ahhh ... memories of 7-yr-old elaine getting yanked around her catholic school classroom by her ear, because she objected to sister's assertion that unbaptized african children, no matter how good, could never go to heaven ... and, yes, that sandy the guinea pig — the only creature on the planet that i knew loved me —…

as i said, i use "soul" in the secular sense, to designate a being's "moral or emotional nature or sense of identity" ... christians, of course, have a different definition that allows them to dismiss all non-human animals from the grace of their god

please, don't get me wrong ... as a hardcore pacifist, i don't hero worship che guevara ... but i will not single him out of the crowd of history's ruthless movers and shakers, some of whom have managed to rack up body counts that make guevara look like little more than a schoolyard bully (gw bush leaps to mind) ...…

sorry, no system for excluding living beings from soulfulness, as i don't believe there is a multicelled organism on the planet that does not have an emotional, moral, and cultural identity that transcends their drive to survive ... of course, i use "soul" in a secular sense, being an atheist and all

my first thought was that this is the 2nd funniest thing i've ever seen on youtube ("spiders on drugs" will always be no. 1) ... and my second was that my lil' hound dog really needs to step up her game

the jouberts' work is amazing ... time and again it challenges the christian-centric notion that animals are either soulless killers or soulless prey ... and shows just how ignorant we humans remain about the natural world

leung is first and foremost a socialist, so it probably wouldn't work for him ... but i'd be down for a ghandi shirt ... i prefer mlk, tho

alas, it is hard to fight for the working poor against violent oligarchies without getting blood on one's hands ... just look at what the united states was up to during the cuban revolution and its aftermath ... bombing the shit out of vietnam ... beating and lynching black americans ... and supporting murderous…

well, that's what i meant by sonar ... something that gives off high-pitched pings that are in the manatees' hearing range ... glad to see it's actually being developed

well, that assumes republicans actually give a shit about abortion beyond embracing anti-choice to satisfy their radical base and that they'll even think twice about it if they can manage to get elected without doing so

says the man who, in nominating sarah palin, single-handedly (no pun intended) empowered the christo-fascists to "take back" our country and take over our vaginas

given that the majority of indian drug users share needles, and iv drug use occurs even in the smallest of villages, it seems to me that neighborhood-specific, prostitute-centered hiv education was bound to loose its potency ... and just looking at prostitutes as the source of the problem not only overlooks a…

martial arts training (they are pretty much built for sumo wrestling) ... and hearing aids, so that they can hear our boat motors coming and avoid our douchey asses

when i was a kid living on one of the canals in the everglades, the manatee used come to the edge of our yard and nibble the grass ... with their babies! squeeee! the gators used to come for our ducks, too ... not so squee

uh, "animal lover", you ought to educate yourself on the nature and plight of florida's manatees before you blithely dismiss the enforcement of this law ... our fellow humans at least have some defenses against our douchery ... manatees not so much ... and without such strict protection, they'd be gone in the blink of…

thanks, craftyy ... i actually had a lucrative opportunity to go to dubai but declined ... i've done the whole being-female-on-the-lowdown thing, and i've been in public spaces where women wear full purdah, and it just fills me with rage ... makes me want to rip my shirt off and shove my boobs in some male's face ...…

and yet we have relations with this regime, because the oppression of women shouldn't get in the way our national/corporate interests ... it certainly didn't stop us from supporting the women-crushing taliban prior to 9/11

if being railroad into a conviction by corrupt prosecutors and courts is justification for nullifying a country's laws, then the entire american criminal code should be trashed ... murder? i guess i can kill at will in a country that has railroaded thousands into convictions, many of them on the basis of their skin…

i couldn't agree with you more about the arbitrariness of borders and the violability of man-made laws ... my jez comment history is full of similar remarks

refusing to get on board with the idea that a bunch of foreigners can go to a country and change the laws of that land according to their own customs and desires (in this case, it's desires, since uk laws prohibit public fornication) is not the same as endorsing that country's laws and customs