Gays: You can get married in Iowa. But if you tell anyone, you’ll get kicked out of the Guard.

More here.

I would remind everyone that breaking up via text is tacky, but I don’t need a fatwa against this site:

A Saudi man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper said earlier this month.

The man was in Iraq when he sent the message informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported. …

Saudi Arabia practices a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, and clerics preside over Sharia courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times.

The Saudi man was in Iraq to participate in “what he described as ‘jihad,'” according to the Arab News. (via AOL)

Look, sometimes when you’re rushing to Iraq to aid al Qaeda militants, you don’t have time to do things properly. (And the other half of you are thinking “if only divorce was this easy here!”)

In a new poll by teen expert Jennifer “Dr. Jenn” Austin Leigh, PsyD.,  98% of teen boys said they’d rather be in a relationship with “a girl who is a great listener than [with] a ‘hottie’.”

Okay, we’re listening. “If boys want more love and less sex for sport, this is really good news because teen pregnancy is up, teen girl-on-girl violence is going up [reports thereof are going up — Ed.], emotional abuse in teen relationships is rampant…any trend towards more civility is welcome at this point,” Dr. Jenn said in a press release that just hit BG’s inbox. “Kids want something more substantial in their lives…to be loved, respected, seen and heard deeply.”

Still listening. “We do our boys a huge disservice by not talking about male virginity or their romantic, tender emotions about sex.” says Dr. Jenn.  “Our boys are more than just their plumbing. Parents need to address their boys’ hearts and souls when they discuss sex with them.”

And! “The wonderful possibilities of where we go as human beings and the future of our planet depends on whether or not we learn to honor our girls. It’s that simple.” (Just ask The World Bank.)

But. BG has to wonder: how much honor is there in being called a “hyena”? Mmm, a hyena. Kind of like a lil’ cougar. Indeed, according to her website, “Dr. Jenn” has “coined the term ‘hyenas’ to describe the new phenomenon of sexually aggressive girls, taking as her model the female spotted hyena, which is far more aggressive than its male counterpart, right down to sexually explicit taunting.  It is now not uncommon for girls to strong-arm boys for sex, and that includes oral sex.  Some teenage girls even collect ‘V cards’ (virginity cards) to keep score of the number of boys they’ve deflowered.  It’s a growing trend. Girls like the power and thrill of being a guy’s first, even if they don’t have any feelings for him.”

Okay, now we’re not laughing. Surely there’s more than enough aggression to go around, and more than enough reasons why, in today’s porn-tastic culture, that aggression becomes sexualized, even by girls. But, you know, this aggro-girls “trend” story comes and goes like the locust. Several years ago, it was girls as perpetrators of violence, which — not that some girls weren’t perps — turned out to be more about increased reporting through zero-tolerance policies, etc. Before that, some of you may recall, it was sexually aggressive girls calling their crushes on that old-fashioned gadget, what do you call it, the corded phone? “Mean Girls.” “Do-me Feminists.” You name it. (Also, apparently, simultaneously, girls are getting more goody-goody. Go fig.) While our society has absolutely, definitely, indubitably become more more sensitized and prone to glamorized sex, violence, and sexualized violence, seems to me there have always been, and will always be, girls on both sides.

Also…hyenas? Hyenas. (Girls acting like stereotypical horny boys. Can it be coincidence that the female spotted hyena mates through a “pseudo-penis?”) Listen: you can argue, at least, that the “cougar” is, I don’t know, a majestic beast. But the hyena?  Yes, the hyena is considered a skilled hunter. But the hyena is not pretty. The hyena’s pelt is not prized. There is no sleek, elegant car called the Hyena. The hyena’s vocalization has been compared to a human laugh of the “hysterical” variety.

Dr. Jenn, if you want to honor girls, do not call them hyenas. Do not coin a calculatedly, transparently, sleazily headline-courting term that will do little but promote snickering and stereotype — even if (especially if!) the core of what you’re saying about girls and boys and health and respect has some merit and comes from a place of real and sincere concern. If your message is that kids want respect, then you’ve got to give it to them first.

