Linkety-Linkety (mostly cheerful and fluffy, with some Cleveland-specific stuff)

Schools Sing Haters Away -- Aw, yay!

Yes, I have a huge geekcrush on Rachel, so I'm loving this article from People. Also, I love the pic of her and Susan; I'd never seen Susan before, and she looks lovely and warm and awesome.

Warning: This post may contain spoilers and/or the Kraken. -- comparing Clash of the Titans then and now. (and Ebert's review) Also related, and probably of interest to my family, since my brothers can't watch 3-D without massive migraines: Debate waging over 2D-to-3D conversion

Offers from "thousands" of emailers and callers have come in to cover the legal fees associated with the litigation against Westboro Baptist Church in a lawsuit by the father of a Maryland Marine killed in Iraq.
Bill O'Reilly of Fox News Channel made the offer to pay more than $16,000 on his program last night. -- Go, Bill. Seriously.

Idle Pastime: In Off Hours, Truckers Pick Up Stitching
With Less to Haul, Drivers Try New Hobbies; Quilting in the Cab -- this is awesome and makes me happy.

Would dew believe it: The stunning pictures of sleeping insects covered in water droplets -- These pics are magnificently beautiful. Go look!

Introducing the world's weirdest museums -- I have a squick about parasites, so I could've done without the pic from that museum, but the rest sound fascinating!

Rom-com with asian lead gets told to market as an asian-american film, not a rom-com *sigh* Normally I avoid rom-coms, but this one does sound pretty good anyway (it has Margaret Cho and Christine Baranski; I'll deal with a rom-com for them), and besides, the whole situation sucks. Time to check and see if it's available through Netflix at all. Answer -- yes. In my queue now.

"My hovercraft is full of eels" in many languages

Rock band Devo gives red cone hat to Ohio museum

Representatives of groups that work with immigrants and groups that promote economic development shared ideas and concerns Thursday at the downtown headquarters of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland. They pushed forward, painstakingly, toward a controversial proposal of welcoming immigrants and helping them to settle here.
The basis of discussion was a draft report, written by former Plain Dealer reporter Becky Gaylord -- now a consultant for the federation -- that detailed immigrant-attraction strategies in use in other cities and, to some extent, in Northeast Ohio.
A sense of urgency was tempered by a lack of consensus and worries about what multiculturalism could bring to a city and a region that are both 95 percent native-born. -- I'd love to see this succeed. And 95% native-born? So the fuck what? Around Cleveland, that really disguises the fact that so many people are first and second generation Americans, and there's a great deal of multiculturalism already extant as a result. It's part of what I love about Cleveland, and something I'd like to see continue. And a dying city needs new immigration; we're not going to create new jobs without new people who need services.

Woman's body found along Interstate 90 west near West 41st Street; traffic diverted -- I wonder what the story on this will turn out to be. That's about two blocks from us.

How not to steal a sailboat: Authorities say a small boat reported stolen from an Ohio yacht club was found on Lake Erie with two dead men on board.
...
The boat had no motor, sail or paddles. Its theft was reported Saturday.

Will there be enough family care doctors to treat newly insured? -- Well, no. Because we've got a major problem in that regard _as a nation_. Is the problem that we're going to cover more people? No. The problem is that we have a shortage that has needed serious addressing for years. Hopefully this will trigger it. Also, the handwringing over 90 day wait periods? I've got some of the best health care in the country (I work for a top-five-in-the-nation health care system), and I often have to wait that long to see a new doc for non-urgent care. To get in to see my gyn for a regular check-up I generally needed at least four months advance notice, just because of how busy she is. That's life. And that's what "non-urgent" is about. For urgent care, I've been able to get same-day or next-day appointments whenever I need -- I think it's often implied that urgent services would suffer just as badly as these "non-urgent" cases, and it's just not true.

Discovery takes off on one of last missions for space shuttles -- And there goes a major part of my childhood.

Tonight, MythBusters guru Grant Imahara will unveil the “robot skeleton sidekick” named Geoff Peterson on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It started out as a series of jokes. Ferguson began calling his Twitter followers his “robot skeleton army.” Imahara tweeted to Ferguson that, if the late-night host could get Imahara’s Twitter-follower number to exceed 100,000, he’d build Craig a robot sidekick.

