Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 23

A-Kon After, "Here Goes..."

A-Kon takes great care of its guests...picked up and later delivered to the transportation terminal of choice (mostly DFW, but I prefer the train), hotel rooms, a terrific green room staffed by friendly, helpful volunteers and packed with delicious goodies.  In the new hotel (this was the second year for the Hilton Anatole) the green room has a stunning view over the Trinity River floodway and part of the city.   They provide the writer and artist guests with a table from which to offer (er, sell) whatever it is the person has done, in Artists' Alley, separate from the main Dealers'  Room.   And the writers have their own dedicated room for the writing track programming.   Writing isn't a main theme at A-Kon, but supporting a writing track and writer guests means the writers can find the fraction of attendees who want to see them.   What the fraction is, I don't know.  What the attendance is, I do know, and any convention that delivers over 20,000 (it was 25,000 on Saturday this year) fans of SF, fantasy, anime, cosplay, gaming....will deliver a healthy number to the writers who attend.  In other words, we had an audience at panels, and plenty of people who wanted signatures on their old books and new books to buy.

Friday morning I ate breakfast in the green room, chatted with some people, and then headed down to Artists Alley to my table.  I had shipped books up to a Dallas-area friend, Lee Martindale, who has graciously and generously offered to be the destination for friends' books; she and her husband bring them to the con, where we lay them out on our tables.   I had been busy with Computer Hell for a couple of weeks (and other things that got tangled in it) so I had an assortment of titles from the latest Paksworld group, nothing else.  Had i been thinking more clearly (and had more time) I'd have brought twice as many of the first book in that group, Oath of Fealty, but I didn't.  All the Oath of Fealty volumes sold out the first day.   My first panel was around noon (surely you don't expect me to hunt up my convention badge and the exact times....and if you do...sorry.   Have to do something shortly, so this is hasty.)  and the second followed right on after.  I was on with a great bunch of other writers this year:  Lee Martindale, of course,  Jack Campbell (John Hemry, friend and fellow SFWA Musketeer), Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, Esther Friesner, Robin Wayne Bailey,  and charming guy name I will get wrong until I find the convention program again (it's somewhere.  Don't ask.)  Then back to the table until late afternoon.   Thanks to the enormous crowds (Friday, IIRC, topped out at 21,000)  the way out of this section was not the way in, to encourage a one-way flow of traffic, sort of, and the restrooms were farther away because of it.  However...they were clean and not too crowded, considering.

Saturday was a rinse-and-repeat of Friday except that foam-sword bouts were going on outside on the grass.   Lots of them.  I saw them as I walked to and from my panels (which were in the main hotel, not in the building we used for Artists Alley and the Dealers Room) because I took the less-crowded outside option instead of the very crowded winding hall.  Nothing arouses my desire to fence like seeing others fence, so after we closed down the tables, I wandered over to the group and looked hopeful, and finally someone asked if I wanted to try it...and did I need to hit someone.  YES.  Not to hurt them, just to work off the twitchiness I always get in large crowds and lots of noise (inescapable during big conventions.)    So the kind young man offered me one of his foam covered swords and we sparred some and I felt much, much better.    I have not completely forgotten how to parry and my point control isn't as bad as I feared, from the time away from fencing.   Saturday night was a cocktail party for the A-Kon guests at the top of the tower block of the hotel, with great views of the surrounding area, including a storm front moving in from the northwest.

(Errands call.  Back another time.)

A-Kon After, "Day of Departure"

Yes, the trip report is late.  That's because I went to the eye doctor first thing this morning (no wifi) and then got my eyes dilated, and after that....the day was a blur.   Until now,  when the trip report will be truncated by tiredness (sorry.) 

