you know, she's right. I can't tell you how many times I've read or seen news stories about women about to be raped who were able to prevent the attack by shooting their assailant or women who were about to be beaten by their significant other and were able to halt the abuse with a gun or who have protected their…

I think everything is relative (although perhaps even THAT is a controversial statement) and that having your wedding pre-planned is really bad news for some women and completely non-toxic for others. Example: I spent a good many years of my life wasting away (or, rather, gaining massive amounts of weight) watching…

High five, yo.

actually, I think the fact of pregnancy fails the Akin Test for Legitimate Rape. The Test states that: "If it’s a 'legitimate rape,' the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," thus preventing pregnancy. So, really, these women are lying about being raped to begin with and thus should not be…

I'm a huge huge fan of satire and it is, of course, the highest form of comedy when done properly. The thing is that we now live in an age when satire is so lost on the masses that it is more often misunderstood as staunch support of the ideals it jokingly supports. How long did it take a lot of conservatives to…

thank you so much for posting.

well that's duly noted. Except the Fox News story quoted in this article talks about how Downton relates to the American political scene today so....... but, I guess it's your thread so you can skew off on a tangent if you want to.

fair enough! I prefer to just think of it as soap with better writing and costumes, as you said.

Was calling it a Masterpiece Theater piece somehow insulting to you? Just curious... that seemed to have hit a nerve and I'm unclear why. I get why you read more into the rest of my statement than was intended.

um, yeah.... you're probably right. Because I view it (as I stated in so many words) as fluff TV. It's nothing more than that to me and if others are using watching Downton Abbey as a political statement, well, I suppose that WOULD fall into the category of what most Americans do to assert their beliefs .... NOTHING!…

I think it's just a soap opera.... but with literacy! I get your point, but seriously we can't just enjoy a fluffy piece of TV anymore without it being some political statement? I know, I know.. the personal is political and all but let's not suck ALL the fun out of the room. Matthew's so dreamy! Edith plots from…

oh shit! Were there dancing and pyrotechnics at the Inauguration that I missed???? Dammit!!!!

That's exactly what I thought when I read this. This wasn't a principal (I would imagine) but some random secretary in the office who made a flip and insensitive comment that's now being taken as if it's the official position of the school. It's not OK for people to say stuff like this, but it's also not OK to…

I'm also a J.D. and I'll be 33 next month with absolutely no signs of de-singling anytime soon. I find that my frustrations with weddings and girls getting married is that I see them as signposts marking all the friends who will slowly slip out of my life completely or, even worse, who expect to stay in my life but…

Exactly. Thank you. People need to at least get their facts straight.....

@opheliadelia, too! I actually stopped hanging out with a lot of my ND friends (except the LGBT ones, actually!) because they kind of blindly follow ND no matter where it may go. They attend games and get drunk and still talk about the Backer like it's the second damn coming. Guys, we're over thirty. It's time to…

I did see this one. Thanks for the link, though.

..... or you missed half of what I wrote. You know, whichever.

wag the dog is only effective if it's done in the immediate aftermath of a scandal. The Seeberg/Sullivan stories are years old. How is this an effective smoke screen? (Class of '02).

Yeah, it's really unfortunate. ND does so many great things and I feel like the education I got was second to none, so they're doing their jobs well ... for the most part. But no place is perfect and no person is perfect. I hate the "halo effect" that I feel like the Catholic designation gives ND. As if we expect…