American nuns struggled to respond Friday to a Vatican crackdown on what it calls “radical feminism” among the women and their purported failure to sufficiently condemn such issues as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Some nuns in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious characterized the disciplinary action announced Wednesday as an “ambush,” but others — including the leadership — said they couldn’t publicly comment on a system that mandates their obedience.

A Vatican investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an umbrella group representing 80 percent of Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States, found serious theological errors in statements by members, widespread dissent on the church’s teaching on sexuality and “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” a church report released Wednesday stated.

The church appointed Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle to oversee “reform” of the women’s organization.

“I think we scare them,” Sr. Simone Campbell, a lawyer who serves as the executive director of the lobby said of the church’s male hierarchy.

The Post also noted in a later article that:

The Vatican report didn’t focus on public positions the women took but rather on the private conversations they had at their own meetings and comments they made in private letters to Vatican officials about such issues as how to minister to gays and lesbians.

Some experts said the conflict embodies the gender dynamics of a male-led church.

Gee, ya fucking think?

Sister Joan Chittister, a Dominican nun and former leader of the LCWR, told the National Catholic Reporter that she was “deeply distraught” and that: ”When you set out to reform a people, a group, who have done nothing wrong, you have to have an intention, a motivation that is not only not morally based, but actually immoral.”

The greatest irony? That women religious in the Roman Catholic Church are the ONLY morally uncompromised clergy the Church has left.

Consider: In the same edition of the Washington Post was this article about a priest who has been the head of Northern Virginia diocese’s office responsible for protecting children against sexual abuse. He’s just been placed on “administrative leave” because of…wait for it…allegations he sexually abused children. (Quis custodiet ipsos fucking custodes?) Presumably that priest will go exactly the same way as the vast majority of Catholic priests who’ve been suspected of sexually abusing children—no criminal charges, a move to another parish so they can molest again, or maybe if the allegations are especially heinous, some time off at retreat house for “prayer and contemplation.”  There isn’t much of a crackdown on abusive priests’ bosses, either—archbishops who cover up for child molesters often go on to get a cardinal’s hat. In the worst case scenario, if there’s a real public outcry, abuse-condoning bishops might wind up like Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston: given a cushy retirement in Rome, drinking wine and running one of the Vatican’s fanciest churches. If you’re a lifelong, incorrigible pedophile and sexual predator but you also run a hardcore conservative order beloved of Pope John Paul II (and Rick Santorum), some of the faithful within the Church might even put your name up for possible sainthood.

Oh, and you know who else the Church hierarchy is not cracking down on? The anti-Semitic excommunicated ultra-right-wing order whose bishop is a public Holocaust denier. Those priests the Church is actively in dialogue with because Benedict XVI wants to find a way to welcome them back into the fold.

It’s the highest form of hypocrisy for the Church to accusing women religious of “being silent” or overly permissive on moral issues when they uniformly hushed up, permitted or simply ignored the rape and torture of defenseless children, and refused to bring their abusers to justice. After the Cloyne Report produced indisputable evidence that the Church in Ireland had tried to cover up widespread child abuse and thwart criminal investigations, the Vatican’s silence and stonewalling on the issue extended to recalling its ambassador from Ireland. It was so egregious that Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny took to the floor of Parliament to condemn the “dysfunction, disconnection, elitism — the narcissism — that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.” I’d add to that “oppression, corruption, and amorality.”

But while they have relatively few options for fighting the crackdown beyond disbanding and reorganizing the LCWR as an independent group outside the Church’s purview, Sr. Chittister was not pulling any punches when she spoke to the media about the role of women religious and the sickness within the Church hierarchy:

“Because you are attempting to control people for one thing and one thing only — and that is for thinking, for being willing to discuss the issues of the age … If we stop thinking, if we stop demanding the divine right to think, and to see that as a Catholic gift, then we are betraying the church no matter what the powers of the church see as an inconvenient truth in their own times.”

