X?!?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is allowing soldiers, in an experiment, to take MDMA--a.k.a. ecstasy--to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. South Carolina scientists behind the trial think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist leading the experiment thinks, "people are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact that they are safe now."

Am I the only one who thinks this is truly and shockingly disturbing? I mean, ecstasy? These folks are suffering from post-traumatic stress because they have been compelled--under false pretenses of "liberation" for others and college tuition for themselves--to destroy an entire country.

Now we're gonna say, "It's OK, boys, take some ecstasy. Yeah – the same stuff you got expelled from high school for taking and thereby ended up getting tracked into military service . . . go ahead, this little pill will help you deal with the fact that these guys are running the show:



Can you feel the love?

Funding Cuts Make a Family

Real-life lesbian mothers, oh my!
Apparently wanting to "avoid confusion and controversy," PBS is dropping an episode of the children's show "Postcards from Buster," because it depicts real lesbian mothers. The episode, "Sugartime"--yes, that was the real title--involves a little bunny who travels to Vermont to learn how maple sugar is made. Along the way, he encounters two perfectly nice lesbian couples (although they never say that they are lesibans, apparently, it's obvious). The episode was criticized by Bush's education secretary Margaret Spellings , who said that the federal government, which helps support "Buster," did not intend for the money to be used "to introduce this kind of subject matter to children."

Twelve Steps for Recovery from Fundamentalism

First, admit you have a problem, then click here.

Fifteen

As a parenting writer, I never understood why there weren't more voices of mothers with teenagers. Sure, they piped up every now and then. In the early years when I was doing Hip Mama, an awesome woman approached me for advice--she wanted to do a kindred zine for teens and their parents. She put out a beautiful issue or two. And then she disappeared. I didn't know why.

Fifteen years ago tonight I was in labor.

Fifteen years ago tonight I was a 19-year-old in a foreign county in labor.

Fifteen years ago tonight my belly hurt and I wanted to act like a grown-up and act like I knew why my belly hurt.

I knew.

Fifteen years ago today I signed for a package in a foreign post office and as I wrote the date, I knew. February 6, 1990, and I knew. This was the last day things would feel the same to me and I wasn't even in labor yet, but I knew. I said to myself: Remember this date because you'll never feel this way again. Remember the way you feel. But I don't remember the way I felt. I only remember telling myself to remember.

Fifteen years ago tonight I promised my unborn baby the world.

Fifteen years ago tomorrow I promised my real and living baby that I'd protect her.

It was a promise I couldn't keep, of course.

For fifteen years, I believed that I could change the world in time.

But I am late.

Tonight I know why there were never more voices of mothers with teenagers; I know why my own mother has been quiet.

Tonight I feel quiet.

Tonight I want to listen.

Tonight I want to tell you what I hear, but the fuck-over is that I don't hear anything.

Fifteen years ago tonight I was in labor.

Fifteen years ago tonight I was a 19-year-old in a foreign county in labor.

And fifteen years ago tonight, I believed--large-hearted--that I would always be able to tell you everything.

I was wrong.

I can't tell you.

Silence is a part of the sound here.