About that journalist Bro' thing...

The vile hypocrisy on Parliament Hill with regard to explicitly shielding some politicians from public opprobrium, is nauseating.

This happened:

Except for Frank Magazine, there was a reverent hush from all journalists assigned to the House of Commons and Canadian politics beat, though some bienséants guys muttered about Matt Millar's flouting the rules of an implicit gentlemen's agreement around protecting politicians' *personal* lives.

You may recall the histrionic, outraged shriEEEking tirades expressed by Moore when the Museum of Science and Technology hosted a sex-positive and informative exhibit?

PatRiotChick aka @PatOndabak created and promoted the #RideMeWilfred hashtag on Twitter. The cone of silence around James Moore's sexting, from established PPG reporters, just solidified.

The PPG Bros won't address the CPC unofficial "Do as we preach not as we do" modus operandi when Harper Cons' purported christian family values are transgressed by the ongoing sex libertarianism of Vic Toews, Peter MacKay, Bruce Carson, Patrick Brazeau, Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu, Don Meredith (and likely many others) until, in the latter's case, there's a witness/complainant courageous enough to denounce the predatory aspects of power.

Someone whined about violating the *privacy* of the government employee's BlackBerry that contained the self-incriminating sexting between VanGirl & Moore. 

My co-blogger asked:

My response:

Juxtapose how Harper Con MPs reacted when they learned Vikileaks tweets had been posted from a government IPS provider.

Yet not one peep from the CPC benches on this very *personal* exploitation of a taxpayer-funded BlackBerry for non-governmental use.

A journalist that I greatly admire for his rigorous writing disappointingly displayed his complicity with the Brotherhood, exhibiting deference for Moore's recent resignation to spend more time with his family.

Fortunately, Frank Magazine did not obey the Bro's code, and wrapped-up the whole typically disingenuous CPC act, thus.

Seems to me, in light of the commitment that's required to care for a child with special needs, Mrs Moore is the one who could have benefitted from an adventure on the side, to restore and sustain her energies.  But I suspect the Brotherhood would NOT have expressed the same depth of compassion for an outside-the-conjugal-bed idyll she might have pursued, as they overtly did for Mr Moore.

The Down Side: Prenatal Testing and Its Consequences

As a long-time observer of the totally insane USian anti-abortion scene, I really really thought there was nothing left they could do that would shock me.

Of course I was wrong.

A bill banning abortions in cases where a test or diagnosis indicates Down Syndrome has cleared an Ohio House panel.

The House Community and Family Advancement Committee passed the measure Tuesday. Its next stop would be the House floor.

It's part of Ohio Right to Life's legislative agenda this session, as the anti-abortion group tries to continue a streak of legislative successes in Ohio's Republican-led Legislature.

The bill prohibits a person from performing, inducing or attempting an abortion on a pregnant woman because Down Syndrome is indicated.

Let that sink in a minute.



Caught your breath?

The state would force a woman to carry a defective pregnancy to term.

I took crap on Twitter the other day for calling Down Syndrome a defect, admonished rather to use the term "different."

Well, let's have a look at some facts.

Down syndrome (DS or DNS) or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is typically associated with physical growth delays, characteristic facial features, and mild to moderate intellectual disability. The average IQ of a young adult with Down syndrome is 50, equivalent to the mental age of an 8- or 9-year-old child, but this varies widely.

Go to the link for a long list of what else Down Syndrome entails: heart, hearing, vision, and thyroid problems, just to hit the highlights.

Of course I understand that all pregnancies pose various risks -- to the parent's health and life, ditto on the fetus.

And the Big Question: What sort of child will this pregnancy produce?

But pregnancy and child-rearing also represent huge investments.

Human beings are wired to try to minimize risk. So, of course there are all kinds of prenatal tests for things parents would like NOT to pass on to offspring.

Down Syndrome, being genetic, has had a lot of attention from scientists* trying to devise good tests. And they've been pretty successful.

Cell-free fetal DNA is non-invasive, can be done quite early, and has few false positives.

From Wiki: "Guidelines recommend screening for Down syndrome to be offered to all pregnant women, regardless of age."

So what happens when women get bad news?

They opt for termination.

