Welcome to DU, dougg!

Glad you're here! You just absolutely nailed it - 40 cowards openly brandishing their murder toys and massacre machines to outshout four unarmed moms trying to have a discussion over lunch.

They must be SOOOOO proud.

The really sad and disgraceful part of that is - they probably ARE!

Welcome to DU, Setsuna1972!

Glad you're here! What a nice thread to come across, 'eh? I was holding my breath on that one. It makes me shake my head sometimes - WHY do Neanderthals and other pre-Bronze-Age thinkers even get close? How could cooch even get close? How could this guy even get close - knowing how they think and what they view as important positions for policy-making? Up here (in my head) I can understand the weird "magical" thinking and the Biblical (read: Old Testament)-everything et al. But down here (in my gut) it just doesn't make ANY sense.

Sounds like he was trying to MAKE somebody quiver - full.

More like "undressed to the nines" if you consider the tight dresses

sleeveless, of course, to show off lots of bar arms and shoulders (skin nicely oiled and shiny of course), and those dresses all have pretty high hemlines so when you seat the pretty half-dressed blonde "anchor" at a desk you see this long line of shiny, oiled, tanned, toned legs with high stiletto heels at the far end of them. Well, what kind of message would YOU think that's sending?

And note, they're never behind desks. Unless the desks have an empty plexiglass top that you can see through, and no front so there's nothing even to have to see through, or the pretty half-dressed blonde is sitting at the side of the desk or on a sofa with a very low coffee table in front of it, that hides and blocks the view of absolutely nothing.

I mean, why don't they just put their on-camera females in bikinis - or less? (Except for greta van susteren of course.) For heaven's sake, they already recruited a former Miss America for the ranks. They're already well on track.



"...but she photographs well."

She sure crapped on the brand.

"60 Minutes" was a sterling operation, its integrity as a serious and ground-breaking news program up in the stratosphere, along with its ratings, its credibility and reputation above reproach and beyond question - 24k solid gold. The leading prime time program in the Nielsens for years running! It was produced by the News Division, from whence came the leading evening anchorman Walter Cronkite, widely acknowledged as "The Most Trusted Man in America."

"60 Minutes" was the crown jewel of CBS primetime programming AND its distinguished news division before our little Goldilocks was even born! It premiered in September 1968. lara logan was born March 29, 1971 (age 42), Durban, South Africa. Sheesh. Gidget-Covers-the-War. And she trashed a brand that was quite literally the gold standard of news programs for the better part of 45 years.

...but she photographs well.

Absolutely.

It's a non-negotiable. Sorry, but that's that. At least in my opinion. It's up to the woman. She's the one who has to do all the heavy lifting. By Jove it better be completely and totally voluntary!

Damn. So sorry to hear that, titanicdave. =(

So sorry to hear it. I'm so sorry your family has to deal with something like this at what ordinarily should be a very happy and peaceful and contented time for families everywhere.

It just doesn't seem fair, does it?

VERY small comfort, but - posting about it here on DU might help a little bit. You have lots of company, and lots of sympathy, and lots of empathy. You have no idea how much is there waiting for you to tap into it! Many people here have shared health crises of their own or a close loved one or friend, and the rest of us have banded together to listen, to support, to console, to commiserate, or just to be there. I have found that DUers have very broad shoulders and very large ears, and many many virtual boxes of kleenex. Someone's always here. Someone's always awake. Someone's always paying attention. You don't have to struggle with this alone.

I can't adequately explain to you what it meant to me after my mom died and I posted a brief post about it. I was almost avalanched with people's posts here, sympathizing, empathizing, offering comfort, offering their own stories of grief and mourning and many a death watch. We knew she was on the way out. It was a long, miserable, lingering illness. We knew she was dying and that the end was coming soon, but it still wasn't any easier to cope with. What DID make it easier to cope with was the love and support and kindness from people here. I was so touched. It was more than seven years ago and I'm STILL touched by it. I still think about it and get choked up and feel so grateful for those kind words and heartfelt sentiments that people expressed.

You don't have to struggle with this alone. You won't be alone in that pain. You'll discover that a lot of people here - are there - standing next to you.

...but she photographs well.

I hired a woman whose business was "The Adoption Specialist."

She was recommended to me by a longtime friend with whom I'd gone through grade school and high school. She was adopted and hired this lady, and was able to find a biological sister. She was very pleased and suggested I check it out if I was ever interested. Worked for me, too. But I wound up having to pay more than twice what it cost my friend because her search was undertaken in California where the information is more openly available, whereas mine had to be in a closed state, where I was adopted. If you PM me, I'll be glad to give you her contact info, wercal. Ask me anything.

I'd already attempted to dig up information on my own but got nowhere, and with the hurdles of red tape that confronted me, I didn't know what to do or how to proceed, I had no internal contacts that might help me, and I kinda ran out of steam. Other stuff comes up, you know how it is. My friend said it sounded like I needed professional help. Glad I took the risk. Actually, the hardest part was getting over ME, and my own trepidations! Mainly, I was afraid. I was hesitant about forking over that much money because of the risk of coming up empty-handed, although I would have only been charged half the amount if the search turned up nothing. I didn't know if I was ready to face that prospect. What if I went that far and still came up empty? I wasn't sure how I'd feel about that. I really only wanted to know medical history, and thought it'd be kinda neat if I could also ever know what they looked like, but that wasn't as urgent. Finally, I just took a deep breath and said "what the hell?" And I went for it. It took a year. And it paid off. But it was a risk. Scary. It's a real shot in the dark.

I recently posted about being an adoptee, and finding my biological kin. My birth mother's mother

evidently is the one who insisted her under-age daughter give me up at birth. STAUNCH Catholic. The boy involved evidently was not a Catholic and she just Was. Absolutely. Not. Having. It. I suppose I could have been aborted, although with rigid Catholic thinking governing the family I kinda doubt that such an option ever came up for discussion. I guess that's just the luck of the draw here.

I think about that a lot. I also grew up, married, and eventually had children of my own. It was MY choice to do so, and MY choice to hold off from doing so for as long as I did. Both my pregnancies were extremely difficult, and each of my babies had to be delivered before their due date because it was literally becoming life-threatening for me. But that was MY choice. I was pro-choice BEFORE I got pregnant. Those difficult pregnancies really cemented that view in place for me. They rendered me more ardently pro-choice than ever before. My takeaway from there, besides (thankfully) two healthy normal babies, was that NO woman should EVER be forced to go through that unless she freely chooses to. It's quite simply no one else's business. I'm afraid this is an absolute, it is a non-negotiable, at least for me.

Your second sentence - "I think the decision should 100% be up to the woman involved" is the baseline for me. If someone's against abortion I'd say - "well, then, don't have one! Nobody's forcing one on you." And that's how it should be.