On TV and Hormones

There must be some clause in every television writer's contract that says that, if you write for a television series aimed at anyone from their early teens to their late twenties, you must have one episode entitled "Let's Talk About Sex."

In this episode, the main character (or even several members of the cast) have some sort of crazy sexual awakening that ultimately leads to "the Talk" with either their partner or their parents, and several uncomfortable hijinks ensue for all involved! It's super funny and super awkward! Lol hormones and condoms!

As of right now, there are at least 8 series which have had this same episode, and while Salt 'n' Pepa gave us all a great song title with which to encompass this extraordinarily old plot device, it's time to give it a rest. It's a cliche title for a cliche idea, which reflects a time when most kids didn't have access to sex education -- or the Internet. No one's first exposure to the idea of condoms or birth control or STDs or pregnancy is from The Talk anymore. Sex Ed, 16 and Pregnant, every teen show on television, and Wikipedia have all made sure of that. (Of course, that still doesn't insure people will be safe about it, either.). Sure, the Talk is still a big moment in any coming of age show. I doubt there will ever be a time in history when talking to your parents about sex isn't uncomfortable. But there are less cliche ways to address the issue. Or at least come up with a new title. I really like the sound of "Lol Hormones and Condoms!"

Unclichedly yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Digital Humanities and My Job

I don't often talk about my work, but seeing as I'll be doing it 40 hours a week for the next seven weeks, maybe it's not such a bad idea to give everyone a little 'splaining.

If you followed the other blog linked to this account, you probably know I'm a writing consultant, as I used that blog to discuss the training process and the challenges I expected to face as a writing consultant.  But what you may or may not know is that for the last three years, I have worked at the UR Digital Scholarship Lab.

The DSL is a Digital Humanities research lab.  To a lot of people, digital humanities sounds like something of an oxymoron, because the humanities (history, philosophy, etc) tend to be pursuits we naturally link with neo-Luddism.  Okay, no, most people don't think it's an oxymoron -- mostly, they just kind of look at me like "huh?"

Our work in the lab is some bizarre hybrid of historical research and computer science skills that come together to create interesting historical resources which match the modern age -- interactive maps, updated digital archives, things which make often inaccessible research or concepts modern and graspable.

My pet project since I've worked there has to be Visualizing Emancipation -- an interactive map of the emancipation process during the Civil War.  A lot of people think (and we're certainly taught) that Emancipation happened when Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation and, like a magic spell, all the slaves were free.  Maybe, if your education was a little more in-depth, you were taught that what gave the emancipation of slaves legal teeth was the passing of the 13th Amendment.  Yay no more slaves!

What VE shows is the fact that the process was much more complex than that, and also precisely that -- it WAS a process.  Every emancipation event in the database corresponds to a primary or secondary source which can point to the exact date at which a slave ran away, was liberated, was re-enslaved, or any number of other major events which focus on the fact we're not just talking about a historical or political moment in time.  We're looking at the lives of people with real agency and whose freedom was not simply given to them.

This is not even to touch on the continuing plight of slaves and human trafficking victims which persists in a country that points to a point in history as the time when Americans stopped owning other Americans.  But that's a topic for another day.

For the time being, if you want to check out what I've been up to or the Visualizing project, you can go to http://dsl.richmond.edu, http://dsl.richmond.edu/emancipation, or follow the project on twitter at @vizemancipation.

Historically (and digitally) yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Summer in the City

Greetings, reader-type people!

I moved in yesterday to THIS lovely space:

That's right -- I'm living in a single (well, a single room in a suite) for the next eight weeks while I work at school.  I'll be spending the summer in Richmond for the first time ever, which is both really exciting and kind of bizarre.  As you can tell, I am clearly doing fun things all the time since I am clearly not blogging ever at all ever.

But I'm actually looking forward to the chance to get to know myself and this area/city a lot better over the next few weeks -- I'll get to experience what an actual 40-hour work week feels like (and figure out if I'm cut out for it at all), and hopefully get to spend time with some of my favorite people when I'm not at work.

Looking forward,
Rachel Leigh

On Monsanto and Frankenfood

When a friend of mine suggested I write a post about Monsanto, my first response was, "What about Monsanto?  Pretty much everything they do is evil."