About 92% of pregnancies in Europe with a diagnosis of Down syndrome are terminated. In the United States, termination rates are around 67%, but this varies significantly depending upon the population evaluated. When nonpregnant people are asked if they would have a termination if their fetus tested positive, 23–33% said yes, when high-risk pregnant women were asked, 46–86% said yes, and when women who screened positive are asked, 89–97% say yes.

Those numbers are pretty clear evidence that most people faced with this diagnosis say: No fucking way am I going through with this.

Here's a recent story from Britain:

More women than ever are choosing to abort babies with genetic abnormalities after the introduction of new blood tests that allow the conditions to be more easily detected during pregnancy.

An investigation into figures published by the Department of Health reveals the number of abortions carried out because babies were found to have Down’s syndrome or other serious disabilities has increased by 34 per cent in just three years since 2011.

This, of course, is what is prompting the SHRIEEEKING and the proposed law in Ohio.

Creepy Dominionist Mike Schouten goes Godwin at LieSite.

And here's a recent piece from the Washington Post, by Renate Lindeman, a "spokesperson for Dutch parent group Downpride."

She claims that Down Syndrome screening is about "eliminating a group of people."

No, it's not. It's individual parents and families, offered tests, given results, thinking it over, and making individual decisions based on their own desires and capacities.

In other words, people taking advantage of technological ingenuity to get information in order to make their own choices about their own families.

It doesn't get more human than this.

It's not evil, it's not genocide, and it certainly is not Nazi.

And the state has no fucking business in it. At. All.

Note to commenters: Yes. I know Down Syndrome people can be lovely, joyful people. And to people who choose to birth and bring up these children, good on you. But your saintliness gives you no right to shit on people who choose not to.


*When I was looking into prenatal testing for Down Syndrome, I found an interesting side story. Dr Jérôme Lejeune, the "discoverer" of the chromosomal anomaly, is considered by fetus freaks to be a hero. There's an institute named after him. Pope John Paul II wanted to make him president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. But sadly, Dr. Lejeune died before that could happen.

Well, funny story. Dr Lejeune actually stole the work of another researcher, a woman named Marthe Gautier.

At the time, the laboratories at the Armand-Trousseau hospital did not have a microscope capable of capturing images of the slides. Gautier entrusted her slides to Jérôme Lejeune, an intern at CNRS, who offered to take pictures in another laboratory better equipped for this task. In August 1958 the photographs identified the supernumerary chromosome in Down syndrome patients. However Lejeune did not return the slides, but instead reported the discovery as his own.

Ah, well, ç'est la vie, eh?

Small Mercies: Fetus Freaks NOT Running in 2015

Boo-hoo-hoo. Today, on what is the last sitting day of the 42nd Canadian Parliament, about 50 MPs who have declared they are not running in the next election are making farewell speeches.

Some, no doubt, are good people who represented their constituents honourably and responsibly. Maybe even stuck up for Canadian values and fought, however vainly, against the wholesale havoc Herr Harper has been wreaking nationally and internationally.

About 30 -- and counting -- of them are, however, Conservatives.

The list from Wiki (at the moment):

Diane Ablonczy, Calgary—Nose Hill, Alberta
Mike Allen, Tobique—Mactaquac, New Brunswick
Rob Anders, Calgary West, Alberta
Leon Benoit, Vegreville—Wainwright, Alberta
Ray Boughen, Palliser, Saskatchewan
Garry Breitkreuz, Yorkton—Melville, Saskatchewan
Rod Bruinooge, Winnipeg South, Manitoba
Patricia Davidson, Sarnia—Lambton, Ontario
Barry Devolin, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, Ontario
Shelly Glover, Saint Boniface, Manitoba
Peter Goldring, Edmonton East, Alberta
Dick Harris, Cariboo—Prince George, British Columbia
Laurie Hawn, Edmonton Centre, Alberta
Russ Hiebert, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, British Columbia
Randy Kamp, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, British Columbia
Gerald Keddy, South Shore—St. Margaret's, Nova Scotia
Greg Kerr, West Nova, Nova Scotia
Ed Komarnicki, Souris—Moose Mountain, Saskatchewan
Peter MacKay, Central Nova, Nova Scotia
Colin Mayes, Okanagan—Shuswap, British Columbia
Rick Norlock, Northumberland—Quinte West, Ontario
Gordon O'Connor, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, Ontario
Christian Paradis, Mégantic—L'Érable, Quebec
LaVar Payne, Medicine Hat, Alberta
Joe Preston, Elgin—Middlesex—London, Ontario
James Rajotte, Edmonton—Leduc, Alberta
Gary Schellenberger, Perth—Wellington, Ontario
Joy Smith, Kildonan—St. Paul, Manitoba
Brian Storseth, Westlock—St. Paul, Alberta
Maurice Vellacott, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, Saskatchewan

I note that this list does not include fraudster and notorious weeper, Dean Del Mastro, already resigned in disgrace. Also missing is Patrick Brown, now leader of the permanently doomed Ontario Conservative Party.

