CNN Starting Point
Aug. 22nd, 2012 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckAt the dentist, they had CNN Starting Point up on the flatscreen with the CC on (no sound).
Is CNN a quality news outlet?
They were very - ahem - excited to show the naked pics of Prince Harry. Well. One of them, anyway. They made it drift around the screen, with a blurred, graphic based on the picture in the background. Then they had a little conversation about how restrained the British tabloid press was being about the scandal. "Unusually restrained." "Remarkably restrained." And the picture continued to drift around the screen. They also noted that we "might recall" the hacking scandal. Now, as this was in CC, I dind't have any voice cues, but to suggest that the hacking scandal is something limited and over that we "might recall" seems inane, considering how it has shaken the foundations of the Fox News empire, brought repeated hearings in Pariment, including testimony by the Murdochs themselves. This story is quite active on NPR, with recent items on July 24 and August 16. But maybe this is a quibble - maybe it was a droll, British, "as one might recall," meaning of COURSE one recalls that, how silly to even bring it up...
They also had a story on Akin. I don't understand why it keeps getting called the "legitimate rape" story. I don't care about his use of the word legitimate. I am concerned that he thinks a rape victim rarely gets pregnant. This should be the "pregnancy immunity" story or something. Srsly.
I was also supremely unimpressed by the plasticness of the women at the roundtable. Perfect hair. Perfect make-up. Pretty dresses. I realize I shouldn't hate you because you are beautiful, but I sort of do hate you, for being (one presumes) smart, analytical, and still bowing to the pressure to be perfectly coiffed and prettily feminine in all the most stereotypical ways. Yes, yes, I know, you will say I am naieve about celebrity or blah blah, plus why CAN'T a smart woman be pretty, too? Because until you open your mouth, chiquita, you look like a bleached blond bimbo, that's why, and I don't understand why you WANT to be part of that social categorizing. If you WANT to be that, I think less of you. If you feel like you HAVE to be that, then shame on the entire process. (And I refuse to apologize for my bleached blond bimbo remark. Absolutely refuse.) I don't recall the female journalists on the News Hour looking that painted and waxed. Of course, the News Hour is not CNN. I guess.
In any case, presuming CNN is a quality news outlet, then GOD HELP anyone getting their news from TV. And I absolutely cry for anyone watching local news. Cry. Stick to NPR, people. You'll see less bullshit and a lot less political advertising, too. Win, win.
In other ponderings, I wonder about the rape pregnancy question. I came up with an idea that might mean that rape could be statistically less likely to end in pregnancy than consensual sex. (Women who are fertile behave differently, might choose to have more unprotected sex while fertile, and might be more likely to get pregnant than a woman who is raped at a random time in her cycle - therefore making it appear that women were somehow "fighting off" pregnancies that might otherwise be caused by "legitimate rape," when it fact it is just a statistcal anonomaly.)
Well, I toodled along to Ye Olde Internet, looking to see if statistics actually support the idea that vicitms of rape are less likely to get pregnant and VOILA! At least some research says the exact opposite! Are per-incident rape pregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates? from the journal Human Nature, Volume 14, Number 1 (2003), 1-20, DOI: 10.1007/s12110-003-1014-0
The Wikipedia article that sent me to this source says: "Adjusting for these factors, they estimated that rapes are twice as likely to result in pregnancies (6.42%) as "consensual, unprotected penile-vaginal intercourse" (2–4%); the authors discuss a variety of possible explanations and advance the hypothesis that rapists tend to target victims with biological "cues of high fecundity" and/or subtle indications of ovulation."
Is CNN a quality news outlet?
They were very - ahem - excited to show the naked pics of Prince Harry. Well. One of them, anyway. They made it drift around the screen, with a blurred, graphic based on the picture in the background. Then they had a little conversation about how restrained the British tabloid press was being about the scandal. "Unusually restrained." "Remarkably restrained." And the picture continued to drift around the screen. They also noted that we "might recall" the hacking scandal. Now, as this was in CC, I dind't have any voice cues, but to suggest that the hacking scandal is something limited and over that we "might recall" seems inane, considering how it has shaken the foundations of the Fox News empire, brought repeated hearings in Pariment, including testimony by the Murdochs themselves. This story is quite active on NPR, with recent items on July 24 and August 16. But maybe this is a quibble - maybe it was a droll, British, "as one might recall," meaning of COURSE one recalls that, how silly to even bring it up...
They also had a story on Akin. I don't understand why it keeps getting called the "legitimate rape" story. I don't care about his use of the word legitimate. I am concerned that he thinks a rape victim rarely gets pregnant. This should be the "pregnancy immunity" story or something. Srsly.
