Maximizing alarm and minimizing information November 30, 2010

Extra Calcium and Vitamin D Aren’t Necessary, Report Says

On health issues the following has got to be a close contender for first place in infuriating:

The very high levels of vitamin D that are often recommended by doctors and testing laboratories — and can be achieved only by taking supplements — are unnecessary and could be harmful, an expert committee says. It also concludes that calcium supplements are not needed…The group said most people have adequate amounts of vitamin D in their blood supplied by their diets and natural sources like sunshine, the committee says in a report that is to be released on Tuesday.

And that’s it, except for details about sources and lists of dire things that can happen if you take too much.

So, most people?  Who are these most?  And is there any age group – ahem! – that might not be included in the most?  For example, like presumably millions of women across American, I’ve been told recently to take calcium-D supplements by two different doctors.  No one said anything about amounts.  So maybe that’s not good advice, but what would good advice look like if you are at the age where women start  to lose bone mass?

So I went to the report itself.  That was not fun.  It is not written for people who do not know the relevant medical terminology.  What I did find out  is that bone health for post-menopausal women and elderly men is about the same.  After that, I couldn’t understand it, but I did conclude that I should get my level of vitamin D checked.  If you do try to search the report, “elderly men” will uncover information for post-menopausal women.  And I’m sure that in the approximate 2,000 hits for you to look at, there’s something there.  And it does all look believable.

There was also a revised guideline for amounts to take:

And that looks useful, except if like me you live in the southern USA you may have a lot of D already from the sun.  So these can’t be good guidelines for avoiding taking too much, I surmise.

I would consider phoning one of the doctors who recommended I take the supplements, but in my experience the chances are very high that that would end up in an insulting conversation that started with their observation that I shouldn’t believe everything I read.  And as it ended I would see that yet again here are people who are not going to accept any suggestion from a patient that they may not know it all.  Arrrrggghh!!

Not that this is irritating or anything.

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We should note that much of the emphasis of the report is that the use of vitamin D for something other than bone health is unjustified.  Also, people of color probably do know that they will get less vitamin D from the sun.

Plea for advice November 30, 2010

from a reader of my other blog, actually. But that one doesn’t allow comments, so I’m cross-posting here in hopes of getting some good advice for him:

This is not a story, but a plea for advice. So maybe it is a story, but not in the usual, straightforward way.

I’m a young junior academic. I’m male. A new female PhD student just joined our department. She’s four or five years my junior. I’m not involved in her doctoral supervision, so I have no direct professional relationship with her. Now my problem (is it a problem?) is that I rather like her — let’s call her Jane. I rather like Jane, and I would certainly want to get to know her better. I may wish for this to develop into something romantic, or not. I don’t know whether that’s desirable or even possible (I just know that she is straight and single, and I have an inkling that she may be vaguely interested too). But after reading this blog I’ve become even more conscious of the fact that even creating the occasion to explore that possibility (asking for a date, that is) may be inappropriate, for lack of a better word. What should I do?

“I like to see the ladies” November 29, 2010

The Gendered Conference Campaign has a theme song, written by the wonderful 21st Century Monads!! It can be found here. We are, obviously, very excited by this. Kris McDaniel agreed to answer some questions about it by email…

Jender: Why did you write this song?

Kris: As you know, we mainly write songs about philosophers, philosophical positions, or philosophical arguments. But in addition to writing songs about philosophers and philosophy, every album we’ve done a song addressing what we regard as a problem within the profession. The first song we released off of our first album (“New Monadology”) was “My Paper Was Rejected Again”, which discussed some of the frustrations of the anonymous-review process. In our second album, “Total Monadic Domination”, we released a song titled “Don’t Get Smoked at the Smoker”, which was directed at what I regard as the horror show of Eastern APA interviews.

For this album, I wanted to write a song in support of the “Gendered Conference Campaign” started by you folks at the feminist philosopher’s blog. You (= the people who run the blog) have done a great job at raising awareness of the importance of making women in the profession more visible through a combination of consciousness raising and naming and shaming. As someone who recently co-organized a large conference in metaphysics, I can testify that having this issue made salient in our minds was motivationally effective. We (= the 21st Century Monads) wanted to help spread the message in some way.

Jender: What are you hoping achieve by releasing this song?

Kris: We hope to provide another venue to get the message out. We have a surprisingly decent-sized audience given who we are and what our music is about. Some of our fans are undergraduates and graduate students at the start of their careers who might not otherwise be thinking about the issues the song raises. (Most undergraduates and newly minted graduate students aren’t organizing conferences or editing anthologies.) It seems to me that it’s a good thing if we can get them involved in the conversation early on. And in general, since we don’t know the extent to which people listening to our music are regular readers of your blog or vice-versa, the song might reach some new people. I think (I hope) the song is catchy, enjoyable to listen to, and funny, and maybe that will help make people receptive to the message.

