Senator Grassley of Iowa is demanding that the American Psychiatric Association be transparent about its financial relationship with pharmaceutical companies:

The worry is that this money may subtly alter psychiatrists’ choices of which drugs to prescribe.

An analysis of Minnesota data by The New York Times last year found that on average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs appear to have written three times as many prescriptions to children for the drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none. The drugs are not approved for most uses in children, who appear to be especially susceptible to the side effects, including rapid weight gain.

Senator Grassley’s investigations have not only detailed how lucrative those arrangements can be but have also shown that some top psychiatrists failed to report all their earnings as required

–IP

Seriously cool idea. The Malvern Hills Easier Access Trails are level and quite wide, so would be suitable for most wheelchairs, motorised wheelchairs, walking aids, and baby pushchairs. Also, there are benches everywhere so you can stop often for a rest and enjoy the view. The car parks at the trailheads also have reserved disabled parking bays. There’s more info on the easy access trails here. Major kudos to the Malvern Hills Conservators for this one.

We went to the Malvern Hills this weekend, and while I couldn’t get far from the trailhead, I did get a lovely view of the Severn valley, while my family went on ahead.

(Also, the “Just Rachel” ice cream, sold at various points in and around Malvern, is not to be missed.)

–IP

There is a fast food chain here that sells spiced breaded chicken.  Everyone loves it.  Whenever people travel, they travel with huge boxes of these chicken pieces.

Checking in for my flight home, the check-in clerk asked me all the usual security questions:

CIC: [ususal blurb, including  are these bags yours, did you pack them, etc.] Are you taking any breaded chicken?

Me: Um, no.

CIC:  Why not?  What about tamales?

Me:  No.

CIC:  And tortillas?

Me:  No.

CIC:  Wait, so what are you going to eat on the plane?

Me:  Well, I think I might have some chocolates…

CIC:  Oh, that’s all right then.  Have a good flight.

He was right though.  The plane smelled of tamales and breaded chicken and my mouth was watering the whole journey.

–IP

We made dulce de chocolate. That’s chocolate. From scratch. Also known in Spanish as “tableta”, when it is used for melting into hot milk or water for making hot chocolate. S., who works for my Abuela knows how to make it, so my Abuela asked her to show her, my Tía, and me.

We started with semillas de cacao. S. toasted them, then tipped them into a large heatproof bowl and set us to shelling the the cacao beans.

S. then mixed the shelled cacao with sugar to taste (there was much discussion of how much sugar constituted “to taste”. S. clearly thinks we are nuts for liking our chocolate on the bitter side) cinnamon bark broken into small pieces, and a wee sprinkle of water.

Then it needs to be ground very finely, she explained, so that the grains of sugar are no longer visible. Abuela produced the food processor, much to S’s skepticism — S. does not believe in food processors. She does believe in el molino — the neighbourhood mill where people take their corn to be ground for tortillas, or their cacao mixtures for dulce de chocolate. S. turned out to be right — the food processor didn’t grind it finely enough, so it was taken to the molino where it was ground to a paste. My Tía and I have speculated as to whether using honey or disolved panela (aka jagree) instead of sugar would eliminate the need for very fine grinding, but we didn’t get a chance to test this theory. When we asked S. what she thought of the idea she only said indignantly “No me vayan a cambiar la receta!”

Once the paste is made, S. showed us how to spoon the paste onto greasproof paper and shape rectangular bars, which we then put into the fridge to harden.

S. took some of them home for herself and her family. I am quite certain that the first thing she did with them upon getting home was to melt them into milk with at least as much sugar again as they already contained. What sloppy and ungrateful students she must think we are, wanting less sugar in unevenly ground chocolate. She was nevertheless thanked profusely for her teaching. We’ve been eating masses of delicious chocolate since. And the house smells all of toasted cacao.

–IP

During the rainy season here, there are two kinds of rain — the mild but extended rain, and the more common brief but profuse downpours, accompanied by thunder and lightening. A few years ago, the power would fail frequently during such storms but that’s no longer the case in the cities, although it’s still the case in rural areas.

A few days ago, we spent a while away from the city, when one such storm began. My Tía, concerned about driving back along an inundated dirt track in a small car sin doble tracción, spoke to a local and asked her if she thought the rain would last long. “No, niña,” the woman replied, “si es pura rayería.”

–IP

Previous posts on this issue can be found here, here, here, and here.

Limiting academic freedom is poor and morally inconsistent way to further the growth of constructive communication.  And constructive communication is precisely what is needed in the Israel/Palestine conflict.  If an academic body wants to put their spoon in there are moral and cosntructive ways to do that that preserve academic freedome and further the growth of communication and the pursuit of knowledge.  For example, the University and Colleges Union could issue a statement in in support of Palestinian education and academic pursuits, or the UCU could twin with a Palestinian university, or could offer scholarships for Palestinian students, or could offer resources for Palestinian educational institutions.

The UCU has recently passed Motion 25 which effectively advises members to boycott Israeli academics, but does not use the word “boycott” (unlikely previous UCU attempts to pass policy of this kind).  The full text of the motion is here.  In particular, among it’s resolutions is the following:

colleagues be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions

There is now debate on whether the motion violates the Race Relations Act of 1976.  More about that here. (Via Normblog.)

