The growing practice of embryo eugenics. By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

"Once you screen for one gene, it's tempting to screen for others. The woman who's targeting arthritis, for example, added that gene to an already-planned test. Another patient, described in the same article, set out to scan his embryos for colon cancer and ended up chucking two more for Down syndrome. 'You kind of feel like you shouldn't be doing it,' his wife confessed. 'But then why would we go through all of this and not take those extra precautions?' Soon, you're hunting even for dormant genes. A PGD technique unveiled three months ago can find genes that won't harm your child but might, if combined with other genes, cause disease in a later generation. British patients are already asking clinics to filter out embryos carrying such genes."

Stories of this nature have been around for ages, although the details and the numbers coming out now are clearly more than anecdotal. As much as I try, I don't know how I feel about this issue. It really is very morally, ethically confusing. Anyone else?

U.S. Health-Care System Gets a "D" - Yahoo! News

"The U.S. health-care system is doing poorly by virtually every measure. That's the conclusion of a national report card on the U.S. health-care system, released Sept. 20. Although there are pockets of excellence, the report, commissioned by the non-profit and non-partisan Commonwealth Fund, gave the U.S. system low grades on outcomes, quality of care, access to care, and efficiency, compared to other industrialized nations or generally accepted standards of care. Bottom line: U.S. health care barely passes with an overall grade of 66 out of 100. "

ugh

"'Deliver Us From Evil' focuses on a northern California priest, Father Oliver O'Grady, who admits on camera to being an active pedophile who was harbored by the church for more than 30 years. Lionsgate will release it on October 13."

I don't know if I could watch this.

Confessions of an Ex-Mortgage Lender - Yahoo! News

"Confession Time.
The strategy of lenders, he learned, is to maintain an uneven playing field with their clients. 'The average person only gets a mortgage every seven years. How can you become good at something you do every seven years, especially if you're dealing with somebody who knows all the ins and outs and is doing this several times a day?' he recently told BusinessWeek.com.
After a year of putting up with what he felt was the industry's lack of integrity, Janusz left the business for good. Still, he felt he was privy to information that the public rarely gets to see. He vented his frustrations -- and spilled his guts -- in the 2005 book Kickback: Confessions of a Mortgage Salesman (Insight).
The book details the sophisticated traps lenders set for clients they see as suckers. 'If somebody came in wearing cowboy boots and ripped-up jeans, those are the people you took to the cleaners on fees. That was the unwritten rule -- we were looking for people we'd see as having less-than-perfect credit.'"

Backstory: 'St. Jack' hits the religious right - Yahoo! News

"It's not discomfort with religious values in public life that's behind his new drive, the senator insists, but concern that religion is being used to deliberately divide Americans. Politics practiced rightly is the glue that keeps a diverse nation together and the catalyst that moves it forward, he believes. Yet today the political arena is plagued by rancor and incapable of resolving the most crucial issues confronting America. He sees a link between that unhappy state and the power of Christian conservatives within his own party. He's stirring a ruckus, he hopes, so that others will speak up."

European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

"Enormous losses at one of the nation's largest hedge funds resurrected worries yesterday that major bets by these secretive, unregulated investment partnerships could create widespread financial disruptions.
The hedge fund, Amaranth Advisors, based in Greenwich, Conn., made an estimated $1 billion on rising energy prices last year. Yesterday, the fund told its investors that it had lost more than $3 billion in the recent downturn in natural gas and that it was working with its lenders and selling its holdings 'to protect our investors.'"

women scientists and penis transplants

Hello all,

Sorry I haven't posted anything. I am completely swamped by a job I migh tnot have in a couple of months. Here is a link to Broadsheet which continues to post. Hope everyone is doing well and talking like a pirate.

Regards,
Siobhan

Daily Kos: If the light of hope dances and curls about your spine

"All things by immortal power,
Near and Far
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star."
Francis Thompson quotes "

Germans reconsider religion

"'Christianity, and nothing else,' he wrote, 'is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [to Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.'"

Ten reasons we already miss Ann Richards

Ann Richards, the famously silver-tongued and silver-haired former governor of Texas, died Wednesday from complications of esophageal cancer. She was 73. Here's just some of what we'll remember and miss about her:
1. Richards used her wit not only to disarm her political opponents but to encourage other women to get into politics: "Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics," she said.
2. As a homemaker raising four kids, Richards became politically involved by volunteering on campaigns, including helping elect Sarah Weddington, the 25-year-old lawyer who had successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court, to the Texas House. Richards called Weddington the first "out-and-out feminist activist" she'd ever met, according to the Washington Post.
3. Two years after undergoing rehab for alcoholism in 1982, Richards was elected state treasurer, making her the first woman elected to a statewide post in Texas in 50 years. Of her return from addiction, she said: "I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it."
4. When Richards gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 1988 -- where she zinged the elder George Bush -- "Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth" -- she also reminded the audience that she was only the second woman to give the keynote address at the convention in 160 years. The first was Barbara Jordan.
5. Richards may have lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush in 1994, but she beat another rich Texas oilman in her first governor's race: Clayton "Claytie" Williams, who during the campaign compared rape to the weather: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." That race was dubbed a match between "Claytie and the Lady," in which "the Lady" prevailed by a narrow margin. Sixty-one percent of women voters supported her, and she became the second woman ever to be governor of Texas.
6. As a feminist, Richards championed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Texas. She led workshops for women campaign managers and political candidates before being elected to office herself. When she became the first woman in half a century to serve as governor, she celebrated by holding up a T-shirt that showed the State Capitol and read: "A woman's place is in the dome."
7. As governor, Richards made it a priority to appoint more women, African-Americans and Hispanics to state boards than any previous Texas governor. Before she left office in 1995, she said: "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'" According to KWTX-TV she appointed "the first black University of Texas regent; the first crime victim to join the state Criminal Justice Board; the first disabled person to serve on the human services board; and the first teacher to lead the State Board of Education."
8. For her 60th birthday, Richards got a license to ride a motorcycle.
9. Late in life, Richards continued her advocacy for reproductive freedom. Appearing at a pro-choice rally in Austin in 2003, she denounced the influence of "a small group of religious right-wingers" on the Bush administration's policies and on Texas' abstinence-only sex education programs. One of her daughters, Cecile Richards, is now president of Planned Parenthood.
10. In her later years, Richards established the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, which will open in 2007. Her family requests that memorial gifts be made to the school, through the Austin Community Foundation.
There'll never be another Ann Richards, but here's hoping her school graduates generations of her successors.
-- Katharine Mieszkowski

Daily Kos: WSJ on Bush economy: when in hole, stop digging

Seriously, for those of you making large economic decisions, read this. it is disturbing.

italian vogue pictures

Ok so I have received much feedback on these pictures that challenges my original assessment of them as inherently offensive. I think they are supposeded to be politically charged photos. I think they are degrading, but maybe that is the point..a police state is degrading, challenged by the fact that the models face don't express that they are being degraded. It's confusing but I retract my inital assessment.

heh heh

"'We met with the wives and girlfriends of gang members and they were worried some were not handing over their guns and that is where they came up with the idea of a vigil or a sex strike,' the mayor's spokesman told Reuters news agency.
'The message they are giving them is disarm,' he added.
Studies found that local gang members were drawn to criminality by the desire for status, power, and sexual attractiveness, not economic necessity, Colombian radio reported.
One of the girlfriends, Jennifer Bayer, told Britain's Guardian newspaper: 'We want them to know that violence is not sexy.'
Ms Bayer said the women had come up with a strike anthem rap song that included the lyrics: 'As women we are worth a lot. We don't want to fall for violent men because with them we lose too much.' "

Can we build a sane citadel somewhere?

