A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I get spam.  I get lots of spam.  Spam, spam, not beautiful spam.  And it’s too bad because the real spam, the kind that comes in a can, isn’t bad.  When I was a poor struggling student, I ate spam a lot (and not the script for the play either).  I had spam sandwiches, spam and eggs, spam disguised as ham with cloves in it, fried spam, and scrambled spam.  It was cheap, filled you up, and with enough spice and imagination tasted pretty good considering the alternative was mac & cheese again.  So, email spam gives spam a bad connotation.  I get lots of spam and after awhile, when you’re scanning through the Junk folder before deleting — you occasionally notice trends.

Does anyone actually buy into the belief that their email address won them money in a lottery they never entered? Really, if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.
• Come on really, if you want me to click on you to find out how much trouble I’m in for sending a Western Union money order for several thousands of dollars to an organization that Homeland Security has flagged as a “bad group” and now I need to turn myself in or click on this link, shouldn’t you also know that I don’t have thousands of dollars to send to anyone? If it was a buck fifty maybe but more than that — give me a break. I might give to a valid charity but to some nameless organization — no way. No click. And, a good chuckle. Nice try in this day and age of heightened paranoia. Wonder how many will click before they remember they’ve never used Western Union to send money.
• Does any really believe the IRS would send you email — for anything? I mean this is the organization that charges you to file electronically, in order to save them money. Yeah, it saves them money because you pay extra to file that way — bonus time.
• Like I would trust anyone who sends me unsolicited email asking them to help me get out of debt. If I had a problem with debt, I’d start by talking to my bank, credit union, or a financial adviser and NOT some organization who sends spam.
• I’ve noticed that I’m still getting hundreds of spam a day letting me know that they can help me be more of a man and get my many-euphemism-to-get-past-spam-filters-tool bigger, harder, and better. Too bad, I’m a woman and your targeted email is to a totally inappropriate demographic.
• Along the same lines of getting bigger, harder, etc., etc., and so forth. What’s with all the references to violence? Do men really thing women are impressed by men who treat them as sex toys and that all women want to be abused? Hint: That’s a big NO. Excepting a very, very, very, small minority who may be into BDSM, no one wants to be hurt — ever, no way. If you’re a man that believes these ads, please get help. If you learn to respect women you might actually find it works better than these spam ads.
• I have to wonder about congress — they keep turning down legislation to create a Can Spam that works like the Do Not Call list. Are they really clueless enough to believe that anyone wants this garbage delivered to their inbox. We should have to Opt In, not Opt Out guys. Get a clue, please.
• And enough with the watches and designer thingies. If I wanted this stuff, I’d buy it from those carts on the side of the streets in the cities. I won’t buy it from spam. Sorry but if you send me spam, you’re obviously not a company, person, or service that I want to deal with.

Maybe some day, I’ll open my email and find only letters from people, companies, and services, that I’ve opted to receive email from. Won’t that be nice?

I’d thought about writing something on this topic, but hadn’t really figured out what I wanted to say, when I found this article on Numbers on Teen Pregnancy as a Freakonomics NY Times Opinion piece (here’s the Freakonomincs NY Times blog).  I found the statistics on teen pregnancies interesting:

High teen pregnancy rates remain a serious problem in the U.S. Although they have declined since they peaked in 1990, rates are still twice as high as in Canada or England, and eight times as high as in the Netherlands or in Japan.

These international differences are due to low contraceptive use in the U.S.; most of the recent decline in teen pregnancy in the U.S. is due to more consistent use of birth control, although teens are also waiting longer to have sex than in the past. In 1995, almost 20 percent of girls had sex by age 17, compared to 15 percent in 2002.

Notice that the drop in pregnancies among teens has two components — more consistent use of birth control and teen waiting longer to have sex.  As to the first, it’s mighty difficult for teens to consistently use birth control when the sex education in our American school systems is mainly about abstinence. We currently have a shinning example of how well that works to lower teen pregnancy with the recent announcement of the pregnancy of the teenage daughter of the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee.  Palin espouses the party line of abstinence-only sex education and pairs it with absolutely no choice even for rape or incest.   Obviously, abstinence education didn’t work in this case, as it hasn’t worked for many other teens.  For Palin’s daughter, I’d hope that the future will not look as bleak as for most teenage mothers.  Again from the article:

…on average, teen pregnancies are more likely to result in premature births and low-birth-weight babies. This is not a good start in life. Babies with a low birth weight are more likely to have A.D.H.D. and are less likely to graduate from high school.

