[Religion News Service, August 22, 1995] Quick, how many genders do you think there are? Two? Three, if you count Richard Simmons?
Such stingy thinking is scorned by some of those preparing for the Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing next month.
[Religion News Service, October 3, 1995]
When Jane's fiance, a tugboat engineer, disappeared at sea, there were many theories about the cause of his death. When his best friend suggested that he had been murdered after stumbling across a drug deal, the idea electrified her.
“It caused such a rage it was almost a physical reaction,” she told me.
[World, September 23, 1995]
Reporters are brave adventurers, required by their profession to visit places where they face danger in the forms of gunfire, tornados, or foreign food. Recently I undertook a similar expedition: I spent an entire afternoon in my living room. With the television on.
[World, August 12-19, 1995]
The residents of a doll catalog that arrived in yesterday's mail are still, perfect, and beautiful, carefully arrayed in fetching poses. Most of these pricey, un-playable dolls are babies and children. Porcelain is ideal for such dolls: it has a smooth, matte finish reminiscent of tender skin, takes color well, and can be exquisitely detailed
[Books & Culture, January/February, 1997]
One night after dinner, while Gary and the boys and I were still sitting around the kitchen table, Megan called from college. After the phone had been passed around and everyone had done some chatting, it came back to me. Megan hesitated, then said:
[Philanthropy, Culture, and Society, October, 1993] The toughest thing about Marilyn Szewczyk isn't her name. You can forget everything you learned in grammar school and rattle off “Seff-check.” Keeping up with Marilyn's determination, energy, and vision is not so easy.
Marilyn arrives late for our lunch appointment, her ample silhouette filling the door. Outside it is a blistering white summer noon ;
[Religion News Service, June 13, 1995] Where is the church for people with AIDS?
Today the church is chugging up five flights of stairs in a downtown Baltimore nursing home. Gary Carr, sales manager for a Christian radio station and a member of First Baptist Church of Pimlico, first began visiting AIDS patients here in 1988.
[Religion News Service, July 23, 1996] At the beginning of a summer expected to be long and hot, a shocking charge was made: Racists are burning black churches. In a June 8 address, President Clinton cited the burning of Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., which he described as the 30th such fire in 18 months.
[Religion News Service, May 28, 1996]
I found out the other day I have a pancreas. Not that I would have ever denied it; I know that the existence of such things is generally taken for granted, and one would disagree only at the risk of looking foolish. If the phone rang and it was a pollster inquiring about mine, I'd know the correct answer: “Yup, got it right here.”
Where, exactly, I wouldn't be sure. In fact, that whole arrangement of complicated, slippery items on the dark inside of the torso is a mystery to me. I can't see them, so maybe they aren't there.
[Religion News Service, April 16, 1996]
The latest animal-rights action spreads beyond usual bounds: members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plan to disrupt a sport-fishing tournament by throwing rocks in the water to warn the fish. (Presumably they hope not to hit any fish in the process.)
