MN teen denied Confirmation - for supporting marriage equality

Ok, I clearly am not a fan of the RC church.  Or the idea of religion at all.  But if someone, for whatever reason, wants to keep up the observances *as long as they do no harm in the world*, let them.  This guy posted a photo of himself with an altered sign protesting a proposal to deny…

NJ Assemblyman to propose ban on ex-gay "therapy" for minors

The entire industry of ex-gay therapies tortures should not exist, but at least keeping minors safe from it is a start.  Here's hoping!

This essay/post/thing originally appeared on Phraryngula, in PZ Myers' ongoing series "Why I am an Atheist".  There's loads of compelling, funny, or gutting stories in the series, and…

This essay/post/thing originally appeared on Phraryngula, in PZ Myers' ongoing series "Why I am an Atheist".  There's loads of compelling, funny, or gutting stories in the series, and they're well worth checking…

This idea has been percolating for a while, but really became urgent in the last couple of days.  I read a blog post by a young woman who was seeking to pray better.  And her definition of "better" included heavy-duty denial and self-abnegation.  It was the saddest thing I've read in a while.  If you switched the words "praying to god" with "loving my husband", and kept all the other aspects, it would have been a mini-manual for a controlling relationship, borderline…

I have a couple of seperate blogs for different projects.  My wordpress one is by far the spammiest (even though I have teeming ones of comments! ^_^).  Normally the filter catches them so they never see the light of day.  Sometimes I look at them, since spam can often approach the level of found poetry. 

This one struck me - how grand!  How old-world!  Oh, it's a treat:

I am writing to let you understand of the perfect encounter my wife’s princess…

Yesterday, I was helping out the Spousal One and listing some of his excess books on Half.com.  He has one of those "ghost stories of the world" books that you can get for a few bucks at Barnes and Noble.  These things are coffee table books, not meant for reading so much as display.  As such, they often have cool, spooky art, from Simon Marsden style photos to Ye Olde Woodcuts. 

I flipped through this book for kicks, wishing I could have a job writing for them.  I could churn…

I've been thinking a lot about large topics related to small objects, like symbolism and esthetics ("why yes, my knitting a potholder does make a political statement!", that sort of thing)

Because so much of my free time is devoted to being creative in one form or another, and my favored craft is jewelry, which is heavily gendered, I have taken up residence at the intersection of feminism, crafter-dom.  In the last couple of weeks, I've been wondering why so many craft…