More Linkety-Linkety

The first-ever PSAs from the U.S. Census Bureau to be tailored for the LGBT community will be unveiled Monday afternoon in New York City at a news conference featuring out Star Trek star George Takei.

For people who don't know, it's a capital offense to be gay in Iraq. Not only are gays rounded up for trial and execution by the Iraqi government (while the U.S. and coalition forces look the other way), roving gangs of thugs have taken to kidnapping and murdering gay people with impunity.
Those in the UK, and everywhere, can help.

Dr. Lim attempted, in her own mind, to reconcile Desiree Pardi the palliative care doctor who believed in a peaceful death, with Desiree Pardi the patient who wanted to keep fighting.

Op-Art on DADT (And a transcript of the text)

Tea Partier Victoria Jackson -- Too Crazy for Fox & Friends

Mob attacks activists in Indonesia, police shut down conference promoting gay rights

On the Austin City Council's agenda for its April 8 meeting is a proposed ordinance that would require so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" to post a sign to notify consumers that they do not provide or make referrals for either abortion or contraceptive services (this is essentially the same as what just passed in Baltimore, and about which the Catholic Diocese is suing)

U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women

Mainstream media coverage of religion and religiously-tinged ethics is a tricky thing. Religions, of course, by their very nature, maintain some un-proveable tenets, such as the existence of deities and the moral importance of rituals and holidays. But no one ever prefaces a journalistic mention of Moses or Jesus by calling them an "alleged prophet" or a "so-called holy man." There's a level of respect accorded to religion that few other unsubstantiated beliefs get. That's one of the problems women's rights advocates run up against in terms of media coverage of our movement, as our opponents are often motivated by religious dogma.
Of course, covering people's most sacredly-held beliefs in a polite manner is a goal for media types who try hard not just to be objective and accurate, but also fair. Unfortunately, this often translates to simply giving both sides of a "moral issue" equal space to speak, without always interrogating the factual accuracy of their statements. This is why the "new atheist" crew like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens try so hard to emphasize the irrational and occasionally ludicrous aspects of religion--so that governments, parents, schools and journalists won't necessarily take the opinions of religious figures at face value.
....
The seemingly-new understanding that, hey, we can acknowledge that it's bad for a religious institution to treat rape and abuse as a sin rather than a crime, will hopefully open doors to more vigorously examine other religious practices that do harm, such as the refusal to distribute condoms in AIDS-stricken countries, relegating women to the back of buses or forbidding them from driving, or even holding up health care for millions because of abortion language. Religion-based morality isn't always bad, but it certainly isn't always good either, and it's crucial for our media to be able to examine religious principles and practices, no matter how widely-accepted or praised, in terms of their real effect on actual people's lives. -- Yes! This is so important to me; it's a huge part of why I am vocal about being an atheist, and about the way atheist perspectives are treated. It's because I see over and over again religious doctrine being given the status of "fact" in debates that affect millions of people not of the faith in question. I'd have no real beef with religion if it was about what people believed and practiced in their personal lives, and not given this kind of unexamined broad social power. The Catholics have taken a lot of the beating on this, but in terms of reproductive rights, and especially in terms of factual information about contraception and abortion, the other end of the Christian spectrum is at least equally culpable, if not more so. To my knowledge, all the terrorism attacks I know of have been evangelical/fundamentalist individuals, not Catholics (who at least are generally internally consistent in their anti-euthanasia, anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-abortion views). The Catholic Church is notable because of its unified political power (only religion with its own country), and I've hit them hard on that point, but I want to be clear about what I am and what I am not angry about. I don't particularly like beating up on anyone's beliefs. However, I like even less when those beliefs are confused with objective fact in public discourse, and religious figures (such as the Bishops' Council that played such a role with the Stupak Amendment) are given unelected power in a country that putatively separates church and state. (crowepps' two comments on this article, at the source, say all of this quite a bit better than I do)

OMG, there's this "new thing" called fat acceptance, haveyaheard? -- Yeah, I'm pleased they're writing about it at all, but the feel of the article just has me rolling my eyes.

