Chris Muir Photoshop Contest

This post is largely just an excuse to post a few good links that I, being the lazy-ass that I am, only happened on this morning.

First, we have Jon Swift's (you don't read his blog? For fuck's sake, people, what's wrong with you?) delightful take on Chris Muir's Hillary-in-blackface cartoon that I've been ignoring but apparently conservative bloggers are either laughing at or wringing their hands over. Do not miss his link to the absolutely vital "Should I Use Blackface on my Blog? flow chart, which should be assigned reading for frat boys and "I don't see color" liberals alike.

Chris Clarke, who loves hating Muir so much that he's really the only reason I know who Muir is (my local paper carries that Mallard Fillmore nonsense to "balance" Doonesbury instead), of course had to turn Swift's proposal that really, Muir's genius suggests that all cartoonists would do well to imitate him into a contest. There's other links at the bottom of Swift's post for your Monday procrastinating pleasure--and of course, if you're talented in Photoshop or Gimp or what have you, you might even be able to waste the entire day coming up with a cartoon of your own. Though for my money, Amanda's gonna be hard to beat.

Crappiest Mother's Day Gift Idea Ever

EW.

Aaaand . . . still more pet food recalls

Flippy sent me an email this morning saying, in effect, that she isn't begging for a link but since I've got a bigger readership and all y'all seem to own pets of some kind or other, I might want to post this. Since I'm too lazy to write it up myself, I suggest you click over and read what she's written anyway: you can also keep up with this pet food recall nonsense at the Pet Food List and the AVMA's site.

In the meantime, if you're at your wit's end, here's a needlessly complex outline of how to make your own pet food. I can't find my own copy of Dr. Pitcairn's Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, but I did make Daisy's food for years, so here--from memory--is the cat food recipe. If I've forgotten a thing or two or messed up the proportions your cat won't die (and your dog won't die from eating this either), but I suggest buying the book through Amazon because I'm sure this isn't 100% accurate. I am not a real veterinarian, blah blah.

1 lb meat (I would try to avoid hamburger, what with the e.coli thing; I ground my own using the grinder attachment on my stand mixer, but you might could get a butcher or good grocery store to grind it for you)

1/2 cup or so of cooked grain--millet, oatmeal, whatever. Millet's pretty high in protein, for what that's worth.

a few drops of grapefruit extract (you should be able to get this at a health food store--ask around. The point is that the concentrated acid is supposed to kill any bad germs from the raw meat.)

1-2 tsp calcium powder, again from a health food store or you can bake (to dry) and grind up eggshells in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle or hell, throw them in a bag and whack 'em a few times with something heavy.

1 tbsp vitamin supplement. I used to use the one from Halo, but in a pinch you can just use regular baking yeast.

1-2 tbsp some kind of nice healthy oil--again, I always used Halo's product (I think it's called "Dream Coat") but presumably any flax or fish type oil from a health food store will work in a pinch.

1-2 capsules taurine, which again you can get at a health food store; just open the capsules up and dump the powder in the food. If you have a cat, this is vital: they can't manufacture taurine themselves, but they need it. Apparently things like clams (not clam juice) and hearts are good taurine sources, too (although I'm dubious about the clams--aren't they cooked when you buy them canned?). Cooking destroys taurine, so try to let the cooked grain cool down before you add this. Also, if memory serves, cats just excrete extra taurine if you add too much, though I don't know how good this is for their kidneys if they have kidney issues.

Mix all this stuff up, and feed it to your pet. I always found that Daisy liked millet better than oatmeal, and preferred fresh-ground meat to pre-ground (e.g., preground lamb, which I would use if I was in a hurry). I, personally, always thought the grapefruit extract was vital because, after all, we *are* talking raw meat here.

Like I said, I'm sure this recipe-from-memory isn't wholly accurate: I'm pretty sure the ingredients are all correct but the proportions are wrong. Still, it'll keep your animal fed until your book arrives from Amazon. I suggest trying small batches initially so that your picky damn cat can let you know if she prefers one kind of meat over another.

Have a li'l more straw

This is going to be a whiny post.

Mr. B.'s been having chest pains for about a week. (Before y'all get worried, he seems to be fine.) Yesterday I guess they got worse, so he left work to go see his doc, who ran some tests, doubted it was heart problems, and sent him to the e.r. just to make sure.

You know, they don't fuck around with this middle-aged guy with chest pains stuff. He picked me and PK up at PK's school, which had just let out, on his way to the e.r., he checked in, realized he'd left his phone in the car so I went to get it for him, and by the time I returned he'd been whisked into a doctor's care. Later I pointed out to him the BIG RED BUTTON by the check-in desk that said IF YOU ARE HERE FOR CHEST PAINS PRESS THIS BUTTON INSTEAD OF WAITING and asked if he had. He hadn't seen it. Somehow.

Anyway, so PK did a little homework, then it was time for me to take him to Taekwondo, then we went back to the hospital, where PK was somewhat startled by Papa all hooked up to a machine but reassured once I explained what all the machine was doing, how it worked, that that was Papa's heartbeat, that was the amount of oxygen in his blood, and that was his breathing, and (stage whisper), I don't think he's wearing any pants under that hospital gown! By which point he felt better, because obviously if Papa were really sick Mama wouldn't be joking around like that.

