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Rated • 6 reviews • activism • apoplecticpress.org
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jodie-annie
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Charles Bukowski, American Author ~ 1920 - 1994
Rated • 70 reviews • american literature • bukowski.net
The History of One Tough Motherfucker
Charles Bukowski
he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance...give him these pills...his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there...also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off..."
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left...
and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"
but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"
"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows...
it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps. -
http://www.melted-dreams.net/definition/2006/07/
Rated • 14 reviews • feminism • melted-dreams.net
Arollo correctly pointed out that this adds absolutely nothing to the abortion debate and so usually I'd simply stumble through such poorly considered arguments; some of the points here however are so preposterous they beg for comment.
Kicking off with the standard tumour analogy the first section drowns the few flashes of wisdom - I have respect for the life of the woman carrying the fetus. I have respect for that woman's autonomy - in a melancholy tirade based upon "...If we accept that all things die, that we will die, one more death upon the billions this world is built on doesn't seem so awful...". Surely this woman isn't trying to use the inevitability of death as a legitimate argument? While I am painfully aware of the fact that in the UK two women are killed each week by a partner or former partner*; I still think that each of these deaths are awful, however many have come before them, and as a feminist, as a human being, I have an inescapable urge to do whatever I can to fight against the causes of this. I guess that would be wasted according to earlbecke though; "...Because if you don't swat that fly, a spider will eat it or something anyway..."
I'm also pretty perplexed by this comment - "...As for my unconditional support of choice, don't give me that I-support-abortion-but-not-as-birth-control bullshit. What else is it? It's a form of birth control. Did you mean to say "in place of contraception"? And if so, why? What about women who can't take hormonal birth control (my sisters, my mother, me)? What about women who can't afford it (again, were I in a position to be having penis-in-vagina sex, probably me)? What's the litmus test here to see if a woman is deserving?..." - I live in the UK and so the cost of contraception has thankfully never been an issue for me but surely it's a lot cheaper than a string of abortions? Also, there is no reason to use only hormonal birth control; many couples happily use condoms and for casual sex there is obviously no other option. If earlbecke is concerned with missing out on the skin-on-skin barrier-free sex that the pill allows then she should really have done enough research to discover that even the hormone-free IUD has a much lower typical failure rate than the pill**
The true ignorance of the article is really shown in these statements though: "...Sure, sometimes a fetus is a wanted parasite..." "...The body sees a baby as a foreign invader and does everything it can to try to kill it off..." and "...As long as the thing is still in a woman's body, I support her right to do whatever the hell she wants with it. I don't care how far along she is..." A WANTED PARASITE?! Again, it seems decidedly doubtful that she checked any facts before sending this out into the world, but as this writer sat at her keyboard typing away it must have crossed her mind for a second that a woman's body trying desperately to kill the baby it is incubating is just absurd! And then surely, in this moment of sanity, she might check back and think that some people might not actually like the babies in their lives being called parasites!
The idea that a woman should be able "...to do whatever the hell she wants..." with her baby until it's born has prompted me to introduce you all to Ruby, my new niece and almost certainly one of the reasons I'm so wound up about this....
Isn't she beautiful? She made quite a spectacular arrival; in fact she was six weeks early - she shouldn't officially be with us until Sunday! I'm sure I don't need to elaborate any further on that.
I believe that a woman's right to choose if, and when, she becomes a mother is as important as her right to vote or to work. I also respect the fact that a "clump of cells that siphons off your body's resources" can, in time, become Ruby. I understand that there is never going to be a place where we can all stand together in agreement on this and that is why we must keep the debate open, keep reading, keep thinking, keep writing. I'm proud to live in a place where I can get an education, a job and a home but that doesn't mean that "I want to live in a world where abortion is just another medical procedure, about as morally-charged as treating a cold or getting your wisdom teeth removed."
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