Is this the first great sisterly moment? HECK NO. But it was the first one that made me think "I should put this online." So here it is.
Anne: Apparently there are two different S sounds (in English), too.
Mary: What, like the difference between the one that goes "ssss" and the one that goes "zzzz"?
Anne: Well, apparently there's a difference between "stop" and, I don't know, "toes."
[laughter]
Anne: No, I know there's a difference between "stop" and "toes." I'm talking about the sound the S makes in "stop" and "toes."
Mary: Wait, you really can't hear the difference?
Apparently she can't.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
That's Stupid #3: Austrian father reveals his "addiction" to incest
Story
Comments unnecessary. This is just stupid. Do not treat your daughters and grandchildren this way.
Comments unnecessary. This is just stupid. Do not treat your daughters and grandchildren this way.
That's Stupid #2: Winonan sees Womenpriest ceremony as an act of faith
Story
Winonan sees Womenpriest ceremony as an act of faith
By Darrell Ehrlick | Lee Newspapers
.
WINONA, Minn. — Kathy Redig’s most profound act of faith might be the one that gets her condemned, if not excommunicated from the church she’s been a part of her whole life.
The lede is supposed to grab attention and give the most important information. Okay, so it's grabbed attention, but in a a way that's either anti-Catholic or completely misunderstands Catholic teaching on the priesthood. The lede presents a paradox, or something very like one, implying that the Church is wrong. If you're writing something aimed against the Church, this would be expected. Not here.
Also, on the word "condemned." Condemn means to send to hell, right? Well, the Church can't do that. Nobody can, except God, and whether God sends people to hell or whether people choose hell or whatever is a complicated theological issue that I'm not going to get into here, mostly because it's irrelevant and I don't understand it thoroughly. Fact is, the Church can't condemn you to hell.
And excommunicated? If this is an act of "faith," obviously she has no "faith" in the Church, and if your "faith" is misplaced and you persist in it, the natural (?) consequence is excommunication.
She claims the Roman Catholic Church, after May 4, may not claim her.
That’s when Redig plans to be ordained in Winona by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a worldwide organization that has publicly ordained 23 priests and four bishops since 2002.
I assume these 23 and 4 are all women? Sorry, folks, but no ordinations took place. Holy Orders is a sacrament, which according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Sacraments are outward signs of inward grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification." These alleged ordinations were outward signs, but there was no inward grace because ordination of women was not instituted by Christ. Therefore, no actual ordinations took place.
But Redig isn’t going ahead with ordination to put herself at odds with church leaders and church law. She says she wants to bring more people to the church she loves.
This is good news.
There's a line from the Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) that goes something like "Our cause [that of hell] is never so much in danger as it is when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our enemy's [God's] will, looks round a universe from which all trace of him [God] seems to have vanished, asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
“For 15 to 20 years, I’ve struggled,” Redig said. “This is the only church I want to be a part of.”
Not sure what to make of this. I'm glad she's faithful, but I'm skeptical of the "I want" factor.
But when Redig participates in Mass, she looks to the altar and sees a man leading worship, a man on the cross and thinks about the men leading the church.
It was a man who died for us; of course it's a man on the cross. And, to be honest, I think it's one of the most attractive things about him. Here's a man who chases after me and chases after me but doesn't force me not to run away, and chases after me even when I run away... tries to keep me out of trouble but doesn't force me out of doing something stupid... then forgives me every time I run to him crying that I've offended him... listens patiently to my "I promise never to do it again" knowing I will and believes me and forgives me and loves me anyway... and even though I've voluntarily jumped off a cliff vomiting as I fall into a hellish abyss of total abandonment, he comes down, rescues me, and gets himself killed doing it... totally and completely dies to rescue me from my own stupidity and infidelity... then isn't dead and is therefore still available. How is that not attractive?
“There’s no one up there that looks like me,” Redig said. “Many times in Mass I’ve shed tears because women have not been given a voice. We can’t be ordained just because we came in the wrong wrapper.”
Take this up with Christ, then, not with the Church, because the Church doesn't have authority to ordain women.
And femininity is not the "wrong wrapper." You're being male-chauvinistic if you think that way. There's nothing "wrong" with being a woman, and the Church is not saying or even implying this. Time for more theological study.
She doesn’t want out of the Catholic church; she wants in — and she wants to bring others along.
Redig explained there are many who feel like church outsiders, uncomfortable because they’ve been marginalized by some of its teachings. She feels called to minister to those people.
