The recent disappearance of a popular tampon brand is really cramping the style of city women. Drugstore shelves have been mysteriously empty of o.b. non-applicator tampons since late fall, leaving the feminine hygiene product’s devotees puzzled and peeved. The popular product is in such short supply that eBay users are bidding up to $76 for three packs, which usually sell for just $8.79 a pack.

Their favorite brand of tampons is out of stock or gone forever, and they spend that much money buying them on eBay?! Sorry, but that’s just insane. Why would they do such a thing? They consider themselves environmentally conscious, of course.

Debbie Stoller, editor in chief of the popular feminist magazine BUST, says many women who use nonapplicator tampons do so for environmental reasons, so it was not simply a matter of changing brands.

“It has been a big deal because it’s one of the only nonapplicator tampons you can buy,” she explained. “People who choose to use this are a little bit politicized around it. They feel very strongly about these tampons.”

As someone who not only considers herself environmentally conscious but often puts herself out in order to do the right thing for the environment (and is massively frugal too), may I suggest that these women who want to politicize their feminine hygiene products and do right by the environment switch to menstrual cups. Tampons lacking applicators really aren’t all that much more environmentally conscious than the ones with cardboard applicators. Menstrual cups or reusable pads are just about zero waste, and seeing as these women are apparently already comfortable dealing with their periods and vaginae, it shouldn’t be hard for them to switch.

Then they can donate all the damn money they are BLOWING on buying rare tampons on eBay to organizations helping to save our precious world.

Some news stories I wanted to babble about but am too tired (and chilly) to sit here and get my rant on properly. LOL!

Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.

Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.

I’m sure we all saw the commercials in which Domino’s declared their pizza’s suck before but were now new, improved and awesome, right? Well, of course they are! They are loaded down with cheeses and saturated fats! Yummy! What’s really interesting about this tale isn’t that a pizza company “improved” their pizzas by adding more cheese … at the suggestion of an organization called Dairy Management. What’s interesting is this little bit:

And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture — the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.

Yes, apparently our tax dollars went to telling Domino’s to add more cheese to their crappy pizzas and to plan and pay for the $12 million marketing campaign to convince us all to eat more Domino’s Pizza. Just something to ponder the next time you get a craving for delivery pizza.

Florida orange growers have been hit with a bug-delivered and bacteria-caused blight they call “greening.” Rather than deal with the bugs (in an environmentally good way other than massive applications of poisons) or solve the problem with the actual bacteria, they are shooting for genetically modified oranges to save the day. Personally, I suspect if they weren’t all growing the exact same strain of oranges in one huge monoculture, they might not be experiencing this problem at all, and though everyone switching to the latest and greatest GMO orange might solve the problem for the short term, it’s still going to be a monoculture. Nature always finds a way, and if those bugs need and want to spread that bacteria as some sort of cycle of life, well … it’ll eventually succeed at getting the GMO trees too.

Whenever people talk about Medicare fraud and how we need to get rid of it, most people hearing them think of patients ripping off the system. There might be a little of that, but I know better. The best position to be in, if one wants to get free money from the government is being a doctor who takes Medicare. For example:

“Hospital patients expect their care to be based on medical need, not profits. This report sets forth alarming evidence that patients at St. Joseph Medical Center received unnecessary and potentially harmful stent implants time and again – a pattern that is shocking, disturbing and shameful. Doctors should not be performing invasive medical procedures patients don’t need, and taxpayers certainly shouldn’t be paying for these wasteful and improper implantations,” said Baucus. “Even more disconcerting is that this could be a sign of a larger national trend of wasteful medical device use, which is why we included aggressive new tools in the new health care law to fight fraud, waste and abuse. The health care law improves screening of medical providers and increases oversight to root out fraud, waste and abuse like this, shining a spotlight on problems like these and helping ensure cases like this don’t happen again.”

A single doctor at doctor at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland reportedly “implanted nearly 600 potentially medically unnecessary stents from 2007 through mid-2009″ a bill for which the government paid $3.8 million dollars. Additionally, said doctor has an interesting relationship with the maker of the stents, Abbott Labs. I’m horrified there are doctors out there that would do a procedure on someone they didn’t need, but it doesn’t surprise me. I have a really healthy mom on Medicare, and her doctor occasionally suggests tests and medications she just doesn’t need. Of course, he did that with my dad too, and I’ve experienced it with other relatives and other doctors.

In general, I think they usually have their hearts in the right places, but now I do have to wonder, you know? I think most of you reading this know, I don’t trust doctors as far as I can toss them anyway, but this particular guy was one busy doctor wasn’t he? 600 unneeded procedures?! $3.8 million?! Wonder how many more of these assholes are out there? In the time period when this guy was busy putting unneeded stents into people, Medicare spent $25.7 billion dollars on stent implants. Yup, one does wonder how many of them were actually necessary and how many just to line his pockets.

