OVO

Jack Donovan:

The following three-chapter arc was originally intended to be part of a book project called The Way of Men. The Way of Men is not about feminism, but most popular writing about masculinity is written by feminists, or men who have accepted a handful of feminist assumptions. My intent here was to locate my own understanding of masculinity within the context of a larger discussion about men that has been happening for the past several decades. I wanted to engage the arguments of others in a comprehensive way and extract common themes. I wanted to “show my work.”

Together, these chapters form a short book about the way that masculinity has been maligned, re-imagined and mis-represented by others.

I have decided to make this book No Man’s Land available for free online, because I hope that this material will be useful to other men who are writing about masculinity, feminism, the men’s movement and conflicts between masculinity and civilization. While I have a stack of books on masculinity that come from the establishment — from university presses and from writers approved by the mainstream media — the most interesting writing about masculinity is happening online. You can cite a book, but you can’t quite link to it — not exactly, anyway.

For those inclined to read No Man’s Land as a book, I have made it available in Kindle format, and as a downloadable .pdf file, but it will also remain online as a series of pages on my web site.

I would like to thank my Vulcan friend Trevor Blake for his help editing these chapters.

One last thing…

I’m not a tenured academic. I drive a truck for a living. Sorting through this material takes a lot of work. If you find this valuable and want to support my work — toss me a few bucks for beer, guns and books. There’s a “donate” button on my web site.

Jack Donovan: No Man’s Land.

Those who long to live in 1911 choose that year – really any year from 1890 to 1914 would be equally ok – just because it’s safely in the middle of that long lingering last “decade” of the long 19th Century – which was also the first heroic decade of true modern radicalism – e.g. – the Wandervogel, Stirnerite anarchism, the IWW and Jim Larkin, Ascona, Sex Radicals & Nudists – etc.  And still far removed from the future of total war & totalitarianism to come – a time of utopian revolutionary hope.

Also of course it’s the Age of Decadence – final year of the Manchu Dynasty – opium ten cents a bottle at any country store – the Paris of J. K. Huysmans.  Gaslight.  Also: the last gasp of true agrarianism in the USA – age of Populism, the Grange, Farmers Alliance – the last rural decade.

But there’s another reason we choose 1911 (or thereabouts) for our little Golden Age. It has to do with technology. In 1911 almost all the actual conveniences of modern tech already existed: the car, the telephone, the electric bulb, the phonograph… Now we Luddites do not approve of cars or any of these inventions, which all subtract from the quanta of Imagination available to individuals & to the Social. But we have to admit – they’re convenient. In their primitive forms they’re almost likable. The only real convenience invented since then – the electric refrigerator – can be replaced by an Amish-built propane refrigerator – OR – we could re-invent the ice-box. We hope someday to learn to sing again, but till then we can accept a few hand-cranked shellac records (but no radio or TV). Computers are NOT in any way part of a revived 1911 however. It’s time to wake up & smell the rot of technopathology.

The telephone easily corrodes social presence & reduces selves to disembodies “voices of the Unseen,” as the Arabs called the invention. But again the primitive version, with its “party lines” & snoopy local Operators, had a social aspect now completely leached out of the medium. If we must be thus haunted let it be via one of these elegant sinister objects – a real murder weapon.

Full play of Imagination becomes possible only without modern technology, because tech has become the heartless operation of Capital, which hates all forms of sharing. Let’s work for a secular Anabaptism, bold enough finally to refuse everything back to the steam engine – at least. Whereupon we may resume human life.

Everything has already been said about photography. We have it here in 1911 but even now we can see how it may have been a big mistake.

The Byzantine Iconoclasts were no mere smashers of idols – their arguments ran deep, subtle & profound. They claimed that the Image colonizes the Imagination – other people’s magic overcomes your own personal magic & imprints itself on your soul. Only the Imagination free of such (mis)representation can truly be called autonomous & capable of poiesis, the creative act. To depict the sacred (& all things are potentially sacred) is to degrade it & thus to blaspheme. Only the Eye of the Heart can actually see.

Many Sufis would agree with these sentiments, as would many Jewish & Protestant mystics. The more accurate & scientific the representation the more it lies & blasphemes. “Abstract” art is more moral than any form of realism. Music & architecture, which are simply themselves (ideally), are considered permissible, although Islam suspects even music of threatening the soul’s integrity. But painting & sculpture & especially photography must surely be damned. Looking itself is a compromised or even guilty pleasure, lacking the intimacy of touch or smell or even hearing – too akin to “pure reason” – to cruel.

Against these arguments however we might assert the possibility of Hermetic Imagery – which (as Giordano Bruno or Athanasius Kircher would say) can allow us to free ourselves from the Image through the Image.

Certain symbols, Emblems, hieroglyphs or works of art can liberate the Imagination rather than “enchain” it. These images stimulate your own creativity rather than stifle or suffocate it under their beauty or shock-value or subliminal potency etc.

In the Renaissance this theory of art was called “Egyptian,” thanks to a fortuitous misunderstanding of the ancient hieroglyphs (ie that they were “magic”). Cagliostro was pushing the same notion in the late 19th Century. I believe we need such a theory in order to redeem our various arts – to save them from merely forming new chains, like advertising or propaganda.

Does this argument rescue photography from its own special hell? Maybe not. But maybe there’s something to be said for a touch of damnation. Maybe photography is a vice, like pornography, but then perhaps it could be a magical vice.

If we must have photography in 1911 let it be slow, clumsy, alchemical, rare – somehow still innocent of theory – not so much a spectral doubling but rather Magic Lanterns, a kind of stained glass, primitive & luminous, posed & formal, static, sepia-toned, nostalgic & slightly comical.

House of the United States of America:
Warbucks Intra-Family Communique

I know that you don’t like to think this, but we are much like humans. We are subject to the human frailties. We forget. We get slip-shod. We fall short of our disciplines. You have selected me to be the family coordinator and I agreed to be, at least until someone better comes along. So that’s why I’m now reminding you of some of our basic principles for handling slaves.

Our slaves can get bored easily. When bored, they get restless. They start thinking, and questioning order. Therefore it is necessary for us to direct their thinking into areas which keep them dependent on our leadership. We must make them feel dependent on society for all their needs. Make them feel important to the Great Whole to which they belong. Keep them too deep in debt to have any spare time to experiment with principles of self-sufficiency, or even just getting out of hole.

A few of the slaves who refuse to conform are squatting in various places and planting their apple seeds, plum pits, grape seeds, avocado pits, orange seeds, nuts of all kinds and vegetables. They are not using our hybrid seeds. They found organic natural seeds more productive. They are creating Gardens of Eden, with free food, no rent and and acceptance of the Golden Rule instead of Government. So far, only a few of the smarter nonconformists are doing this. This gets them off our case; however, we must not give them any publicity, as it might encourage more our workers to not conform.

The family came up with a great innovation when they first decided to “allow” the peons to “own” land. Ownership gives them roots ties them down and makes it a easier to find them. It also gives us a classification of slave known as landlords. They serve us by forcing people to pay them rent in order to have a space to sleep on this planet. Thus they all work for us for the rest of their lives. We must always make them think that this is normal and that everyone has always had to pay rent and that they always will.

If the slaves deviate from present thought patterns, they might think it strange that they “agree” to work for us for 30 years to buy a place to sleep. They might wonder why some “primitive” people are able to build their homes from the material at hand in a couple of weeks and have no mortgage to pay. They might even find it simpler, more enjoyable and even more adventuresome to walk to where they wish to go instead of working for us to earn money to make perpetual car payments to us, so that they can get to a job to make the money to make their car payments. To say nothing of the car maintenance costs and depreciation. We must constantly entice them to buy. They make much better workers if are always in debt.

If we allow them space to think, they may question the vehicle with which they are killing themselves: 50,800 persons dead and 1,900,000 disabled in 1981 in the United States alone.They may see how machines and their present manufacturing processes are destroying their life-support system. They may see that all the processed junk food we’re selling them is making them sick and costing them more; see that their boring, unsatisfying jobs are driving many of them crazy. They might even discover the simplest unprocessed foods which are cheap and healthful.

As it is recorded in our family archives, one of our forefathers, Galus Julius Caesaer once sald: “Give them breed and circuses, to keep them from rebelling.” It is a simple matter to give them food, but it takes a little more imagination to give them circuses. I guess this is the creative part of being slave masters – to create diversions to keep their gullible little minds busy.

Our Watergate Scandal was a fine circus. It kept them thinking and talking along safe lines for years. We are still getting some mileage out of the Kennedy Assassination and they still aren’t sure whether we shot the real Kennedy, his double or a dummy. We have fine show going on Central America and in the Middle East, some still lingering in Germany, others in Vietnam, the USSR and China.

We may use the recent invasion to start another World War. It will be a challenge to attempt to involve our sheep in another big war, so soon after the last one. However, we may be able to pull it off, to get them angry enough to fight. We wouldn’t need to use the older nuclear bombs, as they could be dangerous to our families’ health. We might use a few of our cleaner H-Bombs. It will be a creative, fun time for us. Wars are truly the sport of kings. They are more fun to stage and run than chess games, or are hum-drum activities of production or politics.

Creating straw men for slaves to knock down is one of our best numbers. We set it up and let them tear it down. It diverts much of their creative energy. We create another excellent diversion by resisting their efforts to tear it down.

We learned long ago that people can think only one thought line at a time. We feed them thoughts and they either fight them or go along with them.

Music has always been an effective tool for setting their moods, their pace and leading their thoughts. While dancing they learn to step to the beat of our drummer and keep the pace we set. This teaches them to obey orders. The drum has always been useful for this. We let them touch each other during the dance. They seem to enjoy touching and they feel successful when they keep in step, so this training process becomes self-perpetuating. It also serves as an excellent distraction.

They must occupy their minds with keeping in step to the beat and with how they are going to entice their partners to deb. If they are constantly bombarded with distractions they will have no time to do any real thinking. They will only be aware of that which we make them aware.

Our closest guarded secret is the fact that slavery still exists in every country on this planet.

Laborers, farmers, traders, professionals, managers, directors and presidents – all take pay, so they must obey our orders. They are not aware of their bondage. Some are vaguely aware of the idea that “big money” runs everything. But they are unable to relate to the idea that they are part of that “everything.”

They think that they are free people, making all their own decisions We allow them to make the unimportant ones. The important ones we cover in their laws, and in their customs and religious and moral codes. We have even trained them to punish their own kind when they do not conform.

We have been masters for a long, long, time. We teach kids how to work, to be submissive and to obey orders. These kids grow up to he good slaves, like their parents. Most of the parents even go so far as to break their own kid’s spirits. So by the time they are of work age, them are docile, gullible and easy to manipulate.

Through all our media, including books, we give them a substitute for living. For example, we encourage them to live vicariously through the exciting adventures of fiction. This puts their fantasy life through an exciting energy drain which seems to satisfy some of their emotional hunger.

This substitute fills one of those spaces in time which they might have used to go out and experience life first-hand. Distractions keep them from discovering the bondage they are in. We must continue to titillate them to want to watch television and movies, to read newspapers, magazines and books to listen to radio and music.

We use the mass media not only for a distraction but also to help create their basic beliefs and expectations. Of course, the schools and churches serve this purpose too, as do popular songs and music. We use the media to create the desire to buy. In this way we motivate them to work for us.

They continue to administer to our needs as they did to Caeser’s and as they did for the priests in the time of the great pyamids. Our ancestors really knew how to handle people! As slaves get more education it takes a little more finesse to keep on top of them; however, it’s basically the same even today. Keep them fearful; fearful of death, fearful of pain, fearful of each other. Always encourage competition: it’s like fighting, separates people and keeps them fearful of losing.

We have made them afraid of death by telling them that they have spirits which live on after their death. If they obey our rules, which we tell them were inspired by God, their spirits will be assured entrance into Heaven or reincarnated into a better existence, depending on which of our religions they have chosen. This makes them afraid to die, because they know they haven’t obeyed all the rules (which we deliberately made too difficult to always be obeyed). If they can be kept afraid they are more easy to manage. Then they look to us for guidance and protection.

Promoting fear of pain is another distraction we have always used. We must not give them time to discover that pain is their body’s method of alerting them to the fact that they are doing something wrong to it. So before they can check out the reason for the pain, we channel them to a doctor who will attempt to numb the pain. The doctor will take up time and money doing so. It creates a great diversion, and debt. Some people talk about their pain constantly. The patients’ pain will usually return (sometimes to a different part of their body) after their cure. Doctors usually don’t remove the cause of pains. This would put them out of business.

We hire some of the slaves to act as police and soldiers so that we can threaten to inflict pain and imprisonment on the others. They literally enforce their own slavery when they take jobs in law enforcement and the military. We keep them too busy and too broke to realize this.

Sports and gambling have always been good spectacle. Sex may rate second place, drugs third. We have achieved a sort mass hypnosis by using movies, TV and music, with which we have been able to implant suggestions and beliefs without their being aware of it.

We may need to give our ecology program front page coverage again soon. It can take up the Slack to hold their attention in case it is untimely to start a war now.

Remember, the Warbucks family has ruled on this planet for six thousand years, so it is our right and destiny to continue doing so. Keep up the good work and if you have any problems, contract Alexandria or Ernest, as I’m taking a little vacation.

- Cleopatra Warbucks

from OVO 11 CONTROL (September 1991)

See also:
OVO 2 (1987)

As the pillars of Western culture collapse (replaced by institutionalized alienation) schizophrenia and violence cease to be deviations and instead become survival characteristics. The apocalypse culture has bred a new form of death, the multiple (serial or mass) murderer. Death sports, murder clubs and snuff art may have existed only in fiction or as isolated instances in the past, but accelerated decline in social order coupled with spectacular un-living creates new possibilities for such to flourish and federate. The multiple murderer is an agent from an increasingly inevitable future.

Heralding the multiple murderer is a support system of mayhem fetishists and media. This is not an exposure of deviants but a warning about what is to become as “normal” as any slasher movie, comic book or pornography.

