In Los Angeles. I took a group shuttle from the airport and it took FOREVER but that was actually good, because I got a tour.
Gonna go have a bite to eat with STACY and ALICE.
Doesn’t suck to be me.
I’m at the airport. As usual, I have no earthly reason for saying that, except that I like to.
Larry Williams has to report to the service desk. Larry Williams.
Have a pleasant Saturday.
Something to think about…violence against women in Pakistan: 2,713 cases reported in 2012 so far, not in Pakistan, but just in southern Punjab. And those are only the reported ones. Something tells me that not all women subject to violence in Pakistan are able or willing to report it.
These include cases of aas-aaf custom (10) – in which women accused of ‘bringing shame to the family’ take an oath of innocence on the Holy Quran and then walk on burning coals spread over six metres–, abduction and torture after abduction (577), acid attacks (20), burning by throwing kerosene oil and petrol (17), kaala kaali (25), assault after divorce (45), assault by in-laws (100), ‘honour’ killings (112), murder and assault for contracting a marriage with their free will (114), murder (162), victims of panchayat decisions where women were either sold or killed (37), rape (304), assault by police (20), suicide in reaction to family pressure, rape or other forms of violence (444), torture leading to physical or mental disability (489), wani (37), watta satta (25) and cases of gender discrimination and disinheritance (175).
I hadn’t heard of that aas-aaf custom. That’s nice. Very 16th century Europe, where women accused of being witches might be thrown into a pond. If they drowned they were innocent. Yay.
Sometimes the violence is just grumpy neighbors.
Farkhanda, a second year student and a hafiz-i-Quran, had an argument with three women neighbours when she went to their house to collect her dupatta that had fallen into their house.
They said the women accused her of throwing the dupatta into their house on purpose.
They accused her of entering their house with an intention to steal from there. Some neighbours heard them arguing and intervened, police said.
The matter was resolved and Farkhanda returned home, they said.
However, later that night, police said, three youths, Ibrahim, Iqbal and Bilal, relatives of the women Farkhanda earlier had an argument with, went to her house while her family was away and beat her up. Police said they decapitated her with a butcher’s cleaver…
And then after a pause to catch their breath, they chopped off her arms and legs.
I’m still wondering about this question of what is “religious morality”? Most people seem to think it’s just plain morality that’s (partly or wholly) motivated or endorsed or decorated by religion.
I think that’s completely wrong. That’s not because I think nobody is really motivated by religion. It’s because that’s not enough to make morality religious.
I think morality is secular. I haven’t been able to think of any morality that isn’t secular – any moral content that is religious as opposed to secular.
Can you? [Read more…]
Don’t miss Andy Lewis’s long and thorough article What Every Parent Should Know About Steiner-Waldorf Schools.
Just one sample, to whet your appetite –
Far from Steiner’s views being seen as a historical anachronism, the text books are full of unreformed anthroposophical views on the world. The text books I have got hold of teach that the heart is not a pump but is forced to beat by the pulsing blood that is forced around the body by the spirit. We learn that humans are bipedal because it frees the arms to pray. Anatomy is treated as a spiritual subject and not a science. The British Humanist Association notes that the source of the curriculum at Hereford state funded Steiner schools is acknowledged to be based on a book by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Richter which teaches that Darwinism “is rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics and young people need to emerge from school with a clear sense of its limits”. Homeopathy, a most egregious form of quackery, is ‘a good example of an effect that cannot be explained by the dominant [atomic] model’. It is worth noting that Steiner stated that the British Isles floated on the sea held in place by cosmic forces. And he believed in the historical truth of the vanished continent of Atlantis…
That article needs to be published somewhere.
And speaking of going places and doing things – Veronica Abbass at Canadian Atheist has a post about what people are looking forward to at Eschaton in Ottawa next month. We’re all looking forward to meeting each other, is what it boils down to.
I hope there’s plenty of cat food.
From the Washington state Voters’ pamphlet, the section on Referendum Measure 74, which would allow same-sex couples to marry. From the Argument Against.
God’s creation of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is the foundation of society and has served us well for thousands of years.
Seriously?!
I shouldn’t be surprised. The statements are prepared by the people who prepare them. They can have batshit crazy stuff in them.
But I am suprised, all the same. “God’s creation of marriage as the union of one man and one woman” doesn’t exist. One man often had lots of women in God’s old-timey world.
My “Promised Land” is a place where people don’t talk stupid shite like that.
Belatedly catching up with the Halloween Jesus and Mo.
Is the barmaid praising their sense of humour, or their insight?
There’s a new group for liberal Muslims in Canada: Muslims Facing Tomorrow. There was a launch a couple of weeks ago.
I attended the launch of the Council of Muslims Facing Tomorrow at the invitation of Raheel Raza, journalist, author, public speaker and activist. She founded MFT to amplify the moderate Muslim voice at a time when it’s in danger of being lost in the clamor of extremist rhetoric.
An energetic advocate of women’s rights and social reform, Raheel wants the group to be unconstrained by religion and open to all who share a vision of tolerance and diversity. She sees it more as a movement than an organization, connecting and motivating people around the globe, holding conferences and workshops to educate and strengthen the progressive Muslim identity. Of particular concern to her is providing direction and support for Muslim youth.
Good good good. Support for the Malalas of the world, and the parents of the Malalas of the world.
As Raheel welcomed the audience and the cameras clicked and flashed, I glanced around the auditorium; half an hour in people continued to arrive. There were no hijabs or “Islamic” beards, no segregated seating. I heard the prophet mentioned without the suffix “Salallahu alayhi wasalam” (Peace be upon Him). I can’t tell you how comfortable that made me; dialogue with some Muslims can feel like a piety competition – the tension is palpable when you don’t couch your words in the correct phrases.
Let’s hope the group thrives.