Quickies
Quickies: Offensive Diversity Memos, Cheerleaders Told How to Wash Their Vaginas, and E-Cigarette Rules
There’s not too much good news to share today, so please enjoy this full album from Boards of Canada to play in the background.
- Bills Cheerleaders Are Told How To Wash Their Vaginas in Handbook – “All of this is more or less the accumulated wisdom of sensible aunts everywhere. The difference here is that it’s being used as the means by which an NFL team and its subcontractors can exert dominion over the lives of people it can barely even be bothered to pay. Douches.”
- Female Journalist Gets Rape Threats Over Comic Book Criticism – “After criticizing the new ‘Teen Titans’ cover, Janelle Asselin was name-called and threatened with rape. The worst part? No one is surprised.” I know I hate being so jaded about something that shouldn’t be so commonplace.
- What the New E-Cig Rules Don’t Do – This article makes a lot of excellent points, such as the fact that we don’t know the long-term ramifications of inhaling propylene glycol. What are your thoughts on e-cigs?
- How Brown v. Board of Education Changed—and Didn’t Change—American Education – 50 years after the Supreme Court decision struck down “separate but equal,” scholastic opportunities for African-Americans have expanded. But inequality remains a major problem.
- Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist – “In a highly unusual critique published yesterday, the Stanford University biologist — who used to be Barbara — said his experience as both a man and a woman had given him an intensely personal insight into the biases that make it harder for women to succeed in science.” From Mindy.
- Is This the Most Offensively Misguided Diversity Memo You’ve Ever Seen? – HR writes up a memo on how to talk to “diverse” people and women, with an added code for how to bill hours spent talking to these people. Wow.
The Bills might want to look at recent Labor law rulings which pretty much make it impossible for a for-profit organization to accept volunteer staff.
Making the girls give back their tips is pretty sleazy.
Because if there’s anything that’s unqualified to tell women how to keep their vaginas clean, it’s a bunch of douchebags.
Sigh.
Also, a lot of kittens were killed in the making of that manual. Look at all those apostrophe’s! [sp]
ugh I hate E-Cigs. We barely had time for restraunts and bars to be clean and now I have to deal with their smell.
Do you have any evidence that E-Cigs are “unclean”? Is there a limit to the type of smells people should be free from dealing with in public places?
Good argument. I suppose the same could be said of incense, though I don’t see restaurants and bars burning it all the time. It bothers me when I’m talking to someone and I can smell the air they blow out.
Three people in my family have switched from tobacco to E-Cigs, either entirely or by at least half. I know at least six other smokers who have switched to some degree. We’ve all tried multiple times to quit, always unsuccessfully.
None of us has a problem with the new regulations, as we understand them. And we’d all like more info and studies about safety.
Everyone’s noticed a substantial reduction in COPD symptoms, and the nonsmokers around us are relieved at the lack of odor and the lack of second hand smoke.
The secondhand ‘smoke’ is flavored water vapor, from what I understand, and the nonsmokers we’ve puffed around haven’t had any problems at all. They’re relieved at the lack of odor and irritation, actually.
Personally, I’m more curious about the second hand effects. Those of us who smoke have accepted the fact that it’s poison, we’re just trying not to annoy everyone around us or make them sick.
I have to wonder if these non-smokers you asked were being nice. I have been in crowded spaces with someone smoking an e-cig and I thought it was absolutely awful. We were recently at a ballgame (which is supposed to be smoke-free), and there was this guy puffing on an e-cig. I asked him to stop and he told me he had the right because it wasn’t a real cigarette. (Apparently, this is true as far as the current law goes.)
Maybe the odor and irritation are better than real cigarettes, but where we live (San Francisco) cigarettes have been outlawed in most public places, so I haven’t had to deal with cigarette smoke for a long time. And I don’t think there is enough information on e-cigarettes to say they are safe enough to smoke in crowded, public places.
I’m not talking about public crowds, I’m talking about friends and family. And, yes, comparing it to tobacco smoke.
There definitely needs to be research done about the harm to bystanders. If it’s no more of a health hazard than cologne or hair spray, then there’s no reason to outlaw them indoors or in public.
I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that the onus of proof is typically on the complainant. Is there any evidence to suggest that e-cigarettes are unsafe for crowded, public places? If I had a device which lacked nicotine but took water from the air, condensed it, and released it as vapor, would you complain about that? I bet you would if I had “cigarette” in the label.
“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that the onus of proof is typically on the complainant. ”
That’s not how it works. This isn’t a debate. This is something that may or may not effect the health of other people. This is not the same thing as a debate. The onus is actually on society as a whole to decide whether or not it is safe. No one is saying it’s NOT safe; they are just saying they don’t know. And while I’m inclined to think they probably are, we still don’t know, AND NEITHER DO YOU.
“If I had a device which lacked nicotine but took water from the air, condensed it, and released it as vapor, would you complain about that? I bet you would if I had “cigarette” in the label.”
Are you kidding me, here? This is a stupid comment.
“If I had a device which lacked nicotine but took water from the air, condensed it, and released it as vapor, would you complain about that? I bet you would if I had “cigarette” in the label.
And I also suppose you haven’t considered that this is not an argument and instead is just you trying to insult a commenter. Stop it.