One Utah

Over the weekend while I was at the gym, there was a show on TV about hazing. It was so absorbing I did over an hour of cardio so I could see the whole thing.
As part of the show, they discussed recent incidents of hazing in American high schools and colleges. In one incident, a [...]

This week, the Trib published an editorial pointing out increasing STI rates in Utah and arguing that we should institute effective comprehensive sexuality education in Utah schools.  The trib editorial is spot, and includes many important points:
Less is being taught about HIV in Utah schools now than in the past three years. And more young [...]

To this day, I can remember with amazing clarity a moment from my grandfather’s funeral.  Grandma was walking around the room, inspecting the flowers, reading the cards, making comments - “Oh, that’s nice”, “I’m glad they sent flowers”, “Oh those are beautiful flowers” and so on.  She got to my grandfather’s casket, turned her head away from the [...]

So, opposition to the Blue Boutique’s new location is rapidly becoming the gift the just keeps giving - unfortunately they’re giving to comics, cynics and satirists.
Today’s Trib has a modern classic letter to the editor by Lynn F. Price of Salt Lake City:
. . . the concern is not just that teenagers will access the “adult” [...]

December 1 is World AIDS Day.  AIDS has been in the news recently as the UN has announced that they have been overestimating infections - worldwide the new estimate holds that 33 million rather than 40 million people are infected with HIV.  In 2007, there were 2.5 million new HIV infections and 2.1 million deaths [...]

I admit it - I’m hooked on BBc America’s Torchwood. I’m not the only one - apparently it’s their highest rated show. Last night’s episode Captain Jack Harkness was one of the best they’ve done yet, demonstrating their usual mix of sci-fi and character growth; Torchwood is also unique in having an openly gay man, [...]

Over the weekend, I read Andrea Tone’s Devices & Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America.  Tone tracks the history of American use and attitudes toward contraception - and records a striking and historic gap between the two.  To sum up the history: the loudest voices in America seem to have always been opposed to the [...]

My post from Saturday about Kathleen Parker’s sad cry for more virginity at college, got me thinking about connections.
Recently, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy released report detailing their findings with regard to the efficacy of sexuality education programs. The report, Emerging Answers, found that abstinence only programs have no demonstrated effectiveness and [...]

The Trib today published another hacktackular op-ed piece by another member of the conservative stable of writers who are just offended at the gone to hellness of our world. Kathleen Parker is offering yet another dreary denouncement of what hideous sluts kids are today.
What happened to your dearly beloved? He - and she [...]

Over at Hugo’s place, he published a letter from a friend about an incident at his gym:
. . . a new woman approached and made her way over to the floor mats.
Attractive….and with ginormous breasts.
Now, this is Los Angeles, and large breasts are not in short supply. But these stood out, mainly because they were [...]

From this week’s schadenfreude files comes the long suppressed news of Idaho Senator Larry Craig’s (Republican, of course) arrest for lewd behavior in an airport bathroom in Minnesota. He entered a guilty plea.
The residents of the blogistan are, unsurprisingly, all over this story. Craig (R - His Own Private Idaho) is yet [...]

As someone who teaches comprehensive sexuality education, I particularly enjoyed Jane Jimenez’s recent delusional stream of consciousness everything has gone to hell op-ed.
Jimenez (who for reasons that are obvious only to wingnuts) has a national platform from which to speak, blathers that
Abstinence education shines a light on the problems inherent in promoting sex as entertainment without [...]