Caught in the bubble? It’s about the genes …

Or, you know, the jeans. What got me thinking today was word of a new study suggesting that one of the reasons we birds of a feather flock together could be more than a common interest in flying south.  It turns out, there’s often genetic similarity in the folks we choose as friends. As in: [...]

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The Princess Diaries

Growing up, I was not allowed to have Barbies. The blond, long-legged, impossibly-proportioned, tip-toed plastic plaything was explicitly contraband for reasons I couldn’t really discern. I think I pouted about this for approximately five minutes–I gravitated more towards crayons and Legos anyway. And I had a friend who LOVED Barbies–and I HATED when she made [...]

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Signs from the Universe. Or Elsewhere

So surely you’ve heard about the latest kerfuffle: the realignment of the Zodiac.  The addition of a new sign, Ophiuchus (the serpent bearer), knocked every other sign out of whack and for a week there, the interwebs were abuzz:  If you woke up a Taurus, you were an Aries by the time you went to [...]

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When Mormon Motherhood Porn is Your Happy Place

So, today, I must must write about the most shocking, scandalous, jaw-dropping thing I came across this weekend. (And, no, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Ricky Gervais.) The item of intrigue was a story on Salon.com, entitled… wait for it… “Why I can’t stop reading Mormon housewife blogs: I’m a young, feminist atheist [...]

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The next new reality show? Mail-order sexism

So according to Bloomberg News, the newest brides on the block (I use that metaphor intentionally) are Eastern European.  Really.  As we read in the story that appeared all over the interwebs this week: Fourteen years ago, Weiner, 73, founded Hand-In-Hand, a London-based matchmaking agency that charges male customers up to $2,000 for a “supervised [...]

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Fly Away Home, Or Eat, Crazy, Sexy, Pray Redux

Oh, contentment. Fulfillment. Happiness. So slippery, so elusive. And yet, we never stop looking for it, do we? A generation ago, women–stuck in the home and driven apeshit by a never-ending list of mindless chores–ran screaming out of those homes (and, sometimes, away from their families), certain fulfillment was waiting for them in the world [...]

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All the News That (Gives you) Fits

Welcome to 2011.  Whether you happen to be a member of roughly one-half the population or  just a human being, you’re sure to find something below to make you think. Or possibly scream. First up, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who apparently believes that the 14th Amendment — that’s the one that talks about equal [...]

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The Likability Problem

Today, I watched a TED Talk by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. Entitled “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,” Sandberg gets into it, leading off with the bleak facts: Of the 190 heads of state, nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate [...]

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