Eideard

This is one of those topics that suggests enough discussion to prompt writing a book – or a separate blog. But, I’m not about to do either. So, discuss it in “comments” or among yourselves.

A rising number of children are learning about sex from watching pornography because sex education lessons are inadequate, researchers have found. The average age at which children first watch pornography is just 11, interviews with 140 pupils, teachers and people working in the porn industry also revealed.

Australian researchers Maree Crabbe and David Corlett said children were turning to adult films because schools were not handling the positive aspects of sex…

“Discussion of sex and intimacy is too often avoided in schools,” they said. “Porn has become a cultural mediator in how young people are understanding and experience sex. Porn is our most prominent sex educator…”

Mary Clegg, chair of the British Association of Sexual Educators, agreed there was a shortfall in sex education at schools. “A lot of our sex education is based on a don’t-do model,” she said. “But young people are hungry for more explicit information. They’re curious and they’re hormone-driven.”

The research found 88 per cent of scenes in pornographic films showed an element of physical aggression, with most directed at the female participant.

To me, that’s the key to the discussion. I would have said this – even prior to reading about the research.

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Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

If Fox News viewers want to be informed about current events, they might as well turn off the TV.

A poll released by Fairleigh Dickinson University on Monday found that people who get their news from Fox News know significantly less about news both in the U.S. and the world than people who watch no news at all.

In a survey of 612 New Jersey natives, Fox News fans flunked questions about Egypt and Syria when compared with people who don’t watch the news. Fox viewers were 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians toppled their government and 6 points less likely to be aware that Syrians have not yet overthrown theirs.

“Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News,” Dan Cassino, a Fairleigh Dickinson professor who served as an analyst for the poll, said in the report. “Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all…”

The most informative outlets were found to be the Sunday morning news shows as well as outlets like the New York Times, USA today and NPR.

Har.

Officials in Rick Perry’s home state of Texas have set off a scientists’ revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state’s environmental agency.

By academic standards, the protest amounts to the beginnings of a rebellion: every single scientist associated with the 200-page report has demanded their names be struck from the document. “None of us can be party to scientific censorship so we would all have our names removed,” said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice-president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre…

However, Perry, in his run for the Republican nomination, has elevated denial of science, from climate change to evolution, to an art form. He opposes any regulation of industry, and has repeatedly challenged the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas is the only state to refuse to sign on to the federal government’s new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. “I like to tell people we live in a state of denial in the state of Texas,” said John Anderson, an oceanography at Rice University, and author of the chapter targeted by the government censors…

Officials even deleted a reference to the sea level at Galveston Bay rising five times faster than the long-term average – 3mm a year compared to .5mm a year – which Anderson noted was a scientific fact. “They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated,” said Anderson. “That’s not scientific review that’s just straight forward censorship.”

The barbarian cohort of politicians catering to every whim of the Oil Patch Boys is nothing new to anyone who lives within 600 miles of the Permian Basin. That they are marching towards full control of the Republican Party in concert with the flat-earthers of the Tea Party isn’t a surprise either.

The foolishness of born-again libertarians is compounded not only by ignorance and a fear of educated folk – censorship once again comes into play as thoroughly as xenophobia and bigotry.

Skeletons of the plague dead in London’s East Smithfield Cemetery
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Scientists have mapped out the entire genetic map of the Black Death, a 14th century bubonic plague that killed 50 million Europeans in one of the most devastating epidemics in history.

The work, which involved extracting and purifying DNA from the remains of Black death victims buried in London’s “plague pits,” is the first time scientists have been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any ancient pathogen.

Their result — a full draft of the entire Black Death genome — should allow researchers to track changes in the disease’s evolution and virulence, and lead to better understanding of modern-day infectious diseases.

Building on previous research which showed that a specific variant of the Yersinia pestis bacterium was responsible for the plague that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, a team of German, Canadian and American scientists went on to “capture” and sequence the entire genome of the disease.

“The genomic data show that this bacterial strain, or variant, is the ancestor of all modern plagues we have today worldwide. Every outbreak across the globe today stems from a descendant of the medieval plague,” said Hendrik Poinar, of Canada’s McMaster University, who worked with the team…

For this study Poinar’s team analysed skeletal remains from Black Death victims buried in London’s East Smithfield “plague pits,” which are located under what is now the Royal Mint…

Poinar, whose work was published in the journal Nature, said the team found that in 660 years of evolution, the genetic map of the ancient organism had only barely changed. “The next step is to determine why this was so deadly,” he said.

Pathogens and pandemics aren’t about to disappear. Levels of preparedness afforded by modern medicine, vaccination and hygiene are constantly challenged by ignorance and superstition. Indeed, in the United States significant resistance to well-proven methods flows like a river of political pus from the combination of religious nutballs and opportunist populists.

Living in a state that confronts deaths from plague every year, there is currency to the contemplation of historic tragedy. Living in a state where parents can refuse a vaccine for their children on religious grounds thereby endangering other children by the hundreds – research that supports greater depth of response to the dangers of pandemic is a necessity.

