tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58856972011-08-16T23:07:08.524-04:00Politics, HIV, health care, psychology, baseball, feminism, et cetera. <br> "Psychologists have a duty to be fair and respectful of otters." - noble charge from a student paper.Rivkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10421980729130976080noreply@blogger.comBlogger2771100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152676350112768512006-07-11T23:39:00.000-04:002006-07-11T23:53:07.366-04:00

Here's another one of those stories that seems sort of reasonable at first: A federal judge this week dismissed an HIV discrimination lawsuit brought last year by an AIDS activist against the former owner of a Schofield restaurant. District Judge Barbara Crabb concluded that Korrin Krause Stewart failed to show that her HIV-positive status substantially limited a major life activity, a

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152383387160084882006-07-08T14:21:00.000-04:002006-07-09T19:47:39.363-04:00

This post is a collaboration between Respectful of Otters and Idealistic Pragmatist.Think of the most terrified you've ever been. Heart pounding, mouth dry, sweat beading on your forehead, muscles locked rigid, violent or frightening images flooding your mind, screaming so loudly on the inside that you're barely aware of your surroundings. Now imagine being dropped randomly into that state a few

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152331302469321982006-07-07T23:55:00.000-04:002006-07-08T00:01:42.486-04:00

I like this picture because it conveys a rare hint of her inner life. Mostly, at 15 months, everything is right there on the surface.She's had a rough week with her Papa away. I thought she might cry for him or search for him a lot, given that before he left she was in a very papacentric mood. She'll talk about him when we look at his picture, but she doesn't bring him up. Instead, the stress of

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152301199446072912006-07-07T15:34:00.000-04:002006-07-07T19:31:11.213-04:00

Steven Green, the former U.S. soldier arrested yesterday for the rape of a young Iraqi woman and the murder of her entire family, received a medical discharge from the service based on a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder.ASPD is defined as "a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others," including failure to obey rules or laws, excessive temper or

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1152147502064861992006-07-05T20:44:00.000-04:002006-07-05T20:58:22.083-04:00

I realize that my posting volume has dropped again, and I'm sure it's making some of you twitchy - wondering if I'll claim to be running out for a pack of otter pops and then disappear for another nine months. That doesn't seem likely to me; even though I haven't had time to post, I've still had post ideas crowding my head, and they're not likely to leave me alone until they're written. But first

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151837956594695192006-07-02T06:58:00.000-04:002006-07-02T06:59:16.610-04:00

Millions of poor Americans may lose their health benefits: A Medicaid rule takes effect tomorrow that will require more than 50 million poor Americans to prove their citizenship or lose their medical benefits or long-term care.Under the rule, intended to curb fraud by illegal immigrants, such proof as a passport or a birth certificate must be offered at the time a person applies for Medicaid

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151335283245775192006-06-26T11:15:00.000-04:002006-06-26T11:21:23.266-04:00

On my last post about abortion, a commenter named Christina asked, "don't you notice any irony between your own love of your born child and your vehement declarations that other children are disposable?"Now, I can't tell if that was supposed to be a genuine question or an unanswerable drive-by zinger, but I think that a lot of pro-lifers believe, like Christina, that pro-choice parents must be

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151072649941477862006-06-23T09:58:00.000-04:002006-06-23T10:24:09.970-04:00

Or, more accurately, Friday toddler blogging. Look at her! She's fourteen months old - practically a grown-up. She walks, she climbs, she never stops talking.Back from my shameful nine-month absence from blogging, I notice that little has changed from my pre- to post-hiatus political posts: the Bush Administration is still hell-bent on arrogating all power to the executive, abortion rights are

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1151031237409252852006-06-22T22:45:00.000-04:002006-06-22T22:54:42.786-04:00

The June 26th New Yorker has an interesting piece by Cynthia Gorney (regrettably not included in the online edition), about the referendum drive to overturn South Dakota's abortion ban. Apparently, quite a few South Dakotans who consider themselves to be pro-life are balking at the absolute nature of the new law, which bans abortions even in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the health of the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150911020439167122006-06-21T13:15:00.000-04:002006-06-21T13:30:20.470-04:00

Henry Farrell asks why the Mommy Wars (stay-at-home vs. working mothers) hurt so much - "why this is such a loaded and painful subject matter in the first place, for women who have made either choice."So far, unfortunately, most of the answers he's getting are either located in the indvidual psyches of the mothers involved - insecurity, et cetera - or they blame outside agitators for injecting

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150862179348236862006-06-20T23:49:00.000-04:002006-06-20T23:56:19.366-04:00

Spencer Ackerman proposes an experiment: Take all the shelving out of a typical filing cabinet. (My own office cabinet happens to be slightly smaller than the cell described here.) Now lock yourself in it for two days. You may notice you can neither stand up straight nor lie down, and crouching gets really uncomfortable extremely fast. He's referencing a report from what the New York Times rather

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150778507262395732006-06-20T00:36:00.000-04:002006-06-20T00:41:47.263-04:00

Someone just found this blog by searching for "adhd link to gay sex."I want to know why Google considers me to be the seventh most authoritative source on the topic.I want to know why one of the other top sites for this search segues from group sex to group health insurance in its page title.But most of all, I want to know what the heck that person was looking for. What, are women supposed to

