BiddiesInMyBrain

Debate!

First Question: starting out with Eisenhower and budget! Why not with the military-industrial complex? How are you going to deal with the budget crisis?

Obama: Economic oversight, depositors must be able to get money back, must not pad CEO bank accounts, must protect homeowners.

McCain: Bipartisan efforts, budget package, stabilize institutions, create jobs, eliminate dependence on foreign oil.

Debate: McCain saw train wreck coming? Accountability? McCain is rambling. Obama - Need responsibility not just when there is a crisis. Look at underlying issues. Not talking to each other. At all. Hello? Consolidation of regulatory agencies??

Second Question: Are there fundamental differences between each other to lead out of the financial crisis?

McCain: Corral out of control spending. Stop studying DNA of bears. Veto earmarked spending bills.

Obama: Earmarks process has been abused, yes. Lobbyists and special interests often introduce them. $300b in tax cuts have been made to wealthiest individuals and companies... reinstate. Allow the bottom 95% to have the tax cuts.

Debate: McCain - Corruption in earmarks, Obama didn't change position on earmarks until he was running for president. Obama - close corporate loopholes, stop providing tax cuts to corporations who are shipping jobs overseas. $18b is important... make sure we are not spending money unwisely. Get middle class back on track. Don't neglect the middle class. Continuation of last 8 years. McCain - business tax - Ireland??? - wants every family to have $5000 refundable tax credit for health care. Dividends for children tax credits. Obama - definition of rich - less than $250,000 - no tax increase - business tax - too many loopholes with effective lowest tax rates - McCain wants to tax health credit. Arguing about specifics in campaign plans - especially in relation to oil companies.

Third Question: What are you going to have to give up as a result of having to pay for the financial rescue plan?

Obama: Things to keep: energy independence, fix healthcare, education.

McCain: Cut spending: ethanol subsidies, cost+ contracts in military spending, examine every agency in government.

Debates: Obama - $15b in subsidies to insurers to medicare insurers which don't work, Google For Government for taxpayers... McCain - Freeze VA, Defense and Entitlements ONLY. Obama - Look at getting out of Iraq and stop sending subsidies there. McCain - offshore drilling and nuclear power essential. Obama - look to second question to answer this question (not his words - mine) McCain - wants Obama to cut his spending program - healthy economy with low taxes and no tax raises with spending restraint is the ticket to a healthy economy. Owe China $500b. McCain - relying on the idea of not being "Miss Congeniality" and being the "Maverick"

Fourth Question: What are the lessons of Iraq?

McCain: Requires fundamental changes in strategies, and good military leadership. Consequenses of defeat would have been ascendence of Iran, increase in terrorism, etc.

Obama: Should we have gone into the war in the first place? Not only did we not know what it was going to cost, what the exit strategy would be, what the relationships with other countries would be, and we hadn't finished in Afghanistan (there were more, but I couldn't get them down fast enough). These issues are still with us - and are even worse. Lesson to be drawn: shouldn't hesitate to use military force, but should use it wisely.

Debate: McCain - next president will not face whether we should have gone into Iraq, but what to do WITH Iraq. Obama - proud of Biden and the FRC - tactics of the surge designed to contain the damage of the previous four years, not whether it was a wrapping up move. Obama smacks McCain bringing up four points on which he was DEAD wrong in 2003. McCain responds, but babbles, IMO. Obama - troop funding issue - McCain didn't believe in a timetable - Obama didn't believe in an open-ended funding strategy. Afghanistan needs more attention and has since the beginning - but McCain has been dead wrong in his assessments of the conflict. McCain - Against specific date for withdrawal. Completely.

Fifth Question: Afghanistan: Do you think that more troops should be sent to Afghanistan. If so, why? If not, why?

Obama: Yes. Strategic mistake to be in Iraq... should be cleaning up in Afghanistan now, not fighting a second war in Iraq. Deal with poppy trade. Deal with Parkistani safe havens - subsidies of $10b a year need to be suspended.

