I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

IllinoisLady

This was indeed sad.

120,000 People Marched At The Women's March And TV Networks Provided No Live Coverage

120,000 Americans marched for abortion rights across the US, but the television networks provided no coverage of the march and speeches.
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Not sure why this was deemed not worthy of a bit more coverage than it got.

AliceBastable

Hope I didn't copy this from here earlier. I lose track!

exbrnxgrl

This is not funny but it's level of casual cruelty is stunning. This is the cemetery where Biden's first wife, daughter and son are buried. Linskey is a Washington Post reporter. She later deleted the tweet and gave a half assed apology.

IllinoisLady

Shows an extreme lack of respect for something as a reporter she should have at least some awareness of this tragic event. Added to the fact that Biden has felt and behaved the same since this took place. Not sure who she was trying to impress but it was a close call. She belongs in the hall of shame for it.

AliceBastable

Miriandra

I went to the Abortion Protections March here in Denver. Not a huge crowd, but several hundred people at least. It was a happy crowd, cheering and waving some great signs. One of my favorites was, "The HIPAA-cracy is Loud".

DivineMrsM

Similar to what HomeMom said, I am frustrated the Dems cannot become more of a united front to pass the infrastructure bill. The other party rammed shit through without anyone in their ranks dissenting.

When it comes to vaccine hesitancy or whatever they want to call antivaxxers these days, there's one main reason I'm not surprised by how many choose to find fault with getting it. Ever since being diagnosed with mbc in 2011, I've witnessed large swathes of people on line disparaging chemotherapy, radiation, hormone treatment, i.e., conventional treatment for the disease. Once the internet arrived it provided a platform for countless claims about the poison that chemo was supposed to be, that cancer can be cured by eating alfalfa sprouts and kale, coffee enemas, and getting right with god, that big pharma conspires to keep cancer cures unavailable to the public in order to continue making profits. Books, videos, blogs, courses and more proliferate the internet on how to beat cancer the natural way. And people lapped that stuff up like a kitten drinking milk from a saucer. We see it on this forum as well, where some chose alternative treatment.

Prepandemic, one of the chemo nurses administering the zometa iv I was getting told me how she'd gone to a social gathering and when someone found out she was a chemo nurse, their comments became rather ugly as they asked how she could treat people with toxic poison. Someone was trying to make her feel disrespected for what she did for a living as if her profession was wrong and immoral. But this was, like I said, prepandemic and some people even then were dissing the medical establishment.

I hate the phrase “lost his/her battle with cancer." But it's often used when someone passes from the disease. It implies that someone actively fought to stay alive and that is seen as a noble thing. They were strong. They were brave. They were a warrior. And it means this person felt life was worth the battle. Yet now we have people who don't seem to have a problem if they die for their friggin' “right" to not get vaccinated; they don't worry that they could get dead from Covid and if they do, their philosophy is everybody's gotta go sometime. Exceedingly flippant about it. I don't understand.

IllinoisLady

This is the true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. -George Bernard Shaw

pingpong1953

A friend of mine (she calls me her "bosom buddy") has MBC and is very close to the end of her life. She and her doctors did everything they could, and still it wasn't enough. And these yahoos could easily avoid dying by getting a couple of jabs in the arm. It makes me so mad for her, and for everyone on this Forum who is in the same situation. Divine is right - the flippancy is gob-smacking.

Trishyla

I'm so sorry about your friend, pingpong. I've lost two friends to cancer in the past six months. It sucks.

Trish

IllinoisLady

So with you on this Divine. I do know that many people resisted chemo due to the fact it had to destroy what was good in order to eliminate what was bad. I still remain surprised that scores of people could not seem to understand that treatment was carefully controlled. I was fortunate that my go to person was an Avon navigator who had cancer ( nearly my same dx. ) herself. She made my decision easy. My family also wanted the best outcome -- so another consideration to investigate carefully.

It is hard to fathom why people see covid or other lifesaving trmts as something to be suspect. Most of them have had plenty in the past. This is an excerpt from a reporter for Palmer by the name of Bocha Blue:

{

I listened to some of these people this week. I wanted to gain a better understanding of just why they were so vehemently against the jab. I wanted to try to understand so I could educate myself and share my experiences with you all.