In attempting to take such control of people’s thinking, she said, “You make a mockery of the search for God, of the whole notion of keeping eyes on the signs of the times and of providing the people with the best possible spiritual guidance and presence you can give.

“When I was a child in this town, I was taught that it was a sin to go into a Protestant church. In my lifetime, the church, to its eternal credit, admitted that it was wrong. The scandal and the sin is that it took 400 years to do that.” Chittister said women religious have been trying since Vatican II “to help the church avoid that kind of darkness and control … they have been a gift to the church in their leadership and their love and their continuing fidelity.

“When you set out to reform that kind of witness, remember when it’s over who doomed the church to another 400 years of darkness. It won’t be the people of the church who did it.”

In the latest faux outrage that has recently swept the nation, a simple and true statement was used by the Conservatives to further stoke the Mommy Wars and throw yet another woman under the bus.  For the many times that Repubs piss and moan about liberal selective hearing, I find it highly amusing that they did the same thing here.  It stopped being amusing when everyone bought it.  Let’s take a deeper look at the context and what is really meant, shall we?

First off, the cherry picked sentence was in response to Mittens Romney saying that he likes to listen to his wife when it comes to women and the economy.  Hillary Rosen was bang on when she said that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life.  Ann Romney does not know what it’s like to be the breadwinner.  Ann Romney does not understand the work/life struggle.  Ann Romney does not get HAVING to work because of the economy or other circumstances.  Ann Romney has no fucking clue and that is just plain TRUTH.  When we say she has never worked a day in her life, we are specifically using the context that she has never worked for pay.  Not only that, but she’s married to a millionare, gets to enjoy the benefits of hired help, and seems to have the money for horses.  To say that she does not get it would be an understatement.  She gets the struggle of the working class about as well as an MRA activists gets rape culture (hi guys!).

Second, no one is saying that parenting is not hard work.  It’s a teeth pulling experience that is full of highs and lows, and because you’re emotionally invested it’s fucking exhausting.  I have taken a couple of years off work after my kids and yes, I get it.  Hell, you don’t even get to really see your work pay off until your kids are well into adulthood, because you never know when they’ll turn into little assholes or if they’ll be cool people.  You’re in control of these little people, you have to turn them info functioning members of society, and EVERYONE gets to judge you on it all the time.  People can be cruel to mothers especially if their kids are not spotless paragons of virtue because god forbid your children ruin their dinner just by being present (that’s a post for another day).  It’s thankless and I don’t blame any woman who feels slighted at being written off just because she’s raising her kids.  It can also be intensely rewarding when the cool moments do happen.  Seeing your kid walk for the first time, their first articulate sentence, that last diaper, having them show their manners and turning out to be good little people are all worthy of a hearty “fuck yeah”.  Kids don’t raise themselves, so feel free to be proud of your work.  It IS work in terms of the banal definition of “work”, and it doesn’t make a parent any less valuable, smart, or capable if they are staying home with the kids.  It’s not something that is worthy of derision.

HOWEVER…..however…..this issue wasn’t even about stay at home parents.  Republican men especially do not give a shit about women and their roles and have never given a shit about making motherhood easier on women.  Mat leave is almost non-existant, they want to make it hard to manage fertility, they’ll cut the shit out of programs for women and children and sacrifice it all on the altar of corporate tax breaks.  Motherhood doesn’t make them rich.  They used the common outrage felt by degraded mothers to score some points and yet again throw a woman under the bus.  They used one phrase out of a particular discussion to divide women.  Knowing full well that these people don’t truly respect women’s choices, they basically used that to rally women against women.  Oh man, ladies, they want our votes so bad that they will feed us our own.  Someone hurt the precious fee-fees of a privileged rich woman?  LET’S TAKE IT AND RUN!  Instant outrage, now in a new “let’s stoke the mommy war fire” formula!

