Fran

Tell that to the 100 women in the UK alone who still DIE every year from pregnancy and childbirth. Source: a consultant gynaecologist. The other complications associated with pregnancy are: Backache - the back can be permanently weakened by pregnancy often resulting in long-term back problems, made worse by weakened abdominal muscles caused by carrying all that extra weight Preeclampsia - this one is a killer Varicose veins Post-natal depression which can last for years Morning sickness - if the woman can't keep anything down it is her body that is depleted of mineral stores, which could lead to osteoporosis in later life Incontinence - birth weakens the vaginal muscles Reduced Sexual enjoyment - weakening of the vaginal muscles may result in loss of sexual enjoyment for the woman Gestational diabetes - goes after birth but increases your chances of getting diabetes in later life Massive weight gain which is often hard to shift post-birth Heartburn Haemorrhoids Stretch marks And let's not forget how excruciatingly painful the birth process is - which can last for days! If a Caesarean is needed, this is major surgery and can take 6-18 months to recover from I'd like recognition of the fact that pregnancy has hugely negative effects on the women's body - it's not merely 'a semester of school' inconvenience! This is why I view carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term is self-sacrifice on the part of the woman. Okay, so if she becomes pregnant she's partly responsible because she had sex whilst using contraception - so she should be self-sacrificial again and never have sex just in case she becomes pregnant? Let's give up one of the most wonderful things a human being can experience for the sake of someone else?

I'm a big fan of Echinacea available as a tincture or tablets (never tried the tablets) - if I take it when I'm just starting to come down with a cold, I usually don't get one. Kori, I don't know what you eat, but if you live on junk food, your body isn't getting the nutrients it needs to fight off colds (and supplements aren't really a viable substitute).

Blimey! I'm just trying to figure out how this evolved - seeing as it's against our genes' best interest for the woman to give oral sex :devil: Ah ha. Preeclampsia only happens when a woman is pregnant, so maybe giving oral sex was a way of preventing her sexually-frustrated partner from wandering off, never to return, during the last few months of pregnancy... and meant she and her unborn child didn't die from this condition...

I do have one further point about abortion. Imagine this scenario: Say, for good reasons, a woman decides that she wants to have an abortion after the legal termination date. Her partner dies or has left her and she doesn't feel able or is willing to bring up a child alone. She would like to have an abortion but is prevented from doing so. She is now carrying a developing foetus that she does not want. Sure she could put it up for adoption once it's born. Then the birth kills her. If she had been able to abort when she wanted she would not have died. This sounds horribly like the worst kind of self-sacrifice to me. To risk your life for a child that you want is obviously considered worthwhile for many women, to risk your life for a child that you do not want is self-sacrifice. 1 in 10,000 women still die in pregnancy and childbirth. Thanks to modern technology, babies who are born up to 16 weeks premature can survive outside of the woman's body. If a woman wants to abort within the last 4 months, do we induce birth in a way that will allow the baby to survive (my knowledge on this is limited so it might not be feasible), and hope that someone will want to adopt it? Although babies who are born up to 16 weeks premature can survive, a psychologist friend of mine was telling me that virtually all premature babies have some form of learning disability, even if brain damage doesn't show up on MRI or CAT scans. I guess the more premature the baby is, the higher the risk of brain damage. For clarity, a birth that is up to 5-weeks early is considered pre-term rather than premature and I'm guessing that the risks of brain damage don't apply. I would like those who are forcefully against termination after a certain date, consider first what it would be like if it was THEIR life that was being put at risk for another person. Objectivists do not expect us to risk our lives for strangers, a stranger who will die if we don't intervene but the risk to ourselves is too great to help them, but do we expect women to risk their lives for a developing human?

Here's a link to an interesting article about having children and happiness. According to studies that have been done, children do not bring us happiness, instead they have a small negative impact on our happiness. Couples start out happy when they are first married and their happiness decreases when they have children and then increases again when their children leave home. http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/bl...ll_heroin8.html This for me is an even more compelling reason not to have children - evolution doesn't give a damn about my level of happiness, all it cares about is that I reproduce! Happily, for the first time in human history I live in a society where I can beat evolution.

