Summer Postcards
A Theological Rundown
I’ve been told on a number of occasions that I follow sports with a religious fervor.
WC, s.v.p.?
I had just finished my third day at my internship in Nice, and I wanted nothing more than to escape the scorching sun and wander down to the Mediterranean Sea. But my grumbling stomach and full bladder soon clouded my thoughts and two more mundane duties—food and toilet—took priority.
Longing for Law and Order
As I traveled around the city my grandmother grew up in, I remembered the stories I had heard during the past few weeks—stories about police stopping new cars on the road and slipping cocaine into the trunks, claiming it belonged to the owners. I had heard, too, of doctors committed to psychiatric institutions after telling visiting officials that their hospitals were inaccurately portrayed, and of journalists meeting thugs on secluded roads after protesting the government-sanctioned destruction of a nature reserve. I listened to recounts of elderly women rushed to hospitals with stroke symptoms, only to enter into comas while they waited for nearly 24 hours without care. I was told that even when opposition candidates had cast votes for themselves, the final tally indicated that not a single vote was cast for any party other than United Russia—or, in other parts of the country, that United Russia received more than 100 percent of the vote. Some citizens longed for Soviet times, they said, because at least then there was law and order.
Preventative Measures
Unfortunately, abortion is birth control for many Russian women. Few women use preventative birth control, which is often expensive and remains socially deviant. A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty feature from 2008 reported that sex education is not part of the national curriculum in Russia, an absurd reality that leaves men and women ignorant of their birth control options and, when confronted by an unplanned pregnancy, with little choice but to opt for a hazardous and emotionally taxing abortion. And that confrontation is extremely widespread—figures from 2006 report 1.6 million abortions compared to 1.5 million live births.
