Trump is more pro-life than Biden

One of my friends on Facebook sent me a message apparently objecting to one of my posts about Joe Biden and his support for abortion. I'm not sure which post prompted that response, but part of the response was basically that President Trump's pro-life status consisted just of being anti-abortion.

I responded:

I think you need to look at Trump’s record a little more closely.

Abortion is a clear and significant pro-life issue, one that currently outweighs so many others because of the scale of it. Every year, hundreds of thousands of babies are killed. Every year, countless numbers of women (and men) are lift with physical and emotional scars. We certainly want a President who speaks out against it – and takes action. Biden’s position on abortion is extreme, and completely out of keeping with Catholic teachings.

Related to that is government funding for abortion/birth control, promoting it national and internationally, and forcing people to pay for them, and to participate in them in some way. That’s a violation of their conscience rights – do we really want to go after the Little Sisters of the Poor again? The current administration has sought to limit this, cutting funding, halting promotion. The Obama/Biden administration increased such funding and efforts, and sought to undermine conscience rights.

 In addition to conscience rights related to abortion is conscience rights related to gay marriage. This administration – while Trump is gay tolerant – has opposed forcing people of faith from being forced to take part in gay wedding in some way. And Trump did not betray his religious faith and officiate in a gay wedding.

Embryonic stem cell research is a pro-life issue. The Trump administration banned embryonic stem cell research by the federal government (The Obama/Biden administration actually supported and increased funding for it.).

Prison reform is a pro-life issue. Trump signed the First-Step Act, freeing thousands of inmates who had lengthy sentences but who had shown good behavior – and his administration redirected funding to help support the program.  

Human Trafficking is a pro-life issue, Trump earlier this year signed an executive order expanding efforts to combat it. In the first two years of the Trump administration, there were more than 12,000 arrests for human trafficking – and average of 6,000 a year. In contrast, in the last year of the Obama/Biden administration, there were just over 500 arrests.

Racism is a pro-life issue. Economic aspects come in here. Under Trump (before the pandemic hit), Black unemployment reached record lows – people had jobs. The Trump administration created economic empowerment zones in impoverished – primarily minority – areas. That has led to the creation of businesses and jobs.

On two pro-life issues, the use of the military, and the death penalty, the positions of the two candidates are comparable – essentially a wash. The Trump administration has made use of drone strikes, for example, but so did the Obama/Biden administration. Trump supports the death penalty, but then so has Biden for years (though he seems to be shifting his position – it’s not clear yet that he will ultimately oppose it. Given his switch on the Hyde Amendment, it could happen for political reasons.)

Trump had also made many MANY mistakes. His record is not perfect when it comes to life issues (environmental ones, for example) – or so many other things. But, he has done a lot for life beyond just opposing abortion. And the contrast between him and Biden on so many issues is very clear.

Oh, and by the way, I did not vote for Trump.

.................................................

I'm not likely to vote for Trump this time either - though I'm safe voting third party given the state I'm in. But he does have a far more pro-life record, however flawed, than Biden promises to have.

Pax et bonum

Swedenborg 23

Frank opened the apartment door, dripping water.

 

Jack was sitting on the couch, drinking from a tall glass. He looked startled, and slightly drunk.

 

“I…I…I,” he stammered.

 

“Why did you run out on me like that,” Frank snapped.

 

“I thought you would just sleep with her.”

 

“You didn’t ask. I was stuck in this rain.”

 

“Sorry, I just assumed.”

 

“Don’t assume things about me. And what are you drinking? You have to get up, and you know what drinking does to you.”

 

Frank walked over and grabbed the glass out of his hand and sniffed it. Whiskey.

 

Jack looked guilty, then angry.

 

“You have no right,” he snarled, reaching for the glass.

 

“I’m your friend. Aren't you going to AA any more?”

 

“I was," he said softly. "The group I was in broke up because of fighting.”

Jack had begun going to AA while in college after nearly flunking out his senior year due to too many missed classes due to being drunk or hungover, and several drunken incidents. Frank was there for many of them, including the night Jack had staggered on to the stage during a concert, and telling the singer - who later in his career won several Grammy's - that he couldn't sing.

 

“There are always other groups. Get to bed. I’ll make sure you’re up in time.”

 

Jack blinked.

 

“I, I was scared,” he said quietly.

 

“Scared?”

 

“Of you. Liza. I’ve never seen anything like it. You were, a monster."

 

He’d felt like one, Frank admitted to himself.

 

“We can talk about it in tomorrow. You need sleep, and I need to get out of these wet things.”

 

He helped Jack walk to the bedroom. As Jack stripped, he checked the room quickly for any alcohol – as he’d done many times before when they were in college.

 

Jack fell into bed. Frank pulled a sheet over him.

 

“I was scared,” Jack mumbled as he drifted off to sleep.

 

So was I, Frank thought. 