Via Engage, I also learn that St Peter’s College, Oxford, has passed a resolution against Motion  25.

–IP

Someone has taken to painting signs at various points along a city block that read:

NO VOTAR BASURA

y

no orinar

In Spanish, “b” and “v” are bothed pronounced as /β/ (a voiced bilabial fricative), so misspellings of words that use either letter tend to be misspelled in virtue of the swapping of one letter for the other.

Driving past, there was some amused speculation amongst the family as to whether the sign was written as political propaganda, eco propaganda, or simply by a disgruntled homeowner.

–IP

The algebraic geometer David Mumford, one of the three winners of the Wolf prize this year, is donating his share of the prize money to Birzeit University – a Palestinian university, and Gisha — an organisation that promotes Palestinian freedom of movement. From the Haaretz article:

“I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive,” Mumford told Haaretz. “I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that.”

[...]

“The achievements I accomplished in mathematics were made possible thanks to my being able to move freely and exchange ideas with other scholars,” he said. “It would not have been possible without an international consensus on an exchange of ideas. Mathematics works best when people can move and get together. That’s its elixir of life. But the people of occupied Palestine don’t have an opportunity to do that. The school system is fighting for its life, and mobility is very limited.”

–IP

I got a small research grant for an academic project. My very first grant. I keep looking at the letter and I can’t stop smiling.

–IP

Said of a fool, or a foolish thing, by a Spanish-speaking Arab: “Sos una bandeja! Que bandejada!”

Also, I am currently in what is probably the only country in the world where it possible to have a Plaza Palestina on the Avenida Jerusalen without massive civil unrest.

It’s nice to be back to my Spanglish life.

–IP

Two recent studies on parenthood and academia have turned up some interesting findings (h/t Feministe).

The first study is entitled “Alone in the Ivory Tower: How Birth Events Vary Among Fast-Track Professionals” and is by Nicholas Wolfinger (University of Utah), Mary Ann Mason (UC Berkeley), and Marc Coulden (UC Berkeley).  It compares academics to professionals in other fields, tracking households with children aged one or younger, and found that academics were much less likely than other professionals to have had a child recently, and that women were less likely than men to have had a child recently:

The study, based on 2000 Census data, finds that academics are the least likely to have experienced recent birth events, and that the gap is greatest for women. (Physicians are most likely to have had children recently, and lawyers are in the middle.)

[...]

One factor that makes it easier for the male doctors to have recent offspring is that, in addition to earning more than professors, the M.D.’s are less likely to have child-care needs. That’s because male doctors are almost twice as likely to have spouses out of the labor force as are male academics (40 percent vs. 22 percent). In another sign of the impact of academic careers on parenthood, male professionals whose wives are physicians or lawyers are disproportionately likely to have had recent birth events, while male professionals whose wives are academics do not have any greater than average chance of new parenthood.

The second study is the COSWA Academic Climate Report 2008, which can be read here.  It finds

Key differences were found with regard to work/home balance: men in the field are more likely to be parents, but women are more likely to be more responsible for child care or other family obligations. For instance, of men who experienced a career interruption, 7.4 percent cited child care as the reason and 3.7 percent cited the experience of being a “trailing spouse,” one who moves when a partner is hired elsewhere. Of women who experienced career interruptions, 22.9 percent cited child care and 9.1 percent cited being a trailing spouse. And women were much more likely (52.9 percent to 5.6 percent) to anticipate a future career interruption due to child care responsibilities.

Check out the article.  Note also the interesting comparisons of percentages of white and non-white academics with children from the COSWA report in the table at the bottom of the article.

–IP

This weekend just past, the Existentialist and I decided to escape some cotidian nonsense and go camping.  But with it being a bank holiday weekend, everyone and their auntie seemed to have the same plan and there appeared to be no campsites in the land with space to pitch a tent.  So we booked into a B&B in a small village near a big loch, switched off the lights, and read AS Byatt’s Possession to each other by torch light, pretending to be in a particularly sturdy tent.  In the morning we went to sit by the loch.

Wandering back through the village from the loch to the cafe we’d picked to have lunch in,  we passed the village butcher and spent a few minutes gazing admiringly at his chops and homemade haggises (the Existentialist, you may recall, is The Original Carnivore).  It was at this point that it occured to me that being a butcher might not be a bad living.  You’d be surrounded by food, people would come to you for advice on their braising beef, and would ask you to sharpen their kitchen knives*, you get a really big fuck-off meat cleaver as part of the job so no one would try it on with you, and you’d never want for lamb mince.  And some nice lamb mince is not to be sneezed at.

–IP

*Some people are confused by this.  They needn’t be.  You are much more likely to be injured in the kitchen by using a blunt knife which requires more pressure and might slip more easily, than by using a sharp one (unless you’re being an idiot with the knife, in which case it’s the general stupid that is the hazard, not the sharpness of the knife).  Also, chopping onions or meat with a blunt knife requires a lot of effort, and my ol’ dad taught me that one should never take nonsense from an onion, because if you start taking nonsense from onions, there is no knowing where you’ll end up.

