Reflections, Reflections

A harp seal looks at the remains of other seals during the first day of the annual harp seal hunt on a ice floe in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince Edward Island, Canada Tuesday, March 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Jonathan Hayward, CP)

related news article:
Hunters were expected to kill more than 300,000 seals by May 15, when the federal, three-year plan ends, allowing sealers to harvest a total of 975,000 seals since 2003.

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The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.

Mortimer J. Adler
1902-, American Educator, Philosopher

p.s. Purely by chance I came across this Yahoo News photograph that goes perfectly with this quote.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

Thomas Jefferson

From ABC News:

CSUC officials have confirmed that some members of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity participated in the making of a pornographic movie.

The film was shot in what appears to be the fraternity's living room and featured adult film actresses and fraternity brothers engaging in sexual activities

From the Courier:

"We bring the porn stars and the cameras, and we just film," she said. "We get hundreds of letters every month from college students wanting us to come out to their schools."

Let me see if I understood this right... administration officials, who, like a lot of faculty, are irresponsibly liberal and pro-porn, these major hypocrites are uptight because students have made a porn film? Isn't it the utmost hypocrisy?

So, now, trashy liberals recognize there is something foul in the kingdom of porn when one of their students is engaged in it, but not if some otherwise anonymous offscouring of society is?

Every single liberal official is reaping what they have so eagerly sowed.

CSUC once was ranked by Playboy magazine as the top US party school.

I wonder what the results would be if we did a study asking faculty and administrators what their attitudes regarding porn are. Then we could ask all the ones that are pro-porn if they would have any objections to their students making porn. If there were any conflicts in these two positions, it would be so nice to investigate the perfumed reason for the contradiction.

Related posts: Hitler quotes; The Liberal Pig Larry Flynt May Be Finally Leaving! Thanks to Bush; PC Homo Hate-Speech Wars - This Time in Australia; Large cable firm stops offering hard-core pay-to-view pornography; Glorifying Rape - new Deep Throat movie; Clinton Style Schools - Where Cheap Is Exotic; Liberals Have Won the Cultural Wars; One Axis of the Culture Wars; Consequences of Losing the Culture War.

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update March 31, 2005:
John left a comment:

Many people on the left are very anti-porn because they believe it to be a degradation of women. It is a gross over simplification to say that all the left is for porn. Just as it is to say that all the right is against it. I'd bet that the business men who rent porn in hotel rooms all around the country are overwhelmingly Republican.
John

"Many people on the left are very anti-porn because they believe it to be a degradation of women."

Which goes to show just how stupid the left is, because in a case like this, if it were a bunch of male homos doing the porn and no women were involved, then the left would have nothing to object to according to your statement.

" It is a gross over simplification to say that all the left is for porn. Just as it is to say that all the right is against it. "

These 2 statements are not equal: #1 "All liberals are pro-porn" #2 "Liberals are pro-porn." A generalization is not a hard number, a precise statistical quantity, nor is it equal to 100%. To say "liberals are pro-porn" means there is a significant number of liberals who are pro-porn, it does not necessarily mean every single liberal is pro-porn. It also means that the set of political and social positions ascribed by liberalism endorses porn. I didn't say all the left was pro-porn. I also think there is a difference between liberals and the left. "Liberals" encompasses a larger, more diffused group. But even regarding the left, I don't think most leftists are anti-porn as well; a minority, yes.

There are many Republicans that are liberal, that is, they are liberal in personal/social matters and conservative in economic/nationalism matters. I certainly agree that we find a good deal of Republicans and self-entitled conservatives mixed in the production system and consumption of porn.

The fact here is that CSUC is not a bastion of conservatism, but a typical liberal university.

Related blog entry from Matt Lavine: porn+big biz+politicians.

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Mike started his comment like this:

You're dumb. You claim CSUC faculty are liberal because of a national study done on ALL universities nation wide. Well, if you check out several other national studies, you'll find the reason why college professors lean to the left is because studies show the more educated you are, the more likely you will be open to new ideas and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others. (aka...being liberal).

Obviously, Mike is a liberal. How can we tell? He starts his comment not with intelligence, but with name calling and insult. This is just how immensely intelligent liberals are. He then goes on to say:

"you'll find the reason why college professors lean to the left is because studies show the more educated you are, the more likely you will be open to new ideas and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others."

Obviously, either Mike is not very educated or he is not very open to new ideas and tolerant of ideas of others. Or maybe, being nothing more than a container of liberal idiocy, Mike thinks that name calling is tolerance, violence is peace, and being obnoxious is an ability to reason in a debate.

Apparently, he could take over any faculty position at CSUC immediately and no one would notice the difference.

"So let me see if I understand YOU right..."

You haven't. He continues:

if university officials did nothing you would roll your eyes and call them "too liberal" to do anything (or as you put it "pro-porn") but now that they are taking a right wing moral stance on it, you are calling them hypocrites?
What IS IT that you want from them?"

They are taking this moral "anti-porn" stance in what context exactly?

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For any newcomers, read this before leaving a comment:
Liberals and Verbal Aggression - Rules for Comments

Related entry:
The Intolerance of Tolerance by Gregory Koukl
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From ABC News:

A former Boy Scouts of America official has been charged with possession and distribution of child pornography. [...]

Smith, 61, was also chairman of the Scout's Youth Protection League — alerting scout leaders to the dangers of predators on the Internet, ABC News has learned.
[...]

"There's no typology for the child pornographer," said John Clark, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "And that's part of the problem we have in law enforcement. They run the gamut of persons, doctors, lawyers, teachers, priests, clergymen of all sorts."

"You're going to find people who are accessing pornography from every segment of our society, which means we need to do a better job of protecting our kids and make no assumptions about where our kids might be safe," said Shay Bilchik, president and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America.

Smith is expected to appear in federal court Wednesday. Prosecutors say they expect him to plead guilty.

If he is convicted, will he get more than a slap on the wrist? Does society care at all?


Related posts: Death for Child Rape; where´s the government on child porn?; the ACLU and NAMBLA again; 8 members of NAMBLA arrested; Paedophile Internet crimes up 307% in two years in the UK and the Horrible Abuse Case Trial Begins in France.
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This is my version of this photo. 

You may be interested in reading about the female Last Supper ad controversy, which relates to this post in many ways. This case has a significant difference, it does not involve advertising and its magnificent objectives of stuffing jeans down people's throats by tawdrily manipulating their emotional needs.

As Paul from Off the Beaten Track posted:

On Good Friday, after night has fallen on the medieval Umbrian town of Alviano, the crowds flock to the annual spellbinding re-enactment of the Passion of Christ.

But this year's performance has caused controversy - in the depiction of the crucifixion the part of Christ on the cross is to be played by a woman. As The Telegraph reports, the decision to cast a female in the role has been welcomed by the younger members of the town, who see it as representing the universality of Christ's message.

I think the decision to cast a woman as Christ on the cross is admirable, and certainly brave in Italy - the centre of the Roman Catholicism. I hope it introduces a fresh perspective on the traditional Passion story, and prompts those watching to think a little about their faith...

Quote from the Telegraph:

Last week, the mayor, Nazario Sauro Santi, urged Mr Sorbara to "display some humility", arguing that the image of Christ that local people were used to was the "one taught by the Church fathers".

Mr Sorbara remained unmoved by what he called the "dictates of people with a different vision of Christ. The Bible says, 'In Christ, there is no male or female' ," he said.

Mr Sorbara has agreed to attend a meeting in the town hall this week to take part in a "civil discussion", though the event promises to be stormy.

Mr Sorbara, who describes himself as a fervent Catholic, said that he had not meant his casting to be provocative, but had merely been following the scriptures.

The power of a symbol, eh?

I will start by saying that I think the proposal to have a civil discussion is an interesting sign, the desire and attempt at dialogue even when positions are entirely diametrical and feelings are intense is reasonably rare in our world.

I found an article that quotes Mr. Sorbara, and it seems he put in a lot of thought to the matter and why he has chosen to partially represent Christ as a woman. He does has some beautiful thoughts on the matter.

"The dignity of the woman is the purposeful expression of God which she has inherited from her creator," he said. From the Italian article:

Non scambio una figura maschile con una femminile. Non scambio Cristo con una donna», ha spiegato Sorbara all' Ansa. «È solo che trovo nella divinità, proprio nel simbolo della Croce, anche l' altro volto di Cristo, cioè quello femminile, quella parte di creature che formano l' umanità. Tanto più che la Chiesa può annoverare delle martiri che hanno dato la loro vita per la croce, come la grandissima filosofa del '900 suor Teresa Benedetta della croce, al secolo Edith Stein, che nel suo testamento spirituale scrive che chi vuole seguire Cristo non può non accettare la crocifissione, la sofferenza e la morte». Nessuna provocazione, quindi, per il regista, che non pensa, inoltre a reconditi significati politici: «Non c' è una motivazione politica dietro alla mia scelta - ha detto - nel senso di volere riscattare la dignità della donna. Perchè secondo me la donna non ha bisogno di riscattare ciò che qualcuno le ha dato e cioè la pari dignità con l' uomo». Piuttosto, a convincerlo, sono stati alcuni passi della Bibbia, come quello in cui si dice: «Non ci sono nel regno di Dio nè giudei nè greci, nè schiavi nè schiave, nè maschi e nè femmine»

My objection is that so many disgusting people have arrogated the function of being spokespersons for women's dignity for ages.

Who is qualified to talk about women's dignity without becoming a hypocrite? Is this Mr. Sorbara against exploiting women through prostitution systems? Is he against demeaning women through pornography? Has he done any theater work dealing with violence against women in Italy? Has he objected to how women are sexually objectified in Italian fashion, cinema, media, theater? Who is he and what values does he have to talk about women's dignity? Is he dignified enough to represent my dignity?