 

He turned off the light and went to his room to get the wet clothes off. He was shivering violently.

 

I’m just cold and wet, he reassured himself.

 

He felt like he was being watched again. He turned suddenly.

 

A sudden glimpse on the edge of his vision. Eyes glowing in the dark? Or his imagination?

 

Nothing there when he looked directly.

 

He sighed.

 

He knew he would not sleep for a while no matter how warm and dry he got.

 

He went about the apartment searching for more alcohol, trying to keep quiet so Jack would not wake up. Trying not to think.

 

He found little – a few bottles here and there that looked as if they had not been touched in a long time. Probably Jacks’ roommates – it looked as if Jack had been sticking to the program.

 

He had one last place to look.

 

Cautiously, he made his way up the stairs to the tower. He went up into it, and looked out. The rain had slackened, and he could see some of the lights of the city across the valley. He looked at the darkened area that was the woods he had traveled through. Liza’s place was somewhere out there. But from here, everything looked safe and distant.

 

This isn’t so bad, he thought. Just as long as I don’t look directly down. Don’t think.

 

He searched around the tower room for any stashes. He found nothing obvious.

 

Finally he sat in the captain’s chair that Jack had somehow managed to get up the narrow stairs.

 

He remembered his mother.

 

As a small boy he had watched her many times search the house for his father’s hidden alcohol. She often found bottles, and poured the contents in the sink. He remembered the smell of it – strange that the memory of the smell should come back so strongly.

 

His father had eventually stopped drinking, but his mother never ceased periodically searching. Just in case.

 

He drank little himself. An alcoholic father. Two alcoholic grandfathers. At least one alcoholic uncle and several alcoholic cousins. He did not want to tempt the odds.

 

The few times he had drunk – as on the night he met Jack – he found it difficult to stop.

 

He thought of his father. His father’s words had helped him that night. He could thank him for that.

 

Maybe that’s why his father liked Jack so much, he wondered. Maybe he’d seen a kindred spirit.

 

In fact, his father had hired Jack to work summers in the family shop. Jack needed the money after his own father had cut him off due to his college, his major, and his lifestyle.

 

Jack proved a natural – more skilled than Frank had ever been. Frank had even once warned him, “Watch out. My dad wants to adopt you.”

 

Yeah, Jack was the son his father had always wanted.

 

Jack showed up drunk at the shop one day later that summer, nearly injured another worker when he wasn’t careful with a saw, and Frank’s father had fired him.

 

Maybe if I’d been a drunk dad would have appreciated me more, he thought. The elder Mr. McCarthy still talked fondly of Jack.

 

And at least his father had not cut him off after he chose history, Frank thought. He’d reluctantly accepted that he had to follow his own path.

 

He looked at his watch. Another hour to wake Jack.

 

He cautiously went back down the stairs to the kitchen, and started the coffee maker. Then he went to his room, got his laptop, and returned to the kitchen, where he tried to start writing.

 

He failed, He knew he was trying to avoid thinking about what had happened. The woods. Liza’s house. He shivered.

 

Had she drugged them? Was it all suggestion or some kind of mind trick she played?

 

He had to talk to Jack and ask him what he saw.

 

He thought of the face. He thought of Liza. He could be there now, with her, forgetting all this. He thought of her body.

 

No.

 

He was no prude. But he senses it wasn’t a good idea to start thinking that way. He was too good at getting himself in trouble that way.

 

Dad has his addiction. I have mine.

 

His watch beeped. Dang, I might never get this paper done.

 

He turned the computer off and went to Jack’s room. It smelled of sweat – and drinking.

 

Jack was snoring loudly.

 

“Hey, Sleeping Beautiful,” he said loudly.

 

Jack did not stir.

 

“Jack!”

 

No reaction, other than continued snoring.

 

He shook Jack, gently at first, then forcefully.

 

Jack opened his eyes.

 

“Shower,” Frank commanded. “You have to go on.”

 

Jack blinked and thickly, “On?”

 

“Radio. You have a shift to do. Get a shower. I have coffee ready.”

 

“Have I been drinking?”

 

“Yes. We’ll deal with that later. Get in the shower, or I’ll start it for you now,” he added, holding the glass over Jack’s head.

 

“You should be a mother,” he groaned.

 

“I’ve been called that.”

 

Jack joined him in the kitchen a few minutes later, still dripping. He poured some coffee, loaded it with milk and sugar, and drank half of it quickly.

 

“I gotta find a meeting.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I didn’t do anything stupid?”

 

“Besides drinking? No.”

 

“I know it’s no excuse, but I was scared. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

 

“What did you see?”

 

“It’s all kind of foggy. It got strange. But you changed.  Liza changed.”

 

“How?”

 

“You. You were like a warrior. I kept thinking Etruscan. Brown, and big. And your eyes.”

