Criticism is building against Georgia’s University System for employing faculty members who are academic experts in such areas as oral sex and male prostitution.
Friday, several days after Rep. Calvin Hill (R-Canton) said he was “personally outraged” over the issue, a second member of the state House echoed his criticism, drawing applause from some colleagues.
Also Friday, Jim Beck, president of the Georgia Christian Coalition, said he wants legislative committee hearings to sift through the facts. “We are concerned,” he said, “if the initial reports are true.”
The dust-up has raised questions about the role of higher education, the value of research and the importance of academic freedom. It also raises the possibility of a culture war in the General Assembly over Christian values and public policy.
University System officials defended the faculty members Friday. “Our mission is defined as teaching, research and public service,” said John Millsaps, a spokesman for the state’s Board of Regents. “That encompasses a broad range of interest and expertise.”
Millsaps said little public attention is given to faculty research in increasing crop yields or improving the shrimping industry. But, he said, “in some cases, researchers are providing information to people who are dealing with very controversial subjects.”
Hill singled out Georgia State University, which lists in its 2009 media experts guide faculty members who are knowledgeable about male prostitution and oral sex. The guide is used by reporters and public policy organizations to find experts in various fields. Hill said he was “personally outraged” that tax money supports such professors.
His concern was echoed on the floor of the House on Friday by Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock).
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard me right,” she said. “In this present economy, the taxpayers’ dollars are being used by the Board of Regents to inform students about such social topics. … I believe the timing is perfect to eliminate positions of professors and staff who are paid to provide such services.”
Donald Reitzes, chairman of Georgia State’s sociology department, said the critics are “misinformed” about the purpose and value of the research they are criticizing.
Kirk Elifson, who is listed as an expert on male prostitution, for example, began his study during the 1980s to examine the spread of AIDS, Reitzes said. Elifson was the lead author of a 1989 New England Journal of Medicine article on HIV among male prostitutes.
Elifson now is examining the factors that keep smokers hooked, Reitzes said.
Mindy Stombler, a senior lecturer at Georgia State for whom oral sex is listed as an area of academic expertise, said she is conducting a limited study on the societal messages that teenagers receive about oral sex. She looks at anything from news reports about the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the lyrics of popular rap music.
She said she expects the findings to be used in public health campaigns to help prevent the spread of diseases through oral sex.
Stombler said she had not had the chance to speak directly to legislators who question her research.
Christian Coalition President Beck said he hopes the education committees of both the House and Senate will hold hearings on the legislators’ concerns. “We want to create a safe space where both sides can sit down and be heard,” he said.
That could come soon. Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland), chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, had planned to have several Georgia State officials and instructors speak to his committee last week about the controversy. That meeting was canceled, but Harp said Friday that he hoped to reschedule soon.
Personally, I am aghast...these people are totally misconstruing the purpose of learning and are trying to reverse the progress of humanity.
hmm. I don't think I would go so far as to say they're trying to reverse the progress of humanity; that seems to be a bit over the top. Let's be honest here: I think people would still be fully capable of going about the rest of their lives just dandy after never taking a class studying about whatever societal sex topic their professor specializes in.
But that's the beauty of college! You have the option to take whatever classes interest you (provided you have the right prerequisites), and if that's what you want to do with your life, more power to ya. I don't agree with trying to get rid of a class you find... er, inappropriate, I guess. If the school shows that no one is taking the class, let THEM be the ones who get rid of it. If it IS getting a lot of students to sign up, then cool! Obviously there are students out there that want to learn about it. It shouldn't be up to the scandalized adults.
By the age you are when you enter college, you should have enough responsibility to decide what classes will be important to you, and what other classes you should take to get your degree. Let the students figure out which classes should stay and which classes should go, based on who signs up for what classes. Don't say you should fire the professors just because you think they teach a subject you find insulting; yeah, it's your tax dollars, but you're not the head of the university either.
Yeah, but it's your tax dollars. This is why socialism is dumb. It makes everybody a co owner of everything, and then busybodies get involved. I am serious. :-[
While I didn't watch the video, nowhere in the article does it say that there are classes available about male prostitution and oral sex, merely that these professors have done/ are doing research in areas related to male prostitution and oral sex. I don't see what the big deal is.
