Accidental Blogger

Ignorance and inequality, hand-in-hand (Cyrus)

Some thoughts and stories about what is arguably the largest inequality remaining in the world: the sexual intimidation of women. This piece wasn't written specifically for International Women's Day, but the coincidence in timing is certainly appropriate.

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7:12.

Shit.

Her body released a milligram of adrenaline, enough to force her heart to pound uncomfortably and a chill to travel from her neck down to her little toes.

She looked up from her computer screen and stared at the police phone number, the direct line to local dispatch. Hopefully it didn't come to that. The operator wouldn't speak English.

The thought of him knocking at the door and her trying to eek out a few words in Italian released another few debilitating shots of whatever neurochemical was starting to poison her ability to reason.

Him. She didn't even know who he was. He had shown up at her door one week past with a hard knock, the thuds demanding entrance. His voice has soon backed up the demand in accented Italian.

"What?"

"Open the door." Flat, not openly angry, but you could imagine suppressed rage.

"Who are you?," her words were now flowing a little better.

"Open the door."

"No." She backed away, glancing around her room, looking for her mobile. She hasn't been completely shaken, not yet. But his next words would completely rattle her.

"Open the door."

Open the door. In Arabic. Who was this guy? Did he know she would understand, or was he just guessing from her appearance? Had he seen men enter her apartment, and now he was out to enforce his medieval conceptions of social order?

"Go away. I will not open the door," in Arabic now. She spotted the phone, half-hidden under her pillow.

He had gone away that time, but he had come back. Every couple days, the evening would roll around, and at 7:30 he would show up, apparently as pious about time as about religion. At least that was her working assumption, as his intentions remained unclear. Did he just assume she was some slut who was asking for it?

What was clear was her fear.

Hate comes to Orange County

Actually, this is not surprising at all, given the xenophobia and paranoia that have taken hold of the psyche of some Americans. I don't care which idiotic and exploitative political and religious leaders are fanning the flames, this is disgusting.

Update: The offensive video has been withdrawn due to copyright reasons.

Shahbaz Bhatti RIP

Shahbaz Bhatti, the only "minority" minister in the Pakistani cabinet, has been assassinated in Islamabad. Here is an interview in which he talks about the threat...a very brave man.

Razib has a comment about the inevitable "what would the prophet do" article, penned by Western Muslims who cannot be bothered to read the actual sources and rely for their history on well-meaning propagandists and orientalists like Karen Armstrong....

Lovers tiff, impending divorce or trial separation? (Omar Ali)

On the 27^th of January, while driving through Mozang (an extremely crowded section of Lahore city) in a rented Honda Civic, American citizen RaymondDavis shot two men who were riding a motorcycle.  Soon afterwards, another vehicle that was racing to (presumably) rescue Mr. Davis, ran over a third person and killed him too. These seem to be the only undisputed facts about the event.  Shortly afterwards, Pakistani TV channels showed one of the dead men with a revolver and an ammunition belt around his waist. It was also claimed that the two men were carrying several mobile phones and possible some other stolen items. But soon after the event, the story began to change. From a robbery attempt gone bad, it morphed into Mr. Davis assassinating two young men without obvious cause. Raymond’s own status was immediately in dispute and within a few days the network of websites that is thought to represent the views of Pakistan’s deep state were stating that Davis was a CIA agent, he was being tailed by the ISI and he had shot two ISI agents. They also claimed Davis was working with the “bad Taliban” to do bad things in Pakistan, while trying to spy on the “good Taliban” and other virtuous jihadist organizations like the LET.

Cairo in Madison

As usual, I am late in commenting on a hot topic on the blog which I had up on my Facebook page (under the same title) as soon as the news broke of thousands of protesting public sector employees taking to the streets in Madison, WI. In the FB comment I called Scott Walker, the newly elected Tea Party governor of Wisconsin a jackass. As more facts about the Wisconsin have emerged, I have found no reason to revise my opinion of the man. Here are a few things about Walker's actions that I found suspicious right off the bat.

