So McCain has chosen a woman as his running mate, and everyone is in a lather because the woman he chose has a 17-year old pregnant daughter. There is some crowing about Palin being a hypocrite.

How absurd.

To start with, it's not Sarah Palin's fault her daughter is pregnant. Believe me, she has no real control over her daughter's behaviour. I know. I'm a mother of two teens.

Now, since she's an abstinence-only type, she does bear some degree of responsibility for her daughter's inability to prevent a pregnancy. She probably did not give her daughter the education and knowledge she needed to be able to avoid an unwanted pregnancy. She worked actively to prevent her daughter, and lots of other young women, from learning what they need to learn to be able to prevent unwated pregnancy.

But Palin did not force her daughter to have the sex. She make it difficult for her daughter to have sex without getting knocked up, but she didn't tell her to have sex. She told her NOT to have sex.

Who knows? It's even possible that her daughter had sex with the intention of getting knocked up. That would be the daughter's choice, no Sarah Palin's choice.

Does an anti-choice, abstinence only crusader's pregnant teenage daughter make said crusader a hypocrite?

No.

Her response to the pregnancy has been consistent with her views - the kid is having the baby, keeping the baby, and even plans to marry the father of the baby. How family-values can you get?

She is not a hypocrite. But she does lack FORESIGHT.

This incident illustrates that teenagers will have SEX, whether they know how to do it safely or not.

It shows that self-righteous, holier-than-thou, abstinence-promoting parents have NO CONTROL over their children's sex lives.

But mostly, it shows that Palin's evangelical, anti-choice, abstinence-only claptrap is WRONG.

If she can't implement the strategy in her own household, it's unlikely to work for the millions of American teenagers who are giving in to those hard-to-deny hormonal urges and having teenage, unwed, sometimes unprotected SEX every single day.

I sincerely hope that while her daughter chose to have teenage, unwed, unprotected SEX with her boyfriend who will soon be her husband FOREVER (because that's what family values are supposed to be about, excuse me while I chortle uncontrollably), she did not get anything more dangerous than knocked up.

Because if abstinence-only indoctrination is not enough to prevent a pregnancy, it sure as hell is not going to prevent STDs.

That said, it's her daughter's choice to have a baby at the age of 17. It's Palin's choice to support her daughter's decision. It's her choice to continue to champion a strategy that DOES NOT WORK.

I'm okay with Palin's daughter choosing to have a baby, and Palin choosing to support her daughter's decision.

I am NOT okay with Palin telling anyone else what to do with her uterus and whatever it may contain.

I am all about a woman's right to CHOOSE.

So, people should shut up about Palin's daughter. Instead they should look at Palin's policies.

She is opposed to real CHOICE.

Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, now it's YOUR turn to CHOOSE.

I listen to CBC One in the mornings. Three stories caught my ear, and only one was mentioned in the Toronto Star.

( Authorities are 'winding down' the investigation into the racist, threatening actions against black jail guards. )

( Scottish women calling for pardon/amnesty for witches. )

( Robert Latimer is out on day parole. )

Well, I think I'm all out of controversial thoughts for the day. And I really need to find a new radio station for morning listening.

I heard something on the radio this morning that got me thinking (always a dangerous event.)

A nice lady visiting to the CBC morning show (whose name I didn't catch because I was in the middle of my physiotherapy exercises) brought up an interesting point worth considering in the great Ontario HPV Vaccine Debate.

There is a big brouhaha going on about the provision of a vaccine against HPV (human papilloma virus) in public schools. There has been the predictable uproar about money, promiscuity and family values, but what is really irking me is the blatant sexism of it all. Here we have a vaccine that might greatly improve the health of the future women of Ontario, and prevent thousands of deaths, yet it is a big problem.

Why?

Oh, I don't know. Could it be because at the center of it all are... girls???

( Let's look at this in a little more detail, if you don't mind... )

Am I overly cynical this morning? Spare me any psychological analysis - I know I'm in a crap mood already. But all that nice, well-informed, intelligent, lovely-voiced lady had to do was mention the contradictory responses to the HepB vaccine program and the HPV program, and it got me thinking.

Told you it was dangerous.

It begins like this:

There are times when what is to be said looks out of the past at you – looks out like someone at a window and you in the street as you walk along. Past hours, past acts, take on an uncanny isolation; between them and you who look back on them now there is no continuity.

( I’m feeling that disconnection keenly after reading Alexander Trocchi’s Young Adam in one sitting –  )