A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

 
Kass's main objection with modern hormonal contraception seems to be that it's interfering with nature. However, the initials "M.D." after his name tell us that he's a physician--his job is to thwart nature for human purposes. Maybe contraception has changed the definition of womanhood, but couldn't it also be said that caesarean section, forceps, and other innovations in obstetrics that have saved countless women's lives also changed the definition of womanhood by lowering the mortality rate for women in childbirth? Furthermore, could we also not say that antibiotics and antiseptics have changed the nature of humanity by making our lives considerably less "nasty, brutish, and short" than Hobbes observed in the 17th century?

Kass is conflating biology with destiny--but biology hasn't been destiny since humanity gained consciousness. What is a tool but an attempt to transcend our physical limitations? Biology is our starting point, but we each craft our own endpoint.
posted by Maureen at 12:28 AM

 
Not only does hormonal female birth control greatly reduce the chances of pregnancy, regulate and moderate the menses, and clear up mild to moderate acne, it also, according to Blog or Not's favorite bioethicist Dr. Leon Kass, redefines the meaning of our own womanliness by separating reproduction from sex, and thus "free from the teleological meaning of her sexuality [....] her natural maternal destiny".

A few thoughts:
--If destiny can be thwarted by minute amounts of estrogen and progesterone, or even by a thin piece of latex, then destiny is weak.
--If womanliness is defined by openness to a "natural maternal destiny", does that make nuns not-women? As a correlary, would it mean that women who were actively trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization "super-women" because they're trying to seize their "maternal destiny"? Wait, nature doesn't want them to have children, so they're thwarting nature. But does that mean that those women aren't women? I'm confused.
--If a man can define woman's essential nature, can a woman define manliness? Does it require an M.D.?

Perhaps the answers to these questions will be coming in Part III of "The End of Courtship".
posted by Maureen at 11:35 PM

 
Apparently NASA officials are worried that romantic relationships formed during long-term missions to Mars could jeopardize the missions themselves--and by "long-term", they're talking about at least 30 months long with only seven other people to keep you company--so they're trying to figure out how to minimize the impact.

But what about the larger problem--that of sticking only a few people in a tiny space for more than two years? The record for a continuous stay in space is a little less than 438 days--and that's on Mir, where there would be some turnover. Trips to the Antarctic can sometimes last as long as three years, but usually there's at least fifteen people on the base, there would be base turnover, and when all else fails one could go and chat with the penguins. While our Martian astronauts may be able to take long, solitary walks on the Red Planet, I don't think they'll have any lifeforms other than a few terrestrial microbes for company--unless NASA decides that they need to study hamsters in low-g environments.
posted by Maureen at 4:52 PM

 


George Polgreen Bridgetower, Polish-born English violinist of African-European descent, 1778-1860. Inspired Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, called "the Abyssinian Prince" as he was rumored to be descended from African royalty.



Prince (Prince Rogers Nelson), American musician and composer of African-European descent.
posted by Maureen at 3:31 PM

 
Apparently Indiana state senator Patricia Miller wants to know:

An interim legislative committee is considering a bill that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.

Miller said the state often reacted to problems and that she wanted to be proactive on this issue.

"We're not trying to stop people from having kids; we're just trying to find some guidelines," she said.

Well, let's see. In cases where an unmarried (in Indiana) person literally can't have a child without medical procedures--be it from slow sperm count, irregular ovulation, previous cancer of the testes/ovaries--it looks like the state would very well prevent this person from having a child. And if Senator Miller is trying to create some moral guidelines for in vitro fertilization based upon the ideal of the one mother/one father family, she's in the wrong business. Doesn't she realize that impossible-to-fulfill moral guidelines based upon increasingly scarce ideals are what churches are for?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to all restrictions on scientific means of conception--while I don't see what interest the state has in governing whose sperm enters whose egg, I'd agree that barring convicted child molesters from claiming legal parentage of a child is within the state's interest. But shouldn't this hold for all children, be they conceived in a uterus or a petri dish?
posted by Maureen at 5:17 PM

 
is, according to Bush's latest pick for the Supreme Court... Bush himself.

Now, I disagree with Scalia on pretty much everything, but at least he's actually his own man on the Court. And yes, Thomas does exhibit evidence of independent thought sometimes. And I can understand why Bush would want to appoint someone whose opinions are similar to his own. But a syncophant? And someone who has never been on the bench OR held high elected or appointed office (as in the case of Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had been previously been Governor of California, and rumored to contest Eisenhower in the Republican primaries)?

The President's supporters should hope that this is a stunt. Otherwise, George Bush has shown himself mentally unfit to be President, and no one in his Cabinet has the courage to play damage control.

This post has been revised from its original version
posted by Maureen at 10:22 AM

 
Vogue is launching a new publication aimed at men, entitled (surprise!) Men's Vogue, and it already sounds better than most of the wood pulp product packaged as women's fashion magazines:

The articles Mr. Fielden commissioned - a number of them from New Yorker writers like John Seabrook, Nick Paumgarten and Michael Specter - suggest a robust appetite for a literate, adventuresome life. There is a profile of the painter Walton Ford [....]

George Clooney is on the cover, photographed on the set of the Edward R. Murrow biopic he directed. And though there is plenty of fashion in the magazine, it takes a moment before you realize that it is all shown on so-called real men, not models. [Emphasis added]

Wait a minute. Men get to look at relatively sensible clothing on men who don't make all of their money off their appearences, and we women are stuck with outlandish couture displayed on skeletons with breasts? When was the last time Sarah Hepola had a piece in Elle? And if Saul Bellow can be the muse for Men's Vogue, why hasn't someone created a mass-market glossy inspired by Camille Paglia?

Because it would get no ads, that's why--look at Bust, a magazine which has nothing against buying clothes and cosmetics and even discusses them in small amounts, but whose only advertisers are small Internet concerns. One could argue that Bust has chosen to preserve its editorial integrity by eschewing mainstream advertising, but I've seen rather brutal reviews of products in other ad-driven glossies. So why should CoverGirl be so reluctant about advertising lipstick in a thoughtful female-oriented magazine? Then I realized--CoverGirl isn't selling lipstick. It is selling hope for love.

The ads of cosmetics and women's clothing companies don't send the message "I'm a cute product! You'll like me! Buy me!" as much as "I can help you get a man! Buy me!" Yes, some men's clothing ads are aimed at showing the effect their cotton polos have on women, but ads for men's business clothing say "I can get you a corner office" instead of "I can get you a supermodel". Men's cologne advertisements are perhaps the only portion of the men's ad market aimed exclusively at sex appeal; unlike women's cosmetics and fragrance ads, they are brutally honest about this aim.

However, the advertisments' (and the magazine's) aid in procuring love and happiness must never be too good, or else women, having succeeded in finding mutually fulfilling relationships, will no longer feel as much pressure to try twenty shades of lipstick or buy a new copy of Glamour every month in hopes of learning "Twenty New Ways to Attract a Guy"--because she's already mastered the rules of attraction. The only readers of the magazine will be this year's crop of inexperienced teenage girls, who will abandon the magazine after extracting all of the editors' wisdom. Thus, the relationship advice in magazines must seem deep enough for an trusting reader to consider it helpful, but it must be shallow enough to keep the reader dependent on the magazine's future advice.

Were American women to fully internalize feminist sensibilities, they would not stop shopping for clothes, cosmetics, and skin-care products--but they would buy what they wanted. Fashion would become a realm for play as much as a preparation for the battle for the sexes; both sexes would primp for nights out, but pointy-toed stilletos would be eschewed for something cute and podiatrist-friendly. Maybe this would drive the fashion industry to actually produce decent professional clothing for women--say, a charcoal wool suit at a fair price?
posted by Maureen at 12:14 PM

 
Last month, Kameron Hurley proposed a workplace where children would act as interns, prompting criticism from Amber Taylor. Now from News of the Weird I find:

Also in June, the BBC reported that under a system in India that guarantees a job for one relative of any government employee who dies while in service, children as young as five are currently working at Indian police stations; their responsibilities are largely confined to filing and serving tea.

While I like the idea of a short person bringing me a Spode teacup full of Earl Grey, I fear competing for my current shred-and-file position with children, who demand ridiculously low salaries and could actually get away with asking for an hour off for naptime.
posted by Maureen at 5:08 PM

 
So I tried OurWord.org, and while I may do some cross-posts there, I think I'll keep my own domain. Why? Simply put, I need my own space. I've just started working with the Cegelis campaign, and I feel I need a base of operations for various Internet outreach projects.

Besides, I just found out that Proof is being released September 16. Now, this news could fall under the general rubric of feminism in the academy, as it is about a female mathematician, but most of the context for my obsession with this movie started when my high school calculus teacher went to its premiere on Broadway and told all of us about it, then when a friend of mine saw a production at his college, and finally... when it began filming at Chicago.

