Monday, October 10, 2011

politics, MS 26

As a rule, I am not one to talk about politics on public forums.

It's not that I don't have opinions - I do.  But I have never felt it necessary to share those opinions with the public at large.  Ask me what I think about something at a cocktail party, and I'll probably tell you.  Post a survey to my facebook wall and you are guaranteed to receive no response. 

But there's an exception to every rule, am I right?  And MS 26 is officially my exception.  Here's the summary:  "Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."

Oh...dear.

Sure, on first glance this may appear to be about abortion. But notice that the language does not specify abortion at all.   The consequences of this initiative - specifically, the effects on birth control pills, IVF, IUDs, ectopic pregnancies....go on and on and on.   And please do not get me started on the awful reality that with the passing of this initiative, mothers that have miscarried could be investigated as attempted murderers.  I can't even think about my dear friends that have lost children being visited by law enforcement without my head threatening to explode.  

So...y'all read about this one before you vote, okay?  Make sure you know exactly what the law will say and how it might impact the women (and, indirectly, the men) that you care about.     


Sunday, October 9, 2011

literary mash-ups

Most weeks we play Pub Quiz (a group trivia game) at Hal and Mal's.  One of the regular hosts is out sick at the moment, so I got to co-host last week.   One of the rounds I wrote was based on combining the names of books by overlapping syllables.  This idea was totally stolen from the aforementioned regular host, though he usually combines movies.  For example, "Crime-fighting dog roams the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year" = Scooba Doo the Right Thing.  

Do you get it?  It's pretty fun.

So, since I hope that everyone is most curious, here's my round (if you have to take out the word "the" to make it work, that's just fine):

1.  Domenico Clericuzio, an aging mafia boss, tries to help his family enter the legitimate world before retiring to La Mancha and going on quests, starting with an attack on nearby windmills.

2.  Winston Smith lives in the dystopian Airstrip One and rebels against the Party until he is re-educated by Thinkpol and sent to Segovia, where he must help Robert Jordan blow up a bridge during the Spanish Civil War.

3.   Andrew Wiggin is trained at the Battle School and helps defeat the Buggers before going to the kingdom of Westeros and fighting seven families for control of the throne.

4. Guy Montag lives in a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen burn books when he reads the multi-generational story of the Buendia family from Macondo, a metaphoric Colombia.

5.  Marty Preston lives in West Virginia and strives to protect an abused beagle. He moves to Nebraska and meets Alexandra Bergson, a Swedish immigrant running a farm at the turn of the 20th century. 

6. Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice and is a symbol of rebellion when she becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall and falls in love with her employer, Edward Rochester. 

7. An unnamed African American man tells of his unseen life in American society and then as a redheaded orphan living on Prince Edward Island with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert.

8. Harry Potter is in his sixth year at Hogworts when he befriends two boys that are identical, though one is royalty and the other a peasant. 

9. George Milton and Lennie Small are displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California, trying to understand gender relations in the 90’s using a planetary metaphor. 

10.  This play details the romances of two childhood friends, Leontes the King of Sicilia and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia who travel on London and Paris before and during the French Revolution, when it was both the best and worst of times.

It was a lot of fun to put these together, though it did require an unusual amount of time spent searching on Amazon. 

The answers are below, just highlight the empty space.

1.  The Last Don Quixote
2.  Nineteen Eighty For Whom the Bell Tolls
3.  Ender’s Game of Thrones
4.  Fahrenheit 45100 years of solitude
5. Shilo! Pioneers
6.  Mockingjayne Eyre
7.  The Invisible Man of Green Gables
8. The Half Blood Prince and the Pauper
9. Of Mice and Men are from Mars Women are from Venus
10.  A Winter’s Tale of Two Cities



P.S.  They are having a benefit for Donovan next Sunday - check it out on facebook.
P.S.S.  the Hague is a literary mash-up wonder.  Call her if you ever need help coming up with these.