Anyone seeking to understand the roots and effects of modern alienation would do well to study multiple murderers. There is a wealth of information about multiple murder in the mainstream and alternative press that has not been assimilated into an anti-authoritarian critique. This issue is offered as a summation of research into multiple murder from a variety of perspectives, as a contribution to the struggle against the apocalypse culture.

(from OVO 10 MAYHEM July 1991)

It is annoying to attend religious services and annoying not to. One who has had deep feelings for some organized religion finally gives up on its extant and visible self, usually after bouts of non-involvement, aggrieved attendance, and conquering indifference.

“It is the evil of the age,” explains the voice of tradition. “It is the self-judgment of an illusion,” comes the modern explanation. Have we really no slicker attitudes to cop than these: a sour sense of personal purity or an embittered belief in our rational integrity?

The real culprit is the whole idea of organized religion, which ought to be stacked next to military intelligence, public education & jumbo shrimp in a museum of dizziness.

How could we have believed that we could walk into any mosque / church / temple – the spiritual equivalent of a waiting room – and find our undiscovered and secret desires? Shame shame shame on us for having tried to share our spirit with less care and precaution than we would ordinarily exercise in sharing our sperm.

The people with whom one can do religion are as rare as those with whom one can make love – and not always the same persons!

Better to make religion a beautiful personal solace, like masturbation, than to rely on paid priests / rabbis / imams, licensed by the state to practice unsafe spirituality and spread mental diseases, especially those which undermine the mind’s natural defenses and immunities against silliness.

Anyone will tell you that religion is a private thing – but I teach you that religion must be a secret thing! Fools, guard your dreams! The wise have none so beautiful as yours!

Therefore, Moorish Orthodoxy. Because the title is less cumbersome than Anarchopaganzen – Hebreaochrislam.

Moorish Science Monitor. Volume 2 Number 6. Winter 1987.

Some groups and individuals oppose legal access to same sex marriage.  This includes homosexual groups and individuals, some from the left, some from the right.  I predict they will be displeased if legal access to same sex marriage occurs in the United States.  There is no right to happiness.

According to the General Accounting Office [pdf], “as of 31 December 2003 [there are] a total of 1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges.”  Due to the Defense of Marriage Act, these federal statutory provisions are available only to hetero married couples.  If legal access to same-sex marriage occurs in the United States, some or all of these federal statutory provisions will have to change.  I predict they will not change at the same time. I predict that they will not change to the same degree or in the same way.  I predict that sometimes a federal statutory provisions will cease to exist rather than be extended to same-sex couples.  I predict that they will not all change at the federal level, but rather at both the state and the federal level and that they will not be uniform in all states.  During the time these federal statutory provisions change, some same-sex couples will lose out while other same-sex couples will benefit.  Attentiveness now to these benefits, rights, and privileges might make their transitions more smooth.

Interracial hetero marriage was banned in some states as late as 1967.  The Loving v Virginia decision of the Supreme Court that year found miscegenation laws to be unconstitutional. Interracial marriage has been legal for over forty years. But it is not the case that interracial marriages occur with the same frequency as same-race marriages. According to the US Census for 2000, around 97% of whites married whites and around 96% of blacks married blacks. I predict these statistics will remain constant if legal access to same sex marriage occurs in the United States.  The State has no role in encouraging or discouraging marriage diversity.

Citizenship in the United States can be conferred by marriage.  I predict that legal access to same sex marriage will confer citizenship to some men and women who otherwise could not be citizens.  I predict this will be a small number and will not influence society much at all.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Domestic violence occurs among same-sex couples as well as hetero couples.  According to the American Bar Association [pdf], “seven states define domestic violence in a way that specifically excludes same-sex victims.” I predict that legal access to same sex marriage will include an increase of reports of domestic violence.  This increase in reports of domestic violence may be caused by a change in the ability to report domestic violence as much as or more than an increase in actual domestic violence. Domestic violence among same-sex couples does not occur with the same frequency among all sexes.  According to the U. S. Department of Justice, 11.4% of same-sex cohabiting women report being victimized by a female partner while 15.4% of same-sex cohabiting men reported being victimized by a male partner. Men raping men occurs much more frequently than men raping women.  According to the U. S. Census Bureau, 78.3% of murder victims are male and 21.4% of murder victims are female.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics [pdf] 65.3% of murders involved a male offender and a male victim while 2.4% of murders involved a female offender and a female victim.  I predict that legal access to same sex marriage will show more domestic violence among men than among women.  Acknowledging a difference between men and women and funding State services accordingly might lessen the problem of domestic violence.

Same sex couples cannot conceive children.  Same sex couples who wish to raise children are limited in their ability to adopt in the United States.  Some states allow it, some forbid it, and federal law has said only that an adoption in one state must be recognized in other states.  (Compare this with the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law stating same-sex marriage in one state need not be recognized in other states.)  Many states that forbid adoption by same sex couples base their law on same sex couples being unable to legally marry.  I predict legal access to same sex marriage in the United States will cause changes in adoption laws.  I predict some states will make it no more or less difficult for same sex couples to adopt than for hetero couples to adopt, while other states will make all adoptions more difficult to make adoption more difficult for same sex couples.  Same sex couples who wish to raise children are limited in their ability to use birth surrogates or artificial insemination in the United States.  Legal limits on birth surrogates exist for hetero couples as well and vary by state.  There is no legal limit on artificial insemination but some insurance companies will not compensate single women who use artificial insemination.  I predict some states will make it no more or less difficult for same sex couples to use birth surrogates or artificial insemination, while other states will make using birth surrogates or getting artificial insemination more difficult to make these procedures more difficult for same sex couples.  I predict the number of children adopted will increase if legal access to same sex marriage occurs.  State by state differences in adoption, birth surrogates, and artificial insemination will be similar to the legality of abortion.  Abortion is legal at the national level but access to services varies by state and is not a service the state is compelled to offer.  Adoption laws should be inclusive of same sex parents.

Advocates of legal access to same sex marriage want treatment under the law identical to hetero marriage, and that includes legal access to divorce.  Making predictions about legal access to same sex marriage must include predictions about legal access to same sex divorce.  Statistics relating to hetero divorce have a limited value in making predictions about same sex divorce. According to the National Center for Health Statistics [pdf] “Approximately 61 percent of the divorces in 1988 were petitioned by the wife, 32 percent by the husband, and 7 percent by the husband and wife jointly.” More hetero couples are divorced today than in the past, and differences exist between the percentage of divorced men and divorced women.  According to the US Census Bureau: “Of the first marriages for women from 1955 to 1959, about 79 percent marked their 15th anniversary, compared with only 57 percent for women who married for the first time from 1985 to 1989. People born in the leading edge of the baby boom experienced high divorce rates in the 1970s and 1980s. About 38 percent of men born from 1945 to 1954 and 41 percent of women in the same age group had been divorced by 2004.”  The trend for women to initiate divorce more than men is also found in Denmark, where legal access to same sex marriage has been available since 1989. Male same sex married couples in Denmark seek a divorce 14% of the time, while female same sex married couples in Denmark seek a divorce 23% of the time. I predict legal access to same sex marriage in the United States will reveal that women seek divorce more than men in both hetero and same sex marriages.  According to the US Census Bureau [pdf], among hetero divorced couples in 2008 56.9% of mothers were awarded child support and custody while 40.4% of fathers were awarded child support and custody.  I predict custody and child support issues among divorcing same sex couples will incur less legal fees and occupy less court time among men than women.  I claim that some discontent to legal access to same sex marriage is caused by discontent with hetero marriage.  Discontent with hetero marriage comes in part from the prevalence of divorce.  No-fault divorce has existed in every state since 1985.  Discontent with hetero marriage comes in part from the disparity of who initiates divorce and who benefits from divorce.  Women initiate divorce more often than men, and benefit from divorce more often than men.  Divorce and women’s rights are largely spoken of as having only benefits, never any cost.  Divorce and women’s rights are largely spoken of as bringing about only equality, never inequality.  For these reasons, what might have been a debate about women and divorce has become a debate about homosexuals and marriage.  I predict legal access to same sex marriage will not bring about the former debate.  Acknowledging a difference between men and women and funding State services accordingly might lessen the problem of divorce.

See also: Three Predictions Part One, ‘Who’s That Girl?’

Mail Online: Claudy Bombing Priest James Chesney, Cover-up Agreed by Police, Ministers and Church

The British government and the Catholic Church colluded to cover up Father Jim Chesney’s role in the 1972 bombing that killed nine people, it was revealed today.

Salt Lake Tribune: LDS Church Sued for Baptism for the Dead Injury

In a civil suit filed in 3rd District Court on Wednesday, Daniel Dastrup claims he suffered a severe herniated disk in his lumbar spine after performing about 200 baptisms on Aug. 25, 2007. The then 25-year-old claims some of the young men and women he completely immersed in water in the name of the dead weighed as much as 250 pounds.

BV Black Spin: Martin Luther King Jr.s Niece Calls Gay Marriage ‘Genocide’

The niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a crowd at a National Organization for Marriage rally last weekend in Atlanta. Dr. Alveda King passionately addressed the issue of same-sex marriage, stating that it would lead to “extinction” and “genocide.”

Jeannie Nuss: Bikini-Clad Strippers Protest Church in Rural Ohio

The strippers, fueled by Cheetos and nicotine, are protesting a fundamentalist Christian church whose Bible-brandishing congregants have picketed the club where they work. The dancers roll up with signs carrying messages adapted from Scripture, such as “Do unto others as you would have done unto you,” to counter church members who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts. [also]

AFP: US Catholic Church Tarred with New Child Sex Abuse Scandal

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has become embroiled in a new pedophilia scandal with six women and one man alleging sexual abuse by a priest over three decades. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them.

Anne Rice: ‘Today I Quit Being A Christian’

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Reuters: Austrian Churchgoers Quit in Record Numbers

A record 100,000 Austrians are expected to leave the Roman Catholic Church this year after abuse scandals which have badly damaged its image, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Some 57,000 quit the church in the first six months of the year, Austrian daily Der Standard reported, citing figures from local state authorities. This is already more than the full-year total for 2009 when 53,216 walked out.

Part of a series that never ends [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10][11] and etc.  May Christianity wither away under the twin suns of reason and scorn.

OUTLAW CHRISTIANITY! DEATH TO ALL CHRISTIANS!

The above does not reflect the intention of OVO, and in fact stands opposite to it. The above is provided to feed the presuppositions of those who will not actually read this issue of OVO. Any review of this issue that quotes the words above is likely to have been written by someone who never read beyond them to learn what OVO actually states. This issue of OVO has a purpose, but the likelihood that it will be misrepresented is great enough that a clear statement of what the purpose is not is in order.

OVO does not advocate the criminalization of Christianity. Existing criminal law suffices to address what is harmful, and law is among the least appropriate means of addressing what is merely mistaken. Christians deserve equal sanction by the law, and voluntary and informed activities among consenting adults (including religion) should not be outlawed.
OVO does not advocate the murder of Christians except in self-defense. Because of the potential for legal error, capital punishment is immoral in all cases. War and murder are immoral in all cases except in self-defense. Except in self-defense, it is always immoral to kill (including killing Christians).

OVO does not advocate the replacement of the Christian God with another God, a Goddess, a pantheon of deities, nature worship, or similar substitution. OVO does not advocate worship, be it of the Christian God or any other. To any reader who uses OVO to build up their own superstition: your faith is equally contemptible.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it does not understand it. Many years research went into this issue, and along the way misunderstandings about Christianity (whether in its favor or against it) were abandoned. OVO criticizes Christianity not because it does not understand it, but because it is worthy of criticism.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because the editor had a traumatic experience with Christianity. The editor had a generally positive experience with Christianity while growing up and has Christian friends today. It is a silent admission of defeat that Christians use this psychological, secular explanation for why someone might criticize their superstition. The editor came to reject Christianity the old fashioned way: by reading the Bible.

OVO is not critical of Christianity because the editor is possessed by Satan, demons or evil spirits. Such ghosts have never existed.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it is a socialist publication. OVO is not a socialist publication.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because Christianity is false. Christianity is false, but that is not in itself sufficient reason to advocate that it wither away. There are many non-fiction books, films, plays, poems and recordings that are also false but serve to inspire humanity. But these false stories do not claim to be true, are not taught to impressionable children as true, and are not used to support legislation that meddles in the affairs of non-Christians. No one is arguing that the epics of Homer be taught as history; no one is legislating that Aesop’s fables be posted in courtrooms. These stories, though false, serve to inspire those who seek them out and are rightly preserved. It is the secular power of Christianity that is the problem, not merely its falsehood. Christianity does not attempt to identify and lessen its falsehoods: it revels in them as ‘tests of faith.’ Christianity is holding back science and art, culture and philosophy, tools that actually can and actually have improved humanity’s lot in an indifferent Universe.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it is a good religion perverted to bad ends. It is much more the case that a few good people (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, perhaps) have perverted the bad religion of Christianity to good ends. All the good done in the name of Christianity could and does occur through entirely secular means. What remains distinctly Christian if such duplication of labor is removed? Threats of eternal damnation, denial of the pleasures and wonders of this short life, confusion and deception. When Christianity has supported individual rights it has done so only after a ‘revelation’ that (a) goes against its own history and (b) miraculously is in harmony with contemporary public opinion. For example, many Christians opposed slavery in the United States; but many more supported slavery and did so for much longer. Even today the Bible contains many passages supporting slavery and not one passage condemning it. Christianity is a slave religion, a misogynist religion, a queer-killing religion, a nonsense religion, but good people keep twisting their bad faith to good ends. Wouldn’t it be better to just do good deeds without wasted efforts to placate an invisible monster that lives in the sky?

