If someone emails to ask if you want to take part in a discussion on a national (nae global) radio station, then you're probably going to want to check your email before the event rather than two days later when you've completely missed the opportunity.
Doh. Feeling quite stupid.
If you'll pardon a small tin-foil hat moment, this sounds exactly the moment at which I'd announce how a national ID card will make elections more secure:
The local elections this week are "wide open" to fraud because the Government has failed to close loopholes, senior election officials and opposition MPs said yesterday.
But, as police continued their investigations into alleged vote-rigging in London and Birmingham, the Government rejected widespread calls for ID checks on all voters. [...]
But yesterday the Government rejected the calls to make all voters provide proof of identity to get their ballot papers.
Bridget Prentice, the Electoral Administration Minister, said compulsory checks could deter people from registering to vote and reduce election turn-outs.
I'm still at a loss as to why this isn't a bigger story:
TOWN halls and National Health Service trusts face having to pay out more than £1 billion as tens of thousands of women workers embark on equal pay claims.
Nearly 20,000 health workers could be eligible for payments averaging £60,000 each, according to specialists in employment law. [...] The women want the same pay as male workers who are on a similar pay scale.
They will capitalise on a landmark £60m payout made by an NHS trust last year and the fact that 11 councils in northeast England have already agreed settlements worth £100m with some 30,000 women employees, who include cleaners, clerical staff, care assistants and catering workers.
Once again, I find myself despising the people whose disregard for women make human trafficking profitable:
THREE women bought as sex slaves for £7,000 each and held captive by Scottish brothel owners have been freed following a major investigation into people trafficking, The Scotsman can reveal. [...] Assistant Chief Constable Bill Skelly, who co-ordinated the operation, told how the Scottish brothel owners bought the three young women for about £7,000 each, raped and beat them, and threatened their families would be harmed if they tried to escape.
Following the investigation, which saw 16 saunas, massage parlours and private flats raided in Dundee, Glasgow and Perth and 11 people arrested, he said he believes hundreds more women in Scotland are being kept in similarly horrendous circumstances.
As DK reforms the NHS, I'll take the bait and note that the mere (albeit expensive) existence of Medicaid in the US doesn't tell the whole story - what's more interesting is the gap between those who qualify for Medicaid and those who can't afford health insurance. Some interesting research:
Medicaid eligibility for low-wage working parents is very limited. Few states provide Medicaid coverage to single parents with incomes above 100 percent of the federal poverty level.
Half of the states only cover working parents with incomes below 59 percent of poverty and, in nine states, working parents are ineligible for Medicaid if their incomes are above 37 percent of poverty (Guyer and Mann, 1999).
Even fewer states offer Medicaid to parents in two-parent families or to single adults, leaving 50 percent of poor adults in two-parent families and 46 percent of single adults without children uninsured (Kaiser, 1999).
Angela Phillips' piece on the male pill is a little confusing:
While we are transfixed by the idea that men might at last be able to share the loss of libido, weight gain, and general grumpiness which so often accompany pill taking for women we are in danger of losing track of the bigger issue: control of conception.
The pill gives women control of the fertility tap. She decides when to turn it off but just as important she decides (after discussion we hope) when to turn it back on.
What will happen when it is the man who controls the tap? Of course lots of mature couples will maturely make a decision to stop taking the pill when the house has been bought and the job is secure.
But what about the people who are never quite sure that the time is right? What will happen to their babies? Will the male partner feel able to risk making a 'mistake' when it is his partner who will carry the burden of the pregnancy?
For me (and I suspect most women of my acquaintance) wanting a baby is about holding a warm sweet weight in your arms, about the feeling that seems to run through your bones and end up twitching the corner of your mouth into a smile.
It is something akin to, but quite different from, desire. I don't pretend to know how men feel about babies (I am sure you will tell me though).
And on a lighter note [because unplanned pregnancy is hi-larious] if a couple do decide to stop taking the pill and try for a baby will they make the sort of mistakes that women so often make? I have lost count of the number of students who get pregnant in their final year. They obviously meant to have a baby after finishing their course but they mistimed it.
It was their mistake, they take the rap and somehow manage to struggle through the last part of their degree. How are they going to feel when it is their partner who mistimed it? Will they forgive him as they try to juggle finals with a baby on their laps?
A bit of a link-dump to join up some dots. First, the small slump in applications:
School leavers and mature students are shunning English universities, according to official figures that reveal fewer students have applied to university compared to last year. [...] The number of UK applications from people under 21 has dropped by 3.4%, from 317,480 to 306,739. Applications from mature students in the UK were also down. The number of applicants aged between 21 and 24 has fallen by 2.1%, while applications from those aged 25 and over are down by 4.6%.
ENGLISH youngsters are continuing to apply to Scottish universities in increasing numbers, figures confirmed today. And the number of Scots applying to Scottish universities is continuing to fall.
Figures issued today by university admissions service UCAS confirmed the trend which had previously been noticed in preliminary figures released in February. They showed fewer English students seeking university places south of the border and more seeking places in Scotland.
An UCAS spokesman agreed the figures could suggest English "fee refugees" were looking to Scottish universities, where top-up tuition fees do not apply.
More than a third of final-year students at the top English universities say they would never have started their courses if they had been forced to pay the new "top-up" tuition fees of up to £3,000 a year being introduced in just a few months time, according to a new survey today. [...]
Although the research finds that the majority of today's undergraduates believe their degree will help them get a good job after university, 38% of finalists from "the class of 2006" reveal they would not have come to university if they had had to pay the £3,000 annual tuition fees, which are being introduced in English universities this autumn. A higher proportion of students who attended state schools - 41% - say they would have been deterred by the new fees. [...]
Among other findings, nearly half of students proposing to take a postgraduate qualification did so because they believed that a first degree was insufficient on its own to land a good job after university.
The latest figures on UK university applications show a fall in the number of people wanting to study subjects such as classics, history and music.
Big rises were seen in the numbers opting for nursing, social work, pharmacology and maths. [...] Subjects which show a fall in applications include history (44,267 applications, -7.8%), music (19,367 applications, -11%), and English studies (51,660 applications, - 4.5%). [...] Minister Bill Rammell said: "What you might describe as subjects which students see as being really non-vocational, like fine art, philosophy, classical studies, have seen big reductions.
"An initial reading of figures suggests to me that there is some evidence that students are choosing subjects they think are more vocationally beneficial.
"If that's what they are doing I don't see that as necessarily being a bad thing," he said.
From regular commenter Ithika, an angry post about intelligent design creationism:
So what does Intelligent Design have to say in the realms of science? In fact, very little. It claims that:1. evolution fails to explain the origin of life;
2. evolutionary theory is inadequate to explain life’s complexity and diversity;
3. the only valid explanation for life’s complexity is an intelligent designer.
The first point can be discarded immediately, since evolution does not address the origin of life. The theory of gravity says nothing about where we came from, but that doesn’t mean we think it’s hokum…
The second point is explained through various obscure technical arguments, such as “irreducible complexity” and a “fine-tuned universe”, which many people have repeatedly shown to be nonsense.
But even if these arguments were valid this would not help the ID proponents’ case. There are no predictions. They do not state — beyond the simplistic “a designer did it” — any alternative hypotheses. Its proponents wish to knock down evolution and put… no alternative in its place; and yet they claim that their “theory” is on a par with evolution.
Some local news for local people:
EDINBURGH'S lap-dance clubs are to be asked to sign up to a voluntary code of conduct which would have them follow tough new rules ahead of a change in the law.
Strip clubs would have to remove all private booths and fit CCTV cameras in a bid to protect lap dancers from being forced into doing anything illegal. The code would also ban performers dancing within one metre of customers and make sure clubs do not employ performers under 18.
However, club owners hit back at the move claiming they were being unfairly targeted.
Tollcross councillor Lorna Shiels, who served on the group, has won the backing of the city's Labour administration for a motion to next month's council meeting to consider a voluntary code. [...]
she said she was optimistic most of Edinburgh's seven lap-dancing venues - six of which are in Tollcross - would be willing to make the changes ahead of a new law.
