http://women.webmd.com/news/20100225/belly-fat-culprit-stroke-gender-gap
According to this WebMD article, middle-aged women are more likely than middle-aged men to have a stroke. Apparently this is caused by belly fat. This article implies that belly fat on women is more detrimental than belly fat on men.
I wonder if this is a way to reinforce the stereotype that all women must be thin, reinforcing teenage obsessions with diet and body image. It's true that excessive fat, especially around the middle, is harmful. But why do people think that it's more harmful in women?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060403132624.htm
According to ScienceDaily, belly fat is more detrimental in men. This makes more sense to me. Women need a little more fat around the middle for pregnancy, whereas men have no such excuse. But most women don't seem to get that message. All we seem to get is, "All fat is bad."
It's interesting that the article about fat on women is more accessible, being as how WebMD is a medical news site for the common person. A quick search of WebMD for abdominal fat in men doesn't show anything like the ScienceDaily article. Instead of blaming fashion media for women's body issues, why don't we blame health media?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
cart? horse? sunblock?
The trial of PLX4032 offers a glimpse at how doctors, patients and drug developers navigate a medical frontier as more drugs tailored to the genetic profile of a cancer are being widely tested on humans for the first time.
Miracle?
Premise 1. Patient has weeks to live due to metastasized melanoma.
Premise 2. PLX4032 is administered at maximum dosage (for as little as two weeks) and immediate cancer remission takes place.
Conclusion: The cure for cancer is based in genetically tailored drug recipes.
FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/research/23trial.html
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Descartes before the horse....
Yes, colleagues, the New York Times did indeed include the subject line for this posting in a recent article (in fact, it was the article about which both Mr. Gauker and I blogged two weeks ago), as a direct quote from a physician who was one of the doubters about the conclusions drawn by his/her colleagues (and which was consequently excluded from the STRIB reprint of the the article). Why does this matter? Because the physician was trying to say, however gracelessly, that the conclusions being drawn from the data available were the results of unsound logic. AND, you may ask, why does THIS matter?
Here is where we must insert our friend M. Descartes; the rules of deductive logic, stated most elegantly in Latin "cogito ergo sum" are very strict. If your premises are sound and your conclusion logically follows from your premises, your argument must be valid (or sound). For my NYT vs. STRIB posting we had two very different groups:
Group One:
Premise 1. Vegetative patients respond to yes or no questions with brain activity that is similar to a non-vegetative patient's response during an MRI
Premise 2. Vegetative patients do not respond to questions
Conclusion: Therefore, the patients in question are capable of thought
(3a. If you can think, you exist - you are not in a truly vegetative state)
Group Two:
Here is where we must insert our friend M. Descartes; the rules of deductive logic, stated most elegantly in Latin "cogito ergo sum" are very strict. If your premises are sound and your conclusion logically follows from your premises, your argument must be valid (or sound). For my NYT vs. STRIB posting we had two very different groups:
Group One:
Premise 1. Vegetative patients respond to yes or no questions with brain activity that is similar to a non-vegetative patient's response during an MRI
Premise 2. Vegetative patients do not respond to questions
Conclusion: Therefore, the patients in question are capable of thought
(3a. If you can think, you exist - you are not in a truly vegetative state)
Group Two:
Premise 1. Vegetative patients respond to yes or no questions with brain activity that is similar to a non-vegetative patient's response during an MRI
Premise 2. Vegetative patients do not respond to questions
Conclusion: Therefore, one set of stimuli resulted in some type of indeterminate response from a limited number of the sample group.
(3a. Therefore, more testing and more definitive parameters must be set)
M. Descartes was one of the thinkers of the period who helped to put forward some awesome premises and come to some very difficult to dispute conclusions. To this day, we are hard pressed to dispute sound deductive arguments, and we have adopted this mode of argument and conclusion as very, very acceptable, almost past the point of needing further review. But what do we do when the conclusion drawn from the same premises, by people of equal stature and credentials, are different? This is our problem! Cartesian deductive reasoning would have us believe that one of the premises used are invalid or that the conclusion drawn from the premise is unsound - but it does not help us out much when we have very smart people drawing vastly different conclusions from the same data.
At this point, we are left, in my opinion, with skepticism and ad hominem choices. Who funds the people in group one? Are the scientists more sound at Johns Hopkins than they are at Harvard? Does this group two scientist have a relative in a vegetative state that we don't know about? Is somebody on the board at this or that research hospital a member of the RNC or the DNC? Can it be that we have only these facets upon which to focus our scrutiny when everything else is equal?
I think that we are left with very unscientific choices when the people in whom we trust for "scientific truth" do not agree. I also believe that this is the reason why a class like CSCL 3331 is more important than ever before. A country divided so closely along political lines, full of vituperative rhetoric, polarized and angry discourse on nearly any topic can not possibly wield so much wealth (economic, cultural, technological, power) without many people to question not only the scientists and their conclusions, but their paradigmatic approaches to their conclusions - are the conclusions TOO steeped in four hundred year-old methodologies? We must watch the watchers and the conclusions they reach, not so much because we don't trust them (though perhaps, sometimes, too often, we do not), but because there is great need to be constantly vigilant, constantly aware of the fact that "empirical and deductive" conclusions become laws, become policies, become funding initiatives worth many billions of dollars. Nothing can be more important right now.
outspoken skater Johnny Weir
young man speaks his mind on the issue of gender roles. Also, skates sexily to Lady Gaga. Yow.
Skating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTaVkbl3Dp4
Speaking out about gender criticism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6-MAmhGKsU
Just idle thoughts - androgynous men are so attractive.
Skating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTaVkbl3Dp4
Speaking out about gender criticism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6-MAmhGKsU
Just idle thoughts - androgynous men are so attractive.
Friday, February 26, 2010
How could this be scientific?
This is an article that my mom just sent me... it really ties into what we've been discussing about having a healthy skepticism about conclusions drawn in the sciences.
The title says it all: "
The title says it all: "
Liberals and Atheists Smarter? Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human Evolutionary History, Study Finds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htmThursday, February 25, 2010
ha-ha/preview
I walked home from class thinking about the project we are devising for y'all for next Thursday.
It made me think of my nephew, whom I wrote about in an earlier post--he had Asperger's and was so weird and silly and awesome. He used to quiz my dad on say, apostles, or geological eras and then my dad would fail and Matthew would say, "It's okay Grandpa, you can study and I'll let you take it again."
At any rate, he had this project at school called Flat Stanley, which a lot of elementary schools are doing in recent years. You mail this drawing of this cartoon guy, Flat Stanley, to your grandparents and whoever will participate and they mail back postcards of where Flat Stanley has been. Matthew's class brainstormed where they would go, that they couldn't normally go, if they were Flat Stanley. Matthew said he'd go in people's pants. Which, okay, could be a little creepy and resulted in some further conversation, but it's also pretty honest and hilarious.
It occurred to me today that we are all spending alot of time (and money, too, I guess) getting into people's pants this semester. We are Flat Stanley!
It made me think of my nephew, whom I wrote about in an earlier post--he had Asperger's and was so weird and silly and awesome. He used to quiz my dad on say, apostles, or geological eras and then my dad would fail and Matthew would say, "It's okay Grandpa, you can study and I'll let you take it again."
At any rate, he had this project at school called Flat Stanley, which a lot of elementary schools are doing in recent years. You mail this drawing of this cartoon guy, Flat Stanley, to your grandparents and whoever will participate and they mail back postcards of where Flat Stanley has been. Matthew's class brainstormed where they would go, that they couldn't normally go, if they were Flat Stanley. Matthew said he'd go in people's pants. Which, okay, could be a little creepy and resulted in some further conversation, but it's also pretty honest and hilarious.
It occurred to me today that we are all spending alot of time (and money, too, I guess) getting into people's pants this semester. We are Flat Stanley!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Interesting Article
Found an interesting article about how a female-only lizards do not need men to survive:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/secrets-of-asexuality?npu=1&mbid=yhp
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/secrets-of-asexuality?npu=1&mbid=yhp
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
might be of interest since Catholicism came up in this weeks posts
http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2010/bishopslossfaithful.asp
I have this vague memory that when I was trained in as a doula at Woodwinds Hospital (part of health east/st. john's/st. joe's) they said something about how there was one un-Catholic floor of the hospital, so if you, say, wanted your tubes tied after having a baby, they'd send you to that floor, but i don't know if i am remembering this correctly, but it was along those lines. at any rate, i hadn't before realized that if you are in a catholic hospital your care is affected by catholic rules/ideologies. i suppose it makes sense if they are paying for it, but i was surprised to hear it.
the above article is about bishops insisting on adding an abortion amendment to the House's health care bill, after both parties had pretty much agreed to leave abortion out of the health care reform bill...
I have this vague memory that when I was trained in as a doula at Woodwinds Hospital (part of health east/st. john's/st. joe's) they said something about how there was one un-Catholic floor of the hospital, so if you, say, wanted your tubes tied after having a baby, they'd send you to that floor, but i don't know if i am remembering this correctly, but it was along those lines. at any rate, i hadn't before realized that if you are in a catholic hospital your care is affected by catholic rules/ideologies. i suppose it makes sense if they are paying for it, but i was surprised to hear it.
the above article is about bishops insisting on adding an abortion amendment to the House's health care bill, after both parties had pretty much agreed to leave abortion out of the health care reform bill...
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Blindly accepting science
I read an article about a study conducted on chocolate. The research was done to determine whether their are health benefits in the chocolate or non at all. The study proved that flavanol antioxidants were present in coco powder, unsweetened baking chocolate and dark chocolate. After looking further into the article the study was done by a scientist from Hersey's and sponsored by Hersey's.
When we hear scientific study we believe that this study will tell us the truth because we view science as factually based. But in reality these studies could be based on politics or who is paying the money. Our view of reality is clouded by what is taught to us all the way through our education that science is collecting facts and truthful evidence but in the real world these studies present just the information that the company that will benefit fro it wants us to hear. Then these "findings" we blindly accept as facts. This is because we put false trust in "science" that isn't at all the honest science that we learn in school. Like Decarte says ".. I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true,.." (meditation I). We have also fallen into that slippery slope by accepting scientific studies to be based on honest facts and not as a propaganda tool.
To solve this rose colored view on today's scientist it is best to research a study. Who was it done by? Who sponsored it? Who was it done on? These are all questions that could solve our naive view on the science studies of today.
Bibliography
"Meditations on first philosophy." Moodle. Web..
"Study shows flavanol antioxidant content of US chocolate and cocoa-containing products." EurekAlert! - Science News. Web. 22 Feb. 2010..
When we hear scientific study we believe that this study will tell us the truth because we view science as factually based. But in reality these studies could be based on politics or who is paying the money. Our view of reality is clouded by what is taught to us all the way through our education that science is collecting facts and truthful evidence but in the real world these studies present just the information that the company that will benefit fro it wants us to hear. Then these "findings" we blindly accept as facts. This is because we put false trust in "science" that isn't at all the honest science that we learn in school. Like Decarte says ".. I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true,.." (meditation I). We have also fallen into that slippery slope by accepting scientific studies to be based on honest facts and not as a propaganda tool.
To solve this rose colored view on today's scientist it is best to research a study. Who was it done by? Who sponsored it? Who was it done on? These are all questions that could solve our naive view on the science studies of today.
Bibliography
"Meditations on first philosophy." Moodle. Web.
"Study shows flavanol antioxidant content of US chocolate and cocoa-containing products." EurekAlert! - Science News. Web. 22 Feb. 2010.
The Secret is Out
In a very recent past life, I worked for a number of years at a used bookstore in a charming (and blessedly literate) suburb of Minneapolis. For the most part, my job consisted of about five hours of shelving and selling books per day, plus one hour for lunch, and another two hours manning the "buy counter," where I was charged with the frequently terrifying duty of telling people exactly how much those four-hundred-fifty Harlequin Romance paperbacks they brought in were worth ($2). One of the more enjoyable parts of the work was tracking which books sold most briskly, and to what kinds of people (my, how we love to stereotype!). This I mostly did in my head, but my co-workers and I loved to construct elaborate systems of prediction as to which style of flannel shirt predicts the purchase of a Louis L'Amour novel, and which predicts an armful of Dave Eggers, for instance. Every once in a while, though, a trend would pop up that would blow all our carefully-crafted schematics all to hell, and a certain book would seemingly appeal to EVERYONE. Usually, these books were Young-Adult Fantasy novels or memoirs of horrific sex or drug addictions. One book, however, confounded us like no other, and its enduring popularity continues to haunt my very nightmares.
