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By Tanya Gold, The Guardian.
Posted September 29, 2009.
Drugs, money, revenge, because it's fun -- those are just a few of the reasons women have sex, according to a new book that interviewed 1,006 women from around the world.
Do you want to know why women have sex with men with tiny little feet? I am stroking a book called Why Women Have Sex. It is by Cindy Meston, a clinical psychologist, and David Buss, an evolutionary psychologist. It is a very thick, bulging book. I've never really wondered Why Women Have Sex. But after years of not asking the question, the answer is splayed before me.
Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex. Not 235. Not 236. But 237. And what are they? From the reams of confessions, it emerges that women have sex for physical, emotional and material reasons; to boost their self-esteem, to keep their lovers, or because they are raped or coerced. Love? That's just a song. We are among the bad apes now.
Why, I ask Meston, have people never really talked about this? Alfred Kinsey, the "father" of sexology, asked 7,985 people about their sexual histories in the 1940s and 50s; Masters and Johnson observed people having orgasms for most of the 60s. But they never asked why. Why?
"People just assumed the answer was obvious," Meston says. "To feel good. Nobody has really talked about how women can use sex for all sorts of resources." She rattles off a list and as she says it, I realise I knew it all along: "promotion, money, drugs, bartering, for revenge, to get back at a partner who has cheated on them. To make themselves feel good. To make their partners feel bad." Women, she says, "can use sex at every stage of the relationship, from luring a man into the relationship, to try and keep a man so he is fulfilled and doesn't stray. Duty. Using sex to get rid of him or to make him jealous." continued>>
Director Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss police as he flew in for the Zurich Film Festival and faces possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, authorities said Sunday.
Polanski was scheduled to receive an honorary award at the festival when he was apprehended Saturday at the airport, the Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement. It said U.S. authorities have sought the arrest of the 76-year-old director around the world since 2005.
Polanski fled the U.S. in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with the underage girl. The director of such classic films as "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" has asked a U.S. appeals court in California to overturn a judges' refusal to throw out his case. He claims misconduct by the now-deceased judge who had arranged a plea bargain and then reneged on it.
In Paris, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he was "dumbfounded" by Polanski's arrest, adding that he "strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them."
Those comments referred to the fact that Polanski, a native of France who was taken to Poland by his parents, escaped Krakow's Jewish ghetto as a child and lived off the charity of strangers. His mother died at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.
Dr. Morris Capouya, a popular dentist and leader of Montgomery's small Sephardic Jewish community, died Saturday morning at a local hospital. He was 96.
Known for his ready smile and quick wit, Capouya was a man of many interests and excelled at most of them, his namesake grandson said Saturday night.
"He was a man who led by example, a man who loved life and put a lot of energy into it every day of his life," Montgomery businessman Morris E. Capouya said. "If anybody ever asked him for a hand, he was there to extend it and help if needed."
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Leak Memory Chapel with Rabbis Scott Kramer and Elliot Stevens officiating. Burial will follow at Greenwood Cemetery. more>>
During Ahmadinejad’s Visit, UN Members Should Demand Accountability for Killings, Torture
Member states of the United Nations should use President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to the UN General Assembly to address Iran's worsening human rights crisis.
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The civilians locked up in these detention camps have a right to liberty now, not when the government gets around to it. World leaders should support calls from the UN to restore full freedom of movement to these people, who already have suffered mightily from war and displacement.
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Photo Essay: The Resistance of the Monks
© 2009 Pat Brown/Panos
| Photo Essay: Italy/Libya -Pushed Back, Pushed Around
© 2009 Enrico Dagnino
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Deporting HIV-Positive Migrants Threatens Lives, Global Goals
Need to Ensure Continuity of Treatment and Care Across Borders
Migrants living with HIV are often explicitly excluded from treatment. If they are detained, they are often denied access to antiretroviral drugs, and then if deported they can’t get care.
