Funny How this Changes
Nov. 9th, 2007 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geminigirlI've taken to using this as a spot for just dumping things...I save them up and then make posts that are a collection of all the various things that have been going on.
Things like the weird dreams I've been having-most of them are about places that I used to have to go, like junior high school, where I had to talk about the people I had crushes on back then, or high school where I forgot my locker combination. And then there was the airplane dream. No one needs to tell me that the airplane dream was a birth dream....I dreamed about airplanes, on the ground, rolling through tunnels and into hangars that were smaller than their wingspans. Yeah, that was a birth dream.
There was the strange experience this morning. I got up and got out of bed and heard noise. Before I went to the bathroom or brushed my teeth, I went to investigate what it was, thinking that Cayne had left the TV on or something when he was getting ready for work, only to discover Cayne sitting on the couch watching TV-about an hour later than he usually leaves for work. I asked him what he was doing, and he responded "Sitting on the couch." I asked if he was taking the day off from work and he said "No, it's Saturday." I reminded him it was Friday and he looked shocked. He scurried off, got dressed very quickly and sheepishly headed in to work.
We got the second trimester screening results back-this looked at the risk of Down's Syndrome-1/3000, Trisomy 18 (Edward's Synrome)-1/10,000 and Spina Bifida-1/1600. That of course still means that there are plenty of other thing that could go wrong, but at least that's somewhat reassuring.
We bought a chair last weekend...it arrived the other day and is in a box in the living room, on it's side. It will probably stay there until we figure out what to do with the two chairs it's replacing (one spot is getting a chair, the other is getting a new filing cabinet, but I need to decide if I'm going to Freecycle or Craig's List or what with the old chairs.) But the box is right where a coffee table would go if/when we buy one for the living room. And it's become a hot spot for cats to nap in lately. I wonder if the same thing would happen with a coffee table.
The craving for salty foods is going to drive me crazy. I really wish I could cut back on them, but I can't get enough pickles. I'm going to go open another jar when I'm done with this post.
I hope the writer's strike doesn't mean that the new shoes I like on TV disappear. Not much in the way of new shows that we're watching, just Big Bang Theory and Chuck, I think. And on the subject of TV...NBC Universal has been going on and on this week about all sorts of environmental stuff. They also sent correspondents to the Equator, the Arctic Circle and Antarctica. And my first thought when I heard about this was "I wonder if they accounted for the environmental impact of moving crew and equipment there, and what they did to balance it."
We've both been reading Scott Westerfield's books-in particular the Uglies series. I finished the first one about a year ago, on one of our winter trips, picked up the second one months later and caught the third one on a remainder table at Borders recently. They're adolescent fiction, so they're quick reads, but they're pretty good. Someone at Border's suggested them to me last year. I gave Cayne the fist one when we were traveling recently and he liked it, devoured the second and third within a matter of days, and insisted on having the fourth one, which had just come out in hardcover, and between a coupon and a sale, it was reasonable. The third one felt unevenly written, but the fourth one, the writing has gone back to what we expected, but the concept is really interesting. I'm enjoying the concept of a reputation economy, though I'm wondering how different some of that is from the way adolescents currently live today.
And the links, since I collect them.
This one talks about post partum sex...someone fears that her vagina will be too loose after giving birth. And also on the subject of vaginae,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slinkr pointed me at The New York Times on the word Va-jay-jay.
This one (text follows behind the cut) is about a woman who was asked to cover up or leave Universal Studios because she was breastfeeding. (The end result, by the way, is that Universal apologized to her, because Florida law allows her to breastfeed in public.)
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A woman is outraged by Universal Orlando. She says she was humiliated by park employees for breastfeeding her baby.
Eyewitness News was tipped off to the story by a television station in Canada, where the woman lives. Eyewitness News went to the park Friday to get answers for the tourist and Universal Orlando is apologizing to the woman.
