France's Hip-Hop Bible: Just in time for Christmas, a new French translation of the Bible has appeared presenting ancient scriptures sacred to both Christianity and Judaism in styles as modern as rap music lyrics or minimalist poetry.
OK, that's different.
I wonder if they'll do an English translation. Can you just imagine the hissyfit the fundies here would have? "You have proFANED the sacred word of the King James Bible! We shall SMITE any who would purchase or even pretend to look at this vile thing!" (They should take a course in the history of the assembly of the Bible. Most illuminating. For example, when deciding what should be considered part of the Bible, both Catholics and Protestants kept trying to figure out some way to exclude the Pauline epistles, because the considered opinion was that Paul was a raving loon. Unfortunately, considered opinion was also that he was truly a divinely inspired raving loon, in the most literal sense, and historically very important, so they stayed in.)
The style of the new text is rather ... spare, to be sure. And the new version of the beginning of the book of John turns poetic incomprehensibility into utter gibberish. But still ... can you just imagine rappers going out and rapping the Bible? Not the usual guns and bitches and all that crap, but the Bible? Wouldn't that just spike a few people's guns?
@ 11:34 AM CST [Link]
Saudi Princess Buniah al-Saud, a member of the world's wealthiest oil dynasty, faced new accusations Tuesday of stealing and selling her former driver's big-screen TV and furniture for $6,000. The charges joined an earlier count of felony battery that landed her in jail Monday night after her maid said she beat her and pushed her downstairs last week. [...] The princess told Orange County sheriff's deputies Friday that they could not arrest her, claiming she had diplomatic immunity. [...] Officials [of the Immigration and Naturalization Service] said that a review of the agency's records gave no indication that al-Saud had been granted diplomatic status by the United States.
Why on earth would a princess need to steal from her servants? What on earth is going on with that family?
Interestingly, the stories on her diplomatic immunity just get more tangled. According to a CBS news report broadcast last night, the princess actually had diplomatic immunity ... right up to the point where she decided to go to Washington to get away from the turmoil. CBS said that INS said that at that point, by not notifying INS prior to the trip, as required by the terms of her visa, she immediately forfeited diplomatic immunity. But now INS seems to be saying that she never had diplomatic immunity, and when the police contacted the Saudi embassy to make sure, they were ... given mistaken information, to put it diplomatically.
It will be fascinating to see what happens here. Up to this point, I would imagine that the al-Sauds would have paid a hefty bit of money to the servants to make them and this situation go away. Now, of course, it's just a bit late. The servants themselves are not bringing charges; technically, the state of Florida is. I would imagine that there would be some sort of plea bargain. After all, she's technically a first-- and second -- time offender, so jail time for these things is relatively rare, especially if you have money. (If it were me, I'd make sure that the plea bargain included at least 6 months of jail time. I would imagine that six months of jail time would give the princess an intimate experience of the limits of privilege.)
@ 11:19 AM CST [Link]
Yemen blasts villages it says are sheltering al-Qaeda men. (the Scotsman UK; registration may be required.) THE war on terror shifted to Yemen yesterday, as the government launched attacks on mountain villages said to be sheltering Osama bin Laden's supporters. The assault in central Yemen with tanks, helicopters and artillery were led by US-trained Yemeni special forces. It appeared the most serious military operation yet in an Arab country against the al-Qaeda network, blamed for the 11 September terror attacks.
OK, that's a surprise.
My guess -- and it is only a guess -- is that Yemen took a look at what happened to Afghanistan and decided that perhaps they'd rather take care of things themselves. A bit less messy that way, and the current rulers actually get to hang around for a while. (Mind, I don't think we would have carpet-bombed Yemen, not any time soon in any event.) It will be interesting to see if this actually makes a dent in Yemen's "state sponsorship of terrorism"; after all, I don't believe that the Administration's issue with Yemen is that they've done nothing about terrorist cells in their country -- not the primary issue, anyway -- but that they actually fund and sponsor terrorists. Whatever good this does for them is likely to be quite limited.
And in a related issue: anyone think it's possible to get our officials to shut the hell up? I mean, does Rumsfeld actually think that there is any European leader with a brain in their head that doesn't know that we're in a new day? They've been living with terrorism for considerably longer than we have. Granted, comparatively, their terrorists have been operating at a smaller scale, but does Rumsfeld honestly think that, for example, the British might not realize that the Real IRA might consider itself inspired now? that Spain might not consider that the Basque separatists might now be thinking, "Hey, there's a concept ..." I mean, who on earth does he think he is?
