The release of black smoke, and not white smoke, from The Vatican chimney signified that a new pope had not been named. But what was the meaning of the less visible and less discussed pink smoke released over The Vatican? It was a protest against The Vatican’s refusal to ordain women priests.

Erin Saiz Hanna, the director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which staged the protest and has been advocating for the ordination of women for three decades, stated,

“The current old boys’ club has left our Church reeling from scandal, abuse, sexism and oppression…. The people of the Church are desperate for a leader who will be open to dialogue and embrace the gifts of women’s wisdom in every level of Church governance.”

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What is it in the Republicans’ drinking water that makes it so hard for them to refrain from making offensive and ignorant comments about rape? And what is it that makes a party, which largely disavows science, think it can speak with any authority about anything related to science. Perhaps, we’ll never know.

What we do know is that the head of the California Republican Assembly, Celeste Greig,  joined the impressive ranks of Republicans saying inane shit about rape earlier this month when she suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are rare:

“Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it’s an act of violence, because the body is traumatized…. I don’t know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don’t know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act.”

[…]

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You may have heard that, since people are living longer, and marrying, having kids, and establishing their careers later in life, 30 is the new 20. But, according to pyschologist Meg Jay, who “specializes” in 20-somethings, 30 is just 30. It is most definitely NOT the new 20. So, 30 year-olds who are unmarried….be afraid… be very afraid.

Jay recently gave a talk at TED–the nonprofit dedicated to “ideas worth spreading,” so brilliantly satirized by the Onion–which I listened to so you don’t have to. I will now present the top 10 highlights of this speech, my reaction as a member of the demographic (I’m 31) thoroughly shat upon by its deliverer, and finally, my reaction in GIF form.

#1. Jay recalls her first psychotherapy client, Alex, aged 26. Alex walked into Jay’s office wearing a “slouchy top” and “kicked off her flats.” Red flags numbers one and two. Responsible 20-somethings wear fitted tops and keep their shoes on.

#2.Alex wanted to talk about guy problems. Jay was so relieved: “My classmate got an arsonist and my first client wanted to talk about boys. This, I thought, I could handle. But I didn’t handle it.” Just what didn’t Jay handle? You’ll have to read on.

 

#3. Jay ominously continued: “’30′s the new 20,’ Alex would say. And as far as I could tell, she was right. Work happened later, marriage happened later, kids happened later, even death happened later. 20-somethings like Alex and I had nothing but time. But my supervisor pushed me to push Alex about her love life. I pushed back: I said, ‘Sure, she’s dating down, she’s sleeping with a knuckle head. But it’s not like she’s gonna marry the guy.’ And then my supervisor said, ‘not yet. But she might marry the next one. Besides, the best time to work on Alex’s marriage is before she has one.’  That’s what psychologists call an ah-ha moment, that was the moment I realized, 30′s not the new 20. Yes, people settle down later than they used to, but that didn’t make Alex’s 20s a developmental down time, that made Alex’s 20s a developmental sweet spot and we were sitting their blowing it.”

Shouldn’t the ah-ah moment have been “I’m not a very good therapist.” Shouldn’t you discourage your client from “dating down” and “sleeping with knuckle heads” regardless of his or her age? And who blows a “developmental sweet spot”?  That would have been my ah-ha moment.

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80 years ago today President Franklin Delano Roosevelt named Frances Perkins the Secretary of Labor and the first ever female member of cabinet. FDR was lucky to have Perkins. And, today, we continue to reap the benefits of the policies Perkins pushed through the department of Labor. Some credit Perkins with the New Deal legislation that characterizes the FDR administration. She was key to the creation of Social Security, the establishment of a minimum wage and passage of legislation protecting workers’ right to organize. The headquarters building of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., is named for Perkins, who was also the longest-serving secretary of labor in U.S. history.

