A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Somehow I missed the first volume of this manga series by Amy Reeder Hadley. This is a story of two girls. Penny, high-school student and clothing designer, has formed a club in her high school for girls only to learn how to recognize jerks and avoid dating them. She’s even developed a list of boys the girls shouldn’t date. All this is done under the guise of a geology club. Then there is Hannah, high-school student and model. She’s been charged by these barred guys to destroy the club so they can start dating again. She and Penny both seem to have a thing for Blake (a good looking guy) who is on the banned list.

Now Penny is dating currently dating a guy who is safe — Orion. Orion is also a student and an environmentalist and quite a bit clingy and needy. As an outside observer, I’d say Penny is in for a world of chaos and pain if she every breaks up with Orion because he has trouble written all over his insecurities and possessiveness.

Now Blake is another kettle of fish. He’s rich, smart, neurotic as all get out. He’s also got a slight problem with paint cans and signs — or at least we’re led to believe he does. I’m sure we’ll learn more about that in a later chapter of this story.

With the cast of the school play now listed. Hannah is playing Elizabeth to Blake’s Mr. Darcy while Penny is designing all the costumes. With all these prejudices, not to mention mountains of pride — there’s enough emotion running wild to cause havoc and mayhem without the fact that Blake now has a job in the costume shop that Penny designs for and works in and her aunt owns.

There’s many references to Pride and Prejudice and the parallels as well as the interweaving of the school play with the characters can’t help but echo the original story in modernized form. But then each manga is closer to an extended chapter than a finished story so we’ve got more reading to do to find out what happens to these people.

The drawing are realistic and as all good graphic work should adds considerably to the story. The moods and feelings of the characters are conveyed as much by the art as the words. The clothing on Penny is stunning as it should be since she’s the clothing designer and makes her own clothes.

The episode of Fool’s Gold is followed by a tutorial on line weight in drawing (worth the cost of the book is you’re interested in art). The tutorial is followed by Re-Play Vol. 2 a short story about love, loss, setting priorities.

We’re usually told that we get all the Vitamin-D we need from the sun. I’ve heard that 10-15 minutes a day in the sun is enough to give you your full daily requirements. However, now-a-days most of us avoid the sun and if we do go out we make sure to put on sunscreen and/or wear a hat. We worry about skin cancer and, since it is on the rise as atmospheric ozone decreases, it’s a legitimate worry.

You can also get Vitamin-D from dietary sources: fish (Salmon, Herring, Sardines, Mackerel), eggs (yolks), milk (fortified), cod liver oil, and probably some other food I’m just not remembering. Most of the times we just never think of Vitamin-D as being a problem.

It was recently brought to my attention that researchers have found a connection between Vitamin-D deficiency and pain. In a BBC New article, scientists found that low levels of Vitamin D, may contribute to chronic pain among women — since this finding is more prevalent among women they believe it may also be related to hormones. Lower levels of Vitamin-D are also linked to osteomalacia but they did not believe that accounted for the link to pain. Dr. Hyppönen said:

“Work was needed to evaluate whether vitamin D supplements could help prevent chronic pain.

In the meantime, she advised: “If I had chronic pain I would certainly check I was getting enough vitamin D.”

However, on the flip side, Kate Maclver of the Pain Research Institute cautioned:

“Taking too high a dose of Vitamin D supplements as a means of preventing or treating chronic pain could result in Vitamin D toxicity and high blood calcium levels.”

An earlier article on WebMD cited another study that also found a link between Vitamin D deficiency and chronic pain:

In a study involving 150 children and adults with unexplained muscle and bone pain, almost all were found to be vitamin D deficient; many were severely deficient with extremely low levels of vitamin D in their bodies.

About the reality of getting enough sun to satisfy your Vitamin D needs, it was stated:

The amount of sun exposure needed to get the proper dose of vitamin D depends on a person’s skin type, where they live, and time of year, and time of day the exposure occurs. Holick says it is difficult for people living in northern climates to get the vitamin D they need from the sun in the winter, but in the summer a light-skinned person at the beach should get all the vitamin D they need in about five minutes.

