Pornography, public acceptance and sex related crime: A review

this should get the old wrinklies  into a tizzy. Availability of sexually explicit material does not (gasp, shock, horror) increase sex crimes. And in some cases has even decreased sex crimes. See this paper.

A vocal segment of the population has serious concerns about the effect of pornography in society and challenges its public use and acceptance. This manuscript reviews the major issues associated with the availability of sexually explicit material. It has been found everywhere it was scientifically investigated that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased. It is further been found that sexual erotica has not only wide spread personal acceptance and use but general tolerance for its availability to adults. This attitude is seen by both men and women and not only in urban communities but also in reputed conservative ones as well. Further this finding holds nationally in the United States and in widely different countries around the world. Indeed, no country where this matter has been scientifically studied has yet been found to think pornography ought be restricted from adults. The only consistent finding is that adults prefer to have the material restricted from children's production or use.

curious, eh?

What an evocative photo

not that one uses a fountain pen any more…but still, amazing imagery :)

The Criminalization of Abortion in the West

this was an interesting book review that I read today…

I quote

The argument of this book is that abortion, including miscarriage by assault and infanticide (p. 5), came to be treated as a “crime” in the modern sense — “wrongdoing requiring lawful retribution from the hands of publicly appointed officials” (p. 4) — in the period 1140–1250 (pp. 1–2). The introduction sets out this thesis and the crucial problematic: when do the sources for law and society in the West first conceptualise a clear distinction between crime on the one hand and wrongdoing that is not criminal, such as “tort” or sin, on the other? It is a debate that has long engaged scholars of medieval canon and English common law.

a fascinating argument. the author talks about abortion being criminalised in the mid 12th century with the rise in the emergence of universities and jurisprudence studies.

As for myself, i am firmly of the belief that its the choice of the mother whether or not to abort. And yes, whilst you can quibble over whether or not at which time period the baby becomes viable, the fact remains that the mother is responsible and accountable. So end of. But curious how this is all religiously mandated. For example, you wouldn't find any of these issues relating to non Judeo Christian backgrounds, at least not that I have read about it. If you believe in the cycle of life and rebirth, then when you die is merely a waystation…fascinating…

this book goes on my to be read pile :)

I have no ancestors of that gifted people

I don't have to tell you about the holocaust son. But remember that pretty much the entire German population with very few very honourable exceptions supported or agreed or kept quiet whilst this was happening. It's unfair to hold them just up for scrutiny. Jews have been persecuted for centuries not least here in the UK. If you get a chance son, visit the Jewish museum in London. We've got tons of books on this, including a mildly controversial book, Hitler's willing executioners. Then you can read about how common people turned brutal. And it can happen anywhere. Eternal vigilance son.

But that's not the point which I wanted to bring out. It's the letter writing which I wanted to point to, son.
It's a letter of note. Polished English. And it's a highly intelligent put down. Very smart very very intelligent. Normally I don't recommend writing letters or emails when angry. Then you'll end up writing the best email you'll ever regret. Never do that. If you get upset over an email, by all means, draft a letter but DONT send it. Store it in draft and then send it next day after sleeping over it. Anger is very expensive son. Extremely expensive. It costs huge amounts, not just to you. It has a destructive ability that vastly overpowers the immediate benefit of hurting the other. See people who get angry and you know what their weaknesses are. You know how to control them by observing their anger.

So whilst I can appreciate the intellectual aspect of this letter, I disagree that he should have sent it. How will it change the mind of the publisher? He's going to get pissed and it doesn't help.

There's a time and place for anger. This isn't it. Then again, if he hadn't sent it, then I wouldn't have been able to share this with you :)

Love

Baba

Letters of Note: I have no ancestors of that gifted people

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-have-no-ancestors-of-that-gifted.html

via Instapaper

Sing your heart out

Kids

The first time I heard about Paul Robeson was on a song from Calcutta Youth Choir. He is an amazing man, kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson

take a look at his life. A big sportsman, a strong lawyer, political activist, etc. etc. Amazing chap. But look at what he says...

“Hard-working people, and poor, most of them, in worldly goods—but how rich in compassion! How filled with the goodness of humanity and the spiritual steel forged by centuries of oppression! There was the honest joy of laughter in these homes, folk-wit and story, hearty appetites for life as for the nourishing greens and black-eyed peas and cornmeal bread they shared with me. Here in this little hemmed-in world where home must be theatre and concert hall and social center, there was a warmth of song. Songs of love and longing, songs of trials and triumphs, deep-flowing rivers and rollicking brooks, hymn-song and ragtime ballad, gospels and blues, and the healing comfort to be found in the illimitable sorrow of the spirituals.”

