The longest time

I can't even cope with how long it's been since I last posted. BOO me.

Spring break was amazing. And since I left early for WI and then returned to campus approximately 9 hours before classes started, it seemed like it lasted forever.

If you're interested in the details...

Weds: Event of the day was a free ticket. I woke up at 6 am and got myself to the airport way early, and then opted to stay even longer in order to get a free ticket voucher. But I figured that, for all the times that I've sat at airports waiting during blizzards for de-icing sessions, or wondering why my flight is mysteriously 2 hours delayed, or circling in the air waiting for a runway, that I should really go for a free ticket when I've got the chance. So I hung out in the SF airport, and later in the Chicago airport, where I cleverly drank a huge cup of tea right before boarding. No huge problems, and I arrived in Madison, where Andrew was expecting me, and my luggage was right there waiting for me. Such fun. We went home, and I watched OC episodes that I'd missed during finals craziness while Andrew rolled tons of sushi.

Thursday: It freaking snowed. But: Andrew brought home bread, and we satisified my intense craving for grilled cheese, with some AMAZING Amy's organic tomato bisque on the side (I brought two cans home with me in my suitcase. It was that good). Then it was off to the airport (which is like, 15 minutes away from Andrew's apartment), and we flew to NY.

Friday: City day! Ate bagels in Hastings, caught the train to NYC, and wandered around in the village all day. I got a free pair of contacts since I'd forgotten mine in Madison, and we found this wonderful Thai place (Isle on Bleeker) where we caught the lunch special. Their sink was amazing -- a washstand and a shell to catch extra soap. Saw the dogs playing in the park... so cute. I searched in vain for shoes at a number of stores, but did manage to secure a pashmina for $5. We just caught the train back and had dinner with Andrew's father at his favorite restaurant. Later, Jon and Jen arrived, and we had to tear Andrew away from watching "Conviction."

Sat: The four of us (Jon, Jen, Andrew, me) went to Mount Parnesse for brunch. But wait, it's closed! Crisis. So we went to Mont Olympus, which was nearby, and even SHINIER. Mirrors EVERYWHERE. I'm told that this is a representative Greek diner. Everything sparkled. Mirrors in the entry way and on the ceiling, silver embelishments, liquor bottles, glass... overload. Good challah french toast w/ strawberries, though.

Later, we had Andrew's grandparents' 60th anniversary party at this nice Italian restaurant. We had an enlightening conversation with Andrew's Grandma Hilda, who had ordered shrimp in a garlic sauce and had leftovers to take home -- shrimp not being kosher -- but keeps a kosher kitchen:

Grandma Hilda: I'll eat it on paper plates (explains how she keeps disposable dishware for just such occasions).

Andrew's brother: So what's more important, that you eat kosher, or that your kitchen is kosher?

Grandma Hilda: The kitchen of course.

We had another argument over whether or not there was actually garlic in the garlic wine sauce, which was solved (despite Grandma Hilda's protestations that she couldn't taste the garlic) when Andrew AND his brother sampled it, and pointed out large chunks of straight garlic.

After dinner, we went to Ann's for a lovely reception with yummy cake. Speech times and conversation, all that jazz.

Back at the house, it was our quality time over Law & Order and Mythbusters

Sun: Back to Mont Olympus for brunch, and then Jon and Jen had to leave. Andrew & I got ready to go (ie Andrew did tax and computer stuff with his Dad, while I packed our stuff), and then it was back to the airport. Had an awesome scrabble game (Andrew would have won if I didn't make him put a word somewhere else, but as it played I won by the swing tiles he had leftover at the end), and I wrote thank you letters. Had a quick stop, where we ate Subway for dinner (yum veggie delite), and then boarded a plane with a horribly annoying sports team that included a couple of girls who couldn't stop coughing. Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but during my finals induced madness, I actually watched the beginning of a HORRID 90's movie called Killing Moon. The premise is pretty straightforward: an engineered killer virus is loose on a plane, and it's wiping everyone out. The main symptom? COUGHING. And then blood spurts out of your eyes and/or mouth and nose and you're dead. So coughing on the plane not so cool.

Back in Madison, we had a hell of a time finding Andrew's car. Not that there were so many places to check in the little airport. I suddenly realized how cold it was... even compared to NY.

Mon: Shopping day! Hit State St., the mall, grocery store. Caught up on tv shows over mango curry.

Tues: I slept in while Andrew went to class. Worried about taxes. Andrew got back and tried to calm me down. Then we had a nice walk down to the lake, and spotted a muskrat swimming along the shore. We tried to follow him, but he ended up going beyond the dock without landing on the shore. Maybe the model battleship someone was playing with (remote control) scared him off. More shopping, & pesto for dinner.

Weds: Headed to New Glarus to see where they make the amazing Spotted Cow beer. Cool brewery. The Swiss town was closed, unfortunately, although we did get to sample a fairly good brownie at the bakery. Andrew drove us in the opposite direction with his amazing inner compass, so we actually saw the woods where we're going hiking this summer (and beyond). For dinner I orchestrated an enchilada making session -- yum! For dessert: Cold Stone, where I got my usual cake batter w/ yellow cake smooshed in & whipped cream. YUM.

Thurs: Slept in, and then when Andrew got back from class, we were off. Did some thrift storing... I found an Ann Taylor sweater (in petite small, no less!) for $2. Splurged (ie spent about $23) on a vintage looking top (ironic, right? bought that new, and the sweater vintage) & on-sale heels. Also: JEANS THAT FIT AT GAP. Which means that they were not on sale, because they always are out of my size in ankle by the time things go on sale. To reward Andrew for his amazing patience and assistance, I then got us Starbucks.

Fri: As the brunch place was already done serving breakfast at 11:30, Andrew and I did our own. Yummy cinnamon swirl french toast w/ fried apple. Then, believe it or not, I got my hair cut!!! Went to the trendy place Cha Cha where Andrew got his emo shag trimmed. The stylist was not happy with me: first for not having a hair style despite having stylish shoes & jeans (both of which he commented upon), and then for using sun-in. But I'd rather use sun-in than expose myself to carcinogenic coal tar (found in most hair dyes). Rather funny: he was having trouble combing through the ends, so we decided to just chop them off instead. He said he had a feeling it was going to be a really good haircut, and I was delighted. Shorter, and layers, and side bangs... and it's sooo easy to take care of. And my hair actually moves and seems happy and I can run my fingers through it again without getting caught in snags. And under $50 even with tip: not bad since I haven't had a professional cut in 3-4 years!

Later, I got to go out in public to test drive the look... Andrew's dept was doing its own admit week, so we went to the party. Very cool, re-met people, met others, and, most importantly, got to see Annie from MHC!!! We didn't stay too late, as we made brunch plans for the next morning.

Sat: Brunch with Annie at Lazy Jane's, which was awesome. And then some more thrift storing. Later, we watched Walk the Line (incredible, now am listening to Johnny Cash) and Andrew made more sushi. I'm having difficulties with meats, and didn't have an appetite for the smoked salmon, which I partly picked out. We did get some work done, and also had time to meet up with Andrew's friend John for cheesecake and coffee (or in my case, herbal tea at that hour). Back home, Andrew beat me at Trivial Pursuit, but I didn't care because I was having the best dark beer from New Glarus -- Bock.

Sun: Went to the Indian buffet for brunch (yummy, next time will go later in the day and eat more), and then watched Matchpoint at the AWESOME second run movie theater (2.75$ a movie -- we're going to be there all the time this summer). Matchpoint was amazing, greatly enjoyed it.

Later, watched tons of good tv, ate pasta, and cuddled. Very sad!

Mon: Breakfasting & walking by the lake despite the wind (people were actually windsurfing on the freaking lake, it was so windy) and lunching and a trip to Target to make sure Andrew had everything he needed and then to the airport. Ahh! I hate leaving. And of course somehow the airlines had managed to completely f&#! up their schedules, so flights were canceled (including the one I was supposed to be on, a fact which student universe cleverly didn't alert me to) and ridiculously delayed. I was on a flight that left around 7:30 pm, and was supposed to have left before 4 pm. Crazy. And there were NINE OF US. Nine! Plenty of space, which was nice.

In Chicago, I basically retraced my steps from F to C, passing by like 5 Starbucks in the process. The next flight was likewise empty, we nearly all had 3 seats to ourselves. So I stretched out, and was quite comfy, but couldn't fall asleep. Nerves? Being in a plane? The green tea I'd had earlier? The awesome music on my iPod that I couldn't possibly miss by falling asleep? Hard to say, but I didn't drift too far into sleep.

Got into SF late, and took the first van that was available... a bit pricey, but it's hard to be picky when it's 1 am and you've got class in 10 hours.

Anyway, classes have been going well -- it's crazy as usual figuring out what to take... Methods and Materials, Enigma of Victorianism ad hoc, Sublime and the Ugly, Postmodern Fiction, Medieval Survey, Explanation/ Interpretation... Think I'm going with Victorianism & Sublime, and hoping to TA for Masterpieces. Tuesday was busy -- after class I had to go grocery shopping, make dinner (pesto, yum), unpack, mop the floors, dust... Then it felt more like home again.