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150778067753591512006-06-19T23:59:00.000-04:002006-06-20T01:01:35.870-04:00

According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration's concern about employers who hire illegal immigrants is apparently very, very new. Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150344124599573832006-06-14T23:13:00.000-04:002006-06-15T00:02:54.316-04:00

Those of us who favor social justice interpretations of the Bible have long suspected it, but now it's official: Jesus Christ himself has been declared unsuitable for leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention. Wednesday, the SBC unofficially barred members who drink alcohol from serving as trustees or members of any SBC entity.The ban, part of a larger anti-alcohol resolution that was easily

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150254686863132652006-06-13T22:51:00.000-04:002006-06-13T23:11:26.883-04:00

Faced with a mountain of evidence demonstrating the significant health benefits of breastfeeding, a consortium of health experts and U.S. government officials is making an aggressive push for paid maternity leaves; longer maternity leaves comparable to the recommended length of exclusive breastfeeding; exemptions from welfare-to-work programs and welfare time limits for nursing mothers; insurance

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150241431325076312006-06-13T19:24:00.000-04:002006-06-13T19:30:31.346-04:00

This is not a post about a breaking story. If you expect only cutting-edge news from your blogs, blame Teresa Nielsen Hayden for not adding this story to her Particles section until yesterday. If my other regular reads posted about the issue, it slipped past me......Which is odd, all by itself. Or maybe it just seems odd to the quaint, naive part of me which imagines that, if the President of the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1150143488397842762006-06-12T15:56:00.000-04:002006-06-12T16:18:08.416-04:00

By now, pretty much every blog reader in the Western world knows two things about human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus which causes cervical cancer: the FDA has approved an effective vaccine, and the Religious Right doesn't want children to be vaccinated. "I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message,' " said Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1127320688691525352005-09-21T10:43:00.000-04:002005-09-21T18:18:52.776-04:00

A story I read in a social psychology text long ago has been going through my head for a couple of weeks now. I finally had to track it down: [A]fter four students at Kent State University were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard, several rumors quickly spread: (1) both of the women who were slain were pregnant (and therefore, by implication, were oversexed and wanton); (2) the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126273628692902322005-09-09T09:30:00.000-04:002005-09-09T09:47:08.696-04:00

I'm all too aware of the wrenching contrast between the pictures in yesterday's post and the pictures in today's post. But here she is, the sole reason why I'm not down in Louisiana or Texas volunteering my psychological services with the Red Cross:It's hard to feel the pull to help, and not be able to go. "These people," as we keep hearing them called with disdain, are pretty much the same as my

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126190722505741242005-09-08T10:19:00.000-04:002005-09-08T17:09:02.800-04:00

They're not ashamed of leaving those people trapped and desperate for days. They're proud. We waited until we had enough force in place to do an overwhelming force. Went in with police powers, 1,000 National Guard military policemen under the command and control of the adjutant general of the State of Louisiana, Major General Landreneau, yesterday shortly after noon stormed the convention center,

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126103742190808332005-09-07T10:31:00.000-04:002005-09-07T10:37:52.220-04:00

From CNN: The Yves St. Laurent and Tommy Hilfiger labels may be phony, but the thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims getting knockoff items seized by federal customs officials probably don't mind.Displaced survivors in the Houston Astrodome can choose from counterfeit and abandoned clothing, toys, and even dog food.More than 100,000 items were quickly taken from warehouses and more will follow,

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1126026025259854542005-09-06T12:51:00.000-04:002005-09-06T13:00:25.266-04:00

(This post is a collaboration between Respectful of Otters and Idealistic Pragmatist.)We here at Respectful of Otters were in the middle of putting together a post about Bush's visit to the Gulf Coast, and wanted to lead with the horrifying report Laura Rozen received from a reader: "Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes: There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1125758803336177232005-09-03T09:51:00.000-04:002005-09-03T10:50:02.650-04:00

CNN reports on "the big disconnect" between conditions in New Orleans and the official party line. They present a damning series of quotes from FEMA Chief Michael Brown, who said Thursday that he didn't know anything about uncollected corpses, people trapped in the Convention Center, or problems with hospital evacuations. You know, the same things everyone else has been reading about in the paper

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1125755399157171172005-09-03T09:05:00.000-04:002005-09-03T10:53:58.910-04:00

The Red Cross has been ordered not to enter New Orleans with relief. Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1120184685940222862005-06-30T22:24:00.000-04:002005-06-30T22:30:04.576-04:00

pretty_in_pink2 Originally uploaded by Rivka5.It's just not fair for the daughter of two feminists to look this sweet in a rosebud-studded pink dress.I think Alex looks older in this picture than she actually is. Probably because the pose suggests that she's able to sit on her own, when in fact she is leaning parasitically on her Mama. She is a fine strong baby, though, currently dedicating all

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1120184342801599642005-06-30T21:29:00.000-04:002005-06-30T22:19:02.856-04:00

I like the Toronto Globe and Mail's summary of this week's vote to make same-sex marriage legal Canada-wide: "It is rare that a law can be both momentous and anticlimactic..." Anticlimactic, of course, because court rulings had already extended same-sex marriage rights to some 28 million of Canada's 30 million citizens - with a notable lack of the civilization-crumbling effects predicted by foes

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1119985512385577842005-06-28T15:05:00.000-04:002005-06-28T15:05:12.390-04:00

Fred Vincy of Stone Court backs up my visceral baseball outrage with plenty of inconvenient facts for Representative Davis and his pals: A Soros critic, John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), asks, "from a fan's perspective, who needs the politics?" Who indeed? Does Mr. Sweeney also object to Bush pioneer William O. DeWitt, Jr., owning the Cardinals? Or Bush pioneer Carl Lindner owning the Cincinnati Reds?

