Sex Ed

I just finished Dan Savage’s new book, American Savage, and I need to get a few things off my chest.

Fact: More unwanted-pregnancy prevention = less unwanted-pregnancy termination.
     Therefore: More contraception = less abortion.

Have you ever heard of an anti-contraception person who was pro-abortion? I haven’t. You’d think the pro-life folks would be all over the contraception wagon. There’s no need to terminate a pregnancy if you prevent it from happening in the first place. Everyone agrees on this point, I think… it’s just the method of prevention that’s contentious. Social conservatives want everyone who doesn’t want to have a baby to just not have sex. How’s that working out for you guys? That’s like telling the entire male population that they can no longer have bacon. They like bacon waaaaay too much to just give it up, especially if there’s a way to prevent the unwanted potential bacon-eating side effects.

I’ve gotten a little off-topic. The point is, we’re programmed to like sex… the species wouldn’t have taken off like it did a few million years ago if sex was a chore. (I know, I said ‘million years’ and I alluded to evolution. This is not a religious belief thing, this is an I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong thing. Period.)

Opinion: A bunch of celibate octogenarians probably aren’t the best people to be telling the world how to have sex. Just sayin’.

The Catholic Church is against contraception in all its forms, and I can’t fathom why. We are in the midst of 2 relevant crises these days: a population crisis and an economic crisis. Women who don’t want children and/or can’t afford to care for them should be lauded for not wanting to add to the problem. Also that thing about the use of contraceptives negates the need for abortions in the first place.

Fact: Telling teenagers not to have sex (for whatever reason, health or hell, it doesn’t matter) does not make them not have sex.
      Addendum: Scary disease photos only work for a limited time, i.e. until a hot piece of tail walks by.

Fact: Not educating teenagers on sex, sexual health, and sexual safety does not make them not have sex.
      Addendum: Ignorant teenagers are still going to have sex, they’ll just do it wrong, i.e. hurt someone, get an STI, get someone pregnant.

The problem here is the fundamentally flawed assumption that there’s a way to get teenagers to not have sex. Let’s replace that with a more logical and scientifically-based assumption (teenagers will have sex) and re-evaluate the problem. The thing to do is to educate them on how to do it safely and responsibly.

Some mind-blowing ideas about how this should go:

1. Sex is not shameful. Being irresponsible about it is.
    a. Let’s help re-direct the peer pressure. If having sex without a condom got you socially shunned the same way that wearing the wrong kind of shoes did, unsafe sex would be virtually non-existent. Social terrorism is a way of life and, manipulated properly, can be a very effective way of changing behaviour. Teenagers are completely predictable that way.
    b. By creating an atmosphere of shame and awkwardness about sex, we (as the responsible adults) are just as culpable in the STI and teen-pregnancy game. Shame isn’t genetic, it has to be taught. If teenagers weren’t getting the shame and awkward vibe from adults, they’d ask a lot more questions… and wouldn’t have to turn to trashy paperbacks, Cosmo, and porn for answers.

2. Teach girls to be assertive.
    a. If you are uncomfortable with something, say ‘no’ and mean it.
    b. Make boys earn your consent.
    c. Consent can be revoked at any time.
    d. Ask for what you want. This is one situation where being entitled is ok.
    e. You deserve safe sex. Demand condoms. If the boy whines about it, walk the fuck away. And then tell all your friends that he whined about wearing a condom. Zero-tolerance policy, ladies.
    f. Get to know your own body before you expect someone else to know what to do with it.
    g. It’s supposed to feel good (physically and mentally). If it doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong.
    h. A lot of these things pretty much require you to be sober. Huh. Imagine that.

3. Teach boys to expect girls to be assertive.
    a. No means no. No means stop what you’re doing immediately.
    b. CONSENT CONSENT CONSENT.
    c. You have to earn consent and then work to keep it (meaning it can be revoked at any time).
    d. If a girl is drunk off her ass, she cannot consent.
    e. Verbal consent, boys. Revealing clothing is not consent. Provocative behavior is not consent. Being drunk is not consent.
    f. Condoms are not optional. If you whine about wearing a condom, the girl will get up and walk out… and then tell all her friends that you whined about wearing a condom. Nobody will ever sleep with you. Ever.

None of this is new, ground-breaking, or even particularly creative. It’s all pretty common-sense stuff, but it requires a fundamental change in the way we think about sex, teenagers, and the interaction between them. Teenagers are basically kid brains trapped inside adult bodies that are neck-deep in adult hormones. It’s like someone driving a car without even a rudimentary course on how to drive (which pedals do what, the importance of seat-belts, etc). It’s gonna be messy, and it’s very likely that someone will get seriously hurt. A little Driver’s Ed goes a long way.

No More DOMA!

1pm, Wednesday 26 June 2013

 

Today, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that DOMA (Defence of Marriage Act) is unconstitutional.

 

Clearly, marriage needs defending. Marriage needs defending from all the straight people who, while taking their right to marry for granted, are very adept at screwing it up.

5-minute Vomit

1. Where the hell did all the crazies come from and how do we make them go back to their mental health institutions?

2. My adoration of corsets and Steampunk does NOT make it ok to bring back Victorian morals and social policy. I'm rather fond of (nominally) getting paid equally, owning property (versus being property), wearing pants if I want, voting, and the right to consensual sex (and ONLY consensual sex) with whichever consenting adults I deem worthy.

3. Using the Bible as a legal document is NOT OK. The Constitution says so.

4. Two very important words: Consenting Adults. Anything else is none of your damn business. Both of those words are absolutely inviolable, period... but beyond that, I really don't need the government looking over my bedpost.

5. Women's healthcare rights are not actually a religious freedom issue. Neither are gay rights.

6. Have any of you actually READ Leviticus? Half that stuff wasn't acceptable even 100 years ago, what makes you think it'll fly today? Oh, we're only using the bit you like? Can we trade that for the one where you can sell your extra kids to pay your bills? At least then we'd be stimulating the economy.

7. News flash: Homosexuality isn't a choice. Multiple rigorous scientific studies (published in peer-reviewed journals of international prestige) back this up. Identical twins (who have identical genetic makeup) are several times more likely to share sexual orientation than fraternal twins (who share only as much genetic material as normal siblings)... meaning that sexual orientation is genetic. The brains of gay men are wired fundamentally different from brains of straight men... meaning that sexual orientation is physiological, not psychological.

8. I'm not as proud to live in the United States as I think I should be. We are no longer world leaders where it really counts (scientific advancement and social progress).

9. We think it's fundamentally wrong for Islamic theocracies to use the Q'uran as the law. But it's ok to make laws based on the Bible.

10. If condoms were $100 a box and had serious reproductive health benefits for men that had nothing whatsoever to do with pregnancy-prevention, I'd want insurance to pay for those too.

11. Would you really make your 14-year-old daughter have her rapist's baby?

12. If nobody made a drinking game out of the GOP primaries, I'm moving to Denmark.

Thanks so much and remember to tip your waitresses.

ABO End-Of-Season Summary

So, Life caught up with me and got crazy (working 60 hours a week at 2 jobs will do that) and I didn't have time for posting. I'm a bad bad blogger, I know, but in the back of my mind, I sorta knew this would happen. *shrug* Here's a BRIEF summary of the rest of the season, as well as a link to ABO's official end-of-season summary report for more details on most of this stuff, written by my excellent boss, Sue.

The long and short of the seasons can be summed up in one word: Strange. Strange weather, strange numbers, strange species, strange notable absences, a few strange people ;) and a few strange events. Here is a semi-organized list of the things that happened this season. While most are slightly weird, many are also slightly awesome.

