Wednesday, May 14, 2003

2 Journalists & A Midwife QUOTE OF THE DAY "She [America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy ...She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...." - - John Quincy Adams http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm MAY 14th IN HISTORY: 1932 - - "We Want Beer" marches are held in cities all over America, with 15,000 unionized workers demonstrating in Detroit. Prohibition is repealed the next year. 1966 - - The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" on pop charts since '63, enters the Hot 100 for the ninth & last time with a re-released version. Incites controversy over its unintelligible, but assumed obscene lyrics. 1969 - - US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas resigns under fire for personal conduct (first in history). AND - -THE last Chevrolet Corvair is produced. This car launched Ralph Nader into the spotlight with his expose, "Unsafe at Any Speed". RHINO HERE: Yesterday's essay, "History on Our Side" by Craig Barnes, evoked quite a few responses, more positive than not, but one was a retort I thought worthy of posting here. To Barnes', "My friends, in searching through the clouds on our dark horizon this May, let us remember that the people ended the Vietnam War..." a Rhinos Blog Reader says, "A muddle headed and self-congratulatory talk. We didn't end the Vietnam war. The resistance and sacrifice of the Vietnamese people ended the war. Our protest helped but let's get real and give credit where credit is due." Still clinging on to Mother's Day a bit yet, Rhino devotes today's blog to 3 women I admire; 2 political observer / journalists & a midwife. Molly Ivins writes on why the citizens of what Gore Vidal calls The United States of Amnesia should wake up and realize they were duped about the Iraqi WOMAD's. Not Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction a Crucial Detail By Molly Ivins , Creators Syndicate , 5/12/03 AUSTIN, Texas -- "We ought to be beating our chests every day. We ought to look in a mirror and be proud, and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies, and say, 'Damn, we're Americans!' " -- Jay Garner, retired general and the man in charge of the American occupation of Iraq. Thus it is with a sense of profound relief that one hears the news that Garner is about to be replaced by a civilian with nation-building experience. I realize we have all been too busy with the Laci Peterson affair to notice that we're still sitting on a powder keg in Iraq, but there it is. In case you missed it, a million Iraqi Shiites made a pilgrimage to Karbala, screaming, "No to America!" Funny how media attention slips just at the diciest moments. I doubt the United States was in this much danger at any point during the actual war. Whether this endeavor in Iraq will turn out to be worth the doing is now at a critical point, and the media have decided it's no longer a story. Boy, are we not being served well by American journal- ism... READ THE REST AT: http://www.sltrib.com/2003/May/05122003/commenta/56019.asp Arrianna Huffington comments on the 77 percent approval rating that shrub's handlers have been beating everyone over the head with. The 77 Percent Solution Arianna Huffington, 5/7/03 " Seventy-seven percent." For weeks now, those three little words have served as the ultimate discussion stopper. A verbal knockout punch. A conversational coup de grace. The final number as final word. Whether offered up on TV talk shows or tossed across dining room tables, that magic number -- the president's robust post-war job approval rating -- has been as effective at quelling any disagreement with the Bush administration's selectively bellicose foreign policies or its suicidal tax cuts as a laser-guided bunker buster bomb. Seventy-seven percent. It's Bush's flak jacket. A Kevlar stat that has cloaked him in an aura of invincibility. An aura that was only augmented by Operation Photo Op, his 2G tail hook landing on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, floating just off the perilous coast of San Diego, and by the sight of his Democratic challengers squabbling amongst themselves in South Carolina -- desperately and pathetically trying to get the audience to picture them slipping into the role of dive-bombing top gun-in-chief. The idea being, I suppose, that it was all about the presidential flight suit, and not the man inside it. Seventy-seven percent: The president is triumphant. Seventy-seven percent: The president can do no wrong. Seventy-seven percent: End of discussion. End of democratic debate. Or so the president and his handlers fervently hope. Only it's not. It's just the beginning... IT'S ALL AT: http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/050703.html And RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE looks at the life work of probably the most well known midwife in the world, Ina May Gaskin. Author of the classic & sub-cultural text "Spiritual Midwifery", and her just released "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth", she is Executive director of The Farm Midwifery Center near Summertown Tennessee, and is also a Rhinos Blog reader. I should add that in the 1970's, I was Director of the The Farm Ambulance Service which we were fond of saying acted as the butler service for Ina May & her team of munchkin catching midwives. And included in the more than 1000 babies caught by the team while I was keeping the ambulance warm, were my 3 daughters. MIDWIFERY WEB LINKS * Citizens for Midwifery: http://www.cfmidwifery.org * Midwives Alliance of North America: http://www.mana.org * American College of Nurse Midwives: http://www.midwife.org * National Association of Certified Professional Midwives: http://www.nacpm.org * The Farm: http://www.thefarmcommunity.com http://www.thefarm.org * The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project: http://www.rememberthemothers.org 7:33:24 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - It's Only Natural By SAMEH FAHMY, Nashville Tennessean, Sunday, 05/11/03 From her small farm community in Middle Tennessee, Ina May Gaskin, the foremost expert in midwifery, ushers in a new generation of followers. Ina May Gaskin expected the birth of her first child to be joyous. Instead, she felt violated. Doctors used forceps to pull her daughter from her womb, then they did not let her see the baby for 18 hours. They wouldn't even let her husband stay with her. ''I thought they treated me in an insane way,'' Gaskin says. ''I couldn't understand why they couldn't just let me have my baby.'' That was nearly 40 years ago in a small Illinois hospital, when Gaskin was a timid but idealistic 26-year-old studying English. Spurred by her pain, Gaskin spearheaded the movement to professionalize - and in some states legalize - midwifery, so women could chose to give birth in the comfort of their own home. Today she lives on The Farm - a community near Summertown, Tenn., founded in 1971 by Stephen Gaskin (now her husband) and roughly 300 other like-minded people who wanted to maintain their hippie ideals of peace and respect for nature. The 63-year-old grandmother's route to international recognition as the mother of modern midwifery wasn't traditional, but not much about her or her ideas is. ''There is no midwife in the whole world that is more widely known than Ina May is,'' says Robbie Davis-Floyd, a medical anthropologist who studies childbirth and midwives at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. ''You can travel to many countries in the world and mention the name Ina May to midwives and they'll know exactly who she is and probably will have read her book,'' she says, referring to Spiritual Midwifery, Gaskin's first book. With her third book, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, now in stores, Gaskin continues to advocate for midwives and women's health. She already has a fourth book half written and is helping train a new generation of midwives - and even some doctors... THE ENTIRE ARTICLE'S AT: It's Only Natural "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 6:43:23 AM    comment

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