She said most of the clubs in Edinburgh did not have CCTV cameras. And she said in one club, the performers had to change in the ladies' toilets.
She said: "What I'm looking for is a voluntary code they can sign up to now. We've been assured by the operators' representatives we spoke to that the good operators would embrace this because it helps differentiate them from sex-industry outlets."
Cllr Shiels accepted some of the clubs might refuse to sign up to the code. But she said: "They will stand out as sleazy joints that don't want to promote women's safety and don't care about the community.
I like this idea:
Collaborative law, which has been developed in America, is designed to ensure that the break-up of a marriage is less bitter, traumatic and costly.
Already a number of Scottish couples – 50 in Aberdeen – have successfully used the scheme, which keeps the couple out of the courts and avoids the possibility of lengthy and acrimonious litigation.
"The idea is to end the concept of winners and losers in divorce and separation," said Richard Ward, spokesman for North-East Scotland Collaborative Law Association, which was launched yesterday.
Some old-skool gender policing:
"The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced ... at the English Court on Friday last ... It is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure of the bodies ... to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females.
So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is ... forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."
- The Times of London, 1816
Laura Barcella responds to the knashing of teeth and rending of garments that plagued the comments to her article on male responsibility for reducing rape:
I haven't relinquished the belief that violence against women is, in large part, a men's issue. No one has yet to convince me against the idea that many men, even if they have never physically perpetuated an act of violence against women, still (consciously or unconsciously) participate in our subtle, socially-acceptable culture of female degradation.
... When I tell people I'm a psychologist specializing in gender-based violence, people always ask, when a man is beating his wife, why does she stay with him? That's question #2; they never ask question #1: Why would a man hit his wife?
... Is it women's job to prevent rape? Don't get me wrong - I'm all for women learning self-defense if they want to, but let's call it what it really is - risk reduction. It is men's responsibility to prevent rape.
Irony called - they want their crucifix back:
CHRISTIAN protesters picketed the controversial Jerry Springer the Opera musical when it opened in Edinburgh last night.
Around 40 angry church-goers - one dressed as a blood-stained Christ carrying a wooden cross - launched the protest at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre last night. [...]
Paul James-Griffiths, a 43-year-old script writer from the West End, dressed as Christ, said: "This is my artistic response to something where I feel people have pushed the boundaries too far."
This should be common sense to everyone - a person under the threat of violence isn't free to give any kind of consent, which is why this reform from the Home Office is a good one:
Men who knowingly have sex with trafficked prostitutes will be prosecuted for rape as part of a police crackdown, the Guardian has learned.
A drive to cut the demand for trafficked prostitutes will target punters by urging them to report any contacts they have with trafficked women and making it clear that action will be taken against any who have sex in the knowledge that the woman has been trafficked.
The crackdown will be publicised with advertisements in "lads' magazines" and on websites used by men who buy sex.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We too want to see widespread action to tackle this abhorrent trade at source. The UK has not yet signed the convention but that doesn't mean that we won't sign it."
Coverage of the poll showing that some BNP policies are very popular is deeply misleading and seems to suggest that voters are either stupid or hypocritical:
52 per cent of those who took part in the survey agreed that all immigrants should be denied the right to bring further members of their family into this country. But when told it was a BNP policy, support fell by 9 per cent. [...]
More than a third of people, 37 per cent, said they would seriously consider voting for the BNP's policies in an election. But identifying the BNP with the policies caused support to fall by 17 per cent. Large majorities dismissed two of the BNP's most hardline ideas. Some 68 per cent refused to support the stance that non-white British citizens are inherently less British than white people.
And 52 per cent were opposed to encouraging immigrants and their families to leave Britain.
Psst.. I think he's talking about us:
A "pernicious and even dangerous poison" is present in the British media, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said today.
The politician accused parts of the Press of making incorrect and over-simplified statements about his Government's record on civil liberties. He said journalists had transferred totalitarian qualities to democracies such as the UK and the US following the collapse of "genuinely dangerous" dictatorships.
"In the absence of many of the genuinely dangerous and evil totalitarian dictatorships to fight - since they've gone - the media has steadily rhetorically transferred to some of the existing democracies, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, some of the characteristics of those dictatorships. So some commentators routinely use language like 'police state', 'fascist', 'hijacking our democracy', 'creeping authoritarianism', 'destruction of the rule of law' [...]
"In the case of often complex debates, for example on the appropriate balance between liberty and security, much media comment reduces itself to simplistic and flowery rhetoric."
Jenni Russell in The Guardian catches Blair's favourite rhetorical trick in mid-flight:
Blair's genius, here as so often, is to present ends that we would all find desirable, while implying that his methods are the only means of getting there. Anyone who criticises those methods, whether a judge, journalist or citizen, can thus be presented as an opponent who cannot deliver what he is seeking: a just and free society. His emotional appeal is undeniable. His logic is flawed,
indefensible and dangerous.
It is always impossible to know whether the prime minister is being disingenuous, or whether he is genuinely ignorant.
There's a new study putting the lie to the persistent belief that prostitutes choose that life because they enjoy sex so very much - and apologies for the chunky quote but the Herald's archive doors shut incredibly quickly:
NINE out of 10 prostitutes are injecting drug users, up from 70% in 1992, according to research. The study by Dr Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, concluded that the need to fund a drug habit was one of the main reasons for women becoming prostitutes. [...]
It adds: "What is clear from these reports is the fact that while a small number of women described themselves as having exercised some element of choice in their decision to start working, and continue working, in the sex industry, for the vast majority of women interviewed in this study, the decision to start working appeared to have largely been made for them as a result of the desperate circumstances in which they were living, predominantly their dependence upon illegal drugs." [...]
Dr McKeganey's report states that it was inaccurate to believe there was any choice in terms of the women's routes into prostitution and that it could be described as "forced labour".
Let's call this partially good news:
The Vatican is preparing to publish a statement on the use of condoms by people who have Aids, a senior Roman Catholic official has said.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan told La Repubblica newspaper that Pope Benedict XVI asked the Vatican's council for health care to study the issue.
The claim in The Independent that housework is therapeutic for women relies on some fairly shaky logic:
Where 20 years ago housework was seen by many as a sign of female subjugation, the tide appears to have turned. Nearly six out of 10 (58 per cent) defended their role in the home and said they "felt depressed if their house was a mess", while 59 per cent said "untidiness and clutter made them feel tense".
Eight out of 10 respondents compared the cleanliness of their home with other people's, while 70 per cent feared they would be thought "lazy" if their homes were untidy.
Although only 22 per cent said they actively enjoyed cleaning and tidying, the majority (64 per cent) said the "results made them happy" and half said it was "visually joyful" which left them feeling "proud of their achievements".
Holy farking shit: I just took the free upgrade on my broadband, and was told that it would take up to ten days to take effect. Within three minutes, my account disconnected and then re-connected. At twice the speed.
Wheeeeeeee.
Normal services will resume shortly.
As you might have noticed, there's now a small Adsense box in the right-hand bar. If you like reading this blog, you can now show your love in an indirect and yet economically rewarding fashion. :)
The reason? I'm finishing up my thesis and the stealth costs of submission are proving to be financially "exciting." Oh, and if you see something that's entirely inappropriate appearing in the ads, please let me know.
Ta.
I'm glad that the problem of undervalued domestic labour is being recognised, but the solution proposed here completely misses the point:
WOMEN are being held down by a “second glass ceiling” that prevents them making the same progress towards equality at home that they have achieved in the workplace, writes Claire Newell.
In a report to be published on Tuesday, Demos, a think tank with links to the Labour party, will argue that many couples are trying hard to establish a relationship based on equality.
But the economic realities of raising a family often push them to adopt a traditional division of roles — in which the man is the main breadwinner and the woman does most of the child rearing. [...]
Demos is calling for the introduction of “family life vouchers”, paid for by either employers or taxpayer, to pay for nannies, cooks and cleaners so women will find it more practical to return to work.
He outlines controversial new steps, ranging from seizing assets from suspected drug dealers - which could see anyone stopped with more than £1,000 having the money confiscated - to draconian new restrictions on the movements of those suspected of involv-ement in organised crime.
