The Genius of Taylor Swift

This past week, Taylor Swift was the participant in Time's "10 Questions" feature. One of the questions reads:

How long does it take you to write a song? Stacey Klemstein JOHNSBURG, ILL.

Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less. "Love Story" I wrote on my bedroom floor in about 20 minutes.

No, you don't say! Quite a feat when you take characters from a play that's hundreds of years old and insert them into several very similar verses that revolve around cliched romantic stereotypes without any original thought. Way to go, Taylor.

Atheist Becomes "De-baptised"

A few days ago the Telegraph posted this story about John Hunt, a atheist who decided he wanted to become "de-baptised" because when he was baptised in the church he was too young to give his consent. At first the church gave him a tough time because his baptism was considered an historical record, but Hunt went to the National Secular Society (NSS) and they provided him with a "de-baptism" certificate, which, among other things, reads: "I reject all its creeds and other such superstitions in particular the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed of original sin."

The church eventually backed down:

A representative of Southwark diocese told him: "I have spoken to the Archdeacon of Croydon and he has undertaken, in this particular case, to have it cross-referenced with the baptismal entry and pasted into the back fly-leaf of the relevant register at St Jude's Church.

Hunt added:

"It is important that we send a signal to the church and to the Government that an increasing proportion of the population don't place any faith in the various churches."

Originally the "de-baptism" certificates provided by the NSS were just "tongue in cheek," but more than 100,000 people have requested them over the past five years, which has shown that it is becoming more serious among atheists.

I think Hunt's case brings up a good point. When we are children, we often follow a religion just because our parents make us. They decide to have us baptised and then later sent for Holy Communion and Confirmation (in the Roman Catholic case, anyway). Richard Dawkins discusses this in his book, "The God Delusion," and makes the case that if it weren't for our childhood upbringing, many of us might not even decide to join a religion when we get older. Some atheists argue that children should not be brought up in any religion, and instead make that decision when they are old enough to think through which religion they feel most comfortable with, if any at all.

I wonder if becoming "de-baptised" has happened to anyone in America, and what would happen if more people did pursue this. For atheists though, I wonder how important this really is. If they don't believe in any religion or god, then all the rituals they took part in during childhood- baptism, communion- don't mean anything, right? So by becoming "de-baptised," aren't they giving validity to something that they deem irrelevant?

86 year-old Woman Beats Burglar with Metal Crutch

I really love stories like this:

When Gwyneth Davies of Wales caught a man breaking into her kitchen on Friday night, she hit him four times with her metal crutch and made him sit on a stool until the police arrived. Officers found the 26-year-old man weeping on the stool and arrested him. Though she has recently suffered a broken hip and ribs, pneumonia and shingles, the widow of 20 years says this proves she is able to take care of herself. "Why should old women be looked down on? I think it is terrible the way people look down on you," she said. "I have been brought up with men, and I am very independent and able to stand up for myself."

Why Do They Stay?

Since the beating of Rhianna by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, a lot of people have commented on domestic abuse, and almost all of them had no idea what the hell they were talking about. A lot of people blame Rhianna for not breaking up with him right away, and plenty of people uttered the phrase "if she goes back to him, then she deserves to get hit again," which is a very common thing for people who are ignorant of the domestic abuse cycle to say. Domestic abuse is its own beast entirely, something that may involve physical beatings but which runs much, much deeper than that, almost always on a verbal, mental, and emotional level. The bruises are just the parts that we see.

So in reading most stories, I was shocked at how many of them framed Rhianna. Some news outlets discussed both Rhianna and Chris Brown needing "anger management classes" and asked what it was that Rhianna did or said that "set him off." The commenters that follow this vein got it all wrong.

Some posts spoke more accurately of domestic violence, such as the one I linked to here and other posts on Jezebel and Feministing- generally from women who had either first hand experience with it or had studied it at some point. However, the most poignant and honest answer to the question, "why do they stay?" comes, in my opinion, from Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, who worked at a battered womens shelter for several years and was, very briefly, involved in an abusive relationship.

Under the circumstances, it is very, very hard to say: well, OK, I am married and/or pregnant, I am in this serious relationship, but I will nonetheless decide to leave, now, because I think I have to, and I trust my judgment. Trusting your judgment at that moment [when you have just been beaten for the first time] is like trusting your sense of balance when someone has just poured a fifth of vodka down your throat.

Besides that, there's also the Jekyll/Hyde phenomenon. If I had a nickel for every woman who has said to me, "It's like he was two people! Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!, I'd be a wealthy woman today. When I first heard this, I didn't entirely believe it. I thought: maybe Mr. Hyde abuses her, and Dr. Jekyll turns that same abusive streak on himself, beating himself up with guilt. (Abusers are very big on heartfelt apologies.) Maybe the thought of him as two people is just easier to bear than the thought that one and the same person one loves has done this. Who can say?

...

There are several more things, though. First, abusers often isolate their victims. At first this can take an apparently benign form: he wants to be with you all the time; he wants to envelop you in a kind of cocoon; there isn't time for other things. Later, it's a lot less pleasant. Women who stay often try to keep the peace, and one way to do that is not to insist on seeing your friends and family. That, of course, makes turning to your friends and family a lot tougher later on.

Second, it would be a lot easier if abusers were sneering villains. But they are not. They are often charming on the outside. More importantly, they are often in genuine psychological distress. It often seems like a combination of two things: first, feeling as though if their wife left them, some truly terrifying abyss would open up in their minds and they would fall down into the darkness forever, and second, thinking that to prevent this, they need to keep her from leaving, to control her (as opposed to, say, trying to build the best marriage ever.)

Heineken Commercial

I really love this commercial, although I can't decide which guy is my favorite: the one clapping his hands or the one who looks like he is about to cry. (I couldn't find the English one on YouTube, but you get the idea). Thoughts?

Two Months Salary

Artist Lee Gainer compiled photographs of engagement rings and organized them by the "two months salary" rule of various professions. What kind of engagement ring can a fast food cook buy on two months salary compared to, say, an A-list actor?



Gainer's statement on this work reads: "The diamond engagement ring has evolved from a luxury item mostly purchased by the wealthy to a must have for any bride-to-be…This campaign has been so successful that we now, as a society in general, equate a man's personal worth and love for his future spouse with the size of a shiny rock."