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silveradeptI think I needed a good sleeping-in today, so I took it. Today was, understandably, then, short. And I chose not to do work with it, but instead be entertained by catching up a little on a series that I started and then fell away from. And the hockey game. And a couple other things.
Tomorrow, I’ll have my last class for this semester and this year. When I turn in my final project, I’ll be finished. That’s a weird feeling. You kind of get used to the studying and such when you’ve been at it for so long. Now, that’s over. Now it’s work, rather than class. It feels like a big transition. Once again, I’m stepping into the unknown, and in this case, I don’t really know what to expect.
ABC is entertaining the idea of turning the Geico cavemen into a situation comedy. Short bits with a single punchline turning into half-hour or hour-long comedy shows. If it happens, I’ll be worried. If it’s popular, even more so. Of course, there’s a chance that it might be okay. We’ll have to see what happens.
The Independent has an article about scientists seeking ethical permission to see whether female bone marrow stem cells can be convinced to develop into sperm. In a weird sense, this would mean that humanity could reproduce in a manner that didn’t require men. The article says the resulting children would all be daughters, as no Y chromosome would be present. (I wonder if research could change that, too.) If the research is successful, then a possible effect, the article notes, would be that two women who wanted to have a child together could have one that was biologically the child of both women. We’ll have to see whether the sperm would be effective at fertilization, and that the genetic makeup of the child wouldn’t suffer or lack important parts.
Chris Clarke has advice for men on How not to be an asshole. The big piece of advice? STFU and listen some before saying anything, even if you think you’re an expert. By listening, you don’t repeat things or say something totally inappropriate or stupid. The specific situations where Chris strongly suggests a STFU is to any guy who’s considering commenting on an issue that men and women experience differently, like the prevalence of sexual harassment or violent and demeaning messages toward women.
The disturbing part of it is that I suspect when Chris says that many women are mistrustful of men because they are potential rapists is that he’s right. I don’t particularly like what that says about my gender. I can be a gentleman and someone who understands (or at least tries to understand) these kinds of issues and is sensitive to them, and I still might not be trusted by anyone that I meet. What happened along the way that this kind of situation is the norm? (I’d also like to ask that question of the situation where people fear other races because they thing members of that race are going to rob them or perform terrorist attacks, and the general distrust of other people because they could commit some sort of crime against someone else.)
A curious statement from a Cardinal of the Catholic Church - in addition to saying that there were new policies in place that would prevent or make it more difficult for potential abuser types to join the priesthood, the cardinal also suggested that the 60s and 70s were responsible for the current scandal, suggesting that priests had looser sexual morals, reflecting their congregants. So really, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the decade for having insufficient morality? As I said, a curious thing. Much more oblique than the President’s remarks at the Catholic prayer breakfast, where he called for a 'culture of life' and continued to express his opposition to easing restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.
At times, the fact that the populace of the Untied States is fairly apathetic about the politics seems to be a good thing. Reading accounts like the treatment of Russian protestors who appeared in a site they were not authorized to demonstrate at, that the government doesn’t go about actively trying to police every dissent has merit. Of course, those dissents don’t always garner lots of people, either. Anyway, this sounds more like what could happen were someone to protest outside their “Free Speech Zone” here. So maybe there are some parallels here. Maybe not.
Ia, Ia, America awakens? Or sleeps? Well, we've got new regs for mailing adult fowl. And an encyclopedic website about the Titanic disaster.
The last bit for tonight is a suggestion that Iraq, much lke Afghanistan, may be a case of not learning from one’s history. A Jesus’s General contributor, Austin Cline, digs up some information about the United Kingdom's occupation of Iraq in the early part of the 20th century, and the disaster that resulted. Things went sour eighty-plus years ago, and they’re going sour now. Will we be doing this all over again in another eighty years?
Anyway, I’m trying for an early bedtime tonight, with the last class being tomorrow. G’night, all.
Tomorrow, I’ll have my last class for this semester and this year. When I turn in my final project, I’ll be finished. That’s a weird feeling. You kind of get used to the studying and such when you’ve been at it for so long. Now, that’s over. Now it’s work, rather than class. It feels like a big transition. Once again, I’m stepping into the unknown, and in this case, I don’t really know what to expect.
ABC is entertaining the idea of turning the Geico cavemen into a situation comedy. Short bits with a single punchline turning into half-hour or hour-long comedy shows. If it happens, I’ll be worried. If it’s popular, even more so. Of course, there’s a chance that it might be okay. We’ll have to see what happens.
The Independent has an article about scientists seeking ethical permission to see whether female bone marrow stem cells can be convinced to develop into sperm. In a weird sense, this would mean that humanity could reproduce in a manner that didn’t require men. The article says the resulting children would all be daughters, as no Y chromosome would be present. (I wonder if research could change that, too.) If the research is successful, then a possible effect, the article notes, would be that two women who wanted to have a child together could have one that was biologically the child of both women. We’ll have to see whether the sperm would be effective at fertilization, and that the genetic makeup of the child wouldn’t suffer or lack important parts.
Chris Clarke has advice for men on How not to be an asshole. The big piece of advice? STFU and listen some before saying anything, even if you think you’re an expert. By listening, you don’t repeat things or say something totally inappropriate or stupid. The specific situations where Chris strongly suggests a STFU is to any guy who’s considering commenting on an issue that men and women experience differently, like the prevalence of sexual harassment or violent and demeaning messages toward women.
