Is Mary Beth Williams playing madlibs with "...feminist trailblazer"? That would explain her post entitled "Goodbye Cathy, feminist trailblazer". The "Cathy" in question is Cathy Guisewite's syndicated strip about a desperate, sad sack single woman named Cathy. Guisewite announced last week that she would be wrapping up the 34-year-old comic in October.
Williams writes:
"Yet her mere existence, as the star of the first nationally syndicated strip by a woman, as a lady in the funny pages, is political in itself. She has, for most of her run, been a semi-satisfied, semi-lonely single gal (finally tying the knot with longtime beau Irving five years ago), toiling away at her job while struggling with body image, meddling parents and, frankly, the banal crap that most of us shlubs thanklessly wrangle every day. Empowerment is for her usually a fleeting state in an otherwise self-doubting existence. She may be that nightmare, neurotic gal pal whose calls you screen, but girlfriend, admit it; sometimes she's also your own dark side." [Salon/Broadsheet]
As a woman with a nationally syndicated comic strip and marketing empire, Guisewite is indeed a trailblazer. The same cannot be said of her fictional alter ego. There's nothing feminist or trailblazing about a character who spends 34 years on a diet, marking time at work while joylessly trawling for a husband. Williams and I agree that the aesthetic value of Cathy is nil. Her character has all the depth of Garfield and none of the charm.
I will admit, however, that "Cathy" was important to my development as a feminist. As a kid reading the comic in the funny pages of the Vancouver Sun, the strip struck me as a terrifying thought experiment about a character whose life was completely defined by normative female anxieties. Cathy only cares about her shoes, her weight, and her marital status. Therefore, she's predictable, pathetic, and boring. She's the antithesis of funny.
The sheer existential horror of "Cathy" spurred my will to resist. Evil Fizz knows what I'm talking about.
Cathy exists in a state of chronic failure. She's always falling off her diet, or just about to. Guisewite identifies the pursuit of unattainable goals as the source of Cathy's continual frazzled misery, but she treats these standards as non-negotiable rules of female life. The female audience is supposed to laugh along because we're stuck hating ourselves, too. Keep pushing that rock up the hill, ladies; pushing tones the quads!
If "Cathy" has any feminist value, it can be subsumed under the maxim: "If you can't be a good example, you can at least be a horrible warning."
[Image via dcist.]
'Upstreamism': Your zip code affects your health as much as genetics
Upstreamism advocate Rishi Manchanda calls us to understand health not as a "personal responsibility" but a "common good."
- Upstreamism tasks health care professionals to combat unhealthy social and cultural influences that exist outside — or upstream — of medical facilities.
- Patients from low-income neighborhoods are most at risk of negative health impacts.
- Thankfully, health care professionals are not alone. Upstreamism is increasingly part of our cultural consciousness.
- Climate change is no longer a financial problem, just a political one.
- Mitigating climate change by decarbonizing our economy would add trillions of dollars in new investments.
- Public attitudes toward climate change have shifted steadily in favor of action. Now it's up to elected leaders.
Yale scientists restore brain function to 32 clinically dead pigs
Researchers hope the technology will further our understanding of the brain, but lawmakers may not be ready for the ethical challenges.
- Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine successfully restored some functions to pig brains that had been dead for hours.
- They hope the technology will advance our understanding of the brain, potentially developing new treatments for debilitating diseases and disorders.
- The research raises many ethical questions and puts to the test our current understanding of death.
The image of an undead brain coming back to live again is the stuff of science fiction. Not just any science fiction, specifically B-grade sci fi. What instantly springs to mind is the black-and-white horrors of films like Fiend Without a Face. Bad acting. Plastic monstrosities. Visible strings. And a spinal cord that, for some reason, is also a tentacle?
But like any good science fiction, it's only a matter of time before some manner of it seeps into our reality. This week's Nature published the findings of researchers who managed to restore function to pigs' brains that were clinically dead. At least, what we once thought of as dead.
What's dead may never die, it seems
The researchers did not hail from House Greyjoy — "What is dead may never die" — but came largely from the Yale School of Medicine. They connected 32 pig brains to a system called BrainEx. BrainEx is an artificial perfusion system — that is, a system that takes over the functions normally regulated by the organ. The pigs had been killed four hours earlier at a U.S. Department of Agriculture slaughterhouse; their brains completely removed from the skulls.
