Excelente vídeo do coletivo Intervozes sobre o oligopólio da comunicação no Brasil.

Vídeo produzido pelo Intervozes Coletivo Brasil de Comunicação Social com o apoio da Fundação Friedrich Ebert Stiftung remonta o curta ILHA DAS FLORES de Jorge Furtado com a temática do direito à comunicação. A obra faz um retrato da concentração dos meios de comunicação existente no Brasil.

Um outro olhar é possível e necessário! Façamos um jornalismo pela diferença, não pela desigualdade!

parte 1

parte 2

O cientista social Raimundo Santos e o ensaísta Luiz Sérgio Henriques são os convidados de estreia do ciclo de debates promovido pela Ascom intitulado ’Café com Debate’. Os debates desta série terão como eixo temático assuntos do interesse da comunidade, tais como educação, história, ciência, política, cultura, religião, cidadania, democratização da informação, etc.  Café com Debate contará com a exposição de dois convidados, um palestrante da UFRRJ e um convidado externo, seguidos de um debate com a participação do público presente. GRAMSCI E A ESQUERDA CONTEMPORÂNEA Como uma das atividades empreendidas pela Comissão de Comemorações do 100 anos da Rural neste ano de 2009, na proxima 3ª feira, dia 24/11, às l0 h no Auditório Hilton Salles/P1, será lançado o livro do professor Raimundo Santos A importância da tradição pecebista. Acompanhará o evento o debate sobre o tema “Gramsci e a esquerda contemporânea”, com a participação do ensaista Luiz Sérgio Henriques, tradutor de obras de Gramsci ao português e editor do site Gramsci e o Brasil (www.gramsci.ogr) e do proprio prof. Raimundo Santos. Consultados pelo Rural Semanal, os palestrantes adiantaram os principais eixos das suas exposições. Luiz Sérgio Henriques tentará mostrar como Gramsci se firmou como um dos clássicos da política no século XX e, nesta condição, ainda pode nos ajudar a entender os problemas do nosso próprio tempo. O palestrante observa que há aspectos ultrapassados e aspectos atualíssimos no pensamento de Gramsci, de modo que estudar este pensador é necessariamente um desafio, para além de qualquer ortodoxia. O ponto de partida devem ser os problemas da democracia brasileira, admitindo-se que existe uma distância de tempo histórico, que não se pode desconhecer, entre Gramsci e o Brasil. Luiz Sérgio Henriques disse ainda que o estudioso deve estar atento a isso, se estiver de fato preocupado em utilizar o pensamento gramsciano como um recurso para fazer avançar a democracia brasileira.Em sua breve fala, Raimundo Santos pretende se referir à presença do pensamento de Antonio Gramsci na cultura política pecebista, da qual se ocupa o volume recem publicado com o selo da Fundação Astrojildo Pereira, de Brasilia.

The week or so before the Nov. 3rd elections, I listened to Speakout that is hosted on WRAA 1330. It was the episode that had Carol Lee on. A comment she made started me to thinking. Carol had stated that the reason why she thinks she has ahd so much success in District 5 is because she is not tied down like the other candidates that have jobs or owns a business. So if anything that needed to be looked into further before the BoS makes a decision, they rely on Carol Lee. I do not know carol Lee personally, but this could have a conflict. She could potentially pass on false information to get votes needed for a certain debate, topic or whatever. There is always that possibility.

What would solve that issue, is a paid BoS. The BoS is actually like a mini Congress. Those that representing the different will try to get what their constituents favor. Having a paid BoS would give the representives time to look into issues, mingle within their district and all members can be present at the required meetings.

How much to pay the BoS is left to debate. The County Administrator is paid over $80 grand a year and what is it he is supposed to be doing? Is it possible to eliminate that position with a paid BoS?

The one drawback is if the amount of pay is to low, will someone be willing to risk giving up a higher paying job for a position on tht BoS? Would a paid BoS bring unwanted candidates, those that have no business of even thinking about running?

Popular pornography is undeniably big business and, thanks to the internet, virtually ubiquitous. I mean, it isn’t something I encounter often when I’m online checking the news but if you’re halfway interested, porn is a click away.

