I really shouldn’t take the time to post today, but I’ve got to clear some of these links off my desktop! Some of them I’ve lost the source of; my apologizes to anyone who I should have hat-tipped but didn’t.<\/p>\n
By the way, if there are any links you’d like to post, or anything you’d like to discuss, that doesn’t fit into the other threads on “Alas,” then feel free to post it in the comments here.<\/p>\n
In no particular order:<\/p>\n
Ex-Gay Watch<\/a> has some interesting information about the swell folks behind Defend Maryland Marriage (who I posted about yesterday<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Hey, cool, Jill at Third Wave Agenda just called “Alas” one of her favorite blogs<\/a>. Thanks, Jill! The only problem is, now adding Third Wave Agenda<\/a> to the “Alas” blogroll may look like payback for flattery, when actually I’ve been meaning to add it since I first noticed it a couple of days ago. Well-reasoned and passionate – a recipe for kick-ass feminist blogging. I recommend that y’all check Jill’s blog out<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n A mini-debate between me and Elizabeth Marquardt at Family Scholars Blog<\/a> about her famous “hooking up” study.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Heart, who is like me a veteran of the Ms Boards, has been posting to disagree with me and other skeptics regarding the “become a prostitute or lose unemployment benefits” story on this “Alas” thread<\/a>. It’s an interesting discussion. There’s also some discussion of it on Heart’s website<\/a> (Note: Heart’s website is women-only. Any male “Alas” poster who posts on Heart’s website will no longer be welcome to post on “Alas”).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n RadGeek argues, persuasively, that the Founding Fathers did so intend a separation between church and state.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Natalie at Philobiblon discusses<\/a> “the school slut” and the book Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut<\/em> by Emily White. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n Bouncing off a comment Kip <\/a>left on “Alas,” Pinko Feminist Hellcat<\/a> discusses classism and “personal responsibility.”<\/p>\n<\/li>\n A good Ellen Goodman article<\/a> points out that finding “common ground” in the abortion debate, as the mainstream presents it, usually means pro-choicers giving up on our principles in exchange for no compromise at all from pro-lifers. Via Jill at Third Wave Agenda<\/a>, who adds good comments as well.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Amanda at Mouse Words<\/a> argues that porn is not inherently degrading to women (although many specific examples of porn are). I pretty much agree with Amanda’s views, although I do think some kinds of porn – rape porn and child porn, specifically – should be censored. (I’m not assuming that Amanda disagrees with me on that).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In the news:<\/a> “A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation’s driving laws.” And whether or not people should get married young, I’d add. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found this story – sorry, whoever I’m not crediting!)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n I’m planning to order my next batch of checks from these people<\/a>. I’m torn between the variety pack, the anatomical theme, and the insect theme.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n College paper article about a recent bell hooks lecture<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n The Bush administration has pressured PBS into pulling an episode of “Postcards from Buster,”<\/a> because the episode included some children whose parents are lesbians. The article describes some past episodes of the series: “One episode featured a family with five children, living in a trailer in Virginia, all sharing one room. In another, Buster visits a Mormon family in Utah. He has dropped in on fundamentalist Christians and Muslims as well as American Indians and Hmong. He has shown the lives of children who have only one parent, and those who live with grandparents.” So apparently queers, and queers alone, are the only people Bush considers beyond the pale to show as part of a family on TV. Via Jack Bog’s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Basic Rights Oregon is suing<\/a> to prevent Measure 36 – the voter-approved Constitutional Amendment preventing Oregon from recognizing same-sex marriages – from being put into the Oregon Constitution. I’ll be blogging more about this in the future, but for now I’m posting it here to preserve the link.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Another terrific feminist blog added to the blogroll: Pseudo-Adrienne’s Liberal-Feminist Bias<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The New York Times<\/a> describes some of the ways folks in Chile preserved their freedom before divorce was legalized last week: “The most creative schemes involved civil annulment, which required the separating couple to persuade a court that the original marriage had not met legal requirements. So marrying couples frequently left an escape hatch, in case things didn’t work out. Witnesses to a wedding, for example, would sometimes deliberately misspell their names or give an incorrect address. Or a couple might marry in a jurisdiction in which neither lived. More than 5,000 annulments were granted annually; the beneficiaries included President Ricardo Lagos.”<\/p>\n<\/li>\n A CLASP policy brief (pdf file<\/a>) sums up the social science research regarding if married parents are really better for kids. (Short summary: Yes, kids of married parents tend to have better outcomes, but not 100% of the time, and there are other essential factors too). Both this and the previous link were via Family Scholars Blog<\/a>, by the way.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Another totally excellent Ornicus post defending hate crime laws<\/a>. He harps on something that always bugs me – 90% of hate crime law critics clearly have no idea what hate crime laws are or how they work.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Jeremy Wagstaff<\/a> provides an interesting statistic on spam email: “The index goes back to November 2002, with a value of 66.67 — i.e. about 67 spam messages for every 100 valid emails. Now the index is at 782.12. That’s 800 spam messages for every 100 valid ones.” Hat tip: Kip<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Damnum Absque Injuria<\/a>, an anti-feminist blogger, reviews the “male privilege checklist.” What a shock – he don’t like it.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n This student’s paper on the Morning After Pill<\/a> is good reading, especially if you’re looking for a basic summary of the scientific issues involved.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Someone on a men’s rights forum suggested this link as a one-stop summary of what men’s rights activists are complaining about<\/a>. So, in case you were wondering…<\/p>\n<\/li>\n This pamphlet written by Mary Schweitzer<\/a> in the run-up to the 2004 election is still very worth reading, especially for her thoughts on the economic situation in the US. (Mary Schweitzer wrote this recent “Alas” guest post<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Very interesting debate about affirmative action and black law students<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Have you heard of this guy? He saved the world.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Ah… the desktop looks much cleaner now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I really shouldn’t take the time to post today, but I’ve got to clear some of these links off my desktop! Some of them I’ve lost the source of; my apologizes to anyone who I should have hat-tipped but didn’t. … Continue reading