getmygoat

This evening the goat and I participated in Earth Hour 2009. My house is pretty efficient as it is - we have not run heating or cooling systems for several days now. Really, the main energy outputs at my house are from computers and television - we often use small lamps or open windows for lighting. So while the gesture was a minute one as far as energy consumption in my own house is concerned, I still enjoyed participating.

I feel like Earth Hour is more important as a symbol of unity and cooperation than as a way to actually make a difference in our environmental footprint, but I also think that showing this solidarity is very important. I experienced this fellowship not only as a member of a global movement, but also as a member of my household. My goat and I spent the hour together talking. While the goat and I talk quite a bit, our conversations are often punctuated by electronic distractions. There was something quite nice about sitting around together enjoying candlelight and one another’s company. In a way it was like the aftermath of a hurricane, minus the devastation and worry that comes with it (in fact, the power outages and subsequent neighborly bonding are my favorite part of hurricane season, which is a major part of life in Florida). I am very much looking forward to next year’s Earth Hour (and I will publicize it in advance like I SHOULD have this year).

Thursday night on the Daily Show I heard that Pope Benedict XVI had stated that distributing condoms would contribute to the spread of HIV.  I find this highly problematic not only because condoms are one of the few reliable methods of protecting one’s self from the virus, but also because many devout Catholics look to the Pope for guidance.  By announcing that condoms increase one’s chances for contracting the virus, the Pope may have unwittingly condemned many people to acquire the disease via unsafe sex.

From whence did this information come?  I am aware that Catholicism (as well as many other religions and denominations) takes an official stance against using birth control.  I do not, however, understand how a public figure can make such outrageous claims.  My goal here is not to argue against faith - such an endeavor is pointless because we all believe our own way is the right way in matters of religion.  I simply want to know why anyone would think it is okay to risk public health in the name of one’s own personal beliefs

Like it or not, we live in a neoliberal world in which it is our personal responsibility to stay healthy.  Illness is often considered a weakness brought on by a deficient lifestyle, a stereotype which creates a social emphasis on wellness.  When the Pope made his claims denouncing safer sex, he undermined not only the right of the people to remain healthy, but also kept many individuals from the means to respond accordingly to one’s societal duty to maintain health.

I do not approve of the current mores which stigmatize illness, but I also cringe as the Pope stands before his giant congregation and tells them that condoms spread HIV.  This information is false and will cause far more damage than any campaign delivering prophylactics to disadvantaged persons.  Scientists, public health officials, and human rights leaders have been striving for decades to find a way to halt the spread of HIV; please do not let one (powerful) man undo that work with one unfounded comment.

This morning I was forced by circumstance to take my cat to the vet to have her euthanized.  While this is a very sad event in my personal life, I do realize that it does not exactly constitute a “current event” (I had planned on writing about the Pope’s statements about condoms and HIV transmission, but that’s another post for another day).  However, the ordeal got me thinking about life, what it’s worth, and when to quit.

I let the goat drive home so I could hold the bundle in my arms.  I petted her, even though she couldn’t feel it, even though I couldn’t feel her through the blankets and towels.  We believe we made the right choice.  My cat was 11 years old, and she wasn’t purring when we put her in the car.  She was in pain and cried in the office, and when the gave her that shot, she sighed peacefully.  As much as I hated having that decision on my hands, I felt it was right, and the goat agreed.  She said that she would rather go “like that” than be made to suffer.

It’s a tough line to draw.  I have friends who have come back from terminal diagnoses.  I know people who live with pain - physical, emotional, and mental - every day.  I want to fight the good fight until my last, natural, breath.  But sometimes I wonder what price we pay to continue a life with no quality to it.

The goat seems to support “assisted suicide”.  I don’t know what I believe yet.  Part of me wants everyone to live forever.  Part of me thinks that such killings are an act of mercy.  How much suffering must one endure before being allowed to rest?  How can one make an informed decision?  When is death truly inevitable?

