Attrition, tribadism & the like

... a large proportion of girls and women masturbate. So where are they all? The trope of the masturbator is present in popular and classic literature, film and music, but women seem to take a more muted approach when it comes to practising self-love.

More often than not, when women in popular culture masturbate, it is often portrayed as a symptom of their deviance. Elizabeth Banks' masturbating character in the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin is also a mildly unhinged lust-addled sex addict; Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) from Sex and the City had well documented issues with sex and men; Reese Witherspoon's character in the movie Pleasantville is the "bad girl" from the 90s corrupting her sexually innocent 60s mother, played by Joan Allen (her subsequent orgasm causes a nearby tree to catch fire); and poor Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) in Mad Men earns a slap from her mother before being shipped off to the psychiatrist after being caught with her hands down her pants.

She believes that beyond the culture that still views women as sexually timid, girls don't have the same opportunities as boys when it comes to comparing "technique". "For girls, things are a bit more hidden, anatomy-wise and the images we see in porn films, where they're all so neat, carries its own insecurity. A lot of women still don't even know what they look like down there."

But things are changing, Hoyle believes. "We've had women bringing in their mothers and in some cases grandmothers – a significant amount of women who've never had an orgasm. You're revealing something very intimate about yourself and that's never going to change and nor should it. But people are at least talking about it."

Zzz Word

The Hebrew word for honey comes from the same root as its word for "word": as in, "In the beginning ... ". Honey represented this divine truth because it did not deteriorate or cede its perfection to nature, because humans could not improve on it, and – until "reed honey", aka sugar, came along – it had no substitute. Bees supposedly settled on the lips of Plato, Pindar and St Ambrose when they were babies, endowing them with holy revelation and with truth.

Guardian

Branded. Deported.

A Ugandan woman who was branded with a hot iron in her home country as a punishment for her sexuality, is facing forced removal from the UK.

Tibikawa had just finished high school and was due to go to university in Kampala when she was attacked by three men who taunted her about her sexuality. They pinned her down in a disused building and branded her on her inner thighs with a hot iron. They left her unconscious and when she finally managed to get home she was confined to bed for two months. An independent medical report has confirmed that her scars are consistent with being branded with a hot iron.

Guardian

Dumpster D (epr) iving

A woman has admitted handling stolen goods after being accused of taking potato waffles, pies, and 100 packets of ham from a bin outside of a Tesco Express in Essex. But if something is thrown away, when is it illegal to take it?

Diseased pigs

One precedent-setting example from 1877 was the case of a diseased buried pig. According to legal text Archibold's Pleading, Evidence, and Practice in Criminal Cases, even if someone discards something and does not intend to use it again, they can retain ownership of it. "The carcass of a diseased pig, which had been killed and buried by the owner in his own land, and of which he intended to make no further use, was still held to remain his property, so as to support an indictment for larceny against a person who afterwards disinterred and sold the carcass," according to the ruling.

In Britain it is estimated 5.3 million tonnes of edible food is thrown away each year.

Ma gavte la nata

Section	Theme	Elements
A	Virtuous	Some kind of quiet introduction, bases, flat calm. Spirit full of who-knows-what.
B		Dogfighting. Mending. For it is not by our words or even our faith that we are made men.
A		Perhaps the domestic element. First tinge of voodoo.
B		Space for humanity. some kind of altercation? Some explanation of why he is soportado
A	Desirous	Quiet morning ride. All things licentious.
B		Hints and blossoming, inexplicit.
A		Perhaps some place alone, underwhelmed, revising the articles of his faith
B		Explosion, sweat-trembling, point of failure
C	Doubting, self-loathing, syncretism	Confusion of elements. A seeking for salvation. For the rapture.
D		Absolute knowledge of hellfire.
C		Syncretist mumblings. Gwo-bon ange on loan, some swedenborgian space element
D		Absolute doubt of the power of salvation
C		Oomantic rumblings. A grasping at straws.
D		Prayer as talisman, as psychological failure. Conclusion of rightness. return to trunking.

