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14. august 2006
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The security situation on Sri Lanka has been deteriorating over the last months, and civilians find themselves in the line of fire:
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have accused government forces of bombing an orphanage, killing 43 school girls and injuring 60.
The rebels said the attack took place in the rebel-controlled northern district of Mullaituvu.
The military said there had been air raids, but denied any knowledge of the alleged incident.
It said the rebels had infiltrated the Jaffna peninsula and hit residential areas in their attacks on the army.
Now, for the sake of argument, assume the tragic incident actually took place. Now, wait for the thunderous protests against Sri Lanka's government from all over the world, with Kofi Annan expressing grave concern, the Security Council issuing stern declarations and "anti-war" groups all over the world protesting in the streets. You don't think so? Well, me neither.
I think you know what comparison I am making here...
Update: The rebel claims about the orphanage deaths appear to be confirmed.
An official from a Nordic cease-fire monitoring team said the site was an orphanage and those killed were between 17 and 20 years old and appeared to be students. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.
Also today, a bomb blast in the capital Colombo killed at least seven people.
A powerful mine exploded near the official residence of President Mahinda Rajapakse as a convoy, including a Pakistani embassy vehicle, went past.
The Pakistani ambassador, Bashir Wali Mohamed, was travelling in the convoy but was unhurt in the incident.
I don't see what the Tamil Tigers hope to accomplish by killing a Pakistani ambassador.
10:46:41 AM 
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Chris Fox, a PhD candidate doing a study on penis size and its role on body image, says:
"a good penis size can compensate for other character flaws".
Via Fark.com.
10:06:36 AM
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RAND psychologist Steven Martino has published a study which links misogynous music to teen sex.
According to a study published Monday by the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan research group, teenagers who spent more time listening to music with lyrics that objectify women or praise men for their voracious sexual appetites were more likely to become sexually active earlier in their youth.
Now, wait a moment. What precisely have they found out here? In evolving relationships between a young man and a young woman, it is still the case, after all this talk about sexual liberation, that he will want to have sex, and she is the one saying yes or no (presuming he dares to ask!). Whether a young guy is sexually active or not to a large degree depends on whether he "gets lucky." It'd be a very rare teenage boy who chooses to not be sexually active. So what does this study really show? Well, it is a reasonable interpretation that this means the bad dude gets the girl. Most guys already knew that.
PS: I am always puzzled by the term "objectify" as used in gender studies.
Determining which lyrics were degrading and which were merely sexual constituted another challenge. Two separate researchers made that subjective decision and generally agreed. They looked for lyrics that either objectified women, viewed men as insatiable studs, or treated sex as an inconsequential game.
Like the word "gender" itself, "objectify" comes from grammar. In the sentence "he loves her" she is the object. Now, was that so bad? What does it really mean that a man treats a woman "as an object"? Well, if all you mean is that the treatment is degrading and insensitive, then the above quotation contains a truism, a circular reference, and the researchers didn't use any real criteria for identifying "degrading" lyrics. If what "objectify" means is that the woman is treated like an inanimate thing, as opposed to a living individual, it is worth pointing out that among men, unlike women, it is never socially accepted to have sex with a thing. We'll probably respond that we know "degrading" when we see it. Degrading treatment is how nobody wants to be treated. A dilemma, then, that it appears the young boys who learn degrading behaviour and attitudes from rap lyrics tend to "get lucky" more often than those who do not.
6:33:33 AM
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Some time back, I wrote about a number of words that come from Latin and Greek, where they had quite different meanings. The history and origin of words, etymology, gives a very interesting glimpse into the history of how cultures change.
In England, the difference between a town and a city was defined by the latter having a cathedral. What is the difference between a church and a cathedral? You may say the size, and you'd be correct, but the reason for this difference is that the cathedral was the seat of a bishop. Greek kathedra comes from hedra, seat. A cathedral was the official seat of a bishop. You may be aware of the religious meaning of Ex Cathedra, "from the seat", in Roman Catholicism an authoritative teaching from the church. In this capacity, the RCC proclaims, the Pope's statements are infallible. Wisely, such statements are very rare.
