Wednesday Reads: Blame it on the moon…
Posted: March 7, 2012 Filed under: 2012 primaries, abortion rights, birth control, China, Great Britain, Iran, morning reads, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, Rush Limbaugh, Russia, science, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: moon, Norse Astronomy, Titanic, Vikings 51 Comments
Good Morning
After taking a few days break from everything, including blogging, I am happy to say that things are getting back to normal. Fortunately the hospital my OB/GYN is affiliated with is not a Catholic run hospital, otherwise my total hysterectomy would need to be scheduled some place else. Pourquoi? Well, those Catholic hospitals would not perform a hysterectomy on a 41-year-old woman…cause she still has some breeding years left in her. Damn, it sounds like I’m some sort of farm animal, but it is the truth.
So as I count down my days to achieving the ultimate joy and happiness, lets review a few news items that I found interesting and wanted to share with you.
I do wonder about one thing, if taking birth control pills to help with my god awful periods and ovarian cyst makes me a slut, than what will I be without those “womanly” organs?
Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, since the slime that is Rush Limbaugh has already disrespected me and so many other women by asking what the hell is wrong with white over-educated women…Rush Limbaugh Seriously Loses His Shit, Randomly Attacks Another Young Woman
It seems that after several days of mounting public pressure, Rush Limbaugh has finally cracked. How else could you explain his attempt to move beyond this whole “hating on young women” debacle by continuing to attack young women? Today’s victim? Author Tracie McMillan, who represents another one of those awful “overeducated” young unmarried women Rush so emphatically resents.
McMillan’s crime, apparently, was being a young unmarried woman who went to college and wrote a book about the way people in America eat. She took a year to work at places like Wal-Mart and Applebees in order to get a better understanding about the American food industry. Of McMillan’s attempt to educate people when clearly men like Rush Limbaugh know best, the giant pair of flapping gums said,
What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated – doesn’t mean intelligent. For example, Tracie McMillan, the author of this book, seems to be just out of college and already she has been showered with awards, including the 2006 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. Social justice journalism. This woman who wrote the book on food inequality, food justice, got an award for social justice journalism.
McMillan doesn’t have a degree beyond her BA. She told Forbes that she wasn’t informed in advance that her book would be discussed on Limbaugh’s radio program. “My grandmother would be thrilled, because she’s a fan of his,” she said.
Oh, good for her! Let’s see what granny thinks of Rush after he berates her little grand-daughter.
So far the number is 35 advertisers had dropped Rush, and two radio stations will no longer air his show. Progress Reports – ThinkProgress That link will take you to the latest news on the boycott. Also check out StopRush.org.
The latest big company to head for the hills was Capital One.
In all my excitement about my surgery and Rush loosing all those sponsors, I forgot all about Super Tuesday. Boston Boomer had a live blog going: Live Blog: Super Tuesday Results « Sky Dancing If you missed the show, give that post a read through.
Here are the headlines this morning:
No Super Tuesday Knockout Punch – NYTimes.com
Romney Bags Ohio Prize, Wins More Than Half Of Super Tuesday Contests | Fox News
On Super Tuesday, Romney Ekes Past Santorum in Ohio – WSJ.com
After Ohio Primary, Kucinich Loses Seat in Congress – NYTimes.com
Since I was away from the blog for a couple of days, I just wanted to post a few links to stories that bothered me…maybe they bothered you too.
Romney to 11-year-old: Iran will get nuke if Obama re-elected | The Raw Story
Say what? Why the hell does the man have to go around scaring kids about nuclear war. Hey, I grew up in the age of the nukes with fears of the US and Russia going at it. It is not an easy thing to deal with.
Santorum: Single Moms Are “Breeding More Criminals” | Mother Jones
Geez, WTF about this statement…talk about livestock, does anything come out of this asshole’s mouth that isn’t about women, gays, sex and procreation?
It Doesn’t Matter if “Both Sides Do It” A good response to the Kristen Powers piece I wrote about on Sunday.
Winning the Battle, Losing the War Scott Lemieux looks at Virginia’s abortion legislation:
Although the new abortion legislation being signed in Virginia lets women opt-out of a transvaginal ultrasound, it’s still nowhere near a victory.
Tru Dat!
When Is Abortion Merciful? this is one of a series of post about late term abortion…Posts Of The Year: It’s So Personal: A Round-Up, June 5, 2009 – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast
Many readers have asked us to compile the various late term abortion testimonials we published this week (which are only a fraction of the ones we’ve received). Here they are, in chronological order:
It’s So Personal
It’s So Personal, Ctd
The Catholic Mother
The Trauma
A Doctor’s View (reader reaction)
A Target Of Terror
The Regret
Not Knowing For Sure
When Principle Meets Reality
Serial Abortions (reader reaction)
Preparing For The Worst
An Unforgiving Family (reader reaction)
The Guilt
Holding On
The Gay Fathers
What Guilt?
Ectopic “Miscarriage”Still more to come. (And maybe a bound collection? We’re actively thinking of it, prompted by many reader requests. But this should be a useful link for now.)
If you have time take a look at some of these stories.
All this makes me ask one question: Why don’t men in favor of birth control speak up?
By the end of last week, congressional Democrats and a few moderate Republicans succeeded in requiring most employers to include contraception as part of health insurance coverage, in spite of deep opposition from the GOP majority. Across the Potomac in Virginia, Democrats and, again, a few Republican moderates were able to soften or kill GOP bills that would have put into place humiliating obstacles to abortion. These are good things.
Thousands of ordinary women across the country have been writing letters, sending e-mails, leaving phone messages, and buttonholing state and national lawmakers in support of cheaper contraceptive methods and greater access to abortion.
Though they didn’t get everything they want, many are, I suspect, thankful for the partial victories so far.
But I have to ask — where in these recent debates are the voices of ordinary men? Why aren’t we hearing publicly even now from husbands who are not ready to have children they would have to support? Or from boyfriends who do not have the means to support a child?
Why don’t we hear more from fathers who are working two jobs so that their daughters can attend college and, if they wish, start on a career unencumbered by child-raising responsibilities?
We are fortunate to have some readers with balls who are vocal about women’s rights and speak out against the war on women. Kudos to you, we appreciate it. Maybe you can let us know what is keeping other dudes from speaking out.
This next link is dealing with the countries of China, Great Britain and Russia: Rights Erode Before Women’s Eyes – NYTimes.com
Han QiOn Valentine’s Day in Beijing, women dressed in white bridal gowns smeared with red paint to protest domestic violence. The women’s posters read, left to right: “Love is no excuse for violence”; “Only Equality is Harmonious”; “Violence is not a Special Zone”; “When Violence is around you, are you still silent?”
Check out this science news link: Futurity.org – Spider silk conducts heat better than silicon
In the search for organic heat conductors, researchers have discovered spider silks transfer heat better than silicon, aluminum, and pure iron.
Hot damn! As someone who spins thread from raw fiber, this kind of stuff just blows my mind. It is just very cool to think of what amazing things nature and animals/insects can produce…
And lastly, lets all just blame the moon.
Two articles for you on that heavenly orb…Ancient Skies of Northern Europe: Stars, Constellations, and the Moon in Nordic Mythology
Our understanding of ancient astronomy in Northern Europe has been limited because no record exists of the native constellations among the Germanic tribes in ancient times. They certainly did not know of the constellations of the south have become our standard ones today. However, it would be unusual to suppose they never had any, only that the knowledge of them has not come down to us.
Fortunately, the surviving mythology of Scandinavia has left us enough clues to allow us to piece together this forgotten knowledge of the past. At the time these myths were recorded in 13th century Iceland the people no longer believed in the old religion. However, even back during the Viking Age, before the year 1000 AD, when the religion was still strong, many of the beliefs held then seem already to have been understood only in abstract terms, while the naturalistic explanations they embodied went back even further.
It is now clear that the mythology of Scandinavia as we know it arose from a fusion of traditional local gods with several other more widespread traditions. While the myths attained their present form within the Iron Age, some elements and aspects of it go back even into the Stone Age, when humans were first trying to make sense of their universe.
Click here to read this article from Timothy Stephany’s website
And…in connection with those Norse travelers exploring the northern seas in their viking ships, another ship hundreds of years later crossing the same Northern Atlantic meets with disaster.
Titanic Sunk by “Supermoon” and Celestial Alignment?
Just weeks before the Titanic shipwreck’s hundredth anniversary, scientists have a brand-new theory as to what might have helped spur modern history’s most famous maritime disaster. (See pictures of Titanic’s rediscovery in 1985.)
An ultrarare alignment of the sun, the full moon, and Earth, they say, may have set the April 14, 1912, tragedy in motion, according to a new report.
R.M.S. Titanic went down on a moonless night, but the iceberg that sank the luxury liner may have been launched in part by a full moon that occurred three and a half months earlier, scientists say.
That full moon, on January 4, 1912, may have created unusually strong tides that sent a flotilla of icebergs southward—just in time for Titanic’s maiden voyage, said astronomer Donald Olson of Texas State University-San Marcos.
Blame It on the Moon?
Even at the time, spring 1912 was considered an unusually bad season for icebergs. But figuring out why this happened has been a mystery.
Olson believes the iceberg boom was the result of a rare combination of celestial phenomena, including a “supermoon”: when the moon is full during its closest monthly approach to the Earth. (See supermoon pictures.)
During new and full moons, the sun, Earth, and the moon are arranged in a straight line, with the sun and moon intensifying each other’s gravitational pull on the planet. The result: Low tides are lower than usual, and high tides are higher—a phenomenon called a spring tide.
What’s more, on the January 4, 1912, the full moon—and therefore the spring-tide alignment—ended just six minutes before the moon made an unusually close swing by Earth.
It was the closest lunar approach, in fact, since A.D. 796, and Earth won’t see its like again until 2257. That combination of a very close moon and the celestial alignment added up to an especially strong gravitational pull on the Earth and therefore very high tides.
Give that link a click to read more on this fascinating theory. And for those who would appreciate another Sting link…here is one with the moon. Sister Moon.
It really makes you think…Santorum can just start blaming everything on the moon. I mean, if Gingrich wants to start a colony, it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Heard an interesting story on BBC this AM. It was about a documentary about the propaganda films made by Goebbels during WWII. One story in particular caught my attention, but I’m still looking for the link. The Nazis put holocaust survivors onboard a large ship, loaded with gas canisters and it was bombed by the RAF. I’ll keep looking for it. Apparently the documentary is being prepped to appear on our History Channel.
This was interesting as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/us/politics/irs-scrutiny-of-political-groups-stirs-harassment-claim.html?src=rechp IRS is investigating Tea Party 501 (c) (4) groups’ non profit status. Jay Seculow is going to represent them.
Good morning, Thanks for the link Connie,
Wishing you a smooth path with surgery & recovery.
May all go well with your surgery. May you have a quick recovery and fell great.
TY 😉
Jay Seculow is a right wing nut. In what sense is the Tea Party a “social welfare” organization?
Good question. That’s why I thought the story was interesting – especially that the Right is screaming foul. Non-profits have to tread a fine line in order to keep their non-profit status, especially where “political” activities are concerned. I’ve worked for a non-profit since 1993 & we cannot advocate/campaign for a particular party or candidate. We can get involved in issues, but have to keep the expenditures to a very small percentage of overall expenses.
Nutjob Jay Seculow has been closely associated with Pat Robertson for years. May a hurricane visit them both and bypass everyone else.
Was Elizabeth Warren in a primary yesterday in MA? I haven’t seen or heard anything about that & I thought there were other Dems running for the seat too.
No Connie, that primary takes place in September according to bb.
Feel better, Mink!
Best wishes headed your way from MA!
I read yesterdaty that Brown is leading Warren — outlier poll? Anyone keeping up on this race? Or is too early to really worry.
And, of course, as Carville used to drum into Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Unfortunately, Brown has been leading by 9-10 points for about three weeks now in at least two different polls. Warren isn’t participating in the candidate forums. Maybe she would get a higher profile if she did. It’s not looking good for her at present.
We can’t forget that many Mass. Democrats resented the interference of the national party in helping Warren supplant the previously handpicked Dem candidate. I’m very worried.
It certainly moved in the wrong direction for her BB, she was looking so promising.
It’s still very early.
On NPR tonight, some reporter said that Brown and Warren have been trading front runner percentages for many weeks now. And…it is still early days…. So, hope?
Minkoff Minx,
I will send you good thoughts and lots of cyber hugs. Take care and wishing you a fast recovery.
>:D<
The hug smilie didn’t work?
Minx, I hope the surgery and recovery go smoothly. May you enjoy many happy years free from “the curse” ! ( This from someone who suffered a lot of the same problems you have, Sister. )
Beata, it is so reassuring to have women who have been through so many of the same health problems, so we all have a special understanding… getting free from the curse is what I am so happy about!
“Why don’t men in favor of birth control speak up?”
It’s March Madness, Minx! The basketball frenzy has begun! And before that, there was the Super Bowl and all the college Bowls and the World Series, etc. Men have their priorities straight! They are busy with things that matter! /s
Sorry, for the sexist stereotypes today. It must be the Moon. ( I have my Moon in Cancer, its ruling planet. )
Speaking of March Madness, I am breathlessly awaiting the release of Obama’s annual NCAA bracket. Which swing-state university will Barack predict to win the Tournament in 2012? I say he will pick Ohio State. The Buckeyes have so many great electoral votes this year!
Oops, did I say electoral votes? I meant players. Yes, the Buckeyes have great players! And they represent a great state! One Obama hopes to visit many times this year.
Oops, again. That should be “bracket”.
Ohio State has no chance! Besides, I can’t stand Ohio State. I’ll be rooting for Kansas or Indiana if they get in.
I fixed it for you, Beata.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is bringing up legislation “authorizing use of force” against Iran. An election year ploy, but also another step to getting the US to attack Iran. There was such a move concerning Iraq. It was “non-binding,” as is this new ploy by McConnell. But it is designed to force the executive closer and closer to military action.
Not that Obama seems to need all that much pushing to make belligerent comments of his own….
I guess aggressive preventive wars are cool for the hegemon, but illegal for the losers of such actions if they’re not hegemonic enough to win the wars they illegally start. Hitler, bad; Bush/Cheney/Obama good.
This is making me sick to my stomach. And writing letters, making calls, telling our Dear Leaders you do not do this “in my name” does not absolve me of guilt. This nation needs an intervention, and if we the people don’t do it, who will? Who can control the biggest baddest junk yard dog?
Who can control the Number One Rogue Nation which has enough nukes to destroy the world?
And we worry about Iran, which has not undertaken aggressive war in, oh, about 200 years?
Really? Reeeeaaalllly?
Minx, I hope the surgery and recovery go smoothly.
we are all sending good thoughts your way. 😉
Thanks Foxy…
Fascinating roundup, JJ! Especially the Titanic story.
Oh I am glad, still haven’t even gotten caught up on the blog’s post and comments. I’m off to do that now…
Best possible thoughts headed your direction! Be well.
In a lame attempt to introduce a little levity to the day, it seems Neil Cavuto asked Princess Dumbass of the North Woods who she voted for in the Alaska caucuses and she spun up this word salad.
After reading that, I don’t know WTF that means unless she means that providing food, medical care, and low cost housing to the poor is somehow abuse?
The ‘cheerful one?’ Is Sarah talking about the same Uncle Newt we all know and love? Uncle Newt who has said that this election is make or break for the Republic [what little is left of it] and that when he becomes Prez, we can count on war with Iran?
That Newt? Miss Sarah must be using a different dictionary than I am.
No surprise.
What I see in ‘Eye of the Newt’ is an ego that won’t quit, a man who seems more intent on taking the President down with his overrated debating skills than occupying the WH.
What a sorry bunch!
You would need a PalinEnglish translator to comprehend that sentence. Can you imagine having to diagram that sucker? 🙂
“Cheerful” was the one-word descriptor of himself that Newt chose in the last debate. That’s probably where she got it.
I was surprised that she chose Newt Gingrich a serial affairs person, a person that cheated with his staff, left his ill wife in the hospital and served her divorce papers there while fighting cancer.
What a disappointment! She should have kept it to herself! She in essence is saying she would support Newt’s treatment of his wife and his serial cheating.
WV, I don’t know why you would be surprised. She’s just another phony wing nut. Now she’s defending Limbaugh.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73706.html
Well, given the interview where she talked about women’s rights and Hillary’s campaign, it was rather surprising…guess she uses a different ruler to measure Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.
Like I said, phony wing nut!
Great review, minx. I particularly appreciated that photo from Bejing. How brave of those young women. Good on them. Just a reminder that violence against women is a global phenomenon. It has no national boundaries.
Yeah that photo was something, especially when you consider what those women are risking by protesting like that.
Stop Kony who turns little girls into sex slaves and little boys into forced soldiers (he has enslaved 30,000 children)
This is the movie about those children and the campaign to capture KONY in Uganda and bring him to the Hague Court for his crimes against humanity.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/kony2012/watch_the_movie.html
I forgot to mention he also kills the children. 😥
Birds of a feather? You’re going to LOVE this (NOT!). http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/03/07/439805/bill-maher-defends-rush-limbaugh/?mobile=nc
Bill Maher is a misogynist, libertarian pig, so it’s not surprising. I can’t stand him and refuse ever to watch him.
I agree and told cable company so when offered HBO, “HELL NO, with misogynist Bill Maher there!”
One misogynist defending another. I’m not surprised.
I don’t disagree – I cannot stand Maher either. I just thought ya’ll would find it interesting.
I did and I’m only surprised he didn’t wait longer to defend him.
How to easily get anything through the TSA nude body scanners:
http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/1b-of-nude-body-scanners-made-worthless-by-blog-how-anyone-can-get-anything-past-the-tsas-nude-body-scanners/
At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversity Fight
Video of Obama speaking at a protest.