Just the people we want informing Congress about contraception:
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Posts Tagged ‘ FTB ’
What does contraception have to do with women?!
Feb 16th, 2012 5:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonIn the US Congress today a hearing on birth control and religion, chaired by a Republican, included on the panel a Catholic bishop, a rabbi, a minister, and two male academics, but no women.
No women.
No women on a Congressional panel discussing birth control.
No women.
No women on a panel discussing birth control. For the government.
Three clerics, and no women.
They have more in common with the Taliban than they have with me.… Read the rest
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Underpants bomber is proud to kill in the name of god
Feb 16th, 2012 5:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere were almost 300 people on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
In [a] statement to the BBC, the family of Abdulmutallab said they were “grateful to God that the unfortunate incident of that date did not result in any injury or death”.
Grateful to “God”? But without “God,” the incident wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Abdulmutallab thought he was doing a good deed for “God.” It’s ridiculous to thank “God” for Abdulmutallab’s failure to make the bomb go off.
… Read the restA video from the FBI showing the power of the explosive material found in Abdulmutallab’s underwear was also shown at the hearing. As the video played Abdulmutallab twice said loudly “Allahu akbar” – Arabic for “God is great”.
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They kept beating us with sticks
Feb 16th, 2012 4:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore religious bullying. (Of a much worse variety. Of a nightmarish variety. That’s how it is – we lurch from the bad to the horrendous, day by day and hour by hour. But the horrendous doesn’t make the bad something we should shrug off. We have to pay attention to all of it.)
Shakila, age 8, was grabbed by a bunch of men with AK-47s, and held for a year.
… Read the rest…the taking of girls as payment for misdeeds committed by their elders still appears to be flourishing. Shakila, because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman, was taken and held for about a year. It was the district leader, furious at the
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Nick Cohen on a culture that pretends to be brave
Feb 16th, 2012 9:55 am | By Ophelia BensonAt the Rally for Free Expression.
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Another nightmare
Feb 15th, 2012 5:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnother story of children whose parents think they are witches, sent to me by Leo Igwe.
… Read the restSeoul (CNN) — A pastor and his wife are in custody accused of killing three of their children by starving them to ward off evil spirits, police in South Korea said Wednesday.
The couple told police the children — aged nine, seven and three — had been ill, which they believed was a sign they were invaded by evil spirits after eating too much on Lunar New Year.
They then cut the children’s hair to chase the spirits out and starved them from January 24 until February 2, only allowing them to drink water. Local media reports said the parents had beaten the
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First order of business
Feb 15th, 2012 11:41 am | By Ophelia BensonWhatever else we do, whatever metaphysical view gets us there, the first order of business has to be shackling women. We always have to make sure women don’t have too many rights. We have to make very damn sure they’re not as free to decide how to live their own lives as men are.
We have to carve away their genitals so that they won’t have sexual feelings.
… Read the restIn the rural areas of Egypt, in Upper Egypt, however there is scant respect for the law. You hear the words “tradition”, “custom”, “honour” uttered like a mantra when people justify their decision to circumcise their daughters.
The belief there is that it is the female who is sexually rampant and
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The non-skeptical “Skeptiko”
Feb 15th, 2012 9:55 am | By Ophelia BensonAh, this brings back memories – Jerry Coyne did an interview with Alex Tsakiris of “Skeptiko”- which is “Skeptiko,” please note, not “Skeptico.” There’s a difference. I didn’t know that in September 2010, which is why I accepted Tsakiris’s invitation to do an interview.
It was a complete dog’s breakfast. The guy’s an asshole. He’s not a skeptic at all, and the name is pretty obviously meant to trap people in just the way that several people – including me – have been trapped. He’s a woo-meister. He didn’t tip his hand for the first few minutes, so we had an amicable conversation for that long, but then he did, and we hit a brick wall.
He bullshitted … Read the rest
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Sahara TV on Helen Ukpabio
Feb 14th, 2012 5:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonSahara TV talks to Pastor Godwin Umotong of Liberty Gospel Church in Houston about the “deliverance” mission of Helen Ukpabio.
Where are the mermaids, by the way? Are they in the Gulf of Mexico?
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Valerie Tarico on Plan B and motivated beliefs
Feb 14th, 2012 5:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonRemember the caring sensitive Mummy whose disabled daughter was raped and who decided not to let her have Plan B? Because “It’s about taking the life of an innocent child”?
