Reading dates are possibly my favorite "little thing" that we do together. Over the years, we've had our usual spots. In Livermore it was the Starbucks near our house in Springtown or Panama Red on First Street. In Dublin it was the Peet's Coffee on Tassajara. Here in Oslo it's the Åpent Bakeri on Inkognito Terrasse. Feet touching under the table. The rattle of porcelain. Pages turning. Jonathan's order (mocha) and my order (yummy pastry) don't change, but our books rotate on through. It's our life. Stopping to operate in tandem silence allows us to slow that life down and appreciate what we have here together. Now. Peace and freedom.

The United States of America, my home country, is stepping into a new era regarding the availability of health care. Because health care is such an enormous issue, people are bound to have trouble with individual provisions within the larger bills and debates. One of those provisions has to do with Birth Control. I capitalize Birth Control because it is, in my mind, after certain vaccines and quality-of-life-enhancing medications, THE most important health care advancement in history. But even in the U.S., where women are liberated to the point of achieving the majority of advanced degrees offered each year, there is something scary looming large around the availability of contraception: Religion.

Now, I understand that there are countries where women are still considered property, and in those places I wouldn't be at all surprised to see religious leaders refusing to allow contraception to their chattels. But when the Legislative Branch of the United States' government convenes a panel of male religious leaders to weigh in on the availability of Birth Control to American women, I am blown away. And pissed off.

So, I thought I'd write a letter to the eight male witnesses (dominating two panels of ten total witnesses) called by last Thursday: