Welcome to the Tuesday Roundup. Such as it is. Rather than our usually cheerful stroll down the blogroll and I offering instead a brief trudge to one or two locations.
I am feeling less than upbeat today. You ever have one of those days where there's just so much Mean and Stupid out there that even the air tastes bad?
Yeah. Me too.
Well, let's start with some concentrated mean and stupid. Sandmonkey has a post up on a new medical innovation that's causing an uproar in Egypt (language alert):
The Egyptian Parliament is in uproar, the newspapers can’t seem to stop talking about the impending crisis, which spells doom and gloom to the Egyptian society. But what is the issue that is uniting the Egyptian opposition and the government, and is so urgent that it took not one, but two session of the parliament to discuss? Unemployment? Food Riots? Swineflu? The Jooz, again? No, the answer is far more sinister than that, and it even has a sinister Japanese sounding name to accompany it: GIGIMO. And ladies and gentlemen, it’s a hymen.
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Proving one more time that when it comes to Muslim women, it’s what’s between their legs, Egypt is simmering over a Chinese device that fakes female virginity. The device is reportedly available in Syria for $15 and is quite popular. No one knows if the device is being sold in Egypt yet, but just the mere thought of a device, which is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a woman to fake virginity on her wedding night, has driven the conservative society crazy.
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This obsession with virginity is both shallow and deadly. And you know what? People in Egypt are having sex outside of marriage, as they do everywhere. Never mind that 25% of all women are born without hymens either, or that Hymen reconstruction surgery is still an option for sexually active women who could afford it. But the danger of GIGIMO is its utter cheapness. Honor, it seems, was only worth 15 dollars at the end of the day.
Yes, it's available for purchase on the Internet. Not on Amazon yet, though.
Give them time.
Shuffling onward, at today's Eeyore pace...
The Firebrand continues her praiseworthy analysis of health care reform. Her post "Reading list for the essential Exchange" gives thorough coverage to one of the least-understood concepts in the health care debate: the Insurance Exchange. It presents the concept from several different viewpoints, linking to many different authors and materials. Worth a read.
Speaking of one's health, Jules Crittenden continues his shape-up series of posts with Danger Zone!:
It’s the horrible nexus of holidays and winter, arriving right around the time that you might be losing a little steam from your summer/spring startup. Finding it a little harder to get out and work out. The kids just brought home bags of Halloween candy and there will be more piled up at work. What are you going to do, not eat it?
His prescription for the winter blahs? Cross-country skiing:
I like cross-country. Less crowded, less noisy, less filthy and a lot cheaper … four people can rent and ski for less than it costs one person to do the same at a downhill place. If you own your own gear, you can do it for free. It’s also a lot warmer. Anything you go ski to come down, you have to climb up first. It is one of the greatest full body workouts ever invented. I got back to it and introduced my kids to it over the last couple of years. All the people we passed had smiles on their faces like they were high. Which some of the older hippy-looking ones might have been. And there were a lot of old people out there, along with families and the Spandex-wearing hyperathletic skaters. Very short learning curve for beginners. This is healthy, lifelong exercise that will make you want to get outside in the dead of winter, burn calories like no one’s business, and really earn your meal and your beer at the end of the day.
Not having access to any cross-country skiing venues, I'll stick to my Nordictrak when the weather gets too ugly to jog. Yes, I actually still have one of those. And yes, I actually still use it regularly. I think short of setting fire to them or tossing them off a cliff, they just don't break much.
Rick Lee gives us this picture of snow-making at a ski resort:
Perhaps I will just look at it while I'm on the Nordictrak and making shooshing sounds.
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