Not To Be Missed

I read our local newspaper mostly because it's a good exercise in Dutch and every now and then I learn something about the country we call home.

I also translate some international news articles from time to time in an effort not to be the typical American I once was - completely out of touch with the rest of the world.

The U.S. makes the news in Europe for the same reason it makes the news in the U.S. - mostly politics  or natural disasters.  Or are those one and the same?

There are a few things I miss in the States.  A little.  And a few people I miss in the States.  A lot.  But there are some things I don't miss.  At all.

Like when I see Americans portrayed in local newspapers like this . . .

Amerikaans politicus: "Vrouwen worden zelden zwanger bij verkrachting"

In English:

American politician: "Women are rarely pregnant by rape"

Of course, the article simply reports the astonishingly boneheaded remark of one of our own politicians.  But perhaps the worst part is the few comments following the article that serve to confirm . . . well, I'll let you fill in the blank.

I'll spare you the Dutch - the comments, from people in my neighborhood, here, in English

"Yes, and the earth is flat and the sun revolves around this flat earth, moreover people never landed on the moon because that is indeed filmed in a Hollywood studio."

"And this nation will dominate the world, tush tush tush ... what a short-sighted, backward reasoning, and in 2012!"

"The normal IQ of an American politician is zero!"

Ouch.

In a French newspaper an article on the same subject states just the facts . . .

Non seulement le pays se voit de nouveau entraîné dans des débats moyenâgeux (qu'est-ce qu'un "viol forcé" ?)

And in English:

The country is caught up in medieval debates (what is a "forced" rape?)

I'll spare you the remaining French - here, a few lines of the French article in English:

The case became more and more embarrassing when the press revealed that one of the proponents of this theory is a physician associated with the Romney campaign in 2008. Dr. Jack Wilke, former chairman of the National Committee for the right to life, supported Mr. Akin as the evangelical Family Research Council.

Fortunately, according to the Ohio Board of Medicine, Dr. Wilke no longer holds a medical license in Ohio, where he apparently practiced for 40 years!  I will assume his specialty was not OB/Gyn.

Damn those inconvenient facts about biology that just keep getting in the way of what I want to believe. You mean to tell me that in cases of legitimate rape, women don't rarely get pregnant?  And women really don't have the superpower to just shut that whole thing down?

And I was so liking that make-believe world of science and the celebration of ignorance.

As Gail Collins of the New York Times so eloquently put it . . .

In colonial America, conventional wisdom held that women could not get pregnant unless they enjoyed the sex.   People, who would have thought I’d have an opportunity to bring up this factoid right in the middle of a presidential race? Thank you, Representative Todd Akin of Missouri! Without you, we might have been condemned to spend today reinvestigating the Congressional Budget Office Medicare cost projections.

But it just gets better and better.  Did you know Mr. Akin is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology?   Well, he is.

Gail Collins  . . . 

Since Akin’s debacle, we’ve learned that a former member of Congress once told the House Appropriations Committee that when people “are truly raped, the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.” And that James Leon Holmes, a federal judge currently hearing cases in Arkansas, once said that “concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”

Okay, I know he's from Arkansas, but still.

And speaking of Arkansas politicians . . . fortunately the U.S. was spared from most international news stories on that recent somber day on the wrong side of history - Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

I could say more . . . and I have.

As with voting women and segregated schools, history will right itself.  

And who knows . . . maybe one day there will be no one left to discriminate against.

Now that's the day not to be missed.