That’s right, boobs. Or what-have-you.

“I don’t get it.”

Well, the other day, Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi–yes, he’s not even an Ayatollah. I know, right?–went and said some crazy shit about boobs and how they cause earthquakes.

Or more specifically, no, he didn’t really. As PBS explains:

While delivering his weekly address, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, Tehran’s hardline Friday prayer leader — the man who replaced Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the role — revealed what had caused the strange prognostications. “Adultery causes earthquake,” explained Sadeghi. “The incidence of sin has proliferated. Sins — such as the laxities of some women or the way some young people harass and ogle on street corners or some families don’t observe religious values and practices while they are traveling — have mushroomed,” he told millions of television viewers on April 16. “These allurements that some women and some girls apply to themselves outside their homes, the young people who are tempted and turn to promiscuity and commit sin — all this increases adultery. According to our sacred transmitted texts, this is one reason for the incidence of natural calamities. When sin proliferates, earthquakes become common.“

So of course, this was picked up by the international press. They love this stuff. The greatest focus, of course, was the sentence about “some women” and their “laxities”: namely, the “allurements” they “apply to themselves outside their homes”.¹

This isn’t about boobs. It’s a nod of support, under the guise of religion–and frankly, I’m not even sure if Sedighi means it as some kind of badly-translated “we will bury you”-esque metaphor–for Ahmadinejad’s odious, dissent-quelling plan to depopulate Tehran.

“Depopulate Tehran? I hadn’t heard anything about this!”

You don’t say.

As you will no doubt recall, former Friday prayer leader Rafsanjani is currently Chairman of the Assembly of Experts. He’s also a former President of Iran and political opponent of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During the 2009 Iranian election crisis, Rafsanjani’s July 17th sermon (ostensibly) called for an end of censorship of the press condemned the state-sanctioned violence against protestors.²

Consequently, he is no longer Friday prayer leader.

Flash forward eight months, and Ahmadinejad is throwing out crazy ideas like maybe moving five million people away from Tehran:

The issue of moving people and organizations from Tehran has received much publicity since the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent call on Tehranis to pull up stakes and move to other cities.

Last week Ahmadinejad called on Tehranis to move to other cities because Tehran is earthquake-prone and if a massive quake hits this overpopulated mega city, the ensuing crisis will be unmanageable.

“Thanks to people’s prayers, Tehran’s fault lines are not active now,” but the occurrence of a massive earthquake in Tehran is certain, so at least five million should leave Tehran to make the crisis more manageable, Ahmadinejad said last week.

“Wait, wait, wait. Speaking as a hypothetical pro-Ahmadinejad Iranian-Analogue-to-the-Daily-Mail-reading Tehrani, I have to say that this proposal exists solely to save us from earthquakes.”

No. No it does not:

During the post-election events Tehran was the heart of the protests. Initiating rallies in huge numbers and acting as a model for other big and small cities of Iran with a concentration of most of the top universities and political, civil, cultural and economic organizations and a great magnet for young people coming to Tehran to either work or study.

So, good luck with that, Iran. Sorry about the press focusing on the boob thing.

…which brings us to last Monday, when Jen McCreight, Outgoing President of the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University, threw up a quick blog post proposing an experiment to show Sedighi what’s what:

Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble.

As of this moment, the Facebook group for “Boobquake” boasts 60,000 members, and Google News is reporting over 430 separate news articles around the world. Countless blog posts have leveled criticism against McCreight, accusing her of…well, pretty much every nasty thing. I particularly enjoyed the concern over what would happen if there actually was an earthquake today. Cheeky know-it-all-ism–meet–Islamophobia, awesome.

“Say, this raises a good point! What do you have to say about this Boobquake stuff, Catherine?”

I’m glad you asked that question! It’s silly and irreverent and I’m going.

“Wait, you’re going!? But! But!”

Hush.

The most obvious criticism leveled against Boobquake is that it promotes the objectification of women.³ And honestly, it’s easy to see why. Vancouver’s print media have not exactly paid much attention to anything beyond ZOMG BOOBS:

News1130 is on the street, finding full support for the shaker. “God has given me eyes to appreciate beauties,” says Vikram. He may see some beauties!

He asks what’s wrong with seeing the human body. “I’ll be the happiest man in the world if a woman comes in front of me and asks, ‘Can I buy a soda?’ And why not? I’ll open it for you… I’ll open the soda for you!”

Is that a euphemism?

The Boobquake will be shaking from 4:00pm-8:00pm at the VAG.

That’s some classy stuff, News1130.⁴

However, I really want to emphasize that while this story promotes the objectification of women, it is possible to write one that keeps it to a minimum about the same topic.

Even still, that Vancouver Province article annoys me for a variety of reasons.

First, what the heck do those women from Mission in the photo have to do with the rest of the article? There’s no explanation given as to who they are or why they were interviewed. They do have a very nice photo though–ohhhhhh. Good one, The Province.

Angela Squires will be monitoring seismic activity Monday from Vancouver as she and other women take up the busty bid to prove the cleric wrong in a show of solidarity at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Right on, Angela. Of course, Metro Vancouver (yes, yes) does note:

“I thought, ‘how ridiculous,’” said Squires, who will be showing off her legs instead of her cleavage because she’s had a double mastectomy.

Yes, that’s some super fact-checking, The Province.

Metro Vancouver further quotes Squires as saying:

“People — especially (those) who have a perceived authority — are coming out with ridiculous statements that are not necessarily questioned. And it’s important for all of us to question what comes at us.”

Honestly, Metro Vancouver wins this one,⁵ though the Province does at least mention the word “skeptic”–though not any of background of there being a broader skeptics and humanists movement.

