You've improved this story tenfold.

Hear hear! While I'm not a mother, I certainly have one, and she taught me everything I know about fighting hate and bigotry.

I just commented on another thread about this, but I read an Amish trilogy when I was younger about the shunning practice that you're talking about. The thing was, I don't remember it romanticizing the culture necessarily. Sure, people read it because they were curious about Amish people and don't usually get to…

My boyfriend jokes that I'll read anything, and it's sort of true. When I was in high school, that included a trilogy about an Amish woman who was shunned, then gave Jesus a birthday party (I'm not joking, there was a cake), then fell in love with another ex-Amish man, then they became Mennonites together.

I also wonder how far-reaching the gag order could be. Naming her attackers in public has clearly gotten her in trouble, but what if she was talking about it in private with a friend? My initial take-away from this article was that she couldn't say their names, but upon re-reading, it seems much more vague: "violating…

Question: Why is there an asterisk after trans? Maybe I've been writing it wrong.

There's a related Savage Love column about devotees (those who fetishize people with disabilities). Pretty sure this particular letter turned out to be a fake, but it was about something similar to "wheelchair porn."

Right, I understand that now.

We do! Click on the timestamp, then post the URL here: http://jezebel.com/cotd/forum

I don't quite understand your second sentence, but I get your drift. To be more specific, I don't think anyone (including the OP) suggested that the hospital should do this for free (so it's okay that they want "to pay their staff and stay in business"), but rather, if it is evidence-gathering, it would be a cost…

I also find this totally perplexing. I would like to hear the justification behind it.

I wasn't aware that silent birth was only a Scientology practice. I know of a (non-Scientologist) super liberal mom who had a silent birth. Well, silent for everyone else in the room. It helped her to concentrate, but she could still make noise if she wanted.

Anna compares the two in the first paragraph.

Ha! That would be hilarious if it were true.

Oh lord. I finished grad school a few years ago, and I remember the dissertation word cloud. "Problematic" seemed to be popular in my circle of friends.

THIS I can get behind.

And keep purging every six months. Over the past year and a half, I've probably deleted 300 people. Not because I'm a big mean-o (well...), but because it's not possibly to legitimately keep in contact with everything I ever met in high school, undergrad, grad school, various jobs, random parties, weddings, etc. I…

My personal pet peeve is the use of the word "hubby" at all. (If you like using that word, rock it, but I'm going to cringe.)

I've been living my life as if pizza is a multivitamin already.

There was an antibiotic I was on once, and my dose required me to cut the pill in half. Let me tell you, if I didn't swallow it quickly enough or in the right way (if the exposed part touched anything in my mouth), it tasted like evil, too. (And lasted forever.)