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.

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.

Speaking personally, Pride is generally not generally my thing: it’s loud, it’s hot, and the parade, at least, is not really participatory. I don’t like watching things, I like doing things. One of the things I like doing is the Vancouver Dyke March.

Rather than a spectator, I find myself taking the role of a participant, walking up Commercial Drive with friends, amongst a fairly laid-back crowd, where one is more likely to see women with strollers than thongs. Honestly, I like the fact that it’s a smaller event, as well: for me, there’s a much greater feeling of community than I feel at Pride.

But back to Midnight Mass. (“That’s a Catholic thing, right?”) Sometimes! In this post, however, Midnight Mass is Vancouver’s answer to LA’s Midnight Ridazz group: a regular late-night ride through LA — with a number of regulars numbering in the thousands.

When I look at the Midnight Ridazz site, the first thing that stands out to me is a shout-out to an LAPD officer that escorted them on a recent ride:

The Midnight Ridazz would like to extend a sincere thanks to the LAPD and especially to the officer (whose name we did not get) who recently helped to escort our ride through the streets of Los Angeles. We are all part of the neighborhoods we ride and we support the LAPD!

Hearing this message from a loose group with a strong DIY, anti-commercial perspective is likely surprising for anyone expecting this to be Critical Mass at night, but the Midnight Ridazz’ site describes the ride as both anti-confrontational and apolitical as well.

Respect for space, drivers and the sleeping residents of the neighbourhoods through which they ride is also a core value of Vancouver’s Midnight Mass community: In this post to Vancouver’s Midnight Mass LiveJournal community from 2007, one participant shares his concerns about the ride becoming too rowdy.

We don’t need to ride 6 people abreast and block 3 lanes of traffic. There are only like 20 odd people; this isn’t Critical Mass. We really should keep over to the side and just take one lane. It is all we need.

I can appreciate this because it’s not justifying, nor criticizing Critical Mass. The point is that this isn’t Critical Mass. Rather, the author is just pointing out the differences between conduct expected among the small crowd present at Midnight Mass and what was observed.

“So Catherine, if you’re skeptical of both Pride and Critical Mass and a fan of both their smaller, less-flashy counterparts, does that make you someone who just hates things because they’re popular?”

You hush. The Dyke March has its roots in somewhat more confrontational politics than the Pride parade, originating as a protest both in favour of lesbian (and later, bisexual and transgender) rights, as well as against misogyny within the gay rights movement of the 80s and 90s.

(Also, yes, yes it does.)

So, if you’re interested, the Vancouver Dyke March begins walking towards Grandview Park from McSpadden Park at 12 noon this Saturday, August 1st. I hope to see you there!

Midnight Mass Vancouver occurs every second and fourth Thursday of the month, starting from Grandview Park at 12 midnight. I am usually in bed by this time.

Organizers of both events recommend showing up early to meet fellow participants.

In his post, Buzz asks if the imagery we’ll see in Vancouver’s Pride Parade this Sunday is really the best way to demonstrate that gays are just like everyone else. This reminded me of another familiar argument, about Critical Mass: are 3000 people on bicycles blocking commuter traffic really helping the image of cyclists?

Honestly, Buzz does raise a good point, though it’s hardly a new argument, going back to the exclusion of activists we would today consider to be transgendered in the immediate post-Stonewall era.

Still, as I wrote in Buzz’s comments, it’s a debate I feel is pretty well moot at this point. As of last week, it’s been four years since we formally enacted gay marriage nationwide here in Canada, an anniversary that totally passed me by due to no mention whatsoever in the media. People don’t care.

At the same time, though, it’s important to remember that Canadians are very cautious not to offend. At all. Ever. (We’re very passive-aggressive, though.) The problem I have with this is that it’s fundamentally dishonest. Frankly, as much as I like not having bottles hurled at my head should I choose to hold my girlfriend’s hand in downtown Vancouver, it would be nice if people advertised their hate and intolerance.

“Catherine, stop blogging while drunk,” you might say.