“The trick is getting just enough sun to satisfy your body’s vitamin D requirement, without damaging the skin,” he says. “It is difficult to believe that this kind of limited exposure significantly increases a person’s risk of skin cancer.”

A further study, Back Pain and Osteoporosis Special Report: The Bone-Protecting Benefits of Vitamin D in a Johns Hopkins Health Alert found the same relationship between Vitamin D deficiency and pain as the other studies. Again they talk about the difficulty of getting sufficient Vitamin D from sunshine:

When it comes to vitamin D, a few minutes in the sun is all you need, correct? Well, that depends. As it turns out, that is easier said than done for many of us. Draw a rough line across the country from San Francisco to Richmond, Virginia. If you live north of that line, it’s impossible to get enough sun exposure during the winter months to maintain adequate blood levels of vitamin D. And even during the summer, you may not be getting enough vitamin D. That’s especially true if you spend a great deal of time inside, out of the heat—or, ironically, if you’re particularly meticulous about using sunscreen, covering up, and seeking the shade when you’re outside.

Aging and racial background also affect vitamin D status. As we age, our skin doesn’t synthesize vitamin D as efficiently, and our kidneys are less able to convert vitamin D to its active hormone form. As for ethnicity, melanin—the pigment that gives skin its color—reduces the efficiency of vitamin D synthesis from sunlight; therefore dark-skinned individuals require even more sunlight to maintain adequate vitamin D levels.

Medscape Today in the article, Vitamin-D deficiency increases pain of knee OA by Zosia Chustecka from December 23, 2004 pretty had found the same connection as the previously mentioned more recent studies.

Vitamin-D deficiency has become a major health problem in the US, and all physicians should be alert to it, an editorial in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings cautioned last year [3]. It was prompted by a study that found most patients presenting with persistent nonspecific musculoskeletal pain were vitamin-D deficient, many severely so, as reported at the time by rheumawire. “The take-home message . . . is that when patients with nonspecific skeletomuscular pain are evaluated, their serum 25-hydroxyvitamin-D levels should be obtained,” says the editorialist, Dr Michael Holick (Boston University). “Physicians should discard the laboratory-reported lower limit of the normal range. A serum 25-hydroxyvitamin-D level of at least 20 ng/mL is necessary to minimally satisfy the body’s vitamin-D requirement. Maintenance of a serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D of 30 to 50 ng/mL is preferred.”

However, Chustecka also goes on to talk about the problem of measuring Vitamine-D level in clinical practice:

Laster cautions, however, that the assays used by different laboratories can show significant variability—for example, 1 commonly used lab assay (from Nichols) significantly underestimates the amount of vitamin D2 derived from dietary and pharmaceutical sources (while D3 is mainly derived from the action of ultraviolet light on the skin).

“I use a vitamin-D assay that accurately identifies both D2 and D3 components of 25-hydroxyvitamin D,” Laster tells rheumawire. “When a level below 30 ng/mL is identified, I recommend ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) 50 000 IU once a week for approximately 8 weeks. I then repeat a level. If it has normalized I then go on to 50 000 IU once or twice a month. If levels remain low, I evaluate for possible malabsorption, etc.”

Some practitioners recommend taking 800 IU of vitamin D each day and suggest taking 2 multivitamin tablets every day (many over-the-counter multivitamin products contain 400 IU vitamin D2). However, it has been pointed out that this also increases the dose of vitamin A, and higher levels of vitamin A have been associated with an increase in the risk of fractures, Laster comments. He adds: “What has not been proven, to my knowledge, however, is that supplementing vitamin D to therapeutic levels alleviates pain.”

So, it looks to me, a layperson with chronic pain from fibromyalgia, that maybe I need to get my Vitamin-D levels checked and should talk to my primary care physician during my next visit. But, in the meantime, I’m going to check the amount of Vitamin-D in my daily vitamin and maybe plan to spend just a bit of time each day doing yard work. That’s assuming I have enough spoons to get outside — even if it’s just to sit with a cup of tea. Sunshine may not be all that effective but who knows it may be a boost to the daily vitamin until I can find out if my Vitamin-D levels are deficient.

Hope springs eternal and all that….

