Sandra Cookie's Blog

National Blog for Choice Day

2012-01-22T14:12:00.002-06:00

Today is National Blog for Choice Day - the 39th anniversary of the landmark Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. In honor of the occasion, NARAL Pro-Choice America has called on like-minded, pro-choice citizens to blog about how we will do our part to elect pro-choice candidates in 2012.

Not surprisingly, right now most of the choice-issue focus seems to be on the national scale, especially the presidential race. A nice overview of where Obama and Romney stand on these issues can be found here. But instead I'd like to turn our attention to state-level politics, because this is arena where the damage done is more real, effective, and critical. In other words, real women are affected every day by state-level legislation concerning their reproductive rights. If you've been reading my blog in the past couple years, you're no doubt familiar with my musings on North Carolina's abysmal record when it comes to abortion access - see here for a quick overview of these restrictions.

So, I'll keep this short and sweet: my part in electing pro-choice candidates in 2012 will be to implore each of you to (1) look up your state representatives if you don't know who they are already; (2) look into their voting record on pro-choice and anti-choice policies; (3) figure out if these candidates are up for re-election this year; and finally (4) vote with your conscience - should a crummy politician really have a say in your and your partner's reproductive health or should that be a personal decision between you and your medical professional?

Thanks for reading.

12th & Delaware

2012-01-10T22:06:00.002-06:00

I just got back from seeing the documentary “12^th and Delaware,” a very powerful film about “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) in the United States. Everyone – whether you’re pro-choice or anti-choice – should see this film by the same folks who brought us “Jesus Camp.” But if you don’t have the opportunity to do so (I think screenings are limited), then read on.

CPCs are non-medical, anti-choice facilities that spread harmful lies and withhold important information under the guise of providing safe, medically-sound pregnancy care services. According to NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina, there are at least 122 CPCs in North Carolina, and about 1000 in the U.S., according to the film. The dangerous misinformation these places spread includes claims that abortion causes breast cancer, abortion is very risky and unsafe, and that condoms and other forms of birth control are ineffective. CPCs also use manipulative tactics such as shaming women with religious ideology, suggest women delay decision-making until it's too late to have a legal abortion, offer free ultrasounds to emotionally manipulate women, and offer incentives to women (mostly poor women) who choose not to have an abortion. Additional info on CPCs in NC can be found here.

If you've seen Jesus Camp, you know that Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing have a knack for obtaining real, raw, honest footage that shows things - especially PEOPLE - how they really are with no accompanying commentary. Grady and Ewing filmed women going into an abortion clinic as well as women entering (in some cases mistakenly) a CPC, both located at the corner of 12th and Delaware in a town in Florida. The film showed women being treated at the CPC and being counseled at the abortion clinic. ALL of the lies and manipulative tactics that I mentioned in the preceding paragraph were documented in this film. For example, early in the film we see a 19 year old woman who had already had one abortion and is seeking another at the CPC (she apparently meant to go to the abortion clinic across the street, a mistake that happened to many other women). As Anne, the main provider at the CPC, launches into her spiel of lies and misinformation, all I can think is "Abortion #2? Someone please tell that girl about birth control! Give her some condoms!" When the woman mentions she has no insurance, all I can think is "Someone please tell that girl about Planned Parenthood!" Spoiler alert: after her non-medically-certified ultrasound, the women leaves and we soon find out that she got her abortion anyway, just as she had already decided to do. Anne is understandably near tears when she learns this, as am I, but my feelings are intensified by the outrage I feel at CPCs for doing essentially nothing to ensure this woman will not be seeking Abortion #3. But more than this, what these CPCs ARE doing (e.g., telling them condoms don't work) probably increases the likelihood of yet another unintended pregnancy and abortion. And they call themselves "pro life."

There were plenty of other places in this film where I nearly lost it. There was a woman who was heading into the abortion clinic and is stopped by the pleas of a group of protestors. In Spanish, they beg her not to kill her baby. She looks fearful, but listens, before finally telling them in a shaking voice that she is a single mom with 6 children already and no government support. "We'll give you whatever you need!" the protestors insist, "clothes for your children, money, food." One has to wonder for how long this charity actually lasts. According to the NARAL NC report on CPCs, "the assistance by many CPCs is, in reality, sporadic and contingent upon submitting to religious education." Some CPC volunteers even admitted that they only help women for a few months before cutting off all help.

The film also featured several women who indicated that their partners were abusive or refused to wear condoms. One woman at the CPC mentioned that her partner was verbally abusive. Rather than offering any comfort, counsel, or referral to a domestic abuse center, Anne instead said something along the lines of "a baby would change him," as if unwanted babies are the remedy for domestic violence.

But what really moved me to tears was a soft-spoken 15 year old girl. Near the beginning of the film Anne and the others at the CPC successfully scared this girl out of having an abortion with their usual inaccurate scare tactics, including inflating the risk that abortion could result in death. The girl is allegedly 7 weeks pregnant (I say "allegedly" because the film shows how this CPC deliberately made women think they were several weeks earlier in their pregnancy than they actually were to make them think they had more time to re-evaluate their decision). We see this girl again near the end of the film at which point she is 7 months pregnant. She expresses shame and worry, but what really gets me is that she mentions she decided not to have an abortion because of what Anne had told her, and that instead she was trying to end her pregnancy by doing things she perceived to be harmful for the baby, like drinking vinegar and lifting heavy things. Anyone who thinks criminalizing abortion is the answer - THINK ABOUT THIS GIRL AND OTHERS LIKE HER.

Let me be crystal clear. Abortion is tragic. I doubt any decent person would disagree with that. The decision to have an abortion should by no means be taken lightly and should be aided by counseling (as it most certainly is at Planned Parenthood and other legitimate medical facilities). We can all agree that abortion needs to be reduced and ideally eliminated. But the way to reduce abortion is NOT to lure women with misinformation and empty promises. The way to reduce abortion is NOT to criminalize it. The way to reduce abortion is NOT to tell women that condoms don’t work. The way to reduce abortion is NOT to withhold information about contraception from women prone to unintended pregnancies. The way to reduce abortion is NOT to withhold counseling and other professional support from a woman who’s just confided in you that her partner abuses her. The way to reduce abortion is NOT to scare a 15 year old girl with lies so that she decides not to have a safe, medical abortion and instead abuses her own body.

I encourage you to check out the situation with CPCs in your state, but if you're a fellow North Carolinian, listen up – this is important: first, do NOT buy a specialty “Choose Life” license plate when you’re at the DMV, as $15 of your money will be funneled to CPCs; second, do your homework before the next election and make sure you VOTE OUT anti-choice representatives in our state legislature. It is because of them that NC passed HB 854, the "Women Know Nothing" Act that requires women seeking an abortion to obtain an ultrasound 72 to 4 hours before the procedure, even if they already had one. The clincher is that this law also requires the state to maintain a registry of organizations that provide free ultrasounds for pregnant women, which means - you guessed it - this registry is littered with CPCs. As noted in that previously referenced report, "Legitimate public health clinics are often unable to offer all of their services free of charge, meaning that the law will effectively direct low-income women to these ideologically driven CPCs without any mention of their anti-choice agenda. By forcing the government to create and maintain a registry of these groups, the law, in essence, establishes a state-sanctioned channel through which women are referred to CPCs."

So again, fellow North Carolinians, two things to take away from all of this:

Don't buy "Choose Life" license plates
Show our anti-choice legislatures the door, and feel free to put a boot in their ass on the way out.

If you know what's up with CPCs in your state, please comment here - I'd be very interested!

Some 2011 Race Reports

2011-12-31T11:40:00.001-06:00

Blah. I am just not a good blogger. I've actually had a lot to say in the past year, but for some reason the motivation to write would initially surge and then quickly vanish by the time I sat down at my computer. So by now, probably no one is reading this blog anymore (Mommy? Andrew? Are you still there...?)

Anyway, as a frustrated and somewhat unfulfilled runner, I thought it would be therapeutic to reflect on some of my 2011 races. This blog post actually began as a Richmond Marathon race report, but the writing was going slowly because the race was a disappointment. As the weeks passed I ran three additional races which went pretty well (as I had no expectations), so I decided to blog about those, too. All in all, I think I ran 10 races in 2011 - three marathons, one 12 miler, and a bunch of smaller races.

Richmond Marathon

Allow me to rant and ramble a bit. One of my running friends and I used to have the same marathon PR of 3:58. In the last couple years we have both improved on this PR. For me, it's been a "chipping away" process, getting down to a 3:57 last fall and then a 3:53 last spring. My friend, on the other hand, blew things out of the water when she dropped 18 minutes off her previous time and qualified for Boston. "How?" I asked her. "You just have to really want it," she said. She said diligent training that included speedwork and other quality workouts was key.

Well, damn it, I want it! I don't even mean qualifying for Boston - I just want to get below 3:50. I first broke the 4:00 milestone in the October 2007 Columbus marathon, and I haven't seen significant improvement since then. I must be in a running rut - time to try something new. I decided a good "something new" would be this Hanson Marathon Training Plan (http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244-255-13791-0,00.html), AKA the "less is more plan," which makes no sense because there’s nothing “less” about it. Average weekly milage is 40+ miles, with a peak at 50+ miles. One of the key weekly workouts is an 8-10 mile marathon goal pace run, which for me is 8:45 min/mile. I had been rocking these workouts, running 10 miles at 8:29, 9 miles at 8:35, 9 miles at 8:40, and 9 miles at 8:29 in the four weeks before tapering – hilly routes, too! Long interval speed work is also emphasized - my workouts included 6 x 1 mile repeats (~8:20), 3 x 2 mile repeats (~16:40), Yasso 800s (at 3:45), and various types of ladders and pyramids. The "less" part of the training plan apparently refers to the fact that the longest long run is only 16 miles. BUT we're talking 16 miles after 6 consecutive days of running hour-plus long workouts. And endurance has never really been a problem for me - speed is what I need. I had run 13 marathons, but never trained for one like this before. I was confident that 3:49 was mine!

Race morning was sunny, chilly, and windy. Andrew was running the 8K, which started an hour before the marathon, so after seeing his race start, I had a lot of time to kill (we had not been able to score one of the many hotels walking distance to the race start.) I was happy to find an unlocked VCU building where I could hang out and escape from the cold and was thrilled to find clean, line-free bathrooms and a water fountain. Awesome! I hung out here until 10 min before the start, when I checked my bag and headed to the starting corral.

For some reason, I wasn't feeling as mentally psyched as I usually am at a marathon start. I actually felt a tiny sense of...well, dread. I knew I was essentially trapped for the next 26.2 miles and that the last 5-6 miles of that would be hell. I tried to shake off these thoughts and told myself to focus on the scenery of this new course and the energy of the crowds. We were off, and I settled right into my goal pace, though just a tad slow. Here are my splits for first 7 miles:
Mile 1 - 8:44
Mile 2 - 8:42
Mile 3 - 8:50
Mile 4 - 8:47
Mile 5 - 8:48
Mile 6 - 8:55
Mile 7 - 8:07 (all downhill)

Miles 8-11 were a pretty scenic part of the course along the James River and through some wooded neighborhoods. However, the end of this section is also where I really felt the hills start to slow me down. Between miles 10-11 someone had a sign that said "Remember your reasons for doing this." Um, reasons? Is meeting a self-centered somewhat arbitrary goal a good reason? I think I understand why people run for charity.

Mile 8 - 8:44
Mile 9 -8:45
Mile 10 - 8:48
Mile 11 - 9:11 (uphill)
Mile 12 - 9:03 (also some hills)
Mile 13 - 8:54

By the halfway point, I realized that it was gonna be really really really difficult to make my goal. I reminded myself of that time I ran something like an 8:30 mile 23. The 20's don't have to be a slow down - I can do this! "You trained for this," I told myself. But as the mile markers ticked by, I became more disheartened. I didn't hit a wall or anything, but I just couldn't keep up the pace I thought I had trained so hard to maintain:

Mile 14 - 8:52
Mile 15 - 8:44
Mile 16 - 9:23 (nasty bridge)
Mile 17 - 9:03
Mile 18 - 9:29
Mile 19 - 9:24
Mile 20 - 8:57
Mile 21 - 9:34
Mile 22 - 9:45
Mile 23 - 9:45
Mile 24 - 9:23
Mile 25 - 9:50
Mile 26 - 8:39 (Andrew and the downhill helped out here!)
Finish - 1:32 (3:56:48)

I finished with tears in my eyes (I didn't actually cry because I was SO GLAD to not be running anymore). I thought of all those nights I was at the track and everyone else had cut the workout short and gone home; those 10 mile tempo runs where I wanted to slow down but didn't; and especially those Friday morning runs, sandwiched between Thursday night's 8-10 mile tempo run and Saturday's 12-16 mile long run. I wanted to skip those Friday runs so badly! But I didn't, and I told myself "this will all be worth it - it's making you stronger and faster." WTF? So, I'm still feeling down on marathoning and haven't decided my spring racing plans yet. When I do decide to run another marathon, I probably won't tell anyone about it, another strategy my aforementioned friend used that may have helped her, at least mentally. Maybe I'll also run for charity or something. Probably not overtly or officially, but some sort of thing where I make a pact with myself that I'll donate a certain amount of money if I make my goal. I really believe that a large part of marathoning is mental, and this might help.

Education for Eve 5K

Speaking of racing for charity, the Education for Eve 5K in Chapel Hill is certainly a worthy cause. I'm not much of a 5K runner, and when I do run them, I promptly forget about them. Andrew wanted to run this race because a few of his coworkers were doing it. I decided to run it, too, even though it was only one week after Richmond. Short race report here - I'll cut to the end: I actually passed Andrew a few hundred meters before the finish (haha!) and finished in 23:56, a 7:43 pace on a hilly course. So, maybe all that marathon training did something for my speed after all. I can't remember my 5-K PR, but this might be close to it.

Run at the Rock 7-miler

The Run at the Rock trail race was just plain fun and had yummy soup at the finish. Andrew and I ran it together in ~1:11. We picked up the pace toward the end, but for most of the race we were in no hurry. I liked that we got sweatshirts instead of tee-shirts. Also, my race number was 69.

