Friday, May 7, 2010

“'The pill' turns 50: debate continues over cultural ... - Allentown Morning Call” plus 3 more

“'The pill' turns 50: debate continues over cultural ... - Allentown Morning Call” plus 3 more

'The pill' turns 50: debate continues over cultural ... - Allentown Morning Call

Posted: 07 May 2010 02:30 AM PDT

CHICAGO (AP) — A world without "the pill" is unimaginable to many young women who now use it to treat acne, skip periods, improve mood and, of course, prevent pregnancy. They might be surprised to learn that U.S. officials announcing approval of the world's first oral contraceptive were uncomfortable.

"... Our own ideas of morality had nothing to do with the case," said John Harvey of the Food and Drug Administration in 1960.

The pill was safe, in other words. Don't blame us if you think it's wicked.

Sunday, Mother's Day, is the 50th anniversary of that provocative announcement that introduced to the world what is now widely acknowledged as one of the most important inventions of the last century.

The world has changed, but it's debatable what part the birth control pill played. Some experts think it gets too much credit or blame for the sexual revolution. After all, sex outside of marriage wasn't new in 1960.

The pill definitely changed sex though, giving women more control over their fertility than they'd ever had before and permanently putting doctors — who previously didn't see contraceptives as part of their job — in the birth control picture.

But some things haven't changed. Now as then, a male birth control pill is still on the drawing board.

"There's a joke in this field that a male pill is always five to seven years away from the market, and that's what people have been saying since 1960," said Andrea Tone, a history professor at Montreal's McGill University and author of "Devices and Desires: A History of Contraception in America."

The pill is America's favorite form of reversible birth control. (Sterilization is the leader overall.) Nearly a third of women who want to prevent unwanted pregnancies use it. "In 2008, Americans spent more than $3.5 billion on birth control pills," Tone said, "and we've gone from the one pill to 40 different brands."

There are Yaz, Yasmin, Seasonale, Seasonique and Lybrel — all with slightly different packaging, formulations and selling points. Lybrel is the first pill designed to eliminate menstrual periods entirely, although gynecologists say any generic can do the same thing if you skip the placebo and take the active pill every day.

In the 1960s, anthropologist Ashley Montagu thought the birth control pill was as important as the discovery of fire. Turns out it wasn't the answer to overpopulation, war and poverty, as some of its early advocates had hoped. Nor did it universally save marriages.

"Married couples could have happier sex with more freedom and less fear. The divorce rate might go down and there would be no more unwanted pregnancies," said Elaine Tyler May, 62, a University of Minnesota history professor who wrote "America and the Pill.

"None of those things happened, not the optimistic hopes or the pessimistic fears of sexual anarchy," she said.

And it didn't eliminate all unwanted pregnancies either. Nearly half of all pregnancies to U.S. women are unintended and nearly half of those end in abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which has gathered data on abortions for years.

The pill is often associated with the women's movement of the 1970s. But the two feminists behind the pill, the ones who provided the intellectual spark and the financial backing, were born a century earlier, in the 1870s.

As suffragists worked for the vote, renowned birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger distributed pamphlets with contraceptive advice and dreamed of a magic pill to prevent pregnancy.

Her grandson, Alex Sanger, 62, now chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council, remembers playing catch as a boy with his famous grandmother and eating her firehouse-spicy food.

"My grandmother had the idea for the pill back in 1912 when she was working on the lower East Side of New York," Alex Sanger said. "She saw women resorting to back alley, illegal abortions. One too many of these women died in her arms and she said 'Enough.'

Katharine McCormick, a philanthropist with a science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bankrolled the work of Gregory Pincus, the man Sanger convinced to develop the pill. "It was my grandmother's idea and Katharine McCormick's money," Alex Sanger said.

Ironically, when health hazards of the early pill arose — high levels of hormones caused blood clots in some women — young feminists protested that men had invented it and turned women into unwitting guinea pigs.

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Wisconsin Extends Deal with Chiba, Japan - Today's TMJ4

Posted: 07 May 2010 03:49 AM PDT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A 20-year-old agreement between Wisconsin and Chiba, Japan, has been reaffirmed.

Gov. Jim Doyle and Chiba Gov. Kensaku Morita signed a reaffirmation of the agreement in Madison on Thursday.

Doyle's office says over the past two decades Wisconsin and Chiba have used the partnership to promote and develop education, technological and scientific exchanges, and cultural awareness and understanding.

Over the years Doyle says they have jointly promoted a variety of investments, worked together on educational exchange programs and shared cultural delegations.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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'Babies' winks at cultural differences - Nashville Tennessean

Posted: 07 May 2010 12:07 AM PDT

There's not a lot of novelty to the notion that mewling, puking, peeing infants are the same the world over. Of course they are. Been there, done that, still have the poop-stained T-shirt to prove it.

They're universally picky eaters, even in their breast-feeding days. Moms burp them the same from Namibia to Mongolia, Tokyo to San Francisco. They teach them to walk and keep them out of harm's way even if, in some cultures, their notion of "harm" wouldn't pass muster with the alphabet soup of federal agencies that act as surrogate moms here in the Western world.

Babies is a French-made documentary about babies from those four corners of the world — Namibia (on the dusty, fly-covered plains of Africa), Mongolia (on the dusty, fly-covered steppes of Asia), Tokyo and San Francisco. With no narration, no subtitles and little language at all, this makes for a charming visual contrast in the ways of getting a child through that first year of life.

That first year, a wise father-friend once said, "You're on constant suicide watch." And that view, with all the technology from birth onward to back it up, shows up in the San Francisco scenes where Hattie comes into this world. It's reinforced in Tokyo, where Mari is surrounded by toys and goes from breast feeding to sushi in short order.

But in Africa, Ponijao pounds rocks in imitation of mom's grain-grinding, slurps water directly out of rivers, pops everything and anything into his mouth and is none the worse for wear. Doting moms there offer bare breasts, break up fights and demonstrate that it really does "take a village."

In Mongolia, bundled up Bayar rides home from the hospital on a motorcycle with mom and dad — not a helmet between them. They set up their yurt and Bayar endures sibling rivalry and the cat endures his yanking and poking.

Cats and dogs all over the world suffer the newborns with the same resigned patience. And big brothers jab or yank the new sibling until it cries and then don the universal "Who me?" look.

Director Thomas Balmes and his editors find moments of humor in "discoveries" or the unfettered urinating of a baby brought up without diapers.

But the message here is contained in the biggest laugh in Babies — affluent, coddled San Francisco Hattie's learning "The Earth is our mother" song at a mother-child sing along. Look for an American child-rearing cliche and you're sure to find one.

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Multi-Cultural Center gets interim director after Qadir ... - Argus Leader

Posted: 04 May 2010 02:44 PM PDT

An interim director has been chosen to lead the Multi-Cultural Center of Sioux Falls, but his identity is a mystery for now.

The center's executive director Qadir Aware resigned last week after months of controversy, which included the departures of the board's four top officers and Aware's earlier suspension.

Two reports from consultants who worked with the center were critical of its management.

Now, the interim director has met with some people in the community but the board has not yet announced who he is.

The position is seen as key as the board searches for Aware's replacement.

"We have so many programs going, we need somebody there who can oversee them," says Dr. Jerry Walton, a board member who served as president for nine years. "It's critical for us."

For more on this story, see Wednesday's Argus Leader.

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