Brains of Rage and Progress!

[elfs]

Rage

American Academy of Pediatrics Recommends U.S. Pediatricians Perform "Token" Female Genital Mutilation

File this under "WTF?" The AAP has issued a statement advocating that physicians preform a ritual token "nicking" of an baby girl's clitoris to satify the religious or cultural needs of their parents. That's disgusting and outrageous, and it'll be a cold day in Hell before I let that kind of destructive behavior go on in my country.

Some things about our culture are non-negotiable. Our culture is not simply different from those that perform genital mutilation, it is better. Having our kids reach adulthood with as many body parts as they were born with is not negotiable.

Video of SWAT Raid on Missouri Family

Watch the video. It's NSFW, but really, watch it when you can. This is what the rhetoric of "drug war" comes down to: A group of guys with better armor than most Iraqi soldiers barge down a door in an apartment complex, shoot two dogs in front of small children, and terrorize a neighborhood to find a small amount of marijuana and a bong.

This is what cops do now. I'm sure they think of themselves as good people, but this is terror and violence directed against Americans for the sake of terror and violence, by our own government officials. Von says it better than I do.

Giggity!

Christian leader caught with male escort

Giggity! Pastor George Rekers, a co-founder of Focus on the Family and an activist in the anti-gay, ex-gay movement, has been busted hiring a male prostitute to accompany him on a ten-day, all-expenses-paid trip across southern Europe.

His excuse? "I had back surgery recently and needed someone to carry my luggage." Steven Colbert's version: "He wanted a cute boy to hoist his sack."

And hoist he did. The young man, identified as "Lucien," describes himself in his on-line profile as having "a smooth, sweet, tight ass... a perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)."

Rekers is especially noteworthy for years of state and federal testimony he gave in which he identified himself as as expert on gay and lesbian psychology and stated of children adopted by homosexual couples "their welfare comes dead last in the homosexual lifestyle, it is oriented toward grooming them for traumatic early sexualization and exploitation by adults."

Isn't all of that special?

GTD

Mind Mapping

Mind-Mapping is one of those techniques that I sometimes try, and often get mixed results. I'd like to get better at it, but it never seems to click for me quite the way I'd like it to. Still, this article mentions a number of different things I haven't tried before.

Food

Screaming Orgasm Recipe

1 oz vodka
1 1/2 oz Bailey's Irish cream
1/2 oz Kahlua

Pour first vodka, then Bailey's, then Kahlua into a cocktail glass over crushed ice. Stir.

For Sushi at Home, skip the Fish

Mark Bittman with sushi recipes using good sushi rice and, er, not raw fish. A good sushi rice recipe is included. I recommend rice vinegar.

How to make the Perfect Risotto

I'm not sure I buy this, but it looks like a delicious experiment. He recommends using a much lighter oil than I do (I make risottos with meat, and my fat of choice is rendered bacon grease) and a slightly smaller rice grain called carnaroli.

Inspiration

Beautiful Contact Forms

Creative examples of Single Page Design

Tapp Gala

Awesome smartphone interfaces. It seems to me that the small scale of the smartphone screen encouranges heavy graphics use, and it's nice to see. I'd like that brilliance applied to more and larger websites.

Modern CSS Layouts

Smashing Magazine on how to do good layouts with CSS: Grids, Liquid Layouts, living with IE. Don't miss the previous article, about degrading gracefully without sacrificing performance.

Shrill

The Euro Crisis

Der Spiegel has an article on how most nation-states in the Western world have built welfare states and funded infrastructure prices without taxing their citizens appropriately to pay for it all, and how the bill is coming due and now we need to pony up for the things we and our parents bought for all of ourselves.

Here's the thing though: unlike most Americans (and their contemptible representatives), I understand that we've overspent. Not myself, personally, but my government. How we restructure to live within our means is a topic for a lot more discussion.

President urges all Americans to appeal to Invisible Man in the Sky for bailouts, ponies

What is it with our government saying it shall not honor an establishment of religion, then going on to honor any establishment so long as it is not "no establishment?" Can't it just let religious people go about their business? Do Americans really need to be reminded to pray?

Man who spotted Times Square bomb a Muslim, media yawns

The man who spotted the popping and smoking car and reported it to authorities is a Muslim. For all that the right wing wackos worry that we're not calling Shahzad a "Muslim terrorist," maybe the phrase "Good American Muslim citizen" doesn't sit well on their tongues.

Eric Cantor says Obama is not a domestic enemy. Audience at Heritage Foundation boos him.

Porn (Everything here in NSFW)

Turning the Backdoor Corner

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

trouble is, we routinely perform Genital Mutilation on our own Males, for the very same religious reasons. And not one voice is raised in opposition to it. Why the difference? Hmm?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Notice that in my editorializing, I didn't add the unnecessary adjective "female".

[shunra.livejournal.com]

For that exact reason, I am absolutely in agreement with you.

Interesting factoid. The "token nick" is the traditional Jewish solution for the circumcision of adult males (generally as part of a conversion). For that purpose, one drop of blood is enough.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

You know, I've been wondering if the traditional Jewish circumcision really involved the complete removal of the foreskin, or just some of it. Because there would've been a great risk of infection in the infant otherwise. Just cutting the ligament that retains the foreskin closed would've been sufficient to get the same effect as removal.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

The Jewish ritual of circumcision involves removing the entire foreskin and then sucking on the wounded penis of the infant.

