I guess Barack Obama and other key Democrats (“Liberals,“ Bill would say) didn’t do or say anything that Bill Kristol could use as fodder in his much awaited, once-a-week, Monday morning New York Times column. I say that because Bill Kristol decided to go after MoveOn.org by dredging up last September’s General Petraeus ad, and by mischaracterizing a new 30-second TV spot that MoveOn is airing and is called “Not Alex.”

I resisted the temptation to view the ad before reading Kristol’s “critique,“ and that almost turned out to be a mistake because after reading the following Kristol review I was very reluctant to view such an allegedly nauseating, unpatriotic piece of dirt:

The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past. And the sole responsibility of others.

I finally gathered enough courage to view the ad.

The 30-second ad shows a young mother holding a young baby, Alex, while expressing her natural maternal concern as to what may await her baby when he grows up in a troubled world. This is what she says–and perhaps the only part that Kristol gets right in his much awaited piece:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

Now, only Bill Kristol could extrapolate the words of this mother into “Take that, warmonger!” “creepy,” “MoveOn has now moved on to express contempt for all who might choose to serve their country in uniform,” “The MoveOn ad is… barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past,” and by using the words of a post at the Web site, BlueStarChronicles.com.,“Does that mean that she wants other people’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism?”

Of course, mothers all across America realize that their sons, and daughters, may have to serve in the military and even risk their lives for our nation. That is not the issue. The issue is that they fear that their sons and daughters may be sent to fight an unnecessary war, a war that is started based on faulty intelligence, exaggerations, and even false pretenses; a war that is utterly mismanaged; and, yes, a war–or an occupation–that may go on “for a hundred years.”

Fortunately, I don’t have young kids. But I do have a precious grandson and I share the same concerns for him as the mother in the MoveOn ad. I have expressed such concerns in “John McCain’s One Hundred Years in Iraq.“

As far a Kristol’s claim that MoveOn “slandered a distinguished general officer,” I could stand corrected, but I don’t remember Bill Kristol condemning the slandering–the swift boating–of other military heroes who honorably served our country, such as Vietnam veteran John Kerry and triple-amputee, Vietnam veteran Max Cleland.

The medical fraternity has hailed as “miracle” the birth of an “ectopic” baby at Darwin in Australia on Thursday. The healthy 2.8 kg baby survived despite developing in her mother’s ovary instead of her uterus. The delighted parents have named their daughter Durga, after one of the most powerful goddesses in the Hindu pantheon.

Most ectopic pregnancies end in miscarriage or are terminated early because of the risk to the mother, reports the BBC. “The mother and baby were both doing well.

“The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said the odds of survival in such a pregnancy were ‘no more than one in a million’. Just 1-2% of all pregnancies are ectopic, and in 95% of those cases the egg is fertilised in the fallopian tubes on its way to the uterus. In 0.5% of cases, including this one, the baby grows inside the ovary itself.

” ‘We’re calling it a miracle,’ said Robyn Cahill of the Darwin Private Hospital in Australia’s Northern Territory, where Mrs Meera Thangarajah, 34, gave birth to Durga. Robyn added: ‘Only 1 in 40,000 fertilisations implant in the ovary, and it was unheard of for one of those foetuses grow to full term.” More here…

Ravi Thangarajah, 40, father of the “miracle” baby did not quite understand the gravity of the situation, and what the fuss was all about. “The doctor and the paediatrician came in and told me it was like a miracle baby — you’re one of the luckiest men in the world at the moment,” he said. Mr Thangarajah added he had to “go to Google” to find out about the “miracle” condition. More here…

Most every night, I stay up late-late, long after everyone else is sleeping. I fly over the internet, looking, looking, trying to find something beautiful or restorative to share with you here at TMV, so either you go to sleep with a beautiful idea or image, or wake up with one.

Tonight, finding something beautiful in this wide and groaning world, was easy. Because there is Jiang Xiaojuan, a young provincial policewoman.

Jiang is 29 years old and is the young mother of a little baby herself. Her child is under six months old, and is still being breastfed.

When the earthquake that killed over 50,000 people in China occurred, Jiang’s town was devastated. She put on her uniform and went out looking to help. She first found one weeping baby, and then another young infant… and took them to her breast.

She now is nursing five orphan infants whose mothers died in the earthquake. And she is nursing four other newborns whose mothers are homeless and traumatized… when a nursing mother is severely shocked, her milk flow, you might say, is shocked too and can stop flowing.

