Rambles from Leora
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 23 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Leora" journal:[<< Previous 23 entries]
|
03:10 am
[Link] |
Once On This Island
I've been listening to it again, and I decided to write a post about why I love the play. Once On This Island is my second-favorite musical. However, I feel that very few people appreciate the play, and I think that's a shame. So, this post is going to be about why I love the play, along with a dissection of it that will give away the entire story. It'll be below the cut. On a side note, my favorite play is Into the Woods, because it does everything well. It is musically interesting, lyrically brilliant, and an amazing weaving together of multiple stories. Plus, I'm a fairy-tale geek and it was written by a fairy tale geek, and I appreciate that.
Anyhow, Once On This Island is a play primarily about telling stories. However, it is also very much a play about love. It's also very much a play about racism. It is also a play about dreams. it is also a play about costs. It's also a story with a made up theology that I utterly adore, one of my favorite mythologies in existence.
*sighs* I can't put into words all of why I like it. Ahwell. I considered deleting this because it doesn't get across all of what I want, but I hate to dump so much writing. It's late and I should sleep though and I think I am having trouble holding all of the threads in my head to do them justice.
( full of spoilers )
Current Mood:  tired
Tags: personal, plays, thoughts
|
|
03:31 pm
[Link] |
That doesn't suck, actually
So, I just got a letter from EBMUD, which is where I get my water from. They were informing me of what my water ration during the drought is (ration is an overly strong word as I can use more water, they just charge an additional fee for each unit I use beyond my ration). Our conservation did manage to not just be within our ration, but we made our goal of 80% water usage, so that is good.
But what pleased me was this letter also included contact information for getting your ration reassessed if your number of occupants has changed, you have medical reasons, or you feel there is some other relevant reason your water needs have changed. That pleases me. We don't need our quote adjusted, but I am glad that those who would will have a way to get that considered. That makes me much less annoyed with how they are doing this,
Current Mood: tired
Tags: personal, values
|
|
05:35 pm
[Link] |
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
My computer time is limited and TV Tropes are eating up a lot of it, but I want to take a moment to discuss the moral of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. As I can't do that without spoilers, I'll put it behind a cut tag.
( discussion below )
Current Mood: hungry
Tags: humor, thoughts, values
|
|
03:45 pm
[Link] |
Tired
I'm tired. And I'm upset. LJ, gay rights in California (although I still expect we'll shoot down the amendment and keep marriage equality), the redefinition of abortion being attempted, and the idea of making pharmacies hire people who refuse to give out medications. It's a sad day.
But I am too tired to write about any of that more than I have. So, I just want to save this link for future reference. It's an interesting link, feel free to read it, about stalking. The comments seem to include comments from someone who used to be a stalker and received therapy that helped. I think the info is useful and important. And it seems to support the idea that I've been coming to that not only is abuse bad, but stopping the abuse is often the best thing you can do for the abuser. This is important because a lot of people in abusive relationships seem unwilling to get out because they don't want to hurt the abuser. They recognize that the actions are bad, but they also love the person and feel the person needs help. Now, obviously the person does need help. But enabling further abuse isn't help. And I think we need to help people to find ways to break out of these cycles humanely and safely.
No, I am not excusing or justifying abuse. Abuse is bad, mm'kay. But if part of why you put up with it is for the other person's sake, then I think it's good to learn that enabling it out of sympathy isn't even good for their sake.
Current Mood: tired
Tags: beliefs, links, personal
|
10:07 am
[Link] |
Oh LJ, You Tease
So, the newest ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif) news post is fascinating. They are bringing back basic accounts See, they say so.
What they don't say, although you will read it if you click into the community where they say it is discussed is that "Basic" no longer will mean "ad-free". So, they are bringing back Basic accounts as a third type of ad-supported account. One with fewer functions and fewer ads.
The way they write it up, they also imply that they will be improving basic accounts less than they used to. Basic accounts used to be a core part of the LJ account structure. Nifty new features went to paid accounts, but adding things to basic accounts was also regularly done. Often after they were paid features for a while or in smaller quantities than paid users were given. They seem to be saying that they'll give basic accounts their limited functionality, but don't expect more. Much like how early adopters got frozen at the special benefits they had at their time and then wouldn't usually get new paid features.
But what is more worrisome is that this strikes me as mainly a way to add advertising to people who currently have basic accounts under the pretense of giving the community what it wants - the ability to make new basic accounts.
Now, if this really is financially necessary, that is understandable. But I am once again highly annoyed with how they present it. It's downright sneaky and misleading to claim you are adding back basic accounts and try to slide through the fact that you redefined what "basic" meant.
It'll be a while before I could run my own server. At least a couple of years. But when I can, that is looking tempting. If anything gets going with some of the ideas for other sites, I may migrate. The issue is that in order to migrate well I either need to get a lot of people to go to the same place that I go to or get really good interoperability based on OpenID.
I'm glad I'm not in Support any longer. I wouldn't want to have to choose between helping the people in Support and supporting LiveJournal. I still do think many of the volunteers are awesome people.
Current Mood: sad
Tags: beliefs, links, meta-journaling, values
|
|
06:02 pm
[Link] |
I am home
I am home and have been for a few days. I am trying to rest and recover from the energy expenditure of my trip. Unfortunately, I keep waking up early. Some days I can then take a nap, but I keep waking up early.
Anyhow, the trip was very nice despite minor problems. I got to see several people, although many far more briefly than I would have liked. Getting to catch up with my ex was particularly nice though. Getting to see some people in person for the first time was also nifty.
It is incredibly uncomfortably hot here. It is hard to think of much else.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) siderea has posted several links to recent psychology articles that look really interesting, but I just don't have the brainpower to read over them currently. My computer is dead, as it has been for a while now, and using other people's computers doesn't work very well. I am way behind on LJ an will be for quite a while. It'll be a bit before we can afford to buy new hardware and then it'll take time for the new hardware to arrive. So, I'm not very contactable nor am I that aware of what is going on in other people's lives. I have read bits and pieces of LJ, but nothing consistent or thorough. If you want me to know something, comment here or email me at my @lj addy. I am not checking my other addy that often. (That means I am using the gmail one but not the other domain. Which is easier to read depends on which computer setup I am at.)
Also, I meant to post a link to this a while ago, but I think I forgot to. While CMU is cooler than Berkeley in general, because our Carnival is so much better than their whatever it was I went to, their half-time show was one of the coolest things ever. I admit it. I may have posted this before, but if so, ohwell. It's still cool.
Anyhow, I am still alive. And I still won't be very active for quite a while. :/
Current Mood: tired, hot, and uncomfortable
Tags: links, personal, social
|
|
11:19 am
[Link] |
Quick Notes
I've been mainly off LiveJournal for several days now and will be for longer. My computer is having serious hardware issues. It looks like we'll be mostly buying a new computer as the solution, and this will take some time. Right now I am on someone else's computer, as I have been for my few more recent online appearances, but I can only do so much on other people's set ups. The timing is rather bad for this. :/
Anyhow, some quick things:
So, I'd like to get to see Boston people while I'm in Boston (odd that). Looking at my schedule... I get into Boston at a reasonable evening time, but given luggage retrieval and possible variability in actual arrival time, if I try to organize a group dinner that night, it might run kind of late, and I don't want to end up having things be late enough to be an issue for others. Plus, how I will feel after a long plane flight is a bit unpredictable. So, July 1 looks like the best possible night for a chance to see people. Preferably at a reasonable dinner hour, as we'll be needing to wake up early to go to the airport the next day.
