thoughts in and out of season
I keep seeing references to this sort of thing, but it never seems to amount to anything: Second and Third Wave Feminists Clash Over the Future. All those luminaries come together for a conference and only 100 people show up.
The problem is that once feminism achieved its glorious victories there was nowhere to … More ...
A rather interesting comparison of priestly pederasts and treasonous Englishmen: James Hitchcock on Subversion through the Old Boy Network. One point he touches on, referring to C. S. Forster, is the tendency of homosexuality to dissolve social loyalties into personal relations. It’s a persuasive point—the homosexual’s most intense connections to others do not point … More ...
It may not be right to point out unusually disgusting things about the opposition, but still, what’s thought worth publishing in what passes for a high-toned publication must reveal something: Julie Burchill in The Guardian on Abortion: still a dirty word.
It’s all one struggle: Violence Against Women Leads to Major Health Problems Globally. “Health” turns out to require doing something about “violence against women,” and that, we already know, will involve doing something about “pervasive patterns of gender inequality.” Since the world is so simple, there’s always the same answer to everything. If the … More ...
I’ll agree that who your parents were is part of who you are, and for that and other reasons every child has a right to both a mother and a father. But doesn’t that show that it’s wrong to do things—like use sperm donors—that intrinsically deny a child that right and force him to construct … More ...
If you give a woman abstract directions involving distances and points of the compass she does very badly, but with directions based on landmarks she’ll do better than a man: Tell Men Directions, Give Women Landmarks: Study.
No surprise there. There’s also no surprise that the (female) jounalist and (female) academic who did the … More ...
The strength and weakness of the Anglican Church has always been its connection to English society and government. It’s hard to know how it can be maintained at present though: here’s a bishop asking that civil marriage be separated from the religious ceremony because the two just don’t mean the same.
Oddly, he he refers … More ...
A summary from US News and World Report about debates over abstinence-only curricula. It’s slanted against them, of course, but does include a fair amount of material from more than one side. A basic problem is the scientific-social-policy approach that makes it possible for the Pennsylvania congressman to call the abstinence approach “a case … More ...
Another possible dialogue:
… More ...Alter: You’re invited to my daughter’s wedding—she’s marrying her partner Louise!
Ego: Don’t think I can make it.
Alter [suspicious]: Why not?
Ego: It’s not something I can celebrate.
Alter: Why not?
Ego: I don’t think the sexual union of two women is a good thing.
Confirmation of the view of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer that prison rape is common, white men are targeted, and law enforcement officials act as if it’s OK: Human Rights Watch on male rape in US prisons.