Mars Hill wrests future converts searching for identity and purpose from the dominion of available sex and drugs that still make post-grunge Seattle a countercultural destination. Driscoll promises his followers they don't have to reprogram their iTunes catalog along with their beliefs -- culture from outside the Christian fold isn't just tolerated here, it's cherished. Hipster culture is what sweetens the proverbial Kool-Aid, which parishioners here seem to gulp by the gallon. This is a land where housewives cradle babies in tattooed arms, where young men balance responsibilities as breadwinners in their families and lead guitarists in their local rock bands, and where biblical orthodoxy rules as strictly as in Hasidism or Opus Dei.
Following Driscoll's biblical reading of prescribed gender roles, women quit their jobs and try to have as many babies as possible. And these are no mere women who fear independence, who are looking to live by the simple tenets of fundamentalist credo, enforced by a commanding husband: many of the women of Mars Hill reluctantly abandon successful lives lived on their own terms to serve their husbands and their Lord. Accountability and community is ballasted by intricately organized cells -- gender-isolated support groups that form a social life as warm and tight as swaddling clothes, or weekly coed sermon studies and family dinner parties that provide further insulation against the secular world. Parents share child care, realtors share clients, teachers share lesson plans, animé buffs share DVDs, and bands share songs.

If I were a better human I would give up sushi....

"'There is almost no more bluefin tuna to be fished in some of the oldest fishing grounds, especially in West Mediterranean,' the group said in a statement in which it called on the European Union to ban commercial fishing during the breeding season."

I think...

maybe sometimes that reality scares me.

link to actual photos. creepy photos

I wish I could say it as well-Billmon Does it brilliantly

The Sixteen Acre Ditch
Five years after 9/11, this is what Ground Zero looks like (or will, once the NYFD removes the jerry-rigged memorial "pool" it created for Shrub's photo op):
Five years after Sept. 11, 2001, ground zero remains a 16-acre, 70-foot-deep hole in the heart of Lower Manhattan. High above it, a scaffolded bank building, contaminated during the attack, hulks like a metal skeleton, waiting endlessly to be razed . . ."The problem," as John C. Whitehead, 84, the former chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, said baldly in an interview last spring, "is the 16-acre ditch."
If you had told me, five years ago, that on the fifth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history Ground Zero would still be nothing but an enormous hole in the ground, I wouldn't have believed you -- just as I wouldn't have believed that a major American city could be thoroughly trashed by a Category 4 hurricane and then left to moulder in the mud for a year while various federal, state and local bureaucrats and hack politicians tried to make up their minds what to do.
I would have said that while those kinds of things can and do happen in Third World kleptocracies or decaying Stalinist police states, they're simply not possible in the richest and most powerful nation in history. Even if the voters could somehow be bamboozled into accepting such incompetence, the wealthy elites and corporate technocrats who own and operate the world's only remaining superpower would never stand for it.
You can learn a lot about a country in five years.
What I've learned (from 9/11, the corporate scandals, the fiasco in Iraq, Katrina, the Cheney Administration's insane economic and environmental policies and the relentless dumbing down of the corporate media -- plus the repeated electoral triumphs of the Rovian brand of "reality management") is that the United States is moving down the curve of imperial decay at an amazingly rapid clip. If anything, the speed of our descent appears to be accelerating.
The physical symptoms -- a lost war, a derelict city, a Potemkin memorial hastily erected in a vacant lot -- aren't nearly as alarming as the moral and intellectual paralysis that seems to have taken hold of the system. The old feedback mechanisms are broken or in deep disrepair, leaving America with an opposition party that doesn't know how (or what) to oppose, a military run by uniformed yes men, intelligence czars who couldn't find their way through a garden gate with a GPS locator, TV networks that don't even pretend to cover the news unless there's a missing white woman or a suspected child rapist involved, and talk radio hosts who think nuking Mecca is the solution to all our problems in the Middle East. We've got think tanks that can't think, security agencies that can't secure and accounting firms that can't count (except when their clients ask them to make 2+2=5). Our churches are either annexes to shopping malls, halfway homes for pederasts, or GOP precinct headquarters in disguise. Our economy is based on asset bubbles, defense contracts and an open-ended line of credit from the People's Bank of China, and we still can't push the poverty rate down or the median wage up.
I could happily go on, but I imagine you get my point. It's hard to think of a major American institution, tradition or cultural value that has not, at some point over the past five years, been shown to be a.) totally out of touch, b.) criminally negligent, c.) hopelessly corrupt, d.) insanely hypocritical or e.) all of the above.
It's getting hard to see how these trends can be reversed. Maybe they can't (which would explain why all empires, at least so far, have eventually declined and fallen.) In the past I've used the economic concept of market failure to describe the process whereby dissident voices and uncomfortable views are gradually weeded out of the "marketplace of ideas," allowing errors to go uncorrected, lies to go unchallenged (or ignored) and ideological orthodoxy to calcify into self-delusion:
Watching the punditocracy spin its ideological wheels these days, it's hard not to be reminded of the later years of the Soviet Union -- a nation dedicated to proposition that the marketplace of ideas should never be allowed to clear. As the system declined into senility it, too, became increasingly detached from reality. Soviet pundits and academic ideologues churned out reams of bad ideas and stupid policies. Soviet Krauthammers advised the Politburo to invade Afghanistan. ("It will be a cakewalk.") Soviet [James] Glassmans told it to crank up the central planning. ("Traditional capitalist measures of valuation mean nothing.")
When the public discourse on Edward R. Murrow's old network consists of Katie Couric introducing Rush Limbaugh's buffoonish views, you know the intellectual and ideological rot is well advanced -- maybe not quite as far as the Soviet Union in the '80s, but getting there. One of my favorite books about the Soviet collapse was titled "The Age of Delirium" which I think perfectly captured the progressive insanity of a system that could no longer even understand, much less believe, its own lies. I think of that book practically every time George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld open their mouths in public.
Some time ago, back when I still had comments on this blog, a jihadi sympathizer left a note on one of my posts bragging about his movement's success in taking down the Soviets -- just as the armies of the Prophet succeeded in taking down the Persian Empire. The new Rome (that is, us) would be next, he boasted.
At the time I thought it was daft -- exactly the kind of thing a crazed religious fanatic would say. But these days I'm not so sure. The jihadis in Afghanistan didn't really take down the Soviet empire -- they just delivered a very hard punch to a giant that was already falling. Looking at the state of America five years after 9/11, it no longer seems completely implausible that the same thing might one day be said of us.
This is not, I know, the most inspiring way to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the event that essentially kicked off the new American century -- which at this point seems unlikely to last even a decade. If you want the standard patriotic rhetoric (hallowed ground, blessings of democracy, forward strategy for freedom, etc.) you'll have no trouble finding it elsewhere. There's no shortage of the stuff today (whitehouse.gov is a good place to start). But I personally don't think the record of the past half decade (or the current condition of Ground Zero) really justifies that kind of self-serving, self-justifying pablum.
Do you?