Even more detail of this doctor’s lack of care for patients and his lucrative relationship with Abbot Labs can be read about in this NYT story. It’s fascinating in that awful kind of way.

And St. Joseph Medical Cente in Towson, Maryland is now totally on the list of places I never ever want to receive medical care.

Greg Jarvis was marking a student’s music-history paper when he encountered an unfamiliar word – synesthesia – linked to perceptual experiences that he had always considered a normal part of life. That was how he discovered, at age 34, that most people don’t see shapes when they hear music, as he has done for as long as he can remember.

I have synesthesia. I see colors and sometimes experience flavors or textures (tactile sensations) when listening to music. It can be cool or not, depending on the music. Mostly though, just like all the sights and sounds that happen around us every day that we don’t really notice, I don’t really notice it unless I’m just sitting and listening to music and paying attention. Anyway, this is a really interesting article on the matter that’s worth reading.

I’m not overly fond of Anderson Cooper, but every so often he does something I like. This time it’s an interview with Texas State Representative Leo Berman … a Birther. Mr. Cooper keeps pointing out to Berman that he’s an idiot who believes internet bullshit, and it’d be entertainingly funny, if it weren’t so sad this guy is that convinced the bullshit he believes is true while simultaneously representing people in the state of Texas.

Also, this Berman guy is running for Texas Speaker of the House in January. Oh, I can’t wait to see if he wins! Yeah, I love my state legislators SO much.

So it seems a lot of people, some of whom work with him, think Keith Olbermann is a bit of an ass. That was always my impression as well, and I’ve never met the guy.

In Germany, one can buy tiny pieces of art from vending machines. Wish I’d known about this before one of my friends went over there. I’d have totally pestered him to find one and get me some of that German art.

New Maryland Republican Representative Andy Harris won his seat on a platform of resisting the expansion of “government-run or government-mandated insurance.” He also spent Monday demanding to know why he had to wait 28 days for his own government-run insurance.

Well, that’s about typical, isn’t it? No, no, no … the common people can’t have it, but where the hell is MINE?! Rep. Harris can kiss my grits.

“There was no harm done,” King said Wednesday, referring to the waterboarding of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohmammed, who was subjected to simulated drowning 183 times in March of 2003. “In the big picture, to hold someone’s head underwater, the chance of permanent damage is minimal and the rewards are great.”

Rep. King can kiss my grits too. Or he can let me hold his head under water, since it’s so harmless. I’d like some of those great rewards myself.

Texas is suffering a huge budget shortage, but what to cut (other than health care)? Why education, of course! We aren’t ranked 50th yet, and surely we can get there with just a little less money going to our schools!

“Write about me running for president,” Greene said. “I’m running for president of the United States.”

“I’m the next president,” Greene said, while sitting on a bench. “I’ll be 35 … just before November, so I was born to be president. I’m the man. I’m the man. I’m the man. Greene’s the man. I’m the man. I’m the greatest person ever. I was born to be president. I’m the man, I’m the greatest individual ever.”

Oh, Alvin Green, you complete me. What would I do without the laughter you bring to my life?

“He just has a different belief system than most Americans.”
–Roger Ailes, Fox News Chairman

He’s right about that! From what I can tell, Obama is a Christian who actually tries to live up to Christian ideals, which would, in fact, mean he has a different belief system from all those other American Christians out there who never really seem to be terribly Christ-like.

“Plano ISD have Internet filters to keep kids from seeing this and then they’re showing them,” Marquis said. “They’re presenting it on a big screen and forcing kids to comment and compare. Maybe it’s OK for a college art student but not for 14-year-olds.

What could this concerned parent be so terribly concerned about? Why pornography and obscenity, of course! How dare the school district use a textbook for a gifted and talented humanities class that includes such horrifyingly disgusting images as these:

Indeed, that’s some horribly perverted and mind-damaging imagery! It could warp a 14 year old’s thought processes beyond all hope! Or not. I’m betting not. Your average American 14 year old sees things more obscene and pornographic than this simply by existing in our culture.

Thankfully, the school district came to its senses and realized quickly that banning the textbook was ignorant and reversed their decision –though only after other parents and students became outraged about the ban. I’m rather surprised, considering it’s a school district in Northeast Texas, which is an area generally not known for common sense concerning “protect the children” issues. Maybe there’s hope for our educational system after all.

And if Jeremy Marquis and his wife think these are examples of the darkest expressions of art, neither of them has spent any time at all looking at art.