1. The Myrtle Warblers sorta never showed up. They have pretty consistently been our #1 capture over the 20 years the Creamer's Field Station's been in operation, and they didn't even make the top 5 this year, with only about 10% of what we normally catch.
2. Lots 'o rain in August. LOTS.
3. Species diversity was WAY up from previous years. 42 species when we usually only get 25-30. It was an 'on' year for species we only catch every couple of years. Examples:
  - Merlin
  - Green-Winged Teal
  - Golden-Crowned Kinglet
  - Brown Creeper
  - Black-Backed Woodpecker
  - American Three-Toed Woodpecker
  - Belted Kingfisher
  - Pine Siskin
4. Large numbers of uncommon species. The cool birds were almost becoming commonplace. E.g. The first BBWO had me in a squealing fit and, I was certain, earned me 'King of the Lab' status forever. The last one just got an "Ooo, cool!" Examples:
  - White-Winged Crossbills: 16 (fourteen of those were juveniles who were all in one net at the same time). Usually: 1-2 per year.
  - Brown Creeper: 3 (these are 'one every couple of years' birds)
  - Black-Backed Woodpecker: 4 (all male)
  - American Three-Toed Woodpecker: 4
  - Golden-Crowned Sparrow: 4 (a lovely male was our first migrant to arrive back in the spring)
  - Pine Siskin: 15 (I really missed these guys from when I was in Washington! When Dayna discovered the first one, there was panic. "Crap crap! What do baby Siskins look like?? I don't remember! That was 2 years ago and I don't think we got babies!! There's not a picture in the field guide and Pyle doesn't really say anything useful... do they still have yellow tails??" O.o;;;)
5. Irruptive year for Common Redpolls. This means that there was probably a very good crop of birch seeds this spring. We had 3 days with 100-300 redpolls (Common, Hoary, and a few Pine Siskins thrown in there just to keep us on our toes). Our total numbers for the season were about average from previous years, but if you take out all those redpolls, it was definitely on the low side.
6. Nothing nefarious happened during Fair Week, e.g. the PortaPotty was still standing up and in its rightful spot, but there was a fire extinguisher incident 2 days after Fair Week. Go figure.
7. Lots of awesome volunteers, quite a few of whom were brand-new in the spring, and several of whom got 'Trial By Fire' when the Redpoll Hoard descended.
8. Three amazing interns, Julie, Mitch, and Josh... all of whom we were/are willing to manipulate and/or blackmail and/or bribe to make them come back next year. ;)
9. Snow flurries on the last day of banding. :)
10. And last, but certainly not least: an excellent boss in Sue, and amazing co-workers in Dayna, Lila, and Tricia.

ABO Winter Newsletter. The banding station season summary is on page 3. http://www.alaskabird.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/winter2011.pdf

Week on the Denali Highway! Day 1

For those of you non-Alaskans who are unfamiliar with this little jewel of a road, let me explain the appeal. The 146-mile-long Denali Highway cuts east/west across the south-central part of the state between Fairbanks and Anchorage. It connects the Parks Highway (to Anchorage) at Cantwell and the Richardson Highway (to Valdez) at Paxson, just south of the Alaska Range. It is paved for about 10 miles on the Paxson side and about 5 miles on the Cantwell side, and the rest is a well-maintained gravel road. At Cantwell, if you go east you end up on the Denali highway, and if you go west you enter Denali National Park (Denali/Mt. McKinley is quite a bit west of the rest of the taller peaks of the Alaska Range).

The cool thing about the highway is that you’re able to camp pretty much anywhere there’s enough of a break in the willows and dwarf birch to pitch a tent. Willows are a pebble in the metaphorical hiking boot of every Alaskan field biologist. Occasionally painful but always irritating until they go away. They can also, on occasion, contain bears. Or moose. Pebbles can’t do that, metaphorical or otherwise. There are also actual campgrounds with parking areas and fire-pits and bathrooms and RV hook-up thingies scattered throughout.

Also, and most importantly: the Denali Highway and the bits of the Parks and Richardson Highways leading into it are the most beautiful stretches of road in Interior Alaska. Ask anybody.

I drove down on Sunday afternoon. I made pretty good time (4 hours exactly), stopping only once to fight with my computer about why my iPod only contained the first dozen parts of the audiobook I was listening to, instead of all 60 or so. Sue and her crew were set up near the McLaren River Lodge (mile 42 from Paxson), so I took the Richardson Highway through Delta Junction. I’d made that drive before, in 2007 when I was working for the Mammalogy department of the UA Museum of the North but I wasn’t driving, so I was most likely asleep in the back of the van and missed a good portion of the scenery. It was fun to drive past those old field sites and wonder if the pikas were still there.

