Liz's Bloglet - Tuesday 17 August 2010

Here's my problem:
I know people who get their chiropracty, acupuncture, massages, and gym memberships paid for by their health insurance. Those are all more or less great things (depending on how much you like to relax and/or how not afraid of carotid dissection you are).

And then I know people who are scared to go to the doctor because they don't have any money to pay for it and if it turned out there's something wrong with them it would be a pre-existing condition and they'd ~~never be able to get even crappy health insurance again~~ have to pay a huge amount of money to go into the BRAND NEW REALLY EXCITING high risk pools one can join with a pre-existing condition after being turned down for insurance and being uninsured (and presumably untreated for said pre-existing condition) for 6 months.

And my problem is that I know lots of people in both groups, but it seems like the vast majority of people in the first group know nobody in the second group and really can't even begin to conceive of what life is like with crappy insurance, let alone no insurance. And it has never occurred to those in the first group that they could give up their cracking/needles/comfy/treadmill so that other people could get life-saving medicines.

And I know I'm just being mean and the folks in the first group have good jobs and have worked really hard to get there and probably weren't even given the option of more simple health insurance. But I also hope that they recognize that their "first world problem" of not getting fulling reimbursed for their boutique healthcare has a pretty direct relationship to their neighbor up the street, who works really hard, too, having healthcare that sucks compared to what they could get in Cuba. _
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08:27:43 PM, Tuesday 17 August 2010

I got push-polled last night. Apparently I'm supposed to like the sound of the word "Constitutionalist" and vote for a guy who calls himself that repeatedly. Even though I just said I was unsure every time the word came up because as far as I know it has no one clear meaning. I just assume, based on the other things I was told, that in this case it's a bad thing.

And I'm supposed to scream/cry when I find out that my Representative votes with Nancy Pelosi more than any other member of Congress. Unfortunately for the "Constitutionalist" Republican candidate I quite admire the first female Speaker of the House, even if I don't agree with her on everything. Also, I'm not a misogynist fuckhead like most members of the Republican party.

I probably also messed with them when I said I was "Much more likely" to vote for a candidate when that candidate was identified as a Socialist. I don't think that was actually a permitted answer. (Also, I know without a shadow of the doubt that moderate Democrat David Price is not in any way a Socialist). _
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08:01:47 AM, Friday 13 August 2010

I never thought I would say this, but Ted Olson is totally my hero. He kept his cool and he explained the law patiently and clearly while a moron (who no doubt used to be his friend) played gotcha and got angrier and angrier. _
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11:31:26 AM, Tuesday 10 August 2010

Remember Larry Summers? Remember the very stupid things he said about women in science and math? Remember how he got hired by the Obama administration?

You will be shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that he acts as gatekeeper to prevent women who do math from directly advising the President.

Romer had run simulations of the effects of stimulus packages of varying sizes: six hundred billion dollars, eight hundred billion dollars, and $1.2 trillion. The best estimate for the output gap was some two trillion dollars over 2009 and 2010. Because of the multiplier effect, filling that gap didn’t require two trillion dollars of government spending, but Romer’s analysis, deeply informed by her work on the Depression, suggested that the package should probably be more than $1.2 trillion. The memo to Obama, however, detailed only two packages: a five-hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar stimulus and an eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar stimulus. Summers did not include Romer’s $1.2-trillion projection. The memo argued that the stimulus should not be used to fill the entire output gap; rather, it was “an insurance package against catastrophic failure.” At the meeting, according to one participant, “there was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars.”

And that's why it's a big deal. Because once you start suggesting that the possibility that women aren't as smart as men, you start ignoring a really smart woman who has both the background knowledge and actually knows how to run the models, instead listening to a talking head who likes to be in charge.

Of course, this comes to light the same week that (NOAA director and previously prominent ecologist) Jane Lubchenco has been breaking my scientific heart by telling everybody that because the oil has been dispersed and is no longer visible on the surface it's no longer a problem. But that's a whole nother blog post. _
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12:29:18 PM, Monday 9 August 2010

Just spent an hour putting my webpage up using Unix (because nobody in PseudoIvy IT is smart/inclined enough to figure out why I can't make an FTP connection using plain old ordinary shareware ftp software like I did last month). I feel so 20th century. _
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03:34:45 PM, Friday 30 July 2010

In the Sherrod controversy, do shoot the messenger _
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10:11:32 AM, Sunday 25 July 2010

Maybe since we know hurricanes hit the Gulf all the time we shouldn't have been drilling a mile below its surface to begin with? You'd think we would understand by now that people will do ridiculously stupid things for money unless we make rules to prevent them, and yet we just go ahead and let people do ridiculously stupid things. _
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07:03:57 AM, Friday 23 July 2010

So, ScienceBlogs seems to be over. I had said last week that they wouldn't end until PZ leaves. Well. Makes me sad, because it was a really nice community and it was nice to know these folks were getting paid some small amount for their hard work (until Seed apparently recently stopped sending checks. oops).