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A California woman was fired after her supervisor at a San Diego Christian college asked her if she was pregnant. The sin, so to speak, was not the pregnancy itself but the fact that Teri James, 29, was not married when she conceived. This violated San Diego Christian College’s “community covenant,” signed by a not yet pregnant James, which is a two-page contract asking its employees and students to abstain from drugs, alcohol and tobacco and “abusive anger, malice, jealousy, lust, sexually immoral behavior including premarital sex, adultery, pornography and homosexuality, evil desires and prejudice based on race, sex or socioeconomic status.” Well, the prejudice part is nice, at least.

James, who is herself  Christian, is suing the school and being represented by Gloria Allred. Allred pointed out that the covenant “does not say that you will be fired if you do not comply.” What the school did is also likely illegal under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which “prohibit[s] sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.”

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You probably didn’t know that more than one million New York City workers, mostly low wage workers, lack paid sick days, with the largest concentrations in food service, retail and health care. Or that nearly one in four workers reports that they have lost a job or were told they would lose their job if they took time off due to personal or family illness. Or that half of working moms miss work when a child gets sick. Of these, half lose pay when they take this time off.

But it’s because of injustices like these that New Yorkers, and everyone, really, needs paid sick days. And that’s why New Yorkers are demanding a a paid sick days bill, which would allow workers to earn five paid sick days a year, which employees could use to recover from illness, seek preventive care, or care for an ill family member. The bill has support from the majority of the City Council.

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Besides earning Jennifer Lawrence a well-deserved Oscar for Best Actress, Silver Linings Playbook was robbed at last night’s Academy Awards. The Academy wasted an opportunity to honor a film that dealt with mental illness in a nuanced, realistic, sensitive and engaging way.

Let’s look at the important categories SLP was up for.

Editing: the award went to Argo. If Argo deserved to win for anything it was definitely editing. So, I wasn’t that upset. The film was superbly edited. Props.

Best Actor: the award went to Daniel Day Lewis. I was rooting for Bradley Cooper, but you could hardly say he was robbed. DDL did an exceptional job at becoming Lincoln. Still, given that DDL has now won three Academy Awards for best actor, breaking a record, it would have been nice of Cooper to win just won. But nobody every said life or the Academy was fair.

[…]

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An Indiana school district has suspended Diana Medley a teacher who lobbied for an LGBTQ-free prom. In all fairness, you could always just choose to be straight and then you could go to the prom, since sexual orientation is a decision and choice, according to Medley. “I believe that it was life circumstances and they chose to be that way,” Medley told NBC affiliate,WTWO. “Homosexual students come to me with their problems, and I don’t agree with them, but I care about them. It’s the same thing with my special needs kids, I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason.”  When asked if LGBTQ people have a purpose in life, she responded,  “No I honestly don’t. Sorry, but I don’t. I don’t understand it. A gay person isn’t going to come up and make some change unless it’s to realize that it was a choice and they’re choosing God.” So, God  puts the gays in our lives for a reason, but the gays don’t serve any purpose. That seems like a contradiction but that’s because it’s hard for most of us to grasp the genius that is Diana Medley.

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U 486 is a non-surgical early abortion medication that comes in the form of a pill and is generally used to end a pregnancy up to 10 weeks from a woman’s last period. So, naturally, a bill, approved by Indiana’s state Senate Health and Provider Services Committee on Wednesday, would require clinics to conduct trans-vaginal ultrasounds on women both before and after dispensing the pill.  Senate Bill 371 passed by a vote of 7 to 5, and will next be voted on by the full state Senate. Specifically, the bill would require women to be presented with the sound and image of the fetal heartbeat before the abortion and to return for another ultrasound to ensure that she is no longer pregnant.

The bill makes no medical sense, whatsoever, and is a clear attempt to discourage women from taking RU 486, by adding two unnecessary trips to an abortion clinic and two unnecessary uncomfortable procedures to it. Dr. Anne Davis, the consulting medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health, explained,

“[a woman who has taken RU 486] can do a blood test at any local facility after an abortion to show that the hormone levels are going down as they should, there’s no medical reason to make her drive back to the abortion clinic and go through another ultrasound…. This is yet another onerous, medically unnecessary barrier.”

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What we can learn from Marco Rubio’s dry mouth and government.