my niece got weaned this week and immediately started to hold a doll everywhere all the time, so very funny poor suffering baby
Is the push to pump a step forward for equality in the workplace or just a way for corporate America to enrich itself by shafting workers on health care while wrapping itself in the flag of empowerment and feminism?
Yes.
max
['.']
" During a nine-hour exam, can a woman take a break to express the milk uncomfortably filling her breasts?"
Is this a trans-Atlantic dialect thing or a culture thing? I've never heard of a nine hour exam.
It is long past the time for this country to put its Puritanical roots behind and to de-erotisize the breast. I believe that this should come from constant or near constant exposure. Free the titties! (NB weather permitting).
Is this a trans-Atlantic dialect thing or a culture thing? I've never heard of a nine hour exam.
Now you know why Britain is so quaintly backwards.
3: My comprehensives were eight hours, with a lunch break. It wasn't so bad.
Bar exam sessions?
I had one 8 hour take-home exam... and one 12 hour take-home exam.
6 is pretty common. Some places even do a week like that (or at least used to)
comprehensives vary a lot.
It wasn't so bad.
You were lactating? I guess I didn't know you have kids.
Yes, we need longer, guaranteed, paid maternity (and paternity) leave. However, the recommendation is breastmilk-only for the first year, and that means lactation rooms would still be necessary. Hurrah that your employer even HAS a lactation room. It's still not even close to the norm. Now you can start rallying the troops for longer leave :)
I used to know people who would sort of open up their shirts in public to breastfeed. Now, women of a certain class background all seem to have these cape-like shawls to cover themselves up if tehy want to breastfeed in public.
Perhaps I should read the linked article first*, but my gut reaction is that, while LB's instincts are correct (there's something a bit fishy about the system that tailors breastfeeding to facilitate more economic productivity), the practical reality is that pumping provides beneficial flexibility in general. It's not the end of the world, of course, to give a baby occasional formula, but I know AB takes a lot of pride in providing all of Kai's nutrition - those fat rolls on his thighs are hers.
With Iris, we only used formula because she had a stomach bug, kept throwing up hard-won breastmilk (AB never had much of a cushion in the freezer), and our doctor thought that the formula + antibiotic might go down better (it did, for whatever reason). But I was stunned at how expensive formula is - $3 or 4 a day, if that's all you use. Not that pumps are cheap, but Jeebus. Using nothing but breast + pump for 6 months saves a few hundred bucks over 100% formula, and you'd have to use formula pretty sparingly for it not to cost more than a pump.
Oh, and to be clear, AB has been home full-time with Kai, and worked full-time after 12 weeks with Iris, so we've done it both ways. She's very happy not to have to pump early every morning - and especially happy not to have to commute via bus with the damn pump - but she certainly still uses the pump.
* HA!
Everything in the article looked encouraging in some way, except the "lactation rooms" that don't permit babies or any kind of children.
9: 6's "wasn't so bad" was to the general concept of long exams, not to lactating during them.
Someone page Dsquared.
(I suppose that's my responsibility.)
It is long past the time for this country to put its Puritanical roots behind and to de-erotisize the breast.
Is it OK if I continue to eroticize my wife's breasts? You know, feministly..
Oh, and AB's "lactation room" when she was full time was the recently-emptied office of a much-missed, laid off colleague. A bit weird, and even more so when an intern was assigned that office for a few weeks. "Um, Zach, if you wouldn't mind...."
16 really makes me want to make a smart comment, but I'll pass....
Oh geez, sorry, "LB" in my 12 should be "Becks."
To amplify 2: perhaps we should take advances in gender equality to the bank, and not ruin it with lots of liberal hand-wringing?
A pregnant acquaintance who works at a public agency has been told that she is not permitted to combine her work-related travel around the city with her doctor's visits (itinerary: office, customer site, doctor's office on her "lunch hour", office), because it might "look improper" and give the impression that she was shirking work by not going right back to the office. Her inquiries about using sick time for doctor's visits resulted in department-wide memos reminding everyone that sick time is to be used in full-day increments only (and that there are disciplinary consequences to using more than 3 days a month, 5 days in a quarter, or 9 days in the 9 months she'll be pregnant - notably a rate lower than that at which sick leave is "earned"). Oh, and like at many other employers, vacation and sick leave must be used until they run out during the 12-week FMLA period.
So the ground to cover before breast milk even really registers as an issue there is pretty large.
Is it OK if I continue to eroticize my wife's breasts? You know, feministly..
You'll have to petition The Committee, who will in turn need a report from the Visual Inspection Team. I have been told that the Team has a more favorable view of perky, and an outright aversion to implants.
I'm the crazy, not LB.
I'm sure my company's maternity benefits are good (never checked). I'm more upset by the idea of the clerk who had to cut her leave short because she's taking unpaid FMLA leave and stuck pumping in the bathroom, to which the article refers. The situation in companies like mine, where you at least get paid leave and transition support from lactation rooms, etc., leaves something to be desired compared to the 6 month ideal suggested by the article (and not completely outrageous considering some European countries do it) but it's nothing like the gulf experienced by many women.
Huh. I suppose take home exams (which surely defeat the whole purpose of exams) can be that long, but I don't see what purpose it serves for invigilated ones to be anywhere near that long. Why not break it up into smaller chunks? The longest exams I ever sat, including Finals, were three hours.
21 sounds like grounds for a lawsuit, but IANAL.
We don't expect our old, tired dependent nations to imitate us in everything, Ginger Y.
24: how do you suggest one breaks up a week of 8 hour exams? (mine weren't that long, but a friend were).
Some places take the "comprehensive" part of comprehensives fairly seriously that way. Others, not so much. But really, you can't cover that much in 3 or 4 hours written, not at a high level anyway.