So, this requires a place to eat that handle a moderate-sized group (not sure how big, it's a random Tuesday evening with little warning for people who want to go, so not sure who of people I know will be there (yes, this trip is disorganized... it's not even disorganized, it has vague splatterings of organization tossed at it, but it was only sheer last minute luck that we were able to pull it off at all, so I'm just glad for what I do have, which is a chance to see many people I care about), and that is someplace I can eat at. My dietary restrictions are neurotic and insane but generally some place that has vegetarian food that isn't relying on mushrooms, eggplant, or rice as part of that vegetarian food works for me. I'd prefer some place decent, casual, and not terribly expensive. In fact, I hate socializing through going to restaurants with people, because it means you potentially alienate people who can't afford to go out to eat. However, people do it for a reason, and that's generally that everyone needs to eat, and it gives you a decent multitasking for your time and a place to gather and hang out while you socialize. So, I fall into the convenient cliche' method of socializing. Anyhow, I have no idea what place would be good for this, so any Bostonians likely to show up for dinner, comment with suggestions.
I assume that pretty much everyone will be working or otherwise busy during the day of Monday. However, if you are not and want to hang out, please let me know. Otherwise Darch and I may be forced to sleep in and spend the day relaxing!
Someday I do hope to go back to Boston and visit people properly, with time to see people and relax in their company. This trip is really about going to Pennsylvania with a bonus side dish of Boston that I am quite pleased about.
Anyhow, I will still be having problems using LJ for a while... I just can't comfortably read LJ anywhere else. But I will try to keep checking my @lj addy. I'm checking it more than my direct addy because it goes to my gmail account, and I'm on gmail more than I'm sshing into my shell account. So, I should read replies to these comments and to emails. I'll try to keep in contact with people.
And finally, my apologies to bitterlight - you raised a good point I hadn't noticed in a comment thread I can't easily reply to. I may have a longer reply at some point, but I just wanted to say, I hadn't noticed the distinction you were making, and I was overly harsh in my comment. Sorry about that.
Tags: personal, social
|
|
10:10 pm
[Link] |
Kids these days
What can you say about kids these days?
Well, apparently a lot is being said. This article is one of the most cheering things I've read in ages. The Millennial generation is apparently more politically active, more politically aware, more optimistic, more likely to volunteer, less likely to use drugs, less likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors, more likely to be okay with women working, more likely to be okay with interracial relationships, etc. And there are a ~lot~ of them. I am a year too old to be a Millie; I'm a Gen-Xer. But I remember when I was in High School and people were talking about how we were the Me Generation, and I felt that was very unfair. We cared about the environment and talked about recycling. We cared about making things better. We just didn't know what to do. And I was on the cusp of that change. Apparently the younger ones also care about making things better, and they're actually trying to do something. Some of you reading this are part of that generation. Good for you and your peers. Maybe you'll actually manage to accomplish something. Best of luck to you. Not that nobody in my generation or my friends who are older than I am are doing nothing. Obviously these are trends and individuals will vary. But it's a good trend, and we so rarely get those, so it's nice to see.
I found that link from here which also includes a few other links on the Millies, and they are interesting too, although not all as cheering. Mainly because some focus more on the difficulties of that generation, dealing with the problems in the economy and the massive debts and high prices for schooling. But the generation itself still seems promising; they just were raised into a very difficult situation. I'm just surprised to see a general trend of dealing with it so well.
So, fun with headlines. The Washington Post says:
Fewer US High School Students Engage in Risky Behavior
USA Today says: Risky behavior declines among teens
Christian Post says: Survey Shows Rise in Sexual Activity in High Schools
Now, in the immortal words of Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the others; one of these things doesn't belong. One of these things is not like the others. Which one doesn't belong?"
That intrigued me, so I went to look at the study. Conveniently, the first article includes a link to the CDC study itself at the end of the article. So, here is the disparity. The survey is conducted once every other year and has been being run since 1991. There has been a significant decline in risky behaviors of all sorts, including teen sex and teen sex without a condemn (but also drug use, driving without a seatbelt, being in a car with a driver who has been drinking, etc.) since 1991. On the downside, for most of these behaviors there has not been a decrease among Hispanics, which is something that will hopefully be worked on. But the overall picture is a significant decrease in dangerous behaviors of numerous kinds, including sexual. However, the numbers for sexual activity between 2005 and 2007 (remember, that is only two data points) has increased in almost all cases and condom use has gone down. But - and here is the big but that makes that third article out of synch with all of the others, it has not increased a statistically significant amount. They have 2 data points and they don't have statistical significance in the change, and that article is making a big deal of a recent increase in sexual activity.
Ignoring statistical significance really bothers me. On the other hand, way to go kids; you're acting safer. I was going to comment on that web site to point out the lack of statistical significance, but it requires me to create an account, and I'm not doing that just to fact check their faulty reporting.
Now, it is possible that the downward trend in risk-taking behavior is over and it will increase in 2009. But we don't know yet. We need to wait for more data.
Update: There may actually be a bit of a trend there. But I'm still waiting on more data. Also, I dislike the focus on one particular set of risky behaviors among a much larger collection. To focus only on the sexual and to ignore the changes in drug use and seat-belt wearing and so forth seems wrong to me. end of update
So, what is the world coming to with kids like these?
Current Mood:  pleased
Tags: beliefs, links, personal, values
|
|
05:48 pm
[Link] |
Elections
I don't understand voters who favor Clinton or Obama but say that if their candidate does not win that they will then vote for McCain. If you support the politics of either Clinton or Obama what possible issue would make you want to support McCain? Well, obviously sexism or racism might, but very few people are stating that as their reason, and I don't think that can account for all of the people saying these things.
I fear that they aren't going based on any issues whatsoever. That they instead are going based on the emotional feel that has been fed to them by the media. And it really saddens me. It saddens me how voters vote against their own interests for no apparent sensible reason.
I really dislike McCain's politics. He voted for the Military Commissions Act. This allows the government to take random people, accuse them of being terrorists, hold them with no proof, and deny them the right to a lawyer, any legal protections, and the right to a fair trial. The degree to which this destroys the basic ideas that the United States stands for is so vast that my writing ability is not up to the challenge. He strongly supported it. People do not seem to talk about this enough.
I actually do respect McCain on a few points despite the fact that I disagree with him on those issues. I respect that he has taken unpopular views on both abortion and marriage equality. On abortion he believes that abortions should generally be illegal, but that exceptions should be made for rape, incest, and the life of the mother and he believes that a woman's word should be trusted and not questioned if she says she was raped. I believe abortion should be legal in general, but I respect that he probably believes that view since neither side really likes that middle ground very much as it allows legal abortions to people willing to claim they were raped without proof (although forcing rape victims to prove they were raped and making a time-critical medical procedure dependent upon that proof would be incredibly ugly and horrible). He also believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman, but that there shouldn't be a Constitutional ammendment on the issue and that the issue should be determined by the individual states and not the federal government. While I believe that we shouldn't take away the rights from minorities just because they're a minority, that's also a compromise neither side really likes.
I have less respect for him on his flip-flop-flip on immigration. He temporarily claimed to agree with the long held Republican views on immigration but went back to his previous stance after he got the primary nomination. Honestly, I'm not clear on why he decided to flip back before getting elected in the presidential race... if you're going to lie to get one election, why not maintain it all the way? Unless maybe he felt he needed it with Republicans but his own view would be more popular in the general election. Whatever.
Anyhow, I don't like him and I hope we have a Democratic president. But reading about him has made me merely dislike and mistrust him. I don't hate him as a person the way I do our current President who I watched laugh about how fun it was to torture fish and watch them die while on a sports TV show (I am not discussing fishing for food. I understand the idea of fishing for food. He was talking about fishing and then tossing a live fish into a bucket for his dog to play with while it flopped around with no water. That is killing and torturing for entertainment, which I view very differently from killing for food or even hunting for entertainment where an effort is made to kill as cleanly and painlessly as possible). So, yeah, McCain isn't Bush; he's a step up, but I still don't like him or his policies.
