Arizona bans funding to Planned Parenthood in abortion fight

(Reuters) - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill banning abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving money through the state, her office… Read full post »

On Friday's edition of Moyers & Company, the conversation focused on "The Case For Old-School Faith and Politics". Moyers' first guest was Eric Alterman who, among other things, writes for The Nation, so it's probably pretty obvious where he stands on the issues.

However, it was his second guest,… Read full post »

Oh, Tennessee, you've done it again!  You even made The Colbert Report. 

Because our abstinence-only sex education curriculum hasn't been quite as successful as it should have been (we were still a top-10 state last year in the number of teen pregnancies, and gosh, I wonder why?) our l… Read full post »

The news out of England is that Jim Marshall, inventor of the iconic Marshall amplifier and known as The Father of Loud, has died at the age of 88.  Here is the obituary from The Guardian and two short bits of video from the BBC.

And here is arguably the b… Read full post »

He was in a brightly-lit room with gleaming surfaces and the smell of disinfectant. Machines were humming and beeping, and there were many people concentrating on the task at hand. He could feel their intensity. Then he realized that he was hovering, weightless, looking down on this scene, and he saw… Read full post »

Not content to sit idly by while states like Virginia, Georgia and Texas grab all the headlines about abortion, and since attacking teachers is so last year, the nice folks in the Tennessee legislature have decided to make a splash with the "Life Defense Act of 2012". As I'm… Read full post »

It has become abundantly clear in the last few days how painfully out of touch certain older, white, and in some cases, celibate men are with middle American culture and the unwashed, fornicating masses.  Out of touch with reality, actually.

But if they're looking for some clues about what's goi… Read full post »

 1980s hair.  The final frontier.

Being a failure at most everything in the 70s, especially the Farrah Fawcett look, I was more than happy to usher in the next decade with some hair styles that were a bit more "cutting edge". Of course, looking back on it now, it's completely dated… Read full post »

The Susan G. Komen Foundation has just issued a statement from Nancy Brinker reversing its decision to defund breast cancer health grants to Planned Parenthood. This statement was published, among other places, at DallasNews.com, and reads as follows:

We want to apologize to the American public

… Read full post »

On top of the state legislature's decimation of tenure and bargaining rights for teachers last year, the Tennessee State Board of Education is trying to do its part to demonize and demoralize public educators as well.

The State Board of Education is the governi… Read full post »

The TEC Foundation for Excellence in Audio, Inc., has announced its list of 2011 nominees for Outstanding Creative Achievement in audio technology and production.  These awards recognize those who work "behind the scenes" in creating music for film, television, video games, live broadcasts… Read full post »

It was almost two years ago that I wrote my farewell blog to Bill Moyers, who retired from his weekly television series, Bill Moyers Journal, on April 30, 2010.  Since then, Friday nights at our house have often involved the following conversation:

Jim:  What do you want to watch?

Me: … Read full post »

Well that's certainly a tawdry and misleading headline, isn't it?  I should be ashamed of myself!  No, this post isn't about sex with ghosts.  I'll leave that to American Horror Story.

This post is about Christmas and the struggle to feel the Christmas spirit when so many things, inter… Read full post »

Although it has been nearly forty years since the Supreme Court banned sex segregation in "Help Wanted" ads, there might still be a very few jobs that one could consider to be the provenance of only one gender or, at least, performed better by a particular gender. Up until to… Read full post »

Reading the news that Michelle Duggar has suffered a second-trimester miscarriage, ending her 20th pregnancy, has left me wondering just how to react.

I guess my first impulses were somewhat less than charitable, and I settled on, "Hey, I've finally got something in common with her." Because I think… Read full post »

In 1976, I was a painfully shy, clumsy, skinny, glasses-wearing high school freshman, occupying that no man's land between Tiger Beat and Seventeen, trying desperately to find some place, any place, to fit in. It was a time of satin bomber jackets, Love's Baby Soft, Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, feat… Read full post »

A wistful and melancholy song from the soundtrack of The Painted Veil, a 2006 film based on the book by W. Somerset Maugham.  Set amidst an outbreak of cholera in China in the early 20th century, it depicts the troubled relationship of Walter and Kitty Fane.  Although the movie ends… Read full post »

Several months ago, I was introduced to, and then had to introduce all of you to, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a delightfuly surreal video featuring a very outspoken one-eyed talking seashell.

After I told my sister about the video, she went a little cuckoo for Marcel, so much so… Read full post »

I was inspired to dust this one off after reading Frank Michels' yard sale post from yesterday.

Before you jump all over me, let me start off by saying that I'm not talking about all yard-salers.

Single moms and stay-at-home moms on tight budgets, no problem.  (Unfortunately, tho… Read full post »

When my  husband and I went to London in 1985, it was at the height of the "Dark Cowboy" craze in Britain.  I remember shopping at this tangled maze of shops in a big building on Kensington High Street.  You could buy all kinds of "western" themed apparel.  Decorative silver tips… Read full post »

 (Photo by John Partipilo, The Tennessean)

The stormtroopers arrived in the middle of the night, as they so often do, in order to take advantage of the vulnerability and disorientation of the sleeping Occupy Nashville protestors.  An incredible series of photos by… Read full post »

(In case it's not clear, the photo below is a parody of this website.  I admit that the site is almost a parody of itself, so my attempt may seem redundant, but I thought it was worth a try.)

Read full post »