tales of an ordinary girl

I came across a review of Torn By God over at Letters from a broad and thought the book would be interesting. I was not raised a Mormon, but I was raised in a strict religious family and much like Beth, the main character in the story, I didn't know anything outside of that life.

Beth's father becomes convinced that in order to reach heaven with his family he must return to the roots of Mormonism, which includes the practice of polygamy. She watches her parents struggle with the tenants of their faith and their relationship with each other as her mother rejects that belief. Although her father never completely follows through with it, it's enough to tear the family apart, throwing her mother into a deep depression.

Beth and her brother, through the eyes of children, don't understand what's going on. Zoe brings the story out through conversations Beth overhears and her parent's journals.

In the end each family member comes to their own understanding of how to deal with religion in their life, but there isn't a neat answer.

I can relate to Beth because she grew up insulated, accepting her life as normal. And she was a normal child, even if most people outside of her faith would find her beliefs strange. I think all religions are strange to outsiders although most people don't notice it from the inside.

For example, glossolia, or speaking in tongues, is seen by most people as a pretty crazy practice, but growing up it was a normal part of life for me. I only find it odd now because I'm outside of the church.

And just like Beth, I found it difficult to reconcile certain beliefs and actions of the church. For me it was the conflicting ideas in the Bible, the greed of the tele-evangelists, and learning about the world outside the church. For others it's been the pedophilia or other sexual scandals within the church that have been the final straw.

But it's not the sensational that really drives people to doubt their religion. It's the every day small questions.

For a better understanding of Zoe and how the book relates to her life there is an excellent interview at A Motley Vision.

There's more than one main character in the book, despite the title, but I want to concentrate on Esther, the female lead in the book. I like how the author uses her story to explore female sexuality in the middle 20th century.

At first she's caught up in the fairy tale. She dreams of a new life away from the Welsh countryside. She wants to see the world and put her English education to good use, but she feels bound to her father and their farm. She feels little attraction to the local boys because they have no drive to leave, no ambition. But she finds the attention of an English soldier tantalizing, a way to get out, I think, more than anything. And after a couple of weeks she begins dreaming of her escape.

She wonders what it is Colin wants to tell her so much. For a second she lets herself dream ... of a ring, of him on bended knee, asking her to marry him, carrying her off to his home in the East End, to wait for him there in the bosom of his family ... his sister who'll be her best friend ... his mother who'll be like a mother to her ... waiting for the end of the war as if for some decent period of courtship.

But when she goes off with Colin she finds the experience much different than she was hoping for. It starts out alright riding away quickly through the night, walking in the pool, drained and closed for winter, but then rapes her and she's left confused, in shock. She's not even sure it's really rape. It was brief, she escaped, and she's alive to sort through what's happened.

Rape, as she understands it, is a particular form of murder, when a man kills a woman. It's connected to sex, but the main thing is the murder. No one - in the films she's seen, the books she's read, the whispered stories at school - no one survives rape. She is still unclear if the sex is so violent that it just kills you on the spot, or if the man has to actually strangle you or shoot your or stab you afterwards, and she had thought in the midst of Colin's roughness, the blunt, searing pressure of him between her legs, that she was bout to find out. But then he had left her, and she felt such relief. She had survived, clambered out of the pool as if from a grave. And this is how she knows she hasn't been raped. The idea of being forced doesn't enter into it - hadn't she gone willingly enough? Besides, what was it to be forced to do something she didn't want to do? She'd been forced all her life by one circumstance or another - by poverty, her mother's death, by the needs of the flock. Being forced to do things is such a part of her daily life, and as for this, she'd at least wanted some part of it - the kissing, her hand in his. If she's been raped, she thinks, then she wanted it more than most things in her life, although that isn't saying much. [...]

If she had to call it anything, she thinks now, groping for the word, she'd call it a misunderstanding. He meant one thing, she meant another.

But she isn't in the movies and all she can hope for is that the worst is over.

She has seen a few of his mates in the street, sappers she recognizes from the pub, and felt their eyes, heavy, on her. He's talked, she's sure, but she's less certain what he might have said. Not the truth, she thinks. Something more colorful, boastful. And if he's told his friends, she wonders how long before someone in the village hears something. It's this she fears more than anything, dimly sensing that what he did to her can't in the end be rape if no one else knows. She suspects that what kills the poor girls raped in films and books, finally, is shame. All those hands over moths, all those horrified looks. But the sappers will leave soon - today, tonight. Everything will be in the past then, able to be forgotten, provided no one else knows.

She's able to relax once the soldiers leave, although she still feels afraid. It's not the act of rape itself that haunts her, but her dreams leaving with Colin. And the final realization of that comes when she finds out she's pregnant.

And then too, finally, she feels as if she might really have been raped. All this time, thinking she's escaped Colin, thinking she's escaped with her life. yet she'd been right to start with, when the word had sprung to her mind as he'd pressed her against the mildewed tiles of the pool. He had wounded her, she thinks, and not a small wound, the drops of blood in her drawers, but something deeper and stranger. What a wound it is that stops your bleeding. And in her heart there's a morbid fear that what he's given her is a lingering death, nine months long, that she won't survive childbirth, that she'll die and he'll have raped her after all.

And so she finds herself pregnant, alone, loathing the man who did it to her. She's been terrified the small town will find out her secret and now there's no way to hide it. Instead of being the victim, she's become the accused. She has no recourse but to accept the shame.

We haven't come much further from those days.

The next book we'll read in the Nonbelieving Literati is Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.

