June 2008 – Shortwoman.com

Society for the Prevention of BBW

For those of you not in the know, “BBW” stands for “Big Beautiful Woman“.

I’m really not sure what to make of this item from Reuters via Yahoo:

A new program developed by the U.S. government is tackling the obesity epidemic by helping “tween” girls and their parents make small but important changes to build a healthier lifestyle.

[snip]

Girls 9 to 13 years old who are overweight or obese are referred to BodyWorks through their pediatrician, or by word of mouth. Parents and caregivers attend 10 weekly 90-minute sessions, and girls are expected to show up for at least three. The goal is to give parents and caregivers “hands-on tools to make small behavior changes to prevent obesity and help maintain a healthier weight,” according to the BodyWorks Web site (http://www.womenshealth.gov/bodyworks/).

“The very attractive aspect of it is that it addresses the whole family, and the whole environment in the household, which I think is the best approach to childhood obesity,” said [Pediatrician Dr. Monica] Richter. “Diet implies a short-term deprivation, which doesn’t work.”

[snip]

The goal is not for girls to lose weight…, but for families as a whole to begin making healthier choices at the grocery store, to become more active and to spend less time in sedentary activities like watching TV or playing computer games.

Ok, so let me give points for recognizing that diet alone is not the answer. More points for involving the whole family in the plan. Being overweight or obese puts people at risk for a number of life-shortening problems and some other problems that reduce quality of life as well, so helping them lose weight is a pretty good goal. But I have to take points away for targeting just girls in just this specific age range.

What? Boys don’t get fat? Girls aged 9-13 don’t have enough body image issues? They weren’t fat when they were younger? These young ladies don’t have chubby siblings and parents who could stand to lose a few pounds?

In closing: tips for better blogging; careful about shifting to the “center” Senator, because it’s further to the left than most people think; it turns out treating pregant women for their addiction problems is better for everybody in the long run; nice to see that at least some laws apply to Blackwater; and last, there will probably not be a lot more entries in the “Picture This” category. Those strange things I run across will be submitted to the new and improved Groundmeat.

Was it something I said? June Retrospective

It may be hard to believe, but I have been writing here at ShortWoman for 5 years now. June 25 is my blogiversary! Each month I hope to bring you some of my favorite items. Today, we have 5 years of June.

Back in 2003 I defined “investing” as spending money with the reasonable expectation of getting more money in return, and dismantled the argument that school vouchers do anything positive for the middle class.

In 2004 I outlined what real liberals stand for.

For the first time, I said that “any pharmacist who is against dispensing legal, medically indicated prescriptions [such as birth control] should resign. To do less is to follow their morals only when they inconvenience others” in 2005.

In 2006 I discussed a common sense approach to reducing identity theft.

For 2007, we have a lengthy piece on health care, and as a bonus I have some follow-up stuff (ladies! this link is must read!! it could save your life!).

In closing: excerpts from the real live Texas GOP platform; a few things on the FISA cramdown, and no it’s not a done deal so for pity sake contact your Senators!; Real ID master verification hub being built under a no-bid contract; never use credit cards at “tire and retreading shops, massage parlors, bars, billiard halls, and marriage counseling offices”; an economist on home ownership; a different economist on gas prices; Countdown to Crawford; global warming could cause terrorism, now can we fight it?; and finally — because surely it’s the most important question we could ask — What’s On Senator Obama’s iPod? Nope, we don’t need to know where he stands on issues! It’s much more important to get his opinion on popular music!

Yet Another Health Care Post

Over the weekend, Fed Head Ben Bernanke went on the record as saying we had a health care problem in this country. Here’s Reuter’s and BBC coverage, but if you would rather read the actual statement, it’s here, with footnotes.

It is worth pointing out that the three factors Bernanke singles out are — in this order — access, quality, and cost. Since by “access” he means “insurance coverage,” in many ways it boils down to “how are we going to pay for it” and “are we getting what we need at a reasonable price”. Some will correctly point out that just because you have insurance doesn’t mean you are getting the right health care, or that the bills are paid.

