I have a lot of passions, some of which I advocate very strongly for. I think we all have things we care tremendously about, whether it is a way of life, or religion, politics or a particular hobby.
I hate to call myself an activist, I feel like it’s not the appropriate term for me, despite my level of political involvement. I would call myself a political writer, but I think I already explained in another post how I feel more like an “interpreter”. Mostly, I just live the life I wish to have – trying to be a positive example of the things I invest my time in. Continue reading See Me→
Judd & I at the Tesla event. I was so excited I could barely handle it.
I turned 27 this past Friday. The night before, I had the good fortune to attend the unveiling of the new Tesla Model D. Friday night, a small group of incredible people I am so grateful to call friends gathered for dinner to celebrate my birthday. On Saturday, I went to the premiere of a new documentary called The Culture High (which I recommend highly). On Sunday, I spent the better part of a day playing with my adorable little niece-of-the-heart. It was an amazing weekend. I am tremendously lucky for all the incredible events and people in my life.
I haven’t done a formal update about my life in quite a while. I guess now is as good a time as any. I’m calling it The State of the Avens, because we all know I’m a little too obsessed with politics and nerdy references. Continue reading The State of the Avens→
I was born and raised as a feminist by my mother, who is exactly 40 years older than I am. My mother went to college in the 1960s in New England, where she tried to open a bank account but they wouldn’t let her unless her husband or father co-signed as an account holder. She wasn’t legally allowed to have a credit card until 1974. She got married in 1975, and legally, she had no right to refuse to have sex with her husband until the late 1970s in some states (and 1993 in others).
The featured photo above this post can be found in Ashton Pittman’s beautiful photo essay here.
Today is May 31, 2014.
Five years ago today, Dr. George Tiller was assassinated. He was shot point-blank through the eye on a Sunday morning, in front of his family & his congregation. He was at his church, where he was serving as an usher. There were children and families there.
Dr. Tiller was no stranger to the violence of the most extremist anti-choicers – his clinic was firebombed in 1986, and he was shot five times in 1993. He was wearing a bulletproof jacket the day he was killed, which he’d been doing since 1998 due to threats.
He operated his clinic out of Wichita, Kansas, where he’d been performing abortions since the 1970s after hearing about a woman dying from an illegal procedure. He was known for being one of the only doctors in the US to perform abortions in the third trimester.
He performed numerous abortions to save women’s lives and often performed abortions for women who discovered their child would be born with severe or fatal birth defects. He was constantly pressured through violence and protesting to cease providing abortions, but he never caved to their demands, and someone murdered him for it.
There are now only four abortion providers who offer abortion services after 21 weeks in all of the US. They are under constant threat from violent anti-choice activists.
Today I make a donation to my nearest abortion clinic, in Dr. Tiller’s name. He will continue making a difference in the lives of women, every time he is remembered for his strength, courage and conviction.
In the US, since 1993, eight people have been killed by violent anti-choice activists. Since 1991, there have been 17 attempted murders, and since 1977 there have been more than 6,400 reported acts of violence against abortion providers, including arsons, bombings, kidnappings, assault, death threats and arson.
There are people who are legitimately pro-life.
The people committing these acts of violence certainly aren’t.
Last week, Senator Rand Paul was interviewed by David Axelrod, and spoke about the polarization in America over abortion. He talked about how he believes the country is “somewhere in the middle” on abortion and needs to be persuaded before abortion can be made illegal. His stance is surprisingly gentle considering his March 2013 introduction of the Life at Conception Act, which never made it to the floor of either the House or Senate.
The trouble I find with this whole “polarization” discussion is that there’s really just one group that doesn’t wish to compromise at all. They’re the ones who claim we want “abortion on demand” and try to ban emergency contraception. They’re the ones that hold up signs at clinics with pictures of dead fetuses, as if that represents what most abortions look like. They’re the ones that don’t rush to condemn domestic terrorism against abortion providers, even when that violence murders doctors.
But when you look at the public opinion polls and talk to people, reasonably, you’ll find that most people, even those opposed to abortion, aren’t actually like the people I just described above. Out of civility, I’ll refer to that whole group by the name they call themselves: pro-life.