Weds, also crazy. Class at 10 am, then a nap at home & lunch, then back to campus till 5 pm, then taking the last admit to James's, Chinese food & party, then socializing with Sarah & co. till the wee hours. So fun! Met physicists, and a poli sci fifth year (awesome woman), and a fellow seven sister w/ a sister at MHC. Today was amazing. Moretti's lecture was perfect -- I loved actually learning rather than just having a round table discussion. MHC was all about discussion, and I'm realizing the benefits of playing the sponge. Then lunch, and it was time for Postmodernism -- another lecture, and they're reading V. I'd love to re-read it, but I'm thinking if anything I'll just audit the first couple of weeks. I know it's not going to be my subject area, but I do love Pynchon and DeLillo and I realized they're reading Canclini, theory which I worked with back in the day at MHC when I was writing on Castillo's So Far From God (amazing novel). But... everything else will be way helpful for me figuring out if I'm in the 19th century, and getting a handle on it.

After, I hung out with Jill & did the reading for our 19th century reading group. It was AMAZING. I had no idea how cool a reading group really could be. We had Indian take out, concocted a schedule (I get to investigate Goth/horror & Bram Stoker & help with Housman & the Invention of Love play & its references to Jerome K. Jerome (which I seem to forget how to pronounce!)) Can't wait!! I so so miss Stoppard. And I am so excited about really feeling like I have a better background in Victorianism. And what could be more awesome than hanging out with everything over dinner & discussing?

This was our "dessert": The BBC cartoon of Charles Dickens.

I'm almost out of here!!

It's time for... spring break!

Today I edited papers, handed them in, and then went out for a celebratory dinner at Three Seasons w/ Brianne & a very cool admit. Then I came home, and the packing frenzy began. Hours later, I'm tired and heading to bed... Looks like I'll be sleeping on the plane!!

Wisconsin, here I come!

New Favorite Blog

I just found my new favorite blog (and yes I should be outlining my Shakespeare paper. But after coming up with a semi-viable thesis paragraph, I was done). So here's one of my favorite bits on the ridiculousness of pharmacists "opting out" of dispensing Plan B (by the by, didn't anyone get the memo about those two studies I mentioned in a previous post, that concluded Plan B doesn't even interfere with implantation? So what the f*#$ is the excuse now??) from Radical Russ:

Why does your religion give you any special exemptions from doing your job? Muslims don't get to be bartenders who don't serve alcohol. Quakers don't get to be cops who don't shoot people. Vegans don't get to be waitresses at Hooters who won't serve chicken wings. Jews don't get to be waiters at the rib shack who won't serve pork. Mormons don't get to be baristas at Starbucks who won't serve caffeinated coffee.

...

I'm getting mighty sick and tired of "it's my religion" being the trump card against common sense and civil rights. If you think Plan B pills are immoral, then by all means, don't use them. If you think dispensing Plan B pills is immoral, then by all means, don't become a pharmacist.

Seriously, there is no end to how these "conscience clauses" could be interpreted. Could a pharmacist who finds homosexuality "an abomination" refuse to dispense anti-AIDS retrovirals? How about a Catholic pharmacist who refuses to fill any birth control prescription? Sheesh, why not just let the Christian Scientists be the pharmacists who refuse to fill ANY prescription?

This is nothing more than misogynistic anti-sex prudes masquerading as pious victims. They just won't be happy until everyone else feels as much guilt about sex as they do. They don't even care whether the woman seeking the prescription is a rape victim; as far as they're concerned she's as damnable as what they'd consider the libertine nymphomaniac slut (you know, women who enjoy sex without procreation) who slipped up with her birth control (and just wait; they're coming after that, too.) In their caveman minds, sex bad, babies good! Any woman who opens her legs must accept the consequences of government-enforced procreation, nevermind the advances in science and chemistry that make that ancient history.

Ahh. I love it. Russ is my new hero.

If this ridiculousness is implemented in WA, I think I'll move to Seattle and become a butcher -- that is, a butcher that doesn't sell meat on moral grounds.

Quotes of the Day, and the 4th Amendment

From the NYT on the Senate approval of the budget:

The budget decision at the end of a marathon day of voting followed a separate 52-to-48 Senate vote to increase the federal debt limit by $781 billion, bringing the debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion. The move left Democrats attacking President Bush and Congressional Republicans for piling up record debt in their years in power.

...

"It is very disturbing, and it gives me a whole lot of heartburn," said Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, who attributed the additional spending to political anxiety. "They want to go and say they are helping people, but we are not helping people when we are selling out their future."

In the House, lawmakers easily approved almost $92 billion in emergency spending, with about $68 billion going for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and $19 billion for hurricane recovery, slightly less than the White House sought.

The Senate budget bill would clear the way to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, but the outlook for that provision is uncertain given strong resistance by Republican moderates in the House and a long legislative route before final approval.

...

But Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who led the push for $7 billion in extra money for health and education programs, said those areas had been starved for money in recent years and could not afford to be overlooked again.

...

The increase in the debt limit brought the total increase during the Bush administration to $3 trillion. Democrats said the rising debt was the consequence of what they described as a reckless Republican fiscal policy centered on tax cuts for the affluent.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Thursday that given Mr. Bush's record, "I really do believe this man will go down as the worst president this country has ever had."

Great. 68 BILLION for the war, 19 billion for botched hurricane recovery efforts, and a measly 7 billion for education spending. Priorities?


And somebody please get Bush & Co. a copy of the Constitution:

White House lawyers argued for warrantless searches after 9/11

RAW STORY
Published: Friday March 17, 2006

According to a news magazine, White House lawyers argued for the right to conduct warrantless searches of terrorism suspects on U.S. soil after the 9/11 attacks based on the "same legal authority" as President Bush's controversial wiretapping program, RAW STORY has learned.

The U.S. News & World Report article reveals that FBI Director Robert Mueller bitterly opposed warrantless physical searches "not only because of the blowback issue but also because of the legal and constitutional questions raised."

Via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Another Mad Cow

Another good reason to avoid eating beef, and in particular non-organic, non-grassfed cows. Eek. How the US has actually INCREASED beef consumption is beyond me. Bad for the environment, bad for human health. Do people want to be the test subjects for understanding how mad cow jumps species?

As a sidenote: Since drastically cutting back meat consumption in general, and only occasionally eating seafood, I have not had any health problems. No colds, no flu, no out of the ordinary stomach upsets. Knock on wood.

Last week when I overheard a conversation about a recipe involving pork, I lost my appetite.

Wakeful

It's 2 am and I'm still sooo awake. Not sure if it's the wakefulness that will lead me to work, though, as I think I'm heading down from the caffeine high. The espresso machine is awesome. I'm still learning to use it without like, spilling coffee water all over, but I did manage to make a mocha-like concoction that kept me working for about 2.5 hours. And I saved a bit to drink tomorrow morning so that I actually get my ass to work at a decent hour. Thanks, Mum! Perfect timing, too.

Now it's time for some Nighty Night tea.

The Logic Baffles Us

Via Feministe and NewDonkey, here's the quote, straight from AJC:

Labored logic

Democrats have been buzzing about comments made by state Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) at a recent eggs-and-issues breakfast in Hart County. We quote from the Hartwell Sun newspaper: "Commenting on illegal immigration, Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. 'We could have used those people,' she said."

I've long been convinced that it's not all about "the innocent unborn" for many (if not most) right-wingers. So yesterday's post exposes the belief that sex should always be for procreation, meaning that, in real-life policies, the government should have no interest in helping women prevent unplanned pregnancies (when the gov. is simultaneously providing other basic health care services). I'd call this stance: pregnancy is the punishment for having sex, and we think sex is bad, so we're not going to even try to prevent unwanted pregnancies (despite realizing that this means abortion rates will rise).

And now today, the logic is even more baffling. So, women should have unwanted pregnancies and give birth to unwanted children, so that they can supply the American workforce with cheap labor, meaning that the country can enact even strict immigration policies? Riiiiight. Somehow, I'm holding myself back from having 10 kids that will grow up to flip burgers and bag groceries, while the top 1% continues to build ridiculous fortunes. I'd call this stance: We're not interested in keeping women healthy and ensuring that every child is a planned child. No, we're hoping that the poor will continue to pump out cheap labor forces. (Wait, somehow, these two stances are beginning to seem related. MO is banning funding to help poor people access birth control at affordable prices... what do they think the result will be?... working class children that will provide cheap labor?)

Conclusion: I don't want people like this in charge of making decisions about what I choose to do with my body.

Finals & Birth Control News

I'm coming out of hiding -- but only for a few minutes! I'm about 4 pages into my first final paper, two more coming after this. Will have updates on progress. Must leave next Weds morning, which seems to approach much too quickly.

But I had to post this, from Shakespeare's Sister: Poor People Shouldn't Have Sex. Apparently, Missouri is all for unplanned pregnancies, which someone ought to tell them is only going to increase abortion rates:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - An attempt to resume state spending on birth control got shot down Wednesday by House members who argued it would have amounted to an endorsement of promiscuous lifestyles.

Missouri stopped providing money for family planning and certain women's health services when Republicans gained control of both chambers of the Legislature in 2003.

But a Democratic lawmaker, in a little-noticed committee amendment, had successfully inserted language into the proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that would have allowed part of the $9.2 million intended for "core public health functions" to go to contraception provided through public health clinics.

...

"If you hand out contraception to single women, we're saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that," Phillips, R-Kansas City, said in an interview.

Others, including some lawmakers who described themselves as "pro-life," said it was illogical for anti-abortion lawmakers to deny money for contraception to low-income people who use public health clinics.

"It's going to have the opposite effect of what the intention is, which will be more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions," said Rep. Kate Meiners, D-Kansas City.

The other alternative is for low-income women to give birth to more children, which is only likely to drive up the state's costs to provide services to them, said Democratic Rep. Melba Curls, also of Kansas City.