McCain: Should not have left Afghanistan alone after the Russians pulled out of the country in the first place. Not prepared to cut off aid to Pakistan. Not prepared to cut off relations with Pakistanis. Must obtain the allegiance of the Pakistani warlords (how? they can't unite within their own country!!! -ed) Must have a troop surge there as well.

Debate: Obama - must take out the AlQuaeda leaders wherever they are. McCain should stop singing songs about bombing Iran. If Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, then we have to make decisions. We coddled Musharraf, alienated the populace in Pakistan, and alQuaeda is now more powerful than ever. McCain - Pakistan was a failed state when Musharraf came to power. Admires Ronald Reagan, voted against Lebanon. Goes through litany of what he supported and didn't. Obama - soldiers go through mission of commander in chief - took our eye off Afghanistan, took our eye off the people who perpetrated 9/11.

Sixth Question: What is your reading of your threat form Iran to the security of the United States?

McCain: Existential threat to the State of Israel and the region if they acquire nuclear weapons. Cannot afford a second holocaust. "Straight talk" - wants a "League of Democracies" (WTF? The League of Nations didn't work... and you hate the UN - ed) Putting IEDs into Iraq currently, training Republican Guard in Iraq... etc.... wants to act proactively.

Obama: Believes Republican Guard is a state sponsor of terror but does not believe that we should be expanding the war in Iraq to go into Iran. Our policy over the past 8 years has not worked. Arms race in the ME if Iran gets nuclear weapons. Needs cooperation with Russia and other countries that *do* trade with Iran, not just democracies.

Debate: McCain - Brings up the idea that Obama would sit down with the leaders of N Korea, Cuba and Iran without precondition... and call it a bad idea. Can't pronounce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to save his soul. Obama - need to look at exploring contacts with Iran - as George Bush has been doing - as he has been doing in N Korea as well of late, too. What about the comment of not meeting with the Prime Minister of Spain? McCain - claims Obama simply doesn't understand protocol. This is all about protocol?? Wait. I think I understand. Really. This is *all* about protocol. Miss Manners enters into this?? Where's Emily Post when we need her?

Seventh Question: Russia. How do you see the relationship with Russia?

Obama: Our entire Russia approach needs to be reevaluated. New Russian face is a threat. Must have a unified alliance ... cannot be a 21st century power and act like a 20th century bully. Must show friendship to former Soviet satellites - NATO. Nuclear proliferation - need to deal with this issue, particularly on the issue of loose nukes. What are the national security interests of the US?

McCain: Believes that Obama is showing naivete about the Russia aggression in Georgia. Thinks the KGB is active again. Wants to bolster friends and allies. Believes this is all about energy sources. Thinks Russia is becoming imperial again. Satellites - supports NATO admission. Believes we need to watch Ukraine and the Crimea... throwing out names and places right and left.

Debate: Obama - agrees with McCain on most of this issue. Two points: must have foresight to anticipate some of these problems - Russian peacekeepers in Russian territory in April - could have avoided issue. Issue of energy - petrodollars - we as one of the biggest consumers of energy must have a strong energy policy that must take us off the grid of world oil. McCain voted 23 out of 26 times against solar and biodiesel in the past 25 years.

Eighth Question: What is the likelihood of another 9/11 attack?

McCain: It is less likely, but we are far from safe. He has worked hard, but the work is not done. He has worked with Lieberman to put together a commission to figure out why 9/11 happened. Most reforms were adopted. Intelligence services are doing a better job, better interrogators, better work with the allies. As a result of the findings we have had a reorganization of defense that is the best is has ever been.

Obama: Some work in airport, some work in defense... but not enough. Not in terms of transit, not in terms of ports. Suitcase bombs our biggest threat... nuclear proliferation deterrence must be a lynchpin of much of our foreign policy. Must go after alQuaeda in 60 countries now. We must change the way we are perceived in the world. Restore America's standing in the world.