Sadly, I did not learn much. But here are a few things they said:

"This is not a real vaccine."
"It's an experiment."
"I have natural immunity."

And about Governor DeSantis:

"He is the best Governor ever."
"We love him because he supports freedom."

As to the question of "freedom" and what that word means to them, they were ready and able to throw up the abortion argument and argued earnestly for their rights to do — or not to do — whatever they want with their bodies.

Freedom does not give one the right to infect someone with a potentially deadly virus. But that argument does not work either. Many responses from MAGA were similar where they mentioned, "you can get hurt every day just walking across the street."

Their arguments, in my opinion, are not rooted in logic. But that's the thing. To even get to the vaccine argument with them, one must first move past the hurdle of convincing these folks that Covid is even real. Many do not believe there is any validity in what science says, and many seem unbothered by the Delta variant.

I am convinced that most of these people will never get the jab. Some may change their minds. But most of them have turned against knowledge and science in favor of anger in its most organic form. They do not seem to understand nor grasp the other side's arguments.

We, too, have freedoms. We have the right not to get infected by other people. We have the right to walk around freely without being scolded for being a "mask sheep." We have the right to survival — for ourselves, our children, and everyone we love. Fortunately, there are more of us than them. }

So, how can someone make such claims when so many lives have been saved and their covid cases alleviated w/o undue hospital treatments if they do get a breakthrough case. How can they prove daily that they live w/o loads of so called " freedoms " and make such a major case out of perhaps saving themselves and others. Ask skydivers -- yes, some like to take risks ( I'd never indulge in that activity ) but even those risk takers exit the plane with a parachute. Not sure why these people think their freedoms are being challenged. Do they challenge the right of way. Do they refuse orders from the police. Why is it so difficult to understand you are exposing many others to your frivolous freedom. You can play Russian Roulette, but only when you don't involve a whole community.

Spookiesmom

So DeathSantis wife has BC. Mr anti covid anything. Wonder what he will say about the “poison “ going into her. Or if she will glow from the rads. Not much sympathy from me. Or could this possibly change his mind on science ? Nah.

AliceBastable

Todd Akin, the idiot right-wing ex-rep from Missouri, is dead. He's the shit who was so anti-abortion that he wouldn't make exceptions even in the case of rape, saying "the body has a way of shutting that down." Good riddance and may he spend eternity with all the angry women who died from illegal abortions.

Spookiesmom

He will have company. No great loss.

Miriandra

"...Ever since being diagnosed with mbc in 2011, I've witnessed large swathes of people on line disparaging chemotherapy, radiation, hormone treatment, i.e., conventional treatment for the disease...."

I'm with you on that, Divine. And sadly, real actual progress in cancer treatments have inadvertently fed this "empowerment". When my Mom had lung cancer in 2007, the oncological mindset was "Throw everything you've got at it! Chemo! Radiation! Surgery! Die! Die! Die, cancer!!" Looking back, my Dad often regrets her being rushed into surgery so soon after her chemo/rads series. (They'd killed off the fast growing tumor, but a slow-grower was still there.) If they'd waited until her strength was back up, maybe she'd have been able to survive the surgery. But they did what they thought was best at the time.

Just a few years later, oncology had some incredible breakthroughs that better identified types of cancer cells, and doctors were better able to tailor treatments to address more specific cancer types. Oncology is not a one-size-fits-all treatment anymore. Some prostate cancers don't even rate treatment - just monitoring. These treatment options are sometimes misinterpreted as treatment "choices", and the resistant patients see variation in protocols as "proof" that none of it is really needed. They think if Susie Blogger didn't need something for their care, they don't need it either; regardless of the fact that Susie was ER+, and they're triple neg.

I was very lucky that my tumor oncotype was such that I didn't need chemo or rads. I didn't want those treatments, but that wasn't the deciding factor for not getting them. My cancer didn't need them, so my doctor didn't offer them.

exbrnxgrl

divine and miriandra,

I’m with you on that! Yes, it does seem as if cures for most types of cancer are still just pipe dreams and there have been some improvements in tx but cancer is very complex. It is not just a single profile disease for which one definitive cure will be found. I find the complexity and variations with just bc to be astounding and that doesn’t even take into account all the other cancers. Some people are looking for basic easy ways to combat disease. This may work for some diseases but the sheer complexity and variability of cancer makes it a miracle that we’ve made an6 progress at all. I wish it were not so but reality is not that simple.