According to a Scientific American article from September 12, 2008:

In fact, oil companies have yet to take advantage of the nearly 86 billion barrels of offshore oil in areas already available for leasing and development. So why are they chomping at the drill bit to open up the moratorium waters and survey them anew?

“Oil company stocks are valued in large part based on how much proved reserves they have,” says Robert Kaufman, an expert on world oil markets and director of Boston University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. Translation: just having more promising leases in hand would be worth billions of dollars.

As for reducing the price of oil:

Even by 2030, offshore drilling would not have a significant impact on oil prices, according to Martin, because oil prices are determined on the global market. “The amount of total production anticipated—around 200,000 barrels a day—would be less than 1 percent of the total projected international consumption.”

I found this even more interesting quote from Kaufman in the Scientific American article:

“At its peak in production, which occurred in 1970s, the U.S. produced about 10 million [barrels of oil] a day,” Kaufman says. “Now, after 30 years of fairly steady decline, we produce about five million barrels a day,” whereas we consume 20 million barrels daily. “Whoever talks about oil independence has to tell a story about how we close a 15-million-barrel gap.”

Not even all Republican’s are for off-shore drilling. I found this interesting quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger (Gov. of California) in a U.S. News article from Sept. 13, 2008:

Schwarzenegger was quick to acknowledge that the high cost of gasoline, which is selling for an average of $4.58 a gallon in the state, is taking a toll on California even more than other states. Recent national polls show as many as 67 percent of voters believe offshore drilling is a good solution. But Schwarzenegger today threw his support behind conservation and alternative fuels, instead. “We are in this situation because of our dependence on traditional petroleum-based oil,” Schwarzenegger said. “The direction our nation needs to go in, and where California is already headed, is toward greater innovation in new technologies and new fuel choices for consumers. That is the way we will ultimately reduce fuel costs and also protect our environment.”

What can I say but that I also believe that this is the direction that this country should be going in. Energy experts believe that we’ve pretty much achieved peak oil, meaning that the oil that we can get is no longer going to outpace demand no matter what we do. There will always be needs for oil and if we don’t reduce our dependence on oil and find alternatives for many of the oil-based products and uses that we have now we are going to run out. The only question is how much longer do we have. It’s also a given that as oil fields are emptied the places where we can get oil are going to require methods that are dirtier and harder on the environment than the present methods — and global warming is not going to get any less global or warm if we increase our pollution of the atmosphere.

Folks we need to find alternatives — no matter what the politicians say, there are no easy answers and off-shore drilling is not an answer at all. At best, it’s a way of making it sound like they’re doing something for us to reduce cost but it will only line the pockets of the oil companies and in the long run it is going to cost all of us citizens and people of the planet Earth big-time. We need to begin to look at alternatives and ways to reduce our reliance on oil.

I know everyone laughed when Obama suggested that every American keep his or her tires inflated to the proper level. Yeah, funny wasn’t it. However, it does increase your miles per gallon. Not a lot, true but if every car in American was running on tires that were properly inflated that little tiny bit for every car on the road can reduce the amount of gas used overall by a significant amount. It may not help you personally all that much; maybe a few dollars a week at the pump, but it helps the country. There are many other little things that can be done to help your mileage and if everyone did them it would help the country.

Why do we laugh? Because it’s not a single magic bullet? Probably. Most people want the problem taken care of without them having to do anything different. They want life to go on and all the problems to be fixed with no input or change in their own behavior. Sorry, life isn’t like that. It never was. You have to all work together.

So, I know you’re wondering what have I done. Well, we make sure that the car is empty (we don’t carry extra weight if we don’t have to). Our tires pressure is checked regularly, and we make sure we have tread on them too. We plan trips to work in a circle to reduce back and forth driving. During the week, my husband goes to work and stops at the post office and/or store on his way home as both are on his travel route. I work at home. Our weekend shopping includes in a loop: dropping off the recycling, stopping at the post office (if needed), getting groceries (two stores), and returning home. Occasionally, we add a stop or two on the loop if necessary. If a doctor visit is needed mid-week, we plan to take care of any other stops along that route so we don’t need to drive it again. We’ve been doing this for years and there really isn’t any way to reduce the number of miles traveled in a month. Twice a month we go to a social event and while we try to match that with other tasks, we often can’t but we don’t want to give up this group either (I mean we really need some fun in our lives too.) We also have a Honda and based on our calculations of number of gallons purchased versus number of miles driven — we get 28 miles per gallon and we don’t yet have a hybrid but we’re saving for one.