That book is "The Secret." A "documentary" film has been made out of it, and the trailer can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/asecretagent?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/34/san61qTwWsU
Okay, so the trailer ends with "this is the great secret of life." I hear you asking, "okay, well, just what the hell IS this "Secret" anyway?" Its proponents and adherents call it "the Law of Attraction," and they claim that--among many others, Newton, Einstein, Machiavelli, Jesus, and yes, even good ol' Rene Descartes himself were privy to it. What's this law? Apparently, the best way to describe it is to claim that, in all of nature, "the positive attracts the positive." They justify this with some kind of weird mumbo-jumbo about quantum physics and gravity, and presto-change-o, they go on to conclude that it pertains to human desires and fates as well. To wit: if you want something--anything, be it wealth, health, power, a girlfriend/boyfriend/hermfriend, etc.--all you need to do is visualize it hard enough, and it will come to pass! Neat-o! They're essentially telling us to use the placebo effect consciously, and instead of limiting its effects to our own bodies and minds, to change the world around us by thinking real hard.
Any amount of reflection on this idea sends the ethics scholar's mind reeling: what, for example do we make of the millions of homeless Haitians upon whom the rainy season is preparing to descend? They just didn't want to NOT be shaken into unimaginable suffering and soul-wrenching destitution badly enough? Or that, if they acknowledge their prior lack of "proactive visualization" as a mistake and resolve to think harder about relief, that their ravaged nation will fix itself? Philosophically, it's kind of the theory of karma, but turned inside-out and upside-down. It allows someone to feel utterly justified in their self-obsessed covetousness, while simultaneously allowing him to blame those less fortunate than himself for their own conditions, thereby absolving him of any ethical responsibility to lend a helping hand.
Even the science is almost cartoonishly off-base. "The positive attracts the positive?" Really? Anyone who's ever had any experience with magnets can tell you that, in nature, the positive actually tends to attract the negative, but that's still missing the general point: the fact that the word "positive" has several distinct meanings.
This whole thing is rooted in a kind of weird confusion of Cartesian thinking. The mind is elevated to a place above the body, but also above the external laws of the universe--like chance, conservation of energy (after all, if everyone thought really hard about having all the money in the world, where would that get us?), and the fact that, sometimes, when you want something, you have to work really hard to get it.
I'd go on, but the deadline's here, and I'll just pop more stuff in in the coming days. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the future of solipsism. Behold, THE SECRET TO TEEN POWER!
http://www.youtube.com/user/asecretagent?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/0/O7ASvr7bF-I
Sleep tight.
That book is "The Secret." A "documentary" film has been made out of it, and the trailer can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/asecretagent?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/34/san61qTwWsU
Okay, so the trailer ends with "this is the great secret of life." I hear you asking, "okay, well, just what the hell IS this "Secret" anyway?" Its proponents and adherents call it "the Law of Attraction," and they claim that--among many others, Newton, Einstein, Machiavelli, Jesus, and yes, even good ol' Rene Descartes himself were privy to it. What's this law? Apparently, the best way to describe it is to claim that, in all of nature, "the positive attracts the positive." They justify this with some kind of weird mumbo-jumbo about quantum physics and gravity, and presto-change-o, they go on to conclude that it pertains to human desires and fates as well. To wit: if you want something--anything, be it wealth, health, power, a girlfriend/boyfriend/hermfriend, etc.--all you need to do is visualize it hard enough, and it will come to pass! Neat-o! They're essentially telling us to use the placebo effect consciously, and instead of limiting its effects to our own bodies and minds, to change the world around us by thinking real hard.
Any amount of reflection on this idea sends the ethics scholar's mind reeling: what, for example do we make of the millions of homeless Haitians upon whom the rainy season is preparing to descend? They just didn't want to NOT be shaken into unimaginable suffering and soul-wrenching destitution badly enough? Or that, if they acknowledge their prior lack of "proactive visualization" as a mistake and resolve to think harder about relief, that their ravaged nation will fix itself? Philosophically, it's kind of the theory of karma, but turned inside-out and upside-down. It allows someone to feel utterly justified in their self-obsessed covetousness, while simultaneously allowing him to blame those less fortunate than himself for their own conditions, thereby absolving him of any ethical responsibility to lend a helping hand.
Even the science is almost cartoonishly off-base. "The positive attracts the positive?" Really? Anyone who's ever had any experience with magnets can tell you that, in nature, the positive actually tends to attract the negative, but that's still missing the general point: the fact that the word "positive" has several distinct meanings.
This whole thing is rooted in a kind of weird confusion of Cartesian thinking. The mind is elevated to a place above the body, but also above the external laws of the universe--like chance, conservation of energy (after all, if everyone thought really hard about having all the money in the world, where would that get us?), and the fact that, sometimes, when you want something, you have to work really hard to get it.
I'd go on, but the deadline's here, and I'll just pop more stuff in in the coming days. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the future of solipsism. Behold, THE SECRET TO TEEN POWER!
http://www.youtube.com/user/asecretagent?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/0/O7ASvr7bF-I
Sleep tight.
Newton Had It Wrong
I'm just going to start off with a quick note on how we use the word "Cartesian" in class. It seems to come up in many ways and in many different forms concerning how people organize and make sense of the world. I find that we seem to put the Cartesian way of looking at things on a bit of a pedestal. There are many other systems for describing points, planes. paths, that do not use Cartesian coordinates. All equally as useful in their own respects and applications, and in some cases better than using Cartesian coordinates. Anyway, that's all i have to say about that
I want to spend this post talking about how science and reason have evolved over the past few hundred years. I think that all too often scientists are looked at as stubborn lab rats of sorts. We have mentioned in class a few times about the LAW of gravity. I am certainly not denying this law, i won't be jumping off a building hoping to fly any time soon. However, in science (especially in Newtons time) the word law is used where theory should be instead. Peoples need for logical and reasonable arrangement of phenomena was around long before Descartes, just like gravity was around before Newton.
What many people don't completely realize is that although Newtons "laws" describe (very accurately) the kinematics around us, he did in fact have it all wrong. I know how crazy that sounds, nearly everything is based upon newtons laws. Ok "wrong" may have been too harsh. He was just not completely right. Where his mind went wrong was when he though of time as a background for which all events play out separate from. However, a lonely patent boy in the early 1900's showed that time and space were in fact closely tied together, a dialectic of sorts. Newton made great equations describing how fast something would fall when released, but he did not realize the actual source of this force, he could not have imagined that the space around him was in fact bent.
Again, i must stress that all of newtons laws work beautifully in nearly all applications, certainly all that would happen on our earth. But if you start moving very fast, or have a huge mass, Newtonian laws break down. Just like relativistic theories break down at an atomic scale.
Anyway, that entire science history talk was just meant to show that people are able to do great things when they are allowed to make sense of the world framed with a Cartesian outlook. Although the science today works for all of the applications we need it for, it will without a doubt be "fudged" with time.
Fausto-Sterling's Calculus
As much as I would love to say that there are more than two sexes and be inclusive, I can't really neglect the fact that there are two major combinations of sex chromosomes: XX and XY. Although there are also XO (Turner syndrome) and XXY (Klinefelter syndrome), those two are consistently classified as (infertile) females and males, respectively. I had to do a report on Klinefelter syndrome in high school biology, but only studied it as it pertains to childhood, not puberty. I'm not sure of sex/gender issues in XO and XXY adults.
Anyway, while the XX/XY sex is pretty well cemented at birth, the effectiveness of the enzymes and RNA that process and read the DNA is in question. Despite political correctness telling me not to, I would say that when sex chromosomes or hormones are misread or ignored completely, that is a disorder as opposed to "just" a difference.
However, I would argue that there are several more than two genders. The distinction I make here is that "sex" only pertains to the chromosomes you own, and "gender" pertains to the functionality of the chromosomes, hormones, culture, feelings, sexual preference, and so on. (Note: This is just my own opinion. Functionality may well be classified under sex for some people, but it seems more like a gender thing to me.)
Which brings me to the number of genders. While two seems like way too few, six also seems like too few to acknowledge all the distinctions. Even among people with the same hormone condition (take AIS for example), the degree of severity is different, the features that develop are different. If one AIS individual has a vagina and another has undescended testicles instead, are they the same gender? Anne Fausto-Sterling introduces so many nuances to seemingly different genders, it's hard to keep up with it all. Trying to count the number of genders here is like calculus to me. It's like trying to take the integral under a "bell curve for femaleness" or "bell curve for maleness." There seem to be infinite genders, depending on how small your "dx" slice is. In which case, isn't that the opposite of the point of feminism? I always thought that the point of feminism was solidarity among women (including ferms, I'd suppose) but all this calculus-esque divisions and bell curves and classification, classification, classification just seems to be dividing people in a negative way. What's the use of a gender if there is only 1 person included in it?
Anyway, while the XX/XY sex is pretty well cemented at birth, the effectiveness of the enzymes and RNA that process and read the DNA is in question. Despite political correctness telling me not to, I would say that when sex chromosomes or hormones are misread or ignored completely, that is a disorder as opposed to "just" a difference.
However, I would argue that there are several more than two genders. The distinction I make here is that "sex" only pertains to the chromosomes you own, and "gender" pertains to the functionality of the chromosomes, hormones, culture, feelings, sexual preference, and so on. (Note: This is just my own opinion. Functionality may well be classified under sex for some people, but it seems more like a gender thing to me.)
Which brings me to the number of genders. While two seems like way too few, six also seems like too few to acknowledge all the distinctions. Even among people with the same hormone condition (take AIS for example), the degree of severity is different, the features that develop are different. If one AIS individual has a vagina and another has undescended testicles instead, are they the same gender? Anne Fausto-Sterling introduces so many nuances to seemingly different genders, it's hard to keep up with it all. Trying to count the number of genders here is like calculus to me. It's like trying to take the integral under a "bell curve for femaleness" or "bell curve for maleness." There seem to be infinite genders, depending on how small your "dx" slice is. In which case, isn't that the opposite of the point of feminism? I always thought that the point of feminism was solidarity among women (including ferms, I'd suppose) but all this calculus-esque divisions and bell curves and classification, classification, classification just seems to be dividing people in a negative way. What's the use of a gender if there is only 1 person included in it?
Theresa Neumann and Catholicism
The discussions we've had in class regarding Theresa Neumann and Twinkle have particularly piqued my interest because I had heard of these two individuals before, and have asked myself the very same questions we had been throwing back and forth in class. The most important and redundant of them all: Were they faking it? Or did it actually happen?
I was raised as a Catholic, and even though I'm not sure what religion I associate myself with now (if I even associate myself with any religion), I remember many of the thoughts, beliefs, and stories that I was told while growing up in my Catholic family and while at mass every Sunday. Everyone spoke of such odd and unexplainable instances as 'miracles' and 'works of God'. But I always wondered if it was ever important for Catholics to think outside of religion, and try to associate scientific meanings and factual proof to such situations as Theresa and Twinkle, instead of just readily accepting this odd rarity as a sign from the heavens.
With my personal experience with many Catholics (and I don't mean to generalize, and I especially don't mean to offend anyone. I am only stating my own personal experiences) is that they are very stubborn and self-righteous people who claim to be messengers of God and fully accepting of everyone, but in reality only try to stomp out the beliefs of others who think differently from their religion/way of life, and are the most critical of all people, even other Catholics. I have had numerous conversations with Catholics in which all I do is simply point out a flaw in their understanding or ideas, and I am immediately criticized for ;doubting God and his ways!!! You terrible, terrible, person!!!" If that doesn't just scream accepting and understanding, I don't know what does! (sarcasm)
I think the Cartesian in me loves to find solutions and logical answers to whatever questions and mysteries there are out there, and just because we might not know answers now, doesn't mean we can't find them in the future. However, Catholics (specifically my parents) who are wonderful people, don't get me wrong, I think find comfort in just assigning the unknown as God's work, and claiming things happen the way they do because "That's the way God wanted it to be." It's almost as though God is used as a cop-out...used to validate an argument, when they can't find real reasons or support in anything else. And instead of just 'agreeing to disagree,' they have to go to the lengths of badmouthing and bashing the opposition, for reasons and insecurities unknown to me.
Now, thinking as a Cartesian once more, Theresa apparently lived without food and water for many, many years. If this were the case, for one: it is impossible for her to have stayed alive this long without any substantial nutrition other than wine and the Eucharist, and two: by eating and drinking absolutely nothing else, she would be in such an emaciated condition (unless of course she pounded down the wine and shoveled in the Eucharist like it was Chex Mix). In the video, Theresa looks as though she hasn't missed a meal in her life. Maybe it really is a miracle, I am not completely opposed or disbelieving of the idea that that could be the actual explanation, but with such outrageous circumstances, the Cartesian in me finds it pretty hard to not call foul.
A Miracle or Just Plain Luck?
Thanks James for posting this article:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/index.html?eref=rss_latest
It is absolutely amazing that someone is apparently HIV free after a stem cell transplant, but he did have a relapse a year before this article was written. So technically, he had two transplants.
For some people, they may pounce on this as an act of God. I try to look at things like this with logic and reason. The article states that the mutation of the cell is found in one to three percent of people of European descent. I believe that there is potential (with my okay amount of scientific knowledge) to possibly work with this mutation, to hopefully eliminate HIV safely. The doctors state that getting a transplant to shut down your immune system and re-start it with new stem cells is too dangerous (a third of people die from it).
Now this question comes to mind: Is the risk worth the reward?
