But he has a cool house! He is a cool dude! He talks to trees and dates the River's daughter. He speaks in rhymes and chases wights away. He gathers waterlilies for his lady, just 'cause. Who doesn't like a guy like that? I'd like to have a beer with him.

I would've liked to see some discussion on how poor people in general have fared, compared to those wealthier, since 1970. I've absorbed a number of articles, charts and graphs lately saying that the wages and advancement potential for people in the bottom two fifths of income have been stagnant since then as well.…

Okay, here's a bunch of fantasy and historical fiction:

I'm inclined to think it has a lot to do with the sexual repression of those societies. I would be hard to put to imagine a more sexually repressed culture than one that lives by the strictures of Deuteronomy & Exodus, as the Puritans delighted in proving. As the now-forgotten H.L. Mencken put it: "Puritanism is the…

You know, this had never occurred to me before, but the very fact that there is a passage in Deuteronomy condemning cross-dressing strongly implies that this was a common behavior for as long as we've been able to write, and most likely much longer than that.

I disagree that ignoring this kind of email/text/phone message is passive-aggressive. I think the lack of communication speaks for itself. Really, what else possibly needs to be said? "You are not relevant to my interests, do not contact me again" never results in a cessation of communications on the part of the…

I need a guide on buying a gift for someone you've been dating forever. A nice gift that says "I actually tried", but isn't so nice that it says "I did something horrible/stupid that I need to be forgiven of, like putting the aluminum scrubber down the disposal perhaps. I didn't do that! Who did that?! The cat,…

I'm an atheist, which means the only think I necessarily have in common with any other atheist is that neither of us believe in any gods. To paraphrase a certain atheist tv host, "You don't believe in Zeus, Odin, or Zoroaster. Well, I don't believe in all of those plus Yahweh."

Donkey travel? Maybe around the village or in the fields, but no volunteer is assigned to a site that isn't car-accessible, it's too unsafe, both from a health and security standpoint. Besides, you have to get to the rayon center for banking and internet once a month at least. Most village volunteers make it into the…

PC KG, my bailiwick entirely!

The Kyrgyz aren't fundamentalists. They don't even read the quran except during births, deaths, and weddings. They don't read Arabic, and they don't pray five times a day. They absolutely don't abstain from alcohol. I know of absolutely zero Kyrgyz who attended mosque... ever. The Uzbeks, about 20% of the population,…

A Kyrgyz woman has withered on the vine by age 25; her ovaries have ossified inside her body (no lie!). My students gasped (literally gasped) in shock when I told them that 25-30 were considered marrying age in the States. So *old*! I know girls who were married at 17, but 20 is more standard, especially in cities.

Cramming inconsiderate and/or incompatible people into small spaces is Reality TV 101. Easy conflict generation AND you save on accommodations.

For fuck's sake, YES! UTI's should be mandatory on any curriculum. Why aren't they already?!? Oh yeah, /ladyproblems.

I just moved, and we didn't hire movers. But I moved from a group house full of strong, young housemates to another house in the same city, less than 1/2 hr driving away. I rented a UHaul, and got free boxes from boyfriend's mother (who had also recently moved). Housemates and boyfriend helped with the upload and…

Excellent use of clip-art tho.

Frankly, I've been thinking from the first that the all-male hyper-macho hierarchical nature of the football team and the athletics department had a lot to do with the decades long enabling and cover-up for this man. A grad student *saw him raping a child* in the showers and did *nothing* but report it to the…

I've been wondering all year if this "Republican Primary Race" is some kind of national experiment in credulity, and the first one to come out and say "This is bullshit!" loses. I don't understand why the pollsters, and the media, and the bloggers, and the beltway insiders keep chattering away about these candidates…

I believe you mean that "there's also no [good] reason why a gay couple [should be *able*] to get married in Florida." There is a stupid reason why they can't: The state electorate voted to ban both civil unions and marriages by Constitutional amendment in 2008. So, there is a huge legal obstacle enacted as a memorial…

Shit like this is why I'm never changing my name.