Author: Ophelia Benson

But worth every penny, right? Given all the church does for child welfare, and women’s rights, and the health and well-being of people with Aids and their spouses and children, and education, and…

Well they keep the brocade industry going, at least. Do admit.

But the IHEU refuses to admit.

The findings by Italy’s Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), a member organization of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, were published the day after Italy’s new government announced a budget filled with new taxes and drastic spending cuts.

But the spending cuts are in this world, while the Catholic church takes care of the other world, so that it will be all clean and shiny when we get to it. No worries. Happy new year.

Maryam says: Here’s information on what you can and must do about the possible imminent execution of Sakineh Mohamadi Ashtiani.

The International Committee Against Stoning asks the noble people of the world, as well as the press, governments and human-rights organisations, to exert pressure in any way they can in pursuit of Sakineh and Houtan’s release by the Islamic Republic.

International Committee Against Stoning

28 December 2011

It’s confusing. There’s this college in Dundee, called the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education. Its

aim is the promotion of intelligent debate and understanding of Islam and the role of Muslims in the contemporary world. We are a place of knowledge and reflection on the issues facing a diverse and multicultural world in the twenty-first century.

Ok. But then you look at its Multiculturalism Course.

The programme aims to explore in depth the concept of multiculturalism, with specific reference to the development of the concept in academic studies (particularly the past 15 years). The main understanding of the term  ‘multiculturalism’ for this programme is as a means to describe contemporary contexts of cultural and religious diversity, and the processes by which such diversity are experienced (by individuals, societies and countries) and managed (by nation states).

You begin to wonder. You keep reading.

Optional Course 1

Choose one course, subject to availability, from:

• The Theoretical Framework of Bayt al-Maqdis
• Islam & Muslims in History & Society
• Educational Studies: An Introduction

Islam & Muslims in Multicultural Britain

This course examines the historical and demographic developments of the Muslim presence in the UK. It places them in the context of the emergence of a politics of multiculturalism in the past 50 years, along with the processes of settlement and integration of diverse ethnic, religious and cultural minority communities, and their relations with wider society. A major theme of the course is the diversity of British Muslim identities, and communities and the social, cultural and political contexts in which they have developed.

Optional Course 2

Choose one course, subject to availability, from:

• Globalisation & Political Islam
• Islam & Muslims & International Relations
• Islamic Education: Theory & Practice
• History of Bayt al-Maqdis 2: From the Late Crusades to the Contemporary Era
• Women in Islam

And now you feel thoroughly confused. The course as a whole is about multiculturalism, but the choices on offer are about exactly one “culture.” Why is that?

And is “Islam” the best “culture” (or religion) to focus on if you’re trying to understand multiculturalism? I ask because Islam itself is firmly opposed to multiculturalism and pluralism; Islam makes it a crime deserving the death sentence to leave Islam for a different “culture” or religion.

So it’s confusing.

This is worrying.

Authorities say two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder, an unusual use of a law that allows for murder charges in the death of a viable fetus.

…

A grand jury indicted the two doctors after a 16-month investigation, police said.

The investigation began in August 2010 after what authorities say was a botched procedure at Brigham’s clinic in Elkton, located near the border of Maryland and Delaware. An 18-year-old woman who was 21 weeks pregnant had her uterus ruptured and her bowel injured, and rather than call 911, Brigham and Riley drove her to a nearby hospital, where both were uncooperative and Brigham refused to give his name, according to documents filed in a previous investigation by medical regulators.

A search of the clinic after the botched abortion revealed a freezer containing 35 late-term fetuses, including one believed to have been aborted at 36 weeks, the documents show.

Brigham, 55, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. Riley, 46, faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and one conspiracy count.

Mind you, it’s also mystifying. Why was there a freezer full of fetuses? But even with all the mystification, when abortion-providing doctors are charged with first degree murder it’s time to get worried.

The state law allows for murder or manslaughter charges to be brought against a person who intends to kill or seriously injure a fetus or who wantonly disregards the safety of a fetus. It does not apply to doctors administering lawful medical care and does not impinge on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

I don’t see how those two sentences, as they stand, can both be true…No wait, yes I do – “allows for” must mean in cases where a woman is not terminating a pregnancy; assault as opposed to abortion. Is that right?

An item to watch.

I just want to say

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports more revelations of threats to Pakistani journalists.

Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Times and host of a popular Urdu-language political program on Geo TV, and Jugnu Mohsin, also a Friday Times editor, said they had lived under threat for years but the level of danger had become so menacing in early 2011 that they were forced to leave Pakistan. A few months later, the two went public with the threats. Then, on Thursday, Sethi told us that he and Mohsin had decided to return to Lahore on Friday.

Pakistan is, according to the CPJ, the worst country in the world for journalists.

A level of danger pervades the industry, and for the last two years, CPJ has ranked Pakistan as the world’s deadliest country for journalists. The courageous steps of some men and women in recent days to confront that menace head-on is admirable, but their courage alone won’t be enough to reverse the trend. The reality is that governance is weak in Pakistan, and it will require a concerted effort over a long time before Pakistani journalists–and normal citizens, for that matter–can live without fear of retribution.

This necessarily means that Pakistanis are starved of good information. They need it more than most people.

