Thank you all for your support, you've renewed my fervor. So I shall now return to the blogisphere with some of the things that have been rattling around in my head for the past few days.
Where to begin? I think I'll start with what I am least passionate about and escalate from there.
More about Gloucester: It has supposedly come to light that the girls in Gloucester did not form a pact to get pregnant. They claim that their pregnancies were coincidental and they simply decided to stick together through this life experience. I wonder, then, why the school nurse admitted to administering over one hundred and fifty pregnancy tests to girls who were disappointed when they were negative. These are not girls who were messing around with their boyfriends and are currently in the midst of a "scare." Girls who are afraid they might be pregnant wait a few months in the hopes they are not. Girls who want to be pregnant check whenever a new test would be warranted, if you catch my drift. If there was no pact, why would a girl have allowed a 24 year old homeless guy to father her child? I think the girls simply realized just how stupid it was. Or perhaps (and this may be more likely) they just want to keep it a secret. They have this sisterhood agreement and the last thing they want is for it to come to light. I wonder if they are resenting the interviews and attention from all the news outlets. Granted, a portion of the spike was from students transferring to GHS under the guise of wanting to take advantage of some alternative educational opportunity so that they could actually take advantage of the free day care. I don't really think that "Juno" or "Knocked Up" has played as big of a role as some have claimed. I do have to say this: I'd have much more to rant about if the rate of teen girls having abortions rose as sharply as the rate of pregnant girls have. I think that fact (that so many are keeping the babies) lends itself to the pact "theory" as well.
The End of the World: Look, enough with the Mayan "prediction" that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. It's not an actual prediction, it is misinterpreted as one. The Mayans had two calendars: a "Calendar Round" for shorter periods of time (the calendar repeats itself every 52 years) and a "Long Count" calendar for longer ones. The long count calendar had 5 spaces in which they would record the number of days that had passed since August 11, 3114 BC. (Much like our calendar has eight spaces (12/34/5678) for recording the date.) When the five spaces are full it is equal to the number of days between August 11, 3114 and December 21, 2012. To add even one more day would require adding another space to the calendar. To assume this is a prediction of the end of the world would be akin to declaring that the modern era is predicting the end of the world to be December 31, 9999 (or 12/31/9999) because to go another day would require another space. It's simply sophomoric and ignorant to make the assertion that the Mayans purposefully predicted the end of the world in this fashion. So, can we agree to stop, please?
Energy: There is a big argument between Obama and McCain as to how we should solve the current energy crisis. McCain wants to drill and open the reserves. Obama's "Yes We Can" campaign slogan says "No We Can't" to both ideas. Obama's reasoning for not drilling off shore or in Alaska won't help the situation for another ten years so we shouldn't start drilling. Funny thing is, ten years ago (which was only 1998) we decided not to drill. Sure would have been helpful if we'd made a different decision then. But let's make sure we make the same mistake now, too. Obama wants to tax the profits of the oil companies. Yeah, because that wouldn't be pushed off onto the consumer in some way. No, no, good thinking, really. Both candidates are pushing for renewable energy. Here's something I don't understand: Renewable energy is renewable. It comes back. Why, then, is it so friggin' expensive? If a commodity is dissipating, why is it less expensive than something that "renews?" And if my understanding is incorrect and the energy itself is actually less expensive, why is the initial cost to get to a point where one could utilize it so prohibitive? Sure, a hybrid uses less fuel, but costs five grand more. Solar panels cut down on the electricity my house uses but costs 25 grand to install. But it'll save me $500 a year in electricity. Let's see, I'll have earned my initial investment back in 50 years!
