That's it for msn.com

I use two browsers every day, Firefox for my own use and IE for my work email. When I open IE I land on msn.com and am frequently dismayed by the ridiculous items someone has chosen for their homepage. Mostly they're just snarky or irrelevant, like the recent piece about ten actors who had "lost their looks" or a fluff piece on the difference between the way men and women view a piece of pumpkin pie (not an actual article to my knowledge.) But today they stopped being merely annoying and moved straight to offensive. Here's a headline:

Caught practicing the dark arts, witches were subject to "swimming." What exactly is that? And did it hurt?

Really? Practicing the dark arts? Is that what happened? Or were herbal women, midwives, single women, and women who were interested in science falsely accused of witchcraft and murdered? Does the dimwit who wrote the headline really believe that anywhere from 600,000 to nine million women and men "practiced the dark arts" and were caught? In that case how many must there have been altogether? It's ridiculous but worse than that it trivializes a terrible wrong.

Witch hunts are a grievous stain on our history and are still being carried out today.

Try James Morrow's excellent novel The Last Witchfinder if you want to know if being swum "hurt." http://www.sff.net/people/Jim.Morrow/witchfinder.html

More about false hopes

I read this article in WaPo with amazement and horror. The jist of the story is that an American team is making plans to transplant a uterus.

Mind you I understand the appeal of this procedure, I have friends who have gone through horrible treatment trying to get pregnant and I know how strong the drive to procreate is BUT if you read the article you'll see that preparing to do this surgery now is cruel and dangerous.

No animal with a transplanted uterus has gotten pregnant yet, much less borne a fetus to term.

Nobody knows if a transplanted uterus is capable of supporting a developing fetus.

This surgery has to cost thousands, my guess is a couple hundred grand based on my experience paying medical claims, and surely no insurance is going to cover something that isn't medically necessary.

Anyone who would schedule this surgery is preying on a woman who is in a fragile emotional state.

It sickens me. I'd have been a lot happier and more excited if I read about an artificial womb that had been designed. Those you can closely monitor every second of the day.

Finally check out this quote, it takes the cake:

Natural childbirth can be very risky, but women choose that in many parts of the world. I do not think this is in any sense reckless when you compare this to that," Del Priore said.

I could just scream.

EDITED to say; after discussing this story with someone in the tactile world I want to be very clear that I've labeled this story as a scam because I don't believe for a minute that whoever did the animal transplants never tried to impregnate the animals. I think they did and either conception failed or the pregnancies failed.

Saying these transplants are successful without a viable pregnancy and delivery is like saying a heart transplant is successful while never turning the bypass machine back on.