Ours were oral, which I think is a better way of covering a lot more ground in a short period of time. On the other hand, it required a formal comittee of 5 to do mine, so there are scheduling issues etc.
A friend of mine took 6 months off of work and breastfed for a while. She did pump but found it kind of painful. At some point her son started biting her and wouldn't stop, so despite her pediatrician's belief in the importance of breastfeeding, she switched to formula. She said that pumping without any natural breatsfeeding was just too much of a pain.
24: how do you suggest one breaks up a week of 8 hour exams? (mine weren't that long, but a friend were).
Maybe have a week of 3 hour exams?
GY, I think the point of 8-hour comps was, in our case, to weed out one-trick ponies after the first year. A certain kind of PhD student can get by on really only knowing one field, one genre, and one methodology by spinning seminar papers that way. Comps, in our case, required us to write two hours about poetry, two hours about a specific field, and four hours about three different fields, including pre-modern lit, all in response to questions we hadn't seen before. It demonstrates a bit of flexibility of method and reading, as well as a good memory for books. But maybe that's just Stockholm syndrome talking.
"how do you suggest one breaks up a week of 8 hour exams? (mine weren't that long, but a friend were)."
Uh, 3 hours in the morning, three hours after 1pm, then 2 hours after a half hour break? Take more than a week? Seriously, surely the utility of exams as a measure of ability/insight/knowledge/recall diminishes considerably after four hours or so without a break or food/drink? If it needs to be seriously in depth (eg for graduate degrees), what's the point of an exam format as opposed to a paper?
Sorry for sidelining thread, folks, it just seems bizarre to me.
31: Well she already said she had a lunch break (as did these I'm thinking of)
I agree 3 hours at a stretch, or maybe 4 is about all you want. You seem surprised that people do these back to back though...
maybe we're just misreading each oterh.
"Comps, in our case, required us to write two hours about poetry, two hours about a specific field, and four hours about three different fields, including pre-modern lit, all in response to questions we hadn't seen before. It demonstrates a bit of flexibility of method and reading, as well as a good memory for books. "
Sure, but what's the need do it all at once?
Sure, but what's the need do it all at once?
I expect that's some mix of administrative convenience, "trial by fire" attitude, and genuine valuing of the gatekeeping role of comps.
Nothing is really optimal for this, I think.
My comps required a bit of writing ahead of time, lots of office hours chats, and then a two-hour oral interrogation by a panel of four professors on a set of three lists of books (for a total of about 100 texts). Even within my department how much writing and in what form depended entirely on the professors administering the exam: some people had timed take-home papers, while I ended up submitting a twenty-page general lecture on my major field.
I used to have exams that were as many hours as the number of hours we met per week. Three hours/week merited a 3 hour exam, and 5 times/ wk resulted in a 5 hour exam. The 5 hour exams weren't that bad, because they could really be done in about 4 hours and 15 minutes, so there was enough time to get up for bathroom breaks, and we could bring soda in. They ususally had a small multiple choice component too. One professor's multiple choice tests were hard, because you usually ahd to read an entire page of text to answer one or two questions, btu some were not.
35: yeah, comps are all over the map. I knew of one engineering dept. where comps consisted of (if I am recalling correctly) 8-10 very short (15 min?) meetings with professors in the dept., in which they could ask you anything they wanted. Presumably they formed a committee to evaluate afterward, or something.
I thought the oral pre-diss quals were horrifying. Worst day of my life. Two hours, three profs, 150 books on a list. Wanted to slit my wrists the entire time. Got distinction on both my quals and my comps, but remember the comps with affection. Would kill myself if I ever had to do quals again.
Oh! In my department the qualifying and the comprehensive exams were the same.
I thought the oral pre-diss quals were horrifying.
Were yours open to public? That's lots of fun, too.
39: Mine were sort of half the same. This just gets back to the concept of how wildly different ph.d requirements are.
This just gets back to the concept of how wildly different ph.d requirements are.
Would it were only from uni-to-uni and not also from advisor-to-advisor!
Were yours open to public?
OMG, no. You can have an open diss defense if you want, but quals are closed, thank God. I'd rather ritually disembowel myself in public than have anyone else see that. And it went well! I can't imagine what it would feel like to have it go poorly.
but quals are closed, thank God.
Mine were open to public and announced. It helped a little that we had to give a little summary talk (broad sketch of the areas you were working in) for 20 min before questions. But still. No fun at all, and I was wound up for a week before hand. The second horrible thing was no time limit, although it didn't drag out too long in practice (2-3 hours) you knew they could keep at you if they wanted too.
I witnessed a colleagues that didn't go so well, including the chair standing up at one point and telling him "stop. no, just stop. no stop now. erase that. it's embarrasing." I honestly have no idea how he stayed in the room after that. It was cruel.
We also had not choice about the defense, it always being open. I guess we should be happy that random people are unlikely to want to attend!
This just gets back to the concept of how wildly different ph.d requirements are.
I never realized there could be so many comps formats, even across disciplines. I spent about half a year studying for them (I think my list was about, uh, 225 or so books, spread across the whole of American history), met with my three examiners regularly, and then sat a four hour exam where I answered three questions (one from each professor) and then several days later did the oral exam, just an hour long. I suppose I didn't realize quite how lenient that was in comparison to other programs. It certainly seemed terrifying enough at the time, although the orals were really just a very nice conversation that sometimes I wish I could do again.
How did a nice conversation about the proper use of titties become a bitchfest about grad school? Youth is wasted on the young.
46: Yes, the article was actually very interesting.
The contrast with other countries, say, Canada, is amazing. My sister-in-law just had a baby. She is unmarried, with a high school education and a steady working-class job. She gets a year of maternity leave and a guarantee that her position has to be open for her when she returns. This is much better than, say, my prospects, were I to do anything so water-wasting as get knocked up.
