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Monthly Archives: May 2012

This Is What Makes Us Girls

(with apologies to Lana Del Rey.  Trigger warning for misogynistic, transphobic violence) when men open doors for me yearning for my smile and my lover cups my hips, pulling me to her whispering “mine” and when my mother looked at my skirt and said “you’re not going out in that” and my father said I […]

Retribution or Change? The Progressive Support for the Prison-Industrial Complex

Like many progressives, I’ve been following the Tyler Clementi case with much interest, because it’s part of a larger ongoing conversation about the dangers of being queer in the United States. As the trial wound up and people started discussing the verdict, I found myself utterly fascinated by the intensity and viscerality of the progressive […]

Buffy Vs. The Beige Demon: Good Riddance to Riley Finn

I recently started watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer because I was all out of episodes of Doctor Who and I was giving myself permission to take a break from trying to solve the problems of the world and abstain from everything that was causing me anxiety. Before this month my only exposure to the show […]

I’ve Fracking Had It With This: Hydraulic Fracturing and the Practice of Medicine

Many medical students swear some version of the Hippocratic Oath when they become doctors; the oath has become the thing laypeople associate most with medical ethics, even though not all doctors swear by it, and it is more symbolic than binding. It’s a reminder, though, of the ethical training taken in school and the legal […]

Mitt Romney, Bully In Chief?

Last week, The Washington Post broke what turned out to be a rather explosive story on Mitt Romney’s school days, with a headline about his school ‘pranks, but also troubling incidents.’ What ended up being particularly controversial about the story was both the reaction from the Romney campaign, and the reaction from readers, who seemed […]

Missing intersectionality in sex positive feminism: the unaddressed racism in porn

[Content warning for discussions of sexual material, including racist violence – no images in the post, though] I love porn! I do! I have even written about porn recently! Yet, I really resent that I need to offer this disclaimer any time I would like to address something about the genre. Because it seems that […]

I Hated Glee Before It Was Trendy: At What Point Does Pop Culture Become Shitty Enough for People to Notice?

I had promised, gentle readers, to stop writing about Glee. After establishing a reputation as a trailblazer in the Glee-hating department, I wanted to rest on my laurels; or, more accurately, I wanted to stop wading through piles of communiques from angry Glee fans, and I wanted to stop watching the show because it was […]

LONE STAR CHOICE: A Reproductive Rights Chat with Jessica & Garland

Last Thursday Jessica Luther and I attended a panel put on by the Texas Observer called “POLITICS BECOMES PERSONAL: The Fight for Women’s Health in Texas.” Jessica is a reproductive rights activist who maintains the tumblr blog “Keep Your Boehner Out of My Uterus” and tweets under the handle @scATX. After the panel I asked her […]

Remembering the dead: what have we learned 67 years after the end of WWII?

This week, Europe commemorates the end of World War II, the event that marks a breaking point in contemporary history, the event that faced us with this reminder of humanity’s capability for evil. I don’t need to re-visit the significance of this war or the importance of the event as others have done it (and […]