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Girl or Woman

If you are female, which term do you prefer if you had to be labeled by one of these words: “Girl” or “Woman” or “Female” or doesn’t it matter?

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln I was educated, roughly and roundly, by certain forces in the English Department that one must never call a female a “girl” if she has had her period — how one determines if menstruation has happened or not was never explained — and the correct term for the rest of her life was “woman” but never “lady” because “lady” was an Olde Englishe synonym for “bitch.”

Ladies and gentlemen rightly translated to the modern ear, I was told, as Bitches and gentlemen and it was an unfortunate, but culturally accepted, put-down of women who fought to advance their self-worth beyond being seen merely as property.

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Angel of Death to Donate Life

Charles “The Angel of Death” Cullen — the killer nurse of Somerset Medical in New Jersey and who has pleaded guilty to murdering 29 patients under his care at five New Jersey Hospitals and two in Pennsylvania — has now decided he wants to donate one of his kidneys to a dying man in New York. Would you accept a body part from a confessed murderer in order to save your life?

Would you worry about the goodness in you rejecting the evil in the donated organ? What would you say to the families of the victims your donor murdered? The hopeful recipient of Cullen’s kidney — there is an ongoing legal and medical debate if Cullen would donate the kidney under the laws of the state of New Jersey or New York — is a relative of the woman Cullen was dating at the end of his killing spree in December 2003. That woman gave birth to the Angel of Death’s child soon after his arrest for murder.

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Sacramento Reloaded

We have been out of Sacramento for 24 hours now so it’s time to look back and share some impressions while they are fresh and of the mind and not the memory. Flying into Sacramento is like diving into a miles long patchwork of streams and parcels of farmland.

You feel like you’re landing in a pasture when your plane touches down. There is no doubt this part of California thrives on agriculture and living from the land. This Sacramento Reloaded post generally deals with experiences within a 30 minute walking radius of the Sheraton Grand hotel in four directions of the wind.

1. Everything closes at 5pm. Good luck finding an open deli or a Starbucks or a restaurant if you’re thirsty or hungry at 5:01pm. On the East Coast we are used to the 24-Hour Deli and eating and drinking joints that close at 2:00am and open again at 5:00am. Our hotel only served food in their restaurant from 6:30am-2:00pm and from 5:30pm-9:00pm. If you were hungry in the afternoon you were on your own! We are used to hotels having eating places open for 24 hours a day.

2. Janna noticed the children in Sacramento are more fearful than those in New York City and Jersey City. Sacramento children walk in fear of strangers and they make too much eye contact that reveals their terror. On the East Coast, children do not worry if you’re a local or a tourist — is there a difference?  — they just go along with their business and don’t bother looking you in the eye unless you cause them trouble and then they stare you down eye-to-eye to send terror into your being! Sacramento children appear more vulnerable and unnerved by the unfamiliar than their East Coast peers.

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Back into the Beast

I am currently flying high above you as I leave Sacramento behind and head back into the belly of Jersey City.

 Jersey City, New Jersey

I will check in here again with you when I am safe back on the ground.

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Chlamydia and the White Van

If you could look at a similar Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Map of New Jersey counties that charts Chlamydia infections, you would see intensive clusters centered in urban centers and around major hospitals and few infections in wealthy counties.

Chlamydia is a curable sexually transmitted infection (STI), which is caused by bacteria called Chlamydia trachomatis. You can get genital chlamydial infection during oral, vaginal, or anal sexual contact with an infected partner.

It can cause serious problems in men and women, such as penile discharge and infertility respectively, as well as in newborn babies of infected mothers. Chlamydia is one of the most widespread bacterial STIs in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than 3 million people are infected each year.

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