Feb 18, 2026
*this is a post from a WHITE MALE TEXAN who is also a PASTOR (albeit in blue Austin, and a Presbyterian!), yet in the spirit of let’s take our wins wherever and from whoever we can get them, I share it with you. That said, Pastor Jim, I am pro-abortion. One in five pregnancies ends in a miscarriage, many of which require abortion care – and miscarriage is among the many, many reasons why abortion care is and must simply be a part of healthcare. Period. End of story. No restrictions. No questions asked.
Pastor Jim Rigby: I saw a sign yesterday on I-35 that read, “Save the Babies!.” I assumed the sign would be a call to strip pregnant women of control over their own bodies, but it was an ad for a milk bank “How strange,” I thought, “to see a sign that’s about saving actual gestated babies and not about choosing fetuses and zygotes over the person who is pregnant.” “Saving the babies” means food, medical care and shelter for infants, not just doors slammed in the face of the pregnant.
We should never forget that women of the U.S. do not have the same constitutional protections over their own personhood as men. As much as MAGA talks about freedom, they consider the reproductive organs of women to be community property. What sense does it make to talk about liberty if one’s internal organs belong to the state?
Believing that women and transgender people who find themselves pregnant still own their own bodies and should make their own reproductive decisions is not one inch closer to the decision to seeking an abortion than it is to the decision to give birth. People equate being prochoice with being pro-abortion because that is the option we have had to fight to defend. Being pro-choice in no way implies that abortion is the right choice for someone to make.
When Ann Richards was elected I was invited to a gathering in her hotel room. As I walked through the lobby, I saw one of her closest friends crying . When I asked her what was wrong she said, “I just realized that, with abortion rights safe, we can now focus all our energies on preventing teen pregnancy.” If the right to choose were safe, I guarantee our efforts would move to preventing unwanted pregnancy in the first place.
Again, being pro-choice does not mean being pro-abortion. No one I know is pro-abortion any more than they are pro-root canal, but sometimes life comes with difficult choices. Being pro-choice means believing in the moral agency of women. It means believing that the person who is pregnant is the only one who can understand all the ethical implications involved. Being pro-choice means recognizing that the one who is pregnant can be trusted to do the right thing more than any government or religious sect arrogant enough to believe they should speak for us all.
Feb 17, 2026
*The SAVE Act has unfortunately passed the US House and now goes to the Senate. It needs to be defeated. Call your senators. Please. For the best reasons why, this was published by Jess Piper, who ran for office unsuccessfully in the mostly red state of Missouri but who continues to work for other candidates as a blue beacon amidst a lot of red and purple; she makes it quite clear why this SAVE Act nonsense is a poll and gender tax:
This is embarrassing to admit, but I don’t have a passport. I have never needed a passport. I have never traveled outside of the United States. International travel is expensive.
I represent about 50% of the country. About half of Americans do not have a passport. For many of us, it’s not even the lack of international travel that keeps us from owning a passport. It is the cost of the passport itself. A passport is $165 in a time of inflation and high grocery prices and increasing rent and insurance rates. That’s a lot of money for folks barely making it in the first place. (*and, as an added, unnecessary check on access, the US State department this week declared that local libraries will no longer be able to process – help with – reissues of passports. grrrrr)
What if I told you that GOP lawmakers would like to make a passport the entry fee for voting?
Pretty insane, yet that is exactly what some GOP lawmakers want to do with an act they are proposing.
It’s called the SAVE Act, and it is diabolical.
I recently updated my driver’s license to a REAL ID. It wasn’t something I did for fun…I fly for work and my old license won’t work at airports anymore. Well, it will work, but there are fees and extra screening. Who wants to do either?
Another reason I wanted the REAL ID is because of the SAVE Act.
If passed, the SAVE Act would require a voter to prove citizenship. Easy, right? No, not that easy. Let’s use my experience as an example of how difficult it is to get a Real ID.
For reference, I am an American citizen who has never traveled out of the country and who has lineage in the states since the 1700s.