I may finally switch over to RSS to keep track of all these folks, since I can't just scroll through one url anymore. _
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08:33:41 AM, Wednesday 21 July 2010

Feminist Hulk does urban stream ecology!
HULK CAN LEAD PATRIARCHY TO WATER...TO SMASH ITS HEGEMONIC FACE IN RIVER OF POLLUTED CORPORATE RUNOFF TILL IT DROWNS. _
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09:07:13 PM, Tuesday 20 July 2010

It's not just me.

# Two in five women (41%), compared to one in four men (27%), have changed physicians at some time because they were dissatisfied.
# The leading reason women change their doctors is communication problems (32%).
# 25% of women (compared to 12% of men) report they are "talked down to," or treated like a child by a physician.
# 17% of women (compared to 7% of men) have been told that a medical condition they felt they had was "all in their head.

For all that I'm politically aware, and know so many facts, and work so hard standing up for myself to my friends and coworkers, it still totally took me off guard when a doctor who came highly recommended by multiple people, who one of my friends had pulled strings to get me in to see, told me: "Most women I see with your problems are suffering from PTSD. You need to act like a grown up, and go get help for that kind of problem." He even used the "act like a grown up" phrase multiple times.

And still I thought it was just me. And still I thanked him for taking time out of his schedule to see me. And even as I was crying in the parking garage, I was pretty sure he must be right and I must be overreacting or confused or traumatized by something I don't even know about, because how could a big time fancy specialist who everybody loves be totally wrong. And it took me two months to get up the nerve to see another rheumatologist and actually get help (she happens to be a woman, although I think any of the doctors in her practice would have treated me just as well. And I have certainly heard the same message from doctors who are women in Student Health, and even now they don't quite believe me). And now I'm finally doing okay thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and a truly excellent doctor and still I sometimes doubt myself.

And it's not just me. _
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07:24:25 PM, Tuesday 20 July 2010

We are home from the beach! Virginia Beach is an urban planning utopia compared to every other beach I've ever been to. The boardwalk goes for miles, is paralleled by a bike path, and the bus system makes sense and is easy and encouraging for non-public transit literate people to use. Our hotel was awesome and quaint with a very nice thrift-store-chic thing going on, and also across the street from the beach. The water was cold, which was good because it was very very hot. Zoe turned 30 successfully and we ate way too much really good food. We played putt-putt at a place with actual trees. Remi and I took the scenic route both ways, preferring the back roads of NC to the interstate highways of VA, and stopped on the way home to check out the Great Dismal Swamp and to eat at a very nice sandwich shop in historic downtown Edenton. We are both much more relaxed and cheery than we have been in some time. Woot. _
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04:33:50 PM, Monday 19 July 2010

Amanda on Loving Friday Night Lights. Unlike Amanda, I'm not from West Texas, but I am from a place that takes high school football seriously (although not nearly as seriously as Texans do). Ultimately, though, in our house we love Friday Night Lights because, like The Wire, it's about people who don't usually get tv shows about them and it's really really good. _
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10:44:15 AM, Monday 12 July 2010

HULK FEMINISM ABOUT DISSOLVING HIERARCHIES OF GENDER BINARY, NOT SIMPLY REVERSING THEIR TERMS. ALSO, ABOUT SMASH. AND COOKIES. _
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12:25:46 PM, Friday 9 July 2010

Dr. Kreps died. A few of years ago I wrote about meeting her when we were Christmas caroling at the retirement home where she lived. Heroes of all sorts are all around us. _
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10:12:17 AM, Friday 9 July 2010

This is awesome _
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08:20:43 PM, Wednesday 7 July 2010

Today I'm grateful that I live in a place where a summer heatwave is not out of the ordinary. Although this summer is now the hottest on record, most everybody has air conditioning in their homes and all businesses and public buildings do. We have standard arrangements for taking care of the homeless and those without air conditioning when this happens. I'm sorry for all the folks suffering from this for whom it is an extraordinary and painful occasion. _
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07:34:23 AM, Tuesday 6 July 2010

Very busy weekend, some of it captured by the local news. Friday night we saw Pilobolus. Neither of us know anything about dance, but it was really cool, and since Durham is home of the American Dance Festival and we are literally surrounded by professional dancers and hopefuls every summer we figured it was time. This review probably says a lot more interesting things about the performance than I could.

