On feminism and trousers.

One entertaining argument that I have seen, which quite frankly baffles me is how men's and women's trousers are sold is an example of sexism.

The argument goes thus: Women's trousers have a single size number which seems to be based on a system which disappears back into antiquity (or where the sun don't shine, I'm not entirely sure which), whereas men's trousers have two measurements (waist, just as long as it's an even number of inches and inside leg, just as long as it's an odd number of inches), therefore sexism.

The problem that I can see with this is that it assumes that having two measurements is much more useful than having one. It isn't. B and myself have opposite problems with this, B has a relatively large waist and small thighs, whereas I have a relatively small waist and thighs like tree trunks. There seems to be no relationship between the size number and the amount of fabric provided for the circumference of the legs they are supposed to cover. For B this results in having lots of spare thigh space in a normally fitting pair, which looks a bit odd but that's it.
For me however in order to find a pair of trousers that fit over my thighs the waist will inevitably be far too large. They're virtually clown pants. If I were to buy trousers that actually were my size then they'd never get more than a few inches above my knees.

Drones and diseases

A while back, while attending a party, the conversation inevitably turned to international politics.

This was just after the US announcement on exactly how many people they thought had been killed in drone attacks (I think the number in question was 4,700) and how this was abominable and should not be tolerated. And in fairness I agree. It's a very effective way of recruiting people who wouldn't otherwise care to fight against you.
It, by the nature of firing anti-tank munitions or dropping 500 lb bombs, does have the capacity to kill an awful lot of civilians for every one target.

However, I did some quick mental arithmetic, and compared the entire Obama presidency use of drone warfare and the one disease that I could remember the statistics for. The result is somewhat surprising:

The entire drone warfare campaign has cost as many lives as have been lost in Africa to the measles in sixty one hours.

The measles vaccine was developed more than fifty years ago, by a team headed by Dr John F Enders. The disease while technically untreatable beyond a palliative treatment of the symptoms, however the ability to prevent infection in the first place is painfully simple. It's an injection after one year and a second at the age of eleven to twelve.
The polio vaccine is even easier, the oral vaccine only requires a couple of drops of the vaccine to be swallowed (rather than be injected). Polio has been eradicated in all but three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria). With an effort of will only slightly larger than that required to put 9 kg warheads of anti-tank missiles through the sunroofs of the cars of people whose ideology we are assured that we should disapprove of we could reduce polio to a laboratory curiosity, and start making a serious dent into measles and anything else we can find a treatment for.

And for those who say we should be more concerned about terrorism than disease, in June 1916 there was a polio epidemic in the US, centered in Brooklyn. A grand total of 2,996 people were killed in the 9/11 hijackings with 6,000 wounded. The polio epidemic went across the country leaving more than 6,000 dead and 27,000 disabled to some degree or other.

I cannot help but it does not say much about our species that the likes of Bush, Blair and Obama will be remembered in history whereas the likes of Enders, William Hammon, Hilary Koprowski, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin (to name only five) are largely forgotten.

On Allies...

As I've previously said, whatever your Great And Noble Cause is, I'm not your ally.

I may support your cause, but not unconditionally and not without limits. Let me give you an example:

At an event supporting The Cause someone says something at best inept and at worst inappropriate (and in either case giving a prime textbook example of the wrong time and the wrong place) to person W.
W then blogs about it and an almighty internet shitstorm kicks off, including high luminaries of The Cause either supporting W or trying (badly) to calm the situation down (along the lines of "worse things happen at sea"), complete with all manner of inappropriateness by the more lunatic fringes. Eventually this caused a schism and the formation of a whole new little clique largely opposed to the luminaries that were trying to calm things down and get things back to actually working on The Cause.

Fast forward a few years, and at a different event for The Cause and person X says something at best inept and at worst inappropriate (lacking the ability to read minds then I don't know which, along with the fact. Person Y then (infused with righteous indignation) intercedes and basically tears person X a new one at great length, in a crowded place, in front of many other people.
At some point person Z has a quiet chat with person Y, along the lines of "perhaps starting with the nuclear option wasn't exactly proportionate" and then blogged about it at some point shortly afterwards to that effect.

Cue the clique, who decide that Z having a quiet word about premature nucleation was being any number of varieties of privilege-blinkered, oppression-enabling and any other combination of bad. And of course they were saying that he should lose his status of ally, as if they were in a position of authority to say who qualifies and who (and when) becomes unworthy.


If the guardians of your sacred cause are more concerned with the ideological purity of their fellow members than the cause itself, as seems to be the case in this instance then you find yourself asking whether it would be better to just support from the sidelines, or just lurk instead.

The elephant in the room

Why am I perpetually late for work?

I'm not good in the morning, I'll readily admit that. However B, the love of my life, who did me the honour of marrying me a little over two years ago is really really bad. In fact clinically bad.

Imagine (although those young enough might not have to try too hard) staying awake for 36 hours non-stop. You'd be tired, right? You'd be ready for a good nights sleep, wouldn't you? Now imagine someone trying to wake you a couple of hours after you've happily drifted off.
That's B in the morning. Every morning. No exceptions.

