This is the best and most appropriate rant to a world-wide problem: the reduction of the importance of women.
Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death - Joss Whedon
This is not my blog, but I don’t have a blog, or a space, and I’d like to be heard for a bit.
Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron “honor killing”, in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.
There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.
I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it’s been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for “Captivity”.
A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by “The Killing Fields” Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.
“I’m sorry.”
What is wrong with women?
I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.
I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let’s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.” It’s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it’s entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women’s behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.
It’s safe to say that I’ve snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I’ve looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I’ve shorted out. I don’t pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I’m not for a second going down the “women are saints” route – that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn’t that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use ‘trees’ as my example, but at the rate we’re getting rid of them I’m pretty sure we really do think they’re evil. See how all rants become one?)
Now those of you who frequent this site are, in my wildly biased opinion, fairly evolved. You may hear nothing new here. You may be way ahead of me. But I can’t contain my despair, for Dua Khalil, for humanity, for the world we’re shaping. Those of you who have followed the link I set up know that it doesn’t bring you to a video of a murder. It brings you to a place of sanity, of people who have never stopped asking the question of what is wrong with this world and have set about trying to change the answer. Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.
All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. If you can’t think of what to do, there is this handy link. Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you’re all in it now.
I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we’re pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.
The sky isn’t evil. Try looking up.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
CLUES! - J.J. Abrams' Cloverfield - New Third Photo Appears At 1-18-08 Site
As promised by producer J.J. Abrams, the Cloverfield project would have a number of online clues. Here's the latest one: an ominous photo of two women walking in what appears to be soot.
What?
For more information, click here to check our main post on Cloverfield.
What?
For more information, click here to check our main post on Cloverfield.
PT-141 - New Drug You Sniff For Sex - New York Magazine
Man. If this story's really true, then sex is totally revolutionized. I mean just think about it. One sniff and you're ready to do it. Well, I guess it's one sniff. I really don't know yet. I'll let you know. But this woman says it really has no effect at all.
Is the World Ready for Libido in a Nasal Spray? - New York Magazine
Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colorful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry—a small white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odorless, colorless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works.
And it’s coming to a medicine cabinet near you. The drug will soon enter Phase 3 clinical trials, the final round of testing before it goes to the Food and Drug Administration for review, and with the FDA’s approval it could reach the market in as soon as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: Putting that inhaler up your nose and popping off a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as few as fifteen minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel “genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,” not to mention “a strong desire to have sex.” Among men, who’ve been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is, shall we say, richer:
“With PT-141, you feel good, not only sexually aroused,” reported anonymous patient 007, a participant in a Phase 2 trial, “you feel younger and more energetic.” Said another patient: “It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire. . . . You get this humming feeling; you’re ready to take your pants off and go.” And another: “Twice me and my wife had sex twice in one night. I came in [to work] and I just raved about it: ‘Jesus, guys . . . 58 years old and you don’t do that.’ ” Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don’t typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire of humming, throbbing, tingling, and double-dipping. Or as patient 128 put it: “My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.”
The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: Where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes straight to the brain itself. And there it goes to work, switching on the same neural circuitry that lights up when a person actually, you know, wants to.
“It’s not merely allowing a sexual response to take place more easily,” explains Michael A. Perelman, co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a sexual-medicine adviser on the PT-141 trials. Though he cautions against jumping to conclusions, he’s hopeful that the drug represents a breakthrough. “It may be having an effect, literally, on how we think and feel.”
Palatin Technologies, the New Jersey–based maker of PT-141, has hopes of its own. Once the company gets FDA approval for the drug, Palatin plans to market it to the same crowd Viagra targets: male erectile-dysfunction patients. Approval as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction may follow, perhaps bringing relief to postmenopausal and other women with truly physiological barriers to sexual happiness. In the wake of Pfizer’s failed attempts to prove Viagra works for women, and amid growing recognition that it doesn’t even do the trick for large numbers of men, these two markets alone could make PT-141 a pharmaceutical blockbuster.
