3/04/12 BAD WEATHER AND A FAIR BARGAIN

NEW SNOW...

...EIGHT INCHES OF IT

PUT ''ER IN FOUR WHEEL DRIVE

WAITING FOR SPRING

STRANGE WINTER BIRD

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  25 degrees F, up from 18 degrees earlier.  Wind NW, calm.  The sky is overcast but the sun is trying desperately to shine through.  We got a surprise 8” or so of fluffy snow last night, and adding it all up I think two feet of snow in the last several days.  The barometer predicts more.
        While complaining to myself yesterday about the Bayfield weather and longing for spring, I was suddenly embarrassed by my own self-absorption and corresponding lack of empathy for the many victims of the recent tornadoes.  And as regards the slippery walking conditions we have been experiencing, I suddenly remembered my own mother, in her eighties, walking to the bus stop on the snowy streets of Milwaukee to go to work.  I will shut up and stop my complaining.
        Which sentiment I will strongly extend to the young woman law school student who testified before congress the other day about her entitlement to free birth control, while going to school on a scholarship, to boot.  She said she could not afford the three thousand dollars it would cost if she had to purchase birth control herself.  My first thought was, how does she have any time to study?  My second thought, why should I have to pay for her personal recreational activities, either as a tax payer or through higher insurance premiums?
        People can’t have it both ways; telling the government and the rest of us to stay out of their bedrooms, but insisting we pay for what goes on there.  And the implied threat is, either we pay for birth control, or pay  for an abortion or for raising an unwanted child. 
        Sorry, young “lady,” but you are on our own on all counts as far as I am concerned, and if you end up with an unwanted child you and its father should be obligated to pay for raising it, or you can both go to jail, to hell or both.  I think this is a perfectly fair bargain: I will stay out of your bedroom, if you will stay out of my pocket book.