I looked up the requirements for a REAL ID. They included my birth certificate, which I had to order. I was born in Louisiana, so I had to complete the process online. I also needed a debit card and $15 for the birth certificate. It arrived about a week later.
I also needed two proofs of residence, like a utility bill, which isn’t easy to get when bills are paid online. I was able to find two bills, though, and I had my Social Security card, so I was set…or so I thought.
I waited about an hour at the local DMV, and was finally called up. I pulled out all of my documents and my license and told the clerk that I was applying for a REAL ID. She looked at my documents and asked why the name on my birth certificate was different from the name on my other documents.
I told her my parents didn’t know who I would marry, and so they gave me their name. She didn’t think that was funny…
The clerk told me I needed to show proof of my name change. She told me I would need to get my marriage certificate. I pulled it out of my envelope. She told me I couldn’t use the one from my wedding. I had no idea that piece of paper was a souvenir, but I do now.
I was informed that I would need a marriage certificate from the courthouse with a raised seal. But I was married in Arkansas…I would have to apply for it. This was going to be another $10 dollars.
And then she hit me with even more news — because I have been married twice, and I changed my name both times, I would need to get both marriage certificates. That’s another $10 dollars.
So, if you’re keeping track, I was up to $35 in fees for documents and $27 for the new license for a grand total of $62. Not to mention the gas to the DMV, the time off to wait at the DMV, and the time I spent on the phone with two county courthouses trying to track down documents.
This was time consuming, but I can afford the fees and the time away from work. Not everyone is so lucky.
If the SAVE Act passes, and I am forced to use a REAL ID to vote, I will consider it a poll tax. A $62 dollar poll tax.
I will be forced to pay fees for the right to vote.
Here is the wildest part: I told my husband he might need a REAL ID to vote. He told me he already had a REAL ID and it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Really? He didn’t think that digging up marriage certificates was a big deal? And if he already had the certificate, that would have been handy information, seeing as I had just paid for them.
And then he hit me with the biggest shock…he told me he didn’t have to produce a marriage certificate. That he just used his birth certificate.
Reader, he didn’t take a new name after marriage and was sheltered from the process I had to go through to get my REAL ID.
I felt like my head would explode, and if I can interject for a moment, this is exactly why I will beg my daughters to never change their last name.
Even after all the work I put into my REAL ID, this form of identification might not work in the next election if the SAVE Act is passed. From the Committee on House Administration:
“The SAVE Act’s burdens are extreme—most Americans would be unable to register to vote using their driver’s license or other state-provided identification alone. Millions of Americans, including tens of thousands in each congressional district, would be prevented from registering to vote easily, if at all.”
Americans would not be able to register to vote with their driver’s license—REAL IDs do not meet the SAVE Act’s requirements of showing a holder’s citizenship, and noncitizens are legally permitted to have REAL IDs.
There it is in black and white. If passed, the SAVE Act would require a passport to prove citizenship. A document that is $165 and takes weeks to receive. Even if a voter has the time and money to dedicate to getting a passport, delays could keep millions from voting in November.
And that’s the point, isn’t it? The SAVE Act is meant to keep us from voting. It is meant to keep the GOP in power because I know there is no way in hell that they can win in November.
From Missouri Now:
“Since Trump returned to the White House, Democrats have picked up eight Republican-controlled districts through special elections, as well as 18 seats in New Jersey and Virginia during those states’ regularly scheduled contests last November. Republicans have flipped none.”
The SAVE Act was never about election integrity or keeping elections fair. It is about building a paywall around the ballot and hoping we’re too exhausted or too broke to participate.
When half the country doesn’t even have a passport, turning that into the price of admission to democracy is corrupt. It isn’t fair and it isn’t supposed to be. The SAVE Act is meant to keep us home so they can steal an election.
The SAVE Act is the “show me your papers” legislation that is un-American at its core.
Please call your Senators and tell them to vote no on any bill or act meant to require burdensome paperwork in order to vote. You can call 202.224.3121 for the U.S. House switchboard operator.