That's great. Contraception = promiscuity. And what's with the insertion of "single women"? As if there aren't any "single men" involved in needing contraception? And do these people realistically think that poor people will simply stop having sex (which despite much of the religious rights' efforts, is still a "natural" part of life, beneath all the culturally laden "sex is bad" baggage)? I can imagine it now: a woman goes to one of these clinics, is denied contraception that she can actually afford, and goes home to her partner. Are said partner and said woman going to simply sleep in separate beds for evermore? Is there some magic point at which the MO republican lawmakers will allow poor married people to have contraception, because it offends their sensibilities less? This bill pretty much sums up the endpoint for many Republican lawmakers: not just outlawing abortion, but turning the clock back to the days when women couldn't access simple birth control devices.

Missouri Right to Life said it was concerned with the contraception language because it was loosely written and could have included emergency contraception - often referred to as the morning-after pill.

The Missouri Catholic Conference also opposed the birth control funding.

"State taxpayers should not be required to subsidize activities they believe are immoral or unethical, relating to contraceptives or abortions," said Larry Weber, executive director of the state Catholic Conference.

And does the MO Right to Life bother to consult scientific studies on the morning after pill? Because two independent studies just came out which again confirm that Plan B works much like normal birth control pills. When taken in these higher doses over such a short period of time, Plan B prevents ovulation, but does not have the effect of creating a "hostile uterus." So now, even those who believe that when sperm meets egg, a complete human is formed, must concede that Plan B is not an "abortion." In other words, that worry is completely unfounded.

I especially love that the Missouri Catholic Conference thinks they should be able to opt out of the state providing basic family planning services (we're talking condoms and birth control pills here, people). Last I checked, I can't opt out of paying taxes that support a war I'm morally and politically opposed to. So let's break this down. I can't decide I'm not paying taxes because I don't want to financially support taking real human lives. And if I even suggested opting out, lawmakers might refer me to the IRS, and accuse me of being "unpatriotic." But the Missouri Catholic Conference, it's totally acceptable and laudable for them to influence lawmakers into taking away basic medical services for the poor, suggesting that poor people should simply never have sex unless they want a pregnancy. It's completely ethical for them to lobby to basically cause many unplanned pregnancies, many of which will be aborted. Right, it makes perfect sense.

Summers Redux

So tonight I went to dinner with James, Jill, & Stephen (who's going to be attending next fall -- yes!). We had a great debate going over who else we think will be accepting Stanford's offer, and some running bets -- either way we're going out drinking. Awesome time, and I'm so excited for next year's cohort!!

At some point James's roommate Tom joined us. There was one moment that I had to blog about (hence the title). I can't remember word for word, but I'll try to recreate the conversation and its sense. So after the topic of Lawrence H. Summers came up:

Me: Yeah, he was trying to use the example of his daughter playing with dolls and his son playing with toy trucks to stand in for biological truths, as if the kids weren't raised in America, with the TV commercials and the culture. [If you look at the transcript, he finds it significant that his daughters called trucks "baby trucks," just because he hadn't given them dolls to play with, so clearly they had no socialization that could possibly have influenced them to treat toys like dolls. Right?]

T: I don't think that was what he was saying.

Me: Well to look around society and then ascribe it to biology... it's kind of tautological...

T: Did you read the article?

Me: Yes.

T: I just read it a week ago, and my professor was saying that most of America wouldn't even understand the math.

Gradual dropping of the subject, especially as I don't want to get into an argument right as we're sitting down to eat.

OK. So first of all, Summers was just plain wrong. I don't care what math he was using, he basically says that more women aren't in the sciences because:

1. They have children/ want to have children

2. They don't have the same "high end" "aptitude"

3. Discrimination

And in that order. Yes, so basically, the biological function of childbearing, and the biological determinism of having XX chromosomes means that women are less able to compete in the sciences. Discrimination is added as if it's only an afterthought, as if we aren't coming out of thousands of years of women being barred from becoming intellectuals, or just ignored or discredited. So why exactly does pregnancy mean that women can't have high powered jobs? Last I checked, most women work through most if not all of their pregnancies (and keep in mind all the women that do massive amounts of house work and physical labor throughout). And there's no reason why society can't structure jobs to allow more leeway for parents (of BOTH sexes) to take care of their children. Further, no one's found a "science gene" that's only found on the Y chromosome. For the second premise, Summers cites one study, and his own calculations on standard deviation (which he admits are flawed), to estimate that the ratio is 1:5 in favor of men doing "high end" work. He doesn't seem interested in thinking about why such studies might be flawed, or explaining what exact biological factor could possibly determine scientific/mathematical ability. No mention of these fields of math and science being developed largely in male traditions, or the possiblity of IQ tests being geared toward favoring men's abilities (abilities that are either culturally or as he suggests, biologically created). So whatever math you pull out of our culturally bound societies, how on earth is that going to justify the following comments:

"So I think in terms of positive understanding, the first very important reality is just what I would call the, who wants to do high-powered intense work?"

"So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination."

You can read the whole thing here.

And here are some more enlightening and encouraging remarks from people who I think have done more thinking on the subject that Summers:

DAVID TARGAN: Well, I have a lot of thoughts. I know that in his apology, he, from what I gather, he said that we need to do more research on this, clearly. And the odd thing about it is that, if he had talked to members of his own faculty, if he had talked to people right next to him at M.I.T., there's so much research that has been done on – that can be acted upon right now on – if we need to do more research on gender differences, on – that's fine, but we know that so much of the variance in between – in terms of the difference between the numbers of men and women at the faculty levels can easily be accounted for by social factors, that – that he and other people have tended to minimize that if we just take some simple measures that are well-known and easy to do, relatively, we can make great strides. And the fact that he didn't seem to know this is rather striking.

AMY GOODMAN: This weekend it was – the whole controversy was discussion on the Sunday talk shows, and I was quite astounded to see "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," on ABC in discussion at the end of the conversation with George Will, Claire Shipman, others; and they were in agreement that this is about being p.c. on campus, that you’re not allowed to raise truths, basically, that we all know that there are differences between women and men. Professor Hopkins, your response?

NANCY HOPKINS: Yes, I think this is deeply concerning, and I hope we can correct this, because this is terribly important. This is not about academic freedom and this is not about political correctness at all. This is, as the dean just said, this is about flying in face of all the evidence (of which there’s massive evidence) and just giving your own personal opinion in spite of that evidence, when your opinion is actually very damaging, and you're a leader the education world. That's what this is about, and if Summers would release the tape of his talk, I think this could help a lot to make it clear that what he said was not appropriate.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what is the percentage of women at M.I.T., also professors of color at M.I.T.?

NANCY HOPKINS: Well, the percent of women faculty, you have to always look at particular fields, of course. So, you have to look at science versus engineering. You have – you know, and so forth. And these numbers vary a lot depending on the field you’re talking about. So, overall, at M.I.T. the percent of women on the science faculty, that's six departments of science, is about 14%, and the same percent in engineering.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you know the figures of professors of color in these fields?

NANCY HOPKINS: The percent of minority faculty is about 4%. So, it's very small. And what you see is, if you look the data, with women, you see that you train a lot of women and they gradually leak from the pipeline. With the minorities, you see that there's a drop after college, so that they’re not enough getting PhD’s.

Whoa, 23!

So I'm now 23 years old.

Last night, although it wasn't yet my birthday, I realized my age. Or more accurately, I realized the age I am no longer. I was waiting at the bus stop after taking a shopping trip before my admit arrives (it's admit weekend, and we've got 17 prospective students coming), watching down the road for the bus, trying to imagine when I was going to get all my work done. And then I started listening to the three Stanford undergrads sitting on the bench a few feet away. Their conversation went something like this, excerpted for interest:

"Oh my God I loooooove sushi! I even had sushi for lunch today, and I want more!"

"I loooove pink!"

"Oh my Gaaaaawwwdd I looooooove Harry Potter!!!"

"I know! We should go out this weekend for sushi, and then go to Coldstone!"

Brilliant young minds, right? And then it hit me, that I was no longer an undergrad, and that there were many aspects of that experience that I wouldn't want to go back to (namely: dorm food (EXCEPT for grilled salmon caesar salad at Prospect) and shared bathrooms).

Ahh I'm growing up!

More later, but thanks to Mum for the espresso machine!!

"It's been a long year, it's been a long day."

Belated http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifInternational Women's Day

So I missed International Women's Day & coinciding Blogging Against Sexism Day, so I've just got a couple of links to pass on. I missed yesterday because I was crazy busy with the kick off to our admit weekend (which is going tolerably well thus far).

Twisty's reporting on this story of a man who just won a court battle over whether or not his now infertile-due-to-cancer ex-partner can use their previously fertilized and frozen eggs in order to have a child. Man's decision: throw the embryos away. Court: Yes, Sir! Makes you wonder, as Twisy points out: what would anti-choicers say? (specifically those men in South Dakota who are ooh-ing and ahh-ing over how brutal a rape has to be in order for a woman to be allowed an abortion.) Because if those people sided with the man in this case, I think we can see the blatant sexism. Twisty pulls out this quote, remind us of anything?: “The key thing for me was just to be able to decide when and if I start a family.”

