"I've never seen anything like that before, and I've lived in Southern California since I was 11."

"It got really scary really quick."

Mudslides.

"Nearly 200 vehicles, including 75 tractor-trailers, are trapped on California 58 east of Tehachapi in up to 20 feet of mud and debris after torrential rains pummeled the area and forced drivers to flee."

"The yes-means-yes standard turns almost all of us into rapists. We have let the radicals hijack this issue..."

"...with disastrous results for innocent young people." = the highest-rated comment at the NYT article "Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ but It’s Tricky."

The next 3 highest, in order

If we're assuming women are to weak willed or stupid to even say "no" to something they don't want to do, why don't we go full 15th century and require permission from her male relatives and a marriage?

Articles like this make feel good about being 70. Keep 'em coming.

"'Kevin de León, the California State Senate speaker pro tempore and lead sponsor of the high school legislation, said the new law was as much about changing the culture as it was about changing the law.' Changing the culture? This is a law that the California legislature passed and the Governor signed. It is not purely symbolic. Students who find themselves on the wrong side of this law may be expelled from their schools. And California has left it to the students to decipher what the law means because the grown-ups like [Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco,] are unable explain it. Apparently you have to break the law to find out what it means. Talk about unconstitutional vagueness!"

ADDED: The article names a particular teenage boy asking a question — “What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” — and I wonder if he affirmatively consented to having his name associated with that quote in The New York Times. The teacher, who probably consented to having the press in her classroom as she forced this intimate topic on the compulsorily educated students, said: “Pretty much.... It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”

Do you want to risk looking like a dummy in that press-observed classroom by asking what, to me, seem like the obvious questions: Sex has levels? What counts as a level? When does a level begin? Is there always someone who goes to the next level first or is it possible to change levels simultaneously? Can there be 2 new levels coming up at the same time, with one person "initiating things to" new level A while the other person is "initiating things to" new level B?

Actually, now, this has me thinking of a way students could force adults to become more responsible in their sex education behavior. Listen to what the teacher said and ask questions about the meaning of the words. A phrase like "whoever initiates things to another level has to ask" contains material for a hundred questions. Do these teachers really understand what they are saying, as it applies to real human beings, or are they struggling to follow government orders?

By the way, Zaloom is not just another teacher following government orders. As we learn in paragraph 22 of this 30-paragraph article, she "has written a curriculum for affirmative consent programs that is being used throughout the country." I was surprised to see that, because much earlier in the article, she looks like just another teacher trying to follow orders. Paragraph 9 says Zaloom "has taught high school students about sex for two decades, said she was grateful for the new standard, even as she acknowledged the students’ unease."  

Grateful? Is she a receiver of the imposition of the standard or did she... initiate?

"You have to ignore many variables to think women are paid less than men. California is happy to try."

Writes Sarah Ketterer in The Wall Street Journal in "The ‘Wage Gap’ Myth That Won’t Die" (which you can get to without subscribing if you Google some of the text).

 The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) notes that its analysis of wages by gender does “not control for many factors that can be significant in explaining earnings differences.”

What factors?... Men are significantly more likely than women to work longer hours...

Career choice is another factor.... [W]omen flock to college majors that lead to lower-paying careers.... [O]f the 10 highest-paying majors... only one, “pharmacy sciences and administration,” is majority female. Eight of the remaining nine are more than 70% male.

If the pay were equalized, wouldn't that only exaggerate the sex difference in the career choices, with even fewer women motivated to go into computers and science? I doubt if men avoid low-paying majors like "drama and theater arts" and "counseling psychology" only because of the pay. But I'm not stating an opinion about whether it's bad that there are gendered differences in career choices. Maybe that's just fine, and it's a shame that women doing what they like includes lower pay. It's just one of the many factors you have to take into account when you want to do with your life (including whether you want to spend more time with your family). But for those who think there's a problem that there aren't enough women in the STEM fields, removing the economic incentive won't help.