To me - Yes because if I had HIV, it won't be soon before long before it kills me.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/index.html?eref=rss_latest
It is absolutely amazing that someone is apparently HIV free after a stem cell transplant, but he did have a relapse a year before this article was written. So technically, he had two transplants.
For some people, they may pounce on this as an act of God. I try to look at things like this with logic and reason. The article states that the mutation of the cell is found in one to three percent of people of European descent. I believe that there is potential (with my okay amount of scientific knowledge) to possibly work with this mutation, to hopefully eliminate HIV safely. The doctors state that getting a transplant to shut down your immune system and re-start it with new stem cells is too dangerous (a third of people die from it).
Now this question comes to mind: Is the risk worth the reward?
To me - Yes because if I had HIV, it won't be soon before long before it kills me.
Eleventy Billion Sexes
I imagine that a lot of people in America would take objection to the statement “there exist six biological sexes.” Many, including the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, would insist there are two—male and female—along with some chromosomal oddities that don’t deserve their own categories due to deformation and low numbers (Fausto-Sterling p. 78).
In 1993, Fausto-Sterling asserted there were five sexes—males, females, herms, merms, ferms (p. 78). These categories take into account chromosomes and genitalia only, not sexual preference like the scientists who see differences for each category in the brain do (p. 11).
If not five, is six enough? If so-called “sexual preference” creates neurologically evident new sexes, shouldn’t there be at least eight sexes to include asexual (or, I suppose, sexually indifferent) males and females?
If we take biology and sexual preference (or lack thereof) in all possible combinations—including desire for merms, herms, ferms, asexuals, minors, animals, balloons, what have you in the mix, what number are we at? I don’t want to draw the chart or do the math. And what about tables 4.3 and 4.4 in “Sexing the Body” comparing psychological outcomes of intersex children as (un)altered by surgery and raised as male/female/merm/herm/ferm by their parents—can each of those be sex categories? And remind me which of these things constitute “gender” instead?
It seems in the world of Fausto-Sterling no matter how much you’re “battling against the constraints of our sex/gender system,” you’re bound to be looking for some sort of order. It could be in the name of understanding the world around you or safely categorizing people so that their medical treatment can be accurate…whatever the motivation, everyone is doing it.
In short, it seems we can’t not categorize ourselves and each other. Hello, Descartes. Hello, Cartesians. We want logic, we want truth. We want to fit it all onto one page so we can save ink. We are brainwashed, and either we don’t know it or we don’t know how to change it. I wonder vaguely, pointlessly, whether aliens (the Martiany kind from space) are as scientific and Cartesian as speculation has portrayed them if they didn’t have Descartes. Though I suppose they probably had someone similar.
I imagine there are some brave studiers of gender and sexuality out there who rebuke charts and tables, instead demanding we knock down these boundaries altogether and just be. It sounds beautifully organic and post-Cartesian, but would it work?
In 1993, Fausto-Sterling asserted there were five sexes—males, females, herms, merms, ferms (p. 78). These categories take into account chromosomes and genitalia only, not sexual preference like the scientists who see differences for each category in the brain do (p. 11).
If not five, is six enough? If so-called “sexual preference” creates neurologically evident new sexes, shouldn’t there be at least eight sexes to include asexual (or, I suppose, sexually indifferent) males and females?
If we take biology and sexual preference (or lack thereof) in all possible combinations—including desire for merms, herms, ferms, asexuals, minors, animals, balloons, what have you in the mix, what number are we at? I don’t want to draw the chart or do the math. And what about tables 4.3 and 4.4 in “Sexing the Body” comparing psychological outcomes of intersex children as (un)altered by surgery and raised as male/female/merm/herm/ferm by their parents—can each of those be sex categories? And remind me which of these things constitute “gender” instead?
It seems in the world of Fausto-Sterling no matter how much you’re “battling against the constraints of our sex/gender system,” you’re bound to be looking for some sort of order. It could be in the name of understanding the world around you or safely categorizing people so that their medical treatment can be accurate…whatever the motivation, everyone is doing it.
In short, it seems we can’t not categorize ourselves and each other. Hello, Descartes. Hello, Cartesians. We want logic, we want truth. We want to fit it all onto one page so we can save ink. We are brainwashed, and either we don’t know it or we don’t know how to change it. I wonder vaguely, pointlessly, whether aliens (the Martiany kind from space) are as scientific and Cartesian as speculation has portrayed them if they didn’t have Descartes. Though I suppose they probably had someone similar.
I imagine there are some brave studiers of gender and sexuality out there who rebuke charts and tables, instead demanding we knock down these boundaries altogether and just be. It sounds beautifully organic and post-Cartesian, but would it work?
The Ghost in the Embryo
Descartes's "I think, therefore I am" leads to inquiry in which Descartes has many reasons for. We are to take an almost revealed or visible truth and use that logic as a starting point. Descartes was interested in the relationship between mind and body (sometimes referred to as matter), describing that the mind is essence of knowledge. The mind contains doubts, beliefs, and hopes. Having his idea of dualism, where the mind and the body are separate entities, Descartes has managed to inhabit Steven Pinker, which can be seen in his work The Blank Slate. A doctrine of The Blank Slate, "The Ghost in the Machine," stems from Descartes idea that the mind and the body are separate. Pinker says, " 'intelligence' can be explained in mechanistic terms, by thinking of beliefs as a kind of information, thinking as a kind of computation...and that emotions and motives can be understood in cybernetic terms: as mechanisms of feedback and control." It would seem that he is putting the idea forth, that the body is not needed in the mechanism of feedback and control. In support of Pinker, Crick writes, "all of our experiences thoughts, feelings, yearnings and emotions consist of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain." Here is another example of the body not be needed; its a separate entity. Descartes advocated that reason is the center and core of all knowledge which is therefore inherently separate from the body and is supported by Pinker, or is it?
Reading further in Pinker's work, he suggests that the theory of human nature is based on The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine. He also says that these doctrines have been challenged by the sciences of mind, brain, genes and evolution. These challenges reveal Pinker's thoughts. When discussing the Blank Slate, he brings up an idea that "implied dogmas...could not be treated as self-evident truths that just grew out of the brain, but had to be justified, by experiences." It is the mention of experiences that Pinker elicits some idea that the mind and the body really are needed together. The "togetherness" of the mind and body is also believed by others that say, "man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become, he has learned, acquired from his culture, from the manmade part of the environment, from other human beings." He suggests that a body is needed in order for experiences to lead to learning.
You might be thinking where does this possibly fit into my life? With the recent stem cell research, it is possible to rid a body of HIV. Finally a cure! But, ethically, will the possibility of curing HIV and potentially AIDs, be a good enough reason to obtain stem cells in any way possible? The largest debate in regards to stem cells regard embryonic stem cells that can be obtained from an embryo. In fact, the debate stems from a Cartesian viewpoint and ultimately, a viewpoint of the Ghost in the Machine, that Pinker analyzes. Many believe that obtaining stem cells is killing a baby, but is all boils down to when you believe the "ensoulment takes play in embryonic development." "I think, therefore I am" comes to mind. No pun intended. Does an embryo become a tiny human when it can "think?" By Descartes's definition to be requires one to think, therefore a mind would need a body. His mind/body dualism seems to rebuke one of his most famous sayings. What do you think would be Descartes's idea about obtaining embryonic stem cells? Does ensoulment time matter?
Bugs, Sex, and Gender.
I really do think as humans it is our instinct to categorize things. Scientists long for this methodology. They find a new bug in the forest, get all excited, put it in a kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, species. Hooray. Science minds seek order. As a child you are taught (and observe) how everything is classified-race, religion, gender...bugs! But it is not until you grow older that you begin to look not at what is classified, but how it is and what that Actually means. There exists such a large societal impact by how we view things. Just look at gender. Anne Fausto-Sterling (from now referred to as AFS). She sought to literally "pick apart" what we as children thought to be a universal truth--that there are only boys or girls. For her this distinction just doesnt cut it. "Sex" sometimes cannot be defined so easily (like Patino) and gender is in itself so complex that one could write volumes on their own.
So then, how does decartes inhabit her? As she describes, gender has been defined as "social forces that mold behavior." At first, I was like what? But then if you consider that societal structures are in fact what makes one think, act like and accept who they are (man/woman, something else) you see that this may full well be true. And, she posits that there are more than the two sexes. Again, these are her opinions--but where does it stop? Someone not too interested in the subjuct might say that there are only men and woman and those that fall in between are simply not normal or 'diseased.' Or you could just go crazy and say that there exists as many as sex/gender categories as there are people in the world. Yay, now everybody is special. I'm an advocate for equality, but lets face it--people are different. We look at men and women differently and therefore have to treat them differently. Is this unfair in some instances? Probably. But I often fail to see how this could be approached differently. Adding more categories will simply set up a sort of gradient of unfairness as opposed to the simple "unfair for women" or "unfair for men system" we have now. You want to be unbamboozled? Too bad. I don't mean to be negative. But any societal construct has the inate ability to discriminate and isolate. I'm not saying we shouldn't investigate our current nomenclature system for sex/gender and how it impacts those 'constrained' by it, we definitely should. But any action we may want to take must take place within the system we currently have.
So then, how does decartes inhabit her? As she describes, gender has been defined as "social forces that mold behavior." At first, I was like what? But then if you consider that societal structures are in fact what makes one think, act like and accept who they are (man/woman, something else) you see that this may full well be true. And, she posits that there are more than the two sexes. Again, these are her opinions--but where does it stop? Someone not too interested in the subjuct might say that there are only men and woman and those that fall in between are simply not normal or 'diseased.' Or you could just go crazy and say that there exists as many as sex/gender categories as there are people in the world. Yay, now everybody is special. I'm an advocate for equality, but lets face it--people are different. We look at men and women differently and therefore have to treat them differently. Is this unfair in some instances? Probably. But I often fail to see how this could be approached differently. Adding more categories will simply set up a sort of gradient of unfairness as opposed to the simple "unfair for women" or "unfair for men system" we have now. You want to be unbamboozled? Too bad. I don't mean to be negative. But any societal construct has the inate ability to discriminate and isolate. I'm not saying we shouldn't investigate our current nomenclature system for sex/gender and how it impacts those 'constrained' by it, we definitely should. But any action we may want to take must take place within the system we currently have.
was it real
i chose to write about Blessed Teresa and her wounds. from what i gathered from the Internet and from class, it was said she went several decades without substantial food and water, and her wounds never became infected. When i saw this i did not know what to think of it, i mean a person cannot live without food and water, but at the same time her wounds never became infected. Neither of these things should occur, but somehow they did, be it real or fictional.
scientifically a body can not go more than 8 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. For the Blessed Teresa to go more than 4 decades without these things seems impossible. peoples faith can steer them to believe that these events did actually happen. That a higher power kept her alive for all those years as a sign of a miracle. the Catholic church put the story of a miracle out to reconnect people with the church. To see the truth people need to try to get rid of the society's influence, and look past religion.
scientifically a body can not go more than 8 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. For the Blessed Teresa to go more than 4 decades without these things seems impossible. peoples faith can steer them to believe that these events did actually happen. That a higher power kept her alive for all those years as a sign of a miracle. the Catholic church put the story of a miracle out to reconnect people with the church. To see the truth people need to try to get rid of the society's influence, and look past religion.
Insert clever title here about Decartes and Pinker
In the "Blank Slate," Pinker sets up his piece in a logical procession, hitting points 'A,' 'B' and 'C.' To do this in any other way in today's post-Cartesian world wouldn't make any sense. Logic has permeated through our every day world, especially in academia. Toulmin's model for arguments and counterarguments are a good example of this. The Toulmin model is easy to follow and consists of six parts - claim, ground, warrant, backing, rebuttal and qualification.
His claim: "That means that there has been a need for a new theory of human nature, one not tied to fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible [...] I suggest that the standard secular theory of human nature that's taken place is based on three doctrines, each of which can be associated for mnemonic purposes with a dead white European male" (1-2).
Pinker then goes into talking about the theories of tabula rasa, noble savage, and ghost in the machine (his ground, warrant and backing). After that he talks about the ways each are flawed and the scientific evidence that disproves the theory. The science he talks about is principally founded on dividing and dissecting the human body and nature and using Cartesian maps and theory.
He even begins one of his paragraphs with "Let me begin with..." giving us a logical list to follow. Though Pinker argues against the ghost in the machine, he is still using the Cartesian method to argue against it.
His claim: "That means that there has been a need for a new theory of human nature, one not tied to fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible [...] I suggest that the standard secular theory of human nature that's taken place is based on three doctrines, each of which can be associated for mnemonic purposes with a dead white European male" (1-2).
Pinker then goes into talking about the theories of tabula rasa, noble savage, and ghost in the machine (his ground, warrant and backing). After that he talks about the ways each are flawed and the scientific evidence that disproves the theory. The science he talks about is principally founded on dividing and dissecting the human body and nature and using Cartesian maps and theory.
He even begins one of his paragraphs with "Let me begin with..." giving us a logical list to follow. Though Pinker argues against the ghost in the machine, he is still using the Cartesian method to argue against it.
