At the risk if dating myself – at least not in the eHarmony sense – I am from the sex education dark ages.

In my day, Just Say No was Just Don’t Say Anything. Moms and Dads, more often than not, didn’t have “the talk” because of their own shocking lack of knowledge or because they were too embarrassed. Teen pregnancy and sexual diseases were relatively rare. And gay kids? Well, they simply didn’t exist.

Sex ed was limited to the 6th or 7th grade when all the girls were herded out of gym class to see a film about “that time of the month” while the boys played baseball…in the winter. Many of the girls emerged from the film visibly shaken and, so far as I know, none ever revealed the true nature of the film to the boys.

Of course, that left teens to their own sexual education. And teens, as they frequently do, thought they knew more about things than any adult could possibly know. In those days, they unfortunately may have been right.

In an era before the Internet – and personal computers for that matter – there were few ways for kids to learn about sex or become more comfortable with their own sexuality except by repeating the same misinformation amongst themselves. As a result, many a young girl disappeared with an “advanced case of mono” before coming back noticeably thinner and much less fun-loving than before and sometimes boys dropped out of school because “the family needed the money.”

Because my wife and I came from that era, we pledged we’d treat our own daughter differently, even at a young age.

At four, she already had a concept – appropriate for a four-year old – of how pregnancy worked. The were no cabbage leaves or storks, only a frank discussion when she asked questions. That policy sometimes created some odd conversations with our first grader.

Daughter: Dad, do you and Mom have sex?

Dad: You know how sex works, right?

Daughter: Yes.

Dad: And you know you are our child, right?

Daughter: Yes.

Dad: Then what does that tell you?

Daughter: I guess you guys have sex.

When she became a teen and asked more adult questions, we continued our policy. We encouraged her to use sites like Scarleteen to learn more. We explained the pleasures and pitfalls of her nascent sexuality and told her it was okay to go to Planned Parenthood for birth and sexual disease control and we’d not question her about it. And, she did.

Today she’s equipped to venture into a sexual world with the knowledge she needs and Mom and I are both pleased and relieved.

From the mouths of Scarleteen and children comes modern wisdom.

I urge you to speak out about your own sexual education, see what others are saying, and support Scarleteen’s important work.

Cross posted at The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

With little debate and even less reasoning the Senate Finance Committee recently included in its health care legislation 50 million dollars for teaching abstinence only sex education classes in schools.  These programs teach students to avoid having sex as the only way to avoid pregnancy and stay healthy.

By definition, these programs are not reality-based and, therefore, have proven to be ineffective.  They deny the existence of condoms, birth control pills, and other proven ways to stay healthy and avoid pregnancy.  They are ineffective because many young people will have sex even if you warn them about the dangers, and not educating them about the number of options available to have safe sex unnecessarily places their health at risk.

You might call these "ignorance only" programs because their objective is to keep young people ignorant of the facts of sex and prevention of medical conditions that could harm them.

There's more...

 By Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC MediaWire Blogger

Yesterday, Sonia Sotomayor became the first Latina and the third woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is currently a federal judge on New York's 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Born to Puerto Rican immigrant parents and raised by her mother in the housing projects of the South Bronx, Sotomayor went on to attend college at Princeton and law school at Yale. George H.W. Bush appointed her to the U.S. District Court in 1991 and Bill Clinton "promoted" her to the 2nd Circuit in 1998.

There's more...

The Republican Party had a little internal power struggle that actually is really quite pathetic. Seems blowhard Rush Limbaugh thinks RNC chair Michael Steele is a traitor because he is trying to steer a more moderate course. Rush wants Steele to join in his expressions of hope that America's recovery fails because he doesn't want Obama to look good. Steele responded by saying he, not Rush, was the head of the Republican Party and that no one should wish America fails. This simple statement sent Rush and his fanatics into spasms of red-faced rage, some of it becoming outright racism (as discussed in this Daily Kos diary chronicling some of the more virulent Republican racism levelled at Obama and Steele). In the end, Steele, the actual guy with a leadership position in the Republican Party and the guy who is trying to be moderate, surrendered and grovelled at Limbaugh's feet. So the Republican Party remains the party that wishes for America to fail.

There's more...

With the massive Salmonella recall, the problems with food and pet food contamination from Chinese products, and the general increase in food prices, I am adding listings of local food co-ops for many states I cover. Generally, these offer lower prices and higher quality than general supermarkets. Some require an investment of time and/or money, but some do not. I shopped at a food co-op as a student in San Diego in the 1980's and it really kept my food bills way down. Currently my wife and I have joined the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, the largest food co-op in America, and although we find aspects of it inconvenient, we do find the prices are much lower and we eat far more healthy now. And NONE of the products we buy were part of the massive recall I discussed a few weeks ago. So take a look at any listings I give for your state, and let me know if you know of any I missed.

There's more...