Taking fitness to a (w)hole 'nother level

I had heard briefly about this, um, special spa, you know, for women; no, it's not Curves--it's a really special spa.

It's a spa for your vagina.

Yep.

The New York Times article is titled "A spa for those women concerned about pelvic fitness," which is a growing constituency, I guess. The pelvis has become a marketable area for modification, ranging from the Brazilian bikini wax to genital surgery referred to as vaginal “rejuvenation.” Doctors have even coined a term for such genital “beautification”: cosmetogynecology or cosmogynecology. The ads for doctors who specialize in vaginal rejuvenation, and for courses that you can take to learn the techniques ("YOU can become a licensed vaginal rejuvenator--IN YOUR SPARE TIME!") are rampant in the OBGYN periodicals.

Let's see what they say about this place, shall we?

Dr. Laura Romanzi is opening "the first medi spa in Manhattan wholly dedicated to strengthening and grooming a woman’s genital area. Phit — short for pelvic health integrated techniques — is to open this month on East 58th Street." Apparently, for $150, you can go in and tighten your vaginal muscles around Dr. Romanzi's fingers so she can assess your, eh, personal fitness. Perhaps Dr. Romanzi seeks to return to those halcyon days back in the late 1800's, when it was fashionable for society women to visit their gynecologist who would perform "uterine manipulations" to relieve their neurasthenias and hysterias, so to speak.

She's got a website, too.

Some of the services offered include Lazy Susan ("Painless electrical stimulation--for an effortless Kegel muscle workout"), Lip Sync (for those with asymmetrical labia), and The "Other" Face Lift (go on--guess what that's about--I dare you). There's even a Gifts and Packages page, for that special someone in your life! "Honey, the kids and I wanted to get you something really nice for Mother's Day . . . "

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

The article does include some skepticism from a Dr. Abbey Berenson, who states, “If this is being recommended to women who have no symptoms, then there are no medical organizations or literature that support that that is necessary.” Indeed, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued a statement noting that "vaginal rejuvenation, designer vaginoplasty, revirgination, and G-spot amplification, are not medically indicated, and the safety and effectiveness of these procedures have not been documented. No adequate studies have been published assessing the long-term satisfaction, safety, and complication rates for these procedures."

Dr. Romanzi says that she only wanted to teach women the proper way to do Kegel exercises. She does grudgingly admit that the idea of pelvic fitness is based more on her own experience than on clinical evidence. However, she believes all women might benefit from such exercises. “If you can vote and you have a vagina, you should do these,” she said. “It’s the dental floss of feminine fitness.”

I'm not sure what your voting rights have to do with your G-spot; nor am I sure that women will necessarily appreciate the flossing analogy. Indeed, The Anchoress commented, "My voting vagina rejects the analogy to dental floss - it makes her wince into a stern and metal-bending Kegel."

Only a woman could say that.

Food Police

I liked this example of political correctness run amok. For the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver, "Democratic National Convention host committee guidelines for caterers suggest serving mostly organic fare or Colorado products, and avoiding fried foods. The guidelines even suggest color schemes on plates."


DNC host committee meal guidelines:

* Half a meal made up of fruits and/or veggies

* At least three of the following five colors on a plate - red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white (garnishes don’t count)

* No fried foods

* At least 70 percent of ingredients (based on precooked weight) certified organic and/or grown or raised in Colorado

* Use of reusable serviceware

* No bottled water, use pitchers instead

* Encourage staff to use alternative modes of transportation

As a commenter noted, the staff is encouraged to use alternative modes of transportation, not the attendees. Alternative transport is for the "Little People."

What I wonder is: will you be able to use more than one square of toilet tissue?

I had previously talked a little about this other kind of food hypocrisy in regards to the UN Food Summit. I guess it just keeps popping up. PM Brown of Great Britain is urging his citizenry to reduce food wastage, which is not an unadmirable idea. Apparently, "mountains" of food are wasted each year--up to 40% is lost due to poor processing, transport and storage. Among the solutions: bulk-buying will be discouraged. Excessive packaging will also be forbidden, somehow.

Exactly what these measures will achieve is not clear. Eliminating food waste is a good thing, and eliminate excessive packaging is another, but it is not clear that there is a relationship between the amount of packaging thrown away, and the amount of food thrown away. The relationship between the mountains of food being thrown away and world starvation is also a bit murky to me. Noble efforts to be sure, but to what end?

Of course, this was almost immediately followed by a story about the G8 food fest, I mean, Summit, which Brown is attending in Hokkaido, Japan. Some Summit trivia: the Summit itself cost close to $400 million. Also, the International Media Center cost almost $50 million, and will be dismantled after the Summit is completed (this is somehow consistent with UN and Japanese visions of eco-greenness and enviro-friendlyism).