So if I weren't at work, I'd be squealing for joy, then watching the trailer, then squealing some more.

But now I must shred.
posted by Maureen at 9:25 AM

 
I'm putting the Blogger blog on hiatus for now; I feel too isolated at an independent blog. I'm currently blogging at Our Word--hopefully I'll see some of you there.
posted by Maureen at 3:53 PM

 


This is easily the gayest (by which I mean "most homosexual") thing I have ever seen.
posted by Maureen at 9:50 AM

 
I probably would have fallen for this:

Doctors Call For Redesign of Knives to Reduce "Knife Crime"

had I not received this just a few hours before:

"Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials"--published in the British Medical Journal

"Conclusions: As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute."

Who said doctors didn't have a sense of humor?
posted by Maureen at 1:59 PM

 
Petition against the nuclear option
posted by Maureen at 2:57 PM

 
To be headed by the Archbishop of San Francisco, no less--before you get your hopes up, the anti-gay Archbishop of San Francisco.

Yep, it looks like they're about to launch a full-scale attack against The Gay. One thing is still unclear--whether the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith will adopt "California Uber Alles" as their anthem.
posted by Maureen at 9:56 PM

 
This quarter, I've been taking a class on the history of the development and use of IQ tests. Yesterday, after discussing the possibilities of culture-fair tests and coming to the conclusions that such tests would be very difficult to create for a broad culture, one guy suggested that we stop IQ testing entirely. "What's the point of ranking people instead of making everyone better?"

This idea is, to me, rather revolutionary. But it makes sense on some level. Why do we need to have tests in the first place? Because of bias in teacher evaluations, etc. But isn't that the teacher's fault and not the students' Similarly, No Child Left Behind tries to discern teacher performance by testing the students. But what if one year the teacher gets a high-performing class and the next year the teacher gets a low-performing class?

Maybe we're testing the wrong people. Maybe we should be testing--or peer reviewing, or something--the teachers instead of the students. I think we've all had a teacher who really sucked. Mine was my seventh-grade algebra teacher, who spent a third of the year playing on his computer. We had to have tutoring for a couple years afterwards to undo the damage. And my school district actually cared about our performance. I'm not sure what other school districts would have done. But even the smartest students of my middle school had to go in for tutoring--what about less talented or less motivated students? One bad teacher could set them back for life.

The cultural background of teachers is more homogeneous than the cultural background of their students; ergo, it would be easier to create some sort of testing situations that would be fair to each teacher--teaching various sample classes, or demonstrating their teaching skills to a "peer review" panel, etc. We can't change the student body of the schools, but we can change their teachers.
posted by Maureen at 4:31 PM

 
is about to begin.

Watch as the University of Chicago becomes transformed into a 24-hour party... as soon as I finish my paper on marginalia. And in between working on items on The List (to be released in less than four hours).

ISCAV HUNT! SCAV HUNT! SCAV HUNT!
posted by Maureen at 8:18 PM

 

I am: 12% Republican.

"You're a tax-and-spend liberal democrat. People like you are the reason everyone else votes for guys like Reagan or George W."

Are You A Republican?
posted by Maureen at 8:20 PM

 
This definitely ties with the World's Longest Protest Physics Lecture--here's the full story from Talking Points Memo and Sean Carroll.
posted by Maureen at 12:56 AM

 
As you all know, Blog or Not? is committed to delivering information on the latest scientific developments. This one is super-awesome, and even better, is from Oak Ridge, TN, where I grew up.

And science marches on.
posted by Maureen at 7:32 PM

 
I'm beginning to feel a bit optimistic about Benedict XVI--mainly because he likes cats and cats like him. I figure that has to be a good sign.
posted by Maureen at 4:57 PM

 
deserve neither.

Brooks' latest:
"The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Earl Warren and his colleagues suppressed that democratic integration debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Brown v. Board is overturned, politics will never get better."

Okay, Brooks didn't write that. I actually substituted "Earl Warren" for "Harry Blackmun", "integration" for "abortion", and "Brown v. Board" for "Roe v. Wade". And to be fair, Brooks probably favors Brown v. Board. But his logic is faulty. If the Republican Party really wanted to ban abortion, or at least make it a states' issue, they could introduce a constitutional amendment into the House and Senate. Just because Alabama wants jurisdiction inside a woman's uterus doesn't mean the federal government has to grant it to them.
posted by Maureen at 1:49 PM

 
There walks amongst us a distributor of Jack Chick tracts.

