From tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald Spike column

A planned New Zealand flick about genetically modified sheep that turn into crazed killers has finally got the go-ahead to start filming. Financed by a South Korean company, Black Sheep will be made in Wellington next year, using some of the technical staff who worked on the special effects for The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy.

“We are confident that this original and highly entertaining project presents the perfect opportunity for us to work with this highly regarded Korean investor,” a spokeswoman for Park Road Post, the film’s New Zealand funding partner schmoozed in Seoul yesterday.

The story will play on the fears of a nation where sheep, waiting quietly in their paddocks, outnumber humans by 10 to one.

(No it isn’t April 1, I checked.)

And I do have a nasty scar on my arm from when a wether (castrated male sheep) tried to leap past me in a race and managed to run his miserable little horn through my flesh quite effectively. Be afraid – be very afraid ….

Here is an advert from Good Housekeeping: Wartime Scrapbook, Barbara Dixon (ed), Collins £ Brown, 2005. Today the tampon adverts show windsurfing and rock-climbing; this was the 1940s equivalent.

The book – of reproduced extracts from the magazine (which is still going), both editorial and adverts – contains all the “housekeeping” things you’d expect, from how to make “delicious nutiritious meals out of powder egg” (which I doubt is really possible, having tasted them once, in a “five-star” hotel in North Korea) to the best ways to ensure your woollens survive the wash.

But the book shows that during the war years it also had a serious, if often highly paternalistic, side, as the article on venereal disease I’ve reproduced below indicates.

The modern commentary is brief, but informative. I was surprised to learn that: “By 1944 almost one baby in three was born illegitimately.” (Interesting light on the babyboomers there.)

If you’re looking for a Christmas present for an elderly female relative – particularly one who doesn’t read a lot but would enjoy looking at the pictures – this would be just the ticket.

TO ALL THINKING WOMEN
On the opposite page we publish an advertisement from the Ministry of Health on the subject of venereal diseases, For a family magazine this may seem, at first sight, a strange step, But just because Good Housekeeping is edited for, and by, those who believe whole-heartedly in the sanctity of the home; who believe that, above all, our children’s heritage must be safeguarded and this country, and the world, made a better, cleaner, saner place to live in, it is only logical that it should draw attention to an evil menacing all we hold dear.

Here, too, we want to make one point. Much danger lies in the fact that the ordinary decent citizen, especially when a woman, feels that ” V.D.” is so remote from her life and home that, though to be deplored, it is not really her concern. How tragic a fallacy this is appears every day. A clean, intelligent lad, son of whom any mother may be proud, joins up. Away from home and friends, eager for fun and companionship in his off-duty hours, an evening that starts innocently enough may end up disastrously. The fact that a boy would not seek the company of prostitutes does not mean safety. An appalling number of venereal infections are caused by quite young girls who seem, on the surface, perfectly fit companions for decent lads.

Not always, of course, is it the Iads who suffer most. Many a young married couple have had their happiness blasted because the husband, before marriage, and as the price, perhaps, of a single escapade, contracted a venereal infection and then, not fully cured, passed it on to his wife and unborn child. No, not one of us can say ” this cannot touch me or mine “: all of us have the. duty to do whatever lies in our power to stamp out the scourge.

What can we women do? First and foremost, perhaps, make our home life so warm and full and rich that husbands, sons, daughters, wherever they may be, even if miles away, will feel its call stronger and more compelling than any temptation. Next, too, those of us who are blessed in our
own home lives can lend a helping hand to the less well-placed. If the young men and girls in the Services, or working in factories away from home, had more of the right kind of hospitality offered them, more pleasant, friendly places where both sexes could enjoy each other’s company, there would be far less dangerous playing with fire.

The aim of all thinking women must be to obviate the conditions—loneliness, a feeling of insecurity and not being wanted, with the resultant craving for excitement and attention—that so often lead to sexual promiscuity. If, however, damage has been done, swift and specialised medical attention is imperative. In such cases, an understanding older woman can do much to persuade the sufferer to take treatment at once. The toll of V.D. must be arrested, and it is we wives and mothers who can do much to help.

There are blog carnivals for historians (as you’ve seen here), for cat-lovers, for storytellers, for self-publicists … the list goes on and on. (There’s a partial list here.)

So I’ve decided it is time for the Carnival of Feminists to be launched.