And honestly, I'm afraid. I have read a lot of articles and I think the Democrats have a decent chance of winning. But I've watched over the last eight years as our government's budget has been ransacked (after President Clinton finally got it going decently), our economy has tanked and the US dollar keeps dropping, our civil liberties have been decimated (wire tapping, attacks on habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial), and we have become more and more hated across the globe. The problems are vast and they keep getting vaster, and I am afraid that the longer we wait to start fixing them the less fixable they will be. And I don't understand how someone can look at that and decide that they only support those solutions if they come from Clinton or if they come from Obama, but not if they come from the other one. While there are differences between Clinton and Obama, they are significantly smaller than the differences they both have with McCain. I can see how you could support McCain and neither Clinton nor Obama. But I just don't understand how you can care about these issues and then run to the other side if your first choice doesn't win.
It's like saying that your order of preferences for the LJ election are imc, jameth, legomymalfoy. While there are differences between Legomymalfoy and imc they certainly both have more in common than either of them has with jameth.
It really makes me wonder about people.
Anyhow, and this is mainly for fun although it does have some validity:
McCain's Youtube Problem Just Became a Nightmare.
I don't really like smear tactics, which is part of why I put this so low into the post. Although I also don't understand why people think McCain is a "straight shooter" when he's been just as political as the other candidates. There's nothing "straight talk express" about him that isn't present in the others. He's also not a maverick according to his voting record. These stupid catchphrases get attached to politicians and they make no sense. Just as the candidate who has actually worked with poor city kids is the one who people claim is elitist, even though all of the candidates are rich and well-educated. They are probably all somewhat elitist, to be honest, but if we're talking relative elitism, then it makes no sense.
This is what I get for paying attention. Well, come November I will vote and I will drink while I watch the news. And I will hope it will be in celebration, and not to drown my sorrows like in 2004. Once every four years seems about right for trying to get drunk (I don't actually get drunk, since I can't really due to weirdnesses in my body, but I can try).
Current Mood: worried
Tags: beliefs, links, personal, questions, values
|
|
04:39 pm
[Link] |
LJ Advisory Board Elections
Well, we can vote now. Of course, the Advisory Board has no real power, the recent problems were all problems where either the Advisory Board gave good advice that was ignored or was never consulted, and the whole show of having the election to add a new member feels like a huge attempt to distract the userbase from the real problems while fixing something that was never a problem in the first place. However, adding a better person is still preferable to adding a bad advisor.
For the most part, I don't see candidates addressing my concerns. I do see a ton of candidates I know or know of, almost all of whom are decent, intelligent people who will do their best to do a good job. I have not read all of the information all of them have written because I am lazy and busy. Feel free to argue for your candidate (including yourself if that candidate is you.)
My concerns are as follows:
They never explained what happened with the interest list censoring. (imc actually does addrsss this in his info)
They currently have advertisements visible to logged-in paid users and permanent account members and I am not aware of any intent on LJ's part of changing this. If you go to change your journal style you will see the styles that sponsor a particular company. I am aware of no way for a paid user to avoid seeing these ads except by abstaining from changing their journal style. I feel paid users should not have to choose between not seeing ads and not using certain LJ journal options. People raised a fuss about losing the ability to create free non-ad journals, but while that was happening, they snuck ads to paid users through without people noticing. I want this issue addressed.
I want information about SUP's policies, goals, and how they affect Russian users.
I want to know what information advertising companies get when the ads are put on the site. As best as can be determined, the ads are not hosted by LiveJournal, which means that some information is going through to the advertisers when ads are viewed. It's not necessarily all that bad that the advertisers know which IP address viewed which ad where and when, but users should be fully informed of exactly what information of theirs goes through to advertisers and what does not and what security is in place to assure this.
I may or may not be forgetting other issues. So, which candidates address these issues?
Here is the list of candidates:
lordandrei, lostcosmonaut, legomymalfoy, lizyd, jmaynard, primitivepeople, jj_maccrimmon, qfemale, jette, randomposting, jameth, rm, imc, sollitaire, fuzzface00, squeaky19, deathboy, tango, daniidebrabant, twirlandswirl, cambler, vichan, mrflagg
Of these I recognize legomymalfoy, imc, tango, and twirlandswirl from LJ Support. Of those, legomymalfoy probably has the most detailed Support knowledge and experience working with other people. She's very competent and a lot of Support people are backing her. imc directly addressed an issue of interest to me, and I think of imc as more technical than the average Support person. All of them are decent people with good knowledge of Support. Twirlandswirl is probably the least in the Support culture of those four, which is a plus and a minus. I do worry about people who are strongly tied to Support being redundant voices - telling LJ what they are already hearing, because they should already be listening to their Support team. And their Support team tends to accept what LJ does to a much larger extent than the general userbase. If they aren't listening to their Support Team then they have much bigger problems. But if you want someone who knows how LJ works and understands a lot of the nitty gritty, there is some appeal to picking someone who has been through Support.
Squeaky19 runs InsaneJournal. He is running largely on a platform of providing a voice for people who use the LJ software. Since LJ is opensource, he feels that people who use the code should be represented. He also runs a site that from what I am aware is good and he's a decent person. He keeps his users informed. He probably has a fair bit of knowledge of how LJ works in a technical way and of the demands and difficulties of running an LJ like site, although InsaneJournal is much smaller than LiveJournal, and problems do vary with scale. There's some appeal to this sort of experience and perspective.
Jameth is a long-time highly controversial LJ user. He posts things to get people's attention, and I think he faked his own death once. I don't pay much attention to him, so I don't really know details. Many people consider him a joke candidate. He has a fairly large following and readership, but I have very little idea what he'd be like on the advisory board.
lordandrei is the husband of someone I know, and I hadn't noticed he was running until today. I can't really say that much though specifically, other than that they are good people, caring, with values I approve of, and I think he'd do fine.
The rest are, as far as I know, LJ users with varying levels of experience and credentials that I don't know much about. I saw recommendations for some of them though by other people I know. Nominating a user who is just a user might not be bad. There's something to be said for that too. It's a voice that doesn't get heard as much.
But do any of these people actually address the issues that I care about? Many of them do talk about free speech, but I want more specifics.
So, comments. Why is someone actually the best choice? And will this make any difference at all?
Current Mood: tired
Tags: livejournal, meta-journaling, questions, values
|
|
10:09 pm
[Link] |
Various Things
I am really pleased about the ruling for gay marriage in California. I hope we get to keep it. I don't have much to say other than I'm really pleased.
We have a water shortage. They're rationing water. We are supposed to use 90% of our average water consumption for the past three years. As we haven't lived here for three years, I assume they'll just average it for how long we have been here. I have a lot of problems with how they set up the system, and it does reward those who have been wasting water and can thus more easily cut back. Although I am pleased that golf courses and other less vital uses for water are being rationed much more extremely. They put a floor on it, if you use 100 gallons a day or less, you aren't required to reduce further. That might sound easy, but we don't do a whole lot of water heavy things, yet we use far more than twice that. We wash clothes, dishes, we take showers, we use the toilet, I have to take baths, and we have a yard which gets watered briefly three times a week and fruit trees we water once or twice a month. Nothing extreme, yet it all adds up. Water rationing and extreme heat... this is going to be a stinky summer. I really hope it rains.
I'm planning to take shallower baths and reuse some of the water for the trees. It's so hot and dry, I bet the fruit trees could use a good batch of water. And the lemon tree produces huge lemons. The orange tree produces orange-sized oranges. The lemon tree often produces lemons bigger than oranges.
Today I helped a 4 year old build a fort; she's sleeping in it now. It's an indoor fort made from a table and some chairs and sheets and blankets. I think she now considers me to be a friend. The way to a person's heart may well be to help them build a fort. Although we also played games and talked. Spending time with people is just generally good for friending.
And that's pretty much what I've been up to.
Current Mood:  busy
Tags: events, medical, personal, politics, social
|
|
06:22 pm
[Link] |
Things That Do Not Impress Me
The ability to use big or uncommon words, especially when you seem to be using them specifically to use them, and often use them wrong.
Having a big and nice place to live when you are extremely rich. If you're extremely rich then I assume that you have a nice place to live. It's not exactly hard to do if you're extremely rich. I might find some aspect of your taste or decorating choices impressive, but simply having a nice place isn't very impressive.
