Leavening is what makes bread or any other baked goods rise. It mixes with the liquids in the recipe - and in the case of yeast, the sugar as well - to release gases that create bubbles in the dough. How much leavening you have in relation to the other ingredients determines how much it rises and how fluffy the final product is. The most commonly used leavenings in modern baking are baking powder, baking soda and yeast. When you don't want something to rise, you don't put in any leavening - an example would be pie crust. Anyone who bakes on any regular basis could hardly keep from knowing that.
When the children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt, God sent Moses to Pharoah to gain release of the Israelites. Pharoah said no, repeatedly, resulting in increasingly serious plagues sent on the Egyptians by God. Finally, Pharoah said no for the 10th time, and God sent the last plague - the death of the first-born. To save the Israelites from the Angel of Death, and to prepare them to leave as soon as the Egyptians were distracted by their grief, God had the Israelites dress for travel. They were to kill a lamb, put blood on the door jamb so the Angel of Death would see it and "pass over" them (thus the name of the commemoration, "Passover"), and then eat unleavened bread, bitter herbs and the lamb they had killed, standing up and ready to leave. When Jesus instituted the communion feast - the Lord's Supper - celebrating his death and resurrection, he did it during Passover and used the standard Passover bread - which is unleavened, commemorating the Israelites' Egyptian escape.
That's why communion bread in Christian communion ceremonies is unleavened - that's what Jesus used. I think it also has the deeper symbolism going back to the initial Passover, because Christ is our sacrificial lamb, the One that keeps the Angel of Death away from us. We celebrate Him in that way too with the unleavened bread. Thus making sure the communion bread is unleavened is a non-trivial issue, Scripturally speaking.
So why are there so many communion bread recipes using leavening?? I'm preparing communion at church this week, so I was Googling for recipes just to see what was out there. I was shocked to see some that use baking soda, some using baking powder and one even using yeast! What part of "unleavened" aren't they getting? One even used sugar, eggs and milk as well as baking powder, and the little blurb on it said it's good as strawberry shortbread in a non-blessed setting. I say that's not "communion bread" that's "sweet biscuits". Some even say they're "unleavened", and then use leavening. Is it that they don't know what leavening is? Or are they assuming that calling it something makes it so? I can call a hot dog a burrito all I want, but that doesn't make it a burrito.
I'm clearly stunned by this. My brother assures me that there's a school of thought where people don't think the NT communion bread was unleavened, but I can't figure out where they got that. And it still doesn't explain the ones called "unleavened" that have leavening right there in their ingredients. Sigh.
Remember this morning when I discovered my mailbox was knocked down? It didn't take much sleuthing to determine that the next door neighbors probably did it, one of those circumstantial cases that would get a grand jury indictment, no problem. I had work to do and a meeting to go to (both went very well, thankyouverymuch), so while I did report it to the police I didn't touch the mailbox or talk to the neighbors, or even report it to my landlord.
I left my house about 2 p.m. for B'ham. After the meeting I babysat my nieces, and just got home about 11:10 p.m. As I drove up to my house, I was doing one of my new things: Talking into a tape recorder about the drive home, details like the sounds of cars passing, the smells along the way, how dark the darkness is, how easy or difficult it would be to hide in this yard or that. It's a writer thing, to get the details right when the heroine is stranded in the middle of the night on an Alabama road. In the middle of describing the truly odd glowing crosses that have sprung up in the cemetery behind my house, I suddenly realized...
My mailbox is vertical again.
That's right, in my absence today, someone (dare I speculate the neighbors?) replaced the mailbox post in the hole and tamped down the dirt and grass. It's not very stable, but it's functional. That's all I ask. I'll call the police tomorrow and let them know. The newspaper box is canted just a hair, but I'm not picky. I don't subscribe to the B'ham News anymore anyway. And I do appreciate whomever it was taking the responsibility to fix the damage.
I'd say the black tire track halfway up the side of the bright white post may cause comment in the future, but hey, I've got the only roadkill mailbox on the block.
The LA Times needs to get a little savvy about statistics before they seriously damage the reputation of a lot of decent if geeky people.
Ernest Miller at Corante calls attention to this construction in an LA Times article on a Canadian anti-child-pornography unit:
On one wall is a "Star Trek" poster with investigators' faces substituted for the Starship Enterprise crew. But even that alludes to a dark fact of their work: All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.
"A dark fact"? "All but one...a hard-core Trekkie"? Clearly these folks are operating in an alternate reality. And they are wrong on so many levels. Miller handles the "all but one" claim, actually calling the crime unit for clarification. They did say that Trekkie stuff was prominent in the collections of a number of those they arrested, but didn't say "all but one". That goes out the window immediately, then.
But there were a lot, apparently, who did have Trekkie stuff, and the tone of the article ("a dark fact") saw something ominous in that. It appears the writer was actually trying to make a connection between the two, as if having Trekkie stuff was in some way predictive of pedophilia. You can almost hear in what passes for her brain, "Hmmm... They had Trekkie stuff! Obviously up to no good, and likely sexual perverts." It's also clear that she picked up this attitude at least in part from the police officers themselves.
So we come to statistics, and the difference between correlation and causation. They're familiar terms to most of us: Causation means just that - there is evidence that the presence of one factor directly leads to the presence of another factor or event. Correlation is a much weaker connection - there is evidence that when Factor 1 is seen, there's a pretty good chance you're going to see Factor 2 as well, but there's no reason to think Factor 1 caused Factor 2, or vice versa.
The fact that a lot of child pornography dealers had Trekkie stuff is a correlation, not a causation. I'm sure they all had computers, too, and stoves, and clothing. Doesn't mean that people who surf the 'Net, cook and wear clothes should be investigated by your friendly local anti-child-pornography team.
It seems to me a fairly obvious case of a third, undiscussed (sometimes even undiscovered) factor causing both observed things. In this case, I suspect the geekiness caused both the Trekkie collections and the choice of using the 'Net to engage in their non-geek-related perversion of child pornography. Certainly pedophilia is not limited to geeks, just as geekiness is not a predictor of pedophilia. The apparent fact that the Trekkie collections stood out as a commonality over other types of collections isn't something that is predictive either. Maybe it has something to do with being Canadian (that statement has as much or more support than theirs). As for child pornography and geekiness tracking together, that's not shocking either - the Internet is a pretty good place to hide crime, and to mask who you are. The people who are going to be good at hiding their activity are going to be good at computers - in other words, geeks. But geekiness isn't correlated to child pornography any more than being able to drive is correlated to being a bank-robbery-getaway-car driver - being able to drive facilitates driving the get-away car, but being able to drive doesn't make you do it.
It's just bizarre. And she calls it "a dark fact". I think the "dark fact" is that she writes for a major newspaper, and her editors didn't smack her down for tarring millions of excellent people as potential perverts.
I have a major writing deadline today, and a meeting this afternoon to turn the materials in. That means little blogging until tonight.
Naturally, that also means that odd unexpected events will pop up to use my time when I most need it elsewhere. Today, that "odd unexpected event" is that during the night someone ran over my mailbox and brought it down. Actually, "rolled over it" is probably more accurate. It looks like someone just backed into it and pushed it down, then drove over it. Sigh. This means I get to call the police to make a report and then call my landlord to fix it. I think I'll wait until I get more of my work done. It's not like the accident/crime scene is going anywhere, or posing any problems for anyone else.
But it is very annoying.
UPDATE: I did call the police, they did come by, and they agreed with me that the post the mailbox was on (a very sturdy one, I might add) was not hit by a car on the road, but rather rolled over by someone backing out of the property next door. They also informed me that it would be very unlikely that a) they would find out who did it (they didn't go talk to the people next door) and b) anyone would pay for it. Lovely.
You know, the dozen or so muffler-challenged pickups and souped up muscle cars that congregate next door several times a week can be annoying, especially when they use my driveway like a public access road and get their jollies from gunning up and down the road. I've gotten testy a few times but not hostile, since really it's high school kids doing what high school kids do, and I've not seen them drinking, they don't blast music and they aren't there all the time or until late at night. But I'm not very sanguine about paying ever how much it takes to fix my mailbox because one of them is too immature to 'fess up.
Sometimes the combination of shortened names in headlines and the use of religious imagery in naming churches or schools gives interesting results. A headline from the Jersey Journal today:
Holy Family expects a great auction
At least they can be sure nobody will stiff them. Call it the "Law of Ananias & Sapphira".