I would not be surprised if the town's young people are in various ways just as hypocritical and demeaning to women's dignity, at the same time that they clamor for a female Christ.

I also think religious symbols are complicated things to mess with. It's not that I would oppose all representations of Christ as female, but depending on how this representation is carried out and the context it is carried out in, it becomes nothing more than the debased Girbaud version of women's lib, a dictatorship of greedy, stupid, disrespectful, frivolous, irresponsible trash of women (and men) making grand speeches about women's "rights and freedoms," and now, dignity.

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A recent "Last Supper" advertisement was ordered to be taken down in Italy and France, since it was ruled it was a gratuitous offense to Christians. (see recent long post on this controversy). I just found out that about five centuries ago, Veronese also incurred the ire of the Inquisition because of his choice of mixing religious and profane elements in his gorgeous, enormous version of the Last Supper. His solution to the threats and charges from the Inquisition is quite entertaining, although I'm sure the Inquisition was not at all amused:

From the International Herald:

"The Last Supper" (now at the Accademia, Venice) Dimensions : Hauteur 555 * Largeur 1310 cm

[...] in the case of "The Last Supper" for the refectory of the SS Giovanni e Paolo monastery in Venice, Veronese's tumultuous mélange of classical and Christian, religious and profane, had apparently gone too far. In July 1573, he was arraigned before the Inquisition and cross-questioned as to the significance of the details of the picture's contents. In his replies, Veronese bravely defended the right of painters "like poets and madmen" to follow their own invention.

The inquisitors remained unsatisfied, and ordered him to remove from the canvas "the buffoons, drunkards, German soldiers, dwarfs and other such absurdities." He afterwards responded merely by changing the name of the painting to "Feast at the House of Levi." The inquisition was unusually weak in Venice, and kept that way by the Venetian state to minimize external, especially papal, interference. In another place, Veronese's impertinent response could have cost him his liberty, if not his life.

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From the site below 

Not to mention that this has to be a winner of history's " most ridiculous hairdo" prizes.

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This is a website (Realm of Venus) that functions like a small museum or encyclopedia of women's clothes and accessories in 16th century Venice. It is so interesting.

Lots of information and lots of details of paintings and drawings illustrating the various topics.

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Besides offering:

The ImageBase is a searchable image and text database of objects from the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor).

The collections (110,000+ objects) belong to the people of the City and County of San Francicso. The ImageBase is an expression of the Museum's mission to provide meaningful public access to the collections and behave more like a resource and less like a repository.

the San Francisco Museum allows you to do this:

Create your own gallery and share it with others.

Be your own curator as you select from the 82,000 works of art from our permanent collection to include in your very own virtual gallery or browse through the galleries created by others.

Once you have completed your virtual gallery, you can have an opening and invite your friends and colleagues to view your selections.

Lovely! What a fantastic idea using digital communications.

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I have not yet seen a single example where some blogger invited someone to post while they were away traveling that worked.

Why do bloggers think they must have something being churned out on their blogs 24/7 or no one will ever come back after they return from traveling is not something I can comprehend. I am not dying to read just anything. One blogger is not equal to another. If I like a blog, it's because of very specific characteristics of that particular person/author. It seems all these bloggers who bring in "fillers" think of their blogs as sausages. Just stuff it with posts while they are away and no one will notice that the substitute people can't write in the least like the original.

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Oooh! Hockey has been relegated to a second place as a national sport in Quebec! Which sport, bringing magnificent health and emotional benefits, has taken over? The answer here:

Le lock-out dans la Ligue Nationale de Hockey aidant, le sport national des Québécois n'est plus le hockey. Non.

A delightful post from Le caméléon nordique (in French)

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You want to know what I think? There are thousands of kids that are being victimized like Weise, that are profoundly hurt on a daily basis by adults and peers, and no one cares about them in the least.

In the past, society was so comfortable in just letting these kids be tortured alone or be driven to suicide. Now, since a few of them are turning their anger against other kids (and adults), the kind of people that others care about, education folks are starting to take action to help the distressed kid before he commits a crime against others. In a way that society hates to face, these shooting rampage kids are the ones putting pressure on society to be less brutal to so many very abandoned kids. What is sad is that society would have never taken some of these preventive actions and measures if it hadn't been pressured by the abandoned kids committing crimes against others.

Indeed, the reports that have emerged contain the same almost cliched "clues" associated with previous school shootings - the loner who was teased by other pupils, the dark trench coat, the love of the music of Marilyn Manson, the apparent fascination with Nazism and Adolf Hitler, the sense of utter disconnection.

and

At the time of the shooting, Weise had been barred from the 350-student high school for an unspecified violation. As part of the school's Homebound program, Weise was being tutored at home by a traveling teacher. When he had attended the school, Weise was taunted regularly, students said. Weise's father committed suicide about four years ago, and his mother is in a nursing home after suffering a brain injury in an auto accident.

"the loner who was teased by other pupils," - no friends? no support? no constructive interactions? the type of kid for whom school is hell? how mean were other kids (and adults) to Weise?

"Weise's father committed suicide about four years ago, and his mother is in a nursing home after suffering a brain injury in an auto accident." why the suicide? how long has he not had a mother? a history of a dysfunctional, violent home? was there abuse in this kid's life?

I'm just going out on a limb here, but one possible frame is a kid who was enormously hurt; powerless against being continuously hurt; builds up an immense reservoir of anger and frustration; one day, he expresses it with more than Mason songs and neonazis slogans.

There could be other scenarios too. The Mason songs and the neonazi stuff are things that express so much anger. What was Weise so angry about? Was he seeking a sense of power in a scenario where he felt/was powerless?

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Update:

(I have to add I didn't read more than 3-4 articles regarding this case).

Jema at Number 2 Pencil asks?

Is there something ironic about a shooter wearing a bulletproof vest, then shooting himself? Seems a bit strange to me.

the Independent reported:

Officials said, by that stage, local police officers had arrived at the school and became involved in a gunfight with Weise in one of the hallways. The teenage gunman then retreated to the classroom where he had killed his victims. It was there that he was later found dead. An FBI spokesman, Paul McCabe, said a preliminary investigation showed that Weise had killed himself.

The position of the bullet(s) that killed Weise would tell us a lot about how true is this official version of events. Was Weise killed by many bullets or just one? Was the bullet in the middle of his forehead or on the side? Bullet to his heart? Stomach?

No one seemed to care about this boy while he was alive, apparently nothing has changed now.

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update March 24-2005:

A good post on this case by Extension 54: " Feeling Minnesota?"

This is not TV, videogames, comic books, music, the internet, movies, or even (I hate to admit) our lax Minnesota gun laws that allow any idiot to conceal and carry. This is not goth. This is not even (again, I hate to admit) neo-Nazi.

It IS all of the above causing us to be numb, desensitized. It is public schools of ignorance. It is no child left behind. It is our culture of cruelty. It is mental health for profit.

[...]

It is about a boy who killed 9 people, then himself. Who fantasized about it for a long time. Who thought a lot about God and the Devil and racial purity and hatred. Who hated himself, I think.

[...]

The papers shall dine upon this for a while like a fine dessert. It's gotten our minds off of the tsunami relief effort, at least. "The what, now?" Good... very good... that's right....... Just sit back, watch the pretty colors, and come up to Minnesota, where it's always colder than Florida.


[more...]

One of the reasons I am put off to read more news about a case like this is the parasitical way the media vultures descend on such tragedies just makes me sick.

Then politicians and society seem to love to turn it into a huge post-tragedy circus, full of sacharine speeches, "blame anyone else but me/us" theories, and neither last, nor least, we have the "bring in the grief counselors" act. The latter I saw as a blog post title at "Kangaroo Court" that reflects this criticism too.

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If you could come back reincarnated as a music composer, living or past, who would you pick, to actually be him or her? (not referring to real biographical details, but type of music)

I am torn between Beethoven and Puccini.

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From Telendro, referral to e-consultancy's Internet stats report:

• In the summer of 2003, there were 580 million internet users worldwide.
• [Nielsen//NetRatings, HomeWork Panel, 2003]

• In 2004 the forecasted number of internet users globally was set to surpass 934.5 million. [eTForecasts, Sept 2004]

o The top 15 countries alone will account for 70.88% of these internet users.

o Forecast total internet users for end of 2004:
• US: 185,550,000 (19.86% share)
• China: 99,800,000 (10.68%)
• Japan: 78,050,000 (8.35%)
• Germany: 41,880,000 (4.48%)
• India: 36,970,000 (3.96%)
• UK: 33,110,000 (3.54%)

• There will be 1.07 billion internet users globally by 2005, 1.21 billion by 2006 and 1.35 billion by 2007. [eTForecasts, Sept 2004]


Número de usuarios activos de internet en el hogar:
(estadística de 12 países realizada por Nielsen en Septiembre del 2004)

o EEUU: 135.4 millones
o Japón: 36.3 millones
o Alemania: 30.1 millones
o Gran Bretaña: 22.5 millones
o Italia: 16.6 millones
o Francia: 15.2 millones
o Brasil: 12.0 millones
o Australia: 8.9 millones
o España: 8.5 millones
o Suecia: 4.6 millones
o Suiza: 3.2 millones
o Hong Kong: 2.5 millones

[TNS Intersearch, 2004]

I don't know if this was taken in a real game, but whether it's fake or not, it's still funny. 


From futuremd blog.

Sweet.

This is exactly what our professor tried teaching us today:

Who says 2 is just 2, right? Wrong. My experience with 2 is not necessarily yours, and so your 2 may be greater than my 2, specially because in this strict two-normative world, larger-value twos are oppressed by the hegemonic concept of just plain two. The most profound contribution of liberals' critique of semioticist postcapitalist two theory is the difference between society and reality.

