Year: 2007

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Just a Shy Young Woman

In an interesting review of the book College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-Eds, Then and Now that appeared in the April 2007 Atlantic Monthly, reviewer Caitlin Flanagan paraphrases the author, Lynn Peril:

She arrived (at the University of Wisconsin, 25 years ago) with a butch haircut, a suitcase full of punk clothes mail-ordered from New York, and a ‘tough-chick persona.’ I suspected that she was romanticizing her past, but then she shows us her freshman ID card, and she really was a fright.

Ugh.

But then in the next paragraph:

Underneath, though, she was as timid as any 18-year-old girl plucked from home and set down on the campus of a huge university. Too shy to raise her hand in class, or even to order a pizza over the telephone, she was so rattled by a boy who flirted with her on the first day of French II that she promptly dropped the class.

Which strikes me as about right. The review is overall good but it’s the quoted bits that Peril wrote about herself that have my interest piqued; it’s not often I read something about women in college with shaved heads and punk wardrobes that mirrors my own experience at all.

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Next Time No Strings, Please

Another governor – this time Governor Strickland of Ohio – has given the Feds back the abstinence-only strings-attached sex education money.

That’s six states now, & the fifth (Wisconsin) only refused the impractical funding a few weeks ago.

So now there’s the other 44 to work on. Write your governor and tell him to return funding that denies a state the right to teach sex education in the way that we decide is most appropriate for our kids.

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On The Road for Keroack

The Deputy Assistant Secretary for HHS’ Office of Population Affairs, Eric Keroack, has resigned. & There was much rejoicing because he was not just anti-choice, but anti-contraception.

This Bush government is really just insane. Honestly: putting someone who is against even contraception in charge of the Office of Population Affairs is like putting a wife-beater in charge of the Office of Domestic Violence.

But, that’s one nightmare over.

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The Fisher King

I just happened to catch that beautiful scene in The Fisher King where love turns Grand Central into a waltzing ballroom. How fantastic a scene that is, probably one of my all-time favorites in movies. But then, it’s one of my favorite movies, too.

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Me in Carlisle, PA

I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law on Friday, April 20th, about our experience being a legally married couple who happen to look like a queer couple. On hand will be Professor Bob Rains who will answer the more technical legal questions surrounding marriage licenses and identity documents.

All are welcome, so if you’re in that neck of the woods, feel free to come. I’ll be speaking at 11:30 AM, but I don’t have the name of the exact hall yet; check the calendar for more information as the date approaches.

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Mess with the AFA

The American Family Association is running an online poll about “corporations promoting homosexuality,” & since you don’t need to be a member, we have a great opportunity to screw up their numbers.

Do go take the poll now.

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The Fringe

Tonight I’m being interviewed for a radio show called The Fringe for KDVS out of Davis, California. It’s a show for queers and feminists and the gender variant. If you’re in that neck of the woods, I should be on near the show’s beginning, which is at 8PM.

Eventually the interview should be archived on the show’s website, and it should be listed as something like ‘DJ Cariad – The Fringe (Mon, Apr 02).’ I don’t know how soon the archived show goes up, but last week’s show is up already, which means – no more than six days.