Life and Linketies (also heads up on a contraceptive pill recall)
Very quiet morning escorting. I taught NL to play Gobblet, which is a favorite of mine, and a good candidate for outdoor play because the pieces don't blow away (usually). We finished up there, picked up the CSA and headed home for a bit of Doctor Who and a quick nap before the Planned Parenthood rally. The rally went well; mostly college feminist groups, which totally made me all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. I was talking to NL on the way home about why it's important to me to go to events like that. I don't see rallies and marches as being primarily about interacting with the public and trying to convert people. Most of that actually happens in daily life one-on-one conversations. Rallies and marches are for the base, to make them feel less alone and more motivated to do the daily grunt-work of real activism. So showing up and cheering the kids who are just getting their activism feet wet is totally worthwhile, in my opinion.
Now I'm at work. NL's been given the tour of my cubefarm and is headed back home. I'm really ridiculously exhausted and also on cold meds. Hopefully there won't be too much call for actual thinking today.
Unexpected goodness in my day! Got to have a long IM chat with Katy, and a shorter one with Tori. Lots of catching up. Much yay.
Also, after pulling a real doofus maneuver on the drive home from escorting today, I was reminded of one of my long-standing frustrations with non-verbal communicative signals. Why do we have such a clear symbol for "fuck you" but none for "I'm sorry"? There are times, especially when verbal communication isn't an option, that having an "I'm sorry" signal would seriously help a lot. And now I'm curious just how broad that particular non-verbal lexicon is. It's certainly nothing compared to ASL or other true sign languages, but it does seem more comparable to that than to general non-verbal communication; much of that conveys moods but not clearly translatable phrases. It seems like a very specific subset. Any language geeks in the audience interested in providing insight? I'm also curious as to whether other cultures tend to have mostly the same clear signals, or whether others have other messages they find more important to communicate.
Random brainstorming:
Fuck you: the finger
Thank you: smile/nod of head
I don't know: shrug of shoulders
After you: wave of hand
Come here: beckoning motion
Go away: shooing motion
Also, since the story came up this week, I feel obliged to relate that I (and also my brother James, I determined after checking with Mom and Dad to determine the species of big cat involved) got peed on by a lion when we were little. I was about six, James was about two. We had to go home early from the zoo that day.
Birth control pills recalled due to 'packaging error' (that apparently could cause you to take them in the wrong order)
The recall affects these products: Cyclafem 7/7/7, Cyclafem 1/35, Emoquette, Gildess FE 1.5/30, Gildess FE 1/20, Orsythia, Previfem and Tri-Previfem.
On Saturday, September 24th, the Repeal Hyde Art Project will be displayed at the 2011 Choice USA Membership conference in Washington, D.C.
Send in your entry by September 22 to be part of this grassroots community art project!
Growing set of state abortion restrictions visualized -- This is a brilliant interactive chart!
Story Repair
In this feature, we select a story that appeared in one or more major news outlets and try to show how a different set of inquiries or observations could have produced a more illuminating article. For repair this week: "Falloff in abortion rate and in number of procedures stalls" (Washington Post, Jan. 11). -- I'm finding the Remapping Debate site really awesome in general! What a great idea!
Occupy Wall Street Begins [Today], September 17th
more and in-person descriptions and photos from ontd_p folks
The Girl Scouts' Allegedly Radical Feminist Lesbian Agenda
Planned Parenthood and the United Nations hijacking a girl's organization to encourage orgiastic behavior? If the story had been generated by a computer programmed to push right-wing buttons it could hardly have been better suited to the task. And yet these critics aren't entirely wrong to perceive the group as a feminist organization, however mild and mainstream its strain of feminism may be, or to perceive the group as comparatively forward-looking (something that's obvious when you contrast the group, both now and historically, with the Boy Scouts). Since their founding, the Girl Scouts have taken the well-being of girls as their mission, and they lobby to this end both nationally and internationally. So even as specific accusations against the group are spurious, it makes a certain amount sense that the group's conservative Christian critics, who value traditional gender roles, would oppose an organization that takes female equality as a given. -- And that is why I always make sure to buy Girl Scout cookies, and never buy Boy Scout popcorn. Names aside, the two organizations are radically different.
UK: Plans to give same-sex couples the right to marry will be published next year, ministers have announced.
Scientists theorize that as more fish are removed from the oceans, jellyfish could easily take control of aquatic ecosystems.
Related, and a partial counterpoint: Jellyfish Swarms: Menacing or Misunderstood?
Gordon Ramsay dwarf porn lookalike eaten by badgers -- Suicide, if that's what it was, sucks. But suicide by badger? At least you must get some cosmic points for creativity on that one.
The world's largest sperm bank has started turning down redheaded donors because there is too little demand for their sperm.
