Liz's Bloglet - Monday 2 February 2004

Last night, and again today at noon, I heard Joan Roughgarden speak. Although she is primarily known as a lizard ecologist, her current work is focused on a radical change in our evolutionary understanding of gender and sex. Contemporary understanding has changed very little since Darwin's coinage of the term "sexual selection": sexual relations are for the distribution of sperm, sperm are cheap and eggs are expensive so agressive males compete to win the right to mate with coy females, good genes are demonstrated by flashy plumage/bulging muscles and the flashiest/bulgiest gets to mate with the female.
Dr. Roughgarden's argument is that this is an oversimplification in most cases and simply wrong in others. Non-reproductive sex, both between and among male and females, occurs far too often in animals for sex to be thought of as merely procreative. In many species one or both genders have multiple strategies for attracting a mate. Very little research has been done to see if the beauty of the peacock's tail actually matters to the peahen.
She proposes changing the name of the theory from "sexual selection" to "social selection" reflecting her theory that fancy plumage and same-sex relations have a lot more to do with group hierarchy (which in turn could indirectly affect reproductive success). She also makes the point that very few evolutionary ecologists ever consider alternative hypotheses in these sorts of studies--for instance, they monitor changes in behavior of females when a male's tail feathers are trimmed but do not check to see if there are similar changes in the behavior of other males.
I don't know enough about this stuff to say much beyond I find it a fascinating idea, she's brave to propose a new theory, and I look forward to the studies examining her theory. _
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03:25:01 PM, Monday 2 February 2004

When I was in the Maryland Conservation Corps, we once spent a day helping the Earth Conservation Corps remove a tire dump from the Anacostia River. I wish that I had known their story then. _
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09:39:19 AM, Saturday 31 January 2004

Perhaps you heard on the news that UGA's admissions server was exploited for quite awhile by some nice folks who seem to have availed themselves of over 30,000 Social Security and credit card numbers. Perhaps you recalled that I recently applied to UGA. Perhaps you wondered, as I did, if my Social Security and credit card numbers were now available on LizsSocialSecurityandCreditCardNumbers.com. Today they finally managed to mention in one of the stories that the grad school admissions were on a different system. So, that's good for me. _
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09:55:19 AM, Friday 30 January 2004

Margaret Cho rocks. That is all. _
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09:42:27 AM, Friday 30 January 2004

I know that there are those among us looking for jobs. I got an email about this place today, and, if they're reputable, it seems like a decent temporary job for a Johnny. You are passionate about reading, right? _
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01:02:19 PM, Wednesday 28 January 2004

It's not over yet. 100,000 people caucused in Iowa. 200,000 people voted in New Hampshire. Almost all of them were white. Letting 300,000 white people decide who the Democratic nominee is for the rest of us sounds very Republican. So let's be Democrats and at least wait until next Tuesday, or preferably March 2, please? _
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09:48:33 AM, Wednesday 28 January 2004

I know Erika already linked to it, but it bears a double-link:

The doctor who performed my termination talks about the women he has helped through the years -- the pregnant woman who was diagnosed with metastic melanoma and needed immediate chemotherapy, the woman who was carrying conjoined twins that had only one set of lungs and one heart, the woman whose baby had a three-chambered heart and would never live. Now, he is turning these women away. "Now, today, I can say no, but what is she going to do?" he says sadly. "What is she going to do?" _
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09:50:13 PM, Monday 26 January 2004

FORTIS SUCKS Until we manage to get a Democrat elected and get some sort of sane management of healthcare in this country, it's up to us to watch out for each other. I recently switched from university health insurance through MegaLife to insurance bought through my regular insurance company, USAA, but issued by Fortis. I did this because it saved me almost $600/year. This has turned out to be a gigantic mistake. Fortis' coverage is really bad, even compared to MegaLife. But it goes beyond that. During the past month, I had to go to the doctor three times and have a number of tests and a chest x-ray, because I got a cold, and then I got sicker. I submitted all of those expenses to Fortis, to go towards my deductible. After the first two visits, I got letters stating that those expenses had been put towards my deductible. Today, I got the letter for the third visit, which included a note that said that any further expenses would cause Fortis to investigate to determine if I had not disclosed to them a preexisting condition. I had a cold. I went to the doctor. I got a bunch of drugs (which they don't pay for anyway). I paid less than $200 towards a $500 deductible. They have yet to pay anything to anybody for me. And if I go to the doctor again, these people are going to investigate me. I called them and they told me that all of this is routine. I have had health insurance all of my life, except for the 3 months immediately after graduating from college. I have never once received a letter threatening to investigate me if I go to the doctor.

