This makes me sick. I'm a (layperson, part time) children's ministry staff person in a protestant church. For that position which is a mere 10 hours a week I still passed a background check and am a mandatory reporter.

I don't get this celebrity thing. How on earth can Lohan think that she's entitled to assault someone, steal people's possessions and destroy them?

@moonkitten: Three, (god help me)

"I LOVE how this [...] girl in question made a fuss about feeling so threatened and disrespected, yet had the nerve to show right back up at said fraternity to hang out w/ her friends (several of which are also brothers at said fraternity). Can't we talk about THAT trend?"

@keldo: I dunno, when I heard all the furor over her backside, I was expecting more junk in her trunk than there actually was. She looked amazing in her dress but I didn't expect her to be so slight.

I was thinking how "Life of Pi" this is until I clicked through and read about the cages.

I've seen several good ones mentioned further down in the comments (bridge to teribithia, harry potter DH) but there's one that I read this year that destroyed me. "The Knife of Never Letting Go" was brutally sad in a feminist-hulk-rage-smash! way until it tore my heart out of my chest, ripped it to shreds and then…

@NomNom83: Take this with a grain of salt but I got the change.org petition notification for this case this morning: "On April 25th, a judge in North Carolina used Alaina's cancer as a key reason to transfer custody of her 5-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter to her ex-husband (a man Alaina describes as "abusive"…

@QoB: Duh, they can't have a honeymoon baby if their honeymoon's been put off! ;)

@enthusiasmflail hearts MizJenkins: He repatriated the constitution. Essentially, the laws that created our consitution were acts of British Parliament rather than our own. Repatriation took it off their books and put it into ours exclusively and the charter of rights and freedoms was added in at that time.

@Tsathoggua: I think the culture argument is strong. One of my professors at university shared her story about how marriage and culture intersected. She and a group of friends had rejected the idea of marriage based on the way it played out in her culture. It wasn't until she moved to Canada as an adult that she…

@hfree: Seconded! Getting to read that book was a highlight of going to grandma and grandpa's house.

I can't remember if there was any toddler mangling in my family but it was always grandma/pa [first name]

Yup, this is me too. It's such an unerving feeling, isn't it? Does yours go counter to gavity too?

If they're going to pat down infants they should at least have the decency to change the diaper while they're at it.

@kitkat: In my neck of the woods that's slang for TV. The idea of having to give up TV at 33 is laughable!

@TildeMarks: There's generally a decent radius around me in my exercise class because 7 times in 10, if someone falls or slips it's me.

With 743 students in my graduating class the only reason I know half the names is that I maintained the official commencement list and had to personally proof each name three times. It was hard enough to get people out to vote for the grad committe prez and VP let alone waste people's time with "most likely to…

@Donovanesque: I'm not sure how similar the policies are between United Church of Christ (USA) and United Church of Canada but the homosexual minters was a church wide decision, whereas going through the affirming process* is a congregation by congregation decision.

Whenever I hear or see a man doing something idiotic because "chicks dig it" it makes me want to go up to them and say in the most scathing tone I can muster: "Where the hell did you get the idea that women want to waste their time or genes on a Darwin contender?"