Women & Pro-Choice

Men have fragile egos too?

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 1,180 Comments

Have you heard of vanity sizing?  It’s the gradual increase over time in how we define our clothing sizes.  Vanity sizing is a trick that clothing manufacturers play on consumers to make us feel better about the clothes we’re buying from them.  For example, they might make a size 10 skirt, but label it as size 8.

You’ve heard that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14?  She was gorgeous and a size 14, so why should today’s size 14 gal worry about her waist?  A blog called True Life covered this topic in 2007:

Marilyn was a size 14…back in 1950.  Kate Dillon is still smokin’ hot (and I like the red hair, so I’d say hotter than Marilyn…and how can you not love that green swimsuit???) but her 14 is not Marilyn’s 14.

Vanity sizing is the reason why you may prefer Old Navy jeans to Gap jeans or Target jeans, or vice versa.  It’s the reason why you may have to buy boutique-style clothing two sizes “bigger” than ready-to-wear off-the rack clothes.

It’s sneaky, and we let them do it, because we’re vain.

And I’ll be honest – I thought it was something they only did to women.

Let’s look at women’s clothing sizes: 00, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 and so on.  Those “sizes” don’t mean anything – a size 10 jean doesn’t mean one has a 10-inch waist.  Then there’s the ridiculous S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL size chart – pretty subjective.  Some plus size clothing manufacturers  have even tried to eliminate the standard prejudices associated with the previous two systems and use vague 1, 2, 3, 4 designations for clothing – especially clothing that would normally fall into the XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL system like shirts and dresses, or other other clothes that can adjust via belts, ties, adjustable straps, or *shudder* elastic.

Since the scales (hehehe) are subjective, I can understand how there’s some fudge factor room in creating women’s clothing in one size and calling it a smaller size.  You convince a woman that your store’s size 14 fits here, and if she goes to another store (that doesn’t vanity size as much) she’ll have to buy a size 16.  Ugh!  I would rather wear the 14 if given the choice!

Men’s clothing is more standardized.  A 32″ waist means the waist measures 32″ around.  There’s not a lot a room to maneuver here.

Unless they just…lie.

Esquire Magazine’s “The Style Blog” published an article by Adam Sauer yesterday about vanity sizing – or “down-waisting” – of men’s clothing.  On a recent shopping trip he carried along a tailor’s measuring tape and got the skinny (yes! pun-ilicious) on some big (ooops, I did it again! mwah ha ha!) names:

Sorry guys.

Men have fragile egos too?
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Thank you, Ladies.

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 1,750 Comments

This is making its way around the interwebs right now.  I thought it would make a nice addition to today’s Minnesota primary races.  Did you vote?  Thanks to Mary B for sending this my way.

Admin Notes: There is definitely an appeal to emotion in the writing below, but the history appears solid from the little bit of fact-checking I’ve done this evening.  Also, with all the references to HBO’s Iron-Jawed Angels, I’m not promising that this isn’t a cleverly disguised advert.  And knowing all this, you should give it a read.

Aside from a little formatting to fit the blog, everything below this point is unedited and not my words.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.  And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.  Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’

(Lucy Burns)

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.  Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote.  For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because…why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work?  Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York )

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.  Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.  Sometimes it was inconvenient.

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said.  ‘What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman’s Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl [ace] [ Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.  We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.

(‘Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.’)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey, I’m back.  I also found this related “Ken Burns-esque” video on youtube.  There are a several pictures in this video that aren’t in the story above.

Thank you, Ladies.

CONvergence 2010: Day 3

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , 1,012 Comments

CONvergence Day 3 – Saturday

First, the outfits!  I pulled out a bunch of things that I don’t get to wear very often – my snazzy cocktail dress, glass bead necklaces, and a black/blue bob wig that I bought for a Halloween costume years ago.  The hubby had a much more deliberate dieselpunk costume – barnstormer cap, goggles, and beige military-style dress including fancy brown army boots.

 

Saturday was chock-full of panels!

11:00 am – Losing My Religion
This was a huge panel, and had about 25 attendees.  Panelists included Jen M, Ted Meissner, David Walbridge, Maria Walters, PZ Myers, Carrie Iwan, Debbie Goddard, Jennifer Ouellete, Lyra Lynx and Bug Girl.  Panelists shared where they were coming from (where they were raised along the range of a heavily religious upbringing to not exposed to religion in their youth or life), and how they dealt with “outing” themselves as atheists or agnostics to family, friends and coworkers, if they chose to do so. 

It was interesting to hear the different perspectives of how “safe” people felt about identifying as atheistic at work.   On the one hand you have someone like PZ Myers – a tenured professor with the ability to be as vocal as he wants to be about his atheism.  Then you have someone like Jen M.  who has a very real fear that she might lose her job if her boss were to find out that she’s an atheist.  Some of the panelists were in the middle – it wouldn’t be the end of the world if their coworkers found out, but they treat their atheism as personal and don’t share their beliefs casually.  One audience member commented that while he didn’t personally care if he was outed, he did worry about the financial ramifications being an out atheist might have on his small-town business. 

Best lines from this session:  
From Debbie Goddard, about not being true to yourself – “It eats at your soul that doesn’t exist.”

From PZ Myers: “We have to stop sacrificing our integrity on the altar of ‘let’s get along’.”

12:30 pm – Profanity as a Fraking Function of Language
Panelists included Kelly Murphy, M.K.Melin, Hilary Moon Murphy, Rebecca Marjesdatter.  This was a somewhat academic discussion about the types, definitions, where, when and whys of profanity.  The moderator could easily have split the slides into a full semester class!  The “Whys”  of using profanity included catharsis, abuse, social bonding and intensification.  She presented a section called “English Profanity Classification”, which was split into religion-related, scatalogical, sexual referents, animal names, euphemisms, foreign language words as swears, and starting a swear but finishing with a non-swear (shhhhhh….ugar!).

The tie-in to the SciFi group came in during the second half of the talk.  We came up with a few books, shows and movies that used cursing or swearing:

Firefly – Gorram and chinese language cursing.  Gorram being a “replacement” for “Goddamn”?
Harry Potter – the kids swear in a very kid-like manner – “Damn” sounds just shocking coming from Harry Potter!  At least the first time…
Battlestar Galactica – “Frak, frakin” – Classic replacement word.
Star Trek –  Data saying “shit”
Pirates of Darkwater – “Noishatot!” – Made-up curse words.
Warner Brothers – Yosemite Sam “rashafrashin…”, Donald Duck “Sufferin’ succotash!”
DC Comics – “Bastich” – combination of “bastard” and “bitch”
Red Dwarf – “Smeg”
Frostflower and Thorn – “You don’t have the tits for that” and “Fathermilker” (A very matriarchal, female-dominated society) By the way, “fathermilker” was the one that caught the greatest number of people in the audience unaware during the entire panel. It was unexpected and could be a universal insult, a corollary to motherf****r. Before you read too much into the astrick-ing – I’m just trying to keep this entry out of the NSFW category.

The moderator said that one of her main disappointments with swearing/cursing in scifi fantasy is when authors don’t use imagination, logic or art when employing profanity.  She asked the writers in the audience to consider these factors when writing profanity into a story:

Offensiveness vs. Offendedness – who’s sending the message and who’s receiving it?  For whom is the profferred profanity intended? And how do these factors affect offensiveness and offendedness: Setting, Gender, Age, Race, Culture, Personality, Power, Class, Occupation, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Relationship.

2 pm – Women as Skeptical Activists
Panelists: Rebecca Watson, Maria Walters, Jennifer Newport, Debbie Goddard, Carrie Iwan, Pamela Gay

The main theme that came out of this panel was Role Models, Role Models, Role Models!  One of the speakers offered up the idea that while being a woman in the fields of science and skepticism may not necessarily put one at a disadvantage for hiring or promotion (although there is still a wage gap in many parts of the US), women are still in the minority. 

The panel discussed studies which have shown that when women are seen as role models in positions of power and respect, more girls and women do better on tests, decide to go into male-dominated professions and excel in those professions.  Also presented was the importance of introducing a woman’s perspective to help minimize “male priviledge”.  Gender bias still exists – just because we got the “big” wins – namely, the right to vote and the perception that women can do as well in business, academics and politics as men, doesn’t mean that all gender bias issues have been solved (brought up were breast-feeding in public, maternity leave, wage, employment in the “upper echeleons”).

Advice for women in the audience trying to distinguish themselves in the skeptical movement and blogging community: Find your niche!  Avoid being a generalist, be the go-to person for a certain topic. 

Pseudoscience targeted at women (pregnany, childrearing, weight loss, fertility) was briefly discussed.

3:30 pm – Evolution Mythbusters
Panelists: Ted Meissner (mod), PZ Myers, Bug Girl, Gred Laden

Favorite misconceptions:

Bug Girl – The false idea that bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly.

Greg Laden – Greg was rather winding in his answer, but I believe this was the crux of his statements:  The false idea that animal behaviors are genetic and thus subject to evolutionary forces and anything outside of this is a violation of evolutionary theory, and thus evolution is false. 

PZ Myers – The idea that all features of humaness are a product of selection, when in fact, very few are.  Again, I hope I summarized this correctly.  This led into a discussion of the human immune system, the “broken” Vitamin C gene and lactose-intolerance.

Most fascinating part of evolution:

Bug Girl – Sex!  Separation of species.

Greg Laden – The emergence of complicated systems from simple beginnings.

PZ Myers – Development, how evolution affects form by affecting development.

My favorite statements from the panel:

  • “Nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution”.  An oldie, but goodie.
  • Science is more than just memorizing facts; it’s a way of thinking.
  • Regarding willful ignorance: When a creationist studen tries to disrupt the teaching of evolution, that’s not honest inquiry.
  • The “theory” of evolution is to intelligent design as the “theory” of gravity is to intelligent pushing.  This one came from an audience member sitting near me. 
  • Biggest challenges to the teaching of evolution?  Media, culture, religion.

    • ~~~~~

    Phew!  So I was pretty much done with panels after these four machine-gun style sessions.  I stopped briefly by the Seamstress Guild cabana, checked my email, facebook and blog at the hotel computers, and then went to the Dealer’s Room where I bought my first Surly-Ramics jewelry!  I found a “Science” necklace and a “Geek” hairclip for myself, and a yellow hairclip for my sister that has Darwin’s first “tree of life” diagram on the button. 

     

     

    The hubby and I went to the Masquerade at 7pm and saw all sorts of fantastic and horrific (i.e., fantasy and horror, not well-done and poorly-made!) costumes.  I like the way CONvergence does Masquerade – it’s a runway-style show and a costume competition, but there are three levels or categories: Novice, Journeyman and Master.  This way, the professional costumers can compete among themselves but present alongside the noob who gets up in a cloak and wig.  My favorite costume set was a Master-level group who presented as the entire cast of The Guild.

    Afterwards the Hubby and I had dinner at TGIFridays across the parking lot and then bummed around some of the party rooms, cabanas and CONsuite until 12pm when we went to see The Dregs – fun!  They played the classic Zombies in the Shire AND the Zombie Chicken song!  The performance was very casual and silly.  There may or may not have been a bottle containing some brown liquid that passed back and forth between band members and the audience, one of the lead singers was taking pics and posting to facebook between songs, and there was a lot of verbal bashing back and forth between the performers.  So a fantastic time was had by all. 

    Afterwards – exhaustion and home.  This ended up being our last day of CONvergence.  There was only one panel that I wanted to see on Sunday, and we decided that we didn’t care too much about closing ceremonies, so we decided to get a head start on con drop before going back to work.  It was a beautiful day, so we ended up renting a “deuce coup” at Minnehaha Falls, going to the Mall of America for some people watching and lunch, and a spending a quiet night at home with a movie (Paul Giamatti’s Cold Souls). 

    Thus endeth CONvergence 2010.

    CONvergence 2010: Day 3

    Meet Dr. Hawa Abdi

    Brianne Bilyeu, , 2,864 Comments

    The Daily Beast via Skepchick:

    Terrorists Kidnapp a Hero: Militants are holding the Mother Teresa of Somalia hostage, and as a result, dozens of children have already died. Eliza Griswold talks to Dr. Hawa Abdi from the home where she is being held captive.

    This story has it all – subjugation of women, religious extremism, needless deaths of innocents, and one bad-ass female doctor.  For pete’s sake!  If you need your daily dose of indignation, I highly recommend this article.

    Dr. Abdi is awesome: She’s a 60 year-old Somali gynecologist who built up a one-room clinic into a 400-bed hospital, she shelters refugees on the hospital grounds, and she gives everything she has to feeding the hungry and to obtain staff and medicine from international aid groups.  And now she’s back-sassing the militant extremists who are holding her and her staff under house arrest.

    -

    photo source

    Somalia Online has more information on Dr. Hawa Abdi and her accomplishments in Somalia.

    Meet Dr. Hawa Abdi

    This camera! I’m telling ya!

    Brianne Bilyeu, , , 1,411 Comments

    I’ve had a chance to play with my camera on the HTC Incredible, and I have to say – I’ve been pretty impressed with it.  The autofocus feature is great.  Below is a pair of pictures I took at work.  I focused the first pic in the foreground, and the second pic in the background.  All I did was touch the area of the screen where I wanted the camera to focus, and it did the rest.

    Pretty amazing for a point-and-click camera.

    I’ve had awesome, crisp photos in daylight settings, and I’ve been able to use the white balance to correct for incandescent and fluorescent indoor settings. 

    I like all of the options for setting the on-screen review period, the resolution and ISO settings.  This camera has every option (and then some) that my traditional compact camera has. 

    I also like the digital slider bars that control contrast/sharpness/saturation, brightness and the zoom, although I did find the zoom to be a little restrictive, i.e., I want to zoom more than the settings allow. 

    Downsides to the HTC Incredible camera:

    The laser roller button took a little getting used to, especially learning how to snap a photo without shaking the phone and ruining the picture.

    No macro mode 🙁  But, the camera does do a good job with maintaining the focus for close-up pictures.

    I’m a bit worried about the unprotected glass lens.  Glass doesn’t scratch as easily as say, plastic, but still  I wonder how long it will be before I manage to scuff the lens.  Photo source 

    I don’t have any photography training, so excuse my mealy-mouth description of this – the pictures are sometimes too…saturated?  The colors are a bit unbelievable, sometimes, in some situations. 

    The flash is very, very bright, and I haven’t yet figured out if there is a way to modulate the brightness.  Below, in the indoor low-light picture of my tomato plant, everything is washed out and blue.  I also haven’t been able to make good use of the flash in outdoor, shade situations.  And fugedaboutit with shiny/reflective surfaces – I washed out every glossy-cover book that I tried to shoot with flash, from every angle.  But I’m guessing that some fiddling around with different light/dark photos will help me hone my skill with this not-quite user-friendly flash. 

    I found a nice review of the HTC phone at Mobility Digest that includes a lot of screen shots.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Tomato Plant Update

    We had a cold snap this past week in Minneapolis – well, not a snap so much as the temperature has plummeted and hasn’t come back up yet.  I went out one morning and found my poor tomato plant bent over at the base – the main stem had weakened in the cold.  I brought my three planters back inside and commandeered a corner in one of the apartment stairwells.  I bolstered the tomato plant stem by resting the top of the plant against the wall and waited to see what would happen.  It did bounce back, and is actually flowering, but I’m getting worried about the lack of direct sunlight.  Ugh – cold, rainy, cloudy weather.  Enough, already!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    And finally, Happy 50th Anniversary of the Pill! 

    photo source

    I found a great column in the NYTimes via Skepchick called What Every Girl Should Know.  The article was written by Gail Collins and it outlines a few of the outrageous ways women used to try to prevent pregnancy.  It includes a snippet from The Pill, sung by Loretta Lynn, and a few stories about Margaret Sanger and the melodramatic villan-esque Anthony Comstock. 

    And speaking of Loretta Lynn:  Woman sang herself a song with The Pill!

    Loretta Lynn: The Pill lyrics (source) – 1975
    You wined me and dined me
    When I was your girl
    Promised if I’d be your wife
    You’d show me the world
    But all I’ve seen of this old world
    Is a bed and a doctor bill
    I’m tearin’ down your brooder house
    ‘Cause now I’ve got the pill

    All these years I’ve stayed at home
    While you had all your fun
    And every year thats gone by
    Another babys come
    There’s a gonna be some changes made
    Right here on nursery hill
    You’ve set this chicken your last time
    ‘Cause now I’ve got the pill

    This old maternity dress I’ve got
    Is goin’ in the garbage
    The clothes I’m wearin’ from now on
    Won’t take up so much yardage
    Miniskirts, hot pants and a few little fancy frills
    Yeah I’m makin’ up for all those years
    Since I’ve got the pill

    I’m tired of all your crowin’
    How you and your hens play
    While holdin’ a couple in my arms
    Another’s on the way
    This chicken’s done tore up her nest
    And I’m ready to make a deal
    And ya can’t afford to turn it down
    ‘Cause you know I’ve got the pill

    This incubator is overused
    Because you’ve kept it filled
    The feelin’ good comes easy now
    Since I’ve got the pill
    It’s gettin’ dark it’s roostin’ time
    Tonight’s too good to be real
    Oh but daddy don’t you worry none
    ‘Cause mama’s got the pill

    Oh daddy don’t you worry none
    ‘Cause mama’s got the pill

    This camera! I’m telling ya!

    This camera! I'm telling ya!

    Brianne Bilyeu, , , 1,237 Comments

    I’ve had a chance to play with my camera on the HTC Incredible, and I have to say – I’ve been pretty impressed with it.  The autofocus feature is great.  Below is a pair of pictures I took at work.  I focused the first pic in the foreground, and the second pic in the background.  All I did was touch the area of the screen where I wanted the camera to focus, and it did the rest.

    Pretty amazing for a point-and-click camera.

    I’ve had awesome, crisp photos in daylight settings, and I’ve been able to use the white balance to correct for incandescent and fluorescent indoor settings. 

    I like all of the options for setting the on-screen review period, the resolution and ISO settings.  This camera has every option (and then some) that my traditional compact camera has. 

    I also like the digital slider bars that control contrast/sharpness/saturation, brightness and the zoom, although I did find the zoom to be a little restrictive, i.e., I want to zoom more than the settings allow. 

    Downsides to the HTC Incredible camera:

    The laser roller button took a little getting used to, especially learning how to snap a photo without shaking the phone and ruining the picture.

    No macro mode 🙁  But, the camera does do a good job with maintaining the focus for close-up pictures.

    I’m a bit worried about the unprotected glass lens.  Glass doesn’t scratch as easily as say, plastic, but still  I wonder how long it will be before I manage to scuff the lens.  Photo source 

    I don’t have any photography training, so excuse my mealy-mouth description of this – the pictures are sometimes too…saturated?  The colors are a bit unbelievable, sometimes, in some situations. 

    The flash is very, very bright, and I haven’t yet figured out if there is a way to modulate the brightness.  Below, in the indoor low-light picture of my tomato plant, everything is washed out and blue.  I also haven’t been able to make good use of the flash in outdoor, shade situations.  And fugedaboutit with shiny/reflective surfaces – I washed out every glossy-cover book that I tried to shoot with flash, from every angle.  But I’m guessing that some fiddling around with different light/dark photos will help me hone my skill with this not-quite user-friendly flash. 

    I found a nice review of the HTC phone at Mobility Digest that includes a lot of screen shots.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Tomato Plant Update

    We had a cold snap this past week in Minneapolis – well, not a snap so much as the temperature has plummeted and hasn’t come back up yet.  I went out one morning and found my poor tomato plant bent over at the base – the main stem had weakened in the cold.  I brought my three planters back inside and commandeered a corner in one of the apartment stairwells.  I bolstered the tomato plant stem by resting the top of the plant against the wall and waited to see what would happen.  It did bounce back, and is actually flowering, but I’m getting worried about the lack of direct sunlight.  Ugh – cold, rainy, cloudy weather.  Enough, already!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    And finally, Happy 50th Anniversary of the Pill! 

    photo source

    I found a great column in the NYTimes via Skepchick called What Every Girl Should Know.  The article was written by Gail Collins and it outlines a few of the outrageous ways women used to try to prevent pregnancy.  It includes a snippet from The Pill, sung by Loretta Lynn, and a few stories about Margaret Sanger and the melodramatic villan-esque Anthony Comstock. 

    And speaking of Loretta Lynn:  Woman sang herself a song with The Pill!

    Loretta Lynn: The Pill lyrics (source) – 1975
    You wined me and dined me
    When I was your girl
    Promised if I’d be your wife
    You’d show me the world
    But all I’ve seen of this old world
    Is a bed and a doctor bill
    I’m tearin’ down your brooder house
    ‘Cause now I’ve got the pill

    All these years I’ve stayed at home
    While you had all your fun
    And every year thats gone by
    Another babys come
    There’s a gonna be some changes made
    Right here on nursery hill
    You’ve set this chicken your last time
    ‘Cause now I’ve got the pill

    This old maternity dress I’ve got
    Is goin’ in the garbage
    The clothes I’m wearin’ from now on
    Won’t take up so much yardage
    Miniskirts, hot pants and a few little fancy frills
    Yeah I’m makin’ up for all those years
    Since I’ve got the pill

    I’m tired of all your crowin’
    How you and your hens play
    While holdin’ a couple in my arms
    Another’s on the way
    This chicken’s done tore up her nest
    And I’m ready to make a deal
    And ya can’t afford to turn it down
    ‘Cause you know I’ve got the pill

    This incubator is overused
    Because you’ve kept it filled
    The feelin’ good comes easy now
    Since I’ve got the pill
    It’s gettin’ dark it’s roostin’ time
    Tonight’s too good to be real
    Oh but daddy don’t you worry none
    ‘Cause mama’s got the pill

    Oh daddy don’t you worry none
    ‘Cause mama’s got the pill

    This camera! I'm telling ya!

    In the Wake of Boobquake

    Brianne Bilyeu, , , 4,407 Comments

    The results of Boobquake 2010 are in! Jen from blaghag.com did a statistical analysis of the number and severity of earthquakes that occured across the globe yesterday. Sadly, ladies, it looks like we don’t have boob/butt/leg/ankle/hair magic that can control plate tectonics.  From blaghag.com (click here for larger image):

    Each data point represents the total number of earthquakes per day going back to February 5th (the extent of the online database). Days are measured in Coordinated Universal Time. That red square is boobquake. As you can see qualitatively, our provocative dress didn’t really seem to effect the frequency of earthquakes. There were 47 earthquakes on the 26th, which falls well within the 95% confidence interval for number of earthquakes (about 0 to 148).

    Ah well, that’s just one more superpower I can cross of the list, I guess 🙂

    Now from Boobquake 2010, to boobs on the boob tube:

    Have you heard about the banned Lane Bryant lingerie commercial?

    Apparently ABC refused to show the “racy” commercial during Dancing with the Stars, and FOX network demanded excessive re-edits before they offered to run the commercial at the end of American Idol.

    Hmmm…between the Victoria’s Secret “The Nakeds” commercial that aired during American Idol (FOX) and ABC’s Dancing with the Stars:

      
    Dancing With the Stars Poster
     

    Yeah…wouldn’t want to show any girl skin or cleavage when families might be watching…

    For more in-depth writing on the Lane Bryant Lingerie Commericial Controversy, I recommend checking out The Stylelist

    In the Wake of Boobquake

    Dah-link, it’s been ages!

    Brianne Bilyeu, , 5,252 Comments

    I want a computer in my brain.  Sign me up – I’ll be an early adopter for that one. 

    I’ve been housesitting since last Thursday, and I haven’t had access to my desktop computer, so my online activity has taken a dive.  I do have my iPod Touch, and the house in which I’m staying has wireless, but everything was so slow…and the keys are so small…and everything’s in mobile content mode…ugh.  Very little Facebook, no checking my favorite blogs, and no additions to my personal blog.  It’s all very sad.  So, I’m writing a quick update via the ol’ office ‘puter just to let you all know that everything’s fine…life is good. 

    I unexpectedly earned a little bit of money – just enough that I’ll be able to visit Mom in Europe this summer!  She’s taking a month-long class in Italy, and on either side of that she’ll have some vacation time.  I wanted to join her, but wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to manage it financially, so this was very exciting.

    Housesitting is going well.  I’m living in Burnsville this week with my friend’s daughter, and four cats and a dog.  The daughter has her driver’s license and access to a car, so I don’t see her much.  Also, my second job at the bookstore is minimizing our face-to-face time, so we’re doing a lot of note-leaving and texting.  Last night was cool though: We both had the night at home so we had Taco Tuesday and vegged all night long.  Seriously, I haven’t watched that much TV…well, probably since the one time I was fired, and totally depressed, and I watched all 24 hours of 24…in 24 hours (well…22-23 hours with commercials, probably).   

    One of the shows we watched was CSI: Special Victims Unit.  Last night’s episode presented some of the same topics that I just finished reading about in Half the Sky.  This is an incredible book  about the injustices and inequities suffered by women throught southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.  The book focused on forced prostitution in SE Asia, rape as a weapon of war in Africa, repression of women in the Middle East, female circumcision, maternal mortality, and how lack of education is probably the number one issue contributing to subjugation, abuse and death of women the world over.  The book also focuses on how each and every person in this world can take a stand against these injustices.  It is a brutal and inspiring book.

    So, in this episode of CSI: SVU, a woman was raped and another woman walked in on the attack.  The witness grabbed the man off of the victim and punched him in the face.  Turns out that the witness was an illegal immigrant from Congo (i.e., Democratic Republic of Congo) who was a victim of rape by a rebel army.  Her and her five year old daughter were raped in front of her husband, who fled while the rebels were attacking his family.  The daughter died as a result of the attack.  The man returned home afterwards and cast his wife out because of the shame she brought to the family by being raped.  The woman escaped to a refuge camp, which was later attacked by a (US-defined) terrorist group.  All of the women were raped and forced to marry soldiers and leaders of the terrorist group.

    So…cheery… 

    But very, very good to see.  The more we hear, and the more we learn about these unbelievable  (to us in industrialized countries) circumstances in which our fellow human beings are existing, the more able and likely we’ll be to put our heads, hearts and hands together to end this barbarism. 

    I’m currently researching a microfinancing website called Kiva (kiva.org).  Microfinancing is so simple a solution to poverty and inequity as to be mind-boggling (so simple, that there’s an app for that, literally). 

    The College of Wikipedia textbook says this about microfinance:

    Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services.

    More broadly, it is a movement whose object is “a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers.” Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty.

    There was an entire section about microfinance in Half the Sky, and I’ve just picked up a copy of Banker to the Poor, by Muhammed Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts in microfinance.  Kiva is a microfinance organization that lets anyone provide lending to projects or groups in any area of the world.  Check it out – it will blow your mind.

    Dah-link, it’s been ages!

    Dah-link, it's been ages!

    Brianne Bilyeu, , 779 Comments

    I want a computer in my brain.  Sign me up – I’ll be an early adopter for that one. 

    I’ve been housesitting since last Thursday, and I haven’t had access to my desktop computer, so my online activity has taken a dive.  I do have my iPod Touch, and the house in which I’m staying has wireless, but everything was so slow…and the keys are so small…and everything’s in mobile content mode…ugh.  Very little Facebook, no checking my favorite blogs, and no additions to my personal blog.  It’s all very sad.  So, I’m writing a quick update via the ol’ office ‘puter just to let you all know that everything’s fine…life is good. 

    I unexpectedly earned a little bit of money – just enough that I’ll be able to visit Mom in Europe this summer!  She’s taking a month-long class in Italy, and on either side of that she’ll have some vacation time.  I wanted to join her, but wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to manage it financially, so this was very exciting.

    Housesitting is going well.  I’m living in Burnsville this week with my friend’s daughter, and four cats and a dog.  The daughter has her driver’s license and access to a car, so I don’t see her much.  Also, my second job at the bookstore is minimizing our face-to-face time, so we’re doing a lot of note-leaving and texting.  Last night was cool though: We both had the night at home so we had Taco Tuesday and vegged all night long.  Seriously, I haven’t watched that much TV…well, probably since the one time I was fired, and totally depressed, and I watched all 24 hours of 24…in 24 hours (well…22-23 hours with commercials, probably).   

    One of the shows we watched was CSI: Special Victims Unit.  Last night’s episode presented some of the same topics that I just finished reading about in Half the Sky.  This is an incredible book  about the injustices and inequities suffered by women throught southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.  The book focused on forced prostitution in SE Asia, rape as a weapon of war in Africa, repression of women in the Middle East, female circumcision, maternal mortality, and how lack of education is probably the number one issue contributing to subjugation, abuse and death of women the world over.  The book also focuses on how each and every person in this world can take a stand against these injustices.  It is a brutal and inspiring book.

    So, in this episode of CSI: SVU, a woman was raped and another woman walked in on the attack.  The witness grabbed the man off of the victim and punched him in the face.  Turns out that the witness was an illegal immigrant from Congo (i.e., Democratic Republic of Congo) who was a victim of rape by a rebel army.  Her and her five year old daughter were raped in front of her husband, who fled while the rebels were attacking his family.  The daughter died as a result of the attack.  The man returned home afterwards and cast his wife out because of the shame she brought to the family by being raped.  The woman escaped to a refuge camp, which was later attacked by a (US-defined) terrorist group.  All of the women were raped and forced to marry soldiers and leaders of the terrorist group.

    So…cheery… 

    But very, very good to see.  The more we hear, and the more we learn about these unbelievable  (to us in industrialized countries) circumstances in which our fellow human beings are existing, the more able and likely we’ll be to put our heads, hearts and hands together to end this barbarism. 

    I’m currently researching a microfinancing website called Kiva (kiva.org).  Microfinancing is so simple a solution to poverty and inequity as to be mind-boggling (so simple, that there’s an app for that, literally). 

    The College of Wikipedia textbook says this about microfinance:

    Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services.

    More broadly, it is a movement whose object is “a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers.” Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty.

    There was an entire section about microfinance in Half the Sky, and I’ve just picked up a copy of Banker to the Poor, by Muhammed Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts in microfinance.  Kiva is a microfinance organization that lets anyone provide lending to projects or groups in any area of the world.  Check it out – it will blow your mind.

    Dah-link, it's been ages!