Groans and Fist Pumps

Check out the new look! It's books because I love books and am a shameless dork. But they're colorful because they look fun, and I like fun too. Books and fun are not mutually exclusive, people. (You're probably already groaning...)

Anyway, sometimes I read things and they just make me groan. And then I read other things that make me fist pump and break into a fit of bellowing laughter. Let me explain.

First, Britain just voted for female heirs to have equal rights to their throne after many many years of antiquated laws. That means under the old system, my younger brother would have taken the throne, but if we were royalty, it'd be mine now. Fist pump.

Here comes the groan.

This recent campaign for a "personhood" amendment to Mississippi's State Constitution is absurd. It's the newest anti-abortion strategy, to declare a fertilized egg as a legal person. Whatever meathead drafted this one deserves some special sort of award. 

Taking Public Health Law has given me a new respect for the US Constitution and the hierarchy of authority in our government. I certainly don't understand nearly as much as many other people, but I appreciate the interpretation of the Supreme Court in previous reproductive rights cases. Apparently, the law is all about being "reasonable" and they have decided time and again that women have rights, with an implied "Duh!"  

This amendment would not only illegalize abortion with no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest but also certain forms of birth control, such as IUDs and the morning after pill, which prevent fertilized eggs from implanting, aka making a little home for itself on the wall of the uterus. After studying previous cases, and understanding the well respected right to liberty to make reproductive choices without intrusion by the government, I have slightly more confidence that this will be struck down if it ever gets voted in. 

What these people probably haven't even considered is the invasion of privacy that enforcing this would entail - theoretically, every sexually active woman of childbearing age could be considered more than one person. Also, when is someone's birthday if they're declared a person upon fertilization? Does this mean they have to change their age to be able to drive, vote, and drink?

BUT - people much smarter than I in the law world have more hilarious questions for the dummies, I mean, advocates for "Yes on 26" which can be found here. Fist pump and laughter.

Happy Halloween!

Mukluks, Brogans and Oxfords... or just Boots

Ahh shoes. I can't say I enjoy shopping for shoes or purses, which some people proclaim makes me less of a woman. There are just an overwhelming amount of colors and fabrics and styles and sizes, and my thoughts wander to excessive consumerism, and all the animals killed/water used/damage done to the environment to fill these sections of the store and for that matter the entire store. Buzzkill... so I end up not caring and leaving without purchasing anything when I try. But I do love my new boots. And I love them fully acknowledging all of the aforementioned problems with the merchandise I peruse in stores.

And I love online shopping. Getting deliveries makes any typical day feel like my birthday, or Christmas, or just that someone really likes me a lot (this last one only happens when things take awhile to arrive and I've forgotten that I actually ordered it for myself).

Back to the boots - I have been on a rather lengthy quest for non-high heel boots. High heels, while pretty, are for the birds. Really. All they do is hurt my feet and make me think, "Oh this will be fine, I can walk in these all night." WRONG. After being wrong enough times, this was a necessary purchase, requiring a little budgeting.

They arrived to my office on Friday, before I arrived. The box was perched in my chair, literally impeding the completion of any work until it had been taken care of. I opened the first box only to find another one - that's like two presents! Finally, with all of the shipping materials and boot stuffing strewn all around me, there they were - my lovely boots. The boots I had been tracking for the two whole days it took for them to get to me and for which I had pre-planned my outfit around. Dork? Absolutely. Anyway, after opening them, my office smelled like leather bound boots instead of books - a step away (up?) from Ron Burgandy's apartment.

Five days into this lovely relationship, my feet don't hurt and they still smell a little leathery and it's true what they say - these boots are made for walking. (I couldn't resist!)

Another unfortunate throwback, Brooklyn Bus style

I try not to write about things I don't know about, but here goes.

I don't know much about this religion, but separating the sexes on the bus and sending the women to the back smells a lot like the days of racial segregation.

I might go there just to ride this bus in the wrong section. Separation? For the sake of religion? Fine, many religions believe in separation of the sexes... I can't say I understand, but people have really strong religious beliefs. What isn't fine is separation and consistently sending one sex to the section of the bus historically associated with inferiority and subjugation.

It's hard to believe how many of these throwbacks are around us.

Blogmates... sort of like Shipmates

My friend Amanda started a blog called Raptured in NYC. I always read that to myself with a pirate's accent and enthusiastic "Yarrrrg!" after the title. Even if you decide not to read the title that way, the blog is awesome and totally worth reading. She's got a Masters in Publishing and Writing from Emerson so her layout is much more sophisticated that what you'll find here. She's funny, smart, interesting and just plain lovely.

One of my favorite facts about Amanda is that she helps design and lay out children's books at one of her jobs and then will go home to freelance edit smut by night.

Anyway, here is her very read-worthy (kind of like seaworthy) blog, where I have a shoutout for contributing a theme-appropriate photo :)

Happy as a Daisy

Check out these awesome daisies, wishing me good morning en route to the Red Line. I figured we could all use some sunshine and happy looking flowers when there are so many clouds and raindrops outside.

Oh, and those are brand new sidewalks, so admire them too!

Discoveries in the Library!

