Category: Teaching

Every culture has its mythology, almost without exception, to explain why things happen the way that they do.  Before the scientific method, mythology “explained” everything.  Zeus threw down “thunderbolts” because he was displeased or to intervene with some human event.  Poseidon caused tsunamis for the same reason, and so forth essentially forever.

Then the monotheistic folks got ahold of it, and Yahweh destroyed the Earth by water because he was unhappy.  The same one destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in a rain of fire because only Lot and his family were godly.  Of course, after their mum was transmogrified into into a pillar of salt, the daughters decided that the only way that their clan could survive was to have incestuous sex with their father, and did so, and “brought forth” offspring.  Oddly, the deity did not punish them for incest, but killed their mum for looking at something.  Go figure!

This post is about other myths that are current in our culture now.  Some of them are extremely pernicious.

I recently had to empty one office and move all my shit into another one in a different building.  As often has happened when I have done this sort of thing, I uncovered an old scrap of paper.  On it were three poems.  Searching my data banks has revealed that two of them were micro-planed into poems which I have published before, in slightly different form.

Because of the start of the new semester, that’s about all I’ve got to share this evening.

Originally I was going to write a piece entitled In the good old days, they just called us perverts, but I didn’t find the time to flesh it out.  If anyone wants to discuss the topic, I’m game to do so in the comments.

We have talked about how engines work in the past couple of installments of this series, and now need to bring together some important engineering factors.  We have talked about intake strokes, compression strokes, and others, but only very superficially touched on how everything comes together.

For an engine to work properly, everything has to be coordinated.  For simplicity, we will consider a conventional four stroke, gasoline powered automobile engine.  Diesel engines are in some aspects simpler, and will be covered concomitantly.

Remember, an engine has to do all of the things about which we have discussed, completely synchronized, and EVERY time.  For an engine rotating at, say, 4000 times per minute, this can be a daunting task.

Blue Laws are (well, actually mostly now) were laws that restricted what products and services could be legally traded on Sundays over much of the United States.  They varied from region to region, with some places pretty much shutting down everything except emergency medical treatment, to other places where there was little difference from other days.

In most of the United States, Blue Laws no longer exist for the most, except for the sale of alcohol, and they are vestigial remnants in that area.  When I was a child (only months after the last mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs, LOL!), Blue Laws were common in west central Arkansas, and applied to lots more than alcohol.

Sacramento, CA:  The California State Senate passed the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Prisoner Safety Act (AB 633) by a 26-9 vote and sent it on to Governor Scharzennegger.  The bill is designed to protect LGBT people who are incarcerated.  Arnold vetoed a similar bill last year.

A recent study from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) found that 67 percent of LGBT inmates report being sexually assaulted by another inmate, a rate 15 times higher than the overall prison population. Another study by UC Irvine and commissioned by CDCR found that 69 percent of transgender inmates reported sexual victimization while incarcerated.

I apologize for posting later than normal.  Windows decided to perform an update when I sat down to finish this piece, so I lost around 45 minutes this evening.

The most important part of an automobile is how to power the wheels (or belt, if one talks of a snowmobile).  What ever device does this must fulfill several requirements, which we shall look into later.

A device to propel a car must do several things, depending on the complexity of the automobile.  It must produce enough power to overcome internal friction, to overcome air resistance, to overcome rolling resistance of the tires, and a couple of other things as well.  Because of differences in combustion engines and battery operated motors, each type will be discussed separately.

Helena Bushong was diagnosed with AIDS in 2002.  She probably had been HIV+ since 1985.  She also has Hepatitis C and is a survivor of spinal cancer.

But she has one hell of a strong backbone.

This past week she was interviewed about being transgender, black and poz.  Do yourself a favor and go see what she has to say for herself.  The video is not embeddable.

I felt comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my 56 years.

–Helena Bushong, about going on homone therapy

But y’all come back, y’hear!

And there is more…

In her essay earlier today, Allison’s Story told us about her “friend” who told her he thought she was psychotic because she chose to treat her gender dysphoria.

That’s too much of a constant in our lives.  Because we don’t believe that chromosomes, or even genitalia, are destiny, people tell us they think we are insane…and then use that conclusion in attempts to drive us from our professions.

To some people, the options we have are being thought to be insane or having a moral defect.  The truth is, in my opinion, that we are some of the more sane people around.  On the other hand, what is moral is in the mind of the beholder.

I’ve met hundreds of transfolk since I began my transition in 1992.  I actually came out on September 30, 1992, which would have been my father’s birthday if he had still been alive.  From my years of knowing him, I can assure you that informing him of my plans for the future would not have gone down well.

With the near release of the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt, both 100% electric driven automobiles, I thought that it would be appropriate to reflect on the history and technology of the automobile.  Actually, the Volt also has an internal combustion engine on board, but that engine runs a generator, so both of these cars are exclusively driven by electric motors.

The engine to generator concept is not at all new, as practically all big Diesel locomotives are driven that way.  There are significant advantages in using electric motors to propel vehicles, even if they are powered by on board generators.  We shall get to that in future.

The Dog wrote this morning about the people who want their nation back.  I added the following comment, about what I saw in that sort of thinking:

The lady wants to go back to a time when she feels that things were better for her…and presumably people like her….as in identical.  She doesn’t care a whit about people whose lives have improved since that time.  Indeed, she thinks such people should be stomped on and put in their place…because they are undoubtedly the cause of her distress.

Meanwhile, I’m one of those people for whom life has gotten much better…and the lady the dog wrote about it…and people like her…just can’t stand that.

That’s not to say that life has gotten totally better for me…or that the improvements I’ve seen in our world have been totally sufficient or have been happening fast enough.  It will be quite a journey to get the world to where I think it should be.  And those people trying to tug it in the opposite direction certainly don’t help.

I read with sorrow this evening that Dr. Harrison is closing his practice.  He is an excellent physician, and skilfully delivered my firstborn son in 1985.

Dr. Harrison has been in a bit of controversy, since he is the only OB to provide abortions in the northwest Arkansas area.  This man has guts.  The fundies are rejoicing.  I am mourning.

When the former Mrs. Translator and I visited his office in late 1984 and early 1985, he also practiced OB-GYN and delivered babies.  The costs of that became large afterwards, so he limited his practice to abortions.

Source

The Forgotten People invite you to a press conference at the Veterans Park in Window Rock on Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 11:00 AM (DST) to announce filing a major lawsuit to get answers about the Navajo Rehabilitation Trust Fund monies to benefit the victims and survivors of the “Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute.”

The Forgotten People have been cheated and are taking things into their own hands. We want to know what the stewards of our money did with our money and where it is. These are our funds, set aside by Congress for our benefit. The Freeze has been lifted. While we wait and nothing happens, our people are living in sub-standard, and overcrowded housing, without access to safe drinking water on land contaminated by uranium and coal mining.