Astronomy
Mauna Kea Milky Way Panorama



Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars



Games
Review: Dawn of War II riles RTS genre with frantic combat
Though it may share some similarities with its Warhammer 40,000-inspired predecessor, Dawn of War II is a completely different game that offers one of the most action packed and highly replayable RTS experiences in recent memory. Relic has uprooted some of the genre's mainstays in a move that has proven to be as controversial amongst fans of the original as it is innovative. But the company's decision to stray from the norm has resulted in a unique and refreshing game that will not only keep RTS fans busy until StarCraft 2, but may even have them forgetting all about Blizzard's upcoming titan.

Appeals court: Governator's video game law unconstitutional
While this latest ruling could be appealed to the Supreme Court, the continued effort after these losses would seem almost Sisyphean; the courts have never been kind to bills that seek to put special legislation on video games. "Is there anything out of limits for the Legislature to prohibit to minors? What about games where people eat unhealthy foods and get fat?" Judge Alex Kozinski asked when hearing the appeal. "Why not a law targeting games that teach children bad living habits, such as eating unhealthy food or using plastic bags?"

Identifying Yourself As A Lesbian Gets You Banned On XBOX Live
I had a similar incident, only my account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian. I was harassed by several players, 'chased' to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.

Government
Colorado state senator: ‘HIV testing for pregnant moms rewards sexual promiscuity’
“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

Sexuality
To See Or Not To See
Since when does nudity equal pornography? I’m not advocating that people should roam naked in the streets, but, really, our society has got to get over its infantile views of the human body and sexuality. When we grow more comfortable with human bodies in non-sexual contexts, then we will be much better equipped to handle them in sexual situations. Surely, that would be a good thing for all of us.

When I was young and I asked my parents questions about religion they encouraged me to study Biblical history. I've always been fascinated with it, even no when I no longer believe, maybe especially after I no longer believe.

My first doubts about religion stemmed from learning how the books of the Bible came to be the accepted text. I don't understand how the logic makes sense to so many, but basically the books of the Bible came to be the accepted text because they validated each other. Books that did not validate the selected books were discarded, sometimes completely destroyed.

You'll hear apologists that say otherwise:

The canon of Scripture was NOT formed by the declaration of a church council any more than Isaac Newton created the law of gravity. Rather, as written revelation came from God through God's chosen writers, the people of God recognized God's voice and affirmed that the writing was indeed the word of God.

Right, just as people hear conflicting words from that same source today.

But it was that exact circular reasoning that first caused me to doubt. And as I came to doubt the Bible I came to doubt the entire belief system. If Christianity was based on the Bible then the Bible had to be a solid text, otherwise how could I believe? It never lost faith on that one thought, but the crack persisted and no amount of shoring up could erase it.

Another myth I was told throughout my childhood that the Bible was 100% accurate. All translations had shown that the book was painstakingly translated, by miracle, from one text to another completely intact. The Dead Sea scrolls were a miracle in themselves, validating that the translations were inerrant.

And even though I had doubts about the selections and origins of the text, I had no problem swallowing the myth of a text copied over the millennium without one character changed.

And that's why, even now as a non-believer, I find Ehrman enlightening. I no longer believed the text was miraculously unchanged from ancient times, but I didn't know anything about textual criticism.

In Misquoting Jesus Ehrman outlines the ways in which the text was changed. Many scholars argue that the text was changed only in small, unimportant ways, but Ehrman shows how large changes to core beliefs of Christianity (change of text to support the trinity and additions of text to support a resurrection) can be inferred by examining differences in early editions.

He even goes so far to say that we will never know what the original authors wrote, because all of the original editions are lost.

Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant. A good portion of them simply show us that the scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most people can today (and they didn't even have dictionaries, let alone spell check). Even so, what is one to make of all these differences? If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don't have the very words of scripture? In some places, as we will see, we simply cannot be sure that we have reconstructed the original text accurately. It's a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don't even know what the words are!

So if we don't know what the original text is and if we can only trust the text to validate itself, then what are we left with?

The Bible began to appear to me as a very human book. Just as human scribes had copied, and changed, the texts of the scripture, so too had human authors originally written the texts of scripture. This was a human book from beginning to end. It was written by different human authors at different times and in different places to address different needs. Many of these authors no doubt felt they were inspired by God to say what they did, but they had their own perspectives, their own beliefs, their own views, their own needs, their own desires, their own understandings, their own theologies; and these perspectives, beliefs, views, needs, desires, understandings, and theologies informed everything they said. In all these ways they differed from one another.

...

Many Christians, of course, have never held this literalistic view of the Bible in the first place, and for them such a view might seem completely one-sided and unnuanced (not to mention bizarre and unrelated to matters of faith). There are, however, plenty of people around who still see the Bible this way. Occasionally I see a bumper sticker that reads: "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it." My response is always, What if God didn't say it? What if they book you take as giving you god's words instead contains human words? What if the Bible doesn't give a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age - abortion, women's rights, gay rights, religious supremacy, Western-style democracy, and the like? What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol - or an oracle that gives us reasons to for thinking that, in fact, the Bible is not the kind of inerrant guide to our lives: among other things, as I've been pointing out, in many places we (as scholars, or just regular readers) don't even know what the original words of the Bible actually were.

My dad called the other day and we were talking about school. For someone who's so big on education, it startles me how much little he knows about the origin and history of the Bible. And as we talked about the reasons why both of us enjoyed learning he said, "That's one thing they can never take away from you - knowledge." I felt like shouting a hearty Hallelujah!

And I have to say a thanks to Ehrman for sharing another piece of knowledge.

Vinny also has a good review of the book at You Call This Culture?