Even if they are not convicted of a crime and there is insufficient evidence to try them, suspects could be banned from associating with certain individuals or travelling to certain places, in order to disrupt trades such as human trafficking.
In fact the [Regulatory Reform / Abolition of Parliament] bill limits opportunities for debate. If a minister chooses the so-called “negative resolution” procedure (one of the three procedures defined in the bill) an order may be made with no debate at all. If parliament wants to approve the order in a debate, it must first call for one of the two affirmative procedures to be used.
I was really hoping we'd avoid this claim on the "moral" high-ground, but it seems that Tesco has decided that it has a better grasp of health care than - well - health care professionals:
Tesco yesterday accused Health Service trusts of 'forcing' it to supply the morning-after pill to children. At present, the supermarket chain sells the emergency contraception only to women and girls over 16 and those with a prescription.
But it claims that some primary care trusts are now demanding that new pharmacies provide the pills free to girls under 16. According to Tesco, if it does not agree to do so, it may not obtain pharmacy licences.
A spokesman said: "It has been our policy since 2002 not to provide the morning-after pill to under-16s. We took this decision after many of our customers told us they were unhappy with Tesco providing this service.
"However, some primary care trusts are making provision of the pill to under-16s a requirement of obtaining a licence.
"So we fear that, in the future, we will reluctantly be forced to comply if we are to offer customers the benefits of a pharmacy, including important services such as the dispensing of prescription medicines."
The morning-after pill became available over the counter in 2001 and can be bought legally by anyone over 16.
There are some words which are persistently awkward: words which will send eyes rolling in disbelief, words like 'queer,' 'feminist,' and - to get to the point - 'heteronormativity.'
Maybe there's a belief that it just has too many syllables to be accepted as a part of the real world rather than an academic clique, but still - let me tell you a small story by way of an analogy to explain what I mean when I use it:
Let's pretend that in every room you go into, the people you find there think that they already know your name, which is Mr Smith. You don't really want to bring up your personal business, but you also don't want people to presume you're someone you're not - so you mention that they have your name wrong.
However, the people in the room think that as it's small town everyone is related to the Smith family in one way or another. However, after a moment, someone remembers that a new family moved into the area recently and that if you're not a Smith, then you surely must be a Clark. There are rumours that the Clarks - every man and woman amongst them - like dancing and interior design. They might also be atheists, or worse.
At this point - when you insist you are neither a member of the Smith or Clark clans - the room divides into two groups. You can more or less leave now, because the rest really doesn't involve you at all but your ride won't be back for another hour. The first group thinks you're kidding yourself and that after a nice lie down, you'll come to your senses and realise that - despite what you might have done at college - you are Mr. Smith after all.
The second group also thinks that you're kidding yourself - but they think that you are in fact Mr. Clark and are merely trying to disguise it with a veneer of Smithiness. One enterprising person suggests that maybe you're the product of inter-marriage and that you are a member of both families and hold dual passports to their respective homelands. There may be an appeal to some kind of higher order to settle the issue, once and for all.
Now imagine that a variation on this story takes place in every room you enter and every time you open the newspaper or turn on TV and that every damn person presumes to know your name.
Okay, here's two sides of an argument I've been having with myself, thanks to posts at Mind the Gap and Alas, A Blog.
Rape trials should offer confidentiality to both the accuser and accused. It deflates those who oppose rape law reform on the grounds that 'false accusations' are damaging and recognises that the prosecution of rape is almost unique in its examination of the victims behaviour. Anonymity prevents rape trials from being indirectly influenced by the versions of events constructed by the mass media and protects the families and individuals involved from unwarranted intrusion.
However, secret trials are not a good thing in a liberal democracy: when justice is done, we also need to be able to see it being done if we are to trust our legal systems or campaign for reform. I'm also very uneasy about advocating blanket restrictions on reporting in the media, though I recognise how they can have a socially functional and appropriate role (such as in protecting the identity of minors in child custody or abuse cases.)
Yet anonymous trials might also re-inforce the veil of silence that surrounds sexual violence, potentially hiding both the scale of the problem and the consequences on real lives. There are also cases where the prosecution of a particular suspect has lead other victims to come forward with their own evidence, with stories of their own assault.
So, how do we go about striking a balance?
The priorities of middle England, in short-form:
Article on a woman arrested during human rights protest for intimidating a foreign official at 600 yards: 3 comments.
Article on the cost of a woman's haircut during the last general election: 42 comments.
Pot, I find you to be exceedingly black. Yours, kettle:
A CHURCH of Scotland committee has backed using human embryos for stem cell research in some circumstances. The Kirk's Society, Religion and Technology Project decided it was ethical to use embryos created during IVF treatment if they were under 14 days old. [...]
Leading experts in medical ethics have described the stance as "brave", but the report, which goes before the General Assembly next month, has already attracted criticism from the Roman Catholic Church, which said the Kirk was "starting down a dangerous path" by stating that the end justifies the means.
I've used the line before but it's still good: women ain't fertilising themselves, so when people write about 'women's lifestyles' in regard to changes in childbirth stats, it would be nice to recognise that at least a few of them will have - you know - talked to their partners about having children:
AN "ALARMING increase" in the premature births is being recorded across Europe and doctors believe that women's lifestyles may be to blame.
Researchers say it is difficult to explain the rise but obesity, smoking and social class might be part of the problem. Very young and older mothers are also more likely to have a premature birth.
How very, very considerate:
One of the Roman Catholic Church's most distinguished cardinals has publicly backed the use of condoms among married couples to prevent Aids transmission.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said that in couples where one had HIV/Aids, which could pass to the partner, the use of condoms was "a lesser evil".
One of those tongue in cheeck articles that's actually about sanitising and policing those nasty queers:
What I secretly yearn for is a gay uncle. Ordinary uncles are fine, don't get me wrong. But a gay uncle has the time, energy and, crucially, the disposable income to add a stylish new dimension to family life.
Need your son's bedroom decorated? Look no further than the one person in the family with taste and an account at the Designer's Guild. [...]
Gay uncles, you see, have exacting sartorial standards. Rapper turned clothes designer Sean ''Diddy'' Combs once confessed that he owed his flair for fashion to his gay uncle.
Look in any little girl's wardrobe and you may well spot the telltale signs of a gay uncle's generosity. [...] Sadly, lesbian aunts don't enjoy the same reputation for indulgence.
Perhaps they prefer to acquire their own offspring - or to spend their salaries on sensible shoes rather than frou-frou garments or ruffled bed canopies for their nieces.
Someone over at Comment in Free posts this in reply to Laura Barcella's article on the eagerness of some to blame the victims of rape:
Hey Laura, I'm sure you know that it's illegal to knock down and kill someone in a car. We all know that. Men and women. Do you think if you took a stroll in the fast lane of the M1 one night, it would therefore be entirely the fault of the car driver/s if you were ran down?
Or might you too carry some responsibility, for doing such a damn silly thing?
Fresh from the Catholic Media Office mailing list:
In a talk to be given this evening (Wednesday 19 April) at the University of Glasgow, Professor Patrick Reilly will expose a series of flaws in the bestselling "Da Vinci Code" book and in its underlying premise.
Good news, checkmated by bad news in The Guardian as the cost of the national ID database goes up by £200m:
A £400m scheme put forward by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, to create a new national population database dubbed a building block of the "surveillance society" was finally killed off yesterday. The initial plans for the citizen information project won the Office of National Statistics the 2004 Big Brother award for the "most heinous government organisation" from the campaigning organisation, Privacy International.
The aim of the project, which was to go live in 2008, was to create a "master list" of everybody's name, address, date of birth, sex and a personal identifying number which could be shared across the public sector.
But Des Browne, chief secretary to the Treasury, yesterday said this should be done through the national identity card scheme instead, "on the basis that the scheme eventually becomes compulsory". The decision is expected to add £200m to the cost of the ID card scheme.
Let's play the time-honoured game of compare and contrast. First, it's all hugs aall around - in a chaste, heterosexual kind of way, of course. It's Tuesday, 18th April:
However, the new Pope's first year has been characterised not by smacks or bites at the liberal wing but by harmony, patience and an olive branch to those who opposed his election. [...] He is no longer characterised as the Rottweiler, but as the German shepherd, dedicated to keeping an eye on his flock.
