“If you want the Catholic faith to tame your kids, don’t let them read stories of the saints,” warns Cathy O’Connell-Cahill in the Chicago-based newsletter “Bringing Religion Home” (November). “They might end up doing outrageous things that will turn your hair white–like my friend whose son, brought upon the best of Catholic tradition, chose to stay in the middle of the Rwandan bloodbath to help refugees.”
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“A friend and I were playing a ‘What if?’ game recently, and she asked me if I would ever consider dating a man,” writes Jennifer Vanasco in Windy City Times (November 6). “I looked at her in horror. Not because I find men repugnant (far from it), but because I would feel excluded from my found family. In that way, the gay and lesbian community is somewhat like an orthodox religion. You may be shunned if you marry outside it. You need to know the dress code and the language….A man may be a homosexual if he hasn’t heard of The Wizard of Oz, but he sure isn’t gay.”
Gosh, a knee in the right place would do that. Coming up at the School of the Art Institute December 1: “Cynthia Plaster Caster is a sculptor who, since the 1960s, has cast in plaster the male genitalia of her musical idols such as Jimi Hendrix, members of the Lovin’ Spoonful, Savoy Brown, Led Zeppelin and the Mekons. In these sculptures, Caster seeks to demystify the legacy of musical genius and explores the weaknesses of these icons.”