My brother (of Theosebes fame) sent me the link to this test, which purports to suggest how long you'll live. The first iteration gave me 73 years. I then started playing with it to see what choices changed it up or down. My favorite:
Flossing daily adds more years to your life than being in a long term committed happy relationship.
5 years vs 3 years.
So, buy floss, not a marriage certificate.
Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas has brought forward S51, a bill that would require abortion providers to tell those coming for abortions that an unborn child of at least 20 weeks has been shown to have pain responses. Because of that, the bill goes on to say, those getting abortions must be given the option of having anesthesia or painkillers for the fetus as well as themselves during the abortion process.
Obviously this kind of bill is being hammered as an anti-abortion bill and an anti-woman bill. As a part of the Definitions section of the bill, the word "woman" is defined; some are choosing to interprete that as an attempt by Congress to redefine women as nothing more than baby-growing organisms. In my judgment, that's engaging in self-induced hysteria. It's nothing of the kind. It's standard practice to give clear definitions of even common terms in both laws and research; those are places where precision is crucial. In this instance, the definition also serves the purpose of indicating that when the word "woman" is used, it's referring to a female capable of reproduction, not just females adjudged adult and thus "women" by society. In other words, as soon as a female has reached puberty, she's covered by the bill. They're making the distinction that they're using it biologically here, not sociologically. Of course those against the bill are going to insist that it's a sociological insult.
And no, I'm not linking where I found the pro-choice/sociological insult arguments because I like the people involved and don't want to fight about it nor expose them to ridicule. They're good people. And in this, they're wrong.
Another objection is that research hasn't proven a pain response exists in babies. I don't find anything in the bill that supports their contention; it doesn't cite studies, but then it's not an academic paper either. It does say several times that "there is substantial evidence" of different points, and I'm not thinking their "substantial evidence" is an email from Pat Robertson. They also say:
Expert testimony confirms that by 20 weeks after fertilization an unborn child may experience substantial pain even if the woman herself has received local analgesic or general anesthesia.
So, is this expert supposed to be, oh, testimony from Dr. James Dobson? Again, I doubt it. There is research on whether fetuses feel actual pain; this article is a summary, which intriguingly seems to indicate that pain itself is to some degree a social construct. However, it also says this:
The debate about fetal pain need not affect clinical practice involving the fetus or neonate. Evidence that the stress response, which the fetus and newborn launch in response to physical insult, has known detrimental consequences is acceptable even to those who do not accept that pain is experienced. Newborns who undergo operations without analgesia show increased mortality compared to newborns who receive analgesia. Therefore, in cases of invasive practice where there is a clinical rationale for anesthetic use that does not rely upon a pain diagnosis, withholding analgesia for neonates should remain an unethical practice.
He does say anesthetics for the fetus are not yet warranted by research, and he is also against legislatively requiring anesthesia (this is from 2003, so prior to S51), so you could hardly call him a shill for the right. Here is a group of doctors in the UK who specifically study fetal pain, and wouldn't be much concerned about politics in the US:
We have now completed our first trial of giving the opiate fentanyl to the fetus. These are the first experiments to determine how to give pain relief to the fetus in a safe and effective way. At the doses used it ablated the blood flow redistribution to the brain, and the endorphin response but not the cortisol response.We are continuing to characterise how the fetus responds to therapeutic but possibly painful invasive procedures, such as a blood transfusion. It can mount a rapid noradrenaline response from 18 weeks gestation and a slower cortisol and ß-endorphin response at least from 20 weeks. It also responds by increasing blood flow to the brain. This has been demonstrated from 16 weeks.
Do these findings immutably justify legislation like S51? I can't say, I'm not a doctor, and certainly not one who specializes in researching pain in fetuses. But it does rather strongly suggest that the framers of S51 weren't just writing up notes from the last Christian Coalition meeting. And I'm basing my support for the bill on at least as much information as those who are opposing it use.
I also don't want to hear any disdainful sneers about how S51 is all about politics. It's law. Law is always about politics. And certainly the pro-choice crowd aren't earnest innocents who only want The Best for Everyone Concerned. They are very aggressively involved in trying to define the issues, set agendas and get their definitions out there as the primary ones. To rail against anti-abortion people who do no more than that is more than a touch hypocritical. Argue about the principle, but don't attack the methods when you're just sorry you didn't think of it first.
In my judgment, abortion is homicide. The only justification for it is self-defense. The very least we can do is make sure the little ones dying every day go with as little pain as possible. I'm writing today to both the Alabama and Kentucky senators to praise their support for it. I recommend you find out where your senators stand, and respond appropriately.
I don't have a problem with people who have money. I don't have a problem with people who have money spending it. I don't have a problem with people who have money spending it on things I can never reasonably hope to have.*
I do have a problem when people who have money get all googly-eyed about finding ways to live "sustainably" on the earth. It's kind of like those Hollywood types who whimper and whine about minimum wage levels and the poor and homeless of America, and still raking in the dough with no appreciable signs of cutting loose most of it for those same poor people they lament so pitiably. It's the hypocrisy that grinds in my gizzard.
This latest tirade is sparked by Dartmouth College's new "sustainability director", who will "work to support and further develop the sustainability efforts already in place at Dartmouth, such as the organic farm, composting and recycling programs. He will develop a strategy to embed principles of sustainable prosperity in the school's role as a place of learning and research, a business enterprise and a member of the local community, the College press release said."
Pardon me while I toss my cookies in the shrubbery. Don't worry, it's biodegradable and whatever's left after the little creatures eat their fill will rot and fertilize next season's shrubbery growth. You see, it's not just Dartmouth - it's other Ivy leaguers too:
Harvard employs an entire faculty team as part of its four-year-old Green Campus Initiative, while Stanford is currently looking into hiring a sustainability coordinator.
The point, in case you didn't figure it out, is to create the impression on campus of living close to the land, of giving back more than you take out, of not starring in your own movie, "Mother Earth, Interrupted". The problem is, you're on a college campus by virtue of the fact that you and/or your family have huge buckets of money. That money was not earned, either now or in previous generations, by fertilizing organic gardens with manure from local cows, then selling the produce to local community members who walked or rode a work animal over to your farm to pick up just what they needed for their families. In other words, your presence on the college campus is due to enterprises largely unconcerned with sustainability, and the best way you can "give back to the earth" is to shut the place down and move to Montana to grow an organic garden while living in a house of sod and burning only peat bricks for heat in the winter. A goal of, say, living in Manhattan is 180 degrees from anything sustainable in any sense that I understand of nurturing Mother Earth.
Just as I don't mind people with money, I don't mind people who are interested in sustainability. In fact, I admire it, and I've been known to consider the value of buying locally and eating foods in season. But my hero of the hour is Wendell Berry, not this Merkel guy. Despite being a world-renowned author, poet and advocate of sustainable local communities, Wendell Berry does not live in Manhattan or LA where he could be feted at the drop of a quiche. No, he lives in Henry County, Kentucky, on the farm where he grew up, a farm that he works himself, in a normal way and not as a pretty Marie-Antionette-as-shepherdess way. I don't always agree with Mr. Berry, but I think he's a wonderful example of someone serious about living an honest, land-respecting life. And if you don't believe me, go to Henry County. I have. I turned down a job there because it was too isolated. And that's from someone who grew up 10 miles out of the middle of nowhere. Here are some of Berry's thoughts, in an essay about why he won't buy a computer:
Like almost everybody else, I am hooked to the energy corporations, which I do not admire. I hope to become less hooked to them. In my work, I try to be as little hooked to them as possible. As a farmer, I do almost all of my work with horses. As a writer, I work with a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper...I would hate to think that my work as a writer could not be done without a direct dependence on strip-mined coal. How could I write conscientiously against the rape of nature if I were, in the act of writing, Implicated in the rape ? For the same reason, it matters to me that my writing is done in the daytime, without electric light...
That computers are expected to become as common as TV sets in "the future" does not impress me or matter to me. I do not own a TV set. I do not see that computers are bringing us one step nearer to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice, ecological health, political honesty, family and community stability, good work...
That's the voice of someone who lives his beliefs. I recommend you read the whole essay; the part about his wife is very sweet. And don't fail to note the reflexive leftist in the first comment on the essay, who sees Berry's thoughts about his wife as proof that she's unvalued and oppressed. He'd be right at home holding Merkel's bike helmet.