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1119984750301096482005-06-28T14:32:00.000-04:002005-06-28T22:08:22.603-04:00

Karl Rove's repellent comments about liberals seeking "therapy and understanding" for the September 11th attackers have had one positive outcome: it led to the creation of the website Take It To Karl, which hosts the responses of liberal and Democratic soldiers, veterans, and military relatives to Rove's slurs. The site makes for compelling reading: Whenever I get into an argument with a

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1119927121422210792005-06-27T21:54:00.000-04:002005-06-27T23:56:19.360-04:00

Garance Franke-Ruta quotes a subscription-only Roll Call story about the latest flourish of the Republican fist - an effort to intimidate Major League Baseball so that they won't sell the Washington Nationals to George Soros. While the Soros-Ledecky group is not seen as the frontrunner to win the bidding for the Nationals, who should be awarded to their new owner at the end of the 2005 season

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1119278369185726022005-06-20T09:25:00.000-04:002005-06-20T10:39:29.233-04:00

Apparently while I was away there was a blogosphere rape controversy. What a nice thing to come back to.I find myself wondering how many of the men who argue that it's incumbent on women to prevent rape by restricting their behavior (as one commenter at Pandagon says, so very reasonably, "this girl wasn't forced to go to Aruba and wasn't forced to get drunk and wasn't forced (from what i've heard

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1115425625629739062005-05-06T20:17:00.000-04:002005-05-06T20:27:05.636-04:00

I take back everything I've ever said about my church being too political. The minister of a Haywood County Baptist church is telling members of his congregation that if they're Democrats, they either need to find another place of worship or support President Bush.Already, the Reverend Chan Chandler has ex-communicated nine members of East Waynesville Baptist Church. Another 40 members have

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1114742782173186512005-04-28T22:46:00.000-04:002005-04-28T22:46:22.173-04:00

alert_baby Originally uploaded by Rivka5.I know that cat blogging is far more traditional, but I just can't resist posting this anyway.Alex is now two and a half weeks old, and we're settling in nicely. She's starting to get comfortable riding in a sling, which means that in the near future Mama should be able to spend more time at the computer. So yes, political blogging will return someday soon

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1113413787221561742005-04-13T13:34:00.000-04:002005-04-13T13:36:27.223-04:00

Alexandra Calvert Otter was born at 6:21pm on April 11th. She weighs 8 pounds, 4 ounces, is stunningly healthy, and has a full head of reddish brown hair. We here at Respectful of Otters are well, but very tired.Expect to see photos soon, but probably not any political posts for a while.

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1112986264122088872005-04-08T14:51:00.000-04:002005-04-08T15:38:43.766-04:00

We here at Respectful of Otters don't normally take requests - especially given our current bowling-ball-strapped-to-the-pelvis stage of pregnancy, which makes it awfully hard to sit at the computer. But some people could convince us of anything, especially given that they'd get indicted if they tried to post about it themselves... so here it is, a post about recent developments in the Canadian

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111722446307427322005-03-24T22:38:00.000-05:002005-03-24T22:47:26.310-05:00

Everyone already reads the brilliant Amanda Marcotte of Mousewords, who is now permanently at Pandagon - right? She took my breath away today: I have also noticed that two values that BushCo likes to fling around are "life" and "freedom", but I have also noticed that the two are opposite values in their rhetoric. You can have freedom or life, but not both. They are pretty consistent in this

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111586426337335772005-03-23T08:20:00.000-05:002005-03-23T09:00:26.343-05:00

I've given my opinion about the Terri Schiavo case at length, and I don't necessarily want to keep contributing to the media frenzy. (As of this morning, Respectful of Otters is the number one hit on Google for "Terri Schiavo CAT scan." The next few links are to Alas, A Blog and Abstract Appeal. Fortunately.)Through my referrer logs, I found a link to some additional information which does seem

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111524235947861092005-03-22T15:35:00.000-05:002005-03-22T15:44:12.530-05:00

I am relieved to see that the U.S. District Court was unimpressed with Congressional grandstanding in the Schiavo case. But I found something unexpectedly chilling in the arguments presented by the Schindlers' lawyer. Among the expected due process claims was the argument that Schiavo's rights to the free exercise of religion were being trampled: Gibbs said that "fairly dramatic developments,"

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111377155227661932005-03-20T22:38:00.000-05:002005-03-20T23:41:50.130-05:00

