The iPhone is one thing, but the crazy diet really isn’t good. For one there’s so many cases where that sort of intense food control turns out to be really mentally unhealthy. For another, banning all fun/unhealthy food isn’t actually teaching your kids about moderation and making good choices.

Legal action is often just as hard on the victim as it is on the perpetrator, and it takes a lot of time, energy, and money to pursue a legal case with a doubtful outcome. If she feels satisfied and at peace with just moving on, then that should be her choice.

My totally-without-evidence take is that Soering knew about the murders and perhaps helped plan them but did not actually take part, and Haysom actually killed her parents. Not sure how to explain the multiple footprints + fourth blood type, though.

I agree that students should help finance their degree, but when your parents income is automatically taken into account when calculating your aid (whether or not they’re paying!) it’s ridiculous to say that the parents have no responsibility to help out. When I was in college, the aid department at my school dropped…

But...the daughter does talk to her mother once a week. The problem is that she doesn’t always respond when her mother texts her (random emojis apparently? How does one even respond to that?). Which is a lot, honestly. I don’t even text my best friend that much, because who has that much to say?

OMG, is your husband my long lost brother?

Talking once a week isn’t cutting off contact! That’s a totally normal amount of conversation!

You know, I think its perfectly okay to not give adult children Christmas gifts. They’re adults.

Yeah, this is how my mom is too. She constantly texts me “Hey!” or “:)“ and then gets upset when I don’t give a huge response back (because what do you say to “hey”? That’s not a conversation starter, mom!). She keeps bringing up interests I had in high school or middle school, as if I’m that same person still,…

Naw, we’ve been turning a blind eye to the Saudis and their abuses for years.

Well, I know a few people from very rural parts of the country who actually have to hunt to eat (I’m sure this lifestyle is dying out, but its not dead yet). But why on earth does anyone need assault weapons and handguns?

I look at it more as “See, this is what should actually have a waiting period” rather than drawing a direct parallel. Because a lot of the restrictions on abortions would actually be totally reasonable and helpful when applied to gun purchasing.

Eh, women were a big part of the New Right under Reagan (maybe not the under-35s, though). Now the GOP is hemorrhaging female support.

Well, there’s always going to be those few kids who are drawn to extremism. In high school I knew a girl who went off to join a Christian doomsday cult that later got raided by the Feds for planning to assassinate the president. She dropped out before graduation and married a man 10 years our senior. It was nuts. But…

Gee, its like politics are morally complicated and we can support some actions while criticizing others!

Well, the Bosnians have suffered a lot of violence and displacement in the past few decades, and a lot of families never landed on their feet. It’s not hard to see how a terror cult like ISIS can exploit angry teenagers who feel like they don’t fit in where they are.

“Islam” is a very large category. You can’t say all of Islam oppresses women any more than you can say all of Christianity oppresses women. Yes, there are religious doctrines in lots of world religions that place women in positions of less power, and often those doctrines are exploited to oppress women. But there are…

To be fair, I’ve seen a couple of Indian people writing about how western-style yoga practice violates the spiritual point of yoga and how they’d like it to stop, but they seem to be a minority. In any case, I think most people would agree that doing concrete good for disabled students is more of a priority than…

I think the problem is that a lot of yoga teachers try to take from Hinduism and other amalgamated eastern religion-type stuff, which can be offensive. There are also a few traditional yoga practitioners from India who object to it being used as a western exercise fad because it goes against some of the beliefs of the…

I think so. The line for me is making sure you’re really commenting on something the person has put effort into, and not really their body or attractiveness. “Is that a new shirt, Janice? Looks great!” almost never plays as creepy, but “You look great in that new shirt, Janice!” sure can.