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Human Rights Watch is launching the campaign 2100 by 2010, the purpose of which is to secure the release of all 2,100 political prisoners in Burma. Send this link to your friends: http://www.hrw.kintera.org/burma/take-action
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Intimidation Intensifies Ahead of Second Anniversary of Crackdown
The stories told by monks are sad and disturbing, but they exemplify the behavior of Burma’s military government as it clings to power through violence, fear, and repression. The monks retain a great deal of moral authority, making principled stands by monks very dangerous for a government that doesn’t.
Read more Read the report
African immigrants who attempt the dangerous boat journey across the Mediterranean to Italy face a double dose of hardship.
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EU governments should reveal the true extent of torture carried out on their soil
The ‘war on terror' long ago added ‘waterboarding' and ‘rendition' to the language of public life, but only now is the scale of abuse committed during the ‘war' truly becoming apparent. Courtesy of a report released in August by the CIA inspector-general, we now know, for example, that CIA officers also carried out mock executions and threatened to kill detainees' children.
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Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
In 1991, her stepfather watched helplessly as 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted while walking to her school bus stop near their home in Northern California. It was every parent's worst nightmare.
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Published in the Huffington Post
Troy Davis has been on Georgia's death row for 18 years...but seven of the nine who testified against Davis at his trial recanted and now say they are not sure who shot off-duty Savannah police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail.
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At Least One Reported Dead as Force Used Against Protesters
The Organization of American States should press the Honduran de facto government to halt the excessive use of force against protesters and to guarantee other fundamental rights.
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 Elie / إيلي
sent by Tarek Heggy
Foreign students of contemporary Egyptian affairs believe there has been a marked decline in the civility of public discourse in recent years, particularly when two opposing points of view contend over an issue of public concern. I have given a great deal of thought to this phenomenon, which I tried to place in a historical perspective by comparing the language of debate in use today with that used earlier this century. My research centered on the now-defunct review, Al-Kashkool, specifically, on the issues which appeared in the period between 1923 and 1927. To my surprise, I discovered that the scurrilous language which I thought was the product of the last few decades was already in use in the `twenties. But further readings of the political and cultural writings of the period revealed that, side by side with the unfortunate tendency to resort to name-calling and slander, a tendency we suffer from to this day, was a sophisticated debating style that resembled that of the West. When Taha Hussein published his controversial book on pre-Islamic poetry, he came under attack from many critics. Some argued their case soberly, using civilized language and confining themselves to an objective critique of the book, but others stooped to unacceptable depths of calumny and personal attacks. One such was Mustapha Sadeq Al-Rafei, whose book, On the Grill, overstepped the bounds of decency in the virulent personal attack he directed at Abbas Al-Aqqad.
In other words, public discourse in Egypt was conducted along two tracks simultaneously: one track observed the rules of civility and objectivity,
shunning the use of insulting language and personal attacks, the other belonged to the no-holds-barred school of writing, which had no compunctions about resorting to vilification and mudslinging to discredit the opposing party.
During the last fifty years, the objective school of public debate has gradually lost ground to a defamatory style based on hurling insults at the opponent, in which polemicists find it easier to demonize the proponents of the opposing point of view than to argue their own case on its merits. Numerous examples attest to the prevalence of this phenomenon in our cultural life today, where differences of opinion over a specific issue are often expressed in the form of vituperative exchanges of accusations and personal insults.
Take the strident campaigns launched on a periodic basis by some opposition papers over one issue or another. All too often, these campaigns degenerate from an objective discussion of the issue over which they were launched in the first place into an all-out war against the person holding the opposing viewpoint, whose personal integrity and morality are called into question and who is accused of all kinds of private and public wrongdoing. At first, I thought this was because a public debate offers an ideal opportunity to give vent to the pent-up feelings of anger and frustration some of us harbor because of the many problems we face in our day-to-day life. I have since come to believe that, although this is certainly one of the factors behind the phenomenon, the real reason is a fascist trend that has marked public discourse in this country for close on half a century.