• Wisconsin, like many other states is facing budgetary constraints. But when Walker took over, the state budget was projected to end with a surplus in the 2011 fiscal year.
• Walker proceeded to give tax cuts to businesses as one of his first acts as governor claiming that those taxes go to support the excessive benefits of state employees.
• He refused to negotiate benefits and pensions with public employees until they gave up their right to collective bargaining.
• Although most employees unions were targeted, Walker left out the unions of police, fire fighters and the state patrol (these particular unions tend to vote Republican) although these groups too are public workers.

I don't have much to add to the facts that have emerged since the news first broke. I will instead link to a couple of articles that have the details of the strike in Wisconsin and its ramifications for the rest of the country where similar measures are being considered by Republican governors. First, from the Christian Science Monitor:

No region of the country was more comprehensively recast by the 2010 elections than the seven states of the upper Midwest that arc from Minnesota to Ohio. Where before Democrats had held the upper hand, Republicans now have a virtual stranglehold on politics, controlling both houses of the legislature and the governors’ chairs in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

The full import of that switch has become apparent on the streets of Madison, Wis., this week. At least 25,000 union Wisconsin protesters amassed Friday morning in and around the Capitol to protest the governor’s plans. Earlier in the week, there had been as many as 40,000. Schools have been canceled, and one rally lasted a marathon 17 hours.

With the state's tea party activists set to counterprotest Saturday, the drama has set the scene for the streets of Madison to become a surrogate for the clash of broader forces that currently define American politics.

House Speaker John Boehner (R) has backed Governor Walker even as President Obama denounced the Wisconsin bill as an "assault on unions." The AFL-CIO, the country's largest union, vowed a national protest to support Wisconsin public employees.

One political scientist has gone so far as to compare the Wisconsin protests with what transpired in Cairo earlier this month.

Yet for the Midwest, the protests hint at a conflict that could extend well beyond this weekend and beyond Wisconsin. With state legislatures redrawing congressional and legislative district maps this year, Midwest Republicans have an opportunity to change the political landscape for years to come.

And here is Joshua Holland in Alternet explaining why Walker's plans amount to plain old union busting disguised as fiscal responsibility just as the Republican hero Ronald Reagan once did and thrilled his admiring fans. (Before Reagan became the president of the country, he twice served as the  president of the Screen Actors Guild, a trade union like any other, and which has expressed its support for the striking Wisconsin public employees)  

 

The Grammar Police (Sujatha)

Take this, you English-mangling, bumbling writers blending in your regional dialects, oddities of phrase and grammar in your writing. A pontificating pundit from The Hindu ('India's National Newspaper') laments the death of good English in Indian writing, and herself commits more than a few cardinal sins in the process.

Hot Flashes and Headlines (Sujatha)

Here we go again. The headline reads "Study Ties Hot Flashes to Lower Breast Cancer Risk". The article goes on to blabber thusly:

'Here's some good news for women ever bothered by hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms: Your risk for breast cancer may be reduced as much as 50 percent, researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle report.'

I imagine the next step would be 'Grin and bear it, it's all for the good.' to soothe the women asking for medication to alleviate the symptoms. I recall similar annoying headlines about the 'benefits of being a migraine sufferer is reduced breast cancer risk', when studies on that association were published a couple of years ago .

Invincible till pushed?...(omar)

Professor Razi Azmi has an op-ed in Pakistan's Daily Times today.  The situation described by Dr. Azmi highlights one of the major failures of Islamicate thought in the last millennium: their inability to evolve a political theory beyond hereditary kingship or rule by strongman.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Sujatha)

Amy Chua isn't really a Tiger Mom. She's a Hidden Dragon, to go by all that we can figure out from the plentiful blog posts  bashing her approach to parenting her kids- Being loving while yelling 'You're Garbage' at them for not practicing their music for 4 hours without squirming, not allowing sleepovers, no Drama of any kind (other than what Mommy likes to indulge in.).

