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That’s my question after reading no shortage of news coverage concerning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s call Tuesday for the outlawing of legal brothels in his home state’s rural counties.
Bernard Nathanson was a leading New York City abortion doctor who helped found NARAL. Originally that stood for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. It was later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League. Now it’s known as NARAL Pro-Choice America. Nathanson worked with abortion rights pioneers for the legalization of abortion in the United States, a goal they accomplished with the Supreme Court’s Roe V. Wade decision. Nathanson reports that he was personally responsible for some 75,000 abortions. He performed one of these on his own unborn child. Previously he’d paid for another girlfriend to have an abortion.
I drove into the mountains of Tennessee last night listening to stories of sin, suffering, grace and forgiveness. That’s what was playing on the country music stations, of course, but that was also what was playing for part of the time on the BBC World Service.
Scott and Jean Adam (pictured here) had their yacht Quest hijacked by Somali pirates last Friday. Also on board were Phyllis MacKay and Bob Riggle. (Recent reports say that all four were killed.) Piracy is a major problem in the unstable waters near Somalia and many people are following the story with interest. The U.S. Navy is even involved. Part of that may have to do with the recent sentencing of Somali pirate Abduwali Abukhadir Muse. When he received 34 years in prison last week, calls for retaliation were made.
As I may have mentioned once or twice here, I’m the world’s biggest St. Louis Cardinals fan. A high percentage of my free time in the last week has been spent thinking about the contract negotiations between the Cardinals and one of my very favorite players throughout history — Albert Pujols.
Sometimes I think back to August and September when most mainstream media outlets were obsessed about the construction of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero and/or the planned (but never realized) burning of a Koran by a leader of a small church in Florida. Everywhere the media looked, they saw Islamophobia and it became the overarching narrative adopted by many figures in the media.
A few weeks ago, I had what I call a “parenting failure.” I realized that my girls, ages 1 and 3, knew all the words to Justin Bieber’s “Baby” song.
My family and I watch Jeopardy every night. This week we got to watch IBM computer Watson beat the pants off of two human competitors. It was great fun and a good way to learn more about advancements in computer science. One big limitation with computers is their inability to interact with human language. The engineers behind Watson aimed to improve just that.