I don’t know where to draw these lines.  I know many people look to their faith to answer such questions, but when I look to mine I still draw a blank.  Which is more important - life or happiness?

I would appreciate input from all belief systems.  It’s easy to decide, in theory, whether or not it is morally sound to put a cat “to sleep.”  It’s an entirely different game when human lives are at stake.  So please share your views with me while I sort this all out.  I promise a less selfish entry in the near future.

The latest American economic uproar centers around AIG and their (mis)use of government stimulus money. By now, we’ve all heard about Christopher Dodd’s part (then denial of his part) in the language which protects contracted bonuses. While I understand that a company does not want to risk its credibility with its employees by not following the contract, I also find that it’s hard to maintain credibility as a company by misusing government funds and consequently going bankrupt. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time a company had reneged on a contract with an employee.

But my blog would be redundant if I simply regurgitated the outrage that we have already seen on television and in our own homes. In keeping with my youthful, idealistic nature, I would like to come up with a solution to this problem. One option is to tax the hell out of those bonuses, but as one of the goats in the pasture pointed out, one can easily get around that tax by taking advantage of the one-time opportunity to give (tax free) up to $100,000 to one’s spouse. It’s too late to change the wording in this particular stimulus package, but we can always catch the next one…

No, that’s a bit too Pollyanna, even for me. Perhaps we could take advantage of this mass media uprising and put social pressure on these executives to put at least SOME of this money back into the community - I’m sure the Future Business Leaders of America could use some scholarships (after all, our current business leaders are beyond redemption). Or perhaps we could mandate that all bonuses come with a mandatory workshop on how to keep your company afloat, even if that means you can’t buy a new Porsche this year.

As a disadvantaged American in these troubled times, I have a major problem with the way this crisis is being handled. The companies should not be allowed to do whatever they want with money designed for a specific purpose - to keep these very companies running. Nor should the government be so far in these pockets that they cannot word their legislation in a way which best benefits the people who elected them.

In my local Sunday paper, on the same page as the continuation on Dora the Explorer, there was a wire article from Wendy Koch of USA Today about “sexting” (sending racy texts and pictures via cellular telephone). I thought this was far more disturbing than a cartoon character’s pubescent transition, and it should have been at the front of the section, if not the front page of the paper itself. Instead, the disturbing fad was pushed back to page 4 of the “Sunday etc.” section.

I don’t usually go around attaching moral judgments to people’s actions. Few things, in my mind, are intrinsically right or wrong, and I try to get the facts before calling someone out for doing something reprehensible. I know that exploring sexuality is a normal part of teenage life, so the article was only mildly unsettling as I began reading. I wasn’t surprised to hear that high schoolers take nude photographs of themselves to give to their peers; I think it’s a very bad idea to do so, but I was not surprised.

I was, however, shocked when I read that “two boys, ages 15 and 18, were charged with solicitation and possession of child porn with intent to distribute after an investigation found they sought nude pictures from three juveniles - one in elementary school.” Let’s mull this one over for a bit. Generally, children graduate from elementary school at age 11; even in a best case scenario, and the elementary schooler in question had failed a grade, the individual would only be 12 years old. I know that in elementary school the opposite sex ceases to be a source of cooties and becomes a point of interest and gossip, but allowing older boys to photograph one’s naughty bits seems a bit of a stretch to me.

The article mostly focused on teenagers exchanging photos, however, and cited that “Of the 2,100 children the [National Center for Missing & Exploited Children] has identified as victims of online porn, […] one-fourth initially sent the images themselves.” I think this is where we should begin if we want to combat this problem. In the digital age, where one can take a photograph and immediately delete it, it’s hard to grasp the permanence of sending an incriminating picture to someone. Teenagers are certainly old enough to start making their own decisions, but they are also young enough to be too trusting or idealistic about how images like this can be used. What began as a gesture of love and trust can be turned into something cheap and tawdry after a fight/breakup or as proof of bragging rights. After the photo has been revealed, it can never be taken back; if your nude photographs go public when you are fourteen years old, that leaves a very long life ahead of you during which you will worry about who has seen your body without your knowledge or consent. It is difficult enough to get people to take you seriously; sexting does not help.

