From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Thu Apr 15 13:58:07 1999 Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 15:26:31 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: lquilter@HOOKED.NET Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9903C" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 23:16:25 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Female man:Hamilton Bookseller In-Reply-To: <36EC9F30.7333E2F5@csulb.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, I used my web ferret to find the website for this bookseller... www.hamiltonbook.com Thanks for the tip Jo Ann At 09:48 PM 3/14/99 -0800, you wrote: >If anyone is still looking for copies, the Beacon paperback (#78351X) is >being remaindered @ $4.95 by Edward R. Hamilton (bookseller), Falls >River CT 06031-5000. Each order costs $3 shipping and handling, no >matter how many books. Also on the 5 March list Just an Ordinary Day by >Shirley Jackson ("stories from recently discovered manuscripts edited by >her childen"). > > > >Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\FILE1.htm" > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 16:05:46 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: BDG Fisherman In-Reply-To: <199903060527.AAA04505@mailbox.syr.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:26 AM 03/06/99 -0500, Rudy wrote: > >It's kind of funny that I am so stuick by this story because reading >this collection has left me less than impressed by LeGuin's writing - >- some of the stories are just plain awkward, Shobies especially, >North Face, cute but, this is LeGuin? part of the reason I made a >point to read this month's selection, which I don't always do, is that >I feel badly about the lack of LeGuin in my reading life, she's a >player on my 'should' list....All I've read of her work is >_Dispossessed_ and _Left Hand_, and I've been stuck at the end of >the first narrative section of _Always Coming Home_ for the better >part of a year -- I think I am too linear (or, too much an academic), >to read that one, despite the fact that I really enjoyed what I read! I recommend Four Ways To Forgiveness as prime Le Guin. Very elegant writing, linear enough story to follow. Characters that really stick with you over time. I was also disappointed by Fisherman. In fact I had already read this collection some years ago but since I had it from the library I didn't remember reading it. It wasn't until about halfway through that I really was sure I'd read it before. Of course it's been so many years since I read her Hain-based books (some of my earliest SF) so I can't recall properly which worlds or cultures were introduced there. The "churten" stories include a variety of cultures and worlds and I wonder if they've been intermingled like this before? (they probably are in Four Ways and I'm betraying my short memory for details like that.) Anyone else disappointed in Fisherman and care to say why and what their favorite Le Guin is? Anyone think Fisherman is among her best and care to argue that point? Jennifer ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 16:08:00 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: spelling? Am I supposed to know what that is? In-Reply-To: <36EA3798.311F@ax.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" OK, so I admit to having had a rough couple of weeks. But I am having trouble coming up with any good rationale for forgetting my abc's. It figures there'd be folks who know that kind of stuff on this list. At 10:02 AM 03/13/99 +0000, Maryelizabeth wrote: >Is it just me, or are we doing the books slightly out of order? GRASS, >*TO SAY NOTHING..., *SLOW RIVER and then WILD SEED. Doesn't S come >before T most places? > >Maryelizabeth > >thrilled by all the choices, but hoping THE GILDA STORIES makes it next >time! > Thanks, Maryelizabeth. I would also love to discuss Gilda. Please campaign for it next round. But remember there's nothing to keep you from bringing it up at any time. (wait till I read it first, though!) I haven't heard anyone say they would be unable to lay hands on Grass in time to discuss it in May, so I guess we'll go with this (alphabetically correct) order: April 5 Kate Elliot: Jaran May 3 Sheri Tepper: Grass June 7 Nicola Griffith: Slow River July 5 Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog Aug 2 Octavia Butler: Wild Seed ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 22:40:37 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: BDG Fisherman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jennifer asked: > Anyone else disappointed in Fisherman and care to say why and what their > favorite Le Guin is? Anyone think Fisherman is among her best and care to > argue that point? I also recommend _Four Ways to Forgiveness_ . I read _LEft HAnd_ such a long time ago I can't even remember my reaction to it, and I think I might either love it or be really bothered by the male pronouns whenever I get around to reading it again. Small correction, I remember shedding some tears over the story, but I think I thought of Genly as male for convenience's sake. I also really loved _THe Lathe of HEaven_ and it's not too long if some of you out there (like me) aren't quite ready to commit to the length of _ALways Coming Home_. One thing it has in common with _Fisherman_, at least in a broad sense, is that LeGuin always seems to be interested in perception and its relativity. The protagonist in _LAthe_ realizes that his dreams beging to dictate reality--the difference is that his perception apparently effects all reality, not just his own. _Four Ways_ deals with the difference of perspective as well, tapping in to different characters from different cultures and worlds. But LeGuin also shows how people from similar worlds (as in the story "Dancing to Ganam)can still have vastly different concepts of reality. The way she brings this around to issues like slavery and sexism are very well done, I think. The working out of different perceptions is what I enjoyed most about Fisherman, especially in the last three stories and the way they sort of hung together around the development of churten tech. I agree with Rudy that The Shobies' story didn't stand up so well on its own but was helped by the next story. As for the north face and the first story where the high maintenance wife and her husband get tricked into driving way into the outback--I liked what Leguin said about how you can't explain a joke and how these are gifts from the dark side of your psyche (perhaps these were not her words). Though thy are not life changing stories, perhaps they demonstrate the role of play and humor in the life of a vibrant writer? I normally wouldn't babble on so unabashedly, but it seems like there' a bit of a lull out there these last couple of weeks. I did enjoy reading what I could of that discussion on primates and such. You all are some smart folks! What the hell, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 23:06:28 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: U.S. prison population has doubled Again I've come across a news item that sounds like it came from a science fiction novel. Le Guin sure saw this happening. I think this latest book of stories talks about the kind of mindset that is necessary for people to see each other as an interrelated community to keep us from further progressing along this path of us (the civilians) vs them (the prisoners). . Joyce WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of American adults imprisoned has more than doubled over the past 12 years, reaching its highest level ever last year, the Justice Department said Sunday. The U.S. may soon surpass Russia as the country with the highest rate of incarceration. At mid-1998, jails and prisons held an estimated 1.8 million people, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. At the end of 1985, the figure was 744,208. Viewed another way, there were 668 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents as of June 1998, compared with 313 inmates per 100,000 people in 1985. In Russia, 685 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars, according to The Sentencing Project. See full story ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 22:48:19 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: U.S. prison population has doubled In-Reply-To: <00b601be6f7b$84a94960$914a2599@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:06 PM 3/15/99 -0800, Joyce Jones wrote: >Again I've come across a news item that sounds like it came from a science >fiction novel. Le Guin sure saw this happening. I think this latest book >of stories talks about the kind of mindset that is necessary for people to >see each other as an interrelated community to keep us from further >progressing along this path of us (the civilians) vs them (the prisoners). Thank you Joyce for that snippet of information:) I am currently researching an article I have been commissioned to write on 'Mothers and the Law: As Criminals and Victims' - one interesting statistic I stumbled over, was the rate of heroin use has increased dramatically in the last decade - but amongst women it has nearly doubled the national average - particularly amongst single-mothers in the 34-49 age-group. Not just welfare mothers - but many with professional jobs, comfortable middle-class homes etc. I suspect that this correlates as the millennium version of the 1950's stereotyped lonely housewife 'closet' alcoholics with their bottles of gin under the kitchen sink. Instead of AA they are now the major users (and abusers) of methadone, and rapid-detox programs, and it partly explains the increase of women in prisons. Julieanne jalc@ozemail.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 07:14:13 +0000 Reply-To: mystgalaxy@ax.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: spelling doesn't really matter to me... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Jennifer: Hope my comments came through in the humorous tone intended. And if changing the order will create a problem for anyone, I think doing TO SAY NOTHING before SLOW RIVER is fine. LMK When you have finished THE GILDA STORIES. I very much enjoyed my recent visit with Jewelle, and have spiffy copies of the trade paperback signed in purple ink for anyone looking for this title. Pax, Maryelizabeth -- *********************************************************************** Mysterious Galaxy Local Phone: 619.268.4747 3904 Convoy Street, #107 Fax: 619.268.4775 San Diego, CA 9211 Long Distance/Orders: 1.800.811.4747 http://www.mystgalaxy.com Email: mgbooks@ax.com *********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 00:50:45 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: OT treatment of pregnant prisoners Julieanne wrote: "I am currently researching an article I have been commissioned to write on 'Mothers and the Law: As Criminals and Victims' -" Maybe you would find the following sites of interest: http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall/women/report/women-27.html http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall I just recently came upon this site from Amnesty International regarding the treatment of pregnant prisoners. This is frequently a problem at our hospital. Guards never used to shackle our patients, but in the past couple of years there has been a big insistence on the part of some power hungry guards that they have to keep these women shackled. As the site states most of these women are imprisoned for non-violent crimes and have never attempted escape. Shackling seems to me to serve no purpose except oppression. I've been trying to get a discussion of rights of pregnant prisoners going on the perinatal rn list, but so far most of the nurses think these women are getting no more than they deserve. If the only way a woman can be perceived of as good is if she is obedient and humble, it is easy to see women who break the law as fundamentally bad. The idea that these bad women procreate is offensive to many people. The fact that they must labor with their legs and/or arms shackled to the bed seems a way for society to enforce this idea--to keep women in general in their place. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 19:15:16 0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: BDG Fisher MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Terri Wakefield said she liked again to have online references for the BDGs. I don't have any online references for _A Fisherman_ itself but some on Ursula LeGuin, perhaps others can add more: The Unofficial Ursula K. Le Guin Page: http://www.wenet.net/~lquilter/femsf/authors/leguin.html Some have asked about the chronological order of the Hainish novels. Well Dr. Eliza Sparks provides exactly that at http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sparks/leguinfh.html Then an interview with Le Guin by Slawek Wojtowicz from 1988 http://home.interstat.net/~slawcio/ursula.html David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer have information on the web on their anthology _The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Science Fiction' (1994) which contains two stories by Le Guin. Online are the introductions to these stories: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/exper/kcramer/anth/NineLives.html http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/exper/kcramer/anth/Acacia.html Elisabeth Sherwin wrote 1997 the article 'Meet the high priestess of science fiction' on Le Guin http://test.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/gizmo/1997/leguin1.html Elizabeth Hand reviewed _Four Ways to Forgiveness_ in 1995 for The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/fou r_way.htm I also belong to those who are not overly thrilled by this collection, although I cannot exactly explain why. There is that 'voice of wisdom' that I like. I liked the churten stories, especially the last one, and also the one about the satellite colony. But I think the other stories are rather thin and that lessens the impact of the book. Petra P.S.: I am a bit embarrassed to ask, but can somebody explain the joke of the Northern Face story to me. I simply did not get it. I wanted to reread it but I left the book in Stuttgart. The mountain is an animal (?) and why do the sherbas come and go?. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 15:12:57 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Terri Subject: Re: BDG Fisher In-Reply-To: <199903171815.TAA01874@cserv.usf.uni-kassel.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="============_-1290420916==_ma============" --============_-1290420916==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Terri Wakefield said she liked again to have online references for >the BDGs. I don't have any online references for _A Fisherman_ itself >but some on Ursula LeGuin, perhaps others can add more: Thanks. This is great! >Petra > >P.S.: I am a bit embarrassed to ask, but can somebody explain the >joke of the Northern Face story to me. I simply did not get it. I >wanted to reread it but I left the book in Stuttgart. The mountain is >an animal (?) and why do the sherbas come and go?. Isn't it really a building they are climbing? My favorite LeGuin is Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences. The novella, Buffallo Gals, won some kind of award. I can't remember what. Terri --============_-1290420916==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" >Terri Wakefield said she liked again to have online references for >the BDGs. I don't have any online references for _A Fisherman_ itself >but some on Ursula LeGuin, perhaps others can add more: Thanks. This is great! >Petra > >P.S.: I am a bit embarrassed to ask, but can somebody explain the >joke of the Northern Face story to me. I simply did not get it. I >wanted to reread it but I left the book in Stuttgart. The mountain is >an animal (?) and why do the sherbas come and go?. Isn't it really a building they are climbing? My favorite LeGuin is Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences. The novella, Buffallo Gals, won some kind of award. I can't remember what. Terri --============_-1290420916==_ma============-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 16:14:56 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stacey Holbrook Subject: Re: OT treatment of pregnant prisoners In-Reply-To: <002f01be7053$40ab09a0$a84b2599@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 17 Mar 1999, Joyce Jones wrote: (snip) > I just recently came upon this site from Amnesty International > regarding the treatment of pregnant prisoners. This is frequently a > problem at our hospital. Guards never used to shackle our patients, > but in the past couple of years there has been a big insistence on the > part of some power hungry guards that they have to keep these women > shackled. As the site states most of these women are imprisoned for > non-violent crimes and have never attempted escape. Shackling seems > to me to serve no purpose except oppression. Are you saying that women prisoners are shackled during -labor-? What do they think is going to happen? That the women are going to jump off the table, dragging their babies behind them by their umbilical cords as they flee into the night? > Joyce > Stacey (ausar@netdoor.com) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 12:21:23 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sophia Hegner Subject: quickie question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi all, Did someone mention on this list that one of the authors we've been reading did a translation of the Tao Te Ching? Which author was that? Sophia ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 17:00:06 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pamela Bedore Subject: Re: BDG Fisher In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Petra wrote > > > >P.S.: I am a bit embarrassed to ask, but can somebody explain the > >joke of the Northern Face story to me. I simply did not get it. I > >wanted to reread it but I left the book in Stuttgart. The mountain is > >an animal (?) and why do the sherbas come and go?. > I found an old poem of Le Guin's from "Encore Magazine of the Arts," April-May 1977, rptd in *The Language of the Night* pp. 187-188 which might shed some light on this story. EVEREST How long to climb the mountain? Forty years. The native guides are dark, small, brave, evasive. They cannot be bribed. Would you advise the North Face? All the faces frown; so choose. The travelers describe their traveling, not yours. Footholds don't last in ice. Read rocks. Their word endures. And at the top? You stop. They say that you can see the Town. I don't know. You look down. It's strange not to be looking up; hard to be sure just what it is you're seeing. Some say the Town; others perceive a farther Range. The guides turn back. Soulder your pack, put on your coat. >From here on down no track, no goal, no way, no ways. In the immense downward of the evening there may be far within the golden haze a motion or a glittering: waves, towers, heights? remote, remote. The language of the rocks has changed. I knew once what it meant. How long is the descent? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 16:59:51 -0800 Reply-To: Carol Tilley Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Carol Tilley Subject: Re: quickie question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way A New English Version by Ursula K. Le Guin 1997 >Hi all, >Did someone mention on this list that one of the authors we've been reading >did a translation of the Tao Te Ching? Which author was that? > >Sophia > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 20:18:14 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: Tao Te Ching MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sophia Hegner wrote: > > Hi all, > Did someone mention on this list that one of the authors we've been reading > did a translation of the Tao Te Ching? Which author was that? > It is Ursula Leguin. It is published by Shambala, 1997. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 17:40:44 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Freddie Baer Subject: Re: Tao Te Ching Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Leguin reading her translation of Tao Te Ching is also available on audiotape. FB >From Amazon Lao Tzu : Tao Te Ching by Ursula K. Leguin, Ursula K. Le Guin, Todd Barton (Contributor) Audio Cassette (April 1998) Shambhala Pubns; ISBN: 1570623740 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 18:33:54 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: BDG Fisher In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 17 Mar 1999, Pamela Bedore wrote: > I found an old poem of Le Guin's from "Encore Magazine of the Arts," > April-May 1977, rptd in *The Language of the Night* pp. 187-188 which > might shed some light on this story. > This wouldn't be LeGuin's answer to Elliot's Ash Wednesday, now, would it? :) :) Kathleen > EVEREST > > How long to climb the mountain? > > Forty years. The native guides > are dark, small, brave, evasive. > They cannot be bribed. > > Would you advise > the North Face? > > All the faces > frown; so choose. The travelers describe > their traveling, not yours. > Footholds don't last in ice. > Read rocks. Their word endures. > > > And at the top? > > You stop. > > They say that you can see > the Town. > > I don't know. > You look down. It's strange > not to be looking up; hard to be sure > just what it is you're seeing. > Some say the Town; others perceive > a farther Range. The guides turn back. > Soulder your pack, put on your coat. > From here on down no track, > no goal, no way, no ways. > In the immense downward of the evening > there may be far within the golden haze > a motion or a glittering: waves, > towers, heights? remote, remote. > The language of the rocks has changed. > I knew once what it meant. > > How long is the descent? > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 09:50:01 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: Re: OT treatment of pregnant prisoners Stacey wrote: >Are you saying that women prisoners are shackled during -labor-? What do >they think is going to happen? That the women are going to jump off the >table, dragging their babies behind them by their umbilical cords as they >flee into the night? Sad to say, that is what is being done. As to what the guards think is going to happen, I don't know. Ostensibly they believe just as you say, that the laboring woman is going to run from the room, easily evading her guards in spite of her contractions. Since this sounds unreasonable to me, I have to believe that what they're really thinking is that these women are worthless beings who deserve no better, and that there is nothing sacred or even respectable about the act of birthing if it involves people you don't acknowledge as human. I'd say it sounds like a science fiction novel, but it would fit well into a historical one about the Nazi camps. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 10:44:10 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sophia Hegner Subject: Re: Tao Te Ching In-Reply-To: <36F06266.55A9@people-link.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thank you, too! At 08:18 PM 3/17/99 -0600, you wrote: >Sophia Hegner wrote: >> >> Hi all, >> Did someone mention on this list that one of the authors we've been reading >> did a translation of the Tao Te Ching? Which author was that? >> > >It is Ursula Leguin. It is published by Shambala, 1997. > >Susan > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 10:44:47 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sophia Hegner Subject: Re: Tao Te Ching In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Very cool. I'll have to look into that. Thanks. At 05:40 PM 3/17/99 -0800, you wrote: >Leguin reading her translation of Tao Te Ching is also available on >audiotape. > >FB > >>From Amazon > >Lao Tzu : Tao Te Ching > by Ursula K. Leguin, Ursula K. Le Guin, Todd Barton (Contributor) > Audio Cassette (April 1998) >Shambhala Pubns; ISBN: 1570623740 > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 22:19:57 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbera Radford Subject: Re: OT treatment of pregnant prisoners Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/18/99 12:56:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, hoop5@EMAIL.MSN.COM writes: << Ostensibly they believe just as you say, that the laboring woman is going to run from the room, easily evading her guards in spite of her contractions. Since this sounds unreasonable to me, I have to believe that what they're really thinking is that these women are worthless beings who deserve no better, and that there is nothing sacred or even respectable about the act of birthing if it involves people you don't acknowledge as human. >> This sounds perfectly awful! I hope there is some recourse your group/practice/hospital can pursue to change this policy. At least it should not be allowed in L&D!! What if you need a fast position change? I doubt the police/sheriffs/corrections people are willing to accept that liability (always hit them in the lawsuit where it hurts). There is another explanation for the shackling. The guards are thinking "This is The Procedure. If, by some bizarre chance, this woman gets up and escapes, my butt is in a sling." There are several kinds of fear that could be operating here. Interestingly enough, I've never had trouble having a guard remove shackles from a patient who I needed to have unshackled. Now, the guards were very tense about it, but in the end cooperative. All of those patients were male, but it was a trauma unit where most of the patients were male, so I don't know that's very informative. Barbera ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 18:19:52 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: OT treatment of pregnant prisoners In-Reply-To: <002201be7167$c1168000$1a4b2599@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Sad to say, that is what is being done. As to what the guards think is >going to happen, I don't know. Ostensibly they believe just as you say, >that the laboring woman is going to run from the room, easily evading her >guards in spite of her contractions. Since this sounds unreasonable to me,(snip)> Unfortunately, this is very true Joyce - since I have been collecting statistics on women as prisoners, particularly those women who are mothers, I have been trying to get data from different countries to analyse similarities and differences. The USA experience is somewhat worse than other OECD countries with similar economic indices, for example Canada, Holland or the UK. But then the USA has the worlds highest rate of Caesarian section, highest rate of episiotomies, medical intervention and hospital birthing in childbirth - and one of only 3 countries planet-wide which has any laws whatsoever relating to midwife assisted home-births - in the USA several States outlaw home-birthing even by "accident", and parents who had a "quick accidental birth" in the home bathroom have to go through an enormous amount of paperwork to prove they weren't trying to defraud their medical insurance companies or doctors from a guaranteed income:)) In some States of the USA - midwives are not registered to practise outside of hospitals at all, even if registered at the nearest geographical location to the birth. I can only presume, that the USA health-system being so completely privatised compared to other countries, figured on simple mathematical money calculations it was far more lucrative for ob/gyns to make fortunes in conjunction with health insurance companies in the USA than anywhere else in the world. As they say in hospital administration, childbirth wards are the only wards to make anything resembling something like a profit.... ..but for the poor, and prisoners. ..USA hospitals are on about the same level of quality, as downtown rural Bangladesh... As for pregnant/birthing prisoners of the euphemistically called 'developing' countries or 'transitional' economies - they are also shackled throughout their prison sentences. The increase of women in prison in Afghanistan for example, with a 500% increase in the women on death-row for crimes relating to "adultery" have increased also the rate for "maternal deaths in childbirth" being reported. I suppose its more humane letting them die in childbirth , than subject them to the humiliation of death by public hanging for the "crime" of being illiterate so they didn't know their marriage of choice against family arrangements, was illegal and hence their infant 'illegitimate'. As for the rationale of shackling pregnant and birthing women - according to one judicial report I found from Thailand, it was due to the idea that pregnant women are "animalistic" and are more likely to follow their "animal instincts" and flee to higher ground, or pigsty or something like that!! Julieanne jalc@ozemail.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 08:17:38 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Organization: Gemini Walker Ink Subject: Re: OT treatment of pregnant prisoners In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990319181952.007b7e20@ozemail.