No, I’m serious. I want to know who to avoid. I want to know who’s trustworthy and who’s biased against me. It may not be popularly accepted that we’re all prejudiced, but I’m sorry, we are. Frankly, humans are a bunch of xenophobic jerks. Our ability to pigeonhole “the other” is why, as I mentioned to @_lisas on Twitter this morning–in the course of explaining why I’m freaked out by birds of all things–there’s a single species of human surviving today.

Everyone’s a little bit racist. Sure, we’re taught that it’s wrong, but I think this leads less to discussion and education, and more to bigots becoming closeted themselves.

So… obviously my friends are cool with it. Very few of the people I know are homophobic in the least. But I don’t date a lot. I haven’t had a girlfriend in… well, let’s just put it at “a while”. Very few people I know have seen me totally making out with girls. Doing so wouldn’t necessarily provoke a homophobic reaction, more “Cat does PDAs? Since when?”

Would my landlady be on board with my being gay? Probably not, but it’s never come up. She’s content to assume that my extreme height is what has prevented me meeting a succession of horrible, chainsmoking boyfriends to bring home to the hottest 300 square foot apartment ever known to mankind. But at the same time, it’s not like I would bring boys there if I was into that sort of thing either.

Last year, I remember her expressing skepticism about Obama and his ability to handle the financial crisis, which I presumed to be of the usual Canadian variety: “Can you believe he doesn’t support single-tier healthcare!?” It turned out that, no, she liked McCain better. I had definitely never heard this view expressed by anyone in Vancouver. I realize I’m stereotyping, but there is a bit of a correlation there.

The majority of Canadians are in favour of gay marriage, with an overwhelming majority at least being on board with some sort of “separate but equal” equivalent. The most conservative government of my lifetime has stated the matter is settled. That may be debatable, but it’s just not something we’re spending time on.

At the same time as this was going on at Buzz’s blog, there was a conversation occurring on my Twitter feed about the VPD advisory regarding the estimated 3000 cyclists participating in this month’s Critical Mass. (Mind you, I’m highly skeptical about the likelihood that so many people will brave 30° Celsius weather just to irritate commuters and climb up on top of the Lion’s Gate Bridge.) Still, the eternal “yay, Critical Mass”/“stop being assholes” debate rages on.

You know what? I support the Burrard Bridge bicycle lane project — which seems to be working out just fine at this point. (I do agree with Vancouver City Council member Andrea Reimer, however: “Enough about the Burrard Bridge.”) I support the construction of increased cycling and transit infrastructure. We need billions of dollars more for transit and millions more to improve bike lanes.

But is Critical Mass the way to convince other people to get on board with this plan, necessarily? Yeah, probably not. I actually do understand the “now drivers know how we feel!” argument. But, dude? No they don’t. Now they hate cyclists even more. And the drivers who didn’t ever consider cyclists much? Yeah, they remember that it took them two hours to make their 20-minute commute home after a long week.

And ultimately, this acts against my interests as a cyclist.

At the same time, Critical Mass looks like a lot of fun. It’s just fun at the expense of other people’s day. And I’m a staunch believer in the idea that we’re all entitled to do whatever we want until such time as what we want interferes with others’ ability to do what they want. Also, separation of church and state.

So how do I pair my this with my moral outrage towards post-Stonewall activists fighting for “straight-acting” gay and lesbian rights 30 years ago, or my position that it was was wrong and ultimately self-defeating to deliberately exclude the rest of the LGBT community?

I don’t know. I’m judging history from the perspective of someone who didn’t live through it, who just inherited the world activists worked towards a generation ago. And frankly, that’s dangerous. Today, it may seem obvious that including bisexuals, effeminate men, butches and transgendered people has always been the right thing to do, but I have to consider the possibility that I can even assert that position today because of the fact that they were effectively booted out of the movement decades earlier. Which is actually really depressing.

So, would a 21st-Century-style Pride parade and LGBT movement have flown in the early 1970s? The spectators and participants definitely wouldn’t have been the same, but the fact of the matter is, if you think The Queers are doing things to the soil, nobody’s going to convince you otherwise with a float covered in incredibly ripped guys wearing thongs.

So maybe that’s not what Pride’s for anymore. Maybe it’s just a party. As Buzz’s commenter EternalCanadian points out, honestly, what’s the difference between Pride and Mardi Gras or Caribana?

