Shari's Take: September Roundup

Brief notes on the latest news, from Texas and abortions to Oscar Isaac

Every month, I compile “Shari’s Take,” a roundup of brief commentary on the latest news. Here we are for September 2021!

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• Blessed Be the Fruit, Texas. Did the state lose its collective mind and fall into some alternate dimension where The Handmaid’s Tale, The Mandalorian, and Tombstone all collide? This is truly scary, because according to a September 3 article from the Washington Post, “more than a half-dozen states across the country moved this week to replicate Texas’ strict abortion ban.” Ladies (and gentlemen), if this concerns you, it’s time to get loud, even if our voices make some people mad. We cannot remain silent and on the sidelines any longer.

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• Has it really been 20 years since 9/11? Either I’m getting old, or time feels surreal. But I’m having difficulty accepting that today, there are people who are the same age as me when 9/11 happened--19 years old--who only know about it through the history books. My God, I still watch clips from that day and cry. Before the anti-Muslim rhetoric started, I remember the brief moment when this country came together, as one. I can only hope our new generation entering adulthood never forgets.

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• Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain - OMG hot! I think every girl wants to be admired the way Oscar Isaac gazed at Jessica Chastain during their slow-motion red carpet moment promoting Scenes from a Marriage, just not by their coworkers. Given, Isaac and Chastain have been friends since college, but both are married to other people. Still, they’re actors for a reason, and that makes it OK to swoon a little (or a lot) … right?!

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• The Supreme Court has already been clear on vaccine mandates. Sorry anti-vaxxers and people who conflate medical freedom with an FDA-approved vaccine for an infectious disease. But in 1905, the Supreme Court upheld vaccine mandates in Jacobsen vs. Massachusetts. It ruled that one man’s liberty cannot override another man’s liberty, in this case, by allowing the spread of disease. Here is a great explanatory article about that case from Politico. I prefer we didn’t need mandates, but we tried giving people free will and it didn’t work. Many are now suffering without mandated action. Therefore, what choice do we have?

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• I now have a coffee maker, a coffee bean grinder, an espresso maker, and a Nutribullet. That makes me either a typical woman in her late thirties with two cats, or a radical.

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