As a mother who nursed til her offspring was practically old enough to go to school, and as the mother of a grown daughter who while nursing her own child also gave her nourishing milk to my ailing elderly father (expressed, not nursed)… I feel certain we stand with many mothers worldwide who salute Jiang Xiaojuan profoundly.

It’s a mystery women don’t often speak of publicly, what it’s like to nourish another human being… or many… from one’s own blood and bones. It is, one of the greatest honors in the world.

I think, despite the restrictive and suspicious regime of China, it’s people like Jiang who really represent the true spirit of modern China, the compassionate soul.

Tonight, it was easy to find a beautiful story to tell you. I would that it were as easy on all other nights too.

_____
CODA
(And no, some of you guys, she only nurses babies. Real ones.)

Than Shwe, as four (4), count them, four huge ships are anchored off Burma, ships filled with relief medical supplies, a helicopter, food, tents, clothing for the poor suffering people of Burma, and YOU Than Shwe, whose names literally mean “million gold’ …refuse to allow the ships into port to land.

This, Than Shwe, is now three weeks after the entire planetary community has rushed to give aid to the people of Burma. You have said and continue to say, No. You have grabbed what shipments of goods you’ve allowed into the country, for yourself and your friends, with only pale distribution far from the center of the Irrawaddy devastation.

A lot of people worldwide see no great leader in you, but think there’s a infantile mewling tyrant inside the great dictator of Burma. It may be so, for when a person carries a profound sense of inferiority, they also give great effort to compensate by overdoing status symbols. I hear you have festooned your military jacket with unearned gold medals, Than Shwe.

There’s an old saying in the military, the real and honorable military, not your colonized kind, Than Shwe: the more gold hanging on the outside, the smaller the man feels himself to be on the inside.

Even our five-star generals and admirals, Than Shwe, do not wear their ceremonial military uniforms at every turn as you do. They know the difference between daily hard work and the garb to do it in, and the occasional all-out ceremonial dress-up.

Most importantly, they got their medals, bars and epaulets the hard way: they earned them– often by spilling their own blood. Not like you, who spill the blood of your own people, and then award yourself a grand medal for doing so.

There’s another story Than Shwe, one from my own heritage:

The greed-sotted Conquistadores who staged a vicious coup, plundering the Aztec nations, setting themselves up as a dictatorship and junta… they had exactly the same problem as you Than Shwe.

Their lust to festoon themselves with gold they had not earned, but killed innocent Aztecs for, made the braggart Conquistadores’ bodies very heavy. The Conquistadores literally clanked from all the gold they hung on all over themselves.

Gold, so heavy in fact, that when the native people turned on them in rebellions that took hundreds of years to come to resolution– in the favor of the people– that when the phony dictators ran from the Aztecs to bunker themselves in their stolen palaces, the gold-laden soldiers often fell into the many waterways and aqueducts Read the rest of this entry »

The Heart of the Unknown Mother
by C.P. Estés

Whether children landed on earth, but had to leave too soon,
whether they were detoured before they could be born,
whether they were wrenched away, or lost for unexplained reasons,
whether they were here for just a few moments,
or a few days… they all are blessed children.
Full children.

When people ask, “Are you a mother?’
you are entitled to say ‘Yes,
I am a mother.’
‘Oh, how many?’ they’ll ask.
Tell them.
You are entitled to say
the full number of children,
including the ones
who were on their way
and never made it
for whichever reasons.

When people ask, ‘Where are your children?’
Say, ‘Right here, in my heart.’

______
CODA
Back Story: I realize that not all people may agree with my Mother’s Day philosophy, but long ago I wrote this to try to talk about we who have lost our children, been separated from our children, have not been able to complete the body for a child soul, have decided other things. For myself as a young unmarried woman forced to relinquish her first born child, Mother’s Day was the saddest day, if any one day could be said after that ripping away, to be sadder than any other grief-stricken day.

When throughout the years people would ask me how many children I had… beaten down and walking wounded, I never felt worthy to say the full number of souls I’d struggled to carry with infinite love and safely to this earth.