Teresa Neumann
I became very intrigued about Teresa Neumann after we were first shown the short video on her during class. I have been reading a lot about her today from many different articles online (however legitimate they might be?). One thing that I’ve gathered is that none of them can confirm or deny the events that happened during her life, such as Robin was saying. I am a person who likes to find answers and conclusions and this is why it is such an interesting case to me; because it cannot be solved. As soon as you think you’ve got an answer, it ends up being inconclusive. For example, blood was never seen flowing from her wounds… ok great, so she faked it with menstrual blood…. Not so fast… She had visible open wounds that as far as her physicians were concerned never became infected...Very troubling indeed.
Descartes seems to inhibit my (as well as many others) ability to believe this is caused by divine acts and not just misleading behavior. This is because as a Cartesian (as we suggested), I am encouraged to think logically. This is why it is so hard to believe that Teresa ate nothing but the holy sacrament for 40 years and suffered no ill effects. This just can’t be true. We’ve been told all our lives that food is essential for survival and this is so instilled in our view of the world that it can’t be changed by ONE inspiring story, such as that of the Blessed Teresa. We are bamboozled because we, as humans, seek answers, which is something that we cannot find in this case. This is because it happened so long ago and we didn’t have the tools to properly record what happened. I believe that if a scenario like this were to play out today, we would be able to prove or disprove it in a hurry. I’m sure it would be no surprise to anyone if it was proved to be fake, but if it were proven to be real it would be earth shattering. It would probably cause a renewed sense of faith and drastic ethical change around the world. I’m not sure that this would be a good thing, although in theory it seems like it would be. Many would now feel that they have a new reason to live. But when I think more about it, I can also see many problems occurring. For example, religious animosity would greatly increase. But now I’m just rambling contemplating what’s to come.
GENDER*POWER!
GENDER*POWER
Years ago, when I was getting married, one of the traditional things we did as part of our marrying was exchange rings. No blood diamonds, of course, but gold--from Canada--crafted by a jeweler in Dinkytown. His casting process used fingerprints in beeswax, which he’d developed while doing a project with his daughter’s elementary school students, based on an exhibition he’d seen in the early 80s of Picasso’s work at the Walker.
On one of the visits to his studio, he decided to tell me his theory of the downfall of mankind. He gave me a full description, so full that my meter expired and the ever-vigilant U of MN traffic police slapped a fine on my window--make my wedding ring all-the-more valuable. His theory was that humans had developed language before being fully ready for it, and hence had begun to categorize the world in ways which muddled things, over-simplified them, and stunted our development. He thought that our advancements in language jumped us ahead mechanically, technically, but that maybe our sense of wisdom and understanding were not quite keeping up, and so we were actually destroying things more than building things. One Jeweler’s opinion.
As we seen in Fausto-Sterling’s book, it’s so very likely that there are more than two of us types of “man.” Seems silly when you write it like that, of COURSE there are more than two types of people. So she is saying, too, that in building a world with two genders, we are also destroying other realities. The idea of gender has such power. I feel trapped at the moment between two dueling thoughts related to gender:
1. The ideas of Fausto-Sterling are truly liberating, allowing people to manifest physically in many different ways, emotionally and socially in many different ways. Distinctions of gender can be harmful, used for prejudice and false notions of power or superiority, which lead to violence, slavery, etc. Boo gender roles!
2. The identity I hold of myself as a woman, and the connection I feel to women across the world. The notions presented by burgeoning movements such as Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky, which highlights the research that giving micro-loans to women leads to more good for the family and the community than giving it to men does. This is one of the things that make me feel like the idea of “woman” is also very powerful. Yay GirlPower!
I want to know, when you watch this video, how does it make you feel?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/20/magazine/kristof-audioss/index.html
Does it make you feel differently if you identify as a man or as a woman?
I realize the film clip is of course set up to make you cry, or maybe stand up and shout. But there is a sense of solidarity I feel with women around the world, ever since I first truly, truly began to grasp in a real way how much in the present and in the future the Women’s movement is, and NOT just back there in the 1970’s as was the impression I’d been given in my earlier years of education. This sense came when I was a 19-year-old University of Minnesota student, taking a class on images of women in the history of art. I read Betty Friedan and really felt how this whole gender thing was a spectre hanging over the heads of all of us, each and every one of us. Everywhere. Which maybe brings me pack to thought 1--two ideas of gender doesn't work so well, but I still have this nagging sense of thought 2, that I must admit leads me to feel a little sad when Women’s Studies Departments become Gender Studies Departments.
Here’s another NY Times excerpt:
(“The Daughter Deficit” NY Times Magazine, Tina Rosenberg 8/19/09)
“It is rarely good to be female anywhere in the developing world today, but in India and China the situation is dire: in those countries, more than 1.5 million fewer girls are born each year than demographics would predict, and more girls die before they turn 5 than would be expected. (In China in 2007, there were 17.3 million births — and a million missing girls.) Millions more grow up stunted, physically and intellectually, because they are denied the health care and the education that their brothers receive.
…
To be sure, China and India are poor. But in both nations, girls are actually more likely to be missing in richer areas than in poorer ones, and in cities than in rural areas. Having more money, a better education and (in India) belonging to a higher caste all raise the probability that a family will discriminate against its daughters. The bias against girls applies in some of the wealthiest and best-educated nations in the world, including, in recent years, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. It also holds among Indian immigrants in Britain and among Chinese, Indian and South Korean immigrants in the United States. In the last few years, the percentage of missing girls has been among the highest in the middle-income, high-education nations of the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
….
So for parents, investing in a daughter is truly, in the Hindi expression, planting a seed in the neighbor’s garden. Sons, by contrast, provide a kind of social security. A family with only daughters will also likely lose its land when the father dies: although women can legally inherit property, in areas of north India and China, they risk ostracism or even murder if they claim what is theirs. And sons are particularly important to mothers, who acquire power and authority when they have married sons. Sons, according to Chinese custom, are also needed to care for the souls of dead ancestors.”
And off to the side of this article flashed statistics, including this:
“ONE percent of the world’s landowners are women.”
One. Holy Crap.
So maybe a sense of solidarity among women is really just borne out of shared oppression, disadvantage, disregard (though of course the level varies greatly in each individual life)?
So I sit here in my robe, by the fire, (correction: in my pajamas by the space heater) and I think yes, gender categories are Oppressive, they cause trouble, they hurt people and subject them to terrible, terrible things. At the same time I feel the power of identifying as a woman. I don’t totally deny that there is such a thing as woman; it’s not only a made up construction of language. Maybe I feel this way because I was raised in a culture and a language firmly stating that there ARE women. Maybe it is because I have been with women in labor, and have seen where we all came from and its immense power and weirdness and amazingness, the labor and exhaustion and sweat and blood and smells that brought us here. I know it is essentialist, and that some women don’t WANT to have babies, and some can’t and some hermaphrodites, CAN...so maybe it is not about gender at all but there is some serious, serious power in birth and fertility that I think must play into the conversation somewhere.
I also have experiential knowledge that many “women” do organize differently than men do, a lot of the time--just as we see in Kristof’s work, women are using the aid they receive very differently. (I want to say better, but am trying to be nice.) Is this innate or a response to circumstances?
Maybe this isn’t “gender,” maybe it’s some other gene, that a lot of women, or people identifying as women, or leaning more towards identifying as women have. Maybe it is the sugar and spice gene. Maybe it is the feminine archetype and some people are more influenced by it than others. Maybe people just respond differently when they are the non-dominant party, and that has made women have to be more efficient? But then, again, I see myself splitting the world in two: dominant/ un-dominant, sugar and spice/snails and puppy dog tails, and negating the idea that there is something more complicated going on.
Is it nothing but language that divides us so?
What new ways will we find to describe ourselves? Are we able to move away from these dichotomies and towards a more Fausto-Sterling view of humanity? And when we do, what will the social and political effects be? I can’t wait to see.
My fingerprints from years ago are pressed into my wedding ring. They wear with time, on the ring and on my fingers. The jeweler said that the little kids in his daughter’s class had much clearer fingerprints when they pressed their fingers into the wax. But we all wear out, over time. We will see how our ideas follow suit.....
pictures
Years ago, when I was getting married, one of the traditional things we did as part of our marrying was exchange rings. No blood diamonds, of course, but gold--from Canada--crafted by a jeweler in Dinkytown. His casting process used fingerprints in beeswax, which he’d developed while doing a project with his daughter’s elementary school students, based on an exhibition he’d seen in the early 80s of Picasso’s work at the Walker.
On one of the visits to his studio, he decided to tell me his theory of the downfall of mankind. He gave me a full description, so full that my meter expired and the ever-vigilant U of MN traffic police slapped a fine on my window--make my wedding ring all-the-more valuable. His theory was that humans had developed language before being fully ready for it, and hence had begun to categorize the world in ways which muddled things, over-simplified them, and stunted our development. He thought that our advancements in language jumped us ahead mechanically, technically, but that maybe our sense of wisdom and understanding were not quite keeping up, and so we were actually destroying things more than building things. One Jeweler’s opinion.
As we seen in Fausto-Sterling’s book, it’s so very likely that there are more than two of us types of “man.” Seems silly when you write it like that, of COURSE there are more than two types of people. So she is saying, too, that in building a world with two genders, we are also destroying other realities. The idea of gender has such power. I feel trapped at the moment between two dueling thoughts related to gender:
1. The ideas of Fausto-Sterling are truly liberating, allowing people to manifest physically in many different ways, emotionally and socially in many different ways. Distinctions of gender can be harmful, used for prejudice and false notions of power or superiority, which lead to violence, slavery, etc. Boo gender roles!
2. The identity I hold of myself as a woman, and the connection I feel to women across the world. The notions presented by burgeoning movements such as Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky, which highlights the research that giving micro-loans to women leads to more good for the family and the community than giving it to men does. This is one of the things that make me feel like the idea of “woman” is also very powerful. Yay GirlPower!
I want to know, when you watch this video, how does it make you feel?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/20/magazine/kristof-audioss/index.html
Does it make you feel differently if you identify as a man or as a woman?
I realize the film clip is of course set up to make you cry, or maybe stand up and shout. But there is a sense of solidarity I feel with women around the world, ever since I first truly, truly began to grasp in a real way how much in the present and in the future the Women’s movement is, and NOT just back there in the 1970’s as was the impression I’d been given in my earlier years of education. This sense came when I was a 19-year-old University of Minnesota student, taking a class on images of women in the history of art. I read Betty Friedan and really felt how this whole gender thing was a spectre hanging over the heads of all of us, each and every one of us. Everywhere. Which maybe brings me pack to thought 1--two ideas of gender doesn't work so well, but I still have this nagging sense of thought 2, that I must admit leads me to feel a little sad when Women’s Studies Departments become Gender Studies Departments.
Here’s another NY Times excerpt:
(“The Daughter Deficit” NY Times Magazine, Tina Rosenberg 8/19/09)
“It is rarely good to be female anywhere in the developing world today, but in India and China the situation is dire: in those countries, more than 1.5 million fewer girls are born each year than demographics would predict, and more girls die before they turn 5 than would be expected. (In China in 2007, there were 17.3 million births — and a million missing girls.) Millions more grow up stunted, physically and intellectually, because they are denied the health care and the education that their brothers receive.
…
To be sure, China and India are poor. But in both nations, girls are actually more likely to be missing in richer areas than in poorer ones, and in cities than in rural areas. Having more money, a better education and (in India) belonging to a higher caste all raise the probability that a family will discriminate against its daughters. The bias against girls applies in some of the wealthiest and best-educated nations in the world, including, in recent years, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. It also holds among Indian immigrants in Britain and among Chinese, Indian and South Korean immigrants in the United States. In the last few years, the percentage of missing girls has been among the highest in the middle-income, high-education nations of the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
….
So for parents, investing in a daughter is truly, in the Hindi expression, planting a seed in the neighbor’s garden. Sons, by contrast, provide a kind of social security. A family with only daughters will also likely lose its land when the father dies: although women can legally inherit property, in areas of north India and China, they risk ostracism or even murder if they claim what is theirs. And sons are particularly important to mothers, who acquire power and authority when they have married sons. Sons, according to Chinese custom, are also needed to care for the souls of dead ancestors.”
And off to the side of this article flashed statistics, including this:
“ONE percent of the world’s landowners are women.”
One. Holy Crap.
So maybe a sense of solidarity among women is really just borne out of shared oppression, disadvantage, disregard (though of course the level varies greatly in each individual life)?
So I sit here in my robe, by the fire, (correction: in my pajamas by the space heater) and I think yes, gender categories are Oppressive, they cause trouble, they hurt people and subject them to terrible, terrible things. At the same time I feel the power of identifying as a woman. I don’t totally deny that there is such a thing as woman; it’s not only a made up construction of language. Maybe I feel this way because I was raised in a culture and a language firmly stating that there ARE women. Maybe it is because I have been with women in labor, and have seen where we all came from and its immense power and weirdness and amazingness, the labor and exhaustion and sweat and blood and smells that brought us here. I know it is essentialist, and that some women don’t WANT to have babies, and some can’t and some hermaphrodites, CAN...so maybe it is not about gender at all but there is some serious, serious power in birth and fertility that I think must play into the conversation somewhere.