@ 12:01 AM CST [Link]
Following the examples of the Air Force and Navy, the Department of the Army has issued a stop-loss order to suspend many administrative discharges, but not those related to sexual orientation.
Well, it's nice to see that the military branches are consistent, isn't it? "We don't care what reason you have for getting out, we're not letting you out now. Compassionate? Who, us? Your enlistment's up? Too bad. Sick? Get better. Gay ... EWW. Ick. Go away go away go AWAY!"
Idiots.
@ 11:46 PM CST [Link]
I include the entire article because it's terribly brief.
Man Donates Gay Porn Collection To Library
A 97-year-old man in Italy is to donate his entire collection of gay porn films to his local council and has asked that they be put in the town's public library.
According to the Supereva website, the man says the collection includes "all the masterpieces of the best gay porn directors."
The man, who has not been named, says the collectionr represents his struggle for homosexual rights. It is not known how large the collection is.
His struggle for homosexual rights. Hmm. Yes. Well.
You wonder what it is with this sudden surge of people leaving porn to libraries ... Well, ok, not so much "surge" as "the occasional oddity". I know about the "librarian of sexual congress" -- and my search hits are suddenly going to get terribly interesting, aren't they? -- and I know about something that took place a few years ago because one of my best friends was working for the library at the time when they received the donation. Seems that a prominent collector died and left them his collection of art books, which really is a very very good collection, with lots of first editions, lots of really good stuff that any library would want. But ... mixed in with the first editions and wonderful didactic stuff was ... well, for lack of a better word, smut. The real problem is that some of the smut actually was historic art. As my friend put it, there were confabs of librarians sitting around trying to figure out the eternal question, "Art? Smut? Art? Smut? Is a physique picture of young men committing anatomical improbabilities something that's historically important, that's the question."
Um ... but I digress. I think. In any event, it'll be interesting to see what the library decides. (I just envision some poor city librarian saying, "Yes, but is Wakefield Poole's 'Boys in the Sand' historically important? And how will we ever put these films into a circulating collection?")
@ 11:40 PM CST [Link]
A lorry driver fired for wearing women's clothes away from work is firing back with a web site attacking his former employer, Winn-Dixie Stores. The US supermarket chain is seeking to shut it down. Peter Oiler, the trannie trucker who worked for the company for 21 years, is the figurehead of ShameOnWinnDixie.com, a web site supported and maintained by American Civil Liberties Union activists.
Hmm.
OK, here's the thing: Mr Oiler no doubt has the unequivocal right to express his opinions about his firing. I am less sanguine about his right to publish his former supervisors' work phone numbers, although it may well be that they are available on Winn-Dixie's own site, or somewhere easily available. I am entirely convinced that he's got some abominable legal representation; you do NOT engage in this sort of provocation when you've got a case in progress. It tends to piss off judges most thoroughly.
Make no mistake: the primary reason for the site's existence may or may not be to allow Mr Oiler to express himself, but a major reason is that it was dangled out there as lawsuit bait. From the warning letter that was sent out, it's clear that it succeeded ... although I expect not entirely as planned. (For one thing, it seems to have been around for a little while before Winn-Dixie even noticed.) Although there would be no confusing the site with Winn-Dixie's main corporate site, under most ICANN rules and trademark/copyright cases, the domain name probably constitutes a misuse of trademark. Where Winn-Dixie goes awry in their letter is that they should have requested that the site stop using a domain name containing their trademark; instead, they request that the site be removed from the internet. Wrong wrong wrong. They overstep.
As far as the actual case itself goes, Oiler certainly has grounds to sue ... although based on what I've read, not under the discrimination laws that he's charging. And frankly, although I think most people would agree that you have every right to live your private life as you see fit, I'm baffled as to which laws would cover this. Sex discrimination seems like improper grounds for the suit. That said, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has in fact granted Oiler the right to sue for employment discrimination. The facts of the case make Winn-Dixie look about as bad as they possibly could; they simply have no legal basis for trying to regulate their employee's home lives in that way. (I just have an odd feeling that the claims for relief are coming from the wrong direction as far as the law is concerned. Women and men don't have analogous places in society when it comes to clothing; it's considered acceptable for women to wear men's clothing -- if pants are called "men's clothing" -- and it's not considered acceptable for men to wear a dress.)