We know real 2 is unattainable; however, it is not so much the reality of 2 that is unattainable, but rather the collapse, and some would say the meaninglessness, of this 2. We simply can't know anything about 2. 2 is contextualised into a neotextual semanticist frame that includes truth as a totality. But Derrida brilliantly and astutely uses the term 'the subdialectic paradigm of logic' to denote the sameness between 2 and other-twoness. Swinish multitudes and other rabble who cannot experience the alterity of 2, and to comprehend that 2 is NOT 2, are still locked into that doltish irrationality of a deplorable neostructuralist religious nihilism. A similar example can be found with what the meaning of "is" is, heavily discussed in the media by another great liberal philosopher a few years ago.

For example, nowhere in the Bible does it say that two was meant to be simply two. Where it said 2 was 1+1, as when Noah joined and took two of each animals, one male, one female, it could have been 1 or 3 or even 4 sexes, in extremely large 2 cases. Similarly, some twos are dazed and confused, they don't know if they are ones or threes, and to try to help them sort it out is just unethical. To be dazed and confused is to know. The confused subject should not be interpolated into a textual paradigm of reality that includes meaning as a profound component of reality. That would be absurd, it would be like saying 2 equals 2, when we all know 2 does not equal 2 (usually). Thanks to several recent philosophical breakthroughs, we can simultaneously attain absolute truth and relative meaninglessness in post-modernity.

We now know that for a large 2, 2+2 equals more than 4 but not exactly 5. 2+2 only equals 5 for extremely large values of 2, you see. It's therefore wrong to impose your twos on other twos, since postmodernism wisely proved that all values for two are valid, that's what differentiates 2 from from 3 because for large values of 2, 2 is 3. This is the only reality. Additionally, if you don't believe 2+2=5, you're just a stupid, hate-filled bigot, that's why we will make you believe 2+2 is not 4. And until we have every teacher in every state teaching each child that 2+2=5, there'll be no freedom.

What was our teacher's name? Prof. Winston.



(I wrote the above with a little vocab inspiration from this. Saw the t-shirt at Ace´s blog. If you had trouble reading the finer print on the t-shirt, it says, "2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2". I have 2 (yes, two!) idiots as professors who teach the above.)

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update March 22-2005

Jack, ahem Dr. Perry, who is a mathematician, commented:

I quit reading very quickly.

I thought for a second: what about different groups? This has to deal with advanced mathematics; in some "groups" 2+2 is usually written 0 or 1. That doesn't mean that 2+2 doesn't equal 4; it just means that we write it differently based on equivalence classes. This is actually a useful tool for lots of things; for example, it's how the credit card companies make sure a number doesn't get mixed up in transmission (for example). If you think of clock arithmetic (11+1=0) it might make sense.

Even with that, however, I can't think of a situation where 2+2=5.
jack perry

What?! You still haven't learned that 2+2=5?

I think I'll have to write your PhD committee and say you shouldn't have passed your defense :-) Your problem is that you are using logic and mathematics to look at the 2+2=5 statement. tsk, tsk.

The day liberal social science professors take over your department and your field, 2 will be any thing they wish it to be, that is, whatever meaning they assign it to feel better about their own hang-ups. This is what constitutes the absolute truth for liberals. Your job is just to nod and say, "Everything is relative except for the fact of how right you are, that is not relative. They wouldn't hire an idiot to teach us, would they?"

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Look what I found! Apparently Cézanne had painted a Phillip II portrait inspired by Anguissola's original.


Just kidding, actually I was playing around with Photoshop. But see what I mean with my comment that these cleaner 16th century portraits are like seeds of the 20th century modern style? 

Here's a real Cézanne:

Clayton Cramer nails it: "Every Disease or Perversion Needs An Advocacy Group."

And now, apparently, it is anorexia nervosa, quote from Newshouse News Service :

Theirs is a militant battle of the bulge waged with "thinspiration" photos of waiflike actors and models, extreme diet and exercise advice, fasting tips and contests, diet pill and purging information and discussion forums.

With names like "Anorexic Nation," "Art of Reduction," "Skinny WannaBe," "Totally in Control," "Starving for Perfection," "Pro Choice," "Ana by Choice" and "The Mirror Never Lies," some solicit money and names for petitions to fight any legal attempts to take them down. Others strive to double the number of anorexics, and some want to start radio and television shows devoted to their point of view.

Clayton adds, "I had trouble finding some of these sites still operational--I presume because their HTML got smaller and smaller, until they simply disappeared--but I guess I am not surprised. In a world where there is no right or wrong, it is very easy for those who are starving themselves to death to adopt the same rhetoric of victimization and empowerment that worked for homosexuals, and is beginning to work for pedophiles."

Striking quotes from the article:

"Women (generally) evaluate themselves by their bodies, and are evaluated by their bodies," Athas added. "This helps lead to the deadly illness."

With names like "Anorexic Nation," "Art of Reduction," "Skinny WannaBe," "Totally in Control," "Starving for Perfection," "Pro Choice," "Ana by Choice" and "The Mirror Never Lies," some solicit money and names for petitions to fight any legal attempts to take them down. Others strive to double the number of anorexics, and some want to start radio and television shows devoted to their point of view.

"Anorexic Nation" is just amazing. Were they inspired by Queer Nation slogans? If so, one more way homos (and pro-homos) have brought destruction to mental health in society. Pro-homos' obsessive political propaganda to legitimize every dysfunctional sexual aspect of homos is truly apprehended as an example by every other mental dysfunctionals to adopt their "We don't have any problems" mindset, raise their banners and start "organizing." I am sure that the more fanatical these anorexic activists are, the more they will insist that their dysfunction is a "human right," a question of freedom. I am surprised they haven't come up with the "Anorexic Human Rights Campaign" lobbying group.

Related entries: debate on clothes and oppression of women; 8 million people with eating disorders;

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While reading about Phillip II, of Spain, I came across this guy, who certainly had a life full of intrigue...

Pérez, Antonio , b. 1534 or 1539, d. 1611, Spanish politician. Ambitious and unscrupulous, he became secretary to King Philip II and was, with the princesa de Éboli, a center of court intrigues. In 1578, Juan de Escobedo, secretary to Don John of Austria, then governor of the Netherlands, was assassinated, and the following year Pérez was arrested for the murder. What actually happened is a matter of historical speculation, but the most probable train of events is that Perez instigated the murder after Escobedo threatened to reveal Pérez's political intrigues (possibly the fact that he was negotiating with the Dutch rebels) to the king. The suspicious Philip was probably told by Pérez that Escobedo was plotting treason, and the king almost certainly approved the murder. Pérez was prosecuted on various charges until in 1590 he fled to Zaragoza, where he placed himself in the hands of the top authority of his native Aragón, the justiciero. He then openly accused Philip of having ordered Escobedo's murder. The king contested the right of the justiciero to protect him and ordered the Inquisition to claim jurisdiction, accusing Pérez of heresy. The case became a struggle between Philip and the people of Aragón, who, jealous of their privileges, sided with Pérez and revolted; the rising was ruthlessly suppressed (1591). Pérez fled (1591) to France and later England.

And, while doing a search on Perez, I came across this by total coincidence. But the subject of this book looks very interesting as well.

The Subversive Tradition in Spanish Renaissance Writing
by Antonio Pérez-Romero

This book samples a cross-section of literature from the Spanish Renaissance, and discovers a surprising flavor of ferment, discontent, and subversion often masked by the pervasive perfumes of stability—church, state, and wealth. This slice of time includes writings from the battlefield, the village square, and the intellectual’s ivory tower. It features eye-witness observations of an uprising against the feudal establishment (De Motu Hispaniae), an outrageously vulgar send-up of institutionalized virtue (Carajicomedia), a biting and astute satire of religious and political more by a leading Erasmian reformer (Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón), the prototype picaresque novel (Lazarillo de Tormes), bitter tales of women’s struggle for freedom and fulfillment (La Celestina, La historia de Grisel y Mirabella), and a surprising feminist treatise on the overall superiority of women (Triunfo de las donas).

The portrait below is so different than almost everything else Tiziano (Titian) painted, it looks like what another painter would have painted. I like this one much better in any case.

I love the pose, it's a sideways profile, but then it seems like it isn't, because of the protruding bent arm and the slight turn of the head. I love the enormous quilted sleeve, but most of all, his look. To me, the man's look is unfriendly, measuring, to the point of being censuring, and he displays a certain antipathy towards the viewer. Then I look at it again and it seems the man in the painting has moved. He is now looking at me in a different way, more forlorn. I wonder what the real man thought of how he was portrayed.


Portrait of a Man
Titian

...the people with the most grotesque aesthetic sense in the history of humankind?

Have mercy, we are not blind...

A cultural dictatorship of the mediocre, the crude, and the ugly is a cruel thing.

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Look at the bottom half of this painting... wouldn't you swear it's circa 1910, 1920?



(larger pic here)

It isn't, it's from one of the most splendorous centuries in art, the 16th, of course.

If you couldn't tell, I was looking at artwork yesterday. :-)

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While looking for Anguissola's online paintings, I came across something from Veronese... I don't like his paintings too much, but I simply adore some of his frescoes... I have seen a magnificent one in Paris, but I don't think it's online.

'

Explanation of what the difficult fresco technique entails (in Spanish)

Nice biographical essay on Veronese by the Herald Tribune.

Although I had seen some of her paintings or read about her, I had never taken a closer look at several of her works. I really like her paintings, specially the ones like this one. They are somewhat clean, note the little bit of light at the left corner, the touch of red further below, and that's it. If it weren't for the very realistic details of the figure, we'd have a precursor to clean, stylized portraiture of the early 20th century.