Departure.  Departure last Thursday morning was almost-but-not quite normal at the home end (someone other than me forgot his driver's license and thus we had to come home again, to ensure that when he drove back from the train station, the "I don't have my license with me" vibes would not cause him to be pulled over.)  Got up early, had breakfast,  dressed, put a last few things (the toothbrush) in the bags, and off we went.  We hit unexpected (by us) construction on the way, but were at the train station in plenty of time, more than an hour before the train was to depart.   Goodbyes were said, and away he went.  I pulled out my knitting. 
Time passed.  Other people arrived at the train station.  The time for the train to arrive grew close.  But...it wasn't coming for another thirty minutes, we were told.  OK.   Another thirty minutes went by.   As it turned out (to spare you the repeated questions and the increasingly harried look of the stationmaster)  the train's locomotive was not able to supply electricity to the cars, so (among other things) there was no air conditioning on the train and the windows do not open.  The train had been sitting in Taylor (miles and miles away) while repairs were attempted (why at Taylor I don't know) but the repairs failed, and the train finally arrived in Temple (where I was) around, oh, one-ish I think (A-Kon in between has blurred my memory.)  We had been told that it would stop, disgorge all the passengers it had (lots, as this was the northbound train that had picked up passengers from Los Angeles in San Antonio, plus others along the way from San Antonio to Temple) and buses would then take us all north to Fort Worth.  The train would proceed with minimal crew and the baggage in the baggage car (Temple having no facilities for checked luggage--like someone to lug it) and in Fort Worth would be hitched to a spare locomotive.

The people on the train were herded into the main part of the old station (now a train museum) and we happy few stayed in the current train station (a single room off to one end.)  "Happy" is probably not the right word.  I met a charming pecan farmer and we chatted about farming, ranching, pecans, wild hogs (they eat tons of pecans that should make it to market) and so on.  Meanwhile...lunchtime on the train didn't happen (for any of us) and time went on and people were hungry and thirsty (there's no water fountain in the train station) and some were snarly and so on.   This is what knitting is for.  I got several inches on a sock., and I'm not a fast knitter.   A couple of hours later, the buses arrived--first one, then another well after the first bus took off.   By this time, of course, I was thinking "I should've just driven up, much as I hate I-35" but once in the bus and on I-35, I reverted to "No, I shouldn't have."  Especially not with the cataracts giving me ever more trouble.   I was supposed to have dinner with friends at the hotel at 7, but...would I make it?  IF we got to Fort Worth in time, and IF the train could then leave...probably.  If not, not.

Traffic was...well, I-35 with one lane closed, construction, and the usual heavy traffic.   I knitted.  I chatted a little.  I knitted some more.  We got to the train station in Fort Worth and were ejected onto the station grounds with no direction from anyone--the train crew members who'd been on our bus took off for points unknown.  We wandered around, not sure when the train would leave (or if it would).  More local trains came and went.  I considered taking one, except I knew nothing about the routes or schedules.  Time passed.  Slowly.   Gossip trickled around.  Our train was there, a new locomotive was on it, it was "cooling down."  That sounded good, but when could we leave?  Not yet.  First the Heartland Flyer had to leave.  Then our train sat awhile longer, far down the track.  Then it moved around in some unspecified dance, to get onto the track nearest the platform.  Another local came and went.  Finally we were allowed to cross some tracks to its platform and I got aboard.

As it happened, one half of one car had no air conditioning.  And it was HOT.  It was stifling hot.   My compartment was...there.  Those in the hot spots were allowed up in the dining car to cool off (YAY!) so up I went.   Time passed.  Faster now, because there was a chance that if we left right this minute, I might be able to make dinner only a little late.  But we didn't leave.  We sat.  And sat.  Finally we moved...hurray!  But not so fast...we inched out of the Fort Worth station, out past the switches where the N/S and E-W lines intersect, under the overpasses of the highways that do the same thing,  and then...into some backwater (we were moving backward...)   And we sat.  And sat.  And sat.  And sat some more.

