Links, I got links

The No-Fear Option: Just wait 'til your father gets home! "What I wanted to be different about my children’s upbringing was their attitude toward their father: I did not want them to be afraid of me. Looking back, I see that there was something I had overlooked. If I raised children who were not afraid of me, I would have children who were…well, not afraid of me."

Obama's Mixed Heritage: A Mother's Perspective. "It's an interesting historical moment to be a white mother of a Black child, as another white mother's Black child is running for president of the United States. Who'd have thought?"

Sacrifice and the Black Family. "When black families do what white families do instinctively and routinely—somehow, it pisses people right off."

The Push to ‘Otherize’ Obama. "The political campaign to transform Mr. Obama into a Muslim is succeeding. The real loser as that happens isn’t just Mr. Obama, but our entire political process." More wisdom on race and the election: "Barack Obama, John McCain and the Language of Race" and "Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama." (My quick take: Argh!)

Contraception Foes With Friends in High Places. "Claims of equivalency between contraception and abortion have been a long time in the making among contemporary religious right activists. The recent eruption of their claims onto the public stage, helped along by an aggressively anti-choice administration, is the culmination of grassroots work begun in the early 1980s among fundamentalist and evangelical Christian activists, particularly in the homeschooling movement, who developed a pronatalist theological movement that came to be known as the Quiverfull conviction."

More Kathryn Joyce: "This twisting of feminist history and rhetoric to protect a champion of anti-feminist causes, traditionalism and sex-kitten objectification, is particularly unnerving for exactly the reasons that Palin's biggest supporters claim it is: for its elevation of antifeminist 'real women' as icons of rebellion against a supposedly powerful and elite feminist status quo (however depressing it is to begin untangling that premise)."

Another fine selection from our collection of Nixon-era children's books. "Congratulations, Mom, you've now got a pint-sized Doppelgänger of the jerk you married!"

Art of Darkness. "No wonder we crave an entertainment like 'The Dark Knight,' where every topic we’re unable to quit not-thinking about is whirled into a cognitively dissonant milkshake of rage, fear and, finally, absolving confusion... If everything is broken, perhaps it is because for the moment we like it better that way. Unlike some others, I have no theory who Batman is — but the Joker is us."