I was also supremely unimpressed by the plasticness of the women at the roundtable. Perfect hair. Perfect make-up. Pretty dresses. I realize I shouldn't hate you because you are beautiful, but I sort of do hate you, for being (one presumes) smart, analytical, and still bowing to the pressure to be perfectly coiffed and prettily feminine in all the most stereotypical ways. Yes, yes, I know, you will say I am naieve about celebrity or blah blah, plus why CAN'T a smart woman be pretty, too? Because until you open your mouth, chiquita, you look like a bleached blond bimbo, that's why, and I don't understand why you WANT to be part of that social categorizing. If you WANT to be that, I think less of you. If you feel like you HAVE to be that, then shame on the entire process. (And I refuse to apologize for my bleached blond bimbo remark. Absolutely refuse.) I don't recall the female journalists on the News Hour looking that painted and waxed. Of course, the News Hour is not CNN. I guess.
In any case, presuming CNN is a quality news outlet, then GOD HELP anyone getting their news from TV. And I absolutely cry for anyone watching local news. Cry. Stick to NPR, people. You'll see less bullshit and a lot less political advertising, too. Win, win.
In other ponderings, I wonder about the rape pregnancy question. I came up with an idea that might mean that rape could be statistically less likely to end in pregnancy than consensual sex. (Women who are fertile behave differently, might choose to have more unprotected sex while fertile, and might be more likely to get pregnant than a woman who is raped at a random time in her cycle - therefore making it appear that women were somehow "fighting off" pregnancies that might otherwise be caused by "legitimate rape," when it fact it is just a statistcal anonomaly.)
Well, I toodled along to Ye Olde Internet, looking to see if statistics actually support the idea that vicitms of rape are less likely to get pregnant and VOILA! At least some research says the exact opposite! Are per-incident rape pregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates? from the journal Human Nature, Volume 14, Number 1 (2003), 1-20, DOI: 10.1007/s12110-003-1014-0
- Our analysis suggests that per-incident rape-pregnancy rates exceed per-incident consensual pregnancy rates by a sizable margin, even before adjusting for the use of relevant forms of birth control. Possible explanations for this phenomenon are discussed, as are its implications to ongoing debates over the ultimate causes of rape.
The Wikipedia article that sent me to this source says: "Adjusting for these factors, they estimated that rapes are twice as likely to result in pregnancies (6.42%) as "consensual, unprotected penile-vaginal intercourse" (2–4%); the authors discuss a variety of possible explanations and advance the hypothesis that rapists tend to target victims with biological "cues of high fecundity" and/or subtle indications of ovulation."
no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 03:58 am (UTC)But then I listen to NPR radio and only see what news clips make it to the Daily Show. There's one really vile Barbie on a Fox show that always says the most horrible things. Gretchen something? Ugh!
The rape-pregnancy thing comes from some doctor, beloved of the Right, bogusly saying decades ago that a woman would be too traumatized by rape for the zygote to implant, and the myth persists. Though as you found, actual studies show the opposite.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 09:42 am (UTC)No, I was just wondering if there was any way that ANY reasonable medical practitioner could believe that rape was LESS likely to result in pregnancy. And it is pretty clear that, just like the lawyers I know, smart as tacks, good at legal research, and yet they STILL circulate the butt spider story they get in their e-mail as true, well, doctors are idiots too, even when it comes to their chosen profession. I saw a doctor interviewed for a story about this Akin guy, who was busy saying how wrong Akin was, who clearly hadn't done the amount of research I had just done in 15 minutes on the internet, because he was busying saying that, yes, pregnancy might be a BIT less likely from a rape... Clearly talking out of HIS OWN ass, because he hasn't reviewed any literature or even clicked the footnotes on the Wikipedia page. It's nice to have a fuck tard on your side, but really? Pathetic.
I do like the Daily Show. It is really the only TV news I have watched since we used to watch the News Hour, back when it was the McNeil/Leherer News Hour in the mid-90s, but it comes on at an inconvenient time for us. In the past we have made a point of recording Indecision. I don't know if we will this year or not. We have drifted so far from TV by appointment - the only thing we watch that way anymore is Breaking Bad, Through the Wormhole, and the occassional MythBusters. We keep thinking we will cancel cable, but there's always one or two things that keep it in our monthly bills.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 02:57 pm (UTC)I haven't watched TV in years--I catch the Daily Show on their website at my leisure. Any other show I want to watch I'll also do via computer, though that's come down to hardly any.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 03:12 pm (UTC)It's a man's world. Even when men might want to protect their wives and daughters from violence, the power structure of society is such to give priority to the protection of the powerful. And rape is ultimately a power play, after all. Women should not be able to control male expression of sexual dominance. Children are chattel to be controlled by the father. (Sorry, go distracted this morning by the related issue of how 31 states do not terminate the parental rights of rapists.) It's all there in our laws and history for the reading. All I can say is it's good to see that there are places where women have enough power of their own that they and their male allies can start taking that structure apart and rebuilding it.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 01:01 pm (UTC)