I’ve always wondered how this would explain vastly different sexual cultures within similar population groups. For one example, there were many ancient Greek city-states with institutionalized same-sex behavior, but to my knowledge there aren’t more gay and bi men born in modern-day Greece than in other parts of the…

Dear goodness, I accidentally wrote a book. I’m sorry to all who choose to read it, but here it is below:

Outside of Jezebel, even over on Gizmodo, I’ve seen an absolute ton of comments saying this is absolutely justified. I was actually relieved to scroll down on this article and see two or three comment threads without a single “he had it coming, should have followed the rules.”

I will be so happy when people start using the word “diverse” to mean “diverse” rather than “not a cishetero Christian white man.” Diversity includes everyone (including cishetero Christian white men). In this context, saying that a woman is a “diverse” character doesn’t make any sense. A single character can…

Which legs would be shorter on that one, left or right? Can you tell?

I always find it weird that elected officials and statehouses are allowed to fly the flag of the most dangerous enemy the US ever faced.

I went to Radford High School in Southwestern Virginia, and it had an immense impact on my life chances. They offered an elective critical thinking class in 7th to 8th grade that taught media literacy, critical thinking skills, logic, and problem-solving. I didn’t know that was rare until much later in my life, but I…

I teach undergrads sociology, and the biggest pushback I get in intro each semester is when I make the highly controversial claim that colonialism was bad for the colonized. “But it brought science and medicine to people that didn’t have them!”

You seem to be worried about being dead as an experience. Dying is an experience, death as a state is the antithesis of experience. For humans, life is consciousness is experience, and death is the opposite of all of that, which makes it not only unknowable but also impossible to experience. You will never experience…

Echoing others’ sentiments: most contemporary country music performed by men is awful. However, Jason Isbell is in my top three favorite artists, partially for his ability to write classic gut-wrenching country and partially for his penchant for socially conscious self-reflection in his songs.

Ben Franklin spoke publicly about driving out the angry, boorish, stupid Germans before they destroyed America. FDR said the Nazi attitude toward Jews was understandable. We interned Japanese Americans (and Korematsu is still on the books). We chained Cherokee children in solitary confinement at school just for…

Good point! For some reason I assumed that the Speaker would be elevated when I should have known better. It still seems like a likely real possibility, but at least there’s the possibility of something that isn’t the worst possible disaster.

But then we get Pence/Ryan: a ruthless theocrat and a ruthless Ayn Rand libertarian. That seems just as bad or even worse, because they’ll have zero conflicts with their own party.

This is the same country that turned away thousands of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust over anti-Semitism and fears that they would take American jobs. Now, we’re turning away thousands of Muslim refugees fleeing ISIS and Assad over Islamophobia and fears that they will take American jobs. We even used the…

I wouldn’t even say we “suddenly discovered [it] and started punching.” FDR didn’t mention the Holocaust until 1944, and even said the German attitude toward Jews was “understandable.” The NYT suppressed stories of the Holocaust, and the US government had evidence of the Holocaust classified “secret.” We were over…

I’ve had a gigantic crush on Rami Malek since he played a very unbalanced soldier in The Pacific. Ya’ll are late to the party.

So the same party that banned the CDC from studying gun violence because “a gun is not a disease” will now demand the CDC should study porn because it is a disease?

I have a cousin who’s the same way, and he posts “War on Cops” and “Few Bad Apples” posts all the time. When the death of Freddie Gray occurred, his mother posted a Facebook status about how black communities “deserve what they get” and that police “get so tired of the disrespect they get from those people that we…

In the US police get trained for about 19 weeks, on average, before hitting the streets. The waiting list for additional training programs can be incredible; Chicago Police Department has an eight-year waiting list for training in “nonlethal” weapons like tasers. In countries like Norway, police are trained for three…

I was at an Iraq War protest once where the police pulled someone off the sidewalk and then arrested him for obstructing a public roadway. They also beat him bloody for “resisting arrest.” Thankfully someone caught it on video, and I heard later that the city dropped the charges and settled out of court for damages to…