Laurie and Debbie say: Early this month, Fatemeh Fakhraie wrote an excellent post for Racialicious. Fakhraie was reviewing Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law & Politics by Sherene H. Razack, a book we both want to read. [Razack] first argues that Muslims are racialized through “race thinking”, which “divides up the world [...]

Debbie says: Does anyone else remember the famous 1970s Doonesbury cartoon in which the arrival of a baby was greeted with cries of “It’s a baby woman!”? The point, of course, was to exaggerate the linguistic shift from “girl” to “woman” to describe adults, which many feminists were arguing for then (and now). I hadn’t [...]

Laurie and Debbie say: Lindsay at Autist’s Corner very kindly gave us a blog award: We got this charming little image to post, and we get to pass it along to seven of our favorite blogs (not an easy choice, folks!) Here’s what we came up with. Autism Vox is an excellent blog in a [...]

Laurie says: I’m back and having my usual re-entry problems. Lots of beach, redwoods, and almost no web for ten days will do that. I just read Debbie’s post on the Newsweek cover of Sarah Palin, and the comments to that post. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years taking portraits with [...]

Debbie says: Posting unexpectedly, because I like the embedded video so much: Yes, it’s true. On everyone’s favorite channel, Karl Rove defended John McCain’s inability to use a computer, which Obama ads have been attacking. Rove says McCain doesn’t have enough nimbleness in his fingers to type, because of his injuries from his prisoner of [...]

Debbie says: My first reaction was to make fun of this, but on reflection I’m not so sure it’s a bad idea. The product, that is: the advertising copy just begs for sarcastic comment, but I’m going to refrain. The SenSlip helps restore the sensitivity to the penis of circumcised men. It protects the head [...]

Debbie says: The Republican Party has invented a whole new way to insult a candidate (or at least to claim that a candidate has been insulted): print an honest picture. Here’s the picture: Let’s start by stating two things up front: first, I have absolutely no reason to believe that Governor Palin has been in [...]

Lynne Murray says: I recently got some feedback in an online writers’ workshop that gave me a little further insight into a subject that’s interested me for years–how fat people are shown in fiction. The feedback was directed at a character in my vampire novel. The reader said that “she seems to think of herself [...]

Debbie says: Laurie and I have long been fans of Marina Wolf Ahmad and her passion for fat dance. She’s the founder of both Big Moves San Francisco and Big Moves Boston. Now, she’s raising funds in a tearing hurry (like in six days!) for the 2009 Wide Load tour. They’ll be “breaking the stage [...]

Laurie and Debbie say: Last July, Laurie met a woman who worked for Planned Parenthood and taught sex ed in Bay Area schools. She said that she now teaches in junior high school and high school but that she wanted to be teaching in elementary schools as well. She said the puberty beginning at 7 [...]