The Other World

The Swedes have it so well that their researchers have time to study the development of a drug that would reduce labour pains and, if successful, would make the lives of about half of the species a whole lot easier.

(http://www.hs.fi/juttusarja/sipila/artikkeli/Farkku-Ruotsi+2009/1135247615783)

Then there are those who claim labour pain is "good for women", that it helps them bond with the child and prepare women for motherhood and whatnot. It probably goes without saying these people tend to have a piece of flesh hanging between their legs, such as a midwife named Dennis Walsh.

(http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2009/07/man-labor-pain-good-for-women.html)

A reply has been made and I will copy the whole text as it is just so good.

"WOMEN TO FORCE HAT-STAND INTO ANUS OF MALE MIDWIFE

THE senior male midwife who criticised child-birth painkillers will today have a hat-stand forced into his anus, women have promised. Dr Denis Walsh will be dragged from his office and taken to a paddling pool in the car park where three strong women will hold him down while another two take a seven-foot, solid pine hat-stand with six large curved coat hooks and put it in him.

Emma Bradford, a pregnant lady from Peterborough, said: "No painkillers, no epidurals, we want him to be able to bond with the hat-stand. And of course there are potential health risks if you use painkillers while a hefty, awkwardly-shaped piece of hall furniture is shoved as far up your lower intestine as we can get it. The pain of hat-stand insertion is a beautiful, natural thing, but if he's worried then perhaps he could try hypnotising himself into thinking that none of this is happening while we use the hat-stand to convince him that it is."

She added: "We've set up the paddling pool, or 'hat-standing pool' so that he can see for himself exactly how much difference that will make." Jill McKay, from Doncaster, said: "If he needs something to take his mind off the searing pain in his anus I'd be more than happy to take a pair of pliers to his testicles."

Dr Walsh said: "I take it all back. It was obviously a joke. Look, I've not been well. Get your hands off me. For Christ's sake someone call security. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!""

(http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/women-to-force-hat%11stand-into-anus-of-male-midwife-200907131899/)

http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/artikkeli/Liettuan+parlamentti+hyväksyi+homosensuurin/1135247669394

"Liettuan parlamentti hyväksyi tiistaina toistamiseen lain, joka kieltää seksuaalivähemmistöistä kertomisen alaikäisille nuorille. Laki kieltää esittelemästä myönteisesti homoseksuaalisuutta, biseksuaalisuutta ja moniavioisuutta. Kieltolistalle joutuvat myös kuolemaa, vakavaa loukkaantumista ja sukupuoliyhteyttä esittävät kuvat, kiroilu ja epäterveellisen ruuan mainonta."

Oletetaan hetki, ettei EU:n ihmisoikeustuonioistuin pakota Liettuan hallitusta kumoamaan tätä lakia.

Nyt kannattaa opetella liettuan kieltä ja hankkiutua Liettuaan opiskelemaan psykologiaa. Tämä totaalisensuurin ensiaskel tulee aiheuttamaan aika pahan ontologisen krapulan jälkipolville. Lisäksi, viimeistään siinä vaiheessa kun tämän lainsäätäjien sukupolvi alkaa kupsahdella, porukalle iskee aika paha kuoleman pelko. Liettuassa tulee olemaan työsarkaa useammallekin mielenterveyden ammattilaisille.

Tämän lisäksi kannattanee kuikuilla paikkaa Liettuan terveydenhuollossa, sillä lääkäriksi ja sairaanhoitajiksi valmistuvien määrä kohdannee väestökadon viimeistään silloin, kun opiskelijoiden pitäisi opetella hoitamaan vakavan loukkaantumisen uhreja.

Pitäisi ehkä laittaa postia EU:n ihmisoikeusalivaliokunnan puheenjohtaja Heidi Hautalalle ASAP, ettei liettualaisten tarvi kärvistellä tämän kanssa kovin kauaa.

I don't know how some people do it. Read so many books, I mean. My problem, I think, is that I started it so late: I think the first *real* systematical reading I began when I was at the university. Until then I hadn't really read anything worthy of further consideration, except some classics for Finnish classes. I know one whose act of rebellion as a teen was to start reading Tammi's Yellow Library! When she was a teen! I mean, fuck! I didn't even know of its excistence until I was 20!

And now I have immense anxiety over the fact that there are so many books I should have read by now. I mean, all the classics, not to mention Nobel and Booker and Pulitzer and Finlandia and whatnot prize winners, the number of which also accumulates every year. In addition, I should read contemporary literature, literature from different countries to get rid of the Anglo-American-European bias of literature. Then there's of course plenty of books published annually in Finland alone, and I should read at least those of them that raise much discussion in the media and those that raise much discussion in the literary circles (those two don't apparently tend to overlap that much; it's the distinction between popular culture and high culture, I think). Also, there are the media-frenzy books from previous years of contemporary literature. And then I should also keep up my literary uniqueness by reading books that are less in the limelight after their publication. Also there are the numerous book hints from numerous book blogs; books from areas of my special interest; factual, scientific publications regarding other special areas other than my linguistics and fiction, such as biology, physics, etc. AND their own classics. Oh, and let us not forget the books from Kirsi Piha's Lukupiiri.

And above all this I should study AND enjoy the reading anyway. I'm never going to achieve a literary knowledge like that of my teachers, am I? I should've started earlier instead of wasting time with kiosk literature like Robin Cook and -fact forbid.. if only I could erase those altogether- the Sweet Valley High series. This is one of the most shameful moments of my entire life from the literary point of view.

I know I read more than most of my co-students. But that is no basis not to demand this kind of literary knowledge from myself. I may be usually the one raising my hand in class when the teacher asks if anyone's read this or that but still they can -during one single lecture, 45 minutes- make me feel completely inadequate when they drop names of authors and titles of books I've never even heard of but should know enough by the end of the course to be able to give an education in-depth analysis of them! There's no way in hell I'll be able to do that! Some of the books -usually classics- may overlap with books required to read for a course but it's nowhere near enough! I think I might have a popcicle's chance in hell if I majored in literature, which I don't. I don't even minor in literature (which, after the latest change, is an enormous relief... my sister isn't so lucky..).

Fuck!

I wish it was autumn already, mid-August at least. That's when the forthcoming term's schedules start appearing at the university's timetable programmes and I can start putting the courses in order, finding out about course books, doing some research for the upcoming courses... Summer is so fucking boring.

Well, at least I get a new tattoo next week. That should cheer me up a bit.

A study has been made that shows that people in a lifelong relationships -read: marriages- have a lesser risk of Alzheimer's Disease. In Fox News a "Conservative Christian Republican" decided to explain to the viewers why this study does not apply to Americans.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/08/qotd/index.html?source=video&aim=/politics/war_room

Brian Kilmeade: We keep marrying other species and other ethnics--

Interviewer: Are you sure they are not suffering from some of the causes of dementia right now?

Kilmeade: The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that's the rule. Finns marry other Finns; they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody. We will marry Italians and Irish.

Well... I don't feel particularly pure-blooded. I could also point out that Finland probably was a mingling point for several ethnicities after the Ice Age: the ones who came here from the south, the originals, the people living in our neighbours... But of course in addition to being a "Conservative Christian Republican" Kilmeade is probably also a "Young Earthist" thinking his god huffed and puffed the world into existence out of nothing 6,000 years ago, hence there never was an Ice Age because, you know, the god only planted different layers of soil and stones and fossils and such to test our faith in his book, which never actually states any specific year zero. That's the result of Christian mathematics.

Why is it that when I consciously try to keep a distance to Her (capital H intentional), it seems that everyone looks like her: a nurse, a woman in a TV ad, a porn star, anyone?The same part that sees patterns where there is none, e.g. Michael Jackson's face in clouds, or JC in a burnt toast?

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Everyone who's seen a single episode of The L Word is probably very much aware of Shane and her Fonz-like Casanova presence. But the real life Shanes... what is it about them that make them so irresistable, so very attractive when they're not even trying to be, when they're only being themselves? What is it: the looks, some mysterious particle that makes them glow with eroticism towards women -straight, bi and gay alike- whether they're trying to hit on them or not? Self-confidence? An combination very arbitrary but by coincidence they have that something? What is that something? What is it that I don't have?

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who has reached the age of 19 (when did this happen?), has now confirmed the evil suspicions: he is an atheist. Not only is he an atheist but he also admires the outspoken bright Richard Dawkins.

"I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch."

He also suspects that all people who have hated the Potter phenomenon, both literary and celluloid, will now have one more reason to preach against the Potters (because Bible of course has no violence in it, or hatred, or cultish themes, or magical themes, or sheer evil...):

"There we go, Dan, that's half of America that's not going to see the next Harry Potter film on the back of that comment."

http://www.examiner.com/x-2044-Atheism-Examiner~y2009m7d4-Harry-Potters-Daniel-Radcliffe-is-an-atheists-and-respects-Richard-Dawkins?cid=exrss-Atheism-Examiner

ELEVEN DAYS 'TILL THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE MOVIE!!! With this weather I may be able to wear my Slytherin scarf after all!

Okay. So first I discover Lacuna Coil's new album two months after its release, and now I've managed to completely miss a new band that sounds very much like my cup of tea: Cain's Offering. The band members are the reason I think I'll be getting its first album in August ASAP. Timo Kotipelto (Stratovarius), Jani Liimatainen (Sonata Arctica), Mikko Härkin (Sonata Arctica), Jukka Koskinen (Norther) and Jani Hurula (Paul Di'Anno). Gathering the Faithful, indeed.

Managed to get burned by the sun yesterday. After coming back from Combat I noticed my shoulders were awfully red and a bit sensitive, this morning they just didn't bear much touch at all. So no going to Pump today; if a max. 2 kg bag sends shivers down my spine, having a pole of 20 kg on my shoulders... well, I don't think I want to confirm my hypothesis on that one. Instead, I stay home reading 'Rakkaudella, Hynynen' and eating peas I got from the market square. I highly recommend reading the book: veeeeery entertaining and has a few points I've been wondering myself (the mayhem around Christmas, Radio Nova, certain behavioural peculiarities of straight women) and quite a few new things as far as the insides of a male's mind -both up and down- is concerned. Plus I've learnt several new synonyms for pussy, ejaculation and breasts, none of which Hynynen uses, it's always one of the less objective and formal synonyms.

But do explain one thing: with what logic does a male draw an equation mark between a vulva and a pie? What is that mysterious link that has inspired synonyms "torttu" and "piirakka" for my genitalia? Don't get it.

I accidentally pressed the wrong blog name and ended up in Deus semper major blog. Kalle blogged about the new Join the Church! website, a counterpart for the Leave the Church! website that's been up for years. As for the latter, there has been over the years only one report of its abuse; someone had filled in someone elses info and the unknowing person received a confirmation of leaving the chirch a while later.

But the same is possible the other way around, too. Took a look at the form that is supposed to be filled. It has the usual info and the most complicated thing to figure out against one's will is the ID number. The form does ask about confirmations and such but also offer an answer option of "I don't know". Getting access to someone else's ID number isn't too tricky since it's printed on ID cards, Kela cards, some other cards, and several official papers like taxation, student allowance, etc.

What I am pondering, is how many compulsively obsessive fundie decides to desperately save people's souls when they exercise their freedom to use reason and do not want to be part of this institution or some of its other sects; and whether the church will report this to the public at all. And before some yahoo starts barking, let's face it: religious persons are more prone to behave in a "the end justifies the means" way that agnostics or atheists, especially those that sincerely believe they have a god-given right to dominate over those that do not worship the same god in a same way as they do. When's the last time you heard of an atheist/agnostic killing a reverend/vicar/minister/whatever-the-professional-lier-is-called, or burning a pile of Bibles and Korans? No?