Personally, I think it's just cruel to take your ex-fiance to court and deny her the chance to have her child, just because you've changed your mind. I can sympathize with not wanting one's biological child running about, but this guy doesn't have to carry the embryo or go through labor, and his comment of "starting a family" completely misrepresented the situation. He's not being expected to start a family, or have any emotional ties to the resulting children. The word "family" implies a relationship much beyond and distinct from a biological relationship. It's interesting because he's using the pro-choice rhetoric of "deciding" when to start a family, and yet he doesn't have the same physical relationship to producing a child.

And also:

Pandagon has highlighted another story defending the D&X procedure that seems to have been termed "partial birth abortion" by anti-choicers... Eek:

Nothing more “pro-life” than making a woman walk around with a corpse banging around inside her body, apparently.

The Cervical Cancer Vaccine & Misogyny

I'm calling it what it is. Protesting a life-saving vaccine doesn't look very pro-life to me. Here's the quote, from Sojourners & via Preemtive Karma:

A little-known debate is smoldering at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that may burst soon into a major fire. Two pharmaceutical companies - Merck and GlaxoSmithKline - have designed a cervical cancer vaccine. In clinical trials the Merck drug, Gardasil, is proving to be up to 100% effective in fighting the dominant strain of the virus causing cervical cancer. The pharmaceutical companies and a growing movement of public health advocates want all girls to be inoculated with the vaccine as they presently are for other high-risk viruses.

The Family Research Council is leading a charge of Religious Right groups to halt any such national inoculation program. Their resistance is driven by fear more than common sense. The human papilloma virus (HPV) that generates cervical cancer is most typically passed along through genital contact with others. So as long as an individual does not engage in sexual intercourse, he or she should be shielded from the virus. The Religious Right bloc concludes that offering a vaccine for HPV would undercut their promotion of sexual abstinence for adolescents.

In that spirit, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Fortune magazine that he would not allow his 13-year-old daughter to be inoculated. "It sends the wrong message," Perkins said. "Our concern is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence."

Globally, cervical cancer kills more than 270,000 women each year - roughly 80% of them in developing countries. The Centers for Disease Control reports that as many as 3,700 women in the U.S. died of cervical cancer last year, and tens of thousands more had their lives completely transformed by a radical treatment regimen for the disease. The majority of those women are African-American or Hispanic, and poor.

Last I checked, teens weren't abstaining from sex purely because they had the fear of God in them over HPV. Most teens probably don't even know what that stands for, or that it can lead to cervical cancer in women. Furthermore, as everyone has been saying from the get-go, you don't see people rolling around in rusty nails post-tetanus shots.

I've got to call Tony Perkins out on this: deciding that his daughter shouldn't have this vaccine is not only completely morally corrupt, but downright scary. What sort of a parent decides that he'd rather his daughter died of a preventable disease than have a vaccine? A vaccine, I might add, that in the future one needn't explain to a young child who is being routinely innoculated against all matter of diseases. Women don't get HPV because they are "bad people" -- and even if you DID want believe that women get HPV only because they've been "immoral," that is NO REASON to deny anyone healthcare. A woman could contract HPV from a partner (even the most trusted), a husband, an unfaithful husband, a rapist, etc. There is no reason on God's green earth to prevent the HPV vaccine from becoming a standard innoculation, especially as many of the sufferers of cervical cancer are women from minority groups or the working class, which could mean that they would have less access to this vaccine if it is not made routine.

Deciding that women should be punished with cancer and/or death because they had sex or were raped by someone carrying a disease is not only ass backwards, it's thinly veiled misogyny.

Keeping it Wild

Shakespeare's Sister reminded me that we need to voice our disapproval of a US Forest Service proposal to sell off $1 billion worth of public lands (including 85,000 acres from National Forest property, and 730 from the National Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area). We've got about a month to do it! Here's the contact information:

Email: SRS_Land_Sales@fs.fed.us

Fax: (202) 205–1604

Snail mail: USDA Forest Service, SRS Comments, Lands 4S, 1400 Independence Ave., SW., Mailstop 1124, Washington, DC 20250–0003

Here's my email:

Dear Sir or Madame,

I am writing in response to the recent proposal to sell off one billion dollars worth of public lands, including 85,000 from National Forest property. I am adamantly and passionately opposed to this proposition. Having grown up in Hood River County, Oregon, I have a very personal reason for desiring that these publicly owned lands remain so. Seven hundred and thirty acres of this supposedly "expendable" land would come from the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, a beloved area for those in my hometown, and for all of those who come to visit our area to ski on Mt. Hood, windsurf on the Columbia River, hike in the unspoiled wilderness, and generally enjoy the outdoors. I believe that preserving land for public use and environmental conservation is essential. Over the course of my life, growing up in the Hood River Valley, I've seen a tremendous amount of development. Land has been parceled off and divided, while more and more houses have cropped up across the previously unspoiled hills. As people move in, trees are chopped down and ecosystems are disturbed. My stepfather works in nuisance animal control, and my family has therefore seen many of the displaced animals that result from these moves toward developing the land. My parents remember how the valley used to be -- it's nearly unrecognizable to them today.

Clearly, not all development is detrimental to communities or even the environment. But as we make decisions about nationally and publicly owned lands, we are ethically bound to consider what the consequences will be in ten years, fifty years, a hundred years. Our country's land is increasingly urbanized, suburbanized, and privately owned. When I take walks along the irrigation canal behind my parents' home in Oregon, I see "No Trespassing" signs and fences. And yet people in this country deeply believe in publicly owned lands that our communities can both enjoy and preserve for future generations. Whether I'm hiking around Devil's Lake in Wisconsin, or reaching the summit of Mt. Holyoke in Massachusetts, or venturing with my mother along the same trails on Mt. Hood that she hiked as a young girl, I see other people enjoying these public resources, away from all the "No Trespassing" signs.

Selling public lands means that our wealthiest citizens will increasingly own the resources that our communities have a shared right to both protect and preserve. In fifty years, I hope that I can still recognize the Hood River Valley. I hope that we won't be living in a world where we can't see the forests for the "No Trespassing" signs.

I urge you to put a stop to this proposition.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Richardson

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

1. Outlawing abortion is not the way to go about preventing abortions.

&

2. This country is woefully lacking in reality-based sexual education and accessible birth control/ family planning resources.

This seems to have gotten increasingly worse under the Bush administration, which simultaneously claims to be "pro-life." Pro-life would involve ensuring that we do everything possible as a society to stop unwanted pregnancies before they start.


So how are we doing? Not so hot. With high school teenagers actually stepping up to the plate and demanding better sex ed, and women having trouble getting birth control pills even from f-ing Planned Parenthood (via Feministe), one wonders if the current administration is actually seeking to INCREASE the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Bush has been steadily funding abstinence-only sex ed programs, while turning a blind eye and underfunding organizations such as Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control at affordable rates. And as we all know, actual birth control is a whole helluva lot more effective than telling kids not to have sex. Louise Melling of the ACLU writes:

Yet when President Bush proposed a $39 million increase in federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education in his 2006 budget, he asked Congress to do just that. If the president gets what he asked for, the federal government will throw nearly $206 million in the next fiscal year into programs that a growing body of evidence shows are ineffective at best, and dangerous at worst.

So what's going wrong with abstinence-till-marriage programs? Oh yeah, right, most people aren't getting married at 18 anymore, and actually *gasp* have sex before the age of 30!

NPR reports only 7% of Americans don't believe sex ed should be taught in schools. So why are teachers trying to scare students by giving them blatant misinformation, of the abortion-causes-breast-cancer variety? Here's a prime example from the above article:

Alesha Jones, 18, of Waterloo said she caught a teacher in a falsehood about the facts of life.

The teacher told her class that 99 percent of all high school girls who have sex become pregnant, Jones said. "That's not true," she said. "(It) made me feel good to tell her the truth. I just said, 'I know for a fact that's not true.' "

Great, right? And here's the kicker: abstinence-till-marriage programs seem to delay sexual intercourse for 18 months, but in the meanwhile might just steer teens towards other (often even riskier) sexual acts:

These programs, it should be acknowledged, do lead teens to abstain from intercourse for, on average, 18 months longer than teens not in similar programs. And that's impressive. In the teen years, 18 months is a big chunk of time. Yet, it's worth noting, those 18 intercourse-free months are a special time and not exactly what the pro-life sponsors had in mind. A major study of some 2,500 "virgin pledgers" showed that the kids who pledge to abstain from having intercourse don't abstain from sex. They just have other kinds of sex. Virginity pledgers have porn-star sex (though porn stars appear more likely to use protection). These "virgins" are six times more likely to have oral sex than nonpledgers, and male "virgins" are four times more likely to have anal sex than those who do not take the pledge.

So... to cater to the minority of parents who would rather that their children be fed lies and half-truths, we're funding a program that doesn't work, while turning our backs on organizations that could actually hand out effective birth control to those women who seek it out (ie, Planned Parenthood). Great. I'd be all for funding programs that don't work, except for that little detail... oh yes. We have like, no money, as it's all being dumped into the disaster-that-is-the-war-in-Iraq.

Break into personal rant:

You know, that war that was going to be simple and short and effective... that war that was going to cost $1.7 billion? That war now costs $200 billion, with another $60 billion proposed. With that money, we could have made changes in the health care system, addressing the millions of adults and children with inadequate or nonexistent health care. We could have used it in our schools, and in catching Pell Grants up with inflation. Hell, we could have bought every Katrina victim a new f-ing house.

End rant.

Conclusions: Reality-based sex education & better funded contraceptive programs would do the most to prevent abortions. And we'd have the added bonus of actually taking women's rights to reproductive control seriously.