 

He drank more coffee.

 

“It’s like your eyes were burning through me. Like the eyes of a god. And your voice was different. Harsh. Angry. Powerful. I thought you wanted to squash me.”

 

“I don’t know what happened. I felt powerful, but in a bad way. I think I said some things. Sorry.”

 

"It’s okay. The whole thing was weird. But you see why I don’t like to go to Liza’s place. There’s just something strange there. Hey, but I thought you’d be with her all night.”

 

“I wanted to, I think she wanted it, too. But I was scared that if anything happened I’d never get away. Weird. That’s what I was thinking. Like I’d be trapped.”

 

“I gotta get to the station. But we have to talk more.”

Pax et bonum

A Boy's Will - Early Frost

I'm usually reading a couple of books at the same time. Along with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (finished yesterday), I've been reading (for spiritual growth) In The School of the Holy Spirit by Jacques Philippe, and Robert Frost's first book of poetry A Boy's Will - which I just finished this morning.

I am a fan of Frost - he and Dickinson are my two favorite American poets - but I had read a number of his poems in isolation, and not a full book by him. I decided to start with his first book, which is entirely made up of poems with which I was not familiar.

Despite the title, the book was published when Frost was about 39. The poems, though, seem like a young man's poetry - and when I checked I found out that indeed some of the poems had been written 20 years earlier when he was a young man, and many dealt with an earlier period in his life. Some of the poems sound more Victorian or Edwardian, with language that is more traditional than the colloquial diction of his better known poems. It was strange seeing all the "thee's" and "thine's" in a Frost poem.

I enjoyed the book.Some of the poems stood out: "My November Guest," "Mowing," "Reluctance" "The Trial by Existence," "Into My Own," "A Late Walk," Revelation," and "Reluctance" come to mind.

It was as if he was warming up his voice for what would come later. 

Pax et bonum

A Not-So Amazing Adventure

One of the books that's been gathering dust on my bookcase due to lack of time while teaching (and its length), was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. The book won The Pulitzer Prize (2001), was on all sorts of "Best Of" lists, and was praised by a friend who is an avid reader. I bought it years ago, but didn't get around to reading it - until this past week.

The story was interesting. Chabon's writing is good (with tinges of magical realism?). He captures elements of the golden age of comic books, and it was nice seeing familiar names and historical figures making appearances. The Jewish elements were intriguing - who expects a Golem to play a role in a contemporary novel? There are some clever plot twists.

But sometimes the book seemed too clever, and once you got beyond the cleverness it seemed shallow. The book had too much of contemporary sensibilities, and I began thinking it seemed unreal for the time it was supposedly about, and dreading what Chabon was going to pull in next. (At one point something was introduced that made me actually groan, and almost stop reading.) It was popular a decade ago, but like so much that is popular at one time, you don't hear a lot about it now. 

Unlike the classics by writers like Austen, Dickens, Dostoevsky, etc., or even more contemporary classics by Waugh, Orwell, Harper Lee, and so on, I suspect in a few decades this book will just be gathering dust on library shelves - as it did for so long on mine.

Bottom line: Okay book. I question the Pulitzer. It might be of interest to fans of comic books and of good writing.

But my copy is going on the pile of books I'm donating for the library's used book sale.

Pax et bonum

Full Circle (The Devil and Daniel Webster)

It occurred to me yesterday that my school theater career began 50 years ago when I was in a middle school production of The Devil and Daniel Webster, and ended with me directing an adaptation of that play this past school year.

Given the available performers, we had to be creative in our casting, so it became The Devil and Danielle Webster.

I still have the script from the pay when I was in it!

My acting/directing career is not over, I hope. I had planned in retirement to get involved again with local theater. And I may go back to my old school to help with plays in the coming year.

Of course, for now, with Covid, all theaters are closed, so those hopes are on hold.

It was nice to come full circle.

Pax et bonum

Some Spiritual Reading

As a retirement gift, the faculty and staff at my former school gave me a spiritual book - In the School of the Holy Spirit by Jacques Philippe.

I've begun reading it, and I've found it stimulating - and challenging.

It begins with three premises about the path to holiness:

The task is beyond our power.

Only God knows each person's path.

Faithfulness to grace draws down further graces.

The first point hit home. I "knew" it, but I've still tried to do it on my own. Then I inevitably fail, and feel a sense of failure. This one reminds me of the AA notion of the Higher Power. You can't beat alcoholism just by sheer willpower. We need God's help to get to the bottom of our defects. Our own powers are limited. It is egotistical, prideful to think we can do it.

Pride is involved in the second premise as well. I want to choose my own path - but that may not be the path God is calling me to. I do need to discern, but I need to heed how the Spirit prompts me,

Finally - a premise that actually frightens me (in part because of my pride) - as we open ourseelves to follow the path God has for us, He may lead us down different paths these further graces might lead us into.