This attitude displays another misunderstanding of the Church. Either accept the Church's teachings or leave the Church. She teaches truth, and if teachings change then obviously they aren't true. People aren't marginalized by the Church's teachings. They've been marginalized by bad catechesis.
“I want the bishop to know that I am not looking to take anyone out of the church,” Redig said. “But there are so many who do not feel served. There is so much work for all of us to do. The bishop shouldn’t be afraid.”
I like her fidelity.
I don't like that people need to "feel served." We aren't here to be served; we're here to serve.
And there's a difference between "feeling" and "being."
Meeting with the bishop
Before meeting with Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington in March, Redig said she was at peace.
Three weeks before the meeting, the diocese newspaper issued a full-page explanation of the church’s rules and reasons for only ordaining men.
which, of course, aren't mentioned in this article.
Harrington said the article in The Courier wasn’t coincidental. He said he used it as an opportunity to start teaching the church’s position.
Start?
When Redig met with the bishop, she said she offered Harrington the chance to be part of the ordination.
“I asked him, ‘So would you ordain me?’” Redig asked. “He said, ‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.’”
Good bishop.
Redig told him that she felt called to the priesthood and there were many people in need of more pastoral care.
To rely on your emotions to tell you about reality is dangerous. Redig's a woman; she should know this.
“Many don’t feel served. I understand there’s a shortage of priests, and I told the bishop, ‘Women are here, ready to serve,’” Redig said.
Watch out--Mary's about to say something offensive!
Redig is completely right that "women are here, ready to serve." I think this is one of the reasons Christ chose an all-male priesthood. (This is all theological speculation, so if I'm speaking heresy I hope someone will correct me.) Here's something men can do--men have to do--and women can't get their hands on. I think men need that. Men need to be needed for their masculinity (the same goes for women and their femininity). With the priesthood, men have to step up and do it. They can't sit back and say oh, the women will take care of it (because, women, you know we would).
She received a one and a half-page letter from the bishop. In it, he urged her to renounce her ordination as a deacon and not follow through with ordination as a priest. He warned her that he would not endorse her as a Catholic chaplain, told her she is not in good standing with the church and unable to receive communion.
Most importantly, if she follows through with the ordination, Redig said, he will send papers to Rome. Such papers have been the beginning of the excommunication process for other women who’ve been ordained.
Good bishop. But misquoted. The women weren't ordained, unless Buttercup really was married to Humperdinck.
“He said it may be a happy day for me, but it will be a sad day for the Diocese of Winona because I am causing confusion for the people of faith and I am not bringing about unity,” Redig said. “He seemed terribly afraid. And I wrote him a response and said that every day is a sad day for women who cannot be fully at the table.”
She also invited four priests in the diocese to attend her ordination. All declined.
Good priests. But...
She said they’ve privately expressed support for her work, but publicly, they could face retribution for supporting her.
The next steps
Redig plans to start a small gathering for those who identify with the Roman Catholic church but feel marginalized by its teachings or policies.
The congregation will be called “All Are One,” a reference to the Gospel of John where Jesus prays, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
Redig says Scripture alone gives her inspiration to reach out and confidence about her ordination.
Sola scriptura? We dealt with that five hundred years ago and rejected it as a heresy.
“How do you intend for those words of Jesus to be fulfilled while you’re turning away people?” Redig asked. “Take a look around the Mass and those who received the Eucharist — there are probably a lot of Catholics who shouldn’t be there — those who’ve remarried, are gay or voted for John Kerry. If you actually followed all the injunctions of the church, there’d be no one worthy of Mass.”
She's absolutely right: there is no one worthy of the Mass.
Anyway, there are more theological misunderstandings here that I'm too lazy to deal with right now...
For now, she plans to start a group that will meet in a house, not unlike the apostles did in the early history of the church.
Her journey
Redig’s journey toward priesthood began years ago, when she entered a convent at age 18, shortly after graduating from Cotter High School in Winona. She chose the order because of its work with juvenile delinquents and teenage girls.
But she left before taking her first vows.
“I chose that because it was all women could do,” Redig said. “But I also knew I needed a partner in life.”
She met her husband, Robert, who had also spent time in seminary.
She became a licensed practical nurse and had two children.
Nursing was rewarding for Redig, but she always seemed more interested in the spiritual aspects of the patients.
“I felt I was always called to some sort of ministry,” Redig said.
In 1988, she enrolled at Winona State University, where, as an adult learner, she tailored her own major to focus on psychology from birth to death. In 1993, she entered a chaplaincy program at Franciscan Skemp in La Crosse and eventually enrolled in a clinical pastoral education at Gundersen Lutheran, too.
She studied for a master’s at Saint Mary’s University.
