How Underage Drinking Laws Enable Violent Crimes

A few weeks back, I mentioned that a former student of mine had been hurt by an abusive boyfriend. The campus judicial hearing was last week. In it, the accuser had to face trial herself.
Here’s the problem: Underage drinking laws and the equivalent campus rules deter victims of violent crime from reporting. As I learned [...]

Read Full Post »

Dr. George Tiller, One More Murdered Abortion Provider

Kittywampus doesn’t usually aim to provide breaking news (there are thousands of sites that do it better), but I’m so disturbed by this that I have to say something.
Dr. George Tiller, one of a handful of doctors who performed late-term abortions in this country, has been murdered in cold blood. Cara at Feministe reports that [...]

Read Full Post »

Dr. Caffeine’s Advice to Expectant Mamas

This news isn’t brand new any more (it came out about a month ago) but since mother-blaming never goes out of season, here you go.
You know how there’s a massive body of science indicating that caffeine is harmful in pregnancy? It’s been implicated in low birthweight, prematurity, miscarriage, stillbirth, and being born with Vulcan features [...]

Read Full Post »

The Naked Truth about Digestive Disorders

For reasons that you surely would rather not know, I found myself googling “mucus in stool.” The third link was to a site that described various causes for this condition, ranging from bacteria to Crohn’s disease.
The page is illustrated with a picture of a conventionally attractive young woman who’s apparently just stepped out of the [...]

Read Full Post »

The Wrapped Reichstag in Motion

Okay, so this is pretty far afield from my blog’s usual fare – but it’s pretty cool, too, so I can’t resist. Thursday I accompanied my kids’ classes to the spring performance of the university’s School of Dance, which is one of the really strong programs here. All but one of the pieces were riveting [...]

Read Full Post »

Making Cincinnati Safer, One Robber – and “Hooker”? – at a Time

Some folks have some pretty squirrely ideas about “safety” and who deserves it:
Cincinnati police arrested eight people in an undercover prostitution sting at the Millennium Hotel Cincinnati on Fifth Street downtown Thursday after the hotel sought help in light of two disturbing armed robberies.
The hotel said the classified advertising Web site Craigslist connected two women [...]

Read Full Post »

Guest Post: Minimizing Abortions Doesn’t Affirm Life

Here’s a guest post by Euchalon Grandy, swiped from my comments section, offered here with no commentary from me just yet except that I agree with almost everything he says. (Bonus points if you can pick the one spot where I have some qualms.) The first half of his comment is also worth a read. [...]

Read Full Post »

Scenes from a Chinese Restaurant: Why Equality Is the Future

The evening after Prop. 8 was upheld, I went out to dinner with my family at China Panda. The food there is pretty good, but the TVs that are mounted on the wall are a distraction, even with the sound off. The last time I’d been there, Dick Cheney’s snarling mug was befouling the ambience. [...]

Read Full Post »

More on Equal Protection: Ted Olson, Warrior for Marriage Equality!

Wow. As Salon’s War Room reports, Theodore Olson – who represented Bush in Bush v. Gore and served as Solicitor General under Bush – has teamed up with the opposing attorney from Bush v. Gore, David Boies. As if that weren’t weird enough, they’re both fighting for marriage equality! On behalf of two couples (one [...]

Read Full Post »

Somebunny Loves My Garden

One morning a few weeks ago, the Tiger peered out the kitchen window while we were getting breakfast on the table (he no longer says “breskit,” such a shame), and announced: “Mama, there’s some kind of kitty in our yard!”
Obviously my child has been exposed to too many fictional rabbits and Easter bunnies, because he [...]

Read Full Post »

Protecting Equal Protection

On this day when Prop 8 was allowed to stand in California, I’m torn between the very abstract and the very concrete. The abstractions are what we’ll need to win this struggle, eventually – legal strategies that don’t depend on whim and prejudice, and that don’t let a minority bully a majority. The concrete level [...]

Read Full Post »

Locking Down

I grew up in a small town in central North Dakota, population 488 in the 1970 census. No one locked our doors. Why would we? The only time anything got stolen was when a punk teenager my dad had disciplined in class got revenge by taking our 1969 Pontiac for a joyride. He drove nearly [...]

Read Full Post »

Twisting the Meaning of “Sex Class”

What, exactly, is “the sex class”? If you read Twisty Faster’s blog, I Blame the Patriarchy (which I do only sporadically), you would get the impression that it refers to patriarchy’s definition of women wholly as sexual objects, at the whim of men’s desires. Some of the blogosphere’s other self-professed “radical” feminists use it in [...]

Read Full Post »

My Place in the Feline Philosopher’s Kingdom

After the Smirking Cat discovered she’s a Norwegian Forest Cat, I got curious about my own feline lineage. There’s a quiz you can take at iVillage (ignore the fairly obstrusive ads, like any good cat) and find out what kind of cat you are. I already know that in the LOLcat universe, I’m Happy Cat.
And [...]

Read Full Post »

Charting Class Privilege

Daisy at Daisy’s Dead Air has put up a class privilege meme. It was originally intended to be a classroom exercise (full instructions are here), but Daisy’s discomfort in completing the exercise even anonymously online has convinced me: It’s as likely to shame the poor kids as the rich kids. That’s surely not its intent, [...]

Read Full Post »

A Fishy Bear Story

So my friend who hosted me during my last night in Seattle emails me the following story:
Black bear runs through Ballard
The bear’s path led him less than a block from my friends’ house – less than two hours after we’d packed up the barbecue. My friend thinks he might have been drawn by the smell [...]

Read Full Post »

Kicking Back against Pulling Out

A few days ago, Miriam at Feministing suggested we take another look at withdrawal as a contraceptive method. Up to a point, she’s right that “it might be a useful method in low-resource situations.” If, that is, we’re talking about the sort of grinding poverty where the partners can’t even afford condoms.
Overall, though, I’m really [...]

Read Full Post »

A Garden Lament

Late last night I arrived home from my trip to the Pacific Northwest, delighted to see my boys. But as soon as the Bear and Tiger were tucked into bed, I snuck outside with a flashlight to inspect my other little ones: the tomatoes and coleus I planted before leaving on my trip a week [...]

Read Full Post »

Conspiracy Caturday

A while back, Amanda Marcotte had a spot-on, hilarious post comparing the Republican meltdown to our favorite felines: How Can I Say This without Insulting Cats?
One of the best things about having cats is their “meant to do that” moments.  Every cat owner has a favorite story about this. When I was a child, my [...]

Read Full Post »

The Peculiar Prudery of HBO Porn

So I’m in Eugene, Oregon – home of the Mighty Ducks! – at a conference on pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering seen through a philosophical lens. As a historian, I’m a not-so-mighty duck out of water, but the actual philosophers are turning out to be warm, welcoming, and very very smart. I attended an absolutely fabulous [...]

Read Full Post »