I’m also hoping that people like yourself and your fellow bloggers – people who’ve been actively transmitting the message – will take some pleasure in the fact that we are saying with this song “message received”.

Jender: Are there any misinterpretations you worry about?

We did have some concerns. First, that some people might be put off by the term “lady”. Second, that the song itself might come across as slightly prurient or salacious. But I thought that this actually works to the advantage of the song though: the first two lines in the song set up expectations that something unsavory is intended (“why does he want to see the ladies??!”), but then the rest of the lyrics defuse the implication, and hence the song is funny without coming across as being excessively preachy. That is my hope anyways. I also was a little concerned that releasing a jokey song about a topic that a lot of people care about might leave the impression that we aren’t taking the issues seriously, when in fact the exact opposite is true.

Jender: Why doesn’t Carrie sing on it?

We are a band of three: me, Carrie Jenkins, and Ben Bradley. On this song, I’m singing the lead vocals, with Ben singing the back up vocals. On some of our songs Carrie sings lead vocals, and on some of them I sing lead. Usually on the songs in which I sing lead vocals, Carrie contributes background vocals – I love singing with Carrie since she has such a fantastic voice – but for this song, we decided that it made sense for just the men to sing. We all think it is very important that men be at least as vocal as women about the problem of poor gender representation in things such as conferences or edited volumes. This was Ben and my way of literally being at least as vocal. And although Carrie doesn’t sing on this song, she did contribute to the music: she’s playing the electric organ on this piece. (On our main webpage, next to each song are tabs you click on to see the lyrics and the liner notes.)

We will be releasing along with “I Like to See the Ladies” a companion piece in which Carrie sings lead vocal, titled “Still Not Male”, on a different issue: the perils of presupposing the gender of authors of anonymous papers. This song was based on a post at What is it Like to be a Woman in Philosophy.

The songs, liner notes, and more information about the Monads can be found here.

The more things change… November 28, 2010

From 2001

The Leaks November 28, 2010

What to see what decades of US diplomacy looks like?   It’s out and about now.  What appears to be a long summary in the NY Times is here.  All sorts of other articles can be found by going to their front pages. 

The Times tells us that someone who is unnamed made the documents available to the Times and to some other news organizations.  It will be interesting to see who prints them, and indeed who can print them.  Will we even know if the British government invokes the Official Secrets Act?  (I don’t know if invocations of the act are also secrets, or short-term secrets.)

Beating Implicit Bias November 28, 2010

As a teacher of philosophy I’ve been eagerly awaiting some research on how to compensate for (or if possible eliminate) the negative effects of implicit gender and other biases in the classroom. I’ll be teaching introductory logic next semester, so the timing of this potentially exciting piece of research from University of Colorado at Boulder could hardly be better. The claim is bold and striking – that it is possible completely to close the gender gap in the physics classroom by setting simple 15-minute writing exercises. From Discover magazine’s helpful summary:

Think about the things that are important to you. Perhaps you care about creativity, family relationships, your career, or having a sense of humour. Pick two or three of these values and write a few sentences aboutwhy they are important to you. You have fifteen minutes. It could change your life.

This simple writing exercise may not seem like anything ground-breaking, but its effects speak for themselves. In a university physics class, Akira Miyake from the University of Colorado used it to close the gap between male and female performance. In the university’s physics course, men typically do better than women but Miyake’s study shows that this has nothing to do with innate ability. With nothing but his fifteen-minute exercise, performed twice at the beginning of the year, he virtually abolished the gender divide and allowed the female physicists to challenge their male peers.

In a piece on EurkAlert! the authors sound a slightly more cautious note:

Steven Pollock, professor of physics and a CU President’s Teaching Scholar, noted that the study funded by the National Science Foundation is a “small piece” of a large puzzle, and he and his colleagues stressed that the results are no silver bullet in STEM education.

While concurring, Noah Finkelstein, a co-author and associate professor in physics, added, “This is a really exciting finding. It bears further exploration. These results hold significant promise for addressing differential performance and the significant disparity of recruitment and retention of women in STEM disciplines.”

I’d love to hear what readers think of the research. Would an exercise like this be as effective in the philosophy classroom? Are people tempted to try it out? (Thanks to Rob)

UPDATE: Thanks also to Mark who sent a link to a podcast on the study from Scientific American.

But the banks will all leave! November 28, 2010

That’s why the UK government ‘s plans to demand more information about highly paid bankers are being scrapped– HSBC has been especially vocal in insisting they’d leave the UK. But guess what? Hong Kong already demands that, and HSBC didn’t leave. Apparently Thatcher also imposed a windfall tax on banks. They didn’t leave then either.

What do Iran and the U.S. have in common? November 28, 2010

If news reports are correct, two of the seven U.N. member states that have not ratified the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) are Iran and the United States.