Balmy (notes)

Domesticity a balm for all and all. He’s entered into contracts, into binding agreements that he’ll honour through sickness, if such there be. Through health, through disappointment, through growth and through necrotic vomitings, meiosis, aggrandizing and braggardly foreboding – the detritus of a soul at large.

Not ducking responsibility. Not shirking. Meeting the disregarded task, the drudgery, backstraight chinhigh. Always. Seeking rightness, feeling affirmation in what is done, what is right. A pair of heeled shoes tossed in the storm drain as he takes shanks’ nag, hoofs it home. Doing what is right. 62% of all journeys by car traverse less than 6 miles. Upstanding. Decent.

He’s found peace in these things, the traces. The battled leads, the lines. The chains that measure the breadth of things, the links, the spans and the shaftments. A means by which one might measure, weigh, plumb one’s solid involvement in the world. Metron and trochee, whole hurled elements spat or smoothed through the lingual casemates.

There’s a tremendous and lasting pleasure to be found in another’s presence, to the exclusion of all others. A joy there – an unconsidered tithing, an offering up. To continue that alert breathing, to fossick out, to turn over the stones on another’s more proper utterances, essences, the floating rib hooked and whole under the flattened palm. In the night to reach out to another’s body and to find that hip, humped fawns, deeper, darker than blue – to find surprising, reckless desire at dawn. A paradigm, shifted.

And he’s correct – upright. He’s upstanding. He breathes a light, mint-scented mist, flosses, rarely drinks. A beer, occasionally. For what is right is what is written, and in what is written he can find it all. Not with an arrogant certainty, nor without a tremulous doubt. But it’s right there – it’s right, there. Inerrant, whole as written, beyond question (but not interpretation). And in us all that petit bon ange, the thing in itself, fleck or spark or grain. That which we are, beyond all else.

Stuck

This thing amazes - a plane (plain) reboot referred to as a ctrl-alt-delete. Reminds once again of the need for an undo button in - for example - elevators. And here we start to begin to establish wider lines along which the change brought by wider computing might be assessed. Not by the permeate virtual but by the unregulated real - no longer is it important to write well, to assess others based on one's own skills. This form of Mill's reality - that is, that others' minds are an argument from analogy - means we no longer need to draw conclusions about education and mindset from simple outward factors. Use of language becomes universally decodified. That which is not to be found in Word is not a word, is not language.

Found and Burned

via Jason's Journal, contact sheets as the creative method - which leads me to Diane Arbus and to his comments -

Here’s something you don’t see a lot in this age of Photoshop and other digital tools: a guy lit on fire for the sake of rock ‘n’ roll. Observe him, in the bottom row of exposures, booking it to get extinguished. What’s nuts is that whenever I previously saw the album cover, I thought the burning man was a mannequin.

More: Found Photos

L'il Bro & Terry

Dorothy Parvaz Freed

Slog:

She is safe in Doha and will be coming to Vancouver B.C. soon. We can't wait to see her. She said that she was treated well in Iran. She sounded positive and grateful for the support—but a little embarrassed. We are very thankful to Iranian authorities for her release and good treatment.

Al Jazeera:

Al Jazeera has confirmed the release of its journalist, Dorothy Parvaz, who was detained in Syria upon her arrival in Damascus nineteen days ago, while on assignment. During that time she was not allowed any contact with the outside world. She landed in Doha, Qatar on May 18 on a flight from Iran

Someone missed the details

From How to Win Friends & Influence People, via kottke:

"The way to get things done," says Schwab, "is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel."

Ah, yes - the sordid, money-getting way. That competition, or, better, a desire to excel at one's work might be exercised and achieved BUT not for gain ...

Give it to the pigs, that'll be fine

The flying pips, shattered shells and wet shrapnel still haunt farmer Liu Mingsuo after an effort to chemically boost his fruit crop went spectacularly wrong.