I now have yet another reason to suspect that the South Dakota bill banning all abortions is completely unethical. Jill of Feministe blogged about this article, which basically states that, since the legal costs of fighting this bill in court are likely to be around $1 million, the state government is now looking toward private funders. That's right -- the state doesn't even have the money, and I'm betting that taxpayers wouldn't accept the burden -- so a few rich people are going to try to determine public policy. I'd be really curious right now to see what South Dakota's population thinks about this ban.

"Clearly the state can use taxpayer dollars," Sarah Stoesz of Planned Parenthood said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they could devise a scheme to use these donated funds. What it does underscore, there is a belief that the taxpayers don't want to pay for this, and consequently the only way to get something done that the taxpayers don't want to pay for and that the politicians don't want to pay for, the only way to do this is to find a private, anonymous person who will effectively purchase public policy that is not taxpayer or voter supported."

Is South Dakota pleased that one rich man (rumored to be Steve Kirby) is going to foot the bill (literally) to ban a procedure that many people are on the fence about? Hell, I'm willing to bet that this bill as it's written right now wouldn't pass a statewide vote. No allowances for trimester, health, rape, incest -- that's more strict than most attempted bans have been. 12 year old rape victims, women carrying terminal fetuses with no brain tissue, women at risk for paralysis or kidney failure -- all will be expected to serve as incubators for the duration. Even if you think life begins at conception (which is quite debatable, I see more life in my cat than in a clump of human cells), you have to believe that the woman's rights are outweighed by those of the "potential life" or fetus's. And this, of course, is where feminist groups come in. I don't see a law demanding that healthy people give up a kidney to save all those needing organ transplants -- are their lives less valuable somehow? Parents aren't required by law to donate a kidney even in the case of their own children -- how is this any different from expecting a woman to donate her body and her bodily tissue to a zygote? The only difference, in my eyes, is that a zygote is not a "person" in the same sense as a child with kidney problems.

What also strikes me as problematic about the SD ban, is that even in cases of the woman's life being in immediate danger, no one in SD will be able to perform the abortion. As it is, they're flying doctors in, what happens when no doctors who know how to abort a pregnancy are in the state? Women in immediate jeopardy will likely have to go to another state (and probably will want to, too -- would you really feel safe with a doctor that's never done a procedure operating on you?).

Getting back to the point of this article: is it morally troubling to anyone else that this SD bill sets a precedent for the rich backing whatever government action they approve? Haven't we seen how easily this can go wrong with the lobbying scandals?

Ahh, the Olympics. I couldn't care less about most sports, but I do have a soft spot for ice skating in the winter games, and gymnastics in the summer. Partly, because the commentary is ridiculous, and partly because I can't do either, at all. When I'm on the ice I hold onto the railing and tremble. And I can't even turn a cartwheel. There's something incredibly gratifying about watching sports that seem in complete defiance of my body's physics, while eating.

So last night Jill came over, and we made pizza and watched the ice skating finals, which I had taped. After dinner, we ate ice cream while critiquing jumps and disagreeing with the commentators. I'm convinced that we could have stepped in with commentary, and no one would have noticed.

You might be wondering, how could one simply step into Olympic ice skating commentators' shoes? Quite simply, I'd argue. One needs only construct a guidebook of truisms, cliches, and the occasional mystical comments, which need not make any sense. I thought you still might be in doubt, so I took the liberty of writing down some of the choicer statements by our exhalted commentators, including Scott & Sandra.

These are all, I kid you not, from the actual commentary during the women's finals:

"She just went out gangbusters... nuh-uh, I'm not giving up on this bad boy." - One of the men on Emily Hughes.

"She's such a talented jumper... it's like she just hasn't thought through her technique yet...so she often just jumps and hopes."

Sandra (I assumed): "You can't just pull a rabbit out of the hat at the Olympics."
One of the men: "More like a rhinoceros out of a hat."

Sandra on Sarah Meier: "She skates on top of the ice, not in the ice." One of the deepest moments, right?

"It's like the rest of her body just can't keep up with her feet."

Sandra, in another particularly deep moment: "The difference between Sasha and everyone else is, everyone else skates to Romeo and Juliet, she is Juliet."

I'll spare you the rampant comments on the skaters' physical appearances, which seem inappropriate at some point. I don't know if this also holds true for the men's ice skating commentary, but it seems like people feel free to comment on these girls' and women's bodies in a way that you just wouldn't ever hear when watching, oh, say, the luge. Most sports aren't dependent on having attractive legs or long arms -- it's all about how fast you get through the 100 meters, or how far you can throw something. But in ice skating, it seems inextricably linked with appearances. So here's one comment that particularly got me (and not only due to the grammatical incongruity):

"She has long arms that any ballerina would give their eye teeth for." - Commentator on Kimmie Messinger. [By the way, Mer, if you ever read this, remember that for next time you complain about your arms.]

Of course, this is like the least remarkable of the body-comments, but it was one of the few that I wrote down... Guess I'll have to watch the men's skating next time around, and see if the trend holds.

Oh, and just in time for sitting on my ass and watching the Olympics, Ben and Jerry's is coming out with new flavors. Here are three that look particularly promising:

Neapolitan Dynamite™ Original Ice Cream - "Cherry Garcia® and Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice creams, side by side." YES. Two of my favorites, in one container. So I don't even have to get my lazy ass up off the couch to try another flavor.

Turtle Soup™ Original Ice Cream - "Vanilla ice cream with fudge & caramel cashews & a caramel swirl." I'm intrigued by the caramel cashews.

Vermonty Python™ Original Ice Cream - "Coffee liqueur ice cream with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl & fudge cows." Ahh this one is going to be good -- cookie crumbs in a swirl AND fudge cows AND coffee liqueur (are they going for kahlua?). Jesus. I want that.

I hadn't been getting involved in the partial-birth abortion ban debate, until I read this:

If the ban were in place in 1995, Tammy Watts would likely be dead, she says.

In March of that year, Watts was in the eighth month of a much-wanted pregnancy and was eagerly anticipating the birth of her first child. During a routine ultrasound (the only way to detect abnormalities that require late-term abortion), she discovered her baby had Trisomy 13, a chromosomal abnormality that causes severe deformities and carries no hope of survival.

Because her baby was already dying and because this put her own life at stake, Watts had an intact dilation and extraction (D and X), the procedure that Bush condemns as "brutal."

"Losing my baby at the end of my pregnancy was agonizing," says Watts. "But the way the right deals with this issue makes it even worse. When I heard Bush mention 'partial birth abortion' during the debates, I thought 'How dare you stand there and tell flat-out lies?' There is no such thing as this procedure! Why won't the politicians listen to us?"

[...]

When Congress first considered the ban in 1995, Watts testified on Capitol Hill. So did Viki Wilson of Fresno, Calif., who had a late-term abortion because the brain of the fetus she was carrying had developed outside the skull. So did Vikki Stella of Naperville, Ill., whose fetus had dwarfism, no brain tissue and seven other major abnormalities.

All three women told legislators they owed their health to late-term abortions and that a continuation of their doomed pregnancies posed grave health risks such as stroke, paralysis, infertility or even death.

As they campaign to save access to these procedures, Watts, Stella and Wilson point out that in virtually all cases, late-term abortions are the only way to respond to unanticipated complications: the death of the fetus inside the womb, problems that mean the fetus can't live outside the womb, or serious threats to the mother's health.

"No women has these procedures for frivolous reasons," says Stella. "They have them because it's their only choice."

[...]

Watts, Stella and Wilson note that late-term abortions are sanctioned by many medical professional groups. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Washington, D.C., calls intact D and X--a commonly used late-term procedure--"the most appropriate and safest" option in some cases. The American Nurses Association, Silver Spring, Md., and the American Medical Women's Association, Alexandria, Va., also approve the practice.

Pro-choice advocates also note that despite all the political hoopla, intact D and X procedures are very rare, accounting for only 2,200 of the 1 million U.S. abortions performed each year.

Sorry to quote such a huge portion, but after reading about this case now up before the Supreme Court, I'm really interested in how the term "partial birth abortion" has been invented (it's not a medical term). Shakespeare's Sister had a write up of this, too. I just don't see why politicians feel the need to get involved in a rare procedure, that women are obviously choosing in extreme circumstances. Why is anyone trying to protect the "life" of a fetus that won't survive outside the womb? Or that's already dying/dead in the womb?

Because I'm way proud of my Mum's post!:


"I applaud the Onward Oregon site. I’m a newbie (1 month) I’m a native Hood Riverite (53 years) and have seen many changes here, needless to say. Measure 37 will impact this valley with multi-acre fertile farmlands divided into subdivisions for housing. And adding insult to injury, now President Bush wants to sell public lands for yet even more private ownership.

I grew up hiking with my mother and her friends. We hiked all seasons in all types of weather. It is in my blood, and it is in our wild lands that many other people such as myself connect and renew ourselves in this hectic world.

I have not read the book but saw a discussion group on OPB on Robert Kennedy Jr.’s book “Crimes Against Nature”. It was very disturbing the list of atrocities Bush is committing against OUR lands.

I have sent personalized letters to my 4 representatives and congressmen, and the regional forester with the Columbia Gorge to voice my dissatisfaction with the proposed land sales.

I urge all readers to do the same.

