The Middle East Crisis/MYCM Will Return After These Messages...

As it is summer, we are all entitled (supposedly) to some kind of vacation. So off I go to Nova Scotia (Canada) to Cape Breton Island, all the way up to Wreck Cove, the most northern tip of the island (you have to cross over a mountain...) Once the mountain is crossed, the only sign of commercial life is a luncheonette and a convenience store. Scratch that, the latter just closed down.

Suffice it to say there will be no updates for the next week or so!

On to bigger and more important things, namely, the impending crisis in the Middle East. Although MYCM has (in the past) generally considered it too complicated a mess to even begin writing about, and to this day has no definitive stance on the issues at hand, an interesting article was printed in the July 10th 2006 issue of Time magazine that is worth checking out.

In "Remember What Happened Here", by Charles Krauthammer, a clear argument is made for why Israel needs to use the "disproportionate" response it has been using - namely, that Hezbollah wants nothing less than the complete annilation of Israel. Whether or not you agree with the argument, one has to admit that it is hard to see justification or defense for the Palestinian provocation in this example, following Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza last year. Unless of course you are looking at it from a humanitarian viewpoint...



Read the entire article in full here, and feel free to leave feedback if you find any holes in the arguments or neglected facts we should know about.

And see you in a week or so!

Female Chauvinist Pigs?

Ariel Levy's new book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs", is certainly stirring up some controversy within the feminist movement (if indeed such a thing still exists...)

Citing examples of Girls Gone Wild videos and striptease and pole dancing classes at your local gym, Levy argues that our newfound "sexual liberation" is no such thing. Where she has a strong point is that women today are now working full time to imitate porn stars and strippers - people whose jobs it is to feign arousal and pleasure to begin with. On the otherhand, its easy to slide from wanting "true sexual liberation" to wanting to impose your personal conceptions of sexual liberation on the rest of the world. Levy's problem is that she is judgemental of all girls who participate, (some of whom may actually enjoy raunch culture) labelling them whores and tramps (instead of attacking the hierarchy that would make women feel obliged to participate.) This is no solution either.



Anyhow, the book is highly recommended. Also available are the mp3 recordings of the Guardian's discussion forums held last week on the topic, which you can listen to in two parts.

Listen:
Part 1
Part 2

Buy:
Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy (Amazon)