Friday, April 29, 2005
You must read this
Best round-up I've seen of the anti-feminist movement. Enough to make your skin crawl. This is what we're up against girls!! I picked it up from Trish's excellent feminism and family rights blog - see the link over there>>>.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Something of the night...?
Seems like quite a few people in blogsphere have been playing celebrity lookie-likeys with the new Pope. My personal favourites are Daily Blatt and Pharyngula. Personally I think I've spotted an alarming similarity between Cardinal Ratzinger and Micheal Howard. I'll try and post the piccies up (if I can remember how) and give everyone a good laugh. They have some similarities in terms of how much I trust them and how open minded they are about cultural differences.
Anyway I could write a couple of essays on the potential ramifications of another fundamentalist Pope. I could write about the potential impact on women's rights, condoms and AIDs, the gay community and the third world. Frankly though, what do you expect from a group of people who believe in all seriousness that a man rose from the dead, raised the dead, cured the blind and crippled, transubstantiated water into wine, walked on water,... The one about father christmas coming down the chimney is more believable. So rather than try and argue with them, why not sign up to the National Secularist Society?
Anyway I could write a couple of essays on the potential ramifications of another fundamentalist Pope. I could write about the potential impact on women's rights, condoms and AIDs, the gay community and the third world. Frankly though, what do you expect from a group of people who believe in all seriousness that a man rose from the dead, raised the dead, cured the blind and crippled, transubstantiated water into wine, walked on water,... The one about father christmas coming down the chimney is more believable. So rather than try and argue with them, why not sign up to the National Secularist Society?
Monday, April 18, 2005
Very poor journalism
I am reluctant to even start on why this article is a disgusting outrage, and shouldn't have been published... And before anyone starts wittering on about "free speech", please don't bother. Who would publish an article suggesting that more extreme members of the civil rights movement were paranoid delusionals who "saw prejudice everywhere" and "set the civil rights movement back 20 years"?
Why is it that women's rights are the forgotten kid sister of the human rights movement over the last 100 years? One in 4 women is a victim of domestic violence in the UK, the conviction rate for rape is now around 6% the main reason given for the low rate being that prosecutors and police don't "believe" victims. We DO HAVE a problem with women's rights in the country, we DO HAVE a problem with women being persistently mistreated and abused, we DO HAVE a problem with widespread misogyny and abuse of women. Let us at least admit it and open up the debate on how best to deal with it.
While the likes of Havana Marking and Deborah Orr (in the Independent on Saturday) are insisting that Ms Dworkin was too ugly to have been raped, elsewhere we discover toddlers and pensioners are being raped. So that argument doesn't hold a lot of water. And why every article has to focus on her appearance is beyond me.
I hope Andrea comes back to haunt the lot of them!
Why is it that women's rights are the forgotten kid sister of the human rights movement over the last 100 years? One in 4 women is a victim of domestic violence in the UK, the conviction rate for rape is now around 6% the main reason given for the low rate being that prosecutors and police don't "believe" victims. We DO HAVE a problem with women's rights in the country, we DO HAVE a problem with women being persistently mistreated and abused, we DO HAVE a problem with widespread misogyny and abuse of women. Let us at least admit it and open up the debate on how best to deal with it.
While the likes of Havana Marking and Deborah Orr (in the Independent on Saturday) are insisting that Ms Dworkin was too ugly to have been raped, elsewhere we discover toddlers and pensioners are being raped. So that argument doesn't hold a lot of water. And why every article has to focus on her appearance is beyond me.
I hope Andrea comes back to haunt the lot of them!
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
And here are some of the winners so far!
Mail me your best suggestions (from the post below) and I'll link them. Best entries so far are:
The cerebral view
Some political science
One for the kids
Good point
One for the clergy
From EU Serf (I think this is the UKIP entry!)
The cerebral view
Some political science
One for the kids
Good point
One for the clergy
From EU Serf (I think this is the UKIP entry!)
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Any movement needs both radicals and liberals
So it is with great sadness that Cru-blog notes the death of Andrea Dworkin. The article leads with "she never hated men". Bit odd really, somebody's got to hate men. There are plenty of men out there who hate women. When you consider they have all the good jobs, all the economic power and doing most of the war-mongering and murdering I think I hate men a bit at least. Andrea had also been raped a number of times. If she didn't hate men a bit I would be quite surprised.
She is most famous for fighting against pornography and actually drafted a law defining pornography as discriminative against women. Personally I work in an industry (finance) where taking clients out to strip clubs is a normal way of networking and generating business. I think that sucks. Needless to say her views didn't make her very popular. Instead the "porn establishment", the likes of much-glorified Larry Flint, etc focussed on her appearance as a point of attack, thus confirming all our worst fears about the type of prejudiced society we live in.