Couch Mountain 5-miler

The Couch Mountain 5-miler is also a fun race, part of the Carolina Godiva Track Club Winter Series. The course heads to the top of "Couch Mountain," allegedly the highest point in Orange County, then winds through more Duke Forest trails and country roads. There are burgers at the finish line and like all Winter Series races the entry fee is $5. This year I somehow managed to finish in 41:10, a 8:23 pace. Not bad for a hilly course and no recent speed training! Although, it's not as much an improvement over my previous time as I thought: I finished in 41:54 three years ago.

Now Andrew and I are getting ready to kick off the new year with another Winter Series race: the New Years 8K, which also winds through Duke Forest. I still haven't decided what running goals, if any, (or life goals, if any) I'd like to set for 2012. Maybe I'll just take things easy this year. Happy New Year, everyone!

Second Wind Beer

2011-12-03T12:17:00.001-06:00

Sweet Delights

2011-08-27T20:59:00.006-05:00

A few weekends ago, Andrew and I made it out to the Carolina Godiva run at Umstead State Park. Some of the runners were talking about figs and what to do with them. So after the run when we headed over to the teeny tiny Cary Farmers Market, we were delighted to find figs! There were only 3 of them, and at $0.25 each we grabbed them all. We simply halved them, spread on some local goat cheese (also from the farmers market), drizzled some balsamic vinegar, and baked ~10 min at 350. They turned out really yummy! I think we paired them with some type of semi-sweet white wine, either from Biltmore or Andrew's dad's friend's vineyard in WV, and it was an excellent combo. The one downside was we only had 6 fig halves, but there were a whole bunch of figs at the Durham farmer's market this morning - along with goat cheese - so we're definitely doing this again!

Last weekend was Andrew's birthday, and he requested peach cobbler after our fantastic lunch at Lexington Barbeque in Lexington, NC (on our way to Asheville). I don't think my cobbler turned out as well as theirs, but it was still pretty damn good, especially for my first attempt, if I do say so myself. Fresh, delicious peaches from the farmers market certainly helped.

We were impressed with Lexington BBQ, by the way. I haven't liked any BBQ I've tried in NC until this. The meat wasn't overly salty (just the right flavor), the hush puppies were very tasty, and you could order everything in reasonably sized portions, leaving room for dessert!

More on NC's new anti-choice law and abortion rights

2011-08-03T11:04:00.009-05:00

Today I listened to "The State of Things," a local public radio program here in NC. I wanted to catch today's show because host Frank Stasio moderated a conversation on NC's new anti-choice law and the history of family planning in the U.S. The guests included Senator Warren Daniel (R-Burke & Caldwell), who is a primary sponsor of the bill; Dr. Charles Monteith, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina; and Bebe Anderson, senior counsel with the Center for Reproductive Rights. So here are a few additional tidbits I learned about this new law and abortion access in NC:

Under this new law women seeking abortion are required to have an ADDITIONAL ultrasound. It's already standard procedure to get one ultrasound, but now, as I understand it, she'll be required to wait and get a second one within 72 hours of the first. She can choose to avert her eyes during the procedure, but if she does, she must sign a piece of paper that is kept by the provider for 7 years (no idea why).
Who will pay for this second ultrasound? In many cases, the woman herself will. If she can't afford it, she may have to go to a "crisis pregnancy center," which are anti-choice institutions that provide ultrasounds that won't cost you anything in dollars but will cost you significantly in dignity, self-respect, and emotional burden.
NC already has informed consent laws that require doctors to provide information about a patient's options before any procedure, including abortion. Dr. Monteith made this very clear.
There are similar laws in other states, but in most of these states - even TEXAS! - exceptions are granted in the case of rape, incest, fetal anomaly, and other exceptional circumstances. The only exception of the NC law is life-or-death emergency.

This terrible, terrible law is based on assumption that women are not thinking about their decision at all. It is based entirely on politics, not on medicine - in fact, it goes AGAINST medical recommendations. According to Dr. Monteith,"making women wait and delay endangers their lives." He points out that doctors are already professionally and legally obligated to provide a woman who is seeking an abortion the necessary and medically-appropriate information. He further points out that many women in NC have limited access to a family planning clinic or abortion provider. For many women, it's a burden and inconvenience to take off work and find someone to watch her kids so she can make the 2-4 hours drive to the clinic in the first place; being forced to wait an additional period and have multiple ultrasounds just further burdens her. Dr. Monteith also points out that the state is dictating to the doctor what to tell every single women who desires an abortion, no matter what the circumstances are (age, whether or not they're already a parent, medical history, etc.). It's the same, politically-motivated, medically-unsound, anti-choice script for every single woman. Doctors already provide individualized, medically-sound guidance to women seeking an abortion, and this new law "forces government speech into the doctor's mouth," "violates medical ethics," and "hijacks doctor-patient relationship and inserts [the] government in between." (these were all said by Stasio's guests, but I missed which quote belongs to which guest). There are some legal challenges underway to remove similar laws in other states (they are attempting to argue that it's unconstitutional to require a woman to listen to government-mandated speech in the privacy of her doctor's office), but I'm not sure how optimistic I am about these challenges succeeding.

Senator Warren Daniel's defense of this law made me want to throw my radio (actually my computer) against a wall. I'm not kidding - he actually compared this new law to refinancing a house or getting a divorce! He defended the fact that women will now be forced to wait for an abortion by pointing out there are government-mandated waiting periods for receiving a divorce or refinancing a house. He also stated that this new law is expected to reduce the abortion rate by ~10%, resulting in 3,000 extra new lives (per year, I think - I missed the details on this). I want Senator Daniels on my dodgeball team, because when Stasio asked (twice!) if there would be an increase in social services and public education spending to pay for these 3,000 new lives, Senator Daniel rambled a bit about how great it was that 3,000 lives would be saved and that public education costs are calculated on a per student basis. So, it was crystal-clear that his true answer to this question is "NO."

Toward the end of the conversation, I think it was Bebe Anderson who noted that there is no such imposition on men seeking medical procedures related to their reproductive health. So this gets me thinking...hey Senator Daniels! Why don't you introduce a bill that forces men to listen to anti-choice speech and wait 24 hours before having a vasectomy? Or forces men to listen to feminist, men-are-pigs rhetoric and wait 72 hours before purchasing Viagra? Or that forces gun buyers to listen to liberal anti-gun spew and view violent images of gun crime victims and wait 96 hours before purchasing a weapon? None of these scenarios are any more ridiculous, intrusive, and oppressive than the one you and your anti-choice cronies have inflicted upon the women of North Carolina.

North Carolina's new anti-choice law

2011-07-28T11:45:00.003-05:00

This pisses me off to no end. The N.C. legislature and senate have overridden Governor Bev Perdue's veto of H.B. 854, the "Women Know Nothing" Act (that's what I call it!) This bill undermines the doctor-patient relationship and interferes in a woman's ability to make her own health-care decisions. Here are just some of the restrictions that women will now face when they try to access abortion in NC:

Women will be forced to wait 24 hours before they can access abortion care.
Doctors will be required to perform ultrasounds, even if they are not medically necessary, before providing abortion care.
Physicians must read a script written by anti-choice legislators that includes medical inaccuracies to women prior to the procedure.

What’s worse, there are no exceptions to any of these provisions, including in instances of rape, incest, or fetal anomaly. These politically motivated attacks will have very real and devastating consequences on North Carolina women.

This infuriates me so much that I think if I ever found myself in a situation where I needed an abortion I would cross state lines to do it. Or find an NC doctor willing to break this stupid, harmful law. Honestly.

Watch out, ladies - governments at both the state and federal levels are barging in on our exam rooms and uteruses, eroding away at our rights and dignity as mightily as they know how.

Pizza dough recipe

2011-07-27T20:44:00.004-05:00

I started making this pizza dough a few months ago when I came across the recipe in a Lutheran church cookbook (thanks Mommy!) I've been raving about it to anyone who will listen, and so I thought I'd post the recipe here. Full disclosure: it's not quite as yummy as yeast pizza dough, but it's very good considering how quick and easy it is!

Healthy Pizza Dough
submitted by Tom Kern for "Grace Our Table," a cookbook of Trinity Lutheran Church, North Bethesda, MD

1 c. whole-wheat flour (*I've only used all-purpose)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 c. natural plain yogurt (*I've used both Greek and normal low-fat)
**This is for a 9 inch pie. I usually double or increase by 50% to sufficiently cover my 12 inch pizza pan. I prefer thick over thin crust.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Make a depression in the flour and add oil and yogurt. Mix and then knead lightly until smooth. Roll out for a 9 inch pie. Bake 400 F for 10 min; remove from over. Add toppings and bake an additional 20 min. *I only bake 20 min total, max - sometimes I just add the toppings right away and bake ~15 min.

So quick and easy!

NARAL Day of Action!

2011-06-01T09:09:00.003-05:00

Today is NARAL's "Day of Action," and they have encouraged all of us concerned, pro-choice women everywhere to "blog for women's health!" Okay! I am happy to do that. Especially after hearing this troubling news piece on NPR today. Yes, it's true: anti-choice, anti-birth-control activists want to define "personhood" as the entity that results after a sperm has fertilized an egg. So, I guess instead of issuing birth certificates all states would issue conception certificates? Julie Rovner's report nicely covers why this definition would have potentially dangerous, far-reaching consequences "by legally separating a woman from her pregnancy." What scares me, personally, is how this personhood definition would reclassify my own family-planning regimen: instead of taking birth control pills, these anti-choice activists would say that I take abortion pills because, according to the consumer labeling for Necon (my generic pill of choice), Necon works by "changing the womb lining, making it difficult for a fertilized egg to attach to the lining of the womb (implantation)," in addition to preventing ovulation in the first place. I have been on Necon (or similar drugs) for over a decade, and only God knows how many fertilized eggs have expired in my body. The fact that Personhood USA would call me a murderer and wants to force me to identify my own 2N eggs as potential babies is indeed scary, but it's also so outrageous and unrealistic that we intelligent, clear-thinking, empowered citizens can be confident that they will never succeed in governing our uteruses (and American society) in this way.

Slight change of subject...sometimes, for some reason, I feel a little disheartened, like the pro-choice movement is losing energy. But you know what? IT IS NOT. From the historic 2004 March for Women's Lives to the current defeated attempts to dismantle Planned Parenthood in Indiana to the work of organizations that you wouldn't expect to be involved in this movement (e.g., here and here), reasons for hope abound. My son and daughter will have the freedom and the resources to plan their families and manage their reproductive health just as I have and just as women in less fortunate situations are gradually gaining.

On the lighter side, check out this Onion article. This is, in my opinion, superbly executed satire. And although deconstructing and over-analyzing satire can sometimes ruin its intended effect, I must point out the part of the article where it mentions that certain features of the Abortionplex are designed "to foster a sense of community and make abortion more of a social event." Because this is precisely what the toxic anti-choice movement seeks to do - turn a private, medical issue into a social issue subject to government involvement.

For more related gems from the Onion, check out this, this, this, and also, this (may need to scroll down a bit for that last one).

Happy Day of Action, everyone!

Yet Another Faulty Argument by Conservative Activists

2011-05-03T22:46:00.003-05:00

This one regarding Prop. 8 judge Vaughn Walker, who has spilled the beans about being gay and in a same-sex relationship. Judge Walker overturned Prop. 8 (the prop. outlawing same-sex marriage in CA), and Prop. 8 supporters (anti-gay-marriage folks) argue now that his sexual orientation makes him impartial because he would stand to personally gain by the decision he makes. But blogger Adam Serwer makes an excellent point that it can be argued the other way, too. A visit to www.protectmarriage.com takes you to a document published by the Witherspoon Institute (whatever that is) that identifies same-sex marriage as one of the four "threats" to marriage. According to this report, same-sex marriage "would further undercut the idea that procreation is intrinsically connected to marriage,"..."would undermine the idea that children need both a mother and a father,"...and "would likely corrode marital norms of sexual fidelity" (I know, I'm shaking my head at the unsubstantiated silliness, too!) They sum up by saying that "embracing same-sex marriage would further weaken marriage itself." If this is their argument, then that means that judges in heterosexual marriages should all recuse themselves from the Prop. 8 case or any other ruling that has to do with gay marriage because, just as Judge Walker might stand to gain from legalizing gay marriage, these married judges would stand to lose and watch their own marriages crumble before their very eyes. It would be just as bad as - maybe worse than! - the Great Marriage Crumbling that occurred in MA, CT, IA, NH, VT, DC, Canada, Belgium, and other immoral places that are going to hell in a hand basket.

Sun time

2011-05-02T22:21:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I commented that I pretty much just blog about food and running, especially when I'm too busy to blog. But the month of May reminded me of another favorite topic because guess what May 14th is? That's right - it's the one-year anniversary of the day Madeline sprung into the limelight of internet fame! It's a bit early, but we'll celebrate anyway by featuring her new favorite place on the deck:

What should the capshun be, cheezburger fans?

Softshell crabs

2011-05-01T09:03:00.008-05:00

It seems my blogging has been reduced to food and running. So be it.

On Saturday night Andrew and I had a lovely dinner of softshell crabs, clams, and tomato/mozzarella/basil things:

Also, note the flowers my sweetie bought for me! Could this be a result of my pouty "you-could-be-more-romantic" complaints prompted by the two April weddings I attended? Regardless, it was very sweet and impromptu of him :) So in return, on Sunday I took him fishing at Lake Michie (or maybe he took me fishing...he had the equipment and I was the one who knew how to get to the lake!)

Shamrockin' to a PR

2011-03-20T19:30:00.009-05:00

Marathon #12 is in the books. I don't usually do these big, beer company-sponsored races, but the Yuengling Shamrock Marathon's flat course, decent proximity to Durham, and new state (I've now run marathons in 8 states) were good reasons to make this my Spring marathon. My dear friend Kate came down from MD to cheer me on and enjoy a brief weekend getaway in Virginia Beach during the off-season. Kate is the best spectator ever with her cowbells, posters, and cheers!