By that point PK was starving, and Papa wasn't looking like quite ready to go yet, so after asking Mr. B. if he wanted me to bring him a bacon double cheeseburger back, PK and I went out to an amazingly good Thai restaurant I've found to get dinner. 'Course, just as the second dish arrived on the table, Mr. B. called to say he'd been released, so I asked the waiter (owner?) to please pack it to go because I have to go pick up my husband at the hospital. She was lovely about it, packed everything up, gave us a second order of the mango/salmon/green salad that PK and I had made it about halfway through and PK had decided was so good that he wanted more (!), and back we went to pick up Mr. B., go home, eat the rest of our dinner, and get PK in bed.

Test results indicate that there doesn't seem to be any sign of heart problems; they don't know what the pain is, nitro didn't help it, and Mr. B.'s to see his doctor for more tests, blah blah.

Assuming he gets doctor's permission, this evening after he gets home from work we go pick up my mom in Long Beach, then drive to exciting Shafter (where she grew up) for Grandpa's funeral Thursday morning, then back on Thursday afternoon so that Mr. B. can go to work again on Friday.

My back hurts, man.

Can you hear me now?

So y'all, Kieran over at Crooked Timber reminded me of the email I got, oh, about a week ago telling me to take some old Blogads code out of my template. Which I did. Does the site work better now?

If it does, and if you've at all been following the brouhaha over the Althouse breast controversy, do, do check out this video.

Tech bleg--site problems?

While I'm turning the blog's content over to you, the commenters, let me also beg those of you with technical know-how to help me out with problems I'm having on that side of things? I'm hearing from some readers that the site's acting up: not loading, or taking forever, links not working, etc. I've also heard that some people are having similar problems with other Blogger blogs, but many of the people writing me to ask what's wrong haven't mentioned that, so it may be just me.

I, myself, haven't had any problems (on Firefox 2.0); readers are reporting problems in IE and Safari.

I haven't done anything recently to change the template.

(1) If you are having a problem in a recent version of Firefox (and you can read this post, duh), let me know, please? bitchphd AT yahoo.

(2) If you have a clue what might be the problem, ditto?

(3) If I can't figure it out and need to pay someone money to do so, how much would you charge to fix the goddamn thing? Quote me a per hour, and let me know if you're willing to also do a li'l updating to the template, because I've got some minor changes I've been wanting to make.

Writing bleg--grad student parents

Today's a writing day, so hopefully I'll manage a "real" post later, but since I'm doing a li'l research right this moment about a book article I'm writing on grad student mamas.

So, if you all have anecdotes about your own experience as a grad student parent (mom or dad)--bad or good--and/or know of good studies or articles on the subject, would you please leave a comment?

And if you have specific questions or issues that you'd like to see addressed in such an article, would you please email them to me--bitchphd at yahoo--with the subject heading "mamaphd"?

Thanks muchly, y'all.

LA apartment bleg for a friend (and if you need a place in Manhattan, you can have hers)

A friend of mine who's starting at UCLA in the fall writes to ask for a favor. Plus, at the end of her message are a few words of wisdom for us all:

we need an apartment, starting in early september, and i'm a little freaked out about how that's going to happen. i have this whole wedding thing going on, and by the time we get back from our 5-day vacation afterwards, it's august. i'm not sure whether to plan on flying out for a weekend in mid-august and doing a mad dash through open houses and classifieds, expecting to find an apartment we can move into in earlyish september; or maybe it'd be better to fly out before the wedding, in early july, and suss things out. it seems like going that early, i'd be unlikely to find anyone renting with a september move-in date, but leaving it until early-mid august gives me the scary-crawlies.

so, i'm sort of asking if you have any advice re: the housing (rentals) market (especially on the westside, reasonably close to UCLA), and/or if you'd keep your ears open for us, in case anyone you know needs a sublet or is moving out of a great place, etc. and, i guess, if you know anyone who needs a one-bedroom in manhattan, feel free to let me know, since we're hoping to get someone to sublet our place.

i know this will all work out, but it is seriously stressing me out. if you have any magic advice, i'd love to hear it. and if anyone ever asks you for your professional opinion, i'd sincerely advise against the 11-month master's, a wedding and a cross country move in the same year.

If you have a lead or something, or if you want a one-br sublet in Manhattan, email me and I'll forward it on.

Le Sigh, P.S.

Forgot to mention the other piddly-ass well-off American domestic nonsense of last week. After feeling quietly superior during the pet food recall because darling Daisy eats high-end optimal-nutrition natural blah blah pet food (due primarily to her being allergic to chicken, turkey, and beef--try finding a pet food that doesn't contain those, and then get back to me), our current "venison and green pea" food ended up being part of the latest recall. Teach me to be an asshole. As does Brilliant at Breakfast's post on the topic, which by the way if you're looking for actual political-type commentary on why the pet food recall isn't just well-off spoiled American nonsense, I highly recommend reading because all you're going to get here, deep in my semi-suburban stay-home mama navel, is a self-indulgent rant about how inconvenient it all is. But I promise lots of hyphenated words, at least.

Anyway, so I had to run to the fancy-ass optimal-nutrition pet food store after Mr. B. got home from work one evening to return all Daisy's food and try to find something to replace it with.