Oiler's own opinion of the case can be heard in a web radio archive at Gendertalk.
To be honest, I'm astonished that this case is going forward, unless there's a cosmic game of chicken going on, or unless there's some employment contract with a specific "Thou shalt comport thyself as a Manly Man!" clause hiding somewhere. This is the sort of case where a jury will really dislike both sides, but Winn-Dixie ultimately has more to risk. The opinion of most people will run something like, "Well, you know, the guy's a pre-vert, but it's a mild kind of pre-vert, and he's not doing anything illegal. He wants to wear women's clothes on his own time, it's his business. I don't want MY boss telling me what to do on MY time, after all."
In any event, both Oiler and Winn-Dixie seem to me to be badly served by their lawyers at this point.
@ 10:49 PM CST [Link]
Saudi princess charged with beating servant, pushing her down stairs. You know, I have two questions about this: (1) Wouldn't a member of the family of a head of state have diplomatic immunity? and (2) the maid was pushed down the stairs, left "unable to walk" ... but ran from the building. Um ... OK.
@ 12:30 PM CST [Link]
Al Qaeda weaker, but still a threat: ... Al Qaeda's independent cell structure, as well as its global roots, means the threat of further attacks on the West remains a distinct possibility, with or without its inspirational or military leaders.
Al Qaeda's self-reliant cliques, for instance, can still raise money through credit-card fraud and other scams. At the same time, the US's routing of the last Al Qaeda redoubt in Afghanistan, in the moonscape of Tora Bora, may spark new resolve among young followers in other countries.
And this, of course, is one part that most people don't want to think about. The government is thinking about it, of course, but doesn't want to say anything because why stir things up when it's all going so well? And let's face it: telling people, "By the way, we've crippled them, but there are a lot of independent cells and rogues out there, and in the near term, we're likely to have a LOT of lower-level attacks here and there," is not only the sort of thing that people absolutely don't want to hear (and probably wouldn't listen to), but it's debatable how much good it would do to for the administration to say such a thing out loud. Yes, it's realistic, and establishing realistic expectations would be a good thing, but what, precisely, could most of us actually do about it? Add to that Ridge's propensity for Chicken Little-like, "The sky is falling! The terrorists may attack any minute now!" announcements, and you can understand why dealing with the issue may be a little difficult.
@ 05:47 PM CST [Link]
A paroled rapist charged with a Sept. 11 bias crime was really just a victim of the horrific World Trade Center attack, his lawyer claimed in winning his release on a minimal $500 bail, a court transcript shows. [...] Galgano was busted just hours after the terrorist attacks for allegedly threatening two gay men holding hands at St. Vincents Hospital Blood Bank on West 12th Street in Greenwich Village. ... "My client was downtown when this tragedy occurred," said [public defender Brooks Holland". "He witnessed it. He was extremely emotional. ... "He did not call out because he saw these men holding hands. He expressed emotions he was feeling over the devastation he was feeling. He denies threatening these individuals."
Yes, I'm sure that I would mistake, "How can you do that? I'm so upset about all this!" for "I'll kick your ass, you queers." I mean, really, doesn't that sound like the sort of mistake that anyone would make?
The fun part is that he was already on parole for a violent crime, so the accusation should have automatically stuck him in jail without bail.
I must admit, California's classification of the man as a "moderate risk offender" baffles me. He raped two women violently, shot at others ... how is this "moderate"? And why would New York's judge, on looking at this history, agree that he's only a "moderate risk offender"? What on earth do they consider high risk?
@ 03:51 PM CST [Link]
While you were watching the war .... His Fraudulency and minions seem to be engaged in a wonderfully corporatist attack on rules and regulations controlling polluters. Which, if you look at the shape Texas is currently in -- most polluted state in the union for the severalth year running -- is no particular surprise. And if it weren't for the war, more of us might actually have noticed this particular full-court press.
It is amazing how many things the government is doing can be somehow justified on the basis that it's a response to terrorism, isn't it? I will admit that I'm utterly and completely baffled as to how one would justify allowing mines to pollute even more than they do can be justified as a response to terrorism, but I'm sure the Shrubbery's mouthpiece can enlighten us all at some later date.
@ 03:42 PM CST [Link]
Chicago Tribune | Coercive and illegal tactics torpedo scores of Cook County murder cases: Substituting interrogation for thorough investigation, police in Chicago and Cook County have repeatedly closed murder cases with dubious confessions that imprison the innocent while killers go free.
