I found this delightful video while looking for something else. I hadn’t seen it for years. Even as an old fart he’s delightful and if I were a young chick or gay I’d still find him hot. Ok, Ok, it’s five o-clock somewhere…
The lady interviewing him is wearing pearls and I delight that like my spouse Louise who wears them to class, pearls are still cool, classic. There is something about them that always reveals quiet elegance.
High Society stars Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra compared to Philadelphia Story’s Kate Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart (whom I can’t quite forgive for It’s a Wonderful Life and Harvey, though his is a homespun realism). Both are interesting contrasts in these movies. Grace Kelly is awesome and while I may growl at her sexuality, Kate has a gene se quois I find irresistible.
Check out all three after the Bertrand Russell video, which endures time. Seven Brides is its own post but beware of the sobbin women or the Sabine abduction and consider it in relation to the culture in which the movie was made. It was made at the same time as the others for a wholly (holy?) different audience. There are few better dance sequences.
Honestly? Louis Armstrong does it for me. His role in High Society supersedes the rest, but I’m a sucker for a musician, jazz or blues. Otherwise? I’d take Grace to bed, Kate to breakfast, and Louis to dinner. Bertrand? He’s perfect for the front porch, sipping a Bourbon, and watching the sun go down and talking about the world!
NOTE: This post is part of an ongoing education series. This information is for educational purposes only. This information does not constitute investment advice. No rational person would make investment decisions based on a blog post. Please consult with your financial advisor before taking any action. If you wish to have specific advice for your situation please contact Polaris Financial Planning.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — American employers substantially stepped up their hiring in January, bringing the unemployment rate down for the fifth month in a row.
Employers added 243,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department reported Friday, marking a pick-up in hiring from December, when the economy added 203,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%. That is the lowest since February 2009.
This is fantastic news! More Americans are getting back to work and the economy is growing.
Hiring was much stronger than expected, and once it was apparent the job gains were broad based across several sectors, economists and investors called it a “nice surprise,” “fantastic,” and even “a touchdown!” Stocks climbed at the market open.
Economists surveyed by CNNMoney had forecast 130,000 jobs added in the month, and that the unemployment rate likely ticked up to 8.6%.
“To show the economy adding this kind of jobs number in a January is amazing,” said Kathy Kane, senior vice president of talent management at Adecco Group North America. “As we talk to clients, they’re very optimistic about continuing to hold jobs throughout the year but also to increase jobs.”
My post on Golshifte Faharani is the first time I experienced nonChristian hate since living in Utah where my Mormon friend’s wife said she dreamed of me and the number 666 and wasn’t sure she could be my friend anymore (I was the first atheist she had met)–I retracted my horns, changed clothes, dulled my teeth, and smiled sweetly that I was really a nice guy and how could an atheist be the devil anyway? We got over that. It’s true once I think of it I have been told I would be damned before but maybe I am so used to knowing it by being around so many Christians that it has lost its effect. Now, it’s coming from fundamentalist Muslims.
First let’s get to Farahani’s image which has been reposted with the admonition that it is her body, she has a right to it:
Though a myopic view of Islam, Judeo-Christianity also has a twisted, nonbiblical view of nudity (there is no biblical admonition against public nudity) this is a popular expression of her rights.
In an interview in Bikyamasr she states what she wanted from her symbolic gesture about nudity and sex; the video is shown below later.
“This video clip is a symbolic gesture to remove the common taboos that exist in various societies and does not aim to promote nudity or sex,” a Facebook statement from her said. “By taking part in these photo shoots the people taking part wish to demonstrate their redemption from these taboos by the way they act and talk.
“The objective is to liberate their soul and bodies at the same time. As long as an individual has no power over her or his body and their soul does not have the command of the way they wish to think, then they do not have a true freedom.
“Although I do not think looking at the nude photo of another human may have an attraction, but it is certainly far more enjoyable than looking at the fully covered and burqa and hejab wearing body of a woman who has been wrapped and imprisoned by her man. So much for not looking at women as sex symbols as the fundamentalists want us to believe!” she added.