These are simple things that can be done. They’re simple things anyone can do. It takes advanced planning and may seem difficult at times but you get used to it and the planning gets easier and finally becomes second nature.

Just to recap the top of the post on oil drilling.  If drilling is allowed off the coast or in the refuge in Alaska:

1. The oil companies already own leases on millions of acres that they’ve never bothered to even look at.
2. Not one drop of oil could be produced for at least 10 years. The oil companies have admitted that they don’t have the equipment or crews to even start exploiting any new sites.
3. Once oil did start flowing, it would be years more until any appreciable flow could be retrieved.
4. The amount of oil extracted, even at peak, will be such a small percentage of the total world oil market that it will have no effect whatsoever on prices.
5. ANWR is estimated to contain 7 billion barrels of oil … total.  Since America consumes about 20 million barrels a day, that means Alaska has enough to supply the U.S. with oil for ONE year.
6. How much is offshore?  That’s unknown, but the guess is about 18 billion barrels.  Enough to supply the U.S. for two more years.
7. So will drilling make us self-sufficient.  Sure … for three years … maximum.
8. Will the oil be used to fuel America?  Maybe.  The oil pumped belongs to the oil companies.  They can sell it to whomever is willing to pay the highest price.  Maybe that’s the U.S., maybe it’s China.  That’ the beauty and terror of a free market.
9. So, who really benefits from new drilling?  The oil companies, and only the oil companies.
10. Oh, and who pays for clean up if the new drilling causes an ecological disaster?  The tax payers.

And what sets the price of oil?  Speculation (using the English definition, not the economic one).  Russia MIGHT cut off oil: Price goes up.  A hurricane MIGHT interfere with oil platforms in the gulf: Price goes up.  Iran MIGHT cause problems in the Gulf of Hormuz: Price goes up.  Things don’t really go wrong for a while: Price goes down … slowly.

Why isn’t the price of oil based on the cost of pumping it out of the ground, refining it, and transporting it?  Actually, I haven’t got a clue.  It’s all part of the consensual hallucination we call economics.  Why isn’t the price of a house based on the lumber, bricks, nails, etc that went into building it?   It’s all a mystery to me.  I think if anybody actually tried to make sense of the market, the whole thing would come crashing down on us.  We’re the emperor with a new set of clothes.  Heck, if I balanced my home accounts the way the Fortune 500 balances their books … I’d be in sent to jail.

Okay, finally the new external disk drive arrived.  Thankfully, it got here before everything blew up.  When it arrived I had only 1 GB of space left — everything was sooooo slow I was growing moss on my mouse.  But, once I got it plugged in and moved all the photos and electronic books to the external, I had 21 GB free and things were moving much faster (except for the expected slow down because I have some virus checking done every time I open files.  So, I’m happier and now I should be back on track with the blog and photos.

This months coffee cup is a Starbucks Blue Mug.  It was in all the Starbucks this summer but seems to be pretty thin on the ground when I was in Starbucks shops during the last few weeks.  I checked their website and they have a brown mug but not this blue one.  Luckily, I picked this one up this summer and saved it for September.  It’s perfect for hot chocolate, tea, coffee, or any warm drink.  I love the heft and feel of it.  The slight curve to the lip is really nice.  It’s very reminiscent of the old white mugs you used to get in diner — not that there’s that many old diners around anymore.  It has modern lines but with the comfortable feel and psychological comfort of the old diner mugs.  Also, it’s big enough so I don’t have to make repeated trips to the coffee machine when I’m working and holds heat fairly well — as well as any uninsulated cup anyway.  I like it.