Bumper Stickers: Truly, I find few things to be more cowardly than bumper stickers. People make their pithy snide comments as they zip past you anonymously in their 1987 Ford Station Wagon. They announce to everyone their opinions on politics, religion, sports, music, etc as though anyone had asked them to do so. (sound like a blog? At least you can tell me where I'm wrong once you've read it.) If these people felt so strongly about these matters, I say we put bumper stickers on our houses. No more anonymity. No more avoiding responsibility for what we've affixed to our property. Suddenly, we are accountable for what we've chosen to display. People can knock on our door, put a letter in our mailbox, or affix an opposing view house sticker on their own home. What has gotten me this fired up? Ignorant bumper stickers. For example, I've seen the following bumper stickers with my own eyes: "You keep prayer out of my schools and I'll keep thinking out of your church." "Impeach Bush, Nixon did less!" (Nixon was not impeached.) "World Champion New York Giants" (OK, so they may have earned that one... somehow...) Anyway. I think that we'd be much more careful with what we say and how we say it if we were suddenly responsible for our comments.
Monogamy: More and more these days I'm hearing people claim that we, as humans, simply weren't made to be with just one person. According to them, monogamy is something that we try to force our our species and that is why we are continually fighting against it. (I was in a crafty-ACMoore-ish store and they had plastic "educational" animals for sale. The little booklet that came with the bald eagle said, "Unlike humans, eagles mate for life." Excuse me?!) Here is the problem that I see with that argument. Even with people that subscribe to that line of thought, when a relationship ends and they prove their theory to be "true" there is still so much pain involved! I've spoken with people who were in an "open" relationship (where both they and their partner have the freedom to mess around with others) who either felt jilted when it ended, or began to become envious because they wanted to be the only one! The happiest people in the world are not the ones who have been married seven times. Nor are they the single swingin' people who are alone in their sixties. The happiest people are the ones who know that they've fought the good fight, stayed the course, battled through thick and thin and have a relationship tough as leather, strong as cinder blocks, and precious & beautiful as gemstones. If nothing else, our desire to explain our tendency towards infidelity as instinct and excuse ourselves from trying to remain faithful because it's unnatural does nothing more than expose and magnify our slavery to sin. It also displays our intrinsic knowledge of it. We're doing something we know is wrong, so we try to explain it away as just the way we are.
So, there's just my opinion, what's yours?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
A Few Thoughts
Fatherhood: It is hard to believe that our little Full House is already two years old! Let me tell you: This second year flew by so much faster than the first. I look back at pictures from his first birthday and I am amazed at how much he's grown; both physically and developementally. He already has so many of our cultural norms under his belt. He is so excited about his "baby sistour." I think I understand now when parents say "it went by so fast." It's been two years in the blink of an eye.
Gloucester: It would be difficult for anyone to have missed the story coming out of Gloucester the past few days. With a dramatic spike in teen pregnancies, the principle of GHS decided he was going to get to he bottom of the situation. What he learned was shocking and concerning. Many of the girls had made a pact with each other to get pregnant! No one is quite sure why. Theories range from they wanted to experience pregnancy together to they wanted someone who would love them unconditionally and many in between. While I admire the concept behind the school system providing free child care for high school moms so that they can stay in school, I can't help but think this advantage aided in the girls decision to procreate. While this story by itself is jaw-dropping, I think the response by the medical staff of the high school was even more amazing! The nurse and the advisor to the entire school system suggested that the best solution would be to prescribe more contraceptives. They felt so strongly about this that when the school system (and parents) declined to take this action, they both resigned out of protest. Does this make any sense to anyone? Here are girls making every effort to get pregnant (One so much that she slept with a 24 year old homeless man). These are girls who were disappointed when their school-provided pregnancy tests were negative. Yet your solution to prevention is to prescribe pills that we all know they won't take?! I would hope they were fired for their stupidity! When will we realize that most solutions are only attacking the symptoms?
Sports: If not for 35 seconds in the Super Bowl, Boston would have had the championships in MLB, NFL, and NBA in one year!
Final Thoughts: One more (pitiful) request. With our move out of state and a sharp decline in comments, I feel that the readership of this blog has sharply declined. So, if you are reading this blog, please let me know by dropping a little boring comment on this post. It's been so long because two posts ago I mentioned that our Little Full House broke his leg, and no one said a thing. So even if you just say "reading" it'll mean a lot to me. Thanks.