(Read Part I: The Medical Post.)People who have been reading Respectful of Otters since the start know that I am strongly opposed to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Because the concepts of "euthanasia" and "killing" (as in, "so now it's okay to kill someone just because they have a mental disability?") are being thrown around a lot in the Schiavo case, I wanted to write about where I

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111246938723403562005-03-19T10:34:00.000-05:002005-03-19T10:42:18.726-05:00

One of my favorite women called my attention to the obscene fraud perpetrated by Dr. Eric Poehlman, who falsified data in order to pump up his federal grant applications. Grant reviewers typically rely heavily on the "Preliminary Studies" section of the application, in which researchers describe prior data supporting their current hypotheses. It's common to include the results of studies

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111207354488735702005-03-18T23:22:00.000-05:002005-03-19T11:26:55.253-05:00

I had hoped not to blog about the Terri Schiavo case, but was driven to it by today's report that she was subpoenaed by House Republicans today in a last-ditch effort to prevent the removal of her feeding tube. Apparently, interfering with a person subpoenaed by Congress is a federal offense, and the Party of Big and Intrusive Government had no hesitation about using its naked power to interfere

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111032586849635872005-03-16T22:55:00.000-05:002005-03-16T23:29:57.386-05:00

Earlier this week, the perennial question made it into the mainstream media: "where are all the women bloggers?"I find that I don't have anything more to say than I did the first time this came up in my blogging career, or the second time, a couple of months later, or the time I discovered that everyone thought I was a man. (That's stopped now that I'm openly using the p-word, right? I don't have

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1111027348239710332005-03-16T21:30:00.000-05:002005-03-16T21:42:28.243-05:00

One of the blogosphere's favorite topics is the faux "journalistic objectivity" achieved by presenting every story as if it had two equal sides - as wickedly illustrated by The Daily Show :STEWART: Th-that's not a spin thing, that's a fact. That's established.CORDDRY: Exactly, Jon, and that established, incontravertible fact is one side of the story.STEWART: But that should be -- isn't that

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1110826022517502712005-03-14T13:39:00.000-05:002005-03-14T13:47:02.526-05:00

In preparation for my new job, I'm reading - and adoring - Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels' book The Mommy Myth , which outlines what they call the "new momism": "the insistence that no woman is truly complete or fulfilled unless she has kids...and that to be a remotely decent mother, a woman has to devote her entire physical, psychological, emotional, and intellectual being, 24/7, to

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1110685068533312382005-03-12T22:20:00.000-05:002005-03-13T10:02:16.953-05:00

Two Afghan prisoners who died in American custody in Afghanistan in December 2002 were chained to the ceiling, kicked and beaten by American soldiers in sustained assaults that caused their deaths, according to Army criminal investigative reports that have not yet been made public. [...]Private Brand, who acknowledged striking a detainee named Dilawar 37 times, was accused of having maimed and

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1110580431622170562005-03-11T17:32:00.000-05:002005-03-11T17:59:51.916-05:00

Misdirection is a tool that magicians use to focus the audience's attention on something irrelevant, so that the magician can secretly do something else. "There's nothing up my sleeve," the magician boasts, and while you're looking at his innocent forearms, the real action of the trick is going on somewhere else. Not, of course, that the use of misdirection is limited to magic. The proposed 2006

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1110464089158925132005-03-10T09:10:00.000-05:002005-03-10T09:14:49.173-05:00

Over at Crooked Timber, John Quiggin attempted to put the bankruptcy bill in the context of the rising economic instability for American households, and the shifting of economic risks from government and business to individual workers. (The link is to an outstanding LA Times series; some of the best reporting I've seen all year.)Predictably, the comments at Crooked Timber devolved into a shallow

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1102712190388994222004-12-10T15:47:00.000-05:002004-12-10T16:35:48.623-05:00

Jordan Barab, who apparently knows exactly what it takes to get me frothing at the mouth in incoherent fury, called my attention to this Effect Measure post about Texas laws limiting adolescents' access to reproductive health care. Some teenagers tell their parents everything. Some tell them nothing. They want none of that in Texas. In an effort to discourage adolescent sexual activity, Texas

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1102480745389282232004-12-07T23:30:00.000-05:002004-12-07T23:41:59.816-05:00

It's funny how news stories look completely different, sometimes, when you string them together in a line. Garance Franke-Ruta brought my attention to a David Brooks column in which he waxes rhapsodic about a phenomenon he calls "natalism," in which white people move to the suburbs and have babies. (As Slacktivist points out, this is supposed to be a novel phenomenon?) It turns out, from what I

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1102389998877186272004-12-06T21:56:00.000-05:002004-12-06T22:26:38.876-05:00

Roz Kaveny shares a heartening story today. Apparently, a prominent conversion ministry and "ex-gay" organization in Britain has had a radical change of heart: Our non-negotiable view regarding homosexuality, promoted the belief that ‘the answer’ was either to be found through the possibility of change-’to become heterosexual as God intended’, if this was the heart’s desire of the person seeking

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1102169152123195312004-12-04T08:25:00.000-05:002004-12-04T09:05:52.123-05:00