But it was cool, and the dining car staff had started serving dinner (that I didn't eat, save for salad, still hoping for hotel food at the end...) and eventually we were on our way.  The actual trip from Fort Worth to Dallas didn't take that long.  I made another call to my Guest Relations contact, and linked up with the person supposed to pick me up.   Ducked into my hot compartment to grab my stuff and was ready to hop down on the platform in Dallas, where I spotted Brett right away.  Got to the hotel about 8:30, and the wonderful Guest Relations staff found out my friends were still eating and would see that I got some supper.  Double YAY!    Left my stuff with those upstairs, dashed down...all's well that ends well.  Steak.  Medium rare.  Potato.   I'd had my salad already.   Got my stuff, found my room (lovely room!) put things away, showered, face-planted in the bed.  More later...

A-Kon Anyone?

Thursday late-morning, I'll climb on the train to Dallas and spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the anime convention there, A-Kon.

It's a lot of fun, and the new venue (new last year) of the Hilton Anatole also showcases a magnificent collection of Asian art.   This year I find out if they rotate items in the collection; I'm looking forward to seeing favorite pieces again (and I don't think I saw everything last year!)   Also the chance to see artists and performers and costumes I don't see elsewhere.

When not on panels in the writing track, I'll spend a lot of time in Artists Alley, knitting while chatting with friends in the same row (A-15 is my spot) and hoping someone else comes by to chat and maybe pick up a book they missed.    I am very far behind on my knitting (thanks to many things, but largely computers in crisis of one kind or another)  so am hoping to catch up.  On the schedule in the wool-and-needles department is finishing the "seascape" short socks, which will be striped of turquoise and a mottled sea colors yarn.  And maybe some other color, who knows?

A New Chicken Dish

As you know, I watch cooking shows on PBS sometimes.   The other day, I watched a "Cook's Country" episode that involved chicken dishes.  Two things in particular interested me, technique-wise.  So on Tuesday I bought some chicken thighs (bone in, with skin) at the story--they come in either tiny packages or huge ones so I bought a huge one, to experiment with.   Tuesday night, browned the chicken thighs not in a frying pay but in the oval enameled cast iron cooker...and lo, it worked.   This afternoon I has something else in mind, a combination of chicken, tomatoes, chili, onions, celery, carrots, and sweet peppers, with a sauce thickened with toasted flour (second technique demonstrated.)

There were seven chicken thighs, and a seasoned them (salt, pepper, Italian herb mix) then browned them top and bottom in the cast iron cooker.  Took them out, drained off most of the fat, put in a thinly sliced onion, several ribs of diced celery and celery leaves, a diced carrot (not a fine dice, BTW--I like a larger one.)   And stirred over lower heat until the onions were soft.  Then added a 28 oz can of Ro-Tel diced tomatoes & green chilis, about half a quart of homemade chicken stock, several gluggles of white wine (who measures???)  Put the chicken thighs back in, added enough water to almost cover, added diced red, yellow, and green sweet peppers, and simmered until the chicken was done.  Toasted some flour (probably 1 1/2 cups) under the broiler, watching closely and turning it, then mixed some of the broth into the toasted flour, stirring vigorously with a whisk to make a thick slurry, and added that to the pot with chicken.  It worked, and thickened it just enough.

We ate 3 thighs and quite a bit of the vegetables & sauce.  It made a very tasty one-pot dinner, with ample leftovers for tomorrow's lunch and supper.   I had never thought of toasting the flour used to thicken a sauce or roux, but it worked perfectly.

Writing: Book Day Tomorrow!

The fifth and final volume of Paladin's Legacy, Crown of Renewal, officially debuts tomorrow in the US.   (It's been out about a week in the UK, and sneaked out the back door to arrive at Balticon and into a few stores a day or two ago.)   For those unaware of what I've been writing the past umpty-ump years, Paladin's Legacy is the story of what happened after Paksenarrion found, and saved (more than once) the future king of Lyonya.   My original plan for the books wasn't the way they turned out, but the way they turned out is (as so often happens) a lot more interesting.   Not, however, easier to write.




