These covers are advertising, of course, but they used to embarrass me enough that I stayed far away from romantic fiction for years. There’s a reason why cloth covers for concealing paperback books sell well.

I remember reading that ereaders were a huge boon for the romance genre because people could read these books in public places without having to flaunt these covers. I totally believe it because I came to the romance genre post-Kindle era and I don’t know if I’d have the guts to be showing off a Fabio/heaving bosom…

As a bit of a historic costume freak, I have a tendency to focus on the weird, anachronistic details on these covers. Carefully feathered layered haircuts on  18th and 19th century men, for example. I wasn’t aware that barbers on seaships, moors and ranches were so skilled. 

It’s not anti-Israel to ciriticize its many human rights abuses. I can beleive in Israel’s right to exist without thinking abusing the palestinian people is necessary for this existence.

Actually I was speaking more about the original borders for Israel being different than today because of the de facto seizure of the West Bank.

I was uninvited from a nephew’s bar-mitzvah for claiming Israel is an apartheid state during a recent family gathering. Look, I can love Israel, the country of my religion, but I also need to call it when I believe basic human rights are being violated by said country. Sticking to my principals here and I will drown…

It’s one of the oldest problems in the book for purportedly democratic governments: Israel would like to claim the land they captured in their wars with their neighbors openly by right of conquest, but they also don’t want to treat the people that were living there, and are now under their control, like citizens of…

Thank goodness things are changing on this front too. Standing against Israel’s treatement of the palestinian people has nothing to do with anti-semitism - it’s basic humanism. Israel is blocking any and every way Palestinians find to sustain themselves under the disguise of combatting terrorism, but really it’s…

My jade plant is for sure not the same thing as a nearly half a millennium old bonsai but I feel for these people. Turns out taking care of plants can be a really cool and profound education. Once you figure out plants, much more of how the world works will begin to make some sense.

Thanks, La Toya. I’m going to side with the underage boys, especially the ones who kept quiet because they didn’t want their lives ruined. PS OJ’s glove didn’t fit and Casey Anthony was a good mom.

To the Jackson estate:

it’s always ‘the Intercept’ with these leftier-than-thou critiques that are exponentially more innuendo than fact. and stuff like “...the student was accused of being a ‘Bernie Bro’...” because some people saying stuff on the internet totally amounts to a formalized “accusation” made by, um, some unspecified group...

Being found not guilty isn't quite the same thing as "COMPLETELY INNOCENT", though.

Please stop defending him in any way shape or form. There are no mitigating circumstances with child molestation. He was a scumbag predator whose deeds rest solely on his own shoulders. Of course he had help-but no one was forcing him to destroy these boys’ lives.

I’m not saying there’s no point there, but when exactly have the rapes and murders of girl children or women led to what you describe? Women are doubted as much and often more than boys and men. Women do not get greater conviction rates or are treated better. There’s even more stigma around boys who are abused, but…

I agree and it’s bullshit: get women fighting each other rather than Donny Two Scoops and his horrific racist / homophobic / sexist / transphobic policies.

“Combined with the whole ‘I didn’t submit myself for an Emmy because I wasn’t given good enough material’ comment, she didn’t just seem to be trying to leave Grey’s Anatomy, but actively dismissing it and Shonda Rhimes.”

I think I also grade it on a curve, because it’s honestly the first movie I remember seeing that called out this behavior at all. I specifically remember the big fight between Pete and Debbie as kind of flooring me at the time, because she was expressing things I had felt but never before articulated. Or heard…

I don’t think I’ve ever actually read that comments that sunk Heigl’s career, but seeing them now it strikes me that 1) she’s absolutely right about Knocked Up; 2) her comments would be received rather differently–that is, more fairly–today, I think.

When I saw 27 Dresses in theatres, I thought it was the height of mediocrity, though were quite a few things I did enjoy about it. I was surprised though, when over the years, it became the poster child for bad rom coms. There are so many worse films from the genre.