Portrait of Philip II
1573

(I can think of prettier names to give to a little girl than Sofonisba :-)
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Impensável (in Portuguese)

Le coeur dans la main, Le goût du malheur (da suite para piano de Poulenc) e, quando a tarde caía, verde e dourada, Bach. O livro era o de ontem à tarde mas, já no seu lugar, relembreio-o, um modo de folhear. Esgotei nestas lentidões a irritação pelas obras no supermercado tornado, por via delas, terra ignota (e por isso, inóspita).

What a lovely thing that the blog revolution brings us. From invisible, hidden corners of the Earth, people who you would have never read otherwise, but who you would have missed nevertheless, had you lived in a technologically unconnected world.

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1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. Moreover, they do find the NYT crossword puzzles a bit strenuous, so they prefer USA Today's daily trivia questions.

5. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

6. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country ... or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for, unless the country will now sponsor free, public saunas.

Selected/revised version of original at Oxblog:

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We know where half of the future WB budget will end up now. Corrupt third world dictators will not allow it, to be robbed by Wolfowitz of WB funds like this, in clear daylight.

Oh, what am I suggesting, I was delirious there for a second. The man does have a plan to eradicate poverty, and it's a very good one too. I can't understand why no one has thought of it before. It has been perfectly explained by the delightful Scrappleface news service:

Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy defense secretary nominated by President George Bush to head the World Bank, said today that his number one goal in his new role will be to install an automated teller machine (ATM) within five miles of every poor person in each developing country.

[more...]

Patrick Watt, policy officer at British charity Action Aid, slammed Mr. Bush's nominee, telling the Associated Press yesterday that Mr. Wolfowitz is not "pro-poor" and that the ATM plan would never work because many of the nations that receive World Bank money live under corrupt, totalitarian or socialist governments whose officials would find ways to channel the money toward their own personal enrichment.

Mr. Wolfowitz simply said, "Mr. Watt is right. I'm staunchly anti-poor. So are most poor people."

He added that his "plan B" is to fly airplanes over poor countries and drop $9 billion per year from the sky, "thereby increasing the chance that the funds will achieve their purpose."

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Updated 10 times (last update March 26):

Offensive Last Supper Ad Banned by Churches in France - CSM





The juxtaposition of these two images is such a nice visual symbol of some aspects of our values/religious wars, although the modern "Supper" is a rather tame representation of our materialistic, violent liberalism. (You can see a bigger version here, although the blogger is too braindead to ask anything other than "what´s the problem?" and call the people who took action against the ad as "moralisateurs")

What is annoying is all the publicity Girbaud (the clothes designer) is getting through religious offense. But if you look at how ugly the clothes from their last fashion show were, you understand why they needed to employ such a cheap shot tactic, otherwise who would care to deign attention to attire so pathetically ugly?

WE'RE INNOCENT LAMBS
More info on who produced it:

Bien involontairement, semble-t-il, Gérard Dupuy, dans Libération, met en évidence ce hiatus, mais aussi le niveau (moral, spirituel…, qualifions-le comme on l'entend) des enjeux d'un tel référé : Le directeur de l'agence de publicité s'étonne en conséquence [de l'interdiction d'affichage], car il n'avait pas pensé que sa création pouvait être blasphématoire.

I don't believe it, I think he's trying to push an attitude that says, "What is the big deal? I'm so innocent in how I think, how could anyone see any malice in anything?" It's interesting that I do know a lot of liberals that are truly that clueless and do not understand the concept of blasphemy or offense (directed at other than their favorite pet groups). There are many others who think the world should revolve around their navels: "I don't care to see any problems with this ad because I don't respect another religion, therefore there aren't any problems at all." Several blogs repeat this views. One put the question in this manner, "There is nothing obscene or pornographic with the photograph, I am not shocked, therefore there is nothing to complain about." (see more on this further below). Here's just two of many such blog examples. Anyways, I doubt this ad agency director and the designer executives are little rebelling teenagers or Woodstock clouded-head hippie types. Not so fast with the "I'm so naive" posture. Or with the "I'm blind, so there is nothing to see" one.

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THE JUDGE'S RULING
From Christianity Today:

Judge Jean-Claude Magendie ruled yesterday that display of the ad posters in public was "a gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs", quoted by the Australian newspaper.

"The offence done to Catholics far outweighs the desired commercial goal,"

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LIBERAL ART (AND WHY THE MAN IN THE PHOTO?)
The insertion of the half naked guy in the photo is quite interesting too. I wonder if it's supposed to have a particular message or meaning or if it´s just a result of a whim. Or is Marithe Girbaud a homo, that's why she put a man on "Judas?" Or does she think that she is going to solve a hazardous patriarchal society by reversing the coin to a detrimental matriarchy?

(update) I found what seems to be a very plausible explanation to the above:

Dans la cène de Leonard de Vinci, le personnage assis à la droite de Jesus est il une femme, la question se pose depuis longtemps.
J'imagine que c'est pour cette raison que dans la pub on peut légitimement se demandé si le personnage de dos, torse nu, à la droite du personnage feminin central ne serait pas, de même un homme.

From The Guardian:

"One of the women apostles is kissing the naked torso of a man, which just makes the imitation more offensive. As does the use of Christian symbols like the dove, the chalice and the position of the fingers of the female Christ."

The company says the image is not offensive but a tribute to women. It was inspired by Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code, which suggests that the figure of John in Da Vinci's masterpiece is actually Mary Magdalen in disguise.

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You can see clearly in the bigger photo (not on my blog) that the woman is not kissing the man, I wonder why the Guardian reporter wrote that. You can also see just how low his jeans are.

The whole face and body language of the young woman is strikingly Jesus-like. Contrary to many of the other models, her attire is not sexy, nor corporate, nor edgy, although not the most modest either. But there is a certain purity that she expresses, an evangelical benevolence (the gesture of her hands greatly enhances this message). This is all in opposition to the clothes I saw in the designer's last show, which are ugly, aggressive, debauched, and sexually objectify women's bodies. What irony, eh? The model's feet also reminded me of Jesus' crossed feet nailed at the cross. Many of the faces with the respective hairstyles do come across with that very poignant Renascence feel. If the women chosen had not been vassals of our gaunt and anoxeric dictatorship, they would have been even more resembling of centuries past and how grandly the Renascence evoked drama in painting. Not that da Vinci is particularly a major representative of what I speak of (Michelangelo is more expressive and several painters leading into the 19th century as well). Also, the erasure of where they are all sitting did add a metaphysical feeling to the photograph. I do like that only "Judas" is looking directly at the audience in the photograph. The way the model is looking seems to say to me, "Are you catching on to what advertising tactics we are employing here?" So, as problematic as the Catholic Church was at da Vinci's time, at least da Vinci had grand themes to work on with his artistry. Now, our current liberal compendium of trash artists use their artistic visual communication talent to stuff jeans down people´s throats. Can liberals become more mediocre? Is it humanly possible?

update March 20-2005

This is smart. From Bloguedu:

Aussi, je voulais apporter une touche personnelle, n'ayant aucune envie de me soumettre aux délires de quelque religion que ce soit et pas plus à ceux de la pub qui a atteint, en quelques décennies, une capacité de manipulation et une connaissance de la psychologie humaine incomparables. La pub est-elle une religion ? Bon, ce n'est pas le sujet, elle entraîne aussi une forme de soumission et c'est bien suffisant pour s'inquiéter des conséquences.
Donc un petit clin d'oeil à NPNS. Soumis à rien si possible, lucides autant que possible.

(end of March 20 update)

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Update March 26:

Another Blasphemy Controversy Breaks Out - Jesus as a Woman in Italian Re-enactment of the Passion of Christ

See full entry here.


(end of March 26 update)

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A SHORT DEBATE ON OFFENCE AND RESPECT - update mar 17-2005

A rejoinder from La boite a images:

critiquer les créations vestimentaires de M. et F. Girbaud ou dénoncer le mercantilisme qui les anime n'a rien à voir avec le sujet concernant le caractère éventuellement blasphématoire de cette publicité.

**éventuellment** blasphématoire?

La question est qui defini le respect? C'est une personne qui n'a pas le respect? Pour quoi c'est votre conception de traitement sans respect pour des autres personnes et ses religions qui doit être la loi et la règle dans le monde?

Par example, aux Etats Unis, les Indiens ont déposé une action en justice contre un équipe du sports, parce qu'ils utilisent l'image d'un indien comme mascotte et les Indiens disent que cela met leur image dune façon qui n'a pas de respect. C'est la même chose.

The question is: who defines what is respect? Is it someone who does not have respect? Why should you, someone who does not have respect for other people and their religions, be the person who defines the law and the rules in society?
For example, in the US, an Indian nation has sued a sports team who uses an Indian image as a mascot. The Indian nation says that's a way to use their image to demean them. It's the same thing.

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This is the problem with "political correctness," liberals want to apply it only to certain groups or values (and the respective speech that refers to them). Who has the right to offend and for what reason is the question at hand. And from the only news bit on the reasoning of the judge, it does give me the impression that's exactly what he considered:

"The offence done to Catholics far outweighs the desired commercial goal,"

This judge does not seem like one who would outright ban any speech that offends a religion, but he weighed the objective and context of the offense.

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Zorglubs adds:

Le "respect" ressemble ici fort à un alibi que se donnent certains responsables religieux, ici des catholiques mais ce n'est pas mieux ailleurs, pour interdire que l'on tienne un autre discours que le leur sur des sujets, qu'ils se sont appropriés. En d'autres termes, le respect est ici un joli mot pour ce qu'en d'autres contextes, on dénommerait de la censure.