Because he is an economist, it should be no surprise that his focus is heavily tilted towards the money involved. And in the end, another notable economist by the name of Greg Mankiw summarized it: “Ben’s talk is, however, very sensible–a good overview of the issues without saying anything sufficiently interesting that it might prove controversial.”

Elsewhere, the American Medical Association is meeting this week. They issued their first “report card” on insurers Monday. It rates insurers on accuracy and timeliness. You can read it for yourself using the links here. If you think people should be promptly paid fair earnings for the work they actually do, this is an issue of critical importance.

Although this article is about doctor dissatisfaction in general, it brings several interesting facts to our discussion: lots of paperwork that has little to do with providing medical care (driving costs up); “perceived… loss of professional autonomy” as they are second-guessed by insurance company clerks miles away, who never even went to medical school; denied payments with short appeal windows (in an environment where the insurance company has months to decide if they are paying anything at all); concerns about malpractice suits that may or may not have merit; concerns over the rising cost of insurance to cover said malpractice suits; declining revenues, even before taking into account that Medicare reimbursement will drop by 10.6% on the first of the month; and a “looming shortage of doctors, especially in primary care, which has the lowest reimbursement of all the medical specialties and probably has the most dissatisfied practitioners….”

These problems must be addressed as part of any serious “reforms”, because the one thing we have really learned from the Massachusetts plan is that when people have the means to pay for a doctor, they see one. Or at least they try. Mr. Bernanke tells us 16% of our population is uninsured currently. Insure them and they will want medical care. When demand rises sharply with no parallel rise in supply, any economist can tell you what will happen next.

Perhaps if we can do something about all the non-medical stuff a typical doctor has to deal with, they can increase capacity?

In closing: what idiot thought this was appropriate?; Dyre said what needs saying about the Associated Press; if you need a chart to figure out how to nap, you are probably in desperate need of one; congrats to George and Brad; I didn’t even know Tom Colicchio had a blog, let alone that he had thought seriously about the issues of working mothers; I predict that this will cost so much money that it will be used as an excuse to dismantle the Americans with Disabilities Act; time to cave in on spying on innocent Americans without any freakin warrants again; and about the President’s plan for offshore drilling? There’s not enough boats to do the job! But I’ll let Dave Johnson dismantle the rest of the rhetoric.

Saying Goodbye

One of my favorite blogs has been Maya’s Granny. I was introduced to her work early in the game, introduced by PureLand Mountain. She posted pretty much every day for most of 2 years, rain or shine, even if it was just a neat picture or an interesting quote. She wrote eloquently on her political opinions, told family stories, and even wrote about the silly things her cats — a pair of brothers known as “the Hooligans” — had done. It was a neat stop on my daily reading, one that I preferred to visit directly rather than let my RSS feeder collect it automatically.

Unfortunately, Granny had a heart attack in February, and her health had never really returned. Like many people, I sent notes. I had been searching for a nice postcard of Red Rocks Conservation Area to send her, knowing how she missed the beautiful landscape of Alaska, but I had no luck. Sadly, she passed away over the weekend. Here is what her daughter has to say on the matter, and this is from her son-in-law. She was a neat lady, and even though I never met her I will miss her.

Not so smart after all

I believe I have mentioned at some point that I learned to to research by studying musicology — that’s the fancy name for “music history”. Yesterday, Wired gave us “3 Smart Things About Music.” Unfortunately, at least one of them is wrong. They said:

1 The pitches in musical scales are likely derived from language. Turns out, aspects of spoken English and Mandarin correlate to the intervals between notes in a chromatic scale (the black and white piano keys in an octave). Is it music we love or the sound of our own voices?

On one hand, this is so simplistic as to be obvious: the earliest “instruments” were the human voice, and the sound of banging on things (percussion at its most basic).

However, back to the specific scales and languages involved.

Traditional Chinese music does not use the modern chromatic scale, although much of it can be notated using it. Instead, they use a 5 note or pentatonic scale. The modern chromatic scales has 12 tones. Furthermore, they have been using that scale since before English was a language. Update: It is worth noting that although Mandarin is a language where the pitch you use to say something changes the meaning, English is not. You can speak English sentences in a complete monotone, and English speakers will understand what you are saying.

