By the time I reached adolescence in the mid-1970s, women’s sexual liberation, in the West at least, had supposedly been accomplished. No longer were women divided into “good girls” and “sluts” as they had been in the 1950s and early 60s – the sluts being sought after because they would “put out,” but then despised… Continue reading Reversing Sexual Liberation
Category: opinion
Pirate Politics
The Usenet, that free-for-all haven of digital pirates, is an interesting place to observe grassroots political opinion. Generally, any new movie is uploaded (made available, illegally that is) for only a week or two around its release date, but “Fahrenheit 9/11” has been uploaded over and over again for months. Michael Moore has said that… Continue reading Pirate Politics
Vote!
I’m going to say this only once: if you value your middle-class lifestyle, America’s reputation in the world, and your personal safety from terrorism, register NOW, and vote for John Kerry in November. No, I don’t believe that John Kerry’s a saint, nor that George Bush is the devil – they’re all politicians, everybody is… Continue reading Vote!
Hostages
Twelve Nepali hostages in Iraq were executed, and I had never even heard they’d been taken – and I look at headlines from multiple sources on news.google.com practically every hour. There is no Nepali military presence in Iraq and few Nepalis are Christian or Jewish, so their murderers had to strain to find an ‘excuse’ for killing… Continue reading Hostages
The Greeks
A few months ago we watched The Greeks, a PBS (American public television) series which I bought on DVD because Ross was studying ancient Greek history. From this account, it appears that the Athenians invented not only democracy, but also politics as we know it today. The way PBS tells the tale, Themistocles, an Athenian… Continue reading The Greeks