I registered for the race and booked the hotel in December, which you think would be far enough in advance to have a varied choice in places to stay, but most of the race-sponsored hotels were booked. But I found a good deal at the Travelodge, which was walking distance to the start/finish, situated along the race course, and had waterfront rooms. I was pleased that the room had a little kitchenette so I could have my pre-race breakfast...but the advantages end there. You know your hotel is not sponsoring the marathon when...
1) You ask about late checkout because you're running the marathon and they ask you "what time does the marathon end?" (my response: "it depends how fast I run"). The latest checkout they could offer us was noon, which was not gonna work for an 8 am start, even if I made my goal.
2) They give you a room on the top floor (7th) and the elevator is broken.
3) There is dance club music and karaoke across the street, but it sounds like it's right next to your bed, and it goes on until 1 am (I know, it's Virginia Beach on a Saturday night, so what should I expect).

Anyway, I slept well enough, and my pre-race excitement woke me before my alarm. I had my oatmeal, coffee, and half an orange, and headed out a little after 7 am for the 15 minute walk to the start. And Jesus Christ was it COLD and WINDY! I had planned to wear my shortest shorts (they hold three gels) and my lightest singlet. I was shivering under heavy warm-up pants and a hooded sweatshirt, and my toes were beginning to get numb. I arrived at the starting corrals where even the crowds and tall buildings on both sides of the street were minimal protection from the wind gusts. After going through the porta-potty line, I headed over the gear-bag check trucks to see if there was a line (the 2007 Saint Louis Marathon had an incredibly long gear-bag check line, and now I always worry about having enough time if I check a bag). No line, so I decided to wait until as close to the start as possible to take off my warm-ups and check my bag. At 7:50, after a nice lady opened my bag of sport beans for me (my fingers were too cold for fine motor tasks), I was weaving through the crowds in my singlet and shorts FREEZING my ASS off when they announced that there was a delay, and the marathon would start at 8:15 instead of 8! WTF? I found a semi-sheltered place near Corral 2 (which had no warm bodies in it yet) and decided to wait there when I heard someone behind me say "Sandra?" Momentarily forgetting that I had my name on the front and back of my shirt, I turned around expecting a familiar face. Instead, a stranger wrapped a glorious fleece coat around my shoulders. "You look really cold," he said. What a lifesaver! I wore the coat until it was time to enter corrals and thanked him profusely.

When the race finally got started I made sure I was near the 3:50 pacers. I spoke with one of them - I think her name was Melissa - at the race expo, and she said they'd be running an 8:43 pace. That was just a little faster than I wanted, but I decided if I ran behind them and kept them in sight, I should be good. Pacer Melissa wore a bright green tutu and pigtails; Pacer Dan wore normal running clothes and held the green 3:50 sign up on a stick. It was a smooth start, but all of a sudden around mile 2 the green 3:50 sign was nowhere to be seen. I know I didn't pass them...how did I lose them already? We were heading over a bridge (the course's only hill), and it was difficult to see the crowds ahead of me. But when the course leveled out after the bridge I spotted the green tutu. I asked Dan about the sign, and he held up the broken stick. Damn, it might be harder than I thought to follow them...unless I ran right up there WITH them. So that's what I decided to do.

Until both pacers had to pee. Shouldn't pacers be marathon pros who know how to avoid needing a mid-race porta-potty stop? Anyway, I made sure not to lose Pacer Dan in the crowd as the green tutu sprinted ahead to the porta-potties at the next aid station before we caught up; then Dan lagged behind and caught up with the 3:50 pack a few minutes later. So I think our pace was a bit uneven around miles 3-7, though I missed a few mile markers so it's hard to tell:

Miles 1-2 - 17:25
Mile 3 - 8:47 (I was plenty warm by now and glad I had opted for the singlet and short shorts!)
Mile 4-5 - 16:58
Mile 6 - 9:15
Mile 7 - 8:37

I wanted to stick with the pacers because for my past few marathons I've been a little obsessed with my inability to run even mile splits. This course was flat with the exception of the bridge that we crossed twice - at miles 2 and 10. Miles ~10.5-12 were on the boardwalk headed north, and the NW wind was quite strong (but thankfully had weakened since the race's start), so I was expecting a slower pace there. But this race has made me realize that it's not reasonable to expect even splits because of the way my body responds to energy gels. In past races, the gels' effects were subtle, if noticeable at all, but maybe my faster pace made this race different. I had several "oh shit" moments when it was almost like I had hit a mini-wall, but then the gel would kick in - I would distinctly recognize the moments - and my legs would have life again. I took 5 gels at 0:45, 1:30, 2:17, 3:00, and 3:20 (actually can't remember exactly when I took the last two). Anyway, there were some miles when I ran right next to Pacer Dan, and other where I could barely keep him in sight and was afraid I'd lose him; I'm pretty sure the mini-walls-and-gel-induced-second-winds are the explanation (e.g., miles 12 vs. 13):

Mile 8-9 - 17:18
Mile 10-11 - 17:32
Mile 12 - 9:00
Mile 13 - 8:28

At mile 14 Pacer Dan needed ANOTHER porta-potty break. Pacer Melissa was so far ahead we couldn't even see her (someone said she was aiming for "a fast 3:50.") Dan said he'd catch up with us, but I was afraid I'd fall off pace. But, I didn't do too bad:

Mile 14 - 8:49

The middle miles were a bit of a blur. This part of the course was pretty, but the crowds were thin or non-existent. I focused on staying right with Pacer Dan and his pack. But everyone was so quiet! I tried to initiate some cheers, but it only elicited a short, feeble response. And when we passed a band playing Sweet Caroline, I was the only one who sang the "bah bah bahs! WTF? Anyway, I did pretty well staying with the group until I got behind filling my water bottle at an aid station about mile 20.

Mile 15 - 8:41
Mile 16 - 8:59
Mile 17 - 8:37
Mile 18 - 8:53
Mile 19 - 8:47
Mile 20 - 9:19

I could still see Dan, but he was so far ahead I had given up hope of a sub-3:50. But then to my surprise, Dan wheeled around and headed back toward me and a few other lagging former 3:50 packers. He said that he was ahead of pace, and wanted to get the group back on track for 3:50 on the dot. "Really?" I said. I knew that the pacers had crossed the start line around the same time I had. "If you're ahead of me, 3:50 is definitely doable." I wasn't in a state to do the math, but I was hitting another mini-wall and decided I should relax a little:

Mile 21 - 9:17
Mile 22 - 9:20
Mile 23 - 9:00

Dan still hadn't passed me, but now the math was a little easier, and I knew I wasn't going to make 3:50. I still don't know what happened to Pacer Dan (I wonder if he was having GI issues). Anyway, the last gel kicked in for mile 24, but then it wore off and I had to dig really deep to get through the last 2.2:

Mile 24 - 8:52
Mile 25 - 9:39
Mile 26 - 9:52
Mile 0.2 - 1:52

Official finish time: 3:53:29!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Equivalent to an 8:54 pace.

My third marathon PR in 12 months - not bad! I trained, but had no written training plan. During the 59 days of January and February I spent 16 nights in a hotel and got on an airplane 8 times (not counting connecting flights separately). Bottom line, it was a hectic winter. I scheduled my long runs mainly based on when I was in town instead of what standard training plans dictate. I ran less miles than I did during my fall marathon training, and did very little cross-training, but I made sure the workouts I did do were high quality and purposeful. Guess it paid off! Now it's time to start thinking about a fall marathon :) I gagged trying to down those 5 gels, but I'm thinking of trying to up my intake to every 30 min for the last 2 hours of the race. Or maybe rigging a portable gel-IV drip...?

Some photos courtesy of Kate (thanks, Kate!):

Me at mile 26. I bite my lips when my mouth is dry. And can you tell I forgot sunblock?

SO happy to be finished!

The sunshine is deceiving - I was freezing at the finish, too!

Oysters - Fried and Raw

2011-03-09T18:00:00.000-06:00

Andrew and I have happily started off 2011 with lots of oyster-eating! It started with fried oysters from New Years (thanks, Aunt Betty):

...and then continued with Walking Fish, who is offering winter season shares for the first time ever. Here's Andrew shucking:

and here are the yummy raw oysters on the half shell:

This past weekend we brought a quart of oysters back from Andrew's family in southern MD and made a nice, creamy oyster stew (no picture).

And the oyster fest continues - we're getting more oysters from Walking Fish tomorrow, but Andrew will be on his way to China (!), so I'll need to figure out the shucking myself.

2010 Out, 2011 In

2011-01-02T11:38:00.003-06:00

According to Dave Barry, there were only three bright spots of 2010, one of which was that "the Yankees did not even get into the World Series." (heehee!) My 2010 was not too bad, but it wasn't particularly notable, either. Of my various 2010 resolutions (some which were indeed resolute, others not so much), I managed to solidly keep one - I ran more than 1500 miles (1,555.5 to be exact). We won't talk about the others, but I'll use them as rationale for keeping my 2011 resolutions much simpler:

1) Be less selfish.
2) Be a better listener.
3) Be more patient.
4) Run a 3:49 marathon

My friends and family will have to let me know how I do for 1-3!

Christmas 2010

2010-12-30T17:59:00.001-06:00

I am deeply entrenched in a do-nothing vacation mindset, and cannot muster the energy to write about how nice our Christmas was. It was nice. So I'll just post some pics with brief explanations.

Andrew's office holiday party had a James Bond theme. Here was the "Goldfinger" room, which featured endless sushi:

And in another room was a bar sculpted out of ice:

On Christmas at the Ledbetters' last year we did a gingerbread BP station (hey, this was pre-oil spill!), and this year we did a gingerbread circus car being pulled by a clown:

Our pretty-much-annual cousins game of Tornado Rex:

My mom with her grand-nephew Adam:

Zuzu pet (Skootles I think?):

Marathon #11

2010-11-30T19:31:00.005-06:00

Last weekend I ran the Northern Central Trail Marathon in Sparks, MD - my 2nd time doing this race. My PR of 3:57 was 55 minutes faster than last year's "flu marathon", though it wasn't quite as fast as I hoped. I just felt a bit off for some reason, even in the first few miles. It was pretty windy, and it seemed like we were running into the wind both directions on the out-and-back course. I thought we would be relatively sheltered along the mostly wooded course, but no such luck. Anyway, I should quit whining, because the windy, cold conditions felt much more tolerable to me than they probably did to my dear friend Kate and my mom who came out to cheer me on! It was so nice to hear cowbells and cheers and see familiar faces along the sparsely-spectated course! Thanks, guys!

Also, many thanks to Andrew who slept in but then found me at mile 23 and ran the last three miles with me! It definitely helped me keep up the pace (well, mile 25 was all uphill) and I lost count of how many guys I chicked. While wearing a skirt, no less :) Sorry, that sounds really cocky...but I'm usually the one getting passed at the end of a marathon, so it felt good to be the one doing the passing!

Here are my mile splits. Yes, the miles were accurately marked (they assured us before the race), and yes, mile 23 was my fastest (I'm totally sold on Roctane Gu! All 5 of my gels should have been this):

Mile 1 - 8:37 (very downhill)
Mile 2 - 9:01
Mile 3 - 9:06
Mile 4 - 8:51
Mile 5 - 8:46
Mile 6 - 9:03
Mile 7 - 8:47
Mile 8 - 8:59
Mile 9 - 8:56
Mile 10 - 8:58
Mile 11 - 9:17 (slight uphill)
Mile 12 - 9:13 (here too)
Mile 13 - 9:04
Mile 14 - 9:07
Mile 15 - 8:51
Mile 16 - 9:04
Mile 17 - 8:56
Mile 18 - 9:00
Mile 19 - 9:07
Mile 20 - 9:02
Mile 21 - 9:33
Mile 22 - 9:35
Mile 23 - 8:33 (thank you, Roctane Gu)
Mile 24 - 9:11
Mile 25 - 9:42 (very uphill)
Mile 26 - 9:02
Mile 0.2 - 1:51

So it was a good race, but I already have my eye on Marathon #12 - I'm thinking maybe Virginia Beach. I want to conquer this distance, dammit!

Steamed crabs!

2010-11-15T21:58:00.001-06:00

Have I mentioned how much Andrew and I love Walking Fish?

Triple Lakes Trail Marathon Race Report!

2010-10-10T11:38:00.009-05:00

On Saturday I ran my 10th marathon, the Triple Lakes Trail marathon just north of Greensboro, NC. The course was mostly single track trail over gently rolling hills through woods circling a couple of fake lakes. The scenery and terrain reminded me of Land Between the Lakes, a trail marathon in Kentucky that I did a few years ago, except instead of 6 inches of snow and starting time temps in the teens we had sunny skies with highs in the low 80s by the end of the race. I didn't really mind the warm weather, as this was a "just-for-fun", practice marathon for me. My target race is the North Central Trail Marathon, which is not a technical trail race like this one - North Central is a flat, fast, PR-worthy course. Actually, I set a PR here last year (personal WORST of 4:52) and I hope to PR at the OTHER end of the spectrum this November.

Anyway, back to Triple Lakes - here are the 10 best - or maybe I should say "Most Notable" - things about this race:

10. I was running the marathon and NOT the concurrent 40 mile event.

9. Powerade at all the aid stations was just the right strength. Also, jelly beans at mile 20 totally hit the spot.

8. It was frickin cold at the 8 am start, which actually ended up being an 8:08 start. It took me a good 5 miles to warm up, hands to toes. I knew I'd be hot before long, so I tried to enjoy my shivering and goosebumps.

7. I am not sore at all. At all! As I type this it's been about 34 hours since I finished the race. Of all the marathons I've run, this is the quickest recovery I've ever had. It's taken me longer to recover from some of my training runs! This is good, because I'm supposed to run 22 miles in less than 2 weeks, ideally at 9 min/mile pace.