Oh, there are other pet foods out there that don't contain chicken, turkey, or beef. Problem is, all the ones at the fancy-ass pet store are things she's rejected (except the venison and pea). The fancy-ass natural food store carries Pet Guard, which has a really sloppy ocean fish formula that has real genuine fish bone parts in it that I used to feed her, disgusting though it is to look at, but (1) I didn't want to futz around going to a second store; (2) it was late enough that the fancy-ass natural food store would probably be closed by the time I got there anyway.

So I picked out one of these raw food diets that you can buy now at these expensive pet food places. I used to actually *make* Daisy's food from scratch, using recipes in this book (which I now see has a new edition). But that was before PK. In any case, I'm pro- the whole raw foods thing (despite the fact that the AVMA website recommends against it, and so does the pet nutrition site they recommend), but don't really want to get back into hand-making the cat's food.

So yay! I picked up some frozen venison raw food stuff. Pas de problem, right?

Those of you who have cats know what happened. Daisy refuses to eat the stuff. She's been howling at me for days, and will eat a few bites here and there just to keep herself from starving, but mostly we're getting the upturned nose and the howling and the clawing of my face at night to try to wake me up to FEED HER SOMETHING SHE LIKES NOW DAMMIT.

Fucking spoiled cat. I suppose I'll end up caving and going and buying the Pet Guard ocean fish stuff, where at least all we have to worry about is slow mercury poisoning.

Le Sigh

Yesterday kinda sucked. PK fell at school by swinging himself between two desks and then taking a face plant on the floor. Because it was the Friday Mr. B. has off, he had taken PK to school and was at the doctor; when the school called me, I was still in bed and grumpily refused to get up to answer the goddamn phone. Bad Mama! Just as well, though, since it was pouring rain and Mr. B. had the car--had I answered I'd have ended up running to the school in the rain and then (probably, what with being uncaffeinated yet and all) stupidly making PK walk home with me in the rain, injuries and all, rather than calling a cab. As was, Mr. B. picked him up and brought him home while Bad Mama sat smoking on the front porch (which has an overhang to protect me from the rain, unlike the back patio where I usually smoke) in my pajamas.

Much comforting of PK and putting on of pants and calling of doctors; much driving to the doctor's office and waiting for him to have a few minutes to see us; much reading to PK of really good books (which I will talk about later today or tomorrow) that scandalized other people in the waiting room, I'm happy to say.

Also happy to say that stitches were not, in the end, required. A dentist visit was recommended, however, so we bundled back into the car, drove home again, called the dentist (with whom we have an initial appointment this coming Wednesday). Then the crankiness--"I don't *want* to go to another appointment! I want a snack and to watch tv! Waaaah!"--and the "sweetie, I know, it will be quick, he just needs to check, blah blah,"--and the bundling back up and out to the car and waiting in the dentist's office (judging by the other clients, I am going to like this dentist--I got the distinct impression that this is dental care for the masses, rather than the pushing-of-tooth-bleaching-and-cosmetic-dentistry kind of practice that's getting more and more common). No serious damage done, but one baby tooth that was starting to think of getting wobbly anyway had gotten skewed into the top of his mouth, so that needed to be pulled, requiring Bad Mama to stand at the foot of the chair and use her upper body to pin down PK's legs and her arms to hold his hands at his sides while the dentist did his (five seconds of) work. Then the leaving the dentist's office with PK swearing about how "goddamit, I HATE dentists and doctors!" Charming. Looking forward to Wednesday's appointment, let me tell you.

But! As the turn of fate would have it, I may not have to face the dentist's office on Wednesday because . . . my mom's dad died yesterday. Bad Mama has also been playing the role of Bad Daughter this last week by making noises about driving down to Long Beach to see Grandpa in the hospital before he passes but not actually getting around to the two-hour drive. I was going to do it yesterday I SWEAR but then there was the doctor and dentist and traumatized kid thing going on, and then it turns out Grandpa died in the wee hours Friday morning anyhow. (He was 97 and had been in pretty bad shape for a long, long time, so it really is okay.) So then we had the phone calls, and the telling of my dad that no, to be honest, I will *not* pass on condolence messages from him to my mother (long story there, which I'm not going into). In any case, the funeral's probably on Wednesday or Thursday, and because Mom's cataracts are so bad she really shouldn't be driving over to Shafter (where the funeral is), I think we'll try to take a day off school/work and drive her over ourselves.

Anyway. Because the other thing that's been bugging me this week is mouse trauma, I ended up deciding "fuck it" in the evening and took PK to Petsmart to acquire a FIFTH mouse. You all will remember that after Squeaky died, I was agonizing over whether (or not) to schedule surgery for Micky-with-the-tumor. Well, I dawdled on the decision and lo and behold, apparently Micky's tumor is getting smaller on its own? Which maybe means it wasn't a tumor but an enlarged lymph node or something, who knows, but during the dawdling phase we went and got three new mice both to keep Micky company and (I hoped) to cushion the blow if/when she eventually joined Squeaky in the great habitrail in the sky. Alas, though, Brown Beauty turned out to be something of a bully, and within a week or so we found that Shiny had a quarter-inch hole (literally) chewed in her skin. Down to the muscle. Horrifying.