Debate: McCain - Obama doesn't get that if we fail in Iraq that alQuaeda will grow like a weed. All would be lost. Oh the horror. Obama - Over the last 8 years the admin has been solely focused on Iraq.. but bin Laden is still out there, alQaeda is still out there... a trillion dollars of our debt is with China... we have weakened our capacity to project power around the world because of our singluar focus through this lens. This is a national security issue. Must have a broader strategic vision for the entire world. McCain - advantages to knowledge, experience and judgement.

McCain is making his final arguments in the midst of the Eighth Question. Weird. So Obama is following suit. I *knew* that McCain was going to bring up his POW/veteran stuff. I *knew* it.

End of debate.

Sterilization of the Poor - A Return to Eugenics

More community leaders take offense to representative's sterilization idea

::is appalled::

Saw this first on CNN this afternoon... and this state representative is a crackpot - with a bully pulpit and some influence. He proposed in a closed door session, which was leaked to the public, that, for a cash incentive of $1000, poor people should be sterilized to keep them from reproducing, thereby reducing future welfare dependence.

This was tried in the early 20th century in America for similar reasons - only broadened to include people who were considered of lesser mental capacity and those with congenital diseases. It's called the "science" Eugenics. You can read a *lot* more about it on the Eugenics Archive - it's sickening, and it's America's Dirty Little Secret - and here it is rearing it's ugly head again, in the form of a "kindly" and "economic" gesture on the part of a "well-meaning" legistator.

Hitler took it to its logical extreme, y'all.

Just sayin'.

Clothes Closet Crisis - And and Honest Look Why

Well, I threw on a pair of jeans yesterday to go to school and run the review session for my students... I usually wear pantsuits or skirt suits... but I decided to dress down yesterday. The jeans I threw on were snug in June when I bought them, so I figured... no problem, they'll be perfect now.

Ha.

By the time I got to school I realized I had made a mistake.

While they were cute and fresh and crisp... they were, um, loose. And I don't own any belts since they really bother my belly most of the time. Uh-oh. Not a good move when you are going to stand for three hours in front of classes - and not behind a podium this time, but writing on white boards for most of the time. I felt *very* self-conscious.

When I got home I pulled out the other two pairs of jeans I own and put them on - they fit *ok* right now, but they, too, are loose... and I am going to be in trouble in another five pounds or so.

This makes 12 pant sizes and 10 dress sizes. And I have no idea what to do about new clothes. I've been hitting the thrift stores... but even they are getting expensive...

Even my very favorite knit yoga pants - the ones I bought last Spring that are so easy on my tummy (I have three pairs) - are almost too loose to wear.

I gave away nearly all of my smaller size clothes long ago, believing that I would never, ever weigh below 200 pounds again. I am well below that now. And sinking.

Or is that shrinking?

I never thought that losing weight would become a problem... but it is. People never talk about this - the expense, the changing body image issues of shedding so many pounds. The sheer difference in bulk. I have basically lost what amounts to a fourth grader. 87 pounds (I weighed 275 at my highest - Yeah. I'm being brutally honest tonight.). That's downright freaky.

First of all, how could I have weighed that much more?

And second of all, how could I have lost that much? (And still be going down?)

I'll address the first issue first. I weighed so much more than now partially because of one of the medications I was on - it had a side effect of weight gain - but the fact was that I had stopped caring how I looked. We had moved into a house of our own; I was working at an incredibly stressful job which really should have been a whole lot of fun; I was going to school full-time... and in the new house, the pathway to the back of the house went right by the refrigerator. I pigged out. I put the food in my mouth every time I went by - stress and convenience eating. In addition, keeping food in my stomach, I now realize, made my impending tummy troubles at least feel better ... eating was palliative - most of the time. Food made me feel better, plain and simple.

