"The liberal soul shall be made fat."

Yesterday I made honey orange glazed carrots.  Mmmmmm, turned out wonderfully.  Today's planned adventure?  Minted Beet Salad with Vanilla.  Beets, oil, raspberry vinegar, honey, vanilla, pepper, and spearmint.  Wish me luck!

I just heard on the radio that this area's blood supplies are dangerously low.  It has always bothered me that anti-choicers don't support forced blood donation.  If a woman should be forced to continue donating her body to possibly save one life, shouldn't others be forced to donate their blood - a far less costly process, emotionally and physically and financially - to save lives as well?

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The big storm woke me up from a 13 hour sleep around 4:30 this morning.  I felt pretty out of it, so when the storm had passed, I put on my shoes and went for a walk.  I haven't worn these athletic shoes for a long time, as I mostly wear my hiking shoes when going outdoors and my black work shoes at school and church.  As I was walking down the street this morning, I noticed that the athletic shoes hurt my arches.  A friend recently told me that her shoe salesperson said shoes are gendered because the arches are placed differently in men's and women's shoes.  Well, men's shoes don't hurt my arches like these "women's" shoes do, so I think that genderedness is stupid.  Why not label shoes by arch location if there really is a difference, since clearly that difference isn't absolute?  :-/   Still waiting for a reasonable defense of gender.

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My allergies have been painful this past month -- itchy ears and eyes and nose and throat, sinus headaches, sneezing, coughing, crying -- and since a combination of zyrtec, benadryl, neti, steam, and hepa air filters hasn't helped, I went to the doctor yesterday.  Turns out the hurricane last month is to blame.  With all the downed trees still being cut up and burned, those with tree pollen allergies are really suffering and can expect to continue suffering for months.  Blech!

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I need some friends I can trust not to disappear in hard times (of their own or mine), but it's hard to know when one has such a friend until said hard times arise.

I have often said that I could identify as a smurf if I wanted to, but I won't be oppressed as a little blue person if others don't see a little blue person when they look at me.  Most oppression is not based on the identities we hold.  (After all, identities rarely come first -- Usually they are formed as a result of recognized shared experience, often of oppression.) Privilege and oppression are based on our being identifIED by others as meeting or not meeting some valued norm - whiteness, gender-normative maleness, heterosexuality, acceptable body size, normative physical ability, etc. Therefore, the same non-normativity may lead to people being in an oppressed group in one society but not in another (example: Christians).

For gender, we have norms, and anybody - regardless of identity - who fails to meet a given society's current gender box expectations is marginalized/oppressed. A person assigned "woman" who fails to live up to all associated with that label throughout life (in physical appearance, dress, mannerisms, preferred name and pronouns, partner choice, career, etc) does not suddenly experience a changed oppression status upon adopting a "trans" identity. The moment of adopting that identity does not change much at all in terms of others' perceptions and treatment. In current queer rhetoric, however, until that person adopts a "trans" identity, that person is considered "cis" and is automatically considered part of "the privileged group." Why?  Why are we basing this on identity labels and imposing an identity label of "cis" on all who don't identify as "trans"?

( Linguistic boundaries )

The definition of cisgender found here comes very close to what I am suggesting.  Thanks, lovessong , for pointing me to that link.

This Daily Kos post claims that the California decision today actually limited Prop 8's impact, because the court ruled that equal protections will still be afforded same-sex couples, even without the designation of "marriage."  We forget, however, that marriage certifications are handled by the state but then recognized by the United States federal government and other national governments.  At this time, the US has that ridiculous "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA), so for now, the federal government recognizes all marriages performed by the 50 states EXCEPT same-sex marriages.  I worry about what happens when we overturn DOMA and therefore all state-recognized marriages receive federal recognition once again.  (DOMA violates the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the US Constitution, so it is likely to be overturned eventually, in my opinion.)  At that time, California's decision to take away the "marriage" designation from minorities will be HUGELY important.  The word "marriage" matters because the US federal government has no category of "civil union" in its laws.

Regardless of your thoughts on marriage and whether it should be a priority for queers, you should know why Prop 8 is uniquely dangerous. It's not just a high-profile case of anti-same-sex-marriage legislation.  And it is not just about marriage! 