What’s interesting here is her assertion that looking at naked people isn’t always about lust and sex. Sometimes it’s just nudity. When one has lived in the tropics, or any hot environment, for awhile, it becomes clear that clothes are not always useful and many people don’t wear them. The Bedouin idea of flowing robes as shade is particular to that culture, and world tribe after world tribe has had no compulsion towards dressing for good reason and are still able to keep their dicks in their pants.
The sad idea that any woman with a few clothes is dressing like a whore and if she is dressing as a whore she is a whore and is to be treated as if she were a free whore is immoral and has no religious basis anywhere!
“Surely God enjoins justice, kindness and the doing of good, to kith and kin; and He forbids all that is shameful, indecent, evil, rebellious and oppressive.” InnaAllah Yamuru bil adel, wal ehsane, wa itae zil qurba; wa yanha anil fuhshae, wal munkari walbaghi; yaizukhum lallakum tazakkaroon. (Quran 16:90)
The words fuhsha, munkar, baghi never refer directly to public nudity at all, in any way. No translation would refer to them as nudity.
“According to the Al-Mawrid Arabic-English dictionary of Munir Baalbaki, Fuhash is obscenity, vulgarity, indecency, shamelessness and something that is dirty, filthy and foul. Al-Mawrid’s English-Arabic dictionary translates pornographic as Fahish. The Hans Wehr Dictionary Of Modern Written Arabic adds monstrosity, abomination, vile deed and fornication to its meaning as well.
But the etymology of pornography is prostitution, from 1850, and not its well known modern use of media-based, sex voyeurism. Someone had to add the meaning to the word. It’s not originally there.
“Scholars of the Quran have included every vice which is intrinsically of a highly reprehensible character into this category whether it be fornication, nudity, public foreplay as depicted in films and photos, pornography, hurling abuses and curse words, promiscuous mixing, or dresses designed to expose the body.
How on earth can scholars claim that public nudity comes from these terms? It is obviously a base interpretation to promote their own agenda happening centuries after the Koran. It would be like saying Maimonides the Rabbinical scholar is the divine writer of the Pentateuch or that the Nicene Creed are the divine words of god!
“Al-Munkar as gross, abominable, detestable, atrocious, outrageous, flagrant.
But what this means explicitly is left blank. It could be anything a group of people dislike. It is never stated explicitly that public nudity is an abomination! If the Koran can explicitly state not to eat the meat of animals that have died of their own causes do you think it would have skipped mentioning public nudity if it were such an abomination?
“Al-Baghi means wrong, injustice, outrage, and transgression.
What the hell does this mean specifically? Injustice, wrong, and outrage are generalities and would apply to anything. Again, it is in no way a mention of public nudity. That some choose to think it means the objectification of women is a transgression of their rights how much more so if women say their right is to choose to do with their bodies what they will and the transgression is men defining what is right for them and abusively so.
“Iran’s anger at the image is not just because of Farahani’s nudity – she has also made it known that her decision to pose is in protest against restrictive Islamic codes.
Good lord she’s wearing pants! Do you see those ankles?
Any reasonable person looking at how women are treated by fundamental Islamists can see the injustice is not about the men but about the women being oppressed by hideous laws cloistering women and then legitimizing rape and other harm once they think them immoral.
“Verily those who love that indecency should spread among the believers deserve a painful chastisement in the world and in the Hereafter. Allah knows, but you do not know.” Quran 24:19
How the hell is this a reason to beat and rape and kill women who do not follow human interpretations of the Koran? Even if you follow the Koran it makes no sense. My ancestors believed in slavery. I do not. It is moral that I do not. I don’t care one iota that it was tradition or supported by the bible.
Women come out and say they choose punishment or they choose cloistering because they too feel they are a jewel that should be kept secret except when exposed to their husbands. You know why women choose to cover themselves in fundamental Islam. Because if they don’t they get outcast, beaten, or worse; all wrongly justified by sadistic interpreters of the text. Just to survive women have to show they are stronger believers than they men.
Farahani talks about how women have to have a double identity, to lie from the beginning, to be a good actor and lie perfectly, when they live in Iran. She sounds much like Ayan Hirsi Ali in the Caged Virgin and other books:
“What immediately comes to any decent Iranian’s mind is asking her, how dare you? How dare you put your people down, only to promote yourself and open doors for yourself.
