Tag Archives: birth

Baseball Player Takes 2 Days of Paternity Leave. Sports Radio Goes Ballistic.

by bfys19 Posted on April 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy has been getting all sorts of flak on sports radio today for missing last night’s game against the Washington Nationals. Why? Because yesterday was his second (and final) day of paternity leave, which is apparently one too many.

Murphy got word late on Sunday night that his wife was in labor, and rushed to Florida to be with her. He was there for the birth of their first child the next day, Monday, which also happened to be Opening Day. The Mets had Tuesday off, and Murphy decided to stay with his wife Wednesday before flying back in time for today’s game, also against the Nationals, which he played in. Murphy told ESPN that he and his wife decided together that it would be best for him to stay the extra day. “Having me there helped a lot, and vice versa, to take some of the load off,” he said. “It felt, for us, like the right decision to make.”

For a number of sports commentators, however, Murphy’s decision seemed ludicrous. New York-based radio host Mike Francesa kicked off the outrage yesterday afternoon, devoting his entire WFAN show to asking, exasperatedly, why on earth a man would need to take off more than the few hours during which his child is actually born. “For a baseball player, you take a day. All right. Back in the lineup the next day. What are you doing? What would you be doing? I guarantee you’re not sitting there holding you’re wife’s hand.”

“You’re a major league baseball player. You can hire a nurse to take care of the baby if your wife needs help,” he said. “I don’t see why you need…What are you gonna do? Are you gonna sit there and look at your wife in the hospital bed for two days? What are you gonna do?

Repeating this question at least five more times over the course of a 20-minute segment, Francesa also continued to confuse maternity and paternity leave. Noting that it’s possible for the lucky few to stagger their paternity leave rather than using it in one chunk, Francesa was dumbfounded: “What do you do? You work the next day, then you take off three months, to do what? Have a party? ‘The baby was born…But I took maternity leave three months later.’ For what? To take pictures? I mean, what would you possibly be doing? That makes no sense. I didn’t even know there was such a thing.” (The full clip is above.)

Hosts of WFAN’s “Boomer & Carton” spent their morning show today piling on to the criticism. “To me, and this is just my sensibility: 24 hours,” Craig Carton said. “You stay there, baby’s good, you have a good support system for the mom and the baby. You get your ass back to your team and you play baseball.”

Cohost and former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason thought even 24 hours was too much time: “Quite frankly, I would’ve said, ‘C-section before the season starts. I need to be at Opening Day.'”

The Mike and Mike show on ESPN Radio also devoted tons of airtime to scrutinizing the nondrama. Cohost Mike Golic, a former NFL defensive lineman, weighed in: “If you wanna be there for the birth of your child, I have zero problem with it. That said, when the baby is born…The baby was born on Monday. And he didn’t play in a game on Wednesday? This is just me, I would have been back playing.”

Notably, the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the players association allows for three days of paternity leave. That’s better than most jobs—only about 13 percent of workplaces offer paternity leave at all, and the United States is one of four countries in the world that doesn’t mandate leave for new moms and dads.

For his part, Murphy seems to be shrugging off the criticism: “We had a really cool occasion yesterday morning, about 3 o’clock. We had our first panic session,” Murphy told ESPN. “It was just the three of us at 3 o’clock in the morning, all freaking out. He was the only one screaming. I wanted to. I wanted to scream and cry, but I don’t think that’s publicly acceptable, so I let him do it.”

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Baseball Player Takes 2 Days of Paternity Leave. Sports Radio Goes Ballistic.

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Alaska Republican: “Birth Control Is for People Who Don’t Necessarily Want to Act Responsibly”

by MichaelMaddock Posted on March 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Fetal alcohol syndrome is a devastating problem in Alaska, so state Senate Finance Committee co-chairman Pete Kelly, a Fairbanks Republican, has made it his personal mission to stamp it out. This week, in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, he described the ways he plans to clamp down on the problem, including spending “a lot of money” on media campaigns and providing publicly funded pregnancy tests in Alaska’s bars and restaurants, so that women will be discouraged from shooting whiskey if they find out they’re pregnant. But make no mistake: Kelly is not interested in providing state-funded birth control in public places. He says that “birth control is for people who don’t necessarily want to act responsibly” and that would amount to “social engineering.”