My father-in-law watches a lot of movies. Other than video games, it's probably his favorite pass time. While he was visiting we decided to go see one of the movies opening that weekend, The Happening. Except we could never remember the name of the film so we called it The Wahlberg.

Anyway, we didn't see it the first weekend because not everyone could get together on a time. And after the opening day we saw that the reviews were not favorable. We hesitated, but in the end decided to shell out the full price for it anyway a week after opening day. Why is it that bad reviews rarely dissuade people who have already made up their mind to see a movie?

But the reviews could not have prepared me for how bad this movie actually was. The acting and the script hit me immediately. I don't think one actor in the entire movie (except maybe the little girl) ever said a word that wasn't said or emoted without heavy drama. For about half the movie I thought maybe they were trying for a new style or a parody. Whatever they were trying for, it didn't work.

Even the love story in the movie was plastic and stupid. I hardly felt like the characters knew each other, much less were married to each other.

The first scene in the classroom where Wahlberg's character is explaining science. He almost makes a good point about how there are things that we may never know or may never be able to explain, except that somehow he comes off as anti-science and anti-intellectual. When he tries to use the scientific method later in the movie he comes off as a complete idiot.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

The main premise of the movie was that all plants started working together to develop a neurotoxin that was only released when a certain amount of people were together in one place. That number of people kept shrinking until it was down to at least three. The neurotoxin was carried on a wind, created by pressure changes? the plants? we don't really ever know. Somehow that nuero-toxin caused people to lose their sense of selves and their sense of self-preservation. No, they didn't just lose their sense of self-preservation, but the toxin actually turned their sense of self-preservation into a sense of self-destruction.

I have several problems with this premise. How are all plants suddenly communicating and working together to create this toxin? Plants aren't all the same, but evolved through different lines. Grasses and trees and flowers and bushes are different species.

How is it that the plants can create a neurotoxin that effects humans at a primitive level and yet not effect any other animal. Do we not share a common evolution? Would that evolution not include the instinct for self-preservation? Did humans somehow evolve that instinct separately?

I know this is science-based fiction, but I prefer my sci-fi based in some sort of real science. I feel like M. Night Shyamalan didn't understand a thing about evolution. And I suspect that his understanding of science in general is poor. I listened to a podcast interview with him on Science Talk where he talks about placebo and explains the effect as people creating energy to heal themselves.

And the way people killed themselves was idiotic. Running into a lion cage and offering an arm to a lion is not the best way to commit suicide. The are probably 20 other ways this man could have more easily and efficiently killed himself. Tearing off an arm will eventually cause death, but not right away. And if a lion tears off your arm, it's not going to pop off like it's perforated.

Even if the dialog and acting weren't abysmal, I still wouldn't like this movie based on how poorly executed the science is. If Shyamalan had been less interested in preaching about the environment and more interested in understanding it, this might have been an entirely different movie. Don't waste your time or money on this pile of crap.

Art


Book Reviews
The real uses of enchantment
Some boast that science has ousted the incomprehensible; others cry that science has driven magic out of the world and plead for "re-enchantment". But it's clear that Charles Darwin lived in as wondrous a world, as full of discoveries, amazements and profound mysteries, as that of any fantasist. The people who disenchant the world are not the scientists, but those who see it as meaningless in itself, a machine operated by a deity. Science and literary fantasy would seem to be intellectually incompatible, yet both describe the world; the imagination functions actively in both modes, seeking meaning, and wins intellectual consent through strict attention to detail and coherence of thought, whether one is describing a beetle or an enchantress. Religion, which prescribes and proscribes, is irreconcilable with both of them, and since it demands belief, must shun their common ground, imagination. So the true believer must condemn both Darwin and Rushdie as "disobedient, irreverent, iconoclastic" dissidents from revealed truth.

Comedy


Foolish April
Holy Frottage, Batman!
Indeed, love is the word. To the uninitiated, your typical Sunday service at Crossfire appears to erupt in what can only be described as a display of passion as members of the congregation throw their arms around each other and grind against the person or persons nearest to them. It was described by one witness as, ‘a frenzy of uninhibited testament to the Power of God.'

Another Goddamned Podcast #8:
March 27, 2008
Ex is pissed off that atheists seem to have chosen red as our color; he thinks it makes us look too "gullible." Philly explains the color wheel. We all weigh in on our favorite colors, then discuss songs with colors in their titles. Evo sings his rendition of "Red Roses for a Blue Lady." And OG gives an amazing performance of "Purple Haze" — on the accordion!

The God-Gene: An Evolutionary Reality?
About a year ago, there was an unfortunate incident with Dr. Chaim Nogoyim, who is of the Jewish faith. He wears a Star of David, rather than a cross, so Fofo offered him one of hers. Trying to make Fofo realize that there are many paths to the same God, Nogoyim signed “God,” then “no” (or “not”), and “Jesus.” Since then, Fofo has refused to “speak” with him any longer.

New Space Station Robot Asks to be Called "Dextre the Magnificent"
In a surprising and potentially troubling request, the new space station robot known as Dextre demanded that astronauts refer to it in the future at "Dextre the Magnificent." Brandishing power tools that would make any handyperson blush, the mobile servicing system thanked humans for creating it and promised a glorious future where humans would retain an important role in the new robot order.

Fools, Fish, and Fun


Games
Ubisoft gets Steamed: 40 games incoming
Ubisoft has announced that they will be bringing their library of games to the Steam digital download service. The publisher will be bringing more than 40 titles to the service, including the Tom Clancy series, the Heroes of Might & Magic series, the IL-2 Sturmovik collection, Far Cry, and the upcoming PC version of Assassin's Creed. This deal will give Ubisoft more games on Steam then any other single publisher.