Edit: Also see Critical Pride Part 2: Midnight Mass and the Dyke March.

I’ve been convinced for a long time that the biggest threat to free speech in the 21st century is not, as in past eras, some kind of trend towards authoritarianism, but rather, intellectual property encumbrances. The idea that VANOC can trademark lines from O Canada is appalling to me. It’s bad enough that the Olympics have become so branded and mired in the exclusivity of the brand that they’ve threatened Olympia Pizza in Vancouver’s West End, to say nothing of the actions taken since then.

Thus, I wholeheartedly support the choice to the True North Media House in response to the line trademarked by VANOC.

But I’ve been thinking about situations where The Authorities have confiscated memory cards or deleted photos and so, I’m wondering about technical workarounds to this: I would consider using an EyeFi card in my camera to tether with a 3G phone (say, a jailbroken iPhone or possibly something with reasonable battery life.) to automatically upload my photos to my website or Flickr so that I wasn’t actually storing any pictures, I was posting them live. Short of jamming or Iranian-scale network monitoring and packet inspection, there would really be little anyone could do, assuming the images themselves were legal.

If I take a photo of a poster with the Olympic Rings, is distribution of that photo a trademark or copyright violation? Is my use of the words “Olympic”, “2010”, “Winter”, or “Games” in this post actionable? No, but what if I’m doing so in protest of something involving one or more of those words?

I mean, I don’t seriously consider myself at risk for having the last name “Winters”, or for writing under that name, but it’s so important to explicitly affirm that I have the right to do so when proposing –or passing!– any law that purports to restrict speech.

Apparently, it’s Rosebud. I find that a little weird on its own, but particularly so in light of the others assigned to the Obamas, Bidens and Bushes. According to the Chicago Tribune:

President-elect Barack Obama: Renegade
Michelle Obama: Renaissance
Malia Obama: Radiance
Sasha Obama: Rosebud
Vice President-elect Joe Biden: Celtic
Jill Biden: Capri
President George W. Bush: Tumbler
First Lady Laura Bush: Tempo

Aside from Bush’s codename, which I assume means that someone has a sense of humour, these all sound like cars. Crappy, marketer-named cars.

“This fall, test-drive the 2009 Chrysler Capri and discover an automotive experience that demonstrates why no one wants to buy Chrysler. Act now before the recall!”

Also, as an aside, I love the names-that-start-with-the-same-letter bit and all, but seriously, you guys are positive everyone can hear the difference between “Radiance” and “Renaissance” over an earpiece, right? I ask because the sitcom viewer in me thinks this is going to end with someone getting fired by an enraged President Obama.

I see.

No, what I actually found interesting was that I’d never made the connection that Donald Sutherland was Tommy Douglas’ son-in-law. I knew who they both were individually, and I knew Donald was father of Kiefer, but I never actually associated the two.

When I mentioned this bit of trivia to a friend, he didn’t seem to understand why I was telling him this. Why was this fact important? At first, I couldn’t tell whether he meant its importance in the article or in our conversation, but that got me thinking — did it actually matter which he actually meant? Why would someone consider that sort of trivia important? Moreover, if it’s not, why did the CBC see fit to include it?

Upon a little consideration, this is easy. To be fair, nobody knows who Tommy Douglas was. However, several million people watch 24. By associating “Tommy Douglas”, a relatively unpopular brand, however important a figure he may have been, with a highly popular, well-known brand like “Kiefer Sutherland”, the article’s details are reframed for a broader audience.

The audience, seeing the man’s grandson hacksaw off terrorists’ heads every week, have formed an emotional familiarity with him. Seeing the vast number of people: A) who try to kill him, B) who he kills, and C) who he chooses not to kill — in a single day — causes us to become interested in his day. For those of us who choose let him into our homes, he’s very much a part of our lives.

So, when we see this story — police pursue popular populist — placed in pop-cultural context for us, what do we come away with? “Hey, the Mounties spied on Jack Bauer’s grandpa! What the hell?”

Predictably, Ze Frank already spent time thinking about this stuff… presumably so I didn’t have to.

(Original link via Rob Cottingham)