Me/Not-Me: Of Ancient Braids and the Pink Pencil Eraser Within

This post doesn’t get a trigger warning, exactly – just a sticker for minor TMI and, well, a bit of ickiness. Yesterday Hitler went into his bunker one more time. By the time my lecture ended at 2 p.m., he had died again – and not a moment too soon. While we’ve still got another [...]

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Happy Kitten Caturday

Often my kids are a lot like this: Crabby sibling kittehs from ICHC? But today my kittens have been getting along just beautifully. It helps that they’ve had friends over this afternoon … Lucky them, and lucky me. Happy Caturday! May all your kittehs coexist in peace.

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Elena Kagan, Woman of Mystery: What Do We Deserve to Know?

First, my very serious answer is that we deserve to know a whole heck of a lot more about her judicial philosophy, etc. than we already know. On this, I’m 100% on board with ballgame. (I’m on board with Greenwald, too, and you really should read his analysis of why Diane Wood was the better [...]

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Chicken Dance Meets the World Cup (or Not?)

I would just like to state for the record that although my younger son (aka the Tiger) may never play in the World Cup, today on the soccer fields he distinguished himself as no other player has done in the illustrious history of the game. He started doing the Chicken Dance during the quarter break. [...]

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Megan Carpentier Is Bashing Women’s Studies, Not Criticizing It

Megan Carpentier, whose usual blogging gig is at Jezebel, just published a scathing critique of Women’s Studies at the Huffington Post. Her piece is misleading and unfair. It represents her one bad experience as standing in for the entire field of Women’s and Gender Studies. It paints WGS as a bastion of intolerance, authoritarianism, white [...]

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Sunday Funnies: Carol Burnett’s No-Frills Airline

Carol Burnett was recently interviewed on public radio by Bob Edwards. She said CBS executives told her that variety shows were a guy thing, and she only got her chance because she was under contract and they had to let her do something. Good thing, too. Here, she foresees the future of commercial aviation back [...]

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What If I Taught in Arizona?

I might just be in a pickle. Technically speaking, I don’t teach ethnic studies. I teach women’s and gender studies, now with a smattering of history on the side. And yet, if I were located in Arizona, I might just violate their newly-minted ban on teaching about “ethnic groups” (h/t to The Nation for the [...]

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Hazarding a New Definition of Virginity?

So I’m purple with envy (yep, that’s one stage beyond green) at the folks who were lucky enough to attend the Rethinking Virginity conference at Harvard last week. I’m no longer a practical expert – why, my virginal days lie deep in the previous millennium – but I’d be a virgin at this sort of [...]

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My Mother’s Day Wish: A 24-hour Respite from Kid Crises

I just read Heather Hewitt’s wonderful Mother’s Day wishlist on Girl w/Pen. She’s got some wishes that would do Julia Ward Howe proud: global peace, diminishing inequality, freedom from gendered violence. I’m on board with all of ‘em. But I have to admit I’m really a sucker for these four items: 1. A morning spent [...]

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Too-Busy Caturday

Confession: I’ve had a few mornings lately when I’ve gotten the kids off to school and then dove back into my bed for an hour or so, sleeping the almost narcotic sleep of the exhausted and circadianally challenged. Last Tuesday was the most recent such catnap. I’d been up past two, finishing my lecture in [...]

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On Faux Mediation

Provoked by the discussion here, I’ve been thinking about how “evenhandedness” and “mediation” can become their opposites – how invoking these highminded concepts can inadvertently or deliberately undermine fairness. I’m reminded of four instances where precisely that has happened. 1. Journalism: When science journalists give equal time to evolutionists and creationists, they are enhancing the [...]

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Imposter Syndrome Vanquished (for Now)

You’re in front of the classroom. First day of school. You’re late for class, and then – suddenly – you realize you’re the teacher, not the student. Who the hell made that decision? And – oh, ooooops! – you’re teaching calculus. Calculus!?! Which you passed with a shining A! Back in 1982! Somehow, inexplicably, you’re [...]

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Socialist Caturday

When I lived in Berlin, May 1 always spurred the Autonomen (anarchists) to riot. They were dumb as dirt in their tactics. Their goals were clear as mud. And yet, I miss May 1 being a day of protest. Some of my colleagues spent today handing out flyers protesting the university’s bassackwards priorities. (Money for [...]

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