If you can’t control yourself, it won’t matter what women wear…

I don’t know what to make of a letter like this. It was posted by Andrée Seu, a woman who writes for WORLDmag.com:

I don’t know how it affects women, but men need some inner backbone on this subject, too. And someone needs to point out for women the desperate need for modest apparel. Too low at the neck, too high at the hem (if there is one), and too tight up and down—it all cheapens the woman (“strutting her stuff,” so to speak), and makes men’s lives miserable

I can only assume this is an American Christian man, but surely he’s not going to suggest women need to wear hijabs because he can’t figure out how to control his urges and deal with them maturely and responsibly. Although it seems Andrée agrees with me, stating how Cro-Magnon this concept ought to be, she soon changes her tune.

The Origins of Halloween

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

Horror movies – yea or nay?

Back on my blog, I’ve been going through some of the most terrible B movies ever filmed, I think, but Martin Scorsese has a great list of great films at The Daily Beast including scenes from all of them.

Now, I can’t agree or disagree on some of them, but The Shining is on there. I watch it now and I’m not bothered , but the first time ever was at a friend’s place, a place I’d never been before, and the little turd was too tired to watch it with me and went to bed. I watched the whole thing in a dark basement with unfamiliar noises and was too freaked to sleep after.

The Changeling really was a great movie. I would also recommend it. I don’t know how The Haunting winds up on top of the list, but the original was more atmospheric than the remake done with Liam Neeson. Isle of the Dead would not be my Val Lewton pick but it wasn’t terrible. The Exorcist I never did care for. I never found it frightening, but Psycho freaked me out in the middle of the day, so point to you, Mr. Hitchcock. Point to you.

I’d suggest Night of the Hunter or Carnival of Souls, if you can track that one down. It’s artistically fabulous, even if the plot becomes obvious early on. It probably didn’t when it was made, so it can be forgiven.

Thoughts?

NGM: The Story Behind Our Photo of Grieving Chimps

The November issue of National Geographic magazine features a moving photograph of chimpanzees watching as one of their own is wheeled to her burial. Since it was published, the picture and story have gone viral, turning up on websites and TV shows and in newspapers around the world. For readers who’d like to know more, here’s what I learned as I interviewed the photographer, Monica Szczupider.

On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy had spent eight years at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.

Glenn Beck’s “The Christmas Sweater”

ahh shucks!

Happy National Chocolate Day

GO AHEAD, INDULGE!

iStockPhoto | An assortment of milk, dark and white chocolate.

Discovery News

Oct. 28, 2009 — Today is National Chocolate Day, an occasion to commemorate all things chocolate.

Chocolate is more than simply an indulgence. This tasty treat has been around for more than two millennia, originating in Central America. The Mayans revered the cocoa bean, dubbing it “the food of the gods.”

Onlookers watch gang rape; do nothing

Guess where. If you’re tempted to say it must have happened in some middle Eastern country, you’d be wrong. So so wrong. It happened in California.

Two suspects were arrested and third is being questioned in the gang rape of a California teen outside a high school homecoming dance, police said Tuesday.

The 15-year-old Richmond High School student hospitalized in stable condition after the attack, which happened while as many as 15 people, all males, looked on but didn’t help or call police, investigators said.

The sex assault took place on school grounds Saturday while the dance was under way inside the school, authorities said.

“She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other’s presence,” said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.

“What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others,” Gagan said. “People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it.”

Damn straight.

My heart goes out to the victim. I don’t care what she might have done or said to those involved, nobody deserves this kind of act. Nobody.

Assaulted by at least four people, some of which came to her from the crowd to participate in what had to be a sadistic slice of hell for her. What were they thinking? What could they have possibly been thinking?

Police said a “full-court press” was under way, including reviews of Facebook and YouTube, to find other attackers and bystanders who witnessed the rape.

“We’re looking in particular to see if anyone posted any video of the incident,” Gagan said.

Several other individuals were detained but not arrested, Simon said.

The victim was found unconscious under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday after police received a call from someone who overheard people “reminiscing about the incident,” Gagan said.

Police said the girl left the dance and was walking to meet her father for a ride home when a classmate invited her to join a group drinking in the courtyard.

“Right now, we’re looking at toxicology reports to determine her blood-alcohol content and to determine if she was drugged.”

“This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it,” Gagan told CNN. “It was like a horror movie after looking at the evidence. I can’t believe not one person felt compelled to help her.”

Scientologists convicted of fraud in France

BBC News Tuesday, 27 October 2009

Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Paris was fined in the ruling A French court has convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud, but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France. Two branches of the group’s operations and several of its leaders in France have been fined. The case came after complaints from two women, one of whom said she was manipulated into paying more than 20,000 euros (£18,100) in the 1990s. A Scientology spokesman told the BBC the verdict was “all bark and no bite”. France regards Scientology as a sect, not a religion. Prosecutors had asked for the group’s French operations to be dissolved and more heavily fined, but a legal loophole prevented any ban.