The U.S. is fucked if we don't fix this.
To go back to the original thread, I have to say that I do think there are multiple benefits to being able to pump - not the least of which is freeing women from the tyranny of the feeding schedule and allowing the partner to take over some of those duties, allowing her slightly more unbroken sleep (though of course it is often necessary to wake up in the middle of the night and pump anyway).
It is long past the time for this country to put its Puritanical roots behind and to de-erotisize the breast.
I was just at an academic lecture where two graduate students were present with under 6 month old babies. When one started breast-feeding during the lecture, I found myself with hitherto unknown puritanical impulses (and I really didn't expect this of myself), wishing she would stop, if only because I couldn't imagine giving a lecture and not getting hung up if I realized one of the people in the audience was breastfeeding. I would also think that I would be one of the last people in the world to do this, since I hope one day to be able to have a child in academia comfortably and I feel rather militant about maternal and paternal rights in the workplace. And I like watching women breastfeed in more private situations, they and their child always look so content (or slightly put out, but I like the romantic aspect better). Anyway, the reaction in myself leads me to very anecdotally extrapolate that we still have a lot of work to do in order to make breast feeding a neutral, natural thing in public.
She gets a year of maternity leave and a guarantee that her position has to be open for her when she returns.
It's even better than that. There are 12 months shareable between the two parents, with the same job guarantee for both. And it's paid at I think 60% salary via unemployment system, but some employers will top that up.
I'm not sure what the conditions on sharing out the parental leave are. You might have to do it in two blocks, for example.
I have to say that I do think there are multiple benefits to being able to pump
Being able to is really not the same thing as being expected to (e.g. in the context of get-back-to-work-fast)
if only because I couldn't imagine giving a lecture and not getting hung up if I realized one of the people in the audience was breastfeeding
Fwiw, I've been in this exact position (lecturing). It never occurred to me that it should be a problem.
51: Right, and I don't think it should be a problem - it was my sort of unfiltered reaction and it made me realize that if even someone who holds the opinions that I do on breastfeeding would think that right off the bat than what do others think? (It could very well be that I'm just a Puritan and never realized it, and every once else is far more advanced on making sure their gut reactions equal their intellectual opinions).
One, of course, not once. I won't bother to correct the other errors.
I'm not sure what the conditions on sharing out the parental leave are. You might have to do it in two blocks, for example.
Yeah, I simplified. Parents can split it, and they can take the time concurrently. The way most of my relatives have done it is that the mom stays home the longest, but that the dad takes two or three months. 60 or 65%, I think. Even if the employer doesn't top it off, it's still pretty sweet.
My mother doesn't believe it. Mutatis mutandis, neither does my mother-in-law.
It could very well be that I'm just a Puritan and never realized it, and every once else is far more advanced on making sure their gut reactions equal their intellectual opinions
Nah, I think this is just the sort of thing you never really know until you find yourself in a situation. You can catch yourself though, and realize that your gut reaction isn't the one you want to follow up on.
My comment was more along the lines that I'd honestly never realized it might be a problem. I mean, intellectually I know that people argue about public breast feeding, but I guess I never picked up the taboo along the way. What this has to do with my upbringing, I don't know. I can't remember anything relevant, but it's not like my parents were DFH's or whatever.
I couldn't imagine giving a lecture and not getting hung up if I realized one of the people in the audience was breastfeeding
As a straight male (and a nominal non-Puritan), I would probably prefer not to have to simultaneously conquer my stage fright/performance anxiety giving a lecture AND the whole "Hey look, breasts! Wait! Don't look! Not cool!" reflex in the presence of a breast-feeding woman. But probably I can deal with it and let the ladies get on with their lives...
Even if the employer doesn't top it off, it's still pretty sweet.
Absolutely. I know some large employers (like say, provincial governments) make up the difference to 80 or 85%. Which is outstanding.
conquer my stage fright/performance anxiety giving a lecture AND the whole "Hey look, breasts! Wait! Don't look! Not cool!"
This is probably more of an issue when you have a student who insists on sitting in the front row wearing a "Hey look, breasts!" outfit just to see if it will mess with you. Which happens.
There must be nice universities that have openings in Canada, Cala. You don't have to go to Guelph or Winterpeg. Check out Halifax.
I can't remember anything relevant, but it's not like my parents were DFH's or whatever.
Mine were. Apparently it didn't make a difference in whether or not I picked up the taboo, and I'm sure my mother would have been ashamed of me if she had heard my first thought on it.
I do wonder if it might be a gendered reaction - I honestly have no idea what most people think when they see a woman breast-feeding in a public or professional setting. (And I am rather curious about it now).
One does generally include Canadian institutions in one's usual academic job search. They advertise in all the same places.
This is probably more of an issue when you have a student who insists on sitting in the front row wearing a "Hey look, breasts!" outfit just to see if it will mess with you. Which happens.
I once gave a guest lecture in a very large course. In the second row was a woman with bountiful breasts of the sort rarely found in nature, and she was wearing a tube top, so that, when you looked out at the audience, she appeared to be completely naked (since all I could see of her anyway was from the cleavage up). I found it very difficult to ignore, in a "kids these days" way.
61: They also tend not to hire Americans.
63: Really? Even when they're married to Canadians? You can't become a landed immigrant?
For one thing, they can't tell that you're married to a Canadian from your application materials. But also, they have explicit policies that state that they should make their best efforts to give the jobs to Canadians wherever possible.
65: yeah, that would do the trick.
There are very nice universities in Canada. There just aren't a lot of universities in Canada, by comparison. Something about 10% of the population of the US, or whatever.
But also, they have explicit policies that state that they should make their best efforts to give the jobs to Canadians wherever possible.