In generations to past, philosophy and logic students have stood outside ugly concrete buildings in the bracing Scottish wind as the night draws in, and arguing furiously because someone is wrong about politics and philosophy of science. (Even though it was definitely only going to be a five-minute-chat, but now that so-and-so has said such-and-such about Karl Popper or Palestine and before you know it, you’ve been huddling in the cold for two and a half hours arguing about whether their premises were sound…)

But future generations of students they won’t be huddling around the Existentialist’s or the Logic Lecturer’s conical roll-up cigs for warmth anymore. They’re both quitting the smokes.  Maybe it will be too cold in Decembers to come, without the cigarettes to huddle around. Maybe in future, the arguing will have to be done in the pub, or via listserve or something.

Reminds me of the old xkcd:

Image description: the cartoon shows someone sitting at a computer. The speech bubbles are transcribed:

Person outside room: Are you coming to bed?
Person at computer: I can’t. This is important.
Person outside room: What?
Person at computer: Someone is wrong on the internet.

–IP

Interesting op-ed in the Independent by Johann Hari on the humanitarian situation in Israel.

–IP

There are people who think sexual violence is funny. And I say that having just left a room because I did not want to continue a conversation with someone who was too busy saying how funny “airy fairy feminist bullshit rapes” are to have a remotely interesting or constructive conversation. So I’m not pulling this out of the air here.

I’m not exactly sure what constitutes an “airy fairy feminist bullshit rape”, but the person saying this was making a distinction between that and “actual” rape. The topic of conversation was manners in bed. I was making the point that if someone says “Actually I’m not really in the mood for [specific sexual activity]” or otherwise indicates that they don’t want to engage in that activity, that means they don’t want to engage in that activity, and engaging in that activity with them contrary to their wishes is, at best disrespectful. If that activity is sexual intercourse, then engaging in it contrary to their wishes is rape. If it is some other activity, engaging in it contrary to their wishes may constitute some category of assault. It was in this context that my interlocutor starting laughing about “airy fairy feminist bullshit rape”.

It’s worth noting that the UK legal systems don’t consider that sexual activities with someone who has said no to that activity to be “airy fairy” — rather, such behaviour is covered under various defintions of rape, sexual offences, and assaults.

Sexual violence isn’t funny, and it’s not bullshit. It is real, it is a form of abuse, and it is appaling.

I do understand that there are different places one might want to draw the lines when it comes to writing laws. There are activities that one person might think should be illegal and another person doesn’t, and that doesn’t mean that either person is unreasonable. For example, I think one can reasonably disagree, within certain parameters, about what the age of consent should be, for example. I personally think 16 is pretty reasonable, but I’m not sure that a 17 year old should be criminalised for having otherwise consentual sex with a 15 year old. Equally there are activities that are clearly not ok — I that all reasonable people would agree that there ought to be an age of consent, and that there are also other situations that should be legislated against. So there is some room I think, for legitimate disagreement about what should and shouldn’t be criminal.

But if what you’re trying to say is “hey, I think that actually the law/social model of relationships is wrong in the following respects” that’s ok, provided your comments are, y’know, reasonable. What I object to is when someone decides that the entire concept of people being about to give or withhold free consent to a sexual activity is laughed at. Not because you think that there is an adjustment that could be made in the law, but because you don’t want to accept that no means no, and yes means yes.

Where’s the punchline? Where’s the joke? Why is rape funny? Really easy and obvious answer: it isn’t.

It’s easy not to worry about something that hasn’t affected you personally. It’s almost certain that this individual has never experienced sexual violence himselv. He probably doesn’t know of anybody who has been hurt by sexual violence; although given the statisitics on sexual violence, what that actually means is that he probably doesn’t know that he knows anybody who’s been hurt by sexual violence.

27% of women experience rape. 25% of women said they were “very worried” about rape. National Crime Survey, 2003. Cited in BBC “Is rape really rocketing?” 17 July 2003.

In the UK, 1 in 4 women experience rape or attempted rape. 1 in 7 women experience coerced sex. 1 in 3 divorced or separated women experience coerced sex. The most common perpetrators of rape are partners. (Painter 1991, cited in Rape Crisis statistics).

In the UK, 40% of young people in a survey of people aged 16-20 know a girl who has been coerced or pressured into sex by her boyfriend. ICM Survey, 2006 comissioned by Amnesty International, cited by Zero Tolerance “Abuse in Young Relationships” 1 Nov 2006.

96% of people in the UK are not aware of the extent of rape in this country and vastly underestimate in incidences of rape in the UK. The average estimate by respondents of the conviction rate of rape was over five times the actual rate. ICM survey, 2005, published by Amnesty International, cited by Zero Tolerance “Passing Judgement — Rape in the UK” 1 Nov 2005.

If you’re laughing, you have a problem.

Shakesville also has an ongoing series about rape jokes. This post and this one are particularly good. For primers on consent and sexual violence, try here or here.

–IP