Blogs

Newsflash: I'm white. Who cares, right?

Well, I do. Because one thing that means with the work I do is that I hear it, see it, compile it, write it all through the lens of a white person. I can be as mindful, sensitive and careful as I want, but that still doesn't change that.

A bosom buddy is someone very near and dear, with who you can share your most intense feelings and difficult challenges. Also known as “bosom friends,” the term is a bit antiquated and the wording not embraced by all; however, just Shakespeare said “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” a true friendship is special and unique regardless of what you call it.

While out of town this weekend, between two plane trips and a couple late evenings up reading, I started and polished off Elliott Currie's The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence in very short order.

In an advice answer on Crisis Pregnancy Centers here at Scarleteen, and also reprinted for my column at RH Reality Check, I originally included a link to a hotline -- the American Pregnancy Helpline -- as one option for women looking for support with a pregnancy they wanted to sustain rather going than to a CPC.

I unfortunately, and very unintentionally, proved my own point in the piece too well.

From the ACLU blog today:

We just received word today that the Third Circuit struck down a federal Internet censorship law as unconstitutional. The law, called the Child Online Protection Act, imposed civil and criminal penalties on those who place "harmful to minors" material on the Web.

Who gets left out, ignored, dismissed or denied when someone states that sex, good sex or real intimacy or love should, can or does only happen within the context of monogamous marriage, or when any given couple has only had one spousal sexual or romantic partner in a lifetime?

More than a few people.

School districts have a list of policies that are to be followed in the case that something happens that endangers one or more students, teachers, or faculty members. These policies range in degree from detentions, to in and out of school suspensions, through a student no longer being permitted to attend the school district.

On July 1, 2008, I became even more of a proud Canadian. This past Canada Day, Dr. Henry Morgentaler became one of several new inductees into the Order of Canada (our highest honour). I think it was long overdue.

• The teen booklet that Madeline and Suzanne over at Lunapdas have been working on for years with my help, as well as help and contributions from Inga Muscio, Sarah Mundy, Emira Mears and Dr. Jerilynn Prior is finally done, and is a gorgeous, fantastic, radical, groovy slice of awesome. Yay!

Today I received my third and final shot of Gardasil, the HPV vaccine.

A few weeks shy of my 23rd birthday, I am part of the first generation of women to receive this vaccine.

I have to be honest: as far as shots go, it's pretty vile. It hurt more than my tattoos did (of course, to be fair, the tattoos took much, much longer). However, (probably) being protected from four strains of HPV- the four that cause the majority of cervical cancer and genital warts- is worth it.