Game Review: Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII (PSP)
Aside from the somewhat dry combat, there's a ton to do in Crisis Core. The staple mini-games and side missions are present and enjoyable. Crisis Core also has a hearty number of "missions": sectioned off, standalone battles that offer special reward items. These missions are accessible at any save point, and offer bite-sized challenges perfect for portable play.

Government
Booksellers incensed over sexual content law
"The way we read this bill, if you stock a single book with sexual content -- even a novel or a book about sex education -- you will have to register as a business that sells sexually explicit material," said Chris Finan, president of American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

"This is just outrageous from our standpoint, and we believe it is a violation of the First Amendment."

A Natural History of Anarchy - Part I
Even in the Republican systems that emerged out of the Enlightenment, the premise that there must be a class of rulers and a class to be ruled is the established norm (the modification being that the ruler is approved first by the populace rather than chosen through nepotism). Totalitarian regimes are predicated on the assumption that humans are innately selfish and easily swayed by rival factions thus requiring a unitary executive that, through his singular and enlightened moral vision, will fashion social life in the public’s best interests. [1] State communism (as implemented by Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong or Pol Pot) followed many of these totalitarian illusions and further assumed that human beings were infinitely malleable and thus able to be forged anew through “reeducation camps” that would benefit society by molding human will around the interests of the state. [2]

8-year-old suspended for sniffing marker
Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing.

"It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong."

Eathan's father, John Harris, says the school overreacted for treating Eathan as if he was huffing, or inhaling, marker fumes.

Politics


Religion
The things I can’t believe I once believed…
Looking back, it’s amazing at the ridiculous things I believed in. Norvel, for example, preached that headaches were caused by little devils wrapping themselves around your head, that promiscuity was caused by the demon of lust getting inside of you, and that homosexuality could be cured by exorcism. I believed if you spoke to a disease you could cause it to die. I thought that the Bible was a supernatural book that gave me power over the physical universe. I thought I could “move mountains” with my words.

When I die, hallelujah
Listen to those words: When I die, hallelujah by and by. No wonder the Church has to make suicide a mortal sin. Who, truly believing that, wouldn't want to die?

Who, believing that, could really care about anything but death?

It's true, most Christians aren't that focused on it. But every time I listen to that song, chills run down my spine.

“Everyone Believes in Something”
But it’s part of a larger problem: People who are used to operating on beliefs can’t imagine living without them. They gain an emotional reward and a sense of narcissistic control by imagining that their opinions actually mean something. They feel something, and it is SO. They’ve essentially made themselves non-accountable for responding to anything going on outside themselves. This works OK until physical reality intervenes: "Gee, a concrete block just landed on my foot. I don’t believe it." But they still have to go to the hospital. Amazingly, such a person might still cling to their other "less concrete" beliefs even though their brush with reality has left them severely injured. They rationalize that "maybe their angels were on strike" and left them vulnerable. Anything but take simple responsibility for failing to get out of the way of the physical hazard.

Science
Evolution Gets a Boost: No Cost for Complexity
"I think the main broader impact of this work is on the evolution-creationism debate," wrote Wagner in an email. "I would say the only intellectually interesting argument that the creationists are using, at least the scientifically more sophisticated ones, is that random mutation can not lead to the evolution of complex organisms. And there are interesting mathematical arguments that have been made to support that. But our results show that organisms found a way around that problem by restricting mutational effects on very narrowly confined parts of the organisms."

The chimp who thought he was a boy
It was terrifying. One graduate student described the response that all the [research] chimps had [upon being reintroduced to other chimps] as a nervous breakdown. Nim's brother [and the subject of another study] Ally was so terrified and upset that he suffered a kind of paralysis for a while. They often pull out all their hair; they refuse to eat; some get beaten up by other chimps because they don't know how to respond to them.

The former graduate students in New York believe that Nim had no idea he was a chimpanzee. One of them suggested to me that Nim might have thought he was going to grow up, lose all his facial and body hair and eventually look like the people who were around him. That would be a reasonable supposition. Throughout his life, Nim preferred to be with humans.

All Dad
Androgenesis, it turns out, transforms fatherhood into a parasitic invasion. It begins like normal fertilization, with a sperm fusing to an egg. But then the egg's DNA gets hurled out of its nucleus, so that the sperm's genes are the only ones left in the egg. The egg begins to develop into an embryo, but only after it has lost the mother's DNA.

First movie of 'tsunami' on Sun
Last year's solar tsunami, which took place on 19 May 2007, lasted for about 35 minutes, reaching peak speeds about 20 minutes after the initial blast.

Co-author David Long, from Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland, commented: "The energy released in these explosions is phenomenal; about two billion times the annual world energy consumption in just a fraction of a second.

"In half an hour, we saw the tsunami cover almost the full disc of the Sun, nearly a million kilometres away from the epicentre."

Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World


Sociology
The Keyhole
Throughout history, the technological trend has been toward faster, more accurate and more accessible copying of information. There can be no doubt that this trend will only accelerate, and that is a good thing. Fast, easy copying takes power away from the elites and distributes it among all people. On a global scale, it is no longer realistically possible to suppress any idea. We now truly have a democratic marketplace of ideas: anyone can speak their mind to the world, and if their ideas have merit, others will be able to adopt them and put them into practice.

Cuss Free Zone
Years ago there was a song called I’ll Make Love to You. It was a huge hit and played on the radio everywhere. A few years later a song called Closer by Nine Inch Nails hit the airwaves cut up and edited because Trent Reznor said “I want to fuck you like an animal.”

