Culture Warriors category archive

Use text messages.

Last month, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia expanded a system in which it sends Saudi men text messages, known as SMS, to notify them when their wives or other “dependents” leave the country, as part of its regulations requiring women to obtain permission from their guardians to travel. In a twist that proves technology’s power, Manal al-Sharif, the woman who in 2010 launched a campaign to obtain for women the right to drive, used Twitter to inform the world of the story.

A San Diego-area school system has made yoga sessions available for students, with a goal of mild exercise, stress relief, and relaxation.

Some parents aren’t happy.

A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination.

They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.

After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.

If doing the plough is enough to undermine the faith of the children, that faith is as sad and puny as the parents’ fearfulness is great.

And nigh and nigh and nigh.

At the Guardian, Ted Harrison looks back at the continual failure and resurgence of those who think it’s all over. A nugget:

Deciding where to wait is crucial to end-timers. Some of the followers of William Miller in 1844 sat on top of their homes, so that when they were raptured heavenwards they would not crack their heads on the ceiling. Others watched for the dawn on mountain-tops expecting Christ to appear in his glory with the rising sun.

(snip)

History shows that if a date comes and goes uneventfully, it’s not the end of the world, so to speak. After their disappointment, the Millerites grew and thrived. Today, their millions of religious descendants are better known as Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Via Raw Story.

From Contradict Me (warning: uncomfortable, bluntly-worded facts off the port bow).

Via Contradict Me.

“That’s not a twit. This is a twit.”

Be careful what you “like”:

Indian police said Monday they had arrested a woman for criticising on Facebook the total shutdown of Mumbai after the death of politician Bal Thackeray, as well as a friend who “liked” the comment.

The pair were due to appear in court later in the day charged under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, said Police Inspector Shrikant Pingle in the town of Palghar north of Mumbai.

“The two women will be produced in a local court later this afternoon. They are being charged for hurting religious sentiments,” he told AFP.

I have no comment on whether Petraeus’s frat-boy conduct should have cost him his job, but the fuss does seem an eerie counterpoint to my post of several days ago.

Friends and family members have had lives torn by straying spouses. Consequently, I have little sympathy for him or his paramour, except to remind them of how quickly the Great Secret Love turns into the Sordid Public Scandal.

For some good, clean fun, though, try this:

When a politician or a pundit–especially a pol–defends or attacks Petraeus or his emploment status, check his or her positions on Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

I have only one expectation: You will find some pretzel logic and a more than a few giggles.

Under the guise of a column about electoral tactics, David Brooks blames the Republican loss on American citizens who don’t think like David Brooks.

It is a sun-glint wave with an undertow of xenophobia.

The Booman offers a more accurate analysis.

How is this not ritualized sadism hiding in a cassock?

An open letter to “certain conservative politicians.

It’s rough stuff, but it’s spot on.

Via the Booman Tribune.

You’ve heard of the “Occupy Movement”?

Republicanism is the “Preoccupied Movement.”

In the Guardian, Jill Filipovic explores this preoccupation. A snippet:

Underlying the Republican rape comments and actual Republican political goals are a few fundamental convictions: first, women are vessels for childbearing and care-taking; second, women cannot be trusted; and third, women are the property of men.

And, now, the taxonomy:

Via Dick Destiny.a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/real-republican-party-rape-platform”

According to Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, rape is God’s work.

I realized during the night that “Pro-Life” is not about “Life.”

It’s about sperm.

It’s about conquest.

It’s about the belief that, if a man plants a successful little swimmer, it must be preserved and revered above all else, because, by God, it’s a man’s.

All the rest is poppycock.

Bring on the stupid, but don’t post that work of art edition.

Truly vile people.

Via Raw Story.

Robert A. Brown laments our creeping creepy scientific illiteracy:

Most modern problems involve scientific observations and some theory. A scientist can be hired to advise, but she probably won’t be understood, and faith-based prejudices often win.

When over half congress doesn’t believe in Evolution (from a Pew survey), intelligent discussion on: genetic heritage, Genome research, definition of life, global warming, economic theories, and much more is simply not possible. Democracy fails.

When nearly half of college students in the US South and bible-belt Midwest are not sure that the earth revolves around the sun (Natl. Science Found. study), they can’t be sure that the globe is warming.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., comments on the Taliban’s attack on a 14-year old school girl for the crime of wanting to be included in society, and sees parallels:

There are two reasons this story (of the shooting–ed.) crossed the ocean. The first is that it is appalling. Human garbage does not get much ranker than a man who boards a school bus to kill a child. The second is that it is recognizable, that we see in their mad religious and ideological fundamentalism ghostly shadows of our own.

Granted, the outspoken child in this country is not in particular danger of physical violence from religious or ideological zealots. But the abortion doctor is. The gay couple are. The Muslim American is.

Fundamentalism is fundamentalism wherever it breeds, always the same dark stain of unbending literalism, always the same shrill claim that it guards the one true path to enlightenment, always the same crazed insistence that the one unforgivable crime against faith, the one inexcusable heresy of ideology, is to ask questions.