Shiny was quarantined for a night with a coat of polysporin applied to her open wound (after which I had to lie down on the bathroom floor so as not to faint, or vomit, or possibly both); the next day, we found that Squeaky (2) had also been gnawed on a bit (not nearly as badly, though). So we tried Squeaky (2) and Shiny together for a while, and there was no squabbling or squeaking. We added Micky; again, everything was fine.

So then it was Brown Beauty who was quarantined, with more polysporin applied to Shiny and Squeaky (2), who were now housed with Micky in the original cage and watched closely, several times a day. Shockingly, Shiny seems to have recovered--Bad Mama/Daughter/Granddaughter at least has the merit of being a Good Mouse Mama. However, poor BB was rather lonely, despite serious effort to take her out of her cage for some attention every day, and despite her cannibalistic tendencies I felt rather sorry for her.

So finally yesterday PK and I went off to Petsmart at 8 in the evening, hoping to find a mouse that would be big enough to maybe avoid being bullied by BB. Noticing that in one cage, the short-haired b&w satin mice were also demonstrating signs of being chewed on but that the (single) long-haired mouse did not, and also that said long-haired mouse was the same type as BB and also somewhat bigger than the b&w satins, I asked to have a look at her. Long-haired mouse, it turned out, was a feisty li'l thing: there was much jumping before I could catch her, and then jumping out of my hands and clinging to the side of the cage, and then jumping out of my hands onto the floor, all interspersed with a few sharp nips to the fingers.

"She's the biggest, and she's bitey; we'll take her," I said.

Of course, a new setup for BB and this new mouse would require a new cage, since the quarantine cage is really not big enough for two mice. Plus, since BB is a known bully, I thought a bigger cage might at least offer enough space for her not to feel crowded, and a new cage wouldn't smell familiar, so with luck we'd avoid territory issues. New cage, new water bottle, new climby trails, new nest, new hidey holes--cha-ching! $100!

It all seems to have been successful, though. BB and Jumps seem to be getting along beautifully (and Jumps is a lot less jumpy now, for some reason--guess you can't blame her for biting me when she was yanked unceremoniously from her nest) and PK's bathroom sink is now flanked, on either side, by two- and three-story mouse cages playgrounds.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General's getting his ass handed to him, Wolfowitz is cutting women's health funding out of the World Bank's agenda, people are sending me worthy links. Sorry, world. My life's a little crazy right now

abortion stories up from comments

A couple of comments to this post that definitely deserve to be read more broadly:

From Math ABD:

A few years ago a very dear friend was pregnant. The fetus died in the 8th month. Because the procedure is so controversial, no one around knows how to do it (or they're not willing to say so). She had to have labor induced and deliver a dead baby. In the maternity ward. With lots of live births and happy mothers all around. Yeah, this is a great measure for women.

From Julie:

MathABD... That's what I did too, labor and delivery of a child in the 7th month (although mine was different, the baby wasn't dead, we simply knew he was going to die) on the maternity floor. It was three days of absolute hell, and although it was the option I felt most comfortable with, there is no way in hell I would ever tell another woman she had to go through it. EVER. It was horrible on my body and it was devestating to hear the women in labor with happy, healthy births. Women need options, and to have a safe procedure taken off the board is mindboggling to me. If Kyle had already been dead, I absolutely would've just wanted the D&X.

Anyone who can ignore stories like this doesn't deserve to have an opinion about women's health and reproductive decisions.

Have you seen this man?

His name is Michael Patrick Vaughn, and he's Kevin's brother. He's been missing for a while, his mom's hired a private investigator to find him, but nothing; the family is afraid he's dead. Kevin says he believes Mike is "on the West Coast, maybe around Cali."

If anyone has seen Mike, please contact Kevin. He can also provide more information about Mike, if needed.

Please help if you can.

Carhart's possible legacy

Apo points out that Brock Landers points out that the five justices who voted to uphold the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban" are all Catholics.

Separation of church and state, anyone? Ring a bell?

Surely it's also significant that the only woman on the court wrote a hell of a dissent. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as always, warms my heart. Read her full dissent here if you need, at least, to feel like there's still someone on the court who gets it.

When "a statute burdens constitutional rights and all that can be said on its behalf is that it is the vehicle that legislators have chosen for expressing their hostility to those rights, the burden is undue." Stenberg, 530 U. S., at 952 (GINSBURG, J., concurring) (quoting Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 195 F. 3d 857, 881 (CA7 1999) (Posner, C. J., dissenting)).

Ed Kilgore at TPM Cafe suggests that the clarity of Ginsburg's dissent means that in the long run this opinion isn't predictive of future developments. Hope he's right. But with the deeply admirable Justice Ginsburg in her mid 70s now, I worry.

Good analysis at LGM, too.

Supreme Court declares women less intelligent than legislators

Ladies, we're offically second-class citizens. This according to the Supreme Court, which today found that it's constitutional for lawmakers (aka white men) to decide what kind of medical care we need. In short, the Court upheld the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban." Despite the fact that "partial birth abortion" is not a medically recognized term.

