Weekly Digest: November 30, 2007

November 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Once a week I publish a weekly digest. The digest is a round-up of my posts in case you missed one along the way. You can subscribe to my digests to get this list in your email or RSS reader weekly. Click here to subscribe >>

Elaine Vigneault's Blog

Here is the weekly digest for this week:

  • A Doggy Christmas Story: Once upon a time a puppy named Lucy was rescued from the pound. She came to live with a nice lady named Mary and her son, Joey. Mary had a sister named Elaine. Mary’s sister, Elaine, had a dog, who was also rescued from the same animal shelter, named Floyd… One day Lucy and Floyd meet…

  • Writing Software? Read this:Rethink the default.

  • Effective, Justified Anger: What can we as feminists do to balance the right of women to be angry about their oppression and evidence that suggests that same anger makes peaceful solutions to that oppression difficult.

  • Having Children / Taking Resources: An article at The Daily Mail about women who don’t want children for environmental reasons raises a ton of issues for me. Plenty of folk are opting out of reproduction. They want child-free lives. The reasons are varied, but some give environmental reasons for not having children.

  • Meat Propaganda: The newest criticism of veganism to maintain the status quo of meat-eating: ‘veganism comes from an urban bubble where people are disassociated with rural life and nature.’ It’s just not true. It’s a lie.

  • New Addition To My Blogroll: Vegans of Color: This blog is about the intersection of veganism/animal rights with anti-racism and anti-xenophobia.

  • Animal Liberation Theory: Thoughts On A Manifesto

  • Google “Factory Farming”: Go ahead, do it! I dare you.

  • The Revolution Has Already Begun: When I was a kid General Motors used chimpanzees. Now they use crash test dummies, and other advancements in better treatment and understanding of non-human animals.

  • Grand Canyon:

Read more:

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A Christmas Story

November 30, 2007 | 2 Comments

Once upon a time a puppy named Lucy was rescued from the pound. She came to live with a nice lady named Mary and her son, Joey.

Lucy the puppy

Mary had a sister named Elaine. Mary’s sister, Elaine, had a dog, who was also rescued from the same animal shelter, named Floyd. Floyd lived with Elaine and a nice man named Ed.

Floyd

One day in November, Elaine and Ed brought Floyd to visit Mary, Joey, and Lucy. The cousins, Floyd and Lucy, met for the first time.

Lucy and Floyd meet

They liked each other! They played and played. And they went for walks together in the park.

One day, on Football Sunday, they went for a walk at the shopping center. They each wore the Jersey of their favorite football team. Floyd supported the Saints and Lucy rooted for the Cowboys.

Joey, Lucy, and Floyd

The doggies posed for cute pictures with Joey in front of the giant Christmas tree. Both dogs thought those big, shiny balls would be better on the ground where they could play with them. They wondered why someone put them up so high on that tree.

Christmas Tree

Then, amazingly, they spotted Santa Claus! He was walking from the parking lot to his house in the middle of the shopping center. He was carrying a bag. Was it a toy bag?

Santa Claus behind the scenes

No, it was his lunch.

When Santa arrived at his house, he went to the back. Lucy and Floyd wondered why all the kids were waiting by the front door when Santa went in through the back door. And then Floyd and Lucy wondered what that smell was.

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Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Family, Kids, & Friends, Miscellaneous, Not Copyrighted, Pictures, The Woman, The World 
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Bighorn Sheep at Grand Canyon

November 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Here is the aforementioned sheep video:

These bighorn sheep walked along the rim trail at the south rim of Grand Canyon.

When we saw them we stopped in our tracks and got the camera. The parts of the video that are looking away from the sheep are times when Ed is telling me to pick up our dog and when he’s handing over the leash to me. We didn’t want Floyd barking at the sheep or getting scared by the sheep. After the sheep passed, we walked forward and turned right, away from them. We planned on going left but after we saw them, we decided to give them (and our dog) some space.

Later on our walk we saw more wild animals: five teenage boys.

See other Grand Canyon photos here >>

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Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, The World 
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Writing Software? Read this.

November 29, 2007 | 6 Comments

Hey, software developers! Rethink the default.

Recently from Feministe:

“I typed in the patient’s name, her date of birth and her phone number, and then I chose from the dropdown menus for sex and marital status. The blanks are automatically filled in, but this patient is a married woman so I had to change both, because the default option is male, single. And I can’t change the defaults.”

From my old college column (2001):

“I just bought the computer game ‘The Sims,’ a people simulator. On my first game, I accidentally made all the people exactly the same because the default human is a white, adult male.”

“…In class we talked about an assigned reading, and many of the students referred to the authors as ‘he.’ I told them that not only were the author’s’ genders unknown, but that it was co-written, therefore plural. Most of the guys argued that my comment wasn’t relevant, even though we were discussing assumptions and implied premises. The next day when the teacher referred to another author as ’she,’ many students wondered what we were talking about. Many seemed shocked to realize that their logic textbook was written by a woman.”

If you write software, you have a duty to think beyond your own experience.

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Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Feminism, Internet & Technology, Philosophy and Guidance, Racism, The Web, The World 
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Grand Canyon Animals: Elk, Sheep, and Dogs

November 29, 2007 | 1 Comment

Part of our Thanksgiving trip included a stop at the Grand Canyon. Here we are at the South Rim.
Ed, Elaine, and Floyd at Grand Canyon

Here’s Ed and Floyd:

Ed at Grand Canyon

Our little pupper was/is extremely dirty. You can see his paws were nearly black here.

Dogs are allowed on the rim, but not below. They are allowed on the rim trail on a leash, but not in the lodge. If you visit the Grand Canyon with pets, either stay outside the park, stay in an RV, or be sneaky.

elk at Grand Canyon

We saw about eight deer, one female elk, and five sheep inside Grand Canyon.  The elk shown above, the sheep below:

Bighorn sheep at Grand Canyon

Sheep video coming soon.

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Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, The Woman, The World, Travel & Adventure 
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