They go after their own

"The group, which advocates tax cuts, free trade and limited government, has raised more than $700,000 for Chafee's conservative challenger and helped put the moderate senator at risk in Tuesday's Republican primary in Rhode Island."

Seriously you would think that the available polling would tell them to back off their own, but alas these nutjobs don't get how much trouble they are in.

Zoroastrians Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling - New York Times

"There is a palpable panic among Zoroastrians today - not only in the United States, but also around the world - that they are fighting the extinction of their faith, a monotheistic religion that most scholars say is at least 3,000 years old. "

Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam, and many historians say it influenced those faiths and cross-fertilized Judaism as well, with its doctrines of one God, a dualistic universe of good and evil and a final day of judgment.

Microbes can clean up toxic waste dumps

"Microbes found in old waste sites in Australia not only tolerate lethal soil and water cocktails created by waste petroleum and chlorine, but can break them down so they no longer threaten humans, the scientist said on Friday.
'We have isolated bacteria which can live on those waste compounds,' Megha Mallavarapu, from a government-backed environmental research center based in South Australia state, told Reuters."

The 30-year-old virgins

"Some people may think Amanda is unique, maybe even a freak. But the fact is, there are a surprising number of women -- smart, savvy and attractive women -- who still haven't lost their virginity into their 20s or 30s. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, 7 percent of unmarried women between ages 25 and 29 have never had sex; neither have 5 percent between 30 and 34 and 4.3 percent between 35 and 39. It's hard to say how many of these women are actually waiting until marriage, but it's safe to assume that quite a few aren't. This month Jane magazine is sponsoring a contest to get a 29-year-old virgin laid, a cheap publicity stunt that misses the bigger point: Why does a 'funny, gorgeous' virgin need to place what is essentially an ad for sex at all? There was time when virginity was a prize, a treasure to be guarded and a badge of honor, but now, it seems that for the modern career woman virginity is nothing but a curse. What's worse, the longer she waits the harder it is to find a guy -- not just the right guy, but any guy -- to do the honors. Which prompts the question, Has the sexual revolution ironically made it impossible for a mature woman to get laid for the first time? "

Scientists see new global warming threat

"As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.
Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said."

Wow

"A new study of nearly 6 million births has found that 'the risk of deaths to newborns delivered by voluntary Caesarean section is much higher than previously believed,' the New York Times reports. The study, which will be published in this month's issue of Birth: Issues in Prenatal Care, is particularly important because, according to its authors, it is the first to examine the risk of cesarean delivery among low-risk mothers 'who have no known medical reason for the operation.' "

My hope springs eternal

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”
And so good night, and good luck.

From Keith Olberman's countdown last night. You can see it from crooks and liars and the link goes to the script. It is heartening in a way that I feel has been sorely lacking. Possibly, finally we have a national voice calling out that the emperor has no clothes on.

Bastards

"BOSTON - The level of nicotine found in U.S. cigarettes has risen about 10 percent in the past six years, making it harder to quit and easier to get hooked, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Department of Health"

Please Joss, say it ain't so!

"Katherine McPhee, last season's 'American Idol' runner-up, is reportedly being considered for a film version of 'Wonder Woman.'
The screenplay for the Joss Whedon film is expected to be finished by the end of 2006, the New York Post reported Wednesday. "

Too many men could mean more violence

"Although healthcare for women is generally improving, these advances have been offset by a huge increase in the use of sex-selective abortion, and there are now an estimated 80 million missing females in India and China alone, says Hesketh.
When there is a shortage of women, the women can 'marry up' and inevitably the least desirable men have no marriage prospects, according to the study published in the published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

What we need?

"Orb of Influence
Ages are believed by some to affect mankind. For Aquarius (also called 'the Water bearer'), it is reported we have already been feeling influences - titled Orb of Influence (the last ten degrees backwards of the Age of Pisces) - in the accelerated individual, social, cultural, scientific and technological development and globalization through the 20th century. This view is consistent with the popular notion of the New Age movement that regards current times as the 'dawning of the Aquarian Age'.
On the other hand, the Aquarian Age is thought to bring with it an era of universal brotherhood rooted in reason where it will be possible to solve social problems in a manner equitable to all and with greater opportunity for intellectual and spiritual improvement, since Aquarius is an airy, scientific, and intellectual sign and its ruler planet, Uranus, is associated with intuition (knowledge above reason) and direct perceptions of the heart; and on the mundane level it rules electricity and technology. It is generally described by astrologers that in the Age of Aquarius there will be a blending of religion and science to such a degree that a religious science and a scientific religion will be formed.
Eastern astrology associates the Age of Pisces with the yin; i.e., spirituality and intuition. Aquarius, on the other hand represents the yang, with its emphasis on rationality and high technology."

Study: Teacher's gender affects learning - Yahoo! News

"WASHINGTON - For all the differences between the sexes, here's one that might stir up debate in the teacher's lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women."

For example, with a female teacher, boys were more likely to be seen as disruptive. Girls were less likely to be considered inattentive or disorderly.
In a class taught by a man, girls were more likely to say the subject was not useful for their future. They were less likely to look forward to the class or to ask questions.

Daily Kos: How a Housing Slowdown Will Cause a Recession: UPDATE

"More specifically, Witter's expectations are colored by rather disturbing data:
� 32.6% of new mortgages and home-equity loans in 2005 were interest only, up from 0.6% in 2000;
� 43% of first-time home buyers in 2005 put no money down;
� 15.2% of 2005 buyers owe at least 10% more than their home is worth (negative equity);
� 10% of all home owners with mortgages have no equity in their homes (zero equity);
� $2.7 trillion dollars in loans will adjust to higher rates in 2006 and 2007."