Teen moms are less likely than other women to attend or complete college, and their marriages are more likely to end in divorce; about 50 percent of women who married younger than age 18 are divorced after 10 years, compared to 20 percent of women who married at age 25 or older. In turn, single mothers have the highest poverty rates of any demographic group, and 60 percent of the U.S.-born children in mother-only families are poor.

Being a teenage mother, whether married to the father of the child or not, is a bad spot to be in. It’s not all roses and happy times. It’s mainly lots of work: studying for school, working to pay childcare, rent, food, and all the other assorted expenses of being on your own, and find the time and energy to actually spend time with the child, do the laundry, cook meals, study, and, oh yes, sleep.

How do I know? Been there. Done that. Came out okay with a child that I’m very proud of, a college degree, and I’m sure lots of bad decisions and good ones — but all ones I thought I had to make at the time.  How did I end up pregnant? Well, I know it seems strange, but my total sex education was a small six page booklet on menstruation along with the wisdom that only married women get pregnant.  Of course, this was in the dark ages — forty years ago now.  So this has been a perennial problem and it has never worked to stop teens from having sex by telling them to abstain or leaving them ignorant of what sex is and how one actually gets pregnant — (hint, a marriage license has absolutely no effect on the sperm and the egg getting together).

What does work in helping to reduce teen pregnancy?  Truth.  Unvarnished truth about how one gets pregnant, what those teenage hormones feel like, that love and hormones are indeed hard to tell apart but mostly it’s hormones at that age, and that if you are going to have sex, protect yourself and good solid information on how to do that.  Anything else is just leaving young people vulnerable to their hormones and if you don’t remember what that was like when you were a teen, you shouldn’t have any say over what to tell teens about sex.   Abstinence may work, but only if the teens have all the information about what is happening in their body and can make informed decisions.  Since many teens are not going to abstain, there must also be information and access to birth control.

If the Republicans want to stick their heads in the sand about these problems, then the least they can do is also set aside money for free child care, free health care, education assistance, and financial assistant to unwed teenage (and older) single parents.  But, wait…this is the party that is also cutting back on all these programs.  It seems the family values party doesn’t have any concern for families unless they meet strict definitions of what they consider a family and those families are all rich and don’t need any help.  And the Pro-Life policy would be better labeled Pro-Birth, because once the child is born, they no longer care about it until its old enough to vote.

Teenage pregnancy is a real problem for the people involved and for the country as a whole and ignoring it and placing the blame on the teens does nothing to rectify the problem or help to solve it.  I wish Ms. Palin good luck with the child she’s about to have and the marriage she’s about to undertake.  She has a better chance at success than many girls who find themselves in her position, but then she’s not typical.   Hopefully, her being in the limelight; after all it’s her mother who is the candidate, will not cause other teens to follow in her footsteps because she’s an outlier on the curve, not the norm (but I forgot Republicans don’t care that much for science either).

Note: On Where Did I Come From?  I found this book to be a great beginning in opening up discussion with children about sex and where babies come from.  It’s informative, funny, and straightforward.  If you’re looking for a way to broach the subject to young children who are asking — give this book a try.

Not much to say.  The zines went live yesterday.  So if you go to SFRevu or Gumshoe Review, you’ll find the new September issues are now up and live.  This month SFRevu has an interview with Joe Abercrombie, the author of The Last Argument of Kings. In Gumshoe, we’ve got an interview with Sheila Lowe, author of Written in Blood.  If you enjoy science fiction and fantasy or mystery, check them out.

In other news, my harddrive is full and I can’t download my photos to get them uploaded to my site.  I’ve ordered an external harddrive but it hasn’t gotten here yet so I’m feeling bereft of photos.  As soon as I get it and get connected, I’ll get up a photo of my September coffee cup, my new sock project, and the totally finished and organized pantry shelves.  Bet you can hardly wait on that one.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the final few items to finish up a website project.  Ran into a few wrinkles, but when don’t you, when designing and setting up a website for someone else.  But, it’s coming along nicely and I hope to finish it before too much longer.

I’ve also bookmarked some interesting articles on science topics that I hope to turn into blog posts as soon as I get a chance to read the articles and then look for the original source material and check some collateral material as well.  Then there’s my TBR (To Be Read) pile to starting getting whittled down for the October issue of the zines.

Moles and Trolls.  Work, work, work, work, work….

Busy as bees all weekend.  There’s the zines to get out and Ern (the senior partner in the zines) had his birthday party at our house.  So, with 16 people coming for a BBQ dinner, Hyperion and I really had to clean the house and the yard.  Ern came out a couple of times to help with the yard work.  Remember the tree that fell over.  Well, it really needed the brush cut and then the limbs that we could cut with our chainsaw cut and stacked or piled to be split later. The guys made a great start on it  I’ll try to post a picture tomorrow to add to this post.