Fields of watermelons exploded when he and other agricultural workers in eastern China mistakenly applied forchlorfenuron, a growth accelerator. Liu's transgression [...] has gained notoriety after being picked up by the state broadcaster, CCTV. The broadcaster blamed the bursting of the fruit on the legal chemical forchlorfenuron, which stimulates cell separation but often leaves melons misshapen and turns the seeds white.

The report said the farmers sprayed the fruit too late in the season and during wet conditions, which caused the melons to explode like "landmines". After losing three hectares (eight acres), Liu said he was unable to sleep because he could not shake the image of the fruit bursting. "On 7 May, I came out and counted 80 [burst watermelons] but by the afternoon it was 100," he said. "Two days later I didn't bother to count any more." About 20 farmers and 45 hectares around Danyang were affected. The fruit could not be sold and was instead fed to fish and pigs.

Guardian

Cloud-sitting ghosts

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark

Hawking

Nakba Dead

At least one Palestinian was killed and up to 80 others wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark the "Nakba" were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a "buffer zone" - an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday.

The Scribes They Are a Changing

Bob Dylan:

Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out
or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever
met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble
their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in
them.

http://www.bobdylan.com/news/my-fans-and-followers

Congo

About 48 women are raped every hour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study.

The study, due to be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, found sexual abuse rampant not only in conflict areas but in the home, with nearly one woman a minute subjected to some form of sexual abuse.

The DRC has been racked by conflict, with rapes widely documented in the conflict-heavy east of the country. However, the study suggests the problem is bigger and more pervasive than previously thought, and goes further in documenting domestic sexual abuse.

It finds 1,152 women are raped every day – a rate equal to 48 per hour. That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations.

Guardian. | Al Jazeera.

What the FUCK

This one in whole, not in part:

Remember the case of the Texas high school cheerleader who was kicked off the team because she refused to cheer for her accused rapist—a fellow student and athlete—at basketball games?

Maybe you, like I, missed the news last week that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of her case after a federal appeals court ruled that the cheerleader was representing her school, not herself, when in uniform. As such, her right to free expression was not infringed upon. The court concluded that she had no right to remain silent when ordered to cheer, by name, for her alleged attacker.

There's more:

Federal courts have also ordered H.S. and her parents to reimburse the district more than $45,000 for the costs of defending against a frivolous suit.

The family's lawyer, Laurence Watts, said the ruling means students who try to exercise their right of free speech can be punished for refusing to follow "insensitive and unreasonable directions."

The athlete, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in September 2010 to a misdemeanor assault charge and received a suspended sentence.

UPDATE: Larry Watts, the girl's attorney, has launched a paypal campaign to help cover the $45,000. “I got so many calls about this case," Watts says. "It's heartening to see this concern. This country is in a desperate straits right now. In Texas, more so than in other places."

To donate, send money via paypal to wattstrial@gmail.com

via SLOG

Wu Tang Again?

Chilled to the bone & 5 miles from home ... SLUTWALKIN

I've been looking for a good article which covers this issue for the last few days. I knew that it had started in Toronto, but their website didn't provide the view that I was looking for - idle, hegemonically tilling the net.

And now this:

In one camp, feminists of the second-wave, radical ilk have loudly decried the “sexualised” apparel of girls and women, dubbing such fashion as symptomatic of internalised patriarchy: a signifier of women being complicit in their own objectification.

Third-wave, liberal-minded feminists populate the other camp and are thoroughly unconvinced that femininity – however expressed – is either simply a tool of oppression or one of empowerment, and instead support women’s choices about clothes and behaviour.

The movement of slutwalking is the fascinating phenomena of what happens when the political passions of the second-wave fantastically crash into the third-wave’s warm embrace of sexuality performed in all its spectacular, confronting and revealing glory.

Dats dat shit.

After decades of feminist awareness, decades of Take Back The Night marches, decades of legislation and decades and decades of public awareness, surely such a consciousness raising effort is anachronistic. Surely we’re beyond the need to state the bleedingly obvious that men are responsible for rape and not women.