You see, the California courts previously ruled that same-sex couples had, in principle, always had the right to marry in the state of California.  The courts didn't "grant" anybody the right to marry.  They ruled that it was a pre-existing constitutional right.  This established right had simply been illegally withheld from same-sex couples in day-to-day practice.  So prior to Prop 8, same-sex couples in California had always had the right to marry, and then Prop 8 came along and allowed the majority to vote to take away that right -- the right that people had always had.  That is the scary part of Prop 8.  It means that any constitutional right a group has always enjoyed could be taken away with a simple majority vote.*  The precedent is frightening.




*Granted, California's system of propositions makes it especially easy there.  Many states don't have systems that are so easy to abuse.

I have had summer projects for as far back as I can remember.  Some were miserable failures, like after my junior year of high school when my summer project was to become straight.  Here's hoping this one will be just as educational but a bit more successful than that.

Summer project 2009: Learn to cook with fresh veggies.

Nick and Artie and I are splitting a local CSA share, so for the next 20 weeks, I will be getting fresh vegetables and recipes delivered to my doorstep every Wednesday.  This week's delivery included 2 types of lettuce, several garlic scapes, and a whole helluva lot of cilantro (at least, a helluva lot for three people who aren't big fans).  I will, therefore, be having salads for lunch and spending my evenings learning to make:

Garlic scape pesto
Lemon-cilantro-scape potato salad
Cilantro lime rice

Ahhh a poster that reflects my conundrum --- eradicate? or multiply?

....Thinking about ordering this for the Resource Center now.

This about sums up the first week lecture I gave in research methods & stats classes in an attempt to explain to students why they need to know this stuff even if they don't plan to go into research themselves.  Far funnier than my lecture, though.

A new article published.  The study found that BMI and cardiorespiratory fitness are both independently and NEGATIVELY associated with mortality.  That is, as fitness goes up, mortality goes down ---- and as BMI goes up, mortality goes down.  The effects were independent of one another, but combined, they led to the finding that the fat and highly fit people had the lowest mortality of ALL groups studied, including the thin, highly fit people.  Proof once more that weight-loss plans are evil.  If you are worried about your longevity, stop dieting, get active, and enjoy your body.

Direct from the article:



McAuley, P., Pittsley, J., Myers, J., Abella, J., & Froelicher, V.F. (2009). Fitness and fatness as mortality predictors in healthy older men: The veterans exercise testing study. Journal of Gerontology, 64A (6), 695-699.

When health insurance companies decide to "reward" their insured for participating in certain programs, they are actually punishing those that don't. Example: The United Methodist Church has my parents on a plan that currently "rewards" them for walking a certain number of steps per day (as monitored with pedometers). Of course, my parents aren't really receiving anything from the insurance company. They have PAID for that. They are getting their own money back. And if they refuse to participate in their insurance company's coercive plan, they will LOSE that money. In other words, the insurance company is actually punishing those who do not participate in their plan by charging them EXTRA, but they are hiding this fact by instead taking money from everybody upfront and then "rewarding" those who participate in their plan. The end result is the exact same as it would be if they charged everybody less and then tacked on a fee for those who said "no" to their walking prescription.

So what's the big deal, you ask?

The insurance company is making decisions they are not qualified to make. They have decided that their insured ALL should be doing this, that every person should be prescribed this particular walking plan. Even if a doctor says otherwise -- perhaps recommending yoga or another activity due to injury or some other concern -- the insured person will be punished by having to pay extra if they don't participate in the walking program. A person will be CHARGED if they choose other health enhancing behaviors that aren't prescribed by the insurance company. A person will be CHARGED if they are injured or disabled and cannot walk as much, temporarily or permanently. A person will be CHARGED if they are working 3 sedentary jobs to feed their family and therefore cannot go walking around to get to some magical 7000 step number determined by the insurance company.

Don't fall for the lies, folks. You aren't being rewarded for being "good" and participating in these scams. You are being PUNISHED for making decisions for yourself with the knowledge you and your healthcare professionals have about your own body.