OVO does not criticize Christianity to criticize individual Christians. It is often the case that an attack on a person’s unconsidered beliefs is perceived as an attack on their person. If a person’s beliefs are profoundly unconsidered, to merely state that one holds differing beliefs is perceived as an attack. For example, Christians who see other superstitions get equal time in the eyes of the law sometimes complain that their freedom of religion is under attack. Those who hold considered beliefs are secure when challenged and (hopefully) willing to admit error. Those who hold unconsidered beliefs, who repeat what they have been told without deliberation, are more likely to confuse who they are with what they believe. Christianity, like all religions, encourages strong belief but also encourages a lack of consideration. Posturing, bullying and stubbornness are substitutes for consideration of belief among most Christians.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because its claims contradict the evidence of our senses, science, history, archeology, astronomy, mathematics, common sense and the like. It is true that Christianity is incompatible with all of these, but science progresses by way of challenges to all our claims. If Christianity challenges the evidence of our senses, all the better: let the challenges be considered and considered again. If the Bible contradicts science, science can be tested to see if the Bible has a better explanation for reality. Where the Bible holds true, the Bible holds true. Where the Bible is found to be false, it should either be re-written or re-classified as folk tales. Resolving contradictions between the Bible and the evidence of our senses can be of value to us all, and so the contradictions between the Bible and the evidence of our senses are not in themselves why the Bible should be criticized. Internal contradictions in the Bible, and holding on to falsehood when falsehood has been identified, are worthy of the greatest of criticisms.

OVO does not criticize Christianity as an argument for atheism. The editor is preparing an argument for atheism that is distinct from this argument against Christianity.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because Jesus Christ was a good person whose followers have gone astray, or because we do not have the secret teachings of Jesus, or because Jesus was a complex person with both good and bad qualities. Jesus never existed.

In 1991, the editor published A Call to Heresy on a BBS in Knoxville, Tennessee USA. The document found its way onto BBS’ around the world as well as other formats, including an Internet domain in Hong Kong and a CD-ROM of public domain texts published by Palm Computers. Various editions of the text can be found on the Internet today. Some of the research done for that text has found a new home here in OVO 16 AntiChrist.

OVO criticizes the Bible. Some Christians say that it is an error to overly attend to what the Bible says, and one should rely on the Bible as inspiration rather than fact. But the Bible itself makes claims of perfection, and so taking it at its word in claims of perfection are as justified as any other perspective; perhaps more justified than some ‘inspired’ interpretations. If any interpretation of the Bible is as good as any other, then Christians in no way can distance themselves from the worst among them. Having failed to amend the contradictions, atrocities and absurdities in the Bible with over two thousand years to do so, it is reasonable to conclude that the Bible is considered factual among Christians. Some Christians (called Dominionists or Fundamentalists or Conservatives or the Christian Right) are explicit in their claim that the Bible is factual, while the rest hold it to be factual but requiring ‘interpretation’ (often by way of asking the reader to simply ignore parts of the Bible).

But this issue of OVO does not limit itself to criticisms of the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church claims a history pre-dating the Bible. Martin Luther, founder of Protestant Christianity, wrote inspired texts. The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints and the Watchtower Society claim to have Christian revelations in modern times. All of these Christians are well deserving of criticism and contempt.

There are a set number of responses offered by Christians when confronted with their own beliefs. The first and most common is to be told that these Bible verses have been taken out of context. It is claimed that the verses surrounding these quotes give them a meaning other than their apparent meaning. If this is the case it will be easy to demonstrate; full citations for each quote are given throughout. The reader is encouraged to read the Bible. There is no more sure path to rejecting Christianity than understanding it. Some claim that the contexts of the times change how we should understand the Bible. But does the Bible say it is relevant only until the time of Job (the last time God speaks directly to humanity), or does it claim to be relevant to all times? Some claim that one translation of the Bible offers a more accurate account than another, but existing fragmentary early Christian texts contain their own contradictions, atrocities and absurdities.

The second common reply made by Christians when confronted with their own beliefs is that the Bible, God, Jesus and the rest are not to be understood by reason in the way math or science is. Christianity is to be understood by faith, by the heart, by the spirit, by the soul. Therefore any apparent contradictions, atrocities or absurdities should be ignored because those are all ‘reason’ and not ‘faith.’ But there is no ‘alternative to reason’ as faith is said to be. One can hope, one can wish, one can pretend and ignore, one can scream or run away or kill one’s critics, but none of these are alternatives to reason. Even if there were an alternative to reason, how is the ‘feeling’ that Christianity is true (and all other religions false) different from the ‘feeling’ that Islam is true (and all other religions are false)? Why is it that Christian ‘feelings’ are so regional – does God not inspire such ‘feelings’ everywhere equally? Why don’t children have that ‘feeling’ until an adult tells them to say they do, and why do adults spend so much effort making sure that ‘feeling’ is planted in children?

All religions claim to be the only true religion. Even the ecumenical religions claim to be the only true religion, by claiming that the non-ecumenical religions are false. But since all religions contradict each other at most only one can be the only true religion. Since all religions by definition put themselves outside what can be demonstrated as true, it would be unjust to establish any religion as secular law because the likelihood of error would be too great. Suppose Mithrism became the law of the United States when actually it was Ah Pook that was the real living God? Those countries that have a legal assumption of atheism serve freedom the most. At times this has been the case in the United States, where OVO originates. Christianity threatens the legal presupposition of atheism in the USA, necessitating this issue of OVO. Christianity is the superstition behind the US support of Israel, the war in Iraq, lack of access to Plan B and a vaccine for two strains of cancer-causing HPV, the removal of science from public education, the ongoing imprisonment of the West Memphis Three (among others), blue laws, laws forbidding atheists from holding elected office and more. Reform from within should occur in Christianity. Civil discourse should occur between Christians and non-Christians. But should Christianity elect to ignore the opportunities of positive reinforcement, let it learn the sting of negative reinforcement. OVO is not reforming Christianity from within, nor is it a civil discourse. It is an attack – using only Christianity’s own beliefs as weapons. When Mithrism or the faithful of Ah Pook establish their superstition as law in the USA, they will be equally worthy of criticism. Readers in countries where Islam or Judaism are the majority superstition are encouraged to make similar efforts.

This issue of OVO advocates the withering away of Christianity through reason and scorn. Reason alone withers Christianity to a hostile party guest that has long overstayed his welcome; scorn provide us with laughter and satisfaction as we show him to the door. Perhaps reason alone, or reason and compassion, might be a more noble endeavor. But any belief that cannot withstand a little mockery is perhaps not worth holding in the first place.

Subject religious organizations to the same requirements as secular non-profit organizations: demonstrate they perform a quantifiable public good to receive tax-exempt status. Do not donate any funds, labor or resources to Christian organizations: there are secular equivalents to any Christian organization for those who seek to aid others. Do not vote for politicians who make their Christianity a part of their platform. Oppose ‘faith based’ funding and theocratic laws. Learn more about Christianity than the Christians themselves. Confront Christians with their own claims and history.

OVO is fortunate to originate in the United States, where Christianity and other superstitions may be legally practiced and criticized. The United Kingdom, Holland, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, Norway, Canada and other countries forbid criticism of religion as a form of ‘hate crime,’ while China, North Korea and other countries forbid religion as a form of ‘thought crime.’ In the United States religion may be both practiced and criticized – for now. If Christianity continues to become the state religion of the United States, this may not be the case much longer.

OVO is a tool kit to disabuse the reader of Christianity.

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

Between April 11 and April 15 of 2004, I hosted an atheist table at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. This is an account of what I did, how I did it, and the response to what I did.

Getting the table was not difficult: I submitted the same paperwork that the religious groups on campus submit every other week of the year and my request was approved right away. I only asked for an hour a day for four days, due to other school obligations. Most religious groups have their tables out all day for weeks on end.

I spent about $40 printing some pamphlets I made. My pamphlets consisted of quotes from religious sources such as the Christian Bible and the Quran. The idea was that direct quotes from the source presented without comment would speak louder than any criticism I could offer. The quotes were gathered according to themes such as science, women, prophecies, etc. I also requested literature from atheist groups and several generously answered my request: Campus Freethought Alliance, Center for Inquiry, Council for Secular Humanism, and United States Atheists. I decided to keep the effort ‘ecumenical’ in that I wasn’t there representing any particular organization. By the end of the week I learned that the professionally published literature is taken more readily than the home-made photocopies, and that everyone loves stickers. I decorated a second-hand tablecloth with the word ATHEIST in large, black letters – no missing this table, no missing what this table was about (or so I hoped). PCC specifically forbids collecting personal information on campus, so I didn’t have a sign-up sheet as the Campus Freethought Alliance suggests. Nor did I primarily promote humanism rather than critique religion, as the CFA suggets. For this first effort on campus I want it to be clear that religion itself, not just particular groups or people or claims, was not exempt from criticism. I also set up a simple Web page for those who wanted to get or share more information.

Many people had questions about the atheist table. Some wanted to know if there was an official atheist club on campus, and what the club did. I said that there was not school-sponsored club because I knew that some students wouldn’t feel comfortable if their student activities fee went toward such a club. PCC offers up to $500 per group per year. There are at least five or six religious clubs on campus at all times, and no limit to the number of clubs that could exist. Two people said ‘but the Christian groups don’t hesitate in taking my money.’ I said that was a decision that PCC and the Christian groups made, and suggested they take it up with PCC and the Christians if they disapproved. I said many times that while there was no club, we did have a Web page and that I hoped in the future to either bring in or be a guest speaker on atheism, religion, church/state issues, and the like.

Some who stopped by the table had questions not about what I was offering but what I wasn’t offering. Why not have a separation of church and state table instead of an atheist table? Why aren’t there any pamphlets on creationism versus evolution? Why are there only pamphlets about Christianity and Islam, and not other religions? The general answer was that there was only so much I could do on this first attempt at an atheist table but all of these issues had relevant links and information at the Web site.

Some people had philosophical questions such as why we are here, where the first life came from, what happens when we die, whether or not there was a spiritual world, and ‘how do you live’ (which seemed to mean how can an atheist have ethics and a joy in living while remaining unconvinced by claims of God or an afterlife). I replied that I have read several theories as to how the earliest life appeared on Earth but I don’t consider myself versed enough in science to have a deep understanding of the subject, so I didn’t know for sure how life first formed. But I said it is more likely that there is a natural explanation than a supernatural one. Regarding ‘how I live’ I said I was not convinced by claims that there was an afterlife or a spiritual world or God. I said people can have the purpose they give themselves, and that can be its own reward. I have worked at a homeless shelter and as an American Sign Language interpreter for many years. I’ve taken classes on how to teach children with learning disabilities and how to be a better counselor. I am a member of Amnesty International and donate to charitable organizations. That’s some of ‘how I live’ without God.

A few people offered their unsolicited analysis about why I was hosting an atheist table. They said I must have had a bad experience with religion, or I must have never read the Bible, or I must have never really read the Bible, or I must have never had someone explain the Bible to me in just the right way. I replied that I had an entirely positive religious experience growing up, and that part of my religious upbringing was being encouraged to read the Bible. I started reading it as a child, and I have read from it ever since. The more I read, the more problems I find. Is it possible that the right explanation from the right explainer will make it all true again? It is possible, but I think it is very unlikely this will happen. Some claim atheism is obviously false because it claims to have ‘all the answers,’ but I suggest it is religion that has a one-size-fits-all answer (‘God did it’) and it is atheism that keeps asking questions.

People asked me what atheism was. I gave two answers: that atheism is what is left over when the claims of religion are found to be false, and that atheism is a rejection of the supernatural. The former explains why atheism is not ‘just another religion,’ the later explains what atheism is against. It might have been less confrontational to have a secular humanist table instead of an atheist table, but I confess I enjoyed tweaking the noses of the religious on campus. The worst I can say about them is I don’t believe their claims. Their holy books say I should be put to death (the Christians have Deuteronomy 13:6-10, the Muslims have Quran 2:191). I think they can stand a little confrontation.

I managed to distribute nearly all of the literature I had, but the experience wasn’t only one of being a teacher. I also learned from the experience. I learned there was a uniformity in how non-Christians perceived Christians: without exception, non-Christians spoke of Christians as liars and bullies. I was asked seven times if I was ‘serious,’ if I was really an atheist. I was asked this more than anything else. The reason why people asked if I was ‘serious’ was they thought the table was a trick by Christian. Five times I was asked if any Christians had harassed me yet. Christians are clearly are not viewed favorably on campus outside of their own circle. Non-Christians see Christians as people prone to misrepresent themselves to ‘win souls’ and to abuse those who disagree with them. I hope Christians reading this do not use this as evidence they are a persecuted group; being disliked is not evidence of being put down, and there may be entirely valid reasons for their being disliked. If anyone reading this who is not a Christian has thought in the past they were alone in mistrusting Christians, that they are in a critical minority, they might like to know that instead they are the majority. But it is a majority that has been deceived and bullied into silence.

The dislike and mistrust for Christians on campus was one thing I learned from hosting an atheist table. Another thing was how clearly divided Christians are in their behavior based on gender. Of those who identified themselves as Christians, wore Christian jewelry or carried Christian Bibles, the men and the women acted entirely differently. The Christian women both asked questions and gave answers. They spoke and listened to me and to other people at the table. The Christian men, however, were angry and condescending. I was told by the Christian men I ‘must live an empty life,’ that I ‘didn’t know what I was talking about,’ that I ‘should read the Bible before I quote from it,’ and more. Men also tended to exhibit a ‘rant and run’ behavior – they would bark out a comment or a judgment, sometimes in the middle of my listening to someone else, then literally run away. Sticking around to hear anything I had to say in reply was not in the cards for these Christian men. It was a man who asked the confusing question ‘Why are you pointing out all the things that are wrong in the Bible that are true anyway?’ It was a man who said that asking Christians to defend their claims, as I did in my pamphlets, was saying Christians are stupid. If the bad reputation of Christians is based in experience, I suggest it is Christian men and not Christian women who are to blame. No other categorization of Christians, such as age or ethnicity, was apparent.