I must read more. It was a good choice for them to make - and a good way to begin retirement.

Pax et bonum

Help with ...

As part of my morning prayers, I list several requests for help as part of the intentions with one prayer. Some of the ones involving my own flawed nature are for help with my "bitterness, anger, sarcasm, and argumentativeness."

Those tendencies in me lead me to being unkind, to saying hurtful things, and to pushing people away. I sometimes stray into sin.

Social media makes it so easy to vent those things. In that sense Twitter and Facebook might be considered near occasions of sin.

I need Facebook because of things I do there to link with others, and a couple of pages I run. Twitter is a quick way to find out news.

But I could certainly cut back on my reading and posting. That time can be better spent elsewhere.

Pax et bonum

Those Swedenborg Posts

I have been posting chapters from my uncompleted novel, tentatively calls Swedenborg because it is based on a few of the ideas of Emmanuel Swedenborg about dead souls. I'm not a follower of Swedenborg, by the way, and the title in the end will be different.

I actually got the idea for the novel about 40 years ago, and some of the incidents are based on things that happened to me back in the 1970s! I have worked on the novel in fits and starts. As I'm posting the chapters I've written, I'm starting to revise them - but they clearly need more work. I'm pruning out some characters and incidents that were added over the years, but that now seem to clutter it. My moral and religious sensibilities have also changed over the years, so some portions of it are being modified or eliminated.

One thing I've noticed about me as a reader is that I find long descriptive passages boring. I prefer just a few details, and dialogue. That's the way I've written much of this. I sense a need for more description, though - maybe read Brideshead Revisited is spurring such thoughts. As it is, I'm more comfortable writing plays and short poems. But I want to finish this book.

There are a few more already-written chapters to post. Then it will be on to new ones. I've written some 40,000 words, and my estimate is that the final novel will be between 70,000 and 80,000 words.

Onward!

Pax et bonum

Swedenborg 22

What was Jack thinking?

The words bounced around in Frank’s mind – along with some other choice words – as he hurried up a sloping street. The rain had become a downpour. It had soaked through to his skin. He was cold.

Why did Jack take off and leave him?

He had reconsidered the idea of walking to the campus to get his car when the rain had picked up. But it meant walking through some neighborhoods he did not feel comfortable walking through alone at this time of night. Not in this city.

He suddenly stopped and turned. He sense he was being followed. But no one was there. No one he could see, anyway.

He shuddered. Maybe she’d sent a familiar. Or a demon.

            That's crazy, he thought. Who believes in demons?

Then he thought of what he'd seen. What he'd felt. The fear. Maybe that whatever it was had come back and now he was alone.

Idiot. 

He then thought about her implied offer. He could have stayed with her. She was willing.

He could have been in bed with her now, savoring her body.

Don’t think about it. He knew it would have been a mistake. 

Something had scared him off. An unease. He’d long ago learned that he should heed such feelings. When he didn’t, he always ended up worse off. He had a feeling if he had stayed with her he would have been trapped.

The feeling of someone following him came again. He glanced behind him, again, but did not stop.

There’s more than one.

The thought just popped into his head.

More than one what? He did not know, but he just knew there were more than one.

He thought of a lure wriggling through the water with fish trailing it. Each one wanting to attack it.

Did they want to attack him?

They?

But he also had the feeling that there was something keeping them back. Like a bubble.

He reached the end of the street, a dead end with woods and a slope before him. He knew there was a path up the slope and through the woods, but in the dark, in the pouring rain, it was hard to see and it took a minute to find the path.

He started up. It was even darker than on the street. Water was pouring down the path, making the footing slippery. He almost fell a couple of times. The loudness of the rain seemed amplified in the closed space of the woods. Branches tugged at his clothes. He slipped  and grabbed a small tree. It nearly bent over.

He shuddered. Cold and …

He looked back the way he had come. He was certain he saw eyes. Then they were gone.

He turned back to the path and hurried, stumbling, slipping as he went, almost falling several times but managing to keep his feet.

Suddenly he was out of the woods into a field. He knew Jack’s street was just ahead. He hurried through the tall grass and toward the street. He could see only a few feet ahead, but in the distance a single street light beckoned.

They were getting closer. He could feel it. As if the bubble was collapsing.

He stopped, turned, and yelled, “Leave me alone.”

Even as he yelled, he felt foolish. There’s no one there.

Nothing can hurt you if you don’t let it. His father had told him that once. Why did he think of that?

He laughed.

“Hey, nothing. Go away. You can’t hurt me if I don’t let you.”

He turned back toward the road and walked cautiously, but deliberately. He was no longer afraid.

He exited the field, and started walking along the road toward what he knew was the final curve before the house. He would be there in a couple of minutes. The light from the street light glistened in the puddles.


For the first time, he felt he was alone. And it was comforting.

Pax et bonum