In the first investigation of its kind, the Tribune examined thousands of murder cases filed in Cook County since 1991 and found at least 247 where police obtained incriminating statements that were thrown out by the courts as tainted or failed to secure a conviction.
Um ... excuse me? The Chicago Reader has been working on this for about a decade solidly. What is this "first investigation of its kind" crap? (The Reader finally did what I've been hoping they would do for some time now, and got themselves a content management system. Unfortunately, they then decided to put their entire archive behind a pay wall, so you can't see the work they've done on this. Dammit. ... although, that said, it turns out that the pages themselves haven't been removed from the site. Weird. Well, until they notice, there's an article from 1999; a summary of a lot of their research from Human Rights Watch; a collection of links and information from NetworkChicago (public broadcasting); an article from Mother Jones, citing the Reader series ... well, you get the drift.)
In any event, that bit of hubris doesn't undermine the investigation that the Tribune is undertaking, which is somewhat more comprehensive -- considering the major difference in available resources, it should be more comprehensive. And it does paint an interesting picture of the Chicago police force.
I do wonder why, as part of a consent decree resulting from one of the lawsuits, a federal judge doesn't force the city to accept videotaping of interrogations as part of the solution. I understand why the police department resists; they couldn't get away with half what they do, and even some of the stuff that is entirely legal would be viewed unfavorably by a jury. But I dont understand why the solution isn't simply imposed on them.
@ 02:58 PM CST [Link]
India Urges Self-Defense, Pakistan Vows to Retaliate
Lovely. Just lovely.
Well, I suppose if it continues this way, we won't have to worry about that nasty arms race in South Asia for long. There won't be any South Asia left to worry about.
You know, an independent Kashmir would almost be the best thing for the two of them. Ideally, it would take not only Kashmir itself, but also several miles alongside the border of each country all the way to the ocean. A nice little buffer zone to keep them away from each other until they learn to play nicely with their bombs. (Or better yet, to stop thinking of playing with them at all.). Unfortunately, any such state would have to be a virtual garrison state, nothing but army threatening each side with pyrrhic losses should they even think of crossing the borders.
@ 02:33 PM CST [Link]
The Scotsman: Iran to aid US attack on Iraq as al-Qaeda crumbles: The New Yorker magazine claims Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi has delivered the Bush administration a war plan using Iranian help in an offensive against Iraq "which calls not only for bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops".
You know, there ought to be a question mark at the end of the title of that article.
Punctuation aside, I can't imagine that this plan has a snowball's chance. For one thing, having been (literally) starved for most of the decade and driven out or exterminated by Saddam's army, there's really not much of an opposition to work with. For another, any opposition movement in Iraq that would actually trust us for major support, given what happened with the Kurds, needs its brains examined. Third, it strikes me as highly unlikely that, in the absence of any substantive or relatively successful rebellion inside the country, the US would even consider placing "thousands" of special forces troops into Iraq -- I don't know that the administration wants to test the will of the country to sustain massive casualties with something that uncertain. And fourth ... why on earth would WE trust Chalabi? Incompetent and unwise would seem to be a kind way to describe the man.
His Fraudulency may or may not be prepared to move on Iraq -- equities of the situation aside, my suspicion is that he would rather move on Somalia and Sudan, both because they contain known al-Qaida cells, and because neither of them has a military worth our notice; it's simply somewhat more likely to get noticeable results against them -- but I don't think he's prepared to engage in relatively unprovoked full-scale invasion. Certainly not on a scale this small (if you're going to do something that stupid, you'd damn well better do it big); it would be a certain means to get the soldiers slaughtered. Iraq is not Afghanistan, and is not that poorly armed, even now. Air power would be less effective, because Iraq has a much larger, better armed army, and there's no relatively well-armed domestic rebellion going on at the moment. And what country would be prepared to let us use its airfields to run carpet-bombing raids against Iraq? Iran has better sense than that, plus we continue not to have official diplomatic relations with them. It's also unlikely tha you could build a "loosely federalized democracy" in Iraq, just like that; it's far more likely that if you get rid of the Republican Guard and Saddam, you'll have some gruesome settling of scores. (And, one might note, we'll be one of the scores being settled. Putting US soldiers into Iraq and expecting the Iraqis to hail us as the conquering heroes is a good way to get them killed in really relentlessly interesting ways.)