A few Christians of both genders came to the table more than one day. And both a male and a female Christian gave the same reply to what turned out to be the most popular pamphlet I offered (see below). Regarding the fact that Jesus said that He would return and the world would end ‘soon’ (a ‘soon’ that came and went two thousand years ago), they said that a day to God was like a thousand years and a thousand years was like a day. Although one Christian mistakenly said this was a quote from Psalms, I found the quote in 2 Peter 3:8. The unknown author of 2 Peter references the letter of Jude, which was written around 80-100 CE. Thus the 1=1000 claim could only have been made after Jesus was already one or more generations late. In fact, the main point of 2 Peter Chapter 3 is to answer those who were asking, all the way back then, why Jesus hadn’t returned in their lifetimes as He had promised He would. People were asking if Jesus had lied (or been a lie) two thousand years ago. People are still asking today. But some aren’t asking anything: they just accept that when you put God into the picture, you don’t have to mean what you say or say what you mean. Jesus promised (thirty times or more!) to return within the lifetime of those who saw Him; He didn’t, but His followers claim He said that, He never lied, He is coming back, and somehow at the same time He is coming back two thousand years ago. Might all this confusion contribute to the perception that Christians are liars?

Based on conversations, repeat visits, and other signs of apparent interest it seems that my pamphlet questioning Christian prophecy was the most popular. It is possible that the topics presented in the pamphlets I offered were not the main reason people selected some and not others. Perhaps they picked up what was closest to them, or what was the most colorful. For whatever reason, here are the topics covered and how many of each pamphlet were taken:

Thirty Failed Prophecies: 28
The Bible Condones Slavery and Racism: 20
Women in the Bible: 16
Antisemitism in the Bible: 14
Papal-sanctioned Child Abuse: 10
Antisemitism from Martin Luther: 9
Fantastic Claims of Islam: 9
God Hates Homosexuality: 8
The Bible on the Origins of Life: 8
The Bible on the Origins of the Earth: 6

Only one person mentioned Islam at all (saying he had seen a table for an Islamic group before). Although there is no small Islamic presence on campus, no Muslim identified themselves to me, sought to understand what I was doing or challenge my claims. Nor was any other religion defended during this week. Instructors at PCC seemed to neither entirely avoid from nor come to the table: a few did each. It was only the Christians and those who have been cowed by the Christians who engaged me.

Some of those who came to the table were sympathetic but had concerns with atheism. One said ‘I understand the importance of the separation of church and state, but when they start banning Christmas in public grade school that’s going too far.’ I suggested that because not all religious holidays enjoy the same investment of tax dollars that celebrating Christmas was an instance of government establishment of religion and thus a violation of the First Amendment. One person said they liked what I was doing but ‘most people think atheism means evil’ (Devilishly, I said that’s why I did it). Another said I was just pushing my faith on other people: I reminded him that he came up to me and started the conversation, and that disbelieving the claims of religion was not a matter of faith.

A small number of people looked at the Web page. For all of four hours, there was a freethinker on campus that people could ask questions to and hear answers from. But what I value most out of the experience was the words of encouragement I got from the non-Christian majority who stopped by. Most of them appeared concerned about being seen talking to me but they each quietly said something nice. ‘Thank you for doing this!’ ‘I’m always trying to explain these things and it’s hard, can I take two pamphlets?’ ‘It’s good to see everyone get a chance, not just the religious groups.’ ‘I look forward to discussion with you.’ ‘This is great, I’m a recovering Catholic.’ ‘My boyfriend is an atheist.’ ‘This is interesting!’ Three people gave me the ‘thumbs up.’ And my favorite vote of confidence: ‘Good on you!’

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

The Bible sure likes the number twelve: twelve sons of Jacob, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve golden dishes for the dedication of the alter, twelve baskets of bread, twelve Apostles, twelve stars on the woman’s head, twelve gates and foundations of new Jerusalem, the tree of life bears twelve manner of fruit, and the twelve apostles of the Lamb. What an amazing coincidence that the ancients also held that there were twelve signs of the zodiac. The Bible states clearly that there were more than twelve apostles, but echoes of the twelve houses of astrology are what people remember when counting the apostles. The Bible supports astrology: God made the stars “for signs” (Genesis 1:14), a star was the sign of Jesus’ birth (Matthew 2:1-2), and Jesus condones the use of stars for divination (Luke 21:25).

Who Were the Twelve Apostles?

• Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. – Matthew 10:2-4
• And He [Jesus] ordained twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: and Simon He surnamed Peter; and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and He surnamed them Boanerges, which is, the sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him: and they went into an house. – Mark 3:14-19

No, Really, Who Were the Twelve Apostles?

• And when it was day, he called unto Him His disciples: and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named apostles; Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor. – Luke 6:13-16

Wait, Say That Again, Who Were the Twelve Apostles?

• And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. – Act 1:13

Were there maybe Thirteen Apostles?

• Am I [Paul] not an apostle? – 1 Corinthians 9:1

How About Fourteen Apostles?

• Other of the apostles I saw none, save James the Lord’s brother. – Galatians 1:19

Do I Hear Fifteen?

• He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. – 1 Corinthians 15:4-5

Could There Be Seventeen Apostles, Including a Woman?

• Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. – Romans 16:7

Should We Count Judas’ Replacement? Make it Eighteen, Then.

• And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. – Acts 1:26

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

As much as the Metropolitan Community Church and other apologists want to disagree, Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church is correct when he claims God hates fags. The Bible is clear enough that with the exception of David and Johnathan (1 and 2 Samuel), all homosexuals are to be killed. Not by God, not by the death that comes to us all, but by the hands of Christians. If you are a Christian, you are personally required by the Bible to kill homosexuals. If you are a Christian homosexual, you need to understand that your religion wants you “taken out.” God said it, Jesus confirmed it, and that settles it.  When you abandon Christianity, this is the sort of cruel nonsense you leave behind.

• Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. – Leviticus 18:22
• If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. – Leviticus 20:13
• The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. – Deuteronomy 22:5
• There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. – Deuteronomy 23:17
• And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. – 1 Kings 14:24
• And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. – 1 Kings 15:11-12
• And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land. – 1 Kings 22:46
• And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove. – 2 Kings 23:7
• The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. – Isaiah 3:9
• For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. [...] who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. – Romans 1:26-32
• Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. – 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
• Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. – Jude 1:7
• [Jesus said] Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:18,19
• [Jesus said] It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. – Luke 16:17

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

A question for the ladies in the audience… suppose you were asked if you would like to live in a country in which you could be bought, sold, traded and owned, where you would be required to be submissive to the wishes of any man, where the word “woman” was itself an insult, and where guilt in a rape case was based on whether or not the woman who was raped yelled loud enough. Would you like to live in a country like that? If not, then you should be equally horrified with the thought of being a Christian. The imaginary country described in this introduction is the world that the Bible wants women to live in everywhere. And don’t think that Jesus wasn’t aware of and in support of these rules – see what He had to say Himself.

Do Christians view women as slaves to be bought, sold, traded and owned?

• And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. – Deuteronomy 21:11-13
• If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. – Deuteronomy 22:28-29
• So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley. – Hosea 3:2
• See also: Genesis 19:8, 29:24, 29 / Exodus 20:17, 21:7, 8 / Deuteronomy 5:21, 25:5 / Judges 1:12-13, 5:30, 14:1-3, 15:2, 19:22-30, 21:7, 10-12, 14, 20-21, 23 / Ruth 4:10 / 1 Samuel 25:44 / 2 Samuel 12:11, 13:1-22, 20:3 / Esther 1:7-22, 2:2-4 / Jeremiah 6:12, 8:10

Do Christians believe women must be submissive to men?

• Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. -  1 Corinthians 14:34-35
• Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. – Ephesians 5:22-24
• In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. – 1 Timothy 2:9-15
• But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. – 1 Corinthians 11:3
• But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for asmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. -  1 Corinthians 11:5-10
• Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. – Colossians 3:18
• Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. – 1 Peter 3:1-7
• See also: Numbers 30:3-16 / Deuteronomy 22:5

Do Christians consider it an insult to be called a woman?

• See: Isaiah 19:16 / Jeremiah 50:37 / Nahum 3:13

Do Christians say if a woman doesn’t yell enough when being raped she should be killed?

• If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbor’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. – Deuteronomy 22:23-24

Does Jesus Support the Laws of the Old Testament?

• Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. – Mark 5:18-19
• It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. -  Luke 16:17

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

I THE DISCOVERY OF SPERM PART ONE
Sperm cells were first observed by van Leeuwenhoek in 1679. Van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) was a merchant and scientist from Delft, best known for improvement of the microscope and the establishment of cell biology. Using a handcrafted microscope, van Leeuwenhoek was the first to observe and describe muscles fibers, bacteria, blood flow in capillaries and spermatozoa. Van Leeuwenhoek carved over 500 optical lenses. Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscope was used and improved by Huygens for Huygens’ own investigations into microscopy.

Van Leeuwenhoek was introduced to microscopy by Huygens to observe the quality of fabrics. Van Leeuwenhoek grew interested in microscopy for its own sake and spent many nights in study and notation. The scientific language of the time was Latin but van Leeuwenhoek spoke only Dutch. Van Leeuwenhoek sent a letter to Hooke, who knew both Dutch and Latin, and Hooke instantly realized the quality and pertinence of van Leeuwenhoek’s work. Their correspondence was translated by Hooke into Latin and published in the proceeding of the Royal Society. To honor van Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries, the Dutch Royal Academy presents the van Leeuwenhoek medal to the scientist judged to have made the decade’s most significant finding in microbiology. This is regarded by microbiologists as the highest honor in their field.

Van Leeuwenhoek is thought to have been be the model for the painting titled The Geographer by van Leeuwenhoek’s friend, Vermeer. Van Leeuwenhoek also appeared on an unused design for a 10 Guilder note designed by Escher in 1951.

II THE DISCOVERY OF SPERM PART TWO
Working in the 19th Century, biochemists initially isolated DNA and RNA together from cell nuclei. They were relatively quick to appreciate the polymeric nature of their “nucleic acid” isolates, but realized only later that nucleotides were of two types – one containing ribose and the other deoxyribose. It was this subsequent discovery that led to the identification and naming of DNA as a substance distinct from RNA. Not until 1943 did Avery provide the first compelling evidence that DNA could carry genetic information.

How it could do so was unknown at the time. Because chemical dissection of DNA samples always yielded the same four nucleotides, the chemical composition of DNA appeared simple, perhaps even uniform. Organisms, on the other hand, are fantastically complex individually and widely diverse collectively. The idea that information might reside in a chemical in the same way that it exists in text – as a finite alphabet of letters arranged in a sequence of unlimited length – had not yet been conceived. It would emerge upon the discovery of DNA’s structure, but not many researchers imagined that DNA’s structure had much to say about genetics.

In the 1950s, only a few groups made it their goal to determine the structure of DNA. These included an American group led by Pauling, and two in England. At Cambridge University, Crick and Watson were building physical models using metal rods and balls, in which they incorporated the known chemical structures of the nucleotides, as well as the known position of the linkages joining one nucleotide to the next along the polymer. At King’s College, London, Wilkins and Franklin were examining x-ray diffraction patterns of DNA fibers.

A key inspiration in the work of all of these teams was the discovery in 1948 by Pauling that many proteins included helical shapes. Pauling had deduced this structure from x-ray patterns. Even in the initial crude diffraction data from DNA, it was evident that the structure involved helices. There remained questions such as how many strands came together as one, whether this number was the same for every helix, whether the bases pointed toward the helical axis or away from it, and ultimately what were the explicit angles and coordinates of all the bonds and atoms. Such questions motivated the modeling efforts of Watson and Crick.

In their attempts to model DNA, Watson and Crick restricted themselves to what they saw as chemically and biologically reasonable. A breakthrough occurred in 1952, when Chargaff visited Cambridge and inspired Crick with a description of experiments Chargaff had published in 1947. Chargaff had observed that the proportions of the four nucleotides vary between one DNA sample and the next, but that for particular pairs of nucleotides (adenine and thymine, guanine and cytosine) the two nucleotides are always present in equal proportions.

Watson and Crick had begun to contemplate double helical arrangements, and they saw that by reversing the directionality of one strand with respect to the other, they could provide an explanation for Chargaff’s puzzling finding. This explanation was the complementary pairing of the bases, which also had the effect of ensuring that the distance between the phosphate chains did not vary along a sequence. Watson and Crick were able to discern that this distance was constant, and to measure its exact size from an X-ray pattern obtained by Franklin. The same pattern also gave them the expected pitch of the helix. The pair quickly converged upon a model, which they announced before Franklin published any work on the topic. The great assistance Watson and Crick derived from Franklin’s data has become a subject of controversy, and some believe Franklin has not received due credit. The most controversial aspect is that Franklin’s critical X-ray pattern was shown to Watson and Crick without Franklin’s knowledge or permission. Wilkins showed it to them in a lab while Franklin was away.

Watson and Crick’s model attracted great interest immediately upon its presentation. Arriving at their conclusion on February 21, 1953, Watson and Crick made their first announcement on February 28. Their paper A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid was published on April 25. In an influential presentation in 1957, Crick laid out the “Central Dogma”, which foretold the relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins, and articulated the “sequence hypothesis.” A critical confirmation of the replication mechanism that was implied by the double-helical structure followed in 1958 in the form of the Meselson-Stahl experiment. Work by Crick and coworkers deciphered the genetic code not long afterward. These findings represent the birth of molecular biology. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962, by which time Franklin had died.

III THE GENERATION OF SPERM CELLS PART ONE
Protein biosynthesis is the process in which cells build protein. The term is sometimes used to refer only to protein translation, but more often it refers to a multi-step process, beginning with transcription and ending with translation.