So I'm in the library working on a paper. Kind of. My paper is about starting sex education, with age appropriate messages, in third grade. Yes, it's progressive, but I'm not crazy - other countries do this and have much lower rates of unintended pregnancy and STI. We can chat about it another time. This needs to be short and sweet so I can get some sleep tonight.

In my research, I came across this video made by the Guttmacher Institute about abortion. For those of you new to the scene, Guttmacher is the place to go for any reproductive related questions, answers, and anything in between. It's a good video - summarizing a lot of what I spend my time reading about in three minutes. Impressive!

...and also reminds me of one of my favorite videos during the defunding Planned Parenthood debates earlier this spring. Did you know you can get a Pap smear at Walgreens?!

...Speaking of Meal

I'm currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and wow is it a dilemma. This book is so intense, I am taking a forced break from it for at least a day to process what I've read so far. I started this book as reading for an optional book club at school, and it has totally rocked my socks.

There are four parts to the book and I've only read the first part which is all about corn. We will call this your "Corn Course":

It costs about $2.50 per bushel to grow it and farmers are paid $1.50 per bushel. You're right! That doesn't add up. But the farmers keep growing more to maintain their income level and thus they drive prices down further. These pesticides that help them grow more were developed post World War II with our surplus of ammonium nitrate, no longer needed for bombs. Use of ammonium nitrate caused a boom of a different kind - an explosion in the amount of corn possible to grow per acre. The government also pays them per bushel of corn produced, so subsidies keep them afloat and encourage growing as much corn as possible, without regard for health of the land or demand in the market.

Use of ammonium nitrate, in excess of course to assure excellent crop yields, also causes lots of chemicals to flow off into the river which people drink from. This causes blue baby alerts, which are straight up creepy. Infants' bodies turn blue after they drink the water, which contains lots of nitrogen - oxygen's neighbor on the periodic table. Their hemoglobin (molecules that carry oxygen in your blood) bind with the nitrogen and NOT the oxygen and poof - you have a blue baby. See? Creepy.

So the fertilizer keeps flowing down the river and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico where it's caused ANOTHER boom - in the growth of algae, algae, and nothing but algae. Lots of fish and other sea creatures are gone, suffocated by how much algae is now in the water. Turns out it doesn't stop being a fertilizer when it leaves the corn field.

But back to the corn. Very little of it is actually eaten in its whole form. It is made into grain for cattle and chickens (who, by the way, don't even like the stuff), fuel for cars, high fructose corn syrup, and a slew of ingredients which you can find on the back of many packaged foods. Yeah, I'm talking about the ones you can't pronounce. Those are corn. Sort of.

And the animals who don't even like corn? It's the main ingredient in their grain. So far, I haven't read about the chickens because they're in the "Grass" section which is next. But the cows? They want to eat grass, that's all. Doesn't seem like a high maintenance request. The beauty of that arrangement is that they eat the grass and then their waste (cow pies) make the grass grow faster. It's a lovely little cycle. By feeding them grain, we introduce lots of digestive and bacteria issues we have mostly (but not entirely) figured out how to solve with more chemicals - introduce antibiotics and subsequently superbugs. Nice. Anyway, the grain makes them fattier and able to live in denser conditions since they don't need a bunch of silly grass to munch. This usually means they live among their poop. Maybe that's okay with you, but I don't want my food repeating one of our biggest public health mistakes: poop and food should be kept separate. Anyway, the cows get fat faster, we kill them faster and then we eat more of their meat, which is fattier than it would be if they ate grass, which probably explains at least part of the obesity issue we're having.

Turns out this wasn't so skinny.

So far, what it boils down to is that you can't care about certain things in public health because it is all connected. You can't say you care about the environment and not pediatric medicine or that you care about obesity and not the environment - it's all connected. We're making a pretty big mess apparently, and even though this is causing mild anxiety about pretty much anything I have been eating over the past few days, I'm glad I know. It's making me want to have less of an impact and certainly more appreciative of the effort and curious about the logistics involved in getting pretty much any food anywhere.

Stay tuned to find out more about your precious McNuggets when I write the "Grass Course."

Royal Meal

So, we're now five weeks into school and I've far more to accomplish by tomorrow than humanly possible. I might go the route of Cristina and stop sleeping to get six to eight more hours of time to read and write... thank goodness the hot coffee at the bike cart is also delicious and scalp-tingling strong.

Amidst moments of shortness of breath at the thought of all there is to be done, friends are good. Conversations via GChat, such as the following, with the delightful Jane keep me laughing and grounded and breathing regularly again:

Jane: hey
me: hi!
how are you
Jane: haha so last night i had a dream that i was eating a meal with pippa
as in kate middletons sister
like what
me: WHAT HAHAHAHHA
CAN I PLEASE PUT THAT IN THE BLOG (my formal consent form) 

Jane: Hahahaha yea i was cracking up this morning
yes, i know
it was ridiculous
and i didnt even get a photo with her (love this - it is crucial to photodocument when one dines with royalty, or close to it) 

me: what did you and pippa talk about / eat?
Jane: i cant remember...
but i think i was also with my mom and brother

me: that's fab
Jane: especially since, i have no feelings about her at all, like complete indifference
and i also remmber thinking, wow you look alot like your sister (nothing gets by Jane)

And now that you're all smiling, I'm going to spend my lunch hour reading instead of blogging. Tootles!