Whoever this Hill person is seems to be getting his panties in a knot because 'gasp' someone has as their area of expertise an aspect of human behavior that he's decided to be offended by.
Also, I agree. These supposed experts sound like they have many more areas of expertise. They basically just did some research in those areas at some point because they were connected to larger issues. How does doing some research on a topic that some may find objectionable even constitute a bad thing? Ignoring something because you don't like it is a pretty narrow-minded way to go about research.
A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported Saturday.
Employees of Tiversa, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology, reportedly found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.
Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, told WPXI-TV: "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter."
The company was able to trace the file back to its original source.
"What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file-sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One," Boback said.
Tiversa also found sensitive financial information about the cost of the helicopter on that same computer, WPXI-TV reported.
Someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, not realizing the potential problems, Boback said.
"When downloading one of these file-sharing programs, you are effectively allowing others around the world to access your hard drive," Boback said.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an adviser to Tiversa, said the company discovered exactly which computer the information came from. "I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went."
Boback said the government was notified immediately.
Iran is not the only country that appears to be accessing this type of information through file-sharing programs, Boback told the station.
"We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence," Boback said.
Clark told WPXI that he doesn't know how sensitive this information is, but he said other military information has been found on the Internet in the past and should be monitored more closely.
Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., said he would ask Congress to investigate how to prevent this from happening again.
A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins.
It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.
The excommunication applies to the child's mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.
The pregnancy was terminated on Wednesday.
Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother's life is at risk and doctors say the girl's case met both these conditions.
Police believe that the girl at the centre of the case had been sexually abused by her step-father since she was six years old.
The fact that she was pregnant with twins was only discovered after she was taken to hospital in Pernambuco complaining of stomach pains.
Her stepfather was arrested last week, allegedly as he tried to escape to another region of the country.
He is also suspected of abusing the girl's physically handicapped older sister who is now 14.
Intervention bid
The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.
Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.
The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.
He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.
However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.
While the action of the Church in opposing an abortion for a young rape victim is not unprecedented, it has attracted criticism from women's rights groups in Brazil.
I was not aware that the Catholic Church supported evolution. I know they are against Intelligent Design, but I always figured that it was because there was no substitution for Genisis.
Well, there was an article in my paper the other day about a meeting at the Vatican to discuss how evolution factors in with intelligent design, and how they can coexist. The Pope was talking about how the religion is open to new ideas and things that seem to make sense like the theory of evolution. He also said that intelligent design should not be taught in schools, because it would confuse the children.
I'm sorry, a religion that so adamantly denies its believers the right to plan their families goes down as bad in my book. Contraception is one of the greatest tools that we've gained to help make up for nature's sex imbalance. Women have much more power over their lives when they're not tied so strictly to their biology. And the Vatican wants to keep that power from them.
Also, women can't be priests (I'm pretty sure). Women cannot hold power in Catholicism. I don't like that.
I'm not saying there aren't some good things about Catholicism or Christianity. But there are some major, gaping flaws in Catholicism that keep me from considering it overall a benevolent, wise organization.
You're correct, women can't be priests in Roman Catholicism.
Let me be perfectly clear (as I've gotten in trouble over this in the past): despite some issues, I think Roman Catholicism has many admirable qualities. I have always admired its "consistent ethic of life". While the evangelical groups in this country condemn abortion but still approve of torture, capital punishment and unilateral military operations, the Catholic Church opposed all of these things. I think this is commendable. I hate abortion too. And I support most measures to curb its widespread prevalence.
The problem I do have with the Catholic Church however is that while its broader principles are sound, they put far too much value on the idealized principles rather than reality. While I am opposed to abortion in general, the idea of forcing this 9-year old girl to carry twins to term is completely indefensible. Protecting the sanctity of life by putting another life into potentially fatal circumstances is not protecting the sanctity of life at all. To have these imperial pronouncements from half a world away that do so much damage to actual people trying to grapple with the dark corners of life completely destroys any credibility in the Church's stated mission of doing Christ's work on earth.