"There are times when it is hard to live with you. It is not unusual for you to have an excessively high opinion of yourself. This can grate on the rest of us in those moments when it is obvious to us you are superficial and your behavior tactless. And, occasionally, you can be insensitive and offensive in your speech and mannerisms. This is normally not intended but probably a consequence of your being wrapped up in your own thoughts rather than paying attention to our needs. In spite of these tendencies, you are likely to also have a warm, giving personality overall. You can be very generous to your loved ones. Also, that wonderful Dragon dynamism and infectious optimism is likely to keep you in good stead even when your behavior is not the best."

In contrast, according to the Chinese symbology, a Tiger shows the following traits:

"Your kinder and gentler side also includes a genuine humanitarian streak. You are empathetic and keenly sense the emotions and feelings of others, to which you respond with compassion and a sincere desire to help when needed. You tend to be very affectionate towards family and friends and charitable to everyone, being especially touched by those most in need."

Or, one could go to the other extreme of permissive parenting, and deify the Mama Grizzly of the Palinesque variety as the ultimate role model in Motherhood. Let your kids run wild and loose, and hope that they can all become reality show stars who make money out of their penchant to make spectacles of themselves on live TV or the tabloids.

Or, one could simply be a Bad Mother, a la Ayelet Waldman, who takes umbrage at Amy's over-coddled kids and advocates another version of laissez-faire which teeters between overindulgence and overcontrol (she is admittedly bipolar).

"Quit the piano and the violin, especially if their defeatist attitude coincided with a recital, thus saving me from the torture of listening to other people's precious children soldier through hackneyed pieces of the juvenile repertoire, plink after ever more unbearable plonk.

Sleep over at their friends' houses, especially on New Year's Eve or our anniversary, thus saving us the cost of a babysitter."

or:

"I pointed at the remaining two grades, neither a solid A. Though there was not the "screaming, hair-tearing explosion" that Ms. Chua informs us would have greeted the daughter of a Chinese mother, I expressed my disappointment quite clearly. And though the word "garbage" was not uttered, either in the Hokkien dialect or in Yiddish, it was only because I feared my husband's opprobrium that I refrained from telling my daughter, when she collapsed in tears, that she was acting like an idiot."

Whatever be your style of parenting, you are glorified by the very term 'Mommy', and have full license to indulge in the parenting style of your choice, informed by your own life experiences.

Ave Mater Victoriosa, indeed!

 

More creative writing from Pakistan..(omar)

The recent murder of Salman Taseer and the subsequent glorification of his killer by some parties has set a few Pakistanis on the path to creative writing. A few days ago I posted a story from Ahmed Asif and today we have another Asif stepping up to the plate...may their tribe increase.

Meanwhile, yet another Asif has also taken up the topic. This one is a well known Pakistani "analyst", a retired army officer who is said to represent the views of the "deep state"....his humor may be un-intentional, but it is no less hilarious..

 

A rabbi and a mullah walk into a bar..(omar)

A rabbi discusses sperm donation..

A mullah discusses the art of wife beating…

Another Rabbi offers his opinion on women drivers..

And a pastor explains floods..

And a Pakistani peers into the future..

OK, the last one is a fantasy.

My point? Well, I have two.

1. That crazy is pretty much universal.

2. But the Middle East and Pakistan still win the race because in the “Islamic core” (Razib’s useful term), the crazy is mainstream. Its not unique, its just uniquely mainstream.

And yes, yes, I know this not the most important issue in the world.

PS: feel free to share nuggets of wisdom from your local Pandit or Monk.

 

A trip to Pakistan in 2022...(omar)

The following story was written by a friend (may be published online soon) and he agreed to share it like this.

 I dont take it as a prediction, but as an exercise in imagining what the logical consequences of certain trends could be...it wont actually happen because no trend continues in a straight line. Countervailing forces develop, the dialectic kicks in and the synthesis rarely looks like the thesis...

in any case,  if we project a different set of trends forward in time, then in the actual 2022 we may see Chinese businessmen protected by security guards pushing their way into a special "Chinese first" line at Lahore airport, while Imran Khan complains about the way Chinese interference is ruining our previously sane society (by then, Chinese drones will be bombing the tribal areas, so the Chinese will not be as well-loved as they are today).. 