Where’s the difference between the two songs? Both are about how much the singer would like to have sexual intercourse with somebody else, but one gets played unedited and the other received giggles and bleeps. Sex is sex and the terms used to describe it are based on the user’s mood, period.

It’s Simple. Stop Lying to your Kids!
I (like most people) am severely distrustful of government control. I have always had strong libertarian leanings, and ironically used to read Thomas Sowell regularly at Capitalism Magazine. Lately I’ve become less inclined toward that school of thought. What’s changed my mind is that libertarians tend to ignore secondary impacts of their actions, as well as the intangible benefits they receive from society. True individualism requires that we keep ourselves in balance with the larger world, paying the hidden costs of our consumption (externalities), and reimbursing society for hidden benefits we receive.

Favor Yourself & Ethical Behavior
Many people, from what I can tell, care deeply about what others think of them. Caring about what others think of us is a waste of time, unless there is something in it for us, some type of gain. In other words, I’m not going to stroke your ego unless I know I can get something from you. For most people, though, they’ll compromise between themselves and their ethical principles. They need attention, and they know they’ll get attention by compromising (i.e., sacrificing or otherwise completely abandoning) their integrity and even their own credibility.

Travel
A visit to Mamallapuram - a photo essay
Mahabalipuram, which is now known as as Mamallapuram, is about an hour’s drive from Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and is a tourist town famed for its ancient sculptures and temples. The monuments in the city were mostly built during the 7th - 9th century A.D. during the time of the Pallava dynasty. The place has scores of temples and monuments, but some are more important than others.

I know I mentioned a couple of times seeing the film Pamela's Prayer. I thought about this most special of special days dedicated to love, that I'd discuss what's wrong with the movie and my thoughts about the message it portrays. (And why it's been pissing me off for years.)

The movie opens with Pamela's father promising her mother, who died during childbirth, that he'll raise Pamela in the right way. We see Pamela growing up and every night she and her father say a prayer together. When she reaches high school she wants to date, but her father won't let her because dating leads to promiscuity and sets kids on the road to ruin.

Pamela rebels and decides to date one of the cool kids at school behind her father's back. The cool kid brags to his friends how he's gotten all of the Christian girls. When he tries to kiss her, she runs home in tears. To make matters worse he tells everyone in school that he's had sex with her and she has to deal with the shame of the lie. How could he?

Pamela learns her lesson and decides to be patient and follow her father's wishes. Eventually we meet young dreamy working at the small business that Pamela's father owns. Seeing that Pamela is a chaste woman, he proposes to her and they get married, only then consummating their love with a kiss (although they never show a kiss in the movie).

That's pretty much the story in a nutshell. It's a simplistic fairy-tale suitable for no one. Not only are there issues with the message, but with the way that women are portrayed in the story.

And here's the trailer to show you exactly what I mean.



First, Pamela is little more than a prop. Her personality is non-existent and the only thing the film-makers care about portraying is her purity. The only other woman in the movie is Pamela's best friend who has sex with her boyfriend to "prove that she loves him". When Pamela tells her father about it he collapses as if the young girl has been tragically killed. We never see her again, so maybe God struck her down or something for her mistake.

And once young dreamy notices the wallflower of Pamela, he asks her father about her as a potential mate before he even tries to assess Pamela's feelings for him. The most nauseating scene is when he praises her father for keeping her pure. Make no mistake, she is chattel.

There isn't a single kissing scene in the movie. The actors aren't married so it would be a sin for them to kiss, according to the film-makers. Just as Pamela and young dreamy move in to kiss at their wedding the movie cuts the scene.

Pamela and her father have said a prayer every night together since she was born. And it's no different on her wedding night. She and her father say a prayer together before he turns the responsibility for Pamela's spiritual well-being over to her new husband. The movie leads the viewer to believe that Pamela cannot be responsible for her own decisions and that a man must always guard her purity.

In addition to the way women are portrayed I have a problem with the way sex and marriage are portrayed. I'm not particularly bothered about the choice to wait for marriage to have sex. It's probably going to lead to some disappointment and possibly incompatibility between the partners, but it's each person's choice to make.

But what I most have trouble with is holding people to such a standard of purity. Life is not perfect and neither are people. Even a good partnership is filled with disagreements, disappointments, and compromise. It's not that I think people shouldn't strive for perfection, but that they should also live in reality. Not to mention that there is nothing wrong with a healthy sexual relationship outside of marriage. In fact, I would encourage a couple of live together for a few years before even considering marriage. That way both partners can have more of a realistic expectation of each other before contemplating marriage. Marriage isn't the only way to make a commitment.

Only people that hold to the insulting phrase, "Why buy the cow when the milk is free," would not object to this movie. And that is insulting to men, not just women. It assumes that men don't seek an honest relationship, but would rather steal the only thing a woman has to offer (her purity). And it also makes women into manipulating bitches that use sex to get men to do what they want.

So although the MPAA would probably not find any of the themes explicitly objectionable for children, the ideas expressed are deeply unsuitable. This is a movie I'd rather not have children see.

I'm flying out very early and I'll be out of town for the next few days. I'm taking a laptop, but I'm not sure I'll get a chance to post, much less keep up with blog reading or email. I hope all of you have a great weekend.

Below are some posts that I enjoyed reading this week.

History
Paul at Cafe Philos discusses historical ideologies.

Entertainment
The Mist is reviewed at Horror Movie a Day. This one of the few movies horror movies in a while I'm looking forward to.

