Current Events

Honor Killings

Every day, I find more stuff out about the world I live in, that pisses me off.

National Geographic — Thousands of Women Killed for Family “Honor”
Hundreds, if not thousands, of women are murdered by their families each year in the name of family “honor.” It’s difficult to get precise numbers on the phenomenon of honor killing; the murders frequently go unreported, the perpetrators unpunished, and the concept of family honor justifies the act in the eyes of some societies.

Most honor killings occur in countries where the concept of women as a vessel of the family reputation predominates, said Marsha Freemen, director of International Women’s Rights Action Watch at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda. In countries not submitting reports to the UN, the practice was condoned under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, and has been reported in Iraq and Iran.
But while honor killings have elicited considerable attention and outrage, human rights activists argue that they should be regarded as part of a much larger problem of violence against women.

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Sky City / Pyramid City urban development projects

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  • Post category:Big Things

Some stuff I’ll have to photograph – Discovery Channel’s Engineering the Impossible – someday.

Tokyo’s Sky City
It would house 35,000 residents and host 100,000 daily workers, students and visitors. This space-age city in the sky might seem like science fiction, but it answers some questions about where humans might live as our most crowded cities become even more densely populated.

City in a Pyramid
Imagine a self-sustaining pyramid-shaped city in the air. And imagine that it is built by robots and with little help from human workers.

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Gay People Blamed for Enron

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  • Post category:GLBT Issues

And if it’s not enough that the right-wing nutjobs are trying to kill us and attempting to steal our children away, now they are blaming gay people for the fall of Enron Corporation.
Enron was YOU GUYS. Republicans. With all your deregulation, and your corporate welfare, and tax breaks for the rich, and thwarting campaign finance reform… the conservative republicans are responsible for Enron. Not us homos! When all else fails and it looks like you might get caught or the pidgeons will come home to roost, blame it on the gay people.

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parental rights of gay people

Okay, time for another rant, on the subject of gay people getting their children taken away from them:
I have reproductive organs, I’m going to use them, and I don’t give a flying god damn what anyone thinks about it. I’m a lesbian, I’m going to have kids, I’m going to raise them well, and if you want to try to take them away, you’ll be attempting it at the end of a shotgun. I’m sick to death of hearing all these religious people saying shit… your religion is just that: your religion. It’s not mine, so keep it to yourself, or shove it in my face at your own peril.

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executing gay people

I’ve pointed out to my family members, at various times, that there are people who want to kill me, and that these people have connections to the Republicans they keep putting into office, but I don’t think they’ve ever taken me very seriously.

“Let us give thanks,” Army of God “chaplain” Rev. Michael Bray proclaimed on the Army of God Web site, after sword-wielding officials in Saudi Arabia beheaded three gay men New Year’s Day. The official Saudi Press Agency reported that the men had “committed acts of sodomy, married each other, seduced young men and attacked those who rebuked them.”

Best known for its terror campaign against abortion providers, the militant Army of God has lately displayed a virulent antigay animus in recent postings on its Web site. The sudden trend has set off alarms among human rights groups.

“This is really chilling,” Surina Khan, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told Salon. “It really disturbs me, in terms of the rhetoric and what effect it has.”

Ironically, the Army of God is expressing new solidarity with Muslim extremists just as the right-wing extremists have come under new scrutiny by the U.S. government for their own links to terror, post-Sept. 11. The violence-prone Army of God drew intensified federal attention thanks to its praise (“great idea!”) for the anthrax scare at 550 clinics and abortion rights organizations last fall, perpetrated by self-described antiabortion “terrorist” Clayton Waagner. Waagner signed his threats “Army of God.”

On the Homefront: This weekend, I moved most of my breakable stuff, all my framed artwork, most of my electronics, and some small pieces of furniture. Also one of the bunk beds, so if I want to stay over at the new place, I can. Still to pack: clothes, office supplies, rest of kitchen stuff. I’ll try to get as much of that done tonight as I can. I procrastinated on the packing, which I hate to do, by moving stuff that didn’t necessarily need to be moved. And I think I’m afraid to move in, which is another reason I’ve avoided the packing. I’m really kind of freaked out.

