Kurt Vonnegut, One of my favorite authors, passed away recently. I'd just finished rereading Slaughterhouse Five and wondering how much longer he'd hang on.

Throughout Slaughterhouse Five, the phrase "so it goes" was used in response to any kind of death. There were numerous attempts by fans to insert it at the end of the obituary in Vonnegut's wikipedia article. Such attempts which were removed by editors as vandalism. Pity.

The website Vonnegut.com has nothing but a crudely drawn picture of an empty, open cage, a date of birth and death, and a drawing strongly reminiscent of  those from Vonnegut's novels.

According to a 2006 quote from Vonnegut, he was prepared to die.

The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was, 'Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?' That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?"

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.

(edit: the site has links now, to other text)

Here are some of Vonnegut's rules for writing fiction.

Eight rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

WWW is the longest possible three-letter acronym (TLA) to pronounce, requiring nine syllables. The late Douglas Adams once quipped:

The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it's short for.

—Douglas Adams, The Independent on Sunday, 1999

From someone else's  blog:

(edited)..."What about men's reproductive rights?"      Women's rights are clearly existant, but the opposite is only an idea. In my personal opinion, they don't exist in anything other than theory. When a woman is pregnant, she calls the shots. She can get an abortion, or she can toy and string the man and "ruin" (I'm sure you know what I mean by the quotation marks) his, or both of their lives if the situation of having a baby at that certain point of time happens. The most she can do if the baby is born is make him accept financial responsibility, and that's all. She can't make him marry her or actually be in the child's life.. which would make her the sole caretaker of the child. It would be a different case, however if she could force the man to marry her and share an utter and brutal 50% to the child's upbringing. (Augh, I used to watch too many talk shows with episodes based on paternity results.)    Women should have complete control and say with what they want to happen with their bodies. If a man wants the child, then tough shit. It would be cruel, suppresive and rather immoral for him, or anyone for that matter to make her carry and birth the child just so he can have a baby.    If you're reading this and still thinking "Why should men have to take a dive?", then take a look at all the other unfair and supressive things women have to deal with in the past, third world countries (think; Africa and female genital mutilation), and some of the things we have to go through today. (For example, tell me why women get paid less for doing the EXACT same job as a man? Or let's take a look at sexual double standards..) They are still being treated unequally and hopefully in time it will balance out.    I don't even want to get started on how conservative religious beliefs shouldn't affect women's rights or laws what so ever. Thinking about it is awfully irrtating.    That's my two cents. 

I was agreeing with this argument until the final part, which took a left turn. Certainly people have the right to control their own bodies, period. Incidentally, married men in some states have to consult their wives before getting a vasectomy, and I oppose this. It might be polite to ask, but I don't think this shouldn't be legally enforcable.

however she continues:

then take a look at all the other unfair and supressive things women have to deal with in the past, third world countries

injustice overseas does not make injustice here at home 'ok'. Men are more likely to die in war. Men are more likely to be raped in prison. Injustice abounds. ( Some feminists might point out that the problems in both situations are caused by men, but as individuals we all have an equal right to individual justice regardless of our gender.) Our job as moral people is to minimize injustice everywhere, not rationalize it.

Tell me why women get paid less for doing the EXACT same job as a man?

Often times the studies that claim this are poorly done and don't compare apples to apples. They don't really compare "the EXACT same job" as men for several reasons.

1. Women are much more likely to take time off from their careers to raise children. This slows them from rising through the corporate ranks like some men do. It also forces them to take more flexible jobs which pay less. (somthing which these studies generally fail to account for.) In other words, some of the difference is caused by women's choices and not discrimination by male bosses.

2. Some women stay home and take care of household chores so that men can work 60+ hours a week at their jobs and share the income. The situation is only occasionally reversed. When some men can work +20 hours because someone is taking care of household duties, this skews results. Are these studies careful to comapare men working  60 hours a week to women working 60 hours a week? Otherwise, it's apples to oranges.

3. Finally, these studies often don't account for differing levels of experience. Since men, on average, have been in the workforce longer than women this is critical. Upper level management jobs may require +30 years of experience.

Not all differences are caused by discrimination. The field of primatology is almost entirely dominated by women. Should we assume that this is because men are discriminated against in this field? Should we see this as a problem and try and recruit more male primatologists? Or is primatology such a garbage job that only women want to do it, while men are off doing more important scientific work? Personally, I don't see any of these conclusions as valid.

Sometimes women are mistreated, certainly. Though companies that let that interfere with their business are at a disadvantage, and will eventually lose out. But the notion that women are horribly underpaid simply isn't supported by these poorly conducted studies.

Of course, if you don't believe all this, feel free to start a company and employ only women. If women really do the same amount of work for less, you'll undercut your competition and dominate the market. Isn't capitalism wonderful?  

A conservative (though intelligent and scrupulously honest) friend of mine points out a number of serious flaws in some of the coverage of various "abstinence-only" studies.

• Some of the studies called "abstinence only" aren't really abstenince only

• Some note that 'rates of sexual activity doubled under abstinece only programs' when the 'doubling' is caused by the kids being studied aging from 13 to 15. So 15 year olds have sex more often than 13 year olds. Wow! Thanks for the helpful interpretation of the research, guys (and kids in surrounding areas not in the program still had higher rates of teen pregnancy)

• and some programs are very effective, but only on particular types of kids (high acheiving, two parent homes, for instance) whereas low acheiving kids seem to be less affected by any type of education. The high acheivers are lumped in with the low acheivers, and no significant result is found.

• The often repeated fear that abstinence only education will decrease condom use compared to no education at all seems totally unfounded.

The only question is, 'is abstinence only education better than abstinence plus condoms'? And if so, under what circumstances? I don't claim to know the answer. My mind is open. But I'd suspect that areas with much higher rates of teen pregnancy would benefit more from abstinence plus condoms. Of course, the question there is; do some of the girls in high-teen-pregnancy areas actually want to get pregnant. I had one good friend who was trying to get pregant ever since she hit 18. If these girls want to get pregnant, talking about condoms will do no good at all.

link1

link2


STDs seem to be increasing, and viruses like CMV (transmitted via saliva) which were previously viewed as harmless have been shown to have lifelong effects in some cases. Teen pregnancy is rising. The prospects for a girl pregant in her teens can have intra-generational consequences. So these things are important.

If anyone has a reaction to either of these linked posts, I'd like to hear it.