I also have experiential knowledge that many “women” do organize differently than men do, a lot of the time--just as we see in Kristof’s work, women are using the aid they receive very differently. (I want to say better, but am trying to be nice.) Is this innate or a response to circumstances?
Maybe this isn’t “gender,” maybe it’s some other gene, that a lot of women, or people identifying as women, or leaning more towards identifying as women have. Maybe it is the sugar and spice gene. Maybe it is the feminine archetype and some people are more influenced by it than others. Maybe people just respond differently when they are the non-dominant party, and that has made women have to be more efficient? But then, again, I see myself splitting the world in two: dominant/ un-dominant, sugar and spice/snails and puppy dog tails, and negating the idea that there is something more complicated going on.
Is it nothing but language that divides us so?
What new ways will we find to describe ourselves? Are we able to move away from these dichotomies and towards a more Fausto-Sterling view of humanity? And when we do, what will the social and political effects be? I can’t wait to see.
My fingerprints from years ago are pressed into my wedding ring. They wear with time, on the ring and on my fingers. The jeweler said that the little kids in his daughter’s class had much clearer fingerprints when they pressed their fingers into the wax. But we all wear out, over time. We will see how our ideas follow suit.....
pictures
WOW!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/index.html?eref=rss_latest
A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
I nearly *lost my mind* writing this.
I changed the title of this entry... three times. haha.
"Once extracted and named, the splenium, isthmus, midbodies, genu, and rostrum all become biological things, structures seen as real, rather than the arbitrary subdivisions they actually are." --Fausto-Sterling, 127
In a Cartesian world, subdivisions are important, and arbitrary in so far as they are not to be confused with a self conscious yearning towards 'truth'. Subdivisions are important to the art of proving hypotheses, and a self conscious voice cannot be a scientific voice (not until the "discussion" section.). You must slice up the world in order to see a small enough bit of it to prove anything at all. Slicing up the world with language and knives is what we all do best. In a pre-cartesian world, a Sarterian projection of the self makes no sense; a self whose position in the world is defined by the maths of the mind, the things that the brain holds onto (either randomly or because the conscious mind-owner decides that this memory is worth merit) - a self that obtains all meaning from the arc of progression through time and from the ways in which that self definiton changes over time, a self whose 'realism' is wholly internal; this is the freedom of the modern conception of man that we are all so loathe to relinquish, and perhaps our minds have been so changed by this way of thinking that we cannot let it go.
I wouldn't give up the chance to be the primary interpetor of my meaning for anything. As I slice up the intellectual landscape of positions that can be taken, for the sake of argument: I am a woman, I am a girl, I am glad to be young, I feel too old, because I am short I can't reach high objects, because I am short I don't fall as often - I can determine the value and the role of each of the characteristics that are within my capacity to verbalize, that are within cultural consciousness as worthy of note. I could write a book infinitely long in which I carve out my place in accordance with or in opposition to any given position presented to me. What might be said of the cartesian disposition is, flippantly, "We think too much" - but, adequately, We try to nail down everything with language. And when we contradict ourselves, this is irrelevant, because we are our Sarterian projections - we are our relative context in the moment, we get to "change our minds".
When we slice up the brain, we name the slices. They are more than subdivisions of the brain because they are now entities with definitions. They are not matter equally inhabited by the soul, but rather regions which should be associated to differences in function. When we slice up the soul or the human condition, we get the DSM - and everything in the DSM in order to be ultimately validated must also be able to be associated to some slice of brain matter, or perhaps in what I think has falsely been considered un-cartesian, in order to validate the DSM we must assume that the living, wet, non-sliced brain is the only home for the nebulous, overlapping social definitions - when we cut up the modern human experience, "Schizophrenia" and "Bipolar Disorder" and "Narccisistic Personality Disorder" are real ways of identifying ourselves, of being identified - these are the ways in which our freedoms of determining our own meaning are taken from us, and in a pre-cartesian world we would have had a prayer, a fast, we would have been outcast or worshipped, we were 'posessed', and perhaps because there was no cure, no surgical procedure or reason to believe that a pill would grant lateral transcendence towards the mean - maybe God just had to love us, or leave us.
I don't think that there is a good way to make a pre/post cartesian division intuitive or common sense. If I was born without the ability to experience anger, and then you described to me a life in which I became incensed over various offenses or sometimes for no reason at all, I would hardly come within range of grasping that life - and surely, I would probably think that the life I led was better, the life I had grown accustomed to was superior.
In a cartesian world, I think I've identified a fundamental trade-off; For every way in which I identify myself within the slices and fragments of defensible, rational truth, for every facet of myself which I am able to obtain pride in or interpret positively, there is a categorization, a medical cure, a cultural disagreement, an expert, a conflict of meaning - which would caste me negatively. And all of life is a constant social navigation of this world - being by design, I am now Descartes explaining how,while the others may be crazy, I am just a dreamer and a rational interpertor of the world. It is my individual assessment of myself, my justification of my past, present and future, my projection, my verbalizations - which position me. And unless I can convince you that I am right, or convince myself that I am right, I am relegated to existential crisis and an insufferable ambiguity.
I thought once that this piece of advice my father gave me could be pre-cartesian; "You don't have to make decisions about things that you don't understand." Suddenly, this absolved me of the individualistic, self centered position of the Cartesian academic; I could say, "I don't know." Crisis averted. God is in the "..." at the end of every question whose answer is unknown. And so there will always be god. But wait, this isn't averting Descartes at all, but merely mimicking his own feeble claim to reverence! Damn. I could write forever about my own inability to reconcile the paradox of thinking outside of the 'box' of my own paradigm.
Descartes just inhabits us all - even if I don't think I am stuck in the rut of proving the existence of the world outside of my own mind, I am stuck there - horribly, and eternally - and how could I not be? For every study that says my brain size means something, an alternative study says it does not. Information in a post-modern internet world makes "taking a firm position" on truth and sticking to it ("Don't ask me, I'm just a god-fearing farmer") about as difficult as flying.
"Once extracted and named, the splenium, isthmus, midbodies, genu, and rostrum all become biological things, structures seen as real, rather than the arbitrary subdivisions they actually are." --Fausto-Sterling, 127
In a Cartesian world, subdivisions are important, and arbitrary in so far as they are not to be confused with a self conscious yearning towards 'truth'. Subdivisions are important to the art of proving hypotheses, and a self conscious voice cannot be a scientific voice (not until the "discussion" section.). You must slice up the world in order to see a small enough bit of it to prove anything at all. Slicing up the world with language and knives is what we all do best. In a pre-cartesian world, a Sarterian projection of the self makes no sense; a self whose position in the world is defined by the maths of the mind, the things that the brain holds onto (either randomly or because the conscious mind-owner decides that this memory is worth merit) - a self that obtains all meaning from the arc of progression through time and from the ways in which that self definiton changes over time, a self whose 'realism' is wholly internal; this is the freedom of the modern conception of man that we are all so loathe to relinquish, and perhaps our minds have been so changed by this way of thinking that we cannot let it go.
I wouldn't give up the chance to be the primary interpetor of my meaning for anything. As I slice up the intellectual landscape of positions that can be taken, for the sake of argument: I am a woman, I am a girl, I am glad to be young, I feel too old, because I am short I can't reach high objects, because I am short I don't fall as often - I can determine the value and the role of each of the characteristics that are within my capacity to verbalize, that are within cultural consciousness as worthy of note. I could write a book infinitely long in which I carve out my place in accordance with or in opposition to any given position presented to me. What might be said of the cartesian disposition is, flippantly, "We think too much" - but, adequately, We try to nail down everything with language. And when we contradict ourselves, this is irrelevant, because we are our Sarterian projections - we are our relative context in the moment, we get to "change our minds".
When we slice up the brain, we name the slices. They are more than subdivisions of the brain because they are now entities with definitions. They are not matter equally inhabited by the soul, but rather regions which should be associated to differences in function. When we slice up the soul or the human condition, we get the DSM - and everything in the DSM in order to be ultimately validated must also be able to be associated to some slice of brain matter, or perhaps in what I think has falsely been considered un-cartesian, in order to validate the DSM we must assume that the living, wet, non-sliced brain is the only home for the nebulous, overlapping social definitions - when we cut up the modern human experience, "Schizophrenia" and "Bipolar Disorder" and "Narccisistic Personality Disorder" are real ways of identifying ourselves, of being identified - these are the ways in which our freedoms of determining our own meaning are taken from us, and in a pre-cartesian world we would have had a prayer, a fast, we would have been outcast or worshipped, we were 'posessed', and perhaps because there was no cure, no surgical procedure or reason to believe that a pill would grant lateral transcendence towards the mean - maybe God just had to love us, or leave us.
I don't think that there is a good way to make a pre/post cartesian division intuitive or common sense. If I was born without the ability to experience anger, and then you described to me a life in which I became incensed over various offenses or sometimes for no reason at all, I would hardly come within range of grasping that life - and surely, I would probably think that the life I led was better, the life I had grown accustomed to was superior.
In a cartesian world, I think I've identified a fundamental trade-off; For every way in which I identify myself within the slices and fragments of defensible, rational truth, for every facet of myself which I am able to obtain pride in or interpret positively, there is a categorization, a medical cure, a cultural disagreement, an expert, a conflict of meaning - which would caste me negatively. And all of life is a constant social navigation of this world - being by design, I am now Descartes explaining how,while the others may be crazy, I am just a dreamer and a rational interpertor of the world. It is my individual assessment of myself, my justification of my past, present and future, my projection, my verbalizations - which position me. And unless I can convince you that I am right, or convince myself that I am right, I am relegated to existential crisis and an insufferable ambiguity.
I thought once that this piece of advice my father gave me could be pre-cartesian; "You don't have to make decisions about things that you don't understand." Suddenly, this absolved me of the individualistic, self centered position of the Cartesian academic; I could say, "I don't know." Crisis averted. God is in the "..." at the end of every question whose answer is unknown. And so there will always be god. But wait, this isn't averting Descartes at all, but merely mimicking his own feeble claim to reverence! Damn. I could write forever about my own inability to reconcile the paradox of thinking outside of the 'box' of my own paradigm.
Descartes just inhabits us all - even if I don't think I am stuck in the rut of proving the existence of the world outside of my own mind, I am stuck there - horribly, and eternally - and how could I not be? For every study that says my brain size means something, an alternative study says it does not. Information in a post-modern internet world makes "taking a firm position" on truth and sticking to it ("Don't ask me, I'm just a god-fearing farmer") about as difficult as flying.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Blog Posting #4 (Due Sunday 2/21 11:59 PM)
This week we get to write about all the things many of us wanted to talk about for hours—maybe over beer: the faith-science wars; Christian Texas Patriots; bleeding mystics (and cute teenagers); indubitable 'selves,' reason (and faith), hypnotized away warts, and the entire mind-body split.
What we've been calling the 'Cartesian Moment' (Descartes' successfully elevating REASON to the center of all knowledge, and banishing the BODY and all its attributes) changed everything. Anne Fausto-Sterling starts her deeply political work on science, sex, bodies and lives by calling the 'Cartesian' split (a 'dualism') into question on many grounds.
We claimed that we were all 'Cartesians' even if we'd never read a word of his or even heard his name.
Fair enough. So now what?
Well, for starters, let's try to make 'common sense' of the idea that we're sort of trapped by the ways we see the world, and have trouble imagining things any other way. The idea that the world is 'framed' by certain 'paradigms' or 'world views'—ours being pretty 'Cartesian.'
Explain how Descartes 'inhabits' Steven Pinker (or Louis Menand), or the National Geographic producers, or Dr. George Buchanan, or people loving Blessed Teresa (or some of us thinking 'she faked it'), or sexologists who think there are 'six types of people' (…body, 11), or the guys writing the DSM, or the Founding Fathers, or, or, or. Find a good example to read closely—ours are fine; so are yours if you've got one. Whatever works.
Then suggest how this all plays out—theoretically, scientifically, ethically, historically, whatever. Work with our readings. How are we bamboozled and how might we get un-bamboozled? Alternatively: how does our 'reason,' rightly used, steer us right? How do we need to think in order to see more clearly? If you want a model, it's Anne Faust Sterling; her book is a passionate polemic about why seeing sex and gender wrongly (or confusedly) has made life harder for all of us.
What we've been calling the 'Cartesian Moment' (Descartes' successfully elevating REASON to the center of all knowledge, and banishing the BODY and all its attributes) changed everything. Anne Fausto-Sterling starts her deeply political work on science, sex, bodies and lives by calling the 'Cartesian' split (a 'dualism') into question on many grounds.
We claimed that we were all 'Cartesians' even if we'd never read a word of his or even heard his name.
Fair enough. So now what?
