I’m sure there’s an element of potkettleblackism in this, but check out Dove’s ad showing that average can be beautiful with enough makeup and photoshopping.
(HT: Ezra)
I’m sure there’s an element of potkettleblackism in this, but check out Dove’s ad showing that average can be beautiful with enough makeup and photoshopping.
(HT: Ezra)
Heroes are chosen for many different reasons. Too few of us pick people who truly show heroism, instead plumping for people we admire for their sporting prowess, intellect or artistry. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you truly want heroism, someone not just being brave because they have to be, or as a side-effect of their own fight for life, or even through the love of a parent for a child, then you should look to Marian and Barbie Fisher:
One of the girls who died in Pennsylvania’s Amish schoolhouse massacre asked the killer to shoot her first in an apparent bid to save the younger girls, a woman who spoke to the victim’s family said Friday.
Rita Rhoads, a nurse-midwife who delivered 13-year-old Marian Fisher as well as another victim, said Fisher appealed to Charles Carl Roberts IV to shoot her first because she thought it might allow younger girls to survive.
Rhoads said she did not know whether Fisher in fact was shot first. Roberts shot 10 girls ages 6 to 13, killing five of them and then himself in Monday’s rampage. (Watch “shocked and sad” Amish express forgiveness — 2:46)
Fisher’s 11-year-old sister, Barbie, appealed to Roberts to shoot her next, Rhoads said. Barbie survived and was in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia recovering from shoulder, hand and leg injuries.
Marty has posted a summary of a couple of arguments I’ve seen made a lot by those on the Right, one specific to the case of the Republican pervert Mark Foley, the other a more general case. First the specific:
Now suppose they had thrown Foley, a gay representitive, under the bus at that time with no evidence of a crime. The lefties would have been all over “those Homophobic Republicans.†Now, a year later, as soon as evidence of a crime appears Foley is confronted and resigns. The cry is, “They were hiding it until after the election! Hastert should resign!â€
No, Hastert did his job correctly. The scandal casts Foley in a bad light.
Partially correct. If Hastert had proceeded by saying “Look at Foley, he’s a big sweaty gay come to corrupt our children, can’t you see the gay dripping from him?” I think the Left would have protested. If, on the other hand, he’d made discrete inquiries about the issue, perhaps speaking to some former Pages who may have felt able to speak freely about what happened, I don’t think there would have been an outcry. Even if he had gone public, announcing that accusations had been made that were serious enough to warrant a full investigation, though he remained firmly supportive of his good friend Rep. Foley, I think there would have been little basis for complaint. But instead, as Marty phrases it, “he told Foley to knock it off.” I’m no expert, but “Please don’t be a pedophile” doesn’t strike me as being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.
Now for the more general critique, where Marty quotes from RealClearPolitics:
“Scandal? Disgrace? I think not. Foley and others could only be so labeled if popular culture condemned, rather than promoted, immorality. Oh, sorry, there I go again, appealing to a discarded standard.”
This is based on the Christian (and some other religion’s) argument that morality is meaningless without reference to (a) God; that there is no action you can describe that can be said to be moral or otherwise without first understanding what (a) God would teach on that action. I don’t wish to debate this point – you either agree with it or you don’t, and my attempts to highlight its strengths or flaws won’t change that. But it simply does not apply here. Immorality isn’t a single entity, so popular culture cannot be said to promote or condemn it. Certainly there are things that Christians find immoral that popular culture promotes (such as casual sex), and things that I find immoral (such as the subjugation of women, which certain forms of Christianity also promote, ah the irony). But neither popular culture nor society as a whole support the idea of a 50-something man having sex with children, and to suggest otherwise is so ridiculous as to suggest some kind of brain damage.
Don’t take my word for it – ask around your place of work and try to find anyone who thinks it’s OK. Whether you work at the 7/11 or a Hollywood studio the answer will be the same. The only exception would be if I have readers who work at the execrable ManBoyLove organization, which I doubt (I’m not sure that’s its correct title, but I’m damn sure I’m not googling for it.) And they only further my point, because they’re about as far from popular culture or societal norms as it is possible to get.
All of us are, of course, free to follow a group morality or our very own invention. The choice will certainly have consequences in this world, and depending on your faith may in the next world too. Foley’s consequences now include disgrace and humiliation. Hastert and several others in the Republican leadership who appear to think that investigating credible evidence of a pedophile in your midst isn’t worth the trouble deserve nothing less.
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Addendum: I could quote approvingly from pretty much this entire piece at WorldNetDaily, which I can’t imagine being able to say about anything else they’ve ever published. Worth a read to see a sane view from the far Right.
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Update: Looks like it might be the fault of all those nasty horrible gays after all. Of course.
Today, as I was informed in passing by a colleague in Bangalore, is the Karnataka bandh. From Wikipedia I’ve learned that Karnataka is the region of India in which Bangalore is situated, and a bandh is a closing down of shops and offices to mark some kind of event. In trying to find out what the bandh was for, I found the following brief article:
BANGALORE: The Karnataka bandh, called by pro-Kannada organisations, will now be observed on Oct 4 and not Sept 30.
The bandh has been called under the aegis of Border Agitation Committee to protest against Centre’s decision to withdraw an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Karnataka-Maharashtra border issue.
“Preparations prior to the Ayudha pooja, which falls on October 1, should not be hampered by the bandh. Since pooja is followed by Vijayadashami and Dasara celebrations, we have postponed the bandh to October 4,” committee president and MLA Vatal Nagaraj said.
Karnataka Film Chamber and Commerce president H D Gangaraj said the film industry will support the bandh
The bolding is mine, to draw your attention to the parts that left me utterly bewildered. So much I don’t know, so little time to Google it all.
I was watching an episode of Spooks last night, a drama involving agents of the UK intelligence agency MI5 (hence its name – MI5 – when it is shown in the US). In the episode a conference to create a new trade agreement was threatened by a side deal between Japan and the US, and an assassin targeting one of the delegates. It all wrapped up well, with the side-deal foiled (to the advantage of the UK, of course – this is our TV) and the assassin stopped.
Well that is how I imagine a standard US take on it would have ended, assuming that the US would accept a spy drama based on a trade agreement in a conference hotel. I was struck, however, by the extra complexity the British viewer was expected to take on. The side-deal also impacted the country the assassination target was the leader of, as part of an attempt by him to ethnically cleanse a group in his country. The assassin was released to complete her mission after the trade agreement was signed, followed by a cover-up of MI5’s involvement that included blackmailing the Foreign Secretary. And at the same time we had the standard love triangle, internal politics and character development.
Clearly having an extra 10 minutes of programming time helps, but even so the programme moved much faster than comparable programs like NCIS or even 24 (both excellent programs). Still accustomed to US pacing, I kept looking at the clock and being surprised that we still had so much time to go.