I saw two stacks of them at the front of the Reynolds' Club tonight, and thumbed through one of the tracts, "The Executioner"--relatively inoffensive, as it didn't invoke the Proctocols of the Elders of Zion or call the Pope the Antichrist*. Just a story about an asshole who goes to death row for murdering a guy but whose mother chooses to die in his place, and then "Accept Christ Now!" I actually didn't feel contaminated by bigotry after reading it.

But still, the appearance of conversion tracts among the art-show postcards and copies of the Maroon is a bit odd. Are students distributing these things? Probably not--that sort of thing is a bad cultural fit with our student population. It's probably some random religious zealot--unless Jack Chick Publications found out about the 2003 Scavhunt item "A Jack Chick tract castigating the University of Chicago" and decided to take revenge try and save our souls.


*Let's withhold judgment on Benedict XVI for now, okay?
posted by Maureen at 8:24 PM

 
A couple of days ago I was chatting with some friends when the Terri Schiavo case was brought up. One girl noted that it would've been weird had Ms. Schiavo been pregnant while in a persistant vegetative state.

Suddenly it all became clear:
Terri Schiavo was a womb unconnected to a will. Unfortunately for many of the more militant pro-lifers, most wombs tend to be connected to some sort of human individual with her own ideas about life. Now, outlawing abortion is one thing--but will it stop abortions? Not entirely--the rich will go to Mexico, the middle class will use herbal concontions, and the poor will ask their boyfriends to hit them in the stomach.

Really, the only way to make sure a woman won't have an abortion is to make her a prisoner. But guards can yield to sympathy or be bribed with sex or money. The only way to ensure that a person is truly imprisoned is to remove all control of her body from her--including ways to communicate. That is, to put her in a permanent vegetative state. It's better than The Handmaid's Tale.

Why would people who profess to be for life be for such a thing? Let's not kid ourselves--do you really think Tom DeLay is interested in life? He's interested in control. What better way is there to control someone from the time they're born than to start when they're conceived?

I realize that this thought experiment is unlikely to occur. However, it's probably closer to the desires of the radical theocrats than the "eliminate God in all facets of life agenda" is to leftists' desires.
posted by Maureen at 3:09 PM

 
Catholic canon law states that if the cardinals so choose, anyone who can become a priest or a bishop can become pope--that is, every non-married Catholic male on the planet. That's a lot of candidates--far more than the 118 voting cardinals everyone agrees makes up the "remotely possible" field, of which only about ten or fifteen are in the "will actually get votes" field*.

But everyone's focused on the likely candidates. Let's examine some of the more-famous candidates of the former group, shall we?

Bono--Wait. He's married, and he might not even be baptized Catholic. But wouldn't Bono make a great pope? It's time the Irish got a pope, and Bono is a great humanitarian and musician who's certainly very popular in both the First World and the Third World. On a more frivolous note, his papal name is a no-brainer, his sunglasses would look great with the miter, and The Edge could serve as papal secretary of state.

Fr. Andrew Greeley--Actually is eligible, and has already been ordained, so being made a bishop shouldn't be any problem. Like the previous pope, he's intellectually-inclined and a best-selling author; moreover, he's made firm moral statements on sexual abuse within the Church and the war in Iraq. Plus, he's promised to resign after making a few small adjustments in canon law (extending the priesthood to women, making priestly celibacy optional, that sort of thing... nothing really bearing on the teachings of Christ). After a twenty-six year long papacy, it'll be nice to have a short one.

A member of the Kennedy family--Following the grand tradition of the great families of Italy each having a go at the papacy, perhaps the cardinals should start with the great families of other nations. We'll start with the Kennedys, but we can then move onto the von Hapsburgs, the Grimaldi, etc. If the Church wants to be imperial, let it BE imperial!

*The full membership of this field will be known only to God and the cardinals who count the votes; however, early exit polls suggest Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria will probably be in this field.
posted by Maureen at 8:52 PM

 
We've all seen the scenario where after a wild, drunken night of partying the protagonist wakes up with a hangover, a trashed apartment, and just when they think things can't get worse--they've got a stranger in their bed and they can't remember how they got there. Cut to an expression of Oh, shit, how the fuck did I get here?

Which may be what the saner members of the Republican Party are now feeling. First there's voter remorse--realizing that while George Bush (or that sixth shot of tequila) seemed like a great idea at the time, it was a mistake. Then comes the realization that the Christian Right they had in bed wasn't just sort of crazy, they're certifiable.