You may have noticed that I carefully refer to the “modern chromatic scale.” That scale — based on a system called “Equal Temperament” — did not evolve until after Europe began trying to explore China. Full use of all 12 tones took several additional centuries beyond that, and many people feel it has “ruined” music. If you really want to get deep into the issues involved from a modern standpoint, check out the work of Harry Partch, a 20th Century American composer who decided that he would not be limited by a mere 12 pitches.

Twelve tones were an improvement at one point, however. Back in the 9th century, there were only 7. Those would be roughly the white keys on a piano or other keyboard. Do, Re, Mi, and the other solfeggio syllables you may know from ear training or watching The Sound of Music come from a specific Gregorian chant. As the modal harmony of Middle Ages and Renaissance church music evolved into the tonal harmonies of Baroque composers like Bach and Vivaldi, the scales were transposed to other starting pitches, and an interesting problem of physics became apparent.

What we hear as pitch is related to the frequency of the vibrating part(s) of the instrument we are hearing. There is a note we call “A” at 440 hertz, or vibrations per second. If we double or halve that number, there is another “A” at 220 and 880 hertz. If instead we multiply by 3/2, we find there is a note called “E”, a “perfect fifth” away, at 660. If we continue multiplying all the way around the circle of fifths, we will end up with a problem at the end: when we get back to A, it won’t be a multiple of 440, which means it will sound “out of tune”. A number of compromise tunings were tried to get around this problem: Just Temperament; Mean Temperament; Well Temperament. Each had its advantages and drawbacks.

The “modern chromatic scale” is based on Equal Temperament. Each pitch is exactly the same number of hertz apart. It’s not based on language; it’s a compromise to get around the laws of physics. Which, Wired should recall, ye canna change.

In closing: somebody noticed that women are using smartphones too; more on John Williams and manipulated economic data; under-insured is just as bad as uninsured; just one reason I don’t support the death penalty; for a moderate, he sure votes like a man who hates women; math and the real world; doesn’t everyone need a planetarium in the bathtub?; and last, Goodbye to Mr. Russert.

If you say so

This was taken in the gymnasium of a nearby school. In reality, the Women’s Restroom is beyond the drinking fountains to which the sign points. Nevertheless, it’s amusing.

In closing is mostly economics today: Oh where, oh where has my health data gone? oh where, oh where could it be?; unemployment is up, even the way the Department of Labor measures it, in the biggest jump since the Reagan Administration; nevertheless some companies want to hire cheap immigrant highly skilled foreign workers; the real Misery Index is miserable; Robert Reich on the need for a real stimulus package, not just spewing some checks and hoping the economy gets better; Dyre on McCain thinking warrant-free wiretaps are just fine and dandy; a really touching picture that gives me a lot of insight into their relationship; and turning customs agents into DMCA enforcers. We had to learn from an Irish news source that “an international copyright treaty being formulated by the US, EU, Canada, Japan and Australia” in its proposed form “could see customs officers checking media players for pirated material”. Now tell me this: how exactly can the customs officer prove you don’t legitimately own the CD at home? I don’t know about you, but I would rather that customs officers spent their limited time and resources trying to keep genuine contraband such as drugs and weapons from moving across borders, rather than checking iPods.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Les Shorties Du Diable

I officially hate this version of WordPress.

Anyways, on to the Shorties! My main browser window is bursting with tabs, so pull up a diet soda and enjoy.

Follow up on Student Loans: Remember when I talked about how the student loan program was federally guaranteed because it needed to be, and that the current “crisis” started right about the time they shifted the program into the public sector and spun off Sallie Mae? Well we’ve got yet more fallout. “Apparently, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and several other major lenders have stopped providing student loans to students at many community colleges and some less-tony four year schools.” Here’s more via AMERICAblog. From a servicing standpoint, it does make more sense to lend more money to fewer students — they save money on paperwork, reporting, even mailing bills! From a risk standpoint, it makes less sense because it’s far, far less diverse and ignores the fact that these schools often have niche majors where the students are hired before graduation (I believe that DeanDad mentioned nursing; at my undergrad institution we had a tradition of producing music education majors and backstage theatre types). And from a society standpoint, just what we don’t need is to make it harder to get an education at the very schools whose mission often is to provide education to people who can’t afford the Big Uni experience.

