"Earn your right to wear white"

"Panty-minimalists love our casual thong that covers sweet spots without covering your assets; putting an end to panty-lines. This under-goodie is "outta sight" in low-rise pants. Toss these message panties onstage at your favorite rock star or share a surprise message with someone special ... later".

The Made in USA part leaves me so happy. It conjures up a big nation of thong-makers united under the sky. Via.

Because four is better than Three

Via.

Amenazas de muerte por una galletita

Un estudiante universitario estadounidense ha desencadenado una ola de intolerancia por parte de un grupo de adeptos a un culto mistérico del Medio Oriente. Webster Cook, el estudiante en cuestión, se infiltró en una ceremonia del culto y se llevó uno de los elementos más sagrados, una fina galletita redonda sin sal que se da a los creyentes para que la ingieran. Según afirma el culto, las galletitas (reunidas en una copa) son por las palabras del oficiante en la carne del fundador de la secta, que murió hace cerca de dos mil años. Para los que participan de esta extraña creencia, el consumo de estas galletitas sin sabor (una mágicamente transformadasforma simbólica de canibalismo) les permite unirse místicamente con el fundador, un miembro de una etnia semítica que habitaba los alrededor del Mar de Galilea.

Si bien el valor monetario de la galletita es ínfimo, y la interferencia en la ceremonia del culto puede ser considerada una falta menor, a los ojos de los adeptos Cook cometió un gravísimo crimen cuando, en vez de ingerir la galletita, se retiró llevándosela consigo, lo cual comparan con un secuestro. El solo acto de no cumplir con el rito prescripto pone además a Cook en situación de ser acusado de profanación, término técnico que se refiere al daño o destrucción de cosas tenidas por sagradas.

Cook ha recibido amenazas de muerte de miembros del culto, cuyos líderes han calificado su retención de la galletita como similar a una "toma de rehén" y como un "crimen de odio". La administración de la casa de altos estudios ha cedido, hasta ahora, a la presión de esta secta, que constituye un importante soporte financiero para la universidad.

Más y más. El que la ha liado de veras, sin embargo, es un profesor rojo y ateo de Minnesota.

The Monty Pynthon on The Last Supper

You'll never see this in New Zealand

After all, they are Australians. Zenit dixit:

Anthony Gordon, 34, who played the part of the Apostle Bartholomew, admitted to ZENIT he struggled to contain his emotion when the Pope came out with Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, and Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

"When [the Pontiff] came out, you could feel the warmth and excitement from the crowd. You had this compulsion to smile and to dissipate in the rapturous feelings," the actor said.

Tears rolled down the cheeks of many onlookers for this performance of epic proportions, made more so by the backdrop of an intense Australian sunset.

29-year-old Mario Gabrael, who played one of the Roman guards, admitted, "It was difficult to concentrate on our parts at times because of the emotion associated with it."

Meanwhile, Belladonna has offered to donate some of her own time to help set up a "meaningful set of exercises for priests to help them deal with sexual tension and stress".

[Pero no todo son risas. Algunos malos cristianos nunca aprenden que han de poner la otra mejilla y callarse]

Lectura para el verano

Como empezar a describir el loco mundo de Hazteoir? En fin, quien pudiera lanzarse a leer todas estas fabulosas recomendaciones.

* La diferencia prohibida. Tony Anatrella. Ed.Encuentro.