Yesterday, I did my annual volunteering talking about stream ecology with kids at the Festival for the Eno, the big event of the summer, and the only such thing I know of anywhere that's devoted to a river. Once again, the N&O was there and can tell more about how awesome it was than I can. In the picture of the two teenagers cuddling, I am the blue blob just above the head of the guy with the beard. It was 10 degrees cooler than it's ever been for the festival, and it was just lovely.

We've also been to two parties, had a couple of other tasty meals, etc. I'm taking tomorrow off to recover from all the fun. _
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08:35:13 PM, Sunday 4 July 2010

Kagan may get confirmed, but Thurgood Marshall can forget it _
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04:03:00 PM, Tuesday 29 June 2010

Patience white people _
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11:35:43 AM, Tuesday 29 June 2010

I was about to leave, but apparently there's a man with a gun on campus, so I'm not leaving. Apparently it is an armed robbery and police pursuit situation not a campus shooter situation. But still, I will stay put as instructed. And be really annoyed about the easy availability of guns. _
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12:36:21 PM, Thursday 24 June 2010

The very best blog entry ever about axolotls Having just visited SJC-Santa Fe, axolotls were on my mind. And now I know so much more about them, thanks to the Sprog. _
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04:09:25 PM, Sunday 13 June 2010

Anybody want to get back into chorewars? _
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12:34:42 PM, Saturday 12 June 2010

HULK SMASH DOMINANT GENDER PARADIGM! PUT DEBRIS IN COMPOST PILE TO FERTILIZE LITTLE HULK GARDEN OUT BACK. _
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09:15:44 AM, Thursday 10 June 2010

We've come a long way in how women are perceived and treated in society and in science and academia, but there is still a long way to go, and this kind of discourse about what women are and aren't "naturally" good at is just one small part of that (same goes for boys and verbal skills). By naturalizing one kind of institutional discrimination and societal bias, discrimination in other aspects of our culture become easier, more invisible. By scientifically definitely anything as innately "feminine" or "masculine" at all, we pigeonhole men and women into rigid roles that limit where people can go, what people can do. I hope that this gets others as riled up as it gets me, and that we can really fix the way our culture defines and thinks about the characteristics and abilities of girls and women, so that our daughters won't be women scientists, but women and scientists.

I had that conversation again. Once again with a colleague who I like and respect as a friend and scientist. Only it turns out he thinks I'm pretty good for a girl but biologically determined to be quite likely to quit and make babies. And was shocked that I was offended and objected. _
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08:44:03 PM, Wednesday 9 June 2010

Awesome, adorable story with a happy ending _
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07:50:24 PM, Wednesday 9 June 2010

1) Santa Fe has the coolest mayor ever. Former biologist, former labor organizer, ran on a platform of labor and restoring the Santa Fe River. Seriously.
2) Santa Fe also has the prettiest convention center I have ever seen. It really is like a work of art, not like a generic thing bought out of the convention center catalog.
3) It is also the smallest convention center I have ever seen. It's smaller than the one in Athens, GA, and very few people want to have conferences in Athens.
4) Cafe Paris on Burro Alley has the best pastries I have ever had.
5) I suck at dealing with jetlag. I keep thinking I'm going to get better at it, but I just suck.
6) Possibility of seeing anne and Greg soon
7) Thinking about playing hooky and taking the bus to SJC, just because I could. Maybe I'll buy a t-shirt. Or at least take a picture, just so I can say I saw the place. It seems weird that I didn't spend a year here when I had the chance. This is definitely my kind of town.
6) One reason I don't want to stop doing at least some research is that I don't want to ever stop coming to this meeting. I love this meeting, and I love my friends and mentors, and I always feel more hopeful after being with them and talking and hearing about science. _
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10:34:17 PM, Monday 7 June 2010

My hero for this week: Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. There's something special to me about a young woman sitting less than a mile from where I'm sitting who made the decision to defy her parents, her culture, and her privilege and stand up for what she knew was right, first here in Durham, and then in Mississippi. _
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11:07:17 AM, Saturday 29 May 2010