Even commentators who would scarcely describe themselves as fans have been impressed. Richard Holloway, the author and former primus of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, says: "I was surprised that he was elected - and disappointed. But what has since surprised me has been his grace. He hasn't avoided his conservative principles, but there has been a lighter tone. I would say that it's a matter of tone over content, but tone is important. He has put things in a better way than he has in the past.
I was also surprised but very pleased that he has put the emphasis on love, which is, after all, the heart of the Christian message. There are lots of other things, such as law and discipline, but love sometimes gets lost and he's brought it to the fore."
Decadent world is in the grip of Satan, says Pope
Pope Benedict said last night that the world was in the grip of Satan and prayed for mankind to open its eyes to the "filth around us". At an Easter ceremony that recreated the passage of Jesus Christ to the crucifixion, Benedict XVI lashed out at man's "decadent narcissism". He said "a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan".
Not all of you will be familiar with the treasure trove that is the Daily Mail's message boards - one of which leads with 'If you were 80 would you still ride like the Queen?' Oh, my filthy, filthy mind overfloweth. Come with me as I dip into an ever-replenishing pool of irony.
Today's core sample comes from the discussion of same-sex marriage, where the majority of people are happily in favour of people getting on with their own lives and loving each other etc. etc. Fortunately for the purposes of entertainment, the defenders of 'traditional' morals eventually appear from the undergrowth. First, someone with their heart in almost the right place:
There is far too little love in the world as it is and anything that brings people closer together with committment to each other should be celebrated, but please let's refer to same-sex ceremonies as Civil Partnerships; they are NOT marriages, marriage is the union of one man and one woman and should not be undermined in any way. Marriage is,imo, vital to maintain a strong and stable society and should always be treated as such.
Helen (who's been married twice and is blissfully happy with my lovely second husband)
Well i'm sorry but i dont agree in same sex marriages at all.
I dont have a problem with gay people i wouldnt abuse them or be rude or anything, i know a couple of gay people BUT i dont want to see it flaunted in my face because im sorry but it just isnt 'normal' whatever that is.
I know that gay people are born this way or whatever so they cannot help feeling attracted to the same sex in the same way that straight people cant help being attracted to the opposite sex. But i just dont see why their relationships needs to be publicly recognised??
Yes i am sure thanks i said flaunting not pushing it in my face..........Cor blimey lets have a debate not play tit for tat on who said what when!!!
As for me not having to get it....i know i dont but this is a discussion and i am expressing an opinion.
Various people are blogging today to raise the profile of the issue of sexual violence, with a list of participants listed in the comment thread at Femivist.
For my part, I want to point you to the public consultation on sexual offence law in Scotland. The consultation period is open until 1st May and you can give your views online at the Scottish Law Commission's website.
One of the central intentions of this review is to end confusion over what constitutes consent:
[Fiona Southward of the SLC] said: "There may be many different views of what 'consent' is, or of what sort of behaviour can be evidence of 'consent'. "If there is no definition, then the door is open to prejudices about the way women dress, drink and behave. It also means there is nothing in legislation to say how the law expects a person to behave and how people are to understand the behaviour of others."
The SLC has suggested drawing up a list of possible scenarios which would assist jurors in establishing when consent has not been given.
The main proposals also covered by the consultation are the redefinition of rape - to include male rape, protection of those vulnerable to sexual exploitation, application of the law equally to men and women and a review of rules of evidence.
The role of the Crown in a rape trial is to lead evidence of facts which show not only that there was as a matter of fact no consent given by the women but also that the lack of consent was or (should have been) clear to the accused. [...]
However, under current Scots law there is no spceific definition of consent. Indeed is has been held tha a judge should not provide the jury with a definition
where the accused has sexual intercourse with the victim and either a) the accused has overcome the victim's will; or b) the victim did not have a fair opportunity to exercise her will.
The defendant has raped the complainant if he penetrates her whilst she a) has become intoxicated to the extent that substantially interferes with her decision=making processes; and b) that intoxication occurred without her knowledge or as a consequence of force, threats of force or she was otherwise intimidate into becoming intoxicated; and c) he is aware of the circumstances surrounding her intoxication or was reckless as to those circumstances having occurred.
It is a defence to the charge of rape contrary to this section that the defendant was a_ explicitly invited by the complainant to have intercourse whilst she was in a state of intoxication prior to her becoming intoxicated ; or b) was in an ongoing sexual relationship with the complainant such that intercourse in such circumstances was to be expected.
- in the current definition of consent is that it presents a model of sexual activity in which one party (usually but not always the woman) does not play an active role. ‘If the sexual autonomy of all parties is to be respected, then the focus should be on what all the parties, in their respective interactions, do to arrive at genuine consenting sexual activity.’
- the primary question should be ‘what did all the parties do the ensure that they participated in a fully consensual act?’
- ‘Giving consent is not simply a matter of making a particular verbal utterance. It is rather something that emerges from what the parties do and say to each other.’ A statutory definition of consent could appeal to social convention, defining which ‘circumstances could not, in themselves, be taken as the giving of consent; or that other situations are indicators that no consent is given.’
In particular [defining consent] allows the law to adopt the position that if one person wants to have sex with another, and there is any doubt that the other person is consenting, then the obvious step to take is to ask.
Another comment on the career 'choices' being made by women that completely ignores that social responsibilities that limit the range of any such choice - as per usual, men are AWOL:
Norman Wells, director of Family and Youth Concern, said women were earning more because of the choices they had made.
He added: "Research done by the London School of Economics has shown that one in five women is devoted to their career come what may and fit their children in, if they have any, around that.
"Then you have one in five who are committed to their family and children foremost, who will devote all their time and energy to that. In the middle you have the majority of women who adapt their work pattern to fit in with the needs of their family.
"Although there is still a clear gap between men and women, it is not because of overt discrimination, but simply down to the choices that women make. It's possible that more women are looking for higher-paid jobs."
Bah. I think I'm the last person to get around to this but there's one recurring rhetorical pose in the Euston Manifesto that I want to look at: the constant repositioning of the Eustonauts as 'good left' rather than 'bad left'. Insert generic recognition of and agreement with criticisms of crazy people on the far left here - as I understand that if I don't do that particular dance, I'm some kind of hypocrite for daring to criticise Eustonia. Oh, and terrorism indeed bad.
Of particular interest is the handling of anti-Americanism. Those of the 'bad left' are struck down by literalism: their anti-Americanism means that they literally hate American people. The Eustonauts, speaking for the 'good left', recognise a difference between the American people and American foreign policy. Yet, while they recognise a difference, they don't actually intend to do anything with that information:
That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported repressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people.
It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its people have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions.
Okay, here's final part of my mini-series on modern masculinity. Comments very much welcomed. Part one is here, and part two is here.
Though I've offered a picture of modern masculinity as a work of cultural artifice that we're making up as we go along, the consumer culture of masculinity only works because it is devotedly wedded to the idea of an essential manliness whose presence underwrites every re-arrangement of what passes for manliness - and in turn allows the machinery of masculinity through consumption to operate.
Before I disappear down the theory rabbit hole, let's try and keep it simple. The images of manliness being sold in our culture are surrogates. A fine shirt, a rippling set of abs and a fast car do not make the man but they do begin to let him dress and act like one. They allow him to be recognised as a man. Now, the nature of a surrogate is that it stands in for something - in this case, a kind of ur-masculinity. In consumer masculinity, that chain of surrogacy is unending.
You can't be the man in the advert with the perfect stomach and smile, but you can buy this article about stomach exercises and you can buy this dental bleach. It's a continuous parade of products and images that hold the promise of proximity to the zenith of masculine desirability.
In order for this kind of cultural machinery to work, it's vital for that proximity to be maintained: never widening the gap between the real world and the ideal, but never closing it. In practice, this means that any stable image of masculinity is rapidly replaced by a new set of standards, for which new routes to being a proper man can be invented and marketed. The entire machinery of cultural consumption is dependent on the perpetual discovery of new, unreachable hallmarks for masculinity or femininity.