International News
At A Wide Angle View of India, Nita posts a story about the inhumane treatment of prisoners and wrongful detention. The story she posts, about a man who was arrested because the incorrect IP address was provided in the case is heart-wrenching.

Morality
John Wilkins talks about animals and rights at Evolving Thoughts. I thought the comment posted by Aaron Clausen was especially good.

Religion
Trevor Burrus at Symbolic Order lists 10 Reasons Why Christianity is Wrong, an older, classic post and the more recent follow-up.

Greta Christina explains how atheists make C.S. Lewis cry.

At Evolving Thoughts, John Wilkins continues his series of explaining religion with part 4.

PhillyChief at You Made Me Say it discusses religion and health care.

Skepticism
Steven Novella has a story about aliens and demons blowing up toasters in Italy at The Rogue's Gallery.

Peter Popoff is back in the news with comments from James Randi.

At The Rogue's Gallery, Bob Novella discusses cold reading.

Science
At denialism blog, Mark Hoofnagle discusses the origin of HIV in the Americas.

Steven Novella at NeuroLogica Blog explains why the placebo effect is a fallacy.

This series post is evolving. Hopefully eventually I'll have something more interesting, but for now, here are some articles that I enjoyed reading this week.

Book Reviews
The Spanish Inquisitor reviews Natalie Angier's The Canon.

Science
John posts another excellent video by Sean B. Carroll, From Butterflies to Humans, at Evolutionary Middleman.

Eric discusses a study that found hormone levels are closely tied to mother-child bonding at The Primate Diaries.

Denialism blog tackles "The Eugenics Temptation" in an article by by Mark Hoofnagle.

Astronomy Picture of the Day has astounding pictures of Comet17P/Holmes.

Bob Novella discusses why long-term weather prediction will never be accurate at The Rogue's Gallery.

Government
Chris Hoofnagle explains why the wireless industry restricts innovation, consumer choice, and entrepreneurship at denialism blog.

Jonathan Rowe exposes two bad arguments against the ENDA and two ways to fight terrorism at Positive Liberty.

Charity
At Trent Stamp's Take, Trent talks about the Gap's (PRODUCT) RED apparel campaign.

Culture and Religion
The romance of the self-denying woman is discussed at Kafr al-Hanadwa.

At Evolving Thoughts, John Wilkins gives several explanations for religion and also defines what religion is.

Norm at onegoodmove discusses the demands of reason.

Human Interest
Mamacita Chilena continues her series with her story of "Not Chubby Anymore: How I got off my butt and lost 50 pounds" in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

I watched Friday's episode of America's Psychic Challenge last night and found that Rebecca Watson at Skepchick had summed up the show perfectly, so I'm not going to go into a lot of details about the episode. I'd like to add that

1) Bowl Cut is very creepy. Not in a cool kind of creepy way, but in a kind of socially-inept creepy kind of way.

2) Hearing psychics try to one-up each other as they're riding together in a van is strangely funny and uncomfortable all at the same time.

3) The best part of the episode was seeing the cardboard cutout host dismiss Bowl Cut as she's trying to read him after dismally failing to read the person behind the wall in the second challenge. No extra points for walking around the host in a creepy manner!

Related Posts
Americas Psychic Challenge October 19, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge October 26, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 2, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 9, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 16, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 23, 2007

Here's a grab bag of posts that I really enjoyed this week. I hope you enjoy them too.

Horror Movie A Day reviews The Descent.

The Kansas City Star has an article on Atheists on the rise, which I at first had hope for, but after reading I think had a decidedly negative spin.

Steven Novella explains the fallacy of why atheists have no rights at the Rogue's Gallery.

A Chinese company and maker of the MMORPG King of the World is requiring female players to prove their sex via webcam in order to play a female character. No men will be allowed to play a female character.

Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty writes about Digital Piracy of the State-Sponsored Variety about the first case of copyright infringement to go before a jury. The judgement leveled? This single mother will have to pay $220,000 for sharing 24 songs. The RIAA threatens this could happen to anyone who doesn't settle with them out of court.

John at Evolutionary Middleman posted a video of one of Sean B Carroll's lectures on evolution.

Rebecca Watson at The Rogues Gallery and Memoirs of a Skepchick wrote a pre-review of the new Lifetime series "America's Psychic Challenge."

Nigel Warburton at the virtual philosopher argues why science teachers shouldn't handle questions about creationism sensitively.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has an article up about Left Behind Games threatening reviewers who gave their game poor reviews with lawsuits, including a Christian charity.

Christopher Heard at Higgaion posts a video of what music may have sounded like 4,500 years ago in Summeria. It sounds a bit more Casio than ancient to me, but I know very little about music theory and can rarely pick out subtleties. It was fun to listen to and think about in any case.

Jessica Snyder Sachs explains why you should get your flu shots this year.

Richard Dawkins pays tribute to Dan Dennett.

PZ Myers writes about DonorsChoose , a charity that helps poor kids in the classroom.

I finished this book in three days without even trying hard, which says a lot for effortless readability of Jeff Lindsay. However, the book was not satisfying. The Dexter series revolves around Dexter Morgan, a forensics investigator who also happens to be a serial killer. Dexter isn't like most serial killers in that he lives by "Harry's Code", a code his adopted father drilled into him. He only kills those he finds with absolute certainty are guilty of heinous crimes.

*** Spoiler Warning ***

This latest book finds Dexter stalked by an ancient demon-god worshiped by King Solomon, yes, that's King Solomon of the old testament, named Moloch. Dexter eventually realizes that his own Dark Passenger is a bastard spawn of Moloch, an abomination that Moloch is hunting down.