One of my favorite things about teaching is writing students encouraging notes about how awesome they are. I just had the pleasure of writing a med school recommendation for one of my very favorite microbiology students and I loved letting her know it was submitted and what a great doctor I know she'll be. I especially love sending these notes, though, to students who have been struggling and have done something that was very hard for them very well. I hope that I always have time and energy to do this. _
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10:10:24 AM, Thursday 27 May 2010

I was fine through Sun and Jin and only a little weepy through Sayid and Shannon but I admit to totally bawling through Claire and Charlie. They always were my favorite characters and I hated how they were treated by the writers. If anyone had earned redemption through love while remaining their own tragically flawed selves, it was them. I admit to caring hardly at all about Juliet and James or Jack and Kate by the end (or really for the past couple of seasons). I felt ultimately Hugo was cheated, and Jorge Garcia was too, but it was certainly not a show that rewarded the pure of heart or the non-magazine-beautiful of body.

I don't know what it all meant and I do think it's a pretty weak-sauce ending. It's too bad that the writers didn't actually have a plan. I strongly defended them season after season because I thought we were going somewhere (and I was as wrong about them as I was about John Edwards). But they had epicly great characters and some truly transcendent dramatic moments. There was a lot there about courage and fear, redemption and cowardice, hope and loss, fate and freewill, and true character. Ben Linus alone was saved and damned more than any other character in the history of television (probably punched in the face more, as well). But I kind of miss the little survival adventure with a hint of sci-fi that got us started. _
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09:09:47 PM, Monday 24 May 2010

I just withdrew from a job search from a job I had a good chance of getting. Ultimately, the location was just too much of a barrier. There are plenty of people, and especially plenty of ecologists, who would love to live in a rural area far from the nearest metropolitan area. I am not one of those people. And realizing that now was a good thing, rather than wasting everyone's time and money on an interview, and certainly rather than taking the job and then realizing it was not one I wanted. _
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10:16:07 AM, Monday 24 May 2010

Tuxedo, who is not scared of mean cats or dogs or people or big trucks or really anything else I've ever seen, is huddled under the bed scared of this storm. _
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07:59:11 PM, Saturday 22 May 2010

So, in our lab we frequently measure processes of conversion of nutrients from the organic form to their inorganic forms. A common process for doing this is respiration, converting organic carbon to CO2, which all living things do. Another process converts proteins (long organic chains with -NH2 on the end) to ammonia (NH3). Each of these processes has a name specific to what is being converted into what, but the general name is "mineralization". So we call conversion of organic nitrogen to inorganic nitrogen nitrogen mineralization or N-Min and respiration we call carbon mineralization or C-Min. And this is all fine until one of my lab mates finds their inner 12 year old and laughs every time a perfectly serious biogeochemist says C-Min. _
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04:25:42 PM, Thursday 20 May 2010

Good, happy interview for job I would enjoy and be good at, for a college that is both missionally and in actuality the sort of place I would love, in a place that would be very pleasant to live. And I am probably cursing myself by even saying all that. _
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02:08:20 PM, Wednesday 19 May 2010

Observations from watching too much Hulu:
1) V > Flashforward >> Fringe
2) Nearly every main character has been on Lost, The Wire, Battlestar Galatica, or Firefly.
3) Those that haven't are either British or Australians playing Americans, frequently badly
4) Some fit in both categories, including, most annoyingly, Gaius Baltar playing an American autistic savant on Flashforward
5) None of the Brits who played Americans on The Wire have shown up on any of these shows
6) Idris Elba is now making movies instead

Stay tuned for my next entry, on medical shows, in which veterans with PTSD is the new fad and I make a convincing case that Grey's Anatomy is the most progressive show on television. _
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09:34:43 PM, Sunday 16 May 2010

Today in bizarre local crime blotter stories: UGA student vandalizes stuff and runs into a whole lot of large objects headfirst while fleeing _
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12:28:41 PM, Thursday 13 May 2010

We saw Wicked tonight, the touring production in town at our amazing DPAC for the month. The music, book, and performances were all amazing, and the tech was cool and interesting without being overbearing. The story is a great change from Lloyd Webber and Disneyfied nonsense. Definitely an overall more satisfying experience than the Lion King, which we were lucky enough to see on Broadway, which while beautiful and amazing has no real plot. Musical theater is (slowly) evolving with the times, and that is a good thing. _
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11:01:34 PM, Wednesday 12 May 2010

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