Links - 22nd June 2015

WTF Church | Church Marketing Sucks Church Marketing Sucks - "At first everyone thought it was just a misstep: The college ministry’s banners proclaimed “WTF” in big bold letters. But rather than the familiar if profane abbreviation we’re used to, the words “worship,” “teaching” and “friends” appeared below each letter... “We are aware of what ‘WTF’ originally stands for, and that is actually why we chose it,” says Rob James, with Copper Pointe Church, the Albuquerque, N.M., church behind the college and young adult ministry, Wake. “It is something that our target audience is very familiar with. We are a progressive college group located in Albuquerque, N.M., and we know that any college-aged person is a phone-weilding, text-sending machine. So why not use what they are familiar with?”"

Sean Hood's answer to Why do so many movies fail the Bechdel Test? - Quora - "1. Most Hollywood films have a male lead character. Statistically speaking (and Hollywood loves statistics) movies with female leads open significantly worse at the box office than movies with male leads.
2. Most (primary) villains are male. Although fabulous female villains do appear in movies, the majority of villains (people who are powerful, sadistic, violent, and otherwise bad) tend to be male. Perhaps men are generally thought to be more threatening.
3. "Character actors" tend to be male. The quirky supporting character with a funny nose, strange voice, or flabby belly, are typically dudes. Audiences (again, statistically speaking) like their actresses young and pretty. There isn't a "Steve Buscemi" among female character actors.
4. "Best Friend" or sidekick characters are usually men. Female leads sometimes have male "best friend" characters (often gay,) but Male Leads almost always have male "best friend" characters.
5. The most popular "hot female stars" (i.e. the one's on the cover of magazines) are in their twenties to thirties and most often play the "love interest." The most popular "hot male stars" (the ones on the cover of magazines) tend to be in their thirties and forties, and play lead characters.
6. Items 1 through 5 mean that most scenes between two characters in a movie will have at least one man.
7. Since protagonists and antagonists in movies are usually men, and a scene between two women is likely to be "about" the protagonist or antagonist, as they are the major characters in the story, conversations between two women are likely to be about a man or men.
8. Movies made for women tend to be Romantic Comedies or Romantic Dramas. Thus, the subject of conversations is most often tend to be about romance and relationships, i.e. men."

Shlomoh Sherman's answer to Why do so many movies fail the Bechdel Test? - Quora - "Up until recently, Hollywood refused to have ethnic heroes. Movies in which the ETHNIC element in the hero is prominent don't do well with general audiences. GLORY, a film about black soldiers in the Civil War, although an artistic success, did badly at the box office as did CAST A GIANT SHADOW. When the ethnicity of the hero is not an over-riding factor then Denzel Washington or George Segal can do well."
Identity politics = box office failure

She didn't get off lightly: Lawyers - "She didn't have a driving licence and she admitted to having downed copious amounts of alcohol. Then, Candy Siow Pei Shan, 23, drove a car and killed a 70-year-old pedestrian who was waiting on the pavement to cross the junction at Bukit Batok East Avenue 3 and Bukit Batok East Avenue 4 in February last year. Siow was jailed four months and banned from driving for 10 years. She was sentenced last week. But netizens say it was not enough. They argue she should have been give a longer jail time for taking a life... Was her sentence too light? No, lawyers told The New Paper. In fact, the usual sentence for causing death by driving negligently is a fine if there are no aggravating factors... Siow had failed her basic theory test 13 times"

Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife: What Do Japanese Women Sound Like In Bed? - "This is where the whole 'itai-itai-iku-iku' thing comes from in Japanese porn. That's my own phrasing in Japanese, but it translates into: 'ow-ow-I'm cumming-I'm cumming'. Of the 20+ Japanese women I was lucky enough to have slept with in my three years in Japan (not including any AETs or CIRs on the JET (Japan exchange & Teaching) Programme, or tourists), not a single one of them moaned as though they were in pain, but did moan in 'enjoyment' before 'iku-iku-ing'. Well... some of them did... I was still learning. Ergo... based on an admittedly small sample size (I tried to get a larger sampling - I really did), I hypothesize that the average Japanese woman not involved in the porn industry does not moan during sex... my fiance tried to be the typical Japanese subservient woman in our daily life... picking up my clothes, trying to do the dishes, laundry et al... but she was just stopping by my house... I, as a foreigner, appreciated her efforts but did not need her to do this on my behalf. And I told her so. I could hear the exhale of breath (Whew!), as she, just like me, had a job and sure as hell didn't need to do my laundry (as well as hers at her place). I didn't need to date the maid, though if she wanted to wear fishnets and dress up as the maid, that would be hot. "

