Electronic Scribblings

Atefah

Atefah was born in 1988. Brought up from about 5 years old by elderly, distant, grandparents after her mother died and her father turned to drugs in response, she had a bad childhood.  She wandered around town, attracting attention. At 13 she was in trouble for hanging out with a boy, and allegedly sexually abused when taken into custody as a result.  Atefah then ended up in an abusive relationship with Ali Darabi, a married man  3 times her age. The authorities caught up with her when she was 16.

A sad, familiar, story from anywhere in the world. In the UK you would expect social services, much hand wringing, much talk of where had it all gone wrong.

But Atefah Sahaaleh was Iranian, and in Neka, Iran, the law is Shira.

She was arrested and charged with 'crimes against chastity'. Supposedly a petition had been raised by locals alleging she was  a "source of immorality" and a "terrible influence on local schoolgirls" - but only the arresting guards had signed it.

In court the judge didn't ask for proof of her age. He said she 'looked 22'.  Atefah confessed to the rape/abuse by Ali Darabi, but under Shira the age of consent is 9 - and a woman is usually considered to be wrong.  Atefah, realising her case was hopeless, tore off her veil and shouted at the Judge.

QED - Judge Haji Rezai took Atefah's documents to the Supreme Court himself.

At 6am on 15th August 2004, he placed the noose around her neck and she was hoisted by a crane to hang.

Execution of a teenaged girl - A BBC television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran.

Vox layout.

Hmm, one thing that I think LJ, and other services, have over Vox is the layouts. Now the ones they have are cute, but they don't seem to do the whole 'fit to your screen width' thing and I havn't found a design that does. Maybe I am not looking right.

*goes off to read Help feature*

*comes back*

Nope. So far there is no info for those of us with larger screen sizes - stuck with my blog being surrounded by more block colour than I really need at the moment.

Wikipedia: Female Hysteria

OK, I read Student Doctor Network Forums > Graduate Medical Forums [ MD / DO ] > Emergency Medicine  section on Things I Learn From My Patients * and someone there mentioned the treatment of Female Hysteria in the Victorian era.

It may shock you to know that the electric home vibrator was on the market before many other home appliance ’essentials’: nine years before the electric vacuum cleaner and ten years before the electric iron.

*Please note, this page is not for [a] the faint hearted and squeamish or [b] those who do not understand the need for black humour in the trauma wards.

BBC: Conversions harder in India state

The state legislature in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has approved a law aimed at making religious conversions harder there.  The law says a person wishing to convert and the priest conducting the ceremony will have to inform the authorities in advance. 

This is apparently a "major political issue" with various Hindu political parties stating that low caste Hindus and tribal peoples are bing converted through "force and allurement". OK, force & allurement - Allurment I can understand as Christian's do not believe in caste, and hence conversion is a way out of the caste system in effect. Force? I don't get this point but can't claim it doesn't happen

There is also the question of use/abuse of the information provided, as required, to the authorities as it may be used to target those people converting and those priests willing to accept them. There have been attacks on churches and christian priests by radical hindus in  that state (Madhya Pradesh), which is ruled by a Hindu nationalist party (Bharatiya Janata Party / BJP). It isn't the only state however with these laws.

Link to BBC Story / Conversions harder in India state / Published: 2006/07/26 07:09:51 GMT © BBC MMVI

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I don't normally associate Hinduism with extremism or fanaticism but I dare say that was due to be disapointed at some point. With the rise of globalisation, and the gratefulness of assistance towards the assisting - particularly in India where charity is a way of life, and an expectation that the well of will give and the less well of are not shamed by accepting - that where Christian groups go and help there may well be a rise in conversion, even if the group is not actually an evangelical group.

Religion is fast becoming an important deliminator of who you are in the 21st Century, with extremism being an aspect. And the more extreme you percive others to be, and the more threatened you feel, the more extreme you become in response. And we all spiral merrily downwards to the latest version of crusades.

Zoomr & Photography

World of digital photography - Beautiful pictures from the BBC website, an interesting insight into a digital photographers day and a follow on to the idea of privacy:

"I want to bring attention to the fact we do have a right to shoot in public," he said. "Most photographers when a security guard says you can’t take that photo, they simply comply. We miss a lot of beauty in the world because photographers feel intimidated." 

This seems to be a reversal of the idea of blogs being somehow private - Now LJ & Vox allow privacy settings - most blogs don't. So take your pick and if you want to have a 'closed' blog choose a service that allows you to do so.

And don't think that people in public shouldn't read or react to or review or take pictures of something that is public.

Oh, and he is promoting a new photo-sharing website, Zooomr. One idea seems to be that you post from your phone and they are auto-tagged with GPS location & time/date stamp. The other is you upload them and tag them yourself. Oh, and the blog actually mentions livejournal and has a picture of the SixApart HQ in SF!

QotD: It's hot in here...

What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?

Typhoon Rose 1971 - I had only been living in Hong Kong for about a year, and was 41/2. I remember being afraid my window would break as my Dad & a friend had opened it to look out and it took both of them to pull it closed again.

UK Weather is much less extreme! The Great Storm of 1987 was when I was at university and I slept through most of it (my cat got 'upset' on my duvet at home however - yuk!)

And of course the recent heat wave breaking the July Record "in Wisley, Surrey, where temperatures hit 36.5C (97.7F)."  Not much to those of you who live where weather is serious but "The previous hottest July day was in 1911, when Epsom, Surrey, reached 36C. The highest UK temperature recorded was 38.5C (101.3F) in Faversham, Kent, on August 10, 2003."

BBC Team reading blogs

We're watching you - Daniel Perl, Deputy Editor of Newsnight, blogging in the BBC Editors blog about how the BBC react to both e-mail and blogs.

 

Yes, they read blogs - particularly (apparently) via .technorati.com which has the tag "Bbc News" as one of its top 9 current searches :)

Vox feedback

http://www.vox.com/services/kb/ask.php

 

Posted in the U-haul comments & reposted so I can find it

BBC News items

I e-mailed the following links to myself, meaning to follow-up & blog about them at some point.

The illness in Planet Earth - Human-induced environmental change is bringing Earth to the edge of disaster, argues James Lovelock.

Blagging in the blogosphere - This week's Green Room asks whether blogs are helping raise environmental awareness or just confusing matters.

Electronic goods guzzling power - The growth in consumer electronic devices in UK homes is leading to a big upsurge in energy usage, a report says.