The party went off smoothly.  I believe everyone, including the birthday guy, had a great time.  Only 12 of us but it was a congenial group and the company and conversation was varied, interesting, and far ranging with subjects from maps, the Civil War (or war of Northern Aggression), genealogy, science, technology, peak oil, wind generation, fusion reactors, dirigibles,  books, movies, poetry, and family stories.  It was an amazing evening.

To top it off, a big  spider was on the deck and had spun a web from the humming bird feeder stand to the deck rail to a plant stake.  It had just finished the spokes of the web and the inner most circle when we noticed it.  We sort of stood around in a group watching the spider build this amazingly fragile web.  I’d never seen a spider build one before and thought it would take a lot longer.  In just a few minutes the circles extended out to the edges.  Then she began to add more spokes.  We gave up watching but after seeing people off, Hyperion and I stopped to check and see if we could photograph it in the dark (no luck, even with a flash).  But the web was finished and had already captured at least three victims.

I’m truly fascinated by nature and its creatures.  I’d never seen a web built from beginning to end and the first capture of food for the builder.  She obviously chose her spot well.  I’m hoping in the morning to again try to get a photo — hoping for better luck in daylight.

It’s been a busy month and we’re quickly approaching the end; and that means getting the publications up and ready to go live on September 1st. “What publications,” you ask?  Why SFRevu and Gumshoe Review.

Time usually seems to compress near the end of the month, but it seems like I had even less time than usual this month.  Well, I did go to the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver.  We drove and that add an extra 5 days to the trip.   We had a heck of a great time and brought the laptops and wireless card.  Then coming home to over a weeks worth of snail mail — that took up a lot of time.  Then there was the server crash that our ISP had.  Followed by a loss of data from our database of reviews and books when we found — or discovered accidentally — a bug in the interface software to the database (not our homegrown interface but another package) .  That meant contacting reviewers and others and checking shelves to make sure we recovered everything that we lost from that three days between the restored backup and the day we got them restored.  Whee — that was so much fun.

But it did make me think that somehow the month shrunk when I wasn’t looking.  Luckily, other than a few days of feeling like a wet noodle (and about as aware of my surrounding) this has been a productive month. Just think what I could have done if I’d really had all the days rather than only about half of them to devote to what I was supposed to do.  We will get the zines up on time and there’s going to be some great content but I can’t help thinking I could have done more.  Three days left and about ten days of work to do in them and one of those three days has been commandeered for another  purpose — which will be lots of fun but will take away from being able to tick items off my To Do list.

I keep wondering how other people budget time.  Do you get stressed out when  life and planning come up against chaos and the unexpected?  Does opting for fun in the face of a towering mountain of work seem like a cop out or a self-destructive impulse to failure?  I mean I could have turned down the fun but you can’t live for work alone now can you?

Life goes on and I had an acupuncture appointment today.  So, you see, I’m all set for stress and the push to the finish line of getting the zines up on the 1st.  And before you ask, I did finish the socks I was working on, I’ll get a picture up next month and I’ve got to start another pair of socks as soon as I figure out the number of stitches to fit on my feet versus the number needed for the pattern I want to use (more on that later too).

I’m intrigued by the communities that women create for themselves, and so I often read books centered around crafts, especially the crafts that I also love. Knitting is one of the ways that I bring meditation and calmness into my life. So, I read a lot of books with knitting as one of the central threads of the books.

Knitting by Anne Bartlett is the story of two women who chance to met and find that they have a lot of textiles, crafts, or the work of women’s hands in common. Sandra is an academic who teaches about women’s work and textiles throughout history. Her husband died of cancer and there are many firsts coming up without him and Sandra is coping by trying to control everything in her life and moving on. She hasn’t even mourned her loss.

Martha is more of an enigma. She lives alone and is about Sandra’s age. She lost her husband years ago; several months after their marriage. She’s moved on but not without cost. She carries her mistakes about with her literally and figuratively. And, she’s a bit of an obsessive-compulsive with errors throwing her into strong stress reactions.

Once they met, Sandra is inspired to put on an exhibition of knitting from 1900 to 2000 and wants Martha to knit all the pieces historically correctly and from period knitting patterns. Martha is overwhelmed but can’t seem to say no. Sandra doesn’t even recognize that she’s never asked, she’s only assumed.

The story threads from one viewpoint to the other so that the reader gets a feel for each of the characters. Kitting is the theme that hold the story together and the only thread that makes a connection between these two women. The real theme is one of communication and acceptance. How do we communicate with each other? How do we listen? Or, do we listen to each other? What is the nature of friendship? What causes a bond to exist between some people and not others. How do we look at ourselves and how do others look at us.