I did a podcast for the Buffalo Beast. I have the remains of a cold so there are one or two quick barks which are me coughing, but other than that I think it’s all right. It was fun.

I should figure out where the Discovery Institute is some day…

I think people who leave Islam should leave it for atheism, not for Christianity, but I also think people who do leave Islam for Christianity should not have acid thrown in their faces. Umar Mulinde, who used to be an Islamic teacher and is now a bishop of the Gospel Life Church International, had acid thrown in his face on December 24th. It destroyed one of his eyes.

From his hospital bed in Kampala, he told Compass that he was on his way back to the site for a party with the entire congregation and hundreds of new converts to Christianity when a man who claimed to be a Christian approached him. “I heard him say in a loud voice, ‘Pastor, pastor,’ and as I made a turn and looked at him, he poured the liquid onto my face as others poured more liquid on my back and then fled away shouting, ‘Allahu akbar,’” Mulinde said, still visibly traumatized two days after the assault.

As far as I can tell, Gospel Life Church International isn’t one of the Homophobia First sects that have been infesting Uganda, but I’m not sure about that. In any case, down with pouring acid on people.

I did a post on Google Earth tourism last March.

Something I’ve just discovered in the last few days is that the chateaux of the Loire Valley have been very thoroughly visited by the Google van – blue lines all over everything, so you can see the gardens, the approaches, outbuildings, and the chateau from far and close and from all angles. You could spend hours just looking at one chateau. Look up Chenonceau or Chambord, if you’re interested.

Versailles has also been thoroughly Google-photographed.

I should check out the Taj Mahal one of these days…

You know about Rock Beyond Belief, right? The fun day of music and rabble-rousing for foxhole atheists?

Current Lineup

Speakers
Dan Barker
Ed Brayton
Richard Dawkins
Margaret Downey
Jen McCreight
Dale McGowan
Hemant Mehta
Nate Phelps
Al Stefanelli
Todd Stiefel
Mikey Weinstein
Music
Baba Brinkman
Jeffrey Lewis
Spoonboy
Words Such As Burn
Roy ZimmermanWhen:
Saturday, March 31st, 2012 Time: Noon – 8:00PM
Where:
The main post parade field on Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Cost: Free to everyone. This includes service members, spouses and family, and civilians from the surrounding areas that may wish to attend.

It should be hella fun, plus a good idea and much needed. Attend and/or spread the word.

So repeatedly calling a woman a slut is actually a form of harassment?

An indictment was filed Thursday against Jerusalem resident Shlomo Fuchs, 44, an ultra-Orthodox man who hurled sexist slurs at a female soldier on a public bus in the capital.

The court also stated that sexual harassment does not only apply when the harasser demands something of sexual nature from the harassed, but also when the harassed is humiliated based on remarks relating to his or her sex. The judge ruled such was the case in this incident, since “there is no dispute that Fuchs spoke bluntly and shouted harsh and humiliating words at the soldier aboard the bus, calling her a ‘slut’ three times.”

And that’s harassment? Really? It’s not just a little harmless fun? It’s not a joke? It’s not a touch of boorishness? It’s actual harassment? Who knew?

Fuchs’ attorney claimed this was not a criminal offense. “We live in a free country. We’re allowed to curse, it’s part of the freedom of expression,” he explained.

If the court does decide this is a sexual harassment case, said the attorney, then any man who calls a woman a “bitch” or other curse words would be considered a sexual offender.

Or a cunt or a fucking cunt or a smelly snatch or a fucking fat slag or an ugly fucking cunt bitch or – you get the idea.

It looks like a stupid claim, on the face of it (though it’s probably the only claim Fuchs’s attorney could make). Being allowed to curse is not the same thing as being allowed to shout curses at a particular person on a public bus because she won’t obey an unlawful bullying coercive order to move to the back of said bus. Passengers on buses aren’t allowed to do whatever they like to other passengers. Being allowed to curse is not the same thing as being allowed to harass people.

The Jerusalem police on Wednesday arrested Fuchs for calling Doron Matalon, the female soldier, a “slut” after she refused to sit at the back of an Egged bus travelling from the Neve Yaakov neighborhood to the Central Command base in Jerusalem.

Another female passenger who was approaching the front of the bus in order to pay the driver was told by Fuchs that “a woman shouldn’t pass through the front of the bus to pay.” He then demanded she return to the back of the bus.

Matalon said, “I wanted to make room for her, but a man sitting nearby said to her: ‘Why are you at the front of the bus? You’re a woman.’ He looked at me and asked: ‘You too, why are you here?’” Matalon responded: “Women are not restricted to the back of the bus.”

“I told him that just as he doesn’t want to see my face, I don’t want to see his, and that’s when he called me a ‘slut, shiksa.’”

Matalon added that Fuchs yelled: “Slut, slut, slut. You have no respect. You’re standing among yeshiva students and it’s shameful.”

…

Fuchs was arrested by the police, and during his interrogation he admitted to calling Matalon a “slut”, explaining that the slur was a proper response to “her provocative behavior.”

Sure. That’s what they all say.

Priests. Greek Orthodox priests, Armenian priests. Cleaning up the “Church of the Nativity” in Bethlehem. For the Orthodox Christmas on January 7. Scrub scrub, dust dust, polish polish, sweep sweep. Bash bash. Bash bash bash bash bash bash.