In 1994, qualified to serve as a chaplain, she sent letters to area businesses and health care facilities, asking if they had any chaplaincy openings.
At first, Winona Health declined, saying it was downsizing.
“But I argued. I told them you can’t downsize what you don’t have,” Redig said.
About the same time, the hospice program need a chaplain for five hours per week. She took it. Eventually, she developed the first chaplaincy at Winona Health’s Community Memorial Hospital, where she now serves with a second chaplain.
Redig receives an episcopal certification from the diocese in order to be called a Catholic chaplain. Her ordination through Womenpriests will probably mean a revocation of that endorsement.
The call
Every year, Redig took a survey that gauges women’s attitudes in the church. There was a question about whether she felt called to be an ordained priest. Sometimes she’d answer yes, other times, no.
Then, one day as she was doing laundry and talking with her husband about frustrations with the church, she off-handedly said, “Well, I guess the only way we’ll find a church that’s meaningful to us is if we start one ourselves.”
Yeah, see, there's the problem. Leave the church Jesus (i.e., God) founded and found your own... mere humans... we aren't smarter than God.
“I thought I was kidding,” Redig said. “But the spirit wasn’t.”
Redig explored possibilities of ordination, gaining admission to the Womenpriests movement, which had drawn international attention in 2002 when seven women were ordained on the Danube River.
Not ordained! They went through the motions but nothing actually happened ontologically!
For Redig, pursuing the priesthood has been about living the best part of the Catholic faith, the tradition of practicing what her conscience tells her.
Catholicism isn't about doing what your conscience tells you. Conscience must be well-formed for it to have any legitimate say.
With a conviction that comes from deep inside,
because we all know that has authority...
with her family support and the support of Womenpriests, Redig is proceeding. And maybe the most powerful reason for her journey is from what she’s learned on the job as a chaplain.
“Ministry is affirmed by the people,” Redig said. “That’s what I learned from being a chaplain. The people — that’s where it comes from.”
No! No! God--that's where it comes from.
(898 words)
Winonan sees Womenpriest ceremony as an act of faith
By Darrell Ehrlick | Lee Newspapers
.
WINONA, Minn. — Kathy Redig’s most profound act of faith might be the one that gets her condemned, if not excommunicated from the church she’s been a part of her whole life.
The lede is supposed to grab attention and give the most important information. Okay, so it's grabbed attention, but in a a way that's either anti-Catholic or completely misunderstands Catholic teaching on the priesthood. The lede presents a paradox, or something very like one, implying that the Church is wrong. If you're writing something aimed against the Church, this would be expected. Not here.
Also, on the word "condemned." Condemn means to send to hell, right? Well, the Church can't do that. Nobody can, except God, and whether God sends people to hell or whether people choose hell or whatever is a complicated theological issue that I'm not going to get into here, mostly because it's irrelevant and I don't understand it thoroughly. Fact is, the Church can't condemn you to hell.
And excommunicated? If this is an act of "faith," obviously she has no "faith" in the Church, and if your "faith" is misplaced and you persist in it, the natural (?) consequence is excommunication.
She claims the Roman Catholic Church, after May 4, may not claim her.
That’s when Redig plans to be ordained in Winona by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a worldwide organization that has publicly ordained 23 priests and four bishops since 2002.
I assume these 23 and 4 are all women? Sorry, folks, but no ordinations took place. Holy Orders is a sacrament, which according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Sacraments are outward signs of inward grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification." These alleged ordinations were outward signs, but there was no inward grace because ordination of women was not instituted by Christ. Therefore, no actual ordinations took place.
But Redig isn’t going ahead with ordination to put herself at odds with church leaders and church law. She says she wants to bring more people to the church she loves.
This is good news.
There's a line from the Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) that goes something like "Our cause [that of hell] is never so much in danger as it is when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our enemy's [God's] will, looks round a universe from which all trace of him [God] seems to have vanished, asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
“For 15 to 20 years, I’ve struggled,” Redig said. “This is the only church I want to be a part of.”
Not sure what to make of this. I'm glad she's faithful, but I'm skeptical of the "I want" factor.
But when Redig participates in Mass, she looks to the altar and sees a man leading worship, a man on the cross and thinks about the men leading the church.