The sucking part (known as "metzitzah" - which is also the Hebrew word for oral sex) does indeed lead to contagion (I recall an outbreak of Herpes in Israel a few years back). The tools are kept "kosher" by dipping them in mikveh water - not necessarily sterilizing them.

The fact that the infant's grandfather is required to hold the infant while this cutting and sucking are going on seems to be just one of the ways Judaism keeps control over its male by traumatizing and retraumatizing all of its members.

It sounds barbaric and it *is* barbaric.

The "lite" version is used solely in case of the circumcision of adult males. It came up in conversation when I was growing up (in a Jewish orthodox household) because of the rapid influx of immigrants to Israel from Ethiopea and the former USSR. These people were entitled to Israeli citizenship under the "Law of Return" (which grants automatic Israeli citizenship to any person who would have been considered Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws) but did not count as Jewish under the laws of governing body (the "rabbinate"), which only count as Jewish people whose mothers are Jewish (somewhat recursive, isn't it?)

One of the responses was mass "conversion" of people who already felt they were Jews. The drop-of-blood-from-the-penis-plus-no-sucking was the elegant way to avoid mass protests by people who relocated to a country which would only treat them as second class citizens.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

O__O

I have no words …

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry.

Those of us who leave the religion are often smeared as anti-semites for talking about what is included in it. That slur effectively silences discussion. I think it is something that should be discussed - and stopped. By force, if necessary.

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

I learned about that part of the traditional method of circumcision via an article about a baby boy who'd been infected with neonatal herpes. Considering that herpes infection in a newborn can be fatal or lead to permanent blindness or neurological damage, and that *most* adults carry oral herpes, I could hardly be more appalled.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Oh, and don't forget the lack of anesthetic. Or antiseptic.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

They let the child suck some alcohol off a tip of a diaper or spike a bottle of water/milk. I've been told that it wouldn't be kosher if it didn't hurt.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Let us be clear here: this is the ritual as performed by (some of) the ultraorthodox/haredim, who are a distinct (if noisy and growing) minority outside of Israel and certain sections of New York City and London. Modern orthodox mohels generally do not practice metzitzah, and my understanding is that most Conservative and Reform Jews (who are the vast majority in the US) undergo in-hospital circumcision with the attendant sterilization -- certainly this was the case in my family.

This is not meant to answer the question of whether circumcision is a good idea at all, but I'd just rather not anyone think that this was likely to have happened to any non-haredi Jewish friends of theirs. :)

For the curious, there's much more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah#Metzitzah

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is the practice of all mohels working in Israel do it (or at least, all the ones I met or heard of during the thirty years that I lived there, 1970-2001.)

I have very little personal knowledge of the Jewish communities in the U.S. or the U.K. so I cannot comment on their practices. However, I *can* tell you that if the circumcision is surgical and anesthetized and not done by an authorized person, most of the orthdox rabbis (in Israel, at least) would consider it to be invalid, and require that formal, single drop of blood with the right blessing - as they did, indeed, for the immigrants from countries where circumcision was either not practiced, or not practiced with the blessing-ritual-etc.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is the practice of all mohels working in Israel do it

Not surprised -- the haredim seem to have a deathgrip on all aspects of religious practice there, especially anything that requires licensing/accreditation. :(

...most of the orthdox rabbis (in Israel, at least) would consider it to be invalid...

Correct -- a small part of a much larger problem of Conservative/Reform/Reconstructionist practice being officially considered "not Jewish enough" for the purposes of Israel's orthodox community. (Who, unlike their American brethren, are in a position to implement their objections as law.)

[pteryxx.livejournal.com]

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/05/for_the_boys_with_boo-boos.php

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

mutilation is mutilation, male or female, jewish or muslim, inney or outey. If I said an invisible man told me to cut the tip off your child's index finger, you'd have me put in prison. But I say it's a religious custom and that females AND males get their genitals mutilated because the same invisible man commands it... suddenly it's all aOkay? Scale of the mutilation differences isn't the point here -- neither male nor female babies should have their genitals attacked with sharp pointy things.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Here's the awesome thing about the Rekers debacle. Rekers, who was paid $75,000 by the state of Florida to be an expert witness testifying on behalf of the state ban on gay adoptions -- testimony in which he stated, emphatically, that male gay couples should not be allowed to adopt due to the likelihood that they would sexually abuse male adoptee children -- adopted a 16-year-old boy himself several years ago. A boy who no longer lives with Rekers and is about the same age as Rekers' pet hooker.

Oh wait, did I say awesome? I meant disturbing, creepy and nauseating.

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

I have a love/hate deal with Bill Maher. He seems to think he's a lot more clever and funny than he actually is. Despite being entertaining, the high levels of smug he oozes makes me want to smack him upside the head. Still, despite his anti-vaxx stance, he still makes a lot of good points, and that's definitely among them.

Oh yeah, and the totally-not-gay Christian guy? He has an adopted son the same age as the escort.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Regarding the Euro crisis:

The European nations spent beyond their means on stuff for themselves: pensions, healthcare, education, etc.

The US spent beyond its means on weapons, corporate welfare, more weapons, and blowing $h1t up in countries with Oil.

Which do you feel had the better ROI?

[shunra.livejournal.com]

hear-hear.