DO NOT BUY INSURANCE FROM FORTIS _
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12:01:42 PM, Monday 26 January 2004

The rest of you get nice, pretty snow. But, oh no, not Georgia--we get up to an inch of solid ice. _
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07:20:59 AM, Monday 26 January 2004

In a six degrees of separation sort of thing (or possibly I need more sleep), I followed a link from Oliver Willis that led to a blog from Georgia that led to a group of Georgia bloggers one of whom linked to a college friend of hers who is now very active in Unitarian Universalism who linked to a book written by my high school Sunday School teacher. _
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07:31:11 AM, Sunday 25 January 2004

State of the Union tonight. Should we
A)Drink everytime he misspeaks?
B)Drink everytime he lies?
C)Drink everytime it occurs to us just how screwed up the country is and how much we need a drink? _
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09:38:08 AM, Tuesday 20 January 2004

I would like to invite Laura, should she see this, to say something about caucusing, because I've never done it and I'm pretty curious about the whole thing. _
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09:57:20 AM, Monday 19 January 2004

They showed American Splendor on campus this weekend, in preparation for Harvey Pekar's visit tomorrow. I admit it is a very hard movie to explain, but now I really do understand why people talked about it so much--it's definitely in the top 5 for 2003. The different types of scene worked perfectly, the writing was tremendous, and it just invoked mood in a way that few movies do. Remi pointed out that it's sort of similar in that way to Ghost World. (It's obviously similar to Ghost World in lots of more basic ways, as well).

The scene that really got me was when Harvey runs into some woman he knew from college in a bakery. She asks him why he dropped out and talks about all the things she's heard about him since then. He tells her that his life is pretty sad and lonely, really, that he listens to records and reads a lot of books. He asks about her, and she says that she's a wife and mother. She probably was very happy about that up until she started talking to Harvey, but he saw the misery in her, the way he saw it in everything, and she admits that she misses reading books. They go their separate ways, but Harvey has given her the gift of misery. _
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09:52:40 AM, Monday 19 January 2004

To aid the raging discussion of the word bug on Sarah's Jungian thread, I give you The Tree of Life, a beautiful collaborative project to teach about taxonomy (classifying stuff) and phylogeny (what stuff evolved from what other stuff). _
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10:22:46 AM, Wednesday 14 January 2004

What are we teaching our sons? An amazing group of men working against rape. _
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10:21:21 AM, Sunday 11 January 2004

The link was a little dry for my taste, but this Metafilter discussion about marginalia is pretty amusing. I would think you'd have to be a pretty brilliant and strange Johnny to never underline or write a comment in a Program book. _
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03:54:56 AM, Saturday 10 January 2004

Why, you may ask, am I blogging at 3 in the morning? I think that they have finally given me so many drugs that their benefit is completely eliminated by the fact that what I really need in order to be healthy is to sleep, not blog, at 3 in the morning. _
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03:27:57 AM, Saturday 10 January 2004

How many of you currently have/have had the cold-turning-into-sinus-infection-and-bronchitis thing? It seems to be very trendy this year. _
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06:27:55 PM, Sunday 4 January 2004

Eureka Springs is a very nice place. Remi and I spent the past two nights in the castle, which was extremely fun. I'm not feeling well and starting to panic about my recommenders not getting their stuff into Duke by 5 tomorrow, but, otherwise, lovely trip. _
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04:28:50 PM, Tuesday 30 December 2004

The NPR Ombudsman just came on and said he only got negative mail about the special Saddam-is-captured broadcast. His conclusion was not that their coverage sucked, or was simply dull and annoying, but that NPR listeners are stupid and didn't recognize how high quality it was. _
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09:39:43 AM, Sunday 21 December 2003

We were watching Firefly last night and we made it to "Jaynestown." There's this guy who plays an important role in the episode and he was extremely familiar and we finally decided he must have been on Buffy. It turns out that he wasn't. He was actually the you-are-so-obviously-dead character Rick from the beginning of 24. And it begins to occur to me that I might have watched too many dvds of tv shows recently. _
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04:56:08 PM, Wednesday 17 December 2003

