How to be a better Christian (than everyone else)

Being a good Christian is hard.  You're supposed to read your Bible, and pray, and probably some other stuff, too.  And all those things take time away from the most important part of being a Christian . . . impressing other people with how good a Christian you are.

Fortunately, like all Americans, God loves a shortcut.  That's why there's a super-easy way to look like a great man or woman of God:  Make everyone else look really bad.

Read more »

In defense of Justin Bieber...

(Ed. note:  Before anyone accuses me of Bieber Fever, I'm not a fan.  I can name two songs the kid's done, and those are the two that they covered on "Glee".  In fact, before that episode, I thought his song about "I just need somebody to love" was sung by a 20-something black woman.)

So, apparently everyone in America who isn't a tween girl is mad at Justin Bieber right now.  (At least it seems that way if you do a Google news search for "Justin Bieber Rolling Stone interview".  Over 500 results for that phrase alone.)

For those over the age of 30, let me enlighten you to what all the fuss is about.  Justin Bieber is an adorably little squeaky-clean teenage boy who looks and sings like a tween girl.  Tween girls, being largely narcissists, go completely nuts for this.  He got discovered when he became a YouTube sensation after broadcasting videos of himself singing.  (He YouTubed himself singing pop songs.  Again, the tween girl comparisons just don't stop.)  He became Usher's protegee and skyrocketed to fame.

Part of his appeal comes from the fact that he mostly appears to have remained a pretty sweet kid, and wasn't the result of crazy stage parents selling him to Disney at a young age, but is rather just a little Canadian boy he wanted to be a singer so bad, he self-promoted and made it happen.  (Yes, he's Canadian.  This fact will be relevant later.)

Now, presumably because his publicist is a moron, he was interviewed for his cover issue of Rolling Stone, without a pre-agreed-upon set of questions.  (Something that is very common when interviewing younger celebrities, or those with diminished mental capacity, like Britney Spears.)  Rolling Stone, being pot-stirring sadists, decided to launch a pop quiz on hot-button American political issues on the 16-year-old Canadian singer.

The results were, quite predictably, disastrous.

Read more »

Where is the pill for men?: Part 2

(...continued from Part 1.)  Hormonal contraceptives work via four steps.  Each subsequent step is a back-up of the prior steps, i.e., if the first step fails, the second step comes into play, if they both fail, then the third step is utilized, etc.  Here are the steps.

Read more »

Where is the pill for men?: Part 1

Some of the most important decisions we make in raising kids is deciding when we want to do so.  We want to wait until we've been married a little while, our finances are better, our health is better, when our first kid's a little older, etc.  You know you want to have a kid (or another kid) someday, just maybe not today.

And, thanks to modern medicine, women have a ton of options when it comes to delaying pregnancy.  So it falls to us to figure out how we want to do that.  And the husbands just let us be the ones to take care of it.

Well, I'm sick of it.  Maybe it's just me, but it's my personal opinion that birth control sucks.  I'll even run you down the list and tell you what I hate about every method.

Read more »

You want to see a woman fight back? I'll do it now.

I know this is a post I have to write, but I don't know if I'm going to get through it. I'm so overwhelmingly angry and hurt and shocked, I barely know how to force the tumbling thoughts in my brain down through my arms, out my fingers and into my keyboard. I doubt I could speak a coherent sentence at the moment, but I hope I can write one.

Some of you may have already seen the news about a proposed bill attempting to redefine rape. Under this new legislation, only "forcible" rape would count as rape.

"Forcible", by the very term, implies that "coerced" rape would no longer be rape. So a woman who complies with an attacker out of fear for her life (or another's) life is no longer raped. A college coed who passed out drunk and awaits with a stranger on top of her, is no longer raped. What term would these politicians like to use then, exactly? The less offensive (and more minor charge) "sexually assaulted"?

The fact that this law is even being considered in the new millenium is sickening. It hearkens back to the days when a woman had to prove she fought tooth and nail against an attacker before the authorities would consider her case. If a woman didn't (or more likely, couldn't) fight until she was physically exhausted or overcome, then she was considered legally compliant (or "asking for it").

This bill, in its attempt to redefine rape, drags women's rights back to the days before "no means no".

Read more »