Cathy Young: What ‘Women Against Feminism’ Gets Right

"The latest skirmish on the gender battlefield is “Women Against Feminism”: women and girls taking to the social media to declare that they don’t need or want feminism, usually via photos of themselves with handwritten placards. The feminist reaction has ranged from mockery to dismay to somewhat patronizing (or should that be “matronizing”?) lectures on why these dissidents are wrong. But, while the anti-feminist rebellion has its eye-rolling moments, it raises valid questions about the state of Western feminism in the 21st Century — questions that must be addressed if we are to continue making progress toward real gender equality." (read the whole thing)

"That's the path forward"

"Send us a clean CR, clean debt ceiling. That's the path forward. There's no need for conversations. We've spoken loudly and clearly, and we have the support of the president of the United States, and that's pretty good," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday."

Here is what Reid really meant.

The things that we were sent here to discus, budgets, debt ceilings, fiscal bottom lines, we already have control over those. Why are the republicans wasting our time?
We've spoken louder than 21 hours and we have the support of the president... where is he? ... ah, he is right behind me, and that's pretty good.
Conversations are meant to be about those things we have yet to control. Not the boring lugubrious running of the government.

“It is what I call poverty pornography,”

“They said they wanted to see how we are living,” Ms. Matshega said. “Can you imagine?”

The Hewitts moved into the shack for the month of August as an experiment in radical empathy. Could a white middle-class South African family make it on $10 a day in the kind of living conditions that millions of black South Africans endure every day? “It is one thing to know from an academic perspective what divides us,” said Mr. Hewitt, who also blogged about the experience. “But what is it like to actually live it?”

In most countries, a family slumming it for a month would hardly be news, but in South Africa, where deep racial divides strike at the core of the nation’s identity, the Hewitts’ experiment made headlines and spurred heated debate.

While some people praised the Hewitts, others where not so welcoming of their experiment.

But their experiment also poked at some of South Africa’s sorest spots. Were they white slum tourists who had come to gawk at black poverty? Was this simply a publicity stunt, aimed at getting a book or movie deal — or worse still, a reality television show?

And even if their motives were noble, did they inadvertently confirm what many here suspect: black poverty gets little notice until a white person experiences and highlights it?

Some critics took to Twitter with outright nasty, even violent responses."You know what? Hope the paraffin stove falls over and you people burn in that shack. Bye!” tweeted someone going by the handle @Keratilwe.

The Hewitts, in their own words...

So we're causing some major upsets.... We are trying to understand and have empathy. Don't want to make a mockery of life in the townships
— Ena & Julian (@mamelodi4amonth) July 31, 2013

New York Times

Video of the Hewitts explaining themselves after "read more"

"Clerical celibacy is open to discussion"

The Vatican’s new secretary of state has said that priestly celibacy is not church dogma and therefore open to discussion, marking a significant change in approach towards one of the thorniest issues facing the Roman Catholic Church.

"Celibacy is not an institution but look, it is also true that you can discuss (it) because as you say this is not a dogma, a dogma of the church," Archbishop Pietro Parolin said in response to a question during an interview with Venezuelan newspaper El Universal.

He added that while it was not dogma, clerical celibacy was a deeply entrenched Catholic tradition.

"The efforts that the church made to keep ecclesiastical celibacy, to impose ecclesiastical celibacy, have to be taken into consideration," Parolin said. "One cannot say simply that this belongs in the past."

Top vote getting comment there says...

I agree. As a practicing Catholic I really feel that Pope Francis is the best thing that has happened to the Catholic church in a long time.