Transcription generates only one side of the DNA double helix. This strand is called the coding strand. The transcription starts with initiation. RNA polymerase, an enzyme, binds to a specific region on the DNA, marking the starting point, called the promoter. As the RNA polymerase binds on to the promoter, the DNA strands begin to unwind. As the RNA polymerase travels through the opposite strand to the coding strand it matches corresponding mRNA nucleotides to the DNA. The mRNA is elongated as the polymerase proceeds. This process is known as elongation. As the polymerase reaches the termination, modifications are required for the newly transcribed mRNA to be able to travel to the other parts of the cell. A cap is added to the mRNA to protect is from degradation. A poly-A tail is added on the end as a protection and template for further process.

A sperm cell is a haploid cell. Haploid cells have only one copy of each chromosome. Only reproductive cells are haploid in the higher organisms. When reproducing, haploid sex cells will generally merge. The non-haploid cells, the somatic cells, carry one copy of the chromosomes from the sperm. During translation, the message of mRNA is decoded to make proteins. Translation includes initiation, elongation, translocation, and termination. Initiation and elongation occur when the ribosome recognizes the starting codon on the mRNA strand and binds to it. The ribosome has sites which allow another enzyme, tRNA to bind to the mRNA. On tRNA, there is an anticodon that is used to match the codon on the mRNA. tRNA also has a single unit of amino acid attaches to it.

As the ribosome travels down the mRNA one codon at a time, another tRNA is attached to the mRNA at one of the ribosome site. The first tRNA is released, but the amino acid that is attached to the first tRNA is now moved to the second tRNA, and binds to that amino acid. This translocation continues and a long chain of amino acid (protein) is formed. When the entire unit reaches the end codon on the mRNA, it falls apart and a newly formed protein is released. This is the termination. Many enzymes are used to either assist or facilitate the whole procedure during this process. During and after its synthesis, a polypeptide chain begins to coil and fold spontaneously, sometimes with the assistance of chaperone proteins to assume secondary and tertiary structure. Post-translational modification may involve the formation of disulfide bridges and attachment of any of a number of biochemical functional groups, such as acetate, phosphate or various lipids or carbohydrates. Enzymes may also remove one or more amino acids from the leading (amino) end of the polypeptide chain, leading a protein made up by two polypeptide chains connected by disulfide bonds. In other cases, two or more polypeptides that are synthesized separately may join to become subunits of a protein with quaternary structure.

IV THE GENERATION OF SPERM CELLS PART TWO
Sperm is produced in the testicles; most of the remaining semenal fluid is produced by the prostate. The prostate is a gland that is part of a human’s sex organ and surrounds the tube called the urethra, located just below the bladder. A healthy prostate is approximately the size of a walnut. The urethra has two functions: to carry urine from the bladder during urination and to carry semen during ejaculation. To function properly, the prostate needs human hormones (androgens). Such hormones are responsible for human sex characteristics. The main human hormone is testosterone, which is produced by the testicles. Some human hormones are produced in small amounts by the adrenal glands. Massage of the prostate gland can be pleasurable; one way to stimulate it is through receiving anal sex.

To produce sperm, testicles need to be several degrees cooler than body temperature. If the testicles are subject to heat, sperm production temporarily stops. Immersing the testicles in hot water for a period of time each day for several weeks can result in a temporary inability to produce sperm. Pushing the testicles inside the body, tight clothing and tying the empty scrotum for a period of time also achieves this effect. In antiquity this effect was achieved by sitting on hot rocks or painting the testes with molten pitch.

V THE DEFINITION OF SPERM
A sperm cell is the human gamete. Gametes are the cells that come together during fertilization or conception in organisms that reproduce sexually. A gamete’s chromosomes are not duplicates of either of the sets of chromosomes that are carried in the somatic cells of the individual that produced the gametes. Instead, they are hybrids which are produced through the recombination or crossing over of chromosomes that takes place in the making of gametes (“meiosis”). This hybridization has a random element and every gamete a human produces the chromosomes tends to be unique.

In humans, sperm cells consists of (1) Acrosome (2) Cell membrane (3) Nucleus (4) Mitochondria (5) Tail (flagella). The acrosome develops over the anterior half of the head. It is a cap-like structure containing corrosive enzymes. The acrosome derives from the Golgi apparatus. The tail flagellates, which propels the sperm.

The sperm cell membrane (or plasma membrane) is a thin, structured layer of lipid and protein molecules that completely envelopes the cell, separating its interior from the surroundings and strictly controlling what moves in and out. In animal cells, the membrane establishes this separation alone; in yeast, bacteria and plants an additional cell wall forms the outermost boundary providing primarily mechanical support. The plasma membrane may be discerned only faintly with a transmission electron microscope.

The sperm cell nucleus is an organelle within an eukaryotic cell. Its main function is to control chemical reactions in the cell cytoplasm. The nucleus, being the largest sub-cellular compartment, varies in diameter. It is surrounded by a double membrane forming the nuclear envelope. This selectively allows molecules to enter and leave the nucleus, and separates chemical reactions taking place in cytoplasm from reactions occurring within the nucleus. The outer membrane has ribosomes. The inner and outer membrane fuse at regular spaces, forming nuclear pores.

Similar to the cytoplasm of a cell, the nucleus contains nucleoplasm: a highly viscous solid containing the chromosomes and nucleoli. Chromosones contain information encoded in DNA attached to proteins called histones arranged in to a dense network called chromatin. Nucleoli are granular structures which make ribonucleic DNA (rDNA) and assemble it with proteins.

Sperm cell mitochondra are membrane-enclosed cellular organelles. Mitochondria are distributed through the cytosol of most eukaryotic cells. Their main function is to convert the potential energy (via electron transport) of food molecules into ATP (the universal energy currency of the cell). They are composed of folds called cristae which give a much increased surface area on which chemical reactions can occur. The outer membrane encloses the entire organelle and contains channels made of protein complexes through which molecules and ions can move in and out of the mitochondrion. Large molecules are excluded from traversing this membrane. The inner membrane, folded into cristae, encloses the matrix (the internal fluid of the mitochondrion). It contains several protein complexes. Stalked particles are found on the cristae: these are the ATP synthetase enzyme molecules, which produce ATP. The intermembrane space between the two membranes contains enzymes that use ATP to phosphorylate other nucleotides and that catalyze other reactions. The word mitochondrion has the etymological root of ‘thread granule’, describing their appearnace under a microscope; tiny rod-like structures present in the cytoplasm of all cells. The matrix contains soluble enzymes that catalyze the respiration of pyruvic acid and other small organic molecules. Parts of the Krebs Cycle occur within mitochondria. The matrix also contains several copies of the mitochondrial DNA (usually 5-10 circular DNA molecules per mitochondrion), as well as special mitochondrial ribosomes, tRNAs, and proteins needed for DNA replication.

Endosymbiosis describes the situation in which one organism lives within cells of another organism. The intracellular organism is called an endosymbiont. It is also generally believed that certain organelles of eukaryotic cells, especially mitochondria and chloroplasts, originated as bacterial endosymbionts. This theory is known as the endosymbiotic hypothesis.

IV FLAGELLA
Sperm flagella are a propulsive structure used to move through a liquid medium. There are three main varieties of flagellum; the bacterial flagellum (a helical filament that rotates like a screw), archaeal flagellum (similar but nonhomologous to the bacterial flagellum), and the eukaryotic flagellum (a whip-like structure that lashes back and forth). Humans produce eukaryotic flagellum.

The eukaryotic flagellum, also called a cilium or undulipodium, is completely different from the prokaryote flagella in structure and in evolutionary origin. The only characteristic that the bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic flagella have in common is that they exist outside of the cell and move to produce propulsion. A eukaryotic flagellum is a bundle of nine fused pairs of microtubules called doublets surrounding two central single microtubules (axoneme). At the base of a eukaryotic flagellum is a microtubule organizing center, called the basal body or kinetosome. The flagellum is encased within the cell’s plasma membrane, so that the interior of the flagellum is accessible to the cell’s cytoplasm. This is necessary because the flagellum’s flexing is driven by the protein dynein connecting the microtubules all along its length and forcing them to slide relative to each other, and ATP must be transported to them for them to function.

It is possible the ancestral eukaryote was a flagellate, and if not they appeared fairly early on in their development. Animals, fungi, and plants are all derived from various lines of flagellates, something reflected in the presence of flagellate cells in most forms, whose ultrastructure is a useful guide to determining relationships. Humans that consume any amount of coffee have sperm that travel faster than those who consume no coffee.

VII RNA/DNA
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a nucleic acid. It is structurally distinguished from DNA by the presence of an additional hydroxyl group attached to each pentose ring and functionally distinguished by its role in the transmission of genetic information from DNA (by transcription) and into protein (by translation).

RNA has 4 different bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil. The first 3 bases are the same as those found in DNA, but uracil replaces thymine as the base complementary to adenine. This may be because uracil is energetically less expensive to produce, although it easily degenerates into cytosine. Thus, uracil is appropriate for RNA, where quantity is important but lifespan is not, whereas thymine is appropriate for DNA. Structurally, RNA is indistinguishable from DNA except for the presence of an additional hydroxyl group attached to the pentose ring. This additional group gives the molecule far greater catalytic versatility and allows it to perform reactions that DNA is incapable of performing.

A major difference between RNA and DNA is that RNA is found in the single-stranded form (an exception being the genetic material of some kinds of viruses). RNA molecules often fold into more complex structures by making use of complementary internal sequences; that is, one part of a single RNA molecule is the nucleic acid complement of another part of the same molecule (for exampls, 5′-ACUCGA-3′ and 5′-UCGAGU-3′), so that the two strands bind together. This allows the formation of hairpin loops, coils, etc., which then direct the formation of higher-order structures.

The first life on earth may have been RNA-based, due to RNA’s ability both to carry genetic information like DNA and also to catalyze biochemical reactions like enzymes. This possibility is termed the RNA world hypothesis. Even today, some viruses, such as retroviruses, use RNA as their sole genetic material. RNA is less stable than DNA, however, and is also a less efficient catalyst than a protein-based enzyme. These facts may have led to selection for reduced use of RNA in cells, and greater use of DNA and proteins.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the primary chemical component of chromosomes and the material of which genes are made. It is sometimes called the molecule of heredity, because humans transmit copied portions of their own DNA to offspring and because in doing so they propagate their traits.

In fact, the units of DNA that reside in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, and DNA are not single molecules. They are pairs of molecules, which entwine like vines to form a double helix. Each strand of DNA is a chemically linked chain of nucleotides, which each consist of a deoxyribose sugar, a phosphate, and one of four varieties of aromatic bases. Because DNA strands are composed of these nucleotide subunits, they are polymers. The diversity of the bases means that four distinct kinds of nucleotide exist, which are commonly referred to by the identity of their base. These are adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G).

In a DNA double helix, two polynucleotide strands come together through complementary pairing of the bases, which occurs by hydrogen bonding. Each base forms hydrogen bonds readily to only one other (A to T and C to G) so that the identity of the base on one strand dictates what base must face it on the opposing strand. Thus the entire nucleotide sequence of each strand is complementary to that of the other, and when separated, each may act as a template with which to replicate the other from free nucleotides.

Because pairing causes the nucleotide bases to face the helical axis, the sugar and phosphate groups of the nucleotides run along the outside, and the two chains they form the backbones of the helix. Chemical bonds between the phosphates and the sugars that link one nucleotide to the next in the DNA strand.

When the ends of a piece of double-helical DNA are joined so that it forms a circle, as in plasmid DNA, the strands are topologically knotted. This means they cannot be separated by any process that does not involve breaking a strand. The task of unknotting topologically linked strands of DNA falls to enzymes known as topoisomerases. Some of these enzymes unknot circular DNA by cleaving two strands so that another double-stranded segment can pass through. Unknotting is required for the replication of circular DNA as well as for various types of recombination in linear DNA. The DNA helix can assume one of three slightly different geometries, of which the B form described by Watson and Crick is believed to predominate in cells. The frequency of twist (known as the helical pitch) depends largely on stacking forces that each base exerts on its neighbors in the chain.

The narrow breadth of the double helix makes it impossible to detect by conventional electron microscopy except by heavy staining. At the same time, the DNA found in many cells can be macroscopic in length. Consequently, cells must compact DNA to carry it within them. This is one of the functions of chromosomes, which contain spool-like proteins known as histones, around which DNA winds. Many molecular biological processes can induce strain. A DNA segment with excess or insufficient helical twisting is referred to, respectively, as positively or negatively super coiled. DNA typically begins by being negatively super coiled, which facilitates the unwinding of the double-helix required for RNA transcription.

The two other known double-helical forms of DNA, called A and Z, differ modestly in their geometry and dimensions. The A form appears to occur only in dehydrated samples of DNA, such those used in crystallography experiments, and possibly in hybrid pairings of DNA and RNA strands. Segments of DNA in which cells have methylated for regulatory purposes may adopt the Z geometry. In Z, the strands turn about the helical axis like a mirror image of the B form. Within a gene, the sequence of nucleotides along a DNA strand defines a protein, which an organism is liable to manufacture at one or several points in its life using the information of the sequence. The relationship between the nucleotide sequence and the amino-acid sequence of the protein is determined by simple cellular rules of translation, known collectively as the genetic code. Reading along the protein-coding sequence of a gene, each successive sequence of three nucleotides (called a codon) specifies one amino acid.

In many species of organism, only a small fraction of the total sequence of the genome appears to encode protein. The function of the rest is a matter of speculation. It is known that certain nucleotide sequences specify affinity for DNA binding proteins, which play a wide variety of vital roles, in particular through control of replication and transcription. These sequences are called regulatory sequences, and only a tiny fraction of the total that exist have been identified. Junk DNA represents sequences that do not yet appear to contain genes or to have a function.

Sequence also determines a DNA segment’s susceptibility to cleavage by restriction enzymes, the quintessential tools of genetic engineering. The position of cleavage sites throughout the genome determines a human’s DNA fingerprint.

VII XYY
XYY is a trisomy in which a human has an extra Y chromosome. The incidence of this condition is about 1 per 1000 in humans. Other than being slightly taller and having more severe acne than normal, XYY humans are not significantly different from most humans. Studies suggesting that there were more XYY humans incarcerated than chance would suggest have been determined to be procedurally flawed.