None of these questions really get answered but they are at the heart of the story. There’s a lot of knitting terminology and some nice insights into the psychology of knitting and its place in many people’s lives but the story is not about knitting — it’s about women and their relationships to each other.

It takes place in Adelaide, Australia and that also lends a nice air to the story. It’s a slow story that drifts in and out of the lives of these two women. It’s a thoughtful story and depends as much on what the reader brings to it as what the writer puts into it. Not a stay up all night page turner; but it is a thoughtful look at women, their work, and their lives.

Warning: This is going to be a political rant. If you’re Republican, come back tomorrow when I’ve gotten over my snit a bit.

I’ve been a Democrat since I could vote. There was a while when I changed my party to Republican; but that was to vote for the least bad one in the primary, and then still vote Democrat in the elections. At that time I figured that if you could at least get the least evil in a field of evil candidates on the opposition side then if my Democratic candidate lost — things wouldn’t be so bad for four years.

I favored Clinton over Obama, but when he won the race to become the only candidate left — well, okay he wasn’t a bad choice, even though his science and technology votes were definitely not well informed. I’d hoped that when he chose a running mate that he’d pick Clinton and it would be my dream ticket. Yesterday, he announced that he’d picked Biden as a running mate. I spent most of yesterday so upset and angry I couldn’t deal with his pick. I was close to tears most of the day because of the loss I felt — I’d lost hope. I’d lost the dream of my country restored to dignity and justice for all (not just those with money and power).

I’d have been okay if he’d at least picked a Veep who loved America and Americans. I’m not talking about saying the right thing, I’m talking about doing the right things. In the doing department, Biden has proven over and over that he cares more about business and greed, than in America or its people. Check out this article on CNet News about his technology voting over his career.

Biden has consistently voted and supported RIAA’s assault on American’s right to Fair Use of music they lawfully buy and own. He also voted for the Patriot Act (which, in truth, based on what it does is more accurately called the unPatriot Act — I doubt you could find a less patriotic bill if you looked for years). He voted for the war in Iraq (which makes one wonder if Obama truly means to get our soldiers out of there). On the other hand, he did vote against the FISA Bill (which Obama voted for), this bill allows the FBI to spy on American for no other reason that that they want to — no warrants, no oversight, no probable cause. They’ve been caught time and time again abusing powers like this, which is why it was stripped from them in the first place. So why, oh why, would anyone think it was a good idea to authorize them to do it again? But one good does not negate the all the bad, anti-American votes especially when these changes came at a time when Biden planned to run for the Presidency (there’s a reason he dropped out so early — no one wanted him).

I don’t want this man as Vice President. Heck, I don’t want him in the Senate either but I’m not in his state and had no say in that one. To be perfectly frank, Obama’s voting record isn’t stellar either but he didn’t change his tune to run for the office either — at least he’s consistent.

So, now the problem is: do I vote with my heart for the best of my country and go for a third party candidate? There are a couple of really, really good people running — people who seem, based on their lives, actions, and words to be pro-American people. The down side is that with our current system, none of them can win. Or do I vote Democrat again knowing that I’m really voting for “Republican Lite” and a continuation of the dissolution of everything that I have loved and cherished in my country, just because the alternative is even worse? Over the last eight years, I’ve seen America lose its standing as a moral force for good in the world. I’ve seen security theater become more important than actual security. I’ve seen/read/heard about Americans and others disappeared off the streets of America to be imprisoned (if the person is lucky) and to be outsourced for torture if they’re not. I’ve listen to the current President and his head of Justice actually defend torture — a method that will get you information, in fact it will get you any information you want; just tell them what you want said and the victim will say anything to make it stop. This is so unbelievable as behavior in a leader of this country that it often leaves me speechless that we’ve come to such a low point. It still shocks me to my core that the democrats in congress haven’t got the barest sliver of a spine necessary to impeach this man for his crimes against this country.

I’ve watched my country, that stood for years as a haven and supporter of freedom for all, become a country afraid of its own shadow and willing to destroy its Constitution and its Bill of Rights for the illusion of security. I’ve seen the government change from helping and supporting its people, to spying on anyone they please (pretty much anybody that doesn’t believe like they do) just because they can. Worse yet, I’ve seen the people of this country willing to give up freedoms for this same illusion of security. As Benjamin Franklin once said:

“People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”

He’s right you know, we currently have neither but most of us haven’t bothered to pay attention.