Pete Malicki’s ‘How Liberating is Porn Really?’, published at New Matilda, sums up my thoughts pretty well about the problems in the way mainstream pornography portrays women and sexuality. He also provides a neat description of what makes your bread and butter porn, which you can read for yourself at New Matilda. The thrust of his definition hinges on the preoccupation in popular pornography with male desire and the concurrent indifference to women’s sexuality.

I recall as a teenager when the porn craze hit. Girls and boys would watch it, probably mostly a typical teen taboo-breaking exercise. Adult audiences aside, the most dangerous consequence of young people viewing mainstream porn films is that the watching often constitutes a first explicit glimpse of a sexual act. It would be impossible for a young person to be impervious to its influence; pornography sets unhealthy and unrealistic expectations for boys and girls to try to emulate in the bedroom (or wherever). I can’t imagine that sex education in schools offers a correction to this skew.

As Pete Malicki says:

“Given that porn overwhelmingly represents a version of male fantasy, female viewers will be shown what males “want” sexually. It’s pretty easy to understand why women who have been overexposed to porn might feel pressured to fit that fantasy, even without being asked to perform [such] acts.”

Behaviour isn’t all that can be affected – porn provides an aesthetic template too. Arguably the rise in labioplasty, or cosmetic labial surgery, is in some part attributable to the unrealistic “elegant-looking labia” you can see in mainstream pornography.

I suspect women who voice any opposition to popular pornography are often accused of being sexual spoilsports. Statistics show that many women watch porn, and it is possible that many of them watch your standard money shot stuff in the absence of explicit films that pay more mind to a woman’s pleasure.

Of course there is plenty of pornography out there that resists adhering just to the male gaze. In October this year the first Feminist Porn Film Award was awarded in Berlin, and you can read about the awarded film makers here, and the criteria – which include ‘no misogynistic portrayals’ and more women in production roles – here. Films that fulfill the criteria will be given a ‘PorYes’ stamp.   

It’s safe to say that watching pornography can be an ethical minefield and for those who’d like less degradation with their titillation, the PorYes seal of approval could prove helpful in finding enjoyable erotica, and the internet – often blamed for spreading misogynistic material – is the perfect vehicle for the dissemination of feminist pornography.

And I note that while the Sydney Morning Herald recently reported on the PorYes movement, Life & Style web editors stuck to house pictorial policy and used a breast-enhanced image to accompany the article.

A once días de su inauguración en La Habana, el Comité Organizador del 31 Festival del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, que se desarrollará del 3 al 13 de diciembre, confirmó la selección de 104 filmes de 17 países en el concurso que otorgará los muy apreciados Corales en diversas categorías.

Optarán por los premios 20 largometrajes y 15 cortos de ficción, 24 documentales, igual número de películas de animación y 21 óperas prima.

Otras tres películas de argumento y dos documentales se proyectarán en la sección oficial fuera de concurso.

Las cinematografías más representadas serán las de Brasil, Argentina y México, seguidas por Chile, Cuba y Perú.

Como es habitual, al Festival concurren también guiones inéditos, esta vez 28, en busca de un espaldarazo para su realización, y diseñadores gráficos a la caza de un Coral que se dispensará a uno de los 17 carteles promocionales enviados.

Cuba concursará con los largometrajes de ficción El premio flaco, de Juan Carlos Cremata; Lisanka, de Daniel Díaz Torres; y Ciudad en rojo, de Rebeca Chávez, esta última entre las óperas prima; los documentales Close up, de Roger Herrera y Damián Saínz; La marea, de Armando Capó; y El despertar de un sueño, de Luis Ernesto Doñas; y los animados 20 años, de Bárbaro Joel Ortiz; y Tic tac, de Alien Ma Alfonso. Fuera de concurso exhibirá La anunciación, del maestro Enrique Pineda Barnet.

Fuente: Granma

Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial los aviones destinados a espiar al enemigo jugaron un papel fundamental, la victoria de los aliados sobre el régimen Nazi se produjo gracias, en parte, a intrépidos pilotos que se jugaron el gaznate en multitud de ocasiones para obtener imágenes del enemigo.

Realizaban incursiones áreas en territorio hostil, camuflados como buenamente podían para evitar la artillería antiaerea, con el objetivo de fotografiar las infraestructuras de los nazis,información que posteriormente era interpretada y servía para organizar acciones bélicas muy eficaces.   —–>>>  

Pues bien, ahora la National Collection of Aerial Photography, con sede en Inglaterra, ha añadido a su colección en línea 4.000 de estas imágenes aéreas espía (nunca antes vistas por civiles) captadas por pilotos de la RAF durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Entre ellas podemos ver desde instantáneas tomadas a instalaciones secretas nazis hasta otras donde vemos el resultado de bombardeos aliados o campos de concentración.