AIDS Crisis Shapes Bishop's Stance

"'You should come up with a position which makes sense and which is in sync with the values we espouse, a nonjudgmental God and the infinite worth of a human being,' Dowling said. 'Moral injunctions do not help people. I think all this calls for a rethink and the acceptance of an authentic pro-life stance. The issue becomes: How do you protect life in this pandemic?'
He said it was important for the credibility of the church to be there for everyone. 'Once it is possible in a moral principle to make room to save lives,' he said, 'my position extends to women and girl children who are subject to all kinds of abuse.'
'Abstinence is fine as an ideal, but it does not work in all circumstances,' he added. 'We have to try a more holistic approach, a theology and possibility for people to encounter God right within their situation.'"

Weddings and fear at Pandagon

That they often don’t speak up until the women have worn themselves out worrying is a great example of how those with power will relinquish it reluctantly. Wicoff’s husband sounds like a good guy generallly but even he was unwillling to propose for six whole months after an episode she bravely describes that ended with her sobbing and sobbing with frustration because while she and he were both sure they would get married, he just wouldn’t ask. The power of being able to determine when this would happen was so intoxicating that even a good man was unable to let go of it, even though he was humiliating the woman he loved. Don’t underestimate the allure of power, in other words.
Apparently, this scene with the woman sobbing and begging for a relief to the end of her anxious wait was played out with the vast majority of women Wicoff interviewed. The humiliation of this scene is such that one eagerly seeks easy solutions to relieve women of it, but as Wicoff explains eloquently how it ends up being so unavoidable for most women who get married or want to. Perhaps women could do the asking? That isn’t an answer, because in our society as it is, if a woman asks she’s seen as desperate. And, as Wicoff notes, feminism has even been co-opted to keep women from pressing for marriage. Her husband, for instance, responded to her pressure for a proposal by accusing her of not being feminist enough and being clingy. Every avenue a woman seeks for relief presents another humiliation. According to Wicoff’s interviews, many if not most of the women ended up issuing a veiled ultimatium in order to get relief from the anxious wait, were forced to make it clear to their husbands that if these men didn’t give up the power they enjoyed to keep women anxiously waiting, the women would play their final card and leave the relationship.

Weddings and marriage have been the topic of a lot of conversation on my trip this week and once again Amanda kicks ass at walking through why the whole thing is so deeply unsettling. The whole post is great.

fabulous

"The residents just thought it was a pretty weed and so they decided to nurture it,' department spokeswoman Susan Quayle told Reuters by telephone."

Best quote yet

"It's still a dangerous situation because you still have fire and you still have explosives and the two don't mix very well,' said Ed Baswell, a spokesman for the Bossier Parish Sheriff's office.'"

I mean really if you think about it they mix very well:)

Gawker CliffsNotes: "Don't Marry Career Women" - Gawker

"We realize that many of you lead busy lives; some of you are so busy, in fact, that you probably lack the time to read Forbes' 'Stay Away From the Smart Bitches' piece. In that spirit, we've put together a brief summary of the article, based entirely on its slideshow. It actually comes off as a miraculous fairy tale for adults, complete with suitable moral. After the jump, the condensed version of why you shouldn't marry those ball-busting, cash-making whores."

Regendered forbes article

"Gals: A word of advice. Marry pretty men or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don�t marry a man with a career.
Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional men are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that men�even those with a �feminist� outlook�are happier when their wife is the primary breadwinner."

Interviewed on the Today show

"Buchanan's book is filled with controversial statements about the threat of immigration, including a claim that the United States must keep 'Americans of European descent' from becoming the 'minority' in order to 'survive.' But rather than challenging Buchanan on the contents of his book, Gregory allowed Buchanan to repeat his theories that President Bush's immigration policy 'will lose the American Southwest to Mexico linguistically, ethnically, [and] culturally' and 'that [the southwest] part of America is moving back to Mexico, from whom we took it in 1848.'"

Racism is now acceptle and mainstream? I thought we liked these type of folks hidden and out of the way?

Psycho killer raccoons terrorize Olympia

"OLYMPIA, Washington - A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia say. "

Are the animals catching on?

friggin incredible

"As I discussed in 'Zombie debt is hard to kill,' there is now a booming market in the pursuit of debts so ancient that they used to be considered uncollectible. This year a whopping $110 billion of such debt is expected to be sold to collection agencies, up from virtually nothing 10 years ago.
Because the old liabilities cost collectors as little as 25 cents for each $100 in face value, companies can make a profit if they can get debtors to repay even a tiny fraction. Along the way, some collectors realized they also could squeeze money from people who didn't even owe it.
Some consumers pay because their finances are so disorganized they don't realize the debt isn't theirs. Others are coerced into paying by illegal threats of lawsuits or ruined credit. Some, like Alappat, pay rather than risk losing a desired loan."

Because people aren't bad off enough?

can i have a pair for Christmas?

"The whole Armor of God Pajama set will help your children to depend on God to protect them from their fears, doubts, and uncertainties at night so their sleep can be restful and peaceful."

Study finds standard "obesity" test badly flawed

Body Mass Index, invented by Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet between 1830 and 1850, is a measure of body fat calculated from height and weight.
A figure of less than 18.5 is considered underweight, while from 18.5 to 24.9 is normal, 25 to 29.9 is overweight and anything over 30 is categorized as obese.
Intended as a broad indicator of general health, it has become a standard diagnostic tool of heart disease risk.
Maria Grazia Franzosi from the Instituto Mario Negri in Milan, writing in the same issue of the Lancet, noted that a 52-country study comparing four different tests -- BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, waist measure and hip measure -- found that waist-to-hip was the best predictor of heart attack risk.
"BMI can definitely be left aside as a clinical and epidemiological measure of cardiovascular risk," she said.

Its crap like this that makes trying to figure out how to be healthy so annoying. I understand BMI being easy for anyone to calculate, but given that it isn't predictive of what it is supposed to predict, why not add a disclaimer. Granted, maybe if I read all the way through eDiets or any of the other ones I would find a disclaimer, but I would prefer this understanding to be much more front and center.

so cool

"'It appears that we've seen the birth of an ocean basin.' "

what if its true!

"'What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy,' McCarthy said.
'The energy isn't being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy,' he told Ireland's RTE radio."

no comment necessary

"More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams"

well said

"It's not the program's sexuality that bothers me but the fact that, in a country rife with vestigial puritanism, it views sexuality through a leering lens. Continental Europeans see far more nudity on their televisions and in their daily lives than we do. They don't bat an eye because, you know, human bodies. We all have them. Ah, but America. Marked by repression on the one hand (magazines condemned for cover images of breast-feeding babies and nude expectant mothers) and masturbatory excess on the other ('Girls Gone Wild' and any men's magazine that isn't GQ or Esquire), we are forever looping between scolding and ogling. We are never at peace."

it had to work both ways

"NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian businessman born with two penises wants one of them removed surgically as he wants to marry and lead a normal sexual life, a newspaper report said Saturday. "

Blog updates

Hello all,

Just a little housecleaning. I changed comments to a pop up window and also you no longer have to put in that annoying word verification thing. Everyone's comments should immediately publish now. Hope that helps.

