Monthly Archives: January 2007

Feminism Politics

Sign this petition: “Stop Stoning Forever”

The Stop Stoning Forever campaign aims to end the use of this form of execution by torture (almost always of women) in Iran. Pressure has obviously had some effect in that Iran did announce the end of the use of the penalty in 2002, but in practice its use has continued and at least nine women and two men are under the sentence.

The petition is here. It explains:

In May 2006, in the city of Mashhad, a woman Mahboubeh M. and a man Abbas H. were both stoned to death. Prior to carrying out the stoning, prior to their death, these two people were treated as if they were dead. In accordance with the Islamic tradition, their bodies were washed as if they were lifeless corpses, and wrapped in the kafan or white shroud. Then their wrapped bodies were buried in the ground, Mahboubeh’s body was buried up to her shoulders, and Abbas was buried up to his waist. The crowd, who had gathered to stone the two to death slowly as specified by law, then targeted them with their stones.

Environmental politics

A great quote

US environmentalist Edward Abbey: ‘Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell’.

Found in a nice piece on Gaian Economics explaining the Green argument against so-called economic growth.

Feminism

The first female Beefeater

Well, OK, it might not be the most significant post in the world in the overall scheme of things, but it is nice to know that the first female Beafeater (the formal guards at the Tower of London) has been appointed. (Or to give her the full title, she is to be made a Yeoman Warder of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign’s Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary.)

Among her duties she will, of course, be looking after the ravens… (and yes, The Times has repeated the old Charles II line.)

Environmental politics

Healthy architecture

I got into trouble last time I got into this, but nontheless I’m going to applaud a piece in today’s Guardian urging architects to plan to encourage, rather than discourage exercise.

“Using the stairs is not seen as normal,” says Amelia Lake, a research fellow who works with Townshend. “In most [new] buildings it’s very difficult to find a staircase. The focal point when you enter tends to be the lift. In certain buildings, you’ll even find that using the stairs will set off the fire alarm.”

And it provides some stats on the well-known fact of how sprawling suburbs encourage slobbish, car-filled lives.

Theatre

On Religion, and soap opera

Over on My London Your London I’ve a review of On Religion, the AC Grayling/Mick Gordon production at the Soho, which I caught just before it closed.

The philosophy is entertaining, the family drama, even soap opera, aspects, rather less so…

Feminism

Here here

In today’s Times – Why getting hitched is the real hitch for women:

Politicians of every stripe profess to despair of the decline of marriage, even though we know they would be bereft without such a convenient — if wholly unproven — scapegoat for all ill. I suspect that they need not worry; that the decline will continue with or without their help. The scale of the exodus of young women from orthodox union, along with their reasons for it, are such that it will take an awful lot more than a tax break here or there to change their minds.