women:dogs :: _____:bitches

sometimes the things that come out of people's mouths really floor me. sometimes, I'm not too surprised. take, for example, the latest comparison between the Mike Vick federal dog fighting case and the rape case brought against Kobe Bryant (and ultimately dropped) in 2004. From Feministing:

Below is part of a transcript where CNN sports reporter Larry Smith tells Nancy Grace that dog fighting is worse than rape.

SMITH: Yes, well, that's -- he's been in a lot of trouble lately, when you think about all the other incidents, and this is just the worst one of all. Keep in mind, too, that while Kobe Bryant is a situation we can sort of compare this to, this really is much worse. Not only can you argue that the crimes are much worse in terms of, you know, killing dogs and that kind of thing, but as an NFL starting quarterback, you are the most visible face in that city. I`ve said all along, in fact, you know, if you go through and, you know, very quickly name 10 mayors of major cities in the country...

GRACE: Larry Smith, did I just hear you say...

SMITH: ... you could have a harder time doing that...

GRACE: ... mistreatment of...

SMITH: ... than naming 10 NFL starting quarterbacks.

GRACE: Did I just hear Larry Smith, CNN sports correspondent and anchor, state that crimes on a dog are much worse than crimes on a woman? Did I hear that?

uh, yeah. and you wonder why rape remains so prevalent on college campuses across the country. at Wash U, a campus of approximately 10,000 undergraduates, 35 rapes were reported from 2003-2005. imagine having a 0.4% chance of being raped during your 4 years of college. and this is based on what was reported. if the media feels that major sports figures are in bigger trouble when they harm animals (and don't get me wrong, the initial reports of the Vick case are sickening) than when they assault women, they are only feeding the beast. the attitude among some college athletes will continue to be that rape is OK, that it's a woman's problem if she doesn't "want it," etc.

so, if you were curious about the answer to the analogy above, how to fill in the blank, I should let you know that it's a trick question. in the eyes of Larry Smith and some members of the sports community, there is no comparison. they're all the same thing.

boats, pies, and squirrels

it's been a busy week. I haven't had much time to catch my breath, let alone write some posts. not that busy = bad. it's been a fairly low stress in lab with Erik at UCSB and spending all day doing data analysis is not very taxing, if only slightly mind-numbing.

last Friday we went to see Ani Difranco at Live on the Levee. I can't believe how much older Ani looks from when I saw her in 2002-2003... making records and having babies will do that I suppose. hard to believe that I've listened to her music for more than half my life. weird. we road 34 miles out and back to Chain of Rocks bridge on Saturday and I have the peeling sunburn to prove it. not that it's still red- it all went in and turned tan. now it just feels like I'm molting. and Sunday I paddled on the Meramec with Laura and saw her new place out in West Bumblefuck... which, for all my jokes, is very, very close to the river.

and I feel like a kid with all my after-school activities. granted, my mode of transportation is a Bianchi and not a mini-van equipped with a soccer mom, a Capri Sun and a granola bar, but you get the idea.

• Monday - Yoga
• Tuesday - Bike to REI, buy and cut PVC pipe, clean and re-organize Laura's car
• Wednesday - Paddle on Creve Cour lake, hang slalom gates, softball playoff game (which we won!)
• Thursday - Bike to Maplewood for Meghan's birthday party, Schlafly

we got the go-ahead to start on our kitchen remodel from a contractor friend (it pays to be a regular at the Bottleworks, really it does) and just need to get the plumber out to take a look and give us an estimate. then we can start tearing into drywall and taking down cabinets. I think we've decided to do the IKEA thing and drive to Chicago (how very Sufjan Stevens of us!) though we have a little time left to decide.

the highlight(s) of the week have a common theme: Laura. dancing and singing to ancient CDs from the *gasp* 1990s while using a hacksaw was a blast. then, the capture of our eggplant by a rodent beanie baby in a Dread Pirate Roberts mask made Michele's week...

a bit of a side note here: we have been battling squirrels in our garden all summer. both the tomato and eggplant have been decimated just before the fruit is large/ripe enough to harvest. M has declared war and has been spreading blood meal everywhere. next stop, fox urine!

and then, the piece de resistance, homemade raspberry pie. surprise homemade raspberry pie. how many people are lucky enough to come home to find this being made in their kitchen by a sexy C1W paddler?