She was already Iran’s most successful actress ever. She didn’t need a trick. Is it more important to be loyal to oppression than to be truthful and against oppression? Would you welcome your abusive father with open arms or call for help?
Another commentator at this site notes:
“When a woman is born in a Muslim society like Iran afetr age of 5 or so, will live in two different world with double personalities (where she has to pretened of being some one else). She has to be one way outside the house and another inside her home. This is typical of a Muslim society and if you are some what a modern society like Iran (where modernity is in a constant conradiction with religion and backwardness) you will see the differnce even more. I am not a female but please for one minute put yourselves in shoes of Iranian women and see how they have lived in last 1400 years specially in last 30 years.
In an interveiw in 2009 with Al Jazeera she notes how well aware she is of her moral responsibilities to her country:
“Now that Farahani’s career is moving to the West, she realises that the eyes of all Iranians are on her and that this means she must be careful about the roles she chooses.
“If I fail they will fail and if I am successful it is their success too.”
“Mahdavi explains: “When you have the status of a star in a country the whole population is following you. Some actors can do what they like, they can take the role of the terrorist or they can take their clothes off in front of the camera but as Golshifteh achieved stardom she has more responsibilities.”
“I respect my people, I was seen as the daughter of the nation,” Farahani adds.
“If I want it or not I am representing Iran. But my responsibilities are to the people not to the government.”
Yet coments at even moderate sites are very mixed:
“im an iranian girl! and im not agree with her idea! it is true that we are forced to have hejab but in our culture from thoushands year(befor islam) till now no woman accepts to appears in public with no clothes like what she didwith no clothes and i think what she did is worse than what this damn government in doing with us! none of the people of iran like her picture and idea but few
And
“I can’t understand that an Iranian girl, that is surrounded by the monuments of 3000 years of Iranian history, follows the decadent West. I am sure that one day the Iranian people will enjoy freedom and peace, but not by imitating the rotten principles of Europe.
And
“This chic is out of her mind. I am not Muslim, but my brother a non-Muslim who fell in love with a Muslim girl and she wears Hijab by choice and happens to be a doctor. This kind of farcical journalism is dangerous.
Balanced against this?
“The comments show that many Iranians are willing victims of their absurd theocratic rulers. Religion really does rot the mind it seems when taking off your clothes is somehow seen as worse than the actions of a violence backed tyrannous government. Pathetic.
The Cesar awards, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards, posted a video of a number of actors disrobing in solidarity to female freedom.
Farahani has a Facebook page which in two weeks has grown from 4,000 likes to 516,000 likes. Hopefully millions will join her in her freedom and acknowledge that nudity is neither a sin nor an abomination. The Islamic world used to be the heart of civilization, we owe them algebra and the preservation of Greek texts after Christians burned pagan libraries, let’s hope they can find their way again!
In an open letter to Dr Phil, DJ Grothe, past host of Point-of-Inquiry, requests he “get real” and stop pandering to psychics.
“Instead of taking your own advice, you gave an uncritical platform to phony ‘psychics’ who abuse people’s emotions in order to fool them.
You know I have the same criticism for Oprah. While she may have given a black voice to white media, the word she spread was vicious in sparing anyone from having to do critical thinking and rah rahed emotional turmoil as she encouraged banal positive thinking instead of real solutions. Especially the horrid life denying book The Secret, the worst piece of trash along with The Purpose Driven Life.
“Self-proclaimed psychic mediums John Edward and Char Margolis have made their fortunes by using manipulative psychological tricks and other devious methods to pretend that they can communicate with people’s deceased family members.
Holy seance! Why doesn’t Dr Phil in his own psychologically, therapeutically ineffective, intimidating style tell them to buck up and get over it. Get over the death in the family and get on with your lives. No, that doesn’t sell advertisements. Cloying sentiment and self assertion over reality sells big bucks. Viewers in grief need support and permission to let their brains fall out.
“Skeptics, scientists, and professional magicians have explained over and over how phony mediums like Mr. Edward and Ms. Margolis perform their acts and take advantage of the bereaved. World-famous magician and demystifier James Randi has often been invited on such shows to help audiences understand what’s really going on in these so-called ‘psychic’ readings. Yet on your show, you excluded the voices of reason and let deceit and superstition win the day.
