Those things will take years off your pro-life

Today No Mato Mi Pavo celebrates its 16^th anniversary. Ok, like a young couple in love I am measuring the anniversaries in days but that is pretty good for someone with as much ADD as I have. My little baby is growing up fast with readership hitting double digits. Actually, if the hit counter can be believed, there’s a hundred or so of you masochists out there trudging through this electronic tome every few days; and it isn’t just my dad showing up over and over again. (Thanks dad, I need the help.) I hope to someday add a few digits to that count and ask you to please send everyone you can this way. Warn them, of course, and suggest they start with the first post I made to “get the feel” for what this is about. Thank you for all you have done so far.

Now that I think of it, the blog is really much older than 16. I guess it all depends on when you consider it started. You see, I began toying with the idea in earnest back in October while visiting with some friends. For weeks, the structure of this page formed in my mind and grew until, finally, sixteen days ago it entered the blogosphere and has cried out ever since.

Imagine if, as a busy worker bee in a growing company who spends more nights on the road than in the warmth of my own bed, I decided now was not the right time for an addition to my life. I could have tossed the idea right out and we would never have the opportunity to see just what it might grow in to. But that, I guess would have been my choice. However, once I had this idea, there really seemed like no other option. This random thought fest, prime example of non-sequitur that is it, now has a life of its own.

Mrs. Bald Man and I went out to eat a few weeks ago. It was our 20^th anniversary and, since I found it necessary to remind her of that fact before she could remind me, we went for a bite. Here in Utah, like so many other states, the government made our first choice for us; smoking or non-smoking was not an option. Non-smoking it is. As a non-smoker I welcome the idea of a carcinogenic free atmosphere while I dine on genetically altered food. But I often feel sorry for the addicted ones who lack the control of ex-president Clinton and choose to inhale. They are forced out into the fresh mountain air of Utah to cloud their lungs. I also feel sorry for the restaurateur whose only choice is to succumb to yet another government regulation as to how they should treat their own customers if they want to stay open.

I watched as, with an air of superiority about them, our fellow diners strode through the cloud of cancer which billowed about the exiled gallery of “the Patch” failures, kids in tow toward a table adjoining ours. Their smug attitude toward those outside wafted unfiltered down to the young minds full of mush running wildly about their feast. And I mean running wildly. The little dervishes were like a pack of Camels fresh from an oasis in their energetic trek across the dessert table.

When I eat I don’t like smoke in my face. What I like even less is bratty little air suckers running between my legs while I try to enjoy my salad. I yelled across to Virginia Slim and her gang that they may want to reign in their hoard. The look of utter disdain she gave me made me think I belonged outside with the puffers astride my horse in a Marlboro Man Stetson. How dare I comment on her pack?

I laughed out loud at the situation. Here I was thinking this lady should have never been given a license to breath life into another being while feeling bad for the ones outside in the cold hurting their own ability to breath. This reminded me of a conversation two of my friends who occupy vastly divergent sides of the political spectrum had on a beach in Mexico about the time my idea for this blog was conceived. One, a beautiful, Philippine, pro-life, anti-smoking, religious immigrant and the other an, “I can’t call another man handsome”, pro-choice, smoker, agnostic, expat. They were arguing (discussing) specifically about banning smoking in public places and you can guess which side each one took.

How can one side of the social and political spectrum demand choice in one area and prohibit it completely in another. We rightfully seek to protect the life of the unborn but shouldn’t we allow the born to choose for themselves during their life? The liberal view of freedom of choice in what I put in and take out of my body and protection of the rights of not-to-be-mothers versus the protection of the unborn and your smoking hurts more than just you conservative side. I guess such dichotomies are not rare in political smoking chambers and melting pots. Sometimes, what’s right is left and what’s left is right?

Incongruous views and backroom deals are commonplace in the smoky hallways of our nation’s capitol. McCain/Feingold and Hatch/Kennedy are but two marriages of supposed polar opposites in a town where opposites attract and relationships last about as long as it takes for a vote on one of the floors of congress. Political expediency too often takes the place of moral certitude and conviction. How else would you explain pro-choice Catholic politicians or closeted gay Republicans?

Each of us can have opinions that fall to opposite ends of the political spectrum. The underlying principles of these opinions may at times seem about as consistent as your average duffer’s golf swing but so long as we hold true to our individual core beliefs and argue from such a position, we are being true to ourselves. If you are on the “right” on one issue and the “left” on another so be it. I guess that is why it is a good idea to avoid labels in politics as much as they should be avoided in plus size clothing. They don’t do much good and they only serve to divide us further and hurt feelings.

I started this post with the intent of pointing out what should be a bizarre relationship between Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood. Obama has been one of the most unapologetic proponents of abortion of any elected official since Roe Vs. Wade came to be and he will soon keep a campaign promise to the Choice crowd and make abortions less restrictive and probably more common. In a blog that is supposed to be funny, I don’t have anything humorous to say about that.

But I find it strange that the first African American President of the United States, in one of his first actions as such, will bow to an organization founded by a woman who, if she had her way, would have seen to it that he had never been born.

Think about that one as you are lighting up after dinner watching the other patrons inside trying to keep their dessert trays upright amid a whirlwind created by kids whose parents chose to have them.

S2