I need to be careful when moving paperwork — got to keep track of stuff I need to do, like send in my first mortgage payment. That would suck if I forgot that. 🙂

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Economics and Republican fantasy

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  • Post category:Politics

I’ve said it before, but let me repeat it: There is a finite amount of money. I’m not a communist… I love capitalism. But reality prompts me to point out that we don’t have unlimited amounts of cash.
If we increase our spending at the same time we cut taxes, we’re going to wind up with a huge debt that we can’t pay. If we can’t pay the bills now, how are we going to pay them in the future? In the future people will have become attached to tax cuts, and they won’t want to pay more. They’ll also be attached to government services that they don’t want to give up. We will never be able to get out of debt.
When are the Republicans ever going to get a grip on reality? I don’t carry any debt in my own life. I certainly don’t want the government to do so. We need a good democratic presidential candidate…. and fast.

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Republican Anti-Intellectualism and the dumbing down of American Culture

“Brain Drain” by Mark Crispin Miller:

For reasons too complex for us to hazard here, the anti‑intellectuals are finally on the side of power at its most unforgiving and voracious. And so they give a pass to those professors who are at the service of such power, while jeering anyone–inside or outside the Academy–who thinks to raise a fuss about how wrong it is. For them, this isn’t something to discuss, because discussion is itself suspicious, even dangerous–the sport of jerk‑offs and Prevaricators. Thus there is no point in arguing with them–and yet no wisdom in attempting to ignore them. And such is true not only of the Bush regime’s most unrestrained supporters, but of the Bush regime itself–a fact that now requires a lot of careful thought, and something more.
And yet it’s just such thinking that has all but disappeared since 9/11–as it always disappears in time of war. In bringing down the World Trade Center (a mile from where I sit right now) and ravaging the Pentagon, the terrorists not only murdered thousands, and left tens of thousands more bereft, and devastated lower Manhattan, and sparked the wreckage of the local and the national economy. Through that spectacular atrocity, the killers also managed, at one blow, to knock the brains clean out of countless good Americans. Although those citizens had started out that day with all their wits intact, by dinner‑time they sounded way much like Fred–a terroristic consequence a lot less hideous, surely, than what happened in the air and on the ground, and yet even more destructive in the long run. For while we can and will no doubt rebuild beyond the shattered lives and property, the prospects aren’t as upbeat for our frail democracy, which cannot function if too many people think like Bill O’Reilly and his fans.

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Dear Mr. Robertson

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Dear Mr. Robertson, by Mighty Ponygirl:

Dear Mr. Robertson:
We here at the Holy Book of the Month club are very excited that you have been enjoying our flagship Holy Book “The Old Testament” so thoroughly. Many readers have become quite enamoured of it, as a dark, brooding tale of sin and vengeance from an unforgiving God.
We are just writing to let you know about our next exciting installment of the series: “The New Testament.” This shorter book introduces a new concept that many Christians have embraced: Forgiveness. In this book, a single holy man is sacrificed so that the sins of the world could be forgiven. In an amazing twist, we discover that his divine nature allows him to rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, though he first tells his followers that they have the ability to *forgive* those who have sinned. Gone are the days of being stoned to death for eating shellfish, and there is a renewed hope for generations to come. With this one act of humble humiliation, mankind is offered a new hope of seeking God’s good graces. It puts to rest the question “is there such a thing as a sin so terrible that God is unable to forgive it?”
This book has been applauded as “The feel-good book of the Eon” and “Not since ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ has there been such a thoughtful self-help book.”
Your copy of the best-selling “New Testament” is enclosed. You are under no obligation to keep it–if you decide to cancel you need only mark it “Return to Maker” and we will take your name off the List.
Cheers and happy reading,
The Holy Book of the Month Club.

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