Holidays

It has not been the best year. I lost my mother in June. I've lost 4 of my bunnies, most recently this past Wednesday, when one of my oldest died while at the vet's. We lost Christopher Hitchens. Eighteen years ago, my father was in the hospital through Christmas, and died on December 30, so this season is kinda hard on me. So I'll just post some videos for all none of you to watch.

First, this is Teddy Bear. He is a porcupine. He is unbelievably adorable. Don't try to take his cookie. (Thanks to my brother for finding this!)

Next, here is Tim Minchin. He's not quite as adorable as Teddy Bear, but he's still kinda cute. And I love this song, although I have a hard time listening to it. Always makes me cry.

If you haven't seen much of Tim, you really should look him up. He's fantastic.

Finally, for the ultimate in cute, here are some of my fur kids with hats. They were not impressed with me at all for asking them to pose:

This is Smoochy the guinea pig.

This is Zoe. She was very cooperative, but not at all impressed. I'm sure she won't be impressed that I cut off her butt.

Chester McGrumpypants was so unimpressed that he didn't want to be seen wearing this stupid hat. He refused to pick up his head.

Hoppy Holidays, all! Let's hope next year is somewhat better.

Hitch

Christopher Hitchens is dead, at age 62, of complications from esophageal cancer. I never met him, but wish I had. I may write more later, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty unhappy right now.

Science denialism

This is a subject that really irks me. Some of my otherwise rational, intelligent friends and coworkers deny science in a variety of ways. One won't vaccinate his four kids (he and his wife are planning on having more, too), because he's "not in the mood for autism and mercury poisoning". His wife, a lovely woman, relies mainly on "herbal cures" to take care of herself and her family. You feel a cold coming on? Here, drink this repulsive, smelly tea. Two are on diets that, long-term, may harm them. At least one tells me he's not going to be on it for long; the other thinks that, after eating fried foods, sweets and McDonald's all his life, he's going to be happy and be able to sustain a diet that cuts out almost all carbohydrates, does not include bread or grains, and only includes, basically, water to drink. Sorry, my friend, but I don't think so. But good luck to you. That particular friend is a fellow skeptic, but is apparently sometimes easily swayed by "authority" (unless it's religious authority, but that's a different story). It really makes me angry.

But Bunny, you may say, they have a right to do or think or believe or feel any way they want. Yeah, you're right. But I don't want to see my friend's kids getting measles or whooping cough, simply because their parents took them to another home school event, where none of the other kids are vaccinated, and one picked up measles somewhere and spread it to their friends, or the parent has a "bad cough that won't go away", and it ends up really being pertussis, and now all the kids have it, and some are hospitalized, and one dies. No, it really is that bad. Have you ever seen a kid with pertussis (whooping cough)? I have. It's horrible. My father was a general practice physician, and he saw whooping cough all the time. And, occasionally, smallpox. He was happy when it was eradicated in the wild in 1979, due to the efforts of the World Health Organization and their vaccination campaign. My mother's sister suffered from polio, which she contracted as a very small girl during an epidemic. Her legs were paralyzed by it, and later in life my mother suffered from post-polio syndrome, because it's likely she had a low-level infection during the epidemic. Polio still exists in the world, and people are paralyzed or killed by it all the time. Even chickenpox can be fatal to some, and hospitalizes many more. The cost of these diseases in dollars is immense; the cost in human lives is much, much worse.

That was a child with whooping cough. Imagine hearing that for hours, days, weeks on end. Imagine a child dying because he was too young to be immunized, or had a medical reason why he couldn't be immunized (like HIV/AIDS, or cancer treatments, because yes, kids get cancer, too). Just horrible. There has been no identifiable link between ANY vaccine and autism. So protect your kids and get them immunized, already! And update your own immunizations. If you're an adult, you should get an update on your diphtheria/tetanus shot, and make sure you ask for the pertussis vaccine (the combined vaccine is called Tdap) with that. It's just one little shot, for crying out loud! I did it, after I finally realized I could. And because I'm around my friend's kids.

People spend millions of dollars every year denying science. They use remedies that won't cure them, then go to the hospital when they're much sicker and aren't getting better. That ends up costing much, much more than  the doctor's office visit would have. They buy homeopathic "remedies", which are basically just water dropped onto a sugar pill. No, really. Oscillococcinum, the "flu remedy" sold at drugstores and Walmart and other such places, at least, is essentially just a piece of duck liver and/or duck heart waved over a glass of water, then the water is placed onto sugar pills and sold for considerably more than it's worth. Ok, maybe that's oversimplified, but the result is the same. It's insane. Here's James Randi explaining how homeopathy works (watch it, it's terrific):

I love James Randi.