Selling our public lands is a shortsighted quick fix to help Bush gain back war money that should’ve stayed stateside to begin with." - Ricki Duckwall

And before I eat my leftover mango fried rice (which I think turned out well, except for the fact that my skillet apparently cannot hold 2 cups of rice, a mango, an onion, a bar of tofu, and a tomato at the same time), I must post this now thrice mediated warning for the frequent flyers:

AIM IM with Andrew:
9:53 PM
this women's figure skater is on, and the nbc guy was like 'you know how the flight attendant says to be careful opening the overhead compartment? well got a concussion back in 2002 when luggage fell on her head'

Ha! So now we all kind of know someone that this has happened to. Slippery old overhead compartments. Contents really do shift during flight.

It's official. If I were in South Dakota, I'd be packing my bags.

"The bill passed by a vote of 23 to 12 after opponents tried unsuccessfully to attach amendments that would have created exceptions for cases of rape and incest and that would have blocked spending of state money to defend against the court challenge that is sure to come."

As Bitch PhD points out, it seems incredibly problematic to have the taxpayers paying for the legal fees in this concocted bill/ anticipated court case. South Dakota, wouldn't you rather that the money were being put toward preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place? Or helping support low-income women who would continue their pregnancies, if they had the money to support another child?

Save the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area!!!

730 acres of our beautiful, undeveloped, public lands are being offered up to the highest bidder if the US Forest Service has its way (read: the Bush administration). Let's save these public lands for public enjoyment (hiking!), environmental preservation, & wildlife. We all know what the alternative is -- more sprawling suburbia, houses defacing the hills, "no trespassing" signs, and the chipping away of what makes the Gorge a sought after destination.

Thanks to Mum for the link.

It's a bad time to be in South Dakota (if you're a woman who claims control over her uterus, that is).

Jill of Feministe wrote a great piece on the South Dakota bill that's going through right now, attempting to make abortion in *all* cases except where the woman's life is in immediate danger. Yep, that means no exceptions for other serious health risks, rape, incest, extreme birth defects that mean the infant will likely die during/immediately after pregnancy, etc.

I'm just gonna say: If you're a woman in South Dakota, and you don't want to have a child, you might want to think about moving. Because even refusing to have sex doesn't matter -- if someone rapes you, the possible contents of your uterus are under state protection for the next 9 months.

This article just made my night. Thanks to Andrew for keeping up with his alma mater! Amherst College's new president is tackling the very real problem of elitism in our top colleges. And I love that his name is Tony Marx.

" As it turned out, Marx's radical message was just what Amherst trustees wanted to hear. Over the past two decades the college had committed to increasing minorities to a third of the 1,650-student campus, up from 13% in 1985. But while this brought in more low-income students, Amherst remains an incubator of the elite. More than half its students come from families prosperous enough to pay the full $42,000 annual tab out of their own pockets. Many shell out thousands more for cars, meals out, and other extras. (One student showed up recently with two BMWs -- one a convertible for sunny days.) "We were blown away" by Marx's passion and commitment, recalls Jide Zeitlin, a partner at Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS ) who has since become chair of Amherst's board. [...]

Boosting socioeconomic diversity is already a front-burner issue on the campuses of elite colleges. Everyone from Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers to William G. Bowen, ex-president of Princeton University, is grappling with a deeply troubling fact of American life: that 30 years of inequality have all but shut off top colleges to the poor.

Kids from the lowest socioeconomic quartile represent a mere 3% of students at the 146 most selective U.S. universities, vs. 74% from the top quartile, according to the Century Foundation, a New York think tank. It's not just a problem at elite schools, either. By age 24 only 8% of these bottom-quarter students have earned a BA from any U.S. college, vs. 46% of those from top-quarter families, according to Stephen Rose, co-author of the Century study. As educated baby boomers retire over the next 15 years, they will be followed in the workforce by more minority youth who are poor and less likely to have a degree. Says Harvard's Summers: "Social mobility is a central challenge for our country." "

From Business Week, no less!

I think this is such an interesting turn, especially as so many of these elite campuses are incredibly liberal, while maintaining this status quo. I love that class is being addressed, especially as it seemed like a complete non issue when I was applying to MHC. I remember calling the admissions office to ask if they had any assistance to fly low-income students out for their preview weekend, and was treated as if I were asking for the moon. Later, I found that it was standard procedure at MHC to offer to fly out ALANA students (African American, Latina American, Asian American, Native American). Of course, this is a great program, and important for addressing ethnic & race inequity on campuses, but it completely ignores the fact that many white students are coming from low-income families, and might see choosing and going to college as a disorienting experience. Basically, it'll be wonderful to see at least some elite colleges addressing both race & class inequities.

Eek. Luckily, Twisy has already commented on this one, but I just have to reproduce the news blurb, it's just that good:

ITALY: NONVIRGINITY LESSENS SEX ABUSE CHARGE, COURT SAYS Sexually abusing a teenager is a less serious crime if the girl is not a virgin, Italy's highest court said in a ruling. The court ruled in favor of a man who forced his 14-year-old stepdaughter to have oral sex with him and appealed a prison sentence of 40 months, arguing that the fact that the girl had had sex with other men should have been taken into consideration at his trial as a mitigating factor. The court agreed, saying that because of the victim's previous sexual experiences, her "personality, from a sexual point of view," was more developed and that therefore the damage to her was less than if she had been a virgin. The decision, which drew a barrage of criticism, opened the way for the stepfather to get a lighter sentence.
(REUTERS)

Wow. I just, can't even formulate a comment on this one. Blaming the victim has taken on a whole new meaning. I'm trying to figure out how anyone with even a half-developed sense of logic, and a rudimentary form of empathy, could ever hand down this ruling.

Not quite in time for Valentine's Day.

Have you seen this story, of a man in Iowa, Travis Frey? He's under arrest for trying to kidnap his wife (and as The Smoking Gun points out in the article above, he's also been in trouble for child porn). But it gets even better! He wrote out a 4 page marriage contract. And this is a contract like no other I've ever seen. He's outlined for his wife exactly when, and how much, she must shave; the length her skirts should be; the definition of "sex acts" that he expects, including duration; and what's expected of her during his "my time" hours. What's the equivalent "her time," and the definition of sex acts she's comfortable with performing (let alone what she actually WANTS -- that's completely fallen out of the equation)? Glad you asked! They don't seem to exist, curiously enough.

Because there's nothing more romantic for a woman in a heterosexual relationship than receiving a contract from her husband/boyfriend/whatever to outline just how closely her "role" matches up with that of a sex slave in a brothel. I'm sure my heart was all aflutter reading the oh-so-thoughtful dictates on what his wife must buy for herself for her birthday (a sex toy, which she should consider a gift from him) and for their anniversary (lingerie).

Please, please tell me he's going to a maximum security prison. And please tell me they'll release the marriage contract to all the other inmates, prior.

The answer to why people are making a big deal of the Cheney hunting accident? This blog post title pretty much sums it up: "What Happens in Texas Hunting Accidents If You're Hispanic?"

"Juan Garza Mendoza, 34, an employee of the ranch, was charged Monday with manslaughter, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison....

Mendoza had apparently hit Barrera Vasquez while shooting at a feral hog, and immediately contacted authorities after the shooting, Hurd said.

"They mistakenly shot a human being," he said. "It's reckless. It's inexcusable." "

Great blog post with comments.

Big surprise, bottled water isn't doing the planet any favors. There are a bazillion reasons why not to buy bottled water. Here a few reasons off the top of my head:

1. It's WATER. As in, you can get it out of your tap for pennies.

2. Most bottled water comes from the tap. (So why the hell are you paying $1 or $2 for it? Get a real water bottle, and refill it at your own tap, where it probably won't come already tasting of plastic.)

3. Those plastic bottles end up in landfills.

4. Again, it's water, people.



"Clean, healthy and pure? Hardly. Bottled water is killing the planet
And our thirst grows, with 154 billion litres drunk in one year."
By Jon Neale and Jonathan Thompson
Published: 12 February 2006

Here's a snippet of what we can read without subscribing:
"A major new study has concluded that [bottled water's] production is seriously damaging the environment.

It costs 10,000 times more to create the bottled version than it does to produce tap water, say scientists. Huge resources are needed to draw it from the ground, add largely irrelevant minerals, and package and distribute it - sometimes half-way around the world."

So, again, why not just buy a Nalgene? (Although I'd recommend stainless steel -- Nalgene's new bottles are made out of #7 plastic (polycarbonate), which can leech bisphenol A, a chemical that interferes with hormones such as estrogen. Although it doesn't seem to pose a huge health risk, you definitely don't want to put your Nalgene in the dishwasher!)

Apologies for all my posts that are actually links to other posts. Just can't help it -- my life isn't very interesting lately. Basically, I get up, I eat my Wheatabix with whatever fruit I have on hand, I read, I eat whatever I can find for lunch, I read, then I either go to class, or I read some more. Then I have dinner, and I listen to music. And then I read. Sometimes I watch a tv show. More likely I end up checking on all my favorite blogs. Then I shower. And then I read some more, till around 2 am. Then I get up in the morning and do it all over again.

Luckily, however, the weather has been damnably gorgeous lately. The past couple of days I've spent my afternoons on a beach blanket out on the grass (definitely not working on the tan, though -- I'm beginning to face the truth, that being this white, I need to use sunless tanners if I want a tan without the cancer). It's been about 70 degrees, sunny, and blooming. Supposedly it's going to cool down again, but I just have to bask in the fact that it's freaking FEBRUARY and I've been reading, outside, in the sun, without a parka on. This hasn't happened since... Ok this has never happened. I remember Feb. 14 two years ago, Andrew & I drove out to Quabbin Reservoir and took pictures of the snow and ice... and then we went to dinner... ahh.

