Collisions with Reality

I have been furious beyond belief at how men have dominated the contraception “debate”. Look, here’s a link wrap-up comprised of articles solely by men! Here’s a Congressional hearing that’s mostly male!

I couldn’t quite pinpoint why these conversations were so male-dominated. I had plenty of ideas, but nothing concrete. And then I read this conversation between David Brooks and Gail Collins. Brooks’ exasperation was a revelation to me. To conservatives, women are problems, rather than people who may or may not have problems. And when you look at it that way, suddenly everything falls into place. Why ask a woman what she thinks when she’s the problem in the first place?

The mainstream media may mostly be buying into this narrative, but women’s voices are out there. Check out the RH Reality Check site, where the vast majority of authors are women. Read Irin Carmon’s work on Salon. Gail Collins is fighting the good fight over at the NY Times, particularly in this column. Finally, the Planned Parenthood Saved Me tumblr is worth a read.

Because I’m not sure which part of this is more disgusting in 2012: that we’re still having this contraceptive debate, or that it’s being dominated by men.

Like many others, I was heartened by the response to Komen pulling grants for mammograms from Planned Parenthood. And so it got me wondering. If we can agree that all women should have access to mammograms, what about access to pap smears? From there it’s not much of a jump to agreeing that everyone should have access to colonoscopies (even if no one really wants a colonoscopy).

Maybe it’s a bit of a bigger jump to note that everyone should then have access to cancer treatment, but otherwise what’s the point of a free screening?

And from all that, for the second time in a week, I can only conclude that universal health care might be the solution to some of these problems.

It has been a loooong week. If it’s been made longer due to emails from the conspiracy theorists in your life, look no further for some handy references.

• Why are there so many earthquakes recently? It’s gotta be the end times, right? Nope. In fact, there has actually been a slight decrease in the number of earthquakes above magnitude 7.0. However, we can detect more earthquakes than we could in the past, and global communications have improved. So we hear about more earthquakes on the morning news because we’re hearing about a higher percentage of them. (via KA.)

• Did Japan (or other countries) offer any aid to the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina? Here’s a list of donations by countries from governmental funds. Japan’s government gave between $500,000 and $1 million. Another $13 million came from Japanese firms and private citizens.
• I’m a big fan of the Science and Sensibility blog, which lives up to its name in promoting evidence-based advice for pregnancy, labor and delivery, and breastfeeding. (In particular, they promote the Six Healthy Birth Practices.) Of course, people are interested in natural birth for a wide variety of reasons, and there are many individuals who are interested in natural birth but are anti-vaccination. So I was thrilled to see a post from them on the safety of childhood vaccinations. Yes, I love the Bad Astronomer, but there are people who won’t listen to Phil Plaitt who will listen to Lamaze International.

Hope this dash of reason and rationality improves your Friday! Have a great weekend!

A bill has been proposed in the Georgia Assembly that would outlaw abortion in Georgia. And just to make sure that they don’t miss any illicit abortions, section 2.14 (see page 7 of this PDF file of the full text of the bill) stipulates that all “spontaneous fetal deaths” must be registered with the county. It goes on to say:

(3) When a spontaneous fetal death required to be reported by this Code section occurs without medical attendance at or immediately after the delivery or when inquiry is required by Article 2 of Chapter 16 of Title 45, the ‘Georgia Death Investigation Act,’ the proper investigating official shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall prepare and file the report within 30 days[.]

In other words, if you miscarry at home, you’re automatically a suspect.

I know the sponsor of this bill has other unreasonable proposals, and maybe it won’t even make it out of committee. Unfortunately, there is precedent for bills of this sort.

• A bill requiring that miscarriages be reported within 12 hours was proposed in Virginia in 2004, but did not make it out of committee.

• In 2010, Utah passed a bill that criminalized any “intentional, knowing, or reckless act” that could lead to a miscarriage. The only good news here is that the word “negligence” was dropped from the bill. (I don’t even want to ask what would qualify as a negligent or reckless act during pregnancy. Is forgetting the prenatal vitamin one morning negligent? Is the small cup of coffee reckless?)
• Recently, an Idaho pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for methergine, because of the possibility that the patient had just had an abortion, not a miscarriage.

Why am I pro-choice? Many reasons, but today I am pro-choice because women who have miscarriages are not criminals.

(By the way, still waiting for any of these so-called pro-life politicians to tackle the infant mortality rate in the U.S..)

It feels like it’s just been all bad news this week. So here’s a few things that are a little bit lighter:

• Here’s an awesome map of the Mississippi and all its tributaries, rendered as a mass transit map. How had no one done this before? What a great way to look at the geography. (via Strange Maps)
• Here’s a careful and reasonable take on what’s happening in Wisconsin. It’s worth noting that Democrats (and Independents) have been successful in enacting education reforms that are unpopular with teachers. Turns out there’s a difference between reforming public education and naked union-busting. Who knew? (via EMJ)
• I love a behind-the-scenes glimpse of anything, and the Big Picture blog has a great round-up of pictures from behind the scenes at Fashion Week. Seating charts! Run-throughs! Models playing silly games while in hair and makeup!

