Historiann

Wasn’t it a heartwarming and remarkable display of bipartisan comity to see the House of Representatives united in their support for the idea that U.S. Congressmen and Congresswomen should not be shot in the face when meeting with constituents?  Awesome!  (H/t to Fratguy for this observation.)

Although I have nothing against her politics, I’m glad that Gabrielle (Gabby) Giffords finally resigned.  Her recovery appears to be remarkable so far, but it’s been apparent for months that she is not up to really serving her district in the way it deserves.  It’s monstrously unfair, and I still think her shooting and the deaths of so many others should be discussed in terms of a political assassination attempt, but still:  she can’t represent Tucson at this point in her life.

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I don’t know what is worse–the fact that The Daily Beast has published a press release for this fertility doctor as a news story, or the fact that this story recycles the completely unbelieveable trope that women in their 30s and 40s are truly surprised when they learn they might not be able to have children: 

Some bosses offer dating tips. Diane Sawyer counsels her colleagues on freezing their eggs.

The anchor of ABC’s World News has long been a sounding board for her famously hard-working staff on a host of personal issues, from dating to the more complex realities of a demanding career. A recurring theme with women: finding time away from the office to meet a partner and have kids before they hit 40. It doesn’t always happen, as Sawyer, who first married at age 42, well knows. When it doesn’t, Sawyer sends her workers to New York University’s Fertility Clinic.

.       .       .       .       .       .      

Three quarters come in because they aren’t ready to have children yet. Some are sent by their parents: I know you want to work, but I want grandkids someday. Many are furious their doctors didn’t tell them about egg freezing sooner. “I want to send Diane a basket of flowers for what she’s doing,” says one childless 40-something in the media.

The idea that one could be a woman in her 40s in the media and not be aware of fertility issues is just completely laughable.  Continue Reading »

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Snow sculpture at the top of the Super Gauge and Hi Lonesome lifts on the Mary Jane side of Winter Park Resort, Winter Park, Colorado, January 21, 2012:

Apparently, prayer finally worked:  the central mountains finally got a nice storm with several inches of fresh powder.

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Yesterday, I read the comments on the teaching evaluation forms my students filled out last semester for the pilot course in the History of Sexuality in America class I co-taught with a colleague.  (We covered just about 1492-2011.)  The comments were overwhelmingly positive with only a few outliers.  Even people who liked the course complained that there was too much reading, but I and my co-instructor always get that on our teaching evaluations.  (Here’s an easy solution:  read through the syllabus on the first day of class, and drop the class if you don’t want to read all that!  It’s win-win for everyone that way.)

We had one suggestion–and only one–from a student who suggested that next time we might consider offering the course with one man and one woman professor, instead of two women.  Right–because our male colleagues are just lining up to teach this course, and it will be soothing and more objective if a male professor is in the room.  Continue Reading »

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It’s the first day of classes in the second term for me, folks. Keep yourselves out of trouble. Continue Reading »

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Hillary Clinton.

Sarah Palin.

Barack Obama.

Motherhood.

Breeder.

Breastfeeding.

TimTebow.

Flame on!  Continue Reading »

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Please enjoy this crackling fire while you warm up after your local MLK Jr. Day Parade. Touré is here in Potterville! That’s pretty big news.

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Thou Shalt Not Rape

No, I haven’t renounced my longstanding ressentiment and mistrust of football at any level of play, from Pop Warner through the NFL.  It’s an appalling waste of money that pretty much sums up nearly everything that’s wrong with our culture, in universities and in the nation at large:  profligacy, the wage gap, male supremacy, obsession with inconsequential trivia, anti-intellectualism, and the abuse of women.  But, I’ve go no problem whatsoever with Tim Tebow.  I don’t care about his public religiosity (although it’s not really my style).  I’m impressed that a nice-looking, successful, and wealthy young man has taken a vow of chastity before marriage, not because I value chastity in particular, but because this is also effectively a vow not to abuse women sexually and not to rape them.

Even by comparison to most other professional or college athletes, football players have particularly poor records of abusing women, raping them, or even as we learned last year about Tebow’s teammate Perrish Cox, raping an unconscious woman, and denying it even after a DNA test of her fetus indicated that he was its father.  Continue Reading »

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“It was not the strongest idea for a Rutles film: four Oxford History professors on a tour of tea shops in the Rutland area, and it was slammed mercilessly by the press.”

Source.

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