Laura, you rock.

i heart rachel maddow

makes me wish I had cable TV and satellite radio, oh yes...

and who knew that she was the first out Rhodes scholar?! excuse me while I take a moment...

superman returns

seems that I have been pushing my body a bit harder than usual lately. not that this is a bad thing- it feels good to be the most active I've been since college. I was biking and doing yoga regularly before our trip to England. and while we were there, I'm sure we clocked about 100 miles walking, not to mention our bike trips to Old Sarum and Stonehenge. since we've been back there's been more biking, paddling, yoga, and then this week, rugby.

I haven't had my cleats on since the alumnae game in May '03, though they and my deflated ball (now inflated) still ride around in the trunk of my car just waiting for a good time. playing touch on Tuesday night reminded again me of how much I miss the sport. there's a development camp for one of the St. Louis women's teams a week from Saturday. I think I'm going to give it a go. even if I feel like my schedule prevents me from giving up too many weekends (starting 4th year of grad school=no weekends off), it would be nice to get back into playing. besides, it's a legal way to hit people when you're pissed off and support hookers. that, and I get to wear the superman shirt that Michele thought she had made me throw out :)

UPDATE: Sound Salvation

Looks like Internet radio stations have been issued a brief reprieve. SoundExchange is holding off on collecting royalty fees for now, but we'll see what happens.

More info here, here, and here.

H/t to Ms. Nola

happy happy

here are some pictures from our 6th anniversary last Friday, July 13th. we went to the Community Table at Whole Foods and had an amazing time. this is a weekly dinner WF has on Friday nights where participants wander the store, pick out ingredients, and watch some fantastic chefs prepare an amazing meal for them! I definitely recommend it.

Dolores Umbridge and NCLB

Those of you not living with a kid or a 30-year old lesbian may have missed the fact that the 5th installment of the Harry Potter film epic, The Order of the Phoenix, premiered on Wednesday. We saw the late screening at the Moolah Theater here in Saint Louis. The Moolah is a converted temple with one of the widest non-IMAX screens I have ever seen, couches, beer and cocktails, and a bowling alley in the basement. Awesome.

I had a great time; and was immediately reminded that Order of the Phoenix is somewhat of a biting commentary on the American educational system, specifically No Child Left Behind, by J.K. Rowling. Harry's main foil in the book, in addition to the usual Lord Voldemort (who my money is on to be the next Republican named in the DC Madam scandal...), is Dolores Umbridge, an educational lackey from the Ministry of Magic who becomes the new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.

One of the most telling scenes in both the book and the film begins with Professor Umbridge welcoming her students on their first day of class. She describes to the 5th years how they will be learning to defend themselves from evil not by, well, learning how to defend themselves, but by studying the dark arts in a nice, safe theorhetical bubble. Oh, and then taking a test on it. There is no practice, no hands-on learning to develop students' ability to think for themselves. They become little sponges that must simply soak up the information with no need to understand or apply it. Umbridge's rise to power becomes the arc of the story and her transformation of Hogwarts School into a veritable police state has some very interesting implications for us Americans.

The bills for the reauthorization and improvement of 2001's No Child Left Behind Act are making their way through Congress this session. Since the enactment of this large, unwieldy, and underfunded piece of legislation, there has been much debate about whether high stakes testing and "adequate yearly progress" are valuable additions and measures of education reform. I believe that accountability is key, having taught in a struggling school system with teachers and administrators that sometimes care more about their pay check and having summers off than their students' learning. However, there must be a better way to get physical and human resources to the schools that need them the most. Why are science classes in low-income schools still being taught by individuals without a bachelor's degree in the subject?! Why do administrators have to spend their time doctoring attendance records in order to ensure that their school receives funding?! Obviously, if schools are having attendance problems it is a symptom of a larger epidemic in the quality of our educational system, and the disparity in quality based on socio-economic situation. This is a problem NCLB has yet to address... let alone, how we will prepare high school graduates competent enough to enter college and careers when they spend all their time memorizing and testing instead of applying high order thinking skills.