BrainEx pumped an experiment solution into the brain that essentially mimic blood flow. It brought oxygen and nutrients to the tissues, giving brain cells the resources to begin many normal functions. The cells began consuming and metabolizing sugars. The brains' immune systems kicked in. Neuron samples could carry an electrical signal. Some brain cells even responded to drugs.
The researchers have managed to keep some brains alive for up to 36 hours, and currently do not know if BrainEx can have sustained the brains longer. "It is conceivable we are just preventing the inevitable, and the brain won't be able to recover," said Nenad Sestan, Yale neuroscientist and the lead researcher.
As a control, other brains received either a fake solution or no solution at all. None revived brain activity and deteriorated as normal.
The researchers hope the technology can enhance our ability to study the brain and its cellular functions. One of the main avenues of such studies would be brain disorders and diseases. This could point the way to developing new of treatments for the likes of brain injuries, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and neurodegenerative conditions.
"This is an extraordinary and very promising breakthrough for neuroscience. It immediately offers a much better model for studying the human brain, which is extraordinarily important, given the vast amount of human suffering from diseases of the mind [and] brain," Nita Farahany, the bioethicists at the Duke University School of Law who wrote the study's commentary, told National Geographic.
An ethical gray matter
Before anyone gets an Island of Dr. Moreau vibe, it's worth noting that the brains did not approach neural activity anywhere near consciousness.
The BrainEx solution contained chemicals that prevented neurons from firing. To be extra cautious, the researchers also monitored the brains for any such activity and were prepared to administer an anesthetic should they have seen signs of consciousness.
Even so, the research signals a massive debate to come regarding medical ethics and our definition of death.
Most countries define death, clinically speaking, as the irreversible loss of brain or circulatory function. This definition was already at odds with some folk- and value-centric understandings, but where do we go if it becomes possible to reverse clinical death with artificial perfusion?
"This is wild," Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the New York Times. "If ever there was an issue that merited big public deliberation on the ethics of science and medicine, this is one."
One possible consequence involves organ donations. Some European countries require emergency responders to use a process that preserves organs when they cannot resuscitate a person. They continue to pump blood throughout the body, but use a "thoracic aortic occlusion balloon" to prevent that blood from reaching the brain.
The system is already controversial because it raises concerns about what caused the patient's death. But what happens when brain death becomes readily reversible? Stuart Younger, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University, told Nature that if BrainEx were to become widely available, it could shrink the pool of eligible donors.
"There's a potential conflict here between the interests of potential donors — who might not even be donors — and people who are waiting for organs," he said.
It will be a while before such experiments go anywhere near human subjects. A more immediate ethical question relates to how such experiments harm animal subjects.
Ethical review boards evaluate research protocols and can reject any that causes undue pain, suffering, or distress. Since dead animals feel no pain, suffer no trauma, they are typically approved as subjects. But how do such boards make a judgement regarding the suffering of a "cellularly active" brain? The distress of a partially alive brain?
The dilemma is unprecedented.
Setting new boundaries
Another science fiction story that comes to mind when discussing this story is, of course, Frankenstein. As Farahany told National Geographic: "It is definitely has [sic] a good science-fiction element to it, and it is restoring cellular function where we previously thought impossible. But to have Frankenstein, you need some degree of consciousness, some 'there' there. [The researchers] did not recover any form of consciousness in this study, and it is still unclear if we ever could. But we are one step closer to that possibility."
She's right. The researchers undertook their research for the betterment of humanity, and we may one day reap some unimaginable medical benefits from it. The ethical questions, however, remain as unsettling as the stories they remind us of.
Elizabeth Warren's plan to forgive student loan debt could lead to an economic boom
A plan to forgive almost a trillion dollars in debt would solve the student loan debt crisis, but can it work?
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren has just proposed a bold education reform plan that would forgive billions in student debt.
- The plan would forgive the debt held by more than 30 million Americans.
- The debt forgiveness program is one part of a larger program to make higher education more accessible.
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