1. Watch venomous anti-gay marriage ad entitled “A Gathering Storm.”

2. Hear lines such as “The clouds are dark, and the winds are strong, and I am afraid. Some who advocate for same-sex marriage have taken the issue far beyond same-sex couples. They want to bring the issue into my life. My freedom will be taken away.” Snarf Frappuccino.

3. Cleanse palate below. UPDATED! N.O.M. was able to have the hilarious Weather Girls remix of their ad taken down! So… 3. You click around YouTube looking for another posting of it and notice with a chuckle just how many parodies there are of this putrid ad and then…

4. Settle on watching Lizz Winstead’s preposterously non-sequitur-filled take on the subject:

someone loses a chunk of their arm!

BG’s zombie-fighting advice: Accessorize!

We’re pretty sure Vermont’s Republican governor was installed by extraterrestrials in the first place. And in this human v. alien battle, the good guys have won one for civil rights. As Reuters just reported: “Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday overrode a veto from the governor in passing a bill that would allow same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the state to become the fourth in the nation where gay marriage is legal.” [Insert visual: BG high-fiving Ben, Jerry.]

Scott Simon:

…[G]ays could begin getting married in Iowa in just three weeks.

“If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification,” the Iowa justices wrote, “they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.”

Whatever the final result may be, it seems to me that the decision reminds us that gay life in America is not confined to certain zip codes of lower Manhattan, West Hollywood, Miami’s South Beach and Chicago’s Lakeview. It is as American as Iowa.

From yesterday’s New York Times: New research — well, not that new — shows that as men age beyond about 30, their chance of fathering a child with an autism-spectrum disorder or schizophrenia increases, just as their overall fertility decreases. According to NYU psychiatry researcher Dr. Dolores Malaspina: “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.”

As the Times’s Lisa Belkin writes: “The push and pull between timetables and dreams, between our bodies and our babies, is at the core of many women’s worldview, which also means it is at the core of relationships between the sexes. This tension feeds the stereotype of woman as eager to settle down and men as reluctant, and it’s the crux of why we see women as ‘old’ and men as ‘distinguished.'”

Indeed, says Dana Goldstein of The American Prospect. “Imagine a world in which the stereotype of women rushing men to the altar, biological clocks on overdrive, simply disappeared, as men took full 50 percent ownership over the reproductive process. Or in which wealthy 50-year-old divorced men ceased to be such catches for 30-year old women, because of weakened sperm. I wouldn’t want to return to a society in which both men and women are pressured into settling down and having babies at an unduly young age. But I do like the idea of rejiggering our notions about the intersection of gender and aging. It isn’t just women who have a lot to fit into their lives in terms of career, romance, and parenthood. Science is beginning to tell us that men are facing the same pressures.”

This is not to say we want men to have reproductive challenges. But given that science shows that they do, it’d be nice if culture would catch up.

From today’s New York Times:

Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.

Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills.

The drug blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently needs to retain much of its learned information. And if enhanced, the substance could help ward off dementias and other memory problems.

So far, the research has been done only on animals. [Elephants: FAIL.] But scientists say this memory system is likely to work almost identically in people.

One might think that that “Brooklyn” lab is actually BG’s — that this one would be THE killer breakup app. What, indeed, if you could neuralize that night, that “loser,” those five years too many?

Yeah, well, you wouldn’t want to. No, really. Every breakup/hookup/screw-up: like it, or LIKElike it, or not, it’s part of who you are. (Don’t make me say “learning experience.”) Each one helps you say to yourself, “Okay, not that.” Each one gives you an opp to look back and say “See how far I’ve come.” Each one reminds you, looking back, that you survived: that all this love business is the messy stuff of life, not the sloppy kiss of death. So no neuralyzers being developed over here, sorry. We put our R&D dollars toward the Affirmatron.

In a world…
Where adult men really shouldn’t be watching High School Musical…
One show….
Found a way….
To make those dreams….
Come true…..

(HSM + Guffman) x Fox = Glee !