Originally, this was going to be Kieri's story.   Once I started, I realized that it couldn't be...that Paks's deeds had affected more than one person in the earlier books, and the "true" story had to deal with the great changes in the lives of many of them.   She was the catalyst, or the person on a mountain trail who kicks a boulder off the edge and starts an avalanche.    She never intended, or expected, to have as much effect as she did.  Like most of us, she has a fairly short range on the "futurism" side of things.

Realizing this kicked me at once into another multi-viewpoint story (OK, I've done that before) in a setting that had always required much more depth and complexity than the SF books...which themselves aren't exactly simple.  Holding everything down to a five-volume length was...very, very tricky.  Every one of them wanted to grow much larger than it did, with characters tugging on my mental arm and shouting in my mental ear that I was not giving them enough air time.   Complicating the situation (a lot) was being unable to find the carefully saved notebooks of details (some not explicit in the original Deed of Paksenarrion, but many more that were)  which I needed to stitch together the seam between old group and new.  Similarly, the old master map, which I  knew I had put under a protective sheet on the old drafting table...was not there.

But the story wanted to be told, and a story that wants to be told gives the writer no rest.  So away I went, clickety-clacking over the keyboard, buying more big sheets of drafting paper, redrawing the map,  looking up details in the old paperbacks (and then asking for help finding things.)  And the story grew, and grew, and grew....proliferating like an over-fertilized pumpkin vine, all directions at once and all of them (they insisted) absolutely necessary.    I don't write with a theme in mind...the story takes me where it will...but the story knows what it's about.  One of the things this story is about is the reality of change--that everything changes, and to keep living means adapting to change.   But it's also about the choices people make when faced with change...and it's also about second (and third, and fourth) chances when past choices turned out to be bad ones...and it's also about the long memory of horses...and it's also about the way good ideas may be warped over time into very bad ones...and it's also about...many more things than that.

The final "braid"--weaving in the tail of the story, all the points of view, all (or nearly all...always leave something open, a door for imagination to continue) the subplots--is always a challenge in multi-viewpoint, multi-volume works.  Who should have the real last word or scene?   In this monster (and it is a monster) it often felt impossible...nothing was going to work.  But then it began to come right, and then...at long last...it was done.  To the extent that any story is ever "done." 

Readers bring their own imagination to stories--each reader introduces her/his own past experiences, including reading experiences, into what's on the pages.  No two people, I'm convinced, see the characters the same, in a book (a movie provides explicit visual data; a book suggests.)   Readers enrich their own reading that way, and the writer cannot guess what they will use to do so...perhaps a table setting seen at a banquet, or a room in a farmhouse, or the sound of wind battering shutters.  Words suggest--and then the reader's imagination takes over, partnering with the writer.   Stories I read years ago still live inside my head, even when I haven't re-read the book for decades.  In my mind the story doesn't end with the last page--however satisfying the writer's ending is--because the thoughts and feelings roused go on. 

For those who haven't read any of the books, but are tempted, the best places to start are with the original Deed of Paksenarrion (available from Baen Books in print or as e-book) or with the first book of Paladin's Legacy, Oath of Fealty (available in print, e-book, and audiobook.)  There's more info about the volumes on either my website or the Paksworld website (which has  a lot of useful background, if you want to start with the new group.)   The Paksworld blog is a project specific blog, for fans of the whole group of books (now ten, in three different groups.)

Meanwhile back at the writing-ranch (not really),  there's a collection of related fiction in the assembly process, and in the fall, I have a story in Shattered Shields, an fantasy anthology edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Jennifer Brozek.   Here's the cover for that:



And I'm working on a proposal for something completely different, which may or may not pan out so...not talking about it now, except to Agent.