Cheryl Cruz came to Orlando for a week of vacation, which included a day at Universal with her two small children. But instead of going home with sunny memories, she's asking employees of the theme park to apologize.
Cruz was making her way through the park Tuesday, about mid-day. She stopped on one of the benches to breast feed her 10-month-old daughter.
"We were just in the park sitting down and I was breastfeeding Kalli and a park employee, Meahgn, came over and said to me I have to cover up or I will be escorted out of Universal Studios," Cruz told Eyewitness News.
Suddenly, her conversation with one employee turned into a confrontation with security guards.
"I said, 'You know what, go ahead, call security and for that matter, call your lawyers as well, because these are human rights issues,'" Cruz said.
Cruz was humiliated, but allowed to stay in the park. She made her feelings about the incident known to the management at Universal. According to Universal, the park employees involved went against company policy by confronting Cruz. They immediately apologized to Cruz and released a written statement to Eyewitness News on Friday:
"The specific team members involved will also be apologizing to the guest. Our policy is to allow breast feeding in our theme parks and while we provide special, enclosed, air conditioned locations for the comfort of our guests, we do not require guests to use these locations."
Cheryl Cruz was really caught off guard in the situation. She is from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. She said, unlike in America, public breast feeding there is a common sight.
There's also Abstinence Doesn't Curb Teen Sex
WASHINGTON (AP) — Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.
"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study concluded.
The report, which was based on a review of research into teenager sexual behavior, was being released Wednesday by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."
"Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect," said the report.
A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and Human Services would provide $141 million in assistance for community-based, abstinence-only sex education programs, $4 million more than what President Bush had requested.
The study, conducted by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, also sought to debunk what the report called "myths propagated by abstinence-only advocates" including: that comprehensive sex education promotes promiscuity, hastens the initiative of sex or increases its frequency, and sends a confusing message to adolescents.
None of these was found to be accurate, Kirby wrote.
Instead, he wrote, such programs improved teens' knowledge about the risks and consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and gave them greater "confidence in their ability to say 'no' to unwanted sex."
The sponsors of the study praised Kirby for his "thorough research" and for being "fair and evenhanded," but they also acknowledged that ETR Associates developed and markets several of the sex education curricula reviewed in the report. Several of the previous studies that were reviewed also were written by Kirby.
The report noted that there continues to be "too high levels of sexual risk-taking among teens" with 47 percent of all high schools students reporting having sex at least once and 63 percent saying they have engaged in sex by the spring semester of their senior year.
"Many teenagers do not use contraceptives carefully and consistently," said the report. About 40 of every 1,000 girls age 15 to 19 gave birth in 2005, the last year for which data was available, the report said.
Has anyone looked into Sony's Digital Book Reader? Despite his hatred of Sony,zedrikcayne has suggested that if I want one, I should get it. I haven't really investigated it much yet, but the idea of being able to read while nursing late at night in the dark if I'm awake, for example, is kind of appealing. It's bigger than a Palm, which is also appealing, as I've always found reading on my Palm screen rather irritating. Does anyone know more about it than I do?
We're also starting to shop for cameras-it's amazing what's become lumped in with "baby expenses" even though they really have very little to do with the baby. The two things that first come to mind are more life insurance and the camera. We're looking for a point and shoot, throw into the diaper bag kind of camera. I bought Mom a Canon of some variety last year, and the camera that I'm replacing (nothing wrong with it but the LCD screen is shot, and frankly, the cost of the LCD replacement isn't worth it) is also a Canon.
In case you haven't read about it already, comment editing is in place for paid users. Can't edit a comment that's already been replied to, but it was nice when it helped me correct some bad HTML today.
Okay, that's enough. It's time for pickles.
Things like the weird dreams I've been having-most of them are about places that I used to have to go, like junior high school, where I had to talk about the people I had crushes on back then, or high school where I forgot my locker combination. And then there was the airplane dream. No one needs to tell me that the airplane dream was a birth dream....I dreamed about airplanes, on the ground, rolling through tunnels and into hangars that were smaller than their wingspans. Yeah, that was a birth dream.