Be sure to catch my review of The Business of Being Born on the post below!
Gloucester: It would be difficult for anyone to have missed the story coming out of Gloucester the past few days. With a dramatic spike in teen pregnancies, the principle of GHS decided he was going to get to he bottom of the situation. What he learned was shocking and concerning. Many of the girls had made a pact with each other to get pregnant! No one is quite sure why. Theories range from they wanted to experience pregnancy together to they wanted someone who would love them unconditionally and many in between. While I admire the concept behind the school system providing free child care for high school moms so that they can stay in school, I can't help but think this advantage aided in the girls decision to procreate. While this story by itself is jaw-dropping, I think the response by the medical staff of the high school was even more amazing! The nurse and the advisor to the entire school system suggested that the best solution would be to prescribe more contraceptives. They felt so strongly about this that when the school system (and parents) declined to take this action, they both resigned out of protest. Does this make any sense to anyone? Here are girls making every effort to get pregnant (One so much that she slept with a 24 year old homeless man). These are girls who were disappointed when their school-provided pregnancy tests were negative. Yet your solution to prevention is to prescribe pills that we all know they won't take?! I would hope they were fired for their stupidity! When will we realize that most solutions are only attacking the symptoms?
Sports: If not for 35 seconds in the Super Bowl, Boston would have had the championships in MLB, NFL, and NBA in one year!
Final Thoughts: One more (pitiful) request. With our move out of state and a sharp decline in comments, I feel that the readership of this blog has sharply declined. So, if you are reading this blog, please let me know by dropping a little boring comment on this post. It's been so long because two posts ago I mentioned that our Little Full House broke his leg, and no one said a thing. So even if you just say "reading" it'll mean a lot to me. Thanks.
Be sure to catch my review of The Business of Being Born on the post below!
Review: The Business of Being Born
2008/Not Rated(Probably PG-13)/Documentary
I was slightly apprehensive to view this film as the Queen of Hearts and I are expecting our little Wild Card in September. But, The Business Of Being Born was recommended and I thought it ought to be viewed far from the actual delivery as possible... just in case.
I was pleasantly surprised by the genuine, non-emotional, statistically backed argument put forth by Ricki Lake and the other producers of this piece. It wasn't full of scare tactics like some other documentary film makers (Michael Moore), and it wasn't an emotionally wrenching tug-at-your-heart-strings attempt to get people to change how they give birth. This was a straight forward, well balanced recommendation for home births.
I'm an excellent audience member for this film. Several times the film brought up the realization that, for centuries, women have been giving birth at home but we've only been giving birth hospitals for a few decades. I'm someone who won't take an aspirin because pain medication is so new, so that evidence resonates with me.
However, the flip side of that is that the mortality rate of mothers and children was incredibly high in the middle ages (whereas so few people die of a headache...). I believe that moving birthing into hospitals wasn't simply a "business" move as the film depicts, but was an attempt to lower maternal and infant mortality rates. The trouble with that is two fold: Healthy pregnancies don't need all of the precautions that an at risk pregnancy does. Secondarily, as we become a more litigious society, doctors are moving faster in implementing the interventions, which is causing unnecessary complications for perfectly normal pregnancies.
Personally, I'm not even considering a home birth. My ideal would be what we had for our little Full House. Mid-wives at a birthing center close to a hospital. This way one has the chance for a natural close-to-home birth, but also has the convenience of the hospital nearby if necessary.
One of the most compelling storylines of the film was that of the producer. She was going to have a home birth but had complications and had to go to the hospital. If nothing else, the footage of the cab ride from her apartment to the hospital was enough to dissuade me from having a home birth.