It was a man who died for us; of course it's a man on the cross. And, to be honest, I think it's one of the most attractive things about him. Here's a man who chases after me and chases after me but doesn't force me not to run away, and chases after me even when I run away... tries to keep me out of trouble but doesn't force me out of doing something stupid... then forgives me every time I run to him crying that I've offended him... listens patiently to my "I promise never to do it again" knowing I will and believes me and forgives me and loves me anyway... and even though I've voluntarily jumped off a cliff vomiting as I fall into a hellish abyss of total abandonment, he comes down, rescues me, and gets himself killed doing it... totally and completely dies to rescue me from my own stupidity and infidelity... then isn't dead and is therefore still available. How is that not attractive?
“There’s no one up there that looks like me,” Redig said. “Many times in Mass I’ve shed tears because women have not been given a voice. We can’t be ordained just because we came in the wrong wrapper.”
Take this up with Christ, then, not with the Church, because the Church doesn't have authority to ordain women.
And femininity is not the "wrong wrapper." You're being male-chauvinistic if you think that way. There's nothing "wrong" with being a woman, and the Church is not saying or even implying this. Time for more theological study.
She doesn’t want out of the Catholic church; she wants in — and she wants to bring others along.
Redig explained there are many who feel like church outsiders, uncomfortable because they’ve been marginalized by some of its teachings. She feels called to minister to those people.
This attitude displays another misunderstanding of the Church. Either accept the Church's teachings or leave the Church. She teaches truth, and if teachings change then obviously they aren't true. People aren't marginalized by the Church's teachings. They've been marginalized by bad catechesis.
“I want the bishop to know that I am not looking to take anyone out of the church,” Redig said. “But there are so many who do not feel served. There is so much work for all of us to do. The bishop shouldn’t be afraid.”
I like her fidelity.
I don't like that people need to "feel served." We aren't here to be served; we're here to serve.
And there's a difference between "feeling" and "being."
Meeting with the bishop
Before meeting with Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington in March, Redig said she was at peace.
Three weeks before the meeting, the diocese newspaper issued a full-page explanation of the church’s rules and reasons for only ordaining men.
which, of course, aren't mentioned in this article.
Harrington said the article in The Courier wasn’t coincidental. He said he used it as an opportunity to start teaching the church’s position.
Start?
When Redig met with the bishop, she said she offered Harrington the chance to be part of the ordination.
“I asked him, ‘So would you ordain me?’” Redig asked. “He said, ‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.’”
Good bishop.
Redig told him that she felt called to the priesthood and there were many people in need of more pastoral care.
To rely on your emotions to tell you about reality is dangerous. Redig's a woman; she should know this.
“Many don’t feel served. I understand there’s a shortage of priests, and I told the bishop, ‘Women are here, ready to serve,’” Redig said.
Watch out--Mary's about to say something offensive!
Redig is completely right that "women are here, ready to serve." I think this is one of the reasons Christ chose an all-male priesthood. (This is all theological speculation, so if I'm speaking heresy I hope someone will correct me.) Here's something men can do--men have to do--and women can't get their hands on. I think men need that. Men need to be needed for their masculinity (the same goes for women and their femininity). With the priesthood, men have to step up and do it. They can't sit back and say oh, the women will take care of it (because, women, you know we would).
She received a one and a half-page letter from the bishop. In it, he urged her to renounce her ordination as a deacon and not follow through with ordination as a priest. He warned her that he would not endorse her as a Catholic chaplain, told her she is not in good standing with the church and unable to receive communion.
Most importantly, if she follows through with the ordination, Redig said, he will send papers to Rome. Such papers have been the beginning of the excommunication process for other women who’ve been ordained.
Good bishop. But misquoted. The women weren't ordained, unless Buttercup really was married to Humperdinck.
“He said it may be a happy day for me, but it will be a sad day for the Diocese of Winona because I am causing confusion for the people of faith and I am not bringing about unity,” Redig said. “He seemed terribly afraid. And I wrote him a response and said that every day is a sad day for women who cannot be fully at the table.”
She also invited four priests in the diocese to attend her ordination. All declined.
Good priests. But...
She said they’ve privately expressed support for her work, but publicly, they could face retribution for supporting her.
The next steps
Redig plans to start a small gathering for those who identify with the Roman Catholic church but feel marginalized by its teachings or policies.
The congregation will be called “All Are One,” a reference to the Gospel of John where Jesus prays, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
Redig says Scripture alone gives her inspiration to reach out and confidence about her ordination.
Sola scriptura? We dealt with that five hundred years ago and rejected it as a heresy.
“How do you intend for those words of Jesus to be fulfilled while you’re turning away people?” Redig asked. “Take a look around the Mass and those who received the Eucharist — there are probably a lot of Catholics who shouldn’t be there — those who’ve remarried, are gay or voted for John Kerry. If you actually followed all the injunctions of the church, there’d be no one worthy of Mass.”