Third, let’s not pretend that this outrage would extend to stay at home women of colour, women who are in the “poor” class, trans women, immigrants, or any combination of those.  They’ve been pretty clear that those women are “abominations” and “welfare queens”.  Pretty white cis women only, please and thanks!  My husband will also probably not get any outrage on his behalf because as a disabled male, well….he’s just “not a real man”, AMIRITE??

Fourth, to those who felt slighted by the comment…..why the fuck did you fall for it?  Ann Romney does not even represent the average stay at home parent.  I’m sure it’s just sooooooo hard to live with the mansions, the horses, and the ability to obtain help without a care of the cost.  Oh yeah, the lady in the ivory tower can TOTALLY speak for us, never mind that most parents who stay at home are not the white, upper middle class ladies that Repubs care about.  She’s been privileged enough that her husband can afford for her to stay at home while he furthers his career….with the added hilarity that his policies are NOT women or family friendly!  Oh, but she can speak for you still!  Staying at home or working is not even a choice a lot of the time, how on earth could she possibly relate to that?  But here I am, falling into the trap that it truly is about stay at home moms to begin with.  IT WASN’T.

That’s why I just don’t get it and stand by the fact that Ann Romney has no clue what she’s talking about.  When she actively campaign on her husband’s behalf under the guise of “getting women” that she could barely relate to on a cellular level, she is opening herself up to these very valid criticisms.  She has zero authority when it comes to what women are facing economically.  She will in all likelihood never know what it’s like to put in a 12 day just so that your overtime pay (if you even get overtime pay) will pay for school clothes.  She will never have to leapfrog her bills because she doesn’t make enough to cover the cost of living and make sure the kids have what they need.  She doesn’t have to do the shift juggle so that child care isn’t more than she can afford.  She will probably never cry herself to sleep at night because her job is unstable, or can barely afford necessities, or is worried about the life she set up for her children.  She.  Does.  Not.  Get.  It.  She and the Republicans do not get it to the point that they felt the need to use stay at home moms to divide across party lines….AND IT FUCKING WORKED.

Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life, and no amount of a privileged woman’s tears and fake moral outrage will ever make that statement false.

Keeping in mind that all of our services and fees have been steadily rising and our property taxes will be increasing….even though the mayor said in the last race that the idea was ridiculous (lol, Sam Katz, you’re a fucking liar….and you kick children in the face).

There seems to be money for a new stadium for a CFL team in an awkward spot.  They seem dead set on building an essentially useless rapid transit corridor that’s going to be used by a very specific subset of people (and they tried hiking bus fare up so everyone would enjoy the cost without the use!).  Not to mention money for those weird accordion buses that we probably didn’t need.  Of course, they’re always like “MOAR COPS!!” too, because that is totally proven to solve all problems.

It’s hilarious, because the road I live on is in ridiculous need of fixing and has since before I moved on it.  The streets are still dirty from the thaw.  But I bet even that will be a higher priority than the second oldest shelter in Canada.  The potholes will win above women, but we’ll be damned if that newfangled stadium isn’t up and running on time!  Wouldn’t wanna disappoint the Bombers and their precious fans!  Or let’s donate money to our “Human Rights Museum” which looks like a giant spiked boob right next to our penis bridge while ignoring the abuses in our own backyard!  PRIORITIES!!

Look, I’m just going to say it.  Sam Katz and most of the people in city hall don’t care about women.  It’s harshing the city’s image a little too much to be caring about victims of violence over the NHL team or the other stupid pet projects, and lord knows they don’t actually want to deal with it.  They’re too busy trying to make Winnipeg look like a classy place to be.

The good news is that the province itself appears to be stepping up.  So are the regular citizens.  Many have been starting to organize these things called socials (normally a tasteless cash grabs for engaged people…”hey, I haven’t seen you much or anything, but please pay $10 and spend ridiculous amounts of money at an overblown party I’m throwing so that I’m more comfortable with how much money I’m spending on my wedding!!  There will be tacky music and the usual spread of stale bread, greasy cheese, and disgusting cheap sandwich meats!!) to raise money for the shelter.  Obviously this is a social I can get behind and hope to attend with several friends in tow.

