Proudly powered by WordPress.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Designed & built by Avenue Design Studios.
Elf on the Shelf is creepy. The face, the disproportionate limbs, the mythology dating back to the mid-1990s – it is all creepy, commercialized and secularized. Obviously, it is destined for greatness. The history of Christmas as a holiday and tradition is rife with cultural appropriation, secularization and lots of red-n-green washing. Trees became mainstream […]
This year, Ledcat and I will celebrate our 12th Thanksgiving as a couple. Our plans include dinner with our family of choice (aka The Sarahs and their 2 kids) who are vegetarian but prepare turkey breast for us. I’m pretty sure we’ll be schooled in a video game by the 8 year old and get […]
We all have that one eccentric relative who always says and does the strangest things. In your family, who’s that person, and what is it that earned him/her that reputation? My one grandmother was the type who covered the furniture in plastic and served the kids Pepsi-free with sugar-free spearmint drops. She was pretty strict […]
There are many reasons to vote and many critical elections impacting Southwestern PA. It is easy to give in to the sense of inevitability or futility and not bother to turn out, but that’s exactly what our opponents want to see happen. The act of voting IN SPITE of the odds is an act of […]
We’ve had Verizon FIOS for three months so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on how it has changed our lives. We weren’t exactly television snobs, just cost conscious. I think our lack of exposure to massive cultural shifts in that time period coupled with the pleasure of silence has created […]
In a sad twist of irony on irony, my blog post about Pumpkin Spice Latte memes has now become the most read post in the history of this blog. Oh, the humanity. In my defense, I don’t own yoga pants. I also only wear leggings or tights underneath other items of clothing. In the spirit […]
Your blog is about to be recorded into an audiobook. If you could choose anyone — from your grandma to Samuel L. Jackson — to narrate your posts, who would it be? I’m not a fan of the band One Direction but I do like the song “The Story of My Life” – and this sentence captures […]
When Daniel, a 20-year-old young man in Georgia, came out to his family he captured it on his phone. In a truly horrifying twist, he ended being assaulted by his Stepmother while his Grandmother cheered her on. They used the Bible to justify every insult, every smack, every putdown. Warning. This is really hard to […]
My brain is exhausted from day after day of critical coverage. So yesterday to celebrate the Fourth, we spent the afternoon with our friends and their family. I realized that one of my favorite photos was taken 2 years ago on the Fourth of July while I held then toddler Elijah. So I thought it […]
I’ve obtained a copy of the email the County apparently sent to 11 employees accessing domestic partner benefits on Tuesday June 24. I’ve noticed a few concerning issues The email uses this language “effective immediately” with no reference to July 31 or a cutoff date. Media reports added that clarification. Effective immediately is a little […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.