In response to my own feeble attempts at a vegetarian lifestyle, many of you have shared your views on eating. From these conversations, online and off, it occurs to me that there are two primary approaches to consumption: Individual morality. Consideration of impact. The two are by no means exclusive, and most people seem to [...]

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The Vermont Senate, finding (correctly) that Civil Unions for gay couples fall short of providing equal rights, voted overwhelmingly to approve Civil Marriage for gay couples. The matter still has to go before the Vermont House (and since I’m late to this, may already have gone), where it is expected to pass. The margin by [...]

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As I’m sure you’ve already heard, it’s a two-for-one celebration: the 200th anniversary of the day when both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were squeezed out of their mothers’ wombs and into this cold world. I live in a world of ideas, words and algorithms, and these two humans, more than most, demonstrated through their [...]

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said the friend sitting next to me at Christmas Eve dinner, with a vague look of disgust on her face, like I’d just admitted to enjoying self-flagellation. I was in the company of a number of people who had escaped Western religion (all some form of Christianity) and landed firmly in Eastern religion (all some [...]

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I’m sorry I’ve not been posting recently, law school has finally caught up with me and consumed my life. I had to cancel the event that makes the holidays bearable for me (a goose-filled gamer fest) because I simply hadn’t the time to prepare and plan it. One of the prospective attendants told me that, [...]

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or, xJane gets mushy Yesterday was DH’s and my 3rd anniversary. It gave me a chance to reflect on love, marriage, and rights. Specifically on why I did (and did not) get married & what that makes me think about the rights of others. I did not get married so that I could bear DH’s [...]

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This time, Dean Starr introduced Monte Stewart, of the Marriage Law Foundation (or MLF). I bet I can guess which way this one will go. There were questions but no rebuttal. It was sponsored by the J. Reuben Clark Society, who described its mission as exploring how religious belief influences practice of the law. Proposition [...]

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By giving a girl’s family [...] financial benefits worth around $5,000, including health insurance, until she is 18, if she is sent to school and remains unmarried.I think this is a great idea, but I’m sure that the anti-feminists will spin it (they think that girls are more valuable than boys!!!). I also find it [...]

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My father was recently interviewed again (mp3 link, will start playing as soon as it loads; somewhat confusing page it is hosted on here), promoting his position regarding a proposed ballot initiative in the State of Washington which concerns what he would call “Assisted Suicide” or “Right to Life” but which I would call “Death [...]

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We make sense of the world and our relation to it through the stories we tell.  Back in my young and wild Mormon days (riding bikes with the gang down the street of Japan, doing drive by conversions), I told the story of Joseph Smith to anyone who would listen.  The cool thing was that [...]

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