I'm gonna split it between the clinic and the reservation. Growing up in SD, it's amazing how little contact I had with Indians--the reservations are so isolated, and so poor, that there's just not a lot of mingling. It's one of the continuing marks of shame that this country carries.
If the reservations can attract well-qualified medical practioners for their clinics, I'm all in favor. We'll see how the SC rules on the SD legislation, but it warms the cinematically trained heart to think that the reservations could become medically enlightened free-zones.
Lots of if-but sentences in the above. I'm sure that the cinematic imagination will solve all. So, let's take Mad Max, add fascistic abortion controls, and we have:
A few committed feminists are running supplies from New York and California into the reservation-clinics across the heartland. They have to outtalk the anti-abortion police every time their trucks are stopped, which for our script would be at most state borders. "I dunno about no abortion, sir, but this here equipment is marked for basic medical purposes, sir." And the trucks make it through, through, through, against a glorious desert sundown, as a beautiful Native American woman convulses with ectopic pregancy pains and a doe-eyed white girl empregnated by her father waits for the medical shipment to reach the reservation...
Well, the current Sioux City (how ironic) SD clinic, which is the only one in the state, has to fly doctors in from MN, b/c no one in SD wants to deal with being stalked and harassed by their neighbors.
What if we promise Republicans that only liberals, poor people, and Injuns will get 'bortions? Then can we have 'em remain safe and legal? Certainly they don't want more lefties, more indigent people, and more restless First Nations...
I know a guy whose parents grew up on a SD reservation (Pine Ridge, I think). He found a terrible statistic. The two US counties with the highest and the lowest life expectancies are both in SD, about 100 miles apart. The lowest was a reservation, and the highest was a generic Midwestern all-white town.
A guy named Janklow has been big in SD politics for decades, and he has two charges on his record for raping Indians. The record on one was sealed because he was a juvenile, and the other case never went to trial because the victim was murdered.
He might be innocent of both, but recently he ran a stop sign and killed someone, and it turned out that he had a long string of egregious traffic violations too. He really sounds like a third-world / Old South kind of local political thug.
Dude, John: I was going for the history-of-rape-and-pillage-for-comedic-effect thing. If you're gonna go and get all "factual" and "actually historical," I'm gonna start feeling guilty and junk. Total buzzkill, man.
*obligatory groan for the pun*
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:30 PM
Old-style tribal feminists = teh awesome.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:40 PM
If I give $100, can I feel OK about taking the trip to the Black Hills I'd been planning for this summer before the abortion law was passed?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:56 PM
Bless you, my son.
You have my absolution.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:57 PM
I'm gonna split it between the clinic and the reservation. Growing up in SD, it's amazing how little contact I had with Indians--the reservations are so isolated, and so poor, that there's just not a lot of mingling. It's one of the continuing marks of shame that this country carries.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:02 PM
If the reservations can attract well-qualified medical practioners for their clinics, I'm all in favor. We'll see how the SC rules on the SD legislation, but it warms the cinematically trained heart to think that the reservations could become medically enlightened free-zones.
Lots of if-but sentences in the above. I'm sure that the cinematic imagination will solve all. So, let's take Mad Max, add fascistic abortion controls, and we have:
A few committed feminists are running supplies from New York and California into the reservation-clinics across the heartland. They have to outtalk the anti-abortion police every time their trucks are stopped, which for our script would be at most state borders. "I dunno about no abortion, sir, but this here equipment is marked for basic medical purposes, sir." And the trucks make it through, through, through, against a glorious desert sundown, as a beautiful Native American woman convulses with ectopic pregancy pains and a doe-eyed white girl empregnated by her father waits for the medical shipment to reach the reservation...
It's, um, condensed, I'll admit.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:06 PM
Well, the current Sioux City (how ironic) SD clinic, which is the only one in the state, has to fly doctors in from MN, b/c no one in SD wants to deal with being stalked and harassed by their neighbors.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:09 PM
Sioux Falls. Sioux City is in Iowa. Jeez.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:11 PM
Whatever. It's all the midwest anyway, who cares?
(Ducks and runs.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:15 PM
What a sneaky trick!
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:37 PM
Aren't you in the midwest, B? Or am I misremembering?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:38 PM
11 to 9.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:39 PM
11 - yeah, and it sucks, so I don't bother to pay attention to its weird hangups about place names and such like.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:50 PM
Man, the Injuns are so lucky.
Casinos, booze, 'bortions.
They get everything the Right hates...including Injuns!
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:14 PM
14 -- and also including poor people!
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:52 AM
And wilderness!
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:56 AM
What if we promise Republicans that only liberals, poor people, and Injuns will get 'bortions? Then can we have 'em remain safe and legal? Certainly they don't want more lefties, more indigent people, and more restless First Nations...
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:36 AM
I know a guy whose parents grew up on a SD reservation (Pine Ridge, I think). He found a terrible statistic. The two US counties with the highest and the lowest life expectancies are both in SD, about 100 miles apart. The lowest was a reservation, and the highest was a generic Midwestern all-white town.
A guy named Janklow has been big in SD politics for decades, and he has two charges on his record for raping Indians. The record on one was sealed because he was a juvenile, and the other case never went to trial because the victim was murdered.
He might be innocent of both, but recently he ran a stop sign and killed someone, and it turned out that he had a long string of egregious traffic violations too. He really sounds like a third-world / Old South kind of local political thug.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:58 AM
Dude, John: I was going for the history-of-rape-and-pillage-for-comedic-effect thing. If you're gonna go and get all "factual" and "actually historical," I'm gonna start feeling guilty and junk. Total buzzkill, man.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:06 AM
Is the term First Nations spreading here from Canada?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:08 AM
20: Canada was indeed the reference there. I was using it somewhat tongue-in-cheek, though.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:16 AM