Thankful for every one of you here on PilotSpin. Wishing you a wonderful holiday.

Several years ago on a bitterly cold winter day, I was slowly driving past some road construction. A female flagger was directing traffic. I noticed she was not wearing gloves, and her hands were really blue and she looked miserable. As I came up beside her, I rolled down my window and handed her an extra pair of gloves I happened to have. She was so grateful, but I couldn’t help thinking … where was her brain when she got ready for work that morning?

It’s really a bit difficult to discuss abortion in a purely clinical way. What’s going on with it is an abrupt killing of a growing human being, and that, aside from homiciding the baby as we have discussed, is not without severe consequences to the mother, even if she does not want a child. Her body and brain have begun to change and adapt to the presence of the fetus, and violently removing the fetus has devastating effects.

I worked a crisis line and women in their 50’s and 60’s would call just to cry and talk to someone about how they were still grieving the loss of the baby they chose to abort, and thought about it constantly, thinking what he or she might look like, how old he or she would be today, and of course feeling love toward the child that died. Literally, the decision to kill your developing child carries with it the agonizing and never ending realization that you have killed  someone. And to kill your own child, in most societies, is the ultimate taboo. The women who called the crisis line almost always were talked into killing the baby by a boyfriend or parent.

The book “The Hand of God” by Dr. Bernard Nathanson is most searingly honest and detailed one you can read about a Jewish doctor who goes from pioneering clinical abortions and performing thousands, to seeing what he has done, converting to Catholicism, and working for the rest of his career to discourage abortions.

This is why we must stop disconnecting the act that creates babies from the responsibility that natural law irrevocably connects to it. We cannot undo the grief and agony of women who are led or pressured into doing something, disguised as merely “an option,” that forever haunts them with a poisoning grief and regret.

Whatever, figures, you'd interpret it like that.  Yes, let's spit on them.   

Joe makes huge leaps and conclusions regularly, bless his heart. I’m reminded of the old saw when a liberal responds to a conservative saying that the citizenry shouldn’t be taxed to pay for public television when it didn’t represent their views. “SO YOU DON’T LIKE BIG BIRD!??”

Joe isn’t a liberal, but he has that knee jerk thing going.

What a career. I read the whole thing. And married for over 70 years. A rich, full, satisfying life.

We worked hard on a campaign for Port Commissioner and our candidate just won! The Port runs the airport and was running it into the ground with woke, stupid decisions. They stopped helping host events at the airport to bring life to it. They balked at everything good in aviation.  They ran the Port into big debt. They fell for green energy grifting companies that later disappeared. They turned away a turbine repair company because it would be too noisy! Idiots and woke narcissists all, from the manager to two of the commissioners on the three-person board.

But a few years ago we also campaigned for that third commissioner and she won! But she kept pretty quiet until we could get our guy on there. Now we have an aviation majority!

We’re pretty thrilled. I bet the Port manager is getting her resume together. She’ll never survive with all that real energy and capability on the commission. The coolest thing is that the guy who just won tonight was the Port manager for 17 years and the current creeps forced him out. He retired, and now can visit karma on them all.

Anybody that can quote G.K. Chesterton is OK in my book.   

I belong to our local chapter of the Chesterton Society; in fact, I was a founding member. When I walked into the first meeting I knew I had found my tribe. Basically, overthinkers seeking Truth, and faithful to Christ, who need to talk to each other about deep topics and have the other person actually listen interestedly, and even possibly disagree amicably. It’s refreshing.

And there’s always beer. So funny. The group refuses to meet anywhere without beer. We’ve had to move a few times and the availability of beer is a serious topic. But what else would you expect from Catholics, who run podcasts called “Pints with Aquinas” and “Theology on Tap?”

Chesterton was a Catholic convert and all the people in my chapter are Catholic except me. In fact, our founder was reading Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, and walked out into the other room and told his wife, “I’m going to have to become a Catholic.” I’ve acquired a deep respect for many aspects of Catholic tenets and I have to say, these people are simply amazing.

The Society’s publication is called Gilbert, and it is indescribably wonderful, with serious articles and fun ones too …. very Chestertonian. There are Chesterton academies sprinkled around the globe and I wish there were more. New ones are added each year. We almost had one here, but the would-be founders of it, a husband and wife who are both PhDs in Statistics, were driven out of state to find jobs after their company, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, mandated the Covid jab.

I could go on and on. But Chesterton gives one hope and joy in a dark world. He saw much similar to what we’re seeing now and wrote often about it. Always with hope and eye to what truly is needed for human flourishing.

If there’s a chapter near you, I highly recommend checking it out!

https://www.chesterton.org/

In keeping with thread title … saw today that public school teachers in Portland, Oregon ALL are on strike today.

Their demands:

—23% pay increase (well yes, prices have shot up enormously recently … we’re all seeing that)

—Better tools for discipline (yes again … at last! Crack down!)

—Housing for students with no homes “so each student can get the best public school education possible.”

WHAT??

I’m reminded of the wonderful G.K. Chesterton quote, “The Progressive, generation after generation, ties himself up into new knots, and then roars and yells aloud to be untied.”