rantlust

Posted by Suman on April 07th 2010 in Motorcycles, Nature, Outdoors, Raves, Roads, Travel, USA
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The valley of death. El valle de la muerte. Das Tal des Todes. Sounding ominous in any language, Death Valley has nonetheless beckoned for many years, despite conjuring images of desiccated steer skulls and shimmering heat waves that would make a Phoenix (or possibly even a Dubai) summer seem comfortable by comparison. Perhaps the psychological need to master a challenge played a role in this desire, but there was also quite simply the curiosity of wanting to see a place famous for having both the highest recorded temperature in the United States as well as the lowest point in the western hemisphere; extremes that are not coincidentally linked.

Taking just half a vacation day, my friend Derek and I left Phoenix early Friday afternoon on March 26th.
(All images are clickable for larger versions)

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Posted by manish on March 08th 2010 in Debate, Pornography, Women
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Today is international women’s day, and feminists deserve a large part of the credit for getting some semblance of equality for women and attention to their voice and needs. Kudos to them for building themselves into a necessary and formidable political force. However, no political force, no matter how necessary, deserves to go unexamined by a responsible society. Hence, with all due respect, I would like to use this very opinionated forum to bring up a topic that has been bothering the feminists (among others) for a long time.

Estimates of the size of the porn industry vary widely. But really, does size matter? The mere existence of the porn industry, or any form of porn for that matter, is evidence of social malaise to some. Different folks attribute different diagnoses to the phenomenon — from moral depravity to gender exploitation.

Of course, I have my own opinions on this. But I’d like to get your collective opinions instead. I’ll gather the interesting comments from down below and thread them into a coherent conversation on this main space. Any and all comments are welcome, anonymously posted or otherwise. You can feel as free to offer an opinion as a studied thesis (of course, the thesis carries more weight with me ).

I know that the registered bloggers on this site are mostly male. I’m hoping the lurking ladies will make up for any gender imbalance in perspective.

Here is an incomplete list to get you started:

1. Is porn an “evil” in and of itself? Even if it isn’t, does it lead to evil? (See papi’s comment for a more precise definition of evil)
2. Does porn necessarily imply exploitation?
   1. What about amateur porn? (consider Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, exploited?)
   2. What about secondary effects of porn? (i.e. even if the amateur porn producers aren’t exploited, does having porn cause society to sexualize and objectify other people)
3. Is it desirable to ban pornography?
   1. What about freedom of expression?
   2. What is the line between what is banned, and what is not? Who decides? (Justice Stewart’s ridiculous cop-out : “I know it when I see it”, is not an acceptable answer)
   3. Is it even possible to ban pornography? What would the side-effects be?
4. Child pornography is bad, right? If all porn is bad, then you can skip this question.
   1. What about child porn that doesn’t involve children in its production.
   2. Same question for animal porn. If that’s bad on the grounds of “non-consent from participants”, then how does this compare to other uses of animals’ bodies (which animal consents to be eaten?).
5. What about keeping porn away from children?

Type away.

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Posted by anupcs on March 04th 2010 in Music, Video, youtube
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Brilliant! Already viral…

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Posted by papi on March 02nd 2010 in Blogs, Disasters, Earth
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An inspiring account of the Chilean earthquake - from one of our own - right from the trenches.

“On February 27 I waked up suddenly, at 3:34 am, Santiago de Chile time, shaken by the most violent earthquake that I had never experienced before. During 90 seconds I was convinced that I was living my last minutes on this world; I was terrified, not because of dying, in some way I was surrendered to death, but because I thought that it would be very painful. I live in an eleventh floor apartment, and I thought that the violence of the movement would break the building: I felt like being swallowed by the unlimited power of nature; I was minute, weak, insignificant in front of such almighty energy.”

Read the full account here:
http://www.yogzilla.com/2010/03/02/the-force-of-nature/

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Posted by Suman on February 01st 2010 in Bicycles, Health & Fitness, Raves, Reviews
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If you’re expecting this post to be about the fine music of either of the above artists, you will be sorely disappointed. If, however, you want to ride your bicycle down to Electric Avenue, in a manner of speaking, read on.

(image courtesy youtube)

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Posted by papi on January 27th 2010 in Government, History, Politics
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Howard Zinn, the people’s historian, died today.

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Posted by papi on January 27th 2010 in Rants
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Beware the enema of the state!

http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=382840

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