OVO

Captain America was made into a movie in 1944, 1964, 1966, 1973, twice in 1979, 1991 and a bunch of other times too. The next Captain America movie will star Brad Pitt. Discuss.

PS: there was a Daredevil before Daredevil, plenty of Batman before Batman, and some other superheroes I never knew had movie or TV appearances. Dude.

At least the Buddhists aren’t homophobic. Hang on: my mistake, some are.

Oregon doesn’t have much in the way of ghost towns but this ghost town directory has plenty of pop-up ads, which is kind of the same.

If you are having trouble determining who’s evil, help is available.

The Summer 2003 issue of Amnesty Now, magazine of Amnesty International, features a photograph of a sculpture depicting torture on the walls of a religious temple. An article on human rights violations in Egypt mentions four women compelled by religion to cover their heads with scarves, as well as religious injunctions against homosexuals and against other religions. Two hundred men accused of being homosexuals have been arrested in Egypt in the past two years due to these religious injunctions. Another article details over one hundred years of institutionalized physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape, torture, deprivation of food, deprivation of clothing, deprivation of shelter, deprivation of medical care, involuntary medical experimentation, forced sterilization, infanticide and murder carried out by religious organizations against Native Americans in the United States and Canada. Another article describes the legalized ‘honor’ murders of women in Jordan based on religious teaching. From beginning to end, this issue of Amnesty Now is full of instances of the inhuman consequences of religion.

Also mentioned in this issue is the inauguration of the Amnesty International ‘Imagine‘ campaign. The ‘Imagine’ campaign is a global educational effort by Amnesty International concerning human rights issues. The campaign takes its name from the song of the same title by John Lennon. The song includes the lines Imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine there’s no countries, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too… But does Amnesty International make the connection between religion and human rights violations? They do not. Even though in 1996 Amnesty ‘expanded its mission to promote corporate responsibility for human rights,’ the organization has not included religion as a source of the world’s human rights problems. Religious violation of human rights is not an aberration: it is inherent in the teachings of all world religions. If Amnesty International can expand their efforts to end ‘corporate’ violations of human rights, they must surely attack a much larger, older problem: religion.