Legislating the Marriage Market in China

Tue Oct 30, 9:10 AM

BEIJING (Reuters) - A northern Chinese city has banned the use of "seductive" words like "foxy lady," "handsome guy" and "moneybags" in marriage advertisements in a bid to stamp out fraud, domestic media reported Tuesday.

Many Chinese people still go to marriage brokers to arrange suitable life partners for their children, and often turn to adverts carried in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet.

But after a series of complaints from people who said they had been cheated -- although how was not explained -- Henan provincial capital Zhengzhou is reining in the industry, the Beijing News said.

From November 1, marriage brokers will need to have the content of their adverts approved by the city government and risk being banned for life if they snub the new rules, it added.

Promises to arrange marriages to foreigners are also banned, as are marriage adverts dressed up as solicitations to simply find friends or travel partners, the report said.

The Mystery of Mass Suicide

Mon Oct 29, 8:52 AM

TEHRAN (AFP) - The mysterious "mass suicide" of 152 dolphins washed up on Iran's coast over the past month has alarmed environmentalists, with the blame pointed at regional fishing practices, officials said on Monday.

In September, 79 striped dolphins were found washed up near Jask port in southern Iran, and last week another 73 were found dead in the same area.

Pictures of rows of the corpses have been widely featured in Iranian newspapers, which said the dolphins had "committed suicide" -- behaviour the animals have occasionally exhibited in the wild.

"The suicide of dolphins on Jask's coast continues," Iran's state run-newspaper wrote on Saturday. "Locals tried to put the animals back in the water but they refused to return."

Concern over the deaths of these highly intelligent mammals prompted Iran's environmental protection authorities to show reporters the cut and bruised corpse of a dolphin to explain the "suicides".

Mohammad Baqer Nabavi, deputy head of Iran's environmental protection organisation in charge of marine biology, said the most likely explanation was that the dolphins drowned after becoming entangled in fishing nets.

"We are basing our hypothesis for the suicide on fishing -- either nets left at the bottom of the Persian Gulf or the big fishing nets that ships spread to catch different kinds of fish," Nabavi said.

"As you know, they are marine animals but they need to come up to surface and breathe."

It was unlikely that the deaths were caused by pollution, with no traces found in the tissue of the dolphins examined a month ago, he said.

"We did not spot any kind of pollution in their digestive system that could have been caused from eating poisoned fish, and we also have not spotted any viruses or parasites," he said.

Striped dolphins are normally found in temperate and tropical waters.

Tooth Tunes

The Scatology of Shopping

Pornoproletarians II

Grumpy Aussie miners get sex lessons

Fri Oct 26, 12:54 AM

SYDNEY (AFP) - Grumpy Australian coal miners are getting lessons on "exploring their wives" to revive their sex lives and boost production at work.

Men working at the Bulga mine near Sydney attend classes on issues such as menopause and foreplay because, a manager told the Sydney Morning Herald, a miner not having sex at home "can get mighty grumpy at work".

Nurse Tammy Farrell said the mostly middle-aged miners sniggered when she mentioned extra-virgin olive oil in a nutrition talk but became "very serious" when the subject turned to cranky menopausal wives rejecting their advances.

"There was no laughter then, just a lot of interest," she was quoted as saying on the Herald's website Friday.

"I told them that they needed to start exploring their wives like they did when they were 18 and they were all extremely attentive.

"And they snapped up all the flyers left out after the talk so we've obviously got some cranky men with cranky wives out there who want some help," Farrell said.

The Xstrata mining company's communications manager James Rickards said the classes had been successful because the men were keen to learn about the changes associated with menopause and why their sex lives might be suffering.

Pornoproletarians

Prostitutes sew lips together in protest

Thu Oct 25, 9:51 AM

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Prostitutes in the Bolivian city of El Alto sewed their lips together Wednesday as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after violent protests by residents last week.

"We are fighting for the right to work and for our families' survival," Lily Cortez, leader of the El Alto Association of Nighttime Workers, told local television.

"Tomorrow we will bury ourselves alive if we are not immediately heard. The mayor will have his conscience to answer to if there are any grave consequences, such as the death of my comrades," she said, surrounded by about 10 prostitutes who had sewn their lips together with thread.

Some 30 other women were shown fasting inside a medical clinic nearby.

Mayor Fanor Nava told local radio he would not reopen the brothels and bars closed after city residents fed up with underage drinking and crime stormed the red-light district in El Alto, an impoverished city just north of La Paz.

Prostitution in Bolivia is legal but pimping is outlawed.

Student activists who want the bars and brothels permanently shut down were also on a hunger strike, along with the leaders of an association representing bars, restaurants and karaoke establishments.

"It's not only us owners and the sex workers who are affected, there are thousands of waiters, cooks, bartenders, taxi drivers and street vendors who will be without income," said Ramiro Orellana, spokesman for the business group.

El Alto is one of the largest urban areas in Bolivia, with nearly 1 million inhabitants, mostly Aymara and Quechua Indians.