For those who are able to, I encourage you to attend.  The information for one of them is associated with the link in the above paragraph.  If you cannot attend but are able to donate, their mailing address can be found here.  If neither are an option?  Feel free to tell mayor Sam Katz how you feel about it.

We need to start taking the problem seriously.  Giving women a place to go is a good step.

Yes, sisters, it’s Bliss’s FatGirl line of products. The sell copy reads:

This body-toning trio features all of our famous ‘Fatgirl’ favorites for 24/7 DIY dimple dashing. Massage each formula on daily for an easy-to-perform spa-quality slimming routine that’ll keep orange peel skin on the outs.
Includes full sizes of:
• bliss fatgirlslim, for caffeine-powered daytime firming
• bliss fatgirlscrub, for circulation-stimulating skin smoothing
• bliss fatgirlsleep, for soothing overnight blub-busting

Okay, for the record, if you have cellulite or subcutaneous fat, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU RUB ON YOUR SKIN. Pricey lotions and scrubs, aromatherapy oils, the blood of virgins, it will not change a thing. That’s simply not how human biology works. Nothing you apply to the skin will have the slightest effect on the fat beneath the skin. EVA. Yes, the scrub might stimulate your circulation, but so will scrubbing your skin with a washcloth. Caffeine might make your skin look a bit tighter for a very short period of time, but it won’t slim away a fat deposit. And “overnight blub-busting”? What the fuck does that even mean?

So right off the bat, the advertising here is super-sketchy. I’m sure these products smell nice and they come in a cute package, but they are straight-up snake oil; Bliss appears to promise something that basic science ensures it can never deliver. This is pretty much par for the course with Big Cosmetics; gazillions of dollars of skin creams are sold based on cleverly written ad copy that makes it sound like they can make you younger, firmer, slimmer, sexier, etc, when, in fact, all they will do is suck money out of your wallet (this trio of products costs $105 and tellingly, there’s no information on how many ounces of product that buys you. I suspect each container is only about 4 oz.)

But what caught my eye and what I find weird about these products is the name. FatGirl. “Fat” is one of the most loaded words in our culture when it comes to women. Fat is NEVER a good thing. Usually companies will twist themselves in knots to not use that word in advertising. In this case, I feel like some marketing whiz was trying to be hip and brash and create some sense of sisterly commiseration, like your slightly tipsy best girlfriend saying “Sweetie, we’re chubs but here’s this cool lotion that will bust our blub while we sleep! Tee hee!” Which…ick.

I know that there are women who want to reclaim the word fat and be proud of their size and tell anyone who would use “fat” in a derogatory way to kiss their proud, fat asses. I’m totally down with that. But that ain’t what we’re talking about here. Even though they label it as FatGirl, Bliss is clearly not selling fat pride; these creams and scrubs are being marketed as a way to fight fat. Like so many other companies, Bliss sells the snake oil by playing on women’s insecurities about being perceived as fat. It’s more of the usual fat-shaming in slightly more counter-intuitive package.

But no. It’s too late for that. Sorry, folks…this is going to happen.

Of course, Forbes writer Gene Marks is willing to concede that:

I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.

He is not from that background and hasn’t lived those experiences, but despite that, he feels eminently qualified to tell those poor black kids what they should be doing to overcome racism, poverty, and socioeconomic injustice. (NB: he’s not interested in discussing the actual problems or what might be done to solve them.) It’s mansplain-y, clueless, condescending and masquerading as coach-y pep talk. Here’s a taste:

It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology. As a person who sells and has worked with technology all my life I also know this.

If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.