Providing pregnancy tests in bars isn’t an entirely new concept. In 2012, a pub in Minnesota got national attention for installing a vending machine that dispensed pregnancy tests at $3 a pop—but the tests weren’t state-funded. Kelly envisions the government contracting with a nonprofit to make the tests widely available at places that serve alcohol. As he explains, “So if you’re drinking, if you’re out at the big birthday celebration and you’re kind of like, ‘Gee, I wonder if I…?’ You can just go in the bathroom and there should be a plastic, Plexiglas bowl in there, and that’s part of the public relations campaign, too. You’re going to have some kind of card on there with a message.”

The interviewer asked Kelly whether he would also support offering state-funded birth control in bars. Alaska does not accept federal money from the government’s Medicaid expansion, which would fund contraception, and state Sen. Fred Dyson (R-Eagle River) recently spoke out against it, declaring that if people can afford lattes, they can afford birth control. In response to the birth control question posed by Anchorage Daily News, Kelly said he wouldn’t support it:

No, because the thinking is a little opposite. This assumes that if you know, you’ll act responsibly. Birth control is for people who don’t necessarily want to act responsibly. That’s—I’m not going to tell them what to do, or help them do it, that’s their business. But if we have a pregnancy test, because someone just doesn’t know. That’s probably a way we can help them.

When the interviewer pointed out that using birth control could be seen as being responsible, Kelly replied: “Maybe, maybe not. That’s a level of social engineering that we don’t want to get into. All we want to do is make sure that people are informed and they’ll make the right decision.” He then said that lawmakers would consider, down the road, discussing involuntarily commitment if someone “is damning her child to a lifetime of mental problems and physical problems.” But he added, “We haven’t gone down that road far enough to make a decision.”

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Alaska Republican: “Birth Control Is for People Who Don’t Necessarily Want to Act Responsibly”

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Inside Alaska’s New "War on Women"

by BradyKhanx Posted on March 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, a Republican state senator in Alaska took to the floor to explain that the government should not pay for family planning services for low-income women, because anyone can afford birth control. “Even the most sexually active folks don’t need to spend more than $2 or $3 a day for covering their activity,” state Sen. Fred Dyson (R-Eagle River) said. He explained that it’s easy for women to get access to birth control in Alaska, given that they can get it delivered via Alaska Airlines’ express delivery program.

Dyson was talking about birth control as part of the debate on a controversial abortion bill. He is one of six Republicans senators cosponsoring the fast-moving bill, which would stop low-income women in the state from using Medicaid to fund abortions, except in the cases of rape, incest, or to “avoid a threat of serious risk to life or physical health of a woman.” The bill outlines a list of 22 conditions that would qualify a woman for a Medicaid-funded abortion, such as risk of coma or seizures. Under Alaska law, since 2001, a woman could still only use state Medicaid to pay for an abortion that was “medically necessary”—but the definition was left up to the woman and her doctor. Critics of the bill say that the bill’s new definition is much more restrictive. (Last year, more than 37 percent of abortions reported in Alaska were covered by Medicaid.) Recently, Alaska’s Department of Health and Social Services tried to enforce the same restrictions contained in the bill, but Planned Parenthood sued the state over that decision. A court put the regulations on hold as the case unfolds. If this bill passes, it is expected to be challenged as part of that lawsuit. And it’s expected to pass—Alaska has a Republican majority in the House, and Republican Gov. Sean Parnell opposes abortion.

Democrats in the state have been trying to limit the bill’s effects on women, successfully adding an amendment to this bill last year that would have allowed at least 14,000 low-income Alaskans without children to get their family planning services—including STD testing and birth control—covered by Medicaid. (Right now, Alaska has chosen not to accept money through the government’s Medicaid expansion.) But in February, the House Finance Committee stripped the amendment from the bill. State Sen. Berta Gardner (D-Anchorage), who proposed that amendment, says that if the state really wants to prevent abortions, lawmakers should focus on giving women access to birth control. “We know that the best and most efficient way to reduce abortions is to ensure that all women have access to contraceptive services. We do not understand the opposition to doing this,” Gardner says, characterizing the Republican opposition as part of “the continuing war on women.”

Debate has been ongoing about the bill, and whether the birth control amendment should be added back in. At a Senate floor meeting on March 5, Dyson explained that low-income women don’t need their birth control paid for, because it’s already easy to get: “No one is prohibited from having birth control because of economic reasons,” he said, arguing that women can buy condoms for the cost of a can of pop and get the pill for the price of four to five lattes each month. He added, “By the way, you can go on the internet. You can order these things by mail. You can make phone calls and get it delivered by mail. You all know that Alaska Airlines will do Gold Streak, and get things quickly that way.” (When reached by Mother Jones, Dyson says that he was referring to the fact that even women in tiny villages in Alaska can get their prescriptions delivered.)