The menus in full:


Corn-stuffed caviar
Smoked salmon and sea urchin "pain surprise" style
Hot onion tart
Winter lily bulb and summer savoury
Folding fan modelled tray decorated with bamboo grasses
Kelp-flavoured cold Kyoto beef "shabu-shabu", asparagus dressed with sesame cream
Diced fatty flesh of tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce and Japanese herb "shiso"
Boiled clam, tomato, "shiso" in jellied clear soup of clam
Water shield and pickled conger dressed with vinegar soy sauce
Boiled prawn with jellied tosazu vinegar
Grilled eel rolled around burdock strip
Sweet potato
Fried and seasoned Goby with soy sauce and sugar
Hairy Crab "Kegani" bisque soup
Salt-grilled bighand thornyhead with vinegary water pepper sauce
Milk fed "shiranuka" lamb flavoured with aromatic herbs and mustard
Roasted lamb and cepes and black truffle with emulsion sauce of lamb's stock and pine seed oil


All in all, it sounds like a really long episode of "Iron Chef." I would definitely steer clear of the Hairy Crab (sounds like something that should be treated rather than eaten). Also, I suggest you skip anything that includes a "pain surprise."

Obama on Language

In today's world it just makes sense to be able to speak more than one language--no question about it. Here's Obama at a townhall meeting in Georgia yesterday:

You know, I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, "We need to have English- only." They want to pass a law, "We want English-only."

Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.

Okay--I don't think we need to have English declared as our National Language (whatever that would mean); I also agree that immigrants should and probably do learn English. But you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish? Why Spanish? Why not Chinese--the third most commonly spoken foreign language in the US? It's pretty obvious to me that the Chinese will be playing a much more major role in economic affairs in the future than any of our Latin American neighbors.

According to the Census Bureau, of the 20 non-English languages spoken most widely at home, the largest proportional increase in the 1990s was (drum roll, please)-- Russian! (Way cool!) Speakers of this language nearly tripled, from 242,000 to 706,000. (I am trying my darndest to increase that number to 706,001.) The second largest increase was among French Creole speakers (including Haitian Creoles), whose numbers more than doubled, from 188,000 to 453,000.

Perhaps learning to hable espanol may be politically expedient, but a little short-sighted.

It's this next bit that has most people disturbed:

You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right?

Stoopid, embarassing Americans, clinging to their guns and their religion. Is there any stereotype about Americans that Obama doesn't subscribe to? We're just a bunch of loud-mouthed, arrogant, English-spouting rubes, stumbling through the flowerbeds, yanking on the tapestries, right? How 'bout those French? A lot of people hoped that Obama was beyond this sort of cliched thinking, you know, about "typical white people."

I'm pretty sure that if I found myself stranded on some backroad in Greece or Alsace-Lorraine, I would not be surrounded by smiling locals cheerfully quoting Keats and Dickens. And I am sure that some tourists here are often surprised that sometimes us provincials can understand their "furriner talk" purty good. According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language, nearly one-third of students in grades 7-12 are taking a foreign language; not great, could be better, but not exactly the picture of xenophobic Neanderthals that Obama seems embarassed by.

In the immortal words of Senora Obama:

Usted sabe, esta conversación no ayuda mis niños.

Robots in medicine

Sometimes I feel like an old man. Hey--no snickering back there. When I trained in my residency the laparoscope was just gaining general acceptance in gynecological surgery. Even in the 4 years that I was training, the indications for using the scope expanded dramatically, as we became more comfortable with its use, and in hand with technological advances in lenses and other equipment.

It was about 10 years or so ago that the laparoscopically assisted hysterectomy became widespread. The "advance" that it promised was shorter hospital stays, and less discomfort to the patient. It certainly has shortened hospital stays; most patients undergoing LAH go home within 24 hours. But, most traditional hysterectomy patients go home in 24-36 hours anyways (gone are the days of the 4-5 day post-operative hospital stays for the majority of surgeries). And, I think for the most part, scope patients have less post-op pain for shorter durations of time, and usually return to work sooner.

There is a cost, or course. Most of the equipment used in laparoscopic surgeries is disposable, and hence quite costly. And scope procedures take considerably longer to perform compared to the traditional, "open" procedures. So a lot of the cost advantages are offset by the increased operating costs and times. Most studies in general do show a slight advantage overall for laparoscopic surgeries compared to traditional methods, but the advantage for the most part is small.