Here are two pieces of writing on it that might be well worth your time (for various reasons):

first, Senate Revisits the ‘Women’s Treaty’, by Amy Lieberman
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/7148/senate-revisits-the-womens-treaty

second, The Case against the U.N. Women’s Treaty by (turncoat?) Christina Hoff Sommers
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/253400/case-against-un-womens-treaty-christina-hoff-sommers

Apart from the more obviously important issues, was/is it inappropriate for me to include a parenthetical “turncoat” before Christina Hoff Sommers’ name? Does justice/morality/ethics require me to list her name as author just as I list other names as authors? Whether justice/morality/ethics does so or not, what other words might readers use to describe her? Any thoughts to share on this or related matters?

U.N. Women, CEDAW, and Saudi Arabia November 28, 2010

The U.N. Women statement (on “Facts & Figures”) linked below claims that, “[t]he work of UN Women will be framed by… the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [CEDAW]…”

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Update: the U.N. Women website now indicates that CEDAW is one of four or so documents guiding their work:

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http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/guiding-documents/

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http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/convention.htm

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Apparently, Saudi Arabia ratified CEDAW with three or so reservations. Here is one of them:
1) “The Kingdom does not consider itself bound by paragraphe 2 of article 9 of the Convention…”

- *** Please note that paragraph 2 of article 9 states, “Parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.”

What do readers make of this?

In case anyone is interested, here is a link to the 2009 Freedom House Ratings for Saudi Arabia – you can easily find ratings (or country reports) for different years and regions by changing the two drop down menus.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7696

The Sunday Cat loves “kitty litter” November 27, 2010

 

 ”Rick Ordonez: Kitty Litter”, an exhibition at Mid-City Arts, a street-art gallery in Los Angeles, features the work of a graffiti artist whose tags of cats have appeared across Los Angeles. 

 

A work from the show (I think):

His art, unfortunately, earned him 90 days in jail and 300 hours of community work.

The long arm of the law intervened in July, when investigators with the Sheriff’s Transit Services Bureau caught up with Ordonez, 33, and busted him for creating cats on public property, especially on or near the Pasadena Freeway.

Apparently he was vigorously pursued, according to another article:

The Sheriff’s Transit Services Bureau, which specializes in pursuing high-profile taggers, arrested Ordonez based on tips and information gathered in the community.

Most of the infamous cat paintings were plastered on state and local transit properties… According to investigators, Ordonez has associations with a tagging crew and is a cat owner.

Quite an M.O. 

Though the cats are fairly new, Ordonez is a highly respected street artist who has been at it for 20 years.  He has no desire to be recognized.

Gender Inequality Index November 27, 2010

Apparently, the recently released 2010 Human Development Report (HDR) added three new indices to the Human Development Index (HDI). They are The Multidimensional Poverty Index, The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, and the Gender Inequality Index.

The Gender Inequality Index ranks countries by taking account of five indicators: 1) maternal mortality ratio, 2) adolescent fertility rate, 3) the share of parliamentary seats held by each sex, 4) secondary and higher education attainment levels, and 5) by women’s participation in the work force.

This index is (supposed to be) “a composite measure reflecting inequality in achievements between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market.”

Saudi Arabia, which ranks 55 in the “high human development” category, ranks 128 in the Gender Inequality Index.

Here is the new Gender Inequality Index:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Table4_reprint.pdf

Here is the Human Development Report webpage on it:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/gii/

Many details here for different interpretations in different ways…

Just the man to put in charge of cost-cutting November 27, 2010

I knew Lord Browne– author of the Browne report which is shaping UK education policy– was a former BP exec. But I only recently learned that he’s said to be the man responsible for the brilliant cost-cutting decisions widely credited with giving rise to the Deepwater disaster.

Browne is described by journalist and author Tom Bower as irresponsible for a “ruthless” programme of cost-cutting at BP that compromised safety, and thus the man most responsible for a string of major accidents including the Texas City Refinery explosion (2005) and the Deepwater Horizon explosion (2010).

Yes, this is the man to turn to for wise counsel on efficiency savings.

Pete Seeger November 27, 2010

This post is a comment on the one below it.  It’s like the 60′s all over again.  Maybe we can get the attack on education linked to the outrageous output in wars.

 

When will they ever learn? November 27, 2010

You have a group of students, professors and no doubt the ever guilty ‘outside agitators’ all in London protesting possible tuition hikes.  So what do you do?  Here’s a great idea: charge** into the crowd with horses!  Won’t that show everyone you are right and they are wrong?

Now, here’s the thing that gets me:  at least since the student protests at Berkeley in 1964-65, we’ve had all sorts of police attacks on students.  Pretty much, they do not work.  There should be some lesson book that says something like, “Lots of people think of students as overly privileged, but few want to see police charging at young people who are our future.”  And, as it turns out in this case, highly vulnerable.  I.e., pregnant.  Or so it seems.