Dyson’s “latte” estimate is correct for the cheapest brands of the generic birth control pill—but it doesn’t take into account the cost of doctor’s visits to get a prescription, and alternative methods, such as IUDs. Additionally, according to our own birth control calculator, small co-pays on birth control add up to big expenses for women who don’t have insurance, not including the costs of a doctors’ visit associated with getting birth control. For example, a 25-year-old woman without insurance who takes the birth control pill until she hits menopause (estimated at age 51) will end up spending about $150 a month, or $46,650 over her child-bearing years (about $8,290 with insurance). Dyson told Mother Jones, “My guess is that most of those women, if they weren’t able to pay, their partner would be able to. I don’t see the costs being that big of an issue, in reality.”

According to the National Institute for Reproductive Health, uninsured women are less likely to consistently use birth control due to high costs, and low-income women are four times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy than their higher-income counterparts. (The Obama administration’s birth control mandate, which requires private insurers to cover family planning services, is changing that—it has increased the percentage of women who currently don’t have to pay for the pill from 15 percent in 2012 to 40 percent in 2013.)

“It is frankly shameful for Sen. Dyson to claim that low-income people are buying lattes instead of birth control,” says Jessica Cler, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest. “It’s truly puzzling that Dyson and his like-minded colleagues, including Gov. Sean Parnell and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, think that they are responsible for making the personal medical decisions of Alaskan women.”

Dyson disagrees, adding, “I don’t think public money ought to be paying for Viagra, either.”

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Inside Alaska’s New "War on Women"

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Is fracking pollution deforming babies?

by Jolie4596sak Posted on February 5, 2014

Is fracking pollution deforming babies?

By

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When frackers operate, they produce pollution that’s been linked to birth defects — volatile organic compounds, benzene, nitrogen oxides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, among other nasties.

And now new research has found higher incidences of birth defects in babies born near some fracking areas. 

The Colorado School of Public Health funded research by university and state scientists that looked for any correlations between fracking operations and nearby rates of congenital heart defects, neural tube defects, and oral clefts. The researchers analyzed 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in rural Colorado and compared them with locations of known fracking wells.

The results, published late last month by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, suggest that being pregnant near a fracking site is a bad idea.

“[W]e observed an association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and prevalence of CHD [congenital heart defects] and possibly NTD [neural tube defects],” the scientists concluded in their paper.

Mothers who lived near fracking hotspots with the most wells were twice as likely to give birth to a baby with a neural tube defect as were those who lived at least 10 miles from the nearest well. Those same mothers were 30 percent more likely to bear a child with a congenital heart defect. Such birth defects are leading causes of infant mortality.

The research revealed a correlation between fracking operations and birth defects, but stopped short of concluding that the frackers are actually causing the health problems. Still, this aligns with previous findings by other scientists, like research we told you about last month, which found that babies born near fracking sites in Pennsylvania were more likely than others to have a range of health problems.

The NRDC’s Miriam Rotkin-Ellman puts the latest findings into context:

This is the first published peer reviewed study realistically examining whether people living near sites where fracking has occurred are experiencing more health impacts. The fact that it found a statistically significant association is very worrisome, especially in combination with early reports of similar findings from a study in Pennsylvania. Although these types of studies can’t tell us definitively that pollution from oil and gas wells is the cause of the elevated birth defects, the findings of this study are like a flashing light saying something is going on here and we need to take action to make sure our most vulnerable are protected. …

This study confirms that there are serious concerns about health risks of living near fracking sites and that much more research is needed to fully understand the risks and how, and if, they can be mitigated. The findings of this study suggest that the explosion of oil [and] gas development in close proximity to people’s homes and without adequate assessment, monitoring, and pollution controls could be resulting in harm to human health.

That’s fracked up.


Source
Birth Outcomes and Maternal Residential Proximity to Natural Gas Development in Rural Colorado, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
New Study Finds Worrisome Pattern of Birth Defects in Fracking Communities, NRDC Switchboard

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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What the Dog Saw – Malcolm Gladwell

by Myrna Posted on October 2, 2013

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

What the Dog Saw
And Other Adventures
Malcolm Gladwell

Genre: Psychology

Price: $3.99

Publish Date: October 20, 2009

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.