And it isn't just the prohibition against the use of abortion in cases of rape that contribute to this. The whole nonsense over birth control only feeds into creating more desperate pregnant young women turning to abortion as an escape. In an ideal world no one would ever be raped or have sex out of wedlock, but the Catholic Church should, more than most organizations, realize that it is an imperfect world with very fallible persons making decisions that have very real impacts on people's lives.
As a young man, in my more faithful days, I had a deep and abiding respect for the tradition and magisterial, apostolic continuity that the Catholic Church represents. But those admirable traits mean nothing when the Church hierarchy unapologetically does serious physical and emotional damage to those who trust it. For this reason, above all others, I found this news story to be fucked up, indeed.
Actually, after Arceus, the original pokemon, created the world, Mew came from seemingly nowhere, giving birth to the first species of pokemon. Arceus created Mesprit, Uxie, Azelf, Dialga, and Palkia, but after that, all other pokemon may have been the result of Mew. However, some pokemon, like Heatran, may not have been the result of an evolutionary change. He was formed from the magma and rock of Stark Mountain while Regigigas, Groudon, and Kyogre shaped the world. So, it really is a mystery exactly where all different forms of pokemon came from.
Since when did an archbishop represent all Catholics? I'm a Catholic, and I personally think that the abortion would be acceptable because it was rape and the victim was nine years old.
(CNN) -- A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.
According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, "Fahd" and "Hadian."
Fahd told the policeman he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with duties such as enforcing dress codes, prayer times and segregation of the sexes. Under Saudi law, women face many restrictions, including a strict dress code and a ban on driving. Women also need to have a man's permission to travel.
Al Watan obtained the court's verdict and reported it was partly based on the testimony of the religious police. In his ruling, the judge said it was proved that Fahd is not Sawadi's son through breastfeeding.
The court also doled out punishment to the two men. Fahd was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes; Hadian was sentenced to six months in prison and 60 lashes. In a phone call with Al Watan, the judge declined to comment and suggested the newspaper review the case with the Ministry of Justice. Sawadi told the newspaper that she will appeal, adding that Fahd is indeed her son through breastfeeding.
A top Saudi human rights lawyer, Abdulrahman Al-Lahem, volunteered to defend the woman and the two men and has been given power of attorney by them. He told CNN he plans to file an appeal in the case next week.
Efforts to reach Saudi officials at the Justice Ministry, religious police and other agencies were unsuccessful. A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington said he had no details on the case.
The case sparked anger in Saudi Arabia.
"It's made everybody angry because this is like a grandmother," Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN. "Forty lashes -- how can she handle that pain? You cannot justify it."
This is not the first Saudi court case to cause controversy.
In 2007, a 19-year-old gang-rape victim in the Saudi city of Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for meeting with an unrelated male. The seven rapists, who abducted the woman and man, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.
The case sparked international outrage and Saudi King Abdullah subsequently pardoned the "Qatif Girl" and the unrelated male.
Al-Lahem, who has taken on many high-profile cases in recent years, represented the girl and received an award from Human Rights Watch last year. However, a travel ban issued by Saudi authorities kept him from traveling to London, England, to receive it.
Many Saudis hope the Ministry of Justice will be reformed. Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced in February a major Cabinet reshuffling in which many hard-line conservatives, including the head of the commission, were dismissed and replaced with younger, more moderate members.
The new appointments represented the largest shakeup since King Abdullah took power in 2005 and were welcomed in Saudi Arabia as progressive moves on the part of the king, whom many see as a reformer. Among ministers who've been replaced is the minister of justice.
The actions of the religious police have come under increased scrutiny in Saudi Arabia recently, as more and more Saudis urge that the commission's powers be limited. Last week, the religious police detained two male novelists for questioning after they tried to get the autograph of a female writer, Halima Muzfar, at a book fair in Riyadh, the capital of the kingdom.
"This is the problem with the religious police," added Al-Huwaider, "watching people and thinking they're bad all the time. It has nothing to do with religion. It's all about control. And the more you spread fear among people, the more you control them. It's giving a bad reputation to the country."
And thus I don't condone organized religion. I'm suspicious of laws, too. Once you put something down in writing, as an ironbound rule, and no longer use judgement or common sense to allow exceptions, everything goes downhill.
The world is full of grays. Trying to force it into black/white doesn't work well.
"...Cardinal Re, who heads the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told La Stampa that the archbishop had been right to excommunicate the mother and doctors..."
