feminist blogs

Because 9/11 changed everything, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been purging various religious books from their libraries and have developed a GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED list of "acceptable" religious reading. The books left off the "approved" list aren't only those brown swarthy texts you'd expect these Fascists to purge:

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

With apologies to Woody Allen ...If The Founders came back came back today and saw what all the things these assholes did in their name, they'd never stop throwing up.

UPDATE--> We've tumbled waaaaaaaaaaaaay down that rabbit hole:

...banned materials at Otisville include two fundamental Jewish works - Maimonides' "Mishneh Torah Systematic Code of Jewish Law" and the "Zohar," a primary text of Kabbalah - as well as the popular "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. Among the purged Christian works is the best-selling "The Purpose-Driven Life," by Rick Warren. Further, according to the complaint, the Muslim section of the library at Otisville has been stripped of Islamic "prayer books, prayer guides and the 'Hadith,' which is the most important source for Muslim practice and faith after the Koran."

I was working on the BlogSheroes site when I noticed on the feed this post by Jill over at Feministe | The Rights of the Born. It's a beautiful piece written by Anne Lamont on abortion from a liberal Catholic perspective :

[via The Rights Of the Born - Los Angeles Times]:

Pall is a good word. And it did not feel good to be the cause of that pall. I knew what I was supposed to have said, as a progressive Christian: that it's all very complicated and painful, and that Jim was right in saying that the abortion rate in America is way too high for a caring and compassionate society.

But I did the only thing I could think to do: plunge on, and tell my truth. I said that this is the most intimate decision a woman makes, and she makes it all alone, in her deepest heart of hearts, sometimes with the man by whom she is pregnant, with her dearest friends or with her doctor --but without the personal opinion of say, Tom DeLay or Karl Rove.