Actually, hell is other people

"Hard as I find it to navigate friendship, I'm lucky to have so many people I can call friends. But what about those who don't? What about those with only two confidantes, a couple of close friends? I don't see why that should be an indication that we're more socially isolated -- for some people, voluntary loneliness isn't so lonely after all. As Daniel Nester's mother always told him, 'If you find one friend in your life, you're lucky.' "

I'm working from home today due to my project mates infecting me with their colds. As I sit in seemingly forever in a room with people I won't know six months from now, the nature of friendship is being brought into particularly sharp focus. I definitely have more than one friend in life and am glad I can be considered lucky:)

excellent smackdown of shumley

This is the commentary from just one of the blogs i read. I would lose to see how this is being reacted to in general in the blogosphere.

Women in Top Ranks Pull Up the Pay of Others

"MONTREAL -- American women earn substantially more money and narrow the long-standing gender gap in income if other women in their workplaces reach the ranks of senior management, according to a new national study presented here."

With so much discussion about the death of feminism, I am always heartened by data based evidence of the positive impact of women having more power.

mystical tats

"I believe this same problem comes up when men witness childbirth up close. There are certain poses in which a husband should not see his wife. By all means, be there for the entire labor, as I have been for the births of each of my eight children. But I strongly agree with the advice of the ancient rabbis that husbands should not be staring at the actual delivery. That is just too erotic a part of a wife's anatomy for it to become a mere birth canal."


Shout out to Jess on the title for the best comment on my blog ever!

Seriously, at what point do we move?

"Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say.
"American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close," said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University."

At what point does this country become unrecognizable?

PepsiCo names new female CEO

"NEW YORK - PepsiCo Inc. said Monday that Chief Financial Officer Indra K. Nooyi will replace Steven Reinemund as chief executive officer of the soft-drink and snacks company, making her the No. 2 female CEO in the Fortune 500"

Yay!

You just have to click and read

Postpartum Depression Hits Dads, Too and oh yeah its all your fault!

"That can happen 'if the mother is very, very controlling and wants the baby all to herself,' Coleman said. 'Also, fathers can experience frustration, sexual and emotional, if they forget to remember that
the wife is not interested in sex at that time. If the wife is very motherly and maternal, he might feel kind of useless, on the periphery.'"

Seriously how is it the women are so powerful? Isn't it amazing what we control? fucktards.

A Nation of Wimps

"There is in these studies a lesson for all parents. Those who allow their kids to find a way to deal with life's day-to-day stresses by themselves are helping them develop resilience and coping strategies. 'Children need to be gently encouraged to take risks and learn that nothing terrible happens,' says Michael Liebowitz, clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and head of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at New York State Psychiatric Institute. 'They need gradual exposure to find that the world is not dangerous. Having overprotective parents is a risk factor for anxiety disorders because children do not have opportunities to master their innate shyness and become more comfortable in the world.' They never learn to dampen the pathways from perception to alarm reaction."

Normally I think the parenting articles on MSN are a whole hot of hooey, but I would have to say Ithink this one is right on.

This seems concerning.....

Aug. 7, 2006 As the longtime head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins is one of America's most visible scientists. He holds impeccable scientific credentials -- a medical degree as well as a Ph.D. in physics -- and has established a distinguished track record as a gene hunter. He's also an evangelical Christian, someone who has no qualms about professing his belief in miracles or seeing God's hand behind all of creation. The cover of his new book illustrates this unusual mixture: The book's title, 'The Language of God,' is superimposed on a drawing of the double helix. 'The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome,' he writes. 'He can be worshiped in the cathedral or in the laboratory.' "

people who shouldn't reproduce

"'I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine,' one woman from Kansas wrote in reaction to the picture in Babytalk, a free magazine that caters to young mothers. 'I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table.'"

Honey, if your husband is uncomfortable with a baby feeding, do you really want to have children with him?

Coach Accused of Being a Pimp

"A police officer in Maryland heard a surprising story when he found a 15-year-old girl and an adult male engaged in a sex act at 3 a.m. in a car in Takoma Park: She was a prostitute, the girl said, and her pimp was a coach at a high school in Prince George's County."

Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job - New York Times

"Despite their great numbers, many of the men not working are missing from the nation's best-known statistic on unemployment. The jobless rate is now a low 4.6 percent, yet that number excludes most of the missing men, because they have stopped looking for work and are therefore not considered officially unemployed. That makes the unemployment rate a far less useful measure of the country's well-being than it once was.
Indeed, a larger share of working-age men are not working today than at almost any point in the last half-century, which raises the question of how they will get by as they age. They may be forced back to work after years of absence, they may fall into poverty, or they may be rescued by the government. This same trend is evident in other industrialized countries. In the European Union, 14 percent of men between 25 and 54 were not working last year, up from 7 percent in 1975, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Over the same period in Japan, the proportion of such men rose to 8 percent from 4 percent. "

Passing Down the Legacy of Conservatism - New York Times

Many conservatives say they have to promote their own thinkers because scholars and journalists ignore them. “They don’t study us; they’re ignorant of who we are,” said Floyd Brown, who runs the foundation’s West Coast office. “You can find college courses on all sorts of radical left-wing ideas, but you can’t find a course on Russell Kirk.”
Donald Devine, a lecturer here, said the task of teaching conservatism had changed with political success. When he began to lecture four decades ago, “we had to make the term ‘conservative’ respectable,” he said. “Now ‘conservatism’ has become such a popular word it doesn’t mean anything. The challenge is to decide what is truly conservative.”

gotta love the luny catholics...Passion anyone?

Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, “You mother f****r. I’m going to f*** you.” The report also says “Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me.”
The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: “F*****g Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?“
The deputy became alarmed as Gibson’s tirade escalated, and called ahead for a sergeant to meet them when they arrived at the station. When they arrived, a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said, “What the f*** do you think you’re doing?”
A law enforcement source says Gibson then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, “What do you think you’re looking at, sugar tits?”

