I’m about to work again, but life changed drastically today (29 November). I took my cat Belaud to his vet. Cancer was diagnosed. Dr de Vette (that is his real name) thought the only humane thing to do was euthanasia. Belaud was the French chartreux who was my constant and beloved companion since 2008.
He had stopped eating several days ago, drank smaller and smaller amounts of fresh water, and he wouldn’t eat his treats. The last two nights, he didn’t sleep on the bed. This was unusual because he was always as close to me as possible.
I took him to the vet’s knowing what I would be told, yet hoping I was wrong.
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Dom Garcie de Navarre and Les Fâcheux have both been considered Précieux plays and both are a discussion on jealousy. Is jealousy a sign of love or is it destructive? The question was discussed in Salons, one of France’s major cultural and social institutions. Salons have now closed. In French seventeenth-century salons, questions d’amour were dissected by men and women. Topics discussed in salons changed from century to century and, to some extent, from salon to salon. In earlier posts, we have seen la carte du Tendre, the map of love. It appeared in Clélie, Histoire romaine, a novel by Madeleine de Scudéry. The Map of Tendre was engraved by François Chauveau. In Dom Garcie de Navarre, jealousy is as we have seen it in Molière’s Amphitryon. The seventeenth-century masterpiece on the subject of jealousy is Madame de La Fayette‘sPrincesse de Clèves, published in 1678.
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I’m so sorry my little Belaud has left us. He was affectionate, quiet, friendly, and always happy. He had been with me since he was old enough to be adopted and ran my life in a manner that suited us both. Belaud was named after Joachim du Bellay‘s Belaud, also a chartreux.
The Weeping Angel of Amiens(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
Otto Warmbier
The North Koreans did not free Otto Warmbier, they sent home a dying young man. Whatever brutality they inflicted caused his death. When he returned to the United States, nothing could be done for him.
Despite the irreversibility of his fate, I am very thankful to President Trump for securing Otto’s release. He ensured that a dying young man would pass away home, in the United States, and surrounded by his loved ones, his parents in particular, Fred and Cindy Warmbier. Otto’s mother said that her son’s facial expression changed during the last days of his life. He arrived in the United States looking anguished, but died looking serene, at peace.
He will also be given a proper funeral, which will help his parents, his siblings, his friends, and all of us. We were all touched and our thoughts are with his family. Otto Warmbier was the quintessential victim of man’s inhumanity to man.
I would like to offer my deepest condolences to his grieving family and I hope that an angel will be by their side for the rest of their life. They have suffered. They saw videos of their son crying when he was condemned to 15 years of hard labour and looking dejected as guards took him away to serve an unjust sentence.
I have placed above the image of the “Weeping Angel of Amiens,” once again. It is so powerful an image. The soul is immortal. So, no one could take his soul away from Otto.
Allow me comment briefly on the Ohio “heartbeat” bill, anti-abortion legislation.
First, I would like to note that opposing abortion seems to have become a requisite for would-be Republican representatives. There comes a point when moral correctness must be ascertained and the test is opposition to abortion. This anti-abortion statement has been effective in areas where intolerance to everything, including “classical” music, is widespread.
I hope no Republican political candidate ever has to approve the Ohio “heartbeat” test.
The Ohio “heartbeat” bill
For instance, the Ohio ‘heartbeat’ bill (Wikipedia) seems a disguised anti-abortion bill. If a heartbeat can be detected at six or seven weeks during a pregnancy, it may be detected at nearly the same time a woman learns that she is pregnant or very soon thereafter. It may therefore preclude an abortion on any grounds. At such an early stage in a pregnancy it may be difficult to determine that a woman is fit to carry a baby and give birth. It may also be difficult to determine the condition of the fetus. In fact, at that stage in pregnancy, a woman may not have had the time to see a doctor. The bill is therefore unrealistic.
But, let us first clear the deck. The author of this post has never had an abortion and would not encourage a woman to undergo an abortion unless circumstances dictated such a procedure. For the record, the author’s mother lost a large number of babies to a congenital blood disease. These babies were born after a normal pregnancy, but died a few days or a few weeks after birth. The author’s mother was forbidden the use of contraceptives under pain of excommunication. She was a devout Roman Catholic. (See Religion and birth control, Wikipedia.)
Opposing abortion can earn a Republican candidate many votes and has done so. But are we about to coerce women into a pregnancy? Not only is the “heartbeat” bill unrealistic, but it does not accommodate most of the conditions that justify or dictate an abortion. Many factors militate against a pregnancy. Age is a factor. A woman may be too old or she may still be a child. Moreover, if at the time of conception the woman was medicated, that medication may have seriously jeopardized the health of the fetus. There are pregnancies that must be terminated, which most politicians know little about.
If the “heartbeat” bill is voted into law and a pregnancy proves inadvisable, a doctor may no longer be able to intervene, in which case a woman would have no recourse. Despair may lead her to commit suicide. If a desperate woman commits suicide, I should think she was not fit to be pregnant to begin with and two lives would be lost. Having no safe medical recourse may also lead women to seek the services of backstreet abortionists who do not know what they are doing and may cause irreparable harm. Moreover, in the case of a life-threatening pregnancy, a woman could die and a pregnancy would have caused her death.
We should perhaps look at genocidal rape. This discussion began primarily as a result of the Armenian Genocide. Several studies conducted following massive genocidal rape have led to the recognition that forced pregnancies are “crimes against humanityif part of a widespread or systematic practice.” (See Forced pregnancy, Wikipedia.)
“Rape, sexual slavery, and related actions including forced pregnancy and sexual slavery, are now recognized under the Geneva Convention ascrimes against humanityandwar crimes;in particular from 1949, Article 27 of theFourth Geneva Convention, and later also the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, explicitly prohibit wartime rape and enforced prostitution. TheRome StatuteExplanatory Memorandum, which defines the jurisdiction of theInternational Criminal Court, recognises rape,sexual slavery,forced prostitution, and forced pregnancy ascrimes against humanityif part of a widespread or systematic practice.” (See Forced pregnancy, Wikipedia.)
Coercion
In the case of the Ohio “heartbeat” bill, forced pregnancies would not be “part of a widespread or systematic practice,” but forced pregnancies would remain forced pregnancies. Several years ago, an eminent professor of psychiatry and the author of several books told me that most women never recover from rape. If such is the case, can we expect rape victims to recover from the forced pregnancy that ensues.
It would be my opinion that, in the area of sexuality, coercion is particularly unacceptable. For all practical purposes, the Ohio heartbeat bill is an anti-abortion bill and, as such, coercive. No condition would warrant an abortion. A woman would therefore be subjected to a forced pregnancy and that forced pregnancy may harm and perhaps destroy her.
We do not know precisely when life begins, but we do know that the “heartbeat” of a pregnant woman, or female child, is detectable, that her brain is fully developed, and that she is conscious.
Ironically, people who oppose abortion are also advocates of the death penalty and may have no respect for the environment. There seems to be a profile to these individuals. For one thing, they would be punitive but they also sorely lack any form of compassion.
I doubt very much that respect for life guided Ohio lawmakers. The welfare of women was not taken into consideration, which is disrespect for the life of a woman. In an earlier post, I wrote that we could not let women suffer and die because of a pregnancy. Savita Halappanavar had the right to live.
In Ireland abortion is banned upon implantation. Savita Halappanavar was denied an abortion while the hospital could still detect a heartbeat, leading to her eventual death. (Fetal hearbeat bill, Wikipedia.)