The world could prevent people from starving if so many well-meaning people weren't afraid of "genetically modified organisms (GMOs)". People, we've been modifying crops for centuries! Take the banana, for instance, one of the world's most popular fruits. It used to look like this:

http://bwindiresearchers.wildlifedirect.org/files/2009/07/pict0268.jpg

Would you really want to eat that? You know what they look like now:

http://www.fatburningfurnace.com/images/Banana%20nutrition%20facts.jpg

That's because humans crossed different types of bananas and finally got something good. It happens with everything. We cross different types of fruits to get new fruits (nectarine and tangelo, anyone?), we breed animals to come up with cattle that are better at either meat or milk production (sorry, vegans, I know, but let me finish), we even cross animals that we live with to get the best traits of each of the parents (think Labradoodle or Maltipoo). With GMOs, we're manipulating genes. We can put vitamin A in rice, and save the sight of millions for whom rice is a staple food. Sure, there are drawbacks. Nothing we do in life is totally without risk. But because we've done science on all this, and we are allowed to experiment, we know pretty much what we're doing. Well, scientists do. The rest of the population, not so much. Because the United States, as a whole, is a pretty science-illiterate population, I'm sad to say. And that needs to change.

One more video for you. It's a TED talk by science writer Michael Specter. It pretty much sums it up.

I have to go start cooking stuff for tomorrow. Have a great turkey day!

Treat time!

Every once in a while I like to make treat bags for the buns. Considering the number of buns that live with me, it can be quite a production. So I create an assembly line, and have at it.

I start off by assembling all the materials. This time I'm using dried cranberries, Nutriberries (yes, ok, I know they're parrot treats, but the buns love them once in a while), timothy hay, and little candy-shaped mineral treats. They all go together in a simple paper bag, which is tied up with twine.

My ingredients

I open all the bags, and put a few dried cranberries into them, followed by a couple of Nutriberries. Then I fill the bags about halfway with the timothy hay, scrunch the bags closed, then tie with twine. I finish off by stringing a mineral chew onto the twine and tying a bow.

Lots of bags, filled!

You can use whatever treats you want. I've used different dried fruits. My buns like papaya, mango, dried apples, dried cherries, pineapple, and banana chips. I've also used treats other than mineral chews. You can find all kinds of things either online or in pet supply shops. I like to use things that you ordinarily put on treat hangers, because they have holes pre-drilled into them. This makes it easy to tie onto the bag. In place of regular hay, you can get hay that has all kinds of special stuff in it, like marigold flowers, mint or dried carrots.

Tied with the mineral chews; cute for the bunz!

Annie inspects her treat bag

Peter is trying to figure it all out. He's a new guy.

Bob and Zoe know what to do

Seventeen bags for my happy bunniez

It wasn't a very good week. I lost one of my buns over the weekend. It looked like she had a stroke. She was one of the girls that was born in my bed while I was at work six years ago. This was before I could find a vet who would spay or neuter rabbits. One of my boys escaped and managed to open the girls' cage.  I had to take her to the vet on Monday for cremation. I'll keep her ashes with the rest of my lost friends. While I was there, I stopped at the shelter, and adopted their last bunny. I had adopted one on Friday, and they'd been trying to get me to take this one home, but I didn't have the room then. My shelter, thankfully, doesn't take in many bunnies. The companions of the one that died are now refusing to sleep in the condo in which she died, and have opted for a smaller one. I'm trying to convince them to go into the larger one, because they're stacking themselves in the small condo. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I'm hoping the treat bags will make them happy. From the sounds emanating from my bedroom, it seems to have worked.

Freddie

I have always been a Queen fan. That's Queen, as in "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Another One Bites The Dust", not as in Elizabeth II of England, or whoever. Yesterday would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday. For those of you who just crawled out of the cabbage patch, Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, who died of HIV/AIDS in November of 1991. A more magnificent frontman you couldn't ever find. Just look at the official Queen channel on YouTube, at the concert clips, and you'll see what I mean. FU, Justin Bieber. Oh, and Vanilla Ice, for that stupid "Ice, Ice Baby" bullshit. If there's a hell (and there isn't), you deserve to burn in it for ripping off Queen. And denying it. Asshole.

In any case, Google's doodle for yesterday (the rest of the world) and today (US), is dedicated to Freddie. They also have a blog post written by the guitarist for Queen, Brian May, who is also an astrophysicist. Yeah! It's here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/happy-birthday-freddie-mercury.html, and it's wonderful.

Happy birthday, Freddie. You are sorely missed.

Interesting...

My brother sent me some links. Some infuriate me. Some make me happy. Guess which is which!


A big yellow rabbit


Awesome DIY surgery!


Really? You have that much cash, New Hampshire?

I do love my brother, but he sometimes pushes my buttons.

(And in case you were wondering, who wouldn't love a huge, wooden rabbit? Every town should have one!)