The crew had set up camp right across the road from the McLaren River Lodge. The lodge is right next to the McLaren River bridge, and if you look up the river valley, you can see the McLaren Glacier that feeds the river. On a clear day, you can also see the Alaska Range (most notably, Mt. Hayes), but Sunday was not one of those days. Neither was today. The lodge owners were kind enough to let the crew use their bathrooms, showers, and WiFi in exchange for small favors during the summer.

I discovered around this point that my camera batteries were as good as dead and I didn’t have any replacements. The remaining photos are mostly from other folks’ cameras.

I decided that the best-looking spot to camp (fewest plants to deal with) was down right next to the river. This is my tent’s maiden voyage, so hopefully the river won’t rush up and carry it off. By the time I’d gotten situated, it was about 8pm and definitely time for bed. I had a hard time finding a happy medium between covering my head and eyes with my sleeping bag to block out the light and not suffocating myself. The constant light is a bit harder to deal with when you don’t have a window you can just throw a blanket over to create bedroom darkness.

The 2:30am alarm on my cell phone came rudely early. In the summer at these latitudes, dusk and dawn run right into each other, so this was just an undefined partial light. Get up, put shoes on, stumble blearily (without glasses, left them in the car) to the bathroom for contacts and morning ablutions, walk back to tent, get dressed, pack the vehicles, grab breakfast and coffee for the road. We were pulling out of camp at 3:30.

The Denali Highway crew includes Sue, 2 field techs (Harley and Cassandra) and 2 interns (Dan and Mitch), as well as Harley’s wife and 4 children (ages 18-months-ish to 10-ish), and Sue’s very sweet black Lab-ish dog named Phoebe. Sue had been doing target netting and color banding while the techs and interns did nest searching and monitoring and a few other things. I went with Sue to help her with the banding.

Target netting was a new experience for me. It involves listening for where the birds are active, picking a spot, setting up one or two portable mist nets, and playing calls and songs to encourage the birds into the net. At this point in the season when the females are incubating eggs or brooding young and the males are actively guarding their territories, simulating a trespasser or invader is a pretty sure-fire way to get at least the males to come close enough to investigate.

The point of color-banding is to aid in the recognition of individuals without needing to capture them. It also helps to sex monomorphic species when breeding characters aren’t visible without capture. A numbered aluminum band can only be read when the bird is in hand, while a 3-color combination plus the aluminum band is recognizable from far away. For example, that Savannah Sparrow over there has a red band over his aluminum one on his right leg and green over yellow on his left leg, while his neighbor across the way has red over aluminum on his right leg (also) and orange over blue on his left leg. These bright colors are easily visible with binoculars. This can also help identify which nest belongs to which female and which male is feeding her and how far his territory extends. All of this is dependent upon being able to differentiate individuals (and sex) at a distance.

Our first morning (on Study Plot #3) was quite successful. We caught 4 at the first place we stopped, 5 more at the second, and another 4 at the third for a grand total of 13 birds (all male) of 6 species: SAVS, ATSP, GWCS, WIWA, BLPW, and ARWA. This was very exciting because the crew had just started hearing Arctic Warblers on any of the plots on Friday, and we caught 2 of them. ARWA’s winter in the Philippines and are the last migrants to arrive in the Interior... they’re also the first to leave, with the females building nests, mating, laying and incubating the eggs, feeding, brooding and fledging the young and getting them ready to migrate, all in as little as 6 weeks. Very little is known about their breeding ecology, which is what this project is designed to rectify.

Week of Data Entry

An important and necessary part of the scientific process...

Monday: meeting with Sue, to-do lists made. Proof and enter banding and phenology data, repair nets and replace the ones too damaged to fix, adjust support ropes, trim net-lanes, catalogue and fix chest-waders, set up fall nets (8-10, 12, 14-16, 22), fix trail to nets 8-10, put together banding kits #2 & #3, set up data binders for fall, print fall data sheets (banding, summary, phenology). I will be going to the Denali Highway to help Sue the week of June 13-17, and Dayna will be gone doing point-counts for the last week of June.