That you have a child or children. Now, if you're raising them well, that will generally impress me a fair bit, raising a child well isn't easy to do. But simply having children is not very impressive, nor does it make me assume that you know what's best for your kids or that you know what you're doing. You might, and I'll hear you out, but you also might not. The moment you give birth or have a woman give birth to your child you do not suddenly become an expert in parenting. That is, in fact, part of what makes raising children so difficult and what makes doing it well so impressive.
That you have a high IQ. ... Okay, so do tons of people I know, so you have all this potential... what have you done with it? This isn't that different from having a lot of money, quite nice, but I'll judge you on how you're using it.
That your friends think you are a good person. Most people, even really crappy ones, can find some people who think they are a good person. In fact, there are groups specifically designed to let awful people socialize with each other and work toward their awful agendas together. If you're awful in the right way, it can be easy to find like-minded friends. If you need to resort to informing people that your friends think you're actually quite good, there is already reason to doubt. Sure, you might actually be great and wonderful, great and wonderful people are sometimes disliked for numerous reasons, but this isn't much in the way of evidence.
Other things I can't think of offhand. But there is this interesting social phenomenon that happens sometimes when someone seems to be trying to talk about something about themselves or some issue where the underlying message seems to be: aren't I impressive and one of the really amazing people because of this? And then when I am busy simply not being impressed, and they seem so confused that my habits do not involve being impressed by such things. Although I suppose it's a lot less fun in the other direction, but then, you shouldn't expect to impress everyone, even if you have done something genuinely impressive.
Tags: personal, rants, values
|
|
04:44 pm
[Link] |
A Hammer is a Tool Not a Set of Tools
So, I've been trying to process why I am finding myself sometimes agreeing with opposing points in this whole debacle. And when you find yourself with two conflicting views that both seem right, you're probably missing some hidden factor, and I think that factor is context. The views aren't right in the same contexts, but they both have contexts in which they are right.
I found this post by coffeeandink fascinating and well worth reading. But I couldn't relate to the last part of it at all. It talks about how if you are the only woman in a group of men, then you know you are alone, you don't have other women to turn to for help.
That's not my experience. In my experience, sex usually doesn't matter. To the only extent that sex has mattered, I have been able to use boys to defend me against other boys. The girls stuck together and attacked as a group. Now, that was childhood, and the boys attacked both physically and emotionally, while the girls only attacked emotionally. But that's just one data point and one personal set of experiences.
But I don't think of males or females as monolithic groups or as sex as the important dividing line. Now, geek/non-geek that might be another story. If I'm the only geek in a group of non-geeks, I might have issues. But male/female just doesn't tend to work that way for me. And part of that is the males I tend to be around. They are not a representative sample, but anything I am applying, I would be applying to them.
And I think that is important. Because you don't use the same tool to do two different types of tasks. A hammer is great tool, but sometimes you need a wrench or maybe what you really need is a scissor or a ruler. You can't easily substitute them one for another and trying will give suboptimal results.
Let's look at two different hypothetical sexists. One feels that a female should be kept with her family until her father arranges her marriage, then she should be kept within the house by her husband, covered when she goes out, and only talk to her relatives. Another sexist believes that while it's okay for women to have jobs, they should also have children and quit their jobs while their children are young, but they can go back to work if they want to once their children start school.
Now, both of those views are repugnant to me, but I don't think that they should be dealt with in the same ways. I think if you treat the latter the same way as the former, then you will not be as effective. Worse, you will have basically have created a straw man argument. By treating them as the same, you do not teach the latter person better. Instead, that person will say: But I'm nothing like this other guy! I certainly believe women can have male friends, choose who they marry, etc. And he's right, he's not like the other guy, and if we make that our model of what sexism is, then people aren't likely to see the lesser sexism that they do have and they are going to be offended, Offended people don't learn well. You don't convince people by offending them.
So, instead, maybe we should use different kinds of methods of change. I see the women who are saying, we shouldn't talk about the men's issues because it is ~always~ about the men's issues. Since they already have that, we need to fight for our time.
But in my experience, it isn't. Their experience is valid, and they are dealing with more sexism than I am. But if I use those techniques against the men and women (yes, women, because I do talk about men's issues sometimes and other women do too) who aren't always talking about male issues (or white issues or heterosexual issues, etc.) then they are rightly going to say: But this doesn't apply to me! It's the wrong tool for those situations and for those people. The right tool might be more of an open discussion about how sexism affects all of us and how we all have these bits of sexism we are trying to identify and stamp out, and what are the subtle forms of sexism I might be prone to. Because the people I know are open to change, and they are open to thinking about their own sexism, and they will listen.
But if I face the other sort, then this would be the wrong tool, because they would take advantage of it to steal the conversation and make it all about them, and they may just be trying to placate women and make them shut up. And those people need to be handled differently.
It's not just that both experiences happen and are valid, but that different tactics will work on different problems. And if you mostly have the experiences of one group, and you are mostly around people of the other sort, your tools are likely to backfire. It doesn't mean your tools are bad; they're good tools, they're just not up for the different job you now face. But contrariwise, when someone in your new group is thrust into your old group, they will be unprepared and using the wrong tools.
I think the problem comes in that people have difficulty believing that these differences are real. People who mostly deal with people who are only mildly sexist (nobody is totally free of it, you get some instilled by your culture even if you try to fight it, but some people are only very mildly sexist) have trouble understanding what it's like to deal with people are truly are horribly sexist. And people who regularly deal with lots of awful sexism have trouble believing that other people are doing more than just pretending to not be particularly sexist, but might actually not be particularly sexist. That's hard to understand unless you are used to being attacked.
I'd like to give an example that is only partly related. In fifth grade (10 year olds) at my school, the boys and girls still played in separate groups. But the boys would sometimes send a boy to a group of girls and say to one of them something like: Such-and-such boy likes you. If you expressed any interest, then they would say, just kidding, and laugh at you. After learning this pattern and learning that all shows of interest were actually opportunities to get mocked, I learned to say no to all of them. However, I kept this for many years, not trusting my peers. Which meant that I wasn't as nice as I should have been to some of my classmates in later years who expressed interest, but I still wasn't sure it wasn't a trap.
Similarly, if you're expecting lurking sexism, it's hard to know when there isn't a trap. And if you get bitten enough times, you're not going to be all that open to trusting the next guy who tries to act all wonderful and will probably stop doing that after he's gotten whatever he wants from you. That's understandable. But they aren't all traps, and that is where the problem comes in. It's just hard to tell which tool is appropriate in a given situation.
What bothers me is the way people who all seem to be expressing the same goal are attacking each other. People are all posting from the viewpoint of: how can we make there be less sexism (or racism, or etc. ) and I haven't seen people openly supporting actual sexism (well, not in these conversations, although I haven't read everything... I do still run across sexism, of course, ran across a very sad example just recently... it does happen, but the point is, within these talks, we're not actually fighting the sexists, we're fighting over the best way to fight them). And I think their isn't one best way. There are best ways for particular situations, and we need to understand that the situations vary a ~lot~. And I think we need to have some acceptance for the fact that some people who have been hurt particularly badly are simply not going to be willing to give people as much trust. And you don't have a right to expect it or demand it. Fix the problem and there will be fewer such people.
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Tags: beliefs, links, personal, values
|
02:27 am
[Link] |
Now a post directly on OSBP
OSBP stands for Open Source Boob Project, and by now I suspect you've all heard about it. I included a link though, in case you missed it.
There is a lot being said on this, and this post isn't about the most controversial aspects of it, at least, I don't expect it to be. This post is, instead, my personal thoughts about how I feel about it and if I were in that position.
Some of my initial thoughts are: I would much rather you ask if you may touch my breasts than you ask if you can touch my boobs.