Le respect véritable consiste à considérer que l'autre est mon égal et que je dois accorder la même valeur à ses avis, décisions, actes... que celle que j'accorde à mes propres avis, décisions, actes... Ainsi, le droit qu'un responsable religieux s'accorde à discourir sur certains sujets, à condamner comme hérétiques certains avis ou certaines représentations, il doit me l'accorder aussi, au moins dans un Etat laïque et républicain.
Hugh j'ai dit.

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Si les personnes ne sont pas égales, pour quoi insister qu'il n'y a pas de différence? Vous n'êtes pas égale a moi, vous n'êtes pas moi. Votre valeurs ne sont pas les miens. Vous n'êtes pas d'accord avec mes valeurs, mes idées. C'est une illusion que toute est la même chose. La différence, pas l'égalité, c'est la réalité.

[Le "respect" ressemble ici fort à un alibi que se donnent certains responsables religieux, ici des catholiques mais ce n'est pas mieux ailleurs, pour interdire que l'on tienne un autre discours que le leur sur des sujets, qu'ils se sont appropriés."]

Voilà, "un autre discours" ce n'est pas le même discours. Il y a de très grandes différences entre les discours. Nous ne sommes pas tous le même.

Et, je suis d'accord qu'il y a des contextes, religieux ou non, où la demande pour respect c'est une façon de faire la censure (l'ignorance des idées pro-homosexuels, par exemple).

"a gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs" et "The offence done to Catholics far outweighs the desired commercial goal," a dit le juge.

Ce n'est pas une question d'être hérétique, c'est le droit de faire une agression gratuite pour vendre des vêtements idiots.

(If people are not the same, why insist that we are? You are not the same as I am, you are not me. Your values are not my values. You don't agree with my values, my ideas. It's an illusion to think everything is the same. Difference is real.

Two different discourses are not the same.

I agree that in various contexts (religious or not), the demand for respect is nothing more than a disguised attempt at censorship (the ignorant pro-homosexual propaganda, for example).

But it's clear that to use the main symbols of Catholicism in the manner Girbaud did, to sell their stupid clothes is an act of gratuitous aggression that outweighs their commercial goal.

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Zorglub rejoins:
L'égalité n'est pas l'identité. Le respect ne consiste pas à partager les opinions d'un autre mais à lui reconnaître le droit d'en avoir et à reconnaître qu'elles méritent la même considération que les miennes.
Discuter avec quelqu'un, écouter ses arguments, entreprendre même de lui montrer qu'il a tort sont à ce titre autant de marque de respect.
En revanche, le faire taire, lui dire qu'il raconte des inepties sans autre précision relève de l'absence de respect.

Reste que je ne défends pas particulièrement les publicitaires : leur utilisation des oeuvres artistiques (musicales, iconographiques...) a une fâcheuse tendance à m'agacer. Mais ceci n'a rien à voir avec le contenu de telle ou telle oeuvre et, dans ce cas précis, l'épiscopat aurait mieux fait de se taire.

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L'égalité n'est pas l'identité. Le respect ne consiste pas à partager les opinions d'un autre mais à lui reconnaître le droit d'en avoir et à reconnaître qu'elles méritent la même considération que les miennes.
====================
De cette façon, comment tous les agressions (verbales) expriment des sentiments et, d'une façon plus ou moins visible, des idées, vous prêchez que tous les agressions verbales sont admissibles, pour être une façon de s'exprimer. Personne a le droit d'avoir un traitement avec respect dans la sphère émotionelle, psychologique, intellectuelle.

Ce ça c'est la liberté d'expression totale. Et c'est un monde de guerre et violence, parce que, comment nous n'avons pas jamais les mêmes droits réels, ni les mêmes moyens et possibilités de faire le discours publique et privée, les puissants peut faire tous leurs agressions et les autres n'ont pas le droit de s'exprimer ou de se défendre. La liberté de n'être pas agressé est un droit aussi.

La question est qu'il y a une agression avec cette publicité. Bien sur que si Madame Girbaud ait proposé une conférence pour discuter les problèmes de la religion Catholique avec les femmes, personne objecterait et demanderait la censure. Ce n'est pas la censure des idées, mais la question de l'agression.

(This way, because all verbal aggressions express feelings and/or ideas, you are dictating that every verbal aggression is permissible, because it constitutes an expression (a form of speech). According to you, no one has the right to be treated with respect in the emotional, psychological, and intellectual sphere.

This is the world of absolute freedom of speech and it is a world of war and violence because we never have the same real rights, nor the same means and possibilities to practice private nor public speech. The powerful get to make all their aggressions and the rest of the world does not have a right to expression or defense. The right not to suffer verbal aggression is also a right.

If Ms. Girbaud had proposed a conference to discuss the problems with Catholicism and women, no one would have objected (to the point of censorship). It's not the censorship of ideas that is in question here, but the component of aggression.)

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update March 21:

I have been thinking about how often I saw this same commentary from liberal viewers of the ad: 1)It is not pornographic and 2)I was not shocked.

If liberals understand that pornography is a way to practice aggression and disrespect, why do they promote such a violent world while criticizing others for being blind, stupid, and retrograde?

The question of shock. It is intriguing how many people measured the justice or injustice value of the ruling based on the shock factor, not on the disrespect/aggression factor. Is it because our culture, specifically mass media/advertising/pornography, deliberately employs larger and larger doses of "shocking" things to get attention, without caring in the least about what consequences this has for people's lives?

(end of March 21 update)

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Miscelaneous related links and comments:

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From CNN:

'The Da Vinci Code's' amazing success
Two years later, book still dominating charts

Twenty-five million books, in 44 languages, are in print worldwide and no end is in sight. Booksellers expect "The Da Vinci Code" to remain a best-seller well into 2005.

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On another note, who could have predicted the "Da Vinci Code" would cause such a cultural religious racket and become this enormous best-seller? (which I still haven't read, btw. I wasn´t too inclined to read it, and I would have never have been interested if it hadn't become this buzz thing, now you feel out of the loop for not having read it).

Best post on the da Vinci Code and the Vatican, from Impensavel:

Apenas a mim tudo parece estar proíbido, mesmo o prazer triste de ler maus livros: confessei aqui ter passado os olhos pelo "Código Da Vinci" e logo o Vaticano, que até aqui tinha estado calado, achou ser chegada a altura de desaconselhar a leitura por o livro ser um "château de mésonges" li a notícia - poderia dizer, a admoestação - em francês. Percebi, de imediato, que a crítica me era dirigida e, escusada por tardia, apenas para me fazer sentir mal. Contrito, prometo não ler outros em iguais circunstâncias.

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An interesting related comment regarding just how anti-religious many lay people have become at Ceteris Paribus (in French).

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The best blog post title that I have seen so far for this subject:

"The Last Billboard"

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Update March 25-2005

I just found out that about five centuries ago, Veronese also incurred the ire of the Inquisition because of his choice of mixing religious and profane elements in his gorgeous, enormous version of the Last Supper. His solution to the threats and charges from the Inquisition is quite entertaining, although I'm sure the Inquisition was not at all amused...

(end of update)

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Historical tidbits re da Vinci's original here. If you'd care to know, I think the Mona Lisa is one of the art establishment's greatest jokes on the populace, since it is such a substandard and low-grade painting regarding artistic quality.

A quick reflection on da Vinci's style:
da Vinci's style is fairly clean and still reasonably contained. It is hinged on reminiscent 15th century simplistic and rigid stylization of human figures, although his style has loosened up, flourished, and expanded, and he communicates a lot with facial expressions and hand gestures (such as in the Last Supper). But high drama is not his main vein of expression, an effect of graciousness is more usual.

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related posts: PC speech, animal cruelty speech, liberalism as a religion, Christian band banned, banana hate speech, the tuxedo lesbian, swearing is offensive speech, hate speech.
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I think some politicians would certainly like to go down in history as having created such a wonderful project, since it looks so good on their historical résumé. Of course, they may have at heart a bit of concern for giving their fellow humans free access to a vast cultural treasure, but I think ego/re-election is the main driving force here. No matter, as long as they do it, and do it quickly, this is what counts for the rest of us. Let's get all those millions of books online, free, now. And nothing like a little international competition to make these politicians and corporations get moving and finally realize this is a project that merits a certain cultural priority.

Jacques Chirac veut promouvoir un projet de bibliothèque virtuelle européenne
LE MONDE

Une bibliothèque virtuelle européenne qui mettrait en ligne, gratuitement, des millions de volumes pour les internautes : pour lancer ce projet industriel qui est aussi un rêve humaniste, Jacques Chirac devait recevoir, mercredi 16 mars dans l'après-midi, le président de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), Jean-Noël Jeanneney, et le ministre de la culture et de la communication, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. Le président devait les investir d'une mission préparatoire qui lui permettra d'engager des discussions avec ses homologues européens sur la construction de cette bibliothèque du futur.

L'Elysée a beau s'en défendre, il s'agit de répondre au projet Google Print, annoncé le 14 décembre 2004 par la firme américaine Google, inventeur du célèbre moteur de recherche : la mise en ligne de 15 millions de titres, libres de droits (Le Monde du 5 mars). "C'est une bonne initiative. Nous ne sommes pas dans une logique de concurrence, de menace", assurent les conseillers du président a propos de l'initiative des fondateurs de la firme californienne, Serge Brin et Larry Page. Mais ils s'empressent d'ajouter que "chacun doit avancer dans sa perspective".

