Skip to main content

An Open Letter to Women Who Are Not Helping

"I respect your views. I ask you to respect my views."--Senator Dianne Feinstein

Dear Woman Who Criticized Sen. Feinstein :

Please take a cue from No Doubt and Don't Speak.

If you are a political junky, you undoubtedly have read or heard about the recent exchange between Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA) and some guy from Texas over gun control. I generally extend respect to those in elected positions by using their earned titles and proper names. I hope you can excuse me, dear reader, if I exercise my right to be rude in referring to the elected official from the great state of Texas as "some guy." I anticipate that after his next bid for re-election, he will find himself among the ranks of just some guys.


I'll not even try to get wonky here or offer my meager bent on the legality of banning assault weapons. Like the senior Senator from California, I too, have seen dead people, and know what it is like to never forget. While I have not lived in a war zone, or served in the military, or survived what should have been a normal day at school, I have seen enough lives lost through gun violence--or even accidents in the home--to understand the Senator's stance on this issue.

No, I won't enter the political carnival. Rachel Maddow has already taken care of that for all of us and then some. (Thank you for that, Dr. Maddow.) What I'd like to do, dear reader, is bring to light a voice of opposition that for all intents and purposes, should really be kept in the dark. This voice is so difficult to listen to, that I'll not put a name on it, for it spews forth from the mouth of she-who-should-not-be-named. This might be sort of juvenile of me, but I am hoping that if we just all close our eyes and wish it away, this person will just quit talking.

Better yet, maybe she-who-should-not-be-named should take a walk through Sen. Feinstein's Pensieve  and experience what it is like to see two of your colleagues lying on the floor dead at the hand of a gunman. Or perhaps she would do herself well to shadow those teary-eyed women who lost their children at Sandy Hook Elementary School back in December. And it just might help crack the ice that consumes she-who-should-not-be-named's pericardial sac if she were to spend a few days with Hadiya Pendleton's mother, who is surely a weepy woman at times still today.

But I doubt that she-who-should-not-be-named will ever spend time in the shoes of the women she criticizes. Heck, she probably doesn't have the Chootz-Pawh* to address the 300 pounds missing from CPAC face-to-face. No, she'd rather stay in the confines of her extremist abodes, where she can safely say things like the following about Sen. Feinstein and get in a double-whammy by including Sec. Clinton:

"Whenever they get asked a question they don't like, they start crying."--Neither Sen. Feinstein nor Sec. Clinton cried in their hearings. As one GOP hero would say, "Well, here we go again." One Tea Party Conservative's "passionate" is another's "crying."

"I'd like to see how that would go over in a law school class when a professor asks you to distinguish cases."--Oh, that's right, because Sec. Clinton NEVER went to law school.

"He nailed her, so she said "I'm offended."--No, actually, Sen. Feinstein thanked the guy from Texas for his book report on the Bill of Rights.

She then goes on to throw a blanket policy on voting over all women:

“I used to think women just should not be able to vote."--Oh, if Susan B. Anthony could hear you now, I'm sure she'd be getting all "hysterical" and crying "crocodile tears." Not. Perhaps she-who-should-not-be-named should click on over to the Scholastic website, where they provide a nice, little history of women's voting rights in America. I must caution, though, that these resources are to be used as aides by teachers, and I'm sure she-who-should-not-be-named thinks they are pretty dumb, too.

We all Monday-morning quarterback at some point in our lives. Heck, I Monday-morning point guard, power forward, pitch, pinch-hit, goal-keep, you name it. Why not Monday-morning legislate (senate-ate?)? It's easy to shake your head radically while spitting out insults from behind a desk in a TV studio. It's easy to be the bully. But on such an important issue, on such an important bill--that used to be law--brought forth by a pretty important woman (must be to get elected to serve over 20 years in the Senate), it would do some good if some people would Just. Shut. Up.

So please, women who are not helping, do us all a favor and don't speak.

Respectfully submitted,
This Girl


*Phonetic spelling intended


Popular posts from this blog

Someone I Knew; Someone I Wish You Could Have Known

To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die. ~Thomas Campbell, "Hallowed Ground" Fall is my favorite time of year. I love feeling the cool breeze on my face, while the sun gently warms my back. I love the colors of the leaves over my head and their crunch beneath my feet. I love the other side of the woods revealed; having been hidden for an entire season. But just as this season reveals what lies inside the depth of the woods, it reminds me of the heavy burden of loss. For the woods to come alive, the leaves must descend to their death. Why the melancholy during my favorite time of year? It was around this time some 12 years ago, when I lost a friend whom I thought would live forever. Rayna was a first year medical student at SIU. I knew her from working in the hospital. She was never without a smile and if so, it was only for a brief second, as frown turned to smirk and smirk into smile. I always knew my shift was going to be more bearable when I walked in and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Who Needs Gold When You Have Silence

I can talk. What would you like to know? Pick a topic. We'll discuss. Yes, I can talk. The problem is that so can my husband. And he is much better at it than I. But I don't mind. His love of conversation--and his skill at it--is one of the things that drew me to the big lug in the first place. But just as capable as we are at talking, we are capable of sitting in silence. And we don't think there is anything wrong with that. One of my favorite movie quotes is from When Harry Met Sally: (Harry, to Sally) "It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk." How true is that? I often joke with my husband when we are dining out that people can probably tell we've been married a long time because we are usually the only couple in the place not talking. Take note, fine, young newlyweds--some of the best conversation you will ever have will come from not conversing at all. Yes, as the old saying goes, silence is golden. After perusing other quotes a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Universal Language of Fish

The shoreline in the south loop of Chicago is marked by a concrete walkway that spans the perimeter of Museum Campus, smoothly curving around the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium. It makes for a nice, long walk that puts you as close to the ocean in Chicago as you can get without hopping on a plane to either end of the country. If you walk along there in the morning, you will pass a community of joggers and dog lovers. You'll witness ducks and geese pecking at moss covered rocks and diving for water. I have yet to see a fish jump, but am sure it will happen some day. Today, near the bend by Adler, a man and whom I will assume were his teenage sons, were gearing up for their morning fishing expedition. Watching them reminded me of my own Dad and brothers on one of their many fishing outings, when they would leave before dawn and come back smelling of crappies and night crawlers. The dad in today's exhibit was the first to cast and trolled the coastline for the target of th...
Read more