Woman Who Weaves

Some days you're just wrong.

I read what happened to  Daisy Coleman, and what was done to her family.  I am thrilled that she refuses to be silenced.   I provide reproductive health care to young women and too often I have to deal with the aftermath of exactly this sort of rape.   For those of you who want to tell me that she could have avoided it, blah blah blah.  He would have done it to  someone else , because the "undetected serial rapist" leaves an average of 14 victims behind.  These perpetrators  seek out and groom victims;  they use alcohol as a tool.  He is in many ways more like a child molester than like our mythical image of a knife wielding stranger. What excites me about Daisy's public stand is my feeling that this reflects a fundamental shift.  Young women have "gotten the message" and their attackers had best beware:   It's not her fault,  and she knows it.

This student posted a general question about why doctors over-prescribed antibiotics and I responded that I did not.  So then the little bugger asked me "How do you handle patients that insist on needing them?"  My response: Variously.  And being not-flip, I have on occasion prescribed antibiotics I suspected were not needed. One of my tactics is to schedule a follow up appointment. Patient comes in, has had "sinusitis" or "Bronchitis" for 10 days. I suspect it will be better in another 10 days, or then they may need antibiotics. So I schedule another appointment and tell them to cancel if they're all better. I work in a setting without co-pays. If I were in a different set up, I would have them call the nurse in 10 days, or I might have the nurse call them with a checklist of questions. I NEVER prescribe the newest and greatest in the outpatient setting. Most people in the outpatient setting will get better with or without antibiotics. I rememb...

I wrote to my congressman today.  I do it regularly, both of my senators are people I agree with politically, so poor Rob Wittman of the Virginia First gets all my spleen vented upon him. He is donating his salary to charity during the shut down.  I appreciate the gesture. He is NOT on the list of the 32 Republicans responsible for the shut down.  That's nice. He supports back pay for workers affected by the shut down.  And while that is nice, I want to know if he also supports them making up the lost work? (I realize this is unfair and impossible, but you see my point.) The sheer waste going on in scientific research laboratories makes me want to weep. The ACA or "Obamacare" is not perfect.  But its a start.  The majority of Tea Partiers intend to collect Medicare and Social Security, programs that were controversial in their day. Every single person I meet who opposes "Obamacare" has health insurance. I am uninsured, it is not offered throug...

I watched Agents of SHIELD last week and one particular scene keeps sticking with me.  When Coulson and Ward are questioning Skye, Coulson gets out the truth serum.  Then is a really nice twist, he gives it to Ward and lets Sky question him.  Why do I like this so much? Lois McMaster Bujold uses a substance called FastPenta in her fiction.  Her protagonist (male) acknowledges at one point that interrogation with it can be a form of "mind rape".   Ward is just the sort of power-happy creep who needs to get smacked down hard when he's young in order to grow up into a decent human being. The truth serum with all its ugly implications comes out, Ward looks excited (yuck) and then the power dynamic is gleefully subverted. Later in the week another new show, The Blacklist twisted the dynamic a different way when Liz is asked to profile herself.  There were several moments in the pilot, including this one, that reserved agency to Liz  even when it was...

...its about a woman's right to privacy.  No woman should have to detail to anyone except her doctor, whether she is taking birth control pills for acne or contraception.  Your employer should not have the right to decide what kind of medical care you get.  And it is important because if you empower the bigots, they get worse. When I was a young resident, a patient came into the ER in the throws of a miscarriage.  I had some lab and imaging reports that supported the diagnosis and she was bleeding fairly profusely so  I wanted to give her medication that would complete the process more quickly and hopefully avoid a trip to the operating room.  (D&C is not an entirely benign procedure in either the moment or the effects on future pregnancy, it is however very safe.) A nurse informed me, in self righteous tones, that she would not administer the medication as her religious beliefs prohibited abortions.  As a sleep deprived second year I simply go...

I have taken these from different parts of the interview, but I think I retain his meaning: "  If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation." “The risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure." This captures what makes me so uncomfortable about many fundamentalists.  They are so certain that th...

I have re-ordered these quotes for effect.  Daily Show 9/10/2012 I get that Fox opposes the Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless, irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic, succubus like existence, BUT ... Who cares how we avoided a war and got a dictator to give up his chemical weapons if we avoided a war and got a dictator to give up his chemical weapons?

I am very sad about what is happening in Syria.  The Pope, who runs a church I do not belong to, has very sensibly suggested a day of Prayer and Fasting on September 7th.  I don't know what he intended to mean by fasting, but since Syria is a predominantly Muslim country, I am going to try and abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset.  I have nothing big to do that day, so it should be possible.  I encourage anyone who reads this to do whatever seems right to you.

I feel for conservative Catholics, cleric and lay, in this time.  But I encourage them to not confuse style with content.  What Francis is saying isn't anything all that earth shattering: Judge not lest ye be judged.  Worry about the beam in your own eye before worry about the splinter in your brother’s. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It’s only radical because he seems to mean it.  And if it makes you uncomfortable, good. I also want to applaud Benedict for the truly humble act of stepping down.  Benedict has given us the gift of Francis, I truly believe Benedict’s resignation was moved by the spirit.  By tossing the church a curve ball, and not giving the politics time to set in, he allowed them to respond from the spirit.  

My Mom Dan Savage The Python loose on Dartmouth Campus. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. I don't love all these things equally.  And I expect that I won't love them all for as long.  But there you are.