Of course, MD's (including gyn surgeons) love technology, and the race has been ferocious in coming up with new laparoscopic devices and increasingly complex procedures to do with them. The latest "advance" in gyn surgery is the use of robots to assist the surgeon. With the da Vinci system, the surgeon sits at a console outside of the OR, viewing the operative field through a viewer attached to a remotely controlled set of "robotic" surgical instruments. This article summarizes the experience of 20 patients in Ohio who underwent a radical hysterectomy for early stage cervical cancers. A radical hysterectomy as the name implies involves a significantly more extensive dissection of the pelvic tissues, and in general takes a bit more operative time; where a regular, old-fashioned hysterectomy takes about 30-45 minutes to do, a radical hysterectomy done via the "open" method (with traditional abdominal incisions) takes anywhere from 2-3 hours.

In this study, the median operative time was 6.5 hours, more than double the usual operating time. The study authors congratulated themselves in getting that time down to 4.5 hours for the last 5 cases (although I suspect that the "learning curve" is a bit steeper than that). Still, I don't really see a great advantage here. The article specifically mentions two advantages. One is the system uses some sort of dual-lens scope which "provides vivid 3-dimensional images." You know, I've got a dual-lens system that I've been using for over 48 years; even with some corrective optical devices, I think my system works pretty darn good. The other advantage they mention is some sort of articulation at the tip of the microinstruments that "serve the same function of the human wrist." But that's not really an advantage, serving the "same function." The authors do grudgingly acknowledge that there are no studies showing that robotic surgery is superior to laparoscopic surgery. So what's the point? "We believe that the goal of robotic surgery is to perform the same procedure laparoscopically that would have been performed during laparotomy."

I remember at one laparoscopic conference I attended, a "learned" professor solemnly intoned, "Just because you can see something through the laparoscope, doesn't mean you have to operate on it through the laparoscope." Alas, I am afraid his advice goes unheeded.

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July! I love this country, warts and all. It is the far from perfect, but by far and as a whole, it is the greatest country on this planet. As this article notes, "After all, since humans climbed out of the trees and began surveying the lion-infested Savannah, none have ever lived in a period more prosperous, secure and stable than Americans do today. The U.S. is not only the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth now, but in all of history. There's never been a better time and place to be alive than America in the 21st century." The whole piece is an interesting read about the current spate of America-is-in-decline books.

There does seem to be an interesting dichotomy on how the two sides of the aisle view America, and specifically, their views on American patriotism. It really comes down to looking at the glass half-full or half-empty. It seems that the left always takes the more pessimistic view regarding this country. As Joe Klein writes in Time magazine, "This is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what's wrong with America than what's right." Even among the blogs, you can tell who you are reading by the tone of the posts and comments. This piece exemplifies my point:

"A mother of a heroin addict, for example, is critical of her child's drug abuse and wants it to stop. The mother wants only the best for her child. Does the mother's criticism of the child's actions in any way illustrate that she does not love her child? On the contrary, it is because the mother loves her child and is devoted to her child that she wants her child to be better, greater than he/she is."

Yeah, that's it--let's think of America as a heroin-addict! Works for me!

As Jonah Goldberg notes, " . . . at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is." Does that mean that my government can do no wrong? Does that mean I should never question my government? No, not at all. I think this is the nub of the argument--America is a great country, whether or not we have had a great government, and sometimes in spite of it.

James Lileks hits the nail on the head with this one, pointing out the smugness with which a lot of critics look at this nation. In their world,

". . . we will never be a great nation until we all realize how much we suck, and then we will also realize it is wrong to be a great nation. For that matter, nationhood are overrated. (The only nation that gets to be a nation is France.)Nations are bad enough, but we’re something else:the only nation that has ever fought a war, acted in self-interest, had a good opinion of itself, permitted slavery, elected leaders who lacked a certain Olympian quality, had a popular culture that included simple catchy melodies and bright pictures, harbored racist attitudes, had a strong religious element, and contained a sizable amount of stupid people."

But this is what is so difficult about Obama, and his patriotism. Again, from Jonah Goldberg,

"I am absolutely certain," he proclaimed upon clinching the Democratic nomination, "that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." So wait, America never provided care for the sick or good jobs for the jobless until St. Barack arrived? That doesn't sound like the country most Americans think of when they wave their flags on the Fourth of July.
The notion that what America needs is a redeemer figure to "remake" America from scratch isn't necessarily unpatriotic. But for lots of Americans who like America the way it is, it's sometimes hard to tell when it isn't.

I want to emphasize a few things here. America is not above reproach; no one is claiming that. And criticism of America does not make one unpatriotic. At all. But it's okay to love your country, even if it's only once in a while.

