Author: Ophelia Benson

Another installment of ‘When you have nothing better to do, persecute a woman.’

In an interview in December, the rape victim described to Human Rights Watch her treatment in court:

“At the first session, [the judges] said to me, ‘what kind of relationship did you have with this individual? Why did you leave the house? Do you know these men?’ They asked me to describe the situation. They used to yell at me. They were insulting. The judge refused to allow my husband in the room with me. One judge told me I was a liar because I didn’t remember the dates well. They kept saying, ‘Why did you leave the house? Why didn’t you tell your husband [where you were going]?’”

Yeah why did you leave the house, you whore? Women aren’t allowed to leave the house! You’re a woman, you slag, so why did you leave the house? What the hell do you think you were doing outside the house? Rape is too good for you.

And as for that shameless woman Taslima Nasreen –

Controversial Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasreen has been flown out of the Indian city of Calcutta after violent protests by Muslims…Rioters blocked roads and set cars alight. At least 43 people were hurt. More than 100 arrests were made. Critics say she called for the Koran to be changed to give women greater rights, something she denies.

Violent riots, arson, at least 43 people hurt, because ‘critics say’ she called for the Koran to be changed to give women greater rights. Well that’s a good reason to riot and injure people, and tell a woman what to do and where to live. The Koran must never ever be changed, and not only that but no one must ever even suggest it should be changed, nor must there be any allegations that someone has suggested it should be changed, and if there are any such, then it’s time to whip out the riot costume and get busy. And that’s before we even think about the idea of giving women greater rights, which is too disgusting and contemptible to be dignified with anything more measured than a nice vulgar street riot.

Wednesday’s trouble in Calcutta began after the predominantly Muslim All-India Minority Forum called for blockades on major roads in the city. The group said Ms Nasreen had “seriously hurt Muslim sentiments”. Many Muslims say her writing ridicules Islam.

Well there you go. She had ‘seriously hurt Muslim sentiments’ and therefore the right thing to do is to blockade the major roads. Obviously. Whenever my sentiments are seriously hurt I go out (without asking any judges) and set fire to a few schools and supermarkets. Doesn’t everyone?

The letters in response to PBS’s ‘Judgment Day’ that the ombudsman publishes make depressing reading. They’re so infatuated, so wrong, and above all so narcissistic. It’s all about them. They’re offended, they’re insulted, they’re in a snit. Because of course a scientific theory is about them. It’s not about what it’s about, it’s about them. Religion my ass; vanity is more like it. I’m not related to monkeys, I’m special, and you better say so right now or I’ll stop watching PBS.

I realize that PBS has always treated the neo-Darwinian theory of Evolution as sacred and beyond question but last night’s dose of Darwin-worship was so strong and so contrary to any genuine search for truth that I can no longer consider support of public television a morally defensible practice. For years, I have defended public television among my fellow Christians for its many fine offerings for family viewing, but PBS has become so strident and so relentless in its disrespect for fair debate and dialogue on the subject of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, that I can no longer do so.

Because there are always exactly Two Sides to any subject; not three, not one, not eleven, but Two; and Both Must Be Heard. If, at the end of any given television program, one Side seems to have more evidence to back it up than the other seems to have, then The Fix Was In. It was a cheat, and it’s time to get out the old purple-with-rage stationery and fire off a note to those anti-family demons at wherever it is this time.

I have been a faithful watcher of PBS and the NOVA programs over the many years and have always stood up for those who would say that PBS was too liberal in its programming. Your program insulted me and my family with your very jaundiced view and recreation of facts that were slanted heavily towards Darwinism. You did have one science teacher who was pictured in a Roman Catholic Church, as a presumed Christian who said that IF GOD does exist — No more needs be said. Dan Fahey, Greenwich, CT

The program insulted him and his family. That was the point, of course – the Nova producers sat down and said ‘How can we go about insulting Dan Fahey of Greenwich Connecticut, and while we’re at it, insult his family too? Let’s be thorough here – if we’re going to go to all the trouble of insulting Dan Fahey, let’s insult his family. Otherwise our Victory would be incomplete.

The recent Nova special on Intelligent Design vs. Evolution was one of the most blatantly biased pieces of so-called “journalism” or scientific documentary. It was extremely insulting to the idea of Design. The whole tone of it was very sarcastic against Intelligent Design and completely victimized evolutionary thought by the evil villains of religious ignoramuses. It gave precious little air time to ID scientists who have plenty of legitimate research, but gave plenty of time towards evolutionary research…I propose that evolutionary thought is a religion in and of itself, and this program was its equivalent of a televangelistic sermon…Nova has lost all reasonable credibility through this piece. I have long known that they espouse Darwinian doctrine, however, this piece was biased, inaccurate, insulting, sarcastic and ultimately, due to its primarily cultural and political content, was outside of the scope of Nova’s “scientific” programming.

And did I mention that it was insulting?

I find the Nova episode that aired on Nov. 13 titled Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial was presented in a clearly biased manner. I was offended by this episode and I am a substitute for the public school system.

I was offended, I was insulted, I’m pissed off, I’m in a foaming frothing fury, and what do you atheist elitist snobs at PBS plan to do about it? Eh? Eh? Are you going to pay for my therapy? Send me an economy-size box of Prozac? Relocate me to Mecca? What? Awaiting your reply.

Never take medical advice from a novelist.

There have been a number of articles in the press recently criticising homeopathic remedies as worthless at best, and potentially lethal at worst, if they are being taken instead of tried-and-tested conventional medicines for conditions such as malaria or HIV…The organisation Sense About Science and journalists such as Ben Goldacre and Nick Cohen are targeting a symposium in London in December that will discuss HIV and Aids and the homeopathic response to such diseases.

Are they? Well done Ben and Nick. (Both strong fans of B&W, I can’t resist pointing out. Winterson probably not so much.)

I admit it is hard to talk about what it is that homeopathy actually does, or why it works. For my part, I want to know more, not less, but I can’t dismiss the thing in the way that Sense About Science, many doctors, and some journalists are asking me to…This homeophobia is, I think, a genuine terror of what homeopathy is suggesting; which is that we think differently about the relationship between the cure and the disease.

Hmmmmmmyeah, and why would there be a genuine terror of that? Because it wouldn’t work perhaps? Because ‘thinking differently’ could land us back in the good old days when cholera and typhoid and tetanus and TB and yellow fever and typhus and polio were all incurable and unpreventable? Hmm?

Homeopathy, in common with other holistic approaches, asks that we look at the whole picture – the person, and not just his illness. Specifically, in the case of homeopathy, the remedy picture…follows the “like by like” premise – that tiny dilutions of the “problem” can prompt the body to effect its own cure…Homeopathy seeks to understand everything we are, everything we do, as a web of relatedness. The reason why I have a recurring sore throat will not be the reason why you have one, and what helps me may not help you.

And if the homeopath understands everything we are and everything we do (that’s understanding quite a lot, isn’t it) then the homeopath will know ‘the reason why’ I have a sore throat and also the very different ‘reason why’ someone else does? And then fix it? Izzat whacher saying?

As I understand it, homeopathy is not a linear medicine – a drug aiming for a target – nor does it seek to remove the human factor. The patient and the practitioner are both important and relevant when it comes to understanding how humans respond to treatment.

It’s all a matter of self-esteem, at bottom. Provided the homeopath really gets the patient, really sees the point of her and understands her very core of beingness, then the patient will be comfortable in her skin, and that is the secret of how homeopathy works. (The dilution is just to impress onlookers.)

Never take medical advice from a novelist.