Aww! Sweet southern mamas are the best. :)

The south has no shortage of problems; I think many of us develop as much pride as we can in the positives we can find (in my case, bourbon, horses, colloquialisms, derby pie). To say that something infuriating burns one's biscuits is a particular favorite of mine.

It's pretty great, right? It is used to express sincere sympathies at times ("You haven't had your smoke break yet? Bless your heart!") but the snark-bearing version is more prevalent.

Bless your heart, you obviously didn't grow up in the south. Down here everyone knows that nostalgia is the ingredient that makes Little Debbies not taste like crap. After sweating half to death marching in the July sun at middle school band camp in rural southeastern Kentucky, biting into a Nutty Bar, Fudge Round,…

I tried to watch the video and couldn't stand it more than a few minutes. It pays such maudlin tribute to the utterly specious anti-choice argument that believing abortion should be an option is the same as wishing a full-fledged independently alive human was dead. "Aren't you glad you gave up your dreams as a…

My feeling is that when all things seem equal, I am personally more likely to side with the alleged victim. Maybe that isn't fair, but a presumption of innocence (in the court of public opinion, unlike in the court of law) isn't possible for all sides. Assuming Woody is innocent requires us to assume Dylan is lying or…

Well, your heart was in the right place (or was it your liver?) so I will forgive. ;) Knob and soda?

Look, if you're going to insult Kentucky at least get your facts straight, we don't make that shit. Blame Tennessee. There is no Kentucky bourbon in this whole tournament which is fucking insane. Four different alcopops and not one bourbon.

No, it doesn't make her a hypocrite to testify on his behalf, assuming he actually did not do the things Vanity Fair claimed he did. I mean, I personally wouldn't have anything to do with him if I could help it, but him being a confirmed scumbag rapist doesn't mean he isn't telling the truth in this one instance. Keep…

Because Mia Farrow wasn't accused of a crime?

The charges being dropped doesn't actually prove anything. He was a very rich and charming media darling at the time and there was no physical evidence. That doesn't mean he was innocent. Charges are dropped (or never brought) against rapists and child molesters all. the. time. We can't know what really happened, but…

And yet, Mia Farrow did not sign the petition asking for Polanski's release in 2009. But Woody Allen sure did!

I'm not sure how I feel about the need for or helpfulness of mandatory religion class (teachers already have so much on their plates as it is), but I will say that, as an atheist-leaning agnostic who was raised Methodist, one thing I did learn from a comparative religions class in college was that my family's selected…

I forgot to mention, your statistic about SIDS is incorrect. Though rates have declined (mainly because a death being ruled SIDS is contingent on a lack of other potential causes and we have gotten better at recognizing other causes of infant death), the CDC estimates around 2,000 SIDS deaths per year.

I'm beginning to regret phrasing my complaints as questions and thus inviting you to further derail. I do agree with you that shallow concerns about maintaining a particular look are poor reasons to amputate even a small part of an organ on someone who cannot consent and I roll my eyes heartily at those women just as…

airkiss

Boom! Truth Bomb merit badge for you!

You're right, the article does set a high bar to be not considered living paycheck-to-paycheck. But in the context of affording unnecessary and expensive surgical procedures, I'd wager far more than the 27% considered strictly paycheck-to-paycheck don't have enough savings to pay for those.

I'm actually against male circumcision as well, but I don't think it's anywhere near the urgent issue Female Genital Mutilation is. I'm also against piercing an infant's ears. But imagine a world in which cultural practice called for chopping some children's entire ears off and in a conversation about that, I popped…

How prevalent is male death from circumcision? And what percentage of circumcised men lose the ability to experience any sexual pleasure? How many boys have their entire penis removed instead of just the foreskin? How many boys are circumcised with the express purpose of making them an acceptable match for marriage?…