Feb 16, 2026
From C.S. Lewis to his niece and godchild, Lucy, upon the publication of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which he dedicated to her, as well as naming one of the central characters for her: My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather.
I love, I love, I love fairy tales. Beautifully illustrated by geniuses like Arthur Rackham or Maxfield Parrish? All the better. We had a chunky book of fairy tales that formed a central part of my childhood: the story of Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, of Stone Soup, of the Bear who was really a man, of the well that never ran dry, of Rose Red and Snow White, of the Dragons and Fairies of old – and – maybe, just maybe the present, too? All of life was magical, in fairy tales. Castles and witches both good and bad, thorn capes and swans that turned into princes, frogs being kissed, charms and spells and wish-casting – what’s not to love?
Years later I bought – via The Book of the Month Club – a completely Grimm’s Fairy Tales as a gift to a friend, who was about to have her first child. When it arrived, a day before the event, I was relieved (phew!) and decided hey, why not take a look inside before wrapping? I do so love fairy tales, after all, and these were the real deal, taken straight from the original tales Grimm!
It was eye-opening, as the actual, unedited stories from the brothers, collected throughout their region over many years, were chock-a-block full of violence, sexual assault, neglect, cruelty and incest as well as murder on the part of neighbors, friends, parents, step-parents, and siblings. All of the worst horrors of real life, in other words. I had purchased it as a baby shower gift, and, yes, I still gave it to her because on-line shopping was non-existent and where – other than the local Woolworth’s – was I going to get a replacement in time for the shower?
I recommended she read the book, but maybe not to her baby, or toddler. I recall visiting her and she said she’d been reading it, heavily pregnant, on her couch, while waiting for the day her son or daughter would arrive. Okay! I was only 22 at the time; these days, with more experience of such matters under my belt, I would’ve just gone to WW’s and bought her a box of diapers!
Why fairy tales? Why do they so catch the imagination? Because magic feels real, and near to us, whether we are children or not. Personally, one of my unstated, unwritten goals for 2026 (unwritten until this moment) has been to reignite my use of and belief in magic. Good magic, loving magic. After all, I read the tarot, I consult the runes, I know where the moon is on any given night. But, over the last few years, I have felt disconnected from my belief in a better world, in the power of the unknown, and in the power of magic, which does exist, albeit not in the forms we often see depicted in films or novels.
Today, I will read a few fairy tales, or perhaps a few Greek or Roman myths (what, I now wonder, is the difference?), whose content were also a constant of my childhood, raised by a Latin teacher. I will let my mind wander down lanes long left – not behind – but rather ignored, unexamined, unexplored. The sun is out, after all, and it’s not freezing for a change. Thank goodness!!
January 1st I was out with my fur baby in the snow; Diego loves the snow. An owl flew overhead, popping out of a stand of tall pines with a whoosh of wings and air, making me look up when I was carefully watching every step. This was a gift, a rare sighting of a winged creature whose habit is to be – wisely – extremely cautious, keeping themselves hidden.
Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, was said to have had an owl forever perched on her shoulder; because of this, she was able to see and speak the whole truth, not just that which was obvious, facing front and center. The owl – with its circular gaze – saw all, and reported all to his mistress. A good omen, a good way to begin a year of magic, and another week! Happy Monday. 🙂
Feb 15, 2026
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
*another Mary Oliver poem for a snowy day spent at home waiting for my chance to shovel, and sweep, and – if it’s good packing snow, the wet but not too wet kind – throw snowballs for my fur baby, who does not catch them, ever, but he does leap and jump, which is a joyful exercise for us both.
Feb 14, 2026
*a poem by Sylvia Plath. Imagine what she might have accomplished, would have given us, had she lived. Heart-breaking loss, still. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath
Not easy to state the change you made.
If I’m alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn’t just tow me an inch, no–
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.
That wasn’t it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter–
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn’t convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.
And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn’t know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn’t fooled. I knew you at once.
Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It’s a gift.