Yoani Sanchez

Las tonfas de los policías tienen sed de espaldas por estos lares. La violencia creciente de los uniformados es algo que se murmura en voz baja y muchos describen con detalles sin atreverse a denunciarla en público. Quienes hemos estado alguna vez en un calabozo, sabemos bien que una cosa es la propaganda edulcorada de “Policía, policía tu eres mi amigo” que repite la tele y otra la impunidad de la que gozan estos individuos con placa. Si encima de eso, el detenido tiene ideas diferentes a la ideología imperante, entonces el tratamiento será aún más duro. Los puños querrán convencerlo, ya que los escasos argumentos no lo lograrán.

más

also: http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/cuba_2011/bp1.jpg

Crawl for Cash

A pilot scheme is providing cash incentives to workers to live closer to Mass Transit / their office - driven in part by the fact that 61% of car journeys in the US are for less than 5 miles -

Citizens can receive up to $12,000 for moving closer to work or public transit. The program is called Live Near Your Work, and will match up to $6,000 in benefits that businesses will offer their employees to move closer to work.

If going car-free and saving up to $11,000 a year isn’t enough of an incentive, then getting $12,000 from an employer and the City of Washington DC would be the icing on the cake. The initial pilot program has a fund of $200,000 to hand out in its initial phase. But the model will provide a great incentive for other cities to invest in reducing their own traffic congestion through positive incentives.

via Slog

Saudi Arabia flogs orphan girls

Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official has said.

The girls received 10 lashes each at a women's prison in Medina, Islam's second holiest city.

International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Saudi officials say the practice is widely approved by Saudi society and is a deterrent to crime.

Kristof on Philanthropy

If one lesson is the need to emphasize hopefulness, the second is that storytelling needs to focus on an individual, not a group. A classic experiment involved asking people to donate to help hungry children in West Africa. One group was asked to help a seven-year-old girl named Rokia, in the country of Mali. A second was asked to donate to help millions of hungry children. A third was asked to help Rokia but was provided with statistical information that gave them a larger context for her hunger. Not surprisingly, people donated more than twice as much to help Rokia as to help millions of children. But it turned out that even providing background information on African hun­ger diminished empathy, so people were much less willing to help Rokia when she represented a broader problem. Donors didn't want to help ease a crisis personi­fied by a child; they just wanted to help one person—and to hell with the crisis.

Source: http://outsideonline.com/outside/culture/200912/nicholas-kristof-philanthropy-advice-1.html?page=1

One two, one two, and through and through

"There was also a small mark on the carpet [which] I assume was the exit point after [the lightening] had gone through the young lady in question," he added.

Source: BBC

Worse in SA

A 13-year-old lesbian has become the latest victim of "corrective rape" in South Africa, prompting activists to call for direct retaliatory action.

The girl, who is said to be open about her sexuality, was raped in Pretoria last Thursday, a government spokesman said.

Campaigners say so-called corrective rape, in which men rape lesbians to "cure" them of their sexual orientation, is on the increase in South Africa. Thirty-one lesbians have been killed because of their sexuality in the past decade, campaigners say, and more than 10 lesbians a week are raped or gang raped in Cape Town alone.

[...]

Dean Peacock, co-founder and co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, said its research had found some men described feeling threatened by gender transformation, including the assertion of women's and children's rights.

He said: "When you compare South Africa with other countries, what distinguishes it is gang rape: a performance of masculinity, young men proving themselves to each other and saying to a woman: 'We're not prepared for you to assert that kind of autonomy, especially sexual autonomy'."

Peacock said that some men in post-apartheid South Africa occupied a "dangerous nexus" of patriarchy, masculinity, poverty, radical disappointment with the government, profound feelings of insignificance, and a sense they can act with impunity. But they were still individual agents able to make choices, and nothing could excuse horrendous violence against women, he said.