Next, I said I was going to post a picture of my organized pantry area.  Last time I posted a picture, the shelves were nearly empty and everything was piled on my living room floor.  Well, now it’s all back in the pantry area including a lot of stuff that didn’t fit before.  Having the baskets helped because you can pile/load more into them than you can when lining things up on the shelves.  I also put things in the baskets by type so all the mixes, sweeteners, baking stuff, etc. are in one basket, all the soup and soup related stuff is in another, one is all spices, and another (on the floor) is all drinks, whether powder or bottle.  So now the hallway is navigable when going back to do the wash or to the bathroom, which is around the corner and out of sight (and is currently another new project but stalled as I try to figure out just how far I want to go with it — at first I thought just paint but now…I’m thinking, and that’s always dangerous.)

I’m thinking a curtain over the pantry might help disguise it and make the hallway (visible to anyone from the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room) look nicer.  But then you have to move it out of the way every time you want something there, and the number of times that would get done could make for a very dirty curtain very quickly unless it was a dark color and that would make the area too dark.  What do you think?

I’d decided to learn to knit socks on circulars so I could knit both socks at the same time.  I got a couple of books out of the library and looked online for some tutorials and finally cast on some yarn and started a pair of winter socks for wearing around the house when it gets cold instead of shoes.  Well, truthfully, I hardly ever wear shoes in the house anyway, but in winter my feet get cold, so nice warm socks are a must.

Anyway, it said in most sources to use a 40 inch needle, so that’s what I used, but I’m thinking of switching for a 60 inch if I don’t get the hang of moving the socks about when I change sides pretty soon.  Maybe just putting a marker between the edges so it’s easier to find when the circular gets sucked into the sock and I don’t have an end loop left when I finish the second sock before I turn to come back on the other side.  Otherwise, it’s not so hard once you get used to it.  The fact that I’m making both socks at the same time is wonderful, especially since I don’t have a pattern and these are sort of ad hoc — so now I can do the same thing to both socks without having to remember way back to when I did it on the first one (so far the whole note taking thing isn’t working out too well).

Once I finish increasing to the even knitting for the foot, I plan to do a tighter knit on the sole of the foot — I’m thinking knit on one row and knit 1, slip 1 on the other row — sort of what you do for the heel flap but for the entire bottom of the foot.  Hey, it’s worth a try to see how it comes out.  What I love about knitting is the wonderful way you always can have do overs when something goes wrong.

Speaking of things that need a do-over, the following is a political rant (I’m still upset) so move along if you’re avoiding such rants …. Really, I’m Democrat with extreme Liberal tendencies, so bail now if you offend easily.

I’m still in a snit over the political candidates for both parties.   This country can’t afford another term with a Republican in charge.  Especially, a Republican whose economic and foreign policies are nearly indistinguishable from the guy who got us into the mess we’re in in the first place.  And especially not with a Republican with a totally unqualified Veep who, based on her answers to the simplest of questions, just confirms my suspicions of her inability to do the job.  Heck, I’m more qualified than her and no one asked me to be Vice President.  I saw a YouTube video for an ad for Michael Palin for President — unfortunately he can’t run because he’s British, but they make a good case in a tongue and cheek way that he’d still be better.

I just want to vote FOR a president at some point in my life instead of voting against the lesser evil.  I’ve heard some people plan to vote Republican just because they figure if the country hits bottom people might finally wake up but just think of all the people who have to suffer first.  Why not try to do your best to help your country.   Look what fear has done to us over the last 8 years.  This just has to stop.  We need our Constitution and our Bill of Rights restored.  We need the checks and balances that our founding fathers put in place in the beginning of this nation restored so that we can move forward into the future and not backward into darkness.

[Hyperion here:] And it would be nice to have a V.P. that was capable of understanding elementary school level science.

I get spam.  I get lots of spam.  Spam, spam, not beautiful spam.  And it’s too bad because the real spam, the kind that comes in a can, isn’t bad.  When I was a poor struggling student, I ate spam a lot (and not the script for the play either).  I had spam sandwiches, spam and eggs, spam disguised as ham with cloves in it, fried spam, and scrambled spam.  It was cheap, filled you up, and with enough spice and imagination tasted pretty good considering the alternative was mac & cheese again.  So, email spam gives spam a bad connotation.  I get lots of spam and after awhile, when you’re scanning through the Junk folder before deleting — you occasionally notice trends.

