iconoclastas e inumeráveis [confusing 08 Jan 23 with 06 Jan 21]

more threats on reproductive rights

Despite the slightly positive attitude of the US electorate during the midterms towards abortion and reproductive rights, especially concerning ballots specifically targeting those rights, these elections did not see a shift in the States already suppressing these rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Incl. ten States where abortion is completely prohibited. And, unsatisfied with the outcome, US Catholic bishops have reinforced their anti-abortion activism with the election of Archbishop Broglio, under the newspeak slogan of fighting “an uncompromising secularism” [sic] even though the Supreme Court is so much bent in implementing a Catholic agenda. Most revealingly, they “worried that many Catholics actually support abortion rights under certain circumstances“. (Next they will think for themselves!)

Meanwhile, the far-right  National Front proposed to enshrine the right to abortion into the French constitution, incl. the current limitation to 14 weeks into pregnancy. This sounds most paradoxical from a party that has long been opposed to abortion rights. A first reason is to block in the near future any extension of the limitation. A second one is to protect and enlarge the conscience clause that protects practicians who refuse to perform abortions, clause that can be used to prohibit in practice abortions in an entire city or district if all local doctors claim this exemption (as exemplified by Italy)… The attempt was however short-cut at the eleventh hour by the [almost] entire Parliament moving towards this inclusion of the right to abortion without the snares planned by the far-right party. (But it is no over yet!)

50 ans de haine

interesting places [Xed]

An article in The New Yorker about Square Books, The bookstore (chain) in Oxford, Mississippi, reminded of the visit I had made to that highly engaging bookstore during MaxEnt 2009. I found the bookstore had a lot of “atmosphere” (pardon my French!) and personality, with loads of signed books and a sort of homely feeling. I was thus most interested in reading in details how the booksellers, Richard and Lisa Howorth, had made the place an Oxonian institution, a fitting tribute to the town’s most famous son, William Faulkner. (I seem to remember I originally entered the bookstore on a Sunday morn to seek the weekend edition of the New York Times, but cannot remember if the bookstore had any.) I also learned a lot about their contributions to contemporary Southern literature, and to US culture as a whole, since Richard Howorth was a president of the American Bookseller Association (ABA) and on the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority, until Trump fired him!

Another recent article about a place I also visited was in The Guardian today and alas much more ghastly, namely how Shasta County, Northern California, turned into a far-right stronghold… We spent a few days in Dunsmuir in 2016, as I had hoped to climb Mount Shasta during a family Californian road trip, the year of the San Francisco half-marathon!, but failed to do so for poor planning (and too much driving). At the (pre-Trump) time, I had not realised how conservative the region is, to the point of supporting secessionism from the rest of California! Peaking with the antivax, antimask, antisafety measures, hysteria.

no more dams against the brown flood