Several people (for example, here) have criticized my last post as paying insufficient attention to the charge that children were being removed from parental custody if parents declined to participate in research. Re-reading my original post, I can see how it might be read by someone who doesn't know me as, "AIDS clinical trials are good, so it's okay that people were forced into them." Of course

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1102107911255142462004-12-03T14:43:00.000-05:002004-12-03T16:14:23.456-05:00

Apparently, on Tuesday night the BBC aired a documentary claiming that HIV+ children in foster care were used in horrific drug-testing experiments without the consent of their parents. The blogosphere is understandably aghast, hearing echoes of the Tuskeegee syphillis study or - worse - Nazi "medical experiments" involving the often-fatal torture of helpless victims. I read the BBC article a

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1100885772136857292004-11-19T11:36:00.000-05:002004-11-19T12:36:54.713-05:00

Much has already been said in the lefty blogosphere about Bush's new plan to pay for deep cuts in taxes on investment income by eliminating deductions for state and local taxes, plus business tax deductions for employer-provided health insurance. Dan Froomkin (writing in the Washington Post) has a pithy summary of the commentary:As far as trial balloons go, however, this one has some diabolically

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1100699348472523762004-11-17T08:24:00.000-05:002004-11-17T08:49:08.473-05:00

They're too smart, too media-savvy, to go after nineteen-year-old college boys. But never mistake this for anything but a draft: David M. Miyasato enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1987, served three years of active duty during the first Gulf War and received an honorable discharge in 1991. He remained on inactive status for five more years, until 1996. Since then, the Kaua'i resident has

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1099488694641582722004-11-03T08:20:00.000-05:002004-11-03T08:31:34.643-05:00

If it ain't over 'til it's over, then why do I feel so awful? The Bush camp, of course, is pushing the "victory is inevitable" line. On the one hand, I think it's irresponsible of CNN to treat that as if it's, you know, news. (The banner headline at cnn.com right now says "Bush camp certain of win.") On the other hand, for Kerry to pull out a win in Ohio, he'd have to damn near sweep the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1099067726708282002004-10-29T13:28:00.000-04:002004-10-29T12:41:01.490-04:00

Kos has an update on the battle against Republican vote suppression tactics in Ohio. Moveon.org offers resources on voting rights and election protection, including a link to this list of the 30 states which require employers to give workers time off to vote. Over at Gallimaufry, Mary Kay tells us what we can do to protect the right to vote. Frequent Otters commenter Pat Greene offers links

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1099067131045685082004-10-29T13:11:00.000-04:002004-10-29T12:25:31.046-04:00

Lots of accusations of Democratic vote fraud are flying around these days, even before the election has happened. Let's apply a little common sense to the three major pieces of "evidence" presented for challenging Democratic voters. People are registering at addresses where they don't live, as evidenced by returned mail. The Republican Party of Ohio sent registered letters to tens of thousands

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1097884985187959352004-10-15T19:28:00.000-04:002004-10-15T20:07:27.023-04:00

If you're going to try to pull off a slimy election trick, you need to do it right. Say, for example, that you want to accuse your Democratic opponent of distributing hideous flyers that make fun of developmental disabilities. You could have one operative sneak a stack of the flyers into Democratic headquarters, and then send another operative in to "find" them and start an enormous public

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1097637132054705942004-10-12T23:11:00.000-04:002004-10-12T23:12:12.056-04:00

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash. [...] The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1097237313908828252004-10-08T07:28:00.000-04:002004-10-08T08:13:33.323-04:00

Nick Confessore at Tapped links to a video clip of an outstanding two-minute speech by Ohio Representative Tim Ryan. (Alternate link here in mp3 format, courtesy of a MyDD reader.) Ryan is debating the infamous HR 163, Chuck Rangel's draft reinstatement bill of January 2003. Apparently, it finally came to the attention of House Republicans that Americans find rumors of an upcoming draft to

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1097088349572938052004-10-06T13:50:00.000-04:002004-10-06T14:51:29.713-04:00

We here at Respectful of Otters are having much more trouble deciding what to watch on TV this season than you would ordinarily expect for a political blogger. This is Presidential Debate season, full of exciting head-to-head contests between Bush and Kerry, Cheney and Edwards. It's the final countdown to the election, and commentators - even part-time, amateur commentators like me - have no

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1096981819853424682004-10-05T09:10:00.000-04:002004-10-05T09:10:19.853-04:00

Briefly mentioned in Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing, this story should be everywhere. No member of the Bush Administration should be able to appear in public without being asked about it. Democrats should consider tattooing this Condoleezza Rice quote on their foreheads. One of the most-cited gotchas from Thursday was Bush's assertion that "the A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice."

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1096907416438911972004-10-04T11:44:00.000-04:002004-10-04T12:30:16.436-04:00

In the immediate post-debate coverage, a murmur went through the lefty blogosphere that perhaps Kerry shouldn't have used the words "global test." Perhaps, despite Kerry's stellar overall debate performance, the Bush campaign would be able to tear him down by focusing their rage and contempt on those two words. Bingo. President Bush said Saturday Democrat John Kerry's debate remark that U.S.

