BBC NEWS | Health | Women’s health fuelling poverty For every woman who dies, roughly 20 more suffer serious injury or disability – between 8 million and 20 million a year. Experts agree that the majority of maternal deaths are preventable through family planning to reduce unintended pregnancies, skilled attendance at all deliveries and timely emergency obstetric care in all cases where complications arise. And our own government’s moralizing policies are a big part of this problem. We refuse to give aid to countries and charities without strings attached. Which is morally indefensible, if you ask me (but they won’t).
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I’ve been troubled by something I heard in conversation yesterday. It’s really bothering me, and I’m wondering if I had an obligation to register my discomfort or disapproval of the comment. Or not, as this was at work, and a complaint might be raised about me. Here’s the deal: I was talking to a client about hotel accomodations for that night, somewhere in the southeastern US in an area not far from where Katrina and Rita raised a little hell a few weeks back. Hotel availability in the area is really, really hard to come by, and every time I…
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I already knew where this episode was supposedly headed; spoilers had been floating around since the day they filmed at today’s location, because it’s been just about impossible to keep people from all over the country from saying “Hey! I think they filmed an episode of TAR in my area! I saw Racers/clue boxes/flags/production crew.” The spoilers are showing up in news articles and TV Guide-type websites, too, so I’m not feeling too much doubt about where we’re going. Of course, if we go somewhere else, I’m not the only one with egg on my face. Apparently, tonight we’re going…
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I felt “bleh” yesterday and took off early. Sunday I picked up all the prescriptions from Walgreens that my doctor had re-prescribed for me, after admonishing me not to simply “go off them after a while.” I’d been pretty good about taking the blood pressure one, but some of the others I had let lapse. So after scoring an appointment on Saturday, before taking Riley down to the vet, I loaded up on the prescriptions. I felt like they all kicked in about 2pm yesterday… I dragged through the day for a while, started to feel a little whifty, and…
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We went to ComedySportz to see my husband David’s brother Mitch perform. Hi, Mitch! Mitch takes improv classes now and then, and had reached the point where he had a class performance. We all had an excellent time, and laughed very loudly (this is to remind Mitch’s mom of the time she shushed us when we laughed at another of Mitch’s shows). The best part was when my brother-in-law Dan won a free improv class. I suspect the fix was in, because all the other entries were for ComedySportz employees or class members. It was very funny how the “vote…
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People who wear vile scents to work. People who keep breaking their computers. People who use speakerphones, at either end of the conversation. People who are remorselessly chipper far too early in the morning. People who must say “Hi! Hi! Hi! every time they walk past your area. People whose every conversation is broadcast AT ELEVEN. IT GOES TO ELEVEN. People who act in real life like they’d bloviate endlessly online.
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What Did Rove Tell Dobson? Dobson, the influential founder of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family, has said he is supporting Miers’ nomination in part because of something he has been told but cannot divulge. He has acknowledged speaking with Karl Rove, Bush’s political adviser, about the president’s pick before it was announced. Fortunately, Sen. Arlen Specter is going to get to the bottom of this. Rove’s making his secret phone calls in support of Miers? So not good. But not unexpected. Some folks, however, think Dobson may be calling off the rightmost dogs and hedging his bets.…
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Whew. First of all, I’m fine. My monkeylady stuck me in a carrier today and we drove for a long time. I continually begged to be let out and for us to go back to the little building, but the world just kept moving around us. Eventually, we got to this big, noisy echoing place that was absolutely full of dogs (yuck). They kept coming up to my little cage and sniffing at me. Finally, my monkey moved so her hind legs were in front of the cage, and that was better. After along wait, we went in a little…
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My day yesterday was wonderful and also a little frightening. For some reason the woman monkey didn’t make a big noise and go away in the morning. She went around the little building we all live in, putting things away and generally making it look much less interesting, with fewer things to scatter or knock over. Eventually, she settled down on the couch with a little flat computer. I know about those from my brief career as a Web celebrity, you see. A monkey man’s voice chattered senselessly on and on; it was coming out of the big loud-box but…
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Discovered with relish and and an extra helping of schadenfraude at Clack: Man, falling approvals in the polls really suck! I’ve seen these “falling figure” animations before, but this one made me laugh – every now and then, George gets stuck. You can use the mouse pointer to drag him between spheres and set him on his downward course again, or you can just drag him every which-a-way on the winds of change or public opinion polls or whatever. But when he gets stuck, it’s often in some anatomically impossible and rather disturbing position, and if you don’t drag him…