Canadians and landed immigrants given equal weight, I think. So yeah, she'd have to do that first. It rather seems they've gone the other way around.
"At some point her son started biting her and wouldn't stop"
My mother tells me that when I'd nurse, at least once I got some teeth, I'd bite her, lean back, and smile. She'd slap me and I'd stop. I don't remember it, of course. I'd like to say this explains some of my complexes but I don't know how it would fit together.
In High School in Botswana I worked as a life guard at the school pool. On Friday afternoons the pool was opened up to kids from the surrounding neighborhood. Tswana women do not have the same hangups about showing their boobies as western women do. Very popular slot with the male life guards, that Friday afternoon one was. One time I was on duty with my Sikh friend, his first time, and as the girls started jumping into the pool he burst out (in his thick Indian accent) "Those chicks are swimming boobless!" No Tanveer, the sure aren't. Good times.
Also this: "so very funny poor suffering baby" should be the new hovertext.
Breaking: a flock of geese brought down an airliner in NYC. This will only get worse.
Back to the OP, there's a certain amount of scholarly research being done on this, as in how the dual feminist goals of enabling breastfeeding and protecting women in the work force might compete. For example, this paper (requires subscription, but there's an abstract). The basic premise, IIRC, is a "more work for mother" thesis, in that "labor-saving" technologies actually just allow labor to be allocated differently, and usually to the disadvantage of women. Hence, the breast pump and the availability of a pumping room enables, and hence basically requires, the speedier return of mothers to the workforce. Which is a good and a bad thing, but in the general context of a working world and a society in general that doesn't exactly empower women's decision-making...
Most of which, I guess, has already been said in comments, but hey: I cited my sources!
This will only get worse.
The anti-canada-goose lobby will have a field day with this one.
Seriously though, it looks like things are going much better than could be expected. Hopefully not too many injuries.
sour milk, not breastmilk, just general cow sour milk is good for constipation relief, b/c it helps with bile secretion
There's got to be a very fine line there, read.
73: Wow, is it ever an unpleasant day for hanging out on/in the Hudson.
I'm sure someone already said this, but I don't have time to read the thread and really want to make this point...
Longer maternity leave is great, but that's unlikely to eliminate the need or value of lactation rooms. I was lucky to have 6 months between birthing and returning to work, but I didn't wean until Rory was 1, so I still needed to pump at work. I didn't have a lactation room. I sat on the floor of the handicapped stall in the ladies room. A lactation room would have been very nice.
Tying accommodations for pumping to length of maternity leave is likely to lead to (more) pressure for earlier weaning or effectively force mothers out of the work force. (Say, e.g., I had maternity leave until the day I weaned -- but wanted more than one kid.) At some point, however super your employer, if you are out on leave for too long, your career is toast. I couldn't conceivably take an extended leave and then just pop back in where I left off. The ability to pump at work really truly and genuinely does help advance the cause of working mothers.
73: Wow, is it ever an unpleasant day for hanging out on/in the Hudson.
Fact! Still, I'd rather hang out in the Hudson than die in a ball of fire, that's for sure. It's rather novel to think that every once in a while, "in the event of a water landing," everyone survives.
The ability to pump at work really truly and genuinely does help advance the cause of working mothers.
I can see this. Is an entire room needed? Accepting as a given that some sort of privacy beyond what you'd normally have at your workplace is needed or at least desirable, I'm just thinking about the logistics. Particularly in workplaces that are already designed. Presumably not much physical space is necessary, but somewhere comfortable to sit. a bit out of the way. Do you know how workplaces retroactively handle this?
83: Thank your friendly neighborhood flight attendants if everyone did. That's what they do for a living -- bringing you a Coke is just for the 99.9% of the time that the important part of their jobs is unnecessary. (This message sanctimoniously brought to you by Daughters of Flight Attendants, Inc.)
Yes, everyone indeed did, and I believe thatt there was only one injury, a minor one.
"in the event of a water landing," everyone survives.
Won't this be the first one by a major carrier in ages?
This, from the NYT, is not what I would call good PR:
"There have been scores of survivors," said one police official. The people appeared to be, "cold but not injured. Some were taken to the Jersey side too. They had blankets. They appeared to be uninjured.""Scores of survivors"? And what's with that weird verb tense? I'm glad the scores of survivors got blankets on the Jersey side? The fuck?
Anyway, one of the amazing things in this story is that the plane crashed into the Hudson, according to the NYT, oh approximately at Times Square. All's well that ends well, I guess.
bringing you a Coke is just for the 99.9% of the time that the important part of their jobs is unnecessary.
A friend of my wife was a flight attendant. A third friend once sarcastically asked how she could be a waitress in the sky. She replied that she thought of herself as someone who can open the emergency hatch upside down in the dark, but would be happy to bring you another drink.
What airline, and roughly how old?
My favorite planecrash story was one at JFK sometime in the winter of 91-92. The plane went down hard, and was a fireball 90 seconds after it hit.
Everyone lived -- there happened to be an extra crew on the plane, riding as passengers to where their next flight was scheduled from, and the flight attendants got over a hundred people out and clear of the plane in just over one minute.
I don't think they're allowed to give you more than one drink anymore. Or more than zero, on the last flight I had. Without paying a couple dollars, anyway.
Hence, the breast pump and the availability of a pumping room enables, and hence basically requires, the speedier return of mothers to the workforce.