Founders of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, circa 1975

It was described by evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell as “obscene trash.”

High schools and public libraries banned it, while teenagers — male and female — hid it under their beds like a dirty magazine. Women across the country passed it to their friends, their sisters, their neighbors. They read chapters about rape in closets with flashlights. They gaped in dorm rooms at the photos of childbirth.

The landmark women’s health handbook was filled with sometimes graphic information about the most intimate aspects of women’s lives. It was revolutionary in its candid discussions — and depictions — of the specifics of sex, birth control, childbirth, lesbianism and other formerly taboo topics.

In 1971, the first “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book sold 250,000 copies. Today, it is available in 25 languages and has sold more than 4 million copies. It’s hard to believe it all began in Boston with just 12 women.

They met during a women’s liberation conference in 1969. At the time, fewer than 10% of doctors were women, and topics like sexuality, pregnancy and abortion were rarely discussed. But a long conversation after a workshop on women and their bodies prompted this small group to launch the beginning of the women’s health care movement…

The next year, their work came to fruition: a 193-page booklet printed on newsprint titled “Women and Their Bodies” that sold for just 75 cents.

RTFA – the interview with Judy Norsigian , executive director of the ongoing, constantly updated publication. Think about giving a copy to young women you know – or read it yourself if you haven’t yet.

This is a book that still opens doors to thought and accomplishment for women stuck into the corners of a society that hasn’t yet progressed very well beyond superstition and ignorance.

While the Bible Belt is known for its devotion to traditional values, Southerners don’t do so well on one key family value: They are more likely to get divorced than people living in the Northeast.

Southern men and women had higher rates of divorce in 2009 than their counterparts in other parts of the country: 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

By comparison, men and women in the Northeast had the lowest rates of divorce, 7.2 and 7.5 per 1,000, which is also lower than the national divorce rate of 9.2 for men and 9.7 for women…

Youth and lack of education can lead to higher divorce rates, said D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer with the Pew Research Center..”There tend to be higher divorce rates in states where women marry young,” Cohn said. “Education also may play a role. In general, less educated women marry at younger ages than college-educated women, and less educated couples have higher divorce rates.”

Values about premarital sex associated with the Bible Belt and rural America may be encouraging people to marry early, at ages when they are likely to have less education and less income to support a long-lasting marriage, according to Naomi Cahn, law professor at The George Washington University Law School…”There’s a moral crisis in red states that’s produced by higher divorce rates and the disparity between parental values and behavior of young adults,” said Cahn. “There is enormous tension between moral values and actual practices…”

“The very fact that people feel less pressure to get married (in the Northeast) means they can be more selective about who they marry and take their time, ” Coontz said. “They don’t have to rush into it to please parents or avoid stigma of premarital sex…”

Meanwhile, divorce still pushes more women into poverty than men and affects their children, since children are still more likely to live with their mothers than their fathers, according to the same U.S. Census report.

Bible Belt and fundamentalist Christians have a built-in acceptance for hypocrisy. Lying about ethical standards – building rationales acceptable to your peers to justify just about anything is part of the whole equation of being “forgiven”. You can build your life on superstition and guesswork – and watch it fall apart – because you have someone waiting for you, next Sunday, who will tell you, “It’s OK. You gave it a try. God loves you anyway.”

Even if you don’t make your child support payments.

Catholic University is bringing back single-sex dorms starting with next year’s freshman class. Why? To reduce binge drinking and hooking up, University President John Garvey said this week in The Wall Street Journal. The right place for a CU editorial for sure.

Garvey said studies show that students drink more, and have more sexual partners, when they live in co-ed dorms. His university’s job is to train students in the virtuous life, and certain virtues are best learned and practiced living apart.

He has good intentions, I’m sure, and some 18- and 19-year-old students will be attracted to single-sex living. But I’m not convinced he’ll achieve the results he seeks. Nothing in my 20 years of experience writing about young people suggests that reverting to the old days of male and female dorms will substantially reduce the frequency of drinking or casual sex.

Moreover, his explanation for the change has a let’s-protect-the-women ring to it that is decidedly out of step with the gender roles and expectations of today’s young women and young men…

Author Liz Funk, a New York resident in her 20s who was raised as a Roman Catholic, attended a co-ed college with co-ed dorms. She remembers, “Without the presence of guys, my friends and I had no problem throwing back three to eight drinks in a sitting. And on the occasions where accidents happened … it was always in an all-female context.” No doubt the same in many all-guy drinking bouts… The phrase, “I must have been drunk” comes to mind.

None of this is to say that Catholic University, like other schools, shouldn’t be talking to students about drinking, sex and having fun in a way that is consistent with the school’s values. Students flock to such discussions, depending on who leads them, and more schools — non-religious as well as religious — should offer them.

Garvey ignores what to me has been one contribution of co-ed dorms: the ease with which members of this generation relate to each other as friends, and the depth of their understanding of the opposite sex. I can’t help but believe those qualities will help sustain their intimate partnerships in the future.