But let’s face facts: A drug that makes you not only able to but eager to isn’t going to remain the exclusive property of the severely impaired. As with Viagra, there will no doubt be extensive off-label use of PT-141. Fast-acting and long-lasting, packaged in an easily concealed, single-use nasal inhaler, unaffected by food or alcohol consumption, PT-141 seems bound to take its place alongside MDMA, cocaine, poppers, and booze itself in the pantheon of club drugs. If the chemical is all it’s cracked up to be, the perennial pharmacological dilemma of the pickup scene—namely, how to maximize the fun when the drinks required to set the mood are always more than enough to dull the senses—would appear to have found its solution.
You’ve been there yourself, after all: a third or fourth date, a late night of rich food, hard liquor, mildly exhausting erotic tension. Can you admit to yourself now, however hungrily you may have anticipated the evening’s scheduled consummation, that there was a part of you, when the moment arrived, that really would have rather been at home watching CSI?
Is the World Ready for Libido in a Nasal Spray? - New York Magazine
Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colorful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry—a small white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odorless, colorless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works.
And it’s coming to a medicine cabinet near you. The drug will soon enter Phase 3 clinical trials, the final round of testing before it goes to the Food and Drug Administration for review, and with the FDA’s approval it could reach the market in as soon as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: Putting that inhaler up your nose and popping off a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as few as fifteen minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel “genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,” not to mention “a strong desire to have sex.” Among men, who’ve been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is, shall we say, richer:
“With PT-141, you feel good, not only sexually aroused,” reported anonymous patient 007, a participant in a Phase 2 trial, “you feel younger and more energetic.” Said another patient: “It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire. . . . You get this humming feeling; you’re ready to take your pants off and go.” And another: “Twice me and my wife had sex twice in one night. I came in [to work] and I just raved about it: ‘Jesus, guys . . . 58 years old and you don’t do that.’ ” Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don’t typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire of humming, throbbing, tingling, and double-dipping. Or as patient 128 put it: “My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.”
The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: Where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes straight to the brain itself. And there it goes to work, switching on the same neural circuitry that lights up when a person actually, you know, wants to.
“It’s not merely allowing a sexual response to take place more easily,” explains Michael A. Perelman, co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a sexual-medicine adviser on the PT-141 trials. Though he cautions against jumping to conclusions, he’s hopeful that the drug represents a breakthrough. “It may be having an effect, literally, on how we think and feel.”
Palatin Technologies, the New Jersey–based maker of PT-141, has hopes of its own. Once the company gets FDA approval for the drug, Palatin plans to market it to the same crowd Viagra targets: male erectile-dysfunction patients. Approval as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction may follow, perhaps bringing relief to postmenopausal and other women with truly physiological barriers to sexual happiness. In the wake of Pfizer’s failed attempts to prove Viagra works for women, and amid growing recognition that it doesn’t even do the trick for large numbers of men, these two markets alone could make PT-141 a pharmaceutical blockbuster.
But let’s face facts: A drug that makes you not only able to but eager to isn’t going to remain the exclusive property of the severely impaired. As with Viagra, there will no doubt be extensive off-label use of PT-141. Fast-acting and long-lasting, packaged in an easily concealed, single-use nasal inhaler, unaffected by food or alcohol consumption, PT-141 seems bound to take its place alongside MDMA, cocaine, poppers, and booze itself in the pantheon of club drugs. If the chemical is all it’s cracked up to be, the perennial pharmacological dilemma of the pickup scene—namely, how to maximize the fun when the drinks required to set the mood are always more than enough to dull the senses—would appear to have found its solution.
You’ve been there yourself, after all: a third or fourth date, a late night of rich food, hard liquor, mildly exhausting erotic tension. Can you admit to yourself now, however hungrily you may have anticipated the evening’s scheduled consummation, that there was a part of you, when the moment arrived, that really would have rather been at home watching CSI?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Sen. Clinton & John Edwards "Our Guys Should Talk" - Said On Live Mic At NAACP Convention
Wow. This is a blockbuster story for several reasons: 1, it points to a collusion between two presidential candidates to deliberately cause the exclusion of of other candidates they perceive as weak, and 2, the conversation was intended to be private, but the mic was live.
Apparently, according to Fox News , this is what happened:
Clinton, Edwards Want to 86 Gravel, Kucinich?