Comments
Personally, I am aghast...these people are totally misconstruing the purpose of learning and are trying to reverse the progress of humanity.
Thoughts?
Here!
But that's the beauty of college! You have the option to take whatever classes interest you (provided you have the right prerequisites), and if that's what you want to do with your life, more power to ya. I don't agree with trying to get rid of a class you find... er, inappropriate, I guess. If the school shows that no one is taking the class, let THEM be the ones who get rid of it. If it IS getting a lot of students to sign up, then cool! Obviously there are students out there that want to learn about it. It shouldn't be up to the scandalized adults.
By the age you are when you enter college, you should have enough responsibility to decide what classes will be important to you, and what other classes you should take to get your degree. Let the students figure out which classes should stay and which classes should go, based on who signs up for what classes. Don't say you should fire the professors just because you think they teach a subject you find insulting; yeah, it's your tax dollars, but you're not the head of the university either.
Whoever this Hill person is seems to be getting his panties in a knot because 'gasp' someone has as their area of expertise an aspect of human behavior that he's decided to be offended by.
Also, I agree. These supposed experts sound like they have many more areas of expertise. They basically just did some research in those areas at some point because they were connected to larger issues. How does doing some research on a topic that some may find objectionable even constitute a bad thing? Ignoring something because you don't like it is a pretty narrow-minded way to go about research.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha
Nicely done sir!
Also, women can't be priests (I'm pretty sure). Women cannot hold power in Catholicism. I don't like that.
I'm not saying there aren't some good things about Catholicism or Christianity. But there are some major, gaping flaws in Catholicism that keep me from considering it overall a benevolent, wise organization.
Let me be perfectly clear (as I've gotten in trouble over this in the past): despite some issues, I think Roman Catholicism has many admirable qualities. I have always admired its "consistent ethic of life". While the evangelical groups in this country condemn abortion but still approve of torture, capital punishment and unilateral military operations, the Catholic Church opposed all of these things. I think this is commendable. I hate abortion too. And I support most measures to curb its widespread prevalence.
The problem I do have with the Catholic Church however is that while its broader principles are sound, they put far too much value on the idealized principles rather than reality. While I am opposed to abortion in general, the idea of forcing this 9-year old girl to carry twins to term is completely indefensible. Protecting the sanctity of life by putting another life into potentially fatal circumstances is not protecting the sanctity of life at all. To have these imperial pronouncements from half a world away that do so much damage to actual people trying to grapple with the dark corners of life completely destroys any credibility in the Church's stated mission of doing Christ's work on earth.
And it isn't just the prohibition against the use of abortion in cases of rape that contribute to this. The whole nonsense over birth control only feeds into creating more desperate pregnant young women turning to abortion as an escape. In an ideal world no one would ever be raped or have sex out of wedlock, but the Catholic Church should, more than most organizations, realize that it is an imperfect world with very fallible persons making decisions that have very real impacts on people's lives.
As a young man, in my more faithful days, I had a deep and abiding respect for the tradition and magisterial, apostolic continuity that the Catholic Church represents. But those admirable traits mean nothing when the Church hierarchy unapologetically does serious physical and emotional damage to those who trust it. For this reason, above all others, I found this news story to be fucked up, indeed.
Actually, after Arceus, the original pokemon, created the world, Mew came from seemingly nowhere, giving birth to the first species of pokemon. Arceus created Mesprit, Uxie, Azelf, Dialga, and Palkia, but after that, all other pokemon may have been the result of Mew. However, some pokemon, like Heatran, may not have been the result of an evolutionary change. He was formed from the magma and rock of Stark Mountain while Regigigas, Groudon, and Kyogre shaped the world. So, it really is a mystery exactly where all different forms of pokemon came from.
MEW FOREVER
That post now goes into my sig. Hilarious
Since when did an archbishop represent all Catholics? I'm a Catholic, and I personally think that the abortion would be acceptable because it was rape and the victim was nine years old.
The world is full of grays. Trying to force it into black/white doesn't work well.
Edit: Vatican backs abortion row bishop
"...Cardinal Re, who heads the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told La Stampa that the archbishop had been right to excommunicate the mother and doctors..."