What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20 th century? In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point ; Blink ; and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw , he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period. Here is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the &quot;dog whisperer&quot; who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and &quot;hindsight bias&quot; and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate. &quot;Good writing,&quot; Gladwell says in his preface, &quot;does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else’s head.&quot; What the Dog Saw is yet another example of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.

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What the Dog Saw – Malcolm Gladwell

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Village in India plants 111 trees every time a girl is born

by da3xs1z Posted on April 12, 2013

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Warhammer 40,000 Altar of War: Tau Empire – Games Workshop

Altar of War missions provide all the information required to play games inspired by the battlefield tactics of the different Warhammer 40,000 armies. This book contains six brand-new missions which you can use instead of the Eternal War missions in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook if you or your opponent has a Tau Empire army, allowing you to master the art of […]

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Codex: Tau Empire – Games Workshop

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Newborn Puppies – Traer Scott

Dog lovers who haven’t raised puppies from birth have missed out on one of the most remarkable and adorable times in a dog’s life. From one to twenty-one days old, puppies undergo great changes, from needing their mothers’ complete care to opening their eyes and ears to the outside world, growing, stretching their legs, and learning to become […]

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The Honest Life – Jessica Alba

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of German shepherds and as t […]

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How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: Tau Empire – Games Workshop

The valiant Fire Warriors, advanced battlesuits and sleek vehicles of the Tau Empire fight at the forefront of their great Third Sphere Expansion. In this Army Workshop, the talented Studio army painters demonstrate how to paint a varied selection of Tau Empire miniatures using the Citadel paint range. Example miniatures featured in this extensive painting g […]

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All New Square Foot Gardening, Second Edition – Mel Bartholomew

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Village in India plants 111 trees every time a girl is born

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Shell’s Arctic drilling flunks even the lax air pollution standards it weakened

by RubinkJoseph Posted on January 14, 2013

Shell’s Arctic drilling flunks even the lax air pollution standards it weakened

By Philip Bump

In its semi-inexplicable eagerness to get Shell the permits it needed to try to drill in the Arctic last year, the government made an important and ironic concession: The company would be allowed relaxed air pollution standards. The quote the company gave in its effort to be allowed to exceed pollution limits was pretty classic, pointing out that it “demonstrated compliance with a vast majority of limits.”

But, anyway, Shell managed to not even meet the more lax pollution standards it insisted on. From the Houston Chronicle:

The Environmental Protection Agency issued two notices of violation [last] week alleging Shell ran afoul of the Clean Air Act permits governing its Kulluk drilling unit used in the Beaufort Sea and the drillship Noble Discoverer, as well as its support vessels, in the Chukchi Sea.

According to the agency, Shell’s self-reporting of emissions revealed both drilling vessels released excess nitrogen oxide, leading the EPA to conclude that Shell had “multiple permit violations for each ship” during the 2012 drilling.

The emissions go beyond ones the EPA agreed to grandfather in a waiver Shell sought before it began drilling last year. Shell had asked permission to emit an unlimited amount of ammonia and more nitrogen oxide than originally permitted from the main generator engines on the Discoverer.

The thing I like most about that paragraph is that not only did Shell not meet pollution standards, and not only did it not meet pollution standards that it specifically begged be lowered, but it did not meet those standards on two vessels both of which it lost control of at some point during the year. I mean, really, if you can’t even manage to keep the things properly anchored, a skill that was mastered by humans sometime before the birth of Christ, I’m not surprised that you can’t figure out how to keep the things from polluting.

Shell’s Curtis Smith responded as one would expect. “We continue to work with the agency to establish conditions that can be realistically achieved,” he argued. Some examples the company might find acceptable:

Shell is prevented from spilling more than a billion gallons of diesel fuel in the ocean.
Shell may not pollute more nitrogen oxide than a normal small-sized nation of half a billion people would create over the course of a decade.
Shell is allowed up to ten (10) vessels escaping from their moorings in any one (1) week period, but no more.
If Shell does actually somehow manage to drill into an oil pocket and manages to start extracting crude, it is not allowed to spill more oil than would produce a 1-to-1 ratio of oil to water in any ocean.
If Shell does manage to start extracting, it cannot be taxed on that oil because jobs.

Source

EPA faults Shell over Arctic emissions, Houston Chronicle

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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