ThoughtsCategory Archives

The right to life – I have it.

This article has made me angry. So angry, i am going to open very far too fresh wounds.

I don’t miscarry. Five times, the fetus died. Five times, this longed for child died before twenty weeks. Some early, two, very very late.

Once I gave birth to a little girl I grieved over, too tiny and perfect for life.

The rest of the time, I had a D&C. The fetus, long dead, had to be removed, as my body was not letting go, as my heart was not. It was killing me. I could have died of septicaemia.

With the law changes in the US, I WOULD have died. My subsequent miracles, my youngest children, never born. My equally cherished older children motherless too soon.

The pious arrogance of the anti abortionists. If they are all so pro life, why are they so willing to sacrifice mine? And my youngest two children, who would not have even had a chance to live?

And all the women who must make the terrible, awful choice, whether the fetus is viable or not, to end a pregnancy. What cruelty is there in choosing for them. Choosing a way of vast expense and pain. Of almost certain death at the hand of backyard butchers. For these desperate women, often trapped in violence and poverty, frequently trying to protect other already born children, unable to access affordable contraception with the obscene lottery of health insurance (unless for the gift of Planned Parenthood, who do far more to prevent unwanted pregnancies than to end them), or perhaps young, vulnerable and scared, with parents who would not understand, or who would rage and throw them out, or with the consequence of death and revilement from their community, hard lined with religious intolerance, mocking the very words of their religious ethos – how dare ANYONE condemn women to this? Their children left motherless, often already fatherless, consigned to foster homes that may scar them in too many ways. The women dead or broken, from one awful episode left unable then to ever have that child they may have wished more than anything they could have had, who perhaps died, or meant the death of them? Or that they could have had if older, supported, or not abused?

People like these so called right to lifers make me sick with their sanctimonious hypocrisy. They seek only to preserve the narrow definition of life. All life is not sacred to them. ONly that which gestates.

Those people have blood of far more on their hands than any abortionist. Those people are murderers far more vile.

timelady

January 23, 2012

Health Wellbeing, History, Meanderings, Politics Rights, Poverty Financial, Religion Belief Myth, Science Knowledge, Social Philosophy, Thinkings, Thoughts

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Abortion, Abuse, anger, grief, loss, Religion, rights

Happy birthday, Allira

I miss you every year, little one. You would be nearly 12 now. I think of you every day, quietly. Thank you for the gift you gave me, so briefly, of knowing you.

timelady

December 23, 2011

Disaster Tragedy, Family Friends Pets Kids, Thoughts

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loss

Just your average family…living sort of like the Jetsons.

I think we are a pretty normal family. Well, probably more geeky than many, so put us about one or two years ahead of average joe, joette, and the little joelets, in their use of tech. And i have been noticing one of those changes in techland here surrounding my own test case family. Let me expound, explain, and expand. Or expostulate, even.

Currently, we share one internet connection at two houses, ie the modem at each house logins to the one account.

At house of much citrus tree goodness, there is 79years old but miles younger in attitude, the magic that is my dad, aka grandpa , who is tech Scrooge – computers are bah humbug, digital free to air is confusing enough for him, and this from a former engineer! He lives there with our no 2 daughter, the darkly delightful scarily smart and alliteratively amazing ms 19 – and her MacBook Pro. Youngest three visit frequently and have sleepovers, so that means usage is pretty consistent.

HRH gorgeous eldest daughter at 25 has her own place, but is welcome to cup o’bandwidth if needed – it isn’t – lovely lad she lives with works for an ISP, so all the bandwidth they can eat;)

So, here at casa de tractor (3 here so far – himself loves them), we have the youngest three –
Ms almost 17, the budding chef and creator of joy and delight wherever she goes. Linux laptop/family 27″ iMac(was mine, but ours is more accurate)/iPhone.
Ms 10, born performer, dancer of unique and stunning dances, actor of amazing stories, singer of magic songs, and dreamer of wonderful dreams, and her iPad 1/family 27″ iMac.
Master 8, only son, sunshine, intelligence, geeky dude++, full of beans, and the only child I have met who could find a way to get dirty in a clean room, and his Android tablet/family 27″ iMac.
And us -
The Bloke, aka himself, Gorgeous Man, engineer, tractor fiend, and go to man for all systems solutions. Linux laptop, Linux desktop, swears one day he will use the family 27″ iMac, Galaxy Samsung 2 phone.
And me, researcher, developer, engineer, user of wheelchair and delightful new scooter, (speed demon at over 9km/hr with it too!), and lover of all things geek. iPhone/13″ MacBook Air/iPad 2/family 27″ iMac.
Round off with -
Various ring in laptops and mobile phones and wireless devices needed for both The Bloke and I to use as part of our roles on The Serval Project. Storage of nearly 8tb now in just external hdds, a fee portable 500gbs are useful for my frequent traveling/work/sharing between households.

So, the tablets for kids are recent – the iPad 1 is a secondhand acquisition from a friend, the Android one is one I do some UI dev on for The Serval Project, and in between is perfect for Master 8. Introducing tablets to the smaller two was a recent tentative experiment that is now a gratefully embraced fixture. To our surprise, it has reduced fighting, and actually the two are often found harmoniously side by side, sharing games and sites. There is more socializing happening now than before! Let me enlarge on that with a discussion on how we use the tech.