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1096635598928240042004-10-01T08:31:00.000-04:002004-10-01T08:59:58.926-04:00

Al Lorenz is an NCO with 20 years of service, currently serving in Iraq. He wrote a blistering piece about the war for a libertarian web magazine, entitled "Why We Cannot Win." I have come to the conclusion that we cannot win here for a number of reasons. Ideology and idealism will never trump history and reality. [...] Because the current administration is more concerned with its image than it

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1095214357903550732004-09-14T22:03:00.000-04:002004-09-14T22:12:37.903-04:00

In August of this year, while the cable news channels breathlessly interviewed and re-interviewed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, three convicted terrorists entered the United States. Recently released from prison by a questionable Third World government, the three men had been tried and convicted for a plot to detonate 33 pounds of explosives at a university while a prominent world leader

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1094952883663923762004-09-11T21:09:00.000-04:002004-09-11T21:36:46.883-04:00

It's easy to think that "partial-birth abortion" laws could never affect you, or a woman you care about. The right wing circulates lurid, sensationalized descriptions of the procedure that can give even pro-choice people the squeamish sense that "you have to draw the line somewhere," and that it might be okay to draw it there... or at least, that the real focus should be on preserving access

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1094869064341306162004-09-10T21:42:00.000-04:002004-09-10T22:17:44.340-04:00

...that I had a great time at Worldcon. I got to meet some fabulous bloggers for the first time - Charles Dodgson (who, strangely, I had always imagined looking a lot more like a Tenniel illustration), Charlie Stross, Trish Wilson - and also got to renew my acquaintance with others, like Mary Kay Kare of Gallimaufry (who throws a great party, and has excellent taste in single malts - not

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1094849442852688152004-09-10T16:17:00.000-04:002004-09-10T16:50:42.853-04:00

By now, I'm sure that everyone's seen the memos, unearthed by 60 Minutes, in which Bush's Texas Air National Guard commander complains that he is receiving pressure from upstairs to "sugar coat" Bush's performance evaluation, mentions that Bush wants to know "how he can get out of coming to drill," and suspends him for "failing to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards." (If

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1094093151806259692004-09-01T22:43:00.000-04:002004-09-01T22:45:51.806-04:00

I'm off to Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention, tomorrow. I expect that I won't have time to post, but I will be checking my Respectful of Otters e-mail. After I return on Tuesday, hopefully there will be more in the way of consistent blogging. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1093900278569557472004-08-30T16:01:00.000-04:002004-08-30T17:11:18.570-04:00

Originally, I wasn't sure that I would post about this, but Moe Lane says that I'd be a jerk not to. And besides, it's the first day of the Republican National Convention, and I'd like to post something life-affirming. So: It turns out that there actually is something in this world that's more obsessively all-consuming than politics - gestation. Baby otter formation has been taking up most

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1092920623326582192004-08-19T09:03:00.000-04:002004-08-19T09:03:43.326-04:00

Read this Arkhangel post right now. Why are you still here? Go!

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1092748612942532362004-08-17T09:16:00.000-04:002004-08-18T00:22:23.403-04:00

Dan Froomkin reports on the campaign style of the most managed President in history: Instead of taking questions from reporters, President Bush has become increasingly partial to playing talk-show host to an audience of sycophantic fans. There were four "Ask President Bush" events last week and in each case, after a long speech and staged interviews with prepped guests, Bush opened the floor to

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1092497454660896662004-08-14T11:21:00.000-04:002004-08-14T11:30:54.660-04:00

Recently, Doug Ireland's April scare piece about new CDC regulations for HIV prevention activity has been given new life in the blogosphere. In the last couple weeks, I've seen the article quoted all over LiveJournal, as well as in favorite blogs of mine, such as Echidne of the Snakes. People have also started e-mailing it to me again with requests for comment. I don't normally reprint my own

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1092423054136144442004-08-13T14:23:00.000-04:002004-08-13T19:12:10.160-04:00

Marriage is a term with legal meaning, but that's not all that it is. Marriage is the binding of persons by sacred oaths. Marriage shelters parents and children together in stable families. Marriage is the means by which communities recognize relationships as legitimate, and pledge to support them. Marriage is a declaration that two people strive for permanency of their relationship, for

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1092362073107626492004-08-12T21:53:00.000-04:002004-08-12T21:54:33.106-04:00

Every little girl growing up in America dreams of this moment.

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1092316600048187542004-08-12T08:30:00.000-04:002004-08-12T21:55:28.246-04:00

Via Body and Soul, I discover that the Bush Administration's conservatism just keeps getting more and more compassionate. Hospitals are required to treat anyone who shows up in the Emergency Room with a bona fide medical emergency, regardless of that person's ability to pay. If the person can't afford to pay anything, or can't be billed because they have no legal address, the hospital is

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1091460909832118302004-08-02T11:15:00.000-04:002004-08-02T11:36:43.823-04:00

Lots of people defended Annie Jacobsen's bizarre episode of anti-Arab paranoia by pointing out that the plane's crew was apparently concerned as well. Jacobsen has cited support from multiple airline employees who have written in to tell her that Arab terrorists are constantly probing airline security and conducting "dry runs" of attacks. Surely these reports are trustworthy. Surely air travel