But will this lead moderate Republicans to more temperate ways--e.g., not getting into bed with everyone willing to support a certain economic policy? Not taking shot after shot of sickly-sweet platitudes?

Do frat boys become moderate drinkers?

I once noted in a course paper that political parties function almost as religions; neurological research indicates that people achieve similar states when participating n religious ceremonies as they do when under the influence of certain drugs. If a political party can become a religion, could it also become an addiction?
posted by Maureen at 11:46 PM

 
The President is recommending everyone's favorite Deputy Secretary of Defense to be head of the World Bank. While I'm not a big fan of The Wolfster, I'm relatively optimistic. First, as Yglesias points out, the World Bank doesn't have the capability to start wars. Secondly, Wolfowitz has already done some work on development, namely, his Ph.D thesis analyzing nuclear desalinization in the Middle East. It's wonky, chart-filled, and obsessed with oranges--perfect for a World Bank President.
posted by Maureen at 5:00 PM

 
Bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama (Space Center)/ Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida (the six weeks after my birth)/ Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa (just passing through)/ Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee (still my permanent address)/ Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go generate your own!
posted by Maureen at 10:56 PM

 
1. When it is muddy out, do not try to walk downhill in the mud, unless you want to wear mud on your pants.

2. A UC ID is an efficient tool for scraping off said mud off pants.

3. On second floor of Cummings (e.g., where the elevators always stop even though there's no one there): a flyer visible from the elevator showing a rendering of the molecule, and an e-mail address to send identification of the molecule. First right answer gets a beer.
posted by Maureen at 8:06 PM

 
I've realized I'm not effective at changing the world by myself through this blog. Yes, I'm linked to and complemented by fellow travelers, but I don't have the firepower to change the world by myself. Frankly, none of us in the left blogosphere do, even the famous ones--"Yglesias who?" is the response most non-bloggers would give to the question, "So, what do you think about Yglesias's last post on Social Security?"

So there's obviously a surplus of creative progressive voices without real power. On the other hand, there's a deficit of progressive think tanks and other ways of grooming young progressives.

Solution?

Let's create think tanks.

Each town could have its own little blogging thinktank, comprised of a bunch of affiliated bloggers who meet for coffee or something every week and discuss politics. No, it's not the Brookings Institute. But it's more than we've got now.
posted by Maureen at 3:58 PM

 
(Via Mouse Words): The FEC may soon consider blog links to political donation sites as political advocacy subject to campaign finance laws.

Which has me wondering: Just how much is a link worth, anyway? Obviously a link from Daily Kos to the Dean campaign would be worth more than a link from me to the Dean campaign, as Daily Kos has about a million eyeballs daily and I'm lucky to break a hundred on the Sitemeter. But what about a link from Kos to me (e.g. "Maureen has more information on donating here") and about a million other bloggers? And how do you clearly mark the line between advocacy and information? "I'd really like you to support the Dean campaign... oh, by the way, here's the link to my Dean for America site."

Maybe we'll have Scalia asking what a blog is.
posted by Maureen at 7:36 PM

 
I think it's morally wrong to let children go without health care just because their parents have made [EDIT] monetarily unwise career choices.

I think it's morally wrong for a teacher to make a child feel bad because she doesn't share the religious faith of the majority of her classmates.

I think it's morally wrong for the president to lie his way into war.

I think it's morally wrong to force a rape victim to carry her rapist's child.

I think it's morally wrong to rape and torture prisoners of war.

I think it's morally wrong to execute over 300 people on Texas's Death Row and then talk about "a culture of life"

And so do most Americans. And so does the Democratic Party. And it's time we talked about these moral values as we live them, instead of letting others define the moral agenda of our country.
posted by Maureen at 3:56 PM

 
In the New York Times, a soldier is making a big announcement.
posted by Maureen at 5:27 PM

 
See the collections of Peter Som, Rebecca Taylor, and Cynthia Steffe (okay, hers is more postwar prepubescent).

It's the high-waisted, above-the-knee coats, I think. Empire waists always make women look rather flat-chested, in my opinion, and when you pair it with an above-the-knee skirt--a skirt length suitable only for the youngest girls in Victorian times--and thick, curve-concealing fabrics, the overall effect is infantilizing. And creepy.
posted by Maureen at 10:06 PM

 
While reading Phoebe's notes on "The French Paradox" (or why Americans are heavier than Europeans), I was reminded of my ill-fated trip to H&M yesterday. Their clothing is not tailored for my (admittedly larger than average) American body. Nor are their adorable spring cloches built for my (admittedly larger than average) American head.
posted by Maureen at 5:25 PM

 
Maya Keyes comes out, and Alan Keyes kicks her out.

