and then pretend that Tenet resigned "for personal reasons." How can any thinking person believe anything that Bush says?

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_4636.shtml

From Capitol Hill Blue

Bush Leagues
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 4, 2004, 06:15

President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

...

"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."

...

“In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the record.

© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue

People As Political Props

(Permanent link to this essay)

People frequently use other people as props. This is most common in families - think of the way most parents dress up and show off their kids. This is a fairly innocent use of people as props. It does no harm to the child to dress the cute six month old baby as a Halloween pumpkin, and, meanwhile, the parents get "Oooh isn't she cute?" from their friends and neighbors. This can become more malevolent over time - did little Jon Benet Ramsey really enjoy being made up, gowned, and paraded at baby beauty pagents? We'll never know.

Or think of the way some older men acquire younger girlfriends or trophy wives. The way some women live through their husbands and children. There are times when people use other people for their own needs rather than letting others stand on their own.

But, increasingly, people use others as political props. The "props" tend to be people who cannot stand on their own. It tends to be done most often to women who are unable to speak for themselves. Twenty-five years ago, it was Karen Ann Quinlan. And, today, it's Terri Schiavo.

Terri Schiavo is being used. She became brain dead in 1990. Brain scans show that the portion of her brain that governs consciousness has been nonexistent for years. It is a sick parody to photograph a brain dead person with an autonomic reflex to light and then treat her as if she was conscious. She is being anthropomorphized the way a person talks to a dog and asks "Oh, does Fido want a dog bicuit?" when the dog barks.

When people are so quick to jump up and down and talk about honoring the dignity of the individual, they have robbed Terri Schiavo of any "dignity" she may have had. What happened to Terri Schiavo is extemely sad, but no one can bring her back. She'll never talk to her family, get out of bed or do anything. She's being moved around like a puppet, and her family ought to be ashamed of themselves. People are using Terri to reflect their needs. Their need for her to be alive. She may be still breathing, but she isn't really alive.

People die, and it is fascinating to me that people who say they believe in religious teachings seem the most determined to force physical existence long after the brain had died. Terri died in 1990. It's a sad view, but a realistic view. All the tube feeding in the world isn't going to bring her back.

Some day, I don't want to be a breathing husk in a hospital bed. I signed an organ donor card in 1978 and have discussed living will issues with my husband. Today, even though I'm middled aged and in reasonable health, I am filling out a lengthy living will. I absolutely do not want to exist indefinitely in a kind of "Nazgul" state - neither living nor dead. If I'm seriously injured, sure, use the heroic mesures if I have a chance, but don't keep the feeding tube going years after all real chances have gone.

I hope that any disabled people who may be reading this essay aren't reading this essay as an anti-disabled people piece. If you are reading this piece, you are conscious, you are capable of reading and comprehending the world around you. After Christopher Reeve was so tragically injured back in 1995, he was understandably devastated by his condition. But his wife Dana turned to him and said, "You're still you." That acceptance made a huge difference to his acceptance of himself after his accident. He understood precisely what happened to him. Terri Shiavo is incapable of understanding what has happened to her.

Terri Shiavo isn't the person who collapsed in 1990. To make Terri a symbol of all disabled people is just wrong. Simplistic and wrong in every way. To keep Terri breathing does not celebrate or honor life. It means that people cannot comprehend the difference between living and breathing. I don't want to be in a state where I'm merely breathing. And I would hope all adults would make the same point by thinking about and signing a Living Will and giving a trusted friend or family member a durable power of attorney.

Terri Schiavo stopped breathing in 2005, but she died in 1990.

Technical Information on Brain Death

• "Determining Brain Death," an article in the April 1999 Critical Care Nurse


• Brain Death, University of Missouri Health Care Web Site