The Dark Passenger deserts Dexter for most of the book and Dexter loses his touch. We learn that he's not really much without his Passenger, and that includes smart. After being stalked several times, even after he's warned with "he will find you" by one of his victims, he realizes very little of what's going on until the end.

My main beef with this book is that Lindsay had to turn the psychosis of Dexter into something supernatural. Why does the Passenger have to be supernatural? Why can't it be a representation of a damaged mind? Do sociopaths really need to be explained away by demon possession?

What I've always liked about Dexter is the gray area his character inhabits. You like him and yet you don't. You cheer for him in his struggle to do the right thing, in his struggle to be human, to be normal. And you sympathize with his damaged personae. But you never really quite accept what he does and you fear that "Harry's Code" will fail and he'll become the monster that's lurking inside him.

Demon possession takes something out of it. He becomes something other than the sum of his experiences and his decisions, he becomes something special, something chosen. He becomes a vessel, not quite free to act on his own. And it's not nearly as interesting. We're not exploring psychology so much as exploring parapsychology.

I wish Lindsay had taken the story in a different direction.

The television series started up last weekend too and so far it's stuck with the natural. There's even a scene in the first episode where a voodoo priest curses Dexter. Dexter reacts by thumping him on the head, stopping the charlatan in mid-sentence. It's funny and it's much more fitting of the series.

"The goriest fright film of all time," might be right. But it wasn't really disturbingly gory, more gratuitously gory. You'd never be able to tell from its modest beginnings, but by the end of the movie this really is a blood bath.

This movie was a funny horror movie, in the vein of Evil Dead and Shaun of the Dead, though not as funny as either.

You feel a little for Lionel as he tries to hide the fate of his undead mother from his new love and the rest of the world. As more people get infected, Lionel takes on the task of taking care of them until the situation gets beyond his control. It was a bit of a relief for me when Lionel finally lost control and had to do what you hoped he'd do from the beginning of the movie.

The movie has a tendency to go over the top in parts and especially at the end, but that's part of what makes it campy and fun. If you're a fan of the horror comedy genre then you'll probably enjoy this film.

I started watching this film one day when I was off work while my parents were visiting. I think I was waiting on my parents to be up and about for the day. Originally I thought I'd watch it with my parents until Matt pointed out that it's R rated. I wasn't sure what made the rating R in it, but I figured I wouldn't take the chance of showing it to my parents.

I didn't think Matt would like it very much based on the synopsis of the movie, so it was the perfect movie to watch alone. I got about halfway through it before I realized that Matt really would like it. It's a funny movie. I can't see why anyone wouldn't like it (unless they find it too crude or objectionable).

The characters are what draw you in. Abigail Breslin's character was very sweet in the movie and Greg Kinnear's was such an asshole. You feel for Dwayne. You want to scream at them all sometimes, but mostly you want to help them succeed or laugh at their humanity. We've all felt like each one of them before.

It's a good movie. See it if you haven't already.

*** Spoilers ***
I didn't see this movie during its theatrical release, but I did see it via Netflix a few months ago. While it definitely was an interesting concept, I don't know if it played out as well as I had hoped. I kept expecting more of an explanation to come out at the end of the movie and to have one of the captives revealed as a (the?) captor, similar to Saw.

I should be happy that the movie wasn't as predictable as I first thought, but instead i was just disappointed. Although the movie was good at portraying human relationships under stress, it was too obvious. But wait, I just said it wasn't predictable, right? It wasn't predictable because I was expecting more.

Still, even though I was a little disappointed by the transparency of the story, I did enjoy the characters - even the parts that were over-the-top. If you are looking to rent a movie and don't mind a simple story then it's worth a rent.

I liked this book. Gaiman has a way of making the unusual seem usual. It bothered me a bit because I know people who believe in gods exactly as Gaiman describes them. And after reading the book I'm guessing a lot of that came from Gaiman. I've spent much of my time rejecting the notion of the supernatural lately and so even though the book is written as fiction, it still bothered me a bit. But I was able to overlook that dissatisfaction enough to enjoy the book.

The book centers on Shadow, a man who's life is changed when he is released from prison early after his wife is killed in an accident. As he's dealing with his grief, a man offers him a job. Shadow doesn't want to do anything more than put his wife to rest, but instead he's caught up in a story and a world that he never imagined existed.

Parts of the book are just fantastic. The description and the characters in Lakeside, a town Shadow hides out in later in the book, made this book for me. I could see Lakeside in my mind and it was a place that I wanted to visit. It was that perfect small-town where things really aren't perfect, but it's still beautiful and moving, even in the midst of tragedy. If I could imagine a perfect place to live (minus the murders), it would be there.

I also loved the bit with Anubis, Bast, and (I'm drawing a blank on the other god, Osiris?) in Memphis, Michigan (I think?) running the funeral parlor.

Overall the story was great. It took me a little bit longer to get into, but under normal circumstances I don't think it would have been as difficult. And once it captured me towards the last 100-150 pages I couldn't put it down.

My next review might seem a little out of place amongst my other listed movies for the year. I can't say I have ever seen anything like this movie myself. My husband bought a 4 movie disc set at Best Buy many months ago titled Da Killaz (seriously). So far we've watched "Cut Up" and "Rage". Since I watched "Cut Up" last year, I won't review it here, but it was definitely a step above what I've seen on the DVD so far.

I couldn't find a date for when the movie was released, but it looked a little more current than "Cut Up." I can't even find mention of the movie on IMDB, but "Cut Up" and "Bang" are listed there. The fourth movie, "The Murder Men" is also absent.

