Archive for September, 2013

Abused Goddesses

Posted in Religion, Society on September 9th, 2013

Pranav Bhide of ad the agency Taproot has created a series of pictures depicting the Hindu Goddesses: Lakshmi (लक्ष्मी), Saraswati (सरस्वती), and Durga (दुर्गा) as victims of domestic violence to benefit Save Our Sisters, an recent anti-domestic violence initiative of Save The Children India which focuses on prevention and repatriation of sexually trafficked women and children in India.

Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Durga – Abused Goddesses

Each of the three ads is accompanied by the same text:

Pray that we never see this day. Today more than 68% of women in India are victims of domestic violence. Tomorrow it seems like no woman shall be spared. Not even the ones we pray too.

Taproot’s campaign was created by blending traditional hand-painted Indian art with modern-day photography using real models and has won multiple awards at different ad festivals.

If you’re Pagan, these ads will be eye-catching and a bit disturbing. For Hindu’s their blatantly shocking. Lakshmi who Hindus once beseeched on bended knee for good fortune now sits sad-eyed on a lotus with a bloodied nose. Saraswati’s infinite wisdom and knowledge were no defense against a black-eye. Durga, who once danced upon the demon (Asura) Mahishasura’s corpse now stands bruised, battered and teary-eyed, begging for our protection.

The images of Lakshmi and Saraswati are directly analogous to depicting the Blessed Mother Mary as beaten and bloodied. The image of Durga is a bit different because Durga is a Goddess of War and the defender of Heaven (Svarga). Showing Her as beaten and cowed is an implication that Heaven itself has been beaten and conquered by the growing violence against women in India.

That’s, however, a somewhat problematically mixed message. It may shock and shame men, which was its intent, but it also undermines the Indian women’s religious images of feminine authority by reducing three of their major goddesses to victims and stripping them of their awesome and often perilous divine power.

This may also be an indicator of how far the sad and shameful “domestication” of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses has gone in Post-Colonial India.

In Indian schools the now they tell children that when Shiva killed his wife Parvarti’s son, Ganesha she cried. They blatantly ignore that she also made ready to destroy the entire universe in her grief and rage and relented only when Shiva agreed to resurrect her son and make him a God.

At least Taproot was wise enough no to attempt to depict the Samrajni Kali Ma (काळी) as a victim of any form of violence, especially domestic violence.

Samrajni Kali Ma
सर्वमङ्गलमाङ्गल्ये शिवे सर्वार्थसाधिके । शरण्ये त्र्यम्बके गौरि नारायणि नमोऽस्तु ते ॥
ॐ जयंती मंगळ काळी भद्रककाळी कपालिनी । दुर्गा क्षमा शिवा धात्री स्वाहा स्वधा नमोऽस्तु‍ते ॥

It would be foolish to attempt to paint Kali as some form of abused Bhartiya Naari (“Traditional Indian Woman”). Nobody would believe or countenance that Kali, who sprung from Durga’s forehead and was made by Her rage and frustration at not being able to defeat the demon general Raktabija and his army could ever be a victim.

Of course, a follow-up campaign showing the possible repercussions of domestic violence against women in India featuring the Samrajni Kali Ma might be a powerful message…

Hyperbolic But Apropos

Posted in Humor, Politics on September 6th, 2013

It’s pretty easy to sum up Obama’s position on any form of dissent against what he wants. It’s even easier to sum up his and his cultists’ specific response to anyone that dares to defy his wish to attack Syria.

It's all Bush's fault and defying Obama is racist
It’s Not My Fault And You’re All Racists!

It’s said that, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It should also be said that, when your The First Black President, everything is a White man’s fault and everyone that disagrees with you is racist. 😛

I doubt, however, that if the boy once again gets his way that his Syrian adventure will plunge the world into WWIII. Putin doesn’t have enough respect for Obama to bother with that.

A Test Of Loyalty

Posted in Politics on September 5th, 2013

Obama - a cult of personality and race, not substance or characterThe upcoming Congressional vote on whether or not to give Obama permission to embroil America in Syria’s civil war may well come down to a test of loyalty for his followers and fellow travelers within the beltway.

Many, even among the Democrats in Congress, can find no earthly reason for the US to engage Assad’s government aside from protecting Obama’s nonexistent credibility.

Congresswoman (D.C. Delegate) Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) made this point bluntly clear in a recent interview.

Del. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA): I happen to believe there has to be a response. I do, I do believe in crimes against humanity need to be addressed, and I am, I can’t believe that the only way to address it is a slight bombing which will somehow punish somebody or deter somebody. I don’t know if there’s some way other than a military way to address this.

BILL PRESS, HOST: You’re kind to join us this morning, Congresswoman. Let me just ask you one final question before we let you go. If, as you said, if the vote were held today, the president would probably not win it. If he doesn’t win it, a week from now, do you think the president will be justified in taking action on his own, you know, unilaterally with Congress having voted against it?

HOLMES NORTON: No, oh boy, no. I think it’ll be like the red line trap. He said if the red line you cross it. I think once you say, “I’m going to Congress,” you can’t say, “Okay, I’m going to do it anyway.”

PRESS: Yeah, yeah, I don’t…

HOLMES NORTON: So I think he’ll be in real trouble if he then does it anyway. No president has done that.

PRESS: It’s not an easy decision for any of you, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.

HOLMES NORTON: Oh, and I’d like to say, Bill, that if he gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.

PRESS: Yeah, right.

HOLMES NORTON: At the, at the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.