I do not mind people, even strangers, asking me if they can touch my breasts. If asked if people may ask, I'd say yes, but I wouldn't wear the pin. I wouldn't wear the pin, because it feels like a mean thing to do to a bunch of males[1]. See, I don't mind people asking. I will, however, say no. I will say no to almost any male who asks to touch my breasts. I might, if in a particular setting and in a weird mood say yes, it's possible. But odds are good, I'd just consistetly say no. You asked if you may ask and you may. Now you get your answer, and it is no.
But I'd feel if I wore the yes pin, I'd hurt a bunch of people. They'd assume I took the yes pin not solely because I am okay with people asking, but because I may say yes to some of them. Then they'd assume I said yes to someone, but not to them and wonder why I said no to them. Or maybe they wouldn't, but that's what would be in my head. So, unless I was really in a bad mood, I wouldn't want to go around rejecting a bunch of people.
I do wonder what the reaction would have been if instead of what was written someone had written something like this:
Sometimes I really want to touch a woman's breasts, and I don't know how she'd feel about it, and I just wish I could ask her and know. And I was discussing this with some friends, and one of them who was female said, I don't mind you asking! So, I asked, and she said, no you may not. And it was very empowering for both of us, because then I knew for certain and she had gotten to clear up that issue and say no and it was fully accepted and okay. So, we made a bunch of pins and lots of women wore them and we asked several of them, and some said yes, and some said no. Some said no to everyone, and we all knew who was okay with what.
But anyhow, back to reality... So, a friend brought up some points in a locked post that really made me think. She was discussing her reactions to strangers asking her for things. I won't go into details, because it's a locked post, but it made me think about how I'd feel if people were going around asking me for other things. The one that would most annoy me that I've thought of is if people were going around asking for a hug. Now offering free hugs, that's fine. I simply don't take people up on it. But asking a stranger for a hug is all sorts of weird. So, what if the movement had been the Open Source Hug Project...
I'd wear a no button or I'd simply be annoyed. The problem with a stranger asking me for a hug is that it's pathetic. It speaks to an emotional vulnerability that is very pressuring in an adult. I feel like a stranger asking me for a hug should be wagging a tail and whining... Saying no feels like slapping a puppy. And that is why it makes me mad. Because I don't want to hug a stranger, and I don't want to be emotionally pressured into it. If you are that needy, then you should seek out some help, but random passing strangers can't give you that degree of help. And I don't want to have my day randomly interrupted with someone else's deep emotional needs. So, I would say no, because my anger at being manipulated like that (when the person might not even be all that needy or desperate, but may just be acting it to get me to say yes - who knows?) would make me feel like crap if I said yes. It's not a fair ploy, and it's not one I'd be okay giving into. But I'd still feel bad about saying no, which is a terrible situation to be in. It's on par with sending children to sell things to raise money solely because it's hard to say no to children, even though you can't afford it and they're selling crap you have no need for.
Now someone I know asking for a hug is a totally different thing. But anyhow, why I am so upset by the emotional ploy and not the sexual one? Well, probably because I have experience at turning down sexual advances. I also have a lot of cultural training in turning down sexual advances. I was raised to expect them, and to expect that anyone making them is capable of taking no for an answer or needs the practice anyhow. Also, it's just easier to say no to a ludicrous request. Since it is clearly not generally socially appropriate to touch a stranger's breasts, you can't really be expecting me to say yes. But a hug is just plausible enough to be really awkward. A hug is also less sex-specific. I do wonder how most people would react to being asked if they'd wear a pin which would let people ask them for a hug. And how many people would say yes when asked and which factors would affect who they say yes to.
I also can't help but thinking about ask versus hint culture. A description that is a little over halfway through the page (you may want to search within the page for "Guess" or "Culture") and it calls it Ask versus Guess, but people who use "Guess" culture prefer to call it Hint culture. ozarque had several posts discussing it. I am firmly within Ask culture, and I believe you should ask for what you want. There is very little it is rude to ask for. However, you must accept no for an answer, you may not press, and the person saying no does not need to explain why they are saying no. So, being very strongly Ask, it's not surprising I'm often comfortable with being asked for big things. I expect many Hint culture people would be incredibly uncomfortable with being asked to wear a button. They probably would feel quite pressured. But I can't speak for them as I am very much an Ask person. Some of the people who seemed most okay with OSBP and said things like, they were just asking or it's okay to ask also sound very much a part of Ask culture.
1 I say males here not because I assume no females would ask, but because I really have no idea what my reactions would be were females to ask to touch my breasts. I've given the matter some thought, and I'm just not sure. I don't have enough experience to speak on this, so I'm simply leaving out that topic. The above bit is about the effects it'd have on males, because I feel better able to predict that.
Current Mood: tired
Tags: beliefs, links, personal, thoughts, values
|
|
07:18 pm
[Link] |
Sexism is Bad, M'kay?
Here's my first conclusion I want to post about on the long and complicated topic of *ism and privilege and boobs.
People don't like being stuck into cubby holes.
That's my conclusion. Now, the long version.
It is very hard to have a form of prejudice that doesn't hurt all of the groups involved. Sexism hurts women and men. Sexism primarily aimed at women hurts women and men. Also, sexism aimed at anyone is bad.
Let's take an example. Women are told that they should be caring and nurturing and should be devoting themselves to others. They should be nurses, but not doctors. That is obviously a sexist message to give a woman, that they should be this way in some way that a man should not.
But it's also a sexist message to give to a man. It tells a man that he is somehow wrong if he is as caring and nurturing as a woman. It's what causes men who do go into nursing to have to deal with far more crap than they should have to. Because some people actually do want to be nurses and find it very rewarding, and some of them are men.
It's very hard to come up with any behavior that someone is encouraged to have because of an ism that some people don't actually have. And if they're not part of the group being told to have it, it also hurts them. Some men want to be quieter and less assertive. That's a valid way to be for some people. And it sucks if they're told they don't have this option, because women are supposed to have it.
What sexism does is it makes these little cubby holes to stick people in, and then it starts sticking people into them based on the shape of their bodies. Some people will actually fit well into that cubby hole, and it'll work okay for them. They won't feel much of a problem. But some people won't fit and they'll get hurt. Now, some cubby holes might generally be better than others, and that is what these women are complaining about. They're saying, but your cubby hole gets more respect! And that's true. But the other side is saying, but we're still stuck in a cubby hole and that still sucks, and stop denying that our cubby hole sucks because all cubby holes suck! Which is valid.
It's kind of like being in first class on a 14 hour flight on an airplane while a baby is screaming at you. Yes, it's better than being in coach, but you're going to be pissed if people are telling you that your experience doesn't have problems that need solving. And, how bad the experience is is going to vary from person to person. I fit rather well into airplane seats, and I might be more comfortable in coach than someone whose body has more issues even if they're in first class. Individual variation and all of that.
Let's talk about a privilege that I undeniably have without all of the problems that I have with some of my "privileges". I am white. Being white has caused me pretty much no problems throughout my life (other than sunburns), and I probably would have had very different experiences if I was visibly of another race. So, I have white privilege.
White privilege has worked okay for me, because I actually fit into the white cubbyhole very well. Sure, they tell me things like, "White men can't dance" with this idea that white people have no sense of rhythm, but that interacts weirdly with my genetics. I actually do have a messed up or absent sense of meter/rhythm. It runs in my family. I also may be partially tone deaf; I haven't been tested, but my mother is severely tone deaf. It's an actual lack that we have for something other people have. So, yes, I fit that stereotype even more so than it is usually given. They tend to imply that white people are less physical... but as I am frail, a klutz, and not interested in sports, that hasn't really been a problem for me. If I were a different person, these things might have been discouraging, but they weren't for me. Not as discouraging as some of the racism that black people have experienced, but being a milder form of racism doesn't make something okay. But I lucked out, I fit my white cubbyhole, because any description of people is going to actually work for some people.