Until one day. It seemed like such a huge break with convention– but as the years gathered, I came to know ever more dear women and men who had lost children in one way or another…and they felt pressed into silence for many reasons…

I honestly don’t know the exact moment I stood up against the forces pressing me to remain silent. But I gradually felt more and more sure that we who had lost our children in whichever way, all had a right to count our children as all other souls counted their children. In full. That we are full mothers. Despite all agonies, despite being warned to silence, despite impossible twists of fate, unconscionable situations, despite never having told our stories, despite not wanting to cause anyone else sorrow, despite being too filled with hurt to speak. Still, and even so… we carry that lit room of the heart for our children forever; we are mothers of all our children.

In full.

According to my contact in Yangon, what pitiful supplies are on the ground, have no distribution whatsoever to any of the thousands of villages and tributaries in Burma hit into utter devastation by the tsunami/ cyclone. The Burmese, most poorer than poor before the tsunami, are going on their 6th sunrise without clean water, food, or shelter or medicines.

Meanwhile, it is certain, while the military government gets down their fiddles, the infants and newborns and toddlers grow dehydrated. Without adequate water and food, their mothers’ breasts will have run out of milk, and the children will die from dehydration, an entire generation of young will be gone within a week.

Than Shwe: You cannot keep others from knowing about the mayhem of your country. Burma is on satellite. The floods and the people and the animals can be seen dead and floating and bloated. The living can be seen by satellite also, picking through ruins, entire villages wiped out with no survivors.

Than Shwe, delaying allowing aid workers in, makes you only look more and more unleaderly.

Than Shwe, animals survive by adapting. Animals who can learn new behavior, survive the unforeseen.

Than Shwe, animals who do as they have always done, die.

Than Shwe, open your heart, if not your mind. Be known as a ruler who took care of his people in every way possible, rather than going down in history as the leader who stood by paralyzed and allowed holy people and helpless people, his own kith and kin, to die in misery.

CODA
I hear from my contact in Yangon, that the people on the ground in Burma are begging that international aeroplanes please fly over and drop supplies.

Than Shwe, if they fly, let them fly unmolested. Add no more horror to horror. It’s within your power. Choose honorific over horrific.

Than Shwe, the new respect you would receive then, would be remarkable.

This is our deepest prayer for you Than Shwe, and for the people of Burma… the Central Buddhist Precept:

Deprive no living thing of its life.

Various news reports say there are over 200,000 dead in the cyclone and tsunami that hit Burma… now five days ago.

Other reports say over 500,000 will be dead if the thousands of bodies floating in water and lying in mud are not burnt or buried, and the injured given help, and the vulnerable given clean water.

This is after the government originally said there might be a total of 10,000 dead. Maybe not even that many, they said.

This from The Sun, U.K., by Nick Parker, Chief Foreign Correspondent at Mae Sot on the Burmese border
and James Clench

The UK has so far pledged more aid than anyone, announcing a £5million package to be channelled through the UN.

Charities Save the Children, Oxfam and the British Red Cross have also swung into action.

But most of the aid is yet to be distributed because of the secretive Burmese junta, led by ruthless General Than Shwe.

His isolationist regime is paranoid an influx of foreigners might have a political impact on a national referendum due tomorrow, set to strengthen the army’s grip still further.

Three days ago, the dictatorship’s Health Minister went on TV, in what was called a rare appearance, and he said aid was on its way to the Burmese people. Right away.

It’s not. Aid is not on its way. Five days later, world aid is not present in Burma.

General Than Shwe, dictator of Burma, has 400,000 soldiers at his behest.

And as I wrote at TMV earlier, hopefully Than Shwe would stand out of the way and allow the experienced international teams of aid workers to bring equipment and supplies, and the means to both unload it and distribute it.

It didn’t happen.

Ships from many nations are still fully loaded all over the world waiting orders to turn the wheel and steam toward Burma. Cargo planes are loaded and waiting. They are filled with medical supplies At various airports outside Burma, aid workers are sitting on their packed duffels and backpacks ready to go: parameds, post trauma specialists, doctors, engineers, health care workers, and heavy equipment, such as back hoes, trailers. All waiting.

And waiting

And waiting

Than Shwe, hugely well fed dictator of the ancient Burmese people, he who has suffered no personal loss from this disaster for he is ensconced more than 200 miles away from where the tsunami/ cyclone hit… and it is Than Shwe, who wanted to be king of everything and who wanted to control everything, it is he who has publicly failed the world soul, failed the world heart that cries out for a humane response…

Than Shwe has failed publicly and utterly by keeping aid workers out of Burma, by putting no real teeth behind his health minister’s claim that help was coming, big help was coming, right away, huge help was coming.

