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.

Ultimately, I suspect I’ll roll this site into it.

Anyway, while the art style I’m using is very, very different than this, both use a nice slab serif typeface called Rockwell. While selecting it, I came across this this video I liked from a couple years ago: the “Say ‘what’ again. I dare you.” scene from Pulp Fiction, in type form.

For instance, this infographic from last year uses area and two states to visualize the loss of over $88 billion in value during the collapse of the US banking system. It’s very effective, conveys the massive drop in value well, and frankly, it works better with an animated transition than a static image would have.

This is an important point: just because you can make something “interactive”, it doesn’t mean you’re not better off with a nice, standards-compliant JPEG. (Hey, how’s it going, Canadian Press?)

On the other hand, there really isn’t a better way to represent the data available than how the NY Times has here. Colour me impressed.

Me: “Hey, a friend of a friend designed the font they’re using in that logo!“
Every single other person I know: “Yeah, that’s super, Catherine.”

As such, I enjoyed this analysis of the fonts and branding featured in Mike Judge’s 2007 eugenicist cult favourite Idiocracy.

“Haulin’ Ass, Getting Paid”: finally, the religious right and “separation of church and state” people can agree on a slogan to print on currency.

A quick synopsis of Idiocracy: stupid people outbreed the yuppies and nerds. Consequently, the average IQ drops steadily. 500 years later… FOX News employs sexualized models as anchors, all entertainment is lowest-common denominator, and clothing is covered with corporate logos. Er, wait a minute…

So the joke runs out pretty quickly, but it’s still an entertaining movie, if only for the sets and one-liners: “You went to law school at Costco!?”

Ahh, Starbucks, home of Exotic Coffee for Men.

Anyway, I referenced Vancouver’s own typographer Ray Larabie above because many of the design choices in Idiocracy look like his 1990s free fonts. Which is kinda cool, actually.

You should read the review, Idiocratic Design at UnderConsideration now!

So, my first Amazon sale completed, I was feeling pretty positive about them. Until yesterday.

Sunday morning, I was alerted to news of a somewhat poorly-planned decision at Amazon: to better cater to America’s “moral majority”, Amazon decided to excise the popularity rankings of LGBT books, delisting them from search results. Some authors’ books can only be found by searching for an unrelated title and clicking on the author’s name. Other authors’ entire selections have been delisted.

According to a thread on Livejournal’s Meta Writer community, Amazon has de-ranked such titles as Brokeback Mountain, Tipping the Velvet and Stone Butch Blues. This  begs the question: what on earth are these sheltered, bigoted Amazon customers searching for that is going to make them get all red-faced and choke down vomit upon discovering those books in their search results?

“Well, I never!” they’ll exclaim, spittle flying forth, “I wanted to read about the non-gay history of Brokeback Mountain! How was I to know it was fictional?”

In his blog post on the subject, Raul (Hummingbird604) compares the move by Amazon to last year’s “Motrin Moms” debacle. He also raises the question, is Easter Sunday a good time to be organizing a protest? Absolutely. Is Easter Sunday an okay time for Amazon PR to take the day off? Obviously not.

Worse, Amazon’s responses have ranged from “yes, we de-rank adult content” to “uh, it’s a glitch?” They haven’t demonstrated any cohesive strategy to managing their response, and continue to look worse and worse, the longer this goes on.

Since breaking Sunday morning, the #amazonfail and #glitchmyass hashtags on Twitter continue to trend highly a day later, inviting responses from Amazon’s competitors.

Amidst a flurry of suggestions that they hold a sale on LGBT books, Powells Books’ Twittter account notes that they will definitely not censor the presence of LGBT material on their site.

@cinemaestro That certainly is disturbing. Fortunately, Powell’s will never censor this material #amazonfail http://bit.ly/3Me5Un

about 7 hours ago in reply to cinemaestro

@zentinal A GLBT sale sounds like a great idea to me. I will check to see if this is something we can get going #amazonfail

about 6 hours ago in reply to zentinal

By Monday morning, the mainstream media was already reporting on the issue:

• Amazon blames ‘glitch’ for removal of gay titles from sales rankings, CBC
• ‘Gay writing’ falls foul of Amazon sales ranking system, Guardian.co.uk
• Amazon website censorship row, Channel 4

Oh, and per Smart Bitches, Trashy Books’ advice: Amazon Rank

Update, April 13, 2:50pm:
An email from an Amazon.com spokesman, reproduced by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, describes #Amazonfail as “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.”

The email goes on to say that a total of 57,310 books outside of the Gay & Lesbian categories were deranked and that they’re in the process of reinstating them.

So what happened? Did some mid-level manager enact some crazy new policy? Can Amazon’s ranking and reporting mechanisms be gamed?

• September 16 — Donna Griffiths of Pershore in England stops sneezing after a continual series of sneezes for 978 days (since January 13, 1981).
• September 17 — Vanessa Lynn Williams becomes the first African-American to be crowned Miss America, in Atlantic City, New Jersey
• September 25-September 26 — Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war.
• September 26 — Australia wins America’s Cup

But you know, whatever.

Vancouverites, LOLcat connoisseurs and art enthusiasts rejoice!

This Monday, July 21st, ClackClack Empire in Vancouver’s Chinatown hosts the opening reception for I can’t believe we both got cats: LOLcat art, featuring works by Seattle-based artist Marianne Goldin! Sweet!

For details, check out the listing on Upcoming, or consult the artist’s statement. I liked this part:

LOLcats can take on a meritocratic tone, since not all cats are made equal — an ideal model oozes with pathos and photogeneity. There are even Weberian “ideal types” to be found — styles and families of LOLcat: the terse Zen koan, the Invisible (fill in the blank), and the various motifs of Ceiling Cat. Many instances use cats to allegorize human frustrations with technology.

You should definitely come. It’s free! Also, LOLcat art.

To back up my theory, this month’s Wired Magazine sees editor Chris Anderson confidently stroll into Crazyland with his essay The End of Theory, asserting that the age of the scientific method is over, replacing hypothesis and testing with statistical number-crunching of massive databases.

Needless to say, there exist a variety of reactions to this idea, most of which can be summarized by “Wait, what now?”

The Daily Galaxy’s critique of Anderson’s article was particularly effective, pointing out that recognition of correlation is not the goal of science; rather, it provides a starting point for science to begin from:

Noticing a correlation between factors is the START of science, not the end.  When you see that two things affect each other and ask “Why?”, you’re a scientist.  When you just record a million trials you’re an accountant.  When you say “It happens because that’s the way things are” you’re either a mother answering a five-year-old’s fortieth question in a row, or uninterested, or possibly religious.

The “you are not qualified to make this assertion” style of criticism tends to bug me, but in this case, it seems particularly accurate:

This combines with his second error: Belief that the Internet is the entire world.  This is an easy mistake for somebody like a Wired editor to make, but the fact remains that if you walked down a street shouting “LOLCAT” most people wouldn’t know what the hell you were talking about.  This is important.  In fact, a species where everybody knows about LOLCATS is one whose viability needs severe re-evaluation.

This is what we came up with at Social Signal for Valentine’s Day this year. It’s the perfect way to say “I love you” to that special someone with 800 pictures on Flickr. See? It’s not such a bad holiday after all!