Aborted by non-abortionists

Lessons from the news

The last week became another week of interesting assertions as the news started with the tragedies of loss of life through accident and misadventure in Nigeria and climaxed with a resignation in the midst of the White House.

Not too much is known about the victims of the air crash but it warranted 3 days of national mourning in Nigeria, this compounded with more revelations about the fact that the President’s wife, now laid to rest did indeed die from the consequences of cosmetic surgery offered by the “exclusive” Molding Clinic in Marbella, Spain.

There are lots of lessons to be learnt from the need to establish better air craft maintenance regimes to the inordinate quest for youth through surgical augmentation – which some commentator ascribed to the cultural colonialism engulfing Africans of means.

Toupee or to shave

My own resolve was to shave my head completely the moment I noticed signs of emerging baldness, it was easier to manage, accept and handle, and not an iota of my confidence or esteem was affected by that decision.

We just have to accept some aspects of nature, or what I mean in the generally quoted prayer is the courage to know what to change, what we cannot change, knowing the difference and moving on.

Mired after conception

Back to the by-line, Harriet Miers the erstwhile nominee to the post of Associate Justice in the US Supreme Court withdrew her name from consideration by reason of the unrelenting opposition from conservatives who thought besides the issue of gravitas, she had not made clear her stand on the issue of abortion.

Law and politics in America has this strange litmus test of being judged or pre-judged on the issue of abortion, that apparent cornerstone of constitutional law of protecting the unborn over considerations of the already living and existing is almost bizarre to the extreme.

This is besides the fact that Ms Miers belongs to an evangelical communion which would most definitely be opposed to abortion.

A manager is a manager

However, the grating part of this nomination was exemplified in another nomination for the post of the chairman of the US Federal Reserve where some commentators had offered that Mr Bush’s bank manger could as well be in the running.

That had become the basis for levelling a charge of cronyism on a president who was supposed to clean out the Aegean stables of the office of the Presidency after the peccadilloes of the Clinton years.

However, if the bank manager were nominated, Mr Bush could easily have said he was a good bank manager and what needs to be managed is a bank, albeit the bank of the largest economy in the world and that quite convincingly in his almost dronish voice.

Scooter the Hobbler

We had not heard the last of the clean-out as we had run out of breath waiting for the indictments of the special prosecutor on the leaking of a covert agent’s name in order to discredit her husband.

By the time we heard that the Chief of Staff to the Vice-President had been indicted from perjury and obstruction amongst other charges – 5 in all – the only quote of the day that stuck was about such charges defiling the office of the president.

The President in his folksy almost smiling demeanour offered that there was work to be done and moved on to Camp David, but the special prosecutor has only shot the first salvo – a resignation from any staff of the White House is probably the rarest sight, but that scalp might just be the first on this matter.

There might be more heads bowed in shame, but Scooter which is the nickname of that functionary did not scoot out, rather he hobbled off on crutches.

The only hope for the next week might just require a confident walk that makes the last week the tipping point into new expectations. Even onlookers have to have to live to be spectators as live passes on around them.