Monthly Archives: September 2009

The Thighs Have It (And Want to Lose It!)

By Linda | September 30, 2009

Several weeks ago thighs were in the medical news. Too small, too bad. Your risk of heart disease increased. Yes, good news for us who are genetically generously endowed. The magic number, if you cannot recall, was 60 cm circumference just below the buttock fold. If your thighs measured less, [...]

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The Courage of our Lives—Let the Fast Begin

By Linda | September 29, 2009

There is no day more important on the Jewish calendar that Yom Kippur, sometimes called the Sabbath (Shabbat) of Sabbaths. Our usual weekly departure, Shabbat, takes us from everyday life into time and space for relationships with our family, our friends, G-d and ourselves. It is filled with community prayer, food and joy [...]

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Back To School—My Return to UB for the Second Annual Gender Week

By Linda | September 24, 2009

It’s gender week at UB, and not for the first time. No, this is the second annual gender week hosted by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender, a/k/a the Gender Institute. A pot pourri of lectures, panels and performances punctuate university life in the very first month of the academic year.
The [...]

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The Potluck Jackpot—Young Women of Substance

By Linda | September 22, 2009

Contrary to what the NY Times Magazine on gender reported this past August, the AAUW was the first women’s organization to provide funds to improve the lives of girls and women globally. In fact they have been doing this for more than 100 years!
I didn’t know about the AAUW until I needed help. [...]

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Lessons from Potluck at the AAUW–the Ophelia Project

By Linda | September 21, 2009

Every year the Buffalo chapter of the AAUW has a kick-off pot luck dinner on a Monday night, usually at a church, where we give out the student awards (tomorrow’s blog) and hear from a keynote speaker, usually of national prominence. One year it was from Lily Ledbetter, another from the AAUW executive director [...]

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Expecting the Unexpected

By Linda | September 15, 2009

It takes only one patient to ruin a day in the office. Today I had two.
The first was a little boy whose parents are in “the biz”. Good for him as the mother keeps her very sharp eyes on his ears and informed me that his cholesteatoma (ear cyst) had returned. This was not a [...]

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A Woman of Valor: Caster Semenya

By Linda | September 14, 2009

Women and our issues are all over the news these days. First, the NY Times magazine proclaims our rights as the issue of our times. And now we are introduced to Caster Semenya, a female South African, Olympic Gold Star medalist with ambiguous sex/gender in the world of sports.
Caster grew up in a rural village [...]

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Telling Stories: Taking Inventory

By Linda | September 11, 2009

Confession: My life and my successes are largely due to my compulsion to make “To Do” lists. When I am at my best (or maybe some of you would think at my worst), I even put “Make Next Week’s ‘To Do’ List” on a current “To Do” list. Having a “To Do” [...]

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The Subject is Thighs: Bigger is Better?!

By Linda | September 8, 2009

The internet has its way of changing one’s mood as often as one’s mind in a moment’s notice. I was never more manipulated than I was last Friday when I opened one of my weekly medical e-newsletters. The subject: general medical news—just so I can keep up on everything outside of my rather narrow specialty. [...]

Posted in The Confessional, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Telling Stories: The Cause of Our Times!

By Linda | September 4, 2009

Wow! How thrilled I was to see the cover of the August 23rd edition of the NY Times Magazine Section. It proclaimed: Why Women’s Rights Are the Cause of Our Time. Given my more than passing interest in gender issues, I was really excited. But as I read on, I became disappointed. Then I became [...]

Posted in Adventures in Advocacy, Anger Management | 1 Comment