I don't agree that breast feeding is the paramount factor in arguments over the length of maternity leave and the necessity of it. It may be that having breast-feeding endorsed by the medical field gave what business would consider a valid reason for giving women (and women only) time off, but it's certainly not the only argument for or against maternity leave on either side. The AAP's announcement about the necessity of breast-feeding over ten years ago did not cause significant change in maternity leave policies, which were already poor. The rise of the breast pump did not mean that employers started reducing their maternity leave (at least, I don't see Lepore offering evidence of this). This is about deeper issues of women in the workplace, and about "shafting workers on health care." Lepore's focus on blaming the breast pump as a tool for allowing mothers to return faster seems to me to be focusing on the small-scale. She barely addresses why we haven't pursued the other two options available to us and I don't think the breast pump is a big enough cause here.
There are more reasons to stay at home with your child for the first six months to year than AAP's recommendations that they be breast fed. These need to be articulated, and there needs to be federal intervention. We need a system like Canada's, and we also need to move away from the medical tyranny over pregnancy, and childbirth, which encourages the idea that the only legitimate reason to stay home with a new child is medical.
Breaking: a flock of geese brought down an airliner in NYC. This will only get worse.
It will only get worse if we fail to teach those geese a lesson. I mean, imagine if those geese had nukes!
I'm thinking Iran was probably behind this - probably emboldened by the departure of Cheney.
There are more reasons to stay at home with your child for the first six months to year than AAP's recommendations that they be breast fed.
I understand what you're saying, but I bristle. Six months to a year out of the workforce would dramatically affect my career. Repeated over multiple kids... devastating. The flip side to pressure to get back too soon is the pressure to stay home and "put your baby first."
Everyone lived -- there happened to be an extra crew on the plane, riding as passengers to where their next flight was scheduled from, and the flight attendants got over a hundred people out and clear of the plane in just over one minute.
Zow.
"I sat on the floor of the handicapped stall in the ladies room. "
Why on the floor and not on the seat? That's a real question, not sarcasm. I know some people are afraid of toilet seats, but I'm more afraid of the floor in bathrooms, if anything. Or is it something else?
United. She is now 49, and only flies to Hawaii, now. I think she's been with United her entire career. The other friend with the bad attitude would sneak up behind her and say "chicken or steak, chicken or steak". She thought it was funny, if no one else did.
96: Indeed - I'm not saying that people HAVE to stay home, just that if they want the option they should have it because there are good reasons to do so (and equally good reasons, I'd argue, not to - but it should be a personal choice rather than something you're forced to do either way). And that fathers should have that option too, in part to minimize the career impact. Sorry if I put it in such a way as to raise the hackles.
I'm more in favor of women going back to work than not, but that's just because I've seen so many of my friends with children become progressively isolated as "mommies" (not exactly against their will, but in large part because of that pressure you describe). They took long maternity leaves because they could afford to, but they're finding it increasingly difficult to imagine getting back into their careers, probably for the same reasons you would. They admit to being less happy, wanting more intellectual contact, and missing their jobs (and the freedom away from being a care giver all the time). Also, whoa, resentment of fathers who continually work and "escape." I doubt this is the norm and it's clearly a personal issue for them, but it rather scares me.
99: Oh, no chance of knowing each other, then.
I gave sour milk to my son occasionally when as he was bottle feeding. He did fine. If milk sours I'll figure out how to use it if I can. Yogurt and buttermilk are sour milk, and cheese is often made from sour milk. To my knowledge there's no toxic form of souring, though some kinds taste better than others.
98: I suspect this is a men's room vs. women's room distinction.
That's what they do for a living -- bringing you a Coke is just for the 99.9% of the time that the important part of their jobs is unnecessary.
Seriously. It seems like everyone involved in the crew did exactly what they were supposed to *and* they were lucky. Wow.
Why on the floor and not on the seat?
At the risk of TMI... I didn't have one of those little handheld pumps, but something I'd need to set down somewhere. Trying to balance the actual pump on the toilet paper rolls or something, while, uh, hooking the suction bits up, while perching on a toilet seat. For 15 minutes or so. The floor was easier.
That sounds reasonable enough, DK. Obviously a better room should have been (or made) available.
BL- when I was in charge of a big building for a while I learned for the first time that women make just as much or more of a mess of the bathroom as do men. Surprising but true. This includes the floor.
Correction, LB. American Airlines. We regret the error.
106: This hasn't at all been my experience, but your sample of women's restrooms might be better than mine.
"The went to their honeymoon by American Airlines. They wanted to fly United, but the stewardess wouldn't let them."
I was a bar janitor once, and that was my experience. Probably traditional women so much time cleaning up after people that they run wild when someone's going to be cleaning up after them. Or maybe it's something from the veldt.
If only AWB were here, I could tell her that I am finally cooking beans with beer. Perhaps later she will be here, and will be filled (filled!) with gladness thereby.
BL- when I was in charge of a big building for a while I learned for the first time that women make just as much or more of a mess of the bathroom as do men. Surprising but true. This includes the floor.
But they blame the bathroom instead of blaming each other.
"That place is a mess! How often do they clean that thing?"
Whereas men come out saying "There must be some real disgusting people working here. Who is it that never flushes?"
I will now divert attention away from my stereotyping by pointing out the one thing that annoys me about people's bathroom behavior and is probably found less often in places where droughts occasionally occur. That is: Someone walks up to the urinal, flushes, then pees, and then flushes again. You can't bear to urinate in a urinal that already has urine in it? You require a pristine sheet of water to be in place for 0.5 seconds in order that you may immediately deface it once again with your urine?
My Mom borrowed an electric one from the hospital when my sister was born in 1981. Sis was premature and in an incubator, but my mom was determined that she'd have breast milk. She kept it somewhat longer than the hospital wanted her to, and then she had to make do with a manual pump.
112: some people prefer not to be covered in the urine of others, even in small amounts. And unless they're flushing a clean urinal, they're not actually adding an extra flush (it's still one per customer).