The kind of cocktail-party environmentalism that is endemic at these schools is risible. If they were serious about it, and brought in people who live it and not play it as some gimick, I'd be more open to it. But even Merkel's claim of "sustainability", of living on only $5,000 a year for 14 years, has holes you could drive a diesel-powered Mack truck through:
Is it really possible to live on $5K/year without taking advantage of the “commons” of others? As the IRS considers “trading” of valuable things to be a production of income, was Merkel’s income, at $13.00 per day, underreported?Where did Merkel live, or, more properly, how did Merkel put a roof over his head, purchase food and clothing, and pay for all those expensive bicycle tires on $13.00 a day?
...Obviously, Mr. Merkel is one of the oft-lamented “uninsured” who visits the emergency room when he falls off his bike, as there is no possible way in Hades he has health insurance on the 20 cents he has left over each day after paying for food and lodging. Therefore, I pay for Merkel’s health care when he busts his “sustainable” head.
There's more, and it's lovely, at Powerline. And let me add here that I'm not trashing all Ivy League grads - it's obvious that the Powerline guys are good folks. And they're mocking the sustainability thing too. That's where I heard about it. What's a problem is when people go to school there or teach there in a rich, rarified atmosphere and then play at environmentalism like some trendy parlor game. Don't come crying to me about the fertilizer I use in my yard until you stop using rubber tires for your bicycle, or stop attending classes in a room heated by coal, or refuse to eat anything grown outside of a 10 mile radius of your house. Until you pay someone a living wage to grow cotton, weave it on a wooden spinning wheel and loom made from sustainable wood resources, sew it by hand using a bone needle made from the bones of an animal that died of natural causes, don't cry to me.
I admire every little effort to do the right thing. But don't cover yourself in glory for it, especially when the only thing sustainable about your behavior is the facade that it matters.
* Of course I'd love to win the lottery, if I played it which I don't, or the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. And I'd love even more if my first published novel (coming soon! as soon as I write it!) made millions and I could spend that. I don't dislike or disdain money. I just don't get in wads when other people have it and I don't.
I just spent two hours touring the jail in my town, a cement-block and steel behemoth that will house upwards of 500 people. It's over half full and they're already talking about adding on. It was a great tour - I took my CJ class, none of whom had been in a jail before. The sergeant who took us around showed us everything we wanted to see, and answered all our questions. Well, almost all. We did ask for more information on the bizarre things he'd seen in his years at the sheriff's department, but I think he was concerned about our delicate sensibilities.
I'd toured it before, and I've toured a number of prisons and other jails too, so while it was very interesting it wasn't new to me. But I never get used to being around people in cages, and feeling that I have some obligation not to look at them to protect whatever privacy they have left. The sergeant was amused.
It's an amazing facility, and I would tell you more but then I'd have to kill you.
There was one scary moment. The segregation unit is a short hallway off one of the main corridors, with about six doors opening into it. Each cell is about half the size of a normal cell, and is closed with a dark gray steel door with a long narrow strip of plexiglass down the top half. The sergeant had told us about a prisoner who was a fighter, who had to be kept chained and in segregation at all times because any time he was free, he'd come at the officers. We were looking for him, but when the sergeant told us he was gone we all relaxed and continued down the hall. Then I looked to my right.
There, pressed up against the plexiglass, was a gray-haired man with stubbled face and the craziest grin I've ever seen. Even though he was behind a solid steel door, my skin crawled and I jumped back. He stayed pressed against the glass, watching us, the whole time we were in that section. I had a strong feeling that he was wishing he could grab one of us and get a few minutes alone. I wasn't surprised when I learned later that he was convicted of murdering his wife. Rumor has it that he's got other unsavory, perhaps deadly, predilections.
Dealing with the horrors of what people do to each other is different when you have a little academic distance going on. Seeing someone face to face who not only has killed but very likely would take great pleasure in doing so again is the stuff of nightmares. I admire those officers. I wonder how many of them have an overactive imagination.
I don't think you could and survive in that job.
The debate continues, off and on, about whether we should have a national government-paid health care system a la Hillary; it's likely to heat up when the next presidential election comes around, especially if Ms. Hillary herself is in the running.
To keep the matter in perspective, think about this: In Australia, the government pays for childless couples to have invitro fertilization treatment. And now liberal politicians there are going ballistic because there's a rumor the conservative government may try to cap the uses of IVF by couples. Not end, mind you, but limit - specifically, to three tries a year for women prior to age 42, and three tries total for women over age 42. If they want to try more than that, they can, they just have to pay for it at about $7500 Australian a pop.
And here's what the libs have to say about it:
[NSW Liberal Party vice-president and women's council member Rhondda] Vanzella said her reasons for moving the motion were driven by her daughter's IVF treatment."I know exactly what's involved in it, and I just don't think that there should be any relationship between the Government telling you what you can do and what you can't do," she said.
Well, from what I can see, the government there isn't trying to tell people what they can or can't do. What they're saying it, we aren't going to pay for it beyond a certain point. This seems very reasonable, if you take as a given that IVF is something governments should pay for at all in the first place (which I don't):
Treasurer Peter Costello and Mr Abbott have refused to confirm or deny the detail of the "three strikes" policy but have publicly argued the need to ensure IVF treatment is not open-ended, and released Health Department research to support their views.
If nationalized health care took over the US, how long before someone would claim that IVF is a civil right of someone here? How long before any limitations would be ascribed to racism, since a goodly percentage of those who would rely most on nationalized health care would be lower income minorities? And of course the anti-discrimination laws would soon require that gay couples be allowed to participate in IVF, even though their problem wouldn't be fertility but rather partnering in same-sex couples that can't biologically reproduce within the couple.
Reproduction isn't a right. Bottomless health care isn't a right. And we need to make sure that our health care policies don't go left.
Yesterday I posted about plans afoot in a few states to track convicted sex offenders by leg bracelets with GPS tracking capabilities. I noted that I'm generally in favor of it, but there are some civil rights issues and general common sense concerns that need to be addressed first. My discussion of it is quite long, of course it is because I'm the one writing it, so it's in MORE.
Many criminal justice policy decisions are made on emotion, not rational consideration and factual review of research and actual cases. That's a very bad thing. I'm not saying that emotion shouldn't be a part of it - emotion is part of what tells us should and shouldn't be a part of society. But it should be a part of the consideration, not the primary mover.
The first question is, what's our goal? Is it to stop them from causing additional harm? Is it to punish them for the harm they've already caused? Is it to teach them how to live a law-abiding life so they will choose not to harm again, and possibly even give something valuable to society like a solid, tax-paying hard-working citizen does? In the case of GPS tracking, its main purpose is clearly to limit or prevent further harm; any other purpose would be secondary.
And what about the impact our choice has on society as a whole? I don't think very many of us want to go back to a society where someone is hanged for stealing bread; the sharia law that holds sway in some more hard-line Islamic nations is often decried in the US as vicious and damaging to the concept of a free society. It is that, but what they do now is not so different in a number of ways from the way English society was not so many hundreds of years ago. So, given that we don't want to go where nearly everything is a capital offense, we have to have some way of deciding how harshly we want to respond to different kinds of crime. Essentially, we have to set up a hierarchy of harm, which first establishes what harm a crime causes and second how serious that harm is.
Then we think about intent. Did the person mean to cause harm? How much harm did they mean to cause? In our criminal justice system, given two crimes where the harm caused was the same (say, a death by drowning), we tend to view a crime less seriously when the intent to do harm is less. For example, if two people are drinking and horseplaying around a swimming pool, and one of them playfully pushes the other one so he falls down and hits his head, then slips into the pool and drowns before his drunk friend can get him out, we're not likely to charge that person with capital murder. If on the other hand, someone is swimming in a pool and someone else pulls him under and holds him there until he drowns, and meant for him to die, then the killer probably would be charged with at least first degree murder, if not capital murder.
So there are the main considersations: Harm, Intent, Goal of correctional response. To that, add likelihood of reoffending, which generally tracks pretty closely with intent. There are other factors - such as, repetitive DUIs where the potential for harm outstrips the intent to do harm in pretty much every case, so you have to respond to the potential as well as the intent - but in sex offense cases that's not really a major concern. In sex offenses, the intent to do harm tracks with the actual harm, and if anything the actual harm falls short of the intended harm much more often than the opposite is true.