Than Shwe is merely keeping all aid workers on strings… without cutting the red tape.

The dictatorship’s excuse? Than Shwe and his merelings continues to parrot that they “cannot let aid workers into the country out of concern for the workers own safety.”

Than Shwe, NEWS ALERT: to aid workers, a disaster site wouldn’t be a disaster site if it weren’t unsafe.

Than Shwe’s huge lie will not hold water, not even a drop left behind by the tsunami.

NPR has a terrific and nuanced story on a difficult and challenging topic. One issue to dispose of right away, the story is headlined Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences, which may suggest to some that those boys make a choice about their gender identity.

As their story makes clear, little choice is involved. To people of my sexual identity (I self-identify as gay) using the words gender identity in the title would be more precise. Please forgive the quibble and let’s move on… Why on earth would any child ever choose to go through this:

Bradley had always had a preference for girls’ things. From his earliest days he had chosen girls’ dolls, identified with female characters and gravitated toward female children. But Carol had never thought to care. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t a loaded gun; it wasn’t a lit cigarette. She says it had really never crossed her mind to say, “I’d really rather you played with a truck.” […]

It was a single event that transformed her vague sense of worry into something more serious. One day, Bradley came home from an outing at the local playground with his baby sitter. He was covered in blood. A gash on his forehead ran deep into his hairline.
Read the rest of this entry »

What’s poses the greatest danger to NATO’s effort in Afghanistan? According to Dutch Scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, the answer is clear: Afghanistan’s birth rate.

Heinsohn writes for the NRC Handelsblad of The Netherlands:

“In 2008, there are 4.5 million male Afghans within the traditional warrior age of 15 to 29 years. Out of that group come the insurgents that the approximately 35,000 NATO soldiers are now dug in to confront … and behind Read the rest of this entry »

In Eldorado, Texas, there’s been a gathering up of women and children taken into protective custody from a commune that practices polygamy, one that claims LDS (Mormon) status, (Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints: FLDS) but long ago was exiled from the Mormon Church… Facts presented in affidavits brings again into the spotlight, evil toward children justified by wrapping it in robes of religion.

Lawyers for the commune are arguing that this was ‘an unlawful raid,’ “matching anything in Russia or Germany,” rather than a taking into protective custody 401 some children and girls, most under 18 years of age and more than a few either pregnant or with children of their own. Proponents of polygamy are outraged.

The alleged phone call that was the catalyst for this protective custody came from a girl who said she was 15, had been married off to a 48 year old man who raped her, abused her and that she had a child by him already and was currently pregnant again… She said other women in the community would hold her child, while her (their) husband beat her.

Where this girl-woman is among the 401 taken to shelter by protective services of Texas, is not clear. (Also accompanied by 130 grown women who volunteered to leave the commune, I think to be with the children.) It appears that the young caller’s husband, an LDS progenitor of babies, is also a registered sex offender, according to records, showing he was charged with trying to solicit a minor, and put on probation for three years.

It’s a long night, and it’s cold here in the Rockies tonight. Maybe that’s disturbed my outlook.

It’s not about polygamy between adults. It’s a set of different issues regarding children.

Remember all the arguments, for/pro, years ago about the usefulness and the ethnic roots that ought not be disturbed in female genital mutilation “rituals?” It was “religious,” they said. Therefore, somehow, supposed to be ok.

This ‘ritual’ is wherein a girl child between ages of birth to eight years old is held down and with an old knife or rusty razor to her tender parts has her clitoris sliced off and sometimes her outer labia also lacerated off, with the inner labia sewn shut except for…. good God Almighty, what are people thinking? Or not.

If you’re a man reading this, the equivalent is not taking the foreskin… which personally despite all mohels’ teachings and any physician averring “it doesn’t hurt” or that boys will grow up to be too stupid to learn to wash themselves properly, so “this must be done.” (what are people thinking? Or not.) … as a mother who labored to bring life into this world, who knitted up bones from my bones, blood from my blood, I am never, ever going to accept grown mens’ claims …in the clear face of seeing many a newborn boychild at hospital screaming bloody murder red-faced and sobbing themselves to sleep after ‘circumcisions’ that ‘don’t hurt.’