There was the strange experience this morning. I got up and got out of bed and heard noise. Before I went to the bathroom or brushed my teeth, I went to investigate what it was, thinking that Cayne had left the TV on or something when he was getting ready for work, only to discover Cayne sitting on the couch watching TV-about an hour later than he usually leaves for work. I asked him what he was doing, and he responded "Sitting on the couch." I asked if he was taking the day off from work and he said "No, it's Saturday." I reminded him it was Friday and he looked shocked. He scurried off, got dressed very quickly and sheepishly headed in to work.
We got the second trimester screening results back-this looked at the risk of Down's Syndrome-1/3000, Trisomy 18 (Edward's Synrome)-1/10,000 and Spina Bifida-1/1600. That of course still means that there are plenty of other thing that could go wrong, but at least that's somewhat reassuring.
We bought a chair last weekend...it arrived the other day and is in a box in the living room, on it's side. It will probably stay there until we figure out what to do with the two chairs it's replacing (one spot is getting a chair, the other is getting a new filing cabinet, but I need to decide if I'm going to Freecycle or Craig's List or what with the old chairs.) But the box is right where a coffee table would go if/when we buy one for the living room. And it's become a hot spot for cats to nap in lately. I wonder if the same thing would happen with a coffee table.
The craving for salty foods is going to drive me crazy. I really wish I could cut back on them, but I can't get enough pickles. I'm going to go open another jar when I'm done with this post.
I hope the writer's strike doesn't mean that the new shoes I like on TV disappear. Not much in the way of new shows that we're watching, just Big Bang Theory and Chuck, I think. And on the subject of TV...NBC Universal has been going on and on this week about all sorts of environmental stuff. They also sent correspondents to the Equator, the Arctic Circle and Antarctica. And my first thought when I heard about this was "I wonder if they accounted for the environmental impact of moving crew and equipment there, and what they did to balance it."
We've both been reading Scott Westerfield's books-in particular the Uglies series. I finished the first one about a year ago, on one of our winter trips, picked up the second one months later and caught the third one on a remainder table at Borders recently. They're adolescent fiction, so they're quick reads, but they're pretty good. Someone at Border's suggested them to me last year. I gave Cayne the fist one when we were traveling recently and he liked it, devoured the second and third within a matter of days, and insisted on having the fourth one, which had just come out in hardcover, and between a coupon and a sale, it was reasonable. The third one felt unevenly written, but the fourth one, the writing has gone back to what we expected, but the concept is really interesting. I'm enjoying the concept of a reputation economy, though I'm wondering how different some of that is from the way adolescents currently live today.
And the links, since I collect them.
This one talks about post partum sex...someone fears that her vagina will be too loose after giving birth. And also on the subject of vaginae,
slinkr pointed me at The New York Times on the word Va-jay-jay. This one (text follows behind the cut) is about a woman who was asked to cover up or leave Universal Studios because she was breastfeeding. (The end result, by the way, is that Universal apologized to her, because Florida law allows her to breastfeed in public.)
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A woman is outraged by Universal Orlando. She says she was humiliated by park employees for breastfeeding her baby.
Eyewitness News was tipped off to the story by a television station in Canada, where the woman lives. Eyewitness News went to the park Friday to get answers for the tourist and Universal Orlando is apologizing to the woman.
Cheryl Cruz came to Orlando for a week of vacation, which included a day at Universal with her two small children. But instead of going home with sunny memories, she's asking employees of the theme park to apologize.
Cruz was making her way through the park Tuesday, about mid-day. She stopped on one of the benches to breast feed her 10-month-old daughter.
"We were just in the park sitting down and I was breastfeeding Kalli and a park employee, Meahgn, came over and said to me I have to cover up or I will be escorted out of Universal Studios," Cruz told Eyewitness News.