The LA Times reports on Reality: Specifically, they point out His Name is Henry Paulson went to the Middle East not to beg for more oil production, but to beg for investment within the United States by the Sovereign Wealth Fund run by the government of Abu Dhabi. Next thing you know, they will talk about how much of the United States’ debt is owned by foreign nations like China (click on the link at the end of the first paragraph for a pie chart. mmPie).

What do you mean, you lost it? Well, apparently an entire lighthouse was misplaced back in the 1920s. Most people thought it was taken down, but it turns out to have been moved across the country, where it is still in use. I guess I still have a soft spot for lighthouses.

Sex and the Nation: The federal government still says that if our schools want money to teach adolescents about sex, they have to teach little more than Just Say No. Compared to the rest of the modern world, this makes us some kind of ostrich puritans. Even historically Catholic nation Mexico has embraced comprehensive sexual education, and so should we. I mean, unless we like having double the teen pregnancy rate of Canada.

I’ll drink to that: Yet more research that says red wine — and specifically the resveratrol it contains — is good for you and appears to help you live longer. Not news to me, but still good to know more research is confirming it.

John Bolton’s ideas are looking more quaint every day: Remember John Bolton? The guy we tried to send to the UN who said things like “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests, and when we can get others to go along”? Well, in today’s news “The Reverend Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, an outspoken leftist critic of the United States and a former foreign minister in Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, was elected president of the UN General Assembly. D’Escoto, 75, an American-born Roman Catholic priest, said he would not use his new position as a platform to disparage the United States, but he wasted no time in taking a few oblique swipes at Washington.”

Down on the Farm: I’ll leave it to Expert Ezra to talk about the Farm Bill.

A short film on video game violence: See commentary and a link to the video at GamePolitics.

I’ve got good news and bad news: It would seem that initial unemployment claims unexpectedly fell last week! Bloomberg concedes that might just be because the unemployment office was closed on Memorial Day.

What is hopefully the last Hillary round-up: I got the news in my email early this morning, and the New York times confirms that she will endorse Senator Obama on Saturday. As for her being the Vice Presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter and Robert Reich both say “don’t do that!” For some other reasons, well, I’ll let JurassicPork take that one. Don’t forget to scroll to reason #1.

The continuing adventures of Failboat: Fail Blog has had some great Failboats before, but this one is one of the best. How long until they add this one?

The First Computer Programmer: It turns out she — yes, she — was the daughter of Lord Byron. Meet Countess Lovelace, Ada Byron King, without whom Babbage’s machine would have been a complicated bit of scrap. Even though the machine was less powerful than many pocket calculators, “Ada predicted that a computing machine could compose music, draw graphics and find application, so to speak, in business and science.” You can read more about her at these links.

Treason: The Independent reports that “A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.” This is against the will and the long term security of both the United States and Iraq. Permanent troops will not only limit our ability to respond to real threats to American security, they make it more difficult to recruit new military personnel, and they cost a lot of money. Furthermore, they act as a flashpoint worldwide, breathing evidence of an “occupation” that is resented by the overwhelming majority of Iraqis. This must not be allowed to come to pass.

And finally: War on Photography. You didn’t really want a picture of yourself in front of [insert monument here], did you? Because in the movies, terrorists take pictures….

Did Hillary Just Dis Montana??

Ok, I went over to Hillary’s site, and this is what I posted, more or less:

It’s over. Stop thinking about tomorrow; pick up the pieces and go home!

He’s got all the delegates he needs. The longer you go on, the more pathetic you look.

Don’t you have Senate business you should be tending to?

Feel free to add your thoughts, cut and paste, whatever. Hey, giant pill bugs could still attack Senator Obama.

In closing: Zero Punctuation; his shoe didn’t ring, but his cigarette went off; the economics of family leave aren’t what you might have thought; yeah the bus is busier these days; poetic justice; choice quote of wisdom, “If it doesn’t look right, don’t drive into it“; Blackwater‘s got fighter aircraft. Oh yeah, and the Working Women Survey.