But yeah, the weather makes me happy.

Anyway, the only notable things today:

1. I did my presentation in Alex's class. I think it went OK, I was actually glad to go in the last few minutes, so I could naturalize the fact that I talk too fast. But I was way less nervous than usual!! I had gotten some tips: breathing deeply, and using happy dots. Yes, red happy dots. It's supposed to act like a "stop, why the hell are you nervous?" sign. And I love it when people interject comments while I'm speaking. I realize that this has the potential to sound sarcastic, but I'm being completely serious. It makes me feel like it's a discussion rather than a test, and that there's some commraderie between everyone. Needless to say, I love the people in that class. And I love that we're reading these theories and these novels, but I just wish it weren't quite so much at a time. 500 pages a week is pretty hefty. According to my calculations, if each prof assigned that much (3 classes), then I'd have 1500 pages a week. And as I read at, optimally, a page every 2 minutes, that means 50 hours of reading each week. And I've decided, that that is simply unhealthy.

2. I got a card from Mum & Tim -- adorable!

3. This didn't happen today, but it's still exciting. Andrew sent a card that I wanted to carry around everywhere, and a part birthday part Valentine's gift: a lovely leather bag that fits my laptop! I have some guilt about the leather (and I can't write it off to Andrew's choice, as I did point out this bag)... but my rationalization runs thus: Since I've basically sworn off red meat and pork, and have very much limited my intake of poultry, I'm still in some sense "sparing" animals' lives and not supporting the agribusiness that treats animals inhumanely and all too often feels no responsibility for the environment. Hmm. I still feel kind of guilty.

OK, now for my shameless link posting. And yes, it's to yet another of my favorite feminist blogs. Are you ready for Twisty?:

"So, if a fully-realized human can’t compel another fully-realized human to give out kidneys, how can a microscopic bit of tissue compel a fully-realized human to cede over her uterus? Even if one defines the zygote as a fully-realized human (which it isn’t, but that’s another sordid tale), how in the name of Cool Whip are its rights to be construed as greater than the rights of the woman whose body must be appropriated as its incubator? I say again, even if the clot of undeveloped cell tissue is human, it cannot be more human than an adult woman, nor can it have the right to force any woman to acquiesce to an invasive parasitization against her will."

Ahh, Twisty, how I love thee... A must read if you're interested in the organ donor analogy (kidney: kidney patient:: uterus: embryo).

Eek. Selling off over 300,000 acres of public land? Including 85,000 acres of California'a National Forest property? Does anyone else find this completely ridiculous, short-sighted, and politically suspect? Can we please NOT diminish public lands any further, giving way inevitably to yet more strip malls, more housing developments, and more land cordoned off with "no trespassing" signs? Why are public lands important? Because we all don't have millions of dollars to buy ourselves ranches with enough land to never see a neighbor. Some of us, believe it or not, actually enjoy seeing and experiencing unspoiled and undeveloped land (rather than seeing dollar signs for every tree).

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2006/02/america-for-saleliterally.html

Ahh, an article for all of us who combine OCD with a healthy aversion to germs:

"For this project, Jasmine visited five fast food restaurants near the University of South Florida. She collected ice samples from self-service dispensers inside the restaurants, as well as ice from drinks served through drive-through windows. She also collected samples of toilet water from those restaurants.

She placed the samples into sterile containers and tested them at a lab at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, where she volunteers with a USF professor.

Jasmine found that in four of the five restaurants, the ice that came from the self-serve machines had more bacteria than the toilet water. Three of the five cups of ice from the drive-through windows had more bacteria than the toilet water.

Of the bacteria found in the ice, three out of the five restaurants tested positive for fecal coliform or E. coli, organisms that come from the feces of warm-blooded animals."

Whoa, how the hell are the "feces of warm-blooded animals" getting into restaurant ice?! Ick.

http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBQOZP9MJE.html

So this would be... Reason #4309 why NOT to support the fast food business. Or, at least, to avoid the ice machines.

(Thanks to Andrew for the link)

OK, so I was taking a shower, and this quote kept going through my head, and I just had to post it while we're still thinking of Doug Anglin. Here's Anglin at the height of his eloquency:

"But he said: 'I'm not here to try to lower the rights of women or interfere with the rights of minorities. We just want to fix this one problem that we think is a big deal.' "

OK. I just have to say: We'll get to your "big deal" after we fix the following much more pressing learning inequities in this country (what would Doug call them? "Really big deals"?):

1. The fact that African American, Latino, and Native American children face performance gaps in school (check out this link: http://www.fwps.org/info/press/0001/010529gap.html)

2. The rising costs of college for those of us who DON'T come from solidly middle class families (and the budget cuts in federal aid programs). Oh, and while we're at it, the lost ground that many children of lower class families have to make up for once they reach school (because not everyone has parents who can help them with every school assignment).

3. The fact that female students, around the age of puberty, mysteriously start falling behind in math.

4. The consistent societal barriers that women face in getting equal treatment at work (promotions, salaries). The fact that women seem to be the new

5. The challenges faced by those with physical disabilities and actual learning disabilities.

I could go on. But suffice to say, I'd rather see these problems addressed, before dealing with Doug's desire to get grades for his ability to play sports.

Some really interesting blog posts highlighting the new "victimization sweepstakes."

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2006/02/04/boys-achievement-crisis/

http://pandagon.net/2006/01/26/daring-white-boy-rebels-strike-for-stupidity/

And, if you want to see the article that sparked the blogging, here you go:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/01/26/schoolboys_bias_suit/?page=1

Ironically enough, white men are claiming that schools have become so "feminized" as to devalue "male characteristics." Suddenly, sitting at a desk is a "female" task. Funny, I wonder if those complaining have looked into the history of schooling, because, call me crazy, but I believe our modern day education system springs directly out of what was designed by, and for, well-off Western white men.

Somehow, the idea of discrimination against middle class white men doesn't hold much water with me. Maybe because I had a high school teacher joke to my face that I was "getting my MRS degree" at MHC because of a major and minor in English/ Spanish. Yeah, Bob Level didn't QUITE catch on to the fact that I attended a freaking WOMEN'S COLLEGE. Not exactly going to college looking to capture a husband. [Mr. Level also overlooked the fact that I had worked my ass off to get into a good college, and that I planned on going to graduate school. Mr. Level seemed to be behind the times, not remembering that in my graduation year, there were 8 valedictorians -- all of us women. We weren't particularly "favored" by the system. We all did the work to get to that point, taking risks with our GPAs to take the AP courses.]

Anyway, back to the news story that's linked above.

Basically, a white, middle-class male high school student is claiming he's been discriminated against in school. What's the solution? As you might have guessed, it doesn't involve Mr. Doug Anglin putting in more hours at studying a foreign language or calculus. No, Anglin astutely proposes that standards be lowered. And luckily, coming from a fairly privileged family, he can run to daddy:

"Anglin -- whose complaint was written by his father, who is a lawyer in Boston -- is looking for broader changes. He says that teachers must change their attitudes toward boys and look past boys' poor work habits or rule-breaking to find ways to encourage them academically."

OK, so we should get over "poor work habits." Yes, they must be "intrinsically male qualities," which males simply can't help. I'm confused -- we should ignore bad behavior (that often bullies other students)? Do we really want to propose that there are unalterable, essential qualities that break down by sex? With all the attention and theorizing on how gender is constructed, essentializing (and stereotyping) male/female traits is dangerous and unscientific (not to mention anachronistic).

As appalling as all this might sound, Anglin's father goes a step further:

"Gerry Anglin, Doug Anglin's father, said the school system should compensate boys for the discrimination by boosting their grades retroactively.

''If you are a victim of discrimination in the workplace, what do they do? They give you more money or they give you a promotion," Gerry Anglin said. ''Most of these kids want to go to college, so these records are important to them." "

Does anyone else find this downright offensive? Boosting grades retroactively?? I'm sorry, but if you want the grades, then work for them. As the other bloggers point out, when female students underperform in math and science, the solution is never "let's think about how we're favoring male students," it's always "let's get females up to the standard we've set." But here, somehow, we should lower the standards? Anglin the younger even proposes dropping community service requirements that are currently in place to graduate, simply because "it's another burden that will just set off resistance from boys, who may skip it and fail to graduate as a result." WHAT? Are you KIDDING me? Get off your ass and do something for the community you're a part of, and then go home and do your G*# d*#%ed homework!

Why should society lower its standards (sure, don't worry about being a productive member of your community; and actually, who cares about study habits?) because the most privileged people in it are falling behind when the playing field is more level? This high school student sees, everyday, that the people in the most powerful positions in society are white men (government -- hell, look at our freaking Supreme Court, CEOs, etc.). And the well documented "glass ceiling" means that many women don't rise up in the ranks of businesses as men do. Oh, AND women STILL earn 70% of what men earn. So please, spare me the victimization crap. Instead of filing a lawsuit, why don't you find some studying skills that work for you?

File under: Another blatant attempt to avoid taking responsibility for one's own actions.

Ok, so, I was taking yet another break in reading The Tempest, and I found in the Feministe archives the most hilarious thing: The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005.