L'idée est bien de ne pas laisser Google occuper seul ce créneau culturel et industriel considérable. L'entreprise américaine serait menée en collaboration avec les bibliothèques de trois universités, Stanford, Michigan et Harvard, avec la New York Public Library et avec la Bodleian Library, rattachée à l'université d'Oxford au Royaume-Uni. Les premiers titres devraient être disponibles dès la fin de 2005 et la fin du programme pourrait être bouclée dans six ans, estime Google.

La firme entend régler l'addition, estimée à 150 ou 200 millions de dollars. Elle affirme avoir développé un outil léger et rapide pour scanner ces millions de documents imprimés en mode texte, une opération normalement longue et onéreuse, mais qui permet des recherches documentaires sur le texte intégral. L'opérateur de la Silicon Valley refuse d'en dévoiler le profil.

And another lovely report of how human beings are destroyed through prostitution in liberal/democratic France, from LeMonde - "La loi Sarkozy a repoussé les prostituées à la périphérie des villes":

Lassées par la fréquence des interpellations dans les centres-villes, beaucoup de prostituées de Paris, Toulouse ou Lyon se sont, comme Angélique, réfugiées dans les friches industrielles, les bois ou les parkings de la périphérie. "Les forêts de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Melun ou Fontainebleau sont devenues des lieux de prostitution, explique Miguel-Ange Garzo, psychologue clinicien à Arcat-Sida. Mais ces endroits sont peu fréquentés et, du coup, les menaces et les agressions contre les prostituées sont beaucoup plus nombreuses. Et souvent plus graves."

Fragilisées par le harcèlement policier, souvent isolées, les prostituées affirment qu'il est désormais plus difficile d'imposer un préservatif à un client récalcitrant. Dans le Nord, le groupement de prévention et d'accueil lillois a donc lancé une campagne de sensibilisation auprès des clients : les bus de prévention, qui distribuent des plaquettes d'information sur le sida et des préservatifs, sont couverts de grandes affiches rouges et blanches affirmant "Clients, le port du préservatif ne se marchande pas" ou "Rapports non protégés : clients, vous
jouez à la roulette russe ?".

Selon Act Up, Aides et Arcat-Sida, la dispersion de la prostitution et la multiplication des patrouilles ont eu des conséquences sanitaires "catastrophiques". Les bus de prévention ont désormais du mal à atteindre les prostituées, qui changent souvent de lieux pour échapper aux contrôles. "La police s'installe à côté des bus, et parfois, elle les suit quand ils se déplacent", raconte Lara, de Cabiria, une association lyonnaise qui organise, depuis 1993, des "actions de santé communautaire" auprès des prostituées. "Ils essaient même d'arrêter des filles qui sortent du bus. Du coup, elles n'osent plus venir. Et elles se retrouvent seules", ajoute-t-elle.

"Il y a un "avant" et un "après" loi Sarkozy, résume Claudia, la porte-parole de l'association France Prostitution. Les rues ont été nettoyées mais les prostituées sont encore là. Elles sont seulement moins visibles. Et plus vulnérables."

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Is Blogger rotten or what? I have not been able to get in to post for two days... I simply can't understand why the other millions of Blogger users haven't yet changed to other blogging tools so my access to Blogger can improve :-)

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Here.

I was going to overlook the Summers controversy entirely, but I did end up making a comment at Ideas Hatched, where he said:

[...]

5) Before I lose all my women readers, I'd also point out that there are different types of intelligences, and that women are far better with words then men. Have you ever played Boggle with a chick? It's a humbling experience. If Harvard had a Boggle faculty, this whole debate would be reversed.

Poor Larry Summers is now on a worldwide apology tour in a desperate salvo to save his job. It won't work, because those he is apologizing to won't stop until they have his head (he's already given up one part of his male anatomy). Why? Because if what he said has any glimmer of truth, then the notion that discrimination accounts entirely for the lack of women scientists cannot hold true, and it even becomes possible that discrimination doesn't account at all for such disparities. That would go against the dogma of academics, and as such constitutes heresy! Showing them the data will do no better for Summers than it did for Galileo with the Church.

I think socialization has far more profound effects on the great majority of people than genetics. And your observation about the types of intelligence is not to be overlooked. Given that men have been politically dominant, and most all the wars and genocides and rapes and forced starvation happened because of their enormous "intelligence," big deal about their IQ measurements. What is an IQ without ethics? A monster.

I think the biggest problem with repeating to people "men are the most intelligent" is that this has a detrimental psychological impact on many girls and women (although not all).

It's amazing what happens to a child or adult when you tell them they aren't capable to do something or they are not as good as others, instead of telling them they can reach the sky.

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B. Davies recounts:

Being the office supervisor, I had to have a word with a new employee who never arrived at work on time. I explained that her tardiness was unacceptable and that other employees had noticed that she was walking in late every day. After listening to my complaints, she agreed that this was a problem and even offered a solution. "Is there another door I could use?"

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Rushdie attacks "religion" as a horrible threat; coincidentally today Tony Blair will try to force a law against incitement to religious hatred through parliament. Maybe I should email Rushdie my post "Pro-homosexual Liberalism is a Religion". The Wash Times says the opposite of Rushdie: We Have a Growing Crisis of Secularism.

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From Kimberly at #2Pencil:

How many kitties are there in the United States? According to the Humane Society, 60 million live in homes , and National Geographic says that 70 million feral cats are roaming the streets. If we assume all cats are either in homes or the street, and toss in an extra 2 million for those temporarily housed in shelters, then we have a population of cats in the United States that's around 132 million, give or take a few fuzzbutts.

If these numbers are correct, for every 2 people, there's one cat, half of them homeless! Shouldn't kitties be able to vote then? It's camels in Australia and kitties in the US.

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Alan Cohen.

Le Musée Maillol présente les dizaines d'études de nus qu'a réalisées le peintre viennois. Des œuvres gracieuses, entre exhibition et stylisation, qu'il n'a jamais exposées.

Wish I could go. I love graceful things, almost to a thirst, since our modern, liberal culture has so little of it.

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One more set of reflections on the arrow paradox, infinity, infinite subdivisions, time, matter. This is the 4th post on this subject. This is the first, second, and third (if you'd like to find out where I am coming from).

I don't think neither motion nor time are discontinuous.

I think the problem with Lynds is his conception of finite subdivisions in the microcosm of time. I also think that matter and time are distinctively different things. I don’t know quantum mechanics, so what happens to matter at the most micro level is not something I would venture to speculate on too much.

But the problem with applying quantum mechanics to time seems pretty clear to me (quantum mechanics here meaning equating time to matter and subdividing time to an instant with no duration, therefore conceiving of time as something that is made up of discontinuous “"particles"” or "“instants”").

The problem I see with this concept of an “instant with no duration” is that this is no longer an infinite subdivision. Infinity presuposes something that hits no end, no barrier, no wall, it just keeps going. Lynds has hit a finite point, which he says the instant is so small it no longer has a duration. That’'s finite, that'’s a wall, that is no longer an infinite subdivision continuum. If something, including time, can be subdivided infinitely, the subdivision cannot stop, ever, so it does not hit a “non-duration” instant. The instant just keeps getting smaller and smaller, infinitely. I believe his mistake is at thinking time behaves like matter, where in the micro world things almost disintegrate altogether, all those quantum particle questions and behaviors (see a very nice educational site on this: The Particle Adventure).

My thought however is that time is not matter and it also does not behave like matter. Time is continuous, regardless of how much you subdivide it.

Which begs the question: if time is continuous and moving, has it always been moving and will it continue endlessly? My answer is yes. Perhaps in a circular way, which is the only way our logic allows me to think about infinity with any kind of linear progression, otherwise you fall off the logical plane. An infinite line is a circle.

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I have been fascinated with the Time question for a few days ever since I stumbled on it. I haven't had hardly any time to read about this subject, but I did do a little search on what other authors have contemplated about time. The most interesting I found in other writings so far, which I had not thought about, was about our own perception of time. Without memory, we would have no sense that time that has passed. Is that completely true? Haven't given too much thought of how it could be a wrong statement, but in important ways, it's true. But even before finding a text about how humans perceive time, and how memory plays a fundamental part in this perception ability, I did think the following, still related to my Zeno paradox reflections or Alessandra's Grand Time Paradox: time does not move (explained in my previous post linked above). :-)

My thinking path first passed by this wonderfully ingenious extension of the arrow paradox:

Even if the arrow moves it cannot hit any point!

The probability of the arrow landing in a certain region of the target is equal to the ratio of that region's area to the total target area. As the region gets smaller the probability gets less, and there is zero probability of the arrow's point landing on any particular point of the target. Then since this is true for all points the arrow cannot hit the target.

That is lovely! Not only an arrow in flight does not move, it can never hit a target!
Sweet.

Then I came upon Lynds, who recently said the answer to the arrow paradox is that the position of the arrow can never be determined, since we are talking about infinite divisions of time and the corresponding location of the arrow in flight.

In thinking about Lynds' solution, I figured he was wrong.

Compare two arrows, one blue that covers a certain distance over 10 seconds, one red stays at the same place for the same 10 seconds. The blue arrow covers a distance of exactly 10 arrow lengths. What is different between the two arrows? The position of the blue arrow was constantly changing over the 10 seconds, while the red arrow’s position is the same. For motion to happen, there needs to be time (the passing of time). There is no motion without time. What Zeno did was to eliminate the passing of time, and he simply took a snapshot of an instant of those 10 seconds, not the entire 10 seconds. If you freeze time, there is no motion. It is exactly what we do with a photographic camera. Imagine the arrow flying in front of you and you snap a picture. Then you show the picture to someone and say, "“See, the arrow wasn'’t flying, it was static all the time.”" The problem is with the "“all the time"” that was added.