Well, for starters, let's try to make 'common sense' of the idea that we're sort of trapped by the ways we see the world, and have trouble imagining things any other way. The idea that the world is 'framed' by certain 'paradigms' or 'world views'—ours being pretty 'Cartesian.'
Explain how Descartes 'inhabits' Steven Pinker (or Louis Menand), or the National Geographic producers, or Dr. George Buchanan, or people loving Blessed Teresa (or some of us thinking 'she faked it'), or sexologists who think there are 'six types of people' (…body, 11), or the guys writing the DSM, or the Founding Fathers, or, or, or. Find a good example to read closely—ours are fine; so are yours if you've got one. Whatever works.
Then suggest how this all plays out—theoretically, scientifically, ethically, historically, whatever. Work with our readings. How are we bamboozled and how might we get un-bamboozled? Alternatively: how does our 'reason,' rightly used, steer us right? How do we need to think in order to see more clearly? If you want a model, it's Anne Faust Sterling; her book is a passionate polemic about why seeing sex and gender wrongly (or confusedly) has made life harder for all of us.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
ok so i decided to re- do it here is the real letter
Dear John Brown
Simply walking across campus wearing ‘Easy Tone’ shoes to decrease your butt and thighs sounds like a great alternative to spending hours in a gym. However, ‘buyer beware’. The advertisements say that the Reebok Easy Tone shoes leave the butt and legs in better shape than regular walking shoes. This is unfortunately not necessarily true. The study from the advertisement’s claim is based off a study performed by the University of Delaware with only five women according to the New York Times Well Blog. This study showed an 28% increase in gluteal muscles and 11% increase in calf and hamstring muscles work compared to normal walking shoes. There were no peer reviewed scientific studies or follow up studies and the study included a sample size of merely 5 women. In my opinion, five women are not enough of a cross section for this kind of advertising. It’s dishonest to advertise things that are not necessarily true. People could buy this product for $100 and think they will lose weight and tone their legs and butt; however, what it really says is five women saw some improvement wearing these shoes. Are you willing to spend $100 on a pair of shoes based on a coffee clutch of women? We, at the University of Minnesota, are taught to think more critically. I will keep my $100 till the research bears out more results.
Sincerely,
Trying to help the buyers
Simply walking across campus wearing ‘Easy Tone’ shoes to decrease your butt and thighs sounds like a great alternative to spending hours in a gym. However, ‘buyer beware’. The advertisements say that the Reebok Easy Tone shoes leave the butt and legs in better shape than regular walking shoes. This is unfortunately not necessarily true. The study from the advertisement’s claim is based off a study performed by the University of Delaware with only five women according to the New York Times Well Blog. This study showed an 28% increase in gluteal muscles and 11% increase in calf and hamstring muscles work compared to normal walking shoes. There were no peer reviewed scientific studies or follow up studies and the study included a sample size of merely 5 women. In my opinion, five women are not enough of a cross section for this kind of advertising. It’s dishonest to advertise things that are not necessarily true. People could buy this product for $100 and think they will lose weight and tone their legs and butt; however, what it really says is five women saw some improvement wearing these shoes. Are you willing to spend $100 on a pair of shoes based on a coffee clutch of women? We, at the University of Minnesota, are taught to think more critically. I will keep my $100 till the research bears out more results.
Sincerely,
Trying to help the buyers
full letter. What do you think?
Dear John Brown
I wanted to comment on the new Reebok shape up shoes and warn all the buyers who are considering them as a work out help. The advertisements say that the Reebok easy tone shoes say that they leave the butt and legs in better shape than regular walking shoes. This is unfortunately not necessarily true. The study that these advertisements are supposable based off of were done by the University of Delaware and only on five women according to the New York well blog. This study showed that 28% increased in gluteus muscles and 11% increase in calf and hamstring muscles. There were no peer reviewed scientific studies and the study was only done on 5 women. In my opinion five women are not enough of a cross section for this kind of advertising. It’s dishonest to advertise things that are not necessarily true. People could buy this product and think that they will help them lose weight and tone their legs and butt this could not happen because only five women were studied and that’s it. Just thought I should for warn those who are thinking that these shoes could solve their weight or non- toned leg problems.
Sincerely,
Trying to help the buyers
I wanted to comment on the new Reebok shape up shoes and warn all the buyers who are considering them as a work out help. The advertisements say that the Reebok easy tone shoes say that they leave the butt and legs in better shape than regular walking shoes. This is unfortunately not necessarily true. The study that these advertisements are supposable based off of were done by the University of Delaware and only on five women according to the New York well blog. This study showed that 28% increased in gluteus muscles and 11% increase in calf and hamstring muscles. There were no peer reviewed scientific studies and the study was only done on 5 women. In my opinion five women are not enough of a cross section for this kind of advertising. It’s dishonest to advertise things that are not necessarily true. People could buy this product and think that they will help them lose weight and tone their legs and butt this could not happen because only five women were studied and that’s it. Just thought I should for warn those who are thinking that these shoes could solve their weight or non- toned leg problems.
Sincerely,
Trying to help the buyers
Monday, February 15, 2010
science / not science
I came across this toda,
Not directly related to our letter-to-the-editor project, but this article is asking whether we think of science as coming from the West necessarily, and whether you can really distinguish something as science versus non-science...whether China and other civilizations were included appropriately in this history, what's logic got to do with it etc. etc., so maybe it really does tie in with our letters...It says not for circulation beyond the conference it was presented at, but here it is, I found it...and I think it is worth sharing.
so anyhow, if you feel like it, here is something more to read.
Not directly related to our letter-to-the-editor project, but this article is asking whether we think of science as coming from the West necessarily, and whether you can really distinguish something as science versus non-science...whether China and other civilizations were included appropriately in this history, what's logic got to do with it etc. etc., so maybe it really does tie in with our letters...It says not for circulation beyond the conference it was presented at, but here it is, I found it...and I think it is worth sharing.
so anyhow, if you feel like it, here is something more to read.
The Star Tribune - taking a position without copping to it
Original New York Times Article Text - "Trace of Thought Found in Vegetative Pateint," by Benedict Carey
Colleagues,
The link above will take you to the original text of an article written by Benedict Carey for the New York Times, and published on February 3, 2010. On February 4, 2010, the Star Tribune reprinted the article under a different title, crediting Carey; the Star Tribune's version of the article was substantially different and though their version is only 150 words shorter then the Times version, the words were very important to the meaning of the original. Furthermore, the words removed in the 'Strib' version undercut the very serious reservations expressed by one of the medical experts interviewed by the Times; I'm willing to set this gross mishandling aside for the moment, however, to focus on the content that DID make it to print in Minneapolis.
But first, I have to say it: the Star Tribune is not the proud paper it once was - there is really no saving it now and it just seems sad that it maintains the credibility it truly earned under different owners. The Strib should be taken around back and put put out of our misery, and a new and vibrant paper should come to the Twin Cities and serve our news-hungry metropolitan region.
_______
Dear Ms. Barnes:
I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with an article the Star Tribune published on February 4, 2010. Entitled, "Brainwaves" by your paper, the NY Times headline was, "Trace of Thought Is Found in ‘Vegetative’ Patient" (B. Carey, 2/3/2010). Your editors decided to elide a substantial portion of the original article, effectively silencing the opposition. This editorial decision, questionable as it is, points to another problem.
The notion that an immobile, unresponsive patient’s consciousness might be trapped in a non-functioning body evokes the most deeply seated fears of any rational person. Contemporary society has accepted that "I think, therefore I am" for hundreds of years. This founding philosophical building block of modernity frees our essences and instantiates the notion of the individual. Our bodies, thus subordinated to our consciousness, have become vessels for our 'souls' – that soul, or consciousness, is still us, with or without a body to move it around.
That the Star Tribune editorial staff elided quotes from experts who were of the opinion that brainwaves do not necessarily indicate the presence of a consciousness, but instead chose only to include the quotes supportive of the 'person trapped in the inert body' hypothesis (the sensational one) was not just bad reporting or just bad science, it was unethical and reproduced a position that was not warranted by the information available. Your paper ought to publish the entire text of the original article and consider its responsibility to its community before printing one side of a story.
Colleagues,
The link above will take you to the original text of an article written by Benedict Carey for the New York Times, and published on February 3, 2010. On February 4, 2010, the Star Tribune reprinted the article under a different title, crediting Carey; the Star Tribune's version of the article was substantially different and though their version is only 150 words shorter then the Times version, the words were very important to the meaning of the original. Furthermore, the words removed in the 'Strib' version undercut the very serious reservations expressed by one of the medical experts interviewed by the Times; I'm willing to set this gross mishandling aside for the moment, however, to focus on the content that DID make it to print in Minneapolis.
But first, I have to say it: the Star Tribune is not the proud paper it once was - there is really no saving it now and it just seems sad that it maintains the credibility it truly earned under different owners. The Strib should be taken around back and put put out of our misery, and a new and vibrant paper should come to the Twin Cities and serve our news-hungry metropolitan region.
_______
Dear Ms. Barnes:
I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with an article the Star Tribune published on February 4, 2010. Entitled, "Brainwaves" by your paper, the NY Times headline was, "Trace of Thought Is Found in ‘Vegetative’ Patient" (B. Carey, 2/3/2010). Your editors decided to elide a substantial portion of the original article, effectively silencing the opposition. This editorial decision, questionable as it is, points to another problem.
The notion that an immobile, unresponsive patient’s consciousness might be trapped in a non-functioning body evokes the most deeply seated fears of any rational person. Contemporary society has accepted that "I think, therefore I am" for hundreds of years. This founding philosophical building block of modernity frees our essences and instantiates the notion of the individual. Our bodies, thus subordinated to our consciousness, have become vessels for our 'souls' – that soul, or consciousness, is still us, with or without a body to move it around.
That the Star Tribune editorial staff elided quotes from experts who were of the opinion that brainwaves do not necessarily indicate the presence of a consciousness, but instead chose only to include the quotes supportive of the 'person trapped in the inert body' hypothesis (the sensational one) was not just bad reporting or just bad science, it was unethical and reproduced a position that was not warranted by the information available. Your paper ought to publish the entire text of the original article and consider its responsibility to its community before printing one side of a story.
"Evidence for Alternative Medicine"
1) The article I'm looking at is from the Minnesota Daily. The article, "Evidence for Alternative Medicine" is also a letter to the editor regarding a previous article which stated that the U was supporting homeopathy because a student group invited a speaker on the topic of homeopathy. This article seeks to support homeopathy by referencing one article that was published in favor of homeopath and by citing that integrative medicine is supported by many hospitals, clinics, and U.S. National Institutes of Health. The problem is that homeopathy is a small subcategory of alternative medicine and that one successful case in homeopathy is not enough for legitimation.
http://www.mndaily.com/2010/02/14/evidence-alternative-medicine
2) While Dr. Kreitzer's defense of inviting speakers of homeopathy was valid, I found that her defense of homeopathy as a whole was lacking.
First, the evidence given to support homeopathy was not sound. Only one example of a successful homeopathic remedy is not sufficient evidence for the legitimation of an entire branch of alternative medicine. Additionally, the article that was cited as successful was highly criticized after its publication in 2005.
Secondly, the reference to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for validation of homeopathy was not relevant. While NCCAM's goal to provide evidence-based support for the field of integrative medicine, this field is much larger than homeopathy alone. Similarly, the citing of the 44 medical schools with programs in integrative medicine programs is also out of the scope of the argument regarding homeopathy.
http://www.mndaily.com/2010/02/14/evidence-alternative-medicine
2) While Dr. Kreitzer's defense of inviting speakers of homeopathy was valid, I found that her defense of homeopathy as a whole was lacking.
First, the evidence given to support homeopathy was not sound. Only one example of a successful homeopathic remedy is not sufficient evidence for the legitimation of an entire branch of alternative medicine. Additionally, the article that was cited as successful was highly criticized after its publication in 2005.
Secondly, the reference to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for validation of homeopathy was not relevant. While NCCAM's goal to provide evidence-based support for the field of integrative medicine, this field is much larger than homeopathy alone. Similarly, the citing of the 44 medical schools with programs in integrative medicine programs is also out of the scope of the argument regarding homeopathy.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
"The Terrorist Mind: An Update"- From NY Times, Jan. 10th 2010
Article link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/weekinreview/10kershaw.html?pagewanted=1
1)Identify:
The gist of the article as well as the problem (in its broadest form) I see: Times columnist Sarah Kershaw attempts to consolidate myriad theories and studies of possible roots of radical activity into one comprehensive archival category of “terrorism.” The language the author uses to make her claims serves not only to classify the range of contextually-disparate behavior (extracted from loosely-cited research) under a single label (implying all violent action is the same regardless of motivation), but also to associate that take on “terrorism” with the notion of a “science.” Given that an understanding of terrorism is pliable under both the eye of the media and such constitutional alterations as the Patriot Act, this is a dangerous oversimplification.
(SHORTHAND - I’m no scientist, BUT - what’s at work: othering; empowerment of the expert class; discursive association of science with something currently describable only through dubious legal assertions or media-spun colloquialisms.)
