OK, I feel like an idiot now. Gonna figure this out...

Hmm...let me try again. It is probably my fault. I keep getting disconnected, which is lame.

Every summer when I get my sleeveless tops out (both of them!) I am reminded of being about eleven and hearing an announcement after Sunday mass that "now that the warm weather has arrived, let's remember not to make ourselves objects of sin for one another."

Ok, here it is. From this very site, no less. Do not read while eating/planning to eat in the next hour.

I'm trying to find the article, but, yes, there are cases where men have physically pulled them out. *Retches and curls up into a ball of sympathy pain*

Stop looking for logic and consistency from the Catholic church! I have given up on understanding the theology/canon law stuff they have going on, but I still have a Catechism. If somebody actually knows this stuff, they should jump in. Here's all they have to say about organ transplantation (nothing about making…

This is how they justify it (though they do not apply this logic evenly): they say that humans don't get to decide who lives and who dies.

Flashback to only a year and a half ago when I was trying super-hard to be Catholic and helping out at a confirmation study session: the kids had to fill out a worksheet about who…

From the Miami New Times:

Her little phrases make no sense either. Did she just say, "Let's take off the noose and really let loose" or something like that?

Hey. I'm going to message you because I have had similar problems. I have severe chronic pain and on and off clinical depression. I actually had this total *&^%$# of a doctor tell me that "there is nothing physically wrong with you." I'm currently shopping around for a surgeon, because there is a LOT physically wrong…

Anything under 1200 is not great for your metabolism. Sheesh.

The biases doctors have cause them to lose patients. This is only semi-related, but I cook and eat a vegetarian food. Much of it is the healthy end of Indian food, but there is plenty of other stuff in there. I had a doctor who was extremely anti-vegetarian. Most of the time when I came in, she just assumed that…

Yeah. I remember seeing this list when it originally came out (probably eight months ago?) and thinking the tomatoes were the hardest thing to find on the list. I eat loads of canned tomatoes and finding them is jars is difficult. I wonder if these tetra pack ones are any better? I have no idea.

Ugh. Maria Goretti. She really is one of the worst examples out there for young girls (well, young boys, too). Because of her age at her death, she is still used as an example for middle schoolers. Her whole story reinforces that being dead is better and more virtuous than being a rape victim, as though victims were…

I don't actually even remember what Bill Clinton told us to do. I remember he appreciated that students applauded for the campus grounds staff. That was nice, I guess.

I am completely with you. The CCD sex ed was one of the more WTF experiences of my life. When I look back at it and how much it bothered me, even as a 7th grader, I'm astounded that I managed to keep trying to go back to the church even through my mid-twenties. We were separated by sex—boys in the rectory and girls in…

The "separation of powers" thing just makes me think that this is some "complementarianism" bullshit—i.e. strictly laid-out gender roles from which couples must not deviate that are apparently based on the Bible.

We definitely looked at a foreclosure property with some terrifying blood stains and duct-taped windows, but there was water damage on the second floor and it was over-priced. We went into the bloody room and the realtor just backed out and said, "Nope, nope, nope."

I'll take your halva and raise you a paneer jalebi (I promise those are real)! :)

Something like that, yes. I remember Pope JPII talking about the two kinds of women in the church: virgins and mothers. Imagine what it is like to be a Catholic woman who doesn't want kids, who can't have kids because of health reasons (I personally grew up around women who were lauded as heroines for popping out…