The list making exercises of Mansfield and co actually supports this model of masculinity because it supports the idea that there is some essential manliness that can be reached, if only we were prepared to behave in a particular way. Our lack of manly virtue takes on the quality of denial - if only we'd give into a little office fist-fighting rather than allowing our menfolk to be emasculated by civil order.
That cult of victimhood - where men are being progressively destroyed by devious liberals and perfidious feminists - is as unhelpful as it is misleading. In a culture where straight men hold the vast majority of power and money, in a legal system that has never had to be ammended to recognise straight white men because it was written by them in the first instance - we really don't need to be talking about setting up groups to represent the interests of the poor, defenceless straight guy.
It's also a little strange that people who speak of the unrecognised virtues of straight men frequently decide that their common characteristic is helpless passivity in the face of change. If you're looking for a villain to blame for the economic and cultural plight of the average straight man, you might want to start looking for a group of slightly richer straight men.
(Entertainingly, few people who support that idea of an interest group working for the ordinary straight man seem to remember that we used to have really powerful ones: they were called trade unions and were very successful up until the moment that some other richer straight men decided they had better economic theories and really didn't need all those nationalised industries. But I digress... )
The solution to 'the problem with modern men' is to take a few pages from the feminist play-book and start openly using the kind of political strategies popularised by feminist critics - by looking at these lists of apparently 'manly' or otherwise gendered characteristics and exercising a little critical effort to find the grains of common experience in a mountain of posturing bull-shit. I'm talking about the necessity of realising a difference between common (and diverse) experiences and claims to essential qualities. Anger directed at some feminists for their willingness to deconstruct gendered identities is misplaced: instead, be pissed at the cultural authorities who tell you that masculine identities are so slender as to be threatened to the point of extinction by a woman in trousers.
We're only passive consumers if we want to be. Persistent flailing about men being under attack creates the image of culture passivity and uniformity where it doesn't exist. The good news - once you stop living in the shadow of a lost golden age of whatever - is the sheer volume of experience that passes for male life, that runs from the virile to the chaste, the muscular to the svelte, the aggressive to the pacifist and on and on and on. The definition of masculinity and manliness is permanently open to revision and reinvention: if we recognise that, rather than invest in images of manliness whose real function is to keep us coming back for more, then we can start to have a little fun.
Pardon my geeking, but there's a follow up piece on the issue of GLBT guilds in War of Warcraft:
Observing the story gain traction, Blizzard offered an attempt at clarification on its message boards, defending its position as, in fact, orientation protective and noting that its policies had been tailored to uniformly prevent discrimination against players "based on a particular political, sexual, or religious preference." Andrews thinks this simply missed the point. "Trying to shut out the real world in an online game as big as WOW is impossible," she says.
"And besides, if Blizzard really wanted to censor these things, why is there a giant cathedral in Stormwind? Why do humans start in an abbey?
World of Warcraft's moderators have been shutting down gay-friendly guilds in the game on the tortured grounds that letting people mention that they're gay will encourage jerks to say nasty things about gay people, and since saying homophobic things violates WoW's policies, ignorant jerks shouldn't be tempted into being homophobes.
The Home Office has released figures showing that the total number of victims of domestic violence may be five times higher than previously recognised:
As few as 4% of men convicted of domestic violence are sent to prison while a clear majority escape with a fine, according to new Home Office figures published this week. [...]
The latest figures based on a small sample of cases in five specialist courts show that 29% of those convicted are sent on such programmes. Fifty-nine per cent are fined or ordered to pay compensation, 30% given a conditional discharge, 10% a community punishment order, and only 4% jailed.
A study of cases in a west London magistrates court showed a slightly different picture, with 43% of those convicted being fined, 12% given a conditional discharge, 32% on community rehabilitation orders, 6% on community punishment orders and 14% sent to jail. [...]
Home Office research shows that on average a woman endures 35 incidents of domestic abuse before making a complaint to the police.
Violent domestic incidents can lead to death, with half of all female murder victims being killed by their partners or ex-partners.
Unlike other forms of violence, domestic violence is rarely a one-off incident. Those who suffered domestic violence told the BCS study that they faced an average of 20 incidents a year, 16 of them involving force being used. In a third of cases the violence started during pregnancy, and if the man had already been abusive, the pregnancy often escalated the violence involved.
It's Good Friday, and science is 'satanic' for trying to help people. Because birth defects and cancer are kinda cool. No, wait. I'm confused again. Some science is good, but other science is bad and only the Pope gets to decide which is which. Okay?:
THE Pope will deliver a blistering attack on the “satanic” mores of modern society today, warning against an “inane apologia of evil” that is in danger of destroying humanity.
In a series of Good Friday meditations that he will lead in Rome, the Pope will say that society is in the grip of a kind of “anti-Genesis” described as “a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family”. He will pray for society to be cleansed of the “filth” that surrounds it and be restored to purity, freed from “decadent narcissism”.
Particular condemnation is reserved for scientific advances in the field of genetic manipulation. Warning against the move to “modify the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God”, the Pope will lead prayers against “insane, risky and dangerous” ventures in attempting “to take God’s place without being God”.
An "interesting" line of argument emerges from Ruth Kelly - poor exam results are due to everyone being stoned all the time. The pupils, not the teachers, by the way:
Random drug testing in schools has cut the number of teenager users and should be considered by headteachers across the country, Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, said yesterday.
The Abbey school in Faversham, Kent, has been randomly testing pupils for illegal drugs since January 2005. [...]
"Drugs is ... an issue which is not going away in schools," she said. "I was looking at the evidence from the Abbey school the other day where they have tried random drug testing and found that a hugely effective way of creating peer pressure against taking drugs in school."
Yesterday Peter Walker, the headteacher who introduced the scheme, said the government's support was "very important". More than 500 pupils had been tested and only one had proved positive. "The school has had the best 18 months in its history and its best exam results," he said. Tests had given pupils a reason not to take drugs.
While racism on the terraces is being confronted by the FA, homophobia persists - a parasitic culture that feeds off the 'unmarked' status of gay men and women. It's not so much the assumption that everyone involved in football must be heterosexual, but that part of that identity is the hatred of "teh queer".
Oh, there's that and the fact that refusing to confront bigotry is apparently more profitable:
[T]he only openly gay man on the Football Association's Council says that the major hurdle for any player in coming out is concern over how that player's value might be damaged.
"The main difficulty at the moment is that players are assets," said Peter Clayton, who is the chief executive of the Middlesex FA and a long-serving FA councillor. "They have a market value, which clubs might feel could be affected. I think there's a concern too about the wider price, in terms of negative effects [on business]. This is my personal view, but there are clubs who think it's in their interests to counsel players not to come out."
From the big book of how not to win public support and alienate the sympathetic, we have Real Fathers For Justice:
Fathers' rights campaigners climbed Westminster Abbey to stage a protest today. A spokesman for Real Fathers for Justice said two of its members had climbed 50ft to 60ft up the historic landmark in central London.
They were carrying a dummy on a cross to signify that fathers are being "crucified" by the state with unequal treatment in the courts, he added.
The spokesman said: "They had Roman soldier costumes, but the police have snatched them."
You should go and read Joan Bakewell in the Daily Mail. From her conclusion:
The lad culture among boys in their late teens and early 20s, fostered by magazines such as Loaded, Maxim, Nuts and Zoo, promises them a world of slick and easy glamour and available, disposable women.
The magazines claim to be giving men the confidence and skills for life in a vigorously competitive metropolitan life. But they have little space for tenderness. And an unwanted pregnancy is as much the fault of men as women.
As a caring society, we want our young people to grow up secure and confident in themselves and their values.
As children pass through their teenage years, they look to sex education, their parents and the availability of contraceptive advice to help them make mature judgments.
If all three fail them and they then fall pregnant, the law allows them to seek and have an abortion. They are not forced to bear a child they did not intend and do not want. No children will be born into unloving homes and indifferent parents.