Cosmos and Pornografia By Witold Gombrowicz

Killing Without Violence

Wed Oct 24, 11:29 AM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said Wednesday he wanted to consider more 'tranquil' methods of execution.
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Japan generally executes several convicts a year, always by hanging.

"I am fully aware that 'death by hanging' is written in the criminal code," Hatoyama said after a parliamentary committee meeting, Kyodo news agency said.

"A square part of the floor opens up and they fall with a thud," he said. "I honestly wonder if there isn't a more tranquil way of doing this," Kyodo quoted him as adding.

It was not clear what other methods he was considering.

Lethal injection has hit problems in the United States, where the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether administering the commonly used three-chemical cocktail violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

All but one of the 38 U.S. states with the death penalty and the federal government use lethal injection, which has come under scrutiny after botched executions in California and Florida in which the condemned took over 30 minutes to die.

Electrocution was introduced in New York in 1888 as a more humane method of execution than hanging, but there have been instances of inmates catching fire, multiple jolts being needed to kill and bones being broken by convulsing limbs.

Hatoyama came under fire in September for suggesting those sentenced to death should be executed automatically, without having the penalty approved by the justice minister as is current practice.

He said Wednesday he would like to hear the opinions of those opposed to the death penalty. Opinion polls show most Japanese back capital punishment.

The Shifting Institutionalization of Pederasty

Sexual misconduct plagues US schools: AP finds more than 2,500 teachers punished in 5 years

Sun Oct 21, 5:29 AM

UNDATED - The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.

That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.

When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 - 40 years after that first little girl came forward - it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.

Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.

Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.

An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.

There are three million public school teachers in the U.S., most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators - nearly three for every school day - speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.

And no one - not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments - has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.

Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offences by educators - the very definition of breach of trust.

The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 per cent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.

Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.

"From my own experience - this could get me in trouble - I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."

One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.

Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wonders why there isn't more outrage.

"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from Lindsey - and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally revoked.

Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview.

Actions taken against teachers vary from state to state, but the AP found the number of state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a high of 649 in 2005. More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and a lack of co-ordination among districts and states.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to act.

And the U.S. National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies. The unco-ordinated system that's developed means some teachers still fall through the cracks and move on to other teaching jobs.

And...

Verbal abuse from teachers linked to risk of early sexual intercourse: study
By Andy Blatchford, THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - Children, especially girls, may be more likely to have sex before the age of 14 if they have been verbally abused by teachers, a new study suggests.

The study, which followed 312 children from kindergarten to age 23 in a rural Quebec town, also draws a link between peer rejection and girls engaging in early sexual intercourse.

"The girls seem to suffer more from these negative social experiences," said Mara Brendgen, the study's lead author.

"Girls, generally, are a bit more oriented towards social relationships and suffer more if these social relationships go sour."

Researchers found children at elementary school who were shouted at, harshly criticized or embarrassed by teachers in the classroom had an increased risk of early sexual intercourse.

These students often disengaged from normal expectations and many turned to generalized delinquency, said Brendgen, a psychology professor at the Universite du Quebec in Montreal.

"(Often) it's the same children who are delinquent, who take drugs who also engage in risky sexual behaviour," she said.

Sexually active girls under 14 are more at risk of having multiple partners, which increases their chance of contracting a sexually transmitted disease or becoming pregnant, she added.

The study, published last week in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health, also suggests that students who were criticized or laughed at by peers developed a lower self esteem.

Brendgen said some girls used sexual intercourse to give their battered self esteem a lift.

"Basically, it's a similar experience that they have from the teachers as they have from peers, in the sense that they are really publicly humiliated and exposed," she said.

Meanwhile, it's the disruptive students who were most frequently targeted, she added.

"It's not random," Brendgen said. "These children have certain behavioural characteristics that may provoke either their peers or the teachers into negative behaviour."

Brendgen estimates between 10 and 15 per cent of children are regularly abused by teachers, while the same percentage are rejected by peers.

Neil Guilding, a co-ordinator at Head and Hands, a Montreal youth-assistance centre, said many adolescents complain about being singled out by their teachers.

"There are definitely situations where certain youths are being picked on all the time," he said.

Guilding believes rejection by teachers and classmates can increase the chance of drug use and criminal activity down the road.

"I think school can be a very lonely and scary place," said Guilding, who runs the centre's drop-in program.

Brendgen, meanwhile, said teacher training should highlight the potential consequences of negative behaviour toward students.

"Teachers need to have a lot more training, but also a lot more support in dealing with problem children," she said.

"On the side of the children, it is also important to maybe think about targeted interventions to help them develop positive relationships with their teachers and with their classmates."

The study, which began assessing children in 1986, was funded by grants from the federal and Quebec governments.

And this...

Mon Oct 22, 3:15 PM

OTTAWA (AFP) - Shorter men are more likely to be sexually attracted to children than their taller peers, according to a new Canadian study of the biological roots of pedophilia.

This is likely the result of exposure to "pre-birth conditions" that affected pedophiles' physical development, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health reported in "Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment."

"This research does not mean that pedophiles are not criminally responsible for their behavior," said lead researcher James Cantor.

"But the discovery of biological markers for pedophilia has important implications for future study and possibly treatment."

