Prop. 19 Caturday

I don’t live in California, so I don’t have a chance to vote for Prop. 19, which would legalize catnip marijuana. But I still loved this comment in Michael Pollan’s recent interview posted on Alternet: I always kept a little patch of catnip in my garden for my old tomcat, Frank, who really liked it. [...]

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“Birth Rape” Redux

The controversy about the term “birth rape” has ebbed in the blogosphere (which has a shorter attention span than my seven-year-old son). But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking about it. Nor, it appears, have other people. A reader named Ann took the time today to disagree with me vehemently: To me there is not [...]

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A D-Cup of Plenty

You might have heard about the bra that doubles as a gas mask. Myself, I’m less worried about terrorism than the threat of control-freak university administrators. For instance: As I’ve argued before, prohibition of alcohol is actually counterproductive on campuses because it only drives drinking underground, out of sight of potentially responsible peers and adults. [...]

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Regression – ahem, Reunions – Can Be Big Fun

I’ve been away from Kittywampus for over a week, but I haven’t dropped off the edge of the universe; I just dropped into my college band reunion. Come to think of it, there’s not much difference, is there? This time (unlike the last reunion in 2007) I actually practiced beforehand. I had a lot more [...]

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When Kafka Went to Nelsonville, Ohio

I wrote this post quite a while ago, when an acquaintance’s experience in the Southeast Ohio Regional Jail gave me an inside peek at the American system of (in)justice. I didn’t publish it at the time because of privacy concerns. The case is now well in the past (and my friend is okay), but now one [...]

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As We Age: A Short Argument Against Gun Possession

My father has always kept guns. Like most men in North Dakota, he was a hunter. Indeed, during my 1960s and 1970s childhood there, you could hardly be a man if you didn’t own a gun. He shot deer, mostly to my mother’s dismay, as she recalls trying to deal with preparing the meat through [...]

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The Long, Strange Trip of Alzheimer’s

I’ve written before about my father’s declining memory. Until fairly recently, we took some hope in the fact that he was chronically very low on B12. He has problems absorbing it through his diet (due to longstanding but stable health issues) and we hoped that aggressive supplementation might help. Then came the encounter where he [...]

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Hookup Culture, Seen through the Lens of the Duke “Sex List”

As I’ve written before, I’m not in any way opposed to casual sex. Still, I think there are real problems with hookup culture. The Duke “sex list” that I wrote about yesterday gives some clues to what’s wrong with it. First, too often the sex is  just not very good for women. Karen Owen, the list’s author, [...]

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What’s Not Being Said about the Duke “Sex List” Incident

I can easily imagine the impulse to chronicle one’s sex life in a diary. I can’t imagine turning it over to one’s friends. That’s what Karen Owen, a recent Duke grad did, except she framed her sex list as a mock honor’s thesis and sent it as a Powerpoint to three of her friends. One [...]

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I Has a Moonflower

A couple of folks have asked me off-blog if I’m okay in the wake of my post last Monday when I wrote, “I’m wound up, worried, and sad about a bunch of things I can’t write about here.” I’m sorry I tripped some alarms. There were several students of mine involved in deep, severe crises [...]

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Are Atheists Really the Connoisseurs of Religious Knowledge?

A bunch of my students called my attention to that Pew poll which found atheists to be more informed about religion than the general population, including Catholics and Evangelicalism. Holly blogged about how Mormons scored very well … for people of faith, that is! (My editorial comment, not hers. Go read her post for her [...]

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Caturday Bobcat Brawl

If you follow collegiate football, you probably saw this incident when it occurred two weeks ago. If not … well, I barely picked up on it myself. My university’s mascot is the Bobcat – as is only fitting for a cat lady like myself. Unfortunately, when Ohio University got creamed by Ohio State a fortnight [...]

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Painting Pink Red

I’m not a big fan of the whole “awareness ribbon” thing, but if I had a pink ribbon, I’d be dyeing it red – a deep crimson – to express how pissed-off I am at the increasing trivialization of breast cancer. “Awareness” substitutes for the fury that ought to drive the search for effective and [...]

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