Trials

Not the flu

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Not the flu, case in point: as of April 20, there were 213 deaths related to COVID-19 in NC vs. 203 flu-related deaths in entire 2018 flu season (9/30/2018-5/11/2019).

(Looking on the bright side, this year’s flu numbers look to be down: currently we’re at 167 flu-related deaths, while last year at the same time we were at 197. Social distancing FTW!).

ETA: Sources: https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/cd/flu/figures/flu1819.pdf and https://www.ncdhhs.gov/divisions/public-health/covid19/covid-19-nc-case-count#cases-over-time

4/22 ETA (again) to add: my point was not that 213 is statistically significant compared to 203 (though that number today, April 22, is 242, which may be statistically significant…?), it’s that those 203 deaths took place over the entire flu season (7.5 months), with no social distancing in place (IOW, in the “perfect” conditions), while the COVID-19 deaths have happened in *less than one month*, *with* social distancing measures in place (statewide, as of March 27), and (at this time) show no signs of decreasing (IOW, we have not hit the inflection point). By contrast, death curve inflection point for the flu was ~Feb 23 and had hit zero by May 11.

Also adding that I’m not an epidemiologist, statistician, or data analysis genius, so consult your doctor or physician before beginning Xepluumana. Do not take Xepluumana if Xepluumana has killed you in the past. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. Contents measured by weight and may have shifted during flight.

On blaming the victim…

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Let’s say you read the following article in the paper:

Yesterday Sulyane Smith was driving home from work on
Hwy 64, when a drunk driver crossed the median and 
slammed into her car.  The police have been able to 
determine that she was on no illegal substances, doing
the speed limit, and driving in the far right lane.  
Ms. Smith, age 26, was huge Earth, Wind & Fire 
fan and was listening to "September" when the oncoming
vehicle hit her.  Doctors at the local hospital say 
that she will likely be paralyzed for life.

I’m guessing your responses would range somewhere from:

“Oh God, that’s terrible!”

to

“I hate drunk drivers! Is the guy who hit her still alive?”

Which are all, I think, really reasonable responses and indicate that you’re a compassionate person and you think young Sulyane was the victim of an *awful*, terrible, crime.

I’m guessing that no one…not a single one of you…would say:

“Had she taken a defensive driving course?”

“Didn’t she swerve to avoid him”

“If she hadn’t been listening to music this wouldn’t have happened!”

or

“Didn’t she see him coming?”

Because we don’t tend to blame the people who are hit by drunk drivers for not being *better drivers* or not being able to anticipate and avoid the situation.

Yet, that’s exactly what we do to rape victims.

11990393_1633760873560619_7278251565956441803_nSo when this graphic started making the rounds on Facebook (and I reposted it because I think blaming the victim for being raped is rediculous) it provoked some interesting discussions amongst my friends.

One friend said that she too does not believe the victim is ever at fault, but said “there are things you can do to lower your risk of being raped.”  She continued by asking: “What would you tell your daughter?”

As in, wouldn’t you tell your daughter that wearing short skirts or walking around alone at night is more likely to put you in danger of being raped.

Ugh.  I mean, yeah. I would, if I had one.  Just like I don’t walk through dark, abandoned parking lots in a late at night by myself if I can avoid it.

And yet, I still Very Much Agree with the graphic.  And I realize I can mostly reconcile those two things by the word “cause,” as in “correlation does not imply causation;” however, I still have troubles with that, because as a woman, anyone making a statement about what women should or shouldn’t do to lower their risk of being raped still *feels like* it puts the impetus for not being raped on me.

And I tend to figure things out by analogy (working through similar situations and finding out where the math doesn’t work anymore), so last night as I was not sleeping while worrying through this I came up with the drunk driver analogy.

We don’t blame the victims of drunk drivers for

  • not having taken defensive driving class
  • not being better drivers (and being able to swerve to avoid being hit)
  • listening to the radio or
  • not seeing the driver coming

…even though there’s a decent chance they could have avoided being hit if any (or all) of those things were true.

Think about the last time you took extreme measures while driving to avoid someone who did something bat-shit-crazy and nearly hit you.

That person could have been drunk.  And if they had been drunk and they had hit you, No One Would Ever say that “You could have avoided this, if only…”

We don’t blame the victims of drunk drivers.

And that’s the difference.  Because we never blame drunk drivers, it’s totally cool to say “Hey, defensive driving class is a thing you should do — you can never tell what kind of drunken idiots will be on the road.”

But saying “Hey, dressing conservatively and not drinking are things you should do, because you never can tell what kind of vicious rapists are out there,” is not.

…

…

…

I *know* this isn’t a black-and-white situation.  It’s shades of grey, like everything else.   But the kind of thinking that tells women to not wear skimpy clothing (so men don’t want to rape them) leads straight to women being clothed head-to-toe with no skin showing at all.

(BTW, I would *love* to see statistics that correlate % of women who are raped with % of their body covered by fabric.  I am guessing that if you look back through history and across cultures, you’d find that there’s no correlation at all between amount of skin and incidence of rape.  I don’t have the metrics to back up or refute this, but please holler if you do.)

Target changes signage to make things less gender-specific — YAH TARGET!

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via What’s in Store: Moving Away from Gender-based Signs.

I’ve tried to explain before (probably not here, but definitely in person to a lot of people) how I was extremely lucky when it came to gender expectations:  both my Dad and my maternal grandfather (“Grumps”) let me play with “boy stuff” (and, in fact, encouraged me to).

