“I’d like a little less romance in my romance novels, please.”

Yesterday, I saw this in a Harlequin romance novel display at Borders:

"Nothing makes me want to do it like a chalk outline."

I’m not sure if it was the juxtaposition of murder and blossoming romance, the intrinsic oddness of the phrase “love-inspired suspense,” or the inexplicable inclusion of an adorable kitty peeking out from behind the legs of one of our headless protagonists, but it kinda caught my attention.

Upon consulting the interwebs, I learned that On a Killer’s Trail is one of a series of Harlequin books dedicated to highlighting Christian romantic ideals through tales of gruesome crime. In this particular installment, an old lady’s murder leads our protagonists to the realization that it’s important to save sex for marriage.

I guess it makes sense, seeing as butchered old ladies are up there with images of festering snakebite wounds on the list of “Things That Really Don’t Make Me Want to Do It.”

f*%!ing CNN, pt. 2

And now, a non-news story designed to scare kids and their parents away from a potentially life-saving vaccine.

Journalists should have to take something akin to the Hippocratic Oath that promises they will write to help humanity, not harm it.

Asshats.

the sticky factor

An excerpt from a recent NY Times article with the promising title, “Abstinence Education Faces an Uncertain Future:”

“You have to look at why sex was created,” Eric Love, the director of the East Texas Abstinence Program, which runs Virginity Rules, said one day, the sounds of Christian contemporary music humming faintly in his Longview office. “Sex was designed to bond two people together.”

To make the point, Mr. Love grabbed a tape dispenser and snapped off two fresh pieces. He slapped them to his filing cabinet and the floor; they trapped dirt, lint, a small metal bolt. “Now when it comes time for them to get married, the marriage pulls apart so easily,” he said, trying to unite the grimy strips. “Why? Because they gave the stickiness away.”

What level of self-delusion must one have in order to muster the gall to sit in front of a New York Times reporter and enact a metaphorical demonstration with tape and lint to illustrate how premarital sex destroys all hope of meaningful adult unions?