the price of integrity

A 20-year-old Italian model has announced that her virginity is up for sale. She isn't the first and she won't be the last, and women give up their virginity all the time for stupid reasons, but what really struck me was the claim of her religious devotion.

Fico's family backed her claim she was still a virgin, citing her "devout" Catholic faith and discipline with prayer every night. "She's never had a boyfriend — I swear on my mother's grave," her brother said. “She's a devout Catholic and prays to Padre Pio every night."

Prays to him for what? A million euros? Is Padre Pio just not delivering fast enough? Somehow this 'devout Catholic' has decided it's okay to sell herself and hey, if the guy turns out to be ugly she'll just 'have a glass of wine and forget about it' (she said).

The article doesn't say anything about the reaction of her priest. That would be an interesting confession. I wonder what she would do if he told her that in addition to all the 'Our Fathers' and 'Hail Marys' she also had to give the money back in order to be forgiven.

This kind of hypocrisy irks me. If the girl wants to give away her virginity, that's up to her. If she wants to get paid for it, again...her choice. I think it's kind of appalling, but it's her body. But to then turn around and claim to be a devout Catholic ~ to in fact use that as a SELLING POINT ~ that is just off.

It's like those teenage 'Christians' in the US Bible belt who make virginity pledges and then think that limiting themselves to oral and even anal sex is keeping it. It's not just hypocritical, it's downright delusional. I get that there is a lot of pressure on them to conform to the rules of their parents, church and community, in appearance if not in actuality, but there is a certain number of these people who believe they have all their bases covered; that they have found the holy loophole and are 'right with God' even though they are basically spitting in the face of everything their supposed pledge stands for. What a crock.

"I can't wait to see who's going to pull out the money to have me," Fico said to magazine Chi.

Devout my ass.

has dubbya has been watching family guy?

How do you spell 'oaf'? Well apparently today, as on so many days previous, it starts and finishes with a 'W'.

I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.
(George W Bush, press conference, Washington)

(a) Mandela is still alive
(b) if he had died, at 89 it would probably have been from old age
(c) Mandela has never been, to my knowledge, threatened by any Middle Eastern leader, dictator or otherwise.

But hey, it's all about saying words that make people afraid, right? Mandela's an inspiration to millions, Saddam Hussein just a step or two from Satan, so if we say Saddam (who is dead) killed Mandela (who is alive) people will just hear the scary words, ignore the idiocy of the remark, and cheer for our Iraq policy, right?

valley o' speculation

Paris Hilton has been creating speculation by appearing out with varying degrees of cleavage. Apparently every time she dons her wonder bra the tabloids have a rumourfest over whether or not she's finally succumbed to implant fever. However a recent small-breasted bikini shot has put paid to the rumours, you know, until next week.

In the past, Hilton has been candid about her desire for a breast augmentation at a young age.

"Years ago, I asked my dad for a boob job and he said it would cheapen my image," she has said.

Oh Sweetie, could your image really be any cheaper?

i realise this is a bit snotty on my part

...but sometimes I wonder how people write (and say) stuff like this with a straight face:

This site was established in November of 2006 by Virginia L. Beach, better known in the Pagan Community as Reverend Ocean - a Wiccan High Priestess and ordained Pagan Clergy from the Midwest of the USA.

I know I couldn't listen to someone introduce themselves this way without snorting. Much as I adore Marion Zimmer Bradley books, I often laughed out loud while reading her novels where some of the central characters were Celtic priestesses. Of course that kind of connection and obsession with nature and ritual made more sense in the historical context, but there is something about the way some modern pagans (particularly Wiccans) take themselves so seriously that makes me roll my eyes. Maybe I'm just not sufficiently in touch with the Goddess...

On a side note, this woman is deaf and that makes me wonder if she chants/incants in sign language or in voice. Both maybe. It's not like it matters, but it made me curious.

She does have this very cool picture on her site. It's like they caught the dryad inside the tree on camera while she was busy being glorious and didn't see them. And yes I realise there's a good chance it's photoshopped, but don't spoil the magic. ;)

context is everything

I'm kind of stunned sometimes as just how stupid people can be. I'm usually fairly tolerant of cultural sensitivities such as the Indian taboo against kissing in public (even while raising an eyebrow at the fact that they won't show a kiss in a movie, but will spend half of the same movie gyrating in a near-frenzy of sexually-charged dance moves). But the furore over Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty on the cheek is making my blood boil.

It's the context that makes the whole thing so hypocritical. This "shocking" display of public affection ~ which prompted protests, effigy burnings, calls for the actors' deaths and public apologies, and three law suits ~ occurred at an AIDS awareness rally targeting one of India high-risk groups, truckers. Many of this group of men have helped spread the HIV virus across India by having unprotected sex with prostitutes during their trips and then infecting their wives with it when they go home. And this very public rally was not asking the truckers to stop cheating on their wives. Oh no, it was merely asking them to wear a condom while they do it.

Apparently though, they must have cheated on their wives (and later infected them with a deadly virus) in private, because amazingly there are no protests about this genuinely shocking sexual misconduct. No-one is burning effigies of truckers and creating public law suits against them. No, the protesters are going to save all their time, energy and flammable materials for two people who shared a friendly, consensual kiss on the cheek.

Seriously, is it any wonder the world is in the state it's in when so many people insist on being completely obsessed with trivial crap, while completely ignoring real and genuinely terrible issues that are right in front of their face?