When did the blue arrow move? Over the entire 10 seconds. It doesn’'t matter how much you subdivide the 10 seconds, the arrow is always moving constantly, to the infinitesimal subdivision, and its position is therefore proportional and we can calculate it (considering an ideal context, where it’s just a mathematical problem, and you aren'’t dealing with air, mass, wind, resistance, etc.). So where was the arrow at 5 seconds? At the middle of the distance. Subdividing the distance doesn’'t make the arrow stop, it's just a finer measurement. Like the Achilles race paradox.

Therefore my conclusion is diametrically opposite to Lynds'. You can precisely determine where the arrow is at every instant, to infinity. I don't know enough math to be able to say for certain if our mathematics allows us calculate the position when the time division hits infinity (I don't know infinity math), but I would think that is a mathematical shortcoming problem, not a logic of how to solve the paradox problem.

Mr. Efthimios Harokopos, a Greek scientist and researcher of Zeno’s paradoxes, claims there is a hidden contradiction in the argument made by Lynds, which leads, in the best case, in a fallacious argument.

Mr. Harokopos said: "Lynds states that without a continuous and chronological progression through definite indivisible instants in time over an extended interval of time, there can be no time progression (physical or flow of time). But just earlier in the paper, Lynds argues that by nature, a precise instant in time does not have a duration so neither a progression of instants in time and motion in such a progression would be a perpetuation of static frozen motion and as such continuity is impossible. Obviously these two statements are contradictory and Lynds attempts to answer Zeno's paradoxes by introducing another paradox (or better to say contradiction). The absence of a precise static instant in time underlying a physical process could simply mean that time is continuous and all physical magnitudes are continuous as postulated in classical mechanics. In an attempt to deny such a straightforward approach and introduce the concept of indeterminacy for continuity or, as stated in the title of the paper, indeterminacy versus discontinuity, Lynds commits a contradiction and possibly a straw man fallacy. On one hand Lynds claims precise static instants in time do not exist and on the other he asserts that a chronological progression through definite instants of time is required for the flow of time. One can easily see that Lynds' thesis leads to a contradiction in the case of a particle of constant mass M moving with a constant velocity V, which has a precise momentum vector equal to P= MV, at every instant of time or interval. According to Lynds, certainty is traded off for continuity and this applies to all physical values. But his conclusion does not apply in the example I just gave, as no trade off is required for a body with a constant velocity to be moving continuously. Therefore Lynds has not discovered a law of physics and if such trade-off is present under some conditions it does not relate to motion and to Zeno's paradoxes. More importantly, Lynds' conclusions are not falsifiable by observation and do not provide a predictive capacity. In this light, his claims are of a metaphysical nature and in the best case possible such claims relate to some hypothetical mechanism of physical reality, which, even if present, is not required in making calculations and predictions."

In summary, Harokopos argues that the concept of indeterminacy versus discontinuity is of no real value in resolving Zeno’s paradoxes. According to Harokopos, the paradoxes are not about the non-existence of precise static instants in time and precise physical values but about the impossibility of motion in general in a continuous or discrete space-time.

Curiously, this is exactly what I joked about in my Grand Time Paradox:
"A precise instant in time does not have a duration so neither a progression of instants in time and motion in such a progression would be a perpetuation of static frozen motion and as such continuity is impossible."

The difference is I consider the above a paradox and not reality.

Additionally, Eric Engle wrote:

Lynds fails to consider other possibilities than that motion be continuous and time discontinuous. What if motion were also discontinuous? Then Zeno's arrow could occupy locus l1 at time t1 and locus l3 at t2 without ever transiting locus l2. If motion were a series of very tiny (even infinitely tiny?) "jumps" (teleportations if you will) then Lynds' reductio fails. This "teleportation" model does in fact appear to reflect sub-atomic physics where, as I understand, particles mysteriously appear and disappear as if teleported. If we presume motion is in fact discontinuous then we are in no way compelled to admit Lynds' argument by reductio, that time cannot be divided into discrete elements.

I can't comment on this potential teleportation phenomenon. I don't think neither motion nor time are discontinuous. In addition to being continuous (which is how time seems to me), nothing could happen if there was no time.

Time is what allows for different moments, so, before even matter can exist, there is time.

That leads to: time is primordially necessary for life to exist. I had never thought about that before.

Time, fascinating.



related links:
Michael Taber's similar reflections. My own next post on this subject. On the math side: Infinity is for Children---and Mathematicians!

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Now that AceHTML is no longer freeware, I found what looks like a very nice substitute: PSPad. Only used it once, but it seems fine.

I hate Dreamweaver with a passion (cumbersome, rotten WYSWHG, counter-intuitive, impractical). It´s by far the worst Macromedia product ever and now it dominates a lot of the market! :-P With Dreamweaver, Macromedia, who deserves all the glory for Flash and other intelligent software, did go down the Microsoft contemptible and swinish market domination route.

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What would change for you if you could live to be 150-200 years old? What plans would you make differently? What else would you like to do in life? Would you like to live that long (supposing you could live most of the time in a functional way, healthy and able)?

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“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. "

Solzhenitsyn

Although the line cuts through every heart, it doesn't make every heart the same. However, I think our modern culture still stereotypes people generally into just "good" or just "bad." People who tend to see and label themselves as "good" usually hate to see in any way how they aren't good or how they are part of systems that perpetrate all kinds of violence and harm to others (and sometimes even to themselves).

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From Massnews, another cheerful bit on the wonder of our modern, liberal society:

With an estimated 8 million Americans suffering from anorexia and bulimia, state lawmakers are pushing legislation that would require Massachusetts insurers to pay the full costs of treating eating disorders.

[...]

According to Forman, up to 10 percent of anorexic patients will die from their illness. Other specialists said requiring insurers to cover treatment is increasingly important as the number of men and women suffering from anorexia and bulimia grows.

“Sometimes eating disorders are seen as this fad, a bunch of spoiled brats struggling with problems,” said Dr. David Herzog, a psychiatrist and founder of the Harvard Medical School Eating Disorders Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. “But that’s just not the case.

There’s an ever-increasing number of 50 and 60-year-olds and more and more young kids who have this.”

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From ACE, a right-wing, liberal/locker-room libertarian blog:
"Not sure how female sexuality became so intimately connected with progress and freedom, but, okay, not complaining or anything":

Higher Heels, Shorter Skirts: Pink Revolution Hits Iran

USATODAY: In a city that only a few years ago was almost monochromatic — full of women draped head to toe in black — women and girls this winter are sporting pink coats, pink sweaters, pink head scarves, shoes and bags.

Iran's Islamic rulers appear to have given up trying to make women observe more than the letter of the hijab, the Koran's admonition that Muslim women outside their homes should cover everything but their faces, hands and feet. The change has been gradual, but this year coats have gotten shorter, brighter and tighter, heels higher and scarves have slipped farther back to reveal most of women's hair.

Iran's “pink revolution” is a silent fashion statement that sends a powerful message. Unable to act overtly against the rigid Islamism that has shaped Iranian political and cultural life since the U.S.-backed shah was overthrown in 1979, many Iranians express their contempt for the government through their clothing.

Snippets of comments:

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Ace, you're kidding, right?

The first moment I personally witnessed female sexuality in full bloom I felt more free than Nelson Mandela leaving prison.
Dave at Garfield Ridge

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All kidding aside...

Ultimate victory in the war on terrorism will only be achieved with the liberation of Arab women. The misogyny of Islam is at the core of all the problems we face in the Arab world.
James

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The revolution will be televised -- and sexy.
TallDave

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I remember my father, wise old bird that he is, saying twenty years ago that the downfall of Islamic tyranny would come via women's lib. Funny, since I'd never really tagged him as a feminist until then. But I guess, like GWB bringing democracy to Iraq, babes in short skirts with kickin' racks is in our own self-interest.
DavidGillies

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The mistake is to think that the left is for freedom or liberation in any way. They use those terms, like their fellow travels in the former east block used "People's Democratic Whatever" in all their names. For the left, justice and fairness is when everyone is equally miserable, except for them of course, so a regime like the Mullahs have in Iran is right up their alley.
Iblis

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THE VIRGINS object to the "new attitudes" in Iran for they will bring feminism and the "Oprahization" of our ferocious Jihadis until they become weak, compliant weenies like the men in the US.

Deja vu all over again?
72Virgins

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When the men start wearing pink, we'll know Iran has come out of the authoritarian closet.
TallDave

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I've always said that liberty cannot flourish without titty bars.
Joe R. the Unabrewer

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I found the comments by these right-wing libertarian men on the thread repeating that the Left is against women's freedom very funny because they are exactly the same thing that Leftwing men say. It's like a competition...

"No, I'm for women's freedom," "No, I am!" "No, I said it," "No, I said women should go on high heels and short skirts to overthrow oppression!" "No, I said they should 'liberate' their sexuality (and become sluts) to have freedom!" "No, I said we are the ones fighting for gender equality!" "No, I did!"

We can't wait until the Iranian women are all in Penthouse, and have become slutty dressed silicone and Botox bimbos, who according to the locker-room libertarians or liberals is what freedom is all about for women. Or they will have turned into macho lesbiunns, who need to cross-dress to show how "powerful" and not full of hang-ups they are. Homo-obsessed libertarians believe that's freedom too, can we blame them for being so smart? And where's all the female alcoholism? You mean women are not allowed to become alcoholics in Iran? The thought of it... and where's the date rape? Oh, the oppression of not being able to drink and get raped...

Here's to the liberation of Iran to a new level of moronic ideals of freedom! Let's drink a beer to seeing women going from one yoke to another.

Actually, I think until Iran doesn't have a bunch of moronic little-clad young people picking their noses on camera on Iran Big Brother TV 24/7, and the whole country glued to their TV sets by their free choice, they won't be truly liberated. Watching violent cartoons, wrestling, or the Playboy channel, which is also a major liberation step in society, is not nearly a liberating and democracy experience as reality TV.