Go read the whole thing it is hysterical

"One of the clips, called 'Technical Virgin,' is a funny (if not gut-busting) take on the idiocy of abstinence campaigns. In it, the fresh-faced Martinez announces seriously: 'I've got big plans for my future: a good college, a career, maybe even my own business someday. But one thing I'm not planning on is getting pregnant. That's why I choose anal sex. I mean sure, it hurts a little, and I wind up walking funny for a day or two. But I think my future's worth it.' "

Scary Boston Gossip Bitches Will Totally Cut You - Gawker

"You might mistake the duo at right for a mild-mannered pair headlining an NPR telethon; that would be the last mistake you ever made. The two are in fact Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa -- the 'Gals' -- twin terrors of Boston's gossip scene and lead reporters on the Boston Herald's Inside Track column."

huh never woulda thought it

Sean William Scott turned heads when he showed up at Los Angeles gay bar Heat on the arm of David Geffen …

YAY! Buffy comic

"So what's going on in the extended Buffyverse? Well, you may recall the show ended with the creation of an army of Slayers. Now they're organized, and the tide has turned in favor of the good guys. Ah, but you know how much Whedon hates winners: Soon an 'old enemy' surfaces (Dark Horse is cagey on Big Bad's identity), and Dawn starts 'experiencing serious growing pains.' I hope that means the Scoobies will be fighting a mutant, undead Alan Thicke."

20/03/2002: Interview with Martin van Creveld

"Byrne: Thanks for joining us tonight on Foreign Correspondent. How has it come to this, Martin... how is it that the mighty Israeli army , one of the world's most powerful - with its helicopter gunships, with its tanks, with it's missiles, can be losing to this relatively small, relatively under-armed if fanatical group of Palestinians?

Van Creveld: The same thing has happened to the Israeli army as happened to all the rest that have tried over the last sixty years. Basically it's always a question of the relationship of forces. If you are strong, and you are fighting the weak for any period of time, you are going to become weak yourself. If you behave like a coward then you are going to become cowardly, it's only a question of time. The same happened to the British when they were here... the same happened to the French in Algeria... the same happened to the Americans in Vietnam... the same happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan... the same happened to so many people that I can't even count them.

Byrne: : Martin you used the word cowardly, yet what we've seen tonight , these commando units, the anti-terrorist squads , these aren't cowardly people.

Van Creveld: I agree with you. They are very brave people... they are idealists... they want to serve their country and they want to prove themselves. The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape. Now the Israeli army has not by any means been the worst of the lot. It has not done what for instance the Americans did in Vietnam... it did not use napalm, it did not kill millions of people. So everything is relative, but by definition, to return to what I said earlier, if you are strong and you are fighting the weak, then anything you do is criminal.

Anger and its venting

There is so many things we are required to figure out as we try to become "adults". One of them is anger. In this age of Oprah there is a notion of expressing emotions in a "healthy" way. I remain unclear on what exactly the healthy thing is to do with anger. I mean is there sucha thing as healthy anger? Righteous anger sure...but healthy anger? I mean in Harry Potter he can draw on his anger to give him courage in dangerous situations, but alas modern life infrequently offers opportunities for courage under fire. So life makes you angry, for whatever reason, and Oprah says express those emotions...cuz that's healthy. kay, um saying I'm angry offers little antidote to anger as far as I can tell. So what do you do?

Genius lives

"'Honey, I'm just going to be honest with you, OK? I just thought he was cute. I'm 45 years old and I'd just like to meet him again, but I don't know how to go about doing that without calling 911,' she said.

'I know this is absolutely not in any way, shape or form an emergency, but if you would give the officer my phone number and ask him to come back, would you mind?'"

Much needed Humor

As for the world around us

While normally I can highlight some intersting stories, it appears today that the whole world is going to blow, Iraq is chaos, Brazil and DC are having massive crime waves, North Korea is launching nukes, Al Queda maybe in India now, Lebanon and Israel are bombing each other and our President continues to be absent. I think I'm going to stop paying attention now.

Montell Williams is engaged to a flight attentandant who feels fortunate and says he is a beautiful perosn inside and out. That just makes my heart warm right up.

Ireland updated

Reqs have been frozoen. I may not have the option of going after all. crap i really want to go.

Also jury duty is awesome...ok not really and they don't provide free coffee. whatup with that?

Ireland

So I got offered the job in Ireland. I have to decide by Friday. Here is my list of pros and cons:
Pros:
International Experience
I get to leave Phoenix 2 years early
cool strategic job
more people will actually want to visit me cuz i live somewhere cool
I can buy paraphanalia with my name on it

cons:
pay cut
i have to give up Iago
different country far away from everyone I love
I would have to defer starting my MBA and then probably do it online unless I can fidn a program in Ireland

Discuss.....

Asshole

"Vice President Dick Cheney's financial advisers are apparently betting on a rise in inflation and interest rates and on a decline in the value of the dollar against foreign currencies. That's the conclusion we draw after scouring the financial disclosure form released by Cheney recently. "


Can we call it treason now?

Americans' circle of close friends shrinking

"Ties to a close network of friends create a social safety net that is good for society, and for the individual. Research has linked social support and civic participation to a longer life, Smith-Lovin said.

People were not asked why they had fewer intimate ties, but Smith-Lovin said that part of the cause could be that Americans are working more, marrying later, having fewer children, and commuting longer distances.
The data also show the social isolation trend mirrors other class divides: Non-whites and people
with less education tend to have smaller social networks than white Americans and the highly educated."

My friends and I have often commented on how much harder it would be to navigate life without each other. Stories like this make me glad that I choose to value the things I choose to value.

Apocalypse Soon

"Linking these efforts is a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce completion of God's plan within this generation."

I like crazy people. I feel a bit of a kindred spirit with them really. On the other hand, you have the group of apparently growing # of humans that are just batshit crazy. How do they express their particular craziness? By trying to hasten the Apocalypse. Why, you ask? Because they are batshit crazy. I suggest staring at them uncomfortably if you ever run into one.

How they will win

"'The Chinese are so smart they knock your socks off,' said Andrew Strominger, a Harvard string theorist who visits here often. 'The impression you get when you go over there is that China is going to take over the world soon.'
...
'A lot of people ask for advice but are hesitant to accept it,' Dr. Gross said. 'In China, they are totally open to exploring how other countries do it. They are totally unarrogant about accepting advice.'"

hah

"Because shy children appear to be more sensitive to winning and losing, they may experience emotions more strongly than others, putting them at risk for emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression."

I always said some people feel emotions stronger than others. I personally blame my lack of resiliency in certain areas on this. Now I am vindicated by SCIENCE!

Mind blowing

That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and omen who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our anks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure —electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco.Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations that are members of the corporatocracy (the creditor), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money—and another country is added to our global empire.

I read a lot. It is one of the main ways I seek to understand the world I live in. Every now and then I read something that actually changes the way I see the world. This is one of those. I recommend highly!

That Wild Streak? Maybe It Runs in the Family - New York Times

"As genetics comes to rival childhood experience s the favored lens through which to interpret behavior seen as deviant, parents who blamed themselves for their children's disorders are also finding some relief."

Really good discussion on the implications of genetic research on people's perceptions of their identity. I have always been fascinated by this area of science and whether it would lead to a more progressive view of humanity or start seeing humans as just a sum of their parts.