Then there was my rich academic cubbyhole. That's another bit of privilege I have. It sucks that the wealthy children of the highly educated get lots of encouragement to study academic things and go to college while a lot of poorer kids who might have as much potential get encouraged to learn trades. That's privilege. Although, it also hurts a little. I loved shop class. One semester of shop was mandatory, but more was not an option. I really had an interest in crafts and wood-working and a lot of things of that nature. But I was never given an opportunity to explore it. This wasn't sexism, the boys in the honors track weren't either. I suspect that there were options to explore more of this and that some kids were told about them. We weren't, because we were honors kids. Does it hurt more to have the paths to the higher paying jobs made less accessible? Yes. Did I love my studies in psychology? Absolutely. Is it sucky that my cubbyhole meant I didn't get to explore other interests? Yes. Yes, it is.
Because you can't easily divide people into groups and say this group does this and that group does that without hurting everyone. Sexism hurts everyone. Racism hurts everyone. It does not hurt everyone equally, but it does hurt everyone. And it doesn't hurt everyone within any of those groups equally. It hurts the people who naturally don't fit into the cubby hole worst.
Although you also get the angry people, usually in the minority group, who do fit into the cubby hole. The women who say: But I ~want~ to stay home and raise kids and my husband is fine with that, so why are you telling me not to? And it's true. People want so much to smash those cubby holes that they get annoyed at the examples who actually fit them. But that's just trying to shove people into a new cubby hole.
So, someone who actually fits the stereotype should not be made to feel like crap for fitting it, because that's a valid way to be and they aren't necessarily weak or brainwashed. Maybe that's really who they are. And someone who doesn't fit the stereotype on either side is going to get hurt, and they have a right to complain that they are being hurt. Your being hurt doesn't mean someone else should shut up that they are hurt too. And if there is sexism going on, pretty much everyone is going to be getting hurt. Since pretty much everyone either is male or female and thus going to be shoved into a cubby hole without their choosing or is not clearly male or female and is going to face a whole bunch of problems with a society that feels very uncomfortable with not being able to figure out which little cubby hole you fit into.
So, sexism is a problem for everyone. And almost everyone is going to get hurt by it now and then, some more than others. So, can we just agree that it's bad and try to fix it? Do we have to fight over who is hurt worst? Besides, women aren't a monolithic group, and some women aren't hurt that much and others are hurt unbelievably horribly. And some men walk through their lives having virtually no problems and are horrible assholes, but other men have had to deal with horrible bits of sexism, and it's not their fault that some men are assholes. And also, it's not my fault that some women are assholes. (it is my fault that sometimes I'm an asshole, but that's a different topic.)
So, yeah, my point is that pretty much any stereotype is going to cut two ways and hurt everyone: Sexism against women is also sexism against men, at least usually. It may hurt one side worse, but some people on the other side are going to get hit particularly hard too. We should thus be natural allies.
Next topic may be why I'd feel a lot more comfortable having people asking me if they could touch my breasts than asking me if they could have a hug.
Current Mood: thoughtful
Tags: beliefs, personal, thoughts, values
|
|
11:06 pm
[Link] |
Taxes
So, I thought of an idea for a tax model. I know very little about economics or taxes, so I suspect there may be lots of flaws I haven't thought of, but I don't know what they are, feel free to enlighten me. But the tax model I came up with does one thing I really like (in fact, that's the only thing it does, because it's the only real change it makes), it makes just barely going into the next tax bracket not suck. However, it also makes just managing to stay under the next tax bracket not very helpful.
This tax model should be adjustable to pretty much keep everyone paying about the same amount in taxes as they do now (except if you're right near the tax bracket, as it averages that out) or it could be used to tax people differently according to your personal prejudices (mine would be to tax the poor less and the wealthier a lot more, but it's not actually built into the model).
So, here's how it works...
The first A dollars you earn each year does not get taxed. Just as currently if you make very little money then you don't pay taxes.
Then you are in the A - B income bracket. If you make less than B dollars, then you subtract A from how much you made and what's left is taxed at the A-B income tax rate. If you make more than B dollars, the A-B amount is taxed at this rate, move to the next bracket.
The you enter the B-C tax rate, and it works the same way. Then the C-D rate, etc.
The nice thing is, while it may sound tedious to calculate different amounts of your money taxed at different rates, it'd actually be simple. Let's say you're wealthy, you make $800,000 and thus you're in the $750,000 - $1,000,000 bracket. You simply take the pre-calculated amount for what you owe for getting up to $750,000, since that's the same for everyone, it can be pre-calculated for you and on your tax sheet. Then you go, well, that leaves me $50,000 of money to be taxed in this bracket, so you figure out what percent of that you owe, add it to the amount you already know you owe, and you're done.
Now, obviously, we'd never use a tax system that simple, because it doesn't allow for deductions, so you'd also have to work deductions into the system. Also, to make the numbers work out the same way they are now, you'd need to have the percentage taxed in the higher brackets be higher than the current percentage people are taxed for their total income, but that's just a matter of playing with the numbers so that you make the figures work out. Where you set your brackets and how much you tax each one is settable.
So, what haven't I thought of that makes this model not work?
Current Mood:  headache
Tags: ideas, questions, thoughts
|
|
07:33 pm
[Link] |
Discrimination has a flavor
In fact, it has two flavors. I think a problem I've seen in discussions about discrimination and privilege is that there are two very different ways that people can be discriminated against, and often people are talking at cross-purposes when someone is arguing that one flavor isn't there, and someone else says yes, discrimination happens, this other flavor is there.
So, here's my attempt to describe two very different ways a minority can be discriminated against. I will use the minority group left-handed people for this example, because they have faced both kinds of discrimination, I think they'll serve as a good example, and I am hoping it will be less emotional and thus clutter up the discussion of discrimination in the abstract less with people getting angry over details.
Now, first there is the kind of discrimination where the group is actively being harmed and told they are inferior. For example, left-handed people have often been told they must learn to write with their right hand and even had their left hands tied behind their backs to force them to use their right hands. This sort of discrimination is usually fairly obvious.
But there's a second way that left-handed people are discriminated against. Door handles, refrigerators, handshakes etc. are almost all designed to work best for a right-handed person. There is nothing inherently better about making things work better for right-handed people. The left-handed versions are just as useful and good, except they would be easier for left-handed people than for right-handed people. Left-handed people have a higher mortality rate, and it is believed to be caused by the extra klutziness imposed on them of a world designed to work for people who aren't them.
Now, people may say, we don't discriminate against left-handed people, because we treat them exactly the same as right-handed people. I'd give a job to a leftie just like a rightie if they were equally compotent. The only thing we'll do is set up countless aspects of life so that they are constantly at a disadvantage, but if they can't handle the normal world... well, why should the world adjust to them. They're just not as good, because everything is designed to work better for a right-handed person.
This second form of discrimination is harder to see. I think it's easier with handedness, where it certainly exists, but is also at the heart of people saying ludicrous things like, homosexuals have just as much of a right to marry someone of the opposite sex as a heterosexual does so they're not being discriminated against.
The problem is that when a particular group is in power, they design things to work for them. And often the alternative designs are neither better nor worse, simply better or worse for certain groups of people. But I think a lot of people want to dismiss discrimination when it is of this form, because they are saying everyone has the same chance, but some people aren't as good at using it, but they miss the fact that the course is rigged, because we don't even necessarily know what some of the other courses would look like. Or even whether they might not be better for everyone. But it's almost certain that the world is simply set up to work for certain kinds of people, and if you fall into that group, you have an unfair advantage. And if you do not, you have an unfair disadvantage. And most of you probably fall into it in some ways and not in others.
On a side note, I'd enjoy my right-handed privilege except that I am probably left-handed. I was told to write with my right hand as a very young child when I asked my teacher which hand I should use. I am somewhat ambidextrous/ambisinistrous. I write better with my right hand, but I have many more years of practice with it, and can write with either hand. I can only shoot pool left-handed, which is quite awkward when a right-handed shot would be useful. There are a few other tasks I can only do left-handed. I'm not sure there are any tasks I can only do right-handed, that used to be true for using scissors, but I had trouble with all scissors, and finally realized it's because they give kids crappy scissors to use. I wish I'd been told to try both hands and use whichever seemed to work better for me. But it's a right-handed world, and I was told to be right handed. Like the good child I was, I did as I was told and didn't question it until much later.