Not one of them will be missed and the absence of all will be celebrated for various reasons.

Not least because just about every last one of them is at least a fellow-traveller fetus fetishist, if not a full-blown abortion- and woman-hating promoter of 1950s values.

Compare that list to anti-choice MPs here.

A few, like Benoit and Vellacott, are particularly odious in their misogyny.

Regular readers will recall that DJ! named its prestigious anti-feminist award after Maurice Vellacott for his long-standing mission to denigrate and demean women.

While we have no doubt that there are legions more zygote zealots frothing in the wannabe CON wings, for now at least, we're taking solace in the departure of so many loathsome dinosaurs.

Ya take yer jollies where ya can find them in HarperLand.

Pregnant, Parenting, and Pro-Choice

I've been on the reproductive rights/justice beat a long time and I can't make up my mind. Are fetus freaks really really stupid or really really deluded?

I realize these are not mutually exclusive. Also that some in the antichoice movement, especially the leadership, are decidedly neither, but rather prey on the ignorance and gullibility of their followers to make a living.

But in the main, I just can't decide. Are more of them dumb than demented? Or the other way around?

Current case in point: The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, to give it its complete title, is a woman named Ilyse Hogue. She's an interesting person as demonstrated by this Washington Post profile.

She's also pregnant with twins due in July.

This fact is making tiny heads in Fetus Nation explode. From the WaPo piece:

The reaction beyond NARAL, however, has been much more complicated, Hogue says. “There is this whole mentality that anyone who fights for the rights that we fight for must hate children and not want to parent,” she says. “So to have the leader of a reproductive rights organization — an abortion rights organization — show up pregnant, it’s just jaw-dropping.”

At one point, she says, she walked into a hearing on Capitol Hill and an antiabortion advocate looked at her swollen belly and asked, “Is that real?”

“As though I actually had strapped on a prosthetic baby bump to wear to a hearing for some reason,” recalls Hogue, who is due in early July. “It’s like, ‘What don't you get about choice meaning choice?’ ”

The gals at our own astroturf front for Focus on the Family can't get their heads around it either. Here's one of them quoting a pro-choice writer, then commenting.

Given the information she had at the time, given the fact that she was so close to finishing school, and given MY secular, liberal worldview… I have no doubt at all that if I had been my mother, there would have been no me.

Something to consider, isn’t it? Yet the writer seems to remain pro-choice.

If one is drunk enough to argue with them, inevitably one of them pulls out the Ultimate Anti-Choice Gotcha: "Well, what if your mother aborted you? What about that? Huh? What would you think about that? Huh?"

Answer: Precisely nothing.

So our beleaguered USian cousins have picked up this (foul) ball and are running with it.

They've begun a campaign that refocusses the pro-choice message into Pregnant, Parenting, and Pro-Choice,

The media and others often depict the pro-choice movement as having a political “agenda” equivalent though oppositional to that of the anti-choice movement, which seeks to eliminate access to abortion care, in all circumstances, as well as to contraception and other forms of reproductive health care, irrespective of the consequences for public health or women’s lives.

But what is the pro-choice “agenda?” Is it really just about ideology? And what is so surprising about being pro-choice and pregnant?

Being pro-choice is fundamentally about parenting, because it means believing, as the international women’s rights movement has long stated, that every child should be a wanted child, and that, by extension, that every parent is a willing parent.

Part of the campaign is a new Tumblr that is collecting great stories from prochoice parents.

Maybe someday I'll make up my mind on the stupid v. delusional question.

But not today.

Pity the Poor Canadian Anti-Choice Movement: Lost and Losing

I've been thinking about the Canadian fetus freak movement lately and how despondent they must be. I mean, they've had absolutely no wins here and some -- admittedly minor -- defeats (see New Brunswick, PEI, and Ontario).