This good Catholic official seems stuck into the same ignorance that afflicts his religion at root, its hierarchy, as a matter of course.

Ignore the realities of best practices grounded in modern knowledge – and you induce the same frustration, rejection and confrontation that continues to demolish all fundamentalist sects.

Ever see a teabagger at an anti-war demonstration?

A DNR, or do not resuscitate order, is a legal document that ensures that resuscitation efforts will not be attempted if someone suffers a cardiac or respiratory arrest. End-of-life, or advance care planning, is a subject that far too many families avoid discussing until it’s too late…

Advance directives provide instruction for your family and physician about the types of treatment you want at the end of your life. Sadly, most Americans don’t have them. A 2003 report by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research found that less than 50 percent of terminally ill patients studied had an advance care directive in their medical record. Of those who had directives, between 65 and 76 percent of their physicians were not aware it existed.

End-of-life planning, unfortunately, has emerged as a hot button political issue. In 2009, House Democrats included a provision in the health care reform bill that would have allowed Medicare to reimburse doctors for end-of-life discussions. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin derided the proposal as “Obama’s death panel,” falsely asserting that the government would act as arbiter on who would receive health care. Then-Minority Leader John Boehner claimed that encouraging these discussions would be a step toward “government-sponsored euthanasia.” Ultimately, the provision ignited such intense vitriol that congressional leaders dropped the provision from the final bill that was signed by President Obama.

Many of the arguments against advance-care planning, however, lack merit. The point of the provision was to foster conversation about dying between doctors and patients as well as informed decision making. In an October 2008 study by the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that patients who had these discussions were more likely to accept their prognosis and preferred to receive comfort care, rather than aggressive life-extending therapies. Many choose hospice care, which treats the entire person, both medically and spiritually…

April 16 is National Health Care Decisions Day — an invaluable opportunity for families across America to begin to make informed health-care decisions or revisit the decisions that have been made…Figure out what you want, document your wishes, inform your loved ones and urge them to do the same.

The religious phonies who call themselves conservatives should butt out of everyone else’s life. Those of us who choose – who demand the right to choose – dignity as an end draws near don’t need volunteer saviors telling us what we can and can’t do.

The Kongressional Klowns who get in the way of Medicare don’t wish to see us have professional advice – or aid in the cost of getting that advice. They should leave the corporate cabal that runs American politics and get an honest job.

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama proclaimed that there would be one million electric vehicles on the road in the United States by 2015. Toyota recently celebrated the building of the company’s three millionth hybrid worldwide. More and more automakers are turning to the battery pack and electric motors to improve fuel economy or remove petrol from the equation altogether, but do Americans know what any of this means? Not really, at least according to a recent study.

MediaPost reports that marketing firm Synovate recently polled 1,898 would-be car buyers to gauge their knowledge of hybrids and electric cars, and the results are not encouraging. Only two-thirds are aware that hybrids use both petrol and battery power for propulsion, and a large portion didn’t know hybrids even had batteries onboard. And while regular readers might know that some hybrids can run for short distances on electricity alone, only a third of those polled were aware of that little tidbit.

The results of this poll are likely disheartening to advertisers who have tried tirelessly over the years to explain how hybrids work. And with plug-ins and electric cars starting to hit the market, the education of the car-buying public has just begun. Case in point? Less than half of the nearly 2,000 car-buyers polled knew that plug-in hybrids can run on electric power alone. So… just what is that plug for, then?

Ignorance really ain’t bliss, you know.

Sometimes there’s no telling what the world will get excited about. Amid the ongoing catastrophe in Japan, the Libyan and Yemeni crises and everything else, the news media and half the internet, it seems, are eagerly awaiting Saturday’s “supermoon.” It’s being billed as the closest, biggest, and brightest full Moon in 19 years.

It’s true. The Moon is full on March 19th right about when it’s at perigee, its closest to Earth in its monthly orbit. And not all perigees are precisely the same. This one is a trace closer than usual.

But not by enough to notice.

There’s something that many people (and too much of the news media) never seem to grasp: When it comes to science stories, if you don’t know it in numbers, you don’t know it at all.

How much bigger is this month’s full Moon? Here’s the number. It’s just 2% bigger than the full Moons of last month and next month. That’s one part in fifty. You couldn’t tell the difference if you put them side by side…

The takeaway message from this episode? Astronomy stories inspire people to look up and consider the larger universe, but they can also educate in practical ways for getting through life. The “supermoon” flap is a harmless bit of hype. But when your relatives start sending you frantic chain letters about the Japanese nuclear fallout starting to “pound the West Coast,” like one blog post I’ve already seen going around, remember what you read here.

Look at the numbers for the radiation reaching the West Coast. You’ll see that it’s trivial compared to the natural background radiation that everyone receives every day of their lives.

So don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t learn anything practical from astronomy. Send your frantic aunt this article, and tell her why she should quit with the dumb chain letters already.

Ditto.