Jelson

I wonder who took Facebook down? I am betting on Anonymous. On Reddit.com people are speculating that FB has done it to themselves on purpose to destroy evidence in the face of Congressional hearings and an FBI investigation.

AliceBastable

Huh. I take a few days' vacation finally and FB breaks. 👺

Nkb

just got back from Vermont- a highly vaccinated state- I asked people- why are so many of you vaccinated? She said - oh we had hesitaters- like my husband- I just said you’ll never see your kids or your mom- do it for them and he said - ok- more take it for the team attitude.

Also noticed- almost 100% of the people who didn’t wear masks in the airport or plane or didn’t cover their noses or who were “eating” the entire flight were men! If they were women they were young show off types.

DivineMrsM

I think it fitting that the main headline all the media used when reporting Todd Atkin's passing was his comment when asked about abortion rights for rape victims: “…from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Yes, let his despicable words follow him all the way to the graveyard.

According to Wikipedia:

“The term "legitimate rape" was called "loathsome" because it suggests that "there are different categories of rape — some real and awful and others that are not". Others took exception to the phrasing because it suggests that the victims who do become pregnant from rape may be lying. His claims about the likelihood of pregnancy resulting from rape were seen by some as being based on fringe ideas like stress-induced miscarriage and trauma-based theory. These theories are not accepted by the majority of the scientific and medical community.

The comment was widely characterized as misogynistic and recklessly inaccurate, with many commentators remarking on the use of the words "legitimate rape".

Related news articles cited a 1996 article in an obstetrics and gynecology journal, which found that 5% of women who were raped became pregnant, which equaled about 32,000 pregnancies each year in the US alone. A separate 2003 article in the journal Human Nature estimated that rapes are twice as likely to result in pregnancies as consensual sex."

Spookiesmom

magiclight

I am sorry to hear that another woman (Casey DeSantis) has breast cancer. Her husband, the governor of FL, forbade schools from requiring masks in order to prevent the spread of Covid. Now I expect that his wife will never be near any health care provider who is not wearing a mask or is not vaccinated.

magiclight

This link was published by the Washington Post in a Q&A re: Pandora Papers

---

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

IllinoisLady

Life is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred. In fact, the opposite occurs: When we hate people who hurt us, we come to resemble what we hate, or worse, and then we suffer all the more. What is evil is our response. We have choices, and love is the most powerful eliminator of all. -Bernie Siegel

IllinoisLady

Todd Akin -- not missed. He has many cohorts that would not be missed either like Louie Gohmert who I think has said made some truly ignorant utterances as well. These people seem so eager to not only toe the mark, but to push it way farther ending up sounding like total dunces. In the long run, it seems to be they have done a lot of harm however; it's hard to tell since the party of today has totally annihilated having any care or concern for what their constituents may need or want and just rushed forward on a huge power grab.

I just hope we/Democrats are able to pass voting bills that will prevent most of this power grab and we can re-institute as much democracy that works for everyone as we can. It is a real tall order but woe be unto us if we don't get it done.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

I too am sorry that Mrs. DeSantis has cancer. No one gets a free ride/cancer is equal opportunity. I wish her well. I'm thinking at long last even DeSantis will be happy about people who wear masks and may not say much about those who care for his wife -- likely pleased. He will though I'm sure go right on with his I need Trump voters so I will be anti-mask to the hilt. Rather sad when something like this happens to highlight the inequities you espoused as right and proper when they are anything but.

Spookiesmom

I’m sure Moffitt has masks required signs all over, staff will have them. He won’t. What’s he going to do when he’s told to wear one? He’s the governor. Make an EO none required? I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s so far up trumps ass. And most places don’t allow anyone else to be with the patient. So he’ll have to wait in the parking lot with his security detail?? Maybe this will help to convince him covid is real. I doubt it, but maybe.

My guess is he’ll run over to Ybor grab a Cuban sandwich and run his mouth.

DivineMrsM

My son, a software engineer, likened the Facebook outage to them being locked out of a running car with the keys to the car left inside and they had to figure a way to get back in. Reports of FB being hacked have been dismissed. But ya never know….

Spookiesmom