2)
Dear Editor,
A January 10th article written by Sarah Kershaw, entitled “The Terrorist Mind: An Update,” suggests that a science exists which can explain the psychology of what might be called terrorism, and consequently its roots. However, although the research she cites might be based on more than just the “largely theoretical,” to place these case studies in the single category of “terrorism” is, simply based on the sheer variety of “paths” to radicalization they entertain, a gross oversimplification. Based on Merriam Webster’s definition science, as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method,” it is clear that Kershaw’s science is a loose one.
The extensive range of the theories that she extracts from the research – what she calls the beginnings of “a nascent science” – should be enough to disprove the effectiveness of using a single classification for all the data she includes. Yet it is all too easy to swallow the argument that there is a definitive understanding of what terrorism is - and this is where I think the politics of the article become dangerous: given that a larger understanding of the idea of terrorism is pliable through both discursive formation by the media and under such authoritative constitutional alterations as the Patriot Act, taking its meaning for granted negates the need to make a proper distinction between its extremes. According to the article’s logic, Al Qaeda, the Irish Republican Army, and the Japanese Imperial Army of World War II can be best defined as terrorists; actions of the terrorist can consist of suicide bombing, sniper attack, or bomb-throwing/detonation, regardless of motive or context. If this were adopted as a ‘true science,’ then there might legally be no difference between charges of conspiracy and charges based on failed attempts to commit acts of terrorism. And, if people who read this accept the accounts therein as scientific evidence, then the latter is already effectively the case.
I am not saying that the “types” and “trajectories” of so-called radicalization are all illegitimate, but as long as all terrorist activity does not result in the same violence and for the same reason, it seems that the many ‘paths to radicalization’ end in many uncharted places.
1)Identify:
The gist of the article as well as the problem (in its broadest form) I see: Times columnist Sarah Kershaw attempts to consolidate myriad theories and studies of possible roots of radical activity into one comprehensive archival category of “terrorism.” The language the author uses to make her claims serves not only to classify the range of contextually-disparate behavior (extracted from loosely-cited research) under a single label (implying all violent action is the same regardless of motivation), but also to associate that take on “terrorism” with the notion of a “science.” Given that an understanding of terrorism is pliable under both the eye of the media and such constitutional alterations as the Patriot Act, this is a dangerous oversimplification.
(SHORTHAND - I’m no scientist, BUT - what’s at work: othering; empowerment of the expert class; discursive association of science with something currently describable only through dubious legal assertions or media-spun colloquialisms.)
2)
Dear Editor,
A January 10th article written by Sarah Kershaw, entitled “The Terrorist Mind: An Update,” suggests that a science exists which can explain the psychology of what might be called terrorism, and consequently its roots. However, although the research she cites might be based on more than just the “largely theoretical,” to place these case studies in the single category of “terrorism” is, simply based on the sheer variety of “paths” to radicalization they entertain, a gross oversimplification. Based on Merriam Webster’s definition science, as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method,” it is clear that Kershaw’s science is a loose one.
The extensive range of the theories that she extracts from the research – what she calls the beginnings of “a nascent science” – should be enough to disprove the effectiveness of using a single classification for all the data she includes. Yet it is all too easy to swallow the argument that there is a definitive understanding of what terrorism is - and this is where I think the politics of the article become dangerous: given that a larger understanding of the idea of terrorism is pliable through both discursive formation by the media and under such authoritative constitutional alterations as the Patriot Act, taking its meaning for granted negates the need to make a proper distinction between its extremes. According to the article’s logic, Al Qaeda, the Irish Republican Army, and the Japanese Imperial Army of World War II can be best defined as terrorists; actions of the terrorist can consist of suicide bombing, sniper attack, or bomb-throwing/detonation, regardless of motive or context. If this were adopted as a ‘true science,’ then there might legally be no difference between charges of conspiracy and charges based on failed attempts to commit acts of terrorism. And, if people who read this accept the accounts therein as scientific evidence, then the latter is already effectively the case.
I am not saying that the “types” and “trajectories” of so-called radicalization are all illegitimate, but as long as all terrorist activity does not result in the same violence and for the same reason, it seems that the many ‘paths to radicalization’ end in many uncharted places.
MN Virtual HighSchool
After searching through the most science-barren publications on the planet (i.e the local print media), I came across an article in the Star Tribune entitled “As online classes boom, questions of rigor arise.” It covers the current benefits as well as issues facing online class option for students in Minnesota. To my amazement, over 1% of students in the state are already utilizing these alternative settings. The issue I find is that these options (i.e. the ‘science/technology’ of internet learning and its convenience) serve to legitimize its use. Often the students that are enrolled are ‘bully victims,’ elite athletes or struggling students. Therefore, test scores and performance fall short of standards and averages. I feel that the research behind the implications of online classrooms is bias to the benefits—like the notion that students who were unable to function in the physical classroom now have other options. As I see it, it’s an out for lazy, problematic, kids who want to cheat their way through school as well as a way for teachers to avoid having to deal with said kids.
Dear ???,
I’m writing in regards to the article “AS online classes boom, questions of rigor arise. As I am sure there are examples home-schooled & online students who show excellent progress, there are some who are not getting adequate instruction or are not appropriately dedicated to their studies. As a college student I have experience similar issues with rigor. Online classes tend to work better for non-traditional students who tend to value their education more so than do late teens/early 20's students who take classes online. Additionally, although online classes try to prevent defrauding by limiting time allowed per question or total exam time, it is quite easy for students to cheat during online exams (this helps improve your skills using a textbook's index, as well as google). Also, we should remember that socialization is a major part of the education process. Of course, one can take the view that the students only hurt themselves, but if enough come to view this as "education" and "ethical", we'll have an even more poorly educated public than we currently have. I propose an advocacy for in-class instruction; without this face time with other students in an academic environment along with little oversight of students actual performace, we simply are compounding the situations that create lifetimes of poor decisions.
-DH
Adolescent Obesity
1.)
I am writing a response to an article i just read in the New York times regarding child obesity in the nation. The article centered on what "the facts" were on the subject regarding the bad choices parents are making. The article as a whole seems to have the feeling that it is the parents fault that children are becoming more obese, and although sympathetic to specific circumstances that may lead to the choices parents make regarding their children, still put the blame on parents.
I think this is a much bigger problem than just saying parents are becoming too lazy, and are opting to take the easy way out and stopping at McDonald's on the way home instead of buying fresh produce and from the market. I think an article based more on the political implications on food in our country would be much more effective in explaining child obesity.
2.) Dear editor,
Upon reading one of your latest articles titled "When children are overweight, changes for the whole family" i was truck at the simplistic nature you took on child obesity. I do not find it effective to simply point out the mistakes that parents are making with respects to their child's diet. I would find an article looking into the political environment around food to be much more revealing as to why children obesity is higher than ever. Why is it that one can stop and get a burger for just $1, but would have to spend much more than that at the grocery store buying healthy food? For some parents it is much more cost effective with respects to their children's hunger to buy a cheap burger, than to buy healthy food items from the market. No to mention the nutritional influence of schools as a child grown up (much more junk food in lunch rooms than health food). I think the article would be more effective if it looked into the governmental and political backgrounds that make it cheaper to buy a burger than fresh produce.
Thank you,
Colin
Nature vs. Nurture-Soda vs. Genes
The particular article I am addressing is "Soda linked to pancreatic cancer" that was published in the Minnesota Daily today (2/14/10). I think this is a problem with reporting science because I do not think that the testing really can conclude what the professor is trying to conclude. Correlation does not indicate causation which is something that must be kept in mind in this article and some people might be misguided, overlooking the fact that the statistics are large but when put in to perspective really cannot conclude anything. I think only the nurture side is presented here in the controversial topic of nature vs. nurture. I think both sides should be looked at before a cause can really be determined.
To whom it may concern:
In regards to the article "Soda linked to pancreatic cancer" I think an important detail missing is the factor of nature: genetics. It does not say anything about nature being the possible cause of pancreatic cancer, or even the cause of a possible predisposition. It is only the one environmental factor of soda that causes one of the most deadly cancers? Somehow I think more research needs to be done. Both sides, nature and nurture need to be investigated before a cause can be determined.
I am concerned with the evidence surrounding this bold statement that regular soda is the reason for pancreatic cancer. The 87 percent increase of getting pancreatic cancer due to drinking regular soda really does not conclude anything. Correlation does not indicate causation. Environmental factors are hard to test on subjects because there are so many differing factors. Although some of the bases were covered; age, general health, and diet, there is absolutely no indication that genetics could be a factor. Should people now worry about drinking soda, when in fact, this really might not be the cause of pancreatic cancer? I do not think so. Not all bases were covered and one experiment that led to a visible correlation cannot conclude causation.
I propose investigating the genetics behind it. Could there be a possible expression of genes that leads to the promotion of the growth of tumor cells within the pancreas? Could it possibly be a genetic factor that increases the blood's rise in sugar levels? I think one major factor mentioned within the article might really be a key point that seems to be overlooked. Diabetes is mentioned as having a correlation to pancreatic cancer. This should be investigated further and the genetics should be regarded as a possible cause as well as environmental factors.
**Hopefully I can get some tips from ya'll!
Poking fun at the revised DSM
I'm writing on an article published on the Pioneer Press website (but originally from the Washington Post) about the new DSM. (I wanted to write to them about their article about Asperger's and autism being lumped under the same diagnosis, but I saw that it was a popular choice among other Group 1 members, so I went and made the process harder for myself again.) It is largely explanatory--telling readers how the decision-making process works, how long it takes, and what is on the line. At the same time, it is not-too-subtly highlighting and favoring the fear that any old oddity will now be a "disorder" and we will be medicating our potential geniuses and artists until their futures are destroyed. It has twice as many quotes from the YOU'RE DESTROYING SOCIETY side, and both opens and closes with "You see how ridiculous this is?" examples/arguments.
I generally don't get too enflamed about this kind of stuff--after all, this is how reporting seems to work--but I don't think it would hurt to point out in a letter to the editor that there is a little more balance to be desired here. Scoffing at binge eating and gambling addictions being considered psychiatric disorders isn't good form.
I may research this (when I have a bit more time after today) to see if the Post or Pioneer Press published anything that came off as a little less...alarmed. In the meantime, and since midnight is closing in, I will draft a letter. Also, ignore spelling mistakes--I'm in the process of upgrading to Windows 7, and Microsoft Office has disappeared in the process. WordPad doesn't appear to have a spellchecker.
---
Dear Mr. Stein,
Necessary as it is to point out the (very valid) views of critics of the new DSM, I can't help but notice that is nearly all you did. There were more than twice as many quotes from people opposed to new and changing disorder classifications than from supporters, and almost every example you used was something that could be deemed silly.
It alarms me, too, that mere eccentrics could be treated for oncoming psychosis and could have their possible genius tarnished or killed by medication. And I sneer at the idea of someone telling their broken-hearted partner that no, they're not an immoral cheater--they are in fact suffering from a disorder out of their control! Overdiagnosis is already a problem, and I suppose our spiral into dystopia could be slowed if we stopped trying to apply science to being different. Well, maybe.
Hypotheses aside, what your article was missing was a presentation of the possible upsides of the changing DSM. I feel like all I've learned is that the APA have lost their minds and are considering calling personality a disease. Is there anything to say that won't subject me to lectures on how Crazy didn't used to exist and how everything could be fixed if parents better disciplined their children?
I generally don't get too enflamed about this kind of stuff--after all, this is how reporting seems to work--but I don't think it would hurt to point out in a letter to the editor that there is a little more balance to be desired here. Scoffing at binge eating and gambling addictions being considered psychiatric disorders isn't good form.
I may research this (when I have a bit more time after today) to see if the Post or Pioneer Press published anything that came off as a little less...alarmed. In the meantime, and since midnight is closing in, I will draft a letter. Also, ignore spelling mistakes--I'm in the process of upgrading to Windows 7, and Microsoft Office has disappeared in the process. WordPad doesn't appear to have a spellchecker.
---
Dear Mr. Stein,
Necessary as it is to point out the (very valid) views of critics of the new DSM, I can't help but notice that is nearly all you did. There were more than twice as many quotes from people opposed to new and changing disorder classifications than from supporters, and almost every example you used was something that could be deemed silly.
It alarms me, too, that mere eccentrics could be treated for oncoming psychosis and could have their possible genius tarnished or killed by medication. And I sneer at the idea of someone telling their broken-hearted partner that no, they're not an immoral cheater--they are in fact suffering from a disorder out of their control! Overdiagnosis is already a problem, and I suppose our spiral into dystopia could be slowed if we stopped trying to apply science to being different. Well, maybe.
Hypotheses aside, what your article was missing was a presentation of the possible upsides of the changing DSM. I feel like all I've learned is that the APA have lost their minds and are considering calling personality a disease. Is there anything to say that won't subject me to lectures on how Crazy didn't used to exist and how everything could be fixed if parents better disciplined their children?