Relacionado con la misma temática que el anterior (disolución familiar provocada por la ideología de género), Anatrella –jesuita, psicoanalista, consultor del Consejo Pontificio para la Familia- aborda un aspecto esencial: uno de los rasgos que caracteriza a la sociedad actual es la ausencia del padre; no una ausencia física –aunque también- sino una ausencia moral y psíquica; la abolición del padre y del “código paterno” ha suscitado en los hijos la eliminación de todo lo que eso llevaba consigo; eliminando al padre se ha eliminado el vínculo de pertenencia. El 68 marcó el apogeo de la desestabilización del concepto de autoridad, con la consiguiente “destrucción” del padre, y se ha reducido la familia a un solo código, el materno, por lo que se está convirtiendo el lugar del sentimiento, de los cuidados, de las necesidades. Además, el adulto juega a ser niño, y el niño a ser adulto; la violencia generacional y entre iguales se banaliza. En la sociedad actual falta una figura paterna que complemente y se oponga a la materna. Es ésta una ausencia dramática porque, a juicio de Anatrella, es en la oposición padre-madre donde el niño descubre nociones familiares básicas, la autoridad, la feminidad, la masculinidad, la diferencia, y se descubre a sí mismo. Anatrella analiza fríamente las características psicológicas que se esconden bajo las distintas formas de familia: el concubinato, el matrimonio provisional, las familias monoparentales. La desestabilización familiar alentada por la sociedad actual provoca inestabilidad, inmadurez, que el niño, cuando se haga adulto, se muestre incapaz de actuar como tal. Aborda igualmente un aspecto tabú: en esta sociedad adicta al sexo y adepta al igualitarismo, la homosexualidad aparece como el modelo de comportamiento por excelencia. Por doquier asistimos a la hiperlegitimación de la homosexualidad, a la idealización de sus prácticas. Resulta interesante la explicación que se da aquí de la génesis del comportamiento homosexual, así como la afirmación de que éste es la conclusión necesaria de una manera de entender la sociedad que destierra la figura del varón, idealiza la de la mujer y tiene en la igualdad y la homogeneidad dos de sus principales dogmas.

Todavía hay más.

"Él es, pues, el Niño Predicador"

Hay niños predicadores en todo el mundo, y la historia de Nezareth Casti Rey también es fascinante por ser igual a otras. En el conjunto está la peculiaridad: algo está ocurriendo, creen los evangélicos, quienes adoctrinan a los niños en su religión, los instruyen en la Biblia y no hay nada extraordinario ni milagroso en ello. Es casi un acto de sobrevivencia frente a otras religiones más antiguas y poderosas y gobernadas por adultos: un niño evangélico puede garantizar la continuidad de su religión, que está en franco ascenso demográfico, y a los cinco años de edad ya es capaz de hablar de Dios con la misma naturalidad con la que pide chocolates.

En Brasil, Ana Carolina Dias es una niña que predica desde los dos años. La pastora más pequeña del mundo, le han dicho, y se cree que sana enfermedades incurables, entre ellas el sida. En el mismo país, Marcos Ferreira do Santos, de dieciséis años, expulsa demonios desde que tenía cinco. En Panamá, los hermanos Dailyn y Kevin Patiño predican desde los dos y tres años de edad. Son hijos de un pastor que, cuando sus niños predicaron por primera vez, dijo: "El Espíritu Santo dirigió todo". En Estados Unidos, es famoso el caso del niño Terry Durham, The Little Man of God, quien no sólo predica, sino que lo hace con un ritmo gospel que incita al baile. En Lima, Perú, donde hay más de tres millones de evangélicos, hubo en el 2007 un Festival Evangélico de Niños Predicadores al que asistieron seis mil niños. Un año antes, en Ecuador, las iglesias evangélicas informaron que contaban con noventa y ocho niños predicadores. Ahora, camino a Paiján, el Niño Predicador, Nezareth Casti Rey, dice que tiene dos corbatas sin prendedor. La que tiene puesta y otra más clara.

Daniel Titinger, director de Etiqueta Negra, en Babelia.

Sex and the Temple

Or consider these descriptions of the female orgasm: "waves of pleasure flow[ing] over me ... like sliding down a mountain waterfall ... like having a million tiny pleasure balloons explode inside of me all at once." Erica Jong and Xaviera Hollander? Try evangelical sexologists Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus. (Even their names are suggestive.) Far from scorning the pleasures of the flesh, evangelical and marriage experts -- recognizing, in Herzog's wry phrase, that "repression alone is not sufficiently appealing" -- have made their careers by hymning the joys of strictly marital sex. 

"We think the G-spot should be seen as one more way God gave us to share in the pleasure of sex," announced the Revs. Paul and Lori Byerly, hosts of the online site the Marriage Bed. Evangelicals Melissa and Louis McBurney have endorsed oral sex, mutual masturbation and rear-entry vaginal penetration -- between spouses. The Rev. Charles Shedd has declared that he and his wife, Martha, like anal sex just fine. As Herzog notes, these sex-positive Christians have absorbed from the women's movement of the 1970s and 1980s "an interest in intensifying women's sexual pleasure," as well as "the frustration at male fascination with pornography and emotional nonpresence during sex." The result is a kind of "Christian porn," as sexperts guide their married readers toward the holy land of "soulgasm," where spirit and flesh come ecstatically together. If you follow the rules, Herzog writes, "magnificent sex will be yours forever." 