Today you know the term symposium as an academic conference, most often a quite serious matter. This meaning comes from the importance of Plato's dialogue The Symposium. The new meaning is quite ironic, considering that the meaning of that term in Greek was drinking party, dare I say drunken party. I have heard it argued that the socialisation of men in drinking parties, where ordinary social boundaries, while certainly still existing, tended to wear down as the empty bottles multiplied, is an important precondition for the evolution of local democracy. It may certainly have played a part in the development of democratic forms of government in ancient Greek city-states, and also in local Norwegian communities in the early Middle Ages (or, as we like to say here, with some lack of precision, the viking age). It has also been argued, and I don't know how true this is, that local democracy has not evolved in communities that do not have the social institution of drinking parties. If that holds true, it bodes badly for Muslim countries, because the prophet has spoken against wine.
4:57:43 AM
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According to a correspondent to Pajamas Media, Lebanon's cabinet has had a bit of a showdown over the ceasefire agreement:
Yesterday at the Lebanese Council of Ministers’ meeting the following positions were taken:
* Mohammad Fneish (Minister of Energy, and one of two Hezbollah in the cabinet): The position of Hezbollah is NOT TO DISARM in any part of the country until the Shebaa farms are liberated.
*Fneish then challenged both the Government and Lebanese Army to search and destroy Hezbollah’s weapons by force — ‘If you are men!’
* Michel Sleiman (General of Lebanese Army) stated that the Lebanese Army will not deploy one soldier until Hezbollah agrees to the whole political and deployment schedule.
* Sanioura (Prime Minister of Lebanon) called Berri (Hezbollah representative) who assured him that the position regarding unity has not changed. This prompted the “Unanimity with Reservations” scenario.
The cabinet then gave themselves 24 hours. They were hoping that the Israeli Cabinet would oppose UN Resolution 1701. Then they would blame it on the Israelis. But when the Israeli Cabinet agreed they decided to postpone today’s emergency cabinet meeting to avoid further internal clashes.
The BBC confirms the breakdown in talks in the Lebanese cabinet, if not providing the actual details of the macho scuffle inside.
The postponement, amid reported divisions, seriously complicates the establishment of a stable ceasefire, the BBC's Nick Childs in Beirut says.
Israel's cabinet has backed the truce, but says its forces will not leave until peacekeepers are deployed.
Mark Malloch Brown, the UN's Deputy Secretary General, said it might take a month before a joint UN-Lebanese force was fully in place.
"It's going to be weeks, not days and may even, before you hit the full total, be a month or so," he told the BBC's Have Your Say programme. [...]
However, the issue of Hezbollah's disarmament and its military presence in southern Lebanon continues to cause major tensions within the fragile government, our correspondent reports.
He says that without a meeting and an agreed plan, it seems that the deployment of 15,000 Lebanese army troops to the south is unlikely to go ahead.
So, we have 1) no international forces coming for a while; 2) no Lebanese army is going to be deployed. The ceasefire deal is undoubtedly thrown off. I bet the European media will somehow blame Israel.
Pajamas has really been shining in its Lebanon war coverage, providing excellent resources.
1:30:48 AM
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It is getting increasingly difficult to be a blogger in Iran:
Iranian authorities are stepping up arrests and pressure on popular bloggers as part of a wider Internet clampdown launched after hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president last year, ending years of freewheeling Web access that once made Iran among the most vibrant online locales in the Middle East.
The Internet censors are busy. Their targets include sexual content, international politics, local grumbling, chat rooms and anything else that makes the Islamic leadership uneasy. Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, estimates at least 50 bloggers have been detained since last year.
Unless you are the president, of course:
Iran's hardline president has started blogging, recounting childhood memories, the country's Islamic Revolution and Tehran's war with Iraq in his first entry.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Web log also requests that readers participate in an online poll asking if they think the United States and Israel are "pulling the trigger for another world war."
State-run television announced the blog's launch Sunday, urging the public to send written messages to the president through the blog's Web site www.ahmadinejad.ir.
Ahmadinejad rambles a lot. I don't think he understands the new medium very well.
12:17:58 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.09.2006; 05:00:08.
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