And I would use the technology available to me as a student.  I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays.  That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home then on the streets.  And libraries and schools have computers available too.  Computers can be purchased cheaply at outlets like TigerDirect and Dell’s Outlet.  Professional organizations like accountants and architects often offer used computers from their members, sometimes at no cost at all.

Oh yeah, and if I were a poor black kid, I’d have access to all the same information and technology as an affluent, college-educated white reporter for Forbes. My parents and I would have contacts with professional organizations of accountants and architects, even though I live in a neighborhood with high unemployment and none of my relatives went to college or work white-collar jobs. Plus I’d have lots of spare time to spend hunting down those resources since I wouldn’t have to help care for my family or work any after-school jobs in addition to going to school. I’d also have the know-how to use all this technology because the public school I went to would have adequate funding for the best teachers, computer labs and after-school programs. And of course, I’d be completely safe in my neighborhood and at my school so that I wouldn’t have to worry about harm to me or my family while pursuing my goals.

Even if all of Uncle Gene’s advice magically worked for one poor black kid, what about the rest? Implicit in Marks’s argument is his belief that the majority of poor black kids will not succeed through no fault of their own, simply because the deck is stacked against them. He’s conceding right up front that upward mobility is only possible for the “very best”: the lucky, the exceptionally intelligent and hard-working. If those kids were white or reasonably affluent, then they could be mediocre and lazy and unlucky and probably still have a halfway decent life. What about the merely average, unlucky, or lazy poor black kids? Apparently, Gene Marks has no helpful advice for them.

“If I Were a Poor Black Kid” brought to mind an unforgettable rant in the book The Corner, by David Simon and Ed Burns (Simon is best known as the creator of “The Wire”, but he wrote two books of extraordinary reportage about Baltimore in the 80s and 90s.) After detailing the struggles of a black inner-city family mired in generational poverty and drug addiction, Simon lashes out at people like Gene Marks, people utterly convinced that if it were them, they’d know exactly how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It’s the single most blistering indictment of complacently racist white America that I’ve ever read—one that smacks you upside the head like a lead pipe:

If it was us, we’d endure. Succeed. Thrive. No matter what, no matter how, we’d find the fucking exit.

If it was our fathers firing dope and our mothers smoking coke, we’d pull ourselves past it. We’d raise ourselves, discipline ourselves, teach ourselves the essentials of self-denial and delayed gratification that no one in our universe ever demonstrated. And if home was the rear room of some rancid, three-story shooting gallery, we’d rise above that too. We’d shuffle up the stairs past nodding fiends and sullen dealers, shut the bedroom door, turn of he television and do our schoolwork…And if there was no food on the table, we’re certain we could deal with that. We’d lie about our age to cut taters and spill grease and sling fries at the sub shop for five-and-change an hour…we’d work that job by night and go to class by day, by some miracle squeezing a quality education from the disaster that is the Baltimore school system. We’d do all the work, we’d pay whatever the price, and when all the other children are out in the street, learning the corner world, priming themselves for the only life they’ve ever known, we’d be holed up in some shithole of a rowhouse with our textbooks and yellow highlighter, cramming for finals…

That’s the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. It’s a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it’s not chance and circumstance, that opportunity itself isn’t the defining issue.

Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. WE would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkingly assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street [in the Baltimore slums] fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now possess…Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved and as it is always in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect pristine faith.

Why? The truth is plain:
We were not born to be niggers.

At the end of the original post, Forbes editors have added links to several reactions that have appeared on the web. They are all worth reading, and not just because they rip Gene Marks a new one.

Update: There is also now a most excellent meme on Tumblr: http://ifiwasapoorblackkid.com/. 

Two things that happened this week in the world really stuck out at me though, in a good news/bad news kind of way.  As usual, I’m finding it difficult to start anywhere because these things always lead to some impressive high and lows emotionally.  Is it really that healthy for me to be invested this much?!  Anyway, here goes!

