What I do

To Rachel it sometimes seems that I go to school just to think interesting thoughts and never put them into practice, but the past couple of months I've been involved with a project that I think deserves a plug here. BYU hosts the largest database in the world that deals with violence against women worldwide (http://www.womanstats.org/) It's a compilation of indicators such as the global prevalence of rape, female circumcision, marriage laws, etc., and was the main source of information for the packet given to congress before the passage of the International Violence Against Women's Act. It's also routinely used by the UN, the World Bank, and other international organizations, and is the only source of data for most of its measures. People can volunteer and help out from wherever they're at, but we have had a chronic shortage lately that will probably force us to go into a bare-bones, subsistence mode. Anyway, just a possibility for anybody who is looking to get involved in a worthy project. In the meantime, Rachel is pleased that my academic elitism might actually be doing something, and has provided her with her next project (after her thesis).