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  • Sarah Palin Is a Genius at Taking Umbrage

    How seriously should we take Sarah Palin as she makes all the early exploratory moves of a presidential candidate? (See: the urgent speech to the base in Tea Party land, the dangling of herself as ''willing'' to challenge Obama on Fox, the appearances on behalf of other candidates like Gov. Rick Perry, the assembling of an experienced set of ...
  • Book of the Week: "Fly Fishing With Darth Vader"

    Reading Matt Labash's skewering of the enviro-guru Low Impact Man, I snorted with laughter and overlooked the glints of climate-change denialism peeking out among the jokes. For about a minute. Then I read the piece again and launched a big e-mail argument with Matt, who is a friend of mine. It is in this spirit that I recommend his new book, ...
  • Planned Parenthood's Super Bowl Strategy

    Last Sunday, Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman broke ranks with the feminists who have been denouncing CBS for running Tim Tebow's TV ad during the Super Bowl. Read their op-ed in the Washington Post. It's a fascinating history of canny, well-crafted advertising by pro-life groups, and Kissling and Michelman argue that the ...
  • Sex Ed: Read the Fine Print

    Hanna, that all sounds like such a sensible approach to sex ed. Get 13-year-olds to role play about how to wait. Tell 15- and 16-year-olds about waiting and also about condoms. Pretty much what I'd want for my kids. Stripped of its anti-birth-control and wait-for-marriage preaching, abstinence education is absolutely nothing to quarrel with. ...
  • Making 12- and 13 Year-Olds Sexters Felons?

    This looks like a really bad idea: The Chicago Tribune reports that in Indiana, two 12- and 13-year-old middle schoolers caught in class sending nude photos of themselves to each other via cell phone have been charged with child exploitation and possession of child pornography. This is not what these statutes should be used for ... (Read the ...
  • I Want a Secretary, Not a Wife

    Ha, Amanda, I don't think there will be a slew of takers for your Wonder Woman wife. Or rather for Dr. William Moulton Marston's. It sounds too much like the unsettling, self-abnegating arrangement at the center of A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, not to mention Big Love. Myself, I've actually switched from making the I-want-a-wife joke ...
  • Citizens United Knocks Out Campaign Finance Reform

    The Supreme Court just struck down campaign finance reform. No modesty or narrow remedy here: This negates the main limits on corporate and union spending in the 60 days before a general election that Congress passed in 2002. The court overruled its own previous decisions allowing that legislation to stand. It's a Kennedy opinion and a 5-4 ...
  • Why Drudge is Crazy for Scott Brown

    I'm with KJ about the main explanation for Scott Brown's win: Washington rage first, many rage second. But surely Hanna's revenge-of-the-angry-man theory explains why Drudge is swooning over Brown's presidential chances ... (Read more in DoubleX.)
  • Remembering Robert B. Parker: Why I Love Susan Silverman (and Spenser too)

    Robert B. Parker, who died yesterday at 77, wrote his Spenser detective series in two speeds. Fast for the action sequences and for his friendship with Hawk, the bald, black hit man who never fails him. Slow for Spensers food, his clothing, and his love for Susan Silverman. Its Hawk and Susan that I kept coming back for when I devoured two ...
  • Why Martha Coakley Ducks Feminism

    I think you're right, Hanna, that the first woman president will announce herself, thrillingly, as our very own bolt from the blue even though we can't pick her out now. But that doesn't entirely settle the lingering problem of sexism in the 2008 campaign for me. What about the effect on more ordinary female candidates of the flattening ...
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