The U.S. is in what century again - the 18th?

I was shocked to read in the Guardian today of the sentencing of mothers to prisons in the U.S. Mothers who have lost their babies either pre- or post-birth on suspicion of drug use or in one case attempted suicide by ingesting rat poison.

An example of the increasing insanity of not granting women full autonomy with their uteri under the sole ownership and direction of the government:

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

And there are many more mind boggling charges in this disturbing article. Read it here.

More and more as the US descends into a madness barely touched upon by Dante, my heart breaks for my many USian friends who are so sickened by all of this.

We may have thought Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" outrageous when first published but another read now makes it eerily prophetic.

Theocorporatocracy.

Benny and Maggie

Ladies and Gentlemen:




On one hand I give you Margaret Atwood, esteemed author, who today suggested that Canada should set up a dictat-o-meter.

While Atwood delivered her dictat-o-meter suggestion with humour, it was only after she warned: “The tools for repression and control are multiplying very quickly. Our government: What happened to ‘open and accountable?’ … What happened to democracy?”

and

And she did not spare the current government any pointed criticism, saying they had turned into one that’s all about “airplanes and jails. “The airplanes are useless against the real foes we face, which are scarcity and inequality.”

As for the jails, who will fill them? she asked. “Is it a case of build it and they will come?”

She suspects what they’ll do to fill those jails is just lower the criminal bar so they will have enough people to fill the jails. And then they can say, we told you so.

“Is the big idea really to bankrupt the social welfare system … by spending all of our money on planes and jails?”

Read more here.




And then we have wee Benny. Ah Benny. Dealing with the really serious issues of our time.
Finally, finally, endorsing, OMG, condoms. CONDOMS!!!

Oh. But only for male hookers? Male hookers.

Pope Benedict says condom use may be justified in some specific cases, such as when a male prostitute is trying to prevent HIV infection, in a new interview that has the pontiff deviating from the Catholic Church's line on contraception.

There is such a richness of comedy in this proclamation that I simply can't add any more.

Oh the humanity.

And who would you rather have dinner with?