To address the second issue, the stress got to me even worse... I developed heart problems, I developed ulcers, my headaches got worse, and as I know now, the IBS got substantially worse. And NOT eating relieved some of the pain of them. And, I was constantly on the move at work, rarely had time for a good lunch, came home exhausted... and simply passed that tempting refrigerator by. I started losing some weight in 2003, but it didn't really start dropping until last year (2007) when I had three hospitalizations and three abdominal surgeries in April. Yeah, that'll do it to you. I had already lost about 45-50 pounds by then, but I lost a fair amount more in the hospital and in the months afterward. I gained some of it back as I tried to get more nutrition over the next many months - I could not stop vomiting and having diarrhea for nearly nine months - so things were definitely not stable. However, as we have found a good combination of medications to ease my belly problems, I have shed the majority of the weight in the least amount of time. I'm just not hungry. That worries me on one hand... but I am glad to be losing it. I'll see the GI doc in November and get an update then on how things are going. I may move it up to October just because things are still in such a rapid cycle right now. I want to be safe with the weight loss. As a person with eating disorders in college (undergrad) I always worry that that will become an issue... and I am extremely sensitive to it. The last thing I want to do is fall into anorexia - or have the occasional vomiting I still experience go back into the easy routine of my bulimia of 15 and 20 years ago. It's a slippery slope.

It's a little disconcerting to have so very many people suddenly notice me with a broad smile - especially people I don't know ... as though I am worth more weighing less than when I weighed more. Maybe *I* smile more - but I have always been pretty sunny. Maybe I carry myself differently. Maybe the clothes I wear emphasize my body more and people are drawn to my curves (in itself a bit disconcerting). I just don't know. And I don't know if I want to have the answers - as a former women's studies double major, I suspect I may not like them one bit.

Anyway, that is where things are. I am sure there are more issues I haven't even thought of... I have tried to be as honest as I know.

But I still have a clothes closet crisis. And I have no idea what to do about it.

I Just Can't Let This Pass Unnoticed

Politics as usual for McCain... but Letterman calls him on it but good:

I Am Living My Own Private Hell Today

Went to bed at 5:45 this morning; once again I could not drift off to sleep. :::pounding head on wall:::

Somehow between 5:45a and 7:30a there was a glitch between D2L (the vendor for the eCourseware software which runs the University online programs) and the University servers. What this means in real terms is that *every single online course - including all online modules for on-site courses* has been erased. Not permanently - at least we hope not. It took me two and a half weeks to set up my courses - in August, when I had time to fuss with things like this.

I have been dealing with frantic calls and e-mails from my students *FREAKING OUT* because they have short papers due today which require the use of primary sources I have posted on eCourseware... and because the first midterm is on Monday - which also requires the use of primary sources. Also helpful to the midterm are the supplemental materials I have posted on eCourseware... and the PowerPoint slides, of course.

Needless to say, I am freaking out a little, too.

I've talked with IT, and they are having a *very* long day... such nice staff, and they are being *so* patient despite the angry, angry phone calls they are getting. Unfortunately, they cannot simply "put up" the missing classes when everything comes back online. *EVERY SINGLE STUDENT* who is missing classes on their eCourseware website has to call in or fill out a help ticket and each has to be resolved by hand for some reason. At least that is what they are saying at this moment. Maybe they are just trying to get a handle on things.

Regardless.

Between the undergrads and the grads, we have 22,000 students on this campus. I cannot imagine how this is going to work.

NIGHTMARE!!

UPDATE: 

I have figured out a temporary workaround, thank goodness. It is totally inelegant, but it works... I have a huge amount of server space at the University which has been untouched by the outage so far, and I have created a temporary public folder within it for the students to access. I *despise* the clunkiness of it and hate letting them into my server space at all - UMDrive is really, really horrible - but it works most of the time, and it at least gets them access to the information. Better than me e-mailing every single student one file at a time at their request, which was what was happening. And when all is said and done, I will turn off the public access, erase the files, and my server space will be all mine again.

God, what a disaster. ::holding head::

UPDATE TWO:

*EVERYTHING* is up and running again ... instead of a multi-day fix, D2L and IT worked together *beautifully* and we only had to endure a short outage and only minor disasters. My students are back up and are *very* happy... I only had to modify one assignment, and everything is up for the midterm on Monday. That was my biggest concern and the reason I was panicking so badly - the students really, really needed those primary sources.