We have to wait and see if any real change will be made to NCLB. The law has had some positive consequences, but I'm not sure if it has led to any real progress in our most struggling schools, like those in Saint Louis and Baltimore. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, seems to think so. And of course if we said otherwise, you can imagine her with an Umbridge-esque twitter demanding us to write, "I will not tell lies."

UPDATE: Status of Internet Radio

Today is July 15th, and thanks to the decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to increase rates for streaming music online, it could be the day the music dies for many independent web-casters. Here's the email I received from XPN.

Dear Indy Music Lover,

Thank you for signing our online petition in support of the Internet Radio Equality Act. You joined over 11,000 others in telling our Representatives in Washington how strongly the XPN community feels on this issue. We gave the petition to Senator Specter’s office, and while he has expressed sympathy for our concerns, he has yet to commit to supporting the bill.

The current situation is less than encouraging. Our request in court for a stay of the July 15 roll-out date for the new royalty rates (retroactive for 18 months) has been denied. It is highly unlikely that Congress will move on this legislation in the near future. The consensus on the Hill is that this should be resolved through negotiations.

Talks have yet to be productive. They will continue right through the deadline. I’m still somewhat optimistic that we can find common ground that is in the best interest of both artist and audience. We do not plan any changes in our internet music streaming until we have exhausted all alternatives. I will update you when there is any news.

If you are interested in receiving weekly e-news with other XPN events and news, please click here.

Keep the faith!
Roger LaMay
General Manager

Let's hope that some compromise can be reached and that web-listeners will continue to have great stations like XPN available to them online.

more Bush*t

another day, another press conference. *vomit* yet the one thing you still won't see on CNN, would be the returning Iraq war dead.

singer-songwriter John Flynn has an amazing tune called "Dover" on his album "Two Wolves" that only begins to skim the surface of how I feel about this endless war.

Elijah was a sergeant, 42 years old
from Mesa Arizona, Elijah won't grow old
Patrick was with C Troop, Second Armored Cav
His buddies all remember how Patrick loved to laugh
Seth was from East Brunswick, just a newly wed
Somewhere in New Jersey a young widow bows her head
Daniel was from Boston shipped out from Fort Bragg
His mother got back Daniel with a folded flag

Oh big airplane bring’em down easy
Out of the Delaware skies
Oh big airplane Dover is waiting
to welcome the heroes you fly… home

...Scrubbed wooden pallets with white straps cinched over
Long boxes of flag draped aluminum
The C-5 is crowded when it lands in Dover
The honor guard boards and makes room again

Making straight for Nineveh, just like Jonah’s whale
Holy truth you swallow, overseas you sail
Precious is the cargo sacred was the gift
offered in the sandstorm from which your wings lift
Those who would pay homage can’t watch you set down
Behind barbed wire sentries miles from their town
No one breathes to question this silent parade
Except for the anguished loved ones left to say

© 2005 Flying Stone Music

it's like learning to play piano or to speak Italian...

I never knew I was just "practicing" being a lesbian! What a relief!

Check out the continuing subtle, yet bigoted coverage of us crazy queers by the MSM.

homecoming

last night our Odysseus returned from one of her many journeys. thankfully, we had no suitors to deal with, so I helped Telemachus prepare dinner. stuffed butterflied shrimp over mushroom risotto served with sauteed summer squash.


we heard tales of great adventures, of Scylla and Charybdis, over many glasses of prosecco and white wine.


and the finale: mojito sorbet with rum and club soda.

everyone went to bed full of food and drink and good company, to dream of rivers and sun and our place in the world...

dear lady, welcome home. I'm glad you're back.

la fin du monde (as we know it)

and I feel fine...

my national pastime

I have a couple of ultimate life goals...