Well Valerie Tarico has an excellent post on The Big Lie about Plan B.
Plan B doesn’t cause abortion. It stops or delays ovulation. No egg, no fertilization, no pregnancy – no abortion. It’s that simple.
Well then why did the caring sensitive Mummy say it did? Why did she get all maudlin about the innocent child whose life had to not be taken?
… Read the restSo why does the Religious Right keep telling us that post-coital contraceptives function by aborting teeny babies? Because in the minds of many
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The Women’s Ministry should exist to improve the lives of women
Feb 14th, 2012 11:37 am | By Ophelia BensonHouzan Mahmoud will soon have a statement on Iraq’s Women’s Minister Ibtihal Kasid Alzaidi, who thinks and says that women are not equal to men. Not a good thing for a Women’s Minister to think. … Read the rest
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More than one valence
Feb 14th, 2012 11:16 am | By Ophelia BensonSomething I’m ambivalent about:
On the one hand, there’s the value of being reasonable, and trying to see all sides of a question. There’s the value of not getting things wrong by being too one-sided; by confirmation bias; by seeing everything the way you see everything and so becoming blind to other ways of seeing everything. That’s different from the more political value of giving everybody a fair hearing, and letting people pursue the good in their own way as far as is compatible with the rights of others. The value I mean is epistemic and cognitive.
On the other hand there’s the value of countering a very loud, dominant, hegemonic, majoritarian, conformist brand of conventional wisdom.
Those two things … Read the rest
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Lawyers for Liberty are pissed
Feb 13th, 2012 5:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonAt Malaysia’s Home Minister, for one.
… Read the restLawyers for Liberty is simply astonished and outraged at Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein and PDRM’s continuing attempt to spin further lies and deceit over the illegal and unconstitutional detention and deportation of Hamza Kashgari by now alleging or insinuating that he is a “criminal” or “terrorist” wanted by his home country.
The truth is Hamza had sent a few tweets on the Prophet Muhammad which he has since deleted and apologized. It must be noted a similar poem on the prophet was published on his blog a year ago but did not receive any negative reaction from anybody. More importantly, he belongs to a group of emerging young pro-democracy activists which among others
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Roberto Malini: Poetry Before the Law
Feb 13th, 2012 4:59 pm | By Ophelia BensonRoberto Malini, co-president of EveryOne Group, an NGO supporting Roma people and refugees, left a poem he wrote for Hamza Kashgari in a comment. I want it to be more visible than that, so here it is again.
Poetry Before the Law
on the deportation of the poet Hamza Kashgari back to Saudi Arabia
Spare the poet, O Law,
for his soul expands
beyond the sources of reason,
as far as truth.
Spare the poet, O Death,
for his heart is the brother of a quasar
that ignites the Universe.
Spare the poet, O Faith,
for his song rises like the Sun
and reawakens the eternal in stone.
Roberto Malini (English translation by Glenys Robinson)… Read the rest
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Interpol as theocracies’ little helper
Feb 13th, 2012 11:18 am | By Ophelia BensonInterpol has said it had nothing to do with the extradition of Hamza Kashgari, but Dennis McShane MP apparently didn’t get the memo – or got the memo and didn’t believe it.
The charge of apostasy was maintained, his home was attacked and, again, sensibly enough, Kashgari decided it was time to leave Saudi Arabia. The response of the Saudis was to approach Interpol and ask them to issue an international search and arrest warrant.
Interpol is meant to be tackle serious crime, not act as the little helper for régimes that want to kill journalists.
Maryam too finds the memo not entirely convincing:
… Read the restIf it says so – though I am skeptical especially since its has done
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Known for his reformist views
Feb 13th, 2012 10:50 am | By Ophelia BensonPEN International on Kashgari.
… Read the restPEN demands his immediate and unconditional release, in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also calls upon the Saudi authorities to provide him with immediate and effective protection.
According to PEN’s information, Kashgari, a 23-year-old writer from Jeddah, tweeted a series of messages addressed to the Prophet Mohammed on the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth on 4 February 2012, some of which conveyed questions about his faith. Twitter registered more than 30,000 responses to his tweets, many of which accused him of blasphemy and called for his death. On 5 February 2012 Nasser al-Omar, an influential cleric, called for Kashgari to be tried in a Sharia court
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