I have been pondering the pro-life anti-gay marriage movement for a while.  That there is a fear in their motivation has long  seemed likely to me.  But what they are afraid of has eluded me.  I’m sure some are hiding their own homosexual leanings or curiosity.  Some of the pro-lifers probably feel trapped in their own lives and wish they could have had other choices and are angry and those who did.  I’ve been looking for a unifying thread.  Today at lunch my mother was telling a story about a man whose step-daughter died and his family’s ongoing relationship with the recipient of her heart.                  This got me thinking about the irregular and lumpy shapes of families today.  The element of choice in family.  Most of us have non-relatives to whom we are solidly attached and think of as “family-by-choice”.  It is an idea that was at the root of gay...

I like Ann Curry well enough.  She reminds me of myself, good and bad.  I felt very sorry for her when she was forced out of the Today show; I've been fired a time or two.  But my sympathy has not been so great afterwards. She behaved like a fragile damsel.  There's nothing to put people off the victim of a situation than acting like a victim.  Also, despite the difficulties, she still had a job with an income.  A rather good income.  My mother used to tell me that bosses hire you to solve their problems, not to solve yours.  No one made Ann Curry work in the highly competitive realm of network news. I had not realized that Ann Curry had a husband and two children.  I visualized her as a single, childless woman whose whole identity was the job. Okay, now I'm over it.  Sorry your job didn't work out.  Time to woman up.

Sorry, my two cents worth. When I first heard about Ms. Hale, my thought was, you're a private school, you can do as you want.  But when I heard about how it came about and that she had been with you for 19 years?  Well. Please remember that the bible counsels us to worry about the beam in our own eye before we worry about the splinter in our brother's.  I don't like that you rewarded the nasty behavior on the anonymous tipster's part.  (If that story is accurate.) If she were discussing it in the classroom it would be different.  But she is obviously a naturally discrete person.  I hope you are struggling with this.  If you're not, well you should be.   Good luck.   It may be too late in this situation, but the Japanese had a saying, back when their lives were more communal, that nakedness is often seen but seldom noticed.  You don't have to notice everything someone tells you.

Charles Magnus  This week, on the second anniversary of my father’s death, my beloved dog Chuck had a cerebral accident of some sort and was put down to spare him the miserable hours of dying.      He was perfectly well the night before and when I woke up (he did not wake me, which was unusual) his left leg was paralyzed and he writhed when he was moved.  Linda, my landlady, took us to the vet, both she and I still in pajamas.  Dr. Amy pointed out the vertical nystagmus* and we noticed that one eye was coming out of his head and the other was not.  He was drooling at this point, and leaking stool.      She was able to give him the shot while he lay in my arms.  I am grateful it was clear what needed to happen.  I'm grateful it was quick.  I'm grateful that he was well until the end.     I never mistook Chuck for a human, he was my much loved dog, and I was his person.  I feel as if a part of me ...

 “Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can’t even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually, in reality, happening in this country every year — because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of Imaginary Hitler.” Jon Stewart "The Daily Show" Comedian Chris Rock, when asked about gun violence said:  “I believe you should have to have a mortgage to buy a gun. Nobody with a mortgage has ever gone on a killing spree. Because a mortgage is a real background check; and you know if you go to jail for 30 years you still have to pay your f–king mortgage.”  My comment on Rock:  If we are trying to do what the founders wished, this is certainly in line with their sentiments that property owners were the true citizens.  But I wish to caution against using the founders as our absolute measuring stick.   It was a very different time and place, one to which I as ...

I drove home to Northern New England from the Mid-Atlantic in December of 2012.  I got hung up in traffic on Route 84 during the day on a Saturday.  I called my sister, not sure why, wondering if there was some holiday or natural disaster I was unaware of.  Then I saw cops on motorcycles.  I knew before I saw the hearse and before I saw the sign to Sandy Hook/Newtown.         To my own surprise I burst into convulsive sobs.  I'm not much of a crier.  I later looked online and figured out that I was watching the funeral procession of Josephine Gay. Above my desk I now have a sweet picture of her on a swing with a slightly older someone who might be a sibling.  Its going to stay there for awhile.  It inspired me to write this list, with the intention of sending it to my congresspeople and governor.  Haven't done it yet, but here you go.   I support requiring all guns to be sold by dealers licensed in the st...

Without ever realizing it, I had lumped my three favorite NPR hosts into the category of gay New York Jews.  This is a prejudice, but it is a category of people I am generally fond of, so it is a relatively benign prejudice.  After finding out that Ira Glass was married, I checked on the other two.  Married to women with children.  While that is not necessarily make them not gay, it doesn't seem very likely.  So, none of them are gay.  Whoops. So now I have to wonder, where are they from?  Ira is from Baltimore, and Michael Feldman, with his wife and two daughters, born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin.  Which leaves me with Peter Sagal, resident of Chicago and married father of three.  He was born in New Jersey.  30 miles from New York.  At this point, I'll take it.  Thankfully (?)  they are in fact, all Jewish.  I am reminded of that awful woman on the West Wing who equated New York with being Jewish.  Piss...

I expect the Supreme Court to pronounce that states may explicitly allow or fail to explicitly allow same sex marriage, but they may not ban it, and they must recognize it when performed in another polity.  So, Arkansas doesn't have to allow gays to marry, but they cannot forbid them and must recognize it when they get married in Kansas.  (States selected at random.)

Moonstruck  Princess Bride Nobody's Fool The first two are well known.  The third is Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy.  And a nice little surprise.