YET MORE MARRIAGE: Really good post from Fr. Rob Johansen about pre-marriage counseling for cohabiting couples. Sorry I missed this earlier. EDITED TO ADD: Please read the comments thread too. Read more

I’M THE WOLF!!! Wolves and squid are my favorite animals (I went through a “wolf phase” like other girls have horse phases), so this is supercool. I’m pleased. Quiz via Noli Irritare Leones. Read more

WHEN MARRIAGE IS OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE IN-LAWS (…sorry): Noli Irritare Leones has two–OOPS! three–worthwhile posts up on the whole sex-marriage-love-babies-and-the-law thread. Camassia also replies to my two posts. Don’t have a ton of time here, but will say two things briefly: 1) I don’t think comparing laws against adultery, sodomy etc. to laws stipulating a certain definition of marriage really works. The issues are so different (privacy and enforceability alone are hugely different) that I’m not convinced we... Read more

DEMONSTRATING FOR A FREE IRAN on July 9. There are solidarity demos in major US (and world) cities; I’ll be at the DC one. See you there! Read more

OH, AND HAVE A GREAT INDEPENDENCE DAY! More later… Read more

EH: I feel deeply weird reporting that according to SelectSmart (via Kesher Talk), George W. Bush is my “100%” (!) preferred candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Okay fine, I can’t think of anyone especially better, but sheesh… either they’re weighting abortion (and to a lesser extent, war–which is dealt with in a bizarrely cursory and nuance-free fashion) answers more heavily than civil liberties, drug legalization, and corporate welfare ones, or they are banking on “past performance no guarantee of... Read more

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAY FOR. Heh. My favorite comment on this sort of thing comes, I think, from CS Lewis (or maybe Agatha Christie?)–sometimes people think God hasn’t answered their prayers, when in fact the answer was “No.” Link via The Rat. Read more

COVER UP: In the interests of keeping this blog a completely random record of my thoughts and obsessions… it’s been a while since I wrote about music. So here I’m going to list my nominations for covers that equal or surpass the original. (And yes, I realize that “cover” is a category much more emphasized in the rock/pop world than in other styles, where it’s more natural for several singers to record the same song.) Because hey, it’s my blog….... Read more

MORE LIBERIA from The New Republic. If you care you’ve probably read this already, but hey. Read more

SED CONTRA is blogging up a storm, including this basic-but-true paragraph: “It’s also worth saying that I am not totally down on the so called gay rights movement. Yes, if I had to do it all over again, and I got to keep my memory as insurance against making the same mistakes, I would do some things differently, but not all. I think, all things considered, that keeping same sex attraction that you might experience secret from everyone is unhealthy... Read more