Category: Random Thoughts

Or, Blog Naked.

According to my user profile, I have been a member of BlogHer for 2 years and 20 weeks. I have also apparently posted 5 times there in the last year. I have cross-links to and friendships with many BlogHer members, including one of the founders. I have supported several of their initiatives, including their maternal health campaign.

Here’s the thing. BlogHer was conceived back in 2005 with a “mission to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment.” The idea was to be one vast commons for women who write blogs: we could find one another; we could learn from one another’s writing styles; we could share information that perhaps the male half of the blogosphere didn’t care about; we could join together on issues of mutual importance.

They got big, and they got important. Conference keynoters are women you have heard of. The conferences themselves are among the biggest blogging conferences anywhere, with meetings both in major American cities and Second Life* — both versions of the current conference are sold out. They are considered by some to be THE most influential womens voice in blogging today. They are a Fast 50 contender over at Fast Company. C|Net just can’t shut up about them.

Unfortunately, vast swaths of BlogHer have become everything I dislike about many womens magazines. Horoscopes (even if I believed in Astrology, the idea that any one reading can be applied to one out of every 12 people is ludicrous). Fashion. Mommyblogging. The only thing missing is 83 cover stories about sex and “pleasing your man”.

Just a couple of days ago, they announced a huge, huge, partnership with iVillage. Huge, as in it includes $5,000,000.00 in venture capital. Oh wait, once you add in existing investors, it’s somewhat more than that. Good for you, ladies. That’s awesome! No really, I’m happy for you.

But here’s my problem. Many people see this as acknowledging the economic power of women. I see it as condescending to women. Do you think iVillage wants our voices, or our wallets? When C|Net (yes, C|Net again) points out that “On the tech conference circuit, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are the typical deep-pocketed sponsors. But when the tech is geared toward women, the pockets are those of Chevrolet, Macy’s, and K-Y Jelly,” I wonder why Yahoo and Google don’t think it is worth talking to us! Lots of food there, and plenty of other “communities.” As I look through the official list of sponsors, I notice the “tech” company that gave the most money is Nintendo! Microsoft actually is there, along with HP and Intuit, at one of the lower levels.

Sorry, I don’t think I want to attend a conference sponsored by K-Y Jelly. Unless, of course, it’s clothing optional. Ok, not even then, but it would be a more interesting and appropriate event for K-Y to sponsor.

No “in closing” today. I hope nobody is dissapointed.

* I actually suggested running the parallel online conference in IRC or even AIM. My rationale was that being text formats, they had very low system requirements, low bandwidth requirements, and had free downloadable clients. But glitzy and fun won out over cheap and easily accessible. Maybe I should have mentioned it was easier to hide what you were doing from your boss?

Please welcome David Sirota to the list of people pointing left and saying “Excuse me, the Center is over there!”

It turns out that 85% of us — 17 out of 20 people — are no longer snowed by the rosy “official” economic numbers and are “unhappy” with the economy. The “unhappiness” among Blacks and Latinos is higher. Couldn’t have anything to do with the “decoupling” of traditional measures from reality? Maybe everybody will feel better when that minimum wage hike begins next week.

Two thoughts on Fannie, neither of them happy. Nice of you boys to catch up with me on this one. It only took a financial crisis!

Fiscal responsibility turns out to be nothing more than an empty campaign promise. At least, for many Republicans.

Jill put it best, “Perhaps this will put an end to the idea that the private sector does everything better”.

Iraq and the US are close to agreeing on troop cuts. It’s about time. They have been trying to step up so we would step down for some time now!

And in closing, some doctors are cutting out the middleman, insurance companies. Personally, I think this is a step in the right direction. After all, if enough doctors and patients refuse to play in the for-profit system, something will have to change if insurance companies want to remain in business.

Have a great weekend!

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!

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.

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.

Thought One: Not Exactly Kitchen Stadium

I watch both Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen. I’m new to Hell’s Kitchen this year, although I have watched Top Chef for several seasons now (and hello? was there some concerted effort to not have anybody from Las Vegas this season?). In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, these are cooking game shows. The prize in one is a position as Executive Chef at a Gordon Ramsay owned restaurant. The prize in the other is everything you need in an industrial kitchen, and a bunch of good press to get your new restaurant off the ground.

Now then, when you start with 14 contestants and end up with one winner, it is obvious that everyone else will not win. This part, everyone gets. The part that seems to elude some is that the losers will be looking for a job at the end of the season. Most of the Top Chef crew gets this. Only a couple contenders over at Hell’s Kitchen — including the one I expect to win handily — have the faintest clue.

This is not rocket science. Someday, a prospective employer will have watched this show, and in all likelihood will have already decided whether or not to hire these chefs. That decision will have a little to do with their kitchen performance, and a lot to do with the way they handled themselves on-camera but out of the kitchen. These shows are a multi-week job interview, but some people aren’t treating it that way.

Thought Two: Got Dead Body?

