The first I heard of the controversy over 15 year old Miley Cyrus posing topless in Vanity Fair was when a colleague blogged about it.  I thought Grace's piece was well written and kinda took it for granted that most people would agree that the picture was indicative of our culture, which sexualizes our youth in order to sell products.  So I was rather surprised wh

In case it was possible for anyone to not know, the Pope is in town.  And DC seems to be agog.  All week long the metro platforms have been announcing that you can take the train to Nationals stadium (if you have a ticket).  On the trains, I've heard several cellphone conversations about the pontiff.  And the Post is running stories about people who paid thousands of dollars to fly here, or drove all night... And of course there is stuff like this.

Today in our Sunday morning discussion group we continued exploring the Feminine Divine in world religions, this time with Hinduism. I had volunteered to present something but was also mindful of the time, it being Palm Sunday and our guest preachers being UUA president Bill Sinkford and Linda Jaramillo, executive minister for social justice of the UCC. So I went light on presentation and let the discussion go where the group took it.

Today in the blogosphere, I came face to face with why it is that we can't all just get along. Because our views of the same exact event are so fundamentally different, and because there is so much misinformation out there.

I arrived in the office bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, having stayed up into the wee hours watching commentary on primaries that did not give a resounding victory to either Obama or Clinton as I had hoped. I almost don't care who wins the nomination at this point; I just want some resolution.

So these historic Dem primaries pose a question: which is the biggest barrier to getting elected president, gender or race?

In all honesty I spend a lot more time ruminating on the inequities of race than I do gender. I can list countless times where I have been made to feel "less" or "other" due to my slanted eyes, and very few times due to my vagina. But what I suspected might be the case, and what is becoming increasingly obvious, is that gender is the bigger barrier, possibly because it is more invisible.

Like everyone else, I've been watching the Democratic primaries with special interest. For the first time in history we have a credible African American candidate and a credible woman candidate, both running for president of the United States. (I don't mean that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are not credible as people; just that they never really had a chance to be nominated.) We should take the time to rejoice in this. Whoever wins it will be historical. And it won't be due to political grand-standing was was Geraldine Feraro's nomination to VP in 1984.

The Islamic proscription against depicting human forms, especially that of the Prophet, has never been as strong in the Safavid Empire (Persia/Iran) as it was in the others (Ottoman and Mughal). Knowing this, it is perhaps not surprising that an Iranian woman artist named Oranous can openly paint a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.

We've had some cool victories in the area of comprehensive sex ed recently. In addition to Obama bringing national attention to it, the House recently reauthorized funding for the part of the Title V Social Security Act that provides states with funding for abstinence-only programs.