What is medically recognized:

- 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester.
- Intact dilation and extraction (also known as IDX, or sometimes just D&X) is used in approximately .17% of all abortions.
- It is probable (though definitive data do not exist) that the majority of IDX procedures are performed because of fetal abnormalities.
- IDX, because it delivers a fetus whole, creates less risk of uterine perforation from bone fragments than other forms of late-term abortion.
- IDX has less risk of infection than other forms of late-term abortion, because it takes less time and requires the insertion of fewer instruments into the uterus.
- IDX (like other late-term abortion procedures) can prevent a woman who has found that her fetus is dead or not viable from having to undergo labor and delivery of a dead fetus.
- IDX can allow women whose fetuses are not viable to view and hold their dead babies after delivery.
- Most IDX procedures are performed between 20-24 weeks gestation--that is, within the second trimester, and before fetal viability.
In cases where a fetus has severe hydrocephalus (water on the brain, which can cause a fetuses head to be grotesquely enlarged), the options to a woman may be IDX or a Cesarean section--that is, a three-day outpatient procedure or major surgery, with attendant potential complications.
- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists explicitly opposed the ban.

The law allows for IDX to be performed to save a woman's life--but not to save, say, her uterus. Because there are other surgical options for late-term abortions, it is highly unlikely that banning IDX will prevent a single abortion. It may, however, prevent some women from having the safest procedure for their particular circumstances.

What the court's decided, in essence, is that a woman's right to make her own medical decisions is less important than preventing legislators from getting an ooky feeling by thinking about fetal heads being punctured. Our safety is less important than their feelings.

Sources consulted:

Salon: "A Doctor's Right to Choose."
Library of Congress Congressional Research Services report 95-1101 SPR: "Abortion Procedures"
Suzanne Batchelor, "Abortion Procedures Ban Limits Endings for Doomed Pregnancies"
Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "PPA Opposes Abortion Ban Legislation"
Religious Tolerance.org: "D&X / PBA Procedures"
Wikipedia entry on Intact Dilation and Extraction
Wikipedia entry on hydrocephalus

Rape: Fun for the Kiddos

Bratz dolls are nothing, baby. You want a revolting toy? How about a rapist doll?

No, I'm totally not kidding you. Apparently Quentin Tarantino inc., or whatever his fucking corporate identity is called, okayed the production of a "Grindhouse Rapist No. 1 Action Figure." Just in case any of us thought the man actually knew the meaning of shame, the thing looks like him (apparently he plays "Rapist No.1" in the film).

The toy's manufacturer says, cheerfully, "While you most likely will NOT find our Grindhouse action figures on the shelves at your local Toys R Us, they are available now!"

So, y'know, it's okay. Because kids can't buy it. Only grownups. You know, the kind of adults who think rape is fun. Or cool. Or a game. Or . . . something.

Fucking disgusting.

Garance Franke-Ruta hypothesizes that the toy's partly a tactic designed to drum up outrage and free publicity. And maybe it is, and maybe I'm buying into it. But, I mean, damn.

Self-loathing?

Adam will now grant you permission, every Monday, to do that thing you want to do but feel you "shouldn't" because it's lazy, greedy, unkind, unambitious, etc.

Or not, depending.

School shootings

Y'all have probably already heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech this morning. Here's a thread for y'all to talk about 'em and post updates/rumors/news, if you've got it.

Just, wow

Those of you who can handle seriously fucked-up humor will really want to watch this video, courtesy of Mr. Apostropher.

I'm warning you, though: it's simultaneously hilarious and utterly appalling.

Book Review: Promises I Can Keep

Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas's Promises I Can Keep is the first in my long-promised and long-delayed series of "reviews of all the great stuff I've been reading lately." It's been out for a while (2005), so this isn't exactly a newsy review, but it's a fabulous book and if you haven't already read it, I think you should.

The authors are sociologists/anthropologists who did a study of poor single moms. So the book is kind of sociology/ethnography. Which means that it does a great job of combining interesting, readable stories about individual women (told in the women's own words a lot of the time) with a longer-focus analytic view that helps interpret the stories. It's kind of rare to find a groundbreaking academic book that's a great read, but this one is.

What Edin and Kefalis found is that the moms have mainstream, even conservative ideas of what marriage should be, and they don't want to get married if they don't trust that the men will be faithful, help provide for their children, not be abusive, etc. And that these fears are quite reasonable, given the men they have to choose from.

But. The women also have mainstream, conservative ideas about the value and importance of children--so much so that they often think of abortion as irresponsible. Which is an interesting and profound realization, I think, and one that those of us who are pro-choice would do well to think very hard about. A lot of the time we argue for abortion rights as if we were doing so on behalf of poor women; we need to realize that many poor women are not themselves pro-choice, and that if we really want to advocate for them, we should start by listening to what they have to say.

The key thing the women in this book have to say is that having kids while young and poor has been good for them. According to their own account (and the author's observations), their children have given them a reason them to straighten up their lives, grow up, and become responsible adults. Their children provide a source of love for these young women, where boyfriends, peers, and parents have so often failed them. I think most of us in the middle class think it's a little fucked up to want a child for the love that child will give you (and Edin and Kefalis say this too). But at the same time, I think those of us who have had children will say that one of the most powerful and gratifying things about parenting is precisely that experience of love. It's possible that poor young women, who are often much closer to the experience of parenting than their middle-class peers by virtue of helping raise their siblings, or seeing friends have babies, are simply more realistic about the emotional benefits of parenting than the middle class is.