Yes, they litter the landscape with their idiotic underground fetus flags and gory postcards, but really, what have they got to show for their relentless SHRIEEEKING?

As compared to the US, where fetus freaks have been having an orgy of misogyny for the past four or five years.

I watch this stuff and even I get waaaay behind. This recent one, from Wisconsin, takes a cake of some kind.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said this week that he would sign a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy that does not contain exceptions for rape and incest victims, if the bill reaches his desk. The measure also contains a less-discussed provision that would allow the father to sue the doctor for "emotional and psychological distress" if he disagrees with the abortion, regardless of his relationship with the woman having the procedure.

Got that? Some rando guy can sue a doctor for performing an abortion on some woman he may or may not have had sex with. Reports did not detail whether DNA tests would be required.

The USian anti-choice festival includes all kinds of legislation on extended waiting periods, mandated lying by doctors, bans on telemed abortions, bans on certain methods of abortion, vicious parental notification rules, hyped up "safety" requirements for clinics, totally bogus claims of "fetal pain," egregious funding cuts for healthcare orgs that might possibly, sometime, maybe discuss abortion with patients.

Et fucking cetera.

Here in Canada, they got bupkis.

So, the latest fundraising SHRIEEEK from LieSite titled "Don’t Be Silent!"struck me as funny. (There is randomly strewn bold in this that I'm too lazy to reproduce.)

We can no longer afford to deny the hard truth: the threats to the freedoms of Canadians like you and me who believe in the sanctity of life and the traditional family are growing every day. 

Right now the push to implement Wynne’s sex-ed curriculum is in high gear, the legalization of euthanasia country-wide is on our doorsteps, and abortion extremists have even taken away the rights of pro-life doctors in Ontario to refuse to refer for abortions!

Now, more than ever, the unique investigative reporting of LifeSite is needed to combat the manipulation of the mainstream media and the growing anti-life and anti-family sentiments across Canada.  

However, with only 10 days remaining in our summer fundraising campaign,we have only raised $8,000 towards our absolutely minimum goal of $200,000.

Summer fundraising campaign? They have one for each season? Meaning they need to raise $800,000 a year?

Wow. That's a lot of dough to raise when you've got absolutely nothing to show for it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was also amused by the Fetal Gore Gang's revisiting of their three-year old wet squib of a campaign to appropriate the historic Abortion Caravan.

That might have been better titled "How we tried to hijack a prochoice icon and then got lost in Ottawa somewhere and failed to show up for the grand finale to the great amusement of our critics."

But on further reflection, I realized that the fetus freaks have had a recent victory.

They singlehandedly elected weirdo Patrick Brown as leader of the Ontario Conservative Party. (I refuse to put the word "progressive" in there.)

If you're interested in Ontario politics and/or grassroots organizing, read that Interim article.

Ontario zygote zealots were stoked that they had TWO double-plus good fetus freak candidates, Brown and McNaughton, contesting all-but-annointed Christine Elliott.

Then the dirty tricks started.

The week before the vote, pro-lifers began receiving a flyer from Concerned Conservatives of Ontario, which claimed Brown was not pro-life or pro-family, going so far as to attack him for being a bachelor without kids who could not understand family issues. CLC’s [Campaign Life Coalition] Jeff Gunnarson told The Interim this was a dirty trick, probably carried out by the Elliott campaign or one of her supporters.

CLC contacted their supporters with mailings, email reminders, and a voice blast urging them to vote for Brown and ignore the bogus Concerned Conservatives letter.
…

CLC supporters came out in force. McNaughton told The Interim in April that pro-life and pro-family voters were the most motivated to vote in the leadership, and it appears he was correct. According to numerous sources within the Brown campaign, their voter identification efforts found that about three-quarters of CLC supporters who bought a membership voted in the leadership contest. That, as one put it, “is an astonishingly high number.”

YAY! Congratulations, anti-choice. For as long as Brown is leader, you've guaranteed a non-Conservative government in Ontario.

Image source.

Big Abortion News from US and Ireland

Two big stories on abortion in the past week.

An exclusive AP survey reports that abortion rates in the US are down by about 12% overall since 2010, in nearly every state.

Both sides are claiming victory, of course.