IX THE FUNCTION OF SPERM PART ONE
Sperm is carried in a fluid called semen. Semen is a whitish fluid containing water and small amounts of salt, protein, and fructose sugar, and is in itself harmless on the skin or when ingested. Semen can be the vehicle for many sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Contact with the semen of a human infected with HIV should be avoided, even by persons already infected with the virus.

At the time of orgasm, semen is ejected through the urethra of the penis. When a human is sexually excited, a small amount of a clear fluid (pre-ejaculate) may leak out of the penis before orgasm and ejaculation. This pre-ejaculate fluid may also contain sperm. In 1997 the British Medical Journal reported that humans that had the highest frequency of orgasms had half the death rate of those with the least frequency of orgasms. Orgasms have also been linked to an increased sense of smell, reduction of heart disease, weight loss, overall fitness, reduction of depression, pain relief, a lessening occurrence of flu and colds, better bladder control, greater prostate health and better teeth. Since semen contains zinc, calcium and other minerals known to reduce tooth decay, ingestion of sperm can be considered a healthy dietary supplement. According to a June 2002 article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, sperm acts as an antidepressant. Dr. Gallup administered the Beck Depression Inventory to 293 subjects on their sexual activities and happiness. The results, confirmed by a second clinical trial of 700 subjects, suggest that subjects who take in sperm are happier, on average, than those whose do not. Access to sperm also appears to lead to more sexual activity: this may be caused by the testosterone and prostaglandin E1 found in sperm.

X THE FUNCTION OF SPERM PART TWO
Reports of alien abduction often include claims of the harvesting of or depositing of sperm. The Christian religion claims that when a sperm cell enters another kind of cell, a soul is created. Castaneda (a 20th Century novelist), claimed that sperm went to the recipient’s brain, causing a pleasant sensation. Bardon (a 20th Century occultist) claimed that retaining sperm in a special container called a condenser could allow the manipulation of energy and magnetic fluid. The Temple ov Psychick Youth claimed that placing sperm on paper while concentrating on a desired goal would make that desired goal occur. The religion of Islam claims that sperm is produced between the backbone and the ribs, and that all kinds of humans generate sperm.

XI THE FUNCTION OF SPERM PART THREE
A majority of the world’s economy, technological progress, art and culture are centered on extracting sperm from one or more human and putting it inside of or in proximity to one or more other humans or images. The second most active engine of the world’s economy, technological effort, art and culture is the prevention of these activities. The entire history of humanity can be explained as the dynamics of these two forces.

Some of the genetic information known to be found in Neanderthals and other early contemporaries with humans is found in sperm. This is true not only in the sense of the trunk of evolution being visible in each of its branches, but in the sense of genetic information found specifically in Neanderthals being found in human sperm – a bending-back of the branch. It is likely that humans and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor, and then Neanderthals were absorbed (in part) back into the human branch of evolution. Some humans exhibit these Neanderthal traits more strongly than others, but no claim is made that they are more Neanderthal than others.

XII THE FUNCTION OF SPERM PART FOUR
Ownership of sperm is increasingly contested in the legal sphere. Sperm donated to a clinic Illinois in 1990 was screened for the disease cystic fibrosis. This sperm was used to create three humans. The sperm donor and the subject knew they had the gene for cystic fibrosis, and therefore sought outside sperm to limit the chance their created human would have this disease. But the sperm screening was ineffective, and one of the created humans had cystic fibrosis. In 1996 a subject in Florida sought sperm to create a human. The subject found a sperm donor, but was not told that the sperm donor was the physician conducting the operation. The subject sued the physician for not using the sperm that the subject wanted to be used. In 1998 a young human died in a game of ‘Russian Roulette.’ The human’s sperm was harvested and frozen until such time as a new human could be created based on the dead human’s sperm. In 1999 a subject in Prague tricked a human into donating sperm to a local sperm bank with the claim this was part of a medical process. The subject actually used the sperm to create two new humans, which the donor human was then was required by to financially support the created humans. In 2002 a human in Sweden was asked by two subjects to donate sperm so they could create humans. When the two subjects parted ways, the courts ruled that the donor human was the legal guardian and was required by to financially support the created humans. Also in 2002, a subject in Japan used sperm from the subject’s dead human partner to create new humans. The courts did not, however, recognize the dead sperm donor as the parent of the created human: this created human is defined by law as having only one biological parent. In 2003 a subject in North Queensland was denied access to the sperm of the subject’s dead partner.

XIII SPERMETAMORPHOSIS
Hymenoepimecis Ichneumondiae is a variety of wasp that has an unusual control over the physiology and behavior of a variety of spider known as Plesiometra Argyra Araneidae. The spider normally spins a web made of sticky spirals, but under the influence of the wasp it spins a completely different sort of web. The wasp stings the spider while the spider is in its web, causing temporary paralysis. The wasp then deposits a cell on the spider and leaves. The cell develops into a larvae. The spider recovers and goes on building and maintaining its web as it had before, while the larval wasp feeds on the haemolymph (blood) of the spider. The sting of the wasp and the feeding of the larvae influence the behavior of the spider. One or two weeks later, when the larva is about to moult, the spider spins a web consisting of four strands supporting a central cocoon. This sort of web is entirely without function for the spider; it does not offer protection nor does it gather food. But when the larva moults, kills and eats the spider, it is a perfect temporary home for the new wasp.

Myxobolous Cerebralis is parasite found in some cold water fish. The parasite is not found exclusively in fish, however, and in fact it depends on other species for the completion of its life cycle. In the first part of its life cycle, the parasite is released from the bodies of infected fish. At this stage the parasite is a spore which can survive drought, freezing and other adverse conditions for decades. The spore enters the second phase of its life cycle when it enters tubifex worms, where it grows into the form that infect fish.

The parasite is released by the worms and enter the bodies of fish through their skin, where it becomes lodged in the fish’s spinal column and nervous system. This is the third stage of the parasite’s life cycle. During this stage, the physiology and behavior of fish changes: the fish grows deformities that make it more visible from the air, and it begins to whirl and thrash near the water’s surface. In the fourth stage of the parasite’s life cycle, the fish (now a highly visible target for aerial predators) are consumed by birds. The parasite passes through the bird’s digestive tract and is returned to the water in a new location by the bird’s fecal matter. At this point the parasite returns to the first stage in its life cycle.

Humans can put sperm in each other and in subjects. Dramatic physiological and behavioral changes can result from this exchange, including (in some cases) the creation of new humans. These newly generated humans sometimes contain sperm cells, and so the human life cycle may continue. No human has ever been generated without sperm: sperm is the agent of all life, and that which is outside of life is the inorganic.

XIV THE PENIS PART ONE
The penis (plural penises or penes) or phallus is the copulatory organ, and, in mammals, the organ of urinary excretion. The sexual organs comprise both the penis and the testes. The penis is capable of erection for use in sexual intercourse. The human penis differs from some other mammalian penises in lacking an erectile bone (instead relying entirely on engorgement with blood to reach its erect state), lacking the ability to be withdrawn into the groin, and being larger than average in proportion to body mass.

The human penis is built of three columns of erectile tissue: the two corpora cavernosa and one corpus spongiosum which lies below them. The end of corpus spongiosum is enlarged and cone-shaped and forms the glans penis. The glans supports the foreskin or prepuce, a loose fold of skin that can retract to expose the glans. It aids in sexual insertion, keeps the glans moist and provides a gliding action which is said to increase sexual pleasure. For various cultural, religious, and (more rarely) medical reasons, the foreskin is sometimes partly or completely removed; this is called circumcision. The area on the underside of the penis, where the foreskin attaches, is called the frenum. The inner portion of the foreskin near the sulcus is a highly innervated area known as the ridged band. Removal of the foreskin by circumcision also usually removes the ridged band and injures or removes the frenulum.

The urethra, which is the last part of the urinary tract, traverses the corpus spongiosum and its end lies on the tip of the glans penis. It is both a passage for urine and for the ejaculation of semen. Sperm is produced in the testes and stored in the attached epididymis. During ejaculation, sperm are propelled up the vas deferens, two ducts that pass over and behind the bladder. Fluids are added by the seminal vesicles and the vas deferens turns into the ejaculatory ducts which join the urethra inside the prostate gland. The prostate as well as the bulbourethral glands add further secretions, and the semen is expelled through the penis.

XV THE PENIS PART TWO
An erection is the hardening, enlarging and rising of the penis which often occurs in the sexually aroused human. In addition to sexual arousal, erections can be caused by friction or by the pressure of the filled urinary bladder. In humans, erections occur several times per night during sleep, and morning erections are common.

Physiologically, an erection is achieved by two mechanisms: increased inflow of blood into the vessels of erectile tissue, and decreased outflow. After a signal from the sympathetic nervous system, muscles in the region relax, allowing more blood to enter the sponge-like tissues. Contraction of other muscles reduce the outflow. The enlarged structure then exerts pressures on the exit vein, further reducing the outflow. As blood flows in, the penis stiffens, its girth and length increases, and it rises to an angle that can vary from horizontal to almost vertical. Normally, the foreskin retracts and exposes the glans. Erections may occur even during or after death, if the pressure within the penis increases for some reason.

XVI THE PENIS PART THREE
In comparison to body size, the human penis is among the largest of the primates. The average human penis is less than the span of a human hand in length when fully engorged with blood during arousal. The size of a flaccid human penis varies in both length and width in ways that often do not predict the size of a fully aroused member. A human with a relatively small flaccid penis may have an above average length penis when fully aroused. The opposite is also true.

The most common form of penile body modification is the practice of circumcision. Less commonly, the penis is pierced and modified by other body art. Piercings of the penis include the Prince Albert piercing, the Apadravya piercing, the Ampallang piercing, the dido piercing, the frenum piercing and others. Apart from a penectomy, the most radical of these is the subincision, in which the glans penis is bifurcated to look similar to that of the kangaroo. This modification was originally done among Australian Aborigines, although it is now done by some in the U.S. and Europe. A small number of humans who are circumcised attempt to restore their foreskin through surgical and other means. This is called foreskin restoration.

XVII THE FUTURE OF SPERM PART ONE
Stem cells are human cells that can be manipulated into becoming other types of cells, and this includes (in theory) sperm cells. Dr Lacham-Kaplan of Monash University in Melbourne successfully created mice without mouse sperm in 1991. Scientists at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago created a means of creating new humans without sperm in 2002.

This research also opens the possibility of elimination of genetic flaws in humanity at the point of creation, thereby reducing a great deal of human suffering and expense. What is more, better humans can be created – humans able to live longer, healthier lives in a greater variety of environments with less reliance on outside resources.

Efforts to create better humans through manipulation of sperm have already been carried out. In 1989 a study by Wille and Beier compared 99 surgically castrated sex offenders and 35 non-castrated sex offenders ten years after their release from prison. The recidivism rate of castrated offenders was 3%, while the rate for non-castrated offenders was 46%.

Sperm count differs by geographical region. In the United States, New Yorkers issue 102.9 x 100000/mL sperm, Los Angeles humans issue 80.8 x 100000/mL, and Columbia (Missouri) humans issue only an average 53.5 x 100000/mL sperm.

A study conducted in 1999 by The Lancet suggested that out of 650 humans who were unable to create new humans, 20 had been exposed to high levels of pesticides. Information gathered between 1938 and 1990 suggests sperm densities in the United States have an average annual decrease of 1.5 million sperm/mL of collected sample, or about 1.5 percent per year. European sperm has declined at about twice that rate (3.1%/year). As the inability to create new humans increases so does the need to manufacture artificial sperm. In contrast, the bdelloid rotifer has evolved into 370 species over fifty million years: clearly, the need to reproduce with sperm is an option and not a requirement. In 1967, Surveyor 3 landed on the moon. The bacteria Streptococcus mitis was accidentally on board placed there by the sneeze of a NASA worker. The bacteria survived liftoff, space travel, a lack of atmosphere, a lack of food, and three years of cosmic radiation on the surface of the moon. A component of Surveyor 3 was returned to Earth in 1969 by astronaut Conrad, where it was discovered that the bacteria was still alive. In 1997, Cano recovered living bacteria found in the stomach of a bee preserved in amber thirty million years ago.

XVIII THE FUTURE OF SPERM PART TWO
Humans are a sperm’s way of making more sperm, until such inevitable time as we can make our replacements.

(from OVO 15 SPERM February 2005)

The Skin Horse
1982
Written by Nigel Evans and Nabil Shaban
Featuring Nabil Shaban with Nick Finden, Tony Gerrard, Tina Leslie, Kathleen Venner

Documentaries on the disabled can be difficult to watch. Not in the sense of such films being ugly. Documentaries on the disabled can be difficult to watch because one simply can’t find them. Frederick Wiseman shot Titicut Follies in 1967. The film depicts the lives of inmates at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Their lives were made up of being bullied, forced feed, sprayed with a high-pressure water hose and confined in unlit windowless rooms. In 1968 the film was removed from distribution and all copies were ordered destroyed by Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Harry Kalus.  Judge Kalus said he acted in the interest of the privacy of the inmates. The following year in that the film was allowed to be shown but only to health care professionals. Wiseman appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which declined to review the case. According to Wikipedia, “the dispute marked the first known instance in the history of the American film industry that a film was banned from general distribution for reasons other than obscenity, immorality or national security.” Superior Court Judge Andrew Meyer lifted the ban on the film in 1991, on the condition “a brief explanation shall be included in the film that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater since 1966.” Today you can buy a copy of Titicut Follies from Zipporah Films, Inc.

No such luck for The Skin Horse. Channel 4 (formerly Central Television) commissioned the 1982 film but does not sell it. No one sells it, not legally. Worldcat does not list it as existing in the interlibrary loan system.  Exactly one private library has it in their collection. If you are exceptionally fortunate you may have seen it one of the few times it has been broadcast on television. The documentary isn’t banned, it is merely unavailable.