Personal revelations WARNING: not a nice story

This won't be an easy post. It's all come about over the past few days, as a result of something that has happened in the skeptical blogosphere. Rebecca Watson, one of the Skepchicks (probably the person everyone thinks of as "the" Skepchick) was in Dublin recently for a conference. At the end of the evening, after she had spent some hours stating that she didn't like to be hit on, that it creeps her out, she got hit on in an elevator. It has been established that Elevator Guy, as he is now known, was in a position to have heard Rebecca say that being hit on like that creeps her out. He was also in a position to have heard her say that she was going to her hotel room, alone, to sleep. It was 4 AM. She posted a video on Skepchick about this (at http://skepchick.org/2011/06/about-mythbusters-robot-eyes-feminism-and-jokes/). The video is just over 8 minutes long. The part where she starts talking about Elevator Guy is at 4:30 into it. She talks about the incident for about a minute and 15 seconds.

Another blogger had something to say about how Rebecca may have jumped to conclusions about the situation. Rebecca subsequently mentioned this at a conference held by CFI, where she was a keynote speaker. I don't know precisely what she said, having not been there, but the blogger she mentioned was there. Then all hell broke loose. From what I've been reading, some people side with Rebecca, that Elevator Guy was creepy and possibly a threat. Some side with the other blogger, that the situation was somewhat overexaggerated. Some say... well, you can see for yourself. Greg Laden has a link farm over at his blog, detailing all the relevant posts (it's at http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/elevators_and_privilege_a_lett.php ). Just click on the different links; you'll get the idea what a storm this has caused.

For purposes of this post, I have nothing to say about Rebecca mentioning names in her speech. I do, however, have something to say about Elevator Guy. I have to agree with Rebecca; being propositioned in an elevator, whether in a strange country or not, whether early in the morning or in the middle of the day, is creepy as hell. It doesn't really matter what was said, whether you were invited for coffee or what. There is something unspoken there, whether real or imagined. It is this: "Come to my hotel room with me. We'll have 'coffee'. And I will feel justified in putting my hands on you, because you consented to come to my room with me." The other unspoken implication is this: "If you don't come to my room with me, if you say no, then maybe I'll pretend that what you really said is yes, and I will take you now, by force if necessary." And that's what frightens many of us.

Here's where the personal revelation comes in. And this won't be easy.

Some years ago, my family moved from our home state to the state where we (my brother and I, at least) now live. Before we moved, I had been involved in my first physical relationship ever, and I left that to move here. We remained very close friends. In the first few months here, I met a few people. Construction started on our new house. Because I wasn't working, I got to know the construction crew. I saw them every day, interacted with them, and started to feel comfortable with them. One day, in October, one of the guys invited me to a Halloween party. He said he'd introduce me to some people, and that people I already knew would be there. Normally, I don't like situations like this, and he wasn't my type at all, but I was still unhappy (very) after the move, and I felt like I needed something to do, so I said yes to his invitation.

A few days before the party, this guy told me that he didn't really have a costume to wear. I'd been a bit of a punk chick back home, and I had a lot of pieces that I knew would fit him, so I offered to help him pick out something to wear. We decided on a few pieces, and he thanked me. He seemed like a nice guy.

The evening of the party, I put on my favorite punk dress, and he picked me up. He was using the construction foreman's pickup, as he didn't have his own transportation. We went to the party, which was at a bar that had been closed for the occasion. It was kind of a "locals only" party. There really wasn't anyone there that I knew, so I spent most of the evening sitting at a table with my date, or standing in a corner feeling really uncomfortable with so many strangers around me, while he made the rounds. He kept getting me fresh drinks, which tasted very watered down. There were pitchers of vodka and orange juice all around, and you could see the melted ice water sitting on top of the orange juice. I didn't really think twice when he took my drink, which was only half gone, to get me a new one. Repeatedly. I was very naive.

A few hours later, he decided it was time to go. We left the party and got into the truck. It was a cold evening in late October, so I was hoping to get home quickly, since the heater wasn't working in the truck. I wasn't real sure where we were, and I was equally unsure of the way home, since I hadn't really tried to scope out the area since moving. I hated it here. I am positive, though, that the way my date chose to take me home was not the most direct route, and it certainly wasn't the route we'd taken to the party. I was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol. I realize now that my date had been taking my drinks back to the bartender, who was adding more and more vodka to my drink, and just enough orange juice to make it look like it had been sitting in the pitchers, like the rest of it. All along the way home, my date kept trying to touch me. He'd try to pull me over to him on the bench seat. He'd put his hand on my thigh, or my breast. He even stopped the truck once at a particularly scenic view and tried to make out with me. Each time, I said that I wasn't interested, please stop, and I just wanted to go home. I was trapped in a vehicle with someone I now didn't trust all that much, but the alcohol was getting to me, and I wasn't really feeling very well.