I don’t buy the bring ‘em into the world, and hurt them right away to make them Read the rest of this entry »

In the dark of a one-room shack, a new-born baby sleeps in the arms of a young mother. It could be a biblical scene. The glow from a kerosene lamp gives the mother a halo. Add an ox, a lamb and a manger, and this could be the story of Christmas, a painting of the Madonna and Child from the Middle Ages, or the living crib assembled by St Francis in the 13th century.

Sierra Leone should be a scandal, a scar on the conscience of a world which, seven years ago, promised to eradicate extreme poverty, cut child mortality by two thirds and improve maternal health by 2015. Halfway to that deadline, conditions for babies born this Christmas in the 10 toughest places for a child are still devastating. And Sierra Leone comes top on that list.

To read this complete story in The Independent please click here…

I’ve been a military wife for two decades; my husband USAF, 21 years, retired, now working for the VA helping vets get their prosthetics.

Not long ago, on a rehab ward, having gone to visit with two dozen vets recovering from injuries …I brought ice cream cones… a hit…. what laughing boy moments there still can be sometimes, the spirit of boy still deeply rooted inside the adult soldier, even though injured.

Later, in the visiting room, the conversation turned more serious: hopes and dreams, disappointments, perceived failures, visions and plans. I’d mentioned I’d been trained to pray by ‘the madwomen in black’ (the good Sisters of the Holy Cross). Some men asked, would I pray for them? ‘My specialty,’ I said, ‘the Angelus three times a day, every day of my life.’ I would be honored to pray for the men.

We requisitioned scraps of paper and everyone wrote down as best they could what they’d like prayed for. Some told me what to say, and I wrote for them. Then, I gathered up the papers, asked would it be alright if we prayed right now, out loud? And all assented.

I come from old country refugees and immigrants who prayed so loud in church that other more sophisticated people born in the USA would give us dirty looks. So yes!, the men and I did pray. We did pray big and wide and loud… with some pretty good counterpoint Amens and Right ons! and Yes sisters! flying.

One soul wept, saying he couldn’t pray. Someone greater with wings, put a hand on his shoulder, saying through me, ‘Tears are prayers, liquid prayers.’ By the end we all prayed in the rivers we stood in.

I promised that their askings would be in my prayers from that day forward, and asked permission, ‘Could I pass their needs onto others to pray for too?’ And they said, very much yes. And I have.

So I was thinking to share some of their prayer requests in a different way today, a way that most readers never see, a kind of hidden news of the goodness of warrior souls… just in case readers would like to, on this Veterans Day, have a direction to aim their prayers… fluid, rough, or otherwise.

You’ll see, what is being asked for is not material, but of this time, and also, eternal… which is simple in words, but more complex in another way: I think written prayer requests, (of which I have literally thousands from my travels to see and be with many different groups of souls,) contain inside a hidden story, each one. If you have inner seeing and inner hearing you can definitely hear and see the inner story of others who ask for prayers.

Here are some of what the men asked prayer for… any to be added are welcome here too:

Please pray for my daughter who is in prison, not in jail, but in a prison of alcohol. I am ashamed she got this from me. Please pray for my continued sobriety. Please pray for her to find the way out.

Please pray for all my buds, that they make it home in one peace. That their women wait for them.

Please pray that they will let me sit in this wheelchair all my life, that my butt will not wear out so I have to lie down on a gurney for the rest of my life.

Please pray for my son to be returned to me whole. He is lost and beyond reach.

Please comfort my mother over losing my brother. He’s in a better place, but we aren’t yet.

Pleas stiff the sumbatch captain who cheated me out of a 20 after poker game. No serious, keep him safe. I take it out of his hide when he gets home.

Please hold me and my children and my wife together. Please let me not let them down.

I would appreciate it if you would pray for me. I hope God understands that sometimes you need someone else to talk for you. I am in need.

Thank you for remembering in prayer that we will soon have another child. Everyone is tense. we lost our first to sids. I pray for you to continue in your work.

Please pray that my boy can get a stem cell transplant, and for me to find the place of peace that has eluded me so far. I know it’s there somewhere. If you could just pray that God shows it to me really big so I can see it. Or pray for me to get a spiritual magnifying glass.

Please pray that my father will speak to me again. We are on opposite sides. Thank you.

For my mother who is in a wheelchair too. For her to learn humor.

Prayer for the kids I met. All of them. Keep them somewhere they don’t have to see everything.

Please pray for those who do funeral detail. The boxes are heavier than just the bodies.

