Planned Parenthood has come up with a big pink sign that it plants next to Republican campaign placards. It says, “Women are Watching.”

There’s been plenty for women to keep an eye on.  The Republican chant to take this country back apparently includes taking back some basic reproductive rights for women.

We’ve heard it before from the Republican front. They don’t trust a woman to choose what’s best for herself and her family when it comes to baby-making. They seem to think that that family planning should be practiced only by God.

If you are a woman and you are watching you might wonder what century does this backward brotherhood come from? What country are we living in? If you are a woman living in a so-called backward country that looks to America as a model of freedom, you might be asking, what’s going on, sisters?

Of course the abortion debate is standard Republican rhetoric. One candidate brings it up and they all follow like a chorus of neighborhood dogs barking at the garbage truck. And enjoying it as much.

Oh good, here comes abortion, let’s all get crazy.

But this time around they added in this unbelievably dumb idea that birth control is a bad thing. Rick Santorum was clearly the alpha dog on this one, declaring that contraception is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Wait a minute, Rick. Think back to your sex ed years, although maybe you had parental permission to skip class. Doing things in a sexual realm without contraception is a license to cause unwanted pregnancies and invite terrible diseases including AIDS.

Santorum says it should be okay for states to make birth control illegal. And how would he do this? With diaphragm detectives, pill police, a raid on the rubber aisle at Rite-Aid?

It’s tempting to turn it into a bad joke except that being the  champion of non recreational sex plays well with the Christian Conservative extremist vote. And yes, I know that bloc includes women.  But for women who believe in keeping the government out of the bedroom and ob-gyn clinics, this patriarchal playlist is disturbing.

After the New Hampshire primary Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, told Rachel Maddow the Republican primary is “absolutely a race to the bottom for women, where they are trying to outdo themselves on who would be the worst president for women.”

The Republicans have long tried to paint Planned Parenthood as abortion central, ignoring that its services include safe sex counseling, cancer screenings and preparation for pregnancy.  They would eliminate Title X, the federal program that gives low income women access to family planning programs. They would prohibit American health agencies operating in foreign countries from even mentioning abortion. Rick Perry is crowing over Texas forcing doctors to show a sonogram to any pregnant woman before she gets an abortion.

Maybe when the pack of GOP hopefuls thins down to a couple of real candidates they’ll have to talk about issues more crucial than who’s toughest on women bodies.

Like what jobs the job creators are ready to offer. What to do for people without health insurance. How to protect the country from more ruin by banks and big business. What’s better than Social Security and Medicare.  How to give all children, including poor kids, an equal chance.

On this,  women will definitely be watching. With the same eye on Democrats and President Obama, too.

For the first time in a long time the newspaper didn’t arrive that morning. Was not waiting at the foot of the stairs. Never got spread across the kitchen table. So it seemed a cosmic fluke or unhappy coincidence that by noon that day the word was out that our newspaper had been sold.

The Press Democrat, owned for 26 years by the New York Times, had gone to an obscure media group named Halifax. My first thought was why would a bunch of Nova Scotians want a paper in Sonoma County? When Halifax was identified as a Florida group I thought uh-oh.  Florida — conservative, anti-union. Not good.

But the sad part was that our newspaper – I say “our” because I worked there before and after the Times took ownership – had grown into an important paper under the banner of the Times, the mother of all newspapers. And now mother had left us on some Halifax doorstep and disappeared.

What would happen now? Would the new owners bust the union? Turn the paper into a Tea Party bulletin, a rah-rah chamber of commerce pro-business sheet?  Or let it be what it is?

I worried about the people inside, former colleagues and friends, family really. Some with young kids. Some a few years away from retiring. Married couples dependent on one employer. Had this been happening when my husband and I still worked there and had kids at home I would have been in the ladies room throwing up.

Back in 1985 there were also rumors that the family-owned paper was going to sell. When we heard the New York Times was the new boss we hit the bar across the street and started celebrating. If you were going to be taken over by a newspaper chain this was the best.