6. Maybe part of the reason I'm not sore is that the race was DEFINITELY not a full, honest 26.2 miles. I ran most of the race with Robert (more about that below), and around the mid-teen miles we were chatting about how the miles seemed to be passing quickly (they weren't really - our pace was steady, about 10:30 min/mile). I commented that usually it's mile 24 when I think those remaining 2.2 miles - which in any other situation are nothing at all - seem so daunting and painful. Robert reminded me of this comment when we passed the mile 24 marker, though we were both feeling good and not pushing hard, so 2.2 miles sounded fine. So imagine our surprise when less than 10 minutes later...it's the finish line! We heard cheering as we came out of the woods, and I thought it was one of those cruel tricks where they make you run near the finish line when you actually still have >1 mile left. But no. We emerged from the woods, ran around this little pond next to an open field, then followed flags up through the field where the spectator-lined finish line was right there, about 50 ft in front of us. People were cheering, the clock was ticking around 4:35 (my watch was around 4:28 at mile 24), and Robert and I were totally confused. So we STOPPED, right in front of the finish line and asked each other "did we miss a turn"? Robert was wearing his GPS, which said we only ran a bit over 24, and he wanted to go back to see if we accidentally cut the course. If I had been by myself, I probably would've just finished, but I agreed, and we turned around and cut back over to the part of the course before the pond loop. The spectators stopped cheering and were probably wondering "what the hell?!" But we saw all these other runners that we had passed earlier running the same way we had. We checked the arrow signs, tried to find race volunteers, but we just came across more spectators who told us we were going the right way - out of the woods and around the pond. So, we ran that portion of the course again and finished ~4:42. After the finish we asked race volunteers and other runners about the shortened course, and everyone just kind of shrugged their shoulders. No one else had seen mile 25 or 26, but no one else really cared. So the one marathon when I'm feeling strong and ready to take on those final 2.2...they're not there! Oh well. Okay, enough of #6. On to...

5. Beautiful lake-side scenery! This is only mid-way down the list because you had to spend more time looking at the ground to avoid tripping. Which brings me to...

4. I didn't fall or bleed! Though I guess I wouldn't have minded the latter because it's considered a badge of honor among trail runners. I saw plenty of other runners who did both, including one guy who scared a bunch of us when we came across him lying on the ground with blood all over his face. But it was near an aid station, and help showed up quickly (and he assured us he was fine).

3. There was a Krispy Creme shop only 5 miles from the race, right on the way back home! Boy, did a post-run glazed donut and bottle of milk hit the spot.

2. The AWESOMEST race shirt EVER! The finishers medal had the same design:

And the best thing about this race...

1. Running miles ~11-finish with fellow Godivan Robert Moody - thanks for the company, Robert! It totally made the miles fly by. Robert was also using this race as a practice marathon. His target event - Richmond marathon - is coming up even sooner than mine (his is Nov. 13, mine is Nov. 27). I think we'll both be ready!

All in all, this was a good race and I would run it again, especially given its proximity to Durham. I'm still a little dissatisfied about the shorten course, but at least I wasn't one of the two guys who I overheard at the beginning of the race telling each other that it was their first marathon!

Alien kitteh!

2010-10-03T12:24:00.004-05:00

You'll never guess what happened this afternoon! I was in the kitchen making lunch when all of a sudden my roof just opened up and there was this blinding light. I shielded my eyes and squinted and then was able to make out a cheezburger-shaped spaceship. Before I could do anything, this alien LOLcat was beamed down from the ship into my kitchen! I managed to capture this photo just as the roof was about to close up:

Shrimp

2010-09-19T20:49:00.003-05:00

Andrew and I bought a half-share in Walking Fish again, and our first shipment last week was jumbo shrimp. Yum! There was a lot of it, too. The organizers said that the price increase this year was due to more seafood in the half shares, and they weren't kidding. We had half of our half share in an anchovy-garlic-butter sauce with linguine on Friday. Today I made spring rolls with edamame, jalapenos, bean sprouts, mint, and basil in a soy-peanut-ginger dipping sauce.

Bird boarder

2010-09-18T20:10:00.005-05:00

I have a little nighttime boarder that sleeps in the same corner of my front porch awning pretty often - probably about half the time I think to check, he's there. For a while, I didn't know what was staying there - I just noticed that something would fly away when I came home at night. I assumed it was a bat or something. But then one night when I came home I was quiet enough to not scare it away and discovered it was this bird. Any expert birders out there know what it is and why it prefers my porch awning at night? I got a good look at its face one time when it turned around and looked at me before flying away. It had a longish (maybe ~3/4 inch) thin beak. I'm not much of a bird person, but it sure is cute! I took these pictures last night, and I just checked now - sure enough, there it is, all settled in for the night!

California

2010-07-18T14:20:00.014-05:00

Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time! I know I have at least THREE friends who actually follow my rantings and nothingness pretty regularly. It's been a busy summer. But I did squeeze in a week-long trip to California for my cousin Mark's wedding and some coastal sightseeing up to Monterey. Here are some pics:

Shrimp

2010-06-26T17:34:00.004-05:00

Pepperonita shrimp made with shrimp from Walking Fish CSF. Yum!

Pocono Lakes

2010-06-16T20:15:00.007-05:00

For some reason as I was preparing for sampling Falls Lake tomorrow I realized that it was NINE years ago this month that I first sampled Lake Lacawac and Lake Giles, two beautiful ecosystems in the Poconos of northeast PA. Wow, time sure flies. My Ph.D. was built on those lakes, as well as many friendships and memories. I actually miss midnight sampling runs, rowing against strong winds, bracing myself against April snow, and getting terribly sunburn as I study how zooplankton are affected by UV :)

Falls Lake is nice, but - dare I say it - the fieldwork is almost too easy with a motorized boat, milder climate, and less intensive research (which is of course my fault, despite my time constraints). Anyway, here are some photos I dug up of Lake Giles (first 4) and Lake Lacawac (last 2):

Flowering palm

2010-06-01T19:26:00.005-05:00

Look at my beautiful flowering palm shrub! This is the first time it has grown stalks and flowered since I moved in. I wonder if all the rain triggered it or it's one of those exotics with a weird flowering schedule.

As I was snapping these pictures, look who dropped by to hang out for about 12 seconds:

Madeline's famous!

2010-05-14T21:01:00.004-05:00

If you know me or have been reading my blog for a while you know my unhealthy love for icanhascheezburger.com. I just about fell out of my chair when I clicked in for my daily dose and saw my own kitty cat!

How awesome is that! I didn't think it was a very good picture because I took it through the glass door and you can't see Madeline's features very well. This network of websites gets 10,000 photo and video submissions a day and millions of unique visitors. Madeline was not enthused when I initially told her the good news, although she cheered a little when I broke out the cat treats to celebrate!

Lounging next to or even under the grill (see below) is one of Madeline's new favorite spots. I guess it's better than some of her other outdoor hangouts, like in between the garbage cans!

Stupid laws

2010-05-10T11:48:00.003-05:00

I knew the splotchy patchwork of marriage laws in the U.S. was stupid, but I didn't realize how stupid. Read this article. When oh when are we going to do things efficiently, sensibly, and - most importantly - justly?

Salmon cakes with mango-lime salsa

2010-05-07T19:15:00.006-05:00

Whenever a recipe turns out this well, I wish I had been hosting a dinner party instead of cooking just for me! Of course, I am not confident enough in my culinary skills to use dinner party guests (even close friends) as guinea pigs, but this recipe would have been a winner for salmon lovers. Here is the recipe (I used 1.5 limes instead of 1 and herb stuffing mix instead of bread crumbs), and here are my photos:

Wow, was this yummy! I ate two of them. We'll see how this keeps as leftovers - I made the whole 4 serving recipe (actually made 5 little cakes). But of course even after two dinner servings and chips & salsa appetizers I still had room for dessert. I MADE room for dessert because while I was shopping for dinner stuff at Kings Red & White (this cute little family-owned grocery just a 10 min walk away from my house) I was THRILLED to see Jell-O Pudding Pops in the ice cream section!!!!!! Does anyone else remember these? These were my favorite summertime treat as a kid. It was hard to decide whether vanilla, chocolate, or swirl was my favorite. These Jell-O pudding pops I found today were in a bright yellow Popsicles box, and I did not recall them being manufactured by Popsicles. I decided to do some careful Google research, and this is what I found. Indeed, it's true - these are most definitely NOT the same treats as yesteryear. I had a swirl one and it wasn't even swirled at all! It was chocolate in the center, vanilla on the outside. There was no frozen outer shell, and they are shaped like fudgesicles, not the old-time Jell-O pudding pops. It was tasty, but not the same. Oh well.

Another find from Kings was ice cream from Maple View Farms. You know it's a local product when there's no nutrition info label on it (and when it comes to ice cream, ignorance is bliss)! This dairy farm is right next door in Orange County. They had a range of flavors available at Kings, and I decided to try Carolina Crunch (yes, I had two desserts. I'm glad I like running). It is delicious!

But what was the sweetest part of my meal this evening? Listening to 47-year-old Jamie Moyer pitch an absolutely amazing shutout for the Phillies against the Braves! Oldest pitcher in the MLB to pitch a shutout!!!!!!!!!!!

Soft-shelled crabs

2010-04-30T18:56:00.009-05:00

This week's share from Walking Fish was soft-shell crabs and clams. Yum! I watched way too many youtube videos on how to prepare and cook soft-shell crabs, and then I decided to partially document my own experience!

I prepared the three smaller crabs first and then did the larger one, which was more lively.

I breaded them with seasoned flour and cornmeal and sauteed them in butter:

Lastly, I slapped it on a whole wheat kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato, and mayo:

It was a little crunchier and juicer than I expected (I don't think I cleaned them as well as I should have) but yum! I cooked and ate two of them and froze two of them. On the Walking Fish website it said it was okay to freeze them, but we'll see how the frozen ones do.

Science Catfight

2010-04-28T20:28:00.002-05:00

A scientist from the Union of Concerned Scientists was on the Colbert Report recently. It's a long clip but worth watching:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Science Catfight - Joe Bastardi vs. Brenda Ekwurzel

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Fox News

Updates

2010-04-28T19:28:00.005-05:00

A couple weeks ago I blogged about the Lake Baikal issue - how moves are being made to re-open the Pulp and Paper Mill on the lakeshore. The petition signed by concerned scientists (including me!) to express disapproval of the mill reopening has been sent to the president of the Russian Federation, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

On a completely unrelated note, it's April 28 - time to ask myself how I'm doing with my New Year's Resolutions (you totally thought I forgot, didn't you).

These were my three primary resolutions:

Run hill repeats at least once every two weeks.
Do strength training for at least 30 minutes a week (and my weekly ballet class doesn't count toward this).
Floss way more often.

So I kept up #1 until the marathon taper and I've only done one hill repeat workout since the race. But that workout hardly counts because it was on the short, gradual hill near my house and I only did 6 repeats. #2 I've been pretty good about - only missed this a couple weeks this year. However, I think my strength training has now plateaued, so I need to change up my routine and up the intensity. And #3 I've utterly failed at. Why can't I get myself to floss??

These were my secondary resolutions:

Run at least 30 miles a week to exceed 1500 miles for 2010.
No computer or TV after 10 pm.
Bedtime by 11 pm at the latest.
Bike to work more often.
Read more, watch TV and web surf less.

#4 I've achieved, #1 I sometimes accomplish, and don't ask about 2,3, and 5!

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-21T20:35:00.007-05:00

Dear Earth,

Thank you for the countless resources and irreplaceable beauty you provide us. We apologize for overusing, exploiting, remaining ignorant of, and failing to recognize the limits of so many of these provisions. We hope we can learn to do better.

Love,
Sandra

Speaking of climate change skeptics...

2010-04-10T20:49:00.003-05:00

...actually, there's a difference between climate change skeptics and deniers. The latter are closed-minded, selectively ignorant, and have an agenda that can only be categorized as anti-science and anti-truth. And in recent news Frenchman Claude Allegre is the poster boy of all this. French scientists are asking science minister Valérie Pécresse to officially denounce his latest book L'imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud). Hopefully she will, but you know what? I have absolutely no problem with Allegre representing the climate-change-denier-camp. Check this out:

Up or down? Paleoclimatologist Håkan Grudd says his temperature graph (red) doesn't match one drawn by Claude Allègre (black). Caption and picture published in the 9 April 2010 issue of Science.

Yes, it's true - this dude's book actually includes hand-drawn graphs of made-up data. Are you kidding me? Allegre must have some balls thinking he can twist around other scientists' data to fit whatever he wants it to say - and think that said scientists wouldn't notice this and call him out on it?! So yeah, nice job, Allegre - thanks for communicating loud and clear how you deniers operate.

Queer the census

2010-04-06T19:45:00.006-05:00

My "Queer the Census" sticker finally arrived in the mail today, but I had given up waiting for it and had sent in my form so I wouldn't be bugged by door-to-door census workers. What is "Queer the Census" all about? This article explains it well. I think it's awesome that the Census Bureau encourages same-sex couples to indicate they're married, if they wish. It's nice to know at least one small sector of our federal government is fair-minded and progressive.

Skeptical Science website

2010-04-01T19:41:00.003-05:00

In my DISCCRS newsletter this week there was a link to this website that addresses the skepticism surrounding global warming. I've spent about half an hour browsing around the site and so far I am thoroughly impressed. Climate change science is multi-disciplinary, complex, constantly changing, and extremely difficult to communicate in a clear, understandable way. But John Cook and contributors do a commendable job at this. Everything they present is carefully explained and referenced with recent, high-impact primary research articles (although many of the links to these references were broken or you'd have to have an account with the journal - and they should have a reference list in addition to these links). It appears to be updated often - it's only April 1, but there were 2010 publications referenced, though it appears they have not yet added the recent study in Geophysical Research Letters that finds that the temperature increase from greenhouse gases will overwhelm the cooling due to a solar minimum (Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010 - this would be appropriate in discussing if we're heading into a new Ice Age).

Here's what it says in the "About" section of the website:

The goal of Skeptical Science is to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming. When you peruse the many arguments of global warming skeptics, a pattern emerges. Skeptic arguments tend to focus on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the broader picture. For example, focus on Climategate emails neglects the full weight of scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Concentrating on a few growing glaciers ignores the world wide trend of accelerating glacier shrinkage. Claims of global cooling fail to realise the planet as a whole is still accumulating heat. This website presents the broader picture by explaining the peer reviewed scientific literature.