Es verdaderamente impresionante ver hasta que punto se arriesgaban estos pilotos para obtener las imágenes, algunas de ellas están realizas a una altura ridícula. Estas fotografías fueron en muchas ocasiones bastante más eficientes que las bombas o las balas y muchos pilotos murieron intentado hacerlas.

Seminário de Abertura:

O CONTEXTO ENERGÉTICO, AS PERSPECTIVAS DO PRÉ-SAL E O MODELO DE ORGANIZAÇÃO DA INDÚSTRIA NO BRASIL
e
INAUGURAÇÃO DO NÓ-USP DA REDE GALILEU – Tanque de Provas Numérico – Depto. Engenharia Naval e Oceânica da Escola Politécnica da USP

01 de dezembro de 2009
Edifício Engenheiro Mário Covas Jr. – Prédio da Administração – EPUSP
Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, Trav.3, n° 380
Cidade Universitária – São Paulo – SP

Inscrições em: www.iea.usp.br/inscricao/form8.html
Também pode ser visto ao vivo pelo IPTV em: www.iptv.usp.br

Patrocínio: PETROBRAS

Programação
12h00 Credenciamento

13h30 Abertura e Cerimônia de Inauguração do Tanque de Provas Numérico

14h00 Seminário de Abertura do Ciclo: O Contexto Energético e as Perspectivas do Pré-Sal e o Modelo de Organização da Indústria no Brasil
A Energia no Mundo Atual e o Pré-Sal
José Goldemberg, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Energia da USP, IEE/USP

14h30 O Cenário Energético Mundial e as Novas Descobertas de Petróleo
Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Diretor do Global Energy Assessment

15h00 Mercado Mundial de Petróleo
James L. Williamns, WTRG Economics, USA

15h30 Os Modelos de Organização da Indústria do Petróleo e as Propostas para o Pré-Sal
Adilson de Oliveira, Instituto de Economia, UFRJ

16h00 Os Modelos de Organização da Indústria do Petróleo e as Propostas para o Pré-Sal
Ildo Luis Sauer, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Energia da USP, IEE/USP

16h30 A Petrobras e o Pré-Sal
José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, Presidente da Petrobras

17h00 Debates

18h30 Encerramento

SNL goes after Obama.

Wonder what you would find if you frisked Saturday Night Live’s portrayal of Chinese President Hu Jintao?

Answer: He sure doesn’t enjoy Obama’s spending spree.

HAHA!

Maybe Saturday Night Live is starting to get the hang of it? Lets hope so because we all know they could use some better ratings. The only thing that is missing right now is CNN’s fact check of a comedy skit, but than again… the day is not over with yet, haha.

Best quote from the skit:

I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money.

Yeah… It’s funny how that one works and I still find it quite baffling to this day, but I’m glad SNL pointed it out.

New York Senator Chuck Shumer made a very good point to opponents of the health care plan’s public option, specifically, that they should allow a plan that lets conservative states opt out. His argument is this: its all well and good if you – as a senator representing a red state – believe you’re serving your constituents well by saying “thanks but no thanks” to the public option (you may be wrong, btw, since many of the poorest states are red.) Regardless, they elected you to represent them, and if your judgment tells you that the public option is a bad idea, opt your state out of it. However, a senator is overreaching a bit when he makes the case that the public option is a bad idea for the entire country.

No single senator or pair of senators from a single state should have the power to deprive other states from a public option. The argument that allowing any states access to a public option would be too expensive is a scurrilous one, because this country cannot currently afford health care and medicare costs anyway. The amount medicare pays out for end-of-life coverage totalled $50 billion last year, more than the budgets of either the Dept. of Education or Homeland Security. That’s just money being spent artificially keeping people alive who typically will never recover from their condition (in other words, money spent trying to deny that we are mortal and that every person’s time comes.)

This kind of spending doesn’t make any kind of sense, nor does it make healthy Americans any healthier, but we don’t deprive people of this coverage. Any senator who would try to do so would face an angry, scared mob at every turn, and likely face electoral defeat. In America, we simply don’t pull the plug; not without consent of the patient or family…as long as medicare covers them, of course. And medicare seemingly covers everyone.