57% of people believe in psychics. That means the US population could vote a psychic into office who could use seances to talk to Lincoln, or anyone, to determine whether or not to go to war for example. So what’s the harm in that? Believing in psychics is attributed to statistical ignorance and lack of science education. It is not harmless fun!
“Unfortunately, most people don’t know enough about statistics to realize what is going on. Even worse, studies have shown that believers in the paranormal are worse than the average person when it comes to estimating the statistical chances of certain events occurring.
It amazes me how few people know that James Randi has for years offered a cash prize if a psychic event could be proven. You would think Randi would be elevated to celebrity status; he was cuter when he was younger. But people don’t want to be proven wrong. They would rather believe in the possibility of psychics being true than not. Most people are desperate to believe. Every unexplained act, every comforting reinforcement is more important than learning they have been duped or even that they can be duped. More so if it is a comforting dupe.
“The JREF has offered John Edward a prize of $1 million if he can demonstrate his claimed abilities under mutually agreed-upon scientific conditions and without cheating–but he refused.Mr. Edward has been caught cheating at his performances in the past.
Michael Shermer has an excellent free guide to becoming a psychic in 10 easy lessons. I highly recommend it for several reasons. It reveals how one can fake their way through reading someone’s mind, it teaches you how to pay attention to social and personal cues, and cold reading is a useful ability in day-to-day life in the same sense that close observation made Sherlock Holmes prescient. In particular sales and marketing people practice a number of cold reading techniques except it’s called salesmanship. To some degree we are all selling ourselves in the competitive work place so learn it!
“When national media outlets give such a large platform to hucksters who make false promises and beguile the public, they are as much to blame for the public deception as the fake psychics themselves. I challenge you to provide your audience with more truthful information and advice in the future, and to start by inviting James Randi or another guest from our educational foundation onto your show to inform the public about the tricks used by fake ‘psychics’ like Mr. Edward and Ms. Margolis.
Generally, the law does not assign instigators blame. If you are provoked into a fight it is still your responsibility not to have fought. While this is a highly debatable aspect of free will and intention, the law has not caught up with neuroscience except in the big cases like Tobacco companies where information is grossly withheld or lied about. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile argument, especially in pedophile cases and endemically condoned crime where collusion can be proven. In child abuse if you see it you must legally report it and omission becomes a crime; many of my pubcon friends see this as an infringement on their rights; go ahead screw/beat/deprive the kids, it’s private, right?
It is a moral issue though. Just because it hasn’t been codified into law doesn’t make it Ok. If you know something is bullshit and harms people and yet you allow it, to increase your own worth or merit you should, especially, if you are Dr “get real” Phil, pay the consequences when the house of cards falls down and some one gets hurt. There is no such thing as harmless crime.
In the movie Six Days Seven Nights, Robin (Anne Heche) is traveling to a tropical paradise island with Frank (David Schwimmer) because he “wants to increase the romance in our relationship.” Robin, who works for Dazzle magazine, is called back to Tahiti for a photo shoot and hires the prickly middle-aged pilot Quinn (Harrison Ford) to take her there in his “rusty but trusty” Dehaviland Beaver plane.
As they begin their flight they exchange small talk about her work at Dazzle, generally, on articles on how to attract men (the irony of Heche being gay is hilarious, though it is a movie viewer TMI). Quinn quips “you want to know how to attract a guy…show up” and then the thunder storm comes on.
I always crack up because as a guy it has generally seemed like (as research supports) men have greater sexual appetite than women; that Quinn is right. For good reason. Men can’t have babies, what do they need to fear? And it is in genetics’ best interest for the guy to go for it often and to whomever. While for a woman it is in her best interest to find a guy who will stick around long enough to help raise the kids. It may be in her interest to have several sex interests as well to garner more aid but it gets complicated. Be that as it may Glamour type magazines are replete with hundreds of tips (or at least 99) to please men and men’s magazines are replete with ads on how to be bigger, endure longer, and stimulate.
Men buy women fantasy clothes or deluxe chocolates for Valentine’s day when it is clear the gift is for them. It is a truism the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach but it would seem their aim is lower but in fact it is context and emotion that stimulates women and a full stomach wanders less.
