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Wednesday, June 16 2004

The Real Effects of Porn?

According to Naomi Wolf, the easy everyday availability of porn hasn't made the fears of Second Wave feminists come true:

"If we did not limit pornography, she [Andrea Dworkin] argued - before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility - most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow."

"Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer - or flirtatiously suggest - the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina - which, by the way, used to have a pretty high 'exchange value,' as Marxist economists would say - wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices."

Howard Dean

Howard Dean Looks Back:

"As this year opened, the nomination was his to lose, and lose it he did.
"Asked why, Dean quickly and almost dispassionately ticks off three reasons:
"'I think Kerry pulled himself together to do a good job in Iowa and he should be given credit for it,' he said. 'Secondly, we peaked too early, and gave everybody an opportunity to go after us. We knew that whoever won Iowa was going to win the whole thing and we just peaked too early, and there was not much we could do about it.
"'Third of all, because I started out from so far behind, we never really had the money, and then we didn't have the time, to build the kind of infrastructure you need to sustain you through a campaign the whole way.'"

"No single individual, other than Mr. Kerry's future running mate, may be more important to the success of the Democratic ticket against President Bush. After all the bitterness of last winter, a Dean ally jokes that the two 'blue-bloods have bonded.' In some respects they resemble two senior vice presidents, who vied for the same chief executive job and now find common interest in staying as a team -- not breaking apart."

Friday, June 11 2004

Things to Do in San Francisco Tonight

Tonight (June 11 2004) Bruce Sterling gives a lecture for the Long Now Foundation on The Singularity.

What is The Singularity? That point in human affairs/society/technological progress/time at which superhuman/transhuman beings arise, and beyond which we cannot predict what will happen, as their abilities/desires/etc. will be incomprehensible to us. Predicted by some to occur within the next 30 years (if ever). The constantly-accelerating pace of technological innovation and power is supposed to continue through a point at which we either create or become beings much smarter than any human of today (at which point they'll create or become beings smarter than themselves, etc., until several generations down the road, we'll be as likely to understand these beings as ants are likely to understand us).

A very short description of The Singularity, provided by the Long Now folks. A longer description, perhaps the best line of which is:

"Good [12] proposed a 'Meta-Golden Rule', which might be paraphrased as 'Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.' It's a wonderful, paradoxical idea (and most of my friends don't believe it) since the game-theoretic payoff is so hard to articulate. Yet if we were able to follow it, in some sense that might say something about the plausibility of such kindness in this universe.)"

Monday, June 7 2004

Black Unemployment

Alternet's got an article on the disproportionate effects of economic recessions on the black community.

"Unemployment for adult black workers rose by 2.9 percentage points in the recession of the early 1980s, but by 3.5 in the 2001 recession. White unemployment, in contrast, rose by only 1.4 percentage points in the early 1980s recession and by 1.7 in the recent downturn...
"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1968, 'When there is massive unemployment in the black community, it is called a social problem. But when there is massive unemployment in the white community, it is called a depression.'"

Art, Abu Ghraib, Assault, Aaron Peskin

San Francisco art gallery owner is assaulted, and her gallery defaced, when she displays a painting depicting "abuse" of Iraqi prisoners. San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin wants to hang the painting at City Hall to demonstrate that the city stands against those who would use intimidation to stop controversial artwork.

Microsoft Patents Double-Clicks on PDAs (sorta)

From New Scientist:

"Microsoft has successfully patented using short, long or double clicks to launch different applications on 'limited resource computing devices' - presumably PDAs and mobile phones. The US patent was granted on 27 April."

Getting Shot. With a Bullet.

Note to self: self, if you know someone's going to shoot you, figure out in advance what you're going to do once the bullet hits. Because usually, getting shot isn't going to stop you immediately.

Wednesday, June 2 2004

Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About

Well, not my girlfriend. Mil's girlfriend Margret:

"We're staying at a German friend's flat in Berlin and he brings out the photo album, as people do when conversational desperation has set in. It's largely pictures of a holiday he went on with Margret and a few friends several years previously. And consists pretty much entirely of shots of Margret naked."...
"She really over-reacts whenever she catches me wearing her underwear."...
"On the day that I had to leave for Sweden, Margret drove me to the city centre so that I could catch my train. She pulled up outside the station, and I jumped out and snatched my bags off the back seat.
'Bring me back something,' she called through the open window of the car.
'Like what?' I replied.
'Something typically Swedish.'
'What on earth... I mean, Sweden's famous for three things: herrings, suicide and pornography. What do you expect me to buy for you, exactly?'
'Well, not the pornography...' She waved a hand dismissively. 'I prefer to watch that here, on my own, at the theatre.'"...

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...