1. That Personhood Thing In Mississippi

Look, I would be lying through my teeth if I told you that the first words out of my mouth were not “IN YOUR FUCKING FACE ANTI-CHOICE DOUCHECANOES!!” followed by a dance the husband described as “eccentric with a side of 80s”.  I’m sorry, but I am not a graceful winner at all and in cases like these?  I’m going to celebrate.  An amendment like this being defeated in a red state like Mississippi gives me some hope.  Hope that the general public has sent a loud enough message that they want the government to stop fooling around in a woman’s uterus.  Of course, the fight isn’t even close to over since they are gearing up to have these type of amendments tabled in other states.  Personally I will completely and totally relax once shit like this fails in a state like Kansas…..oh Kansas….let’s not get started on the horrors of Kansas, I don’t think there is enough space on the internet for it.

Of course, that does not mean we can’t pause for a brief moment of celebration.  Though I do have a serious case of the neener-neeners, I am grateful that the people themselves soundly voted against this.  I mean, it’s fucking ridiculous on so many levels beyond just abortion.  Women flush out fertilized eggs all the time, we’re going to investigate them for murder now?  Are we going to rifle through the menstrual contents of every woman and investigate every miscarriage for criminal activity?  The IVF angle has been well explored too, are doctors going to want to perform the procedure knowing that sometimes it doesn’t work?  I mean, seriously, DID YOU FIND ANY JOBS IN THE CONTENTS OF THAT LADY’S UTERUS WHILE YOU WERE POKING AROUND??  I’m guessing no.  Women don’t give birth to jobs, which is what y’all promised, and we don’t birth better economies either.

I was riding high on this win and feeling slightly better about the world until…..

2. Penn State Students Protest Because a Coach Got Appropriately Fired

Hey, you know what’s not cool in any way, shape, or form?  Child rape.  You know what’s just as disgusting?  Covering up for a child rapist for DECADES.  Joe Paterno did just that and got canned.  GOOD.  I hope the victims throw a civil suit right in his face and I hope he is ruined.  Doing nothing in the face of sexual assault to me is just as bad as the assault itself, and like I said I’m not an entirely gracious person so I hope this isn’t the end of the bad karma.  So this seems like it could be good news right?

But OH-HO-HO does humanity ever fail me once again!  People marched, protested, and rioted not because this douche helped to cover up child rape.  They did that because, duh Americans, FOOTBALL.

Oh dear me guys, what could be more important that dealing with child rape in a serious matter??  SOME MOTHERFUCKING FOOTBALL GUYS!!!  People are ANGRY that they fired THIS GREAT MAN because OMG FOOTBALL AND LEGACIES AND SHIT!  It’s apparently such a tragedy against Joe Paterno!  Like, I know it sucks for the victims but FOOTBALL!  GREAT COACH!  PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY!  FOOOOOOOOOOTBAAAAAAALL!!

Ugh, anyone reading this that defends this man….that’s what you sound like to me.  You fucking disgust me to the core and you are a terrible person.  You thing it’s wrong that he got fired for covering up rape.  You think what happened to HIM was unfair and horrible.  You have basically said “fuck the victims, I want my football heroes”.  You sent a message to the victims of child rape that football is more important than how Joe Paterno failed them by keeping a blind eye.  That makes you a terrible person.  Full stop.  You are what’s wrong with how we treat rape as a crime.  You are an example of rape culture.  Terrible person, just like your buddy Joe.

Joe Paterno is no better than the Catholic Church covering up child rape.  In my own opinion, I don’t think he’s any better than the rapists themselves, neither is Mike McQueary, who sent the message to the rapist (his name doesn’t deserve the page views) that he can keep on doing this.  It also sent the message to the victim “no one will help me”.  Fuck you very much if that is less serious than your precious fucking football team.

I’m really astounded at the level of asshattery surrounding this case. I’m astounded at the asshattery revolving around the almighty uterus.  More than anything, I am astounded that we all still wake up in the mornings and keep on fighting for a better world.  With shit like this, what hope do we really have?