That pretty much sums up the overall position of Congress. The only reason that Obama might get Congressional permission for his latest foreign adventure is that many don’t want to maim or destroy the boy’s cult of personality, irrespective of the what the costs of maintaining it are to our nation.

I’m afraid, however, that I don’t share Del. Holmes Norton’s confidence that Obama would abide by “No” vote by Congress, especially if the House votes “no” and the Senate votes “yes” or even comes close to voting in favor it. There’s always the possibility that the House could vote against a US military strike and Obama could go forward with it anyway. Obama and some others have already argued that the boy would have the constitutional authority to order strikes without Congress’ authorization, though how they come up with idea beggars reason.

Remember also that Obama is still begging for foreign authorization for striking Syria in aid of Al-Qaeda and the other jihadis rebelling against Assad’s government. As with Libya, this is all the boy’s ever felt he needed to send in American troops.

Sarcasm Or Prophecy?

Posted in Society on September 4th, 2013

Onion LogoThe Onion has been a source of humor and sarcasm for many years now. It’s also been a bane to many politicians and pundits when they mistook The Onion’s dry and oft-times totally deadpan wit for an actual news report.

Given the normal dryness of their send ups of news and current events, I can understand their mistaking the humor for fact.

A perfect example of this is The Onion’s sarcastic response to Ariel Castro being found hanging in his prison cell on Tuesday night.

Ariel Castro Failed By System

ORIENT, OH—In yet another glaring indication of the nation’s broken criminal justice system, Ohio correctional officers discovered the body of inmate Ariel Castro, a Cleveland man serving a life sentence on rape and kidnapping charges, hanging from his jail cell Tuesday night, prompting strong calls for action from reformers looking to correct America’s failed correctional policy. “What happened to Ariel Castro is symptomatic of a deeply flawed rehabilitation system that provides neither justice nor security, instead allowing countless men and women each year to fall through the cracks,” prison reform advocate John Wolahan told reporters, noting that Castro, who police say was left unattended for 30 minutes at a time by security personnel, was as much a victim of the prison’s negligence as he was of society as a whole. “In a legal system concerned with harsh sentencing and ultra-punitive approaches to justice, the well-being of people like Ariel Castro—those who have to live in the system we created—is treated as a mere afterthought. And I ask you: How many Ariel Castros have to suffer before we realize the machine is broken? His death is something we all have to live with.” Reformers added that the case was especially tragic because prison employees had reportedly seen warning signs from Castro for weeks and took no action.

Yes, this is sarcasm but is it also prophecy? Doesn’t it sound exactly like what one might expect any of the various enemies of law, order, and American judicial and penal systems could be expected to claim in the wake of a monster’s suicide in prison?

The true irony is that the article, intended as sarcastic humor, sounds exactly like what the Liberals and Progressives can be expected to say about Castro’s death. They, after all, don’t believe in punishing non-White Collar criminals and have nothing but hatred for America’s penal system and little but sympathy for creatures quarantined within it.

A Historic Setback

Posted in Politics on September 3rd, 2013

So, in a move that was unexpected and shocking to many, Obama has decided to not take any military action against Bashar Hafez al-Assad’s Syrian government without first seeking approval from Congress. Some claim this is a historic moment in modern US history.

President Barack Obama, according to background briefings by his aides, reached a fateful decision late Friday afternoon as he strolled along the White House lawn with his chief of staff Denis McDonough. Contrary to every expectation by his national security team, Obama concluded that he should ask Congress for authorization to bomb Syria.

The full reasoning behind the president’s turnabout remains murky. He may have wanted to share responsibility for a risky strategy to punish the barbarous regime of Syrian strongman Bashir al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people. Obama may have recognized the political dangers of attacking another Middle Eastern country without popular support at home.

And the president, a former part-time constitutional law professor, may have also belatedly recalled the wording of Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution that grants Congress the sole power “to declare war.”

But whatever Obama’s underlying motivations and however the Syrian vote plays out on Capitol Hill, the president’s decision to go to Congress represents an historic turning point. It may well be the most important presidential act on the Constitution and war-making powers since Harry Truman decided to sidestep Congress and not seek their backing to launch the Korean war.

I have to disagree with this optimistic interpretation of the events. Yes, it’s true that Obama’s decision to seek Congress’ permission to use military force in a foreign adventure is step backwards from the “imperial presidency” that has become more and more common since the latter half of the 20th century. It would certainly be historic if Obama had first sought Congressional permission before waging a foreign war. He didn’t though.

Obama The Sad-Faced ClownThe boy first sought authorization from foreign powers. They, however, rejected him. It was only after Obama realized that he had no treaty obligations to twist and fold into a paper diaper to cover his ass that he decided to abide by the US Constitution and seek our Congress’ permission to take action against the government of Syria and further involve America in their civil war.

That’s hardly a rollback of unlawfully assumed Presidential powers. That’s just Obama being afraid of impeachment and/or assassination.

Perhaps it is historic in the sense that it’s a historic setback for a US President to seek foreign approval and allies in a punitive military strike against a group that used WMDs against anyone, especially its own populace and utterly fail to receive it. That’s the only way, however, I can really see this as a historic moment in American politics.

Then again, perhaps it is also a historic moment in the sense that now a sitting POTUS has used the horrific deaths of civilian men, women, and children as a campaign mechanism for a political party and personal aggrandizement. More so, it might be historic that many will not find this objectionable, disgusting, and firm grounds for reprisal.

If, however, this is the course of history, it does not bode well for the future.