By analyzing the files of over 1,000 men who were assessed for pedophilia or other sexual disorders in Toronto between 1995 and 2006, researchers observed that pedophilic males were two centimeters (0.8 inches) shorter on average than males who were not sexually attracted to children.

This height difference is a trait found in other illnesses with biological links, similar in scope to the shorter height associated with schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease, the researchers said.

The same scientific team previously found that pedophiles "have lower IQs, are three times more likely to be left-handed, failed school grades significantly more frequently, and suffered more head injuries as children."

“I Was Colonel Schultz’s Private Bitch”

Israeli produced Nazi exploitation in the sixties. Read about it here and here.

Panty Provocation

Women sending panties to Myanmar embassies in protest of military crackdown

2 hours, 47 minutes ago

By The Associated Press

BANGKOK, Thailand - Women in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies in a culturally insulting gesture of protest against the recent brutal crackdown there, a campaign supporter said Friday.

"It's an extremely strong message in Burmese and in all Southeast Asian culture," said Liz Hilton, who supports an activist group that launched the "Panties for Peace" drive earlier this week.

The group, Lanna Action for Burma, says the country's superstitious generals, especially junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, also believe that contact with women's underwear saps them of power.

To widespread international condemnation, the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, crushed mass anti-regime demonstrations recently and continues to hunt down and imprison those who took part.

Hilton said women in Thailand, Australia, Singapore, England and other European countries have started sending or delivering their underwear to Myanmar missions following informal coordination among activist organizations and individuals.

"You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often!" the Lanna Action for Burma Web site urges.

"So far we have had no response from Burmese officials," Hilton said.

The Obesogenic Environment

Society adds pressure to be obese: report

Wed Oct 17, 12:17 PM

LONDON (AFP) - Individuals cannot take all the blame if they are obese -- modern society adds pressure to put on weight, a report said Wednesday.

The study by British government think-tank Foresight called for greater help to counter the "'obesogenic' environment" by designing towns and cities to promote walking and cycling and encouraging people to buy healthier food.

But it could take 30 years to tackle the problem, it said. Obesity rates have more than doubled in Britain in the last 25 years -- in 2004, nearly a quarter of men and women in England were obese.

"There is compelling evidence that humans are predisposed to put on weight by their biology," the report said.

"Although personal responsibility plays a crucial part in weight gain, human biology is being overwhelmed by the effects of today's 'obesogenic' environment, with its abundance of energy-dense food, motorised transport and sedentary lifestyles.

"As a result, the people of the UK are inexorably becoming heavier simply by living in the Britain of today."

Some experts said the report confirmed what the government had known for years and accused it of failing to act.

Peter Hollins, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said it was "hardly a wake-up call".

"Reports like this, which should have had alarm bells ringing... long ago, have been met only by repeated pushes of the government's snooze button," he said.

Britain on Monday launched a campaign for greater participation in sports at school to combat the looming obesity crisis, which Health Secretary Alan Johnson was was potentially on the scale of climate change.

Government-commissioned research suggested half of all Britons will be obese in 25 years if current trends are not halted; furthermore, 86 percent of men will be overweight in 15 years and 70 percent of women in 20, it suggested.

Efficient Obscenity

Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale: research

Wed Oct 17, 8:58 AM

LONDON (AFP) - Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.

They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.

The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.

"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," said Baruch, who works in the university's business school in Norwich.

Banning swear words and reprimanding staff might represent strong leadership, but could remove key links between staff and impact on morale and motivation, he said.

"We hope that this study will serve not only to acknowledge the part that swearing plays in our work and our lives, but also to indicate that leaders sometimes need to 'think differently' and be open to intriguing ideas.

"Managers need to understand how their staff feel about swearing. The challenge is to master the 'art' of knowing when to turn a blind eye to communication that does not meet their own standards."

The study, "Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: when anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable", is published in the latest issue of the Leadership and Organisational Development Journal.

Oeconomy of Graves

As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch

By Jay Price and Qasim Zein, McClatchy NewspapersTue Oct 16, 2:40 PM ET

NAJAF, Iraq — At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .

"I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead," said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. "People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don't talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more."

Dhurgham Majed al Malik, 48, whose family has arranged burial services for generations, said that this spring, private cars and taxis with caskets lashed to their roofs arrived at a rate of 6,500 a month. Now it's 4,000 or less, he said.

Malik said that the daily tide of cars bearing coffins has been a barometer of Iraq's violence for years. The number of burials rose and fell several times during Saddam Hussein's persecution of Shiites, and it soared again during the eight years of the Iran - Iraq war in the 1980s.

Then in the 1990s, the daily average fell to 150 or less, Malik said. With the current war, the burials again reached 300 daily.

In the early days of the war, some bodies brought for burial had been victims of Saddam, found by their families in unmarked mass graves. Later, there were surges; September 2005 marked a high point after a stampede during a Shiite Muslim festival killed hundreds on a Baghdad bridge. More than 1,300 were buried in a single day, Malik said.