The problem is that it's not always easy to tell whether the urinal is clean (some people drink plenty of water), so some will flush as they step up to the urinal regardless, as a precaution. That fact has led me to wonder whether the socially-optimal norm might be for everyone to flush before and not after, so water isn't wasted on additional flushes but no one risks being splattered with strange urine. But I'm not wed to that position.
Brock now defends the even LAMER practice of flushing the toilet EVEN WHEN IT APPEARS TO CONTAIN ONLY WATER, on the OFF CHANCE that there might be some NON-YELLOW URINE in there.
He clearly doesn't live in California.
I hope Obama has some remarks prepared on this plane crash. Wouldn't want him to lose political capital when he's accused of being "soft on birds".
112: Now that you mention this, I'm starting to wonder just how long it's been since I last peed in a urinal with a user-operable flush mechanism. They really seem rarer and rarer these days. The urinals of this university that I've surveyed all have either the IR flush switches or are of the waterfree variety. Other than at work, most of my peeing is done at home (where we only have a toilet) or at bars, where space constraints often mean that only urinal-less unisex bathrooms are practical.
115: I'm not defending the practice, just noting its existence. And again, if someone's flushing obviously dirty water, no water is being wasted (assuming you're willing to allow one flush per customer for public toilets).
Canadian birds. Did you know that neuroscience has made it possible to control the flight of a whole flock of birds with an implant in the brain of one of them? Fact.
112: Said person may be pee-shy and trying to mask the sound of his urine and/or kickstart his own bladder with the sound of rushing water.
Nobody should get two flushes, though.
a student who insists on sitting in the front row wearing a "Hey look, breasts!" outfit just to see if it will mess with you
Or worse, a group of students who go to your lecture and sit together in the front row without a stitch of clothing among them. This happened while I was at Reed; it was the humanities course required of all freshmen, so the hall was packed. The professor didn't miss a beat, which was impressive given that one of the naked students was mind-bendingly hott.
My favorite planecrash story
I just happened to come across the story of the Gimli Glider last night, which somehow I'd missed when it happened. In short, an Air Canada 767 runs out of fuel at 41,000 feet on route from Montreal to Edmonton, and the pilot, who has glider experience, brings it down for an emergency landing on a runway-turned-dragstrip in Manitoba. Great story; everybody lives. Best part of the Wikipedia entry:
Ironically, the mechanics sent out to Gimli from Winnipeg Airport were left stranded when their van ran out of fuel. Another was sent to pick them up.
Or worse, a group of students who go to your lecture and sit together in the front row without a stitch of clothing among them. This happened while I was at Reed; it was the humanities course required of all freshmen, so the hall was packed. The professor didn't miss a beat, which was impressive given that one of the naked students was mind-bendingly hott.
Were the students arrested?
I just heard a bit of Bush's speech by mistake, and then Chris Matthews' critique. Matthews has ditched his admiration for Bush but he's bonecrushingly inane no matter what it is he's saying.
Bush was like an over-the-top satire. Every word he said was unreal. He couldn't help smirking. Unendurable, obvs.
122 is my question too.
On a more hopeful note, here's a great article about Earl Blumenauer. Apparently his twin passions are on the issues of bicycling and flood insurance. And later on, his other twin passions are mentioned, public broadcasting and agricultural pollination. Clearly a tool of the special interests.
This is pretty funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBh-42MLINg
122: The cops came but their minds were so bended by the hotness on display that they just couldn't execute the arrest.
Bush: "You may not agree with the decisions I made, but I hope you agree that I made the tough decisions." Ooh, BIG FUCKING DEAL. YOU MADE DECISIONS. THAT WAS YOUR JOB. Want a perfect attendance award as well?
Poor McClellan thinks that Bush should have been candid, and that he's a fundamentally decent man.
"Yeah, I fucked up every single thing I touched, and I feel terrible, but I didn't mean anything by it. I just had no idea what was going on. I was trying to do the right thing".
Want a perfect attendance award as well? He fucking well can't have that, either.
129: Ooh, good point. God he sucks.
I'm not even sure I'm willing to concede that he "made the tough decisions".
It's almost certain that no one was arrested. Presumably an interminable investigation led to slapped wrists. Some felt that the nude students were heroes of liberation; others, that they were annoying narcissists.
Breaking: "A goose is a pretty big bir, and if you throw it into a jet engibe it can do a lot of damage". Near verbatim.
They test engines with turkey carcasses. Why not live turkeys, I ask? It would be more fun and more realistic, and the turkey doesn't really care one way o the other.
Were the students arrested?
Good Lord, no. They instantly entered the annals of Reed lore, and for all I know, they're now revered like the giants of old.
124: My rep. One of his staffers is a member of our winemaking cabal, but she never has any gossip to share.
Presumably an interminable investigation led to slapped wrists
Not even that. Everyone was chill, you know.
I'm not even sure I'm willing to concede that he "made the tough decisions".
I suppose no decisions are tough when you have your trusty gut there to tell you what to do.
Some very cute young women integrated the sauna while I was there.
110: I am filled with gladness, and also jealousy because I ran out of Rancho Gordo over a month ago. I need to order more. I was living on that stuff.
So so good, right??
125 would be funny if I didn't suspect that this is one of these shows in which everything is heavily scripted. Have you seen some awful MTV dating show where a girl's parents set her up on a date with a guy they like better than her boyfriend and they argue with the current boyfriend about it? It's all this way-scripted crude quippy crap that the people involved would clearly never say and it makes me shudder to hear them.
WE STRONGLY PREFER TO BE THROWN INTO JET ENGINES ALIVE. IF YA GOTTA GO, GO OUT IN STYLE!
Yes, so good! We had them with decadent liberal arugula and slices of queso fresco.
It's all this way-scripted crude quippy crap that the people involved would clearly never say and it makes me shudder to hear them.