Please pray that God forgives me for saying the word F in front of my mother-in-law. She just about faints. Please ask God to give me another word. If he cant do that, just ask him to make my Mother-in-law temporarily deaf.

Please pray for a new road.

Pray to have these memories retired.

Pray that everyone can re-up into greater capacity. Pray for me to know the message I’m supposed to carry now.

Please pray for better painkillers, and big scissors to cut all the red tape.

I’ve been through a lot. We all have. Please pray that there really are ponies for all of us somewhere in all this horseshi-.

To which I have only one thing to say, a reverent and fervent Amen.

Believe it or not, but in parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline. There are reports of cows being stolen on Wisconsin dairy farms. Driven by a combination of climate change, trade policies and competition for cattle feed from biofuel producers, global milk prices have doubled over the past two years, says the International Herald Tribune.

“There’s a world shortage of milk,” said Philip Goode, manager of international policy at Dairy Australia in Canberra.

“What is unusual, and somewhat confusing, about the milk boom compared with other booming commodities is that milk is not like oil: You can’t stick it in barrels and stockpile it. It goes sour. Even in powder form, the most commoditized version, milk has a shelf life. As a result, only about 7 percent of all the milk produced globally is traded across borders. The rest is consumed in domestic markets, which are protected by geography and just as often by tariffs or subsidies.”

More here…

Photo above: A statue in the New Zealand town of Te Awamutu, where milk is big business. (Courtesy Victoria Birkinshaw for The NYT)

In Hinduism, the cow is a symbol of wealth, strength, abundance, selfless giving and a full Earthly life. More here…

Indian Parliament’s standing committee on science and technology some time ago suggested a part of biotechnology research be devoted to breeding special cows which naturally produce low-fat milk and are engineered to produce less methane to help slow climate change. Green cows, they call them.

“Methane, emitted by ruminant livestock which isn’t efficiently fermenting feed in the rumen (one chamber of a four-chambered stomach), is one of the greenhouse gases believed to be hastening the process of climate change. So, the belching and dung — the source of emissions, to put it politely — are of some concern.

“It is no laughing matter, we are assured. The world has over two billion ruminants, including cattle, sheep, goats. India alone is home to 200 million cows and 90 million buffaloes. Not to forget sheep, goats, camel. All emitting methane.” More here…

India, for that matter Nepal and Hindus living elsewhere, today celebrate the Hindu festival of light called Diwali. On this festive occasion (equivalent of Christmas) comes the good news that doctors in India have successfully operated on Lakshmi, a 2-year-old girl born with four arms, four legs and extra internal organs.

Incidentally, Lakshmi the goddess (goddess of wealth) is worshipped during Diwali festival.

A team of around 30 medics removed what amounted to Lakshmi Tatma’s headless identical twin sister who was joined at the pelvis and who did not develop and separate properly in the womb — an extremely rare case. More here…

Another report says that Lakshmi, has a very rare condition called ischiopagus, which occurs in less than two per cent of conjoined twins. It develops when the twin embryo stops developing in the mother’s womb, and one foetus develops at the expense of the other. More here…

I had a night dream long ago about how hard it was to get to earth. For those of us who get pregnant when just passing through a room where a man is reading a newspaper and no more, it has sometimes seemed as though women becoming pregnant, carrying to term, and laboring to bring a living baby into this world is easy, common, like falling out of a ground floor window.

But, it isn’t. It is hard to get to earth, more than a one in a million odds, I think with certainty. Those souls who make it to earth have made a long trek with many perils along the way.

In my dream, I saw that getting to earth was like running an obstacle course of timing: making love timing, who what where when timing, physical timing, time of life timing, money timing, right lover timing, right this that and the other timing.

If little souls sit on clouds gambling on a body being made for each one, they’d lose their bets more often than win.

That’s why I think being born, no matter how a person came to be conceived, is like winning the lottery. Most of us were not planned. Some of us were not ‘wanted.’ Some of us arrived through a loveless act or a perfunctory one. Some of us came by accident. Some of us are called ‘the ooopsie baby.’ Some of us came from unsanctioned moments and are called ‘love child.’ Some of us were sick in utero, even sick unto death, but somehow recovered. And some of us, well…
Listen…

When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.

Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel’s suffering sooner rather than later.

Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel’s life.

Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.

They then cut Mrs Jones’s placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.

But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.

Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.

Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother’s womb for another five weeks - until the babies were delivered by caesarean section.

The children are home now. The doctor’s thinking was that one child seemed half the size of the other, not getting enough nutrients. The doctors said his heart was 3x normal size and it was likely the tiny baby in distress would die from a heart attack or stroke in utero.

Mrs Jones said: “They told us that if he died, it could be life threatening for his brother.

“We had to decide whether to end his life and let his brother live, or risk them both.”

At Birmingham Women’s Hospital, when Mrs Jones was 25 weeks pregnant, doctors tried to sever Gabriel’s umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply and allow him to die.

But the cord was too thick, and they could not cut through it.

As a last resort they divided Mrs Jones’s placenta so that when Gabriel died, it would allow Ieuan to survive. Mrs Jones said: “I put my hands on my stomach thinking of Gabriel. It was devastating. I had said my goodbyes.”

But the next morning Mrs Jones felt Gabriel kicking. A scan showed his heart was still beating. She said: “No one could quite believe it.”

Gabriel hung on, and his enlarged heart started to reduce in size. He also gained weight.

Mrs Jones said: “They thought it may be because the placenta had been divided. Inadvertently, it had evened out the distribution of nutrition between them, allowing Gabriel to survive.’

Like I said, it’s really something to make it to earth. If you’re reading this, you’re one of the very few lucky ones. I know with an earth burgeoning with over 6 billion people that sounds like an overstatement. It isn’t. Given all other matters, that you and I are here, is amazing.

I hope I can say this right without it being misunderstood; I hope I can adequately express the way this all sits in my heart, in my bones: I’m not pro-abortion. I’m not anti-abortion except for myself, my daughters and grandchildren: we consider a pregnancy, no matter how unexpected, no matter how it comes about, a gift of a soul trying to come to earth.

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Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

And now the Democrats have highlighted a 2-old and her family — so they are under the same kind of attack.

21st Century Politics 101: If they oppose you on an issue, they must be discredited and taken out… Debate on the issue? Issue shmissue…

Several years ago, when Hillary Clinton wrote a book suggesting it “takes a village” to raise a child, it was derided in some quarters as reaching a conclusion that it was not a certainty.

But here is one certainty:

It takes some financially well-off, pampered politicians who themselves receive government health insurance to sour — or perhaps if the illnesses are grave even end -- a kid’s childhood because they seek to make political statements, pursue personal ideological jihads, or try to position themselves or their political party.

Their supporters will angrily deny it, but these politicians are not viewing children as physically and emotionally fragile and impressionable members of our society who deserve our utmost protection and nurturing and our highest lets-pull-out-all-stops priority.

Several other conclusions can be made about President George Bush’s decision to give half a peace sign to MORE THAN 70 PERCENT of the American public that support the health care bill he vetoed — and the half a peace sign he has even now given to members of his own party who sincerely wanted it and will now likely face the wrath of voters at the polls:

1. The only people who will still use the phrase “compassionate conservatism” to describe this administration now will be his most loyal supporters or talk show hosts. Just watch the Bush — and most likely the GOP — drop in the polls now. The once-highly coveted soccer moms are unlikely to be most concerned about the dangerous peril of Americans using government health care, as Mr. Bush suggested and most likely be outraged by the veto. Some of those soccer moms may have kids who could have used or do use that program. How many Americans, over dinner, complain about the perils of government health care? How many Americans, over dinner, complain about high health care costs or their inability to afford it?

2. When the history of the Bush administration is written, historians won’t refer to Bush as “The Children’s President” — and, although kids don’t vote, it’s likely the GOP will face a lot of angry adults at the polls….since kids have have parents, uncles, and cousins…and caring doctors who may have to turn away sick kids since there is no coverage and there could have been.

3. The veto and the probability that there will be enough GOPers to prevent an override in Congress again underscores the factional nature of this Bush administration. It is an administration that clings to power due to a relatively small group of supporters and no longer reflects a political movement or a government mass support. Bush has a solid-core of backers who will back him on anything –even if it means drinking political Kool Aid that will hurt their increasingly unpopular party’s long and short term interests.

4. Bush has turned over a new political leaf. Suddenly — when it comes to children — he is the fiscally-responsible president.

Just how big a body blow has Bush delivered to his own party?

Conservative columnist Robert Novak writes in his most recent report:

Democrats have expertly used this debate to put the White House on the defensive, rally their base and cultivate expanded support. Whether this skirmish will be relevant in a year, and whether Republicans can fight back, is still up in the air.