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I was notified today that one of my favorite web-sites, "Rethinking AIDS" (http://www.virusmyth.com/) had been updated, so I moseyed on over there to see what was new. Perusing through the writing of one of my favorite authors over there, I came across this amazingly relevant (to this thread) story. I thought I would pass it on. If this isn't the stuff of feminist science fiction, I don't know what is! The sad reality is, it's only too true. ===>begin forwarded article<==== A GRIEVOUS ROAR An HIV-positive mother in Oregon almost loses custody of her baby because she resists giving him AZT and wishes to breast-feed him. Impression looks at the continuing attack on families in the name of HIV heroica. Welcome To The Machine by Celia Farber The diabolical brilliance of the HIV-AIDS paradigm is that it lies in wait, invisibly, quietly, then closes in like an ocean net. The net is comprised of a chicken-shack belief system -- never solidified or validated, yet passionately adhered to by its disciples: AIDS is caused by the retrovirus HIV. AIDS is always fatal. HIV must be fought and killed. The place where the AIDS machinery with its manic dictates intersects with the American (in the idealized sense of the word) public is where the story really gets interesting. Consider the case of the Tysons, a straight-arrow American family living in Eugene, Oregon. David Tyson had two children from a prior marriage, now teen-agers, and he and his wife, Kathleen, had one child together, now 10 years old. Kathleen discovers to her surprise that she is pregnant, and the couple adjust to the idea of another child. They are happy. They seek out a midwifery clinic where they want the baby born and set about tending to all the details of a new baby. Technology being what it is, lots of tests are run. Kathleen, 38, in her seventh month of pregnancy has her blood drawn. She and David have been monogamous for more than 13 years. She is healthy. In fact, she is a runner. Her 10-year-old daughter is healthy. David is healthy. Nothing to worry about. The phone rings. A concerned voice summons them down to the clinic. They ask David to remain in the waiting room while they take Kathleen in to the office and deliver the shattering blow. She is HIV-positive. They give her all the room she needs to cry. They give her tissues. They give her advice. No, they give her orders. The Tysons are in the net now. Kathleen is placed on a multidrug cocktail of AZT and a few protease inhibitors. Each of the three or four drugs she forces down daily have been contraindicated in pregnancy. They are all mutagenic, teratogenic and carcinogenic. ("Teratogenic" stems from the Latin root ''teratos,'' which means monster.) AZT, as we know, gets delivered for research purposes in bottles bearing labels with a skull and crossbones and dire warnings of what to do if one were to accidentally ingest it. (Call your doctor!) But throwing all post-Thalidomide prenatal conservatism to the wind, we have now careened from giving nothing, not even an aspirin, to pregnant women, to giving cocktails of experimental, toxic drugs to pregnant women. Only, of course, in the event they harbor antibodies to the dreaded HIV. So Kathleen, after recovering from the shock, goes and gets her pills and takes them at a whopping cost of almost $300 for a 10-day supply, which the Tysons have to borrow money to pay for. Not surprisingly, she feels very sick all the time. She wonders how it is possible for doctors to give all this to a pregnant woman, but she shrugs off her doubt because they must know what they're talking about. But then she opens a door of perception, by sheer fluke, that tumbles her into the other side of the AIDS war. A copy of Mothering magazine peeks out from a rack in the local health-food store, and she spots the headline ''AZT Roulette.'' (I was the author of that article.) Now she reads that there are questions, that HIV tests can cross-react, that most mothers don't transmit HIV anyway, that even if they do, it wouldn't necessarily lead to a sick baby, that AZT is dangerous to a growing fetus, and that there is no evidence whatsoever for the widely held belief that HIV transmits through breast milk. Kathleen and David log on to the Internet and start their odyssey of research. They find Peter Duesberg's Web site; they buy Robert Root-Bernstein's book Rethinking AIDS. They read, they call around, they go to the library, and finally, they arrive at a conclusion: They decide to treat HIV as though it were a dull, ordinary, harmless passenger virus in an otherwise healthy person. After all, Kathleen's body had shown no sign of damage after what is supposedly a 13-year-old HIV infection -- her T cell counts are perfectly normal, and her ''viral load'' is almost undetectable. Two weeks before her due date, Kathleen goes into labor, and winds up needing an emergency Caesarean section. Felix Tyson was born on December 7, 1998, and weighed 7.7 pounds. * * * ''The first thing was, they tried to give Kathleen IV AZT during the delivery,'' says David, on the phone from the Tyson home. ''I stopped that.'' As Kathleen was recovering, she was visited in the hospital by an infectious-disease pediatrician with a very unpleasant bedside manner who started talking about the ''protocol'' for women such as Kathleen, which is AZT for the baby for six weeks and no breast-feeding. Kathleen said no thanks. "We told her that we had done a lot of our own research and concluded that that was not the course of action we were choosing because it seemed risky, and we didn't know what the long-term effects of AZT would be on our son,'' Kathleen says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifies in its recommendations that: ''Discussion of treatment options should be noncoercive, and the final decision to accept or reject AZT treatment recommended for herself and her child is the right and responsibility of the woman. A decision not to accept treatment should not result in punitive action.'' But in the real world, here's what happened: The pediatrician went ''ballistic'' and started railing against the Tysons and Peter Duesberg and finally issued a threat. ''She said she was going to have to contact . the ethics board,'' recalls Kathleen, ''and the lawyer of the hospital.'' In tears, Kathleen asked her to please leave and called David in a panic. "When I got the call from Kathleen,'' David says, ''her voice was so distorted with terror and emotion that I didn't even realize it was her. I thought it was my 16-year-old daughter and that somebody had beaten her up or something terrible had happened.'' He raced to his daughter's house nearby and only then realized it had been Kathleen on the phone. When he got to the hospital shortly thereafter, he says, ''They had cordoned off the maternity ward to make sure we didn't escape.'' "And these guys had guns,'' says Kathleen, sounding as if she were retelling a bad dream. ''They had guns -- in the hospital on the maternity-ward floor.'' ''I went over and looked out the window,'' David says, ''and down one story was a terrace. I considered ways of tying the bedsheets together and transporting my wife and one-day-old baby boy down there, getting down to the ground and escaping to the winter hills -- just to get away from that hideous, sterile, fascist institution.'' Welcome to the machine. In walks the petitioner from juvenile court and a police officer, serving the new parents papers stating that they must appear in court two days later to face charges that they had an ''intent to harm'' their baby by resisting giving him AZT and by wanting to breast-feed. "I got a little crazy at that point,'' recalls Kathleen. ''I think I told that woman she was insane.'' "That woman's demeanor was right out of a Kafka novel,'' says David, ''like in The Castle, where the fellow is encountering the bureaucracy. She was really grim.'' The SWAT team stayed in the room until the Tysons had agreed to their demands -- AZT and no breast milk. ''At this point, I was just hysterical,'' Kathleen says. "I was hitting the buzzer and telling the nurses to bring the formula in and that we'd start then and there.'' "They acted like they were going to take him, take Felix,'' David says. Child welfare authorities had been contacted at that point, and they had already taken legal custody of Felix, in total violation of the CDC's own recommendations and on the strength of the one histrionic infectious-disease pediatrician. But luckily, the Tysons were permitted to keep Felix in their care for the time being under close supervision of the state. Even though Kathleen had surrendered completely to their dictates for fear of losing her child, the nightmare was not over by a long shot. ''It didn't matter,'' says Kathleen. ''The wheels were already grinding. '' Three days later, they all appeared in juvenile court, where the court had appointed an attorney for each of them: Kathleen, David, and baby Felix. '' Yep, Felix has an attorney,'' says Kathleen with a wry chuckle. They were ordered to administer AZT to Felix for six weeks and not breast-feed. A social worker visited their house on a regular basis to observe them giving Felix the AZT. Now the course of treatment is over, but the social worker still comes regularly. ''He told us that Services for Children and Families doesn't like this case at all. They know we're good parents.'' The Tysons have been deluged with support from around the country and around the world. AIDS dissidents, united recently by the Valerie Emerson case, jumped right into action to help them. Even though Felix has now tested negative for HIV, the Tysons' battle is not over. "I'm still ordered not to breast-feed,'' Kathleen says. ''I need to have the right to feed my son the way I see as best, and he needs to have the right to get his mother's milk.'' The Tysons tried in vain to solicit help from various organizations, even the American Civil Liberties Union, but nobody would touch this. Still, they have vowed not to give up fighting for the complex underlying principles of all this -- not only freedom or parental rights but also medical sanity and scientific integrity. The Tysons' 10-year-old daughter (along with Kathleen herself) is another example of a case that adds strength to the argument against HIV as a fatal virus. Neither one, despite Kathleen's supposed long-term exposure to HIV, have been affected in the slightest. They are in perfect health. And Kathleen breast-fed her daughter for almost three years. "I just look at my daughter, and I say 'You're wrong; you're wrong about this theory that HIV spreads through the breast milk.'" Kathleen had her daughter tested for HIV antibodies -- she was negative as is David. ''It just continued to not make any sense,'' says Kathleen, ''their whole take on it. When I went to the HIV Alliance . they always like to remind me . you shouldn't forget that you have the virus in your blood, and once you have that you're never OK. You never know when it's going to hit you. It's such a fatalistic attitude; it's no wonder people get sick from it.'' The Tysons' nightmare is a familiar one in a futuristic society that has abandoned reason and even compassion in the all-consuming fight against a dubious retrovirus that thousands of AIDS patients don't even have. The difference between having rights and freedom and having none is the difference between shades of gray bands on an antibody test that is not particularly reliable. ''What if his test comes back positive at four months?'' Kathleen says. ''We want to know that no one can force us again to give AZT to him, no matter what the outcome is. Felix is a vigorous, healthy, strong, beautiful baby.'' ''We are going to fight this thing,'' David promises, ''tooth and Baby Felix gurgles into the phone. ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net > >Sad to say, that is what is being done. As to what the guards think is > >going to happen, I don't know. Ostensibly they believe just as you say, > >that the laboring woman is going to run from the room, easily evading her > >guards in spite of her contractions. Since this sounds unreasonable to > me,(snip)> > > Unfortunately, this is very true Joyce - since I have been collecting > statistics on women as prisoners, particularly those women who are mothers, > I have been trying to get data from different countries to analyse > similarities and differences. The USA experience is somewhat worse than > other OECD countries with similar economic indices, for example Canada, > Holland or the UK. But then the USA has the worlds highest rate of > Caesarian section, highest rate of episiotomies, medical intervention and > hospital birthing in childbirth - and one of only 3 countries planet-wide > which has any laws whatsoever relating to midwife assisted home-births - in > the USA several States outlaw home-birthing even by "accident", and parents > who had a "quick accidental birth" in the home bathroom have to go through > an enormous amount of paperwork to prove they weren't trying to defraud > their medical insurance companies or doctors from a guaranteed income:)) > To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 3/14/99 ICQ #27240345 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 17:02:34 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Re: not really the child of THE FEMALE MAN: THE LAST MAN ON EARTH MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Instead of speculating why it's Necessary to some that HIV and AIDS are unrelated (haven't done the research, but I am suspicious of some of the no-connection advocates' motives--which doesn't mean they aren't right), I ask if anyone else saw the recent UPN film starring Tamlyn Tomita, an intentionally silly if occasionally witty throwback to such pulp stories as Wallace West's "The Last Man"? If there was discussion of this film, sorry, I missed it, just as most people probably missed LAST MAN ON EARTH's presentation. It did have a very arguably feminist perspective at times...and I must admit I enjoyed the line to the effect of, "You're one of those closet heterosexuals, aren't you?". But then, I enjoyed the "inverted" (so to speak) society episode of ELLEN that seemed to upset so many people as well. And, I suspect that pregnant women prisoners get chained because it hasn't yet occurred to lawmakers and prison regulators that not-chaining prisoners in labor would be humane w/o being "coddling." Along with the contempt others have testified to. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 23:15:56 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "hey pixie, pixie" Subject: wiscon room share, anyone? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain see what all your enthusiastic recommendations have done: i've registered for wiscon, bought a plane ticket, made hotel reservations. =) if anyone else who's going would like to share the room--it's $85 a night for up to 4 ppl--in order to cut down the cost a little (b/c i sure would!) please e-mail me privately @ pixiegrrrl@hotmail.com ... i know some ppl may not have decided yet, but if you do decide to go, please keep me in mind! johanna http://members.tripod.com/~hannakins this is a subtle truth: whatever you love, you are. -rumi Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 23:58:45 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: "New" book: Jonathan Lethem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just finished Jonathan Lethem's _Girl in Landscape_ (1998)--awesome. Reminds me of Ray Bradbury in a very postmodern hallucination fit. Pretty feminist, too--except the one thing that bugged me was the "precocious 13-yr-old" heroine mold. As if they wanted to do the femininity without the sex, or something. Anybody else read it, think it was vaguely feminist? Heather .. http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 07:12:49 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: not really the child of THE FEMALE MAN: THE LAST Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 19 Mar 99, at 17:02, Todd Mason wrote: > Instead of speculating why it's Necessary to some > that HIV and AIDS are unrelated (haven't done the > research, but I am suspicious of some of the > no-connection advocates' motives--which doesn't mean they aren't right).... One "no-connection" woman has to date been single-handedly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Zambians and Tanzanians along Africa's notorious truck route. Eventually her "body count" will be in the 1000s. During the mid-80s, a charitable organization set up a series of small rural clinics to minister to villages along the Zambia-Dar Es Salaam truck route. Most failed and by mid 1991 only two (one near Dar Es Salaam and another in northern Zambia) were still active. That year, an expatriate nurse with "no connection" ideas joined the organization as an overseer. Since she thought AIDS was a deficiency disease like kwashiorkor, she stopped the distribution of free condoms, persuading women to use Deprovera shots for contraception. She also discouraged the use of condoms generally except by full-time prostitutes. Since many women in these desperately poor areas supplement their income by prostitution and virtually all men there commonly use prostitutes, HIV infection has spread by leaps and bounds. It is aided by the high levels of deficiency disease and TB along the truck route which causes AIDS to develop much faster. Anti-AIDS organizations protested but the nurse was protected - as usual - by the Dar US Embassy which made the equally usual threats of cutting off aid and relief supplies. It wasn't until 1995 that the Tanzanian authorities acted, and banned her from Tanzania, but in Zambia she continued her deadly work until late 1997. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 07:46:04 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Organization: Gemini Walker Ink Subject: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really the child of TH In-Reply-To: <19990320061249.4938.qmail@www0n.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > On 19 Mar 99, at 17:02, Todd Mason wrote: > > > Instead of speculating why it's Necessary to some > > that HIV and AIDS are unrelated (haven't done the > > research, but I am suspicious of some of the > > no-connection advocates' motives--which doesn't > mean they aren't right).... > > One "no-connection" woman has to date been single-handedly responsible for the > deaths of hundreds of Zambians and Tanzanians along Africa's notorious truck > route. Eventually her "body count" will be in the 1000s. > > During the mid-80s, a charitable organization set up a series of small rural > clinics to minister to villages along the Zambia-Dar Es Salaam truck route. > Most failed and by mid 1991 only two (one near Dar Es Salaam and another in > northern Zambia) were still active. That year, an expatriate nurse with "no > connection" ideas joined the organization as an overseer. Since she thought > AIDS was a deficiency disease like kwashiorkor, she stopped the distribution > of free condoms, persuading women to use Deprovera shots for contraception. > She also discouraged the use of condoms generally except by full-time > prostitutes. > It would seem to me that there is a lot more to this woman than her "no-connection" theory, as the scientists I am reading (and I've done all the reading I can get my hands on) at no time advocate *against* the use of condoms. They know that sexually transmitted diseases can ravage the immune system on their own, as can the overuse of anti-biotics. Very often, however, those invested in the profit aspect of prostitution will disempower prostitutes in the use of condoms if the customers will pay more -- particularly of those customers happen to be Western, and White. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with a "no-connection" theory. I have seen people get suddenly sick once tested and then put on "treatment" who had never been sick before. I have watched them get better when they stop the medication. Most long term survivors learn more about being healthy (and I am deeply indebted to them for what I, myself, have learned about maintaining my own health) than people who have never even considered being tested, or who have, and tested "positive" for something that has never even been isolated. And, for any other disease, except for this "syndrome," anti-bodies imply immunity. Except for "AIDS". Go figure. People are dying of malnutrition, iotrogenic diseases have existed before, and there are so many different reasons a person might test "positive" for HIV it is creepy to consider. I'm not here to convince anyone. I think it's kind of outrageous that so much effort is put into quashing any sort of scientific inquiry at all. That is not at all what the scientific process is supposed to be about. The way the "cause" was announced was bizarre (at a press conference, before any papers had been published in any medical journals, by Margaret Heckler, who was then hussled off to be the Ambassador to Ireland, for God's sake, and who has never been heard from since). I think there's a lot more to question about the motives of the AIDS "establishment," but then, that's me. The Dissidents have nothing to gain. In fact, they've all lost a great deal. But when you try to find the documentation for the proof to back the "Establishment" up, it's not there. I've looked for it. What passes for research is an embarrassment, and an insult to the intelligence of us all. Well, except so many of us are content to believe what we see in commercials, it's not too hard to see how and why anyone can get away with just about anything if they have enough money and power. ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 3/14/99 ICQ #27240345 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 11:31:37 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: "New" book: Jonathan Lethem In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19990319220705.0a6779f6@zipcon.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Heather MacLean wrote: > Just finished Jonathan Lethem's _Girl in Landscape_ (1998)--awesome. Reminds > me of Ray Bradbury in a very postmodern hallucination fit. Pretty feminist, > too--except the one thing that bugged me was the "precocious 13-yr-old" > heroine mold. As if they wanted to do the femininity without the sex, or > something. Anybody else read it, think it was vaguely feminist? > > Heather I enjoyed the Lethem book a lot too. I don't know that it was explicitly feminist, but implicitly it was in that it featured a strong competent female character at the center of the book and saw all the female characters as having lives independent of the needs of the men closest to them. Loved the house deer. Odd trivia. As with Mary Doria Russell's novels, Girl in Landscape was specifically not published as science fiction, but as a mainstream novel, even to the extent of the publisher insisting that Publishers Weekly place its review in the Fiction review section and not the SF review section. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 11:49:12 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: "New" book: Jonathan Lethem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:31 AM 3/20/99 -0600, Mike Levy wrote: >Odd trivia. As with Mary Doria Russell's novels, Girl in Landscape was >specifically not published as science fiction, but as a mainstream novel, >even to the extent of the publisher insisting that Publishers Weekly >place its review in the Fiction review section and not the SF review section. > Scuzzbuckets. Though it does amaze me how broad the lines of SF have become--Lethem's work could also be qualified as fantasy, in a very Charles de Lint way, because none of the causes are explained for the effects--they're all taken for granted. Interplanetary travel, interbodily travel--neither is really commented upon, except for the vague reference to "viruses," a convenient multi-purpose beastie. Personally, I think that this lack of emphasis on explanation makes for a much better read. It's really hard to literatize (heh) a 3-page explanation of fuel flow and lift mechanics. I'm glad this kind of fiction is being published. I'm just scared that I'll miss reading some of it if they start publishing it under non-SF labels, cuz I don't have time to read regular fiction -and- SF. =) Heather =) .. http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 19:00:12 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really the Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 20 Mar 99, at 7:46, geminiwalker wrote: > It would seem to me that there is a lot more to this > woman than her "no-connection" theory, as the > scientists I am reading (and I've done all the reading > I can get my hands on) at no time advocate *against* > the use of condoms. They know that sexually > transmitted diseases can ravage the immune system > on their own, as can the overuse of anti-biotics. Your point is taken because this woman (according to news reports) had the contemptuous attitude that many Westerners have for Africa and its problems. But I think that advocating, for example, that a HIV-positive woman should breast-feed her child is equally criminal. In Uganda studies quoted by President Musoveni showed that a non-HIV child breast fed for the first three months by an HIV+ve mother had a 1:11 chance of becoming HIV+ve in turn. This increased to 3:1 if the child was nursed for 18 months. I can't imagine any mother who loves her child taking that sort of risk. The problem with the "no connection" case is that it's largely based on anecdotal evidence of the type you quoted - and is just about as reliable as the old myth that VD can be caught from a toilet seat. Unfortunately in contrast to the "toilet seat" myth which makes people more careful, the denial of the HIV/AIDS connection is dangerous because it makes people careless and encourages the spread of HIV. The reported recent increase in "dangerous behaviour" by people in the high-risk categories stems, I believe, directly from denial. The use of AZT cocktails for reducing the incidence of HIV in babies has been widely tried in Africa. When we were in South Africa last year, HIV+ve pregnant women were given it as routine with splendid results (although I understand since we left in September that's been stopped due to lack of cash). Denial cost Africa hundreds of thousands of deaths - and its effects will continue for the next two centuries. I hate to see it happening in the Western world. Scientists in any field are, of course fallible and the field of AIDS research is certainly no exception, but I believe that caution - even excessive caution - is essential in the case of potential "world killer" diseases like AIDS. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 12:11:40 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really the Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 07:00 PM 3/20/99 MET, Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: >Denial cost Africa hundreds of thousands of deaths - and its effects will >continue for the next two centuries. Speaking of science fiction, why do you say "two centuries"? That's a looooooooong time, in terms of humans... What results are you predicting will tumble down from this, that will stretch over two hundred years? Just curious, Heather .. http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 21:00:56 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really the Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 20 Mar 99, at 12:11, Heather MacLean wrote: > Speaking of science fiction, why do you say "two centuries"? > That's a looooooooong time, in terms of humans... > What results are you predicting will tumble down from > this, that will stretch over two hundred years? The figure was taken from President (of Uganda) Musoveni's speech I referred to obliquely earlier in my note. I (obviously) don't know what his precise reasoning was. Papers delivered later predicted that 50-60% of the Great Lakes region population would be HIV+ve in 2050, so I would think that Musoveni estimated that 200 years was the time required for Africa to deal with the problem and to make up the economic and cultural ground lost while doing so. I'd mention that the President held little hope of a cure and/or vaccine for the disease because of the rates of mutation of the virus so that probably affected his thinking Two centuries are not long in Africa's terms. The effect of malaria, bilharzia (schistosomiasis) and sleeping sickness have already blocked development in most of Africa for much longer and, after a period of quiesence, are once again on the rise. The internecine wars that have plagued Africa (and help spread AIDS and other diseases) for 50 years are certainly not going to stop within the next 50. And AIDS is a special case in that it takes years to show serious symptoms and still longer to *incapacitate* its host so it spreads in ways quite different to the diseases we know. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 20:07:22 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: VALERIA MARCHIONI Subject: Greg Bear MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have just finished his Sidhe cycle: "The Infinity Concerto" (1984) and "The Serpent Mage" (1986). I admit I feel astonished and hurted: a good story fallen in the wrong writer's hands!! The first book is an apotheosis of what I call "the typical male silliness": this poor young little boy who jumps in a world of difficult complexity for his 16 years, and notice the ultra-stressed stereothipe of the talent poet, hanging out to find at end his own life... I wished to throw the volume out of my window when I read how uncaring was depicted the death of his female co-protagonists, in each of he was involved directly, but oh he just wouldn't have known what could happen... The core of the loom is the tireless way of sacrifice by the women for love, human and sidhe the same. I think it's true, I mean real-like. It's so in our world: that makes me mad in anger. Not for the thing itself, but for the behaviour of men in reponse. But obiouvsly there's always time for the worst: the second novel is a punch in my belly. Beside the foggy solution of the paint (I would rather the misty impression than the simplicistic explanation of the underlaying plot), in addiction to the "female role syndrome" there is the "cosmological order of male gods". My personal sense of religion felt very ill, but yeah, while creation is SO easy all artists are godlike, why not? Magnificent :0((. The Muses inspired this story full of wonderful promises, but it all has been trashed, and I am really suffering for that, for my love to Eleuth, Helena, Katherine, Ruth and all the female sidhes... Hope I have been understandable and not too childish, since I had felt really involved as a girl and as a passionate reader. I wait gladly to your kind messages, since very few fantasy books are object of discussion and I wouldn't like to be of disturb. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 21:07:38 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: VALERIA MARCHIONI Subject: Monkeys & Reflections on science MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree with Julieanne, since I feel that pain on myself. We grow in the mannierism of our rational thought and put its model at the place of the real world. The models we build are plain and skeleton draws, cutting off all the mighty beauty of nature: we just slash all that noisy details, sure they are of minor importance in the phenomenon we study, squeezing out a thin and fragile model of our perceptions, interpreting it even if it cannot be based on a global understanding. But life is so generous that even those childish toys do have an inner beauty, it seems that nature developed a kind of compassionate appreciation of our mind products. And the worst is we strenghten this POV because of the "progress" of technology. Maybe I went too out of topic, then I jump again in. Let's see how to spread our object: think about what utopia and sf fiction does to our dreams and hopes for the future, like science and technology affect our view of our world and our life. Are we becoming artifacts of ourselves by our own hands? Shall it hit also our "superior qualities" (I mean surely our mind, don't worry about soul of course) like thought, arts, language and manipulation? Till when we want to follow the path of the homo faber? Isn't it decadence? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 21:29:02 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: VALERIA MARCHIONI Subject: Sexist education and utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just want to say mine on this old topic. I think female teachers or models are the most important event in a girl life: they can show you what the woman role can be in society and open the mind on the world in the way we need to be really part of it, teaching from the nearest place an adult can be for a child or a teenager. Maybe I'm too straight but in my experience it's easier to find outstanding women than men, and I don't talk about job successes, but developed personality and social behaviour. That's what a young daughter has to learn: she feels more attuned to communicate than to run for money in the outside world, at least at young age ;0). World goes bad for us, probably because mothers can't lead properly their childs: we don't have an organization of the genders role which can be right over times. From the past we know only that famales have to drop owing to males their existence, but to find the answer we have to look inside us, and try to start the melt, the real union in love. And I don't think we should refer to "A World Between" by Norman Spinrad exept for models not to follow together with our history. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 07:20:11 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Organization: Gemini Walker Ink Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really t In-Reply-To: <19990320180012.782.qmail@nw177.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > On 20 Mar 99, at 7:46, geminiwalker wrote: > > > It would seem to me that there is a lot more to this > > woman than her "no-connection" theory, as the > > scientists I am reading (and I've done all the reading > > I can get my hands on) at no time advocate *against* > > the use of condoms. They know that sexually > > transmitted diseases can ravage the immune system > > on their own, as can the overuse of anti-biotics. > > Your point is taken because this woman (according to news reports) had the > contemptuous attitude that many Westerners have for Africa and its problems. > But I think that advocating, for example, that a HIV-positive woman should > breast-feed her child is equally criminal. In Uganda studies quoted by > President Musoveni showed that a non-HIV child breast fed for the first three > months by an HIV+ve mother had a 1:11 chance of becoming HIV+ve in turn. This > increased to 3:1 if the child was nursed for 18 months. I can't imagine any > mother who loves her child taking that sort of risk. But you can imagine the same mother being willing to subject her child to AZT, given all the controversy? Tell me this --- are you a mother? Do you have children of your own? And how do you then explain this newest "finding" from the "AIDS" Establishment? `Mother Nature Knows Best' Proteins in Tears, Saliva and Urine Fight AIDS Virus By Paul Recer The Associated Press W A S H I N G T O N, March 16 - Tears, saliva and the urine of pregnant women all contain proteins that are potent killers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, researchers say. The scientists isolated a protein, called lysozyme, and found that it was able to kill the AIDS virus quickly in test-tube experiments. A report on the study appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lysozyme could become an important therapeutic drug against HIV because it is a natural compound that the body routinely makes, said Sylvia Lee-Huang, professor of biochemistry at New York University, who identified it with colleagues. "It ought to be more tolerated and have fewer side effects than other HIV drugs," said Lee-Huang. "It possibly could be used in combination with other drugs." Babies Somewhat Protected The team also found that the urine of pregnant women contains another type of protein, called ribonucleases, that destroys the genetic material in the HIV virus. It's not known how lysozyme kills HIV, but Lee-Huang speculated that it could work by breaking down the outer membrane of the virus. Nava Sarver, an AIDS researcher at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the study was interesting but needs to be confirmed by other laboratories. "A lot of work needs to be done to simulate the (laboratory) findings in a more relevant situation," said Sarver. Her agency, NIAID, is part of the National Institutes of Health. The search for the anti-HIV protein was prompted, said Lee-Huang, when researchers realized the babies of women infected with HIV were somewhat protected from the virus. How Does It Work? Researchers earlier suspected that human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, a hormone produced during pregnancy, was responsible for protecting against HIV and other viruses. Lee-Huang said she and her group purified HCG and found it had no effect on HIV. The researchers then spent two years isolating other proteins in urine and testing them against HIV. Eventually they found lysozyme and ribonucleases. The researcher speculated that pregnancy prompts a woman's body to make more virus-killing proteins to protect the developing baby from viruses and bacteria. That suggests "Mother Nature knows best how to protect the earliest stages of life," Lee-Huang said. The proteins also were found in mother's milk, white blood cells and chicken egg white, and lysozyme was found in saliva and tears. The presence of lysozyme in saliva may be a factor in why HIV is not transmitted by casual kissing, said Lee-Huang. The team is now trying to determine exactly how lysozyme attacks HIV. That is a critical step in developing a new HIV drug based on the protein, she said. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. > The problem with the "no connection" case is that it's largely based on > anecdotal evidence of the type you quoted - and is just about as reliable as > the old myth that VD can be caught from a toilet seat. Unfortunately in > contrast to the "toilet seat" myth which makes people more careful, the denial > of the HIV/AIDS connection is dangerous because it makes people careless and > encourages the spread of HIV. The reported recent increase in "dangerous > behaviour" by people in the high-risk categories stems, I believe, directly > from denial. No, it is based on scientific studies, data, and documentation that is plentiful, if one takes the time to read the research. In fact, there is much more research, and far more documentation disputing, if not downright disproving, the HIV=AIDS theory than the other way around. In fact, I already said that. But then again, I had to do the reading for a "position paper" I was supposed to be writing supporting the use of prophylactic AZT for rape survivors. The scientific documentation weighed very heavy on the side of raising questions. The rhetoric began to appear to insidious for me to support, and I had been "educated" by the supposedly "best" "health educators" in the field. What troubled me the most was that the information I was uncovering was not to become part of any information or literature distributed so that survivors could make their *own* decisions, which flies in the face of the entire women's health movement, not to mention the underpinnings of the rape crisis advocacy movement. The hypocrisy, in the face of it all, was too much for me. > The use of AZT cocktails for reducing the incidence of HIV in babies has been > widely tried in Africa. When we were in South Africa last year, HIV+ve > pregnant women were given it as routine with splendid results (although I > understand since we left in September that's been stopped due to lack of > cash). Well, I certainly wouldn't want to discount your experience, and I don't want to take this list anymore off topic, but I would wonder how you would define "splendid" and how those