I love the wooden execution of the lines. "We picked a boy who can toss a football. Once our daughter sees our pick, she'll toss her pick to the curb!...like a football."
You have done good work selling our institution on this thread, my friends.
It's all this way-scripted crude quippy crap
The camera work is also a tip-off.
So today's crash landing was caused by Canada geese in the engines?! Unbelievable. What an amazing landing by the pilot.
I'm supposed to go to Chicago in a couple of weeks, I don't want to fly out of LaGuardia (which no doubt is utterly irrational, but there you go).
On the topic of this thread: I support a Canadian-style parental leave (12 months), which gives mothers a real choice: you can go back to work at 6 weeks, or 3 months, or 6 months, or take the whole 12 or whatever. Without paid leave, most mothers don't have a choice in any meaningful sense of that term.
Also on the original post topic; I'm with Mary Catherine on favoring serious maternity leaves -- I took six months each time, and thought it was great, and an option everyone should have.
Pumping, though -- it always seemed like such an incredible hassle, given the fairly minor health benefits of breastmilk over formula (like, nine out of ten people my age are formula-fed, they mostly seem to have managed okay.) Which, eh, there should be lactation rooms everywhere, but to the extent there's pressure to pump rather than formula feed, it seems misplaced.
Which, eh, there should be lactation rooms everywhere, but to the extent there's pressure to pump rather than formula feed, it seems misplaced.
Dunno. Think that "lactaction room" should probably be whatever room the breasts are in at the time.
Waterless urinals, perfectly executed water landings and breasts in whatever capacity are awesome.
Birds getting sucked into engines can go either way.
Bush, MTV, and bathroom floors are not awesome.
Well, if you're breastfeeding and ever separated from your kid, you'll need a place to pump sometimes.
As usual, I did the half-ass version of breastfeeding at work. Lactation, as a very neat little feature, works on a schedule -- if the baby usually nurses at a given time, you produce milk at that time, but not so much at times the kid doesn't nurse. So I went to work, and nursed the baby when I got home, and they got formula during the day. But I still needed someplace to pump on nights I got stuck at work late. (Personal low point? Got stuck in a meeting late at night right after I got back to work, started leaking, and had soaked my suit with milk before I could get out of the room. Boy, did that suck.)
Got stuck in a meeting late at night right after I got back to work, started leaking, and had soaked my suit with milk before I could get out of the room.
So if you're breastfeeding and have a horrible job that makes you stay at work until the middle of the damn night, wear off-white linen summer suits, is what you're saying.
Wear suits made of many many layers of aborbant batting, I think.
Actually, that wasn't the low point. The low point was the same week, when I was reviewing documents at 2 am and the radio had the everloving gall to start playing "Cat's In The Cradle" at me.
(A white linen suit sounds like a great idea -- wouldn't get transparent or clingy when soaked at all.)
(A white linen suit sounds like a great idea -- wouldn't get transparent or clingy when soaked at all.)
If there's one thing that can be said about me, it's that I think things through.
Geese mate for life. Maybe the two geese were having terrible relationship problems and had just given up. There are various other possible motives, of course. A lot of Canadians are Muslim, for example.
They do sell absorbent breastpads, but (at least for me) if you start really letting down, there's just no hope. It's like someone poured a glass of milk down your shirt -- absorbent pads or no, you're going to get soaked.
And always wear a cheese perfume so that the milk odor isn't noticed.
No obvious hits for a neoprene pantsuit on google. This could be an opportunity!
159: maybe carry around a glass of milk to dump over yourself by way of explanation?
cheese perfume
Yeah, that sort of takes care of itself. I spent two full years smelling vaguely cheesy,
And yet I remain a breastfeeding advocate. Looking back at it, my willingness to be ridiculous impresses me.
Yes, I'm thinking of a chic suit of about six inches deep of nice dense swaddling. Perhaps with a neoprene layer over top.
Perhaps a neatly tailored Ziploc baggie.
And yet I remain a breastfeeding advocate. Looking back at it, my willingness to be ridiculous impresses me.
Were you still wearing the catsuit with the built-in high heels at the time?
164,165: some kind of diaper-bra?
Hey, the catsuit was teh hott. Trashy, but hott.
The passengers aboard Flight 1549, which crash-landed in the Hudson River, are being praised for letting women and children exit the plane first. Thoughts?
Personally, I think in this day and age it should be "children and the infirm first". I don't see why Dara Torres should get to leave a sinking plane before some guy in a wheelchair just because she has the right set of naughty bits. Or is this just one of those things men are supposed to shut up about and take like, er, men?
Gaijin Biker hates athletes. Pass it on!
Personally, I think in this day and age it should be "children and the infirm first".
It does seem like to much "You first"/"No, I insist!" could get in the way of a fast, orderly exit.
167: the overlap between ridiculous and trashy/hott is vast. I can say this absolutely for sure.
Women should be steroid tested before being allowed to precede men.
168, 170: Yeah, I find myself doubting that "women and children first" actually happened, because it seems like it would slow the process of getting everyone off the plane by a ridiculous amount. But to the extent it did happen, yes, there's no reason for it.
171: It was Blume's Daisy Dukes and tank top that won your heart, wasn't it?
171: Well, if you put it that way, it was probably also at least somewhat ridiculous.
174: nonsense. It was my daisy dukes and tank top that won hers.
168: See, I kind of figured that was a social lie. I thought the flight attendants probably bundled people out pretty promptly, regardless of what gender-order the line was in. But it still (to some ears) sounds bad to say the strapping young man got out before the slender young woman, even if they're both in perfect health and very athletic, blah blah. Plus social mores have a great deal of sway. So you get these sorts of lines in media stories, but I'm not all that convinced it happened.*
Which is to say, I'm kinda doubtful that there was that level of discussion. I'm sure individual men might have hung back or hesitated a little, but apparently either way it was not enough to cause problems with the evacuation.
*Also, ever seen a survivor interviewed? Ever heard a reporter feed them a line to which they who can't say "No" without looking like a jerk?
My favorite comment from the thread in GB's link:
Somebody PLEASE Photoshop this man's face over Jermaine's in that Flight of the Conchords banner ad! I'm too stoned to do it myself.I'm all for children first, which would necessarily include the accompanying adult, and given how few were likely on the plane, I don't see that significantly slowing down everyone's exit. Women without kids, however, can
I like to imagine something like the following happened: A macho guy passenger makes a big deal about letting women and children exit first, which ends up slowing down the process as he expects the women, etc., to file around him. Whereupon a female passenger toward the back yells at him, "JUST GET YOUR ASS OFF THE GODDAMNED PLANE!"
In New York, it could happen.
I'm sure individual men might have hung back or hesitated a little, but apparently either way it was not enough to cause problems with the evacuation.
Yeah, I don't really think "women and children first" is operative any more, but I'd be pretty surprised if the (level-headed) 18-60 y.o. men on that flight weren't cognizant of letting others go first. Noblesse oblige* and all that.
* That's a bit snarky, but seriously, what able-bodied adult doesn't pay attention to, say, holding the door for the elderly or child-having? I don't know if men have this more than women, but (many) men certainly have it. Given that everyone was going to survive, you'd have less of the "able-bodied man elbows everyone aside" situation.
Given that everyone was going to survive...
I'm not sure, if I was on a plane that just crash-landed into a freezing cold river and started sinking, that I would take that as a given.
Also, having seen the way people disembark from an airplane that has rolled up to its gate 5 or 10 minutes late, I'm inclined to think there may have been some jostling.
Apropos breasts:
My FIL the M.D. related a story of attending a regional AMA meeting where one of the items on the program was a refresher course in breast cancer detection through palpation. A volunteer group of cute young nursing students was on hand to serve as test patients. The organizers deliberately recruited a group with a variety of shapes and sizes in order to educate the doctors about the finer nuances of palpating perky versus pendulous ones. According to my FIL, the customary "I'm a doctor, this is merely a piece of human anatomy" pose proved impossible to maintain under the circumstances, and even the test patients were breaking down in giggles by the end. Apparently one of the nursing students had a rack of especially impeccable character, and the docs were prone to especially thorough execution of the practice drill when they got to her.
I had a friend who enjoyed prostate exams and volunteered as a subject. He also tried to embarrass the examiners.
"a friend" hey, John? We know about you and your prostate exams, remember?
182: This is why I have a female doctor. She could be gay, but I don't think that she is.
After I had had my own exam, I understood the appeal. I would have been happy for a less clinical setting and a little more mutuality.
My innards are in better shape than they've ever been. No ulcer, no cancer, and the acid reflux is controlled.
This is the first time in my life I've been taking a prescription medicine daily for any length of time. I've had antibiotics and anti-inflammatories for a few days a few times. Unfortunately, if you worry about your health even a little, you worry about the side effects just as much as you did about the actual disease.
I don't see why Dara Torres should get to leave a sinking plane before some guy in a wheelchair
Well you have to admit, of the two of them, she's got the better chance of swimming for help. Wait, actually that's almost always true, isn't it?
My dad talks of a component of his medical education being a "desensitization weekend." If I am remembering this correctly, the whole med school class went up to some retreat center (along with their partners, if they had them) for a weekend program on being a professional around naked human bodies. Apparently a significant portion of the program was dedicated to the group viewing of fairly graphic pornography on large screens. The idea, of course, was that with enough exposure to porn, they wouldn't giggle when they saw a patient's titties.
This was back in the mid-70s. My sister graduated from the same med school last year, and it seemed this portion of the curriculum had been dropped.
Otto, that is unspeakably awesome.
188: Did they strap them to a chair and tape their eyes open a la Clockwork Orange?
190: Not to my knowledge. But people in the 70s were weird, man, so you never know.
I was starting to worry that I had confabulated this anecdote, but a line in this Catherine MacKinnon op-ed, combined with the fact that MacKinnon was at U of MN shortly after the relevant time period, lends it plausibility:
We might have learned whether pornography, used in some medical schools to desensitize students, was part of the defendant's training.
110: I am filled with gladness, and also jealousy because I ran out of Rancho Gordo over a month ago. I need to order more. I was living on that stuff.
Rancho Gordo is having an unfortunate harvest year, it seems. There are still beans, of course, but my favorites are all missing. In the meantime, because I am fickle and unfaithful, I placed an order from Purcell Mountain Farms, which is clearly a much larger operation, but which does have runner cannellini.
192: I never got to try the runner cannellinis, but the Rio Zapes were my favorite of what I got. Unbelievable bean---makes a sort of chocolate-coffee-flavored gravy.
Mm. It looks like Purcell Mountain has those in stock, too (as "Rio Zappe".) My very very favorite is Eye of the Goat, which, it seems, no one has for sale right now.
Oh, Eye of the Goat. Even better than Yellow Indian Woman.
122, belatedly: there's no reason for naked lecture attendees to be arrested in Portland -- at least in the 1990s, public nudity in that city was legal (although it was illegal to be naked in an attempt to frighten people). There are big brass statues downtown, moose and so forth, that got ridden bareback regularly; by regular citizens, AFAIK.
Not only do I think the rule for evacuations should be 'children and the infirm first', but I took my first plane flight in years this winter, and was just introduced to the incredibly orderly system in which you line up in tranches isomorphic to your on-plane seating and board in that order. Sweet. Surely we could make that practice for equally efficient deplaning?