Are We Insane?
Perhaps we're not. Perhaps we're just POOR. Read the article and do all you can to stop Bush's onslaught on women.

More Women Opting Against Birth Control, Study Finds

Jeffrey Jensen, director of the Women's Health Research Unit at Oregon Health and Science University, said he regularly encounters patients who have trouble affording birth control, even if their private insurance covers it.

"It is absolutely unconscionable that women have a co-pay of $20 or $25 [a month] for contraceptives and men are getting off scot-free," Jensen said. [ed. plus they get free samples of viagra according to the numerous emails I receive daily]
...
Many physicians put partial blame on federally funded abstinence-only education programs that by law prohibit discussion of contraceptives, except to detail their failure rates. [ed. apparently not necessary to detail failure rates of "abstinence only."]

"We are spending an enormous amount of money on something that hasn't been shown to work," Trussell said. "It's a giant step backwards."

And even worse,

Several recent studies found that as the abstinence-until-marriage movement surged, there was a "considerable drop" in comprehensive sex education from 1988 to 2000, Santelli said. "Women in their twenties have probably gotten less effective information about contraception," he said.

Good morning, people. The painting is still quite wet, so I may have to work on something else for a bit. We're supposed to get snow tonight and tomorrow, quite a lot. Until then is another gray day, and so am I.

A programming note: I haven't written about or linked to tsunami help sites, since I assume you're all educated, aware people who visit many other sites in your day. All the over-flood of information and pleas for help from thousands of organizations in dozens of countries is beyond my ability to sort out. All I can say is that I was appalled that Bush has only in the last day or two leapt on the bandwagon, only, I'm sure, because many of the genuinely compassionate conservatives out there (not the sick "starve the beast" Norquist types) are beating the crap out of him, and that his popularity has dropped accordingly.

If he cancelled just one inaugural ball, donated the savings to Doctors Without Borders or some other group, and ordered all the ball-goers to match the funds, many lives could be saved.

I'm sure the Iraqis wouldn't mind if he pulled a bunch of troops out and detailed them to Sumatra to rebuild air fields, or drop water, or whatever.

It's been a little creepy for me to look back over my lake and wave bloggings from the past few weeks. I look at a body of water now and say, "You bastard."

- posted by Cynthia @ 10:00 AM | | | Link |