Two recent articles delved into what seems like a pretty simple question: Should patients read their own medical records? Particularly the notes doctors jot down in the course of diagnosis and treatment? It seems like it should be self evident. Your medical records are, after all, about you. That means they contain information that might […]
Month: August 2010
Disability and the House Key: Housing Discrimination, Disabilities, and Where the Law Falls Short
A 1988 amendment to the Fair Housing Act in the United States specifically banned housing discrimination on the basis of ability status. Under the law in the United States, landlords, mortgage lenders, and management companies legally cannot discriminate against people with disabilities when it comes to renting and selling housing. ‘All types of housing transactions,’ […]
I Read Romance Novels. So What?
Guaranteed conversationstopper in a group of people who like to consider themselves liberal and well educated: The words ‘I read romance novels’ or ‘I was reading a romance the other day and…’ or some combination thereof. Romance novels, you see, are simply Not Done in our circles. Well, I’ve got news for you: I read […]
Urchins and Indicators
Fun fact: Fort Bragg used to be a major sea urchin fishery. These prickly (and delicious) creatures made a lot of people rather wealthy in the 1980s, and the urchin fishery was a large part of Fort Bragg’s commercial fishery. Then, a strange thing started happening. Urchins became much less plentiful. Fishermen insisted they weren’t […]
The Unrelenting Misery of Misery Policing
There are a plethora of attitudes in this society that surround social class and are highly problematic in nature. One of the most irritating is the commonly held belief that people who are poor live in a constant state of misery and sadness over their poverty. That people who are poor do not have any […]
Why Are Telecommunications Companies So Sluggish On Text Harassment?
During the Presidential election, I received a string of extremely annoying electioneering calls from the California Democratic Party on my cell phone, often at extremely antisocial hours. While those calls are legal on landlines, they are not allowed on cell phones, and I registered my irritation with the CDP (of which I am not a […]
Morpheus and Prejudice
It is generally agreed upon in our society that people who wake up early are better people. They are more productive. They contribute more to society. Every time they poop, a unicorn gets its wings. Well, actually, I don’t know about that last one. Oh, wait. I don’t know about any of these things, because […]
Allstate: Selling Insurance Through Sexism and Ageism
I was peacefully watching Hulu the other day when an advertisement for Allstate Insurance came up, and it was so very heinous, it made me blanch. Lisa at Sociological Images wrote about the commercial in a post there, and provided a clip, if you’re interested in viewing it. Video description: It opens on a large […]
What Price Beach Nourishment?
Beach nourishment, also known as restoration or replenishment, is a practice that involves dumping a lot of sand on a heavily eroded beach to build it back up again. The actual mechanics of the process are a little bit more complicated than that, but for our purposes, all we really need to know are the […]
Beyond the Binary: The Third Gender
One of the really common misconceptions I see about nonbinary people is that we are a ‘third’ gender. There are several problems with this way of viewing nonbinary gender identities, and I would like to examine and expand upon some of them, because I think that many of you may find them helpful to understand, […]