Sex offenders come in a wide range of levels of harm, intent and likelihood of re-offending. The majority of them are not active predators; they're drunken frat guys or a relative taking advantage of an opportunity to abuse a young person or a boyfriend/husband who feels he has a right to sex on demand. Not that those can't be predators too, but a lot of them aren't. That's not to diminish the harm they've caused, but the intent is different from a predator's intent. And the context is difficult to monitor with a GPS device.
The civil rights issue is, for me, the fact that we should as a society seek to limit the government's control over the lives of citizens of the US. Certainly we have a limited right to protections, and that becomes pretty broad when it's a protection against intentional harm. But once a precedent has been set for maintaining oversight of someone for the rest of his life, outside of prison, if we've not set very clear boundaries for when that can happen, it can be extrapolated into other circumstances that really don't require or deserve it.
A more directly utilitarian consideration is resources - when you have limited resources, it's better to do a great job with the most serious problem than to do a poor job with every level of the problem. It is not practical, or even desirable, for us to lock up every sex offender for the rest of his (or her) life. We have to decide who is the greatest threat, and set criteria to determine that. The tighter the criteria, the fewer offenders will meet it, and the more likely we will be successful in preventing those offenders from further sexual predations.
I think we need to limit any permanent tracking to those sex offenders who are sexual predators with clear indications they will likely reoffend. We can't kill them all, or keep them all in prison forever. We're back to the hierarchy of harm. But I think the risk of reoffending, of causing future harm, is great enough to justify tracking a narrow subset of the offenders, the ones who have clearly gone beyond a crime of convenience or opportunity and actively sought out settings and circumstances where they can offend. Unfortunately, just like it sometimes takes a death at an intersection before the road crew puts up a traffic light, there will be instances where an offender either isn't detected until he becomes deadly or where his history doesn't predict he will escalate. People, children, will be victimized. But we can balance the need for freedom with the need for protection, and can limit harm significantly, by the GPS tracking.
Even that is not a sure thing, by the way. Unless we create a "child free zone" in the community at large, and limit child sex offenders to those clearly delineated zones, there will be instances where someone wearing one of those bracelets assaults a child. Nothing is guaranteed to stop reoffending 100% except killing the offender. And I would consider expanding GPS tracking to sexual offenders who choose adult victims, although that would create issues of how to limit their movement. I would think in that situation the tracking would not be so much to keep them away from certain areas as much as to track whether they were in an area where an offense took place. The knowledge that their exact location and time there would be accessible to police within minutes of a reported assault would be a powerful deterrent. But the main use would be for offenders who choose child victims.
Of course, people who murder in the course of sexual offending should, I think, be eligible for life imprisonment. If they have a history of offending, then I think the death penalty is appropriate. Actually, I think drawing and quartering is appropriate, but I don't want to get medieval on you.
Men's Health magazine compiled a list of the 20 happiest places in the US and the 20 most depressed; when I saw that Jersey City ranks as the third happiest, I knew there was something wrong.
What they really did was find out who complains about depression and then takes drugs or kills themselves over it. I'd seriously recommend they control for a few things - for example, pull out income and see if places with higher incomes have more sales of anti-depressants. Not that poorer people don't buy them, or need them, but I'd guess in Jersey City you'd find depressed people more likely to get their happy pills on a street corner, not in a pharmacy. And maybe it's just me, but I also suspect you'll find fewer recent immigrants, fewer salt-of-the-earth middle America types, and fewer macho types (i.e. cowboys) crying in their coffee. A lot of mood is interpreting what's going on, and some people are more ready to accept that life just isn't fair.
I'm not trashing people who need and use anti-depressants; I've needed them myself a few times. But just like Ritalin, I think a lot of people go on them more as a way to moderate emotions over behaviors or situations that are a part of life, rather than as a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. It's a lot easier to take a pill than change your life or your attitude. But behavior modification is a good therapy for depression - once the drugs give you a mood floor, behavior modification therapy gives you new tools to manage situations and emotions that previously triggered depression. It's not a cure-all. But then popping a pill usually isn't either. Learning to re-interprete your world in a healthier way can actually help stave off the lesser depressive episodes, so you can let go of the drugs. Or take a lower dose at least.
Jersey City*. Sheesh.
* Yes, yes, I have some fond memories of it. But there's nothing like watching a cow pasture from your front porch.
NJ politician Paul Byrne, convicted of helping his boss and childhood friend Robert Janiszewski get into all kinds of nasty Jersey style corrupt deals while Hudson County Executive for four terms, finds some comfort in his lack of belief in God:
If you don't do this [write a living will] for your family, you don't really love them," he said. "People say, 'It's in God's hands.' Really, it isn't. God is too busy to be running around to all the emergency rooms in New Jersey."Byrne doesn't believe in God, anyway. For a convicted bagman, there is comfort in that.
"If had any religious faith, I'd be concerned about dying because I don't think I'd even make it to purgatory," he said. "I don't want to contend with the day of reckoning."
Somehow I'm thinking the day of reckoning won't arrive or not arrive based on his wishes. It's sad. I hope he rethinks before the end.
Paige Davis is off Trading Spaces!! Why didn't I know this? I watch it fairly often, although not as obsessively as I used to, and I like her a lot. I think she adds a lot to the show. But she's gone. Poof! Here's what she had posted on her blog - back in January! (Okay, maybe I'm the last to know because I'm oblivious.)
With Much Gratitude (Jan 24, 2005)I just wanted to take a minute to say goodbye. As you may have heard, TLC is taking Trading Spaces in a new creative direction. They are moving into a host-less format and therefore I will no longer be in the cast of the show. My last episode will premiere in March and in the meantime I'll be looking toward my next adventure and what will hopefully be a bright future — and a lot more time with Patrick and Sophie. :-)
I cannot begin to explain what an incredible journey this show has been for me. I love Trading Spaces so much and I am very proud of what the cast and crew has brought to you. I have loved working with the amazingly talented cast. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting all our homeowners. And it's been a thrill meeting awesome and dedicated fans like you all over the country. I will miss my friends very much, but I know they all wish me well and send me off with their love and support; and I am sure that Trading Spaces will still be a fabulous and fun show for all of you to watch. I will certainly be watching and cheering them on.
With much gratitude,
PaigePress Statement:
"TLC is taking Trading Spaces in a new creative direction, transitioning to a "host-less" format this spring. As a result, Paige Davis will be leaving the cast of Trading Spaces. We believe that this new creative direction will enable the show to be more spontaneous, focus more on the homeowners and designers, and create alternative home trades in different cities and on opposite coasts.Paige helped make Trading Spaces a great success for the network and we wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors.
Paige's last new episode will premiere in March, with repeat episodes of Trading Spaces airing throughout the year."
Hmph. I've watched the new format, and I don't think it's as cohesive. Maybe I'm just used to Paige. And maybe that's a sign that I'm conservative after all - I don't like change.
You knew it'd end up with politics, didn't you?
A tooth from a 400-year-old English grave may give us a new American hero to revere.
Or at least another monument to visit.
Some say Bartholomew Gosnold was the "prime mover" behind the settlement at Jamestown, VA. US archaeologists have found a grave they think might be his, but they have to check his DNA against that of a known family member of Gosnold's. That's where the tooth comes in.
It's an intriguing story, and illuminates more of the history of the times. If you like history, you'll like this.
[Link via Archaeoblog]
In the wake of the newest spate of young girls abducted and murdered by sex offenders, lawmakers are discussing again the possibilities of permanently tracking convicted sex offenders by attaching a bracelet to their leg. Here's the description from the Florida version:
The proposal - approved by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee last week - mandates life in prison or permanent electronic monitoring if offenders ever get out, so trackers can instantly know if they leave the areas where they are registered to live.
The "instantly know" part could have to do with GPS, although the article doesn't say so. Here's a description from a 2004 article about a program in Washington, DC:
Using global positioning satellites, they can now track sexual predators' every move, right down to the square foot. Since the program began last year, some 60 offenders have been kept under close watch...Stewart explains that an ankle bracelet communicates to a pager-like device worn on the waist. It has the offender's name on it, the date, and the exact time down to the second. The offender's movements are beamed from the box to a satellite, and then to computers monitored by parole officers like Paul Brannan in D.C.
"It is essentially psychological warfare. They know they're being tracked and the fear of us finding out about what they're doing is, I think, having a deterring effect."