Buyer Beware
1. Reebok easy tone shoes claim to
A. say that they leave butt and legs better shaped than regular walking shoes
(in the advertisements of Reebok shape up shoes)
2. Little research (acc. to New York Well Blog)
A. No peer reviewed scientific studies done
B. Study done by University of Delaware included 5 women only
C. 28% increase in gluteal muscles
D. 11% increase in calf and hamstring muscles
3. So may help to get people up and walking but not necessarily with the benefits the company claims.
So whats your thoughts? What should I change?
1. Reebok easy tone shoes claim to
A. say that they leave butt and legs better shaped than regular walking shoes
(in the advertisements of Reebok shape up shoes)
2. Little research (acc. to New York Well Blog)
A. No peer reviewed scientific studies done
B. Study done by University of Delaware included 5 women only
C. 28% increase in gluteal muscles
D. 11% increase in calf and hamstring muscles
3. So may help to get people up and walking but not necessarily with the benefits the company claims.
So whats your thoughts? What should I change?
Animal Poo and Prop 2
1. On Star Tribune's website, I read an article about an E. coli contamination of beef products in California. Although E. coli contamination is relatively rare - consider how much beef is consumed versus how much beef is contaminated - it is extremely widely reported. In this particular article, the meat was only distributed in California.
Recently in California, Prop 2 was passed, which banned raising farm animals in confined spaces. However, this allows the animals enough room turn themselves around and defecate in their food. E.coli and Salmonella are bacteria found in the intestines in mammals and in fecal matter. Will Prop 2 raise contamination rates?
2. Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to the article "California meat company expands recall of beef and veal due to E. coli fears." Firstly, I think that it is important to be aware of the dangers of food contamination. But why is beef contamination in California important to Minnesotans? Minnesota has a large cattle farming industry, and we do not rely on California for beef. Relative to the amount of beef eaten, rates of contamination are minuscule. Is over-reporting of contamination leading to panic?
Secondly, it may be important that the site of contamination was California. In 2008, California passed Prop 2, which banned raising farm animals in confined spaces. While this appears to be a great step for animal rights, it can damage food production. With the new law, animals must be able to stretch their legs and be able to turn around. With this newfound freedom, the animals are also able to defecate in their food, whereas the former system kept food and fecal matter separate. Contaminants like E. coli and Salmonella are found in the digestive tracts of mammals and in fecal matter. Will rates of food contamination drastically increase before California seriously reconsiders Prop 2? I hope not.
Sincerely,
Alyssa Brown
Recently in California, Prop 2 was passed, which banned raising farm animals in confined spaces. However, this allows the animals enough room turn themselves around and defecate in their food. E.coli and Salmonella are bacteria found in the intestines in mammals and in fecal matter. Will Prop 2 raise contamination rates?
2. Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to the article "California meat company expands recall of beef and veal due to E. coli fears." Firstly, I think that it is important to be aware of the dangers of food contamination. But why is beef contamination in California important to Minnesotans? Minnesota has a large cattle farming industry, and we do not rely on California for beef. Relative to the amount of beef eaten, rates of contamination are minuscule. Is over-reporting of contamination leading to panic?
Secondly, it may be important that the site of contamination was California. In 2008, California passed Prop 2, which banned raising farm animals in confined spaces. While this appears to be a great step for animal rights, it can damage food production. With the new law, animals must be able to stretch their legs and be able to turn around. With this newfound freedom, the animals are also able to defecate in their food, whereas the former system kept food and fecal matter separate. Contaminants like E. coli and Salmonella are found in the digestive tracts of mammals and in fecal matter. Will rates of food contamination drastically increase before California seriously reconsiders Prop 2? I hope not.
Sincerely,
Alyssa Brown
Asperger's redefined
This is the link to the article. http://www.twincities.com/health/ci_14381266
I don't completely disagree with the article but I felt like both sides could have been explained better.
Dear editor,
First of all I'd like to say that scientifically speaking I understand and perhaps even agree with the logic in redefining Asperger's and autism into autism spectrum disorders. On the other hand I know from personal experience that Aspie's have strong identifying ties with the term Asperger's. Now typically I'm not all that partial to the idea that our identity is found in our labels but after growing to know one of my best friends who happens to have Asperger's I've seen how the label has acted as a median for him to help people around him understand him. In my friend's strange combobulation of loving to meet new people and his social awkwardness and anxiety (and frankly social ineptitude, but I still love him lol) he has always been very, very open (I think he enjoys it) about his "disease" as he calls it. This helped me and those around him have some understanding of him before we had too many preconceived about him. I guess what I am trying to get at is why does it have to be one or the other. Scientific jargon and common social language have always had differences. Why can't they have mild autism on paper and Asperger's when identifying them in social situations. I understand this is somewhat of an oversimplification and that there may be certain hurdles that arise but I am somewhat saddened that it does seem that it has even been considered as an option.
I don't completely disagree with the article but I felt like both sides could have been explained better.
Dear editor,
First of all I'd like to say that scientifically speaking I understand and perhaps even agree with the logic in redefining Asperger's and autism into autism spectrum disorders. On the other hand I know from personal experience that Aspie's have strong identifying ties with the term Asperger's. Now typically I'm not all that partial to the idea that our identity is found in our labels but after growing to know one of my best friends who happens to have Asperger's I've seen how the label has acted as a median for him to help people around him understand him. In my friend's strange combobulation of loving to meet new people and his social awkwardness and anxiety (and frankly social ineptitude, but I still love him lol) he has always been very, very open (I think he enjoys it) about his "disease" as he calls it. This helped me and those around him have some understanding of him before we had too many preconceived about him. I guess what I am trying to get at is why does it have to be one or the other. Scientific jargon and common social language have always had differences. Why can't they have mild autism on paper and Asperger's when identifying them in social situations. I understand this is somewhat of an oversimplification and that there may be certain hurdles that arise but I am somewhat saddened that it does seem that it has even been considered as an option.
How Christian were the Founders?
1) I was reading an article from the New York Times called "How Christian were the Founders?" It is about the Texas State Board of Education (consisted of a dentist and insurance salesman to say the least) trying to rewrite social studies books by inputing more Christianity into these books. If the board does not like something, they tell the publishers to change it, or else they will not buy them. Most of the textbooks in schools today have had some influence from the Texas board. I was trying to (in some feeble attempt) to write to the editor that by letting this board influence how textbooks are written, educational standards will drop. I've lived in Texas, and their standards of education, quite frankly, sucks. I was a freshman (coming from Minnesota) in Honors Alegebra, finishing their semester curriculum in three weeks. I sat there the rest of the semester helping other students. Anyways, I'm open to editing this letter.
2) Dear Mr. Hoyt,
I am writing to you in regards of the article "How Christian Were the Founders?" As a former Texas resident (now residing in Minnesota), I have experienced the different curriculums in both states at the high school level. I feel that the board members - at the time of publishing - is further lowering the standard of education in Texas by omitting or attempting to rewrite history. I am appalled that many textbooks hinder on the decision of 15 people in the state of Texas.
Not only is the Texas State Board of Education attempting to downplay non-right wing historical events/advancements, but they are attempting to brainwash many students of not only Texas, but America, by forcing Christian views upon these kids through the public education system. Since there are so many different religious views here in America, there should be no reason as to why one religion should be put above the rest.
I propose that there be a National Board of Education for each subject (consisting of experts, not dentists or insurance salesmen) to help write (not dictate) what should be taught in the public school system. This way, there would be a definite national standard in the schools.
Sincerely,
Kevin Vongsaphay
2) Dear Mr. Hoyt,
I am writing to you in regards of the article "How Christian Were the Founders?" As a former Texas resident (now residing in Minnesota), I have experienced the different curriculums in both states at the high school level. I feel that the board members - at the time of publishing - is further lowering the standard of education in Texas by omitting or attempting to rewrite history. I am appalled that many textbooks hinder on the decision of 15 people in the state of Texas.
Not only is the Texas State Board of Education attempting to downplay non-right wing historical events/advancements, but they are attempting to brainwash many students of not only Texas, but America, by forcing Christian views upon these kids through the public education system. Since there are so many different religious views here in America, there should be no reason as to why one religion should be put above the rest.
I propose that there be a National Board of Education for each subject (consisting of experts, not dentists or insurance salesmen) to help write (not dictate) what should be taught in the public school system. This way, there would be a definite national standard in the schools.
Sincerely,
Kevin Vongsaphay
Google attempts to reform Chinese cencorship.
"Google executives have privately fretted for years that the company’s decision to censor the search results on google.cn, to filter out topics banned by Chinese censors, was out of sync with the company’s official motto, “Don’t be evil.”"
"While Google’s business in China is now small, analysts say that the country could soon become one of the most lucrative Internet and mobile markets, and a withdrawal would significantly reduce Google’s long-term growth."
-http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html
"Google cofounder hopeful about uncensored search in China."
-http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/google-co-founder-hopeful-about-uncensored-search-in-china/?ref=technology
(note: here Google has changed its position from withdrawal from China to pressuring the Chinese government to remove restrictions.)
Letter to the Editor:
There has been some controversy over Google recanting its decision to withdraw from China. The particular criticism that ethically, it seems unlikely to most that Google has an altruistic aim in pursuing the Chinese market, is of interest to me. It seems peculiar that people would support the resultant increased freedom of the Chinese people but still oppose Google's actions merely because Google will turn a profit. If Google, or any other multinational corporation, could be successful in enacting social reforms that would increase access to information and the capacity of individuals to more successfully oppose dubious government policy - how can we, as representatives of freedom and humanitarian aims, choose our hatred of corporations over the prospect of a more liberated people?
It seems worthwhile to note that Google’s motto “Do No Evil” is inherently wrought with ambiguity and the word “Evil” is an ideological nightmare; but assuming we have the same political aims as the corporation in question, why aren’t we unequivocally on their side? Google could be part of enacting one of the greatest humanitarian successes of the century.
I appreciate any advice on how to improve this that you may have to offer :) In 200 words, I can't really fully explore all of my thoughts about corporations who directly or indirectly push political agendas, I think.
"While Google’s business in China is now small, analysts say that the country could soon become one of the most lucrative Internet and mobile markets, and a withdrawal would significantly reduce Google’s long-term growth."
-http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html
"Google cofounder hopeful about uncensored search in China."
-http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/google-co-founder-hopeful-about-uncensored-search-in-china/?ref=technology
(note: here Google has changed its position from withdrawal from China to pressuring the Chinese government to remove restrictions.)
Letter to the Editor:
There has been some controversy over Google recanting its decision to withdraw from China. The particular criticism that ethically, it seems unlikely to most that Google has an altruistic aim in pursuing the Chinese market, is of interest to me. It seems peculiar that people would support the resultant increased freedom of the Chinese people but still oppose Google's actions merely because Google will turn a profit. If Google, or any other multinational corporation, could be successful in enacting social reforms that would increase access to information and the capacity of individuals to more successfully oppose dubious government policy - how can we, as representatives of freedom and humanitarian aims, choose our hatred of corporations over the prospect of a more liberated people?
It seems worthwhile to note that Google’s motto “Do No Evil” is inherently wrought with ambiguity and the word “Evil” is an ideological nightmare; but assuming we have the same political aims as the corporation in question, why aren’t we unequivocally on their side? Google could be part of enacting one of the greatest humanitarian successes of the century.
I appreciate any advice on how to improve this that you may have to offer :) In 200 words, I can't really fully explore all of my thoughts about corporations who directly or indirectly push political agendas, I think.
Brainwaves
The article that I am looking at was published on February 4th on the Star Tribunes website. It is titled “Brainwaves”. The problem I see with the way science is being deployed in this article is quite clear. People in vegetative states are being depicted as “living”, and in a sense, capable of normal human function. I think that this is potentially dangerous because it could cause a great increase in reluctance to “pull the plug” which can be very hard on the family and also very costly.
Dear Editor,
Your article published on February 4th titled “Brainwaves” portrays patients in vegetative states in a very bizarre way. It suggests that they are capable of “normal” human function. While this is true to a certain extent, this article does it in a somewhat misleading way that could lead to many potential problematic issues. New scientific breakthroughs have made it possible for us to look deeper into the minds of these patients and discover that in many of them, more is going on than we had previously thought. While it is quite amazing that some of these patients can form basic thoughts, it by no means makes them anymore living than they had been. They still can’t walk, talk, or even keep their organs functioning on their own. Saying that some patients “demonstrated the ability to imagine themselves walking through the rooms of their homes” can be very misleading to the average reader. I can see it causing a great increase in reluctance to “pull the plug”. We all know how expensive it can be to keep a person on life support. This can be very costly to the average taxpayer. More importantly this reluctance can be very detrimental to the emotional well being of the patients family. I have personal experience with this sort of situation. I found that the longer my cousin was on life support, the harder it became for our family. The false hope created by not pulling the plug and recognizing the truth became more painful as time went on. While your article does address this issue, it only does so in a small paragraph near the very end. I propose that this be a more substantial part of future articles on similar topics and will help clarify things significantly for the average reader.
What do you guys think? (I know it’s too long, I need to decide what to cut)
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