Ah, yes, the rules. A Christian wife, if she wants to keep her husband's mind off porn and his hand off his own penis (onanism is still a big no-no), will have to be a 24/7 tootsie. She is advised to wear sexy lingerie and to keep her legs shaved and her nether region douched at all times. ("Wives," as Jack Jones once crooned, "should always be lovers, too.") And she has to give it up whenever her man comes calling. The example of a woman named "Ellen" is approvingly cited. "[My husband's] purity is extremely important to me, so I try to meet his needs so that he goes out each day with his cup full. During the earlier years, with much energy going into childcare and with my monthly cycle, it was a lot more difficult for me to do that. There weren't too many 'ideal times' when everything was just right. But that's life, and I did it anyway."

These naughty, really sick evangelicals...

Auditioning for "GB for Jesus"

"I don't even want to talk about that," Montag says. "There were rumors about a sex tape, but I had nothing to do with that. God knows the truth in all of this, and at the end of the day, that is the only thing that matters. Jesus was persecuted, and I'm going to get persecuted, ya know? But it doesn't matter to me."

Little coverage in celebrity magazines, which seem to chronicle every movement of this reality troupe, is given to Montag's and Pratt's Christianity. Montag identifies herself as "kind of non-denominational Baptist" and hopes to release a Christian album one day. Both she and Pratt read the Bible conscientiously. Montag even planned on devoting her life to God as a missionary in Africa.

"I have been the most religious person since I was 2 years old. I always felt this crazy connection to God," says Montag, who grew up in Colorado with Holly, brother Sky, 15, and her since-divorced parents, Bill, a rancher, and Darlene, who runs a restaurant with Montag's stepfather.

This August, she and Pratt are headed to Africa to "feed children and help build things." Cameras will capture their trek, but not for The Hills. Pratt says it's possible they could adopt a baby while over there, but Montag laughs that idea off.

Life imitates art, life imitates art...

Now everybody--.

Europeans are from Mars, American are from Venus (yeah, in that order)

Why is that?

Because Europe doesn't have a robust fundamentalist subculture like America has had since the early parts of the 20th century. American religion has been characterized by an entrepreneurial spirit. In Europe, many of the great religious traditions wasted away because they were supported by government. They didn't need to be popular and have lots of people coming to worship on Sunday to continue. So they atrophied and people lost interest.

In America, without that kind of governmental support, religious leaders had to be entrepreneurial. So a charismatic evangelist can come up with a brand-new approach to faith and touch some chord contemporary with people's needs. It's why we see people like Rick Warren, a very popular guy who is revolutionizing the way a lot of evangelicals think about their faith. He's obviously tapped into an anti-evolutionary fundamentalism and biblical literalism that people find important and like.

Biblical literalism is very simple. You read the Bible in English and you say to yourself that these are the things God wrote down through a secretary a long time ago, and all I need to do is read this in English and that's all the work I have to do to understand it. Who wouldn't want that to be the case? If you try to tell these people that they need some egghead scholar from Harvard, who can read Hebrew, to come in and help them with it, that seems offensive and alienating, and people aren't attracted to that. So I think the ability of American religion to invent itself and to appeal to common denominators, sometimes the lowest denominator, has allowed these evangelical movements to flourish with their own agendas.

Salon.

Danger Cohabitation!

Typically in cohabitation the two individuals are more concerned on obtaining satisfaction from the other person, they write. In marriage, by contrast, spouses tend to focus more on giving satisfaction to the other person.

One major problem with cohabitation, the book explains, is that the two partners often start living together for very different motives. While many women look upon it as a stepping-stone to marriage, men often look at it for convenience, and not as a firm commitment.

Unfair

Furthermore, the authors cite studies showing that typically cohabitation is not a fifty-fifty division of expenses and burdens. Women tend to contribute more, both in terms of money and in domestic work.

Y esto último nunca jamás ocurre en el matrimonio. Zenit viene a demostrar que sin papeles todo es peligro, y que una alianza es más poderosa que el mismito anillo de Frodo. Sí, Frodo.

Y yo que con esto de vivir peligrosamente me pongo a pensar en Taco Bells en llamas... Kiko me perdone.