She's absolutely right: there is no one worthy of the Mass.
Anyway, there are more theological misunderstandings here that I'm too lazy to deal with right now...
For now, she plans to start a group that will meet in a house, not unlike the apostles did in the early history of the church.
Her journey
Redig’s journey toward priesthood began years ago, when she entered a convent at age 18, shortly after graduating from Cotter High School in Winona. She chose the order because of its work with juvenile delinquents and teenage girls.
But she left before taking her first vows.
“I chose that because it was all women could do,” Redig said. “But I also knew I needed a partner in life.”
She met her husband, Robert, who had also spent time in seminary.
She became a licensed practical nurse and had two children.
Nursing was rewarding for Redig, but she always seemed more interested in the spiritual aspects of the patients.
“I felt I was always called to some sort of ministry,” Redig said.
In 1988, she enrolled at Winona State University, where, as an adult learner, she tailored her own major to focus on psychology from birth to death. In 1993, she entered a chaplaincy program at Franciscan Skemp in La Crosse and eventually enrolled in a clinical pastoral education at Gundersen Lutheran, too.
She studied for a master’s at Saint Mary’s University.
In 1994, qualified to serve as a chaplain, she sent letters to area businesses and health care facilities, asking if they had any chaplaincy openings.
At first, Winona Health declined, saying it was downsizing.
“But I argued. I told them you can’t downsize what you don’t have,” Redig said.
About the same time, the hospice program need a chaplain for five hours per week. She took it. Eventually, she developed the first chaplaincy at Winona Health’s Community Memorial Hospital, where she now serves with a second chaplain.
Redig receives an episcopal certification from the diocese in order to be called a Catholic chaplain. Her ordination through Womenpriests will probably mean a revocation of that endorsement.
The call
Every year, Redig took a survey that gauges women’s attitudes in the church. There was a question about whether she felt called to be an ordained priest. Sometimes she’d answer yes, other times, no.
Then, one day as she was doing laundry and talking with her husband about frustrations with the church, she off-handedly said, “Well, I guess the only way we’ll find a church that’s meaningful to us is if we start one ourselves.”
Yeah, see, there's the problem. Leave the church Jesus (i.e., God) founded and found your own... mere humans... we aren't smarter than God.
“I thought I was kidding,” Redig said. “But the spirit wasn’t.”
Redig explored possibilities of ordination, gaining admission to the Womenpriests movement, which had drawn international attention in 2002 when seven women were ordained on the Danube River.
Not ordained! They went through the motions but nothing actually happened ontologically!
For Redig, pursuing the priesthood has been about living the best part of the Catholic faith, the tradition of practicing what her conscience tells her.
Catholicism isn't about doing what your conscience tells you. Conscience must be well-formed for it to have any legitimate say.
With a conviction that comes from deep inside,
because we all know that has authority...
with her family support and the support of Womenpriests, Redig is proceeding. And maybe the most powerful reason for her journey is from what she’s learned on the job as a chaplain.
“Ministry is affirmed by the people,” Redig said. “That’s what I learned from being a chaplain. The people — that’s where it comes from.”
No! No! God--that's where it comes from.
(898 words)
That’s Stupid #1: Infant mortality rates ‘still appaling’
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Story
The article is in bold; my comments are in normal print.
Infant mortality rates 'still appalling'
Genesee County only community to improve stats
GENESEE COUNTY
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Thursday, May 08, 2008
By Linda Angelo
langelo@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6340
Black babies are 2 1/2 times more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies in Genesee County,
Not sure how I feel about this lede. Ledes are supposed to grab the reader's attention and give the most important ("relevant." journalists like that word.) information. The further the information is to the end of the article, the less likely the reader is to read it. (Think: how often do you read news articles all the way through?) You're supposed to give the information as quickly as possible, cramming the most important information into the beginning.
Reporter did a good job with the attention grabbing bit--in Genesee County, racism is one of the best ways to grab attention. She gave a fact that, technically, isn't racist, but the racism's implied, or anyway can be inferred easily. (You know what else is stupid? I found out a lot of people don't know the difference between "imply" and "infer." They're completely opposite words; how can you confuse them?) In Genesee County (especially in Flint), if you say "black" and "white," even in the context of an after-school chess club, people automatically assume you're talking about race. This isn't entirely unfounded: there's a good (and by good I mean bad, or anyway large) amount of racist nonsense going on in Flint, so most of the time "black" and "white" do refer to race and not to chess pieces, and most of the time a story mentioning race is a story about racism.
