The Burka makes women prisoners, says President Sarkozy

French parliament to consider burka ban
"The problem of the burka is not a religious problem. This is an issue of a woman's freedom and dignity. This is not a religious symbol. It is a sign of subservience; it is a sign of lowering. I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France," Sarkozy told lawmakers.
"The burka is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement," he added. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

Over a half century, the Burqa has shrunk from a ‘moving tent’ enveloping a woman to a head covering in the form of a more formalized Hijab and alternatively as a loose head scarf in Pakistan-India. This evolutionary path will, inevitably, unfold in Afghanistan if and when it begins to have peace, modern forms of governance and development.

Mohammad Qadeer is a Professor Emeritus of Queen’s University, Kingston and a Fellow of Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement, Toronto, Canada
http://iramz.wordpress.com/2006/10/05/the-evolution-of-the-burqa/

WE ARE ALL NEDA

"We did not throw rocks at them.
We cried, 'We want freedom.'
they shot us."

for women everywhere

She studied philosophy and took underground singing lessons — women are banned from singing publicly in Iran. Her name means “voice” in Persian, and many are now calling her the voice of Iran.


Women's Rights Photo Gallery

Incredible "Stuff"

Long Now

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

Guidelines for a long-lived, long-valuable institution

■ Serve the long view (and the long viewer)
■ Foster responsibility
■ Reward patience
■ Mind mythic depth
■ Ally with competition
■ Take no sides
■ Leverage longevity

Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multi-tasking. All are on the increase. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed-some mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries. Long Now proposes both a mechanism and a myth. It began with an observation and idea by computer scientist Daniel Hillis:

"When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever-shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium."

Che Guevara’s Granddaughter Goes Commando for PETA

The granddaughter of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is undressing for a new PETA campaign with the slogan “Start a Vegetarian Revolution.” With the permission of her family and a revolutionary spirit “in her blood,” 24-year-old Lydia Guevara posed nude, wearing only a beret and carrot-filled bandoleer that will hopefully inspire more vegetarians than her grandfather’s overexposed t-shirts inspire revolutionaries.
Is this a political tactic Ernesto would have employed had he the exposure and sexual appeal as Lydia? Doubtful. The commercialism of vegetarianism has gained so much popularity it is similiar to the "Go Green" movement, losing sentiment in favor of blatancy. Ah, the media takes everything I love and turns it into a friggin' movie.

Amy Winehouse is Brilliant

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
great cover.
great voice. i hope she gets her act together.

cool

antidote to media whirlwind
The book that takes 1,000 years to read.

belle

JR Art
BBC Video

The Anonymity Project

Click

Who is Orlan?

The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan, which started in 1990, involved a series of plastic surgeries in the course of which the artist started to morph herself with respect to some of the most well known historical paintings and sculptures. Supported by her Carnal Art manifesto, these works were filmed and broadcast in institutions throughout the world, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Sandra Gehring Gallery in New York. Orlan's goal in these surgeries is to acquire the ideal of beauty as suggested by the men who painted women. When the surgeries are completed she will have the chin of Botticelli’s Venus, the nose of Gerome’s Psyche, the lips of François Boucher’s Europa, the eyes of Diana from a sixteenth-century French School of Fontainebleu painting and the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Orlan picked these characters, “not for the canons of beauty they represent… but rather on account of the stories associated with them.” Diana because she is inferior to the gods and men but is leader of the goddesses and women; Mona Lisa because of the standard of beauty, or anti-beauty, she represents; Psyche because of her fragility and vulnerability within the soul; Venus for carnal beauty; Europa for her adventurous outlook to the horizon, the future.

Many feminists have called Orlan an anti-feminist due to her goals and the means of reaching them. Instead of banishing cosmetic surgery, she embraces it; instead of rejecting the masculine, she incorporates it; instead of define her identity, she wishes for it to be “nomadic, mutant, shifting, differing.” She negates both patriarchal culture and the feminist ideal by creating her own identity for the future. As Orlan states, “my work is a struggle against the innate, the inexorable, the programmed, Nature, DNA (which is our direct rival as far as artists of representation are concerned), and God!”

Wikipedia

Supervolcano may be brewing beneath Mount St Helens

 IS A supervolcano brewing beneath Mount St Helens? Peering under the volcano has revealed what may be an extraordinarily large zone of semi-molten rock, which would be capable of feeding a giant eruption.

Lets face it: volcanos have only gotten cooler as I've gotten older.

Here is the the article

A song for your heart

Classic video from 1964!!

Great site for writers/teachers/thinkers

NOTORIOUS CONFUSABLES

For shame

Court upholds US military gay ban

The highest court in the US has decided not to hear an appeal from a soldier who was dismissed from the US army for being openly gay.