Teenagers know the difference between right and wrong; simply bombarding them with morals and rules will only exacerbate the situation. I think that we should open up a dialog about trust, privacy, and reputation. This is not an issue of purity or repression; in the end these kids will do what they want to do. However, we must make sure that the consequences are well known, especially when your actions can be subject to legal scrutiny: “[Juvenile Court Judge Thomas] O’Malley required each [teen who had participated in a sexting-related crime] to do community service and to ask peers if they knew sexting was a crime. They told O’Malley they surveyed 225 teens; 31 knew.” Even if the photographs are only distributed among people under 18, the images are still those of minors. This is child pornography because these images exploit minors. Hopefully by discussing the legal and personal repercussions, this criminal trend will decrease.

Yesterday I opened the local paper to see a full-color spread about Dora the Explorer’s make-over. Apparently there will be a new show (I don’t know if it’s in addition to or in place of the original) to go along with a new line of toys from Mattel. It frustrates me when large companies decide to completely retool their products and market themselves to prey on children, but I know that’s how business works. I didn’t like it when Mattel decided to make a more “realistic” Barbie doll because I suspected that the gesture was less about giving little girls healthy body images and more about forcing us to buy an entire new wardrobe for the blond bombshell. But I decided to read the article and see what Dora is up to now that she’s growing up.

The new Dora is a pre-teen living in the city, and her show will be more about fashion and other “big girl” things than the current Dora’s adventures. I think this is sad, because I like little Dora and her outdoorsy fun. Then I read the response from concerned parents. Many mothers are worried that this new Dora will be like the Bratz dolls that were so popular for a few years and encourage their 7-year-olds to ask for lip gloss and mini skirts. There is an online petition asking Mattel to cancel the new product line.  A silhouette of the character with long hair and a “short” skirt (some versions are at the knee, some slightly above - it’s kind of hard to tell based on the shadow design) is the source of assumptions that Dora is growing up to be a tramp.

While I certainly prefer the old Dora to the idea of a newer, trendier character, my reaction is not one of horror at her threat to the innocence of American children. To be honest, I think the whole thing is kind of dumb. Mattel is trying to market this new Dora to “tweens” who are most likely too old to enjoy a spin-off cartoon based on a show for pre-schoolers. Despite their target audience, the children watching the show will be prissy little girls between the ages of 7 and 9. Somehow I doubt that the new Dora, while she is less interesting than her younger counterpart, will really be a trashy role model to kids. And if she is, the parents can certainly talk to their kids about appropriate dress and behavior, decline their daughters’ requests for make-up and provocative clothing, and, if necessary, not allow their children to watch the new show. I can’t recall ever having made life-altering decisions based on a television show, but I did watch children’s television in a different age; perhaps these new super-characters will drive our children into vice and despair. Somehow I doubt that Dora the Explorer will become the pre-teen Sex and the City.

Alright. I’m jumping on the bandwagon at last. As has happened in the past, I didn’t take this too seriously at its onset. I saw the episode of The Daily Show where Jon Stewart poked fun at CNBC. I saw the following episodes in which he detailed Jim Cramer’s umbrage at being called out. I thought it was some playful ratings-war that would disappear before too long. But when I heard that Cramer would appear on The Daily Show, I was intrigued.

Jon Stewart did not pull any punches. He rolled tapes from 2006 in which Cramer not only condones but recommends several unscrupulous methods of working the stock market. While I understand that digging up evidence from years prior is problematic, and while I understand that Cramer’s quotes are out of context here, the footage was damning.