 
 

Killer garlanded and showered with rose petals....(omar)

Lawyers (presumably supporters of Islamist parties) showered Mumtaz Qadri, self-confessed killer of Governor Salman Taseer, with rose petals on his first court appearance. He was also garlanded with a garland of roses.

This post can be read in conjunction with this one...the comments on the earlier post are also relevant.

 

A Thousand Year Writer's Block..(omar)

One Thousand Year Writer’s Block?

William Burroughs famously remarked that Islam had hit a one thousand year writer’s block. Is this assessment justified?  First things first: obviously we are not talking about all writing or all creative work. Thousands of talented writers have churned out countless works of literature, from the poems of Hafiz and Ghalib to the novels of Naguib Mahfooz and the fairy tales of innumerable anonymous (and amazing) talents . There is also no shortage of talent in other creative fields, e.g. I can just say  “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan” and be done with this discussion.  But what about the sciences of religion and political thought, or the views of biology, history and human society to which these are connected? Is there a writer’s block in these dimensions?

Blasphemy law, not being amended..(Omar)

I hate to say I told you so, but here it is..

And the reason is not that millions of Pakistanis turned out on the streets to protest (only 100 protesters at Zardari house in Karachi...one can get more than that in a protest about goat prices on Eid) but they were enough..

The ruling elite really has no alternative vision of the ideology of Pakistan. They may be personally irreligious and universally corrupt to the core, but at some level most of them believe the nation exists in the name of Islam and because:

1.They are, for the most part, ignorant louts

2. The army depends on the military-mullah alliance

and

3. Saudi Arabia supports (or used to support?) the barbarous faction of Islam.

therefore, Islam is whatever the Mullahs tell them it is. Until this particular version of Islam does its barbaric work in full and self-destructs, we are in for more of the same. And they have a long way to go. Many in Punjab and Sindh are still dancing at the shrines of saints and otherwise ignoring the wisdom of the Taliban and their supporters...their holy work still has a long way to go. 

 

"War on Christmas - Season 49, or thereabouts" (Sujatha)

Once the Thanksgiving turkey has been cleared off the table, it's not only the start of the perusal of Black Friday fliers, it's time for the restrategizing of the 'War on Christmas'.

Boroughs and municipalities all across the U.S. start putting up their carefully calibrated Holiday displays, trying to figure out the precise percentage to which they can introduce explicitly Christian imagery, and whether they need to balance it out with arguably 'secular' symbols like Santa Claus (wait, wasn't St.Nicholas supposed to be a Christian symbol, once upon a time?), reindeer, snowmen made of anything but snow, inflatable Grinches and such.

I Have Egg on My Face! (by Norman Costa)

I Have Egg on My Face!

by Norman Costa

No joke! I misread the text of an article which contained an image of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' painting, L'Odalisque à l'esclave. The article referred to a gift made to John Kenneth Galbraith by the country of India. The generous gift was bestowed upon Galbraith, father of James K. Galbraith, after his service as U.S. Ambassador to India. 

The gift was a collection of 18th century minatures.  I assumed, mistakenly, that the gift included L'Odalisque à l'esclave.

I am sorry for the mistake and diverting your mental energies to solving an unsolvable puzzle. In small recompense, I am including a link to a very good quality high resolution image of the painting. The image is in the public domain, so click HERE to call up the Hi-Res file and save it to your computer.

 

See more information on Ingres' fascination with the Odalisque throughout many years of his career, below.

Odalisque and Slave

This drawing represents the artist's return to his famous Odalisque and Slave canvas of 1839 and to an 1842 work with a landscape background. The choice of subject points up Ingres's interest in Orientalism, already visible in his Grande Odalisque and at its apogee in the famous Turkish Bath of 1862, now in the Louvre.
       