I wish that IT could have given me a basic ETR for the problem... it would have helped so much ... but I was thrilled to log on at 5:10 and find eCourseware up and screaming along. 

BTW, I have used four online coursepacks/electronic course software packages - and eCourseware is the *very best* of all of them. In the two years I have been using it, this is the first major glitch we have ever had. I think that's a pretty good track record, yanno?

Sex Ed Makes You Use Your Brains

CONTENT WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE, SEXUALITY

While we were the nicest seven or eight  high school geeks I have ever known, we almost never had dates and almost never got in um, 'family trouble' (unless you count Bob getting his GF pg during High School, SR yr.) Worst, most tragic part? I received his son's - yes, his first-born's - obituary last year. Bob's first child - a boy - died in a motorcycle wreck - drunk had hit him. Young Robert had no chance, and was in no way at fault. One other guy in my class got his GF pg, but he finished school and graduated on time, unlike Bob, who had to finish his last semester taking his last semester "as by proxy"; I can' remember if he was at the graduation ceremony or not.

Anyway. There are a couple of STDs that I know of there, but very little else. My graduating class was 74 people, and I think I could count on..... hmmm..... one hand, the number of substance abusers in my grade. The classes behind us and above us were notorious, but we were the 'angels,' (heh! - not I...I was a bully and mean as spit - but I could talk my way out of *anything* - not a good thing, mind you, but that's what I did and how I coped with my IRL life, which was pretty crap). No pushers in our class, and *very* few takers. The ones who weren't angels were so horrid that they received permanent suspension / expulsion - had to do the rest of their schooling by correspondence or in a private school.

But a really good thing about the sex ed classes as we knew them was that you saw the results of the clear intellectual debate and understanding play out in a real environment. You could be sure to find used condoms in the grass behind the school during recess (eeeeew!) Dozens of them, and on particularly good days (usually Mondays) we could find even more in the bounding square of the football stands / bleachers all the way to the train tracks, to the West end of the playgrounds and original school wing. The school itself made up the fourth part of the square. Not too many up by the school (but dang! we found hundreds of them under the Merry-Go-Round... Centrifugal force must have done something really special with that Unforgettable Feeling, yanno? ::snerk:: ANYWAY the effect boundary of the area in which we were most likely to find the condoms in the mid 80s was nearly a square mile. One day (a bunch of us, having nothing better to do, and fascinated by the increasing conservatism in our country as evidenced by tightening of some of the abortion laws. Heh. I think the real story was that we were ALL geeks who couldn't get laid so we had to find a way to talk about sex and statistics ALL THE TIME. Except Bob. The rest of us were all talk and no action. Bob saw battle and was awarded the Purple Heart. LOL) Anyway, true to the Geek Code of Ethics and Responsibilities (I just made that up) we decided to run a simple test over the course of the football season. Easy. Besides we had the newest, most expensive, state of the art graphing calculators for 1985 or so (whooeeee!) and wanted to figure out all sorts of spatial statistics, by plugging in formulae and numbers. Funny I am coming full-circle to that now, again.

We measured *every* Saturday morning over the same area to see how many condoms were in the total area, then quick-counted them to make sure we hadn't missed any, then pulled down our search grids - we used the reusable grids (just very large sections of PVC pipe glued permanently together in the shape of a square, with four small projecting feet - easy to clean. Harder to find places to store. We prevailed on the maintenance crew for the school to put them in their garage) just to keep us in line in such a way that we didn't overlap or deviate too far off-course. There were enough AWAY games to give us a fairly decent baseline (though it seemed as though *some* folks went at it *every* chance they could in the grass!), and the results we came up with that some 73.001% of the total dataset (all the condoms we collected) were collected the day after a home game. (Can't remember the exact number, but it was around that - might even be as high as 83%, collected to three decimal points). Fascinating outcome.

Out of these results we came up with some conclusions. I am putting them in first person since I was involved - and because it is just easier that way: I think it helps to give kids the CHOICE of birth control and educate them fully. None of this abstinence BS. Teach them a wide range of information. Teach them about their bodies, and those bodies they will be encountering. Teach about relationship building. Talk about how to turn someone on without even touching them. Talk about the little things that make relationships work. Talk about issues of sexuality and aging. There's more... but that's a good start.

Back to sex ed in the 80s: We also talked about masturbation and mutual masturbation... and tastes, and sounds, and feelings (both those that can be hurt, thoughts that do hurt, and another unique one - actions - paying attention? light stroking? Kind words? etc. )

Mr S went around the room and had *every* student say the same five words, separated by gender. Women were required to speak up when they said the following: penis, head, testicles, anus and nipples - and she had to point these out on an anatomically-correct torso. I remember one particular student (a cheerleader, no less!) who was petrified... Dr. S said, "You know, if it came down to it, we could break Mr Torso in half and you could find the prostate gland for me..." She found the other five much more appealing and pointed them out with the eraser on her pencil. The guys? They got: Labia majora, clitoris, vagina, anus, nipples. One of the basketball players fainted when he realized what HE was going to have to say and point out. Didn't help him one bit. He ended being required to do both the men's and the women's anatomical parts. ROFL.

The few and far between movies we saw on sex ed (these were the early and mid 80s, remember) were HORRIBLE. They were either public domain crap that was put out by the Medical and Interpretive Dance Department of the College of Timbuktu back in oh... 1922. OR They were short training films filled with angst and repression and DADDY WITH A PIPE (damn phallic symbol) from the 1950s. OR They were from the late 1960s and featured really weird cartoon or claymation characters sporting constant boners that were larger than they were, going around fucking everything in site.. then they get condoms and women get the Pill and while they are having sex just as much as before they are controlling their family size and spacing their children deliberately. REALLY FREAKING WEIRD. I mean... they looked like tiny Smurfs with immense penises which reached well above the tops of their heads. I don't even think they could reach the glans to CLEAN IT ::shaking head:: Don't know if that one was a sex ed film, or an encyclical against doing drugs. And they showed this to vulnerable, impressionable young kids who were still under the age of consent!! ::snort:: Yeah. Whatever.

What actually bothered me about these movies (AND EVEN FILMSTRIPS!!) was that they were very prejudiced against women's abilities to make good decisions for themselves. Doctor knows best ::pat pat pat on the head:: Just as telling, though, was the implication by omission that men and women of color were still not a part of our culture. Makes me ill... I mean, I feel horribly sick. Ill conceived and *very much* ill-advised.

But we learned. We learned about our health - and the diseases and disease symptoms that could invade our body. How to look out for them. Standard treatments. How to look up for more information. HOW TO USE THE FREAKING PDR. How to read a basic drug guide, a signs and symptoms guide with flowcharts, and what to look for in a *basic* insurance policy. And we were expected, as part of our homework, to come up with a question of the week. He answered them ALL, and assigned the best ones as as another part of our weekend homework. We had projects, we had papers. Needless to say, we worked hard and learned an exquisite and extraordinary amount in a semester. Yeah. A semester. Mr. S worked us like DAWGS. But you know what? I don't think I have ever learned so well as I did in his classes (the other class was driver's ed... and he pushed me and pushed me hard to be the best driver I could be. I still hear his voice reminding me to check my blind spots, use my signal, etc.... very influential guy to me.)

Comprehensive Sex Ed should NOT be ignored in favor of Abstinence-Only Education. Yes, teach abstinence as one way of playing a role within society... but in the meantime, teach some things that are also simply realities for these kids - and for kids for generations and generations going back centuries and millennia. And teach them practical health care and coping skills - much of which I have outlined above. The life you save might be your own, if just from the information about health and life-skills. 

Ahhh, long-winded, I am! Can you tell I am a historian who not only cannot sleep but is now also hopelessly behind and avoiding research and work?

I'm signing off to finish my SPSS/stats homework - will be up another hour or so. It's four in the morning and that gives me... Wait. WTF??? I thought it was just a little after two. HOLY SHIT. I'm taking a xanax and going to bed. @@