A brief update on the Sock Project

The first eight pairs: now I'm working on #25In addition to these colors, (the two blues are different--one is dark teal and the other a medium blue) I now have two purple pairs in two different purples, a light mottled blue, and of course...stripes...



"Sporty Shorty" socks w/ yarn from earlier pairs. 

These short top socks are my own pattern, inspired by a picture in a sock-knitting book that has gone momentarily AWOL in the house.  The rolled top, and short ribbing were in the picture, but I didn't like the yarn weight (fingering), the type of ribbing, the color, the heel, or the toe.  So...I like these.  I'm making more of them.  More pictures will come.  The first pair of "shorties" were made of red yarn with a single blue stripe (the ribbing)  because red leftovers were the most I had.  That was last summer.  It took yarn from two pairs of full-size red socks to make one pair of short socks.  On the second pair, the green ones on the left, I experimented with using four colors.  The newest pair (not yet photographed) has more than that.
One of only 2 worsted-weight self-striping yarns I've liked so far.
This is Cascade 220 "Isle of Sky", a discontinued hand-painted yarn I would have bought more of if it had been available.  I have another of the handpainted ones, in a light blue/lavender/aqua combination, not yet photographed as socks, and its leftover it going to be striped with plain turquoise.   I haven't yet used the "Isle of Sky" leftovers in shorties.
Regular-top striped socks
After making three pairs of the shorties, I decided to commit yarn to making full-height (5 inches of ribbed cuff) socks with stripes.  This is in Ella rae Classic, the red I like best so far and a royal blue.  The blue were not leftovers, so I'm not sure I've got enough of it left for a full pair of royal blue socks.  If necessary, they may have red toes.  The Isle of Sky socks and the red/blue were both knitted last year, in the second year of sock-knitting.  I make my socks with "anatomical" toes--mine are long and pointy, and a left and right sock are as much more comfortable as having left and right shoes.  The first socks are beginning to wear out; they last about 100 wearings, on average.  I need to learn to darn.

Minding the Gap (Temporal, that is.)

It's been awhile since I posted on LJ because LJ made changes that shut me out, for the most part--certainly made posting harder, and uploading pics impossible--as my computer system and browser aged.

Now...I'm partly caught up (not on the latest everything, but to the point where I can post here again.   And yay for that.

There's a lot of news fitting in the gap since my last posts here:  writing, knitting, family, choir, etc.  So I hope to get several short posts up here in the next week (though if the next week is as crazy as the past two...no promises.)   Life doesn't stop just because of (most) software incompatibilities (it can be more complicated, but it doesn't stop.)
On the writing stuff:  Crown of Renewal, the fifth and  final book of Paladin's Legacy will be out this week (was available at Balticon over the weekend.   I'll be at A-Kon in Dallas June 6-8.  More about the other writing news a little later.  For those interested, learn more at the Paksworld blog for discussion or the Paksworld website for background info, cover pictures, character art, maps, etc.  I just discovered (switching from a very old CRT monitor to a flatscreen monitor) that the suitable antique-looking small map looks a peculiar yellow on the new one.  Just imagine that someone spilled food with tumeric or safforn on it.

On the knitting stuff: Socks.  Lots and lots of socks.  Well...not LOTS of socks in some ways, but more than I've shown here before.  There will be pictures.  Including Stupid Sock Mistake pictures.  And what I've learned about random-stripe socks using yarn from different manufacturers.  (P.S., I hate weaving in loose ends....)

On the family stuff: we're all still alive and doing things.  The perennial fencing project (the post and wire kind of fencing)  has completed the west line and is now working on a specific gap on the south line.  One good rain after years of drought and the poison ivy returned.  Alas, the crawdads have not.  We've lost a lot of mature trees down in the creek woods--and the creek has not had a normal flow for years now--dry except in the occasional flash floods, with no puddles left after 24 hours.