1. to be interviewed, at least once, as the resident expert on X by folks at NPR. whether it be Ira Flatow from Science Friday on Talk of the Nation or Scott Simon on Weekend Edition- I'd love to be asked my opinion on some breaking news story or current event.

2. to hold season tickets to a major league team, preferably the Boston Red Sox, but I'd settle for any team from the Amercian League. I'm not sure how many other 20-something-year-old women long to be a professor at an elite liberal arts college and regularly attend ball games. Maybe it's because I saw my share of little league (my brother played since he was old enough to walk, practically) and learned to keep score at an early age. Maybe it's because some of my most vivid childhood vacation memories revolve around baseball (thanks Dad!) - Fenway, Busch Stadium, Camden Yards, or Cooperstown, most summers included a trip to the Show. Maybe it's because Field of Dreams still makes me cry. Yeah, I know, I'm lame.



I was at two Cardinals games this week. And as much as I complain about the over-priced (Budweiser) beer, there is really no better place to be on a summer evening. While watching the Cards lose is never fun (hey, we're still World Champs for a few more months, right?) at least Boston remains the best team in baseball. I may not be a little kid enjoying swirled soft-serve from a plastic helmet, but in the ballpark at twilight, when your legs stick the seats and your feet crunch on peanut shells, the smell of stale beer and popcorn in the air, time seems to stand still. those are some of my happiest moments.

geek stuff: clocks and evolution

2 really cool articles published last week in Science describing differences between daily clocks (rest-activity cycles) and seasonal clocks (how rest-activity cycles are maintained on long vs. short days) in fruit flies and that evolution played a role.

Check out the Perspectives summary here.

Justice in George W. Bush's America

So the news that Scooter Libby has had his prison sentence commuted- 30 months, for multiple federal felonies serving concurrently- already has created quite a stir. For all the latest, take a look at firedoglake if you haven't already. They've been there since the beginning. Nothing like waiting till the end of the business day, on the week of a major summer holiday no less, for Commander BunnyPants to make such an annoucement. And then turning on the answering machine at home so he doesn't have to take any calls. Not that I'm surprised. This is supposed to be justice under the American legal system?

While in England I saw an excellent program on BBC Two about race relations in the US. The story was from Jena, LA; and one that I hadn't heard much about in the States. A handful of African American high school students, who as targets of escalating racial tension in their small town, reacted and started a fight with a white student at their school. Not that I condone violence of any kind among students, in schools. However, the outcome of their situation is appalling. In response to the fight, which injured but did not permanently harm the victim, the DA is seeking maximum sentence for these children. We're talking 30-50 years in prison on attempted murder charges for a school fight.

So Scooter's sentecing is excessive, Mr. Bush? What do you say to the families of these African Amercian students in Jena?

everybody's working for the weekend

what is it about 70s/80s butt-rock (picture red camaros and mullets) that makes it truly feel like summer? maybe it's because def leppard, foreigner, and styx are touring again... regardless, we've turned the volume way up on the classic rock station in the lab.

besides working both days (ah, gotta love being a grad student) I had a pretty good weekend. 20+ mile ride on Saturday morning. haircut, errands, and drinking beer at Bottleworks with friends that night. Sunday evening Michele and I made dinner together and enjoyed the awesome weather on our deck. I fried up the green tomatoes I bought last week at the Tower Grove farmers' market- the first batch of the season! fried green tomatoes are one of my specialties (shout out to those Southern roots) and in my opinion, some what of an art form. these turned out excellent- yum! we also made a salad with field greens from our garden, heirloom tomatoes, and pearl sized fresh mozzarella with a balsamic vinaigrette. main course was apple-sage veggie sausage with caramelized onions. I meant to take pictures of the food, but alas, we consumed it almost instantly.

seems like this is going to be an odd week with July 4th being on a Wednesday. kinda hard to get the momentum going when you're taking a day off in the middle. guess I should go be productive...