Suddenly, her conversation with one employee turned into a confrontation with security guards.
"I said, 'You know what, go ahead, call security and for that matter, call your lawyers as well, because these are human rights issues,'" Cruz said.
Cruz was humiliated, but allowed to stay in the park. She made her feelings about the incident known to the management at Universal. According to Universal, the park employees involved went against company policy by confronting Cruz. They immediately apologized to Cruz and released a written statement to Eyewitness News on Friday:
"The specific team members involved will also be apologizing to the guest. Our policy is to allow breast feeding in our theme parks and while we provide special, enclosed, air conditioned locations for the comfort of our guests, we do not require guests to use these locations."
Cheryl Cruz was really caught off guard in the situation. She is from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. She said, unlike in America, public breast feeding there is a common sight.
There's also Abstinence Doesn't Curb Teen Sex
WASHINGTON (AP) — Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.
"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study concluded.
The report, which was based on a review of research into teenager sexual behavior, was being released Wednesday by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."
"Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect," said the report.
A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and Human Services would provide $141 million in assistance for community-based, abstinence-only sex education programs, $4 million more than what President Bush had requested.
The study, conducted by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, also sought to debunk what the report called "myths propagated by abstinence-only advocates" including: that comprehensive sex education promotes promiscuity, hastens the initiative of sex or increases its frequency, and sends a confusing message to adolescents.
None of these was found to be accurate, Kirby wrote.
Instead, he wrote, such programs improved teens' knowledge about the risks and consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and gave them greater "confidence in their ability to say 'no' to unwanted sex."
The sponsors of the study praised Kirby for his "thorough research" and for being "fair and evenhanded," but they also acknowledged that ETR Associates developed and markets several of the sex education curricula reviewed in the report. Several of the previous studies that were reviewed also were written by Kirby.
The report noted that there continues to be "too high levels of sexual risk-taking among teens" with 47 percent of all high schools students reporting having sex at least once and 63 percent saying they have engaged in sex by the spring semester of their senior year.
"Many teenagers do not use contraceptives carefully and consistently," said the report. About 40 of every 1,000 girls age 15 to 19 gave birth in 2005, the last year for which data was available, the report said.
Has anyone looked into Sony's Digital Book Reader? Despite his hatred of Sony,
zedrikcayne has suggested that if I want one, I should get it. I haven't really investigated it much yet, but the idea of being able to read while nursing late at night in the dark if I'm awake, for example, is kind of appealing. It's bigger than a Palm, which is also appealing, as I've always found reading on my Palm screen rather irritating. Does anyone know more about it than I do?We're also starting to shop for cameras-it's amazing what's become lumped in with "baby expenses" even though they really have very little to do with the baby. The two things that first come to mind are more life insurance and the camera. We're looking for a point and shoot, throw into the diaper bag kind of camera. I bought Mom a Canon of some variety last year, and the camera that I'm replacing (nothing wrong with it but the LCD screen is shot, and frankly, the cost of the LCD replacement isn't worth it) is also a Canon.
In case you haven't read about it already, comment editing is in place for paid users. Can't edit a comment that's already been replied to, but it was nice when it helped me correct some bad HTML today.
Okay, that's enough. It's time for pickles.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 06:19 am (UTC)What they did to balance it? Delivered up-to-date information to millions of people about what is happening to the environment in these areas; hopefully changing some minds; pushing others over the line to actually believing that there actually is such a thing as global warming; contributing to sounding the warning by *showing* what is happening in places to which most of us have no access; putting those pictures into the perspective of how it has an impact on all of us.
It is, in its essentials, the definition of their job.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 03:58 pm (UTC)(I spent a lot of time on Kingdom of Loathing that first year.)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-12 04:55 am (UTC)I don't know anything more about it than what I just read on 43 Folders, but that was decidedly not good. Based on that, I'd give the Sony Reader a miss, even though I'm sure you and I would not have the same goals in mind as the author of that piece.