If I am ever so unfortunate as to be closely enough associated with a high-profile criminal case such that the Hollywood types think it’s a good idea to make an episode of a TV show about it, I sincerely hope that it’s CSI instead of Law and Order. Law and Order tends way too much towards “Internet Bad! Doctors Greedy! Non-Missionary Position Sex Bad!”

I also hope they can get Amy Poehler to play me.

She’s 5’2″, so she would have to wear flats.

In closing: here’s what John Edwards has been doing; Fafblog! is back, and with great stuff like this “interview” with Senator Clinton; What’s good for the gosling is good for the goose, so why aren’t faculty members lining up to pee in the cup?; Expert Ezra on Tom Daschle; Maybe Jim Crow oughta watch his back; look over there! it’s a gay, married red herring!; and sorry I’m not touching the “appeasers!” scandal, because Jill said what needed saying (and don’t forget Chris Mathews asking if his guest even knows what “appeasement” is).

Have a great weekend!

Welcome to my entry in the Mothers Day Blogswarm for Maternal Death. This event is a counter-protest against those who feel that abortion is nothing more than killing babies. The sad fact of the matter is that sometimes and in some parts of the world women die because they cannot get a pregnancy terminated.

And that brings me to my own chosen niche in this vast realm. I will be discussing ectopic pregnancy. Those of you in the audience who are medical professionals may protest that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion (for reasons I will discuss below), but the fact is that in some nations, it is considered an abortion — an illegal abortion.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when the fertilized egg does not make it all the way to the uterus — which is designed to accommodate a rapidly growing embryo as it turns ino a fetus and finally a baby. Instead, it implants elsewhere, usually in the Fallopian tubes. This structure is not designed to stretch and carry a pregnancy. This results in symptoms such as sharp, stabbing pain and vaginal bleeding. If left untreated, the Fallopian tube will eventually rupture, causing massive internal bleeding.

This always results in the death of the fetus, and can often cause the death of the mother as well. “Before the 19th century, the mortality rate (the death rate) from ectopic pregnancies exceeded 50%. By the end of the 19th century, the mortality rate dropped to five percent because of surgical intervention. With current advances in early detection, the mortality rate has improved to less than five in 10,000.” Here in the United States, where we have state-of-the-art medical treatment and emergency rooms that treat everyone who comes in the door regardless of their ability to pay, ectopic pregnancy kills roughly 40-50 women each year and is a leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

The bottom line is that in the 1 in 40-100 pregnancies that this occurs, “Ectopic pregnancies cannot continue to birth (term). The developing cells must be removed to save the mother’s life.” Nevertheless, should you be unfortunate enough to experience an ectopic pregnancy in places like El Salvadore, Nicaragua, or other nations with very strict prohibitions on abortion, you are likely to die. There are frankly no assurances from the so-called Pro-Life movement that their goals do not include such draconian laws. Frankly these are people who can rationalize that a fertilized ovum that has not yet implanted is somehow a baby.

Now then, to the “It’s a baby!” crowd, it is not. It will not become a baby. Before it can possibly do so, its growth will destroy the very structure which attaches it to its mother. In this process, it will die. There is no way to move it, to attach it elsewhere, no way for it to survive long enough to be viable. It has absolutely zero chance of becoming living, breathing human being.

There is another element of the so-called Pro-Life movement who will shrug and say “Well, she knew that sex had consequences” — that’s a soft version of “Let the slut die.” The problem is that this doesn’t just happen to “sluts”: this also happens to devoted wives, and to moms who have born, living children at home that they love very much. So much for being actually for living beings.

I leave you this morning with abortion laws in all 50 states, BitchPhD’s Mother’s Day Round-Up, a classic post from Maya’s Granny, and a couple more stops on the Blogswarm with The Crone Speaks and The 3 Rs.

Happy Mothers Day. Go hug a mom; she can always use another hug.

Remember, the Mothers Day Blogswarm for Maternal Death is this Sunday. We’ve gotten some coverage in places like BlogHer, TMV, and Healthy Concerns, and we expect a good turnout.

As some food for thought before the event itself, please consider some of these stories:

First stop is Kansas, where prosecutors are going on a fishing expedition through confidential patient records to see if — if — a crime has even been committed. More to the point, they are trying to harass a doctor out of doing a procedure that is regrettably sometimes necessary. Oh, and a judge has called them on it.

In Missouri, lawmakers want women to submit to extensive *ahem* informational counseling and questioning before allowing an abortion. The question of whether a woman psychologically unfit to have an abortion should really be raising a child is left to your imagination. Thanks to Bitch PhD for this tidbit. Who the heck are these women who are allegedly being “forced” to have abortions against their wills? Are we talking about minors whose parents have made a valid medical decision on the behalf of their child?

A law currently on the Governor’s desk in Oklahoma would force women to have an ultrasound before getting an abortion. I bet the patient has to pay for this procedure too, raising the cost substantially. No word on whether this requirement could or would be waived in a medical emergency.

Don’t forget South Dakota.