Qualitest Pharmaceuticals is voluntarily recalling several lots of birth control pills because of a packaging error that could leave women at risk for unplanned pregnancy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.

Select blisters were rotated 180 degrees within the card, reversing the weekly tablet orientation and making the lot number and expiration date no longer visible, the FDA said in a statement on its website. The error means the daily regimen for the oral contraceptives may be incorrect and could leave women at risk of an unplanned pregnancy, it said. The defects do not pose any immediate health risks.

“This packaging error and the potential for this error to have affected other oral contraceptive products resulted in the company issuing the recall of multiple lots,” the agency said.

The recall takes effect immediately. It includes Cyclafem 7/7/7, Cyclafem 1/35, Emoquette, Gildess FE 1.5/30, Gildess FE 1/20, Orsythia, Previfem and Tri-Previfem.

Guess whose mail-order pharmacy dispenses Qualitest and who has three packs that match the recalled batch numbers? Yours truly. I am extremely displeased but not panicking, since I always use condoms and have just started my period. But I called my pharmacist, who walked me through examining the packaging to see if what I had were the damaged packs with the pills out of order. Fortunately, they were not. And this is fortunate for Qualitest as well, because I am American and therefore not afraid of filing massive, multi-million dollar lawsuits. I could have bought the Harpy House for all of us a lot sooner than planned if dud BCPs had led to an unplanned Harpy fledgling.

Link to list of recalled batch numbers here.

Photo by Joe Giza for Reuters.

From today’s New York Times article “Humility by the Pack“:

In this tradition-bound sport…a hazing ritual that has gone on for years seems to have reached a new level of absurdity at major league ballparks: rookie relievers are being forced to wear schoolgirl backpacks — gaudy in color, utterly unmanly — to transport gear.

“Everybody laughs at me,” said Bryan Shaw, a 23-year-old rookie reliever for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Before each game, he makes the long, painful walk to the bullpen toting a pink bag adorned with an image of a white unicorn. “They all yell, ‘Cute bag!’ ” he said…

“It’s just one more way to get at your rookie,” said Mets pitcher Tim Byrdak, 37. “You have to walk all the way across the field to get to the bullpen, so you make the rookie carry this pink bag, and you can kind of humiliate him.”

MamaSharper saw the article and texted me: Because, really, what could be more humiliating then wearing something made for a little GIRL!?

I explained [to the nurse] that each family handles the term “half” differently, depending on how the kids are raised. “In our family, the term ‘half’ delegitimizes the relationship, and in a deeper sense, it makes the sibling relationship sound less authentic,” I said. Half, by definition, implies lesser than. And just as an adopted child wouldn’t be introduced as “my adopted sister,” a half-sibling wouldn’t be introduced as “my half-sister.”

Many commenters took Krischer to task for being “too sensitive” and “blowing it out of proportion.” Some of them said that they had half-siblings and never had a problem with that terminology—a classic case of “it’s not a problem for me, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you.” Others with half-siblings agreed that “half” was undesirable, especially when the parents have deliberately chosen—as Krischner and her husband have—to create a family that doesn’t discriminate between whose children are whose.

To me, the bigger issue here is that the nurse felt the need to correct Jake at all. It didn’t seem to occur to her that a seven year old child is plenty aware of what his family situation is, and calling his sister “sister” is what his family does. The nurse has no right to treat it as an error, or tell him to use a term connoting less intimacy rather than more.

This whole discussion is particularly relevant to my own life. I have three younger brothers who are my father’s children by his second wife. We were not raised in the same household, but I have never referred to them as my “half-brothers” nor, to my knowledge, have they referred to me as their ‘half-sister.” I also have a stepsister who is no genetic relationship to me at all. I call her my “sister” because we were raised together from the time I was seven years old, and her father—who I call “Dad”, by the way—raised me as lovingly and actively as if I were his own child.