Exoticism and a taste for detail

Here Ingres portrays a languorous odalisque in a harem, listening to the music of a slave girl. The young woman complacently adopts one of the languid poses familiar in Ingres's work, her body undulating in a near-musical way, as if she were dancing in a reclining position. The details - crown, fan, nargileh - are treated with a quasi-hyperrealist precision. The enclosed space gives rise to an ambiguous relationship between the two women, and the presence of the black eunuch in the background heightens the claustrophobic atmosphere.

Many years later

As he so often did, Ingres returns in this drawing to an earlier painting: an odalisque commissioned by his friend Charles Marcotte (1773-1864) - Marcotte d'Argenteuil, as he was known - and now in the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The painting dates from 1839, when Ingres was director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome. In 1842 he painted a second version, with a background of a garden and an Oriental niche (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). The woman's pose, however, comes from the much earlier Sleeping Woman, painted in 1814 and now lost.

The triumph of Orientalism

Artists' growing fondness for trips to the Orient, the influence of travel books, and the taste for the exotic were the main contributing factors to the rise and enduring popularity of Orientalism in European painting in the 19th century. But unlike Delacroix, for example, Ingres never went East, drawing on engravings and Persian miniatures to make his décors as exotic as possible. Here the oriental atmosphere owes less to the use of color than to the voluptuous arabesques. At one point, Ingres considered titling this work Sultana Resting.

Documentation    

- PRAT Louis-Antoine, Ingres, Paris, Milan, 5 Continents éditions, 2004, n 48.

SOURCE

 

Now, fake wikileaks...(Omar)

This was bound to happen.Major Pakistani newspapers have been duped (or "made an offer they could not refuse") into printing headline stories based on false wikileaks cables that are extremely unflattering to India.  And I am not surprised that the finest intelligence agency in the world was first with this new form of communication. btw, the pro-PPP website LUBP has investigated some of the operations used to disseminate intelligence agency propaganda and their expose is worth a read too.. 

http://cafepyala.blogspot.com/2010/12/leaking-away.html

Pre-emptive Strikes

An interesting fallout of the 2010 campaign of fear - Oklahoma voters have banned the Sharia law! This is more along the line of inoculation than an actual ban because Sharia is not law in Oklahoma or any other US state.

The central US state of Oklahoma is to become the first state in the US to ban Islamic sharia law. That's the result of a voter initiative in the state that passed by a heavy majority in the midterm election on Tuesday night. State Question 755 amends the Oklahoma constitution to forbid courts in Oklahoma from considering sharia law or international law in reaching their decisions.

With more than 60% of precincts counted, more than 70% of voters had approved the measure, according to the Secretary of State's website.

The measure was proposed by Republican State Representative Rex Duncan, who said he was inspired to propose the constitutional amendment even though there have been no cases in Oklahoma in which judges had relied on international or sharia law.

"I would describe this as a pre-emptive strike," he said. "We don't want to let it get a toe-hold."

Local Muslims said it was an example of anti-Muslim bigotry.

"There's no threat of sharia law coming to Oklahoma and America, period," Saad Mohammed of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City said. "It's just a scare tactic."

A chief architect of another unnecessary pre-emptive strike is now indulging in a bit of revisionist legacy building.

"Looking" like a Muslim in America

Here is a series of links to stories in the news recently. Americans are afraid of people who "look" like Muslims and even more afraid of "looking" like a Muslim.

Obama avoids visiting Sikh Temple in India for fear of looking like a Muslim.

Juan Williams gets fired by NPR for saying, "people in Muslim garb on airplanes make him 'nervous'." 

Two views of the Williams firing - for and against.

A pictorial guide of what a Muslim may or may not be seen wearing.

PS: Am attaching a photo of a Sikh man with a sense of humor after 9 / 11.

 
 


 

The All American Classic Look : Obviously, No Corn-rows.