Just checked weather.com. "Wild Wednesday will feature plenty of severe weather from the Midwest back to the Southern Plains. Tornadoes are likely." Gaaaah

Off to buy more water, canned food, and batteries.  Just in case.

Southern Illinois got hit by a hurricane last Friday.  Seriously!  Technically a hurricane has to start over water, so they are calling it a "meso-cyclone" but only because of the technicality.  You can see what we survived here and here and here.  I will post my own pictures later.  It hurts to see all the trees uprooted.  They pretty much define Southern Illinois for me.

I was at work when it hit, down in the crowded basement of my building.  It lasted 30 minutes or so, and then we emerged to see the damage.  Power was (is) out for the whole county.  I drove home to see if my house had been damaged, but I couldn't get closer than about a half mile away because of all the downed trees and power lines.  I parked on the road and started walking.  The neighbors were already out with their chainsaws, working on those trees.  They had them all out of the way within a couple hours.   A few women walked up and down the street collecting the mail that had flown everywhere and returning it to people's mailboxes.  The kids and dogs were out playing in the puddles.  It was kinda awesome, actually!

My place was not damaged, but my big shade tree that kept my bedroom nice and cool all summer is completely gone.  :(  The bright side (literally) is that I can now plant a garden back there as I have always wanted to do.

Anyway, the area was declared a disaster, and I decided to go to my parents' early for Mother's Day, figuring there wasn't much point in sticking around.   I put out food and water for the cats, put all my fridge and freezer contents in a cooler, and started driving.  Carefully.  HW13 looks creepily different without any lights.  I didn't know where I was until I got to the interstate, which snuck up on me.  

Anyway, I have been safely in Indiana for the weekend, but I must head back home tomorrow morning, because my cats will be out of food.  Ameren (our power company) says that those with individual line/meter/etc damage may not have power for a handful more days.  The majority of the area should have it by Wednesday.  I'm stocking up on water and batteries and canned food.  Any other things I should grab on my way back toward Illinois tomorrow?

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Oh, and for the record, that place I was thinking of moving to this past year?  Has a tree on top of it now.  I don't think it is some "sign" or anything, but I am very glad I did not move.

I've already written about how I hate queerapologetics gender rhetoric because there is "choice" rhetoric hiding within it -- That is, there is an idea that we get to make a fully informed choice from a menu of gender possibilities and decide which one best fits who we "really are" at our supposedly-gendered cores.  I've been thinking about it more, as I have observed the implications of the menu approach, and I am beginning to see why it feels incompatible with a feminist vision.  As always, I am forming these thoughts into words, and it is taking me awhile, so this may not come out to make sense.   And as always, it is long.

 

 

( Why the shift to gender identity rhetoric does not feel liberatory to me as a person-assigned-woman )

Though I actually lose my appetite in the spring, this week's Kawaii Not and caption made me smile:





Spring is in the air, and I'm feeling romantic.
Or I could just be hungry.
Either way, spooning will be involved.

It doesn't take a lot of background in stats or methods to know that making up data is a scientific no-no.  For those who don't want to read the whole Federal Register summary, here's the important part:

Dr. Robert B. Fogel, former Assistant Professor of Medicine and Associate Physician at HMS, and former Co-Director of the Fellowship in Sleep Medicine at BWH ... fabricat[ed] baseline data from a study of sleep apnea in severely obese patients... For the data reported in the Sleep paper, the Respondent: Changed/falsified roughly half of the physiologic data.

Here is a combined list of what y'all and others came up with.  Continued additions quite welcome!

 

( In the church, straight people can… )

Interesting - this type analyzer that uses one's blog/journal actually called my type correctly.  Messed up on a few friends, though, for whom I know their MBTI classification.  It may be because I leave a lot of posts un-friendslocked, whereas those friends don't.  (The analyzer usually labeled those friends "S" when I know they are "N," which makes sense to me given that the more personal, thoughtful stuff is kept friendslocked, while straightforward stuff is left public.)  Science to support the MBTI as a personality system is a bit meh, but INTP isn't the most common type out there and this calculator still identified it, so I'll continue being a believer in the system for now. This particular "test" is easier than answering 100 questions, that's for sure.

INTP - The Thinkers