Questions in the news (from Erica)

Now that the master's degrees are out of the way, I can finally come back to the bloggosphere and bring you some interesting editorial items that have been catching my attention for the last few weeks! In no particular order, but probably oldest first...

Here's an article about a sex ed campaign in the UK that emphasizes- wait for it- masturbation. The campaign's point is that sexual pleasure is a natural drive of most adolescents, and that instead of expecting teens to be fully abstinent, we should be teaching them to find ways of indulging that don't put themselves (or others) at risk. My two cents? Brilliant idea. While I have no delusions that masturbation promotion will eliminate risky sexual behaviour amongst teens, it'll probably reduce it- or at least give teens to learn about their bodies in ways that don't involve others trying (and failing) to do so for them.

Then, of course, the retirement of Justice Stevens from the U.S. Supreme Court has garnered attention for political pundits everywhere. A lot of this attention, of course, dichotomizes attention to the law and attention to "morality" (however you define that term)- which is a really bad idea. The law COMES from a moral structure, and professes to uphold it. This is a decent editorial that provides an interesting layout of how, exactly, morality and the law often go hand-in-hand for the benefit of people and their civil rights.

Vanity Fair ran an interesting piece on the cost of the Republican Party these days, examining how much money we spend on them to stand around and say "no" when they could be doing something useful for the world. My only complaint about the article? I'd love to see it in a side-by-side comparison with the cost of the Democrats, since while I'm pretty far left in my political leanings, I'm not naive enough to believe that the Republicans are the only ones with bloated staff and benefits.

Here's an interesting post from Ephphatha Poetry, asking us to consider how the media and the public would handle Tea Party (and Conservative in general) behaviour if the racial demographics of its participants were different. I won't waste space by describing it- he's very eloquent- but instead I strongly encourage you to go read it for yourself!

And finally, I'm embedding the YouTube copy of a Lane Bryant ad that's got people all riled up:

What's got them upset, you might ask? Well, since major networks (including Fox, CNN, and ABC News) decided to pull it, many people have been bringing this question to as much attention as possible. The answer, of course, is that the model is plus-sized. It has nothing to do with the relative amount of nudity pictured- not with ads for Victoria's Secret, Viagra, and hell, even just cars on display through the same networks. It's simply the fact that there's a buxom, beautiful woman being displayed. And that makes people angry, apparently.

Happy boobquake everyone!