Susan G. Komen vs. Planned Parenthood: Who Should I Support?

A public fight has broken out over the last week between Susan G. Komen, a charity dedicated to preventing and curing breast cancer, and Planned Parenthood, a nationwide family planning organization. The throwdown between two popular charities has left many supporters conflicted over which organization they should support. Today, I will help provide some guidance through the complex ins and outs of the feud so you can better decide for yourself.

First, men are lucky that they do not need to have an opinion on the subject. Since Susan G. Komen is dedicated to curing breast cancer and Planned Parenthood gives abortions, men can simply shrug and say that they do not care whenever the topic is brought up. In all likelihood, women will indignantly insist that these issues affect men, too, and that such indifference is insulting and sexist. Obviously, they are wrong and are probably either on their period or suffering from a bout of hysteria. Men: you can stop reading right now, unless you ever want to get laid again.

[RIGHT: What I imagine a fight between employees at Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood may well look like.]

For those of you who want to get to know the issues, it is important to understand why Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood are fighting. The story starts with a few rich donors to Susan G. Komen who paid a Congressman to open an investigation into whether Planned Parenthood failed to report cases of possible sexual abuse against minors for whom its doctors were caring. If you are thinking that it sounds illegal to pay a Congressman to open a Congressional investigation for self-serving purposes, then apparently you have never heard of a little Supreme Court case called Citizens United that makes it illegal to tell rich people not to do things. Anyway, when Planned Parenthood objected to the investigation as unwarranted and discriminatory, Susan G. Komen’s rich pro-life backers pressured the organization to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood.

At least that’s the public story. Don’t rule out the possibility that this controversy was manufactured to get more sympathetic press for Planned Parenthood. They have certainly received much more money in private donations in the last week than they lost in the withheld grant from Susan G. Komen. If the pro-life donors really wanted to defund Planned Parenthood, it probably would have been wiser to do so in a way that did not massively increase donations to the organization.

If the public façade of the conflict is to be believed, then it might be constructive to consider what both of these organizations do for society. Susan G. Komen raises millions of dollars every year to cure breast cancer. To achieve that goal, the organization has also trademarked the color pink and the “Race for the Cure” name, and has paid high-level executives exorbitant salaries. While these aggressive business practices may sound de rigueur for a successful business, Susan G. Komen is not actually successful. Contrary to popular belief, they have NOT cured cancer and have in fact succeeded only in making themselves rich. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, has cured all sorts of varied diseases, from gonorrhea to chlamydia to syphilis. They have even had some success preventing down syndrome through early detection and aggressive treatment protocols.

Some of Susan G. Komen’s most ardent supporters have pointed out that the organization remains committed to helping the American economy stay vibrant. While they say that Planned Parenthood stifles the growth of the American workforce, Susan G. Komen provides financial support for job creators, particularly those in the straightened-out wire hanger manufacturing industry.

The most important difference between the two organizations may not be operational, but relational. It has become increasingly clear over the last week that Susan G. Komen, for all of the unblinking goodwill it has accumulated over decades, is a slow moving behemoth, a relic institution of a bygone age. In other words, the organization is less viable because it does not have the ability to manipulate social media to support its actions. Clearly, the greatest sin had nothing to do with reallocating grant money, and everything to do with hiring a PR firm that could not convey dogmatic bits of social control in 140 characters.

In conclusion, the safest way to go is to post a link to an article condemning Susan G. Komen on Facebook with a snarky comment about how they bend to the whims of rich donors. Anything less risks social ostracization, so steer clear.

Scalia’s legal reasoning devolves into the theater of his twisted imagination

By Roger Berdisch

WASHINGTON- Supreme Court observers have expressed concern in recent weeks that the high court’s most eccentric member, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, may finally have gone off the deep end. Scalia, long regarded as a defiant constructionist and something of an anachronism for modern times, lost the support of much of his remaining contingency when he penned a dissent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which legal scholars have called, “completely devoid of any cogent legal analysis.”

