Monthly Archives: January 2006

Make Thy Neighbor Conform for Diversity’s Sake

Months ago I pointed out the creation of website KnowThyNeighbor.org. KnowThyNeighbor.org’s operators, Thomas Lang and Alexander Westerhoff, name those who have signed a petition to bring gay marriage to a vote in Massachusetts, because they think the best way to achieve their stated goal of “promoting dialogue on marriage equality in Massachusetts” is to [...]

Christine Rosen’s Fundamentalist Education

After hearing an interesting NPR interview with Christine Rosen, author of My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood, I thought her book would describe why she left “fundamentalism.” Other books do that: Leaving the Fold is a collection of testimonies of former “fundamentalists” who end up everywhere from milquetoast Christianity to bizarre spiritualistic [...]

Boston Weather Changes

Wednesday it was so warm I went running in shorts and a t-shirt; today it’s twelve degrees Fahrenheit, and the gusts of wind push the cold through even our tightly-sealed windows. I’ve noticed that when it’s cold like this the snowflakes are stringy (instead of forming the idealized hexagons you normally think of). Confirming [...]

The Economist on the Alito Hearings

TED KENNEDY is deeply troubled by the ethics of the Supreme Court nominee. Between 2001 and 2006, Samuel Alito, who is currently an appeals court judge, accepted $7,684,423 in “donations” from special interests who perhaps wanted the law tweaked in their favour. That included $28,000 from defence contractors, $42,200 from drug firms and a whopping [...]

We’re Gonna Have a Boy

Today about 18 weeks into the pregnancy, we had our second ultrasound exam and saw for ourselves that we’re going to have a boy! He was moving around quite a bit, so it was tough to get good pictures, but here they are. The first is looking straight at the head, and the [...]

Alito Hearings and Ted Kennedy

A Supreme Court nomination requires a thorough look at the nominee, so there should be no rush to confirm. Also, there’s been plenty of political posturing on both sides of the aisle. I can’t count the number of times Republican senators have lobbed softball questions at Alito, to the effect of “Isn’t it [...]