The current plan is for it to be held on the first and third Wednesday of each month (or close to that date). Hosted by a different blogger for each edition, it aims to showcase the finest feminist posts from around the blogsphere.

The first edition will be hosted on here on October 19. Future hosts and other information will be found on the Carnival of Feminists homepage.

The Carnival hopes to build the profile of feminist blogging, to direct extra traffic to all participating bloggers, but particularly newer bloggers, and to build networks among feminist bloggers.

How to define feminist? Well that is up to each host. I don’t intend to get into detailed debate about the issue: at the end of the day the choice of hosts will be mine, and then the direction of each edition will be decided by them.

Broadly, however, I’d say that a “feminist” post doesn’t have to directly address what is commonly defined as “politics” – as we all know the personal is political, but there should be some sense in a post addressing women’s place in the world. Posts should also be more than a collection of links, and include substantial original content.

Volunteers to host are exceedingly welcome – please do, otherwise I’ll probably come calling! I will try to chose them from as wide a definition of “feminism” as possible.

Nominations for excellent posts (your own or by others) should usually be sent to the host of the next carnival, but if they’ve yet to be named, or if you have any other queries, you can reach me at natalieben (at) gmail (dot) com.

And for the inaugural edition – for which I’ll stretch the date of posts back for up to a month, PLEASE SEND NOW! (You can drop a line in the comments or email me on natalieben (at) gmail (dot) com. Only one nomination per blog please – the best feminist post of the month. And please put “history carnival” in the subject line.)

Women

An unusually nuanced and intelligent discussion of the whole issue and its history (not just about Hillary), from USA Today.

“[In 1937] two-thirds of Americans said they wouldn’t vote for a woman for president. By the 1950s, a narrow majority said they would. In 1984, when Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale chose Ferraro as his running mate, the public by more than 4-to-1 said they would vote for a woman.

The trend toward increasing acceptance had stalled by 1987, though. For the past two decades, views have stayed about the same, [but]…

Some of the 86% who said they would vote for a woman probably didn’t mean it, says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Poll at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Those surveyed “feel some social pressure to say the ‘acceptable’ response,” he says, and may want to reflect the nation’s aspirations as a land of opportunity.

The 34% who said “most of my neighbors” wouldn’t vote for a female president may have given a more candid measure of the public’s views.”

“

I spent part of this afternoon at a fascinating talk on the sense of touch – one of those things that seem so simple yet have a tremendous degree of complexity when you get into them. (And much of what we know, it seems, comes from when these systems, through illness or injury, go wrong.)

So what contributes to your sense of touch?

(a) Meissner’s endings (which sense dynamic pressure, i.e. movement)
(b) Merkel’s cells (which are biased towards static pressure, allowing the modulation of your force so you don’t squeeze say a glass to smithereens)
The above are close to the surface, while deeper down are:
(c) Pacinian endings (which sense vibration)
(d) Ruffini endings (which sense skin stretch)

Then there’s proprioception, which gives you the sense of where your limbs are. (Why even with your eyes closed if someone moves one limb to a position, you can put the matching one in the same position.)

Contributors to this are:
(a)Muscle spindles (the nerve fibres in which sense position and movements)
(b) Golgi tendon organs (muscle tension)
(c) Extra-muscular receptors
(d) Joint capsule receptors
(e) Those Ruffini endings again

All of these separate pieces of information apparently travel independently to the brain, where they are processed in different areas of the brain (as seen in EM imaging) , so there are “dimensions of touch”, each perceived in a different part of the brain.

Then there are varying actions for touch, which seems to follow from above

1. Lateral motion e.g. rubbing a finger across the surface, which gives texture
2. Static contact – fingers resting on the surface – for temperature
3. Enclosure, holding grasping the object – for shape
4. Unsupported , holding the object in the hand – for weight
5. Contour – tracing around the edges – for global and exact shape

If you try to use an action to make the “wrong” judgement, it will be highly ineffective.

Interestingly, the touch part of your brain is very close to the movement part, while sight is much further away.

However, vision is a holistic sense, while processing of touch happens serially – each one being acknowledged in turn,

No wonder the robot-makers have so many problems when they try to make their inventions carry a glass of water across a room. (Although looking around this I found one way they are trying to deal with this is to create artificial skin.)

And here’s an artist’s take on the issue.

(I got into the outer edges of this area of knowledge in my master’s thesis, when looking at proprioceptive coherence”, the way in which an practiced tool user can experience the tool as an extension of their body. )