Does anyone actually buy into the belief that their email address won them money in a lottery they never entered? Really, if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.
• Come on really, if you want me to click on you to find out how much trouble I’m in for sending a Western Union money order for several thousands of dollars to an organization that Homeland Security has flagged as a “bad group” and now I need to turn myself in or click on this link, shouldn’t you also know that I don’t have thousands of dollars to send to anyone? If it was a buck fifty maybe but more than that — give me a break. I might give to a valid charity but to some nameless organization — no way. No click. And, a good chuckle. Nice try in this day and age of heightened paranoia. Wonder how many will click before they remember they’ve never used Western Union to send money.
• Does any really believe the IRS would send you email — for anything? I mean this is the organization that charges you to file electronically, in order to save them money. Yeah, it saves them money because you pay extra to file that way — bonus time.
• Like I would trust anyone who sends me unsolicited email asking them to help me get out of debt. If I had a problem with debt, I’d start by talking to my bank, credit union, or a financial adviser and NOT some organization who sends spam.
• I’ve noticed that I’m still getting hundreds of spam a day letting me know that they can help me be more of a man and get my many-euphemism-to-get-past-spam-filters-tool bigger, harder, and better. Too bad, I’m a woman and your targeted email is to a totally inappropriate demographic.
• Along the same lines of getting bigger, harder, etc., etc., and so forth. What’s with all the references to violence? Do men really thing women are impressed by men who treat them as sex toys and that all women want to be abused? Hint: That’s a big NO. Excepting a very, very, very, small minority who may be into BDSM, no one wants to be hurt — ever, no way. If you’re a man that believes these ads, please get help. If you learn to respect women you might actually find it works better than these spam ads.
• I have to wonder about congress — they keep turning down legislation to create a Can Spam that works like the Do Not Call list. Are they really clueless enough to believe that anyone wants this garbage delivered to their inbox. We should have to Opt In, not Opt Out guys. Get a clue, please.
• And enough with the watches and designer thingies. If I wanted this stuff, I’d buy it from those carts on the side of the streets in the cities. I won’t buy it from spam. Sorry but if you send me spam, you’re obviously not a company, person, or service that I want to deal with.

Maybe some day, I’ll open my email and find only letters from people, companies, and services, that I’ve opted to receive email from. Won’t that be nice?

I’d thought about writing something on this topic, but hadn’t really figured out what I wanted to say, when I found this article on Numbers on Teen Pregnancy as a Freakonomics NY Times Opinion piece (here’s the Freakonomincs NY Times blog).  I found the statistics on teen pregnancies interesting:

High teen pregnancy rates remain a serious problem in the U.S. Although they have declined since they peaked in 1990, rates are still twice as high as in Canada or England, and eight times as high as in the Netherlands or in Japan.

These international differences are due to low contraceptive use in the U.S.; most of the recent decline in teen pregnancy in the U.S. is due to more consistent use of birth control, although teens are also waiting longer to have sex than in the past. In 1995, almost 20 percent of girls had sex by age 17, compared to 15 percent in 2002.

Notice that the drop in pregnancies among teens has two components — more consistent use of birth control and teen waiting longer to have sex.  As to the first, it’s mighty difficult for teens to consistently use birth control when the sex education in our American school systems is mainly about abstinence. We currently have a shinning example of how well that works to lower teen pregnancy with the recent announcement of the pregnancy of the teenage daughter of the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee.  Palin espouses the party line of abstinence-only sex education and pairs it with absolutely no choice even for rape or incest.   Obviously, abstinence education didn’t work in this case, as it hasn’t worked for many other teens.  For Palin’s daughter, I’d hope that the future will not look as bleak as for most teenage mothers.  Again from the article:

…on average, teen pregnancies are more likely to result in premature births and low-birth-weight babies. This is not a good start in life. Babies with a low birth weight are more likely to have A.D.H.D. and are less likely to graduate from high school.

Teen moms are less likely than other women to attend or complete college, and their marriages are more likely to end in divorce; about 50 percent of women who married younger than age 18 are divorced after 10 years, compared to 20 percent of women who married at age 25 or older. In turn, single mothers have the highest poverty rates of any demographic group, and 60 percent of the U.S.-born children in mother-only families are poor.