The predators, notes Stewart, are forbidden from loitering around schoolyards, churches, or homes of previous victims. They're given curfews. If they're somewhere they're not supposed to be, parole officers learn about it when they log onto their computers the next day.
"This is what we're interested in," says Brannan. "What happens after work? Is he going home? Is he going somewhere else? We want to see if he stops near a school."
If he does, says Stewart, the parole officers have proof positive to take to a judge and have the offender put back in jail.
Tennessee already has it:
NASHVILLE -- Within the next few months, paroled sex offenders in Tennessee will be getting some new jewelry -- and they had better keep it on or Big Brother will know. The state is setting up pilot projects in several counties to make paroled sex offenders wear an ankle bracelet that uses a global positioning system, or GPS, to track their every move. The GPS bracelet can tell the Board of Probation and Parole if an offender strays into a restricted zone, such as a schoolyard or playground. It sets off an immediate alarm if the bracelet is removed. "I think these changes will make Tennessee one of the last places sex offenders want to be, and I think the GPS system will be one of the most important public safety tools since the two-way radio," said Rep. Rob Briley, a Nashville Democrat.The ankle bracelet program was part of a package of bills, soon to be signed into law, that will tighten Tennessee's sex offender laws. Lawmakers said lax laws and enforcement had made the state a haven for such people. The tracking technology was first used in Florida in the late 1990s and since has spread to several other states. The Tennessee project will not be used statewide until a $2.5 million pilot program proves its effectiveness.
It's very difficult to rehabilitate sex offenders, and there are some who are predators, pure and simple, who should never see light of day again once they're caught. One Texas official estimates that number is 10%:
The arrest of a convicted sex offender this week in the kidnapping, rape and slaying of a 9-year-old Florida girl underscores a national problem, experts say. Authorities don't have enough money to identify, treat and monitor the sex offenders most likely to repeat their crimes."The systems at the state and federal levels need to be fixed," said Allison Taylor, executive director of the Texas Council on Sex Offender Treatment, which coordinates that state's sex-offender treatment strategies.
"We have 41,000 names on our (sex offenders) registry," she said. "If we could take our money and focus it on the 10 percent or so who are most likely to reoffend, we could make great progress."
10% doesn't sound that bad, until you do the numbers: 4,100 "most" likely to reoffend. And that's just in Texas. However, a Canadian psychologist says sex offenders aren't usually likely to reoffend:
In fact, most sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than other criminals."Studies show that most sex offenders do not reoffend after being caught," said Karl Hanson, a psychologist and senior research officer at Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, that country's equivalent of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Hanson, a leading authority on sex offenders, says counseling, an offender's past and even polygraph tests help identify the "highest-risk reoffenders." Those individuals need to be imprisoned for "very long sentences," he said.
I think what needs to be clarified there is the type of sex offender you're dealing with. A sex offender ranges from a person convicted of exposing himself to women to a father who abuses his daughter to a sexual predator who stalks and kills - like the man who killed Jessica Lunsford. A lot of sex offenders in all but the last category - the career sexual predators - are responding to circumstances as well as their own mental difficulties. When treated, they'll find ways not to re-offend. But someone who is addicted to sexual activity that is illegal - pedophilia, violent sex, rape - are unlikely to be deterred. They have to be incapacitated. What's the difference? Deterrence is essentially a threat - if you do X again, then you are going to suffer this harm that you really really really don't want. It's a mind thing. Incapacitation is literal physical restraint - you will not do this again because we are going to make it physically impossible to do so.
The GPS tracking falls somewhere between deterrence and incapacitation. Part of the goal is to get inside the heads of sex offenders to let them know they're being watched. That's going to be enough for a lot of the somewhat bad ones, and the knowledge that the police will be on their way soon will be enough for the bad ones. But for the evil ones, the only type of incapacitation that works is prison. Or death. Of course, even for the somewhat bad to bad ones, deterrence works only if they know the cops are coming if they go over the line.
Unfortunately, vigilance on those restrictions tend to slip as more people are put under survellience and few recommit. Staffing in law enforcement and corrections units also make a huge difference. It's a sad truth that the money for monitoring offenders like that just isn't there except for the brief period of time after a tragedy like the Lunsford murder. That isn't to say cops don't care, or that probation or parole officers don't care. They do. They're just usually badly overworked and pulled in a lot of directions. It's hard to maintain vigilance in the face of inactivity. But it's when vigilance slips that inactivity ends in tragedy.
I'm generally in favor of tracking serious sex offenders, especially those determined to be at high risk of reoffending. But there are civil rights issues. I'll talk more about that later today.
I would never have thought those three words would make it together in a title - especially in a coherent title. Yet it works for this blog I found today, where a cowboy in chaps asks the burning question, "What have YOU done TODAY to change the face of archaeology as we know it?"
I really enjoy reading about archaeology, so it's going on the blogroll.
I was talking about archaeology yesterday with a friend of mine who's a freshman in college. I was encouraging her to spread her electives out over a variety of disciplines she found intriguing without being worried about whether it would or could be a career. You never know when you'll find your true calling, and it's sometimes nothing you would have thought of without taking a class on something related to it. I told her I'd always wanted to study archaeology and regretted not taking at least one class, but then had to admit I was more interested in finding the big stuff on a daily basis, not spending three years digging through a hillside with a tablespoon and a toothbrush to find one ancient bracelet. It's probably a good thing that my interest limited to watching archaeology shows and, now, reading about it on a blog.
[Link via Theosebes]
I love readability measures. It's my goal to shake loose as much readability as possible from as many high-flown concepts/articles as I can get my hands on. I hit the readability vs snob-factor when I was finishing up my master's thesis. As a former reporter, I was intent on writing it clearly but readably. I think most fairly complex concepts can be understood without having to have a college or even high school degree, just a modicum of understanding and intelligence on the reader's part and more than a modicum of both on the writer's part. In other words, I think the blame for someone's inability to understand a particular piece of writing lies more on the writer than the reader.
A friend of mine - take a bow, Desiree! - was helping me get my thesis typed and formatted. This was before I was Computer Chick. Besides, she can burn up a keyboard at over 100 words/minute and I'm a lame 70 wpm if I'm cooking. After typing it, Desiree ran a readability and jargon test on the thesis. Then I took it to my professor. She made a number of changes, none of them substantive or theoretical; the majority were in wording, to, as she said, make it more "academic". She didn't say this sneeringly, I hasten to add - she was very cool, just acknowledging that an academic work has to have an academic air to pass muster. I then took it back to Desiree, who made the changes and ran another series of tests. The education needed to read it went from a high school sophomore to a college freshman; the jargon level doubled.
What an education in academese!
Now CG Hill at Dustbury has alerted me to this site, which will go to your website and analyze it for readability. Here's how mine came out:
Total sentences: 1,104
Total words: 14,012
Average words per sentence: 12.69
Words with 1 syllable: 9,424
Words with 2 syllables: 2,702
Words with 3 syllables: 1,307
Words with 4 or more: 579
Percent of words with three or more syllables: 13.46%
Average Syllables per Word: 1.5
Gunning Fog Index: 10.46
Flesch Reading Ease: 66.77
Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 7.10
Essentially, the Gunning Fog index says how much education someone would need to read it, so that's at about mid-year high school sophomore. Interestingly, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade is also education needed to read it, and that is 7.10. Apparently that one was derived using gifted students. For the Reading Ease measure, the closer to 100 it is, the easer it is to understand. The discussion on the website says, "Authors are encouraged to aim for a score of approximately 60 to 70." So apparently I'm doing okay, despite a tendency to be Faulkner-esque in my sentence construction.
And according to Philip Chalmers' rating index, my site takes more education than Time and Newsweek, but less than the Wall Street Journal. I like his assessment of what it means when a document has a Fog Index of over 30.
It appears that John Kerry may have aspirations to run at the presidency again in 2008, and envisions Hillary Clinton as his "2008 presidential opponent". That would make for a fantastic primary season. And the more dagger-eyed looks he gives people between now and then, the better. There's no way he's taking down Hillary, but he's an ugly fighter and if he can be lured into eating her breakfast for two years before the primaries, that's a good thing.
John Hinderaker at Powerline agrees.
And for those of you enjoying my mangled metaphors, I'm just practicing to be Tom Friedman when I grow up.
[Friedman link from Scott Johnson at Powerline]
Nice for the Brits to have to pay tax dollars for this:
The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".
