Giles Fraser strongly disapproves of the idea (and the judicial finding) that non-medical circumcision is what it is: genital cutting of an infant for religious reasons.
Generally, the logic behind these moves is that circumcision is an act of unnecessary violence against a child and that it is imposing a belief system against a child’s will. If an adult wants to be circumcised, so be it. [Read more…]
Hooray, great strides for women in India.
An Indian company has launched what it claims is the country’s first vagina tightening cream, saying it will make women feel “like a virgin” again. The company says it is about empowering women…
Empowering women? By making them feel “like a virgin”? Because virgin women are so powerful? What, like the Delphic oracle? Tight virginal vagina=telephone line to the gods?
This video is designed to market a vaginal “rejuvenation and tightening” product, which was launched this month in India. [Read more…]
Taslima invited me to write a post on why I’m a feminist, so now I get to have the honor of a post on Taslima’s blog. Woot!
Ron Lindsay has some observations on atheism plus. Good stuff.
One question he asks in conclusion –
CFI has long been active in supporting LGBT equality, in supporting reproductive rights, in supporting equality for women, in opposing suppression of women and minorities, not just in the US but in other countries, in supporting public schools, in advocating for patient’s rights, including the right to assistance in dying, in fighting restrictions on the teaching of evolution, in opposing religious interference with health care policy, in promoting the use of science in shaping public policy, in safeguarding our rights to free speech, and in protecting the rights of the nonreligious. [Read more…]
Life should be dull and empty and joyless, because god. No music, no dance, no play, no laughter, no frivolity, no flirting, no getting jiggy. No faces, no conversation, no friendship, no mingling, no color. No joy – because that’s the devil’s work.
Taliban insurgents beheaded 17 civilians, including two women, who were holding a party with music in a southern Afghanistan village, officials said Monday. [Read more…]
Spare a thought for that little girl in Pakistan who is in jail for “blasphemy” because she (supposedly, allegedly, some asshole saidly) had some pages of the Koran in a bag of trash, or put some pages of the Koran in a fire along with other trash, or some such stupid meaningless unreasonable bit of nonsense. Spare a thought for her, because she wants to get out. She would probably prefer to be at home, with people who love her and take care of her.
According to the BBC’s Orla Guerin in Islamabad, Rimsha’s lawyer said that when he saw her in jail over the weekend she wept and begged to be released.
Her parents have been taken into protective custody following threats, and many other Christian families are reported to have fled the neighbourhood.
There are fears that even if she is released, Rimsha’s family will not be safe in Pakistan. Others accused of blasphemy have been killed by vigilante mobs in the recent past.
Human beings: finding shitty reasons to torment each other for 100,000 years.
No freedom for you. No work for you. No acting career for you. No safety for you. No right to decide how to live your life for you. Only death threats for you, if you have the nerve to be an actress in Afghanistan.
Afghan female artist and actress Sahar Parniyan has shifted her home from western Kabul city to an unknown location after she received death threats from unknown individuals.
Sahar Parniyan used to perform in Afghan drama serials and TV shows with Benafsha who was murdered by unknown men during the Eid days in capital Kabul. [Read more…]
Here’s a thing. A very small thing, but a thing.
I just saw it for about the 87th time and realized what’s so annoying about it.
It’s != or |= for ≠
Here’s what so annoying about it.
What the hell is the point? Just say “doesn’t equal.” If you don’t have the actual ≠ handy then just type the words, for godsake.
I know another one like that. DFW for Dallas Ft Worth. If you’re writing or typing, by all means say DFW, but if you’re talking – well do what you want, but DFW is more syllables than Dallas Ft Worth.
I know this because Martin Amis pointed out another one in The Information – someone talking referred to the MW for microwave. Count them.
Here’s another: the BBC always says WWF, never World Wildlife Fund. Both longer and more cryptic. Stupid.
Always be careful of the W.
Also – I don’t want to point fingers, but four twenty ten is a silly way to say ninety.
This has been Sunday Advice, brought to you by the Milk Marketing Board.
One of the current hot memes in the “let’s hate on FTB and feminazis” campaign is to announce that we’re “infantilizing” women and that it’s disgusting, outrageous, appalling. What’s up with that?
How are we infantilizing women? I don’t see it. By thinking conferences should have anti-harassment policies? [Read more…]
Atheism is easy for me in a way it’s not easy for people in (for instance) small towns in the South or Midwest – people like Jerry DeWitt of DeRidder, Louisiana, for instance.
DeWitt is something of a reality check for many atheists, whose principles rarely cost them more than the price of “The God Delusion” in paperback. DeWitt refuses to leave DeRidder, a place where religion, politics and family pride are indivisible. Six months after he was “outed” as an atheist he lost his job and his wife — both, he says, as a direct consequence. [Read more…]