I have often thought this as well. Isn't it weird the pleasure we get from an entirely different species, who speaks a completely different language to us?

Angie, boy doggies hump legs and sniff crotches; in my (albeit limited) experience girl doggies don't do this. Well, most of the time; occasionally Flo forgets that we're both girls and different species to boot, and tries to hump my leg and sniff my crotch, but mostly she's just utterly adorable. I guess what I was trying to say is that traits you may find undesirable in a dog - possessiveness, leg-humping, leg-spraying, sniff-crotching, wandering, sex-starved-crazed - are pretty much absence in a bitch. Bitches are also more family oriented. Having had a dog and experienced my sister's bitch (Flo), I will definitely be getting a bitch next time. Girl doggies are just my personal preference. Boy-doggies are still gorgeous too. Also with respect to having to walk a dog, the duration depends on the breed and size. E.g. if you get a Chihuahua you'd probably not need to walk it much... Here endeth my 'get-a-dog' campaign - and before you ask, Victor didn't put me up to this either

Gorillas - couldn't for the life of me remember the spelling of it last night - and when I googled guerillas in the mist (film I could remember - the spelling came out as this, so put it down). Ho hum - shamed in public

I went to a similar event in London about 6 years ago - there's something very unnerving about seeing bodies that were living people until just a short time ago. We are so isolated from death these days - although I have to admit to being relieved about this - having watched my dog being put to sleep I never want to experience anything like it, ever again. What was very poignant was a 7 month pregnant woman with her abdomen sliced open to reveal the foetus (not sure about the background i.e. why they couldn't rescue the baby). I was particularly in awe of the human rider atop a horse - the difference in muscle strength was staggering - a puny human controlling an incredibly powerful beast.

Dogs - particularly Weimaraners and mongrels. My sister has a Weimaraner called Flo and she is absolutely adorable. I love that dog to bits and I do believe that she loves me to bits too Cheetahs - I just love how fast they can run - they're an amazing physcial running machine. Furry bunnies - their fur is so soft that stroking them sends me into ecstasy. Dolphins and whales because they're so intelligent. Guinea-pigs - cute, vocal and funny. Duck-billed Platypus - they're monotremes: egg-laying mammals - only 3 species of monotremes left on the planet which makes them pretty unique as well as rather odd. Gorillas Snakes, except for poisonous ones (for obvious reasons). The strange, weird, odd-ball ones that make you wonder how the heck they evolved. If we're including fish: coelocanths - that is one evolutionary success story! If we're including amphibians: frogs. We had some in our pond when I was a kid and I used to pick them up and put them on the side of the pond. I also enjoy listening to and watching them. I also really like earthworms - and seeing as my life depends upon them - most insects. Edit - corrected my spelling of gorillas - couldn't remember how to spell it last night and my quick check didn't help me.

After I graduated from my Biology degree I took a one-year A-Level English evening class ('98-'99), as I had always wanted to do English. I had a teacher who picked books that I found life-alienating rather than life-affirming. His response to my protests that we weren't reading any positive books, was that positive books are just unrealistic. He was a smart guy too - graduated from Oxford. These are the books we read: King Lear (Shakespeare, but a tragedy nonetheless) Frankenstein (not what you would call a happy, uplifting book) Things Fall Apart (pretty tragic) Talking Heads (loathed, despised and detested this book - full of tragic monologues about everyday people) Murmuring Judges (a play - similarly as life-detesting as the above book) Modern Poetry (I found this very dull - I thought that I disliked poetry until I read some classic stuff. Annoyingly my teacher had the option of choosing between modern and classic stuff and he chose modern. Also, if it doesn't rhyme it ain't poetry it's prose) God, they were depressing to read. I really needed something more uplifting. There are loads of great classics out there - like 'Cold Comfort Farm' an off-the-wall favourite of mine - why couldn't we have read some of them??!