These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair".
...Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion...
The spokesman was unable to provide details of any other campaign meetings attended by the BBC3 crew. He said that the hecklers had not been paid a fee, but could not say whether they had received expenses.
The sad thing is, while I think that's wholly outrageous, I'm just not surprised or even slightly shocked - unless it's at the general stupidity of BBC. Clearly they have some sense of themselves as the best of all journalists while at the same time committing egregious acts of bias and poor journalistic practices. There is in journalism a temptation to soup up situations to show what you think is truth, but more dramatically than is happening naturally. While dramatic license to prove a point is not a bad thing in some contexts, it is A Very Bad Thing in journalism, very obviously because journalism claims to be the unbiased, non-participant observer of What Is, not a dramatized version of same.
If the intentions were to disrupt Howard's speech, then they should all be fired forthwith. But if the intentions were just to "soup up" what they already thought was "truth", then someone needs to advise them that observation changes activity. Here's a little research from a Powerpoint on behavior change and the impact of observation:
Workers produced more work units when an observer was present (Belfiore, Mace and Browder, 1989)
Dishwashers spent more time on a task when observer was present (Rusch et al (1984)
Bus operators responded systematically to the presence of a supervisor (Olson & Austin, 2001)
I'm sure most people would say, "Um, of course" to those observations, but apparently the BBC folk aren't much willing to admit that their behavior, even if it was just giving people microphones who were already there to heckle, would have had an effect on the event. People tend to perform as they perceive they are expected to perform, while they're being observed. It's a huge issue in research studies, that's why they do double-blind studies on really important things.
The BBC people are guilty of one of three things: Stupidity (not knowing the science); Bias (knowing but not caring if it hurt Howard); or Sabotage (deliberately putting people out there to harrass Howard specifically, in an intentional bid to hurt him even if instigated only by their desire for footage). There is no non-culpable ignorance here. And in any of those three cases, they've seriously breeched the trust implied by their staunch claim of unbiased journalism.
I'm opting for Sabotage.
I was chatting this afternoon with a young lady of my acquaintance, who I will not describe in detail because I didn't get her permission to blog this conversation. She is intelligent and, in my judgment, fairly liberal. We talked about a lot of things, although not directly about politics, and at one point she said something about "conservatives, like Ted Turner".
I nearly keeled over in the floor. In what world would Turner, Mr. Give My Money to the UN, be conservative? I told her I didn't consider him one at all, and she said, "But he's a member of the NRA! And he gets huge tax breaks!" She said she considers herself a moderate, and her view of conservatives is "someone who is most concerned about themselves as an individual and about how things affect me, not anyone else." Nothing I could say - I didn't try very hard, I like her and didn't want to get into a verbal tussle - would sway her from her view.
It's a classic case of filtering, I think. We each have an image in our head labeled "conservative" that has a certain array of characteristics, and when we learn about someone we compare them to that image. It's just that she and I have completely different images attached to that word. And that's even with a full knowledge of dictionaries! In my judgment, based on her definition, there's a whole passle of not just liberals, but leftists, that would fit her image. The one I suggested to her was George Soros.
Pretty amusing.
You just wish people would actually think sometimes.
While I think the guidance counselor is probably a well-meaning person, one suspects she is the type of liberal who feels more than she thinks, and believes feeling deeply is an adequate substitute for thinking deeply. I suspect she'll learn that feeling without thinking has some unpleasant consequences sometimes.
And let me hasten to add that the non-thinking/all-feeling liberal is not a majority subset.
[Link via Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy.]
Trish Wilson righteously fisks SC Republican legislator John Graham Altman III, using the article from The State linked in my previous post on this. The legislators continue not to help themselves by making stupid jokes that are being recorded (one has to wonder whether they knew it was being recorded):
Advocates said they had offered amendments to remove sections that committee members had objected to, such as one that expanded the definition of “physical cruelty,” a grounds for divorce.But the amendments never got introduced. Instead, advocates said, committee members joked about the title of the bill and then tabled it with little discussion.
According to a tape of the meeting obtained by The State newspaper, Altman asked why the bill’s title — “Protect Our Women in Every Relationship (POWER)” — just mentioned protecting women. Harrison suggested making the bill the “Protecting Our People in Every Relationship” Act, or “POPER.”
A voice on the tape can be heard pronouncing it “Pop her.” Another voice then says, “Pop her again,” followed by laughter.
It just makes me give a heavy sigh. These legislators need* some couth rather desperately. I doubt seriously that most of these men have ever raised a hand to a woman, or engaged in spousal abuse, or would tolerate it happening to their daughters or the women around them. But the clunkiness of this whole process indicates they've all got tin ears when it comes to women's political issues. Yeesh.
This is precisely the kind of legislatorial stupidity that gives leftist feminists the cart in which to ride roughshod over the legislative process. I agree with the people who say that South Carolina needs to get serious about domestic abuse (and I'm deliberately not using "domestic violence", since some very serious abuse does not involve physical assault). I agree that these legislators need a public metaphorical spanking for their idiocy. What concerns me is that because of that idiocy, the legislators may be unwilling to challenge more leftist elements who will now push harder for their version of the law. When you've been caught being very very disrespectful and rude about a certain genuine problem, it strips you of a lot of credibility when you try to point out that someone else (who wasn't disrespectful and rude in that way) is trying to pass inappropriate, unwieldy or just bizarrely anti-man legislation. I'm not saying that the tabled proposal, brought forward by a female Democrat legislator, is any of those things. I'm just saying, the Republicans have given a lot of cover to someone who would push for just that kind of legislation. And I fear because of this mui estupido behavior, South Carolinians are in trouble.
Pinko Feminist Hellcat (what a funny, cool name. heh.) has a bit more to say about this too. Naturally.
* I started to say "a good smack upside the head" but then realized in this context that was not a good choice. See how easily a silly joke could become A Major Issue?
** Yes, yes, it's a bit flippant. But I think the legislators are being idiots and the feminists are being just a tad self-righteous, consciously so I think in an effort to push their own agenda. I don't disagree with their agenda in a lot of ways, although I certainly don't agree with all the usual baggage feminists tend to load onto the DV issue. It's important to realize that we're seeing a fight here, not a reasoned debate on either side.
And partially I said it just to see if I could get a rise out of the feminists :D. Barry, where are you when I need you?
(Ooooohhhh... cool, when I went to Alas, A Blog, I learned that GW [and me, since I voted for him and agree with him on this issue] wants to kill 68,000 women. Evil, evil GW! Although I must say I'm more sympathetic to a woman who lives in a third world country and doesn't have contraceptives or the means to feed another mouth, than I am to a woman who has contraceptives and has the means to feed another mouth and has the option of giving up for adoption but still can't be bothered* to give 9 months of her life to let another life exist. You know, consequences really bite sometimes, especially if the situation is not completely of your own making, but that doesn't mean you should harm someone else to limit your consequences.)
*{And yes, that's inflammatory, but less so IMHO than saying GW wants 68,000 women to die. Not so pleasant when the shoe's on the other foot, hmm?}
On Wednesday I posted about the CDC having to come down on their claims that obesity has a direct causal link to early death. John Luik at TCS has a column on it that looks more closely at the numbers:
[E]ven the 25,814 deaths per year from obesity needs to be taken not just with a grain of salt but with enough to keep Chicago's streets ice-free for an entire winter. That's because the results are in many cases not statistically significant, though the authors don't mention this. For example, in the 25-59 year old group the confidence interval for increased risk for the obese with BMI's up to 35 is 0.84-1.72, meaning that we can't be confident that even for this group there is any increased risk of early death. The same is true for those with BMI's up to 30. Moreover, the RR figure -- the Relative Risk for dying from obesity - is, in the authors' words, "in the range of 1-2." This means that there is at the very best a very weak association -- notice, not a causal connection -- between obesity and death. And even this is built on a shaky foundation as the authors note that "Other factors associated with body weight, such as physical activity, body composition, visceral adiposity, physical fitness, or dietary intake, might be responsible for some or all of the apparent associations of weight with mortality." So there it is -- there may in fact be no link between obesity and death. Early deaths might instead be due to diets, body type or lack of physical activity.