The Sock Project: Short Socks

My regular socks take more than half, but not all, of a 100 g ball of worsted-weight yarn.   The leftover yarn is enough to do "something" with but I wasn't sure what.   So, since I wanted short socks to wear in summer when bicycling, I decided to see just how far the leftover yarn from one sock would go toward making another sock.    And with a bit of thinking, came up with a design I thought might work: a rolled top, then a short bit of ribbing (about 3/4 inch) then a short bit of stockinette before making the heel as usual.    Not all the "regular" socks are exactly the same, since I've been refining their design bit by bit...so not all the leftover yarn is exactly the same length   However, I now know that the leftover will make over half of a short stock.   I finished all the "first yarn"  on both socks--not quite the same length, but close enough.   I've put them on, with my feet through the needles, and like the fit, so now to use up more leftover yarn and finish them.

Justice Denied: the Zimmerman Verdict

Travon Martin was murdered.

George Zimmerman murdered him.

Travon Martin is dead.  George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder he committed.

Travon Martin--who was not a criminal fugitive and posed no threat to George Zimmerman until George Zimmerman followed, harassed, and then accosted him--died because he was a black teenager.  Was killed because he was walking with some candy in a paper sack and Zimmerman assumed he was up to no good.

George Zimmerman--who had a history of repeatedly calling in to the police about "suspicious persons" in his neighborhood, all of them persons of color, who carried a firearm "for self-defense" and then went out looking for reasons to feel he needed to use it...a man who, if he lived in my neighborhood, would scare the sh@t out of me, who had been told by police to quit following Travon Martin and let the police handle the situation--finally got his wish.  He got to shoot someone and get away with it, and be a hero to every racist in the country.

Justice denied.

George Zimmerman is a murderer.  He is also probably mentally unstable, because mentally stable people don't follow other people around in their cars, threatening, scaring, and finally accosting them, just so they have an excuse to shoot them.  Mentally stable people also don't assume every black or brown kid walking around with a bag of candy is a criminal.    Mentally stable people don't disobey police orders to cease following and harassing someone they suspect.  Mentally stable people, in other words, don't go looking for a reason to "be a hero" and shoot somebody.  It is clear to me and every other thinking person in the country that if a black adult followed a white kid around in a pickup, reported it to police, was told to quit following the kid, and eventually got out of his truck and accosted the kid, then shot him...that black adult would certainly be convicted of murder.  If I black adult followed a black kid around in his truck the same way and ended up shooting him...that blackadult would certainly be convicted of murder.  If a white adult followed a white kid around in his truck the same way and ended up shooting him,  that white adult would also be convicted.  But because it was a white man killing a black kid...he gets away with murder.   Justice denied.   All the sympathy poured on poor old George, who was ONLY trying to DEFEND himself...after deliberately setting out, with a firearm, to harass a kid who was not doing anything wrong, after disobeying police orders to cease and desist...all the lies presented about Travon--including pictures of an older black man that some posted online to prove that Travon wasn't a kid and was scary, so George was entitled to feel scared enough to shoot him.    And his life will never be the same....what about Travon's life, over before he reached maturity?  What about his mother's life, after her son was murdered and his murderer walks free?  What about all the other lives Zimmerman has smeared with his excuses and the excuses made for him, the damage he and his defenders and the verdict have done to relations between the races?    JUSTICE DENIED.  

Revisiting Yesterday's Sordid Mess: Texas GOP War on Women, Part II

In general, and across the country,  GOP legislatures have shown themselves to be delicate snowy-white flowers who react to the mere utterance of words like "vagina" and "uterus" as if someone had blasted them with a blowtorch.   They will protest that they don't use language like that, and neither should anyone else, because....well...because it's offensive to them.   These are the same guys who don't want to know about what happens when a woman menstruates (you can hear the cries of "Unclean!  Unclean" in their tiny brains) and they probably refuse to pick up a box of tampons or pads for their girlfriends or wives should they be shopping.

