True Madness

From Judith Warner’s excellent op-ed in the New York Times today:
“Stupak-Pitts passed not just because a group of Catholic bishops bore down on Democratic lawmakers. It passed because it could. Maybe because our cultural memory is short; because our fantasyland nostalgia for a world of stay-at-home moms and gray flannel dads is too great, because [...]

Will We Gain Health Care but Lose Abortion?

Grrrr! My blood pressure is going sky high. To read the whole story, click on the first phrase below.
WASHINGTON – Catholic bishops have emerged as a formidable force in the health care overhaul fight, using their clout with millions of Catholics and working behind the scenes in Congress to get strong abortion restrictions into the [...]

Roman Polanski

ROMAN POLANSKI: Wanted and Desired
A documentary film by Marina Zenovich 2008

I wonder if the people who’ve been calling for Roman Polanski’s head—and his body, back here in the USA—know all the confusing details of the case? I suspect not; if they did, they couldn’t possibly see the issue in stark black-and-white terms. But if they [...]

Dept. of Parenting Inc.

A Daddy on the Ball
Steve Monforto, a Phillies fan who’d been trying his entire life to catch a baseball in the stands, finally managed to snag one during Tuesday night’s game against the Washington Nationals. Delirious with joy, he handed the treasure to his 3-year-old daughter Cecilia, who promptly threw it towards the field. Did [...]

A Haunted Baby Sister

I don’t know much more about Eunice Kennedy Shriver than what the general public knows, but the fact that she worked tirelessly on behalf of people with mental disabilities, and had a sister who was believed to be mentally challenged, tells me a great deal about her. In the book A Difference in the Family, [...]

Maria Shriver’s Conference

Do you know that Maria Shriver, the First Lady of California, holds a women’s conference every year? For two days in October a gang of high-profile, accomplished women come together in a pristine section of the California coast to meet, greet, and–their primary purpose–empower themselves and each other. If you want to go, too bad–except [...]

The Liberal Shuffle

Thank god for Frank Rich, the only guy with balls enough to confront the reality of the hypocritical, condescending Republican senators on the Judiciary Commttee for their despicable treatment of Judge Sotomayor. I can’t tell one of those conservative white guys from another, so I don’t know who precisely said what, but the worst [...]

Health Care and Insurance

Long ago and far away, I married an insurance salesman.
I suppose I share some of the responsibility for my husband’s chosen profession. Pre-marriage the guy worked as a barroom bouncer, and throwing unruly customers out of bars wasn’t going to support the needs of our forthcoming baby, or even those of a middle-class princess [...]

Cagney & the Dykes

I feel like the Dean of Students at freshman orientation. Every couple of years when I venture into SF Lesbian Nation, I’m older but the girls aren’t. The older ones have moved across the bridge and are busily raising babies, so I seldom run into anyone I know here. Today I did; Valerie’s a doctor [...]

Thanks to the Senators from CA

Thank you, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, plus seven colleagues who joined you, for keeping up the fight to save those two young journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, from 12 years in some godforsaken North Korean labor camp. Just when I feared everyone would drop the case–except of course for her family–my own reps [...]