I just learned the word carnist. It means me. Giving special names to nearly universal attributes is a tactic used by people seeking to undercut the "normal" status of a particular lifestyle; transgender people, to take a similar, not-unrelated example, call straight folk "cisgendered." Because I write and talk so often about meat in such an unreflectively enthusiastic way, vegetarians of the Jonathan Safran Foer–type frequently charge me, and those like me, with being accessory to the ...

One could write a political history of African Americans based on changes in hairstyles, ranging from kinky and short to kinky and long, from greased and "pressed" to straightened, waved or jerry-curled. But it was Madam C.J. Walker, as the historian Rayford W. Logan maintains, who "made straight hair 'good hair,'" and in doing so, made a fortune for herself and a decent standard of living for a work force of "agents" that numbered 20,000 in the U.S. and ...

Jacky talks about killing him, slitting his throat from three till nine and hanging him upside down so the blood drains out of him the way it ran from the baby pigs they used to slaughter in her village before a funeral feast. He deserves it, really, she says, for his freeloading, for his hanging around, for how he just stands there, spindly-legged and narrow-chested and pimple-faced with his big yearning eyes, and just begs for another hit. She has run ...

I enjoy a good royal wedding as much as any other straight guy. It's an amazing alchemy in which two things I already don't care at all about — royalty and weddings — become even less interesting when combined. The only thing worse would be a royal-wedding awards ceremony. We fought a war specifically so I wouldn't have to watch this crap. But since my editor told me not watching it was not an option, I did the ...

What makes people gay? To conservative moralists, homosexuality is a sin, a willful choice of godless evil. To many orthodox behaviorists, homosexuality is a result of a misguided upbringing, a detour from a straight path to marital adulthood; indeed, until 1974 the American Psychiatric Association listed it as a mental disorder. To gays themselves, homosexuality is neither a choice nor a disease but an identity, deeply felt for as far back as their memory can reach. To them, it is ...

Spring may be just around the corner in this poor part of Helsinki known as the Deep East, but the ground is still mostly snow-covered and the air has a dry, cold bite. In a clearing outside the Kallahti Comprehensive School, a handful of 9-year-olds are sitting back-to-back, arranging sticks, pinecones, stones and berries into shapes on the frozen ground. The arrangers will then have to describe these shapes using geometric terms so the kids who can't see them can ...

Grace, Kara and Trichelle were created to fill a void for young black girls who for so long have been playing with dolls that don't look like them. The new black Barbies released by Mattel have fuller lips, curlier hair and other features that the company says more accurately represent African-American women. Some have cheered the new dolls. Others jeered them, saying they're not black enough. "I love the black Barbie. It's about time," Jua Simpson said ...

Qualifying for the 2010 World Cup finals is reaching its climax, with footballing heavyweights such as Argentina and Portugal still battling to be in the hat when the draw is made in Cape Town on December 4. When this round of fixtures are complete, all but nine World Cup teams will be known. Here is the state of play ahead of tonight's matches: South America: In the South American zone all the attention is on whether Diego Maradona's ...

Saturday night President Obama charmingly delivered a rather bleak message to the gay community on the eve of its latest march on Washington. In a speech to the world's largest gay political group, the Human Rights Campaign, Obama essentially said two things: I'm with you. But I can't do much for you. He said the first part with remarkable comfort for a straight man, the kind of effortless understanding that gay people don't always get at home, school or ...

Mexico has qualified for a fifth straight World Cup after beating El Salvador 4-1 in its Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football match.