At the end of an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit in which fringe candidates Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich repeatedly upstaged the top two tiers, John Edwards approached Hillary Clinton at her podium and, perhaps forgetting that microphones were still on, can clearly be heard saying "we should think about at some point... maybe some time in the fall, we'll try to have a more serious debate with a smaller group of people."
Hillary agreed with Edwards, saying “We’ve got to cut the numbers of these, because they are just being trivialized.” Edwards responded “And they’re not serious. They’re not serious,” then walked away. Hillary caught up to him to add "I think there was an effort by our campaign to do that, but it somehow got detoured," saying "We’ve gotta get back to it." While shaking Dennis Kucinich's hand, she added “our guys should talk.”
This is a serious breech of the idea that all presidential candidates are serious and should be given air time. Moreover it reveals what the Clinton and Edwards camps actually think of their opponents. Plus, particularly for Senator Clinton, it's just plain bad PR. It reinforces the perception of some observers that she's calculating and can't be trusted.
Here's the video:
I'll stay tuned to this story.
Apparently, according to Fox News , this is what happened:
Clinton, Edwards Want to 86 Gravel, Kucinich?
At the end of an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit in which fringe candidates Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich repeatedly upstaged the top two tiers, John Edwards approached Hillary Clinton at her podium and, perhaps forgetting that microphones were still on, can clearly be heard saying "we should think about at some point... maybe some time in the fall, we'll try to have a more serious debate with a smaller group of people."
Hillary agreed with Edwards, saying “We’ve got to cut the numbers of these, because they are just being trivialized.” Edwards responded “And they’re not serious. They’re not serious,” then walked away. Hillary caught up to him to add "I think there was an effort by our campaign to do that, but it somehow got detoured," saying "We’ve gotta get back to it." While shaking Dennis Kucinich's hand, she added “our guys should talk.”
This is a serious breech of the idea that all presidential candidates are serious and should be given air time. Moreover it reveals what the Clinton and Edwards camps actually think of their opponents. Plus, particularly for Senator Clinton, it's just plain bad PR. It reinforces the perception of some observers that she's calculating and can't be trusted.
Here's the video:
I'll stay tuned to this story.
Seahawks CB Rich Gardner Released To Make Roster Space - Seattle Times
From the Seattle Times.
Hawks CB released for roster space
By Jose Miguel Romero
The Seahawks moved closer to finalizing their training-camp roster Wednesday, releasing injured cornerback Rich Gardner to make room for sixth-round draft pick Courtney Taylor, whose signing was made official.
The team has apparently agreed to terms with seventh-round pick Steve Vallos with contract terms unconfirmed, leaving three more picks to sign — second-rounder Josh Wilson, third-round choice Brandon Mebane and the first of two fourth-round picks, Baraka Atkins.
The Seahawks might have to release three players before camp in July to make room for the unsigned draft choices on the roster.
Five former NFL Europa players are also part of the current roster and signed as free agents June 28. They are cornerback Omowale "Wally" Dada (a former Washington State player), quarterback Erik Meyer (formerly at Eastern Washington), offensive guard Jonathan Alston, running back A.J. Harris and wide receiver Robert Ortiz.
The five were added when NFL Europa ceased operations at the end of its season in June.
Gardner, who came to the Seahawks at the end of the 2006 regular season when the team was beset with injuries at cornerback, was on the roster to open the May minicamp. But he suffered a serious left leg injury on the first day of practices and didn't participate in the June camp.
Slingbox | Slingmedia At The MLB All Star Game, San Francisco
This isn't online marketing, but it's still interesting nonetheless. It's good old-fashioned ambush marketing. Now, what is that? It's defined as "when a brand pays to become the official sponsor of an event and another brand tries to connect itself to the same event, without paying the sponsorship fee and without breaking any laws" according to a Wikipedia listing.
In this case, Slingmedia put t-shirts on a bunch of employees and headed out to the All Star Game Home Run Derby, or more accurately, went to have cocktails at MoMos next to the ballpark. I caught them on camera and Slingmedia's Director of PR Brian Jaquet was good enough to give me a demonstration of how the technology works. Then I got a $50 certificate.
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