Our country could get back on track. It will take years, maybe decades, to recover from the damage done to her and her people over the last eight years, but it can be done. But to do it we need strong leadership and a leadership that is committed to making the hard decisions and choices that must be made to restore the basic rights guaranteed to the citizens of this country in our founding documents. We need somebody that understands that if you demolish your own foundations, you have nothing left to stand on. I believe that Obama has at least read the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Based on his voting record, I’m not so sure about Biden. And, based on its leadership, I know that the current administration either hasn’t or, if they have, they didn’t understand a word of it.

So, how do you turn a staunch Democrat away from the party? You pick a running mate that has proven time and time again that he has no consideration for the people of the country, and would rather give his support over to the businesses who give money to his campaign.

Welcome to America. We have the best government money can buy. Don’t worry about the people, we’ll bring them under control, and then you can do anything you want as long as it’s profitable and puts money into my campaign coffers. Maybe Obama should have checked the voting records of his potential running mates rather than going with someone who was simply reported to have some foreign policy experience. (Hint: Biden voted for the war in Iraq. He doesn’t have any credibility in the foreign policy arena.)

Obama, you not only made a bad choice, you’ve now proven to this voter that I can’t trust you to turn this country around since you’ve chosen as a running mate someone who helped get us in this position in the first place, and whose voting record proves that he has no interest in the citizens of this country.

What really fries my cookies, is that I still have to vote for you because the alternative is even worse. I want a country and a leadership I can be proud. I thought this time I just might get it. Now, I just hope that in four more years, I get my wish. I only hope America hasn’t been completely dismantled by then. When will the Democrats give me a candidate I can vote for? I’m sick of only being allowed to vote against the greater evil, and then having to live with the lesser.

The last week has been a bit of a strain.  Not that anything really awful has happened.  There’s been the usual stress of gearing up for the publication of all the zines on September 1st.  Just the usual stuff of pinging all the reviewers and seeing where we stand.  Not to bad except I realized that the questions for the author interview for one of the zines never got sent — will do that tomorrow but it may be too late.

Then there was  a major code update.  Somehow, it shouldn’t have happened, but the update lost us a chunk of data from the database. Then the host servers crashed the next morning so it took longer than usual for the restore.  Then when the restore was in place, well all the work of at least two days was gone and had to be redone.  I think, as of today, that most of that has been recovered and put back in place.

Don’t you just love how computers make our lives so much more organized, in touch with others, and streamlined and then if there’s a glitch… Well, nothing can even come close to screwing up like a computer and its bits and bytes.  But now that we’re back to where we were several days ago — things are looking pretty good.

Meanwhile, while all the computer problems and stressors were going on there was the usual household stuff to do.  I’m trying to get things a bit more organized — boxed, labeled, gathered for tossing or giving away, or storing.  I’ve been pulling out the books that we don’t want to keep in our personal library and making a pile to put on Amazon for sale.  I need the bookshelf space for the book we have acquired lately and want to keep or haven’t read yet.  You’d think with all the books I review, Hyperion reviews, and that we read (from the library), that we’d never buy books.  You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.  We buy lots of books — mostly for research, reference, or just because they look like fun and the library doesn’t have it.

I also picked up some new yarn for socks today.  It’s a stretchy sock yarn in a pretty variegated  purple, yellow, pink, rosy color scheme.  Once I finish the pair I’m making now (just got the toe to do), I’ll start a pair with this yarn and using the circular needle technique to knit two socks at once.  Just need to figure out how I want them to look and find a pattern to use.

I’ve actually managed to spin four of the last eight days.  Not as much as I should but at least I’m keeping my hand (and feet) in.  I’m beginning to feel more comfortable.  I’m trying really hard to over-spin so I don’t lose so much twist when I ply.   I’m still working on using up the green top that I was working on for the Tour de Fleece.  I almost have half a spool full.  Maybe by the end of the month I’ll be plying it and setting the twist for this second skein.  It’s still a lace/sock weight yarn (with 3-ply Navaho plying).

What I have to snap out of is the funk that I seem to be in.  Everyday, it seems like I’m wading waist deep in water.  Everything just seems to take more effort.  I’m not letting it stop me.  I even walked down to the mailbox twice in the last week — I know I should be doing it every day.  But, I’m making a real effort to not give up and that’s got to count for something.  I guess what it counts for is that I keep going and eventually I will find it easier and easier to just keep going.  Maybe I should just buy more spoons, but I’m hoping to “snap out of it”.  So, since I love her work and the puzzle is so bright and cheery — I thought I’d share.  It is available through Amazon (isn’t everything).

Still expect a post only when you see one.  My schedule is a bit uneven just now.