Glad you're here! I LOVE that song! My kid went to the inauguration of Barack Obama as President back in January 2009, and was in the crowd near the area where the bush helicopter lifted off, taking him away from Washington and OUR White House for the last time (One SPLENDID Moment!) and reported to me how everyone was singing that song as they watched the helicopter fly away. I was watching on TV and was singing along!

Uh-OH!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the ongoing slow-roasting of chris christie - but methinks THIS just turned the temperature up!

Just because one set of humans is equipped with fetal containers and another set isn't - doesn't always mean, iron-clad, that the container class is locked into that. I love my kids, too. And I stepped away from a rather carnivorous career to be able to take care of them. But shit! I wouldn't have any more! I found two to be PLENTY enough, and it was hard work, and it was as demanding on a 24-hour basis as my career in news (which is also a round-the-clock responsibility). I've spent quite a bit of time recently - contemplating the concept of "woman as container." Sort of the next step leading from "woman as property." Both utterly revolting to me, but unfortunately still embraced by the likes of FAR too many huckabees and santorums of the world.

I find myself noticing other women with kids or pushing strollers or whatever - and I'm glad I'm not there anymore. Glad my inner works are all old and dried up, so I don't even have the option anymore. Glad I'm done. Glad I did it, but also very glad I'm done. I love the bejeezuss outa them. I'm proud of the two kids I raised. Well, spousal-unit did help and provide backup, but it was mainly on me. And it was HARD! My job was hard, too. But it's a different hard.

And some women are just not there. Regardless of their bodies being able to do it. You need your mind and your muscles and your intellect and all that other stuff too, besides just ovaries. Motherhood is NOT for every woman on the planet. It's not every woman's destiny. Some are better at it than others. Some are better at rolling with the punches than others. That's just how the cards are dealt.

And I'm glad there's a choice. I'm glad we have choices, and options, and MANY directions we can pursue. Our horizons are unlimited rather than single-directed. As they should be. I once saw a movie called "First Monday in October" - a 1981 release starring the late Jill Clayburgh (WUNNNNderful actress) as the first woman Supreme Court Justice. Her character was married but childless, brilliant and extraordinarily accomplished before being tapped for the job by her President. During her confirmation hearings, that came up. Inevitably there were those knuckle-dragger Senator characters who questioned her worthiness for this nomination because, of all her accomplishments, she hadn't had children, so she was somehow devalued. Somehow less. A lesser person. And one of her lines in response (that just absolutely tattooed onto my brain) was "my ideas are my children" - regarding her rulings, her writings, her interpretations of the law on the lower bench. That's the legacy she wished to build and leave as a judge - and then, eventually also, as a judge empaneled on the highest court in the land. That just burned into my psyche. "My ideas are my children." With some women, that IS how it is. And until I finally decided maybe it was time for me to have children, I felt that way. Strongly. I felt that way for years. I STILL feel that way. What women build as a legacy certainly includes family and children, the offspring who will grow and impact the Earth and society and civilization as we know it (hopefully in a positive way). But women are capable of building and bequeathing to the world so much more than only that! Why some elements of society wish to limit us is really troublesome to me. It's one of the biggest beefs I have with my church - and yes, with my new Pope. He's light years more open and progressive than his predecessors on many counts - except, unfortunately, this one.

We were endowed with BRAINS, too, dammit! Not just ovaries. I never saw a "woman" walking around as two ovaries and a uterus on a pair of legs. There are also arms and shoulders and muscles and guts and hands and a heart and a large cerebral cortex filled with reason and logic and compassion and discernment - and a voice - as well. I think there's probably a reason for that...

Shit! That's GREAT!!!! Weren't they hoping for five or six million or so? And there's TEN million now???

With some of the worst "breath-control" demonstrated by a TV anchor that I have ever witnessed.

Glad you're here! This was some thread, 'eh? We do get into it here - or would that be "we DU get into it here"? While I disagree with the OP, I appreciate the opportunity to voice and vent, and to read and appreciate others' thoughts as voiced and vented here as well. Some people really like to stir things up. But it seems to me that's kinda why DU, in general, is here. WE need to be here to stir things up in the rest of America. Stir things up and WAKE things up. And SHAKE things up. It's vitally important to rip people out of their complacency as much as possible. Because those who choose to sit it out often wind up getting run over.

I don't ordinarily get into boxing that much. But this one - start preparing the popcorn!

I look forward to the day when a critical mass in America finally figures out what a divisive useless nothing that shrieking harpie is.

MAN! What an elegant response! This deeply thoughtful 30-year-old gentleman has more class than she'd ever have if she lived to be a thousand.

Dear God - and he signs his comment "A friend you haven't made yet." MAN! I have to bookmark this so I can find it to remind myself about the art of rising above it.

BRAVO, Mr. Stephens! BRAVO!!!!!!!!!