(The concept of Iraq joining in the Hunt for Osama does give one a snicker, though, doesn't it?)
@ 02:14 PM CST [Link]
The China Syndrome By Robert Wright: ... how does the Bush administration persist in its quest for missile defense in the wake of 9/11? Simple -- just assert that 9/11 actually underscored the need for missile defense. "As the events of September the 11th made all too clear," Bush said yesterday, the greatest threats to America come "from terrorists who strike without warning, or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction."
Um, could you run the "rogue states" part by me again? I agree that their seeking weapons of mass destruction is a big problem. But the problem is their giving the weapons to terrorists, not their sending the weapons over on a missile, with a return address.
I freely admit, I have never once understood the Shrubbery's insistence on this missile defense system. (Or, to be fair, Clinton's or Shrub I or Reagan, for that matter -- this particular idea has a long, if not particularly distinguished, pedigree.) I mean, I understand the appeal of the concept, but it's no longer possible to build a system that would withstand a major attack (although I suspect the question of whether Russia's missiles would actually fly or would blow up in the silo is of more than academic interest these days). Minor attacks, if any, are not likely to come by ballistic missile -- first, if it was only a few missiles, they could actually be shot down by planes, and second, what state leader with pretensions of sanity would think, "Hey, let's just lob a missile or ten at the US and see what happens?" It's far more likely that they'll give materiel to terrorists and say, "You know, I think the Empire State Building would look lovely glowing in the dark, don't you? And even better as a glowing crater!" On the other hand, such a system has the potential to aggravate the hell out of other arms races. To be honest, I really don't expect that China thinks we'll lob missiles at them without major provocation, either. However, as the article notes, the chance of India, Pakistan or China lobbing missiles at each other is considerably better. (And wouldn't Japan and Australia and the West Coast just love what would happen with the Jet Stream and the prevailing Westerlies after an exchange like that? Nothing like being downstream, is there?)
Who benefits from this system, that's what I'd like to know. Just to be terribly cynical, there must be major jobs and major campaign donations somewhere behind all this, because the system has never made sense in and of itself. Back in Reagan's day, it did have an unexpected benefit, if that's quite the right word: the massive US/Soviet arms race, of which ABM was a part, bankrupted the Soviet Union and helped totter into a startlingly early grave. (Of course, that came at the cost of a massive national debt that we'll be paying off until long after I die, but whatever.) It's unlikely that China is that vulnerable; it's also unlikely that we have the political will to rack up debt in quite that way over quite that issue.
Or rather, we wouldn't have the political will if Congress remembered what it was there for. However, given the craven cowardice shown by them over the past few months, I expect we can expect to see this system stumbling along its merry way to completion -- if that's quite the right word.
@ 12:22 PM CST [Link]
A TEENAGE boy undergoing a sex change is hoping to freeze his sperm so that he can father a baby, before assuming the role of its mother once he has become a woman. Jamie Cooper, 16, would make medical history by becoming both the father and mother of his child. He said: "I’d like to have children one day, so I am having my sperm frozen before the operation. That way it can be used to fertilise the egg of a surrogate mum. So I could be a mum one day, even though, biologically, I will be the baby’s father as well."
How ... farsighted of him.
I have to admit, I'm astonished that anyone would allow a 16-year-old to choose that operation; I can't imagine what sort of psychological exams he's had to endure, or how hard his mother must have tried to talk him out of this.
For some, these "clues" will be enough - already there is potential for a nice "blame it on Mum" scenario and images of a young lad who doesn’t know his own mind. But let’s be honest: how many parents would actually choose this for their children, and how many people would go through such enormous changes on little more than a whim?
It may be a politically incorrect view to take, but we have to assume that the vast majority of parents want nothing but an easy life for their kids. They want to protect them from abuse, ridicule, violence, and intolerance. Irrespective of your position on sexuality and the associated rights which should be accorded to everyone regardless of which gender category they fall into, it’s a simple fact that anyone who does not adhere to society’s narrow, often dangerous notions of what makes men and women, is heading for a lot of trouble. [...] Let’s be honest, it is adults who work with enormous ferocity on the matter of sexualising children. They are also the ones who restrict the information available, tell them that sex education will mortally damage them, and deny any evidence that there could be anything as awkward as uncertainty.
A very interesting editorial response, as well.
@ 12:10 AM CST [Link]
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!