Topping the list of critics’ complaints about Scalia’s opinion was the fact that he drew an extended analogy between the case’s First Amendment free speech components, and the folksy witticism, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Along this line of reasoning, Scalia argued that any individual or institution which seeks to make campaign contributions must sit through a timeshare presentation of proportional length in order to air their advertisements, or else purchase 10 regular Quiznos subs at regular price before receiving an advertising slot of equal or lesser value. The Court’s six member majority voiced its disapproval for Scalia’s line of analogous reasoning in Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion, which characterized the dissent as, “worthless Dago drivel, unbecoming of our chambers.”

Scalia earlier drew the attention of skeptics during oral arguments last week, when Justice Samuel Alito had to repeatedly remind him that the Supreme Court was not bound by the precedent of Murphy’s Law. While hearing the arguments from an attorney in a medical malpractice case, Scalia persistently and pointedly inquired as to whether the plaintiff should have foreseen that her plastic surgery consent would have covered the possibility that her chart would be switched and she would be given a hysterectomy, simply because “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” When informed that Murphy’s Law was not an actual piece of legislation, Scalia acted befuddled, and asked whether it might have been passed recent in Nevada, or if there was some jurisdictional confusion about the case.

Scalia also demonstrated questionable legal rationale at a recent speech given during the convocation at American University in Washington, DC. At the speech, Scalia took up the controversial subject of gun control, where he pointed out that his strict constructionist style of Constitutional interpretation led him to reason that the framers of the Constitution intended that the Second Amendment would preserve an absolute right of gun ownership. When asked how he knew this precept to be the framers’ intent, Scalia angrily insisted that he had discerned the information directly from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison over a bottle of whiskey in Constitution Hall after he used his super powers to fly backward around the Earth several times, creating a time travel effect- just like in Superman 3.

[RIGHT- Scalia explains why the Eighth Commandment is his favorite to an empty library.]

Mark Sterling, a professor of psychology at Horace Lake Community College, said that Scalia’s erratic behavior is not out of line with the way many celebrities act after spending a substantial amount of time in the public eye. “When one perceives that the world revolves around him, that deep-seated, routine narcissism becomes part of his reality,” Sterling said. “Scalia shows the tell-tale sign of not being able to hold a conversation that does not revolve around the topic of the Great Antonin Scalia. His affliction is not at all uncommon among powerful males, as the same traits can be seen in Kim Jong-Il, Idi Amin, and Lance Armstrong.”

Scalia’s behavior has grown progressively more disturbing. A few months ago, he began citing precedent from Night Court, various Sherlock Holmes novels, and Paula Deen’s Down Home Cookbook in his opinions. More recently, aids have expressed concern about his new habit of wearing garter belts on the bench and swallowing a handful of prescription painkillers and Adderall before writing. Additionally, Scalia ignited a media storm weeks ago when he accidentally CC’d several reporters on an email sent to Democratic leader Howard Dean, in which he asked the former presidential candidate if he would be interested in a “romantic weekend getaway in my ass.” Scalia’s representative promptly claimed that the email was a misunderstanding, and that Dean was the one who was a fag, while Scalia loves the pussy.

Recently, Scalia’s behavior has devolved even further into petty and childish attacks aimed at the other members of the court. After Justice John Paul Stevens accused Scalia of engaging in irresponsible jurisprudence for ruling against a party because, “his attorney is Mexican, and everybody knows I hate Mexicans,” Scalia began endlessly pestering Stevens. His antics have ranged from sending him links to scat porn websites to flinging spitballs at Stevens during oral argumentation. Court historians have called the episode, “regrettable” and “one of the five or six most childish things we have seen in this courtroom in the last century.”

When asked if he was concerned by Scalia’s behavior, President Obama expressed a calm demeanor. “Justice Scalia is another in the long line of conservatives who were relegated to the lunatic fringe when a black man was finally elected President,” Obama said. “Plus, the way he lives, I don’t suppose he will last too much longer. I have death by prostate cancer in August of 2012 in the White House office pool.”