You know, a few days ago I was able to name a few things I respected about Alan Keyes. I respected that he loved his daughter although he didn't agree with her, and I respected that he spoke his mind*.

I think I've lost those few shreds of respect.

(BTW: kick a few bucks her way, okay?)



*Although before the news today, I thought there was the possibility that Keyes was faking it as part of his job as a deep cover secret agent for the CIA.
posted by Maureen at 1:53 AM

 
--Dennis Hastert looked constipated through the entire address--even Cheney cracked a smile (or an approximation thereof) at times. Your party's in power! Be happy!

--Asbestos claims? Is that really such a big drain on our legal system? Shades of 2004's "steroids" sentence.

--Again, the Federal Homophobia Amendment gets a shoutout so the Christian Right (TM) won't revolt.

--Condi's indigo suit is really cute; Laura's looking sort of puffy lately.

--Bush outlines his plan for Social Security to go the way of the Edsel; Democrats boo. Apparently, we're starting to learn from Great Britain how an opposition party should act.

DEMOCRAT REACTION SHOTS (from NBC):
--John Kerry: Polite anger
--Hillary: Polite irritation
--Barack Obama: Polite academic skepticism.
--Joseph Biden: Taking notes--or was he doing the Washington Post crossword puzzle?

And finally, THE KISS!

POST-GAME SHOW: The Democratic Response

--Harry Reid is adorable--"birth tax" is brilliant. Nancy Pelosi? She's holding her eyes open a little too wide.
posted by Maureen at 12:31 AM

 
Has it really been that long? [Yes--ed.] Well, I got sick, and then my Internet connection died and I just fixed it, so...

Okay. Here are some updates:

THE VEGETARIAN EXPERIMENT: Ended last Thursday when I ate some "gyros" from BJ. Felt guilty about eating a mammal, but then realized that I care more about human rights than animal rights, and I'm more effective when I eat animals. I can't save the world.

Coming up... SOTU madness...
posted by Maureen at 12:12 AM

 
A crocheted hyperbolic plane.

It's purdy.
posted by Maureen at 1:09 AM

 
The Vegan Experiment ended last night around midnight, when prompted by hunger pains I wolfed down a protein bar that I knew had milk solids in it. Screw giving up dairy--I don't have any ethical quandaries about dairy or eggs, and my body functions better with animal protein*. But since I do have unsettled ethics regarding the consumption of mammals and birds, I've decided to go ovo-lacto-(and perhaps pesco, as I don't think fish have moral agency)vegetarian until Thursday.

Lunch: One and one-half Boca Burgers with piece of Cheddar cheese, mixed greens with walnuts, tofu, olive oil and balsalmic vinaigrette, whole-grain bread, milk, coffee, Diet Pepsi

Mid-afternoon snack: Some kind of protein smoothie juice drink thing.

*Apparently this is partially hereditary: In his Commentaries, Pope Pius II notes that the common people of Scotland eat much meat and fish, but little bread or wine (in contrast to the common people of Italy). I'm predominantly of Irish and Scotch-Irish blood--I don't do well on high-carb regimiens.
posted by Maureen at 3:57 PM

 
Whole wheat pasta with spinach, olive oil, garlic salt, pepper, and this "Parma!" stuff made from walnuts and yeast. Applesauce. Sugar-free soy milk, cappuccino flavored.

I had tried to find tofu at three different small grocery/convenience stores in Hyde Park--the Maroon Mart, University Market, and Harper Foods--and was unsuccessful. At University Market I encountered a deli clerk who didn't know what tofu was, which reminded me that veganism is a classist exercise. Pretty much anyone at any income level can become an ovo-lacto vegetarian, or even a lacto-vegetarian--eggs, milk, and cheese are inexpensive when compared to meat--but the myriad protein substitutes required for a healthy vegan diet are expensive, and not covered by food stamp programs.

I was discussing this with a vegetarian friend* when preparing the above meal, and he asked if I was going to be vegan for a long time. When I replied, "only until Thursday", he then launched into his Rant on Vegans, the core of which is "Vegans are sanctimonious and want to convert everybody"; offshoots include "Vegans claim that they invented vegetarianism in Berkeley" and "They're out Gandhi-ing Gandhi". Admittedly, the vegans I met with this morning do seem infused with a missionary-esque zeal... but I shall withhold further judgement until dinner on Monday.

