Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Here we go a blogging...

We're reading Romeo and Juliet in English 214 now. I was just reminded of the romantic fool in me's favorite part of the whole play in Act 1, Scene 5:

Romeo (to Juliet):
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet:
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo:
Oh, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet:
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Romeo:
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. (They kiss.)


Little known fact: This is, in fact, a sonnet. Count the lines: 14. Look at the rhyming scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It is indeed a Shakespearean (or English) sonnet. The first quatrain is spoken by Romeo, the second by Juliet (in response), and the third quatrain and couplet together.

This is why I love the English language.

Monday, January 22, 2007

I know I've already posted today...

Anyone who hasn't should definitely check out Bitch Ph.D at http://bitchphd.blogspot.com. Her Blog For Choice blog is very impressive. I have a link on the side bar.

Blog for Choice...

Today, if you didn't know it, is national Blog for Choice day, and I have every intention of participating.

What do they mean exactly by "choice"? We all make decisions every day, some spur of the moment, some thought about long and hard, but they are all choices. The fact of the matter is that abortions belong in the second category, decisions that women do not like to make, but they do for their own good. They should have every right to make this decision if they believe it is right for them at that time. The Declaration of Independence says everyone has the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Anyone who denies a woman the right to make this precious decision is denying her the right to pursue her own happiness. You cannot promise these rights to a thing that might or might not die before it even has the right to exercise these basic human rights, over the rights of someone who can and has exercised these rights. Everyone, or at least most people would argue that an adult has more legal rights than a child does, so even if you do consider a fetus a child, you have to concede that the adult has more right to make a legal decision for themselves. If that includes carrying a child to full term, whether to keep it or put it up for adoption, so be it. If it includes abortion, so be it.

On a different subject, and one I've been pondering about, why do some pharmacists refuse to dispense emergency contraception and sometimes birth control to women, while no self-respecting pharmacist would think about refusing to fill a prescription for Viagra to a man? Is it sexism? The most blatant kind. No, we're not going to deny a man the right to have an erection and possibly impregnate a woman, but we are going to deny a woman the right not to get pregnant in the first place. Pharmacists, it is your job to dispense medicine to men and women equally, and not to judge them. The only time you have a right to judge people is when you are serving your country as a member of a jury in a court of law. Period.

As for the rest of the day, I don't have class until three this afternoon, so I'm just going to chill.

Tata for now.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Ringing in the new year...

Okay, I know I'm 12 days late, but give me a break. I wasn't going to pay the Czech equivalent of ten dollars for five minutes of internet to write about the new year. And I had Christmas to celebrate at home and unpacking and homework to do here at school (which I haven't finished).