The abortion law in this country, with its clinical provision, is largely benign and thoughtful. What is brutal and exploitative is a culture of easy and cheap sex, callous regard for each other's feelings, and a glib assumption that, 'what the hell, when things go wrong, she can always get an abortion'.
It is this coarsening of how we treat each other that leads to misery and wretchedness.
Via Boing Boing, a question that says more about the enquirer than anything else: do you have the definitive ass?
FEW women would claim to have the perfect bottom. But for those in need of reassurance that it is within reach, a scientist has come to the rescue by working out a mathematical formula they believe adds up to the perfect posterior.
The magical figures are (S+C) x (B+F)/T = V. Though the equation looks rather complicated, it is, according to the scientist, simple.
It assesses shape, bounce, firmness and symmetry – all factors that add up to the bottom line.
The BBC's Panorama produced some very necessary background reporting on Herceptin (the cancer 'wonder-drug') back in February that's worth revisiting today:
Earlier this year, the clinical director of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) joined the debate over statistics in an article for Lancet Oncology.
Re-analysing the data from the Hera trial, the article revealed that you would have to treat 18 patients to save one life.
It stated: "For every 100 suitable patients prescribed trastuzumab (Herceptin), 94 will have been exposed to the side effects without any benefit, at a cost of £400,000 per recurrence prevented."
Cost-effectiveness, of course, lies at the heart of the debate.
If the drug were proven to be highly cost-effective, there would be less concern about the issue of funding it.
There's a large interview with Catharine MacKinnon in the Guardian today, which covers quite a lot of ground. I do sort of wish that the interviewer wasn't playing on a kind of nervous deniability, a retreat from Mackinnon's supposedly threatening radicalism.
There is one point I would like to pick up on - that pornography (undifferentiated from erotic imagery) is seemingly beyond recuperation and that which we recognise as pornographic is always in some way damaging.
I think I agree that pornography is deeply worrying, not least because it homogenises desire and trains an erotic response to a narrow range of images. It can also act to normalise and reinforce similarly specific beliefs about (primarily women's) bodies - about availability and passivity. It can also amplify and normalise fetishes - where imagery becomes so pervasive that sadomasochistic activity becomes normative, so that 'no meaning yes' as part of specific sex play becomes a legitimate reading of everyday social and sexual interaction.
However, the suggestion of censorship raises my libertarian hackles, not least because the representation of sex and sexuality isn't going anywhere; while the 'you can recognise it when you see it' rule might apply to the pornographic, I'm not sure anyone can determine the universal line betweem 'art' which is good and 'porn' which is bad. Yet we also can't claim that our culture doesn't support some kinds of morally functional censorship - regarding the reproduction of images of paedophilia, incest, bestiality and necrophilia for example.
MacKinnon's point that most pornography is about gendered role-play is interesting - that it's to do with representing given, predetermined roles: roles which anyone can play, than about the specific bodies or identities. For me, this suggests we need to discover or invent a means of alternative expression of the erotic - which partly means re-writing the cultural codes that argue, for example, that a short skirt is a universal invitation to sexual attention.
I've talked with various friends about the idea of an 'ethical pornography,' where the performers are direct owner-managers of their own images, working independently through their own websites and controlling the material they wish to produce. I think I read somewhere that fleshbot, part of the gawker network, has a commitment to ethical porn.
So, in the interest of adding some detail to this debate, my question is this: can there be such a thing as ethical pornography?
To make up for the previous rather serious and stolid post, here's an ever popular picture of a *tiny* monkey:
In fact, whenever someone criticises liberal or feminist bloggers for a lack of balance (i.e. giving equal time to diametrically opposed bigots) - or, as today, when work has turned my brain to mash (mash, I tells ya) I will be getting out my monkey.
Awkward bloggers who keep pointing out the practical problems in a national identity database should take a break and instead point out the problems with the national identity database we've already got:
Leading computer scientists have called for an independent review of billion-pound plans for a computerised NHS system for booking appointments and centralising medical records.
A series of setbacks has hit the National Programme for IT since the Government admitted that the original £6.2 billion project could snowball to somewhere between £20 billion and £30 billion.
The scheme, which would centralise the records of 50 million patients and link more than 30,000 GPs in England to almost 300 hospitals by 2012, is the biggest civil information technology programme in the world.
We have never suggested that the cost of the programme would be limited to those contract costs alone. The central expenditure of £6.2 billion will be complemented, and was always intended to be complemented by local baseline IT spending - already around £1bn a year in the NHS as a whole and which will be available to support local implementation of the national programme.
Moreover, we have always made it clear that we anticipate spending up to 4% of the total NHS budget, in line with the recommendations of the Wanless Report. This is a total budget which is increasing year on year to over £90bn.
THE health of thousands of children in London has been put at risk by significant failures in the new £6 billion NHS computer system, The Times has learnt.
Since last April, faults in new software produced for GP surgeries has made it impossible to ensure that all babies have had health checks, vaccinations, visits from health visitors and assessments for special needs. [...]
Christine Sloczynska, consultant community paediatrician at Waltham Forest Primary Care Trust, says that the Child Health Interim Application (CHIA) system was imposed on trusts in the area and has destroyed 22 years of record-keeping. "Sooner or later a child is going to die or be damaged by a vaccine-preventable disease because we can't contact them," she said.
58% of GPs think Choose and Book is unimportant and only 38% are confident they will be using it by the end of this year, when the government says it should be universally available. About 60% said it would make no significant difference to where they referred their patients and 9% said they will never use the system. Doctors were concerned about the confidentiality of the electronic system for storing patients' records. [..]
The survey found 71% of GPs and 46% of other doctors think this will be less secure, with 8% of GPs and 15% of other doctors regarding it as more secure.
Medix poll two years ago found 56% of GPs and 75% of other doctors enthusiastic about Connecting for Health as a whole, including electronic transfer of prescriptions, X-rays and diagnostic scans. But now just 26% of GPs and 45% of other doctors remain enthusiastic.
Last week [April 2006], Ian Watmore, head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, cited the NHS programme as a success story in joining up public services with IT. The plan cites impressive numbers: 202,860 users registered on the health records spine, 625,427 prescriptions transmitted electronically, 17,771,776 clinical images stored electronically.
On their own, however, these figures are meaningless. Watmore (formerly chief executive of Accenture UK) does not say, for example, that the figure for electronic prescriptions represents just 0.2% of all prescriptions written in the NHS this year.
The criticisms will contrast with a statement last month by the health minister, Liam Byrne, in which he praised the progress of the project.
He said: "Progress is within budget, ahead of schedule in some areas, and, in the context of a 10-year programme, broadly on track in others."
Another little piece of the low rape conviction-rate puzzle:
The number of rapists given a caution and freed instead of facing jail terms has more than doubled in the past decade, Home Office figures reveal.
In 2004, 40 offenders were cautioned for rape - compared with 19 in 1994.
The Home Office said cautions were used only in the most exceptional cases, but campaign group Rape Crisis said it was "shocked" by the statistics.
The Scotland on Sunday falls over itself to be as (ahem) selective as possible:
EDINBURGH University has disgraced the name of Scottish education with its unjust discrimination against able pupils from independent schools. Today we report the case of Jennifer Skrastin, a pupil who attained four As and a B grade, only to be rejected by the law school at Edinburgh because of her private education.
When she and her parents made inquiries, however, the response from Edinburgh University was far from reassuring. It emerged that despite being described by an admissions officer as "an undoubtedly strong candidate" whose application and references were "difficult to find fault" with, she was refused entry because she attended a school where many pupils go on to university.
Offers had been made to pupils who achieved the same AAAAB higher grades but attended schools with "significantly lower progression rates into higher education," a letter revealed.
Hey, look a list of "humorous" generalisations about men and women that are as patronising as they are inaccurate. Amongst the very stupid things is number 3 of the things 'no man wants to hear from a woman':
Obsessive accounts of your diet and exercise regime. Men like skinny women, true. But they dislike being exposed to the borderline eating disorders and pathological obsessiveness that produce them. And curvy and sane always beats mad and thin. Eventually.
