The Nature of Things

The Guardian's headline was appalling, but not really surprising to anyone who has been alive and paying attention in Texas for the past few years: Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world, study finds The story that followed gave the shocking facts. A report in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology  gives details of a study by researchers from the University of Maryland, Boston University's school of public health, and Stanford university's medical school. The study found that the rate of Texas women who died from complications related to pregnancy doubled from 2010 to 2014 to 35.8 deaths per 100,000 births in 2014. This represents a maternal mortality rate higher than any other state and higher than any other country in the developed world.  Yes, we're number one - in women's deaths from the complications of pregnancy. The report stated that the doubling of mortality rates in the study period was hard to explain "i...

But for crying out loud, what the hell is happening to our country? We now have a party with elected leaders who  think child labor laws are unconstitutional   (Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah), who  would repeal the Civil Rights Act  (Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky), who  think climate change  is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” (Republican Sen. James Inhofe).    - Sally Kohn, writing in Salon.com today  Some wag once said that a political gaffe is when a politician says what he really thinks. By that definition, Todd Akin's statement about the female reproductive system having some kind of magical barrier that keeps it from getting pregnant when it is "legitimately raped" certainly qualifies as a gaffe, because there is not a single iota of doubt that this is what the man really thinks. Moreover, it is not just Akin that thinks this way. He's right in line with the base of his party, probably the majorit...

“Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge of it?” If you said yes to both, “Congratulations! You’re a feminist.” - How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran One book that I am very much looking forward to reading is How to Be a Woman by Caitlin (She pronounces it cat - lin ) Moran. You would perhaps think that I might have figured that out by now but I think this book might have a few things to teach me. Ms. Moran's book was a huge best seller last year in Britain, her home country where she is a columnist for The Times of London, and, at last, it and she are coming to the States. I've seen her in a few interviews and read reviews of the book and, frankly, it seems just what the complacent women in this country need to shake a bit of sense into them. As proof of this, there is a frequently cited survey which shows that only 29 percent - 29 percent! - of American women self-identify as feminists. What part of feminism do you suppose the other 71 percent object to? Is it t...

Last week, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Campaign Committee Chairman, was interviewed on Bloomberg Television by Al Hunt and was asked about all the anti-women initiatives that his party has sponsored right across the country over the past fifteen months. Priebus rejected the idea that Republicans are waging a war on women and then he made the following jaw-dropping statement: “If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars.   It’s a fiction. ”    So, let me get this straight. It's all the Democrats' and the mainstream media's fault that Republicans are being accused of a war on women. It has nothing to do with mandating unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds, limiting access to birth control, rescinding equal pay laws, writing bills that would charge women who have miscarriages with murder, forcing women to produce wri...