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Lauraw replies:
Hmmm, Alessandra, how about wanting the right to be SEEN? Does that make Iranian women Western Sluts?
How about the right to say 'no?'
Did you know that they hang and stone women who have been raped? Because, you know, its all her fault. And don't get me started on the daily, systemic physical and mental abuse of women in Islamic regimes.

Do you think wearing pink and showing their hair is expressing their desire to become shameless whores, or do you think it is a defiant symbol of their rejection of the fucking smothering oppression they have to live under?

Go read something. Try Human Rights Watch, I'm sure they have pages on Iran and women there.

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"Hmmm, Alessandra, how about wanting the right to be SEEN? Does that make Iranian women Western Sluts?"

Actually this question doesn't make too much sense to begin with - the right to be seen - seen as what? Are silicone bimbos more liberated than other women? What is the right to be seen that silicone bimbos are employing?

"And don't get me started on the daily, systemic physical and mental abuse of women in Islamic regimes."

Are you going to start on that because you are completely ignorant on the systemic physical and mental abuse of women in Western liberal countries? And why not talk about the gross abuse of kids in the our parts of the world too? Is that because of the oppressive clothing we have for children in society?

"Do you think wearing pink and showing their hair is expressing their desire to become shameless whores, or do you think it is a defiant symbol of their rejection of the fucking smothering oppression they have to live under?"

I can see that women can be oppressed with a variety of clothing, from nothing, to some, to full-covered, and that includes Western clothing as well. The amount of clothing is actually immaterial, it's the culture and attitudes and behaviors that entail oppression. And seeing how much women are battered, and demeaned, and sexually objectified, and ridiculed, and raped, and prostituted, and pornographied in liberal democracies proves to me that your "liberation" talk is full of it.

"try Human Rights Watch" -
Are they a right-wing organization now? By the comments here apparently there is a competition between the right and the left to proclaim who can liberate women the most, and by making them silicone bimbos, no less.

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update Mar 11-2005

lauraw replies:
*smacks forehead*

Damn.
I don't usually talk to crazy people, but....DAMN.

Please explain where in that article anybody said anything about wanting to become silicone bimbos? Or prostitutes?

What is the matter with you? Do you truly believe that Western women are more abused than women in Islamic countries?
What are you smoking? Or maybe you watch Lifetime cable channel all day?

Most of us are not prostitutes and strippers you know.

The vast majority of us lead productive and free lives. I know I do. We can choose our own husbands, or leave our husbands if they are bad to us; work wherever we please, choose to have children or not, be elected to public office, drive a car, play sports, vote in elections...in short, anything we want to do, we can do.

Yes, indeed, our cup of misery and oppression runneth over, and we should envy the happy Iranian woman in her protective chains!

I feel sorry for you.

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"What is the matter with you? Do you truly believe that Western women are more abused than women in Islamic countries? "

From worldwide stats, the competition of violence against women and children is a tragic tie. Don't distort me into a reverse caricature of your selfish blindness - I am not blind to violence in Iran, as you are with violence in the Western world.

I usually don't go to the trouble of posting stat examples to people who clearly love to ignore them, but if you are going to make speeches on the oppression of women, you should look beyond your arrogant obnoxious navel. You're part of the reason why so many women and children are battered and raped and trashed in Western wonderland, because you're so egotistically and irresponsibly blind.
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US- 572,000 reports of assault on women by intimates are officially reported to federal officials each year, the most conservative estimates indicate two to four million women of all races and classes are battered each year. Every year approximately 132,000 women report that they have been victims of rape or attempted rape, and more than half of them knew their attackers. It's estimated that two to six times that many women are raped, but do not report it. Every year 1.2 million women are forcibly raped by their current or former male partners, some more than once.

South African rape statistics include 52,975 rapes reported in 2000, the age group 12 to 17 years was the most vulnerable, with 472 reported rapes per 100,000 in that group; among 18 to 49 year-olds there were 286 rapes per 100,000; and for girls under 12 years 131 per 100,000.

The Council of Europe has stated that domestic violence is the major cause of death and disability for women aged 16 to 44 and accounts for more death and ill-health than cancer or traffic accidents.

The United Nations now lists Mexico as the number one center for the supply of young children to North America.
Mexico is one of the favored destinations of pedophile sex tourists from Europe and the United States. In 1996 U.S. Postal Service announced that Mexico City was one of the leading producers of child pornography videos.

I could go on, this is just a sample of what your ignorance entails...

Thanks to people like you, who obnoxiously never noticed any of that huge amount of violence happening in Western countries, it goes on and on.

"The vast majority of us lead productive and free lives. I know I do."

And if 1 billion women and children got raped and battered, what would you care, right? It´s not you, and they wouldn't be the majority, so, to hell with them...

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Updated Mar 14-2005

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You have failed to compare that hodgepodge of stats with the rape and abuse statistics from Islamic countries. Without such a comparison, your rambling list is pointless.

But of course, unlike open western societies, you cannot trust any state-provided stats from Islamic countries. Also, few women come forward there because reporting on their abusers will likely cost them their own heads!

And much of what we call 'abuse' here in the West is perfectly legal in Middle Eastern states. So who would bother to compile 'crime' statistics on that which is legal?

Furthermore, my point is not that women are never abused in the Western nations. But that abuse and oppression are neither institutionalized nor lawful here, therefore necessarily more rare.

Tragedy is always around all of us, and the strong prey upon the weak as they ever have and always will.

But our chances of being a victim are far smaller when assailants are recognized as the criminals they are and duly punished.

We do not have any such thing as 'Honor Killing' here. The very thought is abhorrent.
A man in this country will not be excused of the crime of beating his wife merely because a judge deemed it an honorable beating.

A woman who is accused of adultery will not be stoned to death by her own community.
A 16 year old girl who is raped will not be sentenced to death by a judge and hung by the neck before her weeping family.
A 13 yr old girl who is raped and impregnated by her older brothers will not suffer death at the hands of her mother; and her mother will not be praised by the community for the slaying.

An American woman will not be dragged from her car by a policeman and LAWFULLY BEATEN WITH A ROD because her sleeve slipped down and part of her arm was showing.
A 14- year old girl in America will not be savaged with the rod while her mother tries futilely to shield her, because a policeman saw that her fingernails were painted.

If you cannot see the difference between a society which suffers violence committed by criminals (as all societies do), and that in which the depredations upon the weak are upheld and protected by the state itself, then you are truly the one who is blind.

A final note; your original leap of logic- that Iranian women will become drug-addled harlots as a natural result of their defiance to oppression- is still bizarre and crazy.
Posted by: lauraw on March 11, 2005 02:42 PM

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"You have failed to compare that hodgepodge of stats with the rape and abuse statistics from Islamic countries. Without such a comparison, your rambling list is pointless."
=======================
As I said, I was just showing how ignorant you are of stats in the West. And every other form of violence and oppression there is in the West.
Any claim you make about comparative violence stats in Islamic countries is based on fantasy numbers because there are no reliable stats in those countries. But, hey, any fictional crap is your idea of precision and knowledge. If you don't know any reliable numbers how do you make a stat comparison? By beating your chest, I gather.

"If you cannot see the difference between a society which suffers violence committed by criminals (as all societies do), and that in which the depredations upon the weak are upheld and protected by the state itself, then you are truly the one who is blind."

If you think Arab countries are so bad, maybe you should start learning about how most cases of abuse and rape in the West don't ever go to trial. That's your wonderful sense of Western justice obviously. And Western state "protection."
And while you're making your speeches about how lawful the West is, why don't most child abusers in the West go to prison?

Did you throw out some horrible abuse and rape cases that involve the parents because you're too ignorant that happens in the West?

How about the girl abused for years and impregnated by the father, whose own mother threw acid on the girl's face to punish the girl for telling about it? How about the parents who beat a two yr old to such pulp the doctors had never seen a human body like that before?

That's your idea of the West being better?

How about babies having serious neck injuries for being orally raped? And the doctors not telling the police that it wasn't an accident? How about corrupt Western police orchestrating child prostitution rings? You didn't read about priests abusing kids with full oversight of the higher ups? Man, what a hole your head lives in.

"Please explain where in that article anybody said anything about wanting to become silicone bimbos? Or prostitutes?"

You've never noticed the enormous psychological problems women have in the West with body/weight issues? Why are there 8 million anorexia and bullimia sufferers in the US alone? Don't you think the number is a bit too big for a society that has such a wonderful unoppressive culture?

"If you cannot see the difference between a society which suffers violence committed by criminals (as all societies do), and that in which the depredations upon the weak are upheld and protected by the state itself, then you are truly the one who is blind."

Either women and children are the mighty now, or most of the victims we are talking about here consitute exactly the weak - and that's in the West. With all your state "protection," of course.


"We do not have any such thing as 'Honor Killing' here. The very thought is abhorrent."

There are so many trifling excuses why millions of rapists and murderers get off jail or conviction, passion killings, drunk killings and rapes, including equivalent Honor killings in the West. Or the fact that people kill others for a pair of tennis shoes, or crack, or sell their children for sexual abuse for a packet of cigarettes. Oh, I forget you don't think any of that is abhorrent, please continue rambling about how horrible Honor killings are...
it must make you feel so smart...

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(my rejoinder to Ace's new post/thread on the subject)

All the millions of Western women and children victims that you throw in the garbage can because they are not Islamic makes the difference between you and any mullah nill.

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By coincidence, a related WorldMag thread on transgender bathroom "rights" that turns into a clothing and freedom debate (see comments at the end).
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