Archives for 2010

I’ve been trying to figure out what happened with Apple ceasing to make the Manhattan Declaration app available. I’ll be the first to say it isn’t a great app (I have it) but then again, neither was the Smurfs’ house building game, which I downloaded late one night thanks to a bout of insomnia. Neither app was offensive to me.

Seems to be that some activists lobbied Apple to have the Manhattan Declaration app removed because they found it offensive. For those who didn’t sign it, the Manhattan Declaration is an ecumenical statement of faith, “a call of Christian conscience” on three major points: life, marriage and, ironically, religious liberty.

Whether or not you could have signed the Manhattan Declaration itself, I’d recommend signing the petition to have the app reinstated. I just hope it doesn’t come to some sort of boycott. I really love my iPhone.

This is a very interesting article about the Pill. It describes how the Pill deceives women, in spite of being applauded as this great liberator. The author describes, rather factually, how the Pill denies women very concrete information about our cycles and how our bodies work. It deceives some women into thinking they have no physical problems with their cycle, when in fact the Pill merely masks symptoms, and any underlying physical problems remain. Finally, it gives women a false sense of confidence that their fertility will last forever. The good news is that many women are catching on to the deceit:

…[W]omen are half-consciously rebelling against the artificiality of the Pill’s regime. Removal from one’s true biological processes was more appealing in the Mad Men era, when machines were going to save the world and pills could fix everything, even the ennui of housewives. But for the wheatgrass-and-yoga generation, there’s something about taking a pill every day that’s insulting to one’s sense of self, as an accomplished, adult woman. “I feel like I’ve gotten a message over the years that the less I have to do with the nitty-gritty biological stuff of being a woman, the better, and that’s a weird message,” says Sophia, 35, who was on the Pill for fourteen years. “In my ninth-grade health class, I remember the teacher saying, ‘You can get pregnant any day of the month, so always use protection,’ and I kind of knew that wasn’t true, but because I was on the Pill, I never really cared about finding out the right answer. The Pill takes a certain knowledge away from you, and that knowledge is empowering.”

One weakness of the article is that it tries to say there are no physical side effects, which isn’t true, but then, this article is more about the cultural side of how the Pill affects women’s choices. Worth the (long) read, particularly when we have some public health nurses and doctors declaring the very best thing we can do is get every teenage girl on the Pill.

Apparently, having kids later in life increases stress levels. Funny: I thought having kids, period, might increase stress levels. What do I know, eh?

According to a new U.S. study, delayed marriage and childbearing lead to increased stress for men and women. Delaying marriage and having kids means that the biggest family demands often fall at the same time that career demands are great, especially among the well-educated, while it increases the chance one’s parents might start to have poor health and need help, before the children are fully grown. American moms are participating in the labour force at a greater rate, the study found, doing 22.6 hours of paid work on average in 2008, up from 18.8 in 1985. At the same time, mothers increased the time they spend on childcare to 13.9 hours a week from 8.4 in 1985, but housework time went to 17.4 hours from 20.4. They spent less time on self-care, too. Fathers have increased working hours from 35.7 in 1985 to 39.5 in 2008, and have upped the time they spend on childcare from 2.6 hours per week in 1985 to 7.8 hours today.

Phew, that’s a lot of numbers. Not sure it means as much as all that, but what the heck, let’s play along. Especially with the “less time spent on self-care” bit. Is this a fancy way of saying busy moms don’t have time to shave their legs as often as they’d like?

Also: Notice, if you will, the increase in the number of hours dads spend on childcare. Then look at their hours worked (at a job, I mean). Both are up. But we mostly worry about moms being overworked (this particular article being an exception to the general rule). Why?

The vote on Rod Bruinooge’s bill banning coerced abortion will be on December 15, I believe. Here’s some of us who support it:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yri-9bzbJg”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yri-9bzbJg]
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Update: There is a bunch of video clips here, and ideas on how to support the bill, too.

From Carleton University. For more information, click here.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYffo9dV8rI]

A nice letter to the editor from one Stephen Woodworth, the Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre. It’s a reasonable letter asking for discussion about abortion, but let me assure you, those who favour our abortion anytime status quo are chiselling him into the “anti-choice” side of the ledger as I type:

Because it is also, clearly, abusive.

CAIRO — Year after year, the 42-year-old Saudi surgeon remains single, against her will. Her father keeps turning down marriage proposals, and her hefty salary keeps going directly to his bank account.

The surgeon in the holy city of Medina knows her father, also her male guardian, is violating Islamic law by forcibly keeping her single, a practice known as “adhl.” So she has sued him in court, with questionable success.

Adhl cases reflect the many challenges facing single women in Saudi Arabia. But what has changed is that more women are now coming forward with their cases to the media and the law. Dozens of women have challenged their guardians in court over adhl, and one has even set up a Facebook group for victims of the practice.

Read the whole thing…

Canadian “justice”: Kill your disabled daughter, get life in prison for her murder, get full parole after less than 20 years.

VICTORIA — Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who killed his severely disabled daughter, has been granted full parole and will be home by Christmas, says his lawyer.

Jason Gratl says Latimer was granted full parole as of Dec. 6 at a hearing on Thursday.

Gratl says Latimer does not want to discuss the conditions of his release or his current emotional state.

The 57-year-old farmer was convicted of second-degree murder and given a life sentence for the 1993 death of his severely disabled daughter, Tracy.

He described the carbon monoxide poisoning of Tracy at his farm near Wilkie, Sask., as a mercy killing.

Latimer was released from prison in February 2008.

He has been spending five nights a week at the Victoria halfway house for the past two years, and two in his Victoria apartment.

I think this article probably sums up quite well what many women are feeling when they go for abortions.

That’s some scary survey, that is:

A new survey says that more than one in three South African men admit to having committed rape.

A study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to South Africa’s most populous city of Johannesburg, more than 37 per cent of men said they had raped a woman. Nearly 7 per cent of the 487 men surveyed said they had participated in a gang rape.

More than 51 per cent of the 511 women interviewed said they’d experienced violence from men, and 78 per cent of men said they’d committed violence against women.

A quarter of the women interviewed said they’d been raped, but the study says only one in 25 rapes are reported to police.

I don’t know how reliable this is. It’s possible the numbers are skewed for some reason, and that future surveys will provide some downward adjustment. I sure hope so. But still, that’s a lot of men who ADMIT to having raped a woman. How many more do it and shut up about it?