—

Paul Robeson

That's the important thing, kids. Song. Sing. You need to sing out loud, not just in the shower. Like Dada and I used to dance to the songs of Belafonte. How Diya and I dance and sing to the Disney songs. Sing out loud, kids, that's a way of being human. It exposes your emotions, makes you think and feel. As Paul says, songs of love and longing, songs of trials and triumphs, deep -flowing rivers and rollicking brooks, etc. etc.

I grew up with listening to songs in Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Punjabi. They were about love, they were about rivers, they were about Indian nationalism. Even now I get goose bumps when I listen to the Indian national anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh26zOjIh9I

but you kids have grown up in the UK and are British. Your songs are going to be different, the songs which you love are going to be relating to different aspects such as the Queen or love or culture or etc. etc.

but don’t forget to sing, not just listen to songs, kids, sing your heart out. Even if it’s the barney song :)

Love

Baba

Hunger Feeds More The Hungry: Evidence On Cognitive And Affective Empathy

a rather interesting paper here…

We investigate experimentally the impact of cognitive and affective empathy on behavior. A
novelty of the study is that we do so directly without invoking responses to questionnaires, but
by manipulating the state of hunger of participants in the single-shot Dictator game during
the holy month of Ramadan. Our sample consists of male workers in the Sepaahaan (car
battery) manufacturing factory in the city of Isfahan in Iran. We find that, only, affective
empathy amplifies altruistic behavior. More specifically, hungry dictators transfer more money
to hungry recipients than fed dictators. The difference is statistically as well as economically
significant.

and there’s a great quote from the old master, Adam Smith. I quote:

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his
nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary
to him through he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
Adam Smith

the use of hunger during the Ramadan time is quite interesting. Despite them being hungry, the donors will pay more in an altruistic manner. The fact that they are hungry themselves attenuates their unselfish behaviour, good to be human, eh?

Babylonian Daily Calendar was from sunset to sunset

I am studying the Kingdom of Judah and I came across a fascinating factoid. The Gregorian Calendar measures the day from midnight to midnight. The Babylonian calendar, unlike the Gregorian calendar, is measured from sunset to sunset. It also had the 7th day as a holy or evil day depending upon what could or couldn't be done.

here’s an cuneiform tablet talking about an eclipse.

the link down to our Sunday’s and how we measure time is fascinating…

copyright is theft? really?

this was an interesting paper which i read about from here. Abstract:

This paper exploits variation in the adoption of copyright laws within Italy – as a result of Napoleon’s military campaign – to examine the effects of copyrights on creativity. To measure variation in the quantity and quality of creative output, we have collected detailed data on 2,598 operas that premiered across eight states within Italy between 1770 and 1900. These data indicate that the adoption of copyrights led to a significant increase in the number of new operas premiered per state and year. Moreover, we find that the number of high-quality operas also increased – measured both by their contemporary popularity and by the longevity of operas. By comparison, evidence for a significant effect of copyright extensions is substantially more limited. Data on composers’ places of birth indicate that the adoption of copyrights triggered a shift in patterns of composers’ migration, and helped attract a large number of new composers to states that offered copyrights. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/10/evidence-from-opera-on-the-efficacy-of-copyright.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.IiGEA3z2.dpuf

quite an interesting argument. Copyright is intellectual property and you should protect it. I saw this great point in the comments, which I didnt know about. Do you think theft only happens in torrents today? See what this note says with respect to Dickens.

‘In publishing The Pickwick Papers in volume form after the book’s epoch-making serial run in 1837, Dickens dedicated the work to dramatist and politician Thomas Noon Talford, partly because this writer as an M. P. had introduced a copyright bill in the House of Commons in 1836. Dickens was already aware of how much money he was losing as a result of massive violations of his copyright both at home (via theatrical adaptations) and abroad (via cheap American re-prints). As a shorthand reporter for The Mirror of Parliament and the True Sun (1831-33), young Dickens had followed the copyright question avidly from the press gallery. In 1835, while a reporter for The Morning Chronicle, Dickens applauded the efforts of the young barrister who had been elected Member of Parliament for Reading in 1835 to introduce a copyright bill, which eventually became law in 1842. In early 1844, Talford would act as Dickens’s attorney in the case against Richard Egan Lee and Henry Hewitt for their flagrant plagiarism of A Christmas Carol.

Young Charles Dickens, in the process of being lionized by his Yankee readers, dared to assert that, had American publishers paid Sir Walter Scott appropriate royalties for his works re-printed in the United States from Marmion in 1808 to Castle Dangerous in 1832, he would not have faced bankruptcy in the middle of his career and would not have died at the age of 61, broken in body and mind by years of financial difficulties, and “unjustly deprived of his rightful income” (Ackroyd 350). Further, he alluded to the disgraceful treatment of Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), retired Royal Naval officer turned author, who established residency by means of his 1837 tour, but was subsequently denied copyright protection by American courts unless he were prepared to renounce his status as a British subject and become an American citizen.

Dickens was essentially using the plight of these authors to argue his own case, for as fast as he turned out The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and other early novels, American publishing houses snapped them up and published them in cheap editions which sold in the thousands across the country, pocketing the proceeds without sending so much as a letter of thanks to Boz. The piracies began as early as the publication of Sketches by Boz in 1834.

He bewailed, ironically, “the exquisite justice of never deriving sixpence from an enormous American sale of all my books.” Having already spoken up for increased copyright protection in Britain and for a British-American agreement, he had it in mind to advance a just cause from which he and others would benefit. Ignorant of the complications of copyright politics and of the recent severe depression, he crossed the Atlantic with the naïve expectation that in this republic of his imagination elemental notions of fairness would triumph over politics and power relationships, as if America were some elegant utopia. . . .(Kaplan 124-125)

The rowdy American press, particularly in New York, soon disabused Dickens of his utopian notions vis a vis copyright. Americans, expecting him to be grateful for their warm reception, were staggered when this young British goodwill ambassador at the beginning of 1842, at a dinner held in his honour in Boston, dared to criticize them as pirates while urging the merits of international copyright, which at that point in American history would have seen vast amounts of Yankee capital heading overseas with little reciprocation.’ http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva75.html

here are some of the arguments on copywrite is theft. Here. And here.

Recession or no recession, many NFL, NBA and Major League

Kids

Both of you have investments and thankfully have got the savings bug. That's very good discipline. I've seen poverty closely kids and it's not fun at all. Not at all. Specially when you're old. That's the worst part kids because you cannot make money at that time and have to rely on people's handouts. 

It's soul destroying to ask for money. I've seen your grandparents in extremely difficult circumstances as far as money is concerned kids. Never ever allow yourself to get into that situation. 

You may have lots of money kids. You may invent something big. Or one of your lottery tickets comes true. Or an investment pays off. But always be grounded. 

See the story of these athletes. They are like flashes in the pan kids. They earned loads and then whoosh. All was gone. 

Read and learn. And remember the rule kids, save 1/3rd of your money. Every month. As much as possible. 

Love

Baba

Recession or no recession, many NFL, NBA and Major League - 03.23.09 - SI Vault
http://cnnsi.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&expire=&fb=Y&partnerID=289881&title=Recession+or+no+recession%2C+many+NFL%2C+NBA+and+Major+League+-+03.23.09+-+SI+Vault&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsportsillustrated.cnn.com%2Fvault%2Farticle%2Fmagazine%2FMAG1153364%2Findex.htm&urlID=34813453

---

What the hell happened here? Seven floors above the iced-over Dallas North Tollway, Raghib (Rocket) Ismail is revisiting the question. It's December, and Ismail is sitting in the boardroom of Chapwood Investments, a wealth management firm, his white Notre Dame snow hat pulled down to his furrowed brow.

White People Love Hiking. Minorities Don't. Here's Why

This is a very USA centric opinion piece son so one has to be careful in extrapolating it but I've seen the similar behaviour in many other countries like in Europe, UK, some countries in Asia. The idea of going out in the wild where you are walking the paths, cold or hot. Sweaty. Hungry. Carrying water and swatting fleas and other biting insects. Not quite fun is it? My feeling is that poorer sections of the world are too close to the time that they had to work outdoors to make their living. So for them to voluntarily head outside into the wilderness is strange and doesn't compute for them.
And you're too young to perhaps appreciate this son. At this moment you need friends, lights, music, company and and and. Which is perfectly fine. Because you're at the age where you are still finding and defining yourself. Looking externally and understanding people. Which is right and do more of it.
When you reach my age perhaps you will be more comfortable with just being with yourself. Curious attribute -- loneliness son. I've got to admit that I usually don't feel that but that could be because I'm ok with being alone. Lol. Who wants to be with this messed up mind anyway?
But once in a while I feel the need to get away from it all son. Just me, my legs, camera and you head off into the mountains or forests. You don't need company and you definitely don't need groups. At best have one person with you but select very carefully son. The wrong choice and you will regret it as then the beauty of Mother Nature is lost in the cacophony of I'm hungry, I'm dirty, I'm cold. I'm hot. Whatever. :) try to find somebody you can be quiet with son. Quietly standing by a little stream in a forest or mountain and observing a dragonfly darting about and sharing that moment with somebody. You will burn that memory in your brain and it will live on for decades compared to memories of expensive gifts or holidays which disappear quickly.
But there is huge joy in wandering the forests and mountains. Sometimes you feel like weeping with the sheer beauty of what you're seeing. The majestic sweep of mountains receding into the horizon. Clouds roiling over. Shadows on the ground. Grassy plains. The silence broken with bird song or chirruping of insects. If you're quiet and are very lucky, you can hear God talking to you. It's such a wonderful feeling.
Love
Baba
White People Love Hiking. Minorities Don't. Here's Why.http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114621/national-parks-popular-white-people-not-minorities-why