Getting Dome

In the wake of the sullenly passive-aggressive “Suck It Or Not,” the listener came away with the sense that Cam wasn’t desperate, but, rather, a narcissistic cad, that if the answer was ultimately “not,” if the subject to whom the song was addressed was not willing to put out, Cam would casually consult his Rolodex on his way to ushering his fuming date to the bus stop.

On “Touch It,” though —where Pusha T and Kanye West find themselves similarly primed and lacking the means for a hand-free launch—the protagonists’ desperation is deeply embarrassing for performers and audience alike. Deeply embarrassing in different, equally awkward ways that are unbecoming of big-time ballers or shot-callers.

via Splice

La Chiasse / Aztec two-step

The backdoor trots is also good.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=541526

A Pygmalion resides in both of them.

They are, to an extent, sculptors.

Regardless of victimhood or guilt, both are victims of the ideals and ideas they are in love with, and in their pursuit – a Godly transcendence or the deity of modernism and capitalism – they construct myths, guards, weaponry, and languages to match.

These are the ornaments of power with which they adorn their Galateas.

Each has two heads, fifteen faces. In a certain respect this is like returning to a past unlived and yet returned, like a path to memory that turns its back on forgetting.

Free Dorothy Parvaz

DOHA, QATAR - Al Jazeera English has called for the immediate release of Dorothy Parvaz, after Syrian officials confirmed that they are holding her.

Dorothy Parvaz was detained upon arrival in Damascus on Friday the 29th of April. She has had no contact with the outside world since.

Dorothy is an experienced journalist who joined Al Jazeera in 2010. She graduated from the University of British Columbia, obtained a masters from Arizona University, and held journalism fellowships at both Harvard and Cambridge. She previously worked as a columnist and feature writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Journalists have faced ever increasing restrictions in Syria since the protests began.

An Al Jazeera spokesman said: "We are worried about Dorothy's welfare, security and safety. Syria should release her immediately."

For a complete list of Dorothy's feature articles on Al Jazeera, view her profile.

No, No No

Et tu, Francais?

At some point on 29 or 30 March the boat was carried near to a Nato aircraft carrier – so close that it would have been impossible to be missed. According to survivors, two jets took off from the ship and flew low over the boat while the migrants stood on deck holding the two starving babies aloft. But from that point on, no help was forthcoming. Unable to manoeuvre any closer to the aircraft carrier, the migrants' boat drifted away. Shorn of supplies, fuel or means of contacting the outside world, they began succumbing one by one to thirst and starvation.

The Guardian has made extensive inquiries to ascertain the identity of the Nato aircraft carrier, and has concluded that it is likely to have been the French ship Charles de Gaulle, which was operating in the Mediterranean on those dates.

French naval authorities initially denied the carrier was in the region at that time. After being shown news reports which indicated this was untrue, a spokesperson declined to comment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/08/nato-ship-libyan-migrants

See also Al Jazeera

Yeah yeah

The love of money as a possesion - as distinguished from the love of
money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life - will be
recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those
semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with
a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. (Keynes)

Snippets

1.

John Candy was the first choice for the part of Sigourney Weaver's dweeby neighbor Louis. Candy was interested, but he wanted his character to speak with a German accent and own several large dogs.

2.

For a very brief period in fourth grade, I was in business with the son of hippie magicians: I made weird misshapen little pockets out of yarn, and he sold them. “I’ll sell some to my dad,” he enthused. “He can put the seed in there after sex.” I was confused, grossed out, mute. I think we earned a total of $2.50.

El Gobierno publica un primer mapa de fosas

El Gobierno ha publicado este jueves un primer mapa de fosas en las que se han localizado "restos de personas desaparecidas violentamente durante la Guerra civil o la represión política posterior" y ha abierto también al público una página web de la Memoria Histórica en la que consultar los archivos existentes, buscar a desaparecidos o consultar información sobre prestaciones o subvenciones.

La página web www.memoriahistorica.gob.es, alojada en el Ministerio de la Presidencia, tiene el objetivo de cumplir la Ley de la Memoria Histórica en lo relativo a la reparación y reconocimiento de las víctimas de la Guerra Civil y el franquismo.

