tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58856972024-02-28T05:10:17.868-05:00Respectful of OttersPolitics, HIV, health care, psychology, baseball, feminism, et cetera.
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"Psychologists have a duty to be fair and respectful of otters." - noble charge from a student paper.Rivkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10421980729130976080noreply@blogger.comBlogger277125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152676350112768512006-07-11T23:39:00.000-04:002006-07-11T23:53:07.366-04:00HIV Discrimination?Here's another one of those stories that seems sort of reasonable at first: A federal judge this week dismissed an HIV discrimination lawsuit brought last year by an AIDS activist against the former owner of a Schofield restaurant. District Judge Barbara Crabb concluded that Korrin Krause Stewart failed to show that her HIV-positive status substantially limited a major life activity, a Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152383387160084882006-07-08T14:21:00.000-04:002006-07-09T19:47:39.363-04:00Trauma is "Easy?"This post is a collaboration between Respectful of Otters and Idealistic Pragmatist.Think of the most terrified you've ever been. Heart pounding, mouth dry, sweat beading on your forehead, muscles locked rigid, violent or frightening images flooding your mind, screaming so loudly on the inside that you're barely aware of your surroundings. Now imagine being dropped randomly into that state a fewUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152331302469321982006-07-07T23:55:00.000-04:002006-07-08T00:01:42.486-04:00Friday Baby BloggingI like this picture because it conveys a rare hint of her inner life. Mostly, at 15 months, everything is right there on the surface.She's had a rough week with her Papa away. I thought she might cry for him or search for him a lot, given that before he left she was in a very papacentric mood. She'll talk about him when we look at his picture, but she doesn't bring him up. Instead, the stress of Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152301199446072912006-07-07T15:34:00.000-04:002006-07-07T19:31:11.213-04:00Putting The Pieces TogetherSteven Green, the former U.S. soldier arrested yesterday for the rape of a young Iraqi woman and the murder of her entire family, received a medical discharge from the service based on a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder.ASPD is defined as "a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others," including failure to obey rules or laws, excessive temper or Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152147502064861992006-07-05T20:44:00.000-04:002006-07-05T20:58:22.083-04:00State Of The OtterI realize that my posting volume has dropped again, and I'm sure it's making some of you twitchy - wondering if I'll claim to be running out for a pack of otter pops and then disappear for another nine months. That doesn't seem likely to me; even though I haven't had time to post, I've still had post ideas crowding my head, and they're not likely to leave me alone until they're written. But firstUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151837956594695192006-07-02T06:58:00.000-04:002006-07-02T06:59:16.610-04:00Dying From Red TapeMillions of poor Americans may lose their health benefits: A Medicaid rule takes effect tomorrow that will require more than 50 million poor Americans to prove their citizenship or lose their medical benefits or long-term care.Under the rule, intended to curb fraud by illegal immigrants, such proof as a passport or a birth certificate must be offered at the time a person applies for Medicaid Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151335283245775192006-06-26T11:15:00.000-04:002006-06-26T11:21:23.266-04:00Pro-Choice MotherhoodOn my last post about abortion, a commenter named Christina asked, "don't you notice any irony between your own love of your born child and your vehement declarations that other children are disposable?"Now, I can't tell if that was supposed to be a genuine question or an unanswerable drive-by zinger, but I think that a lot of pro-lifers believe, like Christina, that pro-choice parents must be Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151072649941477862006-06-23T09:58:00.000-04:002006-06-23T10:24:09.970-04:00Friday Baby BloggingOr, more accurately, Friday toddler blogging. Look at her! She's fourteen months old - practically a grown-up. She walks, she climbs, she never stops talking.Back from my shameful nine-month absence from blogging, I notice that little has changed from my pre- to post-hiatus political posts: the Bush Administration is still hell-bent on arrogating all power to the executive, abortion rights are Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151031237409252852006-06-22T22:45:00.000-04:002006-06-22T22:54:42.786-04:00The Only Good AbortionThe June 26th New Yorker has an interesting piece by Cynthia Gorney (regrettably not included in the online edition), about the referendum drive to overturn South Dakota's abortion ban. Apparently, quite a few South Dakotans who consider themselves to be pro-life are balking at the absolute nature of the new law, which bans abortions even in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the health of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150911020439167122006-06-21T13:15:00.000-04:002006-06-21T13:30:20.470-04:00Throwing Mothers To The WolvesHenry Farrell asks why the Mommy Wars (stay-at-home vs. working mothers) hurt so much - "why this is such a loaded and painful subject matter in the first place, for women who have made either choice."So far, unfortunately, most of the answers he's getting are either located in the indvidual psyches of the mothers involved - insecurity, et cetera - or they blame outside agitators for injecting Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150862179348236862006-06-20T23:49:00.000-04:002006-06-20T23:56:19.366-04:00A Nation Of TorturersSpencer Ackerman proposes an experiment: Take all the shelving out of a typical filing cabinet. (My own office cabinet happens to be slightly smaller than the cell described here.) Now lock yourself in it for two days. You may notice you can neither stand up straight nor lie down, and crouching gets really uncomfortable extremely fast. He's referencing a report from what the New York Times ratherUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150778507262395732006-06-20T00:36:00.000-04:002006-06-20T00:41:47.263-04:00Fun With Referrer LogsSomeone just found this blog by searching for "adhd link to gay sex."I want to know why Google considers me to be the seventh most authoritative source on the topic.I want to know why one of the other top sites for this search segues from group sex to group health insurance in its page title.But most of all, I want to know what the heck that person was looking for. What, are women supposed to Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150778067753591512006-06-19T23:59:00.000-04:002006-06-20T01:01:35.870-04:00The Jobs Americans Won't DoAccording to the Washington Post, the Bush administration's concern about employers who hire illegal immigrants is apparently very, very new. Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150344124599573832006-06-14T23:13:00.000-04:002006-06-15T00:02:54.316-04:00All Fall Short Of The Glory Of GodThose of us who favor social justice interpretations of the Bible have long suspected it, but now it's official: Jesus Christ himself has been declared unsuitable for leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention. Wednesday, the SBC unofficially barred members who drink alcohol from serving as trustees or members of any SBC entity.The ban, part of a larger anti-alcohol resolution that was easily Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150254686863132652006-06-13T22:51:00.000-04:002006-06-13T23:11:26.883-04:00Lactation Or BustFaced with a mountain of evidence demonstrating the significant health benefits of breastfeeding, a consortium of health experts and U.S. government officials is making an aggressive push for paid maternity leaves; longer maternity leaves comparable to the recommended length of exclusive breastfeeding; exemptions from welfare-to-work programs and welfare time limits for nursing mothers; insuranceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150241431325076312006-06-13T19:24:00.000-04:002006-06-13T19:30:31.346-04:00The President As MonarchThis is not a post about a breaking story. If you expect only cutting-edge news from your blogs, blame Teresa Nielsen Hayden for not adding this story to her Particles section until yesterday. If my other regular reads posted about the issue, it slipped past me......Which is odd, all by itself. Or maybe it just seems odd to the quaint, naive part of me which imagines that, if the President of theUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150143488397842762006-06-12T15:56:00.000-04:002006-06-12T16:18:08.416-04:00Rejecting Vaccine "Choice"By now, pretty much every blog reader in the Western world knows two things about human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus which causes cervical cancer: the FDA has approved an effective vaccine, and the Religious Right doesn't want children to be vaccinated. "I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message,' " said Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1127320688691525352005-09-21T10:43:00.000-04:002005-09-21T18:18:52.776-04:00Today's Social Psychology LectureA story I read in a social psychology text long ago has been going through my head for a couple of weeks now. I finally had to track it down: [A]fter four students at Kent State University were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard, several rumors quickly spread: (1) both of the women who were slain were pregnant (and therefore, by implication, were oversexed and wanton); (2) the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126273628692902322005-09-09T09:30:00.000-04:002005-09-09T09:47:08.696-04:00Friday Baby BloggingI'm all too aware of the wrenching contrast between the pictures in yesterday's post and the pictures in today's post. But here she is, the sole reason why I'm not down in Louisiana or Texas volunteering my psychological services with the Red Cross:It's hard to feel the pull to help, and not be able to go. "These people," as we keep hearing them called with disdain, are pretty much the same as myUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126190722505741242005-09-08T10:19:00.000-04:002005-09-08T17:09:02.800-04:00"Executed Absolutely Flawlessly"They're not ashamed of leaving those people trapped and desperate for days. They're proud. We waited until we had enough force in place to do an overwhelming force. Went in with police powers, 1,000 National Guard military policemen under the command and control of the adjutant general of the State of Louisiana, Major General Landreneau, yesterday shortly after noon stormed the convention center,Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126103742190808332005-09-07T10:31:00.000-04:002005-09-07T10:37:52.220-04:00What Might Have BeenFrom CNN: The Yves St. Laurent and Tommy Hilfiger labels may be phony, but the thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims getting knockoff items seized by federal customs officials probably don't mind.Displaced survivors in the Houston Astrodome can choose from counterfeit and abandoned clothing, toys, and even dog food.More than 100,000 items were quickly taken from warehouses and more will follow, Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126026025259854542005-09-06T12:51:00.000-04:002005-09-06T13:00:25.266-04:00Lost In Translation(This post is a collaboration between Respectful of Otters and Idealistic Pragmatist.)We here at Respectful of Otters were in the middle of putting together a post about Bush's visit to the Gulf Coast, and wanted to lead with the horrifying report Laura Rozen received from a reader: "Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes: There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1125758803336177232005-09-03T09:51:00.000-04:002005-09-03T10:50:02.650-04:00Depraved IndifferenceCNN reports on "the big disconnect" between conditions in New Orleans and the official party line. They present a damning series of quotes from FEMA Chief Michael Brown, who said Thursday that he didn't know anything about uncollected corpses, people trapped in the Convention Center, or problems with hospital evacuations. You know, the same things everyone else has been reading about in the paperUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1125755399157171172005-09-03T09:05:00.000-04:002005-09-03T10:53:58.910-04:00Why The Aid Wasn't ThereThe Red Cross has been ordered not to enter New Orleans with relief. Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that theUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1120184685940222862005-06-30T22:24:00.000-04:002005-06-30T22:30:04.576-04:00Friday Baby Bloggingpretty_in_pink2 Originally uploaded by Rivka5.It's just not fair for the daughter of two feminists to look this sweet in a rosebud-studded pink dress.I think Alex looks older in this picture than she actually is. Probably because the pose suggests that she's able to sit on her own, when in fact she is leaning parasitically on her Mama. She is a fine strong baby, though, currently dedicating all Unknownnoreply@blogger.com