However, this method isn’t working so well as working women just don’t have to time to cook and men are still resistant to doing it. It’s hard to feel sexy when you’re pissed.
Hence a rather direct male incentive to purchase libido and sex aides. Some to cure his concern that he isn’t potent enough and some to help more directly entice her without bothersome talk and socializing. It’s even sexy to be political or is that political to be sexy.
After filming in Istanbul and being inspired by the Muslim call to prayer five times a day Liam Neeson is considering becoming a Muslim claiming “Islam got into his spirit.”
“The call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.
“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.
Liam, short for William in Irish and Scottish, born to a caretaker at Ballymena Boys All Saints Primary School was named after a local priest. His interest in acting resulted from being an alter boy and his sneaking into church to listen to minister Ian Paisly:
“He had a magnificent presence and it was incredible to watch this six foot-plus man just Bible-thumping away… It was acting but it was also great acting and stirring too.”
At nine he began taking boxing lessons at the All Saints Youth Club, became quite good at it, and won the Ulster boxing champion at 11.
Catholicism in Ireland, especially Northern Ireland, is all embracing. Islam is also a faith which continually calls to its sheep, constantly requiring an influx of spirit and personal attention. Whatever Liam chooses it would have to be intense. If he became secular he would probably be militant.
The universalizing aspect of Liam’s faith is best evidenced by his contradicting C.S. Lewis who wrote ”Chronicles Of Narnia” is a Christian story. In 2010 Liam claimed Aslan was not Christ but represented all spiritual leaders including Mohammed. Lewis wrote earthly experience does not satisfy the human craving for “joy” and that only God can do it.
Furthermore Lewis’s fallacious logic, as described in Wikipedia, continues:
“Lewis goes over rival conceptions of God to Christianity. Pantheism, he argues, is incoherent, and atheism too simple. Eventually he arrives at Jesus Christ, and invokes a well-known argument now known as the “Lewis trilemma“. Lewis, arguing that Jesus was claiming to be God, uses logic to advance three possibilities: either he really was God, was deliberately lying, or was not God but thought himself to be (which would make him delusional and likely insane). The book goes on to say that the latter two possibilities are not consistent with Jesus’ character and it was most likely that he was being truthful.
I think he was just delusional and insane! If he even existed.
My own spouse insisted Narnia and Aslan were a hero’s story and she insisted Aslan was not even religious. Which has been the entire point of psycholigizing the bible by Catholics: to make the stories seem so humanly universal and psychologically, moralizingly true the jump to faith becomes rather small.
Odd that dismay at human crime, there is evil, theodicey, is proof of god, when for others it is proof of lack of god.
“Unless one grasps the dismay which comes from humanity’s failure to keep the moral law, one cannot understand the coming of Christ and his work. The eternal God who is the law’s source takes primacy over the created Satan whose rebellion undergirds all evil. The death and resurrection of Christ is introduced as the only way in which our inadequate human attempts to redeem humanity’s sins could be made adequate in God’s eyes.
Liam has noted his intense religious interest continues:
‘I was reared a Catholic, but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What’s it all about?’ … I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”
Durkheim in his social foundations notes the human need for enthusiasm and effervescence. We have a basic requirement for joyousness!
Liam’s wife died of a skiing accident which challenged his faith but I wonder if the various hero roles he plays hasn’t helped him expand his idea of faith. Clearly he loves the intensity of faith, that it is all embracing. Islam has a way of saying god is in all things including the movement of one’s hand. It’s not that there are signs everywhere it’s that everything is god. A weird combination of personalizing and pantheism which many people seek whether they call their car Josephine, their genitals Junk, or their breasts Billie and Bobbie.
I was recently In Istanbul myself for one evening and had the most amazing four-hr tour by a hell-bent, ex-pro racing taxi driver who tried to show me all 4,000 mosques in one night. During a short respite from driving when we walked to the Blue Mosque I saw the famous whirling dervishes, “something special” he said, and indeed they are mesmerizing and hypnotic.
In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen’s camel’s hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt represents the ego’s shroud. By removing his black cloak, he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God’s unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God’s beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God’s spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, “All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!”
It is too bad that heroism, love of life, and pure experiential joy are hijacked for a particular religious message.
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