English: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/spanish-civil-war-bodies-removed-mass-grave

What is Patriotism?

(initial source: http://hoydenabouttown.com/20110426.9866/lessons-from-my-lai-the-extras/)

On 16th March, 1968, there was a massacre at My Lai, where US soldiers under the command of Lt. William Calley slaughtered the inhabitants of a small Vietnamese village without regard to their noncombatant status.

A helicopter gunship crew commanded by Hugh Thompson Jr. heroically put themselves in danger’s way to save threatened villagers, and also accepted the risk of court-martial when, following Thompson’s commands, they threatened to shoot their fellow US servicemen unless they stopped the slaughter. They then went on to report and testify against their murderous fellow soldiers.

Chief My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt described how Thompson responded to what he found when he put his helicopter down: “[Thompson] put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took them to the hospital…flew back [to headquarters], standing in front of people, tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding on the table saying, ‘Notice, notice, notice’…then had the courage to testify time after time after time.” [source]

As I wrote in 2006:

After the event, Thompson was pilloried for threating to kill American soldiers while Calley was lauded as a strong leader who successfully neutralised a credible threat, to use the depersonalised military lingo. It took years for the truth to come out, and even then only Calley and a few others were court-martialled, even though all indications were that a long chain of command condoning the massacre had existed. Calley and others did what their commanders were careful not to directly order although they made their approbation clear: kill, kill, kill whether they are VietCong or not. Some men who took part later acknowledged that they knew it was wrong but “went along” through group loyalty and fear of the consequences of standing apart.

Thirty years after the massacre, Hugh Thompson was finally awarded the Soldier’s Medal, “for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy”, the closest that the US Army has come to openly acknowledging that there was no military justification for the slaughter at My Lai.

Thompson rejected any imputation that his bravery was unique, taking pains to laud one of the soldiers on the ground, who when threatened with death by his platoon-mates if he didn’t take part in the slaughter, shot his own foot off rather than kill civilians in cold blood. Not having a helicopter, that man had fewer options and no ability to save others as Thompson could, so he mutilated himself for life as the only option he could see to save his own life while not taking other’s lives.

---

Reading about the My Lai massacre I was struck not only by what I did not know about the actions of Hugh Thompson, but also by the following commentary in Wikipedia -

Exactly thirty years after the massacre, Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn were awarded the Soldier's Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy. "It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did," then-Major General Michael Ackerman said at the 1998 ceremony. The three "set the standard for all soldiers to follow." Additionally on March 10, 1998, Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) entered a tribute to Thompson, Colburn and Andreotta into the record of the U.S. Senate. Cleland said the three men were, "true examples of American patriotism at its finest."

What is, then, patriotism? When is it? How is it? It would seem that patriotism is somehow symbolised here by the very systemic defection I was just noting above; at other times by its absence. Could it be that patriotism is like Capitalism, in that it adjusts, adapts, moulds, usurps?

BBC FAIL

BBC: Ethiopia's last emperor, Haile Selassie, was buried in an unmarked
grave after his overthrow. His remains were found in 1992 under a toilet
in the Imperial Palace.

Wikipedia: The Soviet-backed Derg fell in 1991. In 1992, the Emperor's
bones were found under a concrete slab on the palace grounds; some
reports suggest that his remains were discovered beneath a latrine.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I#Death_and_interment)

Curious and lazy choice of words to describe an "heir to a dynasty that
traced its origins to the 13th century, and from there by tradition back
to King Solomon and Queen Makeda, Empress of Axum, known in the
Abrahamic tradition as the Queen of Sheba."

Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah sign reconciliation deal

The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have signed a landmark
reconciliation pact aimed at ending their bitter four-year rift.

A ceremony marking the deal, which was mediated by Egypt, took place on
Wednesday at the Egyptian intelligence headquarters in Cairo.

