Courtroom horror

I don’t want to turn into Johnny One-Note here -- this is not, after all, an anti-abortion website -- but in the comments section of my post “Putting a comma where it doesn’t belong is not some life-ending tragedy” (September 11) , a reader in San Diego who calls herself LightExpectations left a link to a column by a woman named Andrée Seu Peterson that I wanted to give all of you the opportunity to read. Hence, my post today.

Ms. Peterson wrote the piece back in April of this year during the murder trial of Doctor Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia -- admittedly old news now -- but some things are never old news. Some things are as current as the air you breathe (no pun intended).

It’s not easy reading, but here’s “Courtroom Horror” by Andrée Seu Peterson. As the column’s subtitle says, “The shocking part of the Kermit Gosnell trial isn’t only what’s illegal.” Ms. Peterson manages to write in an engaging and even whimsical style about a thoroughly non-whimsical subject.

If you really like to read about horror and gore, though, turn to Wikipedia’s article on Kermit Gosnell.

It will keep you up at night.

Putting a comma where it doesn’t belong is not some life-ending tragedy

In the Afro Briefs section of a website called AFRO on September 6, 2013, the headline read “Miami Heat Udonis Haslem & Wife’s, Unusual Wedding Announcement” and apparently no one batted an eye at the unneeded comma.

And when Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem and his wife, Faith Rein, were married recently (after living together for 14 years) , no one -- well, hardly anyone -- batted an eye that their wedding announcement included ... well, here, just read it for yourself.

I’m hoping you are shocked, but perhaps you won’t be.

The thing that shocks me most is not the fact that the couple included information about an abortion in their wedding announcement. It’s that one pro-choice blogger reportedly was appreciative that the couple “discussed their decision like it’s not some life-ending tragedy.”

If abortion is not a life-ending tragedy, then what is it exactly?

There may be an ongoing debate about whether a fetus qualifies as a human being (what is it, reptilian?) or exactly when it becomes a human being (the CCNCW -- current conventional non-Christian wisdom -- seems to be when it is “viable,” capable of surviving outside the womb) , but -- and correct me if I’m wrong -- has there ever been any doubt as to whether it is life? Any at all?

Maybe in the hallowed halls of The New York Times or the locker room of the Miami Heat or the bridal parties of the rich and famous, but not where I live.

There’s no question whatsoever.

An abortion is a life-ending tragedy, period.

Case closed.

Now if we could just get journalism schools to teach people where commas are not needed, life on this planet would be almost perfect.

I hope you caught the lack of sincerity in that last sentence. When everything is said and done, today is still September 11th.



(Photographs above from “Days of Terror” at nymag.com)


(Photographs above from www.theblackday.org by navexpress)

Hot raisins, anyone? No? Well, then, how about some nice burning brandy?

Trivia for a warm June day:

1. Shooting Parrots (Ian in Lancashire) has written a very interesting post about an obscure French scoundrel in V is for Eugène François Vidocq (approximate pronunciation: yew- ZHEN fran-SWAH vee-DOKE).

2. After a bit of silliness up front concerning two people on the Today show, Rush Limbaugh explains that whether you think the “Plan B” morning-after pill does or does not cause an abortion depends entirely on your definition of pregnancy.

3. The word “Lilith” (Hebrew: לילית) occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible, in Isaiah 34:14, and thus qualifies as a hapax legomenon. It is not translated as “Adam’s first wife” as some of the more well-read among you might think. It is translated as “screech owl” in the King James Version (KJV), “night monster” in the New American Standard Version (NASV), “night hag” in the Revised Standard Version (RSV), and “night creature” in several other versions. Make of it what you will.

4. The word “honorificabilitudinitatibus” is also a hapax legomenon (q.v., plural: hapax legomena) in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene 1. According to Wikipedia,
it is used after an absurdly pretentious dialogue between the pedantic school- master Holofernes and his friend Sir Nathaniel. The two pedants converse in a mixture of Latin and florid English. When Moth, a witty young servant, enters, Costard says of the pedants, “O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.”

5. FYI, I mean FTIOANUKR (For the information of all non-U.K. readers), flap-dragon was (or is) a game which involved (or involves) trying to eat hot raisins from a bowl of burning brandy. That certainly explains why our U.K. friends talk so funny.

In the comments section of this post, send your own fascinating trivia factoid or factoids to me for possible use on another warm day. If I like it/them, I may use it/them. Whether I do or don’t is in no way related to whether I like you.