Being a teenage mother, whether married to the father of the child or not, is a bad spot to be in. It’s not all roses and happy times. It’s mainly lots of work: studying for school, working to pay childcare, rent, food, and all the other assorted expenses of being on your own, and find the time and energy to actually spend time with the child, do the laundry, cook meals, study, and, oh yes, sleep.

How do I know? Been there. Done that. Came out okay with a child that I’m very proud of, a college degree, and I’m sure lots of bad decisions and good ones — but all ones I thought I had to make at the time.  How did I end up pregnant? Well, I know it seems strange, but my total sex education was a small six page booklet on menstruation along with the wisdom that only married women get pregnant.  Of course, this was in the dark ages — forty years ago now.  So this has been a perennial problem and it has never worked to stop teens from having sex by telling them to abstain or leaving them ignorant of what sex is and how one actually gets pregnant — (hint, a marriage license has absolutely no effect on the sperm and the egg getting together).

What does work in helping to reduce teen pregnancy?  Truth.  Unvarnished truth about how one gets pregnant, what those teenage hormones feel like, that love and hormones are indeed hard to tell apart but mostly it’s hormones at that age, and that if you are going to have sex, protect yourself and good solid information on how to do that.  Anything else is just leaving young people vulnerable to their hormones and if you don’t remember what that was like when you were a teen, you shouldn’t have any say over what to tell teens about sex.   Abstinence may work, but only if the teens have all the information about what is happening in their body and can make informed decisions.  Since many teens are not going to abstain, there must also be information and access to birth control.

If the Republicans want to stick their heads in the sand about these problems, then the least they can do is also set aside money for free child care, free health care, education assistance, and financial assistant to unwed teenage (and older) single parents.  But, wait…this is the party that is also cutting back on all these programs.  It seems the family values party doesn’t have any concern for families unless they meet strict definitions of what they consider a family and those families are all rich and don’t need any help.  And the Pro-Life policy would be better labeled Pro-Birth, because once the child is born, they no longer care about it until its old enough to vote.

Teenage pregnancy is a real problem for the people involved and for the country as a whole and ignoring it and placing the blame on the teens does nothing to rectify the problem or help to solve it.  I wish Ms. Palin good luck with the child she’s about to have and the marriage she’s about to undertake.  She has a better chance at success than many girls who find themselves in her position, but then she’s not typical.   Hopefully, her being in the limelight; after all it’s her mother who is the candidate, will not cause other teens to follow in her footsteps because she’s an outlier on the curve, not the norm (but I forgot Republicans don’t care that much for science either).

Note: On Where Did I Come From?  I found this book to be a great beginning in opening up discussion with children about sex and where babies come from.  It’s informative, funny, and straightforward.  If you’re looking for a way to broach the subject to young children who are asking — give this book a try.

Not much to say.  The zines went live yesterday.  So if you go to SFRevu or Gumshoe Review, you’ll find the new September issues are now up and live.  This month SFRevu has an interview with Joe Abercrombie, the author of The Last Argument of Kings. In Gumshoe, we’ve got an interview with Sheila Lowe, author of Written in Blood.  If you enjoy science fiction and fantasy or mystery, check them out.

In other news, my harddrive is full and I can’t download my photos to get them uploaded to my site.  I’ve ordered an external harddrive but it hasn’t gotten here yet so I’m feeling bereft of photos.  As soon as I get it and get connected, I’ll get up a photo of my September coffee cup, my new sock project, and the totally finished and organized pantry shelves.  Bet you can hardly wait on that one.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the final few items to finish up a website project.  Ran into a few wrinkles, but when don’t you, when designing and setting up a website for someone else.  But, it’s coming along nicely and I hope to finish it before too much longer.

I’ve also bookmarked some interesting articles on science topics that I hope to turn into blog posts as soon as I get a chance to read the articles and then look for the original source material and check some collateral material as well.  Then there’s my TBR (To Be Read) pile to starting getting whittled down for the October issue of the zines.

Moles and Trolls.  Work, work, work, work, work….