Which star-wars character are you?

You scored as Yoda. Yoda 72% Obi Wan Kenobi 72% Padme Amidala 61% General Grievous 58% Darth Vader 58% Anakin Skywalker 58% Clone Trooper 50% R2-D2 50% Mace Windu 47% C-3PO 44% Chewbacca 42% Emperor Palpatine 42% Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Do our Reading Piles Intersect?

Intersects with Charmaine:
Flowers for Algernon -- I've read this
Time Traveler's Wife -- I've read this
Fast Food Nation -- I need to read this one day

Intersects with Alyn:
The above plus
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown -- I need to read this.

Just Finished:
Tracks (non-fiction)
Shadow Mothers (non-fiction)
Outlander, Dianna Gabeldon

In progress:
Firefly in Amber (book 2 of outlander series) Diana Gabeldon
Little Earthquakes, Jennifer Weiner (for online book club)

In My Pile:
The other 6 Outlander books.
The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks
Blessings, Anna Quindlen
The Passion of Artemisia, Susan Vreeland (for Mothers & More chapter book club)
Harry Potter 5
Cider House Rules
Mothers Short stories of mothers published by Granta)
Hard Travellin, Kenneth Allsop
Scarlet Feather, Maeve Binchy
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt
Ireland, Frank Delaney

Non Fiction:
Wake up Little Susie (Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe V. Wade), Rickie Solinger
for my novel.

Stories of Adoption

Just finished reading Shadow Mothers (Stories of Adoption and Reunion). As compilation of writings by non-writers go, it was well done. Each chapter was the story of a mother who gave her child up for adoption in the 50s and 60s and then reunited later in life. It gave a very good picture of why adoption was chosen, the type of support these women got and the way they were treated by family and community.

The interesting things I noted were:

• The lack of self esteem among the women. Sometimes I think this was a result of the pregnancies and sometimes I think it was the cause of the unplanned pregnancies. All of the women seemed to be looking at this as a reason for the unplanned pregnancy.
• The lack of perceived choices for future. All of these women seemed to think they would marry and have children and that this was about the only choice for them.
• None of them were counseled as to what their choices were. Many of them who considered the possibility of keeping their child were counseled against it.
• They all were broken hearted and obsessed with the baby they had given up.

This is not a representative group of birth mothers. They all reunited with their offspring at some point. I have no idea statistically how many birth mothers do, or at least want to, reunite. I also thought it was striking that only 2 of the mothers included in the book had girls. Do mothers of boys have a harder time giving them up? Does society do more to hide adopted girls? Is the name change with marriage too much of a search obstacle? Again, this is not a representative grouping. But interesting questions anyway.

Which Jane Austin Heroine Are You?

Take the Quiz here!
You are Anne Elliot of Persuasion! Let's face it, you're easily persuaded, especially when faced with choices that are or aren't 'the Elliot way.' But this doesn't mean that you don't have conviction. Actually, your sense of duty is overwhelming. And though you won't stick your neck out too often, you have learned to speak up when it counts. To boot, you know how to handle sticky situations. You love deeply and constantly.

Thanks for the link Karen

Character Bio: Colleen

Colleen is the only daughter of Martha. She is raised by her independent, single mother who carved out a life for herself in a world that was not very welcoming to single mothers.

Colleen has seen her mother pursue relationships with many men, never to settle down. Colleen knows she is part of the reason why her mother never settled down, but can't quite put her finger on what else might have caused a barrier between her mother and other men. As a result, Colleen has a very finite definition of what women can accomplish. She is searching her world for a way to make it all come out her way.

Colleen is very close to her mother. In fact, the two are quite dependent on each other. In 17 years, Colleen and Martha have been through a lot together. But Colleen, a very practical woman, knows that in the end, she needs to establish herself as a unique identity to get where she wants to get in life. She knows the break will be difficult for both of them, but she is single minded in her desire to make that break.

Despite spending 17 years together, Colleen's world view is very different than her mother's. While Martha predominantly observed a world that was very closed to women, Colleen saw a very different world where women have choices and even mothers have the freedom to do what they will. How will Colleen's world view impact the decisions she makes and how will her mother see those decisions through the binoculars of her world view.

Character Bio: Janet

Born in the 50's Janet watches the liberties afforded women grow with the activism of the 60's. At first, she is carried away with this trend, but finds that her life is not really fulfilled with this lifestyle and finds that the people she socializes with seem more driven by their cause than by specific needs of the people they are supposed to be fighting for. She finds it difficult to create lasting friendships among these people.

Janet also comes from a middle class family that never put any emphasis on educating women. She grew up expecting to be married and have kids. That wasn't the path she ended up on, but her lack of education keeps her from creating a career in her life. Her lack of education also leaves Janet in a separate class from most of the activists she hangs around with. Finding most of her childhood friends to have taken a far different path from her, she turns to the church for support. This path and her interactions with Colleen and the other girls at Elizabeth House help her to shape her ideals and calling.

Book Review: Matter of Choice

A Matter of Choice by Sara Weddington was one of the first I could get my hands on at the library. As previously mentioned, our illustrious local library had no books on abortion at all. A subject I'm sure they are unwilling to touch. Thank god for iPAC, our interlibrary loan system.

It took me 4 weeks to slog part way through this delightful tome, even though it was under 200 pages and large print. What can I say, she's a lawyer. I'm sure the effort of writing this in English that the normal person could understand was effort enough. Certainly, there was continuous plot. It was her own life after all, but I found myself rereading paragraphs because my brain had turned off from the total lack of appeal.

So what I learned was that she was really just at the right place at the right time. Do not come to believe that she was not a crack lawyer. Just trying a case at the supreme court will not be enough to win that case.

She was an abortion activist with a law degree. Her buddies in her activist group turned to her for legal advice. After all, they were skirting the law by giving women referrals to doctors who would provide safe (if illegal) abortions. They were nervous and needed to know just how illegal it was. (Turns out, only the doctors were really taking the risk.) What she learned from answering their questions was that the country was on the verge of maybe making some headway in this area. Laws in all 50 states were so extremely different and many states were seeing people contest the laws they had.

So Sara and her buddies decided to challenge the Texas law hoping that the challenge would create enough noise along with the other state challenges that someone would hear and take a serious look at the situation.

She was up against the good-ole-boys in Texas Politics. They made such fools of themselves that they lost the case and then continued to make fools of themselves by ignoring the results which made it possible for Sara, et all to go before the supreme court with the case.

Even in the supreme court case, the good-ole-boys of Texas couldn't take her (a woman), or the case (about women) seriously. And so she won. It helps that the supreme court was stacked with people who actually listened and thoughtfully reviewed the case.

Unfortunately, the good-ole-boys have changed. They are no longer sitting on their haunches expecting the world to go their way. They no longer see women as harmless gnats with silly little opinions. They know how to manipulate the media and wrap their arguments in the clothing of the flag and God. Upcoming judge nominations could have a huge impact on the future of reproductive rights in the us.

Reading the supreme court records of the trial is far more interesting than reading the book. The dialogue between Sara and the justices depicts their attitude toward her. The dialogue between the justices and the lawyer from Texas is also very telling. Another point in the trial that I found compelling was the lack of skewering a woman for this choice. The argument was done on such a professional level considering the possible economic effects of pregnancy on a woman and the existing law and precedent about when life begins. It was very interesting.