Why Vietnam loves and hates China - "Vietnam was not just another tributary state, he insisted, but a former province that had once enjoyed the benefits of Chinese civilization and yet had wantonly rejected this privilege. In view of this close association - Yongle used the term mi mi or "intimately related" - Vietnam's rebellion was particularly heinous and deserved the fiercest of punishments... Vietnam has long been a source of women for the Chinese sex trade. In Tang times, the Chinese poet Yuan Chen wrote appreciatively of "slave girls of Viet, sleek, of buttery flesh", while today the booming market for Vietnamese women in Taiwan infuriates and humiliates many Vietnamese men. It's instructive, then, that in his 1987 novel Fired Gold Vietnamese author Nguyen Huy Thiep writes, "The most significant characteristics of this country are its smallness and weakness. She is like a virgin girl raped by Chinese civilization. The girl concurrently enjoys, despises and is humiliated by the rape"... Just as Chinese rulers have seen the Vietnamese as ingrates and hooligans, so the Vietnamese have seen the Chinese as arrogant and aggressive, a power to be emulated at all times, mollified in times of peace, and fiercely resisted in times of war... Ho Chi Minh, warned his Viet Minh colleagues in forceful terms against using Chinese Nationalist troops in the north as a buffer against the return of the French: "You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history? "The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.""

Superpower Showdown: America Can Stop Chinese Aggression in Asia - "Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea should not be shocking once we understand the strategy. China never makes any moves that would create a crisis big enough for Asia to unite against her. Chipping away at the international order in Asia is certainly a sounder strategic move than manufacturing a crisis which could drive all of Asia against you."

TSA Screening Failures - "TSA doesn’t ever seem to have been able to stop Red Team agents (or Atlantic correspondents) from bringing contraband through checkpoints. Meanwhile, American air travel has been largely free from attacks... Flying remains exceptionally safe, despite such high TSA failure rates. Like vaudeville theater, the screening process seems to exist largely to create a spectacle"

New Jersey's JONAH Gay-Conversion Trial and the Nature of Sexuality - "Not all conversion therapies are religiously motivated, however. Nicholas Cummings, the chief psychologist for Kaiser Permanente from 1959 to 1979 and a former APA president, was one of the champions of the 1975 APA resolution that stated that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. However, he has also said his practice saw 18,000 gay patients over the years, and “hundreds” changed their sexual orientation"

To what extent can the ethnic group of young Singaporeans beidentified from their speech? - "The above data indicate that the style of speech of young educated Singaporean
speakers has considerable influence on the ability of other Singaporeans to
identify their ethnic origin: the ethnicity of the most formal variety of the best-
educated speakers cannot reliably be identified; but the conversational speech of
slightly less well-educated subjects provides quite clear clues to the ethnicity of
the speaker"

George R.R. Martin explains why there's violence against women on 'Game of Thrones' - ""To be non-sexist, does that mean you need to portray an egalitarian society? That’s not in our history; it’s something for science fiction. And 21st century America isn’t egalitarian, either... And then there’s the whole issue of sexual violence, which I’ve been criticized for as well. I’m writing about war, which what almost all epic fantasy is about. But if you’re going to write about war, and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don’t portray [sexual violence], then there’s something fundamentally dishonest about that. Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It’s not a strong testament to the human race, but I don’t think we should pretend it doesn’t exist. I want to portray struggle. Drama comes out of conflict. If you portray a utopia, then you probably wrote a pretty boring book"

Australia: 600-Pound Woman Gives Birth to 40-Pound Baby

ballet vs wrestling 芭蕾 vs 摔角 - YouTube

Gazan Baby Rescued by Israeli Hospital - "According to a Gaza Human Rights Report, many disabled personsliving in the Palestinian Authority are “segregated and isolated from Palestinian society; they are discriminated against in education, employment, transportation, and access to public services”... Marrying cousins is a common practice within Palestinian society, because it helps to keep the family’s wealth within the tribe and strengthens familial bonds. However, marrying within the family can cause many birth defects in children. Somech told Israel Hayom that 33% of the patients in his department are Palestinians who have genetic illnesses caused by marrying within the family. Yet, in addition to his disability, Yedioth Achronot reported that little Al Farra has also been mistreated by his own family. When Al Farra visited his home to see family, he came back to the hospital even more ill and bruised. Sometime after those visits, his father, who was ashamed of his disability, told his mother that if she didn’t abandon him, he would take on a second wife. Thus, his mother chose to abandon him in order to preserve her marriage."

Liberal Feminists, Stop Smearing Critics As Rape Apologists - "Nowhere in Rubenfeld’s New York Times op-ed did he blame rape victims for being raped, but Valenti levels this totally unsubstantiated charge repeatedly... Valenti established that critics of her liberal feminist view are not opponents in a public policy debate—they are the enemies of rape victims. This is totally unjustified demagoguery. She might as well be saying, “You’re with me or you’re with the terrorists.” In fact, that’s precisely what she is saying. Just substitute “terrorist” for “rapist.”"

Zabaione - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Zabaione (written also sabayon, zabajone or zabaglione, Italian pronunciation: [dzabaʎˈʎoːne] or [dzabaˈjoːne]), is an Italian dessert, or sometimes a beverage, made with egg yolks, sugar, and a sweet wine(usually Marsala wine)"
Mmm...