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1091283632007749962004-07-31T10:15:00.000-04:002004-07-31T10:20:32.006-04:00

...have been cleared of wrongdoing. The National Archives and the Justice Department have concluded nothing is missing and nothing in the Clinton administration's record was withheld from the 9-11 Commission. The Wall Street Journal reports archives staff have accounted for all classified documents Berger looked at. Tapped has more, from the subscription-only Wall Street Journal story:

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1090875980205307572004-07-26T16:57:00.000-04:002004-07-26T17:06:20.206-04:00

Now that I've lured you all here with my sensitive handling of emotional nuance, let's switch gears and geek out for a while. I want to talk about Bruce Schneier's new book Beyond Fear. Bruce was nice enough to send me a copy back in May, when I wrote about systematic errors in risk perception. I read it in one big gulp, and ever since then I've been carrying it around in my briefcase,

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1090599925504810882004-07-23T12:18:00.000-04:002004-07-23T12:53:04.896-04:00

Imagine that it's 1973. The Supreme Court has just struck down abortion laws. You're pregnant with your fourth wanted child, when suddenly the Prenatal Diagnosis Fairy appears to you in your obstetrician's office. "I've got bad news," she says. "Your baby is not developing properly in the womb. One of her hip sockets is just plain missing, and one of her arms is irreparably small and deformed.

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1090500052640543912004-07-22T08:40:00.000-04:002004-07-22T08:40:52.640-04:00

Kathy Gill, at about.com, has attempted to verify the claim that it's Department of Transportation policy "to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory" - as asserted here, for example, by Michael Smerconish. The source of the claim is a statement by 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman, who told Smerconish: "We had testimony a

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1090434065210442472004-07-21T14:20:00.000-04:002004-07-21T14:21:05.210-04:00

I'm still catching up on blog reading, so I almost missed Kevin Drum's hilarious economics contest: Supply and demand. Yes indeed. The labor market is a slave to supply and demand just like any other market, right? Odd, then, that CEO pay rose 27% in 2003, isn't it? Did the supply of CEOs shrink last year? Did demand skyrocket? What's more, compared to average workers, who remain stuck in

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1090421154645608102004-07-21T09:56:00.000-04:002004-07-21T10:53:40.406-04:00

Over at the Daily Kos, people are mocking the news that the Department of Labor has set up a website to help homeless people find jobs. Kos: "No, it's not from the Onion." Various commenters: "I can see it now, as the sad, homeless person lying under his newspaper in the park, covered with cardboard, powers up his Dell Laptop, logs on, and check the Opportunities forum." "There are over

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1090272083002153272004-07-19T16:35:00.000-04:002004-07-19T17:21:23.003-04:00

We here at Respectful of Otters are having a lousy day at work. Typing that, I am reminded that two previous lousy days at work have involved (a) a psychotic HIV-positive person bleeding on my desk from a self-inflicted wound, and (b) an erect penis I very much did not want to see. Considered in that light, today looks much better... and yet it's still been the kind of day that makes me want to

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1089951532150613592004-07-16T00:18:00.000-04:002004-07-16T00:18:52.150-04:00

Bruce Schneier relates a parable about the value of security measures: The other week I visited the corporate headquarters of a large financial institution on Wall Street; let's call them FinCorp. FinCorp had pretty elaborate building security. Everyone -- employees and visitors -- had to have their bags X-rayed. Seemed silly to me, but I played along. There was a single guard watching the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1089408138912369552004-07-09T16:37:00.000-04:002004-07-09T23:04:36.446-04:00

I'm not sure what to make of the new NEA survey heralding a decline in reading. The survey sample — 17,135 people — makes it one of the largest studies ever conducted on the subject of arts participation, and the data were compared with similar studies from 1982 and 1992. In the literature segment respondents were asked whether they had, during the previous 12 months, without the impetus of a

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1089229681846186232004-07-07T14:46:00.000-04:002004-07-07T15:49:37.916-04:00

I'm quite pleased with Kerry's choice of John Edwards for VP, which nicely infuses Kerry's old-Washington credentials with a shot of energy from the future of the Democratic Party. Edwards was my second choice, after Dean dropped out, because I appreciated his vitality and his unabashedly liberal message. I think his charisma and eloquence will vastly improve the campaign. And Kos thinks that

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1089171864692973182004-07-06T23:44:00.000-04:002004-07-06T23:44:24.693-04:00

The Respectful of Otters Military Advisory Board has informed me that the Carmelite Sisters of Indianapolis are praying about the Wal*Mart gender discrimination lawsuit this week. There don't seem to be permalinks, but previous topics are archived. I liked this bit from 5/28/04, when the Sisters were reflecting on whether John Kerry should be denied Communion: To deny someone that, would be the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1089040617761891682004-07-05T11:16:00.000-04:002004-07-05T11:16:57.760-04:00

Don't miss this incredible Fourth of July op-ed by my fellow Reed College alumna Barbara Ehrenreich. George III is accused, for example, of "depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury." Our own George II has imprisoned two U.S. citizens — Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi — since 2002, without benefit of trials, legal counsel or any opportunity to challenge the evidence against

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1088893743402288462004-07-03T17:05:00.000-04:002004-07-03T18:29:32.526-04:00