So the existence in their presence of tampons and pads and diabetic testing kits (I really don't get that one)  seems to freak them out in a way that is hard to explain as part of a normal, healthy cognitive/emotional state of being.   In their world, men should never be forced to contemplate the physical reality of a woman except as something pretty to look at, something fun to impose sex on, and something to provide them with sons.  If women must sneeze, cough, fart, bleed, vomit, and have less than Hollywood-quality attractive moments, they should do it out of sight and hearing of men, without making any noise or complaining or asking for relief.  The same goes for the inconvenient bodily fluids of babies and children: women should take care of those--change the dirty diapers (because they smell bad and men don't like bad smells other than their own BO), clean the dirty toilets,  wipe up the vomit and the "accidents" and the blood from childhood injury, and present the children to their father as clean, sweet-smelling, affectionate, obedient, little icons of genetic success.   Because women are arm candy, eye candy, an accessory to their male privilege, not actual persons with actual lives, inner and outer.

Luckily not all men are like this.  Many fewer of them are like this than in my childhood.  I married a man tough enough to change diapers (including dirty ones),  clean a toilet, wipe up blood, and, yes, buy me a box of Kotex when I was unable to do it myself.    When he's sick, I take care of him; when I'm sick, he takes care of me.  We both took care of our child.   A good arrangement.   A real-world arrangement, in which the reality of male and female bodies is accepted, acknowledged and dealt with equitably.

Unfortunately, the men in the ruling party in my state are not like him, and routinely deny women's reality for political ends that do nothing for the half or more of the population that is female.   They have steadily, and with great determination, attempted to (and succeeded in) rolling back decades of progress, with the acknowledged goal of making women's lives worse--by denying them the freedoms they themselves claim and by treating them harshly and with contempt.     GOP women have chosen--or been coerced--to accede to this attitude as appropriate...to agree that women deserve no better than to be treated as less than fully human and less than full citizens. The result of this is clear in the statistics on women's health in Texas, women's employment in Texas (including pay)  and the consequences for the children in Texas.  Access to medical care for poor women and women of color in Texas is already low, and just took a dive to the bottom of the pool .   The GOP in Texas doesn't care.   Access to quality education for our children is already low.  The GOP in Texas doesn't care.  Pay for Texas women is already below that for men, as it is elsewhere (only more so).  The GOP in Texas thinks that's just fine because women don't need equal pay.  Women in Texas jails and prisons are sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped...the GOP in Texas doesn't care because...well, it's not supposed to be a rose garden; you screwed up, you get screwed.

IIt's clear that despite thinking Texas women should have as many babies as possible, the lege doesn't give a damn about those children once they're born.   Live children are inconvenient and cost money--people keep wanting better schools, medical care for them when they're sick or hurt, schools for them to learn  in, parks for them to play in, even jobs for them to hold when they grow up.   Women used to have children without any prenatal care, so they should do that now--like cows in a field, just leave them there with some males around, and they'll get pregnant and have babies and...well...then it's their fault and they should have thought of the cost before they popped one out.  Why should taxpayers be stuck with the bill just because some woman "got herself pregnant?"    The only real citizens are the males who get rich and live in gated communities with their passive wives and their perfect obedient children.

I have a lot of skin in this game.  Over 68 years of experiencing the prevailing attitude from the underside...the female side.  I have seen women who had it a lot worse than I did.  Women raped, beaten, abandoned with children, denied employment,  their right to vote questioned, expected to be able to raise kids on a pittance.  Paid less, made to work longer hours, denied health care, yelled at and spit on and harassed for not fitting the mold the GOP thinks women belong in: helpless, hopeless, passive, obedient, dependent on men for survival.  And we say NO.   NOT NOW. NOT AGAIN.  NOT EVER.   YOU MAKE WAR ON US AND YOU WILL GET A WAR, LIKE THE OTHER WARS YOU STARTED, THAT DOESN"T END YOUR WAY.