Good news from all over

Or rather, not too much.


On Tuesday I took Cat to the hospital, to (as it turns out) get a biopsy of her cervix - she's been having abnormal pap smears for a couple of years, and the viral infection (some version of HPV) has apparently taken a serious turn. From what the doctor said, they're expecting to find a 'pre-cancerous' lesion, which should be removable via a LEEP operation - a fairly minor outpatient procedure, we're told. Well, far better to have it treated and removed before it turns into a cancer, I guess.

Which, parenthetically, just made me goggle in abhorred wonder at all the nutcase parents in the US who are vowing and declaring never to let their teenage daughters be innoculated against HPV, despite its effect at reducing cervical cancer. The basis for this seems to officially be that being innoculated against a sex-born virus will just encourage them to have sex, and if they only have sex with the one man they ever marry, they will be in no danger of contracting HPV.

Which may be true, IF their husband has never had sex with anyone at all ever, either. And assuming they never divorce and remarry, or - heaven forbid - have an affair while married.

In fact, as far as I can detect, the real reason for this refusal is a far more visceral patriarchal reaction of 'Eewww, lady-parts, yukky!'  .... which actually pretty much describes the reaction of these nuts to most female-related issues.

Enough hypocrisy and rank deception to choke a hippo, really.

Oh, and speaking of hypocrisy, we have this little fiasco in Louisiana at the moment too: Experts now estimate that five times more oil has been spilling into the water from that oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana than they thought before:

Okay. Here's how much they estimated was leaking before this evening: 42,000 gallons a day.
Five times that amount means approximately 210,000 gallons a day have been leaking into the Gulf.
If this spill continues unabated for two months — and that seems to be the most likely time frame at this point — we're talking about 12.6 million gallons.
Exxon Valdez? That was 10.8 million.
Enjoy your evening.

Snakes! Snakes! We gots Snakes!

Well, one, anyway - Cat came in from her morning coffee on the deck, to hide from it: she saw it snaking (ha) around the house foundations heading for the neighbours property. About three foot long, medium grey with a pink/orange colour under the jaw, she said.

Midnight, who always goes out with her, was of course alertly watching, and decided to go snake-hunting, following it under the gate into the front yard, where we stopped her & demanded she go back inside, for fear she'd go playing in the traffic - the snake had already disappeared then, so I didn't get to see it myself.

I should perhaps explain that, after 8 years in an apartment, Middie has decided that she is a Mighty Hunter, and will stalk anything ... badly. Of course as it's daylight and she's pitchblack, she stands out like a beacon against the grass colours. Still, this is better than Brandy, whose idea of hunting seems to be to hold her mouth open and expect birds to fly into it.

When I think about it, it's surprising that it's taken a year to see our first snake here - America is full of weird creatures, most of who we haven't seen anything of, yet: the ticks & leeches (which Arkansas is famous for) are something that grosses us both out, but again, we haven't ventured into hiking into the wild (or even the long grass really) so no sign of them yet.

Well, back to herding the wild electrons