“But aren’t you afraid that if you show up wearing a low-cut top, guys will stare at your chest?”

First of all, my chest is at eye level for most dudes. It happens. Second, no. I’m not going to let concern over what guys may or may not do impact how I dress. That absolutely stinks of victim-blaming and I find it despicable.

Straight Dudes, I really hate to be blunt here, but I don’t notice you as sexual humans. At most, you are rivals–and let’s face it, even that’s a stretch. I don’t care whether you find me attractive, and I’m not going to use that as a consideration in how I dress. However, I am going to allow whether or not other lesbians find me attractive to influence how I dress. Sure, there may be overlap, but that’s one venn diagram I really don’t care about.

I want to be very clear on this: I do what I do for me, not for anyone else, and I do so because I have the freedom to choose.

1. “Outside their homes” is a great qualifier. Why, he’s practically Pierre Trudeau.
2. On the other hand, he’s wanted in Argentina on terrorism and murder charges. So really, this is a case where I can–at most–support his Selma-killing policies.
3. As we know, women’s bodies should be hidden away beneath a chador at all times. Y’know, so they’ll be respected.
4. Also, you can’t spell.
5. I know. I’m scared too.

October, 2000
I come out to a few select friends and family. My parents immediately fight over which one of them is most accepting of it. It later turns out the answer is “neither”.

September 11, 2001
The American Century comes to a close. The subsequent decade sees Western civilization dig its heels in, ineptly seeking security and short-term gains at all costs. I watch CNN for 6 months straight.

October 23, 2001
Apple releases the iPod. I fail to see what the big deal is. Investors disagree significantly on this point.

December 20, 2002
“Second Life? What’s that?” I ask as I click the link. “What a stupid name!”

February 1, 2003
I move to Vancouver on an ill-advised whim. The next three years are…interesting. To this day, I still wake up thinking cockroaches are eating dead skin off my face.

January 14, 2006
Some dude cuts most of my face off and totally goes to town on my skull with power tools. Fortunately, he was a doctor. I can breathe through my nose now.

August, 2006
As a part-time contract LSL developer, I am paid in US dollars. Currency fluctuations force me to give up LSL development in favour of working a minimum wage retail job. I like it a lot better.

November 18, 2006
I manage to get published for the first time. It is not exactly my finest work.

December 20, 2006
I’ve just been told about this new CMS that’s supposed to be pretty good. “Drupal? More like Poo–pal!” I exclaim to a circle of blank, embarrassed faces. Nice.

April 21, 2007
A lab test indicates I may have cancer. Subsequent tests indicate I have stress. I consider remedying both by having alcoholism.

July 22, 2008
My Palm Treo dies. I buy an iPhone. Unfortunately, everyone I know can be divided into two camps: People who already have iPhones and people who don’t care that I am now the coolest person ever.

August 15, 2008
I learn my knee pain is likely to be the result of osteoarthritis. At such an early age, the implication is that I will not be able to walk in 10 years.

September 1, 2008
I am told I do not have osteoarthritis after all. As such, I am likely to continue walking for some time. “Your knees look great,” the doctor says, peering at the x-ray. “Say, how much exercise do you get?”

January 1-Dec 31, 2009
I endure a great deal of bullshit. My friends are kept appraised of the situation–to their dismay.

And that’s what I did during the aughts. How about you?

Eugene Cernan walks on the moon, Dec 13, 1972

I’m skeptical of the usefulness of manned spaceflight, even as I believe in its long-term necessity. (Besides, should it be necessary for humans to leave Earth, we could get that going on fairly short order. The technology’s straightforward, even if we don’t have interplanetary ships today.)

I was born almost a decade after the last time a human stepped foot on the moon. The Apollo program was Cold War nose-thumbing and sabre-rattling at its most blatant. It was a corporate boondoggle on a scale scarcely seen since. It was a distraction from the horrors of Vietnam and from the waning popularity of two Presidents.

Landing on the moon was also the most impressive thing humans have ever achieved.

Despite all its flaws, I’ve been a big supporter of the space program for my entire life. Building better telescopes and probes is absolutely necessary for the same reasons the Large Hadron Collider is necessary: because if we don’t seek out knowledge about the universe, if we don’t appreciate it, what the hell is the point?

36 years ago today, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt stepped into their lunar module and returned home, the last humans to step foot on another world. That’s not appreciating it, guys.

My house is situated directly on top of Tea Swamp, an offshoot of Brewery Creek. Consequently, the ground is not what engineers generally consider to be “solid”, as they say.

16th Avenue. That’s… different.

As previously mentioned, my neighbourhood is composed almost completely of two-storey, basementless, concrete-slab-foundationed Vancouver Specials sinking into the muck. There’s also one impressively-designed house that’s not going anywhere. On the other hand, the roads and sidewalks around it are shifting most entertainingly. (This doesn’t make cycling nearly as awesome as it sounds, believe me.)

From False Creek: Then and Now

Today, aside from a good thousand houses listing to one side, the only other sign of the underground rivers that once dotted East Vancouver are the now stagnant Trout Lake, where tonight I hope someone will be Blogathonning the Illuminares lantern festival, the myriad orange manhole covers, identifying their contents as a culverted stream rather than storm sewer or wastewater, and the Tea Swamp Park community garden located at Main and 16th.

So really, that’s a lot.

There are ongoing plans to rehabilitate many of the culverted streams beneath Vancouver, the most prominent example of which is located next to Superstore on Grandview Highway. Impressively, it’s actually home to beavers… who promptly cut down all the trees in the parking lot. But you know, that’s what happens.