Often, the reason for disbelieving in man-made global warming seem to be political rather than scientific. Eg - "it's all a liberal plot to spread socialism and destroy capitalism". As one person put it, "the cheerleaders for doing something about global warming seem to be largely the cheerleaders for many causes of which I disapprove". However, what is causing global warming is a purely scientific question. Skeptical Science removes the politics from the debate by concentrating solely on the science.

As someone who is terribly passionate about clear, accurate, and effective communication of science, I wholeheartedly endorse this idea of separating the science from the politics, even while realizing that ideally we do need the former to guide the latter.

Baseball season is coming!

2010-03-29T20:48:00.003-05:00

Yay! Only a week until baseball season starts. The Orioles are gonna suck again, but that's okay, they're still the best team when it comes to their fans and stadium and cuteness!

Response to TH

2010-03-28T07:04:00.005-05:00

I did read your comments, TH, and neither you, me, nor anyone else was adding anything new to the argument that's going on between both sides of the health reform debate. That's because none of us are professors in health care economics! Man, this thing only recently passed, and already I'm getting tired of the same, hackneyed arguments on both sides! If I'm wrong and you do have something new to add - well, geez, don't write it on my stupid blog - write a letter to your editor! I did not mean to insult you - I know for a fact how intelligent, caring, and hard-working you are. You and I just try to keep ourselves informed as best we can, but really, we're not experts despite our brilliance, and even if we have all of our facts straight, we ARE indeed biased and never going to agree. Sorry - by "bias" I mean our philosophies and principles that form who we are and what we believe in. For example, someone recently told me that even if this healthcare reform works our perfectly and fixes all the problems it promises to, they are still wholeheartedly against it because they are against the principle of the government requiring them to buy something. I am NOT against this principle at all. I think it's smart, makes sense, and in no way significantly threatens anyone's personal liberties. Obviously, this person and I will never agree on this, even a little bit.

Oh, and you're probably now asking why I started the conversation in the first place if I think it's stupid and adding nothing new. All I did was post a link to an article by Nicholas Kristof claiming that this reform will increase access to health care. I thought it was interesting, but I actually didn't think that it was controversial or made a very original or new point - we'd heard this before, but it was still interesting and thought-provoking. Then someone commented in such a way that I felt I had to write a post in response to that comment. THEN someone commented on THAT, and once again I felt a response was needed. And so forth - and I actually did solicit opinions on that last post, but I was expecting one response, NOT a rant of like 8 comments in a row! And that's when it starts to feel silly, because really, we're all just scouring the internet to find info that supports our opinions - we're not doing careful, scholarly research on the topic. That's not what we do, and I certainly don't have time for that - in fact, gotta run to church now! I realize the fact that I maintain this blog in the first place and post pictures of cats and shit like that gives the impression that I have time to kill and nothing to do. But in reality I have a crapload of important work to do, and I've wasted more than enough time on a pointless conversation that will lead nowhere but an impasse.

Earth Hour and Evil Twin

2010-03-27T15:20:00.004-05:00

I almost forgot - this evening at 8:30 ET is Earth Hour. Turn your lights off from 8:30-9:30 to save electricity, reflect on our overconsumption of energy, and remain mindful of how we've remarkably influenced the Earth's climate. Look, even the Duke Chapel is participating!

Look who was spotted this morning - Madeline's Evil Twin! This is the best look I've gotten, and now I see that he/she has a spot on their nose, whereas Madeline does not. Still, the similarity is pretty striking.

Simmer down, now!

2010-03-26T21:15:00.004-05:00

Wow, I just tuned into my own blog this evening to find ELEVEN comments on the last post. I only had time to skim them, but looks like you're ready to start your own blog, TH! The bottom line is even though I'm interested and trying my best to stay informed, I actually have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to healthcare reform AND NEITHER DO ANY OF YOU (with the possible exception of K). Actually, nobody really does - I think Ruth Marcus lays this out well. Don't get me wrong, I know for a fact that TH, CG, and K are all intelligent, clear-thinking people. But we're also forming our opinions on healthcare reform from very biased perspectives, and there's simply no sense in trying to get a Hillary Clinton campaign volunteer to even slightly agree with someone who listens to way too much Rush :)

Anyway, let's use our anger over health care and channel it to something else! My Ph.D. is in environmental science, so I'll start a new debate on something I actually know something about: the issue of re-opening the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill. You can read a bit about the issue here and here. At the last ASLO conference I attended there were several presentations involving Lake Baikal, and I've gotta say that the recent science being done in this UNESCO World Heritage site is fascinating and important. I intend to sign this petition, and if I come across a similar petition that others can sign, I'll be sure to post it here!

Even more on health care reform!

2010-03-24T19:03:00.002-05:00

Hey TH! Read this and tell me what you think!

Boy, we could go all day! I think you're wrong, TH (regarding the comment on the "Health Care Reform" post). Requiring companies to cover pre-existing conditions will NOT result in outcomes 1 or 2 because the insurance companies will have substantially more customers - about 30 million or so. Also, don't talk to me like I'm a moron - I fully understand why most companies don't cover pre-existing conditions (and I'll even admit that the story I linked above may not be representative of the whole industry). But I also understand how many people with such conditions become bankrupt even though they're hard-working people who have paid plenty of health insurance premiums over their lifetime. I believe we shouldn't live in a country where you lose everything you worked so hard for just because you got sick. I'm sure you agree, TH, that we need to do everything we can to prevent what happened to Patrick Tumulty or Nikki White or LoShonda Holloway or Sarah Wildman.

Andrew, in response to your comment to the same post, I think the Republicans have made it abundantly clear by their lack of votes that they think the status quo is better than the reform bill that was just passed. You have to agree they've spent more time and energy speaking out against this bill than delineating an alternative plan. Fine, I agree that we need a cap on malpractice, but this is not gonna fix the whole frickin' system!

Health Care Reform - oops

2010-03-24T11:28:00.002-05:00

Regarding the bit in my last post about children with pre-existing conditions, it looks like there are actually some snafus with the new law, but hopefully these will be resolved we can look forward to the end of an era when both children and adults are screwed over by the insurance companies. Whether it's an issue of pre-existing conditions or the complicated fine print you missed ("oh, you thought that procedure was covered? You must have missed the exception on page 594 where it clearly says it's not covered for left-handed people receiving treatment on Tuesdays!) too many things are not working for too many people.

Health Care Reform

2010-03-24T07:53:00.002-05:00

I decided my comment in response to Andrew deserves a new post.

Actually, with the exception of this Hyde Amendment stuff you shouldn't look at this as if the government has more control over YOU and your choices - they don't, and if more people understood that there wouldn't be so much opposition to reform. No, it's not you the government has more control over - they now have more control over the insurance companies who have been screwing over so many Americans. This is a good thing, despite all your notions of free-market blah blah. I don't understand why people defend these companies and the status quo in general. It's time someone defended those hard-working people who have been screwed over, taken advantage of, and bled dry by these companies!

Come on, you've heard all this before. Just one example of the screwing over: prior to this reform insurance companies could deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. What would you do if you had a chronically ill child, you lost your job and health insurance, then found a new job with new insurance, but that new insurance company (or ANY company that you could afford) refused to cover your child? This is why more government control is better - they won't allow such situations to happen (or at the very least they'll be minimized).

The exception to this is the abortion provision stuff - that is indeed a horrendous example of the government controlling what health care poor women should receive assistance for. Abortion is a legal medical procedure that should be covered by an affordable health insurance plan. I am disappointed in the Hyde Amendment still standing, and it's unfortunate that this was the only way this bill could pass.

World Water Day 2010

2010-03-22T19:11:00.005-05:00

Today is World Water Day, and I wish I had fun fact for you instead of this sobering one: across the globe more people die from polluted water every year than from all forms of violence combined, including war. Even after teaching a course called "Freshwater Resources and Societies" I was unaware that 3.7% of all deaths worldwide are due to water-related diseases, according to the U.N. It's so easy for us more fortunate ones to take for granted our easy access to cheap, clean tap water.

While some progress is being made in providing better access to clean, potable water, this progress is too slow in too many regions, especially the world's most water-deprived countries. Niger, for example, ranks near the bottom of the Water Poverty Index and has received paltry World Bank funds for water infrastructure improvement. Water access appeared to be sustainable in the riverside village of Atteforme, Niger (shown above in 2004) where my sister worked in the Peace Corps. But I wonder how the flow of the Niger River is affected and will be affected by climate change and increased withdrawals from a rising population.

Marathon PR

2010-03-21T15:22:00.003-05:00

Today was the Tobacco Road Marathon, a race I had been anxiously awaiting since my "swine flu" marathon back in November (North Central Trail Marathon). I had told everyone my goal was to shave an hour off my North Central time of 4:52, but I realized that was a little ambitious. Still, I was hoping was around 3:55, as I was confident I could run at least a 9 min-mile pace or faster. But I am happy with my time of 3:58:38, a PR by 59 seconds, I think (can't find my 2007 Columbus Marathon time online and if I try to retrieve my box of race stuff from under the bed I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get up off the floor). I came in 8th in my age group, which sounds kinda good when I say it (though there were only 33 women in the 30-34 age group). A couple of friends snapped pictures of me, so perhaps they'll send them along and I can post them (or more likely delete them, b/c I was struggling at those points!). This was my 9th marathon, 6th road marathon (I count North Central Trail Marathon as road), but only my 2nd time under 4:00.

I don't think I could have done this without the encouragement of the 4:00 pace group leader whose name may be Dan or Ben based on the gun time results. He was the best, and when I was chatting with him at the end and mentioned how I PRed he commented on the heat and said that it was a "tough day to try to PR". I actually hadn't noticed it being too warm (but it was in the mid-60s by the finish), but thanks, I'll take that as an excuse and explanation for how I've not reached my full potential!

But I think a key reason I wasn't as fast as I could've been was that my mile splits were ALL OVER THE FRICKIN PLACE! I really was trying to maintain an even pace, beginning around a 9:10 pace and then gradually speeding up to my goal pace of 8:51. I ran with the 4:00 pace group at the beginning so I wouldn't start out too fast, but they started out too fast! I stayed with them for about 4-5 miles before Dan or Ben advised me to speed up if I wanted to make my 3:52 goal. It was at mile 23 where his group caught up to me, but yay, I managed to not let them pass me. So here are my CRAZY splits:

Miles 1-2 - 17:56 (missed miler marker 1, was shocked to see 4:00 group pass me)
Mile 3 - 9:03
Mile 4 - 9:08
Mile 5 - 9:23
Mile 6 - 8:49
Mile 7 - 8:55
Mile 8 - 9:03
Mile 9 - 8:50
Mile 10 - 8:46
Mile 11 - 8:39
Mile 12 - 9:06
Mile 13 - 9:04
Mile 14 -8:32
Mile 15 - 8:59
Mile 16 - 8:48
Mile 17 - 9:11
Mile 18 - 8:39
Mile 19 - 9:35
Mile 20 - 9:05
Mile 21 - 9:37
Mile 22 - 9:21
Mile 23 - 9:54
Mile 24 - 9:48
Mile 25 - 8:53 (thanks Ben or Dan!)
Mile 26 - 9:29
Mile 0.2 - 1:53

Up until now I've been resistant to fancy gadgets, but now I'm reconsidering. If I want to improve my marathon, I need to learn to run at a consistent pace, and perhaps some Garmin Whatever will help me do that.

Access

2010-03-18T12:15:00.002-05:00

This is for you and your dad, Andrew! Nicholas Kristof's article presents yet another well-reasoned argument for why health care reform will improve the health and life expectancy of our nation.

Prom Canceled Because Girl Just Being Herself

2010-03-11T15:24:00.003-06:00

This is bullshit. Yeah, it's the conservative rural south, but come on. I can't believe school officials would ban the whole frickin prom just to prevent the girl from attending with her same-sex date. So sad that stuff like this actually happens.

Stray cats

2010-03-11T12:07:00.003-06:00

A whole bunch of stray kitties have been lurking on our street recently. I think this cute grey one was pretending he/she belonged to my neighbor (that's her back porch where it's sitting). My camera ran out of batteries, but after the orange and white cat ran through her yard, a third stray cat ran through the next yard, and then a FOURTH cat - Madeline's evil twin - showed up. Seriously, four stray cats in like 45 seconds!

Surprisingly, Madeline was mostly oblivious to these kitties. She did pause in her munching to peek through the fence (I think the orange and white cat was on the other side), but mostly she was busy eating grass:

Basking in the sun

2010-03-07T11:06:00.004-06:00

Yesterday Madeline spent more time outside than she had in a long time. We were both enjoying the sunshine and spring-like weather!

Divorced Before Puberty

2010-03-04T12:12:00.002-06:00

Check out Nicholas Kristoff's column on the story of Nujood, an amazing 12-year-old from Yemen. The end of Kristoff's article reminds me of Greg Mortenson's philosophy as expressed in "Three Cups of Tea":

The United States last month announced $150 million in military assistance for Yemen to fight extremists. In contrast, it costs just $50 to send a girl to public school for a year — and little girls like Nujood may prove more effective than missiles at defeating terrorists.

Toxins and Autism

2010-02-25T12:09:00.002-06:00

Check out Nicholas Kristof's recent column in the New York Times. Actually, I think the possible autism-toxin linkage may just be the tip of the environmental toxin iceberg.

Carolina snow

2010-02-19T19:49:00.006-06:00

It's all gone now, but we've had a decent amount of snow this winter. I love snow, and I'm disappointed I didn't get to experience my hometown's Snowpocalypse. I'm also bummed that what little snow we did get interfered with Andrew's visit for my birthday. We were going to have dinner with his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but the roads were too nasty to get together. Here's what it looked like:

Then last weekend we had just an inch or so overnight, enough to make everything look really pretty. These pictures don't do it justice - if I had felt like carrying my camera on my run to Whipoorwill Park I could have gotten some lovely shots. For only about half an hour or so the clouds cleared and the snow was still on the trees against a bright blue sky background.

It completely melted away by the time my mom arrived at 2:30.

Abstinence only?

