Christmas pink and green
While in Manhattan last week, my family and I stopped to look around at F.A.O. Schwartz. This particular aisle glowed the kind of strong pink glow that comes from dozens of $70 play dresses.
Critique of selective testing
William Cornwall raises this worthy question:
the focus on drug and steroid testing in sports is absurd when you consider that professional athletes are tested more than Supreme Court Justices, Members of Congress, the President of the United States, and other elected officials. Additionally, despite the disproportionately high incidents of substance abuse among health care practitioners and the undeniable potential risks to their patients, there are no uniform workplace testing programs for health care practitioners that are similar to the testing programs in sports. What is it about possessing the elite athletic prowess that justifies treating a man or woman differently from others whose impact on our lives are potentially much more profound?
Four litmus tests for Congress
According to consumer advocate Ed Mierzwinski, the following four reforms "seem obvious to taxpayers. Not to Wall Street." I would add that they don't seem obvious enough to most members of Congress. They should have been passed at least a year ago:
1) Will Congress enact a strong version of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency? [It needs to be independent, needs to regulate all financial products, needs to reinstate federal law as a floor, not a ceiling, of protection]. 2) Will Congress regulate the shadow markets, e.g., unregulated derivative, hedge fund, and private equity shadow markets? 3) Will Congress audit the Fed? 4) Will Congress end the too-big-to-fail system that led to taxpayer-funded TARP bailouts?I agree with Mierzwinski that these needs are obvious. The only reason they aren't yet law is that Congress is flooded with banking industry money. It's time for Congress to show whether it has any integrity for enacting these four reforms, which constitute some very low bars, indeed. These are minimum standard that any reasonable person would immediately support. Members of Congress need to show us that they really represent the People of the U.S. by immediately voting for these four reforms.
More on Neanderthals
Earlier this year, I posted on a comprehensive article regarding Neanderthals published by National Geographic. In the August, 2009 edition of Scientific American, you can find considerably more information on our Neanderthal cousins. One of the most interesting things about Neanderthals is that they survived for nearly 15,000 years after modern humans moved into Europe (modern humans entered Europe about 40,000 years ago). Some scientists suggest that modern humans did not necessarily kill the Neanderthals directly, but that "the Neanderthals ended up competing with the incoming moderns for food and gradually lost ground." The reason they might've lost ground is that modern humans were more flexible about what they could eat--they were able to survive off of smaller animals and plant foods. Anthropological evidence suggests that Neanderthals focused mainly on large game, which often became scarce, and which prevented a division of labor among Neanderthal men, women and children. Neanderthals also needed a lot more calories than modern humans. Paleoanthropologist Leslie Aiello described them as follows: "Neanderthals were the SUVs of the hominid world." Evidence also suggests that Neanderthals were intellectually active. Neanderthals probably had language (based upon the fact that they decorated their bodies with jewelry and pigment, which were often used as a proxy for language). Further, recent analysis of Neanderthal DNA shows that they carried "the same version of the speech enabling gene FOXP2 that modern humans carry." The article indicates that a full analysis of Neanderthal DNA is likely out this year, and that it is expected to shed far more light on what it meant to be a Neanderthal
Asexuality: nature or nurture?
As many as 1% of the population claim to be asexual--they claim that they do not experience sexual attraction. They are "indifferent to and uninterested in having sex with either gender." According to this article, some academic researchers have been trying to determine whether asexuality is a biological phenomenon or "a slippery social label that some people may prefer to adopt and embrace." It turns out, the topic is fraught with definitional issues. For instance, there are allegedly many ways of not being sexual:
[T]here is tremendous variation in the sexual inclinations of those who consider themselves to be asexual. Some masturbate, some don't. Some are interested in nonsexual, romantic relationships (including cuddling and kissing but no genital contact), while others aren't. Some consider themselves to be "hetero-asexual" (having a nonsexual aesthetic or romantic preference for those of the opposite sex), while others see themselves as "homo-" or "bi-asexuals." Yet many asexuals are also perfectly willing to have sex if it satisfies their sexual partners; it's not awkward or painful for them but rather, like making toast or emptying the trash, they just don't personally derive pleasure from the act. Others insist on being in completely sexless relationships, possibly with other asexuals.
AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) provides additional information regarding asexuals. In fact, I am related through marriage to the founder of AVEN (David Jay), a thoughtful young man who is absolutely sincere about his views on asexuality. I do struggle with the claim that one can be an asexual when one has lots of sex. On the other hand, I do know several adults who I suspect are asexual--I doubt that they have any sexual cravings. One of them is a woman with a chronically flat affect. The other is a man who had a horrific marriage, several decades ago, which apparently turned off his sense of sexuality permanently. Though it is my suspicion that virtually all healthy adults experience sexual feelings, I also suspect that there are some bona fide asexuals. I would like to see more science that might enlighten us as to whether this rather quiet segment of society is asexual due to nature, environment, choice, or something else.