With Dad it was taking apart stereos and playing with Erector sets, while my Grumps let me build things in his shop (supervised, of course).  In both cases I didn’t have any sense that I wasn’t supposed to be doing these things, and it wasn’t until I was much older (middle school, maybe?) that I realized that it was considered somewhat weird to be a girl who liked computers and science. I still remember Dad teaching me how to add in binary when I was in the seventh grade — I ended up going to computer camp that summer and programming in Basic on “trash-80s.”

But my experience wasn’t the norm then, and it feels to me like it’s even less the norm now.  It seems everywhere I turn it’s the Pink Pink Pink Princess World (which you *have* to be in if you’re a little girl) versus the Superhero Robot Machine World that little boys get.  Most of my friends who are raising children are exceptions — one of my dear friends was delighted when her boy-child took an interest in home decorating, and another friend made her daughter a Thor costume.  Because Thor.

Of course if you are little girl and you love princesses and pink and all things glittery, that’s delightful too — I’m just saying that shouldn’t be your only choice!  In fact, I happen to also *love* all things glittery, much to the chagrin of my husband, who understands the …contagious… nature of glitter.

Growing up with the idea that your choices — about what to like, how to act, how to dress, and what you can do — aren’t defined by your reproductive organs is incredibly powerful. This choice by Target to examine their signage and remove the genderdness except for where it makes sense (to help a parent determine a size, for instance) is wonderful.   It’s a great step towards helping to eliminate all those subtle cues designed to keep kids stuck in their gender stereotype.

Any child should feel equally at home looking at the pink sparkly backpacks…or the laser-building-robots.

Restoring history…

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T. Ed Pickard, Order of the Long Leaf Pine

T. Ed Pickard, Order of the Long Leaf Pine

Going through some old photos over the weekend, I found pictures that I took of my Granny and Grumps’ kitchen wall, which was covered with awards, certificates and photos that reflected that his years of service to North Carolina.  One of them was for  the “Order of the Long Leaf Pine,” which Wikipedia said was created in 1965.

Well, my Grumps was presented the award on September 9, 1964 (which means Wikipedia was wrong, and I had proof!).  Looking further, I found the website for the Order of the Longleaf Pine and the listing for all recipients — and Grumps wasn’t listed.  Apparently record-keeping was somewhat sparse during the early days of the award’s existence, and the site asked anyone who knew of a missing recipient to send that information in.

So I did.  And I just got a very nice email back from the current manager of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Society saying that not only was he delighted to add Grumps, but that Grumps’ certificate was one of the earliest he’d seen.

And I’ve made a mod on the talk page for the Order of the Long Leaf Pine on Wikipedia explaining that the award existed at least as early as 1964.  We’ll see what happens.

We got the beat! (or I got it, anyway)

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…Adrian and I like unusual musical time signatures.  I was *delighted* (which, thankfully, happens pretty easily) when Jacintha and I were at Dave Matthews and I heard a song that I was *sure* was in a weird time signature.

Well, it turns out the song is called “Seven” and is in 7/8 — and here’s an article about it in Drum Magazine.

IMG_5959

Apparently I have to remember I hate the outdoors once a year…and tales of fails

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I want to like the outdoors.  It’s pretty, especially at a distance.  And many people whose opinions I respect like the outdoors (this is a theme with me: I assume that if smart people I know like something and I don’t, it must be because I’m missing something about it).

So every year or so I attempt something “outdoorsy” to see if my impressions have changed. Yesterday I went out[1] honeysuckle-blossom picking.  In my head the honeysuckle blossoms looked like they do in botany books: crisp, clean and tidy.  The reality, of course, was that they were covered in pollen, had little bits of detritus stuck in them, and were host to a plethora of little tiny beetle things (ugh).

But I was going to gather blossoms, by golly, so I did, while standing, as it turns out, in a patch of poison ivy.  In this one respect the Gods of Allergy have smiled upon me, for though I am allergic to all the creaures that walk or fly, and all of the pollens, and all of the dust mites, I am not allergic to the poison ivy (or the stuff that mosquitos squirt in you to make you more drinkable).

For this I am thankful.  I did manage to get 4 cups of…well, mostly honeysuckle blooms, but there were a fair number of beetles and misc bits in there too.  I also got covered in pollen which (thanks to the allergies) made me nearly as itchy as the poison ivy would have (but the pollen does wash off, so there is an advantage).

Then today I had one of my massive fails.  The sort of really disturbing fail where you think to yourself “be careful, there’s a chance this terrible thing could happen,” and yourself says “No, no, don’t be ridiculous. That won’t happen.  No worries.  Be happy!”

And then the terrible fail happens and you have not only failed, but also quite ill with yourself for having had the premonition of failure and not listened to it.  This does happen to other people, right?

My fail came in the form of reducing the honeysuckle nectar.  I’d poured boiling water over the blossoms last night, left them to steep, then strained the lot of it this morning (bye-bye boiled beetles, the vast majority of which I’d picked out anyway).  I made a simple syrup, but before adding it to the honeysuckle liquid, I needed to reduce it down some.

So I set it to boiling, and it was taking *forever* to go anywhere.  I sat in front of the stove for 20 minutes with no apparent reduction in volume (you see where this is going right), before deciding to come sit on the couch and tag another couple of journal entries as part of the Great Blog Migration.

Approximately 5 picoseconds later the smell of BURNING.  All is ruined. All is lost. I am sad. Sigh.

[1] Don’t be fooled by the way I used “out” like I was making some grand expedition into the backcountry.  I went to the top of the driveway.  It is, however, a steep driveway.