There's lots more good stuff, and I suggest you read it just for the junk science debunking if not for the obesity update. And Luik predicts what the Fat Police have already confirmed - they're not going to let facts get in the way of fighting this horrible killer. From Luik's article:
In a world without junk science, results like these would mark the end of the supposed obesity epidemic that is killing us by the thousands. Unfortunately the public health community is already busily discounting the CDC's numbers and telling us that whatever the science says, fat kills. Don't count on it.
From an article on the findings in USA Today, which I linked to on Wednesday:
CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity."There's absolutely no question that obesity is a major public health concern of this country," she said.
Looks like Gerberding has shifted from "scientist" to "fanatic".
File this under "unsurprising":
The woman who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili last month has been arrested, the latest twist in a bizarre case about how the 1 1/2-inch finger tip ended up in a bowl of fast food.Anna Ayala was taken into custody late Thursday at her Las Vegas home, police said.
And this is one big reason why:
As it turns out, Ayala has a litigious history. She has filed claims against several corporations, including a former employer and General Motors, though it is unclear from court records whether she received any money. She said she got $30,000 from El Pollo Loco after her 13-year-old daughter got sick at one of the chain's Las Vegas-area restaurants. But El Pollo Loco spokeswoman Julie Weeks said last week that the company reviewed Ayala's February 2004 claim and paid her nothing.
Let that be a lesson, people!! No more lifting body parts to use in duping fast food outlets.
The question of whose finger it is remains unanswered.
[And yes, that's an intentional pun.]
A South Carolina legislator is in hot water after defending the SC Judiciary Committee's decision to pass a bill making cockfighting a felony and tabling a bill that would have made domestic violence a felony. Both are now misdemeanors.
I read the article about it in the SC newspaper The State, and it appears that the domestic violence bill was tabled not to kill it but because some legislators didn't like some of the provisions. They're planning to put forward alternative bills. That's certainly valid procedurally. The person who brought forward the tabled bill is a Democrat, the people who plan to bring forward alternatives are Republicans. That's also standard. Usually a big bill will be negotiated and have several versions batted around before one is approved.
The problem here seems to be that one of the Republican legislators who opposed the DV bill but approved the cockfighting bill is one of those people who should permanently have a sock stuffed in his mouth. When interviewed by a television reporter, Rep. John Graham Altman (R-Dist. 119-Charleston), sounded as if he placed the fault for DV squarely on the victims. And while doing so, he informed the female reporter that she was not very bright, and neither was anyone else who disagreed with him:
A bill protecting cocks passed through the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. John Graham Altman (R-Dist. 119-Charleston) was in favor of the gamecock bill, "I was all for that. Cockfighting reminds me of the Roman circus, coliseum."A bill advocates say would protect victims against batterers was tabled, killing it for the year. Rep. Altman is on the committee that looked at the domestic violence bill, "I think this bill is probably drafted out of an abundance of ignorance."
...Rep. Altman responds to the comparison [between the cockfighting and DV bills], "People who compare the two are not very smart and if you don't understand the difference, Ms. Gormley, between trying to ban the savage practice of watching chickens trying to kill each other and protecting people rights in CDV statutes, I'll never be able to explain it to you in a 100 years ma'am."
News 10 reporter Kara Gormley asked Altman, "That's fine if you feel you will never be able to explain it to me, but my question to you is: does that show that we are valuing a gamecock's life over a woman's life?"
Altman again, "You're really not very bright and I realize you are not accustomed to this, but I'm accustomed to reporters having a better sense of depth of things and you're asking this question to me would indicate you can't understand the answer. To ask the question is to demonstrate an enormous amount of ignorance. I'm not trying to be rude or hostile, I'm telling you."
Gormley, "It's rude when you tell someone they are not very bright."
Altman, "You're not very bright and you'll just have to live with that."
In the follow-up interview, Rep. Altman commented, "I wanted to offend that snippy reporter who come in here on a mission. She already had the story and she came in with some dumb questions and I don't mind telling people when they ask dumb questions."
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Altman isn't correct about the reporter coming with an agenda - it happens, especially with television reporters for whom confrontation is great TV. But he didn't have to give her not just the story she came for, but an even more damaging one. He's the one who's just not very bright, at least about talking to the press. Perhaps there are legitimate criticisms of the DV bill. He isn't quoted as expressing any coherently. That interview was a train wreck.
My biggest concern is not Altman the idiot and Gormley the attack reporter. Their exchange and its aftermath is almost cliche, especially given that revised bills will likely come up later. And I'm not very concerned about the feminist ranting about it, or the 100 college students who came out and protested (just wait, there'll be a candlelight vigil soon). They should pressure for elevation of DV to a felony, but to act like Altman's attitude is The Final Word is deceptive.
My concern is the women who are in DV situations who read about this in the newspaper or see it on television and think, "No one's going to help me. This legislator thinks it's my fault.", and become more hopeless as a result. For that, Gormley the attack reporter would carry a lot of the blame for making a Great TV Moment out of Altman's idiocy, rather than having a more well rounded report that included information about upcoming versions of the bill. I don't fault her or anyone else for mocking Altman. He deserves it. He's a politician, he's in his 70s, he should be smarter than that. But so should the other side.
Domestic violence is a difficult thing, just like any crime that takes place in the context of a relationship. It's hard to draw lines of blame, because truthfully women who go back to abusive men are consciously putting themselves in a high risk situation. But the psychological issue of women (or men) who repeatedly choose to be with an abuser is a completely separate issue from the abuser's abuse. It's never acceptable to beat up someone (unless it's in self-defense). In my judgment, the domestic relationship between a man and woman (or man and man or woman and woman) should only have an aggravating role in determining the seriousness of any assault, not a mitigating one. That's to say, the baseline for any assault should be the same if it happens in a bedroom, a bar or a ball field. Then issues such as repetitiveness, psychological intimidation, etc., should be added in as factors that make the crime more serious. Just like the fact that a man keeps showing up to bars even though he keeps getting his butt kicked when he goes shouldn't have an impact on the charges against the buttkicker, the fact that a domestic partner keeps returning to the situation likely to end in domestic violence shouldn't mitigate the assaulter's crime. He (it is usually a he, not always) has an independent responsibility not to harm.
I will say as an aside, that it is frustrating for the criminal justice system to have to see the same people coming through again and again and again, especially when the abused takes up for the abuser. That frustration is legitimate too, and the abused person's behavior often is its own sickness. But none of those dynamics should reduce the offender's responsibility for the harm he causes.
[First sighting of this from I See Invisible People, who links a longer post on Pinko Feminist Hellcat.]
MSN has a new series in their "Dating & Personals" section, where, they inform us, "[M]arried writers reveal what they wish they'd done differently during their dating days". They kick it off with a column by a woman who co-edited a book called I Like Being Married. She may like it, but if I was Eric I'd be be finding it pretty hard to feel much love after this column.
Here's her Man Requirements from her dating days:
For many of my single years, I had a lengthy checklist of what my dream guy should be like: Tall, sophisticated, would sweep me off my feet by reciting lines from Walt Whitman. A natural philosopher and die-hard romantic, my husband-to-be would enjoy deep conversations about the meaning of life while gazing at me with those piercing brown eyes. (It's not like I'm picky, or anything...)
She goes on to talk about all these fantastically intelligent, cultured men whom she dated but just didn't gel with her. And now we get to... Eric.
Then I met Eric. "Oops," Eric said to me the first time I met him, looking down at his fly, which was open. "Looks like the horse is out of the barn." I laughed, and we talked some more, but I wasn't exactly dying to give him my number. After all, Eric had graduated from a mediocre college in Indiana. His clothes were wrinkled. Sophisticated, he was not. Even so, I figured it wouldn't hurt to go out with him a few times and have some fun while scouting out the real deal.Months passed, and Eric and I kept going out. I was conflicted all the way; my checklist was still there, waiting for me to get real and move on. Just about every time we got together, Eric would say something that would remind me of the gulf between us. Like the day I told him I had always dreamed of hiking the Himalayas. This was met with an eyebrow furrow and a "Why would you want to go anywhere without good water pressure and dependable toilets?" Or, the day I nervously took him to meet my very religious mom. I'd prepped him for this, but he promptly informed her that "holy was out; happy was in." Spiritual enrichment, or any type of enrichment for that matter, did not exist in his world. He'd rather practice his golf swing than ruminate about the meaning of life. Why was I wasting my time with someone who was so obviously not my ideal?
