• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Debra

Medicine VS Forced Care

01/29/2007 by Debra

The same day I read about surgeries being cancelled, I receive an article from Women’s eNews on the topic of Caesarean birth.

I am not a great proponent of sections, far too many are done unnecessarily and I think it is just another way women are taught to distrust their bodies and their abilities.

It is also interesting that there is space to do so many of these unnecessary surgeries yet cancer surgeries are being cancelled.

From the eNews article

At 30 percent of all deliveries, the current national Caesarean-section rate in the United States is twice the 15 percent maximum rate recommended by the World Health Organization and three times the preferred rate cited by many researchers.

This article shows the despite the claims that C-sections are better for baby and cause no harm to moms, in fact the opposite is true.

C-section rates are increasing worldwide, with one in four newborns in Canada now being delivered via an incision in its mother’s belly, compared with 17% in the early 1990s.
But a new World Health Organization-led study involving more than 97,000 deliveries in Latin America found that hospitals with the highest rates of Caesareans had higher rates of maternal death and illness — including conditions requiring blood transfusions — and had higher numbers of babies who died or were admitted to intensive care for seven days or more after birth.
The results, published online by the journal The Lancet, “show how a medical intervention or treatment that is effective when applied to sick individuals in emergency situations can do more harm than good when applied to healthy populations.”
While the study involved Latin American hospitals, the researchers believe the findings would hold true “beyond the participating institutions.”

[Read more…] about Medicine VS Forced Care

Filed Under: General, media, women Tagged With: birth, fear tactics, medicalization, medicine, patriarchy

Digital Inheritance

01/29/2007 by Debra

Interesting article on AlterNet

According to articles in Forbes and Foreign Policy magazine, estate planners are advising their clients to include emails and online passwords in their wills. Without these provisions, online service providers will not grant family or friends access to digital property, some of which could be valuable.

The Foreign Policy article states that, more and more, these cases are landing in court:

In 2005, a Michigan judge ordered Yahoo! to release the emails of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq to his family after they filed suit. Chris Sprigman, a University of Virginia law professor, says that’s just the beginning. “There will be a flood of these cases cropping up,” he says.

These cases can be sticky because unlike traditional assets, digital property does not have laws to point to, only agreements.

[Read more…] about Digital Inheritance

Filed Under: Blogging, General Tagged With: digital property, internet

A Girl Like Me

01/28/2007 by Debra

This is a powerful and disturbing video, especially when the children are asked to choose between a white doll and a black doll and which one is the good doll.

Color is more than skin deep for young African-American women struggling to define themselves

Kiri Davis is a young filmmaker whose high school documentary has left audiences at film festivals across the country stunned — and has re-ignited a powerful debate over race.

Filed Under: General, media, women Tagged With: racism

Smile you’re on Deadbeat Camera

01/27/2007 by Debra

The Ontario government has decided to post your picture and personal information if you don’t pay up on your child support.

the website will include names, physical descriptions, last known addresses and occupations.

While I am unsympathetic to those who can and simply refuse to pay child support, there can be legitimate reasons why support payments have fallen behind. And we all know that the government is famous for mistakes.

They do apparently rely on the permission of the person owed the money, however, many people involved in these situations are quite adversarial and so might consider the smack at a former spouse before all else.

I think we are becoming far too comfortable with the idea of stealing peoples privacy “for the greater good”.

Cameras everywhere, more and more stringent ID requirements, less privacy and fewer civil rights.

These are easy targets, of course, who doesn’t want parents to fulfil their obligations? But if we do not protect the rights of those who we may feel do not deserve them, we set up easy inroads to take away the rights of those that we feel do.

We may agree that it is easier to prosecute if a crime has been captured on video. But do we agree that all our movements should be recorded?

Where does the line between defence and offence blur?

Filed Under: Canada, General, Politics, poverty Tagged With: child support, children

Microsoft willing to pay for Wikipedia edits

01/26/2007 by Debra

(AP) — Microsoft Corp. has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.

While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no.

“We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach,” Wales said Tuesday.

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Filed Under: Blogging, General Tagged With: internet, Microsoft, open source, wikipedia

This time it’s personal

01/24/2007 by Debra

The last few months I’ve been through numerous medical tests, and yesterday I had surgery.

I hear complaints all the time about the state of our health care system but I have to say, although I had to travel out of my community for two of the appointments, all my tests and procedures were booked and over with in record time.

In the course of about two months I had about seven different tests, four different doctors appointments and surgery.

Every effort was made to make it easy for me, including doing my pre-op over the phone. The doctors all communicated well with each other and all I needed was my health card.

One of the gentlemen in the outpatient surgery had a cataract removed. He said it was less hassle than going to the dentist and cost a lot less too.

Our system isn’t perfect of course, but it’s working pretty well despite efforts to destroy it.

Oh and if you’re interested everything went well and I should be fine.

Which is good news or bad depending on how you feel about me. 😉

Filed Under: General, health care Tagged With: medicine

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 73
  • Page 74
  • Page 75
  • Page 76
  • Page 77
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 93
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

Community

  • MoS on Snowy Afternoon Walking With My Dog
  • anonymous on Snowy Afternoon Walking With My Dog
  • Alison on Psstt… Hey you! Ya You Poking Your Nose In Other People’s Wombs.. Come Here
  • Debra on Facebook and Progressive Values
  • anymouse on Facebook and Progressive Values

WordPress Design,
Consultation & Training

Fat Cat Designs

Copyright © 2026 | Privacy Policy | Log in | Home

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkNoRead more
Revoke Consent