But infant mortality isn't an issue of racism, unless doctors are refusing to take care of infants of a certain race--if this is the case, the article doesn't discuss it. The article begins with "hey, everybody, we've got racism again" then fails to explain where the racism is. The average Flint-born-and-bred reader is left feeling like something racist is going on, which only increases the racist feelings that lead to racist comments and actions.
There is a race issue, however, even if it's not a racism issue. A disparity that large doesn't happen coincidentally. But the article doesn't give any reason for why this disparity exists. Hypotheses?
which also has the highest white infant mortality rate among 11 urban areas targeted in a study.
Confused. I guess the headline and the lede don't directly contradict, but it sounds like they do. Anyway, this is rather grim: Genesee County is the only county to improve infant mortality statistics (sub-headline), the white infant mortality rate is the highest in the study even though it's improved, and the black infant mortality rate is even higher.
That's stupid. I haven't done extensive research into the causes of infant mortality, but I'm guessing these are some contributing factors:
--parents not having enough money/time/resources to take care of their kids
--parents not caring enough to take care of their kids
--fathers abandoning pregnant, um, not wives, I guess... abandoning the women whose pregnancies they are partially responsible for
--mothers drinking/smoking/drugging while pregnant
I'm not going to say that poverty is stupid because that's a complicated issue. But here's some practical advice to solve most of the other issues: don't have sex until you're married, then only with your spouse, stay married, and take care of your child before s/he's born as well as after.
But I need to watch myself. Most of the people I hang out with--and this has been true always--have agreed with me on this, so I haven't had to deal with any social pressure to have sex or use drugs. I'm not going to condemn any individual person for their own actions--that isn't my place. But, whether it's my place to say it or not, the truth is that if people would take better care of their kids, infant mortality rates would go down. To quote Dr. Mitchell, "it's not about you."
The disparity between white and black infant mortality rates is growing in most of Michigan's large urban areas even as the state makes improvements in reducing risk factors, the study shows.
The Hillsdale in me reels and wants to scream "the state? what has the state got to do with it?" but I don't know enough about this to say anything coherent. I'll let my Hillsdale friends react in comments.
"In this country we believe in equal opportunity, and all children deserve a healthy start," said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, which produced the report.
Again, there's the implied racism for an issue that isn't really racist. If the state were giving infant health care to whites and not blacks or blacks and not whites, that would be racist. But, that's not the issue.
"When we have this disparity at the onset of life, it has ramifications throughout that child's life."
This is more dumb than stupid. Of course infant mortality has ramifications throughout the child's life--if he dies at six months, chances are he won't be an Eagle Scout.
And also, birth isn't the onset of life. Zygotes live.
In 2004-06, Genesee County's infant mortality rate for white infants was 7.3 deaths per 1,000 infants, while the rate for black babies was 18.6 deaths per 1,000 births.
Statewide, black infants are three times more likely to die before their first birthday.
The disparity is a problem that Genesee County has been working on for years, said John McKellar, director of personal health services at the Genesee County Health Department.
Why are we working on closing the gap? That's stupid. Kill a bunch of white kids under the age of two and you've solved the disparity problem while making the actual problem worse. Don't focus on the disparity. Focus on keeping kids alive.
"In 2001, the disparity ratio was 3.6 in that particular year, which means African-American babies were dying 3.6 times more than white babies," he said. "While 2.5 times is still appalling, it's better than it has been in the past."
Part of the infant mortality problem stems from low birth weights, which increased by 13 percent in Genesee County between the periods of 1998-2000 and 2004-06.
Low birth weight babies also were a problem in Flint, which had the third highest rate among Michigan's 69 largest communities. The city experienced a 21 percent jump in mothers who smoked during pregnancy as well.
"Both tend to be responses to increasing socioeconomic stress, which is going on in our community," McKellar said. "Women who are of lower socioeconomic status feel more stressed these days and the consequences often are pre-term birth and an increase in smoking."
That, and women who don't have a stable home situation are more stressed. Men and women, don't have sex unless you're ready to take care of a child--that means married. Men, if the pregnancy is partly your fault, don't abandon the woman.
The Kids Count study, which was conducted through the Michigan League for Human Services, provided some good news too.
Genesee County was the only county outside of southeast Michigan to experience improved infant mortality rates for both groups.
Sorry, but that isn't good news.
For white babies, infant mortality rates dropped from 8.5 to 7.3 deaths per 1,000 births between the periods of 1998-00 and 2004-06 while the rates for black babies declined from 20.9 to 18.6.
That is good news.