In the last five decades, public life in Egypt was strongly influenced by two main realities. The first is that the regime which came to power in 1952 was extremely intolerant of any opposition, indeed, even of the mildest criticism. I am not making a value judgment here, merely stating a fact. From the start, the regime brooked no opposition, using all the apparatus of state to crush dissidents, including the media, which launched devastating campaigns against anyone who dared raise a voice against the regime. The other reality is that the strongest underground opposition movement in the country was the Moslem Brothers, a party that was and still is notoriously averse to the least
hint of criticism, dealing with whoever refuses to toe the party line either with an iron fist or with floods of speeches and writings that are no less fascist. Thus we were caught between a ruling establishment that crushed its opponents with all the means at its disposal and an underground opposition movement that destroyed its opponents both materially and morally.
In the context of a fascist climate where any divergent opinion was ruthlessly crushed, whole generations grew up with no knowledge of the rules of civilized debate, generations raised to believe that opponents and critics were fair game for the most ferocious attacks on their probity and honor, and that personal insults and abusive language were par for the course.
Such a climate is not conducive to the promotion of such values as tolerance of the Other, accepting criticism, engaging in self-criticism, expanding the objective margin in thinking and debate or genuinely embracing pluralism. There have been a number of notable exceptions to this general rule, but these are unfortunately far outnumbered by the examples of oral and written debates conducted along fascist lines, which represent the dominant trend in our public discourse at this time. It is a trend that is likely to remain dominant for some years to come, until the process of economic reform now underway has been successfully completed. The fundamental changes this is expected to introduce to the components of public life will make of those who now feed the fascist trend relics of a bygone time, products of a stage which left its mark on the attitudes of some members of our society until the new global changes divested them of their very raison d'etre. However, this is still several years down the road and, in the meantime, we will continue to suffer from the fascist trend that dominates public debate in Egypt today.
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Le ministre égyptien de la Culture a dernièrement décidé de remettre à l´ordre du jour le projet de traduction de textes de littérature israélienne en arabe. La décision a suscité de vives critiques au sein du milieu égyptien cultivé, qui y a vu une tentative de conciliation face à Israël et un moyen d´assurer le soutien israélien à la candidature du ministre de la Culture Farouq Hosni au poste de secrétaire général de l´UNESCO.
Le ministre égyptien de la Culture a démenti, expliquant que la traduction d´ouvrages israéliens n´avait jamais été considérée comme une mesure de normalisation avec Israël, mais qu´il fallait plutôt y voir un moyen pour les lecteurs égyptiens de connaître leur ennemi. En outre, les traductions ne se feraient pas à partir des originaux en hébreu mais de leurs adaptations en langues européennes, afin d´éviter tout contact direct avec des écrivains et éditeurs israéliens.
Certains intellectuels égyptiens ont approuvé le projet, estimant que les traductions en arabe d´ouvrages israéliens pourraient être utiles aux services de renseignements égyptiens et enrichir la culture générale des lecteurs. D´autres en revanche redoutent que la normalisation culturelle avec Israël ne conduise à accepter cet Etat comme partie intégrante de la région arabe.
suite>>
par Mediarabe.info
Farouk Hosni a été battu par la candidate bulgare Irina Gueorguieva Bokova (31 voix contre 27). Si le très controversé ministre égyptien de la Culture, ancien agent des renseignements et probable protecteur des terroristes palestiniens, est vaincu, c’est un salut pour le monde de la culture.
Mais le retour de Farouk Hosni en Egypte, pour poursuivre sa carrière à la tête du ministère de la Culture, poste qu’il occupe depuis 22 ans, ne doit pas satisfaire les intellectuels, artistes et journalistes égyptiens. Ils misaient sur son élection à la tête de l’UNESCO pour s’en débarrasser et permettre à la Culture de vivre. Hosni ayant excellé dans la censure et les intimidations.
 Plum Island by Emily Corbato.
CAMBRIDGE, MA.- The Rubin-Frankel Gallery at Boston University Hillel House is featuring the work of photographer Emily Corbató in the solo exhibition entitled “Absolution of the Wind”. In keeping with the mission of Rubin-Frankel Gallery, Corbató will exhibit work inspired by her spirituality, filtered through her love of nature and reflecting upon Jewish tradition. “I loaf within the absolution of the wind…” a line from a poem by Philip Booth*, unifies the concept of this exhibit. It exalts in total surrender of oneself to nature’s surroundings, yet absolution bears the weight of faith as recited in deepest prayer during Kol Nidre, the chant sung at the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and most solemn of Jewish Holidays, “all vows… may they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void…”. This show was intentionally scheduled to coincide with the High Holidays.
The four portfolios comprising this exhibit were taken on Plum Island, MA, where Corbató maintains her studio and where she was first drawn into the world of photography fifteen years ago. They span from her early ocean series, include “in the beginning…” a series of clouds “taken on a day the sky surrounded and enveloped me with its passion, fervor and glory”, and her most recent work, shown in this exhibit for the first time. This includes the set of images of trees which inspired the title of the exhibit, and “reflections”, in which “branches appear to float on the water’s surface in an ever changing state of motion, reaching up skyward and in mirroring appear to delve, like roots, below the surface deep into the earth”, recalling a passage from Psalm LXXXVI:12 (Hebrew translation):
“Truth will grow out of the earth, and righteousness will look down from heaven.”
-Letter From a Distant Land, from Letter from a Distant Land, poems by Philip Booth, 1957, The Viking Press. more>>
Hundreds of police officers to be deployed in northern city's mixed neighborhoods during Jewish holiday to prevent last year's violence from repeating itself. Many Arab residents to spend holiday away. 'The residents have learned their lesson. They know the heavy price for their actions, and they've all paid it,' says mayor  Akko riots (archives) Photo: Hagai Aharon
 Akko Mayor Shimon LankryPhoto: Vadim DanielA year has gone by since violent riots erupted in Akko between Arabs and Jews during the Yom Kippur holiday. This year, it seems all sides are trying to avoid confrontation, as hundreds of cops will be deployed around trouble areas, and many Arab residents decided to spend the holiday away from the city.
"Obviously there are extremists that will look for confrontation, but they are a very small minority" said Akko's Mayor Shimon Lankry, adding that "Akko's residents learned their lesson. They know the heavy price for their actions, and they've all paid it." Coexistence
| | Jews, Arabs celebrate holidays together in Akko / Sharon Roffe-Ofir
| | Eid el-Fitr and Rosh Hashana fell on same day this year, providing Akko's residents with double the fun
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Lankri said that preparations have been made to avoid future confrontations: "There are many more security cameras in the city, and a larger number of police forces and security officers, but we will not be completely relaxed until after Yom Kippur is over.
"I believe that the holiday will go by peacefully, but regrettably no one can guarantee that peace will be maintained. In any case, we are preparing for any scenario, and will act accordingly." continued>>
A tous nos compatriotes de religion juive, pour la fête du pardon (yom kippour), je vous souhaite de la passer dans l’allégresse, la joie et la bonne humeur.
Yom Kippour est la fête juive la plus connue et la plus respectée par les Juifs du monde entier. Elle marque le paroxysme des 10 jours de pénitence qui ont suivi la fête de Roch Hachana. Cette fête, appelée aussi le Grand Pardon, permet à l'être humain d'obtenir le pardon divin pour ses fautes et donc de s'en libérer pour bien commencer la nouvelle année.
Pour obtenir le Pardon, trois démarches sont essentielles :
la prière, le jeûne et l'aumône.
Yom Kippur is a Jewish holiday known as the Day of Atonement. Many people of Jewish faith in the United States spend the day fasting and praying. Its theme centers on atonement and repentance. Yom Kippour is on the 10th day of the month of Tishrei (or Tishri) in the Jewish calendar.
Prayers are an important part of the Yom Kippour observance. ©iStockphoto.com/Tova Teitelbaum
What do people do?
Many Jewish Americans believe that God seals their fate for the coming year on Yom Kippour. This holiday involves activities such as fasting and praying. It is believed that those who repent from their sins will be granted a happy New Year. Many Jewish people spend time in the synagogue at this time of the year.
The fasting lasts for 25 hours and begins on the evening before Yom Kippour. It ends after nightfall on Yom Kippour Some restrictions can be lifted when a threat of health or life is involved. Many Jewish Americans perform the Havdalah ceremony at the evening services, and then break the fast. The holiday ends on a joyous note, and many Jewish people take part in a festive after-fast meal.
Jewish leaders give lectures at Jewish community centers on Yom Kippour. Some centers in states such as New York have interactive beginners’ services in Russian. Yom Kippour also includes a remembrance service, called Yizkor, during which people read the names of the dead, reflect on their lives and their legacies, honor them through memory. Some Jewish Americans may take the day off work or organize time off during this time of the year, to observe the belief that no work is permitted on Yom Kippour. continued>>
The three men sitting in the plain room that houses Congregation Avdey Torah Hayah have dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin. They are neatly dressed on this hot summer day, and they have come, at the request of their rabbi, to talk to a reporter, with the help of a translator who speaks both Spanish and English.
The East Valley congregation, which serves the Spanish-speaking community, has shrunk from 75-some participants to about 25 now, says its spiritual leader, Rabbi Yosef Garcia. "We had a huge group of Crypto-Jews who live on the West Side - about 40 people," Garcia says. "They decided they wouldn't drive out here because of the sweeps (by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)."
Crypto-Jews are Jews who were "hiding in the Catholic Church," according to the Association of Crypto-Jews, or ACJA, which Garcia co-founded. Many continued to observe Jewish traditions in the home, while practicing another religion, usually Catholicism, publicly. According to Garcia, Brazil is home to the largest concentration of what he calls "Hispanic Sephardi" (or Spanish-speaking) Crypto-Jews, followed by Mexico, and then the southwestern U.S.
As for the legal status of his congregants, Garcia says, "We don't ask people if they're U.S. citizens or not. Our belief is if you are Jewish or interested in Judaism and you want to come to our synagogue, then come."
 Rabbi Josef Garcia, Aveday Torah Hayah
Pablo, Edmundo and Josue are all Hispanic Sephardi, like the rabbi who leads them. Pablo and Edmundo are brothers, and Josue is their nephew. The three work together at a landscaping company. more>>
sent by Viviane Stambouli
This coming Friday evening, Jews worldwide will begin their 5770th year on this earth! Who would have believed this possible? If anyone had told Abraham that his people would be around this long he probably would have been astounded.
Imagine, we did this without beheading anyone on TV, without a single suicide bomber , without kidnapping and murdering school children, without slaughtering Olympic athletes, and without flying airplanes into skyscrapers. We lasted this long despite 400 years as slaves in Egypt, 40 years of wandering in the desert, the mighty Roman army who nailed us to ten thousand crosses; despite the best efforts of fervent Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, Hitler’s third Reich, Stalin’s gulags, Arab wars of annihilation and 100 years of hateful terrorism, hundreds of hate-filled UN resolutions.
How did Jews do it? We survived by concentrating our efforts on education, love of family, faith, hard work, helping one another and a passionate dedication to life no matter what evil befell us. We hung in there in hope the rest of the world would one day overcome it’s hatreds, jealousies, violence and join us in a life of cooperation and mutual respect.
We’re not there yet, but we’re still hopeful. And when so many of us enter our places of worship next weekend, this is what we’ll pray for with all the strength in our hearts.
Best wishes for a New Year filled with health, happiness, laughter, success, joy, and kindness and may this coming year bring peace and security to Israel, to the Jewish communities in the Diaspora and to our planet.
————— 5770 and still counting ————–
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