But Novak doesn’t sound too optimistic for his party:

… Democrats, however, have very effectively cast the debate over the bill as one over insuring children or not. Mainstream media outlets repeat the Democratic framing, and very few Republicans are able to fight back effectively.

President Bush on Wednesday vetoed the reauthorization bill that would expand the program. The White House argues that the expansion is a step towards “government-run healthcare.” This objection comes across as a vague and weak one in the face of Democratic cries that a veto will leave sick “kids” without doctors. Only a few congressional Republicans are making the more straightforward objection that SCHIP is welfare, and government shouldn’t be giving welfare to people who aren’t poor. The White House’s lack of a real compass on limited government is hurting it here politically.

Novak notes that Democrats are looking forward to targeting vulnerable Republicans by “running ads in their districts calling on them to override the veto.” He then writes:

The debate is a good opportunity for Democrats to rally their strongest base of activists: labor unions. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) dispatched dozens of children to the White House in a protest Monday.

Expanding SCHIP also endears Democrats to governors of both parties, happy to have a bigger federal pipeline of cash, and to the insurance industry, typically a GOP ally but eager to garner more subsidies under a broader SCHIP.

The avalanche of news stories on this are largely catastrophic for the image of a President who will very soon have to work hard to achieve the popularity of Richard Nixon at Nixon’s lowest point. Here are a few:

–Families Brace for SCHIP Demise

–Americans React With Anger to Bush’s Children’s Health Care Veto

–Bush Veto Gives Democrats Legislative Defeat, Political Opening

–Bush’s veto of children’s health plan puts state in bind (Massachusetts)

–Lawmakers decry veto of kids’ health bill (Maine)

And there are others.

But Bush has had his supporters. Senator John McCain applauded the move. And some argue Bush is getting a raw deal, being demonized by a biased press.

Is he?
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The good news for those who’ve backed expansion of children’s health care coverage is that it passed after a bipartisan vote in the House.

The bad news for them — and Republicans running for re-election, most likely — is that many members of the Republican Party have continued the 2007 trend in following the administration’s wishes so the vote margin means there won’t be enough votes to survive a Presidential veto — which is forthcoming.

So the White House-led Republicans have won the battle. But have Republicans up for re-election lost part of the long range war? CNN reports:

The House voted Tuesday to expand health insurance for children, but the Democratic-led victory may prove short-lived because the margin was too small to override President Bush’s promised veto.

Embarking on a health care debate likely to animate the 2008 elections, the House voted 265-159 to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years.

Bush says he will veto the bill due to its cost, its reliance on a tobacco tax increase and its potential for replacing private insurance with government grants.

SCHIP is a state-federal program that provides coverage for 6.6 million children from families that live above the poverty level but have trouble affording private health insurance. The proposed expansion, backed by most governors and many health-advocacy groups, would add 4 million children to the rolls.

The bill drew support from 45 House Republicans, many of them moderates who do not want to be depicted as indifferent to low-income children’s health needs when they seek re-election next year. But most Republicans, under pressure from the White House and party leaders, sided with Bush, a move that Democrats see as a political blunder.

It hardly matters that the expansion would be expensive or a step toward socialized health care, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, said during the House debate. When lawmakers go home, he said, “the question is, Were you with the kids or were you not?”

To overturn a presidential veto, both chambers of Congress must produce two-thirds majorities. The 159 House votes opposing the SCHIP bill should give Bush enough cushion to sustain his veto, as House leaders expect few members to switch positions

So once again it is indeed a victory for Bush — a “lame duck” President who is not quite lame enough so that a Democratic proposal with significant bipartisan support can to prevail. The Senate is likely to pass the bill by a large margin this week but a Senate vote to override the veto is pointless at this point.
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I have not explained my recent absence from TMV, but allow me to explain it now. My wife and I had a baby, Emily, on June 15, and since then it has been enough of a challenge just to keep up the blogging at my home base, The Reaction (although my own co-bloggers have filled in brilliantly).

Needless to say, blogging, and so much else besides, seems far less important when you have a newborn around. Emily’s birth was truly the greatest experience of my life, and I simply cannot express in words how I feel. She is amazing, wonderful, beautiful. All that, and so much more.

I am back to work, however, and also back to blogging. My next post will appear here shortly.