Another article on cosmetic surgery that does its utmost to ignore that it costs money. In several thousand words, we get exactly two mentions - one that the treatements chosen by the journalist will cost £500 and a second stating:
And yet, and yet... of course, I worry. I'm human. Let's, for a moment, put aside the fact that I would need to find £2,000 a year in order to keep my face 'up-to-date'.
I can't handle news that is so thoroughly riddled with innuendo:
The UK Independence Party has called on Tories to defect by parking an armoured personnel carrier outside the Conservative Party's spring conference.
UKIP said the stunt showed it was "parking its tank" on Conservative leader David Cameron's "lawn".
Speaking from the vehicle's turret, UKIP Euro MP Nigel Farage demanded an apology from Mr Cameron.
There's a great post over at The Geeky Feminist about the presumptions of gender built into computer games - particularly in regard to the new (droolingly beautiful and it won't run on my machine dammit) Elder Scroll's game Oblivion:
I find it interesting that these men [who criticised her original comments] dismiss our concerns when they’re directly benefitting from the sexism we described. Specifically, the game’s base attributes give male characters a power design edge and the male-only illustrations make it easier for men to decide which race and class to play.
How would they react if the situation were reversed? If the subjects in the illustrations were all women, female was the gender to pick for powergaming, women were the default?
World of Warcraft's moderators have been shutting down gay-friendly guilds in the game on the tortured grounds that letting people mention that they're gay will encourage jerks to say nasty things about gay people, and since saying homophobic things violates WoW's policies, ignorant jerks shouldn't be tempted into being homophobes.
Lazy blogging engaged:
For those who wouldn't be seen dead toiling away in a gym, it could be the dream fitness plan.
Scientists claim to have found a way of shedding the pounds which has nothing to do with running machines or weights.
Instead, walking the dog, mowing the lawn or even fidgeting could be just as effective, they say. Research suggests that the lifestyle which kept housewives trim in the 1950s - involving regular housework and chores - is better for burning calories than a gruelling workout.
"Go back to some of the old ways of doing things," says the author of the research, Professor Harvey Simon. "Treat exercise as an opportunity instead of a punishment."
Experts blame the popularity of labour-saving devices, such as dishwashers, for rising levels of obesity as convenience has replaced hard graft when it comes to housework.
Adding to the pile of masculinity posts, here's an article in The Times on metrosexuality - which is out - and ubersexual and heteropolitan - which are in. Just so you know.
For anyone struggling to keep up, ubersexual is a term invented by the woman who helped popularise the word metrosexual to sell another book about how her first book about metrosexuality was horribly dated. The ubersexual:
has the traditional male qualities of strength, honour and character, plus a willingness to communicate and co-operate.
He loves his family and has close male friends, to whom he can show affection. He has one or two serious hobbies. He even likes a bit of shopping.
invented this year by Men’s Health magazine to describe men who enjoy the pub and the grooming parlour but are “surprisingly committed to relationships and family life”.
I'm goingto be busy nearly all day, so I only have one request: can someone stop the Daily Mail from reporting the same ridiculous idiocies over and over again?
Girls as young as 12 are to be given the morning-after pill over the counter in chemists' shops across the country without the knowledge of their parents.
Under new rules, primary care trusts are free to provide the drugs if they identify a problem with underage pregnancies in their area. Previously, the free service was only available in a limited number of urban locations.
Critics have warned that providing easy access to emergency contraception would encourage more youngsters to have sex.
Here's the highlights of a Harvard professor explaining how feminism has destroyed manliness - and that real men are on the edge of extinction. First of all, we should be fortunate that he finally answers the question of what all women, everywhere, want:
Women 50 years ago wanted their men to be fearless, chivalrous, honourable and self-confident.
They wanted men who showed a stiff upper lip. Their heroes were ultra-manly Hollywood stars such as Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne. They admired thrill-seeking writers such as Ernest Hemingway.
Their men didn't think they were at death's door every time they got a cold. They didn't check in the mirror for the first grey hair and they certainly didn't read style magazines.
Cashmere, silk boxer shorts and anything at all from Italy were a "no no". (Who'd want to buy clothes from such a soppy country?) In short, women wanted manly men, not wimps.
I can date the demise of manliness to the beginning of the rise of feminism in the Sixties. As women fought for equality in the workplace, they also battled to prove they were equal in every sense.
Forty years later, for the first time in history, we have a gender neutral society. Your sex — male or female — is irrelevant and doesn't give you rights or duties or tell you your place in society. It has heralded a cataclysmic change.
Women want to behave like men, and men don't know how to behave any more.
I'm not, of course, claiming that manliness is exclusively male. I'd suggest that Margaret Thatcher showed manliness in abundance.
But, for the most part, men will always have more manliness than women. Whether we like it or not, there is an innate difference between the sexes.
Some manly qualities are pretty standard. For example, men are inclined to be more confident in risky situations than women. They are more aggressive. They are less likely to cry. They are more forthright in their views.
Greater manliness is shown by those men who are able to achieve wonders simply through the power of their personalities. Honourable and chivalrous, they protect the weak and they risk their lives for a cause. They have the self-confidence and courage to challenge conventions.
Sadly, because manliness is no longer respected, it's becoming perverted. Instead of channelling their energy into serious causes, men tend to disappear for bonding weekends, get involved in dangerous sports or, at worst, take out their aggression in fights.
It's also bad for women, because as we downgrade manliness, we also downgrade femininity. I would never suggest we turn back the clock and deny women the chance to work outside the home. But I think it's sad that we are trying to deny natural feminine qualities.
I know my views will upset feminists. There were fireworks when I appeared on TV to talk about my book with feminist Naomi Wolf. Naomi was determined to disprove my views that women are naturally modest and non-aggressive by showing she was the exact opposite.
I wasn't surprised that she got so angry. But her behaviour helped prove my point that men and women are different. A man would be more likely to use rational argument than create a scene as she did.
They may not always admit it to themselves, but I think most women admire manliness. They find stars such as George Clooney or Clint Eastwood attractive. They know instinctively that these men are manly in a way that pretty boys such as Jude Law or Leonardo DiCaprio are not.
The simple truth is that manliness and femininity balance each other. We need a change in our thinking so that both men and women can lead fulfilled lives.
Women are better listeners — and that's why I'm appealing to them to save manliness. Before it's too late.
In preparation / dread for the third part of my mini-series on masculinity (and how to avoid doing any thesis editing), you should read this piece over at Feministe on an interview with the woman who went undercover as a man for a year.
From the end, though you should read the whole thing:
My point, though, is that hyper-masculine performance isn’t the universal way to get chicks (indeed, behaving any particular way with the purpose of “getting chicks” probably isn’t the best way to get chicks). My secondary point is that gender essentialism and expectations of performed masculinity and femininity are harmful to men and women alike. Additionally, people have varying preferences, and the idea that exaggerated gendered behavior is always more attractive to the opposite sex is quite plainly untrue.
If it were, more straight women would be swooning over Jean Claude Van Damme than, say, Hugh Grant. And given that I’m not exactly the poster girl for femininity (was it the fart jokes, or the discussion of exploding diarrhea?), I would be looking at quite a lonely life if this was a world where we were only attracted to manly man and womanly women.
Day two of the UKIP pr meltdown (or fruitcake-gate, as I like to call it) sees the threat of legal action - because an embittered case through the courts where evidence of potential racism is publicly laundered is exactly the right thing to build status in the eyes of the average voter.
Amongst the things that might, just might, have informed Cameron's opinion is the detail that the founder of UKIP, Alan Sked, has long been on record as saying that:
"they are racist and have been infected by the far-right." He also went on record saying, "UKIP is even less liberal than the BNP. Certainly, there is a symbiosis between elements of the parties."
Alistair McConnachie, a five-times UKIP candidate and National Executive member, was expelled from UKIP for being a Holocaust denier. [...] The BNP has infiltrated UKIP in the past, notably in the cases of Mark Deavin, a UKIP national executive committee member who was exposed as a BNP agent in 1997 and John Brayshaw in 2004.
This is the second part of a series speculating on modern masculinity - go here for the first part.