Done: 7 data sheets (0A)

Tuesday: went for sushi lunch with Sue, Dayna, and Tricia for Dayna’s birthday. Serious yum happened.

Done: 7 data sheets (0A, 0, 1)

Female White-Winged Crossbill!

Wednesday: banding! Slow-ish, fairly normal day, a bit rainy during closing. Around the middle of the day, two of my volunteers came back to the tent after a net run, handed me some bird bags, and immediately started pouring over the field guides. “We’re pretty sure we’ve got something cool, but we anted to check first.” Much to my nerd-ish glee, I pulled a White-Winged Crossbill (WWCR) out of the indicated bird bag. Awesome-bird-cookies to Paige and Karen! It was a female (generally yellow, males are generally red) with a nice-looking brood patch. We tried valiantly to find her man-friend, but to no avail. Her upper mandible crossed to the left. I heard somewhere that crossbills’ bills can cross either direction. They use the crossed-ness to pry open conifer cones (Black and White Spruce here in Fairbanks) for the seeds. White-Winged Crossbill was a new bird for me, both for banding and in-hand. ^__^

(Wednesday 8 June) Banding Summary: 17 birds, 8 species (AMRO, SCJU, CORE, YWAR, MYWA, HAFL, NOWA, BCCH, WWCR).

Thursday: more data entry.

Done: 8 data sheets (1, 1B, 1A, 2, Recap)

Friday: more data entry and Denali Highway packing lists. I am a compulsive list-maker.

Done: 6 data sheets (0A, Recap)

Saturday: banding again! Very slow and nothing much of interest.

(Saturday 11 June) Banding Summary: 10 birds, 8 species (NOWA, AMRO, BCCH, HAFL, OCWA, LISP, MYWAY, SCJU).

Last Week of Spring Banding!

Swainson's Thrush wants to
know what you're doing.
Photo by Barbara Logan.

(Tuesday 31 May) Banding Summary: 19 birds, 7 species


(Wednesday 1 June) Banding Summary: 12 birds, 5 species

On Wednesday, nets 27 and 28 were closed down with trammel issues, so I fixed those on Thursday. Net 18 was closed on Wednesday as well for a possible predation. I left it closed for both Thursday and Friday just so Mister Squirrel doesn't get any more ideas.

American Robin.
Photo by Barbara Logan.

It rained briefly and lightly around 7:00, and other than the clouds of mosquitoes, the day ran pretty smoothly.

(Thursday 2 June) Banding Summary: 15 birds, 7 species

On Friday, Aunt Judy was back at the station, and it was good to catch up with her! It got pretty windy later in the day, so we closed down nets 7 and 11.

Baby Gray Jay!

Cool/awesome/amazing bird of the day: BABY GRAY JAY. 'nuff said. We also had a male Rusty Blackbird and a Solitary Sandpiper at closing while a visitor was at the station. I love having awesome birds for visitors! ...when it's slow, I love having any birds for visitors, actually... ;)

*GLARE* Photo by Barbara Logan.

We age corvids (the family that includes jays, crows, ravens, and magpies) by the color of the inside of their mouths. Adults are the same slate-gray on the inside as on the outside. Babies' (and young-of-the-year that are out of their distinctive juvenal plumage) mouths are varying degrees of Barbie-pink on the inside. This guy was in full-on juvenal plumage (the solid dark gray), and his mouth was an embarrassing color of bright pink. In response to a texted photo, Virginia said he looked like a shoe-brush. I can only assume that this was in reference to his uber-fluffiness, not an actual resemblance.

Pink mouth!

Biting Cheyanna.

My volunteers bring me the best presents! ^____^

(Friday 3 June) Banding Summary: 14 birds, 12 species

Dayna wasn't feeling well and it looked like rain was imminent (it did rain about an hour later), so we cancelled banding on Saturday.

And now she doesn't want to leave!
Photo by Barbara Logan

During the summer, we operate on 5-day periods so we don't bug the brooding females and babies more than is necessary. This means that we'll band once within each of our 5-day periods, but not necessarily every 5 days. Our schedule will depend on Dayna's and my schedules for various other projects.

And so begins Summer banding... and Summer office work and net repair and various preparations for the craziness that is Fall banding!