Trinity College Dublin has said it is taking seriously an incident in which a profile page, complete with image, was inserted on its website for a fake staff member named ‘Dr Conan T. Barbarian’.
Comment from Fark, per ajollypyruvate: "What is the greatest thing in life?" "To crush your students, see their GPA driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their helicopter parents"
New Programs Aim To Close The Wealth Gap
Giant snail invasion being battled in Miami-Dade
Hedgehog found snuggled in soft toys donation
A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind reveals that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ignored a direct order from President Obama for the reconstruction of major banks during the financial crisis.
FBI Raid Involving Walker Campaign Records May Foretell Bigger Threat
Lovely, Beastly Bones -- Reminds me of a beautiful coffee-table book that Caleb got me a few years ago of photographs of animal skeletons
Today I Opened My Last Unemployment Check
New research on tinnitus could lead to treatment
Study concludes Gulf War syndrome involves real brain damage
The Abortion You Won’t See In ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’
How My Abortion Enabled Me To Be A Better Mother
Abortion: Mixed Feelings - We Aren't All Nicely Wrapped Packages
Women's 'sex strike' ends fighting in Mindanao villages - UNHCR -- Rock on, Lysistratae!
Poll: Majority Still Pro-Choice, Despite GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion -- The way they list that result is rather inaccurate in my opinion; it lumps into the "pro-choice" category people who only want it legal for rape/incest/health reasons, and I don't think that's a sensible way to separate out the results, even if it does good things for "our numbers". And in looking at the results, the raw data isn't much more useful. A plurality, at least, fall into the "under some circumstances" category, and if you interpret that terminology in a straight-forward manner, it's going to put into the same category a wide array of vastly differing opinions. Too wide to be useful. I wish they'd asked about specific circumstances instead (access for minors, late-term, health exceptions, mental health exceptions, etc).
Censorious Georgia Mayor Shuts Down "Rocky Horror" Production
Domestic partners of Michigan state employees were supposed to start getting state benefits on October 1, but the Republican-controlled state House is having none of that
Deep within America, beyond your typical evangelicals and run-of-the-mill fundamentalists, nurtured within the homeschool movement and growing by the day, are the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. This is where I grew up.
Do you really have a sexual fetish? -- Not a bad little history of how concepts about fetishes and paraphilias have evolved over time, and the current DSM debates on the topic.
Peace of Mind: Near-Death Experiences Now Found to Have Scientific Explanations
September's Harvest Moon
A really excellent piece about gaslighting as emotional abuse -- Although it's written largely to address the fact that this type of abuse is more often targeted at women, it's also true that this happens to men in abusive dynamics as well (although less often in general daily life). Either way, it's insidious and deeply destructive.
New Species of Dolphin Discovered in Australia
A Law Against Lying on the News: Why Canada has one and the U.S. doesn’t
Now I'm at work. NL's been given the tour of my cubefarm and is headed back home. I'm really ridiculously exhausted and also on cold meds. Hopefully there won't be too much call for actual thinking today.
Unexpected goodness in my day! Got to have a long IM chat with Katy, and a shorter one with Tori. Lots of catching up. Much yay.
Also, after pulling a real doofus maneuver on the drive home from escorting today, I was reminded of one of my long-standing frustrations with non-verbal communicative signals. Why do we have such a clear symbol for "fuck you" but none for "I'm sorry"? There are times, especially when verbal communication isn't an option, that having an "I'm sorry" signal would seriously help a lot. And now I'm curious just how broad that particular non-verbal lexicon is. It's certainly nothing compared to ASL or other true sign languages, but it does seem more comparable to that than to general non-verbal communication; much of that conveys moods but not clearly translatable phrases. It seems like a very specific subset. Any language geeks in the audience interested in providing insight? I'm also curious as to whether other cultures tend to have mostly the same clear signals, or whether others have other messages they find more important to communicate.
Random brainstorming:
Fuck you: the finger
Thank you: smile/nod of head
I don't know: shrug of shoulders
After you: wave of hand
Come here: beckoning motion
Go away: shooing motion
Also, since the story came up this week, I feel obliged to relate that I (and also my brother James, I determined after checking with Mom and Dad to determine the species of big cat involved) got peed on by a lion when we were little. I was about six, James was about two. We had to go home early from the zoo that day.
Birth control pills recalled due to 'packaging error' (that apparently could cause you to take them in the wrong order)
The recall affects these products: Cyclafem 7/7/7, Cyclafem 1/35, Emoquette, Gildess FE 1.5/30, Gildess FE 1/20, Orsythia, Previfem and Tri-Previfem.
On Saturday, September 24th, the Repeal Hyde Art Project will be displayed at the 2011 Choice USA Membership conference in Washington, D.C.
Send in your entry by September 22 to be part of this grassroots community art project!