Genesee County also fared well among women who smoked during pregnancy, ranking 28th among Michigan's 83 counties,
What?
and saw a 16 percent drop in teenage pregnancy between 2000 and 2006.
Why was there a drop?
Flint experienced a drop in teenage pregnancy as well as pre-term births.
Immediately I want to know whether the children were carried for longer or aborted. Not necessarily assuming one way or the other, but I'd like to know.
"With teenage pregnancy rates there are multiple efforts taking place across the county," said Amy Krug, vice president for programs at Priority Children.
"One that we are involved in is the Carrera program, which is nationally recognized and has (helped) delay the onset of teen sexual activity.
Is teen sexual activity a disease that develops over time? I chuckled at the word choice, but I don't have anything biting or sarcastic (or anything else) to say.
There needs to be more done even though we are starting to see the rates go down."
(888 words)
Story
The article is in bold; my comments are in normal print.
Infant mortality rates 'still appalling'
Genesee County only community to improve stats
GENESEE COUNTY
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Thursday, May 08, 2008
By Linda Angelo
langelo@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6340
Black babies are 2 1/2 times more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies in Genesee County,
Not sure how I feel about this lede. Ledes are supposed to grab the reader's attention and give the most important ("relevant." journalists like that word.) information. The further the information is to the end of the article, the less likely the reader is to read it. (Think: how often do you read news articles all the way through?) You're supposed to give the information as quickly as possible, cramming the most important information into the beginning.
Reporter did a good job with the attention grabbing bit--in Genesee County, racism is one of the best ways to grab attention. She gave a fact that, technically, isn't racist, but the racism's implied, or anyway can be inferred easily. (You know what else is stupid? I found out a lot of people don't know the difference between "imply" and "infer." They're completely opposite words; how can you confuse them?) In Genesee County (especially in Flint), if you say "black" and "white," even in the context of an after-school chess club, people automatically assume you're talking about race. This isn't entirely unfounded: there's a good (and by good I mean bad, or anyway large) amount of racist nonsense going on in Flint, so most of the time "black" and "white" do refer to race and not to chess pieces, and most of the time a story mentioning race is a story about racism.
But infant mortality isn't an issue of racism, unless doctors are refusing to take care of infants of a certain race--if this is the case, the article doesn't discuss it. The article begins with "hey, everybody, we've got racism again" then fails to explain where the racism is. The average Flint-born-and-bred reader is left feeling like something racist is going on, which only increases the racist feelings that lead to racist comments and actions.
There is a race issue, however, even if it's not a racism issue. A disparity that large doesn't happen coincidentally. But the article doesn't give any reason for why this disparity exists. Hypotheses?
which also has the highest white infant mortality rate among 11 urban areas targeted in a study.
Confused. I guess the headline and the lede don't directly contradict, but it sounds like they do. Anyway, this is rather grim: Genesee County is the only county to improve infant mortality statistics (sub-headline), the white infant mortality rate is the highest in the study even though it's improved, and the black infant mortality rate is even higher.
That's stupid. I haven't done extensive research into the causes of infant mortality, but I'm guessing these are some contributing factors:
--parents not having enough money/time/resources to take care of their kids
--parents not caring enough to take care of their kids
--fathers abandoning pregnant, um, not wives, I guess... abandoning the women whose pregnancies they are partially responsible for
--mothers drinking/smoking/drugging while pregnant
I'm not going to say that poverty is stupid because that's a complicated issue. But here's some practical advice to solve most of the other issues: don't have sex until you're married, then only with your spouse, stay married, and take care of your child before s/he's born as well as after.
But I need to watch myself. Most of the people I hang out with--and this has been true always--have agreed with me on this, so I haven't had to deal with any social pressure to have sex or use drugs. I'm not going to condemn any individual person for their own actions--that isn't my place. But, whether it's my place to say it or not, the truth is that if people would take better care of their kids, infant mortality rates would go down. To quote Dr. Mitchell, "it's not about you."
The disparity between white and black infant mortality rates is growing in most of Michigan's large urban areas even as the state makes improvements in reducing risk factors, the study shows.
The Hillsdale in me reels and wants to scream "the state? what has the state got to do with it?" but I don't know enough about this to say anything coherent. I'll let my Hillsdale friends react in comments.
"In this country we believe in equal opportunity, and all children deserve a healthy start," said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, which produced the report.
Again, there's the implied racism for an issue that isn't really racist. If the state were giving infant health care to whites and not blacks or blacks and not whites, that would be racist. But, that's not the issue.
"When we have this disparity at the onset of life, it has ramifications throughout that child's life."