Seriously, come join

"Who are we? The YearlyKos Convention demonstrated that we are the vanguard of a new Progressive movement built on trust. We are the 'Trust or Bust' movement in an America that has been taken over by a hostile right-wing movement built on fear and deceit. America is getting busy rejecting that right-wing movement and the YearlyKos Convention was the first clear, successful manifestation of the alternative.
Despite all the deceit, despite all the fear, despite all the propaganda, the corruption, the human rights abuse, the assaults on our Constitution, the cronyism, the irresponsible spending--despite all this--Gina Cooper and her team created a place where Americans could stand together and embrace a community built on trust. We are not any of those negative things that right-wing movement has foisted on America in the past decade. We are none of those things and to show to ourselves, the nation, and the world how much we believe in the power of our national ideals, we are all here in this room together. We are the beginning of a new Progressive movement built on trust."

Walking away with the Treasury

"This is a BIGGIE. Although it is well known that $9 billion in Iraq reconstruction money was never accounted for, it was thought an Inspector General named by the Congress for oversight would produce some kind of audit on the $9 billion, not to mention the $12 billion in cash
supposedly sent to Iraq straight from the Federal Reserve.
Bush, however, whipped up a 'signing statement', one of those 750 Presidential findings that
was revealed in April by the Boston Globe, which neutered the audit by declaring
anything to do with the Pentagon a classified security issue! The GOP Congress enabled Bush all the way on this outrageous signing, essentially covering up the likely theft of the urgently needed Reconstruction Fund."

I remember this story coming out in 2003 and assumed the GAO was investigating and some sort of accountability would be had. I mean, it takes the effort of a lot of crooks to "lose" $9Billion without a trace. As per usual with this administration, the story never went anywhere and there appeared to be no uproar. This has consistently been the most confusing aspect of our current times. People in other countries have toppled the governments over less material corruption. Why is our populace so apathetic?

Instinct - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"It is debatable whether or not living beings are bound absolutely by instinct. Though instinct is what seems to come naturally or perhaps with heredity, general conditioning and environment surrounding a living being play a major role. Predominately, instinct is pre-intellectual, while
intuition is trans-intellectual."

I know that life is inherently uncertain. I understand that life is what happens while you are making plans. Still I plan. I have been in Phoenix for a year now. It has been a year of struggle, alienation, frustration and tremendous growth.

Now I am faced with the very real possibility that I will be out of a job by Christmas. I am again at a cross roads, but initiated by events outside of my control. So I am changing the plan. There will be no plan. I will put out feelers in any city USA and go where the best opportunity is. I am going with instinct and whim. Maybe I was lucky all along, I just never let my instincts bring me to the right places.

social lubricant

Researchers reported on Monday that drinking coffee cuts the risk of cirrhosis of the liver from alcohol -- by 22 percent per cup each day -- but they stopped short of saying doctors should prescribe coffee for that reason.

I went to lunch today with a co-worker who is very pro-active about life in general. She was helping me strategize how to deal with the uncertainty currently facing my business group. She is also very interested in cultural things and gives me tips on how to find cultural events etc in the Phoenix area. One of her suggestions was to take a dancing class. This strikes me as a theoretically good idea, but strikes fear into the deepest recesses of my heart. I am socially awkward even with alcohol. I am terrified of attempting a social outing without alcohol, alone and involving a requirement of physical coordination. Have I always been this much of a wuss?

Modern Sexual Politics

Naomi isn't 100 percent sure what things were like ''a little longer ago'' -- a period she defines as vaguely pre-Bill Clinton -- but she's certain there was less ''sexual equality.'' Today, that topic really isn't up for debate. That men and women play on an even sexual playing field is a given?Or should be. As Naomi sees it, ''It's our decision if we're going to allow ourselves to be subjected to negative treatment. It's all framed by the way girls behave.''

I read this article on Saturday at the gym. I go to a local YMCA which isn't like most gyms, but this one is still a gym with the posturing etc. I left my mp3 player on a plane so now I have to read to distract myself while on the stationary bike. I was disturbed to think that there were so many "autonomous" females who were choosing to be treated badly...still I kept reading

Whatever sex goes on, the girls say, is done in the context of the ''hookup,'' which describes anything from making out to full-on intercourse. Much to the disappointment of many students, female and male, there's no real dating scene at Duke -- true for a lot of colleges. ''I've never been asked out on a date in my entire life -- not once,'' says one stunning brunette. Nor has a guy ever bought her a drink. ''I think that if anybody ever did that, I would ask him if he were on drugs,'' she says. Rather, there's the casual one-night stand, usually bolstered by heavy drinking and followed the next morning by -- well, nothing, usually. ''You'll hook up with a guy, and you know that nothing will come out of it,'' says Anna. The best thing you can hope for, she says, ''is that you'll get to hook up with him again.'' Some girls they know have managed to score a regular hookup -- meaning consistent sex -- but others play the field, bouncing from one guy to the next.

Now call me old fashioned, but if a repeat hook up is the best thing the crowd you are hanging with is offering and this is viewed negatively by you, wouldn't one look outside that crowd?

Among Naomi and her friends, a certain weariness creeps in when discussing the whole scene. ''Girls reduce themselves a lot here in order to be able to have the sexual freedom that I think they don't have by doing that,'' says Naomi. She sighs. ''There's a big difference between the global values and feminist ideals we think we should be subscribing to and the behavior a lot of us exhibit -- and I do it too,'' she admits. But maybe not as much as some of her friends, she adds. ''One of my friends thinks she's the biggest feminist, but to me she is one of the biggest anti-feminists, just because of her sexual behavior'' -- which is hooking up with several guys in the course of a weekend, including one, a ''regular'' who ''really treats her like shit.'' ''But, you know, she's doing it out of fear,'' says Anna, smiling a bit. ''It's like, 'Oh, yes, consistent sex -- that's great. And maybe he'll invite me to this big frat formal that's coming up that everyone wants to go to.' '' She chuckles condescendingly.

And now I'm pissed. this whole article describes the interviewees as these very "intelligent", beautiful ambitous women. I believe it points out several times how academically competitive Duke is and how hard they have to work to make good grades. OK, this is where I get off.
There is a quote in the article which I saw mentioned in a WaPo column once; "Effortless Perfection". That these women think they have to look like "fill in whoever is hot chick of the moment", be successful and be fun or "up" as they refer to it. These are the people at the top of our social structure. People who will theoretically fill in top positions in business, law and science.
The article doesn't give you much insight into the male psyche. (In general when articles are about sex it does seem that the female point of view is the only thing worth examining because you know men, they just want it all the time, no strings attached with the hottest chick possible. Too bad that is wildly untrue.) The men are just caricatures of people who the women are reacting to.
At first I was just mad that no one taught these women it was OK to want whatever it is they wanted. How old do you have to be before you realize that following the crowd and appearing to execute well to their parameters almost never leads to happiness. More than that, there is so little anger displayed. Even their "admissions" that the situation isn't satisfying for them seem defeated. In the meantime, you have supposedly smart motivated people working overtime to eliminate any messy humanity from their interactions with each other. They couldn't figure out the rules of engagement, so they stopped engaging. I get that. It's not as if my dating exploits are about to be turned into a handbook anytime soon, but fuck people try harder. You are supposed to be smarter than that.You are supposed to have more imagination.

