Archives – November, 2006
Three things caught my eye today.
First, the FDA has approved the sale of silicone breast implants in the US again. Personally, I have weird feelings about implants. I think they are fine for women who need or want reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy or anything else that causes a woman to lose a breast or breasts. But, I really wish a lot of women didn’t think it was necessary to get implants for “cosmetic” purposes. I wish more women were happier with their bodies so they wouldn’t feel the need to get ginormous breasts in order to feel happy about themselves.
Maybe I am just saying that because I have larger than normal boobs. But I still don’t quite understand why guys like the big boobies. Is it because it goes back to some kind of code in their DNA that says bigger boobs means better breastfeeding? Or do some women feel that it is easier to be sexier when they have large breasts?
I mean I know that a lot of people in this country are very critical of a woman’s appearance. Heck, I am finally coming to the realization that part of my depression stems from my weight. I mean, I know that I don’t feel good about myself because I am not as thin as I used to be. I am realizing now that one reason why I don’t like to go out is because I am fat and it’s hard to find stylish clothes that fit and are not frumpy and would actually look good on me. Of course, it also never really helped that I grew up and live in Hawaii.
Well, I mean that is not the only reason why I want to lose weight. A lot of it just has to do with health and especially diabetes. Both my mom and my grandma have diabetes and I just know that unless I really get my weight under control, I will probably develop it too and I really don’t want that to happen.
In other breast news – a woman was kicked off of a Delta flight for breast feeding her baby.
Gillette said she was discreetly breast-feeding her 22-month-old daughter on Oct. 13 as their flight prepared to leave Burlington International Airport. She said she was seated by the window in the next-to-last row, her husband was seated between her and the aisle and no part of her breast was showing.
A flight attendant tried to hand her a blanket and told her to cover up, Gillette said. She declined, telling the flight attendant she had a legal right to breast-feed her baby.
Moments later, a Delta ticket agent approached and said the flight attendant had asked that the family be removed from the flight, Gillette said. She said she didn’t want to make a scene and complied.
Okay, so what is wrong with a woman breast feeding? That’s what they are there for!
Another thing that caught my eye was a letter from Planned Parenthood about some pharmacists refusing to fulfill prescriptions for birth control pills based on the pharmacist’s personal opinion on birth control. Basically, if a pharmacist finds birth control against their beliefs some states allow them to not fulfill a legal prescription because they don’t approve of it.
From the Planned Parenthood letter -
So far this session, lawmakers in 22 states have introduced 54 bills that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill BC rx’s based on their personal moral or religious objections.
Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota all have laws that specifically permit a pharmacist to deny certain rx’s, including oral contraceptives.
Most of the bills and laws allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a BCP – despite the fact that 98% of US women who have had sex have used contraception.
What the hell? I will admit that I tried to find more information on this and wasn’t able to independently verify the states and the bills, but I just did a quick search, so no I didn’t try very hard to verify or refute the claims, but I don’t see why Planned Parenthood would just make up the states and the bills.
More information on the campaign can be found at this link.
I still am pretty shocked about this. I mean, what right does a pharmacist have to tell a woman how she should live her life. A pharmacist’s job is to fulfill prescriptions. I wonder if those same pharmacists would object to filling viagra prescriptions? Probably not since it’s a man’s right to fuck all he wants right? – but not a woman’s apparently.
You know what else is appalling? President Bush appointed Eric Keroack as the head of family planning in the Department of Health and Human Services. Who is Eric Keroack you say? Well, he’s an OB/GYN who heads A Woman’s Concern in Massachusetts. He is a man who believes that birth control is demeaning to women. Excuse me? Demeaning to women? Give me a break. Oh, let me just quote part of the article.
The Bush administration, to the consternation of its critics, has picked the medical director of an organization that opposes premarital sex, contraception and abortion to lead the office that oversees federally funded teen pregnancy, family planning and abstinence programs.
The appointment of Eric Keroack, a Marblehead, Massachusetts, obstetrician and gynecologist, to oversee the federal Office of Population Affairs and its $283 million annual budget has angered family-planning advocates.
Keroack currently is medical director of A Woman’s Concern, a Christian nonprofit. The Dorchester, Massachusetts-based organization runs six centers in the state that offer free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and counseling.
It also works to “help women escape the temptation and violence of abortion,” according to its statement of faith. And it opposes contraception, saying its use increases out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion rates.
“A Woman’s Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness,” its contraception policy reads in part.
Great. The US has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. Why? Because Americans are prudes and the government just wants to teach abstinence as the only means of birth control. Give me a break. Teens are teens, they are going to have sex. Some people might say that the abstinence thing is working because teen pregnancy rates declined between 1990 and 2000. Here’s another take on why that might be.
I just get so angry when I hear about these things. It’s like those people who are opposed to abortion. It’s like they think that women will stop having abortions if abortion was illegal. Um, No. Women had abortions before it was legal and guess what? Many women died and many women were mutilated from these procedures. Teaching people about birth control is not going to encourage them to have sex – but apparently that’s the opinion of the group that is led by Keroack. What kind of backwards thinking is this?
This also gets me wondering. What kind of country do these people want to live in? Do they want to live in a world like in The Handmaid’s Tale?
November 18, 2006
I didn’t work out on Tuesday. Doh. Why? Well, I finally got my beta invitation to the MMORPG that shall not be named and it was took forever to download. The damn file is 2.5 GB’s! It took like 2 hours to download the thing and then when it downloaded, the file kept freezing! So I redownloaded it again and it froze again! Ach! I was too frustrated to do anything but try to get it to work since I desperately wanted to login and see what the game was like. I finally did get it installed yesterday! Hurray!
