tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:23:23 +0000Politics, HIV, health care, psychology, baseball, feminism, et cetera. <br> "Psychologists have a duty to be fair and respectful of otters." - noble charge from a student paper.http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Rivka)Blogger277125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115267635011276851Wed, 12 Jul 2006 03:39:00 +00002006-07-11T23:53:07.366-04:00Here'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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/07/hiv-discrimination.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115238338716008488Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:21:00 +00002006-07-09T19:47:39.363-04:00This 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 fewhttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/07/trauma-is-easy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115233130246932198Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:55:00 +00002006-07-08T00:01:42.486-04:00I 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/07/friday-baby-blogging.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115230119944607291Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:34:00 +00002006-07-07T19:31:11.213-04:00Steven 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/07/putting-pieces-together.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115214750206486199Thu, 06 Jul 2006 00:44:00 +00002006-07-05T20:58:22.083-04:00I 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 firsthttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/07/state-of-otter.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115183795659469519Sun, 02 Jul 2006 10:58:00 +00002006-07-02T06:59:16.610-04:00Millions 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/07/dying-from-red-tape.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115133528324577519Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:15:00 +00002006-06-26T11:21:23.266-04:00On 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/pro-choice-motherhood.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115107264994147786Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:58:00 +00002006-06-23T10:24:09.970-04:00Or, 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/friday-baby-blogging.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115103123740925285Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:45:00 +00002006-06-22T22:54:42.786-04:00The 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/only-good-abortion.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115091102043916712Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:15:00 +00002006-06-21T13:30:20.470-04:00Henry 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/throwing-mothers-to-wolves.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115086217934823686Wed, 21 Jun 2006 03:49:00 +00002006-06-20T23:56:19.366-04:00Spencer 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 ratherhttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/nation-of-torturers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115077850726239573Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:36:00 +00002006-06-20T00:41:47.263-04:00Someone 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/fun-with-referrer-logs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115077806775359151Tue, 20 Jun 2006 03:59:00 +00002006-06-20T01:01:35.870-04:00According 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/jobs-americans-wont-do.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115034412459957383Thu, 15 Jun 2006 03:13:00 +00002006-06-15T00:02:54.316-04:00Those 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/all-fall-short-of-glory-of-god.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115025468686313265Wed, 14 Jun 2006 02:51:00 +00002006-06-13T23:11:26.883-04:00Faced 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; insurancehttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/lactation-or-bust.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115024143132507631Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:24:00 +00002006-06-13T19:30:31.346-04:00This 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 thehttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/president-as-monarch.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-115014348839784276Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:56:00 +00002006-06-12T16:18:08.416-04:00By 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2006/06/rejecting-vaccine-choice.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112732068869152535Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:43:00 +00002005-09-21T18:18:52.776-04:00A 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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/todays-social-psychology-lecture.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112627362869290232Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:30:00 +00002005-09-09T09:47:08.696-04:00I'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 myhttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/friday-baby-blogging.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112619072250574124Thu, 08 Sep 2005 14:19:00 +00002005-09-08T17:09:02.800-04:00They'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,http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/executed-absolutely-flawlessly.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112610374219080833Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:31:00 +00002005-09-07T10:37:52.220-04:00From 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, http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-might-have-been.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112602602525985454Tue, 06 Sep 2005 16:51:00 +00002005-09-06T13:00:25.266-04:00(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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/lost-in-translation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112575880333617723Sat, 03 Sep 2005 13:51:00 +00002005-09-03T10:50:02.650-04:00CNN 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 paperhttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/depraved-indifference.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112575539915717117Sat, 03 Sep 2005 13:05:00 +00002005-09-03T10:53:58.910-04:00The 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 thehttp://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/09/why-aid-wasnt-there.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-112018468594022286Fri, 01 Jul 2005 02:24:00 +00002005-06-30T22:30:04.576-04:00pretty_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 http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2005/06/friday-baby-blogging.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Rivka)