This is more dumb than stupid. Of course infant mortality has ramifications throughout the child's life--if he dies at six months, chances are he won't be an Eagle Scout.
And also, birth isn't the onset of life. Zygotes live.
In 2004-06, Genesee County's infant mortality rate for white infants was 7.3 deaths per 1,000 infants, while the rate for black babies was 18.6 deaths per 1,000 births.
Statewide, black infants are three times more likely to die before their first birthday.
The disparity is a problem that Genesee County has been working on for years, said John McKellar, director of personal health services at the Genesee County Health Department.
Why are we working on closing the gap? That's stupid. Kill a bunch of white kids under the age of two and you've solved the disparity problem while making the actual problem worse. Don't focus on the disparity. Focus on keeping kids alive.
"In 2001, the disparity ratio was 3.6 in that particular year, which means African-American babies were dying 3.6 times more than white babies," he said. "While 2.5 times is still appalling, it's better than it has been in the past."
Part of the infant mortality problem stems from low birth weights, which increased by 13 percent in Genesee County between the periods of 1998-2000 and 2004-06.
Low birth weight babies also were a problem in Flint, which had the third highest rate among Michigan's 69 largest communities. The city experienced a 21 percent jump in mothers who smoked during pregnancy as well.
"Both tend to be responses to increasing socioeconomic stress, which is going on in our community," McKellar said. "Women who are of lower socioeconomic status feel more stressed these days and the consequences often are pre-term birth and an increase in smoking."
That, and women who don't have a stable home situation are more stressed. Men and women, don't have sex unless you're ready to take care of a child--that means married. Men, if the pregnancy is partly your fault, don't abandon the woman.
The Kids Count study, which was conducted through the Michigan League for Human Services, provided some good news too.
Genesee County was the only county outside of southeast Michigan to experience improved infant mortality rates for both groups.
Sorry, but that isn't good news.
For white babies, infant mortality rates dropped from 8.5 to 7.3 deaths per 1,000 births between the periods of 1998-00 and 2004-06 while the rates for black babies declined from 20.9 to 18.6.
That is good news.
Genesee County also fared well among women who smoked during pregnancy, ranking 28th among Michigan's 83 counties,
What?
and saw a 16 percent drop in teenage pregnancy between 2000 and 2006.
Why was there a drop?
Flint experienced a drop in teenage pregnancy as well as pre-term births.
Immediately I want to know whether the children were carried for longer or aborted. Not necessarily assuming one way or the other, but I'd like to know.
"With teenage pregnancy rates there are multiple efforts taking place across the county," said Amy Krug, vice president for programs at Priority Children.
"One that we are involved in is the Carrera program, which is nationally recognized and has (helped) delay the onset of teen sexual activity.
Is teen sexual activity a disease that develops over time? I chuckled at the word choice, but I don't have anything biting or sarcastic (or anything else) to say.
There needs to be more done even though we are starting to see the rates go down."
(888 words)
About "That's Stupid"
Thursday, May 8, 2008 (Facebook)
“That’s Stupid” is a stone that resembles a small bomb: it’s going to kill more birds than I really feel like counting. Blue jay: to get rid of a nagging velleity. I’m annoyed at my general ignorance of news but too lazy to read the newspaper. Cardinal: I should be reading the newspaper since I’ll be journalism-ing more seriously next year. A robin: to give me something that I might actually do between Hillsdale and Tapico--because honestly, I’m not going to finish Paradise Lost. A finch: an assignment from a friend. When something’s bothering me, I keep asking why, why, like a little kid until I can’t anymore, then I follow the last answer with “that’s stupid.” Joe’s heard this from me quite a bit, and he told me that every day this summer I should find a news article and write two thousand words on why it’s stupid. I don’t know about the every day and I don’t know about the two thousand words, but we’ll see what I can do.
“That’s Stupid” is a stone that resembles a small bomb: it’s going to kill more birds than I really feel like counting. Blue jay: to get rid of a nagging velleity. I’m annoyed at my general ignorance of news but too lazy to read the newspaper. Cardinal: I should be reading the newspaper since I’ll be journalism-ing more seriously next year. A robin: to give me something that I might actually do between Hillsdale and Tapico--because honestly, I’m not going to finish Paradise Lost. A finch: an assignment from a friend. When something’s bothering me, I keep asking why, why, like a little kid until I can’t anymore, then I follow the last answer with “that’s stupid.” Joe’s heard this from me quite a bit, and he told me that every day this summer I should find a news article and write two thousand words on why it’s stupid. I don’t know about the every day and I don’t know about the two thousand words, but we’ll see what I can do.
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