(no subject)
HOBBIT START OF PRODUCTION VIDEO!! So cool!!!
Also, something I didn't know (or didn't remember): Drogo Baggins (Frodo's father) will be in the Hobbit film and has been cast.
Major characters who have not yet been cast include Bard, Elrond, Galion, Smaug, Thranduil, and a number of talking animals and trolls.
Re the convo on daguerreotypes yesterday: my roomie sent me this. Tee hee!
More serious news: Burqa and niqab ban in France.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon last month defended the ban as being in keeping with national values. "The French Republic lives in a bare-headed fashion," he said in an official government newspaper explaining the law. ...Fewer than 2,000 people in all of France and its possessions wear the garments, a quarter of them overseas. ...The law imposes a fine of 150 euros (currently about $215). The person breaking the law can be asked to carry out public service duty as part of the punishment or as an alternative to the fine. Penalties for forcing a person to wear a burqa are part of the law, and they became effective immediately in October. ...Activist Rachid Nekkaz of the group Hands Off My Constitution headed out Monday wearing a mask and carrying a check for the 150-euro fine. Nekkaz's group auctioned one of his homes to provide money to pay the fines of any woman arrested for wearing the forbidden garments. ...The French Constitutional Council said the law does not impose disproportionate punishments or prevent the free exercise of religion in a place of worship, finding therefore that "the law conforms to the Constitution." "Given the damage it (wearing the forbidden clothing) produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place," the French government said when it sent the measure to parliament in May of last year. Lawmakers have also cited security reasons for forbidding people from covering their faces in public.
Some Muslim women support the ban, including Sihem Habachi. "When you wear the full veil, you don't have the right to work, you don't have the right to choose your husband, you don't have the right to love," said Habachi, a Muslim feminist. "You are totally in prison. What is the aim of our democracy? What is the aim of our republic? It is to protect. That is a new challenge for our republic today." Mona Eltahawy, a columnist on Arab and Muslim issues, similarly supports the ban and says she would like to see it adopted elsewhere. "I believe that the niqab dangerously equates piety with the disappearance of women so I support banning it anywhere," she said on CNN's "In the Arena." "We're talking about the disappearance of women, justified in the name of them becoming closer to God."
Hebah Ahmed, a blogger, is against the ban and says it is a woman's choice whether or not to cover up. "I am free to do whatever I want and this is a choice that I want to make. And just because somebody doesn't accept my interpretation of Islam or personally like it doesn't mean that we can use laws to violate people's freedom of expression and freedom of religion," she said on CNN's "In the Arena." "People have to deal with my brain and who I really am and not judge me by my body," she added.
Despite the controversy, French people backed the ban by a ratio of more than 4-to-1, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey last year. Some 82 percent of people polled approved of a ban, while 17 percent disapproved. That was the widest support the Washington-based think tank found in any of the five countries it surveyed. Clear majorities also backed a burqa ban in Germany, Britain and Spain, while two out of three Americans opposed it, the survey found.
Also, something I didn't know (or didn't remember): Drogo Baggins (Frodo's father) will be in the Hobbit film and has been cast.
Major characters who have not yet been cast include Bard, Elrond, Galion, Smaug, Thranduil, and a number of talking animals and trolls.
Re the convo on daguerreotypes yesterday: my roomie sent me this. Tee hee!
More serious news: Burqa and niqab ban in France.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon last month defended the ban as being in keeping with national values. "The French Republic lives in a bare-headed fashion," he said in an official government newspaper explaining the law. ...Fewer than 2,000 people in all of France and its possessions wear the garments, a quarter of them overseas. ...The law imposes a fine of 150 euros (currently about $215). The person breaking the law can be asked to carry out public service duty as part of the punishment or as an alternative to the fine. Penalties for forcing a person to wear a burqa are part of the law, and they became effective immediately in October. ...Activist Rachid Nekkaz of the group Hands Off My Constitution headed out Monday wearing a mask and carrying a check for the 150-euro fine. Nekkaz's group auctioned one of his homes to provide money to pay the fines of any woman arrested for wearing the forbidden garments. ...The French Constitutional Council said the law does not impose disproportionate punishments or prevent the free exercise of religion in a place of worship, finding therefore that "the law conforms to the Constitution." "Given the damage it (wearing the forbidden clothing) produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place," the French government said when it sent the measure to parliament in May of last year. Lawmakers have also cited security reasons for forbidding people from covering their faces in public.
Some Muslim women support the ban, including Sihem Habachi. "When you wear the full veil, you don't have the right to work, you don't have the right to choose your husband, you don't have the right to love," said Habachi, a Muslim feminist. "You are totally in prison. What is the aim of our democracy? What is the aim of our republic? It is to protect. That is a new challenge for our republic today." Mona Eltahawy, a columnist on Arab and Muslim issues, similarly supports the ban and says she would like to see it adopted elsewhere. "I believe that the niqab dangerously equates piety with the disappearance of women so I support banning it anywhere," she said on CNN's "In the Arena." "We're talking about the disappearance of women, justified in the name of them becoming closer to God."
Hebah Ahmed, a blogger, is against the ban and says it is a woman's choice whether or not to cover up. "I am free to do whatever I want and this is a choice that I want to make. And just because somebody doesn't accept my interpretation of Islam or personally like it doesn't mean that we can use laws to violate people's freedom of expression and freedom of religion," she said on CNN's "In the Arena." "People have to deal with my brain and who I really am and not judge me by my body," she added.
Despite the controversy, French people backed the ban by a ratio of more than 4-to-1, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey last year. Some 82 percent of people polled approved of a ban, while 17 percent disapproved. That was the widest support the Washington-based think tank found in any of the five countries it surveyed. Clear majorities also backed a burqa ban in Germany, Britain and Spain, while two out of three Americans opposed it, the survey found.