What?s really cool in youth culture today? Mixing libertarian/jingoistic conservativism with a porno aesthetic, according to this article in Newsweek online. Tim Wilson scanned half a dozen magazines, including Tokion, WYWS and Vice, and found a weird combination of explicit BDSM sexuality with homages to Pat Buchanan and G. Gordon Liddy. The makers of these popular magazines identify with conservatives? ?outcast? sensibility and indifference to political correctness. Plus celebrating the invasion of Iraq dovetails nicely with articles about ?resentment sex? and images of naked women holding steaks to their black eyes. Apparently the chicks dig it.

Wilson?s theory is that the consumers of these magazines are trying to overcompensate the uncoolness of being straight, white and middle class by embracing the most shocking expressions they can find. My feeling is that he might have come up with a different analysis if he?d left out Vice magazine, which is by far the most extreme magazine, in both conservatism and in raunchiness, of the six he covers. There?s a reason I haven?t read Vice in ages.

We just approved the proofs for issue #3 of other magazine, and we think it?s now error-free and immaculate. Not to mention it looks gorgeous. Soon you, too, will be able to discover Brittany Murphy?s views on human cloning and eavesdrop on Ed Rosenthal telling Lynnee Breedlove about nymphomania. Not to mention mass crucifixion, Mercedes Lackey, Japanese Noise music, B-boys, fag hags on the wagon, and much more. All coming in October!

from other #1, June 2003: How many times will you disclose your gender today? If you read the Washington Post on-line in the morning, you will be asked to check ?male? or ?female? in a dialog box before you get the news. If you go to work or school, you have already told a human resources manager or admissions officer what your gender is. Along with a great deal of other information about you, your gender is permanently attached to your name in a database of your fellow employees or students. If use a public bathroom sometime during the day, most likely you?ll have to pick a gender in order to do it? read the rest here!

A fifteen-year-old high school student, Lisa McClelland, wants to start a ?caucasian club? at her high school because she doesn?t feel like she fits into any of the other clubs. She sees her club as an alternative for people who feel like they don?t belong in the Black Student Union or other race-based clubs. She wants to create, according to the San Jose Mercury News, ? a haven for those who don?t fit into such categories.? Apparently, McClelland is mixed-race.

It?s funny that she would choose ?caucasian? as the umbrella term for people who don?t see themselves as any particular race. This was exactly what European immigrants of the nineteenth century chose to do as a way to erase their national differences and form a new, ?American? community. Of course, we all know that whiteness didn?t turn out to be a very inclusive category in the end. Hard to say if McClelland is calling for a new kind of reactionary race politics or if she?s just clueless. Why didn?t she start a club devoted to a hobby or something if she didn?t like the idea of racial clubs in the first place?

Various FTM activists have pointed out that it?s way harder to get breasts removed than it is to get breast implants inserted. The former procedure requires a psychological evaluation in many places, but anybody can walk into a plastic surgeon?s office and plunk down the cash for a boob job.

Now a team of Dutch researchers has suggested in a British Medical Journal article that maybe women seeking breast implants should have psychological screening as well. The researchers looked at 3,521 women who?d had breast implants and found they were three times as likely to commit suicide as other women in their age group. Whether the disappointment of life with bigger breasts led these women to kill themselves or women who are predisposed to suicide are more likely to get implants in the first place remains a mystery. Of course, we?re only talking about 15 suicides versus 5 suicides in the general population. But last week, a Finnish-American study found similar results, the third study in a row that found a breast implant-suicide link, according to .

Not surprisingly, the Aesthetic Surgery Association rushed to condemn the Swedish study as bad science and called for more research. It doesn?t appear the Association has had anything to say about the confirmatory Finnish study yet.

Beware, transgender travelers! The Department of Homeland Security has identified men who dress as women as a potential security risk. In its latest press release, the DHS says that terrorists may use ?novel methods? to evade detection. In particular, ?Male bombers may dress as females in order to discourage scrutiny.?

This means that anyone who is obviously transgender is going to be a major target for searches and harrassment. It also may increase public fear of TG people. But most of all, it seems slightly ludicrous: obviously, whoever thought crossdressing would ?discourage scrutiny? hasn?t talked to too many trannies.

Ewen McGregor says he feels like a girl compared to his macho fighter pilot brother. The actor ?admits his role as a thespian makes him feel effeminate when he considers the death-defying duties performed by his brother.? McGregor points out his brother is doing a ?manly thing? whereas I wear make-up for a living.?

Legal minds like numbers. They prefer the ?bright line? to the blurry curve. This causes problems in cases where things are hard to define precisely.

Like ?mental retardation.? Last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not execute people who were mentally retarded. The Supremes left it up to states to define mental retardation for themselves, but noted that many mental health experts consider anyone with an IQ of less than 75 to be retarded. Never mind that the IQ test is notoriously subjective in itself, and the same person can achieve wildly different scores on multiple tests.

The state of North Carolina decided to use the number 70 as its magic divider between the killable and the retards. If your IQ is 69, you get to live. If it?s 71, you don?t. The state also chooses to look at factors like ability to function in society. But as some recent questionable cases prove, it?s hard to agree on who is fair game for the state?s axe. Take Travis Walters, who scored as low as 64 in one IQ test and qualified for Social Security payments from the federal government on the grounds that he was mentally disabled. But Walters also held down a job at one point and had a girlfriend. Apparently the ability to date proves that you?re sharp mentally.

The country prosecutor argues that 70 is too high a cutoff number, and Walters did score a 72 on one of his IQ tests. But nobody?s questioning the wisdom of using arbitrary numbers to judge ripeness for slaughter in the first place.