nbsmithblog…random digressions and musings

While this pedometer geek poet has been writing some haiku since the beginning of the year, there has only been one haiku selected for publication since the calendar flipped to 2026. The journal, tsuri-doro, put out the January/February 2026 Issue on the 31st of December, so technically my haiku was published in 2025, but I digress.

Two weeks ago the Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Dialogue column on Energy of Motion–Stillness in Movement was published with haiku and senryu by poets from the global community. The guest editor, Vidya Shankar, chose haiku from poets living in Malta, Israel, India, New Zealand, Algeria, Belgium, Poland, Australia, Italy, Germany, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States for the long list.

This pedometer geek poet feels fortunate to have had Vidya select the following haiku for inclusion:

pausing a hummingbird
in flight
–fast shutter speed
~Nancy Brady, 2026

Thanks, Vidya, for choosing to include it in the long list. To read all the haiku in the long list, check out https://thehaikufoundation.org/haiku-dialogue-energy-of-motion-stillness-in-movement-long-list/ and to read the outstanding haiku selected for commentary this week, check out https://thehaikufoundation.org/haiku-dialogue-energy-of-motion-stillness-in-movement-commentary/

In the meantime, this pedometer geek writer wrote my local representative of the General Assembly in Ohio. It was suggested that I share it on my blog since I have gotten no response at all from him. The letter is as follows:

Dear Representative Swearingen:

I am writing to urge you to stand in strong opposition to House Bill 87 and to vote NO when it comes up for a vote.

If this bill is enacted, it would grant constitutional rights to an embryo at the moment of conception — a dangerous and unprecedented move. So-called “personhood” laws like HB 87 are part of a broader effort to chip away at reproductive rights. By assigning legal status to embryos, this bill paves the way for the surveillance, investigation, and even criminalization of pregnant people. Two cells do not a person make, and according to the Bible, a person becomes a person when he or she is a “breather” (takes in breath). It goes further that only at “quickening” is the acknowledgment of a baby in the womb (at about 22-24 weeks), but not until then. Embryos are neither “breathers” nor are they at the point of “quickening.”

House Bill 87 is not about tax credits or fiscal policy — it is a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the will of Ohio voters who supported the Reproductive Freedom Amendment to the Ohio Constitution. Cloaked in misleading language, this bill directly contradicts mainstream medical science and poses serious risks to the health and autonomy of Ohioans. If enacted, men, women, and their physicians may be forced to make decisions that are not in the best interest of anyone.

The majority of Ohioans believe that individuals — not the government — should be trusted to make personal decisions about their reproductive futures. Embedding fetal “personhood” in our constitution would strip that freedom away and put countless people at risk. This bill would return Ohio to the 1950s. Those were the days when women died in childbirth because of the lack of options. For example, my husband’s mother and the baby she carried (even knowing that she and the baby would not survive) died within an hour of her giving birth because of a medical condition. There were no options back then for this condition, and the trauma of the death of this young mother has affected the lives of her (three) living children throughout their lives.   

That Issue 1 passed overwhelmingly throughout the state by 53.30% (as well as greater than 83 percent of the precincts in Erie County alone voted for the Reproductive Freedom Amendment to be added to the Constitution of Ohio) should cause you to realize that voting NO represents your district.

When Governor Mike DeWine said, “The voters didn’t know what they voted for,” on the day after the election, I can tell you that I knew what I was voting for. I was voting for codifying the protection of women’s reproductive health, contraceptive rights, and for those medical decisions made by the patients and physicians without outside interference. I was not alone; other voters knew why they voted for this Amendment to the Constitution, too.   

Since the passage of Issue 1, however, Ohio’s state politicians’ continued attempts to erode the mandate of the voters has not been without notice, and this latest attempt is just another way to deny the voters the protections of the amendment.  Without those protections, women will once again die needlessly.    

I strongly urge you to reject this extreme and out-of-touch legislation. Please vote NO on House Bill 87.

Sincerely yours,
NBS

Yes, it could be said that I am tilting at windmills, that my voice doesn’t matter, and that writing any kind of opinion on a bill is a waste of time, but to do nothing and let legislation go through without comment is surrendering to the powers-that-be. However, I feel I have a duty to the generations that come after me. I want a country in which my children and grandchildren have the freedoms that are guaranteed in the Constitution (both the Federal’s and the State’s).

Now, to write my Senators about the SAVE Act, which, if passed and signed into law, may disenfranchise millions of voters, especially women and minorities, across the country, taking the country back to the time before the 19th and 24th amendments. Tilting at windmills, indeed.

“No generative AI was used in the conceptualization, planning, draft, or creation of this work, nor is permission granted for use in AI training.”