He finally seemed to get the message, because he said that he would take me home after he changed his clothes. He said he wanted to give me back my costume items, because if it waited until the next work day (this was a Friday or a Saturday, and he would have to wait until Monday), he would forget them. What was I going to do? He was driving, so I was kind of under his control. We stopped at his apartment, which was in the basement of a house owned by the construction foreman's family. There was nobody else in the building. He told me to come inside and get warm, and he would just be a minute. I didn't want to go inside, but it really was freezing ,and as I said, the alcohol was screwing up my judgement. So I went inside.

Once inside, he left me in the living area, while he went to the bedroom to "change". And change he did. The person I knew while building my family's new house turned into a monster. He came out of the bedroom, grabbed me by the wrist, and pulled me into the room. I fought, I yelled at him, I said no, I pulled back, but he was bigger and stronger than me. He forced me to my knees, and held my head down while... I can't. I just can't write that part. But I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, even though I fought with everything I had. And when he'd had enough of that, he pushed me back onto the bed, ripped off my underwear, and... once again, I just can't. I'm feeling sick all over again, just going over this.

When it was all over, he handed me my costume items, took me out to the truck, and took me home. Like nothing bad had happened. And it hadn't, as far as he was concerned. To him, "no" and "I just want to go home" clearly meant "yes" and "fuck me now, against my will; you know I'll love it". Only I didn't. I hated every microsecond of it. I hated feeling so violated, and incapable of defending myself. Nothing really bad had ever happened to me before, because my family and friends had protected me from badness. Now I'd had this evil act committed upon me, and I was completely incapable of doing anything about it.

Did I tell anyone? No. This is the first time I've told the whole story. A very few people actually know that I was raped; in fact, I've only ever told 3 people, and none of them knows the whole story. Two of those people have been not only my physicians, but very close friends. One of them, the first person I told, was the one to whom I gave my virginity. And I didn't even really tell him. I said that something horrible had happened, and he knew from the look on my face and the tone of my voice what it was, and he offered to "take care of it" for me, which essentially meant that he would pay $50 and travel expenses to someone in the city who would "take care of it". I told him no.

Did I tell the police? No. For one thing, at that time, date rape wasn't really considered a "crime". The perception was that I had consented to go out with this guy, and he'd paid some money to buy me drinks (not really; they were sitting out on the counter, and we're not counting the extra alcohol he had the bartender add), so obviously I owed him. For another, the local police force was comprised of a chief who had retired from somewhere else, and therefore wanted to do as little as possible, and one other officer who had also retired from somewhere else, and also wanted to do as little as possible. The Sheriff's dept. stayed away from this town as much as possible, so they wouldn't have been any help at all, either. And like I said, date rape wasn't a crime, remember?

Did I tell anyone in my family? No, because I didn't want to have to visit my dad in prison after he killed my rapist. And even though my brother and I weren't getting along all that well at that point, I was pretty sure that he'd inflict some damage on the guy, too. Mom? No, because she would either kill the guy herself, or tell my dad.

Being raped was bad enough, but maybe the worst part of it all was that I had to see the guy every single fucking day after that, except weekends, because he was still on the crew that was building my house. And I had to be nice to him, because if I didn't, someone in my family would catch on, and he'd end up stripped naked, tied to a tree, and covered in some sweet, sticky substance that the bears would like. Not a bad idea, actually, but I probably would have added a disemboweling. And cut his nuts off. At least. Also, a few weeks after the incident, he caught up to me alone outside the house we were living in, and asked me if I was sure I wasn't pregnant. Well, thanks for asking, asshole. No I'm not, but thanks for caring. Now fuck off and die.

Do I know where he is right now? No, but I hope he's at the bottom of a swamp somewhere, rotting. The statue of limitations on prosecution for rape in my state has long since passed.

This is why I feel so strongly about incidents like Rebecca was relating. For ten years after I was raped, I didn't go out with anyone who had a Y chromosome. At all. Not unless I was accompanied by at least one other female. There was one guy I could be alone with, and I'm really not sure why I was more or less comfortable with him. I kinda had a little crush on him, I guess, but I was pretty certain nothing would ever come of it. And I was desperately lonely. It sucks when you're as lonely as I was, but really too scared to do anything about it, because you're afraid you might get raped again. It took working with someone, getting to know him, beginning to realize that a relationship with him might not be such a bad thing, before I even thought about dating again. That ended not well, but after 17 years.

And now I've just screwed up another friendship. I've hurt someone who I care very deeply about, and I can't do anything about it. I feel terrible. I don't really know what to do, except punish myself some more. Hence, this blog post. I fear this was my last chance to be happy, because I'm still - STILL - afraid of dating, still afraid of being anything close to alone with people, men actually, who I don't know really, really well. Life sucks. Hopefully I'll get over this. I need to go snuggle my bunnies.