Many of us fear death so much, we wish for it to never come, and when it does, it must be as peaceful and comfortable as technology allows, damn the cost. Maybe deep down Americans think they should be immortal, and so do everything they can to make that a reality. And then there are always miracles; unexplainable happenings that result in recovery from death’s door. But miracles don’t come to everyone, and the human mortality rate remains a steady 100.00%, just as it always has since the dawn of man.

And let me reiterate; that total medicare sum on end-of-life care alone is greater than the total sum the federal government spends keeping us safe from terrorism and worse, more than it spends on educating our youth. We spend more on the past than the future. At what point does damning the cost damn ourselves, and our future? So there’s a double standard – as well as an overreaching of power – on the part of public option opponents. They allow such unbridled spending on the dying – which will increase as our population grows older – yet won’t allow healthy people to be insured the only way they can: by a public option.

Sorry, but you can’t hold both views and be taken seriously. One of the reasons Obama was elected was to make progress on health care reform, something that could have been fixed earlier and cheaper had previous congresses not sat on their hands so long doing absolutely nothing while insurance and drug companies ruthlessly shook down the American people and built such a strong precident for doing so, that even minute reform would elicit a big stink from them. It’s not the job of a red senator to deprive a blue senator from providing for their constituents, or vice versa. Reform must contain a public option that can either be opted out or opted in on. Further delay will only cost more lives…and bank accounts.

And however all this pans out, we spend more on the past than the future at our peril. I guarantee you, our strategic rivals around the world are spending more on the future. They know they’re mortal…and so are we.

Day 1
Supposed to start at 8
But postponed to 9
30 teams will fight
22 will fall
8 will stand

The first match begun
Led my team to the battleground
Mouths as our guns
words as our bullets
Books as our support
We fight to make sex education
a must in schools
The match was dull
Be more interesting if we were facing a bull
Regardless, we stood victorious

Waked toward a new battleground
To avenge our ally’s defeat
We fight to support National exam
Their words were sharp
But their book was weak
We fight fiercely
Till we stood in triumph

Final match begun
We fight to sacrifice privacy
To prevent terrorism
We were at our peak
We rained fact after fact
Their weak shield crumbled
and we stood glorious

Day 2
A night of rest we had
Freshen our body
Clean our gun
For yet another fierce battles
3 rounds we fight
3 strong enemies we faced

The first enemy came y
They do no understand our argument
They do not touch the issue
They were Pompeii
Destroyed by my molten rock

The second enemy came
They misunderstood the motion
They ignored our points
They were Aceh
Washed away by my Tsunami

Final battle approached
A civil war it was
Against our brother and sisters we fought
Both sides attacked
Both sides use heavy facts
Both sides missed the motion
(The end will be made after Saturday night, after the result is announced.)

Save the Children organiza un debate sobre el trabajo infantil para el próximo viernes, 27 de noviembre, en la sala Joaquín Turina del Centro Cultural Cajasol (Calle Laraña, nº4, Sevilla) de 17:00 a 19:30 horas.

Los asistentes podrán escuchar el testimonio de 4 representantes del Movimiento de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes Trabajadores Organizados del Perú (MNNATSOP). En el marco de un proyecto financiado por la Agencia Andaluza de Cooperación Internacional y Desarrollo (AACID), viajarán durante esta semana por distintas ciudades de Andalucía para dar a conocer su movimiento y su experiencia como jóvenes trabajadores.

El movimiento de los NATs (Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes Trabajadores) surge a lo largo de los años setenta en Latinoamérica. Hoy en día, existen en América Latina y Caribe, África y Asia. Los NATs defienden sus derechos como niños, niñas y adolescentes trabajadores, y luchan para conseguir un reconocimiento social de su situación, y promover una visión positiva del trabajo infantil.

Según ellos, el trabajo no es malo en sí, el problema viene de las condiciones en el que se da. Defienden el trabajo con dignidad, pero rechazan la explotación laboral. Los NATs luchan para que los gobiernos adopten leyes que permitan que el trabajo infantil se realice en condiciones apropiadas, y combaten la explotación. Como niños, niñas y adolescentes, también defienden y promueven su derecho a ser escuchados y a participar.

En el debate intervendrán:

- Miguel Angel Castro Hilario, 16 años. Trabaja desde los 9 años vendiendo pan.
- Anthony Fair Beltran Prentice, 15 años. Trabaja desde los 9 años ayudando en las labores de su casa.
- Lorena Karen Cerdan Roncal, 13 años. Trabaja desde los 8 años vendiendo pan con su mamá.
- Enrique Marino Jaramillo García, Colaborador en la sede del MNNATSOP.
- Aldo Prestipino, Presidente del movimiento ITALNATs.
- Rosario Pérez Martín, Responsable de Política Social y Migraciones de CCOO, Sevilla.

FUENTE: Save the Children.

Friends,

I will no longer dabble in clipped, piddly little one-sided arguments against certain schools of thought.  Henceforth I will speak only on the most substantial of topics and silence peacock-feathered intellectual rogueness.

Say what you will about the blogs that follow.  Say what you want about whatever.  The true is always tried, and holds true to its name.

Truly yours,

Rice Cutgrass

To increase efficiency and so that you receive the dedicated size that you want, participants of WUPID 2009 whom are interested to purchase the WUPID 2009 t-shirts MUST first make an official booking via:

(1) Leaving me your name, institution, size and email address on the comment section below, or

(2) Leave the above particulars via email – wupid@hngsc.com

The price of the t-shirt is MYR35-00 and it only comes in black (please see sample below):

Please be notified that payments for the tees should only be made upon registration on December 19. T-shirts shall only be handed over upon payment.

Thank you and looking forward to seeing all of you at WUPID 2009!

At the newsroom

In the aftermath of the Egypt-Algeria game in Sudan, and as we frantically were gathering information and contacts for our coverage, we also had to sit down and discuss the flood of information – or the lack of it at times.

Every TV show on Wednesday night had covered the ordeal of those who traveled to Sudan. Phone calls were pouring in from those frightened by attacks by Algerian fans and those who can’t get to or inside the airport. People we spoke to for our stories weren’t short of their own horror stories.

But it seemed to be only in Egypt’s mind, because on the other hand, the news agencies either ignored it or referred to it as minor incidents. By Friday morning I started doubting myself. There were two parallel worlds, one where people were traumatized and another where nothing of significance happened.

Pictures were only available of the game, but no photos on the wires of what happened afterwards. But as my friend — a person I trust who gave me a first hand account of his experience there — told me, “Our first reaction when attacked was not to take pictures, but to protect ourselves.”

He did send me photos of the shattered windows of their bus, which we ran in the paper.

But this led to some important questions: How accurate are the reports we are getting? How can we validate them? It’s not possible that thousands have agreed on one story, but are they exaggerating? Are we falling in the trap of sensationalization? Are we getting too caught up in the details that we are failing to see the bigger picture?

Seeing the media frenzy that followed was also worrying. The state-run official satellite station, El-Masreya, ran footage of the Thursday night demonstration. (For those of you who don’t know, for state TV and media, demos don’t happen). Many TV shows crossed the line (not a fine line) that separates coverage to outward agitation of the masses, some even calling for targeting Algerians in Egypt. It’s the same type of irresponsible media that fueled the masses in Algeria with false reports. (Mainly the death of Algerians during the game in Egypt, which the Algerian government denied. The denial didn’t find a place in some newspapers that had confirmed these alleged deaths.)

Alaa Mubarak speaking on TV (a rare occurrence for the media shy son), the initial tolerance for the protests near the Algerian embassy, and the liberty in which media was allowed to report on and fuel the anger were factors to consider.

After the initial story that ran in the Friday edition, we ran more stories the following day: more eyewitnesses’ accounts, the diplomatic relations between Egypt and Algeria, a story about Alaa Mubarak speaking on TV, and of course a story about the demonstrations that took place on Thursday and Friday.

But in doing so, we tried to be careful with the wording. Not sensational but not subdued either. Report it as is. Focus on the facts. I hope we didn’t mess up or miss a word here or there.

Objectivity, the first lesson any journalist learns, can sometimes seem like an elusive goal.

My take on the frenzy: When did Alaa become the hero?

After sending the paper to print and during the two days I took off, I had the chance to talk to more people, not about their experience in Sudan but about their reactions here in Cairo to the whole thing.

The most worrying realization was that many felt more humiliated by this incident than the numerous tragedies that have marred our recent history: from train accidents to the death of over 1,000 people over the course of few hours when their ferry sank in the Red Sea (and the subsequent escape of its owner).

I’m not trying to belittle the incident or what people have went through last week in Sudan. I don’t have the slightest doubt that this happened. Although it’s difficult to prove with material evidence, since people were running away from the attacks rather than clashing with the attackers, it’s still traumatizing for any person to be chased down the streets of a foreign city (or their hometown for that matter). Whether the Algerian government is complicit in this by intentionally allowing more violent fans to travel needs to be probed. Justice needs to be served. The failure of the Sudanese security to enforce order and protect its Egyptian visitors needs to addressed as well. We also need to revise the official response after the bus carrying the Algerian players was pelted by stones on their way from the airport.

But let’s put it all in perspective.

This incident is given more space, in state and private media, than other more tragic ones. Without scientific research, it’s easy to notice the difference between portraying the ordeal of the fans who returned and the ordeal of the families that spent nights (stress the ‘s’ here) in Red Sea towns waiting for news on the fate of their loved ones after the ferry sank in 2006. No masses were agitated on the scale we saw over the weekend. No actors or singers cried on live TV from the shock of it. No one felt humiliated when the case was referred to misdemeanor court or that the owner of the ferry was tried in absentia, because he left the country. Not in disguise but like any respectable citizen traveling abroad with the seal of government consent on his forehead.

Remember no people were chased down streets or had their buses pelted with stones then; they were merely left to die in freezing water and their corpses were left floating in open water, all 1,035 of them.

It’s only when the anger would be directed to an outside enemy is it allowed to be fueled and to mushroom. And not any enemy. People were beaten in Tahrir in March 2003 when they tried to march to the US embassy to protest the Iraq War. They were described as barbaric and accused of vandalism. Last week, the media and the ministry of interior (which usually takes days to issue a statement, that if they decided to acknowledge the existence of an incident) hailed the protest at the Algerian embassy that left a lot of shattered glass in Zamalek as “civilized.”

This has led many to the verge of hysteria and some willingly fell off that cliff. The hysteria I’m talking about here can be summarized in the willingness of many to attack any person just because he or she is Algerian. Someone, usually sane, told me over the weekend he would randomly attack any Algerian he sees in Cairo. What about XX, an Algerian friend? What if the man you are attacking has just spoken in your favor? What if it’s a woman? An old woman?

This hysteria won’t only have violent irreversible repercussions but has the ability of distracting people from the right ways to seek justice and also other important issues on the local front.

The idea that Egyptians are allowing many to cash in on their ordeal is equally worrying. Aside from celebrities, Alaa Mubarak’s phone interjection on TV has left me speechless.

Suddenly, the business-savvy son of the president who’s been in power for 28 years has become the hero. He’s angry, he wants to avenge the masses and like the rest of the Egyptians he feels humiliated. Suddenly, he is speaking against Egypt’s policy of political posturing, a policy that thrived during his father’s reign (except for selected enemies).

Alaa’s popularity is off the chart. The past 28 years and his other ‘business interjections’ were instantly forgiven and forever forgotten.

Sorry, but I draw the line here: When Alaa rises in popularity as hysteria reigns.

We’ve come so far these past few months on the road to health care reform.  We’ve had to cross the ugly racist backroads of a nation, mobs in false masks claiming fascism, Nazis, and Nativism, but meaning “we don’t need an uppity President telling us what to do with OUR country.”

But we didn’t engage.  We stayed focus on the mission, where the clock is ticking on so many lives.

We’ve also traversed fictitious maverick Facebook streams and have done what we can to educate people on the difference between facts and blatant manipulative misinformation.

But there was the mission, and so many lives are on the line.  We stayed the course.

Most recently, we’ve scaled the mountains of DC to get votes out of the House and garner enough votes in the Senate for it to move on with debates.

But even though we can see the prize in our mind and a blur of it up ahead, we must stay focused. There is more work to do and we can’t be distracted by weapons of mass distractions that are sure to lay ahead, like land mines in our path.

We can’t get distracted.  We must call our Senators. We must put forth the truth and separate misinformation.  We must take the energy that goes into disbelief that there is opposition to saving lives and turn that into positive action.

We can do this.

Photo Credit: jasmic

The Debate Over Darwin Continues: Stephen Meyer vs. Michael Shermer in Beverly Hills

In less than two weeks we will witness the rematch of the decade as Stephen Meyer and Michael Shermer face off on the question of intelligent design versus evolution.

These two men have met several times before, most recently at Freedomfest in Las Vegas in 2008 (click here for video). They also sparred in 2005 at Westminster College and appeared together on Lee Strobel’s Faith Under Fire program (video here). It will be interesting to see the new insights into the questions at hand as this debate has matured and developed.

The debate is hosted by the American Freedom Alliance and will take place at the prestigious Saban Theater in Beverly Hills on Monday, November 30, at 7:30pm. Dr. Meyer and Dr. Shermer will be joined by Dr. Richard Sternberg and Dr. Donald Prothero, respectively.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

(Via Evolution News)

There are a few things I want to know today:

1) Why is “sparkly” the adjective of choice to describe vampires lately? Have they all been slathered in Elmer’s glue and dropped into a vat of glitter, or have they simply been turned into a lightly carbonated beverage? Or both?*

2) What kind of alternative universe of morons do advertisers think we live in? Does Domino’s Pizza actually believe they will ever be able to convince me that they have a dedicated team of “chefs” who regularly battle it out for the privilege of creating another shitty processed pasta breadbowl mutation?

3) How long can I get away with drying my hands on the sleeve of a sweatshirt before I am forced to get up to put the load of towels in the dryer?

4) Why did I eat the whole burrito? I mean, it was generously bathed in mole sauce. I know that this explains a lot of it. But still: why? Did I eat the ENTIRE THING??

5) And then I had to follow it with a cupcake? Really?

6) Oh god. It was a very very good cupcake, and I DON’T REGRET IT IN A MILLION YEARS.

From The Knot's Wedding Shop

7) Should we have wedding favors? Or just forget about it? Part of me thinks it could be fun and the other part thinks it could be just another time- and money-sucking task. The beau suggested we could do something fun and cool that most people would appreciate, like a pint glass printed with a custom design. I agree that would be awesome. Because we’ve all encountered those completely useless favors, right? I recall at the very first wedding I went to after college, I was given a little corked jar containing sand and shells, with the wedding date inscribed on the outside in metallic ink. I think it rolled around the back of my car for several months before I guiltily threw it out. At another wedding, I took home a white chocolate bar of dubious quality, engraved with the bride and groom’s initials in gold. It sat in the pantry for several months before I guiltily threw it out. I don’t want to send my guests off packing miniature pangs of remorse. Plus, I don’t want them to have to carry something around all night, especially when we have to move from the reception site to a bar for the after party.** And I mean, they probably wouldn’t even notice if they left favor-less, right?***

Hmm. I think I might have gotten one answer out of that session, at least.

* I’m not drinking that.

** Whenever I read or hear the words “after party,” Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello begins chanting in my head, “Party party party party party party AFTER PARTY!”****

*** Not least because they will be drizzunk.

**** In super awesome perfect fantasy world, Gogol Bordello plays our wedding. Until 4:00am. And then the after party, too. I can can see it now: My grandmother careening wildly across the dancefloor with the beau’s conservative uncle, guests passed out across the dessert table. Can it be super awesome perfect fantasy world now? No? Darn.

Here is audio of a debate of sorts between William Lane Craig and Daniel Dennett. Craig spends 45 minutes going over three theistic arguments in some detail: Leibnizian cosmological arguments, kalām cosmological arguments, and anthropic principle teleological arguments. Dennett responds for about 10 minutes. He seems impressed by Craig’s presentation, but objects that our intuitions (about causality for example) when taken to these conclusions, cease to be intuitive. I’m not sure that’s really relevant though, since the exposition of an intuition is never as obvious and clear as the intuition itself. At any rate, it’s obviously more plausible to affirm the principle of causality than to deny it.

He also objects to the claim that abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. He suggests they can in a sense, but the sense he describes is clearly formal causal relations. The claim is that they cannot stand in efficient causal relations, and so cannot be appealed to as efficient causes.

It ends with a couple of minutes of commentary by “Alister” who I assume is Alister McGrath since Craig’s CV includes “In Defense of Theistic Arguments” in the just-published The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue.

(HT Quodlibeta)