I'm not really a Jay Leno fan, but I'm planning to tune in on Monday, in large part because I'm sick of hearing all the Leno bashing that's going on. The argument seems to be "I don't think he's funny, so everyone who watches him must be stupid." It's insulting. Leno has never been cutting edge or hip or ironic. But that doesn't mean he's talentless. He makes people laugh every night, and that's more than can be said for a lot of the network sitcoms out there. (I think Headlines are funny. Does that lower my IQ?)

I think most people who watch Leno will tune in a couple of times a week. It doesn't have to mean the end of TV. It can just mean that some people would rather watch something different at 10 pm, some of the time. It may lead to higher ratings for ABC and CBS in some cases, because there won't be three similar dramas on at the same time. The people who would be watching Jay probably wouldn't be watching CSI: Newark or Grey's Next Spinoff anyway.

It's too bad the blog is kind of silly and overwrought, because I think more information on menstruation would be helpful to a lot of people. You have the "periods are icky" people on one side and "goddess of the moon" people on the other side, but there's really not a lot of factual information out there (other than some limited information on medical web sites).

I had problems with my periods for years, and I had a hard time getting anyone (including my doctors!) to take it seriously. It's surprising, but even gynecologists often dismiss menstrual problems with comments like "that's just the way it is for some women". (A lot of ob/gyn practices are very focused on the "baby making" side of the equation and don't seem to have much interest in gynecological problems that aren't related to fertility.) I ended up in the ER with dangerously low blood counts because I lost so much blood during my periods, and after it happened my doctor was Shocked! Shocked! But I'd reported the heavy bleeding for years, to several different ob/gyn's, and no one did much about it.

I think the "ick factor" means that a lot of people don't want to talk about periods, even from a medical or health perspective. If you bring up colonoscopy or prostate cancer, you don't get the "eeewww, icky" response that you get when you talk about menstrual issues, even though they're equally "icky". And that reluctance to talk about it may mean that women aren't getting the information they need. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the Society for Menstrual Research has much to add on the subject, based on their web site.

Unfortunately, 22% interest is not that unusual. I've never missed a payment, but after two periods of unemployment and almost a year of being too sick to work, I ran up some debt. I have two credit cards, and they pushed my rates up to 31.99%, which I believe is the legal limit. (Or it was before the credit card bill passed.) And this is for someone who has never missed a payment and has a pretty good credit rating! I couldn't complain because I couldn't work and my savings had run out.

Now that I have a job, I'm sure I'll be able to get the interest rate lowered or just get another card. (I was able to get a special offer on the debt so it's only at 5% until I can pay it off. And I don't use the cards now that I have some money in the bank.) But it's when you have an emergency, like a serious illness and/or unmployment, that you end up being stuck with the highest interest rate.

I would guess that a large number of people use IE for work, even if they use Firefox at home. A lot of companies won't allow anything but IE. So that probably skews the numbers.

Thanks for posting about this series. It sounds fantastic! And this is the first place I've heard about it - it's easy to overlook shows like this, that aren't glamorous or flashy. Unfortunately, I don't have Showtime (another thing I can't afford) but hopefully it will be released on DVD and I can get it from Netflix or the library.

I rolled my eyes a little at the "new age" stuff in Crazy Sexy Cancer. But still, as a fairly young woman with cancer, it was encouraging to see something directed at me and my experience. After I was diagnosed with cancer, I went to the bookstores and found most of the cancer advice books were geared toward people of retirement age. I went to a lot of cancer support groups and I was the only person there under the age of 60. It was nice to read something that said "you can have cancer and still be young and still enjoy living", even if I skipped over some of the more new age-y aspects of the book. It looks like the author has tried to move beyond cancer to general "new age woo-woo" but her original books are still on the shelves.

(Everything Changes is a more practical book for younger cancer patients, but it wasn't released until after I was done with my treatments.)