No fewer than four of my regular readers have written recently to ask me about the CDC's proposed guidelines for the content of HIV prevention literature, prompted by this terrifying Doug Ireland column in last week's L.A. Weekly: Lethal new regulations from President Bush’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, quietly issued with no fanfare last week, complete the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1088551276649662772004-06-29T19:21:00.000-04:002004-06-29T19:33:37.293-04:00

Like most Americans, I'm pretty vague on the details of Canadian politics. Fortunately, my good friend Jennie is a political junkie fluent in both American and Canadian, and highly skilled at translation. Here's her post explaining yesterday's election results, and why they don't mean what most non-Canadians think they mean. First, the misconception a few of you brought up in comments (and which

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1088515020138540252004-06-29T08:22:00.000-04:002004-06-29T09:17:00.140-04:00

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the U.S. is not a police state, that Guantanamo Bay is not a black hole free of accountability and oversight, and that the President is not allowed to "disappear" American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. Breathe a sigh of relief. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld offers a fascinating view of the dynamics of the court. Can the government hold U.S.

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1088168492848768142004-06-25T09:01:00.000-04:002004-06-25T11:40:46.900-04:00

Ezra Klein at Pandagon writes, about the Jack Ryan sex scandal: Jack Ryan's private sex life, kinky as it may be, has absolutely no bearing on how good or bad of a senator he could be. Bill Clinton's private sex life, kinky and immoral as it was, had no bearing on how good or bad of a president he was. You with me? Good. Now, the reason liberals are cackling over the Ryan revelations is simple --

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1088082084882257072004-06-24T09:00:00.000-04:002004-06-24T09:01:24.883-04:00

Sorry I've been minimally present for a while; I was (a) traveling, and (b) sick. (It's hard to write eloquent blog posts when scrolling text nauseates you.) While we're waiting for me to perk back up, you might want to check out some of these stories: Kathryn Cramer, who has been on the civilian contractors story from the beginning, has some good comments and links on the indictment of a

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1088011176977713662004-06-23T13:14:00.000-04:002004-06-23T13:19:36.976-04:00

I'm going to be on the radio tonight, talking about my criticisms of Washington psychiatrist Justin Frank's "analysis" of George W. Bush. I'm told that you'll be able to hear the interview live over University of Illinois - Chicago radio, and it will subsequently be archived for a week or so at the show's website, Collective Interest. The interview should take place at 8:30pm Central/9:30pm

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1087819521940228852004-06-21T08:05:00.000-04:002004-06-21T08:05:21.940-04:00

...but you won't find this story in the So-Called Liberal Media: Liberal bloggers are facing a snark shortage that may have serious implications in the coming months, experts say. Blog readers are being warned to expect rationing and long lines at their favorite liberal blogs -- and that some blogs may not make it through the current crisis. Experts report that the United States Strategic

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1087499398737381922004-06-17T15:00:00.000-04:002004-06-17T15:09:58.736-04:00

Security expert Bruce Schneier makes some interesting speculations about Ahmad Chalabi and the Iranian codes. I confess that I haven't been following the story very closely, so parts of Schneier's account are news to me. For example: Iranian intelligence supposedly tried to test Chalabi's claim by sending a message about an Iranian weapons cache. If the U.S. acted on this information, then the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1087416468764319172004-06-16T15:03:00.000-04:002004-06-16T16:07:48.763-04:00

In a fascinating development, one of my readers showed psychiatrist Justin Frank my post about his "analysis" of George Bush. Dr. Frank was unmoved by the criticism: Justin Frank: This is an important question concerning the fact that I never met with George W Bush personally. I am using the technique of applied psychoanalysis which was first introduced by Freud in his analyses of Leonardo, Moses

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1087273682845706522004-06-15T00:28:00.000-04:002004-06-15T00:28:02.846-04:00

Over at Language Log, Mark Liberman is keeping an eye on my blood pressure for me:Like other Unitarians, Rivka at Respectful of Otters was outraged when Texas Controller Carole Keeton Strayhorn denied a tax exemption to the Red River Unitarian Church in Denton, and pleased when the decision was reversed. I'm not sure whether she'll be amused or apalled to read the reversal described in the

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1087095616259130592004-06-12T22:46:00.000-04:002004-06-12T23:49:06.546-04:00

In two successive weeks, we here at Respectful of Otters have played host to left-wing blogger Julia and Republican blogger Moe Lane. I've devised this handy chart comparing my visits with Julia and Moe, which I believe has obvious relevance for understanding the differences - and yet the points of commonality - between the Left and Right blogosphere. Blog represented: Julia - Sisyphus Shrugged

Rivkanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885697.post-1087057008645166312004-06-12T12:12:00.000-04:002004-06-12T12:16:48.646-04:00

Phil Carter has some thoughts about the corruption of dogs at Abu Ghraib: The second common feature of the stories is that dogs tend to reflect the humans they are closest too, for better or worse. This is really a function of dogs' learning ability, but it's more of an empathetic learning ability than a cognitive one. Again, this will come as no surprise to any dog person. For Rico and Peet,

Rivkanoreply@blogger.com