Growing set of state abortion restrictions visualized -- This is a brilliant interactive chart!
Story Repair
In this feature, we select a story that appeared in one or more major news outlets and try to show how a different set of inquiries or observations could have produced a more illuminating article. For repair this week: "Falloff in abortion rate and in number of procedures stalls" (Washington Post, Jan. 11). -- I'm finding the Remapping Debate site really awesome in general! What a great idea!
Occupy Wall Street Begins [Today], September 17th
more and in-person descriptions and photos from ontd_p folks
The Girl Scouts' Allegedly Radical Feminist Lesbian Agenda
Planned Parenthood and the United Nations hijacking a girl's organization to encourage orgiastic behavior? If the story had been generated by a computer programmed to push right-wing buttons it could hardly have been better suited to the task. And yet these critics aren't entirely wrong to perceive the group as a feminist organization, however mild and mainstream its strain of feminism may be, or to perceive the group as comparatively forward-looking (something that's obvious when you contrast the group, both now and historically, with the Boy Scouts). Since their founding, the Girl Scouts have taken the well-being of girls as their mission, and they lobby to this end both nationally and internationally. So even as specific accusations against the group are spurious, it makes a certain amount sense that the group's conservative Christian critics, who value traditional gender roles, would oppose an organization that takes female equality as a given. -- And that is why I always make sure to buy Girl Scout cookies, and never buy Boy Scout popcorn. Names aside, the two organizations are radically different.
UK: Plans to give same-sex couples the right to marry will be published next year, ministers have announced.
Scientists theorize that as more fish are removed from the oceans, jellyfish could easily take control of aquatic ecosystems.
Related, and a partial counterpoint: Jellyfish Swarms: Menacing or Misunderstood?
Gordon Ramsay dwarf porn lookalike eaten by badgers -- Suicide, if that's what it was, sucks. But suicide by badger? At least you must get some cosmic points for creativity on that one.
The world's largest sperm bank has started turning down redheaded donors because there is too little demand for their sperm.
Trinity College Dublin has said it is taking seriously an incident in which a profile page, complete with image, was inserted on its website for a fake staff member named ‘Dr Conan T. Barbarian’.
Comment from Fark, per ajollypyruvate: "What is the greatest thing in life?" "To crush your students, see their GPA driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their helicopter parents"
New Programs Aim To Close The Wealth Gap
Giant snail invasion being battled in Miami-Dade
Hedgehog found snuggled in soft toys donation
A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind reveals that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ignored a direct order from President Obama for the reconstruction of major banks during the financial crisis.
FBI Raid Involving Walker Campaign Records May Foretell Bigger Threat
Lovely, Beastly Bones -- Reminds me of a beautiful coffee-table book that Caleb got me a few years ago of photographs of animal skeletons
Today I Opened My Last Unemployment Check
New research on tinnitus could lead to treatment
Study concludes Gulf War syndrome involves real brain damage
The Abortion You Won’t See In ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’
How My Abortion Enabled Me To Be A Better Mother
Abortion: Mixed Feelings - We Aren't All Nicely Wrapped Packages
Women's 'sex strike' ends fighting in Mindanao villages - UNHCR -- Rock on, Lysistratae!
Poll: Majority Still Pro-Choice, Despite GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion -- The way they list that result is rather inaccurate in my opinion; it lumps into the "pro-choice" category people who only want it legal for rape/incest/health reasons, and I don't think that's a sensible way to separate out the results, even if it does good things for "our numbers". And in looking at the results, the raw data isn't much more useful. A plurality, at least, fall into the "under some circumstances" category, and if you interpret that terminology in a straight-forward manner, it's going to put into the same category a wide array of vastly differing opinions. Too wide to be useful. I wish they'd asked about specific circumstances instead (access for minors, late-term, health exceptions, mental health exceptions, etc).
Censorious Georgia Mayor Shuts Down "Rocky Horror" Production
Domestic partners of Michigan state employees were supposed to start getting state benefits on October 1, but the Republican-controlled state House is having none of that
Deep within America, beyond your typical evangelicals and run-of-the-mill fundamentalists, nurtured within the homeschool movement and growing by the day, are the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. This is where I grew up.
Do you really have a sexual fetish? -- Not a bad little history of how concepts about fetishes and paraphilias have evolved over time, and the current DSM debates on the topic.
Peace of Mind: Near-Death Experiences Now Found to Have Scientific Explanations
September's Harvest Moon
A really excellent piece about gaslighting as emotional abuse -- Although it's written largely to address the fact that this type of abuse is more often targeted at women, it's also true that this happens to men in abusive dynamics as well (although less often in general daily life). Either way, it's insidious and deeply destructive.
New Species of Dolphin Discovered in Australia
A Law Against Lying on the News: Why Canada has one and the U.S. doesn’t