“A deep sense of religion (is) compatible with the entire absence of theology.” So is Thomas Henry Huxley quoted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol 2, and all over the Internet but no one seems to have any source other than “a letter.” A great statement like that is, in my opinion, free  Read the Rest…

I have now left behind the Romantics and entered the age of Victorian Literature (1832-1901.)  What immediately strikes me is the similarity of the Victorian age to our own.  The anxiety, the social problems, the wide scope of attitudes towards sex, the arguments about religion, and the struggle of women all feel familiar.  After hacking  Read the Rest…

I got a little exercised about Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 essay, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, after I watched, in 2013, women being dragged out of the North Carolina and Texas legislatures and arrested for peaceful protest on their Capitol steps. I wasn’t sure I wanted to write about it because I found it  Read the Rest…

Last week was awful. I was sickened by the news of the Boston Marathon bombing and I was stunned by the Senate’s down vote on gun control.  Several medieval bills regarding reproductive rights put me in mind of other medieval procedures, like castration.  A few more boulders came down in the on-going avalanche of ignorant  Read the Rest…

Ballard is a Seattle neighborhood.  A former student of mine has a riff where she describes the two faces of Ballard:  There’s the old Scandinavian community, the fishing boats, brick houses, and the Nordic Heritage Museum.  And the new Ballard that sits at Cupcake Royale with their Macs, looking important and saying, “I am so  Read the Rest…

A few weeks ago I decided I would allow myself only one news story to get upset about.  There isn’t enough time in my day to work myself into as many frenzies as I am capable of.  So I chose to Stand with the Sisters, the nuns who are bearing up with such grace under  Read the Rest…

“I have no interest in being constantly catered to or forcing my beliefs on others,” confesses a former conservative. Recently I found my way to his web site via a blog post called “Things I Can’t Do Anymore.” http://formerconservative.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/things-i-cant-do-anymore/ One of the things this particular individual can’t do anymore is feel a sense of entitlement.  Read the Rest…

Two months ago a woman in Michigan named Karen Teegarden called her friend Desiree Jordan in New York.  They both wondered why women all over this country weren’t marching in the streets in response to hundreds of pieces of state legislation that many of us feel are whittling away at women’s dignity, autonomy and rights  Read the Rest…

It was supposed to have been my vacation and I spent far too much of it being infuriated by the Catholic Bishops.  And I’m not even Catholic.  But they remind me of the elders in my childhood churches and of Mitt Romney when in response to women wanting to be treated with respect in the  Read the Rest…

Here’s a celebrated quote from Rick Santorum:  “The dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. .  .  It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. When I read this I pictured an eight year old  Read the Rest…