The one major argument we usually offer, though, for why young and/or poor women shouldn't have children, is that doing so is economically damaging: they won't get ahead if they have kids too early. It turns out that this argument isn't true. Poor women's economic prospects are demonstrably no better if they postpone childbirth than if they have children young. In fact, there's some evidence that their lives, economically and otherwise, would be worse, as kids provide them an incentive to stop using drugs, to end abusive relationships, to get jobs, and to further their educations. Setting an example for their children, or improving their situations for their children's sake, proves to be a much more powerful motivator than doing so for themselves.

Of course, in the end, a lot of these women still aren't able to provide much for their children, despite great effort, and even those who do provide well aren't always able to save their kids from the dangers of poverty and drugs. But a lot of that failure isn't theirs. It's not their fault that impoverished neighborhoods are dangerous, that poor schools are appalling, that there aren't many job prospects, that gangs are omnipresent, or that the process of college admissions is mysterious to them. In the middle class world, these obstacles don't exist; so from our point of view, waiting to have children is kind of a "guarantee" of a good outcome. We tend to assume that poor outcomes are the result of early childbearing when in fact, as this book suggests, this may well be a case where correlation has nothing to do with causation.

For the middle class and the wealthy, it makes a lot of economic sense to postpone having children. We're wrong, though, to prescribe waiting to poor women, for whom there are no economic disincentives to early childbearing. For these women, early childbirth is, at worst, neutral, and at best a positive improvement on not only their economic but also their emotional and mental well-being. We're used to thinking of what we have to teach the poor; this book does a great job of showing us what the poor have to teach us about parenting, childrearing, and looking at things from a more genuinely feminist point of view--one in which children really are a central part of life, rather than an optional choice.

You can read the book's second chapter here, and an article by the authors that excerpts some of the book's material here. You can also get a sample issue of Contexts, the journal in which the latter article appeared, by clicking that link and going to "pdf sample issue" in the left-hand pull-down menu, under "content."

Open letter to Markos Moulitsas

Hey, Markos--we met at a Minneapolis Drinking Liberally once when you were promoting your book, remember? So I'm gonna play the "acquaintance" card as well as the fellow blogger card here.

Dude, this post is messed up. I agree with you that the proposed blogger code of conduct is asinine, but it certainly doesn't follow that Kathy Sierra (or any other women who are threatened with death, rape, or frivolous lawsuit, ahem) are making shit up or overreacting or (as you kind of imply) being hysterical.

Maybe, despite being a major blogger, you haven't spent much time thinking about the specific online experiences of women. In which case, you should know that women online--not just bloggers, but women in chat rooms or commenting on blogs or on internet forums--get twenty-five times more harassment than men do. That's not 25%; it's 2500%.

In other words, no; you haven't gotten "your fair share" of this kind of thing. Not even close. And good for you; no one should have to put up with that crap. But when your own experience of harassment is, relatively speaking, very minimal, it's really easy to tell other people that they should just ignore it. It's hard to realize exactly how much cultural energy is devoted to teaching women to be afraid.

Now, I agree with you: the vast majority of that kind of assholish crap isn't *really* threatening. Most email or comment threats are just hot air. But at some point, some dickhead is going to stir up enough craziness that someone really *is* going to get attacked in real life as the result of some online bullshit.

Codes of conduct aren't going to prevent that, of course. Maybe nothing will. But people like you and me *can*, I think, postpone its happening, maybe even make it less likely, by not just saying (in effect) "butch up or quit blogging." The voices of vulnerable people matter too. Maybe even more than the voices of those of us who aren't easily intimidated. And let's get something straight: what needs to happen isn't that the recipients of death threats need to shrug them off. What needs to happen is that those of us who have a fairly weighty online presence need to say, in no uncertain terms, that threats and harassment and sexism and racism and homophobia and all that other offensive shit is flat-out unacceptable, both in real life and online.

The best way to make that clear isn't to tell victims, publicly, that "if they can't handle it" they should quit blogging. Nope. Instead, those of us who provide readers with opportunities to respond--in blog comments, or on online forums, or in chat groups--need to make sure we come down hard on assholes who use those opportunities to hassle, harass, or threaten people (including us). For god's sake, don't make excuses for them by pretending that they're some kind of force of nature, like an earthquake, that we can't do anything about. Because we can, if we shut them down when they show up.

And if we don't "have time" to manage our own commenters (or forum members, etc.) then we don't have time to blog. If we run forums or chat groups or blogs but don't have time to read what people say--well, maybe we should try another line of work.

We don't need no stinkin' badges

So there's a proposed blogland response to the misogynist bullshit Kathy Sierra had to put up with is apparently some "Code of Conduct". I've seen this talked about in places other than the NYT, but let that link demonstrate that the idea of a Blog Conduct Code is getting some press.

Blah blah, "we restrict comments that aren't civil." "We won't say anything online we wouldn't say in person." "We'll resolve inter-blog spats through private email rather than posting about them." "If someone's being a dick, we'll ask them to stop, pretty please, before we call the cops." "We won't allow pseudonyms." "We'll ignore trolls." "We want hosting sites to police blogs."