All in all, I felt it was a very compelling argument for midwives verses hospitals. Not only that, but it was a very disturbing and enlightening expose on what we did to women who had hospital births earlier in the century. Some portions were a tad long and unnecessary but they had a great mix of crunchy to average midwives and had a few doctors who shared their opposition or support of the practice of home births. If you are pregnant, thinking about having kids, or have kids and want more, I would recommend checking out this documentary to assist you in the very important decision of how and where to have your child.
3.5 out of 5.
I was slightly apprehensive to view this film as the Queen of Hearts and I are expecting our little Wild Card in September. But, The Business Of Being Born was recommended and I thought it ought to be viewed far from the actual delivery as possible... just in case.
I was pleasantly surprised by the genuine, non-emotional, statistically backed argument put forth by Ricki Lake and the other producers of this piece. It wasn't full of scare tactics like some other documentary film makers (Michael Moore), and it wasn't an emotionally wrenching tug-at-your-heart-strings attempt to get people to change how they give birth. This was a straight forward, well balanced recommendation for home births.
I'm an excellent audience member for this film. Several times the film brought up the realization that, for centuries, women have been giving birth at home but we've only been giving birth hospitals for a few decades. I'm someone who won't take an aspirin because pain medication is so new, so that evidence resonates with me.
However, the flip side of that is that the mortality rate of mothers and children was incredibly high in the middle ages (whereas so few people die of a headache...). I believe that moving birthing into hospitals wasn't simply a "business" move as the film depicts, but was an attempt to lower maternal and infant mortality rates. The trouble with that is two fold: Healthy pregnancies don't need all of the precautions that an at risk pregnancy does. Secondarily, as we become a more litigious society, doctors are moving faster in implementing the interventions, which is causing unnecessary complications for perfectly normal pregnancies.
Personally, I'm not even considering a home birth. My ideal would be what we had for our little Full House. Mid-wives at a birthing center close to a hospital. This way one has the chance for a natural close-to-home birth, but also has the convenience of the hospital nearby if necessary.
One of the most compelling storylines of the film was that of the producer. She was going to have a home birth but had complications and had to go to the hospital. If nothing else, the footage of the cab ride from her apartment to the hospital was enough to dissuade me from having a home birth.
All in all, I felt it was a very compelling argument for midwives verses hospitals. Not only that, but it was a very disturbing and enlightening expose on what we did to women who had hospital births earlier in the century. Some portions were a tad long and unnecessary but they had a great mix of crunchy to average midwives and had a few doctors who shared their opposition or support of the practice of home births. If you are pregnant, thinking about having kids, or have kids and want more, I would recommend checking out this documentary to assist you in the very important decision of how and where to have your child.
3.5 out of 5.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Things Broken
Despicable.
Disturbing.
Detestable.
Wrong.
The officiating in the NBA finals, even more so than the playoffs up to this point, has been the ugliest thing I've seen since Conan gave us a glimpse of what Steve Buschemi and Joan Rivers' child might look like.
And it goes both ways. Game two was just as bad as game three. I'm watching the home team get touched as they begin their two step drive and they head to the line. I see the away team get hammered as they jump to shoot and somehow the foul occurred before they were in the act of shooting.
I've also never seen ref who waited to see if the shot went in before he decided to call a foul. Look, it was either a foul or it wasn't. Oh, did I mention this was only ever done for the home team?
Why is this so bad? Well, the home team is free to play smothering D knowing that nothing is going to be called. The away team is afraid to get anywhere near their opponent because if they breathe on them funny, they're going to the line. Not only that, but the away team starts to get really frustrated. And you can't really blame them. When the away team is 2 for 2 on free throws and the home team is 7 of 12 and it's the first quarter something isn't right!
I'd like to point out to every ref who has work these last three games something that they might have overlooked in the rule book. I know, it's hard to remember all of those rules and when they do and don't actually apply. But this is kinda key: Basketball is a non-contact sport! And that needs to go both ways!
It's been long believed that the NBA (more than any other league) maneuvers game outcomes so that they can land the biggest bucks. Just look at the two huge market teams in the finals. And I'm not the only one saying these things. Check out this court shaking article.