2010-02-03T07:32:00.003-06:00

If you know me or have read my blog for a while you know how I feel about "abstinence only" sex education. However, you also know how I feel about carefully conducted scientific research, so perhaps in light of this study I need to rethink my position. Yes, it's true - the study actually found that an abstinence education program was more effective at delaying sex in a group of teens compared to a comprehensive program. One noteworthy difference between this abstinence program and some of the religious based ones was that this program "did not disparage condoms" and did not encourage delaying sex until marriage, but rather until one is ready.

So it does sound a bit different from the Bush-funded abstinence only programs, but I dunno, I'm still a bit skeptical (and I'm not the only one; for example, this Washington Post blogger gives some valid reasons for using caution in drawing strong conclusions from the study.) Delaying sex is almost always healthier for both the individual and society, and that should be the goal we're all working toward. However, I still stand firm on my belief that EVERYONE who intends to have sex sometime in their life, married or not, needs to know about STDs, contraception, pregnancy, hormone cycles, and anything else important and relevant that I'm leaving out. Delaying sex until marriage does not make you immune to STDs and unwanted pregnancy! People might as well learn the basics about sex at the same time they learn the basics about everything else: in school! In the aforementioned study, 33% of the teens who went through the abstinence program had sex within two years of the program. So what I'm wondering is, among the teens who did not delay sex in both groups, abstinence and comprehensive, who was the most well-equipped? They say that the abstinence approach had no negative effect on condom usage, but condoms aren't everything, you know.

On a separate subject, if there are other people out there who use blogger and know how to prevent or minimize spam comments, please enlighten me! Ugh.

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-17T15:15:00.002-06:00

I thought that by posting my new year's resolutions here I'd be more likely to feel accountable for them (though you all probably don't care!). They may come across as pretty superficial to some of you, but I just wasn't feeling that deep, spiritual, or introspective over the holidays!

So here are my real, actually-determined-to-keep resolutions:

Run hill repeats at least once every two weeks.
Do strength training for at least 30 minutes a week (and my weekly ballet class doesn't count toward this).
Floss way more often.

So yeah, aren't I ambitious? So far so good - I've done two hill repeat workouts and two strength-training workouts, although one of them was only 25 minutes (I just could not make myself do 5 more minutes of abs or weights). And I've been flossing irregularly - a few times a week - but definitely way more often than usual (um...maybe once a month if I was feeling especially disciplined). I swear, it's not that I have bad dental hygiene. I haven't had a cavity in years and I go to the dentist every 6 months. My dentist hasn't even noticed that I'm not flossing. However, I just got up to check and I have SEVEN containers of floss that I've been accumulating over the years. I've gotta start using it up.

And here are my resolutions that aren't real resolutions because I haven't resolved to keep them, just kinda, sorta, "gee, it would really great if I could make myself do this".

Run at least 30 miles a week to exceed 1500 miles for 2010.
No computer or TV after 10 pm.
Bedtime by 11 pm at the latest.
Bike to work more often.

Actually, #1 is usually not a problem, although this week I only ran 28 miles. #4 I'm not bad at either, especially because I don't teach in the morning so I'm not usually in a rush. However, #2 and 3 have become exceedingly difficult. Part of it is that I don't get home until around 8 pm on Mon, Tues, and Thurs and I've fallen into a bad habit of using the TV or computer to unwind and relax while I eat dinner. Actually, that brings me to another sort-of resolution:

5. Read more, watch TV and web surf less.

I've started reading "Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which was given to me by Kate. Thanks Kate, it's a good read so far! The only thing is the reading has been replacing sleep time instead of TV time.

Speaking of all this, there was an interesting article in the Post Magazine about time management.

Time to stop blogging and start organizing zooplankton data!

Happy 2010!

2010-01-14T18:53:00.005-06:00

Geez, I'm getting lazy with the blogging. I was on vacation for over two weeks and I did only 45 minutes of work, so I have no excuse for not having time to blog! Andrew and I had a wonderful Christmas (right, Sweetie?). We went to church on Christmas Eve (here's us afterward, plus Madeline):

and spent Christmas morning at my mom's house. Then Andrew went to his mom's house and totally missed out on making a gingerbread BP gas station with my mom, Alicia, and me:

Aren't we creative? It was Alicia's idea, but I did the BP and gas price signs. After the gingerbread houses we had a prime rib dinner. Then I went to Andrew's mom's house for a SECOND prime rib dinner (it's Jesus' birthday - you gotta live it up!):

The next day we went to my aunt and uncle's house in PA where we had a fried oyster dinner. Man, I ate good over the holidays! For New Years Eve I went to a party at my friend Emma's apartment in Bethesda. Often my New Years Eves are kind of shitty and depressing, but I had a lot of fun this year. All in all, good holidays! Now it's back to the grindstone. Yesterday I was at a meeting in Chicago and today was my first day of classes. I'm back and yet I'm still not ready to be back. I haven't even unpacked yet from my holiday trip in MD and my Christmas tree is still up. This weekend will be the true transition from holiday to work :(

Madeline in the snow

2009-12-20T11:37:00.007-06:00

Madeline was meowing and meowing to go outside, so I said okay and let her out. She stepped awkwardly through the crusty snow on the porch for a few minutes before deciding to come back inside.

Yay, gay marriage in D.C.!

2009-12-18T18:30:00.002-06:00

I've been following this for a while, and I'm not surprised it passed a council vote. The D.C. Council is on the side of justice and equality for all! There is a 30 day window in which U.S. Congress reviews the legislation and has the option of blocking it, but most experts do not think it's likely that this bill will be shot down.

HOWEVER (there's always a "however" when in comes to gay marriage in the U.S.) the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has threatened to cut their social services programs - homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc. - if this bill passes. Seriously. Can you believe it? The Archbishop is using poor people as political pawns. The WWJD fad has mostly passed, but I urge Archbishop Wuerl and all like-minded Catholics to ask what would Jesus do in this situation...would he really stop his ministry if the state passed a law condoning something he found unethical (not that I believe Jesus ever thought homosexuality is unethical)? Not my Jesus! This is ridiculous. Today Catholic charities - all charities - are needed more than ever. I admire and respect such charities and hope that the D.C. Catholics will not follow through on their threats.

Pomegranate

2009-12-11T11:42:00.006-06:00

I've had pomegranate but I've never prepared one before. According to the December issue of Runners World pomegranates are in season Nov-Jan. They recommend slicing the pomegranate and rubbing the pieces in a bowl of water to remove the juicy, corn-kernel-like seeds. Don't they look festive and Christmasy?

An argument to stop "going green"

2009-12-06T14:34:00.002-06:00

It makes a lot of sense, actually. But one important point that Mike Tidwell left out of his opinion article is that regulating land use change is nearly as significant as halting fossil fuel burning when it comes to reducing our carbon emissions and achieving that 350 ppm target.

Betting on Copenhagen

2009-12-02T10:09:00.002-06:00

Olivia Judson is one of my favorite science writers. In addition to authoring "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation", she is a regular contributor to the NY Times. You must check out her recent blog post called "Betting on Copenhagen". She really has a knack for digesting a complex issue like climate change into an entertaining, easy-to-understand, yet completely accurate (check her Notes section) format.

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

2009-10-16T18:08:00.007-05:00

Better late than never. October 15 was Blog Action Day, a global effort to get the blogosphere to collectively highlight a single issue. This year's theme is "climate change", so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and blog about my trip to Austria with special emphasis on why I went there: to attend the International School on Alpine Ecology and Global Change. High latitude and high elevation regions are experiencing more rapid and extreme climate change compared to other regions, and these ecosystems are also among the most sensitive to such perturbations. I don't have my notes with me, but I think the numbers were something like 1.6 C/year warming rate in alpine regions compared to 0.6 C/year warming rate as a global average. I'm sure most people are familiar with before and after glacier photos such as these. I've seen plenty of such photos, too, but the experience of actually hiking over glacial-free moraines that were created only a few decades ago and still being kilometers away from what was left of the Rotmoos Glacier was quite unique. There is an absolutely excellent group of scientists at the University of Innsbruck who study this glacier and the ecosystems around it.

I am standing approximately where the glacier used to be only 30-40 years ago. The Rotmoos Glacier is retreating at a rate of about 30-40 meters per year, with a retreat of as much as 70 m/yr during especially warm years. 70 m !!! That's crazy. In fact, while we were there we watched as a huge chunk of the glacier edge broke off in front of our eyes.

Here's a picture of the 1920 terminal moraine (that small "bump" in the valley, about halfway down the photo):

and here's one of the 1853 moraine (again, the "bump" in the landscape):

The Rotmoos is only one of the countless glaciers all over the globe that are quickly disappearing. Most of us find it quite alarming, but some people may ask "so what?" I mean, yeah, how many of us actually ever visit a glacier? Only us geeky scientists and outdoor enthusiasts. But how many of us actually depend on glaciers? Billions of us. No shit. Glaciers provide water for much of the world, including populous countries like China and India. When the climate warms and glaciers melt, people turn to other water sources, like groundwater, an ultimately non-renewable source in most regions when compared to the rate it is extracted. So yeah, glaciers are pretty important, such that we've even figured out how to tell kids about this.

Here's yet another indication of climate change in alpine regions:

This fake lake was built at 2000 m elevation for snow-making. I can't believe that snow-making is needed at 2000 m elevation! Climate change is influencing (note present tense) a variety of alpine ecosystem services, including ski tourism, an economically important industry in many regions. Another alpine ecosystem service being anthropogenically affected directly by land use alteration and indirectly by climate change is the native, stabilizing vegetation community. What do I mean by "stabilizing"? Many of the herbaceous and shrub vegetation holds the soil in place and prevents or at least mitigates the impacts of mudslides/ landslides, which drastically affect communities who live in alpine valleys. This webpage seems to sum up nicely a lot of things that we learned in this course (though I can't verify the authors' credentials).

Anyway, it was a great course and a great trip, and I hope I gave you some food for thought! See the rest of my pictures from Austria here.

It's the orange crayons!

2009-09-19T21:06:00.002-05:00

Oh, how I want to be 5 years old again, coloring with a new box of crayons!

Blah blah blog

2009-09-18T20:42:00.002-05:00

I have been super busy and super lazy about certain things like blogging. Hopefully this all will pass...maybe by December or something. In the meantime, here is a picture of my foot w/ a cute little salamander:

Results of ELCA vote

2009-08-22T06:34:00.005-05:00

The results from the ELCA conference this week make me proud to be a Lutheran (and being proud to be any sort of Christian is something I often hesitate to say, being that I am a scientist, academic, and social liberal in today's American society!):
"Monogamous" Gays Can Serve in ELCA
I think the lay delegate quoted in the article makes an excellent point when he says ""We live today with an understanding of homosexuality that did not exist in Jesus' time and culture...we are responding to something that the writers of Scripture could not have understood." The scripture writers did not understand that people are born with their sexuality. This is not something people choose, and thus we shouldn't discriminate against them. Being monogamous, however, IS indeed a choice, and so it makes sense if the church wants their single clergy of all sexualities to pledge celibacy. Of course personally, I don't understand what's so sinful about such a deep expression of mutual love and intimacy (I certainly don't consider my sex life sinful - it causes no one harm and makes our relationship stronger, and a marriage certificate wouldn't change that one bit), but I wouldn't expect a national church to espouse such views.

Habitat Bike Ride

2009-07-31T20:09:00.000-05:00

I've been too lazy to blog lately, but I've mustered enough initiative to post some pictures from the Durham Habitat for Humanity 17 mile moonlight bike ride, which was two weeks ago. I was a little nervous because I've never done a bike race before. Actually, this wasn't a real "race", but still, biking in a big group of people in the dark (with very little moonlight despite the name) was new for me. However, when I saw that the participants were just as laidback as (and in some cases, more out-of-shape than) your typical neighborhood 5K fundraising crowd, I figured there would be nothing to worry about.

So here's my new bike with only 6 miles on it at this point, ready for its first real ride:

And here's the Durham Bull's mascot (Wool E. Bull) getting ready for the ride. I think he only did the first half mile or so:

I found some pictures on the website with me (in bright yellow) lurking in the background or foreground:

That last one is from the post-race party. What a spread of food! Mellow Mushroom pizza, locopops, beers, cookies, brownies, other desserts, fruit, crackers & cheese, other stuff from Whole Foods. I think I should have run 17 miles, not biked, to earn all that food! Plus, there was a midrace party, too! Which was good, because I needed to visit the "bike surgeon" to have my headlight taped on. It fell off the first mile, and I'm impressed it didn't get crushed in the pack. And I'm glad it still worked after getting knocked around, because I totally needed it on the second half of the ride - those streets and trails were DARK. Anyway, it was a fun time and raised money for a good cause, so I think I'll do their Halloween ride in the fall.

Prenatal Pollution Exposure

2009-07-20T08:46:00.002-05:00

The results of a very important study are in. The IQs of children who were exposed to higher levels of harmful urban air pollution while in womb are significantly lower than those of children with low levels of exposure. Some may argue that it is too much speculation to say that these results may partially explain why poorer children do worse in school than richer children. It is convenient to brush aside these environmental justice issues, but we shouldn't. This is only one of many studies that suggests that the junk (pesticides, fertilizers, BPAs, pharmaceuticals, other endocrine disrupters, livestock waste, etc.) that we put into our environment has very real consequences, both direct and indirect, for our health and well-being.

During the catastrophic years (environmentally speaking) of the Bush Administration, W's euphemistically named "Clear-Skies Initiative" weakened the Clean Air Act by essentially allowing power plants and factories to spew even more harmful air pollution than they were previously spewing. Fortunately, in his first 100 days Obama undid this damaging "initiative" by reinstating the New Source Review. Of course I applaud this move, but I also worry that such critically important issues are not receiving enough attention what with the climate change bill and everything. Yes, it is crucial to immediately address CO2 emissions (and to better inform the American public that "global warming" is only one of many of harmful consequences of CO2 that are happening right now). But other "non-CO2" air and water pollution problems also deserve our immediate attention. After all, we're all drinking water and breathing air right now, and for some of us this water and air are making us sick. You would think these problems are something we can all relate to and for which there would be a lot less "controversy" than global climate change, at least when it comes to agreeing we need to do something about it. Hopefully this Pediatrics study will renew focus on some of the more local and immediate environmental concerns that affect all of us to some degree, but disproportionately harm the poor and minorities - those least equipped to deal with the health care, relocation, and other monetary costs.