But because the two-biological-parent nuclear family is still seen as the norm—even though the data show conclusively that it is not—people act confused or disbelieving if they realize that my brothers and sister are not the children of both my biological parents. Or that the man I call “Dad” is not my biological father (in a further confusing twist, my stepfather and I look much more alike physically than my biological father and I do.) Let me tell you, when I explain these things to certain people, minds are blown.* 

Like Krischer’s son, I was frequently corrected: “Oh, those aren’t your brothers, they’re your half-brothers.” Or “He’s just your stepdad.” Which always struck me as extremely rude and presumptuous. I am not stupid. I know the terms half- and step-. I choose not to use them. Why do people feel the need to question that choice or act as though I’m somehow a little dim and don’t understand my own family connections?

Another favorite was the patronizing or bemused “Wow, that must be confusing.” To which I always answered, “Maybe for you, but not for me.” I have always been perfectly clear on who my family is. If other people aren’t, that’s their problem. Why would it matter to anyone—except possibly a judge—whether my siblings or parents are tied to me by marriage, blood, or some combination of both? If I tell them someone’s my dad, or my brother, or my sister, that’s all they need to know.

What’s especially ridiculous here is the notion that this is all some brand new modern development that society’s still getting used to. The blended family is not a new thing.  For most of human history, children frequently lost a parent, the surviving parent remarried and had more children with the new spouse, or brought their own children into the family.** The only thing that makes this a “new” phenomenon is that now both biological parents are still alive when half-siblings are born or step-siblings brought into the mix.

Families are as much a reflection of chosen bonding as they are of blood or marriage ties. What we call our family members is our choice. People who can’t respect those choices or feel the need to impose their own ideas about family onto other should shut the fuck up. The end.

*As children, my sister and I figured out pretty quickly that this was a frequent reaction, and used to fuck with people by telling them that we were sisters and then grinning smugly at their confusion.

**And if you read a lot of primary source documents from centuries past, such as wills or correspondence, you’ll find that people very rarely referred to their half-siblings, step-siblings or step-parents (or even in-laws) as anything other than “brother, sister, mother, father.” This may be because the nuclear family has always been the ideal, and people have sought to maintain that image, but I always theorized that because of the high rate of mortality and remarriage, people were more accepting of the need to blend families, and maybe more eager to heal their losses by immediately absorbing new members.

A cupcake design suggestion from the campaign's website. Mmmm...it's murderlicious!

Gentle readers, I am chortling over my morning coffee at this one. Yes, it’s the national “Cupcakes for Life” campaign, coming your way on October 9. Mark your calendars! What is this latest salvo from the “pro-life” movement? Let them explain….

Why Cupcakes? Simply because everyone wants them!

Cupcakes were designed for children’s birthday parties. We love Children [sic] and we love birthdays. We think this would be a good way to tell people that we think that every child should be allowed to have a birthday. Bring in a tray of cupcakes for any group of people and you will find that they will flock to get them. As soon as they take a bite they will probably ask, “Who’s birthday is it?”

Then you answer. “It’s no ones birthday. These cupcakes represent the 50,000,000 children who weren’t allowed to be born, who never had a birthday.” The cake in their mouth will become dry and the moment will hopefully become quite somber. Then you say, “If you and I were aborted we wouldn’t have a birthday party either.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  :::wipes away tears::: Yeah, let me know how that works out. I’m sure a free cupcake will simply sweep away every principled belief that people might have about the limiting government interference in our private lives, or a woman’s right to control her own body. If only they’d brought cupcakes to the Supreme Court in 1973, Roe v. Wade might have gone in a completely different direction. Plus, it’s sure to make you extra-popular with your co-workers!

Also, y’all? This makes me want cupcakes. I can only hope abortion stays legal so I can get some of those sweet, sweet cupcakes.