*Who shall remain nameless, as he may show up for free food during Vegan Week.
posted by Maureen at 6:52 PM

 
Currently it's Vegan Week here at Chicago, meaning that the Vegan Society is even more aggressive in its campaign for an animal-free lifestyle. They make it really tempting--they give you free food from Cedars of Lebanon, the Chicago Diner, and other cool places, plus free product samples. All you have to do is pledge to be vegan for a week.

So today (after brunch--cheese ravioli, ham and cheese omelette, salad with bleu cheese, cow's milk), because I felt guilty about taking free samples of non-dairy "Parmesan" topping and Dr. Brommer's soap while still eating meat--I pledged to be vegan for the rest of Vegan Week (until Thursday). Now, I'm probably not the person best adapted for going vegan. I'm slightly hypoglycemic, and I try to eat low-glycemic carbohydrates. At the dining hall, this usually translates into eating a rather good quantity of meat. I appreciate the vegetarian rational for not eating meat--given the right resources (read: really good cheese), I could see myself easily adapting to an ovo-lacto lifestyle with the occasional humanely-farmed steak--but I really don't see the moral injunction against drinking milk from well-treated cows on a family farm somewhere in Vermont.

However, I do have a stockpile of soy milk (it was on sale at the Co-op), beans, brown rice, frozen spinach, olive oil, whole-grain or low-carb pasta, and various spices. If I buy a packet of tofu and some canola oil today, I might be able to do this.
posted by Maureen at 2:19 PM

 
The worlds of mathematics and crochet intersect when British mathematicians crochet a Lorenz manifold model.

Via SuperNaturale

posted by Maureen at 1:16 AM

 
This is a short outline of a rather neat little hypothesis I've had cooking for awhile, reawakened by the Summers controversy. Enjoy.

1. The only area of brain function remotely related to science or mathematics where men consistently out-perform women is in three-dimensional spatial reasoning. I'm not sure how much of a role this plays in biology, chemistry, and physics, but as a mathematician I can state with a high level of confidence that the skill remains utterly unused until multivariate calculus--a level of math usually reached (if at all) in college*.

2. The (incredible shrinking!) gender gap in mathematics begins to appear around middle school; hence, three-dimensional imaging cannot be used to explain the gender gap.

3. One factor which does impact mathematical performance is iron levels; a study shows that mildly anemic teenage girls scored lower on math exams than their peers. Often such anemia occurs due to menstruation.

4. The mean age of menarche in the United States is 12.43--right about middle school!

The hypothesis suggested by 2, 3, and 4--that lower math test scores in adolescent girls are primarily the result of menstruation-related iron deficiency--fits the evidence we have so far quite nicely, whereas Dr. Summers's vague incantation of "innate gender differences" seems--dare I say it?--unscientific.


*[But doesn't this affect college students in math?--ed.] In my experience, probably in multivariable calculus and linear algebra, but not to a degree where computer visualizations couldn't help. In more theoretical math (as well as more theoretical physics), everything you know about the planet Earth goes out the window. However, an area of science that seems to me quite reliant on spatial reasoning, the molecular and chemical biosciences, is full of female Ph.D candidates.
posted by Maureen at 1:23 AM

 
Yes, it's freezing, and difficult, and people mistake us for UIC all the time. But at least our university president isn't horribly embarrassing:

The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers.

[...]

Summers said the comments were made ``in the spirit of academic inquiry'' and his goal was to underscore the need for further research to understand a situation that is likely due to a variety of factors.

[...]

``It's possible I made some reference to innate differences,'' he said. He said people ``would prefer to believe'' that the differences in performance between the sexes are due to social factors, ``but these are things that need to be studied.''

Why am I suddenly reminded of those "studying too hard will atrophy your ovaries" arguments produced during the nineteenth century? (Or the related arguments which said that mathematicians and physicists required robust, manly bodies.)

He also cited as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet he said she named them ``daddy truck'' and ``baby truck,'' as if they were dolls.

You mean we can cite personal anecdotes to support general arguments about all of humanity? Sweet! You know, I won the American Mathematics Competition in my high school when I was a junior--I beat out people who had the equivalent of one and a half years of math instruction on me. And yes, Dr. Summers, my school was co-ed.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a logic problem set to complete.