Link:
http://www.buffalobeast.com/91/50.htm

Here's my favorite:

"1. Pat Robertson

Charges: If Pat Robertson’s local Starbucks caught fire, he would claim that God was punishing them for giving him a caramel latte when he ordered vanilla. Robertson has always been a demonic charlatan with the credibility of Miss Cleo and a lust for Armageddon in his vile, rat-toad heart, but this was really his year to shine. In 2005, Robertson called on God to vacate seats in the Supreme Court (the almighty obliged, killing Rehnquist), advocated assassinating Hugo Chavez, said ‘judicial activists’ were a more serious threat to America than terrorists, called criticism of the war treason, said John Roberts should be thankful for Hurricane Katrina, which he implied was “connected” to Roe v. Wade, attributed Ariel Sharon’s stroke to divine retribution for the Gaza pullout, said “the Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today,” and implied that God would wipe the residents of Dover, PA off the map for rejecting Creationism. Not to mention raising huge sums of cash from his zombie army, much of which is diverted from his charity operations to his business interests, including African diamond mines. Has long advocated that America simply ignore the Supreme Court. Robertson’s God is an insecure, misogynistic, homicidal fanatic—just like Pat.

Exhibit A: Vehemently opposed to voluntary abortion in America, but okay with forced abortion in China, where his cable investments depend on the good graces of the government.

Sentence: Repeatedly struck by lightning."

So I'm reading The Pickwick Papers in Prof. Woloch's class (Realisms & Anti-Realisms), and I keep coming upon these magnificent moments. These two have some strangely similar elements...

The Pickwickians visit a town during a spirited election campaign:

"'Who is Slumkey?' whispered Mr Tupman.

'I don't know,' replied Mr Pickwick in the same tone. 'Hush. Don't ask any questions. It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.'

'But suppose there are two mobs?' suggested Mr Snodgrass.

'Shout with the largest,' replied Mr Pickwick." (167)


The Pickwickians go bird shooting:

"'What's the matter with the dogs' legs?' whispered Mr Winkle. 'How queer they're standing.'

'Hush, can't you? replied Wardle, softly. 'Don't you see, they're making a point?'

'Making a point!' said Mr Winkle, staring about him, as if he expected to discover some particular beauty in the landscape, which the sagacious animals were calling special attention to. 'Making a point! What are they pointing at?'" (248)

Ahh I love it.

(The page numbers are to the Penguin edition. Note to Penguin: It would be wise to print in larger than 9 point font.)

There's a great op-ed piece in the NYT today, "Jurassic Pork." I just had to paste an excerpt because it's written by a fellow at the Hoover Institution (yes, as in, Stanford's right-wing think tank), Kori Schake (a prof. at West Point). Her bio. also credits her as the director of "defense strategy and requirements at the National Security Council" 2002-5.

"THE military budget for the 2007 fiscal year clocks in at $439.3 billion. And that doesn't include the $120 billion that reflects the real cost of the war. We have a behemoth defense budget that inadequately addresses the top national security threats."

Schake goes on to say that she's convinced increasing the military budget so drastically was a mistake. As suggested by the title, she finds the priorities not in line with reality (not a huge surprise):

"Mr. Rumsfeld disparages his opponents as industrial age dinosaurs. Yet this is precisely the approach of this latest defense budget: it continues programs and practices that have been made obsolete by technology, innovation and field experience."

Basically, the administration that runs on fear (remember all the claims of "protecting Americans"?) is actually not even doing a very good job of addressing the threats to the US. This fits right in line with the Center for American Progress's giving the Bush administration a failing grade (D+) in homeland security.

So as billions of dollars go toward a defense budget that experts call "pork," everyday Americans are going without healthcare and seeing slashes in education spending. I think it's time to reprioritize, both in how the military spends its money, and in how we allocate funds.

[Thanks to Ken for the gender correction -- I'm afraid that after having a male roommate named Kory, I'm doomed to always picture a very, very tall blonde man when I hear that name.)

An interesting look at the tragedies caused by Poland's strict abortion laws, which have become even more strict in practice than in the books. Women are being forced to carry on pregnancies despite prenatal testing that reveals severe disabilities, or risks to the woman's health. There's also a sad story about a woman who died during an illegal abortion, because her doctor was afraid of the legal ramifications for bringing his patient to the nearby emergency room. Luckily, more women seem to be speaking up about this problem. Also, with the recent case of a woman who is now basically blind from a pregnancy that she was forced to carry out, despite her eye doctor's recommendation for an abortion, it seems that the rest of Europe is starting to take notice. Very sobering considering our now mostly white male Catholic Supreme court.

http://www.federa.org.pl/english/news/tribunal/shana_penn.htm

So I just got back from Jing Jing's (followed by gelato!) w/ a group from the studio, and Andrew, who seems now to be pursuing a career in special effects, sent me a lovely picture of his culinary creation:


Andrew: i made fresh spring rolls!!
Me: wow
Me: beautiful
Andrew: hehe, well i staged that a little to hide the fact that one sorta burst and another was losing some of its innards
Andrew: i wonder if romero used rice vermicelli for intestines...
Andrew: but i made the sauce and even sprinkled chopped peanuts on top
Me: hahaha

Email the president about the budget bill that includes a $12 billion cut to student loans, and which just squeaked through a House vote:

http://www.studentaidaction.com/aid.asp?id=1157

It's that horrible in-between time in my room -- the sun is just setting outside, but it's too dark to read without turning on a light indoors. I've been doing laundry, and keep getting these bouts of mhc(home)-sickness. I think it was a combination of seeing a silver car parked out in front of the building (reminded me of Monday mornings in front of the Delles, watching Andrew drive off to work) and then noticing the slanting sunlight coming into the hallway from the entryway (ahh, so much like the golden color in my old dorm room facing west). And then it didn't help that I had a mix CD on from Jaime, which reminded me of junior year... ahh!

Anyway, I have been pretty horrible about writing things down here. I never updated on the last week of adventures while Andrew was here (lots of eating out -- Darbar, Pizza My Heart, Coldstone (dear LORD the cake batter is SO GOOD)), or on weekend activities (like last week's trip to a pizza place in Menlo Park for Megan's birthday). Hmm.

The big ventures off campus seem to correspond with activities planned by our CA's. About a week and a half ago, I went to the SF symphony and met some interesting chemistry folks (we listened to Michael Bolton on the way back in the car -- ironically, of course). I decided that I have no ear for music. Which might explain why I didn't have the self discipline to continue taking piano lessons back in the day. We caught performances of Stravinsky's Petrushka (apparently there's a storyline; might have helped to have known that prior, because I had no idea what to picture) and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor (for those of you who know what this is). Anyway, it did almost nothing for me. I was more interested in the architecture of the space. I kept expecting images to pop into my head, but I had nothing. I was thinking of Fantasia, but the little dancing mushrooms really only belong in that context. Oh well.

Anyway, the more appropriate-to-Becky excursion was this last Sunday. I went to Ano Nuevo w/ Jessica's event, which is this hang out on the coast for lots and lots of elephant seals. They're huge. They don't exactly excel at getting around on land -- they basically throw their bulk forward and then pull. Luckily for them, it seems they don't need to move much in the first place. Most of them were dozing in the sand, periodically flipping little flipperfuls of sand over their backs. Bizarre noises -- the males seem capable of only one noise: gutteral burp-like expressions. Crazy. Anyway, on the way back our group stopped off at a lighthouse for lunch, sat on the porch overlooking the ocean.

This weekend is going to be ridiculous. About 600 pages of reading (which is actually less than last week). Argh.

Interesting article... You'd think that a vaccine against HPV, which can lead to certical cancer in women and can be transmitted even with the use of a condom, would be a VERY GOOD THING. So why are some conservatives reluctant about the vaccines being used? Because, naturally, once you're vaccinated against something, you of course just can't wait to expose yourself to it! As pointed out on the Feministe blog (Zuzu points out that children don't exactly go rolling in rusty nails just because they've had a tetanus shot), the logic doesn't really hold.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17950773-36398,00.html

I just have to pass along this great posting from the Feministe blog:

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2006/01/25/your-priorities-are-showing/

A new blogger to the site, going by Zuzu, highlights the ideology which permeates the FDA's decisions in approving certain medications for over-the-counter use. Apparently this diet drug (which would be called Alli) is used to block the absorption of fat. It doesn't have a very good track record, and produces rather disgusting and embarrassing side effects (no big surprise: the body wasn't meant to pass fat out through the digestive tract). And, it can be dangerous when taken with certain other medications. Also, as we can all imagine, it has a VERY high potential to be abused by teen girls (wait, where have we heard that one before?) Despite this, the FDA is approving it.

This might not seem like that big a deal, until you compare it with the FDA's much more publicized denial of Plan B's petition to be sold over the counter. As Zuzu points out (but I'll sum up in case you don't feel like reading the posting), Plan B has a very good track record, is very effective with few if any side effects, and has the approval of most everyone in the scientific community (even the FDA advisory board). (As a side note, I remember my gynecologist getting quite worked up over the FDA's denial of Plan B.) However, a higher up in the FDA, on pure ideology, blocked Plan B's path to being sold over the counter. Why? Because it could be abused by teen girls. (I think this is interesting, I mean, wouldn't we rather a teen use Plan B than later end up having an abortion?!)

Anyway, it's interesting that we're willing for teens to hurt themselves in the pursuit of becoming skinny, but we won't give them a safe way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy (or an abortion later down the line).

A condensed version of a conversation w/ Andrew:

Andrew: I think I'm going to watch tv now.

Me: Don't you have any homework?

Andrew: Well...I did some reading before on the couch. I have like 50 pages to read by Tues.

Me: 50 pages?...

Andrew: laughs

Me: I hope you have horrible midterms!

Andrew: I don't have any midterms.

Ahh, how did I end up taking 3 classes that assign around 700 pages of reading per week??