The Skin Horse is a documentary by and about disabled people and their sex lives. Not their secret longing and private thoughts, although these are part of the film. This is a documentary about sex, sex among the disabled, sex between the disabled and the able.

Co-author and narrator Nabil Shaban does not skirt around the issue. The Skin Horse is an adult film, made by and for adults able to speak most clearly about themselves. Perhaps mere suggestiveness would not have succeeded in this film. Perhaps like the Last Poets or Valarie Solanas, the time for subtlty ended long ago for Shaban. When a person is just a little different from the norm, suggestiveness and being coy are more common. When we find a birthmark or personality quirk in a partner it stands out for a moment and then is gone. When one or one’s partner isn’t even considered fully human by some people, the time to beat around the bush ends. The average life span of the disabled is shorter than that of the non-disabled. The average screen time of the disabled is measured in minutes-per-decade compared to the screen time of the non-disabled. A wink and a nod just isn’t going to cut it. These are stories told once, and there’s no follow-up special presentation later on. The Skin Horse is honest in a way most sex documentaries only aspire to be honest.

The honesty begins with a discussion of beauty.  In antiquity philosophers claimed physical beauty was a virtue, like honesty or courage. Deviation from the form was either a punishment or a moral weakness. The etymology of the word monster is that of a beast sent by the gods as a warning. In the 21st Century other theories of beauty predominate. The Skin Horse speaks of four theories of beauty.  All quotes are from The Skin Horse.

Is beauty like the sun, radiating from a center and growing cold with distance? Some sections of The Skin Horse support this classic idea. Nabil: “Most disabled or deformed people I met at special school, sheltered workshop or crip college couldn’t wait to go to bed with an able-bodied person. I know that to be true of me.”

Is beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Perhaps disability does not matter. Those who are left handed tend towards mental illness, higher rates of suicide and imprisonment and shorter life spans. But being left handed is not seen as a disability. Nor are glasses on a person with a slight vision problem. Perhaps what we see as beauty or as a disability is arbitrary, a frame of reference we are free to modify or reject. This was the thinking behind the founding of the Outsiders in 1979. The Outsiders “is a vibrant social and peer support network of disabled people. We are many different things to our many members. [...] Whenever possible, Outsiders works together with other groups to campaign for the acceptance of disabled people as sexual partners.” The Skin Horse includes interviews with a founder of The Outsiders: “If I’d thought about it before I started I don’t think I would have ever dared to do it because I never really thought it would work.  Everyone said it wouldn’t work. But actually, however disabled you are you are still able to love somebody and be loved. So the most amazing marriages and… parings… have taken place. Dispite the fact that they might not only be disabled but also homosexual. Goodness knows, they’re just like anybody else.” The Skin Horse also includes interviews with a member of Outsiders, Jack: “Everyone’s got ability and disability.”

Is beauty a spiritual force? Is beauty to the body as the mind is to the brain? Perhaps beauty and disability are not part of us at all, but a shadow cast by an inner light. Most of the speakers in The Skin Horse hold this theory of beauty. Nabil is a keen researcher into the paranormal, psychic powers, UFOs and utopian politics. Open the gates to a single taboo and the rest come marching in. Nabil: “From childhood we learn that there is always more than meets the eye, that external appearances are misleading, that what exists within us all is always greater than the sum of the parts. [...] To admit love is to admit there is more to appearances. And to admit that we all have to work much harder at being human. We have to consider not only the body but also the soul.” Another man speaks of sex as a spiritual experience rather than a physical one: “I know the joy, the contentment, the feeling of spirituality, the utter relief from the limitations of my body which comes from sex. Just calling it sex is a very limiting word. It’s far more than people think with just one word. My body is very limiting but in sex I feel complete freedom.” Tina Leslie talks about the difference between her body and her self. “Sometimes I eat in front of a mirror to see the mask as other people see me. And try to see their feelings.  But this is what they see. It’s got nothing to do with me, the real me, a lover sees that, the real me. But I still never quite, quite believe it. But my god, I’d rather this than some celibate martyrdom. [...] Some people see me as an ugly thing. They can’t see me as a being, and as a sexual person, never. Christ, I don’t mind being seen like that. What’s the point of militant feminism? I like men. I don’t want to take refuge in something disabled women use as an excuse suppress their sexuality.”

Is beauty a fetish? Are some beautiful because they are different? Thousands of gigabytes of disability pornography are shuttled about the globe every day, lending some weight to this theory. Nearly thirty years earlier, The Skin Horse made the connection between acceptable fetishes (weight lifters and surgical beauty queens) and unacceptable fetishes (in a word, freaks). Nabil: “Perfection becomes an imperfection, a curiosity, a handicap, and the handicap when taken to its physical extremes becomes an end in itself. Hence, King Size [magazine]. Jonny the Wad. Chesty Morgan. King Dong. Big Bum. And all those freaks we have learned to love and loathe. And some people lust after.” Freaks have their place, but it is a well proscribed place. Nabil: “In the world of sexuality, there are three genders: female, male and disabled. And what is more, traditionally, in the disabled group, we are categorized into monsters or children. Children, eh? So we’re either monsters or children. We’re either abused or patronized. We’re either a fetish or sexless. Never in between. [...] It seem we need freaks not only to reassure ourselves of our own normality but more importantly to help us rediscover something. Perhaps that’s why we create our own freaks in myths, legends, fairy stories, literature and films. Perhaps that’s why we impart a certain humanity in them, and allow them to love and be loved. But of course only in fiction.” Here The Skin Horse shows some of the approved and fictional couplings between able bodied persons and freaks, such as Leda and swan, a maid and a minotaur, Kala and Charleton Heston.

If the disabled are (or would like to be) similar to anyone else in their sex lives, are they similar in their loneliness? One man in The Skin Horse says so: “The problem of exploring one’s own sexuality is a problem that everyone has.”  But no matter how we sees ourselves, the challenge in starting and maintaining a relationship (or getting laid) is in how others see us.  One woman in The Skin Horse describes her everyday life at the home for incurables for the past 34 years: “Washed, dressed, put in my chair. [...] Sometimes I ache for the human contact that I’ve been denied. For a new face that isn’t a nurse or another incurable. [...] It’s this sense of waste that I resent most of all. It’s as if people like me are somehow supposed to live our lives beyond frustration. As if part of accepting our lot should include the complete denial of any emotional life at all.” Hey! you’ve got to hide your love away…

Getting off for the disabled can mean breaking laws as well as breaking taboo. One man talks about when his personal assistant brought him to a prostitute: “She was really sort of a bit freaked out by the fact that this guy carried me up the stairs and plunked me on the bed and said ‘there he is.’ I stayed there for about three or four hours. One hears so many terrible things said about prostitutes and I believe it’s still illegal and all that but in that case in point the lady who I saw fulfilled a very useful purpose and I’m eternally grateful to her. [...] The events leading on from [hiring a prostitute] did make me much more relaxed and more self confident in myself as a sexy person, to meet other people, to make relationships, and I suppose over the last few years that has been growing and it’s still growing.”

The men and women in The Skin Horse are largely still with us.  Comedian Tony Gerrard continues to perform. The Outsiders still exists, and is the only place I’ve found that has The Skin Horse in its library. The Skin Horse was where I first learned of Nabil Shaban, and I hope that this review can draw more attention to this singular work. But Shaban has done much more, prior to and since The Skin Horse. He has many stage, film and television credits to his name, some of which are listed below. He was part of the CRASS Collective and in 1980 co-founded the Graeae Theater. Shaban is an artist, an author, an animator, a director, an actor and a musician. He is a father.  How uncomfortable he must feel to know he’s been such a positive influence on my life and the lives of so many others.  Sorry, friend, you’re a hero.

Shaban offers many of his works online at YouTube and elsewhere. If I Decide to Commit Suicide, You Need Hands and The Fifth Gospel include Tina Leslie, also seen in The Skin Horse. If I Decide to Commit Suicide is a video for Shaban’s poem of the same name. It quotes from Eraserhead by David Lynch, just as The Skin Horse quotes from Lynch’s Elephant Man. You Need Hands is a dark music video. The Fifth Gospel describes Christianity as ‘body fascist’ and shows Shaban and Leslie being patronized during a trip to the non-healing fountains of Lourdes. Morticia is available as a video on demand from amazon.com. Morticia is about a girl who wants to become a vampire. A third party has posted The Strangest Viking online. This is a documentary narrated by Shaban on Ivar the Boneless, a viking who conquered much of England. An excerpt from The Alien Who Lived in the Sheds is online. In The Alien Who Lived in the Sheds, Shaban shows that for all his fire and thunder he can make fun of himself. Shaban is a believer in the paranormal, but is aware of how such beliefs can look to non-believers. Shaban is an advocate of the outsider, but it not immune from gawking when he meets a fellow outsider. Shaban is his body, but his body is also a source of pain. Alien includes a film within a film, and this film is again one of his poems set to music and video. For all his success in the theater, Shaban has experienced one significant setback. He secured money for a production of his play The First to Go when England joined the war against Iraq. The First to Go is a play about the fate of the disabled under the T4 program in wartime Germany. Shaban returned the government’s ‘blood money’ in protest and the play has yet to find another backer.

Nabil Shaban has successfully scattered the ash circle that kept able and disabled actors apart. He is a man who can be judged on his talents.  Shaban recently turned fifty and has many years of innovation and experimentation ahead of him. Thank you to Nabil Shaban for opening many doors, taking many risks and thumbing your nose at heresy.

Nabil Shaban (selected works)

Stage:

• Godspell (1987)
• The Emperor (1987)
• Hamlet (1988)
• Iranian Nights (1989)
• Measure for Measure (1990)
• Imagine Drowning (1991)
• Fleshfly (1996)
• DARE (1997) [vimeo] [youtube 1][youtube 2][youtube 3]
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1998) [wikipedia]
• The Little Lamp (1999)
• Portadown Blues (2000)
• I am the Walrus (2001)
• Knocknashee (2002)
• Jasmine Road (2003)
• Threepenny Opera (2005) [youtube][dailymotion]
• One Hour Before Sunrise (2006)
• Endgame (2007) [youtube]
• The First to Go (2008)
• Marat/Sade (?)

Film:

• Born of Fire (1983) [imbd]
• If I Decide to Commit Suicide (1990) [vimeo] [youtube][dailymotion]
• City of Joy (1992) [imbd] [wikipedia]
• Wittgenstein (1993) [imbd] [wikipedia] [youtube]
• Skallagrigg (1994) [imbd][wikipedia][youtube]
• Another World (1995) [amazon]
• Gaias Born (1998) [imbd]
• Children of Men (2006) [imbd] [wikipedia][youtube]
• Crip Triptych (2006) [youtube 1][youtube 2][youtube 3][youtube 4][youtube 5]
• Trouble Sleeping (2008) [imbd]
• Morticia (2009) [imbd][youtube][amazon]

Television:

• Walter (1982) [imbd] [wikipedia] [channel 4]
• Walter and June (1983) [imbd] [wikipedia] [channel 4]
• The Skin Horse (1983) [imbd]
• Dr. Who, Vengeance on Varos (1985) [imbd] [wikipedia]
• Dr. Who, Trial of a Time Lord (1986) [imbd] [wikipedia]
• Blue Peter (1986) [imbd]
• Raspberry Ripple (1986) [imbd]
• Billy’s Christmas Angel (1986) [imbd]
• The Fifth Gospel (1990) [youtube][dailymotion]
• Deptford Graffiti (1991) [imbd] [youtube]
• Inmates (1992)
• Age of Treason (1993) [imbd]
• Slave of Dreams (1995) [imbd] [wikipedia]
• Sorry About Last Night (1995) [imbd]
• Supercrips and Rejects (1996)
• The Alien Who Lived in the Sheds (1997) [imbd][youtube 1] [youtube 2]
• The Strangest Viking (2003) [imbd] [wikipedia][youtube 1][youtube 2][youtube 3][youtube 4][youtube 5][channel 4] [guardian]
• The Story of Dr. Who (2003) [imbd]

Radio

• The Ramayana (1994)
• Treasure Island (1995)

Books:

• DARE (2002)
• Dreams My Father Sold Me (2005)[amazon]
• The First to Go (2007) [vimeo] [youtube 1][youtube 2][youtube 3][youtube 4][dailymotion 1][dailymotion 2][dailymotion 3][amazon]
• The Ripper Code (2008) [amazon][dailymotion]

Internet:

• itunes: From Little Acorns
• dailymotion: [ScabNabs]
• facebook: [Nabil Shaban]
• geocities: [archive]
• media muppet: [Nabil Shaban]
• twin vision: [Nabil Shaban]
• vimeo: [Nabil Shaban]
• webby talents: [ScabNabs]
• youtube: [ScabNabs][DoctorNabsTalkPSI]

Trevor Blake is a sign language interpreter who lives in Portland, Oregon USA.

Paul Elam: Drugs, War, Blood and Money

It started, like a lot of deadly bad ideas, with politicians. We can thank the Democrats for the inception, but somewhere along the line, the Republicans stepped in to prove they were just as stupid. Woodrow Wilson, who also gave us the Federal Reserve Act, the first draft since the Civil War and rave reviews of the stunningly racist movie Birth of a Nation, helped usher in the age where America turned questionable personal habits into concrete walls and steel gray bars. It was called the Harrison Tax Act of 1914, and it was the result of nearly fifteen years of disinformation and racist propaganda promulgated by Wilson’s associates.

In 1900 the Journal of the American Medical Association published in a report that “Negroes in the South are being addicted to a new form of vice – that of ‘cocaine sniffing’ or the ‘coke habit.’” That was followed up by several newspaper reports that cocaine was causing blacks to rape white women and was improving their pistol marksmanship. Eight years later President Teddy Roosevelt appointed Dr. Hamilton Wright as the first Opium Commissioner for the United States. Among his most notable observations was that “cocaine is often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by Negroes of the south and other sections of the country.” Wright also postulated that “one of the most unfortunate phases of smoking opium in this country is the large number of women who have become involved and are living as common-law wives or cohabitating with Chinese in the Chinatowns of our various cities.”