babies are doing today. In our "education" session with the Department of Public Health when we were being supposedly "updated" about HIV/AIDS for prophylactic use, I posed the question "do we know if AZT has any harmful effects on the fetus?" Having had two of my own children and having six younger siblings, I know how cautious doctors ordinarily are about pregnant women taking so much as an aspirin! In fact, we were already hearing horror stories about women being threatened with imprisonment for drinking, smoking, and/or doing drugs while pregnant. So why, all of a sudden, was AZT suddenly being touted as something wonderful for children? The "educator" said that, to the best of their knowledge, AZT had no effects on the fetus. Continuing with my own research, I realized I had been patently lied to. There are studies out there. And they say something entirely different. So, what troubles me is not so much that the "HIV"ers are saying something entirely different -- but that they are the only ones who are allowed to say anything, and that they are not telling the truth. We're being sold a bill of goods, folks, and I'm not buying it. Not any more. You can if you want to. I'm only trying to share my vision, a vision I've worked long and hard on for a very long time. You don't have to see it if you don't want to. The rest of us will move along, now. > Denial cost Africa hundreds of thousands of deaths - and its effects will > continue for the next two centuries. I hate to see it happening in the Western > world. Scientists in any field are, of course fallible and the field of AIDS > research is certainly no exception, but I believe that caution - even > excessive caution - is essential in the case of potential "world killer" > diseases like AIDS. > Malnutrition and AZT are causing deaths in Africa, that and the shame of shunning when those who are suspected of having AIDS cannot get the community support from their families and friends that they need. No disease, sexually transmitted or not, continues to remain in the original "high risk groups" it is originally found in if it is a truly "world killer." There is also something highly suspect about that. The numbers aren't there. The numbers that *are* there are counted cumulatively, are counted whether or not there is HIV present, are counted on the basis of symptoms of "opportunistic infections" that are really very old diseases that have always been around. The tests are useless and test for nothing, and are utilized differently depending on where they are. People have tested positive in one place and at one time and tested negative, without medication, later on. But we don't hear about all that, or if we do, it gets dropped rather quickly. There was a woman who was going to sue, I remember, several years ago, but I never heard anything about her again. No, I care much too much for my children to ever subject them to AZT. And I nursed my children, but that was years ago, before we had ever heard of HIV. That doesn't mean it wasn't around, or that I couldn't have had it then. (72? 77? It could have happened. But it didn't. Of course.) No, there's some kind of nightmare going on out there. And denial about *that* will cause more deaths than HIV ever will. ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 3/14/99 ICQ #27240345 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 12:47:10 -0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really t MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >The scientists isolated a protein, called lysozyme To the best of my knowledge, this was isolated during the 1920s by Alexander Fleming in the course of the researches which led to his much more well-known discovery of penicillin. He discovered a number of 'natural' substances in the body which had a similar effect. I'm not sure what this adds to the debate, except that scientists tend not to think about history? - I read somewhere the rather worrying suggestion that the practice of going over preceding literature to see if something has already been investigated, or other investigations in related areas have been undertaken is in serious decline. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 11:29:01 -0500 Reply-To: releon@syr.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Organization: Syracuse University Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" In-Reply-To: <003301be7399$f6672d20$642e70c3@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This is amazing! Years and years ago, Spin Magazine ran a regular AIDs column, and I remember reading about folks going in droves to Israel where an egg-white spread type medicine was OK'ed for us as effective against HIV. Also, that some researcher who tied the big name fellow for discovery of the antibodies felt that AIDs was simply tertiary (or fourth even) stage syphilis, and should be treatable with high high doses of pure, un-diluted penicillin, and he had even infected himself to check it out -- I don't remember hearing if he succeeded in his experiment though. This whole thing is rather appalling, that medical debates that have been going on for 15 years have been forgotten and recalled and disproved and proved and forgotten and... so many times over such a short period, and with such devastating effects! 21 Mar 99, , Lesley Hall wrote: > >The scientists isolated a protein, called lysozyme > > To the best of my knowledge, this was isolated during the 1920s by > Alexander Fleming in the course of the researches which led to his much > more well-known discovery of penicillin. He discovered a number of > 'natural' substances in the body which had a similar effect. > I'm not sure what this adds to the debate, except that scientists tend > not to think about history? - I read somewhere the rather worrying > suggestion that the practice of going over preceding literature to see if > something has already been investigated, or other investigations in > related areas have been undertaken is in serious decline. > > Lesley Hall > lesleyah@primex.co.uk > Rudy Leon PhD student Dept. of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 18:12:21 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT: "no-connection" WAS Re: [*FSFFU*] not really t Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 21 Mar 99, at 7:20, geminiwalker wrote: > But you can imagine the same mother being willing to > subject her child to AZT, given all the controversy? > Tell me this --- are you a mother? Do you have > children of your own? I didn't say that a mother should *necessarily* take AZT but simply that in South Africa, women given AZT had *far* fewer HIV+ve babies (about 50% less from research at the Johannesburg Baragwanath Hospital confirming results from a 2-year study in Thailand). Another study using a shorter, cheaper regime and reported by UNAIDS showed a reduction of 37%. Clearly AZT is only administered after the period of maximum tetragenic danger (in Africa for cost reasons only during the last 3-4 weeks) when the danger to the foetus is least. BUT the dangers of AZT therapy are well-known and, again like analogous treatments for cancer, say, AZT should be used only where its benefits outweigh its manifold disadvantages to mother and child. I believe that an HIV+ve mother has to make an informed choice but that that choice must be made with the best interests of the CHILD in mind. What I did say, though, that for a mother to knowingly take the risk of passing HIV to a child by breast-feeding is criminal. Contrary to your comments, breast feeding increases the risk of HIV transmission to the child in a relatively good South African environment by 15% or 1:6 (according to research at the Johannesburg Baragwanath Hospital perinatal clinic) and this is supported in a study by UNAIDS which found "[about] 35% of the children of seropositive women can acquire HIV: 10% in the pregnancy, 10% during during birth and 15% [1:6] by breast feeding". Essentially the HIV+ve breast-feeding mother is playing Russian roulette with her child's life, something no mother has the right to do - regardless of what political point she wishes to make. > And how do you then explain this newest "finding" > [on lysozyme] from the "AIDS" Establishment? Lysozyme is one of many compounds that kill the HIV virus in vitro. According to my notes, more than 170 non-toxic compounds occurring naturally in the animal and plant worlds have the same effect (and I've probably missed 90%). Of these at least 22 have been trumpeted as 'cures' for AIDS (in Asia and especially Africa where even an industrial solvent has been hailed as an AIDS panacea). False claims are equally common. To answer your question: no, I'm not a mother but I *am* pregnant and extremely conscious of the danger of HIV because last year I worked in South Africa where 1500 people a day get HIV. If the circumstances you outline for Kathleen Tyson applied to me, I would certainly take the AZT therapy unless there were strong reasons to do otherwise. And I wouldn't consider breast-feeding for a second! AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 18:09:17 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Organization: Gemini Walker Ink Subject: Ursula K. Le Guin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Well, I just finished a delightful little novel by Ursula K. Le Guin called "Eye of the Heron". I like it. I liked the exercise in taking a good, hard look at non-violence in practice. Having attempted to participate in an organization for ten years dedicated to ending violence against women from a non-violent perspective, I know how difficult it can be -- and how little support there is for non-violence in practice. That's one of the things I like about it. I hope to read more by Ms. Le Guin. I would recommend this novel to anyone who has not yet read it. I know I still have a lot of catching up to do with the rest of you. ;-) ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 3/14/99 ICQ #27240345