The cemetery workers aren't immune to violence. In 2004, militia fighters loyal to the anti-American militant cleric Muqtada al Sadr and coalition forces fought in the cemetery, and burial operations had to stop.

Afterward, many cemetery workers were killed or injured by bombs left behind. Their work remained hazardous until U.S. and Iraqi military teams cleared the explosives, Malik said.

Najaf, a city of about 600,000 people, is built around the gold-covered Imam Ali Mosque, a shrine to one of the most revered figures in Shiite Islam who grew up in the home of the prophet Muhammad and later became his son-in-law.

The city, with the shrine and graveyard, is considered the third-most important holy site for Shiite Muslims, after Mecca and Medina. It attracts millions of pilgrims each year— and tens of thousands of funeral parties.

The Wadi al Salam cemetery— its name translates as "Valley of Peace"— dates to the 7th century. Its mud-brown jumble of crypts and rectangular and domed brick and marble tombs stretches to the horizon. It's six miles long, two miles wide and grows by acres every day.

Imam Ali himself is said to have pronounced it the entrance to paradise. And so the Shiites come with their dead.

The burials aren't expensive, usually $200 or less, but many people draw their income from them.

When a family arrives— after going through the indignity of having the coffin searched repeatedly for explosives— the body is taken to be washed at one of five family-owned businesses. Female bodies are washed by teams of women. Men wash the male bodies.

The bodies are then carefully wrapped in white cotton shrouds, made in factories in Najaf that also export them. Then the bodies can be taken to the tomb of Imam Ali for a ceremony that includes circling the imam's tomb.

After prayers, the coffin is borne to the gravesite. There, professional preachers are paid to recite verses from the Quran. The family and the gravedigger remove the body from the coffin and ease it into the grave, placing the head in a niche dug at the end of the grave that faces Mecca .

After the burial, there is another prayer, then workers build a tomb over the grave.

The sights and smells of working with the bodies, particularly those torn by war, are hardly pleasant, but it becomes a mundane job like any other, said Jawad Abuseba, 40.

His family has dug graves for more than 300 years, he said. His hands are thick with calluses after 22 years of digging with a shovel, basket and pickaxe. With their nails torn and their skin gray, his hands look as though they're dead, too.

"There is nothing beautiful in this career, but I cannot do any another job," Abuseba said.

Shiites feel so strongly about being buried here that when it's too dangerous to travel, families have buried their loved ones elsewhere temporarily, then disinterred them for reburial here.

Even with less violence, many of those buried here are victims of the war, and the tragedy of each loss offers a counterpoint to workers' worries about money.

On a recent day, after the ritual washing, four male relatives carried a coffin containing the scorched and torn body of Mohammed Hazim , 33. Three women trailed, weeping.

Hazim, a member of the radical Mahdi Army militia, had been killed in a U.S. attack in Diyala province, his brother, Ali, said.

"Death to infidel America and the agent Iraqi government," the family chanted again and again.

At the shrine, security guards stopped the procession to check the coffin for explosives before allowing the men to take it inside. Later, at the grave, the men cried and the three women fell to their knees shrieking and flinging fistfuls of sand into their hair, a gesture of extreme grief.

"We Iraqis are full with sadness and tragedies now," Ali Hazim said. "I swear by the name of Allah that each house bears some weight of sadness and of tragedy, and this is the reality of Iraqis now."

For the laborers in the Valley of Peace, it was just another workday, one they faced with a matter-of-fact attitude unnerving to those who deal with death less frequently.

"Certainly, when the number of dead increases I feel happy, like all workers in the graveyard," said Basim Hameed , 30, a body washer. "This happiness comes from the increase in the amount of money we have."

Death is something everyone must face, he noted. "My job demands death, and this is our fate, all of us."

(Price reports for The (Raleigh) News & Observer . Zein is a McClatchy special correspondent. McClatchy special correspondents Janab Hussein , Hussein Kadhim and Sahar Issa contributed to this story.)

Sex in Canada

Sex party lawsuit against Canada Post goes to Federal Court

Sun Oct 14, 1:22 PM

By Camille Bains, The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER - The Sex party will face off against Canada Post on Monday as legal arguments begin in Federal Court over a pamphlet that was refused delivery because it contained a photo of a penis sculpture and a painting that suggested two people having sex.

The Sex party, registered as a political party in B.C., tried to have its pamphlet mass-delivered during the 2006 federal election campaign but Canada Post rejected the material, saying it was offensive.

A section under the post office's Unaddressed Admail Customer Service Guide prohibits delivery of "offensive articles that contain sexually explicit material."

John Ince, head of the party that is in the process of becoming registered federally, said Canada Post used vague guidelines to censor a legitimate form of political expression.

He said the case revolves around why Canada Post rejected the pamphlet but had no problem with a religious tract from an Ontario organization that suggested AIDS is a consequence of the sin of homosexuality.

Mail carriers in Vancouver refused to distribute the material, calling it hate mail.

In a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Canada Post president Moya Greene has said she found the homophobic pamphlet "vile" but that the post office can't take on the role of censoring free speech in Canada.