And even if it's every day.

Critical thinking, lack thereof

Joy Johnson, and her husband, Rev. Joseph Craig, were arrested in Durham NC recently, on charges of rape, torture and kidnapping. The rev was contacted by a couple who were interested in Satanism; he promptly instructed them in the finer points of Satan worship, with Ms. Johnson's consent.

Okay--so what?

Well, there is the obvious angle related to Mike Nifong, the disgraced ex-DA who was involved in the scandal involving false rape charges brought against some Duke lacrosse players. Ms. Johnson was a local Democratic party activist, and was closely involved with the Durham People's Alliance, a group which was a major supporter of Nifong. A headline which reads "Nifong supporter charged with sex crimes' certainly catches my eye.

That angle is too obvious and easy. Instead, I thought it was cool that the couple also ran Indigo Dawn, a New Age "resource for spiritual growth." Here's their website.

Wow. More woo than you can shake a stick at. "Our intent and purpose is to lead the way and help others rise to a higher level of existence, quality of life and increased spirituality in preparation for this coming age of enlightenment." Apparently, you can get increasingly enlightened by being shackled to a bed and kept in a dog cage. Who knew?

The Rev. Craig is described as a "devout student of magick"---that's magick with a "k", folks, so you know it's Crowley-good! Ms. Johnson "has devoted her life to peace activism and searching for proactive means to bring about world peace." By worshipping Satan--of course!


Got some politics too. Did you know that "Iraq did not have problems with cancer until about three or four years after the Gulf War"? It says so in her essay "Recollections of a visit to pre-war Iraq." She met with a Dr. Yacoub, dean of a medical college in Baghdad, who specializes in depleted uranium, a component of some of the weaponry that was used against Iraqi forces. Dr. Yacoub's investigations found that cancers had increased by "300%" since 1993 in Basra. No mention is made of Dr. Yacoub's research into the health problems among the Kurds exposed to nerve gas, or how all those people got into those mass graves--just to embarass Sadaam, no doubt. Apparently, Ms. Johnson (when she wasn't scrawling pentagrams on the floor and invoking Beelzebub) spent a few weeks in Iraq in early 2003, lapping up with great gusto whatever her Iraqi hosts spoon-fed her. Her article/essay is gripping in its total lack of critical thinking applied to a complex situation.

But then, the whole of Indigo Dawn is devoid of critical thinking. And in light of these charges, the question no longer is where is their ability to think logically, but just what the hell were they thinking at all.

I am trying to keep in mind that this is Durham County, after all, and a charge of rape in this locality becomes, let's say, suspect. Nifong has long since departed office in disgrace; one can only hope that the new prosecutor is honest and decent.
Rev. Craig might be a formidable opponent; as the website bio says, "Do not judge this young man by his age, for his soul goes far beyond this."

Oh, indeed it does.

Marriage and equal pay and hypocrisy

Obviously, gay marriage is an inflammatory subject right now. So much so that there is a move afoot to amend the Constitution to recognize marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman. The latest version of this idiocy is sponsored by two senators who are all about the sanctity of marriage. Yep, that's right--the amendment is being sponsored by Sens. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig and David "Diaper Boy"* Vitter. These two are not exactly poster boys for family values; why they feel that they should be the ones to get behind something like this makes absolutely no sense at all.

I also ran across this article about Obama and his support for equal pay for women.

I firmly believe that men and women should be paid equally for equivalent jobs. I do believe that gender discrimination exists. But, the wage gap measures inequality, and not necessarily discrimination. And there are many reasons that explain the wage gap that do not involve discrimination, such as family and time constraints.

Obama, according to the article, believes that there is a clear difference between himself and McCain on the equal pay issue. "Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his service. But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer," Obama told the audience in New Mexico, a voter-swing state. "It starts with equal pay. Sixty-two percent of working women in America earn half or more than of their family's income. But women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2008. You'd think that Washington would be united it its determination to fight for equal pay."

Yet, the article points out that Obama's female staffers are paid significantly less than the male staffers. This is completely opposite of what is found among McCain's staff, where the average pay for the 30 non-intern women on McCain's staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in McCain's office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.

Maybe there is a good reason why Obama pays the women who work for him less than the men, I don't know. He was speaking in support of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which would extend the limit on how long an employee can wait before suing an employer for pay discrimination. As Obama noted, "Lilly Ledbetter's problem was not that she was somehow unqualified or unprepared for higher-paying positions... Her problem was that her employer paid her less than men doing the exact same work."

Well, I guess there's enough hypocrisy to go around today.