Speaking at the ceremony, the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his
faction was "ready to pay any price" for reconciliation among
Palestinians, the Arabic satellite channel al-Arabiya reported.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the accord ended "four
black years" that hurt national Palestinian interests. He also said at
the ceremony that he would soon visit the Hamas-held Gaza Strip.

"We announce to Palestinians that we turn forever the black page of
division," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/04/palestinian-rivals-hamas-fat
ah-deal

False Flag Attacks

Naomi Klein TED video on RISK - http://www.youtube.com/

Article @ Peak Complexity: http://peakcomplexity.blogspot.com -

It could end up being anything from a single nuclear device in a single target city, to one placed in several major cities in several regions of the country [...]

The attacks will naturally lead to a consolidation of various federal executive departments, nearly total usurpation of state and local authority, suspension of fundamental legal protections and a mobilization of all services in the U.S. military. Constitutional requirements of due process and habeas corpus will immediately be suspended, as intelligence officials warn the politicians and executive officials that the perpetrators are still in the country, further attacks are possible and no time can be wasted on bureaucracy.

The federal government's power of eminent domain will be exercised unchecked and without compensation, as law enforcement officials, military forces and private contractors seize vast tracts of land and thousands of homes and buildings in their attempts to "preserve life and maintain order". [...]

A large part of the federal and state court systems will first be overwhelmed, and then either completely made inaccessible or transformed into "validation stations". Any group of people who attempt to resist officially-decreed subordination will be labeled as a local insurgent force. If its members do not quickly give up resistance, then they will either be killed or indefinitely imprisoned after they are tortured for information. Indeed, active resistance would appear to be nothing short of futile, and people will feel forced to inform on their critical neighbors.

What, then, can anyone possibly to do to avoid such a radical outcome when the underlying decisions have already been made and the necessary technology is already in place? I believe the answer to that question is essentially two words - systemic defection. The people who have been trained for years to defend the system at all costs must find it in within themselves to disobey a direct order. They must shift their loyalties, re-direct their courage and spread it through the ranks like a wildfire. Defection must be a disease; one that roots itself in the brain and quickly catches.

The fear of being punished for insubordination or treason must be outweighed by the desire to die for ideals of equality and freedom. Insurgent groups and local law enforcement must join forces with the uniformed soldiers to realize a goal that would never be accomplished if they all remained separate. People of all races and both genders must finally escape from the "melting pot" in which they stew. That is how the scariest story ever told could ultimately become a story about unparalleled hardship, perseverance and defiance in the face of humanity's deepest fears.

'Corrective Rape' - SA

Human rights campaigners have warned of an epidemic of brutal homophobic attacks in South Africa after the murder and alleged gang rape of a lesbian activist.

Noxolo Nogwaza was killed last month after what appeared to be a so-called corrective rape, an increasingly common crime in which men rape lesbians to 'turn' them straight or 'cure' them of their sexual orientation.

The 24-year-old's face and head were disfigured by stoning, she was stabbed several times with broken glass and evidence suggested she was raped. A beer bottle, a big rock and used condoms were found on and near her body.

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I wish I were a man (Propaganda)

Also

And:

Source: http://amazingdata.com/amazing-propaganda-posters

Modern Propaganda

The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its
narrative about the raid that killed
Osama bin Laden, including
claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon
and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces.

Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden's wives was
killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield
before she was shot by U.S. forces.

Source:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54162.html#ixzz1LJEBjBtR
<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54162.html#ixzz1LJEBjBtR>

Look to Bernays (1928) - The conscious and intelligent manipulation of
the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element
in democratic society.

L'il Wayne, L'il Wayne

It's Wayne's world, we're just living in it.

Lil Wayne is considering dropping the "Lil" from his name, but he's conflicted, waffling on the change. Lil Wayne remembers how, some years back, Snoop Doggy Dogg evolved into Snoop Dogg, but the circumstances were different, Snoop's handle had three words while Lil Wayne has only two, apples to oranges. Well, Hot Rod became Rodimus Prime, didn't he? But to Lil Wayne's thinking, the "Wayne" component of his sobriquet is pretty much immovable, and there's not much further one can go with "Lil" without straying into horticultural or Gulliver's Travels territory; it's risky, and after some prayer and a conference call with Baby, Humpty Hump, and Michael Phelps, Lil Wayne opts to remain "Lil Wayne."

