News round up

Support for women's right to choose is waning according to a new study by Bpas.
Although most poeple surveyed in the UK study still believe in a women's right to choose, this number has falled by 2% in 5 years, the BBC reports.

Not the church, not the state
Women must decide their fate!
(chant from Reclaim the Night)

The new male contraceptive pill is claimed to have no lasting side effects. There's a big question, though, will men take it?
Good lord - I wish they would make a pill for women that had no lasting side effects. We would bloody take it - we're quite keen to prevent unwanted pregnancy. It would seem from the article in the Guardian that men aren't as bothered. It must just be women's business.

This Saturday's Reclaim the Night march was great. It was good to meet the bloggers and Subtext contributors who I've emailed and left comments on their blogs. Thanks to Laura for helping sell some copies of Subtext too.

Subtext issue 2 out now

Super, smashing, great.
www.subtextmagazine.co.uk/currentissue

p.s. It's double the size of issue 1, and still no ads!

Drop the 'ism'

Is part of the misconception of feminism being about the power of women and their pursuit of dominance over men drawn from the fact that it is an ‘ism’?

Other ‘isms’ apply to negative discriminatory ideas and behaviours, such as racism, ageism, ableism, sexism. As an ‘ism’ are people prone to misunderstand feminism – stemming from the very basic construction of the word.

Is anti-feminism, (as a term rather than the ideology that’s now been associated with the word), actually more descriptive of the movement than just ‘feminism’ alone? I.e. it challenges the systems in culture and society that oppress women, just as anti-racism challenges the systems in culture and society that oppress people of different races?

There are other movements described by ‘isms’, now gaining credence and a growing allegiance – such as humanism and equalism. Does the nature of these words ‘human’ and ‘equal’, explicitly inclusive as they are, negate the general belief that an ‘ism’ is bad?

Why are these people allowed out at all?

The BBC news website is today reporting on calls from children's charity Barnardo's to set up satellite monitoring of sex offenders accompanied with lie detector testing.

Why, if these kind of expensive and time consuming methods are required to prevent these people, know for the high rate of reoffending, from harming another child are they allowed to freely walk the streets?

In another example of 'world gone mad' and perhaps another example of 'liberal gone mad' (referring me to) the Home Office yesterday settled out of court on a compensation case brought by three drug addicted prisoners who claimed going cold turkey in prison was a breach of their human rights. I have to admit, I am tending to side with those who believe this is madness. Should criminals be allowed any more than the most basic human rights while in prison? Should our prison service be paying for them to continue taking drugs. Is it a breach of human rights to force prisoners to go through cold turkey withdrawal from drugs if they have committed a crime to put themselves in that situation in the first place?

Should prisoners, people who have broken the law, be given better treatment than law abiding people who are addicted to drugs and cannot get help to combat their addiction on the NHS because there are not enough funds available?

Toilet phobia on BBC news website

Many of you will know of my round about plots to avoid sharing a toliet with strange bums - well now the national phobics society is promoting toilet phobia as a valid phobia.

In the scheme of things, I'm not too bad - but can definately see a bit of each of the 'reasons why' in my reasons why.

Why is it...

..that often I go out for a 'quiet night' and end up completely smashed having mixed my drinks and drunk way too much?

If I'm planning a 'big night' I am super careful, drink water, am vigilant against over drunkeness.

Saturday was an improptue quiet night during which I turned into a messy drunk. I woke up Sunday morning with a slamming head, feeling sick like death, and with a bloodshot, watering, very sore eye. After spending the day sleeping, and drinking water I recovered from the hangover, but my eye still hurts a day later. It stings so much when I look into bright light, and the pain seems to come and go. It looks kind of grey and bruised.

I have no idea what caused it. It feels like I have been poked, hard, in the eye - but I don't remember anything of the sort happening. I should really go to the doctor - but they'll put eyedrops in, which'll mean I can't drive, and I have to drive to Sheffield tonight to interview The Gossip for Subtext (horray!).

If it still hurts tomorrow I will go to the doctors.

Ow, my eye.

A pair of douchebags

A pair of douchebags have put a bottle of posh soap in the ladies at work and they felt the need to mark this soap as solely theirs – their ‘personnal property’. Soap is PROVIDED!

This really bugs me. It’s fucking petty – if it was special sensitive skin soap then ok, but it’s a snobs brand.

I am going to go out and buy a bottle of soap that’s BUAV approved and stick a sticker on it that says ‘Feel FREE to USE THIS SOAP. It is CRUELTY FREE.’

Ode to tinker

I bit the bullet and took Eddie for his final trip to the vets on Friday morning.

When I rang them to book, I cried.
When I got the the door, I cried.
When the vet called me in, I cried.
When I tried to explain, I cried.
When we went to the operating room, I cried.
As they anethsetised him , I cried.
When she put him to sleep, I cried.

He fought to the end, the little tyke. Nodding his head like a child who doesn't want to fall asleep. He wriggled around inside his anesthetic box, and ended up facing me with his nosed pressed against the side. She wrapped him in a towel and I stroked his little head as he faded away.

Our house is empty, quiet, less homely.
We decided to wear black all this week to mark Eddies passing.
As a childless couple I think Eddie was our first little child-type responsibility and we've both been hit hard by loosing him.

RIP tinker.

All about me

It's been a while, eh?
So, instead of thrilling you with a good post I'm going to blather on about ME!
Good news - Subtext gave it's first real life press interview last week - people actually want 'our' opinion about stuff and they want to put it in print. We have also been asked to go on telly. I saw the show yesterday and don't actually think it's a good idea, but, they offered to pay, so maybe.

Bad news - my car fucked up, blew a head gasket cost me £350 and was off the road for a week. I gave it a wash and a polish and steam cleaned it's interior. We made up and are getting along fine now.

Bad news number 2 - my guinea pig, the one of amazingexploitss, is a very poorly boy indeed. The vet diagnosed an abdominal tumor and gave Ed only a couple of weeks to live. I have cried enough tears to fill aguineaa pig sized lake on which he could go boating. The decision of whether to put him through an operation which was unlikely to be a success or let him just live out his last days with no intervention was very hard for me. Idesperatelyy wanted to do everything I could to make him better, but knew that he was weakened so he would struggle to recover from a big operation. Still, he's well enough to trundle out of his hutch and eat leftover curry of my plate (which was on the floor) I hadn't the heart to stop him, at least he was eating. Expect a montage of guinea pig pictures and a tear stained post sometime soon.

Banning based on BMI

BBC news reports that organisers of the Madrid fashion week are planning a ban of underweight models from their 2006 event.

A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 25, and models falling below 18 are being banned, to give a better example for young women of healthy women's bodies.

Wow, that's a bit radical. Banning anyone based on their health seems to me to be a bad idea.
But it is to be commended - at least they're trying to do something to promte positive healthy body image.