Current Mood: sad
Tags: beliefs, personal, rants, values
|
|
02:58 pm
[Link] |
Tab Reduction
I'm holding tabs open because I want to post links. So, have a bunch of links so I can close my tabs.
Shakespeare in the Bush - learn the true meaning of Hamlet.
What can I see? people ask me that all of the time and it's hard to say. But my main problems are a combination of proliferative retinopathy (what they call "diabetic retinopathy") and cataract. So, see some simulations if you want to know. It's not a perfect replica of what the world looks like to me, even if you combine the two, but it's something.
A Priest speaks up about the recent issue with Obama and his reverend's comments. Saying how quoting snippets of someone's sermen out of context is inappropriate.
Finally, An Engineer's Guide to Cats - for those who need to learn more about cats, their hobbies, games you can play with a cat, and how to discipline a cat (using a method he refers to as "corporal cuddling").
Tags: humor, links, medical, personal, psychology, science
|
|
07:41 pm
[Link] |
Decree
While I let my hair dry for a bit and bemoan my shortage of tea, I shall take the time to post on two of the many subjects that have been on my mind.
I am disallowing two phrases from ever being used again by anyone outside of some very specific contexts that will be specified.
The first one is: FOO is their form of BAR where FOO and BAR are holidays from different relgions. This comes up from McCain's statement about while Israelis celebrate their form of Halloween... during Purim. Purim and Halloween have a few surface similarities, but the religious significance of the two holidays is completely different. But more importantly, to call anyone's holiday a form of somebody else's holiday is insulting. It is, in fact, insulting to both religions. It implies that the specifics of the faith are irrelevant and that the two different beliefs are basically the same thing. It is more insulting to the holiday that is being called their form of someone else's holiday, but it is insulting to both. I find it particularly obnoxious in a Jewish - Christian setting, since Judaism came first. If anything, you would call Halloween (All Hallow's Eve really) the Christian version of Purim. Except, again, it'd be horribly inaccurate as they have almost nothing in common.
But still, it is so massively disrespectful that this phrase should simply be removed from anyone's use. I will allow variants like, Purim is celebrated in a way a little like Halloween in that people tend to throw parties, eat sweets, and dress up in costumes. I will also allow any phrase to be used in a work of writing or when quoting someone else. But for general usage, this phrase should be completely dropped. I'm not big into religion, and it's not easy for me to respect people's religious beliefs, but this massive degree of disrespect seems excessive, even to me.
The second phrase I am disallowing I am going to have more exceptions for. That phrase is, "it's just a phase." It is disallowed to ever say to somebody about themselves. I will allow you to say it to parents out of earshot of their children as a way of trying to help them cope with behavior that can be very frustrating. The problem is that being told that your current way of being, your personality traits, your beliefs, your feelings are "just a phase" is massively insulting and belittling. It is devaluing of a person's identity.
I allow the usage to parents, because some things are likely to be just a phase, and it can be good to remember that, especially during some of the very difficult phases more people go to. But even if something is just a phase, I think it's cruel and awful to use that as an excuse to tell someone that who they are now doesn't really matter, because that's what you're saying. Also, it's a mean non-falsifiable thing in practice. There's no response the child can give. It's frustrating and insulting and it's a way of making children feel less powerful and important. Trying to come back five or ten years later to say: you were wrong, screw you, isn't even very satisfying.
Please abide by this decree from this point on. It will help to increase the general level of respect and courtesy in the world. Especially as I think many people who say things like this haven't really thought about how awful what they're saying is, and they probably mean well and are generally decent people (well, roughly as likely to be as anyone else is).
Current Mood: authoritative
Tags: beliefs, rants, values
|
|
04:26 pm
[Link] |
Babies and Cutting Up Mothers
Since medical themes seem so popular, I've been meaning to post about the increased rate of c-sections in our culture. I think now is actually a decent time, as I don't think anyone I know is currently pregnant, but I may be forgetting someone.
A lot of my friends have had children recently. Many, I believe most, of them had c-sections. They had them for individual reasons, but for very good, medically-relevant reasons.
But people talk a lot about why c-sections are being used more and more. Some of the explanations I've seen is that doctors are being overly cautious - if they gave natural birth more of a chance then some of the c-sections could have been natural births that went off okay. One reason probably is the decrease in the use of forceps, but that is a complicated issue. I'll talk about it briefly.
Forceps are a great tool for helping to get a baby out who isn't coming out without assistance. The addition of forceps to childbirth saved lives and prevented more serious problems. However, the use of forceps is difficult, and there is no good way to practice with them in a way that builds up skill without practicing on an actual woman giving birth. An experienced doctor with forceps is generally the best option for a woman giving birth who is running into problems. It won't be an option in all cases, but it certainly would be for some c-sections. The problem is, on which women giving birth do we let the doctors practice to become an experienced doctor who is good with forceps?
Which is why c-sections became more popular. C-sections are fairly simple as medical operations go, and by switching from forceps to c-sections, more women and babies come through fine than with forceps and a steeper training curve.
But that's not what I want to talk about, because I've read about all that before and you can too if you want to.
What I want to talk about is the one factor I don't see being discussed that seems obviously relevant. Maybe I've just missed where it is discussed. Women are carrying bigger babies. Bigger babies means more difficulty getting them out.
I forget whether it was me or one of my sisters, but I know one of us was 5 pounds, 5 ounces at birth. My mother carried remarkably small for all 5 of her pregnancies. That was not her smallest. Her girls were smaller than her boys, because she had bad morning sickness with them, but not the boys. But the boys weren't that much bigger. Most of the babies I hear about these days are over 8 pounds, often far over.
Part of this is a cultural shift. When my mother was carrying her first, she was encouraged to not put on too much weight. Put on weight, yes, but not too much. I have a picture of my mother holding her first baby, coming out of the hospital. She was very young, but she was also very, very thin. She had just given birth, and she was ~thin~. Given how much weight you gain for both a baby and the stuff that supports a baby, it is likely that overall, she lost weight while pregnant. It's not surprising that her baby was small.
Now, one of the reasons that they used to encourage women to carry small is so that they didn't have to lose a lot of weight afterward, which doesn't strike me as the best reason. But I suspect part of the reason was that in the past, overly big babies were serious problems. If you don't have safe c-sections, a too big baby can mean death to the mother, the child, or both. That's obviously bad and a good thing to avoid. Now, with fairly safe c-sections, you can carry larger and expect neither you nor the baby will die.
The benefit to carrying larger babies is that they tend to be healthier and more developed. Which makes it unsurprising that many women are carrying large babies now that nobody is telling them not to and they have access to lots of food.
Whether it would be better to try for more medium-sized babies and have better odds of natural birth without complications or keep the larger babies that are born with so much more growth already is really an issue I feel unqualified to take a stand on. I'm not even sure one answer will fit each case.
However, it seems like a lot of people think the increase in the number of c-sections is a very bad thing and wonder why suddenly we need them. And I think they may well actually be the price we are paying for some benefits we are getting. Certainly all of the babies that were born recently to people I know, while c-section babies, seem to be quite lovely babies. But I admit, they would probably have been quite lovely babies had they come out naturally too.
If/when I ever become pregnant, it will lead to an interesting choice. And I'll probably try to do more research. However, I think so long as both the mother and baby are alright afterward, it doesn't matter that much. As is true of pretty much everyone I know, I'd rather have a natural birth than a c-section. But I'd also rather do what I can to give a baby the smallest chances of health problems, and bigger babies have better odds of being healthier babies. So, I'll probably accept things whichever way that they go. And not bemoan the increase in commonness of c-sections.