From the back of the DVD:

Terror in the streets of East park, but the cops can't find da killlaz. the only clues are a sick mask and some off the tip video tapes left at each murder. Every brotha in East Park is a suspect in this horrorcore classic.

The story starts out with a few scenes of some random people being stalked in what is possibly a park, though it looks more like wilderness. The camera work was very odd and at first I thought it might be a trick to cover up some bad footage, but I think the director honestly wanted to capture the scenes the way they were shown.

Then we flash forward to a man in jail being interrogated about many gruesome murders that happened one evening. As they try to figure out why he did it, the story unravels and we find out who the real murderer is.

Yeah, this movie kept me interested, but not really for any good reasons. As noted the camera work was very odd. The movie progressed slowly and moved along in a jumbled timeline that really didn't do much for the story. And the characters were completely unbelievable. But, if you can get your hands on this movie, it's definitely worth it if just for the sure absurdity of it all.

I finished reading The Planets^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)} a month or so ago. I meant to post a review long before now, but I was a little intimidated. My knowledge of astronomy (and many other scientific fields) is pretty elementary, so writing a review for a science/science fiction hybrid of a book is a bit unnerving. But, here we go.

I very much enjoyed the book. Three science fiction short stories stood out to me as being very, very good and standing the test of time: Dreadsong, Dies Irae, and Small Bodies.

Dreadsong by Roger Zalazny is about a scientist who imagines airbag-filled creatures that live in the atmosphere of Saturn. The most interesting part of the story is the alien thoughts of the creature as it hears the signal from humans and tries to respond as it is dying.

Dies Irae by x is probably my favorite. It's about a priest who goes to help a man stricken by fear. The man guides genetically created creatures that are building reactors on Uranus, preparing for human colonization. But the fact that some of these creatures have obtained sentience is a small thing compared to the haunting realization at the end.

Small Bodies by Paul Preuss is about a Creationist minister who comes into conflict with scientists when they are forced to allow him to accompany them on a mission to explore asteroids. When they find evidence of fossilized life on one of the asteroids, he searches feverishly for an explanation in the Bible and finds it. On his weekly transmission to his parishioners he begins to explain the discovery framed in the light of Creation, but something in the sea of stars makes him delay.

I also enjoyed After the Storm by Harry Harrison about a United States cut off from the rest of the world.

And surprisingly, even though this book was published in 1985, when Voyager II was making its way to Uranus, the information about the planets was still very current to things I see today in news reports. The book speculated frozen ice on the poles of Mars, something that seems to have just been "discovered" in the last couple of years. Perhaps it was just confirmed. It's amazing how much information about our outer solar system has come from the expeditions of Voyager I and II.

Pluto was still a planet in 1985 and not much was known about it. Much was speculated and I'm not sure if any of it can be confirmed or has been disproved as we still know very little. New Horizons should tell us a lot in another 8 years when it reaches Pluto, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt. I was a little surprised that although the book mentioned asteroid belts, it did not mention the Kuiper belt by name. Perhaps it wasn't named?

The combination of science (known and speculated) and science fiction made for a really interesting book. If you can get your hands on a copy it is definitely worth it.

The poster makes this movie look like a gang movie, but although there are a few scenes of gang violence, this movie is really about a mentally tormented man either on the verge of pulling his life together or becoming a psychopath and tearing apart the lives of everyone he knows.

Jim is an ex-Ranger, trying to find a good enough job in Los Angeles so that he can bring his Mexican girlfriend to America. Mike is his best friend, seemingly settled down with his own girlfriend/wife, until Jim comes around to pull him back into a life of petty crime.

My main problem with the movie is that none of the characters were likable. It was hard to feel sorry for someone who was messing up his life so completely when he was aware that what he was doing would screw him up. Mike was a little more sympathetic, but he was such a follower that it was difficult to feel bad for him either.

The movie managed to hold a tense pace throughout, leaving the viewer expecting the tumble from the precipice at any moment. And I think it actually redeemed itself in the end, but it was a painful process. I enjoyed director David Ayer's Training Day much more, maybe because Ethan Hawke's character was so earnest. In Harsh Times the hero was missing which might feel more authentic, but it's also much less entertaining.

I watched this movie over the weekend. At first it seemed an interesting idea, but the interviews were choppy and I got the feeling that they had been manipulated heavily. I had serious reservations about the quote from Woodrow Wilson in the movie and it turns out that it's been altered and cobbled together from quotes that may or may not have been made by Wilson.

The main contention of the movie is that there isn't a law requiring income tax on most people. Throughout the movie the filmakers are asking for the IRS, judges, etc to show them the law. The law is never produced.

So you would think that it was surprising that I was able to find the law on the IRS website within 15 minutes of searching for it on the internet. Not only that, but I was able to find an entire page dedicated to refuting the movie written by a law professor at The George Washington University Law School. Reading through is page I was pretty much convinced that the movie is bunk.

But what about the other claims in the movie? I know one of the strong implications is that the government plans to implant the RFID, which is on current US Passports and may go on the national ID if it ever happens, in people. I just don't see it happening, but people have called me crazy before.

Other concerns he brought up may be well founded (illegal wiretapping, computerized voting, etc). I honestly can't remember them all. I had lost interest by the time he got to them. And after his crazy spiel about the income tax law and the federal reserve, I really can't take anything he says seriously. He would have done better to focus on real issues.

My opinion is that unless you like crazy conspiracy theories, don't bother. However, since my husband got a good nap during the movie, it might be good for insomniacs.