The mounted police charge** at about 1:06.

 

**The description of the police on horses as charging comes from the Guardian.

Just bleed all over the airport– it’s safer November 26, 2010

A self-described “rule follower” went through an airport pornoscanner wearing a panty-liner (she was menstruating). Because the hygienic item obscured the screener’s view of her vulva, she was made to endure a humiliating fondling, “so invasive that I was left crying and dealing with memories that I thought had been dealt with years ago of prior sexual assaults.”

For more, go here.

A bit of the Macy’s Day parade. November 25, 2010

Note, in case you noticed a change:  I got very tired of seeing the clips, and I assume others may have too.  So I’ve now put in links to them rather than having them in the post.

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As probably most people know, today is a national holiday in the US, Thanksgiving Day.  There’s a large and elaborate parade in NY City.  Now, if one is going to be in the parade, here’s a great way to look, it seems to me:

This is Takashi Murakami, whose art figures are appearing for the first time in the parade.  He plans to go along with them; the picture was taken in some studio involved in putting his float together.

It’s hard to find much about him in the parade; there is a short clip here:

The characters are KaiKai and KiKi.  And here’s a short talk about his work.  It has adult content, I guess.  I don’t know quite what to make of the two figures that give it this content; I think one might take them to be quite witty portrayals of a number of dimensions to a Western of idea of gods and goddesses. 

So what’s feminist about this post?  Probably not much, certainly not more than the 2008 Thanksgiving video, the wild turkey waltz.  If you missed it, it is worth a look.

What about Doctor/Rabbi couples? November 25, 2010

LI sent a link to this fascinating list of titles, offered by Doctors Without Borders.

You’re required to choose a title, and they’ve offered quite a lot of titles. They’ve tried to accommodate lost of combinations for couples who might like to donate together, including same sex ones. But they’ve nonetheless omitted quite a few possibilities. to name just a few: it seems that judges, if coupled, must be coupled with a bearer of ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’– not ‘Ms’, or ‘Dr.’ Even other judges are impermissible. Rabbis, if coupled, must be coupled with a bearer of ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’– not ‘Ms’, ‘Dr’, ‘Judge’ or ‘Rabbi’. Doctors’ partners have a wider range of titles than judges partners. And anyone who goes by ‘Miss’ had better not try to donate as part of a couple.

Reason number 376 to just stop using titles.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women November 25, 2010

is today.

“My UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, and the Network of Men Leaders I launched last year, have generated welcome momentum and engagement. The word is spreading: violence against women and girls has no place in any society, and impunity for perpetrators must no longer be tolerated. On this International Day, I urge all – Governments, civil society, the corporate sector, individuals – to take responsibility for eradicating violence against women and girls.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Message for the International Day for the
Elimination of VIolence against Women
25 November 2010

Save Philosophy at Howard November 25, 2010

There’s now a petition to save Philosophy at Howard University:

The Department of Philosophy at Howard University is in danger of being shut down. The administration is poised to fold this BA and MA degree granting department into an interdisciplinary program offering only core and service courses.

This will mark the end of the only graduate degree program in philosophy at an HBCU; it will weaken the university’s commitment to the kind of humanistic self-examination that underwrote the US black freedom movement; and it will repudiate the legacy of philosophy at Howard, a legacy forged by the likes of Alain Locke, one of the central figures in the Harlem Renaissance.

Please help us encourage Howard’s president to strengthen philosophy rather than abolish it.

Go sign it!

Hypatia announcement November 25, 2010

from editor Alison Wylie:

Hypatia 25th: Special Issue and Retrospective Virtual Issue
November 24, 2010

It’s been just over a year since the Hypatia 25th Anniversary conference, and we’ve now published the final issue of Volume 25: the Anniversary Special Issue, “Feminist Legacies / Feminist Futures” (25.4).

We’ve also assembled a 25th Anniversary Retrospective Virtual Issue: a selection of articles published by Hypatia since the mid-1980s nominated by Hypatia readers over the last year as pivotal to their own thinking and especially important in the development of feminist philosophy. Check out the introduction (a separate link) for some compelling for quotes from the nominations.

Both are available online – OPEN ACCESS – through Wiley-Blackwell’s Online Library. All the links, and background on these projects, are available on the Hypatia editorial office website. Do please spread the news!

Hypatia editorial office: OnLine News

And…should you want to order individual copies of the 25th Anniversary Special Issue (25.4), you can get them through the Wiley-Blackwell subscription page (under “Back Issue Information” – Single Issues) at the personal subscription rate of $12.50 per issue.

WB Hypatia Online Library

WB Subscriptions / Single Issue orders

Here’s to a vibrant 25 years to come!

Alison Wylie
on behalf of the Hypatia editorial team