Something simply must be done.
On an entirely unrelated note: our little Full House broke his leg. Well, truth be told... his daddy caused a hairline fracture in his leg.
We were trying a friend's Wii. I was bowling, I brought my knee up and didn't realize that the little man was running toward me. My knee made contact with his head and his head made contact with the floor. We're still not sure how that broke his leg...
He has a little blue cast on. He calls it his boot.
Even as I type this, I cannot even begin to express how terrible I feel for the incident. Thankfully, the little guy has forgiven me, but will probably never let me pick up a Wii-mote again.
Now, as we all know, I can't tell a "what I did today" story without having a point to it. Here it is:
What's wrong with our healthcare system?
The injury occurred at about 7 PM yesterday. We didn't see any evidence of the injury so we thought we'd see how he was doing today. In the morning he still wouldn't put weight on it. So we called his doctor.
Appointment 25 minutes from home: 1:30
Referral to radiology
Travel back 25 minutes to get Daddy
Travel 40 minutes to children's hospital
X-rays: 3:48
results confirmed
Cast on: 4:15
out of the hospital
Back home through city traffic:5 PM
Injury to remedy: 22 hours.
Out of pocket expense: 0 dollars
So I ask again, what is wrong with our healthcare system?
Disturbing.
Detestable.
Wrong.
The officiating in the NBA finals, even more so than the playoffs up to this point, has been the ugliest thing I've seen since Conan gave us a glimpse of what Steve Buschemi and Joan Rivers' child might look like.
And it goes both ways. Game two was just as bad as game three. I'm watching the home team get touched as they begin their two step drive and they head to the line. I see the away team get hammered as they jump to shoot and somehow the foul occurred before they were in the act of shooting.
I've also never seen ref who waited to see if the shot went in before he decided to call a foul. Look, it was either a foul or it wasn't. Oh, did I mention this was only ever done for the home team?
Why is this so bad? Well, the home team is free to play smothering D knowing that nothing is going to be called. The away team is afraid to get anywhere near their opponent because if they breathe on them funny, they're going to the line. Not only that, but the away team starts to get really frustrated. And you can't really blame them. When the away team is 2 for 2 on free throws and the home team is 7 of 12 and it's the first quarter something isn't right!
I'd like to point out to every ref who has work these last three games something that they might have overlooked in the rule book. I know, it's hard to remember all of those rules and when they do and don't actually apply. But this is kinda key: Basketball is a non-contact sport! And that needs to go both ways!
It's been long believed that the NBA (more than any other league) maneuvers game outcomes so that they can land the biggest bucks. Just look at the two huge market teams in the finals. And I'm not the only one saying these things. Check out this court shaking article.
Something simply must be done.
On an entirely unrelated note: our little Full House broke his leg. Well, truth be told... his daddy caused a hairline fracture in his leg.
We were trying a friend's Wii. I was bowling, I brought my knee up and didn't realize that the little man was running toward me. My knee made contact with his head and his head made contact with the floor. We're still not sure how that broke his leg...
He has a little blue cast on. He calls it his boot.
Even as I type this, I cannot even begin to express how terrible I feel for the incident. Thankfully, the little guy has forgiven me, but will probably never let me pick up a Wii-mote again.
Now, as we all know, I can't tell a "what I did today" story without having a point to it. Here it is:
What's wrong with our healthcare system?
The injury occurred at about 7 PM yesterday. We didn't see any evidence of the injury so we thought we'd see how he was doing today. In the morning he still wouldn't put weight on it. So we called his doctor.
Appointment 25 minutes from home: 1:30
Referral to radiology
Travel back 25 minutes to get Daddy
Travel 40 minutes to children's hospital
X-rays: 3:48
results confirmed
Cast on: 4:15
out of the hospital
Back home through city traffic:5 PM
Injury to remedy: 22 hours.
Out of pocket expense: 0 dollars
So I ask again, what is wrong with our healthcare system?
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