B has inherited a genetic condition that's a bit of a nightmare. On one of my genes, and probably on yours too there is a repeating pattern CGT-CGT-CGT- and so on. Your chromosome and mine will have anywhere between five and thirty seven repeats of the CGT motif. More than 50 repetitions will probably be symptomatic. More than 1,000 will show up on birth (with some truly nasty symptoms including a life expectancy measured in years rather than decades, along with severe mental retardation).

B has 500-600 of these repeats. So that explains the hypersomnia, but that's not all. Aside from the essential tremor, the weakness in the muscles in the extremities and the minor gastro-intestinal issues (which can be worked round by not eating red meat, something that B doesn't mind too much but whenever we're not eating together then it's beef for me) B is looking at cataract surgery sometime in the next decade.

But here's the real kicker, if we have a child then there's a 50% chance of it inheriting, and if it does inherit then the number of repeats increases in every generation.

It's the combination of hypersomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness that's the really debilitating thing though. Once B is awake, and has taken the eugeroic (wakefulness inducing stimulant) prescription and it's kicked in B can manage perfectly well. However while the tablets are kicking in, the EDS is still there and falling asleep is a real possibility, and the hypersomnia means that if B does fall asleep it will be for hours.

So far the record is going to bed at 11 pm and waking up the following afternoon at 4 pm, despite the alarm clock for the profoundly hard of hearing (that has a volume scale where 4 is enough to propel me out of the bed inside two seconds and 10 is where it is normally set) having been going for hours.I don't honestly believe that a smoke alarm would wake B, and having seen an oven glove that managed to be cooked on a moderately high heat for six hours (unintentionally, B had a little nap after preparing breakfast, and knocked it onto the hob on the way past), if it had been a tea towel then I dread to think what would have happened.

So, Boss, if you're there, that's why I'm late in again.

The inevitable beginning

So who are you?

I'm an Uga - A big blue coconut crab, living on a small island in the central Pacific Ocean. On this island the cars actually give way to the crabs, it's a far more civilized way of life.

Oh and I taste exactly how you'd imagine a crab that eats coconuts would taste, crabby with a hint of coconut, or is that coconutty with a hint of crab.

No, Seriously who are you?

I'm just an ordinary person, nothing special to see here.

So what do you do?

I work for a major and prestigious UK university (seriously, if you've only heard of two UK universities then it'll probably be one of them). My role there is not quite as prestigious, I'm distinctly back-office, departmental staff rather than faculty. My role seems to be to know things that people far more intelligent than me don't have the time or capacity to know, but wouldn't be able to do without.
Also to have psychic powers so that I know what they're thinking, so when they don't actually tell me what they want, I can still know what it is and do it. Of course when my psychic powers don't work, then my job is to take the blame for it.

Seriously?

Not about having needing psychic powers being in my job description, although it's not far off. You may notice that I do have, not so much a sarcastic streak, but a rather smaller not-sarcastic streak in a sarcastic whole.
I've been working for the university for a dozen years, and I've learned many times that intelligence does not relate to common sense, in fact the two are more or less mutually exclusive.

So tell me more about yourself?

I'm in my mid-to-late thirties, live in the UK, am happily married, no kids, three cats, two thirds of a house and a mortgage. As it stands I'm trapped in a job that I've well and truly fallen out of love with in order to pay for a mortgage for a house that's too big for us, but we're looking at moving to somewhere smaller in a cheaper part of the country. The only problem is trying to work out the order of things to make that happen.

I'm a light-to-negligible drinker, a moderate-to-heavy smoker and have the patience of saints, but that does mean that when I get wound up enough to snap it does tend to be spectacular.

I'm an atheist, who strongly believes in both social justice, human rights, law and order and personal responsibility. I'm a reformer rather than a revolutionary, I'm also firmly opposed to hypocrisy. I'm also a hypocrite at times, go figure...
I have all of the usual human failings, greed, jealousy, anger, lust and whatever the other three are in spades.

An Atheist?

Oh yes, in general I'm only inclined to believe what there is actual evidence for. This goes beyond religion, into general life. I mistrust politicians (whether with a big P or a small p). I've seen the level of idiocy that the big P politicians are, however I've also seen the flagrant idiocy of the small p's. My typical example of that is the gig to support Greek anarchists (who were protesting the reduction in the size of the Greek public sector) that I was dragged to by a friend of my spouse (who is a bit of an anarcho herself, in a "stick it to the man" sort of sense) only to discover that the British anarchists were happily enforcing the indoor smoking ban.

Social Justice?

Yes, I fully support equal rights for everyone, regardless of race, creed, sexuality, ability or any other criteria, in any direction (which is something that is often overlooked these halcyon days). I'm also a strong believer that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. I make no claims to be a feminist, an ally or any of the other terms that are bandied about with such glee, until someone says something that is only 99% "on message", at which point they go from being a valued-supporter-of-the-cause(s) to silencer-of-righteous-anger and enemy-of-the-cause. I've seen it happen too many times.
If I support a cause, then it's because I support the cause rather than the whole hierarchy that goes with the cause. I'm not an ally to your cause, I'm not altogether on anyone's side, because no-one is altogether on my side. I speak only for myself, for everything that I'm writing here remember that n=1.

So why the blog?

Somewhere to vent? Somewhere to say the things that I wouldn't say in the real world? Somewhere where everybody nobody knows your name? All of the above.