Does anybody know if Barbara Branden is giving a talk at this year's summer seminar - I really enjoyed her talk last year and I'm hoping so. Of course she can always answer for herself if she's online??

Wow, Ciro, your restaurant looks amazing! If there's a trip to Ciro's during the summer seminar -count me in!

"Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year." "Birthdays are good for you: the more you have, the longer you live." From the signature line of a poster on Outpost Gallifrey (Doctor Who)

National Rifle Association. Shooting enthusiasts. I went to the National Convention last year in Milwaukee and I'm going again this year in St. Louis. Major shopping opportunity. Vendors from every major firearms manufacturer and accessory manufacturer come to a vast hall that one can't thoroughly investigate even in the three days of the convention. Last year I picked out my sporting clays over-under shotgun, and this year I hope to pick out a rifle and a scope. You can't actually buy firearms there, but you can look them over and decide what you want, and you CAN buy accessories. I came home last year with shooting glasses, holsters, a gun case, little carved ducklings, clothes, books, and I forget what else. :hyper: Judith Sounds like brilliant fun! I've never been clay-pigeon shooting but would love to try it - maybe we could have a chat about it at this year's summer conf? I did some range shooting when I was in the air cadets as a teenager - I really enjoyed it, although I remember the .22 rifles we were shooting being bloody heavy.

A smoking ban in public places is being proposed in the UK. A part of me is breathing a huge sigh of relief. I hate being in smokey places or anywhere near someone who is smoking (even in the street). Being in a smoke-filled room makes my eyes smart, my hair and clothes stink, my lungs hurt and is potentially very damaging to my health (the extent of which is still under debate). Whilst I realise that I can choose not to go to places where people are likely to be smoking, this severely restricts where I go. This used to exclude most restaurants, all clubs, pubs and bars, and before they banned it, workplaces, cinemas. In the UK they have non-smoking areas, which are not sectioned off by any kind of solid partition so the smoke from the smoking area just drifts over... However, as I do want to live in a free society, and people's freedom to choose is really important to me, I'm wondering if there is a way round this problem; where I can go to clean-air places and smokers can go to places where they can smoke, without government enforcement? I know that no business is obliged to make any part of their premises smoking or smoke-free; I just wonder if the non-smoking two thirds of the population don't complain enough about smokey environments for businesses to consider creating more proper smoke-free places? I read somewhere that since the smoking ban came into force in Scotland, the trade in restaurants and bars has increased rather than decrease - this doesn't surprise me given the percentage of non-smokers. Any suggestions for how in a free society non-smokers could get their need for clean air met, and smokers a place to smoke without infuriating each other?

Yes! That's it - I do believe that a more commonsense approach towards philosophy could work. And I like the concept of cultural osmosis with respect to this - if the philosophy becomes viewed as commonsense, then it can quickly become integrated into everyday actions. Oooh, we get them through the back-door... I think arguing from authority would certainly help get SJs on board too. Thanks Judith, you've really aided my learning Ditto for stuff on SPs. One question: what does NRA stand for?

Michael I've checked my photos from last year's conference and, sadly, I don't have any of Chris I didn't go to Disney World with them on the free day, otherwise I would have had a ton. I would LOVE to see Chris' charicature! Fran

Hi Chris Saddened to hear about your stroke - what a shock! I hope that you're getting all of the emotional, as well as medical, support you need. All the best for a speedy and full recovery, and thanks for letting us know. Lots of de-stressing, 'Elastigirl' (long-distance), hugs coming your way Fran