(Maureen Craig is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in mathematics at the University of Chicago)

UPDATE: Hanna Gray, President Emerita (and one of my professors), believes Summers was misinterpreted. That may be the case, but Dr. Summers really should have reflected upon the fact that although he was explicitly speaking as an independent economist, his thoughts implicitly reflect on Harvard University.
posted by Maureen at 4:00 PM

 
(Via Josh Cherniss by way of Phoebe Maltz): Apparently Harry didn't originally want an Afrika Corps uniform*--he wanted an SS uniform.

Is there a way for Parliament to remove someone from the succession for being "deeply, deeply embarrassing"? I mean, if they can bar Catholics from it in one go....


*a uniform which, despite being used by an evil, evil regime, was worn by soldiers in Africa who did not directly participate in the Holocaust; furthermore, this costume would have been more appropriate to a "Colonials and Natives" party.
posted by Maureen at 1:44 PM

 
Gapers Block has just posted a rather unusual view of the Reg, one which actually makes it look--oh, wait, it still looks like a Stalinist prison. But an elegant Stalinist prison.
posted by Maureen at 1:34 AM

 
Witness Prince Harry's fine sense of political acumen as he wears a Nazi costume to a fancy-dress party.

Now, I don't think this is an indication of anti-Semitism on the Prince's part--there's a certain style cachet to the uniforms of evil empires (witness the Sovietski catalog*). But a civilian without a government position can get away with this sort of thing--he's representing himself, not a nation. Besides, if my great-uncle were a well-known Nazi sympathizer, I'd try to distance myself from that sort of thing no matter what my position.

Sadly, Harry may become King of England (and Scotland, and Wales, and...) one day, as William's reluctance to lead a royal life is well-known. Yet William shows better political judgement than his brother, as shown by his choice of a "lion and leopard skin print top and tight black leggings" for the party. What? The Tudor men wore tights, and don't even get me started on Prince Albert's proclivities for tight white trousers without underwear (as documented in Victoria's diaries during their courtship).

*Although the USSR was only truly diabolically evil during Stalin's reign.
posted by Maureen at 9:11 PM

 
Apparently not.

Gapers Block claims that "[i]f you ever shopped at your very own grocery Co-op, well, you probably didn't do it here [in Chicago]." Funny, what about the Hyde Park Co-Op Markets? Okay, so they're not that great, and they're not all granola-y, but they're still a co-op.

So what group of people wants to make this "new co-op thing" a reality in Chicago? The residents of the "Logan Square/Humboldt Park/Wicker Park/Ukrainian Village area". Is it just me, or do those neighborhoods make Lincoln Park seem outwardly focused?
posted by Maureen at 10:49 PM

 
I, Maureen Craig, do hereby nominate myself for Feministe's 2005 "Grammer Police" award on the basis of the following:

1. My status as a grammar god




2. My tendency to have footnotes regarding grammar and gender



posted by Maureen at 3:00 PM

 
Via The Morning News, I see that Harper's has re-printed an 1992 article from Handgunning magazine complaining about how damned difficult (and illegal) it is to surprise a loved one with a shiny new Colt .357 magnum under the Christmas tree. Now, there are a lot of Christmas gifts you can't put under the tree--the actual trip to Hawaii, the Lexus, the--oh, wait, I guess you could put "performance art" under the tree after the kids go to bed. So I'm not sure why people are so upset about this. But I'm from Tennessee, and I know that many people are concerned about this issue. So here goes.

This may surprise some of my readers, but I have held and fired guns. I have watched people buy guns. And although I've no intention of ever buying one myself, I've figured out that buying a gun is a really personal thing. You've got to figure out how it feels in the hand--you want something where the balance fits your hand, not the hand of your brother-in-law. (Rather like shopping for pens at Levenger in Marshall Field's on State Street, come to think of it). It's like buying a bra as a gift, except more expensive and you can't pull the trick of buying the same gun in a different color.

But let's say you want to buy someone a gun that you know they're going to like (because they keep trying it out at the gun store/shooting range). You can just give the store the money for the gun and have them keep it until they pick it up after Christmas. Then you can take a picture of the gun, put it in a pretty box, and watch the delight upon your loved one's face on that special occasion as they see a picture of their new shotgun waiting for them tomorrow at Hank's Firearms. It's just like dropping the Lexus keys in the stocking, except with a few more legal forms.
posted by Maureen at 1:05 AM

 

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posted by Maureen at 11:30 PM