Yeah she was fat and wore dungarees, no make-up and didn't get a haircut very often. She didn't exactly go for regular waxing either. Personally I think that's cool. There is a poster in my gym for electrolysis (permanent electrical hair-removal boys) which reads "Imagine if you never needed to wax or shave again...". Underneath I have written "you don't". I don't think people get it anymore.
She said she would like to be remembered thus: "In a museum, when male supremacy is dead. I'd like my work to be an anthropological artefact from an extinct, primitive society". Although desperately unfashionable I think a lot of her ideas still hold a lot of water. I hope they rise again some time and make it a bit further onto the political agenda.
She is most famous for fighting against pornography and actually drafted a law defining pornography as discriminative against women. Personally I work in an industry (finance) where taking clients out to strip clubs is a normal way of networking and generating business. I think that sucks. Needless to say her views didn't make her very popular. Instead the "porn establishment", the likes of much-glorified Larry Flint, etc focussed on her appearance as a point of attack, thus confirming all our worst fears about the type of prejudiced society we live in.
Yeah she was fat and wore dungarees, no make-up and didn't get a haircut very often. She didn't exactly go for regular waxing either. Personally I think that's cool. There is a poster in my gym for electrolysis (permanent electrical hair-removal boys) which reads "Imagine if you never needed to wax or shave again...". Underneath I have written "you don't". I don't think people get it anymore.
She said she would like to be remembered thus: "In a museum, when male supremacy is dead. I'd like my work to be an anthropological artefact from an extinct, primitive society". Although desperately unfashionable I think a lot of her ideas still hold a lot of water. I hope they rise again some time and make it a bit further onto the political agenda.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Mourning for the pope
Everybody's at it. Tony, Cherie, Michael Howard, Charles Kennedy, Charles and Camilla, every newpaper columnist and quasi-religious leader this side of the Milky Way (I shall refrain from links, if you have eyes you've seen the outpouring of "grief" on all sides).
Its sad when someone dies. I am still mourning the millions of Africans who could have been saved if the Pope had not so fervently opposed the idea of using condoms to combat AIDS. And of course the women dying in illegal backstreet abortion clinics because the legal ones have closed down or been outlawed thanks to ideas he advocated and promoted.
Sure he had some good ideas too but on balance I reckon he was a pretty rubbish pope. I hope they get a better one next time.
Its sad when someone dies. I am still mourning the millions of Africans who could have been saved if the Pope had not so fervently opposed the idea of using condoms to combat AIDS. And of course the women dying in illegal backstreet abortion clinics because the legal ones have closed down or been outlawed thanks to ideas he advocated and promoted.
Sure he had some good ideas too but on balance I reckon he was a pretty rubbish pope. I hope they get a better one next time.
In the beginning...
Despite the pre-noon, April 1st date on this BBC story, apparently there is some truth in it. Yes there are folks living in BRitain who honestly believe that God made the world in six days and Darwin was a nutter! They actually have an exhibition up in Portsmouth and are distributing a book titled "True Science agrees with the Bible"! They quote Dr Monty White who says "Evolution is not compatible with Christianity". Which raises two good points I think:
1) Christianity is not compatible with the Christianity. The Bible contradicts itself many times over and different parts of the church can never agree on the details of a lot of issues.
2) If evolution is not compatible with Christianity, then maybe Christianity isn't true.
I'd like to see a museum called the Darwin Expo, coupled with a book entitled "True Science proves there's no God". Lets no go the way of stupid America. If anyone tries to talk to you about creationism, tell them they're an idiot and walk away.
In the meantime however here are some top blog-sters and other web resources who have covered the issue:
Bazz-fazz
Pharyngula
World-of-Dawkins
I saw Dawkins speak once when I was a student at Oxford. He's a great ambassador for the voice of reason, atheist, rationalist, Darwinist folk. If this nonsense persists I hope he comes out and clobbers them.
1) Christianity is not compatible with the Christianity. The Bible contradicts itself many times over and different parts of the church can never agree on the details of a lot of issues.
2) If evolution is not compatible with Christianity, then maybe Christianity isn't true.
I'd like to see a museum called the Darwin Expo, coupled with a book entitled "True Science proves there's no God". Lets no go the way of stupid America. If anyone tries to talk to you about creationism, tell them they're an idiot and walk away.
In the meantime however here are some top blog-sters and other web resources who have covered the issue:
Bazz-fazz
Pharyngula
World-of-Dawkins
I saw Dawkins speak once when I was a student at Oxford. He's a great ambassador for the voice of reason, atheist, rationalist, Darwinist folk. If this nonsense persists I hope he comes out and clobbers them.
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