Anti-abortion activists say it’s a vindication for restricting access to abortion. Reproductive-rights advocates say it’s all about expanded access to contraception. A new survey from the Associated Press finds abortion rates are down across America and – as is almost always the case in debates over abortion – the truth is more complicated than that.

The odd thing, or perhaps not, is that rates fell both in states that enacted more restrictive laws and those that did not.

Trends like these are complicated with many factors contributing: contraception use, cost, and accessibility; the economy; sex education; abortion accessibility, and so on.

But one thing is clear: it is NOT because, as fetus freaks claim, that women are "choosing life."

How do can we be so sure of that?

Duh. Because the birth rate is not only not rising, it's falling too.

Elizabeth Ananat, an associate professor of economics at Duke University who studies the economics of fertility, said the data also contradicts the notion that more women are rejecting abortion and choosing to stay pregnant. “If women’s attitudes were really shifting, we should see the birth rate go up,” she says. “Instead, birth rates are falling, too.”

But, hey, don't let facts get in the way of your delusion, zygote zealots. (Not that they ever do.)

In the other big news, Amnesty International released a report slamming Ireland's abortion law.

Irish abortion law treats women and girls like “child-bearing vessels” and endangers their lives and their health when pregnant, Amnesty International has said.

You can read the whole report (PDF), called "She is not a criminal," here.

DJ! has had much to say about Ireland over the years.

Maybe now that equal marriage is about to become legal there, Irish women will get some respect too.

Saskatchewan: The Next Battle Front

Reproductive rights activists in Canada know that while we've won the war over lawless abortion, we're still waging countless battles over access.

Recently, the focus has been on Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, where small but long-overdue victories have been achieved by a new generation of pro-choice crusaders.

Last week, The Star Phoenix ran four articles on the state of abortion access in Saskatchewan, beginning with an editorial, titled "Silence on abortion is unsafe."

It seems that people are afraid to speak.

When it comes to the issue of access to abortion in Saskatoon, silence speaks volumes.

The StarPhoenix has been investigating the topic for months, and perhaps the most telling truth to come from that work is something that isn't in the stories. The fear of sources to speak in public was a common thread running through all attempts to report on abortion services in the health region.

Researchers told a reporter they simply could not risk speaking out.

After months of searching, only one woman who had an abortion would speak on the record. A pseudonym was used because she feared repercussions in her personal life and from the public.

Of course, the fetus freaks weren't afraid to issue their usual BS under the title "Easy access is not the answer."

A four-page article details the difficulties in getting an abortion in the province.

Saskatoon is one of the most difficult places in Canada to get an abortion, leaving women to navigate a political maze, advocates say.

Along with a Halifax hospital, Saskatoon is the second-last Canadian site where a woman can’t simply make a call to set up the procedure — she needs a doctor’s blessing.

In Regina, women can self-refer, but not in Saskatoon? WTF is up with that?

And, if possible, things are even grimmer for women in the north.

Women get run around, forced to make multiple appointments, then when time runs out, get referred out of province, typically Alberta. Travel costs are, of course, NOT covered.

And time limits differ for the only two centres that do abortions: 16 weeks in Regina, 12 weeks in Saskatoon.

One abortion provider, Dr John Thiel, would speak on the record.

Thiel’s practice is based in Regina, and he is a former chair of the Regina women’s clinic. He has limited knowledge of how the process works in Saskatoon. However, when The StarPhoenix requested an interview, he was the only spokesman the health region was willing to put forward.

“Things are done differently (in the two cities), but I don’t think they’re done differently to the detriment of patient care,” Thiel said.

He has an appetite for change and improvement, he said.
...
Thiel said he can’t understand why Saskatchewan has no free-standing abortion clinic like five other provinces do, including Manitoba.

The less-than-12-week limit on abortions in Saskatoon is due to a 20-year-old decision by doctors to pull the plug on second-trimester abortions.

The further along a pregnancy is, the more technically challenging it is to remove the fetus, Thiel said. Not all gynecologists have the specific skill set needed.

Huh? No qualified gynecologists want to practice in Saskatoon?

And there are two more abortion skirmishes going on: a (doomed) effort by fetus freaks to require parental consent on abortion for minors and a move by the Saskatchewan College of Physicians to update their guidelines on conscience rights, rightly seen as an attempt to drag the medicos into the 21st century. That move is now on hold, probably awaiting the outcome of a suit in Ontario over a similar move by the College there.

