http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.benen.html

This article argues Republicans are looking for trouble by obsessing about private sexual behavior, and explicitly says that the party who does this will be marginalized by American voters. The "politics of the personal" is about to bite Republcians in the butt, as their top polling three best presidential candidates have the same problem as a certain past Democratic president. That's good news for the Democrats. Marginalizing the "politics of the personal" people on the left would be a smart policy for progressives in the next presidential race.

My community, the black community, prefers heavier women. While anything can be taken to extremese, to call wanting heavier women a fetish ignored the reality of black and a number of immigrant communities, whee heavier women are the norm, where having "junk in the trunk" and big thighs are alluring.

It always annoys me on TV shows like TLC's What Not to Wear when the act like heavy arms and big butts must be covered up is big swaths of fabric. I want to show off my bigger than normal hips, because that is seen as alluring and sexy in my community, even if the fashion community disagrees.

Most of the men I have known (I am in a male dominated profession) have said they prefer far more heft on a woman than the mainstream press would let us know. I remember the fussing when Maxim slimmed down Beyonce's butt and thighs with Photoshop.

Now if the people who feel compelled to tell everyone how to live would back off, we'd have no problem. I say this as an active runner, biker, and volleyball player. Let people figure out how to have fun and be active without fixating on numbers on a scale, dress, and how many rolls pop up under their clothes.

This in-fight has taken over sites outside of Salon that SHOULD be paying attention to more substantive issues. Twisty's game is not just being discussed here. It's getting the space in other blogs that should be going to the Voting Rights Act. It's getting the kind of blog attention that needs to be on other things. It's caused a fight that weakens progressives at a critical time.

It's one thing to discuss silly topics in a sane, civil way, within the context of a literary magazine. The discussion of bjs across the blogosphere is now out of context and out of proportion. When people start equating bjs to oppression, they've lost perspective.

We can talk about fat and everything else in it's place, in it's context. But Twisty has distracted feminist blogs from something important they should be dealing with. Twisty litmus tested feminism in a trivial way.

It only has an exception for life, if I remember right, and that exception was very limited.

Why is the issue of rape and incest getting more attention than the issue of the health exception? The extremists don't want a health exception because they think that opens the door to mental health "excuses" (their parlance, not mine), and would allow back door "convenience" abortions. This language is thought by some to mean that women with ectopic and other complications will have to go into damaging miscarriages (or in the case of ectopic pregnancy, life threatening and future pregnancy threatening miscarriage) before doctors could save them with abortions. The lateness is thought to endanger or doom future pregnancies.

Is it because this is such an obvious overreach that few people talk about it here? Or is there something else going on? People in my state from South Dakota are discussing this as a rationale for overturning it, and I see extremists trying desperately to explain this away, or argue it is God's will, or that the danger to future pregnancy is a normal threat to pregnancy. These arguments don't seem to be persuasive.

I saw it last year. It's some of the same crew that does those hilarious "Billionaires for Bush" videos, and a number of other sendups. This is a satire. I have met people with Bible obsessions (colored covers, matching covers to the clothes, HUGE bibles on pededestals, etc). That just makes it funnier.

He is a preacher, but he's sending up people who are hypocrites in the video. You have to watch it tongue in cheek. Think "Church Lady".

I was told today the real impact is on subtle forms of retaliation that were not seen before as retaliation: changing shifts and schedule, moving people's offices, etc. It will be taken on a case by case basis. Most people are not as stupid as this crew was, so it will still be pretty hard to prove. The original standards for when retaliation becomes a possible claim after a claim if discrimination has not changed, just what the retaliation itsself can be has changed.

It depends on how well you follow your own internal procedures, allegedly.

There's a a LOT of studies that show both men and women do better in same sex educational environments, and that the loss of those environments hurt black boys exponentially more than girls.

It's time to amend the interpretation of Title IX to allow same sex public schools as charters. The same sex research is overwhelming, well-done, and well-respected.

I agree that the structuring of elementary education is not realistic for male success today. There's too much worry about figiting, et al, and far too little content. That leads to a discussion of teacher education inappropriate here.

For what it's worth, I think the schools are failing ALL students of all genders, not just boys.

Check with the pharmacist. They have a lot of drugs today for heart patients. SOme of those drugs have been linked to depression and personality change. It might be do to the meds.

Good luck LW.

"Rush. . .Viagra

Viagra. . .Rush

Ewwwwwwwww."

I do second that emotion.

Viagra does cause a high. Doesn't he have a history of heart problems, too?

He might keep over if he's messing with that.