The disturbing part of it is that I suspect when Chris says that many women are mistrustful of men because they are potential rapists is that he’s right. I don’t particularly like what that says about my gender. I can be a gentleman and someone who understands (or at least tries to understand) these kinds of issues and is sensitive to them, and I still might not be trusted by anyone that I meet. What happened along the way that this kind of situation is the norm? (I’d also like to ask that question of the situation where people fear other races because they thing members of that race are going to rob them or perform terrorist attacks, and the general distrust of other people because they could commit some sort of crime against someone else.)
A curious statement from a Cardinal of the Catholic Church - in addition to saying that there were new policies in place that would prevent or make it more difficult for potential abuser types to join the priesthood, the cardinal also suggested that the 60s and 70s were responsible for the current scandal, suggesting that priests had looser sexual morals, reflecting their congregants. So really, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the decade for having insufficient morality? As I said, a curious thing. Much more oblique than the President’s remarks at the Catholic prayer breakfast, where he called for a 'culture of life' and continued to express his opposition to easing restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.
At times, the fact that the populace of the Untied States is fairly apathetic about the politics seems to be a good thing. Reading accounts like the treatment of Russian protestors who appeared in a site they were not authorized to demonstrate at, that the government doesn’t go about actively trying to police every dissent has merit. Of course, those dissents don’t always garner lots of people, either. Anyway, this sounds more like what could happen were someone to protest outside their “Free Speech Zone” here. So maybe there are some parallels here. Maybe not.
Ia, Ia, America awakens? Or sleeps? Well, we've got new regs for mailing adult fowl. And an encyclopedic website about the Titanic disaster.
The last bit for tonight is a suggestion that Iraq, much lke Afghanistan, may be a case of not learning from one’s history. A Jesus’s General contributor, Austin Cline, digs up some information about the United Kingdom's occupation of Iraq in the early part of the 20th century, and the disaster that resulted. Things went sour eighty-plus years ago, and they’re going sour now. Will we be doing this all over again in another eighty years?
Anyway, I’m trying for an early bedtime tonight, with the last class being tomorrow. G’night, all.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 06:47 pm (UTC)I guess I'm concerned that I'm being judged before I have a chance to say otherwise, and what's worse, that this judgment is probably warranted because there are enough idiots out there who share my biological oddity.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 12:30 pm (UTC)I'm all for the possibility of Lesbians being able to reproduce on thier own without a sperm doner, but I also think we need to legalize marriage between same sex individuals first. The "bad thing" - there are already more women than men in the world, and "finding a mate" can be a difficult task for a woman because of this. If women start reproducing with other women, they can only have girls. There's nothing that says these girls will also be lesbian and want to reproduce with another woman, so they'll go out into the heterosexual dating pool, and I think that will make it even harder for females to find males to mate with. Of course, I also could take the extreme feminist route and say "yeah, yeah, no more men! let's make men extinct!" Hmmm. I also wonder if it would become possible for women to fertilize their own eggs with sperm made from their own bone marrow? Then we can turn the world into a sexless AND loveless place.
If no woman in your life has ever talked to you about how she lives her life with an undercurrent of fear of men, consider the possibility that it may be because she sees you as one of those men she cannot really trust.
I don't know. Like I told you lastnight, It's not so much that I "live in fear", I'm just cautious. But I also tend to trust people easily. I really think my mom is much more afraid than I am. I don't know if It's because I think I can somehow protect myself, or if it's my stubborn feminism, but I don't feel unsafe doing some of the things that get labeled as such (ex: walking alone at night through a parking lot). I don't think all men are rapists, either. I think I have a good sense of judgment when it comes to those kinds of things and learn to protect myself in those situations. Yes, it's backfired whn I chose to ignore the warning bells in my head, but MOST of the time, I listen to myself. Despite this, I still am cautious when meeting a male for the first time. You'll recall Kathy was around the first time I met you - and stayed with me until the point that I felt comfortable with you (that part I bet you didn't know). With some guys, I don't get to that point with, and it largely has to do with how they treat me in person, and while we're chatting online. I can completely back up the author's statement about logging into AOL with a feminine name. When I'm on Nightstar, and hanging out in #nightstar_bar, and sometimes even in #schlock_Mercenary, occasionally we'll get those random people surfing the channels and nine times out of 10, I get the dirty IMs based solely on the fact that I've got "Anna" in my handle. Most of the time I don't see the messages until it's too late to report them to a staffer, but if I happen to be paying attention when I get them...you bet you're butt I tell one of the opers.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 04:31 am (UTC)As for there being less men, well, I linked to a speculation that the X chromosome was actively trying to get rid of the Y chromosome as a defective product. Regarding women fertilizing themselves with their own sperm, I think that would run right into the incest taboo. The dangerous recessives or possible mutations that might result from you having a child with only your genetic code to select from could be bad, especially after a few generations.
I've been hinted at that I'm overthinking the matter of people snap-judging me, and that the best remedy would be for me to stop doing that, and for women to also be patient, informative, and explain to the men about the things that go on in their lives that produce their outlook on life.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 04:34 am (UTC)