On an only slightly related note can I just say that if you're gonna be "pro-life" as far as the law is concerned you damn well better be pro-QUALITY-of-life, too. Don't go around saying that women shouldn't be allowed to abort their fetuses while at the same time seeking to weaken environmental laws that would keep those fetuses healthy (or at least less sick).

Gay rights and immigration

2009-07-18T12:59:00.002-05:00

The struggle for equality isn't just about marriage for the sake of marriage. It's also about keeping families together like the one featured in this article. The Catholic bishops' argument that allowing U.S. citizens to sponsor their partners would "erode the institution of marriage and family by according marriage-like immigration benefits to same sex relationships" is simply ridiculous. They really think that keeping families together instead of apart will "ERODE the institution of...family"? Don't get me wrong - Catholics, like anyone else, are free to believe and practice whatever they want. But it continually disgusts me that such religious groups try to use their beliefs as rationale for publicly opposing fair, civil, SECULAR national law. Hey U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I'm still waiting for you to lobby to Congress to enact a law banning divorce! Because you don't believe in divorce, do you? Oh, but you DO believe that OTHER citizens should be allowed to engage in civil, secular divorce, even though it is frowned upon by your members? How fair and rational of you! So when WHEN are you going to apply the same logic to gay marriage and similar issues? Jesus Christ!

Updates

2009-07-17T12:33:00.009-05:00

First, I got a new grill! Just a basic 18 inch Weber charcoal grill - that's all I need. Andrew helped me pick it out. Our first meal with it was lamb burgers w/ mint salsa, which were okay but not as good as the first time we made them w/ meat from the U of I meat lab. Last weekend someone at the farmers market had ground goat meat. I think it was from this place, and I got a kick out the fact that they had a photo album of their farm animals. It's nice to know my goat got to frolic in a beautiful green meadow before it was slaughtered for my enjoyment! And it was indeed an enjoyment: these goat burgers were better than the lamb ones (which we bought from Whole Foods):

The eggplant, potatoes, arugula, and tomatoes are also from the farmers market.

Second, look what my sweetie gave me for our sort-of-two-year anniversary (July 4):

He's so romantic! Even if he doesn't own a vase! That was a fun weekend despite the rain all day on the 4th. We had sun on the 5th and went running and canoeing with the buffalo and ate lots of sushi.

And third, check out my new wheels:

It's a Trek 7.2 FX hybrid, and I love it! Little wonder when you compare it to the piece of shit that it replaced:

So I was riding to work on the stupid piece of shit and I was about a mile from home when it broke down in the weirdest way. The rear brake somehow got caught between the tire and the rim, and I could not budge it out! Also, some other part of the brake partially shredded the tire and pushed it partway off the rim. The rear wheel was completely stuck and wouldn't turn, so I ditched the bike, ran home to get my car, shoved the piece of crap in the trunk, and drove to work. Later as I was yanking it out the trunk the brake finally freed itself from the tire.

I'd been wanting a new bike for a while now, so I bought one the very next day. Test rode a couple at our local bike store, and they fit great, rode smoothly, and the price was right ($489), so I figured why wait any longer. I'm excited to try it out (so far I've only ridden it the 3 miles home) at a Habitat for Humanity 17 mile bike ride tomorrow and then a 3 hour ride in and around Umstead State Park on Sunday. Yay!

Boo-yah!

2009-06-30T23:01:00.001-05:00

The Orioles just made my week. What a game! Go check out what happened at orioles.com. I'm going to bed!

Endocrine Disruptors

2009-06-28T13:28:00.002-05:00

I was pleased to see this opinion article in yesterday's NY Times. The nasty chemicals we put into our environment and their potential effects on humans is a topic that warrants way more public attention and concern, in my opinion. This article discusses endocrine disruptors and their effects on human reproductive disorders and cancers. But some scientists think that the chemical problem may even go further - exposure to certain pesticides is significantly correlated to ADHD and other behavioral disorders in children. I think we need a complete overhaul in the way we regulate nasty chemicals here in the U.S.: it is not prudent to assume that a chemical is harmless until someone provides conclusive evidence to the contrary. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act.

Race for the Cure

2009-06-08T20:19:00.009-05:00

Tomorrow I'm doing the Triangle Race for the Cure in Raleigh. The team I joined has already raised more than their goal of $10,000, but please feel free to support me! The race is tomorrow, but you can donate until the end of June. These donations go toward an excellent cause that includes funding mammograms and other cancer screenings for uninsured and underinsured women and funding scientific research. Visit this site to make a donation.

Last weekend I did the Global Race for the Cure in D.C. with my mom and other people from our church. It's a fun time, but reading everyone's signs and tee shirts always stirs emotions - both happy and sad:

Here is the sign my mom - a breast cancer survivor - wears every year:

The rest of my pictures are here.

Another eye-opening article

2009-06-05T14:02:00.000-05:00

in the Washington Post. See here.

Dr. Tiller

2009-06-05T08:59:00.002-05:00

Please read this excellent opinion piece by Judith Warner in the NY Times. Some important excerpts:

“Late abortion is not a failure of contraception. It’s for medical reasons,” Eleanor Smeal, the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who has worked to defend abortion providers like Tiller against harassment and violence since the mid-1980s, told me this week. “We’ve made pregnancy a fairy tale where there are no fetal complications, there’s no cancer, no terrible abuse of girls, no cases where to make a girl go all the way through a pregnancy is to destroy her. These are the realities of the story. That’s what Dr. Tiller worked with — the realities.”

...

We as a nation cannot continue to provide a hospitable environment for the likes of Roeder because the thought of what happens to fetuses in late abortions turns our stomachs. We have to accept that sometimes terrible things happen to young girls. We have to face the fact that sometimes desired pregnancies go tragically wrong. We have to weigh our repugnance for late abortion against the consequences for women and girls of being denied life-saving medical treatment.

...

Most Americans, I’m sure, do not believe that a 9-year-old should be forced to bear a child, or that a woman should have no choice but to risk her life to carry a pregnancy to term.

By averting our eyes from the ugliness and tragedy that accompany some pregnancies, we have allowed anti-abortion activists to define the dilemma of late abortion. We have allowed them to isolate and vilify doctors like Tiller.

We can no longer be complicit — through our muted disapproval or our complacency — in domestic terror.

LOL cats

2009-06-01T21:05:00.007-05:00

You're probably familiar with "LOL cats", that is, the adorable kitties from ichc that can't speak good English? It's pretty silly, but it entertains me so much that I decided to use icanhascheezburger's "LOL Builder" to make Madeline into a LOL cat.

Spring Garden

2009-05-31T16:12:00.010-05:00

Here are some pictures from around my yard this spring. The front, east side of the house (I have nothing on the west side - I need to get something to balance out the azaleas):

After the light pink and white azalea flowers fell off, I was surprised to see this orangey-red one bloom right next to them:

I missed this purple flower at its peak, but here it is before the petals completely fell off. This is alongside the west side of the house:

My herb and vegetable garden is looking pretty good, I think - a lot better than last year. I've got some basil, cilantro, rosemary, mint, parsley, red bell peppers, sungold tomatoes, early girl tomatoes, and marigolds around the edge:

I ate that orange sungold a few days ago, and by today the three yellow ones were nice and ripe and sweet. Here is my dinner from earlier this evening:

leftover tomato-goat cheese quiche made with fresh herbs from the garden
Swiss chard (from Durham's farmers market) sauteed in olive oil with red onion, garlic, and seasoning
sungold tomatoes from the garden
toasted oat wheat bread from Durham's farmers market

Yummy!

More photos from my little garden can be found here.

Walk-Off WIN!!

2009-05-28T09:01:00.002-05:00

Omigosh, I would have LOVED to have been at the Orioles game yesterday afternoon. The Os scored 5 runs in the 8th to tie it and 4 runs in the 11th to win 12-10! Crazy! Is this their first series sweep of the season? Might be. I wish they'd do stuff like this more often! Watch the video of Reimold's walk-off 3-run homer to win it - so exciting!!

New Supreme Court Justice Nominee

2009-05-26T20:02:00.009-05:00

Is Obama announcing his new nominee or marrying her?

(just kidding of course!)

Food

2009-05-25T20:12:00.007-05:00

Some yummy recipes I tried recently from the "Joy of Cooking". Homemade mac n' cheese:

Tomato and goat cheese quiche (with basil and parsley from my garden):

More on maternal health in Africa

2009-05-24T09:47:00.002-05:00

Another eye-opening article in today's NY Times. Also, see the slideshow. Instead of arguing about abortion rights here in the U.S., we should be uniting to reduces these preventable deaths.

Madeline

2009-05-21T20:19:00.009-05:00

Here are some recent pictures of my weird fur-baby. With the beautiful weather, she loves to go outside, and often prefers one of the ugliest, dirtiest spots:

Speaking of odd places cats pick out: she normally loves my mom's house, but the last couple weekends we've gone up, one of her favorite spots has been her crate!

As if being in her crate wasn't anti-social enough, she had to snub us even more:

Although when the opportunity arose to go outside, she left her crate and joined us in the yard:

And here's a bonus - now that I have my brand-new desktop PC instead of my slow, ancient 6 year old laptop, I have enough memory to upload video!

Speaking of Mother's Day...

2009-05-17T19:13:00.003-05:00

...please read this op-ed column from the NY Times. This is an excellent example of why the efforts of anti-choicers to eliminate this funding is not really "pro-life" at all. Thank you Obama, for repealing the Global Gag Rule!

Mother's Day at Camden Yards

2009-05-15T21:15:00.000-05:00

For Mother's Day last weekend I took my mom to an Orioles game at Camden Yards. We were both pretty excited about it because we are big fans but neither of us had been to a game in a long time. Unfortunately, the Orioles lost to the Yankees 5-3 (grrr! all those Yankee fans looked so smug!), but we still had a great time. Also unfortunately, I came SO FRICKIN CLOSE to nabbing a foul ball! I am not kidding! I was coming back from the bathroom, heading up the ramp to the seating area when this foul ball sailed right over my head. I assumed there'd be a mob of people going after it, so I kind of only half-heartedly turned around and went back inside the stadium. To my surprise, almost no one was looking for it except me and some kid. I was scanning the floor quickly, but we were right by a stadium entrance, so I started gazing outside the stadium, wondering if it had rolled out there. Then some guy walking by with his food stopped right next to me, squatted down, and picked up the ball that I had completely not seen!! Grrr, this was more frustrating than the Orioles losing I think! Oh well.

Anyway, our seats were under the club-level overhang, but they were field level and a pretty good view, including of the Oriole's dugout:

I got some pretty good pictures of my favorite players. Melvin Mora (notice everyone using the pink bats and armbands for Mother's Day and breast cancer awareness):

Adam Jones (heal quickly, Mr. Jones!):

Nick Markakis:

and of course Brian Roberts:

and more Brian Roberts:

and more Brian Roberts:

Ooh, and this was really cute - the Oriole bird's mom was there for Mother's Day!

And this was really funny: a few fans had these foam syringes that said "A-roids" in orange lettering. Get it? Haha! Here's the back of one of them here. The fans were waving them in the air whenever A-rod was up at bat, and the security person was asking this fan to knock it off, although the Coors Light guy appears to appreciate it!

The rest of my photos, including even more of Brian Roberts, can be viewed here.

Incest

2009-05-14T13:10:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I think that I surprised some people when I stated that incestuous marriages should be legal. Well...yes, I am THAT liberal! This is in line with two of my beliefs about marriage: (1) as long as U.S. government has created the benefits-attached institution of civil marriage, all adult citizens should be eligible to enter into this legal contract with whichever consenting adult they love most and to whom they desire to make a lifelong commitment; and (2) marriage is not necessarily about procreation. This is why our nation allows marriage between people who are sterile, genetically defective, child abusers, or have no desire to create or adopt children.

Connie, I haven't checked out the links you provided, because frankly, it doesn't matter what the risks are for siblings, cousins, parent-child, etc. having children (although I think the risks are lower than many people think). But it doesn't matter! For what it's worth, the MD/PA couple in the Post article I mentioned explicitly stated that they did not intend to have children. But the fact is, they are planning to spend their lives together no matter what the government says, so why can't the government just go ahead and make their union a civil marriage? To do that would NOT mean that our government "condones incest". Divorce and adultery are legal, but does that mean that our government condones them? I hope not!!

Regarding the "propensity for power abuses" that might occur if a father marries a daughter: unfortunately, the notion of an older, more powerful man forcing a minor or much younger woman to marry him and making it appear consensual (when it is really brainwashing) is already a problem (remember the Texas cult compound thing? Although I don't think those were legal marriages). It's awful, and it needs to be prevented, but I don't think allowing incestuous marriages will increase these occurrences, especially if we redouble our efforts to prevent domestic violence and abuse again women. We should be ensuring that ALL relationships, not just marriage, are consensual and free from abuse.

Anyway, my take-home point is that our society would be better in multiple ways if the legal contract of civil marriage accommodated ALL couples who desire a life-long commitment to each other, as long as these relationships are between consenting adults.

Yet another reason to legalize same-sex marriage

2009-05-13T15:24:00.002-05:00

Check out this NY Times blog post on hospital visitation woes. Ridiculous. Is this stuff really happening in the U.S.? Our nation is becoming more progressive, but it is happening too slowly for my liking! But it is happening - on a happier note, the NY assembly voted to legalize same-sex marriage today. The "yes" votes included five republicans and several people who had voted "no" on a similar bill two years ago. "Flip-flopping" can be good - in fact, I find it admirable that these representatives listened to their constituents and their consciences.

The Plasticity of Gender...

2009-05-12T16:31:00.002-05:00

...is yet another reason why outlawing civil gay marriage is stupid. Since my interest and passion for equal rights issues began, I had always wondered about the legality of transgendered marriages. This NY Times Op-Ed piece nicely lays out the confusing quagmire of legally defining gender. The inconsistencies among states is so silly. It seems to me that things would be so much simpler - not to mention fairer - if both our state and national governments would legally recognize marriages between any two consenting adults (more than two might be too problematic for the current laws to accommodate, but perhaps some day). In terms of marriage as a legal contract (which is all that a civil marriage is), the gender of those consenting adults is mutable, unimportant, and irrelevant. On a related subject, the relationship between those adults is also unimportant and irrelevant. People should be allowed to marry their sibling, cousin, etc. Just because some people think it's gross, immoral, or whatever doesn't mean it should be illegal!