Lil Wayne is riding around outside of your house on a child's bicycle. Or maybe it's just someone who looks like Lil Wayne, a Lil Wayne wannabe. No, no! No that's just Reggie. Reggie!

A little-publicized fact about Lil Wayne: Lil Wayne enjoys driving his European sports coupes cross-country, and often, when you might assume that he's flying from Miami to Arizona or from L.A. to Atlanta, a dreadlocked, hooded imposter is ascending the stairs enfolded by an entourage while a skull-capped, sunglasses-free Lil Wayne weaves reckless through interstate traffic in a Ferrari or a Lexus or a late-model edition so new and exclusive that, legally, he's not allowed to brag about it on mixtapes.

An even less publicized fact about Lil Wayne: on these Fast and the Furious-esque jaunts, Lil Wayne stops for hitchers. Usually, he'll inquire as to where they're headed, then engage in a bit of small talk, then babble mindlessly and one-sidedly about whatever's happening in the NFL, then mumble something about how he's seen The Hitcher two dozen times, then out of nowhere Lil Wayne is vociferously and repeatedly rapping The Carter IV in its entirety over whatever hair-metal happens to be blasting from his BOSE speakers at a suddenly earsplitting volume, rapping guest verses in Big Bird and Erkel voices, beating the steering wheel so hard that he bloodies his hands, spattering the windshield and expensive upholstery and Lil Wayne has this thing where as he's coming up to wherever his passenger wanted to go, he'll start driving murderously, demonically fast, like cosmically fast, warp-drive, laughing crazily and switching between rapping in that infectious, hash-tag Lil Wayne style and a disturbingly on-point imitation of Denzel Washington in Training Day, and then just when the passenger is about to lose all control of his or her facilities, Lil Wayne screeches to a dead stop two or three or twenty miles outside of whatever the destination was supposed to be, chuckles, croaks "users are losers," blows town in a flash.

When Lil Wayne raps about all the spaceships he owns, he's telling tales, because Lil Wayne doesn't really own any spaceships; Lil Wayne leases spaceships. Lil Wayne isn't spaceship rich.

Lil Wayne is sipping a Perrier, sitting alone in the outdoor area of a penthouse café, awaiting the arrival of the author Haruki Murakami. Lil Wayne is out of sorts, owing to the fact that he has been awake for the past 72 hours, gobbling Gobstoppers and cycling unevenly between The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, and After the Quake, and because since arriving in the lobby of the building where the penthouse café is situated, Lil Wayne has experienced a distinct sense of unease, of dread, of existential unreality, and everything and everyone is suspect, potential talisman or agents suffused with unholy and unknowable intent: the idle bellhops, the flirtatious concierge, the gold-plated ashtrays, Bono and Billy Joel taking tea, the waiters unambiguously snapping iPhone pictures with an arrogance that paralyzes Lil Wayne, who suddenly craves high-grade hydroponic weed with an intensity he hadn't experienced since his first few months behind bars. And so Lil Wayne is wary. Lil Wayne is shivering. Lil Wayne is startlingly ashen. Lil Wayne can't get the beat to "A Milli" out of his head. Lil Wayne has intentionally seated himself with an unobstructed view of all possible entrances and exits here, and is running through contingencies in his mind, contemplating whether the Perrier bottle is a viable weapon, wondering why he has agreed to meet Murakami for an early lunch in this café, wondering when the author will, impossibly yet inevitably, tap him on the shoulder, bow formally, gesture toward an unoccupied chair.

Lil Wayne breeds and grooms dogs for dog shows. A sharpei named Knuckles is presently his pride and joy.

Source: http://www.splicetoday.com/pop-culture/lil-wayne-as-lil-wayne