...Exactly.

Monsanto, for those who don't know (though I suspect most of you do) is the number one producer of GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) and GMO seeds in the world.

Now I am not one of those people who is personally against GMOs as a food source.  And I think the use of the term "frankenfoods" to discuss crops which have been genetically-modified to be pesticide-resistant (or to grow faster or any number of the interesting things we've been able to do to seed to increase their growth and distribution potential) is a detriment to the debate because it starts out leaving a bad taste (ha, pun) in everyone's mouth.  In all honesty, I think GMOs could be the future of food production and the solution to the global food crisis, because they allow for greater and more fruitful production of food products.

My problem with Monsanto is how they USE their GMOs.  First, they have a patenting process which is entirely antithetical to their supposed goal of providing "poor people" with "cheap food," as their CEO stated just today.*  If the goal is to allow access to cheap food, then patenting the seeds you've designed to grow more efficiently is entirely hypocritical -- it creates a monopoly, which by the very nature of a monopoly drives the price up.  Sure, your foods are cheap now, but imagine how much cheaper they would be if you allowed for market competition.

The second problem I have with Monsanto is which products they make cheaper and more accessible to poor people -- corn and soy.  Two products which are precisely not what we need to further incentivize in the American diet.  The cost of corn is already artificially low, thanks to the subsidies corn farmers receive from the government (though that is a rant for another day), and as a result, you find it in nearly every cheaper (and worse for you) food alternative in every step of the food manufacturing process.  Corn-fed beef as opposed to grass-fed.  High fructose corn syrup as an alternative to natural sugars.  And, surprise surprise, these ingredients sneak their way into all those foods which are responsible for a nation-wide obesity epidemic, which primarily hits those lower-income shoppers who are supposedly "helped" by Monsanto's cheaper products.

Finally, of course, there are the massive sets of human rights abuse allegations against Monsanto, ranging from the domination of small farms to health concerns to widespread rumors about the use of child labor in their supply line.  Leaving out the questions of health or business practice, these are simply ethical concerns.  Monsanto is responsible for a number of major concerns, which have repeatedly landed them on human rights watch lists,** and the sum total of their egregiously-questionable business decisions make them a reasonable target for criticism.  I don't think Monsanto can be the be-all-end-all of the GMO debate because, if they are, the future of GMOs looks grim.

Yours (in some strange combination of hunger and disgust),
Rachel Leigh

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/hugh-grant-monsanto-elitism_n_3285378.html?utm_hp_ref=business
**http://www.globalexchange.org/corporateHRviolators#Monsanto

On Mental Health and Confessions

Back when I started this blog, I anticipated a lot of late-night rambles.  I think, however, that this is only the second late-night post I've written since I started this.

One of my big blogging idols, who runs the blog Hyperbole and a Half and is easily one of the funniest and most talented bloggers I have encountered in my time on the internet, has made two of her most recent posts (although one of them was admittedly about a year ago) about depression and how depression has impacted her work.

If you've followed me at all, you know I am a huge mental health advocate.  I can talk to you about what a comprehensive mental health policy on a college campus looks like (and what it doesn't, here's looking at YOU, Cornell).  I can tell you that 1 in 4 Americans will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime, that many of those who do not get help will consider or attempt suicide, and that 1,000 college students will take their own lives this year.  I can also, and will, tell you that your mental illness or mental health concern does not define you, nor does it make you any less whole or less worthy a person, and that no one worth having in your life will love you any less because of it.

But I will admit, I am ashamed of my mental illness.  Anxiety disorders, severe confidence issues, and intermittent depression have dominated my interactions with myself, my work, and others for as far back as I can remember.  I have also come to realize that when any of those concerns become stressed, I have a hard time maintaining a healthy relationship with food -- I either eat far too much and cannot control myself or I find the idea of food so unappealing that I may not eat all day unless I force myself to.

I'm making this post not to force my issues on others -- I do have a small group of people in my life who have been absolutely wonderful resources for me to work through my issues -- but because I feel, as someone who pushes so strongly for people to not see mental illness as a failing of character or something to be ashamed of, that I have been terrible when it comes to practicing what I preach.  I have no right to push for people to own their battle scars if I cannot do it myself.

Yours,
Rachel Leigh