Rotundus.com

Why aren't we all using Japanese toilets?

"What was most notable to this author when visiting Japan was that these toilets are everywhere. You could be hiking for hours at a mountain outside of Tokyo and at the very summit, discover the toilets in the public bathrooms are nicer than the toilets in the home of the average billionaire in the United States."

Woman dies in Irish hospital after being refused abortion

Of course only 0.006% of abortions are performed to save a mother's life, meaning that permitting abortions only in such instances would cut the abortion rate by a mere 99.994%.

Venice under Water

A series on photos on life during Venice's high water.

Icelandic volcanoes could heat British homes

I wonder if this will come to fruition - a 1000 km long undersea power cable connecting Iceland to Britain.

New Study Finds More Young Swedish Men Becoming Prostitutes Than Women

"More than twice as many young men in Sweden sell sex as do women, a study published Monday by the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs said."

The response to our finding that the rate of female-to-male family violence was equal to the rate of male-to-female violence, not only produced heated scholarly criticism but intense and long-lasting personal attacks. All three of us received death threats. Bomb threats were phoned in to conference centers and buildings where we were scheduled to present. Suzanne received the brunt of the attacks. Individuals wrote and called her university urging that she be denied tenure; calls were made and letters were written to government agencies urging that her grant funding be rescinded. All three of us became 'non-persons' among domestic violence advocates. Invitations to conferences dwindled and dried up. Advocacy literature and feminist writing would cite our research, but not attribute it to us. Librarians publicly stated they would not order or shelve our books.

- Dr. Richard J. Gelles of the University of Pennsylvania on the response to research conducted by him and several of his colleagues (as cited on p. 71 of Karla Marx: How Feminism has Seduced the West)

Reminds me a bit of the death threats faced by Erin Pizzey, founder of one of the world's first women's shelters once she came to the conclusion that women perpetrated their fair share of domestic violence.

Apology apology

How does a newspaper apologize for a previously printed, incorrect apology?

Genetically Modified Tomatoes Counteract Heart Disease

"Researchers have developed a genetically modified tomato that produces a certain peptide which will lower the plaque buildup in the arteries of mice. This could also work in humans."

Sexual Economics, Culture, Men, and Modern Sexual Trends

An alternate view on "The End of Men"

How to “green” a hamburger

"one solution may be–may be–to encourage beef producers around the world to behave more like those in the U.S. and Europe, which rely on much-maligned Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to produce more beef while using less land, water and feed than producers elsewhere. ... Foodies, meanwhile, say they love the taste of grass-fed beef. But Jason told me: “As we start looking at greenhouse gases, grass-fed beef is probably the worst option.”"

Shock Value

"Does art retain the power to shock? Must artists contrive to provoke?"

Per United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers with equal or less seniority.

Basically it seems she started out at similar wage rates. (This doesn't discuss whether she actually had similar productivity as her male counterparts - we know, for example, that women working full-time on average work fewer hours). Where this struck me as interesting was when I came across a article on gender differences in salary negotiations. From its abstract:

... we find that when there is no explicit statement that wages are negotiable, men are more likely to negotiate than women. However, when we explicitly mention the possibility that wages are negotiable, this difference disappears, and even tends to reverse. In terms of sorting, we find that men in contrast to women prefer job environments where the ‘rules of wage determination’ are ambiguous.

It would seem to make sense that this would apply to both initial salary negotiations as well as later renegotiations (i.e. wage increases). Outside union jobs - in which wages and performance may be disconnected - it seems virtually impossible to have an environment where wages are unambiguous. (And if it was, that would seem to discriminate against men per the study).

One thing that I'm a little unclear about is whether Ledbetter actually tried to renegotiate her salary over the years. Wikipedia notes inconsistencies in her testimony before Congress and in her earlier lawsuit as to when she became aware of differences in pay:

Ledbetter's testimony before Congress has been criticized because she represented that she did not learn of the pay disparity until shortly before the complaint, but her earlier sworn deposition testimony indicated that she discovered the pay disparity as early as 1992, six years before filing the complaint in 1998. In a deposition held as a part of her lawsuit, Ledbetter testified that she "knew in 1992" she was "being paid less than [her] peers". When asked how she knew about the discrepancy, she stated that "[d]ifferent people that I worked for along the way had always told me that my pay was extremely low." She continued, "Kim Whitman had told me that." Ledbetter testified that Mr. Whitman, who was her manager in 1992, told her "it was low in comparison to [her] peers". However, in her testimony before the Senate, Ledbetter stated that she "only learned about the discrepancy in [her] pay after nineteen years [1998], and that was with someone leaving me an anonymous note"."

Either Ledbetter is guilty of perjury or she had quite a few years in which to try to correct any wage disparity (at least any disparity not due to her relative performance). It would seem that, judging by her later testimony to Congress, this was a step she didn't take.

At the moment she seems to acknowledge being essentially unemployable due to the risk of her suing her employers. This seems an entirely reasonable response on the part of employers due to the possibility of her filing a lawsuit rather than doing something like trying to renegotiate wages.