What’s interesting is about the anti-choice focus on late abortions is that it really shows how intellectually bankrupt the anti-abortion rights position is. And not just because anti-choicers get energized by terroristic acts of murder. It’s because the focus shows how much anti-choicers really do think they get to have it both ways. By focusing on late abortion, anti-choicers demonstrate two major contradictions between their stated point of view and their actual point of view. -- Ha! Totally nailed. This is why I rant so much when people act like late-term abortion is the worst and most horrible thing; if anything, it is the absolutely most defensible to people who would not, under ordinary circumstances, consider abortion a moral option. These are horrible, tragic cases. These are stories that can leave you in tears. These are the desperately wanted babies with unsurvivable defects, the pregnant women whose lives are at risk... How is this of all aspects of abortion-provision what we consider at all negotiable?

Repro-Briefs: Michigan Requires Access to Emergency Contraception, While Missouri Bill Would Shame Teens -- there's a lot more in this one, including that Michigan is considering a truth in advertising bill regarding CPCs

OK, stopping for now. Still way behind.

Voices and Choices Radio Show and Telethon

From my friend Casey, who rocks, and has been working on this show for a number of years now. For folks who aren't local, note the final lines where she gives instructions for downloading the shows.

Hi everyone. As many of you know, I am part of a super awesome team that puts on a reproductive justice-focused public affairs show every Tuesday night from 9pm until 10pm EST. WRUW-FM 91.1 Cleveland is Case Western Reserve University's radio station that allows us to broadcast.
WRUW FM 91.1 will be having its annual telethon the week of April 5 – April 11 (from which it obtains half of its operating budget). I'm writing to ask you to support the station and, in particular, its public-affairs programming. Please show your support for Voices and Choices, WRUW FM 91.1, and independent media by making a donation to the station during its telethon. Any amount helps! We want to hear from you. We want to know you’re listening!
Voices and Choices is one of the only radio shows that focuses on abortion rights and reproductive justice. Your support means so much!
Call 216-368-2208 to make a pledge or make a donation through our website, http://www.wruw.org
As always, we offer premiums to show our appreciation for your gifts.

Monday, April 5 through Sunday, April 11th. Call 216-368-2208.


Best,

Casey
--
-V+C crew
www.voicesandchoicesradio.org

**If you can't tune in live, you can download the show for up to a week after airing by visiting:
www.wruw.org / program guide / tuesday / voices and choices / right click on 56k and 'save as'

You can also download archived shows from the past several years from our website.

**Become our fan on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cleveland-OH/Voices-and-Choices/102562636449467?ref=ts

Life is good.

Annual Performance evaluation complete, and I thought it was a very reasonable assessment, so I'm pleased. AwesomesauceBoss also pointed me toward some interesting online classes (for a post-bacc certificate in Health Informatics). I like taking classes, but I'm not sure if I've got the additional energy to spare for making it to regular meatspace classes, and this option is entirely online (from UIC). We've got a tuition benefit and he and I agree about what a damned shame it is to waste it, ever, so I'm psyched. Also got to catch him up on how well things are going with integrating patient-instructing and clinic escorting back into my life, and how happy that makes me. Since he's understood from the beginning how important those are to me, and really worked to get me into a shift that'd allow them, it was nice to be able to let him know that.

Saw the new Season 5, Episode 1 for Doctor Who, and am mightily pleased with Matt Smith as the new Doctor. I feel much like I did when David Tennant replaced Christopher Eccleston; fearful of disappointment and wonderfully pleasantly surprised. Also enjoying our newest companion so far, so double-yay on that!

Am getting into seasons of Farscape I'd never seen, and it's very exciting. When it was first out years ago, I had a meeting the night it was on and taped the eps for later viewing. I was already several months behind when I found out Zhaan was leaving, and got in a snit and stopped watching. I'm into Season 3 now, and it's awesome to get to discover it for the first time. Also, hot damn, is that some awesome chemistry! I always did love how that show handled sexuality (which is related to why my main LJ sexuality filter is named "Moya").

Housemates have been accomplishing huge amounts on the house, plus it's finally warm enough to de-plastic the windows and have air flow again!

IRS says I should be getting my tax refund on the 15th, and I've managed to sort all the finances so things are copacetic until then, which has alleviated a huge amount of stress.