Sunday Reading list

The Independent Online has a great column on Germaine Greer and "The C Word". Are they afraid of using the word, cunt, in the column or are they just respecting Greer's POV? In any case, there's some great historical information. For a follow up, I'd recommend Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (no relation to the newspaper, but a nice tie in nonetheless) by Inga Muscio.

The Guardian has an interesting report on sexuality in the U.K. (Pardon me while I channel my inner Richard Dawson) "Survey Says(!)": Despite extensive sex education (compared to the U.S.), more teens are delaying their first sexual encounter until 17 or so, most people (nearly two thirds) surveyed think prostitution should be legalized, and one in three women have reported having "non-consensual sex". It's an interesting phrase, "non-consensual sex". Many people would call that rape, but this report indicates that not everyone considers that to be the case in all instances. I'd like to read more on that topic.

The Guardian also has information on an interview with former Secretary of State Colin Powell. It seems that Powell thinks that the U.S. will begin to withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Hm, right before the Congressional elections? I've said that before many times here. Some have called me cynical (and I am), but this was a political decision made years ago.

While we're in the muddled world of politics, I'd be remiss if I didn't point you towards an article in Time today: reporters have seen several pictures of Jack Abramoff and/or his children hanging out with George W. Bush and Dennis Hastert (who you might recall fought against new lobbying rules last year as the scandal became apparent - actually, I think Hastert was right....they don't need new rules, but just need to follow the ones in place and need to empower the ethics committees). So, what's Scott "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him" McClellan got to say about this?

Finally, it's been widely reported that the government is seeking search records from major search engines to press it's case against child pornography in the Supreme Court. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo caved into the request while Google is fighting it. Google may lose, though. I've been cautious about maintaining my anonymity with all of these sites. Wired News has a good article on how you can do that, too.