I'm on Salon.com

I am currently posting on Salon.com's Open Salon. The link is 

http://open.salon.com/blog/bardgirl55

We lost a good man and a good friend last week. He was brilliant, funny, caring and loving and only 57 years old. One of the most painful parts of losing him was seeing the agony on the faces of everyone else who loved him and knowing that we'll never again see his sweet face or hear his rumbling laugh. He was a big man, and his passing leaves a big hole in our lives. The very worst part of his dying, however, was that it was so preventable. 

I said he was a big man. He was big physically as well as figuratively, and Type II diabetes had insinuated itself into his life and ultimately led to his death. It's the familiar  story of not enough exercise, too much food and loads of stress. Walking once a week is not enough. That's all he would attempt, and even that became difficult in the last couple of years. Ironically, he never did drugs, not even alcohol. He thought it made him lose control of his intellect. Food was always his comfort drug of choice, but food can be just as addictive and dangerous.

At first, when he found out he had diabetes, he lost weight and tried to exercise, but I think the stress of his job finally got to him. He didn't want to be where he was. He was a thinker, a philosopher. He wanted to teach, but his father's death threw him into a world of chaos: spreadsheets, employee relations, projections and the bottom line. So he gave up. He didn't watch what he ate and tested his blood sugar just enough to see if he could eat that piece of cake or ice cream sundae after all. He gained weight and began the slow spiral downward that led to kidney problems and finally congestive heart failure and cardiac arrest. Our big hearted friend's big heart stopped, and our hearts are broken. 

Our sweet philosopher became a statistic, a cautionary tale, one we see too often here in Tennessee. It didn't have to end like this. 

Broken Arrows

I have just read a really disturbing article on Salon.com about the Quiverfull movement in the evangelical community. The premise behind the movement is that good Christians need to have as many children as possible as weapons in the fight to make Christianity the world religion. The women in this movement are essentially thought of as baby makers and subservient to God and their husbands. It is anti-feminist, patriarchal, and just damn nuts. Here's the link: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/3/14/joyce_quiverfull/?source=newsletter. Please read it. It's an eye opener. The article illustrates my growing concern that the human race is going to birth its way right out of existence if we don't choose to limit population growth. I don't believe in government involvement in family planning. We're not China, but it may come to the point where someone needs to be sure the children in these families are well taken care of and take appropriate measures if they aren't. 

The gist of the article is this: the movement itself is growing exponentially, but the toll it is taking on women is growing as well. Many are opting out after realizing the hardship it drops on the older children when the mother either breaks down or suffers illness and injury from so much childbirth and caregiver stress. If they drop out, they are, of course, shunned, made to feel like failures and sinners against God, and many lose their children in custody battles with the fathers. The few who don't lose their children then have the hardship of bringing them up as single mothers. It's a no win situation unless they can get help. Let's hope they find it.