Frankly, it wasn’t a big loss, but I wondered why my AIM account suddenly stopped working the other day. Since I use Trillian, I assumed that AOL was blocking the client. Instead, it looks like AOL deleted quite a few accounts of active users.
Month: December 2004
Anthony Flew Gets Religion
Wow — one of the world’s most famous atheists, Anthony Flew, has apparently changed his mind.
Unfortunately, Flew seems to have simply adopted the view that life is too complex to have arisen without some sort of divine spark. Ugh. The Associated Press quotes Flew as writing in an earlier letter,
It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism.
Huh? If anything the case for a completely naturalistic theory of life is far stronger than it was in the 1950s when Flew made his mark in philosophy with his defense of atheism. Perhaps Flew just needs to re-read Dawkins and Dennett.
Source:
Leading Atheist Philosopher Concludes God’s Real. Associated Press, December 9, 2004.
Sorry to Disappoint, but I’m Still an Atheist!. Antony Flew,
The Carnells on Crime
Wow, this has been an odd week in which both my wife and I have been contacted to talk as semi-experts on some well-publicized crimes.
First, the Washington Times called me for my thoughts about the Indian River fires in Maryland which bear all the hallmarks of eco-terrorism.
Now, local media is calling my wife for comments about a bizarre local criminal case that has all the hallmarks of a future made-for-TV movie. Police near here arrested a 30-something female teacher who had a sexual affair with an underage female student and, since that wasn’t sensational enough, she also “married” the student in a pagan ritual and practice witchcraft with her.
It’s like crime week on the Biography channel at my house.
Just How Backward Is Saudi Arabia?
Okay, there are sexist, misogynistic societies, and then there’s Saudi Arabia.
My wife and I got a hint of just how backward the country is many years ago when my wife gave driving lessons to several women from Saudi Arabia. Their families were scandalized enough to know that they were learning to drive, but this was compounded by the problem that they could not go to any commercial driving schools in the United States because they might have to interact with male instructors. So my wife made quite a bit of money teaching Saudi Arabian women to drive.
But you don’t realize just how far along the misogynistic scale that a society can still be until you read defenses of the system in Middle Eastern outlets, such as Arab News. Arab News’ Raid Qusti has an op-ed defending his view that efforts by Saudi women to vote are pointless and a waste of time,
We are not the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, or even Egypt. Our society is entirely different. Complete segregation of male and females in all aspects of our life is part of our culture, whether we like it or not.
The other factor we have to bear in mind is the conservative nature of Saudi Arabia. Saudi women do not appear in public, be it in the media or in public life. And when they participate in events it is segregated with women only allowed to attend. No cameras allowed.
Open all of our 11 Saudi dailies from cover to cover and you will not find a single photo of a Saudi woman. I believe that most Saudi females would not run for office, and restrictions from their families and social taboos would stop her from appearing before a camera and present her agenda. Getting a Saudi female to actually appear on television for a short interview and state her full name ? even if she has her face covered ? is an endless endeavor. Most would reject it. Both for personal reasons, because she does not want to appear in public, or for cultural reasons; that her husband or family would prevent her from doing so.
Social restrictions forbid women to appear in public. We, Saudi men, are not the ones who have come up with this culture. In fact, the majority of Saudi women want that. Whoever thinks that the majority of Saudi women want mixing and want to appear in the media or in the public eye is naïve or a fool, or both.
But it is what Quist has to say a couple paragraphs later that is most shocking (emphasis added),
I think Saudi women have more important things to concentrate on for the present. One of them is to insist their names be heard in public. Currently, the social norm is that uttering a female?s name in public is taboo. That is why all Saudi wedding cards that are distributed to male guests say, ?We would like to invite you to the marriage of the young man so and so to the daughter of so and so?. Her name is never mentioned. Her name being mentioned to men is a taboo.
This is a society that makes Medieval Europe look like “Herland”.
Source:
Why Women?s Voting Is Complicated. Raid Qusti, December 1, 2004.
Woman Who Impersonated Man Receives Suspended Sentence in Sexual Assault Case
For some reason Australia and New Zealand seem to produce a lot of bizarre cases like this. A woman who impersonated man and then carried on a sexual relationship with a minor received a suspended sentence recently despite being convicted of nine acts of sexually penetrating a child under 16 — which carried a potential jail term of 90 years according to the Herald Sun. And the kicker is that the judge cited “emotional distress” that the convicted sex offender might suffer as a reason for the light sentence.
The woman was 22, the girl was 15. The relationship lasted 2 and a half years, in which the minor apparently never realized that the “man” she was dating was, in fact, a woman. When police informed her of this, the girl had a restraining order taken out against the woman. According to the Herald Sun, “The nine charges related to one instance of oral sex and eight where a sex toy was involved.”
The woman was then convicted of all 9 charges, but was released on a suspended sentence and the Australian equivalent of parole. At sentencing, the judge noted that the woman consider herself to be a man and that serving time in a women’s prison would cause her “considerable emotional distress.”
As Australian victims rights advocate Noel McNamara put it in response to the sentence, “What about the victim’s considerable emotional distress?” McNamara urged prosecutors to appeal the sentence.
Source:
Woman posed as man to bed girl. Liam Houlihan, Herald Sun, December 1, 2004.
Wells College Students Sue to Prevent Admission of Men
Two students of women-only Wells College are suing the college to prevent it from admitting men until they graduate.
Freshman Lauren Searle-Lebel and sophomore Jennifer LeBarbera are suing the college claiming they enrolled in Wells College under the presumption that it would remain a woman’s college, and that by admitting men Wells College is breaching a contract it had with the women. They are seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent Wells College from admitting men until 2008.
The students’ lawyer, Peter Carmen, told the Associated Press,
We’re asking for very limited relief. We just watn the women who applied to, and were accepted, by a woman’s college to be able to graduate from a women’s college.
Ann Rollo, vice president for external relations for Wells College, told the Associated Press that the college was moving forward with plans to admit men,
It is the students’ choice to pursue legal actionbut we remain focused on moving forward. Students, faculty and staff are fully engaged to make this work.
Source:
Students sue Wells College to delay admission of men. Associated Press, November 30, 2004.
Students demand ban. Indiana Daily Students, December 1, 2004.