I got an email from another video fitness lady in Hawaii on Wednesday and she told me that she found a copy of Jari Love’s Slim and Lean at Ross! She also called me that morning to tell me that she put it on hold at the Ross in Pearl Ridge and that she could pick it up for me. Woot! But, I said I would go down and get it myself so I could get it faster! Yay! It was $5.99 at Ross! I have even heard that Jari’s new release Get Ripped 1000 has already been spotted at Ross’ on the mainland. That kind of surprises me since it was just released at the end of October.
I was a little afraid to try Slim and Lean actually and was debating whether I should do it or not, but I figured what the heck and did that on Wednesday. Oh man, it is such an awesome workout. Like her original Get Ripped – it’s a high rep/low weight workout and it really got me. There are a ton of reps in this workout and I was really feeling them. She does something like 54 push ups in this one! Ach! No, I couldn’t get through them all – but I will keep trying. There are a lot of squats in this one and I thought I would be okay with those, but my ass actually did start to hurt Thursday night because of them. Woot. I haven’t had DOMS in my backside in a long time.
She also has you do a rotator cuff exercise in this one – which is something that is usually overlooked in most exercise DVD’s. I didn’t do all the reps for that one either since I think I should have used 2 pounds weights for that instead of 3 and because I could just feel myself straining and I did not want to injure myself by overdoing it.
Another thing that is so great about Jari Love is that she has 3 other people working out with her and she always has someone showing different modifications for each exercise. There will be someone showing advanced modifications and someone showing easier modifications. I won’t say beginner modifications since the workouts themselves are by no means beginner workouts, even with modifications.
Thursday night I was thinking about going on the treadmill downstairs, but it was hot and I didn’t feel like working out in the afternoon. I did decide to do some cardio since I was starting to feel that DOMS in my butt. I was looking over my DVD’s and I realized that I really don’t have that many pure cardio workouts. Most of the cardio workouts I have are all Firm ones, and those are AWT, (aerobic weight training). I have some step workouts, but I really wanted to give my butt a break. I was thinking of many a Turbo Jam, but I didn’t feel up to that intensity either, so I whipped out the Leslie Sansone 2 mile walk DVD.
After that was done, I felt like I could do a little more especially since I ate some pastries last night – whoops, so I also did the 20 minute workout from Turbo Jam. Then I did the 10 minute ab routine from Slim and 6 and then the 15 minute stretch from Slim and 6. I am pretty pooped today.
November 17, 2006
video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyvrqcxNIFs
This is what I have gotten so far on the incident.
“At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.
The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.
The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.”
The officers tasered the student a couple more times because he wouldn’t stand up – after being tasered. Some of the students requested badge numbers from the officers and the officers threatened the students who asked for their identification with being tasered. WTF?
November 16, 2006
A couple of interesting things happening this week.
First, there was an earthquake near Japan last night and it generated several mini tsunamis which did hit Hawaii. I say mini because as far as I could tell, when they came in, it was just like high tide – just a little higher than normal. I suppose it could have been a lot worse, but thank goodness it wasn’t. I don’t think there was any damage anywhere. A couple of beaches and harbors closed, but that was about it.
I guess I don’t really worry about tsunamis since I live on a hill and am not very close to the ocean. I mean, we can see the ocean from the house, but it’s not in our backyard or anything.
Also, a comprehensive no smoking ban goes into effect tomorrow. Honestly, I think it sucks. Sure, I can agree to the no smoking in restaurants, but smoking is also going to be banned in bars – that’s okay, but smoking is also going to be banned in outdoor bars. Not cool. Well, it’s not like I go to bars anymore, but I do occasionally and most places here have an outdoor smoking area. These are going to banned under the new law. Smoking is also going to banned with 20 feet of any entrance or ventilation intake of any establishment open to the public. So no more smoking at the coffeehouse for me.
I did quit smoking for awhile. I lasted over a year, but then I started up again when I got really stressed out earlier this year. Well, I guess the ban should be some motivation to help me quit again.
We are also finally getting closer to building a light rail system here. That is unless the city council rejects the request. I swear, this city is so ass backwards sometimes. I think the first proposals for a light rail system were about 10 years ago and I remember that a lot of people opposed the project because the rail system would be an eyesore in Hawaii. :dizzy: I always thought that was such a stupid argument – especially considering the amount of development we have here. The eyesore thing is actually a reason why we have no billboards here. Billboards would ruin the scenery. Oh give me a break. If people are opposed to progress because it would ruin the scenery, why aren’t people out there protesting all of the high rise buildings going up in the downtown area? It just makes no sense to me.
I really hope that this rail system goes through. Traffic in Honolulu is horrendous. A few months back a highway had to be closed for like 12 hours because of an accident. It caused traffic jams everywhere. I mean I think it took some people 8 hours to get home when it normally would have taken then an hour. Just normal rush hour here is crazy too. There was this one time my friend Fred and I headed to Ala Moana beach to go walking. Now, it would normally take maybe 15 minutes to get there from where we live, but since we went in the afternoon, I think it took us close to an hour to get the beach.
It would be great if more people took the bus, but the bus costs $2 now – one way and the buses are rarely on time. At least we have access to Google Transit now. The transit system in Portland was just so awesome. I just loved the trip planner at TriMet. I know a lot of bus routes in Hawaii changed when I was away and at least I can use the Google Trip planner now if I ever need to ride the bus again. It’s just too bad that the buses here aren’t hooked up to GPS like the ones in Portland, so you could get transit information in real time.
Anyway, I am just rambling right now.
November 15, 2006
video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHBmRvXX6hM
November 14, 2006
Next page
Previous page