They both have games and books and apps that we approve of only. ABC Australia has a wonderful app, IView which is a huge success (the Android tablet which shall not be named – stupid Acer – is lovely hw tech but awful version – Honeycomb blegh, and fails to play iView via its website, there being no native app. A Cyanogen Icecream Sandwich tablet version which is promised is LONGED for here). The BBC iPlayer is hammered by both Ms 9 and myself, documentary junkies we are. Both provide tv, both current and beloved in memory. I also stream through network from the storage mentioned above. The little ones and I grab a tablet, (and if more,when himself &/ ms 17, via the 27″ as a family together), curl up together to share viewing often. The tech is rarely isolating, and is more interactive shared than passive television.

I DO police their apps, and viewing permissions though, and take advantage of parental controls (again, sadly, Android sucks in that department too*). The two TVs lie gathering dust, himself occasionally lapsing back into older habits, not using devices for viewing programs beyond YouTube videos of restoring Jensen Interceptors (like the one half done in our shed), tractors and odd bulbs – he has such endearing and interesting hobbies! So, all in all, we are pretty switched on tech wise – but I foresee that we are just slightly ahead of an inevitable trend…

So the point of all this is how a slightly, ok hugely, geeky family is seeing the future now. I am fascinated by how this has all developed, and evolved, partly due to work requirements and demands, and partly due to my geek love of tech, but most of all by both the eager adoption and surprising rejection of different tools by the kids. Linux laptops were exciting but quickly discarded – the tablets proving to be the most intuitively used, and thus a hit with the small ones. Again, the iPad is clear winner in that*.

The most interesting thing, to return to bandwidth, has been usage. Two years ago, 100gb was heaps. Now, we have just upgraded from 600gb to a 1tb plan. We don’t have cable or anything like that, all our watching is based around free to air or streamed video via apps. So while we aren’t wealthy by any stretch, we are just a foreshadowing of what tech will be like for everyone – casual, ubiquitous, and above all, highly consumed!

*look, I want to ADORE Android. Open Source FTW!!! And I like the Galaxy s2 hardware, and some of the newer handsets are stunning, even nicer form factors by miles to the currently a tad blocky chocolate bar iPhone 4. But after using an iPhone and iPad, I realize, and have observed in others, (especially the agnostic to brand but not experience and usage kids), that no matter how good the hardware, (and some of it is very very good indeed), the core operating system doesn’t matter as much as the way you use it, the way it looks and feels and responds. And app availability – less than a third of what they have in the iPad could we find equal or similar options for on Android Marketplace.

I really want Android to succeed, to drive iOS into better product races – for both of them to have to constantly strive to make things better for consumers. But honestly, in tablet land there is no competition. And the Apple approach to an iEcosystem(tm no doubt) is second to none, though Amazon is attempting it. But only in the US for now, so from our pov, so what? apple is here, and now, and it just works, or close enough to. Google apps are seamless on Android, and I am a google girl through and through, but I can use my beloved apps perfectly well on iOS.

As I so often say to anyone who hasn’t been forewarned and can thus run away, the UI, the part it plays in the user experience (which is not JUST UI, but rather has UI as a core major component, ), is the key to the whole thing. Here Android is polished engineering, but not anywhere near polished User Experience. And fragmentation by desperately adding on vendor niceties just shows the flaws, not fixes them.

timelady

December 23, 2011

Family Friends Pets Kids, Internet Technology, Tablets, Thoughts, YouTube

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You wonder whether you have raised a child right…

SOmetimes, if you are lucky, they let you know that you have done at least SOMETHING right. Sent to me by my beloved first born, a young woman i could not be prouder of…and this is just one of uncountable reasons why. That she would send me something like this, to state this, this is something she agrees with fundamentally, that she groks…well, of course i am proud!

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve“.

via DATE A GIRL WHO READS by Rosemarie Urquico (In… – The Healthy Warrior.

timelady

December 10, 2011

Books, Family Friends Pets Kids, Thoughts

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books, Daughter, pride, read

How to learn from a tragedy – 10yo girl suicides over bullying

And here is an endless grief story where nobody wins.

This poor little girl, suffering until driven to desperation.

Her traumatised family, asking themselves why they didn’t react sooner, why…

Little girls who, (like big ones), can be so cruel – but often don’t intend to be so cruel, they are just fitting in themselves, trying to work out the mores and ways of the culture they are in, a pecking order that all socialised creatures have. They will carry (except potentially in a few, sociopathic type cases) a dreadful guilt, learning too harsh a lesson.

If anything that we hope they would be, her teachers and prinicipal, wishing they had intervened earlier, not dismissed as ‘just kids’ scenario.

And all of us parents, the sad majority of which wince at recollections at how intensely felt the bullying was when we were recipients, (and shame if participants at the giving end), how we want to protect our kids, wondering how to do that without knee jerking into overprotectiveness so that our children are wrapped even further in paranoia and cotton wool, learning nothing but fear…

We need to ask if this is a big picture we are missing, or single incident? Media is of little help in this, the pedophile around every corner has gotten us terrified tolet our kids out to play, restricting their capacity to socialise independently with their peers in a way few groups have historically known.

And in the meantime, if you will excuse me, I am going to hug my 10yo daughter and 8yo son (and think about my other more grown daughters), and hope I know enough to have given them what they need to not face an abyss that this sad little girl could not get beyond.