The Art of Chris Jordan

2009-05-12T10:44:00.002-05:00

I heard about this artist from my weekly DISCCRS e-mail. I sometimes have trouble appreciating art, but these are works that are both beautiful and make a powerful statement. Check out his recent work Gyre, and make sure you scroll all the way down to see the enlargements of the work. Note that this piece was created with 2.4 million pieces of plastic collected from the Pacific Ocean, equal to the number of POUNDS of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans EVERY HOUR. Also scroll down to see Shark Teeth and Tuna. Lastly, check out some of his earlier work here, including Oil Barrels. Wow.

Remembering Grandma

2009-05-10T20:35:00.003-05:00

I meant to post a tribute to my Grandma a few weeks ago, although this would also be appropriate for Mother's Day! April 11, 2009 was 5 years since Grandma passed away on an Easter Sunday. I still miss her so much. She was such a warmhearted, generous, enthusiastic, loving woman who was so full of life and so happily involved in her family members' lives right up until the very end. She died just a couple weeks before my cousin's wedding, but I'm sure she was there in spirit. The above photo is her at my graduation from Ohio Wesleyan in May 2001. She and I shared a love of nature, the outdoors, and traveling, and I'm now getting more into her other two favorite hobbies of gardening and cooking. When I was in college and grad school she would send me letters carefully typed out using her trusty typewriter. They would often end with "work work work, study study study!" I could tell she was proud of the hard work I did, and I dedicated my dissertation to her memory. It was partly because of her generosity that I was able to go to the Galapagos in college; go to Iceland, Argentina, Chile, and Ireland in early grad school; and buy a house last year. Some of my happiest memories are family dinners and picnics at Grandma's house and trips with Grandma to Sanibel Island. When she died, we all ended up with so many things from her and her house that are constant reminders of those happy times. The cedar chest in my living room, the bottle of marbles in my kitchen, the quilt in my bedroom...all of this makes me think of you, Grandma, and how much I miss you! Hopefully some day I'll be as wonderful a grandma as she was.

Highlighted in today's Nature

2009-05-07T09:53:00.007-05:00

This is good to hear. What would be the point of us ecologists and biologists doing what we do if that work would not be used in decision-making?

Obama revokes endangered species rule

Oh whoops I just realized you need an account to read this article. In a nutshell, there was a rule that loggers, developers, and the like did not need to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service experts before they altered habitat. Now that the rule has been revoked, such activities need to be approved by wildlife biologists to ensure that any federally listed species are not being harmed. I know what some of you skeptics are thinking. But it's not just about saving cute spotted owls. It's about preserving and maintaining ecosystem services, something that I'm developing a course about (it's gonna be awesome!). But that's for another blog post!

More Victories...

2009-05-06T14:53:00.006-05:00

...in Maine and D.C. On a related note, around tax day I was listening The Story and they were interviewing a man named Clark Williams from California who is married with one daughter. According to Williams, his family paid $7000 extra in federal taxes this year due to the fact that their marriage is not recognized by the U.S. government. Last year it was $8000 extra. Williams says in the interview: "That's a lot of money to our family...it seems a violation of everything I love about our country". It seems so incredibly unfair. I actually admire Williams' honesty. If it were me, I'd probably just lie to the feds about my gender so I could file jointly with my spouse! Ridiculous. I sincerely hope that some day soon not only will states recognize such marriages, but our federal government will as well.

Backpacking last weekend

2009-05-02T12:09:00.006-05:00

Last weekend I went backpacking for the first time in almost 5 years. Since moving here almost a year ago, I have barely stepped outside the Raleigh/Durham area to see the rest of NC, and so this trip to Pisgah National Forest was a great chance to see the mountains in the western part of the state. The trip was led by two Duke seniors who are part of an organization called Project WILD. This trip was a fundraiser for their program for high schoolers called "Step Into the Wild". On Friday April 24, we started out from Sam Knob (sort of near the center of this map) and hiked to a campsite near Devil's Courthouse, which is where this picture was taken:

I don't remember the exact route we took on Saturday, but we ended up near Shining Rock. This picture doesn't really do Shining Rock justice - it's a beautiful, large outcropping of snow-white quartz with granite intrusions (look at me trying to sound like I'm a geologist):

Even though it had been so long since I went backpacking, I think I did pretty well w/ carrying a pack, though I think mine was a lot lighter than our leaders' packs.

Overall, it was a great trip, and I'm really glad I decided to go and that grading could wait! We had absolutely perfect weather, and thus the many scenic mountainous views were especially gorgeous - see the rest of my photos (plus a couple from other trip participants) here.

Welcome Senator Specter

2009-04-29T08:14:00.002-05:00

As a resident of PA, I always thought that Arlen Specter was not that bad for a Republican, but maybe that was because PA's other senator was that wacko Rick Santorum - thank goodness he's gone! Anyway, welcome to the left, Senator Specter!

New Relative

2009-04-21T15:02:00.004-05:00

My cousins Gail and Mike have videos and pictures of their new son Adam on their Facebook pages, so hopefully that means they won't mind if I post a photo of the little guy here on my blog:

What a cutie he is and how exciting it is to have a new addition to the (extended) family! Our family is pretty small, and Gail is the first one in our generation to have a kid, so even though Adam is technically "only" my first-cousin-once-removed (right?) I think it's a big deal! I feel like an aunt (but Alicia, feel free to make me a real aunt anytime!). Yay babies!

Selfish Thief

2009-04-20T08:14:00.002-05:00

In my previous post I sort of rhetorically threw out there the idea of calling Sarah Palin a "heartless thief" for her political desire to take away a woman's right to choose. However, after reading this column, I think "selfish thief" is a better description. As Marcus writes "Abortion is a personal issue and a personal choice. The government has no business taking that difficult decision away from those who must live with the consequences." How dare Palin assume that the choices she made are the right ones for every woman out there, or that we don't deserve to have available to us the choices that were available to her. But maybe, just maybe, she'll reflect further on how fortunate she was to have such choices, and Sarah Palin the Politican will see the light. More broadly, I hope everyone with the political power and desire to one day govern my uterus will see the light and finally understand.

Strong Words for the World

2009-04-16T08:30:00.002-05:00

Given the comments on my last post, I need to get some things straight here. I am afraid I am coming across as someone who is brash, thoughtless, and full of liberal anger to spew. Although I am a liberal and I am angry at times (who wouldn't be?) the rest of this could not be further from the truth.

I am an intelligent, thoughtful, and fair woman who tries to stay informed as best she can. Of course I do not know Sarah Palin or any politician personally. All I know is how she portrays herself as a political figure through her words and actions. I try not to let the "spin" of the "liberal media" influence my interpretation of those words and actions. I try to think for myself before I form an opinion, and especially before I post that opinion for the entire world to read. Yes, CG, you're right when you say "for all we know, Barak Obama is a homophobe asshole while Palin enjoys the friendship of homosexuals". But we don't know that. What we do know is that Sarah Palin expressed her support to amend the United States Constitution to unjustifiably single out one group of Americans and put them at a disadvantage (and Obama has made it clear that his administration DOES NOT support such an amendment). To me, the idea of such an amendment is scary almost beyond words, and thus, in my attempt to come up with strong words to express my strong opinion, I arrived at "homophobic bitch". Again, these words are not describing Sarah Palin the mother/wife/daughter/grandmother/person, as I do not know that Sarah Palin - they are describing Sarah Palin, the former candidate for Vice President of the U.S. Maybe "bitch" is inaccurate, as I use it to describe exceedingly mean people, and what she had given support for is more scary than it is mean. So maybe I should have said "homophobic monster" to describe a powerful (or potentially powerful) politician who seeks to amend our U.S. CONSTITUTION to put same-sex couples at a permanent disadvantage throughout the supposed "Land of the Free". Are you going to attack me with silly comments if I use "ignorant clod" to describe Palin's denigration of and desire to cut funding for the biological sciences? Or "heartless thief" to describe her desire to take away my right to choose abortion? Would it make you feel better if I called Obama an ignorant greenie-wannabe for supporting ethanol as an alternative fuel (his advisors aren't ignorant, and hopefully they'll change his mind)?

I shouldn't go on and on about Palin, because, thank goodness, she's back in Alaska for now, so her damage is relatively confined and we have other things to worry about. But I think the media's portrayal of her and my response to that portrayal provides a good example of what I'm talking about here - how some of us liberals can, indeed, think for ourselves:

~ Attack on Palin #1 - the Katie Couric interview and other gaffes. Yes, it was fun to make fun of, and yes, some of us took it as an indication that Palin doesn't know what she's talking about. But I think she completely redeemed herself by later speeches, especially in the VP debate, in which I thought she was very well-spoken. I just disagreed with everything she spoke about!
~ Attack on Palin #2 - her daughter is a teen mother. So? Our nation has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed nation, so it's to be expected that this happens even to families like Palin's. Yes, I disagree with the way that Palin wants to spend my tax dollars educating America's youth about sex, but this is based on data, not Palin's daughter.
~ Attack on Palin #3 - the expensive clothes. If I was her, I would do the same thing - allowing the RNC to fund my campaign wardrobe. When in the spotlight so much, it's important for politicians to look nice, especially when their platform is so horrible that they may need to rely on their good looks to get votes :)

Although here's an attack I kind of agreed with:

~ Attack on Palin #4 - on a visit to NC (and maybe there were others too?) she said something like (I'm not getting this exactly right) "It's nice to be here among REAL Americans, folks who care about our country". The point was, it seemed like she was implying that Obama supporters were not "real" Americans and do not care about our country. This is one case where I can understand why people initially called her a "bitch". It was a bitchy thing to imply, and I don't think her follow up statement (not really an apology) really cleared this up. Still, though, there were lots of bitchy things flying around during this campaign, by both sides.

The point is, there are people of both political parties who do indeed think for themselves (and there are way too many who don't). I try to look at an issue or a political candidate as a whole package - everything or everyone has positives and negatives. The only positive I could think of for Palin was her interest in supporting "special needs" children, but even this "positive" was negated by her stance against genetic research that could potentially help special needs people (which I understand is a result of her ignorance, so is partially excusable) and her running mate's stance against improved family leave and childcare policies. We liberals were angry and frustrated after the last 8 years, and the thought of at least 4 more years of the same was, at times, terrifying and depressing. Let me call Sarah Palin a homophobic, right-wing bitch in peace, and I'll let you call Obama a tax-and-spend, baby-killing terrorist. We'll both feel better! :)

More on Gay Rights

2009-04-09T19:48:00.007-05:00

CG, your ignorance on GLBT issues is showing through your comments. It sounds like you need to educate yourself. My blog is not enough - check out Pam's House Blend (link on the left sidebar) and http://www.hrc.org.

Keep in mind, CG, that the Human Rights Campaign endorsed Obama because even though he doesn't support federal gay marriage, at least he supports civil unions and other pro-gay issues (anti-discrimination legislation, etc - see here). Obama was the only Presidential candiate I know of who specifically referenced his concern for his "gay brothers and sisters" in his speeches. I don't know about McCain, but Palin is indeed a homophobic bitch...remember this? And this? Those right-wing, Christian conservative, Jerry Fawell types are all alike - to them homosexuality is still a sickness, a disease, and God doesn't love them because of it! WTF? This attitude has got to stop, and I would think even YOU would agree with this since I assume you want your precious Republican party to make a comeback! A platform based on "anti-gay" will no longer be sustainable - you GOPs will have to find another way to bring your voters to the polls. I'm sure this is what the Log Cabin republicans have been trying to say for years.

D.C. to Recognize Gay Marriage

2009-04-07T12:24:00.002-05:00

I have GOT to stop reading the newspaper & blogging and GET BACK TO WORK, but there is just so much exciting news. From the Washington Post:

D.C. Council Votes to Recognize Other States' Gay Marriages

The decision was unanimous. Focus on the Family, your agenda is going DOWN like the Titanic! Take THAT, Christian Right!

From the New York Times...

2009-04-07T12:13:00.000-05:00

"Vice President Joe Biden, who threw the ceremonial first pitch, had better control" than C.C. Sebathia! Great article.

One State at a Time

2009-04-07T12:04:00.001-05:00

I told you (April 3 post)! Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage.

Orioles Home Opener

2009-04-07T06:27:00.001-05:00

Baseball season has begun! The Phillies fell to the Braves on Sunday, but the Orioles figured out CC Sebathia:

Visitor

2009-04-04T11:08:00.008-05:00

Today's an absolutely gorgeous day, and so I let Madeline outside where she and Pudding (the cat next door) are sitting in their respective yards having a nice, peaceful staring contest. But I am keeping a careful eye on them and the backyards just in case our furry visitor from yesterday decides to return. So when I got home from work on Friday afternoon, Madeline was yowling to go outside, but because it was windy, she was yowling to come back inside after just a few minutes (wind makes her undecided). I was in a good mood, so I indulged her, letting her in and out, in and out. I was grading a paper in the living room and heard her meowing on the deck, but I wanted to reach a stopping point, so I didn't come right away. When I did, I saw that she wasn't meowing to come back inside, but rather she was fixated on something in the yard. I was expected a neighborhood cat, but instead it was a possum with at least three babies! Luckily I grabbed Madeline just as she was making a move to bolt into the yard. I think possums are rather icky, but the possum was just ambling along in no hurry to leave my yard, so I went in and grabbed my camera. By the time I returned, it wasn't as close, but I still got some decent pictures.

This Canon PowerShot has a nice zoom for the money! See the babies?

The possum left my yard momentarily, slipping under the fence and actually leaving behind a baby in the process (who wandered just a bit before it finally scrambled under the fence after its mother). But then she came back, this time with the babies on her underside instead of back. They hung out by the fence for a while, before crossing my yard and heading over to Rachel's yard.