Because I didn't feel like I answered the question that well, here's the Long Term Ecological Research Network. _
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11:09:38 AM, Monday 15 December 2003

Beyond Red and Blue. A pretty interesting discussion of political demographics in the US. _
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11:05:22 AM, Monday 15 December 2003

Is there some reason that Buffy had to continue beyond the 5th season? I'm not saying I don't appreciate the effort, but, wow, what a perfect ending to the series. _
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10:30:17 AM, Monday 15 December 2003

So, for those of you who sleep, the US ha apparently captured Saddam Hussein. Which is a good thing, especially if it's really him and they manage not to violate international law in their treatment of him. That said, there's not much actual news beyond stating that fact over and over again and I wouldn't mind, say, hearing about the constitutional conventions of the EU and Afghanistan, or if other people are being hit by a lot of ice, or Will Shortz with the puzzles. _
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08:28:07 AM, Sunday 14 December 2003

It's a little unnerving when the cat sits on top of the monitor and stares at me. _
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09:15:02 AM, Saturday 13 December 2003

The application for Duke is done. As much as I want to stay here, they have an awesome program, including an internship program in teaching college biology, and my prospective advisor there is really amazing. I have never had much interest in snob factor in choosing schools I've gone to, but there's a little voice in the dark part of my soul that says a PhD from Duke sounds pretty cool. _
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03:11:19 PM, Friday 12 December 2003

Definition of irony: the nice, moderately newish car--that my parents gave me because they took pity on me driving the Tempo and constantly being in danger of being stranded--broke down before two weeks passed, while the aforementioned Tempo had only ever actually stranded me twice.
(Luckily, there was a very nice Forest Service employee named Katrina in the parking lot at the video store who knew a lot about cars and gave me a ride home.) _
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02:22:39 PM, Thursday 11 December 2003

Buffy and Firefly left Lexington at 3:30. They should be here soon. _
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04:58:29 PM, Monday 8 December 2003

Five Geek Social Fallacies. Indeed. _
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12:00:14 PM, Saturday 6 December 2003

My friend Monica's little sister Rina is an intern at Mother Jones and she wrote today's Daily Mojo about Bush's turkey show. Unfortunately, she didn't get a byline. _
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02:57:45 PM, Friday 5 December 2003

I refuse to go to work until the rain is no longer mixed with sleet. _
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09:10:41 AM, Thursday 4 December 2003

During the time of which I speak
It was hard to turn the other cheek
To the blows of insecurity
Feeding the cancer of my intellect
The blood of the love soon neglected
Lay dying in the strength of its impurity

And all the friends I thought were so together
They've all gone and left each other in search of fairer weather
I sit here in this storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery

There I am in younger days
Stargazing painting picture-perfect maps
Of how my life and love would be
Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection
My compass, faith in love's perfection
I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen

And all our friends we thought were so together
Left each other one by one on the road to fairer weather
And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery

Rain-soaked and voice choked
Like silent screaming in a dream
I searched for our absolute distinction
Not content to bow and bend
To the winds of culture that swoop like vultures
Eating us away... eating us away... eating us away to our extinction

Oh how I wish I were a trinity
So that if I lost a part of me
I'd still have two of the same to live
But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal
As specks of dust, we're universal
To let this love survive
Would be the greatest gift that we could give

Tell all the friends who think they're so together
That these are ghost and mirages all these thoughts of fairer weather
Though it's stormy now
I feel safe within the arms of love's discovery

(Thanks for six wonderful years, sweetie) _
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10:28:16 AM, Monday 1 December 2003

Of all the things I expected to find when we got home, a non-functioning furnace was not one of them. It is very cold indeed. The cats ought to hate us, but they are glad to see us because we are warm. _
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06:55:00 PM, Sunday 30 November 2003

Is it okay that I briefly got really excited by the headline "Political Turmoil in Georgia over Rigged Elections" before I realized they were not talking about the Diebold-orchestrated defeat of Senator Max Cleland and Governor Roy Barnes, or, in fact, m Republican-plagued state at all? _
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09:04:05 AM, Sunday 23 November 2003

GO FILIBUSTER GO! _
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09:56:46 AM, Saturday 22 November 2003

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