Ince, a former lawyer and self-professed sex-positive activist, will argue the Sex party's case during the three-day hearing based on a violation of free speech under the Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"The only rational explanation for the policy is some sort of superstition that sexual information is dangerous," he said, accusing Canada Post of being an erotophobic and primitive institution that's prejudiced against sexuality.

"We see that as fairly entrenched still, the same way that segregation was 50 years ago in the States or laws against women owning property in Canada," he said.

"The only harm they can identify is that some children could be embarrassed by this," he said of the pamphlet.

Canada Post is using the expert opinion of child psychologist Michael Elterman, who says in an affidavit that "some children, mainly in the eight-to 12-year-old group, are likely to react with embarrassment, anxiety, and/or guilt to the graphics contained in the pamphlet."

Elterman also suggests that information about sex in the pamphlet is likely inappropriate for children.

In a statement of facts, Ince argues against Canada Post's suggestion that it would deliver the pamphlet if it's in an envelope marked "adult material" or a similar warning.

"Nothing in the material purports to be aimed exclusively at adults," he said. "The same way any other political party seeks to encourage support from people of all ages, so does the applicant. It wants young people to have access to such material if they are interested."

He said that if the government forced mainstream parties such as the Liberals or Conservatives to enclose their material in special packaging marked with warnings and didn't impose the same requirements for any other party, such action would be considered highly improper intervention by the state.

"The Sex party seeks no more than the same privileges granted any other political expression."

The single-issue party was formed in 2005 and ran three candidates in the last provincial election.

As part of its platform, the party is calling for legislation requiring more designated areas for nudists.

Clash of Eugenic Regimes

Child preachers claim Indonesian airwaves

by Presi MandariThu Oct 4, 3:48 AM ET

Dressed in traditional Muslim garb and cuddling her Winnie the Pooh doll as she takes to the stage, six-year-old Ridha Nurul Haq urges Indonesians to fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Ridha is part of a fresh and religious take on the storm of reality TV shows blowing in to Indonesia from abroad. Children aged six to nine team up with one of their parents to pit their preaching talents against each other.

"O, ye who have faith!" Ridha intones to millions of television viewers.

"Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard yourselves!" she cries, quoting verses from the holy Koran.

Her mother, Arum, takes Ridha's lead.

"As fasting is God's order, we have to perform it, so that we can get reward from God, and our sins will be removed," she tells her viewers.

A panel of judges who will select the winners at this stage questions the team next.

Ridha's innocent answer to a question about her own fasting habits wins laughter -- she breaks her fast as midday, she confesses, just like many her age in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Adult Muslims should refrain from food and water from dawn to dusk during the holy month of Ramadan, with leniency granted to children before they reach puberty.

The top-rating "Pildacil," or "Competition for Little Preachers," debuted in 2004 with a format that saw only the pint-sized preachers sparring against each other in a bid to win two tickets for a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The influential and conservative Council of Indonesian Ulemas, or Islamic teachers, named the show the best children's television programme in 2005.

This season parents are joining in "Keluarga Dacil," or "Family Little Preacher". Programme producer Heribowo Agus said the duos present an ideal model for Indonesian families wanting to educate their children.

"Children's achievements depend on how their parents teach them. Our mission is to show good examples to the Indonesian public," Agus told AFP.

"We have so many examples of Indonesia's young generation going off the rails: moral degradation, illegal drugs," he said.

"The show will set an example in teaching Indonesia's young generation in an Islamic way," he said, noting it was inspired originally by US-imported shows such as "American Idol" but given a purely local twist.

Auditions are held in several large cities across Indonesia to select contestants who will then spend two weeks at a camp where they learn how to preach in between ordinary sports and games sessions.

Rizal Purnama, a nine-year old boy, is here for his fifth bid to win -- and it's his last chance as next season, aged 10, he will be too old to compete.

Despite his repeated losses, Rizal's father Junaedi proudly says his son has been invited to preach at Islamic events since his oratories have been beamed round the country.

"Even though he didn't succeed in previous shows, thank God many people admire him and have asked him to deliver sermons at religious ceremonies and weddings," he says, declining to say whether the boy is paid.

"Some pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) have become interested in him and have asked me to send Rizal there for free so that he could have a better education on Islam," he adds.

Boarding school, however, is only a distant thought for now, Junaedi says.

Despite its winning ratings, the show has its critics.

Sarlito Wirawan Sarwono, a psychologist at the University of Indonesia who deals with children's issues, says the show is modelled on an adult concept that children should not be forced to play a role in.

Children the contestants' ages should be engaging in play instead of memorising the Koran and developing preaching styles, he says.

"The kids don't understand for sure these kinds of teachings," he said, referring to the Islamic lessons in the sermons they are delivering -- such as warning adults not to commit adultery.

Moeslim Abdurahman, an Islamic studies academic who works at several universities, considers the show a reflection of the explosion of Islamic culture in Indonesia since the 1998 downfall of dictator Suharto.

"Religion is becoming everything," he said. He considers the show "ironic, as kids have become the victim, speaking things which are not suitable for their age".

Back at the TV studio, the five contestants representing West Java province line up nervously on the stage to hear the names of the winners going through to the next round.