Some within the so-called Pro-Life community — and I will continue to say so-called until they denounce the internal faction that believes it is acceptable to enforce their opinions with violence, vandalism, and murder — even want to limit access to birth control, falsely claiming it can “cause” an abortion. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the term “pregnancy” and shows their true colors as not pro-babies, but anti-sex.

Here’s a summary of abortion laws around the world.

Wikipedia’s article on Abortion in the United States points out that 2.8% are due to risks to maternal health, and another 3.3% are due to risks to fetal health. Also, 59.3% of abortions are in the first 8 weeks of pregnancy.

And then there are our sisters in Africa. Rape is a weapon of war there and elsewhere.

Speaking of war, there are our sisters in uniform, one in three of whom will be raped by fellow soldiers while serving our country. Sometimes the *ahem* alleged rapist even allegedly murders their pregnant victim rather than let her testify.

And then we have teenage girls that are pregnant and deathly afraid of what will happen when their parents find out. Sometimes it turns out ok. Sometimes it does not. Seven out of ten are already being abused by their boyfriends. Of those, some of them were deliberately impregnated as a form of control. What a lovely way to bring new life into the world.

And I haven’t even mentioned what I will be writing about.

As much as I hate to agree with Hillary Clinton on anything, in an ideal world abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. You prevent abortions not by making it hard to get one, but by preventing the unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

In closing: Ezra on retirement; an interesting observation about Guantánamo Bay; Hillary is 404; follow-up on Kelo; and the finalists for Bruce Schneier’s annual movie plot threat contest.

Let me tell you how it shall be: There’s one for you, nineteen for me!

Most of you recognize that as the first couple lines of Taxman by the Beatles (off the Revolver album, probably their best single work). No no no, I’m not talking about taxes today. If you want to see me talk about taxes, you can hit the archives.I’m talking about polygamy.

By way of disclaimer: polygamy and polyamory are two different things. If three or more consenting adults decide to enter into a fully informed plural relationship with mutually agreeable ground rules, more power to them. And good luck! What they do in private is none of my business and none of yours either, just like your bedroom is none of my business. That’s not what we’re talking about today.

You haven’t been able to watch the news this week without hearing about that polygamist compound that was raided in Texas, supposedly to find a 16 year old mother and her child — they don’t even know who or where she is.

You might have noticed something. We aren’t talking about consenting adults. We aren’t even talking about legal adults. We probably aren’t talking about all parties being fully informed, and we definitely aren’t talking about mutually agreeable ground rules or she wouldn’t have called the cops. See, there’s some key differences here.

But here’s where the story gets weird in my mind. This article from the Houston Chronicle was published several days ago, and includes this paragraph, emphasis mine:

Authorities believe the girl, who has an 8-month-old daughter, was 15 when she was married. A 2005 change in state law, prompted by concern about the sect, raised the state legal age for a girl to marry from 14 to 16.

Alright, follow me on this: it took until 2005 for Texas to raise the marriage age to 16. Texas’s age of consent has been so low for so long that it was a plot point in Gypsy! Can’t you just imagine the legislators debating: “But now, we can’t have those polygamists marrying off their 14 and 15 year olds! That’s only for our own daughters! We’ll fix those polygamists by making them break two laws instead of just one.”

Then there’s this article from USA Today. Apparently there was what amounts to a group sex room in the temple. I’ll leave off the snarky comments, as this is strange enough to stand on its own.

And then there’s this item from CNN, where they admit that these 400 kids are going to need foster homes (hey, some of them can be fostered with their own child-parents!) and that is going to be a big culture shock. They should have seen that coming, since our missing child bride “said that sect members warned her that if she ever left, outsiders would hurt her and force her to cut her hair, wear makeup and have sex with many men.” Hmm, and this is worse than living with one man who “beat and raped her” regularly while the other wives held her baby in what way?

Oh crap, I better paint my face before the makeup police come and force me to come to the group sex room at the temple!

Oops, </sarcasm>

On a more serious note, right now the Texas Department of Family Services has information on their front page about what is going on (from their point of view) and what you can do if you want to help. If you look at the timeline, it is really remarkable how fast they managed to get this all in motion, and I don’t envy them the task of finding homes for 400+ children, many of whom are related to one another.

In closing: how is it controversial that the Doctor has a daughter when they introduced a grandchild in episode one?; if only he put this much effort into his job they wouldn’t have fired him; Krugman on home prices and men who aren’t working; on health care; on not having health care (thanks to Suzie); Bruce Schneier said everything that needs to be said about the lady who let her 9 year old take public transportation home; Expert Ezra on soaring food costs and what a girl (or any other worker) wants; “You are going to get back into that jury room and keep deliberating until you find these scumbag terraists guilty!”; and finally, a heartwarming story about a woman who decided the time had come to speak her mind… in English.

Today I happened to catch a good chunk of MSNBC’s Live with Dan Abrams. He took one heck of a news day and ran with it, asking very good questions and making very good insights. Clearly a smart guy, and well worth watching.

In closing: the Iraq War might kill our economy; soldiers and civilians are still dying over there, you know; consumers are pinching pennies as oil prices continue to soar; and Eliot? What the hell were you thinking??