Abercombie & Fitch, the upscale clothing retailer has long  been suspected of discriminatory hiring practices as also, criticized for marketing what many consider tasteless t-shirts. (The Chinese laundry logo, "Two Wongs Can Make It White," is priceless; I wonder how many high fives were exchanged after this particular witticism was coined.) Given the image of the store, it is not surprising that an African American employee lost his job for wearing his hair in corn-rows. It is also unsurprising that the dismissed employee sued on the basis of racial discrimination. Here is the press release of the case.

Race Discrimination Case Against Abercrombie and Fitch Heads
Toward Trial: African-American Man Was Fired in 2007 for His
So-Called “Extreme” Hairstyle

 
A federal race discrimination lawsuit filed against Abercrombie and Fitch by an African-American man who was fired for his hairstyle is gearing up for trial. Abdul Jabbar Gbajiamilla filed his case after he was fired in 2007 from a San Diego store for wearing his hair
in corn-rows. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in May 2010, by civil rights attorneys Lisa Holder and Sanjukta Paul of Los Angeles, has cleared initial procedural hurdles and is now on the path toward trial.

The company did not contend that Gbajiamilla suffered from performance problems or that there was any other reason for his termination. Instead, Abercrombie has expressly stated that corn-rows violate the company’s grooming policy, which requires employees to sport a “clean, natural, and classic” hairstyle. Abercrombie’s Director of Human Resources testified in a related proceeding that corn-rows do not fit this definition because they are “extreme” and “uncommon.”

Plaintiff Gbajiamilla commented, “I brought this lawsuit because I believe the United States has come too far in regards to racial tolerance to now retreat. I should not be forced to conceal or tone down my God-given identity as a black person. There is nothing ‘extreme’ about being black.”

The lawsuit is the latest allegation of racial discrimination against the national retailer, which is already subject to a federal consent decree that requires it to take steps to prevent discrimination against nonwhite employees and to promote racial and cultural diversity. That suit, filed by a panoply of civil rights groups, settled in 2005.

Gbajiamilla is the son of Nigerian immigrants and grew up in Southern California. He had styled his hair in corn-rows for his college graduation ceremony from San Diego State University.

The lawsuit is brought under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act. It alleges that under Abercrombie's grooming policy, which mandates that employees sport a "clean, natural, and classic" hairstyle, African-American employees are required to wear hairstyles which are intended to conceal the distinctive texture of their hair. For example, African-American men are required to wear a closely cropped haircut, such that the texture of their hair is not visible at all. Other men, with "straight or loosely curled" hair, are permitted to wear their hair in a vast array of hairstyles and in varying lengths.

Perhaps the dismissal of Gbajiamilla for allegedly sporting an "extreme" hairdo and the image of Abercombie & Fitch can be better understood when you examine the man behind the store's "classic" look. 

(One of the two civil rights attorneys working on the case is my daughter Sanjukta Paul. You can listen to an interview with the lawyers, Lisa Holder and Sanjukta on KPFK radio, San Diego. (you have to wait a bit for the interview to begin). Here is a report in the L.A. Weekly which leaves nothing to the imagination by beginning the article by invoking Hitlerian aesthetics right off the bat.)

How far from Ground Zero do you have to go to build a mosque?

Really, really far, it seems.

"Law & Order," Stanley Fish doesn't like you !

Another one of Stanley Fish's superior sounding fatuous essays appeared in the NYT's Opinionator blog. It is Law & Order he is criticizing this time. And why?  For having a "law and order" agenda and for being unkind to the rich and the exceptional. Heck, the characters that Jack McCoy and his band of justice seekers go after are scoff-laws. Whether rich or poor, smart or dim, brilliantly succesful or abject failures, they are in the show because they broke the law. So, naturally Law & Order doesn't like them. Duh. For Stanley Fish to make the show into a leftist commentary against successful, brilliant people reflects Fish's own snit against the "heartless, by-the-law" liberal society. Amidst the smog of his own superiority, Fish fails to appreciate that the wonderful TV crime series was often against the unjust sense of entitlement of many wealthy  and successful criminals and not against wealth and success per se. And unlike many other shows, and as in real life, justice was not always served.

‘Law & Order’ Probably Doesn’t Like You

By STANLEY FISH

Nothing personal. But now that Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order” has called it a day — or rather a 20-year run — it is time to notice what may be its most remarkable feature; not the brilliant formula that offers both the comfort of predictability and the promise of constant surprise (an episode almost never ends up where it seems to be going at the beginning), not the ability of the show to survive major cast changes without missing a beat, not the considerable accomplishment of making the arcane vocabulary of the law ( “fruit of the poisoned tree,” “asked and answered,” “prejudicial,” “allocute,” “goes to relevance”) as familiar to TV viewers as the jargon of sports, but the extraordinarily long list of professions, classes and category of persons it doesn’t like.

Begin with rich people. “Law & Order” hates rich people; they are arrogant, they are condescending, they consume conspicuously, and, worst of all, they believe they are above the law. In one episode, the head of a foundation is informed of a $400,000 problem. She retorts, “$400, 000 is less than I spend on sweatpants.” In another episode (“Venom”), a 64-year old woman who is bent on protecting her 27-year old husband says to one of the district attorneys: “You have no idea of what a woman in my position can do.” Actually they have a very good idea. Time and again wealthy people manipulate the system by getting well connected friends to intervene in cases or by hiring high-priced lawyers who know how to put up procedural roadblocks forever. ... (blah, blah and more blah!)

.....From episode to episode “Law & Order” is engaged in a staying action against the forces that threaten its ideals, forces that live and have their being in the walks of life that afford the time and the resources to pursue nefarious, self-serving, agendas. The only way to be O.K. in Dick Wolf’s world is to have a job that is steady but doesn’t pay very much, to drive a five year old car you’re still paying off, to live in a small house with a large mortgage, to have an education that helps you get by but doesn’t give you any fancy ideas, to attend a house of worship that is the center of your social life, and to have almost no leisure time. Unless you fit that profile, “Law & Order” probably doesn’t like you.

Oh dear! Fish managed to be passive-aggressive and a noodge in the same breath!

Comic Relief (Sujatha)

Some relief from the 'Hollow and vapid charade' that Kagan once considered the proceeds of a Supreme Court justice confirmation hearing, I presume.

HSD, FSD, "Honey, I Have A Headache" : More malarkey from drug companies

I hope the FDA stops this drug approval process in its tracks. The birth control pill was something women needed. This one they don't. Making up a malady where one does not exist, is the game the pharmaceutical companies like to play. But will the FDA go along?  Will women?

Ever since Viagra met blockbuster success in 1998, the drug industry has sought a similar pill for women.

Now, a German drug giant says it has stumbled upon such a pill and is trying to persuade the Food and Drug Administration that its drug can help restore a depressed female sex drive. The effort has set off a debate over what constitutes a normal range of sexual desire among women, with critics saying the company is trying to turn a low libido into a medical pathology. ...

There is no dispute that some women have a depressed level of sexual desire that causes them anguish. Boehringer cites a condition — hypoactive sexual desire disorder — that is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a reference book for psychiatrists and insurers.

But many experts say that unlike sexual dysfunction in men — which has an obvious physical component — sexual problems in women are much harder to diagnose. And among doctors and researchers, there is serious medical debate over whether female sexual problems are treatable with drugs. Some doctors advocate psychotherapy or counseling, while others have prescribed hormonal drugs approved for other uses.

There is also debate over how widespread hypoactive sexual desire disorder actually is among women. The medical literature, including articles in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, indicate numbers above 10 percent, but such studies have been financed by drug companies.

Critics say Boehringer’s market campaign exaggerates the prevalence of the condition and could create anxiety among women, making them think they have a condition that requires medical treatment.

“This is really a classic case of disease branding,” said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s medical school who researches drug marketing and has studied the campaign. “The messages are aimed at medicalizing normal conditions, and also preying on the insecurity of both the clinician and the patient.”