Lisa Montgomery spent the day in the Death House. Well, truth be told, she spent her entire childhood in a death house as well. The family was poor; Lisa moved seventeen times in her first fourteen years. Her mother drank heavily and didn’t stop while pregnant. Lisa was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, causing permanent brain damage. She was physically abused by her mother from the time she was a girl. Her mother used to duct tape her mouth... Read more
A lot has happened since the last time I blogged. People are still reeling from the terrorist coup attempt on our nation’s capitol. A handful of the terrorists have been arrested and the FBI swears it’s looking for more. Congressmen who egged on the terrorists are being asked to resign. There’s a serious movement for a last-minute impeachment of the president, and unlike the one last year, this one stands a ghost of a chance of success. President Trump himself... Read more
Five people are dead. They just announced the fifth death from Wednesday’s coup attempt at the nation’s capital. Police Officer Brian Sicknick took more than 24 hours to die after being bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher while trying to protect our Congress from the mob of terrorists. According to Reuters, he returned to his divisional office after the attack, and then he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. I can only imagine the pain he suffered, and what... Read more
I live in the United States of America. I live in a country that has the strongest, most expensive military in the world. We spend $723 billion annually on our military– far more than China, who has the largest number of military personnel but spends only $261 billion. Far more than Russia and India, whose spending is only in tens of billions. It’s been estimated that it would take $265 billion to end poverty worldwide, and the United States spends... Read more
This is what happens when you incite war. And yes, Trump’s cronies have been inciting war for some time now. This is Father Frank Pavone’s Twitter feed right now: The Diocese of Amarillo had better do far more than request that people not listen to him, because people are listening. This is what happens when you decide that any evil somebody commits is okay, because that person is on “your side.” Our nation’s capitol has been breeched. White supremacist... Read more
They didn’t tell me it would be THAT kind of ultrasound. I had been picturing something involving a squirt of blue jelly on my stomach, but this was the other kind, the kind where you have to disrobe. It involves a towel, and a plastic wand about the size and thickness of a cigar. It hurt, not because the ultrasound tech wasn’t trying to be gentle. She was doing a very good job, but such things always hurt me anyway. “You’re... Read more
The Lord was born, the Son of Mary, in Bethlehem of Judea, in the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee. He is the Lord of all times and all places. There never was a time or a place that God did not create, and in which God was not present. There has never been a culture, a race, an era, a social class, or a gender that was separated from God. But when the Son, the... Read more
I am writing a narrative. No, not that kind of narrative. Not the kind people actually want to read. I’m writing out my medical history. I tend to get tongue-tied and nervous at the doctor, and I have a long complicated history that’s hard even for me to remember. So I’m writing out every medical emergency I’ve had and every diagnosis I’ve been given in bullet points. It takes up six pages of type. I went to school to learn... Read more
It’s raining in LaBelle. The rain is falling very hard. It started at about two this morning: tak tak tak tak against the plastic we’ve stapled over the bedroom window to keep us extra warm in winter. Now it’s a world of smelly, sloppy puddles outside, even more than LaBelle usually is. Looking outside, you could believe there was going to be a flood that would rise up past the cliffs and wash us all into the polluted waters of... Read more
Let’s say you were a public practicing Catholic, famous for your conversion to Catholicism, and you decided to openly defy the Catholic Church. You were going to encourage people to disobey the Church and listen to you instead. You weren’t going to do this because so many Catholics are so cruel to LGBTQ people (and they are). You weren’t going to do it because of child abuse by priests and the shocking, scandalous cover-up that could shake anybody’s faith. You... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In