In the summer of 2005, Condé Nast announced the latest of the Vogue imprints: Men's Vogue. Eschewing the complications of gay-chic and metrosexual confusion, editor-in-chief Anna Wintour identified her target demographic as male, wealthy and succesful - a man who:
is already living the life he wants rather than merely chasing it, and presumably isn't too embarrassed to be seen reading a magazine that for more than a century has been associated with women.
Stephen Bracken, whose stomach looks a little less hammered and chiselled now that it's not under angled light, tells me what he eats. It's important, he says, to keep his body fat to a minimum. [...] In some of the pictures, the stomach is at an angle, making Bracken's body look ultra-slim.
'I want to make sure he doesn't look too slim,' says Rees.
We look at the stomach. Does it look too slim? 'I want his image to look achievable,' says Rees. 'Sideways on, you can see all of his abs.'
We look at the stomach. Again, I think: what does this guy eat? Rees says, 'It looks a little bit daunting.'
I nod, relieved. Perhaps there is hope.
'We can shoot him front on,' says Rees.
British plastic surgeons have revealed that the number of men undergoing facelifts and other purely aesthetic operations has more than doubled in the past year alone. [...]
The most popular procedures for men were nose jobs, accounting for 30% of the total, while more than a fifth had surgery to remove bags from around their eyes. Full face and neck lifts accounted for 5% of the male operations while 9% had liposuction.
Ken Stewart, a plastic surgeon at St John's Hospital, Livingston, and a member of BAAPs, said: "There has definitely been an increase in the number of men having cosmetic operations. One thing that seems to have been extremely popular is to remove fat from the breast tissue on the male chest.
"Cosmetic surgery is now far more acceptable than it was before and the pressure people feel to have surgery has increased dramatically. A lot of middle-aged men are now seeing it as an option to stay ahead."
The obsession with body image has spread from girls to boys, according to research published today which says that eight in 10 teenage males are unhappy with their appearance.
A survey of 2,000 teenage boys, whose average age was 15, found that they are as self-conscious about their bodies as girls, with 62 per cent not liking their faces and 68 per cent not liking their teeth.
A quarter thought they may have cosmetic surgery and only four in 10 thought their fathers looked good for their age.
Possible proof of a benevolent - or at least entertaining - God emerges:
The UK Independence Party is calling for David Cameron to apologise after he claimed its members were "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly". The Conservative leader made the remarks during a phone-in on the London radio station LBC.
He said he believed UKIP was "racist" because of some of the things he had heard its members say. But UKIP Euro MP Nigel Farage said that unless he could prove his claims, Mr Cameron should apologise.
1. Shutting the Scottish Parliament and demolishing the Parliament building.
2. Starting up a new Scottish Parliament who... uhm.. might need some kind of building.
I think the uber post on masculinity and consumerism will arrive tomorrow: I also think there will be one final third part to this mini-series where I attempt to fix all of the woes of modern men.
No, really. :)
For your second dose of 'That's Fucked Up Monday':
It's the question all men dread to hear. As they try on a new outfit, their loved one turns and traps them with the line: "Does my bum look big in this?"
Now help could finally be at hand for confused males searching for the right answer. Dr Constantino Mendieta, a plastic surgeon and "bottom augmentation expert" from Miami, has devised a guide to the female posterior, detailing four distinctly different derrieres.
They include the V-shape - narrow at the bottom and wider towards the hips; the Square - smaller hips and flatter buttocks; the Round - the most voluptuous and largest bottom, and the A-shape - a pert bottom which is wider at the bottom than the top.
But men should still beware - because some bottom shapes are apparently more desirable than others. Just as A-list is the ultimate in celebrity, the most sought-after derriere is the A-shape, as displayed by actresses Jennifer Lopez and Kelly Brook.
It's the post where we see how Caitlin Moran misses the point and reveals the weakness in her own argument:
As a child of capitalism, the first thing market forces have taught me is that, if a commodity should suddenly come into limited supply, its value will rise. Observe the Birkin handbag: so few are made that the waiting list is two years long, and people will pay up to $80,000 (£46,000) for a special edition.
Consider, now, if there were a two-year waiting list for Indian women. Those 1000 men would soon be duking it out for those 793 ladies. Indeed, it may well be that, in order to get married, dowries would have to be paid to the bride's family, just to interest her in a man.
On finally getting his $80,000 woman, the man would then be doing the marital equivalent of polishing his wife every night with protective dubbin, and putting her on a special peg in the hallway. He wouldn't use her to carry a wardrobe up a hill any more. [...]
Sex selection, then, is the unexpected cure for a misogynistic society. The only surefire way to stop men being sexist pigs is to limit severely the supply of women. Then, biology will take over with an admirable briskness and effectiveness, and do in three weeks what a decade-long government educational programme would struggle to do — make society treat women with a little bit of respect, courtesy and equality.
Tripla's parents sold her for £170 to a man who had come looking for a wife. He took her away with him, hundreds of miles across India, to the villages outside Delhi. It was the last time she would see her home. For six months, she lived with him in the village, although there was never any formal marriage. Then, two weeks ago, her husband, Ajmer Singh, ordered her to sleep with his brother, who could not find a wife. When Tripla refused, he took her into the fields and beheaded her with a sickle.
A quick guide to environmentalism from Donald Trump:
MULTI-BILLIONAIRE tycoon Donald Trump was last night heading for a showdown with environmental campaigners over £300 million plans for a world-class golf resort near Aberdeen.
The businessman, whose mother was born on Lewis, warned his championship course, five-star hotel, golf academy and 500 holiday homes would be scrapped unless proposals for a nearby offshore wind farm were abandoned. [...]
Mr Trump added: "When I saw this piece of land I was overwhelmed by the imposing dunes and rugged Aberdeenshire coastline. I knew that this was the perfect site for Trump International. I have never seen such an unspoilt and dramatic seaside landscape, and the location makes it perfect for our development."
Catholicism to the rescue of.. catholicism:
A Catholic bishop working to combat Aids in Papua New Guinea has questioned the Vatican's ban on condoms. Bishop Gilles Cote, a French Canadian, said he was in favour of governments providing condoms to communities where extramarital sex and multiple partners were common.
The Catholic church has repeatedly declined to endorse the use of condoms to fight Aids. The bishop said he was not in conflict with the church as papal teaching also includes the law: "You should not kill." The UN estimates 1.7% of the island's population - 47,000 people - are infected with HIV or have Aids.
It's impossible to accept a strict moral line on abortion when its proponents are so entirely amoral themselves - people who disavow any of the consequences of their actions and that the ends justify the means:
"Naming and shaming is fine by me," Mr Dowson, the leader of the pro-life UK Life League, says with a somewhat self-satisfied smile.
"Paedophiles are outed, why shouldn't those involved in abortion be, too? After all, they are murderers. A child may survive a paedophile. No child survives an abortion clinic."
(So murderers and paedophiles are different, therefore logically they are the same? Uhm, what? BTW, abortion very, very legal in the UK.)
His stance, he says, is unequivocal: "I don't suggest - or ever condone - violence. I advocate nothing that is out with the law. I most certainly do not urge people to send abusive letters or emails to these people."
(He just publishes their contact details and accuses them of being murderers which doesn't encourage anything - or he stands outside abortion clinics shouting at women.. but other than that..)
And yet he sees no moral dichotomy when, asked if he would feel responsible if one of those "named and shamed" were attacked, he says: "I have no responsibility for what happens to these people whatsoever. [...]
The events of the past week, in which Mr Dowson and his UK Life League have been criticised in the media, have buoyed his belief that the end justifies the means. "We have got column inches, our enemies are running scared," he says.
I'm working on part two of the post I promised (threatened?) yesterday - in the meantime, read this entirely unrelated story over at Ben Goldacre's blog:
Nothing comes for free: if you can cope with 400 words on statistics, we can trash a front page news story together. “Cocaine floods the playground,” roared the front page of the Times last Friday. “Use of the addictive drug by children doubles in a year.”
Doubles? Now that was odd, because the press release for this government survey said it found “almost no change in patterns of drug use, drinking or smoking since 2000″. But the Telegraph ran with the story as well. So did the Mirror. Perhaps they had found the news themselves, buried in the report.