Current Mood:  inquisitive
Tags: beliefs, health, personal, questions, science, values
|
|
06:35 pm
[Link] |
Infectious Diseases - Chicken Pox
As long as we're talking about STDs, let's talk about chicken pox too. Chicken pox is a member of the herpes family. I'm not sure how it's caught, and I'm too lazy to look it up. I'm guessing skin to skin contact, just like herpes. Also, like herpes, a first outbreak is not very severe for those who catch it fairly young (but over the age of 1), but the older you are, the more dangerous it is. It is also, like any disease, particularly more dangerous to those who are already immunocompromised. For reasons I cannot determine, it is also statistically more dangerous for males than females. Also, like herpes, once you have caught chicken pox, the disease stays in your body for the rest of your life.
Chicken pox is quite interesting. From what I hear, it is quite unpleasant to have, but once you get over it, you are usually immune for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, lifelong immunity is becoming a little less common, because exposure to chicken pox is becoming less frequent, and it seems that semi-regular exposure to chicken pox helps people keep their immunity, kind of like booster shots do. However, get chicken pox, get better, and you're pretty much safe from it after that.
However, anyone who has ever had either chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccination will, for the rest of their life, be at risk of developing shingles. And they may get multiple shingles outbreaks. I don't remember that much about shingles offhand, mainly that it has a rather funny sounding name and the description seemed quite unpleasant.
Why is chicken pox considered less of a worry than herpes?
I'm really not clear on this.
I'm also in a very unusual position of not knowing whether or not I am immune to chicken pox. Eventually I'm going to need to get tested and probably get vaccinated as I am an adult, and a case of chicken pox would likely be quite bad for me.
I know, I know, you're thinking - it's simple, did you ever have chicken pox? Well, it's actually not that simple. Yes, I did have chicken pox. However, I was a very young baby and was nursing. Young babies usually have more severe cases. I had an incredibly minor case of chicken pox. My mother says I had 10 pox total and they did not appear to bother me in any way. I have no memory of it. The fact that the case was extremely minor, seemed to not itch or irritate, and that I was nursing strongly implies that I did not fight off chicken pox, but used my mother's immunity, gotten through the breast milk, to fight off chicken pox. So, whether my body developed its own immunity is an open question. This is part of why breastfeeding can be so amazingly beneficial, since a baby's immune system is still developing they are at increased risk from diseases, but they can gain protection from their mother's immunities. It doesn't always work out, but it can help. Anyhow, this means I may or may not be immune. I may or may not be at risk of developing shingles.
On a side note, a person with shingles can give chicken pox to someone who is not immune to chicken pox. Both chicken pox and shingles are contagious diseases. Although you can't catch shingles from someone.
I also can find countless web sites telling me that herpes and chicken pox are more severe in adults than children and stats about risk factors and not a single one that will tell me why they are more severe in adults. I really am curious why that is. If anyone knows, please do enlighten me.
Current Mood: thoughtful
Tags: health, personal, questions, science, sex
|
05:23 pm
[Link] |
Thought of the Day
Why are HPV and herpes considered to be sexually transmitted diseases when you can get them from intimate contact that isn't sex? I think we need a new category that divides things up a bit more finely. HPV and herpes are diseases of physical contact. Hepatitis and HIV, by comparison, are bodily fluid diseases and primarily blood and sexual fluids (not particularly the saliva).
Why isn't mononucleosis considered to be a sexually transmitted disease? It's caught through fluids, but can be caught rather easily through saliva. Mono, actually has a lot in common with herpes. It is remarkably common, once caught stays in your body forever, and can have relapses at any time, but is more likely when your body is stressed or weak. Mono, however, is now being linked as causing increased risk for some other disorders, such as chronic fatigue syndrome.
I'm not saying you should freak out about having an STD if you've ever had mono, but I am curious why we don't generally feel a need to disclose it, even though it is potentially contagious (when active it is highly contagious, as far as I know, but if you're in remission then I don't know the odds of you spreading it) and it does often lead to a period of suck. I've never had a herpes breakout to compare it to, but I have had mono, and I think an episode of mono tends to mess up people's lives more.
I think people need to stop clumping all STDs/STIs into one category and start thinking about each disease on a more case by case basis.
I'm also not sure whether urinary tract infections are classified as STDs. They can be spread sexually, and if your partner has one, that will be a temporary issue that needs to be dealt with, but they can also be acquired without contact from other people. Some women are more predisposed to them than others.
I think I will advocate for generally letting partners know your health status and any knowledge you have of anything contagious, regardless of the category, but encouraging everyone to learn something about the specifics of the case and to then make the choice they wish for the level of risk they feel comfortable taking. Also, vaccinations rock. Hepatitis B is scarily easy to catch without any sexual contact at all (you can pick it up from week-old, room temperature, dried, infected blood if it gets into a scratch or opening on your hand) and it can kill you. I was very glad to get my Hep B vaccine. Now there's an HPV vaccine out, and HPV while in most cases nothing more than an inconvenience, does increase your risks for cervical and throat cancer (well, the former only if you're female). For many STIs, early detection can lead to treatment that significantly reduces the health risks to yourself and others.
This post inspired by stupidity I saw in communities. One group saying they had herpes, but it wasn't a big deal like every other STD including HPV so you shouldn't care (herpes is often treated as a bigger deal than it is, but you should make a decision for yourself, and trying to make every other STD sound overly scary is not the right approach) and a different one who said she has HPV but it isn't a big deal like herpes is. The comparison of the two is interesting.
And for the Lush fans reading this: remember, glitter is a sexually transmitted decoration - let your partners know when they may get glitter stuck to them through close contact.
Current Mood: curious
Tags: beliefs, questions, science, sex
|
|
06:41 pm
[Link] |
Strike Ended
Yes, "strike" is a bad term for it, but I'm using it anyway.
First, I have no issues with anyone who chose not to strike. I think it should be a personal choice. I have no issues with those who used LiveJournal as they would have anyway, or who made one post just to say they weren't striking. That's fine.
I am saddened to see such immaturity as people posting just to post to belittle the strike. One of the reasons I joined the strike was that people said strikers might cheat by making fake accounts to strike with. This may have happened, but I don't know of anyone who did. But non-strikers most definitely did cheat by posting just to post. I find this fundamentally dishonest and immature.
I am not defriending anyone over this, although those who did it lost some of my respect. Respect is analog, and most of my friends have some faults. Some of them are immature. Some of them are petty. And with enough positive traits to make up for that, that can be okay. But it did cost some respect. And I haven't heard any justification for why anyone specifically posted just to post during the strike time other than because they thought the strike was silly, which as far as I can see translates into: I want to hurt people, because I disagree with their views rather than due to any principles about making anything better or stronger.
So, what did the strike accomplish? Not much, of course. It wasn't expected to. But it did show that real users do care deeply about these issues. It did show that real users are so disturbed by how affected other users are that they felt a need to lash out mindlessly and cruelly. It did get a fair bit of attention, and part of what gave it that attention was people choosing to deliberately scream about how they weren't participating in the strike. That's a whole lot of noise for an issue that people don't think is important. Which means, I think it does show that this is an important issue.
I still think the postcard writing in campaign will be more effective, and I strongly encourage people to write postcards. I read a good reason to send postcards, not letters, so I do recommend postcards. That reason is that it only takes one well-intentioned letter writer who was baking to get some flour into an envelope and start a panic, whereas postcards cannot contain anything dangerous. We should not attempt to scare anyone. Violence is totally uncalled for. But speaking up is appropriate, so postcards are the way to go.
I still await an explanation of why the changes were made to the interest list. I still await honesty and openness about the changes that LiveJournal makes. And I still await information about whether it is true that LiveJournal is selling personal data that is not supposed to be possible to collect to advertisers (note, that while your interests, your age, your sex, your interests, and your public posts are all public information if you list them publically, the fact that you as a logged in LiveJournal user viewed a particular page is private and has never been seen as anything but private on LiveJournal. Discussion of letting users know who view their page has happened in the past, and was always rejected as a massive intrusion into privacy.)
Current Mood: waiting
Tags: beliefs, livejournal, meta-journaling, personal, social, values
|
[<< Previous 23 entries] |