Under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, people who are openly homosexual are barred from service.

BBC Article

Help Free Laura Ling and Euna Lee

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8089290.stm

US President Barack Obama has said he is "deeply concerned" by North Korea's reported sentencing of two US journalists to 12 years' hard labour.

http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/help-free-laura-ling-and-euna-lee/

For this moment, just know that Laura and Euna are sisters, wives, daughters. Euna is also a mother. This week, you will hear from their families, their muzzles removed by the US State Department that has had little success up until this point in negotiating their release. They now agree that you should know what’s going on. You will hear stories of these two women as compassionate, intrepid, committed journalists, and more importantly, as caring, thoughtful, and passionate people. No doubt, many of the dozens of other reporters around the world – whose names we don’t even know – have the same sorts of family situations, personalities, and passions.

Abortion

The Death of an Abortion Doctor
Yesterday I had the unfortunate opportunity of visiting an Abortion Clinic. I will say it was not for myself but I'll add that it was still an emotionally straining event. When I stepped outside to put more quarters into the meter, an angry, angry man greeted with with religous chants of nonsense. He started spewing venom at me for playing a role in the muderering of millions of innocence unborn children. I was shook. Not by his message but by his cold presence. Needless to say he harrassed me down the Center City block until I had to yell back that I would get the police if he didn't back off. He did and disappeared by the time I returned from the meter. I don't understand the logic behind these angry individuals. Young women filled the clinic. Some were sad and some relieved but all were visibly scared. Why this man and many others feel it is okay to attact these girls and their loved ones in the name of an unknown God, or in the spirit of these unborn and deceased babies, alludes me.

I don't know the abortion answer but that is the thing. No one does. No one has the word of God. The prophets are the angels who embrace all people and living things, not the angry white men on corners who spit venom. The truth is, these young woman want a shot at life. They don't want to destroy it. Who is more responsible? The 14 year-old young single mother or the 19 year-old who has an abortion? Guess what? Who cares! There's is no answer. It is about CHOICE. Let the woman and man decide for themselves. It isn't up to others to judge. If "God" hadn't intended for women to abort unborn children, then it wouldn't be possible for us to do us. If he had intended us to fly, we'd have wings. Certainly we can't accept miscarraige and deny abortion? When one has a miscarraige the safest thing to do is to visit an abortion clinic! The medical science on that is known.

Look, it is also very scary when someone is harrassing you about abortion. My mother's friend worked at a clinic for many years and has many stories to share of bomb threats and verbal assaults. This is serious. So did this man upset me? Yes. But, he didn't bother me--that is the difference. I can get over an idiot. To me he represents the heartlessness which Christianity can potenitally grow in people.

On another note: 2 gay penguins are raising a baby penguin who was abadoned by it's mother and father...Which doesn't mean don't have abortions, give your babies to the gays. It means WHO CARES..WHATEVER WORKS!

The zoo said in a statement on its website that

"sex and coupling in our world don't always have something to do with reproduction."

American Israel

Irate Hate in Israel

This article and the accompanying video are what the author, Rosenthal, describes as "disgusting."

Israel, January, 2009: 10 days with Birthright, sightseeing and romancing. So, am I surpised by the comments on the video? Absolutely Not. Do I think American Israelis are sometimes greatly misinformed? Yes. Am I proud to be Jewish? Yes. But, do I agree with the current policies of Israel? No.

Get Real. Propoganda is the heart of the Israeli defense. Birthright is a tool for the Zionist movement. A fun, entertaining and expensive tool which happens to work! Not all Israelis agree with the government's policies but the soldiers sure do. Not all American Jews or American-Israelis agree either. Yet, as these article is quick and brutal to point out: Hate is the hurtle the Middle East faces.

A lot of people are confused on the issues of the Middle East. I am confused on the issues, too. But, I do know that racism will not led us towards a solution. Young Jews should stand up for all people and not just their own.

Sartorialist, 6/05/09

Beautiful.

Ms. J doesn’t know but hopes to find out
follows the world around piggy back style
peering over the shoulders of strong men
hoping the Earth caves in for a closer look

AROUND THE WORLD

Amelia Erhardt

A woman whose mysteriousness reminds me of the AirFrance crash.

The soaring legacy of Amelia Earhart
LA Times-Washington Post Posted online: Sunday , May 31, 2009 at 2318 hrs
There’s something about Amelia Earhart. More than seven decades after she disappeared without a trace in the South Pacific on her flight around the world, Earhart remains the most famous female aviator in history, a timeless heroine and inspiration to generations of women, filmmakers and fashionistas.
Flying was just the beginning. Earhart was also a fashion icon and designer with her close-cropped hair, pants and leather jackets. She was a leader in women’s rights and the peace movement. She was a president and founding member of the Ninety-Nines—the original women’s pilot organisation. She was a pioneering businesswoman—a partner in both Transcontinental Air Transport and Ludington Airlines and a luggage designer—a wife (she was married to publisher George Putnam) and a writer.