Break me a fucking give, people. It's not that fucking hard. Yes, anonymous publishing makes some people act like dickheads. Yes, blogspats are silly wastes of time. Yeah, basic standards of rational argument are good things. Yeah, trolls suck.

But (1) the main problem in the Sierra case was rampant misogyny, and I don't see any "We won't tolerate racism or sexism" up there. And (2) Pseudonymity is not the problem. The fact of the matter is that an established pseudonym is at least as much of a "check" on assholishness as the real name of someone no one's ever heard of; "Bitch, Ph.D." has a reputation to maintain (of sorts), and that's one reason she doesn't say dumbass shit. (I realize that this is debatable. What I mean is I won't threaten people or out them or otherwise act like an asshole.)

The real "solution" to assholes on the internet is for bloggers, site moderators, etc. to fucking read and participate in their own comment threads. If the blogger him- or herself is an asshole, then they'll allow assholes to comment there. Not much you can do about that: assholes exist, and they, too, can often type. If the blogger isn't an asshole, they'll delete, argue with, or shut down asshole comments, according to their personal tastes.

I, personally, find that the simple policy of "obnoxious comments will be deleted" works just great. I don't give a shit if people swear or are "incivil" about things that, imho, don't deserve civil treatment--and if someone disagrees that, say, sexist nonsense doesn't deserve civility, then they can read another blog, or they can argue with me in comments. So fuck that civility shit. I'm entirely pro-pseudonym: since I care, in fact, about writing--as any blogger damn well should--and I'm not a moron, I know perfectly well that pseudonyms allow writers to create different personae, to try different voices, and to protect their personal or professional lives (the threats against Kathy Sierra demonstrating *precisely why* bloggers, especially women, need the option of using pseudonyms, thankyouverymuchMr.HighHorseIUseMyOwnName).

I do care about people who create what in academic and legal circles gets called a "hostile environment." Sexist, racist, or homophobic bullshit either gets deleted or left up as an example of assholishness to which I, or other regular commenters, respond accordingly. Physical threats--except for obvious hyperbole like "I'd like to smack Larry Summers"--would get deleted, maybe, or else retained on purpose in case evidence were needed at some later date. Somewhere back in a very old comment thread there is a rape threat against me that I have left up for that very purpose (and no, I am not going to tell you where it is). I think bloggers (hello, Michelle Malkin, you fucking hypocrite) who "out" people's personal information are assholes--and I don't see *that* little piece of bullshit on the "blogger code of conduct," probably because it thinks pseudonymous commenting is inherently suspect.

In fact, anonymous and pseudonymous writing is as old as the hills. And foolish critics have always argued that anonymous writers were cowards, or frauds, or mercenaries. But one of the major benefits of anonymous writing is that it forces readers to focus on what they're reading, rather than on the personality of the person who writes it. (And, as a rather nice result, it forces authors to do the same, which saves the rest of us listening to them whining about whether or not the other side "likes" them ::cough::Malkin::cough::Althouse::.) It fosters and encourages a public sphere--one of the central requirements of a, yes, civil society--by allowing marginalized folks, whistleblowers, inner-circle critics, and people who are (hello?) easily threatened to speak out without putting themselves in jeopardy. These are good things. Things we should encourage, not forbid.

So no, I'm not interested in signing on to some "Code of Conduct" and displaying a "good behavior badge" on my site, thanks. I prefer to let my words speak for themselves.

Happy Easter

You know I couldn't let the day pass without doing my annual peeps post. Here, for your holiday delectation, are some sugar, candy-colored links.

Someone is apparently making a Peeps movie. I hope it's not a joke: you can watch the trailer and decide for yourself.

Tour the Peeps factory!

A Peep(s) Show.

And my favorite--make an entire Easter meal featuring Peeps.

I hope everyone, especially Psycho Kitty, enjoys these.

How the Other Half Lives; or, Why I Haven't Been Blogging

So guess what? Turns out that people who aren't academics and are parents have the total opposite spring break experience from the rest of us. I remember when "spring break" meant I had TIME to do nothing (and feel guilty about it).

Now spring break means that PK is off school and (as it happens) Mr. B. is away on business, and having become one of those affluent southern California hypereducated helicopter parents, I signed PK up for "zoo camp".

"Hm," I thought to myself. "Zoo camp! PK likes animals, it's an interesting program, and it'll give me some non-PK time while he's off school.

"Now, let's think. He can start at 8:30 or he can start at 1 p.m. It's a fuck of a drive, and it's fucking spring break for god's sake. For *one* week I don't have to get up at 7 am to take him to school. Afternoons it is!"

Only, DUH, "fuck of a drive" = "totally impractical to actually GO HOME while he's there."

In other words, he and I have been sleeping a little later than usual, then getting up and putzing a bit before having to hit the road to drive all the way to suburban valley hell, where I drop him off and then spend a few aimless hours wandering around fulfilling the social obligations of my class: buying plastic crap at Target and wandering through outlet malls.

If I still retained any kind of archival interests, I suppose I could always pop into the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, which is just one more exit up the road.