I mean, is it just me or do you have a vision from reading this of some stupid insensitive clod with the manners of a goat, the style of a Pigpen, the depth of a mud puddle on a good road, and probably with a laugh that goes, "hyuck! hyuck!" while he's either adjusting himself or picking his nose? And do you get the contrast that she thinks she's a gorgeous genius with the manners of Princess Grace and the depth of a particularly deep part of the ocean? If not, this should help:
The why only became clear to me as I spent time with a good friend who'd found a guy who—check, check, check—had just about everything on her list. They had that perfect, clone-like state that I craved. Each spoke five languages and was very ambitious. Their breakfast conversation? Business strategies for developing countries. But then one day they asked if I'd seen a certain PBS documentary on the Civil War, and I admitted to laughing myself silly watching a SpongeBob SquarePants rerun with Eric instead.
I get her point - that in her judgment, her true mate was a guy who was very different from her, because he encourages her to do and be things she wants to do and be but somehow wouldn't on her own. It's an "opposites attract" thing. And given that she writes about how much she loves being married, it apparently works. I'm happy for them.
The thing that gets me is that she writes a nationally-available column that makes her husband seem like a tattered Sears suit marked down for the fifth time at the Salvation Army. You don't get any sense of what it is that she really likes about him, because the things she picks out as great are not presented in a way that makes me think they're great. She even basically calls him "childlike". Doesn't it sound arrogant and condescending to you?
I'm sure that her husband actually has a lot of great qualities, like responsibility, faithfulness, a great sense of humor, and, yes, intelligence. I'm sure their marriage is one of equals at least on a few levels, or she wouldn't be so happy. But why can't she say so? And why does she have to grind him under her heel (even though she apparently thinks it's "humor") in such a public way?
Maybe I'll start my own checklist: Advice on Good Marriages From Someone Who's Never Been There. And my very first entry would be, "Never trash your spouse in public. Never. Ever. N-O. Don't go there. Even to your family."*
*"Trashing" and "talking about problems" are different things. You can tell the difference - "trashing" will always sound whiney or hateful or mocking or condescending.
Dory Dickman, a close friend of mine who lives in New Jersey, told me recently that she and her sister had learned that the woman sent to care for their elderly mother by a health care agency was a paroled murderer. I encouraged her to tell the media about it, and today columnist Mike Brown in the Chicago Sun Times tells the story:
Imagine hiring someone to care for your invalid mother in her home only to learn months later that the person who's been back at the house taking care of Mom all day is on parole for a murder conviction. Imagine further that you were sent this caregiver through a very reputable agency that assured you it had performed a criminal background check on the employee through the Illinois State Police.Sound kind of scary? Then imagine what it's like for Susan Dickman of Evanston. It really happened to her.
Dory and Susan's mom had a stroke last fall; Susan is a busy single mother and Dory lives in another state. They're in the situation a lot of people are, so they did the very best they could for their mom. They researched agencies, they monitored their mom's care, they did everything they could. Through that monitoring, they began to have suspicions that the caregiver might actually be a real threat to their mom. So Susan checked it out:
The real surprise came afterward, when the fill-in caregiver reported a parole officer had called looking for Young.Dickman was shocked. Why would Young have a parole agent? She called a cousin who knows about such things. The cousin punched up the Illinois Department of Corrections inmate search Web page on her computer.
Sure enough. There was Rosetta Young, Inmate No. L07227, on parole from the Lincoln Correctional Center after serving 25 years for a 1976 murder and aggravated kidnapping conviction. There was also a felony conviction for a 1995 retail theft case.
Dickman would later learn Young's 1976 conviction stemmed from the murder of Colantha Wright, a mother of two who had been abducted by Young and her boyfriend, Charles Randle, from a South Side beauty shop where Wright worked. Wright's body was found two hours later in a field near Harvey. She had been shot once in the head. Her eyes were sealed with adhesive tape.
At the trial, a 10-year-old boy testified he saw a woman approach Wright with a gun and grab her. After a brief struggle, a man joined the woman. She handed him the gun, and they forced Wright into a car and drove off.
That woman was left alone with their mother all the time, and the reputable agency that sent her didn't even know that she had the murder conviction (although they did know she had a previous theft conviction). What's more, in Illinois agencies aren't even required to do background checks on home health care workers:
For Dickman, the incident raises larger questions about the reliability of criminal background checks, which aren't even currently required for home caregivers, who don't have to be licensed now in Illinois, although legislation is pending. It's easy to beat the check with a phony name or birth date, and it's not going to catch out-of-state convictions.
With more and more people living longer lives, and families often living some distance away from their elder family members, home health care is a burgeoning business. It's obvious that it should come with a large BUYER BEWARE stamped on every contract.
It's clear that even with the best intentions and doing the best research you can, you can still wind up with a convicted murderer sleeping with her boyfriend in your elderly, disabled mother's home - and you're paying her to do it.
At least the company, United Methodist Homes, is being good about the situation:
Dickman told me United Methodist Homes is still billing her for the services of the convicted murderer. [Chief Operating Officer William] Lowe defended the charges as legitimate but said he doesn't plan to pursue collection "aggressively."
I know Dory and Susan, not to mention their mom, are gratified by that promise.
It's nice to see such Christian charity.
It looks like serious trouble for Alabama's only women's prison, Tutwiler, and the for-profit Prison Health Services in charge of inmates' health care:
Prison medical staff provided poor, incomplete or substandard medical care to the three inmates who died last year at Tutwiler Prison for Women, according to a physician who monitors the prison's medical system for a federal court settlement.Dr. Michael Puisis of Illinois, an expert in correctional health care, also suggests in a report that negligent, error-ridden medical care might have led to two of the three deaths.
It sounds very serious and unambiguous:
Among the mistakes the report cited in the three deaths:"This patient's underlying medical conditions were grossly mismanaged," Puisis wrote about one woman, a lupus patient who suffered a brain hemorrhage and died in March 2004, a few months after Englehardt canceled tests recommended by an outside cardiologist. "There is no clinical basis for this decision," Puisis wrote.
"Care (of three chronic conditions) was substandard and may have contributed to her death," Puisis wrote about a prisoner who died in August. Her hyperlipidemia, a form of high cholesterol, was untreated and "unquestionably contributed to her death," he wrote.
This woman needed to go to a hospital, he wrote, but instead was kept in the prison infirmary and was not seen regularly by a doctor.
The third inmate hanged herself while on suicide watch. She was on suicide watch for five days, but was not evaluated by a mental health professional except for a phone call to a psychiatrist who prescribed medication. On Jan. 24, 2004, the woman was crying, saying "Daddy, don't hurt me anymore," and was banging her head against a wall, a nurse reported. The next day she hanged herself.
"It appears that the record is either incomplete or she was not seen for the duration of her suicide watch until she died," Puisis wrote.
PHS is not talking, unsurprisingly, and their excuse is pathetic:
PHS Vice President Ben Purser said Wednesday that he could not comment because he could not reach Alabama staff familiar with the report because they were in the field.
Please. If he had a pressing need to speak to any one of them he'd have them on the phone in 10 minutes. The state is also not interested in revealing the information:
The state and PHS are trying to keep Puisis' reports confidential. Previously, the reports have been filed with the court and released by the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Atlanta-based law firm that represents prisoners in the lawsuit.But the Southern Center has declined to release the latest report because of unresolved issues with DOC and PHS. A state source provided the report to The Birmingham News.
This is one of those instances where I think leaking the information is the right thing to do. They shouldn't hold it back, and the reasons for holding it back all have to do with lawsuit protection, not inmate protection. Given the egregious problems, I don't think the corrections system will be as responsive as they should be without pressure from the public.
Some people complain about the cost of health care in prison, and the fact that prisoners (should) get for free what a lot of the rest of us have to pay for in some fashion. But as I told my students yesterday, they are in custody - they can't do for themselves. So we as a society have an obligation to at the very least give them basic medical care and prevent their deaths. And an inmate that is well taken care of and trained to succeed on the outside is going to cost us less in the long run, because they won't be back and they will contribute to society positively.
The financial considerations shouldn't be the only reason we take care of the inmates. But it does seem to be the one that matters a lot of times.
An off-duty B'ham police officer was killed two nights ago in a hit and run accident. That's truly tragic, and especially hard on the city's West Precinct, which has now lost 4 officers in less than a year (the other three were killed in one episode, trying to serve a warrant on a reputed drug house). Apparently someone at the scene got the license number, because police had it right away and by last night had found