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Monthly Archives: January 2009

First, Do No Harm. Unless You Feel Like It!

Hey! Who wants to hear some good news? Like, for example, Obama officially becomes President tomorrow, and it’s going to be really super inspirational, and when I was at the airport today they were playing one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches on a TV, and this man of color, I think he was in […]

Any criticism of the discourse is absorbed into the discourse, or: Martha, mon amour.

There is something truly ominous about women who make their livings talking to other women about domesticity. Rachel, Oprah, Julia, Martha: there are others, of course, but these are the ones that everyone knows. Somewhere inside everybody’s head, there is a kitchen, and a nice lady who lives there, and she tells you what to […]

In Which I Will Always Love Her More than Anyone and This Is Why

[So, she sent this to me with a note that was like, “I know I am not to e-mail him any more but admit it THIS IS GOOD,” and I was like, “no! You should not e-mail it to him! You should e-mail it to the world! For it is vulnerable and true and funny […]

You Know What I Love? Responsible Journalism.

Like this charming lede in the New York Times, which does not at all trivialize date rape: In the new issue of Nature, the neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding — and, not incidentally, explaining humans’ peculiar erotic fascination with breasts — […]

CHICKS AGAINST DUDES: A Responsible Post

Lest we forget, amid the various personal anecdotes and YouTube clips that are spreading like pinkeye, this is, and will always be, a BLOG ABOUT GENDER. The sexes, they are at war! Yet, as said war wages on, turning bro against bro(ad), too rarely do we stop to reflect: who’s winning? Yeah, yeah, patriarchy hurts […]

Hipster Versus Classic Douchebag: January Douche-Offs

DOUCHE MOVE #1: People like this, so I don’t any more! If you aspire to be cool and relevant, you really have to control the products you incorporate into your daily life, because you are of course defined by your tastes in media and/or clothing, and liking something that is popular puts you on the […]

Of particular concern to me.

The Ancient Roman poet Terence declared that “In every endeavor, the seemly course for wise men is to try persuasion first.” The same truth binds wise women as well… George Marshall noted that our gravest enemies are often not nations or doctrines but hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. So to create more friends and fewer […]

THAT’S NOT FUNNY

As one of the world’s leading self-appointed experts on Whether That Is Sexist (spoiler: it is) I am, of course, obligated to spend up to five minutes per day reading headlines and then becoming outraged over them. Then I write things with the phrase “taco farts” in them and post some YouTube clips, and so […]

Tiger Beatdown: Apologia, or: Why I Spend All My Time on the Damn Internet

[So. Not so long ago, I had a discussion with someone in which he asked me to answer some tough questions, most of which had to do with this blog. They were questions like: why have you chosen to write what you write? What change do you think you can affect by writing those things? […]

I recognize this impulse, the vague belief of some middle-class or upper-middle-class girls and young women (primarily white, I think; don’t know if brown and black women have this too) that the world owes them a living so that their creative, artistic, interesting inner selves can be supported and thrive.  I am going to go […]