My goat and I sat on the couch and discussed (during commercials) what is at stake here. How seriously should we take criminal charges of “insider information?” When do we cross the line from giving that insider information to influencing the stock market? Should Cramer’s show be on a different venue? Can we trust analysts and commentators to give us advice about our livelihoods? How much can anyone really predict what will happen in the stock market? Where does reliable information come from? Does it even exist? What is the responsibility of analysts? Of CEOs? Of stockholders?

I know even less about the economy than I do about stem cells; my main knowledge of money is my heightened awareness of how little I have. I would very much like some educated people to give me their thoughts on some of my questions, on the interview, and on stocks and the economy in general.

From where I was sitting, Stewart had the home field advantage, and Cramer squeaked and squirmed under pressure. Jon Stewart seemed prepared and articulate while Cramer was blindsided by his own words. And while I am suspicious of any statements taken out of their original context, I feel that Cramer’s discomfort is indicative of something larger at stake here.

President Obama recently lifted the [GW] Bush administration’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Stem cell research is a topic of hot debate, and I realized recently that I have no idea how it works or exactly what processes it entails.

My limited knowledge is as follows: I know that there are stem cells present in the placenta and umbilical cord (courtesy of Law & Order: SVU). There are also adult stem cells which can be taken from blood or bone marrow (courtesy of Wikipedia).

I know there is much more at stake than this, and after my cursory Internet research on stem cells in general, I wanted to look at this piece of legislation in particular. The Very Short List mailing list to which I belong recently sent me a link to an Obama watchdog website known as the Obameter. This seemed like a good place to start looking for more information about his March 9 decision to officially lift the ban.

The website explains that harvesting stem cells does not necessarily equate abortion, claiming that “The embryos typically come from private fertility clinics, where they would likely have been destroyed anyway.” To me, this seems plausible; the stem cells garnered by this method would have been created in a controlled setting.

The web site also says that “Federal law still bans federal funding for research in which scientists destroy human embryos. Under Obama’s order, scientists may now study stem cell lines created by others, but they still may not create their own lines.” Again, I do not know exactly what one must do to create a new stem cell line, but I think it is important to note that there are limits and guidelines for the scientists to follow as they learn about cells (according to the Pensacola News Journal, “Researchers also are learning to take ordinary cells and reprogram them to act like stem cells.”).

My goat and I are intrigued by this new legislation and the possible cures which may come from it. We are hopeful that our loved ones will not have to suffer from diseases which stem cells may cure. Most importantly, we want to know more about the process of obtaining and using stem cells. We want the public to have a better idea of how it works so that the controversy surrounding stem cell research can at least partially subside.

I’m sure you have all heard about the oh-so-scandalous photograph of Michael Phelps hitting a bong. When the picture surfaced last month I didn’t think too much about it; I don’t want to get into my personal beliefs about marijuana, but I would like to point out that legally, this photograph doesn’t mean anything.

When Kellogg’s elected not to renew their endorsement of Phelps, I simply stopped buying their products. I laughed when SNL aired their segment “Really!?! With Seth.” For the most part, I ignored the whole thing because I don’t personally believe that hitting a bong once in awhile should detract from this young man’s achievements.

Last week I came across this article. In a nutshell, it says that when Kellogg’s dumped Phelps in an attempt to save their reputation, they ended up greatly damaging it. According to their approval ratings, dropping the Phelps endorsements caused the company to become even less popular than the Great Peanut Scare at the beginning of the year.

My goat and I appreciated the irony in this situation, but we also think this is a good place to open up a dialog about what is at stake here.

While we understand that Kellogg’s did not want to appear to support any unsavory activities, I think that they handled this poorly. When a public figure gets into trouble like this, it is not an avenue to excuse a young person’s behavior. It is an opportunity for parents to talk to their kids about making good choices. When our actions are based on those of people on cereal boxes, we are in trouble. Any thoughts?