On Medicine and Objectification

Usually when we women’s studies types worry about objectification, we mean sexualized objectification: a (usually male) gaze that sees the other as a means to an end, where the end is sexual pleasure. I think sexualized objectification is actually more complex and ambivalent, but for now I’d like to set that aside. Sex is by [...]

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Caturday, Philip Glass Style

I don’t know how I missed this. Apparently over 12 million viewers have seen Nora the Piano Cat, and yet – despite my 100% Felinity rating – I was totally ignorant of her existence, until now.
Just in case you missed her, too, here’s Nora performing what seems to be an original composition. I’m guessing Philip [...]

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A Paradox in the Politics of Science

Has anyone else noticed this irony: that a lot of the people who reject well-grounded science (evolutionary theory, climate change, etc.) hold exactly the same stereotypical ideas about gender that pop up repeatedly in evolutionary psychology? Obviously many of the denialists have religious reasons for rejecting sound science, while evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists are overwhelmingly [...]

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My First Shivering Crocus

Here’s my first lonely crocus of the year. It popped up a day ago, rising above the brown and trodden grass. This morning, it refused to open in the damp grey air. It’s holding out for a few more rays of sun, and I can’t blame it. My daffodils, too, are sending up their first [...]

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Lactophobia and "Discretion"

Stymied milk-slurping kittehs from I Can Has Cheezburger?So the Denny’s in Asheville, North Carolina, is just the latest in a long line of businesses where some twit took it upon himself to tell a nursing mama she couldn’t feed her baby where everyone else was dining. Daisy at Daisy’s Dead Air reports on the brouhaha [...]

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Wednesday Anti-recipe: Aluminum Soup

So here’s what I made for dinner tonight:

That’s, um, aluminum soup on the burner. I’d had a burst of energy and decided to make quiches for dinner – one with artichoke hearts, the other with asparagus. I put the pot on the burner, cranked it up to high, chopped the asparagus, and went to dump [...]

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My Beautiful Optic Nerve

I learned two things at OSU’s MS clinic this morning:
1) My optic nerves are beautiful.
2) I almost certainly do not have multiple sclerosis.
I feel like my life was just handed back to me, in its entirety, fresh and new.
(Gratuitous daylily from last July’s garden, just because I am so happy.)
As in Cleveland, I had a [...]

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Fear, Loathing, and the MS Clinic

I haven’t posted much about my health this week. This is partly a denial and avoidance tactic. I’ve got an appointment very early tomorrow morning at OSU’s multiple sclerosis clinic. While I don’t expect to get any definitive verdict, simply making the trip puts me face to face with my fears again.
Best case: The doctor [...]

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Personhood Provocateurs in North Dakota

Photo of North Dakotan Badlands by Flickr user JJSchad, used under a Creative Commons license. This somewhat gratuitous picture is included lest you think North Dakota boasts nothing but snow and gophers and pro-life zealots.
North Dakota’s new “personhood” law, which made it halfway through the legislative process on Tuesday, may no longer be the reproductive [...]

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Adam, Eve, and … Insurance?

A friend and colleague (who just happens to be both gay and Catholic) recently sent me this, brimming with blasphemic glee.
I’m still trying to figure out how this ad will sell insurance. If you have a theory, let me know in comments. Otherwise, just enjoy.

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The Sins of the Mother: Can We Just Leave Bristol Alone?

Look. I never thought Sarah Palin should get a free pass on 1) using motherhood as one of her chief qualifications for public office and then 2) telling America we had no right to know anything about her family. I sharply criticized Palin for getting on an airplane while leaking amniotic fluid. I thought it [...]

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Legislating Evidence-Based Medicine

Tucked away in the stimulus bill that Obama just signed is a provision that will fund research to compare medical treatments head-to-head. As the New York Times reported last weekend, funding will underwrite research to answer questions such as:
Is it better to treat severe neck pain with surgery or a combination of physical therapy, exercise [...]

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Ohio’s Baffling Sexual Politics

Ohio politics mystify me. I’ve lived here for over eight years now, and the contradictions still leave me spinning. We may be known as a swing state, but don’t be fooled. Ohio is often immoderate, a patchwork of extremes. My own little town is a progressive island in the midst of Appalachia, surrounded by the [...]

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Hard-Wired to Dehumanize?

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle about a new study by Susan Fiske of Princeton that, according to the Guardian, shows men are hard-wired to objectify women. Young male volunteers were shown images of women in bikinis and their brains were scanned with MRI to measure their responses. Their scans showed activity in regions of [...]

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More Lattes for Me

Lately Kittywampus has been mostly quizzes, LOLcats, and me me me. Today follows in that vein, though minus the felinity, with a quiz I took (via Blue Gal):
What Breed of Liberal Are You?

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as [...]

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A Kiss Is Just a Kiss? Men, Women, and Oxytocin

Kissing kittehs from I Can Has Cheezburger?
One of the hallowed traditions of Valentine’s Day is polishing up all the old chestnuts about men, women, and romance. So when I saw a headline in yesterday’s Columbus Dispatch proclaim “Kissing a stress-buster for both men, women,” I was pleasantly surprised not to get a rehash of the [...]

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Like a Virgin

No, I’m not talking about me. (I can hear some of my readers laughing all the way from California.)
Nor am I referring to my husband’s crush on Madonna, who ranks with Sandra Bullock and me in his pantheon of hot women.
I mean this cool blog I discovered recently: The American Virgin. Did you know the [...]

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In Love and Romance, Sickness and Health

All right, I’ll admit it: I like getting flowers every once in a while. I don’t believe they should be mandatory for a particular day, and I think the commercialization of Valentine’s Day is about as sexy as the commercialization of Christmas. It’s just capitalism revving its internal motor.
But still. I got flowers today and [...]

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My LOLcat Alter Ego: Happy Cat

Kittywampus has suffered a severe frivolity shortage lately. Today’s antidote: taking the “What LOLcat Are You?” test.
I came out as Happy Cat, the original “I Can Has Cheezburger?” kitteh.
Your result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test …

Happy Cat

64% Affectionate, 55% [...]

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Rockin’ Cleveland

No, I didn’t get to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I still rocked Cleveland. Or it rocked me. And all in a good way.
The doctor I saw at the Cleveland Clinic, Rula Hajj-Ali, was brilliant in every way. She listened attentively and asked loads of questions. You could see her [...]

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