In the interest of non-hysteria, let’s note that most pro-life individuals often support the option to abort in the instances of incest, rape or risk to life of the mother. And let’s also acknowledge that even pro-choice individuals speak out against things like “partial birth abortion“, which has been banned federally since 2003 (it was already illegal almost everywhere, but the “party of small government” apparently loves redundant laws), and nearly all pro-choice individuals defer to medical standards of viability when discussing acceptable restrictions.
Originally I was going to make a blog post here and point the domain to it, but I decided the effort needed it’s own website, so it was my little project last night. We debuted it last night and started inviting people today. Continue reading International Judd Weiss Appreciation Day→
So, a certain bigoted hate-mongering beacon of controversy passed away on Wednesday night. I don’t blame a single person who wants to protest his funeral, or dance on his grave. The man was hated almost as much as he hated others, and he deserved it.
But he’s dead now, and though his church and family is still around and may protest more funerals and cause more ruckus, he’s dead, and there’s one less bigot in the world. This appears to be a plus for humanity in general.
So what to do, to mark the occasion? Protests, celebrations — all of that is fair. Does he deserve the peace and quiet he refused to allow so many others at their funerals?
The world has plenty of hate. I don’t want to add to it. I want to improve something, try to make things better than Fred Phelps ever did.
If you’d like to join me, I’m planning on donating to a few organizations, and I just might send each donation noting “In Memory of Fred Phelps”. Continue reading Let Hate Die With Him→
Lately I’ve noticed a slew of news stories referring to a “bad batch of Molly” killing young partiers in the mostly north-eastern United States. This is a tragic story. Drug overdose is a tragedy. But the media compounds these tragedies further through their irresponsible misrepresentations of the facts.
Happy Little Pill.
I really wish the news media would stop using variations of the phrase “bad batch of Molly”. The drug they’re referencing is called MDMA, but this is not MDMA. It’s being represented as such, but it’s not. I’m skeptical that there are even traces of MDMA in this shit, but sure, maybe there’s some. We haven’t even gotten the toxicology reports back yet, but that doesn’t stop the news from blaming Molly because the victims allegedly thought they bought Molly and everybody’s got a fetish for speculation over facts. But MDMA is not what’s killing people here.
People are dying from shitty drugs sold by sketchy people because they have no way of knowing what they really are. Because they are illegal. And people are scared to ask for help, or ask the right questions at all, because what they’re doing is illegal.
Stories like this make many people decide to double-down on our wasteful and useless drug war. Hell, as the Obama Administration decides not to pursue intervention in states legalizing cannabis, how else will law enforcement keep their funding up? These terrible stories beg for “something to be done”, and it looks like we’ll see further crackdown on party drugs. But the War on Drugs is wrong on a number of levels – and yes, I absolutely blame the War on Drugs for these deaths.
Dear reactionary news media, go find the real story here – that government prohibition of recreational drugs makes them far more dangerous – and please leave Molly alone.
Boston was my home before I moved West. Boston will always be “home” to me, that place I go to see the family (blood and chosen) that made me who I am.
This afternoon I received the news that two bombs had exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Copley Square. Copley is a familiar place to me – I used to work a block away, and I’ve watched the Marathon go by many times, in the past I’ve greeted the runners as they finished their 26 mile run.
As usual, when a tragedy strikes, things are chaotic. Reports were coming in from every media source, I sent and received dozens of text messages checking on the whereabouts and well-being of the people I know and love in the area.
It’s been six or seven hours since the first bomb went off. We still don’t know who did it. We don’t know the full count of people injured, though there have been two confirmed dead. We don’t know much, and news media simply recycles the same story until there’s something new to add. We are surrounded by images of emotion, of blood and pain and smoke and fire, and incredible videos of people who ran towards the explosion, towards the people there who needed help. There is such a mix of feelings – the pain of knowing that some humans do this to one another, but the hope found in knowing how many come to help, how many come, selflessly, to give, and reach out to one another, strangers united by their humanity.
When the dust has settled and we’ve learned more and had time to try to make sense of this tragedy in Boston, perhaps we’ll take a moment to reflect on the fact that being the victims of bombing, whether foreign or domestic, is a terrible thing.
Maybe as we heal from this hurt, we can take some time to learn where other bombings have taken place in the world lately. Maybe we can try to help. Maybe we can try to stop them. Maybe we have that power. Maybe it’s time to look to our leaders and demand we no longer be responsible for this feeling we’re experiencing, experienced by others around the world.
No person, no nation, no people should feel what Boston feels today.
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin
