“It is a successful fifteen seconds of television, the result of months of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultancy fees.” p24
Yeah. Politicians are as bad as business owners. If they spent their marketing budget on making a better product, providing better service … There ought to be a low ceiling in both cases for such expenditures. At the very least, it would go toward leveling the playing field.
“… Americans don’t want reliable information anymore. they want confirmation of teir biases and rage.” p97
“See, now, this is a dog: [picture of Kodi …] as opposed to a Shih Tzu, at which you look and say to yourself ‘This is what happens when you put a mop and a stuffed animal in a room with a Barry White CD.'”
Here’s an idea I’d implement if I were still teaching:
Have your students grade each other’s papers, anonymously.
First, they have to establish critieria and justify them, then they have to grade the paper they’re randomly assigned accordingly.
You grade them according to how well they graded the other’s paper.
Hopefully, this will counteract the ‘likes’ and casual ‘thumbs up’ tendency and develop true critical thinking about what they read — critical reading.
It should also improve their own papers. (Suggest, to the clueless, that they use their own justified criteria while writing, and before submitting, their future papers.)
Does any research into the differences between male and female distinguish between females who have experienced pregnancy and childbirth and those who have not? It’s doubtful, since most research is conducted by men, to whom making such a distinction would not even occur.
But there are permanent changes to the brain as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. “Gray matter becomes more concentrated” and “Activity increases in regions that control empathy, anxiety, and social interaction.” There are also changes in the amygdala, “which helps process memory and drives emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, and aggression” (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/what-happens-to-a-womans-brain-when-she-becomes-a-mother/384179/)
So are the much touted differences between male and female differences between male and only mothering females? If so, that entire area of research needs to be redone.
The movie titled Unpregnant has been on my list for a while, but I’ve just subscribed to CRAVE.
One, I was appalled to see that the movie is categorized as a comedy.
I suspect the categorizing is done not by CRAVE staff, but according to the movie’s submitted metadata, which means it’s the writer, director and/or producer who are calling it a comedy. And I suspect that whoever is responsible for the category identification is a man.
Because only a man would find it funny that
– a teenager finds herself pregnant because the condom broke, finds her whole life about to change direction in what she may well consider to be a horrible way—all her plans, her aspirations, her goals, no longer possible
– she discovers that the nearest place at which an abortion without parental consent is available is almost a thousand miles away; she doesn’t have the money to get there
– she discovers that the teenage boy knew the morning after that the condom had broken, but did not tell the young woman; if he had, she could’ve obtained the morning after pill—problem solved
Have I gotten to the funny part yet? Where are the giggles?
As I watch the movie, I see that yes, there are comedic moments. The movie becomes a road trip between previously estranged friends. But who would decide to write a comedy based on such traumatic premises. Again, only a man.
So I was surprised that two of the three writers are women. What the hell?
Shame on the three of you for perpetuating the clueless view that pregnancy and abortion are no big deal.
So when abortion is prohibited altogether in ALL fifty states, oh well. No big deal. Right?
(And to think people have DIED to secure your right to decide for yourself whether or not to reproduce.)
“The question of why it is men, and most often fathers or step-fathers, who sexually abuse children is not addressed [in recent books on fathering].” p55
“And far from criticizing women for failing to satisfy men’s needs, feminists … question whence these ‘needs’ derive, and whether these needs themselves should not be seen as the problem—the problem of men.” p55
“As Andrew Hacker suggests, wives who work ‘are not the cause of divorce so much as their husbands who still expect to hold center stage.'” p99
“Retrospectively, it is startling to realize that rape and men’s violence towards women became a serious social and political issue only through feminist attention to them.” p234
“According to Phillips and Taylor, the work which women do tends to be low in status and reward simply because it is women and not men who do it. Ben Birnbaum has illustrated this from his study of the clothing industry: the same type of machine work was classified as skilled when performed by men, and semi-skilled when performed by women.” p299
“Women [can] not share equally with men at work until men share equally with them in the home.” p304
The obsession with any sort of off-planet future is completely irrational.
Look: Mars, for example, is uninhabitable as is. So you’re going to have to build bubbles or bunkers to live in. So why not just build them here? Save the travel expenses.
“That song [“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by Carole King) is the most true song that’s ever been written.” p175
“Speaking so loudly [about football] and with such arrogant authority that everyone else sort of had to listen.” p219
“Is it just me or is it crazy that football chat is taken seriously when it’s basically astrology for men? … They never have mercury going into retrograde as a news segment, do they?” p220
“I wanted him to want me to stay. I would’ve stayed all night happily, if only he’d asked me one question about myself and listened to the answer.” p240
"We License Plumbers and Pilots - Why Not Parents?"At Issue: Is Parenthood a Right or a Privilege? ed. Stefan Kiesbye (Greenhaven, 2009); Current Controversies: Child Abuse, ed. Lucinda Almond (Thomson/Gale, 2006); Seattle Post-Intelligencer (October 2004)
"A Humanist View of Animal Rights"New Humanist September 99; The New Zealand Rationalist and Humanist Winter 98; Humanist in Canada Winter 97
have been previously published in Canadian Woman Studies, Herizons, Humanist in Canada, The Humanist, and The Philosopher's Magazine - contact Peg for acknowledgement details.
ImpactAn extended confrontation between a sexual assault victim and her assailants, as part of an imagined slightly revised court process, in order to understand why they did what they did and, on that basis, to make a recommendation to the court regarding sentence does not go … as expected.
What Happened to TomTom, like many men, assumes that since pregnancy is a natural part of being a woman, it’s no big deal: a woman finds herself pregnant, she does or does not go through with it, end of story. But then …
Aiding the EnemyWhen Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.
Bang BangWhen a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?
ForeseeableAn awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?
Exile (full-length drama) Finalist, WriteMovies; Quarterfinalist, Fade-In.
LJ lives in a U . S. of A., with a new Three Strikes Law: first crime, rehab; second crime, prison; third crime, you’re simply kicked out – permanently exiled to a designated remote area, to fend for yourself without the benefits of society. At least he used to live in that new U. S. of A. He’s just committed his third crime.
What Happened to Tom (full-length drama) Semifinalist, Moondance.
This guy wakes up to find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine – for nine months.
Aiding the Enemy (full-length drama and short drama)
When Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.
Bang Bang (short drama 30min) Finalist, Gimme Credit; Quarter-finalist, American Gem.
When a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?
Foreseeable (short drama 30min)
An awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?
What is Wrong with this Picture?
Nothing. There’s no reason women can’t be the superordinates and men the subordinates. But life’s not like that (yet).
Minding Our Own Business A collection of skits (including “The Price is Not Quite Right,” “Singin’ in the (Acid) Rain,” “Adverse Reactions,” “The Band-Aid Solution,” and “See Jane. See Dick.”) with a not-so-subtle environmental message
Rot in Hell A soapbox zealot and an atheist face off…