Let’s see. A bunch of drug crazed horny black men and a growing number of loose white women with no qualms about crossing racial boundaries? Yeah, man, it was time for war, alright; time to break out some fucking law and order.

Charles Bowden and Molly Molloy: Who Is Behind the 25,000 Deaths In Mexico?

No one seems to know, but on the ground it is death. Calderón’s war, assisted by the United States, terrorizes the Mexican people, generates thousands of documented human rights abuses by the police and Mexican Army and inspires lies told by American politicians that violence is spilling across the border (in fact, it has been declining on the US side of the border for years). We are told of a War on Drugs that has no observable effect on drug distribution, price or sales in the United States. We are told the Mexican Army is incorruptible, when the Mexican government’s own human rights office has collected thousands of complaints that the army robs, kidnaps, steals, tortures, rapes and kills innocent citizens. We are told repeatedly that it is a war between cartels or that it is a war by the Mexican government against cartels, yet no evidence is presented to back up these claims. The evidence we do have is that the killings are not investigated, that the military suffers almost no casualties and that thousands of Mexicans have filed affidavits claiming abuse, often lethal, by the Mexican army. Here is the US policy in a nutshell: we pay Mexicans to kill Mexicans, and this slaughter has no effect on drug shipments or prices.

Julian Isherwood: Free Heroin Gives Good Results

A test-run of issuing free heroin to addicts in Copenhagen appears to be successful, with initial results showing reduced crime and prostitution and improved health and life quality for those taking part in the project. Since March this year, some 20 addicts have been part of a programme under which two clinics provide them with heroin each morning and afternoon. The head of the Valmue Clinic in Copenhagen says that his centre has registered both a physical and psychological improvement among the addicts.

“They don’t have to wake up in the morning with how to get money as the first thing they think about. That gives them a surplus that means that we can talk to them about their housing situation, how we can help them apply for a disability pension if they need that, or perhaps about the child they have lost contact with,” says Valmue Clinic Head Torben Ballegaard. At the same time, Ballegaard says that addicts say that they commit fewer crimes, have stopped prostitution and have improved health. Several have put on weight because apart from heroin, they are provided breakfast and a hot meal during the day. Daily contact with a nurse also means that infections, boils and illnesses are discovered earlier, according to Senior Nurse Vivian Kjær at the KABS institution.

Problem, problem, solution.  End prohibition.  Thousands will die – thousands fewer than die from prohibition.

P
The first photograph was made in 1826.  The first digital camera was the Dycam Model 1, available in 1990.  Some cell phones with digital cameras were available as early as 2001.  Digital cameras have outsold film cameras since 2002.  The low cost and ease of digital photography has led to more photographs being made.

S
Alfred Kinsey published his first Report on sexuality in 1948.  In 1960 “The Pill” was first offered for sale.  By the 1980s, pornography had been all-but normalized.  Clinical information on sex; safe, effective and convenient contraception for women; widely available pornography – these three forces combined into a sexual revolution that is still taking place.

I
In 1992, the long history of electronic distribution of information (telegraph, fax, radio, television, computers, internet) was complimented by the invention of the World Wide Web.

P + S + I = X
Digital cameras, the sexual revolution and the World Wide Web have resulted in sexting.  A 2008 study suggested a third of adults had digitally distributed sexually explicit images of themselves and nearly two-thirds had digitally distributed sexually explicit text or information.

B
Facial recognition systems were developed in the mid-1960s.  By the first decade of the 2000s, digital biometric systems were in use by governments and businesses.  Personal experience suggests most people have an inaccurate sense of how little information is required to correctly identify their camera, computer or internet access point.  What people distribute on the internet is less anonymous than they think.

A
Once fantastically large and expensive, digital data can now be stored in small areas and inexpensively.  Discretion in frequency and content is no longer emphasized in photography.  Instead of taking one careful photograph, a photographer can take hundreds of photographs and emphasize the ones they prefer.  Data is being stored without the permission or knowledge of those who generated it.  Communication venues that were thought to be ephemeral were instead secretly archived.  Usenet has folded into google, BBS’ are archived at textfiles.com, and the Web is mirrored at archive.org.

X + B + A = WHO’S THAT GIRL?
I predict that businesses exist right now that are quietly collecting millions of images of naked man and women distributed on the internet for the purpose of biometric identification.  Identifications will be established with information volunteered via social networking sites.  I predict that there will be false positive identifications.  I predict that there will be accurate identifications.  I predict the distribution or non-distribution of these identifications will generate revenue in the future and that is why the images are being archived right now.  I predict these identifications will result in misfortune or difficulties for some of those identified, but that the momentum of the sexual revolution will all-but normalize not-for-profit home-made sexually explicit images and text for the majority.

See also: Three Predictions Part Two, Same Sex Marriage

In the modern world of controlled sexuality and rational mysticism, extremes in sensuality are basic tokens of interpersonal exchange. Visions of passion and desire that once produced states of unparalleled bliss appear bland and vapid. There is no longer any value in experiencing that which is directly obtainable. Eroticism has become a frontier whose boundaries must be expanded, and we have become explorers on this great sexual sea.

The need for increased sophistication in the methodologies of physical pleasure has led sensualists to carry out serious studies of sexual parameters (eg oriental traditions). These somewhat academic attempts at a polysexual historicity have been a great boon, providing us with a wide variety of exploratory devices (a toolkit for the backwoods ethno-eroticist). The easy accessibility of such inspirational devices in turn generated an entire body of modern folklore which has helped to make the various sexual undergrounds stronger, larger and more visible.

With the acceptance of the entire spectrum of sensual activities, it is only natural that the associated accessories enter the marketplace. Besides the commerce in the sensual items themselves, sensualist accoutrements have become increasingly important consumerist icons. The elemental nature of sexuality makes this association natural (soft tissue does indeed feel good). Virtually all products are associated with some sexual aspect and the particulars have only become more deviant.

By its very nature, the marketing of sensuality produces a valuation (price tags, sales, closeouts, seconds). In a free market, this also leads to a hierarchy of quality (you get what you pay for). The poor are forced to experience sensual pleasures with inferior products while the wealthy are able to choose from the gamut of sexual stimulants. Thus, different types or brands of sexual accessories have become identified with different socioeconomic classes and help to delineate the cultural hierarchy.

At the top of the sensual hierarchy lies the most sophisticated of sexual deviances.  Beautiful women, fiftyish, with snow white skin and ebony handled whips.  Tanned men with manicured hands holding platinum revolvers.  Coprophageous delights served in golden urns.  The smells of rotten offal kept in airtight crystal decanters.  Surgically altered individuals with all manor of appendages and self-lubricating orifices.  The gentrification of pain lies at the boundaries of sensual experience.  It presents a very appealing picture of physical pleasure that few can afford.

As sensuality becomes an increasingly open element of commerce its effect upon the definition of social classes will be more dramatic.  The disparities caused by the sensual hierarchy will become more dramatic.  Just as monetary socialism has helped to prevent economic stratification from causing cultural collapse, sensual socialism may be required to avert destruction of the social fabric.  It is only a matter of time before socialists or even communistic solutions to the problems of physical pleasure will have to be considered.

(from OVO 7 INFORMATION October 1989)

The content of these links may not be appropriate for all readers and all environments. – Trevor Blake

Furry Girl, Introduction, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Non:

After working on the outskirts of the porno industry since 2002, I have steadily been moving from wanting to modernize and re-define the concept of feminism to wanting to stop beating that dead horse entirely. Many of my friends and favorite people consider themselves feminists. A lot of my enemies consider themselves feminists, too, and they exist in larger numbers, with better funding, and with better brand recognition as the face of feminism. [...] I spent way too much of my own time trying to shoehorn myself into feminism, and I look back on that as an embarrassing waste of my energy.

Feminism as a word/identity is used to describe so much of everything that it has ceased to mean anything at all. Is fucking people for money feminist? Is climbing the corporate ladder feminist? Is wearing an abaya feminist? Is shaving your pussy feminist? Is being a stay-at-home mom feminist? Is BSDM feminist? Are sewing and crafting feminist? Is makeup feminist? Is being a woman in the military feminist? Is broccoli soup feminist?!?! You have people lined up, ready to fight to the death over their absolute certainty over whether or not such things are truly feminist. (What the word “feminism” stands in for, of course, is deemed permissible by the “right” kind of people.)

In general, I’m tired of “feminist” being used as a blanket qualifier to mean “awesome”, especially when it comes to the concept of feminist porn. I think “awesome” works just fine as a qualifier for awesome. I seek to advance the idea the first person in any debate to propose that their position is correct because it’s the most “feminist” has hereby lost the argument. I have been guilty of this one plenty of times in the past, but I can learn from my mistakes.

Furry Girl, Biography of a Pornographic Polemic:

Why would you NOT want call yourself a feminist? That means you’re sexist, then, right? Pick a side! We’re at war!
I don’t call myself a suffragette, either, but that doesn’t mean I am against women being allowed to vote. I still consider myself super-duper anti-sexism, because sexism is still a problem in my society. Unfortunately, it’s frequently perpetuated by people who call themselves feminists.

What could you possibly have against feminism?
For starters: “feminism” doesn’t have anything close to a singular meaning, so it’s too hard to have rational debate about it when it means opposite things to different people; the feminist pendulum has run its course and too often turns into pointless misandry; feminism used to be about women’s right to be more than just barefoot and pregnant, and now it fights for the “right” of women to be barefoot and pregnant and be given a ton of government and corporate handouts for churning out babies; feminism is commonly embraced by people who’s underlying beliefs are that women are stupid, feeble creatures who need to be controlled and saved; feminism these days focuses way too much on imaginary first-worlder problems like women choosing to feel badly about themselves because they think they’re not pretty enough, rather than real-world problems in the Global South where women aren’t allowed to own property, vote, or have a safe abortion; some feminists are obsessed with fanning and exploiting insecurities in women in order to indoctrinate them to their style of victim feminism, rather than being positive and helping women see that they’re strong and powerful. Last but not least: it’s REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT to spend your entire life being viciously picked on by girls and women for various reasons, then swallow the idea that women are your true solidarity sisters and that men are the cruel enemy that oppresses you.

BBC News, Danish Police Shoot Intruder at Cartoonist’s Home:

The man had entered Mr [Kurt] Westergaard’s house armed with a knife and axe and had shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him. Mr Westergaard ran to a specially designed panic room where he raised the alarm.

KR News, Charity cartoon rejected over terror fears:

TV2’s morning lifestyle programme Go’morgen Danmark was the latest in a long line of those trying to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake. The show organised an auction through auctioneers, Lauritz.com, and asked well known politicians and personalities to donate personal items for the charity fundraiser. A signed copy of Bill Clinton’s book dedicated to the head of the Social Democrats, concert and sports events tickets and a porcelain doll owned by Pia Kjærsgaard, head of the Danish People’s Party, are already listed in the auction. However, when cartoonist Kurt Westergaard – forever to be associated with the Mohammed cartoons and terror threats – was asked to submit a new drawing for the auction, the auctioneers refused to accept it. According to Mette Jessen of Lauritz, the decision was taken because of the latest attempt on Westergaard’s life when an alleged assassin broke into his house on New Year’s Day. ‘We must recognise that the terror threat is still of such a character that we can’t predict the consequences of a sale. We value the safety of our employees quite highly, which is why an eventual risk assessment was used in our consideration,’ she said. Westergaard was disappointed in Lauritz’s decision, saying it was just another example of how his name creates fear. ‘The drawing was in no way controversial, but it seems my name is. I’m sorry for the fear it causes people. When even my hairdresser, who is Muslim, told me with sadness that she didn’t dare keep me on as a customer for fear of reprisals, then there’s reason to be sad about this development,’ he said.

VOA News, Death of Gay Activist Brings Turkey’s Attitude Toward Gays Into Focus:

For 26-year-old Ahmet Yildiz, the choice to live openly as a gay man in Turkey proved deadly. Prosecutors say his father, charged with allegedly killing his son in what is being dubbed as the first gay honor killing, traveled more than 900 kilometers from his hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul.

FOXNews.com, Saudi Teen Sentenced to 90 Lashes for Cell Phone in School:

Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, and religious police keep a close watch over public behavior.

RFI, Playwright Petrol Attack Handed to Terrorist Police:

The 45-year-old was attacked on Tuesday night outside the theatre in Paris where her play is showing. Two men insulted her in Arabic and poured petrol over her. They then threw a cigarette at her, which failed to ignite.

MetaFilter, Malaysian Churches Attacked Over “Allah”:

Malaysian Catholic newspaper Herald was recently involved in a major lawsuit against the Malaysian government, stating that their constitutional rights were violated when they were stripped of their license to publish in East Malaysian indigenous language Kadazandusun. The ruling was overturned, amidst support by state ministers and protests by the Government, the Islamic Opposition party, and Muslim activists – some of whom have spent the past week attacking churches and convents through firebombs, Molotov cocktails, paint, and bricks thrown at glass.

MetaFilter, The Women of Afghanistan:

87 percent are illiterate. 44 years is their average life expectancy. 70 to 80 percent face forced marriages.

Sam Harris, Liberals Have More to Fear than Cheney (circa 30 January 2008):

Liberals need to realize that there are people in the Muslim world far scarier than Dick Cheney.

NYPOST.com, Art Therapy for Terrorists:

“There is no criteria for evaluation,” John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post.

Times Online, Iranian Dancer Afshin Ghaffarian Describes Ordeal at the Hands of Basij:

Ghaffarian is a dancer – an activity banned by Iran’s Islamic rulers and punishable by long prison terms. “If he had known that he would have beaten me even harder,” Ghaffarian said.

Robert Scheer, Bush’s Faustian Deal with the Taliban (22 May 2001 via archive.org):

Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and etc.  “They’re making the last film… “