“She definitely has a legacy,” said Dorothy Cochrane, the curator overseeing Earhart’s fire engine red Lockheed Vega, in which she flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932 and which is housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Cochrane expects Earhart’s legacy to soar even higher with the release of the family comedy, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, featuring Amy Adams as Earhart.

Amelia, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hilary Swank, is a more serious look at her life, based on three recent biographies. Richard Gere plays Putnam, who also worked to publicise his famous wife’s exploits and image. Earhart, who turned down Putnam six times before she agreed to marry him, referred to their marriage as a “partnership” with “dual control”. The film will be released in the autumn.

Although Earhart has been the subject of countless books and several documentaries, very few films have been made about her. Rosalind Russell played an Earhart-esque flier in 1943’s Flight for Freedom; Susan Clark tackled the role in a 1976 TV movie, Amelia Earhart; and Diane Keaton starred in the 1994 TNT movie Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight.

So why is Hollywood taking notice of Earhart now? Nair believes it’s because Earhart “was the complete beacon of inspiration in the Depression for this country”. “It’s sort of an incredible coincidence that we are in this slump,” she adds. “I think it’s an excellent time to remind people of the heroes that kept us afloat—more than afloat—in Amelia’s time.”

Made in cooperation with the Smithsonian and partially shot there, Battle of the Smithsonian finds Larry (Ben Stiller) travelling to the site after pieces at the Museum of Natural History in New York are moved to storage underneath the largest museum complex in the world, in Washington. When the evil Pharaoh Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) comes to life, he decides to take over the world. Larry heads off to the Smithsonian to help out his friends, who are being threatened by the pharaoh. Helping Larry in his quest is Earhart.

Earhart gained national attention in 1928 when she was the first female passenger on the Fokker Friendship, which successfully flew across the Atlantic. She made her own nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic 77 years ago this month. Earhart also accomplished the first solo transcontinental flight by a woman in 1932 and in 1935 made the first solo flight by anyone from Hawaii to the US mainland. Her disappearance—along with navigator Fred Noonan—on July 2, 1937, added to her mystique.

Some believe that she and Noonan crash-landed on uninhabited Gardner Island and perished; during World War II, it was thought that she might have been spying on the Japanese for Roosevelt—that was the theme of Flight for Freedom—and another theory posits that she and Noonan were captured and later executed by the Japanese when their plane crashed on Saipan Island.

No Comment on China/Tibet

okay so this is very interesting
james reynolds' blog on china: in one post he writes about the dalai lama and relations btn tibet/china...the comments are unbelieable!
now, considering what reynolds and other have shed light on, read this article . if you read spanish, then read the article in el mundo here.
it is about how the reincarnated guru that the dalai lama picked has renounced his relationship to bhuddism...it is interesting b/c the chiense reputation in the west is very influenced by the dalai lama. yet, the chinese argue he is a "false prophet" and the dalai lama is nothing more than a media orchastrator and celebrity by which tibetans brainwash the west--basically. obviously there is a much deeper story to this then TO THINK can cover at the moment. but, for those interested in researcher, here is an alert: RESEARCH IT!
so this is a very interesting development...probably not recent but first i heard of it. meanwhile, the reincarnated guru that china chose HAS stayed with the bhuddist order. no comment from me though.
reynolds also noted in his blog entry:

If you were the Communist Party, you'd want a Dalai Lama of your own. That's exactly what the Party is trying out. It has its own alternative to the Dalai Lama - another English-speaking Tibetan monk who also preaches peace, but who insists that there is already freedom in Tibet.

This monk is 19-year-old Gyaltsen Norbu. In 1995, he was chosen by the Communist Party as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism. (The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was taken into custody by the Chinese authorities. He has not been seen in public since.)

One has to wonder what the relationship is btn Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and Osel Hita Torres. From an outsiders prospective with no knowledge it would seen Osel Hita Torres was never a guru to begin with. But, the deeper question remains: Is the Dalai Guru a guru? And is Bhuddism the spirital way of life?

Also, as with any news organization on which you wish to rely, examine the criticism--even if it is through wiki.

Compliments of LIFE

Martha Graham

How could I forget my fascination with Martha Graham?
I was actually always more impressed with Katherine Dunham:

a love lost
not thrown to sea
tossed with aprons around hips
a tight guard