Friday, July 24, 2009 - Posts
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A post from Double X writer Margaret Wheeler Johnson:
On Monday Double X published an excerpt from Lizzie Skurnick's new book Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, and I've since found myself paging back through my own copy of her ode to the young adult novel. In the office earlier today, Noreen and I were discussing what the book suggests about why women read. We thought others might want to chime in here ... (Read more in Double X.)
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A post from Double X writer Meredith Simons:
Torie, you wondered whether MTV's show 16 and Pregnant
will encourage teenage moms-to-be to consider adoption. At least one
pro-life group hopes so: Lifeline Adoption oversees several
pro-adoption websites, including the fortuitously-named 16andpregnant.com.
Fans of the show who type in that URL won't get a site about the show.
They'll get one aimed at girls who are precisely that: 16 and pregnant.
At first glance it's a relatively generic, "We know you're scared, here
are your options," sort of site, but it quickly becomes it clear that
the site designers really only have one option in mind ... (Read the rest of this post, or the whole conversation, in Double X.)
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A post from Double X writer KJ Dell'Antonia:
This year marks the 10th Anniversary of Putumayo Playground, the series
of albums from the famed world music compilers created especially for
kids. Fans credit it with being part of a revolution in kids' music
which, along with artists like Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner, turned
what had been a wasteland of painful ditties into music kids and
parents could enjoy together. Indeed, there's some catchy stuff out
there, but you won't hear it playing in my car. What's wrong with Bruce
Springsteen? If ABBA isn't kids music, what is? Is there anyone out
there whose kid doesn't rock out to Flo Rida's "Jump?" ... (Read more in Double X.)
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Abortion didn't get much air time during the Sotomayor hearings, but
it's become a flashpoint in the fight over Obama's health care
legislation. Conservatives are saying that the various bills Congress
is considering would increase access to abortion and subsidize the
procedure with government funding. Meanwhile, a separate bill with
support from both the pro-choice and pro-life sides designed to prevent
unwanted pregnancy, with more money for contraception, could get caught
in the crossfire ... (Read more in Double X.)
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That's a really upsetting litany of stories, Marjorie, about the cops accosting you and your relatives.
The confluence of Skip Gates' arrest and the Obama presidency are
making white people, at least some of us, take in these stories
differently. We've heard them before, but now maybe we're absorbing
them. Obama's election has both raised expectations of a post-racial
America and given us a lens through which to see clearly how we still
fall short. (Read the rest of this post, or the whole conversation, in Double X.)
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Last night was the annual Planned Parenthood-sponsored “Summer Sex & Spirits”
night at the Museum of Sex in New York, which I somehow have failed to
visit until now. There was plenty of the expected—some porno flicks,
some stylish anal plugs, even a hands-on display of rubber sex dolls
with rubbery vaginal openings. But the real gem is the exhibit on the sex lives of animals. Here are a few highlights to share at your weekend BBQs. And Miriam, please chime in with any other fun animal sex factoids for this summer Friday ... (Read the rest of this post, and Miriam Goldstein's response, in Double X.)
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Via Reason’s Katherine Mangu-Ward we learn that New Jersey legislators, in “recognizing
that teenagers who e-mail nude or sexually suggestive photos of
themselves to friends aren't really child pornographers,” are
proposing an alternative to prosecution. If the bill passes, charged
sexters will merely be forced to attend a “course focusing on the
consequences of such acts.” (Read more in Double X.)
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