Have a great weekend, everyone! I’m hoping it eventually stops raining here.

This has been a long week, and here are some highlights!

• This article about Muslims and Christians protesting together in Egypt nearly made me cry. (Related: Muslims in Egypt protecting Coptic churches, and Christians protecting Muslims during Friday prayers during the protests.)
• I didn’t make it to IKEA today, but here are some awesome images from Homemade is Best, a cookbook of Swedish baked goods by IKEA. Unfortunately, it’s only available in Swedish IKEA stores. Can I even pick a favorite? Okay, maybe this one: (via the always awesome Things Organized Neatly tumblr.)
• I’m not entirely sure why the Wall Street Journal keeps writing articles about college hockey. In their latest, they celebrate the low-frills college hockey arenas, and rank them on various qualities. Michigan was ranked as the best crowd, to which I say, “Duh,” and, “You’re welcome.” (via my father-in-law.)

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! I will try not to brag too much about the lovely weather we’re having here.

It seems that in selecting his cabinet, Governor Kasich of Ohio has so far selected only white agency heads. The twenty agency heads consist of sixteen white men and four white women. Meanwhile, the state of Ohio is about 85% white. African-Americans make up the largest minority population in Ohio, at 12%, and have been very active in political and leadership capacities for decades, even though the state has historically been dominated by Republicans. (See the list of Cleveland mayors, for starters, as well as the note in the original article that this is the first all-white cabinet since 1962.)

What are the odds of selecting zero minorities in a sample of twenty people, in a state with a minority proportion of 15%? Our old friend the binomial distribution can tell us! I’ll work this out twice — first for the case of zero minorities in the sample of 20 people, and then for the case of 16 white men in the sample of 20 people. Read the rest of this entry →

A few days ago, I saw an article about the horrible catch-22 the Oakland schools are caught in. There is a huge drop in test scores from the elementary schools to the middle schools in Oakland. So many of the top elementary students leave the district. Which results in a big drop in test scores from the elementary schools to the middle schools. And so on.

You can’t even say that people don’t care about the schools here. There was a school measure on the ballot this past November, Measure L, which would have raised $20 million/year for the district via a parcel tax. Nearly 66% of the Oakland voters voted yes on Measure L. 66%! In a town where unemployment is over 10%! I know most districts in Ohio would kill to get 66% of the voters to approve a levy! But alas, we are in California, and we need a 2/3′s supermajority to raise taxes of any sort. And we just missed it.

I don’t even have anything cheerful to balance that out. It’s just a long, slow slog.

Here’s some updates and a round-up of what’s going on with the assistant AG of Michigan (Andrew Shirvell) who is harassing the U of M student body president (Christopher Armstrong):

• Governor Granholm tweeted (. . . sigh) that she would have already fired Shirvell.
• Mr. Armstrong has filed for a restraining order against Mr. Shirvell (via B). I am relieved to see this, but distressed that it’s come to this.
• It has become an issue in the current campaign for Michigan Attorney General (also via B). I’m not sure how I feel about this.
• Mr. Shirvell was apparently a campaign manager for Mike Cox in 2006, but I’m having trouble directly verifying this — I can’t find anything from earlier than 2008 about this. Like, I dug up Cox’s campaign website with the Internet Wayback Machine, and nada. So when you see that factoid bandied about, maybe take it with a grain of salt until someone verifies it.
• On a lighter note, the Big Ten part of Michigan’s schedule starts on Saturday, as does the hockey season!

Finally, I want to note that I generally do not get involved with politics in other states. I do not write letters or donate money, no matter how dear the cause. However, I do not think this is a political issue. Even if politics were more explicitly involved, I think that I do have a legitimate stake in this as an alumnus of the University of Michigan. And Mike Cox has hardly avoided involvement with the affairs of my state.

I am deeply upset by the harassment of a gay University of Michigan student by an assistant Attorney General of Michigan. So, while it appears that Chris Armstrong can handily defend himself, I knew that I wouldn’t feel better until I wrote to the Attorney General myself. Here it is.

Attorney General Cox,

I am a former resident of Michigan and a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. I am deeply concerned about the systematic stalking and harassment of a University of Michigan student by an assistant Attorney General. I find it hard to believe that all of Mr. Shirvell’s actions — cyber-bullying, showing up at MSA meetings, videoing the student’s residence — are fully within the realm of legality. Even if he is not breaking any laws, his obsessive targeting of Mr. Armstrong is grossly unethical and an abuse of power.

Mr. Shirvell is clearly unfit for public office, and I encourage you to remove him from that position immediately.

(I never liked Mike Cox, anyhow.)