For clarity purposes, this post is aimed specifically at people who already have an understanding of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and I am assuming this knowledge in my post. To aid my own learning and understanding on my proposed topic, I would particularly value receiving feedback from OL people who have an in-depth knowledge of both O'ism and MBTI. I have been mulling over the attraction of O'ism for NTs and the almost complete lack of Sensing Types who are interested/involved in this philosophy, since talking with a friend about this at last year's TOC conference. He hypothesized that if we were to ask all the attendees to complete the MBTI personality questionnaire, nearly everybody would come out as an NT with a few NFs (me and a male friend) and no Sensing types. I think his hypothesis is accurate and that there is a very good reason for this lack. My understanding is that NTs love abstract thought and pondering what is possible, whereas Sensing Types are not interested in abstract ideas, they like things which are concrete and practical. I think Sensing Types like a set of rules to follow - something which religion provides, and that this is one reason why religion is still so prevalent in the world today. NTs make up approximately 12% of the general population (roughly the same as NFs). Sensing Types make up 75%. We therefore have a philosophy which is only appealing to potentially 12% of the population, and religions that are appealing to the other 75%. In a democracy this causes us a big problem with regards to change. If we can appeal to every single NT out there - we would still have way less than a majority. I propose that because Sensing Types value things that are practical and concrete, until philosophy can provide these people with a set of rules to follow, this 75% of the population will continue to look for teachings that do - i.e. religions, or similar. Therefore, if we are to move the general population away from the anti-life teachings of religion, would it be better to provide them with an 'objective' set of 'principles to live by', rather than trying to attract them with a philosophy that's probably unappealing to them? Yes, I know that people need to think about what they're doing in everyday life, but I would rather people follow these principles as a step TOWARDS more independent and objective thinking and hopefully higher self-esteem; rather than religious teachings which frown upon independent thought and are destructive to healthy self-esteem. By a set of principles to live by, I'm thinking along the lines of do's and don't's with simple, straightforward, objective reasons as to why. If these do's and don't's are worded in a way that champions respect for others' rights; productivity; honesty; self-esteem; free-thinking individuals; taking full responsibility for one's actions and not blaming others or trying to get them to compensate for our actions; etc., then they would, hopefully, help prosper a society with more life-serving values. Thank you for your time, it is appreciated, and I welcome hearing your thoughts on this. Edit: on suggestion from a friend, changed 'commandments' to 'principles to live by' as this is more in line with what I was aiming for. Also given further clarification as to whom my post is primarily addressed.

Hi Roger, Just come across this so I would like to offer my belated congratulations. Glad that you're getting some well-deserved recognition for your musical talents. One of the things that I appreciate most about O'ists is that they're willing to tell everybody - i.e. the whole world, seeing as we're on the internet - about how great they are! All the best Fran

Hi Victor In the meantime, have you considered trying to sell your art on ebay? Just a thought, I'm sure they must have an art section and you could always try selling your first one with a reserve. Best Fran

Hi Victor, Yes, I have been considering it. I'm tired of living in the UK - the current government seems hell-bent on turning the country into a dictatorship. I am not exaggerating. UK citizens are spied upon by their government more than any other country in the world, bar China and Russia. I'm living in Cyprus at the moment because they joined the EU in 2005, making it as easy for me to live here as it would be for me to live in the UK (I knew there had to be something wortwhile about the EU). Cyprus is a zillion times freer than the UK, it has a gorgeous climate, little crime, yummy food, and the people are lovely. They also speak good English - which is good news for me as my Cypriot-Greek is non-existent. The only major headache is trying to figure out what some things are when I go shopping - the Greek alphabet means that I can't even make an educated guess! I'm very interested to hear how things go with your immigration - I do hope that it all goes smoothly and you're living in the USA in no time. Fran

Hi Charles The Green Card quota for UK immigrants had exceeded so many thousands over the previous five years, so they weren't giving out any at all last year. I'm not sure how long the exclusion will last for. I'll check on the website again sometime this year to see if anything has changed. Fran

Hi Victor Congratulations! All the best with your immigration to the USA - I hope it all works out well for you. Wishing you and Angie a lifetime of happiness together I'm interested in hearing what you have to do to immigrate - I'm guessing that it's easier for Canadians than UK citizens - last year when I checked, they weren't even giving out Green Cards to UK citizens. Fran