So while the focus has been on New Brunswick (population: 750K) and PEI (population:140K), the appalling situation in Saskatchewan (population: over 1 million) has been flying under the radar.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Of SK's 14 MPs (13 Conservatives and Ralph Goodale), all the Cons are rated anti-choice by Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. These include arch anti-choicers Brad Trost and Maurice Vellacott.

While The Star Phoenix is to be applauded for its reporting, we find it odd that there are no comments allowed on the stories.

Do they want to break the silence? Or just wring its editorial hands over it?

It seems we've got another front to get moving on. Saskatchewan, here we come.

PEI: Tiny Step Forward But Not Nearly Enough

First, the good news. After more than 30 years, the women of Prince Edward Island have regained a tiny bit of autonomy.

The Province of P.E.I. has made arrangements with Moncton Hospital to provide access to abortions without a referral from a doctor or Health PEI.

The new system will allow P.E.I. women to call a toll-free number and make an appointment for an abortion at the Moncton N.B. hospital.

Like women in the rest of Canada, PEI women will now be able to make up their own damn minds about their reproductive lives and self-refer for abortion. The new arrangements also mean they don't have go through a demeaning and deliberately shaming run-around to get preliminary bloodwork and unnecessary ultrasounds done on the Island as detailed so heartbreakingly in stories at The Sovereign Uterus.

The bad news is:

.@WadePEILiberal & @DougCurrie speak of barriers to abortion access for #PEI women, but ignore one major barrier: the Northumberland Strait

— Megan Glover (@MeganAGlover) June 2, 2015

The trip to Moncton is about two hours shorter than the trip to Halifax, but still entails a $45 bridge toll, gas money, time off work, child care arrangements, and if the timing doesn't work, overnight accommodation.

None of which is paid for under the new deal.

And what if someone doesn't have access to a vehicle? And what if one has the bad luck to need an abortion in shitty weather when the bridge closes?

And the new arrangements do nothing about abysmal abortion after-care described by Courtney Cudmore.

And the government still refuses to explain why it rejects an alternative plan to offer abortion services in PEI that would have cut the stress and costs on patients and actually save money.

Of course, the fetus freaks are whining.

Opponents of abortion are denouncing the P.E.I. government’s easing of access to abortion services for Island women, saying the changes will create ‘abortion on demand.’

Holly Pierlot, president of the P.E.I. Right To Life Association, says her organization is ‘extremely disappointed’ by the announcement Tuesday that P.E.I. has a new agreement with Moncton Hospital allowing P.E.I. women to call toll-free to arrange an abortion without first having to get two doctor’s referrals, an ultrasound and blood work, as is the current requirement for abortions in Halifax.

“Without a doctor’s referral, it effectively makes it abortion on demand,” Pierlot says.

Eeek! Abortion on demand!!!!

Yes, exactly like all other Canadians.

And don't forget: Abortion was available on PEI until 1982 when an unholy alliance was made between the Catlick hospital and the secular one, with the province bending over for the Catlick demand of "no abortions ever."

Self-referral is good. End to the gleeful runaround perpetrated by fetus freaks in the healthcare system is good. Shorter trip is good.

But not good enough.

PEI women are entitled to the same services as all other Canadians.

And you can bet your ass they're working on it and will win.

BONUS: Good overview of abortion access in Canada.

ADDED: No Province Should Deny Women Abortions

DONE

The last time I saw _Be Good Tanyas_ at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, Frazey Ford seemed frazzled. In the patter between songs, one guessed that she was the jam in a PBJ sandwich that was disintegrating slowly but surely. (As I said on Twitter, I thought then: run, Frazey, run!!!)

The performance started late, there was an oblique reference to one of the band members who had "forgotten" their instrument in the last city where they played.

Now she's on her own.  In beauty and joy.

"And I'm sorry that you don't like your life  

But I fought for my own victories  

And for the beauty in my life  

And my joy, my joy, my joy takes nothing from you  

No my joy, my joy takes nothing from you..."

That certainly resonated with me.

Who hasn't been there? 

Such a relief to be well rid of anyone who finds satisfaction in stirring pots of old grievances that are kept simmering for *good* measure...

Though the BGT days of performing _The Littlest Bird_ are long gone, other bands do honour to that song.

Rock Paper Scissors finds the bittersweet joy and sorrow in its words.