Sami Al-Arian

This post is about a topic that's a little over my head without further research which I'm frankly unwilling to do. But I'm throwing it out there because it's newsworthy, it's not being covered in the mainstream media as far as I can see, it's an "old" story of academic freedom and tenure that most of us have probably forgotten about, it's about the conflict between the power of the state and the legal rights of the individual, and it's interesting.

Academic readers may or may not remember Sami Al-Arian's name, but you probably vaguely remember the story about the University of South Florida professor who was accused of some kind of terrorist-related fundraising and who was eventually fired by the university, despite having tenure.

Summary: he was arrested four years ago. His eventual trial, in which the government didn't present the "secret evidence" it said it had against him, led to his being acquitted on 8 out of 17 charges; the jury was hung on the remaining nine (10 wanted to acquit; two wanted to convict).

About a year ago, he accepted a plea bargain in which he plead guilty to receiving money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an organization that's sponsored Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel and that the U.S. Government considers a terrorist organization (hence the charges against him). He says that he accepted the plea in order to try to put the series of charges the government was bringing behind him and for the sake of his family. He was to serve a sentence "at the low end of the applicable guideline" and be deported afterwards. He didn't agree that his accepting the plea constituted an admission of guilt, only that it was in his best interests at the time. Another part of the plea was that he'd be immune from further prosecution or being required to testify.

Despite the plea agreement, the judge sentenced him to the maximum sentence (57 months), gave him credit for time served, and he was to stay in prison until April 16, two weeks from yesterday.

He was also called to testify in another case about terrorist group fundraising. He's refused to do so, both because his plea agreement specified that he was not to be called to testify, and because he claims his life would be in danger if he did testify (which, assuming he knows something, seems like a reasonable claim to me, especially given that he's to be deported, where? when his jail term is up).

A judge decided that his plea agreement didn't protect him, and added 18 months for contempt of court to his sentence. On January 22, 2007, he started a hunger strike which he ended on March 24, to protest his continued incarceration. Two years ago, Amnesty International protested his continued incarceration and declared that

As Dr Al-Arian is a stateless Palestinian, it is essential that the United States ensures his safety and that an appropriate host country can be found.

Given that Dr Al-Arian has not been convicted of any crime after nearly three years in prison -- often in harshly punitive conditions -- the government should not now leave him in legal limbo during any protracted consideration of his case.

Now, Al-Arian does not sound like a hero. Juan Cole, whose judgment I trust, and whose intellectual honesty, I think, is unquestionable, says that he is "certainly a fundamentalist Muslim theocrat with regard to his goals." Cole seems convinced, and I'm willing to take his word for it, that Al-Arian did indeed collect "charity" money which then went to terrorist munitions.

Nonetheless. The man has not been found guilty of anything, and he has been in jail for four years. During some of that time he's been in solitary confinement. He's now being threatened with another year and a half of jail time for (as far as I can tell) trying to hold the government to its side of a plea bargain agreement. And of course, he lost a tenured position for what seem to be essentially ideological reasons (given that, again, he hasn't been convicted of anything). And, presumably because he doesn't sound like a hero, he isn't being covered at all that I can tell by the mainstream media: only outlets like Workers World and Z-Net seem to be covering the case. (There was also a small boxed blurb about it in this week's Nation, which is what prompted me to google around a little and read up on the case.)

I thought you all might be interested in talking about the issues Al-Arian's case raises.

Help a dissertator out

A graduate student of political science writes to ask me, and by extension you, to please help him out with his research by taking an internet survey. The survey is part of his dissertation research project, and the link will be active for approximately 4 weeks.

Comments are disabled in order to protect the integrity of the results, but the graduate student provides contact information at the end of the survey and strongly encourages participants to get in touch with him directly to discuss the advertisements and/or survey. If the study generates much interest, I would also be happy to provide you and your readers with the final report.

This survey, Exploring the Role of Internet Advertising in American Politics, is designed to help us understand what Americans like you think about internet advertising, modern campaigns, and politics. We are very interested in your thoughts on this matter and greatly appreciate your participation.

Bitterness isn't attractive, you know.

Kinda depressing article about the anxiety and pressure we put on the daughters of the rich and educated:

And, for all their accomplishments and ambitions, the amazing girls, as their teachers and classmates call them, are not immune to the third message: While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart.

You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther’s classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote in an e-mail message, “It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”

“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added.

Please let's not have any "but smart women are hot!" comments from clueless people who don't realize that the implication there is that hotness is still the bottom line. (And do read the whole article: the looks thing is mentioned only in passing, and the jist of the thing--that high-achieving women feel a constant sense of inadequacy--is pretty well-covered. I also like how the young woman the article focuses on most is shown to be not only smart and ambitious but also "good" by refusing to take advantage of SAT training courses, or take more than two AP classes--while I think the motivations she expresses for not doing these things *do* reflect a genuine sense of morality and fairness, I also think the article might have pointed out explicitly that they also show that a healthy sense of self-preservation.)

For more on why it just isn't enough to be smart and accomplished, let's just turn to another article in today's Times, this time about another well-off, well-educated young woman: Jane Austen.

Summary of NYT article: too bad she wasn't prettier. Oh, and also she might have become arguably the greatest English-language novelist in history only because she was too homely to land a husband.

Gosh, I just have no idea where the bright, ambitious, high-achieving young women of today get the idea that being bright, ambitious, and high-achieving isn't enough.