Jack the cat proves his mettle by chasing black bear up tree

"WEST MILFORD, N.J. (AP) -- A black bear picked the wrong New Jersey yard for a jaunt earlier this week, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree -- twice.
Jack a 15-pound orange-and-white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, chasing small animals when he can, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising."

What up BIDMC?

"Last March, Cassandra Sampson arrived at the Beth Israel Deaconess medical center to be treated for a migraine headache. When Sampson admitted to 'self destructive impulses,' she was admitted to the psychatric unit, where she was forcibly stripped over her clothing 'for security purposes.' Sampson, a childhood sexual abuse survivor, begged to be allowed to keep her clothing but was ignored. Instead, five male guards held her down."

see no evil

"Today, when the need for information about the planet is more important than ever, this process of building understanding through increasingly powerful observations . . . is at risk of collapse,' said Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire.
Moore is cochairman of a National Research Council committee that will recommend NASA's future earth science agenda later this year. It is unclear, however, whether NASA will follow those recommendations.
``NASA has canceled, scaled back, or delayed all of the planned earth observing missions,' he said."

Maybe someday I will get here

"Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. - Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentations, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.
In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn't matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! "

Slavery auctions in airports in London...seriously

"A CPS conference on Monday is to discuss airport crime, and its director in west London, Nazir Afzal, said: 'Criminal activity at the UK's airports is on the increase.
'We are now seeing 'slave auctions' being held in public places at airports where brothel keepers are bidding for women destined for prostitution.'
One auction had taken place outside a coffee shop in the arrivals hall at Gatwick Airport, the CPS said. Others were believed to have been staged at Heathrow, Stansted and other UK airports, it added.
Ministers earlier this year set out proposals to boost action against sex trafficking gangs. "

It feels true

"I'm just hypothesizing here, but as someone who grew up in the shadow of the backlash, I absorbed the message that the odds are against actually finding a man worth marrying when I was old enough to feel ready for it. The hysteria in the 80s that women's independence meant
that there would be huge numbers of independent, unmarried women resulted in people wrapping their minds around the idea that there could be this new creature, the confirmed bachelorette. And the word "if" crept into the vocabulary of straight women of my generation when we spoke of marriage and children in the future. Threatening women with the possibility of never getting married might have worked better if women really had to rely on marriage for a secure future. It'd be interesting to see if there's any proof that the backlash might have just backfired a little. "

I still wonder if I never expected to get married because of ambivalence about marriage or if I was just convinced that women like me don't "get" to get married.

Irony-From a Daily Kos diary

"I actually have no idea what on earth this is. I just love its product description: 'Are you drowning in the sea of comprehensive sex ed? Are you searching for a life preserver? You'll find one in the Abstinence Survival Kit!'
To answer the question that you already answered for me, yes, I do feel like I'm drowning in a sea of comprehensive sex ed. It's everywhere- everywhere, I tell you!
The store also includes great links to 'abstinence bookmarks, buttons, carabiners, posters, mints, stickers, pens, pencils, neck cords,and `virginity vouchers.''
But none are so truly abstinence-tastic as the following:
The Abstinence Sucker.

They make an abstinence sucker.
Not a lollipop. A sucker.
Alas, the sucker is cherry-flavored.
I thought for a long time about a suitable response to this. A long, long time.
So many ideas filled my head that my brain shut down and I fainted from overload.
When a member of the Abstinence Clearinghouse/ NSA joint division (who had been listening through the phone I left on) noticed a lack of typing noises, he came to investigate and found me face down on my keyboard.
After reading the contents of my computer screen, the officer left me unconscious and taped to my computer screen twenty dollars with a note reading, 'Such a pure, moral, Good Girl as yourself has lots to be proud of. I don't know how you ended up on our list of uppity women terrorists, but we just kinda put everyone's name in there. I'd like to provide the first twenty dollars toward your efforts.'
So come on, ya'll. Step up! Only $1,321.77 to go!"

Top Ten Signs you are a Liberal Elitest Idiot

I almost appreciate the straight forwardness...

Balloon teens not dumbest after all

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,' the official said.
'A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.'"

How dumb can you be?

"Their bodies were found Saturday partially inside a deflated helium balloon at the entrance of a condominium complex a few miles north of Tampa. The 8-foot-diameter balloon was used to advertise the complex."

Need to Kvetch

So I am trying to complete all the necessary tasks for school. It has been nearly ten years since I "registered" for school. Yes I took those classes at Harvard for awhile, but they just said pay us money and you are in. ASU on the other hand.....

I can not friggin register for classes until I prove that I have gotten two MMR shots. I am 30 goddamn years old. I don't even remember the name of the doctor, who I am sure has long since retired, in Florida who gave us our original boosters. Seriously. I know I am ambivalent about school etc, but immunization shots for an evening program? I won't be around during the day to infect your real students.

later on...Ok apparently I can get a blood test to prove I'm immune. I'm going to be pissed if that comes back negative.

Have an awesome weekend everyone.

Poor diet as bad as smoking for health: Dutch report - Yahoo! News

"The study, which the European Food Safety Authority says it will use when analyzing food and diet risks, concludes that most cases of serious illness and death in the Netherlands is caused by poor diet.
'Taking into account not just deaths but also years spent living with serious disability, unhealthy dietary habits cause as much health loss as does smoking,' said the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)."

0 is the new 8 - The Boston Globe

"''I tried on a size 0 skirt and it was too big,' said Chao, a 30-year-old graduate student of molecular biology at Harvard University. ''To me, a size 0 is antimatter; it's something devoid of any physical reality.'"

yup so far

"A survey of more than 3,400 women found that 44 percent had experienced intimate partner violence. The more recent the violent incident and the longer it had persisted, the worse the victim's physical and mental health and social network were likely to be, the researchers found.
'This is an epidemic,' Dr. Robert S. Thompson, senior investigator at Group Health Center for Health Studies, said in a prepared statement. 'But it flies under the radar, because of the stigma and shame associated with it -- as well as the fear that many healthcare providers have of opening what some call a 'Pandora's Box' of difficult problems that they are unsure how to address.'"

Ah so good to know how far we have come

"The study, released Wednesday, found that blacks were 29 percent more likely to pay a high interest rate on a fixed-rate home purchase loan. A Hispanic borrower also was more likely to pay a high rate, it found.
'African Americans and Latinos are paying a premium for home loans because of the color of their skin,' said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau."