nv1962

A parade of tits

I have no problem admitting that I can appreciate an aesthetically pleasing fellow member of the human species, whether all dolled-up or in the flesh. I also shamelessly admit to enjoying the consumption of meat from purposely groomed cattle. However, combine the two, and I have a problem: that’s my feeling of disgust towards human cattle parades better known as the ‘Miss World’ and ‘Miss Universe’ pageants.

There’s absolutely nothing in the participants’ individual personality that plays a significant role in the outcome of their final standing in that contest. Instead, it’s an unabashed public presentation of dehumanized puppets trained to perform their conditioned responses; a revoltingly public display of unnatural moulding of human beings into shallow amusement. All under the guise of evolution and modern times, mind you.

Prostitutes get much more respect from me. Perhaps it’s the discretion generally involved in the oldest trade. Still, I don’t understand how turning humans into publicly exposed Barbie-dolls can be widely accepted mass-entertainment, while well-regulated commercial exploitation of sexuality lingers in the realm of giggles in general and criminal prosecution in particular.

It must be the same split insanity that feeds the popular myth according to which beauty and intelligence don’t mix. Maybe it’s the idea of an intelligent female sexual being that frightens the bejeebus of intellectually less gifted and (therefore?) sexually charged-up males.

Fortunately, the participants in the human meat market better known as the Miss World pageant aren’t hampered by an excess of braincells, either. Otherwise, there’s no way I could explain how any group of grown-up, presumably thinking humans can come up with Nigeria of all places as the venue for that peculiar human cattle market. Less so, how they justify their readiness to parade their ignorance there, instead of boycotting the whole darned enterprise. Hence the qualification of a parade of tits. And that’s said with udder respect to those adorable organs that feed us and give all of us mammals our common name, our raison d’être.

To me, an additional and perhaps even more troubling factor is that the tragic outcome of violent outrage that we saw in Nigeria is now not-so-quite politically correct being used as the latest self-righteous excuse to scoff at members of a religion with a much stricter moral code than we’re willing to accept in the Western hemisphere, rather than to engage a few braincells to question the whole premise of ‘tolerance’ in our presumably advanced society, and how that might reflect on some alledged sense of ’superiority,’ aside from justification through firepower.

Muslims are quickly becoming the contemporary mirror of the eagerly scapegoated Jews during the Middle Ages. Not surprisingly, subtle imagery of the Dark Ages runs freely these days, with the arrival of horriffic tidings about the riots in Nigeria. But I still fail to understand how any smart woman wouldn’t avoid that pageant like the plague. In conclusion, I can only offer the mutually exclusive alternatives of desperation and sheer stupidity as my particular explanation.

I believe it’s a shameful spectacle either way.

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Let It Bee

This is just too cute… I found it yesterday. Enjoy:

Hope you have a good week-end!

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The good, the bed, and the ugly

Amazing news that I read on the NY Times site today. I think it’s worth reading and thinking over a bit. The article is here:

Vaccine Appears to Prevent Cervical Cancer

It’ll be a few years before the vaccine becomes generally available, but it looks quite promising:

In a study of 2,392 young women, half of them vaccinated and half given placebo shots, the vaccine was 100 percent effective.

The vaccine is preventive so it doesn’t help in treating developing cases of cervical cancer. Also, as I understand it, cervical cancer is provoked typically through viral infections. The vaccine tested impacts on one type, that causes half of all cases of cervical cancer, but Merck — the developer of that vaccine — is currently working on another one, that would be effective against multiple viruses that together account for 70% of cervical cancer.

So far, so good: being able to prevent 70% would be wonderful. But then!

Those viruses don’t fall out of the sky. They’re part of the STD package. In other words, men are very much an active ingredient of the equation. Therefore, the vaccination would be truly effective if men, too, were given the preventive injection. The developers of the vaccine clearly have thought about that:

The vaccine will also protect against two other HPV types, 6 and 11, which cause about 90 percent of genital warts. The wart protection was included to “give incentive to young men to also take the vaccine,” Dr. Jansen said. She explained: “Men don’t get cervical cancer. I always strongly felt that if we only go for cervical cancer types, there would be no reason for men to accept the vaccine. Even though they are vectors for transmitting the virus, they don’t usually have effects.” But men do get genital warts, and many young men are eager to avoid them since they are ugly and may repel potential sex partners, Dr. Jansen said.

So, in order to make the vaccine ‘viable’ — that is, acceptable to women and men — an ingredient is added with psychological appeal to men? Something to think about. Are men generally that much self-oriented that they’d be willing to help protect their partner only if their own interest is tickled?

Another underlying, in my opinion important issue that is mentioned in that article is an element common to sexuality and parental responsibility in general: the widespread taboo on promoting STD prevention among young teenagers by means other than abstinence.

Koutsky said it had been suggested that many parents, loath to acknowledge that their teenage daughters could be sexually active, would refuse the vaccine. But, she said, “I think a generational shift has occurred, where most parents recognize that their children will make decisions about sexual activity that they have no control over, and they want them to be protected.”

I’d like to hope Dr. Koutsky’s right. Stuff to ponder: how much do we care for the women in our life?

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