Ridha is named, along with another young boy, who rushes to press his forehead to the floor, a typical way to express one's thanks to God. Ridha mimics him, as the parents comfort the three losers, who have burst into tears.

The Great Depression of the Servile Class

Report Ranks Jobs by Rates of Depression
Saturday October 13, 10:46 pm ET
By Kevin Freking, Associated Press Writer
Personal Care, Restaurant Industries, Diaper Changers Have Highest Rates of Depression

WASHINGTON (AP) -- People who tend to the elderly, change diapers and serve up food and drinks have the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers.

Overall, 7 percent of full-time workers battled depression in the past year, according to a government report available Saturday.

Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, and younger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues.

Almost 11 percent of personal care workers -- which includes child care and helping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs -- reported depression lasting two weeks or longer.

During such episodes there is loss of interest and pleasure, and at least four other symptoms surface, including problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration and self-image.

Workers who prepare and serve food -- cooks, bartenders, waiters and waitresses -- had the second highest rate of depression among full-time employees at 10.3 percent.

In a tie for third were health care workers and social workers at 9.6 percent.

The lowest rate of depression, 4.3 percent, occurred in the job category that covers engineers, architects and surveyors.

Government officials tracked depression within 21 major occupational categories. They combined data from 2004 through 2006 to estimate episodes of depression within the past year. That information came from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which registers lifetime and past-year depression bouts.

Depression leads to $30 billion to $44 billion in lost productivity annually, said the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The report was available Saturday on the agency's Web site at http://oas.samhsa.gov

The various job categories tracked could be quite broad, with employees grouped in the same category seemingly having little in common.

For example, one category included workers in the arts, media, entertainment and sports. In the personal care category, a worker caring for toddlers at a daycare center would have quite a different job from a nursing aide who helps an older person live at home rather than in a nursing home.

Just working full-time would appear to be beneficial in preventing depression. The overall rate of depression for full-time workers, 7 percent, compares with the 12.7 percent rate registered by those who are unemployed.


Read the report at: http://tinyurl.com/2ft37p

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Gerontocratic Oeconomy

Aging inmates clogging nation's prisons

By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 56 minutes ago

Razor wire topping the fences seems almost a joke at the Men's State Prison, where many inmates are slumped in wheelchairs, or leaning on walkers or canes.

It's becoming an increasingly common sight: geriatric inmates spending their waning days behind bars. The soaring number of aging inmates is now outpacing the prison growth as a whole.

Tough sentencing laws passed in the crime-busting 1980s and 1990s are largely to blame. It's all fueling an explosion in inmate health costs for cash-strapped states.

"It keeps going up and up," said Alan Adams, director of Health Services for the Georgia Department of Corrections. "We've got some old guys who are too sick to get out of bed. And some of them, they're going to die inside. The courts say we have to provide care and we do. But that costs money."

Justice Department statistics show that the number of inmates in federal and state prisons age 55 and older shot up 33 percent from 2000 to 2005, the most recent year for which the data was available. That's faster than the 9 percent growth overall.

The trend is particularly pronounced in the South, which has some of the nation's toughest sentencing laws. In 16 Southern states, the growth rate has escalated by an average of 145 percent since 1997, according to the Southern Legislative Conference.

Rising prison health care costs — particularly for elderly inmates — helped fuel a 10 percent jump in state prison spending from fiscal year 2005 to 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That growth in spending is projected to continue, the group said.

The graying of the nation's prisons mirrors the population as whole. But many inmates arrive in prison after years of unhealthy living, such as drug use and risky sex. The stress of life behind bars can often make them even sicker.

And once they enter prison walls, they aren't eligible for Medicaid or Medicare, where the costs are shared between the state and federal government, meaning a state shoulders the burden of inmate health care on its own.

Estimates place the annual cost of housing an inmate at $18,000 to $31,000 a year. There is no firm separate number for housing an elderly inmate, but there is widespread agreement that it's significantly higher than for a younger one.

In addition to medical costs there are other, less obvious expenses. For instance, elderly inmates can't climb to the top bunk so they sometimes need to be housed in separate units that require more space.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that inmates have a constitutional right to health care. But what that means can depend on where an inmate is locked up.

In Alabama, the Southern Center for Human Rights in 2005 filed a federal class action lawsuit to force the Hamilton Aged and Infirm Correctional Facility to improve conditions. Prisoners with serious medical conditions sometimes had to wait several months or more for treatment at the overcrowded facility housing frail inmates with dementia and Alzheimer's, the lawsuit said.

A federal judge in 2006 appointed a receiver to oversee California's prison system after finding that an average of one inmate a week was dying of neglect or malpractice. A new report issued by the receiver found that as many as 66 inmates died last year because of poor medical care.

State lawmakers have been reluctant to tinker with the tough laws that are keeping more people in prison for longer sentences. Reacting to violent crime waves in the 1980s and 1990s, state lawmakers passed two- and three-strikes laws and abolished parole.

They are now seeing the results of those laws, said Ronald Aday, professor of aging studies at Middle Tennessee University who has written a book on aging prisoners.

"This number is going to keep going up and up until they address the issues that are putting these people there in the first place," Aday said.

At Men's State Prison in central Georgia, the older inmates stick together, said Manson Griffin, 66, and Joe Williams, 62.

They rattle off a list of ailments common to men their age: arthritis, high blood pressure, bad backs. Williams wears a neck brace and walks with a cane. Both are taking a laundry list of prescription medications.

Still, Griffin said he's in fairly good condition compared with some of the older inmates at Men's, where the average age is 52 and the oldest prisoner is 86.

"It's heart-rending to see some of the older people in the condition they're in," Griffin said. "You have to wonder why they haven't had a little leniency on them to let them go home?

"What can an 80-year-old man in a wheelchair do? Run?"

New Advances in Gerontechnology

Sat Oct 6, 2:53 PM

TOKYO (AFP) - As Japan greys, who will look after the elderly? Maybe one day their aging children -- in robot suits -- if technology under development comes out of the laboratory and into the home.

Among the array of futuristic products for the senior citizens or their caregivers on display at a trade fair this week in Tokyo was a power assist suit that makes it easier to lift an elderly person out of a wheelchair or bed.

The suit looks clunky, takes 10 minutes to put on, weighs thirty kilos (66 pounds) and has blinking lights and wires reminiscent of a robot in a sci-fi movie.

But it allows the wearer to lift a person as heavy as 100 kilos as if they were carrying only half that weight.

"I don't feel heavy at all. Because of air pumped in the suit, I just feel like I'm carrying a normal backpack," said Hiroi Tsukui, a participant in the project as she carried a young man onto a table to demonstrate to onlookers.

For now the suit, developed by Kanagawa Institute of Technology, is only made to order and generally targeted at nursing homes and hospitals.

But Tsukui hopes it will be used in ordinary homes in the future.

"Of course 80-year-olds won't be able to wear this. But perhaps for their children who are in their 50s and need to take care of their parents, this could prove to be useful," she added.

Japan, which has one of the world's lowest birth rates and yet forbids immigration, is increasingly turning to robots to take care of rudimentary tasks in hospitals and nursing homes as the young population dwindles.

Researchers are also looking to improve "robot suits" for the elderly to wear themselves for more autonomy, instead of relying on caregivers or their children.

A "muscle suit" developed by Tokyo University of Science also allows the wearer to lift heavy objects.

The half-body suit incorporates artificial muscles made of elastic rubber and nylon and air pumps for the arms.

Hiroshi Kobayashi, an associate professor at the university that spearheaded the project, admitted that hurdles remain before it could be easily used.

The suit, which weighs four kilos, presents "some safety concerns for elderly people," he said.

"So for now we have limited the suit to caretakers or even construction workers whom I think would benefit greatly from this. But we hope in the future this will give old people more mobility with their arms," he added.

Another product designed to give elderly greater mobility is auto giant Honda Motor's "Walking Assist" product which can help the elderly walk independently without the help of a cane, walking frame or arm of a carer.

It's a chunky belt with sensors and leg straps that monitor leg movements to help the user walk correctly.

As the person walks, a device behind the thigh pushes the leg forward and once he or she steps on the ground, another one at the front of the thigh pushes inwards, stabilising the user.

The belt is currently only a prototype, as its three-kilo weight could be a little too heavy for a frail elderly man or woman.

Taiji Koyama, an assistant chief designer at Honda R&D Co., hopes that in the near future his team, which has spent eight years on the project, will be able to make the belt lighter and easier for the elderly.

"We hope to roll this out as a product as soon as possible so people will be able to use it," the engineer said.

"It is a lot lighter than 'muscle suits' that use artificial muscle. They still have a long way to go to become mainstream as they remain difficult to wear," he added.

Museum Effect

Wed Oct 3, 8:34 AM

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - They've been left on doorsteps and outside post offices in the dead of night, but no one knows what to make of the mystery of the stone heads.

As many as 20 artfully carved faces, miniature versions of the Easter Island sculptures, have been deposited in sleepy villages across northern England in recent weeks, leaving the recipients intrigued and confused.

Each of the stone heads, some measuring up to 45 cm (18 inches) high, is slightly different, but all of them have the same riddle attached, written on a thin blue card.

"Twinkle twinkle like a star, does love blaze less from afar?" it reads, with the word "paradox" written around the points of a star.

While a publicity stunt of some sort is suspected, not unlike the crop circle mysteries that obsessed Britain a decade ago, there are no clues as to who may be leaving the heads. Police, residents and recipients are all non-plussed.

"It appeared last Monday in the early hours of the morning," said Fiona Gould, the owner of the Forresters Arms Hotel in the village of Kilburn, North Yorkshire.

"I love it. We've nicknamed it Forest Lump. We've put him on the end of the bar and he gets a pat on the head before everyone goes to the races."

Valerie Hoyes, who runs the post office in the village of Braithwell, about 40 miles south of Kilburn, discovered hers back in August, but thought nothing of it. She didn't tell anyone until others came forward.

After the discovery, her husband reviewed security camera footage and caught a glimpse of a man getting out of a car, but his face was indistinguishable and the mystery remained.

"This chappie just drove up at 4.15 in the morning, parked his car and dropped off these three stone heads on the doorstep," Valerie Hoyes told Reuters.

"They're a bit like gargoyles. They're very bizarre.

"We've been living in Braithwell for 26 years and we've never known anything like this at all. Never. People wonder if it's part of the occult."

Stonemasons say the sculpting is good, and the stone of high quality. It would have taken hours of careful work to make them.

Since her discovery, Gould has received emails from all over with suggestions of who might be responsible. One pointed to a local sculptor called Billy Johnson, but he's not been found.

Either way, she's not worried. "Forest Lump" has brought her luck, she says.

"It put the wind up everyone for the first week or so, but now I like it. Friends who I haven't heard from or seen in years are getting in touch, so I'm very happy."

Rambo in Myanmar

Mon Oct 1, 3:34 PM

By Jeff Wilson, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Sylvester Stallone said he and his "Rambo" sequel movie crew recently witnessed the human toll of unspeakable atrocities while filming along the Myanmar border.

"I witnessed the aftermath - survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off. We saw many elephants with blown off legs. We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific," Stallone told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday.

Stallone returned eight days ago from shooting "John Rambo," the fourth movie in the action series, on the Salween River separating Thailand and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

"This is a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams," Stallone said. "All the trails are mined. The only way into Burma is up the river."

And this was before the crackdown last week against the largest pro-democracy protests in Myanmar in two decades. After the government increased fuel prices in August, public anger turned to mass protest against 45 years of military dictatorship. Last week, soldiers responded by opening fire with automatic weapons on unarmed demonstrators.

For decades, Myanmar's army has waged a brutal war against ethnic groups in which soldiers have razed villages, raped women and killed innocent civilians. Especially hard hit have been the Karen, one of several minorities that have been seeking greater autonomy.

Just last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science said it has compiled satellite images that provide evidence of village destruction, forced relocations and a growing military presence at sites across eastern Myanmar.

The "Rambo" script, written long before the current Myanmar uprising, features boatman John Rambo - the Vietnam War-era Green Beret who specializes in violent rescues and revenge - taking a group of mercenaries up the Salween River in search of missing Christian aid workers in Myanmar. The character "realizes man is just a few paces away from savagery when pushed."

"I called Soldier of Fortune magazine and they said Burma was the foremost area of human abuse on the planet," Stallone said.

Stallone is now editing "John Rambo," which will be released in January, and said he Is trying to strike a balance and grapple with the question, "Are you making a documentary or a 'Rambo' movie?"

Shots were fired over the film crew's heads and there were threats, he said.

"We were told we could get seriously hurt if we went on," Stallone said, adding the families of Burmese extras in the movie were imprisoned.

"I was being accused, once again, of using the Third World as a 'Rambo' victim. The Burmese are beautiful people. It's the military I am portraying as cruel," he said.

Stallone's next challenge is trying to get an "R" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

"This is full scale genocide. I want an 'R' and I want the violence in there because it is reality. It would be a whitewashing not to show what's over there," he said, noting he plans to bring Myanmar survivors before the MPAA board.

"I think there is a story that needs to be told," Stallone said.

Transparent Biology

Thu Sep 27, 2:54 PM

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers have succeeded in producing see-through frogs, letting them observe organs, blood vessels and eggs under the skin without performing dissections.

"You can see through the skin how organs grow, how cancer starts and develops," said the lead researcher Masayuki Sumida, professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology of state-run Hiroshima University.

"You can watch organs of the same frog over its entire life as you don't have to dissect it. The researcher can also observe how toxins affect bones, livers and other organs at lower costs," he told AFP.

Dissections have become increasingly controversial in much of the world, particularly in schools where animal rights activists have pressed for humane alternatives such as using computer simulations.

Sumida said his team, which announced the research last week at an academic conference, had created the first transparent four-legged creature, although some small fish are also see-through.

The researchers produced the creature from rare mutants of the Japanese brown frog, or Rena japonica, whose backs are usually ochre or brown.

Two kinds of recessive genes have been known to cause the frog to be pale.

Sumida's team crossed two frogs with recessive genes through artificial insemination and the offspring looked normal due to the presence of more powerful genes. But crossing the offspring led to a frog whose skin is transparent from the tadpole stage.

"You can see dramatic changes of organs when tadpoles mutate into frogs," said Sumida, whose team is seeking a patent.

Such frogs could theoretically exist in the wild but it is "virtually impossible" they would naturally inherit so many recessive genes, Sumida said.

The transparent frogs can also reproduce, with their offspring inheriting their parents' traits, but their grandchildren die shortly after birth.

"As they have two sets of recessive genes, something wrong must kick in and kill them," Sumida said.

While the researchers relied on artificial insemination, they said that genetic engineering could also produce transparent and even illuminating frogs.

Sumida said researchers could also inject into the transparent frogs an illuminating protein attached to a gene, which would light up the gene once it manifests -- for example, showing at what stage cancer starts.

Sumida said it would be unrealistic to apply the same method to mammals such as mice as their skin structure is different.