You have to understand this was a big deal to newspaper people in Santa Rosa California. It allowed the hometown paper to think bigger, shed its provincial image and take on a more sophisticated world view. There was more investigative journalism of local issues. Reporters and photographers went out of town to explore national and global subjects.  I had a great time. The new publisher invited me to write a twice weekly column and said I could write about whatever I wanted.  The Times news service put my column on their wire and I was getting letters from readers in Chicago and Seattle.

Our business cards came with the prestigious NYT logo. We were not the New York Times of 43^rd Street, more like a second cousin to the Gray Lady, but we were a New York Times paper. That meant status not only for journalists but the community as well to have the local paper connected to the Times.

Not that it wasn’t mutually satisfying. The Press Democrat was a good investment.  Sonoma County wasn’t just a nice place for Times execs to come visit and sample the wine, the paper made them proud (winning the Pulitzer among other awards) and we made them lots of money.

And when tough times hit the newspaper business and advertising revenue started to decline the Press Democrat made sacrifices, freezing salaries, squeezing staff, nudging retirees.

And now, in a move to presumably save the mother ship, the Times decided to cut off the distant cousins.  Business-wise that probably makes sense and wasn’t a shock but the cold and quick way it came down was. News of the sale was leaked to an online media blogger which hurried the official announcement. Employees were told by New York via email that Halifax would be deciding their futures. The staff, the paper, its readers and the community were unceremoniously dumped.

The New York Times was a good company to work for. It’s still a great paper to read. Same for the Press Democrat. Both almost always hit our front steps every morning. But I still feel jilted.

The day’s Ceres menu included sole with spinach, shitakes and goat cheese. And lentil soup with beets and coconut milk. Food designed to lift the spirit as much as provide healthy nutrients to bodies that need some special tending.

The meals that went out that night and every week, delivered to homes throughout Sonoma County, were created by volunteer teenagers in white smocks, guided by volunteer professional Wine Country chefs. Hopefully the kids also get hooked on eating local and organic and understand why slow food trumps fast food.  Then there’s the bonus of being part of a community doing something nice for others.

Those being people who have cancer or other serious illness, who need to eat as healthy as possible but whose palate may be off from strange new meds and whose families have other priorities than creating something enticing in the kitchen.

This is the Ceres Community project, which teaches young people to cook nutritious  inspired meals for sick people and which is becoming a national model for food  programs around the country.  The Ceres kitchen is in my neighborhood, housed in a bright new building painted spinach green with carrot colored trim. But I never got inside the operation until the other night when I accompanied my husband, who started driving for Ceres after a sick friend joined the list of clients.

It was one of those cold inky black nights when you’re glad for a car with a good heater and a radio with a strong classical music station. Lovely aromas came from the back seat. I guessed it was the soup.  Ceres operates year round but given the season it felt like the best thing to be doing, taking very fine food to very important regular people who are not out doing the eat, drink and be merry thing. Someone had also donated fresh wreaths with red ribbons to be included with some deliveries.

We drove down the highway against the commute traffic, remarking on how many years we had been part of that string of slow moving impatient drivers.  With our gift bags of food we crept through unfamiliar neighborhoods twinkling with reindeer and Santas,  trying to read obscure street numbers.

They were waiting. One woman introduced her grandson and we talked about the charm of two-year-olds. Another, her smiling face framed by a knit cap, seemed as thrilled to see the wreath as the meals.   She hadn’t done much decorating, she explained. This was her chemo week.

You can’t help but wonder how you would be if everything changed and you were trying to keep the holiday spirit, do the tree, wrap presents and imagining what the new year might deliver. Is it harder to be sick at Christmas? Does it feel like a milestone to reach another holiday?

I never did much volunteering when I was working full time. People who do say that it provides a sense of satisfaction and purpose and helps balance your karma. It’s a reminder that even if you can’t solve global problems or what’s going on in Washington you can do one more thing for your community. And trust that when you need a kindness, a neighbor will knock at your door.

We drove home with the empty containers from last week’s delivery. My gloves smelled like Doug fir. We took the back country route and some forest creature – maybe a fox or a coyote – darted across our headlights. I took it as a sign of grace.